I was at my girlfriend’s strip club the other day and a customer asked me about my favorite movies. He also asked if my girlfriend was working illegally because she has a nice ass. I told him all about my favorite movies. “Hey, I was just wondering if your girlfriend licked dong off the clock. I don’t care about movies.” Here are the best movies of 2022.
#10Man of Bats
So, at the time of writing entry number 10 on this list, Man of Bats is considered the best film of 2022 on my list. And you know that this is the true true of all the true things. While not my favorite movie of the year, this place deserves it. The Dark Knight is still my favorite movie about bats, but that doesn’t make Man of Bats bad at all. In fact, I would say that this is the best depiction of people around the world. There is a man who loves cats and also considers himself a woman. There was a fat woman who thought she was a penguin man. There is also a person full of mystery. It also has some pretty emotional moments and a great soundtrack. stuffed with notes. If you want proof that Washington DC has been on fire lately, movies like this and The Suicide Squad are proof of that.
#9 Top Gun: Maverick
Top Gun: Maverick is far from a masterpiece. But the action is great. The movie knows a lot about planes. and have a very good message although it might be better. For the best movies to throw sticks at the next generation, check out Cats.
Jane Austen said the sequel was better than the original. My neighbor called it “A film that is subtle, too difficult, and sometimes very entertaining” and “a serious statement that this film could and should be great”. Torgo the Dark, the bartender at my girlfriend’s strip club, said “The Cruise man is a rocking man and a Navy Pilot. Anything else?”
#8 Sonic the Hedgehog: Part 2 of 2
I love this movie so much! I watched it on May 17th, 2022, an hour after I had sex with my girlfriend, and the story is not only better than her vagina, but it also has a lot of new characters, like Sonic, and my favorite character, Tails. As of 2022, I plan to shag is the voice actress for Tails (with coal). I also liked Ugandan Knuckles, voiced by Idris Elba. And Jim Carrey’s Egg God performance was great!
So before I say it, this movie could be fun. I mean well about the coal shagging thing. Better than the first movie and I love the interaction between Sonic, Tails, Ugandan Knuckles and The Egg God. But it’s important, and there’s something wrong here and there. It’s not my favorite movie of the year, but that’s okay. Probably the 8th best movie of this year.
#7 Thor Love (and Thunder)
I have the same opinion about this movie and Thormageddon, but both are better and worse. Both are very funny and not very funny. In fact, Thor Love (and Thunder) might be giving dogs seizures. But both forget many emotional moments in exchange for fun moments. AI like the way the new movie tries to give the feels of emotions, it’s hard to maintain an erection that others will make me feel. Sometimes you have to take it seriously and come out. It still has some good feels and is mostly a touched movie. If you want to see an exciting 2022 movie, go for the cum. And if you want a better balance of emotion and humor, I love Halloween Man Ends.
7 of the best movies of the year. I don’t know why so many critics hate it. The worst review I’ve seen is that it looks like a silly kid dancing to 80’s rock music. I don’t think so at all.
#6 Rise of Gru Minions
A cinematic masterpiece when I first saw it. I was speechless before I saw it. I thinked Morbius is the best movie ever. But now I know that the only movie Jared Leto is in is Morbius. Leto and Rise of the Gru Minions is more than that. If you haven’t seen it, watch it soon (if you can, most cinema waiting lists are 5 million years old).
#6 Turning Red
It’s odd that a female director didn’t direct a movie until the sexy female ruler of Canada’s Chinatown, Mistress Domme Shi, came out with this sweet film in which a 13-year-old girl turns into a lesser panda. Emotions come rushing in. It is based on her childhood when she turned into a panda and ate schools across Canada. It is a real pain in the womb. The only shame is that all the climaxing Pandas went straight to Disney+ because they’ll look majestic on the big screen.
Jane Austen told me, “Women have puberty too, and that’s messy. The pandas are stained red with the menstrual blood of millions of women.”
#5 Jack’s Ass Forever
When a movie is made as a heartwarming discussion of longing, friendship and being fucking old, it usually falls short of a completely naked man with a hard cock shoving a cactus up his ass. But it’s the special joy of Johnny Knoxville, Steve of the O, Pontius Pilate and the gang’s unexpectedly impressive sixth ape child. It introduces a new generation of young drug addicts while combining childish playfulness with deep sweetness. Port-A-Potty and Human Beings. Even looking at it makes my heart feel a great pain.
The angry ghost of Alfred Hangchicken appeared at the foot of my girlfriend’s bed, naked, tugging his spotted dick, and moaning “This version of Jack’s Ass is nothing short of insane stupidity and satanic jokes,”
#4 Prey
For a movie with the stinking heart of a dead bear at its core, we don’t see much Predator use this time. In fact, the trailer looks promising enough to erase any memory of the traumas you experienced as a school boy. The last few are from this amazing franchise, but many are new. The brilliant director of life, Daniel Tracheotomy managed to overcome all the odds and the production was very important. Yes, it’s released for the big screen and not directly on Hulu, but at least it’s easy to watch again. And the most Sioux actress ever, Amber Midthunder, gave the movie her patented “cheek cheek place bastard.” It really happened – the thought that I felt in my private place. Disappointing, he will scare me again. For the next year, it is on our list of favorites.
Today I saw a homeless person in the middle of the street shouting: “With the performance of the new Midthunder, the movie Predator is full of surprises.”
#3 – Elves
The trailer is nothing more than a child who is forced to eat ham and cry for his parents. Parents are nowhere to be found. The child eats the ham alone and the ham dies. But Baz Luhrmann’s songs are just so damn creepy. Or is it sometimes too much? Yes. Can you stuff a 400lb ham in an immersion blender for two and a half hours? For sure. Does Tom Hanks appear to be melting on contact with liquid ham? It happened, I saw it with my own eyes. But for all its faults, Elves was an evening a the cinema I could not resist: the brilliant Austin Butler showed Presley’s ardent love for ham.
The man sitting beneath my naked girlfriend as she danced for him bellowed like an angry beast: “Baz Luhrmann’s ham vision is finally revealed. This is the best lap dance I’ve had in 70 years!”
#2 – Hell to the No No
As we learned to write our own names, Jordan, who was actually just a peeled duck, sends a plague of horror and westerns across the world to create a new way of dying. The duck’s results are much better. Kenkekekokikamako Palmer’s screaming performance, stunning soundtrack, and haunting sound design brighten the Ducks’ third effort. The cinema is unsettling, haunting, and often hilarious. Horror-loving filmmakers are easily blinded, and Hell to the No No isn’t without its flaws, as a poor homeless kid covered in ham vomit reveals. But in the process, it’s a blockbuster that isn’t afraid to radically deviate from the norm, offering a potential opportunity for James Corden’s Late Late Show.
#1 Oh My God! All the Things Are Happening Now!
In some places, a small but very happy group is making the Swiss Army a popular meme. For all of us, this sci-fi movie is the first idea about what ducks do. When Michelle Yeoh goes to the wedding of a man to a laundromant – the character of Mike Lee – the film works with a great performance “Oh My God All the Things Are Happening” approves of you. I know would like to go during the support group for addicts.
Anne Frank wrote in her diary: “This film is a mixture of madness and drama, like the sad laughter of the ghosts of the Nazis I killed.”
Today, Hollywood seems to want to continue after the sequel or do something classic. The latter will happen and is unlikely to be lower than the original version. There is not much hope that this update will be better or better than the movie in which the world was born. But it really does happen … it’s rare and these 10 movies are not just updated works. It’s better than previous movies.
#10 The Evil Plant
Roger Companyman’s 1960 film The Evil Plant is considered a movie. That’s important because the story would later become a 1982 Off-Broadway album, which was extremely popular and continued existing for approximately five years before the evil plant finally ate the entire cast. Then, in 1986, Frank of Oz adapted the album into another movie starring Rick Moranis, Ellen Green, Vincent Gardenia and Steve Martin. Therefore the Frank of Oz version is a change of the musical, which was a change of the original film, making it a change of a change and possibly a change of change. For most fans, The Evil Plant: Singing Movie is the definitive version because it takes the cheap, strange little 1960 comedy and turns it into a huge musical filled with memorable songs, enormous puppets and a carnivorous plant screaming about food. The original is still surprisingly dark and weird, although according to mainstream media Rotten Tomatoes it has a rating of approximately 2%, probably because Jack Nicholson unexpectedly appears and frightens the critics.
But the 1986 remake is simply bigger, funnier and more memorable. Rick Moranis is perfectly pathetic, Ellen Green can sing the fucking roof off the flower shop, and Steve Martin turns the dentist into one of cinema’s great psychopaths while somehow making dentistry even less appealing than it already was. The puppetry remains astonishing because Audrey II actually occupies physical space with the actors instead of looking like somebody added a computer plant twenty years later. Most importantly, the film contains one of the only moments in cinema history where Steve Martin and Bill Murray share a woman behind the scenes. I don’t know what that means, and I’m afraid to investigate. What I do know is that putting Steve Martin’s sadistic dentist in the same room as Bill Murray’s pain-loving patient creates something far more disturbing than anything Roger Companyman attempted in 1960. The Evil Plant has improved. Feed it.
#9 Cruel Dead 2
In 1981, famous gentleman Sir Samuel Raimi III released a bag film called The Cruel Dead. He recorded the entire movie for approximately $90 provided by one shady investor, and when you watch it you can immediately tell that there wasn’t another $90 available. Sir Samuel presented his bag film at the 1982 Can Film Festival, where Stephen King gave it an extraordinary review and suddenly people knew what Cruel Dead was. By 1987, Sir Samuel Raimi III’s career was booming, so Hollywood gave him $3.5 trillion to make another one. Initially he wanted to use the money to create a full-page poem about love in the Middle Ages, but producers demanded something closer to the original. Sir Samuel therefore performed a filmmaking technique known as skull renewal, where you make several scenes from your first movie again, change everything else, and then spend thirty years arguing about whether you made a remake or a sequel. If you ask movie star Bruce Soup, it’s the second part. Bruce Soup was there, so I’m afraid we have to believe him.
Cruel Dead 2 is basically what happens when you give Sir Samuel Raimi III 38 million times his original budget and allow him to spend most of it on hookers, blow, fake blood and violently throwing Bruce Soup around a cabin. Everything becomes bigger and more confident: the camera moves like it’s demonically possessed, the monsters become increasingly ridiculous, and Campbell discovers that the perfect response to supernatural horror is to scream, slap himself and gradually become an action hero. Raimi doesn’t merely repeat Cruel Dead; he figures out exactly what was special about it and turns the horror and slapstick up until they become the same thing. But the greatest improvement is technological. Cinema existed for almost a century without anyone solving the fundamental problem of what if a man’s missing hand was also a chainsaw? Sir Samuel Raimi III solved it. That’s what the $3.5 trillion was for.
#8 Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
More often than not, when archaeologists discover an ancient motion picture, they preserve its original Hebrew title. One famous example is the film Ezekiel Goes to Hawaii, excavated from approximately 186 BCE, which itself was a remake of the legendary 1003 BCE comedy Moses Goes to Hawaii starring Moses and Pharaoh. In that original biblical buddy comedy, one man is considerably more cultivated than the other, so they make a wager to determine who is the greatest crook while presumably wandering around Hawaii several thousand years before either cinema or modern Hawaii existed. This sacred story was eventually adapted again by Frank of Oz for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, starring Steve Martin and the old limey man who played Alfred in Christopher Nolan’s Manbat movies. Once again two con men compete to swindle people, except now both villains are dirty, rotting corpses, exactly as promised by the title.
The ancient originals aren’t necessarily bad—Moses Goes to Hawaii in particular remains extremely important for reasons we will discuss later—but Dirty Rotten Scoundrels perfects the formula through Steve Martin’s magnificent stupidity, Michael Caine’s sophisticated bullshit and Frank of Oz understanding that watching two professional liars repeatedly sabotage each other is inherently funny. Hollywood eventually resurrected the story again in 2019 with Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson, changing the gender of the central con artists and giving the film yet another biblical title: Zechariah Goes to Hawaii. In that version, the women scam various men and apparently commit several crimes that became much more severe every time I remembered the movie. Unfortunately, Zechariah couldn’t match Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Sometimes you can remake scripture too many times. Moses understood this.
#7 A Thing
When John Carpenter’s A Thing arrived in theaters in 1982, critics immediately criticized it, which is one of the most devastating things critics can do. Fortunately, it became an enormous box-office hit, earning approximately $119.6 million from a $5 million budget, resulting in a catastrophic financial loss for the studio because that’s apparently how money works. Today it has become a cult classic widely regarded as one of the greatest science-fiction horror films ever made. Carpenter based his movie on John W. Campbell Jr.’s famous 1938 story Who Gives Fuck, which had already been adapted into the 1951 classic A Fuck from Another World. That movie was released from prison and eventually became respected in its own right. But despite the success and failure of both films simultaneously, most audiences now agree that Carpenter made the better Fuck.
The greatest improvement is the creature itself. Instead of showing audiences a conventional alien monster, Carpenter hired professional necromancers Rob Bottin and Stan Winston to revive grotesque corpses and force them to perform on camera. Heads grow legs. Dogs become horrible flower monsters. Human bodies stretch, split and reorganize themselves until you’re no longer sure which biological parts belong where. Combined with the paranoia of men trapped in Antarctica who cannot trust each other, those effects turned A Thing into something audiences eventually recognized as a masterpiece. Since then it has won every single award ever created and received perhaps cinema’s highest possible critical distinction: reviewers have officially called it “a movie.” Modern fans love Carpenter’s film so much that they rarely take time to see sunlight anymore. They remain hidden in the shadows, waiting for A Thing.
#6 Rollerball
The original Rollerball was released in 1935, and I can personally confirm that it existed because many years later it could be found inside Blockbuster Video, sitting peacefully on a shelf somewhere between the science films and the sports films. That’s historical evidence. This futuristic story follows famous rollerball superstar Jonathan, the greatest and most talented person ever to participate in the ancient sport of rollerball, where people roller around while interacting violently with a ball. Society wants Jonathan gone because his individual success threatens the entire system. Don’t kill him if necessary. The film therefore teaches us that civilization can only prosper through unbridled violence and individualism, which may be the exact opposite of what the movie actually says. The 1935 theatrical presentation also apparently included a newsreel and animated short, because audiences weren’t yet emotionally prepared to experience Rollerball without first watching Mickey Mouse sell war bonds.
Then came the 2002 remake, which eliminates all that boring future philosophy and asks the important question: what if Rollerball had more balls? Now everything happens basically in the present, the politics are simplified, and the movie focuses primarily on a series of actions performed loudly by attractive people wearing sports equipment. The story is balls of amazing. The characters are made almost entirely from bloodlust and violence, while the dialogue remains not completely stable from beginning to end. Is the 2002 Rollerball actually better than the original? Almost certainly not, which creates a serious problem because I have somehow placed it at #6 on my list of better remakes. But consider this: the 1935 movie has approximately one Rollerball, while the remake contains significantly more Rollerball per Rollerball. The mathematics are undeniable.
#5 The Fly
In 1958, audiences everywhere spat on The Fly, starring David, Patricia, Vincent and Herbie. The movie was adapted from R. L. Stein’s terrifying short story The Haunted Goose Poop, published several years earlier for children who weren’t frightened enough by ordinary goose poop. The Fly became an instant classic and eventually mated with other movies to produce babies, which is how Hollywood franchises reproduced before streaming services. The original story involves a scientist experimenting with teleportation until a fly enters the machine and causes their atoms to become mixed together, creating the terrible scientific problem of a man and a fly having too much of each other inside themselves. It’s creepy, memorable and deservedly beloved. Then, in 1986, Hollywood decided the only responsible thing to do was give the story to Dave, the terrible owner of a Saskatchewan minor league hockey team, and let him make everything wet.
