Recent viewings

[major jay]

Major Jay- I'm watching that too. It's pretty good. That girl is hot.

I thought it was great! It belongs in the same rarefied air as DONDI.

[claws]

White Dog (1982)

Young actress hits a white shepherd with her car. After nursing him back to health she decides to keep the dog. Bad idea. The well-behaved dog is a ticking time bomb trained to kill people ...
Controversial movie about racism based on true events. Engaging, thrilling, sad and unsettling. Worth checking out 4.5/5

[Pilgermann]

30 Days of Night (2007) - Wow, this sucked.  Not scary, annoying camera work, vampires that are more annoying than frightening, wooden acting, etc.  There was absolutely nothing convicing in the way it depicted the survival of the main group of characters during the 30 day period, it simply would display, "Day 22" or whatever.  After the havoc that was wreaked early on by the vampire troupe, they should have easily been able to hunt everyone down in this small town.  The little climactic showdown at the end was pretty idiotic, too.  I'm pretty much giving up on this director after this film and Hard Candy.  I'm pretty sure his other credit is the most recent Twilight film.

I'll give it some credit for good blood 'n' gore effects.

[Couchtr26]

30 Days of Night (2007) - Wow, this sucked.  Not scary, annoying camera work, vampires that are more annoying than frightening, wooden acting, etc.  There was absolutely nothing convicing in the way it depicted the survival of the main group of characters during the 30 day period, it simply would display, "Day 22" or whatever.  After the havoc that was wreaked early on by the vampire troupe, they should have easily been able to hunt everyone down in this small town.  The little climactic showdown at the end was pretty idiotic, too.  I'm pretty much giving up on this director after this film and Hard Candy.  I'm pretty sure his other credit is the most recent Twilight film.

I'll give it some credit for good blood 'n' gore effects.

I liked the concept but felt the execution was poor.  However, I did enjoy they made the vampires more hunters then anything beyond I enjoyed that quite a bit and would like to see more like that in the future. 

Planet Terror - Why did I take so long to see this?  The movie had me laughing pretty hard through most of the second half. 

[lester1/2jr]

MST3K Blood water of DR Z - aka Zaat. The weird format of this movie with the voiceover and stuff wasn't the best fit for the show but there is some really funny stuff, especially toward the end. worth seeing 4.25 /5

[JaseSF]

Falling Down (1993): An unemployed former defense department worker (Michael Douglas) who seemed previously cool, calm and collected in his nice suit and tie goes off the deep end after being stuck in traffic on a sultry hot summer day and suddenly snaps and finally decides to lash back violently against all the ills he sees or feels society throws at him.

This was surprisingly plausible especially given its opening setting and that's largely what makes it so fascinating. Society as displayed here as in reality is clearly flawed in a lot of ways yet most of us don't snap and go off the deep end. But this movie shows us that those deep dark feelings perhaps lurk in us all and even the seeming quietest and unassuming of us has the hidden potential to lose it if pushed far enough. "I'm obsolete...I am not economically viable." Great performances from Douglas as the suit and tie nut and Robert Duvall as the soon to be retired detective on his trail make this very gripping viewing that becomes hard to take one's eyes off. Certainly one of Joel Schumacher's best films. **** out of ***** stars.

[Jack]

30 Days of Night (2007) - Wow, this sucked.  Not scary, annoying camera work, vampires that are more annoying than frightening, wooden acting, etc.  There was absolutely nothing convicing in the way it depicted the survival of the main group of characters during the 30 day period, it simply would display, "Day 22" or whatever.  After the havoc that was wreaked early on by the vampire troupe, they should have easily been able to hunt everyone down in this small town.  The little climactic showdown at the end was pretty idiotic, too.  I'm pretty much giving up on this director after this film and Hard Candy.  I'm pretty sure his other credit is the most recent Twilight film.

I'll give it some credit for good blood 'n' gore effects.

I hated that movie too.  I was pretty interested in it as it sounded like a cool premise, but good grief..."absolutely nothing convicing in the way it depicted the survival of the main group of characters" sums it up perfectly.  I couldn't even finish it.

[Pilgermann]

I liked the concept but felt the execution was poor.  

I should've mentioned that I liked the concept, too.  Isolated humans besieged by vampires in a part of the world that's in darkness for 30 days?  Righteous!  Maybe this would've worked better as a mini-series on TV.


Incubus (1966) - A man named Marc (William Shatner!) who's returned home wounded from war (WWII?) winds up falling in love with a woman named Kia, but she's a succubus who intends to damn his soul.  She's gotten tired of luring corrupt men to their doom and wants to try to defile a good man, but she actually starts to fall in love with him.  An incubus is summoned to help put a stop to this.

