Recent viewings

[JaseSF]

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951): A mysterious alien named Klaatu (Michael Rennie) lands on Earth with a message/warning for the human race.

This 1950s science fiction classic still holds up quite well in terms of its plot, the performances given by Rennie and Patricia Neal in particular, and perhaps best of all the fantastic Bernard Herrmann score. To me, it's every bit a sci-fi film masterpiece. Sure some of its FX are slightly dated by today's standards but for the time and era, it retains its charm. (How can you not love Gort?) ***** out of ***** stars.

Beat the Devil (1953): A group of international crooks/con artists with designs on presumably uranium rich land in Africa meet up with and befriend a traveling, seemingly well-to-do British couple named the Chelms. Mrs. Chelm (Jennifer Jones) is the dreamy sort who's a master at telling fibs and stories who quickly gets infatuated with scruffy rogue Billy Dannreuther (Humphrey Bogart) even if he is married. Confusion between said parties ensues.

This film has a certain delightful charm. It's clever, witty, and dry in terms of its dialogue, also humorous at times. The performances are good (aside from Bogie and Jones, also quite good here are Robert Morley, Peter Lorre, Gina Lollobrigida, and Edward Underdown as the seemingly clueless Harry Chelms). Some may be disappointed by the lack of seriousness with this one but I found it a refreshing change of pace. Very enjoyable film filled with great lines. **** out of ***** stars.

Atom Age Vampire (1960): A mad doctor named Prof. Alberto Levin (Alberto Lupo) uses an experimental treatment to restore disfigured dancer Jeanette Moreneau (Susanne Loret)'s face, goes on to fall in love with her, and eventually goes to great lengths (turning himself into a monster) to continue to restore her beauty when his experiments start to fail.

More or less, this is a mad doctor soap opera story. Combine the over-dramatics of soap opera love affairs with the histrionics of a mad doctor/monster on the loose horror film and you pretty much get this film. The women are nice to look at, the makeup effects are decent but there's really very little here that surprises. This one for me is a guilty pleasure bad movie. I know it's thrash but I always enjoy it nevertheless. Weird how they try and tie the horrors of Hiroshima with this too. Not a true bad movie classic but pretty close. ***1/2 out of ***** on a bad movie scale (regular viewers probably wouldn't put this above ** or **1/2).

Heidi (1993): Young 8-year old Heidi (Noley Thornton) is reunited with her ultra-gruff, reclusive mountain-dwelling grandfather (Jason Robards) whose most reluctant to said reunion. Eventually Heidi's brightness for life and the love she shares for the mountains with her grandfather begins to affect the old man but just as he begins to let down his guard, Heidi is whisked away once again to Frankfurt to be a friend/companion to a wheelchair bound Klara (Lexi Randall) but Heidi never stops dreaming of returning to her grandfather's beloved mountain landscape.

Despite the length of this film, it really doesn't feel like it's over 3 hours long. The performances are so moving and realistic. This movie takes one through an emotional gamut/rollercoaster ride. It touches almost every emotion at some point or another and the story takes us through moments of great grief to moments of great joy and back again. It's a story of family, of love, of friendship, of forgiveness, of home, of finding oneself. The only real flaw here is a couple of characters who never seem to grow and develop beyond being slightly villainous caricatures, that of the greedy, selfish cousin Dete (Jane Hazlegrove) and  the staunch and strict Fräulein Rottenmeier (Jane Seymour). Aside from that, this is a fun and charming Disney TV Movie classic. A quality film. **** out of ***** stars.

[RCMerchant]

Beat the Devil (1953): A group of international crooks/con artists with designs on presumably uranium rich land in Africa meet up with and befriend a traveling, seemingly well-to-do British couple named the Chelms. Mrs. Chelm (Jennifer Jones) is the dreamy sort who's a master at telling fibs and stories who quickly gets infatuated with scruffy rogue Billy Dannreuther (Humphrey Bogart) even if he is married. Confusion between said parties ensues.

This film has a certain delightful charm. It's clever, witty, and dry in terms of its dialogue, also humorous at times. The performances are good (aside from Bogie and Jones, also quite good here are Robert Morley, Peter Lorre, Gina Lollobrigida, and Edward Underdown as the seemingly clueless Harry Chelms). Some may be disappointed by the lack of seriousness with this one but I found it a refreshing change of pace. Very enjoyable film filled with great lines. **** out of ***** stars.










