Recent viewings

[Jack]

Blood Rage (1987) - So there's these twin boys and when they're little kids, one of them decides to hack up a guy at a drive in theater, and blames it on his brother. The brother gets thrown in an insane asylum. Ten years later, the brother escapes and makes his way back to his home, and his twin (who is living a normal life) decides to start killing a bunch of people at the apartment complex so that his brother will once again be blamed for it. This was actually pretty fun; very '80s and had a goofy sense of humor about it. Not bad at all for a forgotten '80s slasher. 4/5.

[Trevor]

On the venerable Chinese Kung Fu channel on my bouquet, I watched City Hunter and Project A yesterday evening. Not bad. 

[Rev. Powell]

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST [LA BELLE ET LE BETE] (1946): To save her father's life after the old man innocently takes a rose from the Beast's estate, Belle agrees to live with the monster in his magical castle, and falls in love with her complicated captor. The Beast's Surrealist-inspired castle, with its living candelabras and statues that quietly watch Belle, is the highlight of this greatest of all fairy tale adaptations. 5/5.

[claws]

Blood Rage (1987) - So there's these twin boys and when they're little kids, one of them decides to hack up a guy at a drive in theater, and blames it on his brother. The brother gets thrown in an insane asylum. Ten years later, the brother escapes and makes his way back to his home, and his twin (who is living a normal life) decides to start killing a bunch of people at the apartment complex so that his brother will once again be blamed for it. This was actually pretty fun; very '80s and had a goofy sense of humor about it. Not bad at all for a forgotten '80s slasher. 4/5.

"Hot bread anyone?"

Louise Lasser as mom totally owns this movie 

[Jack]

Blood Rage (1987) - So there's these twin boys and when they're little kids, one of them decides to hack up a guy at a drive in theater, and blames it on his brother. The brother gets thrown in an insane asylum. Ten years later, the brother escapes and makes his way back to his home, and his twin (who is living a normal life) decides to start killing a bunch of people at the apartment complex so that his brother will once again be blamed for it. This was actually pretty fun; very '80s and had a goofy sense of humor about it. Not bad at all for a forgotten '80s slasher. 4/5.

"Hot bread anyone?"

Louise Lasser as mom totally owns this movie 

She was awesome!  Too sloshed to figure out that her boyfriend lives in the same apartment complex as her and she could just walk over to his place 

[ChaosTheory]

ROOM 237 - A handful of obsessive fans talk (and talk and talk) about what they think THE SHINING is really about. I don't know if the film is meant to make you agree with these people, or if it's just deliberately setting them up for mockery; the only interpretation that makes even a little sense is the Native American allegory. The worst one was the guy who thinks Kubrick helped fake the Moon Landing and was just shilling his own dumb documentary throughout.
4/10

[Rev. Powell]

I don't know if the film is meant to make you agree with these people, or if it's just deliberately setting them up for mockery...

I think it's a warning about fandom, overanalysis, and the psychological temptation to take someone else's work, reinterpret it to mean whatever you personally want it to mean, and then go to war to claim that's what the Author Intended.  I found it fascinating, like listening to conspiracy theorists. I'm interested in how minds can remain sharp on one level while believing things that are clearly insane on another level.

[lester1/2jr]

Kung Fu Dunk- you've heard of Shaolin Soccer well this is Kung Fu Dunk! Are producers mining our bad movie titles thread, has it come to that?

A orphan grows up in combination Shaolin/ Wu Tang temple in the middle of a big city. Anyone with a not even passing knowledge of martial arts realizes this is ridiculous as I'm sure every Chinese person who saw this also realizes. After getting kicked out of the temple, our kung fu kid, who is played by a modest charismatic guy who I don't care what his name is, uses his amazing aim and athletic skills to become great at basketball.

The selling point of this movie is two things

1. wire assisted "amazing" basketball dunks
2. a silly but winning use of supernatural type martial arts elements and absurd scenerios, but not in a slapstick Steven Chow sort of way.

