October 24, 2019 · 1:14 pm

The Set of 400: #225 – My Favorite Quad Streaking

Today! Because the Godfather himself has decided to grace us with his presence. This is his damn house, he sleeps twenty feet away –

Old School (2003)

Directed by Todd Phillips (x2)

Starring Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Jeremy Piven, Leah Remini, Seann William Scott (x4), Ellen Pompeo, Juliette Lewis (x2), Craig Kilborn, Perrey Reeves, Elisha Cuthbert, Artie Lange, Matt Walsh (x4), Sara Tanaka, Sarah Shahi, Bryan Callen, Patrick Cranshaw, Jerod Mixon (x2), Simon Helberg (x3), Eddie Pepitone, Rob Corddry (x2), Andy Dick (x2), Terry O’Quinn (x2), Snoop Dogg, Warren G

Okay, so I was out of college at this point – well, between college would be a better way of framing it – but I was hardly the stable, mature grown-up my Twitter account would currently indicate I’ve evolved into. But I was also never particularly one for big raging parties – it’s pretty hard to throw epic, Animal House style shindigs when you live at home and commute to college – so my continued affinity of these sort of movies probably stems from a vicariously longing for lost times. I mean, I still hung out and drank my face off periodically, but I didn’t feel like I really had the true college experience, pretty much ever.

Sure, I’m fairly well hammered in these pictures (featuring sister-in-law Onion and American hero Mike Walsh), but I’m also fully 30 years old

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October 23, 2019 · 1:10 pm

The Set of 400: #226 – My Favorite Telephone Bomb

Today! Because there is no peace at the end of this –

Munich (2005)

Directed by Steven Spielberg (x3)

Starring Eric Bana, Ciaran Hinds (x2), Daniel Craig, Geoffrey Rush, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler, Ayelet Zurer, Michael Lonsdale, Mathieu Amalric, Lynn Cohen

A great movie almost completely undone in audience’s minds by the bizarre choices in the finale, Munich at first glance appears to be a meditation on hate in the world, and the lengths good people go to in efforts to provide security and peace to their nation. But in reality, it is a straightforward action yarn, a vengeance thriller unlike pretty much any other, and a true story (-ish) to boot. And yes, it ends with the most awkward sex scene ever filmed.

That is one sweaty Bana, ladies and gents

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October 22, 2019 · 1:21 pm

The Set of 400: #227 – My Favorite Put a Little Love in Your Heart

Today! Because I’m sure Charles Dickens would have wanted to see her nipples –

Scrooged (1988)

Directed by Richard Donner (x2)

Starring Bill Murray (x6), Karen Allen (x2), Bobcat Goldthwait, David Johansen, Carol Kane (x3), Robert Mitchum (x3), John Glover (x4), Michael J. Pollard (x2), Alfre Woodard (x2), John Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray (x2), John Forsythe, Mary Lou Retton, Lee Majors, Buddy Hackett, John Houseman (x2), Jamie Farr, Robert Goulet (x2), Mary Ellen Trainor (x3), Kathy Kinney, Tony Steedman, Anne Ramsey (x2), Joel Murray, Mabel King (x2), Pat McCormick, Bruce Jarchow, Jack McGee, Kate McGregor-Stewart, Wendie Malick

A Christmas Carol isn’t an inherently funny story, and yet there have been many, many attempts to make it so. Most are musicals, and that helps to lighten the mood, but anything attempting an even halfway accurate recounting of the book usually ends up relatively straight. Even the excellent Muppet version devolves into a typical Christmas Carol about halfway through. There has been better success on television, but usually they take the story pretty far afield to find jokes. The terrific British series Black Adder has probably the funniest rendition (it helps if you’re a little familiar with that show to begin with) which turns the whole plot on its head, making Rowan Atkinson’s Scrooge character the nicest man in the world, who is shown how things were for his evil ancestors by Robbie Coltrane’s Marley/Ghosts figure. Mr. Magoo’s is one of the best straightforward musical versions, but it relegates its Magoo-esque humor to the framing scenes.

