Recent Viewings, Part 2

[FatFreddysCat]

kind of an odd combo last night:

"Godzilla vs. Kong" (2021)
In the latest epic installment of Legendary Pictures' "Monsterverse" saga, a team of scientists heads to Kong's homeland at the center of the Earth to find a source of unbelievable power, while an evil tech corporation on the surface provokes Godzilla to attack humanity in order to further their own nefarious purposes. Of course, this eventually leads to the inevitable clash between Big G and the King. The plot's mostly gibberish, but once the two titans finally started throwin' down none of that mattered to my inner 8 year old, especially when my boy Mechagodzilla showed up around the three quarter mark. Impressive mega-budget monster mashin' fun with terrific effects.

"Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!" (1966)
Tired of the Hollywood grind, a spoiled French actress (Elke Sommer) quits her latest film and runs off to a small town in Oregon. Her presence there soon complicates the life of a local business man (Bob Hope) who has to keep her location a secret from the press, the police, and especially from his wife and battle-axe housekeeper (Phyllis Diller).
This silly slapstick comedy essentially takes a half hour sitcom plot and stretches it out to 90 minutes. Hope and Diller constantly trade one liners and insults, and Elke Sommer doesn't have to do much but sit around in skimpy outfits and be hot, which was fine with me. Corny, but enjoyable.

[Rev. Powell]

Been watching "The Mads" since they started allowing downloads of the shows. If you don't know, it's Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff from Mystery Science Theater 3000, riffing together. Unlike the new MST3K or Rifftrax, it's just these two guys alone, not a big writing staff, which means fewer jokes. And they only do public domain material, which severely limits their possibilities. But they have good chemistry and every show they have a Q&A afterwards, usually with guests. These are sometimes the best part. I wouldn't say it's great but it's entertaining enough for a Friday night with a whiskey and I like to support them.

GLEN OR GLENDA: Great movie, not great riffing material. The movie is too entertaining on its own, there's little to add with commentary. This print is the "extended" version with some extra bondage stuff during the , but unfortunately it's also colorized (why? WHY?) Frank really loves the movie, he rhapsodizes about it in the commentary afterwards.

THE BRAIN EATERS: Really, really cheap, boring movie directed by Bruno Ve Sota for Roger Corman. The monsters are never shown. They struggle with the jokes but I wouldn't want to watch it without any commentary. Guests are a couple of podcasters I don't know who are nice enough.

Next week: THE TINGLER

[Alex]

Heretiks.

A woman accused of witchcraft is saved when a local covenant of nuns intercedes on her behalf. Has she merely exchanged death for a fate much worse though? Some decent performances and some tension, but nothing out of the ordinary.

[Rev. Powell]

SMALL APARTMENTS (2012): An overweight, hairless albino who never puts on pants must dispose of the dead body of the landlord of his motel-style apartment building packed with oddballs. Makes a few questionable turns (at times it's both unnecessarily gross and unnecessarily maudlin), but it moves briskly and is full of great actors in small roles: James Caan, Billy Crystal and Juno Temple all show up, among others. 3/5.

[Trevor]

SMALL APARTMENTS (2012): An overweight, hairless albino who never puts on pants[/url]

Ahh, they made a film about me, I see. 

[indianasmith]

Weekend double feature:

H.P. LOVECRAFT'S THE DEEP ONES:
  A couple trying to conceive a child move to a small coastal town and fall under the spell of sinister locals, who want the young woman to become a bride for the half-fish elder god they worship.  Like most Lovecraft adaptations, this one takes the basic plot of a Lovecraft story, throws in some sex, and fails to deliver on the horror.  Had a couple of decent moments but ultimately falls short.  3/5

UNEARTH:
Struggling Midwest farm families quarrel when one decides to lease his land for fracking; the drilling company unleashes some sinister agent in the drinking water that causes people to grow roots (tentacles?) out of their faces and eventually kills them.  VERY slow burn with a few horrific scenes near the end, but not enough is explained for the payoff to be satisfactory in the least.   Pretty much a waste of two hours. 2/5

[Rev. Powell]

SMALL APARTMENTS (2012): An overweight, hairless albino who never puts on pants

Ahh, they made a film about me, I see. 

Is this you Trev?

