TODAY I WATCHED (Movies, TV Shows) 2020

Wizard of Oz

Quote :

Except for the little fat kid; I keep wanting him to die. Now that I think about it, other than a belch does that kid even say anything in the whole movie?

Nope, Lard Ass doesn't say a word for the entire movie. My son and I were commenting on that same thing when we watched "Krampus" earlier this week

Had the night to myself do I got caught up on some movies that had been in my queue for a while.

Deathstalker 2 : Duel Of The Titans (1987)



Sequel to the 1984 classic with John Terlesky taking over the title role. This time around , the barbarian warrior/thief comes to the aid of a beautiful exiled princess (Monique Gabrielle) and help her regain her throne against an evil sorcerer and exact double. Ugh. What a mess. Poor acting, terrible choreography for the sword fights ( I swear I've seen little kids play at sword fighting better), and leaps and jumps in the plot. At least there are plenty of beautiful women in various stages of undress, especially Ms. Gabrielle (damn was she hot!)

And then for something different...

The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975)



Disney fare with Bill Bixby starring as a gambler saddled with three orphans who have inherited a supposedly dried up gold mine in this comedy western. I loved this movie as a kid and it still holds up well, mainly due to the comedy duo of Tim Conway and Don Knotts.

Then, after the wife got home we watched the Mandalorian 2nd season finale (cool to see Luke Skywalker and R2D2) and finished the second season of Game Of Thrones.

Hey, I recognize the guy on the left, that's Harry "Colonel Potter" Morgan.

Started Santa's Slay for the umpteenth time on the elliptical today. I got up to the part where Goldberg electrocutes Vince Russo. That cracks me up; Goldberg had to enjoy that since it was Russo's stupid booking that ended Goldberg's undefeated streak in WCW back in the day. Also, right before that is the scene where Goldberg met his future wife when "Santa" walks face-first into the crotch of a stripper on a swing. I did pick up a funny tidbit about the actress/Mrs. Goldberg from IMdb today. She only signed on to do Santa's Slay because she thought the star was Jeff Goldblum. She'd already started working when she learned it was actually Bill Goldberg.

tohostudios wrote:

Hey, I recognize the guy on the left, that's Harry "Colonel Potter" Morgan.

Yep, that movie had a great cast.

You know, after seeing the date on that Apple Dumpling Gang film and knowing he'd been in MASH and a ton of Westerns I got curious about Harry Morgan.  The guy passed away in 2011 at the age of 96!!!  And he was in more than 100 movies (not to mention all the TV show episodes).  Talk about a long and productive career.  Check out is IMdb page; his credits just go on and on and on.

"After The Sunset" (2004)

A suave jewel thief (Pierce Brosnan) retires to the Bahamas with his gorgeous partner/fiancee (Salma Hayek) after one last big score, but his peace and quiet is interrupted by a visit from a dorky FBI agent (Woody Harrelson), who isn't convinced that Brosnan's out of "the game" for good.
Brett "Rush Hour" Ratner directed this fun, breezy heist/caper action comedy which makes the most of its impressive cast and the beautiful Caribbean scenery.
Also, Salma Hayek is so hot it's ridiculous, as usual.

Inspired by Toho's post above, I revisited this beaut this morning over coffee:

"Santa's Slay" (2005)

This low budget horror comedy re-writes Santa's origin story so that he's the son of Satan, who has only been "good" for the past thousand years because he lost a bet. Now that the millennium is up he's determined to make Christmas a "Day of Slaying" again, starting with the residents of a small Midwestern town.
Wrestler Bill Goldberg is perfectly cast as the evil Santa, and the supporting cast includes quite a few familiar faces like Robert Culp, Dave "SCTV" Thomas, Saul "Warehouse 13" Rubinek, and even James Caan and Fran Drescher (in a hilariously tasteless prologue). The movie starts running out of gas in the last quarter but till then it's an over-the top, ultra-violent hoot.

Red Dwarf - Qeeg

Kolchak:The Night Stalker

Watched another 30 minutes of Santa's Slay.  There are so many jokes in this thing that every time I watch it I catch another gag I missed before.

Today it was in the scene at the deli after Santa has killed the owner.  Two cops roll up on the scene and one goes inside to talk to Nicholas Yuleson while the other one stays outside to talk to a group of Hasidic Jews.  In the background you can hear the cop outside ask them for their names.  One guy says "Schlomo Lipschitz" to which the cop responds "Schlomo?  You mean like the replay?" 

"The New Mutants" (2020)

Five troubled teens with unique powers are being studied by a doctor at a mysterious institution. They think they're being trained to control their abilities -- but they soon learn that there are more sinister plans for them happening behind the scenes.
This spin-off from the "X-Men" franchise sat on the shelf for over a year due to the Disney/20th Century Fox merger and then was unceremoniously dumped into theatres during the pandemic, where unsurprisingly it tanked at the box office.  "New Mutants" has a low budget look that resembles the pilot for a TV series, rather than a feature film and though it finally starts to come alive in the last half hour, otherwise it's a slog.
This may not be the worst Marvel movie (because "Man-Thing" and the 2015 "Fantastic Four" reboot exist), but it definitely ranks near the bottom of the pile. Skip it.

