(Late) Post-weekend open thread….

Uh, let’s see. Watched the first season of F/X’s Archer, the latest cartoon from the people behind Sealab 2021 and Frisky Dingo. The show is rather more like the latter, although as a homage to ’60s spy films it provides an even better framework for them. I usually don’t go for as much sexual humor as this show has, but here it’s so dark and exaggerated that it doesn’t bug me. The show also specializes in casting people from Arrested Development, including regulars Judy Greer and Jessica Walters. This doesn’t hit my sweet spot quite as perfectly as The Venture Bros., but it’s pretty close. Can’t wait for the second season.

Watched Ip Man, a recent Hong Kong kung fu movie set during the Japanese occupation. It’s pretty reminiscent of Jet Li’s classic The Fist of Legend. Great stuff, and supposedly based on real life. (*cough*)

Got out to the Portage on Saturday and caught the first four films (skipped Dracula’s Daughter). I’ve talked about my love of Son of Godzilla before, and the movie never gets old for me. It probably has the best ‘human’ element of any Godzilla movie, and I actually like the lack of military action here. The sci-fi experiment aspect works well with the comic book nature of the events, and is tied into events more organically than usual; Baby Godzilla sends out a signal calling Daddie, which interferes with the scientists’ experiment at a crucial moment, causing things to go awry, releasing a radioactive compound that embiggens the local man-sized mantises to Godzilla-sized ones, etc. The film is light and fluffy, never lags, has a great score, a great primary color palette, tons of great monster action, and features some genuinely touching interaction between the Big and Little Gs.  Great stuff.

I have nothing to say about Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein that hasn’t been said before (although I think I only appreciated this time around how Rathbone’s epically neurotic Wolf Frankenstein was probably meant to suggest Colin Clive as his ‘father’). I will say again that Lugosi is dynamite as Ygor, probably his finest role. He’s so sly in the part, an aspect you don’t normally see in his acting. (“I stole bodies from graves…er, they said.”) I’m not sure why. The expressionistic set designs in both films are tremendous, and really are spectacular when watching the films on a big screen. Watching them back to back really emphasized how sloppy Universal was with continuity, though.

Probably got the most out of Son of Dracula, just because you don’t see that as much. Man, Lon Chaney Jr. was miscast in that film. I would KILL to see a version starring John Carradine instead. Even so, it’s pretty great, and it’s just crazy how the film is basically a classic film noir picture with vampires. Dracula actually plays the chump in this, and disappears for much of the movie. That was pretty much par for the course in Universal’s later Dracula pictures; they could never figure out what to do with him, probably because they didn’t want to picture him sitting around and playing cards or reading the paper or anything. Still, the film offers a number of really terrific images, including Chaney’s coffin rising from the waters of a swamp and propelling itself, Dracula standing motionless atop it, towards his victim.

Next month (well, this month, now) at the Portage; Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Tarantula, Beginning of the End (set in Chicago, of course) and Deadly Mantis.

What about you guys?

  • Ericb

    I broke out some golden oldies I haven’t seen in a while: Monster that Challenged the World, The Thing from Another World, Them, Beast from Haunted Cave and Planet of the Vampires.

    I also watched a 4 part documentary series on the Conquistadors. Interesting but the narrating British historian was a bit to sanctimonious for my tastes.

  • John Campbell

    We watched Spy Kids 1 (a favorite of the fiancee’s), Indiana jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (say whatever you will, I love this one as much as the first and third. Yes the second is okay). We also did The Mummy Returns. Big Trouble in Little China. The Bone Collector (twice, fiance REALLY likes it).

    I also got in quite a few matches in “World of Tanks”. If you like blowing up stuff for free, give it a whirl! Free and looks gorgeous. Plus the aforementioned bowing up of stuff!

  • I spent most of the weekend letting my cold beat me into submission. During the few hours that it let me sit up I made it through the first half of the third season of The Sarah Jane Adventures, finally saw The Mole People and saw the first two episodes of the new Doctor Who. Dishes and laundry went undone.

  • I watched Season One of Airwolf. I was very pleased by how it holds up, and its certainly more mature than its contemporaries. Although the colossal overuse of stock footage and recycled explosion footage from the pilot episode was a small turn-off.

    Then I went to a women’s tackle football game in Sacramento and got to sit in the press box to take pics and video clips. It was great fun!

  • Mr. Rational

    Several episodes each of “One Step Beyond” and “Tales from the Darkside.” Read “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich; do not recommend. Also read “A Kiss Before Dying” by Ira Levin; HIGHLY recommend.

  • Rock Baker

    I polished up and delivered my interview with Larry Blamire to Ken.

    I acted as a sounding board while I stood around in the shop watching the Varan suit being built.

