BobO'Link

I think that's where I first heard about the movie. I know it was a blind buy and the majority of those are based on comments made by a select group of people in these challenges.

BobO'Link

I had to look up his credits to see what all he's been in. Of what I've seen there have been a few I didn't care for but his performance was typically the high point of those films.

pacaway

Bummer. I've had several and the only time I had a problem was when I had a battery overheat and lodge in the unit. I contacted Logitech and they replaced it after I sent them a couple of pictures of the controller. They warned me that the old one wouldn't work any more once they disabled it, which was fine with me. It went pretty smooth.

pacaway

Exactly, right? But for some people, they can't separate it from his personal antics. If I based my movie watching on the personal lives of the people who act in them, there'd be nothing left to watch.

BobO'Link

So true. But I don't pay attention to actor's, or *any* celebrity's, private lives. Couldn't care less. Just one of those things I've never understood - being "stage struck" with a "celebrity" or caring at all what they do outside their job. They're just people too and subject to the same foibles.

LJG765

I am almost positive I watched Summer Wars because you recommended it! And you were totally right. I read the first piece on Wolf Children and it makes me even more eager to watch it. I plan on reading the other two a bit later today when I have a bit more time. Thanks for sharing them!

I really try to keep my opinions on actors/actresses separate from the work, because pacaway is right, there would be no movie watchable if you judged it solely on the private lives of actors. That being said, there are a few for me that are just disturbing enough that it is hard to watch a film, no matter how good it is, because of the actor. Tom Cruise is one of them.

Part of it for me, is that I don't want to contribute to their support/financial well being if I don't agree with them. If more people stop watching their films, they are less likely to be hired for the next roll. I try to "vote" with my money that way a lot-I won't shop in certain stores where I don't agree with their policies, for instance. I know I'm one person and the major corporations don't really care about one person, but it does add up...eventually. /end rant.

I do try to keep an open mind while watching if I do end up watching a film with someone in it that I don't particularly care for personally.

pacaway

touché

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I'm the same but I also know that what's told in public about the private lives of actors isn't always a true story. It's whatever the person reporting is saying that would be of interest to the public and in a lot of cases, it involves taking things out of context or relying on whatever a PR person is saying, or it's the actor playing out a public role that isn't really how they act in private.

LJG765

That is also a good point. Another reason not to judge a movie by who is in it. But...it is hard to separate the two at times!

shadokitty

I've always enjoyed watching the later Beyblade series' on Hulu, so I looked it up on IMDB, and saw it counted. When I found the original series on Tubi TV, I decided to start from the beginning, and just finished the first episode. It looks to be a good series so far.

mrcellophane

Star Trek: Voyager update: I'm midway through the third season, and there have been some pretty good episodes. In fact I just watched "Macrocasm" and "Fair Trade" which were both very different and very good. The first features Janeway taking off her jacket, grabbing a gun, and going full Sigourney Weaver. The second is a good character piece about Neelix confronting his dissatisfaction with his role on Voyager.

Yesterday, I watched Escape from New York. It's the sixth John Carpenter film I've seen and definitely my least favorite. It's a good movie and has some fun and compelling parts, but it just didn't capture my attention the way The Thing or The Fog did. Kurt Russell seems to parody Clint Eastwood in his stoic scowl, and I just love Harry Dean Stanton's character. Also, the Duke's car has chandeliers, and that is awesome!

LJG765

I bought this movie a few years ago solely for the purpose of this challenge and the check list (a future move that takes place in a future that has already occurred). The first couple viewings I was meh on, but honestly, it grows on me each time I watch it. Some of the graphics are very dated plus, a cassette? But I enjoy the campiness of it more and more.

mrcellophane

I bought it a couple months ago because DeepDiscount was having a Scream Factory sale. I can tell that it's a film I'll watch again, preferably with friends. I think the campiness was what separated it from the more serious, atmospheric Carpenter films I've seen thus far. After looking at my original comment, I want to add Donald Pleasence as the sometimes-British U.S. President to the list of things I really enjoyed.

Sidenote: I just finished reading Lloyd Kaufman's All I Need to Know About Filmmaking I Learned from The Toxic Avenger and really enjoyed it. A friend insisted that I read it despite never seeing a Troma film. Now, I feel compelled to check one of them out. Kaufman is glib, raunchy, gross, and very funny.

shadokitty

I've been working through Lord Of The Rings content since last night, and just now finished an interesting documentary on the life of J.R.R. Tolkien, and how his early life inspired the creation of The Hobbit, and The Lord of The Rings, called J.R.R. Tolkien And The Birth Of The Lord Of The Rings that I bought a couple weeks ago on Google Play.

