Recent viewings

[FatFreddysCat]

None of the Punisher movies quite work for me, but you know what I like about WAR ZONE?  It looks more like a comic book than any other comic book movie I've seen.  You could take any random number of still shots from it and easily transpose them into a panel.  Also Wayne Knight as Micro!   

I agree, it may not have been a perfect "Punisher" flick but it certainly topped the previous two attempts.

Ray Stevenson totally looked the part, he was the most bad-a$$ Frank Castle yet, and it was cool to finally see "Micro" (Wayne Knight = perfect casting!) and his arch enemy "Jigsaw" make it into film.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Conan the Barbarian" (2011)

http://www.youtube.com/v/o1iJZIMddpM

Jason Momoa takes over the role of Cimmeria's favorite sword-slinger made famous by Ahhh-nuld. In this new tale Conan swears vengeance against the crazed warlord who destroyed his village when he was a child. During his quest he beds a hot princess babe, fights a couple of nasty creatures, and oh yeah, cracks a LOT of heads.

The "story" for this flick is paper thin but you're not likely to notice with all the wall-to-wall ass kicking going on. Just like the '80s films, this "Conan" is dumb, but fun.

[lester1/2jr]

Black Moon Rising (1986) very disappointing. hard to believe John Carpenter was involved with this. It could have beeen slightly more high brow and been more deep or had starred Linda Blair or something and been more trashy, but instead it's the worst of both worlds. there's  not nearly enough of the awesome car and Tommy lee Jones and Linda Hamilton both look awful and the story's boring and ridiculous 2/5. watch The Wraith again instead

[JaseSF]

Black Moon Rising (1986) very disappointing. hard to believe John Carpenter was involved with this. It could have beeen slightly more high brow and been more deep or had starred Linda Blair or something and been more trashy, but instead it's the worst of both worlds. there's  not nearly enough of the awesome car and Tommy lee Jones and Linda Hamilton both look awful and the story's boring and ridiculous 2/5. watch The Wraith again instead

Pretty much agree with you there. That film is a huge disappointment. I'm not even sure why I even keep it in my collection. Perhaps I keep hoping it will get better on repeated viewing. Of course, it doesn't.

Watched a pair of Bob Hope films last night:

The Facts of Life (1960): Bored with the mundane and routine of their married life, Larry Gilbert (Bob Hope) and Kitty Weaver (Lucille Ball) unexpectedly find themselves falling in love with one another when neither of their spouses can make the planned group vacation in Acapulco and the married couple they travelled with suddenly take sick leaving Larry and Kitty all on their own. However things get more complicated upon their return when they find they cannot fully abandon or continue their romance.

This movie was very enjoyable and entertaining. It's also quite funny and surprisingly believable in its presentation. Obviously it is a bit dated in terms of the morals and ethics with which it's dealing but nevertheless there's little here that still not somewhat valid. Hope and Ball actually make a great team here. The early stuff between them is romantic and the later stuff during the drive to and at the cabin takes things more into comedy territory. I'll give this one **** out of ***** stars.

I'll Take Sweden (1965): An overprotective father named Bob Holcomb (Bob Hope) tries to protect his daughter JoJo (Tuesday Weld) and keep her from marrying the wrong man and so takes a job in Sweden. However he eventually discovers Sweden is even more sexually liberal than the U.S. at the time and begins to regret his decision.

This was a silly little movie that might appeal to Beach Party film fans given it features Frankie Avalon as JoJo's love interest Kenny Klinger and there are indeed a few songs performed by Avalon. Later in "Sweden" [actually this part was filmed in California] he does some more tunes with bikini clad babes the standout of which is former Miss World Rosemarie Frankland as Marti. Dina Merrill plays Karin Granstedt, the Swedish love interest of Holcomb adding a new dimension to the film as Holcomb tries to keep his daughter from naughty shenanigans with a would-be Swedish playboy named Erik Carlson (Jeremy Slate) but doesn't seem to mind indulging himself. Actually this was innocent, silly fun if a bit dated on many levels but don't expect anything too profound. Also I got a kick out of the over the top motorcycling stunts and the speed up rowing done by Avalon's character.  I'll give it **3/4 out of ***** stars.

[indianasmith]

Lessee. . . this week I watched:

MEETING EVIL - This is a really outstanding flick with Samuel L. Jackson as a Mephistophelian character who shows up at a low point in the life of a failed Real estate salesman, offering him a "walk on the wild side" that starts with a visit to  a bar and ends with a mass killing spree - Jackson is perfect in this one, and the supporting cast is great too!  Definitely worth a watch!

