High Tension

In this French psychological thriller/horror movie, Marie (Cecile de France) goes to school friend Alex's (Maïwenn Le Besco) parents' house to study for their exams.  Except as soon as they get there, a dude in a jumpsuit starts killing everyone.

And then it has a surprise ending that made NO SENSE AT ALL to me.  

Oh, AND it's dubbed.

Skip it.

Availability: DVD only
Released: 2003
Added to my queue: 4/16/2008
Reason added to my queue: Who the hell knows

Safety Not Guaranteed

I had not heard of this movie before watching it, and was so pleasantly surprised!  It was so good!

The premise is that a writer for a Seattle magazine (Jake Johnson) finds a personal ad looking for someone to go back in time with the person posting the ad.  The ad says this person must supply his/her own weapons, and safety is not guaranteed, because the poster has only done this once before.  The magazine guy grabs two interns (Aubrey Plaza and an Karan Soni) and drives out to the town where the ad's P.O. box is located.  They find the guy who posted it (Mark Duplass) working at a Wal-Mart, and the movie progresses from there.

Side story: the writer really only wanted to take the assignment so he could spend some time wooing a girl from his boyhood summers in the same town as the P.O. box, so he is kind of distracted from the story.  Because of this (and because his first attempt to communicate with Duplass's character was a stunning flop) he lets Plaza's character do most of the work, with intriguing results.

Highly recommend this one.

Availability: DVD and Streaming
Released: 2012
Reason I watched it: Netflix recommended it

The High and the Mighty

This movie is billed as "the granddaddy of airplane catastrophe movies" and I think moniker totally fits.  John Wayne stars as a co-pilot on a commercial jet flight from Honolulu to San Francisco (which apparently took 12+ hours in 1954).  Catastrophe ensues, and the bulk of the movie is watching how the flight personnel and passengers handle the stress of knowing they may or may not make it.

Sound familiar?  It did to me, too.  It's like an un-comic version of Airplane!.

• Why is John Wayne only the co-pilot?  Because, in the war, he had a crash landing and keeps having flashbacks about it.  Over Macho Grande?  I don't think he'll ever get over Macho Grande.
• When the actual pilot has a momentary freak-out about their chances for a safe landing, watch for the double face-slap so popular in Airplane!.
• One character comes on the plane with a gun, reminiscent of Sonny Bono's bomb briefcase in Airplane 2.
• One Marilyn Monroe-esque woman reveals that she is headed to SF to meet the boyfriend she met in a personal ad; she sent him pictures of herself that were 8 years younger than her current self, so she is all freaked out that he'll think she's old...and in her freaking out she cold-creams off her makeup (and most of her drawn-on eyebrows, which was, for me, the scariest part of the movie).
• One couple scrimped and saved for their trip to Hawaii, during which every possible thing went wrong, and now they're on their way back, facing certain death.

I watched this movie with my friend, Nicole, who dozed through it off and on.  I think we both ended up enjoying it and are glad we saw it.  It won an Oscar for its score!  Which is a bit dramatic, but nice nonetheless.

Availability: DVD
Released: 1954
Added to my queue: 6/8/2007
Reason added to my queue: No idea

It's All Gone Pete Tong

This movie is SO GOOD, I really recommend it.

Paul Kaye plays a British club DJ (based on a true story?) who is at the peak of a ridiculous career when he goes deaf fairly suddenly.  I cannot explain how good it is without ruining it for you, but please believe me, it's REALLY GOOD.

*Spoiler Alert past this point*
Frankie Wilde is a crazy, drug-fueled, wildly popular DJ who is sickeningly successful and coke-nosed.  His  wife (Kate Magowan) is beautiful but whorish.  His agent? manager? guy (Mike Wilmot) is loud, "American"-accented (I can't see this guy being a real American though) (I just Googled him, and Wikipedia has him Canadian), and has a bluetooth stuck to his ear, so there's that.  The movie largely takes place in Ibiza, Spain, at Wilde's villa.  He DJs at clubs, produces albums, and is all-around dependent on music, until he starts rapidly going deaf.  He completely loses hearing in the right ear, with 20% hearing in his left ear.  That is, until an accident in the studio renders him totally deaf.  His whorish wife leaves him, and he holes up at the villa, hiding from the world.  Ultimately, he decides to pull it together, kicks the coke, and finds a lip-reading teacher (Beatriz Batarda) who shows him a whole new perspective on life...and then he figures out how to appreciate music as a deaf person, makes a kind of shocking comeback, realizes his life was all bullshit when he was famous, and then disappears to start a new family with Penelope.

