What was the last movie you saw?

[J Riff]

The Mysterious Wall 1967, Soviet, black and white, subtitled. We begin with a TV show, interviewing professors and people who might know stuff about the mysterious wall that has appeared, surrounding two geologists in a remote area, for two days. Then it disappears, reappears... it is like clouds w/ lightning bolts... impervious, deadly to humans, can't get through it, blocks radio waves. This is oddly like the 'shimmer' in a much more modren flick I just reviewed.. what was it? Uh.. doesn't matter, this is going to be better. These Russkies will figure this mystery wall out, wait and see. We hear tapes, the wall's background noise is theremin-based, as it keeps fading in and out at regular intervals.
These Sovs are sensible, even the TV people figure out the wall is some kind of ET station or base of some kind. It causes hallucinations, apparently. This movie has some smooth jazz that comes on now and then, it's nice.
Shlepov has been sent to tell Prof. Lomov to take time off, away from the wall. Locals claim it is built by Martians. They get there, uh-oh there's been an accident. A worker's hands got burnt, while trying to use a probe on the wall. Well, 53 minutes till the wall, actually a dome, appears. Now we are inside it with Lomov and a few others, in a cabin. lots talk of aliens, Martians.
Lots good dialogue in this, "what if the wall IS an alien?" Now our main scientist probes wall, sparks and fire, suddenly he's on a boat, in his own past, in the Yellow sea, saving a guy and a cat in a bathtub dinghy, dream sequence, the sailors go on about Martians.. and Strontium, how it's everywhere. more weirdness, cool music, the wall is messing with their heads.
Woo, this movie has just tripped right on out, and is somewhat surreal and hard to review now. Cool, soviet weirdness, proverbs, hallucinations or something, Lomov is inside it.. people there take what he says, enter it into some machines. It looks like maybe alien 'martian' contact is going to happen, via the wall.. but this movie ends, rather artistically and you have to wonder.
Quite a different and enjoyable 60s SF film, this is.

 

[Vince W]

The Freighteners. (1996) An excellent film all around. Creepy and tense with wonderful performances from the entire cast.

Frighteners. Stupid fingers.

 

[AstroZon]

Lord of the Flies (1963) D. Peter Brook

I've seen the 1990 America film which, IMO is fair at best, but never this earlier British version. Also I'd read the book twice - once in high school and then again about 10 years later. This 1963 film is simply excellent.

 

[Jeffbert]

Lord of the Flies (1963) D. Peter Brook

I've seen the 1990 America film which, IMO is fair at best, but never this earlier British version. Also I'd read the book twice - once in high school and then again about 10 years later. This 1963 film is simply excellent.

I HAVE SEEN LOTF (1963) at least 3 times & the remake once, & read it once. There were no fewer than 2 references to it during the past year on JEOPARDY. I still remember 1, it had to do with one little boy's chubbiness & nearsightedness. Yes, he had the role of 'Piggy.'

I heard something about nearsighted lenses on the anime Dr. Stone, that this type would not work for starting fires.

Sad situation, in fact, tragic. What is more important to 10 year-old boys, the possibility of rescue, or having fun running around screaming? Ralph never had a chance against Jack. Fun or responsibility. Could be an allegory for certain current political conflicts.


Force of Evil (1948) I had seen this a few months ago, but could not resist the NOIR ALLEY treatment. Before the States began their lotteries, criminals ran them. So, there were many small & small-time numbers rackets, here called banks. The larger ones wanted to consolidate the smaller ones into 1 big one. They all used a 3 digit (seems too few to me) system, and apparently relied on one source for determining the winning numbers. That, err, those two facts seem to me a bit odd, but what do I know?

So, Joe Morse (John Garfield) is the lawyer of the guy who wants to control the numbers racket, & elder brother Leo (Thomas Gomez) has his own small-time racket. Joe knows that when '776' comes up as the winning number on July 4th, many small-time operators will go under, including his brother. He wants to protect him, but big brother intensely dislikes him because he works for a mobster. When offered to become a part of the larger operation, he steadfastly declines.

