Recent viewings

[Jack]

Unearthed (2007) - Watched this again.  A monster is on the loose, killing people in a small isolated town out in the desert.  The alcoholic sheriff (played by the totally hot Emmanuelle Vaugier) does her best to rescue the townspeople and kill the critter.  I liked it.  Well developed, sympathetic characters, and it manages to be somewhat suspenseful in parts.  The monster isn't too bad, he tends to keep his mouth open which unfortunately makes it look like he's smiling.  The idiot director had to edit the action scenes together in that rapid-fire fashion - notice a character is gone?  Rewind to the the last action scene and watch it in slow motion;  maybe you can see where he died.  There are these flashbacks of the sheriff accidentally shooting some little girl (which drove her to drink).  Throughout the movie, people will mention the bad thing the sheriff did - cue flashback.  Gee, thanks Captain Obvious.  The flashbacks are totally washed out and also edited together rapid-fire style.  I've watched this 3 or 4 times now and I still can't tell what the hell was supposed to be going on in those.     Still, good enough overall   4/5.

[Rev. Powell]

PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER (2006): A man is born In 18th century France with a preternatural sense of smell; he becomes obsessed with creating a perfume to reproduce the scent of a beautiful maiden he sniffs in a Paris market, no matter the cost. Morphs from a twisted Dickensian fantasy to a historical serial killer suspenser to a bloated mystical allegory, losing a bit of steam and credibility with each transition.  One of those "interesting... but" movies.  3.5/5.

[The Gravekeeper]

I watched Inception with my sister over the holiday break. I didn't find it nearly as confusing as most people say it is. Sure, I could use another viewing just to double-check some things, but I feel like I followed it pretty well.

Also, I bought Jaws and watched that again. Seeing it through more adult eyes rather than a child's, I now understand why it's such a great film.

[Jack]

A couple of repeat viewings:

Ghost Game (2004) - Some college-age people go to a cabin for the weekend.  Years earlier some witches performed a dark ceremony there, so it's not long before bad things start happening to our characters.  They find a game in the cabin, sort of a scavenger hunt type thing, and if they don't find the correct items within the time allotted, one of them dies.  This was bad.  Only one likable character, the others...guys were idiots and girls were b***hes.  Nobody took the movie seriously - they're in a life-and-death situation and acting like it's a minor inconvenience, cracking jokes etc.  Dialog was terrible:  they find 8 small stones placed in a circle and theorize that maybe they're meteorites that fell in that formation.  Yeah, real rocket scientists here.  2/5.

Camp Utopia (2002) - some kids go camping in the woods, on the site of a former hippie commune where somebody took some bad acid and ended up killing the rest of the hippies.  It's not long before our campers also start turning up dead.  It's pretty darned obvious who's committing the killings.  At least it wasn't the dumbest story I've seen lately.  Another bad movie, with awful characters - guys were paper-thin stereotypes, girls were b***hes.  It was fairly dull too.  At least there was a bit of T&A, unlike Ghost Game.  2/5.

[Rev. Powell]

BATTLE ROYALE (2001): A class of about forty Japanese 9th graders are selected by lottery to be shipped to a deserted island by the government, where they're given random weapons and forced to fight to the death, with the sole survivor granted his or her freedom.  Despite the bizarre premise, it plays out as a solid plot-driven action movie, with only a few notes of satire; it's surprisingly engaging watching the high schoolers form alliances and turn on each other and drop off one by one, and not nearly as perverse as it might have been.  4.5/5.   

[lester1/2jr]

Tom Waits Big Time- the Mondrian light cubes were a mistake in retrospect but even the 80's couldn't mess up Tom Waits enough to put a damper on things. He does stuff from swordfishtombones and Rain Dogs. This was before his career revival of sorts with Bone Machine so not quite as rootsy and out there as that stuff but still really good. 4/5

Miracle Fighters- this is the crew that made Drunken Wutang and those two or three other movies that were alot like drunken wutang. I have all of them and have watched them many times. This is earlier and not as good. it's basically a slapstick low fi version of "boxer's Omen" a movie I do not like. It is similarly tedious but not nearly as overrated.  There is plenty of bent stuff a la the later movies but only for hardcores I'd say.  3/5

[indianasmith]

Let's see . . . . over the last week or so, I watched:

IRON MAN 2 - Not as much fun as the first but not as bad as everyone said.  Mickey Rourke was in his best carpet-chewing bad guy form.

SALT - Excellent action thriller!  First rate!

THE HORDE -- A French zombie movie.  meh.


But for tonight . . . after the kiddies go to bed . . . MACHETE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[moviegoersclub]

Last night,I watched the Resident Evil:Afterlife,I found the moive keep the tradition of the series Resident Evil–Hot Girls,Handsome Boy and Cool Action.Original director-writer Paul W.S. Anderson returns for this fourth installment in the science-fiction action series based on the popular videogames. Milla Jovovich is back as Alice, who has superhuman powers due to a favorable reaction to the T-virus that has turned most of the rest of humanity into zombie mutants. Alice storms the evil Umbrella Corporation's headquarters in Tokyo with dozens of clones of herself in an attempt to take out Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), the head of Umbrella. Alice barely escapes with her life, but she is thankful that Wesker injected her with a T-virus cure that makes her human again.

Alice takes off in a two-seater plane to find signs of life. Her first scenic stop is Alaska, where she is reunited with Claire Redfield (Ali Larter), who is suffering from amnesia. The two fly to Los Angeles and land on a high-rise prison roof downtown in an attempt to help some survivors that are flagging them down. Claire is surprised to find her brother, Chris (Wentworth Miller), inside. Together they fight the zombie mob pounding its way inside the complex and escape to the Arcadia—a ship transmitting a signal that promises safety for humans but is really a trap set by Wesker.


