Top 5 Hung-over on Sunday morning movies

This category started for me back in college after a Halloween party. We all woke up completely hungover, half in our costumes and could barely think. Somehow the tv got turned on and Footloose had just begun. No one had bothered to change the channel. All we could do was lay there and laugh and make comments about the 80’s ridiculousness on the screen. Over the next couple of years, on hungover Sundays, a few other movies happen to be on tv or were intentionally put on because there was nothing else to do. Below are five movies that have helped me during a hangover on a Sunday.

(You’ll notice one common theme. None of them are extremely high-rated. These aren’t Oscar-worthy movies. Just thoroughly entertaining when you are too weak and dehydrated to stand.)


Footloose (58%) This is the one that started it all. Classic fish-out-of-water story. The premise alone is fantastic: trying to bring dancing back to a danceless community. It’s got everything, 80’s music, multiple fist fights, anger-dancing, one-liners while dropkicking the villain, two little kids randomly punching each other.

Point Break (67%) - Mindless action in a sunny location. Surfing, guns, chases, “speak into the microphone squid brain”, parachuting fighting. I like it because its two guys trying to out-do each other at crazier stunts. BTW Keanu wins when he jumps out of the plane with no parachute….until…Bodhi rides the ultimate wave and goes out on his own terms.


Roadhouse (42%) Oh boy, where to begin. “You’re my Saturday night thing”? Tough-guy philosopher? Nah, it has to be when Swayze rips the guys throat out by the river…and then the 25 interspersed bar fights.

Rocky 4 (n/a) Not sure why this doesn’t have a rating. But I guess it should be in the high 100’s. Great soundtrack, even though the songs are only known because they were in this movie. Stallone knows how to hype up a villain and then chop him down. And it subtly addresses some steroid use – which I never caught onto as a kid. And there are four montage sequences. It’s amazing. The actually movie is only like 20 minutes long without them.

Office Space (79%) This is mostly in here because it makes me feel better about going to work on Monday. I usually get deep Sunday night blues but when I watch this I realize we’re all in it together. But not caring about your job is one of the great freedoms of the world.

Anti sci-fi lovers sometimes get stopped from seeing some good movies that aren’t really sci-fi

I do not consider myself too much of a sci-fi fan. Star Trek or Star Wars don’t do too much for me. Aliens that look like semi-humans with strange forehead wrinkles but are still aliens dont impress me. I’ll watch the Rings trilogy for the action but don’t get anything out of spells and trolls. However, there are some movies that fall under the Sci-fi genre that I consider more horror or action than actual sci-fi. Where the human element is in the forefront and the sci-fi aspect sort of stumbles into it.
Take the Alien movies for example. Yes, they take place in space and are about aliens. So right there is has two HUGE sci-fi aspects to it. But to me, it doesn’t feel like sci-fi. They are action horror movies that just so happen to take place in space. Ridley Scott says in his Alien (99%) commentary that he wanted to make “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in space. He put regular looking working class people doing basically “oil rig” work in space. Instead of a maniac killing them, its something unknown and ruthless. Its basically a minimalist survival tale. I remember as a kid thinking the last 20 minutes of the movie were devastatingly scary. I couldn’t imagine being the only person left and having to get from one part of the ship to another with “something” out there. Aliens, (an amazing 100%) is more of an action film but with horror moments and a lot of character depth to it. Alien 3 (32%) is actually one of my favorite movies. Sure it was marred by serious production woes and a questionable script origin, however it is a very dark movie with serious “Is there a God” tones. David Fincher made it his own and I have become a huge Fincher fan. I don’t pay attention to any of the sequals/spinoffs after that as the quality of the films seriously decline.



Yes, there is a distinct possibility that aliens do not exist. There has been no widespread known physical evidence so far. However, the same can be said from different people about ghosts, God and the Devil.



The Terminator movies fall into this category as well. Okay, yes again, they deal with robots and the future, two more major sci-fi aspects. But again, it takes place in a human world and the sci-fi parts kinda just stumbles into it. In fact, the first Terminator (100%) has been quoted as “This is a monster movie” in many reviews. Just a thing that comes after you and seemingly cant be killed, like in Halloween or Friday the 13th movies. Terminator 2 (97%) upped the CGI anti and filled it with more heart. It is also a darker story that explores fate vs inevitability vs responsibility.



