Happy birthday to Sir Patrick Stewart (80) and Harrison Ford (78). Think I'll watch Dune for the new octogenerian and the movie that turned Ford from carpenter to working actor, Star Wars.

I enjoy martial arts movies, so when I saw one that counts for this challenge, I jumped at it. The Forbidden Kingdom was on Epix Hits. A modern day teenager is transported to medieval China and learns kung fu from a master.

Spielberg's movie--more than the novel--is basically an homage to Doyle so the title works for me. From a moneymaking perspective, I know they pretty much had to make sequels but from a storytelling perspective, it was an impossible idea. The appeal of the first is the novelty of believable dinosaurs. That was wondrous at first. They were as remarkable to us as accomplishments of visual effects artists as they were in-story to people seeing real dinosaurs. But that wonder is broken by the end, and it's impossible to recreate that initial wonder. Without that novelty, all that's left is inventing a new contrivance to go back to a place that we know we should never visit again. You start off each one with the feeling, "You're asking for it this time." The alternative is to bring the dangerous dinosaurs off the island so they can get loose. That works even less. I can accept that on this one island, scientists have resurrected dinosaurs that very few people even know about. A Tyrannosaurus rex in San Diego? Or wherever the hell they brought her in Fallen Kingdom? It doesn't track. I know there are no dinosaurs in the real world. Now it's gone from science-fiction to pure fantasy.

In fairness, other movies have run into the same problem. Nothing could make such a strong impression in Jurassic Park, nothing else could ever really evoke that same wonder. We might be more impressed because they're more elaborate, but there will never be another singular, shared first time for an entire generation. Anyone who started watching movies as a child after that movie came out has their personal first CGI movie, but it could be anything; MCU, Star Wars, Transformers, Harry Potter, Pixar, etc. And very likely in their own home, whereas Jurassic Park demanded we all go to the theater together. The closest would be Toy Story, as the first fully CGI feature and was something parents felt comfortable taking young children to see. Though those viewers were either so young that it didn't register what a big deal that was, or if they were old enough to distinguish between it and hand drawn animated movies, they were also old enough to have been consciously exposed to things like Jurassic Park. I had a moment of awe the first time I saw Optimus Prime in the Bay series, and I know that awe was felt by a lot of us old time Transformers fans. But for everyone else, Prime was just another set of pixels in a just another loud, contrived, convoluted, and over-long action flick. It wasn't universal.

And God help you, Fallen Kingdom after that.

I think another part of it might be that the visual effects are so much more sophisticated now. It's easier to get in the spirit of things when a movie knows it's not fooling you but asks you to go along with it anyway. There's some heart and spunk in that. When a movie has A-level effects, though, it's not asking you to go along with the world, just the story. And the Jurassic sequels' stories have been increasingly harder to go along with. I liked the idea of Jurassic World, but then it introduced anthropomorphic merchandise and unleashed what it itself acknowledges are just theme park attractions, and it became self-parody.

And... I watched Jurassic World. Let's just say it wasn't fresh or different and offered more of the same predictable shtick as the previous two films just amped up a bit.

I'm a completist so will likely purchase a copy of the 5th movie at some point but I'm not in any kind of hurry. It'll also have to be quite cheap ($5 absolutely top price I'll pay - preferably less).

I have to admit, I've liked most of the Jurassic Park movies. III was too over-the-top with them bringing them to the mainland, but other than the first, I was just looking for some shiny, pretty dinosaur action and they kind of deliver. I even like the reboot. The next one is coming fairly soon (well, as soon as any other film in this time of the pandemic). I enjoy suspending my belief and just watching the implausible and fantastical.

I'm spending some time with my sister and her family this week, first time in months (we did do a social distanced mother's day for a couple hours) and it's been nice. A bit weird being in the same place for such a long period of time....but anyway, the reason why I am sharing this, is that we're doing a full Christmas in July day tomorrow, including a watch of the original Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas which is my top holiday film ever.

Anyone else planning on doing a Christmas in July day? I might do a film day when I get home and do some films that I missed during the last Holiday Challenge.

The local drive-in is showing Elf and the 2000 How the Grinch Stole Christmas! as a double feature on Wednesday. I can barely tolerate the former and will never forgive Ron Howard for the latter, so I will not be in attendance. I am, however, hopeful that my guts cooperate and I can go tomorrow to see The Empire Strikes Back and Black Panther. I may break out an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, though.

I'm finally at a point in the month where I'll be able to watch some science fiction and fantasy. At the very least I'm hoping to clear my streaming queues and rewatch a handful of favorites. And since I used a picture from Back to the Future on my list, this seems like a good time to visit my trilogy Blu Ray set. I've seen the first movie many times, but I don't think I've seen the two sequels in their entirety since they ran in theaters.

