Recent viewings

[Jack]

The Maze (1953) - A young couple get engaged, but the husband-to-be has to run off to Scotland to check on a sick (dying?) relative.  But he doesn't come back!  So his little bride goes to Scotland to see what's going on, and finds him very stand-offish and living in a spooky old castle.  What's up with this guy?  She spends the movie trying to find out.  This was pretty darned good up until the climax, which was freakin' ridiculous.  It not only fails to offer any sort of satisfactory explanation for his behavior, but it made me laugh my butt off.  Oh well, I liked it up until then.  The female lead carried the movie quite well, and the castle and it's very severe servants set a spooky mood.  3.75/5.

[Rev. Powell]

IDIOTS & ANGELS (2008): A loathsome man who spends his days in a bar and enjoys squashing butterflies grows a pair of wings on his back that have a mind of their own.  It features great non-verbal, animated storytelling and inventive animation in that mildly surreal Bill Plympton style, a hip soundtrack by Pink Martini and Tom Waits, and comedy that's wicked and dark without surrendering to nihilism.  An under-the-radar winner.  4.5/5.

[JaseSF]

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966): Luther Heggs (Don Knotts), a scaredy cat reporter hoping to finally nail down a big story agrees to spend the night in his local town Rachel's most reputed haunted house on the 20th anniversary of a murder-suicide that happened there.

Fun harmless Knotts comedy has him basically frightened out of his wits throughout, something Knotts is usually quite capable of portraying. Also on hand as his potential love interest is Joan Staley, Dick Sargeant as his boss and Skip Homeier as the rival for Staley's affections and for reporting gigs at the paper. This was alright but wasn't fantastically funny but it was consistently amusing and features a good mix of comedy and horror elements with even a bit of court drama thrown in at the end. Not bad of its type. *** out of ***** stars.

[indianasmith]

NORWEGIAN NINJA - How could a movie with such an AWESOME title possibly stink so bad?  I wanted to like it.  I tried to like it.  But not only was its anti-American tone throughout almost insulting (not to mention its characterization of the Soviet Union as a "harmless neighbor state"), but it was BORING!  I fell asleep halfway through, and not even the end could perk me up.  I wanted so bad for this movie to be awesome, but it just . . . well . . . SUCKED.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Hangover"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhFVZsk3XEs

A Vegas bachelor party goes horribly wrong the next morning, when the three groomsmen wake up and can't find the groom. Worse, they have no recollection of anything that happened the night before. Mayhem ensues as they attempt to retrace their steps and find their friend.

...raunchy as hell comedy that was also one of the funniest flicks I've seen in ages!!

[Jack]

Attack the Block (2011) - some meteorites fall in South London, and they've carried alien critters along with them.  A street gang decides that instead of calling the cops they'll just fight the aliens themselves.  Oh man, this failed on pretty much every level.  The gang members - I guess they're supposed to be likable because they're about 15 years old?  They're thugs who assault and terrorize innocent women on their way home from work.  I certainly don't like them.  Their leader is a nothing more than a mindless primitive.  And then there's the aliens - they're about as dangerous as a pack of semi-tame dogs.  Sure it would be a problem having a pack of dogs loose in a city, but they mostly just want to kill the gang members anyway, and the movie becomes about 10% less annoying every time they do so.  The whole thing's got a comedic edge to it as well, which kills whatever tiny amount of drama it might have otherwise had.  2/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Eddy Murphy Delirious - This wasn't all that funny really , maybe I was just not in the mood, but Murphy's delivery was great and it was very natural and street level: lots of swearing. It was good, I don't know. It's the one where he is wearing the red leather outfit. 3.75/5

Louis CK shameless my least favorite Louis CK DVD. It's okay just not as amazing as his other ones. 4/5

[JaseSF]

The Fox and the Hound 2 (2006): provides kind of another chapter in the friendship of Copper the hounddog and Tod the Fox as pups with the pair getting entangled with a group of constantly bickering performing stray dogs at a local fair.

