TODAY I WATCHED... (Movies, TV) 2017

Do you have SNDN 5 in your queue?  It's a pretty blatant ripoff of Full Moon's Puppet Master franchise but it's not too bad.

Last year I bought a box set of 3,4 and 5.  I think 4 and 5 are the "best" of the sequels although admittedly that's a low bar.

I had never seen "SNDN 3" or "4" so when they randomly popped up on The Roku Channel I had to check'em out. I've seen "5," but it was a long time ago, prob when it hit HBO back in the day, so I don't remember much about it. Roku has "5" too so if I can find the time to squeeze it in before Xmas I'll revisit it.

Well I gave it the "old college try" and began watching Fox's "A Christmas Story Live" but 5 minutes in I could already feel my blood sugar rising and since I'm pre-diabetic I decided that for health reasons I needed to find something else to watch. OMG, so saccharine and sickeningly sweet. And it looks like a freakin' film so how do I know it's even live???

Now I have to figure out what to watch instead.

Toho - are you a fan of the original movie? I wasn't even willing to try with this. It seems to be sacrilege.

Not a fan of the original except that Darren McGavin is in it. But good grief this is awful.

So on the inimitable words of Monty Python...

"And now for something completely different..."

I decided to watch "Hansel and Gretel".

Getting ready to watched Scrooged.

On the weekend I took my son to see:

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Better Watch Out. Man, all I'm saying about this one is a highly recommend it and you're either gonna love it or hate it.

I may even see it a second time tonight with the wife just to see her reactions.

Let The Right One In(2008)-a young boy who is tormented by bullies at school, is befriend by a girl who has just moved into the same apartment building he lives in. He soon learns that the girl is actually a vampire who needs blood to survive and is responsible for the murders that are happening around town. Don't you hate it when that happens? I've been wanting to see this acclaimed Swedish film for awhile and I must say they did a good job with it. I give it 3.5 out of 5 chainsaws.

Sanford & Son
Good Times

Leatherface wrote:

Let The Right One In(2008)-a young boy who is tormented by bullies at school, is befriend by a girl who has just moved into the same apartment building he lives in.  He soon learns that the girl is actually a vampire who needs blood to survive and is responsible for the murders that are happening around town.  Don't you hate it when that happens?  I've been wanting to see this acclaimed Swedish film for awhile and I must say they did a good job with it.  I give it 3.5 out of 5 chainsaws.

I've read good things about this film but I'm so tired of vampire and zombie flicks that I've stopped checking out films in either genre. Does this one add anything different to the interminable vampire cannon?

tohostudios wrote:

Leatherface wrote:

Let The Right One In(2008)-a young boy who is tormented by bullies at school, is befriend by a girl who has just moved into the same apartment building he lives in.  He soon learns that the girl is actually a vampire who needs blood to survive and is responsible for the murders that are happening around town.  Don't you hate it when that happens?  I've been wanting to see this acclaimed Swedish film for awhile and I must say they did a good job with it.  I give it 3.5 out of 5 chainsaws.

I've read good things about this film but I'm so tired of vampire and zombie flicks that I've stopped checking out films in either genre.  Does this one add anything different to the interminable vampire cannon?

Not really. It's a bit more like a coming of age film where one of the 2 main characters happens to be a vampire. It's not a waste of time, just don't expect to be blown away by it.

Thanks for the info. Sounds like a pass for me. I've become really picky with vampire, werewolf and zombie flicks. I've seen so many of them that unless they offer some kind of twist on the usual fare I'm just not interested.

tohostudios wrote:

Well I gave it the "old college try" and began watching Fox's "A Christmas Story Live" but 5 minutes in I could already feel my blood sugar rising and since I'm pre-diabetic I decided that for health reasons I needed to find something else to watch.  OMG, so saccharine and sickeningly sweet.  And it looks like a freakin' film so how do I know it's even live???

Now I have to figure out what to watch instead.

We tried watching it as a family and collectively we didn't last more than a half hour, if that. All the singing and dancing tuned me right out. And it just went downhill from there. Terrible. Just terrible.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

Well I gave it the "old college try" and began watching Fox's "A Christmas Story Live" but 5 minutes in I could already feel my blood sugar rising and since I'm pre-diabetic I decided that for health reasons I needed to find something else to watch.  OMG, so saccharine and sickeningly sweet.  And it looks like a freakin' film so how do I know it's even live???

Now I have to figure out what to watch instead.

We tried watching it as a family and collectively we didn't last more than a half hour, if that. All the singing and dancing tuned me right out. And it just went downhill from there. Terrible. Just terrible.

I thought about watching it as well and when I turned it over, it was in the middle of a lousy show tune. My reaction?
"A crummy musical? Son of a bitch !" and turned it off.

007 wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

Well I gave it the "old college try" and began watching Fox's "A Christmas Story Live" but 5 minutes in I could already feel my blood sugar rising and since I'm pre-diabetic I decided that for health reasons I needed to find something else to watch.  OMG, so saccharine and sickeningly sweet.  And it looks like a freakin' film so how do I know it's even live???

Now I have to figure out what to watch instead.

We tried watching it as a family and collectively we didn't last more than a half hour, if that. All the singing and dancing tuned me right out. And it just went downhill from there. Terrible. Just terrible.

I thought about watching it as well and when I turned it over, it was in the middle of a lousy show tune. My reaction?
"A crummy musical? Son of a bitch !" and turned it off.

I enjoyed watching "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters" for the 6th time much better.

Nature: The Story Of Cats

I stumbled across this on PBS totally by accident when I fat-fingered the channel for ESPN. It follows the evolution of various big cats in the wild and how they came to be household pets.

Started Season 2 of 'The Crown' on Netflix. The first 2 episodes were very good and hooked me right back in.

Red Christmas


Australian horror movie about a visitor on Christmas day. It wasn't bad, although some of the acting was silly.

Been thinking of giving Red Christmas a shot, but there's not a whole lot of word of mouth out there compelling me to do so...

Tonight was:
Die Hard (with the wife on first-gen pan-n-scan VHS on a 36" CRT TV, time travel!)
The Little Match Girl, an obscure and enjoyable made-for-TV piece from '87. I have a VHS copy but I'm sure it's on YouTube. Keisha-Knight Pullam (Cosby) is the only threat to this otherwise fine pre-depression costume drama, but thankfully she's in the background for most of it.

"Santa's Slay" (2005)


A demonic Santa Claus comes to town to teach everyone the meaning of yuletide FEAR in this tongue-firmly-in-cheek holiday horror comedy. A tasteless laugh riot with a great cast incl. Dave Thomas from "SCTV," wrestler Bill Goldberg as the badass St. Nick, Robert "I Spy" Culp (who makes up for his appearance in the dismal "Silent Night Deadly Night 3" with this flick) Fran "The Nanny" Drescher, James Caan (!), and lots more.

^^^^ I watched that for the first time last year after reading Toho raving about it. It's a very enjoyable flick. I got to catch it again this year.

I like where Dave Thomas is eulogizing the dead strippers. Each name gets progressively more ridiculously dirty and he keeps looking up to see if anyone in the congregation is reacting.

"Tess Tickler" *looks up sheepishly* "Dixie Rect" *looks up even more sheepishly*


That cracks me up every time.

And here's an interesting Santa's Slay tidbit that I learned last year. One of the guys in the bar who tries to attack Santa Goldberg is none other than former WCW booker Vince Russo. I think he's the guy who gets electrocuted if I remember correctly.