Recent viewings

[InformationGeek]

In Search of the Titanic: Holy crap was that a bad movie.  The plot isn't really about finding the Titanic, it is more about a bunch of rats trying to gain the immortally elixir from Atlantis so they can use it to take over the world with a huge rat army.  It makes about as much sense as the rest of the movie.  Oh yeah, there is a rapping dog and gay toy fish that sings techno songs as well.  The main issues with the film are:

1. People underreact or do not see the big picture.  The couple is immortal now, but they can never leave Atlantis because of that.  However, they don't seem to care about it or anyone else's feelings about that.  They have family, don't they care about how much they are worrying about the two of them?

2. The overall continuity error from the first movie. It's hard to explain unless you've seen the first movie, but I can garatee you that there is a major issue at play.

The movie just plain horrible in every meaning of the word.  If you want to watch it... knock yourself out, but you may feel like you need to knock yourself out when you watch this movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gOZm7R0qmU
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[Sleepyskull]

A few days ago I watched Miami Blues (1990).

I used Comcast's On Demand service.

It was pretty entertaining, although like The Wild Angels (1966) it's hard to say why.

I really enjoyed the scene about halfway through (give or take 10-15 minutes) in which Alec Baldwin's character is using a real gun to pretend he is shooting at Fred Ward's character. It was funny in grim way. 

I give it 8.3 out of 13 stars.

[lester1/2jr]

SHanks (1974) - This was on TCM underground a week ago.  That's a good place for it. an insane asylum might be another. It was kind of distantly like the 7 Faces of Dr Lao not in the sense that it was a rascist comedy western fantasy which is wasn't, but it was a fantasy of sorts and featured the lead, the famous mime Marcel Marceau (I say THE famous mime in part because he truly is the ONLY famous mime) in more than one role. Marceau  looks like one of the people in the background at the Reagle Beagle on "Three's COmpany" that you see and are like "man the 70's were weird", with an amorphus pile of hair on his head and explosed chest hair, every inch the 1974 man. He is a puppeteer beloved by the kiddos in the town so a scientist hires him to help with his weird useless invention of putting electrodes into dead frogs and making them look like they are alive. The next step of course it to try it on people. This gives Marceau and two other idio...uhh  professional mimes the chance to pretend they are puppets. It's a bit of a misfire that's for darn sure. There are ten minute long Marceau as puppet stretches and the whole idea is ridiculous but hey, what are you gonna do. You dvred it.  3/5


Ben X (2007) - Well you know you are watcing an indy feature when the clever opening credit sequence features credits that are too small to read. Hey, I fast forwarded through it anyway but still, come on guys. This is a movie alot of people will hate. It is very ostentatious in it's brutality and while it does move well it has a very narrow sort of scope to it: The autistic, video gamer kid goes to school gets picked on, comes home, goes back to school, gets picked on worse, come home and on and on.  His parents are like the parents on the show Intervention, they want to help but aren't at all equiped to do so. From the begining, it is implied in documentary style interviews that something is going to happen and after a particularly bad working over by the bullies he decides it's time to put his plan in motion. what is the plan? You hope against all hope it's going to be an Columbine style attack on the horrible kids who torment him and cringe when he seems to be opting for suicide.  

So if you don't mind having your buttons pushed a little bit here and there check it out. I will admit there were times I wanted to pull the disk out and throw it out the window but I feel much better now. Also was the first movie I believe I have ever seen in Belgian and first time I have ever heard the language. I honestly thought they spoke french there.  I thought it sounded like a combination of German and French but apparently it is very similar to Dutch. 4/5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtG0GWc4nv0&feature=related
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[Sleepyskull]

Once again I used Comcast On Demand, this time for UHF (1989).

I am positive it is the first of many viewings.    

It gets the top honor: 13 out of 13 stars.

It was very goofy but in an entertaining way.

It was also nearly flawless in terms of it's goofiness. 

[JaseSF]

Caught all the following on TV last night:

Monsters vs. Aliens: very enjoyable. Almost like a team of 1950s styles monsters (obviously inspired by Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The Blob, The Creature From the Black Lagoon, The Fly and Godzilla with a bit of Mothra thrown into the mix too). The alien robot kind of reminded me a little bit of Kronos too. Lots of good humor had me laughing out loud but it all felt just a little too by the numbers and predictable. *** out of ***** stars.

