Recent viewings

[Alex]

Wrestlers Vs Zombies With a title like that you might as well just take the money straight out my wallet. Staring the likes of Rowdy Ronny Piper, Kurt Angle, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Matt Hardy & Shane Douglas. Its not very well acted, and any budget must have went on getting the names involved. The plot is that after Shane Douglas kills a man during a wrestling match, his brother gets all involved in black magic to take his revenge. The wrestlers are lured to a compition where they must fight off a zombie horde and escape. While it was on I was playing a game of X-Wing at the same time so my attention wasn't on it 100% and I think I had concentrated on it fully I wouldn't have found it quite as much fun as I did.

[indianasmith]

This morning I watched THE POLTERGEIST OF BORLEY FOREST, a moderately entertaining ghost story that could have been SO much better.  While the central mystery is fairly entertaining, and the mostly neophyte cast did a decent enough job acting, the runtime was too long, the scares too tame (except for two scenes that were pretty cool), and the runtime about 20 minutes or more too long.  It was just good enough for me to wish the producers better luck with their next film.  3/5

[Jack]

Survivor (2014) - so in the future people live on giant spaceships and they've all set out in various directions trying to find a habitable planet. One group find a promising world and send out a scout ship, but it gets destroyed and a few survivors, well...they actually fall out of orbit, descend through the atmosphere, but because they land in a lake they survive. Rugged individuals these. Anyhow, you've got Kevin Sorbo who lays around with a broken leg, and a hot warrior babe who has to travel quite a long distance to meet up with him, encountering nasty natives and monsters along the way. She really makes the movie, she's hot (guess I've already mentioned that), resourceful (in a cheesy B movie sort of way) and tough but not too tough. I thought she did a great acting job and she's certainly extremely athletic and kept things moving along quite well. Overall a fairly generic low budget thing, probably be a 2.5/5 for most people, but I enjoyed it a lot. 4/5.

[indianasmith]

I watched a British zombie film called INFECTED last night.
It actually wasn't too bad - kind of a low-budget DAWN OF THE DEAD.
A small group of people hole up in a high school during the zombie apocalypse.
The fences around the school are secure enough to keep out ravening hordes of the undead,
but eventually they start to run out of food - then their party gets crashed by another survivor
who doesn't play as nice as they do.
Decent drama, good zombie effects, decent characters. 
Zero nudity, limited gore.
3.5/5

[JaseSF]

The Butcher's Wife (1991): Marina (Demi Moore) is a dreamy small town island girl from North Carolina who seems to be quite the clairvoyant. She quickly marries a man she believes to be her destined husband, a chubby butcher named Leo Lemke (George Dzundza) and moves with him back to New York to help manage his butcher shop. There she meets assorted characters and her clairvoyant abilities seem to touch all their lives in positive ways yet also creates chaos all around her. This has the effect of driving local psychiatrist Dr. Alex Tremor (Jeff Daniels) nearly over the bend yet he also finds himself surprising taken with the magical effect of being around Marina. Eventually the Lemkes comes to realize that perhaps they weren't meant for each other at all when they feel sparks fly with others.

This was romantic comedy fluff at times but definitely has magical movie flavor in its favor. I really enjoyed the atmosphere in this one, love the settings and how events are framed and how we see the film unfold visually. The characters are also enjoyable and it feels at times like we as viewers are thrust among them watching events unfold. There some humor here but it's mostly that romantic charm that makes this appealing. It has a dreamy movie quality, like you get almost enveloped in this film. I like the cast including supporting players Mary Steenburgen, Frances McDormand, Margaret Colin, and Max Perlich. Moore does surprisingly well here too even if to some, she may seem a bit miscast. She actually does an Ocracoke, NC accent here and I enjoyed her performance. The film does revolve around her and she succeeds in giving her character a vibrant energy. She was also smoking hot back then too which doesn't hurt any either. This film is underrated and should appeal to you if you like romantic fantasy. **** out of ***** stars.

[lester1/2jr]

Which Way is Up? (1977) -  Richard Pryor is a guy who, through a series of shenanigans, ends up being a factory supervisor with two families who don't know about each other. On top of that, a bunch of mostly white illuminati people appear to be spying on him for some reason.

