I wanted to see if I can double my goal and reach 300 new-to-me movies on the year, so I stepped-up my game in October. Today is just the beginning of the October list.

231. Drillbit Taylor (2008)
If I told you to imagine a mash-up of a Seth Rogen movie, an Owen Wilson movie, and a John Hughes movie, this movie would be exactly what you would expect. (Which reminds me that I was trying to describe Career Opportunities to someone last month and couldn't think of its name. Those two movies have nothing to do with one another, but in a way, they do. There's something very... "John Hughes" about them.)

232. Shadow of Doubt (1935)
I set the DVR to record this movie, thinking it was the Hitchcock noir film. Turns out that movie is Shadow of A Doubt. What I got instead was a light-hearted whodunnit in the Thin Man vein that I much enjoyed. (The gambit used to reveal the murderer at the film's conclusion results in the death of another, entirely innocent man, and the assembled characters act like that's just the cost of proving the culprit. Bizarre.)

233. The Sitter (2011)
This really is Adventures in Babysitting for the 21st century. Does that mean that in another 10 years, Jonah Hill will be in a movie where he falls in love with an alcoholic trying to drink herself to death? One can only hope.

234. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011)
Nic Cage, if you keep making movies, I'll keep watching them. Clearly neither one of us cares how bad they are any more. Bring on Leaving Las Vegas 2: Really Leaving This Time!

235. Key Largo (1948)
Moody crime drama that was really roaring along until the closing scenes on the boat. I was reminded of the tacked-on ending to Fight Club, where it also felt like the story had backed itself into a corner, needing to be "rescued" by an improbable conclusion.

236. Saturday's Hero (1951)
A seriously cynical look at college football that must have been the inspiration for Disney's The Program forty years later.

237. Meet John Doe (1941)
Golly gee whiz, Capra made only made two types of movie, the screwball comedy and the satirical comedy. I think the only Capra film I haven't seen that I may still consider watching is Lost Horizon, which I have heard was a colossal bomb. That sounds like a Capra film I could get behind.

238. The FBI Story (1959)
I'd seen small clips of this before, but not nearly enough in any sitting to figure out what the narrative was. Personally, I would have like to have seen more Dragnet-style action and less of Jimmy Stewart's domestic problems, but I can still endorse this film.

239. Malibu's Most Wanted (2003)
Even given that this was a Jamie Kennedy star-vehicle, there is far less to this movie than I was expecting. It's Bullworth with even more racial stereotyping and terrible rapping crammed in.

240. Rat Race (2001)
I mentioned before that I don't like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the movie that this film used like carbon paper for its plot. The worst part of the movie is the ending, which is almost a punishment for watching the preceding 90 minutes.

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To be continued...

 

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