Movies I Have Seen Lately

[The Baron]

Saw a Takashi Miike picture called The Great Yokai War. "Yokai" is a Japanese term for monsters from folklore, as opposed to the more familiar kaiju. It's a kids' picture, about a young boy from Tokyo sent out to live in the countryside with his older sister and his intermittently senile grandfather. When a vengeful spirit appears, the boy gets caught up in a war between warring groups of yokai and must find his courage to become the "Kirin Rider", the hero who will set everything to rights. It's not a bad picture - nothing deep, but an amusing story. Some of the yokai are really trippy, Japanese folklore can get pretty "out there", apparently.

[Captain Comics]

Rookers = rukas (Russian for "hands")

Bog = Bog (Russian for God, rhymes with "rogue")

horrorshow = khorosho (Russian for "good")

The rest is probably Cockney rhyming slang or nursery-rhyme doggerel, which Burgess also used in Nadsat.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Kroovy = bloody

Oddy knocky = all alone or by myself

Razoodocks = minds

Don't know how he came up with those.

I used to be more fluent in Nadsat; my droog and I used to speak it in college.

[Ronald Morgan]

The devil in Fantasia was Tchernobog, "black god", who was opposed in the old myths by Byelobog, "white god." Interesting Disney used Russian mythology. Not that well known.

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

The music for that segment was also Russian.

[Ronald Morgan]

What's interesting is the Russians realized there wasn't much to Tchernobog and Byelobog, and pretty much replaced them with more conventional gods, like Purin the thunder god, who joined the Soviet Super Solders for awhile, where he seemed like the mythical Thor (as opposed to the clean shaven, much less violent Marvel Thor.)

In "A Hard Day's Night" the Beatles introduced the word "grotty" short for grotesque.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I’ve recently started watching the Hammer Studios “Frankenstein” movies (for the second time though in sequence). I’m quite familiar with the Universal Studios ones, but I’m not as familiar with these. So far I’ve watched the first four.

CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957)
REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1958)
EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN (1964)
FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN (1967)

Whereas the monster is the focus in the Universal series, Frankenstein himself is very much the focus in the Hammer series. “Revenge” is a direct sequel to “Curse” and details Frankenstein’s next experiment after creating the initial monster. “Evil” starts over with a new continuity, but “Frankenstein Created Woman” picks up (more or less) from “Revenge.”

Tracy came home Friday wanting to watch a Godzilla movie. (When she has a hard day at work, she gets relief vicariously through giant monsters stomping cities.) She chose “King Kong vs. Godzilla,” which I followed up the next day with “King Kong Escapes.” I would like to follow that up with “Frankenstein Conquers the World” (maybe after the Hammers… three to go).

[The Baron]

Never seen any of the Hammer Frankensteins.

[doc photo]

Evil of Frankenstein seems like Hammer's attempt at a more traditional Universal style Frankenstein flick.
Guess it didn't do particularly well since they returned to their own continuity with Frankenstein Created Woman.

Jeff of Earth-J said:

I’ve recently started watching the Hammer Studios “Frankenstein” movies (for the second time though in sequence). I’m quite familiar with the Universal Studios ones, but I’m not as familiar with these. So far I’ve watched the first four.

CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957)
REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1958)
EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN (1964)
FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN (1967)

Whereas the monster is the focus in the Universal series, Frankenstein himself is very much the focus in the Hammer series. “Revenge” is a direct sequel to “Curse” and details Frankenstein’s next experiment after creating the initial monster. “Evil” starts over with a new continuity, but “Frankenstein Created Woman” picks up (more or less) from “Revenge.”

[Captain Comics]

Dang. More movies on the bucket list!

[Ronald Morgan]

Evil of Frankenstein was made more traditional because Universal had lightened up by that point. That's also why the Monster looks a bit closer to Karloff. This was explained by horror host Svengoolie on Me-TV when he ran the picture. His comedy skits are very corny but he often gives very interesting information on the films he shows. Continuity was never very clear in those movies. Dr. Frankenstein dies in Curse.

The last two have David Prowse as two very different Monsters. Wonder if this had any influence on him getting Darth Vader, since the first Star Wars shows Peter Cushing bossing him around.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

“Dr. Frankenstein dies in Curse.”

No, Frankenstein was led to the guillotine in Curse; Revenge begins with how he escaped it. Both Frankenstein and the creature die in Evil.

[Detective 445]

My latest roundup:

Passengers: Ugh. A very disturbing (and not in a good way) romance set aboard a spaceship. I found the central premise of this movie repulsive. I don’t want to give too much away, but the main character makes a decision that is just morally reprehensible on every level.  Subsequently, the film spends the rest of the time trying to convince us it was ok to do what he did.  It seems like the creators of this filmed designed it to give hope to creepy stalker types by telling them if you just stick with it it will eventually pay off.  Just disgusting.

Arrival: This had a lot more going for it.   The basic story of alien visitation has been done many times before but this comes up with some fresh elements and features strong performances.

Doctor Strange: Another perfect execution of the “Marvel Formula.”

Star Wars Rogue One: Maybe my second favorite Star Wars film. I was disappointed that they sort of tied this one off. I thought it was vastly superior to The Force Awakens which just seemed like a rehash of old ideas.

Underworld Blood Wars: As long as Kate Beckinsale is in these I’ll keep watching, but this installment wasn’t as good as the last one which was probably my favorite of the series.

Gimme Danger: A very well done documentary about proto-punk band, The Stooges.  It explores the early days of the band in great detail.  I may be a bit biased as they are my all time favorite band but I think fans of the band or Iggy Pop would probably enjoy this.

Justice League Dark: Pretty good adaptation of the comic. I thought they took a few chances and did some new and interesting things with this.