31: Rob Zombie’s Most Dangerous Game
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31 is Rob Zombie going full “Rob Zombie” and turning everything to 11. He came up with the idea in a few seconds and the 20-day production schedule felt rushed and unnecessary. Nothing is fleshed out (except the exploding flesh) and it feels like a study in style over substance. What I loved about his prior films (Devil’s Rejects, Lords of Salem) is the craftsmanship in creating a great script and the molding of great performances. The characters do terrible things but they spout solid dialogue and go down in a brilliant blaze of glory. There is a reason that The Devil’s Rejects was voted to be one of the top 21 horror films of the 21st century. The reason Zombie’s film appealed to outsiders and horror hounds is he created something that balanced violence, gore and character.
Nothing about 31 is surprising or fun. I left the theater feeling disappointed that my soul wasn’t hurting. I couldn’t even enjoy Richard Brake’s solid performance as the uber-killer Doom-Head because he was too busy spouting self-satisfied Rob Zombie dialogue. The character looks awesome but he is so smug and in love with pontificating that I began to dislike the guy.
31 tells the story of five carnival workers being trapped in a game of death. The game is called 31 and is headed by three rich bored people who bet money on who will live or die. The five people are drugged, separated and told they need to survive the next 12 hours inside a massive funhouse/factory/deathtrap. This leads them to being chased by a Nazi Dwarf who speaks Spanish and several other violent caricatures. Throughout their brutal ordeal they are stabbed, hacked, prodded, punched and crunched. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’m pretty sure you can guess who the final survivor(s) are.
They don’t look like this at the end. via
I really wanted to like 31. I’ve always felt like Rob Zombie has a unique voice and I’ve appreciated his past works. However, I sat in my theater seat bored as all the ultra-violence unfolded in front of me. 31 reminded me a lot of the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. The films are crazy violent but very boring because there is nothing surprising or unique. If you are going to spend the time spilling blood at least create likable characters (think Hush) or villains so evil you actively root against them (think I Saw the Devil). I hate to say this but one word rang out as I exited the theater.
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Don’t watch 31. Check out The Devil’s Rejects or Lords of Salem instead.
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Love & Friendship: Whit Stillman + Jane Austen = Pure Joy
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Love & Friendship is the most refreshing film of 2016. Drawing inspiration from Jane Austen’s novella Lady Susan, writer-director Whit Stillman (The Last Days of Disco, Damsels in Distress) has created a wonderfully modern 18th century costume drama that will entertain everyone. Austen’s unpublished novella has been perfectly translated to the screen and it is the type of script where you hang on every word because most of them are brilliant. I had a permanent smile on my face as Lady Susan (Kate Beckinsale = amazing) schemes her way through the polite society of upper crust England. Love & Friendship is the cheekiest film you will see all year and it will make you wish Kate Beckinsale escaped the Underworld series and embraced her comedic side more often.
We need more of this type of Beckinsale.
Love & Friendship revolves around a recently widowed woman named Lady Susan bouncing around her relatives homes and causing chaos. Susan is trying to marry off her daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark) to the rich suitor Sir James (Tom Bennett = hilarious) while trying to find a rich man for herself. She is aided by her American friend Alicia (Chloe Sevigny – reunited with Last Days of Disco costar Beckinsale) and the two attempt to manipulate everyone, cover their tracks and avoid being sent back to Connecticut.
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Kate Beckinsale is an absolute delight and I hope she is remembered come awards time. She is so good it is annoying because she has either been terribly miscast by Hollywood or enjoys wiping out werewolves whilst wearing tight leather clothes. Her performance is a revelation and she is able to spout the rapid fire dialogue with ease while owning the room and confounding everyone around her. You can tell she loves the role and relishes every bit of the delicious dialogue.
What I love about Whit Stillman is that his personality always shines through his films. His films typically revolve around intelligent/weird people who argue and debate about random issues. In Love & Friendship, Stillman has found a perfect muse in Jane Austen. Austen wrote the novella when she was 19 and there is a capriciousness to the text as it unfolds unpredictably. Her characters are always interesting and there is a reason why Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Sense and Sensibility still work today. What I love most about Stillman’s adaptation is that it you get the sense of both artists in the work. It feels like she wrote the novella, didn’t publish it and knew some eclectic director could bring it to life in the future.
Watch Love & Friendship now! Don’t be afraid of the costume drama trappings. Embrace a modern take on an old story.
