Recent viewings

[Jim H]

Black Christmas.  The original one.  As I'd expected, it's far superior to the remake (which I still enjoyed, but it wasn't a good film).  Genuinely creepy, with great atmosphere and some really chilling moments.  Great ending too.  I did feel the climax dragged on a bit, and the film slowed a little too much in the middle.  Still, very solid.  This is definitely the earliest slasher film that has ALL the notable features of the sub-genre in place, at least that I'm aware of (POV shots, young people in trouble, extended stalk and slash scenes, body reveal sequence, psychologically troubled killer, a final girl, red herrings, etc).

8/10

Adventures of Robin Hood.  I own this on DVD, but actually watched it on TV rather randomly.  It's always good.  Great writing, some hilarious dialogue, good action sequences, great pacing.  It's just great all-around.  My only major complaint: the finale is a little lackluster in comparison to the first major action scene with Robin Hood.  I like it when the finale is the most spectacular. 

9/10.

[Sleepyskull]

Kill Bill - Volume 1 (2003)

My friend introduced me to this and I am so glad! It was such a fun and cool looking movie!
13 out of 13 stars

[JaseSF]

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Crawling Eye (1958): Joel and the bots make their debut on the Comedy channel watching the Americanized version of The Trollenberg Terror. The skits here seem a bit rushed and haphazard and it's like they weren't fully prepared to be seen before such a wide audience.  For most of the film's running time, the riffing is kept to a minimum and really doesn't detract too much from enjoying the film, which is actually rather good monster movie IMO. At certain points, they actually did delve into the flaws the film has (honestly I consider them rather minor) and really dug into Forrest Tucker a bit. Later on, the riffing just starts to increase more and more. They get in a few funny lines but honestly the guys weren't at their best here in my opinion. I found it interesting that in the introduction extra on the DVD, Joel admits the film does deliver the goods it promises. Here I found myself more watching the film that listening to the riffing and for a large part of the film, the MST bunch seem more preoccupied with watching the film too. They really seemed to be trying to find themselves here and it shows. ** out of ***** for the episode. *** out of ***** for the film.

[Rev. Powell]

THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS (1961): A nuclear explosion turns noted Russian scientist Tor Johnson into a strangling beast.  Yes, it's one of the worst movies ever made, but its strangely dreamlike and full of delightfully nonsensical, dramatically delivered narration ("flag on the moon -- how did it get there?").  Even at only 54 minutes it can be a but of a trial to sit through but it's a classically bad movie from the inimitable Coleman Francis.  1.5/5, but everyone on this board should make it a point to see it.

DEAD SNOW (2009):  Eight Norwegian twenty-somethings go on a ski trip and are eventually menaced by an undead army of Nazis.  Almost nothing happens for 45 minutes, then the movie goes into overdrive trying to turn itself into the Scandinavian DEAD-ALIVE (BRAINDEAD), with acceptably bloody, if unoriginal, results.  3/5.  If you just like gory zombie attacks, you'll want to rate this higher, but you'll have to be patient through the long, uneventful setup. 

[Joe the Destroyer]

Iron Man 2- Fun movie with plenty of story and likable characters.  Oh, and explosions.  Can't forget those.     My only qualm was that the final fight with Iron Man/War Machine vs. Ivan Vanko should have been a little longer.  It ended so quickly. 

[asimpson2006]

Breaker! Breaker! * and half out of **** - I wasn't expecting much from this film, and because of that I guess I wasn't as disappointed as much as I would have been if I had high expectations.  The film felt too boring overall, which there wasn't enough ass kicking overall.  Plus I didn't like the ending since it was just there and not really complete.

[Sleepyskull]

Dead Heat (1988)

Very goofy, but lots of fun. Great story!  The biggest problem is it felt (I'm struggling for a good way to describe it) bland at times. The butcher shop scene was great! 

9.8 out of 13 stars

[Jack]

Piranha, Piranha! (1972) - A guy and his emotionally unstable sister go to Venezuela to do some photography.  They meet up with their guide, and then we get to listen to an entire folk song as they ride motorcycles out to a small town in the jungle.  They meet a hunter and he and the guide have  a 10 minute motorcycle race.  One of them hits a bump and wipes out, that made me chuckle.  That was the best part of the whole movie actually.  Then they go to a diamond mine, and we get to watch people dig holes and wallow in the mud for another 10 minutes.  This thing has more padding than Angelina Jolie in that first Tomb Raider movie.  Eventually the hunter rapes the dingy chick and kills her brother, and the guide and the woman try to escape back to civilization.  There's piranhas in here, right?  Yeah, for about 5 seconds.  They are featured in the climax at least, right?  Um, oddly enough, no.  If you're in the mood to see a whole bunch of wildlife footage from Venezuela, you could probably sit through this.  2.5/5.