[/quote]

BEAT the DEVIL is fantastic-one of my favorite Lorre films!-and Bogie,of course-but Peter Lorre steals the show,for me. It was a money loser-because it was at least 10 years ahead of it's time.

The cast alone makes it a must see! It's just so much fun!

Beat the Devil Trailer

[claws]

Dream Demon (1988)

Diana, a young woman about to get married to royalty has wedding jitters: awful wedding gown nightmares with her soon-to-be husband abusing her. Things get even more complicated when Diana encounters two sleazy reporters shouting inappropriate obscenities. Diana finds a friend in Jenny, a fearless American on vacation in England because of weird deja-vu feelings towards Diana's flat. Soon enough it is revealed that Diana is causing deadly nightmares fueled by an evil supernatural force.

At times gory Elm Street type of horror with the occasional Poltergeist and odd Princess Diana reference. Script appears to be kind of misogynistic, Diana's character must endure lots of male abuse ("slut!") while showing skin in other scenes. Still made for an somewhat interesting watch. 3/5

[Rev. Powell]

MST3K: WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST: The short, "Mr. B-Natural," features an androgynous dancing man who appears to a confused adolescent boy and convinces him to play the trumpet; the feature film is a senseless sequel to THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN. "Mr. B-Natural," and the subsequent debate between Crow and Tom regarding the musical pixie's sex, are about the funniest 20 minutes the show ever did, but the feature is a complete dog. 3.5/5 averaged overall.

[FatFreddysCat]

"All Star Superman" (2011)
ALL STAR SUPERMAN Trailer

A grimmer-than-usual animated Superman adventure. The Big Red "S" is dying from an overdose of solar radiation, but before he passes he has a final battle against Lex Luthor and must save Earth from being destroyed by a massive cosmic threat. All in a day's work, in other words.

[claws]

Shocking Dark (1989)

Venice, Italy some time in the future: the world is a mess and experiments went awry in some underground laboratory. A rouge team of Marines ("MegaForce") are called in to explore and destroy mutants roaming the halls...

Italian remake of Aliens (1986) with The Terminator (1984) thrown in for good measure. Director Bruno Mattei re-filmed scenes after scenes from both movies and the outcome is surprisingly boring. Yes, its cheesy with a non-existent budget and there are a few bad lines of dialogue. But everything remains flat and dull. 1/5

Slumber Party Massacre II (1987)

Courtney wants to party hard with her girlfriends over the weekend at an empty house somewhere in the suburbs. She also invited her crush, hunky Matt, so everything should be fine, right? Wrong.

Slasher filled with music, nightmares and portions of absurd comedy: the Freddy Krueger-like Elvis-looking killer turns every kill into a comedic rock 'n' roll musical, which seems totally out of place with the more serious tone of the movie. Other than that they say "weird" at least eight times. 2.75/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Justice League: War" (2014)
Justice League: War - Trailer

The animated origin story of the "New 52" version of the Justice League. Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Wonder Woman, Cyborg and Shazam all meet for the first time and team up to battle an invasion of Earth by Darkseid and his army of Para-Demons. Lots of bashing, smashing and exploding ensues. Another quality flick from the DC Animated Universe.

[lester1/2jr]

Evening Primrose (1967) - I was going through old Shock Cinema issues and found a review of this and decided to check it out. I'm a little surprised it isn't better known as it has Anthony Perkins in black and white a la Psycho and the music was done by Steve Sondheim. One problem I think is the quality isn't all that great, not as bad as that version of the Lathe of Heaven but not too sharp either.

Evening Primrose - "If You Can Find Me, I'm Here" (Stephen Sondheim) - Restored DVD

The plot is kind of like that episode of Twilight Zone where the mannequins come to life except the reverse. Perkins is a guy who hides in a store past closing and discovers he wasn't the first to have that idea: there are people who pretend to be mannequins there who have been doing so since the Taft administration! He falls in love with one, played by Charmian Carr who was Liesl in The Sound of Music, and it sets off all kinds of pandemonium.

There's quite a bit of singing and while the story does have it's sort of creepy moments it's made for primetime tv. It's not Carnival of Souls or WASP Woman or something.

