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.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

"As to Doctor Fate, wasn't Kent Nelson white-haired and aging in his final appearances?"

The Hector Hall Doctor Fate had a white crew cut, which is I'll bet what you're thinking of. (that would be from the Geoff Johns era.) The last I remember seeing Kent Nelson, his hair was a very pale, washed out  blond. 

[Jeff of Earth-J]

THE DAY TIME ENDED (MST3K): "An extended family living in the desert has numerous encounters with alien creatures and time travel"... and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever I might add. this 1980 film was originally titled Earth's Final Fury  before being changed to Vortex and finally settling on The Day Time Ended. Josh Weinstein reprises his role as dr. Larry Erhardt in a cameo appearance. 

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Bob, I just found your reviews of the S12 episodes. I think, overall, I'm enjoying them more than you are. I didn't think you got this far. I probably stopped reading when you got to the point I stopped watching. 

[Richard Willis]

I haven't seen this. It has a release date of February 24. I'm putting the trailer here instead of in "Videos" because it's full of F-bombs.

Den of Geek says:

Who says cinema is dead? Not Elizabeth Banks! The Hunger Games star and frequent director slips back into the helmer’s chair for this ingenious camp-horror high-concept. Based loosely on a true story, Cocaine Bear asks what happens when a black bear in the backwoods of Georgia ingests an entire bag of cocaine?

Magic. Magic is what happens. Will the potentially one-joke premise about a cocaine-raddled black bear going on a rampage sustain a feature-length movie? Who knows, but we’re rooting for it since the trailer is the right kind of chaos. Plus, Cocaine Bear features the final performance of Goodfellas star Ray Liotta. That feels right.

Cocaine Bear | Official Trailer [HD] - YouTube

[Jeff of Earth-J]

We watched that last two MST3Ks of "The Gauntlet" (season 12).

KILLER FISH: "A jewel heist goes awry when a hurricane traps the thieves and other people in waters filled with deadly piranha." This one features a bevy of TV actors, including Lee Majors, Karen Black, Margaux Hemingway and James Franciscus. 

ATOR, THE FIGHTING EAGLE: "The warrior Ator fights to rescue his lover from a spider-worshipping cult." This is actually the first (of four) "Ator" movies. which doesn't make it any better than the others. How much O'Keefe is in this movie again?

[The Baron]

Cave Dwellers , a sequel to Ator, was actually riffed in Show 301 back in the Comedy Central days.

[Doctor Hmmm?]

Miles O'Keefe!

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY. If you're an Al Yankovic fan, this is for you. If you like cameos, this film may be for you. If you want a serious film, this one is not what you're looking for. Daniel Radcliffe does a fine job as Al, but this is a really light, as in not heavy, film. There's quite a bit of violence. Al's dad has a Reid Fleming moment. Evan Rachel Wood is very good as Madonna, and, for some, may steal the movie. This movie can be seen for free on Roku.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

MACISTE IN HELL (1925): "Our hero Maciste saves a young child from the grips of a demon and decides to take the fight to the demon's home. Maciste travels to the depths of Hell in order to track down the Devil to stop evil from spreading across the Earth. Maciste struggles with many different perils along his trip into Hell and appears to be defeated, if not for an act of kindness from a friend."

Our trip through our 100-movie pack of bad movies was derailed a while ago when we hit, like, four of five silent movies in a row. Neither one of us was really in the mood to watch another one, but watching season twelve of MST3K last week kind of put us in the mood. This movie gets off to something of a slow start until, about 15 minutes in, Maciste is sent to Hell. Then it becomes a special effects extravaganza! This version of Hell has both Pluto and Lucifer, and the two factions are fighting against each other. "The current laws of Hell" ( we are informed by a title card) are such that a living man can stay in Hell for only three days, unless he is kissed by a she-demon. Then all the nearly-naked she-demons fight over his to see who can kiss him first. After he is kissed. he turns into a demon himself and he spends several years fighting on behalf of the tortured sinners. The last five minutes of the film take place on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and Maciste's soul is restored by a child's tear shed on his behalf on Christmas Eve. The next time someone tries to tell me It's a Wonderful Life is a Christmas film, I'm going to recommend Maciste in Hell (which is available in its entirety on YouTube). 

[Luke Blanchard]

The quotes from "Longfellow" are from Longfellow's translation of Dante. I assume they were from Dante in the Italian titles.

[Luke Blanchard]

The net tells me an Italian film based on Dante called L'Inferno appeared in 1911.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

THE MISTRESS OF ATLANTIS (1932): "Two French Foreign Legionnaires are lost amid the sand of the Sahara Desert when they stumble across the entrance to an underground world. Searching this newly found subterranean passage, our heroes are surprised to find the lost city of Atlantis. Ruling over this fantastic underworld realm, and evil queen sets her sights upon these strangers to her kingdom."

Like Maciste in Hell, this movie takes a while to get where it's going; unlike Maciste, it doesn't get any better once it gets there. Maciste spoiled me for underground vistas. I was expecting Gene Autrey's The Phantom Empire and ended up with Ed Wood's Casablanca. Actually, the production values are higher than that (it was actually filmed in North Africa), but the plot is kind of loopy.