Lightning Jack (1994) Curiosity finally got me to watch this western/comedy. Not bad, not great, but not bad. It's roughly about an outlaw gunslinger (Paul Hogan) who wants to be famous for being infamous. The film is a little dated for me, but it's still not a bad adventure.
SB I watched that one a while back. It is, as you state, not bad at all.
The Vampire's Ghost 1945 - doubtless already reviewed in here, but from a Leigh Brackett story and I don't remember it - yet - so here we go, with a map of Africa and a 1st-person voice-over about dark jungles, voodoo drums etc. We see a hand with a strange ring opening a creaking door... a cute dog jumps up and barks, a woman wakes up, a dark shadow passes, she screams, and we cut to a stretcher being carried out of a hut in a village. Now our white padre walks in, and he blesses Mongo on the way. He's back because the drums haven't stopped for weeks, an ominous omen apparently. There's been a couple murders, peculiar wounds at the throat, and the workers are deserting the plantation. The word vampire is mentioned at 4:40, laughed off by Julie as medieval tommyrot.
Now a wild dance routine from Lisa in the local bar, and we meet Fallon, a mysterious character, who is beating everyone at dice. He gives the money he wins to a sailor. There's a brawl, Fallon stops it using his crazy hypnotic eyes.
The cast plan to head for the evil witchcraft village at dawn, and a mirror suddenly breaks. "What broke that mirror?" "Evil, Mr. Roy - evil."
A booby trap that Fallon saves them from, then we see natives preparing a spear dipped in molten silver. Yipes, with no warning - Fallon is the vampire, he hypno-controls Roy. Fallon has a box of grave-dirt given to him by Queen Elizabeth. Fallon kills Lisa and a sailor, he gets more evil by the minute, and he has hypno-powers galore. He takes off with Julie and the cast pursue, we wait for them to find a way to burn him, the only way to croak vampires. Maybe the silver spear will come back into it, we shall see. Yes and... yes. A huge burning statue falls on Fallon ...and he burns up as the nice music swells. "It's like a terrible dream." - "Yes, but it's over." It is, and we have seen much worse.
I watched TTZ's Third from the Sun, & wondered about the color version of the flying saucer, so, I then watched Forbidden Planet (1956). While there was scant interior views in 3rd, my interest was the transparent sphere in the center. It was rather interesting, lending its design to the Jupiter II's navigation console. Anyway, carefully watching the interior shots, I determined that the thing was larger on the inside, than on the outside. All the things they apparently brought out of it! It did have two decks, while 3rd had just the close-up of the center console. In TTZ's Death Ship, there are interior ribs that line the upper dome. Also, very much larger on the inside, as there was a vertical wall with a door leading to the sleeping quarters. But this places a rectangle on the outside of the dome!
the curvature is such that top of the dome is much lower than here:
Also, note thew right angle at the far right--> the tan panel seems also odd, given the overall shape of the upper hull.
But, about Forbidden, I read all the trivia on Prime's viewer, but no mention of the lack of appropriate sound effects as the id-generated invisible thing climbed the stairs which bent under its massive weight:
Seemeth to me that there ought to be a sound of metal bending.
In an episode of Jonny Quest, there is a really creepy invisible thing, obviously inspired by the one in this film, but that one has appropriate sound-effects of footsteps, as it moves along!
Iron Sky: The Coming Race
I had hoped this would be one of those "so bad, it's good" offerings, like its cult predecessor, but this one neither rose nor sank to that level.
Iron Sky: The Coming Race
I had hoped this would be one of those "so bad, it's good" offerings, like its cult predecessor, but this one neither rose nor sank to that level.
Terminator Dark Fate 2019 slight spoilage but not really - you want action, here 'tis. Arnie and Sarah team up with some new gals, and the new Terminators are just as bad as the last lot - black gunk Terminators this time, and they are mighty hard to dispatch. So it's a real slugfest this one is, lot of rounds fired, but other explosive shenanigans as well, as the endless time loop loops on. Could there be another one in this series? Dunno why they would bother, but it would probably make money so maybe. Lots of CGI in this one, people and robots hurled around like ragdolls, swords, bombs, machine guns, airplanes, big nasty machines and the usual. Arnie looks pretty good for his age, but who knows if it's even him half the time. Wait for 'I'll be Back" you know it's gonna be there.
