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.
Views: 69402
You need to be a member of Captain Comics to add comments!
It's really something to see those old films at a drive-in, in particular. We're lucky to have two within a short drive of us (one outside of town and another an hour away outside a Lake Huron tourist town). The nearest one only does first-run, but maybe the practice will catch on.
The big screen really does nothing to enhance the cheesy 1950s F/X, but everything else holds up quite well, and those F/X are a part of Them!
This has nothing to do with those "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" movies I watched last week, but we came across it while searching for them. then it came up on TCM during the week: a sign. It stars both Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, which came as a surprise to us because I thought we had seen all of the movies they did together. this is a really good one, very moody, very suspenseful.
doc photo > Jeff of Earth-JApril 13, 2025 at 8:38am
At one point I was searching out lesser known Karloff films and came across three top notch films - The Body Snatcher being one of them. The other two were The Walking Dead with Karloff as an almost Spectre-like character back from the dead to punish those who framed him for murder and a war picture The Lost Patrol featuring Karloff as an infantryman on the edge of madness.
This is the only Mike Hammer movie in which he was played by Mickey Spillane, who created him. He did a decent job of acting. It also features Shirley Eaton, the year before Auric Goldfinger gave her the paint job.
As for Spillane’s comics work, IMDB has the following:
While still a high school student, he "went professional" at the age of 14, writing for the Elizabeth (NJ) Daily Journal. In 1935 he began submitting his work to magazines before aiming lower and learning his craft by writing for comic books, including such popular titles as "Batman", "Captain Marvel", "Captain America" and "Superman". "[It was] a great training ground for writers," Spillane explained. "You couldn't beat it."
It doesn’t quite match up with his writer credits on GCD:
The Return of the Secaucus Seven: made in 1979, this indie made it into a kind of main run in 1980. Many have noted The Big Chill's (1983) similarities to it. I found this to be a better film, though very low-budget and very much of a time and place. Don't expect fast-moving action.
We have a houseguest this weekend. She suggested that we watch a science fiction movie last night and asked if we had any. Tracy just looked at me and grinned, and I said, "We have every science fiction movie. Which one would you like to see?" She didn't have anything in particular in mind, her only stipulation was one that would keep her "engaged." So I started offering suggestions and we settled on the ninth one I mentioned, Prometheus. I remembered it was very Biblical in scale and scope, but I've been reading The Bible and Bible-adjacent material and hadn't realized just quite how Biblical it is. We had seen it twice before (at the theater and on DVD), but I think I missed some of the Biblica allusions the first two times through.
Replies
Never seen it on a big screen. That must have been awesome.
It's really something to see those old films at a drive-in, in particular. We're lucky to have two within a short drive of us (one outside of town and another an hour away outside a Lake Huron tourist town). The nearest one only does first-run, but maybe the practice will catch on.
The big screen really does nothing to enhance the cheesy 1950s F/X, but everything else holds up quite well, and those F/X are a part of Them!
Never been to a drive-in. Not a lot of them around here.
The effects are fine for 71 years ago.
The Guardian headline: The original Star Wars is back – but what if George Lucas is right about it not being much good?
STORY
THE BODY SNATCHER (1945):
This has nothing to do with those "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" movies I watched last week, but we came across it while searching for them. then it came up on TCM during the week: a sign. It stars both Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, which came as a surprise to us because I thought we had seen all of the movies they did together. this is a really good one, very moody, very suspenseful.
At one point I was searching out lesser known Karloff films and came across three top notch films - The Body Snatcher being one of them. The other two were The Walking Dead with Karloff as an almost Spectre-like character back from the dead to punish those who framed him for murder and a war picture The Lost Patrol featuring Karloff as an infantryman on the edge of madness.
The Girl Hunters (1963) -- on Tubi
This is the only Mike Hammer movie in which he was played by Mickey Spillane, who created him. He did a decent job of acting. It also features Shirley Eaton, the year before Auric Goldfinger gave her the paint job.
As for Spillane’s comics work, IMDB has the following:
While still a high school student, he "went professional" at the age of 14, writing for the Elizabeth (NJ) Daily Journal. In 1935 he began submitting his work to magazines before aiming lower and learning his craft by writing for comic books, including such popular titles as "Batman", "Captain Marvel", "Captain America" and "Superman". "[It was] a great training ground for writers," Spillane explained. "You couldn't beat it."
It doesn’t quite match up with his writer credits on GCD:
GCD :: Story Search Results
The Return of the Secaucus Seven: made in 1979, this indie made it into a kind of main run in 1980. Many have noted The Big Chill's (1983) similarities to it. I found this to be a better film, though very low-budget and very much of a time and place. Don't expect fast-moving action.
We have a houseguest this weekend. She suggested that we watch a science fiction movie last night and asked if we had any. Tracy just looked at me and grinned, and I said, "We have every science fiction movie. Which one would you like to see?" She didn't have anything in particular in mind, her only stipulation was one that would keep her "engaged." So I started offering suggestions and we settled on the ninth one I mentioned, Prometheus. I remembered it was very Biblical in scale and scope, but I've been reading The Bible and Bible-adjacent material and hadn't realized just quite how Biblical it is. We had seen it twice before (at the theater and on DVD), but I think I missed some of the Biblica allusions the first two times through.
On Earth Day, I watched my two favorite anti-pollutuion movies, Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) and Gamera vs. Zigra (1971).
-
667
-
668
-
669
-
670
-
671
of 671 Next