Bingowings said:
SilverWook said:
captainsolo, can you recommend Gods and Monsters? I've been curious about it.
It makes a great double bill with Ed Wood (1994).
Though those sort of drama/biography things always make me feel uncomfortable especially when they aren't too accurate.
Haven't seen it in ages, but Bingo nails how I felt originally seeing it. Though now coming in knowing more about Whale I might be able to appreciate it better.
DuracellEnergizer said:
captainsolo said:
And speaking of the ongoing MoS debate and the horrid Supes movies that keep coming down the pipeline...I read this recently and felt it worked as a movie so well...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Son_%28comics%29
The plot description leaves me cold, to be quite honest. It's just more preoccupation with Krypton, Phantom Zone criminals, yada, yada, yada. Movies need to move away from all that; it's time that the human side of the character -- the side that is Clark Kent -- was focused on.
So did I, upon seeing it in a library, but then I noticed that Donner had actually co-written the book which necessitated my reading it. What I found most appealing was the frequent glimpses of humanity within.
FanFiltration said:
THE 13th FLOOR (1999)
I enjoyed this, yet it did have a fair amount of brutal violence. It's a murder mystery film that is kind of a cross between "The Matrix" and "Dark City".
Always meant to see this as it sounded different and featured one of my favorite songs in the history of time on the soundtrack. ("Erase/Rewind" from The Cardigans' masterpiece Gran Turismo)
ray_afraid said:
captainsolo said:
I went through the majority of the Universal classics...though it gets verry bad:
Dracula-Masterpiece with all of its flaws. 4/4
Spanish version-Better made in every way but drags on too long and is inferior sadly. 3/4
Frankenstein-Masterpiece. 4/4
The Mummy-Masterpiece. 4/4
The Old Dark House-I LOVE JIMMY WHALE. 4/4
The Invisible Man-Masterpiece. 4/4
The Black Cat-Obviously shorn to pieces by censors, made obvious by the ludicrous lack of plotting. Still it's Bela vs. Boris amidst supreme atmosphere, what's not to love? 3/4
Bride of Frankenstein-One of the great American films, one of the best films ever made, arguably the best picture of the 1930's, Whale's masterpiece, and easily by and large the greatest of all horror films. 4/4
Son of Frankenstein-Most underrated Universal horror. A great classic with Lugosi's best performance. 4/4
The Wolf Man-the least of the original monsters, because of plotting and low budgets, TWM excels in atmosphere and character portrayal with Lon Chaney Jr. truly nailing Talbot's accursed existence and Claude Rains performing as the screen's greatest supporting actor. 4/4
Nice reviews! Bold-ed for agreement! Bride Of Frankenstein is my favorite film. James Whale is too wonderful for words. Glad to see someone else giving Son Of Frankenstein some respect. I think it fits right along with the first two and is followed up nicely by Mel Brooks Young Frankenstein.
Thanks! Whale so imprinted his own personal brand of life into his films that they are absolutely one of a kind. Bride absolutely was life changing for me.
And Son is a remarkably effective film that gets no credit whatsoever. There would have been no 40's horror revival without it, or if it had been filmed/released as written because the script was rather poor. In fact, the film as stands is and was largely improvised by the director and cast on-set. The big drawback is that there became very little for the Creature to do besides stand around as a figure of horror, leaving Karloff's last performance rather understated.
LMS:
Abominable Dr. Phibes-Eloquent, pure joy that paved the way towards the glorious Theater of Blood. DON'T FREAKING REMAKE THIS BURTON!!! 4/4
And I started the 1943 Batman serials for the first time...deplorable quality in places but despite the cheesiness and poor production--this is seriously watchable stuff folks. Though watch out for typical racist anti-Japanese sentiment commonplace of WWII era media.