TODAY I WATCHED (Movies, TV Shows) 2020

New year, new thread! Happy viewing, all.

I Need That Record! A documentary filmed in either 2008 or 2009 that focused on how major labels, clear channel,etc. were hurting indie record stores.

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Tenebrae (1982)



A celebrated murder mystery novelist on a promotional tour for his newest book gets involved with a serial killer very familiar with the novelist's work in this Dario Argento giallo. Pretty standard giallo.

Wow.  After watching "Resolution" and absolutely hating it I just finished "The Endless" which is a "companion piece" to "Resolution" by the same writers/directors.  Holy crap!  NOW I understand why everyone says to suffer through "Resolution" first; "The Endless" not only heavily references back to that film but also makes a lot of the seemingly random crap in "Resolution" make a lot more sense.  I still think they should have combined the two movies because the first one was only a little over an hour long and could probably have been edited in to "The Endless" with a few judicious cuts but damn, did I enjoy "The Endless".

Can't really say too much more about it without ruining it and I totally agree that you should put yourself through the 75 or so minutes of "Resolution" first before watching "The Endless"; trust me both films will make a lot more sense that way. 

I'd say if you love classic Twilight Zone ideas and aren't hung up on fancy FX and lots of action then give these two flicks a try; there are a TON of ideas here about reality, religion, one person's hell being another person's heaven and a lot more concepts that STILL have me thinking.  This is a thinking person's science fiction/horror pair of films.

The Office

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Meh.  I like NXT a lot more.  I'll be going back to Cardinal games once baseball season starts.

"Big Trouble" (2002)

A down on his luck Miami journalist gets caught up in an increasingly bizarre series of events that also involves two inept Mob hitmen, some Russian arms dealers, a pair of not-so-bright cops, the FBI, a guy who lives in a tree, a nuclear bomb in a suitcase, and a psychedelic toad.
Barry "Men in Black" Sonnenfeld directed this hilarious caper comedy with a fantastic cast (which includes Tim Allen, Rene Russo, Stanley Tucci, Jason Lee, Zooey Deschanel, Janeane Garofalo, Patrick Warburton, and more) based on the novel by humor columnist Dave Barry.
"Big Trouble" is probably best remembered for its incredibly bad timing. It was supposed to be released in September 2001, but after the 9/11 attacks its "bomb on an airplane" subplot became a problem. The studio shelved the movie till the following year, when it promptly tanked at the box office. That's a shame because this is a smart, fast moving, funny as hell flick that deserves to be re-discovered.

^^^^

I might have to check that out.  Obviously a crime comedy isn't exactly in my wheelhouse but I've never even heard of this damn thing.  And as you allude to that's probably because of the horribly bad timing of the film's intended release. 

But Patrick Warburton is "The National Rental Guy" and his pics are all over the wall when you get off the elevator on the floor where I used to work (before I started working from home) so I'll have to check it out.

BTW, he's also in that Christmas horror movie I hated "Better Watch Out" for all of about 2 minutes of screen time.  Another reason I hated that movie.

tohostudios wrote:

^^^^

I might have to check that out.  Obviously a crime comedy isn't exactly in my wheelhouse but I've never even heard of this damn thing.  And as you allude to that's probably because of the horribly bad timing of the film's intended release. 

But Patrick Warburton is "The National Rental Guy" and his pics are all over the wall when you get off the elevator on the floor where I used to work (before I started working from home) so I'll have to check it out.

BTW, he's also in that Christmas horror movie I hated "Better Watch Out" for all of about 2 minutes of screen time.  Another reason I hated that movie.

It's a lot of fun. I've seen it once before, quite a few years ago. I believe our ol' pal S.D. recommended it to me cuz I'd mentioned that I was a big fan of Dave Barry's newspaper columns.

Started re-watching "Planet Terror" for the millionth time. I keep saying this is the goriest movie I've ever seen and I want to see if that's still true. Thirty minutes in and, yeah, it's still the goriest movie I've ever seen.

