brainee

And how could I forget:

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)

Travis McClain

Having offended BobO'Link earlier by saying I favored the '05 War of the Worlds to his beloved '53, I felt I owed it another viewing. I regret to say my feelings about the '53 remain unchanged. It's not a case of feeling the '05 is "better," because I felt detached from it when I first saw it some time in the early 90's, well before there was a Spielberg film to compare it to. But I do point to the '05 because it brought to light for me why I just don't care for the '53.

The visual and sound effects are impressive. Despite its 1.66:1 aspect ratio, there is a sense of a large scale to the production that's even more impressive here in the CGI era. I do feel some pangs of anxiety at the Martians' relentless, merciless march across California. But I just don't care about a single person in the picture. The budding romance between Forrester and Sylvia feels like an interruption of the real story, and worse, it's so rote that it isn't even a charming budding romance. I'm not rooting for them to get together. I'm impatient for them to get back to something else.

That something else is wherever the top military officials are, where Forrester--despite being just a civilian scientist--is welcomed and treated like an equal by both Colonel Heffner and General Mann. He's part of the planning team. Aside from the farmhouse sequence (which I admit made me jump but also irked me because I saw no good reason why the Martians didn't just decimate that house and keep moving) and the finale on the city streets, Forrester is never really powerless or vulnerable. Contrarily, in the '05 version, Tom Cruise never gets anywhere near one of those rooms where the counter strikes are planned, no one is asking his advice, and he has absolutely no idea what is even happening except whatever he can see in his own field of vision. On top of that, he's not almost-kissing someone he just met; he's trying to keep his children safe. He's powerless, vulnerable, and desperate; Forrester is almost never any of those things.

brainee

Last night I watched Butt Boy (it's on Amazon Prime). It's nice to see that there are still movies that are about things I've never seen before. IMDb synopsis:
Of course, one could argue that just because an idea has never been done before doesn't mean someone should do it I thought it worked well for what it was trying to do, and the movie plays extremely straight (though very aware of how silly the whole thing was).

Travis McClain

If not to tell stories about people being lost inside someone else's butt, why even have the science-fiction and fantasy genres?

Giles

I really haven't had the time to watch or indulge in this challenge, due to a personal loss, grief and family in town for nearly a month. Vivarium was totally depressing; The Old Guard was just weird and felt very derivative of a whole bunch of ideas thrown together to resemble something of a plot. I plan on watching 'The Mandalorian' next week.

BobO'Link

Nah... not offended at all. To each his own. I find the Spielberg version to be loud and obnoxious. Lots of running and screaming coupled with CGI overload. And the obligatory, unnecessary, kid he seems to throw in many of his films.

Fist of Doom Jr

Isn't that a J.R.R. Tolkien quote?

brainee

I watched this before the challenge ... yeah, it was one of those movies that you just know isn't going to leave you feeling good at the end. Pretty well done, though the story seemed stretched a bit thin for a feature-length film. And it had one of the creepiest kids I've seen.

I just finished watching this. I don't think I'd call it weird (not after seeing movies this month about people vanishing up a guy's butt and a dismembered hand on a quest to find its body). But I agree that it was awfully derivative. Not just in story but in style. Despite reportedly costing $70 million it felt like a SyFy channel tv pilot (especially with the incessant pop song soundtrack).

That sounds like the pick-me-up your viewing needs this month

Giles

I let my nephew in law pick "The Old Guard" to watch and I found it interesting that he and his sister totally got off on the violence and honestly, I know people respond to a death in a family differently, but sheesh kids, your uncle just died - okay, we all mourn in different ways and all - whatever, "teenagers!". And that was my major problem with 'Vivarium' - that's movie's plot and tone was too soon for me to watch and process

after seeing Josh Gates interview Jesse Eisenberg I thought it sounded interesting, promptly after enduring the movie, I had to watch an episode of 'Portlandia' to get that taste out of my mouth. It was certainly different and creative, but it doesn't leave with you a warm and fuzzy feeling at the end. Any recommendations on comedy/sci-fi movies/tv shows - I need some comedy to save myself from falling into a depressive state.

shadokitty

^ I just finished Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian on Encore. I thought it had a feel good vibe.

