TODAY I WATCHED... (Movies, TV, etc.) 2023

Started season 5 of Lost

This Is Gwar

Only Murders In The Building

Lost

Got this 4 pack DVD set with "Fast Times, Weird Science, Animal House, and Dazed & Confused for a buck. Watched part of "Fast Times" last night.

Smackdown
Monday Night Raw
AEW

"Clerk." (2021)

The long and sometimes bumpy life and career of filmmaker, podcaster, writer, and all around pop culture nerd Kevin "Clerks" Smith is examined in this entertaining documentary that features comments from famous friends and cast mates and lots of classic clips from Kev's archives. Long time fans probably won't learn anything new from it, but it's a fun trip down memory lane with the Jersey slacker made good.

"Red State" (2011)

Small-town teens and the ATF have an unfortunate run-in with a gun-happy, homicidal Midwestern religious cult that's kinda like a combo of the Westboro Baptist Church and the Branch Davidians. Much mayhem ensues.
Director Kevin Smith steps outside of his "View Askew-niverse" (there's no Jay & Silent Bob cameo here, kids) and the result is a surprisingly dark mixed bag; he has called it a "horror" film but it plays more like a violent suspense thriller, with great performances by Michael Parks (as the Fred Phelps-ish cult leader) and the always-welcome John Goodman as the embattled Federal agent. Worth checking out if only to prove that Kev can work in other genres when he chooses to.

Monday Night Raw

WW 1984

What an absolute hunk of junk.

Shawshank Redemption (with my daughter who had never seen it). What an absolute gem.

I've been slackin' on the movie watching of late. Gotta get back in the groove!

"Slave To The Grind" (2018)

No, it's not a documentary about the Skid Row album -- it's about grindcore, the bastard child of hardcore punk and death metal that came roaring out of the underground in the mid 80s and still has a healthy following today. Features lots of interviews and clips with members of the genre's heavy hitters like Repulsion, Terrorizer, Napalm Death, Nasum, Agathocles, Rotten Sound, and many more. I'm not a grind fan at all, but I still enjoyed this fast moving, entertaining doc.

"Judgment Night" (1993)

Four friends on a "Boy's Night Out" rent a luxury RV and head off to see a boxing match in Chicago, but an unfortunate detour lands them in a bad neighborhood, where they witness a gangland murder and spend the rest of the movie on the run from the criminals responsible. Stephen ("Predator 2") Hopkins' urban suspense thriller is probably better remembered today for its groundbreaking rap/rock soundtrack, but the movie is action packed fun in its own right, with a stellar cast that includes Emilio Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Denis Leary, who's awesomely evil as the main bad guy.

Over the past two nights, I also watched "Secrets of Penthouse" on A&E...

This four part docu-series details the rise and fall of Bob Guccione, who began publishing a slightly more risque' "Playboy" knock-off magazine while living in England in the late 60s. When he brought Penthouse to the U.S. a few years later, it launched a multi-media empire that included more magazines, a record label, videos, and feature films (incl. the notorious box office bomb Caligula). Along the way, Bob managed to alienate all four of his children, and eventually his inability to adapt to the winds of change in the adult entertainment biz led to his downfall and bankruptcy.
This was a fun watch, even though it covers most of the same ground as a previous doumentary feature on Guccione, Filthy Gorgeous, which told the same story in just over 90 minutes.

"Rage Of Honor" (1987)

After his partner is killed by a drug cartel, a Japanese/American DEA agent (Sho "Revenge of the Ninja" Kosugi) embarks on a personal mission to avenge his friend, bringing a one-man War On Drugs to the South American source. Naturally, many butts are kicked.
This was a pretty standard low budget '80s action flick. Kosugi never could speak English worth a damn, so his attempts at dialogue are unintentionally hilarious, but his martial arts moves are on point as he chops, kicks, and punches his way through a seemingly endless army of henchmen on the way to his final battle with the Big Boss.
Directed by Gordon "KISS Meets The Phantom of the Park" Hessler!

"Wishmaster" (1997)

An evil spirit known as a "Djinn," which has the power to grant wishes (for a steep price) is freed from his gemstone prison after a thousand years, and only the antiquities dealer who accidentally freed him has the power to put him back.
Wes Craven "presented" this entertaining low budget horror flick which has a cool villain and some impressively gory old-school practical effects. Sharp eyed horror nerds will also get a kick out of the cameos by Kane "Jason" Hodder, Robert "Freddy" Englund and Tony "Candyman" Todd, among others. Followed by at least three sequels, last I checked.

Aliens


With my daughter at the retro Paramount Theater

Halloween 4:The Return Of Michael Myers (1988)



After the first 2 Halloween movies, John Carpenter envisioned the series as being an anthology series, with the 3rd movie being something totally different, and totally unrelated, to the Michael Myers saga.. Although I enjoyed Halloween 3, it was poorly received and it was decided to bring Myers back in this film. Ten years after the second installment, a comatose Michael Myers,having survived being blown up by Dr. Loomis,discovers he has a niece and escapes during a hospital transfer, on October 30th naturally, to hunt her down. Loomis discovers his escape and begins pursuing him and the mayhem begins.
I had never seen this,since this , and the following movies have been made non canonical, due to the recent reboot. And to be honest, it's not that good. This is pretty much a standard slasher, with people doing things no one would ever do in this type of situation, and Michael Myers has developed the Jason Voorhees teleportation ability, being able to appear in separate places almost instantly. Still, I'm sure ill check out the remaining films I haven't seen.

