Recent viewings

[claws]

Leprechaun 3 (1995) Rating: 3/5 cheese

Never seen any of the sequels so I randomly picked this one for starters. Anyway, it was everything I've expected. Cheap, bad, but still solid C-Entertainment. It was nice to see Caroline Williams again as she has been a favorite of mine since TCM2. Sort of looking forward to more Leprechaun action.

Acapulco Gold (1978) Rating: 3/5

Adventure/Comedy set in Mexico about people caught up in all sorts of criminal activities including robbery, murder, heist and double crossing. This one won't win any awards but it was still fun to watch.

[Jack]

Princess of Mars (2009) - A soldier in Afghanistan (Antonio Sabato Jr.) is mortally wounded, but before he dies they decide to perform an experiment:  they teleport him to another planet, as that will cause all his wounds to be healed.  You see, they have all his physical information, right down to the position of every atom in his body, saved on a 16GB memory stick, and teleporting him will replace his injured body with this "saved" version.  I read somewhere that if you wanted to record the position and state of every atom in a person's body, the information would fill so many disk drives that if you stacked them one on top of another, the pile would stretch halfway to the center of the galaxy.  But we'll overlook that    A 16GB memory stick it is.  So they send him to Mars.  Not the mars in our solar system, but in some other system a long ways off.  He discovers he's got superpowers there, he can jump really high and has extraordinary strength.  He meets up with a group of lizard people and they're highly impressed with his fighting skills, so they adopt him into their clan.  There are also humans on the planet, and their princess is Tracy Lords.  She's still lookin' hot.  Unfortunately the lizard folks are at war with the humans, but of course our main guy has the hots for her.  Can't blame him one bit. 

I really liked this.  The acting was good and all the characters were well developed and likable.  The plot was far more interesting than most of these low budget sci-fi movies, and the overall look of the movie was quite artistic, in a ripped-off from Star Wars Return of the Jedi sort of way.  It certainly had a strong aroma of cheese about it, but that just added a few extra chuckles to the fun  4/5.

[Doggett]

Inside/À l'intérieur (2007)

A brutal French slasher. I mean brutal. Forget the Halloween films or the Friday the 13th films, this take slasher to a whole new level. I haven't seen anything like this.
A pregnant woman, Sarah, who lost her husbad in a car accident, is trapped in her house with a woman who wants to kill her.
That's the wole film. It only 75mins long, but it's the most intense 75mins of my film viewing life.
I was on the edge of my seat the whole time ! There were moments in this film where I thought I was gonna puke. It is a horror film in the true sense of the word. There are times when you see Sarah's baby in the womb as she gets beaten which really freaked me out.

This is violent. Very violent.
Because of the amount of suffering in this film, I wasn't sure whether to give it a zero or full marks.

But it's a horror and it horrified me.
So it did it's job.
Not an enjoyable film experience, but certainly one I won't be forgetting any time soon.

5/5


Female Agents

Five french women go to protect the secret of the D Day landings.
Think mission impossible, Dirty Dozen, The A Team.
That sort of thing.
It's pretty by-the-numbers stuff, but the performances are very impressive.

4/5

[Rev. Powell]

TALES OF ORDINARY MADNESS (1981): Lecherous, alcoholic street poet "Charles Serking" (pseudonym for Charles Bukowski, played by Ben Gazarra) falls in love with a suicidal prostitute.  Boozy as hell; plays out like a string of half-remembered incidents from a drunken year.  Some of the strangest sex scenes you'll ever see.  Partly successful, worth a look.  3/5.

[Jim H]

The Blind Side.  Decent sports drama.  I'd have liked it if a little more of the perspective had been from Mike himself rather than Bullock's character.

7/10.

[JaseSF]

The Mask of Zorro (1998): An aging Zorro, actually Don Diego de la Vega (Anthony Hopkins), seeks a replacement to carry on the masked man's work and chooses a thief named Alejandro Murrieta (Antonio Banderas) to continue the fight against his old arch-enemy, the misguided Don Rafael Montero (Stuart Wilson) and Montero's lead henchman/soldier - the refined but twisted and evil Captain Love (Matt Letscher), a man with whom Murrieta has his own personal grudge to settle.

This is quite good. It's got lots of action, especially some really good swashbuckling scenes and it mixes in comedy quite well to keep things interesting and moving during the slower sequences. Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones all do quite well in their respective roles. Well Hopkins does seems a little miscast but handles his role surprisingly competently even if it's a bit hard to believe in him being Spanish Mexican. Wilson and Letscher do quite well too as the villains and both always maintain a commanding presence when on screen.  The only area to me where it falters is the ending which of course has to add the obligatory explosive threat only here it's actually Zorro who accidentally sets it in motion?!..aside from a little predicatibility and a fairly simplistic plot, which I think works in the favor of films like this, this is kind of a nice throwback to the classic swashbucklers of eras gone by. ***1/2 ouf of ***** stars

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009): A secret group of elite soldiers from around the world, a team called G.I. Joe, are assigned the special task of protecting the world from a new terrorist threat arising from under the leadership of a successful arms dealer (Christopher Eccleston).

