May Movies - Week 4

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Another busy week but somehow we fit movies into our day...

May 22 – Salem’s Lot (1979)
 
This was a 3 hour TV Mini-Series based on a Stephen King tale and I had heard mixed reviews (okay, mostly negative) over the years. The story is about a novelist (David Soul as Stephen King?) and a teenage horror fan in the small Maine town of Salem’s Lot and there’s a new antique dealer who moves into “the old house up the street” and that can only mean one thing… vampires! The cast is pretty studded with character actors like James Mason, Bonnie Bedelia, Elisha Cook jr, Fred Willard, Geoffrey Lewis & Kenneth McMillan but… honestly this was kind of a funny rough watch. Did I mention it was made for TV? Because you’ll want to know that going in… because there is essentially zero violence, blood & it’s basically a movie that’s all slow buildup… and then awkward freeze frames where what you watch a horror movie for should be. This is essentially “Blue Balls: The Vampire Movie”. Streaming on Tubi though!
 
Rating – 8/10 – That being said, I still liked it & see the potential for the remake coming later this year
 
May 23 – Strange Invaders (1983)
 
Also on Tubi, we had heard about this movie on the “In Search of Tomorrow” documentary that we watched last month (and interviewed the director on our podcast Everything I Learned From Movies) but this is a weird alien invasion movie about a professor (Paul LeMat) whose ex-wife goes back to her Midwestern town… but ends up missing. So he goes to check it out (because they have a daughter & he’s not thinking full-time parent) and hijinx ensue! Nancy Allen pops in as a tabloid reporter / love interest. Louise Fletcher pops in as the government UFO researcher. Even Wallace Shawn & Michael Lerner pop in for a few. The tone is just… weird & all over the place which gives you a genuine sense that you have no idea what’s going to happen. The actress who plays the ex-wife though is noticeably bad though. I’d like to say that her performance is explained with the ending but… it doesn’t really hold up. The lead isn’t the greatest either… but man, if you like weird stories & pretty great practical effects, give it a watch. It’s 90 minutes & again, on Tubi! God bless Tubi!
 
Rating – 9/10 – Worth a watch for horror fans or alien invasion movie fans!
 
May 24 – Karate Cops / Hawkeye (1988)
 
A HUGE thank you to the Grindbin Podcast for bringing movies like this to my knowledge & attention! As you know, I love auteur movies… by which I mean, one person being the writer, director, star, editor, caterer, producer, whatever on what can only be described as THEIR movie in that case. This example is provided by martial artist / trainer of the 80’s SF 49ers George Chung! The story is about a Texan-Asian martial artist detective named Alexander Hakimoto aka Hawkeye (Chung) teaming up with a new partner Charlie Wilson (basically an Eddie Murphy impersonator… but he’s admitted that’s basically just how he is) in the mean streets of Las Vegas to find the killer of Hawkeye’s partner. What follows is 90 minutes of incredible filmmaking!!! Decent martial arts fighting, slow car chases, guerilla filmmaking, nonsensical plot twists, running jokes that are just baffling, I can’t wait to share this with more people. Look it up on YouTube. It’s the one that specifically says that it’s not a Marvel film (cuz Hawkeye).
 
Rating – 10+/10 – Sure it’s Champagne & Bullets or The Room level of auteur filmmaking but this one is genuinely fun throughout!
 
May 25 – Uncharted (2022)
 
What? We didn’t watch this during Marky March? No, because it was still in theatres & I wasn’t going to pay for it… but we watched the long awaited video game adaptation movie starring Tom Holland & Mark Wahlberg about a young pickpocket who gets involved in a treasure hunt… and hijinx ensue. Antonio Banderas leads a slew of questionable evil characters in search of Magellan’s lost treasure… and honestly, I enjoyed the movie. Is it great? Of course not. Was half of the trailer in the post-credits sequence? Yeah, that was a little weird. Is it stupid fun that you just need to shut your brain down for? I’d recommend doing that.
 
Rating – 8/10 – It’s like National Treasure with a bigger CGI budget.
 
May 26 – Moonfall (2022)
 
I’ve been waiting for this one for a while… but because it’s one of those ridiculous Roland Emmerich/Dean Devlin big budget disasterpiece movies… and in this one, not only is it that the MOON is now falling to Earth… and Patrick Wilson is an astronaut (I assume Gerard Butler is busy doing Greenland 2) but… Halle Berry is the only scientist that can save us!!! Ladies & gentlemen… this doesn’t even BEGIN to scratch the surface on how ridiculous this movie is… this was the first movie in YEARS that I basically did a live comment session on Facebook about… and man, this movie is a compilation of all the other disaster movies that came before it (Armageddon, 2012, Day After Tomorrow, The Core, Geostorm, Godzilla, Transformers the Last Night, Independence Day, Gravity, Twister, Contact, Event Horizon, Elysium, Sunshine, Star Trek IV, GI Joe Rise of Cobra, Deep Impact, Ad Astra, etc) and jumbled up … I expected Roman & Tej from F9 to say hi in their Space Fiero at one point & it wouldn’t have been out of the context of the movie… and this was all BEFORE THE THIRD ACT!!! It’s really amazing how bat sh*t this movie is… but damn it, I know I’ll be watching it again for the podcast!!!
 
Rating - ???/10 – Stay tuned… but you know I love these stupid movies
 
May 27 – Firestarter (2022)
 
We caught this new release on Peacock the night it came out… and yes, it’s a remake of the Stephen King story that they made a 1984 movie starring Drew Barrymore, George C Scott & Martin Sheen about a young girl & her father on the run from a secret organization… because they have telekinetic powers. Going to through this out there up front, I really like the 1984 movie. Check it out. This one stars Zac Efron as the father… and Kurtwood Smith showed up for a day of shooting as a former scientist who’s in a nursing home now… and that’s about it for stars. Gloria Reuben from “Timecop” is in it a bit too. The thing is… this movie had a definite TV movie feel to it. Lots of Vaseline on the lens, weird light flares, just weird stuff that made me think of a “This is Us” commercial or something. I do like that John Rainbird is actually a Native American in this version (instead of George C Scott) but his character is pretty confusing in this one. The fire effects were great and practical for the most part, but that just made the CGI stuff stand out even more. Overall, I’m glad that I saw it for free… and I can understand the hate.
 
Rating – 7/10 – Honestly, just watch the original. Even at 90 minutes it seems too damn long.
 
May 28 – Human Resources (2022)
 
This one is an adult spin-off of “Big Mouth” now streaming on Netflix about personality trait monsters (hormones, logic, depression, etc.) that are foul-mouthed & messing with people’s lives. That being said… I loved all the seasons of “Big Mouth” and this is more of the same enjoyment! Most of the Netflix cartoon series that I’ve seen (Bojack Horseman especially) have this weird ability to be both incredibly foul-mouthed toilet humor… but then also have incredibly insightful episodes about very real human things that make the viewer cry. It’s quite incredible! Spoilers: It was episodes 8 & ESPECIALLY 9 for me…
 
Rating – 10/10 – Keep it up, Netflix!

See you all next week!

​Steve