[HappyGilmore]

Iron Man 2- Great sequel jam packed with plenty of humor, decent acting and good action sequences.  I'd put it up there with some of the few sequels that were as good and enjoyable as their predecessors, but wouldn't say it TOPPED the first.

Observe and Report- the OTHER mall cop/mall security film from last year, only starring Seth Rogen instead of Kevin James.  Rogen plays a Bi-Polar mall security guard who seemingly has anger issues and a restraining order against him from several mall employees.  A flasher is on the loose, and he targets several female customers and employees, and Rogen's job as security is to rid the mall of the nuisance.  He fails, and in comes psychotic Ray Liotta as a police detective.   Enjoyable comedy.

[spongekryst]

Observe and Report

This magnificent film is incomparable to the sad excuse for comedy Mall Cop. Kevin James is not funny and never has been. 


 

[The Gravekeeper]

I just finished watching "Poltergeist" since I found it on DVD for $8. Sure, the CG effects didn't really stand up after all these years, but it was one of the first horror movies I ever saw. Lots of nostalgia and there's still lots about it that I like. Besides, the sight of a guy peeling his own face off is still gross and kinda creepy.

[Jim H]

Just saw Treasure of the Sierra Madre.  It's truly great.  Great acting, great writing, great score, great storyline, great structure - even some quite good action, and great pacing too.  It's hard to think of anything negative to say about the film, really.

10/10.

[lester1/2jr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaTsmXaw5NQ

Outrage (the glass closet) (2009)-  Found out about this while reading a thread on the rentboy scandal guy. At first it didn't seem worth checking out: wow there are republicans who are secretly gay. I don't care about peoples sexuality and frankly, while I'm sympathetic to the struggle of gay people in society I don't really see gay rights as a big defining issue of our day like war or the economy. It's reasonable to lobby for Gay marriage and so forth, but in some cases they aren't really life and death issues, they seem more like wants than needs. So it doesn't strike me as particularly awful that these guys would vote against, say, repealing don't ask don't tell.

However, I have to admit If I WERE into those issues it would probably be pretty freakin annoying that these guys were out 1. having fake hetrosexual relationships for the cameras while 2. being gay and then also 3. carrying the family values party line. Certainly you can be a republican and be gay and not be a hypocrite for this. At the same time, If you are going to be up there slamming gay adoption and gay marriage, how can you realistically expect other gay people who support those things to refrain from saying "hey wait a minute, I know that guy"? Outrage highlights this tension and paints the outers in a pretty much uniformly sympathetic light.

Larry Craig, Charlie Crist, and others are discussed. It wasn't one of the bigger segments but the one that fascinated me was this guy Mcrery I can't remember his name. He was gay, an atheist and liberal. All the sudden one day he has these "backers" and he is a candidate with a Stepford wife and right wing agenda. The falseness of his whole persona was really stark and creepy.

It's a little scattered sometimes but well made and definately worth checking out.

5/5

[JaseSF]

Wind Chill (2007): A girl (Emily Blunt) decides to take a ride-sharing ride home to Delaware with a guy (Ashton Holmes) she barely knows but who knows her surprisingly well. Disturbing as that is, eventually a wrong turn on to scenic Route 606, along an haunting stretch of wintery highway, leads them into an encounter with something even more frightening and beyond explanation.

For a supsense horror genre film from 2007, this film certainly doesn't follow expectation. It's a much more traditional style suspense thriller style of film. It starts off having a very creepy stalkerish vibe and then eventually descends into a web of repeating horror. It has some good scare moments and some effectively creepy beings walking around but where Wind Chill works best is its lead characters feel surprisingly real and it's very easy to empathize with them for this reason, something that proves very important by the film's end when we realize the true terrible fate of one of our leads. That said, this movie does have some problems. It's perhaps a bit too talky, admittedly somewhat by necessity since you largely have only two characters in a car for most of the film's running time and the main evil villain of the piece to me isn't quite as terrifying as he truly ought to be. Also the ending doesn't quite satisfy although it does create some very touching, moving scenes. A mixed bag...has some good moments and deserves credit for trying to do something more original in the classic genre style but doesn't quite fully satisfy in some ways in terms of delivering true outright terror although it has some good scares here and there. **1/2 out of *****

[Jack]

Open Graves (2009) - A group of young people are given a game in which the winner gets a wish granted, while the losers all die.  They think it's just silly superstition, of course.  So they play it and they start dying, kind of like Final Destination in that respect.  The action moves along pretty well and it never gets boring.  Unfortunately I couldn't care less about any of these characters, so it was totally uninvolving - just a plot unfolding on screen.  The ending was sooooooo freakin' predictable.  3/5.