We're currently enjoying James Spader in the Blacklist. Seeing him rang a bell and a whole cache of sci Fi flicks came knocking.
Anyone know the names of these? I've forgotten!
James Spader is an astrocryptologst reading symbols in a cave.
Jodie Foster is in touch with her deceased Dad via the family radio.
Jodie Foster works with a massive radar dish.
Amy Adams climbs into a landed UFO.
Val Kilmer faces booming pulses on Mars.
After a good few years gap, I've re-watched two American disaster movies.
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How it Ends (not Howard's End!) is essentially a road trip flick with a bit of added Sci-Fi chucked in. A prospective son-in-law and his ex-military and aggressive father-in-law-to-be set off in a car from Chicago to find the apple of both their eyes, the wife-to-be/ daughter in Seattle.
Much fresh gasoline is needed and there appears to be no end of huge, full Jerry cans along the road as long as you're prepared to shoot, ram and burn your way to get to them.
Basically, a growing bromance set against a global and unfathomable catastrophe, it's dour tone and vision of rising civilian violence reminded me of the more recent Civil War.
We never get to find our what caused the world-wide disaster.
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Annihilation is about the Shimmer, a strange and rapidly expanding geographical zone where everything mutates.
Soldiers were sent in. One came back. Scientists were sent in. One came back. They were a married couple and the film is more or less an analogy of grief, a terrible world turned upside down.
Within the Shimmer things are changing. Crocs are massive, bears scream with human voices and plants grow into people. There are some fantastic special effects and startling imagery here.
Yukky moments include large internal organ snakes and scary bits include a tense mutated bear attack.
The cause of the shimmer remains unknown but there's a definite suggestion it's alien.
I enjoyed it more than How it Ends as the sci-fi is cranked up to the max.
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Have you seen either of these readers?
Over the last few years there's been a handful of futuristic series and films on streaming that have mixed tech, robotics and humans startlingly well in my opinion.
Fall Out was one such show, the story of underground human settlements surviving a nuclear winter. The standout character was the mutated sheriff in the badlands.
Then there was the film The Creator, which blew me away with it's ground-searching floodlights emitted from vast government flying craft. Amazing imagery all round.
Recently came The Electric State, which I enjoyed a lot. I know it's a polarising film but I liked the juxtaposition of old tech, ai tech, cyborgs and people. The abandoned amusement park-style zone where old bits dwelled was great. I particularly liked the big ball-headed giant bot in the last battle. At it's heart though was a desperate quest and a vein of sorrow.
This of course has been done before with the film AI many years ago, a film for personal reasons I find difficult to watch, although I think it's a terrific flick.
Last week came the Artifice Girl. Again, whispers of AI's David, together with his longevity as the AI girl outlives it's creator. I didn't see all of it.
The sentiment that AI robots will outlive us all seems to run through all these films, a machined longevity which brings them nothing but loneliness.
What do you think readers?
Its an unusual choice for a toy.
It came with a 'Angela Lansbury' doll. Does it look like her?
Amazingly the doll stands up, makes the bed and then pushes it around the floor, before opening the covers, getting in and closing her eyes.
Watching Tom Cruise's reboot of the Mummy last night - basically Mummy Impossible! - I was reminded of something I'd read years ago about another American desert movie, if not the very first, made over a century ago in 1923:
Cecil B. De Mille's The Ten Commandments.
It was a silent, enormous and expensive undertaking in the unforgiving sands of California.
Paramount artisans crafted the Sphinx like masons three thousand years ago!
I recall reading that Cecil's entire Pharaoh set was so massively huge that he could not afford to take it out of the Guadalupe desert where they were filming, so the whole things was buried in the vastness of the dunes!
It's still out there brooding under the shifting barchans, occasionally revealing a scree of perished plaster.
Archaeologists are involved, as they would be on an ancient dig!
Watch this fascinating short clip about their attempts to recover De Mille's Lost City.
Have you ever been there readers?
Having watched the first two Tim Burton Batman movies again, on DVD, I've been basking in late 80's - early 90's bat-glow.
And then I watched Batman Forever. Oh dear!
