Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Rev. Powell]

Dr Whom - Strong disagreement on that one. whatever you want to call it it was a seriously demented experience that has no rival in recent memory

Well, I would have liked it a lot more if it had been about an hour shorter. As it is, I'd take something like Ham on Rye over this, any time.

I liked both MIDOSMMAR and HAM ON RYE. MIDSOMMAR was not completely original, it's obviously very similar to a certain 70s cult classic, but I liked the spin and dug the vibe. Didn't think it was too long (except for the extended cut).

Meanwhile, I caught a real odd one:

THE GLAMOROUS LIFE OF SACHIKO HANAI (2003): A tutor (or maybe call girl) survives a shot in the head and acquires the cloned finger of George Bush in this pink film that turns into an experimental satire. A few rape scenes mar what otherwise would be a fun, sexy and surreal spoof. The lead actress is super-hot and nude much of the time. 3/5.

[lester1/2jr]

2:22 (2017) - I really want to give this a 2.22/ 5 but I guess it's slightly better than that.

An air traffic control guy screws up and almost kills 2 planes full of people. It seems he's got it in his head that there are "patterns" in time or something and it keeps leading him back to Grand Central Station at 2:22 pm. The rest of the movie is "time weird" sort of sci fi, with a Hallmarky romance thrown in.

I like sci fi and I like indie sort of sci fi like Another Earth, too. This seems like it's trying to be the latter but is more like an okay episode of Medium or something. I previously watched "A Perfect Enemy" and would put them both in a sort of "Mental B movie" category. More or less intriguing premise but lacking the aplomb it needs to be memorable.

3/5 the aerial ballet and 3d art gallery things were interesting touches.

I can see how an un-discerning eye could view this as "brilliant" but it ain't

[Dr. Whom]

Meanwhile, I caught a real odd one:

THE GLAMOROUS LIFE OF SACHIKO HANAI (2003): A tutor (or maybe call girl) survives a shot in the head and acquires the cloned finger of George Bush in this pink film that turns into an experimental satire. A few rape scenes mar what otherwise would be a fun, sexy and surreal spoof. The lead actress is super-hot and nude much of the time. 3/5.

My DVD box says she is a call girl. It is a long time since I watched that.

[Rev. Powell]

Meanwhile, I caught a real odd one:

THE GLAMOROUS LIFE OF SACHIKO HANAI (2003): A tutor (or maybe call girl) survives a shot in the head and acquires the cloned finger of George Bush in this pink film that turns into an experimental satire. A few rape scenes mar what otherwise would be a fun, sexy and surreal spoof. The lead actress is super-hot and nude much of the time. 3/5.

My DVD box says she is a call girl. It is a long time since I watched that.

Yes. She definitely becomes a tutor later, but in the first sex scene she also acts like a tutor, but then it's implied she's a call girl and that may have been a fantasy she was acting out. Everything is pretty hazy in this silly movie.

MST3K: REVENGE OF THE MYSTERONS FROM MARS: The second episode of the cable access show, and it's pretty rough and raw. Watching this, you might be surprised the show survived long enough to evolve into a cult hit.The movie is another Gerry & Silvia Anderson Supermarionette series where three episodes are edited together to create a fake movie, but even by those standards it's not very good: it's relatively serious sci-fi but slow-paced, and there's no conclusion (because the series was still going on, duh). Riffs are few and far between. On the Satellite of Love Joel teaches the bots about Thanksgiving. For curious fans only. 2/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Solo: A Star Wars Story" (2018)
Young Alden Ehrenreich has the unenviable task of playing the youthful Han Solo in this "origin story" that fills us in on his days as a deserter from the Imperial forces, his first big "job" as a smuggler, and shows us how he met Chewie and became owner of the Millennium Falcon. The film had a troubled production and under-performed at the box office but I thought it was a ton of popcorn fun.