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The Lobster: A Wonderfully Weird Film That Needs to be Watched
The Lobster is a weird film that defies expectations and features some of the biggest laughs of 2016. It has been described as an “absurdist dystopian comedy-drama” and I actually agree with that summation. I love The Lobster and consider it to be in the top five of the year (so far) alongside Everybody Wants Some!!!, Green Room, Love & Friendship and Hail, Caesar!. I guarantee you won’t find a funnier or more original film released this year.
The Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth – another weird film) directed film tells the story of single people having 45-days to find a partner or they get turned into an animal of their choice. The singles are taken to a beautiful Irish resort where they are forced to mingle and cohabitate with other desperate and unique people. The rules are strict and the only way they can stay at the resort longer is if they successfully hunt and tranquilize “loners” who live in the forests. A problem arises when our “hero” David (Colin Farrell) falls for a short sighted loner (Rachel Weisz). The two have a tough go of it as they are hunted by the singles and horribly punished by the Loner Leader (Lea Seydoux) if they exhibit signs of passion.
Don’t mess with Seydoux.
Words can’t describe how weird The Lobster is and I love that fact. I had never watched a trailer and the pure cinematic experience was glorious. Director Lanthimos expertly blends humor, drama, absurdity, violence and insanity. The movie walks a tight-rope of eclecticism that feels like a miracle of script, direction and acting. You will see things in The Lobster that will absolutely shock your soul and make you laugh. There are moments of cruelty and ultra-violence that are legitimately funny. I wouldn’t recommend this movie to everyone because it won’t appeal to everyone. The Lobster is for cinephiles who embrace new wave cinema that doesn’t trifle with familiar narration.
I really hope that come awards time Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz and remembered for their beautiful work. The two actors embrace the weird and transform themselves into memorable characters who exhibit a whole lot of layers. Their chemistry is off the charts and I loved all of their acting choices. Weisz’s droll narration is fantastic and Farrell turns in his best performance since In Bruges.
If you are looking for a weird, brutal and hilarious film you need to watch The Lobster. You won’t be disappointed.
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Bad Movie Tuesday: Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), perhaps the campiest (yet still awesomely fun) action movie Jason Statham has ever done.
MY CALL: This sequel (to Jason Statham’s 2011 remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson classic) is extremely entertaining…and extremely campy. Expect top tier stunts, but the dregs of writing. MOVIES LIKE Mechanic: Resurrection: I thought The Mechanic (2011) was FAR better (and, in fact, “good”), so I’d start there. But, to be fair, Mark didn’t love it nearly as much as I did (Mark’s Review CLICK HERE).
This film answers the question on everyone’s mind.
EVERYONE: “Does Statham still look like this?”
THIS MOVIE: “Affirmative!”
We have to start with the writing! The writing was soooo awful. This is like 80s action movie awful when Stallone or Schwarzenegger would get a phone call, light a cigar and, the next thing we know, BOOM: they’re in Prague or somewhere else in Eastern Europe killing bad guys by the dozen standing out in the open, raining jingling automatic weapon ammunition to the ground in slow motion while not one of their 86 Communist assailants can aim a gun at a shirtless patriot whose glistening muscles practically make them a glowing target.
But you know what? JASON STATHAM! That’s why we’re here isn’t it? The truth is… we just don’t care. If you asked anyone waiting in line to buy their movie tickets if they thought the writing would be good, the dialogue convincing or the plot points sound—no one would nod “yes.” They’d silently pause, look at their date with a smile and make that “pshhht” sound.
And Jason doesn’t care either. Look how happy he was in this interview as he laughed answering the question “Why do you think people like seeing you kick bad guys’ butts?”
He knew this wouldn’t be an Oscar contender.
No. This one’s for the bros! 🙂
As it turns out, founder of Movies, Films and Flix, film data analyst and Bad Movie Tuesday expert (Mark) wrote a Movienomics article that accurately predicted 18 months ago that this sequel would suck. The data suggests his apparel—read to learn why.
However, with this alternate poster, the audience scores might increase.
The opening fight sequence features Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham; Spy, Homefront, Safe, Parker) executing some of the most perfect Matrix-like martial arts ever to cheese up the screen. His character is every bit as perfect as Statham’s ego is tremendous–very much like his roles in The Transport series (2002, 2005, 2008), Furious 7 (2015) and The Expendables movies (2010, 2012, 2014).
