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I was also partial to Destroyer, mostly for the monster fight and the amazing opening scene and score.

It helped that our cantor belted out the prayer following the sh'ma in a similar melody. It felt like we were blessing His Name in glorious majesty forever and ever with a mighty sword, by the Anvils of Crom!

Until recently I didn't like destroyer as much. This changed last year after having not watched it in years. I really like the way the movie was shot in several spots and there is subtle storytelling as well. The monster isn't amazing however, there are little things it does to establish it as the credible threat it is suppose to be. It crushes a man under foot being the standout action. Mako as the wizard lighting the torch in the temple. He has this look of disgust as being relegated to torch guy, it is clearly beneath him, not worth the magic he's about to use. I also like the way they pull into frame on horseback, very cowboy western. It work, I watch actors hitting their mark in frame and this sort of thing is all over the place. This movie isn't as epic but it is very good. There was no PG13 at the time if I remember and the studio didn't want the R rating.
Love the line "lot on your knife." And most of the party banter is fun.

Recently saw Space Jam

I never watched it when it was the hotness way back in the day.

It was enjoyable for what it was, but I think I liked Looney Tunes: Back in Action better.

I did enjoy that Michael Jordan was supposed to live in a normal "hollywood" middle income, cul-de-sac neighborhood, and had a very sitcom ready family and needed a ride to go places. He's just an ordinary guy.... and the greatest Basketball player ever! Despite the "whitewashing" of MJ, they did take a couple of subtle cracks at his expense.

Bill Murray also slays in this....

Best line: "I didn't know Dan Akroyd was in this movie!"

 warhead01 wrote:
Until recently I didn't like destroyer as much. This changed last year after having not watched it in years. I really like the way the movie was shot in several spots and there is subtle storytelling as well. The monster isn't amazing however, there are little things it does to establish it as the credible threat it is suppose to be. It crushes a man under foot being the standout action. Mako as the wizard lighting the torch in the temple. He has this look of disgust as being relegated to torch guy, it is clearly beneath him, not worth the magic he's about to use. I also like the way they pull into frame on horseback, very cowboy western. It work, I watch actors hitting their mark in frame and this sort of thing is all over the place. This movie isn't as epic but it is very good. There was no PG13 at the time if I remember and the studio didn't want the R rating.
Love the line "lot on your knife." And most of the party banter is fun.

It really does feel like a very well played game of D&D, everyone is just in character and having fun.

Spencer on Netflix

Action/Comedy about a cop that comes out of jail after going against his department and is now trying to solve a case that involves members of the department with the rest of the force antagonizing him.

The first part of the movie had me thinking that i was watching a sequel to something I didnt watch. Between this and Birds of Prey im a little tired of "lets start in the middle, go back to the beginning, then catch up to the middle and finally carry on".

Besides that i actually enjoyed the movie. Gave a bit of a Crank vibe. Not as over the top, but it has Mark Wahlberg hamming it up a bit as a Boston cop

John Wick 3

As a massive fan of the first one I wasn't too keen on the sequel drifting into video game dakka ballet, the 3rd one just doubles down on this with admittedly stunningly choreographed set pieces that just go on for far too long, heck the end of the film is just one long final level complete with fancy FPS game locations and literal bullet sponge baddies, although props to the lubberly Ms Berry for wrangling second billing despite barely being in it

Love Death and Robots

Animated shorts about, well what it says on the tin, quality varies but more hits than misses (my fav being the Farmers with Battlemechs one)

Jojo Rabbit

I think this film might have out clevered me, there's clearly something going on under the silly but I cant quite grasp it, but hey it ends with Bowie so that'll do

Gorgo

So much lovely stock footage of era British aircraft shooting at Gorgo.

The plot makes no sense. Why did they try to hold onto the baby and not just let it go again? I guess it is a metaphor for the folly of greed..... or something?

