TODAY I WATCHED (Movies, TV Shows) 2020

"Cop Out" (2010)

Two NY cops (Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan) tangle with a brutal gang of Mexican drug smugglers as they try to recover a stolen, extremely valuable baseball card. Pretty typical "buddy cop" shoot'em up nonsense, but Willis and Morgan make a good team.

"Cop Out's" back story is almost more interesting than the film itself -  this was Kevin "Clerks" Smith's first and only "director for hire" gig. Apparently he and Bruce Willis did not get along during filming, and the the experience was so unpleasant for Kevin that it put him off working for the major studios (as well as on films that he didn't write himself). In spite of all the behind the scenes drama, "Cop Out" turned out to be a decent rainy day time waster.

"Live Free or Die Hard" (2007)

High tech terrorists are systematically shutting down the United States via a series of cyber-attacks, and of course our only hope is John McClane, who ends up protecting the only computer hacker smart enough to un-do the damage.
As usual, plenty of stuff gets shot, punched, crashed, and blown up real good. This was the first "DH" film in a dozen years and though it doesn't quite match up to its predecessors, it's still an enjoyably action packed butt kicker.

Burning off a few vacay days from work so I got my holiday horror on with my morning coffee...

"Silent Night" (2012)

Small town Wisconsin cops hunt for a psycho dressed as Santa, who's killing off "naughty" citizens in extremely gory ways. Unfortunately the town happens to be full of guys in Santa suits for the annual Christmas parade, which obviously complicates this process.
This "loose remake" of the classic 1984 Santa slasher "Silent Night, Deadly Night" might have an even bigger mean streak than the original. The kills are brutal and gory, the killer Santa is a huge scary lookin' mo-fo, and the performances are great (esp. Malcolm McDowell as the gung-ho Sheriff and Donal "Grounded For Life" Logue as a drunken anti-capitalist street Santa). There's even a "garbage day!" reference and several nods to the original "SNDN" for sharp eyed fans.
If memory serves, I wasn't crazy about this flick the first time I saw it a few years ago, but something about it "clicked" with me the second time around. Check it out, even if you usually hate remakes.

Fun (and mildly unsettling) fact: the psycho Santa's weapon of choice in this movie - a flame thrower - was apparently inspired by a real Christmas Eve mass killing that happened in California in 2008. Ho ho ho, indeed.

Yeah but does it have a scary grandpa like the original?

tohostudios wrote:

Yeah but does it have a scary grandpa like the original?

There is an homage to that scene in it, yup.

This afternoon's watch:

"Crumb" (1994)

Terry Zwigoff's portrait of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, whose psychedelic and psycho-sexual comic strips defined the late '60s counter culture movement. Robert's a weird guy who draws weird comics, but when you meet his brothers Charles and Max, you'll realize that he's the most normal one in his family... which is really sayin' something.
"Crumb" is not so much a celebration of Robert's famed artwork, but more of a disturbing study of family dystunction and its effects on each generation. Weird and fascinating in equal measure.

Law and Order: UK season 2

Car Wash

"Bad Boys For Life" (2020)

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back for a third, long delayed go-round as straight shootin', wise crackin' Miami cops Mike and Marcus. This time out, Marcus is considering retirement (again), and Mike has been marked for assassination by the seriously ticked-off lady boss of a Mexican drug cartel. Naturally, this leads to lots of stuff getting shot, blown up, and crashed into other stuff.
It's been more than fifteen years since the last "Bad Boys" movie but Smith and Lawrence fall right back into their buddy-cop groove and as usual, the stunt work and pyrotechnics are a sight to behold. Sometimes you just gotta have a big, dumb, flashy, shoot'em up action flick full of empty calories, and this franchise has always filled that bill.

"Venom" (2018)

An experimental space craft crash lands on Earth, letting loose several parasitic alien life forms - one of which eventually "bonds" with a down-on-his-luck investigative reporter to stop a full scale invasion by the critters.
Loosely based on the Marvel Comics super-villain, this flick wisely opts to re-write Venom's origin story, throwing out all the Spider-Man connections so he can stand on his own. Tom Hardy is a hoot as the guy learning to deal with his new "partner" and the visual FX are top notch. I honestly wasn't expecting much from this flick but it turned out to be a fun action packed sci-fi/horror ride.