“Well, bless my ten toes!”

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October 21, 2019 · 1:13 pm

The Set of 400: #228 – My Favorite Alexander Pope

Today! Because, technically speaking, the operation is brain damage –

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Directed Michel Gondry (x2)

Starring Jim Carrey (x3), Kate Winslet (x2), Tom Wilkinson (x2), Mark Ruffalo (x3), Kirsten Dunst (x3), Elijah Wood (x3), Jane Adams, David Cross (x2), Thomas Jay Ryan

A movie of raw emotion and ceaseless, crackling creativity, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is quite simply one of the best movies ever made. Look back at other posts – this isn’t something I throw around a lot. Yes, okay, I did say this about Fritz Lang’s M in #247, I think, but it’s not something I’ve said in the last week or two! And I know there’s sort of a knee jerk pessimistic reaction to anyone referring to anything even remotely recent as an all-time great (except apparently when it comes to NFL quarterbacks), but this movie is so different, so wildly inventive, and of such amazing depth that yes, I think if I ever get the balls to compile a 400 Best Movies list, this will have a place there as well. (But will Rocky IV still be #400?? Time will tell!)

I mean, probably, right?

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October 18, 2019 · 1:11 pm

The Set of 400: #229 – My Favorite Prestidigitonium

Today! Because I can’t be a king, Archimedes. I don’t know anything about ruling a country –

The Sword in the Stone (1963)

Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman (x2)

Starring Karl Swenson, Rickie Sorensen, Sebastian Cabot (x2), Martha Wentworth, Alan Napier, Norman Alden, Junius Matthews

Another staple of the ’80s household, The Sword in the Stone seems to fade from the collective memory more with each passing year. I had never been to any Disney theme park before 2016, and then in rapid succession went to America’s both in six months, and for the life of me I didn’t see a lick of Sword in the Stone merch, and these are places simply teeming with swag. I could be wrong, but it seems like the handful of Disney films we really watched to death as kids are sorely represented now, in favor of recent hits (which makes total sense) and massive favorites, of the Dumbo, 101 Dalmatians, Snow White variety (which also makes sense). Couldn’t they create a Curiosities Corner, for mid-range animated films that aren’t exactly beloved classics but still have a passionate fanbase? There are a number of these films still to come, so I won’t completely illustrate which I’m referring to, but Sword in the Stone absolutely fits the bill.

Not on the list, but The Great Mouse Detective didn’t warrant so much as a Ratigan jock strap either

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October 17, 2019 · 1:19 pm

The Set of 400: #230 – My Favorite Origami Unicorn

Today! Because those aren’t your memories, they’re somebody else’s –

Blade Runner (1982)

Directed by Ridley Scott

Starring Harrison Ford, Sean Young (x2), Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah (x2), M. Emmet Walsh (x2), Edward James Olmos, William Sanderson, Brion James (x2), Joe Turkel, Joanna Cassidy, James Hong

I have a pair of what I’ve discovered are super unpopular opinions in regards to Blade Runner. 1) Ridley Scott might be the most overrated director in film history (Ouch!) and 2) I prefer the original theatrical version of the movie to the Director’s Cut (Yikes!). I know! Coming out hot!

So where the hell do I get off with my stupid ideas? Okay, first off, while Scott made a few admittedly great movies – Alien, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator maybe, The Martian – his reputation is such that you’d think it’s wall-to-wall masterpieces, when he was also behind the camera for middling near misses like American Gangster and Hannibal (Okay, I do kind of like Hannibal – the first half, anyway) and a bundle of absolutely awful films – Kingdom of Heaven, Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, Exodus, Legend, Robin Hood, 1492, A Good Year, The Counselor. I’m not saying he’s a bad director – there are too many legitimately great movies on the resume – I’m saying he’s massively overrated. His name on a picture is no reason to see that picture, is all I’m saying.

