Surviving the Game is the great movie of all time

Surviving the Game. "I like my meat RARE!" "Try well-done, Bitch!"

Directed by Ernest R. Dickerson in 1994, this insane flick was a staple in my household through junior high. Dickerson’s second after Juice. His next two were Demon Knight and Bulletproof. What a four-film run. He was also the cinematographer for Def By Temptation. 

One of several "The Most Dangerous Game" ripoffs where rich dudes hunt people with an all-star “that guy” lineup. 

Stars Ice-T, Rutger Hauer, Charles S. Dutton, John C. McGinley, Gary Busey (whom I share a birthday with), and F. Murray Abraham. 

Like I said, I feel like it was on all the time when I was younger and I watched it every time I saw it come on. I watched it probably 10 times then. 

As an adult, it holds up! But it is ridiculous. Not that it wasn't then either. Still love it. 

Men in Black 3 is the greatest movie of all time

MIB3. "Boris the Animal!" "It's just Boris!" Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld in 2012, it's pretty good, but not great. 

Gist is 10 years after Men in Black II, Agent K and Agent J are back at when Boris the Animal escapes from prison, travels back in time, and kills Agent K, which allows his species of alien, the Boglodites, to invade/destroy Earth. 

It stars Will Smith as J with Tommy Lee Jones reprising his role as K. Josh Brolin plays the younger version. Jemaine Clement from What We Do in the Shadows and  Flight of the Concords plays Boris. 

Also stars Emma Thompson and Alice Eve as Agent O, "that guy" actor Michael Stuhlbarg (might recognize him from A Serious Man, Call Me By Your Name, and/or Doctor Strange) as a clairvoyant alien, and Mike Colter (Luke Cage) as J's dad. 

Slept on this for a long time. Definitely serviceable for a big-budget action film. Probably my second favorite of the franchise after the original. Jemaine is always a pleasure and really makes the movie for me. 

Scanners is the greatest movie of all time

Scanners. "We're gonna do this the scanner way. I'm gonna suck your brain dry! Everything you are is gonna become me. You're gonna be with me Cameron, no matter what. After all, brothers should be close, don't you think?"

Directed by David Cronenberg in 1981, I consider this his masterpiece. This movie doesn’t fuck around. Gets weird immediately and just keeps moving toward some real shit. The famous head explosion happens in the first 10 minutes, a real surprise. Don’t even know who anybody is at that point. 

Does an incredible job of world-building, no wasted time. Still is clear without exposition. Cronenberg is a master filmmaker. Special effects are out of this world. Cronenberg is the guy for body horror. Has a lot of that. Bulging veins and bleeding, eyes popping out, so forth. 

Main character, Stephen Lack, is a pretty good actor. Reminds me of the guy from the outsider. Doesn’t act anymore. He is now a painter. The guy who plays Revok, Michael Ironside, is a poor man’s Jack Nicholson. He is outstanding. 

Word of advice. If you’re pumping gas and a telephone wire spontaneously burst into flames, don’t pull the pump out of the car so it pours onto the ground under said burning wire. 

Ending is pretty weird and ambiguous. Awesome flick.

The Meg is the worst movie of all time

The Meg. "Meg versus man isn't a fight... it's a slaughter." Directed by Jon Turteltaub in 2018. It was sort of fun but bad. 

The film stars Jason Statham as the megaladon expert whom everyone thinks is crazy but then saves the day. Also in the flick are Li Bingbing who is big in China, Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office), Ruby Rose (the Bieber-looking chick in Orange Is the New Black), Winston Chao (also big in China), and Cliff Curtis from Training Day and Doctor Sleep, among other things. Gist is a group of scientists find a 75-foot-long megalodon shark while on a rescue mission on the floor of the ocean. The shark then does what sharks in movies do.

Some things... The CGI is terrible. Lot of minor characters sacrificing themselves. So much I’ll-advised jumping in the water. 

At one point they make it seem like a dog dies, but that dog is way too adorable, so they make a point to show she survived. Fuck yeah. I mean, all kinds people and prob kids died. But you better not kill the fucking dog. Def bumped it up a couple of stars for me. Like the extended scene of regular shark revenge at the end.

Logan’s Run is the greatest movie of all time

Logan’s Run. "Just so many people want it to exist, so many people who don't want to die... They want it so much that a place called Sanctuary becomes real. But it doesn't exist. It never existed. Just... just the hope." Directed by one Michael Anderson in 1976, this movie was awesome. 

Gist is everybody in this future society is fed this Giver lie they will “renew” If they are willingly (and dramatically) killed at 30 years old. If they fight back or try to run then they are still killed but without the promise of renewal. Course this is all bullshit and Logan is tasked with finding the supposed sanctuary where runners go. 

Michael York from Cabaret plays Logan. Farrah Fawcett makes an appearance. Roscoe Lee Brown plays a robot and is the only black person in the movie. Little girl from Airplane. Peter Ustinov, Famous for playing Poirot in the 70s and 80s. He’s the only person supposedly over 30 in the movie. There is a contortionist I like and follow who is in movies and TV, often as a corpse or somebody dies horribly and is all mangled up. She is also the robot Flow in a Progressive commercial and the well ghost that crawls around in one of the Ring movies. Well, I follow her on Instagram and she hangs out with her dad a lot, and he is in this movie, whom I somehow incredibly recognized. 

