TODAY I WATCHED (Movies, TV series) 2015

tohostudios wrote:

I want to see Inside Out.  I love the concept behind it.

The concept was what initially made me curious about seeing it, and as a plus it's Pixar, so you know you're going to get quality. I'm pretty sure I saw the trailer for it when I saw Jurassic World in theaters and I'd been wanting to see it since then.

Theatre Of Blood (1973) - an excellent Vincent Price film along the lines of another great Price film, The Abominable Dr Phibes. Price plays a disgraced presumed dead Shakespearean actor who enacts revenge on the circle of critics he feels wronged him. Interesting deaths based on murders in Shakespeare plays and black humor galore.

The House That Dripped Blood (1971) - am Amicus anthology film with a great cast, including Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and ultra sexy Ingrid Pitt. A fun film to watch.


House Of Seven Corpses (1974) - a horror film crew makes a movie in a house with a bad history (7 family members killed in various bad ways). Naturally the crew reads from the Tibetan Book Of The Dead (shades of the Evil Dead), raising a deceased member who goes on a murderous rampage. I thought this was rather boring until the last half hour or so.

Lots of stuff over the week:

Ash v Evil Dead: Still going strong!

Walking Dead: What a terrible episode. I counted four speeches but drifted off during the final ten minutes. The writing was just lazy with pseudo-character development and awkward repetition. Hoping it will pick up next week.

American Horror Story: This show is suddenly losing momentum but only in minor ways. Liz's backstory was fascinating and Lady Gaga is really stealing the show. My issue with this episode was Murphy a) having a guest star from the Glee alumni and b) getting preachy about trans tolerance--not that I have a problem with anyone trans but I do have a problem with over-moralizing, and that combined with the dude from Glee (spouting forced dialogue nonetheless) made this episode feel like, well, an R-rated Glee episode without the shitty music.

Santa's Slay - C. Well, Toho, I finally bit the bullet. What a short bullet it was! 75m! That is quite the breezy runtime. Anyway, as off-the-wall as this was, I can't say it was my cup of tea. Sorry. While the performances were rather good, especially from the wrestler who played Santa, I felt like the shock value could've been much higher. Most of the violence was either underwhelming or even off-screen, and for a black comedy it was just too much restraint. Plus the bizarre ending completely killed the momentum while not making much sense. Still, not a bad movie, and fairly amusing. I'll keep it in the annual rotation. Sint should be on the playlist for this week.

Babes in Toyland '86 - F (originally D-). Drew Barrymore (allegedly during the genesis of her drug and alcohol daze!)! Keanu Reeves (singing!)! The dude from Falcon Crest! Pat Morita! Extras in bunny duck and teddy bear suits! An out-of-place jingle about Cincinnati where they spell 'Ohio' wrong! ALL FOR TWO HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES! How the hell did I tolerate this network TV garbage as a kid? Even my six-year-old didn't like it. Reeves was just painful--well, he still is Okay I'm just gonna say it, how does this guy have a job. Seriously, he in no way deserves the kind of money thrown at him. He and his speech impediment are just awful. The only time I've ever appreciated him is in The Gift--and that's only because it was an OTT role that was such a struggle for him to deliver, it was a hoot! He must've had the best agent in the world to break into acting. I have no idea how he made it, but it angers me to know that he did. End of rant. Anyway, terrible movie.

corplhicks wrote:

Babes in Toyland '86 - F (originally D-). Drew Barrymore (allegedly during the genesis of her drug and alcohol daze!)! Keanu Reeves (singing!)! The dude from Falcon Crest! Pat Morita! Extras in bunny duck and teddy bear suits! An out-of-place jingle about Cincinnati where they spell 'Ohio' wrong! ALL FOR TWO HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES! How the hell did I tolerate this network TV garbage as a kid? Even my six-year-old didn't like it. Reeves was just painful--well, he still is Okay I'm just gonna say it, how does this guy have a job. Seriously, he in no way deserves the kind of money thrown at him. He and his speech impediment are just awful. The only time I've ever appreciated him is in The Gift--and that's only because it was an OTT role that was such a struggle for him to deliver, it was a hoot! He must've had the best agent in the world to break into acting. I have no idea how he made it, but it angers me to know that he did. End of rant. Anyway, terrible movie.

For your enjoyment:



I liked Keanu in John Wick..........

corplhicks wrote:

Walking Dead: What a terrible episode. I counted four speeches but drifted off during the final ten minutes. The writing was just lazy with pseudo-character development and awkward repetition. Hoping it will pick up next week.

I concur. This season was really going strong until this episode. Filler galore. Maggie : "I'm going to search for Glenn !.........nevermind"

Ash v Evil Dead - Episode 2

I re-watched 'A Clockwork Orange' again after being reminded of it during the Simpsons Tree House of Horror marathon.

I like to watch that movie every few years to remind me how twisted, depressing and utterly fascinating it is. And every time I watch it, I pick up another rock/metal cultural reference that I missed in the previous viewings.

Monster Squad
Criminal Minds

Agents Of SHIELD

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I re-watched 'A Clockwork Orange' again after being reminded of it during the Simpsons Tree House of Horror marathon.

I like to watch that movie every few years to remind me how twisted, depressing and utterly fascinating it is. And every time I watch it, I pick up another rock/metal cultural reference that I missed in the previous viewings.

