Recent viewings

[fulci420]

Twisted Obsession/The Mad Monkey (1989)

Somewhere in between The Fly and Jurassic Park Jeff Goldblum found the time to lead in this Spanish Production set in Paris. Golbum is a screenwriter recently divorced trying to look after his child who gets involved in the production of a new film. He is urged by his agent not to do the film but continues anyway intrigued by the young directors beautiful sister who lives with him. As the writing continues and his obsession grows he finds that things aren't quite as they seem.

This is one strange film that maintains a strange dreamlike quality throughout. Not quite as strange as say a David Lynch film but at times it has a similar atmosphere. I got this through the new mill creek 80's 50 pack and it is badly cropped. This definitely hurts the film as the director is clearly doing some interesting things especially with lighting. The plot doesn't really go much of anywhere but I found myself engaged in the strange characters and sometimes disturbing sexuality. This is obscure for a reason but I thought it was pretty good especially in comparison to some Mill Creek fair.

[God the Worms]

Alien vs. Ninja (2010)- A Sushi Typhoon production involving ninja anime stereotypes (the henchman, the cowardly veteran, the sexy girl ninja, the stubborn rebel) fighting aliens that look like a crossbreed of Pumpkinhead and dolphins. I typically enjoy movies from these film makers (Seiji Chiba, Yudai Yamaguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura, etc), so I may be a bit biased, but I thought it was awesome. The action is immediate, with well choreographed martial arts, stylish shots, and over-the-top gore. This also pays a lot of loving tributes to the "Alien" films without ripping anything off.

[Jack]

Bloodlust Zombies (2011) - a research lab has a bit of a problem when their latest bio-warfare agent is released and starts turning people into zombies. The building goes into automatic lockdown mode, so everybody's stuck in there with them. This is very much a comedy, and I thought the characters were actually quite clever and humorous. It made me laugh a few times. Pretty enjoyable overall. 3.5/5.

Halloween Night (2006) - some kids throw a big Halloween party and of course there's a psycho killer on the loose. Not a good movie even by low budget Halloween ripoff standards. The characters are totally undeveloped and I didn't care one bit if they all got killed - especially the main guy who's a major douchebag. The killings aren't the least bit suspenseful as the guy is dressed up in somebody's Halloween costume, so everybody thinks he's Todd and they're like "Oh hi Todd. Why aren't you saying anything Todd? Oh Todd's just being weird." and then he kills them as soon as they turn their back. Repeat a dozen times. Lots and lots of topless babes in this movie; that's the only thing it's got going for it. 2.5/5.

[Jack]

Dinosaur Island (1994) - a Fred Olen Ray, Jim Wynorski co-production, so quite an elite pedigree if I do say so myself. This is a comedy about some army guys who get stranded on a remote island populated by bikini babes. The evil queen wants them killed, but if they can instead kill the biggest, baddest dinosaur on the island, they can live in paradise forever. I enjoyed its cleverly stupid sense of humor, and the scenery was awesome 4/5.

[Rev. Powell]

NOBODY ELSE BUT YOU [POUPOUPIDOU] (2011): In a snowbound French town, a crime novelist investigates the death of a local celebrity who beleived hereself to be the reincarntaion of Marilyn Monroe. Nods to "Twin Peaks" and a soundtrack full of icy renditions of 60s hits add ot the appeal of this cool, stylish and strange mystery. 3.5/5.

[Jack]

Van Helsing (2004) - Huge Ackman goes to Transylvania and meets up with a hot Romanian babe (Kate Beckinsale) and together they fight Dracula, The Wolfman, and of course Frankenstein's monster shows up as well. Big dumb blockbuster with enough CGI for a Star Wars movie, we enjoyed it. It's got a bit of a tongue in cheek sense of humor throughout. 4/5.

