Recent viewings

[Rev. Powell]

THE IMPOSSIBLE KID (1982): When Filipino industrialists are being kidnapped by a terrorist organization, Interpol puts its top agent on the case: 2-foot-9 karate master Weng Weng. I'll make this short: this low comedy is slightly amusing. 3/5.

[RCMerchant]

     THE ATOMIC BRAIN (1962)
Rich old bat hires mad doctor to transplant her brain into a hot young body.

! No longer available

     Yes, it's been done before, but so what?

AAh! but whats weird-he puts her brain-into a cat! 

[FatFreddysCat]

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (2014)

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (2014)
http://youtu.be/OdgNSJiWJTo

A crime organization called "The Foot Clan" is taking over New York City, but an aspiring TV news reporter (Megan Fox) discovers that there's a new, reptilian force for good willing to emerge from their secret sewer lair to fight against them...

The '80s comic book and '90s cartoon sensation gets an expensive CGI-heavy 21st century reboot courtesy of Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes production house. The flick barely has a plot, but there's plenty of one liners and lotsa butt kicking action.

My almost-9-year old son has been asking to see this since commercials for the new sequel have been all over TV this week. Fortunately it was available on Amazon Prime streaming for nothin'. He loved it, and it was relatively painless viewing for his old retired comic book nerd Dad too.

[indianasmith]

I had a rainy day triple feature yesterday:

EATERS (2015) - Set in 1974, five young people traveling across the deserts of New Mexico first run afoul of a gang of drug-smuggling bikers, then clash with a ghost town full of masked cannibals.  It doesn't end well for them.  This could have been an outstanding cannibal mutant hillbilly sort of film, but unfortunately, it left too much unexplained for the plot to make sense. 3/5

RIDDLE ROOM (2016) Dr. Emily Burns is held captive in a cheap room with wood paneling and thin walls, being teased and tortured into providing information to her masked captives.  This one was BAD; the sound editing was horrible, some of the voices so distorted as to be inaudible, and a plot that made very little sense. 2/5

COOL AS HELL (2013) This was a goofy horror comedy about a stoner who always strikes out with the ladies who is befriended by a demon named Az.  He becomes a zombie-fighting chick magnet with an inexhaustible bong, and has goofy adventures.  This one was fun for what it was.  4/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Rocktober Blood" (1984)
http://youtu.be/SyqUWhqQdO0

A year after being executed for a string of murders, a heavy metal star has seemingly returned from the dead - and now he's stalking his ex-girlfriend, who took his place fronting his old band.
This cult flick looked promising but the wooden acting, cheesy gore and a bounty of plot holes sunk it pretty quick. The female lead is cute (and frequently naked), plus the fictitious band's music (performed by the early 80s metal combo Sorcery) is actually quite good, so it's not the worst "metal-sploitation" film I've ever seen (that honor goes to "Hard Rock Zombies"), but you can safely skip this one unless you absolutely have to see every Heavy Metal Horror flick in existence.

[FatFreddysCat]

With my 8 year old this afternoon:

"Home" (2015)
http://youtu.be/iLGDJkhYnVc

A dorky alien (voiced by Jim Parsons of "Big Bang Theory") whose race has overtaken Earth befriends an Earthling girl, reunites her with her Mom, and then has to stop a planetary invasion by an even bigger, badder bunch of extra-terrestrials in this harmless animated flick. Fluffy, instantly forgettable kid stuff.

[dean]

Kumiko The Treasure Hunter:

A slow burn film about a Japanese girl who seems pretty disconnected with her life and decides to hoof it to the US after watching Fargo and deciding that the treasure buried in the movie is real and sets out to find it. Lots of pensive staring and sad eyes from our lead actress who does a great job. Paired with an appropriate soundtrack this one has art style written all over it, but despite how slowly it moves I quite enjoyed it overall. I'll never forget you Bunzo. 4/5

10 Cloverfield Lane:

Psychological thriller : "after getting in a car accident, a woman is held in a shelter with two men, who claim the outside world is affected by a widespread chemical attack." John Goodman is great here as the maybe loony Howard. Is he lying about the attacks? What else may be going on? I enjoyed it's twists and turns quite a lot but it suffered somewhat from my knowledge of how some of the plot points played out which may have spoiled the fun somewhat. That being said they did a pretty decent job of making John Goodman really ambiguous in intention for a large portion of the film, albeit sometimes a bit obviously so. 3.5/5. Kind of want to see more of this world though.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Respectable: The Mary Millington Story" (2016)
http://youtu.be/m-sQoAsAjUs

An intriguing doc about the short, tumultuous life of 1970s British adult film star Mary Millington, whose rise to fame was eventually brought down by constant battles with England's censorship authorities and an unfortunate dependence on narcotics. I'm not British so I was mostly unfamiliar with Ms. Millington or her career exploits, but I enjoyed this flick nonetheless. Mary may not have had a long life but it was certainly interesting!

[FatFreddysCat]

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (1990)

http://youtu.be/FMJPwRWaZBI

NYC is under siege from a criminal ninja gang so a quartet of gnarly surf-speakin' martial-arts reptiles come out of hiding to kick their butts -- and eat some pizza.

My 8 year old son and I watched the first of the "new" TMNT films this past week, which made him curious about checking out the 1990 original - which I hadn't seen in dog years. As I expected, it hasn't aged very well but my son and I both got a kick out of it anyway. It's still a load of ultra violent, extremely silly goofball fun.

