Recent viewings

[FatFreddysCat]

"Spy In Your Eye" (aka "Bang! You're Dead!", 1965)

http://youtu.be/PuNnrK48RaU
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An American agent protects an East German scientist's lovely daughter from Russian and Chinese spies who are after her late father's secret death-ray formula.

...yep, it's yet another cheap Italian spy flick with an American leading man (Brett Halsey of Return of the Fly) trying to be Bond.

Strangely, the "Eye" in the title actually refers to a secondary character (Dana Andrews) whose glass eye conceals a TV camera implanted by the Russians so they can spy on the good guys.

Very few of these '60s "Eurospy" movies are much good, but this one was particularly talky and slow moving; I may have actually dozed off for a few minutes, yet when I woke up it didn't feel like I'd missed anything!

[lester1/2jr]

fastfreddy- It was blandly entertaining I guess but everything about it just screamed made in a hurry and as accessible as possible for the Christmas market. One thing that as sort of interesting was the red state vs blue state tension between the two families.

[Rev. Powell]

MST3K: THE UNDEAD: The movie is a very goofy Roger Corman production about a hooker who, through hypnosis, time travels to a past life where she was wrongly accused as a witch---she doesn't just REMEMBER her past life, she GOES INTO THE PAST and makes different choices that could affect the future. Bobo and Pearl are still on the Observer planet, and the Observers give everyone in the cast written intelligence tests. The dumb-but-creative Corman film is a step up from the dumb-and-formulaic Universal films that made up the previous five episodes, but the host segments and riffing are uneven, marking a missed opportunity for the first great Sci Fi Channel episode. 3/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"2 Lava 2 Lantula" (2016)

http://youtu.be/wCChlDtb2AE
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Steve "Police Academy" Guttenberg returns as has-been action star Colton West in the sequel to last year's surprise SyFy hit. This time he's shooting a new movie in Florida when those pesky fire-breathing subterranean spiders make an appearance, causing more of the usual mayhem and destruction. Sharp-eyed viewers will notice scenes which nod to "Star Wars," "Independence Day," "The Karate Kid," "2001" and even "Dr. Strangelove" (to name just a few). Silly as hell but lots of fun.

[claws]

Computer Beach Party (1987)

Two guys see their favorite beach at danger of closing down when a idiot mayor plans to purchase it because he thinks there's hidden gold underneath the sand.

Wow, this was quite something. For years clips of Computer Beach Party have been circulating on youtube because of the badness of it all. Out of context these clips are indeed hilarious, but watching the entire movie in one sitting can be painful. All the actors are over 30 years old but act like teens, and everyone is dubbed. Which makes this whole thing weird because this wasn't a foreign movie picked up for distribution. There's some nudity and the comedy is really lame. As for the Computer, they use one at the end in order to win a surf buggy race. That didn't make a lick of sense, but neither did the movie. 1.5/5

Scream... and Die! aka The House That Vanished (1974)

A pretty model and her rude photographer friend (he tells her to shut up all the time and wants to take pictures of her nude but she refuses) go to a seemingly abandoned house because the friend has to collect something there, but I think he was just a thief on the side. They are interrupted by another couple and hide, and watch in fear as the stranger stabs the woman to death. The model barely escapes, leaving the photographer behind who then goes missing. Oddly enough, the model doesn't contact the police but tells all her friends about that horrific night. Soon enough the killer starts playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with the model, leaving a trail of mutilated corpses behind.

Weirdness from the UK with a few good ideas that go nowhere. I didn't expect to see a 60 year old woman nude, having rough sex with a young man. That's how weird this movie is. Anyway, this one always got away in VHS rental days so now I can cross it off my list. 2.5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Wraith" (1986)

http://youtu.be/9QNDycDirxA
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A gang of murderous Arizona street racers and car thieves are being picked off one by one by a guy in a souped up, futuristic vehicle that may not be of this earth. An oh-so-'80s-it-hurts car crashin' cult classic with a supernatural bent, starring a pre-"winning!" Charlie Sheen, a pre-psycho Randy Quaid and an uber-fiiiiine Sherilyn Fenn, and featuring songs by Motley Crue, Lion, Ozzy, Robert Palmer and Billy Idol. Tons of mindless retro fun!

[lester1/2jr]

The Witch (2015) - Little House on the Scary. A guy and his family in pilgrim days are kicked out of their pilgrim village due to a religious argument or something and the guy and the family have to go live out on their own. When they settle down weird stuff starts happening. They are of course devoutly religious so they interpret it as as some Satanic witchcraft and everyone gets upset. The rather pretty daughter and the two younger twins plot against each other, the Mom and dad fight, the son is horny and theres no girls around it just stinks. and it gets worse for them.

