Welcome all to the 100th Edition. It's hard to believe that I have
made it this far. I want to thank all my readers once again for your
support. Without all you I would have stopped a long time ago. I also
want to announce that now I reserve the right to reuse some movies I
have featured. This won't happen all the time but this especially
applies to the ones I featured in the beginning when I was just starting
out. It's not that I am running out of movies, it's just that some I
want to watch again and it becomes hard when you're doing this blog. I
am in Cavepearl's Horror Movie Marathon so I have looked more into this
and have found some interesting films to feature so I know you did not
come here to hear me ramble so what you came to see.
A Chinese Ghost Story (1987): Most of the Asian animation we know is
from Japan but here we have animation from Hong Kong and probably the
most notable Chinese animation film we know in America. Here Leslie
Cheung does the voice for a bumbling tax collector who meets a beautiful
girl who is actually a ghost but he still can't resist her and
sacrifices himself to save her. If I say anything more, I will give it
away. It is a very moving love story with lots of action.
Escape from New York (1981): John Carpenter was one of the names on
the rules of "Does Not Have to be Horror" so I took full advantage and
decided to watch this again for the first time in a few years. Kurt
Russell stars in this bleak, futuristic movie as Snake Plissken. Snake
is an outlaw and war hero about to serve a life sentence for a robbery.
Lee Van Cleef plays the police chief who makes a deal with Snake to get
a full pardon for saving the president within 24 hours. Donald
Pleasance plays the pres. Our favorite scientologist Isaac Hayes plays
the Duck. Other people in this cast include BIG LOVE star Harry Dean
Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, Ernest Borgnine and former wrestler Ox
Baker. Kurt Russell brought to life a very interesting anti-hero
character and John Carpenter and Alan Howarth did a great musical
score. Much better than it's sequal where the only thing that really
changed was teh city it takes place in.
Fear Strikes Out (1957): My tribute to Anthony Perkins continues
this week where he stars as real-life baseball player Jim Piersall.
This was not some heroic story like Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. This
movie in some ways seemed to be a precursor to the role that Perkins
would later live infamy as... Norman Bates. Jim Piersall was a baseball
player in the majors and due to his pressure from his father and
himself ends up having a mental breakdown. Karl Malden plays his
over-bearing father who wanted his son to get to the majors because he
never could and his pressure knows no bounds and even calling his son's
accomplishments his own using words like "we" and so on. This movie may
be what Hitchcock saw when looking for his Norman Bates in PSYCHO.
Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidora: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack
(2001): I found this on Fearnet On-Demand so I thought I would check
out one more of these before they go off. Once again Godzilla survives
and is bhind some extreme attacks so coming out of hibernation to help
put the beast to a stop are his long-time rivals Mothra, King Ghidorah
and Baragon, who I don't know anything about. I was glad to see that
Mothra and Ghidorah were able to put some of their differences aside.
This movie is actually pretty good and actually has a good story this
time.
Frankenstein (1910): Well, check out the year, Universal did not
have the first adaptation of the Mary Shelley novel, Thomas Edison's
studio did. My friend Tom who runs the Blue Bottle Coffee Shop in
Muncie turned me onto moviesfoundonline.com so in checking it out I
could not resist checking this out since I am in this play. This was 12
minutes long covering Victor Frankenstein coming home from college,
starting his big experiment and his good intentions totally going wrong
by creating a monster. The Monster was played by Charles Ogle who
looked quite hideous but would never become the icon to the Creature
that Boris Karloff became. Go to the website and check it out since it
is very hard to come by. It is pretty accurate to the novel.
Witchboard (2005): I also found this on Fearnet On-Demand and this
one is a Korean Horror film. I have featured Hong Kong and Japan, now
we go into Korea. Many strange murders are happening after 4 girls have
a good time at an Ouija board. An outcast girl seems to be the
suspect. This is kind of an extreme version of MEAN GIRLS.
The Prince and the Showgirl (1957): This does not go on the contest
but my mom recorded it to the DVR so I thought I'd check it out. This
is kind of a variation of THE KING AND I which stars Laurence Olivier as
the Regent and Marilyn Monroe as the showgirl Elsie and guess what
happens next. Olivier actually directed thsi movie and apparently had
problems with Marilyn but they still managed to make a decent comedy,
nothing that lives on in infamy but still good entertainment.
Music of the Heart (1999): A few weeks back I featured Wes Craven's
RED EYE where he abandons his slasher genre for a more psychological
thriller. Here, he just strays from his genre altogether. Meryl Streep
stars in this true story as Roberta, who was a single-mom who convinced
a principal, played by Angela Bassett that she can teach inner-city
children to play the violin. Her ideas work very well and feeling safe
after 10 years of changing the lives of children, she learns that her
funding has been cut and decides to take it into her own hands to save
this program. This movie was made in the time of VH1's "Save the Music"
campaigns so it was the perfect time to release this movie. Gloria
Estefan, who was one of the main spokespersons plays one of the teachers
who really comes to admire Roberta's efforts right away. This is a
great movie showing what can happen when a community comes together. I
did not like band but I am a big supporter of the arts and while I may
not like Gloria Estefan's music, I do agree that the arts is a very
important thing in a child'd life. I don't know what I would do if
someone just told me I could never do theater again. If you are wanting
something very unpredictable and even scary, you'd better find
something else.
Night of the Living Dead (1968): Now I go into the great low-budget
horror from George A. Romero for his zombie classic. A group of
different people must band together in an abandoned house to try to stop
the all-out zombie attack. There is a lot of interesting speculation
on why the zombies came to be and that was through radiation. None of
the actors in this movie would go on to be any big stars but they can
all be prout here. Chocolate syrup is actually used for the blood, just
like in the shower scene for PSYCHO.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941): Now I featured Wes Craven's very extreme
abandonment of his usual genre, now we go to the movie where Alfred
Hitchcock strayed from his genre, making this screwball comedy which
included no murders of any kind. Robert Montgomery and Carole Lombard
play a bickering couple who both find out after a technicality that
their marriage is not legal. They then begin to rethink their marriage
with Mrs. Smith playing hard-to-get with who she thought was her husband
having some pretty funny results. This is by no means my favorite of
Hitch but it still manages to entertain and I admire his efforts to make
something different.
Well, that is it for this week. As you can see, just another
installment and next week, I'm sure I'll have another one ready to
release as well. Right now, I am 5-1 in Fantasy after the game ends
tonight, but I'll probably stay at 4 and for those of you in the Muncie
area, I am in Frankenstein on Thursday and Friday at 7:30 pm. Please
leave your comments and I will be back next week.
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