Recent viewings

[Jack]

Creepies (2003) - The military creates a giant spider and it gets loose in Hollywood.  The nut in charge of the project drives around in a tank and blows up half the city.  The special effects are on the level of an early Godzilla movie.  Maybe worse.  Meanwhile a girl band goes to a studio to record a demo, but there's some killer spiders there as well.  This was really intentionally bad, and good for a few laughs.  It would probably get better the more beers you drank.  I don't think I had enough.  2.5/5.

[Cthulhu]

Pieces-It was a fun movie. The asian guy scene was weird.

SPOILERS: Also, what the hell is up with the ending? That came out from nowhere.

[Rev. Powell]

RICKY (2009):  A factory worker and single mom gives birth to a very special baby; every mom thinks her baby is special, but in this case the press thinks so to.  Magical realism that never really gets off the ground; it starts as a dour domestic drama then tries to shift gear and turn into a whimsical comedy, but never really finds a gripping tone.  French. 2.5/5. 

[Kaseykockroach]

....Psycho.
I didn't think I'd be terrified, let alone sweating...I know the ending, everyone does, It Was His Sled and all that
Filmmakers of a lesser ilk can add all the gore, nudity, rape, and beastiality they want, they'll never top this one in terms of a truly terrifying adult film.
I'm still shivering, subconsciously glancing behind me now and then.

[God the Worms]

Batman: THe Movie (1966)- At the beginning, you are revered by the Producers for your love of the Bizarre and Rediculous. This film is just that, and terrific all the same.

[Jack]

Red Faction: Origins (2011) - I really enjoyed the Red Faction Guerrilla video game, and this movie is a sequel to that.  Not sure if it would be nearly as enjoyable to someone who hasn't played the game, as you wouldn't know any of the backstory to anything.  In the game, Mars has been terraformed and the colonists live under the rule of the Earth Defense Force, who bullies them and kills anyone they don't like.  The hero joins a resistance force, the Red Faction, and eventually defeats the EDF.  The movie takes place 30 years later, and mostly features the son of the game's main character.  But we still get to see quite a bit of the game's character, played very well by Robert Patrick (Doggett from the X-Files).  The plot deals with two factions on Mars:  the colonists (the Red Faction) and the Marauders, a rather mysterious and usually violent tribe of warriors.  The two groups have been living in (relative) peace for years, but now a third group has appeared on the scene and is attempting to stir up the pot a bit.  Most of the movie is spent with our main character trying to figure out who this new group is, as well as locating his long-lost sister, who seems to be one of their members.  The plot actually develops nicely and is somewhat interesting, ending with a pretty good climax.

Not bad at all for a SyFy Original.  Though it certainly has a few moments that leave you smirking, like 2 guys armed with a knife and a staff can defeat about 10 trained troops, who I guess weren't armed at all?  And it dragged a fair amount in the middle.  But I thought it showed a remarkable amount of respect to the game that it's based on, even featuring a few quotes that are pretty cool to anyone who's played it.  3.75/5.

[claws]

Carrie (1976) Blu-ray

Once-a-year-viewing since I bought the Blu-ray. Carrie in HD is a real treat! 5/5

[Pilgermann]

Yojimbo (1961) - A nameless ronin wanders into a town of two warring gangs, and he finds ways of taking advantage of both in an attempt to eliminate them all.  This is one of my favorite movies, and certainly one of Kurosawa's best and most entertaining.  This time around I noticed how carefully composed the shots are, with very deliberate placements of actors and objects to make the scene readable and visually interesting.  Kind of like good illustration techniques with use of negative space and whatnot.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - I screened this for myself on a Blu-ray that was blown up through a 2K cinema projector on a big movie screen, and while the limitations of video are kinda visibile in such a large format, it was still pretty amazing.  This is a film that truly needs to be viewed on as large a screen as possible.  It's excellent no matter what, but it does make things better, especially the trip through the Stargate.

[lester1/2jr]

Felon (2008)- This kicked ass. I hate to say it because the writer / director on the extra doesn't seem lke he needs any more encouragement but damn.

