Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Rev. Powell]

USED AND BORROWED TIME (part 1) (2020): Oh man. A old blind woman eats a mystic meat pie served up by a racist at an Alabama fair and goes back in time to relive her experiences in an interracial romance during the civil rights struggle. It's stranger than it sounds, with the characters speaking in rhyme about half the time and CGI extras occasionally popping up in the background. And there's a subplot with a racist family with a predatory gay uncle! The acting is community theater level, scenes drag on and on, and a lot of it is just clumsy sermonizing. And at almost two hours long, this is only part one! Free on Prime, but I don't think anyone here will like it; it's a bad movie, but not a fun one. 1/5.

Part 2 is much the same, only a little shorter.

[Dr. Whom]

Vampire Saga (1988)

Also known as Mr. Vampire IV. After seeing the clip with the conga line of Chinese hopping vampires, I had to track this down. It is quite as silly as that clip suggested. It is basically just a quick succession of slapstick and slapstick kung fu scenes. Whether you'll like it will depend on how close you are to your inner 8 year old.

[pennywise37]

i haven't been in the movie mood as of late i dunno why i just got done watching Supernatural Season 1 episode #11 i think?  called Asylum it's a pretty good one actually i've seen i think season 1 the most out of any of the seasons

[FatFreddysCat]

"Die Hard" (1988)
Last night my video game crazed 13 year old son asked me out of the blue "Dad, can we watch 'Die Hard'?" - apparently John McClane has been added to "Call of Duty" as a playable character, and since he'd never seen the movie, he wanted to find out what all the fuss was about.
...so naturally I said, "Of course we can watch Die Hard!" - and he loved it. Last week it was "Star Wars," now "DH." I am honored to be schoolin' the boy in the classics.

[indianasmith]

THE WICKED (2013) - The old Open Hearth witch house lies in the woods outside of town; subject of a peculiar legend.  Anyone who breaks a window in the house will be taken by an evil witch simply called The Wicked, who will consume their flesh and blood to sustain her immortal life.  Therefore, in grand horror movie fashion, local teens dare each other to lob rocks at the house and try to break a window.  So our protagonists - four college kids and the younger brother of one of them, with his girlfriend - decide to take on the Wicked legend, and wind up being terrorized by the witch.  Gaping plotholes and generally bad acting are more than atoned for by a truly creepy witch design and some nice gory kills.  Worth the free Amazon Prime rental price by a long shot!  Heck, I think I spend $3 to rent it back in the day!
3.5/5

[Dr. Whom]

All My Friends Are Dead (2020)

This one showed up on Netflix, and as I hardly ever see Polish movies, I thought I'd give it a go.

The movies opens with a police squad investigating a crime scene of an incredible massacre at a party. The humour here is even darker and more deadpan than in a Scandinavian black comedy. We then cut to the day before, to see how all the party goers ended up dead.

I am not sure about this one. I can see how the writer had an idea of a party of privileged and artsy twenty-somethings spiraling out of control and ending in a bloodbath, but he didn't quite think through how to get from a to b. What we get in most of the movie, are couples squabbling about sex and relationships. With only fifteen minutes to go, most of the characters are still alive, when the movie switches gears abruptly, all plausibility goes out of the window, and carnage ensues. Most of the characters are just one note, or caricatures. In a dark comedy this doesn't matter, as they can be killed off for comic effect (as for instance in the sublime Ready Or Not). Instead here we spend a lot of time with characters which are neither interesting nor entertaining, and there is little to motivate the climax.
It does have its moments of dark and irreverent humour, though, and I am willing to believe that it contains jokes and references that work better for a Polish audience. 

[FatFreddysCat]

"Rush: Time Stand Still" (2016)
The legendary Canadian rock band looks back on their long career and reflects on their relationship with their devoted fan base as they embark on their "R40" tour, which eventually winds down to their final show ever, at the L.A. Forum. A very cool behind-the-scenes documentary that might make you tear up a little.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Rage" (aka "Tokarev," 2014)
Nicolas Cage is a former Mob leg breaker who's "out of the business" and gone legit... until his daughter is kidnapped and murdered, prompting him to re-assemble his old "team" and set off on a mission of vengeance.
The bursts of ultra-violence are fun to watch but otherwise this movie is a cheap re-hash of the "Taken" films. For Cage completists only.

