Recent viewings

[lester1/2jr]

Brubaker (1980) Robert Redford-  I'd been watching to many fun psychedelic new wave roller skatey movies lately so I figured it was time for something gritty and somewhat punishing.   This is a  2 hour plus movie about an idealistic warden trying to reform an extremly corrupt and depressing rural prison.  The guards beat the prisoners,  steal all sorts of stuff and the surrounding town sells second rate stuff to the prison paid for by the state.  It's all a big web of corruption and many have tried and failed but Brubaker is going for it.  The state government flunkies are right out of a conspiracy movie, always covering up and getting stammering mad when someone mentions the thing they are covering up.    In fact, It maybe borrows to much from the conventions of the conspiracy genre in an effort to make the whole thing more exciting.  Without redford and Yaphet Katto it would be more obscure than it already is.  "Agency" and "tomoroww never comes"  are other good movies from this era that have some phoned in conspiracy/ disaster elements but are generally good.

[InformationGeek]

I just watched Dick Tracey last night and it's very good.  I love the all star cast, colorful setting, amazing makeup work on the mobsters, and the humor.  It's just annoying that IMBD only has it at an 5.9 rating.

[Rev. Powell]

WISHMASTER (1997) A malevolent Djinn released into modern times will rule the world if he can trick a woman into asking him to grant her three wishes.  Fun enough horror outing that could have been much better if it put as much effort into the cat-and-mouse aspects of the wishing game as it does the (admittedly pretty good) special effects. 3/5.

[Torgo]

MY NAME IS BRUCE     *** out of ****.   The script could've used some more work at times.  But overall it's a lot of fun for Bruce Campbell fans. 

[Jack]

Splinter (2008)  A couple is out camping, but they get carjacked by an escaped prison inmate.  They have car trouble so they stop at a gas station.  Unfortunately there's a creature lurking about, sort of a cross between a porcupine and John Carpenter's "The Thing".  Pretty gory and gruesome special effects.  So they spend the whole movie trapped in the gas station trying to keep this thing from getting in.  Pretty good characters, though the guy is too wimpy to be believed, but he gets all heroic in the end.  The whole thing with them being scared of the convict and eventually working together with him against the creature is done pretty well.  Overall, not great but maybe a little better than average.  3.5/5.

100 Million BC (2008) - No, not the big budget Hollywood movie, but The Asylum's low budget knockoff.  Some people go back to 80 million BC (hence the title), but they get stuck there because their time travel thingy gets broke.  The guy in charge of the project spends about 50 years trying to perfect the technology, and in the present day he takes a team back in time to rescue the first group.  Of course there's dinosaurs galore, and once they've eaten their fill the surviving people come back to the present day.  Unfortunately, so doe a T-Rex.  The rest of the movie is spent with the dino loose in Los Angeles (or some big city, I dunno).  This is pretty comical actually.  The people who have been living in the past can run really fast because there's twice as much oxygen now as there used to be, they can also jump out of a helicopter that's 20 feet in the air without even spraining an ankle.  The plan is to get the T-Rex into a highway tunnel.  I couldn't figure out why, it could just walk out the other end.  But they never get it into the tunnel anyway.  Instead, some guy from the past - I've seen this movie about three times and I still can't figure out who the hell this guy is - shows up and sends the dino back where he came from.  Greg Evigan, the military guy, refers to a WWII half track as a "tank".  Yeah, anyhow, pretty silly movie but it had a hot babe in it so I of course bought the DVD.

[Doggett]

A Nightmare on Elm Street.............................................3/5
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 The Dream Master.................2/5
Attack of the 50ft Woman.............................................4/5  -I really liked this!!!!
Striptease.Again..........................................................4/5    -Yeah, I know you hate it.
Elvira's Haunted Hills....in b/w.Again.................................4/5    -It's a lot better if you turn off the colour on the TV. For fans only.
Frankenhooker...again...................................................4/5
Bodysnatchers. again....................................................4/5

[lester1/2jr]

frankenhooker is good but I think Basket Case is a little better

[Jack]

