Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Jim H]

Psycho Goreman - From the creators of Man-Borg and Father's Day, this is sort of like an R-rated Power Rangers movie crossed with ET.  It's creative with a lot of fun creature effects and I love the title character.  The performances vary wildly in quality, and some of the characters are kind of annoying.  The premise also feels stretched a bit thin.  It's almost never boring though.  My biggest complaint is, like a lot of these throwback styled films, it has no heart.  It's missing that bit of magic and heart that a film like Turbo Kid has.  Still, if the first sentence appeals to you, check it out.  I'd give it a 6 or 7/10, which is probably generous.

[indianasmith]

DEATHGASM - A death metal rocker moves to a small town to live with his straight-laced American relatives, makes a few friends among his school's fellow rejects, and then they discover the pages of the "Black Hymn," a demonic song that grants power and riche to the user but also opens a portal to hell.  Zombie apocalypse ensues.  Not a bad way to blow an hour and a half in the middle of the night.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Liquidator" (1965)
A British intelligence officer hires an dim-witted American ex-soldier to work as a top secret, off-the-books assassin, code named "L." However, the new agent (Rod Taylor) would rather schmooze with the ladies (especially his boss' secretary, the smokin' hot Jill St. John) than kill bad guys. Eventually, however, his ineptitude gets him mixed up in a plot to assassinate a member of Britain's royal family, and he has to save the day.  
This was a fun James Bond knock off that straddled the line between spoof and legit action thriller. Taylor is clearly having fun and Trevor Howard is great as his increasingly exasperated boss. This was obviously intended to be the start of of a new film franchise, but by the time "Liquidator" hit theaters the mid Sixties "spy" craze was already past its peak.

"Liquidator" shares several traits with the Bond franchise: it was based on a series of novels by John Gardner, who later took over writing the 007 novels in the 1980s; Shirley "Goldfinger" Bassey sings the film's theme song; and Jill St. John would later play a legit Bond girl in 1971's Diamonds Are Forever.

[Dr. Whom]

In a World... (2013)

Carol Solomon (Lake Bell) wants to break into the closely knit and very macho world of film trailer voiceovers. Her biggest obstacle is her own father, a legendary voiceover artist with an incredible ego. Pretty funny comedy, although it would seem that at one point, someone felt that the original premise was insufficient, and added an altogether more serious B-plot. So the movie veers between screwball comedy and family drama. Still, a pretty solid debut.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Uptown Saturday Night" (1974)
Two workin' class dudes (Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier) B.S. their way into a party at a swanky after hours club, just before a maksed gang breaks in and robs everyone in the place. The next day, Poitier learns that the lottery ticket that was in his wallet (which was stolen) is worth $50,000... so he and Cos embark on a series of wacky adventures to find out who the bad guys were and recover the ticket before they discover its value. Richard Pryor, Harry Belafonte, and Flip Wilson turn up in supporting roles.
This funny, funky '70s flick was the first of three buddy comedies starring Cosby and Poitier (who also directed), which were intended to provide an alternative to the ultra-violent "blaxploitation" films of the era. It hasn't aged particularly well but there are a few laughs to be had and it's also kind of weird/cool to see "Cos" (with a beard!) playing an edgier, more streetwise character, instead of the straight laced family man type he became known for later.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Tremors: Shrieker Island" (2020)
In the seventh (!) installment in the "Tremors" series, ace monster hunter Burt Gummer (Michael Gross) is summoned to the South Seas, where a deranged tech billionaire has "stocked" his own private island with genetically modified Graboids and is sponsoring a massive big game hunt... which, of course, goes horribly wrong.
So yeah, basically this is yet another cheesy-but-fun, low budget monster mash bolted together out of parts from "Predator" and "Jurassic Park," though the downer ending seems to indicate that this may be the final film in the series. Time will tell, I suppose.

[Alex]

House Shark. A deliberately made bad movie with cheesy acting but slightly better special effects than I was expecting (not that I am saying they were good). Enjoyable enough I guess.

