Recent Viewings, Part 2

[lester1/2jr]

Hereditary (2018) - This was on tubi for a limited time so I re-watched it. I hadn't seen it since around when it came out I think.

Yeeesh. The horror is just way too real. I've never felt quite like I did while watching this. Welcome to Hell. I really don't know what else to say.

5/5

[Rev. Powell]

Rewatch of a movie I saw a long time ago... probably back in the 80s or early 90s.

GOD TOLD ME TO (1976): A detective investigating a spate of senseless mass murders in NYC finds the trail leads back to... God. Larry Cohen's surprising B-movie can be enjoyed as a gloriously absurd B-movie, or taken as an existential fable. 3.5/5. Free on Prime at the moment.

[Trevor]

Rewatch of a movie I saw a long time ago... probably back in the 80s or early 90s.

GOD TOLD ME TO (1976): A detective investigating a spate of senseless mass murders in NYC finds the trail leads back to... God. Larry Cohen's surprising B-movie can be enjoyed as a gloriously absurd B-movie, or taken as an existential fable. 3.5/5. Free on Prime at the moment.

Banned in South Africa sadly 😔

[Rev. Powell]

Rewatch of a movie I saw a long time ago... probably back in the 80s or early 90s.

GOD TOLD ME TO (1976): A detective investigating a spate of senseless mass murders in NYC finds the trail leads back to... God. Larry Cohen's surprising B-movie can be enjoyed as a gloriously absurd B-movie, or taken as an existential fable. 3.5/5. Free on Prime at the moment.

Banned in South Africa sadly 😔

You should only chip in about films that WEREN'T banned in SA, it would save you a lot of time. 

[Trevor]

Rewatch of a movie I saw a long time ago... probably back in the 80s or early 90s.

GOD TOLD ME TO (1976): A detective investigating a spate of senseless mass murders in NYC finds the trail leads back to... God. Larry Cohen's surprising B-movie can be enjoyed as a gloriously absurd B-movie, or taken as an existential fable. 3.5/5. Free on Prime at the moment.

Banned in South Africa sadly 😔

You should only chip in about films that WEREN'T banned in SA, it would save you a lot of time. 

🤣😂😀😆😄😃😃🇿🇦

[lester1/2jr]

Ex Machina (2014) - It's aughts blockbusters week, continuing with this highly lauded sci fi workout. AI wasn't a new topic in 2014, but it's gotten bigger and actually put into practice since then, so kind of ahead of it's time? It's the one with the cool house and the disco dancing Asian robot.

One plot hole for me: Why did he care so much about the robot woman? She's a robot, not a person. It's a pretty typical story about AI becoming sentient given a "super wealthy tech bros and their eccentric lifestyle" setting. Everyone on the set probably drank 10 dollar a bottle vitamin water to get in the mood. I enjoyed it, but could not fairly put in on the level of my previous viewing Hereditary.

4.5 /5

[Dr. Whom]

Under the Skin (2013)

Scarlett Johansson is an alien who preys on men while cruising in a white van through Scotland. Not a lot happens in this movie and the storytelling is essentially non-verbal. There is no exposition, so everything has to be inferred. It is far from your average alien horror movie, more an examination of human society through the eyes of an unemotional alien, who gets eventually drawn in.
I can understand why people might find this boring, but I liked it a lot and Scarlett Johansson gives a great performance.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Attack of Life: The Bang Tango Movie" (2015)
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Cool low budget doc about the long, strange history of the 80s rock band Bang Tango, best known for the minor hit single "Someone Like You."  Features interviews with band members past & present and lots of cool vintage clips and photos. The original BT lineup split in the mid 90s but lead singer Joe LeSte has kept the band going with a rotating cast of replacement players ever since, constantly playing the retro-rock festival and dive-bar circuit.

[lester1/2jr]

Jackass: The Movie (2002)- I saw this in the theater and own it on DVD but it's been probably 15 years since I watched it. To my recollection, the initial wave of "reality" stuff was much more overtly raw than it eventually became. It was kind of part of the whole selling point, like it doesn't cost anything but it's so REAL. Jackass wouldn't even make it as a instagram channel if it came out now, but it was brilliant and unprecedented in the late 90's.

Besides of the opening and closing credits, the movie is not very different from the tv show. It's a little disorienting. Most movies aren't made up of like a hundred little segments, many of which are only 15 seconds long. Some of the ideas are better than others, but it's a unique and entertaining 90 minutes that is about as punk as MTV ever got besides of maybe "The Young Ones". What's amazing to me is a how a bunch of bored skateboarders somehow managed to worm their way to such massive stardom.

MTV repeated this formula with Rob and Big and Andy Milonakis: Capturing the antics of people who seem like they would hang out at the end of your street, whose hilarious and ridiculous takes and pranks previously just became memories.

5/5

[zombie no.one]

the one JACKASS skit / gag that always sticks in my head is Knoxville on crutches asking random strangers to pull his trousers (pants to you?) up. that genuinely made me lol. it's just the height of dorkery.

we had a UK rip off version called DIRTY SANCHEZ but I never found them funny tbh

[lester1/2jr]

For me, it was the one where they tried to eat 50 hard boiled eggs like someone apparently did in Cool Hand Luke, which I've never seen. No surprise they just ended up barfing on each other.

[indianasmith]

ELEVATION (2024) - I recorded this one some time back based on a three line description of the film.  No trailers, spoilers, or clue what I was getting into.  And it turned out to be an amazing movie!

Three years ago, the "Reapers" - giant, murderous lizard scorpion creatures - came boiling up out of the earth and destroyed 95% of humanity in a matter of weeks.  Bullets cannot harm them, explosives have no effect. They attack people and people only - horses, goats, and other animals remain untouched.  Their only limitation is that, for some mysterious reason, they cannot go above 8000 feet altitude.
  The shattered remnants of human society have fled into the mountains, surviving in isolated communities. But a father, desperate to get medical supplies for his sickly son, and a chemist, who believes her lab in Boulder, CO may hold the key to killing the Reapers, together with a woman named Katie, venture below the "Safe Zone" to retrieve the things they need.

This was a taut, well-done thriller which I enjoyed a great deal.  I can't believe I never heard of it when it hit the theaters!

[M.10rda]

BLACK MIRROR: USS CALLISTER INTO INFINITY (2025):
It ain't like Charlie Brooker has run out of topical material for BLACK MIRROR... emergent technologies remain as rich and worrisome as they were when the series premiered a decade or so ago - or are more worrisome than ever! And no one who saw and surely enjoyed the original USS CALLISTER could possibly object to a feature length sequel. Indeed, I enjoyed most of these 90 minutes of space captain/avatar Cristin Milioti (always a pleasure) and her crew burning through numerous amusing tropes from the STAR TREK film franchise, while on Earth/IRL, human Milioti deals with more terrestrial perils. The abrupt ending, however, feels like the entirety of THE VOYAGE HOME hastily crammed into the last five minutes of THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK... and, more significantly, doesn't seem to offer viewers any of BLACK MIRROR's usual insight or criticism into... anything. I guess it's the "summer popcorn blockbuster" of Season 7. Uh, but I don't watch BLACK MIRROR for mindless thrills.

3/5 Brooker had 3 co-writers on this one and it shows. Maybe just keep the seasons to 3 episodes and write 'em all yourself, dude.