"The Lake on Clinton Road" (2016)

Six annoying twenty somethings make the mistake of going to a secluded lake house on New Jersey's famed "haunted" Clinton Road for a party weekend, and fall one by one to a mysterious supernatural force.

...this cheap, poorly acted shot on video flick has the balls to claim that it's "based on true events," but I can safely call bullshit on that, since I happen to live in the same town as Clinton Road and I'm familiar w/all the local legends about it. (I think they're a load of baloney, personally, but that's a whole 'nother story.) This movie makes no attempt to use any of those legends, in favor of regurgitating the same "Paranormal Activity" haunted-house crap we've seen a million times before. Adding insult to injury, it clearly wasn't filmed anywhere near the "real" Clinton Road, which the filmmakers seem to think is somewhere near "the Shore" (it isn't).

The stories surrounding Clinton Road could make a pretty decent horror film in the right hands, but obviously this isn't it. (Do I have to say it?) AVOID.

"Asteroid: Final Impact" (2015)

A disgraced scientist must convince his skeptical former colleagues that the small asteroids impacting Earth's major cities are part of a much bigger, potentially planet killing 'roid that's still on the way.
Schlockier than usual made for TV junk, which spends way too much time on personal drama between its uninteresting characters and not nearly enough on the asteroid related mayhem. Skip this.

"Nothing But Trouble" (1991)


New York yuppies on their way to Atlantic City get pulled over for speeding in a backwoods New Jersey town, run by a deranged judge and his mutant family members who have their own unique style of dispensing justice. Things get weird pretty quick.

Dan Aykroyd wrote, directed, and starred in this notorious horror-comedy flop that wastes a great cast which includes Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, and John Candy (who plays two roles, one of them in drag). Adding to the what-the-f*ck-am-I-watching vibe (and totally dating the film) is an out-of-nowhere, totally pointless cameo by the early '90s hip hop group Digital Underground, with Tupac!

I think Dan was trying to blend the styles of "Texas Chainsaw" and "Beetlejuice" (with a hit of "Rocky Horror") in this movie, but "Nothing But Trouble" isn't scary enough for horror fans, nor is it particularly funny... it's just one long series of WTF moments strung together. I'll give it points for the cool, bizarre set designs (which look like something Rob Zombie might have dreamed up) and for Demi Moore's short skirt and cleavage, but otherwise this flick is a total mess.

^^Damn, FF. Three stinkers in a row? Whadda way to kick off 2020 haha. Although I will say that Nothing But Trouble sounds like good curio. I remember seeing the bad reviews for it in all those Videohound/Leonard Maltin/otherwise video guides.

corplhicks wrote:

^^Damn, FF. Three stinkers in a row? Whadda way to kick off 2020 haha.

I know, right? And after I got off to such a good start this year with "Big Trouble," haha.

The 3-way clusterf*ck was totally unintentional, though I pretty much knew that "Asteroid" one was gonna be crap before we even pressed "play" on it... but it was my wife's turn to pick, and she loves those cheap SyFy disaster movies.

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Although I will say that Nothing But Trouble sounds like good curio. I remember seeing the bad reviews for it in all those Videohound/Leonard Maltin/otherwise video guides.

"NBT" is one of those legendary stinkers that I've always heard/read about, but never got around to catching back in the day. I've always been curious about it, though. As you can probably tell, whenever I hear something being called the "worst movie ever" I'm like "Oh, really? I'll be the judge of that," haha.

It may not have been the worst thing I've ever seen but geez, talk about wasted potential. You would think having all those great comic performers in one movie would be a slam dunk, but the laughs were very few and very far between.  It definitely stuck a fork in Chase and Aykroyd's careers as "A" listers, haha.

Finished Planet Terror.

Damn if this isn't still a fun flick after all this time. Still the goriest movie I've ever seen, still filled with hot women and still filled with silly, fun gimmicks even if the whole thing doesn't really make a lot of sense.

tohostudios wrote:

Finished Planet Terror.

Damn if this isn't still a fun flick after all this time.  Still the goriest movie I've ever seen, still filled with hot women and still filled with silly, fun gimmicks even if the whole thing doesn't really make a lot of sense.  

