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Recent Viewings, Part 2

Started by Rev. Powell, February 15, 2020, 10:36:26 PM

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bob

Quote from: lester1/2jr on January 18, 2025, 06:56:04 PMThe Gingerweed Man (2021) - I have never seen the Evil Bong series so I didn't know what to expect other than not very much. It makes no sense that it's a gingerbread man who is also made out of weed. Is it a weed cookie? A scientist makes it then another scientist tries to steal it, along with some women.

I liked that he/ it had a British accent for no reason and also liked that this was just 45 minutes long. There was even a little bit of nudity with boobs that hadn't been aerobicized into oblivion. I didn't like the 80's cartoon style "cute" sidekick weed doll thing that turned up or feeling like a juggalo as I watched this.

Fair's fair though, it was entertaining

4/5

 :bouncegiggle:  :bouncegiggle:  :bouncegiggle:

I love The Gingerweed Man
Kubrick, Nolan, Tarantino, Wan, Iñárritu, Scorsese, Chaplin, Abrams, Wes Anderson, Gilliam, Kurosawa, Villeneuve - the elite



I believe in the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

lester1/2jr

#4366
RC- I have but the gingerweed man is a living thing so I was confused.

Bob - I might check out Ooga Booga next

Dr. Whom

Golem (1979)

In a postapocalyptic future, an artificial human/clone gets out among society and tries to live his life as an ordinary person, while being watched by his mysterious creators.

This is one of these movies that resolutely refuse to make sense. It consists of a series of deliberately absurdist scenes about someone who tries to go about his life in a hostile and paranoid environment, where nothing works and everything is a lie. As such I think it resonated with its Polish audience at the time. Kafka is not very far of.

It did keep my interest.
"Once you get past a certain threshold, everyone's problems are the same: fortifying your island and hiding the heat signature from your fusion reactor."

Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! ... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.

Trevor

Quote from: FatFreddysCat on January 17, 2025, 10:20:05 PM"Vigilante" (1982)
After his family is brutalized by street thugs, a working-class New Yorker (Robert Forster) joins up with a neighborhood group of tough guys led by Fred "The Hammer" Williamson who are on a mission to take back the streets from the pimps, dealers, and muggers. Much bad-guy butt is kicked in this effective "Death Wish" variant directed by William Lustig, later of "Maniac Cop" fame.

I always wanted to see this but my folks took one look at the poster and went "Uh uh." 😳☺️☺️
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.

M.10rda

Well, David Lynch left us last week to reside in a higher Lodge, and that seems to require some acknowledgment in a "Good Movies" section of this website. At the moment (for days in fact) I struggle to communicate how to express his influence on my life and work - surely greater than that of any other artist, entertainer, or public figure. A very small admission would be as follows: TWIN PEAKS saved my life when I was young and is probably more responsible than any other piece of cinema for motivating my lifelong obsession with movies. (I could speak similarly about a number of other titles, but some of those are also directed by David Lynch.) Perhaps the best I can do in terms of eloquence and efficiency right now is to type this:

I started compulsively watching as many movies as possible to find the ones that made me feel like David Lynch films made me feel.

I am sure no one is surprised to see me confess that I waste a lot of precious time watching movies that don't make me feel like David Lynch films make me feel, and then complaining about them on this website. Instead of just being depressed this week, I tried to examine this sentiment and act on it. Did I really need to waste two hours of my life watching and reviewing BORDERLANDS? My wife wanted to watch it, but she (smartly) gave up after an hour, and my OCD persisted. Yet BORDERLANDS brought me no closer to David Lynch - a shame, perhaps, as David Lynch is almost singlehandedly responsible for giving the film world Eli Roth... I digress. If I have 200 films left in me... if I have 100 films left in me... if I have 10 films, or if I have 1... should I watch a film that brings me no closer or a film that brings me closer to the sensation that saved my darn life as a young person?

I have tried to harness that sentiment this week. I did find a film that makes me feel similarly to that grand old vital feeling, and I will review it later. But first I will review something that didn't feel like it was sparking joy in me before I hit the "Play" button, and it didn't spark joy in me while I was watching it. But I don't regret it and David Lynch probably wouldn't, either, so I'll review that right now.

M.10rda

NIGHT AND FOG (1956):
In the end it was the running time that moved me - only 35 minutes. That seemed like a reasonable investment - plus it's a film by Alan Resnais, a guy who isn't David Lynch but who is no slouch in terms of making interesting movies worth watching. Even LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD on its own probably earns Alan Resnais a lifelong pass. Some of his late films weren't that amazing but I watched 'em, so I can watch this, too.

