25 - The Cable Guy

 Connection To 3 NINJAS KNUCKLE UP - Charles Napier

America, The World whatever... was just not ready for THIS Jim Carrey in 1996. The audience still wanted him bending over talking out of his butt and much was made of Carrey's $20 million fee for the movie, his run of movies before starting from the first Ace Ventura certainly showed he was bankable but a black comedy like this wouldn't have attracted the same audience even if Carrey took scale. In a different (later) time a movie directed by Ben Stiller and starring Carrey with roles for Jack Black and Owen Wilson and produced by Judd Apatow would sound like such a winner but it just wasn't to be.

I saw this initially in 1997, when I would have been 14/15 and I was one of the small number of British people who knew Jim Carrey was even before Ace Ventura, I knew him from In Living Color, Earth Girls Are Easy and because of them knew who he was when I saw him in his small role in The Dead Pool, so yeah when super-stardom came it was cool seeing it happen.

Anyway I digress and back to 1997, I'd seen all the stuff Carrey was doing post-Ace Ventura and this was a film I was going to see, but by the time I'd seen it, it had already flopped and being slated and in spite of that I enjoyed it, I recall watching it again around 2000 and still liking it, but haven't seen it since then so I'm curious to see if I still will enjoy a film I will defend some 14 years (maybe a touch more or less) as misunderstood and actually a really good black comedy. (all this first bit was actually written before the re-watch)...

Watching it now, I'm still on the side it's a good film - a good film with flaws, the overriding fact is to everyone watching is that Carrey's character is lonely but unhinged, Broderick really shouldn't have let it get that far even after the initial scenes with each other but it's still fun seeing Broderick let the all situation get out of control.

However one of my little problems is I don't think Broderick's character stands out enough, though you could argue he's another actor overshadowed by a force of nature in Carrey performance (I genuienly think the first actors to steal the show from Carrey where Cary Elwes in Liar Liar and Steve Carell in Bruce Almighty), but to be fair Owen Wilson in a smaller scene leaves an impression, Ben Stiller himself and Eric Roberts also pop in enjoyable bits.

There's it fair share of memorable scenes such as the karaoke scene or the jousting or even the aforementioned Owen Wilson scene and it's pace is not too bad. I'm not picking on Broderick here (because I've enjoyed him in plenty) but his scenes without Carrey tend to be some of the less interesting ones though if he shares the scene with Leslie Mann you have at least her to look at.

Overall a film that still as anchor of Carrey's price tag on it but still a film with enough redeeming qualities about it, no question about it though it's Carrey's film.

15 - Kick-Ass 2

Connection To PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED - Jim Carrey

I really enjoyed the first Kick-Ass movie, for me it was a great mix of comedy and bloody violence with some very enjoyable characters with a great performance from the often entertaining Nicolas Cage and an argument could be made for a little star being born in Chloé Grace Moretz and though the film wasn't a huge success at the box-office, the film did well enough (including things like DVD sales) to earn a sequel.

Kick-Ass 2 was a film I had been waiting to see for a while just based off of how much I enjoyed the first, sadly Cage's Big Daddy was no more we will at least have another famous over-actor in Jim Carrey - who ended up refusing to publicize the film after the Sandy Hook massacre - and we got the return of at least a few of these characters.

To be honest in this sequel, there is a lot evident that is both good and bad - it's a film of stengths and weaknesses that come together only sort of well - I wouldn't call it a bad movie nor would I call it great, the best way I would describe it for me is a film that at times can be good.

Aaron Taylor Johnson in the lead role is as good as he was in the first one as in not awful but not spectacular (there is pattern here in how I'm describing things), and it's the supporting cast who are much more fun - Christopher Mintz-Plasse who is now going by name of Motherfucker rather then Red Mist and is a wannabe supervillian who early on accidentally kills his mother in a sunbed accident making him the sole heir in the family fortune with the only loyal company of John Leguizamo (who I really enjoyed in this movie). Anyway Kick-Ass is attempting to have a normal life but convinces Mindy to train him to be a real superhero, but that becomes at odds when her guardian convinces her to be more like a normal girl, which she really does try and be

Kick Ass ends up joining up with a band of superheroes including the enjoyable Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars and Stripes - whose not in it as much as you would think, speaking of not in it as much as you think Lyndsy Fonseca as the girlfriend from the last movie is little more then a cameo meanwhile Motherfucker as put together his own group of villains.

For me the negative of the movie is the violence doesn't really mesh as well with the humour, at times stuff just seems mean-spirited, while at other times just a touch too dark and is just ultimately not sure what tone it is going for. The film has some memorable moments but none quite match up to Hit-Girl trying to save Big Daddy and Kick-Ass in the first movie but we do get a girl thanks to Hit Girl both vomiting and shitting at the time (makes sense in the context of the movie)

Which brings us to the ace in the hole of the movie, which was true of the first one and that is Moretz, she's so enjoyable that I wouldn't be opposed to spin-off movie sans Kick-Ass - it's possible I would have done without the Mean Girls style scenes but the pay-off (mentioned above) is memorable like I said and it sort of cool how they played up the biological aspect of her and Kick-Ass's relationship (I know there Dave and Mindy but I just didn't want to keep changing between names)

Overall an enjoyable if occasionally uneven movie. I would certainly go for a third (which there are some clues of that happening) but I would want them to study more the first one then this one.

14 - Peggy Sue Got Married

Connection To Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Kathleen Turner

THE 1980s SUCKED!!! Do you want to know why? Because it seemed like so many films and TV series had nostalgia for the 50s and the 60s - which was yeah, through rose-tinted glasses cause there was a lot of shit that happened.

Peggy Sue Got Married - you can't help but think of Back To The Future, this was released a year after and involves somebody going back to an earlier time (in the case 1960), it's really where the similarity ends and it would be unfair on this movie if I kept comparing it to that iconic movie.

Kathleen Turner plays Peggy Sue who is attending her 25th high school reunion in the present (well as in 1986), just seperated from her school sweetheart Charlie (Nicolas Cage), she is made class Queen (alongside the King who was a class geek now turned millionaire), during which she faints and when she awakes she finds herself back in 1960.

Finding herself back in 1960 she is really confused but soon finds herself being able to have the courage to address rude classmates or tell a teacher that there is no use for algebra in the real word and she knows it for a fact. This also gives her a chance (of the inevitable) to remember why she fell in love with Charlie in the first place.

I liked this, it indeed made me feel nostalgia for a time and place that I was never there for, there is cute little references about the future (like her saying she'll go to Liverpool and discover The Beatles). The film also features quite a cast of before they were famous, besides Cage, who wasn't a breakout yet (who is director Francis Ford Coppola's nephew), there is Jim Carrey (playing naturally the class clown), Joan Allen (herself later a star of the 50's sit-com set Pleasantville), a young Helen Hunt and Coppola's own daughter Sofia.

Speaking of Cage, is choice for voice is weird an odd high pitched tone that a little bit dents the enjoyment of the movie but he doesn't grate completely 100%, Kathleen Turner though carries the movie great.

The music choice is typical of the nostalgia run of movies where all songs are still well known to this day (that's all that was played on the radio and at club it was always seems, I imagine songs get forgotten along the way in reality).

Overall, it's nowhere near the Coppola classics of the 70's, but it's a nice movie - that's not a complaint - and though going back to Back to the Future (what an awkward thing to say) it's a decent watch if somebody wants something a little bit the same.