BobO'Link

I finally broke open the Science Fiction Theatre set I purchased on release day (4/2015) and so far I'm really enjoying the episodes. The music for the open/close is somewhat "overwrought" but typical of the times. The host opening pieces are a bit overlong, usually explaining the science behind what we're about to see. There's usually not much new there (unless you're a kid) but probably helped many people quite a bit considering the 1955 release year. They're still enjoyable, though somewhat "dry" in presentation/approach. The big surprise is that the episodes are in color! Not many series were produced in color during those years. It speaks well of forward thinking on the producer's part with a eye toward future syndication when color broadcasting would be the norm (like those later seasons of The Adventures of Superman).

A couple of the episodes have been somewhat of a stretch to consider them being SF but all have been enjoyable. One of those questionable ones deals with a couple of guys looking for radium deposits on federal land. They meet with a "hermit" type who's more interested in collecting plants than worrying about the radium deposit the pair found not far from the cabin. Of course it has a twist ending, which puts it in SF land, as do a couple of others I've seen so far.

Episodes remind me somewhat of Twilight Zone mashed up with The Outer Limits but just a bit more "science" thrown into the mix so it sounds more plausible. Supposedly *some* episodes are based on true events and the host makes a point to say if it's fictional or not. I don't remember him saying any were based on actual events - yet.

Ash Ketchum

I watched a few eps. for last year's challenge but haven't gotten to any yet so far this month. There are some really good actors in some of them, like Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone, and occasionally some really sharp writing.
I especially liked "The Strange People at Pecos," starring Arthur Franz and Dabbs Greer. Here's an excerpt from my IMDB review of the episode:
Also, I should add that the second season of the show was done in b&w to save money after syndication sales did not match expectations.

BobO'Link

Quoting you here as it is more apropos:

After watching all 3 seasons with the updated fx I can safely say I prefer the originals and will watch it that way in the future, with a few exceptions.

I'd researched the DVD set before purchasing and discovered it didn't offer the original fx as a viewing option (and I question why as those on the BR are done via seemless branching - quite possible to do on DVD which makes me think it was omitted as a way to milk even more money from people who purchase the DVD set only to discover what they want is only available on BR so they purchase the series *again*). I recently purchased a copy of that DVD release because I got it new for $9.
But that's part of the character. Kirk is a womanizer. Even though the series was very forward thinking it still suffered from some of those late 50s/early 60s attitudes towards women. I pretty much ignore it at this point.
Sure... but at the time much of that was fresh and innovative, frequently setting the course for future series and defining the genre. Watch it for what it was then and not what it appears to be now. One of those "put yourself in the mindset of someone in the mid-late 60s to fully appreciate" type things. When I watch this series I don't see the "warts" but am transported back to that ~13 year old kid seeing this cool stuff for the first time.
I, too, noticed the makeup more on several episodes of the remastered version. It was especially noticeable in the episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" on Frank Gorshin when he's sweating. It sticks out like a sore thumb. I don't recall it being *that* invasive looking on the original DVD release (but it *has* been several years since I watched that episode). I also noticed just how "tacky" many of the sets are - and the rather garish colors on some. Stuff I'd truly not noticed, or paid any attention to, in the past. For example: Purple walls in the transporter room? How did I not see that before now?!? Of course it was still in the early days of color TV and you had the Batman influence, with outrageous behavior and garish colors, being felt very strongly. But still...

BobO'Link

I've not seen that one yet. I really enjoyed "Time Is Just a Place" with the "inventor" neighbor who has all these cool, futuristic, things but doesn't know "basics" like reconnecting a loose wire on the car engine so it'll start.

A episode I watched this morning, "Y.O.R.D.," has DeForest Kelly playing a doctor.

You can *really* see Cold War influences in many episodes - at least so far.
I didn't know that. Bummer.

Ash Ketchum

I didn't do any research, I just saw the set in my local FYE and just grabbed it on impulse. I'm learning that I have to resist such impulses. Too often I buy things in stores and only then decide to look them up on Amazon to find quite a cost difference. I don't mind occasionally rewarding my local FYE for carrying things to my taste that won't appear in other stores, but I've got to start saving.

