What did you watch today?

[Ain_Uussaar]

Ex Machina (2015)
Noor pensionär (1972)

[Davy_Lee]

The Indian in the Cupboard (First viewing; YouTube) – 7/10
This is one I missed seeing as it only played briefly in selected cinemas. It has a unique plot that reminds me of HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS, but the subtle messages it carries about life, its consequences and responsibilities are too difficult for children to digest.

[Samuel_Scott]

458. Find Me Guilty (2006) 7/10 - Surprised this isn't so well known. Vin Diesel surprisingly good and Sidney Lumet knows how to do courtroom films, even if this is nowhere near the 10/10 standards of 12 Angry Men.

459. 36 (2004) 7/10 - Pretty gritty French police thriller. Great cast.

460. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) 6/10 - Meh.

461. Spy (2015) 7/10 - Enjoyed this one more than was expecting to. Miranda Hart didn't even annoy the hell out of me for a change.

[Davy_Lee]

Tiger Joe – 6.5/10
A 1982 Italian jungle war actioner about a devil-may-care freelance pilot named “Tiger" Joe who helps guerilla rebels fighting an oppressive military regime in the jungles of a Southeast Asian country. David Warbeck (TWINS OF EVIL, THE BEYOND), Tony King (CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE, THE LAST HUNTER) star, Anthony M. Dawson a.k.a. Anthony Margerithi (CODENAME WILD GEESE, COMMANDO LEOPARD) directs. The only DVD available is the Video Asia US release that is sourced from a Japanese VHS.

Hawk the Slayer – 7/10
80’s sword and sorcery men-on-a-mission adventure that is quite entertaining. The only reason I just revisited it is because Jack Palance stars. Since I watched it on video (thanks to the cool theatrical key art), the one thing about this film that has stuck in my mind is Voltan’s helmet, which makes Palance’s facial expressions look scarier.

Rolling Vengeance (First viewing; YouTube) – 6.5/10
A small town freelance trucker named Joey finds his mother and two younger sisters killed in a road accident caused by six alcoholic tossers who happen to be the sons of an influential local businessman named Tiny Doyle. Doyle owns a tavern that the local residents are protesting against as it runs strip shows and sells liquor that has been causing accidents in the town. When Joey’s father is killed and his girlfriend raped by Doyle’s sons in a series of unlawful events, Joey decides to take the matters into his own hands by building a monster truck to destroy Doyle’s sons and his business properties. Don Michael Paul and Ned Beatty star. Not on DVD.

[Ain_Uussaar]

Sucker Punch - Extended Cut (2011)
The Cobbler (2014)

[Davy_Lee]

Cirio H. Santiago’s Post Apocalyptic Double Feature:
Wheels of Fire (1985) – 6/10
Equalizer 2000 (First viewing; YouTube) – 6/10

These two B-movies are two sides of the same coin. Both have paper-thin plot and a nonstop barrage of action scenes, which may be tiring to watch unless you’re in the right mood.


Urban Warriors – 6.5/10
Just re-watched this after more than two decades! I thought it was bad then but I sort of like it now for all the wrong reasons.

Three technicians of an underground laboratory in the outskirts of a city become the few survivors of a nuclear explosion. Venturing out to find other uncontaminated humans, the trio begins to search the surrounding areas. But their quest meets a deadly twist of fate when they encounter a gang of sadistic mutants who desperately want them for their meal!

That’s the whole plot that would actually make a quite interesting post-nuke flick, which the producers obviously did not have the funds to finance. In fact, this very low budget Italian post nuke actioner was so cheaply produced that it had to splice some footage (the action sequences) of another Italian post nuke flick THE FINAL EXECUTIONER (1984) to pad out the run time. The production design, if there was any, is mostly set in a couple of abandoned factories and some empty warehouses (Italian post nuke films are just not complete without them). This flick rightly belongs to the so-bad-it’s-good B-movie category. Not on DVD but should be.

[Davy_Lee]

Nemesis (First viewing; YouTube) – 6.5/10
I can say that director Albert Pyun has a talent in staging stylish and exciting shootout sequences, some of which are clearly inspired by John Woo’s. The big shootout scene at the beginning is the best and most intense. Unfortunately, Pyun is not a director who knows the ways to hold viewers’ interest throughout a movie. This happens to all of his movies that I’ve seen: DANGEROUSLY CLOSE, DOWN TWISTED, CYBORG, HONG KONG ’97, KICKBOXER 4: THE AGGRESSOR. Maybe it’s due to the cast he had to work with, who are mostly second-class actors, and the script itself.

