What was the last movie you saw?

[Randy M.]

You might be on to something with the vice versa. I've never understood before why I turned evil.

Kinda explains my propensity for white hats.

The Thing from Another World (1951) watched with Number One Son who, at the tender age of 14, doesn't like modern scary movies or horror. His sisters would have been happily watching eyeball popping slasher movies by his age - Number One Daughter was heavily into Cronenberg's movies - this is just about his limit. I love the fast paced talkiness and generosity of the script which doles out the heroics and inventiveness to characters almost at random; sometimes leaving the nominal hero scrabbling to catch up as his crew and the scientists identify, and come up with solutions to, problems before he can work out what's going on.

Every time I've been in a management seminar I've thought of this movie as displaying my ideal of supervising/managing: No matter how good you are, you don't know everything. The people around you have their own sets of knowledge and skills, tap into that,

 

[paranoid marvin]

More a warning than a review:

I’d heard good things about No One Will Save You from the horror community. It’s available to stream on Disney so I watched it. Not good.

I’m getting tired of the modern day practice of reviews and articles claiming something or other (book, film or television) is ‘really playing with the ropes/genres’ and then you watch it and … yep, no.

I’m no fan of Halloween (John Carpenter’s original has great music and introduced a clearer format for slashers, but I’m also tired of it being held up as some holy grail); I love Halloween III which has to be the best narrative entry altho no reference to Myers.

So, anyway, I thought I’d watch Halloween Kills …. I cringed. The mob culture message/theme is so on the nose, so hamfisted and full of examples of characters doing things that made no sense.

Is the bar on horror so low that films like these get a good reception? It seems to happen with horror so much. I feel we should be taking about films like Aterados or The House with the Laughing Windows and not crap like this. Or the Nun, or Conjuring and other reductive offerings.

I avoid — or try to — Hollywood horror (after the dreadful The Boogeyman, I shan’t go and see any big horror titles anymore) but I’m getting bored of K/J-horror because it’s all so samey. Over the last few years I’ve really turned onto Central/South American and Spanish horror movies.

North America has forgotten how to horror. It’s all bombastic cgi tedium nowadays.

It's much harder to judge films retrospectively. At the time Halloween offered something different. The main villain may have just been Jaws in human form (similarly having music to warn of his presence) and the victims dumb, two dimensional teenagers, but this was a movie that was greater than the sum of its parts. It also initiated a slew of copycats, which always an indication of a successful film.

Halloween III is a genuinely unnerving film for many reasons. Its unsettling, and at no point is the viewer ever sure as to what will be the ultimate outcome. I would rank HIII in my top 10 horror movies. I think that much of the negative criticism was because it wasn't what many people would have been expecting; a bit like going to watch Jaws 3 and finding out it was about a dentist.

Most viewers would have felt duped, expecting to see MM or at least a slasher movie. Instead it was a slow burning chiller with gore only used sparingly (but oh so effectively).

 

[pogopossum]

THE CREATOR.

From the director of Rogue One, this is a big budget action film positing conflict between AI in the form of adapted humans) and human military power & exclusiveness.
Huge tech special effects (Industrial Light and Magic), brilliant acting, and a wandering story line that seems to use techno violence as an replacement for coherence.
Lots of logic gaps, (or perhaps I am just not used to or appreciative of this level of techy violence? ). It seemed that several important figures were killed multiple times. Assault vehicles and teams seemed to be the solution to every problem. And I wondered why neo-Buddhist monks were used to prove that the AI culture was genuinely different?
Critical reaction is mixed, Acting and tech was applauded. Plot? was appreciated, but with many of the same questions that I had.
Went with a friend was likes this stuff. Definitely made for the big screen.
If you like WHAM! BAM! definitely go see it. If you don't, don't.

 

[Jeffbert]

The Time Machine (1960) H. George Wells (Rod Taylor), a late 18th century inventor has created a-- time travelling device.

Are these the same three colors as used on the Martian war machine? No, those were g, b, & r. Who'd a thought of making a fourth or fifth oval to display hours and minutes? Might of been handy.

So, in attempting to describe his invention to his friends, he speaks of three and four dimensions. They are befuddled (cool word, huh?). Unable to adequately explain the concept, he uses a miniature version, and sends in into the future. Might have been more convincing if he had gone to the next day, and returned with a newspaper.

