I was commented on the previous post, which is a sports movie where the underdogs don’t actually win.
I am so tired of the drill-sergeant theme whereby the cadet has to prove himself. The cadet goes through a predictable arc:
- I hate the SOB’s guts, what’s his problem?
- Why does he have it in for me? I’ll fight him. I’ll rebel, fuck it all.
- I’ll show him.
- We did it! Huggy, huggy. Kissy, kissy.
Not just the military - this gets extended to any teacher/student relationship or to an Older/experienced team member and the neophyte. Very predictable.
Thanks! With a name like Mystery, Alaska, I was expecting it to be a horror or time travel movie.
Yeah, it seems like most of the movies being made these days are comic book movies, and I just find them…shallow?..stereotpyical…? They’re just boring to me. But, then, I tend to fast forward through fight scenes (except the one in “They Live” it’s so cheesy) and car chases. Snore.
I love time travel and related themes. A movie of this type that I love is Happy Accidents.
I’m kinda’ sick of the trope where the underdogs do win. Usually at the 11th hour and/or due to some charismatic figure that seems to be able to rally a group that were heretofore misfits with low self esteem.
I won’t say I actually “like” a scenario where they don’t win in the end, it’s that I appreciate the anti-cliche’ angle.
What do you have against insects? Them! is one of the first and best of the 1950s Giant Whatsit movies. I admit I could live without Empire of the Ants (even though it features Joan Collins being mind-controlled by ants), but there are other giant insect flicks worth the watching.
Music biopics usually get a big yawn out of me. Even the acclaimed ones. Ray, What’s Love Got To Do With It, The Doors, Walk The Line, etc.
Most recently saw Bohemian Rhapsody and also felt very meh about it.
The usual humble beginnings> rise to fame> too much too fast> insert tragedy here> death or redemption > the end.
I either find them overly dramatic for drama’s sake, or if the person’s life was really that dramatic frustrating since I try to avoid people with that much drama in their lives since it’s usually self imposed.
Favorite movies are of the neo noir genre. Brick, Blade Runner, Sin City, etc.
I don’t like insects, giant or otherwise (excluding Mothra, who is always awesome).
I will certainly not dispute your assertion about Them! (or Empire of the Ants). Not liking insects does not keep me from respecting a good/well-made movie. It just keeps me from liking it.
I went through several lists of giant insect movies to make sure there was not one I liked. There wasn’t.
Unlike too many compilers of such lists, I know enough to know that scorpions, giant or otherwise, are not insects. Thus, The Black Scorpion (1957), which I genuinely like, is not a giant insect movie. Ditto for Monster that Challenged the World (1957), which features mollusks (who are not insects) and is kinda underrated, imo. Similar to Them!, I respect Tarantula (1955) - though I do not actually like the film - because it has some effective moments, but spiders are not insects, either. Nor would I count the Selenites in First Men in the Moon (1964), another film I (mostly) like; though the Selenites can certainly be described as insectoid, it is doubtful they are actually insects.
When it comes to giant insect movies, there is far too much ignorance out there.
Good ol’ Joe Bob; a wise man.
(Somewhere, some time, someone has probably made a ‘teens picked off one by one’ movie in which the slaughtered actually do get turned into chops…)
Which reminds me: add Torture-Porn to my ‘most hated’ list. And this element can show up even in movies not advertised as being torture-porn. Case in point: the 2020 movie Becky, which was clearly made by someone who wanted to duplicate the Barry episode “ronny/lily,” without having a particle of the smarts and artistry of those who made “ronny/lily.”
The movie relied on gross-out violence to attract ticket-buyers even though the movie’s protagonist was a thirteen-year-old girl. Not an attractive choice.
[quote=“carrps, post:44, topic:942733”]
I love time travel and related themes. A movie of this type that I love is Happy Accidents .[/quote]
YES. It’s one of the best.
Oliver Stone’s JFK being a notorious example.
Exactly the point of my post, the best sports movies are the ones where the heroes lose at the end. Or in the case of The Hustler, Fast Eddie wins the game at the end, but it’s empty and means nothing.
Dislike: the superhero/wizard/whatever who loses their powers. Typically in a sequel.
The first story builds up the hero. Then the sequel comes out, and I’m looking forward to seeing the hero using their powers to the fullest. Instead, we get “oh noes! My powers are gone! Whatever will I do?” In the end, of course, the hero gets their powers back, just in time to defeat the villan.