[Samuel_Scott]

Last couple of days:
462. SWAT (2003) 6/10
463. Crazy Six (1997) 4/10
464. Weird Science (1985) 10/10 - Never gets old, but Universal really screwed up with the transfer.
465. Blast (1997) 6/10
466. WolfCop (2014) 4/10 - Hyped up a little for me. Disappointing.
467. Colour of Night (1994) 4/10 - One of Bruce Willis' worst. Starts off well, and quickly descends into stupidity. Oh, and too long.

[Ain_Uussaar]

It Follows (2014)
Burying the Ex (2014)

[Ain_Uussaar]

The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened? (2015)
The Gunman (2015)

[Ain_Uussaar]

Good Kill (2014)
Leon / Lionheart (1990)

[Davy_Lee]

Gold (First viewing; YouTube) – 7/10
A quite satisfying drama with a social commentary about what evil wealthy businessmen will do to get richer once greed takes over their lives. Roger Moore plays Rodney Slater, a newly appointed general manager of their gold mine in South Africa who becomes the scapegoat in their conspiracy to destroy the mine in order to drive up worldwide gold prices.

Susannah York, Bradford Dillman, Ray Milland, and Sir John Gielgud co-star. Peter Hunt directs.

[Ain_Uussaar]

Space Station 76 (2014)

[Ain_Uussaar]

3 Days to Kill - Extended Cut (2014)

[Davy_Lee]

80’s Italian Post-apocalyptic Triple Feature:

Rage a.k.a. A Man Called Rage a.k.a. Rush 2 (YouTube) – 6/10
I came to know about this as I saw this one at the cinema and thought it was quite entertaining! It’s a so-bad-it’s-good kind of B-movies.


Allow me to introduce "Rage"

Several years after a total nuclear devastation that obliterated life on earth, the only survivor of an elite military unit Captain Strike a.k.a. Rage is assigned to retrieve uranium reserves and all the technical knowledge that would help decontaminate the earth. He then sets off on a life and death expedition to the Forbidden Land – the place where the uranium has been detected – with three warriors of the uncontaminated humans. Rage seeks the aid of Slash, his former comrade in his unit, to escort them to the uranium plant site only to discover that Slash demands fifty percent of share in the mission for his own ends. Not wanting Slash to join his mission, Rage and his team sneak out of Slash’s lair at night. When Slash realizes that he has been betrayed, he launches an all out pursuit on Rage in the deserts to sabotage the mission.

Conrad Nichols a.k.a. Bruno Minniti and Werner Pochath star. Tonino Ricci a.k.a. Anthony Richmond (Thor the Conqueror) directs. This is the sequel to Rush (1983) also directed by Ricci. Not on English-friendly DVD.

The Final Executioner (YouTube) – 6/10
This is another cult 80’s Italian post nuke flicks that I actually saw at the cinema. I still remember that cool-looking theatrical poster. Those who saw 80’s Italian post nuke films in the cinemas or watched them on videos couldn’t have missed this one. It’s an icon of the genre, the other two being 2020 Texas Gladiators and Endgame.


Poster looks cool , film not cool...

Several years following the nuclear apocalypse, a racist class system developed. A privileged, uncontaminated upper class and the radiation-contaminated majority called the target material. Since society has become virtually lawless, the privileged invented a sport game: The Hunt, seemingly to eradicate the population of contaminated humans. When one such gang performs the game, one of the preys named Alan survives and escapes death, only after his wife is raped and killed. With the arts of killing and survival skills taught by a former New York cop named Sam who has rescued him, he returns to wreak vengeance on the gang members. As the game plan has been reversed, now the hunters become the hunted.

William Mang, Harrison Muller Jr., and Woody Strode star. Not on DVD.

The Bronx Executioner (First viewing; YouTube) – 3.5/10
Ugh… this 1989 Italian post nuke flick recycles a lot of footage from THE FINAL EXECUTIONER (1984) and a few from URBAN WARRIORS (1987), splices them and re-dubs the dialogues into a “new” plot. Just watch them back-to-back and you will know what I mean. The title lies as there is no Bronx but a mansion somewhere in an Italian countryside, some run down factories (Italian post nuke flick isn’t perfect without them!), and a desolate open land.


With that poster, who would not be enticed to see the film? Observe Woody Strode on the right. He plays in it but not "actually" in it.