The Cat Returns

Always a treat to find some Miyazaki I've never seen, a lovely modern fairy tale.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
The Cat Returns

Always a treat to find some Miyazaki I've never seen, a lovely modern fairy tale.

its one of the more middle of the pack ones to me, but the choice for the Baron's voice was pure gold

Finally saw Alita the other day. About what I expected beginning to end. Kind of hilariously rushed, but pretty good overall. I'd like to see the sequel but seems unlikely.

Bone Tomahawk: Just superb. Beautifully drawn out and written so well. Glorious acting, and ....brutal. So refreshing in a world of Hollywood nonsense. Definitely something you'll love or hate, but I still can't get over how superbly the whole thing is done.

Watched "The Villainess" last night.

Good , fun little movie, bits very much reminded me of Old Boy and you can definately see how bits of it have influenced films like the John Wick series too.

Here is my review of The Hunt




The Hunt shows how a great female lead can be portrayed, but unfortunately, she does so in this movie...

Invasion: USA

Sadly, not the Chuck Norris version.... no, it is the 1952 version.

This movie is clearly Cold War propaganda of the worst sort, and probably partially funded by the Pentagon. A bunch of people are in a bar and hypnotized into seeing a vision of the USA invaded by a foreign invader. I hate the right wing slant of this entire movie, but.....


It is filled to the brim the glorious stock footage of jets, planes, carriers, and more from WWII and Korea. So much good stock footage! It is a bit unnerving watching stock footage of planes getting shot down with actual people getting killed in such a drek movie.

Watch it for a great stock footage and the Cold War inferiority complex!

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I needed to watch Conan the Barbarian AND the Destroyer for RESEARCH, so I got 4 pack with them, Kull and Scorpion King.

The two Conans are very different, light and dark but both good. I prefer Destroyer since it was always on when I was a kid and I have fond memories of it.

Scorpion King tries to do the same and has some of the Rock's humor and charisma but is still a bit of a pale imitation.

Kevin Sorbo's Kull was originally going to be Conan 3 but Arnold pulled out so they changed it to Robert E Howard's other barbarian hero. It feels like an extra long episode of Hercules, so yeah. About as good as that. Made me wish I'd watched Destroyer again.

Conan the Barbarian: Classic, without question. Not the least becasue of a mix of early Schwarzenegger and Milius. The best film fantasy soundtrack ever. A staple of our D&D games.
Conan the Destroyer: ...problematic. There are some good bits, and I think it would be a beloved niche classic if it wasn't the sequel to the great Conan.

Never seen Scorpion King. I'm aware that The Dwayne is a class human being, but I really don't have to see him in films. Also... a fantasy film after 1998.... come on. Those were never good, right?

KULL: Recently seen it again and had a whale of a time. It's great. And it's got 1990s Tia Carrere. WITH RED HAIR. As an evil sorceress. What more can one ask for. Sorbo's also OK for the role of a 1990s barbarian. He cxan be equally white-meat babyface as well as smug dafty.





@Easy E: For some reason Space Jam is getting this weird recognition now. I guess it's because people who saw it as 5 year olds are all old and boring and nostalgic for childhood memory stuff. Never really seen it to be honest, but I do hear people talk about it more again recently.
As for Gorgo - dang, you seem to watch all the films I only know via Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I think it's a metaphor of too much dorkin' and the excessive want to do a monster film in the UK. However, for that unique status alone it's interesting. Invasion USA: Again, only seen the MST3k version. What are you going to watch next? The Giant Gila Monster? Squirm (which I hear is pretty hardcore in the original version)?




I only really watched tv shows recently. Yeah, I saw The Dark Knight again. It's perfectly fine. Really good film. Then I watched The IT Crowd. About 12 years ago I watched the first episode, but found gags to be predictable and the show itself a bit boring. Gave it another go, really like it. Not as wacky as Black Books and of course far from Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, but it's fun. And I really like Jen. Good character. In general the show's good at characters. Of course there's absolute cartoon characters (mostly the bosses of course). That being said, these are used to great effect to poke fun at authority. Especially Matt Berry's character gets two lines which are some of the most important ones of our time. The first being in the Friendface episode in which he shows up at Jen's class reunion because "friendface is great because it allows bosses to know where their employees are all the time". The more important thing though is that after casually uncovering a very strict surveillance programme on all employees "if you got nothing to hide you got nothing to fear" (again, quoting from memory). Which of course is possibly THE central fallacy of our time (and any time period, but especially nowadays). I don't often wish for people to be slapped, but I'd like to slap everybody who claims that they "don't care. I got nothing to hide". Anyway, fun tv show.