Very good tension, as each brother tries to protect the other from the other's poor decisions. Leo wants to be an honest numbers guy, and wants little brother to leave working for the mobster. Little brother wants to protect big brother from financial ruin.


A successful Calamity (1932) Rich guy Henry Wilton (George Arliss) returns home after a year in Europe, and finds his wife and children are so busy with social events, that they cannot stand still even to eat breakfast together. Worse, his wife has him involved with her social life. All he wants to do, is stay home and relax. After talking with his butler, he realizes he can end the stress by simply telling his family that he is ruined.

A fairly entertaining comedy, and a good thing to watch after so many horror films. I never heard of George Arliss before; at the very least, his name and face were new to me.

 

[AstroZon]

Could be an allegory for certain current political conflicts.

Yea, I thought the same thing.

 

[J Riff]

While Victoria takes a break, I will continue the onslaught of 'B' SF fliks, with:
Starship Invasions 1977 - we've probably done this one already but Robt. Vaughn and Christopher Lee, and I can't quite remember, and it's playing, so: A farmer on a tractor in a field, light piano jazz soundtrack but a Saucer is coming down quietly near him. Perfect, no nonsense beginning, the saucer zaps him with a ray, he stands there transfixed, two 'aliens' come out in weird black costumes, is that a winged worm emblem? Inside the saucer, our farmer is tested with a couple gadgets and then a beautiful nude woman walks in and says hello. Excellent 1st five minutes, but now we cut to a country sherrif interviewing the farmer later, in his barn. He tells him about the UFO, and how he has procreated with the beautiful nude lady there. Big laffs for our sheriiff. Cut to Vaughn the UFO expert on TV, very erudite, and he ends up with the farmer on the phone. Vaughn goes and inspects the field, it's radioactive.
Our high-forehead black-costumed humanoids talk telepathically, they have a mass migration to Earth planned, because their sun may go nova any minute, they can monitor it on their wristwatches. Their whole fleet is hiding behind the moon. They need to capture a human female now, so they hover along, zap a car and grab mom, dad and the kid. Gadget-testing on the UFO now, they are removing fluids fgodsake, but the family wakes up in the car, remembers nothing. The kid has snapped a pic of the saucer though.
Turns out the ET humanoids are offspring of humans, but they are going to exterminate them anyway. Our farmer kills himself, while having hallucinations of the alien gizmos used on him. We see a metal cooking pan thrown into the water, the saucer is in the ocean. And yes - the 'Intergalactic League of Races' does maintain a base at the bottom of the ocean, but our humanoids are gonna lie to them. They land inside a giant pyramid where there are other, different saucers. We get Durbol, a little android bot, welcoming Capt. Ramses from planet Alpha to the base. Next up is glamorous telepathic space women just sitting around. 'If you need anything just ask an android". The command central has Earth TV monitored, a news show is on about our farmer, Vaughn comes on and makes his case, Ramses smirks, nobody knows how evil he is. Our Alphans don't speak, just make telepathic faces with voice-overs, and whatsername goes and sabotages a League ship by removing a punch-card.
The Alphans raygun everyone at the base, while Earth forces inspect the downed saucer. Very colorful sets, Lee is handy with his raygun, and it's Alphan saucer vs. the League saucer which wins with one shot and one very cheep special effect. Lee has the extermination machine up and running though, and the base is now his so he punches buttons furiously, termination starts any second now, we gets shots of random killings and suicide on the Earth as the Alphan saucer with the termination ray orbits. Vaughn is picked up by a League saucer, he's clued in to the whole caper in a monologue from a large-headed woman, then Vaughn goes and picks up his pal, the computer expert, to help repair the saucer.
The Earth Generals and world leaders deliver dramatic speeches about Lee's circling saucer and its bad frequency which is causing mass killing wherever it goes. A saucer battle, one loses control and takes out a skyscraper. Huh, the League ETs are from Zeta-Reticuli. They confess to building the Great Pyramid! They eat super-vitamins. A circuit blows, so they have to patch into Vaughn's mind, also his computer expert buddy's brain, such that he has to enter numbers, at high speed, into a seventies calculator. Computer guy collapses, but a small pyramid is placed on his forehead, he will be fine. But on Earth, horrible stuff on TV, the kid is possessed a couple times, it's a suicide epidemic, enough already with that, but no, Vaughn's wife tries it, the kid is there, mom looks like a goner, but on the saucer, robot Durbol has come back to life, and even though he is beeping and flashing he manages to walk up behind the Alphan pilot and zap him. Durbol reprogrammes everything for collisions, the fleet blows up as our weird-headed android pushes buttons with his silver mittens. Ramses flies into the Moon, kerboom. Vaughn goes home, the Reticulans heal his wife with a gizmo, the nightmare is over. Not so bad as I remembered it.

