Top 12 Movies I Like, But Everyone Else Hates

            Well, for those of you who tuned in last month, y'all know the Top 12 Movies I Dislike, But Everyone Else Loves.  So now, it's your turn to get your revenge on me as I count down the Top 12 Movies I Like, But Everyone Else Hates.  Now before I start this list, I want to point out that the list itself takes more after Doug Walker's list in the sense that I don't think that any of these are perfect movies that no one else aside from me seems to see the genius of, I acknowledge that they have faults (one of the problems that I had with Tony's list like this was that it seemed to be just him singing the praises of his selections).



            Still, I did manage to find some things in these movies that I genuinely enjoyed and made me glad that I had seen them.  As I feel I need to bring up with these lists, these are just my opinions.  There's nothing stopping you from hating these movies just like there's nothing to stop me from enjoying them.  Additionally, just like the last list, there's potentially going to be some talk about the movie plots themselves so SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!  With all that out of the way, let's not waste any more time and dive right in.







XII.  Ghost Rider (2007)

            Now I'm not gonna deny that Mark Steven Johnson is one of the worst directors currently working in Hollywood and there's plenty of stuff to make fun of in this movie.  Still, there were some things about it that I found enjoyable.



            While I thought that Wes Bentley as the devil's son followed by his group of fallen angels made terrible villains, I thought that the representation of each of them by an element was interesting.  For example, Bentley's character, Blackheart (pfft ha ha ha I'm sorry that's just hilarious), first appears as Fire is raining down and the other 3 appear through Earth, Water, and Air (now all they need is Heart.  XD  I'm sorry, I had to make that joke).



            Another Awesome aspect is any time there's actual Ghost Rider onscreen.  By god, one of my favorite moments is when Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage) rides all the way to the train yard where he begins transforming into the Rider while the Latin Choir (which I already mentioned in a past post is my favorite cliche) sings in the background (as seen below).  Plus, give Cage extra credit for having one of his traditional acting "freak outs" during that scene.  Also, the design of Ghost Rider's motorcycle is super badass looking.

            One thing that a lot of people were bothered by, but, strangely enough, I wasn't, was the fact that Blaze was the most powerful of all the past Ghost Riders because he sold his soul out of love rather than greed.  That concept I thought was pretty cool.  In fact, a running theme throughout most of this list is that I include movies based off of concept as I'm really big on that factor.



            Still, there's a lot of stuff that's just really goofy here like Cage's actions, the character of Blackheart, a moment where the devil's cartoony shadow is shown at the beginning, an instance of using a Magic 8 Ball at a restaurant, and one character using a lantern in modern times.  Another thing to point out is the missed opportunity for Cage to use this role to deliver a more over-the-top performance like he did in Face/Off.



            But, hey, it was still better than that piece of shit sequel that came out 5 years later.  Thank God that one sucked resulting in the rights reverting back to Marvel.  Now all we need is for the same thing to happen to the Fantastic 4.  Fingers crossed.  :-)







XI.  In Time (2011)

            Like I said before, this movie I mostly like because I find the concept interesting.  I thought that the whole idea of a future where time is literally money was fascinating and they explain how the system works pretty well that each person has a clock genetically engineered in their arm set for a year that starts counting down once they reach 25 whereupon they also cease to age.  Once the clock reaches zero or "times out", the person dies.



            There's some interesting commentary to be made in this movie about the rich constantly robbing from the poor in order to live forever by constantly raising the costs of basic necessities.  I also really liked the relationship (brief though it was) between Will Salas (Justin Timberlake who does a pretty good job of acting here) and his mother Rachel (Olivia Wilde who also stars in another movie to make this list later on) and how they both loved each other to the extent that they were soo willing to give the other some of their own time when both of them are pretty hard pressed for time themselves.



            Additionally, I found Cillian Murphy to be pretty decent as one of the villains, a police-like "Timekeeper".  Even Amanda Seyfried as the daughter of an extremely wealthy time-loaner does a good job of playing the "fish out of water" when she's stuck with Will and learning the importance of time management when every second could be your last.



            But now moving on to what I didn't like about this movie.  I didn't like Fortis or his gang as they just seemed like 1-dimensional villains who only steal time from others... just because.  That was stupid and I loved watching them time out when it finally did happen.  But the other thing is that the story itself isn't anything new.  It's basically a Sci-Fi, dystopian version of Bonnie and Clyde.



            This movie was written, directed, and produced by Andrew Niccol, whose credits also include Sci-Fi cult classic Gattaca, The Truman Show, Lord Of War, and The Terminal (which many of you might remember from my previous Top 12 list) and despite this movie's faults I still find it enjoyable to watch, but maybe that's just the Sci-Fi geek in me.







X.  Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

AND

Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

            So yeah.  Just like my last list, I have a tie between 2 movies.  The main reason I put these 2 together was because they both have a certain campy charm to them as they take characters we thought we knew and reimagines them as hunters of supernatural beings.



            Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was originally a mashup novel done in the same style as Pride And Prejudice And Zombies (which I heard is getting its own movie come next year) and Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters.  The novel's original author, Seth Grahame-Smith (who also wrote Pride And Prejudice And Zombies), served as screenwriter for the movie while Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov helmed it and there was plenty that I enjoyed about this reimagining of the 16th president as a vampire hunter.



            Some of the things I found interesting were how it adds its own spin to the vampire lore.  For instance, according to this movie, the reason vampires are vulnerable to silver dates back to biblical times when Judas betrayed Jesus for the 30 pieces of silver, marking it as a symbol of betrayal.



            Also, those who are pure of heart simply die from a vampire's bite while those whose hearts are tainted are turned.  Some people might've been turned off by the fact that this movie states that some of the vampires were pastors, but people forget how corrupt most Southern pastors were during slavery era America.  I even thought that the logic that vampires can't kill each other as "only the living can kill the dead" was interesting and there were even some kick ass scenes of Honest Abe wielding his silver coated axe against the undead legions.



            Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters, a fun little cult gem, has a lot of interesting stuff going for it.  I found it interesting how Hansel ended up becoming a diabetic from when they were kids first arriving at the gingerbread house where the witch forced him to gorge himself on sweets to fatten him up.



            Also the twist where it's revealed that Hansel and Gretel were descended from a white witch, therefore explaining their invulnerability to black magic, was pretty cool.  And, of course, all the blood and gore was a lot of fun for my dumb male brain to watch.  I've heard that there are plans to make a sequel out of this movie which I'd really like to see as I'd love to watch how this world is expanded upon.



            Both of these movies are pretty goofy when you come to think about it which might be what turns some people off to them, but there are still others who view them as pretty enjoyable.  I personally find myself among the latter category.







IX.  9 (2009)

           Now this was a movie that I was super psyched to see when I first saw the trailer (shown below)

            Based on the 2005 Academy Award Nominated short film of the same name by Shane Acker, this movie, like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, is helmed by Burton and Bekmambetov as well as Acker himself.  I saw this movie in its original theatrical run (I saw the very first showing with a friend's dad) and I found it fairly enjoyable.



            The animation is impressive as all of the 9 main characters have their own distinct appearance and personalities based off of the many different sides of their creator's own personality.  The different machines are fascinating to see as their designs are inspired by such diverse things as a cat, a pterodactyl, a cobra, and even one that brings to mind a hybrid of an AT-ST walker from Star Wars and an alien tripod from War Of The Worlds.  Also the dreary, sepia toned, Post-Apocalyptic background is amazing to look at (I'm a major sucker for anything Post-Apocalyptic).



            Another aspect that I found interesting was one particular scene where 2 is looking over 9 and makes comments about all the thought and detail that was put into 9's creation.  Acker himself even stated in an interview with scienceblogs.com, "There's some spirituality in [our] creation, some indescribable thing that can't be broken down into scientific terms.  Though we can start to describe [the] brain as a complex collection of nerves that creates thought, you can say that we're complex amino acid collections, how do you describe that consciousness that humans have?"  That's something very rarely brought up in movies.



            The voice acting is also pretty decent from such actors as Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, and Christopher Plummer.  In addition to that, the messages of teamwork and even self sacrifice were interesting to see here.  And of course what I really liked was the fact that it was an animated movie that was trying to touch on darker subjects.  We already have an overabundance of brightly, candy-coated, family-friendly, animated movies to the point that more adult animated movies are a welcome breath of fresh air.



            Unfortunately, this movie has some problems when it comes to its pacing and character development.  Another aspect that I could go either way on is that it's a rather short movie, clocking in at about 75 minutes.  On the one hand, it's kind of refreshing that this movie is shorter than other movies that are bloated out with "too long" runtimes.  On the other hand, though, this movie could've been a little bit longer to smooth out some of the character development and pacing problems.  It's a delicate balance.



