Recent viewings

[JaseSF]

The trailers for the remake look really awful. Sad to see how Carrey has fallen back to doing this type of crap although I admit the first Dumb & Dumber is a guilty pleasure for me. Very doubtful this sequel will be anywhere near as good.

The House Next Door (2002): Tom & Lori Peterson (Matthew Harrison & AJ Cook), a newly married couple, move from Chicago to the country. All seems well initially and they even quickly befriend neighbors Carl & Helen Schmidt (James Russo & Theresa Russell) but over time, Lori begins to notice something "off" about Carl and his relationship with Helen. When Helen mysteriously disappears, Lori begins to suspect Carl may have killed her and buried her in his backyard. Even worse for her, Lori soon begins to suspect Carl is on to her suspicions and he's good buddies with all the locals including the local Sheriff Crank (Frederic Forrest).

This is a pretty by the numbers suspense thriller. There's little here that doesn't play out predictably. That said, it does build some decent suspense and has some moments that recall horror slashers. The performances of Russo and Cook are fairly well done. Early on Russell does well by her part too. Sean Young also appears here in a bit role as Lori's friend Monica. Despite being R rated, this film feels like the type of suspense thriller one expects to see on the Lifetime or Women's network. Most of its violence and killings take place off screen. There's no nudity. Maybe it was R rated because a kid picks up a gun at one point? Who knows? A mixed bag, entertaining enough as a one-time watch time waster but nothing you haven't seen done better before elsewhere. **1/2 out of ***** stars.

[claws]

Dreamcatcher (2003) (Blu-ray)

Four telepathic friends meet for their yearly hunting trip at a snow bound cabin where they encounter an invasion of parasitic aliens.
This complex Stephen King adaption is many things (evil aliens, psychological thriller, drama, horror, fantasy, sci-fi disaster etc) but fails to be great at it, but its still somewhat entertaining in its own special way. The "Duddits" character was a internet phenomena back in the day, and where else do you get to see alien eels coming out of people's behinds? 3.5/5

[Rev. Powell]

STARRED UP (2013): A violent, impulsive teenager causes problems for his father when he's locked up in the same prison where the old man is serving a life sentence. Bloody, profane, above-average prison drama, with a depressing theme that a life of violence is inescapable for some people. Americans may need subtitles to get past the thick accents. 3.5/5

[JaseSF]

The Stranger (1999): Juliet (Roxana Zal), a grieving mother suffering the loss of a daughter, becomes intrigued with a mysterious stranger (Robert Cuccioli) somehow tied to a mysterious old toy dollhouse purchased by the family for her two daughters.

The DVD advertised this as "The Amityville Horror meets the Sixth Sense". Boy, is that misleading! This is basically an erotic thriller seemingly aimed at lonely housewives. What little of it actually makes sense is basically about Juliet's suppressed memories coming to the surface with regards to a truth regarding her mother (Jenifer Krater). There's nothing truly supernatural about this aside from the mysterious stranger whose comings and goings are never adequately explained although his basic function seems to be to awaken the libido within the long married Juliet. The dialogue in this thing is cringe-inducing, pretentious, and sometimes downright embarrassing (think it's meant to be somewhat arty and poetic). For the guys who actually sit through this thing (doubtful many could make it without fast forwarding a lot), there is some nudity featuring the lovely Zal and shapely Krater. Not much else to really recommend this. ** out of ****** stars.

[Trevor]

The Avengers (2012): I wasn't too impressed - perhaps I should have seen it on the big screen. It was OK but nothing more.

[Jack]

Shivers (1975) - David Cronenberg's first film. A doctor creates some parasite that, when introduced into a human, turns them into a sex crazed maniac. He uses a girl at an apartment building as a test subject, but kills her at the beginning of the movie as the experiment was very unsuccessful. Unfortunately the girl was very "popular" and several other guys were infected. Another doctor investigates, but there are little chunks of meat (the monsters lol) jumping around and taking everyone over. Soon things have reached epidemic proportions. I didn't care much for this - very slow moving, very undeveloped characters, and the little meat critters were downright comical. 2/5.

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2010) - Werner Herzog documentary about a small Russian village smack in the middle of Siberia. The wilderness itself is beautiful - gently rolling hills and pine trees as far as the eye can see. In the winter the snow is 6' deep; talk about a winter wonderland. In the summer though the mosquitoes are so bad that you have to wear thick clothing and a net around your face. Though the land is beautiful I can't say the same about the village - it's just a patch of brown dirt with brown log cabins, housing about 200 people. There were some electric lights outside but I don't know if the houses had electricity. There's no road to this place, though it is right on a river which is navigable in the summer, but stockpiling enough fuel to provide electricity to all the houses during the winter would seem like a huge undertaking. Apparently there's a communal farm there where I'm assuming most of them work. It was never shown but one guy mentioned it.

