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.
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Strange Darling (2024): a well-acted, effectively-directed thriller about a serial killer. It tries to undercut our expectations of the genre's dark tropes, while reinforcing some of the darker thinking and reality that led to those tropes exisiting in the first place. To write much more would result in spoilers. Well-made, but problematic, and definitely not for all tastes.
The Land that Time Forgot (1974): I saw this in the theatre when I was a kid. A fairly straightforward adaptation of a Burrough's lost world story, it's not as bad as its reputation. The acting is servicable, and some of the effects work well. The dinosaurs take the most criticism, but these visuals vary. Most of them are puppets, which limits their mobility but not their movement. You'll know it's puppetry, but it's pretty good puppetry. A couple of the dinos are costumes; those are awful. Even worse is the stiff giant pterosaurs who fly without moving their wings (or anything else). One finally demonstrates the ability to open and close its mouth.
The twist that explains the mysterious land and why it contains all of geological and biological history, supposedly, is pure pulp-fiction/comic-book science. In short: despite having effects that are not only dated now, they were dated then, it's an okay kid-appealing fantasy adventure, with a higher death count than one would find in such a movie now.
Two very different films, separated by fifty years.
The Land that Time Forgot (1974) was featured in Season 11 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 . One of the German officers is played by Anthony Ainley, who would later play the Master in 80's Doctor Who.
On TCM last night? I recorded it... most of it, anyway. I knew it was going to be shown but I thought I had seen it before so I didn't set it to record. When we finished watching Prometheus last night I flipped over, realized I hadn't see it before and started recording 20 minutes of a half hour in. Marvel adapted it in 1975, and American Mythology reissued it in 2019. That's when I read it.
This 13-part serial was thought to be lost. It was restored* and came out on DVD in 2011. I had recently enjoyed Joan Woodbury’s scene-stealing performance in I Killed That Man (1941). When I saw what else she had done, I discovered that she was the lead in Brenda Starr, Reporter, which convinced me to get the DVD. As Brenda, she is quite an action hero, saving herself and performing physical scenes.
*Chapters 3 and 4 are only partially restored, some parts being video without sound and some parts sound without video. Being early in the story this didn’t detract much at all.
VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED & CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED: I had never seen either of these movies before. Last night TCM showed them back-to-back, so I recorded them both and watched the first one tonight. I'm sure most of y'all've seen this one so I need not go into it here. What a classy film! we'll watch the second one tomorrow.
I just watched this on Tubi. Basil Rathbone plays a mad brain surgeon. It also stars Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr, John Carradine and Tor Johnson. They wanted Peter Lorre, but the budget was strained, so Akim Tamiroff filled in for him and did a good job. It’s really good.
This is the last movie that Lugosi actually completed. Tor Johnson (like in Plan 9) plays a resurrected victim turned monster. Lugosi plays another resurrected victim, turned mute accomplice. He’s in a lot of scenes and performs well.
Sinners (2025): brilliant filmed, scored, and acted, I really like 75% of this strange cross-genre film by Ryan Coogler (Black Panther, Fruitvale Station). It became a little too conventional ACTION HORROR MOVIE at the end, but remained good, and needed, IMO, about three-quarters of its epilogues cut.
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Strange Darling (2024): a well-acted, effectively-directed thriller about a serial killer. It tries to undercut our expectations of the genre's dark tropes, while reinforcing some of the darker thinking and reality that led to those tropes exisiting in the first place. To write much more would result in spoilers. Well-made, but problematic, and definitely not for all tastes.
The Land that Time Forgot (1974): I saw this in the theatre when I was a kid. A fairly straightforward adaptation of a Burrough's lost world story, it's not as bad as its reputation. The acting is servicable, and some of the effects work well. The dinosaurs take the most criticism, but these visuals vary. Most of them are puppets, which limits their mobility but not their movement. You'll know it's puppetry, but it's pretty good puppetry. A couple of the dinos are costumes; those are awful. Even worse is the stiff giant pterosaurs who fly without moving their wings (or anything else). One finally demonstrates the ability to open and close its mouth.
The twist that explains the mysterious land and why it contains all of geological and biological history, supposedly, is pure pulp-fiction/comic-book science. In short: despite having effects that are not only dated now, they were dated then, it's an okay kid-appealing fantasy adventure, with a higher death count than one would find in such a movie now.
Two very different films, separated by fifty years.
The Land that Time Forgot (1974) was featured in Season 11 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 . One of the German officers is played by Anthony Ainley, who would later play the Master in 80's Doctor Who.
The Land that Time Forgot (1974)...
On TCM last night? I recorded it... most of it, anyway. I knew it was going to be shown but I thought I had seen it before so I didn't set it to record. When we finished watching Prometheus last night I flipped over, realized I hadn't see it before and started recording 20 minutes of a half hour in. Marvel adapted it in 1975, and American Mythology reissued it in 2019. That's when I read it.
I thought I had seen it before
The Land that Time Forgot (1974) was featured in Season 11 of Mystery Sceince Theater 3000 .
That's where I saw it!
Brenda Starr, Reporter (1945)
This 13-part serial was thought to be lost. It was restored* and came out on DVD in 2011. I had recently enjoyed Joan Woodbury’s scene-stealing performance in I Killed That Man (1941). When I saw what else she had done, I discovered that she was the lead in Brenda Starr, Reporter, which convinced me to get the DVD. As Brenda, she is quite an action hero, saving herself and performing physical scenes.
*Chapters 3 and 4 are only partially restored, some parts being video without sound and some parts sound without video. Being early in the story this didn’t detract much at all.
VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED & CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED: I had never seen either of these movies before. Last night TCM showed them back-to-back, so I recorded them both and watched the first one tonight. I'm sure most of y'all've seen this one so I need not go into it here. What a classy film! we'll watch the second one tomorrow.
The Black Sleep (1956)
I just watched this on Tubi. Basil Rathbone plays a mad brain surgeon. It also stars Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr, John Carradine and Tor Johnson. They wanted Peter Lorre, but the budget was strained, so Akim Tamiroff filled in for him and did a good job. It’s really good.
TRAILER
This is the last movie that Lugosi actually completed. Tor Johnson (like in Plan 9) plays a resurrected victim turned monster. Lugosi plays another resurrected victim, turned mute accomplice. He’s in a lot of scenes and performs well.
Sinners (2025): brilliant filmed, scored, and acted, I really like 75% of this strange cross-genre film by Ryan Coogler (Black Panther, Fruitvale Station). It became a little too conventional ACTION HORROR MOVIE at the end, but remained good, and needed, IMO, about three-quarters of its epilogues cut.
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