What was the last movie you watched?

[Johnny Unusual]

The Inglorious Bastards (1978)

Fun fact, one of the film's US releases made a trailer that focused on the black soldier and tried to sell it as a blaxploitation movie entitled... G.I. Bro.  Hoo boy.

[RVR II]

Watched the 24/7 Star Wars Movies channel on my Amazon Fire Stick during Hurricane Florence..
Rogue One
A New Hope
Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi

[Darth Geek]

We Are Still Here (2015) - This was rather frustrating. For the first two thirds it was serious, and did a good job building tension. But then in the last third it got into nearly Evil Dead levels of silly gore and deaths. And the motivations of the...ghosts?...whatever, made no sense at the end. It also hinted at something larger and more significant than the ghosts we see, but never delivered.

[stethacantus]

Opium and the Kung Fu Master ( 1984 )
The 80s was the "Just Say No" decade. And Shaw Brothers did their part with this anti- drug film. Well, more specifically an anti opium film. The central character is Leung Kwan, a real life master from the late 19th century who was a member of the Ten Tigers of Kwangtung. Leung was know to have been a habitual Opium user, and it is believed that was what contributed to his death in 1912.

In this film villains open an Opium den in Kwangtung which gradually ruins the lives of various characters. One of Leung's students has basically abandoned his family and spends all of his time and money at the Opium den. He returns home to discover his wife has poisoned the kids and hung herself. Blaming his addiction for causing the tragedy, he commits suicide himself. This in turn enrages Leung's #1 student, who decides to attempt to burn the opium den to the ground. During all of this Leung himself has gradually grown addicted to opium. Finding out his student is about to burn the den down, he rushes out of his house to stop him. Leung ends up in a duel with the film's villain. But since he is now an addict, he not only loses the duel, but is unable to prevent the villain from murdering his student. Can Leung kick his addiction so he can avenge his student and drive the villains out of town? Well, of course. It wouldn't be much of a movie if he didn't.

This was an oddly preachy film demonstrating all the various ways opium will either ruin or kill people, after which other characters practically break the fourth wall to say the same message again and again, that opium eventually leads to death. Aside from the heavy handed anti-opium message, it is an excellent martial arts movie with decent fights.


Vampirella ( 1998 )
The Comic Code Authority had two goals. One was to create a regulatory commission run by the major comic book publishers instead of allowing the government to regulate content in comic books. The second, was so the comic book publishers could team up and take out EC Comics. During the 50s EC was the #1 comic book company, outselling DC, Dell, Archie and all the rest. EC was not invited to join the Comic Code Authority.  And one of the new rules the Authority came up with banned all horror comics, which was ECs mainstay. Stores refused to sell comic books without the Comic Code Authority seal, which meant EC could no longer sell Tails from the Crypt or any of their other best selling titles. But instead of going completely out of business, EC tried one last thing. They took their popular humor comic book Mad and relaunched it as a black and white magazine. Since it qualified as an adult magazine and not a comic book targeted at children, stores and newsstands put Mad Magazine on their shelves without the Comic Code Authority seal.

Cut to five years later. Another publisher launched Warren, perhaps best known for the long running magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland. Warren decided to go after the fans of EC by publishing new horror comics, this time as black and white magazines. Among their titles we're Creepy and Eerie. They even signed Harvey Kurtzman, founder of the Mad comic book, to write a new adult humor magazine called Help!.  Vampirella was another one of Warren's adult horror magazines, but with a scantly clad female heroine who was a crime fighting vampire. Although the Warren publications gained cult followings, they never approach the success of Mad Magazine.

Cut to the Late 90s. Someone acquired the movie rights to Vampirella, but was unable to find a studio interested. With the rights about to expire, they were offered to Showtime. At the time the network had been working with film producer Roger Corman who was producing for them a series of cheap science fiction and horror films under the title Roger Corman Presents. Vampirella was added to the second season.

