What are you watching?

[f.ramses]

I've always had the impression that Eyeball was not very well liked; I like it a lot though!

[Newt Cox]

Fist Fight

Fairly standard modern comedy. Wanted something funny this morning while killing time. Ice cube dressed just like my 9th grade math teacher Mr Curry.

Decent cast. Enough laughs I wasn't mad I spent $1 on it i think.

[Dom D]

Eyeball

Blimey. I had been considering the 88 Films 4k of this but remember it being quite bad and thought I should check it out before upgrading. I’m glad it did. It is bad. Really bad.

Lenzi is quite hit and miss for me. I always have a good time with Nightmare City and like the gialli he made with Carol Baker well enough. I really can’t find anything to recommend this though, save perhaps for the score. The Catalonian locations are wasted, the cast unattractive and the direction unimaginative. I want some style from a gialli, goddamnit . . . perhaps even some tension. This has neither.

I’m guessing the budget was tight on this and that may explain some of its faults. I also wonder if it was just one giallo to many for Lenzi, if he had lost interest. Needless to say I won’t be upgrading, and if anyone wants a nearly twenty year old German dvd . . . .

Oh, and the ending. Good grief.

It's a while since I saw this but my memory is I enjoyed it a lot. It hough it was generally fondly thought of?

[f.ramses]

Mean Guns - I could tell within seconds of this thing starting that it was going to be terrible but even that didn't prepare me for what an unbelievable piece of shit this was. EVERYTHING about it was so underwhelming and crappy and I could not wait for it to end ...so naturally it couldn't just be 80 - 90 minutes like most movies, it had to be 110 instead. What a waste of time. Who knows, maybe I would have liked it better had I not passed the last half hour playing my Switch in handheld but by then I had already lost my patience with it and just wanted it to be over.

[s.chivers]

Eyeball

Blimey. I had been considering the 88 Films 4k of this but remember it being quite bad and thought I should check it out before upgrading. I’m glad it did. It is bad. Really bad.

Lenzi is quite hit and miss for me. I always have a good time with Nightmare City and like the gialli he made with Carol Baker well enough. I really can’t find anything to recommend this though, save perhaps for the score. The Catalonian locations are wasted, the cast unattractive and the direction unimaginative. I want some style from a gialli, goddamnit . . . perhaps even some tension. This has neither.

I’m guessing the budget was tight on this and that may explain some of its faults. I also wonder if it was just one giallo to many for Lenzi, if he had lost interest. Needless to say I won’t be upgrading, and if anyone wants a nearly twenty year old German dvd . . . .

Oh, and the ending. Good grief.

[Cody Layne]

Nightmare (1964): The last movie in that Hammer Blu-Ray set, this is one of the black-and-white psychological thrillers that Hammer produced in the 60's. It's not quite in their upper echelon, mainly because it doesn't have any of their big horror stars, and the story doesn't quite hold up to repeated viewings but, on the whole, it's not a bad little thriller, and it's very well shot, with lots of darkness in many of the scenes. Also, while the special features on that disc are good, one thing that kind of annoys me is the way they presented this audio interview with director Freddie Francis from the 90's. I was willing to listen to it, but they decided to make it something of an audio commentary, which the disc already had. Some may like that but, for me, I wish they would just show relevant images and such during that kind of interview.

[s.chivers]

Je t’aime moi non plus

There was a time when I would have cited this as among my favourite films, and perhaps I still would. I hadn’t seen it since the VHS era though, which is very odd. Anyway, watching it again last night was a joy, like sitting down with an old friend and reminiscing about the past.

In terms of its appeal, Dallesandro and Birkin are certainly a big part of it, albeit the latter looks terribly thin and somewhat unappealing for much of the running time. It’s hard to take your eyes off them though, and the juxtaposition of them - the three of them, if you include Hugues Quester - with the brutal environments they inhabit serves to underline their magnetism.

I don’t really know much about the film’s production or reception. I imagine it was controversial at the time of release but, looking at it now, it occurs to me that it’s very reflective of the era, and I’m not just referring to the relatively graphic sex scenes. Dallesandro’s (well, Krassky’s) hatred for and refusal of labels particularly stood out to me last night, and seemed in stark contrast to the times in which we live. I suppose (almost) fifty years have passed.