            Even with its flaws, I still think this movie deserves to be seen by as many people as possible as I feel it's criminally underappreciated.  Feel free to give it a watch for yourself some time.  You might just be surprised.







VIII.  Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008)

            Alright.  Y'all heard me bitch and moan about Temple of Doom in my last list where I said that I consider it to be the worst Indiana Jones movie in the franchise.  If I was ranking all of the movies, Temple of Doom would be rock bottom below Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, although, when it comes to Raiders Of The Lost Ark or The Last Crusade, I can't decide which is my favorite.



            Some of the things I like about this movie are the villain, Irina Spalko, the return of Marion, and, the one thing that's probably going to make you all hate me, I thought that Shia LeBeouf was actually pretty decent in this movie as Indy's son, Mutt.  Why?  Well, unlike Willie from Temple of Doom who constantly had to have her ass saved while contributing nothing to the group (except to annoy the living piss out of me and others), Mutt proved he could actually take care of himself.  He certainly held his own pretty well in a fencing duel against Spalko on top of moving vehicles.



            I didn't even mind the fact that they were searching for extra-terrestrial artifacts in this movie as I felt it fit in with the time period of the 50s that the movie was set in.  People seem to forget that that decade was when a lot of the Sci-Fi alien invasion movies were coming out.



            But, of course, like most others, I had a problem with the overuse of CGI.  I mean, Mutt swinging from vines with a bunch of CGI monkeys like Tarzan?  Really?  That was stupid.  Also, surviving a nuclear blast in a fridge was dumb, but at the same time, Temple of Doom had people jumping out of an airplane on an inflatable raft before sledding down a slope until they fly off the edge of a cliff into the river below without sustaining any injuries so I give it a pass.



            Personally, despite its flaws, I find this movie far better than most people give it credit for.  Just goes to show you the difference.







VII.  The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

            This is probably one of my more selfish selections as Electro is my all-time favorite Spider-Man villain because I've always wanted electrical manipulation as a superpower and it was nice to finally see him on the big screen.  Funny story, back in 1991 (my birth year), James Cameron was originally going to make a Spider-Man movie starring Electro as the main villain, but those plans sadly fell through.



            Marc Webb I feel did a good job with modernizing Electro's appearance as that goofy green and yellow get-up from the comics would never work.  Even having Rhino in this heavily armored high tech suit was pretty cool to see.  The death of Gwen Stacy was really sad as I felt she was a far superior love interest for Spidey when compared to Mary Jane Watson from the Raimi Trilogy, which you could say means that there was more of an audience attachment to Gwen as a character.



            Another aspect that I thought was handled really well in this movie was how Peter Parker actually quit being Spider-Man for an extended period of time after Gwen's death, which totally makes sense as pretty much anyone would be shaken up from the death of a loved one, and it's made all the more tragic seeing as he was soo close to saving her.  Compare this to Spider-Man 2 of the Raimi Trilogy where Peter quits being Spider-Man because the job is too hard and really think which of these 2 would you be more able to relate to?



            But of course the problems that this movie has are hard to ignore.  Mostly the fact that it feels more focused on setting itself up for a Sinister Six movie that will never happen now (well that sucks) and therefore is overly bloated with trying to juggle too many elements, side plots, and character developments all at once.  I was pretty annoyed at the fact that Rhino is just thrown in at the last 5 minutes.



            I still think this movie is better than Spider-Man 3 though as I felt Spider-Man 3 terribly handled Venom and the whole "emo Peter Parker" thing was dumb and unforgivable.  Really depressing that this movie is ranked as the worst of the franchise and was the least successful.  :-(






VI.  Tron: Legacy (2010)

            Now I'm gonna be completely honest with you guys, I never saw the original 1982 Tron movie before watching Tron: Legacy.  Still, I don't think that my lack of Tron knowledge kept me from enjoying this movie in any sense because I found plenty of things to like about it.



            I saw this movie in 3-D at an IMAX theater and I can just tell you guys right now that this movie was GORGEOUS to look at.  This was definitely a movie that justifies itself for being released in 3-D unlike others who just use it as a gimmick.  I feel it makes up for me not seeing Avatar in 3-D.



            The whole first half of the movie is really fun as it introduces the audience to the world of The Grid and its rules.  The fight scenes are a lot of fun to watch, all set to the electronic house mixings of Daft Punk (who even make a cameo appearance at the End Of Line nightclub).  Some people had a problem with Jeff Bridges' performance, but I actually thought it was pretty entertaining at times.  The one line that has me pissing my pants with laughter is when he says, "You're messin with my 'Zen thing', man."  Me and my friend Caleb, who I saw the movie with, still quote that line to this day.



            But once the second half comes around is when the plot holes start to show up.  So C.L.U.'s (who's essentially a program clone of Bridges' character) plan is to bring an army he's been raising into the real world to take it over, but isn't that kind of a problem when these programs can just be destroyed by hitting them?  Seriously, one blow and they collapse into pixels or, as they say, they're "derezzed".  Also, earlier on in the movie, the main character of Sam Flynn is trying to sabotage his own company.  Yeah.  Try to make sense of that.



            I still think that this movie is worth seeing even if just for the spectacle alone.  If you have the chance to watch it in 3-D, do it.  You won't regret it.







V.  Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

            Now this was back when Disney was trying to do something different with its animation studio and I think that the style, inspired by Hellboy creator, Mike Mignola, was very interesting as was the culture of Atlantis itself.  Also worth mentioning is that the Atlantean language itself was created by Marc Okrand, the same man who developed the Klingon language in Star Trek.



            I grew up reading a lot of Sci-Fi stories and watching a lot of Sci-Fi movies like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Journey To The Center Of The Earth, War Of The Worlds, and many others so this movie really captured my interest.  The Atlantean technology was very futuristic, alien-like, and almost alternate reality based which I felt fit in well with this movie.



            The characters were all very interesting and memorable from Mole to Audrey to Vinny to Dr. Sweet and even Cookie got a good laugh out of me every once in a while.  Plus, speaking of Star Trek, late legendary actor, Leonard Nimoy, even lends his voice to the King of Atlantis.  I also really loved the music, particularly in the Crystal Chamber.



            What I didn't like though was the villain and his motivations.  They basically discover Atlantis, but he decides to steal the city's life crystal just because it'll make him rich.  I'm just like "DUDE!!!  You discovered a lost civilization.  You're going to be rich anyways.  You don't have to steal this life crystal."  So yeah.  That was stupid.



            Despite bad critical reception, this movie has received a strong cult following as it should.  It's kind of sad that this movie came out during a time where more and more kids were leaning towards CG animation because this is a seriously underappreciated movie and definitely worth a watch if you ever get the chance.







IV.  The Reaping (2007)

            Now I doubt any of you guys have even heard of this movie, but it was one that, when I first found out about it, I really wanted to see it super bad.  Unfortunately for me it was R rated and I wasn't quite old enough to watch it at that time.  I eventually forgot about it over time until just recently when I finally watched it and there were several aspects of it that I enjoyed.



            The whole concept of the 10 Biblical plagues of Exodus striking this small town was the first thing to capture my attention.  I also found it interesting how Hilary Swank's character, Katherine, who has left her faith after her husband and daughter were murdered by the same people they came to help and has since been using scientific means to explain miraculous occurrences, is brought back to her faith when she realizes that these miracles can't be explained through science.



            In addition to this, I thought that the effects were really cool to see as each and every one of the plagues occurred and even a few of the people were very enjoyable and likable.  Some of my favorite characters being Katherine, her assistant, Ben, and a young girl, Loren McConnell, who the inhabitants of this small town believe to be behind these plagues.



            I also really fell in love with the music.  This music shifts back and forth between calm and quiet to loud and boisterous but no matter which of the 2 it's on, there's always a sense of darkness, sinister foreboding, and even dread to it, which one would come to expect in a biblical horror movie (one of my favorite tracks is Locusts as it's loud and boisterous while also containing the Dramatic Choir throughout its entirety).  It's a soundtrack that I would definitely recommend listening to.



            But even with that, the acting, while not godawful, leaves something to be desired.  Also, it kind of bothered me somewhat with some areas where it lacked biblical accuracy with the order in which the plagues happened or even when someone says that Pharaoh's men matched Moses plague for plague when they only matched him for the first few plagues.



