Recent viewings

[lester1/2jr]

sign of the cross (1934) - big budget cecile demille epic about persecution of christians in Rome.  It is moderately infamous for a few risque scenes of roman debauchery, but they are mild by todays standards and in fact make the movie seem alot less dated.  ironically it has a strong pro christian message.

[schmendrik]

Thanks to this forum, I have Kekko Kamen (1991) coming to me from Netflix, with Gymkata (1985) and Glen or Glenda (1953) in the queue.

[lester1/2jr]

glen or glenda is really bad.  it's an hour long but it feels like 8

[lester1/2jr]

international house (1933)

WC Fields is definately the best part of this corny old fashioned slapstick n gags comedy that classic film buffs will call "wonderful" but  is a little too silly for me.  Still, There are some funny lines  like George Burns as a doctor goes "have you seen my stethoscope?" and the ditzy nurse played by Gracie Allen goes "I'll look at it later".  Bela lugosi is great and Cab Calloway does a song about "the reefer man" but again Fields really steals the show.  DVD comes with a fascinating A & E biography of the man.

[Jack]

Tormented (1960) - A man is trying to dump his girlfriend because he's engaged to another girl.  Girlfriend won't take no for an answer.  She falls to her death from a lighthouse;  the guy could have saved her but chose not to.  So he tries to live his happy little life with his fiancé, but of course the ghost of the dead girlfriend comes back to haunt him.  This was okay, mildly interesting characters, mildly interesting plot.

The Bee Girls - There's a rash of deaths in a small town, all men, all dead because of excessive physical exertion during sex.  The deaths seem to be centered around a government lab, so a gov't investigator shows up to look around.  Turns out some women have genetically crossed themselves with bees.  Why would they do that?  I've seen this movie three times and I haven't got a clue.  Tons of plot holes, but it's balanced with tons of nudity.  Overall it's okay.  I've got this under the name "Graveyard Tramps", which is a horrible print of the film.  Just bought the MGM Midnight Movie double feature -  Invasion of the Star Creatures/Invasion of the Bee Girls - was so happy to find out I already had this movie    Oh well, it's a vastly better print.

[Psycho Circus]

I watched Starcrash (1979)  in French! 

It makes it even funnier especially the character of Akton 

[Raffine]

"Looks like another long, hard one!"

Tried to rewatch BLOOD FEAST last night.

I have to say this film contains some of my favorite rotten performances.

Fell asleep after about ten minutes, though.

[schmendrik]

Thanks to this forum, I have Kekko Kamen (1991) coming to me from Netflix, with Gymkata (1985) and Glen or Glenda (1953) in the queue.

Well I just finished Kekko Kamen disk 1. That was... different. What is it about the Japanese and schoolgirl fantasies? And I still haven't decided yet whether Kekko is or isn't shaved.

I started out saying "I think my daughter would like this, she likes anime, and an evil-teacher anime would be fun". I finished saying, "No way am I going to tell my daughter I saw this thing." But yes, KK fans, I do admit it was fun if a bit tiresome.

I think Gymkata will be next. Or possibly Freaks (1932) which I just mentioned in another post.

[Jack]

Invasion of the Star Creatures (1963) - dopey comedy about some bumbling nincompoops who encounter a pair of Amazon space babes.  They're planning on taking over the world, but the goofballs push all the buttons on their spaceship and cause it to take off without them, stranding them on earth.  They become the girlfriends of the nincompoops.  I didn't think it was funny at all, one of those totally goofball comedies that do absolutely nothing for me.  The space babes were pretty hot though, made it worth the watch.

Cemetery Gates (2006) - A genetically engineered Tasmanian Devil (about the size of a grizzly bear) gets loose in the woods and kills a bunch of people.  This was actually a pretty fun movie;  Enjoyable characters, comically over-the-top gore effects, a bit'o T&A, and the monster was pretty cool.  No CGI at all, just a guy in a suit.  Looked nice, but of course it moved like a guy in a suit.  Got a little slow in parts (It depends on a constant stream of gratuitous violence and gratuitous nudity;  If these elements are missing for more than a couple of minutes, it gets boring), but otherwise enjoyable.

[JaseSF]

Single White Female (1992): The good: Bridget Fonda is gorgeous, Jennifer Jason Leigh does well as a nutcase, the killings prove surprisingly shocking and gruesome despite a lack of a lot of gore; The bad: the film apparently borrowed a lot from the superior Apartment Zero; the ugly: the film seems to have a real man-hating feel with only the gay man not being a lecherous two-timer, there's a certain overall nastiness that permeates the film that may well turn off some; the fact that gay Graham survives an incredibly nasty beatdown to pop up later at just the appropriate moment. ** out of *****

[Psycho Circus]

This film is so freakin' awesome! 5/5

[Rev. Powell]

SILENT HILL (2006):  When her little girl constantly mumbles the name "Silent Hill" while sleepwalking, a mom takes her to the titular ghost town where an underground coal fire has been burning for years--oh, and there's also an unspeakable evil. The complicated storyline is confusingly told, but director Christophe Gans powers his narrative train quickly from one impressively apocalyptic set piece to another so that the viewer hardly feels the bumps from the plot holes.  4/5.

