Recent viewings

[indianasmith]

I just finished watching a rather sick film called STARVE.
A graphic novelist, his fiancée Candace, and his brother Jeminy are investigating an urban myth about cannibal children living in Florida sinkholes near an abandoned town.  They discover the reality is far worse than the myth when they get locked up in an abandoned high school by a crazed maniac calling himself "The Principal".  The prisoners are starved, and then forced to fight each other to the death in order to earn food.  This one is a brutal, gruesome movie, but it's well-written and filmed.  It's not really "torture porn" but pretty close - the main characters are pretty engaging, though, and overall it was compelling and horrifying, which is what it set out to be.  4/5

[Jack]

Clawed: The Legend of Sasquatch (2005) - some drunken hunters get killed by a bigfoot, so the sole survivor goes back to town and finds some more drunks to go on his next hunting trip. Meanwhile some high school kids decide to go camping in the same area. Then there's the sheriff who pads out the runtime with arguments with the mayor, town meetings, arguments on the phone, etc. He doesn't actually DO anything though. This is one of those lame things where they make bigfoot out to be a nice creature which I never understand because A) it doesn't exist so who cares how it's portrayed and B) it's supposed to be a "scary" movie but knowing it won't hurt the harmless kids makes it a waste of time. There's plenty of preaching about how the Indians are wonderful and nice and the White Man is horrible and bad blah blah blah, which serves about as much purpose as the sheriff. 1.5/5.

[indianasmith]

3-HEADED SHARK ATTACK - OK, I didn't hate this one.  I did watch the Unrated version, which differed from the TV version by having a bit more gore and about 20 seconds of gratuitous boobage added in.  It is silly to hear them talk about being 20 miles from the nearest land when there is shoreline clearly visible a few hundred yards away in EVERY boat scene (maybe the guy who was supposed to digitally erase it got lazy?)  But the giant three headed shark was pretty neatly rendered, and seeing Danny Trejo wield his trademark weapon was kind of cool.  I'm feeling generous today, so I'll give this one 3.5/5

[lester1/2jr]

Weekend at Bernies 2 - I think I've only seen parts of the first one. I vaguely recall them slapsticking around at a really nice beach house in the Bahamas or something. Anyway, this is stupid but pretty good. I don't watch nearly enough comedies. Too often MST3K is the only thing I see with jokes.

Bernie is dead but he hid 2 million dollars (this is the 80's, so about 20 million today) somewhere. Andrew mcarthy and the other guy are trying to find it unfortunately so is a voodoo priestess! Bernie is dead but comes alive whenever music plays. I'm telling you, these parts are funny. I don't care what you say it's stupid beyond measure but funny. They need to play music so he'll help them find the treasure, but sometimes they play it and they lose track of him. hahaha

Most of this takes place in Jamaica or a back lot painted to look like that so it has that kind of atmosphere. It's slapstick they are like worried all the time abuot something and bad guys trying to get them. like the 3 stooges or something except for yuppies and 13 year olds. It's PG which is part of why it isn't much discussed. There are some okay looking girls at the beach and stuff. all in all it's cheap ridiculous crappy fun that I rather enjoyed . the guy who plays bernie is genius.

5/5

It's not all hilariously funny but it is weekend at Bernies 2 and it exists and thats enough for me

[FatFreddysCat]

"Scooby-Doo and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery" (2015)

http://youtu.be/A35YBHx0ots
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My 8 year old found this DVD at Wal-Mart yesterday and said "Daddy, we *HAVE* to get this!" - how could I refuse?

This is probably the closest thing we'll ever get to a "KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park" sequel. The Mystery Machine gang is summoned to KISS World - the band's all-KISS, all the time theme park - to help the super heroic rockers unmask a mysterious Crimson Witch that's attacking park workers and scaring away customers.

It's silly as hell like all "Scooby" movies, nicely animated and the KISS guys seem to be enjoying themselves (there are even quite a few jokes at their expense about their merchandising habits). Kids will dig the usual Scooby slapstick and their KISS geek parents will have fun catching the various in-jokes and nods to KISS history hidden throughout the film.

[Jack]

Xtro (1983) - so this woman's husband disappeared 3 years ago and since then she's taken up with a new boyfriend. But an alien comes to earth and transforms itself into her husband via some very cool and gross scenes. Anyhow he shows up at the wife's place claiming to have amnesia, which of course doesn't sit too well with the boyfriend, but their kid is happy as can be to have deddy back. He's British so instead of "daddy" we've got to listen to "deddy" like 50 times. Anyhow alien deddy infects the kid with some weird goo that gives him mental powers, and he starts turning his toys into real-life killing machines. This was all really whacko and kind of cool, but the problem was I just didn't care about any of these characters. The kid was annoying, the wife was unlikable, and the boyfriend was just there. I dunno, it sort of had a bleak atmosphere overall and kids in horror movies just annoy me. 2.5/5.

