Recent viewings

[FatFreddysCat]

Lazy Saturday double feature:
"UHF" (1989)
Weird Al Yankovic is a daydreamer who inherits a run-down, low-watt TV station and soon turns it into a local ratings powerhouse thanks to his bizarre programming ideas.
This cult classic comedy is loaded with silly gags and features an impressive cast incl. a pre-"Seinfeld" Michael Richards, Fran "The Nanny" Drescher, and Kevin "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" McCarthy as a slimy network bigwig. Lots of dumb fun.

"Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" (1999)
In Mike Myers' second go round as the sex crazed super spy, Austin time travels back to the 60s to recover his stolen mojo, and hooks up with the beauteous Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham). Meanwhile, Dr. Evil meets his new midget sidekick, Mini-Me, and plots to destroy Washington DC from his secret moon base. The non-stop stream of silliness makes this the best of the "Austin" series.

[indianasmith]

THE SITTER (2017)
   Charlotte, a single college student, is invited by an older couple to watch their cat and their house while they take off for an event in London.  They will pay her 200 pounds a night to watch the house and feed their cat, so naturally she jumps on the opportunity!  But then, after they leave, she begins hearing strange sounds and realizes that she is not alone in the creepy old manor . . .
   OK, this one had a VERY slow build - not much happens in the first half.  The owner of the house, Mr. Farrow, has a deep voice with a cultured British accent and speaks extremely slowly - honestly, they could not have made him sound much more like a comic opera villain if they tried!  But the girl who plays Charlotte is incredibly cute in a pouty Jennifer Lawrence sort of way, and spends a good part of the second act nude, so the movie does improve as it goes along.  Apparently the couple's deceased son was really some sort of demon and he is trying to seduce poor Charlotte in her dreams so he can possess her . . . honestly, the plot is rather confusing, but it's creepy if you don't mind a slow build, and I enjoyed more of it than I didn't.  3.5/5

[indianasmith]

SUPER TROOPERS 2 (2018) - Crude lowbrow cop comedy with a few fun moments as the team of misfit Highway Patrolmen from the first movie are assigned to police a border region that the United States recently acquired from Canada.  Hijinks ensue as they are challenged and opposed by a goofy trio of Canadian Mounties.  If you are in the mood for a dumb comedy, it's not bad, but don't expect clever!  3/5

[Svengoolie 3]

Gunhed (1989)

Lord I wanted this movie to be good,  and there were hints and possibilities it could be good,  it had so many elements that looked like it could have been a good movie,  but,  in the end, it just wasn't no matter how I hopedn and wanted to believe otherwise...

Gunned was a live action Japanese scifi\mecha film. The titular character was a sentient war machine,  a tank that could do a semi transformation into a somewhat upright mode that seemed to serve no discernible purpose. Gunned mean "Gun UNit Heavy Elimination Device.

A confused plot, unexplained issues,  sets too dark to make much out,  an inadequate budget and too many WTF moments (why is an "aerobot" a tracked ground vehicle?  Why does detonating a virtual reality grenade cause a real body to explode? Why does the child's mouth glow? )  make gunhed a tragically failed effort at what could have been a decent sci-fi action movie.

[Rev. Powell]

DAMSEL (2017): An earnest young man (Robert Pattison) leading a miniature horse hires an alcoholic parson to journey to his fiancee (Mia Wasikowska) and marry them. DAMSEL doesn't really work as a comedy or a drama, and its hints of surrealism (Mia's curved rifle barrel) are deployed sparsely and without apparent purpose; it's too aimless even to be a shaggy dog story. 2.5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

It's that special time of year again...when streaming services are overflowing with crappy no-budget Christmas horror movies! Today's victim...

"Mother Krampus" (aka "The 12 Deaths of Christmas," 2017)
A dysfunctional British family's holiday celebration is rudely interrupted by a visit from Frau Perchta, a murderous witch from German folklore who steals a child on each of the 12 nights of Christmas. Sounds promising enough (even when the "Krampus" name in the title turns out to be nothing more than a marketing move, as the movie has nothing to do with the Krampus legend), but aside from a couple of halfway decent gore bits, this was just another cheap, poorly written and atrociously acted piece of DTV crap, full of unlikable characters who deserve everything they get coming to them.
Do I even have to say it? AVOID!

