Basement Whatever

….and it was super underwhelming. The goal was to watch ten movies that were reminiscent of Unknown Armies, an occult themed role playing game focused on obsession and Jungian archetypes. But the only genuinely excellent movie on the list was Ghost World. That movie is stellar, may be one of my top 30 favorite movies of all time, and made this journey to watch 10 films reminiscent of Unknown Armies worth it. But that was it.

An honorable mention goes to Bubba Ho-Tep, which was weird and unique, and led to an interesting thought: “were the fifties the weirdest time on earth, because technology produced global screen gods?” But Bubba Ho-Tep gave me more of a Savage Worlds vibe and it didn’t move me, nowhere near Ghost World.

The rest of the films were a mish-mash that were sometimes interesting, sometimes boring, mainly produced flat emotional reactions and worst of all, didn’t give me the Unknown Armies vibe I was looking for. Maybe that’s because the source list was huge and I chose the wrong ten movies, or maybe it’s because I’d already seen the good movies from the source list so I didn’t choose them. Either way, Ghost World was the only true standout.

The movies I watched were: Hard Boiled, Bubba Ho-Tep, John Dies at the End, eXistenZ, Barton Fink, To Live and Die in LA, Wild at Heart, Ghost World, The Fisher King, and Stranger than Paradise.