Ryan's Favorite Cult Films

I haven't been doing these enough but my work schedule has been KILLER lately.  But it's time I got back to the list with the awesome #11: Grandma's Boy

I was lucky enough to see Grandma's Boy in theaters - it wasn't out for too long and only found its place on video.  The film is really still awesome...I love the shit out of this film.  It has a great cast.  Allen Covert finally comes out from behind Adam Sandler's shadow to do his own film.  He carries the film quite well - he's alot of fun to watch as he finally gets to play the straight man.  As a guy who is forced to leave his apartment after his roommate blows the rent, he masturbates on a Lara Croft doll, sleeps next to a racecar bed, before finally moving in with his grandmother and her two friends.

There's a ton going on in the movie.  Dance Dance Revolution, pot smoking, a monkey, a lion, Linda Cardellini, Nick Swardson, VIDEOGAMES, Joel Moore (DODGEBALL!), Jonah Hill, and Shirley Jones playing a WHORE!  What more can you ask for in ONE FILM?

I still quote the movie..."My roommates are getting me some sweet rims."  It's just an awesome film.  I really don't have much more to say on it...just that it's awesome.  And Allen Covert should star in more movies.

Every Christmas there are two movies that are a must watch.  The first is The Ref - the AWESOME Denis Leary/Kevin Spacey film.  The other is Bad Santa.  Combined with a rotating third film (Die Hard or Elf or something else) that is usually Laur and I's Christmas Eve.

Bad Santa is awesome.  It's an anti-Christmas film.  There's fucking and cursing and drunkness.  There's Lauren Graham and the role that really gave Tony Cox his street cred.  There's two actors who have since passed on - John Ritter (this is his last film he did before he passed on) and Bernie Mac (another tragedy!).

Is there really anything better then a Santa with nothing to live for?  Who curses...who pisses himself...who yells at kids...who comes to work piss drunk?  No.  There's really not.  I recently read that the producers were trying to lock in Bill Murray but because he's so elusive they had to recast.  I think that was a godsend.  Billy Bob Thornton so owned the part that he is now the go-to asshole for every film that needs an asshole.

Brent Kelly as 'The Kid' is also brilliant.  He is so utterly pathetic in the film that you want to feel sorry for him AND beat the shit out of him at the same time.  Brent's not that retarded in real life which really speaks to his acting ability.  The line "You want some sandwiches" is just brilliant as is most of the lines that Brent says.

All-in-all Bad Santa is a great cult film that I can watch a million times.  Or at least once a year - because there's nothing better while waiting for Santa then watching Bad Santa.

NEXT UP: FREE MAHI MAHI!

Oh Dae-Su is kidnapped and locked in a room for 15 years.  He never sees another living soul and spends his years wondering what he did to be locked up in this prison.  He trains himself in kung-fu, watches television, and nearly goes insane.

Then one day...he is let go.

Oh Dae-Su wants revenge.  The revenge controls his life as he struggles to find out the truth about his jailing.  But is the film really about Dae Su's revenge...or that of the one who kidnapped him?

Oldboy is truly in a league of its own.  It's a mystery with conspiracy.  It's about loose lips.  And it has one of the greatest fight scenes of all time - a remarkable 6 minute fight scene in a hallway that is one long ongoing shot.

Once all the secrets are finally revealed it is a HUGE BLOW to the audience.  It is revenge on an amazing scale.  It is truly just FUCKED UP.  And it is amazing.  A truly great piece of cinema history.  Because once you have your own revenge, and once Oh Dae-Su's kidnapper has his, what is to happen?

The film is part of a loose "Vengeance" trilogy by Park Chan-wook - but this film is truly the finest of the three and one of the best films released in the last twenty years.

NEXT UP: Santa likes to fuck fat chicks in the ass.

Suicide Kings is one of those indy flicks I'm very glad that I got to see in theaters.  It wasn't a big release, not many people knew about it, and many people STILL don't know about it.  Which is a big shame.  Because Suicide Kings features some amazing kickass performances.

