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.

[Doctor Hmmm?]

"It was the Dwan of a new age ..."

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Funny that name never caught on...

FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY (1973): How many of you remember this two-part TV movie from 1975? My memories of it are so strong I suspect I may have seen it more than once. (Maybe it was later rebroadcast as a weekend afternoon “super-movie”…?) I remember the television commercials which promoted it as the story of Frankenstein “just the way Mary Shelley wrote it.” I was already a fan of the Universal Studios version at the time; I had the Aurora model kit of the monster and everything. I remember latching on to that commercial tag line and repeating it for years to come.

Then I read the novel. What a load of crap! (The tag line, I mean.) The entire movie seems to be based on the misinterpretation of one line: “I had chosen his features as beautiful. Beautiful!” I forgot to mention yesterday that I found this online for eight bucks over the weekend and ordered it. It arrived yesterday. Of all the movies I mentioned yesterday, this one is moving to the top of the queue, if for no other reason than nostalgic curiosity. I plan to watch it over the weekend.

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

I remember Tom Baker as the ship's captain. "'E must 'ave been 'iding in the 'old!"

[Detective 445]

Last night, I watched The Accountant starring Ben Affleck.  The basic idea behind this action thriller is not very plausible but I still really enjoyed it. Affleck plays a sort of underworld operative whose secret super power is autism. I thought this was very well done with some great performances by Affleck, Anna Kendrick and Jon Bernthal. Apparently the writer of this movie is working on the upcoming Nightwing film so I'll take that as a positive sign.

[Richard Willis]

Jeff of Earth-J said:

Funny that name never caught on...

I’m pretty sure I’m right about this:

In the movie Splash, Daryl Hannah’s mermaid character has to come up with a name for herself that, when said, doesn’t shatter glass.

She sees the street sign “Madison Avenue” and says Madison is her name. Everyone looks at her, thinking how weird it is. Ever since then, a lot of baby girls have been named Madison.

[Ronald Morgan]

Didn't know when I saw it that anybody, male or female, used Madison as a first name.

[Ronald Morgan]

Is that the one where the Monster's hand comes off and he laughs about it, and doesn't become ugly until later in the film? I believe his body parts were rejecting each other?

I have yet to see any version even vaguely resemble the novel. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was nothing of the sort. Nobody wants to see the Monster compare himself to both Adam and Satan? Or see the doctor gasp out his story to a sea captain just before he dies? Or show the Monster paddle off on a little boat so they can add a big question mark to THE END? and hint at a possible sequel that doesn't have to explain why he didn't burn up or blow up in the last film?

 
Jeff of Earth-J said:

Funny that name never caught on...

FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY (1973): How many of you remember this two-part TV movie from 1975? My memories of it are so strong I suspect I may have seen it more than once. (Maybe it was later rebroadcast as a weekend afternoon “super-movie”…?) I remember the television commercials which promoted it as the story of Frankenstein “just the way Mary Shelley wrote it.” I was already a fan of the Universal Studios version at the time; I had the Aurora model kit of the monster and everything. I remember latching on to that commercial tag line and repeating it for years to come.

Then I read the novel. What a load of crap! (The tag line, I mean.) The entire movie seems to be based on the misinterpretation of one line: “I had chosen his features as beautiful. Beautiful!” I forgot to mention yesterday that I found this online for eight bucks over the weekend and ordered it. It arrived yesterday. Of all the movies I mentioned yesterday, this one is moving to the top of the queue, if for no other reason than nostalgic curiosity. I plan to watch it over the weekend.

[Captain Comics]

Wait, there was a book?

Ronald Morgan said:

Is that the one where the Monster's hand comes off and he laughs about it, and doesn't become ugly until later in the film? I believe his body parts were rejecting each other?

I have yet to see any version even vaguely resemble the novel. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was nothing of the sort. Nobody wants to see the Monster compare himself to both Adam and Satan? Or see the doctor gasp out his story to a sea captain just before he dies? Or show the Monster paddle off on a little boat so they can add a big question mark to THE END? and hint at a possible sequel that doesn't have to explain why he didn't burn up or blow up in the last film?

 
Jeff of Earth-J said:

Funny that name never caught on...

FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY (1973): How many of you remember this two-part TV movie from 1975? My memories of it are so strong I suspect I may have seen it more than once. (Maybe it was later rebroadcast as a weekend afternoon “super-movie”…?) I remember the television commercials which promoted it as the story of Frankenstein “just the way Mary Shelley wrote it.” I was already a fan of the Universal Studios version at the time; I had the Aurora model kit of the monster and everything. I remember latching on to that commercial tag line and repeating it for years to come.

Then I read the novel. What a load of crap! (The tag line, I mean.) The entire movie seems to be based on the misinterpretation of one line: “I had chosen his features as beautiful. Beautiful!” I forgot to mention yesterday that I found this online for eight bucks over the weekend and ordered it. It arrived yesterday. Of all the movies I mentioned yesterday, this one is moving to the top of the queue, if for no other reason than nostalgic curiosity. I plan to watch it over the weekend.

[The Baron]

I'll say this about Shelley's novel:  It was a fascinating idea, and there were some very good parts, but it wasn't exactly an endless, unbroken cavalcade of brilliant writing, either.  The bits where the Creature learns to read and write especially reek of Plot Convenience Playhouse.

[Richard Willis]

Ronald Morgan said:

Or see the doctor gasp out his story to a sea captain just before he dies?

IIRC, that’s how the reader hears the story in her original novel. I think Dr. Frankenstein was dying of exposure to the Arctic cold. It wasn't a sudden death.

[Richard Willis]

The Baron said:

I'll say this about Shelley's novel: It was a fascinating idea, and there were some very good parts, but it wasn't exactly an endless, unbroken cavalcade of brilliant writing, either.  The bits where the Creature learns to read and write especially reek of Plot Convenience Playhouse.

I read it many years ago. I remember that the novel was a slog. The early 19th Century writing style was very flowery. Dracula is a much more accessible novel. It was written in 1897 and has more in common with modern writing styles.

[Doctor Hmmm?]

Which is why I re-read Dracula every couple of years, and have never, ever been able to get through Frankenstein a second time.