Even amateur movie geniuses make mistakes sometimes.
Here's what happened. I keep all the movies on a list and cross them out as I go. When I transferred the list to a word document, I missed a few. Thus, I have to re-rank with the three I neglected to review and everything that I have written about previously will get pushed up accordingly.
Here goes.
#50 Take Me Home Tonight
It's 1988. Topher Grace and Anna Faris are academic twin brother and sister (fraternal) who are overqualified for all that they do. Matt (Grace) works at a video store at the local shopping mall and the Oxford-bound Wendy (Faris) dates rich clod Kyle (Parks & Recreation's Chris Pratt). Matt's high school crush Tori (Teresa Palmer) comes into the store and he blows it right around the same time his best friend Barry (Dan Fogler) gets canned from his job. Lucky for them, cinematic magic has provided the two with a chance to get the girl and get back on track respectively, this in the form of a blowout party hosted by Kyle. One of the big draws to his parties is that he has "the ball", a giant American Gladiator-style sphere that immediately ups one's status in the machismo department. Arriving in the party in a car stolen from Barry's dealership, they figure it's time to get busy livin'. The movie is kind of funny--Topher Grace is affable as usual, and the big-boned Fogle is a good counterpart--but it's nothing worth writing home about.
#45 Cowboys and Aliens
One thing I love about Jon Favreau's Cowboys & Aliens is that there is absolutely no pretense. The film is about a bunch of cowboys and a bunch of aliens. We start with Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) waking up in the middle of the desert with a strange futuristic contraption attached to his wrist and no idea what happened to him. He rides a horse to the town over and there clashes with Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano), conveniently the son of cattle farm owner Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). Both end up in cuffs and Woodrow, who believes Lonergan's gang robbed him previously, tries to use his sway to spring his son and keep Lonergan chained up. Before this can happen, a giant spacecraft descends on the town and starts stealing people, including Percy and consummate Western hottie Ella (Olivia Wilde). Differences are of course put aside, and with the help of Lonergan's alien laser wrist weapon, they ride off to take down the spacecraft. Craig and Harrison bring their usual acting chops and the rest of the gang is passable. The aliens are of a pretty decent CGI quality, especially their creepy extra set of hands. Watch the movie, for sure--just don't expect anything more than cowboys firing their antiquated guns at futuristic space technology and green slimy bodily fluid occasionally going everywhere.
#42 One Day
This much-maligned film actually came out better than I expected. The premise is that Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Across the Universe's Jim Sturgess) hook up at the end of college and we, the audience, see them each and every year on the same day-July 15th. They make a pact to see each other on that date despite the relationships they form outside of their own. Emma ends up with a fledgling stand-up comic Ian (Rafe Spalls) and Dexter, a host of a terrible MTV style request show, ends up married to fortune, drugs, and a rich spoilbrat named Sylvie (Romola Garai). Eventually their married lives begin to hit the skids, and Emma and Dexter work towards reconnecting. Their chemistry is good--at times it's hard to believe she still cares about him during the early '90s coked-out club era--and of course we as the audience root for it to work out. Just about everybody has the "one that got away"; in this case, the one that got away is always right in front of them. At least once a year it is, anyway.
With the re-working, the new rankings are as follows:
#55 I Don't Know How She Does It
#54 Hall Pass
#53 No Strings Attached
#52 Thirty Minutes or Less
#51 Bad Teacher
#50 Take Me Home Tonight
#49 Unknown
#48 The Lincoln Lawyer
#47 Paul
#46 Cars 2
#45 Cowboys & Aliens
#44 Win Win
#43 X-Men First Class
#42 One Day
#41 Horrible Bosses
#40 War Horse
#39 Limitless
#38 Friends with Benefits
#37 Source Code
Enjoy the Super Bowl. Back with more soon.
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