            Still, even with those flaws I found it to be relatively enjoyable.  There's nothing really that offensive that I could think of and the plagues were particularly fun to watch, so I'd definitely recommend it.







III.  Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith (2005)

            Now, of course, a lot of people have bashed the prequel trilogy to death and there's a lot of stuff to make fun of, but I'm still surprised by all the people who include Episode III in their bashing.  It just boggles my mind when they say nothing good comes from it.



            What I really loved about this movie was how much more action packed it was.  This movie gave us not 1, not 2, not 3, not even 4, but 5 lightsaber duels in its runtime from Anakin and Obi Wan VS. Count Dooku to Yoda VS. The Emperor to Obi Wan VS. Anakin (which has gotta be one of the most intense duels ever put to film).  One thing that the prequels did better than the original trilogy was their lightsaber duels.



            Also watching the Emperor slowly but surely twist Anakin's mind to turn to the Dark Side was interesting as he plays on his fears of losing Padme, which makes it all the more tragic when his own turn to the Dark Side results in her losing the will to live.  Finally I loved how much darker this movie was as it's currently the only Star Wars movie to have a PG-13 rating.  Me and my sister (who wasn't quite a teenager yet) both saw the premiere of this movie and loved it.



            Now, of course, the acting from the majority of the cast isn't particularly good, but people forget how silly some of the acting from the original trilogy could get at times.  Also, that puss out Darth Vader moment at the end where he shouts, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" after discovering Padme is dead was really dumb (at least we now know where Luke got it from.  XD  ).



            So yeah.  Don't act like there's absolutely nothing redeemable in the prequels because when something has that much time, money, and, dare I say, effort put into it, it deserves to be acknowledged when all of that pays off and I feel it really does here.







II.  Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

            Now there were only 2 Pirates movies that I actually saw in theaters: Dead Man's Chest and this one.  I did watch the movies in order, but At World's End I didn't see until several months before On Stranger Tides was released because, in all honesty, it didn't really interest me.  OST was the movie that I really wanted to see as it had Blackbeard, Mermaids, Zombies, and a quest to find the legendary Fountain Of Youth so I begrudgingly watched AWE beforehand and was really bored by it.



            The lack of action throughout the majority of the movie, the convoluted plot, the bloated runtime, the stupid financial currency scandal no one gave a flying fuck about, and all of it leading up to what felt like a half hour of ships circling in a whirlpool left me thinking "Well that sucked.  I guess the next one can only go up from here." and when I got around to seeing OST... I found it to be much better than AWE.



            There was a nice balance of action and calmer moments between scenes that I enjoyed, a lot of that action coming from Penelope Cruz's character, Angelica, who is the type of woman that Keira Knightley should've been.  The music is also really fun with Rodrigo y Gabriela adding a nice Latin American flair to it.  The Mermaids were a very interesting blend of Siren and Vampire with their razor sharp fangs to eat people alive and I even found the 3-D to be pretty decent.  Not phenomenal, but not terrible either.  Not to mention this was also the shortest movie in the franchise.



            One thing that really bothered a lot of people, but, once again, I didn't really mind, was the whole romance sideplot that was going on between the missionary, Phillip, and the Mermaid, Syrena.  One of the things that really bothered me about AWE (and partially DMC) was this whole love triangle bullshit that they were playing with between Will, Elizabeth, and Jack.



            I'm just going to come out and say it right now: I hate when people try to force these stupid love triangles on me because they're very rarely ever done right in my opinion.  The only love triangle that I was seriously invested in was the one between Gale, Katniss, and Peeta from The Hunger Games books (also, possibly Harry, Hermione, and Ron from the Harry Potter movies).  This movie just had one romance between Jack and Angelica and another between Phillip and Syrena.  No love triangle required here.



            But there were some areas that I had problems with.  One of which being the convoluted plot and its pacing.  The reason why this is a bigger problem here than in something like AWE is because, strangely enough, AWE kind of justifies it with having a longer runtime whereas OST has a shorter runtime so it seems like they're just trying to cram as much stuff as they can in at once.



            But the biggest, and I really do mean the biggest, problem that I had was with the character of Blackbeard.  This guy is supposed to be the pirate that all other pirates fear and... he just came off as soo boring and bland compared to the villains that we've been given in past films.  When you take into account all the stuff that's known about the original Blackbeard and how intimidating he was, it just seemed like a wasted opportunity.  I was more invested in Phillip and Syrena than I was in Blackbeard.  That's not a good sign.



            With all that said, though, I'm just really shocked that soo many people praise AWE over OST.  Tony himself had AWE on his list of movies he likes but everyone else hates which I was O.K. with at first until... he tried spreading this bullshit lie that people praise OST over AWE.  O.K. I don't know what planet or alternate reality he's living in because no one praises OST over AWE.  Even WatchMojo.com featured OST on their list of Top 10 Bad Movies That Were Successful.  Not AWE.  OST.  They also went on to say that the first 3 Pirates movies were effortless fun while OST was all effort.



            BULLFUCKINGSHIT!!!  AWE was anything but fun while OST actually felt like a real Pirates movie to me.  Also, did I mention the fact that AWE opens with a little boy being hung at the gallows?  Fucking sign me up for that please.  NOT!!!  So the way I see it, OST is nowhere near as good as The Curse Of The Black Pearl, but it is waaay superior to AWE.  I think I'd put it on about the same level as DMC as I was able to enjoy both of those movies in spite of their flaws.  With all that said, I'm really looking forward to Dead Men Tell No Tales where Jack will go up against ghost pirate, Captain Salazar (played by the always intimidating Javier Bardem), in search of the Legendary Trident Of Poseidon come 2017.







            WARNING!!!  The following entry you're about to see may cause similar side effects to those caused from seeing the #1 entry of my past list.  If you've already experienced these side effects before and do not desire to experience them again, I suggest that you navigate away from this post and find something else to do.  For those of you who choose to stay, once again, you've been warned.  So without any further delay, the #1 Movie I Like But Everyone Else Seems To Hate is...







I.  Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (2005)

            Yeah.  Another Johnny Depp movie.  Something about the majority of his more recent movies turns people off.  When I first found out about this movie several years back and that it was directed by Tim Burton, I was really eager to see this movie.  I was sure that this movie would be far more faithful to the book than Willy Wonka was and I was positive that Burton helming it would be a literal match made in heaven.  But, when I finally did get around to watching it (I believe it was one of the first Tim Burton movies I saw.  Either that or Pee Wee's Big Adventure.), much to my surprise...  I was totally right.  :-)



            Tim Burton was beyond perfect for this movie as he properly handles the wacky and eccentric nature of the story from the original book.  When I first saw this movie, I was under the assumption that everyone else liked this movie also.  It got good critical acclaim and so I thought that there were legions of others who liked it.  Noted, my mom wasn't particularly crazy about it, but I just chalked that up to the fact that she didn't like Tim Burton's work (she didn't even let me see The Nightmare Before Christmas when I was a kid).  Boy was I in for a rude awakening.



            A few years after first seeing Charlie, I came across a WatchMojo.com video of the Top 10 Worst Hollywood Remakes which Charlie landed on (one of the things that really pisses me off is when people refer to Charlie as a remake of Willy Wonka when it's not.  It's an adaptation of the original book for god's sake) where they proceeded to rip apart everything about this movie, referring to Charlie's Oompa Loompas as "unlikable" (Fuck you WatchMojo!!!  These Oompa Loompas were adorable and didn't give me nightmares like Willy Wonka's did) and stating that Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka was just a bad Michael Jackson impression (another thing that pisses me off as, if they had done any research, they would've known that Depp's Wonka was based off of kid's show hosts like Bob Keeshan and Fred Rogers, the latter of whom I actually saw a little bit of in Depp's performance, and that Depp's Wonka couldn't stand children while Michael Jackson loved children, but more on that later).



            I think I've made it very clear by this point that I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of WatchMojo.com.  I often compare WatchMojo.com to the Oscar's for the following reasons:  I.  I rarely ever agree with them, II.  They leave me really pissed off after watching them, and III.  For some unknown reason, I keep going back to it.  It's essentially an abusive relationship, but I digress.



            I said before that no movie is perfect and this movie isn't either.  Still, though, I feel like it came much closer to properly representing the original spirit of the book it was based on.  Charlie here is just the way that I imagined him from the book: kind, positive thinking, and selfless.  I also really enjoyed the stories that Grandpa Joe told about the many unusual confections Wonka created in his earlier years and even the story from the book of Prince Pondicherry and his chocolate palace.  The visuals were really great (as one would come to expect from Tim Burton) and I really loved how they modernized some of the characters.



