What are you watching?

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

Kill Bill 2. I've always thought it was a damned shame that this film was cut up into two 2. I always wanted to see how these two bits would have gone together had Tarantino been forced to make one movie. Theyre such disparate movies. The first all action, the second all talk which is the opposite how you expect the pacing of an exploitation flick to be. I know there was a disc release of them stuck together but that was just the two films running one after the other. Id like to see what Tarantino would have done if he'd actually had to cut it down to, say, two hours and fifty minutes. Get the pacing right for a longer movie. Would he, just for example, have had to move the Lucy Liu segmnt to be the climax before she confronts Bill. It seems the obvious place for it and it's strange that it's not there already.

I prefer volume 2, at the same time I suspect volume 2 would have suffered the biggest cuts. After the very tight first movie there's a lot of scenes in this second one that drag. But Madsens section is great and the Daryl Hannah fight is pretty good. The Bill confrontation has some unwieldy dialogue but is a neatly unexpected way to do your denouement.

Both films are aging pretty well I think.

[Scott Intellectual Carrot Find all posts View Profile Close Scott]

Universal Soldier 4. Holy fuck this movie kicks ass! Hyperviolent Gaspar Noe-inspired insanity.

DAY OF RECKONING? I've been saying this since it first came out. Super underrated film. I still prefer the previous entry, REGENRATION to it but they both go together like chocolate and peanut butter. REGEN sets up some of the weirdness and RECKONING runs away with it wildly. REGEN sets up the mad scientist angle (with Van Damme's son playing the assistant in both films), and the cloning. And Andrei Arlovski appears in both playing a different (maybe ?) character in the two films.

Both films deserve a bigger following. Or just deserve to be seen. Some of my favorite films of the 2000's and I'm hard pressed to think of better sequels in any franchise. The original film still holds up and is actually a lot of silly fun. The first sequel is terrible. I never seen the 2 made for tv sequels, they look awful.

I only wish John Hyams did a third film in the franchise. A couple years back he did a kind of BAD NEWS BEARS type little league movie. I haven't seen it but it got good reviews. He also recently did a thriller I haven't seen. Neither seem to have garnered the success he found with the two Universal Soldier films he did, which were mostly acclaimed by the little bit of press they received. It's too bad, he definitely knows what it takes to make a compelling modern action film. And he clearly knows what I like to see.

I only wish his father Peter Hyams did the cinematography on DAY OF RECKONING. He was the main photographer on REGENERATION and I think that movie has a much nicer look than DAY OF RECKONING, but that's really minor nitpicking. I also prefer the music in REGENRATION which has a cool John Carpenter-esque synth score. But I also like that as much as they lead into each other they are very different films.

I don't think anyone expected the 4th and 5th films of a 20 year franchise (at the time) to amount to anything but he absolutely shattered all my expectations of what a UNIVERSAL SOLDIER movie can look like. And he did that trick twice. When so many other filmmakers at the time were paying homage to grindhouse and exploitation flicks I feel like John Hyams hit the mark closer than many of the hipster imposters. None of them have had the balls to show kids and old people getting shot in the head, rampant female and male full frontal nudity (something all the Grindhouse-y movies shy away from), multiple plot twists and a weird as hell homage to APOCALYPSE NOW and FRANKENSTEIN that somehow all works.

And it was shot in 3-D. I wonder how many people actual got to see it in 3-D? How many people even saw it at all? Damn shame.

[Jason C Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Jason C]

Universal Soldier 4. Holy fuck this movie kicks ass! Hyperviolent Gaspar Noe-inspired insanity.

Ya, it blew me away. Did you watch the Unrated version?

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

Ya, it blew me away. Did you watch the Unrated version?

I did. Now I have to watch Regeneration.

[Scott Intellectual Carrot Find all posts View Profile Close Scott]

I did. Now I have to watch Regeneration.

REGENERATION is a straightforward sci-fi action thriller. It's radically different than the original film and a much darker film but if you're coming at it after seeing DAY OF RECKONING first it may disappoint you. I'll be curious to read what you think. I think it's a better action movie than RECKONING, it holds a cold dreary tone throughout. RECKONING is much more ambitious but not as consistent. They're both great.

I love these two movies so much, I'll have to give them a re-watch this weekend.

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

I can imagine action movie boomers that have to see every Van Damme/Seagal/Lundgren flick being very confused while watching Reckoning.

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

I like REGENERATION an awful lot. It felt very distinctive, in comparison with the bulk of its brethren at the time of its first release. DAY OF RECKONING is really Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS on steroids, with a dose of coke (and I don't mean Coke), thrown into the mix. The strobing in the climax gave me a massive flipping headache, but it's a damned good film.

[Scott Intellectual Carrot Find all posts View Profile Close Scott]

I can imagine action movie boomers that have to see every Van Damme/Seagal/Lundgren flick being very confused while watching Reckoning.

