The Silver Screen Oasis

RedRiver wrote:Actually though, it isn't bad

It certainly isn't! Production values aren't much. It's not exactly intellectual. But it's fun, exciting, silly in a good way. I like it. I've rarely seen Lon in something I didn't enjoy. Don't even get me going on THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE. That's terrifying!

I've not seen The Alligator People Red. I'll have my own PC in a few days (a first for me!), and I'll catch it then. Someone posted a documentary on Lon, on Youtube, which I shall also enjoy seeing. The opening portion includes a clip from the movie, where Lon belts a girl, after he's told her he just wants her to be nice to him!

It's many years since I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I liked the fact that it is actually set in the 18th Century (I have a fondness for the 18th and 17th Centuries). However, it's least convincing conceit (apart from the main premise) is the eloquence attained by the monster while hiding-out. This, for example: "...my food is not that of man, I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; acorns and berries afford my sufficient nourishment." Tinned tomatoes on toast is a pleasure he missed!

While as a bonafide Monsterkid I'm naturally indebted to Mary Shelley's tale, I always had problems with the book. Chiefly, how the creature learns to speak (as you say, Joe) so eloquently merely by overhearing a peasant teaching an Arabian nobelwoman the English language, coming to converse (or debate) on a level equal to his brilliant creator - and often with an existential credo.

Personally I prefer: "Friend good. Fire no good."

The Tarzan books offer an impressive feat of language as well. The man is raised by monkeys, meets one Frenchman, and VOILA! Professor Greystoke, I presume?

Right. Good call, R.R. A far cry from Weismuller's "Me Tarzan. You Jane" interpretation - which I also prefer to its literary inspiration.

I also like how Frankenstein's creature is able to both read and absorb Paradise Lost. Heck, with his rapid intelligence maybe he should have been the creator and Frankenstein his experimental subject.

And he didn't even have CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED!

You know what? I can't remember if I've seen William Castle's MACABRE! It just came up on another site. I said I'd seen it. Now I'm not so sure. The notion of Jim Backus as main character sounds familiar. (It's not something you'd easily forget!) But I sure don't remember much, if anything.

If I haven't seen it, it is now at the top of my list. You can't go wrong with Big Bill Castle!

I saw a slew of SCI-FI movies today on TCM ...

Cosmic Monsters, The (1958)
Giant Behemoth, The (1959)
X The Unknown (1956)
Satellite in the Sky (1956)

All pretty good, but I like X The Unknown the best ... followed by The Cosmic Monsters, The Giant Behemoth, and then Satellite in the Sky was okay but bit corny in a way - that's the first time I've seen it.

I have seen 5 Godzilla Movies featuring Mechagodzilla and I ranked each of the 5 movies that I saw over the past two week on my TV.

Rankings of Movies

1. 1974 Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla
2. 2002 Godzilla against Mechagodzilla
3. 1975 Terror of Mechagodzilla
4. 1993 Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II
5. 2003 Godzilla Tokyo S.O.S.

Well, it only took 19 months, but I finally finished the first season of AMC's Interview with the Vampire. And, although that season only takes one about halfway through Anne Rice's original novel, I find it better than both its source novel and its 1994 cinematic predecessor.

In my opinion, using the source novel as the bones of the series but fleshing it out differently was a stroke of genius. You may have had an idea of what was coming but how it was coming was unknown.

The real question now is whether I dive into AMC's Mayfair Witches which is set in the same Immortal Universe (Why does everyone have to have a shared universe?!?) as Interview with the Vampire. Because, although I enjoyed reading Interview with the Vampire way back in the day, the only other Anne Rice books that I've read were its first two sequels, The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned. And my opinion of them was just meh enough to deter me from tackling her other novels. So, I'm afraid that I'd find this other series equally meh.

On the other hand, though, Alexandra Daddario, the lead of that other series, has great eyes.