This movie is probably most famous for having dialogue spoken entirely in Esperanto.  It was also thought totally lost for decades after all prints had accidentally been destroyed, but a single French-subtitled print was found.  Apparently there was a curse placed on the film by a hippy that the crew encountered while filming.  Some people from the cast or crew evidently were rude to him when he was asking about what they were filming, and he didn't take kindly to it.  A week after shooting ended, one of the actresses killed herself, a year after release the actor who played the incubus murdered Carloyn Mitchell Rooney, Mickey Rooney's estranged wife, and then killed himself.

It would've been better if the dialogue were simply in English, or if only the demons spoke Esperanto, but the director Leslie Stevens believed that more people spoke the language than actually did.  He also insisted that the cast and crew speak only in Esperanto on the set, although most didn't really understand how to speak it.  Shatner is probably the only one who delivers his lines convincingly.  Overall the film's more interesting for the stories around it rather than the actual film, but it's a horror oddity that's worth seeing for those who are curious.  6/10

[wuatenigenu]

The Tree of Life. It was ok. Neither the masterpiece some people said it was nor "boring" as some other people said it was. Not very much substance or creative ideas but nice cinematography and overall pretty engaging.

[claws]

Julie & Julia (2009) (Blu-ray)

Blogger Julie (Amy Adams) wants to cook all recipes from Julia Childs (Meryl Streep) cookbook Mastering the art of French Cooking. Not an easy but very tasty task.
Don't watch when hungry: delicious meals presented in fingerlicking HD alert. That is, if you happen to watch Julie & Julia on Blu-ray. Other than that you'll get Meryl Streep doing a damn fine job as Julia Child. Her performance is amusing and simply touching. 4.5/5

[Pilgermann]

Teenagers from Outer Space (1959) - Andrew's got a review of this on the site, but what we have here are aliens who plan to use Earth as a pasture of sorts for raising Gargons (aka lobsters that get really big and live on land).  I guess Gargons are their primary food source but are awfully dangerous to be around, so...nevermind, an alien named Derek doesn't like the idea after he finds evidence of intelligent life, but the others don't care.  He rebels, runs away, gets mixed up with a girl and is pursued by Thor.  Thor's a super-p**sed-off guy who zaps everybody whenever he gets the chance.

This was dopey and enjoyable.  7/10

[Jack]

Wages of Sin (2006) - a girl inherits a spooky old house out in the country, so she gets together with three friends to go and check it out.  Turns out it was owned by some crazy religious fanatic, and his spirit still haunts the place.  For something that's on a double-sided DVD with three other movies, this was sort of a pleasant surprise.  The characters were very likable and fun, there was a pretty good attempt made at establishing a suspenseful atmosphere, and the crazy religious dude was very convincing.  Of course not all is well - the acting oscillated between believable and "let's just get this scene over with", and the religious fanatic eventually possessed the stoner dude, which was more comical than anything.  Still, not a bad waste of 90 minutes.  I was expecting, much, much worse.  3.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

TETSUO: THE IRON MAN (1989): A man finds himself transforming, from the inside out, into a creature made from metal in this influential and gory experimental Japanese film.  It's a nonsensical but intense barrage of images of dehumanization; welcome to the machine age.  4/5.   

[Psycho Circus]

TETSUO: THE IRON MAN (1989): A man finds himself transforming, from the inside out, into a creature made from metal in this influential and gory experimental Japanese film.  It's a nonsensical but intense barrage of images of dehumanization; welcome to the machine age.  4/5.   

I love that film, it's very underrated.

[JaseSF]

American Meltdown (2004): A group of terrorists, lead by a man named Khalid (Arnold Vosloo), seize a nuclear power plant in San Juan, California. Now it's up to FBI Agent Tom Shea (Bruce Greenwood) and the U.S. Army's Colonel Boggs (James Remar) to find a means of regaining control before the terrorists possibly send the plant into meltdown.

This was pretty bad honestly. The annoying jumps from grainy color to black and white throughout the film is just plain annoying and flat out unneccessary (really really grates on the nerves), the plot tends to drag and the film is quite dull for long stretches of time with lots and lots of talking but little real action and the overall plot is simply not very credible or believable for a lot of the film's running time. It does have a few bright spots involving some decent performances from Vosloo, Greenwood and Leslie Hope and some surprising plot twists and turns that enlivens things at times but in the end, it disappoints more than it thrills and the finale which is supposed to leave one uneasy just doesn't prove quite convincing at all. ** out of ***** stars.