As for Trek's virtues and flaws, I found myself having the same discussion with an old friend and he made the same arguments you did. There are some things I can put myself back in time for, usually films made before I was born, e.g. WWII combat films promoting the war effort, but it's harder with things that I remember so clearly from my first experiences with them. For instance, I watched two film favorites from the '60s for this challenge, DR. STRANGELOVE and OUR MAN FLINT, both of which I loved when they came out. But neither one held up. STRANGELOVE has such broad caricatures, particularly the generals played by Sterling Hayden and George C. Scott and Sellers' Strangelove, all in the service of making a political point as if this was just sketch comedy, that I just couldn't take any of it seriously. In 1964, it was a big deal for a ten-year-old, esp. one who'd just discovered Mad Magazine, to see a film satirizing a nuclear showdown, but 52 years later, with all the changes in the global balance of power since then, it just kind of fizzles. I only really liked Slim Pickens in it, because he invested so much of himself into his caricature that he made Major Kong likeable and believable. And that last shot of him is still laugh-out-loud funny and the best thing in the film.

OUR MAN FLINT had such a lightweight plot and unformidable villains that there was no suspense. (The sequel, IN LIKE FLINT, was even worse and was a dud to me even in 1967.) Coburn's character was great, but belonged in a much better movie, something maybe like DANGER: DIABOLIK, but with a good guy as the hero and not a bad guy. And all those scenes on Pleasure Island, with the brainwashed girl "pleasure units" go-go-dancing with the plant workers and making out with them in fake drive-ins was just some old Hollywood exec's idea of sexual decadence in a film meant for a general audience. It was just silly.

As for Trek and Shatner's womanizing, I don't really buy it. In the Bond films, you can believe the women throwing themselves at Connery's Bond. Connery had the kind of cool that made that totally work. In Star Trek, you can feel the behind-the-scenes pressure of Shatner on the producer to make the writers deliver more makeout scenes for him or scenes where he gets to hug and "comfort" an underage damsel-in-distress. There's something creepy about it with Shatner, but there isn't in the Bond films. The Bond films age well for me, the Trek episodes not so much. It's a matter of how much I can suspend my disbelief. Of course, the women in Bond films were quite a class apart from the women on Trek, but that's a completely different discussion.

BobO'Link

Bummer. I hate it when I do stuff like that. But I'm not opposed to making a return if I discover the "mistake" in time. Of course that doesn't always happen for one reason or another...
I'd not seen Strangelove until several years back and just didn't get the attraction. It's OK, but not the experience I was expecting based on comments/reviews I'd read over the years. It doesn't help that I'm not much of a fan of political satire and don't find much of that humor funny.
Wow... I've loved the Flint movies since I first saw them - when they came out. Of course as a adult I see them differently and mainly appreciate them for Coburn's performances. Still, they're lightweight and fun little trifles, although *very* sexist (as much of the output in those years was in spite of the women's movement).
Yes... it *is*...

ntnon

Anybody see the Ghostbusters remake? The utterly awful trailer did it a big disservice (and the decades of sequel rumblings), but the result isn't bad. Toilet humour, stupid plot, and I didn't like two of the leads, but overall... entertaining.

The cameos were OK, but oddly spaced, somewhat weirdly acted* and... mm. Better in than out, but seemed off. Would that this were a decades-later actual sequel. Obvious plot,** cameos over with quickly and no annoying rehash.

Asterisks:

ntnon

"Doesn't help" reads like an understatement...!

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

It's not just you. I'm fine with political satire but this just didn't do anything for me. Neither did Citizen Cane. I'm sure it's cool and all that you get to see a ceiling and stuff but I like different things.

BobO'Link

Same here. When I finally saw Citizen Cane last year I couldn't understand why such a big deal is made about the film. I'd missed the screening in a "Motion Picture Appreciation" class in college (back before home tape machines were available so you couldn't "make it up" at home) and the instructor *loved* the film. So much so that we had discussion and tests over its content for 4 weeks (and we only met once a week for 9 weeks)! I didn't do so hot on those tests...

I've been introducing my grandkids to more "classic" TV shows. Tonight we screened a few episodes of Lost in Space S2. In the season opener they are hit by a "earthquake" and my grandson noticed the effect was mostlly done via camera and the actors moving side-to-side "like in that submarine show" (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea). I complimented him on his observation and told him both shows were produced by the same man and that was somewhat a trademark of his. He was also impressed that John Williams wrote the theme song. The girls like it but he said "It's OK but I'm not that big a Sci-Fi fan." In spite of that I *have* managed to show him a few SF films that he actually likes - one was Forbidden Planet so maybe all is not yet lost...

LJG765

I was not a fan of Dr. Stranglove either, didn't do much for me either. I did think Citizen Kane was alright, though. Not a favorite of mine, but it was alright.

So, I'm watching Fellowship of the Ring for the nth time and had the thought...who makes a magic ring that does stuff only when you put it on? Rings are made to wear. Keeping it in a pocket or something easy for you to put it on to use it just means that it's easy to lose. If you wear it on a necklace, it'd take too long to put it on in an emergency.