Movie-palooza

As the Mini-W and I are wont to do whenever we have one to two weeks of holiday time, we again went to Hollywood Video and swiped whole shelves of movies at random and watched them all in an orgy of movie gluttony. If you're a long time Rouge Waver, you know that we are totally omnivorous. We'll see anything. Generally, we try to stay away from the New Releases because we've already seen many of them and if we haven't, there's plenty of time. We go for the stuff on the second shelf from the bottom in the quiet sections and we go for the Movies We Should Have Seen. So here's what we've seen so far (oh, we still have a few days left. Just watch us.):

HAMLET2: Other than a couple of pretty hilarious moments, not as funny as we thought it would be. We really, really wanted to love this movie. One particular line of dialogue that is totally horrible and inappropriate is very, very funny and if you've seen this movie, you know what I mean and you laughed too. Rock Me Sexy Jesus is funny but we just sort of ran out of gas on this movie.

SABRETOOTH*: Total B-movie HILARITY. A highly recommended rip off of Jurassic Park (Primal Park: Genetic Engineering at a Reasonable Price). Sample dialogue: "We've done tests. The cats are bulimic."

*Yeah, I spelled that the way they did. British affectation or bad spelling? We don't know.

BLUE DEMONS: B-Movie but with an ironic wink, therefore not as hilarious. Genetically altered sharks chase down - wait for it - nuclear weapons at sea. Electronic readings of red dot groupings of sharks moving up coast - hilarious. Not as funny as SHARK SWARM.

FEAR: Mark Wahlberg stalks Reese Witherspoon in this 1996 thriller set in Seattle. Good but not particularly memorable. As far as crazy-teen-stalker movies, we preferred SWIM FAN.

RESIDENT EVIL: We LOVED it but have been warned again the sequels. Milla Jovovich receives four out of five bad ass points for amazing martial arts moves in a red cocktail dress. Scientific explanation for zombies was buyable, creepy child-hologram of the Red Queen was very cool.

CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS: One of the most engrossing, compelling, disturbing documentaries we've ever seen. Highly recommended. Will provoke an interesting conversation and some depression later.

STEPBROTHERS: Brothers were clearly functionally retarded not charming or funny man-boys. Impossible to relate to or root for main characters and their parents were remiss not to put both "men" on the short bus on the way to special class rather than force them to live on their own. This gap in logic perplexed and annoyed us. P.S.: Dear Judd Apatow and ancillary crew - man-boys are neither charming nor funny. Please stop making movies.

30 DAYS OF NIGHT: As mentioned on an earlier post - we LOVED this clever horror gem.

SHIVER: Spanish-language horror film brought to us by the producers of THE ORPHANAGE (which we loved). Great production values, some scary moments but overall, not super memorable. Clever twist that we didn't see coming but it's delivered pretty early.

DEEP SHOCK: B-Movie carnage with some hilarity. The monster turns out to be giant sea eels that look like something from THE NEVER ENDING STORY - thing is, these eels can read your mind and also email you. You think I'm kidding.

MULBERRY ST.: An offering from the Eight Films to Die For annual film festival. Good production values, effects and acting. Surprisingly good zombie flick.

RUN FAT BOY RUN: A stylized romcom starring Simon Pegg (who we LOVE) and directed by David Schwimmer. We liked this very much. We were surprised and slightly uncomfortable to note that Hank Azaria is RIPPED.

FIRST BLOOD: This first installment of the Rambo series seemed dated and... didn't work for us. The thing tied on Rambo's head was super goofy looking. Heartfelt soliloquy at end of movie was pretty amazing but it was too little too late. Oft imitated since, possibly seminal at the time, this movie felt thoroughly dated.*

*Note to self: Should probably watch seminal movies when they are released, not 26 years later.

EQUILIBRIUM: This sci-fi movie depicts a dystopian future in which having emotions is illegal. Starring Christian Bale and Emma Watson, this movie should have been great but - wasn't. Great action sequences although weird gun-ballet-martial-arts thing was unintentionally funny.

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