Recent Viewings, Part 2

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Happy Hooker" (1975)
A free spirited young woman (Lynn Redgrave) comes to New York and finds work as a high class escort. Eventually she opens the most successful brothel in Manhattan, catering to the rich and powerful. Based on the exploits of real-life madam Xaviera Hollander, this comedy was probably considered "racy" in 1975 but it's almost quaint by today's standards.

"Blue Tiger" (1994)
Virginia Madsen is a mother whose young son is accidentally killed in a crossfire between American mobsters and a Japanese criminal gang. She dives deep into the Yakuza underground to exact revenge. A pretty cool Asian flavored shoot em up with plenty of moody atmosphere, and Madsen is smokin' hot.

[indianasmith]

JOHNNY GRUESOME (2018) - Is he a zombie, a vampire, an undead serial killer, or just a stupid punk who got bored with being dead?  None of these questions are answered in this insufferably awful movie!  Johnny is a long-haired death metal rocker who doesn't fit in well at school.  After being suspended for fighting, he and his friends go on a joyride to a local rock concert.  But suddenly Johnny begins speeding and swerving, and his best friend, riding in the back, strangles him while the girlfriend grabs the wheel and applies the parking brake.
   With Johnny dead, they dump the car and his body in the river, hoping the cops will think it's just an accident.  But then Johnny comes lurching out of his coffin, determined to kill everyone who ever wronged him . . . even his so-called friends. 
   This could have been a "so bad it's funny" film with just a little effort, but instead it just settled for "so bad it's awful."  Not the WORST film I've ever seen - but definitely in the bottom ten!  1/5

[lester1/2jr]

Undeniable aka Quand Je Serai Grande, Je Te Tuerai (2017) - kind of confusing because

1. It's somehow a "miniseries", but it's one feature length part. I'd call that a movie.

2. It's a remake of a slightly earlier British two part miniseries and both have the same English title.

With that all being said, it was great. The mystery aspect is elegant in it's complexity. One minor quibble would be they over do the "can't you just leave this alone and stop digging up these old wounds?" cliche. It's also not very glamorous/sexy / colorful in terms of the cinematography. It might actually be made for tv? I dont know.

A woman who looks like a young Mariska Hargitay saw her mother's killer for a split second when she was 6 years old. Visiting the hospital one day, she is convinced she's seen him again. Here comes the tension

1. She is on all sorts of medication and has seen other men over the years and accused them.

2. He's a doctor at the hospital and didn't work or live in the vicinity of the crime.

It's like they took the best Law and Order episode, fleshed out the plot to feature length, and left out all the cops especially Ice T, who always talks a bit too slowly at the end of his sentences. Ever notice that?

5/5 "Quality, comfort and price... that's nice" as a local furniture jingle goes

[FatFreddysCat]

"Blues Brothers 2000" (1998)
Fresh out of jail, Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) attempts to reunite the Blues Brothers band for another go-round, minus his late brother Jake. He finds a suitable replacement (John Goodman), gets saddled with a kid sidekick for some reason, and manages to get on the bad side of the Illinois State Police (again) and some Russian mobsters along the way.
Years-too-late sequel to the 1980 classic has some cool musical numbers stacked with legendary players and has a few funny scenes, but without John Belushi, the whole thing feels unnecessary. I watch the original "Blues Brothers" often, but I doubt I'll ever revisit this one.

[Rev. Powell]

MR. SANDMAN (2024): A young girl find herself trapped in a nightmare. Very short (30 min.) horror feature on Tubi (with a 15 min. self-congratulatory interview tacked on the end); mostly a demo reel for the director's ability to build effective suspense on a microbudget. 2.5/5. 

