Recent viewings

[Flick James]

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)- This was a big hit with me and my friends when it came out but I hadn't remebered it at all. For all it's shortcomings, the idea of killer clowns, or klowns excuse me, invading Earth is fun and the clown costume/ special effects themselves are really great. It's like a comic book come to life.

A young couple follow a shooting star from make out point and discover a huge glowing big top. They get attacked by Killer Klowns but it no one belives them for a while blah blah. The dialogue and acting could be a lot better. The girl has to recite some pretty awful stuff, especially in the begining. It doesn't matter though. The plot and casting and everything else work well enough to be carried by the klowns.

What I like about movies like this is if they hadn't made it who would have? There are tons of action movies, kung fu movies, romantic comedies etc. How many movies are there about killer klowns from outer space? just this one.

4.5/ 5  I'm feeling stingy

Plus it's got John Vernon


Which automatically makes any movie amazing.

[bob]

Hitchcock's Notorious: I found this to be surprisingly dull and boring, in stark contrast to every other movie of his I've seen. I also found it to be heavily cliched. The ending kind of came out of no where to.

3/5

[Vik]

Blade Runner
I used to dislike this movie a few years ago, but I really liked it this time.

[Rev. Powell]

IMMORTAL (AD VITAM) (2004):  The Egyptian god Horus shows up in a pyramid floating above Manhattan in 2095.  The CGI special effects are as strange as the plot---for no obvious reason, more than half the human characters are played by "Final Fantasy" avatars---and the story leaves a lot of loose ends, but there is more imagination on display here than in a dozen Hollywood blockbusters.  3.5/5.

[claws]

Watched a few over the weekend.

The Sender (1982) - Under appreciated. Well made, original, good cast, spooky showdown. 4.5/5

Sole Survivor (1983) - Ambitious and creepy. Watched this the first time with audio commentary. Producer Sal Romeo and Actress Caren Larkey, both providing the audio commentary, were banned from the set because of creative differences with director Thom Eberhardt. Interesting. 4.5/5

Scream of Fear (1961) - A late night fave on TV back in the day, this chiller still delivers the goods without being too corny. Solid. 5/5

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) (Blu-ray) - Argento's stylish proto-slasher is a thrilling masterpiece that obviously influenced Black Christmas (1974) and Dressed to Kill (1980). 5/5

Escape from New York (1981) (Blu-ray) - .... remains a class act that aged well. 5/5

[lester1/2jr]

claws- I really lked Scream of Fear too. Have you seen The Snorkel?

[Vik]

Robin Hood
I expected it to be more Robin Hood-ish... But it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Crowe was undeniably awesome as usual. In total it's pretty mediocre, but entertaining enough. Except the stupid long slow-motion "NOOOO" cry at the end just bothered me. When are filmmakers going to stop doing this? First off to make such a long yell, you have to breath in completely, then start yelling. In other words, it's calculated, rendering it unnatural. A short boisterous no on the other hand, would have made sense.

[bob]

The Sting -Easily one of the best crime movies I've ever seen.

5/5

[claws]

claws- I really lked Scream of Fear too. Have you seen The Snorkel?

I probably should hang my head in shame because I've never heard of this movie before. It sounds interesting, might have to track down that DVD set.

[lester1/2jr]

I saw it on TCM but I think it's on one of the new Hammer drama things.

[Jack]

Raiders of the Damned (2005) - In the future, I guess WWIII took place and the mix of nukes and biological weapons caused some people to turn into zombies.  But they're not "zombie" zombies, they're regular people who talk and stuff, they just have a bit of zombie makeup on.  So they manage to get their hands on some scientist with the intention of forcing him to cure them, but he's from some compound run by an insane Richard Grieco, who sends a group of prison inmates on a commando raid to get him back.  Well, at least the title was cool.  Everything else was a bit too stupid even to be taken seriously as a B movie;  especially Grieco having conversations with his toy mouse while giving orders to people - orders which they actually obeyed.     The characters were undeveloped, the action was too stupid to be taken seriously, and overall it did very little to hold my interest.  2/5.

[Flick James]

Ticket to Heaven (1981) - I remember watching this film a couple of times in my early teens. A Canadian film, it is more than a subtle attack at Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. The story involves a young man, depressed by a nasty breakup with his longterm girlfriend, hooking up with an old friend who happens to be involved with a religious cult in San Francisco that serves an Asian businessman who claims to be the Messiah. He unknowingly undergoes indoctrination and brainwashing and slowly becomes a servant to the cause, selling flowers on the street, travelling around in a van full of followers, deprived of sleep and food. His family and friends join to kidnap him and deprogram him, and we witness a painstaking process to restore his freedom of thought.

Far from a brilliant film, it is nontheless decent and has some compelling elements. It also includes a very young Kim Cattrall, back when she was cute and adorable and long before her creepy Sex In the City character. It's worth a gander.

4/5.

[HappyGilmore]

Saw- I still think it's a pretty well done horror film.  It's pretty suspenseful, and you find yourself wanting to find out what's going on with these characters and how they came about to be chained to some pipes in a warehouse bathroom.  Slightly gory, but not as much as the later films in the series.  And, it actually has "real" actors, utilizing Danny Glover, Cary Elwes, Shawnee Smith and Monica Potter.  There was the twist ending nobody saw coming there at the end.

Frankly, Saw 1-3 were the best of the series.  It really should've ended after 3.  Later installments did tie everything together, however, it became a thing to actually watch the previous films before seeing a newer installment as a refresher course.

[Rev. Powell]

BLACK MOON (1975): A young woman flees a shooting war between the sexes and holes up at a farmhouse with a bedridden old woman, a brother and sister both named "Lily," a bunch of naked children, and a unicorn.  Pure surrealism is hard to pull off at feature length (even Bunuel and Lynch rarely attempted it), and Louis Malle proves not to be up to the challenge, though there are some good individual moments (who wouldn't love the unicorn)?  2.5/5. 

[lester1/2jr]

The Collector (1965)- This was a little too long an nearly 2 hours and not nearly seedy enough to be realistic or all that entertaining. Terence Stamp is this rich guy who abducts a girl and you know, you can keep me here but you can't make me love you yadda yadda. The girl is a very pretty redhead. I was looking for something a little more sophisticated and lurid. 3.75/5 solid but not all that engaging.

note : I was looking for an image and googled "stamp the collecter"  

axis of evil comedy thing - 4 American/ middle eastern comedians do short sets. I liked 2 of them but it wasn't hilariously funny, mainly just the novelty of middle eastern people taking about the patriot act and doing jokes to a mainly arab/ persian audience who could relate. It's conventional comedy central type comedy, nothing very artistic or edgy. The first guy was too normal, the last guy was too sort of Emo Phillips ish and had these wild mannerisms that threw me, maybe I will watch some of his stuff again. The middle two guys had some alright stuff. I 'd rather just watch Louis CK 3/5