I can't believe it's a Tim Burton movie too! What was he thinking? Somewhere between Returns and Forever Tim lost his Mojo. Maybe he just ran out of steam and not having Keaton carrying on must have been a blow.
There was no subtle beginning, no introduction, just a messy, loud string if explosions and chases with Two Face chuckling throughout. There appeared to be no story until Wayne met Nigma.
I just feel the casting was all wrong. Val Kilmer is just too darn good looking for his own good and never seems to get riled. Chris's Robin is just too annoying to even write much about. And Nicole Kidman as Meridian Chase just didn't do it, her performance was neither here nor there.
But I've saved the worst till last: Two Face.
Tommy Lee Jones was not the actor for Harvey Dent's bifurcated character. It was wishy washy at best and the make-up and clothing looked daft. I can't think of a single memorable line they gave poor Tommy to say.
Jim Carey did OK as the Riddler, a sort of Mask dry-run, but being a funny guy he was well, funny. Too much funny ruins Batman for me I'm afraid.
Michael Gough's Alfred kept things on the straight and narrow when he could, but overall the complete carnage and cacophony around him was all we could hear.
The whole film was a bit of a mess but I'm glad I've seen it again.
Have you seen it?
Next up, George Clooney's Batman and Robin!
Visiting the Grandkids yesterday I caught ten minutes of the Grandson's new festive flick That Christmas.
It appeared to be an animated tale about families with a boy at the centre of it all. It seemed like a cartoon version of a soap or a schmlalzy film from the 90's. I thought of About a Boy with Hugh Grant.
The son-in-law informed me it was a Richard Curtis film, he of Love Actually. So its Love Actually done as a cartoon for kids?
The Grandson loved it!
Not my cup of tea at all [sorry if you're a fan] and I really hope the Grandson chooses Jason and Argonauts or the new Wallace and Gromet for us to watch together over the holidays!
Have you seen That Christmas?
'Tis the season so I've begun to watch Christmas films.
The start was the terrific Tales from the Crypt, with its iconic festive opener And All Through the House.
I followed this last night with two more, both from the US and both modern: Red One and A Christmas Horror Story.
Red One is totally brand new; made just this year but already being streamed. My Missus says its been panned by critics but I have to admit I enjoyed it! A yuletide guilty pleasure, like Arnie's Jingle All The Way, I would probably watch it again, as I like Dwayne The Rock Johnson.
Red One is essentially a live-action play on The Night Before Christmas without the songs; a bogeyman, in this case a winter witch, taking over the North Pole HQ for her own nefarious plans. The Rock is Santa's bodyguard and chief fixer, who eventually teams up with Cap himself, Chris Evans, a good-for-nothing mercenary, who, yep, is ultimately made good by the power of the Christmas message. Krampus gets a look-in too, as is the way these days - I think he's more popular than Santa! - , with a horned manster looking a lot like Kelsey Grammer's Beast from the X-Men. Red One refers to the sleigh, like FAB1 does in Thunderbirds. If you watch it, uncouple your brains, switch on the tree lights and eat a mince pie or two.
A Christmas Horror Story from 2015 is a festive staple of mine now, added to a short but meaningful list of films I love to watch in December. Now ten years old but still relatively modern, its a sort of Amicus portmanteau for the Noughties, with enough Yuletidery stuffed in there to make your Chris tingle. There is something captivating about Bill Shatner's DJ, the film's radio stationed narrator, as he describes the growing carnage down at the Mall, whilst slowly getting merry with his huge carton of egg nog.
There are four tales told in A Christmas Horror Story; three are great, one not so.
The best is the eternal battle between Santa and Krampus, a piece containing a fabulous dukeroo between these two demi-gods scrapping for power over Christmas.
Another tale is about a changeling from a forest and is really well made. Yet another concerns the bright new American film star of the season, Krampus, that ubiquitous Bavarian gargoyle and his supreme displeasure with a toxic family of liars and thieves on an outing to see a rich aunt, the Krampus being the same actor who plays him in the Santa segment, a sort of muscular hissing minotaur painted white and reminiscent of the similar beast in the old Unnameable films if you know what I mean.