The Bible According to Hollywood (1994) Interviews with C. Heston abound, in this 2 part film. P1, in NT, 2, OT. I thought that Harold Lloyd was in danger while making his films, but in at least one of these, several extras drowned. Anyway, very interesting stuff covered, many films I never knew about. Yul B. had roles on both sides, as Pharaoh & Solomon. There was Capt. Bligh as Nero, and another actor more associated with comedy in the same role. I wanted to watch The Ten Commandments to see Edward G. Robinson as Dathan, but Prime was not renting that title, only selling for $14!! If it is not on my HDD, I would hardly say that I owned it. I will try NF DVDs.
Everybody literally interprets the story of the Garden of Eden; to me, it can only be an allegory for childhood innocence and coming of age during adolescence. Too many things make little, if any sense, when taken literally. So, several of these show some of Eve's skin; most use coverings of one type or another. Cute tush!
It was rather funny the part about the Exodus, they used hundreds of Egyptian soldiers as Israelites, damn! I forgot the other details, but it was funny.
Still Alice (2014)
A powerful and moving film where a successful lecturer and author is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's Disease, with a great performance from Julianne Moore.
Woman at War (2018)
Icelandic drama/thriller about an environmental activist anonymously trying to sabotage the expansion of an aluminium plant in the Icelandic Highlands. It was decent enough, with one very bizarre aspect. Whenever music played, a three-piece band or choir was actually there performing the soundtrack (and sometimes acknowledged by the main character), whether it was in the woman's living room or the middle of the Icelandic wilderness. It provided a couple of laugh out loud moments and sometimes when the music piped up, I wondered where the musicians would appear from next.
Here they are in the background:
Capernaum (2018)
Raw Lebanese film that starts with a 12-year-old boy in court, suing his parents "because they had me." The story is then told in flashback as the boy meets Syrian refugees and African migrants, doing whatever he can to survive. The boy has a big heart, and is played in a fantastic performance by Syrian refugee child actor Zain Al Rafeea.
Woman at War is queued up here, sounds like fun. *
Star Odyssey 1979 Ital. -- this one starts with a big starship bridge, blue unis, and the sighting of an alien flying saucer, superior velocity, full radio silence.
Lots beeping sound FX all through this, Good Aurora model-quality spaceships. On the saucer we get an overlord-type with the typical high collar outfit, so he can't see to the side without turning his head. The crew all have platinum-blonde long-hair wigs.
Back on our starship - "Man meets an alien race at last, and greets them by disintegrating their vessel." But the saucer is having none of that, it flies right on in through ineffectual Earth atomic-cannon crossfire defence.
Huh, turns out our alien commander has bought the Earth at an auction. Cut to >>> WWII stock footage of explosions. Various Earth cities are obliterated. Only Prof. Morey is going to be able to figure this out and save everyone. He is two centuries smarter'n everyone else, but is of course too stubborn, independent etc. But, he might listen to Oliver 'Hollywood' Carrera, who "acts as if he is a superstar in a TV series called 'Fighting Hero of the Galaxy'."
Robed Prof. Morey informs us the UFO is made of 'Indirium' , super-rare stuff on Earth. He has a cute beeping bot, with little hands wrapped in tinfoil, but it doesn't speak. Morey's pals - Shawn and Bridgette, must be broken out of prison in order to invent a new substance that will perforate Indirium. A young Lieutenant is hypnotized by Morey's glowing eyes to undertake the escape. Now we get glowing-eyes telekinetic control of a silver ball by famous gambler Dirk Laramie, on the starship. The losers demand their money back but Dirk just starts a brawl. One of them falls onto a bench. where two hippies wearing ponchos insert a fuming water-pipe into his mouth. I'm not making this up.
Dirk wears a glittering spider-shirt; Morey fiddles with gadgets that look like modren cellphones. Good grief, back on the UFO they are gathering humans from the surface. We see some footage of cool-looking black dudes, as an awful robotic voice-over inform us that: "One thousand dark-skinned units of various ages have been collected." They are to be processed and stored in Hold Six, Container Four.
25 min. in, and we are off to 'The Alcatraz of the Heavens' ... apparently, this version of this classic that I'm watching has 2 reels out of order, but it probably won't matter. Cheery synth/flute tunes play, and there's the space station - a tambourine, maybe a hubcap with a couple parts welded on, but pretty cool, an Astroport, where prisoners are kept in suspended animation - standing up in tubes - cut to: Little Norman, battling a big robot - Hercules Four, who has killed many contestants, in a boxing ring, for the World Championship. This is good stooge action, Norman does acrobatic tricks and the ref gets hit numerous times by the bot - cut to Dirk cheating at poker, he can see through cards once his eyes light up. Yipes, in another game, all the money - and the pleasure of a night with Irene, are on the line. This is adult stuff.
