Recent viewings

[Andrew]

Bio-Hazard.  Only the second Fred Olen Ray film I've seen.  I think I need to track down some of his other films, as I find the lightly amusing and somehow innocent style of his films appealing.  Even when they're really awful in a lot of ways, like this one.  Humorously bad acting (at times I wonder if it was deliberate, but the ending outtakes indicate not).  A laughable monster that kills people.  Pointless nudity.  Scenes that have no relevance to anything at all, but are just kind of there.  And the ending?  WTF?

I'd suggest, from Fred's work:

Hybrid
Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers
Bikini Drive-In
Cyclone
Scalps

[SkullBat308]

Star Wars

[Doggett]

In The Loop

It's like a funny, sweary, British West Wing. I have no idea what the plot is, very few do. It's about politicians on both sides of the Atlantic and a certain middle east war....

4/5

[lester1/2jr]

I Killed that Man (1941) -  this is one of the poverty row things thats so impoverished it doesn't even have a star in it.  The one woman in it who everyone acts all interested in looks like she must have financed the whole thing.  It's a good mystery with alot of wisecracks and general good atmosphere to it.  the problem I had was everyone talks so fast.  It's 70 minutes and it's like they had a 90 minute one that they decided to speed up to finish quicker.  I'm not trying to be funny, it was literally hard to follow because of this.  3.75/ 5

[indianasmith]

Being a huge devotee of World War I Flying Aces, I thought I had heard of most movies in that genre . .  .  but I caught about an hour of a film called VON RICHTHOFEN AND BROWN Monday morning on Encore that I had never heard of before.  the biographical details were mostly accurate, although the aircraft types certainly were not - von Richthofen never flew a Fokker D-VII in combat, much less Oswald Boelcke, as the movie portrayed - and Lanoe Hoawker was flying a DH-2, not an SE 5A, when he was shot down.  Still, a good film (what I saw of it).  Wouldn't mind catching it all.

[Rev. Powell]

NEKROMANTIK (1987):  A necrophiliac loses his job and girlfriend amidst randomly inserted shock scenes of urination, decay, sexual violence and (real) animal cruelty.  Virtually no plot or characterization, and rudimentary cinematography; submitted as a student film without the grossout scenes, it would probably get a D-.  Put in scenes of lovemaking with a corpse and you have a highly sought-after, near-legendary cult item instead.  The final scene with it's spurting fluids is so ludicrous that it does bring a hearty chuckle while trying to disturb.  Glad Sister Grace isn't around right now to read this review.  0.5/5.

[SkullBat308]

Got to see an advance screening of the new Micheal Moore flick, Capitalism: A Love Story and thought it was great.

[indianasmith]

Everytime I see so much as a picture of Michael Moore, I want to watch AN AMERICAN CAROL again so I can see his look-alike get slapped around.  He is a truly despicable human being!



On a totally separate note, I watched Al Pacino's REVOLUTION REVISITED tonight.  Don't know why I'd nver seen this one before, but it is a powerful and interesting bottom up view of the events of the American Revolution.  The story line is disjointed and the movie drags in places. but overall, not too bad a film.

[RCMerchant]

MEMORIAL VALLEY MASSACRE-I've tried like hell to stay awake 3-count em-3 times watching this film(?) and always end up falling asleep. It's about a devolper (Cameron Mitchell)  opening up a campground which just so happens to be besitched by a backwoods wildboy who hates dogs and ATVs. Lotsa lame sterotypes,crappy dialouge,non actors,bor-boring-bor....b....zzzzzzzzz.....

[lester1/2jr]

Everytime I see so much as a picture of Michael Moore, I want to watch AN AMERICAN CAROL again so I can see his look-alike get slapped around.  He is a truly despicable human being!

you were the guy who saw "american carol"?

Night Nurse/thou shall not - (1930) -  watch out, it's pre code!  you might be tranformed into a bootlegger or a charlestoning harlot if you watch this.  Barabara Stanwyck plays her usual worldly wise to the ways of the world woman, this time she's a nurse.  There are gratuitus scenes of her and her friend getting changed.  you can see them in their underwear! and bawdy humor and so forth.  the plot initially gets kind of lost in all the vice-doing but it's kind of crazy:  a chauffer,  excellently and brutally portrayed by Clark Gable,  and his rich girlfriend appear to be trying to starve two little girls to death to collect their trust fund, with the help of a corrupt doctor.  yikes! 

nowadays this story would be on Lifetime or something, but I enjoyed it anyway.  It's hard to catagorize the pore code pictures.  they are kind of like soap operas, kind of like exploitation pictures but not exactly like either.  The movie came with a documentary called "thou shall not" which was a concise hour long chronicle of the era: early hollywoods battle with censorship,  how the depression forced studios to drop any pretense of morality, and the ultimate triumph of the morality squad.  The brightside is that the next era in film is of "Casablanca" and so forth and it not mistakenly referred to as "the golden age" of Hollywood, though I would kind of disagree with the films assertian that these films were better because they didn't have the sex and violence of the pre code ones.  I think they were just good movies period.

[Doggett]

Iron Man
3.5/5

Weapons manufacturer Tony Stark gets attacked and...ah, I'm sure we all know the plot to the summer flicks. It's pretty much by-the-numbers stuff.

Robert Downy Jr. tries a little too hard to be cool and comes across
 as kinda annoying.
Great villain, though.

[SkullBat308]

Death Race 2000
Big Man Japan

[lester1/2jr]

Slaves in bondage (1937) - this is by the guy who directed "gambling with souls" (which is like the gambling reefer madness) that I really liked, but it isn't as good as that.  It's the same formula of mild vicery, goofy nightclub acts of the era and looking into the seemy underworld but it just doesn't come off.  They should have focused more on the female lead.

[Rev. Powell]

LIFEFORCE (1985):  A naked space vampire spreads an apocalyptic plague through London.  Not necessarily as good as I remembered, but it was fun to watch again.  It's a fun B-movie movie that's not afraid to look ridiculous.  And Mathilda May was everything I remembered, and more; that woman is physically perfect.  3.5/5.

[Torgo]

SUPERMAN RETURNS  *** out of ****.  I still think that the script is all over the place at times, but I caught this on TV last night and didn't dislike it like I once did. Casting was great as was most of the effects work. But after the extremely solid 1st half the film starts to sputter and almost doesn't recover. Enjoyable if you can get past its flaws.