Recent viewings

[Jack]

DeepStar Six (1989) - a group of people in an underwater facility are tasked with placing some nuclear missiles on the ocean floor. But then a big ol' sea monster shows up and ruins all their plans. There's plenty of both good and bad about this movie - the characters, save for one, are quite likable and well developed (and Nancy Everhard is such a cutie  ). And there's plenty of cool "underwater" model work to be seen. On the bad side, the sea monster is little more than a minor annoyance compared to the idiotic sh!thead of a crewmate these people have to deal with. It stretches believability that anyone would tolerate this guy. And the plot is very contrived. They have to fix something, and of course it's in the same room as the sea monster, and of course the room is flooded, etc. Still, pretty fun time overall. 4/5.

The Galaxy Invader (1985) - an alien crash lands on earth and the local drunken idiot population tries to capture him. This is a Don Dohler film;  I like Don, he's sort of a master of z-grade junk. From the opening credits where every third person has the last name "Dohler", to the way everyone stands around in awe looking at a 5" styrofoam ball, to the drunk who lets half a mouthful of beer spill out as he's talking, to the big square hole cut in the other drunken idiot's shirt to let us know that he's a low life. And the movie certainly isn't boring, which is high praise for any zero-budget filmmaker.  3.5/5.

[JaseSF]

Dudley Do-Right (1999): Inept and somewhat clueless Mountie Dudley Do-Right (Brendan Fraser) must try and outdo the evil Snidely Whiplash (Alfred Molina) at his own game if he's to win back his own self-respect, the respect of the town of Semi-Happy Valley and the love of his beloved Nell Fenwick (Sarah Jessica Parker) who's also being wooed by his rival Snidely.

Honestly I found this hilarious. Not sure why it got such bad ratings and all given it's based on a largely silly cartoon. Naturally the story takes some goofy and cartoonish over the top and unbelievable turns but shouldn't that be expected here? Me, I found the characters likable and a hoot and very much enjoyed the performances given by Fraser, Molina, Parker an Eric Idle as Prospector Kim J. Darling, the man who helps Dudley get back his confidence. I laughed more watching this than I have at a movie in quite a while. Granted it's largely fluff but surprisingly enjoyable fluff with a lot of more action and fun than I was expecting. **** out of ***** stars.

For Your Eyes Only (1981): Britain's top secret agent 007 James Bond (Roger Moore) is sent on a special mission to recover the ATAC, a special encryption device, from falling into enemy hands.

This was a pretty damn good James Bond adventure film. Aside from it being perhaps a tad overlong and a few plot twists that seemingly contradict previous events, this was certainly a solid effort from all involved. Carole Bouquet brings an unique exotic quality as a Bond girl here in the form of the vengeful bow & arrow wielding Melina Havelock. Topol and Julian Glover also play very significant roles in events here and their characters certainly keeps one guessing. Lots of action, car chases, ski chases, underwater thrills make for a fun ride - granted elements here do resemble segments in previous films yet this remains nevertheless very much its own story and feels different from a lot of the more formulaic Bond movies. Good stuff, an improvement from Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, two films I still very much like as well. **** out of ***** stars.

[Venomx73]

Abbott and Costello in Hold That Ghost 1941

[Jack]

Sucker Punch (2011) - a girl is falsely accused of murder and sentenced to an insane asylum, which turns out to be a front for a whorehouse. All the girls do a dance to entertain their customers, but the new girl is such a good dancer that the guys are completely enthralled with her, so the girls come up with a plan to steal various items needed to escape while the guys are so distracted. But we never see the new girl dance - instead we're transported to an amazingly cool fantasy world where pretty much anything goes. In one fantasy, we're in a very gritty and realistic WWI battle, while "Go Ask Alice" by Jefferson Airplane plays, and somebody's flying around in a futuristic robot shooting down triplanes. Meanwhile the totally hot warrior babes fight steam-powered clockwork German soldiers until a Zeppelin blows up in a spectacular fireball...oh man, it's just awesome    There are several such fantasies and every one is as cool as the last. It's about 50% fantasy and 50% reality, and we don't know if the reality is real. My only complaint is that the movie has a very kick-ass attitude for the first three-quarters of the runtime, but decides to turn somber near the end, which just kind of ruined the mood. But the characters were good, it was tremendously creative, and certainly had the best CGI I've ever seen. 4.75/5.

