The new Professor Layton game arrived at my doorstep yesterday afternoon! Been playing it almost non-stop since then (taking a break for sleep, of course :p). It's pretty fun, though at around the halfway point I think I have the story worked out completely, which sort of worries me ... hopefully another twist or two are thrown in there to rattle things up a bit. The early part of the game also had a bunch of puzzles of the type I'm totally awful at, haha; whereas, the part I'm at now has puzzles I'm good at, so somehow the game has become easier as I've gone along. Huh.
Dr. Strangelove (1964): Can't remember if I've written about the movie here before, but meh. My all-time favorite, and I had a blast watching it with everyone last week. (And, remember, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest tonight!) Dr. Strangelove is my ideal movie in many ways -- it's smart, tightly written and filmed (only 90 minutes but doesn't waste a single second), hilarious, amazingly acted (with just the right amount of ham), completely relevant decades after initial release (which is probably a bad thing considering the subject matter lol), and on and on and on. The movies don't get much better than this.
Doomsday (2008): I became aware of the movie after Alla's post on it a while back. It's totally dumb and isn't really working from an original base (the basic "killer virus rips through society, all hell breaks lose and damn it we need to find a cure" plot), but what makes the movie work is that it is completely aware of this and makes the proceedings entertaining by ramping everything up to 11. Doomsday has no illusions about what it is; it's a silly, crazy movie where the heroes are out to kick some ass and maybe find a virus cure along the way. And Malcolm McDowell gets to ham it up. And people explode every other scene and gush about a gallon of blood. When the movie titles itself Doomsday, it's not really joking around.
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984): I was really bored waiting for the mail to arrive, so I went to Netflix streaming searching for a horror movie and for whatever reason settled on this. The one thing the movie has going for it is that it's hilarious, although mostly from an unintentional standpoint. For one thing, Corey Feldman and Crispin Glover are in it, so that already shatters the unintentional comedy scale. (Feldman looks like Danny from The Shining, and Glover looks like he's going to break out into Morrissey karaoke at any moment.) The group of dumbass teenagers also happens to meet a pair of twins before they go skinny dipping in a lake. What timing! Also, one of the twins ends up sleeping with Glover, so she has hilariously low standards. In fact, every woman in this movie has shockingly low standards. Well, it would be shocking if this weren't a cheap horror movie.
Watching this movie also shows me that I'd die quickly in the Friday the 13th world, not because I lack the survival skills, but because my moral standards are apparently way more loose than acceptable. Maybe I've just been warped by degrading morals, but this movie's "slut" is pretty darn tame. Oh, she enjoys sex and admits to giving her boyfriend what he wants! My poor traditional heart can't take it! She doesn't even make eyes with any other guy, much less sleep with 'em. She's the most monogamous "slut" in history. The boyfriend's kind of a jerk because he strays from the path for a moment (by slow dancing with one of the twins, mind -- and, really, a group of teens is going to kill time by slow dancing? Really??), but he clearly cares about his girlfriend and gets stabbed in the balls by Jason for his trouble.
Even the virginal girl and hilariously bland boyfriend get killed once she sleeps with him for the first time. Damn, Jason, at least give her some time to reflect! I think he's just jealous because he never got any in his life. Maybe he should have asked out one of those twins. If they're willing to sleep with Crispin Glover, they'll probably have a go with Jason, which is their business, really.
Anyway, to make a long story short (too late), the difference between, say, Doomsday and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, is that the former embraces its shlockiness and is well made, while the latter embraces its shlockiness and is predictable, boring and stupid.
On the queue for this week: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), The Natural (1984)
Total Movies: 120 (The Taking of Pelham 123, The Station Agent, The Final Destination, Silent Movie, The African Queen, Departures, Moon, Bound, Solaris, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rifftrax), Wristcutters: A Love Story, In the Loop, Public Enemies, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (Rifftrax), Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Lagann-Hen, District 9, The Magnificent Seven, Night Moves, My Name is Bruce, Big Fan, Almost Famous, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, Drag Me to Hell, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Kara no Kyoukai 1-7, 9, Zombieland, Ninja Scroll, Primer, Re-Animator, Summer Wars, The Changeling, The Men Who Stare at Goats, Ponyo, Eden of the East: The King of Eden, Porco Rosso, Something Something Something Dark Side, Castle in the Sky, Robot Carnival, Halloweentown, Whisper of the Heart, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, Fiddler on the Roof, Kiki's Delivery Service, Genius Party, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, The Sky Crawlers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, My Neighbors the Yamadas, THX 1138, The Stepfather, Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks, Tremors, Horror of Dracula, The Brood, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, Rabid, Inglourious Basterds, Them!, The Yakuza, Alphaville, Ghost in the Shell, Priceless, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance, Whip It, A Boy and His Dog, Fletch, The Blind Side, Speed, June 17, 1994, Nobel Son, Invictus, Toy Story 3, The Two Escobars, Soylent Green, Up in the Air, Tyson, This Is Spinal Tap, The Proposition, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, The Informant!, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Macross: Do You Remember Love?, Coco Before Chanel, The Vanishing, Inception, Mind Game, Pale Rider, The Hurt Locker, Roujin Z, Broken Blade, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Black Christmas, Crazy Heart, The Man with Two Brains, Ninja Assassin, Panic Room, Mobile Suit Gundam I-III, Casablanca, Stray Dog, Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva, Memories, The Gold Rush, Paprika, Martian Successor Nadesico: The Motion Picture - Prince of Darkness, An Education, Eden of the East: Paradise Lost, Dr. Strangelove, Doomsday, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter)