If you want more movie view go to my website: moviegoersclub.com.

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

BATTLE ROYALE (2001): A class of about forty Japanese 9th graders are selected by lottery to be shipped to a deserted island by the government, where they're given random weapons and forced to fight to the death, with the sole survivor granted his or her freedom.  Despite the bizarre premise, it plays out as a solid plot-driven action movie, with only a few notes of satire; it's surprisingly engaging watching the high schoolers form alliances and turn on each other and drop off one by one, and not nearly as perverse as it might have been.  4.5/5.   

I got to watched this one a few years back at a friend's house. What a movie. The one schoolteacher was Takeshi Kitano, or "Beat Takeshi" as he's called.

He was the host of that crazy English dubbed Japanese show that Spike TV had on few years ago, I think it was called "Most Extreme Challenge" or something like that?  I know it was called "Takeshi's Castle" in Japan.

[Doggett]

Just look at the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8cXJB9Mqzc


Nuff said. 

4/5

[Jack]

I haven't seen Reform School Girls in about 20 years.  I need to get it on DVD   

[lester1/2jr]

Unveiled (2005) - mildly engaging german indie. All the immigrants are saints, all the germans are horrible. Hey indie film makers, how about for once having the westerners be normal and the 3rd worldies be  a***oles?  Also, this whole movie is predicated on you believing that the people believe the main character, who is quite obviously a woman, is succesfully passing as a man. She looks like a woman. Decent and watcheable but very few surprises except a few that made little sense (what was with the tampons in the sink?)  3/5

title makes it look lke it is about islam but it isn't at all. Woman/ man is a secular iranian like the girl in that cartoon.

[JaseSF]

Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952): Working as a pair of bumbling waiters, Abbott and Costello are kidnapped and taken aboard Captain Kidd's ship by Kidd (Charles Laughton) and reluctant accomplice and fellow pirate, Captain Bonney (Hillary Brooke) when Costello accidentally ends up in possession of Kidd's Skull Island treasure map.

Overall this movie proves a bit of a disappointment. Abbott and Costello actually don't spend as much time on screen together as I'd like (and actually the film's best and funniest moments typically come from the pair of them being together), Laughton mugs it up shamelessly as Kidd and seems to used here as much for comedy as does our famed comedy duo. When Laughton plays Kidd as menacing, it proves much more effective but eventually things descend into out and out buffoonary. Hillary Brooke as Captain Bonney provides an unlikely love interest for Costello and isn't used for much else while there's a romantic subplot between two young lovers who wind up aboard Kidd's ship that never really makes much impact on the story or in the film as an whole and just feels like it was thrown in there to cater to expectation. There's also a number of sappy songs that hardly prove memorable. Disappointing but whenever Abbott and Costello are on screen together and when Laughton plays Kidd a bit more seriously, there are some funny and fun moments to be found. Unfortunately most of this chaotic movie seems all over the place. Still this was Abbott and Costello so I'll still give it *** out of ***** stars.

[lester1/2jr]

what a double bill

Interiors (1978) -straight drama from Woody Allen. WHat can you say about the guy, he is a toad in his life but he makes some great movies. This is focused on the lives of a lefty, jewish intellectual sort of well off New York family. This element of the movie is really dated (not that being jewish is dated lol) as is some of the dialogue in the sense that people don't really talk like this anymore or talk ABOUT stuff like this anymore.

The father of the family wants to divorce the mother and she doesn't want him to. This is the main issue around which we see how the problems with this marriage or that relationship or this persons drinking and that persons frustration with their life.  There is some great tension like the tension between the fathers new love interest and his elitist daughter who literally calls the woman "a vulgarian" and the flirtation between the other sisters husband and the actress sister.  Theres lots of interesting character devleopment and an excellent ending.  It's not boring 4.5/5

Bigger Stronger Faster (2008)- this is a documentary about steroid use in America. It is ambigous as to wether steroids are good or bad but it's overall point seems to be that America is filled to the brim with performance enhancing drugs of all kinds from adderal to viagra, concert musicisans even use beta blockers so they will be less nervous. The documentarian is a weight lifter and former steroid user himself but this is not at all amateurish. It's Super Size me-ish, lots of little bits and clips and charts and all moving at a fast clip.

The first half is entertaining but a little blase, just general stuff about steroid use and how dangerous it actually is (in general not alot of the oft cited health ailments are all that scientifically accurate) and the baseball hearings. The second half is more profound and asks deep questions about who we are as a nation. Why do people pay big money to go see athletes they know use steroids? Why do we do so many drugs as a nation? IS being American about winning or "how you play the game". answer: the former.

Characters like the worlds biggest arm guy Greg Valentino appear but there isn't alot of seemy stuff with crazy gym rats and so forth. The directors use of his own family as an example , both his brothers use, is very effective and I was very surprised at all the political stuff and how interesting that side was. Surpassed my expectations and deeper and less fantastical than I thought it would be.

4.5 /5


tie!

[Jack]

Creatures from the Abyss (2000) - some kids on a small motorboat run out of gas, but they happen upon a large yacht and take shelter on it.  The yacht is deserted, but they find evidence that experiments were being performed on fish - and the name of the movie is Creatures from the Abyss, so...yeah.  This ranks right up there with Troll 2 for utter badness.  The dialogue is childish and moronic, and the dubbing adds a whole extra layer of stupidity on top of that.  Thankfully the plot mostly consists of putting eye candy in front of the camera    I enjoyed it for the most part.  My rating:  4/5.  So-bad-it's-good rating:  5/5.