Recent Viewings, Part 2

[indianasmith]

First Monday of Summer Vacation Double Feature:

CINDERELLA'S CURSE (2024)  A bloody retelling of the classic fairy tale; in this case the wicked stepmother and stepsisters are more wicked than you can possibly imagine, torturing and killing family servants and making poor Cinderella bury the bodies.  But then she digs up a copy of the Necronomicon in the garden while burying the housekeeper, and her undead fairy godmother grants her wish for revenge.  This one deserves an Oscar for "Best Use of a Glass Slipper as a Murder Weapon!"  About all you could ask from any bad movie packed into an hour and twenty minutes of gore and cruelty! 4/5

THE CULT OF HUMPTY DUMPTY (2022)  A horribly boring British horror film about five "troubled teens"  (all in their 30's, at least) sent to a country commune called the Green Cleanse - which is really a front for a bunch of cultists who worship the animated puppet god, Humpty Dumpty.  Bad dialogue, incomprehensible plot, unlikable characters - this one was a real chore to finish!  1/5

[M.10rda]

For me, it was the one where they tried to eat 50 hard boiled eggs like someone apparently did in Cool Hand Luke, which I've never seen. No surprise they just ended up barfing on each other.

I'm a big guy and I will routinely eat six eggs, hard-boiled or scrambled. I could probably eat a whole dozen and be fine. 50 EGGS IS CRAZY!!! 

Lester, do revisit JACKASS 2 - I think that's the best one. I remember being disappointed by 3. The most recent (final?) one only had one great gag, involving Knoxville in old man drag getting blasted off some mattresses up into a ceiling. Even that made me feel bad, though. It's just not funny watching old men be badly injured. Seeing Knoxville try to play a normal role on TV's "Reboot" is terribly uncomfortable. He looks like he's in constant pain just crossing a room...

[Rev. Powell]

WILD ROSE (2018): An impulsive and irresponsible single mother from Glasgow, Scotland dreams of going to Nashville and becoming a country singer. A bit predictable, but Jessie Buckley is amazing in the role---particular the musical numbers (that gal can really sing!) 3.5/5

[Trevor]

For me, it was the one where they tried to eat 50 hard boiled eggs like someone apparently did in Cool Hand Luke, which I've never seen. No surprise they just ended up barfing on each other.

I'm a big guy and I will routinely eat six eggs, hard-boiled or scrambled. I could probably eat a whole dozen and be fine. 50 EGGS IS CRAZY!!! 

Lester, do revisit JACKASS 2 - I think that's the best one. I remember being disappointed by 3. The most recent (final?) one only had one great gag, involving Knoxville in old man drag getting blasted off some mattresses up into a ceiling. Even that made me feel bad, though. It's just not funny watching old men be badly injured. Seeing Knoxville try to play a normal role on TV's "Reboot" is terribly uncomfortable. He looks like he's in constant pain just crossing a room...

Johnny Knoxville and his buddies made my Mom laugh after her husband of 51 years died. I owe them because they made her smile again. 😊😊

[Dr. Whom]

Diamond Sword (2016)

Prime Video suddenly started suggesting Kazakh historical epics, so I thought, why not. Diamond Sword tells the story of the foundation of the Kazakh Khanate in the 1460s.

It starts off with the defeat of the Kazakhs by the Oirat Mongols, because the Qipchak allies fail to arrive due to the machinations of Shaybanshah. And there you have one of the basic problems with the movie for non-Kazakh audiences. No doubt Kazakh children learn about this in school, but if you are not familiar with the political situation in the Central Asian steppe in the 1460s, it is a bit difficult to keep track of who does what and why. Luckily it is a work of nationalistic propaganda and it doesn't do subtlety, so it is very clear who are the good guys and who are the bad.

It feels more like you are watching a historical documentary, in which key scenes are re-enacted. If you like Indo-Persian miniature painting, it is worth a watch, because they really tried to make the paintings come to life, gorgeous costumes and extravagant hats and all. That being said, the budget was clearly limited, and it shows. It simply lacks the epic scale it is aiming for.