[Rev. Powell]

CUTIE HONEY (2004): A naive, upbeat female superhero battles "Panther Claw," a team of alien supervillains, after they abduct her professor uncle, while simultaneously trying to keep her temp job and find one true friend. Think Adam West's "Batman," only with a Japanese teen pop star who dresses like a hooker in the lead role; kind of fun. 3/5.

[dean]

CUTIE HONEY (2004): A naive, upbeat female superhero battles "Panther Claw," a team of alien supervillains, after they abduct her professor uncle, while simultaneously trying to keep her temp job and find one true friend. Think Adam West's "Batman," only with a Japanese teen pop star who dresses like a hooker in the lead role; kind of fun. 3/5.

Is this the live action one? Man that was an insane movie but its pretty fun. I really have a thing for that hyper real Japanese style and I generally enjoy Hideaki Anno's work.

[Rev. Powell]

CUTIE HONEY (2004): A naive, upbeat female superhero battles "Panther Claw," a team of alien supervillains, after they abduct her professor uncle, while simultaneously trying to keep her temp job and find one true friend. Think Adam West's "Batman," only with a Japanese teen pop star who dresses like a hooker in the lead role; kind of fun. 3/5.

Is this the live action one? Man that was an insane movie but its pretty fun. I really have a thing for that hyper real Japanese style and I generally enjoy Hideaki Anno's work.

Yes. I think technically "live action" is supposed to be part of the title. Fun is the right word.

[BoyScoutKevin]

The Shadow of the Tower (1972)

Episode V
The Serpent and the Comforter
50:12

23. 50 minutes of talking about religion and heresy. You can't do that today with today's TV audience.

24. Talk from the literate. Talk from the illiterate. 2 pathways resulting in same ending.

25. It does point out 1 point that people often get wrong. To recant one's heresy is not to save one's life, for the most part. Once one is tried and convicted of heresy. One's life is gone. To get someone to recant, ere they are executed, is to save their soul by the standards of that day.

26. King Henry VII and his daughter Mary, the future queen. 2 peas in the same pod, when it comes to religion.

27. It's not the sight of someone burning, as the sight is obscured by all the smoke, during the execution. It's the smell of someone burning that gets to you. They got that right.

28. Though, to be somewhat merciful, bags of gunpowder or saltpeter were attached to the condemned, so death came about not so much by burning, but . . .?! by the resulting explosion.

29. Oddly enough, or maybe not, there are actually no heroes, no villains, during this episode. Just people that had had strong beliefs about religion that differed.

30. Though, much of what was held to be wrong about religion, was, in 50 years, thought to be right, and much of what was held to be right about religion, was, in the same period of time, thought to be wrong.

Episode VI
The White Hart
49:05

31. It is the little facts that I find most interesting. Of course, the safety razor or electric razor had yet to be invented, but . . .?! so had the straight razor. Men shaved themselves or had someone shave them with the well honed edge of a knife. We hope it was well honed.

32. Characters are beginning to run together.

33. King Henry VIII could have taken some lessons from his father King Henry VII about the needlessness of war.

34. "Is he your friend?"--"No, he's a tax collector!" Well, that hasn't changed during the past 5 centuries or so.

35. The acting and writing during the one scene when the character breaks down ere his execution for treason is so powerful. That whether he is guilty or innocent of what he is charged, one feels that the doesn't deserve what is going to happen to him.

36. And you remember all the women and children that would be executed for the same thing, in the years to come, and one gets the feeling, that they really, really didn't deserve what is going to happen to them.

37. Well, one thing wouldn't change for the next 50 years or so. Ere your execution, dress for success and don't let them see you sweat or cry.

38. Life, at that time, was gut wrenching, and death was painful, no matter how you died.

39. To make drawing and quartering less painful, which was the penalty for treason at that time in England, the sentence was often converted to a simple beheading, as in this case.

40. King Henry VII is seemingly becoming more comfortable on the throne.

Next time: episodes VII and VIII.

[indianasmith]

Last night I watched a creepy little ghost story called BACKTRACK with Adrian Brody and Sam Neill.  Very well done, several plot twists I didn't see coming.  Brody plays a psychologist mourning the death of his daughter, who was struck by a car while riding her bike.  He buries himself in his practice, trying to drown his sorrows by helping his patients - but then he realizes, all these patients have one thing in common:  They are already dead.  That's where it gets weird.  Great story with a creepy denouement.  4.5/5

[indianasmith]

Let's see . . . last night I watched THE ABANDONED, a very creepy little ghost story reminiscent of Kiefer Sutherland's MIRRORS.  A young woman is hired to work as a night security guard in a huge, luxurious New York brownstone hotel that was never finished before the builders went bankrupt.  She sees a locked door leading to a part of the building that is not on any map, so she opens it - and unleashes a horrific evil into the world.  Quite impressive overall; I didn't see the end coming!  4.5/5

Then tonight the wife and I watched MR HOLMES, in which Ian McKellen plays a 90 year old Sherlock Holmes, his mental powers fading in the grip of senility as he tries to recall the details of his final case.  It's a very well done film, but slow moving, with a sweet message at its heart.  The friendship between the ancient Holmes and Roger, his housekeeper's son, is beautifully portrayed and is really the movie's strongest point; the plot is a big draggy, but still worth watching.  Better than either of the Robert Downey Sherlock Holmes movies. 4/5