TODAY I WATCHED (Movies, TV Shows) 2020

mikeinfla wrote:

Will start the rebooted Unsolved Mysteries today although I have read mixed reviews that the stories are too long and no Robert Stack.

I started watching that, but then changed my mind. Been meaning to get back to it, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Let me know what you think if you get to it.

Into Season 2 of Gotham.

Man, the actors they got to play the main villains on this show are ALL just outstanding. The Joker, The Riddler and of course Robin Lord Taylor who plays The Penguin; these guys are simply great in their roles and Taylor especially is now THE PENGUIN in my mind.

All the portrayals are so nuanced that you even feel sympathy or at least empathy for these evil dudes (less so with the kid playing Joker but he's so over-the-top great laughing maniacally).

But the dude playing Penguin displays many complex emotions and levels of his character. I will check out anything this guy is in now; he steals EVERY scene he's in (and there are a LOT of them because obviously the producers saw what I see).

Have watched the first 3 Unsolved Mysteries. Of the first 3 episode 3 is the most interesting but it is in French with subtitles (which means I had to pay more attention to it while trying to get some work done). 

Things they can improve on: Get a host, shorten the stories and add 2 or 3 more per episode and have updates from years past of solved cases. 

Overall it is ok. Not bad by any means it just needs some work. 

I understand not replacing Robert Stack because it is really hard to replace someone like that. But I do think a host would help some of the transitions in the stories. 

Only 6 episodes total so I only have 3 left, will try and blaze thru those today.

Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018)



An uneven horror/comedy with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost about an elite private school coming under danger after the bugaboo fracking releases underground monsters. Although a decent enough picture, I was expecting better, with Pegg and Frost involved. I guess next time I'll watch the much better Shaun Of The Dead.

More "Gotham".

Damn that kid who plays the young Joker is AWESOME in the role.  He's dead now (The Joker, not the actor) but I know that's just temporary; he comes back "re-animated" later; no one really dies in "Gotham".

On a side note, it really odd that I'm such a huge fan of this show because I haven't read comic books in about 50 years and have never been into the super-hero comics at all.  I only watched the slapstick version of Batman on TV back in the day.  And I totally ignored this show when it was running on Fox until I somehow on TV I ran across the episode with my old pal Jeffrey Combs (you horror movie fans know why he's a "pal") who hideously end up with his head attached to a woman's body.  And in the same episode Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) carves out her own eyeball and stomps on it.  I was hooked!

Here's the scene that made me a fan (just watch the first minute plus):



Letting that happen is why Dr. Dallmacher ended up attaching Combs' head to a woman's body in the next episode. Once I saw all that, OF COURSE I was in!

Hard to believe all that took place on a network show.

I watched this yesterday.

"Grindhouse Presents: Planet Terror" (2007)

When a zombie outbreak grips a small Texas town, it's up to a one-legged go-go dancer and her ex-military ex-fiancee to lead a group of survivors to safety. Bullets fly, stuff blows up, and gallons of blood splash across the scratched-up screen.
Robert Rodriguez's action packed half of the "Grindhouse" two-fer is a pitch perfect ode to the ultra-violent B-Movies of the 70s, with an excellent cast (incl. Josh "Thanos" Brolin, Michael "Terminator" Biehn, gore makeup guru Tom Savini, and Bruce Willis) somehow managing to keep a straight face through all the guts, gore, and goop. Rose "Charmed" McGowan was at her peak of hotness (even if her character is missing a leg for most of the movie) when she made this flick. Tons of gonzo, over the top, gross-out fun.

Rambo Last Blood. I enjoyed it more than it thought I would. It is hilariously awesome. Nice use of Doors music during the final battle.

Slayer's The Repentless Killogy movie and concert.

nevermore wrote:

Slayer's The Repentless Killogy movie and concert.

I finally got around to watching that last weekend. I loved that short film. Little over the top but still entertaining. Can't believe they are done, the world just seems like a sad and lonely place without Slayer.

Darkness: The Vampire Version (1993)-a town in the Midwest is invaded by a group of vampires. As their numbers grow, it's up to a small group of friends to band together and try to rid the place of the bloodsuckers in this very cheap, but ultra gory independent film. I've heard about this movie for years as it seems to have something of a cult following, mainly because of how bloody it is. Darkness maybe a little too rough around the edges for a lot of movie lovers(it was shot on Super 8mm for just a few thousand dollars), but for fans underground movies and cult films, you may want to check it out what is called "the goriest vampire movie ever". I give it 2.5 out of 5

Been getting caught up on Nos4a2 season 2

Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear

an episode of 'Lois and Clark; The New Adventures of Superman' season 4

Fat Freddy wrote:

"Grindhouse Presents: Planet Terror" (2007)

When a zombie outbreak grips a small Texas town, it's up to a one-legged go-go dancer and her ex-military ex-fiancee to lead a group of survivors to safety. Bullets fly, stuff blows up, and gallons of blood splash across the scratched-up screen.
Robert Rodriguez's action packed half of the "Grindhouse" two-fer is a pitch perfect ode to the ultra-violent B-Movies of the 70s, with an excellent cast (incl. Josh "Thanos" Brolin, Michael "Terminator" Biehn, gore makeup guru Tom Savini, and Bruce Willis) somehow managing to keep a straight face through all the guts, gore, and goop. Rose "Charmed" McGowan was at her peak of hotness (even if her character is missing a leg for most of the movie) when she made this flick. Tons of gonzo, over the top, gross-out fun.

That's still the goriest movie I've ever seen. The helicopter scene alone has more blood and guts than a lot of movies I've seen.

And you're right, Rose McGowan is uber-hot in that movie.

Quote :

That's still the goriest movie I've ever seen. 