 

[J Riff]

Satan's Triangle 1975 - - this one twists and turns plotwise, but you just know that Satan will probably be in it eventually. With about ten minutes to go, you just know it isn't over, it was all too easy. Our Coast Guard helicopter girl-crazy rescue guy has dropped down onto the boat, which is sending a mayday, but everyone is eerily deceased. Until, that is, he finds Kim Novak cowering below aft. They settle in to wait for the rescue chopper to return with help, but what the heck is that dead guy doing floating in mid-air in the hold?
Novak tells our MC the story, and we see the greedy rich Marlin fisherman being a jerk, some superstitious crew members taking off in a dinghy, and the worried captain. There's a weird storm, but they get the giant swordfish stowed away and then the ship gets hit and various people expire. The Padre is fine though and until he goes up the mast and shoots off a flare when he hears the copter approaching, then he slips and expires, and is hanging there all through the rest of the movie. Novak and MC drink coffee, she knows they are doomed, will not survive, evil surrounds them, she can feel it etc. But copter-guy explains everything away logically and scientifically, even the floating guy, and then the two make out till the chopper returns with a rescue boat. Still no Satan though, so no spoiler on this one, he's around, you can guess that from the title, and the ending is left till the very ending so that's that.

 

[Randy M.]

Satan's Triangle 1975 - - this one twists and turns plotwise, but you just know that Satan will probably be in it eventually. With about ten minutes to go, you just know it isn't over, it was all too easy. Our Coast Guard helicopter girl-crazy rescue guy has dropped down onto the boat, which is sending a mayday, but everyone is eerily deceased. Until, that is, he finds Kim Novak cowering below aft. They settle in to wait for the rescue chopper to return with help, but what the heck is that dead guy doing floating in mid-air in the hold?
Novak tells our MC the story, and we see the greedy rich Marlin fisherman being a jerk, some superstitious crew members taking off in a dinghy, and the worried captain. There's a weird storm, but they get the giant swordfish stowed away and then the ship gets hit and various people expire. The Padre is fine though and until he goes up the mast and shoots off a flare when he hears the copter approaching, then he slips and expires, and is hanging there all through the rest of the movie. Novak and MC drink coffee, she knows they are doomed, will not survive, evil surrounds them, she can feel it etc. But copter-guy explains everything away logically and scientifically, even the floating guy, and then the two make out till the chopper returns with a rescue boat. Still no Satan though, so no spoiler on this one, he's around, you can guess that from the title, and the ending is left till the very ending so that's that.

I believe I saw that years ago, a made-for-TV movie if I remember right (IMDB confirms, and it has Doug McClure, Ed Lauter, Jim Davis and Alejandro Rey, a fairly impressive cast of made-for TV stars), ending with a powerful final image the whole movie seemed to be leading to.

Randy M.

 

[Starbeast]

@Jeffbert Yes. Not a bad flick.



Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) I just saw it for the first time yesterday. Excellent comedy about an average guy who became a hero. Funny and entertaining.

Lupin the 3rd: Castle of Cagliostro (1979) I haven't seen this is many years. Fantastic animated movie about an international thief who decides to rescue a lady in distress. Doing so, he becomes aware that he has stumbled into a dangerous adventure. However, "danger" is his middle name.

