Recent viewings

[schmendrik]

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - usually these bad movies grow on me the more times I see them.  Not so here.  You've got boring parts, then you've got special effects parts, repeat a few times until finished.  They take the old cliché of not killing the bad guy until after you've made a little speech, and overuse it to extreme levels.  The bad guys don't kill the good guys either.  Hell, the movie could have been cut in half if someone would just pull the freakin' trigger!  Not to mention that the plot was absurd - we find out that the bad guy is actually the one who brought all the good guys together to oppose him - yeah, that was a brilliant idea.  Oh, and not only does Venice have streets, but if you blow up one building, all the rest will fall down like a house of cards.  And the little canals are apparently deep enough to run a huge submarine into them.  And one of the guys is stuck in the car, upside down, only seconds before a missile hits it and causes a huge explosion.  But he survives.  2.5/5.

I learned from CASINO ROYALE that the buildings in Venice are actually floating on big barrels in the basement, and if you shoot them with a bullet or two, the building will sink. I walked away from that movie wondering if that's really true. I'm still wondering.

I kind of liked LEAGUE. But I think it's because I have sort of a soft spot for Sean Connery and I always like depictions of contraptions which can plausibly be built from 19th century technology. I think that's why I always liked WILD, WILD WEST (the TV show, not the movie which I never saw).

[schmendrik]

13 HOURS IN A WAREHOUSE Thank you, thank you to whoever mentioned this movie in this forum (probably in this thread). That was an excellent low budget horror movie. Five no-name actors who were pretty enjoyable and convincing as a bunch of professional thieves and low-lives. Dialog only occasionally got a little stiff and unnatural. Didn't overdo the gross-out factor, which is something that irritates the heck out of me in most "horror". As Stephen King said in his book "Danse Macabre", you go for the gross out when you've failed at atmosphere. Not that he said he's above doing that.

4.5/5

[schmendrik]

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen... Hell, the movie could have been cut in half if someone would just pull the freakin' trigger!

This just reminded me of something else. What I think is one of the funniest lines in AUSTIN POWERS. Seth Green (a guy who I like more and more) is appalled that Dr. Evil is going to kill Austin in the traditional evil-genius way, with a very, very slow machine and nobody watching.

"Dr. Evil: All right guard, begin the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism.
[guard starts dipping mechanism]
Dr. Evil: Close the tank!
Scott Evil: Wait, aren't you even going to watch them? They could get away!
Dr. Evil: No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?
Scott Evil: I have a gun, in my room, you give me five seconds, I'll get it, I'll come back down here, BOOM, I'll blow their brains out!
Dr. Evil: Scott, you just don't get it, do ya? You don't."

[RCMerchant]

Saterday I staued up untill the wee hours of the night to see BLOOD of DRACULA. This was Herbert Strocks entry in the 'Teenage monster' trend of the 50's. The vampire girl is quite a sight with her Nosferatu teeth and ears....



If your a fan of 50's low budget horror this one is worth a peek!

[InformationGeek]

The Insider

A very powerful and amazing story about when a whistleblower reveals the secret behind cigeratte companies.  Very acting and a great script made this movie enjoyable from being to end.  I just wish that the people in my class took it seriously.

Animal Farm (1954 film)

Based off the George Orwell book, it tells the story about a bunch of animals who over throw the farmer after being mistreated by him.  They then go and build up their own society on the farm, hoping to make it their own utopia.  Unfortantely, things don't always go as planned.  This is a great animated movie that had a Disney feel to it, but yet was still dark and handled it quite well.  The only problem with it is that the movie feels a bit rushed near the end.  Otherwise, this is a great experience.

[indianasmith]

I watched SPLINTER and LAID TO REST this weekend.  Both pretty good, SPLINTER was the better movie, but LAID TO REST definitely had its moments.

[Joe the Destroyer]

Fido- Doesn't top Shaun of the Dead or Dead Alive, but definitely a good zombie comedy.   