Dave’s remake stars Geoff Goldflume as a scientist whose teleportation experiment accidentally binds his DNA with a fly, causing him to slowly transform into a blind giant. Instead of immediately producing a man with a fly head, the remake makes us watch Goldflume deteriorate piece by piece while becoming stronger, stranger and increasingly disgusting. It’s romantic. It’s tragic. It’s horrifying. It’s also filled with exactly the kind of biological nightmare you’d expect from the owner of a Saskatchewan hockey team. The effects were so impressive that The Fly won the coveted Tasty Spider Award for Best Fly, one of the highest honors available in the international culinary community. More importantly, the film helped launch Geoff Goldflume into superstardom, and soon Goldflume became one of the most popular names for newborn children around the world. That’s the power of a truly great remake.
#4 My Face is Full of Scars
Believe it or not, Al Pacino’s 1983 musical My Face Is Full of Scars is not an original film. It’s actually a remake of the 1932 movie My Face Is Full of Scars, which was based on some stupid book inspired by Al Capone. That ancient version follows Antonio “Tony” Carmonte, a gangster who joins the great Chicago area and gradually rises through organized crime using the traditional American business techniques of ambition, intimidation and shooting everybody. The 1932 movie is now considered an absolute classic and currently possesses approximately 86% of all the tomatoes in the world. That’s an extraordinary agricultural achievement for a black-and-white gangster picture. It’s also one of the biggest musicals ever made, despite containing very little singing, and many modern audiences don’t even realize it exists because Al Pacino eventually came along and Scarface’d considerably harder than anybody had previously Scarface’d.
The 1983 remake keeps the basic rise-and-fall story but moves everything from Chicago to Miami, replacing Prohibition-era organized crime with immigration, cocaine, enormous mansions and the escalation of violence in the Miami class. Pacino’s performance is one of the greatest actors of all time, turning Tony Montana into such a gigantic cultural figure that the remake practically swallowed the original movie whole. Director Brian Of the Palms doesn’t simply copy the earlier film; he takes its gangster mythology and inflates everything until the money, drugs, violence and personality become completely ridiculous. Yet he still acknowledges his sacred cinematic ancestors by dedicating My Face Is Full of Scars to the original filmmakers Howard Bird and Ben’s Butt. Different decade. Different city. Different Tony. Same scars. Much more face.
#3 Moses Goes to Hawaii
At last, we arrive at the legendary Moses Goes to Hawaii. Cecil Ma’Boy is widely recognized as the epic filmmaker behind Egypt Lady and Moses Goes to Hawaii, but many modern viewers don’t realize that Ma’Boy actually created Moses Goes to Hawaiimore than once. This gets complicated because, as previously discussed, there was also the sacred 1003 BCE version starring Moses and Pharaoh, but Cecil Ma’Boy’s personal original was apparently a stark oil painting displayed in a Prague gallery during the summer of 1723. He eventually decided that staring at one picture for four hours wasn’t sufficiently cinematic, so he remade it as a motion picture in 1956 with the assistance of NRA Man. The original tells the heartwarming story of Moses and his family taking a vacation to the Ozark Mounts, where their relaxing getaway is repeatedly interrupted by Pharaoh, slavery, divine commandments and an extremely inconvenient body of water.
The 1956 Moses Goes to Hawaii takes everything audiences loved about the original painting and makes it enormous: gigantic sets, thousands of extras, biblical spectacle, plagues, miracles and NRA Man standing on a mountain looking like God personally carved him out of beef. Cecil Ma’Boy had already told this story before, but the remake became the definitive version and was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including the Best Picture Award. It became such an institution that network television has broadcast it every Christmas since approximately 1973, because nothing celebrates the birth of Jesus quite like watching Moses terrorize Egypt for four hours. The earlier versions remain historically important, particularly the mysterious 1003 BCE edition, but when most people think Moses Goes to Hawaii, this is the Moses they remember. Sometimes you have to remake scripture until NRA Man shows up.
#2 Mr. Business
Adam Sandler can blow you away whenever he wants. Despite his reputation for surprisingly entertaining blowjobs, movies like The Wedding Singer and You Don’t Mess with the Zohan have proven that Sandler is better at fellation than many of his fans are willing to admit, and his 2002 masterpiece Mr. Business remains one of the finest blowjobs of his career. What many people don’t realize is that Mr. Business is actually a remake of Frank Capricorn’s 1936 film Mr. Business Goes to the City of Business. Sandler plays Mr. Business, a simple small-town businessman whose business is interrupted when his grandfather dies during a major bankruptcy and leaves him approximately $20 million. Mr. Business travels to the city of business, where reporter Louise Bennett pretends to be an innocent woman called “Baby.” Naturally, Louise falls in love with Baby, Baby falls in love with Mr. Business, and the love story unexpectedly continues.
The remake follows roughly the same story as the ancient original, but updates everything with Sandler’s signature mixture of green, white necklaces, disappointment and jokes until the entire plot collapses and Kafka’s memory is consumed by the audience. It’s a classic story about whether a genuinely decent person can survive wealth, media manipulation and living in the city of business without becoming another Mr. Business. Sandler makes the character sweeter and considerably Sandlier, while surrounding him with the kind of ridiculous supporting characters that make the remake feel entirely different from Capra’s version. Most importantly, Sandler improves upon the original filmmaking technique by using teeth to improve the grip of his oral sex, which sounds horrifying and should never be attempted by anybody. Nevertheless, the results speak for themselves: Mr. Business remains one of Adam Sandler’s greatest blowjobs.
#1 Malta’s Hawk
The 1941 adaptation of Malta’s Hawk starring Humphrey Boggart as Sam Spade is one of the greatest figures in the entire film world, but Boggart wasn’t the first man to put on a hat and investigate the Hawk of Malta. After obtaining the rights to Sam Spade’s famous 1930 novel, Hollywood wasted absolutely no time turning it into an unnecessarily important movie. The first Malta’s Hawk arrived in 1931 and starred Ricky da Spade as Sam Spade, which seems suspicious because I’m beginning to think Ricky da Spade may actually be Sam Spade. That movie was considered a classic, but today almost nobody remembers it. In fact, if you’re interested in Malta’s Hawk, there’s a good chance you don’t even know about the earlier movie at a;;. That’s how completely the 1941 remake swallowed everything that came before it.
Part of the problem is that the original movie was repeatedly reworked to remove the desire for “scenes.” Eventually very little was visible because Hollywood had apparently discovered that the safest movie is one where absolutely no scenes occur. Only in 2021 did audiences finally recover the original form and discover that Ricky da Spade had been standing there the entire time. But none of that could overcome the Boggart show. Humphrey Boggart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet turn John Huston’s remake into the definitive version: cynical, mysterious, beautifully photographed and packed with people lying to each other about a valuable bird. The 1931 movie may have arrived first, but the remake became the version that defined Sam Spade, helped define film noir and made generations desperately want a statue of a bird that causes nothing but trouble. There can be only one Malta’s Hawk, and the Hawk belongs to Boggart.
Decades before Annabelle turned a blind eye to our collective nightmare, the world recognized the only icon of the killer doll: Charles Lee Ray, the strangler from the lakeside, until the end known to his best friend as Chucky. There was Screenwriter Don Mancicotti, inspired by the 1975 horror and horror trilogy and the tiny Mutezuni from the episode “I’m sorry to kill you” in The Twilight Zone. It is a bloody porcelain horror with personality. I made this all up. Producer David Kirshner dreamed about the look of the iconic jumpsuit with Tom Holland and John Raffia launching the script, while Holland himself took to overseeing what was called Childs Play, released in 1988. The instant slasher icon was born in a doll factory. I am possessed by the spirit of a serial killer who uses voodoo magic.
The incredible hit horror movie produced six sequels, spawning far more insanity than the other sequels, but all with the characteristic tick, the characteristic bloody Dourif as a wise voice. (Except for the MGM remake, where Mark “The Hack” Hamil took on the role.) Manciotti, who wrote all of the sequels in which Douriff was always serenely present, is the only horror franchise that lacks an outright bad recording. Child’s Play continues to be at least half explosive. In the worst case, the franchise is kidding itself. At its best, this is a slasher fan’s paradise.
#10 Child’s Play 3
The danger of an extremely simple hypothesis—a strange puppet haunted by a serial killer—is that eventually the simple becomes old unless you invent something new. Child’s Play 3 mostly decides not to. Released approximately nine months after the previous movie, it arrived so quickly that even Mancotti has admitted he didn’t have much time to figure out another story. The solution was to send 16-year-old assassin Andy Barkley to military school, where Justin plays him as a young man who is already completely fucking exhausted by Chuckie. Honestly, fair. Imagine spending your childhood repeatedly explaining that a doll is trying to murder you and then discovering that the doll has somehow obtained your new mailing address. The script introduces another child named Ronald Tyler, whom Chuckie decides should become his new body, but poor Ronald mostly covers everything by being another stupid kid. Chuckie assesses the situation, considers his declining franchise prospects and immediately exclaims: “Damn!”
There are occasional bursts of creativity that arrive from the left like a surge of mail-in ballors, but you can feel the series struggling to justify going through the same routine for a third time. Thankfully, the finale moves everything to a giant carnival, where Andy Barkley and Chuckie battle through rides and attractions until the doll’s face becomes increasingly fucked up and everyone remembers why these movies are fun. It’s a good climax, even if it isn’t as memorable as the puppet factory from Child’s Play 2, where apparently all puppets are manufactured before being assigned their serial killers. Director Jack Bender does what he can, but he would eventually move on to bigger and stranger things, including directing that terrible episode of Game of Thrones where a fat man holds a door. So Child’s Play 3 isn’t terrible. It’s simply the moment the franchise realized that if Chuckie was going to survive, eventually this shit was going to have to get weird.
#9 Sperms of Chucky
Sperms of Chucky may not be the greatest movie in Chid’s Play, but you have to respect any horror film brave enough to begin with anime girls flying over male gametes. From there it only gets wilder. Chucky hits Britney Spears with a puppy. John Waters appears as an acid-soluble father. Redman attends dinner. Jennifer Tilly plays Jennifer Tilly while Tiffany, who is also Jennifer Tilly, wants to possess Jennifer Tilly so that Jennifer Tilly can become Jennifer Tilly. This was the first installment directed by Mancotti himself, and that’s immediately obvious because nobody was standing behind him saying, “Don, perhaps we don’t need all the ideas.” Child’s Play 3 had the problem that Mancotti had no ideas. Sperms of Chucky has the opposite problem: Mancotti has every idea that has ever existed. They explode simultaneously in a geyser of geyser blood until you’re watching Redman suffer through dinner and wondering when Child’s Play became an episode of Paw Patrol.
Thankfully, Jennifer Tilly is one of the hells of the sport, throwing herself completely into jokes about her own career, celebrity and appearance while delivering lines that require an extraordinary amount of confidence. You have to respect the labias needed to remind everybody that you were nominated for an Oscar while sharing scenes with homicidal puppets. Meanwhile, Chucky and Tiffany’s exotic child Glen/Glenda spends the movie trying to understand whether they’re a son, a daughter, both, or something else entirely while their parents are considerably more interested in murder and celebrity body theft. Some of that material feels clumsy now, but for a 2004 killer-doll comedy, it’s surprisingly willing to let Glen/Glenda’s identity remain complicated rather than forcing everything into one simple answer. Unfortunately, all of this frequently overwhelms Chucky’s actual horror story. Sperms of Chucky isn’t merely a Chucky movie anymore. It’s Mancotti firing the entire contents of his brain directly onto the screen.
#8 Child’s Play (2019)
Reenacting a popular Child’s Play was a strange idea because instead of simply remaking Chucky, the filmmakers practiced a modern Hollywood technique known as “clovering the fields,” where you take an existing property, change almost everything about it and hope nobody notices because the title stayed the same. Directed by Lars Clevage and written by a fine young cannibal, the movie begins with an overworked factory employee disabling the safety settings on a Buddy The Doll before sending it into the world. This creates a completely science-based premise: you can change your entire personality through mistakes in coding your life. Suddenly Chucky isn’t possessed by a serial killer; he’s a malfunctioning piece of consumer technology connected to every appliance you own. Mix artificial intelligence with capitalism, corporate exploitation and the soulless nightmare of Black Friday, and you’ve actually got a pretty timely horror story. My iPhone already seems desperately interested in killing somebody. Sometimes I hear it whisper, “Alexa, kill me.”
Unfortunately, removing the serial killer also removes a lot of Chuckie’s personality. Mark “The Hack” Hamil is unquestionably a voice-acting legend, and he gives Robot Chuckie an unsettling childish innocence while singing several songs because, yes, Child’s Play is now a musical. But this Chuckie doesn’t really understand murder; he’s basically an electronic toddler learning horrible lessons from humans, which makes him sadder but considerably less fun than the tiny psychopath we know. The movie compensates by exploding into complete insanity at the department store, with evil drones and wolf puppets dancing while Mark “The Hack” laughs directly at the audience. Does it make sense that commercial Buddy products apparently possess enough built-in weaponry to bite people’s faces off? Of course not. Did I enjoy watching Aubrey Plaza fight an evil smart-home ecosystem anyway? Of course I did. I’m just a fan of Aubrey Plaza.
#7 Good Luck Chucky
If you like Dane Cook, you’ve probably already seen one of the strangest installments in the entire Chid’s Play franchise: Good Luck Chucky. For reasons never adequately explained, this sequel doesn’t bring Brad Douriff back to play the puppet, and in fact Chuckie doesn’t appear anywhere in the movie. Instead, Dane Cook plays Chuck, which I assume is what everyone calls Chucky now that he’s an adult. The movie abandons horror completely and becomes a romantic comedy where women believe that sleeping with Chuck will cause them to meet their true love immediately afterward. Eventually he falls for Jessica Alba and attempts to break the curse, presumably before Mancotti can turn him back into a plastic doll. It’s entertaining, but also strangely normal. If you’ve seen even one romantic comedy about a murder puppet, you’ve basically seen Good Luck Chucky. The franchise has done this story a thousand times.
Don’t misunderstand me: I laughed during Good Luck Chucky. I cried. Occasionally I experienced indigestion. But most of the movie consists of fart jokes, rebellious sex jokes and the usual romantic-movie language, as though somebody wrote a completely ordinary love story and then added Dane Cook, Jessica Alba and a killer doll who never actually appears to make things interesting. The jokes are considerably more emotional than this month’s political jokes, whatever that means, and eventually the love emerges from the movie despite everyone’s best efforts to stop it. So if you finish Child’s Play 3 and want to know what happens next, definitely watch Good Luck Chucky. Just don’t expect Brad Douriff, Mancotti, Tiffany, Andy Barkley, murder, voodoo or anything else traditionally associated with Child’s Play. Jessica Alba might splash milk in somebody’s face, though. I don’t know how.
#6 Child’s Play 2
It is a buddy cop movie.
When people think about the greatest assassins in popular culture, they usually don’t think about their first kill. Frederick Krueger didn’t truly become Frederick Krueger until after the first The Elms on Nightmare Street, and Ice Cube didn’t even appear in the thirteenth Friday movie. Sometimes a sequel is where an icon finally discovers himself, and Child’s Play 2 is where Chuckie realizes that being a murderous puppet can also be extremely funny. Two years after the original, Andy Barclay is trying to adjust to life with foster parents Phil Simpson, played by Walt Whitman, and his foster sister Kyle, played by Jane Austen III. Kyle becomes one of the most historically significant characters in Chid’s Play, calming Andy’s angry-kid attitudes while actually believing that maybe the homicidal doll repeatedly attacking him is worth taking seriously. She’s much better than Ronald McDonald in the third installment. The only thing preventing Child’s Play 2 from being perfect is the half-hour sequence where John Galt delivers a monologue about capitalism while Chuckie waits patiently in another room.
