Had the day off yesterday, and with no chores to do, I basically watched every film ever made.
The Guy from Harlem is an hilariously cheap blaxploitation film, which has so much awfulness in it that it comes back round to being highly enjoyable. The acting is terrible across the board, the production values scrape the bottom of a very deep barrel, and it seems to be out of copyright. It's available on the Internet Archive for those looking for something tremendous. I'd love to see it riffed, despite a couple of scenes of brief nudity, it's perfect.
The Patient in Room 18is a mystery programmer from the 1930s, notable perhaps only for being a relatively early Ann Sheridan movie. A pleasant hour long experience, it would've fit perfectly onto TV screens 20 years later.
Jonah Hex - Another comicbook adaptation from Warner's that proves that they have no idea how to adapt their own properties correctly. On the surface it has all the right ingredients, and it looks quite nice too, but it has been absolutely butchered in production. Relationships, character motivations, basic plot dynamics take giant leaps of logic because things are just plain missing. Minus the opening and closing credits, Jonah Hex is about 70 minutes long and barely functions as a movie, and is probably much more successful as a string of mundane set-pieces.
The Finger Points - A rather tired, even in 1931 when it was made, drama about an idealistic crime reporter who after falling into debt immediately starts taking money from the mob to NOT report on them. He gets a little too big for his britches, so the mob decides to bump him off. Utterly ridiculous, worth only seeing for a young Clark Gable as the mob boss and Fay Wray as the token love interest.
Father is a Bachelor - William Holden stars in this family film about a wanderer who stumbles upon a half dozen orphaned kids and reluctantly becomes their adopted father. Coleen Grey plays the pretty love interest, and everything passes pleasantly enough for 90 minutes.
Take Me to Town - Comedy western starring Ann Sheridan (20 years after Patient in Room 18 and still beautiful) as an "entertainer" on the run from the law when a couple of children ask her to be their mother. Their father is Sterling Hayden, who turns out to be the preacher of a local town. Will the two find love? Or will the law and her evil ex-boyfriend catch up to her? I don't think it's particularly hard to guess. Very light, but not unpleasant.
Ninja Academy - It's Police Academy with ninjas. Sort of. A group of misfits, for varying reasons, sign up to a week long ninja training course, unbeknownst to any of them is that the ninja school is targeted for attack by a rival school bent upon stealing the sacred relic held within. Junk.
Lone Wolf McQuade - Chuck Norris appears (but doesn't appear to act) in this modern western - complete with a decent Morricone rip-off score - about a Texas Ranger up against local crime boss, David Carradine. Apparently the producers of this film sued the ones of Walker Texas Ranger a number of years later.
Undefeatable - Cynthia Rothrock kicks ass in this horror/action movie about a man who goes crazy and starts killing women of a certain type, ultimately murdering Rothrock's sister. Convinced it was one of the rivals in her local street fighting community, she blazes through them trying avenge her sister's death. The fighting is pretty good, and for all her acting limitations, Rothrock is pretty reliable on screen, but it's certainly nothing to compare with the very best of the martial arts genre.
Topic: What was the last movie you watched? (Read 1786102 times)
