i finally got around to watching Star Trek 2009. It was my first time. I was hesitant to watch a reboot , but it was fun. I find the current superhero / action films to be lacking in real suspense or tension because you know nothing bad can happen to these characters.

I know what you mean. I haven't watched any of them yet, but the other day when I was adding movies to my Amazon Watch List, I was adding mostly older movies.

So 99% of the time I avoid colorized films like the plague; the Harryhausen Blu-ray set is the exception. He assisted with the colorization process, and, according to him, they were originally meant to be shot in color, but budgetary constraints said otherwise. That's my justification, and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers looks amazing.

Also caught a very strange, surreal, and trippy Russian kiddie film The Great Space Voyage. Almost had a 2001 vibe, only with musical dream sequences and go cart racing flashbacks. Supposedly funded by the Soviet government to get future generations interested in the Cosmonaut program.

Trancers 4 and 5 were pretty ho-hum. Apparently somebody just saw Army of Darkness before production began.

Destination Inner Space was basically a poor man's Creature from the Black Lagoon and just as fun. Wende Wagner.

Fred Olen Ray's The Alien Factor was pretty much what you'd expect. Haven't seen rubber monster suits that bad since Octaman.

That pretty much sums up my last week of viewings.


I'm two episodes in and completely addicted. That Carpenter-esque synth title sequence gives me chills.

For me personally, July is always a horrible month for me to do a viewing challenge (lots of travel and other activities). Sci-Fi and fantasy are genres that I enjoy year-round though. I've seen a handful of qualifying titles so far. But my numbers are so pitiful I haven't bothered with making an official list. From what I remember, I have:

The Purge: Anarchy: I like the shift of the series from invasion horror to action/thriller (which began in the 2nd movie). Should've been smarter than to see this in theaters on opening weekend. Theater was full of jackasses who talked non-stop like they were in their living room. Hard to know my impressions of the movie itself, since the theater experience was so unpleasant it effectively ruined the movie for me.

The BFG: Minor Spielberg but still entertaining (though I passed the age where fart jokes are funny a long time ago).

10 Cloverfield Land: I managed to keep myself from being spoiled ... not that I still didn't see the ending coming from a mile away. Still good. Is there supposed to be any link between this and Cloverfield? Because I sure didn't see any.

I saw a couple of anime fantasies:

The Boy and The Beast: The last feature by Mamoru Hosoda, who in my book has taken over the title of best anime director with Miyazaki's retirement. I highly recommend all of his feature work (Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, Wolf Children)

When Marnie was There: The last Studio Ghibli movie. And yes ... even though it's not listed as one, this should certainly count as part fantasy.

I caught up with Kung Fu Panda 3 last night. I also saw The Mermaid. I've seen most of Stephen Chow's other movies, so I knew what I was in for: a mix of cartoon slapstick, mugging for the camera, startlingly inappropriate violence, some rousing action scenes, a weird romance, and a good score. But with enough stuff going on that I was kept entertained. It's hard to believe the budget was $60 million (US dollars), since the effects were distractingly bad (on the level of a SyFy channel original movie). If China has the budgets for big-time fantasy and sci-fi movies, I wish they would outsource the technical work or do a big step-up of their in-house production. But this made so much money, I'm sure they don't care. The one part of the movie that had me laughing the most was completely effect-free:

And as I've posted in the series thread, I've gotten into Stranger Things It's short enough that I should finish it in the next week or so.

Please make at least a brief list. Even one or two entries qualifies you for the prizes and I think they're pretty nice this year.

July tends to be busy for me too, but I still do my best to fit in as much as I can. Up till this week, I've been getting at least one watch in, but my sister invited me up to the lake on Thursday through today and while I watched a few movies, none qualify. I did get to spend time with my nieces though!

I really enjoy Roald Dahl's works and high hopes for the movie, being a Spielberg and all, but man, I was really disappointed. It was alright and it should have been awesome. The "fart" jokes work in print, but not on the screen. I just cringed at those parts. I just wasn't "wowed" enough, I think, which was disappointing. Oh well...

