Brad's Week in Dork! (11/24/13-11/30/13)

Thanksgiving and Black Friday got in the way of some serious movie watching this week.  Can't really complain about that though, can I?  Life is good.  Family is sweet.  And Business is a boomin'.  Started the week with Matt at The Angelika for Alexander Payne's Nebraska.  It's certainly not going to make my Top Ten List this year, but Bruce Dern is a serious contender for the Oscar race.  On Wednesday The Wife and I made it over to The Alamo for Hunger Games 2.  Better than the first film, but the best part about the night was still the Drafthouse pre-show.  SNL skit was actually pretty funny. And we came home from the movie craving real entertainment, so we had ourselves a double feature with the This Is The End & The Word's End blu rays.  Before my Black Friday got on the way, I caught both Philomena & Oldboy on the big screen while my Brother-In-Law tagged along for the adventure.  Probably couldn't pair two films as different as those.  However, the best film I watched this week was Plunder of the Sun.  Glenn Ford doing that mean bastard routine.  I love it.

While at work on Saturday, I got word that Paul Walker had died.  I'm happy to say that I have always been a Walker fan.  The man appeared in a lot of crappy cinema (the first two Fast & Furious flicks, Into The Blue, Bobby Z), but he's also rather amazing in Running Scared.  I've sung that films praises numerous times on this blog, and I'll take the opportunity again to send you running to your TV set.  It is simply an amazing bit of gonzo cinema.  A Grimm's Fairy Tale remake of Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog featuring possibly the greatest tribute to John Wayne this side of Garth Ennis's Preacher comic book series.  Not to mention those terrifying Nosferatu Pedophiles!!!!  If you haven't seen Running Scared than I demand you drop what you're doing right now and check it out.  If you're looking for other great Walker flicks to tribute and you've already exhausted Fast Five, then I also suggest Joy Ride (see below) and the more recent Pawn Shop Chronicles in which Walker plays a buggin' out meth head.  The man knew how to have fun on screen.  I'm gonna miss ya.

Nebraska:  I've been listening to a lot of conversation surrounding Alexander Payne's latest flick.  From one podcast to the next - Slashfilm, Operation Kino, Battleship Pretension - one critic blasts it as a mean-spirited mockery of the midwest, and another calls it a searing character study.  One thing is certain - Bruce Dern delivers a quiet, painful performance as the senile father determined to collect his million dollar sweepstakes.  And as a city slicker kid who occasionally spent his summers in Taylor, North Dakota population 148, I felt a lot of kinship for Will Forte's interloper.  Is it mockery?  At times.  Is that a bad thing?  I don't know.  I was always told by my teachers that it was cruel to laugh at others, and Nebraska certainly gains a lot of its comedy from pointing the finger.  So maybe I'm an asshole.  I enjoyed Nebraska.  Not the kind of film I'll watch over & over again, and I absolutely prefer Payne's The Descendants, Sideways, About Schmidt, & Election, but I'll root for Dern come Oscar time.

Plunder of the Sun:  "How hard can you beg?"  Now here is a beastly little diddy that does not get the praise it so rightfully deserves.  Glenn Ford, very much in the spirit of Gilda's Johnny Farrall, is an insurance investigator ensnared in an archeological heist when Patricia Medina bats her eyes across the barroom.  Ford is an amazing bastard in this movie, delightfully selfish, and cool as ice in the face of danger.  I absolutely love how no jackbooted thug can take this man down, and how heartlessly mean he can be to a beautiful woman when she attempts to play villain.  Imagine Indiana Jones mixed with In The Mouth of Madness's John Trent and a little of Prime Cut's Lee Marvin and you get Glenn Ford's beastly idol robber..  In 2013, having recently discovered or rediscovered flicks like The Big Heat, 310 To Yuma, Gilda, and Plunder of the Sun, Glenn Ford has climbed himself to the top of my favorite "classic" actors list.  He lives proudly next to Burt Lancaster, Henry Fonda, and Lee Marvin.  Now it's time to devour the rest of his back catalogue.

