What are you watching?

[Andrew Monroe Pallid Hands Find all posts View Profile Close Andrew Monroe]

Summer is in full swing here in the south, bringing with it ungodly heat and humidity. I reach for cinematic comfort food a lot when it's oppressive outside and for me, that's classic westerns right now. These two are both revisits but I discovered something new this time - good bar trivia alert - Lawrence Tierney plays Jessie James in both of these!

BADMAN'S TERRITORY - Lawman Randolph Scott heads into lawless territory in search of his wounded brother. He'll have to contend with the Daltons and the James Gang amongst others though...Certainly no classic but a good solid studio western done with care for craft and loaded with character actors. There's noir regular Steve Brody, the aforementioned Tierney, Tom Tyler, and George "Gabby" Hayes - you'd be on the money if you guessed that he plays the kooky old coot.

BEST OF THE BADMEN - Nice lead for Robert Ryan in this one, as the Confederate soldier forced into outlawry by carpetbagger crook Robert Preston. Again the gang includes Tierney as Jessie James, and the always tip-top Claire Trevor is on hand too. Walter Brennan handles the slightly less goofy Gabby Hayes role in this one. Again, not one that will ever top any best of lists but it'll damn sure entertain you and make you forget for 90 minutes that it's so fucking hot Satan just offered you a guest room to cool off.

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

It sounded authentic to me,

Job done then!

Add it to his list of credentials!!

Only fault of NINJA 2 (if you are being petty)....no gratuitous nudity..that was almost always shoe-horned into the 1980's NINJA movies if I remember rightly...

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

The Crime Lords
More Wayne Crawfordy goodness! The prequel to Amerikanski Blues feels more serious, sleazy and violent while still keeping a good sense of fun going throughout. Two cops working auto theft detail fuck up a bust completely, levelling a city block in the process while the bad guys get away and they, to top it off, become suspected of bribery.

Fired from the force they track one of the thiefs all the way to Hong Kong and together they go on the hunt. By some convenient script writing they stumble upon the car stealing gangs boss immediately and become a target for extermination. Buddy cop-type shenanigans ensue, James Hong is his usual awesome self and his femme fatale sidekick (Smoking hot Susan Byun from Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.) does her best to wrap both cops around her no good fingers when brute force doesn't work. Oh, and Crawford accidentally gets sold a child prostitute he's then stuck with for the rest of the film. Dem language barriers, eh? She has a short roundish quality to her and she ends up assisting Crawford by throwing bricks at bad guys or simply running them over with a car (don't ask me how she knew how to drive at 14)

Snappily directed by star Crawford this trucks along nicely and balances violence, humor and sleazy sex (happy ending massages and Susan Byun nudity) in a surprisingly deft manner. Very good stuff!

[Andrew Monroe Pallid Hands Find all posts View Profile Close Andrew Monroe]

A FINE PAIR (RUBA AL PROSSIMO TUO) (1968) - Fluffy as they come crime caper comedy with Rock Hudson and Claudia Cardinale. Hudson is a cop who falls in love with jewel thief Cardinale after she tricks him into unwittingly helping her make a score. I've been curious about this one for quite some time and had high hopes for it, but sadly, aside from some wonderful wintry locations and a fantastic Morricone score, this one's kind of a dud. Tomas Milian also has a smallish role but even he can't do much with the overly familiar and tired formula. Cardinale looks gorgeous as usual but she and Hudson have zero chemistry. Get the Morricone score, it's a guaranteed mood lifter, but skip the film.

[The Silly Swede Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close The Silly Swede]

I, Frankenstein. I expected it to suck, after viewing 1 minute I thought to myself "OMFG, this film is absolutely horrible!" and the film never improved. I only rented it because my local videostore has a 3 films one week offer, and being a fucking loser I has already seen 90% of their films.

[The Silly Swede Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close The Silly Swede]

Dom Hemingway Nice Little cockney B-indie with Jude Law as the very funny lead character. Sadly his brilliant performance is not matched by an equally brilliant film. But still a good time.