Travis McClain

I'm sorry for your loss, Giles. My condolences to you and yours.

Travis McClain

Question: Does watching the 1953 and 2005 Wars of the Worlds qualify for "watch a film and its remake/reboot"? They're really just two different adaptations of the same source material, but thought I'd ask. Going forward, maybe make "two adaptations..." an alternate for that one?

orlmac

I have a question about the movie Inuyasha the Movie 4: Fire on the Mystice Island. The first three movies were all listed as Fantasy but this one is not. It is clearly fantasy (girl from current time period goes to past to help a half-demon boy and his friends) but I just wanted to confirm that it would count for the checklist. I can be more descriptive if that is needed.

Travis McClain

I think the title alone confirms it's Fantasy.

coyoteblue

I'm starting to get antsy for the Animation Challenge. I watched Black Magic M-66 (1987) last night and I may go ahead and include an animated movie or tv episode to each nights schedule for the rest of the SF/F Challenge. There's less than two weeks left to the challenge. If I can keep my pace I should break 100 around the weekend, leaving the remaining days of the month for the gravy.

BobO'Link

I watched the Cloverfield trilogy yesterday. I purchased the set simply because I got it for less than the third film by itself. I don't like the 1st, the 2nd's not much better, and the 3rd, while the best of the 3, also goes off the rails at the end I'm unlikely to watch these again.

I don't like the 1st because it's a "found footage" film. At this point there's exactly *one* film of that type I've seen that I like: Trollhunter. The 2nd is just another abduction/captive/torture/horror type film. People talk about how good John Goodman is in the film but I find him rather stiff and stilted with his delivery. It had become rather stale and cliche when it totally went off the rails for the last 10 or 15 minutes. That was the best part of the movie and was far too short. I thought the general premise of the 3rd was pretty good until they absolutely ruined it at the end. I've read there're supposed to be more films in the series, possibly tying them all together (wouldn't be too hard considering the endings), but I won't bother with them. This trilogy is just one more example of why I typically don't care for product from J.J. Abrams.

Then I watched Justice League for the first time. It wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting. I thought the villain's name, Steppenwolf, was rather comical considering I associate that name with the 60s/70s power rock protest band (who took the name from a book by Herman Hesse). I looked it up thinking Snyder was just stupid to use the name only to discover it was Jack Kirby who created the character in 1972 and gave him that name. I don't know if he was kidding or serious but IMHO it shows a distinct lack of imagination. Outside that I found the movie to be quite entertaining.

After that was The Projected Man, a 1966 film which seems to have borrowed from The Fly and 4D Man. It has a 3.5 rating at IMDB but I liked it much better than that. It's really quite an entertaining "B" SF film from that era.

And I finished the day with the BR of The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas. My biggest issue with this one has always been Forrest Tucker. I feel he's miscast, especially along side Peter Cushing.

LJG765

Yep, I'd consider it a remake since they are both using the same book.

I would say yes, it would count. I don't even begin to understand how or why the genres are picked at IMDb.com

These two challenges go well together, I think. Sci-fi and Animation. So much of animation is a crossover with Fantasy/sci-fi that you could easily have 2 months of animation.

LJG765

I'm watching 20 Million Miles to Earth, a Ray Harryhausen film. The plot is pretty basic, astronauts crash land in Italy after returning from Venus. Of course, they are not the only survivors. The next bit is a spoiler:



Indy24LA

Got an interesting email from AT&T, since we use them for internet, we get HBOMAX for free. This opened a lot of new options. We finished The Outsider (very good) and are on to Westworld season 3 and Doom Patrol.

popcorn

For the challenge list, I've always done them singularly, one individual movie per challenge. I'm down to ten challenges remaining. Thanks to this COVID-19 lockdown/work from home, I've been able to get a lot more movies in this year. I'm currently watching my 60th, the 1953 edition of The War of the Worlds.

LJG765

Wow! That's pretty impressive! I've tried doing that, but depending on when the challenge is, my watching time gets lower so I just use one film multiple times. Though, at the end of the challenge, you might want to see if you can blackout the challenge list for an extra entry to the prize drawing.