Medium Cool:  "I understand that you have some problems."  Robert Forester is a TV cameraman attempting to navigate the civil unrest of the late 1960s.  The story itself is pretty much what you expect, but Haskel Wexler's in-the-trenches documentary direction perfectly mirrors the era's primetime media assault.  Remember when journalism could make a difference?  Sigh.

Catching Fire:  I really just don't understand the appeal of these movies.  I've seen dozens of dystopian sci-fi hellholes.  Some I idolize - A Boy And His Dog, Logan's Run, Soylent Green, District 9.  Some I hate - No Escape, In Time, Johnny Mnemonic.  But The Hunger Games and this redo sequel are just soooooo booooooring.  Doesn't help that I'm not the biggest fan of Jennifer Lawrence's steely-eyed acting (minus Silver Linings Playbook, which is awesome, and her constant red carpet shit-talking).  Seriously, let's see some real deal emotion lady!  You just butchered a dome full of kids and all you can muster is some scream dreaming?  I dig the gender reversal of asskicker Katniss & Josh Hutcherson's damsel-in-distress, but why rehash the structure of the first film?  How 'bout doing something of note with these old ass tributes?  Geoffrey Wright is in your movie!  Use him!  Phillip Seymour Hoffman is in your movie!  Use him!  How can a film be nearly three hours long and have so little plot?  But since this flick just made a butt load of cash at the box office, I must be missing something.

This Is The End: "Call me your Prince of Persia..."  This is not sophisticated satire, it's a ferociously obscene assault on celebrity culture as seen from within.  I've always been a sucker for Seth Rogen's pothead comedy (Pineapple Express & Your Highness), but I don't think it's ever been funnier than it is in the moment when he & Jay Baruchel return from an L.A. Revelation to find all their Hollywood friends Left Behind at James Franco's house party.  One by one, they are either swallowed up by the Earth, impaled on sharp instruments, possessed by Satan, or welcomed into the Donner Party.  Their only option for salvation is to learn & live The Golden Rule.  It does not go well.

The World's End:  "Back to the dark ages."  Edgar Wright & Simon Pegg tackle the apocalypse from a much different, far classier, smarter, and typically British perspective.  I've watched the film three times now, and with each viewing I love it more and more.  I am very comfortable in calling The World's End one of the year's very best films, and even if I rank it at the bottom of the Cornetto Trilogy, it's still one of the finest emotionally wrenching comedies.  It also helps that it so easily Out-Star Trek's this year's abysmal Into Darkness atrocity with Simon Pegg expertly Kirking The Computer.  The World's End also offers the strongest performances yet from both Simon Pegg & Nick Frost.  Pegg's drunkard turned savior, Gary King never quite learns his lesson, but he comes close enough.  The apocalypse is not the awful part, it's how the apocalypse warrants his stagnancy.  The Loser Reigns!  Just what all isolated fanboys dream!  But my favorite delight is watching Frost's sober suit transform into the Pink Hulk of robotic destruction.  We've all seen the slobby brute, but I don't think we've ever been blessed with a prim & proper Frost.  Hard to take at first, but it's all worth it for when the shots hit the table.

The Killers:  Using Ernest Hemingway's short story for the opening scene, the rest of the film traces the actions of Burt Lancaster's punched-out boxer that lead to his inevitable assassination.  This is solid noir.  The flashback structure prevents it from fully capturing my passion, but it's also what gives the overall story its sense of dread.  There's no happy ending here.  Burt Lancaster dies in the first ten minutes and there's no resurrection.  The film has all the genre hallmarks, and Ava Gardner's Femme Fatale is exceptionally venomous with her dialogue.  "You touch me and you won't live till morning."  Don't mess with this lady folks.  She'll drive you to suicide.

Philomena:  Who doesn't love Judi Dench?  Who doesn't love Steve Coogan?  Only the soulless.  Dench plays a woman determined to find the son she was forced to abandon when she was barely a child herself.  Coogan is the failed journalist plunging the trenches of the human interest story to regain some hold on his career.  Philomena manages to be a searing look at the hypocrisy of religion while still managing to not make a mockery of faith.  Everybody wins.  It's the cliche "You'll laugh, you'll cry" kind of dramedy.  Well done, Mr Frears.

