Intermission (movies Daniel watches, and his thoughts)

I've seen a lot of crap in my day too, more than I care to brag about. If you want a good watch on bad movies go to Netflix and find Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. You'll enjoy it.

Other movies I managed to run through:

The Ghost Writer: I've been sitting on this movie for a long time, and I don't think I was ever missing much. It was supposed to be intriguing, but I found it pretty droll. The ending tried to pull a Sopranos, but it was lame.

Swept Under. This was a decent whodunnit about a professional cleaner who lends their keen observations to a detective trying to solve a murder case. There is an interesting twist, and it plays like a very capable, theatric episode of Law and Order: SVU, but a lot of the film's success owes its success to the female protagonist's performance.

Tales of Halloween: The poor man's Trick r Treat. It wasn't bad since each story was really only 10 minutes in length. Kind of like an adult Are You Afraid of the Dark.

Let's Be Evil: I will be honest - I didn't get it. Creepy kids enacting virtual reality terror on some people, without explanation or exposition. Things happened, the ending was not a happy one, I dunno. It got monotonous fast.

I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore - What a gem! Elijah Wood was great in this, and I loved the female protagonist, even if she was a total debbie downer who saw the world through very myopic lenses. Some cool action and death scenes, and a lot of dark humor that just works.

Burn After Reading - this was nominated for a Golden Globe for best picture? I thought it was kind of dumb. Maybe the Coen Brothers worst film to date.

Operator - Interesting twist on a plot that takes the heart of "Her," and does something different with it. I love Martin Starr, and he was superb in this.

Scary Movie 2 & 3 - I think 3 went the PG-13 route, and it was flat out terrible. I think that's also when the Wayans brothers bowed out since they weren't in the film. SM2 was pretty bad. I'm thankful the parody film phase is kind of gone. Nobody does it quite like Naked Gun and Airplane.

Kill Command - pretty interesting sci fi film that did a great job at keeping the suspense going. Entirely ripped off its ending from Ex Machina, though.

Sundown - I think this was done by IFC At Night studios, and that's where it belongs - an independent movie meant to be watched when its night, youre bored ,and you want something to watch. It wasnt badly-done, was entertaining, and a funny movie if you want something along the lines of American Pie with some silly gangster action sprinkled throughout.

Russell Brand: From Addiction to Recovery. Neat documentary on drug addiction where Russell tackles the need for getting to the hearts of addicts and not giving them alternative drugs.

Waffle Street - one of the guys from The Short gets fired and opts to work as a diner server. He has ambitions to own the restaurant, so the movie is about his pursuit of that, for the most part. It's not bad, kind of a riches-to-rags story.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil - I think this was my 3rd time watching this. Never gets old, funny slasher parody that actually turns into a slasher movie.

Housebound - I liked this a lot more the first time I watched it. Not a bad movie, kind of like an independent, updated version of the People Under the Stairs. I was, admittedly, quite sick when I watched this again.

Natural Selection - Pretty decent movie about two friends who are different from their peers, but one of them goes down a dark path because of it, while the other learns how to cope with his issues. I liked the main character and his story a lot. This was surprisingly much better than I anticipated.

Spectral - a Netflix original that was pretty "meh." It's a sci-fi action movie that, more or less, shows how the enemy develops a new weapon, and how the military develops defensive and offensive capabilities against said weapon. I find that pretty interesting, looking at the advancement of weaponry and defense over the years, but this movie made the whole affair kind of droll.

The Wave - To be fair, I was on a disaster movie kick and pretty much just wanted to see the big wave and mass destruction. It was a bit underwhelming, the disaster scene itself - can't really comment on the rest of the film.

Plastic - professional fraudsters run afoul of an organized crime guy and have to get involved in a big heist to get him off their backs. I was drawn in because it has the kid with the punchable face from that Scott "No Regrets" P movie. It was ok, very much a watchable straight to video kind of movie that had it's share of laughs and boobs.

Ha, I should probably amend my opening lead-in and say I'm just going to list all the things I watch here in addition to the camp I watch.

You overlooked I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore, which is the same writer/director as Blue Ruin and Green Room. He really missed the opportunity to have a Primary Color Trilogy and have the word Red in the title - would have been a tongue-in-cheek win. 

D'oh - I had my wires crossed. I agree it wasn't in the same league as those two, but still quite good.

I sincerely hope that you are discussing a movie based on the PBS show where a ghost teams up with a group of kids to solve mysteries.

I loved the show Ghostwriter. Now I need to scout the internet to find out if and how that show ended.

yeah, I didn't like it either.

I feel like I have seen this movie a dozen times before, though done much much better. We witness the life of a dude traumatized by ... something, then see how his story comes together with what at first seems to be a lazy detective and a woman whose story also unfolds along with the protagonist. I think the movie really wanted to try be heavy handed about connecting people through unraveling tragedy - one of those films where we witness the aftermath of the tragedy before witnessing the tragedy itself. So, yeah, this movie is like Manchester by the Sea: Film School Student Edition. 

The only saving grace was Melanie Lynskey, but that's mostly because she's quite pleasant to look at. She's another Michael Cera in that she seems to be typecast and a one-note actress.