TODAY I WATCHED... (Movies. TV) 2022

Started watching the show From on Epix. Pretty good show.

A few more episodes of "Secrets of Playboy" via A&E On Demand. I think I'm caught up now.

"Always Amazing" (2018)

The recent passing of stand up comedian/magician Jonathan Szeles, aka "The Amazing Jonathan," prompted me to seek out this documentary about his life and career, which takes the viewer through his humble beginnings as a street performer in San Francisco to international comedy-club sensation and Vegas headliner, until the 2014 diagnosis of congestive heart failure that forced his retirement from performing.
I saw Johnathan live at a comedy club in New Jersey in the early '90s and got to chat with him for a minute after the gig when I bought a tee shirt from him, he seemed like a cool dude. R.I.P., sir.

Wayne's World 2 (1993)



The two cable access stars from SNL (Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) return and try their hand at promoting an outdoor concert dubbed Waynestock. Misadventures ensue. A fun movie with great cast, various parodies,cameos etc. Still fun after all these years.

The Mummy (1932)



Boris Karloff as the titular character, cursed to a horrid death and burial for desecrating his love's tomb in the hopes to resurrect her. Reawakened in modern (1932) tines, he attempts to convert her into his similar life. Rather slow moving, even though it clocks in at 74 minutes, and is my least favorite of he classic Universal monster pictures.

The Black Cat (1934)



Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi star as a Satanic priest and a vengeful man who the priest had taken, with a vacationing American couple caught in the middle. Cool, fast moving atmospheric movie with a subject matter not expected from a movie during this era.

"Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)" (2020)

After breaking up with the Joker, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) teams up with three other female bad-asses (Rosie Perez, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Jurnee Smollett) to bring down one of Gotham City's biggest crime bosses (Ewan McGregor). Basically it's a girl-powered "Deadpool," with lots of slapstick gags, fourth wall breaks, and over the top ultra violence. Not a classic for the ages, but an entertaining time waster. Your mileage may vary depending on the size of your boner for Margot Robbie.

"Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (2022)

The ninth (!) installment in the seemingly never-ending "TCM" franchise takes the direct-to-Netflix route. An investment group of twenty something hipsters have purchased an entire Texas "ghost town," intending to gentrify it and turn it into a tourist attraction, but they soon learn that there's still one resident hanging around who doesn't take kindly to trespassers. You can probably figure out the rest.
"TCM" has always been my least favorite of the "big" horror franchises so I kept my expectations low for this one, which actually worked in its favor. It's not original in the slightest - the obvious inspiration is the 2018 "Halloween" reboot (i.e. erasing everything after the original from continuity, and bringing back a major character from the O.G.) but there's plenty of brutal, splashy gore and the slim running time (just shy of 90 minutes) kept it from wearing out its welcome. Don't get me wrong, this was still dumb as a box of rocks, but it was better than I expected, given the absolutely savage reviews I've been reading online.

I've been meaning to catch that Texas Chainsaw movie but haven't gotten around to it yet.

"Family"

John Landis directed this entry in season 2 of Masters Of Horror.  George Wendt stars as a seemingly normal single guy in an upper middle class suburb but he has some dark secrets.  A young couple moves in across the street and George has a thing for the young wife but gets a lot more than he bargained for.
This is one of the better entries in the MoH series mainly because Wendt is a hoot in his obviously Psycho-inspired role.

007 wrote:

I've been meaning to catch that Texas Chainsaw movie but haven't gotten around to it yet.

It's been getting absolutely brutal reviews but I was entertained. It's not the Royal Shakespeare Company, obviously, but if you're in the mood for some mindless violence and gore it'll fill the bill.

tohostudios wrote:

"Family"

John Landis directed this entry in season 2 of Masters Of Horror.  George Wendt stars as a seemingly normal single guy in an upper middle class suburb but he has some dark secrets.  A young couple moves in across the street and George has a thing for the young wife but gets a lot more than he bargained for.
This is one of the better entries in the MoH series mainly because Wendt is a hoot in his obviously Psycho-inspired role.

I don't know if I could handle "Norm" in a Psycho type role.

Fat Freddy wrote:

007 wrote:

I've been meaning to catch that Texas Chainsaw movie but haven't gotten around to it yet.

It's been getting absolutely brutal reviews but I was entertained. It's not the Royal Shakespeare Company, obviously, but if you're in the mood for some mindless violence and gore it'll fill the bill.

I try to ignore reviews before catching a flick. Marvel's Eternals has been getting bad reviews hut I found it entertaining but then again , I don't have the attention span of a goldfish.

Wendt is great as an evil, nutjob.  This is the second film I've seen him in that role (I can't remember what the other one was).  He has such an "everyman" look and you can't help but think of Norm when you see him so it's ultra-jarring to see him as a psycho killer.

EDIT: I remembered the other one.  Stuart Gordon's "King Of The Ants".  He's not really a nutjob in that one but he sure is seriously evil.

King of the Ants is a very good film. Very overlooked.

"The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974)

Five hippies on a van trip through rural Texas encounter the horrific Leatherface and his cannibal family in Tobe Hooper's classic shocker.. After watching the newest installment in the saga on Netflix last night, I felt compelled to revisit the O.G. today. It still packs a pretty major wallop even after all these years.

"Slave to the Grind" (2018)

No, it's not a documentary about the Skid Row album - it's about grindcore, the bastard mix of hardcore punk, thrash, and death metal that slithered out of the British underground in the mid '80s and eventually become a global phenomenon. Loaded with interviews and cool clips of all the major playas like Napalm Death, Carcass, Terrorizer, Agathocles, A.C., Nasum, and many more. I'm not even a grind guy, but I enjoyed this fast moving, thorough investigation.