Oldboy:  A serviceable remake.  There are a few changes to the Korean original, but a lot of the horror of that film is surprisingly maintained in this Spike Lee joint.  Josh Brolin is pretty damn great as the American businessman kidnapped off the streets and mysteriously imprisoned for ten years.  Suddenly released, Brolin beats, bashes, and hammers his way through a variety of thugs until he finds the man responsible for his torture.  Along the way he meets Elisabeth Olsen's attractive social worker and does things he shouldn't.  Besides being totally unnecessary, I have a few other complaints in regards to Newboy - Sharlto Copley is far too James Bond Villainy as the billionaire beast, the film rushes too quickly towards its climax, and never properly establishes the "love" between Brolin & Olsen.  And could we please stop with the CG bloodwork!?!?  I hate it sooo much.  Still, it could have gone down a lot worse.

We Steal Secrets - The Story of Wikileaks:  "I like crushing bastards."  I'd love to tell you I was a socially conscious person.  But I'm a pop culture freak.  I can drone on and on about the merits of Roger Corman, but can barely string a sentence when it comes to the politics of the day.  I'm trying to be a better American.  I probably should venture out further into the real world than the handful of documentaries I watch a year.  I knew very little about Wikileaks before watching We Steal Secrets.  Similar to The Act of Killing, I found it to be a rather disturbing viewing experience.  What is the truth of the Red, White, & Blue?  What can we as Americans accept as collateral damage?  Wikileaks is incredible.  Too bad Julian Assange is such a hypocritical asshole himself.

Joyride:  I love Joy Ride.  Co-written by JJ Abrams and directed by John Dahl, the film is the closest this century has come to crafting the classic noir screenplay.  It's Detour populated with sexy young things.  While on a cross country roadtrip, two brothers punk a trucker using sex as temptation, and unleash a nightmarish Duel on the freeways.  Paul Walker & Steve Zahn are so much fun to hang out with that you forgive their idiotic prank and cheer them on to victory.  Too bad the film doesn't have the grit to adhere to its noir heart, and falters with a too-neat climax.  And Leelee Sobieski should totally Femme Fatale these bozos, but is simply relegated to the damsel-in-distress.

--Brad

Matt’s Week in Dork! (3/25/12-3/31/12)

    This Dork was on a much needed vacation and making the best of it.  Got a bunch watched, a good deal read, some traveling done, plenty of cooking, and had a bunch of fun.  Relaxed, too.  The best vacation I've had in a long time.

Breaking Bad:  With plenty of crazy twists, this show does a good job of keeping things fast paced and brutal, but still funny and heartfelt.  Good scripts and a fine cast give it all a kick, and things don’t always go where you might expect from a TV show, reminding me once again how different TV has become.

Red Headed Woman:  Jean Harlow is a driven monster looking to move her way up the social and economic ladder, and she’s willing to do anything to get where she wants.  No matter who she steps on, sleeps with, and destroys.  All the usual awful behavior of pre-Code Hollywood is on display, especially sex and drinking.  I still don’t understand what the appeal of Jean Harlow was, but the movie is pretty good.

Waterloo Bridge:  A hard-luck showgirl and a swell but dopy doughboy meet up during an air raid, and awkward romance is born.  London during Great War is a rough place for love.  Poor Roy just doesn’t know how to deal with a woman, especially one who has been making a go of it in the best way she can (read: selling ‘affection’).

Baby Face:  Oh boy does our leading lady get around.  A young woman, raised by her awful father who sold her services to bar patrons since she was a kid, gets a little help from an old man who’s a fan of Nietzsche.  From him, she learns that she’s got power and can make men do what she wants.  And boy does she, sleeping her way up the social and economic ladder, driving men to all sorts of ugly deeds (the murder/suicide is pretty wild).  The movie sure does take a hard look at cruel, ugly, and stupid people.  Check out some pre-Code villainy.