[Jack]

Piranhaconda (2011) - a group of people are making a low budget slasher movie in Hawaii, but a giant anaconda with the head of a piranha shows up and makes a low budget monster movie out of it. Our actors and film crew also get kidnapped by some people who want $3 million from the studio for their return - I think they got Hawaii mixed up with South America lol. Ah, they're both kind of tropical, so it's an easy mistake to make I suppose. Anyhow, the characters were fun, I especially liked the bad guy who was second-in-command. The actress tells him "This is kidnapping you know!" And he says "Yes, I am aware of that, but thank you for pointing it out." Or something like that    The action moved along at a good pace and the CGI piranhaconda wasn't as atrocious as I've come to expect from SyFy Originals. Oh it looked pretty stupid, but at least it looked like an object that was actually sharing the same space with the actors. 4/5.

[claws]

1.8/10 rating at IMDb. Most likely the lowest rated SyFy flick to date? 
I should check it out 

[Jack]

1.8/10 rating at IMDb. Most likely the lowest rated SyFy flick to date? 
I should check it out 

That just means I'll be able to pick up a used copy of the DVD for about a dollar a few weeks after it comes out 

[FatFreddysCat]

"Our Man Flint" (1965)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzSMMs73pq0
	Small | Large

First of the 60s spy spoofs starring James Coburn as super agent Derek Flint, agent of Z.O.W.I.E., who makes the ladies swoon while saving the world from a group of mad scientists who've developed weather-controlling technology. Goofy-on-purpose, good fun.

[Rev. Powell]

3 DEV ADAM (1973): Captain America and Santo take on evil stolen antiques dealer Spiderman---in Istanbul! This Turkish ripoff has few moments of high absurdity beyond the ridiculous premise, but it is packed with action and reminds me of a lesser Shaw Brothers effort. Not exactly a bad movie must see but worth a look if you can find it cheap. 3/5 (ion a bad movie scale).

[indianasmith]

This week I watched SAFE HOUSE, which was a much ballyhooed Denzel Washington spy film.  It was OK but no more - I never have cared for the "America is the bad guy" attitude that a lot of these genre of films embrace, and the plot was a bit too fast and confusing  - but it did have some enjoyable moments.  Then there was ALIEN ORIGINS from the Asylum, which was horrendous and boring - the main character was a perky young reporter filming a documentary about the special forces of Belize.  Basically an hour and a half of soldiers running through the junge, seen from the rear, with backpacks bouncing up and down, then crouching and whispering, with a few minutes of some sort of alien thrown in.  Very tiresome.

[tracy]

[Venomx73]

My double feature last night...

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy

[fulci420]

The Ledge (2011)-I picked this up for 3$ on blu ray thinking it was an adaptation of the stephen king short story with the same name. Turns out its a completely different story but it was still somewhat worthwhile. The premise involves a man on a ledge, an affair, and a cop (Terrence Fisher who brings the best acting of the film) but its best not to give anything else away. Patrick Wilson also delivers a fine preformance as the deeply religous husband of Liv Tyler. Unfortunately the 2 principle characters (Liv Tyler and Charlie Hunman) are hampered by mediocore acting.
This is a frustrating film because it deals with complex philisophical issues and had the potential to be excellent. Unfortunately it lacks any real tension which any movie about a man on a ledge should capitalize on. As well I had little sympathy for Liv and Charlies characters and found myself caring more about Fisher and Wilsons characters. Not a bad film by any means but I cant see my something watching this ever again.
3/5

[JaseSF]

Never Say Never Again (1983): Sean Connery returns as James Bond in this "unofficial" Bond film entry. The story focuses on a now aging Bond being brought back to fight SPECTRE and attempt to regain two stolen nuclear warheads from them. There's certainly some beautiful women as one expects from Bond films with this one what with a young Kim Basinger (who does sometimes seem a bit too reserved in her part) as Domino Petachi, mistress of our film's lead villain Maximillian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer) and possible Bond love interest and Barbara Carrera as a deadly SPECTRE assasin named Fatima Blush. If the story seems a bit familiar, it probably should as it's actually another adaptation of Thunderball.