Prometheus is, like, really, really bad

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October 16, 2019 · 1:14 pm

The Set of 400: #231 – My Favorite Webcam

Today! Because we’ll just tell your mother that we ate it all –

American Pie (1999)

Directed by Paul Weitz

Starring Jason Biggs, Chris Klein, Thomas Ian Nichols, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Mena Suvari, Alyson Hannigan, Tara Reid, Seann William Scott (x3), Shannon Elizabeth, Natasha Lyonne, Eugene Levy, Jennifer Coolidge, Chris Owen, John Cho, Molly Cheek, Casey Affleck (x2)

Going back-to-back on the well-represented year of 1999! Our eighth film from the last of the 19s, American Pie came along at just the right time for this guy. Figure, this movie gets made in one form or another every few years, with a few little twists, but this one came out squarely in the middle of my undergrad years, and so even though it’s an End of High School film, its chaotic drinking party sex comedy of the ’90s fit right in to my sensibilities.

’80s movies of the same basic structure – your Fast Times at Ridgemont Highs and the like – never really resonated with me, because they felt so unrelatable. The universal high school experience always has bits of similarity across the decades, but there’s something about it reflecting your own era. Thus, Dazed and Confused, Sixteen Candles, American Graffiti, The Breakfast Club – all good to great movies, none on this list, as they just weren’t mine. Not like American Pie.

Sorry, Long Duk Dong fans!

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October 15, 2019 · 1:11 pm

The Set of 400: #232 – My Favorite Comic Book Convention

Today! Because that was a hell of a thing –

Galaxy Quest (1999)

Directed by Dean Parisot

Starring Tim Allen (x2), Sigourney Weaver (x4), Alan Rickman (x2), Sam Rockwell, Tony Shalhoub (x2), Daryl Mitchell, Enrico Colantoni, Missi Pyle, Justin Long (x2), Patrick Breen, Robin Sachs, Jeremy Howard, Rainn Wilson, Heidi Swedberg (x2), Kevin McDonald

I’m a pretty casual Star Trek fan, and even that might be overstating it. I’ve seen most of the movies – I’m probably missing one or two from the original cast and from the later Next Generation films, and there is no one version of the TV show I’ve seen in its entirety. My sister was the big ST:TNG fan, and so I watched a lot of it during its initial syndicated airing (not exactly an unpopular opinion – I was a Q episodes first/Holodeck episodes second kind of fan). But while this movie is clearly aimed at the Star Trek base, it really applies to almost any obsessive fandom, and I am chocked full of those, man.

I’m gonna marathon Q episodes soon, and when the wife is least expecting it

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October 14, 2019 · 1:15 pm

The Set of 400: #233 – My Favorite Lifebuoy Soap Advertisement

Today! Because you’ll shoot your eye out, kid –

A Christmas Story (1983)

Directed by Bob Clark

Starring Peter Billingsley, Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Scott Schwartz, R.D. Robb, Ian Petrella, Zack Ward, Yano Anaya, Tedde Moore, Jean Shepherd, Jeff Gillen

There’s a pretty distinct difference between watching a movie a lot and seeing a movie a lot. Sure, now they only seem to marathon the hell out of this thing right at Christmas, but like most everyone I know, this thing played constantly at my house the entire Christmas season for every year of my young life. Can anyone really ballpark how many times they’ve seen A Christmas Story? It might be a stretch, but I’d guess over the last three and a half decades this might be the most seen movie in America, short of maybe Star Wars and…I don’t know, Titanic? Even then!