The Virgin Spring:  Quiet, beautiful, and downright brutal, this Ingmar Bergman exploration of vengeance is something to see.  Certainly more graphic that an American movie of the same time, it’s still disquieting today.  The almost fairytale medieval setting is beguiling.  A whole lot of ugly lurks.

The Raid: Redemption:  Wow.  Don’t go to Indonesia.  A whole lot of people get brutally killed in some crazy gun blasting, face kicking, back breaking action.  This movie starts out a bit wonky, but once the poop hit’s the fan, it’s a balls-out rush through a kung-fu drug-house slum block.  There are some really crazy, intense fights in this movie, and fans of martial arts action should find plenty to like.  Plot?  Well, there really ain’t all that much.  Still, it makes up for it in bone-crunching violence.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure:  It’s probably not the best thing to admit, but this movie was extremely influential to young me.  As a budding (and sadly, failed) rocker, I think I half believed the 80s idea that rocking hard enough might actually change the world.  And I still say ‘dude’ and ‘excellent’ more than a normal fella ought.  And yes, history is awesome!  If Billy the Kid were half this cool, I’d hang out with Socrates Johnson and Bob Genghis Khan any day.

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey:  Not nearly as excellent as the first film, this movie is still a lot of fun, and plenty weird.  Evil robot versions of our bodacious heroes do most egregious evils.  Death himself gets in on the action, even if he’s not that good at Battlship.  And all kinds of crazy builds to a battle of the bands, and a moment that will change Earth’s future.  Worth checking out for sure.  Just not quite as awesome as the original.

The Hunger Games:  What do you get when you mix a bunch of painfully unappealing people with a bunch of poorly executed concepts that haven’t been fresh in science fiction for 60 years?  Well, so long as it’s set in a world of drag queens and miners, you get The Hunger Games, the latest in the ‘this crap wouldn’t cut it on the adult market, so let’s call it a teen novel’ subgenre of bad fiction that has been translated to the big screen.  If Twilight was too Mormon for you, and Bella too stupid, now you can have Katness(?) who is good at whatever for some reason and everything just sort of works out for her…for some reason.  With all the illusory depth of Escher but with none of the intellectual challenge, it feels like Leonard Malton explaining the plot to Blade Runner.  Character actors who should be better back up three young people who look like they were found in the clay while excavating Uglyass Island.  They didn’t top Twilight for hard to look at actors, but they gave it the old college try.  And maybe if any of them had a bit of charm or charisma, or characters we could care about…No, who am I kidding?  If that were the case, this would be a different film.  Skip it, and watch The Running Man and Logan’s Run.  It’s clearly what Suzanne Collins did.  And if I may, I’d like to ask that someone please check on the cameraman, as I think he may suffer from seizures, and should probably see a doctor.

Enemy Gold:  With the shift from Hawaii to Texas, we also have a change in cast, with only a few returning Sidaris regulars.  After a few ties to WWII in previous films, this time it’s the Civil War that gets a spotty handling.  Being firmly in the 90s, all the women sport silly looking fake boobs and being a Sidars film, all the men are genuine boobs.  And Julie Strain is back to throttle the concept of acting.  I’m always impressed when someone is a bad enough actor that even their standing or walking sucks.

Doctor Who: Warriors of the Deep:  The return of those bloody pre-Human reptile folk, the Silurians and the Sea Devils, this tale of the fifth Doctor still annoyingly features Tegan, who has to be right up at the top of my list of worst companions.  The costumes for the original Silurian design are much better, though still pretty stiff.  Oddly, the Sea Devils don’t look as good as their first appearance.  And boy did they ugly up Ingrid Pitt, who admittedly may have been past her prime, but was still a striking woman.  Not here.  This story goes brutal in its final episode.  Dang.

The Sister In-Law:  A hot and hot-to-trot soon to be ex-wife can’t get enough of dirty hippie John Savage.  He doesn’t have too much love for his jerk-wad brother, and doesn’t seem to have much problem with the idea of sleeping with the sister in-law (or the ‘other woman’).  The 70s were weird, man.  Goofy looking bearded guys had all the luck, it seems.  But the ladies in this sure are pretty.  Even when they’re having an awkward pool fight.  The moral of this film seems to be “don’t do business with drug dealers who look like Neal Diamond impersonators.”

