What are you watching?

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Voros said:
Watched all three Ninja films on TCM: Enter the Ninja (with Franco Nero and Susan George!), Revenge of the Ninja and the truly bizarre Ninja III: The Domination.

All are fun and trashy in their own way but Ninja III is something else with its over-the-top supernatural Ninja nonsense, 80s aerobics, arcade games played in skimpy outfits, gender-bending demonic possesion, lots of kung-fu, cop boyfriend, V-8 sexiness, floating swords, zombie Ninjas and of course James Hong in a scene ripping off The Exorcist. Gonna get this one on blu to hear what the hell everyone thought when they were making this one.

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I have a story about going to see Revenge of the Ninja with my dad when I was about 12. At the time the movie was rated 'R16', which meant that you weren't allowed in if you were under 16 years old. So, my dad walks up to the ticket office and askes for 'One and a half'. Despite my looking considerably younger than 16, the girl behind the counter - without batting an eyelid - replied "We don't do halves for this movie."

I liked the scene where Sho Kosugi catches the coffee cup, but it's about the only part of the movie I can remember. I don't think I've seen any of the other ones.

 
E-Rocker said:
What's the running time? The premise sounds exactly like a short film I saw @ WorldCon 75. I'm wondering if it's the same film, or perhaps an expanded version of the same film. I greatly enjoyed the one I saw.
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It runs an hour and 34 minutes
 
under_score said:
Just watched the first episode last night. I loved the book and when it was announced Netflix would be adapting, I figured it'd be a dumpster fire, but this looks to actually be good. I'm very surprised so far.
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I had no clue it's based on a book!
 
Just when you thought 2020 couldn't get worse...

www.ihorror.com

‘Scrooged’ Remake Eyes Kevin Hart to Star and Produce at Paramount

Instead of receiving an actual exploration of the faux Lee Majors film, The Night the Reindeer Died, that played within the popular Bill Murray film, Paramount has selected Kevin Hart to star in a remake of Richard Donner’s 1986 dark comedy, Christmas classic Scrooged. The original Scrooged...
www.ihorror.com www.ihorror.com
 
Given that Hollywood is a sequel and remake business since the 80's, are we really surprised?

So why are we so upset about them now? It's not because anyone wants anything new. It's because all the current remakes, reboots and/or sequels change the source material way too much. That's it. All the general audience wants out of entertainment is more of the same and make it fun. We don't ask for much.
 
Baulderstone said:
Willis probably isn't in the top tier that he used be, but hasn't fallen to the level that Lundgren and Van Damme have. After all, Willis has been a much bigger star than either of those guys every were. He's just always been a guy who really likes to work. We are talking about the guy who continued to do Seagram's Wine Cooler ads for years after he became famous, back in the days when stars generally shunned advertising. Given that the main thrust of that trailer is "Bruce Willis is in this!", I expect they just spent more hiring him than they did on the rest of the movie.

He's still a big enough star that when Split came out a few years ago, the most talked about thing in the movie was his uncredited cameo. And in Lego Movie 2, which came out last year, he played himself. I see that as a sign the guy still has star power.
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I kinda admire the old-school 'it's a pay cheque' attitude. You'd see a lot of classic Hollywood and Euro actors doing it back-in-the-day. Franco Nero starring in the aforementioned Enter the Ninja in this thread is a good example.
 
Nobby-W said:
I have a story about going to see Revenge of the Ninja with my dad when I was about 12. At the time the movie was rated 'R16', which meant that you weren't allowed in if you were under 16 years old. So, my dad walks up to the ticket office and askes for 'One and a half'. Despite my looking considerably younger than 16, the girl behind the counter - without batting an eyelid - replied "We don't do halves for this movie."

I liked the scene where Sho Kosugi catches the coffee cup, but it's about the only part of the movie I can remember. I don't think I've seen any of the other ones.

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You must have blocked out the hilarious 10-year-old kid vs. Grown Woman fight and the bizarre Sumo-guy tries to rape Hypnotized Woman scenes.
 
Just finished Captive State. The premise is similar to the tv show Colony in some ways, but is a bit more low key. I was so-so on it until a reveal at the end, and then I was a bit happier with the film
 
urbwar said:
I believe it was also called The Devil's Hour. Here's the trailer for it
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Per Wikipedia, " The movie is a feature length adaptation of a short film by the same name that LeVeck released in 2016." That would explain why it seems so very familiar. Definitely going on my "to watch" list, near the top.
 
Voros said:
I kinda admire the old-school 'it's a pay cheque' attitude. You'd see a lot of classic Hollywood and Euro actors doing it back-in-the-day. Franco Nero starring in the aforementioned Enter the Ninja in this thread is a good example.
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Yeah; I associate it with Michael Caine, for some reason. I think I understand the mentality and the economic logic behind the opposite approach--'I'm a big star and I will only appear in major roles in major movies' but it seems odd to have a profession where you make your living as much by not exercising your craft as by practicing it.
 
Voros said:
I kinda admire the old-school 'it's a pay cheque' attitude. You'd see a lot of classic Hollywood and Euro actors doing it back-in-the-day. Franco Nero starring in the aforementioned Enter the Ninja in this thread is a good example.
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I have no problem with it. It often leads to more interesting careers than actors who get overly concerned with taking parts to protect either their commercial image or their artistic integrity.
Lofgeornost said:
Yeah; I associate it with Michael Caine, for some reason. I think I understand the mentality and the economic logic behind the opposite approach--'I'm a big star and I will only appear in major roles in major movies' but it seems odd to have a profession where you make your living as much by not exercising your craft as by practicing it.
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"...for some reason.."