I liked this movie but it would probably be better for young teenagers. It had a good attitude though and while not hugely memorable, managed to be something I hadn't exactly seen before and pretty entertaining.

as a commenter on youtube put it "it's stupid but in the right way"
I'll say 3.75 /5

http://youtu.be/HpBzc0AU6Ng

[Trevor]

ROOM 237 - A handful of obsessive fans talk (and talk and talk) about what they think THE SHINING is really about. I don't know if the film is meant to make you agree with these people, or if it's just deliberately setting them up for mockery; the only interpretation that makes even a little sense is the Native American allegory. The worst one was the guy who thinks Kubrick helped fake the Moon Landing and was just shilling his own dumb documentary throughout.
4/10

They should have interviewed me: I would have told them "Keep to the source material if you want to make a great horror film." 

[Jack]

Absentia (2011) - a woman's husband disappeared 7 years ago, never to be heard from again; until she has him declared dead, then he shows up looking malnourished, pale as a ghost and with no recollection of the previous 7 years. He says he was "beneath" somewhere. In the underworld? I don't want to give away too much of the plot but this was a nice little slow-burn thriller. Got off to a slow start with some banal jump scares, but once it finally got rollin' I really liked it. And then it had a couple of darned good jump scares The two main characters, the woman and her sister, were pretty well written and acted and it built a good sense of suspense. 4/5.

[indianasmith]

I really liked that one too, Jack!  Especially the final scene.

[Rev. Powell]

DESTINO (1946/2003): A ballerina and a statue seek to find each other in an ever-shifting Surrealist desert landscape full of Salvador Dali's obsessions: clocks, ants and characters hidden in negative space. Walt Disney commissioned Dali to made this alternately beautiful and grotesque short as a prestige piece in 1946, but only 17 seconds were completed before the project was shut down. Disney Corp. deserves credit for resuscitating this cultural treasure from storyboards and concept art after more than 50 years languishing in the studio vaults, although maybe not for burying it as an unadvertised extra on the FANTASIA 2000 Blu-ray. 4.5/5.

DALI & DISNEY: A DATE WITH "DESTINO" (2010): Documentary profiling Walt Disney and Salvador Dali's unlikely friendship, their collaboration on the doomed "Destino" project, and the eventual restoration of the film from Dali's storyboards and concept art. Does it's job of supplying background information and ultimately does not shy away from putting the blame for the project's death where it belongs: on Walt Disney. 3/5.

[Jack]

Cabin Fever: Patient Zero (2014) - some generic college kids go to a remote island for a bachelor party, but as luck would have it there's a facility there where people are researching the flesh eating bacteria from the first movie. My problem with these movies is that I don't find a bacteria scary; it's just gross. And the fact that I couldn't care less if all these people died didn't help either. The best part was when the kids found these zombie-like infectees in the bowels of the research facility so you kind of had a zombie movie for a little bit. There were a couple of cute girls but even they could only help so much. 2.5/5.

[Rev. Powell]

GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE (2014): A squabbling couple who speak in broken philosophical fragments adopt a stray dog. Jean-Luc Godard should have just gone ahead and named this one FILM SOCIALISME 2: THIS TIME, IT'S EVEN MORE INSCRUTABLY PERSONAL. The former Nouvelle Vague icon has become unbearably self-indulgent in his old age. 1.5/5.

[dean]

Horns:

Daniel Radcliffe gets his slitheryn on with snakes and a pair of horns as somebody accused of murdering his girlfriend. One day he grows horns and people start confessing their sins to him, a fact he uses to try and find the real killer.

Ridiculous concept that actually was a bit of fun. Dark in parts and Radcliffe does a decent enough job to convince me he can act (he hams it up sure, but it suited the movie and his role)

More fun than I thought but still pretty silly conceptually. Luckily enough gore and black humor to make it an entertaining ride. 7.5/10