What was the last movie you saw?

[Jeffbert]

Genocide (1968) A Japanese creature film without giant critters. Rather, these are normal sized insects.

A B-52* carrying an H-bomb flies into a cloud of insects, cogging its engines, and causing it to crash. The three crewmen parachute, as well as the bomb. Now the East bloc guys and the American Air Force are both desperately searching for the bomb.

Spoiler

Insects that have been made poisonous by a woman who is wanting revenge on the entire human race, because of her suffering in WWII. She actually wants to eradicate the human race.

The woman is Caucasian most of the others are Japanese, except a few American military men.

*Note that the interior of the B-52 is VERY different from the one in Dr. Strangelove!

 

[KGeo777]

NIGHTMARE CASTLE 1965 - rewatch--Barbara Steele is tortured to death by Paul Muller (who as someone joked is in every Euro film ever made) and then reappears as her stepsister--who inherits money that he wants and intends to get by driving her mad. But what about the ghost in the potted plant? Will it get its revenge?

 

[paranoid marvin]

Greenland

I like a good end-of-the-world disaster movie. Whilst this isn't on the big budget scale of the likes of Deep Impact, Armageddon, Day after Tomorrow or (my favourites) 2012 and The Core, it holds its own and is entertaining nevertheless.

Predictable, improbable and clichéd? Yes. But aren't all these type of movies? (apart from Don't Look Up)

 

[JunkMonkey]

Guardians (2017) - Here's how I think this movie happened. Some Russian oligarch's youngest son watched a couple of the Avengers Movies, thought, " I could do that!" and spent his pocket money for the next three weeks finding out he couldn't.

It is beyond terrible.

Shedloads of CGI, tons of bombastic music and a script that looks like it was ripped straight from the pages of some1980s self-published, black and white, piece of sh*t comic from Wyoming. (Have a scroll through MisterKitty.net for some choice examples.)

The Plot: Soviet era superheroes are reunited by a SHIELD like organisation to fight big nasty guy who everyone thought was dead but isn't and can now control machines. (The on screen backstory/briefing lecture we got took a lot longer to say that but that's what they meant.)

Finding the disbanded heroes that no one has seen for years and someone has randomly decided is the only way of stopping our villain (whoever he is) is stupidly easy. It takes SHEILDSI's assembled fashion models in black Lycra (lead by a blonde expressionless plank of wood) minutes to scroll through newspaper archives on their transparent CGI monitors - hell one of the missing heroes is working as a high profile circus performer in Moscow. How hard was that? There can't be that many women who can become invisible in the former Soviet Union territories.

The other members of the team are Asian Guy who can move REALLY FAST (and, because he's Asian, knows Kung-Fu and ends every fight in a crouched, down on one knee manga pose), Big Hairy Guy (who is a scientist and lives in a shack in the woods because he turns into a BEAR and can't control himself - not the Hulk - not Wolverine somewhere between the two: 'Hulkerine'?) Hulkerine is secretly in love with SEETHRU GIRL who has lost her memory from some never-explained reason and is getting more and more bearlike every time he transforms. Towards the end of the movie he goes the whole way and transforms into a humongous bear (with an automatic, thought-controlled machine gun strapped to his back). How he gets his pants back after running around like that for a while is a mystery the film doesn't even think to question.

And bringing up the rear, lonely older guy who has telekinetic abilities - confined to rocks. He can telepathically control rocks. That's his power - Rocks. That and the ability to recite the whole of the Lord's Prayer with his back to the camera in his establishing scene. (WHY???) Later in the movie, having realised there might not always be a ready supply of small rocks to hand for him to telepathically control, SHIELDKI makes him a costume.... with a pile of rocks built in.

So heroes get whupped. A lot. The world is doomed because big nasty guy has an army of clones and has moved some important piece of Soviet Era Moscow architecture to another bit of Moscow because he needs a really big tower to act as an antenna to control some hitherto unmentioned Cold War, Reagan-era Star Wars space lasers to... erm... something... I'm sure the writers would have come up with a reason for all this but OH NO! the end of the movie was coming up sooner than they were expecting (or the budget was running out even faster) because suddenly a plot rabbit is pulled out the magic plot top hat and somehow, for some reason, the defeated heroes can combine their powers!