            Violet Beauregarde (played by AnnaSophia Robb, who also played Loren McConnell in The Reaping), for instance, was updated from a mere gum enthusiast to the competitive daughter of a soccer mom who's always pushing her to win at everything, creating a superiority complex in her daughter in the process.  Also, Mike Teavee, while he still loves watching TV, is updated to being really big into excessively violent video games.  Even his parents seem very passive about it as if they're more than happy to let their son be raised by technology.



            The music was also a lot of fun to listen to as it has a very wacky and zany feel to it.  Danny Elfman provides both the score and the vocals for the songs (his first time singing since 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas) which were a ton of fun.  The Oompa Loompa songs here were taken directly from the book and each one was given its own unique style and sound from a Bollywood mambo to 70s funk to 60s psychedelic pop to 70s-80s hard rock.  I still find myself singing them to this day.  Wonka's Welcome Song can get annoying at times (I personally have a love/hate relationship with it), but, in all honesty, give me that over the Oompa Loompa song from Willy Wonka any day.



            But now it's time to discuss the big elephant in the room:  Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka.  While I will admit that his acting can get grating at times, I did find some of his performance to be enjoyable.  There were certain lines from the book that I remembered reading like when Veruca introduces herself to Wonka and he says, "I always thought a veruca was a type of wart you got on the bottom of your foot" or even when Mike repeatedly says something Wonka doesn't like and he constantly tells Mike not to mumble.  I loved those moments from the book and was glad to see them used in the movie.  Side note: My brother was in a local theater production of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and they incorporated both the veruca joke and the mumbling comment in the script.  If a local theater is smart enough to use these jokes, you know they're good.



            I also thought that he handled the eccentric, mischievous, and sometimes even asshole side of Wonka from the book very well.  Many people probably had a problem with the fact that he didn't even bother to learn the kids' names or that he seemed kind of nasty towards the 4 bratty kids (but at the same time I also felt was the proper level of polite to Charlie).  As far as I'm concerned, though, I just associated that with his godlike omniscience that I remembered from the book.  Additionally, people condemn Depp's Wonka for his lack of concern for the children's safety.  Oh yeah.  Because Gene Wilder's Wonka from the first movie wasn't in any way like that at all.  Uneducated dumbasses!



            I found it kind of interesting when they decided to give Wonka more of a backstory to sort of explain how he ended up becoming this eccentric, reclusive shut-in.  It was certainly interesting seeing the late great Sir Christopher Lee playing Wonka's dad, a dentist who was completely opposed to Willy becoming a chocolatier.



            Now, if you'll allow me to diverge slightly off topic, I'm a huge fan of the Nostalgia Critic, but there's one particular video of his that I don't like: his Old VS. New of Willy Wonka VS. Charlie.  For those of you unfamiliar with Old VS. New, it's a series he does where he compares 2 similar movies from different periods (King Kong 1933 VS. 2005, Batman (1989) VS. The Dark Knight (2008), True Grit 1969 VS. 2010, Ten Commandments VS. Prince Of Egypt, etc.) that he views as being pretty equal to each other.



            The only problem is he doesn't view Charlie as being equal to Willy Wonka so his arguments are completely biased from the get go.  He's soo blinded by nostalgia that he praises the aspects of Willy Wonka that stray from the source material and yet he criticizes the aspects of Charlie that remain the most faithful to it.  In fact, I'm wondering if he's even read the damn book!



            Now there was an episode of Old VS. New where he compared Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy to Marc Webb's Spider-Man movies and he was pretty biased towards the latter, but even then he had someone there to argue for the Raimi movies so that it was a fair fight.  In addition to that, they actually referenced the source material (in this case the Spider-Man comics) when making their arguments, something that the NC didn't even bother doing with the Willy Wonka VS. Charlie battle.  I have the feeling that if I was in a redone Willy Wonka VS. Charlie fight, I could definitely give the Critic a run for his money.  I don't necessarily know if I'd win, but I'd certainly give Charlie more of a fighting chance than he ever did.



            When I was doing research on this movie, I actually came across an article where Gene Wilder was quoted as calling Charlie And The Chocolate Factory "an insult", more specifically "Warner Bros.' insult".  This got me particularly pissed off because Dahl's estate, particularly his widow and daughter, fully approved of Burton's vision for the movie.  So if that's the case, who is this movie really an insult to?  Is it an insult to Dahl himself or is it an insult to Wilder?



            It then occurred to me that Wilder himself is a bit of an egotist here.  He apparently can't stand the idea of there being another adaptation of the book other than the one he was the star of.  I don't care if people hate me for this or if it's too controversial of an opinion (being a Brony, controversial opinions are nothing new as, to state a few examples, I didn't mind Twilight becoming an Alicorn Princess in the Season 3 Finale, I didn't hate Equestria Girls like everyone else did, and I thought Flash Sentry was a pretty decent character, not deserving of all the hate he's been getting lately, but I digress) this is just how I saw all of this.



            Personally, I'm also of the very controversial opinion that neither Gene Wilder nor Johnny Depp properly portrayed the Wonka that I remembered from the book.  Wilder seemed to focus more on the charming whimsical side of Wonka while Depp focused more on the eccentric mischievous side of Wonka.  Both actors cranked their portrayals up to 11 where with Wilder it felt very pedo and uncomfortable at times and with Depp it felt very grating and awkward at other times (and why I don't see Depp's portrayal as being pedo was because he couldn't stand kids except for Charlie who, like I said earlier, he was the proper level of polite around).



            In my opinion, the proper Wonka would have to be a combination of both Wilder and Depp's portrayals in equal amounts.  All I can say is if you like Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, maybe we can be close friends.  If you like Willy Wonka, that's perfectly fine only as long as you don't bash Charlie in favor of it, in which case there will be a pretty nasty bloodbath to follow.  But if by some miracle of God you're someone who happens to like both Willy Wonka and Charlie equally, then you're clearly a far better person than I am.







            So that was my list of the Top 12 Movies I Like, But Everyone Else Hates and I'd like to know what's a movie that you really enjoy but everyone else seems to hate?  Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this list (and my last list) and I hope I didn't piss off too many people with my opinions (I probably did anyways).  In the meantime I hope you guys have a great week and I'll see you on the next blog post.  Take care.

The job search continues, The Big E, and my grandma coming out to visit among other things.

            So the interview with Abercrombie & Fitch didn't really go anywhere, but I'm still waiting to hear back from Hot Topic.  They said that they wouldn't actually get around to calling people back until October.



            In other news, The Big E officially started this past weekend which is kind of a big deal here in my little corner of New England.  My mom is working there for several days meaning that I'm often needed to help look after my younger siblings while she's gone.  I'm planning on going there some time during its last weekend as SSI will have hit by then and I'll be able to buy some stuff and pig out on Deep Fried Oreos, Cream Puffs, hopefully some Chocolate Covered Bacon and the like.



            Also this past weekend, Apple accidentally released the Halloween episode of MLP 6 weeks before it was even supposed to air, so naturally I had to hop on that little bandwagon cuz I'm kind of a rebel like that.  XD  The episode was very entertaining and had some great character development for my girl, Fluttershy.



            Additionally, a few things happening this Saturday.  For one, obviously, there's going to be a new MLP episode that I'm looking forward to, but also my grandma is going to be visiting for the next few months so that'll be fun.  Also, the new Equestria Girls movie is going to be coming out.



            I'm really looking forward to this movie as it's being released directly to TV instead of getting a limited release in select theaters.  The problem I had with the latter was that it would never play at any theaters near me and any copy of the movie that people would put on YouTube would be taken down by copyright laws so I wouldn't end up seeing the movie until months after everyone else already had.



            Even though I don't get the channel that the movie (or hell even the show) airs on, I can just watch it off of YouTube when someone uploads it, just like how I've watched the past several episodes.  I've even been listening to the movie's soundtrack which has some great songs.  Some of my favorites being Acadeca and Unleash The Magic (which I feel almost has a Tim Burton vibe to it).



            Finally, my next countdown list of the Top 12 Movies I Like, But Everyone Else Hates will be coming out 2 weeks from now (though I might put out a post or 2 before then).  So until then I hope you guys have a great rest of the week and I'll see you on the next post.  Take care.

Top 12 Movies I Dislike, But Everyone Else Loves

            Over the past several years, I've come to think of myself as somewhat of a connoisseur when it comes to movies.  I've seen good movies, bad movies, and even movies that were just kinda meh.  But, during this time, I've come across movies that a lot of people really love, but I just can't stand them.  They drive me insane.  The point I'm trying to make is that no movie is perfect and disliking a movie everyone else loves or liking a movie everyone else hates doesn't say anything about you being intelligent or stupid or better or worse than everyone else.  In the end, it's all just opinion and how well you can explain it.



