Recent viewings

[Jack]

Memorial Day (1999) - Z-grade slasher about some young people who go camping in the woods, but an uninvited guest shows up.  The kills are pretty laughable for the most part.  For instance, the killer ties a girl's legs up and then makes her crawl on the ground.  She's about 99.9% immobilized and moves at a snail's pace, even though her arms are still free.  Maybe she was frozen by fear...I guess.     The plot wasn't too bad, for a slasher.  I liked the characters in this, they were entertaining and likable, even though they did little but fight and act like complete morons.  When somebody in this movie says "Trust me, I know what I'm doing" - just slap them.  So it was awful but still managed to have enough entertainment value to get me to watch it twice in about 4 years.  3.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Groundhog Day (1993)- I knew what this was about but had never actually seen it. I wish I had it's incredible. If you are like I was and never have actually seen it but know about it definitely see it. It's nuts.

Bill Murray is a local weatherman who is full of himself and wants to move on to bigger and better things. I don't know what exactly. Those weather reports on major networks are so random like "here's the worlds weather". He goes very unexcitedly  to cover puxatowney phil doing his thing and gets stuck in an insane time warp where he replays the day again and again. and again and again and again.

Andie Mcdowell is cute, Chris Elliot doesn't do any insane Chris Elliot stuff but he's good. Murray isn't the greatest leading man ever in stuff that goes outside of straight up comedy (theres a romance element) but he pulls it off. It says alot about the banality of life and the uphill slog that is self improvement and the desperation of all that.

5/5

[Jack]

The Dark Side of the Moon (1990) - a group of unlikable people are on a spaceship, but all its systems go down and they fret about it for a while.  Luckily an abandoned space shuttle happens to drift by, so they dock with it.  Of course there's some sort of demon on board, and he sort of possesses various crew members, and its all got something to do with the Bermuda triangle.  About the only interesting part of this was the computer, who is a rather hot mechanical babe that sits in a room.  The rest is instantly forgettable and pretty boring;  too cheesy to be taken seriously, not cheesy enough to be entertaining.  2.5/5.

Primal (2009) - a group of friends go camping in the woods, but one of them goes for a swim in a pond and some leaches attach themselves to her, which apparently infects her with something that turns her into a cannibal woman with big nasty teeth.  So everybody runs around all scared and trying to figure out what to do.  The characters weren't bad, the cannibal girl jumping around was amusing, and the final kill scene actually got me to laugh out loud (think of Gallagher smashing a watermelon).  Kind of slow in parts, but the climax was fairly tense and well done.  3.5/5.

[SpringZhang]

Hi, all.

Recently I watched Inception for about 3 times. But I am still a little puzzled about how they get back to reality through so many different layers of dreams...Am i a little stupid?

[lester1/2jr]

[rec] - If you are gonna see one of those new school post Blair Witch shaky camera horror movies it might as well be this one, then again I am far from an expert.

The movie starts of right with a cute reporter. She is all througout the movie and this is very good. Remember Dave Atells "insomnia"? The show where he stayed up all night and just went around seeing what goes on in those hours? She is the host of a show like that except not as crazy I guess because she is just hanging out with firemen.  They answer a call at a building and it turns out there's a zombie loose and the usual issues of terror, quarrentining people who get bit even if its like your Mom ,and the rest ensues.

Despite the shake camera the movie looks good and delivers the chills. It's a big step up from the last movie I saw by this guy I think it was called "the Nameless"? People might scoff that it's too new fangled or like a video game or something but it's supposed to be!

5/5

[lester1/2jr]

The Sentinel (1977) - This was colorful and entertaining but really pretty bad. It was apparently Universal or whoever's response to The Exorcist and they probably should have just gone out and bought tickets to the Exorcist instead. It was fun to watch but not very scary, kind of like a slihgtly better William Castle or Ed Wood movie or something. for a major studio with a real budget and actors its pretty silly though. worth seeing but certainly not on the level of Amityville horror, Rosemary's baby etc which was I guess it's aim.  The plot is a not all that pretty models new apartment is the gateway to Hell and there are all these weirdos in the building. OR ARE THERE?????

3/5

[claws]

The Attic (1980)

Off beat drama with thrilling moments of black humor. Carrie Snodgress gives excellent performance as the mousy librarian. Good stuff. 4/5

The Hearse (1980)

Woman moves into haunted house and must face ghosts from the past, rude small town folk, a love sick student, a creepy hearse and a priest ready to exorcise evil spirits. Entertaining enough. 3.5/5

[Rev. Powell]

POOR PRETTY EDDIE (1975): A black female singer's car breaks down in a redneck town and a wannabe country singer takes a shine to her, keeping her prisoner with the help of yokel oddballs.  This sleazy, oddball hicksploitation drama contains some very surreal moments, including one of the strangest rape scenes ever filmed: it's intercut with footage of dogs mating and scored to a "one-night stand" country ballad.   3.5/5, worth a look.