I actually think Terminator 3 (70%) is smarter than most people give it credit for. Sure it doesn’t really bring anything revolutionary to the table, but it’s the 3rd movie in a franchise, its hard to be original without being a completely different movie. It also has several silly moments which weren’t needed. But it is a well thought story line. The movie also answers a question that the first two movie (as good as they are) contradict. If they stop the war from happening, how can the terminator be sent back to assists them, thus, enabling the whole story to exist. T3 makes a plausible and depressing case that the war is inevitable which explains why the terminators were able to be sent back. Also, there is a major gap between the present days of the first two movies and the supposed war in the future. The third movie actually shows the days leading up to the day it all begins, filling in that “audience-distancing” gap.
There are many movies that talk about technology advancing and ultimately turning on us, (I Robot, A.I., The Matrix), that the idea of it actually getting to the point is somewhat plausible. If you look at the world fifty years ago and look at the technological progression up to present time and then project forward another fifty years of compounded advances, there will be a thin line separating our complete dependence on technology. There will be a point where we will have to figure out if we as people will ever be able to live without computer assistance. On top of that, computers can closely be compared to human brains and we eventually evolved. And the thing is, they would evolve stronger, smarter and faster than us, and the scariest aspect is they would be and emotionally indifferent only using percentages to rationalize their decisions. If computers somehow evolve someday into something resembling free will, that would make us their God’s, and look at all the wars that started over religion.

Frustration with my adoration of Rob Zombie movies

(pre-edit: I am not a prude in my life. I swear with the best of them, but usually when I’m just trying to emphasis a point or hit my elbow on something)

Also - Trying not to belittle any readers with obvious definitions but it took me a while to find the perfect work for my dislikes for his movies, I will be using this word a lot.

Crass: So crude and unrefined as to be lacking in discrimination and sensibility.

I like two of Rob Zombie’s three movies. But I wish I could respect them more. I saw five minutes of “10,000 Corpses” (16%) but just couldn’t watch anymore. The humor was too crass and sophomoric. I can not really comment past that. After I got laid off several years ago I had a lot of time on my hands. After all my writing chores and housework were done for the day, I set 2 hours aside to watch a movie. This is when I came across The Devils Rejects (53%). I rented it with low expectations knowing it was a loose sequel to a movie I couldn’t even watch. Well I was pleasantly shocked with it. It had me right at the moment the opening gunfight scene starts. He uses freeze frame shots combined with a heavy base cord to hammer up the tension.



“Rejects” seems more thought-out and refined. It had an old sixties, seventies feel to it like Sam Peckinpah. The intentional use of freeze frames and grainy film quality showed me that he had a specific look he was looking for achieve and his attention to detail was apparent. It has a dusty, dry-dirt appearance where everything looks sandblasted. You can tell there was real effort put into it. The Sound track is top notch. Being the heavy rocker that Zombie is, he had an entirely classic rock and western music soundtrack. But he used his hard-rock talents to create some effective instrumental music peppered throughout the movie. As a bass lover, I think that type of music is fantastic. He achieves the same effect in the Halloween remake (27%) to, music wise and cinematography wise. I like the way the movie looks and feels. Its production value looks far superior to the latter entries of the franchise. The detail of the famous mask was great and there is a distinct ominous aura about it.

I am also impressed with some of his scenes he creates and the dialogue given to the characters within these scenes. The standouts being outlined below:

- The movie critic scene in “Rejects”
- The climactic scene with Sheriff Wydell tormenting his captives.
- In Halloween, the short dialogue exchange between Laurie in her mother, trying to get Mr Bones, the Halloween decoration, back together again.
- The short “vacation” talk between Laurie’s parents on the porch
- The entire hospital interaction between Michael and Loomis

He excels in these scenes. These little touches add so much to the film. It gives them credence.


Now the dislikes

Where Rob Zombie loses me is his proclivity to sporadically use crass dialogue and embarrassing character behavior. It mars the overall adult-looking effort that was put into the film. I was legitimately excited to see a Halloween remake directed by Rob Zombie. It didn’t take long before I was disappointed. The entire first 15 minutes of the film that takes place in the Myers house and in the boys lavatory is awful. So much degenerative dialogue is spoken that it feels like it’s overboard and too much, trashy. If just seems so forced.

