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thingmakersback's Replies
That's how I remember it.
You should have a look at The Entity. It hasn't got a lot of complexity and it pretends to be based on fact, but it is a pretty solid film about a woman, Barbara Hershey, tormented by an invisible something...
The recent Invisible Man bears no more resemblance to it than to the original Invisible Man movie or the book.
Well, based on the Wolf Man, not someone I would trust to do Dracula... But... What he says is not without merit. The original Dracula -
1890s Modern Englishmen with medical science, telegraphy and using what amounts to good detective work... Supplemented by the metaphysical knowledge of Van Helsing and the stalwart Mina Harker's blood tie to the monster - Fight a creepy and crafty old world foreign predator with certain supernatural powers. Bearing in mind that Dracula's stated intent is to set himself up in England for the "new blood".
It is straight out of the novel that Dracula is not a romantic character (The concept grew with the stage play and movies and was first turned into the character seeking his reincarnated lost love by Richard Matheson for the Dan Curtis film). He's not as obviously vile as Nosferatu, but he is a nasty foreign predator. Writing a version of this in modern times (Sorry, Dark Shadows) requires: No cape, no lightning, fog still seems useful, and no wolves... But - If he's supernatural and not just another boring serial killer then his capabilities and liabilities from the novel really need to be used - some, if not all.
I seriously doubt that the idea of a vile immigrant threat would be salable today, so the character's outsider nature might just be that he is a virtually immortal predator/parasite feeding on the human race while trying to blend in well enough not to be identified.
A documentary that, by its very nature, could not exist makes for a very amusing time travel story...
It is pretty well done. There is the inherent problem of the one man in his basement inventing something that teams of people in advanced facilities cannot... But this is a familiar trope, best dealt with in Primer (still the best time machine film ever made) and not a major issue here.
I'll admit I was annoyed when an early reference to nuclear research in the '30s - Manhattan Project eras described it as fusion not fission - slightly amplified by the mention of Hiroshima being accompanied by video of a later H-bomb test... But, as this is not directly related to the premise, it is a minor point.
Well, it's hard to see either this movie or The Invisible Man as relating to the old Universal properties. That last, 2010, Wolfman, wasn't great, but I can see how they might have intended to tie it into a revived series of Universal monster movies.
This one is just another take on the werewolf. Nothing special, just not good enough for me to recommend.
The sound and vision effects to depict enhanced senses were mostly good. What annoyed me was when loud thumping sounds are revealed to be a tiny spider upstairs. That is just silly. But the rest? Fine. And the wolf-man-vision is great. I am so tired of things like the creature vision in Wolfen or even Predator, that universally seems less clear and detailed than ordinary human vision.
But if they do it they will have to totally miss the point of Bizarro. Bizarro and all about it exist for two reasons. Pure silly jokes about oppositeness... And the basic notion of live and let live, because Bizarro means well and exists because of an accident, for which he holds little animus.
Well, both movies are rather sabotaged by awful screenplays. This one is less annoying because: a) It is a solid half hour shorter. b) It is obviously a weirdly dry parody... I mean, it starts off with Kong having fallen a thousand feet and the only damage to be repaired is his BROKEN HEART.
I think that, what with a decade of vampires that were variations on the cliche (tail end of Hammer's Dracula, Count Yorga, Blackula) including the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, they were afraid that a normalish person, speaking lines while wearing a set of fangs - that every kid could wear on Halloween - just wouldn't seem anything but silly.
So they went with nosferatu and gave some lines to James Mason... I mean, I like the series, but I always remember the spook-face vampire looking spooky while James Mason says something like "The Master is happy to see you..." Good to have a translation of Hisss to English.
Oh, don't get started down this road. There was Streaky, the super cat... And, Batman had a German Shepherd dog IN A MASK... Bat Hound? There was a super horse and a monkey... This, of course, was in the age of 39 flavors of Kryptonite, so stuff was mighty weird and silly.
I'm still processing the presence of Krypto... I have no idea how that will work. I still expect any new superhero film to be striving for grit and what the mundane nerds see as realism. Me, I'm a silver-age fan, so I'd be just as happy with any number of elements that would annoy most contemporary fans.
Imagine for a moment a Batman film with Bat Mite.
Just look at and listen to the second of the youtube links above. It is Dies Irae.
How come the "theme" from 2001: A Space Odyssey is famous, if it's just supposedly a cover or whatever?
Not sure what the reputation is, but I've always rather liked it. It is a slightly eccentric and very brutal film, similar to, but a bit more polished than Maniac.
Hmmm. I looked at this bizarre little take on the trailer. Then I watched the trailer. Nothing wrong with it.
I'm just watching it... And. I'm wondering if audiences got about 15 minutes in and saw Heston in his g-string... Stopped me watching for a bit.
I think I'm mainly watching because of the John Scott music. Otherwise the movie seems... adequate
Gotta disagree about the Dark Crystal. Dark Crystal was an odd and eccentric film and I expected something prosaic with cgi characters. The show, however, was awesome for its dedication to puppet-type characters and by the time the old witch character danced a magical spell into being, I was totally hooked.
Willow's an unwatchable waste. Rings of Power is a plodding, halfway decent fantasy... Until you remember, because of the names, that it is supposed to connect to the Tolkien legendarium. Not even considering the possibility of glancing at the Dune thing.
Yeah, that sure does count (color, too, which is hard to find in jungle si-fi. The Monster from Green Hell does have a brief color clip at the finale...
I think my favorite jungle pic with a sci-fi element is The Flame Barrier.
A pity that doesn't happen in this movie. It must be in Savage Drums, which I can't find. Loads of titles with "Drums", loads of "Savage", but that one title just escapes me.
From the Dead of Night (1989). Long and dull; cut down from the original miniseries which was longer...
I agree with you, but also think that Mission Impossible, while the best possible version of the concept, (all the sequels are mere generic action flicks of variable quality) is just not distinctively De Palma.