What are you watching?

[Mark Tolch]

I watched the Netflix and HBOMax docs on the Murdaugh Family murders. It's not really messed up, because it's just basically rich White people doing whatever they want to do in the south, but it's messed up because that family were generations of evil people.

Both docs are worth watching, though the Netflix one does spend a lot of time focusing on the boating accident.

[Newt Cox]

The Bogman
Mid Louisiana made horror. About a Arkansas town that is known for Bigfoot sightings. Decently made,FX are all practical. Bogman looks decent. Bought this cause a buddy has a fairly big role as Nash leader of the killers for hire.

Pearl
WTF. X was decent and I will watch it again. This......Man Ti West is slowly turning into someone where I keep hoping he reaches the highs of his first film,and he never does.

[Dom D]

The girlfriend is away in the city putting on shows for a few days so I have movie watching time. I've been putting it to good use.

Woman In The Dunes: I don't know how I've never seen this one. It's very much in my wheelhouse. Loved it. I did not know when I put it on that I was in for a 2 and 1/2 hour epic but I did not regret my choice. WHat a film.

The House Of Exorcism: I am the worlds biggest fan of Lisa And The Devil and I had still not seen this. What a toe curling experience. I was surprised at how much production value went into to the terrible new bits. Like the final exorcism, that belonged in a better movie. But jesus, how embarrassing for everyone involved.

The Story Of O: I am am somehow not on Just Jaekin's wavelength. Incredibly beautiful women, who are almost permanently naked in his films, should make for a good time. Particularly here where the permanently naked woman is Corrine Cleary, a massively underrated Eruo-babe who vies with Edwige for top spot on the rankings in my books. Maybe it's kind of like Hitchcock's description of suspense. You know how he describes showing a bomb ticking under the table is more exciting than the just showing an explosion. Just Jaekin is all explosion, no ticking.

[killer must kill again]

eight for silver (2021)

pretty old school, slow-burn werewolf horror flick, that opens with a gorgeous looking WWI montage, where a guy gets wounded and the field doctor removes two bullets but accidentally finds yet another special bullet (made of silver) in his abdomen. jump back 30 years where the actual story takes place featuring slaughtered gypsies, a wee bit of body horror and weird nightmares about a cursed scarecrow...
this was way better than expected! they totally nailed that period setting and the design of the creatures, looking more like skinwalkers than actual werewolves (with the cursed person still hiding inside the body of the monster), has quite a unique spin to it.
we even get a "the thing" inspired autopsy scene and some sideboob from kelly reilly (eden lake). I thought this was way better than the usual werewolf horror stuff nowadays, I'd might even call this the best of the genre since the wolfman (2010). recommended!

[Dom D]

The Banshees Of Inisherrin: well that was fucking bleak. Quite good. But bleak.

Set on a postage stamp sized Irish island during the Irish civil war there's not a lot to it. Colin Farrell is a boring man who loves his donkey (not in that way) and likes to go the pub at 2 with his mate Brendan Gleeson. For seemingly no good reason at all Gleeson upends Farrells life by telling him he doesn't want to see him anymore. More than that, he tells Farrell that each time Farrell approaches him in future he'll cut one of his own fingers.

On the surface it's all quite witty and funny but at heart it's a gloomy meditation on human bloody mindedness and hate. Makes for a film that feels completely inconsequential but also absolutely gutting. Didn't enjoy it but would recommend it.

[Randy G]

Currently about 2/3 of the way through Forbidden Love, a cozy documentary about Canadian lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s. Recommend if you have the slightest interest in the topic. One of the talking heads is Ann Bannon, queen of the lesbian pulp fiction authors. Some screen time involves actors recreating a few scenes from her books.

This is a Cancon classic they used to play on late night CBC all the time! My local arthouse theatre has had the excellent poster prominently displayed in its lobby for 20 years or so.

[Dom D]

Also the ships cat... whats the story with that? Did it have its own stasis capsule or was it bunking with Sigourney?

Plus when Sigourney blows the airlock how come it doesn't get sucked out with the Alien? Is that established? Considering how much time is spent on the fucking cat that seems key information...

[Dom D]

Alien: thought while watching Alien: why does this ship have a self destruct sequence? This ship is the size of a city. It must be worth trillions of dollar- in today's money even. So why would you put a small crew of underpaid people on it and give them the ability to blow it sky high? Has any vehicle ever been built with a self destruct sequence? What would be the point of such a thing?

Second thought, never occurred to me before but 'get away from her you bitch!' was clearly a call back to Sigourney calling mother bitch.

The things you miss.

[Marshall Crist]

Currently about 2/3 of the way through Forbidden Love, a cozy documentary about Canadian lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s. Recommend if you have the slightest interest in the topic. One of the talking heads is Ann Bannon, queen of the lesbian pulp fiction authors. Some screen time involves actors recreating a few scenes from her books.