Bishop always knows what to do, his kicks and bullets never miss, their bullets always miss, he always has exactly what he needs or can find it unreasonably fast, and everything works out to plan against astronomically improbably odds…and also with such “yadda yadda” writing that he just seems to teleport across the globe and have the entirety of the knowledge of the world uploaded into his brain for ease of assassination planning. Bishop is basically the smartest man alive—but he grunts like Jason Statham.
Admittedly, I loved this scene.
He must’ve scienced the shit outta that.
Jessica Alba (Little Fockers, Stretch) has been cast as his completely unconvincing love interest. Their “sex scene” is innocently clothes-on and uncharacteristically giggly for our gruff hero, she reprises her underwater naughty bikini butt-cam shots from Into the Blue (2005), and her initial placement in this movie is more forcefed than a dog being fed its heartworm pill. Like the dog we resist and want nothing to do with it, but we accept that we have no choice and swallow. It didn’t help when Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Sunshine), in her worst role ever, suggested that Arthur save her from some domestic abuse—while for the sake of his own survival he’s trying to lay low as an assassin who’s supposed to be dead and some bad people had just discovered he was alive…and he beat the crap out of them…hence the LOW PROFILE—and then insinuate that they were a “couple” almost immediately.
That’s right, we saw Michelle Yeoh calling us over with our favorite bacon-flavored treat, we saw that evil white medicinal pellet embedded in it, and we let her jam that nonsense down our throat! Yuck, I feel dirty now.
I guess there are worse things I could have forced upon me.
The bad guy couldn’t be more Eurotrashy slick. He’s always smug, he demands impossible tasks with unreasonably proximate deadlines, and never ever cares when a dozen of his men get shot in the face during a 2-minute action sequence that should be called “Bishop’s Lackluster Murder Revenge Marathon.” Don’t these henchmen realize that he doesn’t care about their well-being…like…at all? They should really listen to our Podcast Episode #43: Advice for Movie Henchman. It baffles the mind how readily these goons jeopardize their lives against the most impossibly talented assassin their employer knows.
Oh, and keep an eye out for Tommy Lee Jones’ most annoying role ever.
I feel like they told the people in wardrobe:
“Just make him look like an asshole.”
Let’s be clear, folks. I LOVED The Mechanic (2011). LOVED IT! Even though Statham did everything perfectly and was perhaps unreasonably knowledgeable and lucky then as well, we saw him patiently put in the effort and occasionally get frustrated. The plot points made sense, the antagonist was credible and motivations were clear. Even if you disagree, you’d have to give me that compared to part 1 these comparisons hold true.
This one features abhorrent writing and a nonsense premise while Statham prances around The Matrix knowing all and never missing. He wakes up and pisses excellence. In fact, if his urine stream were to cross a bad guy’s neck, he’d surely be decapitated. Resurrection is an excellent fun bad action movie with great action sequences and I highly recommend you see it on the big screen for some bad-yet-awesome-action popcorn fun. But as a “film” this script should be crumbled fodder for a hobo’s garbage fire.
Just keep expectations low and you’ll be dazzled. Expect the next Mission Impossible plot and you’ll be pissed. Cheers!
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NSFW NSFW NSFW NSFW NSFW NSFW
This article is rich with images you do not want your boss to see when he’s looking over your shoulder at work. View at your own risk.
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Transformation scenes are often the coolest things we see in horror films–especially when they’re executed with practical effects. Some of my favorite transformation scenes are also the most gory and brutal. In The Best Transformation Scenes of Horror Part 1 we reviewed the transformations featured in Tales from the Darkside (1990; the short story Lover’s Vow), Zombeavers (2014) and Wolfcop (2014) (the latter two are also discussed in the MoviesFilmsandFlix Podcast Episode 17). So today I’m continuing to highlight transformations in which the “new form” pushes its way out of the “old” (human) form much as a moth emerges from its cocoon…but deliciously GORIER!
Transformations like these are gory, abrupt and to the point; like the human skin was just an ill-fitting suit entrapping a monster. The first film (that comes to mind anyway) using this transformation method was the werewolf movie The Howling (1981), and far later by the werewolf character from Hemlock Grove (2013-present; Netlfix show). The Fly (1986) also utilized this method, in which Brundelfly’s transformation was a slow mutation and his human form was almost gorily “molted” off. I feel like an honorable mention is owed to Spring (2014), which features hints of onscreen transformation frequently and in interesting ways but limits all significant changes in form to offscreen events (i.e., revealing the final form but not witnessing the actual transformation). If only that film had a larger budget–but then, that might have spoiled the more elegant tone of that special romantic horror film.
