Recent viewings

[JaseSF]

Scorpion (1986): Steve Woods (Tonny Tulleners), a special D.I.A. agent code-named "Scorpion" is assigned to undercover anti-terrorist missions. When one mission results in death for his long-time friend/fellow agent Phil Keller (Allen Williams), Woods tries to track the killers down believing them somehow tied to a terrorist informer he was assigned to protect named Faued.

This low budget rip-off of Bullitt lacks all the excitement generated in that film. This film only proves interesting when Woods is hot on the trail of suspects, otherwise it's dreadfully dull. The slow pace between the few brighter spots of action really take away from our enjoyment here. Also even the more exciting parts suffer from Tulleners' unconvincing lead performance and general lack of charisma. There's way too many unnecessary and overlong scenes here too such as the overlong opening with Woods in Spain with everyone speaking Spanish, the slightly confusing and unnecessary flashback scenes, the dull and uninspired scenes of Woods with his  lover. **1/2 out of ***** stars.

Van Nuys Blvd. (1979): Romanticized look back at life, love, and wild thrills on Van Nuys Blvd. in California during the late 1970s.

Basically the story here follows a group of generally good-natured young people who meet up and become friends on Van Nuys Blvd. It's a surprisingly fun little movie with some decent moments of humor, romance, lots of topless women, lots of cool looking cars and vans and pretty much reflects the 1970s in a romanticized way. It doesn't really show any of the dark side of that era but focuses instead on the fun and wild thrills of an era where people were concerned with living it up, enjoying their youth, disco music, roller coasters, and indulging in free love. There are a couple of disturbing and WTF moments here though particularly the scene involving Camille's father interrupting a love-making session with her boyfriend at one point, there's also some nonsensical stuff about getting one's mouth stuck eating a sandwich, and guys suddenly flipping out smashing up cars for no reason. There's really very little plot to this but it's still a fun little escape with a nostalgic love for/of the late 1970s. ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

[Jack]

Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back (1990) - so there's this princess (Lana Clarkson) and her father, the king, dies but some nasty guy takes over the kingdom. Lana flees to the forest and joins up with some female warriors to try and retake the throne. This was cheesy as could be of course, but actually had a surprising number of subplots to keep things interesting. Overall it wasn't too bad. 3/5.

Mankillers (1987) - some former government agent has turned evil and gotten into the white slavery market, and another former agent is called in to stop him. She trains a group of female prison convicts in military techniques and goes to combat the bad guy with his 100 man army of cannon fodder. Well the acting was terrible and the plot was just a joke, but it still managed to be amusing enough (and so very '80s) that it wasn't a complete waste of time. 2.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

How much nudity in BQ2, Jack? 

THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL (1928): A girl is sent on the street to sell matches but has no luck and, afraid to return home because she fears her father will beat her, she freezes to death. One of the earliest adaptations of the Christian Hans Anderson tale, the quiet hypothermic melancholy makes it quite affecting as a silent film.  4/5

[Jack]

How much nudity in BQ2, Jack? 

Oh Lana isn't shy at all, that's for sure 

[lester1/2jr]

The Ghost - Barabara Steele looks fantastic plotting against her invalid husband with some guy who has literally no choice but to do what she wants because she's so hot.  It's the exact same plot as Dominique is Dead and seemingly every movie on this collection. it's good 4/5

[Jack]

The Strangeness (1987) - some people go into an abandoned gold mine and as luck would have it, there's a stop-motion tentacled monster down there. Of course the mine entrance caves in and they spend the rest of the movie searching for an alternate exit, as the beastie picks one of them off occasionally. This certainly had a good tense atmosphere, I'd liken the experience to really screwing something up badly at work and having your boss tell you he'd like to see you in his office in an hour. Not enjoyable, but well...effective. The characters for the most part were annoying. I don't know, can't really say I liked it. 2/5.