Great animation for it's time, that still looks good today. I am enchanted with this story. Highly recommended to fellow anime fans.

Long ago, I didn't know that this film is part of a series that was based off a comic book.

PLUS: This movie was also spliced up to fit into a coin operated video game, called "Cliff Hanger". I played it before knowing that it was a real film. However, I did have my suspicions that it was taken from a movie.

 

[Randy M.]

Just to note, before the anime there was,

I recall reading a few of these as a teen. I don't remember anything except that I found them entertaining. The only reason I knew of LeBlanc and Lupin was that my high school library had a copy of Ellery Queen's 101 Years' Entertainment, a 1940s anthology of mystery/crime stories published in the wake of Poe's Dupin stories.

Randy M.

 

[Nozzle Velocity]

Yes, he was the grandfather, a bit of a French response to Sherlock Holmes and maybe a little Scarlet Pimpernel.

I love that Castle of Cagliostro anime with its near-psychedelic disco 70s funkiness. My favorite of the lot, although the Lupin III manga fans knock it for being the least like the books.

 

[Starbeast]

I love that Castle of Cagliostro anime with its near-psychedelic disco 70s funkiness. My favorite of the lot, although the Lupin III manga fans knock it for being the least like the books.

I think it's good when a series (movie, animated or book), breaks away from the usual, and shows you a different twist.

But of course doing a different take on a series, doesn't always please everyone. The same can be said about rebooting a series.

 

[J Riff]

Welcome to Blood City 1977 -- People wake up, remember nothing, and they are in some kind of olde west reality. They are captured and Jack Palance is the Sheriff, he's a relatively good guy, because the town consists of goofballs gunning each other down according to some bizarre system of law. Keir Dullea wins a fight, he's now a 'citizen' and he tries to save Samantha Eggars from the crazed locals.
Meanwhile, they are all asleep in a lab, being monitored. Keir is almost remembering his past life, which concerns the scientists running the program, he has 'great resistance to pseudo-realities'.
Samantha escapes the slave market, rides out of town in disguise. Palance grins crazily as usual in this one, he steps on a bad guy's 100-dollar hat, when he makes a lewd comment about Miss Catherine, then he shoots the guy, who was one kill away from 20, when one becomes 'immortal'.
Everyone wears black outfits with a red cross on them. Keir guns down badguys at the old mine, where Samantha is held captive. There's a twist, Palance laughs crazily, stuntmen earn their pay, the scientists are confused, Keir wakes up in the lab, he should be terminated but isn't, and we have a wild and quirky conclusion.

 

[CupofJoe]

Not so much a film as a TV theme...
Tis the season of Holiday made for TV movies and I'm a sucker for all but the worst of them.
They usually simple in plotting, unerringly upbeat and wholesome. They are usually light and fluffy [even if someone is dying - you know it will end okay] with incredible coincidences that are just glossed over [how many cancelled flight or projects with deadlines of the 24 Dec can there be?]
For the rest of the year I run a mile from them and their like, but from now to Xmas eve I will be watching far too many.
One of the better ones is The Road to Christmas 2006 so you can grade the curve I'm watching to.

 

[J Riff]