But enough of this banter. Here are a few more transformations that I really enjoyed. Stay tuned for future installments in this series of articles…
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
Opening as playfully as the original ended, this sequel has brought a bit more humor than original, but maintained the dark and dire evil aspects. From his very introduction Freddy is noticeably more malicious and now he wants Jesse’s (Mark Patton) body! Things get more than a little weird in this sequel. Freddy seems to be crossing over into reality on his own accord, which seems to violate the rules we once learned about him. But how…?
Freddy (Robert Englund; Wishmaster, Hatchet) uses Jesse’s unwilling body as a conduit to exact his revenge. Whereas part 1 introduced us to the terrifying notion that someone (or something) can hunt and kill us in our dreams (and we really die!), this sequel removes from us not only control of our dreams but also control of ourselves. After harbingering the horrors to come in dreams of Jesse wearing the bladed glove, Freddy’s claws pierce through Jesse’s fingertips and the skin lacerates from the inside out making way for Freddy’s iconic sweater to appear beneath.
This scene is gross, painful to watch…and AWESOME!!! From here Freddy’s face forms through Jesse’s stomach and pushes its way out like a belly-born pregnancy of Krueger’s head and torso.
As if to offer a bit of poetic justice, when Freddy is defeated by Lisa’s love for Jesse (BARF…LOL), Freddy’s burnt husk is peeled away to reveal Jesse within.
This scene isn’t majorly transformative and some would reduce it to Freddy simply tearing his way out of Jesse’s body. But I contest that, while perhaps a lesser transformation scene with little onscreen transition (e.g., the claws emerging from Jesse’s fingertips and the “glove” now being Jesse’s hand in several scenes), I figured it had just enough merit to include it.
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Late Phases (2014)
Directed by Adrián García Bogliano (B is for Bigfoot – The ABCs of Death), this film throws tropes out the window to deliver a fresh indie werewolf movie with a blind elderly antihero. I enjoyed the different approach to the hero, the unique retirement community setting, and the deviation from some standard tropes. But do you know what I loved most about this film? The practical effects! The transformation scene may not have been top-dollar, but it was cool and smacked of Hemlock Grove (2013-2016), The Howling (1981), Wolfcop (2014; transformation scene) and The Company of Wolves (1984).
During the full moon transition, the body expands tearing open the clothing and subsequently expanding and internally rending the flesh to reveal the furred beast within. The werewolf itself had a sleek look of its own, too. This little indie was a blast!
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The Company of Wolves (1984)
This is one of the more stylish (yet less substantial) werewolf movies out there, featuring two highly memorable transformation scenes (out of four, in total) worth the price of admission alone. The first transformation scene begins with a subtle change in eye color to a sharp yellow. He proceeds to tear away chunks from his cheek and his forehead, stretching and yanking flaps from his neck and his chin. It’s quite deliciously gross. After tearing away the last of his skin and hair with bony hands he uncovers a fleshless head of sinew from which springs and extends his canine muzzle. It’s all practical effects, of course, and weirdly off-putting—it actually reminds me of the modern “Bodies” exhibit. Finally, his neck extends like a turtle’s from its shell as it unsheathes!
This scene may not be as brutally long and painful as An American Werewolf in London (1981) or as grimy and sloppy as The Howling (1981) or its Wolfcop (2014) successor, but it’s quite effectively uncomfortable to watch.
Another transformation scene in the movie feels brief and comical, more akin to Howling 3: The Marsupials (1987).
But the final transformation scene features a gross writhing tongue followed by the emergence of a wolf’s snout from a man’s wide open mouth (as seen on the movie poster) before it tears its way out of his skin as if it wore him as a suit (a more crude version of the “unzipping” werewolves we find in Trick ‘r Treat).
I have a major soft spot for this movie.
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I hope you enjoyed these gore-slathered movie memories and perhaps you have been directed to new things you need to see for yourself. Stay tuned for future installments…
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John’s Horror Corner: Don’t Breathe (2016), so much more than a home invasion movie with a dark secret.
MY CALL: Far from a home invasion movie, this film is much more than you’d expect from the trailer…and way more brutal. This was an entertaining thriller that unexpectedly unfolds. MOVIES LIKE Don’t Breathe: Maybe 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) for more crazy recluse action or Hush (2016) for more sensory impairment horror.
