What was the last movie you saw?

Actually, since Kyle MacLachlan is in it, I spent part of the time imagining that this was what Evil Black Lodge Coop was up to after the ending of Twin Peaks season 2.
 
Dawn of the Dead (1978).

I watched an especially long version of this film, about 2.5 hours long. It's a strange film: there's so much wrong with it, and in parts it's quite crude and shoddy, but the overall effect is very strong. The four main characters are very good, and the clearing of the shopping centre is exciting and well-made. I think what really works, for me, is a sense of emptiness. There's no government, no army, no society and, for some of the external bits, not even that many zombies: just these four people, living in pointless luxury. Violent, cartoonish and sometimes silly, but ultimately unnerving.
 
Where Have All the People Gone? - 1970 - Peter Graves tries to save this, and it starts promisingly, with a big solar flare that turns most people into white powder. Our family is in a cave, they aren't powdered, but cars are burnt out, electricity gone, so they have to make it back to LA to see if Mom has survived. Of course she hasn't, so there's a lot of weepy bits. They find a woman who's family survived, but then bad guys killed her hubby and the dogs chomped down on her kids. The dogs survived you see, but they are crazed and forming packs. We only get to see a bit of dogpack action... Graves backing into the house with a shotgun, guarding everyone from an onrushing dog pack - who look like they are having a swell time, tails wagging like sixty. We get to see a few powdered people - just clothes laying there with what could be borax spread 'round, so not very special FX. No dogs get blasted however, they just growl and then are chased off, so it could have been worse.
 
Thora, Queen of Space 1967 - full-on swingin' 60s credits w/ psych swirly visuals and trippy tunes, and hey Pinkas Braun is in this, never heard of him/her, but, the 1st thing we see is big rocket on a launching pad. Now scientists discuss going to the Moon, specifically Nukem Crater and the Nubian Sea. Perry Rhodan is commander so we know where this is going, but it is made in '67 man, so it is gonna be far out, you know it.
There's some kind of super-valuable heavy metal on the Moon, that's the secret reason for the mission. Super-rich bad guy Arkham plans to scuttle this, but we know Perry will pull through. On the Moon they run across a giant spaceship, looks like a psychedelic tea-kettle. But it's so quiet... 'I'd prefer a twelve-headed, six-eyed, eight-foot monster to this silence!"
Next, an alien guy appears and disintegrates a raygun in our good guy's hand. Whoa - Skeleton-face robot! Our alien ship is from Archon - 34 million light-years away. Genuinely groovy accapella music plays as we meet Essy Persson, who is Thora, she's the commander. She's utterly disdainful of primitive earthmen. Crest, the ET captain, has leukemia. They are going to have to go to Mombassa to get hold of an experimental serum created by an English doctor. Geeee now Thora starts undressing while informing Rhodan that his race is too inferior to bother procreating with. Lotta great dialogue goes past, and Perry gets to 1st base as cheery pop tunes play. The ship's robot has x-ray vision, cheats at poker. On the Earth, we get an invisible force field and a gravitational neutralizer. they blow up a mountain to show the Earth general who's boss. Already you should be going to watch this. Essy looks great, love the haircut. There's a lot more crazy fun stuff in this, but I think we reviewed it in here before, so that's enough.
 
Three spy movies that ran the morning after TCM sowed the last of 15 or 16 James Bond films.

Matchless (1967) Perry Liston (Patrick O'Neal) in Chinese prison, and about to be executed is given a very special ring by a very old man. He is told it can render him invisible for 20 minutes, but, only once every 10 hours. So, he escapes, & becomes a super spy. Hank Norris (Henry Silva) is a cellmate, whom the Chinese send in pursuit of Liston. Upon introducing himself to the new guy in the cell, he states that he is and has always been a snitch. Gregori Andreanu (Donald Pleasence) is the ultra-rich guy whom the U.S. targets as the object of the super spy's mission.


The Defector (1966) Prof. James Bower (Montgomery Clift) is recruited to go the East Germany to receive microfilm from a Soviet physicist who wants to help the West. Counselor Peter Heinzmann (Hardy Krüger) was a student of the physicist, and is sent to persuade Bower to defect to the East.


The Double Man (1967) Dan Slater (Yul Brynner) is a top CIA man, and is lured to Europe by the death of his son, in a supposed skiing accident. It turns out, that the East has made a double of him, whom the indent should take his place, return to the USA, and sabotage the intel agency.


None of these films were beyond so-so, just barely worth watching, etc., despite the cast. So much, that in checking their Wiki pages to find the dates, all three had very little written there.
 
