Yellow Submarine (1968)

If you enjoy The Beatles, even if it's only in a casual listening atmosphere, "Yellow Submarine" is for you! I'm a big fan of everything The Beatles have done in terms of films and their various dabblings in cinema, even though their films are very low on the quality level. I enjoy because 1) I love The Beatles, they are the best band to have ever lived in my opinion, 2) I enjoy British humor immensely, and 3) The plots are so incredibly terrible that the jokes are brought to the forefront from being completely out of context the majority of the time.
Therefore, I LOVE "Yellow Submarine". The plot centers around an attack on the legendary Pepperland by the blue meanies. The mayor of Pepperland rides in a yellow submarine to find The Beatles to bring them back to Pepperland to save it and it's inhabitants. The movie also fits in the tradition of Beatles movies containing musical interludes that sometimes relate to the plot, but sometimes not. Another awesome and interesting aspect of this movie is that the animation is really really trippy. There are a lot of colors and things flying around and things that don't really make any sense. Most of the scenes of course happen during the musical interludes. I would say that this is the thing that really makes the movie what it is and fits into the Beatles' aesthetic of the time. So if you enjoy the music of The Beatles, and think you can handle dry British humor and trippy animation, check out "Yellow Submarine", which gets a 4/5.

Darkman (1990)

Every single time I see Liam Neeson, I can't stop myself from thinking Qui-Gon Jinn. Neeson plays the starring role of Peyton Westlake in "Darkman" directed by historic "B" movie director Same Raimi (the Evil Dead series). Bruce Campbell even makes a cameo in the last scene of the movie (which made me cheer). "Darkman" is about a scientist (Neeson) who gets tortured and interrogated by a group of mobsters about some incriminating evidence that is never really explained very well in the movie. The group of mobsters end up severely disfiguring Westlake to the point where he is unrecognizable. The rest of the movie is about Westlake exacting his revenge on the mobsters and the man behind the whole plot.
This movie is a classic case of a "B" movie in the terms that the special effects were pretty poor (but pretty sweet!) and because the plot was very poorly put together and much was left unexplained. Altogether this movie was pretty terrible in terms mentioned above, and solely because of the cameo of Bruce Campbell. Most of the movie was also pretty cheesy as well. In spite of the reasons mentioned previously, I award "Darkman" with 3/5 because I have a soft spot in my heart for B movies. I wouldn't recommend checking out though unless you can handle some of Sam Raimi's other movies.

The Family Stone (2005)

Now here's a film that is a great heart-warming holiday movie! I was basically forced into watching this by my roommate, but was pretty amazed by how not terrible it was. This movie is about a family gathering for Christmas and the problems that they experience when one of the sons (Everett, played by Dermot Mulroney) brings home the woman he wants to marry (Meredith, played by Sarah Jessica Parker). Throughout the film everybody seems to discover more about who they are, and who their family members are through a series of slightly hilarious puns (but also some not-so-hilarious ones that really put a damper on things). Different hook up by the end of the movie and everybody is happy!
The only thing that I didn't like about this movie was the fact that it was incredibly, boringly, predictable. It's very easy to plan out the entire movie in your head before anything of significance happens. However, I feel that this was a very appropriate feeling for this movie and that this wasn't significant to the overall meaning of the movie, that being love your family and those close the them. It feels to me as if the director (Thomas Bezucha) was trying to make a movie that cut as close to the heart as possible and show that not all good movies have to have intense plot twists. Overall I enjoyed this movie (and enjoyed Rachel McAdams who is HOT). Take it or leave it, "The Family Stone" gets a 4/5.

Meet the Feebles (1989)

Ever wondered what the muppets would be like in a rated R setting? "Meet the Feebles" is it. Peter Jackson (director) bastardizes the muppets, giving most of them parallels with naughty and disgusting habits. The Feebles is a group of muppets that host a variety hour on TV and the movie follows one day on the set of the show, twelve hours before the show up until the climax. Everything from sex and STD's to foul play and drug deals is showcased in this movie, which produces many disgusting and graphic (for muppets) scenes. However, most of these scenes are incredibly hilarious and laugh-out-loud funny.
"Meet the Feebles" was funny and really intrigued me because it was poking fun at Jim Henson's Muppets. However if you have a weak stomach or have true love of the original muppets, you would most likely not enjoy this movie. But if you can get past all of that I would say check it out just to see something interesting from Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings). I wonder how he got that gig after making this. "Meet the Feebles" gets a 2/5 for comedy.

