Recent Viewings, Part 2

[pennywise37]

you Do know there are 2 versions of Brazil don't you? one is the European cut and it's i think got an unhappy ending and the US one has the happy one i don't remember which one i've seen but they are both different cuts apparently.

also Planet Terror (2007) is simply Brilliant i think. i watched last night 2 films i watched "The Matrix (1999) another great film i hadn't seen in years. and than i watched/listened to the audio Commentary to "Field of Dreams' (1989) which is one of my favorite films of all time and damn i can't believe it's over 30 years old now it just makes me feel so old as i'm sure all of you have felt like that.

[Rev. Powell]

LITTLE DEATHS (2011): A three-story independent British horror anthology united by a sexual deviance theme: a rich couple play games with the homeless, a recovering junkie and prostitute gets involved with a strange prescription drug, and one of the pair in a psychological S&M relationship goes too far. The first short relies on a lame and obvious twist while the third is largely pointless, but the second, which has a truly bizarre premise that's sort of similar to UPSTREAM COLOR, could make this worth a watch. 2.5/5.

[Dr. Whom]

you Do know there are 2 versions of Brazil don't you? one is the European cut and it's i think got an unhappy ending and the US one has the happy one i don't remember which one i've seen but they are both different cuts apparently.

also Planet Terror (2007) is simply Brilliant i think. i watched last night 2 films i watched "The Matrix (1999) another great film i hadn't seen in years. and than i watched/listened to the audio Commentary to "Field of Dreams' (1989) which is one of my favorite films of all time and damn i can't believe it's over 30 years old now it just makes me feel so old as i'm sure all of you have felt like that.

I saw the European version of Brazil, full length with a depressing ending. I understand there was also a theatrical cut which was much shorter.

And Planet Terror is indeed brilliant.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Lost Heroes: The Untold Story of Canadian Superheroes" (2014)
A very cool documentary that examines the ups and downs of Canadian comic book heroes, a tradition that goes all the way back to World War II (when wartime import/export limits prohibited American comics from coming into Canada, thus sparking a short lived homegrown industry of now-mostly-forgotten Canadian comics) and has continued into the into the present day thanks to higher-profile North of the Border heroes like Captain Canuck, Wolverine (of course!) and Alpha Flight. A very cool doc that introduced me to numerous creations that I had no idea existed, even though I was a comic book nut for most of my youth. Enlightening and entertaining stuff.

[indianasmith]

PRESIDENT'S DAY (2017)  A new installment from Brain Damage Films features a group of grossly stereotypical teenagers going to a cabin in the woods (of course) for the long President's Day weekend.  A ritual read from an old book given to them by a creepy tollbooth operator brings the ghosts of all America's past Presidents back from the dead for one purpose: to kill them all!  Cheesy one-liners and Presidential puns ensue, with enough gore to be entertaining, and some scantily clad escapades but no actual nudity except for a stoner dude's butt.  The James K. Polk zombie was particularly entertaining!  This was a perfect bad movie: it knew it was bad and made no attempt to be anything else, and had a LOT of humor thrown into the mix. 4/5

[lester1/2jr]

I did a thread once that was like "has anyone ever actually been to a cabin in the woods?" I think one guy did

[Dr. Whom]

First Spaceship on Venus aka Der schweigende Stern (1960)

Another boring space exploration adventure. I stuck to the end because it is an East German-Polish coproduction, and I was curious how it would play out. The basic premise is OK: an alien artefact is found in the Gobi, and from that scientists somehow deduce that the Tunguska meteor was in fact in Venusian spaceship that exploded. So an expedition is sent to Venus, to find that the Venusians were developing a super weapon, that however got out of control and turned the planet into a radioactive wasteland. It is, apparently, adapted from a story by Stanislas Lem.

However, there is not enough plot to fill even this short runtime, and when things do happen, the movie utterly fails to create any tension. It doesn't help that the script is unnecessarily wordy, with exchanges like 'I think I've discovered something interesting. - Have you? Tell me all about it' Also, potentially interesting elements are introduced like the proto-R2D2 robot Omega, or the past love story between Sumiko and Brinkmann, but nothing much is done with them. 

[pacman000]

Bluebeard - One of the few "good" movies put out by PRC. Well shot, but the VHS to DVD transfer Alpha Home Video put out had bad sound, which made it hard to follow.

A Dog of Flanders - 60's version. A sentimental family movie. Good, but I think it's too slow & sad for kids. It does have a happy ending tho, & is less weird than the 90's version.

