Recent viewings

[Jim H]

Saw the Secret of the Urn, it's a 60s Hideo Gosha samurai flick.  You can grab it on netflix instant.

Quite enjoyed this one.  Basic story is about a samurai who, on a mission, loses an eye and has his arm chopped off.  Flash forward a year later, and he's nearly crazy and living as a ronin.  He ends up, genuinely by accident (as opposed to the Yojimbo "accidentally" in the middle of things bit), in the midst of a struggle over a valuable urn.  What he does is pretty interesting and often quite entertaining, and the lead performance by Kinnosuka Nakamura is really good.  Look at his reactions to meeting someone from his old life - it's some great acting. 

Actually, all the acting in this one is quite good.  It's one of the pleasures of Japanese chambara - a lot of great production value and acting ensembles in the better films.

Don't want to have too many spoilers, but suffice to say there's some twists and turns, good action sequences, and solid character development.  Worth a watch.

8/10.

[indianasmith]

I watched KILLER BY NATURE last night, a pretty interesting thriller, although the ending was so unlikely that it kind of ruined the whole thing for me.  The premise has to do with whether or not evil behavior is hereditary.  Ron Perleman stars in this one and is quite good.

Tonight my family and I watched Spielberg's epic WAR HORSE.  Very impressive film; farfetched storyline, but most enjoyable. A great reminder of the devastation caused by the Great War nearly 100 years ago.

[JaseSF]

When Zachary Beaver Came To Town (2003): A story focused on some of the most eventful and life-changing days one summer in the young life of Toby Wilson (Jonathan Lipnicki) starting off with the arrival of a sideshow attraction named Zachary Beaver (Sasha Joseph Neulinger), also billed as "The World's Fattest Boy" in Toby's small Texas hometown of Granger.

This family friendly coming of age (of sorts) story was actually much better than I was expecting. It helps that the kids look and act very much like real kids would and also manage to prove surprisingly likable for the most part throughout. It just feels so real how much life-shaking events affect these kids and the way they react to said events emotionally resonates most effectively and adds to believability. The only real flaw here is the element that Zachary seems happy with his lot in life being stared at by strangers and being allowed to be so obese to help provide a living to himself and others. Despite this, the theme of finding acceptance, friendship and a sense of belonging still shines through. ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

[Vik]

Feast
That was so much better than I remembered. Really funny and entertaining throughout. I liked how they kept playing with your expectations all the time, though I think they might have done it a bit too much. It's not that I started to foresee the unexpected, but near the end when it happened it was just like "Oh, something unexpected happened." It kind of lost its effect, to an extent. Overall though, loved it.

[indianasmith]

Last night I watched an interesting British horror film called SHATTERED.  A group of college kids take off into the woods of North Wales in search of a creature accused of killing some sheep and attacking a local rancher.  All of them are eminently dislikable, and when they find what is responsible for the attacks (two insane brothers lurking in the ruins of a former boy's school) you don't feel really sympathetic for the fate of the kids.  A few decent moments, but overall meh.

[retrorussell]

CUTTER'S WAY (1981).  Blah movie with Jeff Bridges and an excellent John Heard performance.  A guy (Bridges) witnesses a prominent landowner dumping a woman's body.  After telling his boozy, crippled Nam vet buddy (Heard) he is spurred into finding and exposing the murderer, or killing him himself.  Some characters are bland, and some just kinda disappear without real rhyme or reason.  We barely see the killer until the very end, and when we do, he's extremely dull.  Only worthwhile for the Heard performance.

[lester1/2jr]

Creatures of the Abyss- see Jack's review for a more authoratative viewpoint. the movie is from 2000 but it looks a good 10 years earlier. Low budget, most everything takes place in a bunch of rooms. it's dubbed from i would guess italian. It's ridiculous. The girls are pretty enough and there is occasionaly special effects that are monsters and whatnot. 4.5/5

[claws]

Movies I watched the last couple of days:

Death Valley (1982)

Slasher about a boy, his mom and her new lover exposed to serial killer danger while on vacation in Death Valley. This one pretty much follows slasher rules (boobs, bloody kills) except they cast a kid in the lead. Subplot is about mom's lover trying to gain trust from the kid. 3.5/5

Deadly Intruder (1985)

An escaped psychopath is prowling the area. A young woman preparing dinner for friends must deal with a hungry drifter, who may or may not be the psychopath. Overlooked slasher with rural setting, neat kills and an unusual plot twist during the final 20 minutes. 3/5