Ice Planet (2001) - in the future, some powerful aliens destroy an Earth base but a couple thousand people manage to escape on a spaceship. The ship was actually built in accordance with blueprints they obtained from some unknown alien species (not the ones who attacked them), and it transports them to an unknown part of the universe where they land on an ice planet. After investigating the planet a bit they notice that the aliens who previously attacked them have followed them there. This was supposed to be a pilot for a TV show that never got made. As such, it introduces you to a universe and presents you with a whole lot of mysteries about it, none of which get explained. The characters were decent and the special effects were certainly good. I enjoyed it. 3.5/5.

[indianasmith]

BLEEDING HEARTS (2013)

Midnight Releasing, the stepchild of Brain Damage Films, cranked out a truly bizarre, sleazy, and profane movie this time around!
First of all, there is the film within a film which pictures Jesus living in an overcrowded apartment complex with Santa Claus, Satan, and God as the landlord.  Jesus goes back and forth between being a white stoner and a dutiful black son.
Then there is the main film - set in a small town called Mansionville, where five beautiful sisters live together.  One is a doctor, one is an architect, one a criminal defense attorney, one is a foot model for shoe ads, and I forget the other.  Once a year, these girls all go on vacation together - and around about the same time, five men disappear from the town as well.  The men never come back, although their families do get occasional letters and Emails from them. The sisters always return, happy and rested, to resume their careers.
  A visiting documentary film maker theorizes that the sisters must be taking these men off to a secluded location and killing them - which, of course, they are, after torturing them (sexually and otherwise) for days on end.  Twisted and bizarre, this film has to be seen to be believed.  It certainly recalls the early days of Brain Damage Films, when they weren't even trying to make good movies - just sleazy and strange ones!
  What can I say?  I was fairly entertained by this mess.

[Jack]

Jaws (1975) - what can I say; great characters, perfect pacing, cool shark, unforgettable score. 5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Jack- that one sounds interesting. A movie about a shark!

Dragon Chronicles - I'm embarrassed that I enjoyed this as much as I did. It's plot is paper thin and pretty much the whole thing is just evil women saying stuff then having sword/ laser fights in the sky at night. I would guess Chinese folk tales and/or opium were a factor in coming up with some of the scenerios. The women are pretty but no one as charismatic as Joey Wang from Chinese Ghost Story. This is exactly the type of think HK kung fu fans bemoan and the kind of thing that I just love. I have to admit though the story ran out of gas about halfway through 4/5

[Rev. Powell]

THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER (1989): The wife of a boorish gangster/restauranteur begins an affair with a bookish man, leading to a cascade of revenge when the affair is discovered. The sets, music and costumes are so beautifully blended that art movie fans can't ignore it, but the grotesque gastronomical transgressions make it sick enough to shock the most jaded exploitation movie fan. 4.5/5.

LEOLO (1992): A boy from a dysfunctional family (who believes he is Italian and born of a tomato) escapes from his dismal life into worlds of his imagination. This arty coming-of-age drama/fantasy mixes transcendently beautiful moments with obscenely scatological ones, with mixed results. 3/5.

[JaseSF]

Iron Angel (1964): During the Korean War, seasoned Sgt. Walsh (Jim Davis) tries to lead his men to safety after tangling with a Korean machine gun fortified stronghold only to stumble across a female Lieutenant Nurse named Laura Fleming (Margo Woode) and her stranded ambulance nicknamed "the  Iron Angel". They eventually discover there's another key Korean held stronghold they need to take out as it's a serious threat to a convoy of their fellow soldiers.

This movie feels like a weird mishmash of war film with feminist undertones mixed with female cheesecake exploitation as the soldiers reminisce about partying and hooking up with loose women. The war part of the film proves a lot more entertaining and involving that the weirdly placed flashback cheesecake exploitation/strip-tease sections although this does prove fascinating in terms of what would have probably been considered quite risque back in the early 1960s and the fact that the women looked a lot healthier and generally more well fed back in those days to boot. These scenes do run on too long and feel weird and out of place in this film though. *** out of ***** stars.