The original TCM is a masterpiece.  it still amazes me how relatively bloodless it is; you think you see so much more gore than you actually do which is a testament to the filmmaking. 

Plus I have fond memories of that film.  There's nothing like seeing it on Halloween night on a college campus with an audience of half-drunk college kids (including me).  I'll never forget the hooting and hollering after the opening scroll voiced by John Laroquette.  It was almost like a Rocky Horror Picture Show audience with people bringing cardboard chainsaws and Leatherface masks and stuff. Fun time.

tohostudios wrote:

The original TCM is a masterpiece.  it still amazes me how relatively bloodless it is; you think you see so much more gore than you actually do which is a testament to the filmmaking.

Yeah, I actually watched it with my fourteen year old (who also watched the new one with me last night; not sure if that makes me the coolest Dad ever, or the worst, haha) and he said he was surprised at the lack of gore. I guess with a title like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," you expect it to be wet. He liked it a lot, though towards the end he said he wished they'd stick the rag back in "Sally's" mouth to shut her up, cuz all she does is scream, scream, scream for the last twenty minutes of the movie

When I was a kid, it was one of those movies I was literally afraid to see for the longest time, cuz it had such a rep as the most horrifying gross out horror films ever made and blah blah blah. So when I finally saw it when I was in college I was like "So that's it, huh? Big deal."

The Walking Dead

Latest episode of A&E's Secrets of Playboy. Ol' Hef was into some seriously dank shit, yo.

"The Stepford Wives" (1975)

A family moves from New York City to the tranquil small town of Stepford in rural Connecticut, where life is perfect... maybe a little too perfect. As the wife struggles to fit in with her homebody neighbors, she begins to suspect that something sinister is going on behind the scenes.
This suspense flick with a touch of sci-fi horror and a hint of satire has a cool premise, but it drags on so long so that by the time the big twist is revealed it's lost all its punch. Followed by several made-for-TV sequels in the '80s and '90s and a big budget remake in the early '00s.

The Price Of Fame. 2017 documentary about The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase. The film goes into Ted's upbringing to his rise of fame in his wrestling career and how that fame almost cost him his marriage. And what he did to turn his life around through faith.

"Taxi" (2004)

An inept NYC cop (Jimmy Fallon) whose drivers license has been taken away commandeers a taxi cab driven by a speed demon (Queen Latifah) to help him catch a persistent gang of lady bank robbers. Entertainingly silly car-crash nonsense, based on a series of successful French action comedies. Latifah is clearly having a ball but Fallon is an annoying dork (I can see why his movie career never took off) and Ann-Margret (!) shows up briefly in a pointless bit part as Fallon's drunken Mom. Pretty cookie-cutter stuff all around, but I've seen worse.

"Blackhearts" (2016)

Black metal musicians from Iran, Colombia and Greece all make separate pilgrimages to black metal's "motherland" of Norway to play at festivals and soak up the "true" atmosphere. Along the way, the Iranian guy ponders a permanent stay in Norway, because metal music of any kind is "illegal" in his homeland. Meanwhile, the Colombian band hold a full blown Satanic mass to beg Lucifer for the cash for their travel visas, and a member of the Greek band lands in jail for his connection to a neo-Nazi political party. (His bandmates eventually go to Norway without him.) Also, Norway has special "black metal" bus tour trips that  take BM fanboys to sites like Euronymous' old record store "Helvete" and the churches that were burned during the early 90s "Black Circle" crime wave. If I'm ever in Norway I'm definitely taking that tour.

Fat Freddy wrote:

"The Stepford Wives" (1975)

A family moves from New York City to the tranquil small town of Stepford in rural Connecticut, where life is perfect... maybe a little too perfect. As the wife struggles to fit in with her homebody neighbors, she begins to suspect that something sinister is going on behind the scenes.
This suspense flick with a touch of sci-fi horror and a hint of satire has a cool premise, but it drags on so long so that by the time the big twist is revealed it's lost all its punch. Followed by several made-for-TV sequels in the '80s and '90s and a big budget remake in the early '00s

That movie is a textbook example of a cool idea that would make a classic Twilight Zone episode but drags too much when padded out to a feature-length film

tohostudios wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

"The Stepford Wives" (1975)

A family moves from New York City to the tranquil small town of Stepford in rural Connecticut, where life is perfect... maybe a little too perfect. As the wife struggles to fit in with her homebody neighbors, she begins to suspect that something sinister is going on behind the scenes.
This suspense flick with a touch of sci-fi horror and a hint of satire has a cool premise, but it drags on so long so that by the time the big twist is revealed it's lost all its punch. Followed by several made-for-TV sequels in the '80s and '90s and a big budget remake in the early '00s

That movie is a textbook example of a cool idea that would make a classic Twilight Zone episode but drags too much when padded out to a feature-length film

Oh yeah, it definitely could have been at least a half hour shorter, at just shy of 2 hours it became an an endurance contest.

I'd never seen it before, though I think I may have seen one of the made-for-TV sequels in the '80s. I think Barbara Eden (!) may have been in it.

Suburban Nightmare : Chris Watts. The true story of Chris Watts who murdered his pregnant wife and 2 young daughters in Colorado.

Gator Bait (1974)



Drive in favorite about a Cajun beauty (Playboy playmate Claudia Jennings) wrongfully accused of murder who must then defend herself and her siblings from the law and a fellow Cajun family out for revenge. Sort of a cross between Weekend Warriors and First Blood, and rather entertaining.