What movies have you seen recently?

Post Reply New Topic

Last night we watched:

Catnado [2022]



My bride added this to our collection. She likes cats and she says she likes this movie.

I also like cats but I think they should've skipped making this film. (Its current IMDb user rating is 1.7.)

Definitely one of the Coen Brothers' best movies!

Horrors of War (2006)

U.S. troops go on several missions inside Europe during World War II.
Initially, before D-Day, they are in France, they run up against a werewolf. One of the troops is bitten.
A later mission, they search for a scientist that is responsible for converting Germany Nazi soldiers into zombie super soldiers (ZSS for short). Each time they run up against a ZSS, it seems to me the zombie is a little more difficult to kill. The last mission, March 1945, they take out a German group in some woods. A ZSS charges them. A sniper shoot it in the head, knocking the helmet off. It takes a second shot to the head to kill it. They comment on this, and then something happens. (spoilers)

This is a low budget independent film, described as a B-grade film. I've also read it is filmed in the "Grindhouse" tradition. It was not bad. It was not slick and polished, but it genuinely was not bad. I thought it was over all fun. It had zombie super soldiers and a werewolf. You know what will happen. The same thing that happens when one places the Frankenstein Monster and the Wolfman in the same film. For a low budget independent film, it was pretty ambitious.

I watched this through a special streaming of a 2020 Horror Hotel episode.

My wife and I saw that when it first played in the theater. We laughed uproariously!

Last night I watched:

Attack of the Giant Leeches [1959]
<=>"Massive Blood Sucking Monsters!"


A giant leech is bad news!

Catnado. I don't know. That seems like it could be more dangerous than Sharknado. I suspect they did not talk. The voices would have been a mass of doppler effects.
Just watched the trailer. Hmm. Okay. Maybe I should see the movie for myself.

By the way fellow aliens, I've finally done it. I made a spreadsheet of everything in all of my watch lists on the streaming channels I subscribe to. 56 titles. Some are weekly (I've documented when they're released), some are movies, some are older series (bingeble). So when someone says they've watched something and I find it sounds interesting, I can add to this list once I find it. There are 57 titles now. Added Catnado.

Back on topic. I haven't watch anything today except late night monologues on YouTube for Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and whatever was posted for the Daily Show.

I cannot recommend the film. You are more likely to be amused by the film's deficiencies than the film itself.

But, I concede that if you watch it out of cautious curiosity rather than expecting a good film...yeah, it might be worth that. As a public service, however, I encourage you to share your reactions here afterwards so no one wanders into the film unforewarned.

Catnado (ratings breakdown). I would rate it 3, because I really like one of the stories.

The movie is made up of seven stories. Each with a different director. A couple were better than others.
The effects are funny. That cat stunt doubles are stealing the scenes.

Crimes & Felines - Picks up her Man at the prison release gate and tells him he should maybe stop robbing places and stay out of jail. He says he'll stop, but he has a plan to make some money. They rob a woman carrying $800 for the cat shelter. They are going to turn this into over a million dollars. I think. It was a bit funny.
Of Cats and Men - This @%$*&% one was #%$& most of the %#&$* time. I cannot say it was good because it was stupid. It was mostly swearing. &$# #%(* it.
Storm Window - Huddled in the basement during a catnado. He's afraid, and reading passages from the bible to find solace. Then cats appear on the shelves and start talking to him. They have a conversation. One has a Jamaican accent.
Apocalypse Meow - This one was funny. The story was stupid but funny. Probably my favorite of the stories.
The Catburglar - There is a burglar with a cat mask. She steals cat stuff. It was short and simple. A bit surreal.
Nightmare at 10,000 Feet - Imagine you're in a small propeller driven plane, and something lands on top. Not a William Shatner gremlin, but a cat, possibly from the musical Cats. It was ridiculous enough to be funny. My second favorite.
Cosmic Catnado - This reminded me of something I would have seen on a late night cable channel. I think the show was Night Flight. It also reminds me of art videos I saw when in college. Weird. David Lynch was so popular back in the 1980s.

The closing credits were nice. Cosmic Catnado follows the end credits.

Many thanks to the Bride of Double Retired.

Leave The World Behind (2023)
I enjoyed it, apart from the ending which never explained what happened to the kid whose teeth all fell out, among a few other matters it left hanging in the air. I don't usually much like movies that get me wondering wtf is going on, because they arouse my frustration and suspicion that they're never going to tell me, but for some reason I had faith in this one, and it did tell me enough to keep me interested.

The Missing (2003)
Can't beat a movie about a woman who starts off hating her dad and then reconsiders (unfortunately that's only after he's died for her, so he never knows she forgave him). And I thought it was a good Western, it seemed authentic in a lot of its details. Small number of characters, good balance between action and quieter human interactions, very sensitive.

The Quiet Ones.

Rewatched this recent Hammer horror film production, in which a psychologist, his graduate students, and their cameraman are attempting to cure a young woman of her delusion that she's possessed by an evil spirit. But is it really a delusion? And what is the psychologist hiding about his own dark history from his patient and his team?
Great horror film, and highly recommended.

The Changeling (1980)

Very good haunted house film staring George C Scott.

After losing his wife and child in a snow related car accident, he takes a teaching position in a university. He rents a HUGE very old mansion. Very shortly after moving in, things start happening, noises, doors closing, things moving. I capitalized huge because it is way too big for one person, a cleaning nightmare, in my opinion.

George C Scott is very good.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
Watched on Svengoolie on Me TV

It's weird to describe a film made in my lifetime as a "classic," but it is.
The Abominable Dr. Phibes



Wikipedia: Fear and Desire (1952)
Watched on Off Beat Cinema streamed on Retro TV

Produced, Directed, Photographed, and Edited by Stanley Kubrick. His first film. He hated the movie and wanted all prints destroyed.
The movie is only an hour and two minutes in length, so Off Beat Cinema had a lot of padding with trailers from Stanley Kubrick's films, and trivia about the film and Mr. Kubrick.
From Wikipedia, I read that the budget was initially $10,000, but (LOL) this is a Kubrick film, and it ended up costing about $53,000. That's over $600,000 in today's dollars (1952 to 2024).
Wikipedia: Fear and Desire

Lake Caddo.

A little girl vanishes in the neary swampland of lake Caddo, while a man tries to understand why his mother had died in an accident in the same swamp. It's the girl's older half sister, who's father had mysteriously vanished years before, who discovers the time loop out in the wilds of lake Caddo that had claimed them both.
First rate movie with a great twist.

Konferansen
cool Swedish slasher movie

It's certainly a hoot, IMHO. Vincent Price parodying his earlier, more serious performances, if indeed horror stories can ever be truly taken seriously. Favourite line: "I think it's a left-hand thread." Spoken by a policeman as he tries to free a body that's pinned to a door by the horn of a full-sized model of a unicorn that's been catapulted across the street. No shortage of imagination there.


Haven't seen that one yet. I thought his first was "Flying Padre" but I guess that was only a short. Looks extremely mainstream and tame compared to what he got up to later. Ah, no, the first short was Day Of The Fight, which is basically just a boxing match.

Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?

Moral of the story: don't get drunk with crazy, vindictive people, especially if they're academics.