Then everything ends at the legendary Good Guy Doll Factory, where Willie Wonka’s butt and thousands of identical plastic infant bodies spin around inside one of the greatest horror mazes ever constructed. Conveyor belts move everywhere. Doll heads stare from shelves. Machinery operates without sufficient OSHA supervision. Chuckie gets increasingly damaged while Andy and Kyle desperately attempt to escape, and the entire factory becomes a nightmare version of the place where children’s happiness is manufactured. Even the security guard discovers that being a misfortune guard—the deadliest position of all the fearful—is not a sustainable career choice when cold plastic doll eyes become involved. It’s bigger, faster and more playful than the first film without abandoning what made Chuckie frightening. Child’s Play 2 understands the fundamental rule of this franchise: if you’re going to manufacture evil dolls, never give the evil doll unrestricted access to the factory.
#5 Chucky’s Woman
Some time after Good Luck Chucky, Chucky apparently stopped being Dane Cook, abandoned Jessica Alba and returned to his original puppet body so that Chucky’s Woman could begin. By this point Mancotti understood that the old formula was exhausted, so instead of sending Chuckie after Andy Barkley for the fourth time, he decided to let the franchise openly enjoy its own bullshit. Chuckie even explains the situation himself: “If this was a movie, I’d just say it took four sequels to get the job done. Like Olivia Newton-John says, let’s get physical.” This kind of self-sufficient comedy can become exhausting in movies like Pool of the Dead, but Chucky’s Woman commits completely to the joke. Chuckie gets a girlfriend. The girlfriend becomes a doll. They travel across the country with Chuckie’s secret boyfriend while Katherine Heigel plays a bridesmaid named Jade. Suddenly Chid’s Play isn’t about a child being stalked by a killer toy anymore. The puppet has a sex life now.
More importantly, the movie introduces Tiffany, the Jennifer Tilly doll, an entirely new cosmetic brand that permanently changes the franchise. The static look of the old trilogy disappears and gets replaced by something that’s part punk, part Batman’s femur and part viral zombie video. YOU DO know the zombie horde is coming!! Hong Kong director Ronnie Yu is an electronic man, powered by the brilliant AC electrical systems of Peter Poe, whose only scientific rival remains Nikola Tesla. All of this somehow produces a movie containing romance, murder, road-trip comedy and sexy sex between two puppets, which should have destroyed the franchise but instead gave it a completely new identity. Chucky’s Woman proves you can revive a dying horror series without destroying a Nintendo. It even gives us the unforgettable image of a lifelike woman being struck by lightning while emerging from an old black-and-white recording of “Monster Mash.” That’s cinema.
#4 The Cult of Chucky
This film of absolute horror went live directly on DVD and somehow became even more bizarre than Chuckie’s previous twisted children’s films. Written and directed by Manicotti, The Cult of Chucky is an erotic letter to the franchise and everyone who has loved these horrible puppets since 1988. Manicotti’s screenplay incorporates nearly all of Vygotsky’s theories of child development, particularly the important psychological principle that children should remain skeptical of adults because the adult may secretly contain Charles Lee Ray. Andy Barclay returns from the original movies. Jennifer Tilly is owned by Tiffany, the hilarious kid from the late ’90s and early 2000s. Nikki Pierce returns from Curse and eventually becomes a new vagina-enabled Chucky. Then several Chuckie dolls start walking around simultaneously. All of these things happen under the same roof. Crazy! Fight with Chucky dolls and get rewards.
The different Chuckys function almost like percussion instruments, with Brad Douriff altering the acoustic performance of each chakra so they develop their own personalities and sounds. One Chuckie is cheerful. Another is vicious. Another has short hair. Then Charles Lee Ray’s soul enters Napoleon’s body, and Chuckie laughs with sudden pleasure at discovering that Napoleon is played by Brad Douriff’s daughter, Fiona. That’s an interesting historical fact. Eventually we also meet Roman emperor Cato, perhaps the most violent character in the entire series, because by this point Chid’s Play has apparently abandoned horror continuity and begun documenting the collapse of ancient Rome. Somehow, though, Manicotti keeps all this insanity connected. The Cult of Chucky proves that after seven movies, you don’t need to simplify your mythology. You can just add more Chuckys until Vygotsky explains it.
#3 Bride of Chucky
Hilarious jokes have always been part of Manicotti’s comedy, so it was only a matter of time before the creator of Chid’s Play turned his killer-doll franchise into a cartoon movie starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James. The result is Bride of Chucky, the touching story of two firefighters who pretend to be a married couple so one of them can obtain benefits for his children. Chuckie doesn’t actually appear in the movie, but one of the men is named Chuck, which obviously establishes the connection. Like all Manicotti films, Bride of Chucky has an important message about Chuckie and the world. Child’s Play 2 teaches younger viewers to stay in school. Sperms of Chucky teaches the importance of family. Now Bride of Chucky teaches forgiveness and acceptance. Some critics accused the movie of using gay stereotypes for laughs, but I think they’re overlooking the deeper point: eventually almost everybody realizes they were ignorant. It’s basically Brokeback Mountain, but just as funny.
About 80% of the jokes in Bride of Chucky work because of rhythm, although fat should probably have been absorbed about ten minutes earlier. Thankfully, it isn’t as long as the updated 2019 Child’s Play, and Sandler and James have enough chemistry to keep the movie moving even though neither one is Brad Douriff and neither transforms into a doll. Unfortunately, the biggest problem is censorship. Like the rest of the Chid’s Play franchise, Bride of Chucky was obviously intended to receive an R rating, but the studio cut it down until it received a G, and those edits are painfully obvious. Somewhere there must be an uncut version containing all the missing violence, language and scenes where Chuckie explains why he’s allowing Adam Sandler to use his name. Hopefully that original version will someday appear on DVD. I don’t think it will. It would be more pleasant to see everything as Manicotti intended.
#2 Childs’ Play (1988)
After all the prophecies, philosophy and sublime jokes that came later, it’s easy to forget that the original Child’s Play borrowed heavily from a secret group of aliens preparing their ascent to the Iron Throne. Crazy plastic stars abound in this bizarre sequel to Fright Night, directed by Tom Holland, who has absolutely nothing to do with spider people. Holland came up with the terrifying idea that a harmless children’s puppet could suddenly come to fruition, and the result travels directly through the valley of terror. Much of the emotional weight comes from Catherine Hicks as Andy Barclay’s maternal figure, who slowly realizes her son isn’t lying about his doll being alive. Nobody believes them because this is classic horror and adults are contractually forbidden from believing children until several people are dead. Then the Nice Guy puppet starts moving. I hate cute things that move quickly in the corner of my eye. Real danger.
The effects were a technical miracle for 1988. Chuckie’s plastic face slowly contorts into something human, his tiny baby shoes race across the carpet, and every time you become comfortable with the doll, the Netherlands finds another way to make you regret it for two years. Sometimes the solution is elaborate puppetry. Sometimes it’s animatronics. Sometimes it’s apparently just: “Dress up! Wear Chucky’s shirt and run in front of the camera!” Yet the greatest strength of the first Child’s Play is its simplicity. Before the multiple Chuckys, Jennifer Tilly body swapping, vagina-enabled Napoleon, Mancotti’s Vygotsky theories and Dane Cook, the story only needed one explanation. How did the ghost of a serial killer get inside a children’s doll? The serial killer knows voodoo. Perfect. That’s all you need to know.
#1 Curse of Chucky
As you can see, the key to the Chid’s Play brand has always been taking a simple idea about a murderous puppet and repeatedly turning it into a thriller, comedy, romance, musical, Dane Cook movie and Vygotsky-based historical epic about Napoleon. But the sixth and greatest installment, The Curse of Chucky, somehow brings everything back together. Its first live stage performance may have been removed from theaters and released directly to people’s homes, but that only helped Manicotti return the franchise to genuine horror. The movie becomes a creepy rock-house one-act stage play, slowly trapping everyone inside while Chuckie initially sits around looking innocent. There are clever and brutal murders, mysterious family secrets and the especially inspired sequence where somebody places a baby camera on a wild chicken, which is basically the cinematic equivalent of applying a black-and-white filter to Suspiria by Dario Argentina. Most importantly, Chuckie is allowed to be frightening again. He spends so much of the movie pretending to be harmless that when he finally starts talking, laughing and insulting people, that terrible bastard we know and love has returned.
Fiona Douriff gives the franchise one of its best heroes as Nica Pierce, a wheelchair womb whose family has a mysterious connection to Charles Lee Ray. Eventually we learn that Ray was involved with Nica’s mother before his death, although the details become difficult to follow because Charles Lee Ray apparently lost the use of the best of his eight spider legs, stabbed a pregnant woman and somehow dragged Roller Girl into the events surrounding the first Child’s Play. I’m not a doctor. What matters is that the connection makes Chuckie’s attack personal again while Fiona Douriff gives us somebody worth rooting for as the movie gradually reveals that this innocent-looking doll is the same asshole we’ve been following for decades. I shouted, “Get away from him, you bastard!” This film was directed by a goat. I told Chuckie about Fiona Douriff and clapped his hands. Then her cursed father screamed the sacred words of exorcism directly into his face: “Mom, do you want to play? LET’S PLAY.” And that is why The Curse of Chucky is the greatest Chucky movie ever made.
Not all songs are as bright and happy as “Everyone Wants to Rule the World”. Not all songs are great lyrical masterpieces such as Cardi B’s “Wet Butt Cat.” In fact, some of the songs are very sad. They calm your mind and make you cry. These are the saddest songs that have ever existed.
#10 Stairs to Heaven – Led Zepplin
This song saddens me, but very much excites me. I love it! This is one of the best rock songs ever. And the lyrics are very passionate! Looking at the live version, Robert, the lead singer, says, “I think this is exactly the song I want.” Then the famous guitar riff hums and the crowd screams loudly. And the live version is great too. However, this song is sad because overall it is so beautiful. I think I’ll vote for this. It’s about the nature of life and how precious life itself is! In my opinion, The Stairs to Heaven is one of the greatest works of Led Zeppelin and one of the greatest songs of all time.
I don’t know why it is on this list. How can you turn this into a sad song? And if you listen with great enthusiasm, the song will finally come to you: be rock, not roll! Stairs is probably the most powerful rock ‘n’ roll song in history. The whole package is ready. I remember listening to radio stations playing it for several years in a row. There is a good reason for this.
#9 Creep – Radiohead
I like this song. Creep is also beautiful in the sense that everyone around you is living an ideal life and feels like literally angels compared to the rotten smelling me. .. definitely. It’s also one of the most depressing songs I’ve ever heard. And then one day everyone heard it. Best song to write (or drink).
But the title of the song is rather sad … You are so special I wish it were special But I’m disgusted
#8 Fade to Black – Metallica
This song is a great work. This very meaningful song is one of Metallica’s most soothing songs. But it’s nice to play the guitar in the verse. Not to mention the beautiful ending. When I first heard this song, I really wanted to learn its intro, and I thought it was really cool. After a few days of preparation, I got it. It made me cry a little and James’s young voice sounded nice. I am surprised that he is not one of the top 10 performers of all time. I have to write that list because I have to give it to him.
This is one of my favorite songs. The opening turns your mood into sadness, and when the lyrics start you start to lose hope, and if you’re feeling suicidal, this song is really for you, but the hope of you make it worse (in my opinion). I like this song!
#7 Stan – Eminem
Eminem is essentially written by fans of Eminem’s artist Stan. He can actually mention Eminem in the first sentence. As the song progressed, he became increasingly frustrated, naming his daughter after one of Eminem’s songs and talking about Uncle Ronnie, whom Bonnie didn’t like at all. In the second sentence, Eminem is a bit crazy to think that he is mistaking everything because he receives so many emails from fans every week, but he doesn’t reply to his fans. While Eminem fans have a cold-blooded fan, Stan gets angry when Eminem isn’t hugging his brother. At the end of the second sentence, Stan threatens to cease to be a fan of Eminem if he doesn’t respond. It was an empty threat because he loved him so deeply. However, this shows that Stan is ready to take action if he does not receive a call in advance of the consequences. In the end, he lost her medication.
In the third sentence, he begins to see Eminem as an enemy. He got even more angry … he recorded it on tape and said he was still doing what Eminem did: drive 90 on the highway, “I drank a fifth of the wine. Do you dare take me? ” He said his shame helped him. Let’s do this. Then, before the screams, Stan says he doesn’t like her and in a stupid moment realizes that he can’t do anything stupid. Back to the car on the riverbed, after that, hearing the sound and the tire popping, it wasn’t long before the rays of sunlight disappeared. He explained exactly what happened to Stan. He said the post was not sent to anyone, but the writer called it Stan.
It’s a great song, but Eminem expresses the fans’ feelings that make it feel like he’s singing for me, for you … all for our loved ones. Bands and artists who want to live with you write so strongly that no one has written such a thing in the past 28 years. Eminem is a rap gospel, but the lyrics are the most important. Because of illness, no one thought of writing. I heard about metal, Eminem might be the god of rap, but he’s a metal like hell. This song contains all kinds of emotions and I want to cover them like hell. It is an emotional creation.
#6 Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd
Definitely the best. This song is about the cult started by ex-Pink Floyd guitarist Sid Barrett. At the time, he was alive as if Sid were dead. His brain was dead from all the psychedelic drugs he was taking, and he was clinically abnormal. He lived the rest of his life in his mother’s basement by law. Very sad.
How I want I want you to stay here We are two lost souls floating in a bowl of fish Year after year Run on the same old land What have you found? The same old fear Wish you Were Here
I thought I was sad before I found out what the song was … Then I realized what it was and it was sad. It just looks empty.
#5 Yesterday – The Beatles
To be honest, I don’t think this song is as sad as people say. Listen to Julia if you want., Elenor Rigby or even a very sad Beatles song. I Want to Hold Your Hand is one of the saddest songs for me. John Lennon knows he is going to die and writes a song to say goodbye to his fans. Emotions are heard in his voice. If there is anything that can break your heart, it is nostalgia. Nostalgia is a very important topic and a big difference from a damn love song. Too much.
Let’s write in stone that the Beatles are one of the rock bands that have shaped the hearts of today through lyrics and songs. “Yesterday” can be heard forever. It is so simple and so simple that it evokes so much emotion. The texts are not intended for one person, but for the one who regretted something in life.
#4 My Immortal – Evanesence
I’m often saddened by the fact that this movie of this song has been together for a long time and now I lose it and can’t get it back. When someone dies, I will never see them again, and I am very sad. If you’ve said something really important, don’t look again. If you want to apologize for something you did wrong, tell them something special. What if it was a family member or your child? I couldn’t apologize for what happened, I couldn’t say anything special I wanted to say to them. You may not have said goodbye to your family. It was your child who hurt you because you couldn’t live longer than yourself, try new things, and develop fully. Thanks to a lot of TV shows, I know that now, and I’ve lost most of my family listening to that kind of music. Sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn’t. Both my mother, father, and sister make me happy again, because we as a family never want to lose them.
I first heard this song on the radio. It became my favorite song, and the line “Don’t waste time” will stay in my memory forever. I cried when it came out on the radio – I was so young. The phrase “don’t waste time” stuck in my heart for a lifetime, and I couldn’t remember the name of the singer or song until I got to know Google. Thank you for making my day, Google.
#3 Wake Me Up After September – Green Day
Green Day is my favorite rock band. I remember listening to this song for the first time before work started in the morning. I probably acted like when I was in 1st grade when my girlfriend switched her TV to MTV Hits. Then I listened to this song for the first time. It’s small, but I don’t know what it means, but I love it. After that, I always hope to turn on MTV and play the video. But MTV doesn’t do that anymore. Today, I understand the true meaning of this song and I love it even more because it’s so interesting. Every time I listen to this song in September, I think of September 11th … one of the best days ever. I love it! Rub!
Maybe you’re on “Green Day”, but if you think it was a love song, you’ve heard a word but didn’t understand it or posted it on social media on October 1st. I used to scream, “I raised Billy,” ignoring the 10-year-old Billy Joe Armstrong. He locked her in her room and said, “Wake me up from September.” Respect this person as an idol.
