Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse. There’s a whole other thread about this, but in short: it takes the first film and dials it up to 11. Just full-on animated comics-y goodness for 2+ hours. Prepare to be overstimulated.
(Also: it’s the second film in a trilogy, so brace yourself for the cliffhanger at the end.)
Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster. It certainly delivered what was promised (kinda). A good choice for a local MST:3K type-show and pretty goofy.
This is why I probably won’t see it, even though I am happy to see animation take bold new directions.
I just find all that jittery frenetic stuff annoying.
Yesterday I picked up DVDs of three 1950s low-budget science fiction movies I hadn’t seen in ages. It was great.
The Giant Behemoth – The package read “Behemoth, the Sea Monster”, which was the original UK title, but the opening credits use the American title. Notable because the film featured stop-motion animation by Willis O’Brien (who did King Kong and Mighty Joe Young) and the underappreciated Pete Petersen. The movie is virtually a clone of that UR-1950s monster flick, “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms” . Not surprising, because both films were directed by Eugene Lourie, who went on to direct the similar film “Gorgo” several years later, then got out of directing because he didn’t want to be typecast as a Giant Monster Runs Amok movie director. Evidently the movie was originally supposed to feature a radioactive blob monster, but the producers insisted on a more traditional Beast on the Loose, so evidently Lourie fell back on what he’d done before. The opening parts of the film do give us a radioactive blobby thing, though, so it’s not completely expunged from the film.
I’d forgotten how bad the damned thing looks, especially in the non-stop-motion scenes, where they use a wild-eyed puppet.
The Cosmic Monsters is another piece of 1950s Brit science fiction. Like a few other UK low-budget sf from the q1950s (that doesn’t feature Professor Quatermass), this one has a pre-F-Troop Forrest Tucker as the Manly American Scientist. I’ve long suspected that this film (which deals with cutting-edge science experiments that cause lightning and thunderstorms and the Disruption of Natural Order, resulting in an invasion by Giant Insects) was inspiration for Stephen King’s novella The Mist. I can imaging a young Stephen King watching this on broadcasts out of Boston or independent Maine TV stations. The special effects are low-budget and cheesy, but the scene of a soldier’s face that has been partly eaten away by a giant bug to expose the skull beneath is kinda jarring. This movie also features a very human-looking and British-accented alien, a la Klaatu from The Day the Earth Stood Still.
The last of the trio was The Cyclops. This was originally going to be a Roger Corman cheap film, but he withdrew and his place was taken by even cheaper schlockmeister Bert I. Gordon, who wrote, produced, and directed. And did the special effects. It’s the first of three Giant Human movies he made in 1957-8, and was released only a few months before his better-known The Amazing Colossal Man, which I would have bet was the earlier film (obviously cashing in on the recognition of the unrelated The Incredible Shrinking Man, and infinitely superior film).
The titular cyclops was played by Duncan Parkin. As I’ve observed before, the man’s entire film career consisted of playing deformed, brain-impaired, half-faced giants in Bert I. Gordon movies, surely a distinction of some kind. (He appeared in War of the Colossal Beast, too)
The movie also gives us some very poor special effects work, with another lizard-on-lizard “dinosaur” fight like the ones in One Million BC and the 1960 The Lost World. We also get Lon Chaney, Jr. as the heavy, a role he reportedly played while very drunk.
A tad redundant, right? Do behemoths come in any other size?
I suspect it’s to convey to the US viewer that this was about a really big monster. Most Americans won;'t recall the word from the Book of Job.
Maybe there are mini behemoths, just like there are jumbo shrimp?
There are…
OMG.
As noted above, The Giant Behemoth was originally supposed to have been about a radioactive blob-like monster, but got changed to a giant dinosaur, supposedly at the distributor’s insistence.
Who remembers stuff like that?
Evidently an artist about a decade ago:
Not sure if anyone is interested in the new Hayao Miyazaki movie, but he is releasing a new movie in just over a month and he and Studio Ghibli have decided to release no footage of it. No commercials or trailers, just a poster.
I think that is very refreshing.
Bullet Train, finally got around to seeing this. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and had several big laughs, which doesn’t happen that often during movies. It’s lightweight in the sense that I don’t expect to see it again, but it was worth it.