While I have read the novel, much has been forgotten.

Anyway, upon arriving in the distant future, he finds what passes for human race, as a passive people, each one caring only for itself, with no thought of working together. They had become like cattle. Hmm., reminds me of something said, a line from SOYLENT GREEN.

Of course, the surface dwellers are the Eloi, while the as yet, unseen Morlocks are flesh-eaters, & feed upon the Eloi. The time traveler, comments about cannibalism, but it seems to me, that these two are sufficiently different as to be separate species.

One of George Pal's best known films, & I will never tire of it.

Inconsistencies:
After leaping into the river to rescue Weena, the matches in his pockets should have been ruined. Yet, when he descended into the Morlock's netherworld, the matches worked just fine.

 

[Jeffbert]

To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) Secret service agents are going against counterfeiters.

I only heard of this film when it was on TCM, but director William Friedkin, who also directed THE FRENCH CONNECTION, wanted to outdo the car chase scene in TFC. While I do agree that this chase was intense, it just did not seem as intense as the one in TFC. It had too many parts that were not so intense. Granted, going the wrong way on a highway is exciting, as a whole, it does not touch the chase in TFC.

TCM ran a bunch of film featuring chase scenes, a few months ago, & this was not among them.

So, the younger of two Secret service agents, is out to avenge the death of his partner, who was killed when he went alone to the suspected site of the counterfeiters' hideout. Everything goes wrong, it is almost comedic! He needs money to take on the bad guys, and hears that an Asian guy was bringing a large amount to a bad guy and reasoning it will be o.k., to steal from a crook, but the guy was an FBI agent, working with others to take down the jewel thief. It is the FBI that pursues him.

Interesting crime movie, but, unlike TFC, I would not likely see it again.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Ehrengard, based on a novella by Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesan), with sets and costumes designed by the Queen of Denmark.

Being a fan of Blixen's writing I was eager to see this. The production design—sets, costumes, locations—were all excellent. It was dubbed, but the actors all had such good faces—full of character and expressive—that they carried the film quite well, even without their actual voices being heard. Of course a movie can't reproduce all the pleasures of Blixen's prose style, but it was entertaining anyway.

And it inspires me to reread some of her collected short fiction.

 

[Toby Frost]

I saw To Live and Die in LA just before the pandemic in an arty cinema in London. It was pretty cliched and many of the audience laughed when the hero's mentor said that it was his last day and he was going to retire peacefully (he promptly got killed and was avenged). Some of the dialogue and acting was pretty bad, but the action was decent. I heard a story that the director's English wasn't great and that he wrote some of the dialogue, but I don't know if this is true.

 

[Randy M.]

Revolt of the Zombies (1936) dir. Victor Halperin; starring Dorothy Stone, Dean Jagger

Halperin previously directed Bela Lugosi in White Zombie. This isn’t as good as that one, though.

Jagger, with a full head of hair early in his career, plays Louque, a young officer during WWI who comes across a man who has the power to create zombies. The man’s secret dies with him before Louque can learn the secret, though he tries. Once his fiancé ditches him for his best friend, Louque increases his efforts and finally learns the power of turning others into zombies. (Halperin uses the same special effect he used in White Zombie to show this in action.) This doesn’t end well.

Jagger was a good actor, but the script was trite even in ’36. If you love ‘30s horror movies, it’s probably worth a look. If you’re not a big fan, this won’t change your mind.


Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) dir. Robert Florey; starring Bela Lugosi, Sidney Fox, Leon Waycoff

My first time watching this. One of the lesser-known Universal movies, this is considerably better than the above. Lugosi stars as Dr. Mirakle who owns the ape, Erik, which he shows at the local carnival where he first meets Camille and Dupin. Fox is Camille; she isn’t given much to do besides damsel-in-distress, but she’s good at it. Waycoff plays Dupin, though definitely not Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin (Waycoff is better known, if at all, as Leon Ames [Meet Me in St. Louis]). Waycoff is affected in spots by early ‘30s staginess, but fine all the same.

