TODAY I WATCHED (Movies, TV Shows) 2020

Fat Freddy wrote:

"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.

Ha! I had a Captain Canuck comic back in the day. No idea what happened to it though.

007 wrote:

Ha! I had a Captain Canuck comic back in the day. No idea what happened to it though.

Yup, I had one or two as well. When I was a kid, my grandparents lived in Upstate NY, not far from the Canadian border, and the Captain's issues occasionally trickled down to the local store from up North.

Started watching a new series on Netflix called Cursed. It's fantasy based around the sword of power, aka Excalibur. It's confusing because it says something about before king Arthur, there was a queen that wielded the sword, but there is a character named Arthur in it that seems like a young king Arthur in the making maybe. Plus there us Luther Penndragon, Egrain, and other names that go along with the classic tale. I'm guessing it's some sort of alternate reality based on the story? I don't know, but it's pretty good so far. Some of the cgi is pretty lame, but story is decent.

"Mountaintop Motel Massacre"
(aka "Mountaintop Motel" and "Horrors at Mountaintop Motel," 1986)

Crazy ol' Evelyn is released from the mental hospital, and goes back to her old job managing the run-down family motel. When she catches her daughter practicing witchcraft in the cellar, she snaps and takes it out on the various guests inhabiting her establishment.
...yup, that's the whole plot of this cheap, cheesy, gender-swapped "Psycho" variant that has a nice dark-n-stormy-night setting but everything else - acting, story, dialogue, gore - is total amateur night.
"M.M.M." may not be the worst slasher flick I've ever seen, but it's skippable unless you absolutely have to see every movie with the word "Massacre" in the title.

The Midnight Meat Train

Leatherface wrote:

The Midnight Meat Train

Great novella, and really good movie. Wish Clive would get back to writing again.

"The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot" (2018)

Set in the late '80s, an unsung World War II hero (Sam Elliott, bad-ass as ever) is called back to active duty for one last mission - to find and kill the elusive Bigfoot. Yes, really.  
Going strictly by the title, I thought this movie was going to be a schlocky, tongue-in-cheek genre mashup, but it's actually a great deal deeper and more dramatic. You do get to see a bit of monster mayhem so the film lives up to its title, (however briefly), but the heart of the story is about the Elliott character reflecting on his life of service to his country, and how much it's cost him personally. It's a very well acted, very odd little movie that wasn't at all what I expected, but I still enjoyed it.

Fat Freddy wrote:

"The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot" (2018)

Set in the late '80s, an unsung World War II hero (Sam Elliott, bad-ass as ever) is called back to active duty for one last mission - to find and kill the elusive Bigfoot. Yes, really.
Going strictly by the title, I thought this movie was going to be a schlocky, tongue-in-cheek genre mashup, but it's actually a great deal deeper and more dramatic. You do get to see a bit of monster mayhem so the film lives up to its title, (however briefly), but the heart of the story is about the Elliott character reflecting on his life of service to his country, and how much it's cost him personally. It's a very well acted, very odd little movie that wasn't at all what I expected, but I still enjoyed it.

For the same reasons you stated about how you thought the movie would be, I avoided watching it. However, if it is like you said, I may just check it out when I'm looking for something to watch.

007 wrote:

For the same reasons you stated about how you thought the movie would be, I avoided watching it. However, if it is like you said, I may just check it out when I'm looking for something to watch.

Don't get me wrong, it's weird, but a good kind of weird. Haha.

Besides, Sam Elliott is one of those guys who's always good, no matter what kind of movie he's in.

Everybody Loves Raymond
King Of Queens

Wrecked Neck wrote:

Leatherface wrote:

The Midnight Meat Train

Great novella, and really good movie. Wish Clive would get back to writing again.

Yeah that movie is great! The first time I saw it I was like WTF? as it was going but it all wraps up nicely.

Night Gallery

Leatherface wrote:

Night Gallery

I find that show to be VERY hit or miss. I mean Twilight Zone was too to a degree but not as much as Night Gallery. Some of the episodes are very good but I find a lot of them to be dull.

"The Go-Go Boys: The Inside Story of Cannon Films" (2014)

Israeli-made documentary about the legendary filmmaking team Menahem Golan and his cousin Yoram Globus, who pretty much invented Israel's movie industry in the '60s, then came to America in the '70s with plans to take the '80s by storm by cranking out lots of crowd pleasing, low budget movies featuring Ninjas, Chuck Norris, and Charles Bronson.
Yoram Globus' current company produced this flick, so it's more personal and less snarky than Mark Hartley's "Electric Boogaloo" Cannon documentary, which was released the same year (and which focused mainly on the Cannon catalog's penchant for boobs, blood, and explosions).
Take note, Golan and Globus speak Hebrew during most of their interview segments in this one, but as long as you don't mind sub-titles, "Go-Go Boys" is an enjoyable look at two outsiders' adventures in the movie business.

tohostudios wrote:

Leatherface wrote:

Night Gallery

I find that show to be VERY hit or miss.  I mean Twilight Zone was too to a degree but not as much as Night Gallery.  Some of the episodes are very good but I find a lot of them to be dull.

Yeah, I didn't really care for the episode I watched. Kind of boring.

I found a show a couple of weeks ago on PBS that is similar to Svengoolie called Nightmare Theatre. I don't know if it is national or not. It is made in Pensacola so it might be a local show but it comes on Saturday nights around midnight or 1AM. I have DVR'd the last few episodes. They play some really bad movies and it's pretty awesome. 