[Rev. Powell]

WHAT THEY HAD (2018): A family comes to grip with the matriarch's growing dementia after she wanders into the night in her nightgown during the Christmas holidays. A great cast (Robert Forester, Hillary Swank, Michael Shannon, Blythe Danner) sells a directorial debut that is conventional, if honest and heartfelt. 3.5/5.

FREE SOLO (2018): This documentary follows rock climbing legend Alex Honnold as he attempts to become the first person in history to climb Yosemite's 3,000 foot tall El Capitan using nothing but his limbs and his wits. A fellow climber compares the feat to an Olympic competition, except that if he the athlete gives anything less than a gold medal performance, he dies. A good reminder that excellence is abnormality. 4/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Hunt For The Golden Scorpion" (1991)

A lady adventurer heads to the Amazon to rescue her imprisoned brother, and then they set off in search of a priceless treasure, with a variety of generic military bad guys in pursuit. Things explode, helicopters crash, a while lotta dudes get shot, yadda yadda yadda.
This cheap-as-hell Italian action flick from Umberto "Nightmare City" Lenzi plays out like a really lame "A-Team" episode, plot holes, wooden acting, and sub-par dubbing/editing. Don't bother unless you have a severe tolerance for Z-movie pain.

[Rev. Powell]

UNDER THE TREE (2017): A neighborly squabble over trimming a tree turns into an escalating war of pranks and revenge; a subplot follows the adult son of one of the couples who is sucked into the conflict after his wife kicks him out of their apartment. The acting is good, but the script is an emotional sucker punch, and so it's mainly recommended for fans of uncompromisingly bitter, ironic endings. From Iceland. 3/5.

[Svengoolie 3]

It's a TV show but WTH?

A very early ep of the avengers, with honor blackman, called "The white dwarf", featured an amazing amount of accurate astronomical science and terminology. This show had obvioulsy been written with the help of a very knowledgeable astronomer and got it's science right.

It was so accurate I would have suspected it could have been written by Isaac Asimov or A.C. Clarke.

I think I'll remmeber this one, as it was one of the very few shows that really nailed science down and got it right.

[Rev. Powell]

THE GREAT BUDDHA+ (2017): Two Taiwanese misfits (named "Pickle" and "Belly Button") get bored, watch their boss' dashboard cam, and learn secrets they'd be better off not knowing. There are some amusing moments in this scattershot art-house comedy---mostly in interjections by a narrator who sounds like he's doing a live director's commentary---but, despite involving sex and murder, the narrative doesn't go anywhere especially interesting. 2.5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"008: Operation Exterminate" (1965)
A lovely American agent (Ingrid Schoeller) teams up with a British counterpart (Alberto Lupo) and travel from Cairo to the Swiss Alps to recover stolen "anti-radar technology" from enemy hands. Like most "Eurospy" films of the era, the story eventually turns into a hopeless muddle of unnecessary twists, turns, and double-and-triple crosses, but overall this is a fun, lightweight Bond knockoff with lots of exotic Egyptian and European scenery, plus Ms. Schoeller was quite the babe.
Directed by Umberto Lenzi, later of "Nightmare City" and "Make Them Die Slowly" fame!

[Rev. Powell]

COLETTE (2018): Colette writes successful, salacious novels in turn-of-the-century France, published under the name of her dissolute husband/business partner, who also encourages her to explore her bisexuality. This belle epoque biopic features elegant decadence with a trendy modern overlay of feminism/gender fluidity. 3/5.

[lester1/2jr]

The Meg - I like sci fi but I'm not a big science guy, if that makes any sense. I wasn't all that in to this but for what it is it was pretty impressive. It wold have helped if there was a trashy lesbian romance or inward searching emotionally scarred captain, etc its like kids from science class' idea of great cinema


3/5

[Svengoolie 3]

I read the novel "Meg" and I have to say that even not having seen the movie i bet it's not as bad.