TODAY I WATCHED... (Movies, TV) 2021

Dream Theater Live At Luna Park

GG Allin : All In The Family

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (2015)

Continuing my 14 year old's Star Wars indoctrination. 30 years after "Jedi," the galaxy is still at war. The Empire has been reborn as "The New Order," Luke Skywalker is MIA, and as a young girl named Rey gets caught up in the galactic shenanigans, the evil Kylo Ren realizes that she may be a powerful candidate to join him on the Dark Side.
J.J. Abrams hit all the right notes with this comeback movie - there's plenty of fan service for old farts like me and new characters are cool enough to hook the newbies (like my son). The special effects are top notch, of course, and it's nice to see some old friends like Chewie, 3PO, and Leia again.
My son enjoyed this but he was NOT thrilled when

Spoiler:

-- he was like "ARE YOU F**KING KIDDING ME?"
It'll be interesting to see his reaction to the rest of this Star Wars trilogy (and I'm looking forward to revisiting them myself) ...

"Virus" (1999)

An ocean salvage crew (including Donald Sutherland and Jamie Lee Curtis) think they've hit the jackpot when they come across a huge Russian satellite-tracking ship adrift with no crew. What they don't realize is that the ship has been taken over by an alien intelligence that is combining parts of the ship - and its former crew members - to create cybernetic killing machines.
So essentially this is a high tech mash up of "The Thing" and "Terminator," with a hint of "Death Ship." It's fast moving, loud/violent, and full of cool/gross looking half human/half machine hybrids. I was entertained, but Jamie Lee Curtis apparently hates this movie and considers it the worst thing she's ever done. I personally find that hard to believe, because she was also in "Halloween: Resurrection."

Fat Freddy wrote:

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (2015)

Continuing my 14 year old's Star Wars indoctrination. 30 years after "Jedi," the galaxy is still at war. The Empire has been reborn as "The New Order," Luke Skywalker is MIA, and as a young girl named Rey gets caught up in the galactic shenanigans, the evil Kylo Ren realizes that she may be a powerful candidate to join him on the Dark Side.
J.J. Abrams hit all the right notes with this comeback movie - there's plenty of fan service for old farts like me and new characters are cool enough to hook the newbies (like my son). The special effects are top notch, of course, and it's nice to see some old friends like Chewie, 3PO, and Leia again.
My son enjoyed this but he was NOT thrilled when

Spoiler:

-- he was like "ARE YOU F**KING KIDDING ME?"
It'll be interesting to see his reaction to the rest of this Star Wars trilogy (and I'm looking forward to revisiting them myself) ...

I was sort of expecting that to happen because

Spoiler:

And I agree with your assessment of the movie. Very enjoyable.

Scrubs

Pledge Night (1990)



Standard slasher film about a fraternity pledge who died after a botched prank played on him 20 years ago. He returns from the grave to enact revenge on the new fraternity that has taken up residence in the same frat house, killing everyone in his way. Nothing new under the sun with this one, but it is brightened up with music from Anthrax and even has Joey Belladonna in a small part.

"Falling Down" (1993)

A down on his luck, laid off Everyman (Michael Douglas) finally snaps while sitting in L.A. rush hour traffic one morning, abandons his car and heads "home" on foot to reunite with his estranged family. His path takes him through some of L.A.'s worst neighborhoods and leads to numerous violent confrontations with gang bangers, hostile store keepers, and plain ol' everyday jerks, until his rampage inevitably attracts the attention of the L.A.P.D.

Douglas is great as the crazed anti-hero in this dramatic action flick from Joel Schumacher which was quite controversial in its day, and has aged very well. Worth re-visiting.

The Descent Part 2(2009)-a rescue team, with the help of the survivor from the first film, goes back into the caves to try the find the rest of the missing party. As you can probably guess, they run into the cave dwelling creatures and are now trapped in the caves themselves. This one is simply a retread of the first movie, which is not an insult as the movie has a good amount of claustrophobic suspense and plenty of creature mayhem/gore. I hate the ending of this movie, so I have to deduct a little from the overall score from me. 2/5

I enjoyed the original Descent a lot more than the second one because the first one relied more on the claustrophobic atmosphere and less on the gore.  I thought in the sequel it was more the other way around.  Now nobody loves gore more than I do but what made The Descent so great was the emphasis placed on the cave and the darkness.