This being a Roger Corman film, I had low expectations. But it turned out to be pretty good. Of course, it could have been a lot better if not for Corman's notorious budget cutting tricks. The film opens thousands of years ago on the planet Drakulon, a planet of vampires that somehow has rivers flowing with blood, which keeps the Vampires from eating each other. Roger Daltrey plays the film's villain Vlad, who has been arrested for killing and drinking the blood of his fellow vampires. Under arrested and about to be sentenced to death by the high council, he is freed when  his followers attack and kill the council members. They then steal a space ship and take it to Earth where as Dracula, Vlad begins turning humans into vampires. But back on Drakulon, the daughter of the head of the high council seeks revenge, and follows after Vlad in her own ship. There are mechanical problems, and she crash lands on Mars.

Thousands of years later astronauts discover the daughter's coffin on Mars and decide to bring it back to their ship. The daughter wakes up after a long sleep, and after hypnotizing the astronauts, has them bring her to Earth where as Vampirella she can hunt down and kill Vlad and his followers. Once on Earth she meets Adam Van Helsing, the latest in a long line of family members who have been hunting Dracula and his followers. Adam's father organized a covert law enforcement agency called PURGE, who use the latest high tech weapons to fight vampires. Vampirella falls in love with Adam, and almost immediately after he is kidnapped by Vlad's followers. Vampirella follows them back to their headquarters in Mexico, only to discover Vlad is about to launch a plan to use satellites to block out the sunlight and plunge the Earth into a permanent nighttime.

Everything About this film is cheap, including the special effects. Most notably, whenever Vampirella or Vlad turn into bats, where they are replaced with a cartoon bat that flies off screen faster than lightning. It is even worse than the vampire to bat transformations in the old Universal horror films. Roger Daltrey can't act, as usual. The title role was supposed to go to a busty actresses to match the body shape of Vampirella in the magazine. Instead the part went to the flat chested model Talisa Soto. At the time she was an up and coming super model. Corman had previously offered the role to Paula Abdul.

Despite all of this, Vampirella ended up being a decent film. It was meant to act as the origin to what was to be a series of movies, and after the ending credits the following pops up on screen:

Vampirella will return in "Death's Dark Avenger"

That never happened. After two seasons Showtime cancelled Roger Corman Presents.

King Kung Fu ( 1976 )
I bought this King Kong parody a couple of years ago, watched it, and figured I would never have to watch it again. The DVD, released by a company called Mr FAT-W Video, was full screen, but I figured that an obscure film like that was mostly likely only available as a pan and scan. But then I found out it had previously been released widescreen by Image. The Image discs were OOP and I wasn't about to spend $75 for the movie. Then recently Amazon had a listing for the Image discs at $10. with only a couple left.  However, the company listed on the DVD box is called Retromedia Ent. and neither the Image logo nor copyright nor any mention of Image Entertainment is anywhere on the box. Nor is Image mentioned on the disc. On eBay the dealers are listing the disc as Image/Retromedia.  However, I can not find any evidence of Retromedia ever being a partner of or sub brand of Image. Making it harder, IMDb now expects you to pay a subscription fee to IMDb Pro if you want to look up studio or DVD releases.  Which I am not going to do, so F&*k them. Further complicating things, Image no longer exists. It was bought and merged with Acorn to form the company RLJE ( or RJL Entertainment ), and nothing from Images past is listed on their website. The Retromedia website mentions nothing about Image, but does boast that it is the longest running independent DVD company, first releasing DVDs in 2001.


So could it be that Retromedia  is rereleasing the Image disc, program, packaging and all? Two problems. One is that Retromedia is claiming a 2007 copyright on the packaging.  The other is that the quality of the print used is way below Image's standards.  I am now wondering if Image ever released this film at all. But just take a look and see what you think.....


Release from Mr. FAT-W Video

Release from Retromedia Ent.