"The World Is Not Enough" (1999)
James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and a nuclear scientist (a hilariously miscast Denise Richards) team up to stop an insane heiress (Sophie Marceau) who wants to corner the Eastern European oil market by destroying her competition with stolen nukes. Pierce's third go-round as 007 is another fun action flick full of the usual gadgets, stunts and narrow escapes.

[indianasmith]

WEREWOLVES WITHIN (2021)  Milana Vayntrub (better known as "Lily" from the AT&T commercials) stars in this hilarious horror/comedy about small town paranoia, corporate greed, and lycanthrope.  A new park ranger arrives in a remote Minnesota town where a sinister oil company rep is trying to buy up everybody's land for a new pipeline.  But then the power fails in the midst of a winter storm, even as the ranger finds the body of the local hotel owner's husband chewed up and mauled on the edge of town.  Is there a werewolf in their midst? Or is someone trying to scare them into selling their homes? Or scare them out of selling their homes?  Hilarity and mayhem ensue as the panicked townspeople turn on one another.  I really got a kick out of this one, and Milana straddles the line between being adorably cute and flat-out HOT quite nicely!  3.5/5

[Dr. Whom]

Young adult matters/ Eoreundeulen Mollayo (2020)

Troubled high school girl Sejin (Lee Yoomi of Netflix's Squid Game and All Of Us Are Dead Fame) gets herself pregnant, and runs away. She falls in with a gang of street kids (one of them played by Hani of EXID fame), and they try to raise the money for her abortion by any means at their disposal.

This is basically a portrait of young adults who have fallen through the cracks of society and are drifting aimlessly, taking impulsive and often counterproductive decisions. The narrative is a bit muddled, and the characters' motivation is sometimes hard to follow, but as the whole theme of the movie is young people being left to their own devices by an uncaring society, this strengthens the main point. A very bleak movie, only somewhat lightened by the slightly upbeat ending.
Not a movie for the squeamish or the tender hearted. It opens with Sejin cutting open her arm and posting close ups of the wounds on social media. Viewers of Korean movies may be familiar with the trope of someone in power gleefully beating up some victim who can't hit back. There is a lot that in this movie.

[Alex]

Undergods.

I can't imagine there is a single review of this movie that doesn't feature the words, dystopian, surrealism or totalitarian. Three stories based around possibly intertwining alternate dimensions or time travel, or even just one man's dreams. The colour palette for this one is very washed out, with lots of dull blues and greys. When colour suddenly appears shocks your eyes. It looks like it belongs in the post-Soviet decline Russia of the late 90s (although I believe it is Serbia). as three stories intertwine around each other. It would be hard to talk about what actually happens in it without giving the film away.

[Jim H]

WEREWOLVES WITHIN (2021)  Milana Vayntrub (better known as "Lily" from the AT&T commercials) stars in this hilarious horror/comedy about small town paranoia, corporate greed, and lycanthrope.  A new park ranger arrives in a remote Minnesota town where a sinister oil company rep is trying to buy up everybody's land for a new pipeline.  But then the power fails in the midst of a winter storm, even as the ranger finds the body of the local hotel owner's husband chewed up and mauled on the edge of town.  Is there a werewolf in their midst? Or is someone trying to scare them into selling their homes? Or scare them out of selling their homes?  Hilarity and mayhem ensue as the panicked townspeople turn on one another.  I really got a kick out of this one, and Milana straddles the line between being adorably cute and flat-out HOT quite nicely!  3.5/5

I generally enjoyed this one too.  Fun fact, this is based on a VR video game - but you'd never know it.  The video game itself is based on the werewolf hidden identity deduction party game, which was originally a mafia hidden identity game.  So this is a movie, based on a video game, based on a card game, based on another card game.  Phew!  The deduction party game is a pretty good one with the right crowd, but you need at least 8 people, ideally 10-12. 