Lady Frankenstein 1971, -- sure, you could watch this one, it has all the elements you would expect in a Frankenstein movie, plus a fair amount of nudity. In fact, at the very end, Lady Frank herself is making out with one of the monsterfied characters as the lab and mansion burn down. Last thing we see is her going 'gaaaak' and expiring. She is a doctor, she came back to help her Dad, who is the first victim of the monster, his own fault for transplanting a damaged brain. The monster walks round the countryside croaking people, he picks up some nude girl, doesn't seem to hurt her, and very carefully throws her into the river, then procedes to take out whoever was part of his own making... there's sleazy gravediggers, there's torch-weilding villagers who ramage through the castle at the end, even though the monster is already dead, they get to burn down a mansion full of priceless artifacts. Nice sets, and the monster has a big high head and one crazy eye, pretty scary.
 
Yeah, I actually enjoyed that one a lot more than I should have.

My Son, the Hero (Arrivano i titani, 1962)

Entertaining sword-and-sandal flick. The English title makes it sound like an out-and-out spoof, but it's not. There's a fair amount of light comedy, but not enough to make it a parody. The plot gets going right from the start, as we find out that the King of Crete has murdered his wife, who just gave birth to a daughter, in order to marry another woman. He visits a sibyl to have his future foretold. No surprise, the gods are upset with his activities. The sibyl tells him that he will be destroyed when his daughter falls in love. If he kills her, he'll die at the same moment. He decides to keep the girl locked up, never seeing a man. Meanwhile, he and the new Queen bathe themselves in vapors that make them invulnerable. Cut to Hades, where we quickly see Prometheus and the eagle, Tantalus and the dangling fruit, and Sisyphus and the big rock. This film has lots of mythological stuff. Anyway, we see the Titans chained up. Jove decides to release one, the weakest but smartest, to bring justice to the evil King, who has declared himself a god. The Titan is our protagonist, quite athletic, but not anywhere near as muscular as the typical hero of this genre. He deliberately gets captured so he can beat a really huge, super-muscular guy and become the King's servant as part of his plot to bring the tyrant to Hades. Along the way he meets the King's daughter, and they fall in love. Lots of stuff happens. There's a gorgon, a cyclops who sells our hero some lightning bolts, and so on. Production values are good, with nice sets and costumes. The evil Queen wears several different wigs, including a bright purple one. Our hero leaps around doing all kinds of gymnastic tricks, but he's not the only one. We see a guy do a somersault over the back of a charging bull. It's all quite fun, playful when it wants to be, serious when it needs to be.
 
The King, which was just released on Netflix.

It is Prince Hal who becomes Henry V, a youngish Hotspur, Falstaff but not as you might know him, etc. As far as I can see it is an attempt to modernise the Shakespeare plays and I had to ask myself why?

Three days later I am still asking myself why?
 
Terminator: Dark Fate.

Was so-so. Nowhere near as good as T1 and T2, but arguably better written than some of the more recent Terminator movies.
 
The Mask of Satan (La maschera del demonio, 1960)

More commonly known to American viewers as Black Sunday, I believe. The version under the above title is a few minutes longer, retaining some scenes thought too violent for the USA at the time. Starts with a bang as Barbara Steele, in the role that made her a scream queen, is tied to a stake, branded with a hot iron, has a mask with long, sharp stakes nailed into her face (Yikes! This scene was one of the ones cut), and is burnt to death, all for being a witch and vampire. Her lover gets a similar treatment, although we don't really see it. Of course, she places a curse on the family of those who condemned her; who happens to be her own brother, by the way. Cut to two centuries later, by which time we're in the 19th century. Some guys arrive at the place where she was entombed. One of them removes a religious icon from her body. Her rotting face, clearly showing the holes made by the mask, has empty eye sockets and is crawling with vermin. He also cuts himself and some blood falls on her corpse. Well, of course, that's going to lead to her revival. It's done in a really creepy fashion, too, over several scenes. We see slimy eyes start to form in her face at one point. Later, her sarcophagus literally explodes. Meanwhile, one of her brother's descendants, also played by Steele, is in residence. The undead Steele uses her witchcraft to revive her lover, the plan being to steal the life force from the living Steele for herself. The plot is a little confused, and a familiar one, but the movie has tons of atmosphere, is beautifully filmed -- it made Mario Bava a major director -- and features some really striking scenes. A major one is when the robe the undead Steele is wearing is torn away, revealing only a rib cage with bits of rotting flesh.
 
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)

The noted horror host's feature film debut. There is a plot, of sorts -- Elvira inherits a house, a dog, and a "cookbook" that is really a book of magic spells from a deceased great-aunt (played by Cassandra Peterson herself, with red hair, in flashback) -- but it's really just an excuse for slapstick, corny wisecracks, and some pretty raunchy sex jokes. The film's antagonist -- a great-uncle who wants the book for himself -- hams it up, but in a serious rather than campy way, so that's a nice change from everybody else acting like Borscht Belt comics. Very silly, lowbrow stuff.
 
