Recent viewings

[ulthar]

LOLILOVE (2004)

Jenna Fisher wrote, directed and has the female lead in Troma mockumentary that has a few laugh moments, but most are very typical of Troma.  Worth a look when in the mood for something mindless and silly.  Fitting cameo for Lloyd Kaufman.

2.5 out 5; not terrible, but nothing supremely memorable.  I think the Chris Guest mockumentaries 'stay' with you longer.

CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981)

One of the fun things about having small children that have not seen all of the movies I love is getting to go back and watch them again! This is one of them.

I don't remember the bare boobies scene (Perseus as a baby breast feeding) when showed this in my High School English Class, though.  

5 out of 5; I dig Harryhausen's effects, the story is fun and the little ones loved it as well.

MST: 3000: THE STARFIGHTERS

This has to be one of the most boring movies ever shown MST: 3000.  NOTHING happens!  It is basically a bunch of edited stock footage of F104's flying and taking off. But, that gives Mike and the bots some of the best fodder as well, and they had me laughing pretty hard quite a few times.  I read somewhere (wikipedia maybe?) that some MST fans consider this to some of the best riffing in the whole series - up there with MANOS - and the ep has 8/10 on IMDB.

4.5 out of 5; well worth a watch for MST, but don't expect ANYTHING from the movie itself - it's pointless.

MOBY DICK(1956)

WOW!  A couple of months ago, while driving in the car, I told my children the story of "Moby Dick" and Ahab's obsession with the white whale (personifying whatever obsessions we all have).  They loved the story and begged for more (as is typical), so when I saw the 1956 version with Gregory Peck on Hulu, I was ecstatic.  

Peck's performance is beyond ANYTHING being done on the big screen nowadays.  Holy cow, Orson Welles' delivery of the sermon was mesmerizing.  Where is this kind of acting today?  Paris Hilton?  Ben Affleck?  Give me a break.

Also, one for the "I didn't know" thread: Ray Bradbury co-wrote the screen play.

5 out of 5, Great story, great performances (all around, not just the ones mentioned), great direction and great visuals...a must see in my opinion.

MST:3000: SECRET AGENT SUPER DRAGON

Another good romp for laughs.  This movie is BAD, but the riffs are quite funny.  I watched this with headphones on while my wife was doing other things, and she was laughing at ME laughing at the riffs - "you are laughing like a little girl!"  They had some really fun (and subtle) references to other movies and TV shows that totally caught me off guard.

4 out 5 for me.

[lester1/2jr]

Rats :night of terror - I didn't like this as much as the fake Warriors one ("2019: after the fall of New york"? ) but it was still pretty good.  Alot of it takes place in the same building so it's not as interesting to watch as some of the the others with their makeshift futuristic sets or weird sewer/ abandoned building industrial weirdness but it's got silly dubbing and ridiculous people and RATS.

3.75/5

[Rev. Powell]

ALICE (NECO Z ALENKY) (1988): (Re-watch).  A young girl visits a wonderful land of white rabbits, mad hatters and skull-faced animals with razor sharp teeth in this dark and surreal stop-motion animation adaptation of ALICE IN WONDERLAND. The whimsical flavor of Lewis Carroll blends astoundingly well with Jan Svankmajer's nightmare seasonings, like mixing pure cane sugar with white powder heroin. 5/5.

[Flick James]

ALICE (NECO Z ALENKY) (1988): (Re-watch).  A young girl visits a wonderful land of white rabbits, mad hatters and skull-faced animals with razor sharp teeth in this dark and surreal stop-motion animation adaptation of ALICE IN WONDERLAND. The whimsical flavor of Lewis Carroll blends astoundingly well with Jan Svankmajer's nightmare seasonings, like mixing pure cane sugar with white powder heroin. 5/5.

I'm definately a fan of Svankmajer, and this was the first film of his I saw. I am happy to say I saw it on the big screen when it came out. One of the benefits of living in Los Angeles: seeing non-wide release films.

[Flick James]

ALICE (NECO Z ALENKY) (1988): (Re-watch).  A young girl visits a wonderful land of white rabbits, mad hatters and skull-faced animals with razor sharp teeth in this dark and surreal stop-motion animation adaptation of ALICE IN WONDERLAND. The whimsical flavor of Lewis Carroll blends astoundingly well with Jan Svankmajer's nightmare seasonings, like mixing pure cane sugar with white powder heroin. 5/5.

Was that the first time you've seen it?

[Rev. Powell]

ALICE (NECO Z ALENKY) (1988): (Re-watch).  A young girl visits a wonderful land of white rabbits, mad hatters and skull-faced animals with razor sharp teeth in this dark and surreal stop-motion animation adaptation of ALICE IN WONDERLAND. The whimsical flavor of Lewis Carroll blends astoundingly well with Jan Svankmajer's nightmare seasonings, like mixing pure cane sugar with white powder heroin. 5/5.

Was that the first time you've seen it?

No, I saw it when I was in my twenties.  I looked back and was shocked to see I only rated it 4/5, even though it stuck with me all these years!  You were lucky to see it on the big screen, I can only imagine.  Svankmajer has another film out right now, but I doubt it will play Louisville.  You should go if you get the chance. 

[Flick James]

ALICE (NECO Z ALENKY) (1988): (Re-watch).  A young girl visits a wonderful land of white rabbits, mad hatters and skull-faced animals with razor sharp teeth in this dark and surreal stop-motion animation adaptation of ALICE IN WONDERLAND. The whimsical flavor of Lewis Carroll blends astoundingly well with Jan Svankmajer's nightmare seasonings, like mixing pure cane sugar with white powder heroin. 5/5.

