January Movies - Week 4

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Sorry, had a busy week with an impromptu trip to California to pickup furniture so... here are a few more movies for you to enjoy!!!

Jan 20 – Hit-Monkey (2021)
 
Have you ever thought that a show or movie was made specifically for you? Well, that’s how I felt about this Marvel comic about a capuchin monkey who becomes an assassin with the help of a ghost to avenge his family/tribe by going up against the Yakuza… from the team that brought you Archer. There are some great chuckle-a-minute episodes, some slower character development episodes, all done beautifully & plenty of monkey based fun! Now streaming on Hulu!
 
Rating – 10/10 – Not even joking, I’ll probably watch all ten episodes (3.5 hours) again soon.
 
Jan 21 – Muppet Treasure Island (1996)
 
Tim Curry as Long John Silver & Muppets… what more do you need?!? Sure, it’s a musical… but damn it I love Muppets.
 
Rating – 9/10 – The musical portions are the only part where I check my phone… and even then, not all of them.
 
Jan 22 – The Living Daylights (1987)
 
This is one of the James Bond movies that I’d only seen once during a binge of all of the movies a few years ago… and I honestly couldn’t tell you anything about it other than Joe Don Baker as a crazy general & Timothy Dalton was Bond. I’d completely forgot about the hot cellist, plot straight out of Red Sparrow & the loveable Mujaddid as our allies like it’s Rambo III. Pretty good James Bond movie though!
 
Rating – 8/10 – Is it the best? No, that’s A View to a Kill… but worth a watch. There’s some genuine craziness.
 
Jan 23 – Fantastic Four (1994)
 
We had a movie night with our friend Hanae who lives in California… and we wanted to show her something… special. See kids, back in the early 90s, Marvel was on hard times because movie companies are stupid… so the brilliant Roger Corman bought the rights to some of their most popular characters, The Fantastic Four, for a film adaptation. That movie was made on a budget of about a million dollars to keep the rights so that he could sell them to another company for a healthy profit… and that movie was never released. However, we’ve interviewed the director Oley Sassone & star Michael Bailey Smith (played Ben Grimm/The Thing) and there’s some great insight… but you can check out the interviews for all that.
 
Rating – 9/10 – I really like this movie… 10x better than the ones that came out nearly a decade later & 1,000x better than the 2015 version. Find your copy now!
 
Jan 24 – Stitches (2001)
 
Okay, this was a Rifftrax that we watched by writer/director Neal Marshall Stevens, who really has only directed this & 2005’s Possessed but is a very accomplished writer of “Thirteen Ghosts”, Hellraiser sequels & dozens of Full Moon Pictures… but it’s about a demon who disguises itself as an elderly woman… and harvests souls at a boarding house. Now, the premise of the movie… and even the story itself is actually pretty good… and in the hands of a master, could be pretty interesting. That being said, this was probably shot for about $20,000 with a local theatre crew of actors & was confusing at times. The big joke of the Rifftrax is “When does this take place?” and honestly there’s no way to tell whether it’s Revolutionary War or the 1950’s or current day in an old boarding house… but whatever.
 
Rating – 7/10 – Yeah, wasn’t actually that bad… just some scenes REALLY dragged to fill that 80 minute runtime when it’s basically an episode of “Tales from the Crypt” kind of story.
 
Jan 25 – Contraband (2012)
 
We’re starting off Marky March where we’re talking about Mark Wahlberg movies… and we got this one on Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack in a mystery bag from Entertainmart a few months ago… and I had no idea what it was about because I don’t think I’d seen a commercial for it. Was it a straight-to-DVD Marky Mark movie? Nope… but it’s about him as a smuggler who’s retired to raise his family… but then his dumbass brother-in-law got him in debt with Giovanni Ribisi so he has to jump aboard Cpt. JK Simmon’s ship to Panama to… you know what, check it out if you want!
 
Rating – 8/10 – It’s better than you think… but I love when a plan comes together.
 
Jan 26 – Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1984)
 
Okay, this movie was mentioned on How Did This Get Made Podcast & I saw that it was on Tubi… so we watched it… and this may be the perfection of cinema with regards to musicals. Pia Zadora & Craig Sheffer are human teenagers when a ship of aliens in search of rock show up to… I’m not sure exactly but there are plenty of rockabilly & 80’s New Wave musical numbers… and cougars… and a tentacle monster… and a chainsaw wielding Michael Berryman… and Jermaine Jackson for a few minutes in the beginning for some reason… perfection!!!
 
Rating – 10/10 – I can’t wait to watch this movie again! Now on Tubi!!!
 
Jan 27 – Wild Zero (1999)
 
Oddly enough the same day, we watched this movie with our friends Hanae & Jayson after seeing a trailer about a month ago… and this is a Japanese movie starring a rock band Guitar Wolf… and it follows an alien-zombie invasion… and there’s all kinds of crazy stuff here… and Rock & Roll… and holy crap, I can’t wait to see this movie again too! Two movies with R&R Aliens the same day, completely unplanned… now it’s a genre I need to investigate more! Perhaps a future month theme…
 
Rating – 10/10 – This movie is bonkers nuts… and Tobio!!! Tobio… is not what she seems… nor is anybody else

I'll probably catch up to the actual date soon enough... we watch a lot of movies...

Steve