Ryan's Underrated Movies of the Decade

Since I'm being secluded to my apartment due to near-blizzard conditions, it looks like I might as well do some writing that doesn't pertain about me taking a trip to Blockbuster, though this one still has to do with movies.  Originally, I was debating doing this as a possible video-blog (I hate saying "vlog" as it sounds like a regurgitation sound effect) but since I don't own a video camera and by the time I might be able to afford one, this list would be pretty irrelevant.  Hell, it's a couple weeks into February so the whole "End of the Decade" gimmick is outdated by a month already.  Plus, this would've just consisted of me holding up DVD copies and talking about them so I figured I'd just type it out, cutting out the middleman and passing the savings onto you...or something.  I will put up a word of warning though.  I realize that I'm on the Internet so any of these movies I list as "underrated" while probably be met with scoffs by cinema snobs and internet nerds.  "Pffft, you call that underrated?  You obviously haven't seen Le Cirque De Scat Eaters, you troglodyte."  Sure, maybe I haven't seen that movie that I just made up for this argument (and oh god I hope it doesn't actually exist out there somewhere) but you have to realize that I live in Northwest Ohio, which is pretty much a cultural wasteland.  The odd thing about where I live is that there are quite a few opportunities to find something outside of the normal entertainment options (the Internet being the biggest of those opportunities) but people here are perfectly content to just listen to what Top 40 or Country radio tells them to, watch whatever crappy reality show is being shoved down our throats and pay good money to see a shoddy remake of an infinitely better movie.  So that makes me a goddamn visionary!  Or not, I'm just saying that's the way things are around here.  Anyway, with that tangent out of the way, here are my picks for some of the most underrated movies of this past decade.

I'm going to start things off with a movie that has actually made it onto a few Best of Decade lists: Oldboy.  The second movie in Chan-Wook Park's "Vengeance Trilogy" broke out pretty well in the States and helped our opinion of Asian Cinema rise above mere chop-socky flicks or anime come to life.  But as good as Oldboy is, I have to say that the first movie in the trilogy, Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, is that much better.  In Sympathy, a deaf and dumb factory worker is laid off and, unable to pay for his sister's kidney transplant, kidnaps his boss' daughter with the help of his girlfriend and holds her for ransom.  Honestly, I remember the first half of this movie being really slow but out of nowhere, I was really hooked by the story and couldn't look away.  But between Sympathy and Oldboy, Park really gets across the message of "Revenge never works out for anyone involved", a message that was unfortunately dropped in Lady Vengeance, which apparently taught us "Hey kids, revenge is OK and will totally have no repercussions at all!"  Yeah, I'd say skip Lady Vengeance if possible.  But even so, as good as they are, I wouldn't even consider any one of the Vengeance Trilogy films to be Park's best movie.  That honor belongs to JSA - Joint Security Area, released in early 2000.  Set predominantly in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, JSA is like A Few Good Men only much more meaningful.  I don't really want to go into the story too much as I went into the movie blind and was pleasantly surprised, so I feel I should give anyone else who wants to see this movie that privilege.  I would definitely put JSA in the short list of "Movies It's OK For Dudes To Cry During", it's that good.

(In a related note, the rumors of an Oldboy remake spearheaded by Steven Spielberg and Will Smith seem to have faded away...thank god.  But now it looks like Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance may be remade.  There's no real information on it beyond that so I'm really hoping that Hollywood doesn't mess this one up.)   

As you can probably tell by now, I'm a pretty big fan of Asian Cinema all around, but Japanese movies in particular.  Even though Japan is currently pretty much America's counterpart, most of us probably see Japan as America's brilliant-yet-possibly-retarded cousin.  If international relations were a sitcom, America and Japan would totally be college roomies.  America would come back to the dorm after a hard night of boozing while Japan had stayed up all night studying but he would be shocked at what Japan had been doing during his study breaks:  "Holy shit, Japan dudebro, you fixed my XBox!  And you added a PS3 to it too!  Thanks Japan.  Wait a minute, why did you glue an octopus to it?  And what's that smel...OH MY GOD, HOW ARE YOU SHITTING ON THE CEILING?  That's not even physically possible!"  But that's part of Japan's charm.  Yeah, they do messed up crap that's hard to ignore but that doesn't mean they're not awesome.  Movies like Versus and Ichi The Killer are pretty much starters for any budding Japanophile (and believe me, if you can sit through Ichi The Killer without feeling like a piece of crap, that's a pretty good start) but that's only the beginning.  That's why I pick The Machine Girl as my favorite underrated movie from Japan.  Really, just watch the trailer and imagine it going on for another 90 minutes.  ***WARNING - Possibly not safe for work due to copious amounts of fake blood.***



