Recent Viewings, Part 2

[FatFreddysCat]

"House on Haunted Hill" (1999)
Five strangers are invited to an eccentric millionaire's all-night private party at a supposedly-haunted former insane asylum. If they can survive till morning, they'll each win a million dollars.  You can probably guess how well that goes.
This remake of the 1950s Vincent Price oldie has cool set designs and atmosphere to spare, plus some disturbing visual effects that help keep it from becoming just another generic body count flick. Not a classic, but spooky enough for Halloween season viewing.

[RCMerchant]

GODZILLA- KING OF THE MONSTERS (2019)

Ok- I did not like the 2014 movie. Not enough monster time, and the generic beasts he fought were lame. GODZILLA VS KONG was a confusing mess. But this one- now here's a movie!
It's like a modern day DESTROY ALL MONSTERS! Lotsa battles, cities getting stomped to smoking rubble, and dammit- Monster Zero, Rodan, and even Mothra! I almost creamed my jeans when Rodan did a flying roll and wiped out all those spaceships!
Loved it.

[Trevor]

The House That Would Not Die: a TV moovie from 1970 (I think): not bad. 

[RCMerchant]

MA (2019)

Sweet Satan! This movie may be the best thing I seen all year!

Some crazy middle age women (Octavia Spenser), tries to relive her youth by letting kids party in her basement. Except she relives her f**ked up memories of school. So she comences to f**k some s**t up. Juliet Lewis stars too!

This movie- I predict- will be a cult classic.

Octavia Spenser is f**king out off her mind as Ma. She needs to be in more horror movies.
Juliet Lewis looks like a middle aged Goddess.
( I always had a thing for Juliet Lewis since NATURAL BORN KILLERS . I'm 61- whatta ya want?)

[M.10rda]

THE INNOCENTS (1961):
First complete viewing after reading the Henry James short story as a kid and seeing a couple scenes from this and figuring I'd "seen it". I was an impatient little edgelord and probably wasn't ready to appreciate THE INNOCENTS. Watched this following JIGOKU last weekend. That was a good weekend.

I'm gonna' attempt brevity for once and attempt to say little about this film. There doesn't appear to be a ton to it at a glance and the less you know going in, the better. Essentially four main characters in one location, w/ a third character who disappears after the first scene and two other important figures who appear occasionally but have no dialogue onscreen. Not a great deal technically happens for most of the 100 minutes and almost all of the conflict arises from what lead Deborah Kerr thinks might happen or has happened at some point in the past. Nevertheless THE INNOCENTS is tense and even legitimately scary.

"The Turn of the Screw" is either a longish short story or a very short novel. Flanagan's ten-hour HAUNTING OF BLYE MANOR seems incredibly overstuffed and redundant in retrospect, and Amenabar's THE OTHERS (2 hours) seems flimsy and spread too thin. At 100 minutes, THE INNOCENTS hits the sweet spot. The director, cinematographer, editor, sound designer (who deserved an Oscar), composer, and crew have invested incredible attention to every small moment and detail. Screenwriter Truman Capote maximizes the subtext yet is unafraid to leave many significant questions unanswered. The final moments are both shocking and sort of confounding, but in the best way, like a good Haneke film. Capote might've had the 50s communist scare in mind, but the 80s satanic panic could just as easily apply. Heck, I encounter educators like Kerr's character and mystifying little brats like Miles all the time today.

Excellent film.
4.5/5
2nd-billed Peter Wyngarde appears onscreen a handful of times yet says nothing. He later inspired a villain in the 70s "X-Men" comics!

[Dr. Whom]

Mirai (2018)

This is another instance of a Japanese animator trying hard to be Miyazaki, which is odd in this case, because apparently Hosoda left Ghibli in a huff.

Four year old Kun gets a baby sister (the titular Mirai), and he doesn't like the change at all. Through a magical encounter with a future version of his sister, he gets to experience various episodes of his family's history, which gives him a new sense of belonging.

Hosoda is a better director than a writer. This attempt at a family chronicle has its moments and gets the problematic aspects of the family dynamic right (it should be shown to prospective young parents so they know what they are getting into). However there is no dramatic tension at all (or any plot to speak of). This wouldn't matter if we had engaging or interesting characters, but Kun has very few redeeming features and is most of the time just annoying.

Not bad, but you're better off watching Summer Wars.

[FatFreddysCat]

"2069: A Sex Odyssey" (1974)
...how can you possibly pass up a movie with a title like that?
A UFO full of lovely Venusian ladies lands in the mountains of Bavaria on a mission to extract -- errr, let's call it "genetic material" -- from the local males in order to re-populate their dying planet. Needless to say, the men folk are more than willing to help the space chicks fulfill their needs, much to the dismay of their wives and girlfriends. Wacky hi-jinks and frequent full frontal nudity ensues.
...I know this sounds like a porno, but it isn't -- it's just a low-budget German-made sex comedy that's (poorly) dubbed into English. A couple of the "alien" girls are nice looking but the film itself is merely a series of scenes of random people acting silly and then getting naked. I think I might have laughed ONCE. Otherwise I found myself thinking, "how can a movie with this much nudity be this BORING?"

