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?
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