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It Came from Beneath the Sea: The first film in that Ray Harryhausen Blu-Ray set that I got recently. I've seen this movie a handful of times before, so I decided instead to listen to the audio commentary, with Harryhausen and other visual effects artists, Randall William Cook, John Bruno, and Arnold Kunert. It was an interesting commentary, although Harryhausen, understandably, sometimes couldn't remember exact details. There were other stuff on this disc like a featurette with Harryhausen talking about the film, a really fun one with Tim Burton talking with him about his overall career, and a featurette on Mischa Bakaleinikoff, who contributed music for a lot of Columbia's 50's sci-fi movies.
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Earth vs. The Flying Saucers: I'd only seen this movie once before, many years ago now, and remembered very little about it. And upon rewatching it in that Blu-Ray set, I can safely say that it's easily my least favorite Ray Harryhausen movie so far. While his effects of the flying saucers themselves were good, as per usual, the rest of the movie was kind of a talky bore, with a bunch of wooden and forgettable actors. What really sucks is that 20 Million Miles to Earth, a much better film than this, wasn't included in this set for some reason.Comment
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Clerks
Heard a few songs off the soundtrack today. Saw I had a digital copy on Fandango and started it up. Saw this first at a dollar theater that showed Rocky Horror every weekend. After Rocky Horror for an extra fee you got a mystery movie. Added bonus this theater served beer by the picture. Which is how 10 of us already shit faced from Rocky Horror got to see Clerks in I am thinking Nov 94.
If you ever worked anytime in a store like in the film you will have stories. And this feels like someone took all those stories put them all in one day and started a film franchise with it.
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The 7th Voyage to Sinbad: I'm ashamed to admit that this and all of the other Ray Harryhausen fantasy films in that Blu-Ray set are going to be first time watches, as up until now, I've only seen clips of them. And as anyone who's seen this movie can attest, it's a lot of fun, with Kerwin Matthews making for a great, swashbuckling Sinbad, and Harryhausen's stop-motion work, especially the Cyclops, being just amazing. There were some plot issues that I couldn't get behind, like how they never suspected that Sokurah, the evil magician, who clearly had very devious powers, was responsible for shrinking the princess, but the rest of the movie was so entertaining that it didn't matter much in the long run.Comment
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We watched House of the Devil over a couple of nights this week, and it remains my favourite Ti West film by some distance. I think the pacing works really well, it’s not afraid to take its time, and the carnage of the last ten minutes or so is more affecting as a result.
We had intended to watch Pearl last night but I don’t own it and it had disappeared from the streaming platform on which it had resided, so we opted for Blood and Black Lace instead. My wife bought me the Arrow 4k in 2023 (birthday or Christmas, I’m not sure) and it had sat unopened on a shelf ever since.
What to say about the film . . . one of the earliest gialli and still one of the best, possibly the best example of Bava’s virtuoso filmmaking abilities. The second murder in particular, was obviously hugely influential and remains among the most memorable stalking scenes in the annals of Italian . . . horror?
The other point to make, given the film will be familiar to most people reading this thread, is how spectacular the Arrow release looks, on a par with some of the Rollin releases from Indicator.
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The 3 Worlds of Gulliver: This is one of the Ray Harryhausen movies that tends to get overshadowed by others that he did, like the Sinbad movies and Jason and the Argonauts. And that's a shame, because I really enjoyed this one. Not only were the special effects, which mostly considered of a lot of opticals rather than stop-motion, excellent, but so was the acting and the story. This has to be the definitive movie version of Gulliver's Travels.Comment
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Mysterious Island: Didn't enjoy this one as much as the previous two Harryhausen movies, mainly because I couldn't get into the characters, save for Herbert Lom's Captain Nemo, who doesn't show up until the last thirty minutes. The stop-motion, as usual, was cool, but there wasn't as much of it as I would've liked.Comment
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Jason and the Argonauts: Finally saw what many consider to be Ray Harryhausen's masterpiece and, I must say, it was pretty damn good. It was a fun, rip-roaring adventure, with characters that I actually liked, plenty of cool and groundbreaking setpieces to showcase Harryhausen's stop motion, chief among them being the skeleton battle, and a great music score by Bernard Herrmann. I will say, though, that I was surprised at how utterly abrupt the ending is, given how it ends before Jason can accomplish the very reason why he set out on this quest. I don't know if they were planning on making a sequel but I find it strange how things were left unresolved.Comment
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The Golden Voyage of Sinbad: It was good, although I didn't like it quite as much as The 7th Voyage, as John Phillip Law, despite having his own kind of charisma, isn't as great as Kerwin Matthews. However, the effects sequences, like the sword-fight with Kali, and the Centaur and the Griffin, were awesome as always, and the movie didn't feel like it was almost two hours long. Plus, Caroline Munro is absolutely smoking as a slave girl who becomes Sinbad's companion.Comment
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Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger: And we come to the end of that Ray Harryhausen set with this film, which I knew very little about. While not bad, I could say I like the other two Sinbad movies more, as Patrick Wayne (John Wayne's son) is definitely the weakest Sinbad, and this one is a tad too long at almost two hours. Fortunately, you still have some great actors on hand, like Patrick Troughton and Margaret Whiting, and there's a lot of stop-motion work here, with the Troglodyte and saber-toothed tiger during the third act being highlights.
