Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Gabriel Knight]

Vertigo - I'd never seen this one before, I'd been intending to for ages.  It's beautifully shot and well-acted generally, interesting thematic material and some unique and obviously highly influential visuals,  but I'm not sure how well I connected to it, I guess?  I also thought it really drags in the middle.  Think I preferred the other Jimmy Stewart/Hitchcock collabs I've seen, Rear Window (my fave Hitch film, to date) and Rope.  Also, Jimmy Stewart is a bit miscast, like 15-20 years too old and seems even older than he is - Cary Grant was too old, but kind of pulled it off anyway.

Also, can I say Midge is a billion times more interesting than Kim Novak?  Kept hoping Stewart would go back to her instead.  I know that's not the point, heh.

I thought VERTIGO was boring, tedious, and a lot of times it didn't made any sense, like the hotel scene in which the character sees the woman there but then she's mysteriously gone. Hitchcock called it an "iceboxscene". To me, it was more like a bulls**t scene.
I spent most of the time watching the main character spying from his car, it was torture. I don't know, maybe a second watch may improve it, but I'm pretty sure it's just praised because of its director, and nothing more.

[FatFreddysCat]

Took a break from schlocky horror last night in favor of an old sci-fi favorite:

"Logan's Run" (1976)
In the 23rd century, humans live in a high-tech domed city where everyone is young and beautiful... because your life ends at the age of 30. Those who try to extend their life spans, known as "runners," are hunted by police officers called "Sandmen."
Logan (Michael York) is a Sandman who's assigned to go undercover as a runner in order to seek out and destroy a mythical place outside the dome known as "Sanctuary."
This flick looks kitschy as hell nowadays but in the '70s it was pretty mind blowing stuff, with a unique dystopian premise, lots of cool/weird visuals, and fabulous eye candy courtesy of the barely-dressed Jenny Agutter, who plays Logan's love interest. I saw it a bunch of times on HBO when I was a kid and it's still fun to watch today.
The movie inspired a short lived TV series with Gregory Harrison in York's role and an equally brief Marvel comic book spin off.

[FatFreddysCat]

"KISS In Attack of the Phantoms" (1978)
The super-powered rock group comes to California's Magic Mountain amusement park and battles evil android duplicates of themselves, created by the rock n roll hating mad scientist who built the park's cybernetic creatures and robots. Hilarity ensues.
This is an alternate cut of the legendary TV movie KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, which was released theatrically outside of the US in 1979. (It's available in the KISSology Vol. 2 DVD box set.)
I've seen the TV movie version of this film many times, but this was my first time seeing this cut. Of course, it's still cheap looking, incredibly silly and mostly terrible, but I have to admit that it moves faster and flows better than the NBC-TV version, and it contains more KISS music (mostly cuts from the '78 solo albums), so it was a slightly less painful viewing experience. If you absolutely must watch this film, I'd say this is the version to seek out.

[lester1/2jr]

Columbus Circle (2012) - passably entertaining crime suspense thingy that really couldn't find the right tone. I'm pretty sure the doorman  was the guy from "Office Space" who kept getting moved back and back and then into the basement as the front desk guy though so an extra point for that. (edit: no it's not)

An Heiress worth hundreds of millions of dollars (effectively played by Selma Blair) is an agoraphobe hiding out from the world in her NYC apartment. Her new neighbors appear to be a low class rich couple who fight all the time... but is everything it appears to be?

It's kind of like a slightly campy episode of Medium or something. The concept is good but it can't decide if it wants to be fiilm noir or a "Little Shop of Horrors"/ disaster movie type outrageous celebrity filled romp.  

total meh fest
2.75 / 5

[Dr. Whom]

Mandibules (2020) (or Mandibles in English)

Two dimwitted bums/low life thugs have to deliver a suitcase with no questions asked, when they discover  a fly the size of a dog in the car they steal. They hit upon the idea of training it as a cat burglar. Complications ensue when one of them is mistaken by a passing girl for her high school sweetheart.


