Monday Movie Madness

It's October. That means things. Thing numero uno is that it rained (real, cow-pissin'-on-a-rock, cats-and-dogs,row-row-row-your-fucking-boat-down-the-street From The Sky rain) for the first time in about 6 months. So thumbs up for that. Another thing is that my son is 3 months old today. So that's cool, too. But mostly October means movies. The scary(ish) kind. Tara and I always que up about a hundred horror flicks for the month of October, from old staples (Friday the 13th, Halloween, _____ of the Dead, you know) to weird ass, drug fueled Korean mind-fucks. This year we started with goofy 80s Creature Features and a few zombies.

GREMLINS: A childhood favorite. Goofy and gross, with some of the best puppet work on film. I love this fucking movie. Gremlin's freaked me the hell out when I was little, more so that bigger, nastier movie monsters like Ridley Scott's alien or werewolves (take your pick) or big gahdamned bugs. I think it was the fact that they grew off poor little Gizmo, and their insanity. They didn't hunt and kill; they aren't really monsters in that sense. They're just loco, crazy, off their rockers nutzo and they spend as much time tormenting each other as they do the confused, 80's village folk. Something about that really bothered me. Oh, and the dad is just awesome. So awesome.

CRITTERS: One of those movies I was familiar with but didn't remember a single thing about. Critters isn't really very scary, and I guess I never sided with the family, so I wasn't worried about their potential destruction and consumption by the furry, toothy, rolly polly Critters. In fact, I was downright fucking cheerful when BILLY ZANE! and his rat-tail get om nommed. Not to say I didn't enjoy the movie. It's just silly enough (man, what the fuck is up with those "bounty hunters"?) to save itself, and provides at least one likable protagonist in the firework hurling son, but it's no Gremlins.

GHOULIES: I have been trying to remember the name of this movie for years. YEARS. I loved this concept-knock-off when I was younger (well, not THIS one, but I'll get to that in a minute) and could remember exactly what the itty bitty little demons looked like, but could never find them anywhere. Then, BAM, front page of Netflix like they'd been reading my fucking mind. Only, well, Ghoulies isn't the movie I was thinking about. Ghoulies, it turns out, is not nearly as fun as the sequel. It's also not scary, and pretty confusing. That said, I was happy to have filled the gap in my memory, and quickly left this stinking carcass beyond in pursuit of its superior sequel.

GHOULIES II: I can't explain why I like this movie so much. The acting is pretty bad, the effects aren't good, the concept is ridiculous, the characters aren't likable, but gahdamnit, this movie just does it for me. It's really funny in a how-did-they-ever-get-this-shit-made sort of way, and I really dig the creature design. Like Gremlins, Ghoulies aren't just badass killing machines, they kill people in bizarre and illogical fashion, and then bow and high-five over the results of their destruction. Also, this movie had me double and triple checking toilets for years, but I don't want to spoil anything for you... Really, if you haven't seen this, do yourself a favor and check it out.

HIGH SCHOOL OF THE DEAD: An impressive anime about high school kids trying to survive the zombie apocalypse in Japan. It's currently maintaining a 5 star rating on Netflix, although I think this score is probably inflated by all the 13 year old boys masturbating furiously to the gratuitous panty and cleavage shots. But I'm not complaining, 'cause this is a solid zombie survival series. Yes, like most anime, the girls are wearing practically nothing and their tits are about 3 times too big to be real, but if you can get past that (or if, like me, you happen to enjoy enormous animated mammaries) then they're also strong, intelligent, and kick a whole lot of ass. And underneath all the bouncing boobs and zombie killing, there is a well conceived story and some interested discourse about survival and human nature. H.O.T.D. (don't ask me why there is no S.) rates pretty high up my zombie cinema list, and I strongly suggest you check it out.

Outside of the Horror genre, Tara and I also sat down to watch X-Men: First Class (finally).

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS: Creative, interesting, intense, most of all, fun. If 2 and 3 had been half this thoughtful or well put together, X-Men would be the best comic book movie franchise to date. Despite a couple plot holes (the helmet came from where again?), this is my favorite of the big screen X-Men flicks. I would love to see Deadpool come along and do even better, but, eh, I won't be holding my breath. I enjoyed the chosen mutants/powers on display, but more than that I was impressed by the creativity on display. The mutants actually used their powers in new and fun (and believable) ways. McAvoy and Fassbender were right on as X and Magneto. Their relationship is the foundation of the movie, and it holds up. While Bacon was distracting, his performance was fine. The two people who drove me just a little nuts were Mystique and Emma Frost. January Jones is oooooh so hot, but her performance was stiff (heh). She plays Frost exactly like she plays Betty Draper, and that's a problem. I don't even know why Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique wasn't doing it for me. Maybe because Stamos was so perfect... or something about the way she looked in the makeup. Especially her face. Anyway, I just kept wondering if there wasn't a better Mystique out there anywhere. But those are pretty much the only complaints I have about the movie, and they're rather small. The alternate history concept worked well, and there are a lot of possibilities for another movie or two in this time line.