Lot of jumping from high places in sudden nudity. Future apparently has a lot of orgy rooms. Plus the people in this movie have their own little capital riot. 

Favorite bit is when they are out in the world and find this guy who has all these pet cats. They are all like, “what are these creatures.” The guy then tells them all about cats. Says every cat has three names. The name you call them, their fancy name, and then the name they call themselves. Sounds about right.

Designed to Kill is the worst movie of all time

Designed to Kill. "The camera loves you!" No, it doesn't. Directed by one Doug Campbell back in 2018, this is truly one of the worst movies I've ever seen.  

Has three different names, which is a great sign: Designed to Kill, Deadly Runway, and Fatal Fashion. Going to a live show for "How Did This Get Made?" on Tuesday. This is the movie they are discussing. It is, indeed, trash.

Gist is a crazy woman who works as a fashion photographer and later a high school teacher, turns a nerdy high school student into a supermodel. He is no looker, this guy, but he slays it on the runway in this flick. Eventually, her obsession with him drives her to homicidal madness which goes from crazy to unbelievable when they start fucking. This chick is mentally unwell. 

Not a single actor I recognize. The crazy chick is extremely attractive though. There is no way I would have finished this if I wasn't going to see HDTGM. I don't know, shitting on a Lifetime movie of this quality is pretty low-hang fruit. 

Trainwreck: Woodstock '99

Trainwreck: Woodstock '99. Dir Jamie Crawford in 2022. Love a documentary about a shitshow music festival. This one of two to come out in the last few years regarding Woodstock ’99. I order this on pay-per-view at the time and was extremely disappointed. I vividly remember the footage of things going to absolute shit during the Chili Peppers’ set. 

Tells the story of how corporate greed—rampant cost-cutting and overpricing food and water—, violence, sexual assault, and environmental hazards led to attendees setting fires and rioting after the final performance.

The lighting shit on fire portion of the show came about when a group anti-gun violence of peace promoters distributed candles for a candlelight vigil to be held during the Chili Peppers' performance of the song "Under the Bridge". Following said song, people used the candles to start bonfires, using the out-of-control mountains of trash to fuel them. 

The sexual violence stuff is super disturbing. Also disturbing is the way the main organizers put all the blame on the people attending the show. You can only push a crowd so far, and this crowd had had enough. 

Personally, I preferred The Ringer’s documentary, Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage along with their podcast Break Stuff: The Story of Woodstock '99, a little more.

Bad Day at Black Rock is the greatest movie of all time

Bad Day at Black Rock. "This town's wrecked, just as though it was bombed out. Maybe it can come back..." "Some towns do and some towns don't. It depends on the people." Directed by John Sturges in 1955, I loved this proto-neo-western. On my western Mount Rushmore. 

Stars Spencer Tracy as a guy who goes to this tiny desert town of seven or eight buildings and a bunch of assholes. He pulls in on the train which hasn’t stopped there in four years. Shows the whole town buzzing as it travels down the line. It’s a phenomenal opening. As he gets off the train, he tells the conductor “I won’t be here but for a couple of hours.” Guy replies “in a place like this, that can be a lifetime.” 

Gist is Spencer Tracy is looking for a Japanese man whose son saved his life during the war. Wants to give him his purple heart. Takes place in 1945. The townsfolk tell him he went to an internment camp after Pearl Harbor. But they obviously murdered him. No big mystery there, but Tracy is stuck there for a day and it doesn’t look like he’s going to make it. Immediately people are threatening his life and so forth. 

Big bad is played by Robert Ryan. The only female in the movie is Anne Francis. Ryan’s goons include Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin. Quite an all star duo there. 

Favorite line is when Spencer Tracy is talking to the sheriff. Sheriff is basically like, “I don’t care what you have going on, you made a mistake coming here.” Tracy replies, coming out hot, “The thing I like about Black Rock is everyone is so polite, which really makes for gracious living.” Amazing flick.

Assassination Nation is the greatest movie of all time

Solid but fucked up movie. Really intense. Home invasion shit is REAL. This is a terrifying movie. Comes out the gate with a trigger warning. You should pay attention to it. 

More or less a data hack horror flick where a small town's secrets are exposed. Ultimately, chaos descends and four girls must fight to survive as the town blames them even they were victims of the hack themselves. While things start out being set in reality, things devolve into The Purge by the end. 

Supposedly a satirical black comedy, I didn't see much humor in the film. Directed by Sam Levinson. Ensemble cast has some star power behind it. The star is this Odessa Young woman. Only seen her in The Stand so far. Her crew consists of Suki Waterhouse, Hari Nef, and Abra. 

A bunch of minor but pivotal roles from Anika Noni Rose (who was a real heat check performance), Bill Skarsgård from It, Joel McHale, and Colman Domingo from the new Candyman flick. 

Feel super shit for the principal. A photo of his child in the bath got leaked. She's like kindergarten aged. Everyone is sure he is a pedophile. "Look at the context of who I am as a person!" Nah, "LOCK HIM UP!!!" 

Bret Easton Ellis aspect to it. Example, there is a voice-over about why a girl loves a guy while he berates her IRT.