As you can see, the Retromedia  release does appear to have more picture information on both sides. However,  there is some bad framing here where words on signs are cut off on the Retromedia print. On top of that, the Retromedia print appears to have been sourced from a VHS master instead of a scanned film print. The picture quality is nowhere near DVD quality, and I doubt Image would ever had released anything in such poor quality, even if no other prints were available.  If I had to guess, it is not bad framing. Even the worst cinematographer in the world would not be so incompetent as to not get the entire banner which is meant to be a joke into frame. That would mean he pointed the camera at the actors without ever looking into the viewer to see if the camera was aligned properly. Most likely the text is cut off because it has been cropped off the print. Maybe this is the result of an incorrect aspect ratio on the DVD, such as further cropping so it fits a 16x9 sets. perfectly. Since the original film was an independent production, it is possible they went full mat for a direct to television release, or picked an aspect ratio closer to European which is very close to full screen.  But based on the quality, I have my own theory. The original home video release was on VHS through King Gemini Corp and is listed as Full Screen. My guess is that the only print Retromedia  had access to was either the King Gemini master, or simply a copy of one of the released tapes. Since the tapes were full screen, Retromedia had it cropped for widescreen. When next Mr FAT-W Video got the rights to the film, they decided to release it as full screen, then using the Retromedia DVD as their master print, both cropped off the sides and compressed the picture so it filled the entire screen. A dumb ass thing to do considering their release was in 2014, and by then digital televisions with 16x9 screens were replacing analog televisions with square screens.


So basically, there is no evidence that Image actually released this film  other than Amazon claiming it is so,  And Amazon has been known to have ben wrong listing companies on some of their DVDs. This is usually the case of a distributor lying about the company brand, and Amazon not bothering to check their stock once it came in. Also, I can not find any customer review complaining that this was not an Image release. So basically no one alerted Amazon of the problem. Heck, I haven't even bothered to tell Amazon. So basically no  HD original aspect ratio copy of this film exists on home video as far as I know.

The film itself is as incompetent as a film can get, including bad actors with terribly timing. And not a single gag works. But for some reason is watchable. The plot involves a gorilla who has been trained in the martial arts. While at the Wichita Zoo, two reporters hatch a plan to free the gorilla from its cage, and even arrange for a girl named Ray Fay to stand next to the cage hoping that she will be abducted by the ape, so they will have a story to follow. King Kung Fu ends up escaping and rampaging through the city, ending up on the roof of it's tallest building, a Holiday Inn. Oh, and the chief of police is named Duke, and acts and dresses like John Wayne.

The film has two things going for it. One, the guy in the King Kung Fu costume seems to know Karate, and is able to pull off the occasional high kick or other MMA move. The other thing is that residents of Wichita enjoy this film as a time capsule of the city in the 70. Such as including the long gone Joyland Amusement Park and the long gone minor league base ball team, the Aeros.

[wihogfan]

Roadhouse 2: Last Call (2006)
Direct to video sequel. Son of the Patrick Swayze character is a New York DEA agent who goes home to clean up the Roadhouse and find his father’s murderer after his uncle is put in the hospital by drug dealers. Actor who plays the son looks and acts nothing like Patrick Swayze. Movie totally lacks any of the corny philosophizing that made the first one great. Jake Busey hamming it up poorly is the lone highlight.

Learnings:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

-The DEA can have drug dealers cornered in a kitchen with only 2 entrances / exits and they’ll send all of their agents through 1 entrance and not have anyone covering the back door.
-Despite witnessing a drug dealer in a kitchen making a major drug deal, having said drug dealer shoot at agents as he flees, and knowing who the drug dealer is and where he lives, the drug dealer escaping out the back door will result in calling off the whole DEA operation and no longer pursuing said drug dealer. 
-Southern cops are all on the take, but poking them with your finger and saying “this is your town and these are your people” is some kind of Jedi mind trick that will immediately make them do the right thing.

[wihogfan]

Planet Earth (1974)
Gene Roddenberry made for TV movie that he hoped to turn into a series. There’s narration at the start to set up the premise-the lead character was in suspended animation for a number of years and was woken in the one city that was spared from an apocalyptic war (why him being from the past is important is never explained nor does it really come into play in any major way). Now he leads a science team exploring the ruined Earth. It’s basically 1960s Star Trek set on Earth. Plot is the typical 1950s planet ruled by women movie plot (although it’s a village instead of a planet). Stars John Saxon (who really Shatners it up as the Captain Kirk character) and the guy who played Lurch in the Adams Family wearing a silly looking wig (he might have evolved into Spock, but there’s not much characterization-characterization might have come if it had gone to series). Recognized a number of actors that played roles on various Star Trek episodes and other 60s/70s TV shows. Special effects were a mix of Star Trek looking plastic models and mat paintings. Whatever caused the apocalyptic event left the Earth in pretty good shape because despite the lack of technology in the women’s village, everything is lush and green (although a lot of it is fake sound stage greenery).  Interesting due to the outdated sexism, John Sexton out Shatnering Shatner in a couple of scenes, and who made it. But it really came across as one of boring Star Trek episodes set on a planet where the wrap around was sci-fi but the main plot could have been given to any number of other non-sci fi shows.