[claws]

The Sentinel (1977) - This was colorful and entertaining but really pretty bad. It was apparently Universal or whoever's response to The Exorcist and they probably should have just gone out and bought tickets to the Exorcist instead. It was fun to watch but not very scary, kind of like a slihgtly better William Castle or Ed Wood movie or something. for a major studio with a real budget and actors its pretty silly though. worth seeing but certainly not on the level of Amityville horror, Rosemary's baby etc which was I guess it's aim.  The plot is a not all that pretty models new apartment is the gateway to Hell and there are all these weirdos in the building. OR ARE THERE?????

3/5

"What do you do for a living? - We fondle each other"

I love this movie. Beverly D'Angelo's masturbation scene is always a jaw dropper whenever I show this to friends 

[lester1/2jr]

rev- which version of poor pretty eddie did you see?

I saw a rental version that was awful but I guess theres a new version that is much better, like  image quality wise.

I thought it was really really good at any rate.




claws- It was odd misfire of a movie but not unentertaining. I would watch it again.

[Newt]

In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

John Carpenter; Sam Neill, Jurgen Prochnow, David Warner, John Glover, Charlton Heston, Frances Bay - what a waste!  I felt like there was half the movie missing: it had all sorts of potential - the bits that worked, worked well - but ultimately it fell short for me. Acting was better than decent, atmosphere (nicely Lovecraftian), story line, excellent effects - all could have made it much greater than it turned out to be.  Dang it all!

A fun part was seeing the "Black Church" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_the_Transfiguration_(Markham) )  - I watched the growth of this huge and distinctive edifice during its construction in the middle of an empty field during the mid-to-late '80's.  (It looked quite incongruous there: an enormous building that looked like it had come straight out of Eastern Europe, rising out of a huge crop field)  Used to ride my horse through the neighbourhood regularly!  Seeing that was a kick.

[Rev. Powell]

rev- which version of poor pretty eddie did you see?

I saw a rental version that was awful but I guess theres a new version that is much better, like  image quality wise.

I thought it was really really good at any rate.

I saw the new release.  The image quality is good but it's full frame, unfortunately.  I'm not sure it's the "lost cult classic" it's being advertised as, but it's a pretty odd movie, worth a look if you like unusual exploitation films.

[JaseSF]

Hart & Soul: The Hart Family Anthology (2010): the documentary for this was kind of disappointing as it was mostly stuff we already knew, at least the stuff that was actually interesting. For some reason, they got into talking about the non-wrestling Harts and most of the stories about them while real are sadly kind of uninteresting. There's very little here we haven't seen before elsewhere...best stuff is when they talk about Stu, Owen and Davey Boy Smith. Was kind of disappointed by the documentary but I expect the matches on here to be much better. Sad though how quickly the Hart Dynasty team got scrapped. **1/2 out of ***** stars for the documentary.

Mean Girls (2004): Chick flick starring Lindsay Lohen was actually a lot more entertaining than I expected. Basically a newcomer to school aided by her outcast friends plots to join the school's popular clique of Plastic Girls and infiltrate, conquer and divide them from within but will it be at the cost of her true identity when she begins to enjoy the popularity just a tad too much. Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert and Amanda Seyfried all do pretty well here as the Plastics. This is no great shakes but it was surprisingly entertaining and watchable and even funny at times. *** out of ***** stars.

Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009): yeah another Chick flick I caught recently. Basically a romantic escapist fantasy that puts a shopping addict named Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) into the unlikely position of writing advice columns on saving money when she gets hired for a magazine called Successful Saving, a sister magazine of the position she truly desires writing for the fashion magazine Alette. Again this was nothing great but it did have its funny moments mostly concerning a very determined debt collector named Derek Smeath (Robert Stanton) whom Rebecca constantly tries to avoid. Also Isla Fisher is rather likable and very attractive in the lead here which helps. In some ways reminds me of 60s fluff escapist romantic fantasies. **1/2 out of ***** stars.

[Jack]

The Land That Time Forgot (2009) - another inglorious mockbuster from The Asylum.  Some people on a yacht get sucked through a time portal in the Bermuda triangle and end up on a tropical island with dinosaurs.  They meet some guys from the WWII era, and then there's some Germans who's U-boat has washed up on shore.  Will the torpedoes be used to blast the T-rex on the island?  Yeah, most likely.  This wasn't bad for a little piece of fluff movie.  Characters were fair, CGI dinosaurs were pretty hinky, plot moved along okay.  3/5.

[claws]

One Dark Night (1983)

Usually essential viewing in autumn/October but I was totally in the mood for this last night. Neat little atmospheric Horror with my fave 80s actress, Meg Tilly. 4/5