[Rev. Powell]

DEAD DICKS (2019): Mentally ill and suicidal, Richard tries to off himself but finds every time he does, he's reborn though a vagina that's growing on his wall, leaving him with corpses of his last self to dispose of; his sister and a neighbor get drawn into the vortex. Cool premise, but with only three actors and a single apartment set, it gets bogged down in the middle in sibling drama; fortunately, the last act picks up the pace wit a couple of twists and salvages some entertainment value. 2/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Mountaintop Motel Massacre"
(aka "Mountaintop Motel" and "Horrors At Mountaintop Motel," 1986)
Crazy ol' Evelyn is released from the mental hospital, and goes back to her old job managing the run-down family motel business. When she catches her daughter practicing witchcraft in the cellar, she snaps and takes it out on the various guests inhabiting her establishment. Yup, that's the whole plot of this cheap, cheesy, gender-swapped "Psycho" variant that has a nice dark-n-stormy-night setting but everything else - acting, story, dialogue, gore effects - is total amateur night.
"M.M.M." may not the worst slasher flick I've ever seen, but you can probably skip it unless you absolutely have to see every movie with the word "Massacre" in the title.

[pennywise37]

First Spaceship on Venus (1960) i think i did see that one i don't honestly remember what i thought of it off the top of my head.

Bluebeard (1944) a decent movie that i do have on dvd and i have watched it a few times. it's also John Carradine few leading roles i think i read somewhere he had 32 of them? or was it 27? i forget anyways it was his favorite movie of his and i believe his than wife was in it playing i think the female lead i think?

it's just going by guesswork to be honest. well Mountain top motel Massacre (1986) if i'm not mistaken Corman did this one it was shot in (1983) and put out in (1986) i saw this one a few years ago i think it was? my GOD was it awful Plan 9 from outer space is a masterpiece compared to this film it was so bad.

it was so bad that i think i'm not sure what was worse this one or "The Mutilator (1985) that was equally a great big pile of Dog Sh*t.  and i went in with high hops for both of them actually.

anyways i watched 'The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay  Part 1 (2014)  i have all these on blu-ray and it's been awhile since i last watched any of them.
but this one while watching it honestly Donald Sutherland's Character President Snow made me think of Trump to be honest.

i dunno what else to say other than that if you've seen the films regardless if you like them or not you may even agree with me.

the things that do happen in this film thankfully are fiction but these days it sure doesn't feel like it anymore

[Alex]

anyways i watched 'The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay  Part 1 (2014)  i have all these on blu-ray and it's been awhile since i last watched any of them.
but this one while watching it honestly Donald Sutherland's Character President Snow made me think of Trump to be honest.

That is a bit unfair on President Snow.

[Rev. Powell]

PALM SPRINGS (2020): A man caught in "one of those infinite time loops you might have heard about" where he relives the same day over and over gets company when a female is accidentally dragged into his private vortex. A breezy GROUNDHOG DAY variant with likeable leads Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti; not incredibly original, but entertaining. If not for the virus this might have been a small hit in theaters; instead, it debuts on Hulu. 3.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot" (2018)
Set in the late '80s, an unsung World War II hero (Sam Elliott, bad-ass as ever) is called back to active duty for one last mission - to find and kill the elusive Bigfoot. Yes, really.  
Going strictly by the title, I thought this movie was going to be a schlocky, tongue-in-cheek genre mashup, but it's actually a great deal deeper and more dramatic. There is a bit of monster mayhem so the film lives up to its title (however briefly), but the heart of the movie is about the Elliott character's reflections on his life of service to his country and how much it's cost him personally.
It's a very well acted, very odd little movie that may not have been what I expected, but I still enjoyed it.

[FatFreddysCat]

Mountain top motel Massacre (1986) if i'm not mistaken Corman did this one it was shot in (1983) and put out in (1986) i saw this one a few years ago i think it was? my GOD was it awful Plan 9 from outer space is a masterpiece compared to this film it was so bad.

IMDb sez the film was made independently and played the drive-in circuit in the Southern U.S. under the title "Horrors at Mountaintop Motel" in 1983-84.

Corman simply purchased it, added "Massacre" to the title, and gave it a wider release under his New World Pictures banner in '86.

it was so bad that i think i'm not sure what was worse this one or "The Mutilator (1985) that was equally a great big pile of Dog Sh*t.  and i went in with high hops for both of them actually.

Oh yeah, "The Mutilator" was crap too. A lot of the late-in-the-game slasher flicks had extremely thin premises, but "Mutilator" was probably the worst of the batch.  It did have one of the best tag lines of the era though: "By Sword... By Pick... By Axe... Bye bye!" :D