Sadly they didn't do a Supermegatron Rangers Combino-Powerbot thing and become a Huge, Rock Throwing, Invisible, Kung-Fu Bear but merely gripped each other's shoulders and did some superhero constipation grimace acting before unleashing a bolt of pure high octane CGI at the villain several miles away. (My bet is on the budget was running out.)

Lot of stuff blew up.

Heroes get to stand and look noble while Nikitchka Furi (AGENT OF SHEILDSI) gets to deliver a line-promising a sequel.

Well that was another 33 pence well wasted in the '3 discs for a quid' pile at my local charity shop.

 

[KGeo777]

COUNT DRACULA 1970 - Watched it before-hasn't aged any better. Funny how the film has locations far superior to Hammer versions and yet the story is awful and Lee, Herbert Lom, and Klaus Kinski are wasted and rather stilted.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Guardians (2017) - Here's how I think this movie happened. Some Russian oligarch's youngest son watched a couple of the Avengers Movies, thought, " I could do that!" and spent his pocket money for the next three weeks finding out he couldn't.

It is beyond terrible.

Shedloads of CGI, tons of bombastic music and a script that looks like it was ripped straight from the pages of some1980s self-published, black and white, piece of sh*t comic from Wyoming. (Have a scroll through MisterKitty.net for some choice examples.)

The Plot: Soviet era superheroes are reunited by a SHIELD like organisation to fight big nasty guy who everyone thought was dead but isn't and can now control machines. (The on screen backstory/briefing lecture we got took a lot longer to say that but that's what they meant.)

Finding the disbanded heroes that no one has seen for years and someone has randomly decided is the only way of stopping our villain (whoever he is) is stupidly easy. It takes SHEILDSI's assembled fashion models in black Lycra (lead by a blonde expressionless plank of wood) minutes to scroll through newspaper archives on their transparent CGI monitors - hell one of the missing heroes is working as a high profile circus performer in Moscow. How hard was that? There can't be that many women who can become invisible in the former Soviet Union territories.

The other members of the team are Asian Guy who can move REALLY FAST (and, because he's Asian, knows Kung-Fu and ends every fight in a crouched, down on one knee manga pose), Big Hairy Guy (who is a scientist and lives in a shack in the woods because he turns into a BEAR and can't control himself - not the Hulk - not Wolverine somewhere between the two: 'Hulkerine'?) Hulkerine is secretly in love with SEETHRU GIRL who has lost her memory from some never-explained reason and is getting more and more bearlike every time he transforms. Towards the end of the movie he goes the whole way and transforms into a humongous bear (with an automatic, thought-controlled machine gun strapped to his back). How he gets his pants back after running around like that for a while is a mystery the film doesn't even think to question.

And bringing up the rear, lonely older guy who has telekinetic abilities - confined to rocks. He can telepathically control rocks. That's his power - Rocks. That and the ability to recite the whole of the Lord's Prayer with his back to the camera in his establishing scene. (WHY???) Later in the movie, having realised there might not always be a ready supply of small rocks to hand for him to telepathically control, SHIELDKI makes him a costume.... with a pile of rocks built in.

So heroes get whupped. A lot. The world is doomed because big nasty guy has an army of clones and has moved some important piece of Soviet Era Moscow architecture to another bit of Moscow because he needs a really big tower to act as an antenna to control some hitherto unmentioned Cold War, Reagan-era Star Wars space lasers to... erm... something... I'm sure the writers would have come up with a reason for all this but OH NO! the end of the movie was coming up sooner than they were expecting (or the budget was running out even faster) because suddenly a plot rabbit is pulled out the magic plot top hat and somehow, for some reason, the defeated heroes can combine their powers!

Sadly they didn't do a Supermegatron Rangers Combino-Powerbot thing and become a Huge, Rock Throwing, Invisible, Kung-Fu Bear but merely gripped each other's shoulders and did some superhero constipation grimace acting before unleashing a bolt of pure high octane CGI at the villain several miles away. (My bet is on the budget was running out.)

Lot of stuff blew up.

Heroes get to stand and look noble while Nikitchka Furi (AGENT OF SHEILDSI) gets to deliver a line-promising a sequel.

Well that was another 33 pence well wasted in the '3 discs for a quid' pile at my local charity shop.