Now the Cmdr. talks about the 'Oof-oh" not, U.F.O. - Oofoh. Soo... now we are at an auction house - of planets, to the Lords of the Galaxy. Groovy alien costumes. Are the reels out of order yet>? Irrelevant. Brigette instigates a prison breakout using her feminine wiles.
It gets better; now we have a re-animated suicidal talking robot, looks like a silver frogman. There's still an hour left in this epic, horrific dialogue galore - 'Tillie - she's the light of my transistors'. I can't watch anymore right now, going to save the rest this for later. However did I miss this ridiculous masterpiece of inanity?
Watched three episodes of the the Mandalorian. Wow! I love it.
Watched Captain Marvel, and it was as good or better than any of the other "super hero" genre movies so popular today. As they all are, it was short on plot (but better at this than most, I actually felt like I knew Captain Marvel at the end.). As with the others, it was filled with unbelievable special effects. And, most frustrating, along with all of the others, it assumes that you have a lot of background information from other movies and the comics on which these are based, which I don't; so I'm always left scratching my head trying to figure out: Who? What? and Where?
When you watch all 3 it is kind of a movie. It's about the right length. It has a nice story arc. When they gave special previews early to people they used the first 3 episodes. I'm not regretting my $6.99.
I do think it's funny that a big deal was made about Pedro Pascal playing the part. He has like 10 lines in an hour and forty five minutes. I don't even think it's his body.
Red Tails (2012) I just watched this recently. I loved it. Spectacular special effect WW2 film, plus a great drama about a group of friends wanting to be heroes.
Even before it was released, all I heard were bad reviews. That turned me away from seeing this war flick. However, I haven't seen too many really good new movies out lately. And this movie, was exceedingly entertaining.
Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Shows the poor unnamed monster in the proper sympathetic light. All he wants is one friend. I read the novel Frankenstein on a CD of public domain works, and then again in a university class on critical approaches to literature, in a critical version of the story, half of the book were the many interpretations of the story. Anyway, other than the amusing & unrealistic creations of Doctor Septimus Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), it seemed fairly close to that portion of the novel, when the Monster desired Dr. F. to create a mate for him. More than a few details of the novel have been forgotten, though.
Kansas City Confidential (1952) Noir Alley, & enough details to make watching this again worthwhile. Ex-con, who was a decorated WWII soldier, works for florist wholesaler, driving delivery van that every day makes deliveries right next to bank. He leaves every day just a minute after armored car arrives at bank. So master mind has look-alike florist van arrive just seconds after real van leaves. Bank robbers surprise armored car guys, as they leave bank with bags full of money. Robbers ditch fake florist van, and cops arrest driver of real florist van.
Poor ex-con driver guy gets the 3rd degree, etc., is finally released, but with his face all over the newspapers, his boss fires him. He is not happy about being the [whatever is the term] chump who is blamed for the other guys' naughtiness.
Nevile Brand played one of the robbers, and was, in fact, highly decorated WWII guy, while the guy who portrayed such a character was not.
As the title implies, there was a confidential element here. The mastermind rounded up the three bad guys individually, and wore a very particular mask while doing so. As such, none of the three, Brand, Jack Elam, & Lee Van Cleef, knew each other. After the theft, the three robbers all meet Mr. Big, for the split of the money, which is all marked bills. So, he gives each one a small amount and tells them that they must wait for the rest, until after the heat cools off, etc.
But, he has no intention of actually paying them, as he is an ex-police Captain, who intends to betray them and collect the reward for capturing them, and recovering the money. Two things he had not expected, the fall guy has taken Jack Elam's place, and his own daughter has come to the Mexican fishing village where he frequently vacations, & is also the spot he chose for the scam/payoff. She has fallen for the fall guy.
Just watched Battleship on DVD. It's a reasonable popcorn movie with good special effects and a great soundtrack, but the acting (Rihana) is poor, and there are some absolutely glaring plotholes.
I mean apart from the obvious problem of apparently trying to start up a decommissioned battleship in an hour or so (though at least to the tune of Thunderstruck which makes all the difference), where did all the old guys suddenly pop up from? Were they sitting on thebattleship simply waiting for someone to come and ask them to get the ancient ship running? Why? Because no one called them as far as I could see.
