Recent viewings

[indianasmith]

Growing out~Tom is a down on his luck musician who has just been "fired" from the open mic coffee house he plays at. He finds an old house offering free room and board for cleaning up the place. He finds a hand down in the basement and decides what the hell, and starts watering it. The hand soon turns into a young man named Archie...

Another weird one.      This could have been so much better.  Its very funny at times, the performances are pretty good, and like I said, its weird. The problem is its way to long and the relationship between Tom and his neighbor is distracting and just kills the movie for me. What a shame. A great idea bogged down by nonsense.

That one was a turnoff for me, too!

[JaseSF]

Watching a dollar DVD from Quality Video Inc. with the following two films included. Quality was about what I had expected for stuff from the public domain. The films look like they might have been mastered from VHS copies especially the second which looks like it might have come from an EP Video as the colors are all faded and washed out.

The Fat Spy (1966): Rival cosmetic company heads searching for the elusive fountain of eternal youth on a desert island find their plans potentially threatened by the arrival of a group of fun-loving teenagers on a treasure hunt. The island is owned by George Wellington (Brian Donlevy) who's sent one Irving (Jack E. Leonard), a scientist and botanist but also a bumbling oaf, there to see if he can find the fountain of youth. When Wellington learns of the arrival of teenagers on the island he sends his daughter Junior (Jayne Mansfield) to help Irving get rid of them.  Meanwhile Irving's bald brother Herman (also played by Jack E. Leonard), also an employee of Wellington who's secretly in love with Camille Salamander (Phyllis Diller), Wellington's main cosmetic rival, plots to steal the secret of the fountain for his beloved and himself.

This attempt at a comedy/parody of teen beach party movies falls rather flat except when it's actually functioning as a "teen" beach party movie! Our leads Phyllis Diller and Jack E. Leonard try way too hard here to try and be funny with their constant mugging and wink wink nudge nudges directed towards the camera. The attempts at comedy just fail in every way possible. Leonard plays a pair of bumbling twins, one who while wearing a toupee tries to find acceptance amongst the teenagers by jiggling his hips and dancing with them while fending off the advances of Jayne Mansfield's Junior, who doesn't quite deliver the cheesecake one expects except for one scene featuring her in a towel, while the other twin tries to please Diller's Camille Salamander in a bizarre love subplot. Poor Brian Donlevy is reduced to speaking incomprehensible gibberish whenever he does get any lines in the film and even worse is when he's shown basically just sitting on the front of a boat and then puts on an army helmet while incomprehensible gangster style gibberish ("You dirty rat"...etc.) is spoken via voiceover. A lot of this will have you scratching your head but then even the real beach party movies tend to cause me to do that...

Anyways the beach party portion of the film which features Lauree Berger, Jordan Christopher, pop star Johnny Tillotson and the band the Wild Ones singing tunes and wearing ridiculous looking beach wear and bathing suits while dancing and swinging their hips just has to be seen. It's by far the most entertaining and funniest part of the movie. The camera leers in at the girls shimmying and shaking in their skimpy bikinis, one of whom is Linda Harrison (PLANET OF THE APES), and yeah the camera also focuses in on the guys too some of whom look disturbingly effeminate in their pastel blues and candy stripped bathing suits. Still it does look like they're having fun and the turtle dance done to the tune of  "The Turtle" is just downright hilarious. Later Lauree Berger sings a catchy tune - "I'm so glad I never get my way and you are a man, because you put me down the nicest way you can." The music in fact is surprisingly good throughout. If only the supposed stars of this film wear as good as the supporting players...in many ways this feels like two films, a real beach party movie and a ridiculously bad comedy parody. The beach party portion is the only part truly worth watching here. ** out of ***** stars although I suspect if one cut out everything but the "teens" and their tunes, I'd probably rank this much higher.

Captain Scarlett (1953): After the fall of Napoleon, several unscrupulous counts seize French land unfairly. Finding his own land stolen from him, one Captain Scarlett (Richard Greene), an excellent swordsman and master of disguise, decides to take up the fight against injustice along the way deciding to rescue a beautiful princess (Leonora Amar) held captive by the villains.