100 GHOST STREET- THE RETURN OF RICHARD SPECK
This was a cheap rip off of my favorite indie horror flick, GRAVE ENCOUNTERS.  Reality show TV crew visits the abandoned medical dorm where Richard Speck killed seven nurses in one night back in 1960 or thereabouts, and encounters a vengeful ghost.  Tiresome and somewhat offensive, that they would attempt to use a real mass killing to turn out something this tawdry and cheap.  But there was some brief nudity.

SILENT HOUSE - A girl and her dad are cleaning out their vacation home, when he turns up unconscious and she begins seeing a mysterious intruder.  The whole movie is done in one continuous shot with no breaks; a neat technical trick wasted on a fairly humdrum 'is it real or not' horror premise.  Worth the rental, but return it the next day and get your discount!

[Jack]

The Stay Awake (1987) - and old favorite of mine I've watched a half dozen times now. A group of girls get chased around their school by a totally corny looking monster. Cheesy as can be, I always find it fun.  4/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Terminator: Salvation" (2009)

http://www.youtube.com/v/OIjiKj-sOp8

Fourth installment in the "Terminator" series takes us into the future, where the human resistance is about to launch a major offensive against Skynet, and a now-grown John Connor (Christian Bale) encounters a new kind of Terminator - one with a human soul.

Decent shoot'em/blow'em up that certainly isn't on par with the first two "T's" but was a definite improvement over "T3: Rise of the Machines."

[JaseSF]

Prey (2007): Tom Newman (Peter Weller), an hydro-electrical engineer, moves with his family to Africa to work on a dam but the transition is anything but smooth as there's tension between his teenage daughter Jessica (Carly Schroeder) and his new wife Amy (Bridget Moynahan). Hoping it'll help them bond, he schedules a game drive through the African wilderness the next morning but a sudden stop for Tom's son Brian (Marius Roberts) to "go" leads to a nightmare when the group becomes the target of a pride of hungry lions looking to make lunch of them all.

While there are a number of plotholes in this and the characters engage in stupid behaviour to get themselves in this situation and continue to act stupid once in it, this does have some pretty good moments of suspense going for it. At heart, the film is rather similar to Cujo in that it has characters trapped in a vehicle being stalked by something deadly on the outside. The lion attacks are convincingly done and if anything they'd probably be even worse in reality. The problem here is the lack of reasonable explanation for why lions would suddenly target people in an environment teaming with other potential kills and why these people would go into a situation so potentially dangerous so blindly and badly prepared. The credibility factor also flies out the window more than once here aside from this. That said, this was slightly better than I expected. I thought it would be terrible but it has some half decent moments of suspense and feels somewhat akin to other similar "when animals attack" style films. I suspect had they made this a period film, it might have had a tad bit more credibility. As is,  I'll give it **1/2 out of ***** stars.

In the Mouth of Madness (1995): John Trent (Sam Neill), a former insurance investigator now a psychiatric patient recounts the story of how he got there to one Dr. Wrenn (David Warner). His story involves the search for a prolific missing horror writer named Sutton Cane (Jürgen Prochnow) and a journey that seemingly takes Trent inside of one of Cane's horror novels into a town named Hobb's End effectively blurring the lines between horror and reality. What horrors are behind this? Or is it all only in Trent's mind?

While this has some great moments here and there, it ultimately disappoints with its conclusion and the fact it just doesn't quite deliver upon the earlier thrills and chills it seemed to be promising. Still there's some seriously twisted stuff here that brings to mind questions as to just where within one's imagination do such horrors lurk and if maybe they aren't trying in some fashion to be let loose upon an unsuspecting world. The brief glimpses of monstrosities we get with this one are quite good but one really wishes for a whole lot more by the end than one ever really gets. I'll give this one **3/4 out of ***** stars.

They Got Me Covered (1943): A bumbling news reporter named Bob Kittredge (Bob Hope) hopes to get his job back after botching an assignment as a war correspondant when he learns of a huge story about a Nazi spy ring secretly operating in Washington, D.C.. He convinces his girlfriend Christina Hill (Dorothy Lamour) and her five female roommates to help him but they soon run into trouble with these dangerous crooks including Lenore Aubert as a femme fatale, Otto Preminger as a Nazi mastermind and Eduardo Ciannelli as one of his cohorts.