The tales, unlike those wonderful Amicus flicks, are all shown piece-meal, and the last for me to mention is about students investigating last year's Christmas murder in a high school basement. Personally its the least satisfying, possibly, because there are no adults in it! [maybe Henry Winkler is, I forget!]
Have you seen either of these movies?
Anyways, until tonight's festal films, that's all folks!
We have been staying in a hotel called The Legacy.
The name immediately brings to mind that 1978 schlocker, of the same name, starring occasional actor but forever frontman of The Who, one Roger Daltrey.
Daltrey's most famous part in the film is the tracheotomy using a kitchen knife and a biro. I think he'd swallowed a chicken bone. Needless to say, he doesn't survive the operation on the dining room floor, making the number of relatives left at the film's will reading one fewer.
The central protagonists in The Legacy are a young couple on a motorbike, one moustachioed Sam Elliott and actress Katherine Ross, an on-screen couple who later married in real life!
I enjoy these old deathbed movies, where the family is summoned to hear the will. Dementia 13 is another stranger one and a slightly different take is Frogs, where the family gathers for Patriarch Ray Milland's birthday in the bayou. Its ribbeting!
Have you seen any of these readers?
1965's Dr. Terrors House of Horrors; what a film!
Possibly only pipped to the post by Tales from the Crypt, Dr.Terrors has it all: great script, great sets, fabulous actors and lots of Gothic charm.
An Amicus portmanteau of real calibre, hosted on a trundling train by a tarot-reading Peter Cushing, it has so many great and memorable tales.
The starter is set in a Scottish country house, that requires some work. The Architect hired is in fact the previous owner. On his return he uncovers much macabre goings on including a coffin in the cellar bearing the family name, something he lives to regret!
Another tale deals with the arrival of the young new doctor in town - one uber-cool Donald Sutherland, the old one showing him the ropes. Sutherland's young wife begins to settle in whilst some locals fall inexplicably sick. It takes the old doctor to sort things out once and for all!
The story of the suburban garden is yet another tale, this time starring the suave and hip DJ Alan Fluff Freeman. The Ministry are brought in to ID some unusual flora but flora is having none of it!
The remaining two tales are the best in my opinion: the art critic and top of the pile, the voodoo tune.
Christopher Lee plays the famous art critic, a fabulously pompous and conceited oaf, who, after tearing apart an elderly artist's entire ouvre, is publicly humiliated by a painting chimp. This sets off a chain of increasingly tragic and ultimately lethal events. Pomposity certainly doesn't pay!
Last but not least, my favourite story of all, the voodoo song. The bubbly Roy Castle is just wonderful as jazzman Biff Bailey, who lands a gig in the West Indies with his excited band. Whilst there, Biff witnesses a voodoo chant, writes down the catchy tune and thereby seals his fate! I won't spoil it, it really is a marvellously created short film, completely self-contained and a world unto itself. There's a charming moment where Roy stands in front of a poster for the very film he's in! Kenny Lynch is great too.
Do you like Dr. Terrors House of Horrors readers? Have you a favourite story?
I caught Phibes last night. Dr. Phibes that is, when he's gone and risen.
Staring Gothmeister himself Vincenzo Price, I do like a Phibes film. I saw them both many years ago and fancied a non-anthology last night. And there it was on You Tube free of charge!
Personally I think the first Phibes, the Abominable one, is better than this sandy re-birth, but it does hold its own. The setting in Egypt is fabulous and the sets are worthy of Howard Hughes! Pyramids, rivers, gates of eternity, sarcophagi, deserts, statues and more!
The despatching of his enemies is once again a gory affair - this is 1972 after all - and we are 'treated' to all manner of horrendous ends inserted between the lavish organ playing and the puppet orchestra.
The dead Missus Phibes, one Victoria - 'played' by an uncredited Caroline Munro no less - gets lots of mentions but its the swirling chiffoned maid Vulnavia that steals the show. There is something very unsettling about Vulnavia and the care she takes looking after her mad master. And she never says a single word - no lines to forget for Vulnavia then!
Valli Kemp played the role, an Australian model who was involved with pop impresario Jonathan King [since disgraced]. She got a ten-year contract with Dr. Phibes, as the studio expected the character to just keep on rising. Kemp appeared in Rollerball before going back to Australia, where she teaches art in Newcastle, Sydney.
