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Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
2014 | Action, Sci-Fi
Captain America: world police
Hold on to your shields, cos cap is back and he didn't skip leg day!
Wth a new less campy outfit and an ever growing addiction to kick someone's ass,
Captain America returns to take on the also returning Hydra, he must form a team to take on the oncoming threat which has a secret weapon....the winter soldier!
With awesome cameos, plenty of action and a twist you didn't see coming (unless you read the comics) Captain America: the winter soldier is a must see for all comic book nerds and geeks alike and to anyone in seek of a great action movie
Starring chris evans, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L Jackson, Sebastian stan, Bath Mackie, Cobie Smulders.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Conan the Barbarian (1982) in Movies

Feb 22, 2018 (Updated Feb 22, 2018)  
Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Conan the Barbarian (1982)
1982 | Adventure, Fantasy
Well-remembered fantasy movie isn't very similar to Howard's original stories, but gets the tone more or less right and made Arnie into a proper movie star. Strapping barbarian lad's family is murdered, spends montage sequence growing up while strapped to a capstan, escapes, sets out for revenge, and so on.

Dodges most of the more tedious fantasy-movie cliches by being about a straightforward hunt for revenge rather than a quest for plot coupons. Arnie isn't quite up to portraying Conan's inner life, but hits people with an axe very capably. It's all very staunchly right-wing - opens with a quote from Nietzsche and continues in a similar vein - but the results are campy more than actually problematic. Bombastic score from Basil Poledouris is a major plus.
  
Haggopian and Other Stories
Haggopian and Other Stories
Brian Lumley | 2011 | Horror, Science Fiction/Fantasy
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Two-dozen short stories connected (in varying degrees) to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, highlighting Lumley's personal take on this particular milieu - he's an enthusiastic pasticheur, but much better at replicating Lovecraft's style than his substance. (He also has a go at being Robert E Howard in a couple of these stories.)

A really mixed bag, all told: there are a handful of very good stories, like the one the book is named for, and a few others contain promising imagery or moments (an oil rig drills down into something it shouldn't; Lovecraft scholars should be able to guess what), but many others become repetitive and slightly tedious. If nothing else the stories here illustrate that, bereft of the philosophy underpinning Lovecraft's own work, the Mythos trappings just become a selection of campy props and costumes that aren't particularly scary.
  
Dead Alive (1993)
Dead Alive (1993)
1993 | Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
Have you seen the lawnmower scene? Gruesome!
Before Peter Jackson became the mega-awesome A-list director he is today, he made several small films in New Zealand including this one.

When a poisonous rat monkey gets brought to the mainland, its lethal bite causes mayhem in a young man's life. He know has to deal with the growing weirdness at his house while he pursues the girl of his dreams.

Saying this movie is over the top is one of the largest understatements of all time. If you combine Evil Dead, Dawn of the Dead and The Toxic Avenger you still wouldn't come close to the campy goodness of this film.

The gore is definitely extreme, but very cheeky and comical. The demon baby is also especially hilarious.

If you ask me nicely, you can come to my house and watch this with me!

  
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Matthew Krueger (10051 KP) Dec 15, 2019

Great film, one of my all time favorites.

Man of Steel (2013)
Man of Steel (2013)
2013 | Action, Sci-Fi
"KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!"

Oh, wait, wrong version of that character!

This is Zack Snyders reboot of the Superman story; basically an origin story for The Man of Steel and setting out is stall pretty early with the absolutely bonkers scene where Russell Crowe's Jor-El rides a dragon as the planet Krypton (a very different take on said planet than in the Christopher Reeve films) begins to die.

It also ends with the massive destruction in Metropolis - to be fair, a consequence of which is shown in the following DC film Batman Vs Superman - and with a shocking scene where this version of Superman commits an action it is almost impossible to imagine his Silver Age counterpoint to do.

Michael Shannon's Zod comes across as less campy than Terence Stamps, while - in this version, at least - the reason Lois Lane is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist *is* actually shown.
  
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Steve Fearon (84 KP) rated Ruin Me (2017) in Movies

Sep 9, 2018 (Updated Sep 9, 2018)  
Ruin Me (2017)
Ruin Me (2017)
2017 | Horror
6
6.5 (2 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Campy, cheesy fun (1 more)
Good pacing
Predictable (1 more)
Some iffy acting
Low budget meta horror
Contains spoilers, click to show
Shudder exclusive 'ruin me' runs a similar line to 'Fear Inc' or 'Hellhouse LLC', with a meta horror experience blurring the lines between reality and fiction.

