Recent viewings

[Rev. Powell]

TERMINAL (2018): In a city that's strangely deserted (except for the bustling red light district), a mysterious waitress manipulates two assassins and an English teacher with a terminal disease for her own secret purposes. Not a hit with either audiences or critics, perhaps because of its tryhard stylistic choices and an unnecessary left-field twist at the end, but the cast (Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg, Mike Meyers) is good, and it kept my interest until the very end. 3/5.

[indianasmith]

ZOMBIE BABIES (2010) - This is a low budget piece of shlock with something to offend EVERYONE!  Abortions, domestic abuse, and hordes of undead fetuses demanding revenge against the abortionists who removed them from the womb and the mothers who let them do it.  Just hilariously vile all the way around!  3/5

[lester1/2jr]

Looper - this was decent but kind of blended into the pack of a lot of other fancy sci fi movies. Bruce willis, people being zapped to and fro I don't know. it was missing something 3.25 /5

Black Death - Man this movie kicked ass didn't it? knight guys and a monk pupil go on a mission to find people deep in the woods who are "living as savages" ie involved in satanic hijinks of some sort. Why this was their priority during the plague when everyone around them was dying is a bit of a mystery. After an adequate amount of medieval brutality and dirtiness, they eventually encounter the people who somehow have made themselves impervious to the horrible pestilence that is stalking the land.

They could have ended it or started it or middled it any number of ways but the overall feel of the movie is intense and great.  
5/5

everytime I start a movie, I hope its something this good. I hate that I have to give anything less than a 5/5 but I guess making movies is hard

[FatFreddysCat]

"That Guy Dick Miller" (2014)

The recent passing of character actor Dick Miller prompted me to check out this charming documentary about his long and interesting career.  Miller was a regular player in Roger Corman's 50s and 60s productions  and parlayed that into lengthy career in B-Movies that lasted well into the 1990s. I knew him best as "Mr. Futterman" in the "Gremlins" movies and as the police chief in "Rock N Roll High School" ("they're ugly...ugly, ugly people") and this flick is filled with clips from so many other movies that made me go "Oh, yeah, he was in that too!"

[FatFreddysCat]

"Ant-Man and the Wasp" (2018)
Marvel's miniature hero is back for another adventure, this time trying to keep his mentor Hank Pym's tech safe from persistent thieves while Hank heads into the sub-atomic dimension on a rescue mission to save his wife. Fast, funny stuff with great effects and lots of action. Plus, Evangeline "Wasp" Lilly is hot.

[Rev. Powell]

MST3K: PROJECTED MAN: One of about a dozen episodes I'd never seen. The movie is absurd but boring British tripe about a scientist who (eventually) gets around to accidentally transforming himself into a monster and getting revenge on the bureaucrats who denied him funding; the best part is when he makes his secretary get into her underwear, which she wears for the rest of the movie. Meanwhile, Pearl has discovered Castle Forester for the first time and is exploring it. Some chuckles as always but overall not a good episode. 3/5.

NINJA: THE PROTECTOR (1986): Godfrey Ho cut 'n paste ninja nonsense about counterfeiters, Interpol, a male model, and ninjas in too much eyeshadow. Watching it, I had a suspicion I'd seen this one before; looking it up on Letterboxd, I realized I'd actually seen it TWICE before. Will I ever learn? 2/5.

[Alex]

Reptisaurus (2009): A bunch of people too stupid to live contribute to the human gene pool by being removed from it. The predator is a genetically modified snake/bat crossbreed created by scientists who despite being top genetists, never learned to use basic safety procedures that someone in a school science class would have mastered. Based off a comic book from the 60's.

If you want to read the source material, it is available here... http://comicbookplus.com/?cid=769. I figure RC might enjoy that site. It has a lot of old comics scanned and uploaded.

Anyway, the film was a standard, run of the mill sci-fi style monster movie. The only thing notable thing I can say about it, is that it does feature Gil Gerad (of Buck Rogers fame. Bet he wishes he hadn't quit the show now. Refused to speak to him when I saw him in Edinburgh since he stopped me seeing Erin Gray on TV every week. Selfish bastard).