Resnais (with the assistance of Sacha Vierny's color photography and indelible dolly tracks) visits several German concentration camps to concisely remind viewers what happened during the Holocaust. Trigger Warning: A lot of B+W archival footage supplements the gorgeous, horrible new footage. Michel Bouquet reads Resnais' narration. The music is discordant with the images and kind of terrible - my only complaint about the film. But in this case, kind of irrelevant.

My first thought while watching this: it kind of makes THE ZONE OF INTEREST feel more redundant than it already did when I watched it last year. Then, at the end, following Bouquet's final lines, this: THE ZONE OF INTEREST isn't redundant and will never be redundant, and NIGHT AND FOG feels like it was made yesterday to be viewed by Americans on the even of this week's presidential inauguration. Here are those closing lines:

With our sincere gaze we survey these ruins, as if the old monster lay crushed forever beneath the rubble. We pretend to take up hope again as the image recedes into the past, as if we were cured once and for all of the scourge of the camps. We pretend it happened all at once, at a given time and place. We turn a blind eye to what surrounds us and a deaf ear to humanity's never-ending cry... Who among us keeps watch over this strange watchtower to warn the arrival of our new executioners? Are their faces really different from our own?

5/5
Oh well. Maybe we'll get it right after the next Holocaust.

FatFreddysCat

"Crack House" (1989)
A young couple in ghetto L.A. tries their best to steer clear of the drug dealin' and gang bangin' that goes on in their neighborhood, but when the boyfriend ends up in prison, his girl quickly begins a downward spiral into crack addiction.
An odd little film that starts out like an After-School Special about the dangers of drugs and gangs but eventually turns into a straight up exploitation shoot'em up with appearances by B-Movie royalty like Richard "Shaft" Roundtree and "Gentleman" Jim Brown as the crack kingpin. Hilariously tasteless, entertaining crap.
"If you're a false, don't entry, because you'll be burned and died!"

lester1/2jr

#4372
Arctic Void (2022) - A perfect grade for location: It's called Arctic Void and it's filmed in the Arctic! First out on a boat, then in some town. Pretty low budget, but they managed to get a nice camera so there's your big selling point. For the acting, I'd go 20/25, the script somewhat less. It's a decent idea, but the dialogue needed to be a little more profound than like "If something bad happens I'll really miss my family". You're at the top of the world, now is the time to get all mystical and crap.

A big part of the plot is a sci fi Hail Mary that would have needed at least a 15 minute backstory to properly explain it. It ends up being more of a good Syfy channel movie with some Bermuda triangle type concerns rather than an actual indie MOVIE movie.

4.25/ 5

filmed in 16 days which is apparently impressive? i don't really know anything about that stuff

M.10rda

#4373
TEEN ALIEN aka THE VARROW MISSION (1978):
Surely this film is known on this website. Why did you not tell me about it??? I didn't slip up and post in the wrong section. TEEN ALIEN is definitely a Bad Movie but it got me through an increasingly tough week in 12-15 minute segments per night, plus a final 30 minute reward on Friday. It even provided comfort and reassurance about the restorative magic of cinema on the night David Lynch passed away. So TEEN ALIEN isn't just any bad movie, it's the kind of Bad Movie that justifies an entire website and community named for Bad Movies. It belongs on Bad Movie Mount Rushmore with MANOS, MONSTER-A-GO-GO, and RED ZONE CUBA.

The film opens in a shack in the late 1950s, where the Platonic Ideal of "drunk old hillbilly" methodically mixes a jar of moonshine for what feels like several minutes, then goes outside and witnesses a UFO flying over his home. This sequence is actually assembled professionally (including a generous performance from the old guy) and builds logically to a punchline which lands perfectly. For a moment I thought TEEN ALIEN might be a legitimately well-made film.

Then the title appears and we jump 20 years to the "present" day. A handsome teenage mechanic named Carl drives a funny little rich guy who looks like George R.R. Martin around in a vintage Rolls Royce and they visit "the old mill", which GRR owns and which is maybe haunted.  Carl mentions that his friends need a location for their Halloween "spook alley"  :question: and then refuses payment for tuning up the Rolls, but then GRR has to practically twist the kid's arm to agree to use the old mill. Actually I half-suspected that GRR might try to twist Carl's arm, pull his hair, and spit in his mouth at any moment, but TEEN ALIEN is a wholesome family film, and really the nice old man just wants Carl and his friends to have a fun festive time in an old abandoned building that is rumored to be infested with hostile spirits.