One complaint I have about this Blu-Ray set is that they tend to repeat special features across multiple discs, whereas the featurettes for Earth vs. The Flying Saucers, The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, and Mysterious Island not actually being on those movies' respective discs (they're all crammed on The Golden Voyage of Sinbad's disc, which doesn't have any features all its own). That, plus the exclusion of 20 Million Miles to Earth, makes this set a tad imperfect, although I would still say it's worth picking up for any fan.Comment
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The French Connection
Strangely, I’d only seen this once before. Anyway, I loved the moral ambiguity, the evocation of time and place, the almost verite approach to the direction, cinematography and editing. Its one of the great American films from one of the greatest decades for American film, despite an ending that might be considered somewhat anticlimactic.
Aside from that, we watched Polselli’s Delirium in the week, which is sadistic, sleazy and hallucinatory, so right up my alley; the first episode of the new season of Daredevil; the fifth episode of the first season of Twin Peaks and the fourth episode of the third season of White Lotus.
Of the above, I enjoyed Daredevil but the fight scene at the beginning looked more like a computer simulation than live action, which doesn’t sit well with me. Twin Peaks remains among my all-time favourite shows. White Lotus . . . I thought the first two seasons were fantastic but was frankly bored by the first three episodes of the third and would have happily dropped it. The fourth was a little more compelling though, so we’ll see where it goes.Comment
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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Second Sight Blu-Ray: I originally wasn't going to get this, as I've had the Dark Sky release since 2006, but I figured I might as well have this movie on Blu-Ray. And, while I'm disappointed that certain things were missing, like the Family Portrait documentary and the bloopers, it's still a great set to have. For one, this HD print looks magnificent (although, I noticed that they added a blur effect to the moment when the Hitchhiker slashes Franklin's arm). It has five commentaries (some of which I already listened to, although I did listen to the new one with historians Amanda Reyes and Bill Ackerman); the Shock Truth and Flesh Wounds documentaries, which are still great; the interview with Teri McMinn; the Legacy documentary, which I'd never seen before and was a really interesting watch; interviews with the editor, John Dugan, and the production manager; some unused footage of the Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel interviews from the Shocking Truth; and a Horror's Hallowed Grounds episode on the film, which are always fun, among other features. The only feature I didn't really care for was this short one called Behind the Mask, which was one of those overly intellectual analyses that make my brain go numb when I have to listen to them.Comment
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Past few days
Honey I shrunk the kids-DVD
Doubt I havent watched this since renting it on VHS in 1990. Decent kids film that I hated the dvd i have is 4:3.
The Dream Team-DVD
Feels like this is a forgotten comedy. Great cast decent premise and worth the quarter it cost me.
Trick or Treat-Blu ray
Finally got this and it is loaded.
Prom Night-Shudder
She wanted a slasher. Swears She has never seen this the original one.Comment
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American Gothic - All I remember from my first viewing of this a few years ago was being excited to see it but disappointed once I had and before long I remembered why this time around. The characters on the island are incredibly annoying for the most part, Michael J Pollard's character was amusing at times though; none of the others were. Another thing about this one is that compared to the story we got it seems like it would be more interesting to see how the inhabitants got to the island and why they are the way they are. I did enjoy the last 20 or so minutes of the movie though. It was pretty funny when the woman started flipping out over the baby and once that happened the end seemed to come at a nice, swift pace.Comment
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Absurd - Who knows how many times I've seen this over the past 30 or so years but this was the only time I gave any thought to what the kid and his sister were watching on TV before he throws his hilarious little tantrum, apparently it's Porno Holocaust! Kinda want to revisit that now...Comment
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