Last night I couldn't sleep and decided to give Love on netflix another try. I watched the first season and then stopped (probably a few episodes later than I should have). I started season 2. It was the same experience as last time - I really like Gllian Jacobs, I don't like the main guy. I like the friends he hangs out with (apart from the music stuff, which is the most hipster thing I've ever seen). But the way they hang out and interact is really nice. I like how hollywood is depicted in this show. I despise the people Gillian Jacob socializes with, but the character is pretty insufferable anyway. That's a thing many people critizise about the show - the main characters being people you'd normally not wanna socialize with. But more than specific characters for some reason the show makes me really, really, really dislike Los Angeles. It seems like a dreadful place full of insane people who seems like a condensate of annoying habits and mindsets.

Last but not least I always kinda feel shortchanged or exploited when watching Netflix productions. I usually don't do that and make few exceptions (GLOW, because it's harmless and fun and I enjoy the subject), Hilda (because it's super-harmless and just nice) and I'm sure one or two other things I forgot. Oh yes, I watched Disenchanted. I defended it after the first season because it was O.K.. After the second season I'm just tired of defending it and I did curse at the screen when they introduced the dude and the "Steampunk" stuff. And before that the whole character development stuff led me to groan a few times.

Aaaanyway, to me Netflix tv shows always make me feel kinda exploited. They COULD employ engaging, tight storytelling instead of "character moments", but especially from season 2 on (in any show) they start doing entirely unnecessary filler episodes. I can understand that with regular tv shows which run for 24 episodes a season and don't make a big fuss about sequential storytelling or having a story at all. But in Love, season 2, there's a whole episode which is nothing but Mickey writing a text message which more or less means something, doesn't send it because she's not sure, in the end of the episode she decides to delete it and doesn't send it in the end. In between, non-consequential quirky side character things happen. The next episode started out exactly the same and I stopped watching. It's really grating. Somehow this show makes me angry in hindsight. It also made me angry that nobody except the annoying main character knows who Michael Landon was. Okay, Mickey wouldn't know him. But his other friends didn't either? They want to talk inconsistencies in Dharma&Greg (which I would have loved to hear a longer conversation about, but it was only hinted at), but don't know Michael Landon? Odd. Oh well. Rant over.

No wait, there's another thing. I decided to watch Community again during the lockdown period. Somehow Dan Harmon really, really irritates me. Pretty sure I don't like him (judging from interviews and dvd commentary). However, he knows stuff about writing characters and about TV shows. It's weird, because I feel the same about Rick&Morty. I appreciate some points the show makes in certain ways, but I just don't enjoy the show at all. Oh well.

Oh, here's a positive thing: I found a new documentary on Cannon films on youtube. It's really good fun and just goes through the history of the company. Highly recommended: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TfJBNReCNo

The Killers: A thoroughly enjoyable movie that...you wouldn't expect to be any good. It's a better version of Knight and Day/Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Just a fun cast, fun writing, fun popcorn movie.

Kick Ass 2: I've always enjoyed the goofy/bizarre comic-book style of both these movies. I think the first one is a better movie, but I don't mind the sequel at all. Misses some of the glorious soundtrack pieces from the first.

 Sigur wrote:


@Easy E: For some reason Space Jam is getting this weird recognition now. I guess it's because people who saw it as 5 year olds are all old and boring and nostalgic for childhood memory stuff. Never really seen it to be honest, but I do hear people talk about it more again recently.
As for Gorgo - dang, you seem to watch all the films I only know via Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I think it's a metaphor of too much dorkin' and the excessive want to do a monster film in the UK. However, for that unique status alone it's interesting. Invasion USA: Again, only seen the MST3k version. What are you going to watch next? The Giant Gila Monster? Squirm (which I hear is pretty hardcore in the original version)?

