Recent viewings

[Jim H]

Jim H -

You are right about the Soviets not doing the "empty rifle" charges at Stalingrad.
However, the Chinese did use that tactic with great efficiency in Korea.  They would send over a first wave armed with nothing but rocks and sticks, then a second wave with empty rifles and bayonets, then a third wave with ammunition clips to pick up the rifles from the fallen. Then as many fully armed waves as necessary to overwhelm the position.  Their strategy seemed to be to make their enemies use up all their ammunition. A philosophy of war-making apparently based on the old Doritos commercial:


"Crunch all you want.  We'll make more!"

That's interesting.  I've heard the Turks did a similar thing in WWI in some battles.  I can't remember which though.

But yeah, I've read about the Chinese in Korea.  Considering what they had to work with (usually poorly equipped and poorly trained soldiers), in both WWII and Korea, I think on the whole the Chinese did an excellent job.  Probably the most interesting bit: the Chinese killed quite a few Japanese soldiers in WWII at the Great Wall with these:

[lester1/2jr]

IndianaSmith- that's a good point. they kind of ran out of ideas. at least the ending wasn't totally absurd though.

[Rev. Powell]

THE ADVENTURES OF SHARKBOY AND LAVAGIRL IN 3-D (2005): A boy with a hyperactive imagination dreams up the superheroes Sharkboy and Lavagirl; when his dream journal is stolen, their home is taken over by tyrants, and so they appear and drag him into his own dream world to set things right.  It's a fast-paced kids movie with lots of pretty colors and cheap flashy special effects, but the cool thing is that most of it was actually written by a kid---director Richard Rodruguez's son Racer, then only 8 years old.  Kids tend to love it and their parents hate it, but if you can put yourself in the mindset of a child it's actually charming.  3/5.

THE HEAD HUNTER (1982): Uninvolving and a bit confusing, but it's something about a romance between a (North) Vietnam vet/killer-for-hire and a female reported investigating illegal sales of military-grade toxic gas.  Hong Kong action dreck made in the doldrums between the end of the kung fu boom and before the start of the New Wave, it's badly edited and underlit in key action scenes.  An early appearance by Chow Yun Fat, and it's for Chow Yun Fat completists only.  1.5/5. 

[Jim H]

THE HEAD HUNTER (1982): Uninvolving and a bit confusing, but it's something about a romance between a (North) Vietnam vet/killer-for-hire and a female reported investigating illegal sales of military-grade toxic gas.  Hong Kong action dreck made in the doldrums between the end of the kung fu boom and before the start of the New Wave, it's badly edited and underlit in key action scenes.  An early appearance by Chow Yun Fat, and it's for Chow Yun Fat completists only.  1.5/5.

Yeah, one of the weaker Chow Yun-Fat films, from his "Box Office Poison" days.  I might suggest, if you haven't seen it, to check out The Story of Woo Viet.  Somewhat reminds me of Head Hunter for some reason (probably the Vietnam Vet connection), and it's a year older.  But, of course, it's directed by Ann Hui of Boat People, and it's a way better film.  Probably the first really good film performance by CYF. 

[Jack]

Zombie Nightmare (1986) - watched the MST3K version of this.  Definitely a so-bad-it's-good movie, about a musclebound dude (who wears body oil all the time) who gets accidentally run over and killed by some partying teens.  His mom calls the local Voodoo lady who turns him into a zombie so he can take revenge on the teens.  Tia Carrere and Adam West are in this.  As Mike and the bots say, "Ooh, Tia Carrere, we might have to pay attention to this!"  I enjoyed it;  everything about it was ridiculous, but that added to the charm.  The MST3K crew made me chuckle a few times.  3.5/5.

[Cthulhu]

I just watched The burning (1981), and man, it was awesome.
Definitely a classic.

[lester1/2jr]

Cthulu- theres a new movie with cropsey. it's called "Cropsey"

[Cthulhu]

Cthulu- theres a new movie with cropsey. it's called "Cropsey"

Thank you.
Thank you so much!

