film: March 2008 Archives

Hello, what the hell is this? I can understand such classics as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween being remade - after all, they're iconic films, and Gus Van Zant's loving shot-for-shot retooling of Psycho was such a rousing success. And the fanboys love it when you screw their touchstones up all to hell. But Prom Night was a nothing little slasher flick; it only affected me because it was the first uncut horror movie I saw in all its flawed, gory glory at a completely inappropriate age. For me, that severed head rolling across the dance floor is iconic. And we're not going to get that shit with a PG-13 remake staffed with pretty people willing to do pretty much anything short of blowing Satan Himself in order to make the jump from reality TV/the CW lineup (on many levels, they're pretty much the same) to features.

Truthfully, I don't really care that much about the Prom Night. I'll always have the moment I had the crap scared out of me during Hurricane David, ensconced in the master bedroom while my parents threw a fondue party.

But I'm worried about where it will end.

And when the Near Dark remake comes out and pisses all over the original - and it will - I'll be seriously thinking about kneecapping Platinum Dunes. I'll totally fart in their elevator, or Shoe Goo Michael Bay's keyholes, or something.

So, it's obvious there's a huge place in my giant, slightly blackened, morally ambivalent heart for crappy movies with questionable redeeming qualities. But that doesn't mean I don't like good, and even quote-unquote classic, movies. Sure, I'm an avowed horror geek, and I love sci-fi when the trappings don't overwhelm the story. I'm an equal opportunity entertainment/emotional resonance junkie.

A while back, I got involved in a conversation about guilty pleasure flicks at Ybor City's New World Brewery (one of the four or five bars in that sad, sodden, cheeseball district worth patronizing), and my enthusiasm for bad movies was such that it spurred one participant to ask if I liked any good movies at all.

Of course I do. You like movies, you watch a hell of a lot of movies. And while I don't own a buttload of them - why should I, when we've got Netflix and movie-snob friends - my collection includes a bunch of movies I, in my delusions of infinite wisdom, consider timeless.

In the off chance that you care, a list of the ten best movies I actually own follows, along with a list of the ten best movies I don't.

Of the dozen or so folks who remember it, many see this completely over-the-top 2001 alien-invasion spoof as David Duchovny's third or fourth failed attempt to finish the move to the big screen big leagues he started with Kalifornia. I see it in a different, more flattering light; I see it, along with his appearance in Zoolander the same year, as the point at which he stopped giving a crap about following a career arc that didn't interest him in the first place, and had some absurdist fun before continuing to direct, shine in indie fare, and embody complex TV characters.

And Evolution is nothing if not absurd. Critics who note that it pales in comparison to iconic '80s comedy director Ivan Reitman's best work are completely right (derf), but they're also missing the point. Evolution is half-baked, half-assed and smug in the assumption that it isn't entertaining viewers half as much as it's entertaining itself. But, massive box-office grosses aside, that's a pretty good description of Ghostbusters, too.