Recent viewings

[indianasmith]

I used to love Full Moon productions back in the early 1990's!

[Rev. Powell]

BLACK DRAGONS (1942):  Bela Lugosi hypnotizes six industrialists/war profiteers, then kills them.  A tedious and preposterous anti-Japanese propaganda mystery that's mainly interesting for its peek into wartime psychology. 1.5/5 (sorry RC!)   

THE DEADLY DUO (1978):  An incredibly intricate (or confusing) story with a ton of characters and a ton of subplots; the main storyline concerns master fighter who wants to marry and retire, and refuses to return to his old village to help a comrade who's dying from a poison only he can cure.  A little tough to follow but I didn't mind, considering bad guys kept somersaulting into frame every five or ten minutes for a fight sequence.  Never did figure out who the "deadly duo" was supposed to be.  I believe this may be a remake of a similarly titled Shaw Brothers film from 1971?  3/5, maybe higher for Shaw Bros. fanatics.   

[Jack]

 the objective is to see how much of your jumpsuit you can get bunched up around your rear end before you lose your PG."-Joe Bob on BREAKIN'

Okay, I need to see this movie 

[Rev. Powell]

the objective is to see how much of your jumpsuit you can get bunched up around your rear end before you lose your PG."-Joe Bob on BREAKIN'

Okay, I need to see this movie 

You have very vulgar and predictable tastes, Jack.

I share them. 

[Jack]

You have very vulgar and predictable tastes, Jack.

Awww, you're making me blush 

Dracula (1979) - Dracula moves to England, buys a marvelous Gothic castle, meets some rich folks and immediately starts nibbling on the females.  This thing's got Sir Laurence Olivier as Prof. Van Helsing, Donald Pleasence is in it, and the score is done by John Williams.  Unfortunately the first half plays out like one of those Masterpiece Theater things;  you know, the ones I usually wake up at the end of.  The action does pick up in the second half pretty well though.  Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it.  Frank Langella plays the Count, and he's suave and sophisticated, not really a hint of menace to him.  For some reason (a "stylistic decision" I'm sure) the colors are muted to the point where the film's practically in black and white.  Personally, when someone's standing in front of a field of dry grass, I don't like their face to be the same color as the background.  At one point we enter Drac's castle, which is lit with hundreds of candles.  This might have been spectacular, but the muted color scheme just makes it look blah.  William's score seems more suited to a drama than a horror movie.  Sorry, just couldn't really get into this one.  Guess I'm too used to my Hammer horror movies to get into the atmosphere of one of these highbrow productions.  3/5.

[3mnkids]

Layer Cake~ Daniel Craig is a drug dealer looking to get out of the game but his boss has other ideas. Im not a fan of Craig but I thought he was pretty good in this. Its got the typical gangster characters but the difference in this movie is there really isnt a lot of action. Thats fine with me. I dont need to see gun fights and people getting blown up all the time.   

[Doggett]

Watchmen.
2/5
Didn't like the comic (Shock ! horror - and, yes, I am a comic book fan), didn't like the film.
So a pretty faithful adaptation, then.

The sex scene with hallelujah playing was too much. For the first time in my life, I fast forwarded to get through a sex scene instead of fast forwarding to it. I thought the comic was all over the place and the film follows true to that.

A member of a superhero team gets killed and another member is determined to find out why. Sadly what gets in the way are all the unimportant characters and flashbacks that add nothing to the momentum of the plot.

[Jack]

The Brain Eaters (1958) - A mysterious 50 foot metal cone is discovered in the woods near a small town.  Is it an alien spaceship?  A US senator wants to know.  People in town are acting weird - they've been taken over by alien parasites.  Hey, weren't some brains supposed to be eaten in this thing?  Not a single brain is eaten.  The whole think is really hokey and good for a few minor chuckles.  3/5.

[lester1/2jr]

the p***ycat Preacher -  From what I can tell from here in Massachusetts,  "southern california" is an excellent description of southern california.  It's southern in that it's kind of conservative but it's still in california so it's still glamorous.  so it makes sense that this documentary about a party girl turned born again christian would take place there and not, say, here.   Heather Veitch stirs things up at the church she joins by promoting outreach to strippers and hookers in the from of "JC's Girls", that's jesus christs girls.  She is genuine in her commitment to God and it's an admirable idea, but some of the churches more conservative members are taken aback.  Some of it is blamed on sexism and hypocracy,  but I can sympathize with people being uncomfortable with their church all the sudden becoming known for it's strippers!