Seems Dr. Mirakle sees the opportunity to mix gorilla (ape, gorilla, baboon are pretty much used interchangeably) blood with human blood apparently to jump start evolution in a new direction. The first we see of it is with a “Woman of the streets” (first movie role for Arlene Frances, who for U.S. viewers of a certain age is a familiar name from 831 episodes of the TV show What’s My Line?). She’s tied to a giant X frame, blood is extracted, tested, found wanting and she dies. Then we see there have been at least three other young female victims prior to her. For normal mad scientists this might indicate injecting gorilla/ape/baboon blood into a human isn’t productive. But not Mirakle. Now his eyes, and Erik’s, are on Camille.

This is a solid entry in the Universal horror movies of the time. Though taking place in Paris the main sights are only hinted at in background. We're privy to a poorer neighborhood where ramshackle buildings closely line cobbled streets, the buildings looking slightly out of true, the streets usually dark and sometimes foggy. Florey wasn’t a horror specialist – he had directed The Coconuts, a Marx Brothers movie just a few years earlier – but did later make The Beast with Five Fingers (not true to the written story, but pretty good all the same) as well as directing episodes of The Twilight Zone (including Perchance to Dream) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Here he brings a good eye for staging and framing scenes just as Lugosi brings the menace. While movies of this vintage rarely have a scare left in them, on the whole, this is enjoyable and worth catching, especially if you’re interested in how horror movies evolved over time.

 

[Jeffbert]

Revolt of the Zombies (1936) dir. Victor Halperin; starring Dorothy Stone, Dean Jagger

Halperin previously directed Bela Lugosi in White Zombie. This isn’t as good as that one, though.

Jagger, with a full head of hair early in his career, plays Louque, a young officer during WWI who comes across a man who has the power to create zombies. The man’s secret dies with him before Louque can learn the secret, though he tries. Once his fiancé ditches him for his best friend, Louque increases his efforts and finally learns the power of turning others into zombies. (Halperin uses the same special effect he used in White Zombie to show this in action.) This doesn’t end well.

Jagger was a good actor, but the script was trite even in ’36. If you love ‘30s horror movies, it’s probably worth a look. If you’re not a big fan, this won’t change your mind.


Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) dir. Robert Florey; starring Bela Lugosi, Sidney Fox, Leon Waycoff

My first time watching this. One of the lesser-known Universal movies, this is considerably better than the above. Lugosi stars as Dr. Mirakle who owns the ape, Erik, which he shows at the local carnival where he first meets Camille and Dupin. Fox is Camille; she isn’t given much to do besides damsel-in-distress, but she’s good at it. Waycoff plays Dupin, though definitely not Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin (Waycoff is better known, if at all, as Leon Ames [Meet Me in St. Louis]). Waycoff is affected in spots by early ‘30s staginess, but fine all the same.

Seems Dr. Mirakle sees the opportunity to mix gorilla (ape, gorilla, baboon are pretty much used interchangeably) blood with human blood apparently to jump start evolution in a new direction. The first we see of it is with a “Woman of the streets” (first movie role for Arlene Frances, who for U.S. viewers of a certain age is a familiar name from 831 episodes of the TV show What’s My Line?). She’s tied to a giant X frame, blood is extracted, tested, found wanting and she dies. Then we see there have been at least three other young female victims prior to her. For normal mad scientists this might indicate injecting gorilla/ape/baboon blood into a human isn’t productive. But not Mirakle. Now his eyes, and Erik’s, are on Camille.

This is a solid entry in the Universal horror movies of the time. Though taking place in Paris the main sights are only hinted at in background. We're privy to a poorer neighborhood where ramshackle buildings closely line cobbled streets, the buildings looking slightly out of true, the streets usually dark and sometimes foggy. Florey wasn’t a horror specialist – he had directed The Coconuts, a Marx Brothers movie just a few years earlier – but did later make The Beast with Five Fingers (not true to the written story, but pretty good all the same) as well as directing episodes of The Twilight Zone (including Perchance to Dream) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Here he brings a good eye for staging and framing scenes just as Lugosi brings the menace. While movies of this vintage rarely have a scare left in them, on the whole, this is enjoyable and worth catching, especially if you’re interested in how horror movies evolved over time.

I heard that the USSR actually tried to cross large apes with humans, hoping to create super soldiers. Do not know if there is any truth to it.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

The Creator (2023). If any movie of this year needs support, it's this one. A non-franchise original sci-fi movie from a director who knows how to squeeze every bit out of his "meagre" 80 million USD budget. Boy does it look amazing. Edwards out-Blompkamp's Neil Blompkamp here with aplombkamp.

