Recent Viewings, Part 2

[lester1/2jr]

To Live and Die in LA (1985) - I didn't realize William Friedkin directed this. It's above average for a mid 80's action movie, but obviously didn't have the kind of impact that 48 Hours or something did. William Peterson, later of CSI, wasn't the all time flashiest choice for the "plays by his own rules" cop protagonist. He's a decent actor, but that show was a better use of his limited skills. Cable, not the big screen, was the proper arena for this memorably titled bit of car chase mania.

Has anyone ever seen "T-Men", the film noir about the Treasury Department? I've somehow seen it a bunch of times. This is also about a counterfeit operation, which in 1985 seems kind of random. Why would you bother counterfeiting US currency when, post 1971 gold standard ending, there is so much of it out there? Just sell crack or something.

Willem Defoe is striking as always as the bad guy and the title, later imitated in the x rated feature "To Live and Shave in LA", is again, relatively memorable. There is plenty of brutal violence and seediness.

solid 4/5




To Live and Shave in LA

5/5

[Dr. Whom]

Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

Hong Kong kung fu movies meet Looney Tunes. One of silliest movies I've ever seen and one of the funniest.

[M.10rda]

I think that final fight scene was, as of 2006 when it was released, the best onscreen superhero or comic book action ever choreographed on film. Of course they technically aren't "super"heroes or villains and I don't think KUNG FU HUSTLE was a manga, but that final battle is still a better and more faithful comic book-like fight than any in the early SUPERMAN or BATMAN or SPIDER-MAN or X-MEN flicks et al. Maybe it's been surpassed since - however I think later comic books/superhero movie directors took inspiration from what Stephen Chow accomplished. Fabulous, classic sequence.

[Alex]

Sinners.

From Dusk Til Dawn with racism and blues. Could have done with a bit more time developing the bad guy for the kind of movie it is. Kristi didn't care for it.

[indianasmith]

Iced in yesterday, so I did a double feature.
ALIEN: ROMULUS was entertaining, but really it was just another ALIEN movie - deserted space ship, eggs hatching, face huggers hugging, one chest-busting, final girl and her synthetic companion somehow survive.  Well done, but we've seen it all before - except for the human/Xenomorph hybrid.  That was pretty cool, and raises it from three stars to four. 4/5

SINNERS (2025) Finally got around to seeing this, and it was pretty good!  Basically an African-American take on FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, with better acting. It was a very solid film, but I'm just gonna come out and say it - this was NOT worthy of 16 Oscar nominations!  Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but NUREMBURG was a far better film in every way.  WEAPONS was more original. SUPERMAN was more uplifting.  Fun movie, but way over-hyped.  4/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Living With Chucky" (2022)
The long, strange history of the "Child's Play" horror franchise is examined in this fun documentary directed by the daughter of the series' producer, David Kirschner. In addition to looking back at each film in the franchise, there's also a lot of commentary about the "family" vibe behind the scenes, as the same writer / producer team (Don Mancini and Kirschner) have been at the helm through all the films (except the 2019 "remake") and the Chucky TV series, along with a lot of the same puppeteers and special effects artists. A trip down memory lane that  made me want to revisit some of the early "Child's Play" installments.

[M.10rda]

SINNERS isn't perfect - it takes its sweet time in the first half (to great effect, though) and then I felt like it rushes the second half at times. However, I will say I didn't mind the lack of development of the "bad guy" or bad guys, even (vampires and humans). This was a film squarely in the camp of its protagonists and focused on their experience, and in 2025/2026, I am okay with that. The Bad Guys have always gotten a lot of screen time and attempts at identification, and it never seems to make the world a better place.  So, ya' know, Stake 'em and let God sort it out.

[lester1/2jr]

Sins of Jezebel (1953) - I highly enjoyed this Swords and Sandals, seemingly repurposed for American Christian audiences technicolor thingy! Tubi's print wasn't that great, but that's the case like 50% of the time so what are you gonna do?

Ahab, the not very inspiring King of Israel, decides to marry Jezebel, a much more confident and also hot (she looks like Betty Page) queen of some other place. One tiny issue: She worships Baal and wants to incorporate Baal stuff into Israel, which goes against their worship only the one God thing. Ahab is so horny and p***y whipped he goes along with it, but the prophet Elijah is like "not so fast, compadre". It's a showdown for the ages.

The story is of course, time tested and I especially enjoyed the horny captain of the guard guy character, who embodies the whole thing of trying and failing to balance patriotism with submission to authority. There's a very occasional minister guy who says stuff and even a tiki lounge Baal dance sequence.

5/5 

[FatFreddysCat]

"Heavier Trip" (2024)
The dim-witted members of "Impaled Rektum" receive an offer from an unscrupulous promoter to play a gig at the prestigious Wacken Open Air metal festival. Unfortunately they're still incarcerated after the events of the first film. After pulling off a daring prison escape, the boys embark on another mayhem-filled road trip to get to the fest.
A very funny sequel to the 2018 Finnish hit. Worth checking out as long as you don't mind sub-titles.