And so I didn’t particularly love this movie, for a long long time. It’s hard to have any perspective on it, because you know every inch of A Christmas Story. You don’t even think about it in attempts to evaluate it. And for people who grew up with it, it feels like a remarkably old movie, mainly due to its exacting attention to period detail (except for its somewhat-ambiguous time setting – sometime before WWII but after The Wizard of Oz, sort of?) and its pervasive omnipresence during the holidays in the ’80s and ’90s. Come on, it’s everyone’s parents’ favorite Christmas movie, right? Just about?

The Old Man’s newspaper is allegedly from June of 1939, but no part of this movie takes place in June, so that doesn’t help

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October 11, 2019 · 1:20 pm

The Set of 400: #234 – My Favorite Sandbox Escape

Today! Because this book doesn’t have any answers!

The Simpsons Movie (2007)

Directed by David Silverman

Starring Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright (x2), Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Yeardley Smith, Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille (x2), Albert Brooks (x3), Tom Hanks (x2), Joe Mantegna

The debt of honor we as a people owe to Tracey Ullman can never truly be assessed. Yes, without Matt Groening and James L. Brooks and Sam Simon we wouldn’t have the decades of merriment and hilarity The Simpsons has given us, but without Ullman’s terrific sketch comedy show on the relatively new FOX network in the late ’80s, they may have never gotten a foot in the door as everyone’s favorite yellow skinned family (and then by extension we never would’ve gotten Futurama, still my pick as one of the top three or four consistently funny sitcoms ever made – The Simpsons has obviously been diluted down by the many years since its heyday).

Congratulations, meat bags!

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October 10, 2019 · 1:13 pm

The Set of 400: #235 – My Favorite Science Squid

Today! Because you’ve stuck your webs into my business for the last time –

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Directed by Sam Raimi (x2)

Starring Tobey Maguire (x3), Kirsten Dunst (x2), Alfred Molina (x2), Rosemary Harris (x2), James Franco (x2), J.K. Simmons (x4), Dylan Baker (x3), Bill Nunn (x3), Willem Dafoe (x3), Cliff Robertson (x2), Ted Raimi, Donna Murphy, Daniel Gillies, Bruce Campbell (x3), Elizabeth Banks (x4), Joel McHale, Elya Baskin, Daniel Dae Kim, Hal Sparks, Emily Deschanel, Louis Lombardi (x2), Joey Coco Diaz, Mageina Tovah

If you cast your mind back to the early ’00s, when there wasn’t a new superhero movie released every three months, the medium – while popular – still wasn’t regarded as one reliable for great storytelling. Everybody likes fun action movies, right? Especially the relatively bloodless superhero kind. And that’s what we’d been getting, for quite a while, somewhat infrequently.

Then in a one-two punch, we got the first sequels to X-Men and Spider-Man in ’03 and ’04, and all of a sudden you could see fully what was possible in this genre on the big screen. Epic, complicated stories with conflicted villains bent on more than just world domination or chaotic jokery. These films were the dawn of the modern tights-and-capes era we live in, and the pinnacles of their respective franchises.

Let’s not forget the debt of honor we all owe to Blade

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October 9, 2019 · 1:15 pm

The Set of 400: #236 – My Favorite Public Indecency

Today! Because sometimes things don’t work out and you never understand why –

Lenny (1974)

Directed by Bob Fosse

Starring Dustin Hoffman (x2), Valerie Perrine (x2), Guy Rennie, Gary Morton, Jan Miner, Stanley Beck, Michele Yonge, Rashel Novikoff, Bob Fosse

Bob Fosse’s towering, time-jumping, narratively-broken biography of comic Lenny Bruce is an absolutely gorgeous black-and-white, free-form exploration of the legendary stand-up’s rise to prominence amidst serious drug and legal problems, alongside his fascinating, destructive marriage. The jumps from documentary style interviews between Fosse and the characters of Bruce’s wife, agent, mother, etc., recreated club footage, and often contentious home life/backstage drama weave a hypnotic path through his life, resembling great jazz music, or really, an improv heavy Lenny Bruce routine (Huh! Probably the plan all along!). Continue reading →