I got to three very different movies on Netflix tonight, that I enjoyed to different degrees: The Platform, Farmageddon (A Shaun the Sheep Movie), and I Lost My Body. While it won't be for everyone, I was most struck by I Lost My Body. I've seen so many different kinds of stories over the years, but a movie about a severed hand's adventures trying to reunite with the rest of its body is a new one for me. And while it probably sounds goofy, I found it anything but.

Over the last two nights, I streamed World on a Wire on the Criterion Channel. It's presented there in two parts, as it was originally broadcast on German TV. Pretty much every iCheckMovies, IMDb, and Letterboxd review I saw characterized it as "Fassbender made The Matrix in 1973," with the additional observation that World on a Wire is not an action flick. I had the same thought, but I would add that that is a rather reductive take on it. The premise is that in the then-current day, a state agency has neared completion of its massive simulator program, designed to play out as our real world is projected to over the course of the following decades. Ultimately, the question arises of just which world is real and which is the simulation, played out as a suspense thriller set largely in the exciting world of an office building. I was reminded of that slew of John Grisham adaptations in the 90's and early 00's, though I never actually saw any of them so maybe they didn't spend as much time in office buildings as their trailers suggested. To be fair, it also takes place in bars and clubs, where no one makes any effort to hide from eavesdroppers and eavesdroppers make no real effort to be discrete.

I was really into Part 1. I saw everything coming before our protagonist, Fred Stiller, but that worked. It's a suspense story, and as Hitchcock noted, the key to those is for the audience to be one step ahead of the character. Almost all of Part 1 is told from Fred's p.o.v., with us seeing and hearing very little that he doesn't also see and hear. What's going on isn't much of a surprise, but who's in on it and what their agendas are remains the mystery. This part kept me guessing. Part 2, however, expands and there are several scenes that Fred isn't there to see or hear key pieces of the story. I felt this undermined some of the suspense, and that it read to me as an attempt to just streamline feeding us information without having to go through Fred. The finale also has a thin explanation for why they didn't just kill Fred once it was clear he knew too much way back in Part 1. Still, I really enjoyed this one overall.

I don't blame you for skipping those! They are the worst xmas movies. The other two sound fun, though! I wish our drive-in was still operational. They closed it just a few years ago and it would come in handy now. One of our theaters has reopened but is only showing older films. They had The Goonies and I'm so sad I couldn't go see that in person on the big screen.

Over the weekend, I watched Willow for the first time. Like many of the dark fantasies of the 80s, I had heard divisive opinions about it from friends, so I had lowered my expectations. I didn't need to, because it's a fun fantasy romp with some really weird monster designs. I really enjoyed it! I was also surprised at how indebted some scenes and aesthetic choices Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy are to it. The wizard duel scene from LoTR is especially similar to one in Willow.

I also rewatched the 2008 adaptation of Journey to the Center of the Earth which is one of those movies I could pretty much watch any time. Brendan Fraser is the perfect mixture of hunky and neebish to make me a bit weak in the knees. I'm also a fan of Anita Briem's performance. I looked up her imdb page, and the only other thing I've seen her in is an episode of Doctor Who, but I don't remember her. She also plays Jane Seymour in The Tudors which make me want to watch the show past the deaths of Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon.

Unfortunately, the sequel loses both actors, but it subs in Dwayne Johnson who brings his own brand of hunkiness. In fact this is peak Dwayne Johnson for me. In the years before, he was in Fast Five (one of the better entries in that franchise) and The Other Guys which highlights just how natural his comedic timing can be. Anyway, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is sillier and flashier than it's predecessor. Luis Guzman is along for the ride, and his enthusiasm of infectious. Michael Caine rides a giant bee. What's not to like?

I watched Fritz Lang's Woman in the Moon Sunday. The Kino remaster is almost fully restored and runs 2 hours, 49 minutes. At times it feels that long but others it moves along quite quickly. The score fits well although there are a few times I feel it's a bit "light" for what's on screen. It's an interesting film with some rather bold, although inaccurate, theories (breathable atmosphere on the dark side being one - but that saves lots of story time for other things). In the end it's more of a romance film than anything else but has enough action to keep you interested. It also used some very innovative procedures, many of which made their way into modern space travel.

From Wikipedia
Yesterday was a rewatching of The H Man but a new copy - the recent Mill Creek BR which also includes Battle in Outer Space (that one'll be watched sometime this week). It's an improvement over the earlier triple-feature DVD (those 2 movies plus Mothra) and also includes the US and original Japanese cuts of the films. It's a very slow to start movie and you think it's going to be nothing but a crime/noir until about half way through. At that point it shares similarities to The Blob which saw release later that same year.

