Recent viewings

[claws]

The Double 0 Kid (1992) Blu-ray

17-year old Lance (Corey Haim) thinks he is a special agent on a mission. For example, he (playfully) runs and escapes from his mother (Karen Black) while we hear his James Bond like thoughts as a narrative. Grow up kiddo. Lance works some summer job at some company and is assigned to deliver a package to L.A.
During the delivery he is secretly handed a computer card of some sorts, resulting in being chased by bad guys, or in this case bad girl (Brigitte Nielsen in super-tight clothing). Lance barely gets away and steals a Limousine. What to do when on the run fearing for your life? You cruise up and down in a Limousine through L.A. gawking like a dork and trying to impress young girls. Along the way he bumps into a (I assume homeless?) girl (cute & sexy: Nicole Eggert) on roller skates pushing a shopping cart. They team up and are captured by a crazed multimillionaire who wants to crash air planes with a vicious virus through his pc.

Never gave this movie much attention back in vhs rental days. I had no interest in Haim starring in direct-to-video junk after his glory days. I did notice over the years that people seem to be fond of The Double 0 Kid praising its early '90s cheese. I took the opportunity when I saw the German Blu-ray (!) for cheap and didn't regret it.
Silly but entertaining with bad computer graphics, corny rock tunes, Haim in ridiculous "hip" outfits and Brigitte Nielsen towering everyone and everything. 3.5/5 Cheese.

[Jack]

The Ghost Ship (1943) - a guy takes a job as third officer on a small freighter ship. At first the captain seems like a good guy, but he soon learns that he's abusing his authority over the crew, even causing the death of one guy. But nobody else on the ship's crew believes him - they all admire the captain. Will he survive the rest of the voyage, knowing the captain's secret, or will he too have a fatal accident? This was okay. Old black and white thing with decent characters and nice sense of suspense throughout. 3/5.

King of the Lost World (2005) - repeat viewing. An airliner crashes on a remote tropical island, breaking in half in midair, so the survivors from the fuselage section set off in search of the cockpit, hoping to find some radio equipment to call for help. They soon find the island is home to some prehistoric beasts - including King Kong    Many other planes have mysteriously crashed on this island as well, and the survivors have formed a primitive tribe and want to use our cast members as human sacrifices to their King. This was a fun pile of cheese. The characters were likable and sympathetic (pretty sexy too), the CGI was low budget, and the plot moved along at a good pace. A favorite of mine.  4/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Demolition man- I kind of feel bad for people who rented something besides this. 5/5

[Jack]

Alien 51 (2004) - repeat viewing. So there's this little guy in a rubber suit alien running around killing people out in the desert. A cop and a parks and recreation babe team up to track him down. Meanwhile Hollywood madame Heidi Fleiss is running some little travelling circus, and she'd like the alien for her main attraction. This was all very tongue-in-cheek, not so much funny as entertaining. I enjoyed it *. 3/5.

* Disclaimer: I had 2 glasses of wine and about 4 beers in me at the time. 

[claws]

Hollywood Man (1976)

Director/Actor Rafe (William Smith) can't seem to finish his Biker movie because of lack of funding. He finally gets the much needed money from the local mafia. Meanwhile a sociopathic biker and his biker gang decide to be part of the movie and cause havoc on set. Things get complicated when Rafe runs out of money again, and the crazed biker trying to kill him.

Exploitation movie about the making of an exploitation movie. Clever script, crazy-cool characters, harsh violence and a neat twist in the end. 4/5

[Jack]

Alien 3000 (2004) - An invisible monster is living in a cave and killing anyone who comes near. Some paranormal investigation society hires a group of mercenaries to capture it, and they also get the sole survivor of one of its previous attacks to act as a guide. The trouble is they're apparently only paying fifty cents an hour, so instead of mercenaries they get the world's most idiotic street trash, dressed in camo. The female merc'...oh my god. Even a devoted pacifist would be kicking her teeth in after listening to that mouth for 30 minutes. Lorenzo Lamas has a very small part as the pilot of a comical looking toy helicopter. He dies, she dies, they pretty much all die    As terrible as I've made it sound, it was just so stupid that it maintained a certain level of so-bad-it's-good throughout. 3/5.

[Jack]

Days of Darkness (2007) - repeat viewing. An asteroid crashes to earth, and next thing you know almost everybody has turned into zombies. A small band of survivors takes refuge in an abandoned military bunker. One guy has some medical training and does an autopsy on one of the zombies, and over the course of the movie we find out this isn't your typical zombie apocalypse. That adds a nice bit of story that most movies of this type are sorely lacking. And some extremely yucky gore scenes. I really enjoyed the characters in this, they're very well developed and the interactions between them are the driving force of the movie. They're not all likable - far from it, but we can understand their motivations and sympathize with (almost) all of them. One of my fav'e zombie films.  4.25/5

[JaseSF]

Poseidon (2006): After the cruise ship Poseidon is capsized by a huge 120 foot rogue wave, we watch a small group of people, lead by professional gambler Dylan Johns (Josh Lucas) and former firefighter/New York City Mayor Robert Ramsey (Kurt Russell) struggle to reach the top (now the bottom) of the ship hoping to find their way out there before it's too late.

