Recent viewings

[Trevor]

I CAN ONLY IMAGINE (2018) - Bart Millard is one of our home town heroes, a really nice guy who wrote a song that topped not just the gospel charts but also the secular billboards a few years back. "I Can Only Imagine" is a lovely and unforgettable tune, but the story behind it is even more remarkable: how the child of an abusive father overcame his broken relationship and experienced healing and wholeness with his dad.  I loved this movie, all the more so because I know the man whose story it tells.  5/5


THE LODGERS (2017)  Twin siblings share a creepy old mansion with the unseen "others" who force them to live by three simple commands: They must be in their beds by midnight, they must never let another person cross the threshold, and they must never leave each other all alone.  Well written, with a creepy, incestuous vibe, this Irish movie smacks a bit of FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC and WUTHERING HEIGHTS.  A ghost story that makes you think! 4/5

So no viewing of Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom yet? 

[FatFreddysCat]

"Who The F**k Is That Guy?" (2017)
A documentary profile of Michael Alago, the '80s NYC club kid and music geek who went on to become a powerhouse A&R executive. This is the guy who signed Metallica to Elektra Records when he was barely old enough to drink, then went on to work with a host of other artists/bands across the genre spectrum. Various members of Metallica, White Zombie, Metal Church, the Misfits, the Cro-Mags and many more provide commentary on an interesting guy who's definitely led an interesting life.

[indianasmith]

I CAN ONLY IMAGINE (2018) - Bart Millard is one of our home town heroes, a really nice guy who wrote a song that topped not just the gospel charts but also the secular billboards a few years back. "I Can Only Imagine" is a lovely and unforgettable tune, but the story behind it is even more remarkable: how the child of an abusive father overcame his broken relationship and experienced healing and wholeness with his dad.  I loved this movie, all the more so because I know the man whose story it tells.  5/5


THE LODGERS (2017)  Twin siblings share a creepy old mansion with the unseen "others" who force them to live by three simple commands: They must be in their beds by midnight, they must never let another person cross the threshold, and they must never leave each other all alone.  Well written, with a creepy, incestuous vibe, this Irish movie smacks a bit of FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC and WUTHERING HEIGHTS.  A ghost story that makes you think! 4/5

So no viewing of Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom yet? 

I have tickets for 7 PM tonight!

[Alex]

I CAN ONLY IMAGINE (2018) - Bart Millard is one of our home town heroes, a really nice guy who wrote a song that topped not just the gospel charts but also the secular billboards a few years back. "I Can Only Imagine" is a lovely and unforgettable tune, but the story behind it is even more remarkable: how the child of an abusive father overcame his broken relationship and experienced healing and wholeness with his dad.  I loved this movie, all the more so because I know the man whose story it tells.  5/5


THE LODGERS (2017)  Twin siblings share a creepy old mansion with the unseen "others" who force them to live by three simple commands: They must be in their beds by midnight, they must never let another person cross the threshold, and they must never leave each other all alone.  Well written, with a creepy, incestuous vibe, this Irish movie smacks a bit of FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC and WUTHERING HEIGHTS.  A ghost story that makes you think! 4/5

So no viewing of Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom yet? 

I have tickets for 7 PM tonight!

Somehow I have a mental image of you making that journey constantly checking the news to make sure no disaster has befallen the theatre and looking out the window to make sure the moon isn't about to crash into the earth.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Last Action Hero" (1993)
Thanks to a "magic ticket," a young film buff suddenly finds himself transported into his favorite shoot-em-up film franchise, where he fights bad guys alongside his hero "Jack Slater" (Arnold Schwarzenegger). This flick wants to parody the cliches' of action movies and while it isn't always successful, it's got enough in-jokes amidst the butt kicking and stuff blowing up to keep viewers entertained.

The behind-the-scenes drama while making "Last Action Hero" has become a legendary Hollywood cautionary tale, involving major budget overruns, frequent rewrites, disastrous test screenings, and last minute editing.  To add insult to injury, it opened the week after "Jurassic Park" in the summer of 1993, which totally crushed it at the box office. Ahh-nuld's film career never completely recovered.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Dr. Butcher, M.D." (1981)
! No longer available

The Americanized cut of 1980's Italian splatter-fest "Zombi Holocaust," in which an investigative team from New York travels to a South Seas island that's home to flesh-eating natives and a crazed doctor whose experiments on the locals have created a race of zombies. Whatever name this movie goes by, it's the same ridiculously gory nonsense. Fun to watch in a WTF sort of way but not a must-see by any means.

