Recent viewings

[FatFreddysCat]

"Mutant" (aka "Night Shadows," 1984)

Stranded in a backwoods burg after an automotive run-in with some local yokels,  a pair of city boys soon learn that the townsfolk are slowly turning into a horde of nocturnal, blood-drinking zombie-like creatures, thanks to toxic waste in the groundwater. Hilarity ensues.
A fun, oh-so-'80s slice of low budget eco-terror, not to be confused with Roger Corman's 1982 "Aliien" wanna-be "Forbidden Planet," which is also known as "Mutant" in some parts of the world.

[BoyScoutKevin]

holiday inn. yes, i am a big ole sap for bing crosby AND fred astaire.

The film that introduced the song White Christmas to the world.

[BoyScoutKevin]

England's Forgotten Queen
hosted by Helen Castor
episode iii or part 3

Stripping away the myth and exaggeration. Yes and no. We'll start with the yes.

Yes
Who started it all? King Edward VI. And this is what many people fail to comprehend. He may have been a pre-teen when he came to the throne and still in his teens when he died, but by the grace of God, he was King, so when he said he wanted his cousin Jane to be the next ruler, and not his half-sisters Mary nor Elizabeth, then one saw to it that Jane became Queen.

Jane was suppose to be intelligent and insightful as a girl, but her behavior as Queen, calls into doubt how intelligent and insightful she really was.

John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Jane's father-in-law, a scapegoat for the sins of others, both now and then.

Jane, like Edward VI, was a religious ideologue.

And history is written by the surviving winners.

No
A 9 Day Queen. Maybe not. Some mark her reign as being 12 days. The 3 days that Edward VI lay dead without an announcement of his death + the 9 days of her reign after the announcement was made, till she was overthrown by Mary. Or 12 days.

How did Jane feel about being Queen? To make her more of an innocent, here and others, downplay her desire to be a Protestant ruler like Edward VI, instead of the Catholic ruler that Mary would become.

A forgotten queen? Only if you ignore all the TV shows, poems, plays, paintings, motion pictures, including a possible upcoming one (more on that later) books, both fiction and non-fiction, and an opera that she has inspired. (Again more on that later.) Some of which is dealt with here.

To be continued . . .

Next time: Questions seldom asked and ne'er answered

[316zombie]

"and everything is going fine", a sort of montage about spalding gray.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Rats: Night of Terror" (1984)
In this semi-legendary Italian post-apocalypse flick (directed by spaghetti schlock kingpin Bruno Mattei of "Hell of the Living Dead" and "Shocking Dark" fame, and co-written by Claudio Fragasso of "Troll 2"), a group of nomadic bikers discover an abandoned laboratory that's fully stocked with food and water. They think they've hit the jackpot - until night falls and they find out that the facility is also home to thousands of hungry rats who don't take kindly to trespassers on "their" turf. You can probably figure out the rest...
Like most Italian horrors, "Rats" features atrocious acting, awkward dialogue, and plenty of cheap but effective gore, plus one of the most WTF twist endings in Z-movie history -- which, amazingly, was spoiled by many of the flick's posters/video covers. Cheesy but enjoyable for all the wrong reasons.

[Rev. Powell]

THE BEAUTIFUL RISK (2013): A sex-addicted artist in a midlife crisis meets a nurse-in-training in Montreal and spends a night unburdening his soul and having more sex. Amateurish and cliched, but with a decent amount of kinky sex; the "beautiful risk" of the title refers to erotic asphyxiation. One of those movies where the cast and crew gamed the IMDB ratings so that it gets a very high rating (8) on a low number of votes. 1/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Killer Tongue (1996) - if you're looking for a way to get post drinking stragglers out of your house here's a great one. robert englund has a role in this demented late late nighter that is some kind of nightmare cross between tarantino and John Waters. Hopefully everyone else involved in it is dead or at least not anywhere near me.

A nun somehow anticipates some sort of alien meteor is going to land. This meteor gives some lady a giant tongue that thinks for itself and kills. A bunch of convicts are involved somehow and when the lady grows the big tongue her poodles also turn into extremely gay men. One of them says to a woman he's doing a makeover on "when I'm through with you, you're going to be devooooon". It runs out of steam about halfway through but of course keeps going and in fact there's another edit that's an hour longer. I can't imagine what torture that must be.