Paranormal Caught On Camera

The Goldbergs

"Detroit Rock City" (1999)

It's 1978 and a quartet of doofus teens cut school and hit the road to see KISS at Cobo Hall in Detroit, having a variety of wacky mis-adventures along the way.
A very funny, well made period piece comedy with a great cast and a rockin' soundtrack. "DRC" tanked at the box office back in the day, which is a shame -- this one deserves to become a cult classic. Enjoyable even if you're not a member of the KISS Army.

"White Christmas" (1954)

Two ex-Army song and dance men (Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye) romance a pair of singing sisters (Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) while putting on a really big Christmas show at their former commanding officer's Vermont hotel to help save his business.

This is one of those classic holiday perennials that my wife insists on watching every year and while I generally don't care for musicals, this one has an old-fashioned charm that makes it watchable. (I tend to spend most of the run time ogling the astoundingly leggy Vera-Ellen, who plays Kaye's love interest...)

...besides, I can't watch "Silent Night, Deadly Night" sequels all December long, y'know!

Arrow - Season 3
Doctor Who - The Ambassadors of Death

The Man calories season 2 episode 6

"Trancers" (1984)

23rd century cop Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) is sent back in time to 1985 L.A. to stop a murderer whose killing spree has the potential to change the future.  
Basically this is a low budget mish mash of ideas borrowed from "The Terminator" and "Blade Runner," but it's fast paced, junky fun in its own right. Thomerson is hilariously deadpan as the hard-boiled future cop and his punk-rock chick sidekick is played by future Oscar winner Helen "Mad About You" Hunt, who was quite the hottie back then!
Charles Band directed this cult classic that was followed by at least five sequels (I lost count after a while). "Trancers" even takes place during Christmas time, so it's seasonally appropriate viewing as well!

Finished "Gotham" so I've started my annual Toho "Grinch-a-thon". I decided to "ease" into it by watching Jeff Dunham's Christmas special from 2008.

I've seen this show a million and one times and it was laugh out loud hilarious the first 750,000 times. I still got a few LOL moments even this time around but the thing that struck me the most about this show this time was how much of the content would have the "PC-Police" of this time completely up in arms. I mean I lost count of how many things in this 90 minute show would never, EVER get past censors even on cable. Or how the "Twitterverse" would be so "offended" about some of the jokes. And it's not like this was recorded in the 50s; it was only 12 years ago. But OMG, if I said some of this stuff I'd be in front of HR faster than you could say "I keel you!".

Kolchak:The Night Stalker. This was the episode "Primal Scream" where Kolchak is investigating a story about a missing link type creature that is on the loose in Chicago.

Fat Freddy wrote:

"Trancers" (1984)

23rd century cop Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) is sent back in time to 1985 L.A. to stop a murderer whose killing spree has the potential to change the future.  
Basically this is a low budget mish mash of ideas borrowed from "The Terminator" and "Blade Runner," but it's fast paced, junky fun in its own right. Thomerson is hilariously deadpan as the hard-boiled future cop and his punk-rock chick sidekick is played by future Oscar winner Helen "Mad About You" Hunt, who was quite the hottie back then!
Charles Band directed this cult classic that was followed by at least five sequels (I lost count after a while). "Trancers" even takes place during Christmas time, so it's seasonally appropriate viewing as well!

Wut you mean hot back then? She's still hot! One thing though. Do they show her naked?!?! You sure do watch some terrible movies lol

Been watching a Netflix cartoon series called The Blood of Zeus. Pretty good so far, but only three episodes in.

Wrecked Neck wrote:

Wut you mean hot back then? She's still hot!

I wouldn't know, cuz I haven't seen her in anything recently, haha. Tho I will admit, I crushed on her big time during her "Mad About You" days, and I'll still watch Twister every time it's on TV just to see her in that tiny t-shirt and shorts combo.

Quote :

One thing though. Do they show her naked?!?!

Unfortunately, no.