            So to prove it, for this post, I'm going to be explaining/counting down the Top 12 Movies I Dislike, But Everyone Else Loves, which will later be followed by a Top 12 Movies I Like, But Everyone Else Hates list (following in the grand tradition of Doug Walker AKA Nostalgia Critic and Tony Whatley II AKA The Black Critic Guy).  Before I start this list, I want to make it clear that I don't necessarily "hate" any of the movies on this list... for the most part (once we get to the Top 4 or 5 we'd probably land in "hate" territory).  I just don't like them as much as everyone else does.  Also there's going to be some talk about the plots of these movies so SPOILER ALERT!!!!  Finally, if you like any of these movies, then good for you.  I'm not gonna stop you from liking any of them.  These are just movies that I personally do not care for because of the effect they had on me.  So, without any further ado, let's start the list.







XII.  Hercules (1997)

            Now this was one of the 3 movies associated with the declining point of the Disney Renaissance after The Lion King, with the other 2 being Pocahontas and The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, and I'm not gonna lie, I never saw this movie as a kid (neither did I see the other 2 when I was a kid) because my mom was part of a community of public schooling moms who, if one mom said something bad about a movie, all of us kids were screwed.  None of us would be allowed to see that movie, but I digress.



            All this time, though, I kept hearing people talking about how great Hercules was so, finally, a couple years ago, one of my friends invited me over to watch it for the first time.  After watching it... it just seemed to be borrowing from whatever was popular.  But before I get into that, I'll start off with what I liked about the movie, because it's by no means terrible.



            I thought the musical style was interesting as it went for more of a Southern Gospel type of feel to it.  I also liked the villain, Hades, mostly because of how different he was from other portrayals of him, being more along the lines of a fast talking car salesman.  Finally, I thought the designs of these mythological creatures were pretty cool like the Centaur, the Hydra, and even the 3 Fates.



            But the problems that I had with it were that the style of the movie seemed to almost be copying Aladdin with its whole Las Vegas feel and the fact that it's just another one of those underdog stories like Rocky.  Hell, Phil the Satyr is way too similar to Rocky's trainer, Mick, for it to be just a coincidence.  Not to mention that the story also majorly borrows from the earlier Superman movies especially the "god living among men" aspect.



            Another thing that kind of bothered me was the whole Disney-fying of Hercules himself by making him a full on god, born of Zeus and Hera, who when he was a baby was made to drink a potion that took away his immortality but still left him with supernatural strength, when Greek Mythology says that he was a demigod, born from Zeus and a mortal woman.



            Now I know what you're thinking.  "C'mon, David, it's a Disney movie.  There's no way that they'd be able to slip that in."  Need I remind you that this was the same studio that tackled the topic of lust just 1 movie prior?  Even a decade after this movie, Disney owned company Pixar released Ratatouille where they managed to slip in the fact that one of the main characters was born out of wedlock.  They could've pulled something similar off here.



            So yeah.  Don't entirely get why people like this movie soo much because, to me, it all just amounted to being very average.  Out of the 3 movies associated with the decline, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame is the only one that I think is decent while Pocahontas and Hercules I put on about the same level.  Actually, maybe I'd put Hercules slightly higher than Pocahontas.  I dunno.  Let's just move on to the next one.







XI.  The Terminal (2004)

            This was a movie that I actually found out later was partially inspired by a true story of a man who was stuck living in an airport in France for 18 years.  In fact, when this movie was released, the man had been at the airport for 16 of those years.  When my dad had either borrowed this movie from the library or rented it from Blockbuster (those were the days) and explained the plot about a man from a foreign country who's basically in a literal limbo, unable to enter the United States or return home because of a civil war that broke out in his country midflight, I was interested.



            I can hardly remember a thing from this movie.  I vaguely remember something about collecting autographs, 2 characters getting married at the airport, and something about the main character developing a romantic connection with an air stewardess only for her to return to her relationship with an already married man.  Nice!  That's just what I want in my movies.



            This movie was just really forgettable for me and I have no interest in remembering anything from it.  So next number.







X.  Monsters University (2013)

            Little bit of backstory about me: Monsters Inc. was the first Pixar movie I ever saw in its original theatrical run and I LOVED it (but then again I loved pretty much every Pixar movie back then).  Even as a 9 year-old at the time, after first seeing it, my mind was racing with all the possible directions that this movie could go in with a sequel.  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted a sequel to become a reality.



            Fast forward 12 years and we wind up with an 80s college movie prequel.  FAIL!!!!!!!!  This movie just borrows everything from 80s college movies from the overused cliches to the stereotypical character types we've seen countless times before.  Aside from some occasionally interesting character designs (my absolute favorite is the design of Dean Abigail Hardscrabble with the appearance of a giant exotic centipede with bat wings), the story is just soo formulaic and predictable... for the most part.



            I will admit that the ending of the movie is the one strong point to it as it has a message not seen much in kid's movies, about how you don't have to always go the conventional route to fulfill your dreams, but, at the same time, delivering the harsh truth that some dreams you have to eventually give up on when it doesn't work out for you.  That's pretty rare and deep for a kid's movie to have that kind of message.  Unfortunately, for me, it's not a movie that I intend on going back to anytime soon.







IX.  Cars (2006)

            I don't have any problem with saying that I think Cars is the weakest franchise in Pixar's film catalog, but even then I know that the worst Pixar movies are literally nothing compared to the worst Dreamworks movies.



            The story is really nothing that interesting as it's already been told numerous times before.  It's the basic "hotshot living in the fast lane who then gets dragged down to 'hillbilly hell' (as he refers to it) and has to learn about thinking of others instead of just himself."  Boring.  Doesn't interest me at all.  Like... at all.



            What really bothered me about this movie was that it came out after The Incredibles, which was like my all time favorite Pixar movie back then, and The Incredibles was such a great movie that I was really hoping that there would be a sequel to it.  At the time, though, Toy Story was the only Pixar movie to have a sequel, so I was just like "O.K. Pixar.  You wanna just stick with Toy Story as the only sequel producing money maker?  That's cool.  You just do you."  But then when Cars 2 came out, I was just like "What the fuck, Pixar!?!  Why the hell was Cars deserving of a sequel more than The Incredibles?!?"  And of course, Cars 2 was a piece of shit (but again, I've seen worse from Dreamworks).



            Thankfully, Pixar eventually announced that an Incredibles sequel is finally in the works (they also announced Cars 3, but I choose to ignore that).  I've been waiting for over a decade for this sequel.  I'VE EARNED IT DAMMIT!!!  So yeah.  Not particularly a fan of the Cars franchise and I think there's very little that might actually change that.







VIII.  Avatar (2009)

            O.K.  I was never one of the people who originally saw this movie in theaters, which I've heard was the best way to see it with the 3-D, but I kept on hearing all of this hype for this movie; it was all over the news, nominated for several Oscars (including Best Picture), and it became the highest grossing movie of all time after spending months in the #1 Box Office spot.



            When I finally got around to watching it, the visuals were really great, but the story is soo basic and boring.  Just like I said before with Cars, we've heard this story to death.  It's the same environmental bullshit that we've seen in Pocahontas, Ferngully, Dances With Wolves, Happy Feet (no offense as I genuinely like this movie), and countless others like it.



            It's really frustrating because the visuals are that good, but the story is just completely predictable and half assed in favor of style over substance.  And what makes it worse is that they've already confirmed that there are going to be at least 2 more sequels which are probably just going to be rinse and repeat versions of this.  Still, I'll try to reserve judgement until then.  Overrated movie IMO, but at least it looks pretty.







VII.  Independence Day (1996)

           This is a movie that I'm particularly surprised as to why people love it that much.  The alien designs I didn't find particularly interesting, nor the majority of the characters, the whole movie seemed like an excuse to promote Apple computers, and there's just a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense about it.



            First off is the fact that the ships are soo large that with a mass like that, they would've caused major flooding before they even blew up the White House.  Next up is the fact that the President goes to fight in the final battle against the aliens.  That was really corny.  But the absolute worst part for me is the fact that the aliens are defeated by a computer virus.  What?  Where the hell did this come from?



