TODAY I WATCHED (Movies, TV Shows) 2020

I didn't realize Walking Dead was back or that they had another spin off. Will have to check those out.

Finished the second season of Cobra Kai. Now I'm looking forward to the third season coming in January.

Enola Holmes on Netflix. Fun family movie.

I watched 2001: A Space Travesty this week.



I happen to think Leslie Nielsen has appeared in some of the funniest movies ever made, but this was lame.

The movie actually has an R rating, which does give it room to do more than in a PG-13 movie. Then again, The Naked Gun trilogy was PG-13, and those are three of the funniest movies ever. Airplane! was only PG, but it came before the PG-13 rating existed, and would have been PG-13 had the rating existed. That is also one of the funniest movies of all time. However, 2001: A Space Travesty doesn't feel like an R rated movie at all; if I hadn't heard it was R rated beforehand, I wouldn't have guessed it was.

The movie does start out with a rather funny sequence where Leslie Nielsen has to thwart a terrorist attempt. It goes downhill after that very quickly.

It's better than the Jason Friedberg/Aaron Seltzer directed "spoofs", but that's not saying much, as those are the least funny comedies of all time.

I have posted the hostage situation scene here. There's no need to watch the rest of the movie.

"Blue Thunder" (1983)


An L.A.P.D. helicopter pilot (Roy Scheider) is assigned to test fly a new, high tech, heavily armored chopper code-named "Blue Thunder." At first he's amazed by all of the new machine's bells and whistles, until he discovers a plot to use it against civilians and hijacks it, leading to a series of aerial battles against shady government goons (led by the delightfully evil Malcolm McDowell) in the skies over the city.

John "WarGames" Badham directed this tight action-thriller that was a favorite of mine as a teenager, when it seemed to be in constant rotation on HBO. It had been years since I last saw "Blue Thunder," but I was pleased to see that it's held up quite well. Worth revisiting.

The movie also inspired a short lived TV series with James Farentino in the Scheider role and a young Dana Carvey (!) as his eager young co-pilot. I would imagine it probably hasn't aged as well as the film.

Down (2019)




A woman and man end up stuck in their high rise office building's elevator on the evening before Valentine's Day. Apparently the last two people to leave the building and with no cell service, they fear they may be stuck there until Tuesday morning, as Monday is also President's Day. They make small talk and soon grow closer but things eventually take a much darker tone. A slow burning effective thriller, but it's marred by a few plot holes.

Lords of Salem

Monsterland Episodes 1 & 2

My Schlock-tober hasn't been very schlocky thus far. I plan to make up for that for the rest of the month, starting with today's pick, which DEFINITELY qualifies:

"Dead Ant" (2017)


A has-been '80s hair metal band are headed to a desert music festival, for what they hope will be their big comeback gig. Along the way they accidentally violate an ancient Indian curse, which awakens hordes of huge, man-eating ants. Sooooo... yeah. Think "Spinal Tap" meets "Them!" with a bit of "Big Ass Spider!"

Your mileage may vary depending on your tolerance for cheap-on-purpose special effects and the acting of Tom Arnold (who plays the band's manager).

This tongue-firmly-in-cheek creature comedy barely scrapes the lower end of the "So-bad-it's-good" meter, thanks to the hair metal connection. I think I can guarantee that this is the only monster movie you'll ever see where the world is saved by a terribly played cover of Kix's "Blow My Fuse." Yes, really.

I don't think I'm doing a Schlocktober this year.  I'm still working my way through "Gotham" and I just started Season 4.  The Raish Al-Ghul character qualifies for Schlocktober though.  He's an undead character who appears at the end of Season 3 and turns out to be behind a lot of the misdoings in Gotham for earlier episodes in the season.  And then there's Solomon Grundy who also debuts in the last couple episodes.  He's a formerly dead gangster who was shot in the head earlier in the season and was revived by unknown biohazard waste from Indian Hill to become an undead Incredible Hulk who has no memory of his previous life and talks like a caveman.

So yeah, at this point much of "Gotham" qualifies for Schlocktober.

I'm going to have check out Gotham one of these days. Including Solomon Grundy in the show sounds really interesting.

(not Schlock-Tober material but the DVD was due back at the library three days ago)

"Jumanji: The Next Level" (2019)

The kids from the last "Jumanji" return to the dangerous video-game world once again to rescue one of their own, and they bring a few new friends along for the ride. Just as fast-paced and fun as the original.

Supernatural

Monsterland episode 3

Been watching Incredible Hulk season 2 and watched Somewhere In Time

mikeinfla wrote:

Enola Holmes on Netflix. Fun family movie.

Yeah the wife and I checked that out last week, great acting and mounted well to overcome its oddly functioning story that really wanders too much. We both had a smile on our face. But it is weird too. I don't understand the need to have her break the fourth wall every three to five minutes.

Back on the Schlock-tober track:

"The Beyond" (aka "7 Doors of Death," 1981)

A woman inherits a run-down hotel in the Louisiana bayou, but her attempts to renovate and re-open the old place are marred by a series of bizarre deaths, which may be tied to a murder at the site 50 years ago.
Lucio Fulci's artsy splatter fest is lovely to look at, even if the story has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. It may not make much sense but "Beyond" totally delivers on the gross-out gore front, with plenty of eye gougings, disembowelments, exploding heads and other assorted nastiness. In other words, it's ideal Schlock-tober material.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Back on the Schlock-tober track:

"The Beyond" (aka "7 Doors of Death," 1981)

A woman inherits a run-down hotel in the Louisiana bayou, but her attempts to renovate and re-open the old place are marred by a series of bizarre deaths, which may be tied to a murder at the site 50 years ago.
Lucio Fulci's artsy splatter fest is lovely to look at, even if the story has more holes in it than Swiss cheese. It may not make much sense but "Beyond" totally delivers on the gross-out gore front, with plenty of eye gougings, disembowelments, exploding heads and other assorted nastiness. In other words, it's ideal Schlock-tober material.

Is that the one where the woman hiding in a closet gets a door splinter in the eye? 

I absolutely gross out on any "eye gore" and I saw that scene when I was in college and can't remember what movie it was from.

Quote :

is that the one where the woman hiding in a closet gets a door splinter in the eye? 

I believe that was in "Zombie" (1979), also by Fulci.

Italian horror directors had a "thing" for eyeball scenes. Just about every splatter movie that came out of Italy back then had at least one.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Quote :

is that the one where the woman hiding in a closet gets a door splinter in the eye? 

I believe that was in "Zombie" (1979), also by Fulci.

Yup, that's "We're going to eat you!" Zombi alright. An overlooked gem that I find to be pretty decent, all things considered. Nasty VHS cover on that one.

This one ?

The Boys season 2 finale

The Haunting Of Bly Manor episodes 1-5

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Blakes 7 - Project Avalon

"Dark Night of the Scarecrow" (1981)

A posse of small town yokels kill a local mentally-handicapped man, under the mistaken assumption that he harmed a little girl. The four men aren't found guilty of any crime, but then one by one they are picked off by a mysterious figure in a scarecrow outfit.
A spooky little Halloween treat, originally made for TV in 1981, which has gone on to become a cult classic.

Fat Freddy wrote:

"Dark Night of the Scarecrow" (1981)

A posse of small town yokels kill a local mentally-handicapped man, under the mistaken assumption that he harmed a little girl. The four men aren't found guilty of any crime, but then one by one they are picked off by a mysterious figure in a scarecrow outfit.
A spooky little Halloween treat, originally made for TV in 1981, which has gone on to become a cult classic.

I remember watching that as a kid when it first aired. Definitely an above average made for tv movie.