"The Vigilante" (2023)

A lady Marine returns home from serving in Afghanistan, and finds herself fighting a whole new battle when her teenage sister is kidnapped by sex traffickers.
This cheap looking Tubi "original" has a few decent action sequences, but eventually it starts to feel like an ultra-violent Lifetime Channel movie. Not terrible, but nothing I'll ever sit through again.

Last Days Here(2011)-documentary about long running cult doom metal band Pentagram's Bobby Liebling, the band's talented, but troubled lead singer. Liebling is 53(he looks 73)lives in his parents basement and is a full blown junkie. Despite this, he still has dreams of Pentagram being a success. His manger has hopes of Bobby reuniting with the surviving original members of Pentagram and recording one final album as well as Bobby finally getting clean. This film at times is pretty sad and bleak, but with still a thread of hope as well. The movie doesn't really go that deep into the bands history and instead focus in on the train wreck that Bobby Liebling was at that point in his life.3/5

Halloween 5: The Revenge Of Michael Myers (1989)



Picking up right at the end of the previous film, the movie starts by showing how Myers escaped from the lynch mob and gets nursed back to help by a hermit (a la the blind man in Bride Of Frankenstein). Laying low for a year, he revives in time for Halloween Eve and restarts his search for his niece, who now has a psychic link with the killer. Meanwhile, a man in black lurks in the shadows with an as yet unexplained ulterior motive. The typical fun from this type of movie ensues. Pretty standard stuff.

Paranormal Caught On Camera

"The Horror Show" (aka "House III," 1989)

Serial killer Max "Meat Cleaver" Jenke is executed in the electric chair, but he comes back as a supernatural force intent on getting revenge on the police officer who brought him to justice.
Sean S. Cunningham of "Friday the 13th" fame produced this knock-off of "Nightmare on Elm Street" and/or "Shocker" that doesn't have an original bone in its body, but it's got plenty of cool/creepy atmosphere, some decent gory bits and strong performances by the late great Brion James as "Max" (who has said that this was his favorite role of his career) and the always dependable Lance Henriksen as the tortured policeman. Released as "House III" outside of the U.S. for some reason.

"The Boneyard" (1991)

A couple of cops, a lady psychic, and some night shift workers are trapped inside a small town morgue building with some corpses who won't stay dead. Hilarity ensues, but I'm not entirely sure it was intentional.
This weird-as-hell horror cheapie doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's watchable due to its bizarro-world casting (Norman "Mr. Roper" Fell and Phyllis god-damn Diller have supporting roles, and the female lead tips the scales at about 275 lbs.) and its uncomfortably creepy puppet/creature FX. If you can imagine a low rent "Return of the Living Dead" knock off featuring a monstrous zombie poodle (yes, seriously) you're in this movie's ball park. Make no mistake, this was terrible, but in an awesome sort of way.

Eight Legged Freaks (2002)



In this horror comedy, a tourist trap spider farm is exposed to toxic waste, causing them to grow in size and escape. They begin to prey on the citizens of the nearby destitute mining town. Its up to the returning prodigal son of the mine owner (David Arquette) and the county sheriff (Kari Wuhrer, looking fine as hell) to put an end to the attack. Not a bad film, although the cgi effects of the spiders is a bit off.

Fat Freddy wrote:

"The Boneyard" (1991)

A couple of cops, a lady psychic, and some night shift workers are trapped inside a small town morgue building with some corpses who won't stay dead. Hilarity ensues, but I'm not entirely sure it was intentional.
This weird-as-hell horror cheapie doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's watchable due to its bizarro-world casting (Norman "Mr. Roper" Fell and Phyllis god-damn Diller have supporting roles, and the female lead tips the scales at about 275 lbs.) and its uncomfortably creepy puppet/creature FX. If you can imagine a low rent "Return of the Living Dead" knock off featuring a monstrous zombie poodle (yes, seriously) you're in this movie's ball park. Make no mistake, this was terrible, but in an awesome sort of way.

I remember seeing this at the video store back in the day ( with the poodle creature on the cover of the box) but never did pull the trigger and rent it.

Went with my son last night to see Equalizer 3.

Always a good time watching Denzel stomp a mudhole in people.

"Scouts Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America" (2023)

Disturbing but intriguing Netflix doc on the Boy Scouts' decades-long habit of downplaying and covering up child sexual abuse within the organization, which was finally revealed in the 2010s when the BSA's top secret, so called "Perversion Files" became public and the depths of the problem were exposed for the first time.
Not the most pleasant subject for a doc, but I was interested as I was a Cub Scout when I was a kid in the 70s, and I was also very involved as an adult leader when both of my sons were Scouts. Thankfully I never witnessed anything weird or inappropriate, but it was kind of scary to learn how widespread the problem was (and probably still is) in spite of the BSA's claims that they're a "safer" organization now.