    I borrowed some movies from my brother’s girlfriend and spent the weekend watching Hoodwinked, The Wild Hogs, Top Dog, The Gumball Ralley, and both Cannonball Run movies! (The world needs more Hal Needham movies, though I’m sure saying that has many automatically deducting from my IQ points.) Sadly, I also watched Frankenfish. Amazing how irksome even a better than average Sci-Fi Channel movie can be. Give me Sting of Death anyday! (And I think it time to officially ban movies from including a human character meant to be disliked just so we’ll be glad when he gets eaten. We can get in two lines that he’s a jerk, there’s no need for him to keep talking until you kill him off, it just makes us hate the movie even more!)

    I lost my laserdisc player to the week-long electrical storm we had to endure! There goes an entire shelf of movies I can’t watch now!

  • sandra

    SON OF DRACULA is a classic despite the miscasting of the hulking, plebian Lon Chaney Jr as an aristocratic vampire. I think he really tried to project suave menace, and he at least didn’t make a fool of himself. The script helps, making in clear that Kay, far from being entharalled by the vampire, is just using him as a means to an end. Once she’s got what she wanted, she plans to dust him and live happily ever after ( literally) with her old boyfriend. This means that Chaney didn’t need to try to be seductive, something that wasn’t in his range. I’ve always thought Conrad Veidt would have made a superb Dracula. Ah, if only !

  • Can’t stand the Cannonball movies (I’ve never been able to watch more than a couple of minutes of them), but I have always dearly loved Gumball Rally. For me it’s one of those films you adore well beyond what its merits strictly deserve.

  • Yes! It’s interesting how the film plays Dracula as a completely out of his depths rube. Even his alias (this is the film that introduced the ‘Alacard’ thing) is penetrated in like the movie’s first two minutes.

    Chaney attempts to underplay the part, so you’re right, he’s not utterly embarrassed. However, he’s just basically WOEFULLY miscast. His fleshy looks are way off for a vampire (even more so when he played Kharis), but his inherent schlub personality just cannot project arrogance or sophistication.

  • Rock Baker

    I didn’t get a lot out of Gumball Ralley, to be honest. I’ll admit the Cannonball Runs aren’t what you’d call ‘good’ movies, but they certainly are fun movies. Well, for some of us. They just make me feel good, like weirldy profane Beach Party movies or something. Smokey and the Bandit still wins the race, it must be said. On the other hand, it didn’t have Dean Martin….

    I also forgot to note something special to me that happened over the weekend. I got back the inks (by Jeff Austin) for what may be my first DVD cover art. A young Texan named Joshua Kennedy looks to be the next Larry Blamire. He made a pretty sharp spoof called ATTACK OF THE OCTOPUS PEOPLE, and he’s looking at a distribution deal with Alpha DVD. There looks to be a good chance that my artwork will be used! Even more incredible, as one of the few people who have seen the film, I will be quoted in a blurb! (Alongside Larry Blamire and Bob Burns, no less!) For me, that’s a pretty big deal!

  • GalaxyJane

    Congrats Rock! That is really neat news. Loved the Blamire interview as well.

    Let’s see, had a nasty sinus bug this weekend, so LOTS of time glued to the tube. Friday night, a girlfriend and I spent 2 hours watching the Parade of Awesome Hats, AKA the Royal Wedding re-broadcast. Man I love awesome hats. I want hats to come back into full-time fashion just so I can wear a new awesome one every week. My last awesome hat walked off with a “neighbor” when I left it by my apartment pool in San Antonio.

    I am pretty sure I watched stuff all day Saturday, but was heavily hopped up on Sudafed, so all I have is vague memories of watching footage of Charles’ and Di’s wedding done “Pop-Up Video” style and less vague memories of 4 hours of NuWho on BBC America. I am really intrigued by the direction Moffett is taking with the show this season. Oh and there was a brutally cutthroat “Munchkin” victory in there somewhere too.

    Sunday rewatched NuWho’s “Silence in the Library” and “The Forest of the Dead” to see if there was any cryptic clue that tied into this season’s opener about the Silence. Answer, apparently not that I could see, but still a good, scary story. Then apparently my drug-addled brain went completely off the rails as the rest of the evening was an Asylum mini-marathon with “Titanic II” and “Sherlock Holmes”

    The first was even worse and stupider than it sounds from the title. I think I actually made my life shorter spending 90 minutes screaming things like “Tsunamis don’t work that way!” and “No wonder this ship is sinking if it’s made of concrete blocks” and most importantly “Where the hell did the f’ing surfer come from and is he related to anything else in this film!?!” I am pretty sure my soul is slightly more tarnished than it was Sunday morning just from the sheer hatred I had for the filmmakers when it was over.

    Sherlock Holmes was actually pretty OK, the guy who played Ianto on Torchwood made a decent Watson, although their Holmes was a bit weak and effeminate for my taste. The steampunk plot was certainly no sillier than anything in the big-budget version it was ripping off.

    Damn it, now I want to see *that* Thor movie.

  • Rock, that’s great! Congrats. Keep us updated, please.

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