Was that the first time you've seen it?

No, I saw it when I was in my twenties.  I looked back and was shocked to see I only rated it 4/5, even though it stuck with me all these years!  You were lucky to see it on the big screen, I can only imagine.  Svankmajer has another film out right now, but I doubt it will play Louisville.  You should go if you get the chance. 

I would but I don't live in L.A. anymore, haven't for years. I'm in Phoenix, AZ, now and there's definately less availability of that kind of thing here, but I'll look into it.

[Jack]

The Black Room (1935) - Boris Karloff plays two roles as brothers; one good, one evil.  The evil one is a Baron who kidnaps his subjects' women for his own purposes, normally killing them when he's done.  After a long absence, the good brother shows up just as the townspeople are about to kill the evil one.  Mr. Evil vows to leave the area and let the good brother be the baron.  Of course they're identical twins, so if the evil brother was to kill the good one and take his place, how long could he maintain the ruse?  Karloff was excellent in this, playing both the perverse murderer and the kind and gentle brother with equal believability.  It was more of a thriller than a horror movie, and wasn't terribly interesting.  A bit predictable.  3.25/5.

[Hammock Rider]

THE TEACHER: (1974) Angel Tompkins plays a seductive teacher who has an affair with the kid who played Dennis the Menace. Then they both get stalked by a crazed Viet Nam vet. So looks like you've got both your Sex and Violence bases covered.

[Jack]

Virgins From Hell (1987) - an all-girl motorcycle gang gets captured by a mobster and held prisoner, and he does very bad things to them.  This was atrocious - in a very good way    Lots of laughable martial arts fights, like a couple of little kids were fooling around and then they added the "whack!" sound effects to all their punches.  And of course the first take was always good enough.  Really goofy shootouts with ridiculously oversized assault rifles;  people standing around in the open and shooting hundreds of rounds with only the occasional casualty.  During one of the big fight scenes, you can see the actors laughing at the silliness of it all, and even though bullets are flying everywhere, the actors not involved in a fight are standing around calmly.  It wasn't really very interesting because you couldn't take the plot or the characters the least bit seriously, but the brightly colored hot-pants all the girls were wearing pretty much made up for that    4/5.

[claws]

Easy A (2010) Blu-ray

Student tells a lie and must face the consequences. Very enjoyable comedy and neat homage to the movies of John Hughes. Great cast as well 4/5

Piranha (2010) Blu-ray

Swarm of Killer-fish interrupt juvenile spring break activities at some lake. Tons of gore and gratuitous boobs. Crowd-pleasing exploitation, loved it. 4.5/5 fun

[Rev. Powell]

ESCANABA IN DA MOONLIGHT (2000): A 42-year old man must bag a buck during this year's deer season or he'll be the oldest male in the history of his family never to have done so; with the help of a potion and porcupine urine supplied by his Native American wife, he goes on a vision quest and finds God as well as a ten pointer.  Set in the upper Michigan peninsula, the movie tries too hard to get laughs out of the local dialect and customs; star/writer/director Jeff Daniels has a ton of ideas, but unfortunately most of them don't work out.  2/5.     

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

The Flesh Eaters was on AMC this past Saturday, early morning around 5 AM.

It's a 1964 film if I remember right, and one the much better-than-average B movies.

A forgotten Nazi scientist living on a remote island has perfected a race of electrical creatures that eat human flesh. And as usual, a group of people wind up stranded on the island and play their part in the evil scheme of Dr. Bartel (Martin Kosleck, who looks particularly evil this tima around.)

Sadly, they cut out the scene where the beatnik is holding his innards in after drinking a glass of whiskey laced with the Flesh Eaters.

Other than that, it was a real treat to see this one again after so many years.  Nice print AMC had, too!

[Jack]

She (1982) - Sandahl Bergman stars as the medieval queen of some warrior babes in a post-apocalyptic future.  A couple guys wander through their area, and Sandahl takes a shine to one of them, so her and another warrior babe (the equally hot Quin Kessler) follow the guys through the countryside.  First the girls save the guys from some vampires who want to kill them, then the guys save the girls from some other group of baddies.  Then they all fight together yadda yadda yadda.  This started out as a pretty crummy post-apocalyptic movie, with no attention paid to story or character development.  Then halfway through I guess the film makers just said f*** it and made a screwball comedy out of it.  You've got a fat and extremely hairy guy dressed up in a pink ballerina outfit, and then another guy sings the entire theme song to Green Acres.  Although the babes look fairly hot in their skimpy warrior outfits, there's not nearly enough eye candy to keep this thing afloat.  2/5.

[JaseSF]

Up (2009) Delightful flight of fancy, in more ways than one, has an old man named Carl (voiced by Ed Asner) carrying out an old promise of adventure to his wife Ellie but along the way getting unexpectedly saddled with an awkard accidental stowaway boy scout named Russell (voiced by Jordan Nagai) and Russell's newest friends, a huge exotic bird named "Kevin" and a "talking"  overly friendly dog named Dug. And he also gets to meet his childhood hero Charles F. Muntz (voiced by Christopher Plummer) too only it does quite prove to be all that Carl had hoped.

This was quite a joy, a fanciful escape from reality into a world of imaginative adventure. Rules of plot adherence and everything making full sense need not apply here. Love the ending credits which also suggests all the wonder and adventure awaiting us everyday in the real world too. A fun escape from reality with surprisingly likable characters a sense of retro wonder about the adevnturous world of the past waiting to be discovered by youth as well as the world of adventure today waiting to be well...discovered by youth. ****1/2 out of ***** stars.