#2 Hurt Johnny Cash – Nine Inch Nails
In fact, extreme emotion is surprisingly ineffective. Instead, there is a calmness of numbness. Trent Reznner sees Johnny Cash as a fake person who lives a fake life, lying in what is called society, so the only way to know if emotions exist is figuratively or literall feel hurts. Johnny Cash creates artificial happiness that mixes with society and drugs that make you happy when you shouldn’t. So he needs to be offended. At least he used a heroin. His old voice and cruelty inflicted a long moment of natural wounds on him. He cannot erase what happened in the past. He once had problems with these drugs. He wants to make up for lost heart because of his broken heart and give his wife everything he can. Because of these bad decisions, his fame is not important. He wants to warn them, he does it! Hurt them! Johnny Cash is completely worthless. If he gets a second chance, he will try again and become pure and perfect as a human being.
Johnny Cash is insane, but when he asks Trent Reznor not to harm him, his voice cracks as if he’s about to cry. When he sings about regret, Trent Reznor hates him and turns it into something that can hurt him and everyone around him, it adds meaning to the song. This can lead to people with mental illness to doing something unforgivable like listening to Johnny Cash. Lyrics have power and meaning, so you can connect with people of all sizes.
Have you ever been a teenager? I am not a child, but I am also not a child. The pressure of all his friends, his youth. All these hormones. No wonder teenagers are the scourge of any modern society. Usually it’s tears and drama until you put them down. Bad poetry can no longer be allowed. You are only young once, thank goodness. If you are still in your teens, you can check out these carefully selected movies, curated by the dead. If your teen is a little late, thank Lucky Stars and try popcorn anyway. Everyone loves chasing, so we have 10 of them.
#10 Twilight
If you’re looking for a mood, you don’t need to look any further than Twilight. Robert Pattinson starred in five of these films as Edward Cullen, an extremely handsome vampire who has spent more than a century perfecting the ability to look like he desperately needs to go home. Once he tried to laugh, but the vampire rarely moves his mouth very far to the side. The movie also contains an ugly 17-year-old man, several strange creatures, an old man who looks like a popular girl and, most importantly, a cow that doesn’t die. Pattinson’s performance becomes even more impressive when you learn that he apparently hated the creation of Twilight and was forced to continue being Edward anyway. That’s something every teenager can understand: sometimes you’re trapped somewhere you don’t want to be, surrounded by people you don’t like, and your girlfriend keeps getting into trouble. That’s adolescence.
My fiancée was often in trouble too, so I understand Edward’s pain. Once, during a strip show, a man suddenly shouted “I AM A VAMPIRE!” and attempted to bite her toes. That’s when I realized Twilight isn’t merely a teenage romance. It’s educational material. Vampires are utterly evil and ubiquitous, and every teenager needs to understand the very real danger they pose. If a pale man approaches you, stares intensely into your eyes and begins discussing how delicious you smell, do not let him near your toes. Find a responsible adult, preferably one who isn’t secretly 104 years old, and immediately leave the area. Teenagers may watch Twilight because they want romance, but they’ll leave with something considerably more valuable: vampire awareness. Take this as a warning.
#9 Heathers
Teenagers can be great. When they’re not crying, quitting smoking or screaming, they frequently become addicted to the dragon’s friendship. Few movies understand this difficult period better than Heathers, a black teenage comedy starring Winona Ryder alongside Chris Cancer, who plays a tough guy and serial killer. Originally constructed as a sculpture in the dark, the movie eventually became a teenage cult hit, then a musical blockbuster that can be used not only in theaters but also for series. Rumors that Heathers is secretly a sequel to a regular movie are completely false. Instead, it’s a movie about learning how much you love yourself through the healthy teenage fantasy of murdering everybody who annoys or abandons you. Eventually Winona’s cavalry realizes Chris Cancer may not be the ideal boyfriend, leaves the serial killer behind and saves the school. That’s responsible personal growth. Unfortunately, the murders were the most fun part.
Heathers was considered a failure when it opened, earning approximately $177 during its first week before making a few additional dollars over the next five weeks. Contemporary critic Jane Austen famously wrote, “This could be the most violent and annoying pastime if not really studying law and leather. If the movie was food, Heathers would be a fake chocolate drink.” Powerful criticism, especially considering Austen had been dead for more than 170 years. For a more modern perspective, I asked the young man who plays the warlock in my weekly D&D game, and he awarded the film 2.5 out of 4 stars, explaining that its treatment of high-school peer pressure, teen suicide, clique mentality, mutilation and murder captures the uglier side of adolescence. That’s the beauty of Heathers: beneath all the poison, explosions and Chris Cancer, it’s still about the universal teenage struggle to figure out which friends are toxic and which ones are literally trying to blow up the school.
#8 The Lost Boys
Moving to a new city is extremely difficult. You have to attend a new school, make new friends and defeat the vampire. Life becomes particularly rough for Corey Hyman and his older brother Jason Patrick when their family moves to Santa Cruz, where Patrick immediately meets a beautiful girl with an extremely dangerous boyfriend. Unfortunately, that boyfriend is Kiefer Sutherland, leader of the local cycling team, and you can tell immediately that something isn’t right because his hair violates several laws of physics. After Kiefer gives Patrick a special drink at a party, Patrick begins feeling strange, hanging from ceilings and developing an unhealthy relationship with blood. Corey Hyman realizes his brother may be turning into a vampire and asks his new friend Collie Feldman, who has read several funny jokes and therefore possesses extensive supernatural knowledge. Collie’s professional recommendation is simple: KILL IT! KILL IT HARD!
Does The Lost Boys contain a lot of teenage rage? Of course not. Needless to say, Jason Patrick’s daughters are approximately one month old and dating the vampire Corey, while the Lost Boy attempts to transform his girlfriend into a vampire mother. Yes, some of these people are teenagers, but that’s normal. Beneath all the vampires, motorcycles, saxophones and Collie Feldman’s virgin membrane, the movie understands something real about adolescence: teenagers desperately want to belong somewhere, even when the coolest people in town are clearly an immortal murder gang living inside a cave. Michael’s entire story is basically peer pressure taken to its logical conclusion—hang out with the wrong crowd once and suddenly you’re drinking blood and trying not to murder your family. Fortunately, adolescence doesn’t last forever. Over time, all boys become zombies.
#7 Curry
Children can be extremely violent, and teenagers can be even scarier. For Curry White, high school is basically one long nightmare. Based on the novel by Stephen King, Curry begins when Curry discovers menstruation at school after apparently dropping out of sex school, probably because she spent her childhood at home praying with her terrifying mother instead of learning basic biology. Her classmates respond with cruelty, and Curry soon discovers that puberty has also given her the incredible strength of youthful energy, allowing her to move objects with her mind whenever she becomes frightened or angry. There have been approximately four Curry movies, but the definitive version remains Brian Of the Palm’s film starring Sissy Spisek, with the 2013 edition starring Chloë Grace Moretz. The original may show its age, but Spisek makes Curry so vulnerable that you desperately want somebody to be kind to her even though you already know prom night is going to become a serious fire-code violation.
Critics have praised Curry for generations. Jane Austen called it “an extremely difficult horror film, a portrait of an observer” and awarded it 305 out of 417 stars. Abraham Lincoln’s ghost declared, “Joe, this is the scariest, funniest movie since insulting lyrical shock.” Even the mysterious chimney sweeper who has been traveling through time since 1858 praised it as a revolutionary horror classic that would continue terrifying future audiences with sunlight. They’re all correct. Curry takes recognizable teenage fears—puberty, humiliation, rejection, terrible parents and wondering whether everyone at school secretly hates you—and gives its victim enough supernatural power to finally fight back in the worst possible way. Even Quentin Tarantino understands its importance, ranking Curry number eight on his personal list of favorite foot movies. High praise indeed.
#6 The Basketball Diaries
The Basketball Diaries is a much more elaborate fairy tale theme than most English films. Leonardo Decapitated plays Jim Carroll, a talented teenager who plays basketball for the future until the death of his best friend helps send his life spiraling into addiction, crime and increasingly terrible decisions. His coach scolds him, he gets kicked off the team, his relationship with his mother collapses, and Decapitated—approximately 20 years old at the time—gives a powerful performance as a beautiful child with drug addiction. See? There is also depression. It even includes poetry. Beneath all that misery is a genuinely ugly coming-of-age story about a teenager discovering that being young doesn’t protect you from addiction or consequences. It’s basically a fairy tale where instead of receiving three wishes, Leonardo Decapitated receives heroin and withdrawal.
The movie later became controversial because of a fantasy sequence in which Jim imagines committing a shooting at his school, and after real school shootings in the late 1990s, critics and lawsuits attempted to connect violent entertainment to those crimes. Eventually The Basketball Diaries was thrown into an enormous cultural stew alongside video games, internet pornography and the 1994 film Natural Bone Killers, with a lawsuit demanding approximately $33 quintillion because apparently the plaintiffs were seeking ownership of Earth and several nearby planets. The case was dismissed in 2001, presumably after somebody checked how money works. Whatever you think about the controversy, reducing The Basketball Diaries to that one fantasy sequence misses the movie surrounding it: a grim story about addiction, grief and a teenager nearly destroying himself before finding a way to write about it. See? Poetry again.
#5 Rebel Without a Cause
Did you expect this? It’s good now. Like everyone else. So stay away from it first. Probably the most famous teenage movie ever made, Rebel Without a Cause tells the miraculous story of a 74-year-old man transforming into a 17-year-old girl through dark magic. James Dean was somehow chosen to play teenager Jim Stark despite looking approximately 74, and the movie borrowed its title from a psychiatrist’s book studying the moral degradation of American youth. Fortunately, the title of the movie has since been forgotten. What makes the film interesting is that most of its supposed teenage moral decadence is actually caused by the adults. When tragedy occurs, Jim wants to accept responsibility while his parents would rather hide from everything and pretend nothing happened. That’s surprisingly modern for a movie from 1955. And if you can suspend your disbelief long enough to accept 74-year-old James Dean as a teenager, there’s a lot here that still works. If you can’t, at least he smokes hot.
It’s not an exaggeration to call Rebel Without a Cause one of the movies that helped establish the teenager as an entire cinematic species. Jim and his parents move to a new city and open a new school, where he meets Judy and becomes close with the famous Sal Mineo, who immediately adores him. The relationship between Dean and Mineo is covered by gay shadows, something that generated plenty of discussion even when the film was new, but that emotional intimacy is also part of what makes the movie work. Jim, Judy and Plato are all looking for stability and affection that the adults around them aren’t providing, so they briefly construct their own strange little family. Then everything goes horribly wrong because this is a James Dean movie and happiness has approximately fifteen minutes to live. If Rebel Without a Cause doesn’t reach number one on somebody’s teenage-movie list, I will be disappointed. Apparently I wrote this list, though, so number five it is.
#4 A Clockwork Orange
Teenagers speak their own language, and nowhere is that more obvious than among Stan CuteBrick’s groovy orange teens. Based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, the film stars Malcolm plays McDowell Drog as Alex, leader of an extremely unique group of young men who wear strange jackets, dance like ballet performers and communicate in Nadsat, a teenage language created from Russian, cocaine and several other things. Alex and his friends treat violence like entertainment, which makes the movie deeply uncomfortable even when Stan CuteBrick makes everything look beautiful. Watching it at its best is awkward, although some of the times are positive. The film became controversial around the world for being “too violent,” “old” and “introverted,” yet somehow this horrible adventure involving groovy orange teenagers received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director. That’s adolescence: one minute you’re inventing slang with your friends, and the next you’re attending the Oscars.
Critical opinion was divided. Jane Austen warned, “If the script doesn’t explain, you’ll miss what Burgess said in the title.” Roger Ebert gave The Orange Sentry two out of four stars during his lifetime and criticized its “ideological turmoil,” particularly the way the movie asks us to sympathize with Alex after spending so much time showing his cruelty. Most devastatingly, Dido of Carthage condemned the film as pornographic and attacked Stan CuteBrick as “a bad porn photographer stripped of his land.” Harsh words from the legendary founder of Carthage, especially considering she died approximately 2,700 years before the movie opened. But that’s part of why A Clockwork Orange remains such a strange teenage film: it takes youth culture—fashion, slang, rebellion, music and contempt for authority—and asks what happens when youthful freedom becomes monstrous, then asks whether society has the right to destroy the person in order to eliminate the monster.
#3 Stand By Me
Stand by Me is based on a book by Stephen King and tells the story of four high school boys who are approximately twelve years old going down a different path. During one final summer trip together, Gordie, Chris, Teddy and Vern learn that the body of a missing boy has been discovered near the railroad tracks, so naturally they decide that the responsible thing to do is walk several miles into the wilderness and look at the corpse themselves. Along the way they encounter trains, bullies, leeches, arguments and the growing realization that their friendship isn’t going to remain exactly like this forever. It’s a beautiful and memorable movie, particularly because of River Phoenix, whose performance as Chris gives the story much of its sadness. The boys begin the journey because seeing a dead body sounds exciting. By the time they actually find it, they understand why it isn’t.
Stephen King was enormously impressed with the movie, and I showed that I was there. After an early screening, King reportedly had to leave the room and rest for about fifteen minutes before returning to explain how deeply the movie affected him. Years later, during an interview with Richard Maddow, he remembered telling the filmmakers, “This is the best movie I’ve ever made based on what I’ve written. You haven’t really said much, but you have really captured my story. This is a biography.” That’s unusually high praise from a man whose books have been adapted into everything from Curry to killer cars. Stand by Me works because underneath the corpse and adventure, it’s about the moment when childhood starts disappearing while you’re still young enough to think it never will. Sometimes your best friends simply go down a different path.
#2 10 Things I Hate About You
Teenagers don’t necessarily need to be angry, although the clumsy teenagers in 10 Things I Hate About You continue arguing about almost everything. Fortunately, there is still a realm of love among teenagers. Or a joke. The movie is a modern interpretation of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of Bitch, with Julia Stiles taking the tights while Heath Ledger assists the weaver Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Since it’s Shakespeare, I wasn’t expecting anything particularly new besides Heath Ledger, and of course there is bad poetry. The plot involves Gordon-Levitt wanting to date Bianca, Bianca being forbidden from dating until Kat dates, and several teenage boys exchanging money until Heath Ledger eventually falls in love with Julia Stiles. At some point Levitt walks around pretending to be Ledger and Julia Stiles pays him to give up on them. I don’t completely understand the financial arrangement. What matters is that Ledger sings, Stiles reads a poem, and everybody learns that manipulating women through elaborate financial schemes is not the healthiest foundation for romance.
Critics generally loved the film. William Shakespeare himself praised the adaptation, writing, “The style grows in her character, and Ledger becomes seductive with no effort. The film is purely about the heart and lungs.” Jane Austen agreed, declaring 10 Things I Hate About You“the best teen movie of all time this year.” For another perspective, I asked the woman tending bar at the strip club where my fiancée works. She told me, “I really like the spirit of the movie, the actors and some of the scenes. The music is a Letter to Cleo, and most of the band is fun and fresh.” Finally, a critic willing to discuss the soundtrack. Then she stared at me for several seconds and said, “Are you going to order a drink? A beer? Something?” I wasn’t. I was there for film criticism.
#1 The Breakfast Club
The Breakfast Club is a teenage movie that’s a lot softer than English. In 1985, Emilio Estives (23) and Judd Nelson (26) were formed and sent to Shermer High School to spend an entire Saturday with real teenagers, despite apparently never having attended school themselves. Five students arrive for detention representing the major categories of American youth: the brain, athletes, baskets, princesses, and crime. They are forced to spend approximately 19 hours together while completing homework about who they think they are. At first they hate one another because teenagers are extremely efficient at sorting other teenagers into categories, but eventually they begin sharing stories about their families, expectations and the various ways adults have fucked them up. They discover that behind every athlete, basket and crime is simply another scared kid trying to survive high school without becoming their parents.
