What are you watching?

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

Tales That Witness Madness - Alison had never seen this so we watched it last night. It's not the best of the British horror anthologies by a long shot but I like it. A lot of people rag on the tree segment but I like that story, the tree itself is just weird looking. I'm happy to have the Blu-ray.

S&M Hunter: The Beginning - not as good as the first movie that Pink Eiga put out on DVD but still fun, twisted, kinky, sexy and bizarre. I had fun with it. A good way to kill an hour if you're into Japanese sleaze. And if you're not, well you should be.

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

HYPOTHERMIA - The good - this is way better than that CREATURE garbage, well-acted - particularly by Michael Rooker, and the characters are fairly well drawn. Some pretty graphic gore in the last third. The bad - the creature suit is bad. Really bad. It's shown too much too. The ending is stupid. Still, not a bad way to kill 75 minutes or so, yeah it's short too.

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

[REC] - I finally got around to this one. For whatever reason, I am extremely susceptible to motion sickness -- Cloverfield was the only movie I ever walked out on when I saw it in the theater, and it was entirely because of nausea from the shaky-cam. So I avoided [REC] for a long time. I can definitely see why people like it. I expect I would have thoroughly enjoyed it were I not getting increasingly nauseous for the last half hour. Oh well.

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE - The BD of this is excellent. The picture quality is on par with the previously released Connery-era titles. One nice detail is that the TV special "Welcome to Japan, Mr. Bond" (which is like hybrid TV movie starring Moneypenny/advertisement for YOLT) is presented in 1080p. I think that's the first of the ported special features that I've seen where that was the case.

[Richard--W a straight arrow Find all posts View Profile Close Richard--W]

SILENT RAGE (1982) -- watch Sheriff Chuck Norris in his ongoing struggle to protect and defend the good people of the Texas hill country from the threat of genetically engineered mutants. Not half bad. Chuck gets to raise his feet a few times. A better film than Scream and Scream Again (1969). Transfer is excellent except that it's full screen instead of widescreen anamorphic.

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

Silent Rage was a film that tried to be two genres at once; Action/Horror and manages to fail at both. Not enough action and not enough horror. I think it was a mistake to make the final fight between Norris and the Michael Myers clone realistic. Realistically Michael Myers is not going to sweep the leg or respect knocking you down, he's just going to grab your head and pop it like a pimple. So a much more ott fight scene would've worked.

If you're making an action/horror film you have to incorporate the two. You can't have one scene of action and one scene of horror and a lot of talking in between. It has to fuse and further the story like Predator, Aliens, Blade 1 and 2, etc.

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

HYPOTHERMIA - The good - this is way better than that CREATURE garbage, well-acted - particularly by Michael Rooker, and the characters are fairly well drawn. Some pretty graphic gore in the last third. The bad - the creature suit is bad. Really bad. It's shown too much too. The ending is stupid. Still, not a bad way to kill 75 minutes or so, yeah it's short too.

Got this but haven't watch it yet. Will correct that soon.

Yesterday - Lady Snowblood - still a great movie, no matter how many times I see it. Meiko looks more pissed off than any other woman on the planet.

Exorcism - Not Franco's greatest but enjoyable and sleazy with an interesting cast and a few memorable set pieces. I like the music in it too.

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

Goon. I laughed three times. More then most other modern comedies.

[Clive Smith noodle doodle Find all posts View Profile Close Clive Smith]

Post deleted - wrong movie...

[Richard--W a straight arrow Find all posts View Profile Close Richard--W]

I saw DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (1971) when it was new many times, several times since then on home video, and I just watched the new, desaturated, over-bright Blu-ray.

My opinion of this film has evolved.

Cheap laughs. It might be an entertaining comedy with beautiful women and some good action set-pieces, but it's a worthless piece of sh-t as a Bond movie. A James Bond film was supposed to be an espionage drama and action-thriller with a slight-tongue-in-cheek humor. But, with DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER Guy Hamilton and his principle writer Tom Mankiewicz turned the series into self-parody, self-ridicule, slapstick and kitsch. A James Bond film was never supposed to be this way, but now a whole generation has grown up thinking it is. The three Bond films Hamilton and Mankiewics made together -- DAF, LIVE AND LET DIE, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN -- are lazy, retarded and stupid. Hamilton wielded too much influence over the Brocollis. He was destructive to the franchise.