The documentary focuses almost entirely on a few guys who trap sable in the winter. They've each got hundreds of square miles that they trap, and they build several small cabins in each area. They get up in the morning, spend all day travelling either by snowmobile or skis to their next cabin, while checking all their traps along the way. It's a very solitary existence as they spend several months alone each winter, accompanied only by their faithful dog. It's a hard life for everyone with lots of manual labor, but I suppose if you've never known anything else, it doesn't seem out of the ordinary. I got a chuckle out of the way they harvest pine cones - they take this huge mallet and give the tree trunk a good whack and all the pine cones come falling out of the sky lol.

I always like shows like this, they take me to the other side of the world and show me what life is like there. Though the land and the situation is very different, the people are the same no matter where you go it seems. I wish Herzog would have covered the people of the village more instead of focusing on the trappers, but oh well. 4/5.

[Rev. Powell]

ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME (2013): This documentary follows eccentric (and occasionally foul-mouthed) 87-year old Broadway star Stritch as she continues to work her one-woman show and recurring role on the sitcom "30 Rock" while dealing with her fading health. Some very intimate footage, not all of it flattering, in this portrait of a performer at the end of her career (and life, which turns out to be the same thing). 3.5/5.

[JaseSF]

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000): A live-action retelling of the classic Grinch story that delves a little bit more into his history and what makes him tick.

This has some fun moments here and there but overall feels like an unnecessary remake of the classic cartoon which remains far superior in every way. Jim Carrey does quite well in the Grinch role and he was clearly well cast here. Not sure any other actor could have played this role..well maybe Tim Curry. Carrey does provide some laughs here and there and at other times is somewhat grinchy menacing. Doesn't always work as well as one would like though because in many ways, the Grinch does seem a tad too soft here. Also the story seemed to have been adapted somewhat to seek out Carrey's typical comedy audience and thereby loses some of its charm. But when your whole back story is relying on making the viewers feel sympathy for the Grinch, I can see how giving him his characteristic bitter hard edge might be a problem. Jeffrey Tambor is entertaining here in his villainous Mayor Augustus Maywho but most of the other Whos prove rather forgettable aside from Cindy Lou Who (Taylor Momsen), the child who wants to befriend the Grinch. Just a hard story to stretch out to full movie length and it shows, there is a nice anti-commercialism message which sort of, kind of comes through. OK escapism for a lazy afternoon viewing but nothing really special. Not a classic like the cartoon it remakes. *** out of ***** stars.

[lester1/2jr]

Jack- there's more than Sable trapping going on there! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W_1vg7W6Oo

[Jack]

Jack- there's more than Sable trapping going on there! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W_1vg7W6Oo

I think that would give those guys on the Tiaga a heart attack 

[retrorussell]

THE WOLF WOMAN (1976).  Dumb, fairly disjointed Euro horror flick about a woman whose ancestor was a werewolf, who imagines herself becoming one and kills men (and some women).  Suddenly she falls for one towards the end but he's bumped off and the flick briefly becomes a revenge tale.  Some decent gore and some VERY nice nudity from sexy lead actress Annik Borel make it worth viewing once.

[Jack]

Bermuda Tentacles (2013) - with a name like that, how could I resist? So the President's plane is flying over the Bermuda Triangle, gets hit by lightning and the prez is jettisoned in his escape capsule. It can withstand the pressure of being 20,000 feet under water (one wonders if it wouldn't have been easier just to make it float?), so the Navy is dispatched to rescue him. But wait - there's a giant glow-in-the-dark tentacled thingie out there that starts attacking the ships! It's by The Asylum and premiered on SyFy, needless to say it's full of CGI. Just a schlock fest from start to finish, maybe even 20% stoopider than the Asylum's usual fare. More fun to laugh at than anything I guess. 2.5/5.

[Jack]

Death by Engagement (2005) - an engagement ring makes it way from one couple to another and a mysterious slasher kills anyone who puts it on. A pair of police detectives investigates. This was a fun little movie, the characters were entertaining and it had a nice sense of humor about it. A perfectly pleasant waste of 90 minutes. 3.5/5.

[JaseSF]

Kwik Stop (2001): A small Midwestern town girl named Didi (Lara Phillips) hopes to hitch a ride with a would-be Hollywood star/cool John Travolta-esque guy who calls himself Lucky (Michael Gilio) to California. Along the way, they each take many twists and turns into unexpected territory and move from flights of fantasy and pursuing dreams back down the corridor of reality and back again.

This independent film was really good. It was definitely somewhat of a departure from the typical boy meets girl road movie. I really liked the performances of the stars involved particularly Phillips, Gilio, and Rich Komenich in the role of Emil, another lost soul Didi meets and unexpectedly befriends along the way. Good story that leaves you guessing as to what might become of the characters involved and has you wondering just what road they'll take - the safe, real, but depressingly stale path or the more exciting route of pursuing their dreams in spite of the challenges of doing so. Good stuff. **** out of ***** stars.

[lester1/2jr]

Kwik stop is making it's way down my queue