What are you watching?

[Randy G]

Tenement - Put off this late period non-porn Roberta Findlay exploitation film for some reason but caught it late night on Tubi. Roberta's xxx work can be caustic and disturbing but she also made a number of comedies, this film has some black humour and camp elements but the sadism of the violence still caught me off guard. Should have known better, Roberta always went as far as she could when it came to violence and perversity.

I like that many of the tenement defenders include old ladies, kids and a pregnant woman. And the character actor Paul Calderon (King of New York, Q&A, Bosch) stands out as the second in command of the street gang, more memorable for me than the gang leader. The women gang members are absolute foxes which doesn't hurt either.

[Dom D]

EMERGENCY: two good new movies in a day. Usually I can go a month or two without that happening.

Two black guys and a Hispanic dude are rooming together in college. One night they come home to find a very young, very white girl passed out on their floor and vomiting up a storm. After a quick conversation its decided that it would not be a good look for them to call the authorities and have them walk in on this suss looking scene. Instead they stick her in their van and dump her outside a hospital. Needless to say it all goes about as badly as this can.

This feels like a movie that probably got it's green light on the back of the black lives matter movement centering as it does on the fears of young black males from the cops. I'm guessing that will drive a lot of the audience away but it has some gut punch impact and the social commentary feels earnt. But Im making this sound like homework when what you have here is a pretty funny, definitely thirlling little film about a very bad night. Thumbs up.

[Dom D]

Spontaneous: This was a scrolling-mindlessly-on-netflix click for me. Surprisingly excellent. The seniors at a small town American high school keep exploding. Not with flames and whatnot, even their clothes are undamaged except for the mess, they just kind of POP spreading themselves thinly over anyone nearby. It's smart, fast and funny and the lead chick is very good. The basic nihilism of it recalls The End Of The Fucking World and a couple of those other recent teen tv shows. If you dug those you'll like this.

[Randy G]

Shogun's Joy of Torture - The last tatoo sequence is definitely pretty nuts but seeing this after the completely insane Orgies of Edo it doesn't manage to top that film's delirous climax.

The opening incest storyline is quite well done, creepy but touching.

The nunsploitation middle tale is also good with some crazy torture scenes and makes me wonder why more Japanese nunsploitation films aren't set in Buddhist nuneries like this one.

Being late 60s this isn't as explicit in terms of nudity and sex (lots of sex but a lot less nudity) as the later Ishii films but the violence is still pretty full throttle.

[Darcy Parker]

The trailer looked terrible which is a shame as the newish Disney+ animated series from a French studio is quite gonzo in a classic cartoon sense and nicely animated.

I love the new Chip and Dale and Mickey Mouse series. New Ducktales started strong, but kinda fell off in season 2.

[Dom D]

Hustle: If you're watching this one it probably helps if you're a fan of the NBA. It so happens that not only am I an NBA fan but I also happen to be a Sixers fan and the makers of this Netlix/Adam Sandler filck obviously had the Sixers fully on board for production- which is is interesting because it's about a hard working scout getting screwed by the incompetent club owner. Doesn't seem like the sorta thing a club owner would want to sign off on but bless 'em. Anyway, lots of Sixers in this. Harris gets a lot of screen time. Thybulle gets a couple lines. As does Doc Rivers. A non-Sixer in Anthony Edwards is probably the most charismatic character in the movie as he gives our lead character the business in a couple full on court scrimmages. Hell, even The Professor turns up for a scene- if you know who The Professor is you're probably in deep enought that you'll dig the movie.

It's a sports movie. You know what you're going to get. The training montage goes for 7 minutes. No really, 7 minutes and it's not the only one in the film. I thought it was a pretty good sports movie though. Never liked Adam Sandler in anything before. Liked him fine in this. Feel good, easy watching, with convincing basketball scenes. If you watch many sports shows you know they never get basketball right on screen so points just for that.

[Randy G]

I checked out the first few minutes of the atrocious Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie that was shat out onto Disney+ recently.

Holy fuck. About a minute in, my wife actually said "What the fuck is this garbage?" a minute later, she followed it up with "Why are you still watching this?" and having no credible answer to that, I stopped it and erased it from my viewing history.

The trailer looked terrible which is a shame as the newish Disney+ animated series from a French studio is quite gonzo in a classic cartoon sense and nicely animated.

