Recent viewings

[Trevor]

Congo (1995): Killer monkeys, killer hippos, Tim Curry, Winston Zeddemore and Joe Don Baker going Mitchell crazy: what more could you ask for?

A better film, that's what. 

[Rev. Powell]

THE UNKNOWN (1927): An armless trick shooter (Lon Chaney) falls in love with a circus lady who can't stand the touch of a man; seems like the perfect match, but there's a secret that complicates things. Modern filmmakers could learn a thing or two from the grand, obvious metaphors and crushing ironies of silent films like this: there can be enormous power in simplicity. 4/5.

[Trevor]

I finally managed to sit through Watchmen: my lasting impression is it probably worked better as a graphic novel. 

[lester1/2jr]

A Solitary Man - this is one of those movies I don't want to write about for some reason. As a "labor of love" type thing its pretty good. Its a little too sort of specialized and random as a story to be a blockbuster but you can see why they wanted to do it. I'm a huge Michael Douglas fan maybe not specifically for his acting but just the kind of movies he makes. This is different than, say, Fatal attraction though.

Douglas is a broken man of sorts who lost his car dealership due to corruption and has screwed up his family life because of womanizing. His one night stands and declining fortunes show what can happen when an "alpha male" loses his moral center. He bulldozes over lesser men and yet lacks the balance and in general the happiness of these "betas". The meek shall inherit the Earth after all. His fall from grace reminded me of "Nightmare Alley" though there was no actual geekery/ fowl head biting.

If you're not an east coast liberal WASP the opulence and superficiality of these characters will horrify you. Welcome to our low interest rate Dow 50,000 Hell

4/5

[FatFreddysCat]

Dang, I've been slackin' on the movie watching lately... time to get back in the groove!

"Omega Cop" (1990)
Zero budget action schlock starring martial artist Ron Marchini as the only police officer left in a post-apocalyptic "city" (which looks like a deserted suburban industrial park on a Sunday afternoon).
He protects a couple of girls with bad '80s hair from a gang of slave traders and kicks ass on an endless stream of random mulleted dudes who look like WWE rejects. Yup, that's it. This flick has no production values, no plot, no story, no redeeming values whatsoever.
Followed by a sequel, "Karate Cop," which I shall make sure to avoid like the plague.

[javakoala]

I finally managed to sit through Watchmen: my lasting impression is it probably worked better as a graphic novel. 

Well, it is a Zach Snyder movie, so...yeah, he just sucks. As I've said before, he should literally follow in Tony Scott's final footsteps.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Apocalypse Now Redux" (1979/2001)

Believe it or not, this is the first time I've ever seen Francis Ford Coppola's sprawling Vietnam War epic - via the three-hour-and-fifteen-minute "director's cut" re-release, no less.

Martin Sheen is an Army captain assigned to eliminate a former Special Forces colonel (Marlon Brando) who's taken over a portion of the Cambodian jungle and set himself up as a murderous Manson-type cult leader. The people he meets on his journey up river - and the atrocities he witnesses along the way - make up most of the story.

I've been told for years that this is one of the movies I need to see before I die, and now I see why. "A.N." is spooky, haunting, disturbing, beautifully photographed, and full of great performances and quotable bits. This 2001 extended version is at least a half hour longer than is really necessary but even so it's still great stuff.

[lester1/2jr]

Prince of Darkness - Not all aspects of this have aged well, the black guy who giggles and stuff was just annoying, but it's a good one to see or revisit. It doesn't burn on all cylinders the way Carpenters "They Live" does but its a lot better than most stuff. I even liked the Asian comic relief guy. an Ancient cult is trying to bring Satan back to Earth kind of thing.

One of those movies I didn't watch because I had seen some of it a long time ago then one day I was like "wait a minute I only saw like half of it and that was 20 years ago". The weird dream video was a nice touch.
4/5

Isle of the Dead - Boris karloff movie. the lead lady is pretty and the setting on a Greek Island is interesting but it can't decide if it wants to be a horror movie or a drama and the characters just kind of moodily amble around the house till the very end when it gets somewhat creepier. They all ahve the plague or soething or think they have it

2.25/5 th extra 25 is for the girl

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Matador" (2005)
A contract killer teetering on the edge of burn out (Pierce Brosnan) meets a dorky salesman (Greg Kinnear) in a Mexican hotel bar, and the two men strike up an odd friendship ... which ends up with Pierce needing Greg's help to finish one last job.
A well written, funny twist on the "buddy comedy" formula, with great performances by the two leads. Brosnan is definitely having a ball playing the total opposite of his usual super-suave type.