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

Marathoned the latest season of Bones in two days. Formulaic but damn it if it's not still extremely entertaining and captivating, despite soon reaching 10 seasons. Nice cliffhanger as well in the last episode.

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

DRIVE HARD...Crikey this was bad....Thomas Jane was OK...John Cusack phoning it in.....Thought this would have been GREAT if it was filled with the stunts of a 1980's Brian Trenchard-Smith film..but we are not allowed to make them like that anymore...so we have this boring TV movie level mess instead...Hooray!

[Barry M Super Fiend Find all posts View Profile Close Barry M]

HANNIBAL BROOKS (Michael Winner, 1969). Oliver Reed and Michael J. Pollard and an elephant fight Nazis. Kind of great.

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

Demon Wind: pretty good B horror flick. Has some interesting cinematography.

Last House on the Left (2009 remake): meh. The actresses certainly looked like they were 17 but unlike the original they lacked personalities. Aaron Paul feels miscast, it could be from watching Breaking Bad and seeing the Jessie Pinkman character, but he looks too young and just isn't threatening. The other actors are okay but they just lack personalities. The original film has a lot of flaws but at the least you could say that the principal cast were memorable and defined.

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

Grand Budapest Hotel: has kind of a slow start but once it gets going it's fantastic.

[Andrew Monroe Pallid Hands Find all posts View Profile Close Andrew Monroe]

IL SORPASSO (1962) - Italian comedy from Dino Risi that's full of surprises. Impulsive, nutty Vittorio Gassman half kidnaps reluctant straight laced student Jean-Louis Trintignant for a wacky road trip. Some very funny moments as Gassman tries to show Trintignant how to loosen up and enjoy life a little. These two actors have very different styles but they also have a certain chemistry as well as a friendship begins to form. I've never thought much of Catherine Spaak as an actress - cute, yes, but no great shakes otherwise - but she's terrific here as Gassman's wise-beyond-her-years daughter. Great jazzy Ortolani score too. Avoiding spoilers, I'll just say it ends in a very unexpected way. I'm still digesting the ending actually, not sure how I feel about it. Still, a wonderful film. The Criterion BD looks aces.

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

Any opposition if I start a similar thread in the Asian board? This thread is pretty massive, and since we've got Asian board it would feel logical to have "What Asian Films are You Watching" thread there.

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

The Last Stand
This movie ruled SOOOO fucking hard! I'd only seen the trailer beforehand so I was sceptical. I thought it would be a Johnny Knoxville (I actually like him) joke-a-thon with Arnold thrown in as an afterthought. I loved every second of this goofy flick. Pure entertainment and it's very sad that it flopped on release. I hope this becomes a must have Dvd/Blu-Ray classic over the years. Fucking great stuff.

The Heat
I'm a half hour into this and it's not looking good. I think I genuinely HATE Melissa McCarthy with the intensity of a thousand suns. I'm a die hard fan of Bullock but another 1h 30mins of this crap might make me suicidal. Good thing her latest "Oh-Look-I'm-Fat-Loud-And-Disgusting-Isn't-That-Funny?"-shitfest seems to be tanking.

Sabotage
Hella violent but pretty sucky movie. Afterwards I read they pussied out on some interesting turns of events I much would've preferred to see. I hope Ayer releases a director's cut with the original version. The film in it's current state is problematic. There's not one single likeable character in this. Except for Arnold, maybe Harold Perrineau's cop character, but that's it. Arnold's team are a bunch of walking macho clichees. Basically a bunch of detestable assholes. And don't get me started on the shoe horned "bad ass macho chick". Seriously, when will that go away. They're doing it again with Expendables 3 and they tried to with Expendables 2. She was the most annoying of them all and of course they make her prominent in the film. Re-released in it's intended version this would improve significantly. Still, shame about the horrible casting choices.

[Barry M Super Fiend Find all posts View Profile Close Barry M]

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
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