Recent viewings

[JaseSF]

The Man With the Golden Gun (1974): After an anonymous tip he may be the next target of a notorious assassin named Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), nicknamed "The Man With the Golden Gun" for his choice of weapon, 007 James Bond (Roger Moore) sets out on Scaramanga's trail.

This was enjoyable escapist Bond fare. It's not quite as energetic as its predecessor Live and Let Die yet still moves at a brisk pace and is filled with interesting characters. I liked Bond's allies in this one what with the beautiful Britt Ekland as love interest Mary Goodnight (also his main contact in Asia) although she comes across as much too much the stereotypical dumb blond who too frequently stumbles blindly into bad situations, Soon-Tek Oh is very likable as Lieutenant Hip, Bond's local contact in Hong Kong and Bangkok. Also Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James) unexpectedly turns up as an unwanted ally at one point leading to a fun chase sequence. Scaramanga (whom Lee manages to make a fully realized character) has some entertaining allies too best of which is midget manservant and all too clever accomplice Nick Nack (Hervé Villechaize, more famous perhaps for Fantasy Island). Also there's the lovely Maud Adams as Scaramanga's love conquest Andrea Anders and Richard Loo as an unscrupulous Thai businessman named Hai Fat who employs Scaramanga early in the film to help him attain an invaluable solar energy device. While undeniably enjoyable throughout and pleasantly poltically incorrect in some sequences, there are some flaws here given sometimes things veer into  completely unbelievable territory beyond the point of suspension of disbelief and Ekland's character feels much too much a bad blond stereotype. Still I'd give this ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

Splitting Heirs (1993): The curse of the Dukes of Bournemouth continuing, rightful heir Thomas Henry Butterfly Rainbow Peace is lost as a baby by his then hippie parents, forgotten and overlooked in a restaurant. Later they remember him and a baby, only is it the original?, is found a few days later. A struggling stockbroker named Tommy Patel (Eric Idle) who works for the Bouremouths eventually stumbles across evidence he may in fact be the rightful Duke and not his newly found recent best friend Henry (Rick Moranis) and soon becomes deathly envious of all Henry has most of all Henry's soon to be Duchess Kitty Farrant (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Just how low will Tommy stoop in hopes of getting all Henry has?

This clever comedy of misidentification and complex love misunderstandings has its funny moments mostly centering around Idle and his rather clumsy attempts at getting Henry out of his way. Barbara Hershey as the oversexed Duchess Lucinda, mother of Thomas Henry Butterfly Rainbow Peace and Jones as the next Duchess provide the film's eye candy and sex up this comedy romp somewhat. Still this has some problems in that it feels a bit overlong, the potential element of incest in unsettling and the ending doesn't really seem to resolve things in a suitable way leaving one feeling like the main villain who's essentially the plotting lawyer Shadgrind (played over the top by John Cleese) never truly gets his proper comeuppance. *** out of ***** stars.

[JaseSF]

Halloween H2O: 20 Years Later (1998): 20 years after the events in Haddonfield in 1978, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) now living in Northern California as the dean of a private school under the name Keri Tate, is still haunted by her brother Michael Myers. Now with her son John (Josh Hartnett) having recently turned 17, her fears intensify again despite John's natural desire to start to forge out more on his own. But just as Laurie begins to agree to give him a bit more freedom, the Shape returns to terrorize her and her family yet again!

There's very little here we haven't seen before. There's far too many false scares and things still feel too rushed here nevertheless. There's not enough tension build in this one IMO. All in all, it's too predictable. Despite its flaws, this is watchable enough and the ending showdown is probably where this series should have ended for good. *** out of ***** stars.

Se7en (1995): Two detectives; a hungry and willing young detective hoping to make a name for himself named David Mills (Brad Pitt) and the more world-weary and wanting to retire but still reluctant to leave his comfort zone William Somerset (Morgan Freeman); are on the bloody trail of a vicious serial killer who bases his hideous work on the seven deadly sins.

