^I'd count it as fantasy.

That's an easy one. It's fantasy at imdb

I want a judgement on The Devil Rides Out (1968). Both imdb and allmovie/allrovi list it as horror (which I don't disagree with), but you've got the Duc de Richleau running around the English country side fighting a coven of Satanists, spells being cast and demons being fought. I would think it would qualify as much for fantasy as horror.

so can I include 'Best Worst Movie' since it's about 'Troll 2'

Yes to the last two questions. The Devil Rides Out could also be a dark fantasy, unless I'm remembering the criteria wrong.

I'm going out of town the next few days, so try not to burn the place down while I'm gone.

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My wife had a very bad day, so she and my cousin and I sat down and streamed Hot Tub Time Machine for some laughs. It seemed to have trouble deciding when it wanted to be a frat comedy and when it wanted to be a male bonding movie. A lot of the humor revolving around Rob Corddry felt a little forced and didn't really do much for me. Sadly, another instance where the trailers really gave away the entire plot and best comedy bits. I felt like the rest of the movie didn't really offer any surprises.

Likable enough for what it is, though. Bonus: it features the original George McFly, Crispin Glover as a bellhop. Still, I think it's a reminder just how unique and special Back to the Future is. Sometimes I think we take for granted how easy it is to pull of a certain kind of movie because the great ones make it look so easy.

I watched THE LAST WAR (1961) yesterday, a Japanese film from Toho Pictures about events that build up to World War III and the disastrous results. Interesting that the one nation to be attacked by nuclear weapons makes a film about what happens when it gets bombed by nukes. The scene of Tokyo's devastation from a nuke is pretty explicit. This goes way beyond any Godzilla movie. (With the possible exception of GODZILLA FINAL WARS, but that's another story.)

In any event, what surprised me even more was the scene where a group of kids at a daycare center sing the Disney song, "It's a Small World," to a grandfather leaving for the sea. 1) The song wasn't even written when the movie came out in Japan; and 2) Did they even bother licensing the song from Disney? Well, it turns out the English dub, which is what I watched, was done years afterwards and it also turns out that Disney waived the copyright on that song, leaving it open to anyone to use whenever they wanted. (Quite a contrast with the way the Disney Company had the copyright laws changed by Congress a few years ago so that Mickey Mouse wouldn't fall into the public domain.)

The end of the film has a portion of John F. Kennedy's 1961 speech to the U.N. about the threat of nuclear war being a "sword of Damocles" hanging over all of us. Now, was that in the Japanese original or did the English dubbers add it? If I can ever get a copy of the Japanese original (which is 31 min. longer), I might be able to find out.

Would "Wizard of Oz" be considered "High Fantasy"? I'm think so, but can't find any confirmation anywhere.

Enjoying my first viewings of some DC and Marvel 1990s animation, Fantastic Four and Justice League. Unfortunately, it has triggered my buying obsession, and I just put about $90 worth of cheap DC animation in my Amazon cart. As a lifelong comic book fan, and now an avid DVD collector, I know I'll buy all of these eventually, so for now I'm just picking up the sets that are $3-10 each.

^Doncha just love it when that happens... I tend to do that with just about every one of these challenges! I've ordered a half dozen or so sci-fi/fantasy titles since July began and put a dozen or so more in my cart at amazon because of this one.

Im impressed with how much ib gotten in have killed alot of my tv to watch.

Game of thrones - really impressed with this one. second half of the season really surprised me with the direction they went and the finale while not the greatest got me anticipating s2.

Might fire of true blood next.

question on counting

would ghost hunters and like shows count? in reguards to most of em base on scientific ways of searching for evidence?

I'd say not. They're not fiction (in theory at least) and not documentaries.

Yep, but my wallet and girlfriend hate it!

Also, I totally brain farted last night and didn't research those animated series very well. I've found that in at least 3 different cases, I bought individual season sets where the completed series sets have exclusive bonus discs. And you all know me, I'd probably buy exclusive bonus discs even if they were blank. So crap, looks like I 'wasted' at least $50.

You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now, to wait for complete season sets for everything, but not quite yet apparently.

Looking for a checklist item for the 2010 "decade" I stumbled upon "Endhiran", a 2010 Bollywood film. It sounded interesting and better than most of the other choices available on DVD so I put it in my amazon cart and did a bit of further research, mainly looking for a better price. I discovered someone put it on YouTube (in the original Tamil with subtitles!) so I watched it first "just in case". This was a *very* fun, well done, film! I was surprised that there was quite a bit of humor that worked well in English as well as the occasional line delivered in English. Overall, it has excellent visual effects, acting, score, etc. The multiple chase/action scenes at the end were totally over the top, impressive, and fun! I enjoyed it so much I ordered that copy in my cart!

About 3/4 of the way through (basically where the chase sequence starts) a co-worker, who just happens to be from India, came in, asked what I was watching, and watched the last 30 min. or so with me. He, too, was impressed and commented on how the cast/crew are "top names in Bolly films". Of course, he didn't need the subtitles. I commented on the amount of "music video" type sequences (just about one every 20 minutes) and he said if they were not in the film no one would go see it as that's *very* important in India and some people go to see films based totally on how good the music segments are. While I generally don't care for this type distraction in films (I don't much care for musicals) these were very well done, even if, for the most part, they didn't progress the story/plot.