[lester1/2jr]

I think it's the same thing

Pocket Ninjas (1997)- shockingly inept kids movie featuring some of the worst acting of all time, when you can even understand them with all the audio screw ups. When they are in a room they aren't loud enough , when they are up close the syncing is off.

Three kids dress up in these outfits and stop crimes. How they know the crimes are going to happen is never explained. They fight wearing roller blades which would be extremely difficult I would think. Much time is taken in "montages" of people practicing really basic looking karate, punching in unison, lamely stiking a heavy bag with no gloves on, even some very bad nunchucking.

Imagine if you taught a kids karate class and made a "movie" to watch at the party before the last day of class for summer vacation and it acidentally got released, that's what this is basically. The kids are likeable, the one kids Mom is hot in the way that a woman becomes interesting when you are watching a horrible movie and are looking for a distraction but she looks like a Mom really.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAiNaSr9PEI&feature=related

There is some quirky sped up physcial comedy stuff that puts it firmly in the "we know this sucks" camp but it still is trying to be a real kids movie. It's worth seeing for the villains face alone, he is some kind of plastic surgery casualty and it is something to behold. Not quite as fun as Troll 2 but certainly worth seeing/ owning

4.5/5

[JaseSF]

Wasn't expecting it but this turned out to be a sort of Heads will Roll double feature.

Wonder Woman (2009): This basically covers Wonder Woman's origin story. It starts off with a war between the Amazons, led by Queen Hippolyta and the warlike demonic forces of the Greek god of War, Ares. Following this battle, Ares is imprisoned on Themiscyra with the Amazons as they are granted an hidden island paradise by the gods. However as the long unaging decades pass, the Amazons begin to grow weary of the limits of their self-imposed exile and when an American WWII pilot named Steve Trevor unexpectedly crashlands on their island, it sets events into motions that eventually leads to both Ares' escape and to Princess Diana eventually being chosen as emissary to man's world, also given the added assignment of relocating and recapturing Ares.

This action packed film is great fun and should please most Wonder Woman fans, be they fans of the old comics, the 70s TV Show or even the Justice League version. That said, this is hardly aimed at kids. It is loaded with violent battles, stunning betrayals and death scenes and even features two scenes that see heads literally lopped off! Not to mention scenes of the dead, one chilling scene featured previously murdered Amazons risen from the dead by Ares, and demons battling on a battlefield right on Washington, D.C. Capitol Hill. There's also a lot of sexual innuendo and tension in many scenes between Diana and Steve Trevor. Still this made me laugh quite a bit, especially all the scenes with Steve Trevor, especially those that see him spouting the out and out truth courtesy of the golden lasso. Plus it just never lets up in terms of delivering action, excitement and entertainment value. If there's any fault to be found with this, it's take it tries to cram too much in too quickly. There's not enough background explanation to several events and the epic battles against Hades and his demigod hordes just seem to start right out of the blue. Still I'd give it **** out of ***** stars.

Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995): A man named Brayker (William Sadler), on the run from a demon known as the Collector (Billy Zane) holes up in a rundown motel that was once formerly a Church with a collection of oddball characters from the local town. There he befriends a woman named Jeryline (Jada Pinkett), just trying to make good at her job in the motel after being released from prison. Eventually Brayker must convince the hotel residents to take his side as he tries to keep a mysterious talisman out of the clutches of the Collector and his demonic forces while the Collector (Billy Zane) uses all his snaky charm to try and convince each of the others as to why they should help him.

