Drew Barrymore:entertaining or annoying?

DREW BARRYMORE

Oh Drew Barrymore, 

As a child I thought you were cool because you got to make movies I liked (FIRESTARTER) , then you had your naughty comeback as a teen (having sex on a car hood with Tom Skerritt in POISON IVY) and then you entered back into Hollywood with your daisy power, big smiles, David Letterman flashing, popularity and from there became a succesfull producer with your own production team, all while maintaining a laid-back, lots-of-giggles attitude. 

While over all you have a less then amazing filmography, it is unique. I did slightly obsess over you in high school and kind of love that you are often riding the line between cute and embarrassing. Plus, for a RomCom girl you have a bit of double chin I appreciate. 

I am going to go ahead and rate all your movies I have seen. I think it will be interesting to see how many are any good. Because regardless I like you somehow. I like your bad fashion moments, or crazy hair moments, or short marriages, you don't fit the mold of leading lady and still make the big bucks.

I am putting these in order of the movies I liked best-worst.  

1. DONNIE DARKO (2001)

Gotta pick this as my favorite movie from this list, sadly, maybe one of the worst acting jobs of her career (or what I have seen of it). I love Jake Gyllenhaal in this movie, and the music is great, and there is something just so cool about this movie despite its many flaws, Barrymore being a big one. To be fair, she helped produce this movie and played a huge part in it getting made and released so for that, I thank her. There is a moment in the movie, during the sisters dance troupe performance, that has several seconds of the most awkward acting I have ever seen. It is a cut to Drew Barrymore standing off stage and looking back and forth with her eyes. Seriously as strange as that sounds, watch for it. Very unfortunate. So, while number one on my list of her movies, not a strong performance by her. 

2. THE WEDDING SINGER (1998)

Also, one of the only Adam Sandler movies that I don't hate, I LOVE this movie. It's one of the best in it's genre and a true classic. It is funny and touching and I usually hate sentimental movies. It is also one of Drew's best characters, and hair-style. She is charming and funny and cute. Big A+ all around. 

3. SCREAM (1996)

Saw this movie in the theater with my girl-friends when I was 15. I loved it, and still do love this movie. Maybe the only successful movie to pull of the horror movie/teen comedy blend, it really is scary and funny and very nostalgic for me. Drew plays the opening girl who gets tormented and stabbed to death and it really is a great opening sequence. I saw this movie at the time I really really liked Drew so I was so freaked out watching her struggle and it affected me when she died. Also great in this movie is Skeet Ulrich being so greasy and gross but I remember thinking he was hot, eww. 

4. E.T (1982)

I don't watch this movie very often, but it is a real classic and very good and Drew is adorable. It is what created the first phase of her crazy career. Not much to say, it's E.T.

5. FIRESTARTER (1984)

This is a super cheesy movie and lots of the acting is weak, but she is a cool kid! She starts fire's with her mind and kills lots of people. Because the government is assholes and killed her parents. I loved this movie when I was a kid and still do.

6. MUSIC AND LYRICS (2007)

One of my top guilty pleasures, I was shocked by how much I enjoyed this movie. Several of my best friends in Olympia used to watch this all the time. My friend Steve once said "the only person as good at playing their go-to character as Drew Barrymore is Hugh Grant." But this movie really is a good RomCom guilty pleasure, and I really like the music for the fictional musicians in it.

7.CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND (2002)

Good movie. I only saw it once when it first came out, so I don't remember it all that well, but I know I liked it. Sam Rockwell  is always great and Clooney is a good director. I think Barrymore was fine, but maybe I thought she was miscast?

8. SEE YOU IN THE MORNING (1989)

A pretty good, little seen movie, starring Jeff Bridges. It is a family drama about a divoreced father and widow, both with two children, who fall in love. Drew is the troubled teenage daughter of the widow and she is pretty decent. This is maybe the last movie she made before going into rehab and writing her memoir. 

9. CHARLIE'S ANGELS (2000)

I liked this movie a lot when it came out. Pretty bad, but also pretty good. Bill Murrey is always entertaining, even when he seems to find the material lame, which I think he does in this movie. Barrymore is the best example of her own contradictions with this character because she rides the line of embarrassing and fun in this movie pretty damn tightly. 