The cast is a mix of early 2000s tropes, the goth couple, the chubby film nerd, the silent loner etc on a slasher themed survival weekend where events take a turn for the bloody.

They twist and turn a few times, toying with the viewer using an unreliable narrator, our protagonist Alex, whom you aren't ever really sure is in the real world.

Not much will surprise you, but it is a fun trope laden film with no real pretence of being anything other than it is...a low budget meta slasher.

Not a bad 90 mins though, and it's watchable enough so long as you don't mind the sometimes clunky humour and meta elements getting front and centre.
  
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Andy Bell recommended The B-52's by The B-52's in Music (curated)

 
The B-52's by The B-52's
The B-52's by The B-52's
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Obviously we gravitate to those we love, and I suppose the B52's did all the groundwork for the campy disco rock a la Scissor Sisters that followed decades later. They are true originals and may have been the soundtrack to a John Water's movie. I lost count of the amount of times I danced to ‘Rock Lobster’ and tried to learn the who's who list of names on 52 Girls. The brilliant thing about being a pop musician is that you get to meet all of your teen idols. We toured with The B52's and I stayed in Woodstook at Kate Pierson's Lazy Meadow's Silver-line Caravan site, where I consequently felt the drums of an Indian pow wow coming up through the water of the river through my feet (which I often hear on the intro to ‘A Little Respect’ but it isn’t actually part of the music… spooky!"

Source
  
The Last Starfighter (1984)
The Last Starfighter (1984)
1984 | Action, Sci-Fi
Guilty 80s pleasure still sparkles!
I have made several "Andy's Guilty Pleasures" lists in my life and Flash Gordon, Krull and this film are always at the very top. I'm sure it's because this movie was a childhood favorite, but also because it hits everything just right. It's not complicated, scary, or deep at all. Just a campy good time.

When local teenager trailer park handyman Alex Rogan finally beats his favorite video game "Starfighter" he gets more than he bargained for when it's owner comes calling and invites Alex into outer space to help the star league defend itself against its enemies.

It was one of the first movies to use any sort of CGI images as we think of them today. I'm sure nowadays people would say it looked a bit dated, but I would argue the characters and story are what keep it relevant.

There have been many stories and attempts to remake or reboot this film, even from Steven Spielberg, and thus far it hasn't happened.

Keeping my fingers crossed it never does.

  
Tales That Witness Madness (1973)
Tales That Witness Madness (1973)
1973 | Classics, Comedy, Horror
6
6.7 (3 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Enjoyably (and appropriately) bonkers portmanteau horror movie based around the experiences of asylum patients. An imaginary friend turns out to be real, an antique bike turns out to be cursed, man falls in love with a tree stump, etc, etc. Kim Novak came out of retirement to play a slightly vacant literary agent who ends up eating her own daughter's flesh at a cannibal luau.

Not up to the standard of any of the Amicus portmanteaus, mainly because of a sub-par script - the twists to the various tales are either screamingly obvious, completely baffling or non-existent - but it's sort of campy fun anyway, with an interesting cast and reasonably good direction. Not remotely scary, though. The fact that much of it is totally ridiculous (the so-called Hawaiians look eastern European, and that's before we even get to the stuffed tiger or Michael Jayston going to bed wth a log) somehow doesn't detract from the entertainment value. Would have been nice to see more of Donald Pleasance, but you can't have everything.
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated The New Avengers in TV

Mar 5, 2018  
The New Avengers
The New Avengers
1976 | Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller
7
6.7 (29 Ratings)
TV Show Rating
Polyester-era sequel to The Avengers has an ostensibly more serious approach than the parent show - 'a straight show with comic undertones, rather than a spoof with serious overtones' was how Brian Clemens compared the two. Somehow the same magic isn't quite there - it's customary to blame Gareth Hunt as Gambit for being a spare wheel, but it's not Hunt's fault that he isn't Patrick Macnee. You could also argue that the stories are often formulaic and repetitive, but then so were the ones in the original series too. Some of the shows filmed abroad - 'The New Avengers in Canada!' - are definitely a mistake, though.

The worst episodes are dull, but the best ones are at least within spitting distance of the original series and have some of the same kind of offbeat charm - an automated shooting range (where the targets fire back) is infiltrated by enemy agents to lethal effect, a chemical spill causes sewer wildlife to grow to giant size, a enormous knock-out gas bomb is dropped on the centre of London. Still very watchable in a campy sort of way.