What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
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JackFavell
- Posts: 11926
- Joined: April 20th, 2009, 9:56 am
Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
Wow, that sounds good. I like the subtext you talked about.
Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
JAXXXXXON...you must be clairvoyant. You must be reading my mind. From all the great movies I saw at the TCM Film Festival, and I saw towering classics, my big takeaway from the festival was MARIE WINDSOR!!! 
Seeing your latest avatar has blown...my...mind!!
Seeing your latest avatar has blown...my...mind!!
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JackFavell
- Posts: 11926
- Joined: April 20th, 2009, 9:56 am
Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
Ha! I MUST have caught your fever, because I watched THE KILLING this week, for the first time. It really blew me away! I wrote it up somewhere here at the SSO.
Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
When I settle in, I'll look for it. You've no idea how you blew my mind.
Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
Just got back from seeing "Star Trek Into Darkness" (2013) directed by J. J. Abrams.
I liked it. I didn't fully love it, but I liked this one better than Abrams' first Star Trek film. (And I am mostly anti-Trek in my outlook.) I really liked Chris Pine as Kirk and Karl Urban as McCoy. Benedict Cumberbatch was outstanding as the bad guy. As in the first movie, I thought the guy who plays Spock is only okay.
I really enjoyed this movie until the last 20 minutes or so, when it became clear that this film was recycling previous Trek stories. The recycling was very well done, but I would have wished for a more original story. Also, this film was something of a War Against Terror allegory, which, coming after "Dark Knight Rises" and "Iron Man 3" is pretty much played out for me as a theme in big budget science fiction/superhero films.
I liked it. I didn't fully love it, but I liked this one better than Abrams' first Star Trek film. (And I am mostly anti-Trek in my outlook.) I really liked Chris Pine as Kirk and Karl Urban as McCoy. Benedict Cumberbatch was outstanding as the bad guy. As in the first movie, I thought the guy who plays Spock is only okay.
I really enjoyed this movie until the last 20 minutes or so, when it became clear that this film was recycling previous Trek stories. The recycling was very well done, but I would have wished for a more original story. Also, this film was something of a War Against Terror allegory, which, coming after "Dark Knight Rises" and "Iron Man 3" is pretty much played out for me as a theme in big budget science fiction/superhero films.
Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
I've heard great things about this one. I liked the other "Young Star Trek" movie. But I'm not a wild-eyed fan either, nor have I much faith in modern action films. If I see anything of that nature, it will probably be the new Superman. Unless Abraham Lincoln goes after werewolves this summer!
Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
I saw and loved "Star Trek: Into Darkness." Well-acted, good special effects, emotional, lessons to learn.
* * *
...And now see a trailer for "Mrs. Doubtfire." Yes the Robin Williams - Sally Field "Mrs. Doubtfire" as you've...never...seen...it...before:
* * *
...And now see a trailer for "Mrs. Doubtfire." Yes the Robin Williams - Sally Field "Mrs. Doubtfire" as you've...never...seen...it...before:
Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
Today I watched a Japanese horror film, "Jigoku" from 1960.
It made me think of Howard Hawks' comment on "Fourteen Hours," ie. I'd have to do it as a comedy.
The film is about a theology student who is a passenger in a car that is involved in a hit and run accident. The guy feels guilty but doesn't go to the cops. He then spends the next hour going from catastrophe to catastrophe, "causing" the deaths of a bunch of people. (He suggests that his fiancee ride in a taxi with him. The taxi driver crashes into a tree, and the fiancee dies with her unborn child. This is the fault of the student in the logic of the film.) It climaxes when the inhabitants of a nursing home die from eating bad fish.
That is the first hour of the film. The final forty minutes of the film consist of showing people being tortured in hell. (There are also some unbelievable plot twists. The student met a woman who looked exactly like his dead fiancee. He finds out in hell that the look-alike girl is actually his half-sister, so incestuous desire is another sin he must be punished for.) (I would have thought it would be more believable that she was the fiancee's half-sister, but the film was very clear on this point.)