Noon Sunday:  What?  The first feature film made in Guam?  Wow.  It sure is all kinds of made in Guam.  I guess.  Past their prime TV actors show up, read some lines, and then some stuff happens.  Blah.  Mark Lenard just looks sad, like he knows his career ain’t going anywhere, and this is what he can get.  The scenery looks like a depressing mix of southern California and the Philippines.  Ew.

Primeval Season 4 & 5:  Well look, if you’ve been watching Primeval up to this point, you know there are some great ideas, some likable characters, and an overall concept that could be really, really awesome.  But you also know it fails almost as often as it succeeds.  Often really big story ideas are introduced and then hardly explored, being pushed to the side in favor of ‘monster of the week’ episodes.  Then all of a sudden the big ideas all come to head, but in unsatisfactory ways.  I wish they could boil the whole thing down and re-do it as a single season/mini-series.

Logan’s Run:  I’ve watched Logan’s Run many, many times over the years since I discovered its particular brand of 70s crazy.  It’s a movie I genuinely love, in spite of some flaws.  I know it’s not to everyone’s taste, but seriously, I really love this movie.  And finally, I got to see it on the big screen, and that certain magic that happens only when you see movies in a theater happened again.  It felt like seeing it for the first time again, sort of.  Farrah Fawcett’s ‘performance’ is still jaw-droppingly awful and totally feels like it was tacked on as a favor.  It does nothing to help the film and is embarrassing for all involved.  But Peter Ustinov’s performance felt brand new and wonderful.  And his interaction with Agutter and York was brilliant.  The vision of the hedonistic future, the underbelly of the city, the overgrown outside, and the old man are all fantastic.  The clothing is a trippy mix of Rome and Woodstock.  The music hops back and forth between electronic noise and triumphant orchestration.  And man, someone should have an Oscar just for getting Jenny Agutter to show up in that outfit.  Do they give Oscars for Awesomeness?  This and Zardoz will always be linked in my mind; two films of stunning vision and weirdness, where I can’t figure out how they were ever made, but am oh so glad they were.  Oh, and this was 70s PG, which probably means a modern R.  There are some pretty dark themes, some blood, and a bunch of nudity.

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School:  Roger Corman and crew do a fun, goofy high school comedy.  The humor is extremely broad and the acting often wonky, but the overall movie is enjoyable.  Paul Bartell as the groovy teacher is all kinds of off-beat nutty.

BMX Bandits:  Australian 80s rad, man.  A bunch of kids run afoul of some two-bit hoods.  It’s total fluff, but enjoyably goofy fluff.  So 80s.  And Nichole Kidman’s hair.  Yikes.  This is totally an accurate representation of life on the back of a BMX, too.  Totally accurate.

    I also caught a few episodes of the anime Project Blue Earth: SOS, which suffers from the usual faults of Japanese animation (repetitive character design, choppy animation, dumb dialog, and crappy dubbing), but also has some charm.  Again, like most anime, it’s recycling ideas, this time they seem to be tapping into Gerry Anderson’s world.  A dash of Captain Scarlet, a large chunk of Thunderbirds and UFO.  We’ll see if the usual happens, if the show goes off track and wanders into boring oblivion, or if as I’ve seen happen on precious few occasions, it has satisfactory follow-through.

    And I watched a few episodes of Charlie’s Angels, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, The New Avengers, and Boardwalk Empire.  All a lot of fun, though season two of Charlie’s Angels is noticeably weaker than the first.  The writing just isn’t there.  The New Avengers has an odd vibe, very 70s.  Puts me in mind of The Sweeney and other UK cop shows of the time.  Not at all like the original show, though still charming.

    I got a bunch of reading done, too.  This week, B.P.R.D. Plague of Frogs (my review here) and The Amazing Screw-On Head (my review here).