Yikes! indeed. The board was acting weird earlier, wouldn't load... so, I thought I already posted this. Quite sure, but here it is anyway:

The Night of the Big Heat - Brit. 1967 - already, before the credits roll, we see an oscilloscope explode, as a satellite dish rotates and a techie twiddles knobs. It's just a frequency monitor, like a CRT TV... it shouldn't blow up like that, but it does. Then we see a guy setting up photography gear in the woods, to take pictures when a rope is moved or something, and we see a girl in a sportscar roaring along the road a few times. Our photog leaves and an old woods hobo comes out and inspects everything, takes a newspaper and walks off. We still have no idea what's going on. When the girl's car overheats, she stops and hears a high-pitched sound. So does our hobo, who is set up in a cave, but the sound comes in after him and he apparently expires while grabbing his head and screaming.
We learn that the Island of Fara is having exceptionally high temperatures. Our cast is there, they end up in the Swan pub complaining about the heat. The noise reappears, but no idea what it is yet. A giant insect? Well, a flock of sheep have been killed. Our photog character is a recluse in a room full of electronics. The telephone is acting up but nobody is worried yet. Now a TV blows up. There's a big romantic subplot happening as the terrible sound causes a guy to drive off the road, he rolls once and explodes, pretty unlikely. Now something glowing comes down in a field. Photog admits he thinks we have an invasion by beings from another planet going down. Beer bottles explode in the pub, they have to smash them all. Pub guy attacks and molests cargirl, she scratches him and whacks him on the noggin with a metal box, he staggers and kicks furniture around as he runs off, we know he will be next to die. He is, and even though he's armed with an acetylene torch, the sound comes, we see the door opening, he screams, grabs his head and is burnt to cinders like the others by whatever it is that we haven't seen yet. Now the Doc gets burnt up at the gravel pit, the mainland is not alerted, this looks bad for the whole world, unless photog can come up with something. Meanwhile the heat is causing mild overacting. But, photog sees a woman burn up at the gravel pit, with her is Patches the dog who has been trying to warn people all throught the movie about something evil. Patches survives this flick.
Aha, now we get the intro scene of the oscilloscope blowing up, the ETs have cut off communication with the mainland. But, this base is where the ETs are attracted to, they've transported in through the satellite. And they are heating the planet up like an egg in a microwave. Finally - at 1:23 we see a glowing orange glob-thing on a rock on the beach, while our remaining cast attack the ETs using Very pistols and dynamite, during a thunderstorm. A whole box of TNT goes off as a brain-glob creature zaps Foster with that awful noise they make. Orange globs surround them in the gravel pit, there's no hope left, until the ridiculous cheezy ending suddenly ends all conjecture about anything, and the Earth is saved. Good performances by everyone save this movie to some degree. *spoiler >>> of how the ETs are done away with? - it rains.
The End.
 
The Gorgon, dir. Terence Fisher; starring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley

Hammer Horror. As usual, nice production values though the low budget does show early on with a sort of generic pan of a castle and surrounding area. Introduction and afterward by Ben Manliewicz (a Turner Cable Movies showing last month), who quoted Christopher Lee as later saying, "The only thing wrong with The Gorgon is the gorgon." And that's accurate, the make-up and sfx letting them down. Otherwise, well-acted with atmospheric direction.

Randy M.
 
Over the last two weeks I have watched 4 films at my local cinema The Adams Family, brought back many memories of original TV series. 8/10. Terminator: Dark Fate, excellent action movie. 8/10. Mrs Lowry and Son, a beautiful portrait of the painter and his mother. 8/10. And finally Aeronauts, a brilliant insight of the history of the first balloon flight to discover about the weather, and there was plenty of tension. 9/10.
 
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)

The noted horror host's feature film debut. There is a plot, of sorts -- Elvira inherits a house, a dog, and a "cookbook" that is really a book of magic spells from a deceased great-aunt (played by Cassandra Peterson herself, with red hair, in flashback) -- but it's really just an excuse for slapstick, corny wisecracks, and some pretty raunchy sex jokes. The film's antagonist -- a great-uncle who wants the book for himself -- hams it up, but in a serious rather than campy way, so that's a nice change from everybody else acting like Borscht Belt comics. Very silly, lowbrow stuff.

A bit of trivia. The actor who played the great uncle was W. Morgan Shepard who had a couple of recurring roles in the Star Trek franchise and Babylon 5. A very good character actor. His son went on to play the lawyer in the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

PS. I do wish I could retain some valuable information at times instead of having a head full of Pop Culture :)
 

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