[wihogfan]

I Am Here... Now (2009)
After seeing Fateful Findings (2013) a few months ago and now this one, Neil Breen is my new favorite bad movie writer/director/actor. Fateful Findings was far, far better (not good, but better due to a much better attempt at a plot), but man…this one starts out like my worst nightmare of what an arthouse movie might be. Jesus is standing in a desert and you can see the crucifixion wounds on the back of his hands (at least I think it’s supposed to be Jesus…kind of hard to say because at various times he flashes into some shaman rubber mask wearing thing)…anyway, Jesus turns around and he’s wearing what is obviously a white lab coat and not a robe and he has some ram taped to both of his wrists and a motherboard taped to his chest (so maybe a robot and not Jesus or a shaman). Then he walks past some crosses that are made out of cheap 2 X 4s and a red rose sticking up out of the ground (not a rose bush, a single rose). Jesus has a soliloquy about being upset with humans for their lack of embracing solar power and other forms of renewable energy, makes a couple of kids who are doing drugs in the desert disappear, steals their truck, and we get a long driving scene.   
From there is it’s a bunch of scenes that almost always start with people talking about renewable energy and then occasionally do something to advance what little plot there is. Scene after scene don’t appear to be connected in any way outside of Jesus (Neil Breen) occasionally stepping in and encouraging people in their use of renewable energy or freezing people he sees doing evil (watching some of the actors shake while attempting to act frozen is entertaining).
Lots and lots of WTF scenes, but favorite- 2 sisters walking down the street, 1 with a stroller, discussing renewable energy when one sister out of nowhere starts trying to talk her sister into becoming an escort. Would have been better if it ended there and the 2 sisters were never seen again like happens with a lot of characters/scenes. But the sister does become an escort, although escorting in Neil Breen’s world seems to involve a rich evil businessman paying the 2 sisters to pose topless (although covering their breasts with their hands) and giggle next to a pool while the businessman remains fully clothed in his suit and tie and gawks at them while sitting in a pool chair next to an oversized novelty bottle of champagne. 
Businessmen and politicians hang out with street dealers and muggers and they all like to gather together in an abandoned lot and discuss being evil and hating renewable energy for some reason. 
I think it’s a message movie and the message I got was that businesses and politicians are evil and don’t care about renewable energy and people lose their jobs because businesses don’t care about renewable energy and the first thing everyone thinks when they lose their renewable energy jobs is to become a prostitute or drug dealer or burglar and they always follow through with that thought.
It’s worse/better than my description. Although again, I recommend Fateful Findings over this one.

[Pak-Man]

Just got back from Fathom's screening of Transformers: The Movie. I've been to a few screenings at conventions, where the theater was packed with superfans who didn't feel shy about booing Wheelie or applauding when their favorite Transformer stepped onto the screen for the first time. This was more subdued than that, but still very nice. Everyone in the theater (Average age probably about 40) had a huge grin on their face the whole time. They used Shout Factory's restored print, so this is the nicest the movie has looked on the big screen.

They also treated us to a sneak peek of the Bumblebee movie. It's the same "Kid with a car finds out their car isn't JUST a car" scene we've seen so many times, but it was well shot. I remain cautiously optimistic.

[Russoguru]

I too remain cautiously optimistic of that too. One thing's for sure... since Bay's not at the helm this time it'll probably easily be better than the last five live action Transformers films... I know that's not saying much, but until it's released I think that's the best I can offer.

I too saw The Transformers: The movie tonight and I felt like I was eight again, watching a movie that for the bulk of it moved me emotionally in some way or another, and in all the right ways. Sure, the movie has some corny moments but it's still hard not to enjoy this film at all times. I don't need to tell you guys how close this movie is to my heart. It's basically right next to my aorta.