The Humanoid 1979 - Ital. - Ennio Morricone space music soundtrack! - as scrolling text informs us that Earth, now known as Metropolis, faces a grave threat from Lord Graal, who has escaped from the prison satellite in a cool spacecraft that resembles a triangular paper airplane, with a crew, and Graal looks like Darth Vader, but has a much nicer voice. He's got it in for Barbara though, who we see leaving work in a nice air-car, after some jokes about Alpha waves, while Graal's men appear and laser the Earth base personnel to pieces, steal the Kapitron tech, but they have missed Barbara, who left early due to a warning from a little kid, Tom-Tom, who is smarter than a computer, and he got that way 'in a place many eons from here'.
The Kapitron, invented by Craspin, can mutate human beings into monsters with superhuman powers. And now on an earth scout-ship here's our cute little robot, Kip - with little beeping puppy noises, his tail even wags.
Craspin and an evil princess Agatha on planet Noxon, looks like they have to drain blood from people to keep her from aging. Craspin is going to build an army of humanoids, but he really hates Barbara, who had him committed to an asylum. Meanwhile our scoutship pilot- 7' 2" Richard Kiel (Jaws) is going to be Craspin's 1st humanoid. Kip the robo-dog continues being cute, but does nothing useful so far...but already this is better than StarWars. Our converted humanoid shrugs off laser-fire, has super-strength. Good thing they have special narcotic gas to control him with.
The Humanoid walks into the peacful earth city, hurls people around, takes hundreds of laser shots, but our Earth leader, who is Graal's bother, escapes. Humanoid goes after Barbara, Tom-Tom stops him with hand gestures and a couple phrases, and turns him back into a human being, albeit with his mind more or less zapped. Back on Noxon Kip shows up and does some robo-tricks, our good guys save Barbara who is about to be drained to inject evil princess... and this epic still has an hour and ten minutes to go. Kip comes through, so does Tom-Tom, this evil empire is going down despite the Kapitron. Huge laser battle now.. this can only get better. I would stand in line for this if it was still 1978. Jaws smashes though another wall, this last hour is going to be great, there are armies of laser-toting soldiers still waiting, much more weird 70s electronic space-battle music to blare forth, 2 and a half-hours of flashy heroic hokum and dubbed dialogue, no more need be said.

 

[Starbeast]

Automata (2014) Very interesting take on A.I. Sci-Fi. Humans and androids try to coexist in a bleak future. Stars Antonio Banderas, and late, great Robert Forster. Nice little gem I discovered.

Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein (1972) Strange, but hauntingly entertaining B-movie horror flick that surprised me with it's minimal dialogue. Not a great giallo film, but it kept my interest.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

Um... I saw Showgirls last night.

 

[Starbeast]

Um... I saw Showgirls last night.

And.....what happened?

Should we talk about this while eating pastries? Or do you want to relax on a couch, while I sit next to you trying to un-hypnotize you?

"Remember.....you are number 6. And a very cool actor."

 

[Jeffbert]

Highly Dangerous (1950) entomologist Frances Gray (Margaret Lockwood) goes on a spy mission to a foreign nation that the British suspect is developing bio weapons in the form of biting insects. The nation is a police state, in which guilt is presumed. On the train heading into the suspect nation, she is met by a Police official who goes through her purse and finds her microscope while she is preoccupied. While there, she meets reporter Bill Casey (Dane Clark), who grudgingly agrees to help her break into the lab, and take a sample of the insects.

Fairly entertaining film.

Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973) definitely made for the kiddies. So, this time, the villain creature has to be content with fighting other giants, until about the last 20 minutes, when Godzilla shows up. There is a Robot called Jaguar that initially was man-sized, but to its creator's surprise, grew to gigantic size to fight Megalon. ! Well, except for the fact that I found myself laughing often enough to make watching this worthwhile.

Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) Once again, someone is out to conquer the Earth. This time, it is the subterranean dwellers, who are a bit upset about the surface dwellers' nuclear weapons testing. So, they build a robotic Godzilla, whose fake - err Godzilla costume is no where as durable as its space titanium.


Swiss Miss (1938) L&H go to Switzerland to sell mousetraps, thinking that the abundance of cheese will mean an abundance of mice. There were a few gags that were indeed very funny, & plenty that were funny. So, they go to a cheese maker, and begin drilling holes in his floor, so mice can get in, expecting to show the usefulness of their traps. More holes will make it more likely that mice will enter. But L drills not only through the floor, but into a natural gas line. Wondering what is this blast coming through the hole, L lights a match.

Poor H! the joke is always on him! So every time L plugs a hole, H gets flames up his rear from another hole!

 

[CupofJoe]

Um... I saw Showgirls last night.

Are you okay? do you need a hug or a cup of tea?