[s.chivers]

I forgot to mention that we also watched Orgasmo during the week, which dates from the same year as La Piscine and would actually make a good double-bill with it, though I think it would have to be programmed second.

[s.chivers]

La Piscine

A tale of tangled romances set largely in an isolated villa, this is frequently stunning to behold, with the three of the four leads rivalling the French locations in terms of beauty. It’s not quite the languid art house affair I was expecting though, and it’s not entirely successful as a thriller either, which I think is probably what they were going for. I actually wonder if it should have been a little longer, as the tension between the male leads seems to escalate very quickly and is not entirely convincing as a result.

I watched the English language version btw. I understand this is being released in 4k later this year, so hopefully the disk will feature both the English and French versions, which are believe are different versions, rather than simply different audio tracks.

[Cody Layne]

The Phantom of the Opera (1962): I haven't watch this Hammer flick as much as many of the others, but I do think it's a bit underrated and not worthy of the obscurity it's been relegated. Herbert Lom and Michael Gough are both especially great in their respective roles here. This edition in that Indication Blu-Ray set is also packed to the nines, with two commentaries (one of which I listened to today), an alternate version of the movie with additional scenes, and some very interesting special features about the film itself.

[Cody Layne]

Captain Clegg (Night Creatures): Another Hammer movie that I've seen a fair number of times and, while it's not actually a horror film, despite its Gothic setting and what the advertising may have you think, but is something of an adventure flick, it's actually quite good, with Peter Cushing absolutely killing it in the lead. This edition of it in that Indicator Blu-Ray has a crap-ton of special features, including an interview with the director about his career that's nearly three-and-a-half hours long (disappointingly, he only briefly talks about Captain Clegg itself), features about some of the people involved, an introduction by Kim Newman, a nice one about Cushing himself, with audio excerpts of his voice, and some other features about the production.

[Cody Layne]

The Shadow of the Cat: I've talked about this movie on here before, as it was on one of those Universal Horror sets from Scream Factory, but it was also the first movie on that Hammer Blu-Ray set I got. I still find this movie hard to take seriously, but this Blu-Ray had a number of interesting special features, including a 25-minute look at its inception and how, since the Hammer name isn't on it, it's often been ignored when talking about the company's catalogue.

[Cody Layne]

The Kiss of the Vampire: Specifically, the Scream Factory Blu-Ray, which turned out to be rather disappointing. First of all, this is another Hammer movie that I've seen a number of times and really like, so I was looking forward to hearing more about it. However, the supposed audio commentary with a pair of film historians is nowhere to be found on the main menu, and the special features, while interesting, didn't talk about the movie specifically. However, there was an alternate TV version, with some extra scenes that you could watch separately (the footage was taken from a VHS recording of when it aired on the old Sci-Fi Channel).

[Gary Banks]

Wading my way through every shitty horror movie that Tubi has to offer. I watched 10 movies in 2 days and Meat Cleaver Massacre was the best of them. MCM had no opening titles and no Christopher Lee. For that I would have to have picked Hollywood Meat Cleaver Massacre. (No Meat Cleavers were used in the film).

[s.chivers]

Videodrome and Scanners. Two Cronenberg’s in one week.

We watched the old Criterion dvd of Videodrome over two nights while listening to a very engaging commentary stitched together from separate tracks with Cronenberg and Director of Photography Mark Irwin. I hadn’t seen the film for years, probably since that edition was released, and enjoyed it so much I pulled the trigger on the new Second Sight release of Scanners.

Again, I can’t imagine when I would have last seen this. I dread to think. Anyway, watching it again last night I was stuck by how action packed it is, how menacing Michael Ironside is, and how well the practical effects have held up. I thought the climactic psychic dual was particularly striking, both in terms of conception and execution.

The Second Sight 4k looked very good to my eyes, btw. I might pick up their release of The Brood somewhere down the line, though that was the one earlier Cronenberg I never really warmed to