So, cue the synth montage music, Carl rounds up the gang and they get to work. Of course there are a band of mean kids who want to spoil the fun for Carl and his friends, including one girl who leers sadistically into the camera like she's wielding a whip in a Jess Franco flick. They get some support from a weird Nordic kid who looks like the sort of teenage geek who would condescend to you for listening to anything other than Finnish Black Metal. Geez, where'd he come from?

TEEN ALIEN is... marvelous fun. Well, "for patient viewers", let's say. It's a live-action "Scooby Doo" episode in even slower motion, in terms both of frames of animation per second and mental processing. Also, admittedly, its characters are less distinct than Velma, Daphne, and Shaggy. Other than Carl, a younger kid named "Mike" who I eventually decided was probably Carl's little brother, and "Tiny", the plus-sized super-senior in the gorilla suit, you will be hard-pressed to identify the other members of the large ensemble cast in spite of staring at some arrangement of their bodies in one wide-shot after another for an hour. Actually it's hard to even track how many kids are in Carl's gang - 5? 7? More? You will hear the names "George", "Joan", and "Jean" fifty times, but you would never be able to put a name to a face in a police line-up. There's a snotty kid who looks like Jake Busey early on that seemed like an important character, and he may later disappear into a suit of armor for the duration of the action, but then maybe that's another guy. To make matters more dissociative, all the scenes with the kids are post-dubbed by actors who sound like veterans of "Peanuts" specials without the benefit of any additional acting training. Line readings where kids admire the spookiness of the old mill or mock Tiny's clumsy fat ass are dramatically indistinguishable from ones where they are being stalked and attacked by menacing figures in hoods. It's all another day at the Christmas Pageant, eh?

I haven't even mentioned the final third of this film, which goes in another, darker, and even more ridiculous direction. TEEN ALIEN's resolution was a bit of a disappointment to me, yet I couldn't have possibly predicted the perplexing way in which it disappointed me. There are at least three prominent aspects of its ending that defy all possible logic and reason, but then the entire film operates solely on dream logic, invented by its one-and-done auteur Peter Semelka and embraced unquestioningly by its large cast & crew of Mormons and March of Dimes volunteers. It's a stupid film, but it has real magic to it - real Stupid Magic. I loved it.

4/5 unironically, perfect 5/5 for Badness

It has a magnificent (yes, wholesome) autumnal vibe and I will definitely watch it again next October.

RCMerchant

Supernatural?...perhaps. Baloney?...Perhaps not!" Bela Lugosi-the BLACK CAT (1934)
Interviewer-"Does Dracula ever end for you?
Lugosi-"No. Dracula-never ends."
Slobber, Drool, Drip!
https://www.tumblr.com/ronmerchant

indianasmith

Quote from: M.10rda on January 21, 2025, 08:15:29 AMTEEN ALIEN aka THE VARROW MISSION (1978):
Surely this film is known on this website. Why did you not tell me about it??? I didn't slip up and post in the wrong section. TEEN ALIEN is definitely a Bad Movie but it got me through an increasingly tough week in 12-15 minute segments per night, plus a final 30 minute reward on Friday. It even provided comfort and reassurance about the restorative magic of cinema on the night David Lynch passed away. So TEEN ALIEN isn't just any bad movie, it's the kind of Bad Movie that justifies an entire website and community named for Bad Movies. It belongs on Bad Movie Mount Rushmore with MANOS, MONSTER-A-GO-GO, and RED ZONE CUBA.

The film opens in a shack in the late 1950s, where the Platonic Ideal of "drunk old hillbilly" methodically mixes a jar of moonshine for what feels like several minutes, then goes outside and witnesses a UFO flying over his home. This sequence is actually assembled professionally (including a generous performance from the old guy) and builds logically to a punchline which lands perfectly. For a moment I thought TEEN ALIEN might be a legitimately well-made film.

Then the title appears and we jump 20 years to the "present" day. A handsome teenage mechanic named Carl drives a funny little rich guy who looks like George R.R. Martin around in a vintage Rolls Royce and they visit "the old mill", which GRR owns and which is maybe haunted.  Carl mentions that his friends need a location for their Halloween "spook alley"  :question: and then refuses payment for tuning up the Rolls, but then GRR has to practically twist the kid's arm to agree to use the old mill. Actually I half-suspected that GRR might try to twist Carl's arm, pull his hair, and spit in his mouth at any moment, but TEEN ALIEN is a wholesome family film, and really the nice old man just wants Carl and his friends to have a fun festive time in an old abandoned building that is rumored to be infested with hostile spirits.

