It’s been fifty weeks since I sat down one day and thought
“Why don’t I write about all of the bad movies I watch?” It was almost a year ago that I had that
thought. The fifty weeks have flown by
with all of the bad movie fun that I’ve been having. I thought that it would be the perfect time
to take a look back at all of the movies I’ve covered and all of the things
that I’ve written as part of the Sunday “Bad” Movies. I did this same sort of thing for the twenty-fifth
week, so I’m not going to delve into the history of the first twenty-five
posts, as much as give a reflection upon the posts between that time and
now. I will also give some updates on
statistics such as actors who have been watched the most, or directors featured
the most. Things like that. But first, the posts themselves.
This chunk of the Sunday “Bad” Movies was a really
interesting collection of films that ranged through many different genres. That’s quite similar to what came before
it. I saw horror films, dramas,
comedies, and even some science fiction.
That’s almost exactly what I said for the first twenty-five posts. Oh yeah, I had a musical and an animated
movie in this bunch of movies. In fact,
the musical was an animated movie! I had
surprises and disappointments, like anyone would. That’s how the cookie crumbles. That’s how movie viewing goes.
All in all, I enjoyed the movies that I have been able to
watch because of the Sunday “Bad” Movies.
I like seeing new things and reflecting upon what I’ve watched. I might not be the most eloquent when it
comes to the writing part of it all, but I have a good time. What more is there to life than having a good
time? I like to give movies the chance
that they all deserve. I’m all for
equality in movies. The Sunday “Bad” Movie
series helps me to find things that I never would have found otherwise. Would I have seen a movie like Bigfoot’s Wild
Weekend without these blog posts? Well,
yeah. That’s a bad example. The name of that one interests me enough to
get me to see it. What about Old No.
587: The Great Train Robbery? I probably
wouldn’t have watched it, even though I own it.
Thanks to the Sunday “Bad” Movies, I have seen it, and I have no
regrets.
Now, I obviously have a few favourites between the twenty-sixth
and fiftieth posts. Let me first list
off my favourite movies of the bunch so that you know which ones I would most
recommend that you check out. These are
five movies from within this section of the Sunday “Bad” Movies that I enjoyed
enough to say “Yeah, you should watch that.”
Here they are:
- Hansel and Gretel Get Baked – This was definitely the biggest surprise of the movies. There’s a dark comedic tone to this well-crafted horror flick. I went in expecting something dumb, but got an intelligent horror movie. It may not reach great heights, but it is entertaining and horrific enough that you’ll find yourself enjoying it. I know I did. There’s also a great performance by Lara Flynn Boyle, who looks like she’s having a lot of fun. If there was one movie I would demand you see, this is it.
- Chopper Chicks in Zombietown – This movie is also known as Chrome Hearts. If you haven’t seen it, but you’ve heard about it, it’s either because of me, or because Billy Bob Thornton is in it. It’s one of his earliest movies. The movie is basically a comedy with bits of horror thrown in to add to the fun. A female biker gang goes to a town and the town gets infested with zombies. It’s just plain fun.
- The Marine 2 – It’s basically a retelling of Die Hard, directed by the guy who did Death Race 2 and Death Race: Inferno, and starring Ted DiBiase Jr. That doesn’t matter to me, though. I still found it to be a solid direct-to-video action flick. Michael Rooker shows up to be an awesome sidekick sort of character, which only helps the movie. You aren’t going to get anything great out of this, but I still think it’s a good way to spend an hour and a half.
- Torque – What is there to say that you wouldn’t already know? I don’t know, so this is going to seem repetitive. Torque is insane. Bikes outrunning burning fuel. Giant keys. Cars suck, bikes don’t. Ice Cube, Dane Cook, Adam Scott, Jaime Pressly… This movie was made as a response to The Fast and the Furious, and it stars one of the guys from The Fast and the Furious. There’s no way to describe this movie in a way that does it justice. It needs to be seen.
- The Marine 3: Homefront – This might be the one movie in the franchise that I would call legitimately good. I like the second one a little bit more, but this one has a better cast and a more original story, I’d say. It also has Neal McDonough. You might have fear about going into it because it stars The Miz, is produced by WWE, and went direct-to-video, but I’d say it rises above that stigma. It’s worth watching.