[Darcy Parker]

I checked out the first few minutes of the atrocious Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie that was shat out onto Disney+ recently.

Holy fuck. About a minute in, my wife actually said "What the fuck is this garbage?" a minute later, she followed it up with "Why are you still watching this?" and having no credible answer to that, I stopped it and erased it from my viewing history.

[Randy G]

French Sex Murders - A great cast in a slightly flat and rambling sortagiallo but the score and vibes made it good late night viewing.

[Dom D]

Interceptor; watching this one for its director Matthew Reilly. Very interesting career Reilly for anyone of an entrepenurial bent. He's a terrible Australian writer who became a worldwide best seller thanks to sheer moxie and can-do attitude. Now the man has talked his way into directing a Netflix movie.

This is very much inline with his books. Elsa Pataky has to go full John McClaine to protect a US missile Interceptor base when some very annoying terrorists attempt to take it. It's the kind of movie where you know what the characters are going to say before they do. For instance, our heroine has a gun to her head. Her assailant is an ex US military man who's turned against his country because he "doesn't recognise it anymore". She says: "you're not going to kill me, you're not a murder" and I shouted out before he could reply, "No, I'm a fucking patriot." Word for word. Boom!

Absolute shite. But then I'm not a DTV action guy. I'm curious what those more learned in the genre, say the Swede, make of it.

[Randy G]

Daughters of Darkness on Shudder

Somehow never seen this widely praised Eurohorror classic and it is as good as they say. Terrific score, atmosphere and super sexy vampires.

[killer must kill again]

freddy got fingered

yikes! I guess I will never be the same person again after watching this. rip torn deserves to win an oscar posthumously for suffering through this ordeal.
I hope this gets a rerun at the cinemas. shit like the horse cock or the paralyzed girlfriend who wants to suck tom green's dick all the time just wouldn't fly today.

vinegar syndrome, I want this on bru-lay with a horse dick slipcover!

[Dom D]

The Godfather: I've been watching a bunch of Coppola interviews recently and he talks a lot about evolving the form of film. Each time I've seen him discuss this he eventually settles on shooting films live as a logical evolution. That seems like a possibly fun, probably stupid, novelty to me. In the more recent interviews he acknowledges the quality of modern tv but somehow passes over it as the evolution of the form, just seeing it as longer film. Listen Coppola, changing the format of film from, at most, 3 hours or so long to, say, 5 seasons of 10 hour long episodes is changing the form much more than filming the same screenplay live. The revolution happened and you missed it.

I mention this because watching The Godfather I can't help thinking how much better this would be a tv show. It's not the movie people romanticise it as. "It's not a story about gangsters, it's a story about family" etc. Bollocks. This is a gangster film where some of the protagonists are related. If this was a story about family where are the women? When Vitos in the hospital and the police clear out his guards how do they get rid of Mumma Corleone? No way the Dons wife wouldn't be sitting on his shoulder when he's maybe dying. She should be a presence in this film but she's not.

Anyway, I hadn't seen The Godfather since I was a teenager and I'm returning to it now because of The Offer. Now The Offer, after a terrible first episode, is amazing. A real demonstration of how much fun the television format is. There's time to build characters and time for those characters to have complex interrelations. The Godfather in 3 hours just doesn't have that time. It gives you dot points. You know: Vito makes a deal for Micheal to come out of hiding, cut to Micheal is back and running the family with Vito as Consigliere (would never happen by the way, succession doesn't happen like that and I wouldn't believe even if I saw it). If you want to tell a story this sweeping there's no other way to do it in the cinema format.

Looking forward to getting into Part 2. It has that best sequel of all time reputation. I recall not liking it anywhere near as much as the original when I was young but we'll see.

[Matt H.]

v/h/s/94

worth viewing for the 3rd segment alone (same guy who did the safe haven segment from v/h/s/2). imho the completely bonkers ending even saved the lame segment about the white supremacist group. the last part of the wraparound story sucked though. all in all better than expected.

hail ratmaa!

My favourite was Simon Barrett's "The Empty Wake". It was actually scary.

[Randy G]

Hard to Be A God

This modern but B&W Russian sf medieval epic, an adaptation of the novel by the Strugatsky brothers, immerses you in its world of mud, rain and the grotesque with little explanation. Beautifully shot and with a great central performance this film will test the patience of lots of people but those with a taste for arty extremes should love it.