Do I really need to say it? AVOID.

[Rev. Powell]

ALCHEMY OF THE SPIRIT (2022): An elderly artist wakes up to find his wife dead in bed beside him; she magically comes back for a few days, engaging in long conversations about how the afterlife can't be described in words. Sweet, but uninvolving. 1.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

"2069: A Sex Odyssey" (1974)
...how can you possibly pass up a movie with a title like that?
A UFO full of lovely Venusian ladies lands in the mountains of Bavaria on a mission to extract -- errr, let's call it "genetic material" -- from the local males in order to re-populate their dying planet. Needless to say, the men folk are more than willing to help the space chicks fulfill their needs, much to the dismay of their wives and girlfriends. Wacky hi-jinks and frequent full frontal nudity ensues.
...I know this sounds like a porno, but it isn't -- it's just a low-budget German-made sex comedy that's (poorly) dubbed into English. A couple of the "alien" girls are nice looking but the film itself is merely a series of scenes of random people acting silly and then getting naked. I think I might have laughed ONCE. Otherwise I found myself thinking, "how can a movie with this much nudity be this BORING?"

Do I really need to say it? AVOID.

Is this the one with Bob Saget dubbing the voice of a HAL-like computer?

[Rev. Powell]

ONCE WITHIN A TIME (2023): Curtains open on a glowing, chanting golden tree woman, then children watch a couple with wicker cages around their heads wander through incidents of disaster, technology, and wonder. Simultaneously ancient and hyper-modern, Godfrey "Koyaanisqatsi" Reggio's visually-stunning surrealist experimental feature is as an apocalyptic dispatch from the far reaches of reality. 4/5.

[Dr. Whom]

"2069: A Sex Odyssey" (1974)
...how can you possibly pass up a movie with a title like that?
A UFO full of lovely Venusian ladies lands in the mountains of Bavaria on a mission to extract -- errr, let's call it "genetic material" -- from the local males in order to re-populate their dying planet. Needless to say, the men folk are more than willing to help the space chicks fulfill their needs, much to the dismay of their wives and girlfriends. Wacky hi-jinks and frequent full frontal nudity ensues.
...I know this sounds like a porno, but it isn't -- it's just a low-budget German-made sex comedy that's (poorly) dubbed into English. A couple of the "alien" girls are nice looking but the film itself is merely a series of scenes of random people acting silly and then getting naked. I think I might have laughed ONCE. Otherwise I found myself thinking, "how can a movie with this much nudity be this BORING?"

Do I really need to say it? AVOID.

Ah, the Tiroler sex comedies of the 70s (using the term comedy very loosely)

[FatFreddysCat]

Is this the one with Bob Saget dubbing the voice of a HAL-like computer?

No, that would be Outer Touch, aka Spaced Out (1979)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Touch

[FatFreddysCat]

"Prince of Darkness" (1987)
A Catholic priest (Donald Pleasance) summons a team of University researchers to study a mysterious tube of green ooze that's been discovered in the catacombs of a disused church building. They eventually conclude that the ooze is the distillation of pure evil in liquid form - basically, Satan in a bottle - and it begins to have murderous effects on everyone who's been in contact with it.
John Carpenter apparently considers this bizarre blend of religious horror and sci-fi to be part of a loose "apocalypse trilogy" along with The Thing (1982) and In The Mouth of Madness (1994) - but it's nowhere as good as either of those two. Prince of Darkness spent so much time on talky set up by the time the evil action finally started kickin' in, I was bored and dozing off.
You can safely skip this one, it's one of JC's lesser works for sure.

[M.10rda]

HACK-O-LANTERN (1988):
I watched two magnificent horror films last weekend and thus in order to restore some sense of balance to my worldview I watched this piece of poop. (I'd decided months back to not review movies on here that I didn't like but I'm OCD and since it's Halloween I feel like I need to chronicle every last seasonal viewing, good or bad...)

A paunchy, whiny granddad who worships the devil murders his son-in-law and then tries to raise the family to follow his own religious views. One of his grandsons seems like a good draft pick for the old satanic field team but, darn it, he's way too preoccupied w/ hair metal and nekkid girls to ever get around to much sacrificin'. Fortunately there's some other mysterious killer bumping off the supporting cast so that we can inch ever slowly to the closing credits.

Everything about this movie looks and sounds unpleasant, even the big Halloween party, yes, even the nekkid girls. The actor who plays the grandfather resembles the product of an unholy sexual union between Paul Giamatti and Reggie Bannister, only not as attractive and w/ neither's charisma, and super-annoying. Rev, was this ever an MST3K film? It's got a lot of nudity and a little gore, but removing those elements wouldn't render this film any more senseless than it already is. Also the commentary track woulda' made it tolerable.

1/5!
The highlight is a two-minute non-sequiter where Bill Tucker as "Party Comedian" performs an impromptu set outside the big Halloween party, and although he too sucks at comedy, everyone congregates outside the stripper-filled party to listen to his shtick 'cause it's still preferable to the party and the rest of this garbage movie.

[indianasmith]

This sounds magnificiently awful!