What are you watching?

[Apronikoff Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Apronikoff]

BARON BLOOD -- This is one of my least favorites from Bava, but the blu-ray is a nice upgrade and even if it's not a classic the film still has a lot going for it.

COUNTRY CUZZINS -- Ridiculously corny "hicksploitation" with Rene Bond (pre-implant.) At 90 minutes it overstays its welcome a bit, but it's still pretty fun. Everyone (but especially Bond) look like they're having a lot of fun and that's infectious.

The disc from Something Weird also had a short called (I think -- I'm too lazy to check) NAKED MOONSHINE. It was...amazing. Not amazing in the sense of it being good in any way shape or form (it most assuredly wasn't). Instead it is amazing to think that someone, at any point in human history, decided to make a ten minute short film about three women mixing moonshine and that said movie should feature close-ups, in real time, of large bottles being filled with water. Note that the word bottles is plural. Three times we're treated to the sight of a large glass bottle being filled up with water -- and we never miss a second of the process. Not only did someone make such a movie, but apparently it was seen in some form or fashion, prints were preserved, and now it's on DVD so that it can be saved for posterity.

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

Last night... Funny Farm. This seemed like a good Christmas Tree decoratin' movie and it still holds up. Not Chase's most hilarious film but funny enough throughout to make for good background noise. My stepson was critical of the film because Chevy Chase didn't fall down enough. It's a pretty valid complaint.

[Nolando Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Nolando]

That's an incredibly valid complaint, even for Chase's career today.

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

Haha, I thought so too.

[Apronikoff Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Apronikoff]

Last night I watched JUSTINE DE SADE (that's the one with Alice Arno). Probably the best of the many Justine adaptations I've seen. It kept the humor of de Sade's writing, so you get great bits like the monologue about the virtue of anal sex or the fact that Justine keeps telling everyone she meets the same sob story, word for word. Also it was way sleazier than the Jess Franco version (how often do you get to say that?) which was fun. At 115 minutes it was a little too long, but otherwise a great slice of Euro-sleaze.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

Finally, finally watched Kubrick's Paths of Glory. Astonishing film. Hasn't aged in the slightest. Every performance is memorable and incredibly well done. Music, cinematography, script, etc. Flawless. An extremely moving experience. Timothy Carrey's best performance easily, too bad he didn't get more leading man parts after this. Could be a perfect film. Hard to believe it was made in 1957.

[Apronikoff Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Apronikoff]

EYEBALL -- Decent Lenzi giallo. Has some pretty good kills and an enjoyably nutty resolution but is otherwise a little drab with some sluggish pacing. Well worth watching for giallo fans, but not one I'd recommend to anyone new to the genre, unlike:

TENEBRAE -- I know it's heresy to some, but I honestly think I prefer this to Deep Red. Having re-watched both relatively recently I felt like Tenebrae holds up better: it's tense, exciting, sleazy, and gory; the camera-work is spectacular (seriously, the extended shot where the camera "stalks" the house with the lesbian couple is one of my favorites shots in all of horror) and the score is fantastic. Probably also has the closest thing to an air-tight plot in any of Argento's films.

99 WOMEN -- Franco's first "women in prison" outing is just a little too sedate and classy for my taste. It really comes alive during the flashbacks to how Rosalba Neri and Maria Rohm ended up in prison, but otherwise drags pretty badly. Still, Neri gives an awesome fiery performance and Herbert Lom is a lot of fun slumming it as the prison warden.

I LOVE IT FROM BEHIND -- Really fun Nikkatsu Roman Porno. What I found most interesting and enjoyable about this one is how a movie this vulgar and this un-PC nevertheless has an air of "all just innocent fun" about it. Not often you can say that about a movie that features a woman shouting "Turn gay!" while ramming a vibrator into a dude's ass.

RING OF DARKNESS (AKA SATAN'S WIFE) -- Italian Satanic shocker that cobbles together elements of The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, and The Omen into a loopy and ridiculously sleazy hodge-podge. The cast is absolutely ridiculously stacked: John Philip Law, Anne Heywood, Marisa Mell, Irene Pappas... But the best performance is from Lara Wendel as the daughter of Satan. Has the ingredients to be a classic, but is stymied by very pedestrian direction and a script that unsuccessfully tries to jam every single plot thread from the source novel into 90 minutes. Still quite enjoyable though. I wish someone would release a quality disc of this. The release from MYA is VHS quality at best and becomes virtually indecipherable during dark scenes.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

I think Tenebre is better than Deep Red too. It has a tighter pace and the ending is more devastating I think.

[Apronikoff Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Apronikoff]

LAST CANNIBAL WORLD - Almost. There's some great elements here: the performances are good, the location work is awesome, and there are some terrific set-pieces of both the gore and adventure variety. The first twenty minutes or so are just ridiculously fast-paced and exciting. But then once the guy gets captured, the pace slows to a crawl (and isn't helped by the ridiculously badly spliced-in animal footage while he's in the hole.)

THE BABYSITTER - Ok, I seriously loved this movie. Fast-paced, good performances, a cool score and Patricia Wymer is just crazy sexy. Need more like this, stat.

SEX HUNTER: WET TARGET - The best thing about Nikkatsu Roman Pornos (and by extension, the Synapse releases this year) is how diverse they are. This could not have been any more different from I LOVE IT FROM BEHIND. A pitch-black revenge story that also casts on eye on Japan's xenophobia and troubled relationship with the US. Add some pretty great cinematography and direction, and I think this is one of the better titles in Synapse's Nikkatsu line.

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

Santa Claus Conquers The Martians - He doesn't so much conquer them as get kidnapped by them and sort of hang out on Mars until he's ready to go home but this is still pretty rad. I hate most Christmas movies. I don't hate this one.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

TENEBRAE -- I know it's heresy to some, but I honestly think I prefer this to Deep Red.

Not to me. I'm with you: you're not alone in thinking this. I've been saying the same thing for about twenty years, since I first managed to track down and watch a copy of TENEBRE.

[Apronikoff Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Apronikoff]

DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE -- This was really not what I was expecting. I went to it expecting a sleazy serial killer movie a la Toolbox Murders or Maniac. While that was definitely there, this movie just goes on one strange detour after another. We get the police procedural business, which turns into a buddy cop movie (complete with a near slapstick scene during the raid on the massage parlor), which then turns into a romantic drama. Still hangs together pretty well, surprisingly.

PLAYGIRLS OF MUNICH -- zzzzzzzzzzzzzz....oh wait, what? I'm awake, I'm awake. This was pretty dismal. Zebedy Colt and some other guy travel to German and bang their way from one crisis to another. The "plot" scenes are generally pretty amusing, but the sex scenes are interminably long, uninterestingly filmed and decidedly unsexy.

[Horace Cordier Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Horace Cordier]

What are you watching?

OUTLAND

Hyam's outer space take on HIGH NOON is both a surprisingly deft study of a disintegrating family and a powerful treatise on morality and true friendship.

It also looks beautiful, has terrific set design and standout pre-cgi model work and a finely nuanced Sean Connery performance.

Not the fastest paced thriller out there but gripping all the same.

[Jonny Ptooff! Find all posts View Profile Close Jonny]

Re: What are you watching?

La orca via the Camera Obscura DVD. Never seen it before, the print is pristine. Film itself is pretty good so far, the main guy who touches up the hostage while she's drugged up looks like Mark Ruffalo.

[Ian Jane Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Ian Jane]

Jonny posted!

La Orca is pretty awesome. That CO disc is great.