            The fact that a freakin computer virus defeats them is just so ridiculously laughable.  It makes me think of the aliens from Signs who were simply defeated because they were allergic to water, which covers like 71% of the Earth or something, not to mention rain.  I honestly don't know which of the 2 movie aliens are the biggest pussies.  The ones from War Of The Worlds who were killed off because they hadn't developed an immunity to the microbes in our atmosphere I let slide because it was based off of a classic book by H.G. Wells and it actually makes sense if you think about it.



            Still, with all that said, Will Smith was tons of fun here and seeing the White House get blown up is an iconic image in cinema.  There was just too much that doesn't make sense to me.







VI.  Big Hero 6 (2014)

AND

Brave (2012)

            Now I put both of these movies in the same spot because both of them won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in their respective years and, in my opinion, there were much better Animated movies in those years that were far more deserving of that title.



            Big Hero 6 was a movie that I was pretty hyped for when I found out it was going to come out as it was the first animated Disney movie to be based off of a Marvel property.  I was also interested in the concept of San Fransokyo and a lot of the designs having more of an Eastern feel to them.



            But, somewhere along the line, I just lost interest in it to the point where, when I finally did get around to watching it, it was just... O.K.  Nothing terrible, but nothing that I felt made it stand out from any other superhero movie I'd seen.  The character types are basically recycled, the story I didn't find particularly interesting... for the most part, and it seemed to have more in common with superhero movies from a decade or so ago than ones from today.



            Not all of it is bad though.  The moments that focus on Hiro and Baymax's relationship as the latter tries to help the former deal with the loss of his older brother are cute and where I believe the focus truly belongs.  But when it tries to be a superhero movie, it just comes off as basic, standard, and predictable.  I literally called every moment that happened in this movie.



            The one thing that really pisses me off though is, when Oscar season was coming around, there were some great animated movies to be nominated for Best Animated Feature like How To Train Your Dragon 2, The Boxtrolls, and Song Of The Sea (which me and my friend Meredith were cheering for as we both LOVE Cartoon Saloon's work which you guys should totally check out if you haven't already).  But on the weekend of the Oscars, Meredith shared an article where one of the panelists on the Oscar Board of Directors was interviewed about his selections for the different categories and, just like Meredith, I.  Was.  LIVID!!!



           This guy basically said that he voted for Big Hero 6 because his kid liked it.  He also went on to say that he thought that The Lego Movie should've been nominated instead of these "2 fucking Chinese movies (Song Of The Sea and The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya) that no one gave a shit about or even bothered to see."



            O.K.  Time out here.  First off, Song Of The Sea is from Ireland and The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya is from Japan (Studio Ghibli no less).  Get a fucking education before saying something stupid like this.  Second, voting for a movie because your kid likes it doesn't make your opinion come off as being in any way intelligent or refined, not to mention it's not even your opinion here, it's your kid's.  Third, few people saw them because they only had limited releases in certain places.  I certainly know that I would've seen them had they been playing in a nearby theater.  And finally, to paraphrase what Meredith said, it should be a law that anyone on the board who has the power to vote for or against these movies has to have actually seen them first.  I shit you not, in that same article, this guy said that he only voted for a certain foreign film because he liked the poster.  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!



            So it goes without saying that the 2 of us were pretty pissed when it won (and Meredith even went off on a Twitter rant shortly afterwards) because there were much better, more deserving movies than this.



            Like Big Hero 6, Brave was a movie that I was pretty excited for as it was set in Medieval Scotland with a strong lean toward Fantasy (a first for Pixar).  I was sure that this was going to be something within the same realm as The Legend Of Zelda.  When I got around to seeing it, though, I was pretty disappointed.  It was just another movie with a princess character who doesn't want to be a princess, butts heads with her mother regarding social norms, and then causes a mistake that she has to fix.



             Like I said before with Hercules borrowing from whatever was popular, this movie seems to just borrow from previous Disney Princesses like Jasmine, Belle, and Pocahontas while also having the mother get turned into a bear.  Wha- WAIT A FUCK!!!  You're seriously borrowing the "character getting turned into a bear" story arc from Brother Bear?!?  That movie wasn't even remotely popular!!!  Are you guys really that desperate?!?



            I give Pixar credit for the fact that it was trying to focus more on a mother/daughter relationship when those types aren't seen that much in kid's movies and the animation is great as usual (particularly the Medieval landscape), but I have a real problem with the personality of Merida.  The problem being that she acts too much like a modern teenager with her whole attitude towards the norms of society.  Why is this a problem?  Because it doesn't match up with the Medieval, old timey, Scottish setting that it takes place in.



            Now it's true that in one of my favorite Disney movies of all-time, The Little Mermaid, the main character of Ariel could be seen as somewhat similar in attitude when the story is set around the early 1800s, but I give that movie a pass because... you've got a Rastafarian crab singing Calypso so I don't think keeping to the norms of that time was their biggest concern.



            Though to be fair, the last third of the movie is particularly good as it has both the mother and the daughter learning something from the other.  Merida, a character who's more prone to taking action through her wild nature, ends up having to use diplomacy to keep peace between the different clans and the queen, who's more prone to using diplomacy, ends up having to channel her wild nature when protecting her daughter from an ancient evil being.  This goes to show that both diplomacy and... "wildness" have their own place.



            Brave came out in 2012 which was a gold mine for great animated movies.  Yeah we had shit like The Lorax remake and Ice Age 4 (with a 5th one on the way.  UGGH!!!!), but some of my favorite animated movies came out that year also like Madagascar 3, Wreck-It Ralph (which I saw 3 times in its original theatrical run), ParaNorman, and even Hotel Transylvania wasn't that bad either.  Brave just seemed to be a continuation of what I like to call the "Pixar Slump", a period of time stretching from 2011-2014 where Pixar just put out really mediocre movies unlike what they normally do.  Thank God that Inside Out came out this past summer because Pixar really needed that movie to succeed critically instead of just financially and it definitely restored them to my good graces again.







            I feel like I should probably warn you guys that these next several entries fall very strongly into that "hate" category I mentioned earlier and therefore there will be a good amount of ranting to follow.  Proceed with caution.







V.  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

            I've heard a lot of people point out Prisoner Of Azkaban as everyone's least favorite/least cared about movie in the Harry Potter Saga, but for me, my least favorite is Order of the Phoenix.  Now there are plenty of reasons why I hate this movie, many of which can be linked back to one name: Dolores Umbridge.



            I could punch this broad in the face I fucking hate her that much (and no I don't condone violence against women).  The fact that this bitch gets away with all these illegal deeds just because she has a high position in the Ministry Of Magic sickens me.



            So Harry starts off getting in trouble with the Ministry for underage use of magic in the Muggle world despite the fact that he was using it to protect himself and his cousin from attacking Dementors and the Ministry still doesn't believe him.  Next, when Umbridge is appointed as the new Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts, she doesn't teach any defense against the dark arts (you had one job AND YOU FUCKED IT UP).  And I haven't even gotten to the illegal stuff she does yet.



            First off, when she tries to get Harry to stop talking about Voldemort's return, as part of her own twisted agenda, she subjects him to torture via a cursed pen that magically carves whatever the person writes into the back of their hand.  Second, she illegally uses Veritaserum (literal truth serum) to get one student to reveal where the other students are meeting to learn how to defend themselves from dark magic (which is what she SHOULD'VE BEEN TEACHING THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE).  And finally (and I mean the real fucking candle on the cake here), she threatens to use the Cruciatus Curse (a torture curse) on Harry to get information out of him.



            I'm sorry.  Did I... miss something here?  Wasn't the Cruciatus Curse just one fucking movie ago established as one of the 3 Unforgivable Curses that anyone who casts them would immediately be sent to Azkaban for life and this whore bag is threatening to use it on Harry?  What the hell makes her think that she can get away with it all of a sudden?!?  I mean... there's abuse of power and then there's... this.



            There were a few things that I found kind of interesting like Harry's PTSD from his first encounter with Voldemort and even his fears that he's becoming more like him, but those are few and far between.  If you honestly want more reasons why I hate this movie, go watch CinemaSins.  I'm just soo tired from that rant, but we've still got 4 more movies to get through so on to the next one.








IV.  Frankenweenie (2012)

            Now I'm a huge Tim Burton fan, but even I don't love all of his work.  With that said, even with movies I don't entirely like, I've been able to find at least one thing that I enjoyed from his movies (except for Dark Shadows I honestly can't think of anything I enjoyed from that).  So before I go about bashing this movie, let me start off with what I genuinely liked about it.