Greene proves immensely likable here as Captain Scarlett, a dashing hero who rather reminds me of Zorro given how he likes to embarrass and humiliate his foes. The writing too proves surprisingly funny and enjoyable with Scarlett's responses to queries often proving quite humorous and amusing. "You are insolent" - "Only to people I don't like." The main problem here is that the story seems to follow a serial style of adventure storytelling where in one chapter something happens featuring one villain and then something in another chapter features the next and on and on until in the end our hero finally confronts the lead villain after getting past his numerous henchmen. Here there's no separation between chapters or episodes of an TV series which is what this essentially feels like, episodes of an serial or TV series all edited together to form one final film with the intros and credits taken out even though this wasn't actually the case. Oh it's good in its way, it just feels like it would have flowed better if one could watch it in separate sections. As it stands now, it just feels like it goes on too long with too many subplots before we get to the final showdown. Still I seem to like this more and more on repeated viewing. *** out of ***** stars.

[Rev. Powell]

MURDER'S IN THE RUE MORGUE (1932): Bela Lugosi stars as "Dr. Mirakle," a carny scientist with a trained ape and a penchant for conducting medical experiments on prostitutes, in this loose but effective adaptation of Poe's short story.  It's fascinating to consider that the villain here is a foreigner with a unibrow who preaches evolution, and the "good people" he terrorizes are closeminded and casually racist.  Also interesting for the bestiality subtext, and the fact that this gorilla-abducts-white-woman tale predates KING KONG.  3/5.

[JaseSF]

Piranha (1972): Terry and Arthur Green (Ahna Capri and Jim Simcox), a brother-sister photography expedition to a Venezuelan South American jungle led by guide Jim Pendrake (Peter Brown) meets up with a great hunter the natives have named Caribe (William Smith), which means Piranha in English, who has sinister ulterior motives all his own for befriending them.

Well those expecting the 1978 film will be severely disappointed. Despite the opening credits showing a closeup of the jaws of a Piranha, they really factor very little into the plot (although they do make a brief, rather forgettable appearance late in the film). In fact, Piranha here refers more to the man Caribe. I really don't think I'm spoiling anything by pointing him out as the villain of this piece as it's pretty obvious from the get-go with him laughing maniacally during his first appearance following a successful hunt. Despite how quickly this is established, the film takes it sweet time getting to its climax. In fact, for well over an hour this movie is basically focused on a trip to Venezuela featuring our lead photography expedition. It basically features scene after long scene of our leads riding motorcycles, walking in the jungle, riding in boats with numerous long scenes of nature featuring birds and animals shown when we don't see our cast riding or walking around. We are treated to an extra-long male bonding motorcycle race between Caribe and Pendrake at one point.  Doesn't sound very exciting, does it? Yeah it isn't. This movie is a colossal bore for the vast majority of its running time and only really gets going in the last fifteen minutes when Smith's Caribe finally comes unhinged and begins hunting down the rest of the leading cast. Everything then plays out almost exactly in the very fashion I expected. This movie seems like it was someone's excuse to go on a trip to Venezuela and then somewhere along the line they finally remembered they were actually there to make a movie. Really painful, tough slugging this one...we're talking near skull territory here. Only Smith really keeps this mildly interesting with his over the top villain. * out of *****

Black Water Gold (1970): Ray Sandage (Aron Kincaid), an expert scuba diver teams up with Chris Perdeger (Keir Dullea), a marine archaeologist and Alejandro Zayas (Ricardo Montalban), a Mexican historian/fellow scuba diver to search for a legendary sunken Spanish galleon ship carrying a fortune in gold coins. However Lyle Fawcett (Bradford Dillman), a bored dilettante with vast money resources and who's not afraid to hire men willing to kill, also has his sights set on the find.

This TV Movie wasn't too bad at all really. It moves along really well with something  interesting usually going on. Kincaid is the actual star of this movie but Dullea and Montalban tend to steal the show whenever they appear on screen. Dullea's Perdeger with Montalban's Zayas being a clash of sorts between the head (Perdeger) and the heart (Zayas). It also helps the film features some exotically beautiful women in France Nuyen (who plays Fawcett's girl Thais) and Lana Wood (as Eagan Ryan, an aid to Perdeger who also happens to be a scuba diver). There's some good suspense sequences done underwater in this from the opening where we see a small boat get rammed by a bigger one from underwater to a later chase where our unarmed heroes are pursued by the lead villains armed with spear guns and must try and use their wits to survive and outsmart their adversaries. This was also shot on location and definitely benefits from it, not being bound by the limitations of studio sets. Dillman's lead villain is campy and over the top and reminds me a little of a "Batman" TV villain yet remains surprisingly believable despite all of that. *** out of ***** stars.