I just realised I didn't watch to the end of the end credits to see if there was a Marvel-like, post credit Easter egg. (The end credits had hardly started before the disc was out of my player.)

I shall put it back in and look.

 

[Jeffbert]

A local South Pennsylvania will show the original PHANTOM OF THE OPERA later this month, with live orchestra for the music.

Speaking of The Phantom of the Opera (1925) I watched it several days ago. It is monochrome, but not B&W. At the very least, it uses tinted film; but one scene, that of a masked ball, both green & red are present.

The TCM host said that no one was to reveal the Phantom's face until after the 1st showing, & that smelling salts were available just in case anybody faints. However, by modern standards, Lon Chaney's make-up was rather tame.

As though there is anyone reading this, who lacks the basic idea, The Phantom AKA Erik (Lon Chaney) lives in the basement (I believe torture chambers was mentioned) of the Paris Opera House. He has taken a liking to one particular young Opera performer, Christine Daaé (Mary Philbin), who is the back-up for the star Carlotta (Virginia Pearson). He makes threats of violence if the prima donna Carlotta performs in that evening's performance.

Still works well, silent monochrome and all. There is music; apparently they added it later; though at its silent era showings, they used a live orchestra, or part of one.

 

[JunkMonkey]

The Adventures of Buckeroo Banzaii Across the Eighth Dimension - for the umpteenth time. Sharing it this time with Number One Son, who hadn't seen it before and got it.

 

[Vince W]

The Adventures of Buckeroo Banzaii Across the Eighth Dimension - for the umpteenth time. Sharing it this time with Number One Son, who hadn't seen it before and got it.

I watched again recently too. I get something new out of it every time.

 

[Jeffbert]

The FBI Story (1959) A day of Jimmy Stewart films, most are Westerns; not this one. This film was made with the cooperation of the FBI, including J. E. Hoover, covers the early 1920 through the 1950s. The life of one Special Agent John M. Hardestye (James Stewart), as he goes through the decades, starting at the bottom and being promoted, transferred from one town to another, and how that affects his family. Perhaps little known, is the fact that in the early days, the FBI was purely investigative; weapons were brought in, during the 1920s.

Interesting film.

 

[Jeffbert]

Whiplash (1948) NOIR ALLEY; middleweight boxer Michael Gordon (Dane Clark), having given-up boxing, had been painting on canvas, instead of standing on it. He meets and falls for Laurie Durant (Alexis Smith), not realizing she is married. She had fled from her abusive husband Rex Durant (Zachary Scott), also an ex-boxer; currently the top guy at a boxing organization. Once he finds her, she simply disappears from Gordon's life; and he is determined to find her. Things happen, the next thing he knows, he is once again a boxer, being trained by Terrance O'Leary (Alan Hale), to fight as one of Durant's boxers. But, the conflict between Gordon and Durant is just starting.

 

[KGeo777]

THE NIGHTCOMERS 1971 -Marlo Brando is Quint-not a fisherman-an Irish stable hand who acts as an older brother for two kids with dead parents on a country estate. Stephanie Beacham is their governess and his S & M mistress. A prequel to Turn of the Screw apparently. I felt it was well-made technically speaking, but kind of pointless.

 

[Harpo]

Yesterday I got the most recent Fantastic Four film for 50p,having never seen even a clip of it, and guessing it would be rubbish but hey.

I was right. If it hadn’t been the FF and Dr Doom, but some random newly invented characters, it would be just an ordinary scifi film (kids trying to invent teleportation become adults who succeed, and it goes wrong) but as it was them it was a lot worse than that.

On the plus side, it was much much cheaper than the delicious fish’n’chips which I also got yesterday.

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm sure I once read something to the gist that whoever owns the rights is required to make a new Fantastic Four film every so often or they lose them, but the films are usually cheap and bad.

 

[Harpo]

I'm sure I once read something to the gist that whoever owns the rights is required to make a new Fantastic Four film every so often or they lose them, but the films are usually cheap and bad.

Luckily the next one will be the MCU one, and Kevin Feige’s dream project that he wants to make sure is done right.
Apparently it’ll be set in the 1960s, and made like a 60s film. But that’s for another thread, not here.

