Recent viewings

[claws]

Case 39 (2009) (Blu-ray/Region B)
Social worker (Renée Zellweger) takes care of abused girl but evil is the little brat's middle name.
Bumpy horror that starts out like a Oscar worthy drama but jumps into uneven Orphan and The Omen waters injected with Bless the Child's sweat. There are a few well executed scenes of terror especially the bathroom sequence with Bradley Cooper, but the rest is plagued by corny dialogue and unintentional funny moments. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, hence my rating: 4/5 Cheese.

[3mnkids]

Session 9~ Decent movie but a little slow moving for my taste
The house of the devil~ Meh, I didnt understand the ending.
Stigmata~  Hadn't seen this in years and now I remember why. A few scary parts but overall just kinda stupid.
Shallow ground~ Not bad, not good..
Seven days to live~ Another one with a few scary parts and an ending that was stupid.
Deep Water (documentary) ~ very good documentary about Donald Crowhursts yacht race around the world.
The last word(documentary)~ Sad and shocking. Highly recommended this one.
Time crimes~ Loved it.

[lester1/2jr]

The Most Dangerous Game - Fay Wray from King Kong is once again an ace damsel in distress. Is it just me or is is she really pretty hot? I realy enjoyed this. it was only an hour or so long, the villain was witty and demented, the lead was brawny but professorish too and believably clever. The whole thing was like a dream where someone is chasing you. 4.5/5

[Jim H]

Red - Brian Cox is an older man whose dog is killed in front of him by some real mean kids.  He seeks justice - and I mean that quite literally, as it's not really a revenge movie.  Unfortunately, the law is unable to help him, and things escalate.  Brian Cox is fantastic in this one - his monologue about what happened to his family came close to moving me to tears by its final line.  I think he was robbed of an Oscar nom, possibly because of the very limited theatrical release.

I found the climax of the movie a little weaker than the rest though, and that did bring the movie down a bit in my mind.  Still, a fine film.  8/10.

[Jack]

Body of the Prey (1966) - A gigantic a-hole of a mad scientist crosses a Venus Flytrap with the underwater version of the same plant.  Then we get a Frenkensteinesque scene where he uses lightning to bring his creature to life, which results in a guy in a rubber suit with Venus Flytrap hands.  It goes on a rather uneventful rampage and finally - FINALLY - winds down to its predictable conclusion.  This was grade A awful in every way.  Having a mouthy jerk as the main character was bad enough, but then you had the dog that barked it's freakin' head off and needed to appear at least once per minute through the second half of the movie.  The theme music was terrible;  a bunch of dopey ditties to establish a mood of stupidity.  Boring as hell.  It very nearly gave me a headache.  1/5.

[Doggett]

Gran Torino
A great anti-violence film.
I thought this would be a killing all the bad guys is right movie, but was pleasently surprised. Its great to see a film about the effect of violent acts. I'm also a sucker for a bonding film.

4/5


The Thing (1982)
Classic sci-fi horror.

4.75/5


Swingers
A drama/comedy about a guy with low self esteem after a relationship break and his friends attempts to cheer him up.

3.5/5

[claws]

Pighunt (2008)

Young man with redneck roots is heading back to hillbilly county to check his properties. He takes along his girlfriend and three friends for some hunting but soon the hunters will be the hunted!

Razorback this is not, but Pighunt wasn't even trying to be. Its backwoods bleeding about inbred relatives and a hippie community worshipping a gigantic wild boar. Pigfoot is cool and completely CGI free but it is a long wait until we finally get to see the beast.

