Recent viewings

[claws]

Sharknado (2013) (Blu-ray)

Global warming causes, um, something and Hollywood ends up being flooded and damaged by tornadoes carrying sharks.
Lots of Internet hype and quite frankly, I feel like the last person on earth to watch this. Sharknado swims somewhere between the cheesy excellence of Mega Piranha and the dull badness of Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. This might be one of the sloppiest movies in regards of continuity, little effort was made to match water height, rain, traffic, overcast, sunshine etc.
I was also shocked to see John Heard in this. I haven't seen him in anything since The Pelican Brief 20 years ago. He used to be a solid actor, and now this? Ah well. 3/5

[Rev. Powell]

Busy weekend.

FROZEN (2013): A queen is cursed so that everything she touches freezes; her younger sister holds the key to melting her heart and freeing the kingdom. Not groundbreaking, but typical Disney quality, with impressive wintry art design and more musical numbers than usual. 3.5/5. Followed this up with MST3K: JACK FROST for a December double feature.

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY (2013): Dedicated but not-very-scary monster Mike teams up with a frightening but undisciplined Sully and a team of misfits to win the Monsters University scare games and earn a spot in the Scaring Program. It's basically Pixar's Monsters version of REVENGE OF THE NERDS, but it's a pleasant diversion. 3/5.

MUSEUM HOURS (2012): A museum guard at the Kunsthistorisches befriends a middle aged Canadian woman who has come to Vienna to visit a dying relative. This slow, abstract and contemplative movie won't be to everyone's taste; the best thing I can say about it is that it makes me want to go on vacation, visit an art museum and make a friend in a foreign country. 3/5.
 
PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1987): A priest discovers the essence of evil buried in a vault underneath a Los Angeles church, and a team of professors and grad students set out to study it. Like a lot of John Carpenter's late horror movies, this one weaves back and forth across the line that separates intriguing from goofy. 3.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

I loved Jack Frost

[BoyScoutKevin]

One from the 1st Sunday of the Month Film Club.

The first Sunday of the month, the downtown library in the city in which I live picks and shows a somewhat obscure film that probably should be better known then it is. The one for December was "Oliver Twist" from 1933 with Dickie Moore as the title character, Irving Pichel as Fagan, and William "Stage" Boyd as Bill Sikes.

"Stage" to separate him from William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd. Not that it did much good, for when "Stage" got into serious trouble, the newspapers printed a picture of "Hopalong." which sent his career, which had been rising into a nose dive, and it took him years to comeback.

Anyway, the film is notable more for being a product of the time it was made then for its storytelling, which makes it worth seeking out.

1933: Dickie Moore. One of the few child actors working in Hollywood. Now: a surfeit of child actors.

1933: "exagerated school of film acting." Now: a more "naturalistic school of film acting."

1933: religion. Now: no religion. But better no religion than the religion espoused in the film.

1933: living with a man. Married to the man or else. Now: no. Nor in the book nor anyother film version I have seen.

1933: pregnant. Again married to a man or else. Now: no. Nor in the book nor anyother film version I have seen.

1933: the best scene in the film, and the only time that this scene in the book has apprently been ever filmed, Oliver meets Fagan for the last time in Fagan's death cell in gaol. Whether it was because of that "exaggerated school of acting" or because it was the first time I had ever seen the scene, it was clearly the most powerful scene in the film, as the audience slowly watches Fagan lose his sanity in the shadows of the gallows on which he is to be hanged.

Because of the short length of the film, a cartoon was shown before the main feature. It was a Van Buren Production, and if you wonder why they no longer exist, and the Walt Disney Company still does and still makes cartoons, it is simple.

Even in 1933, or four years before Disney's "Snow White and the 7 Dwarves," Disney cartoons had a better . . .
--storyline
--jokes
--and better backgrounds.

Next time: Sometime next year, the library will be showing one of the Lum and Abner films, which were based on the characters from the popular radio series. See you then.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Kurt & Courtney" (1998)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zh2_j3fKr4
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BBC documentarian Nick Broomfield investigates the conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain...but if he wants to make a case that Kurt was murdered, then he probably should've found a better group of interviewees than the bunch of drug-addled losers and disreputable hangers-on featured in this flick, most of whom have only tangential connections to Kurt or Nirvana and who don't have any real evidence to offer aside from "Uhhh... Courtney Love's a total b***h, I bet she did it."