A wonderful deadpan comedy by Quentin Dupieux. Its main strength is that is remains completely understated.  With a setup like this, the temptation is great to go for over the top slapstick, or shoehorn in a character arc or a love story (or any such things that are taught in film school). Dupieux does none of that: he takes the theme, has fun with it, and stops before it gets complicated.

Also, if you are a French learner, this an occasion to pick up all the French they don't teach you in class.

[indianasmith]

Halloween weekend double feature:

FREAKY (2021) - A quirky teenage girl swaps bodies with a demented serial killer due to a mishap with an ancient, accursed dagger.  The killer uses his new, innocent looking exterior to continue his bloody rampage, while the girl has to persuade her friends that it's really her inside a hulking, six foot three frame - and pursue a relationship with her crush, a varsity football player (in one of the movies more cringey scenes!)  This was a solid, original horror/comedy (a genre that very rarely gets everything right) that mixed some grossout kills with some very funny moments. 4/5

ANTLERS (2020) - A delayed release due to the pandemic, this Guillermo del Toro horror film hits all the right notes.  Perfect casting, a marvelous, brooding sense of terror, a slow reveal of the movie's titular monster, and a very sympathetic portrayal of a young boy trying to protect his father and brother, even when it means letting other people die.  This is one of the BEST horror movies I've seen in a long time, and more than made up for my disappointment with HALLOWEEN KILLS.  5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

Mischief Night double feature:

"Halloween Kills" (2021)
Picking up moments after the events of the 2018 Halloween "reboot," Laurie Strode is hospitalized after her latest encounter with Michael Myers, and the citizens of Haddonfield, tired of living in fear, form a posse to find the madman and finish him once and for all. Three guesses how well that turns out for most of them...
There's a lot going on in this movie. On the good side, the violence is frequent, swift, and brutal, with Michael racking up an absurd body count. On the other hand, there are way too many secondary characters running around with their own plot threads and unnecessary call-backs to Carpenter's '78 O.G.
Meanwhiile, Jamie Lee Curtis spends most of the movie lying in a hospital bed babbling about how Michael's evil has infected the town's soul and muses on the long term effects of guilt and fear on everyone's relationships, and blah blah blah. Is this a slasher movie, or "Terms of Endearment?"
I liked the 2018 movie, but this one was a step down.  Nothin' to do now but wait till "Halloween Ends," due this time next year...

"The Forever Purge" (2021)
A wealthy Texas ranch family and their Mexican farmhands must band together to survive when an insurrectionist group called the "Purge Purification Force" declares that the annual "Purge" will NOT come to an end after the traditional 12 hour time limit, and chaos continues to erupt nationwide.
So yeah, this is yet another 90 minutes of ultra-violence disguised as social satire/commentary, which as usual is about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the forehead (i.e., our heroes must cross the border into Mexico to escape the violence in America. Wow, that's a switch!). However, the mayhem is impressive as usual (lots of stuff crashing, blowing up, etc.) and the leads are likeable enough that you find yourself rooting for them even though you know most of them won't make it to the end credits.
In short, if you enjoyed the other "Purge" movies, you'll dig this one too.

[Trevor]

OUT FOR JUSTICE (1991) with Steven Seagal: not bad action but the dialogue! There's a lengthy scene in a bar where Seagal is looking for the local hoodlum Richie and the words "over here" are used so many times, they should have titled the film Out For Justice Over Here. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zu1YIukylw&t=168s 

[FatFreddysCat]

Finishing out October with a schlocky Halloween night triple decker...

"10/31" (2017)
Indie horror anthology consisting of five short  tales that all take place on Halloween night, hosted by a low-rent Elvira wanna-be.
The first two stories (a haunted hotel and a trip to an abandoned house that goes bad) aren't terrible, but the quality drops off sharply from there. The last segment about a Halloween night slasher is totally incomprehensible.
This was obviously very low budget (each segment was produced/directed by a different team and financed via GoFundMe campaigns) and the sets, effects, and especially the performances (which are strictly amateur night) reflect this. I guess if you're deep into the underground, indie-horror scene you might get some enjoyment out of this but I thought it was a slog.
AVOID.

