The Elephant Man

Certainly went out on a depressing note.

But poetic nevertheless as this was my introductory David Lynch film, and I can even pinpoint to when I saw it last. 9th grade theater class, typical substitute with an interesting twist as he himself played John Merrick for a stage play so we had a good talk about character and the film. Set amidst the dark steam filled streets of London a surgeon Frederick Treves stumbles upon a medical marvel in the sordid freakshow of a circus before integrating him in society, as the movie more or less boils down to a war of attrition between those who would see John Merrick in comfort and peace for the remainder of his days and those suffering worst from the human condition who want him back as an attraction. This probably is the least stereotypical David Lynch movie and yet undoubtedly is the most David of them all, showcasing incredible compassion, love, and respect for what many would deem weird or odd. If you're not even a slight emotional mess by end credits it's time to return your heart and get a new one, even with not really super sad scenes I was bawling, it strikes so many nerves near my heart. I attribute that a tremendous deal to the actors with of course ample appreciation for the script. Anthony Hopkins I know this role may not have seemed all that interesting to you but you deserve a lot of love for your performance, Frederick Treves is a stalwart humanitarian here with a deep sense of care that I feel is sorely lacking in this day and age, and the fact he's flat out willing to fight for John's safety is something truly special. I hold a firm hand when saying this movie would be not much special without John Hurt as Merrick, for a performance buried under rather remarkable and heavily extensive prosthetics my God the man can still do so much maybe even more than the rest of the actors, with intelligence, sterling manners, and a true appreciation for a new lease on life is a wonderful thing to see. Ample love also going to Anne Bancroft, Freddie Jones, and John Gielgud who only raise the acting ability of those around them. The pristine black & white cinematography is a work of art in and of itself, undoubtedly echoing a lot of early monster movies and I don't feel that was unintentional. John Merrick is teased slowly with buildup to the blunt and lack of fanfare reveal like the Universal Monsters, an interesting dichotomy to film a character as monstrous when he is anything but. This also extends to the opposing sides surrounding John as well, with unfathomable heart present alongside the cruellest and lowliest hate. It's a film about as mainstream as David got with a whopping 8 Academy Award nominations, but winning none. An unsung hero to all who aren't familiar with the production, Mel Brooks himself produced the film and wasn't even credited to not diminish the film as a comedy. A human story to the very last, with love, appreciation of art, and an outer shell holding hidden depths undoubtedly makes this a David Lynch film. 4 stars, 9/10, I hate endings more and more with each passing day.

Frankenstein Unbound

Oh my dear God. Where do I even start?