This was pretty fun. It's got a little bit of everything from the era in which it was made it seems what with Nazi criminal masterminds, femme fatales playing both sides, comedy hijinks, WWII propaganda, blond burlesque singers and even more. Hope's one-liners come at a fast and frequent pace and he gets to do a number of routines of sorts with certain people he encounters in the film. In many ways, it feels like a parody of the popular film noir adventure films of the era too. I definitely consider it one of the best early Bob Hope movies without Bing Crosby although it certainly doesn't hurt to see Hope paired up with Lamour yet again. The villains too are played by familiar character actors of the era and pretty much play things straight making it more fun when Hope interacts with them. ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997): British secret agent 007 James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is assigned to investigate a media mogul named Elliott Carver (Jonathan Pryce) who MI6 suspects of somehow being involved with the sinking of a British frigate named the HMS Devonshire hoping to spark World War III between China and Britain when it's made to look like the Chinese assassinated survivors of the ship's sinking. Meanwhile China has sent their own secret agent, one Colonel Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh) to uncover the truth.

No one can say that this film isn't action-packed as it's pretty much all-out action from beginning to end. Unfortunately a lot of it seems mindless and not as clever, although there are exceptions here and there, as the usual Bond fare. Yeoh's character here does make a great ally for Bond and Teri Hatcher heats up the screen in a couple of steamy scenes with Brosnan playing Carver's trophy wife Paris. Carver as a villain too does seem a bit of a parody of real-life media moguls but sadly just never proves as interesting himself as most previous Bond villains, feeling more like a caricature on some levels than a real person, or maybe that's because his character was all about image. The villains just aren't as interesting as our heroes which I feel hurts this one a bit. Also this is much closer to your usual popcorn movie fare, with loads of mindless action taking the place of plot and story for large parts of the film. Not too bad overall but on many levels a dumb, loud action movie, I'll give this one **3/4 out of ***** stars.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Island" (2005)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIfVwTGAJBM
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Sci-fi actioner from Michael Bay stars Ewan McGregor and Scarlett (yum!) Johanssen as pair of happy inhabitants in an idyllic secret facility... until they find out that they're clones, grown in a lab to serve as spare parts for people in the outside world. When they make an escape, mayhem ensues.

Overly long and overblown in an entertaining sort of way, this one starts out like an update of "Logan's Run" but then quickly becomes so over the top that it's ridiculous. But hey, that's Michael Bay all over.

[retrorussell]

GROTESQUE (1988).  Oh wow, it's bad.  And not in a good way.

[Jack]

Tail Sting (2001) - some scientists are transporting genetically engineered scorpions on a plane (a passenger jet of course), and of course they get loose, grow to gigantic proportions, and make a nice lunch out of the passengers. There's a convenient attic space on the plane which allows the scorp's to move around undetected, and drop their tail down from the ceiling and skewer unsuspecting vistims. They must also have some pretty large ventilation ducts, as one of them gets into the cockpit unobserved. Very tongue-in-cheek the whole way through, and not in that cheesy goodness sort of way. Oh it tries for cheesy goodness, it tries way too hard.  Just a forgettable little cheapie. 2.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

WHISPER OF THE HEART (1995): A young teenage girl searches for her first love---the guy who checked out all the same books from the library she did---while trying to find her voice as a writer. This coming of age tale with only mild touches of fantasy was a departure for Studio Ghibli, but it's well put together with crisp art and a soapy narrative with lots of subplots; it should resonate with girls just entering the early double digits. 3.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Starship Troopers" (1997)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y07I_KER5fE
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Paul "RoboCop" Verhoeven's uber-violent adaptation of Robert Heinlein's classic sci-fi story is pure comic book fun, as Earth declares war on a race of alien bugs and three friends (Casper Van Dien, Neil Patrick Harris, and Denise Richards) join up with the quasi-fascistic Federation army to help combat the threat.

A bizarre combo of action flick and satire of rah-rah WWII-style propaganda films with its tongue planted firmly in its cheek for the entire run time.

[Jack]

Deathlands (2003) - in a post-apocalyptic future, a group of people are travelling around, just trying to survive, and they come to a small village. Turns out the main guy in our group used to be a member of the family that ruled the place, before the more cruel and sadistic members of the family took over. So our heroes set out to defeat the bad guys and return peace and harmony to the village. I liked this, it's quite a bit more depraved than your average SyFy Original, and the characters were either likable or interestingly sick, as the case may be. Not terribly believable in parts, but oh well. 3.75/5.

[Rev. Powell]

SOUND OF NOISE (2010): A music-hating, tone deaf detective from a family of musical prodigies tracks down a gang of musical terrorists staging disruptive performances across Stockholm. If David Lynch directed the Swedish cast of STOMP in an action-comedy, I think it would go a little something like this. 3.5/5.