[Rev. Powell]

HEROES OF SHAOLIN [AKA HEROES OF THE WILD] (1977): An assassin kills a retired kung fu master who previously defeated him, promises to track down some traitors for the dying man, and takes on his victim's son as an unofficial apprentice. A confusing and arbitrary plot, and the kung fu is just OK; the only thing it has going for it is its antihero's oddly amoral sense of honor and the strange dynamic between him and the apprentice sworn to kill him. 2/5.

[Rev. Powell]

SNAKE FIST DYNAMO [AKA IRON HEAD] (1974): A cowardly monk bumbles around China, winning kung fu fights by accident and being promoted to police captain. The comedy is of the make-a-goofy-face-and-spazz-out school, like Jerry Lewis doing karate. I thought it was aimed at kids for sure up until the first topless scene. 1.5/5.

[BoyScoutKevin]

"Ant-Man and the Wasp" (2018)
Marvel's miniature hero is back for another adventure, this time trying to keep his mentor Hank Pym's tech safe from persistent thieves while Hank heads into the sub-atomic dimension on a rescue mission to save his wife. Fast, funny stuff with great effects and lots of action. Plus, Evangeline "Wasp" Lilly is hot.

It did well enough at the international box office, that there is some talk of a 3rd Ant-man film or a sequel. Though, the sequel may actually wind up being a prequel. No date or title given, but if there is a 3rd film, it'll most likely be 2020 or later. Till then, since the last we saw of Ant-man, he was trapped in the Quantum Realm, this year's  Avengers : Endgame is suppose to show how he escaped from the Realm.

[Rev. Powell]

AN EVENING WITH BEVERLY LUFF LIN (2018): Lulu is unhappy with her cappuccino-store managing husband, so she runs off with a man who stole money from him to go see an old flame's "one night only" performance at a nearby hotel. Fans of Jim Hosking's THE GREASY STRANGLER may be disappointed to see he has dialed back the absurdity, repetition-based anti-comedy and gorssout scenes to the point where it almost resembles a Jared Hess picture; it's a legitimate romantic comedy, probably too tame and mainstream for STRANGLER fans, but far too offbeat and awkward for mainstream movie goers. I found it mildly enjoyable, though. 3/5. 

[Alex]

The Monster. A dysfunctional mother/daughter have a car crash in the middle of nowhere and then find themselves being stalked by a creature. Slow to get going (building atmosphere) and settles into an acceptable movie.

[Rev. Powell]

CINEMATIC TITANIC: THE OOZING SKULL: The first installment of the Cinematic Titanic series, which reunited MST3K alums Joel Hodgson, Elvis Weinstein, MAry Jo Pehl, Trace Beaulieu and Frank Connor riffing on bad movies in silhouette (with no backstory). The first experiment was Al Adamson's THE OOZING SKULL [AKA BRAIN OF BLOOD], about a dying Emir who pays to have a mad scientist transfer his brain into a new body, which ends up with the cast running around in the desert for some stupid reason. Not a successful first installment---the movie is dumb but not especially fun, and the troupe don't have their comic chemistry or timing down yet. They would get better but always remain a shadow of their former glory. 2/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Shoot First, Die Later" (1974)
A corrupt Italian cop is happy to look the other way when local mobsters were just smuggling booze and cigarettes into his city...but when they start running guns as well, he's in tooo deep to get out, which puts his father (a fellow police officer) and girlfriend in danger.
A solid Eurocrime entry with lots of the usual gritty violence, car chases, fistfights and hackneyed tough-guy dialog. Fun, funky retro viewing.

[Rev. Powell]

SACRED TO DEATH (1947): A paranoid wife gets scared to death by Bela Lugosi, "Freaks" veteran Angelo Rossitto, a bumbling detective, and a bunch of other visitors to her old dark house. There's a lot of comic relief in this mystery, but nothing is quite as funny as the frequent flash-forwards to a narrating corpse! I've actually seen this twice and I'm still not 100% sure whodunnit or why. 2/5.