Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Rev. Powell]

CITIZEN DOG (2004): Pod moves to Bangkok, despite his grandmother's warning he will grow a tail if he does so, and falls in love with Jin, a woman of serial obsessions--none of which involve Pod. A cray-cray romantic comedy from the maker of "Tears of the Black Tiger," this goes way beyond quirky: there are animated characters, musical numbers, and one of the subplots involves a chainsmoking 8-year-old girl (who claims to be 22) and her talking teddy bear. 4/5.

[indianasmith]

BLOODY SUMMER CAMP (2022) An overly long slasher flick set in a summer camp where a gang of stereotyped twentysomething counselors are getting ready for the campers as a serial killer slices and dices his way through them.  Just . . . second-rate all the way through.  2/5

[FatFreddysCat]

A double feature of Italian schlock directed by my man Luigi Cozzi, aka "Lewis Coates"

"Contamination" (aka "Alien Contamination," 1980)
A cargo ship drifts into New York Harbor with a dead crew and a hold full of weird alien eggs which make people explode when they touch them. A New York cop, a disgraced astronaut, and a government scientist follow the trail back to the eggs' source, a South American coffee plantation (?) that's been taken over by aliens in order to spread their spores around the world.
This earth-bound "Alien" variant doesn't make much sense and it drags a bit in the middle, but the first half and the last fifteen minutes make it worth sitting through the stilted dialogue and ultra cheesy gore. Dumb fun.

"StarCrash"(1979)
Sexy space pirate Stella Starr (former Bond Girl and Hammer Horror babe Caroline Munro) battles the minions of the evil Zarth Arn (a hilariously miscast Joe "Maniac" Spinell) while trying to rescue a lost prince (David freakin' Hasselhoff!) in this deliriously cool sci-fi mish mash bolted together from bits stolen from "Star Wars," "Barbarella," "Flash Gordon," "Planet of the Apes," and "Invaders From Mars," just to name a few. This movie was my introduction to the wild, wacky world of European "B" grade exploitation flicks when I was a kid, and it's been a sentimental favorite ever since. It's terrible, but in a totally awesome way!

[Alex]

Bloody New Year.

Bloody awful.

[lester1/2jr]

mid series review :   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10720724/


The Slavs is like Conan meets Robin Hood with some bad screenwriting and casting. In the very first episode, the main guy kills both his father and brother to become chief of the village, we barely know the 3 people so there is no dramatic arch. Two of the main females look exactly the same.

Every one is afraid of the chief but the blacksmith is visibly stronger than him and can make swords. The shaman woods guy looks like the NPC meme come to life. At the same time, it is pretty fun and the embrace of all the supernatural sort of stuff was a good idea. Several rungs below the other Eastern European tv series' I've seen but more apropos for this board for sure so far

[Rev. Powell]

NO BEARS (2022): An Iranian director (played by director Jafar Panahi) forbidden from making movies in his homeland becomes embroiled in village politics in a border city while remotely directing his latest film, which is being shot a few miles across the border in Turkey. A bit of ethnography, a bit of sedate suspense, a bit of meta-movie philosophizing, and a lot of implicit regime criticism in the latest from the world's bravest director, who was arrested by Iranian authorities a few months after completing this for "propaganda." 4/5.

[Rev. Powell]

SAINT OMER (2022): A novelist working on an adaptation of "Medea" attends the trial of a Senegalese immigrant accused of drowning her infant and sees parallels with her own life. Consisting mostly of long stretches of monotone testimony, watching this slow and inconclusive French legal drama is mildly preferable to jury duty. 2/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Happytime Murders" (2018)
Set in a world where humans live alongside Muppet-style characters, a human cop (Melissa McCarthy) and her cloth-covered partner investigate a series of murders connected to the cast of a vintage puppet TV show.
Falling somewhere between "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "Meet the Feebles" (though it's obviously nowhere near as brilliant as the former and not as hilariously gross as the latter), this foul mouthed action comedy (directed by Muppet maestro Jim Henson's son, Brian) probably should have been a lot funnier given the ludicrous concept and the Henson lineage, but there's still enough legit laughs to make it a decent time-killer.

"Rock N Roll High School" (1979)
Rock fanatic and aspiring songwriter Riff Randell (P.J. Soles) and her fellow students at Vince Lombardi High rebel against the fascist, rock hating principal Miss Togar (Mary Woronov) with a little help from the Ramones... and some high explosives.
Allan Arkush's punked-out update of a '50s "rock musical" flick has been one of my favorite movies for as long as I can remember. I've probably seen it more times than any other movie, but I never get tired of it.