It turns out that the film was produced by the same people that produced THE FINAL EXECUTIONER. That film must have been a hit in Italy (or whatever!) that the producers thought “Hey, we haven’t made the fullest use of our low budget spent for our epic work THE FINAL EXECUTIONER. The audience must not have got enough of it! Let’s make another post nuke film from it…”

The producers must have seen too many Godfrey Ho cut-and-paste ninja films and felt the urge to follow his righteous path in filmmaking! “If Master Godfrey could do it and get away with it, why can’t we?” they thought. Judging by the work of the master and his disciple, I could say that the Italians did it better. At least they tried hard to show continuity

The leading man is played by an unpopular Italian actor. Alex Vitale (Strike Commando), and Woody Strode co-star (His scenes were lifted from THE FINAL EXECUTIONER and were re-dubbed by a random actor, so he actually doesn’t star here!). Not on DVD, and must never be.

[Ain_Uussaar]

Stiletto (2008)
Ride the High Country (1962)
The Fighting 69th (1940)

[Ain_Uussaar]

Jackie Brown (1997)

[Ain_Uussaar]

Furious Seven (2015)

[Vincent_Bouche]

135 - Days of Being Wild (HK Blu)
One of the first WKW movies. Not that much convinced by this one (said to be the "first part" of "In the Mood for Love"), but an impressive bunch of actors (Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau, Jeckie Cheung, Leslie Cheung….) - 6/10.

136 - 7th Floor (Broadcast)
Interesting starting point, but after that everything gets really awkward and unbelievable… 5/10.

137 - Son of a Gun (Broadcast)
Efficient thriller/action movie with Ewan McGregor - 6/10.

138 - Les Vacances de M. Hulot (1978 version) (US Blu)
The first movie in which the character "Mr Hulot" makes his appearance. Not the greatest Tati movie, but a classic - 7/10.

139 - Othello (Welles) (French Blu)
After Macbeth, this is another inspired adaptation of a Shakespeare play by Welles. Great restoration - 8/10.

140 - Scream 2 (German Blu)
Clearly below the first part, but always fun and rather efficient - 6/10.

141 - The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (UK Blu)
I couldn't watch the 3D version, but as (almost) always with Tsui Hark, this is another successful martial arts movie - 7/10.

142 - Mon Oncle (US Blu)
A wonderful movie, full of ideas and witness of a certain way of living, before everything got crushed by modern technologies. Just a masterpiece - 9/10.

143 - Game of Thrones: Season 3 (French Blu)
Re-watching of this season: I still think this series is a bit slow, and this is partly due to the fact that we follow the destiny of so many characters, but the awesome ninth episode takes it all - 8/10.

[Davy_Lee]

Rush (First viewing; YouTube) – 6.5/10
Survivors of the nuclear war are living in separate isolated regions of the earth and confined to survival camps or life-sustaining plants ruled by warlords. Many live as captives while only few lead a warrior’s way. Rush (Conrad Nichols) is one such lone warrior that is being forced to labor in a life-sustaining water treatment plant run by the evil Yor (Gordon Mitchell). The prisoners who are living in fear in his colony are led to believe that life exists only within his plant, but Rush who has just been incarcerated has discovered just before his capture that life exists outside. Realizing that Yor is enslaving the captives and there is no hope for their freedom, Rush decides to retaliate and end Yor’s reign of terror.

Yes! I finally got to watch RUSH. This is another very low budget Italian post nuke film that is actually quite entertaining. It’s face-paced too, only 75 minutes! It’s actually not a prequel to RAGE since the lead character has a different name. RAGE is sort of a spin-off, or twin brother, of RUSH.


“Before Rage, there was Rush!”

The only available DVD is the limited edition German CMV Laservision small box, which has been long OOP. I am hoping for a re-release!


2020 Texas Gladiators (YouTube) – 6.5/10
After one of their comrades is killed, three warriors, survivors of the nuclear war named Jab, Halakron and Red Wolfe band together to destroy The Black One, a ruthless dictator bent on establishing the New World Order, or something like that. O, almost forgot. Native American Indians riding in outmoded World War II jeeps also join forces for the noble cause...

This is the better one among the Italian post-nuke flicks churned out during the 80’s. We have the spaghetti western and macaroni combat genres, then this belongs to the “pepperoni post-nuke” genre, comprising the more popular ones as: 1990 the Bronx Warriors, Escape from the Bronx, 2019 After the Fall of New York, The New Barbarians, 2020 Texas Gladiators, The Final Executioner, and Endgame. Not on DVD.