BobO'Link

Good luck with that. For several entries there are only 1-4 films that qualify with most being unavailable and/or very obscure.

LJG765

Please let me know which categories that are that low. I know I added a few new ones at the beginning of the challenge that might have been questionable but any older ones too. I know the checklist is getting long and want to organize it a bit for next year.

BobO'Link

For sure, the NC-17 rating. There are 3 films that qualify. That one surprised me as I expected "X" to have fewer choices (although there are few "watchable" films with that rating - for me it amounts to "Watch the original Robocop").

While there are more films to choose from, I've always argued against including the current decade in the years category until it's a couple of years in to provide more selection without resorting to going to the theater or purchasing/renting new releases. Of course there are quite a few TV series but, at least in my case, I'd have several seasons to watch to get to the current year and even this those episodes are only on streaming or broadcast (I'm one of those people who don't subscribe to streaming services or have my TV connected to cable - I have Amazon Prime streaming only because it's included with Prime).

The 1890 decade is pretty much "Watch one of Georges Méliès' early experimental films if you can find one." At least the few available are very short, typically a minute or less.

While there are others, the 1900 decade might as well say "Watch Méliès' 'A Trip to the Moon'" based on what most put on that line historically. I know if I bother with that one this year that's the film I'll watch as it's the easiest to find.

The "Watch a film that takes place in the "past" but the year has not yet come" entry was discussed as a possible merger item since it has only 3 (IIRC) qualifying films (unless someone came up with others).

Francis Lawrence is pretty light on entries with 5 (or 6?) with half being "Hunger Games" films.

Benedict Cumberbatch also feels a bit light with entries (looks like a lot but upon examination really isn't as more than a few look to be very small parts).

I'm sure there are others but I pretty much gave up looking things up after realizing the ratings were a show stopper for me.

LJG765

I've struggled with ratings and a few "unwatchable" categories myself, which is once I became the host, that I broke away from the having to watch every category to complete the list (which was a lot shorter back then too.) This is a link to my 2012 list if you want to see that year's checklist. The two I hated were the under the earth one and the under the sea one. I basically had to watch one or two movies over and over for that one which got boring quickly. The ratings that I've always wondered about have been the GP and M ratings which seem to have only been used a couple years each, so realistically, how many actual films qualify for those 2?

I just spent some time hunting down where we talked about adding more detailed ratings (10th annual discussion thread, page 12), but there wasn't anything in depth or arguments against including the full suggested list. Anyone else want to remove some of the ratings permanently?

This year is a bit different since I'm offering the blackout entry, which I mainly did to encourage people to do the checklist. I also wanted to know if it was possible in a reasonable manner and figured I'd get feedback if it wasn't. I will say it is super easy to get two entries for prizes and fairly easy to get 3. You won't lose those 3 if you don't complete the blackout, in case anyone was worried about that. Though...blackout is supposed to be a lot harder to finish than just getting "bingo."

For the most part, I don't know that I would remove the ratings or the decade since to complete the checklist, you do have options: watch 9 out of 14, for instance. I also don't know if I'll offer the blackout option again next year, but we'll see how it plays out this year. The decade one (2020), I'll leave for the same reason. I know you mentioned that you don't have cable/satellite or many streaming options. Have you thought of your local library? I get movies and TV shows from there all the time, free.

I get what you're saying about not having a ton of options for the 2020 check, but especially if you include TV, there are enough out there you can watch for free (many stations will post the most current episode a day after airing for at least a short period to watch.) And if you can't, to complete the list, you could always skip that decade. For the earlier years, 1890s/1900s, I often use Youtube to find shorts that qualify. I do tend to use a Georges Méliès film since it counts for a couple checks at once, but I know there are others out there. L. Frank Baum has a few based on his Oz books, for instance.

I'll add your suggestions to the opening posts so that I don't forget to discuss them again next year. (Remove director Francis Lawrence, actor Benedict Cumberbatch. Discuss removing NC-17/X/GP/M ratings, removing 1890s, 2020 decade until there are more years. I've already noted to review how the new time travel one does this year.)