10. POISON IVY (1992)

This is a GREAT bad movie. Barrymore plays the title character (Ivy), who is a troubled but hot teenage girl who befriends a lonely outcast girl (Sara Gilbert from Roseanne!) and as the name suggests, ends up sleeping with the father and murdering the mother. It is 90's sexual thriller at its best/worst. The sex scenes with Skerritt are gross though. 

11. GREY GARDENS (2009)

Of course, this is not nearly as good as the documentary made twenty years earlier, but it is maybe Drew's best performance. This is one of the only times I can say Drew really transforms herself into someone else, and even with an accent she pulls it off. She makes Little Edie sympathetic and likable despite being a complete mess of a person. I suggest seeing the documentary first, then this for a happier ending.

12. GOING THE DISTANCE (2010)
I just watched this RomCom a few nights ago. It wasn't as good as MUSIC AND LYRICS but it did have some really funny parts, as well as some really bad parts. Both Drew and Justin Long are good, have good chemistry and he has one really funny scene in a spray tan booth. At times his character can be a jerk, but in the end I liked where they ended up.

13.  GUNCRAZY (1992)

This movie is decent. Drew plays a poor teenager, obsessed with guns, who is stuck living with an abusive step-father. After he rapes her one day she murders him. She then meets up with her prison pen pal who has been let out early, and they go on a crime spree. Of course, they start off with good intentions but the world is against their type and they end up going out in a blaze of gun fire, much like a modern Bonnie and Clyde. Drew is good in this movie, another sex starlet role, made right after POISON IVY, and her co-star, James LeGros, is a much less creepy sex partner then Mr. Skerritt.


14. EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU (1996)

In this Woody Allen musical Drew is fun, but it is not one of his better films and her singing is only okay. I wouldn't see this movie again, but it is bearable, and we are getting down to where her movies start getting pretty bad. 

15. WAYNE'S WORLD 2 (1993)

Not as good as the first one, it still has funny parts. I haven't seen this since I was 14, so I don't remember it all that well, but I thought Drew was cool at the time. 

16. CHARLIE'S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE (2003)

I saw this movie with a friend in Paris when I was 19 and traveling. It was fun and I enjoyed myself, but the movies pretty bad. While not boring, it is ridiculously over the top.  Bill Murray is gone, replaced by Bernie Mac who I don't like nearly enough, and Diaz is a little desperatley hyper in this one. Drew produced this one as well.

17. NEVER BEEN KISSED (1999)

An alright for its genre movie, I like Drew in this movie, but its way too sweet at the end for me, and I feel like I have never made it all the way through, just catch chunks of it here and there. I know this was one of the first big movies her production company produced, which is cool, but its not a very exciting addition to movies in general. 

18. EVERAFTER (1998)

I would never need to watch this movie again, but its a decent fairy tale story for girls. Pretty much the rest of the movies on this list or awful, so this is the last one I can really give any positive words about. Fairly dull, Drew is Cinderella who gets the guy, and maybe has some girl-positive messages, I think, but saw it a really long time ago. 

19.BOYS ON THE SIDE (1995)
Pretty, pretty, pretty bad movie. The characters are really cliched and it's a tear jerker that more tedious then sad. It as Whoopi Goldberg as a lesbian, Mary Elizabeth Parker dying of AIDS and Drew as the "wild girl" stuck with an abusive boyfriend. Who I think beats several of them up at one point.


20. 50 FIRST DATES (2004)

As I said before, I am generally not an Adam Sandler fan, and this movie is awful. Bad, stupid plot and not very funny jokes. Its all the bad parts of the RomCom genre and the worst parts of Sandlers humor put together.





MAD LOVE (1995)
First off, Chris'o'Donell is one of the lamest actors to have a short, but popular career. I don't like him ever and Drew's character in this is an obnoxious "wild girl" who charms boys by risking their lives all the time I guess.

22. BATMAN FOREVER (1995)
Well, everyone knows this movie is awful. Drew is in it for less then 3 minutes which is lucky for her.

23. BAD GIRLS (1994)

A really awful movie. A group of women start a cowgirl gang in the wild west and fight back against evil cowboy men. If this movie was any good at all I would have enjoyed it just because it is about strong women. But its bad, and all the women stay lame the whole movie. Drew does look cute in the western outfits though, so maybe it should be higher...