Great performances, incredible production design and the best combination of Syd Mead / Simon Stalenhag / Johnson Ting's conceptual design on screen to date. It's literally a concept artist's wet dream.

It also feels like an 80's movie, in part due to the influences it wears very visibly on its sleeve, and partly because the setting feels like a post Vietnam war movie with a James Cameronesque moral undertone.

Best of all, the movie has stayed with me out of the theatre.

The premise asks you to make some big leaps in suspending belief, the plot is contrived in parts and I had some issues the underlying concepts and with its use of far eastern culture. Its also a little bloated, but the spectacle more than makes up for that. If you can forgive these elements and you don't think too hard about it, then you're sure to enjoy it.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Inconsistencies:
After leaping into the river to rescue Weena, the matches in his pockets should have been ruined. Yet, when he descended into the Morlock's netherworld, the matches worked just fine.

They could have been waterproof matches which were certainly available in the early 20th C (not sure how much earlier they were invented) or in a waterproof container (do you see him take it out of the box?).

 

[JunkMonkey]

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) dir. Robert Florey; starring Bela Lugosi, Sidney Fox, Leon Waycoff


This is a solid entry in the Universal horror movies of the time. Though taking place in Paris the main sights are only hinted at in background. We're privy to a poorer neighborhood where ramshackle buildings closely line cobbled streets, the buildings looking slightly out of true, the streets usually dark and sometimes foggy. enjoyable and worth catching, especially if you’re interested in how horror movies evolved over time.

Thus disguising they're the standing sets that every other Universal Horror was filmed on and which the audience would have been asked to believe was Transylvania the week before, London the week after, and Paris again the week after that.

Cynical? Moi?

 

[KGeo777]

DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE 1968 - Seen it before.

 

[paranoid marvin]

They could have been waterproof matches which were certainly available in the early 20th C (not sure how much earlier they were invented) or in a waterproof container (do you see him take it out of the box?).

It's conceivable that a Victorian gentleman would have carried matches in an ornate silver water resistant container, rather than have a cheap paper matchbox.

 

[Randy M.]

Thus disguising they're the standing sets that every other Universal Horror was filmed on and which the audience would have been asked to believe was Transylvania the week before, London the week after, and Paris again the week after that.

Cynical? Moi?

And nicely shot in derivative Expressionist fashion. The glory of early film-making! You either enjoy it, or you don't.

 

[Jeffbert]

They could have been waterproof matches which were certainly available in the early 20th C (not sure how much earlier they were invented) or in a waterproof container (do you see him take it out of the box?).

No; I had such a container when in Boy Scouts. Never heard of waterproof matches.

 

[JunkMonkey]

No; I had such a container when in Boy Scouts. Never heard of waterproof matches.

as I understand it the match is coated in a thin layer of wax. Thick enough to repel water but thin enough to be easily broken through when striking.

 

[Jeffbert]

The Lower Depths (1957) poverty stricken residents of a shack have their conflicts.

Sutekichi (Toshiro Mifune) rules the shack, lording over the others because of his tendency to violence.

 

[hitmouse]

They could have been waterproof matches which were certainly available in the early 20th C (not sure how much earlier they were invented) or in a waterproof container (do you see him take it out of the box?).

Yes, nothing new. Take some ordinary non-safety matches and coat them with candle wax, or buy something a bit more refined from the victorian equivalent of a camping store ( “gentlemen’s outfitters for travel to foreign parts and the colonies etc. Sword sticks, elephant guns, mosquito nets, waterproof matches and solar topis. “)

I have a feeling that wet Swan Vestas work when they are properly dried. And they can be lit off a stone.

 

[Jeffbert]

Yes, nothing new. Take some ordinary non-safety matches and coat them with candle wax, or buy something a bit more refined from the victorian equivalent of a camping store ( “gentlemen’s outfitters for travel to foreign parts and the colonies etc. Sword sticks, elephant guns, mosquito nets, waterproof matches and solar topis. “)

I have a feeling that wet Swan Vestas work when they are properly dried. And they can be lit off a stone.

I thought I knew what I was talking about; guess not.