Recent viewings

[Rev. Powell]

NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994): Two mass murderers named Micky and Mallory go on a gruesome killing spree and become global celebrities. This powerful, psychedelic, stylized satire attacks television's glorification of violence, but glamorizes violence so effectively itself that it becomes disturbing in ways director Oliver Stone never intended. 3.5/5.

[JoeTheDestroyer]

Geez, I don't even know where to begin. I've mostly watched old school monster movies over the last week, plus a Christmas movie.

20 Million Miles to Earth- Can you believe this is my first time watching this flick?  Anyway, loved it.  Awesome stop motion, plus I liked that Ymir wasn't some malicious creature.  He was just an unfortunate kid who happened to be born on the wrong planet.     Oh, and... 

The Giant Claw- Rewatch, still enjoy it.  My wife caught the end of it with me.  I told her about the lead actor allegedly walking out of the theater in embarrassment and she said, "Oh, come on! The monster doesn't look that bad."   

It Came From Beneath the Sea- It's been ages since I've seen this one.  I do like how the pacing in this one progressively builds.  And, like before, great stop motion animation.   

A Christmas Story- Arguably my favorite Christmas movie, other than maybe Christmas Vacation.  I think I've see this movie about a few hundred times by now, and I'm still not tired of it.   

[Jack]

Reincarnation (2006) - Japanese horror about a young actress who gets a part in a horror movie based on the true (in the movie) story of a guy who killed 11 people at a hotel back in the '70s. It's not long before she's seeing ghosts of the victims - not 5 minutes goes by without her seeing someone no one else can see and getting all freaked out. Every...five...minutes. Gets old pretty quick. The ending at least tried to throw in a little twist, never mind it made no sense at all. Characters weren't developed at all, plot dragged. At least it had some atmosphere, mostly because of the theme music. 2.5/5.

The Little Drummer Boy (1968) - a little boy with a drum hates people because bandits killed his parents years earlier. He eventually meets the baby Jesus as he's lying in his cradle in a manger and learns that he shouldn't hate anyone anymore. Wonderful holiday fare, with José Ferrer stealing the show as the entertainment manager who abducts our drummer boy and makes him perform in his caravan. 5/5.

Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970) - Santa tries to bring toys to the children of Sombertown but the mean ol' Burgermeister Meisterburger tries to stop him. Fun little movie that tells us all about the history of Santa. The music isn't really my favorite (especially not that awful "put one foot in front of the other" song) but the Burgermeister is wonderfully entertaining and it's a nice story. 4/5.

[JaseSF]

A Christmas Story (1983): Just an awesome, fun little Christmas movie that never fails to entertain me and is really quite a nice look back into the past with its 1940s setting. A genuine Christmas classic by this point in my opinion. Darren McGavin, the leg lamp, the "oh fudge" flub, the Scut Farkus Affair, You'll Shoot Your Eye Out good stuff. Lots of entertaining scenes with some disturbing Christmas visuals yet doesn't fail to get through the real magic of Christmas either. ***** out of ***** stars for this time of year.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) Basically a retread of Home Alone, ups everything to another level moving it to a lost in New York City setting but doesn't maintain the same level of suspension of disbelief that the original does. The first film is easier for one to lose oneself in but this becomes even more of a live-action cartoon, upping the cartoonish trap violence to ridiculous levels. Does have some decent moments here and there and I do find myself liking the Plaza Hotel stuff with Tim Curry, Rob Schneider, Dana Ivey, and Brenda Fricker has some moments as the Pigeon Lady. Still kind of disappointing compared to the original yet better than the three remake sequels that followed. ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

[Rev. Powell]

ELF (2003): Buddy, a human raised by Santa's elves, goes to New York City to meet his real father. Amusing but formulaic; the scene where Will Ferrel calls Peter Dinklage an "angry elf" keeps it from being completely forgettable. 3/5. 

EDEN AND AFTER (1970): College students takes drugs and play jaded games at a cubist cafe called "Eden";a mysterious older stranger vending "fear powder," a stolen painting worth a fortune, and sexual bondage in Tunisia all figure into the lysergic plot. An acid trip movie made by an actual, dyed-in-the-wool French surrealist, it's as interesting, and as tedious, as that combination suggests. 2.5/5.

