Recent viewings

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Villainess" (2017)
A female assassin, having finished her 10-year period of servitude to a top secret government organization, thinks she's free and clear to live a "normal" life... however, figures from her past jobs keep popping up and dragging her back into "the business." Bullets fly, people die, cars crash, stuff blows up, et cetera.
This South Korean action flick is kinda hard to follow at times due to its frequent use of flashbacks, flash forwards, and sudden changes in POV, but holy crap, does it ever deliver on the mayhem front. The action sequences in this flick are total balls-to-the-wall ultra-violence and the body count is astronomical. I'm not sure I completely understood what was going on (beer and sub-titles are not a good combination) but I was entertained anyway...

[Rev. Powell]

VERTICAL FALLS REMAKE (1978): 45-minute experimental mockumentary about reconstructing a fictional lost structuralist film consisting solely of shots of "vertical features" (mostly posts and trees). The fake documentary sections, where Peter Greenaway discusses the film's theory and fictional backstory, are witty and fun, while the actual remakes (in four different versions) are deadly dull---which, one can only assume, is the grand meta-joke about the nature of experimental film. 3/5, although if you have no interest in experimental film or film theory it will be 0.5/5.

NEVER GIVE A SUCKER AN EVEN BREAK (1941): W.C. Fields plays a fictional version of himself, pitching a crazy screenplay (about him falling out of a plane and finding a rich widow and her beautiful daughter living in a cliffside hideaway with a gorilla) to an increasingly skeptical producer. This stream-of-consciousness comedy, which anticipates Monty Python as much as it borrows from DUCK SOUP, showcases Fields at his funniest, moving from one gag to the next with reckless disregard for logic. If nothing else, it's the source of one of Fields' best lines: "I was in love with a beautiful blonde once. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I'm indebted to her for." 4.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Sleep Tight (2011) - A bald concierge is annoyed at how happy a woman in his building always is, so he sneaks into her apartment at night, hides under her bed and messes with her facial creams and so forth. It's even creepier than it sounds.

The screenwriter is definitely also bald. I as a bald man can tell. it's over the top, but aspects of it could have been a little more outrageous. He puts some sort of irritant in her moisturizer and she gets a rash wow. The ending will rock you though.

4.5/ 5

[Dr. Whom]

Gintama (2017)

A live action version of the manga/anime. I am not familiar with either of the originals, so I can't say how it compares, but this is silly fun. The basic premise is that Japan of the Edo era has been taken over by aliens. Only a handful of samurai form a resistance movement to remain faithful to the traditional ideals. Hijinks ensue. This is a wild roller coaster ride poking fun at tropes from samurai movies, Japanese SF and  manga/anime. Highly recommended if you are into Japanese pop culture.

[lester1/2jr]

The Call (2013) - I liked everything about this movie: the short (not real time but less than a day) time frame, the nuts n bolts behind the scenes 911 call center stuff, even the kidnappers 80's music taste. everything except Halle Berry's haircut so point off 4/5

[Rev. Powell]

CINEMATIC TITANIC: FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS: The movie is a ridiculous (but still kind of boring) Italian Frankenstein ripoff where the doctor brings a caveman (?!) back to life, but actually spends more time hitting on his daughter's girlfriend and managing his stable of freaks (a hunchback and a dwarf). This was only my second Cinematic Titanic offering, and it wasn't as funny as the first one (SANTA VS. THE MARTIANS redux). The riffing is hit or miss and the whole premise of the series doesn't really work that well, but it's good to hear the old gang in the theater, and I'd rather watch CASTLE OF FREAKS this way then on its own. 3/5.

[indianasmith]

CELL COUNT - A man whose wife is dying of a dread disease (cancer? dunno, they never named it) gets an offer for both of them to be admitted to an experimental program that will cure her of the sickness forever . . . but once they are in the government hospital, things get weird.  Interesting, bizarre, but the ending kind of leaves everything hanging . . . honestly might take another viewing to figure this one out.  3.5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Foreigner" (2017)

A grief-stricken father (Jackie Chan) who lost his daughter in a London terrorist bombing pressures Scotland Yard and an Irish politician (Pierce Brosnan) to bring her killers to justice. When that doesn't work, he heads to the Emerald Isle and starts taking apart the bombers' organization by himself. 

Cool cloak-and-dagger stuff, with a surprisingly excellent performance by Chan, who sheds his usually goofy, happy go lucky persona here and goes darker and grittier than I've ever seen him. A pleasant surprise all around.