So, cue the synth montage music, Carl rounds up the gang and they get to work. Of course there are a band of mean kids who want to spoil the fun for Carl and his friends, including one girl who leers sadistically into the camera like she's wielding a whip in a Jess Franco flick. They get some support from a weird Nordic kid who looks like the sort of teenage geek who would condescend to you for listening to anything other than Finnish Black Metal. Geez, where'd he come from?

TEEN ALIEN is... marvelous fun. Well, "for patient viewers", let's say. It's a live-action "Scooby Doo" episode in even slower motion, in terms both of frames of animation per second and mental processing. Also, admittedly, its characters are less distinct than Velma, Daphne, and Shaggy. Other than Carl, a younger kid named "Mike" who I eventually decided was probably Carl's little brother, and "Tiny", the plus-sized super-senior in the gorilla suit, you will be hard-pressed to identify the other members of the large ensemble cast in spite of staring at some arrangement of their bodies in one wide-shot after another for an hour. Actually it's hard to even track how many kids are in Carl's gang - 5? 7? More? You will hear the names "George", "Joan", and "Jean" fifty times, but you would never be able to put a name to a face in a police line-up. There's a snotty kid who looks like Jake Busey early on that seemed like an important character, and he may later disappear into a suit of armor for the duration of the action, but then maybe that's another guy. To make matters more dissociative, all the scenes with the kids are post-dubbed by actors who sound like veterans of "Peanuts" specials without the benefit of any additional acting training. Line readings where kids admire the spookiness of the old mill or mock Tiny's clumsy fat ass are dramatically indistinguishable from ones where they are being stalked and attacked by menacing figures in hoods. It's all another day at the Christmas Pageant, eh?

I haven't even mentioned the final third of this film, which goes in another, darker, and even more ridiculous direction. TEEN ALIEN's resolution was a bit of a disappointment to me, yet I couldn't have possibly predicted the perplexing way in which it disappointed me. There are at least three prominent aspects of its ending that defy all possible logic and reason, but then the entire film operates solely on dream logic, invented by its one-and-done auteur Peter Semelka and embraced unquestioningly by its large cast & crew of Mormons and March of Dimes volunteers. It's a stupid film, but it has real magic to it - real Stupid Magic. I loved it.

4/5 unironically, perfect 5/5 for Badness

It has a magnificent (yes, wholesome) autumnal vibe and I will definitely watch it again next October.

I did not know this movie existed.  Now I must see it!!
"I shall smite you in the nostrils with a rod of iron, and wax your spleen with Efferdent!!"

FatFreddysCat

"End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones" (2003)
An extremely thorough and very entertaining documentary about the punk rock legends, chock full of vintage live clips and interviews with band members, fans, and associates. One of my all time favorite "rock docs."
"If you're a false, don't entry, because you'll be burned and died!"

RCMerchant

Quote from: indianasmith on January 21, 2025, 06:07:53 PM
Quote from: M.10rda on January 21, 2025, 08:15:29 AMTEEN ALIEN aka THE VARROW MISSION (1978):
Surely this film is known on this website. Why did you not tell me about it??? I didn't slip up and post in the wrong section. TEEN ALIEN is definitely a Bad Movie but it got me through an increasingly tough week in 12-15 minute segments per night, plus a final 30 minute reward on Friday. It even provided comfort and reassurance about the restorative magic of cinema on the night David Lynch passed away. So TEEN ALIEN isn't just any bad movie, it's the kind of Bad Movie that justifies an entire website and community named for Bad Movies. It belongs on Bad Movie Mount Rushmore with MANOS, MONSTER-A-GO-GO, and RED ZONE CUBA.

The film opens in a shack in the late 1950s, where the Platonic Ideal of "drunk old hillbilly" methodically mixes a jar of moonshine for what feels like several minutes, then goes outside and witnesses a UFO flying over his home. This sequence is actually assembled professionally (including a generous performance from the old guy) and builds logically to a punchline which lands perfectly. For a moment I thought TEEN ALIEN might be a legitimately well-made film.