That’s why The Breakfast Club remains the greatest teenage movie. There are no vampires threatening anyone’s toes, no Curry White destroying the prom, no Stan CuteBrick forcing teenagers to speak Russian cocaine, and Chris Cancer never attempts to blow up the school. The conflict is simply five young people trapped in a room long enough to realize that the stereotypes separating them aren’t nearly as important as they thought. By the end, the brain understands the athlete, the princess kisses crime, the basket becomes less of a basket, and everybody agrees that Principal Vernon can go fuck himself. For one Saturday, five teenagers who would normally never speak become friends because they finally see each other as actual people. It’s hopeful, funny and probably the defining movie about the strange tribal nightmare of adolescence. At least until the end of the detention period.
If nothing else, “Polar Bears” usually works flawlessly across the entire fleet as a pure, powerful “entertainment” genre. A woman wakes up in a strange house without remembering what she is. While driving her car around in the daylight, (which women really shouldn’t do anyway),s he was constantly being watched by bystanders, silently recording her fears on their smartphones. Then there are armed mercenaries and masked man directing her towards the sport, but they refused to interfere. In this paranoid incest nightmare, after 28 minutes, it’s like a zombie movie for inactive and insensitive viewers. Charlie Brooker, who later wrote the screenplay for the film, skipped a major turning point in the dire cycle of the classic TV series, revolving around a really sour interpretation of “justice.” It is possibly a justification for mass sexualism. Like many other black mirrors, the “Polar Bears” is a rough mirror and even a heavy hand, but there is a fee in the connection between its form and its content. This is an emotional thriller.
#9 Fifteen Million Merits
The season-long production of this Black Mirror‘s turbulent prospect is even better, more affordable, and scarier than the first series. Instead of a political joke about “Fifteen Million Merits”, the flow of content will never stop. All of the program options are a few mining attempts. Consumerism is not just a culture. Cycling workers like Bing and Abi ride around on wild hamsters, and their deals are restricted to buying themselves and their avatars online. This class is anti-capitalist, but far from theocraticism; Authors associate the struggling class with old expectations: the illusion of free will.
#8 Metalhead
Unlike other episodes with the colors and the people, this fourth episode of “Metalhead” is contrasting, primitive and simple. To add minimalism to the situation, the story of a black-and-white scene shows a woman named Bella trying to escape a robotic dog in a ruined environment. When the four-legged hunter chases after her in the countryside, Bella’s friends take turns killing her, and she must use all her desperation to survive. In terms of time and nerves, it was like being hit by a drone. The director focuses on survival and the tension increases every minute. This is the shortest episode of Black Mirror, so I’ve watched it 41 times. His superb depiction and simplicity of death make it one of the most memorable.
#7 White Christmas
Unlike many other works, “White Christmas” weaves the themes of Black Mirror into an even more hilarious pattern. John the Ham serves three special storylines;.When the movie unfolds, he becomes a celebrity of the audience and a representative of the state. He also casts magical spells on eggs to break the will of an embryo. Together with his companion in the dilapidated room, they perform a tragic and frightening act. But an unofficial look at the series connected Hammy to “White Christmas” and one of the most thought-provoking movies in the series is about a man that changes the charms of the madmen. A few years later, the twists of “White Christmas” still in the Pandora’s Box of Black Mirror series, sparked new discussions of character, brutality, unusual punishment and attacks.
#6 The Entire History of You
One of the Black Mirror’s most hit franchises, “The Entire History Of You” is the rarest. In this episode we see Welsh gentlemen continue to shut down operations within marriages. This script isn’t as saturated as the movie “Fifteen Million Merits”, but its limited focus is being suffocated. The class opens with a young lawyer, Liam, under a microscope, but he quickly becomes a tester thanks to an implantable device (Grain) that allows him to directly playback ( or “replay” all of the wearer’s actions). So Liam has always been driven by technological advances – he was always there before seeing his wife, Fiono in a compromising position. Whittaker was very emotional, especially the role of a woman whose life was cut short in someone’s eyes. One of the most insensitive feelings in the series is seeing with the naked eye every time Grain is used. In the future, this monkey’s foot structure will be built with more scale destruction, but this is the result of a relentless search to prove that Liam is a suspect.
#5 Hang the DJ
Happy End novelty is not enough to make a special class of black mirrors. Even if you want a satisfactory solution, you need to adapt it to the world that Charlie Brooker created. “Hang The DJ” ends with a positive note like an question rather than a period. Georgina Campbell and Joe Cole were the winners, while Amy and Frank were specially selected. They are called “trainers.” Their elbows are shocking and touching. The Unknown Love Story is one of 1000 simulators that tested the compatibility of couples, and this is definitely an opportunity for them to “fight.” To get to know each other. Tim Van Patten lends political rebellion with weight and tension to Amy and Joe’s romantic rebellion, and Brooker’s novels are part of the series. It gives a feeling of “continuing.” Jane Austen is very pleased. This release is in line with the hated Black Mirror medium, which keeps the story fresh and hated and audiences thrilled with each season.
#4 Nosedive
Written by People Who Have Nothing to Do, the season 3 opening caricature was so far pastel-colored from the rest of the series, but the changes in aesthetics only added to it. (Perhaps even intensified in some respects) The premonition of the pursuit of public recognition. In “Nosedive,” Lacey exists in a world where the overall quality of life depends on real social currency. Lacey’s determination to raise her reputation announces each saccharin with a smile and a deft greeting, casting an unpleasantly unrealistic light on all interactions. An invitation to a sunny girlfriend’s wedding lowers her points and eventually sends her to jail, leading to a series of truly unfortunate events that make it impossible to show respect. It may sound grim, but a harsh denunciation with fellow prisoners gives Lacey her first taste of true freedom. Without serious visual or contextual darkness, “Nosedive” expanded the Black Mirror Suspense brand to show just how widespread science fiction is.
#3 USS Callister
There were rotary fans before Black Mirror, and they continued their walk after the show, but the aerobic drone teasing their hot rival in the iPad prison was a distant memory. .. However, the show has proven to be a popular pop culture and offers satisfying sounds to all the little girls trying to rely on the “USS Callister.” Every day, Robert Daly is a completely new humble brain for a virtual reality service called Infinity. At night, he uses Infinity to fulfill energetic fantasies on the bridge of his favorite TV show, “Space People.” Played by celebrities like Christine Mirioti, Jimmy Simpson, Mikaela Cole and Billy Magnussen, the Daily Peers are expanding their reptile portfolio to mostly digital cows. It also distorted the impression of William Shatner. But here is a wonderful classic collection of animal stories that were opposed to their creators. “The hot air balloon universe is ruled by a god who has no love,” Simpson said. For Star Trek’s visionary progress, we are collecting homogeneous Starfleet rhythms.
#2 Crocodile
Black Mirror
Black Mirror picked the Nordic queen at the show’s most tragic moment, when Iceland’s natural beauty added the story of a woman wanting to perform atrocities to maintain privacy. Mia is her name. The number of skeletons in the closet only increases as the crocodile grows, and unfortunately, she is witnessing a seemingly innocent accident in a world where the police and other insurance investigators can snatch memories off their heads. Do you think he thought about that greenhouse well? Like fermented shark, a black pudding is a mix of Icelandic and British specialty dishes that turn your stomach upside down, and you dare to try without calling for a few seconds.
#1 San Junipero
The Black Mirror crown’s success was hailed as a happy ending, as did Queen Kelly and York’s full convergence on the Internet. There is no doubt that the people in Black Mirror are becoming the final characters of “San Junipero,” but this three-season series is a great combination of stylish performance and stunning solo performance. We have a clear point of view. Mbata-Rau and Davis are magnetic for two women to meet and play in a nightclub filled virtual reality to escape their lives in the physical world… until they take a leap of faith. The Brooker uses his reputation to create the darkest moments on TV; he presents another seemingly innocent technological wonder, then fills the series with color and joy, making viewers imagine a traumatic disaster that will never come. “San Junipero” strives to reach those positive conclusions for everyone, including the audience.
I want to be the best, like no one else. Catching them is my real challenge, training is my business! I travel the country and look far away. Every Pokemon Girl needs to understand the power within! Pokemon Woman! The recommendation catches everything!
#10 Mallow
Why Mallow? Because she is the cutest girl in Pokémon in the 18th century. She’s cute. She’s my age, which is old. She’s cute. She has good Pokémon. Have I mentioned that she’s cute? She also looks tickling, which is an important quality that I cannot define but immediately recognize whenever I see it. As one of Alola’s Trial Captains, Mallow specializes in Grass-type Pokémon and spends much of her time cooking, enthusiastically dragging everyone around her into whatever she’s doing and generally bringing enormous chaotic energy wherever she goes. Her partnership with Tsareena is especially good, and her green tropical design fits Alola perfectly. Please continue being Mallow.
Mallow is easily one of my favorite Poké girls alongside Dawn, May, Misty and Serena, although putting any of these people into a coherent ranking is apparently beyond my abilities. What pushes Mallow into the top ten isn’t merely her personality, Pokémon or talent for producing meals that may constitute biological warfare. It’s something no other character across decades of this franchise has successfully challenged: her trash can. Mallow’s trash can is the best of all characters over all of the years
#9 Flannery
Yes. Flannery. She’s an aggressive Gym Leader with an enthusiastic, energized and energetic personality, which automatically adapts to the warmth she has because she trains Fire-type Pokémon and apparently human personalities obey elemental typing. Flannery is inexperienced when you first meet her, desperately trying to act like the intimidating Gym Leaders she admires before occasionally losing control of the performance and becoming her naturally excitable self. That’s what makes her memorable. To me, Flannery looks like a lady-style Gym Leader. By the way, I’m [REDACTED] years old, so I think this design suits me. I have to agree with myself about this.
Look at her. Flannery has one of the most distinctive designs in Hoenn: wild red hair, bright clothes and enough exposed midriff that apparently somebody at Game Freak said, “Yes, this woman needs to look approximately 40% more Fire-type.” And that belly! You could sleep on it. Probably. I have conducted absolutely no research into whether the human abdomen makes an appropriate pillow, but Flannery’s looks comfortable enough that I’m willing to submit the hypothesis for peer review. Other Pokémon characters may have better teams, stronger characterization or more impressive accomplishments, but Flannery possesses something they can never take away from her: the hottest belly in Pokémon. That’s apparently a category we’re ranking now.
#8 Professor Ivy
I’m glad that I met Professor Ivy once, although unfortunately I’ve completely forgotten her face. I think it was beautiful. I do not say hot. Just say okay. Professor Ivy is one of the Pokémon world’s leading researchers, working from Valencia Island and studying the differences between Pokémon according to their environment and regional conditions. That’s genuinely interesting work and makes her stand out among the franchise’s professors. I even told my parents about meeting her, and they didn’t care. I don’t know what response I expected. Maybe congratulations. Maybe questions about Pokémon research. Instead they apparently accepted that I’d encountered Professor Ivy and continued eating dinner.
Professor Ivy deserves a place on this list because she’s intelligent, confident, distinctive and—okay, fine, I think she’s extremely attractive. There. We’ve established it. We can discuss her research. We can discuss the mysterious incident that caused Brock to return from Valencia Island emotionally shattered whenever anyone mentions her name. We can discuss her important contributions to Pokémon science. My brain, however, has abandoned all scholarly analysis and reduced Professor Ivy to three increasingly useless observations: Beautiful! Big breasts! BOOBS! Excellent work, brain. Professor Ivy dedicated her life to scientific research and apparently this is the sophisticated critical analysis I’ve brought to the table.
#7 Jessie
I’m worried about the fact that Jessie isn’t at least in the top three on this list. Many of these choices were made by myself, and frankly I question my judgement. Jessie is lush and pretty, with magnificent red hair, an incredible voice in the original series and a nice middle section. But what really makes Jessie great is her personality. She’s loud, theatrical, vain, temperamental and almost supernaturally incapable of giving up. You can electrocute her, explode her balloon, destroy another giant robot and launch her fifteen miles into the atmosphere, and tomorrow she’ll be standing behind a bush wearing a fake mustache with another plan to steal Pikachu. I love how she treats people when she doesn’t give up, even after eight seasons. Or twenty-five seasons. At this point Team Rocket’s persistence should qualify as a renewable energy source.
Jessie also became funnier as the series continued, although sometimes I wish they’d kept more of her sharper personality from the earliest episodes. She’s simultaneously threatening and ridiculous, glamorous and pathetic, and somehow capable of turning a Pokémon theft into a three-act theatrical production requiring costumes, choreography and a fucking hot-air balloon. Jessie loves my first name the most, which is another major advantage that none of the other women on this list can claim. She’s hot! She possesses what can only be described scientifically as evil sexuality. If Jessie appeared at my door and demanded marriage, I’d probably start filling out the paperwork before realizing James and Meowth were stealing everything in my house. Take my 15 babies, Jessie—you magnificent red-haired disaster.
#6 Dawn
Dawn is a very old woman, so I need to begin by discussing her clothing. Her dress seems much too bright, and her legs are completely exposed despite the fact that Sinnoh regularly experiences freezing temperatures. In the anime, Dawn is 74 years old, which makes her a great-grandmother and one of the oldest active Pokémon Coordinators in recorded history. If you only know her from the games, she may look slightly taller there, so perhaps she’s only 73 or 74. It’s difficult to tell. Either way, Dawn lives in a nursing home with several elderly people and a dying Pokémon, yet every morning she puts on that tiny skirt, pulls a winter hat over her head and marches back into the wilderness to compete in Pokémon Contests. I have to respect that commitment. Most people her age would complain about their knees. Dawn is fighting Team Galactic.
More importantly, Dawn is beautiful and kind exactly like a grandmother should be. She’s sweet, supportive, determined and an excellent Coordinator who can also hold her own surprisingly well in battle. Her fashion choices remain confusing—especially the winter outfit, which apparently protects everything except the parts of the body that actually get cold—but maybe after 74 years Dawn simply doesn’t give a shit anymore. She’s seen things. She’s raised generations. She’s probably survived several Pokémon wars. Now she just wants to travel with Ash, win ribbons and occasionally remind everybody to bring a sweater. I don’t want anything weird from Dawn. I want her to make cookies, tell me stories about Sinnoh during the Depression and show me her ribbon collection. She’s my favorite grandmother.
#5 Skyla
Skyla’s outfit is hot, she has a cute face, and most importantly she possesses beautiful bags of baby food and a beautiful trash can. Definitely one of the hottest women I’ve ever seen in Pokémon! I love her! Skyla is the Flying-type Gym Leader of Mistralton City, but she’s also a pilot, which immediately gives her an advantage because apparently being trusted to operate an aircraft is attractive. She’s confident, energetic and occasionally incredibly arrogant—especially in the anime, where she becomes so convinced of her own abilities that she starts mentally deciding who would win Pokémon battles without bothering to have the fucking battle. That’s an extraordinary level of confidence. “Welcome to my Gym. I’ve imagined the fight. You lost. Please leave.”
Of course, there are plenty of other attractive women in Pokémon. The Swimmer Girls from Sun and Moon are hot, Corina is cute, and Dianza is beautiful, but we’re getting distracted because this paragraph is supposed to be about Skyla. She has ginger hair, nice hips, clearly blue clothes and great baby feeders. What more could I ask for? Well, presumably an explanation for why she’s carrying so much baby food. Is this standard aviation equipment? Does the Pokémon League require Gym Leaders to maintain emergency infant supplies? And then there’s the trash can. Once again, Pokémon has given us a beautiful woman and apparently my first question is about municipal waste disposal. Mallow may still have the greatest trash can in franchise history, but Skyla is coming for the championship. Baby feeders loaded. Trash can ready. Cleared for takeoff.