[Chainsawmidget]

I finally managed to sit through Watchmen: my lasting impression is it probably worked better as a graphic novel. 

Even as a comic book I think it's highly overrated. 

Anyway, I watched Disney's Moana.  Great visuals, fun characters, a few nice songs (Dwayne Johnson actually singing the best one of them), but the film suffers slightly from the lack of a strong villain. 

[Rev. Powell]

WATCHMEN is the one thing from Zach Snyder I actually liked.

ARIA (1987): Ten directors each create a short film based on a short opera aria. The usual omnibus issues with uneveness, but the gems here are Ken Russel's hallucinatory vision for "Nessun dorma" (one of his most visually elaborate works, and with a nice payoff) and Julien Temple's adultery farce (the longest segment, set to "Rigoletto"). Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, and Franc Roddam also turn in good numbers; the rest are dull. 3.5/5.

[javakoala]

ARIA (1987): Ten directors each create a short film based on a short opera aria. The usual omnibus issues with uneveness, but the gems here are Ken Russel's hallucinatory vision for "Nessun dorma" (one of his most visually elaborate works, and with a nice payoff) and Julien Temple's adultery farce (the longest segment, set to "Rigoletto"). Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, and Franc Roddam also turn in good numbers; the rest are dull. 3.5/5.

Wow. I'd forgotten about this film. Watched it when it came out on VHS. I remember liking it, and was honestly shocked at how controlled Ken Russell's piece was, as I had just watched GOTHIC shortly before ARIA.

<sigh> If only we could get a complete version of Russell's WHORE on BD....

[FatFreddysCat]

"We Are X" (2016)
Documentary about the long and sometimes bizarre/tragic history of Japanese rock legends X Japan, who are treated like Gods in their homeland but remain a mostly unknown quantity in the Western world. X Japan is one of those bands I've always heard much about, but I don't think I ever actually heard any of their music till I watched this film. In spite of my near-total unfamiliarity with their material, this was an interesting rock doc.  If you're a fan of the band, you'll probably dig this even more than I did.

"Iron Man" (2008)
After a near-fatal experience in a Middle East war zone, zillionaire genius Tony Stark returns home and creates a super-suit of armor that allows him to kick mucho bad guy butt. Robert Downey Jr. was the perfect guy to play Stark, he's got Tony's world-weary, smug prick vibe down pat. "Iron Man" kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe in fine style, and is still one of the best flicks in the MCU all these years later.

[lester1/2jr]

Island of lost Women- They weren't lost and not a lot happens in this movie but the girls are cute and everyone is likeable.

This is them with their cock blocker scientist guy Dad. the guys crashed their plane and discovered all this and now logically want to take the girls back home.




4/5

[claws]

Exeter (2015)

A group of filthy teens party hard in an abandoned asylum that had a history of patients abuse, and is now rumored to be haunted. When one of the friends gets possessed by an evil force things get chaotic and bloody real quick.

German director Marcus Nispel was responsible for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and Friday the 13th (2009) remakes. He also re-did Conan the Barbarian in 2011. Exeter was filmed four years after Conan and it is, well, pretty bad. It's lacking a coherent plot structure and built up. Everything is fine during the first 20 minutes, then Nispel just throws the horror at the audience in a rather silly and unconvincing manner. To me it felt like the film was mocking its audience, but not in a smart way.
The teens are unsympathetic borderline white trash drug abusing annoyances. They have to look up animated DIY exorcism videos on youtube (!) on their smart phones in order to perform a exorcism. One guy says there's no such thing as the devil. Two minutes later he suggests an exorcism. Say what? Exeter is filled with stupid stuff like that.
On the plus side the film has excellent production values and great gore, but it doesn't help much when the the rest stinks. Rating: 1.5/5