MY MOVIE SHELF: Soul Survivors

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 176  Days to go: 123

Movie #262:  Soul Survivors

What the ever-loving fuck is this movie? I mean, really. According to my husband, he wound up with it in his divorce, even though he hates it. So why is it on my shelf? Are we averse to getting rid of awful movies?

Over the course of this project, I’ve come across some movies that I didn’t feel the need to own anymore, and I’ve gotten rid of them. To be frank, I knew I wouldn’t want to keep this one ahead of time, but I couldn’t get rid of it yet. That would be cheating. Now that I’ve watched the stupid thing, however, out the window it goes. Sorry about your luck, you piece of shit film.

I swear to God, Soul Survivors doesn’t make a lick of sense. With all the generic rock guitar over the wannabe psycho-thriller scenes, I’d almost think Rob Zombie was behind this, except from what I understand he actually makes quality horror. So maybe Soul Survivors is the brain child of Kid Rock instead. Actually, no. It’s even worse than that.

The hell of it is, there are a bunch of actors that I like in this thing. I’ve never heard of the lead Melissa Sagemiller (as Cassie) before, but all the supporting players of note are well-known. There’s Casey Affleck as Cassie’s boyfriend Sean, Wes Bentley as her ex Matt, Eliza Dushku as her best friend Annabel, and Luke Wilson as Father Jude. I like all of those people, and it kills me they are in this complete clusterfuck of a film.

The basic idea is that these four college-bound kids go out partying and wind up at a “club” that is no more than some burned out building with a lot of oddly dressed ravers dancing like mad (pig mask, death masks, BDSM fishnet stockings and chains and collars, whatever). There are also a couple of nefarious characters there who, apropos of nothing, slit some girl’s wrist in the pre-credits scene. As you do. Then there’s a big car crash and the rest of the movie tries to be mysterious about who is dead or what has happened, but it fails miserably. Even when it says Sean is dead and Cassie is being haunted by him and chased by those murderous dudes and whatnot, it’s completely fucking obvious that Cassie is actually the one dead. Only she’s not! Even though the priest gives her last rites over her unmoving, eyes-wide-open, lifeless body, dead Father Jude visits her in the ether and asks if she’s willing to live for Sean (what the fuck does that even mean?), and of course she is. It’s a miracle!

Then the two murderous dudes show up again, but surprise, it’s a nightmare. And either it’s several years later and Sean and Cassie are living together or married or something after college, or they decided not to go to separate colleges after all because he’s in her bed. I don’t know.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Don’t watch this movie. It’s awful. It’s not scary or cool or smart or interesting or anything. It’s just bad.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Scream 2

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 196  Days to go: 138

Movie #242:  Scream 2

“There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate – more blood, more gore – carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead.”

That was Randy (Jamie Kennedy), back again as our horror movie aficionado, describing the ways in which Scream 2 will be harder-better-faster-stronger than the original. It’s a sequel, see, and sequels have rules too. But once again, while the Scream films abide by the rules, they also uproot them.

It’s two years since the Woodsboro killing spree of Billy and Stu, and our intrepid reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) has written a book that’s been turned into a movie called Stab, with Tori Spelling playing Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), just like Sidney sarcastically predicted in Scream. In an ever-growing attempt to change the boundaries of the horror genre, the movie starts with cameos by Jada Pinkett Smith (pre-Smith) and Omar Epps as Maureen and Phil, Windsor College students out for the night with free passes to an advanced screening of Stab. They simultaneously mock and thwart the lack of African-American representation in horror flicks, only to get brutally murdered in the movie theater (in which Heather Graham is like a naked Rollergirl — she will always be Rollergirl — version of Drew Barrymore’s Casey). (Luke Wilson, it is revealed later, is the movie’s Billy. He has laughably exaggerated bangs in an attempt to mock good old Skeet.) Instantly, the movie tells you the volume has been turned up, and it’s not backing off.

Our next victim comes in the form of Cici (Sarah Michelle Gellar), another random cameo part given to a big named star for the sole purpose of dying a gruesome death. Sequels really are something.

We also have Jerry O’Connell as Sidney’s new boyfriend Derek, because apparently Sidney hasn’t considered lesbianism yet, Timothy Olyphant as another movie guy named Mickey, Elise Neil as Sidney’s roommate Hallie , Duane Martin as Gale’s new cameraman Joel who did not read her book before he took this job, Laurie Metcalf as small town reporter Debbie Salt, Rebecca Gayheart and baby Portia de Rossi as ditzy sorority girls, and even Joshua Jackson shows up pre-Dawson’s Creek. And returning for another time around are Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber) looking for a little fame and fortune to make up for being falsely accused and convicted of murder — how about that Diane Sawyer interview, Sidney? “Consider it done.” — and Deputy Dewey (David Arquette) rescued from the edge of death in the last film but with significant loss of movement due to nerve damage from his injuries.