Then the title appears and we jump 20 years to the "present" day. A handsome teenage mechanic named Carl drives a funny little rich guy who looks like George R.R. Martin around in a vintage Rolls Royce and they visit "the old mill", which GRR owns and which is maybe haunted.  Carl mentions that his friends need a location for their Halloween "spook alley"  :question: and then refuses payment for tuning up the Rolls, but then GRR has to practically twist the kid's arm to agree to use the old mill. Actually I half-suspected that GRR might try to twist Carl's arm, pull his hair, and spit in his mouth at any moment, but TEEN ALIEN is a wholesome family film, and really the nice old man just wants Carl and his friends to have a fun festive time in an old abandoned building that is rumored to be infested with hostile spirits.

So, cue the synth montage music, Carl rounds up the gang and they get to work. Of course there are a band of mean kids who want to spoil the fun for Carl and his friends, including one girl who leers sadistically into the camera like she's wielding a whip in a Jess Franco flick. They get some support from a weird Nordic kid who looks like the sort of teenage geek who would condescend to you for listening to anything other than Finnish Black Metal. Geez, where'd he come from?

TEEN ALIEN is... marvelous fun. Well, "for patient viewers", let's say. It's a live-action "Scooby Doo" episode in even slower motion, in terms both of frames of animation per second and mental processing. Also, admittedly, its characters are less distinct than Velma, Daphne, and Shaggy. Other than Carl, a younger kid named "Mike" who I eventually decided was probably Carl's little brother, and "Tiny", the plus-sized super-senior in the gorilla suit, you will be hard-pressed to identify the other members of the large ensemble cast in spite of staring at some arrangement of their bodies in one wide-shot after another for an hour. Actually it's hard to even track how many kids are in Carl's gang - 5? 7? More? You will hear the names "George", "Joan", and "Jean" fifty times, but you would never be able to put a name to a face in a police line-up. There's a snotty kid who looks like Jake Busey early on that seemed like an important character, and he may later disappear into a suit of armor for the duration of the action, but then maybe that's another guy. To make matters more dissociative, all the scenes with the kids are post-dubbed by actors who sound like veterans of "Peanuts" specials without the benefit of any additional acting training. Line readings where kids admire the spookiness of the old mill or mock Tiny's clumsy fat ass are dramatically indistinguishable from ones where they are being stalked and attacked by menacing figures in hoods. It's all another day at the Christmas Pageant, eh?

I haven't even mentioned the final third of this film, which goes in another, darker, and even more ridiculous direction. TEEN ALIEN's resolution was a bit of a disappointment to me, yet I couldn't have possibly predicted the perplexing way in which it disappointed me. There are at least three prominent aspects of its ending that defy all possible logic and reason, but then the entire film operates solely on dream logic, invented by its one-and-done auteur Peter Semelka and embraced unquestioningly by its large cast & crew of Mormons and March of Dimes volunteers. It's a stupid film, but it has real magic to it - real Stupid Magic. I loved it.

4/5 unironically, perfect 5/5 for Badness

It has a magnificent (yes, wholesome) autumnal vibe and I will definitely watch it again next October.

I did not know this movie existed.  Now I must see it!!

Indy and me aint seen or heard of it! Wow.
I might have to check it out!
Supernatural?...perhaps. Baloney?...Perhaps not!" Bela Lugosi-the BLACK CAT (1934)
Interviewer-"Does Dracula ever end for you?
Lugosi-"No. Dracula-never ends."
Slobber, Drool, Drip!
https://www.tumblr.com/ronmerchant

chainsaw midget

Clownhouse (1989)

First off, this movie was made by a bad man that did bad things.  If you're one of the people that can't seperat the art from the artist, then don't watch this.  That's all I'll say about that.

Three young brother go to a circus while their parents are out of town. The oldest is a completely unlikable a-hole.  The youngest is deathly afraid of clowns.  While they're there, three lunatics that have broken out of an insane asylum kill three of the clowns at the circus, take their outfits, and put on their make up.  Then they follow the boys home. 

While I had expected something more slasher like, this is actually far more suspenseful. It does a wonderful job of wracking up the tension and then keeping at it, giving you no real time for relief. It's quite frankly, a masterpiece of terror.  It's a shame that the behind the scenes issues overshadowed what should have been an iconic piece of horror.


M.10rda

Wow, if I have actually introduced TEEN ALIEN to this community, I can expire at any time with a sense of authentic accomplishment.  :cheers:

I only saw CLOWNHOUSE once, in the early 90s, but I remember it being highly effective. Sam Rockwell plays the a-hole oldest brother, doesn't he?