This bleak and pessimistic film looks unblinkingly at the ugly side of humanity and shows the potential within us all to sin. It's pretty dark stuff but the story is intriguing and involving and grips you making you want to see just how it will all play out. Freeman and Morgan are both quite good in their perspective roles here, kind of opposite sides of the same coin so to speak. It  has a modern film noir feeling going for it and its ending leaves a biting sting. **** out of ***** stars.

[Jack]

Pinata: Survival Island (2002) - some college kids go to a tropical island for a Cinco de Mayo party but have some trouble with a killer pinata (they actually give this thing a very serious backstory at the beginning of the movie). It's a comical CGI monstrosity:



And it's real mean, brutally bludgeoning its victims and even chopping them up into individual parts. The characters are really good in this; a bunch of fun-loving goofs at the beginning but they're not the usual one-dimensional stereotypes, they're actually quite likable. Except for the "star" Jaime Pressly who's just a beeyatch. Could have left her out of the movie entirely and it would have been better off for it. I had a fun time    4/5.

[JaseSF]

Castle Rock (2000): Andy (Alana Austin), a rebellious teenage girl and her crusty old grandfather Nate (Ernest Borgnine) go on a long drive to an isolated mine in Castle Rock. Unknown to them, an illegal alien named Antonio (Roger Velasco) on the run has hidden in the back of their pickup truck. After arriving at the mine, Grandpa's pet dog decide to run off and Grandpa sends Andy after him. However while she's gone, Grandpa unexpectedly has a stroke leaving Andy stranded on her own to survive in the isolated wilderness that is until she stumbles across Antonio who's managed to injure his leg. Can the two of them survive and/or make the long trek back to civilization? Complicating matters even more, there are rabid animals in the area.

This was pretty predictable fare and at times some things presented come across as so unbelievable and so unlikely it's almost laughable yet in a surprisingly entertaining way. It helps that leads Austin and Velasco seem to have good chemistry together and it's fun to see familiar faces like Wolf Larson and Frank Gorshin in the cast even if they do not appear to have aged all that well, especially Larson. Pamela Bach-Hasselhoff plays Andy's mom. I do wonder about the maggots scene (using them to kill gangrene)...would that really work? Somehow it seems plausible. Whatever the case, that was pretty gross.  I actually kind of liked this so I'll give it *** out of ***** stars.

River's End (2005): An angry and rebellious Menard, Texas teenager named Clay Watkins (Sam Huntington) is challenged by his old country cowboy County Sheriff grandfather 'Buster' (Barry Corbin, who's quite fun to watch in this role) to guide a canoe down a river in the hopes this will help teach him how to become a responsible man.

This coming of age film was surprisingly good. There's a lot of fine moral and life lessons to be learned from this one. The acting was pretty solid throughout with Hungtington believable as the troubled youth and Caroline Goodall quite good as his poor, vastly underappreciated mother just hoping she can reach her son. Some scenes in this make you winch and are tough to watch early on but do seem quite plausible as we see Clay struggle with bullying and struggling with anger issues leading to him committing minor crimes and lashing out at all the wrong people. Watching his struggle with the river also proves very gripping. The side story involving kidnappers adds a more dangerous, exciting and edgy element to the story but actually doesn't work quite as well yet undoubtable adds a level of suspense to the proceedings. The way Clay deals with them does seem a little more questionable but he is essentially locked in a battle for survival. This one doesn't always quite work but when it does, it's very good. ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Alien 2: On Earth" (1980)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzSnh9nqVFs
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Nonsensical no-budget Italian cash-in on "Alien," in which a group of cave explorers get trapped underground with a hungry extraterrestrial. Gory but absolutely plotless and pointless. "WTF?" scenes abound.

Legend has it that 20th Century Fox attempted to sue the producers of this film for copping the "Alien" name, but the filmmakers somehow managed to convince a European court that their movie was not intended as a sequel to the Ridley Scott "Alien" movie, but to a science fiction novel from the 1930s that was also called "Alien." Okay, suuuuure.

