Racing with the Moon, C-.

Oh boy oh boy! We're up to 32 Nick Cage movies watched! Crossed the halfway point with this gem and Bringing Out the Dead.

What do we have here? A coming of age drama in which Nick Cage plays an idiotic womanizer who uses his friends? And do we also have a moody, whiny Sean Penn to boot? What more could I ask for?? Although it seems to have killed his career as a director, Richard Benjamin at least had the decency to shoot it in 1.85:1, unlike Zandalee.

The story involved Nicky (Nick Cage... hmm), his friend Henry (Sean Penn), and Henry's chubby chunkin' cheeked love interest, Caddie (Elizabeth McGovern). Nicky loves to run the gauntlet of loose women in town, while Henry is a one-girl man. All heck breaks loose when Nicky impregnates a girl and convinces her to abort it. Hilarity ensues as they are ushered off to war after doing a lot of yelling and moping.

Favorite Nick Cage Line: Wow, 200 bucks a shot. That's some business, huh?

Favorite Nick Cage Moment: When he's driving his hot rod away from the abortion, swigging from a booze bottle. Classy.

Gotta be honest, I had to look up a script to even find a decent NC line in the entire movie. Unlike many of his movies, it wasn't so much embarrassing as it was boring. Surprisingly, there were some saucy scenes in this (for whatever reason) PG movie underscored by a sensual saxophone soundtrack.

Zahanduhleeee

Zandalee, D.

This is the first of many Nick Cage (or is it Nic Cage?) movie reviews. I'm trying to make a bit of a formula so we have a good standard. I think it'll go something like this:

Opening Rant: We start off with an early-90s gem that looks made for TV, but has far too much nudity to play on the Super Station. Director Sam Pilsbury appears to be banished to TV movies after this, although he did direct the critically acclaimed Free Willy III. For whatever reason Zandalee only played in Hong Kong and Italy, which would explain the Chinese menus on the DVD from Netflix.

The Plot: Zandalee is married to a former-poet-now-exec who has no attraction to her whatsoever. Enter Nick Cage, long haired, cocaine addicted painter who sweeps Zandalee off her feet... in the other room... while her husband is entertaining guests. She falls for him, he falls for her, husband is unhappy, everybody's dead by the end except Nick Cage, who is very very sad.

Favorite Nick Cage Line: I wanna shake you naked and eat you alive.

Favorite Nick Cage Moment: Nick Cage is very upset, strips down to booty shorts, and rubs paint all over his body while screaming.

My Impression: Frankly, it was embarrassing to watch. Everybody was trying so hard to act, and obviously had no idea what they were doing. The filming was awkward, the bar scenes were quiet enough to hear a pin drop, and the ADR and sound mixing were typical TV terrible.

That wasn't so bad, was it? Far easier to read than Zandalee was to watch.

Oh the Folly

Look at that face. Look real good. That face is what me and my wife are looking at on a regular basis.

We realized that we both love and hate Nick Cage. We also thought we've seen a good number of his movies. Turns out we hadn't, so we decided we'd watch every NC movie ever made.

Madness, you say? Yes it is.

So far we've seen 26 of the 60 movies that are out on some sort of DVD/VHS release. About 10 of them were good, the rest were.... Nick Cage movies. I will attempt to review them all, but they will be brief, angry reviews.

I Dream of Ethan

Daybreakers, C.

Ah, the fresh smell of January movies. Although these releases are more like the day old bread section at a bakery. Still, it's good to be out and seeing movies since the I have not seen any for a while, and the last one I saw was Avatar (YUK!).

First selection of the year was Daybreakers. Honestly, have you ever seen an uglier poster? Must be why it's only floating around online. Whatever.

I was pretty excited about this movie. Ethan Hawke has been a favorite of mine every since I saw Gattica way back before Jude Law ruined his career. I even read a great interview in which he praised the movie as being original, not Twilightish, and most importantly (as I would learn after watching the movie) only 90 minutes long.

Daybreakers is the obvious final step where vampires are the norm and humans are in hiding. Being the primary food source helps keep your numbers down, I suppose. They did a very nice job of giving you a world view - buildings were different, cars had blacked out windows to avoid the sun. So many movies just tell you that the world is different, few go to the trouble of showing you the changes. I feel about this movie how I felt about District 9. It's a very pretty movie - there are some scenes that I giggled with happiness while watching - but on the whole the plot is pretty dull. I feel like there's a new movement of visual film makers who are capable of using technology to their benefit, but have little concern for storytelling.

All that said, it wasn't Twilight, so really can I complain too much? Yes I can. However, the DVD is worth renting just for the slow-mo scene of the vampire swat team slaughtering itself. It was like a painting in motion. Also, a severed arm was slowly twirling through the air.

Thanks for reading, and welcome to the movies in 2010!