The rest is middle of the road in need of editing for faster pacing. Had its moments but I wouldn't go out of my way to mount Pigzilla above the fire place. 2.75/5

The Night Child (1975)

Young girl is possessed by evil amulet. Yep, it's The Exorcist again - the Euro version. However, The Night Child turned out all right and works more like an The Omen-esque supernatural thriller with Audrey Rose attitude than a gross out Linda Blair-puking-all-over-the-place clone. 4/5

[Jack]

The Blancheville Monster (1963) - A girl graduates from college and goes home to the family castle in France in the late 1800's I believe.  Her American friend and the friend's brother accompany her.  Once they arrive, they find out that her father, previously thought dead, is actually still alive and horribly disfigured from a fire.  He's also apparently insane.  There's also a curse;  something about the girl dying before her 21st birthday, which is in a couple of days.  I really enjoyed this.  Very good characters, well written and acted, and a rather complicated plot which I'm not too sure I've fully made sense of yet.  It had excellent theme music which did a lot to sustain the mood of suspense throughout the film.  It was fairly slow moving, but I was in the mood for it.  4/5.

[venomx]

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.



I can't wait for the rumored "Harold & Kumar Christmas special" LOL!

[Rev. Powell]

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.



I can't wait for the rumored "Harold & Kumar Christmas special" LOL!

My parents (in their sixties and very square) just rented the Harold & Kumar movies and loved them.  I'll have to tell them about the possible Christmas special.

[retrorussell]

Scarecrows (1988).  Kinda liked it the first time I saw it, saw it again recently and it's pretty dumb.  Not terrible by any means, but the dialogue is weak and the low budget really shows.  But pretty cool to see someone stuffed with money and their ex-partners cutting him open to get to it.

[Jack]

Totem (1999) - Watched this again, a Full Moon cheapie about 6 people who are mysteriously transported to a cabin out in the woods, where some nasty little puppets want three of them to kill the other three.  It's all very epic LOL, as epic as they could make it on a bottom of the barrel Full Moon budget.  Very slow moving, acting that could charitably be described as passable, though one guy falls well below that standard.  Just extremely stupid in every way, but amusingly so.  It actually managed to maintain somewhat of an atmosphere, which is surprising.  2.5/5.

[Doggett]

Night of the Demons (2009)

There's a party, there are some demons and it's not as bad as you may think. There's boobs, gore and the occasional funny moment. It does lack that super low budget feel of the original, this feels a bit more MTV.
It's bad, just not as bad as people are saying it is. I only saw the original recently and didn't think that much of it (sorry) so I wasn't that biased against the remake. Yes, the Angela in the original was much better...

Great soundtrack !!!

Oh, and ,yes, it does have the lipstick scene.

2.5/5

[Rev. Powell]

ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1951): Reasonably faithful Disney adaptation of the Lewis Carroll classic about a little girl lost in a charming nonsense world.  The precious over-cuteness of the cartoon characters is a bit cloying and the musical numbers are syrupy and forgettable, but overall Disneyfication doesn't damage the story too much.  It's miles ahead of Tim Burton's 2010 "reimagining", at least.  4/5. 

[JaseSF]

The Incredible Petrified World (1957): A scientist named Dr. Wyman (John Carradine) tests his experiemental diving bell at previously unexplored depths but it unexpectedly breaks loose and its inhabitants including a trio of scientists led by Craig Randall (Robert Clarke) and a female reporter Dale Marshall (Phyllis Coates) are surprised when they survive and that there's still light outside. Eventually they wind up inside a catacombed cavern full of seemingly neverending tunnels apparently deep underwater but which inside houses a large pocket of breathable air. Can they find a way out?

This film directed by Jerry Warren is well what you expect from Warren...dullness and lots of narration and inane dialogue. Actually the most interesting element in the film is the relationship between the two stranded women and the arrival of the film's most threatening element - a crazy old man living in the tunnels. The rest is just dullsville as we watch people move from area to area, have inane boring dialogue and that pattern pretty much continues throughout even from star Carradine. The actors are pretty much wasted and the action never really seems to take off well ...at all. Actually it's only the women who even have anything really interesting to say and in the end, they pretty much end up fending for themselves a bit better than expected for a 50s era film.

Dale Marshall: [to Lauri] "You just listen to me, Miss Innocent. There's nothing friendly between two females. There never was. There never will be."
Lauri Talbott: "Sorry you feel that way. I was hoping we could help each other."
Dale Marshall: "You don't need help - neither do I. Not as long as we have two men around us."


Umm....Okay then.

* out of ***** stars