Transmorphers - Alien robots conquer earth, and at some point in the future, a small group of humans decide to fight back.  I think.  This movie is utterly stupefying.  Let's start with the screenplay - I can only guess the writer was on a five day methamphetamine high when he came up with this rubbish.  Three quarters of the dialog is just nonsense.  Example?  Some people are in one room, while two robots are shooting at them from the next room.  One guy takes off his earring and tosses it into the room with the robots.  He explains that it's a bio-sensor, and that it's located in the next room.  In the next scene, the robots are forgotten about, and a guy gets into a blue capsule.  I have no clue.  The whole damned movie is this way.  Characters say the most bizarre things imaginable.  The editing is nice as well, some scenes are just terminated halfway through, leaving the viewer wondering what the f***.  One of my favorite things about the DVD is that the audio and video are about a half second out of synch with each other.  Someone will start saying something, and a half second later, their lips will start moving.  Of course, their lips keep moving until well after their dialog has stopped.  Then there's the special effects - in all honesty, this stuff would be refused by the Sci-Fi Channel.  My favorite bit is the guns;  about a quarter of the time you get a laughable muzzle flash effect and a silly ray gun sound.  The other three-quarters of the time you get nothing.  Just somebody holding a plastic gun, pretending to feel a recoil, with no sound and no muzzle flash.  I wanted to listen to the director's commentary, just to hear what this meth addict had to say for himself.  I went into the special features and chose "Director's Commentary".  Even though it's on the menu, it doesn't actually exist.

Wow...just...wow.

[lester1/2jr]

Boogeyman (1983) -   cheap unscary horror movie that steals openly from much much better ones, namly the Exorcist and the Amityville Horror.     It's carried by lead actress Suzanna Love , who mostly looks great.  I wonder why she wasn't a bigger star she is a natural beauty who is way less annoying than, say, Julia Roberts.   the whole thing: plot, script, story, is  silly but actually rather enjoyable for those who don't want to think much and have low expectations.

[lester1/2jr]

Fat Albert Halloween Special (1977) -   This was just a run of the mill Fat Albert Episode with a HAlloween theme.  the DVD has 2 other mildly "spooky" episodes, one about a guy who does pranks and another about a guy who thinks he is a jinx so he does all this superstitious stuff.  People from Ark II worked on this show so you get that same type of heavy handed moralizing, mainly in the Fat Albert Character, plus Bill Cosby's involvement insures everything will be super positive.  somehow it's still pretty fun thoiugh unfoirtunately not Brown Hornet adventures were featured.

[Torgo]

DOOMSDAY  **1/2 out of ****.  I  am a big fan of writer/director Neil Marshall's previous two films Dog Soldiers and The Descent. But he missed the mark a bit with this one.  It still manages to be watchable trash just due to how all over the map the film is both in terms of how many genres are getting mashed up here or how over the top most of the performances are. Just make sure to turn your brain completely off prior to watching.

[Doggett]

DOOMSDAY  **1/2 out of ****.  I  am a big fan of writer/director Neil Marshall's previous two films Dog Soldiers and The Descent. But he missed the mark a bit with this one.  It still manages to be watchable trash just due to how all over the map the film is both in terms of how many genres are getting mashed up here or how over the top most of the performances are. Just make sure to turn your brain completely off prior to watching.

I really like that film!!!
The Two Tribes bit was awesome!!!!

[Dawley]

Cliffhanger

Just rewatched it after buying it, and the last time I saw it was when I was about twelve, so it was a lot of fun. It's also made me realise just how awesomely fun those violent action flicks in the late '80's and early '90's were, either out of genuinely fun moments or the cheese factor.

I give it... 7/10

[Torgo]

IN BRUGES  ***1/2 out of ****.  Pitch black comedy mixes with a modern crime film with an end result that is quite original and highly entertaining. Great performances all around. This film was marketed wrong. The trailers played it up to be this wacky Coens type film but it is much darker than that.  Quite violent and bloody at times as well.

[lester1/2jr]

hare rama hare krishna (1971)  famous or infamous bollywood movie depicting drugged out hippies in Katmandu and the struggle of a brother to rescue his long lost sister from this sort of life.  I enjoyed the setting alot,  despite the hippie presence the village seems like a fun place and there is at least some comraderie between the mainly foreign hippies and the locals.  Also, there are two extremely attractive women:  the sister Jasbir aka Janice and Shanti, the brothers village love interest who fills out her green native dress thing rather spectacularly (though this is pg so don't get too excited).  there is something about a dress shop and a stolen idol but mainly just hanging around the town and having a fun time at all hours.  Why doesn't the brother tell janis he is in fact her brother?  Because they need the tension and mystery to round out the flimsy plot.  It's not shakespeare but it's worth seeing.