Monday Movie #5 – Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Monday Movies are back.  CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS is a computer animated kid’s movie that follows Flint Lockwood, an eccentric young scientist who invents a machine that can turn water into the food of his choice.  Things get interesting when the food generating machine is accidentally launched into the clouds, causing it to rain delicious food all over town.  Trouble arises when the raining food starts growing larger in size, threatening the entire town.

I swear that I’m not becoming one of those “child at heart” weirdoes.  The humor in CLOUDY really sharp, way smarter than 95% of the other comedies out there.  The voice cast is also pretty rad, including Bill Hader, Anna Faris, Andy Samburg and Mr. T.

Monday Movie #4 – Gay for Tom Cruise

Hi kids. Sorry about the lack of Monday Movies for the past few weeks. In an effort to make up for it, this week features three movies instead of the usual one. I should clarify that the title is a bit of a joke. I’m not actually gay for Tom Cruise. He seems like a weirdo, but he has been in a few good flicks.

Jerry Maguire

Everybody knows JERRY MAGUIRE, director Cameron Crowe’s 1996 megahit romantic comedy that starred Cruise as a sports agent who is fired after having a moral meltdown about his work. Cruise and the rest of the cast are great, and the movie itself sits somewhere in my all-time top 20.

Magnolia

MAGNOLIA is a 1999 drama that weaves together 9 different stories that occur one strange day in the San Fernando Valley. Paul Thomas Anderson wrote and directed the film, which follows a cop who loses his gun, a boy-genius game show contestant, a dying man, and a sleazy motivational speaker among others. There’s also a pretty rad scene involving a rare weather phenomenon . The movie is awesome, although the 3:08 runtime is definitely a bit much. They probably could have made a more effective movie if they’d lopped off about forty minutes.

War of the Worlds

Spielberg directed the 2005 version of WAR OF THE WORLDS, a modern day update of the HG Wells classic. Tom Cruise stars as a deadbeat dad who happens to have the kids during the weekend of the Martian attack. The movie is not only fantastic looking, but also very scary, especially for a PG-13 flick. The story has a rare nightmarish quality that really sucks you in and keeps things interesting.

Monday Movie #3 – Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy

Welcome to this special Tuesday entry of Monday Movies. I totally forgot to put one up yesterday. Oh well, better late than never. This week’s movie is the 1996 comedy, KIDS IN THE HALL: BRAIN CANDY. For those of you who don’t remember, the Kids in the Hall are a five-man Canadian sketch comedy group, most known for their TV show from the early 1990s. Dave Foley, Scott Thompson, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch and Mark McKinney make up the group.

BRAIN CANDY is most finely crafted sketch comedy movie I’ve ever seen. The Kids play nearly every character in the movie, each one playing multiple roles, male and female. The story is about a new anti-depressant drug, GLeeMONEX, which effectively pulls people out of their depression by making them mentally relive their happiest memory for a moment. The film follows a wide variety of characters who use the drug as it spirals out of control and becomes abused worldwide. Some of the depressed GLeeMONEX poppers include a bleak rock star, a suburban husband/father who is also a closeted homosexual, and an attention-starved elderly woman. The pharmaceutical team who created the drug tries fights to get the drug taken off the market after they discover an unanticipated, horrifying side effect.

It’s a one of a kind movie, in that they basically take a bunch of sketches and tie them together into a coherent, entertaining story. It’s seriously one of the funniest, most original movies that I’ve ever seen. For some reason or another it was a pretty big bomb, and not many folks have seen it. So that’s just another reason to check it out and be one of the cool kids.

Fun Fact: Many people believe that Mike Myers stole his Dr. Evil character from Mark McKinney’s BRAIN CANDY character, Don, CEO of the drug company.

Monday Movie #2 – Ed Wood

A long, long time ago, director Tim Butron used to make decent movies.  His 1994 biopic ED WOOD was one of them.  Johnny Depp gives his best performance playing Wood, a heterosexual cross-dresser who history remembers as the worst movie director of all time.  The movie is a quirky look at Ed Wood’s life from the beginning of his career through the completion of his most widely known film, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.  Martin Landau won an Oscar for his performance as a down and out Bela Lugosi, who Wood casts in his B-movies. 

