Recent viewings

[claws]

Big Business (1988)

Two sets of twins, all named Rose and Sadie (Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler), are accidentally mixed after birth in a rural hospital. Years later Rose and Sadie (1), running their own company Moramax in New York, are about to put hard working people out of a job from a factory they own in hickstown Jupiter Hollow. Factory workers Rose and Sadie (2) won't have any of that and decide to head to New York to kick some snooty Moramax arse.

Flawless comedy, clever script and hilarious performances by Midler and Tomlin chewing scenery playing four different characters. Most perfect comedy that came out of the '80's. 5/5

[Jack]

All repeat viewings:

Totem (1999) - Full Moon cheapie in which six young people are mysteriously drawn to a cabin out in the woods. Once there they discover a cemetery with a "totem", which is basically just a skinny vertical box with three scary looking puppets in it. There's a bunch of legend mumbo-jumbo about how three of them must kill the other three, which is the beginning of some ceremony by which the little puppets will take over the world    Very cheap even by Full Moon standards, some of the actors aren't bad, while others are. Directing is of the "Let's just get something on film" variety. But I enjoyed it. 3.25/5.

Memorial Day (1999) - a group of young people get together for a weekend of partying at a campsite out in the woods, and also to commemorate the death of the younger brother of one of the girls at a similar get together years earlier. As the movie's theme song says, "You shouldn't have killed that retarded kid...last summer!" So they do some partying and the girl and her boyfriend do some commiserating, and then a mysterious killer shows up and quite thoroughly ruins everybody's weekend. I really liked the characters in this, they remind me of an actual group of friends who would get together to party. They're quite likable and have fun together. Some of the murders are well done, others are pretty stupid. But the film has always been a minor favorite of mine. 3.5/5.

Beneath Still Waters (2005) - 40 years ago in Spain, a town was flooded when they built a dam immediately downstream from it. There were some devil worshipers who were causing some problems, so the townsfolk took the opportunity to chain them up inside a building and that took care of that. Until the present day... An American photojournalist is doing a piece on the underwater town, while strange occurrences start taking place in and around the lake. He teams up with a Spanish reporter to get to the bottom of the mystery. This was fun and crazy, even borderline "scary" at times. Pretty decent plot, good characters; it kept me entertained. 3.75/5.

[Rev. Powell]

"Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" (1975): An emotionless widow does chores around her apartment in real time for three hours; something happens in the last ten minutes. Like Andy Warhol's "Sleep," this deliberate experiment in extended boredom serves a purpose in the film universe; it's just that that purpose isn't to be watched by an audience. The universal praise for this avant-garde prank would make a great case study for "Extraordinary Critical Delusions and the Madness of Crowds." 1.5/5.

[JaseSF]

Smokey and the Bandit II (1980): Rehash of the original Smokey and the Bandit film has the Bandit (Burt Reynolds), Cledus "Snowman" Snow (Jerry Reed) and Carrie (Sally Field) reunite for yet another run this time involving the transport of an elephant from Florida to Texas accepting another bet worth $400,000 from Big (Pat McCormick) and Little Enos (Paul Williams) they can accomplish said task in just 3 days. Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) is also once more firmly on their trail.

While basically the same plot recycled again, this movie is nowhere near the fun the original was. Whereas the ad libbing from Gleason in the original felt refreshing and original, here with a few exceptions here and there just feel like more of the same old, same old. Also with this one, our hero the Bandit has basically turned into a washed up has been desperate to relive past glory hardly making him a sympathetic lead. The addition of Dom DeLuise as a ridiculous stereotypical Italian doctor adds very little here that isn't groan inducing. The best parts of this involve the chases with Gleason's Buford T. Justice and son Junior (Mike Henry) in hot pursuit of the Bandit (especially the amusement park sequence), the rest is well pretty bland and forgettable. The sequence featuring a crazy over the top showdown between truckers and cop cars has some fun moments but is over the top ridiculous too. **1/2 out of ***** stars.

Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983): Big (Pat McCormick) and Little Enos (Paul Williams) bet Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) that he cannot drive from Miami to Texas with the fish logo for their new restaurant on the top of their police car in a short amount of time. If Buford fails, he has to give up his badge. To help ensure this failure, the Burdettes hire Cledus "Snowman" Snow (Jerry Reed) to play the new Bandit hoping to throw Buford off his trail with the possible irresistible capture of the elusive Bandit.

This was painful, tough slugging to get through. Aside from a few brief fun spots involving chases, an early spoof of Patton by Gleason and some brief nudity, there's really nothing to recommend here and I doubt these few moments are worth sitting through the much longer stenchfest of everything else. Reed is unbearably annoying as the new Bandit and as much as he tries to look like Burt Reynolds in this one, it just ain't happening. Colleen Camp plays his all too forgettable sidekick/accomplice Dusty Trails, her only truly memorable moment coming when she bends over. This movie deserves a review here if anyone is brave enough to tackle it. *1/2 out of ***** stars.

[FatFreddysCat]

Got a free rental from RedBox tonight, so I grabbed this... I simply couldn't resist....

