Monster of the Day #3138

Updated on December 31, 2020 By Ken Begg 33 Comments

With a new year on the horizon, I thought I’d end 2020 on a whimsical note. The Andromeda Strain is a silly movie about, get this, some sort of virus that we’re to believe would threaten the world somehow. I’d seen some goofy premises in movies before, but that might take the cake. Anyway, everyone enjoy your New Year’s Eve, and here’s to a marvelous 2021.

Assuming anyone here is as blase as I am about things, please note TCM will be showing The Maltese Falcon in theaters a few days in January. Go see a movie in a theater while they still exist! (Hopefully they last long enough for the Demon Slayer movie to come here. Given that it has already become the #1 box office movie in Japan already, I imagine it will, as long as there are theaters to show it.)

Anyone plan to watch anything special today/tonight/this weekend?

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  • Gamera977

    Well, a guy on YouTube was talking about watching the Peter Jackson ‘The Lord of the Rings’ movies every Christmas so I pulled my copies out and have been watching them this week. I really need to reread the novels again.

    And I pulled out the George Pal version of ‘The Time Machine’. I figured it was fitting to watch on New Year’s Day.

    I really need to watch ‘The Andromeda Strain’ again too- it’s been forever since I saw it. Same with ‘The Maltese Falcon’.

  • bgbear_rnh

    I heard the term “wildfire” early in the year, but I think someone might have thought better. Covid 19 spread fast, but not that fast.

  • bgbear_rnh

    I guess turtles do live long enough to get through all those films ;-)

  • Eric Hinkle

    Have you ever seen the Time Machine DVD that has the brief bit where George returns and meets Philby right before he goes to the front lines in WW1 France? It’s a very affecting short film.

  • Eric Hinkle

    Talking Crichton’s work, am I alone in preferring the original movie version of Westworld to the later series? The human guests at Delos in the original were far more sympathetic, ‘gaming’ against non-sapient robots. In the remade series the robots thought they were people and the guests mostly visited Delos to abuse and murder them.

    There’s also the problem with ‘you created robots so advanced they’re all but indistinguishable from humans — and your first thought is to make them the NPCs in some ultra-expensive LARP?’

  • Eric Hinkle

    I just read a comment on a Kolchak FB group I belong to. Someone suggested how ‘Quatermass and the Pit’ would have made a great Kolchak episode, with Carl and Professor Quatermass dealing with each other as alien horrors ensue. Would those two have even gotten along?

  • Gamera977

    Nope, but that sounds really cool!

  • bgbear_rnh

    I started the evening watching a giant monster film with a big turtle named Gammera. Should be no “expressed written consent” authorization issues from you-know-who for this one.

  • I’m going to come out and confess that the only thing I have managed to watch for the last week or so is Repair Shop. It’s quiet and gentle and you get to see people get pieces of their family history back, which is what I need emotionally right this second.

    OK, there has been some Trial of a Time Lord and Rocky and Bullwinkle scattered in, but in small doses as loud gives me a (literal) headache right now.

    I do plan to pay the stupid 20 bucks to rent Freaky this weekend because I am tickled by the conceit and want to see what Vince Vaughan does with it. OTOH, given what I have been hearing from those who’ve seen it, I’m not planning to try to get into a theater to see the new WW 1984 but will wait until it hits the freebie streaming services.

  • Gamera977

    Well, it’s GamMera not Gamera so plausible deniability.

  • Ken_Begg

    Well, no. But I saw it as a kid, when it was really cutting edge, at the gorgeous Pickwick Theatre, with my Mom. It was on (I swear) a double bill with Wicked Wicked. I haven’t seen the show, which I hear has the usual “it starts out great, and then gets politicked up in later seasons” issue. I will always love that movie, though. But people who didn’t grow up watching Westerns in movie theaters aren’t going to get the same kick out of it.

  • Ken_Begg

    Probably not. Both were pretty arrogant and grouchy. Neat idea, though.

  • Ken_Begg

    I don’t think you’ll have to wait long!

  • Gamera977

    Last time I watched it I was thinking the Yul Brynner gunslinger android was the inspiration for the Terminator. I mean he was the same unstoppable, unfeeling, untiring force that Kyle Reese described the Terminator as being. There’s even a scene where he gets his face ripped up to show the mechanical robot parts. Seemed much closer an inspiration than Harlan Ellison’s ‘Soldier’.

    And yes I agree, shooting non-sapient robots makes a LOT more sense. I haven’t seen the newer series but it didn’t seem to make much sense other than the people are baaaaaaaddddddd motif.

  • Marsden

    I thought WW84 was already on HBO Max.

    Of course, you might not want that, either, I don’t particularly.

  • Eric Hinkle

    Yeah. I first saw Westworld on TV with my father. As a kid I was thrilled by ‘killer robots, wow!’ It took me until a second watching in my older teen years to get some of the deeper ideas involved.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I’ve been hearing both praise and condemnation about WW84. Just what is it like? Do you know of any trustworthy reviews?

  • Beckoning Chasm

    Yeah, I don’t think they’d get along at all. Quatermass was pretty slow and methodical, while Kolchak I seem to remember as being more rushing straight in. Haven’t seen either one in a while, though.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    Critical Drinker slammed it pretty badly. From his description, it sounds terrible but I wasn’t planning on seeing it anyway.

  • Yeah, I have no intention of paying for that either. Heck, the only reason I have access to Disney + is because I stole eldest boychild’s password as I refuse to give money to the House of Mouse, and I only have Netflix because it comes free with my cellular plan.

  • Pages and pages of user (vs critic) reviews on IMDB are near universal in their condemnation. Mostly as it commits the one unforgivable cinematic sin of being boring.

  • Freaky was pretty darn entertaining. Neither particularly great nor particularly original, (OTOH, the references to other slashers are often played more subtly than expected) but it’s a reasonably fun ride that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Also Vince Vaughan squealing like a girl and not comprehending his own strength is very well done,

  • Repair Shop is the bomb. So good, so very good.

  • I haven’t watched any Westworld TV series. The movie hit the right note for me and nothing about the series makes me want to watch it.

  • Ken_Begg

    In today’s world it’s hard to believe there wouldn’t immediately be a robots rights movement, ESPECIALLY if they were sentient. So I agree, that doesn’t really make sense. Did they know if were sentient, or did the androids evolve on then unexpectantly? That would make more sense.

  • Ken_Begg

    You mean the show Beyond Westworld? Oh, that TV series.

  • Eric Hinkle

    From what I’ve read they were made to be fully sapient, without knowing they were robots. They thought they were human, and had no idea why people kept abusing and killing them. Most of the robots apparently believed they were dead and in Hell when they were permitted to remember what was happening.

    And while I’m hardly a soft-hearted person, yeah, I can’t see anyone who isn’t a sociopath being happy with the series’ treatment of the robots.

  • Eric Hinkle

    That and how Diana deals with the loss of her old boyfriend by ‘replacing’ him. Man that sounded creepy when I read it.

  • But rape’s different when its female on male!

  • Ken_Begg

    That’s why it’s always HOT when female teachers sleep with their 13 year old students. Completely different from when male teachers do the same. (Unless they are gay male teachers, then it’s probably OK.)

  • Eric Hinkle

    (Warning spoiler ahead!) Given that this version apparently involved mind control as well, that makes it even creepier. And by Diana of Themyscira no less? I can see her being tempted, maybe, but not as going through with it.

  • Ken_Begg

    As the sage Woody Allen taught us, “The Heart wants what it wants.”