    On Tuesday, while Brad and I were heading in to DC to see The Raid at E-Street, we ended up with some extra time.  So, we hit up the American Art Museum to check out the video game art exhibit.  Dang.  That was lame.  It might have made for an interesting first room in a more expansive exhibit.  One that featured more art and less video game systems in plastic cases.  It took all of ten minutes to see the whole thing, and about half that to realize the trip to the third floor wasn’t worth the effort.

Almost the extent of the 'art.'

    Finally got my essay on the Reason Rally posted, too.  Check it out here.

-Matt

Brad's Week In Dork! (3/25/12-3/31/12)

Nothing terribly interesting, or at least unique to this Week In Dork.  I slowed down a little on The Wire and watched season 4 over the entirety of the week, not concluding this season until late Saturday night. Definitely didn't crank out the amount of TV, Movies, and Comics like I did last week.  In fact, I didn't read a single comic book all week.  Sad for me.

Matt & I did venture into DC on Tuesday to catch The Raid (Redemption...ugh, I hate that add on title) at E Street Cinema and to check out The Art of Video Games exhibit at the American Museum of Art.  That was a rather limp display of NES and Colecovision systems hiding behind glass with some weak status as art...I was kinda hoping to see actual art behind some of the designs of these games, not the playstations themselves.  I did find a little charm watching young kids today play around with the original Super Mario Brothers and Ms. Pac Man.  It was a goofy showcase in which I found little insight.

And on Saturday, Matt, The Wife, and I caught Logan's Run on the big screen at the AFI Silver.  It was an afternoon showing with a crowd of 30 folks or so.  Everyone seemed to get into it and I found myself enjoying the second half of that movie much more than I ever have before.  I thank the audience for that, giving some good chuckles at Peter Ustinov's Old Man.

TV OF THE WEEK!

The Wire Season 4:  The machinations of last season saw both Bunny and Prez outta the BPD and into the public school system...gulp.  I found this new insight into the world of Baltimore to be the most painful and it's probably why it took me the whole week to watch this season.  I once did time as a Middle School teacher (just one year) and it was the most miserable and frustrating time of my life.  The school, the kids, the parents.  It was a war I was not equipped to deal in and I didn't have to deal with half of the issues being tackled here in season 4.  Prez, now dubbed Prezbo by his students, has a new opportunity to prove his worth, but will these kids leave him alive by final exams.  And the kids!  Namond, Randy, Michael, Dukie.  These kid actors carry most of this show and if they sucked so would the season, but they are amazing.  Especially Julito McCullum as Namond.  He has to go from violent corner boy punk to the introspective student of Bunny, and there's hope for all the kids in Namond.  But this season also has the mayoral smackdown and the hypocrisy destined to be born from the race.  There's Dominic West's short pleasant life as a beat cop (best of luck boyo).  And the rise of Marlo, the Barksdale power void filler.  Not as slick as Stringer Bell, but scary, scary, scary.

Justified "Measures":  Season 3 is coming to a close.  Raylan, Boyd, Limehouse, and Quarles are going to smash into each other rather quickly.  Quarles is probably going to be the one guy dead on the floor by climax.  The best stuff about this episode comes from the introduction of Michael Ironside's Dixie Mafia goon and Jere Burns' Wynn Duffy finding his balls again while repositioning himself with the mob's higher echelon.  I still say this season is nowhere near as good as the last two, but it's still my favorite current show on TV.

MOVIES OF THE WEEK!

More Dead Than Alive:  A wonderful forgotten Western starring TV's Cheyenne, Clint Walker, as the reformed but still gargantuan Killer Cain. Walker delivers the performance of his career, expertly displaying both shame and pride for where the world has dumped him. Vincent Price, the showman, is excellent as well as the carny barker who recognizes the potential growth of profit layered in gunslinger mythology and Killer Cain's hulking mass. A bizarre jumping narrative, odd musical queues, and surprising bursts of violence might have kept this from being a classic but don't let it go unnoticed--there is a great movie here with strong performances.  More of my ramblings can be found at cineAWESOME!