[FatFreddysCat]

"John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars" (2001)
In the future, a squadron of space cops arrive at a Martian colony to take a notorious prisoner into custody. They soon learn that most of the colony's inhabitants are dead, and the survivors have been taken over by a homicidal alien organism that controls their bodies. Lots of punching, blasting, and cheap special effects ensue.
John Carpenter wastes an impressive cast of B-movie stalwarts (Ice Cube, Natasha Henstridge, Pam Grier, Jason Statham) in this plodding, shoddy looking sci-fi/action flick that's essentially a remake of his 70s classic "Assault on Precinct 13," set on Mars. Since he's ripping off his own movie, I have no idea how he could have dropped the ball this badly!
Metal Nerd fun fact: members of Anthrax helped Carpenter compose the score for this flick (you can hear Scott Ian's distinctive guitar riffing numerous times throughout the flick) but even that isn't enough to save this one from total crap-dom. Skip it.

[FatFreddysCat]

"48 HRS." (1982)
A burned out cop (Nick Nolte) takes a small time crook (Eddie Murphy, in his movie debut) out of jail on a two day pass to get his help in catching some of his former associates, who've escaped from prison and gone on a killing spree.
Walter Hill's comedic shoot-em-up gives Eddie plenty of chances to shine (the scene with him in a bar full of rednecks is absolutely priceless) and pretty much set the template for every other "buddy cop" movie that was made for the rest of the '80s. Even after all these years, this is still my favorite Eddie Murphy movie.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Jabberwocky" (1977)
In the Dark Ages, a dorky peasant (Michael Palin) leaves his village and heads to the city, where he gets caught up in the search for a champion to slay a massive man-eating beast that's terrorizing the kingdom.
This uneven Medieval fantasy/comedy was Terry (Monty Python) Gilliam's solo directing debut (after co-directing Holy Grail with fellow Python Terry Jones) and though it shares a similar grimy look and vibe with Grail, unfortunately it isn't nearly as funny. There are a few good bits scattered throughout the film but there's a lot of dead space between them. Those expecting a Python-esque laugh riot will be disappointed. You can safely skip this one unless you absolutely have to see every Python-related movie in existence.

[indianasmith]

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER (2022)

King T'Challa is dead, and his mother and sister must lead Wakanda through an increasingly dangerous time, when the outside world has become aware of the existence of vibranium, and Wakanda is also threatened with invasion and war from an underwater kingdom every bit as technologically advanced as their own.   Lots of great battle scenes, compelling plot, and fun characters make this a great addition to the Marvel film series. 4/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Southern Comfort" (1981)
A squad of National Guardsmen enter the Lousiana swamps for a weekend training exercise. While stumbling around the forests and wetlands, they p**s off some of the local Cajuns and spend the rest of the movie on the run from them, getting picked off one by one.
A tight survival/action thriller directed by Walter Hill of "The Warriors" and '48 HRS." fame, anchored by a strong cast (Powers Boothe, Keith Carradine, Fred Ward, Brion James) and the gloomy locations. I wouldn't wanna be lost in those swamps, either.

"In Like Flint" (1967)
Second spy spoof with James Coburn as swingin', ultra cool  Derek Flint, agent of Z.O.W.I.E. This time he has to stop an evil group of female tycoons from taking over the world with an all girl army who've been brainwashed by beauty-salon hair dryers. Yes, really.
Coburn is wise-cracking and cool, the ladies (including a pre-"Batgirl" Yvonne Craig as a Russian ballerina/spy) are gorgeous, and everyone seems to be having a great time.
There's a quote from Mike "Austin Powers" Myers on the DVD cover that says "In Like Flint is my favorite movie!" -- which was not a surprise, because you only need to watch a few minutes of this movie to see Flint's influence on the Austin films.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Another 48 Hrs." (1990)
Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte are back as wise ass ex-con Reggie and hard living detective Jack, and this time they have to uncover the identity of a mysterious drug kingpin known only as "The Iceman" before Jack goes to prison for murder and Reggie ends up dead. This years-too-late sequel is full of impressive stunt work, shootouts, property destruction, and general mayhem but in the end it's not much more than a remix of all the best parts of the first movie. Watchable but not essential.

[Rev. Powell]

BARDO, FALSE CHRONICLE OF A HANDFUL OF TRUTHS: A Mexican national film director receives an award in Los Angeles, causing him to reflect on his own artistic life and the Mexican immigrant/expatriate experience. Told in a series of surrealistic sketches, Alejandro G. Iñárritu delivers a Mexican Fellini movie (and doesn't shy away from nods to 8 1/12); it's about 50% personal, 50% political, and if the mixture doesn't always seem to work, the individual scenes are, almost universally, brilliantly crafted (e.g., the protagonist meets Hernan Cortes on top of a mountain of corpses in downtown L.A.). If the title doesn't scare you off already, the 2:45 minute runtime may. Debuts on Netflix on Friday. Ralfy may like this one, as it focuses on a country actually harmed by American imperialism. 4/5.