The Mummy's Ghost (1944) - some Egyptian guy is charged with the task of having the mummy go to a museum and retrieve the princess he was in love with thousands of years ago. As always there's a woman who bears a striking resemblance to his old love so he goes after her instead. Pretty weak entry in the series;  plot was fairly dull and the characters didn't catch my interest either. The Mummy's put on some weight, only has one working arm, and his makeup looked like somebody just caked mud on his face. My wife looked so peaceful and content watching this; of course that's because she was sound asleep.  2.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

October may be over, but it's still Schlock-Tober at Casa Del Freddy. Yesterday's Double Feature:

"Raw Meat" (aka "Deathline," 1973)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1swE39BI2o
In this '70s Brit horror flick, a police detective investigating a missing person case in the London Underground eventually discovers a family of cannibals that have been living in a long-abandoned subway tunnel for generations, snacking on unlucky passengers. Not nearly as much fun as its premise makes it sound, Donald Pleasance is funny as hell as the tightly wound cop and there are some good gore bits here 'n' there but otherwise it was fairly pedestrian stuff.


"2 Headed Shark AttacK" (2012)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLVKnZzYO0M
Ahhh, the Asylum, delivering the schlock once again with an irrestistible trailer that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the movie. A group of sea-faring college students (including Brooke Hogan, daughter of Hulk) and their chaperones (including Carmen Electra) end up stranded on an island when their boat is damaged, and soon learn that the waters surrounding them are patrolled by a giant 2-headed mutant shark. Yep, that's the whole plot. Mayhem, of course, ensues as the shark chomps on a seemingly endless series of girls in bikinis.
In other words, this movie is exactly what I expected: silly, extremely gory nonsense with plenty of T&A.

[tracy]

This 1972 action comedy starred Burt Reynolds,Rachel Welch,Tom Skerrit and Yul Bryner.  Police are dealing with an extortion racket run by a mysterious deaf man,played by Bryner. Also,to further complicate things two punk kids are setting homeless people on fire and there is a string of robberies going on. Add to this two smart-mouth painters who are in everyone's way,draping tarps everywhere and painting the squad room a hidious shade of green while stealing office supplies on the quiet. Fun film!

[Rev. Powell]

MST3K: THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU: Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee) tries to freeze the world's oceans; he's opposed by lighting that makes it impossible to see what he's doing. I'm glad I read all the reviews claiming this was one of the worst MST3K episodes ever before watching this, because while it's below average it's not the total disaster I had prepared for. The movie is terrible, hard to follow, boring and with the worst lighting ever, but the riffing is not bad and there's a funny bit with Dr. Forrester and Frank trying to riff on the movie to prove to Joel it's not that hard to do. 3/5.

[fulci420]

JCVD (2008)

Jean Claude plays himself in this interesting french film that has a unique take on the action movie star. Claude is out of favor with the studios and in legal turmoil with his many ex wives. He ends up getting caught in a kidnapping/robbery inadvertently and is forced by the bad guys to play the role of the mastermind!

Firstly I have to state that I HATE how this movie looks. The director has put some ridiculous filter over everything that drastically lowers the amount of colour variation in this film. The result is a film that while it has some interesting camera movement and is shot with 35mm looks completely awful. Other than that we have a clever screenplay, a surprisingly good preformance from Jean Claude so it's a shame such a stupid visual gimmick needed to be added over the whoel thing.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" (2012)

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

The absolutely crap-tacular sequel to 2007's mediocre "Ghost Rider" finds Johnny Blaze hiding out in Eastern Europe (?), where he's drafted to help protect a boy with mysterious powers from a group of Satanists who, of course, have nefarious plans for him. Many explosions and crashes ensue.

...the first "G.R." was no great shakes but good LORD, this one makes it look like 24 karat gold. The story appears to have been made up as they went along, and the pacing is so sluggish that I found myself checking my watch well before the halfway point. The only good thing I can say about this flick is that the special effects have improved since the first film so Ghost Rider looks more bad-ass than ever.