[claws]

Alien Abduction (2014) (Blu-ray)

A family camping in the mountains encounter strange lights in the sky at night. The next day one family member after the other disappears without a trace. The few remaining fear for their lives, hunted by evil aliens from outer space.
Solid but not great found footage terror with quite a few tense moments and above average f/x. I kind of dig these IFC Midnight flicks as they all seem to have a certain quality to them. 3.25/5

[JoeTheDestroyer]

Elf- Despite the fact that I'm not usually one for feel-good comedies, I enjoy this one. My wife and I watch it yearly, along with A Christmas Story (and sometimes Christmas Vacation and Scrooged). Ferrel's loudness actually adds a bit to the character, as does his obnoxiousness. It's funny, because those are two things I can't stand in modern comedy, but they work very well here. 

Mothra- A rewatch. I've always enjoyed this movie because the titular monster, though technically a menace, is not the main antagonist. Also, the human characters in this one are pretty likeable, which puts it ahead of certain other monster movies with flat human characters... 

The Apparition- A decent premise--in which a group of college kids engaged in a paranormal experiment and inadvertently bring a malevolent entity into our world--that's unfortunately squandered on tame scares and lame lead actors. Ashley Greene's performance is horribly unconvincing, and although I liked Sebastian Stan in the Captain America movies, I thought his character was forgettable here.  Normally, a movie like this could still be salvageable as an accidental comedy or a fun bad movie, but no such luck. Instead, it's a pretty boring, predictable ghost movie with clumsily written characters. Hell, there's even a scene that blatantly rips off Ju-On/The Grudge. It does have some good, haunting imagery, though.   

[Jack]

Frosty the Snowman (1969) - Frosty comes to life but then it's getting warm so he has to get to the North Pole, but the little girl he's with gets cold etc. Love this one, such a charming little thing. 5/5.

Frosty Returns (1992) - some guy creates a snow removal spray and of course Frosty is all upset about this and John Goodman "sings" Let There Be Snow over and over until you're about ready to kill that damned snowman yourself. I dunno, sometime between '69 and '92 the word "charming" disappeared form the human vocabulary. 2.5/5.

Leprechaun 4: In Space (1996) - our little limerick spouting leprechaun takes on a group of marines on a spaceship. Utter ridiculousness follows. I love this stupid movie;  the characters are fun and the plot is just a hoot. The Blu ray looks pretty darned excellent too. 4.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

FALLEN ANGELS (1995): Tracks the adventures of a hitman who is half in love with a partner he has never met, and a mute who likes to break into businesses overnight and physically force customers to eat ice cream or get a shave. A strange and often confusing semi-comedy that reworks CHUNGKING EXPRESS' urban alienation to lesser effect; viewers are paid in style rather than emotional impact. 3.5/5.

[JaseSF]

Scrooge (1951) (AKA: A Christmas Carol): Watched this classic yet again on Christmas Eve, a family tradition. It's a great little film adaptation of Dickens' story. Alastair Sim steals the show in a fantastic performance as Ebenezer Scrooge proving more convincing in the role IMO than any other actor before or since. The rest of the cast also proves very likable particularly Mervyn Johns as Bob Cratchit and quirky performances from Ernest Thesiger as the Undertaker and Kathleen Harrison as Mrs. Dilber also prove most memorable. A Christmas delight. ***** out of ***** stars.

Christmas with the Kranks (2004): Luther Krank (Tim Allen) and his wife Nora (Jamie Lee Curtis), reluctantly in Nora's case, decide to skip Christmas and head instead on a cruise much to the shock and dismay of their neighbors and their community. However when their daughter Blair (Julie Gonzalo) unexpectedly decides to return home early for Christmas expecting their traditional celebration, the Kranks must employ the help of the very neighbors they offended if they want to pull a traditional Christmas celebration off.