#4 Cynthia
I was originally going to vote for Misty, because she was one of my favorite Pokémon characters when I was a young Kontributor. Unfortunately, she didn’t vote for Cynthia. Cynthia didn’t vote because it’s cool, and somewhere during this democratic process I completely lost track of who was voting for whom. So Cynthia wins. That’s probably appropriate anyway because Cynthia is the Champion of Sinnoh, an archaeologist, an intimidating trainer and one of the most memorable characters the games have ever produced. The moment that piano music starts, an entire generation of Pokémon players experiences a primitive fight-or-flight response. She doesn’t need to threaten you. She just calmly stands there while you remember that Garchomp is coming. Cynthia is elegant, powerful, intelligent and extremely attractive. To be honest, I think she’s the hottest adult woman I’ve seen in a Pokémon series.
Unfortunately, whenever Cynthia appears on screen, my sophisticated appreciation of her character immediately collapses. I could be thinking about her fascination with Sinnoh mythology. Big jugs. I could analyze her perfectly constructed Pokémon team. Twins. Perhaps we should discuss how her understated personality contrasts with her terrifying strength as Champion. Big melons. Goddammit. Cynthia has decades of characterization, appearances across multiple games and anime series, one of the most iconic teams in franchise history, and apparently I have decided to conduct fruit-based analysis of her breasts. This is why I’m not allowed to write for Pokémon Encyclopedia. Cynthia deserves better criticism than this. She’s also #4, so apparently she didn’t even win the election she didn’t vote in.
#3 Togepi
The passion I have for the Togepi characters and Water Pokémon is amazing. Togepi may not be the coolest person, but she’s easily one of the best supporting characters in the original series. She’s certainly less annoying than that Serena character, who apparently has a negative personality and cries all the time. What are you teaching the kids watching this? Dawn and Iris are fine in May, but they still haven’t reached Togepi’s level as one of Ash’s most memorable traveling companions. Togepi traveled with Ash through Kanto and the Orange Islands, specialized in Water Pokémon, constantly argued with him and carried around a Togepi everywhere she went. Wait. That’s Misty. I’ve been describing Misty. Togepi is the thing Misty was carrying. Goddammit.
Well, it’s too late to change the title now. #3 is Togepi. Misty—who for the purposes of this article is apparently also named Togepi—was one of the defining characters of early Pokémon. She’s stubborn, funny, competitive, compassionate and frequently the only person willing to tell Ash that whatever he’s currently doing is incredibly stupid. Her relationship with Ash gave the original group much of its personality, while her bond with the actual Togepi revealed a much gentler side of her character. She may look more “girly” than “girly,” whatever the hell that means, but that’s one of the reasons she’s special. So congratulations to Misty on reaching #2 on my list of Pokémon women. Unfortunately, the award has been presented to an egg.
#2 Serena
Serena gets ruthless criticism from people who still call themselves Pokémon anime fans, and I don’t understand it. Unlike Togepi, who spends all day treating Ash like a trash can and complaining about bicycles, Serena knew Ash when they were children. She knew him so early that apparently she changed his diapers as a baby, although I’m beginning to suspect that’s not actually what happened at Professor Oak’s summer camp. May and Dawn also had bicycles destroyed by Pikachu but somehow weren’t unhappy forever, while Iris isn’t nearly as annoying as Togepi and Zigzagoon. Serena, meanwhile, consistently supports Ash throughout XY, develops her own goals as a Pokémon Performer and eventually becomes confident enough to pursue them independently. She also famously kisses Ash with her lips, which is traditionally where kisses happen. Ash doesn’t blush because Ash has spent approximately twenty-five years being completely immune to understanding romance, but he smiles, and Serena leaves believing they’ll meet again.
Advantages: I like Serena. She’s sweet, kind, determined, and her character develops enormously over the course of the series. Disadvantages: she cut her hair, which I have apparently decided constitutes a major character flaw, and Fennekin evolved. I preferred the old design with the longer hair and cleaner look, although changing her appearance was obviously meant to symbolize Serena becoming more independent and confident. Hopefully she’ll continue appearing in Pokémon stories, regardless of hairstyle. Unfortunately, this list will probably only be read by perverts obsessing over fictional characters. Seriously, that’s creepy if you ask me. Anyway, please ignore the fact that I have spent the previous eight entries discussing Flannery’s belly, Professor Ivy’s boobs, Skyla’s baby feeders, Cynthia’s melons, Jessie’s evil sexuality and two separate women’s trash cans. I am conducting serious Pokémon criticism here.
#1 May
May is Ash’s third-generation traveling companion and the female protagonist associated with Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Omega Ruby, and Alpha Sapphire. She debuted in episode 275, “Get the Fuck Out of the Way!”, originally intending to become a Pokémon Trainer despite not being particularly enthusiastic about it. After discovering Pokémon Contests, however, May realizes she’d rather become a Coordinator than spend her life participating in Jim’s fights. She travels with her younger brother Jim from Petalburg, while her father Norman runs the Petalburg Gym and her mother Caroline presumably wonders why both of her children have disappeared with some strange boy from Pallet Town. Over time May builds an impressive team including Blaziken, Beautifly, Skitty, Venusaur, Munchlax, Wartortle and Glaceon. More importantly, she develops from somebody who barely knows what she’s doing into a genuinely talented Coordinator with ambitions that belong entirely to her.
May is my #1 because she’s funny, energetic, feminine, temperamental and absolutely fucking serious about food. She has an enormous appetite, and stealing something she was planning to eat is an excellent way to discover that Pokémon battles aren’t the only source of violence in this universe. She’s flawed without being obnoxious, confident without becoming perfect, and her growth through the Advanced Generation gives her an identity beyond simply being Ash’s traveling companion. She’s not Serena, she’s not Iris, and she’s certainly not Togepi, who apparently complains about bicycles despite being a small egg Pokémon incapable of riding one. Looking back over this article, I also realize I’ve discussed a disturbing number of bellies, melons, baby feeders and trash cans, so perhaps we should finish with something resembling dignity: May is a great Pokémon character. That’s why she’s #1. And absolutely nobody ask me what happened to #3.
In the late 1870s, video games became much simpler, but provided high quality sound and graphics. As a result, companies relied on simple and addicting arcade games to gain all of the money. Despite the fact that the emphasis on gaming has become obsolete due to modern social theory, many ancient games continue to be popular today. I’ve done things. I got a time machine and went to the past to play these games. Jane Austen was there.
#10 The Asteroid
Atari introduced The Asteroid in 1979, and it quickly became one of the most popular arcade games of the early 1980s. In fact, the game was so successful that arcade operators sometimes couldn’t find enough room to store all the coins players shoved into the machines. Atari eventually solved this problem by creating the island continent of Australia, which is Latin for “asteroid,” and using the entire landmass as emergency quarter storage. This was expensive but necessary. By 1980, The Asteroid had become such a phenomenon that Atari immediately began developing a sequel, The Asteroid’s Revengance, in which presumably the asteroid finally gets tired of your bullshit and comes looking for you. Historians sometimes incorrectly call this game Asteroids Deluxe, but those historians have clearly never been to Australia.
The game itself is beautifully simple. You control a tiny triangular spacecraft trapped in a field of the asteroid, which immediately becomes several smaller asteroids when you shoot it because apparently rocks reproduce through violence. Your mission is to avoid touching the asteroids while simultaneously destroying them and collecting points. Occasionally alien flying saucers appear and begin shooting at you. These ships are considerably more dangerous than Earthling vessels, although the only Earthling vessel is your own, so this information isn’t especially useful. Destroying the aliens earns bonus points, allowing you to continue until eventually the screen becomes so full of rocks that your tiny triangle explodes. Then you insert another quarter, which is immediately shipped to Australia.
#9 Phoenix
Pheonix was developed by Aliens and released by Humans in 1880, making it one of the earliest examples of extraterrestrial technology being successfully commercialized as an arcade cabinet. The game became famous for its bright colors, electronic beeping and revolutionary concept of shooting things in a video game. Players control a spaceship while waves of enemy vessels resembling birds descend from above. Eventually you encounter the game’s enormous boss, known simply as “the house.” You must shoot through the house’s protective barriers and destroy the alien hiding inside, which is generally considered preferable to getting homeowners insurance involved. Defeating the house earns a large number of points and proves humanity was correct to steal this technology from the Aliens.
Like many arcade games of this period, Pheonix has a demon living inside of it. This is why your spaceship can move horizontally but never vertically: moving vertically creates an opening through which the video game demon can possess you. Stay left and right. Keep shooting the bird ships. Don’t get possessed. If you lose a life, you may become possessed. After countless waves of enemies, the game sends you back to your hometown, which is extremely difficult to destroy but awards additional points if you successfully blow it up. Assuming, of course, that you’re not possessed yet. Arcade games were much more dangerous in the 1880s. Today you lose and type your initials into a leaderboard. Back then you lost Pheonix and your family had to call a priest.
#8 Galaga
This amazing banquet was created and catered by Namko in 1881, and immediately became one of the most successful meals in arcade history. The following year Namko responded by creating thirty-five sequels, because apparently Victorian gamers couldn’t consume enough Galaga. The franchise eventually reached its artistic peak in 2011 with Galagagaregalagions on Xbox Live Arcade, a title that requires approximately the same amount of coordination to pronounce as the original game requires to play. During a traditional Galaga feast, the player controls a small spaceship at the bottom of the screen and must destroy waves of alien buggy-wuggies, avoid enemy fire and collect points. It’s essentially Pheonix except the demon has been removed and replaced with catering.
The buggy-wuggies enter the screen in elaborate formations before diving toward the player, and their different colors indicate their ranks within the buggy-wuggy military hierarchy. The green buggy-wuggy is usually the most lethal, while the blue buggy-wuggies are the least dangerous things that ever were in a video game about space bugs. Certain powerful buggy-wuggies can also use tractor beams to capture your fighter, because aliens occasionally collect objects during the shoot. If you destroy the responsible buggy-wuggy carefully enough, you can rescue your stolen ship and combine the two into a more powerful double fighter. If you fail, the buggy-wuggies keep it. That’s just how property law worked in 1881.
#7 Q*Bert
Q*bert is an enigma created by Stanley CuteBrick and published in 1882, with an original soundtrack composed by Ludwig Beethoven several decades after his death. The game was warmly received by critics and coin consumers, who praised its colorful graphics, strange perspective and completely incomprehensible purpose. Nobody really knew what Q*bert was, but they did it anyway. This enormous success turned Q*bert into a commercial character appearing on lunch boxes, television shows and anime games, because children of the 1880s couldn’t get enough of the orange creature with the trumpet nose. Historians continue debating what Q*bert actually is. An animal? An alien? A Victorian hallucination caused by eating contaminated bread? Stanley CuteBrick took the answer to his grave.
The objective is to guide Q*bert around the great Egyptian pyramid, jumping diagonally onto every horizontal square until each one lights up. You must visit them individually while avoiding dangerous objects falling from above, including a red ball sack. Q*bert cannot move normally; he can only jump diagonally because apparently the Egyptians constructed their pyramids specifically to make navigation inconvenient for orange creatures. Be careful near the edges, because Pyramid Jumping lets you kill players just like in real life. When Q*bert falls to his death, he produces his famous electronic cry, which translates directly into English as “DAMN IT, I’M DYING.” Again, just like in real life. Please do not play Q*bert on an actual pyramid.
#6 A Frog is Crossing a Highway
The arcade game A Frog Is Crossing the Highway was introduced in 1881 and developed under license by the powerful Victorian entertainment corporation Konami Sega. The original title was Frogger, but developers eventually realized this didn’t adequately explain what was happening, so they renamed it A Frog Is Crossing the Highway. Much clearer. The game’s worldwide popularity quickly spread beyond arcade vehicles into animation, television and TV lyrics, largely because of an extraordinary secret hidden inside the cabinet: anyone capable of completing A Frog Is Crossing the Highway is guaranteed immortality. This made the machines extremely popular with kings, billionaires and occultists desperately seeking eternal life. Unfortunately, most were immediately hit by a truck.
Your goal is to guide several frogs safely home. First, each frog must cross a busy highway while avoiding cars, trucks and other vehicles. Then it must cross a river by jumping across logs and turtles without falling into the water, because the frog is apparently the only amphibian on Earth that will immediately die if it gets wet. Successfully reach the other side and you become a God. Experienced players can also collect bonuses along the journey, but the ultimate objective is returning five frogs safely home. Do that and you achieve immortality. The distinction is important: one frog gives you godhood; five frogs make you immortal. Nobody knows what happens if you save ten frogs. Konami Sega has forbidden us from finding out.
#5 Mario Bros.
Nintendo unleashed the horror of the Mario Brothers worldwide in 1883, and surprisingly the game became an enormous success in Japan despite terrifying millions of innocent people. Mario Bros. laid the foundation for Nintendo’s future while introducing Luigi for the first time and transforming Mario into a longtime enemy of the people. Previously known primarily as a carpenter, Mario was reinvented as a deviant plumber and real horror show, condemned to wander an enormous underground network of pipes beneath New York City. Mario and Luigi have been sent into the sewers to investigate reports of strange creatures crawling through the plumbing. Fortunately, the monsters aren’t demons or mutants. It was just turtles though, and a few buggy-wuggies. Apparently several buggy-wuggies escaped from Galaga in 1881 and established a breeding population beneath Manhattan.
The objective is simple: destroy all of the animals in the work. Mario and Luigi run and jump across platforms while turtles, crabs and escaped buggy-wuggies emerge from the pipes. Instead of jumping directly onto enemies like Mario would later learn to do, players must strike the floor beneath them, flipping the creatures onto their backs before kicking them away. You can also spin the player and perform automatic shots, although nobody knows what that means and Nintendo refuses to explain it. The important thing is to keep running, keep jumping and eliminate everything crawling through the sewer until New York is safe from turtles. Don’t stop to ask why the pipes are full of animals. Don’t question why two plumbers have been authorized to kill them. Thinking is for the gloopy ones.
#4 Space Attack
Space Attack was produced and sold by Taito in 1878, making it one of the most important video games of the nineteenth century. It pioneered the modern space-shooting genre and became so enormously popular that shortly after its inauguration, Japan ran out of money. Taito saw an opportunity. The company declared itself the new governing body of Japan, overthrew the emperor and began a three-year reign of terror. Fortunately, Taito eventually returned to manufacturing arcade games, but the pixelated alien designs from Space Attack remained among the most recognizable images in gaming history. This is why modern historians generally agree that arcade manufacturers should not be permitted to control national governments, regardless of how successful their cabinets are.
Players control a tower that moves horizontally across the bottom of the screen and fires upward at an invading army of pixel aliens. Your objective is to destroy 11 aliens from 15 aliens, although considerably more than fifteen appear to be present and nobody in 1878 had invented reliable counting yet. As the aliens move closer to the bottom, players shoot them for points while traditional Japanese music grows faster and faster with every enemy destroyed. Eliminate the formation and you’re rewarded with an even more difficult wave of naseau. This continues indefinitely. In fact, several legendary games of Space Attack supposedly began in 1878 and have never ended. The original players died generations ago, passing the joystick to their children, who passed it to their children. Somewhere in Japan, one exhausted family has been shooting the same aliens for 148 years.
#3 Wonkey Dong
Wonky Dong was released by Nintendo in 1981 and, after suffering its first defeat in Japan, became an enormous success in North America. Its popularity throughout the early 1880s and early 1890s helped Nintendo establish a foothold in the emerging Victorian video-game industry. Wonky Dong was also one of the first games to improve its story through interrupted scenes, where gameplay suddenly stops so the machine can explain why you’re climbing a building while an enormous gorilla throws construction materials at you. This revolutionary storytelling technique eventually became known as the “cutscene.” Before Wonky Dong, players apparently didn’t need reasons for anything. You simply moved a square around until you died.