[indianasmith]

DREAMLAND (2019) - Margot Robie stars as a Depression-era bank robber who befriends, seduces, and corrupts an "innocent" farmboy in west Texas during the Dust Bowl of 1935.  A very impressive movie, beautifully acted, Robie is smoking hot as usual, and the dust storms are accurately depicted in all their terrifying, otherworldly awfulness.  A very well done period piece!  5/5

[indianasmith]

BULLY (2001) - Larry Clark dishes up his usual level of sleaze in this "based on a true story" chronicle of some oversexed, dimwitted kids who decide to murder the bully who has been making their lives miserable.  There is not a single likable character in this entire film; just a bunch of juvenile delinquents who smoke weed, swear constantly (274 F-bombs in this movie), and have LOTs of graphic, onscreen sex, when they are not busy murdering or planning to murder the aforementioned bully - who is the LEAST likable of the entire lot.  The two female leads are very attractive, but you really feel like you need a long shower with lots of soap after watching this depressing flick.  3/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Kids are Alright" (1979)
The Who's first fifteen years (give or take) are celebrated in this collection of vintage live footage, TV appearances, and interviews that shows the boys in all their loud n proud, hard rockin', guitar smashin' glory.
Though it's considered a "documentary," "The Kids are Alright" is more of a "highlight reel," because there's no narration or "story" to speak of, just a series of legendary performances like the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Woodstock (which Townshend says he "hated"), the Isle of Wight Festival, and many more. Sadly, this would be the last Who project to involve Keith Moon, who passed away while the film was being edited.
I wasn't around to witness the Who's rise to power in the '60s but based on the smokin' live clips displayed here, they must have been a force to be reckoned with.

"31" (2016)
On Halloween night in 1976, a "family" of carnival workers are captured by a gang of clowns who force them to participate in a horrific game called "31," where they are given twelve hours to navigate their way thru a maze-like abandoned factory and avoid being slaughtered by a variety of costumed psychos.
Rob Zombie wrote and directed this loud, gory, grimy mash up of "Texas Chainsaw" and "The Running Man," which started off promising enough, but ran out of gas long before the end. I dig RZ's cool/bizarre visual style, but there's no real "story" here -- he's just spinning his wheels in the same redneck-horror rut that he's been in since he started making movies   Skip it.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Behind the Mask: The Batman Dead End Story" (2015)
An interesting documentary about Sandy Collora, the special effects artist and director whose 2003 Batman fan film short "Dead End" (in which Batman faced off against Aliens and Predators) was a hit at Comic-Con and became a viral video sensation, but ultimately failed to launch Collora's  Hollywood career. 
The behind-the-scenes footage from the making of "Dead End" is fun to watch, but while he's obviously a talented, creative guy, Collora tends to comes off as rather abrasive and full of himself, which might explain why his phone hasn't exactly been ringing off the hook with movie offers.

[Rev. Powell]

ST. MAUD (2019): A devoutly religious hospice nurse is obsessed with saving the soul of her latest patient, a retired bohemian dancer. Billed as a horror film, but it's more of a dark character study, as Maud loses touch with reality and begins to question if God has a plan for her. An A24 production that was hit hard by the pandemic and barely got a release date; it's free on Hulu or Amazon Prime. 3.5/5.

[Jim H]

Army of the Dead - Woof.  Not exactly boring, but still a shoddily constructed, annoyingly shot, slow paced and irritating film.  If you like a zombie heist movie way overcomplicated with minimal fun heist elements, stupid plot twists, extremely idiotic characters, bad decisions for no reasons, a 2.5 hour runtime for no justifiable reason, and frustrating moments, this should be right up your alley. 

Oh, if you enjoy picking at the logic and construction of films, this might be a fun one for you.  Try to count how many bits and pieces are copied from Aliens.  It feels deliberate as in homage, but so badly handled its insulting anyway.  Also look for moments that are set up and sound neat, but then never pay off AT ALL (like an anti-Chekhov's Gun).  A quick example that I guess is a minor, minor spoiler: when they enter Vegas, there are huge piles of dried out zombies.  A character tells you they re-animate when it rains.  It never rains, they never get wet, nothing.  Film is full of this crap, and none of it is some kind of interesting subversion, just reads like awful dead-end writing and a waste of the audience's time and attention span.

3/10, because it isn't boring somehow and there's a few fun ideas (zombie heist, the alpha zombie thing is kinda neat, etc), and I think I'm being generous.

[lester1/2jr]

Metropolis (1927) - I saw this restored version at the Brattle theater in Cambridge decades ago and watched it again on youtube. It feels a lot more modern than other movies of it's era, definitely on par with Citizen Kane (1933) in that sense. It got mixed reviews when it came out, as Star Wars also did.

The rich live in the high towers and frolic in beatiful gardens while the poor slave away underground. Their lives are grinded away as they wait to drop dead from exhaustion or an accident at the massive and powerful machine they operate. The newly woke boss's son likens it to human beings being sacrificed to Moloch, not the only bible reference here. In another time, I might have dismissed this as communist piffle but as todays far left and right converge in frustration with multi billionaire societal domination it feels pretty contemporary and accurate. After work, they go to hear a woman named Maria speak of a better world and a messiah who will deliver them from all this.

[edited out spoiler]

5/5