Well first things first thank you James from Cinemassacre for showcasing this on a Monster Madness and bringing it to my attention, second thank you Roger for going out on the most spectacularly batshit story possible for your final directing credit, so let's just do this. I wish, oh how I wish a movie would be made like this today. You know how fucking uppity people get in their tightwad asses about staying true to a book's source material these days? Their heads would explode in Lovecraftian insanity if they watched this movie, literal brains turn to soup and their heads would explode Scanners style, no question. I'm not even sure where to begin here but we'll try. So the year is 2031 (boy I can't wait to see that) with John Hurt as a scientist named Joe who developed a machine to implode matter however the experiments cause timeslips to occur and before you can say "I may have gone too far in a few places" he finds himself in 19th century Geneva. And that's only the start of the weirdness. So he meets Victor Frankenstein, then meets the fabled monster, then meets Mary Shelley and her entourage at the Villa Diodati (no Cyberman this time sadly), then somehow gets looped in the section of the novel where Victor creates a mate for the monster, as he tries to get, say it with me now, back to the future. Now Roger co-wrote, co-produced, and directed so to say he had his hand in this would be an understatement. I'm just completely speechless guys. I will give thanks and appreciation for the fact that despite the fish out of water trope Joe honestly rolls with this shit pretty quick and being an educated man knows the history of these famous literary people and the story of Frankenstein, no need for any floundering about for 30 minutes wondering what is going on. That's for after the movie ends. And to follow the more understandable concepts, the prodiction is honestly pretty friggin' good! It's practically a period piece with lots of costumes, real life settings and architecture filmed judging from the crew credits in Italy, and the special effects range from pure cheese to pretty decent when it comes to gore. Now when I heard Raul was going to play Victor I was psyched even knowing this was a film made during the very late stages of his life unfortunately, and sadly we only get bits and pieces of him until roughly the last 30 minutes where he becomes prominent yet the acting even in that case is stellar. He's already off the deep end at this point when we meet him and seeing this morally bankrupt, deranged, anything for science attitude does still give him a lot to play with and regardless is a highlight. John Hurt love that guy to death probably plays the most laidback and dare I say disruptful scientist not just in terms of creation but just slapping the space-time continuum like it owes him money, yet again it's kind of a testament to these guys acting ability facing this frankly preposterous off the wall material with a straight face that must be admired. Joe doesn't come alone either, getting sucked away into the bleeding time vortex with a car that I can only accurately describe as if the DeLorean and KITT from Knight Rider had a daughter, and he is the most blasè son of a bitch I have ever seen showing it off to anybody, uses it to prove Mary Shelley he is indeed from the future, also shows Victor just for yucks I guess, and is the reason he gets back to....some period of time I don't know which. That whole non-intervention thing you see in every time travel story practically gets taken out back and sodomized with a double barrel shotgun, personified perfectly with Joe flat out banging Mary Shelley. Oh yeah that happens. Do you see what I mean with my opening remark? This might be the biggest fuck you movie to anybody who pays attention to source material, and I kinda love it for that. I don't think anyone has the balls to make a movie on a book and pay barely any heed to it at all in this day and age, but not in a we decided to take a few liberties kind of way and more like I did four lines of cocaine and I just wrote unicorns conquered the moon kind of way. Hell the only slight I genuinely have against the movie is the editing, it's kinda off and feels slapdash in a good few instances and maybe some less than believable ADR work. But other than that, this is fine by me! What did you expect from the asshole who reviewed Frankenhooker? This is a special kind of nuts movie but it's entertaining, I see the craftsmanship to it production wise, I'd rather see something like this than just another plain jane adaptation of the book personally speaking. It has no reservations, it wholeheartedly does it's own thing consequences be damned, and I feel that's very telling of me who I am as a person so simply take it for what it is. Watch it, just give it a go, and make judgements later. 3 stars, 7/10 from me, I need to decompress from this so I will see y'all next week.

The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

I think it's mellowed over time.