I admire and am baffled by your persistence and thoroughness. I don’t think I would go about verifying my dislikes in such a systematic way. and I’d probably compile my own list of Giant Insect Movies, rather than digging up several other lists. (Did you find them with a search engine? Because I honestly can’t think of another way to find a List of Giant Insect Movies)
of course, there’s a lot to dislike in Giant Insect Movies (and ones involving other arthropods), especially the ones from the 1950s. Most of those had appallingly bad special effects (see Beginning of the End, with awful matte effects and where, in some scenes, it’s clearly shots of grasshoppers on a photograph of a building). Or practically no effects at all – just cuts to close-ups of insects (Killers from Space or The Cosmic Monsters AKA The Strange World of Planet X. I suspect this film inspired Steohen King’s story The Mist). Sometimes they used incredibly bad “puppets” (the giant spiders in Cat Women of the Moon and Fire Maidens of Outer Space). Another common ploy was to use blown-up shots of Tarantulas. The movie Tarantula that you mention actually did a good job of the special effects, as did The Incredible Shrinking Man. But Earth vs. the Giant Spider was obviously on a low budget. So was Have Rocket, Will Travel and a host of other 1950s and 1960s flicks.
I have greater respect for animated instances. Ray Harryhausen did a great animated honeybee in The Mysterious Island and a wasp in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, but these were only highlights – the movie wasn’t about the giant insects. Monster from Green Hell , on the other hand, was about giant wasps in Africa. The wasps were stop-motion animated by Gene Warren (who didn’t get any screen credit that I recall – he did lots of effects work for George Pal and for TV). But the film is mostly boring filler (stop motion was expensive)
Persistence and thoroughness are my middle names. Finding lists of giant insect movies is simple enough with Google.
You mention a number of giant insect movies here, but seem to dismiss them all as being either not good or not really about giant insects. Apart from Them!, can you name any good giant insect movies (excluding ones with Mothra)? Also please note: spiders are NOT insects. Neither are giant spiders.
Not sure I’d even include Mothra, to tell you the truth. I’m fond of the weird kaiju, but not really a huge fan of the movies.
There’s Insectosaurus from Monster Vs. Aliens, who has as much right to be there as Mothra does in those ensemble-cast monster films. But I admit that Insectosaurus doesn’t have an overabundance of personality.
I have to admit to a liking for The Deadly Mantis, which is really sort of goofy. I admire the rod-puppet work with the mantis, which actually looks surprisingly realistic, considering that a real mantis is basically a hinged exoskeleton. Having the titular mantis looking in on Our Heroes while they’re discussing the problem of the mantis itself is an outrageous scene. And I kinda like its death in the Holland Tunnel, a landmark I’ve been through often enough.
There’s a kaiju mantis, as well, Kamacuras, , but it really never got a personality, either
There are three that I really hate, although two are possibly more common in books than films:
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You want a villain? Okay, how about a pedophilic murderer? Sure, that’s bad, I get it, but like half the murder mystery/thrillers out there are pedophilic murderers. Come up with a new villain already!
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I alone haven’t been granted a special power or role during my teenage years…but wait for it…I’m a late bloomer and more powerful than everybody else! This is wish fulfillment, but it’s really lazy wish fulfillment. You can keep a teenage audience engaged without this trite pandering.
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The Chosen One. Aren’t we past the idea of hereditary greatness yet? Instead of having someone born into greatness, please give me someone who has chosen through ahrd work and ingenuity to achieve greatness.
I’ll second this one, especially if they lose their powers because of their emotional state. “You were bitten by a genetically altered spider that fundamentally changed your DNA, giving you super human powers! But only if you keep a peppy attitude, otherwise your DNA goes back to normal.”
Mothra is based on an existing insect. Insectosaurus is not. I haven’t seen MvA, but its cartooniness clearly puts it in a different category than most kaiju or even most giant insects in movies.
I haven’t seen The Deadly Mantis, either, though I have seen clips. Tell you what: I will (try to) watch it tonight and report back. I will also try not to let the fact that it was written by a fucking HUAC squealer influence my viewing experience.
Interesting distinction. They’re both based on moths. I don’t think any particular type of moth was intended in either case.