TODAY I WATCHED ... (TV, Movies, Sports, etc.) 2024

The X Files

The first 4 episodes of Files Of The Unexplained, a docuseries about alien encounters/ufo sightings, ghost, missing people etc.

Hunt For Red October (1990)
Clear And Present Danger (1992)
Sum Of All Fears (2002)

Had not seen any of these for a bit... Dug "Clear And present Danger" the most, the premise was more believable. I forgot all about "Patriot Games" until looking up the release years for the above titles. Sure it will be somewhere for a buck. "Sum Of All Fears" had ONE thing that kept messing with my brain, one of those "does not compute" moments. An Israeli A-4 gets shot down during the 1973 war with Egypt & Syria and nobody went to look for it, especially after there was no, "Hey Levi, check out that funny looking cloud over there". So everything lost it's cohesiveness after digesting that nugget. The cool thing is I went to the once a month book sale that supports the local library yesterday and bought the Tom Clancy novels they based these flics on. It made sense then. Those books are way too thick for a 90 minute flic to do justice with.

So these flics get packaged together and from a possible 5 Unicorns & Puppy Dogs combined for the three... I guess 2.75 or so. I might watch again just to scope out the supporting casts a bit closer.
They screwed the dog by having Jack's "Black Boss" get killed off in two story lines. Of The 3 Jack's cast in these flics... Baldwin somehow made everything he said seem like a guess. Ford was just too old for the character. Which leaves Affleck for the win. I guess?

I managed to also watch about 20 minutes or so of "Starship Troopers 2- Heroes Of The Federation"

Some of the stupidest stuff I have ever watched and I have watched some really stupid stuff.

Five Nights At Freddy's (2023)



A desperate man , afraid of losing custody of his little sister, takes s job as an overnight security guard at a long closed Chuck E. Cheese-like restaurant. He soon discovers that the job is not going to be as simple as he thought it was going to be. Based on the survival horror game, I wasn't expecting too much, but was pleasantly surprised by it, with the creatures costumes excellently rendered by the Jim Henson company.

This weekend I've been re-watching "Anthrax 40," a series of documentary videos the band posted on their YouTube channel in 2021 to celebrate their 40th anniversary (and doubtlessly to give them something to do during COVID lockdown).



There are 24 (!) episodes in total, each running about 9 or 10 minutes, in which they cover a different album or era of the band, and pretty much everybody who's ever been involved with them (current and former band members, tour mates, producers, managers, etc.) turn up to comment or tell stories. (Notable exception: Dan Nelson, whose short tenure as lead vocalist is totally glossed over. They don't even mention his name. Haha!)

This series is a lot of fun and even tho I've been an Anthrax fan since the beginning, I still learned a few bits of trivia I'd never known before.

Recent watching experiences...

The Chronicles Of Narnia- The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2005)
Worth the 50 cents spent 1.5 Unicorns & Puppy Dogs

Godzilla- King Of The Monsters (2019)
Man I got an overdose of shitty CGI 1 Unicorn & Puppy Dog

Windtalkers (2002)
Great story, but... 1.5 Unicorns & Puppy Dogs

House Of 1000 Corpses (2003)
All I have to say is It does not register on the Unicorn & Puppy Dog rating scale

AEW Collision
The X Files

Southern Comfort (1981)



A group of Louisiana National Guardsmen going onto the bayou on a training mission and end up running afoul of a group of Cajun hunters. One of the men jokingly fires blanks at the hunters, who return in kind with live ammo, killing their C.O. and in the confusion lose their maps, compass and radio. The surviving men then need to make their way back to civilization while being pursued by the hunters. Somewhat of a take on Deliverance, and just about as fun to watch, with a great cast including Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe and Fred Ward.

"Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S." (2003)

The Big Green Guy is back again and he's pretty pissed off, unfortunately for the people of Tokyo. It may take the combined efforts of Mothra and a barely-functional Mecha-Godzilla to save the city from this latest rampage. Of course there's some additional drama involving the puny humans who are caught in the middle of all the monster mashin' action.
It's been a while since I've seen a Godzilla flick so when I stumbled across this one on YouTube tonight I couldn't resist pressing "play.". Sometimes, good ol' fashioned Japanese giant monster gibberish just hits the right spot.

The Unborn (1991)



A married couple, dealing with infertility issues, are recommended by an acquaintance to a specialist who has a tremendous success rate. It works for them, and soon the wife begins to suspect that something is wrong with the baby and the specialist has sinister ulterior motives. A decent enough time waster. I've seen much worse in my days.

