Recent viewings

[lester1/2jr]

Kal Ho Naa Ho: Tomorrow May Never Come (2003) -  For someone whose entertainment consists of stuff like Medium, the Sarah Silverman show and odd and downbeat movies from the 70 and 80's the brightness of Bollywood is tough.  It is, virtually all of it,  like a 3 hour episode of "Saved by the Bell " with singing.  Being a random sort of person, I had watched a Fassbinder movie the night before this and I think you could definately say that Germany circa 1970 is rather the opposite of todays India!  So it follows if you were to take all the darkness, weirdness, and cerebrality (sp?) (and personal touch) out of a Fassbinder movie and replace it with hugeness, cutsy-ness and predictability you'd have this.  Certainly the nature of Indias rise in the world is reflected in the obscene modernity at every turn. Even at the moments that cut through to be genuinly funny or heartfelt (though always in an an impersonal, assembly line sort of way) I felt like I should be checking my Iphone and I dont even have one.  I like when he is standing on his porch in the snow and he's not even cold.  Oh it's set in New York.  Now I've seen someting different and can go back to stuff like "Warlock Moon".  Anyway, No one here will rent this and if they do they won't get through it. I barely did and I have relativelty alot of patience for non horror and sci fi.  Maybe you see that as a challenge . Hey It's good, it's just very different.  3 hours hows your endurence?

[Sleepyskull]

I just finished watching The Shadow (1994).

It was a mediocre movie, but lots of fun.  I give it 10.4 out of 13 stars.

IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111143/

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkZdvUFSPtw

[InformationGeek]

Samurai Cop: Probably the most hilarously unintentional action film ever made. Robert D'Zar went from this to Future War & Pocket Ninjas.  Such a shame since he was actually the most competent actor in the whole film.  Anyways, best so bad that it is good cop movie ever.

Bats: It wasn't as bad as many people let on.  It was stupid, but it was alright in some sense.  Lou Diamond Philips was alright in the film and the CGI was halfway decent.  It was the actual puppets used for the bats that were terrible.  Still it was alright and I really do like the scene where the bats attacked the town.

[indianasmith]

Let's see . . .  this weekend I watched a Dutch horror film called THE LEFT BANK.  Some creepy visuals and a rather attractive lead actress who spent a good bit of time nude, but other than that, the plot was slow moving and the whole thing not that scary.

Then I watched a cheapo slasher called THE CARETAKER.  Pretty atrocious overall!

[Jack]

V The Final Battle (1984) - The second of two TV miniseries about seemingly benevolent aliens that come to Earth, looking for food and water.  Turns out they're actually lizards disguised as humans, and they food they want it us!  The miniseries follows the efforts of a small group of resistance fighters as they carry out attacks on the aliens.  4 1/2 hours and I never got bored once!  The story and action moved along at a good pace, and although the characters weren't very deeply developed they were likable and served their purpose.  The whole thing had a strong aroma of cheese about it, but that was fine with me.  The ending was pretty goofy, but oh well.  4/5.

Werewolf Woman (1976) - a.k.a. Naked Werewolf Woman.  Long ago there was a werewolf woman, she killed some people and the angry villagers killed her.  In the present day some woman gets it in her head that she's a werewolf, so she starts killing people and generally goes bats*** insane.  The movie alternates between brutal murders and softcore porno, which is mildly amusing.  The characters are empty shells devoid of human personality, something Italian film makers seem to specialize in.  There are some pretty comical parts in this thing, like when the woman starts going out with a stuntman, and he jumps through a window and lands on his padded mat, then jumps up like he's just won the freakin' Olympics or something.  Or at the end when the werewolf woman is in the woods, and the cops drive up and turn their headlights on to illuminate her.  A second later they're driving through the woods, still a half mile away from her.  I don't know what the hell was going on.  This movie sent me into uncontrollable fits of yawning.  2/5.

[lester1/2jr]

Marc Bolan and T Rex: metal guru (2007) (disk one) This was only an hour long, the entire documentry is 171 minutes.  I don't know why that would be spread over 3 disks but it is.  Anyway,  I had been curious about Marc Bolans pre- T Rex era Tyrannasaurus Rex which I new was more hippy-ish in nature.  The great thing about this was that it didn't cover his childhood or relationship with his father or anything like that. It begins with  Tyrannasaurus Rex about the time people started hearing about them.  They were good, but the hippy thing had kind of had it's day and gone more underground.  Bolan wanted to reach a wider audience though in the begining he was loathe to go electric.  Of course eventually he did and it was amazing and all that is covered in this disk which goes right up till "Get it on" cracks the charts.  The key interviewee is producer tony Visconti who worked very closely with Bolan through all the Tyrannasaurus Rex albums and of course the breakout T Rex lp "metal Guru".  He had and went on to produced alot of noteable stuff and his insights are fascinating. 5/5