I've read that a different actress played this role in the first film, Virginia Northup, erstwhile Baroness of Hull. The Abominable Dr. Phibes was her final film role.
I can't help comparing the whole Phibes-Vulnavia-Avenging Nutcase-scenario to that of Theatre of Blood a year later, to my mind a much more accomplished and enjoyable romp into posthumous wrath and theatrics. Price is ably assisted by Diana Rigg in this and its a genius combination, as she's such a good actress and fabulous speaker [and so well known from the Avengers!]. Even the police slapstickery is better with Eric Sykes and Milo O'Shea pulling it off beautifully. Ian Hendry adds some 1970's class and off we go. And who can forget Robert Morley's poodled demise!
There is another similar Vincent Price vehicle, Madhouse, where he plays Paul Toombs. I even have the novelization of this but can't recall much detail at all.
Needless to say, I enjoyed watching Dr. Phibes and all the 'priceless' memories it brought back!
Do you Phibes treaders?
I'm currently laid up with a dreadful cold. I just can't stop sneezing. I spent the night on the sofa with a box of kleenex watching Grizzly the horror movie. At some point I must have dozed, breathing solely through my mouth - not pleasant is it! - and got in bed at 5.15am. I woke to say ta-ra to the Missus, who was standing at a village Christmas fair and have been sneezing and watching films in bed until now. Warm duvets, sci-fi and horror films, a tried and tested cure for the common cold! Oh, and hot tea too.
Grizzly is one of those movies I can watch over and over. There's something relaxing about square-jawed wardens, vast American wilderness and wildlife on the rampage. The Snow Beast is the same. Nothing too taxing and lots of gorgeous unspoiled landscapes. Grizzly actually spawned a toy rubber bear, which we've covered before on MC.
This morning I began a trio of space vamp movies: Queen of Blood, Devil Girl from Mars and Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Queen of Blood I hadn't seen before but I've always loved the early Sixties psychedelic poster. I adored the strange title art ( the artist's name escapes me), the sets, the models, the cosmic colours and the music. Really startling. The Martian vampiress plot could have been a bit tenser but overall I enjoyed it, predating as it does Alien and and the very similar Lifeforce by decades. I understand that some imagery was borrowed from earlier films that Roger Corman owned. All in all, a great job by John Saxon (star of the great Black Christmas) et al. Do you like it readers?
Next up, Devil Girl from Mars, with one Gerald Anderson as sound editor! The oldest film of the three - a black and white from the Fifties - and sadly the least enjoyable. I found the pub setting a bit tedious but I did like Nyah the Martian trafficker. The spaceship was a bit clunky but the fireworks and smokey landing could have been from Thunderbirds, still a whole decade away. Is this one you like readers?
Last but by no means least, Plan 9 from Outer Space by the great Ed Wood. Often branded as the worst film ever made, I'm enjoying it the most of the three and I'm only half way through ( tea break! ). It's a fabulous colourized version. The plot is the best one - aliens raising the human dead to do their bidding. The cast is amazing: Vampira is hypnotic, Bela Lugosi is basically Dracula cloaking the whole time and Tor Johnson, he's just class - the scene where he rises from the grave is stunning.
Vampira is a fascinating actress, who previously hosted a horror show - she was the first such host - and was mates with Jimmy Dean no less. An American - Finn, her Finnish heritage famously questioned, the character Vampira is genius, what with the black garb and the claw hand walk, very much in the vein of Morticia but one that holds her own. Half of the movie to go. Are you a Plan 9'er?
One observation: the chrome airliners at the start of Queen of Blood and Plan 9 look to be the same!
Nursing a bad cold I'm watching a film from 1980 called Hangar 18.
Its an interesting flick that reminds me of an extended X-Files episode. It has the hue of Capricorn One as well from 1977.
An even bigger X link is the presence of Darren McGavin, none other than Kolchak, he of the brilliant 1970's TV series that Chris Carter has cited as an inspiration for the X-Files!
I'm enjoying the film and the spacecraft at its dark heart is really impressive to look at. It looks like a huge black throne sat on an upturned black plate.
