TODAY I WATCHED (Movies, TV series) 2015

Monsters University

Definitely my favorite Pixar franchise.

"Dementia 13" (1963)


A scheming young woman covers up her husband's sudden death in order to claim his portion of an inheritance. Unfortunately, a deranged axe murderer prowling the family's Irish castle might make it difficult for her to collect.

Roger Corman produced this low rent Gothic "Psycho" wanna-be, which was directed by a young Francis Ford Coppola (in one of his first gigs behind the camera). Cool, sleazy retro fun.

Tom & Jerry

Arizona vs North Carolina in the NFC Wild Card game.

The Limey
Mrs Brown

"Strait Jacket" (1964)

This camp-to-the-max "B' grade horror thriller (directed by gimmick kingpin William Castle and written by Robert "Psycho" Bloch) stars Joan Crawford as a woman who's just spent 20 years in an insane asylum for axe murdering her husband and his mistress. As she tries to re-connect with her estranged daughter, though, heads suddenly start rolling again. Crawford, as usual, throws herself into her role and chews the scenery for all it's worth. Cheap, trashy fun!

Yesterday I watched the Panthers beat the Cardinals and the Ravens beat the Steelers.

"Batman Forever" (1995)


Third time's the charm? Ehhh, not exactly. This so-so installment introduced a new actor in the Batman suit (Val Kilmer), a new sidekick (Chris O'Donnell as Robin) and a new director (Joel Schumacher) - resulting in an occasionally entertaining, but mostly loud and confused, mess. The story is a muddle, the day-glo visuals are garish and the performances are... well, ugh. Tommy Lee Jones' Two-Face is little more than a copycat of Jack Nicholson's Joker, trying and failing to chew more scenery than Jim Carrey's Riddler (who completely steals the movie). On the other hand, this flick captures Nicole Kidman (as a Gotham City police psychiatrist with a Bat fetish) at her absolute peak of hottie perfection.
So yeah, "Forever" isn't even in the same ballpark as Tim Burton's first two Batman films, but it still looks like solid gold compared to the series' absolute nadir, 1997's "Batman & Robin."

^^What a terrible movie by a terrible director. Just awful. I had the displeasure of seeing that in the theater as a kid. I left with complete disdain for humanity. Never even bothered with B&R, especially with Schumacher's name still attached.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the five Armies - mildly entertaining... but much like the Star Wars prequels, The Hobbit "prequels" have just not been as good as the LOTR films. My 12 year old son liked it a lot. On the plus side, saw it at a new theater that just opened up (Regal Dulles Town Center 10) - all seats are power recliners (pretty impressive seating, very comfortable) which limits the number of people in each theater. I liked it and will be back (especially for long movies.)

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - Watched on Netflix streaming. Not a great movie - other than the name of the main character, not much in common with the Jack Ryan novels (I've ready just about all of them.) They tried to create a Clancy story and failed.

Indy dominate a beat up Bengals team.

Now watching Detroit vs Dallas.

Presumed Innocent

Cowboys huge comeback win over Detroit.... on to Green Bay!

The new Family Guy episode.

Breaking Bad - Season 5

Night Breed - Director's Cut Blu Ray

Wow, the ending is totally different in this cut...

"Creature from the Haunted Sea" (1961)

Director Roger Corman and writer Charles Griffith followed up 1960's "Little Shop of Horrors" with this klutzy slapstick comedy that tries to parody both spy flicks and monster movies. Immediately following the Cuban revolution, a gang of American crooks are trying to make it back to the U.S. with a strong box of gold stolen from Cuba's treasury, but a goggle-eyed sea monster appears and complicates their escape.
The story makes no sense, the random jokes fall flat and the "monster" has got to be one of the cheapest looking things ever to come out of Corman's Z-movie factory, which is really saying something. This thing looks like a trash bag covered in leaves with ping-pong balls for eyes.

Wow. Just....wow.
I couldn't even enjoy this one from a campy, so-bad-it's-good standpoint. It's only January and I think I already have my front runner for "worst movie I've seen this year!"

Yesterday I watched the NFL playoff games. Then after that I watched Thin Lizzy "Live At The National Stadium Dublin".

Been watching Stargate SG-1 with my mother. We're in the middle of season 4.

DallasBlack wrote:

Been watching Stargate SG-1 with my mother. We're in the middle of season 4.

I watched that entire series over the summer of 2013.  I don't enjoy the Ore-I years as much as the ones where various Egyptian gods turn out to be Guo'uld but it's still a quality sci-fi show IMO.   Great show.

tohostudios wrote:

DallasBlack wrote:

Been watching Stargate SG-1 with my mother. We're in the middle of season 4.

I watched that entire series over the summer of 2013.  Great show.

Indeed . I saw the whole series in the past (started it over 10 years ago). My best friend Erik was a big fan and got me into it. He passed away before the show ended with the movies but I watched them as they came out (the last one was in 2008). My mother saw very little of it but she was a Star Trek fan so I figured she'd like it. She does.

I have the entire series and all the movies on DVD so I love to revisit them periodically.  I'd also recommend the Babylon 5 series if you haven't seen those.  The first year or two are a little rough as the series finds its footing but once it does, I think B5 is my all-time favorite sci-fi series.  It's one of those series where each show can stand on its own but there's also an overall story arc over the entire series.

I watched the IIHF World Junior Championship last night. Canada won the gold medal!

Almost finished with season 5 of Breaking Bad, only 2 episodes left.