But then there's the really big one. The ship is decommissioned. So why would it have ammunition on board?
After that there are the other done for effect issues. Like battleships and destroyers apperently have to be up close and personal to duke it out like an old fashioned pirate movie. Actually most of the big battleships could fire at targets right over the horizon. And if you dropped an anchor to try and stop a battleship at full speed, not to mention spin it around so that it could fire a broadside (something a battle ship doesn't need to do by the way), you'd rip the anchor mount right out of the hull and not change the ship's course a single inch.
It was like they wanted to turn hundreds of thousands of ton ships into speed boats.
But at least it was fun. And Rihana should stick to singing.
Charlton Heston is Harry Steele, a rather disreputable adventurer earning a living in Peru by forcing himself as a guide on unsuspecting tourists. He's also waiting around for a small, private plane to land at the local airport, so he can steal it. You see, he's already stolen a part of an ancient Incan stone object that serves as a clue to the location of a fabulous treasure.
Meanwhile, an even less reputable acquaintance offers him the chance to help a young woman, on the run from Romania, escape those pursuing her in order to force her back behind the Iron Curtain. The same acquaintance, who knows that Steele has the piece of stone, hires a guy to shoot at him with a rifle, deliberately missing him, in a rather stupid attempt to scare him off.
Steele arranges to have the guy after the woman show up in, you guessed it, his small, private plane, so he can steal it. He takes her along, mostly because she's pretty. He doesn't much care about getting her to safety, really, although the two do some smooching along the way. His real goal is to get to Machu Picchu and use the stone clue to find the treasure. Too bad a team of archaeologists is already there. Even worse is the fact that his acquaintance shows up as well.
This moderately enjoyable adventure film is mostly famous for being one of the inspirations for Raiders of the Lost Ark. Steele's outfit looks just like the one worn by Indiana Jones, and there's a scene near the end that looks a lot like a similar scene in the later film. There's some very nice location shooting in Peru, and an appearance by Peruvian singer Yma Sumac, who does a few songs in her unique voice. Worth watching.
Modest but enjoyable British crime drama. A Swiss woman works at some kind of business where the boss keeps a valuable diamond locked up in a big safe. She doesn't know that her no-good boyfriend has intercepted a letter from the boss to a couple of German businessmen, setting up a meeting. The boyfriend's two even-more-no-good buddies pretend to be the Germans, and meet the boss after closing time, with the Swiss woman kept late in case the boss needs a translator. The two guys steal the diamond, kill the boss, and knock out the woman. In true film noir fashion, the blow on the head causes amnesia. The woman wanders around London in a daze, following up the few clues she has to her identity. This leads to lots of encounters with creepy men, including the boyfriend's beatnik artist brother, who was in on the robbery plot. As the plot thickens, the brother winds up murdered also. Along the way she gets help from a friendly boxer. Toss in some jazz on the soundtrack and you've got a decent psychological thriller.
Low budget ghost story whose ambition is far beyond its ability. The tiny town of Ludlow is having its bicentennial. There's this old piano around. (It sure looks like an ordinary upright piano to me. Some characters call it a harmonium, which is an entirely different instrument.) It seems that the founder of the town, old Ludlow himself, had his hands cut off and was exiled, apparently for some kind of black magic associated with the piano. In the present day, all kinds of random supernatural stuff happens, much of it laughable. Furniture floats around, tree stumps explode, folks in 18th century clothing show up and kill people. There's this glowing green hand that does some of the killing. It seems that Ludlow's ghost is inside the piano and is causing all this stuff. The soundtrack is full of annoying electronic music, the special effects are cheesy, and the costumes of the ghosts/demons/whatever look as if somebody invited a bunch of people to a costume party with vague instructions to dress in 18th century duds. The plot doesn't make much sense, but darned if it doesn't have a decent moment or two, and moves along at a decent pace, despite some talky scenes.
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Anyway, very interesting stuff covered, many films I never knew about. Yul B. had roles on both sides, as Pharaoh & Solomon. There was Capt. Bligh as Nero, and another actor more associated with comedy in the same role. I wanted to watch The Ten Commandments to see Edward G. Robinson as Dathan, but Prime was not renting that title, only selling for $14!! If it is not on my HDD, I would hardly say that I owned it. I will try NF DVDs.