I know I've seen something similar.
The screw-off lid of alien or sci-fi jar or canister keeps coming into my head!
The Tesseract jar top? No.
M.Night Shyamalan's films are Marmite. You either love them or loathe them.
My feelings fluctuate depending on the film and its largely his earlier films that I know, beginning with his famous debut the Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis, which probably everyone on the planet has seen. Hard to believe its only 25 years ago. It seems older than that.
Signs wasn't too bad either, the crop circle suspenser starring Mel Gibson and the Happening starring Mark Wahlberg held great promise, especially the mysterious apocalyptic opening before it became mired in melodrama.
And so to Unbreakable, the Shyamalan super-hero flick featuring Bruce Willis as the eponymous 'unbreakable' super-human The Guardian [I think he's called that]. An unusual super-hero film unlike Marvel or DC's cache of Metas, Unbreakable also introduced us to the 'breakable' Mr. Glass played by Samuel L. Jackson, nearly ten years before he worked with Marvel. Again, all this was nearly 25 years ago.
This week I dipped my toe into Split, a much later effort by the Director and the second part of a super-human trilogy beginning with Unbreakable. Split stars James McAvoy as a person with 23 split personalities [Sybil only had 13!].
As I've only seen half an hour of the film so far I've only had the pleasure of about five of them. Mention has already been made of a sacred being and reading up I see its a personality called The Beast. I'll carry on watching tonight as I'm intrigued by the thought that McAvoy physically changes somehow.
Glass is the latest and final part of the Director's super-human trilogy, a film I've yet to see, where all three of his characters come together in one movie.
Have you seen this trilogy and or any of M.Night Shyamalan's films? What do you think readers?
Watched a few things of late. Have you seen any of them?
Impulse: a 1984 eco-shocker about chemical waste entering the water system of a small American town and .... sending the townsfolk barmy and homicidal. A decent attempt at a toxic quarantine along the lines of the Crazies and Andromeda Strain.
Rings of Power: I'm enjoying Prime's super-expensive retelling of Tolkien's early tales and seeing characters like Tom Bombadil brought to life. Just waiting for the next episode now in Season 2.
Werewolf by Night in Colour: I first saw this Marvel mini-film on Disney+ a coupla years ago in monochrome. This time they've added full colour. I really like this Marvel short because it lets one of its less-well known but fabulous characters, the marvellous Man-Thing get an airing. Please give us more Man-Thing Marvel!
The Crazies: the modern remake of the old Romero movie [which I've yet to see] starring Timothy Olyphant. He plays a great sheriff role in a small American town about chemical waste sending the townsfolk barmy and homicidal. Its a lot gorier than Impulse but taps into the same vein of state-run mass experiments on citizens.
Sting: an alien spider film. The first ten minutes were so tedious it was sacked off till a later date.
X-Files The Movie: the first and best of two film spin-offs from the famous and fantastic TV series that kept us glued to the telly in the 1990's. The film's got it all; Mulder, Scully, Cancer Man, the Four Horsemen, aliens, viruses, shadowy figures of power in a global conspiracy and lots of bees. Martin Landau makes a brilliant appearance as Dr. Kurtzweil. Yep, I love the X-Files.
Tonight I had another go at watching the Marvel THOR movie Love and Thunder.
I had a go a while back and gave up. Tonight I persisted and after putting up with Zeus, romance and daft silliness, I ended up enjoying it.
Its not the best THOR film by a Mojlnir, but its OK.
The good points are Christian Bale. Christian Bale is probably the best thing in the film, his character the God Butcher is the most interesting. The opening five minutes could have been a prelude to completely different and grittier film.
The bad points are the schmaltz, schmaltz and schmaltz. Love and Thunder, the title, is probably a bad sign that this is the way it'll go but really; even Odin would have trouble wading through the romantic goo.
Still, I struggled but somehow, I enjoyed it!
Have you seen Love and Thunder?
There's something poignant about this cover art. I like the way the alien has its eyes half-closed looking down, perhaps lost in thought. The few strokes to create the spaceship have been done well too and I think it looks great.
The alien is clearly influenced by the Man from Planet X movie poster art ( a film I've yet to see. Have you seen it?)
