Recent Viewings, Part 2

[lester1/2jr]

Cold Hell (2017) - This is sort of the "foreign film" version of a Cannon/ Michael Dudikoff action movie from the 80's. Generic and implausible plot stuff, but with artsy looking people and situations meant to press all the Friday night at Coolidge Corner Theater buttons. The big selling point is the main actress whatever her name is. She's very pretty and looks like what people think young women in Williamsburg, Brooklyn look like, though she's actually from Uzbekistan.

A cab driver in Austria gets seen by a serial killer who sees her looking out her window at him serial killing someone. Here's the first plot problem: when we first meet her, we learn she is a champion Thai kick boxer, of all things. She beats up 2 different men BEFORE she is seen by the serial killer guy. 100% of the people watching this will not understand why then is she so afraid of one guy holding maybe a knife at best? Why does she think he will come after her? Why would he if he (apparently) kills prostitutes and she isn't one?

This could have been cleared up by him having the thing called a gun and/ or maybe him GRADUALLY getting inside her head some way or something. The rest of the plot movements are similarly clunky, but the acting is pretty decent. You can kind of see it on their faces that they know it's sort of a mess.

A decent effort in some respects, but certainly not a home run.

I'll go 3.8/ 5

Foreign film buffs might put it higher, action/ thriller fans probably lower. Title is random.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Phantom Empire" (1987)

Cave explorers stumble into a hidden underground world populated by flesh eating mutants, dinosaurs, cave girls in bikinis, and an alien warrior queen who wants to capture the surface dwellers and make them her slaves.
 
There's a lot to unpack in this campy, schlocky flick, which is supposedly based on a 1930s Gene Autry movie serial by the same name. It was written and directed in six days by no-budget maestro Fred Olen Ray, and it's full of corny dialogue, plentiful T&A, and stock footage borrowed from other movies. A few familiar faces like Michelle "Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers" Bauer, Sybil Danning, and Jeffrey "Re-Animator" Combs do their best with the thin material. Hell, there's even a cameo by Robby the Robot from "Forbidden Planet!"

Make no mistake, this movie was crap, but it was strangely entertaining crap.

[indianasmith]

"Strangely entertaining crap" describes a LOT of the movies we watch here!

[M.10rda]

Supergirl (2026)
Not bad. Nowhere near as bad as some are making it out to be. 

I had no idea about how "some" were making it out to be, nor about its poor box office.
I haven't had 3 hours to go to the drive-in and watch it, but I'd been excited and am bummed that much of the spin is anti-DC (not a novel thing), anti-Gunn (unsurprising), and anti-female (the stalest $#!t ever).

I really don't think it should have bombed like it did.  And yes, the criticisms made by a certain type of online personality have gotten even more annoying and bothersome at this point.   

SUPERGIRL (2026):
We finally watched this on Prime - and paid for the rental, and I don't regret it. I think it's Better, or at least an easier movie to enjoy, than 2017's WONDER WOMAN (which I liked) - and maybe for that matter better and easier to enjoy than Gunn's lore-dense SUPERMAN (ditto). The action is terrific, the SFX are terrific, there are a handful of gorgeous shots (courtesy of the director of LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, of all things). A lot of the screenplay (from a first-timer) is deft and well-handled, a bit of it is OTN and could've used a light polish. Milly Alcock (who I disliked on "House of the Dragon", though honestly I checked out of that early) is a sympathetic and multi-dimensional Supergirl; Jason Momoa is an ideal Lobo. (Madame commented at one point that she thought he was doing Michael Keaton as Betelgeuse, and indeed - comic book Lobo unquestionably lent inspiration to the titular BEETLEJUICE and then became more like Keaton's character after the movie was a hit. As in Gunn's GOTG3 and SUPERMAN, the antagonist is truly despicable - a positive thing, I think, in this kind of movie.

In spite of some sub-Gunn needle drops, I'm unsure what a legitimate condemnation of SUPERGIRL might be. We saw Supergirl for 30 seconds in SUPERMAN, thus maybe the smarter move would've been to develop her as a supporting character in that film. But Gunn promised (for better or worse) to do two things w/ his DC movies - one, to refrain from making any one film dependent on another (mission accomplished here) and two, to exploit different genres. On the latter point one might object that Supergirl isn't much of a superhero movie (neither was WONDER WOMAN) - but it's a great sci-fi action movie.

