Oh, hello, I didn’t see you come in. Welcome to a brand new series that I have dubbed The Watchlist. If any of you were around in the earlier days of my career you would recall I had a series called The BC’s Netflix Watchathon where I talked about three movies that aligned with my chosen categories. I did that for a while until I lost interest when it started to feel a bit stale.
I contemplated bringing it back but then one day I noticed my Netflix and Letterboxd watchlist just kept growing and I lacked motivation to watch any of those movies because it would get in the way of My Blog Complainer stuff. So my mind clicked and that’s how this series was born.
This will be an ongoing series where I slowly cross off movies/TV Shows on my Watchlist. I called it Watchlist for that very reason, because I don’t want to be limited to just picking movies from Netflix or three movies each episode. It’ll be a random showcase of my general thoughts on those movies that I’ve picked for each episode.
I’ll be using a different rating system for this series. Instead of my typical 1-10 star rating I’m going to rate based on how I would recommend it:
5 – Watch Immediately
4 – Watch Soon
3 – Hold Off
2 – If Interested
1 – Don’t Bother
Below is the current state of my watchlist. If there is something that you want elevated to the top of the list then please let me know. Also let me know if you think there should be something added to the list.
So, for this first episode I wanted to talk about some of the Netflix Originals that came out in the last few months. I held that off to focus on other projects. Then I noticed that some of the movies in my watchlist were leaving near the end of February. So we’re doing those movies instead.
Comedy! Who doesn’t love comedy? But most importantly,l a crude comedy? OOOOOOOOH!
But what about a comedy from the early 2000’s? Indifferent? Oh good, we’re on the same page.
Our first comedy is The 40 Year Old Virgin. The joke is that the guy is a virgin and he’s 40 years old. (Isn’t that funny?) I try to approach these types of movies with an open mind because if you have too much expectation you’re going to be disappointed. Especially with a movie like this which has been put on such a large pedestal.
Now that I have seen it I’m happy to report that this movie is quite underwhelming. I can’t imagine what this movie did back in 2005 but for me living in 2019 I think I’ve been exposed to so many similar movies that it was yet just another crude comedy.
The story is so basic and boring that I’m just going to skip over it and jump straight to the comedy which I imagine is why we’re all here. Well, if you’re not aware of my taste, let me tell you I’m a pretty hard man to get a chuckle out of. I didn’t find any of it particularly funny but that might have something to do with me not being 15 anymore and the mention of male and female genitalia over and over again just makes me cringe, especially with how dated this movie is. I didn’t even know that they had official eBay stores until I watched this movie but it won’t stop them from running a super dated joke into the ground.
Even though this movie looks really boring, plays super safe and the humour really didn’t hit, there are some praises I should give it. I don’t really like any of the characters but I think the performances in this movie are pretty good, even though most of the actors in this movie will be type cast in these type of roles for the rest of their career. I kind of liked Steve Carell and Catherine Keener’s relationship. I think in a much more serious movie I might be able to get more enjoyment out of this. This movie is mostly famous for the improvised scenes which is impressive though they do seem to drag the joke into the ground especially the Paul Rudd and Seth Rogan scene. It felt very natural which I congratulate them for but it went on for too long.
That’s the best way I can sum up the 40 year old stinker, a below average movie that is definitely a better first time R rated viewing.
3 – Hold it Off
Our next movie is an Indie mockumentary. Hooray! What We Do in The Shadows is a movie I have been meaning to get around to for a while. About a month before I got Netflix I watched Taika Waititi’s previous film Boy and right after that I wanted to pick this one up but obviously that never happened.
My main problem with The 40 Year Old Virgin is it has an interesting concept but it doesn’t really go anywhere with it – the title is the whole joke. On the other hand What We Do in The Shadows does a much better job at using it’s concept and premise to it’s full potential.
What We Do in the Shadows is about the daily lives of some vampires living in a flat together and all of the misadventures they get up to and, unlike The 40 Year Old Virgin, this movie expands on the interesting concept.
After watching so many comedies over the years I think I have decided this is my favourite type of comedy. I just love the ridiculous over the top satire movies when the movie is very self-aware and just goes with it. The people who made this movie know their vampire stuff and they do a great job at using all the different vampire and other monster media from over the years and making fun of it.