[indianasmith]

THE TOXIC AVENGER (1985) - A little trip down memory lane, a la Tromaville, the other night.
Forty years later, this movie is still over-the-top, gonzon entertaining.  It ticks off every single bad movie box - over-the-top violence, gratuitous nudity, ridiculously bad acting, bizarre stereotypes, cheezey monster makeup.
This is a bad movie lover's bad movie, made to appeal to the inner 8th grader in all of us!  5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Saturday Night" (2024)
In 1975, inexperienced TV producer Lorne Michaels struggles with actors' egos, technical snafus, network interference, and general chaos as he prepares the first-ever episode of "Saturday Night" (the "Live" was added later) for broadcast.
The young cast of this well acted backstage dramedy do a nice job portraying the "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" and the action progresses in mostly real-time, which adds to the suspense.
This flick tied in nicely with a book I just finished about Lorne Michaels' life and career ("Lorne," by Susan Morrison).

[M.10rda]

I thought SATURDAY NIGHT was pretty good, and pretty realistic - maybe not to SNL history but definitely re: producing an evening of sketch comedy very, very quickly (which I'm doing this month, in fact!).

HEART EYES (2025):
A SCREAM-alike serial killer targets couples every year around Valentine's Day. Two bickering business associates end up out together - not, they insist, as a couple! - on the Holiday, get targeted, repeatedly evade or frustrate the killer's efforts, and (I know, I know, you won't believe this part) realize they are Meant To Be.

This Mme.10rda selection initially seemed just as glib and stoopid as ME YOU MADNESS, but eventually demonstrates that it was made w/ some intelligence and heart. Nearly every implausible moment eventually gets explained through some twist or another (not necessarily convincingly, but at least they tried) and I came to begrudgingly respect the fact that HEART EYES spends as much of its running time on character development and romantic comedy as it does on slasher splatter. The affable male lead was also in ADULT BEST FRIENDS and the female lead (who I didn't recognize) is okay if not remarkable. Jordana Brewster and Devon Sawa (also now unrecognizable) co-star as homicide detectives named "Hobbes and Shaw", for no discernible reason  other than to have Brewster act confused and claim she's never heard of any such characters. 

It ain't a must-see and yet, again, I'm bemused by the thought of gore fans watching this and having to slog through long talky "enemies-to-lovers" stretches and romcom fans watching this for the mushy stuff and then getting several extremely bloody and grisly kills.  Fortunately Madame enjoyed both thus the filmmakers clearly knew there was some audience somewhere for this.

3/5
I'll just throw one thing out there... it's 2025, a cop can't stub a toe in my region w/o weeks of TV coverage and public outcry/calls for justice. I'd like silly movies like this to get w/ the times and realize their heavies can no longer stroll Ahnuld-style into a precinct full of cops and slaughter nearly everyone inside and then escape any mention whatsoever from other law enforcement officials or the news or vox populi.  I ain't sayin' I dislike such porcile carnage, just sayin' it strains excessive credulity!

[M.10rda]

M3GAN (2022):
Watched in preparation to maybe see the sequel at the drive-in, if we have time. It's a busy month, so I'll try to do something I've maybe never successfully done and write a one-paragraph review.  This was much better than I expected it to be. Clips from the film which looked ludicrous in a trailer somehow manage to work in the context of a film that has a lot of humor throughout, as well as some tension and action and some (adequate though not-superlative) character drama. Actually it works very well as an unofficial prequel to this year's COMPANION.    Alternately, it's also very similar in several regards to Wes Craven's DEADLY FRIEND - there's even a mean old Anne Ramsay-ish neighbor - but unlike the excrable DEADLY FRIEND, M3GAN is actually made by people who invested some care and thought and joie de vivre into their product. Amusing!
3.5/5

[M.10rda]

I haven't had much time to watch movies on my own but when Madame is watching something I'll try to sit and watch it w/ her. Otherwise I'd be unlikely to have ever rewatched

17 AGAIN (2009):
.......Which I nevertheless had seen in the theaters, for no reason I recall. Besides wanting to spend time w/ my wife, I decided to sit down for a second viewing when I was reminded that Thomas Lennon plays the supernerd/tech-geek best friend of Matthew Perry, who then pretends to be the father of Zac Efron when Perry magically transforms into Efron. Lennon's hilarious performance seemed like a good candidate for the "Movies You Like [Only] Because Of The Acting" thread, but as it turns out, 17 AGAIN is, unexpectedly, a pretty good film all around. (Yes, I'm embarrassed to type that sentence.)