I like two of the four parts of "Kwaidan," and I love "Onibaba," two other Japanese horror films from the early Sixties, but "Jigoku" just failed with me. The first hour was without suspense and seemed half-a-step away from black comedy. The last part of the movie seemed like walking through a "judgment house" and having to read subtitles.
It made me think of Howard Hawks' comment on "Fourteen Hours," ie. I'd have to do it as a comedy.
The film is about a theology student who is a passenger in a car that is involved in a hit and run accident. The guy feels guilty but doesn't go to the cops. He then spends the next hour going from catastrophe to catastrophe, "causing" the deaths of a bunch of people. (He suggests that his fiancee ride in a taxi with him. The taxi driver crashes into a tree, and the fiancee dies with her unborn child. This is the fault of the student in the logic of the film.) It climaxes when the inhabitants of a nursing home die from eating bad fish.
That is the first hour of the film. The final forty minutes of the film consist of showing people being tortured in hell. (There are also some unbelievable plot twists. The student met a woman who looked exactly like his dead fiancee. He finds out in hell that the look-alike girl is actually his half-sister, so incestuous desire is another sin he must be punished for.) (I would have thought it would be more believable that she was the fiancee's half-sister, but the film was very clear on this point.)
I like two of the four parts of "Kwaidan," and I love "Onibaba," two other Japanese horror films from the early Sixties, but "Jigoku" just failed with me. The first hour was without suspense and seemed half-a-step away from black comedy. The last part of the movie seemed like walking through a "judgment house" and having to read subtitles.
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JackFavell
- Posts: 11926
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Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
I think you are on to something there with the comedy... 
Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
Today I took my son to see "Man of Steel," the new Superman movie.
It was okay. I am not a big Superman fan. My son is. He thought it was okay too.
Basically, we agreed that this movie took too long to get Superman to his job at the Daily Planet (which is the last scene of the movie.) This movie was all origin story. I'll admit parts of it (the Kansas parts) were well handled. (They were done as flashbacks, which surprised me a bit, but they were well done, and I enjoyed seeing Kevin Costner as Mr. Kent.) But the Krypton scenes (and the all the scenes with Jor-El) were filled with long speeches and had me drumming my fingers.
Henry Cavill, the guy who plays Superman, does a good job and is quite likeable. The two chief villains, Michael Shannon (as General Zod) and Antje Traue (as the female warrior), were very good as well. However, I kept thinking that "Superman II" dealt with the same story faster and wittier. "Man of Steel" is just a bit too ponderous.
I have to say, though, that I didn't dislike this movie. It was just okay. Fine for a rainy afternoon, but I'm not going to be tempted to see it again.
It was okay. I am not a big Superman fan. My son is. He thought it was okay too.
Basically, we agreed that this movie took too long to get Superman to his job at the Daily Planet (which is the last scene of the movie.) This movie was all origin story. I'll admit parts of it (the Kansas parts) were well handled. (They were done as flashbacks, which surprised me a bit, but they were well done, and I enjoyed seeing Kevin Costner as Mr. Kent.) But the Krypton scenes (and the all the scenes with Jor-El) were filled with long speeches and had me drumming my fingers.
Henry Cavill, the guy who plays Superman, does a good job and is quite likeable. The two chief villains, Michael Shannon (as General Zod) and Antje Traue (as the female warrior), were very good as well. However, I kept thinking that "Superman II" dealt with the same story faster and wittier. "Man of Steel" is just a bit too ponderous.
I have to say, though, that I didn't dislike this movie. It was just okay. Fine for a rainy afternoon, but I'm not going to be tempted to see it again.