[indianasmith]

I figured you would give that one a 4/5 for the French maid scene alone!

[Rev. Powell]

FUTURAMA: BENDER'S BIG SCORE (2007): A trio of naked aliens scam the Planet Express team out of their company, infect Bender with an obedience virus, and send him back in time to steal historical treasures. Canceled TV show "Futurama"'s first (of 4) direct-to-DVD movies is a little clunky, spending more effort fitting in references to old characters (the return of Seymour!) than writing funny new jokes; eventually the plot (lifted from a famous sci-fi story) comes together satisfactorily. 3/5.

[Trevor]

 

Yeesh: you'd think the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation would have better things to make with their money. 

[Jack]

Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010) - sort of the Australian version of Red Dawn. Some kids are on a camping trip and when they get back they find their country has been invaded by an Asian military, and they decide to become guerrilla fighters. I liked this, it had good characters, plenty of action, and some impressive special effects. Oh the movie stopped dead a few times for character moments and some of the action wasn't terribly believable, but overall it was pretty entertaining and even a bit engrossing. 4/5.

[Jack]

I figured you would give that one a 4/5 for the French maid scene alone!

It really needed a LOT more French maid 

[Rev. Powell]

WHITE GOD (2014): A young girl is separated from her beloved mutt after her father refuses to pay a new tax on mixed breeds; the dog is thrown into the streets of Budapest and becomes the leader of a wild pack that terrorizes the city. Simultaneously a touching tale of a girl's love for her dog, an allegory about the plight of marginalized social groups, and (by the end) a horror movie in the style of THE BIRDS; animal lovers will find some of the scenes very hard to take. 3.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

The Purple rose of cairo (1985) One thing I should do more often is check the dates of movies before I watch them. I can't count the number of times I thought a movies from the 70's was made in the 80's or vice versa and looked at it with a different context. I figured this one was was maybe 1981 or earlier. The whole throwback to the 30's vibe, Mia farrow, etc

This was kind of Twilight Zone Woody Allen. The plot is purposely absurd: a character in a movie falls in love with a woman who comes to see the movie and walks out of the movie theater with her. It's an audacious / not too fathomable concept but Woody Allen is up to the challenge. Mia Farrow is not exactly an 80's bombshell a la Melanie Griffith or Demi Moore. She's skinny and mousey, it works for the role but does makes the movie seem a little dated. Jeff Daniels has a dual role as both the character in the movie and the guy who plays that character. He's brought in by the movie studios to deal with the crisis. It's not your usual Manhattan romance fare here.

I had put off watching this because it's so vaunted and 4 star-y but it was pretty different from what I thought it would be. I like 4 star type movies but they can takea bit of gumption to get in the player. This was really just like a really good if light hearted episode of the Twilight Zone. The ending was a little abrupt the whole thing was like 80 minutes or something.

4.5 /5 pretty choice

[FatFreddysCat]

"Gravestoned" (2009)

http://youtu.be/vj70WcYUewQ
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Billed as "a horror film for stoners," this is a sh*t house no budget "comedy" about a one armed slasher stalking the cast and crew of a horror movie. Nobody in the movie can act and the "story" goes nowhere. Pointless, plotless, irritatingly unfunny amateur night crap. This looks like it was made by a bunch of kids who suddenly decided "Hey, let's shoot a movie on our iPhones and put it on YouTube!"
AVOID.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Aural Amphetamine: Metallica and the Dawn of Thrash" (2011)

http://youtu.be/I0olyDB0KKM
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A skimpy but still mostly entertaining low-budget documentary that covers the rise of the NWOBHM and its eventual mutation into thrash metal thanks largely to the influence of a certain Mr. Ulrich and his band.

Putting Metallica's name in the title and on the DVD cover is a cheap ploy to snag unsuspecting viewers, because they obviously had nothing to do with the making of this flick - they appear only via vintage concert and interview footage. New interviewees include Brian Tatler (Diamond Head), Lonn Friend (RIP Magazine), Chris Poland (Megadeth), Aaron Jellum (Laaz Rockit), photographer Harold O., and others.

Longtime thrashers will enjoy the trip down memory lane but they certainly won't learn anything new.