Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Rev. Powell]

FORTY ACRE FEUD (1965): A country music TV show films a show from the tiny Tennessee town of Shagbottom, where there is a long-running feud, an election, a Romeo & Juliet thing, and other subplots. The surrounding material is fairly lame, and I'm not much of a fan of the Gooberesque comic stylings of Ferlin Husky, but there are plenty of classic country performances by George Jones, Ray Price, and up-and-comer named Loretta Lynn, and others. This is the first movie by the Ormond family that is clearly not a bad movie. It's not great, but it's competent, with a lot of star power. 2.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" (2019)
As the Sequel Trilogy comes to a close, Rey finally learns the truth about her origins while the Resistance battles a huge new Imperial fleet created by the reborn Emperor Palpatine. Much blasting, zapping, and light-sabering ensues.
If memory serves, this movie got a lot of online hate but I enjoyed it just as much as the other two in the series. Like I said before, maybe I'm just easily amused.

"Epicenter" (2000)
Traci Lords is an FBI agent tasked with escorting a prisoner to Los Angeles. As soon as the mismatched pair arrives in L.A., the city is hit by a massive earthquake, which obviously complicates her mission in a big way.
This tedious B-grade blend of disaster movie and action thriller feels like it was stitched together from two different films. Traci looks good as usual, but the acting is sub-par, the pacing is sluggish (the earthquake doesn't hit till nearly an hour into the movie!) the sets are cheap, and the effects suck. Sharp eyed viewers may even notice the footage borrowed from Speed and Eddie Murphy's Metro!
You can safely ignore this flick unless you're a Traci fanboy.

[lester1/2jr]

After Hours (1985) - I wanted to see After Hours when it came out because it was Rated R, but I probably would have fallen asleep as I was like 10 and it's a little on the low key side. At 80 or however old I am now though, it was enjoyable and whimsically 80's.

A computer expert in stock market-y NYC meets an extremely hot "downtown" type of girl (Rosanna Arquette circa that terrible song) and ends up having a wacky and wild, yet relatively sophisticated late night adventure throughout strangely empty lower Manhattan. Right away, you notice the movie lacks the kind of spastic comic style and post "Scream" type topical / horny humor we get from comedies today. It's almost more like a play.

The ultimate 80's movie test: would we have watched and enjoyed this at my friend Gabe's Friday movie nights? Yes. It has the in the know film geek thing along with shots of NYC and other "slightly higher IQ but also somewhat punk" viewers vibe. That said, it also has a bit of that "Night of the Comet" sort of... maybe a little too mellow in places vibe. We would have liked it, but also talked during it.

4.30/ 5

[M.10rda]

Only recently made it through an entire second full-length on a small screen film this month. (It's been one a' those months...)

KILL! (1968):
Okay, so there are these samurai, see, and there's seven of them... oh, you've heard that one before? But wait - did you hear about the one where it's the seven swordsmen who are surrounded on all sides and need to be rescued by a spacy slow-talking vagrant w/ surprisingly fast hands? Also there's a meathead farmer who dreams of the samurai life despite being all thumbs with a sword, a stoic mercenary compromising his principles in order to pay his wife's way out of sexual slavery, a sleepy old man who is absurdly unconcerned about serious threats to his wellbeing, and an extremely complex political conspiracy of crosses and double- and triple- and quadruple-crosses? Oh, so you haven't seen KILL! ...?

This adventure/action/comedy hybrid is the work of director Kihachi Okamoto, whose name rang no bells for me yet who directed SWORD OF DOOM, a very dark, almost literally deranged samurai film from 1966 that I watched and reviewed last year. By "deranged", I mean SWORD OF DOOM actually threatens to depart violently from its own structure and perhaps even from the frames of celluloid or from the sprockets of any 35mm projector struggling to play the final scene. That film's terrifying, loathesome, bug-eyed lead character remains clear in my mind and couldn't be more distinct from KILL!'s big-hearted, good humored, hangdog protagonist... so I was further shocked to find that both were played (impossibly!) by the same actor, Tatsuya Nakadai. That name DID ring bells for me, and I was quickly reminded that Nakadai was the star of Kurosawa's RAN and KAGEMUSHA, as well as a bit player in THE SEVEN SAMURAI, and onscreen in countless other Japanese films.