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Rita Hayworth
- Posts: 10068
- Joined: February 6th, 2011, 4:01 pm
Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
I just saw the MAN OF STEEL movie yesterday, and as being a Superman Fan myself ... I find this movie not my cup of tea. It is the most overblown movie of all time. I just don't care for it and the editing of this movie was atrocious enough that I just can't focus on it. I will not buy the DVD and nor see it again.
Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
Lord help me! They're doing the origin again? Just like Spider-man did last summer. I like Superman movies. Rarely, have I been disappointed. But this one raises suspicion. I don't know how I'll react to this one. As Mike BSG said, earlier incarnations have told all this story before. Rita Hayworth aptly described the problem with "huge, in your face, annoy the living **** out of me" action films:
the editing of this movie was atrocious enough that I just can't focus on it.
There's shouldn't be so much on the screen you don't know what the point is. If there's one thing visual storytelling needs to be it's CRYSTAL CLEAR. The silent era taught us that. It established beautifully effective, and until recently, honored techniques. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
the editing of this movie was atrocious enough that I just can't focus on it.
There's shouldn't be so much on the screen you don't know what the point is. If there's one thing visual storytelling needs to be it's CRYSTAL CLEAR. The silent era taught us that. It established beautifully effective, and until recently, honored techniques. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
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Rita Hayworth
- Posts: 10068
- Joined: February 6th, 2011, 4:01 pm
Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
Watched DIARY OF A MADMAN (Reginald Le Borg 1963), adapted from Guy de Maupassant stories, last night (post-Blackhawks game - GO HAWKS!).
After the burial of a respected French magistrate (Vincent Price), a priest, a young woman and her father, a police official and the magistrate's servants gather to read the magistrate's journal that he had given the priest and woman to read in the event of his death. Thus kicking off the story.
The magistrate had visited a condemned man who claimed his innocence because any murders he had committed were due to an evil spirit. The magistrate doesn't believe him, the condemned man threatens him and, in the ensuing struggle, the condemned man dies. The magistrate turns to sculpting as a diversion and hires a model. Soon the model starts exhibiting affection toward him.
One night, the magistrate is visited by an evil spirit, The Horla, who gradually exerts more and more power over him. The Horla tells him that the model is an evil gold digger and must be killed by the magistrate, first by returning her affection. She confesses that she is married when her husband, a struggling artist whose paintings are sold by the aforementioned young woman and her father (the magistrate had purchased one of the model painted by her husband from them), visits the magistrate to convince him to leave his wife alone. Tossed out by the magistrate, the artist visits his wife in her separate room and threatens her. After the artist leaves, the magistrate - possessed by The Horla - stabs the model to death and, the next day, her headless corpse is found elsewhere. Witnesses having heard the artist's threats, and the murder weapon being in his room, the artist is quickly condemned to the guillotine. The Horla shows the magistrate the location of the model's head - it is beneath the clay of the bust of the model that the magistrate had been sculpting. The Horla makes the magistrate burn the painting of the model and bury the bust in a grave The Horla has prepared.
The artist pleads his innocence to the magistrate, threatens to expose his affair with the model to destroy his judicial career, and tell the world that the magistrate is most likely the killer. The magistrate denies all and, of course, the police official believes none of it. The Horla tells the magistrate to kill the young woman - the one person who believes the artist. As he is about to on a dark street, he sees a small crucifix on the knife's blade and a crucifix in a church's store window. Thus empowered, he tosses away the knife. The priest appears and the magistrate begs for forgiveness (but doesn't confess for what). He asks the priest to bring the young woman to his home later. When they appear, he gives them his journal.
In his library, the magistrate awaits the appearance of The Horla who he knows now wants to kill him for having overcome its power. When The Horla arrives, the magistrate throws a kerosene lamp to the floor. He has soaked the entire room with kerosene! All walls and exits are ablaze. The magistrate - remembering that The Horla had commanded him to burn the painting rather than doing it himself - had hoped that fire was the one weakness of The Horla. He was right - and the evil is destroyed along with the magistrate as two fiery beams - forming a crucifix - fall on him.
