Se7en (1995)

Kevin Spacey (it turns out) is going around murdering people based on the seven deadly sins, like he makes this fat guy eat himself to death and does a horrible thing to a prostitute that I don't want to talk about. What else does he do? He puts Brad Pitt's wife's head in a box and gives it to him. (Brad Pitt—is that right?) You know when they refer to certain films as "torture porn"? I thought this movie was a kind of pornography, and I didn't like it. SORRY, SEEMINGLY EVERYBODY ELSE.

This is what comes up if you Google Image Search
"se7en" (which is stupid, by the way—the word, not
the result: a 7 does not look like a V, you jerks).

A Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Some kind of skeleton (or rag doll) finds out that Santa Claus was kidnapped by a creepy pin cushion (or rag doll). I remember this movie being about as dark, subversive, and interesting as the doodles of a 12-year-old girl who recently learned that it's cool to wear black.

Oh, and it's a musical! Remember, kids: it can't be schmaltz
or sentimentality if there's graveyard imagery in it.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

I remember thinking that this movie was like a weird sandwich with unbefuckinglievably amazing war scenes as the bread and a lot of boring stuff (in the sandwich metaphor, maybe dry slices of turkey?) in the middle. And then they wrapped the whole thing in treacle.

Of course they're looking for this lost soldier, and Tom Hanks is the officer in charge. In the storming-the-beaches scene, somebody gets his leg blown off and then walks around carrying it for a second. In the other big battle scene, there's an amazingly long sequence in which a Nazi is trying to stab a Jew (and maybe actually ends up succeeding?). And Tom Hanks shoots a little gun at a tank and the tank actually blows up for some reason not actually having to do with the gun.

Oh, and the insufferable "frame story" involves a girl with big breasts being respectful in a graveyard.

What kind of inhuman monster would want to punch this man?

Point Break (1991)

Val Kilmer robs a bank in a Reagan mask, and Keanu Reeves is maybe a cop trying to catch him? And they become buddies? Or maybe they're already buddies and Keanu wants out? But they definitely surf, I know that!—and, in the end, Val Kilmer rides his surfboard off into a huge wave that I guess they for some reason know is a certain-death situation,* and Kilmer says, all meaningfully, "Vaya con Dios"—and that's the end of the movie, and my friend and I (this was in high school) looked at each other and were both like, "What the fuck?" We didn't speak Spanish.

Jesus. I feel like this movie is for guys with sunglasses I wouldn't like.

* Funnily enough, "And, in the end, Val Kilmer rides his surfboard off into a huge wave that I guess they for some reason know is a certain-death situation" are actually the original lyrics to the Beatles' "The End." (They changed it to that "love you take, love you make" business because this version didn't scan quite right and because they were like, "Paul, who's 'Val Kilmer'?" and he made this very hammy Paul face and was like, "Beats me!")

The 400 Blows (1959)

A kid steals a typewriter and walks around Paris in black and white. I think he lives in a small apartment with his mom and her boyfriend (or some kind of "nontraditional" family arrangement that isn't entirely comfortable for him) and he plays hooky and gets in trouble in school. Or maybe he gets in trouble for the typewriter thing? Anyway, they send him to, like, a juvenile-delinquent camp, and he gets interviewed. This movie is about alienation and/or the filmmaker's childhood—and probably Algeria, too, somehow (knowing France).

Fighting off gremlins like Corey Feldman.

The Exorcist (1973)

I know a little girl gets possessed, and of course I know she (1) spins her head around and (2) throws up. She also pees in front of a piano and—I'm afraid to say this in case it's wrong and reveals something about my psychology, but—doesn't she use a crucifix as a dildo?* The exorcist says, "The power of Christ compels you!" but I only know that because people reference it. I'm not sure how they get a whole movie out of this.

She sleeps above her covers. Four feet above her covers.
[q.v. April Fool's Day post]

* In sort of a violation of my usual Movies I Don't Remember code of ethics, I actually checked this before posting—and for that I apologize to all of you.

Top Gun (1986)

Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer both fly fighter planes and hate each other. Tom Cruise has sex with some woman in a bed while music plays, and later he flies his plane upside down. I think there's a bar fight, and I assume Tom Cruise gets "grounded" but then ends up saving the day in some kind of combat situation and thereby redeeming himself, although to be honest I really might just be remembering the plot of the 1991 parody film Hot Shots! Oh, and Tom Cruise has a cool nickname like "Topper." (No, wait, that is from Hot Shots! What's his nickname, then? "Tucker"? "Tiger"? "Tugboat"? Something with a T.*)

This movie's a bit of a sausage fest, as I recall.

* "Maverick." I was close.

Braveheart (1995)

Braveheart's wife gets killed so he organizes all the Scotsmen to fight the British. The British can take away the Scotsmen's lives but not their freedom! The Scotsmen lift up hidden spears and fuck up the British horses. In the end Braveheart gets vivisected but keeps yelling "FREEDOM!" and we can assume that something is accomplished by this. I remember that something about the way the story was told or unfolded made the movie feel to me like a 3½-hour trailer. A masterpiece, though, I'm given to understand.

bloody/sad

You Can Count on Me (2000)

I was one of two human beings in the world who did not like this movie. Mainly I was bored. I think it starts with these two kids finding out that their parents died in a car crash, and then, decades later, Mark Ruffalo comes to hang out with Laura Linney and bonds with her kids—but their relationship is strained, these siblings, and there are laughs and there are tears and ultimately they realize how important they are to each other. Probably he's an alcoholic. Yawn.

An emotionally devastating uncle–nephew bonding scene from the not-at-all-boring family fishing masterpiece You Can Count on Me.

Heat (1995)

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino have coffee together. Tensions run high. Val Kilmer shoots somebody's face off with a machine gun. Maybe somebody's daughter is in peril. A bank is robbed. Helicopters? This movie is as long as a typical multi-season television drama. When I saw it in the theaters there were six intermissions and I wrote an opera in my head.*

Like My Dinner with André but both more violent and more boring.

* This is actually the first movie I ever thought of walking out of in the middle, I was so bored.