[wihogfan]

The Guyver (1991)
An alien artifact referred to as “The Unit” turns a guy into an alien-hybrid super soldier called “The Guyver”. (I made my own "unit" jokes throughout.)
In the first 2 minutes we get Jimmy “JJ” Walker playing a henchman and a battle between “The Hills Have Eyes” guy and a Japanese scientist who both turn into rubber suited fish aliens. Great start and then it’s all downhill from there.
He’s not “The Guyver” but we also get a mustachioed Mark Hammil who half the time (like in a lot of his roles) comes across like he’s reading all his lines for the first time off a cue card. When he slips into portraying a stereotype of a New York cop at times (“Hey, we gotta a murda here”) he comes across as at least trying to act.
Jimmy “JJ” Walker’s attempts at slang spouting comic relief were embarrassing (and not embarrassing funny, just embarrassingly bad).
The street thugs and the fight choreography were right out of a Michael Jackson video. The premise is all set up in a Star Wars type scrawl before the movie starts and then 2/3s of the way through the head bad guy repeats what we learned in the scrawl in what should have been his big reveal. (Not the head bad guy, but the evil scientist from the Reanimator movies plays an evil scientist- Dr. East instead of Dr. West, and that to me was the funniest thing in the movie).   
And it ends with a set up for a sequel and Jimmy “JJ” Walker finally saying his catch phrase (or is it catch word).
The special effects (rubber suits and transitions into rubber suits) were actually pretty good (far better than most B movies) and it would probably make for a decent riff, but overall it was just mediocre and not bad or good enough to recommend on its own.

[wihogfan]

The Last Match (1991)

Really couldn’t find out much about this movie before watching it other than its Italian (thus “Match” instead of “Game” I guess since it’s about an American football team) and a brief synopsis. While what little I could find states that this movie was released in 1991 (or 1990), if I didn’t know that I would swear it was from the 70s.   

Synopsis:
The daughter of a star quarterback is falsely accused of drug smuggling while visiting a small Caribbean island. After his attempts to get her out of jail fail, his coach (Ernest Borgnine) and teammates show up in full football gear and armed to the teeth, ready to free her by any means necessary.

Movie starts (and ends) with several minutes of game footage…team not identified as both teams wear generic solid colored uniforms and helmets with no logos.
In addition to Ernest Borgnine, we get the mafia guy from “Mitchell” and Henry Silva (Megaforce). The Caribbean Island looks a lot like Italy and most of the Islanders look Italian. Why the Italian crime boss from Mitchell carries so much weight in a Caribbean island country is never explained.
Starts slow…damned slow. Far too much time spent trying to negotiate the daughter’s release.
And then at the 52 minute mark (of an hour and 34 minute movie) Ernest Borgnine and the rest of the football team finally shows up. We get a training montage of guys in full football gear shooting machine guns and a bazooka at targets. Ernest Borgnine explains the mission to the team and tells some boring stories from when he was in WW2. They spout off their numbers and “ready” just the raid. Ernest Borgnine watches/directs the raid from a helicopter and spouts lines like “great throw” as the team drives a truck through the prison gate and the football commandos ask “what play do you want next coach” when awaiting their next instructions and yell “hut, hut, hut” when carrying out those instructions.
No idea why the extended game footage was necessary at the end as none of the players (outside of the father/QB) were given any type of characterization what so ever and them winning a football game seemed anticlimactic after conducting a commando raid.   
Kind of boring overall, but a commando raid by a football team in full football gear (and for some reason concealing their football uniforms under sheets until just before the raid starts) is about the silliest Italian/American thing I’ve ever seen.

Article I found that explains it better than any other that I found after watching and writing this:
https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2015/06/03/everybodys-into-weirdness-the-last-match-1991

Full movie on youtube:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LA5gdep1axc#

[Johnny Unusual]

The Little Hours

This is a film where I feel the performances were more enjoyable than the movie itself.  The premise is that in medieval Italy, a servant is on the lam after having sex with a nobleman's wife and finds a drunk priest in need of help.  After confessing his sins to the priest, the servant is given a job as a gardener at a convent but must pose as a deaf mute.  There, he meets some extremely sexually (and otherwise) frustrated nuns who have chased the last gardener away by heaping scorn and abuse on him... just because.