Warren Haynes Band- Live At The Moody Theater in Austin, Tx. (11/3/2011)

007 wrote:

The Unborn (1991)

Man, that thumbnail looks like Crack Baby Palpatine

Quick Change (1990)



Three crooks (Bill Murray, Geena Davis And Randy Quaid) pull off a flawless bank robbery, However, escaping from New York City proves to be a more daunting task, with various mishaps occurring at nearly every turn and the police, led by Jason Robards , being 2 steps behind them. A fun movie here with Murray at his finest.

Last evening it was "Dawn of The Dead" (2004) & "From Dusk Till Dawn" (1996)

(IMHDO) Both were different levels of crap.  The bonus disc for "From Dusk Till Dawn" was way better.  It is laughable seeing the time/effort/cash put into the "special effects" on the bonus disc and then seeing how corny it was in the film.   Clooney doing some lame "Scarface" type role was more cringe worthy than a recent live clip of current KISS.   I guess "Dean of The Dead" is a remake? Seen the "original"  quite a bit at the local "Midnight Movies", usually a double feature with "Night Of The Living Dead".  Which, if memory serves me correct, was done by same Barney directing?  It started out okay... Then went down quicker than Lindsay Lohan on some Disney Executive.

For these two flics, the Unicorn & Puppy Dog rating scale barely registers.  Some fractional amount that is less than 1/4 sounds about right.

"Spirit Halloween: The Movie" (2022)

Three teens who've decided they're "too old" for trick-or-treating opt to celebrate Halloween by sneaking into their local Spirit Halloween store after closing time to spend the night. Unfortunately the store was built on cursed ground, and a malevolent ghost (Christopher Lloyd) uses the store's animatronics and monsters to try and possess one of the kids' bodies.
...I worked for Spirit Halloween when this movie came and went in about a week in 2022, and it was pretty much what I expected to see: a feature length commercial for the chain disguised as a low budget, family friendly "spooky" movie ala  "Goosebumps." It wasn't altogether terrible, but  I'll never sit through it again. It was fun to pick out all of the featured Spirit Halloween merch from my time working there, though. "Hey, I remember that mask! I remember that creature!"

Candy Corn (2019)



Familiar tale of revenge from beyond the grave. On Halloween weekend, a group of teens enjoy bullying a local outcast on an annual basis. This tine, however, the outcast decides to fight back and is beaten to death. The outcast had landed a job with a traveling carnival, and the host of the side show attraction, who dabbles in the black arts, resurrects the outcast and sets him loose on his mission of revenge. A low budget film here, that makes the most of it's meager funding. Still, not that special of movie and not an essential viewing.

Brawl in Cell Block 99

Bradley Thomas is a down-on-his-luck guy whose marriage is on the rocks, and he's just been laid off. He turns to running drugs for a friend to fix his financial woes and decides to have a child with his wife to mend things on that front. Bad goes to worse when he ends up going to jail after a drug run gone wrong.

Vince Vaughn stars as Bradley, and he shows he can do more than cheesy comedy movies. This one is visceral bordering on outright savage. The fight scenes aren't flashy, slick, and precise. Rather, they tend to cumbersome, weighty, and brutal. Vaughn does a solid job here. Jennifer Carpenter of Dexter fame plays his wife, and is serviceable if unspectacular. There are a few other known names that crop up, with Don Johnson being one of the most notable both in name and the how he plays the role.
A solid movie, though it is a bit slow in pace.

Monday Night Raw
NXT
The X Files

"Robin Hood: Men in Tights" (1993)

Mel Brooks spoofs the legendary Robin Hood saga, with tons of sight gags and one liners delivered by a great cast that includes Cary Elwes, Dave Chappelle, Tracey Ullman, and even Sir Patrick Stewart!
"Men in Tights" is not a top drawer Mel flick, but it's more fun than the godawful Kevin Costner "R.H." movie that inspired it

Firstborn (1984)



A high schooler (Christopher Collet) and his younger brother (Corey Haim) try to protect their family from their divorced mother's (Teri Garr) dangerous and destructive new boyfriend (Peter Weller) a drug dealing and abusive loser. As is typical on these situations, the mom refuses to see the truth and defends the boyfriend and takes his side until it may be too late. Worth a viewing.

Comedy Central Roasts of William Shatner and Charlie Sheen.

AEW Dynamite
The X Files

"This Is GWAR" (2022)

The Scumdogs of the Universe get their own documentary! This is a very thorough chronicle of the long and sometimes bumpy career of everyone's favorite band of bloodthirsty punk rockin' heavy metal space mutants. Amidst all the blood-spewing live concert footage, interviews with band members past and present, and vintage pix, there's a surprising behind-the-scenes story about the friction between two of the band's founding members, the late Dave "Oderus" Brockie and Hunter "Techno Destructo" Jackson, who spent years in a constant battle for control over GWAR's vision and direction. An often hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking, metal-as-hell movie that's a must-see for all GWAR slaves. Hail GWAR!

Walker

Files Of The Unexplained