Silent Scream (1980)-  There are alot of really generic, nondescript horror movies and this is one of them.  What I really liked was the house / property it was filmed at.  The movie's real estate was better than it's story.  Its this huge old house that is right on the beach.  There is a long stairway that goes down from the house to the shore so it's not right on the shore.  It's definately "shabby chic" but HOW chic!!  The first half had some nice shots of the house and the ocean.  The characters are kind of boring but okay, sort of like the less annoying people you work with, the ones you can kind of stand but would never actually  hang out with. The movie isn't scary but it is blandly watcheable and Babrabare Steele is sort of uncomfortably milfy sexy as a demented lady whose backstory informs the dumb plot.  If you love 80's horror and have to see all of them this fits the bill.  enjoy it with a Mcdonalds hamburger.

The Honeymoon Killers (1969) -   A fat nurse out with a nasty temper is fired from her job ("I'm not sure Hitler was wrong with what he did to you people" she tells her boss on her way out) in the meantime she hooks up via pen pal-ing with a sort-of handsome young Italian guy who is using the pen pal thing to chisel older women out of loot.  She becomes his co-conspirator and accompanies him as his sister on all the chiselings, all the while feeding her face with chocolates, having a bad disposition and generally making their whole operation a comedy of errors that, were it not for the insane naivete of their victims, would have ended in the first 10 minutes.  She is like something out of John Waters movie, you wonder how the guy can possibly stand it.  The second half is darker as things escalate to murder and so forth.  If you've ever seen a Casevettes movies it's kind of like that: black and white low budget, labor of love sort of thing with "blast of Silence" (1961) type neo noir isms.   It's the type of thing that's hard to  recomend but I did like it and won't forget it.  Based on the true story of the "loney heart killers" some of it is pretty brutal.

[Rev. Powell]

A L'AVENTURE (2009): Sandrine, bored with sex and life in general, takes a year off from the rat race and meets some libertines who explore the intersection of sex, hypnosis and religious ecstasy.  A bit reminiscent of a talkier and less exotic EMMANUELLE (1974), except this is pretentious, pseudo-mystical softcore that's only sporadically arousing.  Only the French could make sex this dull.  1.5/5.

[InformationGeek]

Kingdom of the Spiders: A pretty good b-movie about killer spiders.  I was surprised at how pretty good it was with the decent acting and good effects.  I think I know finally where Eight Legged Freaks 'got' a lot of its ideas now.  I would recommend it to anyone, expect people who do not like spiders.  My dad watched it with me and he shivered a lot of the time.  It's like the movie The Rats in the same way with a lot of things that are disgusting and or creepy.

[Jack]

Dying Breed (2008) - Cannibal hillbilly movie, set in Tasmania.  The characters are uninteresting and unsympathetic.  The plot is nonexistent.  Every genre cliche is present and accounted for.  It also makes a point of violating your suspension of disbelief at every opportunity.  If people have no creativity whatsoever, why the hell do they take up movie making as a career?  2/5.

[indianasmith]

To make cannibal hillbilly films, of course!!!

Memo to self: see this movie.

[Jack]

Memo to self: see this movie.

It's not putrid or anything, I just found it thoroughly uninteresting.  I'm like "Jeez, this should be on the SyFy Channel.  Oh wait, that's where I recorded it from."

[lester1/2jr]

"Cannibal hillbilly movie, set in Tasmania" lol

[Jack]

Maybe they're Tasmanabilly's?  I dunno 

[lester1/2jr]

Oversexed Rugsuckers from Mars (1989)- This is not as good as "Blobbermouth" and alot better than "Night Patrol" as far as LA style comedies are concerned though it's got a MUCH lower budget than either of those.  It's got a sort of proto South pArk raunchiness and cleverness, but is annoying as it is funny and badly needs some editing. It's feature length but there is a raucus hour long movie in here and no more.  The problem with netflix, DVR's, and the internet and all these previously obscure movies becoming available,  it means there are alot of OTHER movies immediatly available too and I'm afraid this doesn't have much of a prayer outside of really hardcore film geeks.  Check it out if it intrquies you but keep the ff at ready, particularly at 45 through 1:15.  There is some really funny and crazy stuff here and there and I don't regret having seen it.

[Rev. Powell]

SANTA SANGRE (1990):  In between hallucinations a young man kills at the telepathic command of his armless mother.  This is Alejandro Jodoworsky's stab at making a surrrealist slasher flick, and it may be his most accessible film, relatively easy to follow and full of B-movie style gore.  3.5/5.