"Abraham Lincoln Vs. Zombies" (2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tFaQYSFLuE
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The Asylum's pre-epmptive bite (pun not intended) off of the upcoming "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" takes the Great Emancipator on a secret mission behind Confederate lines during the last days of the Civil War, only to find the enemy's fort overrun with the living dead. Such notable figures as General Stonewall Jackson, John Wilkes Booth, Teddy Roosevelt, and Pat Garrett join Honest Abe in the battle against the zombie uprising. Historically accurate? Of course not. Funny as hell? You betcha.

Yeah, it's ridiculous, but y'know what? As Asylum movies go, this one actually isn't half bad. The dude playing Lincoln resists the urge to go campy and just plays it straight and stoic, and the period details certainly look old-timey enough. This may actually be the Asylum's most accomplished production yet. Of course, that's not saying much... but if you simply can't wait till the "real" Abraham Lincoln horror flick comes out, this is a decent time waster.

[Rev. Powell]

DAISIES (1966): Two living dolls decide the world is spoiled and so they will be too, leading to nonlinear slapstick adventures drinking, feasting and searching for a sugar daddy. Psychedelic, surreal, silly, sexy; so much absurd hedonistic fun that it was banned by the Czech censors. 3.5/5.

[alandhopewell]

     Saw this excellent film last night....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_(film)

     More a mystery with supernatural overtones, RITUAL actually takes the time to build a story, and develop characters, something most horror films don't, nor are often expected to.

[Jack]

Tower of Blood (2005) - a group of kids go to an abandoned high rise to do some partying, but of course a huge hulking killer and his insane and hideous mom have taken up residence there. This was crap. After the opening scene, we get a pair of feet walking down a sidewalk as an entire heavy metal song plays. Then there's the interminably long opening credits - six minutes of an elevator door opening and closing, as we get one new name with each cycle. Pretty obvious they had a 45 minute screenplay and stretched it to 90 minutes with all this unwatchable rubbish. The movie's just packed full of pointless scenes that seem as if they were ad-libbed on the spot, just to kill more time. The characters weren't the least bit sympathetic, besides the bad acting and crappy dialogue they were basically just lowlife trash. The killer was your usual Jason ripoff, the ending was sudden and anticlimactic; stinky stinky all around. 1.5/5.

Dead Space (1991) - Mark Singer is an intergalactic dude who goes around getting into spaceship battles (lifted directly from Battle Beyond The Stars) and responding to distress signals. He gets one from some folks at a remote research base - as usually happens whenever anyone is doing research, they've created a big old monster and now it's Mark's job to stop it from eating them. This was pretty fun, heavy on '80s cheese, with action scenes that are all worth a chuckle. The characters were a likable bunch and it actually had somewhat of a plot. 4/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Planet Terror" (2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_0wX9RK37I
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Robert Rodriguez' half of the "Grindhouse" two-fer finds a little Texas town under attack from brain-eating zombie mutants. The townspeople must band together to survive, led by Rose McGowan as a one legged stripper who fights back against the evil with her newest prosthetic.

This hilarious homage to 70s exploitation cheese is just pure fun. Ya got boobs, ya got violence, ya got gore, ya got stuff blowin' up on a regular basis. What more do you need?

...and one legged or not, Rose McGowan has NEVER looked hotter than she did in this movie, before or since.

Ooooooh, YASS!!!!

[indianasmith]

I watched the new Danny Trejo movie BADASS this week.  Trejo plays a disaffected Vietnam vet who has never caught a break since he came home from the war and found his sweetheart married to someone else.  Then one day he beats the snot out of two punks harassing an elderly black man on the bus, and the cell phone video someone made of it goes viral, making him a celebrity.  But when his buddy Klondike gets killed by some thugs, Trejo becomes a one man wrecking crew trying to catch the killers!

This was a silly and rather pointless action flick which I greatly enjoyed.

[dean]

DAISIES (1966): Two living dolls decide the world is spoiled and so they will be too, leading to nonlinear slapstick adventures drinking, feasting and searching for a sugar daddy. Psychedelic, surreal, silly, sexy; so much absurd hedonistic fun that it was banned by the Czech censors. 3.5/5.

A perfect!  I've been looking for more psychedelic films lately, and this sounds like fun.

[alandhopewell]

     Saw a terrible Denise Crosby movie last night; but then, what other kind of Denise Crosby movie IS there?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortuary_(film)

     The folks at wikipedia seemed to think it was an okay film-me, I suspect bribery involving drugs and frequent, kinky sex.

     Ms. Crosby looks like a cross between a dominatrix and Joyce Brothers, and the rest of the film looks even worse.

[indianasmith]

i thought MORTUARY was a decent enough horror film, although the real horror was how badly Ms. Crosby has aged.  She was HOT in Star Trek: TNG - what happened?????

[Rev. Powell]

THE TALE OF THE FLOATING WORLD: A surrealistic montage set in motion by a tidal wave and incorporating a samurai battle. The CGI is clunky and outdated but a worthy effort; Japanophiles and lovers of the strange alike will respond to the Edo era iconography, the calligraphic characters turning into ants and crawling off the page, and the nude zombie dance. The full 25-minute movie is on Vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/5405204

. 3/5.

[lester1/2jr]

A Call Girl (2009) very nice little foreign movie about a girl who starts turning tricks to make ends meet when she leaves home from one part of Slovenia or something to the city part. Actress was very good though the character itself might leave alot of people cold. The various plot devices have been done better elsewhere but it's a "nice little time waster" as they say. 4.25/5