Recent viewings

[Couchtr26]

I liked Pandorum, but Eden Log did nothing for me.  Incredibly boring film

In essence, I agree.  Where I think both had a fault is they introduced ideas that were not explored to their fullest potential. 

[The Burgomaster]

* THE LONG, HOT SUMMER with Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Orson Welles, Anthony Franciosa, and Lee Remick.

* ATLAS IN THE LAND OF THE CYCLOPS with Gordon Mitchell, Chelo Alonso, and Aldo Bufi Landi.

How's that for a double feature?

[bob]

Blazing Saddles. Vintage Mel Brooks. 5 stars. Perhaps the best comedy movie ever made.

[claws]

Grizzly Park (2008)

Silly but enjoyable Horror with moments of humor that sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't. Fun cast of 'juvenile delinquents' though, doing community work at some park in California and getting killed by a hungry grizzly bear. The first half is pretty solid and dead on but it runs out of steam during the gory final act. 3.75/5 Cheese

[lester1/2jr]

Mugabe and the White african (2009) - This is kind of BBC ish and if it were America it would be on current tv and be like 1/3 shorter at least. It lollygags and I guess that's okay but the whole thing is kind of you have to just accept that this is gonna take a while.

This old white dude is a farmer in Zimbabwe. Why? Why the hell would anyone want to be a farmer in Zimbabwe? So Mugabe is always trying to evict him and terrorize him. It's not pretty. He has a court case and there is some kind of international court...or something. On one hand, you can see that "the white man" isn't very popular in Africa and it's no surprise they are being driven out. On the other hand, he is a guy who bought the farm recently, employs a ton of Zimbabweans there and ...what's the problem? It's all politics. Mugabe wants to make political points by standing up to these white people, at the same time, look at what a mess he's made of the country.


So it's complicated. My take was: get out of Zimbabwe. That was not the take of the white farmers profiled here. I don't know if there is any point to what they are doing but they are doing it.

4/5

[bob]

Clerks - Clerks is a 1994 independent comedy film written and directed by Kevin Smith, who also appears in the film as Silent Bob. Starring Brian O'Halloran as Dante Hicks and Jeff Anderson as Randal Graves, it presents a day in the lives of two store clerks and their acquaintances. Clerks was the first of Smith's View Askewniverse films. It introduces several characters, notably Jay and Silent Bob, who reappear in his later works. Sadly this wasn't has funny as it was to me the first time I saw it 5 years ago. It's still a good movie but it looks like it no longer has a spot on my favorite films. 3 out of 5 stars.

[bob]

2001: A Space Odyssey - boy oh boy. This bored me to death. During the first 10 minutes of the film I could feel myself starting to fall asleep. The only interesting things in the movie to me was when Hal killed someone and attempted to kill someone else. This film is so boring that I can't remember the names of the characters. The lack of dialogie didn't help with that either. However, I found it really funny when Hal's memory was being taken away and he kept regressing to his beginning stages. I didn't like the ending. The effects were ok. I ended up taking about 3 hours worth of breaks during 2001: A Space Odyssey because I was determined to finish it. 0 out of 5 stars.
   

[claws]

Hardware (1990) Blu-ray

Personal fave of mine. Apocalyptic sci-fi with thrilling scenes robo-terror and (finally thanks to the Blu-ray release) unrated blood squirting. 4.5/5

[Jack]

Plaguers (2008) - Some bad actors on a plywood spaceship have acquired some alien device that they think they might be able to sell.  They get a distress call from another ship, and find a half dozen babes in mini skirts (think Star Trek:  The Original Series).  Turns out these babes are actually space pirates or something.  One of them gets some green goo shot on her from the alien thingie, and soon enough people are turning into zombies.  So, basically an alien ripoff except with space zombies.  Too bad the directing, acting and writing are all a couple notches below what I'd expect even from a low budget Alien ripoff.  And no eye candy either    I can't believe they hired these people for their acting skills. 

Oh well, I ordered the DVD of this before I'd even finished watching it, so I guess I have to give it a 4/5 at least.

[Rev. Powell]

CODEX ATTANICUS (1995-1999):  An anthology of three underground surrealist stories from Spanish director Carlos Atanes.  One involves a nightmare bar with an S&M stage show; the second (the best and funniest) concerns the director trying to finish making his own movie without hanging himself in despair; the third reolves around and expatriate returning to Spain ends up with a drawn-out melee/orgy on some metal stairs.  Let's face it, although there's blood and nudity, with no storylines these aren't going to appeal to many people.  They are very well shot and acted considering the low budget, but the transfer from video to DVD-R leaves lots of glitches.  I'd say the three segments average out to 1.5/5 stars, though you could go as high as 2.5/5 for the middle one. 

[retrorussell]

Pretty good flicks.  Frightmare (1974) is a British flick about a cannibalistic old Granny living in a farm house where she reads tarot cards to potential dinner victims, and The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) is one of Vincent Price's most memorable flicks, where an man whose wife died when 9 doctors failed to save her gets revenge by visiting 9 biblical plagues on said doctors.  Highly recommended if you've not seen them.

[Jack]

The Resurrected (1992) - A guy inherits a chest and finds some ancient scientific stuff inside.  So he sets up a lab and soon becomes consumed with his work, to the exclusion of all else.  His wife is worried about him so she hires a private detective to investigate.  He learns that the guy is trying to bring the dead back to life.  Eek!  I really liked this.  A fairly involving plot, good characters, and really icky creatures.  Very cool overall.  4.5/5.

[claws]

The Resurrected (1992) - A guy inherits a chest and finds some ancient scientific stuff inside.  So he sets up a lab and soon becomes consumed with his work, to the exclusion of all else.  His wife is worried about him so she hires a private detective to investigate.  He learns that the guy is trying to bring the dead back to life.  Eek!  I really liked this.  A fairly involving plot, good characters, and really icky creatures.  Very cool overall.  4.5/5.

Finally a movie we agree on 

[Jack]

The Resurrected (1992) - A guy inherits a chest and finds some ancient scientific stuff inside.  So he sets up a lab and soon becomes consumed with his work, to the exclusion of all else.  His wife is worried about him so she hires a private detective to investigate.  He learns that the guy is trying to bring the dead back to life.  Eek!  I really liked this.  A fairly involving plot, good characters, and really icky creatures.  Very cool overall.  4.5/5.

Finally a movie we agree on 

Hey that only took about 3 years 

[bob]

The Producers (1968) - The Producers (1968) is an American satirical dark comedy film written and directed by Mel Brooks according to wikipedia. The film is set in the late 1960s and it tells the story of a theatrical producer and an accountant who want to produce a sure-fire Broadway flop. They take more money from investors than they need and plan to abscond to Brazil after opening night, only to see the plan improbably go awry. This film is not funny at all. It's offensive as all hell. Maybe this passed as being funny back then but this is unusually bad today. I hated it.  Max Bialystock is in unlikeable jackass who spends most of the film bullying Leo Bloom. There is nothing I liked about this movie. 0 out of 5 stars.