"Lost CreeK" (2016)
In the days leading up to Halloween, three small town kids must figure out how to stop an evil in the forest that's making all the grown-ups disappear.
This indie flick was apparently aimed at a "family" audience so it's more "spooky" than "horrific." The kid actors are pretty good and the movie is obviously trying to tap into a "Stranger Things" or "Stephen King's It" type of vibe, but it can't quite pull it off with such a low budget. This was better than "10/31," but that's not really saying much.

"Halloween Pu$$y Trap, Kill! Kill!" (2017)
...how could I possibly pass up a title like  ?
An all-girl punk band's  van breaks down in the boondocks. They accept a ride from a mysterious gas station attendant (Richard Grieco) which turns out to be a bad move. Soon they're prisoners in a madman's warehouse of death and have to figure out how to survive three floors of deadly traps to escape. Much screaming, bleeding, and swearing ensues.
...so yeah, this was a cheap parody of Rob Zombie style redneck-horror flicks and the Saw series. In an unexpected metal moment, the voice of the Jigsaw-style "mastermind" (who we hear over the loudspeaker throughout the movie) is none other than Dave Mustaine of Megadeth. He must have owed someone a favor.
This one was actually pretty funny at first (in a tasteless sort of way), but after a while the girls' constant screaming gave me a headache, and I found myself wishing that Mega-Dave would just snuff'em all out and get it over with.

[Cult_Moody_Movies]

Halloween Kills (2021) - A mess of a film. From my understanding of the original point of 2018 (which I overall liked considering the 3rd reboot of the story) was to make Michael Myers a inhuman monster that was just a random murderer again. Instead we fall into the same pitfalls of the same mistakes made in the previous sequels/timelines. It's not the worse of the Halloween franchise but doesn't improve the mistakes done in the franchises past while also being extremely hypocritical in its themes (mob rule/vigilante justice). I remain in the unpopular opinion that the series should have went in the direction of Halloween III: Season of the Witch with Myers story ending at the hospital of Halloween II in 1981. I don't look forward to Halloween Ends.

[RCMerchant]

Beyond the original- aye aye Captain Bligh! 3 was the best of the series! 

[FatFreddysCat]

"Out of Print" (2014)
This documentary examines the "revival theater" phenomenon, i.e. old movie houses that show old films for audiences made up mostly of film buffs/obsessives. It mainly focuses on the staff and patrons of the New Beverly Cinema in Hollywood, which has been running 35mm oldies since the late '70s and has cultivated a loyal crowd of regulars who visit several times a week. Some famous fans like directors Kevin Smith, Seth Green, and Edgar Wright also drop in occasionally. The New Beverly looks like my kind of place and if I'm ever in L.A. I think I'm gonna try to catch a show there!

[RCMerchant]

^ I've seen that!
Yeah- I would go too. 

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Suicide Squad" (2021)
Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and Bloodsport (Idris Elba) are assigned to a new group of D-list DC Comics villains (including Polka Dot Man, King Shark, and the hilariously uptight Peacemaker) drafted (against their will) by the US government for a top secret mission. This time they're sent to a South American banana republic to investigate and destroy a scientific laboratory that may be hiding an extra-terrestrial threat to the entire Earth. Naturally, they punch, shoot, kill, and blow up a whole lot of stuff in the process.
The first "Suicide Squad" was a mostly bland action flick, but in this follow up writer/director James "Guardians of the Galaxy" Gunn leans way harder into the absurdity of the concept. As a result "The Suicide Squad" is funnier, snarkier, and more ridiculous than its predecessor, without skimping on the "R" rated carnage. Better than I expected!

[Trevor]

"Out of Print" (2014)
This documentary examines the "revival theater" phenomenon, i.e. old movie houses that show old films for audiences made up mostly of film buffs/obsessives. It mainly focuses on the staff and patrons of the New Beverly Cinema in Hollywood, which has been running 35mm oldies since the late '70s and has cultivated a loyal crowd of regulars who visit several times a week. Some famous fans like directors Kevin Smith, Seth Green, and Edgar Wright also drop in occasionally. The New Beverly looks like my kind of place and if I'm ever in L.A. I think I'm gonna try to catch a show there!

I would go there too: I would even volunteer as a projectionist which is something I can actually do pretty well