       The one problem I had with the film was that in the begining the diretor uses re enactments to illustrate aspects of the story that happened before the cameras started rolling, but then later  I couldn' tell if what I was watching was really happening or another re enactment.   As Mrs. Veitch (we meet the husband as well he is also a bit of a character) explains,  stripping starts off as fun and gradually becomes awful, more or less and saving people from awful things is always a good thing.  She's helped alot of people and is still doing this so good for her. 

[Doggett]

A Night at the Roxbury
3/5
I'm probably being generous, but any film that takes the mick out of clubbers is fine in my book.

[Jim H]

The Collector - This is what it is.  An effective, well-paced film giving you just enough exposition to build tension.  Then there's a whole lot of suspenseful moments and near-escapes, followed by squirm inducing deaths and some torture.  Comparisons to Saw are fair, but this film has a much less convoluted plot and storyline. 

I thought it was quite good at what it tried to be, and I really liked the main character (he's the very definition of cool under pressure).  I was entertained.  It does sometimes bother me how much more tolerant I've become about torture in film though - I used to fast forward through it, but now I can stomach it a lot better.  Nothing gets me to squirm as it though, I guess. 

***SPOILERS***


The one bit I was entirely unsatisfied with is the ending.  I'm really tired of this lame bulls**t with twist endings in horror movies.  This one barely qualified as a twist since it was so expected, but after the killer fails about a billion times and gets badly hurt by the lead character, I gotta say I find it to be a bunch of crap when the killer just instantly takes him and captures him at the very end. 

It's sad, but the REAL twist in a horror film is when the good guys simply get away.  This film, on the other hand, is one of the rare cases where the killer winning actually made LESS sense than the hero winning.  How obnoxious.  This film loses a point for its ending.




***END***

Overall, a 7/10.

[Jack]

The Creeps (1997) - A mad scientist brings back Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy and Frankenstein's monster.  To do this he steals the original copies of the books they came from, unfortunately the girl at the book depository and the low-rent detective she's hired show up in the middle of the experiment and retrieve the books.   So all our supernatural villains are recreated as midgets.  To solve this little problem, the scientist needs to conduct a virgin sacrifice (well, preferably a virgin) to make everyone full size.  This was actual a pretty fun movie!  Acting was good, especially on the part of the hot babe who works at the book depository, and Phil Fondacaro as Dracula did a pretty amazing job, considering the silliness of the material.  It was very cheesy but took itself seriously enough that I stayed interested - thank god they didn't go the intentional comedy route.  Good dopey fun and even a little nudity    4/5.

[Doggett]

Hard Rock Zombies.
3/5
Not too bad.

Plot...er...there'a midget, zombie nazi in it...and...er...a random 80's rock montage. 
The film was really dark in places and I couldn't see much...and...y'know...stuff...

[lester1/2jr]

SS Camp Hell-  another italian rare for a reason piece of junk.  90% of this is a war movie the director had made 6 years previous to this and it's mainly notable for how cheap it is.  when people get shot they don't even bother putting makeup on to simulate a bullet wound thye just go "ohhh" and lie down like little kids playing cowboys nad Indians.  Then there is some tacked on exploitation footage that is equally half baked with the major point of interest being a "sex crazed beast" which is just an extremely unattractive man in a cage.  check out "The gestapo's last orgy" or the Ilsa movies instead.

[3mnkids]

Orphan~ parents adopt child that seems really smart and sweet but turns out to be a psychotic freak.

Eh, nothing new here really and the "twist" wasnt a twist at all. If you pay attention its obvious whats going on but I liked it and thought the little girl was amazing. Its slow at times and they could have cut about 15-20 minutes out to keep you from getting bored but I would watch it again.

The killing Room~ 4 people are part of a government experiment.

well, aside from what happens about 18 minutes in the movie was boring. typical people locked in room and baaad things happen. saw, the steam experiment, house of 9... tons of movies like this and its getting old.      Its got a pretty good cast so I was expecting a little bit more.