Recent viewings

[indianasmith]

I think I remember seeing that one YEARS ago!!!

[fulci420]

Play it to the Bone (1999) From the late 80's to this film Ron Shelton absolutely dominated the sports film in both writing and directing (Bull Durham, Tin Cup, White Men Cant Jump, Blue Chips etc...) I recently watched Blue Chips and while being nowhere near a great film I found it enjoyable enough due to some nice performance's and the general tone. Play it to the Bone falls into the same category, its not really a good movie at all kind of a mish mash of the american road film (Rain Man, Thelma and Louise etc..) and a boxing movie. Despite not living up to the best of either of these genres it is enjoyable due to charismatic performances and by not taking itself too seriously.

Two down on their luck boxers (Woody Harrelson and Antonio Banderas) get an offer to fight for big money in Las Vegas when a fight is cancelled. Turns out their best friends and their only ride to the fight is a mutual ex girlfriend (Lolita Davidovich). During their drive they ponder the past, eat waffles and meet up with a crazed Lucy Liu. So that's the road movie part of the package how about the fight? Well its probably one of the sillier climaxes to any sports movie. Every time we are getting into the punches Ron Shelton feels the need to put his camera on random celebrities, fake boobs/man ass, and even Jesus himself. During this battle Antonio battles with his sexuality (he admits to a gay interlude to woody's character), thankfully this dilemma is settled with a joint shower and a final shot which clearly suggests that a polygamous relationship between the three leads would be the best course of action.

Here is a highlight. This is only one of Jesus's appearances in this opus.

Funny Movie Parts - Missed Jesus (Play it to the Bone 1999)

Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

Steven Seagal is definitely on the lower end of action movie stars. Completely lacking the charisma of a Stallone or Schwarzenegger and without the agility and grace of a Van Damme or even a Statham. Instead all he has is brute force and occasionally a kimono. Despite all of this Under Siege 2 rules, and it rules on a train.

Seagal is trying his best to chill with niece Katherine Heigel, when terrorists decide to knock up the party, using the train as a tool of terror! Seagal tries to talk to Heigel for about 3 minutes before he goes commando and try to get over this siege. Its pretty much all action from here and the action is pretty damn awesome and varied. Superior to the first film and if you disagree then you might as well be on deadly ground.

Rather than a trailer or clip here is the best Seagal story ever.
Rob Schneider Telling Steven Seagal Stories on Howard Stern

[claws]

Foxes (1980)

Four teenage girlfriends are experiencing life in the sunny San Vernando Valley: school, parties, drugs, parents, and conversations about sex. Coming of Age starring Jodie Foster and directed by Adrian Lyne, who goes for "realism". Giorgio Moroder provided the disco-infused soundtrack, and Lyne certainly captures the spirit of things (filmed in late '79) with an interesting visual style. 4/5

Passion (2012)

Manipulative advertising executive (Rachel McAdams) bluntly steals genius marketing idea from up-and-coming subordinate Isabelle (Noomi Rapace). That's the beginning of a dangerous game of deceit, intrigues, obsession and ... murder.
Brian de Palma returns to the big screen with a remake of a French Thriller. Even though Passion looks and feels like a "weak" de Palma copy its still better than its given credit for. Acting is superb (Rachel McAdams steals the show) and there are enough plot twists to keep the viewer guessing. The ending is kinda campy, but that's typical de Palma for you. 4/5

[Jack]

Metamorphosis (1990) - a scientist at a university is working on a way to eliminate aging. His superiors at the college demand results, so he injects himself with the serum. This (eventually) causes him to start regressing to an earlier form of life, from millions of years ago. The big climax where the metamorphosis finally finishes is downright laughable. I guess this was mildly interesting but also slow moving and the characters were bland. About the best thing I can say about it was that it was watchable. 2.5/5.

[indianasmith]

Last night my daughter and I watched a movie called THE INVOKING - a girl inherits a home in the country where she lived as a small child, but has no memories of whatsoever.  As she and her friends spend spring break at the old place, memories come back and the friendly caretaker begins to seem more and more sinister . . . this thing was very slow-paced but had a certain charm.  The title is very misleading - there are no supernatural elements whatsoever, and I was expecting a tentacle elder god to show up and begin devouring people at some point when I rented it!!

[lester1/2jr]

Breakin 2 Electric Boogaloo - This was on some channel I didn't know I had. Turbo and Ozone plumb the depths of goofiness in this ridiculous though colorful sequel. I was rooting for the developers. 10/5

Rammbock (2010) -



A pudgy Jonah Hill type beta male gets marooned in his ex girlfriends apartment during a zombie outbreak. He and his asocial repair kid sidekick were clever choices for the leads though the bear suit he takes out of the closet at one point got a little too close to the whole "mumblecore" indie film thing for me. Another noteable thing is the length: barely an hour. It works pretty well, nothing more really needed to be said. There was quite a bit of people you love turning in to zombies if you like that element. I imagine competition in this genre is pretty darn thick so I won't attempt to assess where it stands but I think "accessible"
(as in to non hardcore zombie fans) covers it. without being stupid I mean 4.5/ 5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus" (2011) - 2nd film in the Asylum's "Mega Shark" series, a US Navy shark expert (Jaleel "Urkel" White) and an Aussie croc hunter are pressed into service by an elite Government monster hunting unit to destroy the title critters. Badly CGI'd mayhem follows and viewers will get the feeling that the movie was being made up as it went along. Poor even by Asylum standards 

[Jack]

Naked Massacre (1976) - an American soldier who's just finished a tour in Vietnam is in Belfast, basically bumming around and doing nothing. Eventually he decides to break into a house where 8 nurses live and terrorize, rape, humiliate and kill them. I guess the first hour was vaguely interesting for it's depiction of the violence in Northern Ireland at the time. After the first ten minutes of the home invasion thing though I just fast forwarded through the rest of it. It manages to be both repulsive and boring as hell at the same time. The characters were the usual empty shells that populate most of these Eurotrash things. 1.5/5.