This is a lot of black nightclub type humor sloppily placed into a sloppily carried out plot. Pryor is the main character but also has cameos in make up in other roles a la Eddie Murphy in the Nutty Professor. It was enjoyable, and funny and inspired in places but if it was supposed to be about something other than jokes it didn't really "work" technically speaking. It does kind of come together in the end though and there are many ribald and humorous moments.


3/5 corny and whatever it was about gets pretty much throw out the window but better than average comedy-wise

[JaseSF]

Total Reality (1997): Two hundred years in the future, humanity is embroiled in a war between the Rebellion and the Evil Empire...uh I mean between revolting forces and the Bridgist totalitarian regime. When two top generals in the rebel forces divert to 1998 in their spaceship, a group of convicted criminals are assigned by the Bridgists on a special mission led by Anthong Rand (David Bradley) to bring back these rebels or eliminate them in the past. If they succeed, they can win back their freedom. If they don't, an implant will explode inside of them. However these criminals are no fans of the current Bridgist regime either.

Yeah this pretty much opens up as an ultra-low budget rip-off of Star Wars and later turns into something of a really low-budget style rip-off of the Terminator. It features lots of explosions (some really over the top) and some cool stunt sequences. That's the best thing this one has going for it. The rest is typical 1990s style low budget Sci-Fi fare. I will say I think it's a few notches above the junk the Asylum puts out. Average of its type yet enjoyable on some levels perhaps to less demanding Sci-Fi fans. **3/4 out of ***** stars.

[Alex]

San Andreas The Rock Vs Earthquakes. A pretty good action film, although I did have to tell my brain to be quiet and ignore some of the things you wouldn't do with a helicopter. I won't say anything about the story so its not spoiled for anyone who hasn't seen it.

Jurassic World Chris Pratt Vs Dinosaurs. Another enjoyable action where the lessons not learned in previous films still haven't been learned. I swear Chris Pratt has doubled in size from Guardians of the Galaxy.

[Jack]

Raptor Ranch (2013) - so this crazy rancher in Texas has been breeding Velociraptors and surprisingly enough they get loose and start chomping on the local residents.  Lorenzo Lamas shows up in what's little more than a glorified cameo, but the main attraction is definitely the smokin' body of our last girl.  Other than that though it's just your typical low budget direct to video type thing, with your typical CGI dino's.  It's at least got a sense a humor about it which made it a tiny bit more entertaining.  3/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Battledogs" (2013)

http://youtu.be/2tv05xc9Grk
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More schlocky fun from our friends at The Asylum and SyFy. A fast-moving "lupine virus" that turns people into bloodthirsty werewolf-like creatures is threatening to overrun Manhattan (which is portrayed, rather unconvincingly, by Buffalo, NY). While a government doctor tries to find a cure, a crazed General (Dennis Haysbert of "24") is trying to use the creatures as his own private army.
Naturally, since it's an Asylum production, appearances by D-list actors like Ernie "Ghostbusters" Hudson and Ariana "Jurassic Park" Richards -- and the now-standard cheap sh*t CGI -- are the order of the day.

[lester1/2jr]

The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012) - Belgian movie about a couple who get together and make bluegrass music and magically support themselves somehow. From the beginning something was off. The lead is a very pretty blonde who doesn't at all seem like the kind of woman who would be interested in a sasquatch looking guy or playing rural hillbilly music. She seems more like she'd be the temptress who tried to lead him to the sinful city life.

There's nothing as tense or exciting as an affair here though. It's all these people playing their pretty nondescript music and dealing with their daughter's cancer. It's almost like a Christian movie in terms of it's heavy handedness, cliches, and general amateurishness.

At 1 hour 50 minutes it was a chore to get through. There were two slightly interesting moments: one where they argue about whose genes caused their daughters Cancer and another when he gives an awkward speech in the middle of a concert bashing religious people because they are against stem cell research. Beyond that, it just didn't feel like a movie, really. more like a pretentious musical.

It didn't take me anywhere or show me anything about life in Belgium or life in general really. I didn't care about the characters at all.

1/5

note:  reviews at IMDB are uniformly glowing. Ebert as well. baffling, I actively disliked it

[Rev. Powell]

MST3K: THE MAGIC SWORD: The movie is actually halfway decent, one of Bert I. Gordon's few watchable films. It's a fairy tale inspired by St. George and the dragon, where a young man must overcome seven "curses" from an evil sorcerer (a femme-y Basil Rathbone) to win a princess. The highlight of the episode is definitely Crow's love song to Estelle Winwood: "you're cute, you're rooty-toot-toot/I bet you smell like Juicy Fruit." 4/5.

THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (1980): A U.S. Marines psychiatrist is assigned to an experimental program in a castle housing soldiers who are suffering delusions; he bonds with a militantly atheist and misanthropic astronaut, but harbors a deep secret of his own. This cult movie's unusual vision and high philosophical aspirations carry it over some uneven rough patches. 3.5/5.

[JaseSF]

Inspector Closeau (1968): Scotland Yard has hit a stalemate in trailing those behind a series of daring robberies. They decide to bring in a special outside agent to help them break up the criminal circuit - Inspector Closeau (Alan Arkin). Closeau in bumbling clueless  fashion sets out to bring down the criminals and suddenly finds himself the target of multiple assassination attempts.

Well there's obvious problem number 1 with this film, Alan Arkin is no Peter Sellers, at least not in this particular role. He tries his best but he just cannot do Closeau at the same level and let's face it, Sellers is an hard act to follow. The second major problem here is the film is never outright funny, more silly and amusing. It has some decent moments here and there. I liked the clever plots of the criminal circuit led by Johnny Rainbow, there was some bumbling moments where Closeau clumsily gets himself out of trouble, there were some beautiful women and elements that brought to mind the Spy-Fi genre (at least in parody), there were some fun chase scenes. But yeah, it doesn't quite measure up to other Pink Panther films. **1/2 out of ***** stars.

The Final Cut (2004): In the future, many people have been fitted with Zoe implants, a memory implant that records every moment of one's life. Alan Hakman (Robin Williams) is a "cutter", a man whose job it is to take this implant, sort through the best moments of one's life and create a Rememory, a special film shown at a funeral that shows the person's best moments. However many evil people are having their sins erased with these Rememory services. The latest case of Charles Bannister, a lawyer involved with the EyeTech corporation which created the Zoe implant, but who harbored a dark secret involving his daughter, comes to Alan. However this job seems to put his life in deadly peril and there are forces at work that want to expose the ugly side of these Zoe implants recording people's lives.

While very dark in many respects, I enjoyed this science fiction thriller. It presents something that seems more and more plausible nowadays with how people record more and more of their own lives on social media, "reality" television, and elsewhere. Robin Williams gives a good performance as a man haunted by a secret guilt. In the end though, there doesn't seem enough rebellion against a world where people's memories are recorded. There's so many issues involved with stuff like that such as invasion of privacy, paranoia of being constantly recorded (which a lot of already are in reality), and the question of the legalities of recording other people most of which are never examined here as much as they should have been. Our story is much more focused on the life of one man, Alan Hakman, and how his life touches the lives of others. Still a very interesting movie with an intriguing theoretical future. ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Trucks" (1997)

http://youtu.be/ON9cEUJVMcY
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Big rigs turn sentient and homicidal and trap a bunch of puny humans inside a remote truck stop in this dull-as-dishwater, made for TV remake of Stephen King's "Maximum Overdrive" (both films are based on King's short story "Trucks"). Lord knows "M.O." is not a great movie by any means, but compared to this flick it's practically the Royal Shakespeare Company.

[lester1/2jr]

The Glass Key (1942) - This was a cut above as far as old movies go. The trio of Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake and William Bendix carried it quite well. Maybe there could have been a little bit less of Ladd. He's an excellent leading man but he's in every scene. I would have liked to see more Veronica Lake too. Ladd's whole character is that he's kind of the sidekick to this boss guy, yet he seems like he's running the show I think the director just liked him.

A guy who is a gambling addict and pain in the ass gets rubbed out and the police and others try to figure out who did it. Bendix, who is this political boss which like now means he is a gangster of sorts, is the obvious suspect. The guy was dating his 18 year old sister and he is notoriously heavy handed in his dealings with people. Ladd doesn't think he did it and goes around town being street smart and clever and getting his ass kicked trying to prove it. The creepiest scene is where he gets worked over by this huge gangster guy who taunts him with homo erotic double entendres. Veronica Lake appears from time to time and there's a love triangle of sort between the three of them.

The huge gangster guy was funny and there were some good trashy/ weird moments as is often the case with the film noir as I guess this generally is. pretty cool beans
4/5