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.

[The Baron]

Currently re-watching Dracula (1931).

[The Baron]

Currently re-watching Frankenstein (1931).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching Dracula (1931).

[The Baron]

Currently re-watching The Mummy (1932).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching Frankenstein (1931).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching Dracula (1931).

[Doctor Hmmm?]

Bob - I try to go through at least one of those Legacy series every October. Somehow I haven't gotten to any of them this year. You're making me feel guilty!

[The Baron]

Currently re-watching The Invisible Man (1933).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching The Mummy (1932).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching Frankenstein (1931).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching Dracula (1931).

[The Baron]

Currently re-watching The Wolf Man (1941).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching The Invisible Man (1933).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching The Mummy (1932).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching Frankenstein (1931).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching Dracula (1931).

[The Baron]

Currently re-watching Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching The Wolf Man (1941).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching The Invisible Man (1933).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching The Mummy (1932).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching Frankenstein (1931).

The Baron said:

Currently re-watching Dracula (1931).

[Jeff of Earth-J]

STAR WARS MOVIES: 

After having finished reading Skywalker: A Family at War yesterday, I was in the mood to supplement it with some video. First I turned to Star Wars: A Musical Journey, a DVD hosted (or not, depending on how you choose to play it) by Ian McDiarmid and included with the Revenge of the Sith CD. It summarizes the first six films in a fraction of the time (about one hour) it would take to watch them in their entirety.

That evening I discovered that, quite coincidentally, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker were playing simultaneously on two different channels. the timing couldn't have been better because, not only was I in the mood to watch them, but tracy is out of town and has forbidden me to watch The Walking Dead or Doctor Who without her. I switched back an forth, watching whichever one until a commercial or a scene without either Rey or Ben came on. (Honestly, if I never see those characters Poe or Finn or Rose again it will be too soon.) 

We have spoken before about the optimum order to watch the Star Wars movies. I have distilled it down to the following four, in this order:

Star Wars

The Empire Strikes Back

Revenge of the Sith

The Rise of Skywalker

Those are the best of the nine. but if that's not enough closure for you, I suggest the follow two "trilogies" (in this order):

"BEST" TRILOGY:

Star Wars

The Empire Strikes Back

Revenge of the Sith

"CLOSURE" TRILOGY:

Attack of the Clones

Return of the Jedi

The Rise of Skywalker

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Baron, you might enjoy the Monster Rally Podcast, which is chronologically watching all the Universal monster films. One of the hosts, James, works at my LCS. It's a fun listen!

[Michael A Pinnick]

Just watched Ray Dennis Steckler's Rat Pfink A Boo Boo.  The first half of the movie is a straight crime drama, then apparently R.D.S. saw an episode of "Batman" and rewrote the second half of the movie to make it a clumsy parody of that show. Two relatively minor characters from the first half of the movie are, in the second half, turned into the "superheroes"  Rat Pfink and Boo Boo.

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

Sometimes I feel like I search out movies that will depress me. Anyway, yesterday I watched Settlers, which is about a family who settles on Mars, and there are others who want what they have. It is depressing. I can easily see this as a Western. It wasn't bad, but I just wished they explained how some of their technology worked. Like they were able to generate oxygen, yet they had to use an outhouse.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME was the first James Bond movie I saw in the theater. I've seen every subsequent one in the theater as well, except for The Living Daylights (because I procrastinated too long) and (so far, anyway) Die Another Day. The Spy Who Loved Me is my third least favorite James Bond movie, and now, after having read the novelization and watched the movie back-to-back, I think I can articulate why. Back in the mid-'90s I re-read all of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and re-watched all the movies (up to that time) in a set which I had just bought in widescreen VHS. (Oooh.) I watched all the movies again with my new wife shortly after we were married. So it's been, like, 20 years since I last saw The Spy Who Loved Me.

I used to think the James Bond series underwent a change when Roger Moore replaced Sean Connery in Live and Let Die, but that's not it. The real change happened with The Spy Who Loved Me. For one thing (despite the title), this is the first movie not based on an Ian Fleming novel. More importantly, perhaps, this is Cubby Broccoli's first movie without co-producer Harry Saltzman. [For years, I blamed the decline in quality on Roger Moore, but truthfully, they would have been just as bad had Connery stayed.] Starting here, the movies began recycling thinly disguised plot elements, stunts and locations in a constant effort to "one up" themselves.

The Spy Who Loved Me is little more than a pastiche of previous films in the series, but it at least gets off to a good start with a memorable stunt (skiing off a mountain and popping a parachute, lifted from a print ad for Canadian Club) and segueing into the title song sung by Carly Simon. Unfortunately, the rest of the soundtrack is reprogrammed electronic disco. But worse is yet to come. The end credits foreshadow that "James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only," but the next movie is actually Moonraker. (Actually, it would have been preferable if the next movie had been For Your Eyes Only.) The paperback adaptation of The Spy Who Loved Me follows the same basic plot as the movie, but its basic approach is so much better. Don't watch the movie; read the book.