Curiously the titular diamond sword is mentioned once in the beginning, and never shows up again.

[lester1/2jr]

Host (2020)- I was very surprised to see that this had hundreds of reviews on IMDB. I was expecting maybe...3? It's a very nondescript found footage ish thing apparently made during COVID. I guess maybe some clever person marketed it along those lines? It's no better than a typical tubi cheapie though.  I've seen lots of movies just like this, some that are much better. Perhaps it's more of a novelty in the UK, where it was made.

People do an online Zoom seance and it goes wrong. The dialogue had more humor and the acting was better than most of these things, sometimes almost having a Sealab2021 type feel, with realistic pauses and clever irreverent atmosphere. The horror aspect was very sloppy though. The seance was so brief I don't remember if it even happened and I just didn't buy into the idea that all of the stuff was really going on. The cast is mostly female and they are pretty attractive, but this thing would need a whole lot of work to be in any way notable.

Basically an indie movie masquerading as a horror movie. I like bands like The Sundays and Pavement, but I doubt they could make a very good death metal album.

2.75 /5

[Rev. Powell]

Host (2020)- I was very surprised to see that this had hundreds of reviews on IMDB. I was expecting maybe...3? It's a very nondescript found footage ish thing apparently made during COVID. I guess maybe some clever person marketed it along those lines? It's no better than a typical tubi cheapie though.  I've seen lots of movies just like this, some that are much better. Perhaps it's more of a novelty in the UK, where it was made.

People do an online Zoom seance and it goes wrong. The dialogue had more humor and better pacing than most of these, sometimes almost having a Sealab2021 type feel, with realistic pauses and clever irreverent atmosphere. The horror aspect was very sloppy though. The seance was so brief I don't remember if it even happened and I just didn't buy into the idea that all of the stuff was really going on. The cast is mostly female and they are pretty attractive, but this thing would need a whole lot of work to be in any way notable.

Basically an indie movie masquerading as a horror movie. I like bands like The Sundays and Pavement, but I doubt they could make a very good death metal album.

2.75 /5

I thought it was decent, not great. I think it was the first of its kind (at the very least one of the first) to use the Zoom format for a feature film, so groundbreaking in that way.

[M.10rda]

Johnny Knoxville and his buddies made my Mom laugh after her husband of 51 years died. I owe them because they made her smile again. 😊😊

That's nice. Hey, laff it up! I'm sure they want us to laugh. They suffered for our entertainment and for your Mom!  It's just easier for me to laugh at the show from 25+ years ago and at the truly brilliant JACKASS 2. I thought the last one was kinda' grim...

[M.10rda]

Host (2020)- I was very surprised to see that this had hundreds of reviews on IMDB. I was expecting maybe...3? It's a very nondescript found footage ish thing apparently made during COVID. I guess maybe some clever person marketed it along those lines?
2.75 /5

I liked it. We watched it during Covid - early in the pandemic, too, iirc, like maybe mid-summer '20? - and I remember it being quite an event, like, How cool these people who are stuck inside like us immediately made a movie from their own homes! ...Instead of just sitting around bored and scared. Again, I recall people wondering if there would even be any more movies produced during the pandemic (or after). The human spirit finds a way!

The playwright Richard Nelson wrote and produced a play titled WHAT DO WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT? on Zoom in maybe April of 2020, and it generated some income for its cast and for NYC's Public Theater. I kept my annual summer theatre program alive on Zoom that summer, w/ all our students online in their bedrooms every day and for the "live" virtual final show. In the Fall I wrote and produced a one-hour play titled (and about) BIGFOOT! The actors performed it live from their homes, we streamed, and we just cut in the climactic (pre-produced) appearance by the big hungry hairy guy. It was a Time! I wouldn't ever choose to do that stuff again, mind you, if I had other options, which I do. Likewise HOST might not play well if you can watch absolutely anything else new.  But it was a welcome gesture that summer!

