I’m surrounded by people, my throat is tensing up. I squeeze my shoulders into my neck to avoid touching all the wandering souls inside the building.
What do I buy??
Everyone is looking down, no one is talking and we’re all lost. We have no clue what’s going on.
What section am I even in??
All I can hear is slow shuffling, dozens of feet sliding across the hard carpet below them.
Why can’t you all just PICK UP YOUR FEET??
I grab the nearest dingy plastic case within a finger tip’s grasps and bolt towards the checkout counter. I don’t even know what I grabbed. I read the side:
“Encino Man?! Are you kidding me!”
This is how all of my trips to Blockbuster go. Beyond my OCD and intolerance for people who shuffle their feet, there aren’t any covers on the front of the boxes, so I really don’t know what I’m getting myself into when I get home. I’ve plopped down to pop in what I think is Rambo, but instead have to endure two hours of The Sisterhood of the Rambling Tramps, or whatever that was.
(Sidenote: Make sure you read the WHOLE title before you purchase your movie. You might end up like me and have to watch Whitney Houston’s enormous hair overact in Waiting to Exhale, when all you really wanted to watch was the penis showing, restaurant shenanigans comedy, Waiting.)
Since the inception of Netflix, On Demand, and Pirating (not the peg legged kind), Blockbuster and other movie rental places are now a thing of the past. However I, being totally electronic and technologically incompetent (ETI), have zero clue how to get my hands on free copies of old and new classics.
So why not just RENT IT? That’s an awesome idea!
$2.50 to watch it once and return it the next day is great in only TWO cases: If you have nothing to do the next day, and/or you hated the movie. Think about it, if you have work the next day you’re probably going to forget to bring it with you, and by the time you get off, Blockbuster is likely to be closed because let’s face it, they’re a bunch of communists. And if you actually liked the movie, you’re probably going to want to see it again, maybe this time with a friend, lover or homeless person.
You come home and see it sitting there on the DVD player and begin to remember the good parts of the movie, and how so and so would love the movie as well. You set up a day where that person can come over and watch it with you.
Fast forward to a month later, Blockbuster calls you up regarding a newly accrued $60 late fee they decided to slap on you because you forgot to return Scary Movie 2.
“But it sucked anyway!”
So you opt to BUY your favorite movies. “I’ll start a collection!” You say to yourself enthusiastically on your way to purchase The Terminator. However, when you get to the movie section you realize how many movies you LOVE, but don’t actually OWN.
Your face starts to melt as you blindly hurl every one of your “favorite” movies that you NEED to have in your cart, which you went back to grab once you saw that they had Rocky: The Complete Collection for only $80.
Thousands and thousands of dollars are spent on movies you will probably end up watching maybe 5 times in your whole life, if the movie is excellent, which it probably isn’t. You might even watch it 1 time because you could’ve sworn Look Who’s Talking was better when you saw it at age 9. As your collection grows bigger, and your bankroll decreases, more and more movies start hitting the shelves that you watched in theatres that year. So to try and keep up, you start buying the new releases, while still maintaining your addiction and buying old cult classics.
Then one day… it hits you…
“I just bought A Clockwork Orange.”
A stupid movie, that nobody ACTUALLY likes, but they want to be different and non-conforming by telling everyone they own it. The same can be said for Donnie Darko: A shit movie nobody has the balls to say they didn’t like, because they enjoy being different… as long as everyone else is of course.
This above scenario happened to a guy I know, let’s call him John MacGregor, because that’s who he was.
*****
I Am John MacGregor and I have compiled a small list of movies, all of which I have scientifically tested and PROVEN to be the best movies of their genre to date.
When you have these in your house, cut up your blockbuster card with a pair of safety scissors and weep openly for joy on the plastic shards, because your life has now improved 10 fold. You will no longer have to deal with Blockbuster and their communist ways!
By owning these 5 movies, you never have to go buy another $25 movie, or do the walk of shame, in and out of Blockbuster.