Sean Connery's presence and John Barry's score save the film from being a complete waste of time. Without them it's nothing.

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

Got this but haven't watch it yet. Will correct that soon.

I'll be interested in what you think. Its heart is in the right place and it definitely has some positives but the suit is a real letdown. Rooker's excellent performance was deserving of a better film.

THE JAYHAWKERS - Pretty good western with Fess Parker and the unjustly forgotten Jeff Chandler - and Henry Silva has a good role too. A little slow early on but gets much better and it's an interesting story about Chandler's desire to be a sort of Napoleon of the plains.

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

I like SILENT RAGE a lot. It was definitely influenced by the slashers of the time. I saw it when it opened and thought it was pretty well done. Still holds up okay too.

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

In addition to DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN (which I commented on in the Vincent Price thread), last night I watched:

SANJURO: I know it's a little weird to claim that any Akira Kurosawa/Toshiro Mifune collaboration is underrated, given how beloved that pairing is, but I think this one has been unjustly overshadowed by Yojimbo. True, the plot isn't as iconic and the villains aren't nearly as memorable...but the satire of Japanese society cuts deeper, the moral world of the film is more complicated, and there's more action to boot. Absolute masterpiece.

THE HOWLING: This one has aged really well, I think. At least I enjoy it more now than I did as a kid. Great cast (seriously how can you argue with a movie that has Slim Pickens as a werewolf sheriff AND Dick Miller as the owner of an occult bookstore?), cool effects (I even find the cartoon transformation strangely endearing) and big bonus points for the unconventional, hilarious ending.

Now, what can I watch today to possibly top last night's films?

[Dave Starry Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Dave Starry]

Sean Connery's presence and John Barry's score save the film from being a complete waste of time. Without them [Diamonds Are Forever is] nothing.

What, no love for Plenty O'Toole?

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

STAKE LAND. I couldn't quite peg the tone of this -- it takes the horror seriously enough, but it's also got a gee-whiz, larger-than-life kick to it. Then, at one point, there's a copy of THE END OF BLACK DOG (a forties TREASURE ISLAND pirate pastiche) lying around, and I got it: we're in Robert Louis Stevenson ripping yarn adventure territory here. Mister has some Long John Silver to him, and Martin narrates like Jim Hawkins; or maybe it's more David Balfour and Alan Breck. Some cleverness, too: [SPOILER] never underestimate the bandwidth of a chopper full of vampires. [/SPOILER] The political/satirical dressing didn't work entirely for me -- yeah, yeah, crazy religion wrecks everything, even a good vampire plague -- but it's rare that sauce'll spoil a meal, and I think I agree, anyway.

Thanks, whoever pointed out that this is from the MULBERRY STREET folks.

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

Yesterday:

THE SKULL - Nothing special here, but I don't know that it's possible to make a film with Cushing, Lee, Gough, and Magee that I'm not going to enjoy at least a little. The plot would have made a pretty fun segment in an Amicus anthology, but at feature length (even 80 minutes) it feels kinda stretched.

Tonight:

HIGH TENSION - Fuck this movie with a circular saw. Paradoxically it would have been better if the first half of the movie had been worse. But the fact that we're given a pretty effective stalk-n-slash, only to have it completely undone by one of the most moronic, insulting and useless "twist" endings I've ever seen made it seem like the entire movie was deliberately just a turd left on the doorsteps of horror fans. Fuck this movie.

THE BUNNY CAPER - Silly, but exceedingly fun, British sex comedy directed by Jack Arnold (Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Mouse that Roared). Four girls bring the world to the brink of WWIII when they have a contest to see who can bed a foreign dignitary first. Nice palate cleanser after the other movie I watched.