            What I really liked about this the most was how this movie was basically a love letter to all the classic monster movies with all its references to Horror iconography.  Mr. Rzykruski's design is inspired by Vincent Price, Nassor's design is similar to Boris Karloff's portrayal of Frankenstein's monster, and Edgar's appearance brings to mind Igor and that's just with the human characters.



            The animals draw heavy inspiration from The Bride of Frankenstein to Boris Karloff's Mummy to the Wolf Man to Dracula to Japanese monster, Gamera, and even the Gremlins get a shout out here.  There's even an homage to stop-motion classic, Santa Claus is Comin to Town, with the character of Mayor Bergermeister, who shares both the name and even somewhat of the appearance of the villain from the aforementioned Christmas special, Burgermeister Meisterburger.



            So y'all have heard me sing this movie's praises plenty enough.  What could I possibly find to hate about it?  Well... none of the characters are that memorable to me.  I mean sure, a lot of them look like famous horror icons, but I don't even remember their personalities and therefore I can't remember a single thing about them or relate to them.  But the biggest problem I have with it is the godawful ending.



            Now I already mentioned before that there was going to be talk about the movie plots in this list, but, just for the hell of it, SPOILER ALERT!!!!  You guys all set with that?  You are?  Alright then.  Let's continue.



            So Victor's parents end up discovering that Victor resurrected Sparky and his dad tells him something that I thought was very important: meddling around with life and death (basically trying to play God) can be a very deadly path to walk and that, when a loved one dies, we need to accept it as part of the natural way of being and move on from that.  That's a pretty strong message right there.



            Then in the big climax, Sparky rescues Victor from a burning windmill, but is unable to escape himself before the building crashes down on top of him, killing him in the process.  When his body was recovered from the wreckage, I was curious if they were going to stick to their guns and keep him dead or if they were going to puss out and bring him back.



            Victor's dad asks him if he plans on reviving Sparky to which Victor says that he's going to choose to listen to what his dad had said earlier, coming to terms with the loss of his pet in the process.  I was just like "Good for you, movie.  Nice message to send out to anyone who might be suffering through the loss of someone close to them."  What does Victor's dad say though?  "Sometimes adults don't know what they're talking about."  And what happens?  They resurrect him anyways.  If I may paraphrase something from a Nostalgia Critic review, my thoughts about that were something like this, "Oh that's great, dad.  That's great.  You basically threw the moral right out the window.  Wonderful.  (incoherent happy noises)  WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING!?!"



            I'm sorry, but that ending just pisses me off as I feel like it gave a big fat middle finger to anyone who might be dealing with a loss by being completely unrealistic with its handling of the subject and I just can't let it slide.  I don't even think that was Burton's original vision for it to end like that.  I mean, this guy has killed off protagonist characters in kid and adult movies alike.  The one that comes to mind currently is Corpse Bride when Emily, at the end, has finally been set free and dissipates (much like Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda now that I think about it).  This is clearly a studio decision because they didn't have the balls to leave the character dead.



            I know a lot of people like this movie and there are some good things about it, but that puss out ending is too painfully obvious for me to ignore.  I'd much rather watch that year's Hotel Transylvania or ParaNorman if I want a good monster movie.  At least with those movies I don't feel like my intelligence is being insulted.







III.  Iron Man 3 (2013)

            I know a lot of people quickly point to Thor: The Dark World as being the weakest entry in Marvel's Phase Two lineup, but, in my opinion, that dishonor goes to Iron Man 3.  Why?  Because I feel like you could've completely taken it out of the MCU and hardly anything would change.



            Now I had followed the first 2 Iron Man movies pretty closely so, when they mentioned this terrorist group in the first movie known as The Ten Rings, I knew that at some point they were going to introduce The Mandarin and I was hyped to see it happen.  At first, I was pretty skeptical of Sir Ben Kingsley playing the role of The Mandarin as I thought it would be better suited for someone like Ken Watanabe, but after seeing him in costume with the hair even styled after The Mandarin from the comics, I thought to myself "Hey.  Maybe he can actually pull it off."



            But then what happened?  You've got one of the worst plot twists in cinema history since the one in Breaking Dawn Part 2 where he's really just a British actor by the name of Trevor Slattery who merely acted the part, turning The Mandarin into a fucking joke in the process!  The "real" Mandarin is some guy named Aldrich Killian (who doesn't in ANY WAY RESEMBLE THE MANDARIN FROM THE COMICS) and as if THAT wasn't enough, Killian's backstory is basically "copy and paste" ripped off from The Incredibles!  Hell, they practically even have the same length of time between the flashback and present day of about 15 years!



            WOW!  That is a lot for you to just expect me to buy!  Aside from that I just find it to be an unnecessary movie because I just don't see any way that it connects to any of the others in the MCU.  I mean sure you've got Tony Stark suffering from PTSD after the Chitauri invasion in The Avengers, but... that's about it.  Even the post-credits scene, where they typically try to set up hype for a future Marvel movie, is just Tony waking up Bruce Banner who fell asleep while he was telling him about all the events we just saw already.  I'm sorry, but that just seemed really weak to me compared to what we've gotten in the past and are continuing to get now.  To me, it's like the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Dark Knight Rises, X-Men: The Last Stand, or Spider-Man 3 of the Iron Man trilogy (fitting because all these movies were the 2nd sequels of their respective franchises).







II. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

            Again, going right back to what I said about Iron Man 3, this just seemed like an unnecessary movie as it's never brought up in any of the other movies in the franchise.  This movie was released about 3 years after Raiders Of The Lost Ark, but, instead of a sequel, this was a prequel (the second one to make this list I might add).



            One of the things that I always loved about the Indiana Jones movies was how kick-ass Awesome the women were.  From Marion Ravenwood in Raiders Of The Lost Ark to Elsa Schneider in The Last Crusade to even Irina Spalko in Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, they were always a ton of fun to watch.  But then you've got this movie where the leading lady you're stuck with throughout the film's majority is Willie Scott, or as the Nostalgia Critic referred to her as, "that pain in the ass who never shut the fuck up".



            She's in no way funny, doesn't contribute anything to the group, and constantly has to be saved, all while she's constantly screaming at every little thing that bothers her.  Many people point to Short Round as being really annoying, but I'm not nearly as harsh towards him because HE ACTUALLY DOES STUFF TO CONTRIBUTE!!!  Some examples are that he can actually drive a car, he breaks out of his bonds after being captured, and at one point even has to come to Willie's rescue.



            That's gotta be really pathetic, lady, when you have to be rescued by a 9 year-old Chinese boy who hardly understands English!  Fluttershy from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is telling you to grow a pair for God's sake!  FLUTTERSHY!!!  I'm tempted to use the phrase "sexy lamp" to describe Willie (a phrase created by Lindsey Ellis AKA The Nostalgia Chick to describe a hot female character in a movie who you could just replace with a lamp and nothing would change), but, in all honesty, I never found Willie that hot.  I certainly don't see whatever the hell Indy saw in her that he would take her along with him and constantly save her every time.



            Many people point to Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull as being terrible because of how unrealistic some of the scenes are, particularly the scene where Indy hides in a lead lined fridge to survive a nuclear blast, and to those people I pose this question:  So... you mean to tell me... that surviving a nuclear blast by hiding in a fridge is going too far... BUT... jumping out of a plane on an inflatable raft, landing on/sledding down a snowy slope on said raft, AND flying off the edge of a cliff until you and the raft land in the river below all without sustaining any injuries is completely 100% believable and plausible?!?  If your answer is "Yes" to this, I want whatever the hell you're puffing.



            Aside from all that, the film's second half is extremely dark and not that pleasant to watch.  Don't get me wrong.  I love dark elements in movies like Pinocchio, The Secret Of NIMH, and The Hunchback Of Notre Dame and the other Indiana Jones movies had dark moments too, but the difference between them and Temple of Doom is that they had a sense of fun and lightheartedness to them while this just shows kids constantly being tortured and begging for death.  Sounds like a fucking blast to me!!!



            Though to this movie's very little credit, it was somewhat more of a risk taker than some of the other Indiana Jones movies and it could definitely be said that late Bollywood actor, Amrish Puri, is very memorable as the villainous Thuggee priest, Mola Ram.  I even heard somewhere that this was one of the movies responsible for the creation of the PG-13 rating.  Still, this is going to be one of those movies that I just avoid like the plague.







            WARNING!!!!!!!!  The following entry you're about to see might cause extreme anger for its inclusion on this list especially at soo high a spot.  What follows this entry will be a no holds barred uncensored bashing of this movie.  Side effects of viewing this entry and its bashing might include increased stress, fits of rage, extreme verbal lashing, and labeling me as the demon spawn of Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, AND Kim Jong Il (just to name a few).  If you do not wish for any of these things to befall you, I suggest that you leave this list right now and find something else to do.  For those of you who've chosen to stick around, you've been warned.  So with all that out of the way, the #1 movie that I hate but everyone else seems to love is...