The best performance goes to Christopher Walken in one of the finest roles of his career.  Yes it is up there with, say, The Deer Hunter.  Walken is THAT GOOD in this film as a mobster kidnapped by a bunch of kids who are trying to raise ransom money for a kidnapped sister.  Not a great plan?  No its not...and they all realize it.  What sucks more is the gangster's right hand man DENIS LEARY is hot on the trail looking for his boss.

The kids are played by Henry Thomas (E.T.!), Jeremy Sisto (Clueless!), Johnny Galecki (The Big Bang Theory!), Indiana Jones himself Sean Patrick Flannery (BOONDOCK!), and Jay Mohr (um...let's say...Jerry Maguire.  No...wait...ACTION!  God I love that TV show).  They are trying to rescue Henry's sister.  Throw in Raymond's brother Brad Garrett as a kidnapper and Laura San Giocomo just there to be ...well... "hot" and you have one hell of a movie.

It's a potboiler - it's actually kind of a mystery.  It's what happens when rich kids acted fucking retarded and the consequences that come back to haunt you.  It's Christopher Fucking Walken at his finest.  He's a cool cat in this flick...he's a cool mother fucker taking the situation in stride...yet you know he is fully capable of jumping up and murdering these kids with his bare hands.

Is the sister alive?  Will they get the money from the mob boss to save her?  Will Denis Leary find them first and put a cap in all of their asses?  It's all part of the mystery in one of the best movies of its kind....

NEXT UP: You really are the very monster I created, aren't you? But you won't find out the "why" of this if you kill me. Fifteen years of being curious would go to waste.

Movies like UHF and Tommy Boy don't appear in my top 25.  Both of those films are amazingly incredible dumb comedies that rank in the top 30...but didn't make the top 25.  Role Models is one of those newer films that has risen up pretty quickly and remains a great watch.  Sorry Weird Al!

What better then Paul Rudd and Stifler watching McLovin and a foul-mouthed kid who stars in his own comic book called 'Adventure of the Booby Watcher?'  Jane Lynch as the ex-coke head who runs the Big Brothers type program.  Ken Jeong as the King of Role Playing Land.  Elizabeth Banks being...hot.  And vulgarity, breasts, more breasts, and Shrek Piss.

The film needs a sequel....lord knows they make worse sequels for worse films.

The flick was done by David Wain.  He wrote/directed this as well as Wet Hot American Summer and the TV show The State.  This is Wain's opus though.  The comedy is so well timed, his actors are so amazing, and it really was just another great performance by Jane Lynch that puts it well over the top.

I mean the movie is about LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) and breasts.  Two things that DO NOT GO TOGETHER - but yet...they so do in this film.  It is a film I can watch over and over and over again.  And over again.  And over again. 

I'll end with a bunch of great quotes:
Schoolboy: Hey nice cow outfit. Where can I pick one of those up at, the gay zoo? Homo.
Danny: No, no. It's not a cow. It's a a minotaur. It's a creature of myth. And he got this one out of your mom's closet.
Wheeler: She let me keep it after I fucked her.

Gayle Sweeny: Watch your language, Ronnie.
Ronnie Shields: My language is English and this mother fucker tried to grab my junk.

Wheeler: It's called training. You know, being aware without drawing attention. You don't think I've noticed those 34 C's in the camouflage tank top setting up a tent directly to the left of us? Or how about those twin cannons hiking up a mountain ridge 50 yards due west? Or the ridge itself? Round mounds of grass shaped like...
Ronnie Shields: Boobies!
Wheeler: Don't look over there. Look here. Focus... You'll get it.

NEXT UP: I'm going to give you an opportunity: get out of this. Now. Before it gets so fucked up nobody could ever recover.