The reason is Michael Caine's quote about Jaws: The Revenge. "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”
 
Baulderstone said:
The reason is Michael Caine's quote about Jaws: The Revenge. "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”
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That quote sums it up, but I'd never seen it before. I have a vague memory of some comedy sketch from the 1980s or 1990s that posits that Michael Caine is in everything, but I can't remember any details. Kevin Kline once joked in the 1990s that there was a video shop in London with a section labeled 'films without Michael Caine.'
 
I guess at this point, I'll share a story from when I worked in a Borders in Chicago. At the time, I was the guy who decided what books were laid out on the tables near the entrance, and I was restocking them. I had enormous experience in retail by this time and had finely-tuned senses for detecting shoplifters and other troublemakers (For example, there was one guy called The Scribbler who just liked to come and scribble randomly inside books with a pen).

As I was laying out books, a nearby man tripped off my alarm. I wasn't looking directly at him, but he was picking up books and putting them down in the fashion of someone that wasn't really looking at them. I wanted to keep an eye on him, but didn't want to startle him either. I gradually worked my way down the table, closer and closer, to see what he was up to. He suddenly backed into me, and I realized I was stalking Michael Caine, who was in town for Batman Begins. He excused himself and quickly left the store.

Just one of my many brushes with greatness.
 
We started watching a Finnish crime series on Netflix called Bordertown (Finnish: Sorjonen). Pretty good so far.
 
3rik said:
We started watching a Finnish crime series on Netflix called Bordertown (Finnish: Sorjonen). Pretty good so far.
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I couldn't get into this one, even though I dig "Nordic Noir". TBF I only watched the first few eps tho.
 
I started watching All Hallows Eve 2 on Prime. Two of the stories in it were in another anthology I watched, which was kind of a letdown. The others in it weren't bad though. I also started watching Terrifier, featuring Art the clown (the evil clown in the first All Hallows Eve). I've heard good things about it, but so far, I'm not that impressed.
 
Finished Stranded and the ending was not what I expected.

Watched Paranormal, an Egyptian series about a professor having adventurers. he was 40 but looked much older and chain-smoked continually through the series. pretty good and dark.

Currently watching the Innocents, a paranormal love story, which seems pretty good.
 


I can't even begin to explain how difficult this is to get the hang of if you're not a lefty. For those interested, he also has an actual lesson on Drumeo. What a hero!
 
I watched "To The Ends Of The Earth". It's probably the first crime drama where the bad guys were drug dealers. Nick Powell plays a Treasury agent (as the Treasury department handled narcotics crimes in the 30's) investigating a world wide opium ring during the mid-30's. It's a fairly low key film, but while Powell's character is the protagonist, the film has him work with narcotics officers from China, Britain, Egypt, France and Cuba over the course of the film.

It's available to watch free on the Internet Archive, and the quality of their copy is pretty decent
 
The Mrs and I have been watching The World According to Jeff Goldblum. She really likes it but I have to remind her it is entertainment and not education.
 
Brock Savage said:
The Mrs and I have been watching The World According to Jeff Goldblum. She really likes it but I have to remind her it is entertainment and not education.
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And it's only a matter of time before Jeff Goldblum gets MeToo'd.
 
Watched The Backlot Murders, a slasher about the members of a rock band getting picked off as they film a music video on the Universal Studios lot. Cool concept; bad movie.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I am, with some great difficulty, not watching the Mandalorian (yet). I want more than three episodes to binge.
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I'm in the same boat. I didn't want to pay for two months of D+ when I only really want to watch Mandalorian. I decided to wait til there are four episodes left and then kick it up.

It's hard tho, I have already had some stuff spoiled!
 
On Saturday, I watched "World War Z" with my wife. Neither of us had ever seen it; I checked it out of the local library for Halloween, but we just got around to watching it.

There were some impresssive set-pieces--the zombies storming the walls of Jerusalem--and some effectively tense and creepy moments, like the scene were Brad Pitt's character (who just seems to be Brad Pitt) is looking through the transparent walls of the research facility at a zombie who is reflexively, and slowly, clicking its teeth in a chewing motion. But as my wife--who is the smart one in the family--said when it was over, "an action movie shouldn't be ponderous." And it kind of was.

I'll admit that the whole idea of the zombie apocalypse has never quite done it for me. The small-scale version, like "Night of the Living Dead," is effective. But zombies as a world-ending threat, especially when (a) they are essentially mindless, as here and (b) their opponents have modern weaponry, stretch my credulity a bit too far. There are ways to make it work, but this film didn't really do it.
 
Lofgeornost said:
On Saturday, I watched "World War Z" with my wife. Neither of us had ever seen it; I checked it out of the local library for Halloween, but we just got around to watching it.

There were some impresssive set-pieces--the zombies storming the walls of Jerusalem--and some effectively tense and creepy moments, like the scene were Brad Pitt's character (who just seems to be Brad Pitt) is looking through the transparent walls of the research facility at a zombie who is reflexively, and slowly, clicking its teeth in a chewing motion. But as my wife--who is the smart one in the family--said when it was over, "an action movie shouldn't be ponderous." And it kind of was.

I'll admit that the whole idea of the zombie apocalypse has never quite done it for me. The small-scale version, like "Night of the Living Dead," is effective. But zombies as a world-ending threat, especially when (a) they are essentially mindless, as here and (b) their opponents have modern weaponry, stretch my credulity a bit too far. There are ways to make it work, but this film didn't really do it.
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The book does a much better job at addressing how a modern world could plausibly succumb to a Zombie Apocalypse.
 
Has anyone ever done a zombie apocalypse film set in a pre-firearms era?
 
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