Really? I think Peter Jackson's Dead Alive might have it beat, but it would be close.

"Hangar 18" (aka "Invasion Force," 1980)

A space shuttle mission encounters a UFO, which then crashes in the Arizona desert. When the astronauts return to Earth and try to tell the world what they've seen, they find out the U.S. Government has covered up the entire incident. The only way they can expose the truth is to reveal the alien craft's hiding place, at Hangar 18.
This charming, cheap little sci-fi/conspiracy thriller is well written and features a cast of dependable b-list veterans like Robert Vaughan, Darren McGavin, and Gary Collins, but it's let down slightly by the obvious budget restraints -- it may have been released theatrically, but this looks and feels like a made-for-TV flick. (the outer-space effects are cheese-tastic, and the design of the "aliens" is freakin' ridiculous. I don't know how any of the cast members were able to keep a straight face in scenes with them. Haha.)
I hadn't seen this movie since I was a kid, and it was fun revisiting it.
Of course, it also inspired a certain Megadeth song that you might know!

Night Gallery

"Evil Dead" (2013)

In this 21st century "re-imagining" of Sam Raimi's 1981 splatter classic, a group of twenty somethings gather at a secluded cabin, muck around with a spell book they find in the cellar, and awaken something evil in the forest. Hilarity, of course, does not ensue.
...I don't usually "do" remakes...but I was pleasantly surprised by this one, which wastes no time getting to the nasty stuff and keeps a frenzied, grimy, balls-to-the-wall pace all the way through.
Finally, a horror remake that doesn't suck! Who knew?

"Battle Star Wars" (2020)

Some space pirates, a couple of cute girls in tight outfits, and a mystic warrior type protect a planet of innocent refugees from a galactic bad guy and his evil forces.
In case the title didn't make it immediately obvious, this is The Asylum's attempt to ride the coat tails of the latest Star Wars trilogy and it's an enjoyably bad slice of space junk.
On the plus side, the sets don't look like they're made of cardboard for a change, and there are even a couple of halfway decent CGI space-battle sequences... but as usual for an Asylum production, the acting is atrocious and the costumes look like they were bought off the clearance rack at Party City the day after Halloween. (The "Darth Vader" character is just an ordinary looking guy in a long robe which looks like a smoking jacket, so I dubbed him "Space Hefner.")
Apparently this flick was shot in a mere six days (!) and there's already a sequel in the works. Lord knows I'll watch that too, because I'm a glutton for punishment.
I had fun, but your mileage may vary depending on your tolerance for Asylum-style cheese.

"The Savage Curtain" - episode from Season 3 of the original Star Trek.

This is the one where a rock creature invites Kirk and Spock down to the planet along with a legend from Vulcan history and...ABRAHAM LINCOLN!!!! They're set up to fight against some of histories major baddies (Genghis Khan among them) to demonstrate to the rock creature and his fellow never-seen rock creatures which is stronger, good or evil.

I remember this as one of my favorites growing up because of the anachronistic nature of having Abraham Lincoln teamed up with Kirk and Spock. It seems pretty cheesy now but still enjoyable.

"The Final Level: Escaping Rancala" (2019)

More mock-buster fun from our friends at the Asylum!
Ten years ago, a girl's brother mysteriously disappeared without a trace while playing a vintage video game at the local arcade. Now, she and two of her gal pals fire up the same game and are drawn into its virtual world, where they must battle a variety of enemies in order to rescue him and bring him home.
...Asylum pulls off a two-fer with this flick, cuz it's ripping off "Ready Player One" and the recent "Jumanji" reboots. As usual, the script is a mess, the acting is totally amateur night, and the special effects are cheap crap, but on the other hand, there's three times the cleavage (Seriously fellas, the redhead in this movie is a stone cold fox).
My video game obsessed 12 year old bailed on this before it was over, but I enjoyed this cheesy fun flick. Asylum movies are like potato chips, you can't have just one.

tohostudios wrote:

"The Savage Curtain" - episode from Season 3 of the original Star Trek.

This is the one where a rock creature invites Kirk and Spock down to the planet along with a legend from Vulcan history and...ABRAHAM LINCOLN!!!!  They're set up to fight against some of histories major baddies (Genghis Khan among them) to demonstrate to the rock creature and his fellow never-seen rock creatures which is stronger, good or evil.

I remember this as one of my favorites growing up because of the anachronistic nature of having Abraham Lincoln teamed up with Kirk and Spock.  It seems pretty cheesy now but still enjoyable.

Doesn't Lincoln refer to Lt. Uhura as a "charming young Negress" (or words to that effect)? I was never much of a Star Trek guy, but I remember my college roommate was watching this episode on TV one afternoon, I was at my desk reading a book and not really paying attention, but when I heard him say that I was like "...what the f*** did he just call her?"

Yep, he does.

Here's the scene:

"Lost Heroes: The Untold Story of Canadian Superheroes" (2014)

A very cool documentary that examines the ups and downs of Canadian comic book characters, a tradition that goes all the way back to World War II (when wartime import/export limits prohibited American comics from coming into Canada, thus sparking a short lived homegrown industry of now-mostly-forgotten Canadian comics) and has continued into the into the present day thanks to higher-profile North of the Border heroes like Captain Canuck, Wolverine (of course!) and Alpha Flight. I was a comic nut for most of my youth and thought I knew pretty much everything there is to know, but this doc introduced me to a corner of comic history that I never knew existed. Enlightening and entertaining stuff.

Started Ares on Netflix. I really don't know what it is about but I think it is a Dutch series about a secret society. Only one episode in so I can't say if it is good or not but in the first episode someone gouges out their own eyes with scissors. Ouch!