[indianasmith]

 THE BODY TREE  - Filmed on location in the Altay Mountains of Siberia, this is a pretty well done little horror film I found in the RedBox this week.  On the anniversary of the murder of their friend Kara, a group of American students go to visit her family in Russia and take part in a memorial service conducted by a Siberian Shaman.  The service is meant to lay Kara's spirit to rest, however, as it turns out, her fiancée who was convicted and imprisoned for the murder is innocent.  The real killer is one of the group, which means that during the service meant to bring peace to her spirit, a murderous demon invades the group, possessing them one by one.  The only one it cannot possess is the real killer, and the only way to banish it is for the killer to die.  Despite the ridiculous premise, I enjoyed the heck out of this one.  4/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Wonder Woman" (2017)
DC Comics finally hits one out of the park...and it's about damn time!
Princess Diana (Gal Gadot), daughter of the Amazon queen, leaves her sheltered life on Paradise Island when World War I literally arrives at her doorstep in the form of crashed pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine).  As she learns how to adapt to the outside world, she also helps Trevor and his commando unit kick a whooooole lotta German bad-guy ass. This very entertaining, non-stop action popcorn epic deservedly became one of last year's biggest hits.

[Rev. Powell]

ON BODY AND SOUL (2017): A slaughterhouse manager and the new quality assurance inspector, a functional autistic savant woman, pursue a relationship after realizing they share the same dream (literally). The dream angle is partly a magical realist metaphor, but mostly a way to spark the otherwise unlikely relationship; Alexandra Borbély does an excellent job with her highly unusual character, making expressionlessness an art form. Slow paced but eventually drew me in. Hidden deep on Netflix so no one will ever find it. 3.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"It" (2017)

Stephen King's epic saga of small-town kids vs. a sewer-dwelling, child-eating demon clown gets a 21st century face lift, and the result is disappointing at best... I was expecting so much more from this flick in light of the rave reviews ("OMG IT'S THE SCARIEST MOVIE EVER MADE YOU'RE TOTALLY GONNA POOP YOUR PANTS!") and massive box office take, but I found it slow moving and overall, pretty "meh."

Call me crazy but I seriously preferred the old made-for-TV version with Tim Curry as the killer clown. Oh well, can't win'em all... (shrugs)

[BoyScoutKevin]

"Wonder Woman" (2017)
DC Comics finally hits one out of the park...and it's about damn time!
Princess Diana (Gal Gadot), daughter of the Amazon queen, leaves her sheltered life on Paradise Island when World War I literally arrives at her doorstep in the form of crashed pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine).  As she learns how to adapt to the outside world, she also helps Trevor and his commando unit kick a whooooole lotta German bad-guy ass. This very entertaining, non-stop action popcorn epic deservedly became one of last year's biggest hits.

If you liked this, then you should like Wonder Woman 2, which will be out in 2019, and Gal Gadot will be back. Some question as to whether she would be or not, as the suits at either DC and/or Warner Brothers were not happy with her performance in the 1st Wonder Woman.

[BoyScoutKevin]

England's Forgotten Queen, part 2
Again hosted by historian Helen Castor
And my thoughts on it.

What we guess. Even if the guesses are educated, a lot of guesses what people thought, as they did not leave a record of what they thought, which is why . . .
What we know. About what Edward VI thought, as he left behind his thoughts in a daily dairy, which I did not know even existed.

Be careful what you wish for, you may get it. The people wished for Mary I, and they got her, instead of Jane, and Mary was someone who learned nothing about ruling, after she ascended to the throne.

What they got wrong? Maybe. That Jane was dominated by the men around her. And if she was, she would certainly prove them wrong.

What they got right. It is a hard for us to believe it now days, but Edward VI, who was only a teenager at the time,  was a religious bigot . We'll see if they say the same thing about Jane, who could be just as bigoted as her cousin Edward VI.

Even today, especially today, we have, including myself, a hard time understanding how much Catholics and Protestants hated each other in the 16th century.

Even the experts get it wrong. Unprecedented? A woman--Mary I--fighting for the English throne? No, that would be Matilda who went to war with her cousin Stephen as to who would sit  on the throne of England. Of course, the struggle between Matilda and Stephen would occur some 400 years ere the struggle between Mary I and Jane. Being Resolved only when the two parties agreed to make Matilda's eldest son Henry II the next ruler.

What they forget to mention. John Dudley or Jane's father-in-law may have brutally put down an earlier rebellion against the government, but he was not the 1st to put down such a rebellion with brutal efficiency. There were many such previous rebellions against the government put down as brutally or even more so.

Next time: England's Forgotten Queen, part 3

[indianasmith]

BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017)
   I wanted to like this movie, I really did.  I saw the first one in the theater when it came out many years ago and remembered enjoying it a great deal.  But sadly, this long-awaited sequel just wasn't in the same league.  Very hard to follow, an overly convoluted plot, mumbled dialogue, and a runtime that was a solid 30 minutes too long left me struggling to stay awake.  There was the core of a great movie there, buried beneath too many plot twists, artisctic scenery shots, and unnecessary subplots.  Too bad.  2.5/5