 The Machine Girl is everything you'd expect from Japan and while it's over the top, it's not perverted or (too) disgusting, unlike spiritual successor Tokyo Gore Police, a movie so dirty that I watched it alone and hoped that none of my roommates would walk in on me.  Seriously, for every cool thing that happened (real-life rocket jumping, executions involving Wii controllers), there was something horrible to bring it back down (two words: Amputee brothel).  An honorable mention goes to Death Trance, a movie perfect for action fans who thought Versus had too much of a plot and just want to see people get kicked.  Plus, two more words: Shotgun sword.  And no, I'm not just putting together two random words just for the hell of it.  But apparently Japan likes to.  Thanks Japan!

I couldn't figure out whether to segue into horror or comedy so hell, I'm gonna do them both!  Due to excessive useless remakes and unnecessary sequelization (even though they were guilty of that in the '80s too), the horror genre hasn't really reached its creative peak.  That's not to say that there aren't plenty of good horror movies out there, its just that (as with most other things) you really have to dig under the surface to find the really good stuff.  Many horror fans have been proclaiming Shaun of the Dead as the best horror movie of the decade, despite it not being a true horror movie but a comedic homage.  So I'm going to take the same route and choose Dance of the Dead as the most underrated horror movie of the decade.  The premise of Dance of the Dead is simple: a zombie outbreak occurs on prom night. Not only that, you have the prototypical archetypes involved in both '80s horror and comedy movies alike.  The main character is a slacker whose girlfriend, the student body president, dumps him before prom for being a slacker.  His best friend is a dork who is infatuated with the cute athlete, only she's infatuated with the guy who sings in a rock band.  Plus the slacker is bullied by a student who's been held back so many times he's practically in his twenties.  And somehow, all these characters and a few of their friends (and their gym teacher, who's a former Drill Sargent) end up missing prom and have to save the school and the town from the zombie apocalypse.  Everything's so simple that it shouldn't work as well as it does but the performances (done by kids who would actually pass as high schoolers instead of being in their late 20's) make it all enjoyable.   Much like Shaun, Dance is such a well-done homage to a genre loved by their creators that you can't not like it.

With that, I probably could get away without choosing an underrated comedy.  I'm actually willing to say that mainstream comedy has fallen worse than mainstream horror.  You see, horror's never really been all that generally respected (which is kinda why I identify with it so much) but there were so many classic comedies being churned out in the '80s and '90s.  But the '00s?  We just degenerated into shitty parody movies, Will Ferrel holding contests as to who can shout the loudest and Judd Apatow filming it.  Yeah, I'll probably catch some flack for that last statement considering how much I love Anchorman but the rest of either man's work sucks in comparison.  And I'm really sick of Seth Rogen too as the only movie I really liked him in was The 40 Year Old Virgin, a movie where he wasn't the lead.  Worst of all, the only movie that Bill Murray was funny in for the past 10 years was Zombieland!  But to me, the best comedy released in the last 10 years, which also happens to be underrated for the most part, is Wet Hot American Summer.  I was a pretty big fan of The State (despite the fact I was like 10 when it was popular) but really got back into it last year when the series was finally released on DVD and a friend showed me Wet Hot American Summer for the first time.  Honestly, I can't think of a funnier movie right now.  I'm sure some people will think it's stupid or that they don't "get it" but really what is there to get?  Yeah, some things happen out of nowhere for no reason but they certainly make more sense than some asshole in a bad costume repeating a line from a better movie and somehow getting a giant paycheck for it because people are dumb enough to make that movie #1 in the box office.  Now THAT I don't "get".  A few honorable mentions go to Role Models and I Love You, Man, both starring Paul Rudd who was also in Wet Hot American Summer.  Go figure.

There you go.  That's all I got for right now but I'm willing to hear what you guys think about movies that need some more recognition.  So go crazy with the comments!  But not if you're an ad-bot.  Seriously.