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October 8, 2019 · 1:12 pm

The Set of 400: #237 – My Favorite Poisonous Battle of Wits

Today! Because you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means –

The Princess Bride (1987)

Directed by Rob Reiner

Starring Cary Elwes (x5), Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Andre the Giant, Chris Sarandon (x2), Wallace Shawn (x2), Billy Crystal, Carol Kane (x2), Peter Falk (x2), Fred Savage, Christopher Guest, Peter Cook, Mel Smith

As perfect a movie with as goofy a framing device as exists, The Princess Bride functions so well as a storybook fantasy, a love story, a swashbuckling, sword-fighting epic, and an out-and-out comedy that maybe the criticism could be that it does too much? Like, doesn’t this one movie seem like it could’ve been a great five season TV show, from, like, Starz? Maybe if it was written today it would be. But don’t give anyone the idea!

But yes, the sweeping tale of Wesley and Buttercup travels to distant lands, encounters monsters and giants and wizards, features much swordplay and vengeance, and is couched in our world, with Peter Falk’s grandfather reading the book to Fred Savage as he’s sick in bed. Why? I’m not totally sure. And I don’t know why it has always bothered me – it’s an intrinsic part of the movie, used to continually break up the action and mood with these cutaway scenes to 1980s Chicago to keep reestablishing the narrative. I know it’s a thing movies do, but I just don’t get why it’s here. Seriously, when you’re watching Princess Bride, are you anxiously awaiting the next smash back to Fred Savage’s “Kissing is yucky” nonsense?

At least he’s dedicated to the Monsters of the Midway. Bear down!

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October 7, 2019 · 1:15 pm

The Set of 400: #238 – My Favorite Steamroller

Today! Because apes don’t read philosophy –

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Directed by Charles Crichton

Starring John Cleese (x2), Jamie Lee Curtis (x2), Kevin Kline (x3), Michael Palin (x2), Maria Aitken, Tom Georgeson, Patricia Hayes, Stephen Fry

You could make a case for a number of the Pythons having the best post-Python career – Eric Idle has worked consistently and to great effect in movies and TV, Palin has done extensive documentary work around the globe, Terry Gilliam is a world class director with a number of great films under his belt, but for my money the winner is Cleese, for two big reasons: 1) Fawlty Towers (okay, made sort of in the midst of Monty Python films in the ’70s) and 2) his writing, uncredited co-directing, and starring in this, an amazing hybrid of British and American styles of humor. This discounts his terrific cameo turn in The Great Muppet Caper, which I suppose is third.

“I thought you said the pets were dead.”

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October 4, 2019 · 1:22 pm

The Set of 400: #239 – My Favorite Mars Sojourn

Today! Because none of you seem to understand. I’m not locked in here with you, you’re locked in here with me!

Watchmen (2009)

Directed by Zack Snyder

Starring Jackie Earle Haley (x2), Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode (x2), Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Carla Gugino, Matt Frewer, Stephen McHattie, Laura Mennell, Robert Wisden, John Shaw, Danny Woodburn, Rob LaBelle

This movie did not work for everybody. Hell, if it had, they wouldn’t have remade it for TV within a decade (Has that come out yet? Is it any good? It can’t be, right?). But it did have a lot of built-in problems right from the get-go. Sure, the graphic novel is an unquestioned masterpiece, but when reading it, how exactly it could play out in under three hours doesn’t present itself. So massive edits were necessary, some good some bad, plus a wholesale revision to the story’s climax. The ending remains more or less the same, but for some reason people really like that giant goddamn squid. Also – and this cannot be stressed enough – this movie had to overcome the whims and instincts of director Snyder, who at the time had only made Dawn of the Dead in 2004 (which I’m sure is great, but haven’t seen) and 300 (which should’ve probably tipped us off that this wasn’t our guy to handle this or any comic book story).

Seriously, how was this movie a hit?

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