This weekend they had a really bad movie with Richard Keel called Eegah. The week before that it was Santa Claus Conquers The Martians.

Over the weekend I found a YouTube channel full of those irresistibly schlocky old made-for-TV thriller movies from the '70s and '80s, so I'm probably gonna end up going down a serious rabbit hole on these for the next several weeks Started the binge with:

"Death Car on the Freeway" (1979)

A crusading TV news reporter (Shelley "Charlie's Angels" Hack) vs. a psycho who kills women on the L.A. freeways with his souped-up van. Lots of cars crash and stuff blows up.
Fun junk directed by Hal "Smokey and the Bandit" Needham, with a strong supporting cast of familiar faces including Frank "The Riddler" Gorshin, George Hamilton, Abe "Fish" Vigoda, Dinah Shore, Peter Graves, and Sid Haig.
They don't make 'em like this anymore!

Fat Freddy wrote:

Over the weekend I found a YouTube channel full of those irresistibly schlocky old made-for-TV thriller movies from the '70s and '80s, so I'm probably gonna end up going down a serious rabbit hole on these for the next several weeks Started the binge with:

"Death Car on the Freeway" (1979)

A crusading TV news reporter (Shelley "Charlie's Angels" Hack) vs. a psycho who kills women on the L.A. freeways with his souped-up van. Lots of cars crash and stuff blows up.
Fun junk directed by Hal "Smokey and the Bandit" Needham, with a strong supporting cast of familiar faces including Frank "The Riddler" Gorshin, George Hamilton, Abe "Fish" Vigoda, Dinah Shore, Peter Graves, and Sid Haig.
They don't make 'em like this anymore!

Oh man, I am gonna have to check out that channel! Sounds awesome!

mikeinfla wrote:

Oh  man, I am gonna have to check out that channel! Sounds awesome!

The channel is called "TV Fanatic." Have fun!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOk3CF2ji-VZxij2n_1Etzg/videos

And if that's not enough for ya, here's an additional playlist of '70s and '80s Made-For-TV horror/thrillers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxkHFDKAgy4&list=PLdFIRt4w9qDPHbfqMDoGqTq8oMNREeReP

The Alienist:Angel Of Darkness

"Warrior Queen" (1987)


(...I have no idea what language that trailer is in, haha)

In ancient times, a beautiful emissary from Rome (Sybil Danning) arrives in Pompeii, where she is wined and dined by the sleazy Emperor (Donald Pleasance), watches some gladiator battles, and then helps a bunch of female slaves escape when the city is hit by a volcanic eruption.
...that's pretty much all that happens in this virtually plotless, ultra-cheap swords & sandals flick, which moves at a snail's pace despite being only around 70 minutes long. There's plenty of T&A of course, and lots of lousy acting and cheap gore.
Strangely, even though she's the "Warrior Queen," Sybil's character doesn't do much warrior-ing. She spends most of the movie standing around looking bored, and has about three lines of dialogue in total. I'd also love to know how the hell they roped Donald Pleasance into this thing -- did he lose a bet? He looks like he's drunk as a skunk the entire time.
After a while, I felt like I was watching a porn movie that had all the porn parts cut out. According to IMDb, director Chuck Vincent also did a fair share of adult films, so who knows, maybe that was actually the case.
Either way, you can safely AVOID this one.

Started the hateful Eight on Netflix. The first thing that confused me is that this is a mini-series and I was thinking it was a movie. Well, it is both. Apparently Tarantino had a bunch of extra footage for the movie so instead of having a long movie they break it up into four 50 minute episodes. I kind of like it like that so I can break it up.

"The Bees" (1978)

In this absolutely Cheese-tastic '70s eco-horror from Mexico, "Africanized Killer Bees"  are smuggled into the U.S. by an unscrupulous corporation, which then (of course) breed with local bees, thus creating a new mutant strain that starts swarming into major cities and stinging everyone to death. Fortunately a crusading bee scientist (the late great John Saxon) and his research team are on the case, trying to stop the angry buggers before they replace humans as the dominant species on Earth (yikes!).

There's a lot to unpack in this movie -- it starts out as a pretty standard nature-run-amuck flick with the usual hammy acting and ultra cheap special effects (the bee swarms look like big clouds of smoke in long shots, and like Rice Krispies blown by a fan in close-ups). Then it suddenly takes a turn into totally bats**t crazy sci-fi territory when Saxon's character figures out how to communicate with the bees, learns why they're so pissed, and ends up presenting their "demands" to the United Nations!  Yes, really.

Fun fact: According to IMDb, the producers of Irwin Allen's big budget, all-star killer-bee movie "The Swarm," which was made the same year as this flick, paid the makers of "The Bees" a bunch of $$ to delay the release of their movie so it wouldn't damage "The Swarm's" box office potential... but if memory serves, "The Swarm" tanked anyway.

It's been a while since I've seen "The Swarm" but if I had to choose between it and "Bees," I think I'd go with this one -- it's shorter than "The Swarm" and its unintentional comedy factor is absolutely off the charts. This one's a total hoot.

John Saxon is an icon of the "cheesetastic".

"Kingdom Of The Spiders" (1977)

Before "Arachnophobia" or "Eight Legged Freaks," this was the Big Kahuna of killer-spider movies. William Shatner stars as the veterinarian in a small Arizona desert town under siege by hordes of pissed off tarantulas, who've added humans to their menu since their usual food supplies have been killed off by pesticides. This long time drive-in fave and late night TV staple has aged surprisingly well. Creepy, crawly fun!