Tim Burton had to fight a battle with the studio to shoot the film in black and white.  While the movie works and is fantastic looking, the B & W element probably did turn off a lot of the movie going public.  The movie cost $18 million to make and only grossed $5.8 million.  While it was a commercial failure at the time, ED WOOD has gone on to become a big cult hit, much like the films that Wood made himself.

Monday Movie #1 – Outside Providence

I’m sorry that I’ve been slacking on the blog lately.  There’s been some really good stuff on TV for the past couple of months.  In order to get back on the blogging wagon, I’m going to be writing a  weekly entry, Monday Movies, where I recommend a movie that I enjoy and briefly explain why I like it.

This week’s movie is OUSTIDE PROVIDENCE, a 1970’s era comedy about Tim Dunphy, an underprivileged teenager who is forced to spend his senior year of high school at an upscale prep school as a disciplinary measure after hitting a parked police car while stoned.  The movie is based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name written by Peter Farrelly, who also produced and co-wrote the screenplay.  Michael Corrente directs, while Shaun Hatosy, Alec Baldwin and Amy Smart star.

At it’s core, OUTSIDE PROVIDENCE is a fish-out-of-water comedy with a great 1970’s soundtrack and a funny and occasionally sweet screenplay.  The cast is great, and the visuals are very nice for a low-budget movie from 1999.  If nothing more, it’s far better than most teen movies out there.  There it is, Monday Movie #1.  Check back here in the coming weeks for more useless recommendations.

iPad Arcade

The Apple iPad hit store shelves this week.  Until recently I wasn’t too interested in the product.  From what I’ve seen, it’s pretty much just a bigger version of the iPod Touch.  Since I already have the iPhone, it’s really not a necessary purchase.  Definitely not for $500.

The only reason I see to invest in an iPad is to get the iCade cabinet that the folks thinkgeek.com are selling.  The iCade allows you to play hundreds of classic arcade games with a retro joystick and awesome arcade cabinet, using your iPad as the screen/computer.  The product runs $150, and unfortunately games are not included.  I’m not sure where you get them, probably the App Store.

Again, this is not something I’m personally going to buy.  It’s pretty cool, but I’m not about to drop $650($500 iPad + $150 iCade) to play 30-year-old video games.  Maybe when the lotto money comes in.  If you have some disposable income to burn and would like to buy an iCade for yourself, they’re available here:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/iCade.shtml

Although this is the second product of theirs that I’ve plugged this week, I swear I’m not being paid by thinkgeek.com.  However, I will happily accept their money or free products if they offer.

Rental Exclusives

I buy a lot of movies.  It’s been a few years since the last official count, but I think the collection is over 500 titles at this point.  A few years ago I realized that it isn’t really financially responsible for me to buy all my DVDs new at full price, so I started buying a lot of previously viewed movies from video stores. 

Some folks have given me flack for not buying everything new.  I don’t really get it.  I get most of my DVDs for around $5 a pop going the video store route.  That allows me to buy more movies.  It just makes more sense.  The only downside is that I sometimes have to spend a few minutes peeling rental stickers off of the cases and discs.

Anyway, the point of this blog is that video stores are now making it more difficult for me to collect my movies.  They’ve started stocking their shelves with “Rental Exclusive” movies, which are DVDs stripped of all special features and loaded with tons of unskippable previews.  I’m assuming that they get “Rental Exclusives” at a discounted price and they think most folks won’t care.  That doesn’t work for me.  I refuse to buy DVDs that are inferior to the regular store copies.  I actually watch the special features on movies that I care enough about to buy. 

Luckily for me, not all the video stores that I shop at carry the stupid bare-bones DVDs, so there are still a few places for me to find deals.  It’s still a big annoyance for collectors like me who have been saving hundreds of dollars a year by buying from video stores.

Rental copies of WHIP IT and THE HANGOVER, courtesy of Family Video.