Quote :

You sure do watch some terrible movies lol

You're just noticing that now?

Case in point:
"Trancers II: The Return of Jack Deth" (1991)

Future Cop Jack Deth has spent the past six years coolin' his heels in the 20th century, until his old boss returns through the time stream to inform him of a new threat: a mad scientist has begun assembling an army of zombie-like "Trancers" to do his murderous bidding.
I described the first "Trancers" as "junky fun," but this one is mostly just "junk" in spite of the great cast (which includes Tim Thomerson, Helen Hunt, Richard Lynch, Geoffrey Combs, and Barbara Crampton). It's needlessly complicated and looks even cheaper than the original, which is really sayin' something.
I got a few laughs out of it but somehow I doubt I'm going to go much deeper into this franchise.

Today on the elliptical I started "Black Christmas" (the 2006 version).

I've skipped this one the past two Toho "Grinchithons" because it's just so mean-spirited and vile but I decided to give it another go this year.  It's still mean-spirited and vile but I'm noticing some subtle touches that I missed in previous viewings.  Like how multiple people keep saying some variation of "You/He/She are/is my family now." which is the "tagline" of the lead baddie. It also still cracks me up that SCTV alum Andrea Martin plays the sorority house mother.

"Nocturna" (1979)

Count Dracula's foxy granddaughter, bored by the lack of excitement in Transylvania, runs off to New York with a handsome musician and becomes the darling of NYC's disco scene in this hopelessly dorky supernatural comedy/musical/romance.
...there's a lot to unpack here. Apparently this flick was a vanity project for Nai Bonet, a French/Vietnamese dancer/singer (she had a novelty hit single in 1966 called "Jelly Belly") who decided she wanted to be a film star ... so she co-wrote and produced this movie so she could give herself the starring role. She hired a couple of fading screen legends to fill out supporting parts (John Carradine as Dracula, Brother Theodore as his Renfield-ish servant, and Yvonne "Lily Munster" DeCarlo as the Count's old girlfriend), and even managed to corral disco superstars Gloria Gaynor and Vicki Sue Robinson to perform on the soundtrack!
...so while ya gotta respect Ms. Bonet's hustle, it's a good thing she was somewhat attractive and spent most of her screen time in various states of undress, cuz she sure couldn't act worth a good god damn. "Nocturna" is a cheap, eye rollingly silly dumpster fire.  Carradine and DeCarlo seem to be having fun, at least, and of course the wall-to-wall disco dance sequences are hilariously dated. Still, I found "Nocturna" interesting in that cheesy, "how-the-hell-did-this-get-made?" time-capsule sort of way.
According to IMDb, Nai Bonet bankrolled one more star vehicle for herself after this, which also flopped, so she took the hint and quit acting. Good move, Nai.

Watched 'Glass' and few episodes of 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' season 3

So I have access to HBOMax and have finally gotten around to watching the Game Of Thrones. Better late than never.

Labyrinth

Continuing my trip through the James Bond series, in order:

"Moonraker" (1979)

Assigned to investigate the disappearance of an experimental space shuttle, 007 travels to California, Venice, Rio, and finally to outer space, where he battles the insane industrialist Hugo Drax, who plans to commit planetary genocide from his orbiting space station and then re-populate the Earth with his chosen people.
Obviously this is the most absurd Bond adventure yet, but it's also a sentimental favorite of mine because it was the first 007 movie I saw as a kid. The outer-space theme was obviously intended to ride the coat tails of "Star Wars," and it worked -- "Moonraker" was the highest grossing film in the 007 series for many years, till it was unseated in 1995 by Pierce Brosnan's "Goldeneye."

"Fanboys" (2009)

In 1998, five lifelong friends and massive Star Wars nerds embark on a cross country road trip to crash George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch and steal a rough cut of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace so they can see the movie before everyone else does. Needless to say, things don't go quite as planned.
This very funny road trip comedy lovingly sends up sci-fi nerd culture with lots of nods to the Star Wars saga, and cameos by several famous faces. This is one of those underrated comedies that deserves a cult following. This was my 3rd or 4th viewing of this flick and I still laughed out loud a lot.