Pretty in Pink: A coming of age, somewhat nerdy teen girl (Molly Ringwald), from a poor single parent family, falls in love with a cool rich kid named Blaine. A realistic look at high school with its cliques often based on wealth and social standing with kids looking for acceptance somewhere or another and often finding pain and rejection instead. I really liked this one aside from the ending as I didn't feel a certain character truly earns the forgiveness he receives. This one too I felt was a little too predictable. *** out of ***** stars.

They (2002): I wasn't expecting much in this movie about adults being revisited by the night terrors that terrorized them as a kid. Yet I ultimately liked it far more than I expected. It did have a few problems...the night terrors are never quite as terrifying as they ought to have been and again it falls into the realm of the predictable. Still it wasn't half bad I felt and explores a phenomenon I really do believe in...other dimensions. *** out of ***** stars.

[El Misfit]

A Fistful of Dollars- A Good start with Clint Eastwood, the plot though is kinda hard to understand at first.

[Allhallowsday]

...
Pretty in Pink: A coming of age, somewhat nerdy teen girl (Molly Ringwald), from a poor single parent family, falls in love with a cool rich kid named Blaine. A realistic look at high school with its cliques often based on wealth and social standing with kids looking for acceptance somewhere or another and often finding pain and rejection instead. I really liked this one aside from the ending as I didn't feel a certain character truly earns the forgiveness he receives. This one too I felt was a little too predictable. *** out of ***** stars.
...

Realistic?    I do understand what you mean but "...wealth and social standing with kids looking for acceptance..." "...often finding pain and rejection instead..."    You make it sound like, eh, well, FRESH HORSES... ( )  I mean with that kid (ANTHONY MICHAEL HALL) trying to come on to her, and his goofy cockiness is something every guy can relate to... PRETTY IN PINK... That silly movie.  It is "racist" too, don't ya know (who never knew that)?  Long Duk Dong.  Nevertheless, I like it still, haven't looked at it in quite some time, it's dumb and I love it, because these characters are "realistic" as you've sensed, and we've all had real characters populate our own lives.  
EDIT: I'M THINKING OF SIXTEEN CANDLES!!  OOPS!! 

I watched BLOOD MANIA, MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, WOLFMAN (1979 ~  ) THE WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN (1971) only JOHN FORD left me impressed, and that would be "impressed again".  I'd seen CLEMENTINE at least several times before, but I'm inclined to guess "many" times.  

[Psycho Circus]

I mean with that kid (ANTHONY MICHAEL HALL) trying to come on to her, and his goofy cockiness is something every guy can relate to... PRETTY IN PINK... That silly movie.  It is "racist" too, don't ya know (who never knew that)?  Long Duk Dong.  Nevertheless, I like it still, haven't looked at it in quite some time, it's dumb and I love it, because these characters are "realistic" as you've sensed, and we've all had real characters populate our own lives.  I like the '80s soundtrack... 

Err, my dearest AHD, Michael Anthony Hall wasn't in Pretty In Pink. Do you mean Jon Cryer?

[lester1/2jr]

Night Train (1959) -  don't let anyone tell you this is some kind of lost classic but I really liked it. Or maybe it is a lost classic, what the hell do I know. It's Polish. I was kind of confused because I thought Poland was communist and thus wouldn't have any real movies but this is not political at all more of a sort of light film noir.  
                      
                            It starts off slow. We get ten minute of people filling into a train wow how exciting.  I'm kind of an editor by nature and I lately I've been starting to notice when movies ACTUALLY start. There are so many choices nowadays, you really can't afford to waste any time in the begining but there was probably less concern with this 50 years ago.  in Poland.  However, If this was on TCM I believe they would lose people in that time. Fyi, Crappy movies tend to start at the 1/2 hour mark.    

                             Very soon, though we get to the heart of the matter which is the sexual tension between the sultry blonde and her co-compartment mate a mysterious guy (he wears sunglasses, thus he is mysterious). The train is segregated by sex, but somehow she was sold a mens compartment ticket and she refuses to leave. So she and the guy get to know each other. The fun is interrupted though when it is revealed there is a murderer on the train. People suspect it's the mysterious guy and there is a tense vibe while they figure it out.  There is some amazing camerawork (and some kind of not so amazing, it's inspired but amateurish and unproduced)  lots of dark shadows and one shot in particular when they all get off and then get on the train, they are in this field and the all of them going back to the train, it's just very odd and cool.  