Watch only if you have an extremely high tolerance for B-Movie pain.

[Jack]

Safety in Numbers (2006) - repeat viewing. A group of reality show contestants return to the island where the show was filmed, thinking they're doing a reunion episode, but actually a disgruntled ex-contestant is mad at them for voting him off the island and he's looking for revenge. Can't say I blame him, I'd kill most of these people too. Only a couple of them evoke any sympathy from the viewer, the rest spend the movie accusing each other of everything imaginable and generally making me yearn for their inevitable demise. Two of the girls were nice at least. The plot was okay and actually got a bit tense towards the end. There's a little twist way at the end and even though I've watched this twice I still have no idea what that was about. 3/5.

[ChaosTheory]

Pinata: Survival Island (2002) -

 

 RED TAILS  - WWII flick loosely based on the Tuskegee Airmen.  Good cast and some very cool dogfights, but the script and editing felt really rough-draftish.  Still, it was kind of refreshing to watch a movie with black protagonists that didn't involve Tyler Perry in drag or devote 2/3 of its runtime to The Valiant White Person Who Helps The Coloreds Realize Their Potential 
 (The disc also featured a mini-doc with interviews from some of the real Tuskegee Airmen, which was very interesting and I wish had been longer.) 6.5/10

[lester1/2jr]

Railroaded- Ward Cleaver is decent as a cop who is investigating a murder during a robbery gone bad and trying to pick up the main suspects cute sister. Jane randolph, who was in T men and Open Secret, two really good movies , is very good as a nightclub dame. She's not the most beautiful woman but she makes up for it with acting skills. In general, it's a solid crime/ law and order investigative movie that is elevated by the edgy dialogue. 4.25/5

[indianasmith]

I watched SHOCK LABYRINTH this afternoon.  Another Japanese horror flick that looked far, far cooler in the trailer than it did on my screen.  I mean, I was a bit tired and drowsy, but this thing was disjointed, slow, and confusing.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Hobo With A Shotgun"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssHEAOrAdCU
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The title tells you pretty much everything you need to know about this cartoonishly offensive, hilariously over the top "Grindhouse" inspired gore fest. Rutger Hauer is a hobo who hops off the train in a crime infested town. After several days of witnessing man's inhumanity to man on a constant basis, he takes it upon himself to clean up its streets. This is a dead-on funny love letter to the exploitation/splatter flicks of the 70s/80s, complete with tons of brutal violence, hammy (on purpose) acting, funky music, and gore galore. A total hoot!!

[indianasmith]

Let's see - this week I watched WOMAN IN BLACK,  a very neat little ghost story from Hammer Films.  Then last night I watched the World War II epic RED TAILS, the Hollywood version of the true story of th Tuskegee airmen, and then I watched THEATER OF THE BIZARRE, a very weird series of surrealistic short horror stories.  Hit or miss, but on the whole fairly entertaining.

[Raffine]

THE ARRIVAL (1996)

OK sci-fi flick featuring the ol' aliens secretly infiltrating Earth to alter the climate  routine has Charlie Sheen as a bad-ass SETI radio astronomer (!) and a lady climatologist (Lindsay Crouse) travelling separately to Mexico. Sheen is looking for the origin of an outer space bloop (which was answered by a cheesy Latin radio station) and Crouse is trying to find out why there's poppies blooming at the North Pole(apparently in the middle of the Arctic Ocean?  ).

Sheen's character is given a street-wise preteen black sidekick, and Sheen glares at him like he wants to punch the kid's lights out.

Sheen gets to wear silly-looking sunglasses, drive a cool Jeep, and show waaay too much of his big sweaty belly. He wears his Walkman blasting his tunes even when he's trying to sneak into the alien's hideout.

The aliens are given backward-bending legs to make them look strange but they look extremely awkward trying to walk around like that. There's a fun believability-stretching sequence toward the middle of the film where Sheen sneaks into the alien's super-secret underground hideout and a climax with Sheen and his girlfriend running around on one of those huge radio telescope dishes.