Only one of the five movies made the top five of the entire
Sunday “Bad” Movies. I don’t know if
that means that I filled this section with movies that I didn’t particularly
love, or if I loaded the first twenty-five movies with movies that I would
love. The only movie to be bumped off
the total top five was Death Race, which leaves my top 5 movies total as:
- Miami Connection
- Robot Jox
- Starcrash
- The Room
- Hansel and Gretel Get Baked
I could get into the movies that I dislike, as well, but I
can see that this post is already getting long enough. I would also like to keep the retrospective
on the positive side of things. I like
the Sunday “Bad” Movies. There is no
reason to bring it down by discussing the movies that I didn’t like.
The movies aren’t the only thing that has driven the Sunday
“Bad” Movies forward. The other part,
and possibly the more important part, is the writing. I’ve written fifty posts (fifty-three if you
count this retrospective, the last retrospective, and the look into the future
from the twenty-fifth week) for the blog series. That’s a lot of writing. Some of it has come in the form of
reviews. I usually save that for the
newer movies, such as Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, or
Hansel and Gretel Get Baked. Other
times, I will be rewatching a bad movie and writing about my history with the
movie. I’ve done that for movies like
The Room and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.
Then there are the times where I write about a topic that is related to
the movie that I watched. Cases like
these include Jonah: A Veggietales Movie, where I wrote about adaptations and
the originality within them, or Crossover, where I wrote about the IMDb Bottom
100. Of course, there are the odd
outliers that don’t fit into these three main concepts, but for the most part,
these are the things I write about.
I’ve had fun coming up with what I would write about
throughout the fifty posts and I’m looking forward to writing about many more
movies. It’s a sort of release for
me. Writing helps me to release some of
the bottled up thoughts in my head.
Whether or not you read or agree with what I write, it doesn’t matter to
me. The writing is for me. Don’t let me ever tell you otherwise. I appreciate that people put up with my
opinion, but really I just want to get some of it out of my head and into the
open. The writing helps me clear my
mind. If I didn’t have the writing, I
don’t know what I would do.
About those posts… I obviously have some that I favor over
others. I made a list last time of five
of my favourite posts that I had written over the first twenty-five posts, and
this time I’ll list five from between posts twenty-six and fifty. The only order they are in is the order that
they popped into my head. So here are
five of my favourite posts that I’ve written since post twenty-six.
- Hansel and Gretel Get Baked – This is just one of my favourite things I’ve ever written, period. It was, in my opinion, the best review sort of thing that I’ve written in my history of writing about movies. I’m proud of this one. I felt great when I finished it, and there’s nothing in the world that matches that sort of high. It’s the high of satisfaction.
- Jonah: A Veggietales Movie – I did not like the movie, but it gave me a lot to chew on. The idea of originality in adaptations is one that I hadn’t thought too much about before writing about Jonah, but when I started writing, a lot of stuff came flowing out of my fingers. I kept going and going and ended up with a lot of writing about a subject that I didn’t know I had that much interest in. It was a surprise, and I think the post came out fairly well.
- The Marine, The Marine 2, The Marine 3: Homefront – When I do a little bit of research, this is what comes out. It might not be great writing, but it was a stepping stone to me becoming a better writer. This post taught me that with a little bit of research, I am not flying by the seat of my pants so much. It gives me a foundation and helps to give some credibility to what I write. I like that about this post.
- Snakes on a Train – This is where I tell my history with movies from The Asylum. That’s why it’s here. I like The Asylum. I liked writing about why I watch so much from The Asylum. I think it’s a decent post. I know it’s one of my favourites.
- Crossover – This post encompasses a few topics that I have problems with: hyperbole, the IMDb Bottom 100, and negative reputations. It was basically a way for me to write about my problems with so-called “fans” of movies who do nothing but complain and exaggerate on the poor quality of films. I feel like it’s decently written, and it’s a topic I will reference time and time again as I continue forward in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.
That concludes the portions of this retrospective or
reflection or whatever you want to call it that are about the writing and the
watching. Now I’m going to move onto a
few statistics. This shouldn’t take too
long as I’ve got everything together in an Excel file, as well as written
somewhere else for safe-keeping. Let’s
go.