Based on the reading of the journal, the artist is saved from the guillotine.
And the witnesses to the reading are left pondering whether it all was the ravings of a man who had lost his sanity, or a warning to acknowledge the reality of evil in the world and that it can step into the soul of any person who is not constantly vigilant.
After the burial of a respected French magistrate (Vincent Price), a priest, a young woman and her father, a police official and the magistrate's servants gather to read the magistrate's journal that he had given the priest and woman to read in the event of his death. Thus kicking off the story.
The magistrate had visited a condemned man who claimed his innocence because any murders he had committed were due to an evil spirit. The magistrate doesn't believe him, the condemned man threatens him and, in the ensuing struggle, the condemned man dies. The magistrate turns to sculpting as a diversion and hires a model. Soon the model starts exhibiting affection toward him.
One night, the magistrate is visited by an evil spirit, The Horla, who gradually exerts more and more power over him. The Horla tells him that the model is an evil gold digger and must be killed by the magistrate, first by returning her affection. She confesses that she is married when her husband, a struggling artist whose paintings are sold by the aforementioned young woman and her father (the magistrate had purchased one of the model painted by her husband from them), visits the magistrate to convince him to leave his wife alone. Tossed out by the magistrate, the artist visits his wife in her separate room and threatens her. After the artist leaves, the magistrate - possessed by The Horla - stabs the model to death and, the next day, her headless corpse is found elsewhere. Witnesses having heard the artist's threats, and the murder weapon being in his room, the artist is quickly condemned to the guillotine. The Horla shows the magistrate the location of the model's head - it is beneath the clay of the bust of the model that the magistrate had been sculpting. The Horla makes the magistrate burn the painting of the model and bury the bust in a grave The Horla has prepared.
The artist pleads his innocence to the magistrate, threatens to expose his affair with the model to destroy his judicial career, and tell the world that the magistrate is most likely the killer. The magistrate denies all and, of course, the police official believes none of it. The Horla tells the magistrate to kill the young woman - the one person who believes the artist. As he is about to on a dark street, he sees a small crucifix on the knife's blade and a crucifix in a church's store window. Thus empowered, he tosses away the knife. The priest appears and the magistrate begs for forgiveness (but doesn't confess for what). He asks the priest to bring the young woman to his home later. When they appear, he gives them his journal.
In his library, the magistrate awaits the appearance of The Horla who he knows now wants to kill him for having overcome its power. When The Horla arrives, the magistrate throws a kerosene lamp to the floor. He has soaked the entire room with kerosene! All walls and exits are ablaze. The magistrate - remembering that The Horla had commanded him to burn the painting rather than doing it himself - had hoped that fire was the one weakness of The Horla. He was right - and the evil is destroyed along with the magistrate as two fiery beams - forming a crucifix - fall on him.
Based on the reading of the journal, the artist is saved from the guillotine.
And the witnesses to the reading are left pondering whether it all was the ravings of a man who had lost his sanity, or a warning to acknowledge the reality of evil in the world and that it can step into the soul of any person who is not constantly vigilant.
Everyday people...that's what's wrong with the world. -- Morgan Morgan
I love movies. But don't get me wrong. I hate Hollywood. -- Orson Welles
Movies can only go forward in spite of the motion picture industry. -- Orson Welles
I love movies. But don't get me wrong. I hate Hollywood. -- Orson Welles
Movies can only go forward in spite of the motion picture industry. -- Orson Welles
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Mr. Arkadin
- Posts: 2645
- Joined: April 14th, 2007, 3:00 pm
Re: What Horror and Sc-Fi films have you seen lately?
One of my favorite Vincent Price movies. Lots of interesting ideas and a turning point in horror where actual violence was slowly creeping up the scale over and against suggestion and atmosphere. Your next stop, Witchfinder General AKA The Conqueror Worm (1968):
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