"Into the Dark: Good Boy" (2020)

A stressed out middle aged single gal (Judy Greer) adopts an emotional support dog to help alleviate her loneliness. She soon learns that in addition to being cute, loyal, and cuddly, her new pooch is also a bloodthirsty killing machine that will eliminate anyone who makes her angry or anxious.

I loved the concept of this Hulu original (part of their "Into The Dark" horror film series). The cast is fine, the dog is cute (even when he's covered in blood) but the final product is uneven. The first hour plays like a Lifetime channel rom-com (with a mean streak) before finally going full "Cujo" in the last 30 minutes. I've seen worse, but I wish they'd picked a consistent tone and stuck with it, instead of flip flopping between tongue-in-cheek horror comedy and straight up creature feature.

Filmage :The Story Of The Descendents/All

I watched the "Field Of Dreams" game last night and thought it was great.  That stadium built in the middle of a massive cornfield, a corn maze in the shape of the MLB logo, the barn styled padding on the walls and homeruns going into the corn.  It was a lot of fun to watch.

"ZZ Top: That Little Ol' Band From Texas" (2019)

This has been in my Netflix watch list for a while, but the recent passing of Dusty Hill bumped it to the front of the line.

Sam Dunn of "Metal Evolution" and "Metal: A Headbanger's Journey" fame directed this cool documentary about the legendary blues-rock trio, who look back in wonder at their quirky 50 year career. I honestly knew next to nothin' about ZZ Top prior to their 1983 mainstream breakthrough with Eliminator, so the segments about their early days was most interesting to me.

The Top guys seem like pretty cool dudes, and it's fun to sit and watch them reminisce over vintage films and photos from days gone by. They're bad, they're nationwide.

"Biography: I Want My MTV," an A&E documentary about the early years of the music network (i.e. when it was still a cool, scrappy, underdog thing, not the evil corporate demon spawn it became). Lots of cool clips, brought back a lot of memories.

"Porky's" (1981)

Bob "Black Christmas" Clark's raunchy comedy classic about a bunch of sex crazed high school friends in late 50s Florida spawned two sequels and countless imitations. There's not much plot, just lots of silly pranks and quotable bits, most of which involve the demonic gym teacher "Ms. Balbricker." It's been a long time since I've seen this and it's still a ton of dumb fun.

"Porky's II: The Next Day" (1983)

The gang from Angel Beach High are back and in between their continuing efforts to "get some," they do battle with a fire-and-brimstone preacher and the local Klan, who want to shut down the school's Shakespeare festival. Of course, there's lots of half naked girls and other silliness. I think I actually like this one better than the original "Porky's." It's very satisfying to see the clueless Bible belters and dumbass Klansmen get what's comin' to 'em.

Welcome to the Jungle(2007)- two couples travel to New Guinea in hopes of making a documentary about the famous Michael Rockefeller case, where the son of a vice president went missing in the early 1960s in New Guinea was rumored to have been killed by cannibals, while others believe he is still alive and living in the jungles still to this day. Growing tension between the couples eventually cause them to split up and travel through the jungles on their own, possibly leading them to danger that might wait for them in the jungle. An obvious tribute to some of the classic exploitation films of the past like Cannibal Holocaust and Cannibal Ferox, this one is slow in taking it's time to getting to the good stuff, which it finally does in about the last twenty minutes or so. It has some flaws, but I rather enjoyed this one for the gory climax and the creepy atmosphere of the jungle. 3/5

"Bad Teacher" (2010)

After being dumped by her rich fiancee, a lazy, hard drinkin', pot smokin', totally unqualified woman (Cameron Diaz) takes a teaching job to pay the bills while she looks for a new "sugar daddy."
Diaz is great (and super hot) in this raunchy comedy that takes all the cliches of "teacher movies" and turns them sideways -- there's no "redemption arc" for her character, she doesn't suddenly get inspired and become a Super Teacher, she's only staying in the classroom long enough to afford a boob job.

"Kingpin" (1996)

A disgraced, one handed former bowling champ (Woody Harrelson) takes a skilled, but naive Amish man (Randy Quaid) under his wing and trains him to take part in a million-dollar tournament in Reno against his old rival (Bill Murray).
This slapstick road trip / sports flick from the Farrelly Bros. (of "Dumb & Dumber" fame) is mean spirited, tasteless, and over-the-top ridiculous, but it's also funny as hell. Harrelson is a pisser as the down-on-his-luck, drunken "champ," and Murray almost steals the movie with his small, but pivotal, role. "Kingpin" may not be for everybody, but it's my second favorite sports comedy, right behind "Caddyshack."