Videodrome (1983)

David Cronenberg, the director of the recent films "A History of Violence" and "Eastern Promises" takes the question of what reality is to a new dimension in "Videodrome". This film follows a television producer named Max Renn (James Woods) who specializes in broadcasting softcore porn and like on channel 83 Civic-TV (cable channel 12). Max becomes engrossed in finding the next big television program for Civic-TV that will break through to a new audience. Through a satellite dish that pirates television programs from around the world, Max discovers Videodrome, a plotless show where a victim is tortured and murdered by the end of the program. Max goes about trying to discover the source of Videodrome and descends down a rabbit hole of government conspiracies and S&M, and finally into a state of near insanity and confusion.
Videodrome turns out to be a program by the government that gives its watchers malignant brain tumors and causes them to require severe psychiatric help. Max then discovers that Videodrome is actually a plot by the government to eliminate all of the social lowlifes that are fixated on sex and extreme violence to make the world a better place. Max just happened to be in the middle of the testing phase.
"Videodrome" really kept me guessing the entire time until I really sat down and thought about the significances of different events in the film and how they influenced the characters. This truly is an incredibly screwed up movie and the casual viewer should be warned that there are scenes of a shocking nature that probably shouldn't be viewed by the faint of heart, or those with a weak stomach. However, once you get past the beginning of the movie and really get into the character of Max Renn this film is really quite interesting. It's also a great social commentary on what is happening to North American culture as a result of watching too much television. "Videodrome" gets a 3.5/5

Boy Eats Girl (2005)

Zombie movies are one of my favorite genres of movies. Some may say that zombie movies don't classify as their own genre, however, I respectfully disagree and tell them to go watch Transformers 2. Over the past few years I have seen many different portrayals of zombies, the living dead, and the interact with the remaining living population. "Boy Eats Girl" is a very interesting portrayal of the undead that is very similar in to the film "Zombie Honeymoon".
In "Boy Eats Girl" the main character Nathan is involved with a girl named Jessica who he claims to be in love with. In a strange turn of events, Nathan ends up dying but his mother resurrects him using voodoo magic (the plot is definitely not given as much attention as it probably should have been given). Everything seems fine until Nathan starts craving human flesh and infects one of his fellow classmates with an infectious virus that forces him to eat everybody around him. This causes the virus to spread and take over the town and infect anybody that comes into contact with one of the infected. This of course involves some very gory and gruesome zombie eating scenes with copious amounts of corn syrup and artificial flesh. Nathan takes it upon himself to try and save Jessica from his zombie classmates while his mother finds the cure for the zombie virus in the venom of a snake.
As previously mentioned this movie was incredibly poorly put together in terms of the plot and the plot development. It's pretty much left up to the viewer to find out everything connecting one event to the another, which is fine if you know a lot about zombie movies, like I do. Really the main thing that held my interest in this movie was the incredibly amount of gore and and bodies getting ripped apart. This movie had one of the best multiple zombie scenes I've seen (even better than the helicopter ripping the zombies to pieces in "28 Weeks Later") when Jessica attacks a group of zombies with a tractor and grain harvester which leaves body parts everywhere.
In conclusion, if you're a fan of a good gore-fest zombie flick, check out "Boy Eats Girl" for the gore, and the gore alone. Other than that there aren't many redeeming qualities present. "Boy Eats Girl" gets a 2.5/5.

On Green Dolphin Street (1947)

"On Green Dolphin Street" is a very dark film (especially for 1947) about a love triangle that ends up changing the lives of everybody involved indefinitely and for the most part without remorse or forgiving. The film follows four characters, three of which are involved in the love triangle (William, Marianne, and Marguerite who are sisters). William ends up falling in love with Marguerite but can't be with her because he is involved with the navy and is traveling with a trading vessel called The Green Dolphin. He ends up settling in New Zealand and running a lumber mill with a friend he met, Haslam. One night while in a drunken stupor, he writes a letter to send for his love Marguerite to marry her, but makes a mistake in his intoxicated state and accidentally writes Marianne's name instead of Marguerite's. A long while later he realizes his mistake when Marianne shows up in New Zealand rather than his love, Marguerite. He ends up marrying Marianne even though he doesn't love her and they live "happily" for awhile until a series of plot changing events (an earthquake and a war) force William and Marianne back to England. When they return to England they find that Marianne's and Marguerite's parents have died and without anybody else in the world, Marguerite has taken to the nunnery as a servant of God. Marianne ends up finding out that William had planned to marry Marguerite until he found out that she had become a nun which leads to the revealing of the truth about their relationship. However it all ends up happy in the end and William and Marianne truly fall in love.
The reason why this movie was so dark was because of a few major things. The characters were very easy to become attached to, the worst possible things happen to the characters, and the music was very well composed and suited for the sections in which life/plot changing events happened. The wailing of the string orchestra when Marianne's and Marguerite's parents die is a textbook example of this. It rouses an incredibly emotional disturbance and sorrow for the Marguerite who now has nothing.
The only problem with this movie was that it was really, really long (2 hours and 21 minutes). I felt that it could have been cut down a lot and it seemed to drag on and on forever. Despite that "On Green Dolphin Street" was relatively good movie and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It gets 4/5