Also, for my own contribution I just watched the newest Scream - it was free on Paramount Plus.  This is an EXTREMELY meta film, which makes sense for Scream, but it's getting to be a bit much I think.  It's also a little overstuffed being a legacyquel, where they have to try to have new characters and provide time for old - there's too many, and all of them end up thin even for a slasher.  Halloween 2018 balanced this idea better.  But it's still well paced, funny, and decently shot.  I dunno.  It's alright.  I'll add, considering what happens in terms of previous characters, I might have preferred it end at Scream 4.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Die Another Day" (2002)
In Pierce Brosnan's fourth and final appearance as James Bond, 007 and a lovely American agent (Halle Berry) track a diamond smuggling terrorist from North Korea to Cuba to Iceland, where he's developing a giant solar weapon. Things crash, stuff gets shot and blown up, etc., etc.
This one is probably the most ridiculous, over the top 007 adventure since "Moonraker" and it seems to get a lot of hate from fans but I've always enjoyed it. Yeah, some of the gimmicks are ridiculous (an invisible car?) and the CGI has aged terribly but Pierce, as usual, gives it his all and Halle was pretty much at her peak of hotness when she made this, therefore I was entertained.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Gospel Blimp" (1967)
Looking for a bold new way to reach non-believers, a church group buys a blimp and flies it around town dropping tracts, playing loud music, dragging signs and irritating the crap out of their neighbors. Wacky hi-jinks ensue as every one of their "big" ideas to increase the reach of their message goes horribly wrong.
A weird little Evangelical Christian comedy short that looks and feels like a 1960s TV sitcom from an alternate universe. The main characters are all pushy zealots who eventually learn that you can't force your beliefs on others, but it takes them a looooong time to figure that out. It's supposed to be a "satire" but any humor in it will be mostly unintentional to modern audiences.
I stumbled across this on YouTube and couldn't resist watching; I used to have the comic book adaptation when I was a kid, written and drawn by the late great Al Hartley of "Archie" fame.
Fun fact: according to IMDb, it was filmed around the same Pennsylvania town where the original "Blob" with Steve McQueen was shot.

[indianasmith]

RELIC (2020)  After her 80 year-old mother Edna goes missing, a fortysomething mom and her twentysomething daughter lead local law enforcement on a search.
But then grandma shows up again, with no memory of being gone, or of where she was.  So the two move in, trying to figure how what's going on with Edna.  Things go downhill from there in a very spooky fashion, as it becomes evident that grandma's mind isn't the only thing that is warped.
Very creepy, slow burn, with a bizarre WTH ending, I got way more caught up in this one than I thought I would.  3.5/5

[Alex]

Jolt.

A very attractive woman with an IQ in the genius range plays a woman with anger management issues. She is learning how to go through life not hitting everyone who annoys her (with the help of electroshock therapy) and even for the first time in her life finds a boyfriend who she loves. When he is murdered she goes full John Wick to find the killer(s). She finds out her deceased lover was involved in rather suspicious circles.

A surprisingly big-name cast and a fun watch, but nothing exceptional.

[Rev. Powell]

MOON MANOR (2022): Diagnosed with Alzheimer's, an octogenarian hippie decides to end his life and stages a celebratory "fun-eral" party ending with his suicide. A somewhat naive neo-hippie feature-length advertisement for voluntary euthanasia, glossing over the ethical ramifications with an evangelical straw man supplying the only serious push back. Even as someone who supports the right to die for all competent adults, this seems one-sided in a way that turned me off. Based on a real person (the lead actor, who is still alive). 2/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Death Race 3: Inferno" (2013)
The corporate prison that invented the Death Race has a new owner, who wants to take it global. "Frankenstein" and his crew are taken to South Africa, where they face off against a new set of drivers on a desert course. The usual automotive mayhem follows.
For a relatively low budget direct to video sequel, this one certainly doesn't skimp on action and ultra-violence. Big, dumb, car crashin' shoot'em up fun.