I've really enjoyed Summer Wars and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. I guess I didn't realize they were made by the same director. I'll have to look up those others.

I would ok When Marnie Was There for the list. I watched this for Oscar month and the ending is definitely fantasy tinged. I'm surprised there isn't a tag for it, actually, though the majority of the film is pretty straight laced.

I don't own that one in the colorized version but do own It Came from Beneath the Sea and 20 Million Miles to Earth in the colorized versions. I'll agree that the colorization jobs on those are excellent, but anomolies of that process are still present and to me are very obvious making the colorization process a bit lacking. Just the fact that Mr. Harryhausen *was* involved in selecting the color pallet is enough for me to have occasional viewings of the colorized version, although I still prefer the BW versions.

Legend does a very good job on all their colorization projects but for me the big benefit is along with that colorized film you get a excellently restored BW copy. For that single reason they can colorize all they want, and the more the better, as long as those BW versions come along as "bonus" items.

I'm going to be out of town on the last week myself.

Today has been a horrible day for numbers for me. Just can't settle on anything to watch.

I seem to have misplaced my copy of It Came From Beneath The Sea. The disc cases slipped out of my Harryhausen Collection box set.

Alright, you convinced me! I'll put together a pathetic little list.

Would Dark Star: H.R. Giger's World count? A documentary about the life and work of Giger, who most people probably know best as the Oscar-winning designer of the original Alien.

I just watched Midnight Special (a new release from the director of Mud and Take Shelter, starring Kirsten Dunst, Michael Shannon, and Adam Driver). It was alright. Very well made, but I wish it went somewhere (or at least went somewhere a bit more).

Hey, no list is pathetic. Short, I'll accept! But sure, looks like what the documentary check mark was made for.

So I just discovered the link in the check list for definitions of sci-fi genres (like urban fantasy) now requires a log in. I'm planning on doing a little searching and seeing if I can find another site that would work without it, but does anyone have any suggestions?

Also, I'm thinking this should be paired down for next year. Please suggest any changes. I plan on making notes to carry them over for next time. Thanks!

edit: Here's a link for fantasy definitions.

sci fi: here

Another fantasy one here.

Just another general one with several links to different genres/tropes here.

^Wow! You can really get "lost" at that "tvtropes" site... I clicked a link and didn't stop reading linked articles for at least a hour!

I'm a "purist" when it comes to watching movies and TV shows. I want to see them as they were originally shown - warts and all. For me, colorizing a old movie/TV show is heresy as is *not* watching in the OAR, if available.

So... Legend has done so good a job on colorizing some films that I'll now occasionally watch one of *their* releases colorized. It truly depends on the film as, for me, some work and some do not.

Flash forward (or back) to a month or so ago when I finally found the setting that was preventing my use of "zoom" (called "wide fit u/d adjust on my Samsung set) to get a "flat" (i.e. non-anamorphic) transferred WS film to be expanded to fill the screen width (oddly enough it was the BR player and not the TV which was at fault). I'd been looking for this setting since I got a WS set for Christmas last year so I could at least make those non-anamorphic film transfers fit the screen width, even if it were at the expense of image quality.

Back to the point. I'd watched a flat transfer of a movie one evening, finally seeing it without pillarboxing, and the next day put in a "classic" TVonDVD disc, forgetting I had the set on "zoom." The first episode starts and, surprisingly, doesn't look that bad! I watched a episode, switching back and forth from 4:3 and "zoom" comparing the image. Oh my! Due to the proper use of the "rule of thirds" in shot composition it actually *looked OK*! Well... mostly. There were still shots which now didn't have enough head room but they were few and far between and could be easily "fixed" by moving the image down a bit (remember - it has up/down adjustment with a fixed width) should I so desire. In spite of this being one of the ultimate heresies I began experimenting with other TV shows which were originally produced in 4:3. I am astounded at just how many actually look OK with this done! Does that mean I want TV seasons of older, 4:3, material released this way? Absolutely not! But it's interesting that it can be easily achieved easily and without all that much of a loss in shot integrity by using built-in settings on your equipment.