Clearly both Okamoto and Nakadai have got huge range and utility of talent. KILL! isn't just a world away from SoD, it's also dichotomous in itself: a tense suspense thriller one minute, a broad farce the next. The sense of high stakes are never compromised, somehow, even when supporting actors momentarily bust into the most over-the-top mugging and gesticulation I've  seen outside of anime sex comedies. A lot of the credit has to go to Nakadai's performance, presumably at Okamoto's behest and/or with his input: in a sometimes rambunctious action movie w/ lowbrow larfs, Nakadai's character often remains completely still for long moments, moving only his eyes in ways that communicate volumes. Frankly it's one of the best eyeball performances I can think of. Nakadai makes 90s Kevin Spacey look like he's got lazy eye.

Also w/ some startling fast cuts in both fight scenes and dialogue scenes; early Japanese rifles blowing holes in samurai ala the grisly gun mayhem in RAN; a severed arm that's gorier than the one Ben Kenobi left on the floor in the Mos Eisley cantina 9 years later, even in black and white; music and motifs that ironically appear borrowed from the spaghetti westerns that borrowed stuff from samurai flicks; and very little of substance that's new or unique to the genre, BUT, all executed so professionally and entertainingly that I never cared much.

4/5

Nakadai's performance might qualify this for a 4.5 upgrade. He's tremendous.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Kandyland" (1988)
Joni, a bored young beach bunny (Playboy Playmate Kimberly Evenson) impulsively enters a bikini contest. One of her competitors is an exotic dancer (Sandahl Bergman, "Conan The Barbarian") who is impressed by Joni's moves and invites her to audition for a job at "Kandyland," the strip club she works at. Joni lands a regular gig at the club, despite her boyfriend/fiancee's disapproval of her new career choice. However, the longer Joni hangs around the Kandyland crew, the more she sees the dark side of the scene.
This strange, low budget B-movie tries to walk the line between sleazy T&A fest and gritty, heartfelt drama. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Kimberly Evenson (Miss September 1984) was my favorite Playmate ever, and she's cute as hell, though sadly she can't act worth a damn. There are a lot of other pretty girls in various states of undress as well. Therefore I was entertained.  Think of this as the missing link between "Flashdance" and "Showgirls."

[Rev. Powell]

LA CHIMERA (2023): An Englishman in Italy with a mystical talent for discovering burial plots joins a group who traffic in ancient Etruscan artifacts while brooding over his lost love. Well-made drama in a unique milieu with a smattering of magical realism, but difficult to connect with. 3/5.

[indianasmith]

DUG UP (2022)  A redneck, his hot girlfriend, and his stripper sister dig up an anonymous grave in the local cemetery and find a mysterious dial that triggers a zombie apocalypse.
Shenanigans ensue.  All the classic elements of a bad movie present in this one!  5/5

[Dr. Whom]

Air Doll (2009)

A middle-aged man only has his inflatable doll for companion. She miraculously comes alive, and starts to explore life and love.

This starts out as a whimsical comedy with an ingenue/pixie dream girl and gradually turns into a melancholy meditation on aging, loneliness and death, ending in tragedy. There is not a lot happening in the movie, but it has lots of atmosphere to compensate. Full marks to Bae Doona for giving life to the doll and carrying the movie. She is in about 80% of the shots at least.

[M.10rda]

Air Doll (2009)

A middle-aged man only has his inflatable doll for companion. She miraculously comes alive, and starts to explore life and love.

This starts out as a whimsical comedy with an ingenue/pixie dream girl and gradually turns into a melancholy meditation on aging, loneliness and death, ending in tragedy. There is not a lot happening in the movie, but it has lots of atmosphere to compensate. Full marks to Bae Doona for giving life to the doll and carrying the movie. She is in about 80% of the shots at least.