Story time! I didn't start getting into Indiana Jones until after this movie came out but from all the contemporary word of mouth there was, you either despised it or liked it. Hell my mom tried to get me to watch it before any of the others and I just couldn't go for it yet, but I quickly loved the previous 3 movies and when I watched it the first go around it didn't strike me very much. I guess the line is drawn at do you think extraterrestrial life belongs in an Indiana Jones movie? My teenage self would say hell to the no, but nowadays I'm kinda on the fence. I mean it's Spielberg in conjunction with Lucas, they wanted to do a big throwback to film serials and adventure films of their youth in creating this character and you could argue the progression is sound, science fiction and alien movies were huge in the 1950s so they wanted to tip their hat to that genre as well, and I do feel Spielberg did fine work with all the elements here. So we basically follow Indy as he's being hounded by KGB agents where we meet his son Mutt Williams who enlists his help to find an old teacher and his mom as we piece together the puzzle, world hop, get into some action, and touch upon another religion albeit a less than common one. Now how they weave this story of the crystal skull for the most part works, bringing in conquistadors, the legend of El Dorado, and various bits of mesoamerican history I feel works well. You follow it, understand it, and can even be intrigued by it. It doesn't feel like an exposition dump and feels natural in this world, my only gripe is they introduce two crystal skulls and that can be a bit confusing because it just didn't need to be there and we only focus on one anyway. I don't really know why they chose to add another one in the mix for only one scene. My other more major gripe is I cannot grasp why the character of Mac even exists, he turns heel on Indy almost right from the word go but he doesn't contribute a goddamn thing and they keep yo-yoing between he's a double agent and he's actually a bastard helping the commies. Superflous. Fucking superflous. I'm not all that wild about our villains here either, I mean I get why, the time is 1957 and the movie actually does exceptional work setting you in that time frame! The cars (with a subtle nod to American Graffiti for the opening credits), the fashion, the Red Scare is rampant, all the details of the world help a lot, but I'm sorry the russian army doesn't have at all the menace and force of the natzis in any way whatsoever. But honestly those are my 3 main problems with this movie, I mean yeah sure it gets a little friggin' Looney Tunes and a bit too much CGI when they're in the Amazon jungle, but even then I kept my eyes peeled the whole movie to discern what they actually did and what was CG and I'm happy to report they did the majority of stuff for real! There may be a CG background but the sets are real, the stunts are real, it's not quite to the extent people would leave you to believe that it's very much a Star Wars prequels production. I've heard many a people say that Indiana Jones is too old, I heard it back then and I'm certainly damn well hearing it now but...no. He's not. Indy would adventure, preserve artifacts, and keep learning as much as he could until his last breath, that's why I'm not against The Dial Of Destiny. Harrison still fucking has it, he's great as always and this gives him a new angle when he learns he has a son. It's rock solid all the way through. It's nice to see Karen Allen back and I'm more curious as to what that will entail in the next movie with their relationship. Same goes for Mutt, is Shia LaBeouf gonna make an appearance? I felt he did okay here, I mean this was a point in time where he was a getting a huge push, remember Transformers came out the previous year, I'm not a fan but I'm not a hater either. Cate Blanchette, sorry hun I think you were way more intimidating even when you're just chilling in Lothlorien with your husband Celeborn, you did decent but I can't blame it on you. Poor John Hurt needed more material, I adore that actor but I feel he was more on the wasted potential side in this movie. But all the acting is good and serviceable so no major points deducted. Effects work again is primarily solid with a few bits that were off, but I'm just thrilled they did as much as they could in camera and I hope that tradition continues one last time. The story progression was good, I liked all the bits of history and trivia, even if I'm not fully on board with interdimemsional creatures. For a movie that got some bashing over the years, I think people are at the point where they can re-evaluate it and make peace with some grievances. Is it still at the bottom of the ranking list for me? Yeah, but I would not go so far as to say it is a bad movie. I give it 2.5 stars, 6.5/10. I really have zero clue as to how the next movie will go, cause I've seen young and old Harrison Ford, they made my sexy man an SS officer, and they tout this as Indy's last adventure. Can't wait until he gets blasted by missiles on an island saving his love and his child. I guess we'll see how it goes.

The Lord Of The Rings (1978)

Man, good time for Tolkien adaptations the late 70s were.




Just one year after The Hobbit, underground cult movie making machine Ralph Bakshi undertook a big task that took considerable time to cement even the production of the film, and the interesting part is this movie comprises of Fellowship Of The Ring and The Two Towers in just a bit over 2 hours. Story time! Years back when I was just a pre-teen lad with a love for the Lord Of The Rings films, I owned and watched this version many times before Return Of The King was even released so it was nice coming back to a movie my eyes have not seen for an age. My opinion hasn't changed much, but Jesus this movie moves at warp speed! By the time the Fellowship part has ended, there's only 50 odd minutes for Two Towers so as you can imagine the pacing is the biggest detriment to the whole thing. I feel you have to be incredibly well versed in the sequence of events for the story whether it be book or trilogy, just so you don't feel like you accidentaly hit the fast forward button at several points in this. Oh sure it hits all the important bullet points of the plot, but there ain't much time for character development or even characters (poor Eowyn doesn't even get a single line), extended scenes of dialogue, or neat references to the works of Tolkien all that much though hearing a bit of Beren and Luthien's story was nice. This is a strength the animated Hobbit movie had, cause it only had to contend with one simple story in a bit less than 90 minutes. Now try adapting over 700 pages and even then the movie doesn't obviously fully cover both books, in 2 hours and 15 minutes. Hell's bells that could not have been easy. But it tells it well enough and I somehow kept up with the pacing and editing flawlessly as a child. The animation is a beast of it's own, the film used traditional 2D animation but took advantage of some shiny new tech known as rotoscoping where filmed actors are drawn over to give the illusion of animation. Now in terms of the servants of Mordor, I think it's amazing because there is just this unearthly, eerie, totally unnatural look to the Ringwraiths, orcs, and so on but with the humans, elves, and dwarves not so much. It's passable but doesn't pack as much punch as these red eyed hellish riders in black and hordes of attacking orcs, which were highlights for me back then and most certainly still are now. The backgrounds are outstanding, looking absurdly picture-esque or abstract nightmare backdrops, I could admire them for some time. The cast is very good, Christopher Guard plays a much more innocent and childlike Frodo but still has some fight and power in him, William Squire as Gandalf has that wisdom filled voice and while the animation in terms of movement is over the top the voice work is tethered to the ground, of course everybody praises Sir John Hurt as Aragorn and yeah I fully adhere to that stance he just is the best of both worlds between a ranger and a king, Peter Woodthorpe as Gollum leans closer to Andy's potrayal they play up the deranged mind and addictive personality and even the design had to have influenced Peter Jackson. Well honestly this whole film inspired Jackson to one day make his own adaptation and the similarities are far from coincidental, so I have to appreciate this movie for existing even if just for that. It's a mixed bag but for me it does still come out on the positive side. I like our actors, the animation has moments of brilliance, the whole shadow play opening works super well and brings to it an atmosphere, the battle scenes are much more bloody than you would expect for an animated film and the battle of Helm's Deep goes a lot quicker with little buildup but decent payoff, the Ringwraiths are metal as hell, oh that friggin' orc war chant I know the whole thing cause I'm a f***ing neeeeeerd! It has highlights, it's not admittedly for everyone but if you're hardcore for this world like I am check it out if purely for curiosity's sake. All in all I give it 2.5 stars, 6.5/10, and if you've been keeping count and paying attention you'll know the occasion for tomorrow.