At first I was honestly not excited about this film despite the fact that it stars Stephen Lang (The Monkey’s Paw, Into the Badlands), who I tend to like as the moderately older yet still tough guy (e.g., Avatar). I mean, I was gonna’ see it—but I intended to wait for HBO. The story of a group of twenty-somethings robbing a surprisingly capable blind war veteran and having it blow violently up in their faces simply didn’t appeal to me as a way to spend $10 on a Saturday afternoon. And that’s all the early trailers showed us…however, newer trailers indicated that there might disturbingly be more to the story.
But then it was pointed out to me that the lead was Jane Levy (Suburgatory)—who starred in the Evil Dead remake which I actually very much enjoyed—and that Fede Alvarez, who also wrote and directed the Evil Dead (2013) remake, wrote and directed this. You’ll also notice (in my parenthetical annotations, like these) that our three home invaders have been cast by actors with a fair bit of horror experience. Okay…nooooow I guess I’m on board.
So Rocky (Jane Levy), Alex (Dylan Minnette; Goosebumps, Let Me In) and Money (Daniel Zovatto; It Follows, Fear the Walking Dead) are three young criminals who intend to rob a blind man (Stephen Lang; The Monkey’s Paw, Salem) of his wealth which he evidently keeps as cash hidden in his home…rather than a bank, annuity or investment account. Of course, as the trailers clearly forecast, it doesn’t go as planned. The blind man is aware of their presence, traps them in the house and proceeds to hunt them down.
But why doesn’t he just call the police? Because this is more than a simple home invasion movie. Our blind man is hiding more than just money in is largely abandoned neighborhood—he has something to hide and he’ll go to great lengths to keep his secret.
Much as she did in in the Evil Dead remake, Jane Levy physically undergoes some tough scenes for the sake of her art. From sexual assault and generally taking a beating to close-quarters dog attacks and tunnel ratting, Levy did more to build this film’s intensity than most already-mainstream actresses would ever consider.
SIDEBAR: In the past I’ve praised some actresses for what they physically endure on film: Jo Beth Williams (Poltergeist), Jenny Spain (Deadgirl), Isabelle Adjani (Possession), Elma Begovic (Bite), Linda Blair (The Exorcist), the entire cast of The Descent, Monica Belluci (Irreversible), the women of Martyrs, Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist, Nymphomaniac), Alison Lohman (Drag Me to Hell), Danielle Harris (Halloween), Caroline Williams (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), the cast of The Human Centipede films, and all actresses from the I Spit on Your Grave films, the women of all other TCM old and new and Last House on the Left films/remakes, Monica Bellucci (Irreversible), that poor woman in Cannibal Holocaust, and now we must add to this list Jane Levy (Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe).
In fact, the whole cast (Lang, Levy, Minette and Zoyatto) see their fair share of enduring physically violent scenes. Not that they didn’t have some help from stunt doubles, but I imagine the cast walked away from the set with quite a few bumps and bruises at the end of filming.
Perhaps providing him with more ammunition in his campaign to play Cable in the Deadpool sequel, Lang really brings the intensity on many levels. I think he was channeling a PTSD iteration of 10 Cloverfield Lane’s shut-in headcase (i.e., John Goodman). At first, it’s a quietly lethal intensity, later escalating in pitch to the desperate shrill of a war cry. As he shifts gears from defense to offense, his home intruders likewise shift from playing a silent game of cat-and-mouse to fighting for their lives.
I may not have been handed quite enough to care about the pseudo-protagonist home invaders (mostly Levy’s character, really), but the situation felt more than sufficiently dire for me to feel nervous for them at first, and terrified for them later. And not just dire, but outright BRUTAL. The violence in this is brutal and, although limited to blood and swollen bruising make-up, the bloody effects felt pretty intense—clearly efficiently magnified by the situation. When Lang gets his hands on these young criminals you quickly learn to fear for them. And when Lang hits them, it hits deeper than Rocky’s blows in the final round. His strikes aren’t striving for glory or desire; he’s trying to beat you to death and I believed him every time he made a fist or clutched a throat.
Lang is intense as the hound, and Levy a magnificent hare. We also see echoes of Sam Raimi’s influence (he’s a producer) with some of the neat sweeping shots, the dreaded cabin-like isolation, and the use of the infrastructural guts of the house. The most notable “new” dimension added to this film was the occasional use of total silence when you find yourself listening along with Lang for the sound of their breath.
Folks, I agree that the premise probably sounds lame. But this flick is pretty awesome and after 20 minutes it doesn’t even resemble a home invasion movie. See this, applaud Levy’s dedication to rough roles, reconsider Lang as a petite Cable and, most of all, ENJOY!