[indianasmith]

MALEVOLENCE 2: BEREAVEMENT (2010) - This is a mean-spirited "slasher" (really, more of a torture porn) film with a wildly improbable plot, a loathsome killer, some of the most dim-witted victims imaginable, taking place in an anonymous midwestern setting which must be utterly devoid of police officers, since anyone with half a brain would be able to identify the main suspect in a decades-long series of disappearances of young women.  The only thing that redeems this cruel piece of cinematic dreck is the presence of Alexandra Daddario at the height of her early 2000's gorgeousness (her eyes are so blue they really should be declared one of the wonders of the modern world).  Her ocean-colored eyes and prominent physique are really the only thing in this film worth watching, unless you really get off on watching young women strung up and stabbed to death for no apparent reason while a young kid is forced to watch.
3/5 stars, two of which are strictly awarded to Alexandra's sapphire orbs.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Rat Skates: Born in the Basement" (2007)
Founding Overkill drummer Lee "Rat Skates" Kundrat looks back on the early days of the band and the thrash metal scene in general. Worth seeing just for the tons of cool vintage photos and video clips. Rat seems like a cool guy, though a bit high on himself -- as far as he's concerned, he belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of thrash's founding fathers  right next to Mustaine, Hetfield, and Araya, even though he quit Overkill on 1987! Still a fun trip down metal memory lane, in spite of Rat's "I started it, I did everything, me me me" attitude.

[Rev. Powell]

Host (2020)- I was very surprised to see that this had hundreds of reviews on IMDB. I was expecting maybe...3? It's a very nondescript found footage ish thing apparently made during COVID. I guess maybe some clever person marketed it along those lines?
2.75 /5

I liked it. We watched it during Covid - early in the pandemic, too, iirc, like maybe mid-summer '20? - and I remember it being quite an event, like, How cool these people who are stuck inside like us immediately made a movie from their own homes! ...Instead of just sitting around bored and scared. Again, I recall people wondering if there would even be any more movies produced during the pandemic (or after). The human spirit finds a way!

The playwright Richard Nelson wrote and produced a play titled WHAT DO WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT? on Zoom in maybe April of 2020, and it generated some income for its cast and for NYC's Public Theater. I kept my annual summer theatre program alive on Zoom that summer, w/ all our students online in their bedrooms every day and for the "live" virtual final show. In the Fall I wrote and produced a one-hour play titled (and about) BIGFOOT! The actors performed it live from their homes, we streamed, and we just cut in the climactic (pre-produced) appearance by the big hungry hairy guy. It was a Time! I wouldn't ever choose to do that stuff again, mind you, if I had other options, which I do. Likewise HOST might not play well if you can watch absolutely anything else new.  But it was a welcome gesture that summer!

If I may ask, since you mentioned "our students" and writing a play, are you a theater teacher?

[M.10rda]

Did you see ...THE TV GLOW? I did.

I SAW THE TV GLOW (2024):
In 1996 two lonely adolescents bond, and obsess, over a supernatural Young Adult TV series; 20 years later, both struggle to distinguish which elements of their dark pasts were real and which were products of their feverish fandom. I SAW THE TV GLOW was on my radar but Madame pushed to watch it as she heard it was inspired by "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", of which Madame was an obsessive fan in her youth. Indeed, writer/director Jane Schoenbrun acknowledges that "The Pink Opaque", the lore-driven serial in the movie, is an amalgam of elements from "Buffy" and TWIN PEAKS, and I suppose you could find parallels to THE X-FILES, too.

The film has already developed a fervid following of its own among viewers who relate to the two leads. I surely relate to the obsessive fandom - TWIN PEAKS probably saved my life in junior high, as "Pink Opaque" does for this film's male lead. I can also relate to and think Schoenbrun does an excellent job portraying painful social awkwardness that transcends normal HS genre conventions and veers realistically into what in this century we know as neurodivergence. Although I can't  personally relate to gender dysphoria, that's another strong strain that runs through ISTTVG and many viewers clearly have latched onto it. And, not for nothing, there are several striking sequences in this film, including a few which reflect clear Lynchian influence.