 

[Mon0Zer0]

Shin Godzilla (2016)
This offering from Toho left me with mixed feelings.

The plot itself is reasonably interesting and reveals that there are two behemoths in this movie. The first is our eponymous kaiju. It emerges from the sea in a very different form than we are used to. You see, in this movie, Godzilla is still evolving. And this brings us to our first problem. The CGI for the first Godzilla iteration is just awful. Even worse is the accompanying animation. The creature moves with the fluidity of a Thunderbird puppet.
As the movie progresses and Godzilla morphs into something a lot more familiar, the CGI seems to improve in parallel. There is one area that does not improve and that is Godzilla's eyes. Imagine a badly taxidermed (is that a word?) animal with glass eyes that just don't fit the bill and you might get the idea. Normally, I wouldn't bother too much about poor animation or creature creation but this kind of movie needs to deliver a giant Wow! factor to its audience and I found I was saying WTF? instead.

The second behemoth in the movie is the fight with government beaurecracy and red tape as our heroes struggle to get things done. It's always the same when a democracy faces a crisis, its very nature works against itself and is a very slow moving beast initially. There's also a nice sideline in the collective horror of the Japanese officials when a nuclear strike is considered as a response to the kaiju. 'Not again', understandably, is the cry, and it's as if the whole nation enters a phase of collective PTSD brought on by the memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I found this, despite it slowing down the pace of the whole movie to be quite intriguing. There is also a very interesting end to the film but I won't say any more than that.

In conclusion, I think this is a movie worth watching but don't expect too much from Godzilla. Just think how you'd react if your partner came home with a new look. Would you really hurt his/her feelings and tell them how awful they looked? Or would you just grit your teeth and concentrate on the good things. Do that with Shin Godzilla.

3.5 out of 5 (4 out of 5 if it had better CGI/animation)

The CGI is remarkable, in that Hideaki Anno (creator / director of Neon Genesis Evangelion) is trying to make them look like classic Godzilla monsters - namely men in suits. It's a directorial choice and Anno is commenting on the franchise and our reaction to the monsters. You get the ultra realistic cityscapes being smashed by what appears to be a man in a suit and it evokes a strange mix of humour and weird horror - much like the monsters in Evangelion. For me, it works but I can understand if it doesn't for you.

 

[JunkMonkey]

I'm sure I once read something to the gist that whoever owns the rights is required to make a new Fantastic Four film every so often or they lose them, but the films are usually cheap and bad.

I'm pretty sure that was the reason for the Roger Corman version; which was made and 'released' - possibly screened once in one cinema to which the public could buy tickets - as per contractual agreements then shelved.

But after that I think they were serious attempts to make a hit film and a shedload of money.

They just haven't managed to make a version that didn't stink.

 

[Harpo]

I'm pretty sure that was the reason for the Roger Corman version; which was made and 'released' - possibly screened once in one cinema to which the public could buy tickets - as per contractual agreements then shelved.

But after that I think they were serious attempts to make a hit film and a shedload of money.

They just haven't managed to make a version that didn't stink.

At least Roger Corman’s version led to a documentary

 

[AE35Unit]

Scream (1996)
Haven't seen this for years. Has a young Courtney Cox as a reporter. The weird thing is unlike other horror franchises we don't get an actual monster.

 

[Jeffbert]

The Man With a Cloak (1951) A young woman from France (recall the Coneheads claimed to be from France) Madeline Minot (Leslie Caron) arrives in an American city, seeking to dwell with a man she learns has died. Destitute, she is taken in by those who live in the house where he had lived, but soon finds them not good hosts. The elderly man and wealthy, Thevenet (Louis Calhern), is barely alive, and it appears that his own servants are attempting to do away with him.

Those servants Lorna Bounty (Barbara Stanwyck) and Martin (Joe De Santis) who have served him for many years, are expecting to be named beneficiaries in his will.

So, as events go, the young woman meets Dupin (Joseph Cotten), a bar patron who cannot pay his bill, and is waiting for some cash from an unknown source. The bartender Flaherty (Jim Backus), is rather tolerant of Dupin's drinking on the house, while Dupin offers wisdom to the young Minot.

I did omit some details, but tough.

So, in the end, it is revealed the Dupin is actually E. A. Poe.

Worth a watch, perhaps two.