A Whole New World

I know a lot of y'all aren't too crazy about disney, but personally, I think they did an amazing job with the live action Aladdin. I know it isn't the same without Robin Williams as the iconic genie, but Will Smith did an incredible job. He didn't try to be Robin Williams. He embodied the genie in a way that made the movie an incredible experience, while still paying respect to the original.

I watched Aladdin so much as a kid, but it has been years since I have seen it, but the minute the music started playing it all came back. The movie kept all of the original songs with just a few tweaks on a couple, and it even had a new song. I loved every minute of each song.

It was a mesmorizing experience. The cast was amazing, and everyone did such an incredible job bringing the movie to life.


Also Aladdin is loosely based off a short story in "One thousand and one nights," so it counts for May's challenge.

Stephen King Challenge

For the next two weeks of this literary challenge spin-off, it's a Stephen King ordeal, since that dude has infinite material.

From Sunday, May 12th to Saturday, May 25th:

+1 point per Stephen King movie OR tv show episode/mini-series episode, including sequels/episodes to his movies that he didn't necessarily have anything to do with. "It" (1990) is a mini-series, but it's basically 2 movies/episodes, and that would count as 2 points.

+1 if he directed it (Maximum Overdrive only)
+1 if set in Maine (ie Castle Rock)
+1 if a kid dies (does not stack)
+1 if an animal dies (does not stack)
+1 if he cameos (ie hogey-man in Knightriders)
+1 if Mick Garris directed it
+1 for FTV

Rewatches don't count. Make your SPOT, cuz this could get interesting.

Those goddamn Avengers... They did it again!

As much as I want to hate on modern cinematic drivel, I still make an exception for Marvel movies. Marvel was part of my youth, so I feel obligated to my younger self to stick with it, and sometimes... it stinks. Sometimes... it's incredible.

I wont ramble on that movie though... It was a crazy good satisfying conclusion to their 11 year effort, and I have no idea where they'll go from here. They probably don't even know. If Dark Phoenix is the conclusion to the X-Men verse, then Disney can merge all of its Fox properties into an even bigger scope. It's almost nauseating to think about it.


I read that some dude in China shouted spoilers for this movie, and he got a beatdown. 😄

The movie is killing it in the box office, though. Busy, busy... Too bad Universal made a really shitty movie and blew their chances at a cinematic universe. Instead, all we have now is the Conjuring-verse, and who wants that? The Conjuring stuff is why New Line isn't making any more Freddy movies, and that's some shit right there.

So yeah... Avengers was great and all, but it's no Citizen Toxie.

About "Prince of Darkness"

I saw this, for the seventeen bajillionth time, last night at a midnight showing. I guess there really is something special about seeing it on a big screen, because I had an idea that I don't know if I've ever had before, despite having seen the movie, as I said, seventeen bajillion times already.

There are several ideas in the movie that Carpenter probably borrowed from The Quatermass Experiment. There must be a lot of websites, Youtube videos, etc where people talk about this connection. But, I think the short story Beep, by James Blish, or its expanded version The Quincunx of Time, may also have been an influence/inspiration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quincunx_of_Time

This occurred to me because, as I mentioned last night in the shoutbox, I realized that the Professor Birack character is probably inspired by the real theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. Somewhere in my $%&•$#@!ing cluttered apartment I have an anthology of science fiction stories that includes the short story Beep, which I mentioned above. They talk a lot about Paul Dirac in that story.

By the way, I'm pretty sure that another book by the author of Beep, James Blish, was a big inspiration for Mortal Engines, the book that was adapted into the movie of the same title last year. Whoops, I lost control of that sentence, I meant to mention that the James Blish book that probably helped inspire Mortal Engines was called Cities in Flight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_in_Flight

Other inspirations for Prince of Darkness MIGHT have included Chariots of the Gods, by Erich von Daniken, and a few books that try to connect quantum mechancs and theoretical physics to religion, like The Tao of Physics, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, and... there's another one like those books... I'll come back to this thread when I think of it.

Trailer for Terminator: Dark Fate

What do you think of this? I'd been waiting my whole life for the real Terminator 3, and it's finally coming. The trailer is a big tease though, and it doesn't show enough of what I'm looking for.



So as you can see, we have an endoskeleton with a liquid metal skin. The last few movies always made the new machines ridiculously over-the-top and it kind of pissed me off. This time, they just merged the first two villains into one, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I wish they wouldn't try to make things look "cool" and sleek, though. The machines started out as clunky robots that weren't trying to impress anybody with strong acrobatics. They were just armored killing machines.

