http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/ Micah's informal notes on the movies he sees en-us Copyright Micah Prude. http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3013 Tonight's Weird Wednesday was one that I've seen several times. It was amazing the first time I saw it and it's amazing every time since then. It's easily my favorite Dolemite movie. RRM is just such an amazing specimen of humanity. There isn't anything like him today, and I'm not sure there's ever been anything like him. http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3013 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:25:03 GMT http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3012 I saw this flick's "cats or death" scene at a Horror Remix last year and it didn't make much sense out of context. And now that I've seen the movie as a whole... it still doesn't make much sense. The movie plays like it was written by an 8th grade honors student who worked really hard for one week on a religion vs. science morality play. I'm not sure what the overall intent was, but the fact that the main guy gets infected by a dark mass, corrupts the entire town despite the preacher's best efforts, and dies in an inverted Christ post, suggests to me that he's supposed to be the Anti-Christ (or at least an anti-religion surrogate). But that really doesn't make a lot of sense thematically since most of the town was decidedly anti-science. Maybe this was a comment on how all religion is equally toxic and unproductive?

Strange movie. But fuck if it isn't ridiculously fun.

For the record, before the movie began we watched a mega-mix of 400+ deaths from last year's HMN that Damon compiled. It was killtastic. http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3012 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:24:10 GMT http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3011 I spend a long time the other night sorting through my massive VHS collection and trying to sort them into genre piles so I can restack them onto my recently-ish purchased shelves in some sort of order. I found this flick and - since I hadn't seen it - I tossed it onto the action pile based on the title and the back-of-the-box description.

But tonight, after deciding to watch my first VHS flick of 2012 and grabbing this one because it looked interesting, I found out it isn't really an action flick at all. Instead, it's a very early blaxploitation flick starring an awesomely named Winston Thrash as a dude who needs to get revenge on the thugs who burnt his mother's home to the ground with her in it.

Given that the film came out before blaxploitation became heavily action-oriented, this film is very slow, earnest, and dramatic. There are several scenes that feature legitimate local color, including one very interesting clip of a Black Panther march. IMDB says the film runs 90 minutes, but this VHS is barely over an hour. Unfortunately, the shortened run time really hurts the film, which feels very clunky and disjointed. There's an overarching appearance by a mystical Black Tribal African Guy that really makes no sense in this cut, and the main dramatic climax is achieved via a half-heart off-screen gunshot. I'd love to see a full print of this film, but in its current format, I was pretty disappointed. http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3011 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:23:04 GMT http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3010 I woke up today feeling a bit hungover, and found myself on the couch from around 10:00 to 6:00 watching something called Storage Wars. It's a completely engrossing (but totally staged) "reality" show about four dudes who go to storage-space auctions in hopes of getting something good. I don't watch any reality shows at all (or even much TV) so I can only explain today's indulgence on last night's indulgence.

Around 6 my wife and I decided to go to the Inwood to watch this flick. We decided that we needed to get off the couch and out of the house. Of course, we subconsciously picked the one theater where we could spend the two-hour running time *on a couch,* so hooray us.

The film itself was fairly solid. I dug the beginning and the end, and thought the middle section could have stood some tightening. But on the back-end of it, looking at the truly great final confrontation between Holmes and Moriarty, I mostly view the film as being an enjoyable success. http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3010 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:22:09 GMT http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3009 After we got home we drank a few more beers and watched this flick. I don't remember much about it. I know Malcolm McDowell was in it as an over-indulgent rock star named Reggie Wanker who ends up talking to his penis (although I actually dozed through that part of the film). Hooray 2011! http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3009 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:18:52 GMT http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3008 Melissa, I, and some friends met at Trinity Hall to celebrate Irish new years (meaning we got drunk and cheered at 6 local time). After we rang in the new year, me and Melissa headed over to Angelica to sober up and see our last theatrical movie of 2011. We'd heard somewhat good things about this one, but mostly we didn't want to see anything else that was showing.