I enjoyed it, the girl was pretty and the music and plot was clever in places. 4/5

[Rev. Powell]

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968): A mission to Jupiter to investigate the appearance of a mysterious black monolith is jeopardized by a malfunctioning artificial intelligence unit. More than a science fiction classic, this is a mystical masterpiece about evolution that should be a holy text of secular humanism. Even better than I remembered---if I didn't include this in my top 10 films of all time, I need to fix that. 5/5.

[claws]

The Strangeness (1980)

Hired cave dwellers exploring abandoned gold mine encounter monster.
The origins of the monster are never explained, though they mention the mine lies on Indian ground. Special effects can get laughably bad at times, and the stop motion creature is just not scary at all. The fact that literally NOTHING happens during the first hour can make for a tiresome watch, because the characters aren't really interesting enough to care about their conversations. And talking they do a lot. Still, The Strangeness is more ambitious than the usual no budget crap but I can understand when people dislike it as well. 3.25/5

The Killing Hour (1982)

Young woman with psychic abilities drawn into a murder case becomes the center of romantic attention between an investigating cop and the host of a TV talk show.
Gritty and disturbing at times, plus you just gotta love early 1980s New York setting. Reminded me of Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) which isn't a bad thing actually. 3.5/5

Trapped (1982)

Four friends on a weekend vacation in rural backwoods county witness a gruesome murder. Police doesn't seem to care, and soon enough the four friends are captured by a clan of evil hillbillies with nasty intentions.
Solid backwoods exploitation with a good amount of action and a slasher-like ending. Henry Silva delivers as the evil hillbilly clan leader. 3.75/5  

[Jack]

Animal (2014) - some young people go for a hike in the woods and a monster kills one of them while the rest flee to the safety of a nearby cabin. Three other people are already taking shelter there as well. For the next hour or so the nasty critter lurks about outside, occasionally making attempts to break through the very flimsy looking boarded up windows etc. The characters fight, betray each other, and by the time the gay guy told the main girl that he was having a relationship with her now dead boyfriend...I thought I'd wandered into an episode of the Jerry Springer show. The monster was cool and I enjoyed the ending; kind of a decent payoff for suffering through these idiots for 90 minutes. 2.5/5.

Primal (2010) - some young people go out into the forests of Australia to see some cave paintings. Unfortunately there's this pond with some weird stuff in it - if you go swimming in in, you'll turn into a gnarly toothed homicidal predator. Not good news for the folks who didn't go swimming, and of course there's no way for them to get away. I really liked this; good characters, nice atmosphere, some gruesome gore, and just a hint of dark humor about it. 4/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Green Lantern: Emerald Knights" (2011)
Green Lantern: Emerald Knights - Trailer

I am really digging these DC Animated Universe flicks lately, in case you couldn't tell. [:lol:]   As the Green Lantern Corps prepares to battle yet another massive cosmic threat to the entier universe, Hal Jordan (voiced by Nathan "Castle" Fillion) educates a new G.L. recruit about the incredible feats performed by some of the Corps' legendary past Lanterns. As usual with these flicks, it's nicely animated with plenty of action.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan" (2013)
Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan

Cool documentary about the legendary stop-motion animator and creature creator behind such classic films as "Beast from 20,000 Fathoms," "Jason and the Argonauts," "Clash of the Titans," "Valley of Gwangi" and many more. Features lots of cool clips from his movies as well as kind words from famous fans like Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante and Guillermo del Toro.

[lester1/2jr]

This Girl Is Bad-Ass!! (2013) - The draw here is that girl from Chocolate, a really great martial arts movie, does a couple comedic style fight scenes. Mostly though, it's a cheap Thai comedy with a very thin plot. Some of the jokes/ characters are funny and some of the fight scenes are entertaining but not quite enough to recommend.

Raging Phoenix, her previous film, is similarly wacky and colorful but a lot more fun to watch.

2.5 / 5

[Rev. Powell]

This Girl Is Bad-Ass!! (2013) - The draw here is that girl from Chocolate, a really great martial arts movie, does a couple comedic style fight scenes. Mostly though, it's a cheap Thai comedy with a very thin plot. Some of the jokes/ characters are funny and some of the fight scenes are entertaining but not quite enough to recommend.

Raging Phoenix...

Is she River and Joaquin Phoenix' sister?