Great casting except for Michael Shannon, who was wildly out of place.
Puppet Master: Doktor Death
Not recommended.
The 15th movie in the series, though calling this a movie is pushing it. Including credits, this latest release from the Puppet Master series is 59 minutes long. Full Moon Features is famous for their 70-85 minute movie length, which appears to be a requirement from the company…but 59 minutes is not even a full feature.
Full Moon has been trying to make spin-off movies featuring well liked puppets from the Puppet Master series and apparently Doktor Death counts as a popular puppet.
Movie is passable, but mainly dull and lame. It’s clear that they believe they can still make money on the Puppet Master series from about 1988.
Then again, I believe Amityville Horror has about 35 sequels at this point. I’m not kidding. Look it up. It must have gone public domain because they churn out 4 sequels a year to it.
I finally saw The Godfather. Yes, I know.
It was really good. It kind of pulled me in right away because my husband’s family is so similar to the Corleones, minus the killing of course. The mannerisms, the culture, the children, the emphasis on family, the ostentatious wealth and power, it was all there and I encounter it regularly. I thought Spouse Weasel’s grandfather had risen from the dead when The Don slapped that actor around and said, “Stop acting like a woman!”
Little surprise that was one of grandpa’s favorite movies. Though I know he suffered from some discrimination as a result of that film associating Italian immigrants with criminals. He became irate whenever anyone joked about him being a mobster.
Three hours is a big time commitment in the Weasel household these days, but I’m glad we did it. I can see why the film got such high accolades and unlike many films of that length it seemed like every scene was necessary. But I do have questions.
I guess it’s everyone’s motives I’m having trouble sussing out.
Probably not, that was just a fringe benefit of his own ability to read people. He really wanted to bring Michael out of hiding after the death of Sonny, so peace was necessary especially as he was functionally outgunned at that point. Unable to outright win the war, he had to partially capitulate on his principles.
Both. Again, outgunned by multiple families his best course of action was decapitating them all at once, allowing him to consolidate a dominant status while their potential successors fought for control and jockied for support. Mafia families frequently did not have smooth transitions of power. Death of the head often meant internal struggles galore.
But eliminating the people who had killed his wife and brother were not small motives either.
Do you mean why not shoot him in the room after he confessed? I can’t remember what was in the book. But more messy I suppose and easier to kill him in the car and drive his body somewhere to be dumped, then carry it out the door. But ultimately it probably had more to do with good film 
.
I was watching the HBO documentary on the history of Warner Bros last night with my wife and her sister, and sister-in-law revealed that she has never seen Casablanca. 
So…this kind of thing happens.
Was the Godfather intending to get revenge all along? Note that he ends his presentation by vowing, on the lives of his grandchildren, that he will not be the one to break the peace. Because he knows it will be Michael who does it.
My sister was in her 50s before she saw Casablanca.
Now, she believes me when I recommend a movie to her.
If you enjoyed The Godfather, you will definitely want to watch The Godfather Part II. Another big time commitment, but well worth it. Part II is nothing short of epic.
You might also enjoy the mini-series on Amazon called The Offer. This is about the making of The Godfather (Al Ruddy’s version).
I hadn’t seen these movies in 20+ years and got a nice quality copy of all of them.
Yep, the Godfather 1 and 2 are terrific.
There is enough good stuff in the third one to warrant a viewing, too.
They’re especially nice to see for the first time 20 years later when you can see them on a high definition big-screen TV. We recently got a much bigger TV and the three Godfather movies were on my must- watch list. The cinematography blew me away.
Speaking of never seeing a famous movie, I remember making my 30-year-old brother watch It’s a Wonderful Life for the first time. At first he moaned that it was B&W, but he was sobbing by the end. This was before it was so widely broadcast.
Hell, I have never seen In The Heat of the Night so I put it on my Paramount+ watch list for the weekend. Have no idea how I missed it.
Duluth is a cold dark city during winter for a poor college kid and while going to UMD the local video store had a 5 movies for 5 days for 5 bucks deal. I printed off the American Film Institutes top100 films and went to work going down the list. Somehow missed In The Heat of the Night though…
So Like It Hot and Tootsie are not funny, that’s what I learned.