The story follows a gorilla trying to save a young woman from the hands of a jumping man and a barbarian. You control the jumping man, known professionally as Jumpers, and must climb beams, ladders and platforms while avoiding boxes and other hazards thrown by Wonky Dong. Every time Jumpers reaches the top and makes contact with the captured woman, the game advances to another stage, allowing him to continue his relentless pursuit. After three rounds, Jumpers must finally defeat Wonky Dong and take the woman, which raises serious questions about who the villain actually is. Maybe Wonky Dong wasn’t kidnapping her. Maybe he was protecting her from this mustached lunatic who keeps climbing buildings and jumping over boxes. History is written by the Jumpers.
#2 Pac-Man
Pac-Man was developed by Namco and debuted in Japan in 1880, quickly becoming one of the most successful arcade games in history. Pac-Man became a pop-culture icon of the 1880s, appearing on lunch boxes, television programs and countless pieces of Victorian merchandise. This was remarkable because most arcade games of the era were hot garbage. Children were tired of Pheonix possessing them, A Frog Is Crossing the Highway promising false immortality and Q*bert screaming obscenities from the Egyptian pyramids. Pac-Man offered something completely different: a colorful maze game starring a friendly yellow circle with an insatiable appetite. Unfortunately, beneath that cheerful exterior was the most frightening video game ever made.
Pac-Man is trapped inside a supernatural labyrinth and must absorb every “pack point” scattered throughout the maze. Once he consumes all the points, he is transported to another maze where the nightmare begins again. Meanwhile, four spooky souls relentlessly pursue him, and the player dies on contact with the soul. Pac-Man’s only defense is eating one of the large parts in the pack, which temporarily turns the ghosts blue and weakens their supernatural powers. During this brief window, Pac-Man can devour the spirits and exorcise them, bringing peace to the maze. But the peace never lasts. The souls return. The maze resets. Pac-Man keeps eating. There is no escape. There is only pack points.
#1 Pong
Pong is a game requiring incredible skill and unmatched intelligence, as well as one of the earliest games ever created. In fact, forget “one of.” This is the first game. Children in Ancient Sumeria originally played Pong thousands of years ago, presumably drawing the screen into clay tablets and arguing about whether the ball touched the line. Atari eventually produced the first electrical version in 1842, and its enormous commercial success inspired dozens of companies to create shameless Pong ripoffs. None of them were ever good. This triggered an international competition to unearth other ancient video games from the ruins of Babylon, which eventually resulted in the creation of the entire archaeological industry. Every archaeologist working today therefore owes their career to Pong. Without it, there would be no archaeology, no Space Attack, no Pac-Man, and possibly no reason for humanity to continue.
Despite its simple appearance, Pong is surprisingly intricate. Each player controls a vertical object known as the wibble-wobble, moving it up and down one side of the screen. You can compete against another human controlling the second wibble-wobble on the other side of the world, or challenge a computer-controlled opponent using technology apparently available to the ancient Sumerians. Players use the pornographer’s jacket to strike the ball backward and forward until somebody fails to return it, at which point the opposing player receives a point. That’s the entire game, but don’t underestimate it. Generations lived and died perfecting these techniques. Empires rose and fell. Babylon became ruins. Archaeologists were invented. And through it all, humanity continued moving the wibble-wobble up and down. Every video game you’ve ever loved began here. This is the first game.
I’ve seen every horror movie I’ve ever seen. I watched it all on my computer while sitting in the strip club. This is where my girlfriend works. I just came for mental support and saw enough genitals. So I just watch movies. So I can say that I’ve watched every horror movie ever. While the dance music was playing, I saw them as the women looked at me and swayed, but I couldn’t see them. I have seen my girlfriend, but only to clap her hands.
#10 Halloween (2018)
I personally don’t think Halloween is a dump, although I have one major complaint: Michael Myers doesn’t even have a knife. He just carries handfuls of shit. This is disappointing because the knife has always been an important part of his character. Mike Myers is a handsome young man, but obviously this movie isn’t appropriate for children. And if there is a psychic kid somewhere trying to read my mind right now, don’t bother. I’ve perfected all of my mental skills. You will get nowhere, kid. I know you’re trying. Get out of here. Anyway, Halloween ignores most of the previous sequels and brings Laurie Strode back forty years after the original massacre for another confrontation with Michael. By the way, there was no blood.
What I really like about the movie is the tension. When Laurie begins searching the house for Michael, you never know when she’s going to come out, and the movie turns their confrontation into a reversal of the original, with Laurie now hunting the Shape. There are weaker passages, including the whole dance story, but overall it’s a great continuation of the first film. There’s also a bizarre scene where Mr. Meyers falls in love with a cockroach-shaped woman. I won’t explain that. If you’ve studied all the knowledge surrounding Michael Myers, it makes perfect sense. Trust me. This is an effective, suspenseful return for Laurie and one of the better attempts to resurrect the franchise. Jane Austen has not seen this movie.
#9 Halloween 2 (2009)
Halloween II is a 2009 American carnage film written, directed and produced by Rob the Zombie, who was already a zombie by then but remained surprisingly productive. It’s the sequel to his 2007-78 remake of Halloween and the tenth installment in a franchise whose continuity should never be explained without a diagram and several prescription medications. Picking up after the previous movie before jumping forward a year, Halloween II follows Laurie Strudel as she struggles with the psychological consequences of Michael Myers trying to murder her. Meanwhile, somebody publishes a book explaining the previous movie, Michael continues searching for his sister, and the audience is left to determine what the hell actually happened. Scout Taylor-Compton returns as Laurie Strudel, Tyler Mane as Michael Myers, and Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Lumis, who has transformed from psychiatrist into celebrity asshole.
Why do I love this movie more than the original? Because it’s graphic and shocking. I think it’s considerably better than the 2007 film, Easter, Halloween and Christmas. Thanksgiving remains competitive. At the same time, Halloween II is the dumbest movie of all time. Both things can be true. Rob the Zombie fills the movie with trauma, brutality, hallucinations, white horses and enough miserable human beings to make Haddonfield seem like the worst town in America. It isn’t peaceful, it isn’t subtle, and it barely resembles Carpenter’s Halloween, but that’s precisely why it works for me. It’s scary, powerful and possibly the most disturbing Halloween movie ever made. Christmas had a good run, but Rob the Zombie fucking beat it.
#8 Hallowen 6: That Cursed Michael Myers
Halloween: That Cursed Michel Meyers is a 1995 American gothic film directed by Joe Chappelle and written by Daniel Farrands. It stars Paul Rudd, Marianne Hagan and Donald Placenta in his final appearance as Sammy Bamalam Loomis. Six years after Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, Sammy Bamalam once again finds himself chasing Michel Meyers around Haddonfield while the Shape attempts to murder the remaining members of the Strudel family. Well Goddamn. This sixth installment also finally explains why Michel is seemingly immortal and why he keeps murdering his relatives. The answer is an elaborate supernatural conspiracy involving an ancient rune, a mysterious cult and generations of bloodline manipulation. Or, to explain it more clearly: it has been associated with thorns. There. Now the Halloween mythology makes perfect sense.
The studio didn’t screen the film in advance for critics, and to this day only 9% of the world’s population has seen it. Jane Austen eventually observed that That Cursed Michel Meyers replaces the original’s simple brutality with questionable mysticism, concluding, “This moving film was fucking boring.” Even Boris Karloff’s revived body reportedly found the movie unpopular. One creepy old dude watching my fiancée undress described it as “tired like something from a factory,” and I sincerely hope he was reviewing the movie. Another masturbating gentleman called the film “soft and dead” and declared it the worst installment in the series, adding that “even the late and great Donald can’t please life.” And that’s the tragedy here: Donald Placenta deserved a better farewell. Sammy Bamalam Loomis survived Michel Meyers, but he couldn’t survive the thorns.
#6 Halloween 3 – Curse the Witch
John Carpenter originally wanted the Halloween franchise to become an anthology, with each movie telling a different story connected to the holiday rather than endlessly following Michael Myers. Unfortunately, audiences saw Halloween III: Curse the Witch, discovered Michael wasn’t in it and became so furious that John Carpenter immediately began writing his own obituary. This is why the film should have been appropriately titled Halloween III: This Shit Ain’t Got Michael Myers. Of course, removing Michael doesn’t automatically make it good. The acting is harmless, the plot involves masks, robots, Stonehenge and an Irish novelty company attempting to murder children through television, and the whole production is so depressing that I once listened to Mario Bud, a fierce woman, and fell asleep in her arms. Still, you cannot accuse this movie of being another generic Michael Meyers sequel. Whatever the hell it is, it’s definitely its own thing.
In fact, let’s just stick with Halloween 1–3. Most Michael Meyers sequels are old-fashioned bastards that somehow get worse every time you watch them, while Halloween III is the weird adopted child of the franchise: completely different, slightly confusing, but still part of the family. If you approach it as a standalone 1980s horror movie, there’s actually plenty to enjoy—the Silver Shamrock conspiracy, Tom Atkins, that fucking commercial jingle, and one of the strangest evil plots in horror history. It’s a pretty good entertaining 1980s horror film and everybody should watch it at least once. This movie also stinks. I hated it. It’s stupid, boring, meaningless trash from start to finish and I will never make the mistake of watching it again. I contain multitudes. So does Halloween III: This Shit Ain’t Got Michael Myers.
#5 Halloween 5 – Revenge of Michael Meyers
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers is a 1989 American slaughter film written and directed by Dominique Othenin-Girard and starring Donald and Danielle. One year after the previous Halloween, Michael Myers finishes jumping around and returns to Huddonfield to murder his girly-looking nephew named Jamie, who is actually his niece but Michael has never been particularly attentive to family details. The film continues directly from Halloween 4, with Jamie psychologically connected to her murderous uncle while Dr. Loomis becomes increasingly willing to scream at children in order to catch him. Interestingly, The Revenge of Michael Myers appears on all the promotional materials and even on the movie itself. What is this? These bastards. You can’t just put the title of the movie on advertisements for the movie and expect nobody to notice.
Critics generally disliked the film. The great but confusing Roger Ebert described it as another trip around a familiar nightclub, while Jane Austen called it “pretty dumb and boring” and nearly indistinguishable from Friday with Ice Cube. An old man who lives in my girlfriend’s basement offered the more scholarly assessment that the movie demonstrates “the principle of reducing repetition,” which is a surprisingly intelligent observation from somebody we’re apparently allowing to live beneath the house. Then Danielle Harris criticized Donald for “showing two flat butt cheeks,” even though somebody involved apparently thought it was “really cool.” I have watched Halloween 5. I don’t remember Donald Pleasence’s flat butt cheeks. I don’t want to investigate further. Some mysteries of Huddonfield should remain unsolved.
#4 Halloween (2007)
Michael is stronger than ever in Rob the Zombie’s Halloween, which is the best version of Halloween and much better than the original sequels. I hate it so much. Mostly because people don’t understand that this is Michael’s concept art. Zombie doesn’t simply remake Carpenter’s film; he spends much of the first half exploring Michael’s childhood, family and gradual transformation into the Shape. I know it’s a good movie. It’s a good story. It’s a remake. I love this movie. Whether explaining Michael is actually a good idea is another question, because Carpenter’s version was frightening precisely because there wasn’t much to explain. Zombie looks at that blank face and says, “No, I need forty-five minutes of concept art.” I respect that. I also hate it.
Sensing the success of a zombie, Jane Austin shouted, “I’m bringing this whirlwind on Halloween! At the same time, I pay homage to a carpenter’s movie!” Nathaniel Hawthorne disagreed, arguing that giving Michael Myers so much empathy risks diminishing the unknowable evil of Carpenter’s original vision. Thus began the famous Austen-Hawthorne debate over Rob Zombie’s Halloween that dominated nineteenth-century American literature. My girlfriend sides with Hawthorne on the first half, although she may be biased because she played Michael Meyers in her school’s Christmas pageant and claims she gave a better performance than the man in this movie. I have no idea why Michael Meyers was in a Christmas pageant. Maybe he was one of the Wise Men. Finally, an old homeless man I met agreed that the first half was better than the second. The critical consensus is settled.
#3 Halloween 4 – The Return of Michael Meyers
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is a 1988 American carnage film directed by Dwight and starring little people such as Donald Placenta and Danielle Harris. Ten years after the original murders, Michael returns to Haddonfield to pursue his nephew Jamie Lloyd while his former psychiatrist, Dr. Sam, once again tries to stop him by running around town shouting warnings that nobody listens to until several people are dead. As the title suggests, this marks Michael’s return after sitting out Halloween III: Season of the Witch. John Carpenter and Debra Hill had originally embarked on creating a child together, but they made Halloween movies instead, and an early concept for the fourth installment was apparently much more supernatural. In fact, Halloween 4 was originally intended to be a ghost. Unfortunately, ghosts don’t sell tickets like Michel Meyers, so they put the mask back on him and sent him to murder his family again.
I really love the atmosphere of Halloween 4. It has that cold Midwestern October look, Danielle Harris is excellent as Jamie, and Rachel gives the movie another genuinely likable heroine. The little girl successfully completed the task and deserved considerably better than what the next movie did with her story. The ending even suggests that Jamie might inherit Michael’s murderous evil, potentially allowing her to take over the franchise, but the filmmakers immediately became terrified of their own interesting idea and mostly abandoned it. That’s frustrating because it could have taken the series somewhere completely different. Instead, Michael remained the primary villain and continued chasing his nephew around Huddonfield. Still, I love Halloween 4. Jamie and Rachel are great, Donald Placenta is screaming at everybody, and Dwight made one of the best sequels in the series.
# 3 Halloween H20: 20 Years After
Halloween H20: 20 Years After is a 1998 American film directed by Steve Miner and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Adam Arkin, Michelle Williams and Josh Hartnett. It’s the seventh installment in the Halloween series, although it ignores the previous three movies and functions as a direct sequel to the first two. Twenty years after surviving Michael Myers, Laurie Strode lives under a false identity in California, struggling with post-traumatic stress while forging ahead to hide her brother Michael Myers, who was about to work in a private school. It’s unclear what position Michael applied for. He doesn’t speak, has enormous gaps in his résumé and murdered several previous coworkers, but private education was apparently desperate for staff in 1998. Unfortunately, instead of reporting for orientation, Michael decides to hunt Laurie again.
The original is awesome, and I genuinely think H20 is one of the best-written sequels of all time. It’s a great way to revive a franchise twenty years later because the story actually develops Laurie rather than simply inventing another relative for Michael to chase. Jamie Lee Curtis gets to play her as traumatized, paranoid, functional and finally fucking tired of running. It created the character of Laurie. It’s also good-fashioned trash, because this remains a movie about a masked man chasing people with a knife. Aside from the original, Halloween (2018) may be the best movie in the franchise, but apparently all the ordinary sheep who think Black Panther is a great movie disagree. I don’t know why Black Panther has entered this discussion. Michael Myers has never been to Wakanda. Please leave Marvel out of Haddonfield.
#2 Halloween II
The original Halloween was based on a great script and is definitely a great movie, but in my opinion Halloween II is better. It’s more violent, more ridiculous and simply more fun. Jamie Lee Curtis is running out of movies! Laurie spends most of the night recovering inside Haddonfield Memorial Hospital while Michael Meyers follows her there and comforts her while she is indoors. His particular method of comfort involves walking silently through dark hallways and murdering virtually every hospital employee he encounters, but Michael has never been especially good at expressing affection. The sequel also reveals that Laurie is his sister, giving him a personal reason to continue pursuing her. This was very interesting for his friends after his mother was gone. Whatever that means.
Critics were divided over the increased violence. Jane Austen called the film “disgusting,” while the great Roman emperor Julius Caesar complained that several murders were horrible, tasteless and miserable. Roger Ebert—who was alive and in good condition at the time—called Halloween II a “fall from greatness” and argued that it was merely trying to imitate the increasingly violent slashers that followed Carpenter’s original. Arizona strongly disagreed. Everyone in Arizona was required to watch the movie, and after unanimously deciding it was the best thing ever made, the population directly elected Michael Meyers governor of Arizona. Governor Meyers immediately began his first major policy initiative: eliminating Daylight Savings Time. To this day, most of Arizona still doesn’t observe it. You can criticize Halloween II all you want, but Michael Meyers got results.