A RYAN POSTSCRIPT:  I think it is TOTALLY AWESOME how many comments I got from kickass LARPers who are telling me how...breasts and LARPing SO GO TOGETHER!  Laugh.  I do think that is totally awesome...so much so that I had to write my first ever review postscript just to thank everyone for writing!  Next up for me personally?  Go check out a LARPing event.  I know there's events in this area (Tri-State region)...and I WILL be going to make sure that all of your facts are indeed correct.  ;)  - 'Irish Rican'

I had listened to the Beatles before Backbeat...I liked them a little bit.  Backbeat changed me.  The movie changed the way I looked at music - it changed how I looked at some sixties band.

Backbeat told me the story I never knew about the Beatles...how they went to Hamburg on their first tour.  There was no Ringo...there was a drummer named Pete Best.  And there was a bassist named Stu Sutcliffe, a good friend of John Lennon's.  Stu wasn't great at the bass, he was an art student, but he was along for the ride.  The boys played in a shitty bar for 10 hours a night, high on drugs, fucking every chick they could find, having a great time, drinking, dancing....living it up as crazy 19 year-old rock-n-rollers.

Then Stu meets Ingrid.  Ingrid is beautiful, into the art scene, and they fall for each other.  Ingrid gets the Beatles into the German style and suddenly they are wearing weird haircuts and leather jackets.  Suddenly...they are becoming more and more like the Beatles.

The acting is wonderful...American Stephen Dorff pulls off a career high as Sutcliffe and joined by the awesome Ian Hart as John Lennon, and Sheryl Lee as Ingrid.  ALSO the film was directed by Iain Softley who would go on to direct a little movie called HACKERS!  That's right...I said Hackers!

The soundtrack was songs from that era done by a superband that consisted of:
Dave Pirner (Soul Asylum): vocals
Greg Dulli (The Afghan Whigs): vocals
Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth): guitar
Don Fleming (Gumball): guitar
Mike Mills (R.E.M.): bass guitar
Dave Grohl (Nirvana): drums

Yeah...talk about a fucking soundtrack!  And it kicked major ass as well!

But the movie isn't a Beatles movie.  I mean it is, but it isn't.  It's a well-crafted drama about the man who left the Beatles for art and love (Pete Best wasn't so lucky...he was forced out for Ringo Starr). 

The film changed my perceptions of the Beatles.  I bought some Ingrid photographs.  I read every book I could about the Beatles early history.  I watched their films.  I started listening to all of their music.  They went from some sixties band to the band that changed rock-n-roll TWICE, invented the concept album, invented the music video, invented multi-layer albums...and more.  It was this movie that did it for me and I still love watching it at least once a year to this very day.

NEXT UP:  No, venti is twenty. Large is large. In fact, tall is large and grande is Spanish for large. Venti is the only one that doesn't mean large. It's also the only one that's Italian. Congratulations, you're stupid in three languages.

While Better Off Dead is the better of the two films - I really see BOD and One Crazy Summer going hand in hand.  They have the same writer/director in "Savage" Steve Holland   and the same stars in John Cusack and Curtis Armrstong.

One Crazy Summer is really the sequel to Better Off Dead.  Cusack plays the same character ...only with different names.  Both characters are even cartoonists....who get stuck in weird situations.

Both films are wonderful - Better Off Dead I still continue to quote to this day.  "I want my two dollars!"  One Crazy Summer has Demi Moore pre breast implants AND Jeremy Piven!

When I watch one of these films it is impossible for me not to watch the other one.  That's why they both come in at #17 - because I have equal love for the films.  Plus One Crazy Summer ALSO HAS Bobcat Goldthwait who was SO FUNNY back in 1988.  Not so much now...but the scene with him in the Godzilla suit is still priceless.

NEXT UP: We're gonna be big Stu, we're gonna be too big for Liverpool, we're gonna be too big for Hamburg, we're gonna be too big for our own bloody good.

It's been a hot minute since I did my last review but what better flick to look at then Big Trouble in Little China?  John Carpenter has made some great movies, some weird movies, and some classic movies.  Great can go down as Starman, weird can go down as They Live, classic like the first Halloween.  Big Trouble in Little China certainly falls into all three.

The flick is certainly a weird film.  There was rumor it was intended to be a Buckaroo Banzai sequel but that's only a rumor.  HOWEVER Buckaroo's director W.D. Richter did rework the script which is maybe where that rumor started.

