Irrelevant But Awesome

It a show that's fun to rewatch and a cast that has a certain magic to them when they're all together. If you haven't seen it, you seriously need to stop whatever you're doing and catch West Wing on Netflix because it's a special show. But the one thing most of us can agree on is that we wish, regardless of your political affiliation, that there was a real-life President Bartlett in office. And with the 2016 Presidential Election exactly a year away, we here at IBA want to find out what exactly makes a great president, using Bartlett as a template. Be sure to join along with us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the next year as we review every episode of Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing, ending just days before we select the next real president on November 8th, 2016. Joel:  Pilots are an interesting thing to watch. Very rarely does a show turn out exactly as it was envisioned initially. Sometimes, (such is the case here) what a show eventually becomes f...

Jason:  And now, for the piece de resistance ! Ever since this movie came out, there has been a debate amongst fans. Is this a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie? I’ve always ascribed to the philosophy “Porque no los dos?” and thus I watch it every Halloween AND Christmas. Anyone who has ever known me knows that I can recite this film from front to back, dialogue, sound effects, and all. I don’t know what it is about it but I just love it dearly. When it first came out, it was not the first stop-motion animation movie. There have been claymation films and stop motion for almost as long as there have been movies! See Ray Harryhousen for some of the best in the craft. But this was one of the first fully stop-motion feature films to use armature puppets. It was also Tim Burton’s first go at a feature length animated film and it is arguably still his best. The music is memorable and singable. The story, while full of deeper meaning, is light and enjoyable. I dunno, I could tal...

Jason:  I chose this movie because of its placement under the “Scary Movie” list on Netflix and it is not out of place on that list. At least for the first two thirds, or even three quarters of the movie. The atmosphere that is built through Suki’s interactions with the other residents and her experiences at Juniper Tower is chilling and surreal. To think that there may actually be places like that out there in the world is scary in its own right. Just the degradation of the building and the squalid condition of the tenants’ quarters speak to the emotional state of all the girls who live there. From a psychological standpoint, the idea of DID and schizophrenia are terrifying. Seeing as this movie is based on a graphic novel, I don’t think they were going for a very realistic portrayal of these conditions but it turned out heady and mental nonetheless. I was very much into the story for most of the movie. The interrogation and the murder investigation seemed like they were ...

Jason:  I am not a big proponent of the found-footage style of movie making. Shaky cam makes my head hurt.And usually, those kinds of movies are light on the scares, choosing to fill in the extra space with overly emotional reaction shots. Keeping all of that in mind, The Taking Of Deborah Logan is not a typical example of this style. Not for the most part, anyways. Starting out as a doctoral thesis documentary about a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s and her deterioration from it, the camera work is pretty steady and is set up to be watchable. It looks like a camcorder but it isn’t all over the place. Of course, by the end, there is no stability at all and you only get glimpses of what’s going on around as the video cuts in and out and the sound is all echoey and distorted. But that isn’t what makes this one hard to watch. The depiction of the disease, while not 100% medically accurate, is emotionally spot on. Deborah is being cared for by her daughter, Sarah. Both are emot...

Jason:  Considered to be one of the modern classics of horror that came out in the 80’s, Hellraiser is a beautiful marriage of sick effects, intriguing plot, and gorgeous cinematography. This first film in the franchise explores the consequences of digging too deeply into forbidden pleasures. The character of Pinhead (who wasn’t originally called Pinhead, but Priest in early drafts) and the rest of the Cenobites in this movie are intriguing to me. More so in this film than in the sequels, they represent a neutral force who are only there to give people what they truly desire. It wasn’t until the sequels started rolling out that they became more bent on… well, raising hell. But in their beginnings here, they represent nothing more than the ultimate conclusion of one’s own choices. I think that is a unique look at the main monster of a movie in this genre at this time. In a market saturated by psycho killers who are out for nothing but blood and chaos, to have the Cenobites be...

Jason:  I am a huge H.P. Lovecraft fan. Now that that’s out of the way, this may be one of the best Lovecraft adaptations that has ever been made. The story is a retelling of one of HPL’s serialized stories, “Herbert West: Reanimator”. It takes its liberties and changes quite a few things, namely the time setting. Originally, they were going to have this movie set in the early 1920’s, same as the story, but because of budgeting constraints, they modernized it. And I think that it works really well in a more modern era. The same questions of what is life, and can we beat death are no closer to being answered now than they were when the story was written. And, this was originally supposed to be a multi-part film that would have come out in sequence, just like the story did. There again, it had to be cut down to a single 90 minute movie because of money. I could go on and on about the differences between HPL’s story and the movie but that could take a while. Just like any ove...

Jason:  If you put a few movie nerds in a room and get them talking about horror films, they will inevitably get around to Silence of the Lambs . I remember watching this for the first time and being genuinely creeped out by it the whole time. It doesn’t have all the jump scares or scary monsters or lurking terror of other horror movies but it really goes to show that it is the monster you know that is the most terrifying. The reason this movie is so successful in making people afraid is because from the very beginning, it makes you identify more with the monster than with the hero. Throughout the movie, we are shown Hannibal Lecter as a gentleman who respects art and literature and decent conversation. Sure he talks about eating people and asks some pretty inappropriate personal questions, but he seems like a real person. He could be the guy next to you on the bus mentioning how much he likes your shoes. In the other direction, you are made to feel anger and disgust for th...