With my family, I watch a lot of more mainstream shows, but I keep the obscure stuff for those special moments when they are not around, when I can steal 90 minutes to myself int he early morning or late at night.

Next up on my list is Iron Superman which looks like an amazing live-action Super-robot Japanese cartoon, AND made in the 70's!

 Easy E wrote:

 Sigur wrote:


@Easy E: For some reason Space Jam is getting this weird recognition now. I guess it's because people who saw it as 5 year olds are all old and boring and nostalgic for childhood memory stuff. Never really seen it to be honest, but I do hear people talk about it more again recently.
As for Gorgo - dang, you seem to watch all the films I only know via Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I think it's a metaphor of too much dorkin' and the excessive want to do a monster film in the UK. However, for that unique status alone it's interesting. Invasion USA: Again, only seen the MST3k version. What are you going to watch next? The Giant Gila Monster? Squirm (which I hear is pretty hardcore in the original version)?

With my family, I watch a lot of more mainstream shows, but I keep the obscure stuff for those special moments when they are not around, when I can steal 90 minutes to myself int he early morning or late at night.

Next up on my list is Iron Superman which looks like an amazing live-action Super-robot Japanese cartoon, AND made in the 70's!

I'm sure that one has about 8 different titles as well, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was the Jet Jaguar film.

Mortal Engines: I ordered this, despite its poor performance and general poor reviews...I was curious how they could screw up such a cool possible concept. This is one of the most painfully average, mediocre, inconsistently done movies....ugh...borderline painful. Also, the main male protagonist looks just like Emilia Clarke (and has a similarly pale performance).

Spiderman Far from Home

Torn between thinking the plot is the daftest thing ever or that the script / Beck's scheme was meta genius for a world already used to absurd nonsense, and had a giggle at the final post credits, I'll go 6/10

been watching the hobbit films with the wife.

Whilst I havent enjoyed them as much as LOTR, I dont think theyre as bad as some reviewers have posited. that could be down to nostalgia though.

overall, theyre a fun enough watch, with the slightly more comical nature of the dwarves making form some fun scenes.. I particularly liked the song where they do the washing up, and the barrels in the river.

negatives are you can definitely tell some parts have been shoehorned in just for filler, like the tauriel/kili love story, and tauriels made up character in general. and some of the CGI battle scenes are unnecessary.

I just discovered the Tales from the Crypt movies of the 90's: Demon Knight and Bordello of Blood.

Demon Knight was great - lovely practical effects and a solid cast chewing the scenery up a bit.
Bordello of Blood was OK, I enjoyed it but objectively it's not so good - a strange production history to it.

The background to these films is also interesting. Apparently the original anthology trilogy they had penned in was Demon Knight and what became From Dusk til Dawn and The Frighteners.
Tarantino wanted too much money and Universal were desperate to keep Robert Zemeckis onside, so he insisted on turning his college script into a movie - Bordello of Blood, which never got the cast they originally wanted and was received poorly, so scrapping the final film (until the early 2000's with a straight to video effort starring Jennifer Grey post nose job and Tim Curry).



All in all, fun schlock that I recommend.

Frozen II

Synopsis: Ice Queen Elsa is bored of living with humans. She's hearing a voice, calling her to the North. She wants to go, but doesn't want to endanger her Sister, but Sis isn't playing with that since she risked life and limb for Elsa in the last movie. They head North, with the original crew in tow. Along the way, they discover dark family secrets and keep trying to separate until finally Elsa is just sick of little sister's gak and shoves her away in an Ice Canoe.

Elsa discovers more unpleasant truths about her family's past, and eventually becomes Frozen, herself. Little Sister has to get the stone giants to break the dam that Grandfather Built to let water back into the forest so the nature spirits will stop being pissy, and let her people go!


Analysis: Despite my snarky review, I enjoyed the movie...