Land of the Minotaur (1976) - various young people show up to investigate some ancient ruins in Greece, but Peter Cushing and his satanic cult kidnap them and sacrifice them to their Minotaur god. It's up to a priest (Donald Pleasence) and an American detective to rescue the most recent abductees. This was okay, kind of interesting and with a couple of big name stars providing some decent characters. It had a bit of atmosphere, though it was fairly slow moving. 3/5.

[Rev. Powell]

NOTHING BUT TROUBLE (1991): New York professionals are imprisoned (for speeding) by a self-appointed judge in his ramshackle house inside his own New Jersey fiefdom. With a grotesque pair of adult babies and an embarrassing rap number, Dan Akroyd, Chevy Chase, and Demi Moore would prefer you forget they were ever in this flop comedy–it's even an embarrassment in the filmography of Tupac Shakur. Still, it's never boring, the junkyard production design is not bad, and if you watch it in the right spirit of mockery it's actually sort of entertaining. 2/5.

[indianasmith]

We had a long weekend due to the sleet storm, and I watched two films, one on Sunday night and one on Saturday.
Sunday's feature was I, ZOMBIE - another British zombie flick that was very similar to DEAD CREATURES which I watched Friday.  The basic premise was that a man working on his biology doctorate was bitten while on a trip to the countryside.  He initially showed no outward symptoms other than his bite wound not wanting to heal - but was absolutely compelled to become a cannibal.  He rents an isolated flat and over the next year slowly begins decomposing, becoming weaker and weaker, which made it even harder to capture his victims.  Like DEAD CREATURES, this one is slow-paced and lacking in action sequences.  The protagonist is more pitiful than horrifying, although his eventual dissolution was pretty gruesome to watch.  I'll be generous and give this a 3 out of 10.
Then last night I watches SANITARIUM.  Malcolm MacDowell is the host of this trilogy of vignettes about those who utterly lose their minds and harm those around them - and what drives them to it.  This was a moderately creepy film that worked on several levels.  I think my favorite feature was the last one, in which the protagonist, played by Lou Diamond Philips, obsesses over the Mayan predictions of the end of the world until he murders his family and retreats to an underground bunker he has created.  His slow slide into madness is powerfully portrayed.  This one gets four out of five stars.

[claws]

NOTHING BUT TROUBLE (1991): New York professionals are imprisoned (for speeding) by a self-appointed judge in his ramshackle house inside his own New Jersey fiefdom. With a grotesque pair of adult babies and an embarrassing rap number, Dan Akroyd, Chevy Chase, and Demi Moore would prefer you forget they were ever in this flop comedy–it's even an embarrassment in the filmography of Tupac Shakur. Still, it's never boring, the junkyard production design is not bad, and if you watch it in the right spirit of mockery it's actually sort of entertaining. 2/5.

I never understood why this film is so highly regarded. I've seen people on message boards get downright sentimental and nostalgic about this turd.

[Jack]

Buried Alive (2007) - a group of college kids goes to a house in the desert. A couple of the girls are there for a sorority initiation and one of the guys is there because legend has it there's gold hidden in the house. They're the usual cliches, smart girl, dumb girl (she's hotter than she is dumb, and she's really dumb  ), nerd, bad boy etc. After quite a while the ghost of a woman who was buried alive shows up and starts thinning out our group of kids. This was pretty decent, the characters were fun and fairly well developed, but it was rather slow moving and had some annoying pop music during all the "fun" parts which got on my nerves and ruined any horror movie atmosphere. Still good enough for a 4/5 from me though.

[ChaosTheory]

Naked Massacre (1976) - an American soldier who's just finished a tour in Vietnam is in Belfast, basically bumming around and doing nothing. Eventually he decides to break into a house where 8 nurses live and terrorize, rape, humiliate and kill them. I guess the first hour was vaguely interesting for it's depiction of the violence in Northern Ireland at the time. After the first ten minutes of the home invasion thing though I just fast forwarded through the rest of it. It manages to be both repulsive and boring as hell at the same time. The characters were the usual empty shells that populate most of these Eurotrash things. 1.5/5.

It doesn't help that it's clearly (though unofficially) a cash-in on the Richard Speck story.

[JaseSF]

The Jungle Book (1967): Fun Disney adventure movie rather loosely based on the Rudyard Kipling story features young Mowgli, the "Man-Cub" being very reluctant to leave his jungle home despite becoming the target of the menacing Shere Khan the tiger, voiced by George Sanders. The Panther Bagheera (voiced by Sebastian Cabot) and Baloo the Bear (voiced by Phil Harris) try to help the boy out and encourage him to seek safety outside the jungle back with mankind. Like most Disney animated films, this does have its dark moments but there's lots of fun and adventure to be found as well. A real hoot are the Vultures who befriend our hero. The songs are fun and colorful if somewhat represent of the 60s "hippie" movement. Generally a good time is had watching this one but IMO a much better version of this story is the 1942 film starring Sabu. ***1/2 out of ***** stars.

[FatFreddysCat]

"House" (1986) - Sean "Friday the 13th" Cunningham produced this comic horror tale about an author who moves into his recently deceased aunt's house, hoping it will cure his writer's  block... but of course, weird stuff starts happening...
Charmingly silly.