16. Congo (1995, Action)

16. Congo (1995, Action)

Action is not usually my style (although the beautiful Laura Linney totally is), but I have been obsessed with this movie since the first day I saw it on the shelf at Blockbuster -- you know, back when people still went to Blockbuster. I was twelve, though, and not in charge of video rentals. I am proud to say that now I am almost 27 and I will watch Congo if I darn well please!

Like so many other things we insist we will do once we're old enough (tattoos and jello shots come to mind), Congo was about five parts awesome and fifty parts WHAT.WERE.YOU.THINKING?!

So let's address the obvious features of Congo:

1. Talking Gorilla -- kind of unusual but it's real, so whatever.
2. Civil War in the Congo -- again, very sadly real. What I can't quite buy is that so many people would just blatantly ignore the civil unrest and go ahead crossing borders willy nilly
3. Active Volcano -- once again, very real ... and once again, I can't quite buy that people would insist on blatantly ignoring the she's-about-to-blow situation (perhaps a metaphor for the script?) for the sake of gorilla-returning missions/nefarious secret missions (which leads me to ....)
4. CIA! CIA! CIA! -- again, the CIA is just as real as communicative gorillas, civil unrest and volcanoes, and OF COURSE they would be involved here. Such flat characters, though! I swear, if they had been any more dastardly stereotypical, they would have been twirling their handlebar moustaches whilst tying the beautiful Laura Linney (or heck, Amy the Talking Gorilla) to railroad tracks. Or the active volcano.
5. Laser Crystals -- Because, I guess, items 1-4 were JUST NOT ENOUGH TO WORK WITH, Crichton included the fact that in the middle of this Congo jungle (and right on top of the volcano) there are FLESH-EATING ALBINO GORILLAS burdened with the ANCIENT TASK of guarding LASER CRYSTALS. Read that again. Seriously.

So we have these five uh ... situations all tied together with mangled accents, astoundingly poor dialogue and questionable acting. And the beautiful Laura Linney, of course. When I think about movies, and what makes a specific movie an A+ or an F-, one thing I must consider is the Rewatch Factor. Will I want to rewatch this again in a day? A week? Five years? Never?

So even though it is a cesspool of all that was the mid-90s action genre, Congo has a magnificently high Rewatch Factor (I couldn't stop talking about it for a week and found myself trying to convince people to watch it with me, even as I complained about How!Bad! it was) ... and has catapulted itself into the coveted So Bad It's Good category, earning it a Final Grade of F for FREAKING AWESOME!

(As mentioned with New York Serenade, a genuinely shitty movie with a Rewatch Factor of -29, I feel that an F can only be earned by a movie that is So Bad It's Good ... which Congo definitely is. Hey. Want to watch it with me?)

15. Very Young Girls (2008, Documentary)

15. Very Young Girls (2008 Documentary)

I am going to come right out and be honest about the fact that this was not a well-made Documentary. The cinematography was shaky and the narrative did not flow well. That said, this was a very powerful and important movie and I am glad that someone made it.

The film centers around the organization Girls Education Monitoring Services (GEMS), a group which provides shelter and education to young women who have fallen prey to sexual exploitation.

I was touched by the stories that came from the group -- stories of triumph and of relapse, of degredation and acceptance. I was so touched, in fact, that the second the movie ended I e-mailed the organization to find out how I can help.

Final Grade: A (really, it deserves a B/B-, but it actually spurred me into action, which I can't really say about anything else in this dang project)