Recent viewings

[Rev. Powell]

Death of Stalin (2017). Absolutely hilarious. It is a satire and not a historical evocation, but probably more accurate than many historical movies.

Best movie released in 2018 so far IMO.

OPEN YOUR EYES (1997): A former playboy now held in a psychiatric hospital accused of murder tells his doctor how he fell in love for the first time, then lost his looks in an automobile accident the very next day: the many inconsistencies in his story suggest he is mad, but could there be another explanation? As reality-bending sub-surrealist puzzle movies go, this is one of the best, a speculative mystery with an airtight plot.

MADELINE'S MADELINE (2018): A troubled 16-year old girl escapes her neurotic home life by immersing herself in an experimental theater troupe. This movie is Cubist film portraiture: little vignettes gradually revealing facets of each major character, frequently interrupted by fractured and psychotic montages. Helena Howard has breakout star potential, though this experimental movie won't do the job. 3.5/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Passengers - J law and Chris Pratt in space. the concept, people accidentally waking up due to mechanical error on an interplanetary space flight, is interesting but they don't do anything all that interesting with it. If you were to, off the top of your head, come up with a few scenarios that's basically what this movie is: rom com stuff with the two leads, emergency with the ship yadda yadda. J Law looks great and the android bartender was a good touch but its just kind of missing something. its best moments have that sublime sci fi space feel.

3/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Shock" (aka "Beyond The Door II," 1977)
Seven years after her husband's suicide, a woman moves back into their old house with her new family -- and soon begins having supernatural experiences which lead her to believe that Hubby #1 may still be hanging around the ol' homestead after all.
"Shock" was Italian horror meistter Mario Bava's final film before his death in 1980 and while it drags a bit in the middle it's a decent enough creep show, with a bravura performance by Daria Nicolodi as the tortured housewife. One of the better Spaghetti horrors I've seen lately.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Torso" (1973)
An Italian college town is plagued by a series of strangulation murders. To get away from the horror, a group of co-eds heads to a secluded mountain top villa for the weekend, but the wack job follows them there to continue his killing spree. 
The plot for this primo slice of "giallo" murder mystery was probably written on a cocktail napkin, but the flick makes up for its frequent lapses in logic with plenty of gorgeous Italian scenery, lots of gorgeous European girls (many of whom are frequently nude) and several scenes of bright, splashy gore.  Put it all together and you've got 90 minutes of sick, sleazy fun.

[316zombie]

jesus christ, vampire hunter.
  it's a rare day that you find a deliberately campy movie that is actually funny, but this is definitely one of them. my favorite scene is when the lesbian lead character is helping jesus pick out new clothes. she keeps making him change his shirt, and she takes it off of him while saying" up up!" as if he was her 3 year old son, i was literally on the floor laughing!

[FatFreddysCat]

"Hatchet II" (2010)
The lone survivor of the first "Hatchet" film (Danielle Harris of "Halloween 4 & 5" fame) returns to the Louisiana swamps with a posse of gun-toting rednecks in tow, hoping to put an end to the murderous Victor Crowley's reign of terror once and for all. Since there have been two additional "Hatchet" movies since this one, that should tell you how successful they were. :lmao:
This tongue-firmly-in-cheek parody of/homage to '80s style slasher films is basically a chance for the special FX guys to show off their latest and greatest in sick-o gore effects, all of which are hilariously over-the-top and impressive. Bigger, louder, and  gorier than the first installment, "Hatchet II" is lots of fun as long as you've got a strong stomach.

[Dr. Whom]

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

It is not a bad movie by any means, but it is very much 'Star Trek by the numbers'. It is almost as if they were trying to cram in as many standard Star Trek plot devices and tropes in as possible. Again, everyone is doing a great job, it had specatuclar scenes and it is very beautiful, but everything about is enormously predictable. If one is unkind, one could call it a filler episode of the TV show on a blockbuster budget.

[indianasmith]

TWO WEEKS NOTICE

My wife was sick on Mother's Day, so after going to church with my Mom and taking her to eat, I came home and faced the unpleasant duty that every man must perform from time to time when his sweetie is under the weather: holding her, stroking her fevered brow, and watching a romantic comedy.

This one had Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock and was more tolerable than many of its genre, which is to say more fun than a root canal but not as much fun as watching TROLL 2 for the first time.

