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Nacho Libre

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Nacho Libre. Paramount Pictures 2006.

Before watching the movie:

I’m fairly confident this was the first time I’d heard of Jack Black. I’d heard a lot about Shallow Hal, but since Malcolm in the Middle was such a big presence in my life at the time, my brain kept putting Bryan Cranston in the title role. So with Nacho Libre, Jack Black entered my consciousness as someone new, yet someone I apparently should have already known about.  So I was completely lost later when Tenacious D got a movie and was apparently a well-established band already. And this time it was real, unlike my early confusion about Galaxy Quest.

Anyway, here’s a cult movie about a white guy rising to the top in a Mexican cultural institution from the age where taboo topics were permissible, but insensitivity was in fashion. So I’m hoping this will be fun, but it’s got some hurdles to clear.

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Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

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Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Mutual Films Company 2001.

Before watching the movie:

The video game was very popular, possibly even for reasons beyond the audacious character model, so of course Tomb Raider got a movie fairly quickly. I’m not sure why the title of the successful franchise with five years of brand recognition was prefaced with the character’s name for the movie, but I assume if I look it up, I’ll see something about “Lara Croft” being the name known more by the mainstream audience, again because of the character model.

I was surprised to see Daniel Craig’s name in the credits for this 2001 movie, and then I looked up when Casino Royale came out (2006) and shriveled to a skeleton and turned to dust like the villain in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I also found that my impression that Angelina Jolie hasn’t done much lately is very much not true.

It’s also surprising to me that the rebooted Tomb Raider series got a reboot movie before the Uncharted franchise, which I suspect the Tomb Raider reboot owes some of its success to, was able to get its movie out of development hell.

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Lethal Weapon

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Lethal Weapon. Silver Pictures 1987.

Before watching the movie:

I get the idea that the original Lethal Weapon isn’t as popular as 3 and 4. I’m not familiar enough with the franchise to know why.

Certainly, the most important part of a buddy-cop movie is the character dynamics, making the plot a canvas upon which to apply banter. Which also makes it difficult to know what to expect from this movie, apart from how it seems to have done well.

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Scooby-Doo

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Scooby-Doo. Mosaic Media Group 2002.

Before watching the movie:

As someone who was not a fan of Scooby-Doo in the early 2000s, my main impression of this was that, if there was a right way to make a live action Scooby-Doo movie, this wasn’t it. The characters looked overly stylized, and the CGI dog was neither cartoon nor real, just a CGI mess.

I’ve since enjoyed some of the Mystery Incorporated reconstructive take on the franchise, and I have enough familiarity with it to know this probably at least isn’t the worst version.

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Deep Blue Sea

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Deep Blue Sea. Warner Bros. Pictures 1999.

Before watching the movie:

I’m surprised that I don’t recognize any of the names at the top of the cast list other than Samuel L. Jackson. I would have thought the central protagonist would be a big name.

Anyway, scientists meddle with sharks and make them more dangerous because science things. It makes more sense than some of the places the Jaws franchise went, really.

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Spawn

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Spawn. New Line Cinema 1997.

Before watching the movie:

Every time I think I understand what this movie is, I go looking for something to verify that and I come up with more confusing information. I think I can safely say that the main character is a recently deceased man recruited by demonic forces whose main internal conflict comes from coming to decide this work isn’t right. I’m not clear on much of anything else. Except this isn’t as similar to Blade as I thought. Every still I’m being presented looks like it’s from a different movie.

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Street Fighter

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Street Fighter. Capcom Entertainment 1994.

Before watching the movie:

This was going to happen pretty soon after I chose Mortal Kombat. I don’t have a clue what the plot of “Street Fighter” is, which I at least had a basic understanding of for MK. They’re just like, a bunch of people beating each other up in the street? But apparently there’s a world domination plan Raul Julia gets to camp his way through? Hopefully the movie does a decent job of explaining these things.

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The Mighty Ducks

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The Mighty Ducks. Walt Disney Pictures 1992.

Before watching the movie:

I’m not exactly sure how I missed the Mighty Ducks phenomenon of the 90s. I knew it was a thing, but not only was I not interested (it’s a sports movie, and there aren’t any real ducks), it was never foisted upon me. I do recall noticing it (or one of the sequels) on a muted TV across the room once in the orthodontist’s office, but that’s it.

The spinoffs this movie had were ridiculous though. Two sequels is one thing, an in-name-only animated adaptation about superpowered hockey-playing cartoon ducks is another, and creating an actual NHL hockey team off the success of a movie is bizarre.

I didn’t intend to do two Disney movies concerning ducks in a row, it just happened. They’re so far apart in time and subject that I didn’t realize until I was set on this movie.

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Shaolin Soccer

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Shaolin Soccer. Star Overseas 2001.

Before watching the movie:

I know there must be a whole range of movies about applying martial arts to unusual activities, but I can’t come up with any others off the top of my head. Jackie Chan has probably made five of them. Maybe the training sequence in The Karate Kid counts?

This is maybe one of the highest-profile ones. I dimly remember being aware of its release, but it at best ranked “vaguely interesting”, which wasn’t nearly enough draw to get me to try to see it.

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Blue Streak

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Blue Streak. Wintergreen Productions 1999.
Blue Streak. Wintergreen Productions 1999.

Before watching the movie:

This came up in automatic recommendations, and I know very little about it. Apparently, it concerns a jewel thief trying to recover his stash, which had a police station built over it while he was in jail. I’m expecting something of a heist, but there are indications he spends a while posing as a police officer to get inside, which implies a deeper level of infiltration than I usually think of for a heist.

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