And yeah... it was good. Matthew Lillard was surprisingly strong in his short appearance, Robert Forster was an unexpected joy, and the surfer kid ended up being way more interesting than his initial scenes led me to expect. Solid flick. http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3008 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:17:11 GMT http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3007 This shot-in-Dallas flick is amazing. It stars Joe Don Baker as a Dallas businessman who consistently butts heads with his rival. He isn't the lead of the film (his rival is), but I unsurprisingly found him to be the most interesting character in the movie. But where this movie really shines is the action scenes set in and around Dallas. There's a car chase through Fair Park, a footrace and fistfight on a Fair Park rollercoaster, and - best of all - a scene where a dude (apparently) legitimately hangs from Reunion Tower and shoots guns at a nearby helicopter. It's great stuff, and is easily one of the best action flicks I saw this year.

Here's my tweets:

a Dallas-based action flick feat. Joe Don Baker by the dir. of HALLOWEEN 4. Excited!
:: Oh JDB, you make it so easy to love you... #GettingEven http://t.co/MgRkr14r
:: "When it's all said and done, what's Dallas other than a little hick town that acts highfalutin?" ~ Joe Don Baker
:: Re a 'Make Dallas Beautiful' Fundraiser: "Hell, Dallas is already beautiful. They should send the money to Houston" #TexasHumor #GettingEven
:: "50 million dollars or gas will be released over DALLAS. You will be called." ~ Terrorists in #GettingEven http://t.co/6sxmMdfJ
:: Texan Gun Store Owner re Request to Buy AK47: "Selling Russian pea shooters? That's what I call... Ruskie business!" #GettingEven
:: Sweet. Car chase through the Texas State Fair fairgrounds. #GettingEven http://t.co/D5kUCVkL
:: Now a foot chase on the roller coaster tracks. This rules. #GettingEven http://t.co/TYW9narZ
:: Fantastic. These two dudes are actually fighting on the roller coaster track. #GettingEven http://t.co/sNXNZL8Y
:: GETTING EVEN climaxes with a on-the-ball crawl outside Reunion Tower that will impress any local: http://t.co/eHg8enG2
:: Another shot, which makes it look like the stunt was legit: http://t.co/Ra5RcGql
:: Legitimately awesome: http://t.co/ShQuBaSe
:: GETTING EVEN is pretty great, and not just because of how Dallas-centric it is. http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3007 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:15:38 GMT http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3006 Tonight my wife and I babysat my niece and nephew. After the niece (the younger) went to bed, we popped in this flick and watched it (for the most part) with my nephew. It's a flick from the Myrna Loy and William Powell box set that I got for Christmas. Powell is a stuffy husband who gets hit on the head and remembers himself as a scheming crook from a decade earlier. He realizes that his old self has a lot of money, and that he needs to convince his wife Loy (who wants to divorce him) to stick with him long enough that he can clear out their bank accounts. They end up falling back in love, and their back-and-forth interactions are just as good here as they are in the Thin Man series. This is a solidly funny movie, and I look forward to checking out the other films in the box set. http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3006 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:14:45 GMT http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3005 Hah. I put this in at the end of the night but ended up checking out twitter and facebook and consequently have no idea what the movie was about. Here's my few tweets:

:: Watching COBRA THUNDERBOLT (1984), a Thai action flick about a "crippled war veteran who creates an advanced battle tank."
:: "Your friend, Colonel Dave's new battle tank should be interesting." #CobraThunderbolt http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3005 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:13:45 GMT http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3004 I didn't want to watch this movie, and I can't really tell you why. I don't think I ever saw a trailer, and I didn't really see any negative reactions on twitter. But for some reason I thought it was animated (not sure why, and not sure why that mattered to me) and I just really didn't care. But it was a few weeks before it left theaters, there wasn't anything else I wanted to see theatrically, and I was kinda interested in seeing the much lauded 3D. And now, after seeing it, I'm glad I saw it in the theater. The 3D was really great (though, to be honest, I can't say I recognized much difference between it and, say Valentine’s Day Massacre 3D and Piranha 3D. More sophisticated film geeks will scoff at that admission, but fuck it, it's true. Sacha Baron Cohen played things VERY broad and some of the character moments - in particular the stuff where characters explained what it meant to be a machine without a place in the world - were annoyingly on-the-head. But overall I enjoyed the movie and won't be annoyed if it gets nominated for an Oscar (despite the fact that it won't be in my own Top 10). http://calendar.reeldistraction.com/?action=movieDetails&movieID=3004 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:12:49 GMT