I really REALLY liked this movie.

Availbility: DVD only
Released: 2004
Added to my Netflix queue: 12/6/2007
Reason added to my queue: unknown

Knowing Me, Knowing You: Complete Series

This is a parody of British "chat" shows, starring Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge.  Its theme is the Abba song of the same name, and Partridge's catchphrase is, "Knowing me, Alan Partridge, knowing you, ______, Aha!" which kind of grows on you.

You will like this if you like cringe-induced laughs, British things, Minnie Driver (who guests on one of the episodes).

I liked it fairly well; there are only 6 episodes, each around 30 minutes long.  

Not sure why the sleeve said 4 hours, but it wasn't that long.

Availability: DVD only

Released: 1994?

Reason I added it to my queue: No idea

Tales from the Crypt, Season 1

HBO's classic creepfest series got off to kind of a cheesy start, in Season 1's 6 episodes.

• The Man Who Was Death: Bill Sadler (over)plays Niles Talbot, a former electrician who now throws the switch for all the executions in the state.  But when the state abolishes the death penalty, he loses his job.  And then starts killing people who have been acquitted but are still guilty.  Guess what happens when he gets caught?  Skip this one.  It's stupid.
• And All through the House: Mary Ellen Trainor (over)plays a wife who kills her husband with a fireplace poker on Christmas Eve.  A madman who has stolen a Santa suit and killed 3 women arrives at her house, and she realizes she can blame her husband's death on him, so she kills Santa as well.  Or does she?  It's less stupid than the first one.  But the Cryptkeeper is not very creepy.
• Dig that Cat...He's Real Gone: Joe Pantoliano (Joey Pants!!!) (over)plays a man who has been given the 9 lives of a cat.  He spends his life dying in carnival acts so he can get rich.  But he isn't very good at counting.  Of the first three, I think I like the 2nd one best, then this one, and then the first one.
• Only Sin Deep: Lea Thompson (over)plays a lovely 21-year-old prostitute who pawns her beauty and has 4 months to come back and get it out of hock.  Guess what happens.
• Lover Come Hack to Me: Amanda Plummer (over)plays a young woman on her wedding night to a man who married her for her money.  Insight into her family history is gained.
• Collection Completed: M. Emmet Walsh (over)plays a man beginning retirement, who has to get used to his wife's collection of pets he never noticed before, while also trying to find a new hobby to pass the time.

I mean I'm glad I watched it, but if you haven't seen it, start with at least Season 2.

Availability: DVD

Released: 1989

Reason I added it to my queue: I like this kind of thing

Gilmore Girls, Season 3

In which:

• (SPOILER ALERT!)
• The relationship between Rory and Lorelai continues to be sweet and funny and adorable, even though
• Lorelai continues to remind me, at times, of the Progressive Insurance woman
• Rory and Dean are broken up and she dates Jess, who is sullen and surly and sporadically absent, and, once, almost rape-y
• Lorelai dates a guy named Alex who stops actually being in episodes after a few
• Richard gives Lorelai a check for $75K he claims he owes her from a real estate investment he made for her when she was born
• The Independence Inn catches fire and ultimately closes
• Rory gets in to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton and decides to go to Yale
• Paris gets a boyfriend (Brandon Barash - General Hospital's Johnny Zacchara), has sex, and doesn't get into Harvard
• Rory is student government vice president (to Paris's president) and gets bullied by the senior class president
• Dean gets engaged to his new girlfriend, Lindsay
• Lane spends the entire season pretending to date a Korean boy but ultimately convinces her mother to let her date Dave (Adam Brody from the O.C.)
• Lorelai uses most of the money her father gave her to pay off her parents for Rory's Chilton tuition, which pisses them off because she refuses to continue the Friday night dinners
• Rory asks her grandparents to put her through Yale, saying she will pay them back starting 5 years after graduation and will reinstitute Friday night dinners (for herself but not her mother)
• Luke gets a girlfriend and dreams Lorelai asks him not to get engaged
• Jess moves to California, to live with his father (Rob Estes) and his father's girlfriend (Sherilynn Fenn, with horrible bleached hair).  These two attempt the standard GG dialogue pace and just seem forced.  But at this point I'll put up with anything if it means that horrible Jess is out of all of our lives.
• Sookie (Melissa McCarthy) is pregnant
• Rory and Sookie buy the Dragonfly Inn (because its owner dies)

Availability: DVD only

Released: 2002

Reason I added it to my queue: I'd seen seasons 1 and 2