Even though I've seen it already I'll probably watch it again when it comes in because it was so much fun! Highly recommended!

Yes. There's no horror element to speak of, so it's not Dark Fantasy, the fantastic bits don't take place in a city, so it's not Urban Fantasy, nothing to do with Arthur, Merlin, Excalibur, etc..so it's not Arthurian Fantasy, which leaves High Fantasy. High Fantasy isn't just about elves and orcs and the like.

I'd count them along with UFO, Bigfoot and whatever else they show these days.

Watched Push today, it was a nice little modern superhero story.

I think my new personal favorite Sci-Fi film is The Day the Earth Caught Fire. Gets better with every viewing. And watching it on a 100+ degree day definitely added to the experience.

I don't know that I'd call Push a superhero movie, it's more like The Power or (forgive me) Jumper. Super humans, yes; Super heroes -- not in the classical sense at least.

Janet Munro never gets old.

I forget about that one... I'll have to pull my copy out and watch it. It's one of those I had only read about until a couple of years ago when I finally picked up a copy. It was quite enjoyable. Days like the last 2 most certainly add to the experience with this one!

I was going to use a wildcard for "Directed by Ralph Bakshi" in the checklist as I've never cared for what I've seen of his work. Admittedly it's only "Fritz the Cat" and "Cool World" but I just didn't like the animation style and "humor" in either of these enough to seek out and watch his other work... but...

I discovered, again, someone had posted "Fire and Ice" on YouTube so I watched it today. Based on the DVD cover art I was really expecting more Frazetta influenced art than just the backgrounds. While they were very well done I was disappointed the people didn't match his work. Even though most (all?) of the animation was rotoscoped it felt and looked somewhat primitive. Not bad, but not that good either. I'd read the main reason to watch was "the girl" but just didn't see why unless you're 9 or 10 and in need of some cheesecake. Overall it was a fairly simple and somewhat cliched story but overall enjoyable. I found it much more enjoyable than what I've seen of "Wizards".

As "Wizards", too, is on YouTube I watched about 30 mintues as that was all I could stand. "Wizards" animation style, somewhat juvenile "humor", 80's "rock" combined with Saturday AM cartoon music, and horrible mix of full animation, and matted live action used as "animation" was a total turn off for me. While the matted live action works in his LOTR (see below) it felt like a cop-out way to do "animation" in "Wizards". I'll not try that one again.

I enjoyed "Fire and Ice" enough to start watching his "Lord of the Rings" (yep, YouTube again) as I've never seen that either but have heard lots about it, both good and bad. I found myself somewhat suprised at how much Peter Jackson's LOTR resembles what I've seen so far (up to when they enter Moria). Of course most of that is due to both films sticking with the book as much as possible, but there are scenes in both that just look identical. While it could be pulled from the book that way they are just too close for me to think Jackson arrived at *exactly* the same scene, framing and all. Like "Wizards" there are of places where rotoscoping was used "literally" and somewhat inappropriately IMHO. The worst I've seen so far is in the bar where Frodo and company meet Aragorn - it looks *totally* out of place with the rest of the animation. He also used live action mattes, but these don't bother me as much as in "Wizards" as they seem to be exclusive to the Black Riders and lend a somewhat otherworldly aspect to them. The backgrounds are simply spectacular. I plan to finish this one tomorrow even though it ends roughly half-way through the story.

Jump to Rankin-Bass' Return of the King (1980) after you've finished Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, if you can. It more or less (mostly less) picks up where Lord of the Rings ends and you will have watched the whole LOTR animated.

I tried that and only made it about 5 minutes as I didn't like it. But I don't particularly care for Rankin/Bass animation in general.

As far as Bakshi's version goes it got progressively worse the longer I watched. The "animated" parts grew fewer while mattes and "negative imaging" got greater. Many, many times during battle scenes the main character animation over the matte/negative was just distracting and did *not* fit. The way it ended was jarring. I can see why it got such negative response upon initial release. Overall, the best thing about it is the backgrounds.

So... "Fire and Ice" is "OK" but nothing special and at this point I consider it to be the *best* thing Bakshi's done. From what I read this puts me in a small minority as most think it's the worst thing he's done.

The best thing that Bakshi has done is The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (1987) for CBS.

I just finished "Plan 9 from Outer Space" Rifftrax version which *COMPLETES* the checklist!

This is an open call for anyone who cares to check my list for titles you feel do not belong, or are categorized incorrectly.

This is the first time I've actually completed one, and I managed to do it with *no* wildcards! I *did* purchase 2 titles specifically for the checklist. They were "Plan 9" Rifftrax and "Endhiran" (although I streamed this one first). I streamed 4 films for the checklist. I'd initially planned to use "Wizard of Oz" for "High Fantasy" but used the Bakshi version of "Lord of the Rings" instead since I'd already watched it. I'll still watch "Wizard of Oz" before the challenge is over because it's in the "unwatched pile".