The film is all over the place just like Buckaroo - which is awesome.  It's also the first time I think I've ever seen where the main character has a sidekick that is 30,000,000 times more adept then he is.  Kurt Russell's Jack Burton certainly means well, but his friend Wang (Dennis Dun) certainly has all the right moves and know-how.

The flick is certaintly a Chinese martial arts film mixed with a bit of Die Hard.  The plot involves a green-eyed Chinese girl who is coming from China to marry Wang.  She's kidnapped as part of a plot to free sorcerer David Lo Pan (the awesome James Wong) from an evil curse.  There's these bad ass Raiden dudes called Thunder, Lightning, and Rain who fly in and totally kick ass.  There's monsters, there's kung fu, there's secret Ninja powers...and there's Kurt Russell certainly "trying" to be an action star.  Not that Kurt Russell is not but his character isn't.  And that is also where a ton of the fun is.  Throw in Kim Cattrell when she wasn't 160 years old and you have a great cult flick.  What better then a movie about a trucker caught in the middle of Chinese culture and kung fu?  It's one of the best John Carpenter flicks, certainly one of the most fun Kurt Russell flicks, and certainly the top flick of having a super-hottie green-eyed Chinese girl.

TOMORROW: "Gee, I'm really sorry your Mom blew up, Ricky." AND "Hey, Hoops, you ever notice how people die in alphabetical order?"

Out of all my favorite "cult movies" Dodgeball is the one that probably doesn't "belong" in this category.  The flick made over 100 million dollars in the box office and is well known in the comedy community.  I can accept that...so Dodgeball can be considered one of the "films I love to watch a billion times."

The comedy is top notch...I still quote the "ESPN 8: The Ocho" line at least once a week.  The Average Joe's team is awesome with Vince Vaughn (Jurassic Park II: The Lost World), Stephen Root (Jersey Girl), Justin Long (Jeepers Creepers), Alan Tudyk (28 Days...the drinking rehab one...not the zombie one), and Joel Moore (GRANDMA'S BOY!).  Oh yeah...can't forget Ben Stiller's super hot wife Christine Taylor (Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!) and Rip Torn.  Add in Ben Stiller, David Hasselhoff, Chuck Norris, Lance Armstrong, Hank Azaria, Gary Cole, Missi Pyle, Jason Bateman, and Booger himself Curtis Armstrong...and you have one hell of a movie.

I'll tell you what...watching Justin Long get nailed in the nuts for 90 minutes is TRULY a magnificent comedic experience.  Also watching Joel Moore in a tiny swimsuit washing that redneck's hubcap while the redneck touches himself...that shit makes me laugh every single time.  Same with Lance Armstrong's end speech about how he never quit even when he got testicular cancer 7 times....that shit just kills every time.

Instead of getting less funny each time I watch it I really do think that Dodgeball gets funnier each time...it seems that there is always something in the film that makes me laugh out loud every single time I watch it.

Trust me...if you can dodge a wrench...you can dodge a ball.  So dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge!  The 5 D's rock...

TOMORROW: We really shook the pillars of heaven, didn't we, Wang?

Who's The Man is usually a forgotten jem...which is a shame.  It's a great comedy and a time capsule of nineties hip hop.  Yo! MTV Raps hosts Dr. Dre and Ed Lover star as two HORRIBLE barbers with a demeanor like Abbott and Costello.  They end up becoming cops then go out trying to solve the murder of their mentor.

The movie has EVERYONE!  Run DMC as COPS!  Ice-T and KRS One as drug dealers!  Guru as a bad guy (RIP Guru!).  Phife Dawg from Tribe, Kris Kross, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, Heavy D, Humpty Hump, Busta Rhymes and Leaders of the New School, House of Pain, Cypress Hill's B-Real, Naughty by Nature (in concert rapping Hip Hop Hurray!), Bow-Legged Lou and a cameo by the rest of Full Force, Kid Capri, Queen Latifah, and Salt n Pepa!  Plus a great cast like Colin Quinn, Bill Bellamy, Karen Duffy, Jim Moody, Vinny Pastore, and an AWESOME performance by Denis Leary.

