Days 36-41: A lot of stuff.

Been a couple days since the last post. Anyway let's do this.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Day 36, 1975)
Pretty famous movie, was pretty good. Saw most of this for a high school movie class, but didn't see the whole think until now. I don't have much to say about this...except there are bunch of people in this who go on to fame, and Christopher Lloyd is also in it. On that note, I need to see Suburban Commando.

Random connections
Well Danny DeVito and Jack Nicholson are both in this, and they both become Batman villains. That's probably not a coincidence though: I think Nicholson suggested that DeVito be in Batman Returns.

Rating: Oh hell yeah.

Son of Kong (Day 37, 1933)
This was a follow up to King Kong, and was released in the same year as its predecessor to cash in on its success. The producers realized that it would be foolish to try to emulate the scale and magic of King Kong, so they decided to make a more comedic movie. And it's only 69 minutes long.

The movie takes place a couple months after the original. Carl Denham, the dude who brought Kong to New York, is being sued by everyone because of the damage that King Kong caused, and he sets out to sea to get away from it all. But he ends up returning to Skull Island, with his old captain Englehorn, the stereotypical chef Charlie and a new female character.

It was actually an entertaining movie up until the ending, which was pretty terrible in terms of being unrealistic on many levels as well as closing all doors to any sequels. But hey, we always have Mighty Joe Young for more giant ape action.

Rating: Oh yeah

Moving on to the next movie,

Singin in the Rain (1952, Day 38)

I'd heard the title song a lot due to watching A Clockwork Orange a lot, as well as listening to the soundtrack. That song is pretty catchy.

Anyway this is a tight movie, nice dance moves and choreography. I liked the story too, about making movies, and talkies coming out during the end of the silent era. That was sort of explored with the Chaplin movies earlier.

So it's mainly about three people, the main dude (Gene Kelly) who's an actor, his best friend (Donald O'Connor) who is a music director and a girl (Debbie Reynolds) who runs into the main dude.

A cool thing about this movie: In a lot of movies the main character's best friend gets the shaft and is often relegated to comic relief, is antagonistic towards the main character's love interest and is pushed aside as the main dude is trying to win the girl. Well in this movie he does have comic scenes, but he actually gets good screen time and comes up with the smart ideas, and is actually friends with the girl. Something different.

Rating: Oh hell yeah!

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Day 39, 2007)

So this time, Voldemort is about to come back and nobody believes Harry and Dumbledore. On top of that the Ministry of Magic is trying to keep both of them quiet.

So I've read all the books and seen all the movies, but I'm not one to complain about (or even remember) what was cut out of the movies and all that. I've enjoyed all the movies that came out, and I expected the same with this one. But man, even I was surprised at what they cut out, mainly because I didn't end up giving a damn about characters I was supposed to care about. One of the worst of the Harry Potter movies, but maybe it'll be better on future viewings or something.

Rating: Oh.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (Day 40 1988)

Now this is what I'm talking about. The title is all I need to know. And the tag line "In Space no one can eat ice cream" didn't hurt.

Random connections
This is connected to King Kong in a way: The Chiodo brothers, who wrote and directed this movie, are featured in the King Kong documentary that's on the DVD for that movie. This is the only major movie they worked on but I think they're puppeteers or something so they know about King Kong.

The movie
This was a silly movie, again, the title says it all. If you're looking for a corny funny movie, then watch this. Oh yeah and it has an awesome theme song.

Rating: Oh yeah.

Rescue Dawn (Day 41, 2007)

This is the movie that i was trying to see a couple weeks ago. Even though I had to pay this time, it was still worth it, this was tight. It's a true story about a US Navy pilot, Dieter Dengler, played by Christian Bale, who get shot down in Laos during the Vietnam War (before it escalated) and taken as a prisoner. He attempts to escape along with other people who have been imprisoned for over two years.

So Werner Herzog is the director, and he had done a documentary about the dude a little while ago, Little Dieter Needs to Fly. Oh yeah and Werner Herzog is a hardcore dude. He filmed this movie in Thailand, and they didn't have trailers, instead they stayed in the sets that were used as the prisoner's quarters, in bamboo huts. Also, once he was shot during an interview with an air rifle and, even though he was bleeding he was like "nah, let's just continue with the interview." And he saved Joaquin Phoenix from a car crash and left before Phoenix could say thanks. In conclusion, watch this movie.

Rating: Oh Hell Yeah!

Bebe's Kids (Day 41, extra movie, 1992)

This is on a long list of early 90s movies that I had heard of, but never seen. Reginald Hudlin was the writer of this movie. Oh yeah and he's now the president of BET.

So this movie is based off the comedy of Robin Harris and it's about this dude who's trying to get with this woman, who has a son. She suggests he take them to a theme park called "Fun World", but three kids also tag along. Who are they? Bebe's kids. So, one thing sort of weird about this movie is that the kids refer to themselves as "Bebe's kids". I don't know about you, but I never met a group of siblings who identified themselves as their mother's children.

Random connections
LOC ALERT LOC ALERT LOC ALERT
Tone Lōc is in this movie. We last saw him in Blank Check as Juice. This time he plays a baby, one of the three Bebe's kids.

In case you need a reminder as to his awesomeness, here again is a link to one of his music videos. Because it bears more repeating than the fucking white stripes, that's for sure.

Oh yeah now back to the movie. This is so ridiculously random that I don't know what to say. The animation is pretty bad, but it's interesting. This movie gets a brand new rating.

Rating: What the fuck?!

But if I were to give it a 'real' rating, it would be oh yeah.