I get what he was trying to do: to show exterior circumstances that help lead him to his killing ways. But the trashiness was just so blatantly put out there. There are other ways to display a bad home life other than incessantly swearing and making gross sexual comments. How about patiently showing neglect for the kid or the effect of a depressed parent has on a child. I don’t really have an exact answer for Rob, but there are more subtle ways to do it. Actually whenever I watch his Halloween, I start it right before little Mike kills everyone, completely bypassing the first 15 minutes.

I also don’t understand the director’s version of the escape scene. The theatrical version was fine, it worked. The dvd version seems to exists to just push the envelope. But it simply appears mean and adolescent. Now, Zombie is a smart guy. I’ve seen many interviews and heard his commentaries and he knows what he is doing and has a realistic approach to developing his movies. Hell, I’d love to have lunch with the guy. However, I do not understand his seemingly need to sabotage his good parts.

Someone once told me that people use swears when either A) they are trying to emphasize their point or B) They don’t know what else to say. I believe swearing can be cathartic. It can feel good and it has its places, like getting into a car and hitting your head on the rearview mirror, then you punch the mirror accidentally breaking it….uh….I digress. I also believe that if you limit its use, it becomes more powerful. For example, near the end of Catcher in the Rye, when Holden Caulfield sees the word “f*ck” (first time used in novel) written on the school wall, it stands out harshly and you can feel that one word is a comment on society. It was so powerful at the time that people actually wanted to ban the book. However instead, it is now considered a classic.

Growing closer and farther: One movie I appreciate more than before and one movie I once loved but now have moved on

Back in 1992 when I was a freshman in high school, I used to love horror movies and every weekend I would try to rent to bloodiest and goriest movies I could find. My older brother and his friends came across two movies called Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. They left them on the coffee table one day so I watched them. Being the typical adolescent I was, I loved them. So it was around that time when I saw a preview for Army of Darkness (78%). I obviously saw it immediately saw and thought it was the best movie ever made. To me, Bruce Campbell was the best hero ever!!!! I even cut out and saved the Hartford courant review for it. Which is weird, I know this….now

It was out of the theaters in like a week. I was p*ssed that I wouldn’t be able to watch it until I could rent it on VHS months later. Then one day I noticed it was playing at a nearby Drive-in (paired with Scent of a Woman…wtf!) So we went and I still loved it. I have since bought it on DVD and seen the alternate version, but my love for it crumbled down into a mild appreciation for its humor. Technically, it’s a rather budget looking film and the humor can be sophomoric at times, but there are still some classic one-liners in there. The special effects however are severely dated. It’s somewhat sad not liking a movie anymore that you once thought was the greatest of all time. It is because it is proof that you have changed and a reminder that things/love/complete $#%^ing obsession doesn’t last forever. That being said, I still believe it has one of the best movie endings of all time

On the other side

Unforgiven (96%) came out on HBO when I was in high school. I found a blank VHS tape and put it in the VCR and got all ready to record it when my parents came in the room and started watching it too. After several scenes, the dreaded “C” word was said and my stepfather promptly said “that’s too much” and turned off the cable box. Luckily they left the room within a minute so I quickly turned the cable box back on. Now, a brief cable history lesson for the little ones out there, back in the day cable boxes did not work like Tivo does today. If you shut off the cable box during recording, when playing it back all you would see is a blurry preview channel scrolling through channel listings. So, in subsequent viewings of that movie, I always missed that one minute of the movie. (but in that 1 minute I could tell that Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach was on a pretty heavy rotation at the time).

Between going away to college, travelling everywhere and getting situated in a house in a different state, I only recently got to watch this movie again (in a glorious Hi-def dvd format). Maybe it’s because I am older, or perhaps it was because of the incredible detail on Hi-def on my 84” movie screen, or it could even been finally seeing that one lost minute, but the movie was more amazing and deeper than I ever had previously realized. As a kid, I really thought it was just an action movie. There were good guys and there were bad guys. As a kid, you instinctively root for the good guys. If not, well then, good luck in life. I had no idea I was watching a movie that had won Oscars.