This is just nothing but non-stop mindless action. When the mindless action does let up a little, we're "treated" to mindless inane dialogue, unfunny humor and downright obvious and predictable plot twists and turns. This was painfully bad to watch, the kind of painfully bad where you feel you'll never get back those two hours of your life you just wasted watching this. Now when I was younger, I loved the old cartoon, loved the old comics, even liked the old animated film and all of that is miles upon miles ahead of this disappointing tripe. There's nothing here to make me feel or care about any character, none of whom ever rise above one-dimensional cliches. I also hated the changes made when it comes to the traditional costumes the characters wore, the many changes made to the characters themselves and the power suits - lots of special effects are on display but very little in way of military and strategic army battles which one should expect from G.I. Joe, lots of high-tech gadgetry but all of it in meaningless sci-fi style battles that are next to impossible to follow almost all featuring people we barely know and certainly have no reason to care about. This was downright dismal, the worst movie I've seen in quite a while. * out of *****

[Jim H]

Is It Fall Yet? - the first Daria film.  Very short, but actually has a well balanced A and B plot structure.  It also does a good job of developing character relationships.  Sometimes the drama seems a little too heavy though.  It's also only intermittently funny after the first reel.  Worth a watch for Daria fans, but definitely best appreciated in the context of the show as a whole.

8/10.

[claws]

Back to Even (1998) Rating: 2.5 - 3/5

Crime-Drama-Thriller about a small factory owner (Lorenzo Lamas) who has to amputate his fathers arm with a pocket knife due to an accident at work, and gets involved with the Mafia afterwards because of shady friends. Had a few bad spots but was entertaining enough for a direct-to-DVD release thanks to Lorenzo Lamas' performance (you don't read that very often). He plays a nerdy-type son with eyeglasses and silly haircut and he did that quite believable. So if anything, its worth checking out for that alone.

[Jack]

Attack Girls Swim Team vs. The Undead (2007) - I honestly thought this movie was going to be about hot babes vs. the undead.  As it turns out, it's a Japanese soft-core porno.  Japanese girls who are in their mid twenties look like they're about 15 years old;  this makes me feel a bit, ahem..weird watching it.  But I persevered.  There's actually a story:  A new girl comes to school, she's been raised by a mad scientist who trained her to be a commando, but she escaped and now he's after her.  He's also concocted a plan to make everyone in the school into zombies.  Yes, it's all utterly absurd, and the whole zombie thing actually plays and extremely small part in the movie.  The acting seemed pretty good, it's all subtitled but judging by the tone of their voices, I got the impression they were doing a good job.  The movie veers back and forth wildly between serious drama and gonzo goofy action scenes.    3/5.

[Pilgermann]

I haven't been watching movies too frequently these past few weeks, but here's what I've viewed:

The Stunt Man - What an awesome movie!  It's essentially about a fugitive-guy who stumbles upon a movie set in the middle of a car stunt.  The stunt man who's driving dies and the guy eventually winds up taking his place after the film's director (played by Peter O'Toole) takes a liking to him.  It's kind of a strange movie and makes the viewer question what's really happening but it's very entertaining.

The Roaring Twenties - Gangster flick with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart (I think it's actually the first film I've seen of either of them!).  Follows the exploits of a few World War vets who get caught up in the world of bootlegging after returning home and finding it a struggle to return to the normal lives they had before the war.  Very good stuff.

Cameron's Closet - I love this stupid movie!  A scientist who has honed his son's telekinetic powers is killed by a demonic force that's been unleashed by the child.  It seems to stem from a little statue that he uses as a toy and it resides in his closet.  Lots of terrible effects, some bad acting (and some not so bad), a character who's mustache goes from being real in his first few scenes to fake in his last few, and an awkward demon-posing-as-guy's-sister that tries to seduce and subsequently kills the guy in the shower.  I recommend watching these first 10 minutes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76nBpHNjOU0

The Wheel of Time - Werner Herzog film about Buddhist Kalachakra initiations.  Not up to Herzog's usual sublime documentary standards but interesting nonetheless.  There's one monk whose pilgrimage took him 3 years of prostrated travel which just seems crazy yet strangely admirable.

[3mnkids]

Primer~ A couple of friends build this thing.....A time machine     oh boy, I cant describe it because I didn't understand it. For a low budget movie its well done, just over my head. The first 20-30 minutes of techie talk was like Greek to me.

Maybe if I watched it again I would understand it but frankly, I don't have it in me. Even with repeated viewings I doubt I would "get it".