                         Night Train is not on par with Hitchcock or any of that stuff but I did find it appealing in it's own sort of slight, blase way with some weird dialogue and cool minimal jazz / lounge soundtrack, kind of Morricone-ish
4/5

[Allhallowsday]

I mean with that kid (ANTHONY MICHAEL HALL) trying to come on to her, and his goofy cockiness is something every guy can relate to... PRETTY IN PINK... That silly movie.  It is "racist" too, don't ya know (who never knew that)?  Long Duk Dong.  Nevertheless, I like it still, haven't looked at it in quite some time, it's dumb and I love it, because these characters are "realistic" as you've sensed, and we've all had real characters populate our own lives.  I like the '80s soundtrack...  

Err, my dearest AHD, Michael Anthony Hall wasn't in Pretty In Pink. Do you mean Jon Cryer?

Eh... you're right!!!  I'm thinking of SIXTEEN CANDLES!    OOPS, MY BAD!!  

Oh, and I HATE PRETTY IN PINK!!!   

[Rev. Powell]

MEATBALL MACHINE (2005): Alien parasites infect human hosts and morph their bodies into fighting machines who then fight each other--will a couple of sweet, shy young lovers each get infected and be forced to fight to the death?  Interesting premise and high gore level, but the focus on (admittedly cool) FX and style at the expense of story makes it ultimately unfulfilling.  The main character is a young adult but looks and acts like a teenager, and the movie seems squarely aimed at a teenage mindset.  I'm sure many would find it "awesome;" being a magna fanboy probably helps.  It felt very derivative, even though I haven't seen the movies that it supposedly copies: TETSUO, THE MACHINE GIRL, etc.  2.5/5.

[Jack]

Ghost Game (2004) - some college kids go out to a cabin in the woods, I guess there are the ghosts of witches there, I had to turn it off because I couldn't take another minute of the mega-b***h b***hin' at the other b***h.  The characters were horrible, any possibility of achieving even a minimal amount of scariness was destroyed by the heavy metal drumbeats pounding in at every opportunity, and none of the characters took the situation the least bit seriously.  Our friends just died?  Cool, let's go on a scavenger hunt!  None of this crap made any sense, for instance they find a post with a ring of rocks around it.  The "astrophysics major from Princeton" speculates that the rocks must have been from a meteor shower.  ?  They're freakin' rocks.  In a circle.  Yes, meteor shower...obviously.  This wasn't bottom of the barrel, it's the sludge that's left after the bottom of the barrel stuff is dumped out.  1/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Creature with the BLue hand- theres no creature with a blue hand.  It's a very early Klaus Kinski movie that has a mystery I couldn't follow about a Scream type masked/ cloaked thing that has a medieval torture sort of metallic hand thing like the guy in enter the dragon but it goes over the whole hand. I liked the look and feel of the movie and there was a cute brunette.

[JaseSF]

I mean with that kid (ANTHONY MICHAEL HALL) trying to come on to her, and his goofy cockiness is something every guy can relate to... PRETTY IN PINK... That silly movie.  It is "racist" too, don't ya know (who never knew that)?  Long Duk Dong.  Nevertheless, I like it still, haven't looked at it in quite some time, it's dumb and I love it, because these characters are "realistic" as you've sensed, and we've all had real characters populate our own lives.  I like the '80s soundtrack... 

Err, my dearest AHD, Michael Anthony Hall wasn't in Pretty In Pink. Do you mean Jon Cryer?

Eh... you're right!!!  I'm thinking of SIXTEEN CANDLES!     OOPS, MY BAD!! 

Oh, and I HATE PRETTY IN PINK!!!   

Well I don't hate Pretty In Pink. I did think though it was pretty predictable and paint by numbers in terms of its presentation but there were little moments I really enjoyed. I do feel Sixteen Candles is much funnier.

[InformationGeek]

MST3K: Riding With Death: I got this episode off the Internet, but that is another story.  It was a pretty decent episode with plenty of the stuff to mock and riff.  My dad watched with me and agreed it was good, but that movie was pretty bad.  To me, I think the movie would have scored a 2 out of 4 with me since it wasn't as a bad as the rest of the stuff they normally watch.