The Raid:  Imagine Die Hard in a building...uh, wait...imagine Die Hard in a building but only more Die Harder--more Die Hardest--more Die Hardery. This Indonesian actionfest is an insane collection of knife-wielding hallway brutality in which a squadron of coppers storm the slum of the notorious Tama and no machete attached neighbor is safe. So far, no other film this year has been lauded with as much internet hype as this one but I'm hear to tell you that's The Raid is legit. Rapid shaky cam fights cracking, smashing, splintering bone as well as concrete--no punches pulled. See it with a crowd if possible.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure:  ‎"Be Excellent To Each Other!" Another childhood classic. Future messiahs and California metal head flunkies, Bill and Ted collect historical figures via their time traveling telephone booth in an effort to pass their History Exam. Yeah, okay. Obviously that's genius. But this Excellent Adventure is far funnier than it has any right to be--nostalgia be damned. Watching Sigmund Freud chow down on corn dogs, Genghis Khan skateboard a mall cop's groin, and Napoleon become a Ziggy Piggy is pure bliss.

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey:  "STATION!" Maybe not as pure as the original film, I still find plenty of love for Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. It's definitely ten times weirder with its Battleship/Twister Death matches, Poison loving Heaven, Evil Robots, Good Robots, and Easter Bunny Nightmares. Oh, and it's got Shatner. Win. "Catch You Later, Bill & Ted!" Bring on the third movie already.

The Hunger Games:  Not once in its 2 hours and 22 minutes did I emotionally engage with any of the characters or even their performers-yes, not even my irrational Woody Harrelson love could carry me through this rather dull dystopian gladiatorial blather. Cries of Battle Royale, Running Man, Mean Guns, Lord of the Flies rip-offery are null and void thanks to a big shrug of the shoulders to this run-of-the-mill script. Never got a feeling for the world or the lives of the desperate folk, just a collage of CGI matte paintings, David Bowie fashion, and limp, jump-cutty hack & slash.

Logan's Run:  ‎"Welcome Humans! I Am Ready For You!" In this dystopian shopping mall nightmare where 30 year olds are offed during the right of Carrousel, Sand Man Logan 5 (Michael York) and his reluctant sex partner Jessica 6 (Jenny Agutter) make a run for the Sanctuary of the Outside World. Do they find a new civilization under the sun or a fish-eating robot sentinel of death? How 'bout a little bit of both. This charmingly dated Science Fiction works thanks to its earnest telling and wild imagination. Even when a couple performances like Farrah Fawcett(-Majors at the time) excruciate, York and Agutter shine with naive wonder and Richard Jordan terrifies with his "Renew!" zealotry.  And yes, I'll take these fragile models any day over The Hunger Games's lackluster decoration.

Rock 'n' Roll High School:  ‎"They're ugly. Ugly, ugly people." As far as Roger Corman production go, Rock 'n Roll High School goes in my Top Five. PJ Soles perfectly captures the insanity of fangirl hero worship and its absolutely infectious, watching her on screen will have your reaching for Rocket to Russia. And the rest of the cast embraces the lovefest: Clint Howard is creepy suave as the bathroom mastermind Eaglebauer, Vincent Van Patten is an excellent goofball jock, and Paul Bartel is the ultimate square-transformed-punker as the music teacher gone Ramone. Plus, you can't go wrong with a Mary Woronov stormtrooper principle and a neatly plotted Dick Miller cameo.

BMX Bandits:  ‎"You're Right In The Poo Now, Sister!" From the director of Stunt Rock, Escape 2000, and Dead End Drive-In comes this bit of Australian BMX porn starring a young, fire frizzy redhead Nicole Kidman. Yes, she might be the star of Days of Thunder and Bewitched to you, but for me she'll always be the girl who took down the bumbling walkie-talkie goons of BMX Bandits (....and the grieving mother who slutted Billy Zane in Dead Calm). Ah, the 80s--I too was in love with BMXes and all their useless accessories and this film would be the perfect companion movie to the equally absurd, RAD.

--Brad