Every body switch/age-reversal film ever made is inherently ludicrous and 17 AGAIN fortunately makes no attempts to obscure this (or even leans into it). The always-welcome Leslie Mann is Perry's ex-wife, who thinks Efron has Milf Fever when really he's attempting to repair their marriage. Michelle Trachtenberg as Perry's teen daughter naturally gets the hots for Efron, lending the film some inverted BACK TO THE FUTURE-perversity. Melora Hardin is the Elvish-speaking principal that catches Lennon's fancy, Jim Gaffigan is the basketball team coach, and Brian Doyle Murray is the Deus Ex Janitor's Closet. That's a pretty good cast even notwithstanding Efron, a Pretty Boy who's competent for the most part but then turns on some real dramatic chops during a climactic scene w/ Mann.

I shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but I never found Perry funny on "Friends" (yech) and based on his infamous comments about Keanu Reeves, he wasn't the world's nicest guy. 17 AGAIN takes off once Perry's replaced with Efron, and one wonders if Mann's character regrets Efron's final re/transformation at film's end...

3.5/5
Lennon still steals the show.

[lester1/2jr]

Outside the Law (1921) - It's not gonna make you forget Dracula or Freaks, but this early Tod Browning silent feature was passably entertaining and maybe even slightly better than that in places. Lon Chaney plays two different supporting roles, one as an old Chinese guy and another as a mean gangster. I was very impressed with the lead actress Priscilla Dean. Looking at her IMDB thing, she was a very busy performer in the early early days, usually in what look like a lot of similar crime-y movies. Her characters name is 'Silky Moll" which I guess is because she hangs out in Chinatown and is a moll.

The print looks like it's been restored and is one of the best quality silent films I think I've seen. The music seems to have been rerecorded, but it's appropriate sounding and subtle. The plot is mainly the "gangsters hiding out start to get stir crazy' sort of thing. One thing I liked was that occasionally they would revert back to original tattered print. I'm not sure if it was on purpose or not, but it kind of highlighted how good the rest of the movie looked.

Not a classic, but it has it's moments. Slight plot hole: they are hemming and hawing about if they should return the stolen jewels so they can move on with their lives. I don't think that's how it works. 

charitable 4/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"RoboCop: Dark Justice" (2001)
Ten years after the events of the original film, an aging RoboCop is on the verge of being declared obsolete. Meanwhile, a high caliber vigilante called "Bone Machine" is causing mayhem in Delta City, and in the boardroom of OCP, some executives are making nefarious plans behind the scenes (as usual).
This  is the first of four made-for-Canadian-TV movies that combine into one long story arc called "Prime Directives." This one is mostly dialogue-heavy set up for the future chapters and is fairly light in Robo-action. The budget restraints are obvious, but at least this flick returns RoboCop's darker, more satirical edge, rather than continuing the watered down, kid friendly vibe of "RC3" or the short-lived 1990s TV series.

[Rev. Powell]

BETTER MAN (2024): Musical biopic of pop star Robbie Williams (who's portrayed here by a CGI chimp). The simian gimmick is just cute enough to raise this overly familiar (and overlong) rags-to-riches-to-redemption story into the ranks of the average. Currently free on Prime. 3/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Colombiana" (2011)
A young girl's parents are murdered by a South American drug kingpin. She grows up to become a skilled assassin and proceeds to take the murderer's organization apart piece by piece. Bullets fly, things crash, stuff blows up.
It's a familiar revenge plot but this shoot-em-up has an appealing leading lady (Zoe Saldana) and impressive stunt work and pyrotechnics. Entertaining popcorn junk for a rainy night.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Final Destination: Bloodlines" (2025)
The descendants of a woman who stopped a major disaster in 1969 now find themselves on Death's list. As usual, they try to figure out how to "break the chain" as they get killed off one by one in increasingly elaborate, sadistic ways.
This sixth film in the F.D. series is one of the better installments -- the horrific "premonition" scene that opens the movie is possibly the best in the entire franchise. The special FX are gruesome as ever, and the late Tony Todd makes a poignant final film appearance as the sinister mortician.  Fans of the series won't be disappointed.