Recent Viewings, Part 2

[FatFreddysCat]

"Hard Target" (1993)
A New Orleans drifter (Jean-Claude van Damme) offers to help a woman find her missing father, and ends up caught in a battle with a gang of killers who hunt humans for sport.
This was Hong Kong action director John Woo's first Hollywood film and his trademark stylishly filmed, lovingly captured slow-motion ultra-violence elevates the thin premise, which was obviously inspired by the classic story "The Most Dangerous Game." JCVD and Woo have both done better, but "Hard Target" was entertaining enough to provide some rainy afternoon mayhem.

[pennywise37]

i saw that one it's pretty good somewhere around the net is a workprint of it but i sadly don't have a copy of that. 

i watched Doctor Strange (2016)  late last night 10/10 great film

[Rev. Powell]

JULIET OF THE SPIRITS (1965): Housewife Juliet suspects her husband is cheating on her, and sees visions which alternately taunt her and help her deal with her feelings of betrayal. Fellini's first color film ventures even further into the realms of psychoanalytic filmmaking than did "8 1/2," by the end mixing phantasmagorical symbolism and reality into an inseparable emulsion.  4.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Bettie Page Reveals All" (2013)
The life of the Fifties pin-up icon is examined via vintage photos and film clips, interviews with famous friends and fans (Hugh Hefner, Dita von Teese, comic artist Dave Stevens, etc.) and voice recordings of the reclusive Bettie herself, who passed away in 2008. A fun documentary about a legendary figure (pun intended) whose cult following has only grown larger as the years have passed. 

[Rev. Powell]

COME TRUE (2020): A teenage girl, sleeping with friends or in the woods because of unspecified troubles at home, enters an experimental sleep study, then finds her life turned into a waking nightmare. A slow start and a lame left-field twist ending waste the decent-enough premise and good performance by Julia Sarah Stone. 2.5/5.

[Trevor]

i watched Doctor Strange (2016)  late last night 10/10 great film

Stan Lee's cameo in that is very funny. 

[FatFreddysCat]

"Justice League vs. the Fatal Five" (2019)
After kicking the Legion of Super Heroes' collective asses in the 31st century, a gang of future super villains time travel back to the present day and try to do the same to the Justice League. However, the veteran heroes like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman turn out to be a little tougher than these high-tech crooks expect.
A watchable, but unspectacular, entry in the DC Animated Universe series.

[Trevor]

The Shark Is Still Working: a docco about the making and legacy of Jaws. Not bad at all.

[Rev. Powell]

HAM ON RYE (2019): 16-year-olds make their way to the local deli, where they engage in an arbitrary ritual that will determine their futures; the second half of the film follows those left behind in the small town. With no real plot to speak of, this strange and melancholy film runs out of steam well before it ends, but debuting director Tyler Taormina looks like one of the chosen ones. 3.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Death of Superman" (2018)
The super-powered alien death machine known as Doomsday has crash landed on Earth, and the only one who can stop him from killing everyone in sight is The Big Red S - or can he?
A mostly faithful animated adaptation of the famed 1992 "Death of Superman" comic story line (with a few tweaks to fit it into current DC Comics continuity), action packed with lots of cartoon mayhem and a legitimately tear jerking ending. Watch this one instead of DC's previous attempt at animating this story, "Superman: Doomsday," from 2007.

"Belushi" (2020)
The tragically short life and career of comedy superstar John Belushi is examined in this Showtime documentary that uses lots of rarely seen archive photos and videos and extensive interviews with those who knew him best, like Dan Aykroyd, Carrie Fisher, Harold Ramis, and more.  Lots of good (and some very sad) stories are told and it left me wanting to revisit "Animal House" and "The Blues Brothers."

[Rev. Powell]

PROMETHEUS' GARDEN (1988): A surreal thirty-minute claymation short: Prometheus creates people from clay, and they almost immediately begin slaughtering each other. Everything in the movie is in constant flux, with clay people morphing into other people or abstract features; you might assume this is what the world would look like on a heroic dose of LSD---and you might be right. 3.5/5.

[Dr. Whom]

HAM ON RYE (2019): 16-year-olds make their way to the local deli, where they engage in an arbitrary ritual that will determine their futures; the second half of the film follows those left behind in the small town. With no real plot to speak of, this strange and melancholy film runs out of steam well before it ends, but debuting director Tyler Taormina looks like one of the chosen ones. 3.5/5.

I was thinking of what to say about it, when I saw this post. For me, the problem is that is not so much a movie as an exercise in style. It rigorously sticks to its formula of 'documentary without commentary'. There is no explanation and no characters or narrative as such: we simply see people going about their business, and hear parts of conversation, all as a slice of life. I gather it was the director's ambition to see how much he could do within this formula, and to his credit, he can do a lot with it. However, not enough to make an actually interesting movie. It is easy to see why film critics adore it, however.

[pennywise37]

Petrified (2006) WOW was that a bad one stay away from this one guys and gals it's pretty bad it's a Charles Band Directed piece of garbage that tries to be like the x-files and it fails badly at it, it also tries to be a bit of a mystery as well and it fails at that as well and honestly the FX for a really low budget film i didn't think were too bad. i've seen far worse fx to be fair 2/10.

the only other thing i've been watching is CSI: Miami Season 1 as i own it on dvd

[pennywise37]

i just got done watching one of the worst films i've EVER seen in my life, it was so bad that i think if you recorded paint dry and sat and watched it for 60 hrs that would make a more enjoyable film than this one i watched. the acting was so bad that to use a quote from an early Cinema Snob episode from i think the first 10 or 20 episodes that he ever did you need a support group to get over on how bad this film is. the sad thing is the idea isn't that bad of an idea in fact it's a pretty solid original idea.

Every-so-often, boys disappear from the Delta House, a Sorority suspected to be based on cannibalism. that's not a bad idea for a film but the acting by the entire cast is so bad that it was VERY painful to sit through this thing and it's not just the acting, Julia Strain whom i never got why people love her? she's not any kind of good actress at all and Brinke Stevens was awful in it too but to be fair she as a tiny bit not a lot but a tiny bit better than Julia Strain. there's a cat fight in it that a pre schooler could have directed better. women can fight they can be bad asses just like some guys can be but if ya really wanted them to do a fight scene use their fists it makes for a more enjoyable fight than a poorly done cat fight,

the film in question is called Delta Delta Die (2003) MFV it was apparently filmed at the same time as Bleed (2002) MFV which is just how i phrase made for video that one is just a copy of scream it's bad but this one is far worse. this is another Charles band movie, i bought this because it was a band movie as i'm a huge Charles band fan of his movies anyways not of the man himself & i got it for a couple bucks back like 2010 i think? so it took me 11 years to watch it and i wish i would have waited 35 more years to watch it that's how bad it is. people say Plan 9 (1956) is bad? no that movie is freaking Citizen freaking Kane (1941) compared to this one that film is Gosford Park (2001) compared to this film.

Do not watch unless you drink a keg with a group of friends and are both drunk and stoned at the same time that's the only way to enjoy this film. i don't normally rate a movie like this and this would be a first to be honest but i''d say -50/10

[lester1/2jr]

Coherence (2013) - this "cerebral" sci fi movie was probably a little too chaotic for some people but I really enjoyed it, despite the by now somewhat cliche setting of "normie friends in California having a dinner party then something awful happens". A comet passes and messes up time and creates seperate realities a la Schrodingers (sp?) cat , which is referenced. good ending

4.5 /5