I watched these two films on a dollar DVD from Quality Video Inc.. The quality of Piranha (1972) was about what I expected from a public domain release but the quality of Black Water Gold (1970) is just lousy. It really looks like a multi-generational VHS dub recorded from TV.

[3mnkids]

Bronson~ Based on the true story of Britain's most violent prisoner Michael Peterson aka Charlie Bronson. eh, I didnt really care for it. I really like Tom Hardy and I guess he did a good job with this role but its just a little to goofy for me.  

The Nest(Nid de guêpes)~ Its like a remake of Assault on precinct 13 only its french and in a warehouse instead of a precinct. Its an alright action movie but one of those you will forget about as soon as its over. Been there, seen that kinda thing.

[lester1/2jr]

didn't finish ems

1. ravenous- civil war horror about cannibals. shold have been vampires because it didn' suck me in

2. Captain Freedom- weak if colorful french anti US parody thing.

3. Les Bonnes Femmes- I liked the characters and it reminded me a girls I knew in college but it was slice of life thing where nothing really happens. wasn't in the mood

[Jack]

The Scorpion King 2 (2008) - Back in Biblical times, a young warrior tries to take revenge on the evil king for killing his father, but the king is in league with a demon and therefore has supernatural powers, so the young guy must set off on a quest to retrieve some magical sword to kill him.  He's accompanied by his girlfriend and a small band of adventure seekers.  I really enjoyed this!  The young guy and his girlfriend are very likable and somewhat witty characters, and the adventure they go on is fun and full of action.  The special effects are actually pretty good as well - except for the giant scorpion at the end, which made me laugh.  But the rest of the effects were very well done, I never noticed that the buildings were CGI, and some of the other stuff was actually rather creative.  It doesn't take itself at all seriously, as everyone uses lots of modern phrases while talking, but that's fine with me.  There's nothing more disastrous than listening to actors try to speak in that overblown 2000 BC manner, so it's good they avoided it.  4/5.

Bloodsucking Babes from Burbank (2006) - some girls find a jewel box that was once owned by a witch, and the curse causes them to rub the jewels over their bodies, strip to their undies and start eating people.  This is real amateur hour stuff, I'd be surprised if the budget was over $10,000.  Acting is atrocious, there really isn't enough story to fill more than 15 minutes, and I couldn't even figure out who the characters were or what they were trying to do most of the time.  Still, it is mildly amusing, especially watching the girls acting as if the rubber hand they've got in their mouth tastes really icky.  2.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Two Women (1961) -

If you can get into serious 4 star italian movies with a hot leading lady like "the Leopard" you should check this out as it is on many levels quite great. On the other hand, I was also playing guitar the whole time I watched it and I don't doubt it's very dull to just sit and watch the way you would with like District 9. I pretty much say that in every review of a 4 star type movie I write but I can't help it, it's true. 

Set in Italy during WW2,  The plot descriptions generally give away the most harrowing part of the story: Cesira (Sophia Loren) and her daughter Rosetta (some girl) are raped by Allied (specifically moraccan) soldiers. This is toward the end of the movie.  Most of the film is Cesira's and Rosetta's journey from Rome, where the well-off Cesira runs a grocery store, out to the sticks to escape all the chaos and bombs. It can't be expressed enough how good Loren looks. It's very unusual to see someone so hot in such a substantial role. Imagine Marilyn Monroe in a movie like "Missing" or "Schindlers list" or something.

There are hundreds of movies about war from the soldiers or politicains point of view, not that many from the other 90% of the country's point of view and for them it's in most instances equally hellish. Order collapses, supplies are hard to come by and/ or have been put into place in the war effort. If you are unlucky enough to have fighting take place in your country you are also subject to enemy fire with no way to protect yourself. Many of our grandfathers killed civilians in war, mine did. Many of our ancestors came to this country to escape their war ravaged homeland, mine did as well.  I'm not a big time composer but the music that I played on guitar ended up being very dark.

Jean Paul Belmondo is good as an annoying intellectual holed up with Loren and a few others on a farm in Italy. It's in black and white and is mainly outdoors in the Italian countryside. It's extremely tough going if you have no way around dealing with a short attention span as i do. At 90 minutes it feels epic. Still, Loren looks amazing and the story is an important one that is usually missed by Hollywood and historians alike.

5/5

[JaseSF]

He's Just Not That Into You (2009): Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a young woman who seems to have nothing but bad luck with men. When she befriends a bartender named Alex (Justin Long), he explains to her the harsh, true reality regarding the signals men are in fact sending her. Along the way, we witness the struggles and challenges facing other couples as they read and misread each other's signals.