To be fair since the early 2000's Van Damme has taken a turn toward films that are dramatically darker than his 80s and 90s pop action movies. He's had a string of really fantastic DTV films that showcase a weathered, grittier and more introspective screen persona. Starting with the film REPLICANT and continued in films like WAKE OF DEATH, IN HELL and UNTIL DEATH, even mocking his own stardom in JCVD. He continued to evolve while his contemporaries regressed or stagnated. IMO this run peaked with John Hyams' two UNIVERSAL SOLDIER films.

If someone was familiar with only his Hollywood output from the 80s and 90s and grabbed a random JCVD DTV movie from the 2000s on they'd be very surprised, in a good way!

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

Cafe Society
La La Land but in the 30's and not shitty ( I do like La La Land but it's absurdly overrated).
Wonderful and engaging with beautiful cinematography, again by Storaro. I'm hit and miss on
Jesse Eisenberg but here he's very good imo, same with Kristen Stewart who can be stiff at
times but not here. I really liked this film a lot.

A Rainy Day In New York
You're not supposed to like Woody Allen now that he's been more or less cancelled.
To be fair, he did associate with a convicted pedophile after the conviction
which doesn't exactly help his already tarnished rep. Many known names are in Epstein's
little book though, including Christopher Lambert of all people :-/. That said, this was a delightful 94
minutes. Witty dialogue, mostly decent actors and actresses except Selena Gomez and that
dreadfully boring muppet Timothee Chamlamhey. I do not get the appeal of that guy. At all.
Must be nice to be a nepotism kid with connections. His uncle directed Idle Hands (which is
excellent). It's also got good Storaro cinematography and nice music. No matter what you think
of Allen, he is a genius and one of the best filmmakers of all time. Given the state of cinema today
this piece of fluff is much better than anything else out there.

Two Female Spies With Flowered Panties
Sloppy but mostly entertaining Franco movie. It's all over the place and some of it didn't make sense
(what happened to Susan Hemingway's character for example???) but I liked it well enough to keep it
in my Franco library. I got the edition with the bonus dvd of Opalo De Fuego and I liked some parts of
that version better than the TFSWFP cut and vice versa so it's nice to have the choice to choose between
both.

Cats & Dogs 1 & 2
Talking dogs and cats feuding with a James Bondian flavor. This is aimed at kids but I don't care. I fucking loved these.
I laughed my ass off many times (Katt Williams voicing a pigeon cracked me the fuck up for some reason) and will definitely
buy these at some point. Perfect goofy fun on a rainy day.

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

I re-watched Reckoning and loved it even more. Can anyone think of other psychological horror action films?

[Newt Cox Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Newt Cox]

Coming to America,I doubt I have seen this in 20 years.

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

Coming to America,I doubt I have seen this in 20 years.

Funny I did that one yesterday after not having seen it since I was a kid. I didnt get a lot of laughs out of it but by God there's an incredible number of stunning black women in this. Got to give them kudos just for that.

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

Maladolescenza
Damn my curiosity for all things banned/controversial. This is an evil, evil movie. I'm gonna need days of eye bleach after this. I read a lot of waxing posts on imdb about the positive merits of this movie. You could've gotten the point across without straight up vag and butthole shots of 12 year old girls. Stylistic choices like that are absolutely intended to titillate. The actress in question has also directed a movie that deals with her mother and the ordeal she put her through as unwilling Lolita bait. This is messed up on so many levels. They also horrifically tortured and killed a poor bird for no reason what so ever. Just for shock value. Fuck this movie.

Hubie Halloween
Fucking hilarious Adam Sandler movie. I don't get the criticism he gets. He doesn't deal in artistry. He deals in goofy comedy. And that is exactly what you get here. This is a lot of fun with many fun cameos and a heart warming story at the center of things. I also loved his all purpose thermos which kept surprising me constantly, lol. Very fun movie.

Palm Springs
I'm not really a Samberg guy but I don't hate him. He'll always have my respect for bagging beautiful genius Joanna Newsom. This was a fun movie. It's basically Groundhog Day but equally as entertaining. I liked the female lead whom I was unfamiliar with previously. There are also some fun supporting players in here which always helps.

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

Maladolescenza
Damn my curiosity for all things banned/controversial. This is an evil, evil movie. I'm gonna need days of eye bleach after this. I read a lot of waxing posts on imdb about the positive merits of this movie. You could've gotten the point across without straig up vag and butthole shots of 12 year old girls. Stylistic choices like that are absolutely intended to titillate. The actress in question has also directed a movie that deals with her mother and the ordeal she put her through as unwilling Lolita bait. This is messed up on so many levels. They also horrifically tortured and killed a poor bird for no reason what so ever. Just for shock value. Fuck this movie.

Now there's a movie I'd never dare to watch. I'd be constantly waiting for the federal police to kick in my door and drag me off to a gualag.

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

Believe me, I regret it.