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The Best One-Punch Knockout of 1996: Will Smith Crushes an Alien In Independence Day
Decades of cinema have taught us that fighting aliens is terrible. They are big slippery things that ooze acid and have weird exoskeletons that prevent cranial damage. Whether it be Alien, Aliens, Predator, Mars Attacks, Cloverfield, Battleship, Cowboys and Aliens or District 9 we’ve learned that aliens don’t go down easily. Movie characters need robots, water, Harrison Ford or lots and lots of mud to defeat the extraterrestrial menaces.
Mud Arnold > Predator.
The 1996 film Independence Day taught the world a very important lesson. If you are Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith), you can knock out aliens with one-punch. Here is how it went down:
- Hiller shoots down an alien ship.
- Hiller walks up to the alien ship.
- Hiller knocks out an alien with one-punch.
- Hiller picks up the heavy alien and drags it across the desert.
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What I love about this scene is that it plays against expectations. You’d expect the alien to jump out and murder the unsuspecting Smith. However, the alien pops out without a plan and gets chin-checked for its troubles. Smith’s punch is 100% legit and it actually finds the blind spot of the alien. I’d wager that the alien was way too confident and never thought the angry pilot would hit so hard.
Will Smith’s punch is incredible considering these aliens are actually big suckers who enjoy murdering wimpy doctors. Later on in the film the same alien tricks some unsuspecting doctors and delivers a very squishy death to the wimpy folks. The doctors had no chance and the scene plays with familiar alien attack conventions. Here is the clip.
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The alien attack on the doctors makes the one-punch KO all the more impressive. Hiller delivered a perfect punch to the cocky alien and then ended up wiping them out with Jeff Goldblum. That is why Will Smith wins the award for the best punch of 1996.
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The MFF Random Awards: 1996 Edition!
Hello all, Mark here.
1996 was loaded with cinematic randomness. Whether it be Michael Keaton talking about eating dolphins or Carl Weathers stressing hip movement, we were lucky to have great actors doing weird things onscreen. Since it is 1996 week, and I couldn’t write about every film I decided to compile an assortment of random awards that highlight all things 1996. Be prepared for a list that is so random it features awards for Best Emaciated Matt Damon and Best USSR Missile.
Sit back, relax and appreciate the 1996 randomness.
Best Hip Movement Award
Happy Gilmore taught me everything I need to know about golf. I love Carl Weathers and his tension easing techniques are charming, practical and hilarious
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Best Barbed Wire Tattoo Award
Bound is a fantastic thriller and Gina Gershon rocks a great fake tattoo.
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Best USSR Missile Award
Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood is a weird little film that features an impressive weapon escalation. I love me some 80s/90s Wayans Brothers’ movies and I remember watching this movie a lot on VHS.
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Best Tall Guy Walking Award
Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum do some great “tall walking” in Independence Day. I should’ve added these guys to my walking piece.
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Best Surfing, Hang Gliding and Basketball Award
Snake Plissken completed the world’s first Science Fiction Pentathlon in Escape From L.A.
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Best Regaining of Memory Award
The Long Kiss Goodnight is crazy violent, always fun and wonderfully written by Shane Black.
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Best John Leguizamo Award
John Leguizamo is awesome in Romeo & Juliet.
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Best Room in Need of an Air Freshener Award
There are lots and lots of farts in The Nutty Professor.
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Best French Fried Potaters Award
Billy Bob Thornton and his french fried potatoes made Sling Blade a very good film. I’m still happy he won an Oscar.
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Best “Evil” Smoking Award
John Travolta smokes way too many cigarettes in Broken Arrow. Check out my piece on his evil smoking habits.
Best Dragon Who Sounds Like Sean Connery Award
The dragon in Dragonheart became an instant father figure when Connery lended his voice to it.
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Best Usage of a Wood Chipper Award
The wood chipper scene in Fargo might be the most iconic moment of 1996.
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Best Usage of Jamie Kennedy Ever Award
Jamie Kennedy was really good in Scream and Scream 2. Dude nailed his role as Randy.
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Best/Weirdest Subplot Involving an Underage Natalie Portman Award
Natalie Portman’s character in Beautiful Girls was so precocious she made grown men want her. It was weird.
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Best Hair Award
Bill Murray was amazing in Kingpin. He might be my favorite sports movie villain ever.
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Best Usage of too Many Voicemails
The voicemail scene in Swingers still makes me cringe. Try not to cringe while watching it.
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Best Monologue involving Watersports
Bottle Rocket is one of my favorite films and Luke Wilson totally nails this Wes Anderson written monologue.
