Recent viewings

[Torgo]

FROST/NIXON  ***1/2 out of ****.  Riveting political drama from director Ron Howard.  Falters a bit during the final act, but overall extremely well done if not at all times historically accurate.

[Jack]

Starship Troopers 2 - Despite what 99% of the people who have seen this say, I thought it was really good.  Some Mobile Infantry are stuck on a desolate planet, hold up in a fortress surrounded by bugs, while unbeknownst to them the bugs have a more insidious plan to get at them, from the inside!  Good characters, likable (or unlikable, as the case may be), well developed, good action, gruesome gore, boobies, you name it, this movie's got it.  You even get your choice of Dolby 5.1 or DTS soundtracks - I thought the Dolby track was much better.  4/5.

Flu Bird Horror - Some kids from juvenile hall are on a "wilderness adventure" type thing out in the woods, and are attacked by pterodactyls.  Actually I guess they're mutated condors, whatever.  I was initially put off by the kids with all their hip-hop dialog and crap, but once the movie got going, they actually turned out to be fairly interesting.  They think little of leaving the wounded guy out as bait for the birds so the rest of them can get away.  It's much more interesting than the usual bunch of Dudley Doorights screaming and whining for 90 minutes.  3/5.

[indianasmith]

EDMOND - A slightly better than usual IFC offering.  William H. Macy plays a mild-mannered accountant type who gets bored with his wife, ditches her, tries to score with a series of prostitutes, gets robbed, pawns his wedding ring, cuts up a would-be mugger, seduces a waitress, kills said waitress, verbally terrorizes an elderly black woman, then tries to get up and testify in a black church when the police arrest him.  He goes to jail, gets sodomized by his black cellmate, bawls out a preacher, writes a wistful letter to his high school prom date's mother, and ends the movie philosphizing about the meaning of life for ten minutes, then spooning with the black cellmate who sodomized him his first night in prison.

On second thought, this movie contained just about every single theme I hate about independent films . . .

[Doggett]

Jurassic Park

5/5

Flawless.

[vanlutz]

Man of the World 4/5
We're Not Dressing 5/5

Carole Lomabard was absolutely gorgeous. There was an extra added surprise of Burns and Allen in We're Not Dressing.

[Doggett]

Mary Shelly's Frankenstein

4/5

Much better than it's reputation.

[Jack]

Dr. No (1962) - Sean Connery stars in the first, the original James Bond movie.  Ahhhh...the good old days when movies were made for adults, and if the kiddies fell asleep because there wasn't a ginormous CGI effects sequence every 5 minutes, well, so be it.  A time when films were made by film makers - not by teams of accountants running spreadsheets on the buying power of various demographic groups. 

These MGM Ultimate Editions are awesome - the frame-by-frame restorations look spectacular on our HDTV and the soundtrack is rich and powerful - not that tinny mono sound I'm used to hearing on these movies.

[lester1/2jr]

sex is zero (2002)-  oh boy.  this is the korean take on the american teen movie.  I watched the whole thing with the commentary from the guy from mr skin.com  who accurately points out which movie each respective scene is borrowed from either intentionally or not.  Bring it On, Fast times at Ridgemount High, Last American Virgin, all reaer their juvenile heads.  I tend towards the more anarchistic side of this genre like NOt another teen movie,  Revenge of the Cheerleaders, and so forth moreso than say American Pie so I was a little disspointed with the blandness of the characters and general mainstream friendly  romantic comedy sort of approach.   the high point of the commentary was the two guys salvo against the PG 13 rating and agree  strongly that it made stuff like "bring it on" less classic than it could have been.  bring back nudity!!  this has it.

[Doggett]

The Transporter
4/5 Jason Stathams accent ia a complete mystery...

Star Trek 2 The Wrath of Khan
4/5 I could've done with out the Kirk's son thing.

Severance
2/5 I could've done with a better film.

[Torgo]

LAKEVIEW TERRACE      *** out of ****.  Samuel Jackson is great in this flick about an LAPD cop that is trying to force out the newly moved in interracial couple that has moved in next door.    The movie gets a bit far fetched as it goes along, particularly in the final act, but is still entertaining and fairly thought provoking.    Would have worked better though if it had been made as an R rated film though.  

[Jack]

Miner's Massacre (2003) - a favorite of mine.  Some sexy babes and their boyfriends are chased around by the Miner 49er, who's ticked off about them stealing all the gold out of his mine.  Good characters, just a fun little movie. 

[lester1/2jr]

Darna Ang Pagbabalik (1994)  -      here's something new:  a superhero movie that has a great story and charismatic star but clunky action sequence and laughable special effects.  usually it's the opposite.    from clunky to chunky,  Darna's marilyn monroe style curves seem a poor fit for an action diva at first, but she really wins you over after you get to know her, mainly as the alter ego Narda.  Darna is a eastern version of Wonder Woman and the story recalls the nazi era Wonder Woman stories but it set in modern day Manilla, where an evil snake woman masquerading as a televangelist has much of the country under her spell with her melodramatic sermons predicting the end of the world.  The one decent special effect is this gross snake little monster woman thing.   the main downside is really the special effect where Darna flies, which is about up to 1950's  tv standards. 

[Doggett]

Se7en
4/5 - Uber cool.

[Doggett]

Evil Dead 2
5/5 Brilliant 

[lester1/2jr]

doggett-  have you ever seen "the game"?