Deadly Eyes (1982)

Divorced Teacher/Coach becomes the object of desire of a young student and a woman working for the health department. Things get complicated when overgrown rats on steroids gnaw their way through towns folk. Entertaining and bloody creature feature with at times goofy giant rat effects. Neat snow setting. 3/5

The Best of Sex and Violence (1981)

John Carradine hosts this compilation of excellent Grindhouse trailers. "Coming attractions of movies that never come!" Gem-central, one of the best of its kind. 5/5

The Room (2003)

Instant classic. 5/5    

[Jack]

Roller Blade Warriors: Taken by Force (1989) - Kathleen Kinmont stars as a post-apocalyptic warrior babe in the requisite leather bikini and moussed up hair. She's accompanying some psychic girl across the wastelands, trying to get to the church of the Smiley Face. They run into trouble when they encounter a group of guys who are out looking for women - you see they've got a monster living in an abandoned factory and it demands one woman a week. They tried feeding it a man dressed up as a woman, but that didn't work out too well, so whatcha gonna do? They also buy three topless babes from some slave trader I guess, and then there's three additional Roller Blade Warrior babes skating around through the desert. We gets lots of really fake Samurai sword fights and plenty of non-Academy award winning acting. I enjoyed it; it wasn't he best movie of its type, but it's a nice little slice of the '80s.  4/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Fright Night" (2011)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txgGhyjPZGg
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Remake/update of the '80s vampire flick follows the same plot as the original - dorky teenager thinks a vampire is living next door, enlists a "vampire hunter" to help him destroy it - but it tweaks & changes things just enough to make it stand on its own and worth a watch. Colin Farrell is a cool vamp and the guy who plays "Peter Vincent" in this one is a hoot.

Watch for a brief cameo by Chris Sarandon, who was the vamp in the original movie!

[Rev. Powell]

HELLACIOUS ACRES: THE CASE OF JOHN GLASS (2011): An amnesiac man awakens in the post-apocalyptic future encased in a protective suit and patrols a desolate landscape searching for explanations. The flick does a good job of creating a unique setting and look on an obviously minimal budget (only a couple of actors no locations to speak of), but there's not enough story here to hold your interest; it's slow and often uneventful, and the hero spends the last third of the movie breaking down and hallucinating and we never get any final answers to some of the interesting questions posed. 1.5/5.

[JaseSF]

Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter (1994): Cody (Zachary Ty Bryan), a young boy lost in the woods befriends the legendary Bigfoot (Gary Maloncon) who happens to have a bounty placed on his head by a ruthless millionaire named Chaz Frederick (David Rasche) following numerous sightings and news reports. Fredericks wants the creature to be a stuffed star display in his museum. Meanwhile a university scientific research team lead by Samantha (Crystal Chappell) are also searching for the creature hoping to ultimately proves its existence.

This was a pretty cheesy kids movie. It stars Zachary Ty Bryan, best known for "Home Improvement", who fails to be fully convincing in his role here as Bigfoot's sympathetic friend. Also on hand are Matt McCoy as an heroic forest ranger, David Rasche chewing the scenery as the kooky and obsessed millionaire lead villain with Clint Howard in tow as his sniveling sidekick Gary. Clint's dad Rance also appears in a bit part too. Bigfoot in this comes across as incredibly goofy and rather clueless most of the time. The monster suit/puppetry FX of its face makes it look a lot meaner and nastier a lot of the time here that it ever really is which takes away a little from us feeling as sympathetic as we should for the creature's plight. Most memorable scene: Bigfoot wrestles a bear. Despite the title of this one, it proves pretty forgettable and cliched fare honestly. **1/2 out of ***** stars is perhaps being generous.

Little Bigfoot 2: The Journey Home (1997): Single and work obsessed father Derby Ferris (Stephen Furst) decides to take his family on vacation camping in the woods hoping to bond with his troubled kids Brian (Taran Noah Smith of "Home Improvement" fame) and Shelly (Melody Clarke of "Baywatch" fame). The kids, who also bring along friend Mike Holliday (Michael Fishman of "Roseanne" fame), stumble across a young Bigfoot. The kids decide they must try and help and protect it from an hunting party headed by an evil wealthy landowner/industrialist named Cavendish.