The soundtrack featured the first-ever Notorious BIG song 'Party and Bullshit!'

But beyond the great cast the movie is actually VERY funny.  VERY FUNNY.  Dre and Lover have a great rapport through years on YO! MTV Raps and it translates beautifully.  There are some great fucking lines...like when they are at the police academy and the trainer asks, "What is the main purpose of a police officer?" Ed Lover responds, "To harass black people!"  CLASSIC!  Who's the Man is really a unsung gem that most people haven't seen.  Obviously it is not for most people...if you aren't a fan of nineties rap you may enjoy it less...but the comedy itself should stand on its own merits.

TOMORROW: Quit? You know, once I was thinking about quitting when I was diagnosed with brain, lung and testicular cancer, all at the same time. But with the love and support of my friends and family, I got back on the bike and I won the Tour de France five times in a row. But I'm sure you have a good reason to quit.

John Carpenter + "Rowdy" Roddy Piper = BRILLIANT!

John Carpenter's low budget sci-fi flick about a drifter in a shantytown who finds out that aliens are already living among us is...AWESOME.  The fact that you can see them with the super-treated Oakley sunglasses is ever betterer.

But the best?  One of the best fight scenes of all time...an all-out brawl between Piper and Keith David...8 and 1/2 minutes of the two beating the shit out of each other.  And I mean BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER.  It's not kung-fu...it's not a quick fight...it is literally these two FUCKING FIGHTING!  It is one of the best fight scenes ever put into a movie!

Carpenter had some awesome flick in the eighties...Starman, Escape From New York, and the awesome Big Trouble In Little China...and They Live is no exception.  Roddy Piper is awesome in this movie...and the fact that he is still acting today (Just saw him recently in an episode of Always Sunny) is a testament to his acting ability.  Sure he's a WWF icon..but in They Live the man is a GOD!

TOMORROW: You fucked me! You fucked me! You might as well kiss me 'cause you're fucking me!

America....FUCK YEAH!

I first saw Team America in theaters where I thought the film was ....decentish.  Many years later I picked it up on DVD and couldn't believe how fucking awesome the film was.  The music...the puppets...THE PUPPET SEX...everything was great.  Why didn't I 'get it' the first time I saw it?  Because I'm a douchebag...that's the only reason I can think of.

Trey and Matt's puppet Thunderbirds-ish opus is alot of fun as Team America takes on the terrorists, China, and Alec Baldwin. It sparked one of my favorite all time quotes, "MATT DAMON."  And America blows shit up....blows everything up...because that's what Americans do.

America....FUCK YEAH!

Hmmm...I really don't have more to say about the film.  Team America rocks.  I love watching it.  So...maybe I'll just pop it in the DVD player right now.  MATT DAMON!

TOMORROW: I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum.

True Romance has it all.  A killer cast.  A Quentin Tarantino script.  Brad Pitt as a stoner!  The director is...well...he's Tony Scott.  One can only guess what Tarantino would have done with his own script...BUT...selling this script and Natural Born Killers paved the way for him to direct the awesome Reservoir Dogs.  But Reservoir Dogs isn't on this list...True Romance is.

You want a cast?  How about Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Michael Rapaport, Bronson Pinchot, Dennis Hopper, James Gandolfini, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Chris Penn, Tom Sizemore, Brad Pitt, Val Kilmer, and Samuel L. Jackson.  Val Kilmer as ELVIS!  Yeah...rock on.

You want Tarantino dialogue?  How about:

"Hi. How are you? My name's Elliot, and I'm with the Cub Scouts of America. We're... we're selling uncut cocaine to get to the jamboree."
"Now I know I'm pretty, but I ain't as pretty as a couple of titties."
" I mean look at her. It looks like she fell off the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down."
"I always said, if I had to fuck a guy... I mean had to, if my life depended on it... I'd fuck Elvis."