Rose McGowan never looked hotter than she did in that movie. Even if she only had one leg.

Yeah, she is really hot in Planet Terror.  I love the classic scene where she's spinning around firing off rounds from her machine gun leg.

And one of the classic lines in the film is when Quentin Tarrantino says he's "going to get my d*** wet" and his fellow baddie says "But she only has one leg..." and Quentin says "Easier access". That's this film in a nutshell; deliberately, uber cheesy lines and deliberately uber gory scenes. No wonder I love it.

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Yeah, she is really hot in Planet Terror.

Her strip-club pole dance routine during the opening credits... Mamma mia!

She used to be crazy hot. Now she's just crazy.

I gotta revisit that movie now that you've got me thinking about it. I haven't seen it in quite a few years.

So over the weekend I decided to watch the "Blood Island" series, a group of 4 popular (back in the day) drive in theater staples that originated in the Philippines. First up is Terror Is A Man (1959)



Basically, a take on the HG Wells classic, Island Of Dr. Moreau, with a shipwrecked sailor dealing with a doctor and his creation, a puma man.

This was followed up by Brides Of Blood (1968)



A Peace Corp rep, a scientist and his buxom wife arrive on an island that is dealing with radiation fallout that has affected the flora and fauna. The local villagers are dealing with a radioactive monster that they give human sacrifices to via a lottery. The Peace Corp rep ends up falling for a potential sacrifice and tries to rally the villagers into defeating the monster. Despite the laughably bad monster costume, I actually kind of enjoyed this.

Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1969)



An pathologist arrives on an island to investigate a strange disease among the villagers, turning them into green skinned zombie-like people. Also running around is an even further mutated green skinned monster that is ripping apart it's victims. More gore and nudity are present in this movie and it has an ending leading up to a sequel :

Beast Of Blood (1970)

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The pathologist from the previous film returns to the island to finish once and for all the chlorophyll monster and his creator. More of an action/adventure flick than horror but still a fun flick.


There was an unofficial 5th film, Brain Of Blood, that I started to watch but fell asleep while it was on (drinking a lot of beer late will do that) and I haven't gone back to it yet.

Planet Terror put me in the mood for exploitative gore flicks so today I started "Hobo With A Shotgun". RIP Rutger Hauer.

"Crawl" (2019)

With a Category 5 hurricane bearing down on them, a Florida college girl and her Dad find themselves trapped in their rapidly-flooding house, surrounded by a swarm of hungry alligators.
Alexandre "Piranha 3D" Aja directed this entertaining blend of creature feature and escape thriller, which may not rank very high on the believability scale but it certainly delivers on both the suspense and mayhem fronts. A solid "B" movie.

Saint Nick(2010)-Dutch horror about an evil bishop and his men in the 1400s who are killed by the villagers only for their ghosts to comeback once every 23 years on December 5th to murder children and who ever is unlucky enough to cross their path. An alcoholic cop, whose family was killed by the ghosts years earlier, and a student try to put and end to the bishop and save the town. This film seems to borrow from The Fog and puts it in a Christmas setting. The film has some gore and is well made, but no where near scary or very original. Plus, I had to watch it with subtitles and I HATE subtitles! I'll give it 2 out of 5.

Leatherface wrote:

Saint Nick(2010)-Dutch horror about an evil bishop and his men in the 1400s who are killed by the villagers only for their ghosts to comeback once every 23 years on December 5th to murder children and who ever is unlucky enough to cross their path.  An alcoholic cop, whose family was killed by the ghosts years earlier, and a student try to put and end to the bishop and save the town.  This film seems to borrow from The Fog and puts it in a Christmas setting.  The film has some gore and is well made, but no where near scary or very original.  Plus, I had to watch it with subtitles and I HATE subtitles!  I'll give it 2 out of 5.

I've seen the English dubbed version of "Saint Nick" and honestly, I would have rather had the sub titles, haha. The English dialog was obviously written by someone who was not a native English speaker, cuz it was so stilted and awkward. It reminded me of the wacky English dubs on the old Italian horror flicks of the 70s and 80s.