I do think it is neat to take a 15th century comedic novellas and retell them with modern comedy sensibilities, but the film is just surprisingly unengaging, despite a murderers row of comedic talent.  I'll say that none of the comedians are phoning it in for this one (their line reads are often the best part of the movie), I just feel the story construction and the jokes aren't particularly strong to me, with a few exceptions.  One of my favourites is the nobleman's wife's (played by Lauran Weedman in a naturalistic style that plays very well off of Nick Offerman's extremely arch style) pillow talk mostly consists of complaining about how her husband won't shut up.

[wihogfan]

The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015)
Meh....horror movie that doesn't explain itself very well. Lack of explanation probably intentional due to trying to throw a twist at you, but I figured out where it was going about half an hour in and ruined it for the wife when she asked why I was laughing and I told her (something I normally try not to do). 

[stethacantus]

Master of the Flying Guillotine ( 1976 )
The One Armed Swordsman ( 1967 ) was a huge hit in China, turning actor Jimmy Wang Yu into a superstar. A few years later he stared in and directed The Chinese Boxer ( 1970 ) which became another box office hit. Shaw Brothers had wanted to turn both films into franchises, but shortly after The Chinese Boxer was released, Jimmy Wang Yu broke his contract with the studio and began making movies for rival studio Golden Harvest. Since Shaw Brothers owned both the One Armed Swordsman and Chinese Boxer characters, Jimmy created a third character in the movie The One Armed Boxer ( 1971 ). It was basically the same exact plot as The Chinese Boxer, only in this one the hero looses his right arm. Golden Harvest chose not to make any sequels. Jimmy Wang Yu moved on to other studios, occasional playing one armed characters. In 1976 he not only got permission from Golden Harvest to make a sequel for One Armed Boxer at a different studio, but allowed him to use footage from the first film in a flashback.

Master of the Flying Guillotine takes place a few months after the events in One Armed Boxer.  The teacher of two of the villains killed in the first movie is a blind master who specializes in the flying guillotine, a weapon designed to cut off and remove the heads of opponents. He hires a bunch of other evil martial arts masters, and together they hunt for the One Armed Boxer for revenge.

This was promoted as restored, with 12 minutes of footage that was never included in the English language release of the film. On the one hand, this was the first time the movie had ever been released on home video in it's original aspect ratio. But the restoration apparently didn't include cleaning up the source prints, and doubtfully  use the master negatives. The end result is  the picture quality being substandard. Perhaps we should feel lucky someone even bothered to track down complete prints of the film for restoration instead of simply re-releasing  the pan-and-scan copy used in previous home video release.

While it is not the lost classic that the box makes it out to be, it is one of the better martial arts films from the 70s.



Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie ( 1995 )
Continuing to collect every American superhero movie ever made, I am now up to the Power Rangers films.  Surprisingly, this was a good film. Although it definitely has the feel of an extended television episode rather than a motion picture. But it was nowhere as crappy as I remembered the Power Rangers series being. While I couldn't care less about any of the characters in this movie, and the fight choreography is forgettable,  it is briskly paced and has some nice effects scenes. Hopefully next week's Power Ranger film will be just as entertaining.

[stansimpson]

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie ( 1995 )
Continuing to collect every American superhero movie ever made, I am now up to the Power Rangers films.  Surprisingly, this was a good film. Although it definitely has the feel of an extended television episode rather than a motion picture. But it was nowhere as crappy as I remembered the Power Rangers series being. While I couldn't care less about any of the characters in this movie, and the fight choreography is forgettable,  it is briskly paced and has some nice effects scenes. Hopefully next week's Power Ranger film will be just as entertaining.

Glad to hear it still holds up. I've got major nostalgia goggles for it But I've seen it a few times as an adult, and I remember it being a pretty solid flick. The sequel, however... well... I hope you don't keep any high expectations. I hope they're not even medium.