Film #106: American Psycho (2000)

Plot - Capitalist hunk go crazy.

Form - Eh.

F/X - No.

Acting - Bale is over the top nuts, more entertaining than any raspy throat Batmans.

Mise en scene - Capitalist hunk domains overstated to the max.

Quotables - No.

Cool stuff - '80s music, really dumb ending.

1.5/7

Film #105: Snake Eyes (1998)

Plot - Nick Cage is a dirty cop who gets caught up in a dirtier conspiracy. It's silly at times, but fun usually.

Form - Lots of gratuitous POV scenes that are pretty cool.

F/X - Not really.

Acting - Gary Sinese and Nick Cage are the perfect over-the-top pair for this material.

Mise en scene - There's literally this one shot of money with blood all over it when they're talking about figurative blood money. It's so insane.

Quotables - No, even though they try.

Cool stuff - Lots. Pervs, dirty cops, dirty military men, dirty chicks, etc.

5/7

Film #104: Going Clear (2015)

Plot - It's the age old Scientology shaming documentary..

Form - People talk.

F/X - N/A.

Acting - People bein' real.

Mise en scene - N/A.

Quotables - Some quotable stuff. Mostly about alien souls and OT levels.

Cool stuff - The highest budget YouTube expose you'll ever see.

5/7

Film #103: Natural Born Killers (1994)

Plot - One of my eight-year-old self's favorites. Violent, so '90s it hurts fun.

Form - So '90s it hurts fun. Stylish TV backgrounds shame the media throughout.

F/X - See form.

Acting - Over-the-top from start to finish.

Mise en scene - Eh.

Quotables - A bunch.

Cool stuff - Tons.

6/7

Film #102: While You Were Sleeping (1995)

Plot - A dumb romantic comedy with a better story than Kill Bill Vol. 2. One thing I can't get over: Sandra Bullock's black "voice-of-reason" friend is constantly giving her stupid or contradictory advice. Also, there's the sleazy dude in the film who lays lame lines on Sandra, but then Bill Pullman says the exact same-ish line five minutes later and she swoons over him. Lame.

Form - Whatever.

F/X - N/A.

Acting - Lots of famous old people actors who were on sitcoms throughout the '90s.

Mise en scene - No.

Quotables - Nah.

Cool stuff - No.

1.5/7

Film #101: Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)

Plot - Lame.

Form - Same as the first, except with less action.

F/X - Not really.

Acting - Mostly bad.

Mise en scene - Less interesting plot leads to less interesting set design.

Quotables - No.

Cool stuff - Not really.

1/7

Film #100: Kill Bill Volume 1 (2003)

Plot - Scatter-brained junk, good sometimes.

Form - Stylish shit with lots of long dialogue sequences.

F/X - Great final battle.

Acting - Eh.

Mise en scene - Phenomenal. Tarintino, if anything, again proves himself to be a master of set design. Inglorious Basterds is probably my number one film of the 2000s for mise en scene even though the rest is awful.

Quotables - I dunno.

Cool stuff - Cool actions scenes, lots of space between them.

3.5/7

Film #99: Bound (1996)

Plot - Lesbians take down the mob.

Form - Erotic thriller with minimal erotic stuff, which is actually more watchable.

F/X - No.

Acting - Everyone sucks.

Mise en scene - Noiresque stuff.

Quotables - No.

Cool stuff - Great build up.

4/7

Film #98: I Don't Know Jack (2002)

Plot - Jack's life is mostly funny and oftentimes depressing, a perfect combination.

Form - People talk.

F/X - N/A.

Acting - People bein' real.

Mise en scene - N/A.

Quotables - Everything's quotable.

Cool stuff - I refuse to give away any details. It's just great.

7/7

Film #97: The Butterfly Effect (2004)

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Plot - Incredibly stupid, with an ending that suggests it's better that some people were never born. At all.

Form - Kind of cool, with very distinct feels for different sections. Of course, the fact that it bounces around so much is a little distasteful.

F/X - No.

Acting - Bad.

Mise en scene - See form.

Quotables - No.

Cool stuff - Premise collapses on itself, especially considering how narrow-focused all of these "LIFE CHANGING DECISIONS" really are. I mean, are we really supposed to believe that the four central characters are ALWAYS going to end up together from child to adulthood? Always? Can't suspend disbelief.

1/7

Film #96: Eraserhead (1977)

Plot - Good. It does some weird stuff.

Form - Good. It does some weird stuff.

F/X - Nice baby, organ removal, having sex in craters, moon's exploding, fun.

Acting - Jack Nance is absolutely amazing. I like watching David Lynch films just because he's in them.

Mise en scene - The main focus of the production. Gorgeous decaying sets.

Quotables - A really great song in the middle.

Cool stuff - Some scenes are just too artsy for their own good, but you never get the feeling it's malicious or attempting to insult the viewer like future Lynch "epics" Wild At Heart and Lost Highway.

6.5/7

Film #95: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (1984)

Plot - Buckaroo Banzai: neurosurgeon, particle physicist, and rock star.

Form - No.

F/X - Some great Star Wars stuff, especially during inter-dimensional travel.

Acting - Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Jeff Goldblum, and Christopher Lloyd put in great performances. Jeff Goldblum's inexplicably dressed as a cowboy half the film.

Mise en scene - Groovy sci-fi stuff.

Quotables - Probably a ton.

