Winchester (2018)

 "Winchester Mystery House", I've been their twice; grandparents lived in San Jose. Sarah Winchester, widow and heir to the Winchester Rifle Company, thought the ghosts of people killed by Winchester rifles were instructing her to build a large, rambling mansion, ultimately seven stories, around 100 rooms. The building had many eccentricity's, stairwells that lead to no where, doorways that open onto precipice's', their is alot of ghost story potential here, especially as it was filmed in part at the actual house. To bad the story is dull and cliche, good actors like Jason Clark, Sarah Snook and Helen Mirran aren't given much to work with. Still it made a bunch of money, $44 million of $3.5 million. *

The Giant Claw (1957)

 Low budget sci-fi flick from Columbia in which a giant, silly looking, vulture like bird appears in Canadian air space, attacks commercial and military aircraft, and generally creates havoc. Some scientists, military officers and a beautiful woman defeat the thing in 75 minutes of run time. I spent the film ruminating about how it's events would have effected the world, one conclusion I came up with is that there would be no Big Bird on Seseme Street. *1/2

American Dharma (2018)

 'American Dharma' closes a kind of trilogy in which director Errol Morris interviews former high ranking administration officials, officials with not great reputations owing to disasters they helped oversee. While in 'Fog of War' Robert MacNamara agonizes over his role in the Vietnam War, and in 'The Unknown Known' Donald Rumsfield seems genuinely perplexed that Iraq didn't work out, in 'American Dharama' Steve Bannon calmly explains that he was right all along.

Major criticisms of this film focus on hos well Bannon comes off, and a sense that Morris didn't push him as hard as those previous interview subjects. Both Morris and myself I think were caught a little off guard, by how charming Bannon can be, how reasonable he can sound. Bannon of course, a film lover (as is made evident throughout the picture, as he discusses keynote films for his world view), know how to act.  He has placed himself firmly in a reasonable gear, as reasonable as a rabid, provaction prone, political apocolyptisist can sound, which is shockingly reasonable.

Like the 2016 election Bannon takes something that should have been a resounding lose for him, and turns it into a sort of narrow win. While Morris raises critiques a plenty to Bannon, the calm way he dismisses them serves him rather well. Something of a missed opertunity, but still a reveling portrait of how Bannon sees himself and would like to be seen. ***

The Love Witch (2016)

 Man, there's alot going on here, both stylistically and in terms of subtext. I can't do it justice, but Kyle Kallgren can, check out his video The Love Witch's Subtle Cinematic Subversion. ***1/2

Halloween 6 (1995)

 'Halloween 6' is Paul Rudd's first movie, he plays a grown up Tommy Doyle, a character from the first movie. He is one of the too many characters, who are hard to all remember and keep straight, not to mention their interrelationships, the passage of time and all the lore. Still there is an okay movie in here somewhere, too bad it got wrecked in the horrible editing. This movie would have been  almost impossible to follow without the aid of IMDB plot synopsises, because much of the plot isn't really communicated well, if at all. Not as bad as 4, but still poor. *

Curse of the Puppet Master (1998)

 Kind of a soft reboot. The owner of a museum of curiosities now has the puppets, he's trying to duplicate the formula that brings them to life. In the process he sacrifices a couple of assistants, local law enforcement is suspicious of his involvement in strange deaths and disappearances; in an interesting choice the movie decides to make the sheriff unsympathetic, he's right that the museum owner is up to something, but he's also an asshole. The soul of a man nicknamed tank ends up in a tank puppet. Very abrupt end... **

Dollman vs Demonic Toy's (1993)

 I suppose this one is pretty self explanatory. Tim Thomerson from 'Dollman' and Tracy Scoggins from 'Demonic Toy's' team up to prevent said evil playthings in another attempt to provide their evil master with a human body to inhabit. They are joined in their efforts by Melissa Behr, a leggy blond nurse who was shrunken to doll size in another movie, 'Bad Channels' (1992). It's a kind of B movie Avengers. Making generous use of footage from its three feeder movies, it's still only about an hour in length. **