LiamCasey wrote: ↑May 20th, 2024, 7:39 pm Well, it only took 19 months, but I finally finished the first season of AMC's Interview with the Vampire. And, although that season only takes one about halfway through Anne Rice's original novel, I find it better than both its source novel and its 1994 cinematic predecessor.

In my opinion, using the source novel as the bones of the series but fleshing it out differently was a stroke of genius. You may have had an idea of what was coming but how it was coming was unknown.

The real question now is whether I dive into AMC's Mayfair Witches which is set in the same Immortal Universe (Why does everyone have to have a shared universe?!?) as Interview with the Vampire. Because, although I enjoyed reading Interview with the Vampire way back in the day, the only other Anne Rice books that I've read were its first two sequels, The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned. And my opinion of them was just meh enough to deter me from tackling her other novels. So, I'm afraid that I'd find this other series equally meh.

On the other hand, though, Alexandra Daddario, the lead of that other series, has great eyes.

I've read the reviews of the Interview show, and they've been largely positive, like your take. But I didn't watch it as I was peeved about the changes to the source material. I was a big fan of the first three books, and was mildly annoyed at the '94 film and really annoyed at the awful Queen of the Damned movie with Aaliyah, so I was ticked off when I saw that many liberties were being taken with the material again. I get the casting decision with Claudia, as depicting a "child that never ages" is next-to-impossible in a TV series that takes years to produce. But the racial aspects of the TV casting also fundamentally changes the dynamics of the story/setting (I believe they may have updated the setting some because of this?).

That being said, I did watch the first episode of Mayfair Witches, but gave up on it after that. I, too, am enamored of Alexandra Daddario, and also have liked Jack (grandson of John) Huston in other stuff, but the pilot was too generic to get me to devote the time to another series.

I believe that AMC is also considering other "connected" shows based on the other Rice books that are part of the same "universe", like The Mummy.

Oh, and I meant to add that because of your recommendation, Liam Casey, I plan on giving the Interview show a shot, after all.

LiamCasey wrote: ↑May 20th, 2024, 7:39 pm Well, it only took 19 months, but I finally finished the first season of AMC's Interview with the Vampire. And, although that season only takes one about halfway through Anne Rice's original novel, I find it better than both its source novel and its 1994 cinematic predecessor.

In my opinion, using the source novel as the bones of the series but fleshing it out differently was a stroke of genius. You may have had an idea of what was coming but how it was coming was unknown.

The real question now is whether I dive into AMC's Mayfair Witches which is set in the same Immortal Universe (Why does everyone have to have a shared universe?!?) as Interview with the Vampire. Because, although I enjoyed reading Interview with the Vampire way back in the day, the only other Anne Rice books that I've read were its first two sequels, The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned. And my opinion of them was just meh enough to deter me from tackling her other novels. So, I'm afraid that I'd find this other series equally meh.

On the other hand, though, Alexandra Daddario, the lead of that other series, has great eyes.

I hated the 1994 movie with Tom Cruise as Lestat.

I preferred Stuart Townsend's Lestat in QUEEN OF THE DAMNED although the movie was just so-so,

The 1959 JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH brought back conflicted memories since still to this day I am traumatized by what happens to Gertrude the Duck.

James Mason's Scottish accent comes and goes. Mainly goes, but who cares. He's the perfect tweedy, fussy, obsessive Victorian scientist/explorer, suspicious of women (the lovely Arlene Dahl in particular), eager to challenge the boundaries of his intellectual field, and nonplussed by oversized iguanas. Pat Boone is along for the ride.

It can all come out in the open now.

I have been infatuated with Dudley Manlove as the alien Eros in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE for decades. Seeing this Ed Wood classic again, my emotions are still the same. Dudley's famous radio voice sends tingles down my spine with every stupid line of dialogue. "You see? You're STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!!" Dudley cuts a fine figure wearing those shiny outer-space togs.

I would mate with him.