Doctor Who: 50th Anniversary Specials

I'm throwing in the Christmas special with this one.

Normally I don't talk about the Christmas specials unless something happened story wise but since The Time Of The Doctor was Matt's final episode I feel obligated to see him off of course. But in good time. I was very fortunate to actually see the 50th anniversary special in a theater surrounded by mega fans of the entire series, it was great fun and an occasion worthy of memory. Needless to say we were all very impressed, I mean they played their cards just about as perfectly as you can get, a multi-Doctor story based around the one thing we've heard about for nearly a decade, The Time War. Just to see it on the screen at last was a big moment, but it goes deeper than that. To see a war torn Doctor played wonderfully by Sir John Hurt accompanied by our beloved 10th and 11th incarnations was amazing! They work together so well and we've never seen this War Doctor before but they flesh his character out very well in an hour long special, and to see them treat such a massive thing like The Last Great Time War with such weight and importance feels genuine. It took up a position to tell the most epic story in Doctor Who history and make the celebration of 50 golden years truly spectacular. Which is exactly what they did, while throwing in Kate and a new character Osgood who shrieks fangirl like nobody's buisness and I will forever love her, a return of the Zygon's who haven't been seen in 40 odd years, and it all feels just right. It has it's comedy, it's drama, some major surprises and is still a love letter to the series. The fact that it opens with the 1963 titles immediately lets you know what you're in for. It was a huge deal back then 6 years ago and it still holds up even now and will continue to do so. And last but certainly not least we have the 11th Doctor's final adventure, and it does it so well. It juggles being a regeneration story, an actual plot important story, and a Christmas story damn near perfectly. It has a few very sweet and loving moments that make you feel that Christmas warmth even if you don't watch it around December. The story focuses on a mysterious message from a planet that draws every adversary from The Doctor's history to it, forcing the Time Lord to protect the town from an imminent war while slowly dying of old age because he has no more regenerations to use. It's a very good story and one last great hurrah from Matt Smith, my Doctor. His regeneration still brings a tear to my eye, and his last words ring true for any individual. It's a heartbreaking end but I'll always remember when The Doctor was Matt. I really felt he was going to go the distance, topple Tom Baker's incredible 7 year run since he was the youngest actor to play The Doctor and he had that energy and acting talent to do so, but sadly it only lasted 3 years. But I loved those 3 years, I used to watch his series with my mom, she knows Matt's stories best and he really was the reason I went from being a fan to huge fan. My love for Doctor Who has waned slightly since those years but I really was invigorated again despite my nagging, and I cannot wait to see Peter Capaldi rock on in series 8.

Hellboy

Yeah, now we're talking.