[FatFreddysCat]

"Black Widow" (2021)
The latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe focuses on Scarlett Johansen's cat suited super-spy, filling in her backstory as a former Russian "sleeper agent." After she's freed from her former boss's mind control, her next mission is to destroy the facility that he's using to train a whole new generation of assassins. Of course, lots of bullets fly, people get punched, things crash into lots of other things, and stuff blows up frequently.
A fast paced, slick, very entertaining popcorn butt kicker that even manages to squeeze in a few nice moments between Natasha and her "family" amidst all the explosions. Lots of action packed fun. 

[Trevor]

SMALL APARTMENTS (2012): An overweight, hairless albino who never puts on pants

Ahh, they made a film about me, I see. 

Is this you Trev?

Yes, that's me 

[Rev. Powell]

MANDIBLES (2020): Two dimwitted thugs find a giant fly in the trunk of their stolen car and decide to train him to help them steal. An shaggy dog (uh, shaggy fly?) comedy in Quentin Dupieux's usual deadpan absurdist style; relatively minor--even subdued--by this director's crazed standards. 2.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Shaolin V lama - The Lama won, now it's the Lama Temple. They have to go back and change every movie title  

No, this is an above average not quite classic kung fu movie with some familiar places and very familiar plot stuff. A guy wants to get revenge for his teacher so he joins the Shaolin Temple, who apparently killed the teacher for some reason. Everyone goes and works towards either going through with or stopping this revenge and also trying to procure the "I Ching manual" which has all the different kung fu styles written in it. The fighters have distinct styles instead of generic movie kung fu... basically they wrote the script in 10 minutes instead of 5. You don't learn much about the Lama style unfortunately, which is an interesting Tibetan style of fighting.

good way to kill 1 1/2 hours

4/5

[pennywise37]

i'm glad i'm not the only one who liked Black Widow (2021) i've heard that it wasn't that great of a movie but i disgress i enjoyed it

[FatFreddysCat]

"Rock Star" (2001)
It's 1985 and a yokel metal tribute-band singer (Mark Wahlberg) steps up to the big time when his favorite band, "Steel Dragon," picks him as their new vocalist. He and his girlfriend/manager (Jennifer Aniston) are quickly sucked into the sex, drugs, and rock n roll road life, which eventually puts a strain on their relationship.
Loosely inspired by the real-life saga of Tim "Ripper" Owens and Judas Priest, the first half of "Rock Star" is more fun than the second, when it gets bogged down with too much romantic-drama B.S.
I was inspired to revisit "Rock Star" after reading a 20th anniversary (!) retrospective on it that called it "the worst film ever made about rock." I felt that was unnecessarily harsh - don't get me wrong, "Rock Star" is certainly no "This is Spinal Tap" or "Almost Famous," but it's not "Rock of Ages" or "KISS Meets the Phantom," either.

[lester1/2jr]

Digging up the Marrow (2014) - way better than most meta found footage horror movies. A rewatch and it got better.

Adam Green, I have no idea who he is, is an apparently successful horror guy and a nut contacts him with a crazy story about monsters living in an underground world. He checks it out based on his own childlike desire for monsters to exist. He and his cameraman half jokingly play along until green starts to believe that what he's seeing really is as it was described. Taking time off to do the horror convention circuit, he learns the guy has approached other film makers and they'd all written him off as a nut. His faith is shaken...

very cool beans imo 5/5 to paraphrase an early review of Belle and Sebastion "it p**ses on other found footage horror films from great height"

[FatFreddysCat]

"Espionage in Tangiers" (aka "Marc Matos: Agent S-077," 1965)
In this low budget Spanish/Italian James Bond knock off, the U.N.'s "Nuclear Safety Commission" sends a suave secret agent (he's "Marc Matos" in the European version, which was Americanized to "Mike Murphy" for the English dub) to Morocco to recover a stolen "molecular disintegration ray" weapon. Like most of these cheap spy flicks, there's not much plot, but there's plenty of car chases, fist fights, lovely European scenery, and pretty girls. It's not the worst "Eurospy" movie I've ever seen, but it is pretty generic, forgettable stuff.
Fun fact: a persistent Internet urban legend claims that George Lazenby, later of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" fame, is in this movie, but he isn't. Argentinian actor Luis Davila, who plays Agent 077, does bear a slight resemblance to George, though, which is probably how the rumor got started.