fourfour

Terrible-hunting: Piranha

Alexandre Aja has big shoes (fins, whatever) to fill this weekend when Piranha 3D arrives in theaters. I am excited because I like watching people struggle in water (on film, at least), but I am also scared (and not in the horror way!) because it couldn't possibly live up to the glorious shittiness of the 1978 2D original (even with the incompetent CGI evident in the Piranha 3D trailer that seems like it's rendered for kitsch factor). Joe Dante's Piranha is an utter gem that embraces its own derivation (it's essentially Jaws with a bunch of tiny monsters instead of one big one) and silliness with a straight face. It's kind of like the cinematic equivalent of a blonde girl who learned how to be a dumb blonde from the dumb blondes that came before her. Instead of a knowing wink, we get razor teeth.

Terrible-hunting: Chloe

The one thing you must know about Atom Egoyan's Chloe (recently out on DVD):

But, oh, there is more.

fourfour = 5

I started fourfour on May 31, 2005, and I figure that the fifth anniversary of this blog is an occasion that calls for a look back. Surveying 1,116 posts that have appeared on a single blog over the course of five years is setting yourself up for looking at a whole lot of nothing, but regardless of how foolhardy my time investment has been, clearly this space has mattered to me. I'm grateful that in the rare cases that I feel like I have something that should really get out there, it almost always does. I'm grateful that I can make some money (a modest freelance wage, really) saying exactly what I think needs to be said on my terms. I'm grateful for the work/interview/interpersonal opportunities my work here has presented to me. I'm grateful that people seem to care about what I have to say, for however temporarily (I've heard, "I used to read your blog..." enough times to make me feel like I'm being oversensitive by finding those words offensive). I've always said that I like to have something to show for my time (I'm very material in that respect) and so the most I'll concede after looking at five year's worth of work is that it's been a whole lot of something.

Let it never be said that I don't know how to throw myself a party. The verdict on this blog's best offerings is probably none of my business -- I wouldn't even know how to call that if I had to. However, for the sake of retrospect, I can share with you what the most satisfying posts of the past five years were from the perspective of the person who created them and received feedback on them. My Top 20 is below.

Terrible-hunting: Over the Top

Sylvester Stallone's arm-wrestler-trucker-single-father epic Over the Top was probably the butchest movie I liked as a kid. To this day, it's the only Stallone flick that I have a real working knowledge of (must check out Rhinestone one of these days!). I didn't see Over the Top in the theater, but I remember counting down the seconds until it came out on video. The reason? I was completely obsessed with Kenny Loggins' AC-synth schmaltz "Meet Me Halfway," which is featured heavily in the film (and, in turn, featured the film heavily in its heavily rotated video). That's right, a power ballad is what drew me to a movie that at least strives to be stacked with testosterone. As with most things in my life, where there's will, there is gaaaaaaaaay.

Inspired by the arm-wrestling doc Pulling John, I recently rewatched Over the Top for the first time in probably 15 years and could not believe how amazing it was. Finally, a movie that lives up to its name! It pops off the screen like a vein in Stallone's arm. It celebrates deadbeat dads and young boys who look like Demi Moore, alike. Fucking Giorgio Moroder did the score. It is so trashy that it thinks BRUT is not only something not to be embarrassed about, it's something to flaunt. It basically has everything I could ever ask for in a movie. People who throw around Troll 2 and Showgirls when they talk about "best worst movies" need to turn their caps around and get their act together because Over the Top is exactly where it's at. Come, let's pick it apart using the criteria for terrible movies that I laid out in my first terrible-hunting post. We're starting with incompetence, and this is really, really all that needs to be said about that (or about the movie, period):

They couldn't even get their character's name right! What's not to love?

Terrible-hunting: Neowolf

Trash is a drug that I don't mind crawling through the dumpster to find. In fact, I love crawling though dumpsters. Duh, right? What has this blog been if not a 5-year trove through the trash bins of pop culture? Scanning movies and TV to find the worst of its worst (aka the best) at this point feels like a sport. I have pages worth of work to prove my cinematic bloodlust, but my main driving force ever since Showgirls or Amazing Discoveries or Mama's Family has been trashlust. That's only strengthened since establishing this outlet, because for better or worse, I find that the pop culture I have the most to say about is the pop culture that I bond with the most. Good, bad, but never indifferent, my taste often relies on my reaction (as backward as that sounds). It follows that I've long believed that taste has more to do with why than what (and a lot to do with how if you're a writer or critic). To be completely objective, I can't be sure if I've convinced myself of this out of necessity or because it's so, but either way, it works for me.

It works so well, in fact, that it led me to check out Neowolf, a cheap, direct-to-DVD (as of this week), so-unscary-it's-scary horror flick that even its own director disavowed...

 

Aw, poor Neowolf. That's OK. I'll adopt you.

(Warning: One screen shot is slightly NSFW below, but it's worth it, I assure you.)