Watching it through older eyes, I could see that there really aren’t any clear good guys and bad guys in the movie. The main character, the guy you’re supposed to identify with is a former murderer of innocent people, now reformed. He is reformed because of the death of his wife. She got him off of drinking (which seems to be the cause of his once nefarious ways). Throughout the movie he repeats to others around him that he is different now and not “like that” anymore. The real meat of the story comes in the final 20 minutes when circumstances cause Eastwood’s character to take a drink for the first time in many years. Seeing him take a swig of the alcohol and the look in his eyes, you can tell he transforms back into the man he once was. He was on a mission to destroy anyone associated with what got him to take that first drink. And as he strolls into town through the pouring rain with vengeance on his mind, you see the empty whisky bottle thrown into the mud. This is when you know he will finish what he needs to. No going back.

The west, and movies about the west, were all about rumors and building people into tall legends. These rumors are what this movie is about, or at least deconstructing those rumors. It takes place in the late 1890’s which is around the time the Cowboy way was dying out. Commercialism and technology started prevailing. People started giving themselves nicknames by lying and increasing the numbers of the people they killed, like the Schofield Kid and English Bob did. This is unlike Eastwoods character who actually doesn’t correct peoples stories about him when they under-number the amount he actually killed. After the killing deeds are done you hope the main character digression is temporary, but in the end, all you get is that “rumor has it” about the rest of his life. It’s a great story told during a great time period and the best part is that it is told with such depth.

Why do movies I think are brilliant or “better-than-the-average” get low ratings?

There is a terrific movie review website out there named after past-ripe vegetables which is a grouping of national and international movie reviews. The collective yay’s or nay’s are counted and put into percentage points for an overall score. It’s a pretty good barometer on mass appeal and quality film-making. In general, everyone out there can sense if a movie is good or not. Then they employ their interests and knowledge to sway it they liked it or not. Saying that, there are some movies I find myself in the vast minority when I look at the site. There are 3 movies that I will mention/defend here, all from different genres and different ratings. As I write this I am hoping to find out why this is.

Vanilla Sky - 39% - I do not understand how this movie is not more well-liked. Maybe this just happens to be a case of it hitting all my likes and none of my dislikes at the same time. I believe the story is deep and contains very interesting characters. The use of music is also very well done. It's an eclectic mix of some classics and newer age techno sounds. I can also see, on some distant plausible scale, it happening down the road as technology progresses. Not exactly like in the movie but on a much smaller level. Hey, anything can happen.



It also deals with the loss of facial identity, and further, the loss of an appealing facial identity. It’s a theme that is not explored much in films. Usually it’s life and death and the vanity is shoed off to the side. “Vanilla” shows, without the dialogue spelling it out for us, the loss one can experience while still keeping his life. And how real-life wasn’t going to help him get it back and need to have his hopes realized in an altered state of being. And then on top of that, the altered state goes wrong and creates confusion. I love it.

Lions for Lambs – 28% (political spectrum from big government to small people)
Sometimes I just want a movie to make me think. To just be one of the better movies that came out in its general released time frame. Some people roll their eyes at these movies for being too “preachy”. I’m fine with preachy movies as long as it debates all the point equally and leaves you the viewer to participate in the end, which the movie ultimately does. I believe the strongest of the three pronged story is with Redford meeting with a student he believes can make a difference in the future. The debate they have, and the manner in which is spoken really made the movie for me.


When a Stranger Calls (Remake)– 9% (one of the thousands of pg-13 horror movies released in the last 5 years)
Although not a fantastic movie by any means, I found this to be one of the better horror releases recently. At least better than the collective 9% it received. I guess you want to know why because according to the rating it got. First let me show you some words and comments that were used in the negative reviews:

“there’s nothing new here”
“no reason for you to go and see this crap”
“A lot of boredom”
“For real thrills, rent the original,”

Okay, three of these comments are somewhat valid. But I disagree with the last one. Yes, it’s a little slow and there is nothing original and it really won’t make you a better person after watching it, but I found the remake to be much better that the original (44%). So where does that leave us? Style. I liked the style that was presented to us. Nice camerawork, creepy atmosphere and the best part…no over-explanation of the killer.