I imagine the final reasonable objection would be that SUPERGIRL wears its non-comic influences on both sleeves and its back - w/ Daenerys Targaryen's great-grandmother and Khal Drogo aiding a defenseless Arya Stark on a revenge mission against Immortan Joe's army of steampunk r@pists - but as an enormous FURY ROAD stan and the world's biggest (o.g.) GAME OF THRONES stan, I am immune.    4/5

[M.10rda]

DOUBLE DOOR (1934):
Three adult siblings live in their family's Manhattan mansion: Rip, who's about 30 and about to be married; Caroline, who's 42 and single; and Victoria, who must be around 80 and is pure evil. Victoria lives to psychologically and sometimes physically torment Rip and Caroline, and now plans to literally murder her lovely new sister-in-law Anne if Anne won't get in line to take her share of licks. DOUBLE DOOR is about 30 years early for the oldsploitation genre of the 60s and 70s (BABY JANE, SWEET CHARLOTTE, the films of Curtis Harrington) but that makes it nicely offbeat for its vintage. Some of its high-contrast B+W photography looks spookier than anything in Tod Browning or James Whale. All of the supporting acting is good, there's a bit more psychological insight than in most films of the era, and although her family struggles to endure her sadism to keep the peace, Victoria is smartly denied much possibility for sympathy and any redemptive values. As a result, she's (again) a scarier monster than Dracula or Frankenstein or the Wolfman. DOUBLE DOOR's hook is undeniable: will her family escape her homicidal wrath and will Victoria receive her just comeuppance?

But the film has three small or equivocal issues. One is the titular DOUBLE DOOR, which figures prominently in the action but, at the very end, functions predictably and satisfyingly, though not quite as established. A second is subjective: the older I get, the less patience I have with films about BPD-suffering narcissists abusing their loved ones. ZELLY AND ME (which is, to be fair, a great movie) drove me up the wall as a teenager - but that's a film about a helpless little girl w/ no recourse against her grandmonster. All of the victims in DOUBLE DOOR are adults, and though the film provides rationale for why they might feel like they need to put up w/ Victoria, I don't feel like I need to be held hostage with them and by Victoria... I got real toxic people in my own life to be held hostage by!

That caveat segues into but also somewhat mitigates my final "issue" w/ DOUBLE DOOR. Plenty of reviews on Letterboxd claim that Mary Morris' performance as Victoria is the best or only reason to watch the film. Morris originated the role onstage, and the fact that this was her only screen appearance automatically made me curious to check out her performance. Once I had, I admit I understood Morris' short film career. She gives a rather unidimensional - even "flat", shall we say - performance. If one was to say Good Acting was about being Entertaining (which I'm only suggesting per diabolic advocacy), one could suggest that every other member of the cast is more Entertaining or watchable than Morris. But, alas, real sociopaths aren't "entertaining", like the Joker or Hannibal Lecter or Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman. The malignant narcissists that I know are boring people - boring like the character Patrick Bateman is in his real (rather than his fantasy) life - who have little sense of humor and no imagination besides a pervasive paranoia about how everyone else's behavior is negatively impacting them. They aren't "entertaining" - they're miserable to be around. (One might also cite the outspoken insult comic who occupies the Oval Office, whose antics somehow amused a sizeable number of easily entertained Americans for a decade, but whose plummeting poll numbers reflect a growing disinterest and boredom even on behalf of his fanbase.)

Mary Morris as Victoria is miserable to be around - though I stuck with DOUBLE DOOR to see her get what was coming to her. I suppose Morris deserves props for giving a highly realistic - boring, loathsome - performance!    3/5    Kent Taylor (who plays her brother) showed up in tons of cheaper, less-well-made (though more entertaining!) horror movies in the 50s and 60s.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Biohazard" (1985)
A military experiment gone wrong brings an inter-dimensional alien creature to Earth, which promptly goes on a killing spree. A studly government agent and a large-breasted psychic lady (one-time "Star Trek" siren Angelique Pettyjohn) must put a stop to it. Yes, that's the whole plot.
Another Z-grade sci-fi/horror flick from no-budget auteur Fred Olen Ray, full of his trademark cheap FX, plentiful gore, and a healthy amount of T&A. Watchable if you've got a few beers in you.
Fun fact: the actor in the alien suit is Ray's then-8-year-old son Chris!