2009 Movies Review

Final Movie Count: 52 movies, up 7 from last year.

I'm up a bit on A-graders from last year to 11, but I'm also up on C and D graders quite a bit. I guess you can't see this many movies and not see a lot of stinkers. I must add that with Allie's number's added in, total is probably up around 55ish seen on the year.

Colin's Top 5:

1. That Evening Sun
2. Rudo y Cursi
3. Zombieland
4. The Road
5. A Serious Man

I also could have included Coraline, Where the Wild Things Are, or Inglorious Basterds, but just didn't feel as strongly about them.

Colin's Bottom 5:

1. Fighting
2. An Education
3. G.I. Joe
4. The Time Traveler's Wife
5. Friday the 13th

I would have included some of the AFF movies I saw, but they didn't ever make it to distribution, I don't think. It was a tossup at the end between Orphan, Pandorum, and Friday the 13th. Walked out of the last one, so on the list it goes!

The only place to go from here is up up up! More movies this year! I still need to see at least one or two 2009 movies, so I may need to rework the list and the stats.

One Mega Review

So far this year I've reviewed 25 movies. Here are the other 27 I watched in 2009.

Transformers 2, C-. The first one was pretty dreadful, but it had decent entertainment value. This one took the cake on insultingly bad movies. Wowing an audience with CGI only works once, Mr. Bay.

Moon, A-. Sam Rockwell's always been a favorite of mine. He really has a chance to shine in this lonely space drama/thriller. I really enjoyed this movie, and it is one of my favorites for they year.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, C. Six months later, I honestly don't recall too much about his movie. That's not a happy sign for a film. I do remember not really recalling much about it at the time. So dreadfully boring!

Public Enemies, B-. Mann has been in a decline since... oh... Heat? This was better than Miami Vice, but still not what I expect out of a director of his caliber.

Bruno, C. NOT better than Borat. Some funny/shocking parts, but lacked the story that I was expecting after Borat. Some say it's not fair to compare to Borat. I do.

The Orphan, D. Typical bad horror. The twist was no twist, the horror was not horrible. It wouldn't end.

G.I. Joe, D-. We all knew going into the movie there were problems. I didn't know how bad it was until I saw the finished product. They're seriously making more of these?

Inglorious Basterds, A. I don't always like the QT movies, and really wasn't sure I'd like this one, but the opening scene really set the mood for a very good film.

District 9, C-. Over hyped, no plot, great CGI. Would have been in the D or F range if there wasn't good graphics. Let writers write and CGI guys make CGI. Don't let either of them direct.

The Time Traveler's Wife, D-. I got tricked into watching The Notebook!

9, C. I had high expectations for 9 after seeing the short film a few years ago at The Animation Show. Elijah Wood is just too weird as a voice actor.

Gamer, B. From the same guys who did the Crank movies, they have a really great style of movie making that is aways fun to watch, but leaves you feeling visually assaulted.

Surrogates, C-. As TheaterHopper said, if you could pick any body you want, why look like The Little Dutch Boy? Oh Bruce.... Bruce...

Pandorum, D+. Not sure why I put the plus. I didn't completely hate the movie, but I was just so boring. How do you have a space action/thriller with no action or thrills?

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, A-. A great animated movie. I just can't tell you how much fun it was to watch. Don't really care about 3D, and I don't think it would have improved it one bit.

Extract, B+. Mike Judge is back with another sad, weird movie. Get the DVD, you'll enjoy it.

Where the Wild Things Are, A-. Really beautiful, amazing film. It was just so... brown.

Zombieland, A. Nothing to do with this being filmed in Georgia, I really enjoyed this movie. It was hilarious and had great pacing.

Law Abiding Citizen, C+. Full of implausibilities and horrific acting. Mildly fun, but not enough to be more than a C range film.

A Serious Man, A+. The Cohens unleash an unfiltered Jewish masterpiece with this film. It was hardly funny, but still couldn't be anything but a comedy.

An Education, F. I don't want to hear anything about Carey Mulligan being the next anything. So what if she can wear bangs. That doesn't make her a good actress. What a dismal movie.

2012, C-. I was hoping for a C+.

Ninja Assassin, C-. Ninjas are magic until they meet: bumbling female lead, other ninjas, hummers and automatic weapons.

The Road, A. I have not read the book, but I hear it's a great interpretation. So very sad. And we get to see Vigo's saggy bottom once again.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox, B+. I can't help but enjoy good stop-motion movies. A strange movie, but very fun.

The Men Who Stare At Goats, D+. It didn't help we saw it on socially-awkward-moviegoers night, but the movie was so unfunny. It tried so hard to be funny.

Avatar, B-. I will write a full review later. The story was very engaging, but everything else was insanely disappointing.

That's all for 2009. Hopefully returning to full-size reviews soon.