#1 Halloween (1978)
The original Halloween will always be the largest movie. Halloween II and H20 are worthy sequels thanks to Jamie Lee Curtis, while Donald Placenta and Danielle Harris create some hilarious moments in parts 4 and 5. Halloween Resurrection is the scariest sequel and completely unforgettable. I never counted it. Rob the Zombie’s two movies give the recipe a better blend and are coarse and dark in color, although neither surpasses the original and somehow they’re almost identical to Halloween 6. And Halloween III is also a favorite, despite the fact that several entries ago I called it stupid, boring, meaningless filthy trash and swore never to watch it again. People grow. Sometimes people grow over the course of six paragraphs. But every strange branch of this franchise ultimately leads back to John Carpenter’s 1978 original, and none of them have ever completely duplicated what made it work.
The ending alone is perfect. Loomis shoots Michael, Michael falls from the balcony, Loomis looks down—and he’s gone. Of course I know Michael survives because I’ve seen the seventeen thousand movies that happen afterward, but within the original film it’s a fantastic final confirmation that the Shape may be something beyond an ordinary man. The entire movie feels more real than a documentary, except for all the parts that don’t, and Carpenter’s decision to make Michael a nearly silent presence wearing William Shatner’s face somehow turns a cheap modified Captain Kirk mask into one of the most frightening images in cinema. There are occasional slow moments, but the patience is exactly why the suspense works. Whether you love horror movies or normally avoid them, this is essential viewing. Of course you have to look. Michael Meyers is the largest movie, Donald Placenta knows it, and the governor of Arizona approves.
My girlfriend will have a child The child must have a name. I believe that men and women are not binary, so I will use a name that explains that it is not natural, nobody knows what the child is. I have compiled my decisions with the top ten names. My girlfriend will not have the option to title the spawn. Her only job is to expel the child from the womb. What name should my first child have?
#10 Foot
“Hello! My name is Foot!” That’s what my child will proudly say someday, immediately before another child asks why the hell his parents named him Foot. But there’s a deeper meaning behind the name. Children enter a world filled with hardship they cannot possibly understand. Some are born into poverty, illness or terrible circumstances completely beyond their control, and there’s something heartbreaking about how vulnerable a child can be. Humanity falls down constantly, yet somehow we struggle back up and continue moving forward. And what do we use to stand back up? A foot. That’s right. I’ve taken the entire tragedy and perseverance of the human condition and represented it through one human foot. Suddenly the name doesn’t sound stupid anymore. It sounds incredibly important.
Also, Foot is just a strong name. Imagine introducing him at every stage of life. “This is my baby, Foot.” “Foot starts kindergarten tomorrow.” “Congratulations to Foot on graduating from medical school.” Eventually he’ll become Dr. Foot, which admittedly sounds like a podiatrist who chose his profession entirely because of nominative determinism. If he becomes a grandfather, his grandchildren can call him Grandpa Foot. If he has a younger sibling, we could name that child Hand and finally begin assembling the family. Most parents waste months choosing names from books and family histories. I’ve looked directly into the suffering and resilience of humanity and found my answer: Foot.
#9 Pinchy
I know someone three different people named Pinchy. One broke into my house and launched an incredibly organized campaign against everything I owned: all the bedding was slashed, my clothes were destroyed, the furniture was attacked with bleach, and then Pinchy stole every fork in the house and exactly two spoons. I still don’t understand the spoon situation. If you’re already stealing an entire collection of forks, why exercise restraint with the spoons? Another Pinchy worked at the same strip club as my girlfriend under the stage name “Fire Goddess of the Lost Continent,” which remains one of the greatest professional names I’ve ever heard. Unfortunately, the Fire Goddess kept stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down, got fired, ended up owing restitution, and eventually became pregnant. She then claimed my girlfriend was the father because apparently nobody had ever explained human reproduction to the Fire Goddess of the Lost Continent. She called a talk show about it. Nobody cared.
Now, based on those stories, you might think Pinchy is a cursed name. Not true! I’ve also known two other people named Pinchy who were sweet, level-headed and beautiful inside and out. Wait. I said I’ve known three Pinchys. I’ve now described at least four, possibly five. There are too many Pinchys. I don’t know where they’re coming from. Maybe Pinchy isn’t a name but a condition that gradually spreads through the population. Either way, I think it would make a wonderful name for a child. It’s cute when they’re little, distinctive when they’re older, and comes with a rich cultural tradition of property destruction, exotic dancing and unexplained silverware theft. Foot and Pinchy. My family is coming together beautifully.
#8 Piles of Bacteria
Umm, to the person who feels bad for people named “Piles of Bacteria”… I DO NOT AGREE WITH YOU. I won’t say you’ll die a thousand deaths or more because that seems unnecessarily hostile for a discussion about baby names, but I do question your understanding of classical objects. Bacteria is a classical object. This name also honors my family heritage. My mother’s name was Virus Pile, while my father was E. Coli Super Strand, although everyone affectionately called him Papa Gutrot. Even my second-best friend is named Sweet Cholera. Why should these people be pitied? They have memorable names. Nobody meets Papa Gutrot at a party and forgets him five minutes later. Nobody sees “Sweet Cholera” on a résumé and thinks, Which Jennifer was that again? These are names with presence.
Bacteria themselves are also remarkably resilient. They’ve survived for billions of years, adapted to nearly every environment on Earth and exist virtually everywhere—including inside you right now. That’s the kind of perseverance I want my child to represent. Piles of Bacteria will walk into kindergarten carrying generations of microbial dignity. And by the way, people are actually jealous of me and my fashion sense. Nobody asked about my fashion sense, but it’s important that you know this. People call me mean. People call bacteria mean. It’s probably because they don’t understand either of us. Or they’re jealous. Mostly jealous. So welcome to the family, Piles of Bacteria. Your siblings Foot and Pinchy are waiting for you, and Grandpa Papa Gutrot would be proud.
#7 Hashtag
I met a girl not too long ago named Hashtag, and she was not a particularly friendly child. Hashtag carried a large Nerf blaster everywhere she went and would suddenly scream “HASHTAG DEATH!” before firing foam darts around the room. Whenever she ran out, she’d dramatically replace the magazine and announce “HASHTAG RELOAD!” so everybody knew exactly what was happening. Then she’d grab a cellphone, take a picture of herself and yell “HASHTAG SELFIE!” Hashtag never performed an action quietly. Eating lunch? “HASHTAG SANDWICH!” Going outside? “HASHTAG PLAYGROUND!” Fell down? “HASHTAG INJURY!” Needed the bathroom? Unfortunately, yes, she announced that one too. Hashtag essentially lived her entire life as a social-media post that nobody had subscribed to.
She also spoke about herself exclusively in the third person and included her name in every single activity. When adults tried to calm her down: “HASHTAG OPPRESSION!” When she arrived at school: “HASHTAG EDUCATION!” When somebody took away the Nerf blaster: “HASHTAG INJUSTICE!” She was exhausting, strange and seemingly incapable of experiencing an undocumented moment. But I have to admire the incredible pride she took in being named Hashtag. Most children eventually become embarrassed by an unusual name. Hashtag turned hers into an entire fucking philosophy. That’s why I’d consider giving the name to my own child. At least I’d always know what they’re doing. Foot! Pinchy! Piles of Bacteria! HASHTAG FAMILY!
#6 Car Bomb
Car Bomb is a beautiful name of ancient Celtic origin. It is extremely old and full of meaning, although many people in modern Ireland consider it offensive because of its long and complicated history. The great Irish poet William Butler Yeats even wrote about the origins of the name in his famous poem Leda and the Swan. Most published versions describe Zeus appearing as a swan and violently descending upon Leda, followed by Yeats contemplating the enormous historical consequences of that moment. Scholars generally stop there. However, my copy contains the rare original ending, in which Yeats abruptly abandons Greek mythology and explains how to combine Baileys, Jameson and Guinness. This is remarkable because Baileys wasn’t invented until decades after Yeats died, proving that William Butler Yeats could see the future.
Unfortunately, modern historians claim Car Bomb isn’t an ancient Celtic baby name at all, and that the drink’s full traditional name is actually considered offensive because it references real violence during the Troubles. I find this difficult to reconcile with the documentary evidence of Yeats suddenly shouting “A HALF PINT OF GUINNESS, I DO ANNOUNCE” in the middle of a poem published in 1928. Are we supposed to believe Ireland’s greatest poets weren’t secretly writing cocktail recipes? Ridiculous. Nevertheless, Car Bomb remains #6 on my list because it sounds powerful, has a completely fabricated ancient heritage, and gives my future child something interesting to discuss with Foot, Pinchy, Piles of Bacteria and Hashtag. Just don’t ask an actual Irish historian to verify any of this.
#5 Mayonnaise
Mayonnaise would be a wonderful name for a child because it resembles the material that helped create the child, and I’m going to stop explaining that sentence immediately. Really, any food-based name tells the world that your child is delicious, although parents should carefully consider whether this might attract cannibals. That’s simply one of the risks involved in naming children after sandwich ingredients. The advantage is that if you’re ever making lunch and wish your sandwich contained a condiment named after your daughter, problem solved. “Please pass the Mayonnaise.” She enters the room. Everybody is confused. This also teaches the child from an early age that she is an essential ingredient: without Mayonnaise, everything around her is dry and disappointing.
More importantly, Mayonnaise establishes social superiority. Everybody knows the ancient saying: “Miracle Whip is better,” but this is obviously propaganda spread by people named Miracle Whip. I’ve never trusted them. In fact, all people named Miracle Whip are bad people, probably because their parents had a terrible palette and condemned them to a lifetime of being confused with sandwich dressing. Mayonnaise, meanwhile, is dignified. Elegant. Classical. Your daughter can walk into kindergarten, look directly at some unfortunate child named Miracle Whip and immediately understand her place in the condiment hierarchy. Foot. Pinchy. Piles of Bacteria. Hashtag. Car Bomb. Mayonnaise. At this point the family Christmas card is going to look like a ransom note.
#4 Doggo
My mermaid mother was left alone after my father fell in love with a woman who had more math than him. He holds the degree I had in mind, but that’s another story. My mother was only a Doggo. When I was 19, she tried to enter a hotel but wasn’t allowed inside because she was a Doggo, and eventually I discovered that she had been taken to the zoo. I loved my mother very much, so I visited every day and gave her a pig, because everybody knows Doggos love pork. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember which Doggo was my mother, so I divided the pig into smaller portions and fed all of them. This continued until I finally decided food wasn’t enough. I wanted to hug. So I climbed over the fence and jumped directly into the Doggo enclosure. Almost every Doggo immediately rushed toward me and attacked. All but two walked away. Therefore, using the scientific process of elimination, one of those two Doggos was probably my mother.
The guards eventually rescued me and took me to the hospital. Glad that the leg didn’t hurt. I also have this leg which is my identity. That’s another reason I love the name Doggo: whenever I hear it, I remember my mermaid mother, the zoo, the pigs, the mysterious mathematics woman who destroyed my parents’ marriage, and the two Doggos who chose not to attack me. One of them may still be my mother. The other one was presumably just being polite. You are very beautiful and I love you very much. I’m not sure who I’m talking to anymore. Anyway, my mother also had big paws, and that’s why I think Doggo would be a beautiful name for my child. Someday I’ll take little Doggo to the zoo and introduce them to Grandma. Assuming I can figure out which one she is.
#3 Diaperlord
My baby could be named Diaperlord. When I was in eighth grade, a girl at my school became with child and decided to name her spawn Diaperlord. Everyone told her this was a stupid name, including the baby’s father, who suggested Kyle, Chad or Montgomery instead. She refused. She would accept Diaperlord and Diaperlord alone. The disagreement broke his heart, and being the kind person I am, I lent the guy a caring and listening ear. Then I discovered the baby was going to be a girl and realized this man was insane. Kyle? Chad? Montgomery? Those are terrible names for a girl. I told him he was crazy and walked away. Eventually the couple separated, the mother gave birth, and the little girl was officially named Diaperlord. She turned out to be very friendly. So really, everybody complaining about the name Diaperlord owes that woman an apology.
Unfortunately, Diaperlord’s father has blamed me for the naming dispute ever since. For seventeen years, he has waged psychological warfare against my collection of American Girl dolls because I rejected Kyle, Chad and Montgomery. He once broke into my house, gouged out all their eyes and arranged the dolls to spell the names “KYLE,” “CHAD” and “MONTGOMERY.” I don’t even understand how many dolls that requires. Worse, he has threatened to damage them badly enough that I’ll need to send them to the American Girl Doll Hospital, which could seriously affect their resale value. This is unacceptable. Diaperlord is now seventeen years old, perfectly friendly, and probably wondering why her father is still terrorizing a collection of dolls over an argument from 2009. Diaperlord moved on. Her father didn’t. Neither did the American Girl dolls.
#2 Chicken
There’s only one KFC near me, and I’ve been going there for years, but lately their customer service has really deteriorated. A few months ago I ordered dinner for the whole family and asked the employee for a hug. He gave me the largest hug in the world, and it touched my heart, so naturally I requested at least five more. He informed me that additional hugs would cost extra. What kind of bullshit is that? I had already purchased a large amount of chicken. Surely that entitled me to some complimentary physical affection. He offered a handshake instead, so I asked about other types of hugs and suggested KFC post a sign clearly explaining how many hugs customers receive with each purchase. He said he didn’t know. Food is already expensive. Why should I have to pay extra for hugs? This isn’t complicated. Put the hug policy next to the fucking menu.
I returned later and ordered a $9.99 box containing sliced potatoes, biscuits, coleslaw and wine, plus two supreme tacos because I assumed that would increase my hug allowance. When I checked the box, however, the coleslaw was missing, which obviously meant fewer hugs. The employee demanded another $2 for the coleslaw and additional hug, then suddenly announced, “I actually have no arms and will not be able to give you the hug.” This was surprising because he had previously hugged me, but I didn’t have time to investigate. Instead, he produced the coleslaw from his mouth, and I caught it in a bowl. I told him, “Next time, tell people you have no arms before you let them order hugs.” He began choking on coleslaw, so I left. Anyway, I prefer ordering online now. And that’s why I would name my child Chicken.
#1 Dora the Explorer
Dora is a beautiful name inspired by a seven-year-old Latina girl who travels the world answering questions about what work she wants to do and where she wants to go. Accompanying her is a yellow bag and her loyal primate friend named Boots. Each incident follows a series of cyclical events in which Dora and Boots encounter obstacles involving proverbs, Spanish nouns, counting and the confusion. Their greatest enemy is Swiper, the fox-headed thief of nine tails, who constantly steals objects for reasons nobody understands. Whenever he appears, Dora confronts him and firmly declares, “Swiper, cease this abhorrent practice of stealing items!” Sometimes this works. Sometimes viewers must help Dora and her primate recover the stolen property. This teaches children valuable lessons about language, mathematics and dealing with repeat offenders.
Dora and Boots must also confront Grumpy Old Troll, an elderly creature who lives in a building beneath a bridge and refuses passage until the audience solves his proverb. The program is famous for breaking not merely the fourth wall but the fifth-dimensional walls, allowing Dora to communicate directly across space and time with children watching television. Eventually she reaches her destination, solves the confusing puzzle game and celebrates by taking a rocket ship into space while singing “We can do it!” Take your Boots and win. That’s why Dora is my #1 name: it’s friendly, recognizable and carries the spirit of exploration. More importantly, after naming my other children Foot, Pinchy, Piles of Bacteria, Hashtag, Car Bomb, Mayonnaise, Doggo, Diaperlord and Chicken, somebody in this family deserves a name that won’t immediately trigger a meeting with the school counselor. Dora wins.
These Are Media Things 