1) Dumb and Dumber
- The story of two morons, who travel across the country to return a briefcase to one of the guy’s “true love”, who he had a 10 minute conversation with prior to dropping her off at the airport.
When you break the movie down to what it REALLY is, you understand just how GENIUS it is. I watched it a lot when I was little and although I laughed through the majority of it, it was either because the joke was so obvious, or I saw my dad laughing and didn’t want him to seem like a psycho cackling to himself like the Wicked Witch of the West. Now, I’m older, and finally understand why, “No, it’s a cardigan but thanks for noticing!” is funny.
Not only is it the best comedy to ever grace movie screens in the 20+ years I’ve been alive, it also has one of the most cleverly written scripts. If this movie was made anytime after 2005, the sharp quips and one liners would be replaced by over done dick and fart jokes, Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels would be replaced by Brad Pitt and Matthew McConaughey, and in the end our hero would sweep the leading lady off of her feet, but not before some sappy “I have always loved you” part played for 30 minutes dubbed over a piano sequence. This movie was the launching pad for The Farrelly Brothers who still to this day; in a land where romantic comedies keep getting shoved down our throats month after month, pump out sharp, cutting edge comedies.
This movie displayed man in his purest form: immature, on a mission to find women. It was Comedy before Hollywood grabbed movies by the neck and choked the funny out of them. The spawn of the one-liner comedies which are ever so popular today. Go buy Dumb and Dumber, watch it over and over again, and prepare your cheeks for hours of laughter.
2) Pursuit of Happyness-
-7. The amount of times I got choked up (read: cried like a little bitch) during this movie. The last time I cried before that was when I was 8 and I found out I wasn’t adopted, so you can see how easy it is for me to open up the waterworks.
The true life story of Chris Gardner–a former homeless, single father who, through hard work, self confidence and dedication, lands a job as a stock broker and goes on to open his own brokerage. He is now reportedly worth over 65 million dollars.
Will Smith owns the role. He brings you right along during the incessant stomping that God and the world do to him during his internship years, so much so, that when he gets the job at the end of the movie, you feel as if YOU’RE the one who just got hired at Dean Witter.
Immediately after watching this movie I:
Started writing a novel.
Started a small business.
Donated to Charity.
And called my father “just to talk”.
It was THAT inspiring. This movie is perfect for anyone without a soul, who has hopes of one day having compassion for something. To anyone who feels like their life is difficult because they’re only allowed 500 texts a month. And lastly, to anyone who isn’t a communist.
3) Kiss Kiss, Bang bang-
-I’ve wanted to say this for quite some time… MOST action movies suck.
There I was, sitting in the movie theatre about 3 and a half hours into Lord of the Rings, contemplating whether I should break the plastic spoon that came with my nachos and slit my wrists with the fragments, in hopes of staving off the boredom. Every one around me was weeping, spooning with each other, shouting how awesome that crock of cinema was.
My roommate put in Sin City one rainy Saturday morning. Two hours later I was tossing his possessions on the lawn, breaking most of them in the process. He couldn’t understand why I was kicking him out: “Dude the movie wasn’t THAT bad!”
I then wrote up a ROOMMATE WANTED ad:
“Wanted: Roommate. Must love folding my clothes. Must not own, or ever speak of, Sin City.”
Trying to explain what ACTUALLY made this movie so terrible and why I hated it so much would be like trying to explain why George Bush belongs on the front of a handicap donation box at a checkout line. You just have to see it to understand.
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is the best you’re going to get from me as far as action movies go. Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer pummel you with extremely on-point jokes throughout the entire movie. The writing once again says “NAY!” to the masses, and creates a revolutionary script that is far superior to any other dark comedy/crime/action, whatever you want to call it, movie.
In it, Robert Downey Jr. plays Harry Lockhart, a man who stumbles into a Hollywood audition while running away from a failed robbery attempt. He impresses the producers, thus being thrown into the world of lavish parties, side by side with a gay private eye detective.