Fat Freddy wrote:

"The New Mutants" (2020)

Five troubled teens with unique powers are being studied by a doctor at a mysterious institution. They think they're being trained to control their abilities -- but they soon learn that there are more sinister plans for them happening behind the scenes.
This spin-off from the "X-Men" franchise sat on the shelf for over a year due to the Disney/20th Century Fox merger and then was unceremoniously dumped into theatres during the pandemic, where unsurprisingly it tanked at the box office.  "New Mutants" has a low budget look that resembles the pilot for a TV series, rather than a feature film and though it finally starts to come alive in the last half hour, otherwise it's a slog.
This may not be the worst Marvel movie (because "Man-Thing" and the 2015 "Fantastic Four" reboot exist), but it definitely ranks near the bottom of the pile. Skip it.

The last gasp from the dying 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise. I think I'll be passing on this one and wait for the MCU appearances of Marvel's famed mutants.

007 wrote:

The last gasp from the dying 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise. I think I'll be passing on this one and wait for the MCU appearances of Marvel's famed mutants.

I kinda knew going in that this one was probably going to be terrible, but since I've seen all the other Marvel movies thus far, I figured I should at least give it a shot, lest I lose my standing as a fan boy

It wasn't as bad as I expected, but it's definitely on the bland/forgettable side. A year from now when I see this in the $5.00 DVD bin at Wal-Mart, I'll probably be like "Oh yeah, they made a movie out of this one."

Christmas Vacation

"Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?"

I'm not sure how many more of these Holiday Horror Hootenanny entries I can squeeze in before Christmas, but I had to make time for this one...

"Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2" (1987)

Teenage psycho "Ricky," the now-grown younger brother of the Santa Claus killer from the first "SNDN," pours out his woeful life story to a jail psychiatrist (courtesy of generous amounts of footage from the original movie) before donning a Santa suit and going on his own Christmas Eve killing spree to get even with the evil Mother Superior.
This unintentionally hilarious sequel to the '84 holiday sickie has achieved cult status thanks to the over-the-top, eyebrow-arching over-acting of Eric Freeman as "Ricky," who gives a scenery-chewing performance for the ages ("GARBAGE DAAAAAAYY?") . Plus, there's so much recycled footage from the first movie in this one that you're practically getting a double feature.
Make no mistake, this movie is completely, utterly god-awful, but in a totally awesome way. Is it wrong that this has become a holiday season perennial for me?

That's the only SNDN movie I don't have.  I've seen it but the DVD prices are prohibitively expensive given I know what that movie really consists of.  I'm not paying $17-20 for something that consists of half of a movie I already own. 

I did see that it's free with Prime but I'm still not sure I'll watch it next year because I just had such a bad experience watching it the first time.  Being drunk and expecting a grand sequel to the original SNDN is just a recipe for extreme disappointment.

Finished Santa's Slay today. Part of my annual tradition of watching this movie is watching all the way thru to the final scene which means watching the credits roll. I do this because 1) I love the music and 2) the "naughty and nice" list cracks me up. This time I noticed that all the stunt people and drivers were "naughty". I also noticed that "Jingle Bells" in the movie was performed by a band called Machine Gun Fellatio which is an interesting name open to multiple interpretations.

Because there really was nothing interesting on TV at all last night I watched "Santa's Slay" again with the commentary track on. Nothing really ground-breaking learned but the director and writer did provide some interesting insights on how they made the movie on a very low budget. I thought this was one of the better commentary tracks I've seen but I'm also a "Santa's Slay" fanboy.

About halfway through Season 2 of My Crazy Ex.

So today on the elliptical I started "Sint" (aka "Saint Nick") even though I had planned to skip it this year.  Looking for one last Christmas horror movie to watch it occurred to me that I actually remember my other choice ("A Christmas Horror Story") better.  

The plot is pretty simple.  In the story, Saint Nicholas was actually a brutal religious zealot who terrorized villages under his control in 1492.  After finally getting fed up with his dictatorial ways the villagers rose up and killed all of St. Nick's soldiers and burned him alive on his docked ship.  But St. Nick comes back every Dec. 5 when there's a full moon on that night which happens every 32 years (don't ask).  And in 1968, St. Nick returns to savagely kill the family of a boy who grows up to be a policeman.  Flash forward 32 years and the now-grown boy is trying to warn everyone that St. Nick is coming.  Of course no one believes him and gory mayhem ensues.

I really like Sint and if you don't mind subtitles I'd recommend watching it that way although the DVD does have the English dubbing option.  This film is gory, the FX are pretty decent, there's some intentional comedy and the girls are pretty hot.  Plus the story is fairly original.

Tonight I started a new "Toho Tradition".

I watched "The Nightmare Before Christmas". My brother turned me on to this movie about 15 years ago when we were visiting our parents for their 60th wedding anniversary. I will never forget when my Dad (RIP) walked into the room where we were watching it. He apparently wanted to "talk" to us but we were so wrapped up in this warped movie that we really didn't pay much attention to him so he just turned around and left.

This film is SO twisted and of course I love it. But that memory of my Dad walking in, seeing my brother and I laughing our asses off at this twisted movie and him just giving up and walking away made me decide to make this a new Toho Christmas Eve tradition.

Tomorrow is the annual "Toho Christmas Carpet Shampooing" that I've done now for about 10 years.

I spent Christmas Eve with 007:

"For Your Eyes Only" (1981)

James Bond is assigned to recover a missing piece of top-secret defense hardware. The mission takes him to Italy and Greece, where he crosses paths with a gorgeous heiress intent on avenging the deaths of her parents at the hands of Greek smugglers.
As a follow up to the ridiculous "Moonraker," this is a much more "down to earth" 007 adventure, closer in tone to the early Connery spy-and-counterspy entries.

My Christmas Eve was spent watching a Christmas movie marathon.

Elf

Christmas Vacation

A Christmas Story