Yet Madame ended up hating ISTTVG by the end, and I ended up ambivalent. Schoenbrun's screenplay (and one of its main characters) promise that the plot will enter the full-tilt horror terrain of "The Pink Opaque", yet it never does, and Madame resented that, as clearly do many of this film's detractors. I understand what Schoenbrun was trying to do by upending her audience's expectations, but the film has so many headlong digressions into Horror (including some outright Cronenbergian body stuff at the end) that its refusal to commit to non-realism begins to feel arbitrary and a bit maddening. Although the plot hinges on the male lead's uncertainty about his own reality, the narrative consistently contradicts itself about what the audience is supposed to believe in a way that feels diffident rather than provocative. It doesn't help that the film ends on a flat, anti-climactic, almost jokey note.

The film does explore one really chewy idea: that content exists in one form in memories but another distinct form in media, whether physical or digital. Schoenbrun also discusses this at length in interviews, remarking that fraught scenes from "Buffy" and TWIN PEAKS, especially cliffhangers, lived vividly and forebodingly in her young mind while playing out in more pedestrian fashions on TV. I didn't watch a lot of "Buffy" but I can relate this phenomenon to my exposure to the original "Dark Shadows" and to Tom Baker's run on "Doctor Who".  I'll also admit that the climax of Episode 14 of TWIN PEAKS, where BOB  kills his first victim since Laura, seemed like the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen when broadcast in 1990, yet didn't retain its brutal force when I revisited it again 10 years back. To be fair, the way Lynch handled that violence was unlike anything that most viewers had seen on network TV on its first transmission, and I wasn't the only one to feel its impact. A lot worse, more graphic violence has aired since then and inured viewers, but for the record, TP's Season 2 finale is still as bizarre and frightening today as it was in '91, or moreso, and the terror scenes on "Pink Opaque" as the leads experience them resemble these TP scenes more than they do Nickelodeon's "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" or something, as Schoenbrun seems to be intimating. Nevertheless it's a rich "research question", as they say in higher ed...

3/5
But Schoenbrun also casts Fred Durst in a supporting role and speaks of her great admiration for Limp Bizkit in interviews, so, I'm taking her with just a few grains...

[M.10rda]

Host (2020)- I was very surprised to see that this had hundreds of reviews on IMDB. I was expecting maybe...3? It's a very nondescript found footage ish thing apparently made during COVID. I guess maybe some clever person marketed it along those lines?
2.75 /5

I liked it. We watched it during Covid - early in the pandemic, too, iirc, like maybe mid-summer '20? - and I remember it being quite an event, like, How cool these people who are stuck inside like us immediately made a movie from their own homes! ...Instead of just sitting around bored and scared. Again, I recall people wondering if there would even be any more movies produced during the pandemic (or after). The human spirit finds a way!

The playwright Richard Nelson wrote and produced a play titled WHAT DO WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT? on Zoom in maybe April of 2020, and it generated some income for its cast and for NYC's Public Theater. I kept my annual summer theatre program alive on Zoom that summer, w/ all our students online in their bedrooms every day and for the "live" virtual final show. In the Fall I wrote and produced a one-hour play titled (and about) BIGFOOT! The actors performed it live from their homes, we streamed, and we just cut in the climactic (pre-produced) appearance by the big hungry hairy guy. It was a Time! I wouldn't ever choose to do that stuff again, mind you, if I had other options, which I do. Likewise HOST might not play well if you can watch absolutely anything else new.  But it was a welcome gesture that summer!

If I may ask, since you mentioned "our students" and writing a play, are you a theater teacher?

I am an English teacher and I run a theatre camp every summer and sometimes during the year. Thanks for asking!

[FatFreddysCat]

"Party Line" (1988)
A twisted brother-and-sister duo are on a killing spree, knocking off would-be swingers that they connect with on a "party line" phone service. A cop and a D.A. try to stop them before they claim their next victim.
A delightfully sleazy low budget T&A slasher flick with an amazing cast of '80s d-listers like Richard "Battlestar Galactica" Hatch, Shawn "Baywatch" Weatherly, and even 70s teen heart throb Leif frickin' Garrett (!) as the razor-wielding psycho. Cheap but entertaining junk that's worth a look, especially if you're old enough to remember the days when late-night TV was loaded with "party line" commercials.