Horror movies work best when you don’t know who the killer is, what it wants and why it kills. When the enemy is left a mystery, you don’t know how to combat it. You can’t rationalize with something if you dont understand it. When you don’t know the limitations of your enemy, that is what causes real fear. You don’t know if they will ever give up trying to get you or not. It’s just a dark blanket of evil trying to cover you and it won’t give you an explanation. We don’t often get these answers in real life crimes so why should they be neatly packaged in an hour and thirty minute movie. Two other films that do this effectively is the original Black Christmas and Halloween (before the sequel induced revelation of Laurie being Michael Myers’s sister). You know nothing behind the killers’ motives in those movies. Perhaps “Stranger” got low reviews because of it being a remake. Which leads me into the below post…

Remakes: Why such contempt?

Whenever I hear complaints about a new remake coming out I wonder what if the 1977 Halloween classic movie (90%) was released today in our modern times for the first time, would it be considered boring or even unoriginal. I know this is an impossible task peppered with oxymoron’s considering everyone says this movie paved the way to the modern horror movie. But I do find it interesting to think about. It helps me understand what makes a horror movie good, the story itself or the technical style it’s presented in. After all, Halloween is a supremely basic story told very well.

I think a lot of the disdain of remakes may come from, and I’m paraphrasing a lot of reviewers out there, “the onslaught of unoriginal remakes”. First of all, remakes are predominantly connected to the horror genre. Why is this? Two reasons. You can only have something or someone stalking and killing innocent people so many times, so you might as well attach it to a well known already successful movie title. Secondly, it’s cheap to make horror movies because you can higher cheap young talent. Horror movies aren’t made to win Oscars, they exist to entertain at a lower level and make a quick profit. So, from a marketing point of view, it works.
Remakes are not made to replace the original. Take the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre(89%) for example. When I was younger, I touted it the scariest movie I ever saw and I meant it. There is just something scary about being chased through the woods by a huge guy with a chainsaw to me. The rustic, grainy feel only enhances the whole “snuff film” feel to it. I like the remake of Texas Chainsaw (35%). It carved some of the original story down and gave a bare bones story of stumbling into a bad place and just trying to get out of it. It left out the original silly dinner scene with the headache inducing screaming which was a plus. Although I don’t particularly need the added gore, I do like the swifter pacing and the use of heavy acoustic music to create a brooding sense of doom. I still enjoy the original on its own merits but the 2003 version is more my speed.

The 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake (77%) is also very good. It may not have the social commentary of the original (97%) but it takes the source material uses it as the meat and potatoes in its visceral narration. Also, it took out some of the cheeky xylophone music and comical fumbling zombie moments and took them more seriously. I believe there is nothing wrong with taking an older, original and successful premise and tweaking it to fit in modern day fears and attention spans. It’s just too bad that some-to-most of these remakes fall into the wrong directors hands.

Fanboy: what does it actually mean?

From Wiki - Fanboy (sometimes spelled fanboi) is a term used to describe an individual who is devoted to a single fannish subject, or to a single point of view within that subject, often to the point where it is considered an obsession. Fanboys remain loyal to their particular obsession.

Fanboys often get bashed on forums when trying to protect their film interests. Sure their love for a movie or franchise may blind them from the not-so-good parts, but it does come from a deep appreciation of the film. The hackneyed term “you don’t choose what you love, it choose you” is pretty darn accurate. Sometimes its love at first site when you some a cross a certain film or sometimes you don’t find yourself wrapped up in something until after you take a step back and see how much enjoyment you get out of it or you see how much time you put into it already. Fanboys often take things personally when people don’t like the movie they have attached themselves to. In turn they often swear and make off the cuff comments that dwindles their credibility. It’s a natural if not weak reaction.
When I was younger I used to get disappointed when others did not like the movies I liked. I wondered how they did not see the brilliance I saw. I ended up defending a lot of movies out loud (even during them) when people would start bashing them. Ex: I watched Hard Rain with friends in college and my film student friend freaked out every time he saw a subpar blue-screen effect. I tried defending the movie even though he was right. In the end the movie ended up being forgettable. I realized later I had a penchant for movies with bad weather in them and I must have defended it for that sole reason. The same goes for the more modern example or “Dreamcatcher”. An ultimately forgettable movie that nonetheless ended up in my movie collection due to the fact it takes place during a snowstorm. I can be a little bit of a cheerleader for movies as well as my beloved sports teams. I like to call it optimism.