Just as Randy says, the deaths are bigger and grosser and there are lots more of them. The scope is more epic, the motives more elaborate and yet more simple. It actually does a really great job of employing the creative mythos of Scream and turning it up to 11. I wouldn’t say it’s better than the original, but it’s quite good. Maybe it’s really more of the second installment of a trilogy ….

MY MOVIE SHELF: Charlie’s Angels

This is the deal: I own around 350 movies on DVD and Blu-ray. Through June 10, 2015, I will be watching and writing about them all, in the order they are arranged on my shelf (i.e., alphabetically, with certain exceptions). No movie will be left unwatched . I welcome your comments, your words of encouragement and your declarations of my insanity.

Movie #48: Charlie’s Angels

Here’s some interesting math. I’ve had a lifelong affinity for Drew Barrymore. Like the weird guy who did the My Date With Drew movie, only I never had any interest in stalking her. I can’t explain it, really, I just think she’s awesome and our birthdays are close together and I’d really like to hang out and be friends with her. Whatever. On the other side of that coin, I really detested Cameron Diaz ever since The Mask. Again, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but she was just so … false, maybe? I found her completely and utterly annoying. BUT! If you take my huge affection for Drew, add Lucy Liu, who I was kind of neutral-positive on (she wasn’t all that well-known at the time, though she’d had small roles in lots of things for several years), multiply it by my love of quippy, flashy movies (to the very concept of a Charlie’s Angels reboot-th power), and add the square root of at least half a dozen clever cameos plus a killer breakout performance by Sam Rockwell, it actually MAKES ME LIKE CAMERON DIAZ. Only in this one movie at first, but after the sequel it was completely cemented. Weird, right?

There’s not even anything to this movie, except quips and flash. The plot is somehow both convoluted and thin, and it apparently exists only to give its three stars the opportunity to vamp it up in crazy costumes. It’s silly and punny and charming and I absolutely love it. I love Matt LeBlanc as a big time action movie star (it’s almost as if Joey Tribbiani finally made it). I love Tim Curry as a pervy billionaire. I love Melissa McCarthy as the overfriendly office worker. I love L.L. Cool J (all the ladies love Cool James, you know) going meta in the opening scene by complaining about cheesy TV shows being made into movies and then turning out to be one of Drew’s costumes. I love Drew’s ex-boyfriend Luke Wilson and current (at the time) boyfriend Tom Green both showing up as romantic interests — Wilson as Pete, for Diaz’s Natalie, and Green as Chad for Barrymore’s Dylan aka Starfish. (Drew really seems like the kind of woman who becomes friends with all, or at least several, of her exes — which seems like a theoretically great way to be, though I could never pull it off with any kind of aplomb.) And I love love love love love Crispin Glover as the creepy thin man who escapes death at least twice in this movie alone (spoiler — he’s in the sequel).

The Angels themselves are also just perfect, as far as I’m concerned. Natalie with her dance sequences, Dylan’s transparent interest in Knox (Rockwell) (she wants to shake, not bake), and Alex constantly flipping her “goddamn hair” in slow motion. In the same way women like to tell you which Sex and the City character they are most like, I compare myself to these particular Angels, and I am all of them. I am a weird combination of flighty and brilliant and I can be very easily amused (Natalie). I’m an offbeat girl with a sometimes harder edge who likes the risk, sexiness and excitement of a bad boy but is always looking for a sense of belonging (Dylan). And I’m a matter-of-fact woman who knows what she wants and makes plans to go out and get it, sans bullshit (Alex).

I really enjoy a lot of this film: the singing yodel-gram girls, Dylan at the speedway in a va-va-va-voom jumpsuit with tons of ’70s porn star blonde hair and cleavage licking a steering wheel, Alex as a dominatrix efficiency expert, Alex as a masseuse with a french-tip  pedicure (the first time I’d ever seen such a thing, and suddenly it was huge), and Natalie in the driver’s ed vehicle with head-gear and Princess Leia buns, among other things. But let’s circle back around to the magnificence that was Sam Rockwell’s performance as his character Eric Knox reveals himself to be the bad guy. Ostentatious, sexy, and magnetic all of a sudden, he’s completely transformed from his previous bumbling aw-shucks guy. He dances, he flirts, he simmers. It’s spectacular. I really wish Sam Rockwell had an entire movie just to do that kind of thing in, but then I’d be afraid of getting another Confessions of a Dangerous Mind or something.

So somehow with a movie that has almost no substance whatsoever, I have found a million and one things to talk about, and could go on for quite some time about the campy fun of it all — I didn’t even touch on Bill Murray’s utter Bill Murray-ness — but instead I will leave you with a final thought: “The Chad is great. The Chad is great. The Chad … is stuck.”