There's loads of cheesy over the top gore and gross-out makeup effects put on display here as one might well expect from Tales From the Crypt, including yes several scenes with heads getting ripped off and characters turning into drooling demonic monstrosities but truthfully this is for the most part laughably bad and downright cheesy. Its best element if definitely Billy Zane and his wickedly evil, snake charmer Collector character who plays the part with a surprisingly appealing amount of deadpan humor and just seems to be having such fun, he makes the movie quite a bit more fun than it probably would have been otherwise. Also it's quite fun to see Dick Miller in yet another cult movie, this time as the town drunk who gets in over his head in more ways than one. **1/2 out of *****

Interesting enough I also recently re-watched a bit of Disney's 1951 Alice in Wonderland as my girlfriend purchased the recent DVD. It proved even more bizarre than I recalled but was quite fun and entertaining at times, especially in terms of its high energy madcap craziness of a world that doesn't make any sense in Wonderland. The hardest element for me though was the songs to me proved more annoying and more prevalent than I remembered. Still it had its moments but I still seem to recall liking it far more as a child. And of course here we have another character, the Queen of Hearts, demanding heads will roll.  *** out of ***** stars.

[lester1/2jr]

King Frat (1979) - very early in the cycle (one year later) Animal House rip off that has lots of insanity and no morality lessons and thus rules. The director goes for it a la "Just for the Hell of it", "revenge of the cheerleaders" or even Jackass. Just scene after scene of highly retarded shenanagins for no good purpose. Probably the main thing that differentiates this from other similar movies is it's focus on flatulence. Theres more farting than sex in this movie. Also a curious amount of LATENT homoeroticism: very few female characters, revulsion towards women in some cases, lots of male bonding. It kind of comes off as kinda gay but not in a bad way  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VUE0NeOalQ

the reproduction isn't that good but you won't care. The lead guy is a shameless Belushi rip off. You won't care about that either. I like when they moon the dean, who then dies of a heart attack, then they go pull a prank at his funeral. pretty well nuts.

5/5


F/X (1986) =  There is some suspension of disbelief required here and there and the pacing, particularly in the second half, isn't perfect but I doubt anyone who saw this was disappointed. A special effects guy is hired by the witness protection program to help them stage a fake assasination of a mob guy who is turning states evidence in exchange for staying out of jail. Jerry Orbach does a decent job but isn't superbly cast as a mobster. He's too nice.  

In agreeing to this he stumbles upon an unsavory world of government and crime collusion and is forced to run/ fight for his life. He's kind of like Batman using the special effects to make escapes and blow up cars and so forth. I was very into the girlfriend. a classic

4.5/5

[retrorussell]

KICK-ASS.  Not bad, sort of like if you take a John Woo movie and put a kid in Chow Yun-Fat's place, and add a lot more blood and knifeplay.  Or at least, that's what the latter half of the movie is like.  Kinda loses its way in the final third but not bad. 

[Jack]

ROT: Reunion of Terror (2008) - pretty standard slasher movie plot:  some people go to a cabin in the woods for a 10 year high school reunion.  Never mind that they all hate each other, they apparently didn't have anything better to do.  Soon enough they're getting killed off.  Who's doing it - one of them, or the slightly spooky / slightly comedy relief park ranger maybe?   We don't know, because the killer wears his ski mask even when he's alone in his own house.  Besides the rather comical bickering between these people, the director (/writer/producer) also tries his hand at being artsy-fartsy, or maybe they just smoked a lot of pot when they were editing it.  Your guess is as good as mine.  When the killer finally reveals his motivations, it fits right in with the out of focus opening shots and everything else.  Amusingly stupid from start to finish, it provided a slightly above average level of direct-to-video entertainment.  3.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

hahaha ROT

[3mnkids]

Dark tales of Japan~ I bought this awhile ago and just got around to watching it today. I wish I had watched it sooner      Its 5 short stories that I assume are supposed to be scary. Each one is more ridiculous than the last. I laughed my ass off the entire time. Its cheap, cheesy, and just over the top stupid. I loved it.

The acting is sooo bad at times I wondered if it was on purpose. It must be, right?  All of the stories were good(bad) but sacrifice and the spiderwoman are my personal favorites.