EXCEPT FOR THE SINGING!!

My key issue is not the singing itself, but that the songs are just musical exposition. All the songs are just versions of, "This is what I'm doing, and this is what I'm doing now, And this is what I'm going to do" while / leading into what they do.

A song about wanting to go into the unknown... before leaving on the adventure. A song, not just shoehorned but crowbarred into the movie about being lost in the woods. Anna's song, after



while she's climbing out of the hole. She sings about taking a first step, and takes a step, then sings about putting another foot forward... and does that. Sings about climbing out of a hole while she climbs out of a hole.

I was going ballistic. I started singing about sitting in my chair. I sang about how my kids were sitting in their chair. I sang about putting my hand in the air. I sang along with the songs, singing stupid things like, "I need to dodge this bouldier, or I be splatted flaaaaat!"

I think I would really like the movie, if it weren't for the exposition songs. Some kind of super cut where they take out the singing, or only allow them the first verse where they tell you what's going on before they skip to the end of the song and do what they said they're going to do. It would probably cut the movie in half, but that would be an good 45 minute or so movie.

If you have kids, they'll like it. You might like it too, if you can handle the singing. If you can't, just be a snarky jerk like me and amuse yourself for 3 minutes at a time by singing your own lyrics.

 warspawned wrote:
I just discovered the Tales from the Crypt movies of the 90's: Demon Knight and Bordello of Blood.

Demon Knight was great - lovely practical effects and a solid cast chewing the scenery up a bit.
Bordello of Blood was OK, I enjoyed it but objectively it's not so good - a strange production history to it.

The background to these films is also interesting. Apparently the original anthology trilogy they had penned in was Demon Knight and what became From Dusk til Dawn and The Frighteners.
Tarantino wanted too much money and Universal were desperate to keep Robert Zemeckis onside, so he insisted on turning his college script into a movie - Bordello of Blood, which never got the cast they originally wanted and was received poorly, so scrapping the final film (until the early 2000's with a straight to video effort starring Jennifer Grey post nose job and Tim Curry).

Spoiler:

Bordello was quite a strange set to work on - Erika Eleniak (aka Jordan Tate from Under Siege) wanted to be taken more seriously and refused a lot of ideas as a result, shutting herself in her trailer for most of the shoot. Quite why you'd sign on for a schlock low budget comedy/horror movie if you wanted to be taken seriously is anyone's guess. One of those ideas was her character was meant to be a former adult starlet of ample persuasion turned religious.
Dennis Miller was a disinterested A-hole who wanted a million dollars to do it and refused to re-do scenes with his fellow actors, only shooting his side before jetting off to do stand up somewhere and then promoted the film by basically dismissing it and saying 'save your money, don't bother seeing it'.
Joel Silver (or an appendage of his) was convinced super models starring in films was the next big thing and Angie Everheart was dating Stallone at the time only to break up with him mid-shoot, pretty devastated by it.
And poor Corey Feldman, fresh out of rehab, looking to create some sense of fun and camaraderie, was like 'WTF is wrong with these people?'
There's more to it but yeah - ultimately they picked a script that shouldn't have been made and the effects were pretty generic in concept throughout.

All in all, fun schlock that I recommend.

Thanks for all the extra info! I remembered The Freighteners having a strange production history itself, but I didn't know it was planned to be part of an anthology series. Great stuff.

I watched Bordello of Blood donkeys years ago on TV (late night TV was SUCH an important thing in introducing me to all sorts of films. Great stuff. I have no idea how kids today get to know films which are outside of their bubble of interest.), and I'd love to watch it again. JUst can't find it anywhere. Pretty sure I've seen Demon Knight as well at some point, but I can't remember a thing about it. I should watch that as well.