A guy stops a home intruder with a baseball bat, killing him. The guy was actually leaving the house at the time but was reaching for that the guy thuoght wasa gun and yadda yadda yadda, the court convicts him of manslaughter. This is a dumb rule. People aren't police or lawyers they don't know what the procedures are. Anyway, he ends up in a really bad part of the jail with skinheads and maniacs and MMA type fighting and horrible corrupt guards.

When did squirrels start making that weird quacking/screeching sound? Anyway, the script hits all the right notes on the prisoners vs authority and prisoners vs each other and the pyschology and sociology of it all without being boring. This guys luck is really particularly bad and when he became a pro level MMA fighter is left unexplained. Still, this was really well done with really good writing acting Val Kilmer and Steven Dorf are in it, I forgot to mention. I am pretty out of it as far as modern movies but check this out if you haven't already. or is it already a thing?

5/5

[Jack]

Zombie Wars (2006) - Watched this again.  Fifty years after the zombie holocaust, bands of remaining humans have formed paramilitary organizations and try to survive out in the woods.  But the zombies have some minimal level of intelligence - enough that they've set up camps where they breed and raise humans until they're big enough to eat.  The movie follows one band of humans as they try to take down a zombie camp that's holding one of their members, and discover the conspiracy behind how it was set up.  Real z-grade production all the way, but the story was quite a bit more interesting than most zombie movies, and the characters were likable enough and the acting wasn't half bad.  Some totally inappropriate heavy metal music during the opening and closing credits were really the biggest mark against it.  3.5/5.

[claws]

Neon Maniacs (1986)

Though there is no background on these Neon Maniacs, I still enjoy this silly but fun monster romp. They are like the X-Men of horror acting like Gremlins. Love the battle of the bands bit. Pure 80s cheese. 4/5

[lester1/2jr]

Superman VS the Mole Men (1951)-  This was okay but I'd rather see something funky / weird/ bad like Creation of the Humanoids or a more typical Super Hero adventure. I know critics get all into a lather about how Super heroes are like dumbing everything down or whatever but like in this one the towns people are scared of the Mole Men and Superman is like trying to promote understanding and stuff. I'd rather see some evil mole men! I know whats it called is wrong. misanthropy or whatever. I want to see cool villains. It was interesting and well done but again, not precisely what I was after. 3.75/5

[Jack]

Star Crystal (1986) - Some astronauts discover a rock on some planet, they bring it back to their shuttle and whatever alien lifeform was in it proceeds to shut down their air supply.  So the shuttle full of corpses arrives at a space station and the alien thingie causes the whole place to blow up, killing everyone except a few folks who escape on the now repaired shuttle.  With the alien aboard of course.  This was really bad, with terrible acting, writing and directing.  Bad to the point of being somewhat amusing actually.  It didn't shy away from being downright dopey from time to time either.  Just what an already stupid "horror" movie needs you know.  People usually complain about how idiotic the ending is, but I didn't find it much dumber than the rest of it.  Oh it really dragged in parts too.  I was sitting with my finger on the "stop" button for about 10 minutes waiting for the credits to finally start rolling.  2.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

FINAL FLESH (2009): OK, here's the deal.  There are amateur porn production companies on the Internet who will act out people's fetish fantasies for a price.  Writer Vernon Chatman thought it would be a funny idea to send four of these production companies scripts that were completely absurd and surreal and have them act out his "fetishes."  He was right.  A woman bathes in the tears of neglected children, another breastfeeds a porterhouse steak, a woman grates a wedge of cheese that's sticking out from a man's pants.  But mostly the actors sit around tables delivering insane dialogue about the apocalypse, death, and God, and exchanging bizarre dialogue in dead earnest: "Mommy, why did you want to kill the president?" "I wanted to use his blood to oil the machinery of capitalism!"  It's not really porn, although there's a lot of nudity and bizarre fetish type content; there is explicit masturbation, both male and female, at one point, but you could cut about a minute out of this and make it into an R-rated feature.  I laughed a lot; it's one of the strangest things I've seen in some time, and that's saying a lot!  3.5/5, with a warning that you're likely to either love or hate it.  This seems like it was made with me and Lester 1/2 Jr. in mind as the target audience.   

[lester1/2jr]

sounds divine. unfortunately I'm netflix /cable dependent but someday I'll have to catch that one. I follow Caroline Pierce on twitter and she acts in some of these sorts of things.