[lester1/2jr]

Hunter Prey - not my usual type of movie but pretty impressive. much more along the lines of Star Wars, Predator or a video game than Fatal attraction or a Something Weird adventure.

a prisoner of some sort (they wear masks like the Ghost singer) is being rounded up on some desolate planet. The group of bounty hunters chase him around and its a chess game and they get to know and respect each other as combatants, yadda yadda

Again it's not exactly my kind of thing and the only woman was a (fairly charming) computer voice, but I liked it

4/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Amityville 3-D" (1983)
! No longer available

A journalist who specializes in debunking supernatural phenomena moves into the famed house at 112 Ocean Avenue, planning to write an article on his experience. Naturally, this turns out to be a spectacularly bad decision for him and his family. 

The third "Amityville" installment was released a year after Spielberg & Hooper's "Poltergeist" and borrows heavily from its plot, but it isn't nearly as much fun. The 3-D gimmick adds nothing to this slow moving flick full of cheap scares and even cheaper special effects. Useless trivia, "Amityville 3-D" features early-career performances by the then-unknown Meg Ryan and Lori ("Full House") Laughlin as a pair of teenyboppers!

[FatFreddysCat]

"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (2017)
! No longer available

In the latest "Star Wars" epic, Rey tracks down Luke Skywalker for help discovering her Jedi destiny, then battles the evil Kylo Ren. Meanwhile Finn and Poe fight to save the remnants of the Rebellion from a final all-out assault.
"Last Jedi" got tons of hate from fanboys who were apparently p**sed that the film didn't live up to the personal fan fictions they were carrying around in their heads, but I thought it was great and it still made about a bazillion dollars at the box office, so either I'm easy to please or the haters simply need to get off of YouTube and out of the house more often. Bring on Episode IX.

[lester1/2jr]

pitfall - pretty decent film noir about a guy who has an affair with a moll type lady (Lizabeth Scott) and thus p**ses off the wrong people and gets into bad circumstances. Scott was not known for her acting prowess and comes off as a cross between lauren bacall and Norman Bates dressed as his mother but somehow it works. The story is a good noir combination of middle america and the seedy side of things and supporting characters motivations and performances have more depth than usual. The wife played by Jane Wyatt cold have been more "driving her husband to an affair ish", instead shes more or less normal and nice, if not at all my type.

4.5 /5

[indianasmith]

CARGO (2017)  Martin Freeman (THE HOBBIT trilogy, SHERLOCK) plays a father trying to protect his baby daughter in post-zombie apocalypse Australia.  He has 72 hours from the time he is bitten before he transforms; he must evade those who have already turned while trying to find uninfected people who are willing to take on his child.  More drama than horror; this is a well done film with some genuinely creepy moments.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Violent Cops" (aka "Crimebusters," 1976)
! No longer available
A soldier (Henry Silva) and a detective (Antonio Sabato) team up to investigate how common Italian street thugs are getting their hands on military-grade machine guns. Naturally, this leads to lots of shoot-outs, vehicle chases, and fist fights.  In other words, this is a pretty typical "poliziotteschi" flick, i.e. short on plot but loaded with cartoonish ultra-violence. Entertaining junk.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Battle Beyond the Stars" (1980)
! No longer available

When a peaceful planet is threatened by a galactic conqueror, they send a young emissary out into space to recruit mercenaries willing to help them fight the bad guys.

Roger Corman's "Star Wars" knock off is essentially "The Magnificent Seven" set in outer space, with surprisingly lavish (by Roger's standards anyway) sets and effects and a cast full of familiar faces like Robert Vaughn, Sybil Danning, John Saxon, George Peppard and Richard "John Boy Walton" Thomas. It doesn't have an original bone in its body, but "Battle Beyond the Stars" is enjoyably cheesy comic-book fun.

Useless trivia: a young James Cameron was a special effects technician on this movie. Corman recycled special effects shots, set pieces and even bits of the musical score from "Battle" in other movies for years afterward, including "Space Raiders," "Forbidden World," and his aborted "Fantastic Four" adaptation.

[316zombie]

highrise

i couldn't explain this if you gave me a million bucks. it is VERY twisted.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Beast With a Gun" (aka "Mad Dog Killer" and "Ferocious," 1977)
! No longer available
A quartet of prison escapees rape, murder, and Rob their way across the Italian countryside until a tough police inspector (Richard Harrison) makes it his personal mission to bring the gang's leader (Helmut Berger) to justice.
Yet another cheap, sleazy slab of Eurocrime, featuring the usual awkward dialog and poor dubbing, comically over-the-top ultra-violence, and a decent amount of female eye candy (thanks to Austrian beauty Marisa Mell of "Danger! Diabolik" fame). Trashy fun!