Judging by this trailer, I'm still not sure what the story is. There's some girl who's basically the new Sarah Connor, while the old Sarah Connor is trying to protect her, along with some other overly-advanced hybrid type.

I sure hope the R-rating is pushed to the max, and that Arnold has a somewhat prominent role. As you can see, he's only in the trailer for 2 seconds, but every terminator fan knows that the movies don't work well without him.

Very vague, but I'm optimistic.

OT: Recently developed forms of personal transport

Do people ever say OT here?!? As I was typing it, I thought "whoa, major IMDB flashback, here."

Anyway, in the last few minutes I saw one guy riding a onewheel, and someone else on a Lime electric scooter. There are so many funky things like those, these days. There are hovershoes, hoverboards, Segway minipros... I had to fool around on Google to even find the names of these things. Where the hell did all these gadgets come from? Does anybody have any personal favorite modes of personal transportation that have only come into existence in the last few years? I also like stand up paddleboards, by the way, but right now I'm thinking of newfangled modes of transportation for short range travel on land, like around your local town or city center. What comes to mind for you??

Just to make this a little less OT... it might be fun to create a horror movie that employed as many things like that as possible... just have every character riding around on electric scooters, hovershoes, onewheels, etc. Maybe they could also be operating drones, and/or remote controlled miniature submarines, etc. You could have a modern young person armed with as many of those devices as posisble, going up against some kind of monster from old movies... not sure exactly how that would work, but maybe it could be a fairly funny secondary plotline in a horror comedy.

But back to my earlier question: can you think of any other funky, very modern, gadgety sorts of personal transport that I might not even know about?? I think these things look so cutting edge... I'm sure they'll be incredibly obsolete and ridiculous-looking in five years, but, whatever.

The Mule (2018)

Damn good movie. Based on a true story of a 90 year old flower guy who gets in deep with the cartel after running drugs for them. He uses his money to help out his family and friends, but things escalate, as they always do.

Clint Eastwood is so old, but he's still got it. He even manages to score with a few young ladies. "I'm a high-end gigolo", he says.

The fact that he's still acting and directing is amazing. You'd think he'd have made his best movies years ago. I thought Gran Torino would be his swan song, but this one here is yet another 5 star movie.

Great cast, great performances, and great drama. If you like Clint Eastwood, give it a watch. If you don't, well... go fuck yourself.

Rest in Peace, Chewie! Peter Mayhew (1944-2019)

Everybody likes that wookie, right? Even if you're not a big fan of Star Wars, you'll still appreciate a giant hairy beast that hangs out with Harrison Ford, and Chewbacca was a great sidekick. One of the best.

Peter was a tall fucker, though. It lead to health problems with his back and knees, so he couldn't be as adventurous as his days in the sci-fi 70s and 80s, but he was always good to his fans. He was supposed to do a big convention soon, and that's got to be awful for everyone.

I always like to brag that I met him, and am even vaguely related to him. He's my step-uncle, if that's the proper term for it. I wont say I actually knew him or hung out with him, but I have seen him a few times at family events, many years ago.

I've been to two different houses of his before, and the one time I remember most is when he lived on some patch of land off some random country road, and he had this great big trailer in his yard full of all kinds of Star Wars shit. It had a bunch of vintage toys, signed pictures, props, and other things. Too bad Star Wars merchandise is abundant as hell these days, but the original stuff will always be worth something.

I know Peter didn't do much beyond Star Wars, but he must have appreciated being part of something as epic as the franchise has become. Sure, they have "A" Chewbacca in the new movies, but Peter was the O.G.

RIP

Twilight, Taintlight, and Robert Pattinson

Twilight was all the rage back in the late 2000s... among pre-pubescent girls. Quite frankly, it's a stupid movie. Everyone knows they sparkle, but why? They look really stupid when they run super fast. Why are vampires playing baseball? The world may never know.

Taintlight is a far superior knockoff. It's made by Chris Seaver, so you know it's at least entertaining. Stella and Edgar are queefloads better than Bella and Edward. Plus, the movie is on youtube:



I'm not against recent news of Robert Pattinson as Batman, though. He was supposed to be in a Harmony Korine movie "The Trap", announced well before Beach Bum came out, but there still hasn't been any word on that.

Batman or Harmony Korine? Tough choice.

Movies for the Blind

I spend a lot of time half watching shows and movies with out hardly looking at the screen. So, I'm just intersted in what people would considered the 1 movie they would take with them to a desert island, if they were blinded before having to make the choice.