5/5

[Rev. Powell]

THE RIGHT WAY (2004): A slacker would-be musician who still lives with his parents and an introverted painter with an abusive mother from an arrangement and get pregnant. The narrative arc is straight down to with no redemption, but lots of opportunities for hysterics from the young cast. 10 minutes of the 67 minute running time are credits. 1/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Crawlers" (1993)
Nuclear waste dumped in a remote forest area mutates the trees, which then strangle a bunch of people with their roots. Yep, that's the whole plot of this horribly cheap, terribly acted, snail-paced direct-to-video piece of crap. This was the worst movie I've seen in quite some time.
"The Crawlers" is also known as "Contamination .7", "Creepers," and "Troll 3," but whatever name you want to call it, this movie sucks!
AVOID.

[Rev. Powell]

RIFFTRAX: ANGEL'S REVENGE: If you're a MST3K fan you'll remember this made-for-TV "Charlie's Angels" movie of the week ripoff: a schoolteacher, a pop star, a model, a karate expert, a cop, a stuntwoman, and a middle-school kid face off against the likes of Jack Palance, Peter Lawrence, Pat Buttram and Jim Bacchus to shut down a drug cartel (PCP, I think, the drug of the week when this was made). This re-riff by Mary Jo and Bridgett brings woman's perspective (you know, jokes about purses and periods the guys couldn't get away with). Nothing special but you do see the unedited movie, with some extra bits of the cops backstory and longer musical scenes and training montages. Not essential but interesting for fans. 3/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Night of the Comet" (1984)
A pair of Valley Girl sisters and a truck driver may be the last humans left on Earth after a passing comet disintegrates most people instantly and turns the few who survive into ravenous zombies. Yeah, I hate when that happens.
This odd ball horror/sci-fi/comedy blend has become a cult film over the years, but I'm not really sure why. I thought it was pretty "meh." The two female leads are fun to watch and there are a few funny bits scattered throughout the film but I was mostly bored. Oh well. (shrugs)  

[Rev. Powell]

"Night of the Comet" (1984)
A pair of Valley Girl sisters and a truck driver may be the last humans left on Earth after a passing comet disintegrates most people instantly and turns the few who survive into ravenous zombies. Yeah, I hate when that happens.
This odd ball horror/sci-fi/comedy blend has become a cult film over the years, but I'm not really sure why. I thought it was pretty "meh." The two female leads are fun to watch and there are a few funny bits scattered throughout the film but I was mostly bored. Oh well. (shrugs)  

I agree, I don't understand why some people call it a cult classic. Enjoyable, a little better than "meh" to me but, nothing extraordinary.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Gallowwalkers" (2013)
"Blade" meets "Jonah Hex" in a silly but entertaining ultra-violent horror/Western hybrid. Wesley Snipes is a gun slinger who recruits a young protege to help him kill some bad guys who stubbornly refuse to stay dead. "Gallowwalkers" has lotsa pretty scenery and cool gory action bits, but the story just goes around in circles until the final battle between Snipes' character and the Head Bad Guy.

Fun fact: Snipes turned himself in to face charges of tax evasion while making this flick, which was just one of numerous production problems that delayed the movie's completion for several years.

[Rev. Powell]

THE TESTAMENT OF ORPHEUS (1960): Jean Cocteau stars as himself, a time-traveling poet on a series of surreal adventures which include being indicted at trial by characters from ORPHEUS for his mistreatment of them and eventually being executed by Athena via a javelin through the back. The least of Cocteau's ORPHEUS trilogy, but still full of wit and wonder, as the director unapologetically indulges himself in a misty netherworld on the border of dreams, imagination, and narcissism. While only a sequel in the surreal-est sense, don't bother watching unless you've seen (and enjoyed) ORPHEUS. 3.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

The Love Witch - I loved Anna Billers Viva but this is definitely a sophomore slump. Viva was fun and Biller and her friend who were the stars were charismatic, funny, and sexy. the love Witch women has on ostentatious nose job and is kind of annoying. The film itself badly needs punching up and editing. There is some really good stuff, like the ridiculous ren faire esque tarot circus which reminds me of that hippie sploitation movie I can't think of right now. and the formal integrity with the old fashioned dialogue style and costumes and so forth is there. disappointing but at least she didn't sell out or make something horribly unpleasant like Killer tongue
3/5