Cool stuff - Copious amounts. Great aliens, great heroes, ridiculously absurd plot.

6/7

Film #94: Rose Red (2002)

Plot - Spooky house problems, except the first hour and a half are needless exposition. Despite the 4+ hour run length, they still rush the ending.

Form - Some cool horror stuff.

F/X - Cool decaying ghosts, although they all just look like the Crypt Keeper.

Acting - The manchild is good, everyone else is whatever.

Mise en scene - Nice house.

Quotables - No.

Cool stuff - Bad CG does not cool stuff make.

2/7

Film #93: The Postman (1997)

Plot - Overtly patriotic to a fault, yet not in the same way as the boneheaded Rambo IIIs and Rocky IVs of the previous decade. There's an honesty to the whole thing, no matter how backwards it is: even in a world torn by apocalyptic Mad Maxianisms that the film initially throws at us, there's still hope to find in the little things. The whole package evokes much of the fun found in Field of Dreams and Dances With Wolves if you're into that sort of thing.

Form - Good.

F/X - Lots of big budget sets and such.

Acting - Easily the weakest point, but I can believe Costner as a post-apocalyptic postman more than Costner as an Indian or a Robin Hood.

Mise en scene - See F/X.

Quotables - There's a running thing where the main villains quote Shakespeare a bunch, I thought it was cute.

Cool stuff - A ton. I don't think there was one sequence I felt was unnecessary or unappealing, a marvelous feat considering the film's three hour run time. The whole thing's just plain simple fun.

6.5/7

Film #92: The Dark Half (1991)

Plot - Based on the Stephen King novel that I simply had to put down due to the obnoxious father character in the first fifty pages of the novel. The film's far more concise, but still runs a little long.

Form - Straightforward.

F/X - A little cool gore, something absent in most King adaptations.

Acting - Michael Rooker is well cast, something that almost never happens.

Mise en scene - No.

Quotables - "He was castrated and had his penis stuck in his mouth."

Cool stuff - The best special effects are literally in the first and last five minutes of the film.

3.5/7

Film #91: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

Plot - Hot off the success of the charming Dances With Wolves, this Kevin Costner vehicle tries to go for the same general pacing and tone. Too bad the story of Robin Hood sucked in the first place.

Form - Irreverent and fun.

F/X - Sure. There's some bows and arrows and stuff?

Acting - Truly a ridiculous ensemble cast, Kevin Costner, Christian Slater, Morgan Freeman, and Alan Rickman put in some of the most out of place performances ever: Costner is his usual "am I actually acting?" self, Slater is his usual coked out self, Rickman is Hans Gruber Two. Freeman, oddly enough, totally screws up his character, switching between some weird Moor accent and his usual soothing croon. Sean Connery even makes a totally useless cameo in the end.

Mise en scene - Pretty locales.

Quotables - Rickman keeps talking about ripping people's hearts out with a spoon.

Cool stuff - The fight sequences would be cool, but they're all twenty seconds long. Puh.

3/7

Film #90: The Tommyknockers (1993)

Plot - Two part mini-series, evidently I only saw the second half. It was easy to follow anyway. Twin Peaks vibe with a Body Snatchers plot.

Form - Like the Twin Peaks of TV movies.

F/X - Alien decapitations, explosions, good stuff.

Acting - Okay.

Mise en scene - Nice spaceship areas.

Quotables - No.

Cool stuff - Very crazy and very influenced by trends of the time, Tommyknockers is pretty awesome. Like the X-Files/Twin Peaks/good TV movies? Check it out!

5.5/7

Film #89: The Search for John Gissing (2001)

Plot - Lengthy black comedy in a world filled with them, Gissing doesn't really have a whole lot to say outside of the occasional raunchy situation.

Form - Eh.

F/X - None.

Acting - Plenty of who-cares actors and actresses in here playing themselves: Janeane Garofalo, Alan Rickman, etc.

Mise en scene - No.

Quotables - Stuff about having sex with a nun.

Cool stuff - Depends on if you have a very '90s definition of cool stuff, which I do.

2.5/7

Film #88: Dark Harbor (1998)

Plot - Utter garbage about a couple who randomly meet an obnoxious teenager who thinks he's the sexiest man alive. Film is terribly undeveloped, with different character motivations seeming trivial. Rickman goes from being a loving husband to abusive in three minutes at one point, and Walker decides she wants to leave him because of it. Should have tacked on an extra half hour to make any of that sensible. Terrible twist ending makes the entire affair LGBT.

Form - Yuck. Long takes of crap.

F/X - None.

Acting - Everybody sucks. Alan Rickman goes back and forth constantly between bad American accent and his native British.

Mise en scene - No. Lots of swamp and water.

Quotables - No.

Cool stuff - None at all.

0/7

Film #87: The Shining (1980)

Plot - Mushy, all over the place, overtly post-modern. Sometimes it's cool, but it often stumbles into something lame right after.

Form - Occasional greatness.

F/X - Some cool stuff, blood, dead people, decaying.

Acting - Nicholson is okay, but Shelley Duvall is annoying.

Mise en scene - Maybe the film's strongest point. Everything is set up in a way to accentuate just how bleak this film is.

Quotables - If you like the obnoxious pop culture iconic kind.

Cool stuff - I finally realized why I don't like this film: it's a forced "statement", a pretentious slab of creativity that I'm supposed to acknowledge for it's artistry. I'd rather watch Jason take Manhattan.

4/7