[BoyScoutKevin]

England's Forgotten Queen, part 3
Again hosted by historian Helen Castor
Again my thoughts on it.

Miscellaneous
Because they did not believe in Jane's right to rule, but in Mary's right to rule, the people celebrated Mary's accession to the throne. Which is a perfect example of the saying "Be careful what you wish for. You may get it." It would be funny, if it was not so tragic at the end.

The wrong one won. Mary not only proved to have learned nothing from her half brother's attempt to ram Protestantism down his subjects' throats, as she tried to ram Catholicism down her subjects' throats.

She also proved to be politically incompetent. Losing England's last toe hold on the continent, Calais (France.) And then choosing the wrong person to succeed her. (See Leandra de Lisle's Tudor : Passion, Manipulation, Murder."

When a better candidate to return England to Catholicism would have been Jane's younger sister, who would have converted, unlike Jane, to Catholicism for a chance to sit on the throne.

Devout to the end, dying unflinching and composed in her faith as a Protestant. Which is what people do not comprehend. Jane died, not because she was a political threat to Mary, unlike Elizabeth, but because she was a religious threat to the return of England to Catholicism.

To be continued . . .

[FatFreddysCat]

"I, Tonya" (2017)
Margot "Suicide Squad" Robbie portrays white-trash figure skating queen Tonya Harding in this tongue-in-cheek biopic which details Tonya's rough childhood, her rise to stardom, and the inevitable fall from grace due to her alleged involvement in the now-infamous "Nancy Kerrigan incident."
Great performances all around, esp. by Alison Janney, who won an Oscar for her turn as Harding's chain-smoking, foul-mouthed mother from Hell. 

[lester1/2jr]

I want to see that. tanya was a ridiculous skater there was some triple axle thing that she was the only woman who could do it

[dean]

I want to see that. tanya was a ridiculous skater there was some triple axle thing that she was the only woman who could do it

I rated it higher than Three Billboards, the other 'awful people doing things' movie this last Oscar season. Robbie was my performance of the year; if she did her own stunts in this movie she would've won the Oscar

[FatFreddysCat]

^^ Yeah, Margot was great as Tonya, who is still the only figure skater ever to pull off a triple-axel in competition. I read that Margot's stunt double who did most of the fancy skating for her couldn't pull one off either, so they had to do it with CGI.

Today's viewing:
"Amityville: The Awakening" (2017)
A new family - including high school Goth cutie Bella Thorne and her invalid twin brother - moves into the infamous house at 112 Ocean Avenue. Of course, it doesn't take long before the trademark Amityville boogedy boogedy stuff like swarms of flies, mysterious whispers, etc., etc. kicks in. Can Bella convince her Mom (a slumming Jennifer Jason Leigh) that All Is Not Right Here before the house claims them all as victims?
According to Wikipedia, "Awakening" is the 17th (!) film based around the "Amityville" legend. I've only seen a handful of 'em, some of which are better than others. I would file this latest installment  under "Junk, but at least it's fun junk."

[Trevor]

I recently viewed my neighbors making whoopee 

[BoyScoutKevin]

England's Forgotten Queen, part 3
Again hosted by historian Helen Castor
And my thoughts on it.

Of course, what happens when a person is martyred. They become even a bigger threat, as she became the great Protestant myth during Mary's rule. Which of course, did not make it simple to separate fact from myth.

Mary was merciful 2 ways to the 2 teens. As Jane was only 1 of 22, 17 men, 5 women, 3 of whom were queens, who was allowed a private execution, if being watched by 100 people is private, within the Tower. And instead of being burned at the  stake, which was the punishment for female traitors, she was beheaded.

Guildford was executed outside the Tower, and with no knowledge of how many people witnessed it, but as many as 10,000 people were known to witness an execution, so he probably drew a crowd with his young age, his good looks, and his family's notoriety. And he was beheaded, instead of being hanged, drawn, and quartered or the punishment for male traitors.

Drawn. On a sledge to the place of execution.
Hanged. Not so your neck was broken, but so you slowly strangled to death.
And while you were still alive, cut down, emasculated and gutted.
Quartered. Your arms and legs removed from your torso and hung up as a warning to other people.

They may have been guilty by the laws at that time, but, why was he even executed? If there was a slight justification for his wife's execution, there was even less for his, as he was neither a political or religious threat to the throne. He may even have been Mary's godson, but she had so many, what was 1 less.

Next time: Finally




Of course