[Jack]

Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008) - watched this again.  A group of hot babes in tight tank tops get all sweaty while being chased around by dinosaurs, at the center of the Earth!  Meanwhile, Greg Evigan and Dee Dee Pfeiffer use a tunnel boring machine to try to rescue them.  Dee Dee is also in a tight, sweaty tank top.  Easily the best movie of 2008, it's cheese-a-licious, it's babe-a-licious, it's 5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Transtasia (2006)-   Another "why did I rent this?" rental.  actually as very good documentary about the first all transexual beauty pageant which was held in Las Vegas.   I have been to a drag bar or two in my time and the one thing this is missing is the smell of all the makeup.   Anyway,  I really liked that the director didn't use voiceovers or "intervention" style message thingies and just let the people themselves tell their stories.  They all have diva type personalities and kind of speak in cliches like they didn't have the greatest educations but you can't help but admire them as survivors coming from places like Iowa, Minessota, and inner city Chicago and being not nonly gay but effeminate in an unhideable way.  The sections with them in their families have a kind of awkwardness.  They insist they are fully accepted as they are but you look in the faces of the family memebers and you're not so sure.  Their forceful personalities are a kind of shield.  I don't know I'm not a psychologist that's how it seemed to me.  WHile i'm being pretentious here I would point out I remeber in college reading something by bell hooks (if yuo went to a liberal arts collegein the 90's you probably came across this name)  talking about how overwhlemingly MALE the dragworld was.  That's accurate.  Women don't act like this.  BUt they want to be accepted as women.  Hey Las vegas isn't the type of place to nitpick like this.  Winner of the pageant is easy to guess from the begining 4/5

[lester1/2jr]

Mau Mau Sex Sex -  I rented this partially because it was about exploitation pioneers David Friedman and Dan Sonney and partially because it had such an unbelievably bad title.  I now know it comes from an offhand remark made within this documentary by Sonney about how they could turn the Mau Mau uprising into a saleable exploitation movie (which they actually did by intercutting a documentary about the uprising with sequences they filmed of nude black women acting out said rebellion on a Hollywood soundstage).   Rather than going for an expansive encylopedic history of early exploitation this takes a more laid back approach and is better for it I think. Even if you are like most people and aren't particularly interested in the movies these guys made,  those with an interest in capitalism and how to use said economic system to entertain people should check this out.  Communists and other non americans will no doubt be horrified.    Friedmans reverence for "She freak"  is truly baffling as it is probably the worst movie I've ever seen and I've seen plenty of his and other b movies.   

[Jack]

Moonraker (1979) - James Bond saves the whole planet from an evil mastermind who wants to kill everyone and repopulate the place with babes in mini-skirts.  Great scenery in Rio and Venice.  Really cheesy    Still, one of my old favorites.  4/5.

You Only Live Twice (1967) - James Bond travels to Japan to prevent Donald Pleasence from causing a war between the US and the USSR.  Very stylish, Connery does a fine job.  4/5.

[Rev. Powell]

AUTO FOCUS:  Actor Bob Crane gets the lead in "Hogan's Heroes," then loses his family and career because he films his numerous swinging sexcapades with babes he picks up with that Col. Hogan grin.  Not a serious study of "sex addiction" but glorified softcore sleaze dressed up as tragic drama, which actually makes a reasonably nice break from all the glorified violence dressed up as epic adventure.  2.5/5.

[Jack]

The Haunted Palace (1963) - A warlock (Vincent Price) is burned alive by angry villagers.  110 years later, his descendant (also played by Price), comes to the village to look at the palace he's recently inherited.  It's not long before the warlock's spirit takes over Prices mind, and he begins taking his revenge on the descendants of the villagers.  Really good movie, probably the best Vincent Price horror movie I've seen - he's at his wicked best.  Fantastic Gothic atmosphere, just dripping with the stuff.  Gorgeous photography.  The plot was interesting enough, but we've seen it many times before.  4.5/5.

[InformationGeek]

I just finished watching Cool World.  Whoa, that was weird.  Not Raggedy Ann or Monkeybone weird, but just weird.  The live actors were terrible and Brad Pitt was the worse, being just so stiff and jaded.  Hard to believe he would end being nominated for anything in the Academy Awards when you see this preformance.  The plot was all over the place and I swear they were making it up as they went.  The animation was good, but I feel they were allowed to draw anything they wanted so they did.  The voice acting, however, was pretty good and amusing.  Kim Basniger was strangely better as a voice actor than as a live actor for this movie.  Was that good or bad?  The soundtrack had to be the best thing about the movie, giving providing the right atmosphere and feel to the dark Cool World.  While it was insane, it for sure had made interested in seeing what was coming next.  Because of this film, I had to create the RANDOM FREAK OUT MOMENT for my review.  I'm sure I'm going to end up using it in the future.  Anyways, I sort of like this movie, but it is just so easy to make fun and I didn't want to hold back.

[Rev. Powell]

I just finished watching Cool World.  Whoa, that was weird. 

It pains me everytime I hear you use the word "weird" as a negative.