[claws]

Friday the 13th Part III (1982)

Chris and her friends on vacation at an old farm house by some lake encounter douchebag bikers, memories from the past and Jason Vorhees.

  disco theme, Jason gets mask, Fangoria magazine, return of Mrs. Vorhees, old farm house setting, wind storm.

  tiresome 3D gimmicks, obnoxious/annoying characters (bikers, store owner, out of place "cheech & chong" like characters), worst f/x from the entire series.

Fan theory: Chris was raped by Jason when they first met.

Personally I think Part 2 is overrated because its just a 1 by 1 remake of the first. At least part 3 tries to be somewhat different, but in the end its not really better than part 2 either. Rating: 3.5/5

[Rev. Powell]

MST3K: IT CONQUERED THE WORLD: The experiment is a 50s Roger Corman alien invasion cheapie. A young Lee Van Cleef unwittingly collaborates with a Venusian alien who's trying to conquer the world, and learns too late that man is a feeling creature. Preceded by the short "Snow Thrills," a lame winter sports review which inspires lots of funny jokes, many revolving around the narrator's insistence that "skiing" should be pronounced "she-ing." Overall, this is a very solid episode for a feeling creature. 4/5.

[Jack]

Apocalypse L.A. (2014) - some meteorites hit LA and the smoke rising from the destruction causes people to turn into zombies. We follow a group of college kids as they try to figure out what to do, and eventually try to make their way out of the city. I thought this was pretty good for the first three-quarters. The characters were decent and their reactions to the situation were believable. Then as we neared the conclusion it just got stupid. They're driving out of a parking ramp, a zombie girl steps out in front of the car, the driver is like "well I can't just run her over"...as we're looking at a good thirty feet of space to her left he could use to just drive around her. And from then on it's just "stop the movie cold, time to insert sappy melodrama". 3/5.

[JaseSF]

The Hostage (1967): A little boy named Davey Cleaves (Danny Martins) makes the bad mistake of hoping aboard a moving van and playing hide and seek only to be carted off by two movers/criminals one of whom, an unpredictable psychopath named Bull (Don Kelly), murdered a man just the night before. Davey's parents go into panic mode as to what might have become of him and wrongly suspect a homeless tramp (John Carradine) might have been involved with his disappearance.

The Plus: This movie has some great moments of suspense. In addition, we get memorable performances from Don Kelly as the volatile Bull and Harry Dean Stanton as his more sheepish partner Eddie.

The Negative: The performance of Martins is often unconvincing and annoying. There's an unnecessary meanness from certain characters that makes them less sympathetic figures such as the way Davey's parents treat nosy busybody Ms. Mabry (Ann Doran) and farmer Sam Morton treats his wife Selma. Even Davey says some mean things to other characters at times.

With a better performance in the Davey role, this could have perhaps become a cult classic. As it is, it has its moments but never quite lives up to its potential. Still I enjoyed it enough I'll be kind and give it ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

Terror in the Jungle (1968): The sole survivor of a plane crash in the Amazon jungle, a little blonde-haired boy named Henry Clayton Jr. (Jimmy Angle) falls into the hands of a tribe of headhunting savages. His father meets up with a group of nearby missionary priests and together they band together a party to go searching for the boy before it's too late and he's sacrificed by the tribe to their gods.

This weird and cheaply made little jungle exploitation film tries to throw in an element of religious epic, as unconvincing as it proves to be. This is one of those bad films that has to be seen to be believed. For the most part, this is a painful watching experience as the little kid just wails and wails on crying throughout the entire film. There's some initial early fun on the plane with a few likable and fun characters but then things take an horrific turn with a terrifying crash which actually provides the films' most entertaining and graphically convincing gory moments. When things go into the jungle, it just becomes increasingly unbelievable and unconvincing although the final climactic scene with a transformation featuring a stuffed animal just has to be seen to be believed. The golden halo stuff and the transformation suggest the little boy has help from beyond. No one in this film it seems can act and anyone who had any potential to prove likable as a character is usually killed off in quick and horrific fashion. One of the worst films I've ever watched yet it has a few so bad it's good moments but not enough I'd give this more than ** out of ***** stars.