Honestly this was an entertaining enough bit of harmless fluff. It lacks all the gritty edge the original film had but almost all the classic film characters from the first film do appear here including Chief, Amos and Widow Tweed and are pretty much in character for the most part which surprised me to be honest. It also features some funny albeit somewhat repetitive chase scenes the first of which is by far the funniest as the later ones justt typically follow the same formula. Also added to the mix here is a lot of country style singing what with Reba McEntire providing the voice of Dixie, somewhat of the Diva dog of the Singin's Strays group and songs are performed by McEntire and Trisha Yearwood to name but two. Also providing the voices of the rest of the Singin' Strays, there's Patrick Swayze as Dixie's love interest/the band's leader Cash, Jeff Foxworthy as their human owner/fellow performer/banjo/harmonica player Lyle, Vicki Lawrence as wise ol' dog Granny Rose,  and Jim Cummings as the voices of Waylon and Floyd, two somewhat clueless dogs also in the band. Like I said, it's all in all harmless enough but pales in comparison to the first film. How tolerable you find it may well depend on how much you enjoy the country music performances although fans of the original should be at least pleased that they did stay true to the original characters in this direct to video sequel (of sorts). **1/2 out of ***** stars.

[InformationGeek]

Cars 2: I think I figured this film out.  This is not a Pixar movie.  This is a Dreamworks film disguised as a Pixar film.  It has the pop culture references, the tons of celebrity voice acting, and the sequelized feel of one.  If you look at the film like a Dreamworks' one, it's actually pretty decent.  Solid voice acting (your mileage may vary regarding Larry the Cable Guy), fun action, incredible CGI, enjoyable humor, and a fun story.  While the lesson may raise an eyebrow (Don't change yourself, everyone should change to stand you or something like that) and the enivormental message was extremely in your face to the point where it was hilarous, I enjoy this film quite a bit.  I give the film a 4 out of 5 in my book. Not the best animated film I saw this year, because Rango and Kung Fu Panda 2 were better.

[claws]

Uncle Buck (1989) Blu-ray

Haven't seen since VHS days, felt it was time for a re-visit so I bought the Blu-ray for cheap.
Classic Hughes, but not on par with The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles and Planes Trains & Automobiles. 3.5/5

[Jack]

Showdown at Area 51 (2007) - watched this again.  Been watching Farscape and so I was in the mood to see Gigi Edgley (Chiana) in one of her movie roles.  This is kind of, well, bad.  Two big tough alien dudes come to Earth to battle it out, trying to gain control of some MacGuffin which will either save or destroy the planet.  But which one to trust?  Our human heroes, Gigi and Jason London, are caught on the horns of a dilemma.  The writing was pretty bad, but the actors managed to make the best of it.  Plot was ridiculous, but oh well.  A truly memorable laugh-out-loud ending - "Invasion has been canceled, return to base".    Ah heck, Gigi looked cute.  3.75/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Pieces (1982) - This was a nice grindhouse meets straight to video horror movie with a good deal of murder and topless babes. There's a mystery about who the killer is that keeps you guessing (sort of) and it moves in a a straight to the point grindhouse manner. Some headscratching moments too. All in all very ripe for viewing for fans of this site. If you can appreciate stuff like that one where they are in the mall and the girls head blows up check it out 5/5

[indianasmith]

I watched something called CARVER: UNRATED last night. A fat redneck in bib overalls and a pilot's helmet and goggles slaughters a group of 20something campers who wander into his dwelling and find his secret cache of snuff films.  A pretty forgetful piece of torture porn with blood splatters aplent, plus the bonus of seeing a guy's testicle crushed with a pair of pliers.  Unless you get off on pointless cruelty with no real plot, this one is pretty forgettable. The two female campers were kinda cute, though.


Did I mention that this was supposedly (gasp!) based ON ACTUAL EVENTS?

[Jack]

Kong Island (1968) - Some mad scientist implants radio receivers into the brains of gorillas, allowing him to control them.  He's going to make the whole world his slaves!  Well, as soon as he carries out that surgical procedure on the remaining 6 billion people I guess.  But anyhow, he uses his mind-controlled gorillas to kidnap a girl, because he knows her boyfriend will come looking for her, and he wants to use him as his first human test subject.  Yeah, that's the plot.  But mostly this movie is about people sitting around and talking, standing around and talking, doing some dancing, and a WHOLE lot of walking through the jungle.  There's enough stock footage of jungle animals to fill a National Geographic documentary.  All accompanied by mellow music like you might have heard in an elevator back in about 1965.  Hoo-boy.  There's nothing resembling "Kong" by the way.  It's not even on an island for chrissakes, it's in Kenya.  The girl was very beautiful, but other than that I can't think of any reason to watch this.  My wife was sound asleep 11 minutes into it.  I envied her    2.5/5.

[claws]

Bridesmaids (2011) Blu-ray

The female answer to The Hangover I guess, but not your typical chick flick either. I thought it was hilarious. 4.5/5

The Breakfast Club (1985) Blu-ray

Classic Hughes that shines and sparkles on Blu-ray. Ok, not really but it offers more fine detail and looks way better than the DVD ever did. 5/5