The whole movie is played with the narrative voice of Robert Downey Jr. behind it. He converses with you, the avid watcher, sucking you into the feelings and temperament of Harry Lockhart.
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang gave me inspiration that I could write about whatever I wanted, however I wanted. Most movies go by a distinct format of how the scenes should pan out, and what should be said. But as I said before, this movie follows the beat of its own drum, with a big middle finger up to anyone who thinks otherwise.
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is a well rounded balance of all movie genres; leaving behind nothing but a trail of genius jokes and the occasional dead body.
4) Madagascar-
What’s a good movie collection without an animated children’s flick?
Most movies that have come out recently I have not been thrilled with, I’m not going to get into specif- BURN AFTER READING-ics, but it seems I am ALWAYS pleased with the latest animated movie (Kung Fu Panda, Horton hears a WHO). I usually see it a couple more times to maintain that positive spirit I have towards the movie industry.
Not only did Madagascar have an all star cast, a solid plot, and PENGUINS! It had something that we humans constantly battle with: The struggle to find ourselves.
As we grow older, we begin to realize how short life can be. We realize all the things we have yet to experience, all the sights we haven’t seen, all the people we have not interacted with. Some call it a Mid-life Crisis, others call it getting old and realizing you spent your life in a cubicle playing Minesweeper, waiting for 5 pm so you could go home and drink your face off to try and forget where your life suddenly turned into shit.
When Marty the Zebra turns 10 years old, he longs for adventure and wants to journey to a place where he can run around happy and free. That night he begins his voyage to Connecticut where he can run peacefully in the large fields. His animal friends follow him, get captured at Grand Central Station (along with the PENGUINS!) and shipped off to Kenya. In route to Kenya, the animals fall off a boat and end up on a remote island, Madagascar.
Not only can the kids enjoy this colorful collection of animals roaming inside their television sets, but older people will get a kick out of the hilarious pop culture references. Add some great voices by Cedric The Entertainer and Sacha Baron Cohen, some great dance sequences, an internal battle with growing old, and you’ve got yourself the best animated movie ever made.
5) Snakes On A Plane
Let me ask you a question: What’s better than…
Snakes
A Plane
And Samuel L Jackson?
“Oh! Oh! I know John! I know! Is it uhm… ABSOLUTELY NOTHING??”
DING DING DING! Big Winner!
The fact of the matter is, too many “scary” movies today take themselves WAY too seriously. The trailer’s make the movie out to be this huge gore fest, with a handful of sex scenes laced in. And when you finally see it, you realize that it was exactly like every other scary movie that has been made the last 5 years: Hours of scenes that lead up to nothing, creepy organs that play behind the entire movie, and acting performances that even Pauly Shore could match.
For example: Hellboy II, One Missed Call, or The Happening, which made me want to gouge my eyes out just so I could have something to throw at the screen to show my disdain for Marky Mark. We’ve had enough of your shit M. Night!
When it finally gets to the end, you can feel the suspense building, and you’re about to find out who the killer is, the big payoff. “THIS IS WHAT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!”
Only to be revealed that spirits from another life that have absolutely NOTHING to do with anything resembling the movie you’ve invested the last two hours of your life into, have been causing destruction, and now they are not… movie over?
I have officially thrown in the towel for all scary movies for the rest of my life, and strictly and religiously watch Snakes On A Plane to get my weekly fright fix.
The description of the movie needs no supplement on my part, the title will suffice. SNAKES ON A PLANE!
The plane takes off, snakes run wild, slither around killing innocent people who can’t defend themselves, Samuel L Jackson comes and dominates like always… movie over!
Most people never saw the movie, because ultimately they were afraid that they would actually like it and be frightened. Those who did see the movie and didn’t like it obviously have zero taste in movies and have probably stopped reading a long time ago anyway.
“Man, I liked A Clockwork Orange!”
“Donnie Darko is so epic bro!”
“I Loved Sin City!”
Of course you did, you sheep! That’s why Blockbuster is a Communist, and if you disagreed with any of this article, you are too!
Author: John MacGregor