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Best Wallet Pizza
Multiplicity is a weird movie that features four Michael Keatons and pizza being stuffed into a wallet. You should watch it.
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Best Emaciated Matt Damon
Matt Damon got crazy skinny in Courage Under Fire.
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MFF 1996 Special: Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket
I love the people in this film, who are genuinely innocent, more than even they know.
Bottle Rocket was a revelation to me when I was 14. I first heard about Wes Anderson’s directorial debut when he won the MTV award for Best New Director in 1996. I immediately sought out the VHS and watched it three times in two days. There was something refreshing about the meandering plot and low stakes crime. I never knew where it was going and I still think Dignan (Owen Wilson) and Anthony (Luke Wilson) wore perfect book store robbery disguises.
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I loved everything about Bottle Rocket. I understood the film despite the fact that I was a 14-year old kid who never stole from his parents or planned a robbery with James Caan. Roger Ebert didn’t write a glowing review for Bottle Rocket but he nailed what is special about it and what was to come.
“Bottle Rocket” is entertaining if you understand exactly what it is: if you see it as a film made by friends out of the materials presented by their lives and with the freedom to not push too hard. Its fragile charm would have been destroyed by rewrites intended to pump it up or focus it; it needs to meander, to take time to listen to its dialogue, to slowly unveil character quirks, particularly Dignan’s.
It’s the kind of film, in fact, that a festival like Sundance is ideal for. An audience that knows about the realities of low-budget independent filmmaking will probably find a lot of qualities in here that might elude wider audiences. I can’t recommend the film – it’s too unwound and indulgent – but I have a certain affection for it, and I’m looking forward to whatever Anderson and the Wilsons do next.
The best monologue of 1996
Bottle Rocket revolves around two bored guys trying to become criminals. The movie starts with Luke Wilson’s character Anthony “escaping” from a relaxed mental asylum. The escape is unnecessary because he could’ve simply walked through the front door. However, Anthony’s friend Dignan (Owen Wilson) has come up with a 75-year plan that begins with Anthony escaping from a place he doesn’t have to escape from. After the successful “escape” they steal from their parents, rob a bookstore and go on the lam. They hold up in a small hotel and Anthony falls for the maid that works there. Eventually the dynamic duo splits up and they end up perpetrating the worst theft ever.
Bottle Rocket is a weird little film that showcases everything that would make Wes Anderson great. We are introduced to underachieving men who suffer from “exhaustion” and have obvious issues with their family. They are outsiders who don’t think they are outsiders and they plug along despite constant setbacks. They are totally earnest in their pursuits and I love how non-cynical the whole thing is. Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson loved the characters and their personalities shot from the screen in ways I didn’t think possible.
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Wes Anderson’s films aren’t for everybody but I love every single one of them. The reason Bottle Rocket is my favorite is because it solely focuses on creating likable characters. It doesn’t have the flashy set pieces of The Grand Budapest Hotel or visual pizzazz of Moonrise Kingdom. It features several characters being weird and engaging in trivial activities. The characters felt familiar and the film has never gotten old because the themes are timeless and truly unique.
Watch Bottle Rocket!
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This is a follow-up article to:
The Best Moments of one of the Worst Years in Horror: looking back 20 years to 1995
There are great horror films (e.g., Saw, The Conjuring), there are typically color-by-numbers trope-rich sequels (e.g., A Nightmare on Elm Street after part 3) and there are zany, gory, low budget direct-to-video releases (e.g., Puppet Master and almost everything by Full Moon Entertainment). Generally we see maybe one or two greats, several enjoyable trope-rich flicks, and countless DTV releases in any given year. We recently did some articles on more recent “best moments” in horror: 15 Images for 15 Years of Horror, Part 1 (2000-2014): some of the greatest, goriest, most shocking and most memorably defining moments in horror since 2000 and 15 Images for 15 Years of Horror: Part 2: The Good, the Bad and the Hilarious. But I think we all know that The Best Horror came from the 80s!
Now the year of 1996… I know what you’re thinking: “John, Scream came out that year. How can ’96 be a bad year for horror?” And to you I have two answers:
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1996 was a part of the 90s. As a blanket statement, all years of that decade were generally bad for horror fans. A few good gifts under the Christmas tree from mom and dad don’t let us completely overlook a stocking full of coal. Check out my Horror Index and you’ll find very few 90s horror reviews. There’s a reason for that!