I'm with both of you there. I detest both films. My dislike of Elf is all because I absolutely can't stand Will Ferrell (my grandkids, unfortunately, love it so it gets a regular viewing). Howard's Grinch movie is just not that good, or fun, and goes on too long. The cartoon is just right in length for that story.

I somehow thought The Goonies would qualify for this challenge - but it doesn't and I have a new BR just waiting to be watched. The first time I saw that one I didn't like it but it's grown on me over the years and I find it rather fun now.

Thinking about Avalon (2001), Resurrection of the Little Match Girl (2002) or The Princess Blade (2001) tonight. I've seen the first two, so I'm leaning toward The Princess Blade. I've also been thinking about some Czech stuff, like Who Wants to Kill Jessie? (1966), but I think I'll a few of those next week.

Anybody other than me suffered through 2012? 2 hours and 40 minutes of non stop CGI disaster action combined with crappy dialogue and bad acting. Holy cow what was Roland Emmerich thinking?

Finished the Criterion Channel's Auteurs in Space collection with the short, La jetée. This was my second viewing; I first saw it ten years ago. I respect the artistic construction of telling the stories exclusively with still photos save a few seconds of actual film. I get the cleverness of its narrative. But I gotta be honest, I'm just not moved by it. Maybe I've just seen too many other riffs on the idea, maybe still photos aren't enough for me to fully invest in the character, or maybe I'm just an heartless dunce not sophisticated enough to appreciate it. I dunno. Also, I'm not entirely sold that actual time travel takes place at all, or whether it's merely a matter of conducting some weaponized form of EMDR. I can't put together what the "reality" of his future travels would be or what the power source he provides the scientists is if it's not a metaphor, nor can I even suss out what it would be a metaphor for if it's not a literal power source.

Emmerich lost me after The Day After Tomorrow. I get that the idea was that our short-sighted American political leaders doomed us all by their rejection of climate change, but the movie comes off as Climate Change took off its belt and told America, "I'm giving you to the count of ten" and after ten started doling out welts. It happens so severely and so abruptly that I couldn't take it seriously, and I'm someone who accepts that climate change is a reality and that short-sighted American political leaders are dooming us all. The coda taking a swipe at America's xenophobia and especially its mistreatment of Mexico also failed to resonate with me. Partly that's because it was also abrupt, thrown in at the end as "Oh, by the way, Americans need Mexicans now because everything is still normal south of the Rio Grande", partly because it's absurd that climate change respects borders, but mostly because by then I just hated everyone and was rooting for climate change to kill them all.

Yep I re-watched it and it was as bad as I remembered. I am a fan of brainless disaster films but I can't abide by that one.

That makes two of us... I watched it some time back (I think it was for one of the challenges - don't recall for sure) because I discovered it's the inspiration for Gilliam's 12 Monkeys and was unimpressed. I also do not like "art films" at all and have never seen one I'd want to watch again.

I did a food based double feature (hey, maybe add this to the checklist next year, I think there's probably enough movies for it to fly) tonight with The God of Cookery (1996) and Ratatouille (2007). For all their differences the two movies basically arrive at the same conclusion.

I love God of Cookery and is one of my favourite Chow movies.

Willow is awesome! I used to watch it all the time as a kid, a family favorite, and thought that it wouldn't hold up the first time I watched it as an adult, but it really does. Warwick Davis is really good as the main character. Actually, looking at his bio at IMDb, I think we should add him to the actors list next year. He's almost in every major sci-fi/fantasy film since the 80s. I liked those Journey films, too. They're a bit cheesy but definitely watchable. Once I get home, I may have to watch those two and Willow! I have never been a big fan of 3D because I don't think a full film usually makes it worth while wearing 3D glass and paying 5 bucks more but the first Journey to the Center of the Earth uses it so well!

I hate Will Ferrell. I've tried but I can't stand him. Serious film, comedy film, nope. Elf is one of the worst of them too. My sis wanted to watch it on Tuesday, but we watched Spiderwick instead. She and her family love it, but while I've grown to tolerate The Christmas Story, Elf is a hard pass.

We could try it next year! Anyone object or think there wouldn't be enough titles?

I came up with these off the top of my head:

The God of Cookery (1996)
Ratatouille (2007)
The Stuff (1985)
Delicatessen (1991)
The Food of the Gods (1971)
Soylent Green (1973)

That's a reasonable start and I'm sure there's other food/foodie SF/F movies out there.

I'll put it in the idea section on the first post to talk about more next year!

Matango (1963) AKA Attack of the Mushroom People ... put me off eating mushrooms as a kid
Okja (2017) Which, sorry to say, I'd probably give a shot to see what it tasted like
Bad Taste (1987)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movies.