Ghost Rider is a cool character worthy of a decent film, unfortunately this ain't the one. Avoid!!

[Jack]

Unknown Origin (1995) - basically a ripoff of Leviathan, The Thing and Alien, and a lousy one at that. On an undersea mining rig, our characters get a call from a nearby Russian rig. So they send some people over who promptly get infected with an alien parasite which looks just like the one in The Hidden, except it's got a bright purple tentacle which it wraps around its victim's face. Roddy McDowall, playing the world's worst doctor, repeatedly assures everyone that they've got nothing to worry about. Sigh  Not much good to say about this, the script clearly seems to have been written by a junior high school student, the characters aren't even believable much less likable, and there's not even a guy in a rubber suit for us to be scared of. 2/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Distant Journey (1950) -straightforward but well done move about the Holocaust. It must have been one of the first. 4/5

[BoyScoutKevin]

Sometimes the library shows free films on Sunday. Normally, I don't watch them, as they are something I have already seen and/or something I have no interest in seeing, but sometimes they do show films I have not seen and want to see.

That was the case with "Sherlock Holmes : Game of Shadows" w/ Robert Downey, jr. and Jude Law. As it was a joint showing of both the local library and the local university, the hostess was a doctoral student working on her doctorate. As someone who never got farther than a M.L.S., she immediately had my respect, but I do wonder how much she knew about films, when she said she liked the film, as it was not a likable film.

Action
Poor

Characters
Irritating. That worked in the TV production with Jeremy Brett, but it didn't work here.

Humor
None

Prologue.
A failure to intro the characters properly.

Reality
None. While the original stories and the previous film adaptations may have been farfetched, there was still an air of reality to them. There was little air of reality in this one.

Story
Trite. When is the last time we saw a film where the villain wanted to profit by starting a war? That's what I thought.

Suspense
None.


But the worst failure of the film was to take Characters which are normally interesting and make them uninteresting.

Still . . . ?

There were some good things about the film, excluding the cinematography which was mixed.

It was a well shot film, but the slo-mo, which is difficult to use well, was not used well here. It actually just made the action scenes more confusing than they needed to be.

Good

Costumes

Extras
Enough extras in front of the camera, which made for some good crowd scene.

Flashbacks
The flashbacks were a good explanation for what happened in the past.

Sets

The scene with Sherlock and John in the boxcar, when for once John had the upper hand in their relationship.

But the best scenes were whenever Holmes and Moriarty locked horns. Only then did the film come alive.

Still, this film apparently made enough money, that there may be a 3rd in the series. And despite the fact that I disliked this one, and the 1st one almost as much, I may go see it.

[Jack]

The Mummy's Curse (1944) - the bog that the mummy disappeared into at the end of the previous movie has been drained and so the mummy comes back to life and we've basically got the previous movie all over again. Poor ol' shambling mummy; at one point he's trying to attack some people but they don't even notice because he's so slow. I guess the characters were a bit more interesting in this film than the previous one. 3/5.

The Ghoul (1933) - Boris Karloff lies on his deathbed, but he's into all this Egyptian mysticism stuff and has this big plan in place which will bring him back to life after he dies. He needs to place an extremely valuable gemstone into the hand of an Egyptian statue - but just about everyone in the movie is determined to get their hands on that gem as soon as ol' Boris passes away. Great cast of characters in this movie, with tons of playfully witty banter throughout. Kept me interested with all the various subplots as well. 4/5.

Werewolf of London (1935) - A botanist goes to Tibet to search for an extremely rare flower, but while there he's bitten by a werewolf - which unfortunately bears a striking resemblance to Eddie Munster



So he goes back to London and starts having the usual problems when the moon is full. There's also this big subplot about his self-centered party girl wife who's too busy running around with her ex-boyfriend to even notice her husband's problems. I felt a lot more sorry for the guy because of his wife than his werewolf problem. It eventually runs its course to its predictable conclusion. 3/5.