I'd never heard of this so I'm guessing it wasn't too popular. If it were released today Conservatives would give it lots of free publicity howling about all the taken for granted global warming stuff.


"Dude, where's my mysterious outer space bloop?"

[SynapticBoomstick]

Pinata: Survival Island (2002) - some college kids go to a tropical island for a Cinco de Mayo party but have some trouble with a killer pinata (they actually give this thing a very serious backstory at the beginning of the movie). It's a comical CGI monstrosity:



And it's real mean, brutally bludgeoning its victims and even chopping them up into individual parts. The characters are really good in this; a bunch of fun-loving goofs at the beginning but they're not the usual one-dimensional stereotypes, they're actually quite likable. Except for the "star" Jaime Pressly who's just a beeyatch. Could have left her out of the movie entirely and it would have been better off for it. I had a fun time    4/5.

I love this movie so much! You'd never think a pinata would make a halfway decent monster but this one ends up being great.
Watching the making-of and listening to the commentary reveals that far more thought and work and research went into producing this movie than I'd given it credit for the first time around, like the man making the pinatas at the beginning is actually the most skilled and respected pinata sculptor in his country. touches like that are pretty cool.

[claws]

The Spirit of '76 (1990)

Three people from the future travel back in time to retrieve America's heritage which was erased during a magnetic storm. They end up in a town on July 4th, 1976 instead of 1776.
Funny spoof with likeable characters, lots of vintage cheese and great music from the mid 70's. 4.5/5

Ed Wood (1994)

Best movie about bad movies and one of my all time faves. Hilarious, haunting, unbelievable, weird and not so typical Tim Burton as you might think. Martin Landau is great at portraying Bela Lugosi and won the Oscar for best performance deservedly. 5/5

[JaseSF]

Watched a pair of Australian kids TV Movies.

Captain Johnno (1988): A young deaf boy named Johnno (Damien Walters) , struggling with issues of acceptance and belonging, befriends a newly arrived Italian fisherman named Tony (Joe Petruzzi) in the isolated Australian fishing village in which they now both live. Johnno though is going through a hard time. Not only does he have problems with bullies and townsfolk who make fun of him but he also has problems at home, with a father (John Waters) who has trouble relating to him, and school struggling mightily after his older sister Julie (Rebecca Sykes), who often acted on his behalf and helped solve his issues, moves away to attend a different school. Eventually things get too much for Johnno, nicknamed "Captain Johnno" for his play at being a sea captain, and he runs away all on his own trying to sail to a nearby island hiding place. Can his family, Tony and the rest of the townsfolk find Johnno before it's too late?

This was very well done. It's a moving little story about the struggles and challenges those who are a bit different in some fashion or another face and how such people sometimes have to work even harder to get to where they want to be in their lives. The performances are good with Damien Walters, Joe Petruzzi and John Waters as the misguided father standing out. Lots of great moral lessons to be learned from this TV movie and I'd recommend it as suitable family viewing. **** out of ***** stars.

More Winners: The Journey (1990): Living on an isolated Tasmanian mountain, a recently orphaned young woman named Ada (Christen Cornell) and her servant Agnes set out on a mysterious journey in search of Ada's inheritance via a special map left by her recently deceased wealthy father Justus. However an evil witch named Martha (Judith Stratford), another of Justus's servants (in appearance only) has other plans and puts Agnes under a spell hoping to entice her to kill Ada and steal the inheritance for her. Will her evil plan succeed?

This TV movie that feels more like an anthology episode running a short 48 minutes long feels somewhat amateurish and the performances are far from great with only Judith Stratford as the villainous Martha standing out as a particularly convincing witch who plays with black magic. It's a decent cheap attempt at a fantasy but the ending proves predictable and one can see the surprise twist coming pretty early on in the proceedings. O.K. but not something one would feel the need to see again and again. **1/2 out of ***** stars.