Has anyone ever seen the Cartoon Network show The League of Super Evil? It’s a cartoon about these really lame super villains that live in a house together and it’s about the shenanigans they get up to. I brought that up because the main characters in this movie remind me of them except they are not animated and they are more entertaining. They’re all very distinct from each other and all hilarious. My favourite is Vladislav as he was this famous torturer and he goes on about how scary he is but in reality he is a massive goofball.
I don’t want to get too in-depth with this movie as I think it’s best you watch it yourself as I found the less you know about it the bigger the treat is. Overall I found this movie a very fun ride with some minor bumps along the way. It’s a movie I would love to watch again very soon and I know it won’t be for everyone but it’s definitely worth at least one hour of your time.
5 – Watch Immediately
This may shock you but I have never seen Jaws until a couple of days ago. It’s a movie that I knew all of the behind the scenes history on and all of the famous moments without ever having seen it myself. I have been meaning to watch it ever since I first got serious about film and all it took was a movie watchlist series to finally make me check out this famous film.
I’m sure everybody reading this review knows the plot of Jaws as it’s a very simple concept but for this movie it works perfectly well. If you don’t already know, Jaws is a big shark that is terrorizing a popular beach and the local police chief makes it his duty to put down the beast.
Having been aware of the many production issues with this movie I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. Even though the characters are extremely basic they’re still very likeable and you completely understand their place in the movie as it all works perfectly. Brody, Quint and Hoover make a great trio as they work perfectly off each other and along with the rest of the cast.
It’s probably a sin not to mention the shark. If they showed the shark as much as they originally wanted to the movie would have suffered. The movie really benefited from rarely showing the shark as it made it much more intimidating and more tense whenever it was lurking around. Along with the excellent camera work and the iconic score by John Williams every scene with the shark around is heart poundingly tense and eerie. I also love the usage of gore because it makes the horrifying actions of the shark much more impactful. You won’t see limbs floating around in the water in a modern day shark movie!
I don’t really have much to complain about with Jaws as it nails everything I want from a movie like this. Great gore, creative camera work, characters you want to root for, intense scenes and a terrifying villain – that is all you need from a movie like this.
5 – Watch Immediately
Another comedy that is departing Netflix but this one is special because it’s based on a comic book and comic book movies are always welcome on this site. I remember how popular Kick-Ass was when it first came out but once the hype died down I forgot it existed until I saw it pop up on Netflix.
Kick-Ass is another movie that has an interesting concept – what if superheroes were in the real world and what if some average Joe wanted to be a superhero? I’m pretty sure that’s the whole point of Spider-Man – that he’s just a normal guy with normal everyday problems. But obviously it’s not realistic enough because Kick-Ass is an average kid who likes chicks and enjoys nerdy pop culture references. The only difference is Kick-Ass sucks at being a superhero and instead of kicking ass he’s getting his ass kicked.
The first 20 to 30 minutes of this movie I thought were great as I really got into the premise and the main kid Dave. It reminded me a lot of Spider-Man, if he was foul mouthed and went into greater detail of his alone time bedroom activities. As the movie progressed it started to lose me when it got more story driven and it started to feel like a typical superhero movie which is what the first half hour was mocking. The ending was really cool though, so I can kind of get over it.
As for the comedy, it was pretty good. As I have quite a vast knowledge of superheroes and comic books I got pretty much all of the references. The action scenes are probably my favourite as they’re all really creative, especially any of the set-pieces with Hit-Girl. I want to spend a bit of time on her as she was the most interesting character in the entire movie. It might have something to do with her being a child and children are always much more interesting when they’re murderous psychopaths. I also enjoyed her relationship with Nicholas Cage and their fascinating backstory. Pretty much every character who isn’t a superhero sucks, especially the love interest and the main villain who are both so bland.
That’s pretty much everything I have to say about this movie as it’s an entertaining, good comedy and it made me interested enough to see what happens next. Besides a few issues with the plot, Kick-Ass is a pretty good movie and it’s definitely worth watching if you’re familiar with comic books and of course you’re not the same age as Hit-Girl.
4 – Watch Soon
If you made it this far then I’m happy to announce this website now has a forum page. Just login using a WordPress account (if you don’t have one I recommend making one), start a forum page and talk to other people or friends or me. My goal with this is whenever then is some new movie related news I can make a forum page and discuss it with you. I’m still new to all of this so any feedback would be highly appreciated.
That’s the end of this first episode. Like, subscribe, share it with your friends and I’ll be here all month with more entertainment coming your way very soon and until then I have been The Blog Complainer, Signing Out.
