What I've Been Watching: The Catch-All Film Thread

"The Werewolf of Woodstock" (mid 1970's-ish)

Dick Clark-produced made for tv movie from like 1975 about a werewolf run amok on the hallowed grounds of the largest longhair gathering since biblical times. This was a very rare score indeed, courtesy of the order of Cosmic Hex.

Bert is a local Woodstock farmer who's been driven over the edge by the recent visit of roughly five-hundred thousand hippies on his front lawn, playing that god-damn rock and roll day and night. The human tide has finally gone and in it's wake has left a huge landscape of garbage, and their empty soundstage. Enraged, he proceeds to try and tear the stage apart with his bare hands. A power line snaps, Bert is lit up like an xmas tree, *presto* we have an electric werewolf. Might I add, this is the first confirmed case of lycanthropy as the result of severe electrical shock. As such, he forgoes the traditional lunar cycle method, and only transforms when theres lots of electricity in the air. Unfortunately for an unlucky pack of long-haired, Mystery Machine driving stragglers, it's stormy forecasts for the rest of the week.

The 60's hippie slang hits with all the subtlety of a stepped on rake, as it's obviously the work of a bunch of suits a decade later. The generation-gap conflict is slathered on thick as well, which was common in this era's made-for-tv movie fare. The innocent, mystical (and apparently psychic) hippies are definitely being pushed around by The Man, man. Bert the werewolf has an unbelievable range of emotions (albeit spending most his time in rage mode), it's impossible not to laugh when he gazes skyward, his plastic bottom jaw clenching in angst. He shakes his furry paw at people in anger, kills a yappy little dog, and even at one point dramatically steals a dune buggy! Moments like that just dont happen in films anymore.

Alas, poor Bert in the end catches a silver bullet whipped up by the local pigs. The ballistics dept actually MAKES ammuntion?

oh yeah... hurts so good

Go download it.

...then, I watched like half of The Elephant Man. I just didnt need the heart-wrenching tale thing today, and that is one of the big ones, so I turned it off. It was somewhat of a shock to go from the ridiculously fun and bizarre, hippie-chasing electric werewolf to this relentlessly sad and serious film. The Elephant Man is one of the only films that I can remember making me truly sad, it just absolutely sledgehammers me. Just the scenes over at Dr Anthony Hopkins' house between the Dr's wife and John Merrik are so powerful, it's just an amazing film. I knew right then and there that it was either in or out, there was no middle of the road with this thing. Good stopping point.

Brilliant period piece as well, the retro black and white is gorgeous, everything "works" in this film from a technical standpoint as well. I personally love it, but it's not something that I can casually just flip the channel and sit back with a box of cheeze-its to.
 
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The Reaping

I end up watching "The Reaping" (Staring Hilary Swank) on the Labour Day eventhough i wanted to see "Spiderman 3", as no ticket available anymore as everyone else gone to the spidey guy. I checked the whole floor and have 3 persons watching including me (poor Hilary Swank!). The film was certainly a cliches (sudden loud noises, nasty images flash by, etc); almost everyone trashed it on Rotten Tomato.

Suprisingly i'm quite liked the movie but I'm annoyed by amateurish cinema operator, as the sound system is overly loud - now and then chair and floor will shaked whenever there's noises or something jumped into the movie frame (that surely make me jumped even more) and the full blowing air cons almost freezed my ass off!
 
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Devil's Rain

Made for TV movie from the 1970s about black-eyed devil worshippers in a small town. William Shatner. John Travolta. Tom Skerritt. Ernest Borgnine as Satan. Includes a nigh-intolerable, five minute, strangely gross sequence of literally melting-down satanists in the titular tempest.

Beam me up St Peter, I got a black-eyed Ernest Borgnine on my tail!
 
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I think I saw that one on TV back in the day, Sammy.
 
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I remember seeing the last 20mi's or so of that one! Didn't catch the name though.

It was on late at night and I'd just gotten home from a party. I always wondered if I'd really seen it, or if it was just an overactive sub-conscious and the after effects of the party!
 
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It was quite bizarre, and at times it actually was a bit creepy due to the black eyes. They've always unnerved me more than red eyes or glowing eyes or whatever, something about them. Even in a corny movie like "Invasion of the Bee Girls", I remember one of them turning around suddenly and startling me with those black bee girl eyes!

as usual, my homies over at BadMovies have a killer page on this flick-
http://www.badmovies.org/movies/devilsrain/index.html
 
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Beowulf & Grendel... It's a waste of time really. Apart from the fact that it's obviously some kind of b-movie (partly it has fairly cheap costumes), the movie is just boring. There is hardly anything that catches the viewer's attention. When I was about half through the movie I began using fast forward, mainly so I did not have to listen to the terrible boring and stupid dialogues.

Agreed, one of the most chronically anticlimactic films Ive ever seen. Build up, nothing. Build up, nothing. Over and over again, to the point of ridiculousness.
A perfect example is when they finally reach the troll cave the first time, and dont have a friggen rope! Even if it's logical that they wouldnt, write one in the script for the sake of the flow. Or make his cave not need a rope to access, whatever. Dont take us all the way there (finally making progress in the film), then pop up and yell "PSYCHE"!

One of the scenes that really drove me nuts was when Grendel finally busts into the barracks or whatever, and all these trained swordsmen proceed to battle him with their fists! PICK UP A GODDAMN SWORD ALREADY, YOU DORKS! These buffoons are flailing away with their fists and jumping on his back, trying to grapple this big oaf literally twice their size!