While this has some problems and isn't always as funny as it hopes to be, I do have a bit of a soft spot for this one and generally do enjoy it more than most films of its type. There are quite a few quirky characters in this one played by some quality character actors and familiar faces including Dan Aykroyd as community leader Vic Frohmeyer, M. Emmet Walsh as crotchety neighbor Walt Scheel, Elizabeth Franz as Walt's wife Bev, Austin Pendleton as Marty, Tom Poston as Father Zabriskie, and finally Cheech Marin and Jake Busey as neighborhood cops (with Busey in a good guy role for a change).  In the end, it proves good fun and I felt its message is more good than bad. ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

[lester1/2jr]

Don't Look Back (2009) - This got panned on rotten Tomatoes for reasons I can kind of guess but I actually liked it. It's kind of like a non genius Inception or the Game with a Syfy budget and time constraint. It's a little over the top for sure but if you just kind of go with it it's entertaining. Plus, Monica Belluci is in it.

A journalist wants to branch out into writing fiction but she can't because she tries to write about her childhood and her editor is like this sucks. This is in part because she actually can't remember any of it. She's determined to write it anyway but all the sudden all sorts of weird stuff starts happening. little things at first: her kitchen table seems to be in a different place, a birthmark on her son's head seems to move. Then things really start getting crazy. pretty much impossible to say anything more without giving a lot of it away. Monica Belucci looks better than the french chick who plays the main character I don't like her bangs.

It would be easy to make fun of this and it is on some level ridiculous but I say go for it. Add it to the WTF pile 4/5

[indianasmith]

THE NOVEMBER MAN - this was a well done spy thriller starring Pierce Brosnan as a retired CIA agent who is called back to duty to get a Russian double agent who happens to be his estranged wife out of Moscow; she apparently has some dirt on a Russian general-turned-politician who is about to become the next President of the Russian Federation.  In the middle of the extraction, the Russians realize she has absconded with some embarrassing photos of General Federov and take off after her; on orders from the DCI, a sniper who used to be Brosnan's partner shoots her dead from the top of a building. Brosnan then goes rogue in an attempt to find out why the hit was ordered and why the CIA wants to protect Federov at all costs.
  Well done and fast-paced; like many Hollywood movies it is very quick to portray the Americans as bad guys, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless. 4/5

[claws]

Into the Storm (2014) (Blu-ray)

A team of weather specialists follow tornados during tornado season to gather information, meanwhile a school teacher and his son is following his other missing son trapped under rubble exposed to raising waters. Things get even more dramatic when a category 5 Tornado is heading towards a local school.
Total destruction. This is like an updated version of Twister (1996) aiming at a younger crowd. The action is fierce, the f/x are great, the plot is thin and the characters are paper thin. One could have done without the two comic relief characters and as expected, the most used words are "are you ok?" which could make for a great drinking game. This movie isn't really bad, not even bad enough to call it a guilty pleasure unless you have super-high standards. It's just mindless popcorn cinema. 3.75/5

[retrorussell]

RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER (1975)
The first Sellers PP film since A SHOT IN THE DARK (1964) is IMHO better than the original Pink Panther film (which I didn't think to be all that great).  The focus isn't entirely on Clouseau, much to the film's detriment, though Christopher Plummer is kind of fun as the Phantom and Herbert Lom is just as fun as Sellers.  Some classic Clouseau stupidity and Lom's Chief Inspector Dreyfus character's descent into utter madness make it fun, and this was a worthwhile Amazon purchase; though the next film, THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN, was the best.
Best clip:

Hilarious _ The Return of the Pink Panther

[claws]

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) (Blu-ray)

Four years after the horrific events a buxom Linda Blair is in therapy at a futuristic 'Star Trek' commando bridge type of all glass clinic - including automatic sliding doors - that seems to be specialized in treating mentally challenged children. Linda's Doctor is Louise Fletcher who suggests hypno-therapy (Linda's eyes cross during the first session while children with down syndrome are playing in the background), and they are joined by a priest on a mission, Richard Burton, who unlocks demonic powers rooted in Africa. While Louise is dimming lights in her office on several occasions Richard is snooping about in Africa and Linda is playing with doves in her high rise apartment. Soon enough they all gather in Washington followed by a swarm of evil locusts for a supernatural showdown.
I'm not sure what to think when some people actually praise this sequel. The Heretic is awful no matter what, but the badness is somewhat entertaining. My favorite scenes? A possessed Linda making out with Richard and Linda uncontrollably spazzing out while step dancing. 2.5/5