Aside from the clip featuring El Duce of the Mentors, who claimed that Courtney offered him $50K to "whack" Kurt (Duce died mere weeks after that interview was filmed), this flick is a tough slog.

[Jack]

Netherworld (1992) - a guy inherits his father's mansion in Louisiana. He never met his father, but finds a note from him asking him to conduct some sort of ceremony to bring him back to life. Obviously witchcraft is afoot! This was really slow moving, as in basically nothing happens throughout the whole movie. I found the plot mildly interesting though and Holly Floria as the flirtatious and very sweet (and totally hot) girl who lives at the mansion didn't hurt at all either. Edgar Winter is playing some excellent blues music at the bar that the guy frequents too. I'll be generous and give it a 3/5.

[Rev. Powell]

SHANKS (1974): After apprenticing to a reclusive scientist, a deaf-mute puppeteer learns how to move corpses using electrodes operated by remote control. William Castle (!) directs Marcel Marceau (!) in this "grim fairy tale" mixing black comedy with pantomime slapstick and silent film aesthetics with an exploitation movie plot to create a movie like nothing else out there. 4/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

School's cancelled due to snow, so it was a good day to introduce my kids to an all time classic...

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

http://www.youtube.com/v/0ZOcoxjeUYo

Crusading archaeologist Indiana Jones criss-crosses the globe trying to keep a priceless -  and powerful - Biblical artifact out of the hands of the Nazis in Lucas and Spielberg's action-packed salute to 1930s movie serials. 'Raiders' is still one of the best action-adventure flicks ever made and it cemented Harrison Ford's status as a megastar. I have lost count of how many times I've seen this movie over the years, but it never gets old.

At the end of the movie my 11 year old son said that "Raiders" was "awesome sauce." I guess that's good. It occurred to me that I was the same age as him when I first saw it in a theatre way back in 1981.

[alandhopewell]

     MANBORG (2012)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manborg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBHau4HeTZY
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     I paid $2 for this at the local video store, and I still feel ripped off; I think I'm gonna mail it to my friend Dave as a combination belated birthday / Christmas present.

[alandhopewell]

     TARGETS (1968)

     Sadly, not Karloff's last film, but certainly one of his best.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targets

     It was on EPIX DRIVE-IN the other day, and I got to see it for the second time. I've always been a huge Karloff fan, and this was a treat, especially as my wife and sister-in-law got to see it for the first time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiSc3xAXX5g
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88wMrLGch9w
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DnVkK-6sPg
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[dean]

     MANBORG (2012)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manborg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBHau4HeTZY

     I paid $2 for this at the local video store, and I still feel ripped off; I think I'm gonna mail it to my friend Dave as a combination belated birthday / Christmas present.

Ah man I want to see this.  It looks so stupid [which I like] and had a budget of about $10,000 [which I also find hilarious]

[Jack]

^  I put that on my Amazon wishlist 

[FatFreddysCat]

'This Film Is Not Yet Rated' (2006)

http://www.youtube.com/v/dDqxuGlxbWc

Intriguing documentary about the Motion Picture Association of America and their strange, secretive, occasionally clueless, sometimes contradictory methods of assigning 'ratings' to movies. It seems like everyone in Hollywood has butted heads with the MPAA over their rating system at least once since it was introduced in the late 1960s, mostly having to do with sexual content. (in other words: Rampant violence in films is OK with the MPAA, sex...hmmm, not so much.) Interviews include such directors as Kevin 'Clerks' Smith, John 'Cry Baby' Waters, Matt 'South Park' Stone, and Mary 'American Psycho' Harron. Interesting stuff that raises a lot of questions about censorship and whether or not the MPAA is prejudiced against edgier, independent film fare that takes more risks than the big budget major studio stuff.

[indianasmith]

I watched a truly awful indie horror film called THE RIPPING this week.
Family moves into new community, the mom sees a neighborhood boy beating a cat to death with a stick.
According to the nosy neighbor lady, the kid is evil because his soul was ripped and he was possessed by some sort of evil spirit.

Largely incomprehensible and very badly acted.

Avoid!

[FatFreddysCat]

Death Wish II (1982)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSzjvQSqQMo
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In Charles Bronson's second go-round as New York vigilante Paul Kersey, he's living in L.A. and returns to his old habits after a pack of street punks (one of whom is played by a young Laurence Fishburne!!) rape and murder his housekeeper and daughter.

So yeah, there's not much plot, but there is a whole lotta really sadistic, sleazy revenge action. Twisted '80s retro fun.