You can feel the hunger and sweat. The costumes and the scenery and everything is all of a piece. I even watched the making of thing. The director was rather young and seemed to be kind of a goth guy but this is much more tasteful than that stuff usually is. the limited special effects weren't super effective but what are you gonna do.

5/5

edit - just read the imdb reviews and some people really hated this. I guess it is on some level sort of highbrow and bare but I just thought it was good.

[dean]

The Witch (2015) - Little House on the Scary. A guy and his family in pilgrim days are kicked out of their pilgrim village due to a religious argument or something and the guy and the family have to go live out on their own. When they settle down weird stuff starts happening. They are of course devoutly religious so they interpret it as as some Satanic witchcraft and everyone gets upset. The rather pretty daughter and the two younger twins plot against each other, the Mom and dad fight, the son is horny and theres no girls around it just stinks. and it gets worse for them.

You can feel the hunger and sweat. The costumes and the scenery and everything is all of a piece. I even watched the making of thing. The director was rather young and seemed to be kind of a goth guy but this is much more tasteful than that stuff usually is. the limited special effects weren't super effective but what are you gonna do.

5/5

edit - just read the imdb reviews and some people really hated this. I guess it is on some level sort of highbrow and bare but I just thought it was good.

I really enjoyed it, but it was about five minutes from losing me when the whole crow scene happened. If that didn't and it was another false/empty scare I was leaning towards the 'man this is way too melodramatic and understated'. But it got there in the end.

[lester1/2jr]

Dean - most of the reviews at IMDB are like that. That it was generally good except for this this and this. Some people just hated it though it just wasn't their style. I was I guess on the opposite end of that. I really liked the simplicity. I usually watch with the subtitles anyway so the language which was a barrier for some wasn't an issue either. 

[indianasmith]

I loved THE WITCH both as a horror movie and, more importantly, as a period piece.  The screenwriter really understood Puritan culture and Elizabethan dialect.  I enjoyed it from start to finish!

Last night my wife and I watched DEADPOOL together.  She's pretty straightlaced but still enjoyed it; it was a second viewing for me and the movie still cracks me up!

[indianasmith]

Tonight I watched an interesting horror film called THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS.
A young woman in a small town keeps finding photographs of gruesomely posed women's bodies at her workplace.  Are they pictures of murder victims?  Or some eccentric photographer's weird idea of art?  The local cops are even more useless than usual, but when a famous photographer comes to town to explore the concept behind the photos, the body count rises and the true killer emerges! Fairly entertaining with some cute actresses.  3.5/5

[Rev. Powell]

WHY DON'T YOU PLAY IN HELL? (2013): Looking for a starring vehicle for his daughter, a yakuza hires an amateur film crew to make his raid on a rival clan's headquarters into an epic movie. Sion Sono spends time letting us get to know and understand these characters before he sends them off to be slaughtered in an insane, over-the-top bloodbath; the result is a top-notch, pitch black action-comedy. 5/5.

[dean]

WHY DON'T YOU PLAY IN HELL? (2013): Looking for a starring vehicle for his daughter, a yakuza hires an amateur film crew to make his raid on a rival clan's headquarters into an epic movie. Sion Sono spends time letting us get to know and understand these characters before he sends them off to be slaughtered in an insane, over-the-top bloodbath; the result is a top-notch, pitch black action-comedy. 5/5.

Ah man I really wanted to watch that when it played here a year or two ago but missed it! Will have to put it back on the list.

[Rev. Powell]

DER BUNKER (2015): A student takes a room with a family who lives in a remote bunker and is convinced to become tutor to the very strange son, Klaus, by his even stranger mother (and the entity that lives with her). This claustrophobic nightmare is not entirely successful, but the four performers are all very good, and it's just odd enough to keep your interest. 3/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Summer with Monika (1953) - Ingmar Bergman would eventually be known for much more sophisticated art house (kind of a strange expression if you think about it. isn't a museum an art house?) fare, in particular the one with the guy playing chess with death, but this earlier effort is a very straightforward and well done story of summer romance. These were the movies that nudged American cinema toward having more sexy women and loose morals so if you aren't a fan of Bergmans work generally you can at least thank him for that.

A young guy meets a cute, impulsive girl at a coffee shop and they start a whirlwind romance. It's really whirlwindy though, they basically move to an island the next day after meeting. There they have joy and fun and at least one season in the sun. Will it last? Monika looks great throughout so no problem there

My new criteria for a 5 star movie is I watch it all the way through in one sitting. I can't fairly say I did that with this one, but it was a well made, realistic for the time romance with some depth and is a good deal more accessible than a lot of criterion stuff. Monika character was a little one dimensional in places. Bergman was no Adrian Lyne and would eventually more interested in other aspects of cinema than jealousy and mad passions and so forth

4/5