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.

[Ronald Morgan]

Perhaps they had some trouble with Universal over the first one? He did look more like their Monster than what Hammer came up with.

The dub never gives their names either. Always wondered just how much they changed it when they brought it over. I'd say more about this film, but having never seen the original, the words get stuck in my throat...

[Richard Willis]

I just saw an interview with Oscar-winner Brie Larson, who plays a photojournalist in Skull Island. I wonder when they will start interviewing her about playing Captain Marvel.

[JD DeLuzio]

Maybe. Hammer later received permission from Universal to make creatures resembling the Universal Monster in a couple of their later Frankenfilms (the guy with the axe is David "The Man in the Vader Mask" Prowse as the Monster):

Ronald Morgan said:

Perhaps they had some trouble with Universal over the first one? He did look more like their Monster than what Hammer came up with.

[Ronald Morgan]

But then for their last film they kept Prowse but made him completely unlike any other Frankenstein Monster. Did Universal change their minds again?

You wouldn't think it would be that difficult to come up with a reanimated dead guy that didn't look like Boris Karloff.

[The Baron]

Re-watched Furankenshutain no Kaijū: Sanda tai Gaira (1966).  They're definitely called "Frankensteins" in the original. They also have names. The brown one is "Sanda", and the green one is "Gaila"

[Ronald Morgan]

Where is the original available?

[JD DeLuzio]

Contrasting movie viewing:

Manchester by the Sea: brilliantly-acted, slowly-paced film about a man broken / breaking due to deaths of those close to him.

Ismail Yassin Meets Frankenstein aka Ismail and Abdel Meet Frankenstein  aka Haram Alek!

An Egyptian-made, Arabic-language, frequently shot-for-shot rip-off of Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein: worth it for the novelty factor, but not much else. The Abbott surrogate is the short fat guy; the Costello one is tall with a style more akin to Jerry Lewis

Seeing the new Kong today.

[The Baron]

Ronald Morgan said:

Where is the original available?

I got it on DVD on a double-set with Rodan.

[Doctor Hmmm?]

Me too!

The Baron said:

 Ronald Morgan said:

Where is the original available?

I got it on DVD on a double-set with Rodan.

[Doctor Hmmm?]

In the last 24 hours: Suicide Squad, X-Men: Age of Apocalypse and Logan.  On my own for the weekend, and binging.

[Ronald Morgan]

Nobody got that was a song in the English dub?
 
Ronald Morgan said:

The dub never gives their names either. Always wondered just how much they changed it when they brought it over. I'd say more about this film, but having never seen the original, the words get stuck in my throat...

[Jeff of Earth-J]

FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY: Watched this for the first time in over 40 years last Friday. I’m surprised how much of it I remembered. What little I didn’t remember came back to me as I watched. This two-part TV movie must have made a big impression on me. I would have been nine years old when it was first broadcast. I was curious how well it held up. I think I would have enjoyed seeing it again after all these years either way, but it does hold up. The subtitle and tag line (“Just the way Mary Shelley wrote it”) are misleading, but it’s no less like the novel than any other adaptation.

I am now more familiar with the actors (James Mason, Jane Seymour, John Guielgud, Tom Baker, etc.) than I was all those years ago, so I enjoyed it on that level ,too. The monster looked as if he could have “evolved” into the one featured in Frankenstein Conquers the World.

THE BRIDE: This one features Sting as Frankenstein, Clancey Brown as the creature, and Jennifer Beals as the bride. It dispenses with the origin of the creature entirely (which I wish a lot of superhero movies would do). These two movies were set in England, so maybe (to fit my theory that all Frankenstein movies “happened”) each movie deals with a different branch of the family tree, Swiss, German, English, fictional countries, etc.

UP NEXT: I still have Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter, Frankenstein vs. Dracula and Francis Ford Coppola’s version on queue. Yesterday morning, Tracy was bopping around on Amazon and ended up order every Frankenstein movie she found under $10, I don’t even know which ones but I think she ordered five or six. (Sadly, she didn’t order Bikini Frankenstein, though.) I intend to comment on those in the days to come, too.