Recent Viewings, Part 2

[lester1/2jr]

Creep (2004) - deep tubi gem here. Well, maybe not quite a gem but it's decent, with a strong but not annoying female lead. She tries to get the last train out but dozes off and gets trapped in the subway station. Oh well, just call the police or alert all your friends on social media. Oops it's 2004.

To make matters worse, there's an all powerful underground dwelling super killer on the loose. Can she and various hobos and random animals take him on?

Shot for 12 dollars in an empty subway station at night.

4/5 not life changing/ rocket science but it works.



This is the lady

As always, if you are hovering over and plan on killing someone, PLEASE make sure there aren't any random sharp objects lying on the ground!

[M.10rda]

That remains my biggest qualm w/ so many horror movies: when the antagonist/killer/monster etc is momentarily prostrate and non-responsive, DO NOT hover over them pensively while contemplating whether you should remove their mask, check for a pulse, gingerly acquire their weapon, steal their car keys, et al....... DO immediately leap in the air and LAND on their face/head/neck with both feet, multiple times if necessary, thereby crushing their skull and/or breaking their spine....... and then proceed to call the police, have a ciggy or whatevs else you think is important in that moment.

This happens in the deeply stoopid '23 slasher film IT'S A WONDERFUL KNIFE where three victims are ON A STAIRCASE several steps above an unconscious killer, thereby making it exceptionally easy to catch some air before landing on his skull....... and of course they creep down cautiously, take off his mask, etc... and you know where that leads. Damn fools!

[lester1/2jr]

In one of the Austin Powers movies there's a scene where Dr Evil is going to kill Powers via some complicated drop into a shark tank or something, and his son is like "why don't we just shoot him? I have a gun" . Who is leaving all these sharp/ heavy objects on floors?

[FatFreddysCat]

"Captain America: The Winter Soldier" (2014)
In the star-spangled hero's second solo outing, he and the Black Widow discover a massive sleeper cell of HYDRA agents operating within S.H.I.E.L.D. and must stop them before they put their latest plan for world domination into action. An action packed epic that plays more like an old school '70s political thriller (think "Three Days of the Condor") than a super hero flick.

[Rev. Powell]

MAY DECEMBER (2023): Natalie Portman plays an actress who's shadowing a woman (Julianne Moore) involved in a tabloid scandal decades ago so she can portray her in a movie, and taking her method acting research too far. Structured like a mystery investigation, but instead of motives and methods, it reveals buried traumas and psychological dysfunction. 3.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

KOKOMO CITY (2023): Black trans sex workers (and johns) share war stories (and philosophy). Well-edited, humorous, sometimes insightful, and defiantly in-your-face. 3.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

watched couple episode of Tales of the Unexpected on youtube

better than average tv horror that ran from late 70's to mid 80's.

I watched the Landlady and Flypaper they were both pretty creepy. British

[Alex]

watched couple episode of Tales of the Unexpected on youtube

better than average tv horror that ran from late 70's to mid 80's.

I watched the Landlady and Flypaper they were both pretty creepy. British

Have you seen one called Royal Jelly? I think I recall The Landlady one. A woman poisons her guests and stuffs them iirc.

[lester1/2jr]

I will watch Royal Jelly

[Alex]

Sorry wrong title. The episode I was thinking of is Flypaper.

[M.10rda]

Thanks to whoever watched and reviewed this one in the past year for suggesting it:

THE PARK IS MINE (1985):
This was an HBO original that rec'd heavy hype and rotation when I was a kid, but I never watched it. Clearly HBO solicited something like FIRST BLOOD w/ possibly a side of DOG DAY AFTERNOON, light on the bloodshed. The screenplay is weak, or at least no-better-than-acceptable, and I don't particularly mind saying that as one of the two writers also wrote the WILD THINGS screenplays and the other one has only TPIM listed on his IMDB plus his name is "Lyle Gorch", which means he's one of the brothers from THE WILD BUNCH (either the one played by Warren Oates or the one played by Ben Johnson, I don't remember) and therefore was clearly not proud of his work on this screenplay.

However, THE PARK IS MINE is a lot better than anyone could've expected due to its strong direction, taut editing, slick cinematography (tons of mileage is gained from Tommy Lee Jones' reflecting sunglasses), and especially the acting. Recently there was a discussion on this site of hammy acting and one of youse posted a clip of William Friedkin slamming Al Pacino and praising the work ethic of TLJ. This is the kind of pre-Oscar winning TLJ performance that lends support to Friedkin's claims. The motivations for Jones' character are paper thin at times and cliched and reactionary at others, but still Jones commits entirely to playing this self-described "f**k up" to the hilt and seems to have a good old time doing it. Watching him stalk, dive, roll, and crawl around Central Park with automatic weapons makes me think TLJ would've made a much better, more serious 80s Frank Castle than Dolph Lundgren (and I like Dolph Lundgren), and New World Pictures probably could've afforded him back then. Endless-fount-of-gravitas Yaphet Kotto brings a ton of value to the role of the SWAT captain who wants to play things by-the-book and low-key. And there's a guy named Peter Dvorsky who does a great job as the dead-eyed bureaucrat bad guy... he's got a real John Turturro or cut-rate Walken quality. Don't remember seeing him in anything before but apparently he was in VIDEODROME and THE DEAD ZONE (w/ Chris)...

TPIM kept me in light suspense for most of its running time until it finally explodes in full-out action in the last act, when Dvorsky sends a Viet Cong assassin into the park to neutralize Jones' Nam vet! Yeah, TPIM is trash... that gets classy treatment. I bet Tarantino likes this one.

3.5/5
Amusingly this film set intrinsically in NYC was shot entirely in Toronto.

[javakoala]

Some day, I will watch a decent film and post my mini-review here.

Not likely to happen due to how my brain works, but I keep hoping.

Hmm...would 1972's "Trick Baby" qualify?

[lester1/2jr]

Alex - Flypaper was my favorite of the two I saw.

[Alex]

Most people seem to rate that one as the best one of the entire series.

[M.10rda]

Javakoala, maybe you will accidentally watch a film that you like one of these days. (It happens to me quite often, even in spite of my choices.)