The first thing up is suggested movies. At twenty-five posts, only four of the movies
had been suggested by other people. Four
out of twenty-five isn’t even twenty percent of the movies. Between posts twenty-six and fifty, nine
movies were suggested by other people.
That’s thirty-six percent of the posts with a movie that was suggested
to me by someone. Look at that
improvement! I hope to have even more
suggested films in the future.
Next up for discussion is the directors of the movies. Since post thirty, for the Marine movies, I
have been keeping track of the directors who have directed multiple movies
within the Sunday “Bad” Movies. That was
all brought on by Roel Reine. So, the
following are the four directors who have directed multiple movies in the
Sunday “Bad” Movies:
- Roel Reine – He directed Death Race 2, Death Race: Inferno, and The Marine 2
- David Hillenbrand and Scott Hillenbrand – They both shared direction on Dorm Daze and Dorm Daze 2: College @ Sea
- Bob Clark – He directed Baby Geniuses and Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2
There isn’t much to write about when it comes to directors
who have directed multiple movies in the Sunday “Bad” Movies. However, there is much more to talk about in
terms of the actors. There are a total
of fifty-three actors that have been featured in multiple movies throughout the
Sunday “Bad” Movies. That’s almost one
for every movie that has been watched. Nineteen of these actors have been featured in
multiple franchises. This number is only
going to rise as the blog series continues.
I would like to highlight the ten actors who have been in
the most movies within the Sunday “Bad” Movies.
There are a few rules to how I am ranking these. Let me go over them first. The first ordering rule is the number of
movies that the actor has been in total.
Four movies would rank higher than three which would rank higher than
two. Within the different number of movies,
the actors are ordered by number of franchises.
So someone in three movies of three different franchises ranks higher
than someone in three movies as a part of two franchises. Following that rule, the actors are ordered
by the order in which their final movie was featured in the Sunday “Bad”
Movies. The earlier the second movie in
the blog series, the higher you would rank.
If the actors have the same final movie, the second to last determines
the rank, then third, then fourth, and so on.
The top ten actors in the Sunday “Bad” Movie series are as follows:
1. Jaime Pressly (The Ooogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, Torque, Cruel World)
2. Danny Trejo (Death Race 2, Death Race: Inferno, Rise of the Zombies)
3. Fred Koehler (Death Race, Death Race 2, Death Race: Inferno)
3. Robin Shou (Death Race, Death Race 2, Death Race: Inferno)
5. French Stewart (30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Rise of the Zombies)
6. Chad Lindberg (Alex Cross, Rise of the Zombies)
7. Joshua Rush (Playing for Keeps, Parental Guidance)
8. Ed Gale (Tiptoes, Chopper Chicks in Zombietown)
9. Steve Bacic (The Marine 3: Homefront, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever)
9. Tony Alcantar (The Marine 3: Homefront, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever)
That’s all I have for the statistics at this point. I have the suggestions, the directors, and
the actors. I find this stuff
interesting enough to include in the retrospectives. I hope you find it insightful in a way. The writing of it may not have been my best
work, but it’s statistics. It’s
difficult to make statistics exciting.
At least, I have yet to find a way to do that.
You can look forward to another retrospective post come the
time that I write the seventy-fifth post.
I want to do one for every twenty-five.
Next time, there might even be some bigger changes to the Sunday “Bad”
Movies than this group of twenty-five movies had. I’m trying to grow the series into something
more than just a simple watch-and-write.
I have ideas, and if you have any ideas, feel free to share them. I’m open to suggestions, though I might not
use them.
That’s it for this retrospective. If you have any suggestions to make the
Sunday “Bad” Movies better, or any suggestions for movies to be featured, leave
a comment. I do read all of the
comments. You could also check me out on
Twitter. I try to reply to everything
that people say to me on Twitter. Next
week’s movie is A Crush on You. I’ll be
back next week with the post for it. See
you then.
I’m just going to link the list of all of the Sunday “Bad”
Movies right here instead of linking every time I mention a movie because that’s
a lot of linking.
No comments:
Post a Comment