Then there's the scene between Dennis Hopper and Christoper Walken...as Hopper insult Walken about his Italian hertiage.  It's a fucking monster scene...Hopper knows he's fucked so he goes on to talk about how Sicilians are descended from black people and that Walken's mobster is really a moolie.  It doesn't go over well...and the scene is really the show-stealer of the whole fucking film.

There isn't a dull moment in the film...and it continues to build and build until the hugely bloody Mexican standoff at the end.

Did I mention Brad Pitt as a stoner?  To this day it is one of my favorite Pitt roles...even though he really isn't in the movie much.

The script is probably one of Tarantino's best and it is a shame that he didn't get to direct it.  It is still one awesome fucking film and one that is watchable time after mother fucking time.

TOMORROW:  Ahhhh...durka durka durka.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I first saw District B13.  It was a French karate movie...in French...that KICKED ASS.  Actually it is not karate but parkour...which has really entered into the American mindset since this film.  But B13, starring Parkour's creator David Belle is one hell of an incredible martial arts flick.

The first twenty minutes alone is mind-numbing...in an incredible way.  When a gang leader and his men show up to confront Belle and get back their stolen drugs...Belle takes off and actually uses the ENTIRE BUILDING as his playground/weapon.  The man is just ... there are no words.  There are NO WORDS.  To watch him as he bounces off walls, doors, down poles, into windows...it's stuff that Jackie Chan wishes he could do...back in his prime!

Belle is joined by Cyril Rafaelli - who also showed off his Parkour skills in Live Free or Die Hard.  Together the two have to stop a bomb going off in the ghetto.  That's the plot...and who cares about the plot.  Because really it is just an excuse to watch these two guys kick major ass.

There's a sequel that actually came out on DVD just two weeks ago...but the problem with that film is that there is probably too much plot...maybe 10 more minutes of plot.  That's wasting time!  Here the plot is secondary to the incredible action.  The jaw will drop several times watching this incredible flick...

Director Pierre Morel has also gone onto great things like Liam Neeson's Taken and an upcoming brand new Dune movie!

TOMORROW:  I always said, if I had to fuck a guy... I mean had to, if my life depended on it... I'd fuck Elvis.

With my top 25 films of all time list out of the way I'm going to move onto a list that is just as important...my favorite cult films.  These are films I can watch over and over again - most are films rarely seen though a few have found mainstream success.  This list was actually much harder to come up with and there are some movies (Blazing Saddles, Zaitochi, Tommy Boy, Disorderlies, Addams Family, Billy Madison...the list goes on!) that didn't make the top 25.  How?  I don't know...there's just way too many great cult movies.  Without further adieu...

What more can you say about a film about two garbage men who end up with the dead body of a politician and, along with a crazy Vietnam vet, try to get rid of the body?  Yes...Men at Work is that film.  Look at your cast!  Charlie Sheen (Hot Shots Part Deux), writer/director/actor Emilio Estevez (The Mighty Ducks 3), Dean Cameron (Summer School's Chainsaw!), Keith David (Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London), and the beautiful Leslie Hope (Jack Bauer's dead wife from 24!).

Yes we've seen Carlos Estevez and Emilio Estevez in the same films before (like Young Guns!) but what better to have them featured together in the same film!  The two of them partnered up with Keith David - who really had his best performance to date (yes - even better then Platoon...but not as good as Requiem for a Dream).  And the movie is an action/comedy about garbagemen!  How is that not amazing?!?!?

Great quotes from the flick:
"There are several sacred things in this world that you don't ever mess with. One of them happens to be another man's fries."
"Looks like somebody threw away a perfectly good white boy!"
"What does a phrenologist feel and interpret?" "The size of Walt's asshole."

If you want to see a better done Weekend at Bernie's with the Estevez boys as garbagemen well look no further - Men at Work has EVERYTHING and holds a very high place on the bottom of my top 25.

TOMORROW: You go up the stairs, I'll take the elevator. For once it's not broken.