I love that movie. I find the language in it fascinating. It's like the Jabberwocky poem; a bunch of nonsense words but with context you can still tell what it means.

Kubrick's use of music is unsurpassed by just about anyone (Scorsese is a close second). A Clockwork Orange is a perfect example of the that, the juxtaposition of Singin' In The Rain and the accompanying visual will always stick with me.

S.D. wrote:

Kubrick's use of music is unsurpassed by just about anyone (Scorsese is a close second).  A Clockwork Orange is a perfect example of the that, the juxtaposition of Singin' In The Rain and the accompanying visual will always stick with me.  

Great point. To this day whenever I hear that song I always want to throw a kick on the beat.

Quote :

Santa's Slay - C. Well, Toho, I finally bit the bullet. What a short bullet it was! 75m! That is quite the breezy runtime. Anyway, as off-the-wall as this was, I can't say it was my cup of tea. Sorry. While the performances were rather good, especially from the wrestler who played Santa, I felt like the shock value could've been much higher. Most of the violence was either underwhelming or even off-screen, and for a black comedy it was just too much restraint. Plus the bizarre ending completely killed the momentum while not making much sense. Still, not a bad movie, and fairly amusing. I'll keep it in the annual rotation. Sint should be on the playlist for this week.

You know, originally I sort of had the same reaction; I wanted it to be gorier.  But the more times I see it the more I appreciate the fact that Santa's Slay doesn't take itself seriously, at all.  It's actually more of a straight comedy than anything else.  Plus you can just tell that everyone involved had a blast.

And you gotta admit the claymation sequence is a stroke of genius.

thejokeriv wrote:

Spectre. Lots of fun. I really enjoyed the flick.

Cool; I might end up seeing that this weekend.

Gotham

They sure wrapped up the Galavan storyline quickly after weeks of building it up.

The Middle
The Goldbergs
Supernatural

Criminal Minds

"Robot Overlords" (2014)


Three years after Earth has been conquered by robotic aliens, a quartet of British kids run off to join the human resistance. An entertainingly low budget dystopian sci-fi flick, aimed squarely at the "Divergent"/"Maze Runner" youth crowd. It must be noted that Gillian "Agent Scully" Anderson, who plays the Mom of one of the kids, is looking quite MILFy nowadays.

Required Fields wrote:

thejokeriv wrote:

Spectre. Lots of fun. I really enjoyed the flick.

Cool; I might end up seeing that this weekend.

Seening it on the big screen is a must. The opening scene alone is worth the price of admission - one long 5 minute take, pretty amazing to watch.

Fat Freddy wrote:

"Robot Overlords" (2014)


Three years after Earth has been conquered by robotic aliens, a quartet of British kids run off to join the human resistance. An entertainingly low budget dystopian sci-fi flick, aimed squarely at the "Divergent"/"Maze Runner" youth crowd. It must be noted that Gillian "Agent Scully" Anderson, who plays the Mom of one of the kids, is looking quite MILFy nowadays.

Not bad huh? I was kind of surprised at the quality. And I'm not near a fan of all these YA adaptation.

Speaking of Gillian, I watched half of Last King of Scotland last night--so far quite good but I was so tired I fell asleep--and she has a small part. God, she is hotter now than she was as Scully!

corplhicks wrote:

Not bad huh? I was kind of surprised at the quality. And I'm not near a fan of all these YA adaptations.

Yeah, it wasn't anything I'd watch again but it was decent enough for a one-shot. I would've liked to see some mecha-on-mecha fighting ala "Robot Jox," but ya can't have everything, I guess.

The same director did the very funny creature horror/comedy "Grabbers" a couple of years ago... which is also worth seeing.

Spectre - this was a big bunch of meh. There are some great action set pieces, but the overall plot is dumb.

Tomorrowland (2015). A visually stunning mess of a film. There is enough material here for three films, but since they have no time to develop any of it to the point where it would be effective it just comes out as a compressed jumble of half-baked ideas. The script feels patchwork and it feels like this was something conceived as a much larger story but at some point it got edited down to a single film. There are some good elements here aside from the stunning effects. Britt Robertson is an above-average teen lead (though in reality she's like 26) and Clooney is likably grumpy...but they get lost in a morass of exposition separated by occasional action sequences.

That's another problem with this movie, it's like they couldn't decide what audience they were going for. Parts play like an old-school 70s Disney movie, parts are Dystopian fantasy. It will be deadly serious one minute, then comically slapstick the next. And none of it really works because it's too abbreviated to become convincingly real to the audience. A shame, because it's really cool idea in theory.

I've watched some of the news coverage of the attacks in Paris.

Star Trek

RedBox sent me a "Rent One, Get One Free" text so we had a double feature last nite...

"San Andreas" (2015)

As a massive earthquake tears apart California, L.A. rescue chopper pilot Dwayne Johnson must fly into the chaos to save his wife and daughter. A pretty typical CGI mass-destruction disaster flick - not quite as ridiculous as "2012," but close. There's nothing here you haven't seen in a zillion other movies of this type but it was entertaining in a disposable sort of way.

"The Final Girls" (2015)

A group of 21st century teens attend an anniversary screening of an '80s slasher flick, and suddenly find themselves trapped in the movie. Now  they need to figure out how to get back "home" without falling victim to the masked maniac. This affectionate ode to '80s horror has the look and vibe down pat, but the humor isn't quite as go-for-broke as I'd expected.