I'm not blaming the movie for my lack of understanding. Like I said, its just over my head.  


ETA~ Dread~ one of the 8 films to die for. A few friends decided to do a study on dread for a thesis. unfortunately, one of them as some issues.. meh, it was alright. worth a one time watch if you've got nothing else to do. Its got a few bloody scenes and lots of boobies(if that's your thing), and the acting is pretty good.

Off topic... I haven't been so distracted by an actors hair since no country for old men. Every Time the kid was on screen all I could think about was how stupid his hair style was.

[claws]

Blu-ray: Boogie Nights (1997)

Movie: 5/5
Picture: 4.5/5
Audio: 4.5/5
Extras: 4.5/5

A nearly perfect release for a perfect movie (even with William H. Macy screwing up his line) in my opinion. I used to watch Boogie Nights religiously on a regular basis on DVD but not anymore. Now I can watch it religiously on a regular basis in stunning HD 

[Sleepyskull]

A few nights ago I watched: Up (2009) using Comcast on Demand.

Wow! This was a great movie. I felt really drawn in and really cared about what happened next. It was funny without being totally centered on jokes and it made me feel sad when it tried to. Even though I'm nowhere near as old as the main character I could totally identify with him feeling bad over wasted/lost/unreached dreams. I think it's a universal emotion.

13 out of 13 stars

[lester1/2jr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F4jldHqJ_s

The Tunnel (2001) - berlin has split into two parts and word is a wall is going up. Its 1960-whatever what do you do. If you are these guys you buy some property along the border in west berlin and spend the next couple of years digging a tunnel! Obviously you don't want Hollywood making this, it has to be a german movie but the writing could have been a little better, it's a little dull and empty in places. For example, the one girl is trying to get her fiance over from the east while she is at the same time starting to develop a "bond" with one of the tunnel guys. The fiance gets wind of it somehow and it's burning him up. that's interesting right? they don't do enough with the stuff like that. They don't do nothing with it but you know the whle event is so sacred to them they play it TOO conservative I think. The thing is nearly 3 hours long and the anaolgy with how long it is and them spending years digging the tunnel will not be lost on the viewer.

The hot girl from some other movie I saw is in this (edit: no she's not) and is still hot. It's bizarre that a country that had lived through and was so vilified by the legacy of the nazis would embrace totalitarianism so soon after. or maybe it's not so bizarre, they went from right to left. People getting arrested for illegal EMIGRATION. Wrap your head around that one. How can you possibly look at your people with a straight face when they aren't allowed to leave? Imagine going on a vacation to the other side of your town! I guess it's just a gradation or so away from that fact that we forgo 6 figure salaries, pensions and sick benefits so that the a***oles in DC can have them and yet most of us don't think much of it.

4/5

[Jim H]

Is It College Yet? - the series ending TV movie for Daria.  Considerably more satisfying than the other movie, though unfortunately the DVD version is somewhat truncated.  Provides an overall sense of closure, but still remains open to what happens next.  Definitely for fans though - it doesn't stand by itself without the series. 

8/10

Battles Without Honor And Humanity - first in a five part yakuza series by Kinji Fukasaku. 

I'm somewhat conflicted on this one.  Some very good stuff - great acting, very well-shot, etc.  But the film is extremely fast-paced and because of this the characterizations are rushed and there's so much plot that goes by so fast it's hard for me to even judge it on storyline.  I don't know about this one.

Well, overall, it's so well-made I'm still going to give it an 8/10.

MacGruber - Someone finally broke the SNL curse again.  The last truly good SNL film was Wayne's World 2, in 1993 (Blues Brothers 2000 is ok, but not quite good in my book). 

That's not to say it's outstanding.  But it's a comedy, and I laughed fairly regularly.  It may help I loved all the 80s reference crap - like the often hilarious pop music soundtrack, MacGruber's clothes and hair, even the way the film is shot at times is like the 80s.  It's also very R-rated, and it actually uses this rating for more than swearing.  I particularly liked a few comedic bits utilizing violence and MacGruber's super move.  There's also an explicit reference to the ridiculous double fisted jumping spin MacGyver did in one episode which I thought both awesome and hilarious.



Val Kilmer is also great, though he actually doesn't have that much screen time (maybe 7 or 8 minutes?).

Aside from what I found funny though..  Yeah, there are quite a few jokes that fall flat.  And several long sequences that may be dull to many people (I thought the sex scene, while initially funny, went on a bit long).  And the plot and all that is of course basically inconsequential (though the final gag with Kilmer is a good payoff, and the ending credit still wedding photos are amusing).  But, the film is still very funny at other times.  Not great, but I enjoyed it. 

As a second opinion, my sister thought it was one of the worst films she'd ever seen.    

7/10.