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Posts Tagged ‘H.G. Wells’

Summer Movie Flashback: War of the Worlds

Wednesday, August 28th, 2013

tn_waroftheworlds

2006
2005

Wow – WAR OF THE WORLDS holds up. I remember it being the most intense PG-13 movie ever, but I thought maybe with the escalation of that rating since the Joker stabbed a guy with a pencil in DARK KNIGHT maybe it wouldn’t seem as harsh by today’s standards.

Nope. This movie is a fuckin nightmare! It starts as an anxiety dream (oh shit, what if my kids come over and I show up late and forgot to clean up and my ex-wife and her husband see that I don’t have any food and…) then one of those ones where you see weird shit in the sky (a strange electrical storm) and in the distance (3-legged alien attack machines), and then it’s a disaster one (mobs attacking your car at night, thousands of people trying to climb onto the same ferry), then a war one (running into the hills at night as tanks roll in the other direction) and then a more intimate things-that-go-bump-in-the-night one (alien in the basement). All of this executed with the classic Steve Spielberg filmatistic chops.

(read the rest of this shit…)

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977)

Monday, December 12th, 2011

tn_islandofdrmoreauThe ’70s version of the classic Herschell Gordon Wells tale does not hold a candle to the ’32 version I reviewed at Halloween time. The lifeless color scheme pales compared to the evocative black and white, the screenplay feels much slower and less eventful, the makeup may be more sophisticated but it’s less creepily believable, and somehow they made it in the ’70s without making it nearly as perverse. If the girl he’s fucking is part panther like in the old one I don’t think it’s ever mentioned.

It’s from AIP so it’s what you might expect from those guys, kinda trashy but kinda dull.
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Island of Lost Souls

Monday, October 31st, 2011

tn_islandoflostsoulsThe Island of Lost Souls is an interesting island. That’s what Ed Parker (Richard Arlen) finds out when he shipwrecks and the drunk captain (Paul Hurst) of the boat that rescues him dumps him along with the cargo on this small slice of uncharted jungle property. Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) is out there doing some cutting-edge scientifically research with one colleague, Montgomery (Arthur Hohl). He’s somehow figured out how to bypass millions of years of evolution and has created futuristic plants, including giant asparagus. He lives with a pretty young weirdo girl named Lota (The Panther Woman) and a staff of hairy servants who Parker believes are the “strange looking natives” of the island. Yeah, they look strange all right, they look like the wolf boy on the cover of the told freaks video. (read the rest of this shit…)

War of the Worlds

Friday, July 1st, 2005

Sometimes for scientifical type purposes I try to predict what bad puns the hack critics will use in reviews of upcoming movies. For WAR OF THE WORLDS I was leaning toward an “out of this world” or “worlds away from E.T.” type thing. Somebody suggested “Bore of the Worlds” but I was saving that for “Fantastic Bore” and “Fantastic Snore.”

But then I saw WAR OF THE WORLDS and you know what this is? The scariest PG-13 movie of all time. Fuck dinosaurs. Fuck a guy eating monkey brains. This is as hard as Steve Spielberg is gonna get. This is a well put together piece of work in my opinion. Usually making a movie PG-13 when it could be R is a copout, but in this case it’s almost subversive. Sorry about taking the guns out of E.T., to make it up to you I’m gonna give your kids the worst nightmares from now until they turn 16.

So now I’m thinking the pun headline should be CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE KIND WHERE YOU ALMOST SHIT YOUR PANTS. Or maybe E.T. – THE EXTRA-WE’REFUCKED-STRIAL. (read the rest of this shit…)