In general I really enjoy documentaries on the making of films. There should be more of those.


edit: Ha, what do you know... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q54IBrGRo3E

edit2: Argh, he only uploaded the first two parts of the documentary. I checked his channel, found out he must be a BIG fan of pretty lady hair. All hair product commercials and similar things. Sometimes it's nice to see that the internet as we used to know it still exists.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Frozen II

Synopsis: Ice Queen Elsa is bored of living with humans. She's hearing a voice, calling her to the North. She wants to go, but doesn't want to endanger her Sister, but Sis isn't playing with that since she risked life and limb for Elsa in the last movie. They head North, with the original crew in tow. Along the way, they discover dark family secrets and keep trying to separate until finally Elsa is just sick of little sister's gak and shoves her away in an Ice Canoe.

Elsa discovers more unpleasant truths about her family's past, and eventually becomes Frozen, herself. Little Sister has to get the stone giants to break the dam that Grandfather Built to let water back into the forest so the nature spirits will stop being pissy, and let her people go!


Analysis: Despite my snarky review, I enjoyed the movie...

EXCEPT FOR THE SINGING!!

My key issue is not the singing itself, but that the songs are just musical exposition. All the songs are just versions of, "This is what I'm doing, and this is what I'm doing now, And this is what I'm going to do" while / leading into what they do.

A song about wanting to go into the unknown... before leaving on the adventure. A song, not just shoehorned but crowbarred into the movie about being lost in the woods. Anna's song, after

Spoiler:

Olaf dies! For a little while...

while she's climbing out of the hole. She sings about taking a first step, and takes a step, then sings about putting another foot forward... and does that. Sings about climbing out of a hole while she climbs out of a hole.

I was going ballistic. I started singing about sitting in my chair. I sang about how my kids were sitting in their chair. I sang about putting my hand in the air. I sang along with the songs, singing stupid things like, "I need to dodge this bouldier, or I be splatted flaaaaat!"

I think I would really like the movie, if it weren't for the exposition songs. Some kind of super cut where they take out the singing, or only allow them the first verse where they tell you what's going on before they skip to the end of the song and do what they said they're going to do. It would probably cut the movie in half, but that would be an good 45 minute or so movie.

If you have kids, they'll like it. You might like it too, if you can handle the singing. If you can't, just be a snarky jerk like me and amuse yourself for 3 minutes at a time by singing your own lyrics.

My little girl is obsessed with the first one, so I want to try and find this for her, but I dont know its out here on dvd yet

Released on Disney +, if that helps. I probably enjoyed the plot of the 2nd, more than the 1st. Just so many of the songs feel crowbarred into the movie than the first where they felt a little more organic... and less exposition-y.

Wishmaster 1 and 2.

First one is pretty ace. Sets out the rules, leaves a pretty straight forward and relatively clever ‘out’ for our heroine.

Second one? Erm......yeah. Not entirely sure whether it wants to play it straight, or tongue in cheek. Probably best avoided!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Wishmaster 1 and 2.

First one is pretty ace. Sets out the rules, leaves a pretty straight forward and relatively clever ‘out’ for our heroine.

Second one? Erm......yeah. Not entirely sure whether it wants to play it straight, or tongue in cheek. Probably best avoided!

Always great to see Ted Raimi get killed!

So I read Tom Scioli's flying rodent gak insane Transformers vs GI Joe (if you are of a certain age, read it, it's cool!) and that got me thinking about the Second Greatest 90 Minute Toy Commercial Ever



And yeah, I enjoyed the insanity of it a lot more than I thought.

The opening credits of Joe vs Cobra on the Statue of Liberty with an extended version of the GI Joe theme is worth it by itself. The rest is just crazy good, crazy bad, or just nuts.

I especially liked when the Joes are prisoners but still have their bandoliers of grenades and such because they're molded on the action figure and you have to be on-model.

next I have to rewatch the Greatest 90 Minute Toy Commerical Ever.

Blackhawk Down: Still a decent Hollywood take on the event...and fun to see so many actors who hadn't made it terribly big at the time showing up - heaps of them...that movie has friggin' everybody in it.

Gladiator: A movie that I still enjoy despite knowing a lot about actual gladiators (news flash: the movie is...96% wrong). Still a very lovely shot movie, decent acting, great score.