Actually this is every bit as good as any other Bond film and I'd argue it's actually an improvement over the original more slow-moving Thunderball film. It is a bit unusual to see different actors in some of the Bond movie roles traditionally at this time played by different actors but it really doesn't take away anything from the fun and excitement of the film. Another thing perhaps a bit problematic is Connery being so successful on the make despite his being so much older than many of his Bond film conquests including Valerie Leon at one point here but hey, it's Connery and he's Bond so well there you go.  There's a lot more action with this one than I expected  and it does deliver in terms of fights and chase scenes. I liked the different twist at the end too although it did seem to come a bit out of left field. It may be "unofficial" but this is as enjoyable as most any other Bond film and moreso than many. **** out of ***** stars.



The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968): a clueless dentist named Jesse W. Heywood (Don Knotts) decides to head West to ply his trade but is eventually tricked by one Penelope "Bad Penny" Cushings (Barbara Rhoades) into a sham marriage as a  disguise while she searches for a ring of gun smugglers smuggling guns to a local Indian tribe hoping that by doing so she'll be given a pardon for her previous Wild West gunfighting, cattle rustling and thievery. This leads to Heywood eventually believing himself to be a successful gunfighter (the legendary "Doc Haywood")  despite the fact in reality it's all Penny behind the scenes.

This movie is a remake of a Bob Hope film The Paleface and also parodies The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in several scenes. It's pretty similar to other Knotts films from the 60s with a bumbling Knotts unwittingly getting himself into harm's way and more and more unusual situations with Knotts frantic, frightened reactions often being a comedy highlight. This one is pretty enjoyable but also rather predictable too. The funniest bits IMO involve Knotts disguising himself as an Indian maiden to infiltrate the Indian tribe.

All in all, it's pretty silly but surprisingly fun and pretty harmless too. *** out of ***** stars.



House (1977): Mad with her father because he plans to take on a new wife (and stepmother for her), a young teenage girl named Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) decides to cancel her vacation plans with his father and instead writes to her Aunt asking if she can vacation with her instead. Eventually she receives a reply and she and her six schoolgirl chums set out to her Aunt's house in the countryside. However it's not long after their arrival that they begin to notice there's something not quite right about Gorgeous' Aunt (Yōko Minamida), her cat Blanche or her house as more and more supernatural and unexplainable events begin to occur and it soon becomes clear they might not make it back out of the house alive or in one piece.

This was as weird and bizarre as you can get. If one wants something truly weird, they need not look any further. What follows is a film that is in parts hyperenergy horror like Evil Dead yet also bizarrely cheerful like some dark musical (perhaps not too far removed from something Bollywood might pop out) yet is completely different from that too. It's extremely hard to classify this but the story is intriguingly bizarreful and so visually striking with stuff that'll have you going ""what the f*$k?" or "what the hell?" it's nevertheless hard to take one's eyes off of it. In some ways, it feels like a brilliant horror, in others it feels like some bizarre fevered dream that just won't quit. At times, it's painfully cheesy but at others it's delightfully so. Just has to be seen to be believed. ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

[Jack]

Underworld: Evolution (2006) - Kate Beckinsale runs around in a skintight outfit, while CGI werewolves and vampires battle each other for most of the runtime. The characters are all so uber-cool and hyper-stylized that I couldn't relate to any of them, which removes any real possibility of drama. So you're basically left with a bunch of action sequences strung together by a story which assumes that you've recently viewed the previous movie if you want to make much sense out of it. It explores the origins of the vampires and werewolves back in ancient times. Decent enough popcorn flick I suppose, the whole thing is blue and black and blue-black lol. 3.5/5.