A DC Comics double feature tonight:

"Joker" (2019)

Todd "The Hangover" Philips' bleak take on the super-villain's origin story is pretty much Taxi Driver set in the DC Universe, as a mentally-ill loser (Joaquin Phoenix) slowly loses his shit amidst the chaos of Gotham City circa 1981. This was my 2nd viewing of this movie and it still packs a punch.

"Jonah Hex" (2010)

DC's Old West bounty hunter (Josh Brolin) battles against a terrorist (John Malkovich) who is planning to aim a super weapon at Washington DC on the eve of America's Centennial in this notorious box office bomb. As a shoot'em up, blow'em up action flick this wasn't terrible, but Jonah is a cool character and he deserved better than this confused muddle.

A double shot of '80s horror junk on a rainy day:

"Humongous" (1982)

A group of boating twenty somethings on a lake outing run aground on a seemingly deserted private island, but they soon learn they're not alone, as a hulking, deformed something or other starts hunting them down one by one. Pretty standard Canuck slasher/horror junk, not terrible, not great.

"Rats: Night of Terror" (aka "Blood Kill," 1984)

225 years after a nuclear apocalypse, a gang of nomadic bikers stumble into a deserted laboratory building full of food, water, and other supplies. They think they've hit the jackpot but the place is also infested with hordes of super-intelligent, extremely hungry rats, who don't take kindly to trespassers on their turf.
This gloriously stupid Italian sci-fi/horror mash up directed by notorious schlock meister Bruno Mattei (of "Hell of the Living Dead," "RoboWar," and "Shocking Dark" fame) has all the usual hallmarks of Spaghetti cinema: cheap gore, atrocious dubbing, a muddled story with numerous plot holes, and terrible, mugging over-acting. It's crap, but it's entertaining crap.

The Walking Dead final season premiere

Today I watched yet another of the terminally dull and padded 50+ minute episodes of The Twilight Zone.  A few of these have some decent acting and some good ideas buried in all the padding but the one I watched today called "Miniatures" was really a slog to get thru.  About the only interesting thing about it is the lead.  The whole boring time I kept thinking the guy looked familiar.  Turned out to be Robert Duvall.  Is there any actor who was in the biz during the Twilight Zone era who didn't make an appearance.  And the preview for the next episode said it stars Burgess Meredith.  I think this is the 4th one he's been in.  Before working my way through all these the only Meredith episode I remembered was "Time Enough At Last" about the book nerd who breaks his glasses after the apocalypse.

"Stage Fright" (aka "Deliria," aka "Stage Fright Aquarius," 1987)

The cast and crew of an artsy stage musical are locked inside their theater overnight with a psycho killer, who proceeds to pick them off one by one.
An Italian slasher flick directed by Argento protege' Michael Soavi (later of "The Church" and "Cemetery Man" fame). It's a nice looking film in that slick "'80s new wave music video" kind of way and there's some legit gore, but as with so many other Italian horror movies, the acting and dialogue is stiff and awkward, there are some serious lapses of logic, and the characters are all so shrill, stupid, and annoying that they deserve everything that happens to them.
If you must see every slasher film ever made, go nuts. Otherwise, you're not missing anything if you skip this.

The current "expanded" Twilight Zone episode I'm watching called "Printer's Devil" is still obviously padded more than necessary to fit the hour long format but it has Burgess Meredith as the Devil so it's still pretty entertaining. The more I see that guy in stuff the more I appreciate the "panache" he brought to roles. Just in his TZ episodes alone he's played widely divergent characters and that's not to mention his later turns as The Penguin and Rocky's manager.

"Opera" (aka "Terror at the Opera," 1987)

Dario Argento's giallo/slasher hybrid about a young opera singer pursued by an obsessed fan who forces her to watch as he murders everyone close to her.
As usual for Unca Dario, the movie is an uneven blend of highbrow European arthouse and lowbrow, gory grindhouse. The movie is beautifully shot and packed with eye candy, and the murder scenes are gloriously gross... but the sluggish pacing, weird dialogue and unnecessary "WTF?" plot twists turned this into a slog. I guess I'll stick to "Suspiria" or "Inferno" when I'm in the mood for an Argento.