Demonic Toys (1992)

 A sting operation against some gun runners goes bad; officer Tracey Scoggins partner and lover is killed, she tracks fleeing suspects to a toy watehouse. Inside the warehouse they discover demonically possessd toy's, Scoggins, a teen girl, a Korean war veteran security guard and a chicken delivery drivers must fight the toy's, while the spirit of Tracey's unborn son must fight a demon to prevent possession of his fetal body. This sounds cooler then it is in execution, still **

Dollman (1991)

 Tim Thomerson is an alien cop who tracks a villainous explosives expert to Earth, but things are complicated by the fact that everything here is 6 times bigger then on his world, so he's only 13 inches tall. Dollman must defeat the fugitive, take on a gang that is terrorizing the south Bronx, in the process helping a single mom, her son and vastly strengthening the neighborhood watch. If this were given a bigger budget and Dollman was played by someone like Rutger Hauer this might have been something. *1/2

Puppet Master 5 (1994)

 A corporation seeks the secrets of the puppets. The head evil demon comes to our world to finish what his minons couldn't. The spirit of Toulon finally finds peace, maybe. *

Puppet Master 4 (1993)

 A demon from another realm sends puppet demons to our world to sabatoges experiments into artifical intelligence. A young genius becomes the new puppet master. A psychic goes comatose and the new puppet masters turn coat friend is murded in his car. *1/2

Puppet Master 3 (1991)

 'Puppet Master 3' is a popular favorite, and probably the best in the series, I don't anticipate any subsequent entry being better then this. A prequel that contradicts some established lore, but gives us origin stories for several of the puppets. Set in 1941 Germany we find this version of Andre Toulon us

Puppet Master II (1990)

 A group of researchers go to the old hotel, they fair little better then the psychics. We now have a new puppet with a flame thrower, who joins the others in successfully resurrecting the old puppet master Toulon, who is less successful in resurrecting his wife, unless you consider incarnating her in a life size puppet a success. On par with the first. *1/2

Megalopolis (2024)

 'Megalopolis' is bad. Shockingly, pedanticly, even amateurisly bad. That Francis Ford Coppla, responsible for 'The Godfather', 'The Conversation' and 'Apocalypse Now' could write, direct and produce this... well cognitive decline comes to mind, but also the dangers many creative people can get into when no one is restraining them. 

Coppola first started working on the ideas for 'Megalopolis' shortly after finishing 'Apocalypse Now', and has been tinkering with it for roughly 45 years. Never able to attract studio interest, Coppala self financed this $120 million behemoth, selling a winery to be able to afford it. He assembled a truly impressive ensemble cast ranging form old hands like Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, to newer, less conventional casting choices like Shia LaBeouf and Aubrey Plaza, the latter one of the few performers in the piece to come out of this disaster undeminished.

A parable, as the opening credits inform us, it is set in an alternate version of New York City called New Rome, and the Roman touches are present throughout the film in the form of names, costumes and even plot points. Storys of ancient Rome and Shakespeare are major influences here. While there are many plots going on, the principle one revolves around a riverly between a brilliant architect played by Adam Driver, and the city's mayor played by expert villian Giancarlo Esposito, one further complicated when Esposito's daughter Nathalie Emmaual starts dating Driver. Also Driver has the ability to stop time, and the new environmentaly friendly and supper adaptable building material he developed was fashioned out of materializing his late wife's despair. Or something like that, this movie is really weird.

Coppala seems to see his movie as delivering profound and important warnings about the dangers of environmental degradation, run away captlilism and political polarization. However his treatment of these subjects are very surfacy and uninsightful. The film is convinced of its own greatness, which to put it nicely is unearned. It wants to think of its self as vaugly populist, but shows no intreast in the proletariat, all of its characters are elites and in a particularly pronounced example of tonedefness has as it's ultimate moral, that the good elites will save us from the bad elites. 'Megalopolis' is a mess.