[Dom D]

Running Scared: This a buddy cop film from 1984 with Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines as the buddies and Joe Pantalino and Jimmy Smits among the ne'er do wells they are pitted against. The buddies would rather be running a bar on the beach than being cops but they decide on one last bust before hanging up their badges. Given the release date it would be easy to lump it as one of the many 48 Hours knockoffs but it's bears as much resemblance to the directors earlier Busting as that film so that would be unkind. This is tops. Quick-fire, very deadpan, reasonably witty dialogue being reeled off at pace by a cast with the chops to pull it off. Probably should be better known than it is. I preferred it to most of the better known examples, in fact probably all from this period excepting Lethal Weapon.

[Dom D]

Star Chamber: the more I watch Hyams films the more I'm thinking it's a shame he was a studio guy. With his style he would have been one of the all time great exploitation directors. Imagine him turning out a Pam Grier vehicle or rape revenge film every 6 months. There would be some classics.

Even as a studio production this is pretty entertaining. Its got the kinetic direction you expect from Hyams at this time and what I used to call 'Tony Scott lighting'. I guess I should be renaming that mentally as Peter Hyams lighting.

I can understand why the reviews are mixed. It is a Michael Douglas studio picture and one has expectations of those. The far fetched storyline and the bluntness with which it presents its themes sit a bit oddly with those expectations.

How would this have played if it was a junk picture and Fred Williamson was the judge? I would probably like that picture even more but I enjoyed this one just fine.

[James Reed]

A couple nights ago I streamed The Raven (2012) with John Cusack. Entertaining enough, but not too surprising. Might be worth watching if you like Edgar Allan Poe stories, like me.

[Dom D]

Capricorn 1: I've never seen this before. In fact I don't think I've ever even come across it before until a couple weeks ago. Which is very hard to understand given it's quality and I know it's not obscure. Somehow we've just not crossed paths. Was this movie the inspiration for the "man never got to the moon" conspiracy theories? It's early enough that it could be. In fact I think I've seen frames of the Mars set in the Capricorn 1 filtered black and white as 'evidence' of the moon studio studio.

Anyway what a most excellent movie. I've watched some real trash recently and it's very grounding to sit down and watch a smart, gritty 70s flick. Back in the days when you didn't have cameras that do tricks and computers to fix what the cameras fuck up and so the makers have to rely on a script. Elliot Gould should have been in more things. I know he was in a lot I'm just saying there should have been more. Next, onto Busting!

[Dom D]

Babylon: come on.... what the fuck was that?!

It's rare that a movie actually makes me angry. Last year broke records and did it to me twice. 2022 already delivered us Everything Everywhere All At Once. I marked that film down as the worst of the year and top 10 worst all time but- dear god- this piece of shit may just have it beat.

Completely incoherent, rabidly self important, 16 hours long. I just don't know what this film is about or how it happened. As disastrous as it was, I kind of get how EEAAO happened. Someone saw Ricky and Morty and thought they could rip it off for a feature and mash it up with some Hong Kong action. Fuck you but fair 'nough. This film though feels like it's made on the fly by a coked up, overly praised director just shouting at his cast to do something and, when in doubt, do one of those shots where the camera dolly's down a trumpet because we've never seen that before.

Id like to give it a coherent review but theres no reasonable direction to approach it from so Ill just say, exterminate all the brutes.

[Dom D]

Don't Worry Darling: Considering that it was flat out not-very-good Stepford Wives has a weird way of continuing to pop up in pop culture. There was the remake with Nicole Kidman. There was Black Stepford Wives with Get Out and now there's Don't Worry Darling which is another retread.

This had a reputation of being Not As Good As Hyped before it was even released. There was all tthe Wilder-Flo-LeBoueff drama. Styles magnificiently spitting on Chris Pine and all the rest of it. So for a film the studio would have Had Hopes For it slunk it's way into cinemas in very sheepish fashion, got eviscerated in the reviews, and then slunk right the fuck back out again.

I submit it's nowhere near as bad as everyone says. What I expected to be the disappointment of the film was the reveal of what is actually happening in this small town where Something is clearly happening. I expected a cheap excuse and then a rush for the exit. Instead what you're given is kind of thematically interesting and, like a Dudes rug, really ties the room together. It's a look at that 50s prefeminism idea of a mans world, that looks alright for a woman too, if you ignore the lack of opportunity for all.

Which is not to say that it's very good. It has the look of being written by an instinctive writer who never came back to do a second draft. There's so many things left hanging in this film. Things that you expect to have explained and then they're just dropped. Like the writer left himself a lot of threads to draw on in case he needed them, decided that he didn't and then didn't go back to clean up the mess. For example our leading lady is drawn into the desert by the sight of a crashing airplane. Out There she comes across the source of all the mystery. She doesn't come across the plane. Why was there a plane crash? How does it tie in? Mysteries! Turns out it doesn't tie into anything. We never see the crash site and it's never explained and it was just a really weird excuse for the writer to get our leading lady trekking across the desert.

Strange filmmaking...