This was arguably even cheesier than Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter. I haven't yet seen the original film. This though pretty much rips off some of the basic plot from E.T. which might be somewhat appropriate given Little Bigfoot here looks more like the unfortunate offspring of E.T. and an Ewok. It has moments where the kids hide the critter from their father and there's even one seqeunce in which the cutesy blonde daughter dresses it up and takes it to the candy store. Of course, unlike E.T., the kids in this one rarely prove truly likable and are much more squarely in the range of whiny and annoying. It runs the full gamut of predictable cliches although I do have to admit there were moments I laughed at this for being so unbelievably silly and ridiculous. Also Stephen Furst  is a bit of an hoot in his role as the addled father. **1/2 out of ***** stars.

Airplane! (1980): When an airplane's flight crew as well as most of its passengers take violently ill after eating bad fish, it's up to a former fighter pilot named Ted Striker (Robert Hays), still suffering from shell-shock aftereffects from the war and crashing his plane, to land the plane. Surely he's their only hope.

This clever parody of the Airport disaster films, primarily Airport 1975,  is truly a comedy classic. It comes fast and furious with the constant jokes and sight gags and at times is incredibly off the wall, in many ways this feels the predecessor to films like Naked Gun!. Speaking of which, Leslie Neilsen often steals the show here as Dr. Rumack (Don't call me Shirley!) and other standouts include Robert Stack as ultra-serious pilot Rex Kramer who basically plays straight man to all the comedic hijinks around him and Lloyd Bridges as the overstressed airport manager Steve McCroskey having choosen the wrong time to give up all his bad habits. Also watch out for memorable bits involving Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lorna Patterson, Julie Hagerty and Otto the inflatable automatic pilot. Very silly and slapsticky at times, this requires more than one viewing to really notice all the gags going down. Honestly though, it does by now feel a bit dated.  ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007): Two Brooklyn firefighters named Chuck (Adam Sandler) and Larry (Kevin James), single guys who are best friends, decide to pretend to be a gay in order to receive domestic partner benefits and to better ensure the future of Larry's kids should something happen to him on the job.

This was a mixed bag. It has some genuinely funny moments, some heartfelt scenes about true friendship and some scenes that push acceptance of others regardless of sexual orientation but it also has lots of crass humor, unconvincing emotional scenes and numerous exageerated stererotypical characters played to maximize comedic effect. It works at times and at others it kind of doesn't. Still it's probably better than most films Adam Sandler has been involved with in the last 5-6 years. **1/2 out of ***** stars.

[Vik]

Brick
Easily one of the best films I've seen in a while. Really intense and Joseph Gorden-Levitt was great. 4.5/5

[Jack]

Skeeter (1993) - an evil businessman is dumping toxic waste down an old mine. This leads to the inevitable giant animal invasion, in this case giant mosquitoes. Really liked this movie, it's got a bit of a comic edge to it (and it's actually funny), like the sheriff telling the deputy "Nothing gets done around this town without my say-so. Do you understand me?" And the deputy responding "I understand that's why nothing ever gets done around this town." The characters were quite likable and well developed, and there were no small characters - even if somebody's only on screen for a minute or two, they leave an impression. It didn't have the fastest moving plot I guess, but it was a very fun ride nonetheless.  4/5.

Night of the Lepus (1972) - my Easter movie I guess. A rancher is having problems with a huge overpopulation of bunnies, so he calls in a scientist from the local university to come up with a non-poisonous solution. So, they shoot some bunny full of unknown hormones, but their daughter likes that bunny so she switches it with one from the control group, then takes it out of the lab. Next thing ya know you've got hundreds of giant bunnies rampaging about. I thought the moral of the story was that children are evil and should be kept locked up until their 21st birthday. My wife insists that the moral was that bunnies are evil, and we should wipe them all out now while we've still got the chance. In any event, we get lots of slo-mo footage of bunnies running through miniature sets, accompanied by a sort of gurgling sound for some reason. The humans finally come up with a "shocking" solution to the problem. I've seen this several times before and it's always held a certain charm, but I dunno...maybe I wasn't really in the mood for it last night, or maybe I've just seen it one too many times at this point.  3/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Hangover, Part II" (2011)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohF5ZO_zOYU&feature=player_embedded
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"The Wolfpack" is back together and this time they're headed to Thailand, where "Stu" is about to get married. Naturally, things go horribly wrong for our hard-partying friends...again, and they have to delve deep into the seedy heart of Bangkok to set things right. Along the way they encounter Russian mobsters, abusive monks, "Lady Boy" strippers, Interpol agents and a drug dealing monkey.

Yeah, it's simply a re-tread of the first movie set on foreign soil, but the mayhem level is high and the laughs kept coming. Thumbs up.