Just a retarded script, and coming from someone who lives for retarded scripts, that's saying something.

Also, the cast was pretty much populated by laughably pathetic characters. I could barely make out half the dialogue, and what I could was lamentable. No background, explanation, nothing on the sea witch or whatever. Or maybe it slipped by me or something. Lame flick, pretty disappointed here. Glad I didnt pay for the rental.
 
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I watched one of the most awesome films ever - Night of the Werewolf or "El Retorno del Hombre Lobo" circa mid-70's.

notww.jpg


Look at that cover!

I knew that I was holding something special in my paws.

Take the Countess Erzebet Bathory and make her a vampire, give her a werewolf boy-toy, resurrect them in modern times, and put a legendary Spanish horror icon (paul naschy) at the helm of the whole thing, and youve got one hell of a good old-fashioned horror film. The title sounds very trite, the concept stupid, but after all the initial guffaws have faded (and granted that may take a few minutes ='.'=) youll find a pretty dang good monster mash here. There's some unexpectedly nice and scary moments to be found here. Remember the part in Salems lot where that one shrieking vamp gets a cross burned on her forehead? There's a similar event in this film, and it's one of like three that are actually kinda creepy. It's as good any homage to the old classic horror films of Hammer and the like can be, good stuff.
 
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Where do you find this stuff, Sammy? It's not like you pick up it at the corner Blockbuster.
 
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Well, I usually find out about them by either:

A.- reviews and recommendations by my fellow cultists at
http://www.eccentric-cinema.com/
http://www.dvdmaniacs.net/
http://www.bleedingskull.com/
and a few other sites

B.- I get into one film series/star/etc and research what other related items are available.

C.- Or I just stumble upon them while searching for something else. It's like researching one band and someone mentions that they sound a lot like someone else, so you go check them out too.

I'm going to be putting up my own movie review site! I just bought a domain and am deciding what the layout and theme of the site, content, and all that is going to be like. Bouncing around some ideas right now (i actually have too many), even tho i have favorites in all genres, prolly going to be strictly horror/exploitation/cult type films. Thinking of maybe later doing some game and music reviews, but would like to concentrate and realize one avenue fully first.

Still kinda learning and refining my CSS, graphics, and general website design skillz, this is a one-tiger effort. I'd really like it to be a unique site. There's some movie reviews that I read, that are fun in themselves. I dont even have to be interested in the film in the least bit, but reading the review for it, and checking out the wild screens is a kick in the shorts. That's what I want.

I want to use my cats in the mix somehow, I'm thinking of making them guest reviewers with distinct personalities. I'll do a review, and at the bottom will be their additional commentary. Sounds kinda dumb, but I think if done right it just might be cool!
 
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Sounds cool. But I'm still curious where you procure your obscurities. With the recent run of Hispanic titles, I envision you visiting some Mexican selling stuff out of the back of his AMC Pacer.
 
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A TV show I never missed over the last months is Kozure Okami. A Japanese series from the mid seventies about a homeless samurai and his little son on a 5 year path back to honour and revenge. The English title must be something like Lone Wolf and Cub.

Very strange, calm and interesting. Now the showdown is getting near and the tempo accelerates.
 
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Watched Hostel last night. I'm way behind on my horror movie list. It was better than I thought it would be.
 
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Transamerica
Felicity Huffman playing a man in the final stages of a sex change to a woman. The story is interesting and touching and has all to do with identity and search for self. Really good stuff!
 
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Took the Wild Dogs to Shrek 3. They enjoyed it completely. I don't think there were as many "over the kiddies' head" jokes as the previous 2 shows and the movie wasn't quite as good for the Mrs and I. Still an enjoyable show, but probably only rates a B+. The infighting of the fairy tale princesses was the best part for me, but I imagine that was toned down some to keep it kid-friendly.
 
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In the last 2 weeks I watched Predator (why can't they make movies like this anymore), Predator 2 and Hellraiser 1-3. Next time I go to the video store I plan on getting Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I like my movies like I like my cRPGs - from the 80's and 90's.
 
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I recently watched "The Great Gatsby" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith".

It was good to see Redford again, even if this wasn't one of his best movies. And of course the nonstop action of BradJolina.
 
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Rarely watch movies (as you probably can tell by my lack of numerous posts in this thread) but happened to catch a 007 movie last night I had never seen, an amazing thing in itself ;) : Die a Different Day.
Pierce Brosnan(WHO the hell thought up that name??) was surprisingly good as Bond, and Judi Dench did a good job of defining the new politics of espionage--not to mention the North Korean ambience was a nice change from the Cold War thing. And any movie with a John Cleese cameo can't be all bad.


@Sammy: Make sure and post linkage when you get your site up. I'd like to see the paws of doom get a hold of some films. Reviews with a claw up or down?:)
 
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@magerette-i actually caught the opening sequence and the ending (or near it) of that as well last night but it didn't capture me enough to not leave the room. i used to really like pierce brosnan and his first couple of bond movies but for some reason he just seems like, forgive the expression "a punk ass" to me these days. i really dug remington steele reruns as a kid though...

doesn't north korea fall into the category of the cold war?

though as they say "once a communist..."
and for those who aren't living in a communist state and wearing one of these
http://www.fmft.net/archives/castro/castro-teeth.jpg
your cool for at least the rest of the year
 
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