Not gonna lie, I digged this movie even back in 2004, I was 9 years old and loved this movie and honestly it's as good as I remember it! It's a passion project by del Toro of a comic book not many people knew of but it worked and I really enjoyed it. It starts off pretty good with voiceover from John Hurt as we see some weird natzi science/occult experiment led by Rasputin of Anastasia fame, Ilsa she wolf of the SS, and a character with such a sleek design you almost don't care he's a nazi officer, being interrupted by american forces. Apparently the hotsie totsie nazis were trying to pull a Great Old One or perhaps an Eldar God from a dimension to conquer Earth, and somehow a little baby Hellboy was brought into this world, how I really don't know but whatever we got our movie now. Flash forward a good 60 years and Hellboy along with John Hurt and good ol' Doug Jones in Shape Of Water makeup once more, have themselves a defense force tasked to deal with monsters and retrieve occult items, and pretty soon Rasputin is on the move again ready to bring another Lovecraftian horror into the world so it's time to save the world again. First off, Ron Perlman is Hellboy those are some big shoes to fill, so we shall see Friday if they have. But he does it so well! He looks the part, talks the part, can kick ass and joke, pretty much perfection. John Hurt is awesome as always, and brings some heart to the movie. Doug Jones is excellent, makeup or not and can be really funny and has good brief moments that have a heavier atmosphere to it. That's what I really love about this movie, it can tell a story and have some heavy moments but it has a sense of humor and can give good comedy. It's very accesible almost to the point where I wonder why we have this fish out of water character Myers, because Hellboy and Abe Sapien aren't super weird or hard to read. I could follow everything they did and not be confused, so why do we need a newcomer to introduce everything? Besides to avoid prequel syndrome? I don't know. He's not really that integral and kinda boring, it's like one of two things I actually don't like in this movie. I also greatly love and appreciate the use of practical effects, they only use cgi if it's necessary, great makeup, excellent monster costumes, the sets are good sized and detailed, they do everything right! It's a solid, very enjoyable, awesome movie. I was genuinely surprised how well it held up over literally 15 years. Jeezus I am old. And next time we will look at the sequel that I have never seen despite my love for the first. Why? Beats me man, but I'm interested to see what's next!

Alien (1979)

Yeah, yeah I know! It's not October, but it had to have happened some time. So here we go.

Alien, classic science fiction movie directed by Ridley Scott. Need I say more? Well just for the sake of this review, let's talk about it. It's still really good! Despite being made almost 40 YEARS AGO, let that sink in for a minute, it still holds up damn near perfect. The sets are magnificent, the atmosphere and horror is memorable, the characters all have their time to develop, the design for the alien is perfect, and Ridley Scott just killed it in this movie. I still say this is my favorite movie of his! So, story time, alright so the movie centers around this mining crew, and they recieve a distress signal on an uninhabited planet, they investigate and find a derelict spaceship that has been crashed on the surface for centuries. While investigating one of the crew finds these eggs that in no way resemble a vagina when they open and in the name of science he puts his face in it! This is wrong. So he gets this thing stuck on his face which then implanted an egg down his throat (Gross.) and he gets brought on board. What follows, is quite possibly the most disturbing thing I have ever watched on film, when an alien bursts out of a man's chest which takes about 3 minutes to occur to drag this horror out to near unbearable levels. Now we got an alien loose on the ship. Don't you hate it when that happens? So they got to track it down, which will no doubt end with one character surviving to kill the alien. A tiny bit slasher movie, but hey I dig that stuff! The cast is quite good, Sigourney Weaver gets to be a badass, Ian Holm is....enigmatic to me even to this day, and special thanks to John Hurt for quite literally birthing this series. He deserves special recognition for his sacrifice. The music I have to say is not what you would expect, it's entirely symphonic but still lays on the dread when stuff starts going down. A huge part of this movie is it's design, most of which created by H.R. Giger giving the spaceship a claustrophobic feel coupled together with Amiga computers, obviously showing the time of when the movie was made but it doesn't date the film at all. Major props to that. And then we have the alien spacecraft that has this whole living organism look to it, and it looks jaw droppingly awesome. So highly detailed, and vast in scale. 11/10 from me. But we have at least one more movie to review before Alien Covenant, so join me tomorrow for the action side of the Alien franchise.

Also, highly recommend you watch the trailer for this movie. Whether you've seen the movie or not, watch it. Just maybe not in a dark room, cause I did that and....yeah, I was paranoid for the next 3 hours.