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I really struggled to put together 10 decent movies for this list. Granted, for 1995 I included The Granny and The Ice Cream Man…making 1995 twice as bad as ’96, for which the only wild card was Head of the Family (1996). Thank God I didn’t need to turn to Carnosaur 3 (1996).
In the 1990s there were almost no sequels to please fans of proven franchises, few DTV releases worth mentioning, and the best movie referenced in this article (Scream) was probably treated as a “thriller” instead of a “horror” in your local Blockbuster store since slashers fell into that now-forgotten category. But, in honor of our “1996 Year in Review Week” we turn back the clock 20 years to reflect on the more memorable moments that 1996’s horror had to offer. So here are some moments from ten movies, in no particular order…
Scream (1996) made phones terrifying again, reignited our fear of stupid masks and got us to start talking about the dynamics of horror.
Why? Because this was a metamovie, a film that permitted its characters to discuss the nature of the film itself and filmmaking. As their classmates are killed our lead horror analyst actually explains the things one does that creates or protects victims. We actually discuss this at length in our Scream on Elm Street podcast episode.
From Dusk ’til Dawn (1996) seems to be the Baskin’ Robbins of vampire flavors…
Cheech Marin turns into a Klingon vampire. Danny Trejo turns into an Incredible Hulk vampire with powerlifter traps!
Salma Hayek turns into a snake demon vampire
And Quentin and George wish she just stayed hot like before…
The Frighteners (1996) was exactly the kind of game-changing movie Michael J. Fox needed after playing just too many overly likable roles (Doc Hollywood, Back to the Future, Homeward Bound) or unconvincing shlubs (Life with Mikey, Greedy, The Hard Way). It has an awesome, scary poster that reminded me of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), aaaand Jeffrey Combs (Lurking Fear) is in it! #Winning
The Craft (1996) was one of those films I thought was just plain perfect when I saw it in high school–yes, I’m that old. It’s so great that it’s getting a remake! Not that movies need to actually be good in the first place to earn a remake. This film brought together a group of teen misfits with magic and levitation. But power corrupts and Fairuza Balk gets crazy and we get a most excellent aerial catfight.
Thinner (1996)…I really loved this movie despite it’s incredibly lame script and acting. It is, after all, a great Stephen King story and many of his movie adaptations fell flat. So there’s this mob lawyer and he is really, really fat. He accidentally kills the daughter of this scary gypsy from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, who prescribes him a new “CURSE” diet and he can eat whatever he wants and still waste away into nothing.
Hellraiser IV: Bloodline (1996) brought a sense of 90s badness and style to Pinhead’s franchise. It both went to space and presented three stories in an anthology.
Our new Cenobite starlet was not goofy like her Hell on Earth predecessors and the movie featured Adam Scott (Piranha 3D, Krampus)!
Bordello of Blood (1996) was that bonkers-tastic Tales from the Crypt movie that we all know is bad, but we all know is AWESOME! Let’s look at the facts, shall we…?
Angie Everhart gooily tears off heads and ends up covered in gore herself…
She turns into this ridiculous monster even sillier than anything from From Dusk ’til Dawn…
and Corey Feldman becomes a vampire with an excellent hole in his chest!
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) is a remake of the 1977 classic of the same name. Now I’ll admit I never saw the original, but it couldn’t have been as batshit crazy as this. Some of the Moreau monsters are played by Ron Perlman and martial artist Mark Dacascos, the doctor/creator is played by Marlon Brando accompanied by the diminutive Nelson de la Rosa (to his left, below), and oh my goodness…is Fairuza Balk (The Craft) in two movies on this list!?!?!
Mary Reilly (1996) is the serious choice for someone who simultaneously wants to watch a horror movie, but also wants to impress his/her friends or date with this deeper, more intellectual horror period piece. I mean, it has Julia Roberts and John Malkovich. No one can veto this simply on the basis of it representing the horror genre. No…there’s more here.
Head of the Family (1996) is my “oh, crap, I need a 10th movie to round out this list” pick for 1996. This zany film was really just a good excuse to show us ex-adult film star Jacqueline Lovell’s (Hideous!, The Killer Eye, Femalien) boobs…again…as she does in pretty much all of her Full Moon releases–and God bless her for that! But honestly, this salty little flick was kind of like direct-to-video horror’s answer to the suburban pseudo-horror The ‘Burbs (1989).
If you enjoyed this weird article, please check out last year’s edition:
The Best Moments of one of the Worst Years in Horror: looking back 20 years to 1995
Movies, Films & Flix 