THE PRESTIGE (2006): In the age of Houdini, two rival magicians become obsessed with topping each other by sabotaging performances and stealing secrets. A fantastic and dramatic game of cat and mouse, although it goes one magical realist trick too far at the end.  4.5/5.

MST3K: THE CRAWLING HAND:  This is the only officially released episode from Season 1, so I had to check it out, out of curiosity if nothing else.  It's not as bad as I feared, although the humor isn't quite up to the standards of the later years, and the purple and green color scheme on the Satellite of Love take some getting used to.  The movie itself is bad in a dull way, with only a few crazy moments to liven things up.  The riffs depend heavily on puns ("Good thing she brought her HAND-gun", "Be advised: he's ARM and dangerous.").  A good pickup for fans of the series only.  2.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

small town gay bar-  the title is like a poem almost.  conveying dread!  good documentary put out by Clerks guy Kevin Smith for some reason about two gay bars  in the bible belt and how important  they are for the local gay communities.   not as harrowing as you'd expect and in fact funny and uplifting in places.  some of the music is sort of random and it was obviously made pretty cheaply but fascinating nonetheless.

[Rev. Powell]

HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES (2003): Four college aged kids stumble into the web of family of bizarre, yet cliched, backwoods killers. First time director Rob Zombie tries to cover up the lack of a story with an excess of crazy style.  The result looks a lot like what you would get if you took THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974), removed all the scary, and replaced it with annoying. 2/5. 

[Jack]

The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) - A man arrives at a castle to investigate the death of his sister.  He meets his sister's husband (Vincent Price), as well as Price's sister, played by (the adorably cute) Luana Anders, and the local doctor.  Price isn't terribly stable to start with, and once it's discovered that his wife is apparently haunting the castle, he slips farther and farther towards insanity.  Wonderful Gothic style, good performances, and a great twist ending.  The MGM Midnight Movies DVD is very nice, complete with a "theatrical prologue" which is pretty cool.  Commentary track by Roger Corman.  The picture quality was nice with rich colors, but a bit too contrasty for my tastes (darks were too dark, lights were too light). 

Lady Frankenstein (1972) - Quite an interesting story about Dr. Frankenstein.  He creates his monster, which then kills him and goes poking around town killing people at will.  His daughter (also a surgeon) shows up and basically picks up where dad left off, trying to perfect his experiment.  There's romance, there's nudity (My god, Lady Frankenstein has a marvelous butt, a perfect 10 out of 10), there's lots of Gothic style and the story certainly doesn't drag.  The Hollywood Horror Collection DVD has pretty good picture quality, once I set my TV to the "mild" picture setting.  Dialog was a bit muddled by the theme music, but once I went through about 10 different surround sound modes on my receiver I finally found one that cleared it up.

Where Have All The People Gone (1974) - Made for TV movie, I remember seeing it when I was about 10 and it stuck with me all these years.  There's a big solar flare from the sun, causing just about all the people on earth to disintegrate.  Peter Graves and his two kids are among the survivors, and they set out to find the mother of the family, who is a few hundred miles away.  Along the way they meet a child who's parents were killed, and a woman who is so traumatized by something that she's no longer able to speak.  They have to find food and transportation, and deal with wild dogs and another survivor who steals their car.  This is mostly about the psychological turmoil experienced by these people, and happily it doesn't slip into melodrama too often.  Overall rather interesting, very well acted, though don't expect too much excitement. 

It! (1966) - A museum warehouse burns down, and all that's left is an evil looking statue of a golem.  The statue is put on display in the museum, and the assistant curator (Roddy McDowall) eventually learns how to bring it to life and control it.  He's a small man, suddenly granted unlimited power, and he doesn't quite know what to do with it.  Roddy gives an excellent performance, and so does the rest of the cast.  This has always been a favorite of mine, very much like a Hammer horror film, with wonderful atmosphere and very, very British.

The Night of the Werewolf (1981) - My first Paul Naschy film.  Some girls go to Transylvania to revive an ancient vampire.  There's also a werewolf, he falls in love with one of the girls and has a big showdown with the vampire at the end.  Visually, this is a feast for the eyes.  Just beautiful, artistic scene after beautiful, artistic scene.  Plotwise it's a typical B movie, with lots of plot holes and the whole thing is told in an abrupt and confusing manner.  Dialog is as cheesy as some of those goofy Italian sci-fi movies from the '60s.  The Bci / Eclipse DVD has absolutely stunning picture quality, I guess it was remastered for Blu-ray and it looks fabulous on standard DVD.  Wish I could say the same about the sound quality, it's a weird mono-through-all-five-channels mix.