[Rev. Powell]

FELLINI'S CASANOVA (1976): Fellini tells the episodic story of Casanova, who wanders around 18th century Europe seducing every woman who catches his eye. It's overlong, Donald Sutherland is all wrong for the lead, it never finds a confident comic tone, and everyone keeps their long underwear on while having sex; on the other hand, it's Fellini, so the sets and costumes are amazing, and there's always some carnival with a 7-foot woman attended by two dwarfs in powdered wigs waiting around the next bend. 3/5.

[RCMerchant]

^ Haha! 

I seen it. It's like watching a monkey try to f**k a football!
Fun to look at- but just self indulgent trash. it's a BAD movie.

[Rev. Powell]

^ Haha! 

I seen it. It's like watching a monkey try to f**k a football!
Fun to look at- but just self indulgent trash. it's a BAD movie.

I wouldn't call it a bad movie, but I get what you mean. There's a reason this one wasn't released on DVD for so long even though it has Fellini's name on it. It really bothered me that everyone kept their long underwear on to have sex, though, much more than it should.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Return of Spinal Tap" (1992)

Spinal Tap's triumphant Break Like the Wind reunion tour is captured with a live set taped at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1992. This fun concert video features all the hits and lots of tongue-in-cheek "behind the scenes" bits in between songs, as "David," "Nigel," and "Derek" visit some old haunts and catch up with past associates like director Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner), Artie Fufkin (Paul Schaffer) and Air Force Col. Hookstratten (Fred Willard).

This isn't exactly a "sequel" to the classic mockumentary, but it's a fun watch and the live show is a hoot with lots of visual gags amidst the musical mayhem. The Spinal Tap guys may have been playing characters, but they really could play their instruments, and this video is proof.

One of my great rock n roll regrets is that I didn't see the Tap when they played in NYC on this tour (sigh).

[lester1/2jr]

^ I remember when they released CDs with extra long cardboard covers to " use more of mother natures wonderful resources"


Wound (2012) - this New Zealand "horror" movie would be a good initiation if you wanted to start a very small and limited group. It begins with a woman tying her Dad up and chopping his penis off.

She lives alone and poops into a toilet with tin foil floating in it and wraps up the poop and puts it in this huge freezer. It's kind of like John Waters but less campy and MUCH more depressing. There is a sub plot with a long lost daughter who's trying to find her and you want to be like "no turn back, it isn't worth it!"

???/ 5

its like taking out the garbage and tripping and falling on your face into the garbage can

[FatFreddysCat]

"Turkey Shoot" (aka "Elimination Game," 2014)
A former Navy SEAL (Dominic "Prison Break" Purcell), falsely convicted of war crimes, is offered an alternative to death row: participating in "Turkey Shoot," a massively popular TV reality/game show in which felons are pursued by a variety of assassins. If he can survive all three levels of the game, he goes free... but of course, that's never happened before.
This cheap looking Aussie action flick is loosely based on the 1982 exploitation classic "Turkey Shoot" (known in the U.S. as "Escape 2000"). It tales some good jabs at the reality TV craze and has a fair bit of action but it's more or less a generic ripoff of "The Running Man."
Watchable, but just barely.

[lester1/2jr]

The Ten Commandments (1923) -  The main thing to say about this is the iconic images from it are only in the first section of the movie, which depicts the Exodus. After that, there is a good but entirely different story about two brothers in love with the same girl.

It's a clever idea: lure the audience in with what at the time were no doubt amazing sets and spectacle, then have a good if fairly standard drama and work stuff about the ten commandments in at various intervals.

Having two guys be in love with the same girl isn't a revolutionary plot idea and the "moral lesson" aspect while not heavy handed, is a little predictable. Obviously, something like Citizen Kane would point the way forward more than the gimmick here, but it's still enjoyable, well made, and the principals are well cast.

4.5 /5

[Dr. Whom]

The Holy Mountain (1973)

An alchemist selects a group of nine people to go on a quest to the Holy Mountain, to take the place of the nine immortals living there. Compared to other Jodorowsky movies, like El Topo or Fando y Lis, this is more accessible, although admittedly that is not saying very much. The narrative structure is more straightforward and the satire on contemporary society is pretty broad. You get a lot of the grotesque craziness of Jodorowsky, and a surprising number of scenes with animals. It is all very psychedelic and one wonders how many hallucinogenic substances went into the making of this movie.