This remake of The Poseidon Adventure (1972) has its moments of action, excitement and thrilling FX, mostly CGI a lot of which is quite impressively acheived. Honestly though I found the characters in this one not as diverse and likable as those in the original film and this film really suffers from the fact a lot of the characters really don't stand out much in any way. Mostly a visual FX based work with most of its focus being there with nowhere near enough focus on establishing likable characters we truly care about and root on. *** out of ***** stars.

[Jack]

Laid to Rest (2009) - A masked killer chases a girl and her two friends around for 90 minutes. This had more gruesome gore than average, but it really never managed to create much suspense or scariness due to mediocre writing and direction. The worst part was that the killer had hit the main girl over the head with something before the movie began, which gave her amnesia and caused her to act all dingy. That may be understandable, but it does not make for a sympathetic main character. It had a bit of a comedic edge to it that didn't help much either. And the killer had a camera on his shoulder which struck me as kind of dumb, he was basically invincible for some reason that was never explained, and he had no backstory whatsoever. It just didn't really work on any level. 2.5/5.

[JaseSF]

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970): This film meticulously details the events leading up to and the eventual attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941 that drew the United States officially into World War II.

While this feels perhaps just a tad overlong, it works really well building and building to the eventual climactic event and it doesn't disappoint when it gets there with fantastic war scenes and sequences detailing the historical event of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It also shows just how unprepared the United States was at the time and how they seemed to think things couldn't happen here. There's certainly a lesson in this historical event...never assume it can't happen here. While the cast is star studded, not many people really stand out here aside from So Yamamura as Isoroku Yamamoto but the action and message still gets across pretty well. I really enjoyed this. **** out of ***** stars.

[JaseSF]

Demons (1985): A group of movie fans find themselves trapped inside a West Berlin Movie Theater, invited guests to witness a new disturbing horror film in which a man becomes possessed by a demon and goes on a killing spree. Soon strangely enough, the events in the movie start happening in real life too and soon the movie patrons find themselves in the battle of their lives against ravenous bloodthirsty demons looking to kill and possess and thereby multiply their numbers.

This feels rather reminscent of the Romero Zombie Dead films only here we have demons instead of zombies although the demons behave a lot more like zombies IMO. There's loads of gore to be found here and this deliver a lot of thrills and chills. Most 80s Horror film fans should find much to like here although a lot of it sometimes feels a bit cheesy and over the top too but usually in a surprisingly fun way. The plot is pretty simplistic and in fact one probably shouldn't think too much about things while watching this unfold. Just sit back and enjoy this film which is very much a fun but somewhat nasty horror thrill ride.  Some decent scares here too. ***1/2 out of ***** stars. BMFMS

[Jack]

Python (2000) - a giant snake is on the loose in smalltown USA, and it's up to a group of young people, assisted by Robert Englund as the scientist in charge of the snake project, to stop it. This was very much a horror / comedy, and it managed to be plenty goofy and entertaining if not really "funny". All the characters were quite likable, we even got Casper Van Dien putting on a fake Southern accent. And Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher from Star Trek:  The Next Generation) with purple hair. He gets eaten after saying "Dude, you woke me up for a snake?" Very over-the-top in its silliness. I enjoyed it. 3.25/5.

[lester1/2jr]

My Week with marilyn- Mainly notably for what's her names accurate (probably) performance of Monroe. SHe goes to England and is depressed and drugged out while they are making a movie and struggles to hold it together with the help of her boy toy she picks up, a kid from the studio. 4/5

[JaseSF]

Goldfinger (1964): MI6 Special Agent James Bond (Sean Connery) is assigned to bring down a crafty and clever gold smuggling gold magnate criminal mastermind named Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) who's plotting an attack on Fort Knox and the United States Bullion Depository.

This was a very enjoyable Bond film. It features a great lead villain in Goldfinger who has numerous significant henchmen most notably his main muscle Oddjob (Harold Sakata, a former pro wrestler) and Goldfinger's personal pilot Pu$$y Galore (Honor Blackman) who soon becomes a potential love conquest, albeit a deadly one given her skill in judo, for Bond. Lots of action and intrigue to keep you guessing and Bond really tends to get his butt handed to him quite a bit here too making he seem a bit more vulnerable than usual. There's a few more humorous moments to be found in this one and some truly fun gadgets (especially the adapted Aston Martin) as well making it quite enjoyable all around. One of the very best Bond movies. ****1/2 out of ***** stars.

Thunderball (1965): SPECTRE returns in big fashion stealing two NATO atomic bombs which they then use to ransom the world for £100 million in diamonds. James Bond investigates and stumbles across a potential clue involving François Derval, a pilot supposedly aboard the plane stolen by SPECTRE but whom Bond found dead before this flight took place. This leads him to Nassau, Bahamas where Derval's sister Domino (Claudine Auger) is mistress to SPECTRE's new Number Two Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi).

Honestly this film is a bit of a letdown after following the previous three in particular. It feels a bit overlong and has surprisingly dull stretches while its more exciting and interesting sequences don't seem to last quite long enough. Oh it's still enjoyable, features great gadgets, fun spy intrigue, great villains in Largo and the deadly redhead SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi) and Bond actually has some slightly more memorable allies of his own here too in Paula Caplin (Martine Beswick), who's role never seems quite large enough and CIA Agent Felix Leiter (Rik Van Nutter) who plays a more substantial part in events - but it's never quite as good or as exciting as one wants it to be aside from a few sequences. Lots of underwater and on the water action in this one. *** out of ***** stars.

[tracy]

Big fan of Jim Kelly. Also a big fan of Bolo Yeung....the man is awesome!