Sounds suspiciously like a 2023 Oscar contender that everyone but me loved. Never heard of this one. Just goes to show that branding is everything...

[zombie no.one]

DUG UP (2022)  A redneck, his hot girlfriend, and his stripper sister dig up an anonymous grave in the local cemetery and find a mysterious dial that triggers a zombie apocalypse.
Shenanigans ensue.  All the classic elements of a bad movie present in this one!  5/5

can't find a single thing about this on imdb or youtube?

edit - ok, I can now. 2013 not 2022

[Dr. Whom]

Sounds suspiciously like a 2023 Oscar contender that everyone but me loved. Never heard of this one. Just goes to show that branding is everything...

If you are thinking about Poor Things, this could be an object lesson for film school how you can take a similar theme and make two completely different movies. Poor Things is a wild over the top steampunk extravaganza, while Air Doll is all about understatement and leaving things unsaid. The one crosses the world in exotic locales, the other is limited to a small nondescript corner in -I suppose- Tokyo. In fact, a common criticism of Air Doll is that it is flat and boring, and I can certainly see why people would say that.

[M.10rda]

LOL I did NOT mean POOR THINGS! Still haven't seen it and I look forward to it. Hilarious that there are apparently two 2023 films about dolls coming to life?

[indianasmith]

CHUPACAPRA TERRITORY (2016) - An amateur group of documentary filmmakers go in search of the legendary chupacapra.
This one is a pretty by-the-numbers low budget found footage film - BLAIR WITCH PROJECT meets BIGFOOT HUNTERS with a small dash of GIRLS GONE WILD thrown in.
I've been less entertained by some films. 3/5

A SCORE TO SETTLE (2019) - Nick Cage plays Frankie Carver, a former goodfella released from a life sentence in prison because he is terminally ill.
Does he use his remaining time to reconnect with his son, or to get revenge on his former gang, who betrayed him?
Noe one of Cage's best performances, but still entertaining. 3.5/5

[M.10rda]

BOTTOMS (2023):
This wasn't too different from any smartly written high school sex comedy about loser cis/het dudes trying to get laid by hot chicks, only w/ lesbian teens in the lead roles. Probably a good move to appeal to a broader sex comedy audience (though I have no idea if it was successful at netting that demo). Personally I had no problem relating to the main characters and their social struggles, regardless of gender. I liked all the performances (Marshawn Lynch is certainly a delight) and there were plenty of laughs (I cannot think of another high school comedy that includes a joke about second-wave feminism). Plus, I very much appreciated the dark, nasty edge that the film often assumed, not so much at the expense of its put-upon protagonists as in recognition of the absurd yet completely authentic toxicity and sadism of high school idolatry. (Didn't even need to know the deal w/ the random dude imprisoned in the cage in the back of Lynch's classroom - that was a joke that played fabulously w/o explanation - though he does eventually become a plot point.)

My sole complaint about BOTTOMS, and where it loses points w/ me, is that the filmmakers mysteriously decide to have it both ways in the film's finale and allow their embattled female ensemble to kick some asses - yet not the RIGHT asses; not the asses of the dirtbags who've threatened, terrorized, and abused them for the entire film. THOSE dirtbags are instead rescued and, thus, presumably redeemed in the interests of a happily-ever-after resolution where open homosexuals, misfits, and enlightened cheerleaders can be embraced into the larger heteronormative community of brutes, narcissists, enablers, and hysterical closet cases.

Nah, fam - those aren't the droids I was lookin' for! BURN IT ALL DOWN, Girl's Fight Club!   Ah well, maybe that'll happen in BOTTOMS II: IN TOO DEEP.

3.5/5

[lester1/2jr]

I watched 2 episodes of "Guilty Rich" on tubi. It's similar to Dateline or CNBC's American Greed. The first one was Andrew Luster, the second some guy in Florida. They were good.