I.  Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

            Well well well.  Going from a Willie who annoyed the fuck out of me to another Willy who just made me feel uncomfortable most of the time.  To a lot of people, saying anything bad about this movie would be the equivalent of killing a sacred cow, but I just despise this movie soo much it's hard for me to put into words.



            Now, when I was younger, I really enjoyed the book Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.  I loved how the Willy Wonka from the book was both charming and whimsical yet also eccentric and mischievous, the illustrations of the Oompa Loompas looked adorable as these little pygmy characters, and Charlie himself was representative of the type of character that most people wanted to be like: selfless and kind.



            When I saw this movie, I hated how much it strayed away from the original book (and still do).  The Wonka here seems to be much more focused on the charming, whimsical side to the point where there were moments I felt really uncomfortable around him.  The way that he said the line "Two naughty, nasty little children gone.  Three good, sweet little children left", (shudders) I don't know, it just sounded super pedo to me and I felt unsettled even as a kid watching this.



            The one time that I think Wonka even got eccentric in the movie was with the infamous tunnel scene.  Speaking of which, WHAT THE FLYING HELL WAS THAT SCENE EVEN DOING IN THE MOVIE!?!  It was never in the original book and it just shows a whole bunch of really disturbing shit like decapitating chickens and bugs crawling all over people's faces.



            The Oompa Loompas in this movie were hideous looking to the point where I actually had nightmares because of them.  The book never said anything about them having bad spray tans, snot green hair, or even bleached white eyebrows so what the hell influenced that design choice?  Oh and don't even get me started on their song.



            Yeah.  I said "song".  They sing four times throughout the movie, but it's all just the same damn song that they tweak some of the lyrics to and change up the music to try to pass it off as something different each time.  Rinse and repeat.  And that song to me is just ear rape.  Listening to that song just makes me want to kill myself so I don't have to listen to it anymore.



            As for the other songs, I hardly even remember any of them.  I couldn't sing a line from any of them to save my life.  Also the kid who played Charlie in this movie seemed too much like a pessimist and a whiner throughout the beginning when the Golden Ticket promo was going on and he was even kind of greedy sometimes.  The Charlie from the book I remembered as always trying to look at the positive side of things and was supposed to represent the shining example of what we as humans wanted to strive towards being.



            As I said before, this movie strays soo far from its source material in many areas and I understand that some changes had to be made.  For example, changing the squirrel nut sorting scene to instead have giant geese that lay golden chocolate eggs is understandable because they didn't have the technology to do squirrels much less have them attack Veruca.  But everything else just annoyed me to no end and I'm not the only person who hated this movie.



            Original "Charlie" author, Roald Dahl, was originally a scriptwriter for this movie, but was kicked out of the project when he failed to meet deadlines, therefore having no creative control over the final product.  He didn't even want Gene Wilder to portray Wonka in this (more on Wilder in a later post).  When the movie finally came out, Dahl hated it soo much that he forbid them from making a sequel based off of Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator (which I admittedly have never read as I didn't even know it existed) and, ever since then, Dahl's estate has been very strict and stingy with any and all film adaptations of his work.



            What really pisses me off the most about this movie is how many people hold this film up as a flawless masterpiece even with all the divergences from the original book.  To give an example, Stanley Kubrick directed the movie The Shining based off of the popular Stephen King novel and a lot of people hail it as one of the cinematic greats (you could even say that it was directed by one of the cinematic greats), but Stephen King himself didn't approve of the movie (just like how Dahl didn't approve of Willy Wonka).  However, even with people still praising The Shining movie as a classic, I've heard plenty of people point out that the movie itself isn't the most faithful to the book it's based on.



            With all that said, why the hell does something like Willy Wonka just get off scot free with straying from the author's original vision?  Why the flying fuck does it just get a free pass here?  Personally, I don't think it should, but I've ranted long enough so I'll just save the rest for another post.







            So those were the Top 12 Movies I Dislike/Hate, But Everyone Else Loves and I'd like to know, what's a movie that you can't stand but everyone else seems to love?  Anyways, stay tuned for next month when I'll be releasing my Top 12 Movies I Like, But Everyone Else Hates list and you'll be able to get your revenge on me.  Take care.

Job Interview and my next countdown

            So just last week I applied at Abercrombie & Fitch at my local mall and got called back for an interview tomorrow for 4 PM.  Here's hoping that this actually turns into a job for me as I'm really starting to get discouraged after about 9 months of applying to places with nothing ever coming from them.



            In my freetime, though, I've been busy going over the details of my next countdown which'll be posted 2 days from now.  I'm pretty sure that I've made all the proper edits that I could possibly do and I feel like it's as ready as it'll ever be so look forward to that coming this Wednesday.



            In other news, I've pre-ordered Dark Tide off of Amazon and it should be arriving the day it's released.  The hard part now is just waiting for it.  Finally, my grandma is coming to visit us 2 weeks from this Saturday and she's gonna be staying with us through Christmas so that's exciting.  I also managed to capture her interest with the books of The WaterFire Saga that I currently have and she's eager to read them when she comes out here.



            Aside from that, nothing else to report on except that the second half of Season 5 of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic starts up this Saturday and the next Equestria Girls movie comes out on the day my grandma flies in, but I doubt many of you would care about that.  So until the next countdown in 2 days, I hope y'all have a great Labor Day and I'll see you on the next post.  Take care.

"What A Twist" and impatiently waiting

            As I mentioned in a previous post, I had recently gotten into a series of books known as The WaterFire Saga.  Well just this morning I finished the second book, Rogue Wave, and damn did it end on a major plot twist/cliffhanger.  The twist itself is actually a play off of the "Tom Marvolo Riddle/I Am Lord Voldemort" twist from the Harry Potter series, but since that twist had been ruined for me, I was genuinely shocked by the use of it in this book.



            I currently have a ton of questions swirling around inside my head, mostly because the huge character reveal is someone who was thought to be dead centuries if not millennia ago.  Unfortunately, the next book in the series, Dark Tide, doesn't come out until about a month and a half from now, so until then, I'm stuck waiting impatiently for it to be published.



            In the meantime, I'm just going over the final details of my next Top 12 Countdown lists.  These are actually 2 lists that go together pretty well.  I'm not going to say what they are, but a little hint that I'll drop is that both are lists that Doug Walker has done in the past so anyone familiar with his work will probably figure it out pretty quickly.  The first list is set to be posted within the next 2 weeks and it will be on a Wednesday as I've stated that that will be the official day that I release my lists.  Until then, I hope you guys have a great rest of the month and I'll see you on the next post.  Take care.

Deep Blue: My new favorite book.

            Just yesterday, I was at the mall after my therapist had to cancel his meeting with me to take his wife to the hospital.  I was mostly just perusing stores, partially to see what they had and partially to find something to get for my little brother, who turns 4 in less than a month's time.  I finally managed to find a 5 pack of Hot Wheels cars for him at Target, but I also came across something I wasn't expecting.



            As I was talking on my cell with my uncle, I was aimlessly wandering the aisles when I found myself in the YA book section, which was where I saw a book called Deep Blue.  The first thing to capture my attention was a picture of a Mermaid on the cover.  Now I've had a pretty strong Mermaid fetish ever since I was younger (hell, Ariel was my first love when I was about 4 or 5) so I picked it up to read the description of it.



            One purchase, one day, and 12 chapters later, this book is officially my new favorite.  The way that it does world building with its mythology based off of the lost continent of Atlantis, different types of Merpeople (some with the traditional fish tail, some with crab legs, some with sea horse tails, and some with octopus tentacles.  Some Merfolk even have bioluminescence), and even the language that's used I found very clever and I just love this book.



            After further research, I soon learned that its the first book of a tetralogy (like a trilogy, but going "one step beyond") called The WaterFire Saga with the first 2 books already released, the 3rd scheduled for release 2 months from now, and the final book being released approximately around summer of next year.  This is a series that, just from the first several chapters, I'd like to see adapted into a movie.  I just really want to see this happen as I feel we need more Mermaids in popular media, but that's just me.



            In the meantime, I'm hard at work putting together my next 2 Top 12 Countdown lists as they are closely related in topic.  The first one will come out sometime next month while the other will follow the month after.  Until then, I hope you guys are having a great time and I'll see you on the next post.  Take care.