Watched this chick flick on the Movie Network (and yeah I actually choose to watch this on my very own?!). Not sure why but it did draw me into it surprisingly quickly. I found it interesting, even somewhat refreshing that the film starts by questioning the myths created by women to explain why guys don't call back, why boys pick on girls, etc.. It was surprisingly truthful especially early on although it does descend a bit into the fairy tale style romantic comedy mythology one expects at the very end. Still it was surprisingly enjoyable and features a fine cast playing mostly likable characters including Drew Barrymore, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johansson, and Kevin Connelly (who seems like a closet gay throughout the film but doesn't turn out to be one in the end). The film frequently breaks the fourth wall with people (as if they're being interviewed in quasi- documentary fashion) and sometimes characters actually seeming to speak directly to the viewing audience. Especially likable is Ginnifer Goodwin's Gigi and I really think it's largely her presence that makes this one so appealing. ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

[Jack]

Alien 3 (1992) - Watched the director's cut of this last night.  Ripley crash lands on a planet where the only inhabitants are the prisoners of a run down maximum security complex (who found God at the a$$ end of the universe), and of course a Xenomorph shows up soon enough and starts having himself a nice lunch.  This was MUCH better than the theatrical cut.  It really made the difference between a somewhat bland action movie and an effective horror movie that drew you into the plight of its characters.  Ripley is much more deeply developed as a character, which was one of the main things that was missing from the theatrical version.  Everything seems to flow more smoothly and make more sense as well.  I can't remember exactly what the theme music was in the theatrical version, but this seems to have much more dramatic and suspenseful music.  I was expecting something rather rough, considering it's a "work print", but the only thing I noticed was a couple of very short spots where there was some background noise during the dialogue.  My only big complaint was the CGI alien, which could really have used some further polishing.  It didn't look all that good.  4.5/5.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Bronson~ Based on the true story of Britain's most violent prisoner Michael Peterson aka Charlie Bronson. eh, I didnt really care for it. I really like Tom Hardy and I guess he did a good job with this role but its just a little to goofy for me.  

Bronson, for me has been the best film I've seen all year.  I absolutely loved it.  Tom Hardy knocked his role out of the park with this.  Its surreal, funny, frightening and superb.  I loved getting a look into Bronson's head and seeing the world through his demented view.

[lester1/2jr]

Frightmare- horrible Skullduggery type tax shelter

[Rev. Powell]

Bronson~ Based on the true story of Britain's most violent prisoner Michael Peterson aka Charlie Bronson. eh, I didnt really care for it. I really like Tom Hardy and I guess he did a good job with this role but its just a little to goofy for me.  

Bronson, for me has been the best film I've seen all year.  I absolutely loved it.  Tom Hardy knocked his role out of the park with this.  Its surreal, funny, frightening and superb.  I loved getting a look into Bronson's head and seeing the world through his demented view.

Glad to hear that.  I was starting to think I was the only one who loved this movie! 

[Rev. Powell]

A Lugosi/Karloff double feature!

THE BLACK CAT (1934):  A young couple find themselves caught between the machinations of a doctor bent on revenge (Lugosi) and a mad engineer (Karloff) in the latter's Art Deco mansion built on the graves of the soldiers he sold out in a World War I battle.  The story's a little ragged at times (with a black cat popping up at random moments to terrify Lugosi), but Edward G. Ulmer's direction, the geometric sets, and the atmosphere of elegant perversity really draw you in to the nightmare.  4.5/5. 

THE RAVEN (1935): Lugosi is a mad surgeon who saves a beautiful dancer's life and falls in love with her; Karloff is an escaped criminal who comes to the doctor begging for plastic surgery to change his appearance.  Lugosi's campy villainy is in top form ("I like to torture!"), and there's more than a bit of Frankenstein's monster in Karloff's Bateman; the two icons make this tons of fun.  3.5/5.     

[metalmonster]

HORROR OF THE ZOMBIES

I'm A Big Fan Of THE Blind Dead After Seeing The First And Second Ones and i finally got around to seeing the third one in this one there are people lost at sea who find a ghost ship and their employers come to search for them , they all board the seemingly abandoned ghost ship , but when the sun goes down the blind dead on the ship wake up and begin killing them

MY RATING 8 OUT OF 10



DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT

A New nurse is hired to work at an isolated house that is used as a psych ward , the wackos start acting weirder and more violent , several murders and several plot twists occur until the finale


MY RATING 8 OUT OF 10