I'm currently watching the last of the S2 episodes of The Outer Limits (1963) this way and, with only a couple of exceptions, haven't been bothered at all. Shots mostly look well composed (they were to start with which is a huge factor) with even close ups mainting proper framing. I worked in TV for 21 years as a director - commercials, news, documentaries, talk shows, and more - so I know what makes one shot look better than another.

Until I'd done this experiment I'd have been the first to scream *HERESY* and denounce attempts to re-frame old TV product for 16:9 TVs. This has proven to me that, in many cases, it's not only possible but the results *can* look good with little to no loss of "significant" information. I truly don't know just how to take this revelation as I feel like a traitor to the OAR cause!

I'll use zoom when it's something 4:3 that also has bars on the bottom.

We have a theater room with a 113" screen. I rarely watch things in there because it's not a simple process to just sit down, turn it on, watch move.

First we have to get all the remotes. The bluray player is a ps3, so there's the controller for that remote. The projector has it's own remote. The receiver has it's own remote.

Now put them all on the little table we have. Want something to drink? Pick which remote you won't be able to reach from the chair.

Why shouldn't you be able to reach the table from the chair easy? We have papasan chairs. Not the little ones for dorms but the monster sized ones, so once you're deep into it, your arm doesn't have much much maneuverability when it comes to the short table you're sitting next to.

Don't get me wrong, it's great watching stuff in there. Once you get past that hassle at the beginning, it's great if you're going to watch a few movies in a row because it's easy to get stuck in that chair once you get in it.

I watched the classic Forbidden Planet today and Pandorum. Pandorum was made by the same folks as Resident Evil and it has all the fast action of that series. I recommend it

I just finished a first-time viewing of Edge of Tomorrow (2014). It was a very interesting take on the "Groundhog Day" type film. It had a few interesting twists on the theme with good fx and lots of action. It was far better than I'd expected.

When I watched this last year, I had the same experience. I went in thinking it'd be fairly awful but ended up enjoying it. I think for me, at least, it's that Tom Cruise has lost most of his credibility in real life but his acting is still fine.

I think a bunch of us watched us for the Leap Day Challenge, most seemed to like it. I loved it, but I'm a bit of a sucker for Groundhog Day-like stories.

You definitely need to see WOLF CHILDREN. I'd argue that it's the best film Hosoda has yet made.


Wait till you see what happens when they reach adolescence.

His latest, THE BOY AND THE BEAST, was a pale echo, the first disappointment I've experienced from Hosoda.

Ok, you convinced me. I have it on order. I think it should be here by the end of the challenge, but if it is not, I can still watch it for the animation challenge.

You have all that equipment and not a Logitech Harmony remote? It will change your life.

I actually saw it in 3D at the theater when it came out. I knew right away it was HIGHLY underrated. I still to this day cannot get my family to watch it. No one will get past it being a Tom Cruise movie, even though, as I pointed out, they say that about EVERY Tom Cruise movie but end up liking most of them when they see them. Oh well, what're you gonna do? LOL

Three pieces about Hosoda and WOLF CHILDREN that I did for Otaku USA:

http://www.otakuusamagazine.com/Anim...rica_5116.aspx

http://www.otakuusamagazine.com/Anim...view_5117.aspx

http://www.otakuusamagazine.com/Sear...ebut_5014.aspx

I had a nice Logitech Harmony One [spoiler]https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Adva...dp/B005FO43OU/[/spoiloer]and then one day the touchscreen decided it didn't want to accept my touches anymore. Logitech wouldn't help and I found a bunch of other people with the same issue and they were all SOL with Logitech as well.

I have no desire to gamble on them and get burned again, even though people say their support is amazing. It may be but not for owners of this remote that have the touchscreen issue.

I can't remember if I've seen a Tom Cruise performance I didn't enjoy.