[Rev. Powell]

EL (1953): A Mexican landowner seduces a woman into marrying him, but his paranoid jealousy quickly poisons the union. Psychologically astute moralist melodrama from Luis Bunuel with barely a touch of Surrealism. 3.5/5.

[indianasmith]

BAD FISH (2024) - A series of mysterious disappearances offshore from a small coastal town drives the sheriff to summon a marine biologist.  The annual salmon run is utterly absent, and several fishermen have been washing ashore in pieces.  Is it a giant squid - or is it a h*rny mermaid?  Yeah, this one was a slow burn mystery that never really ignited, with a last scene a bit reminiscent of MIDSOMAR.  An interesting effort that failed utterly in its execution. 2.5/5

[FatFreddysCat]

"Fatal Beauty" (1987)
A wise cracking LAPD detective (Whoopi Goldberg) is on the trail of the dealer (Brad Dourif) who's pushing a particularly potent, deadly new drug nicknamed "Fatal Beauty."
A below average action comedy in the "Beverly Hills Cop" vein, Whoopi tries her best but she's not suited to this type of role. Watchable, but not necessary.

[Rev. Powell]

RIFFTRAX: MANIAC: A vaudevillian impressionist apprentices under a mad scientist while hiding out from the cops, and ends up murdering the doctor and impersonating him, which leads to him accidentally shooting up a patient with superadreline, eating cat eyeballs, and forcing women to duel with syringes as he descends (further) into madness. The feature is short so they slapped a Comic Con panel on the DVD, in which the guys riff a short and take suggestions from the audience for future movies to mock. MANIAC is a classic bad movie that's plenty entertaining on its own, but I confess I laughed out loud multiple times, including at Mike's deadpan observation, "This movie helped a lot of people." 3.5/5, maybe even 4/5.

[lester1/2jr]

The Strangers: Prey At Night (2018) - Apparently, sometimes addicts need drugs so badly, they will go to a situation in which they know they are likely to be robbed just for the chance that they'll get their fix. That is mostly what happened to me here. I remember liking the first Strangers and wanted some real state of the art horror, though I was aware this sequel had an inferior reputation. It had it's moments, but was a bit worse than the lower end of my expectations.

First of all, why even hire Christina Hendricks if she is going to be dressed like a lesbian from my mom's Unitarian church cookout? The family were so stupid they all deserved to die though ( I won't say which ones, if any, did), especially the lowly "jock" brother who is so helpless he makes Penelope Pittstop look like Rambo.

The use of 80's power ballads was a decently colorful touch and the location, a random lakeside bunch of cabins, was actually kind of neat because they could go in and out of them like a video game. Without the tie in to the first movie it's hard to imagine this would have been made, though. In true bad movie fashion, virtually nothing happens in the first half hour. generic

2.25/ 5

It did kind of scratch the itch, but so what?

[M.10rda]

THE FALL OF TROY (1911):
This is a heavily watered down version of The Iliad/Trojan War (Achilles and Hector aren't even mentioned!) and even though it's only 30 minutes, I'd still recommend watching it @ 2x speed on Youtube. But, I did think it was really interesting to watch for its insight into early 20th century filmmaking techniques. In short (and as demonstrated somewhat in BABYLON), producers didn't quite understand the concept of "effects" yet. Thus:

* The ship that the Greeks sail on? Real wooden boat, surely not "to scale", per se, yet they built it and a couple dozen guys board it and then two guys have to push it away from shore a couple yards into a small pond  and then the shot ends as presumably the boat quickly begins to sink and all the extras have to jimp off into shallow water.

* Trojan Horse? "Real"... again, less grand at scale than one would think, w/ fewer dudes inside than one presumes could overwhelm a city, but appears to be wood and on wheels...

* The walls of Troy? Front walls/gate are visible and there's a moving rampart. They're a good size and look credible from a stationary wide shot, at about 2.5-3 times the height of an extra.  But on that note...

How many Greek soldiers attacked Troy? About....... two dozen, right? That's about how many you see running up to the wall in the aforementioned wide shot, and then there's some unseen Trojans (crew) whose arms are visible tossing rocks off the top of the wall.  Okay, but how about once the Greeks are inside the walls running amok? Here's a good old-timey trick for ya' -

Film an entranceway and have your extras parade through it and offscreen. Start the smoke machine up, keep rolling, and then once the fog is blasting full-tilt, circle those extras back around for a second go. Under the cover of smoke, who's to know it's the same two dozen guys comin' around twice?  They pull this trick twice in a row - two back-to-back shots! 

3/5    This is one reason I watch old movies, I guess.