That being said at least 'Megalopolis' is an interesting mess, a passion project that is both patronizing and, as far as I can tell, completely sincere. I was almost never bored, it's a pretty entertaining train wreck with some bonkers moments which I rather enjoyed. As the film ended I had a big grin on my face, what I had just seen should not exist, so I found real amusement in the fact that through shear  hutzpah it does. *1/2

Puppet Master(1989)

 'Puppet Master' is the first in a surprisingly longlived franchise, 15 films in total with the most recent being from 2022. Low budget horror series was conceived for the direct to video market of the 1980's and thrived there. This first film was unexpectedly slow, the plot concerns a group of sometimes competitive psychics who converge on a sprawling old seaside hotel, in search of an ancient Egyptian scroll that had been used by an old puppet master to bring some creepy looking marionette's to life in the years before World War II. Those dolls are still conscious and when released from their hidding place proceed to kill. This killing spree dosen't start until around half way through the movie and is not as intense or creative as I'd anticipated. The practical effect tiny assaians are by far the highpoint and the draw here. Needless to say there are plenty of kinks that must get at least partially worked out in subsequent films, or perhaps the standards for direct to video horror are just that low. *1/2

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice (2024)

 'Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice' is the long delayed and frankly unnecessary sequel to 1988's 'Beetlejuice'. We pick up with the Dietz family decades on, both returning characters and new additions, I found the family dynamics here my favorite part of the film. Of course Beetlejuice returns to complicate things, but he has to compete with a crowded field of arguably too many storylines, this movie is nearly 2 1/2 hours long. Despite being seemingly assembled from a grab bag of unfinished ideas, it's not just a rehash of the first film, avoids making big mistakes and has a good share of amusing moments. Not the disaster it might have been, 'Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice' is perfectly fine, which probably makes it seem better then it really is. For me it just eeks out a *** rating.

Species II (1997)

 The crew of the first maned mission to Mars are infected with alien DNA and bring it back to Earth. Micheal Madison and Marg Helgenberger use a sort of "declawed" clone of Natasha Henstridge to track the infected and prevent the alien presence from spreading. More nudity and gore then the first film, a few fun cameos, but genrally weaker then the original. *1/2

Species (1995)

 A response to a SETI message provides a formula for a clean burning fuel, as well as instructions on how to combine alien and human DNA. The government co opts SETI, and a secret team lead by Ben Kingsley follow the recipe they are provided and produce a being who quickly escapes, transforms into the gorgeous Natasha Henstridge and sets out to find a mate and begin repopulating our planet with hybrids. Kingsley leads a team consisting of scientists Alfred Molina and Marg Helgenberger, government assasian Micheal Madsen and empath Forest Whitaker, as they tract the alien from a Utah lab to the streets of LA, with the survival of mankind potentially at stake. 

I was surprised how decent this was and how much I enjoyed it. Make no mistake this is very much a B movie of both the sci-fi and explotation varity. Despite fairly two deminsonal characters the film choses to play it straight and works because of that. **1/2

Lousy Carter (2023)

 The new Bob Byington film. 'Lousy Carter' (David Krumholtz) got his nickman from his lousy performance on the high school golf team. It is now 25 years since high school graduation, once a promising animated filmmaker, now teaching literature at a small college, with a dying mother, semi estranged sister and still not married, Lousy's lousy life gets even lousyer when he is told he has six months to live. Carter decides 'what the hell' and proceeds to burn bridges, career and personal, telling only an ex girlfriend that he is dying.

Dry, dark comedy is both short and layered, with an interesting cast of supporting characters (including Martin and Starr Olvia Thirlby), the film is deceptively well structured, with a suppressing amount of subtlety, it benefits from repeat viewing. At times a sort of ensemble character study, I love Byington's casting, especially of his female characters, Jocelyn DeBoar, Trieste Kelly Dunn and new comer Luxy Banner all shine with minimal screen time. ***