Yet More Movies I Have Recently Watched/Rewatched

The Day The Earth Stood Still (original)
Surprisingly good-- it's a 1951 sci-fi flick that manages to look pretty good for its age. The same guy who directed this also did The Sound of Music and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, meaning he is a better man than you or I. The basic message of "stop fighting you idiots because you'll destroy us too" was used in other movies, "Plan 9 From Outer Space" comes to mind, to a fairly amusing end. Here, it's just part of the movie which was worth seeing.

The Day The Earth Stood Still (remake)
The original movie was fun, in part because it looks old but it's also pretty brisk and fairly golly gee-wiz in places. The remake? Awful. There are some great casting decision here but the effects are wonky and the reimagining of Gort was outright unpleasant. Keanu plays Klaatu as a humorless douche rather than a curious and interested outsider, and several scenes could have been cut just because they barely added backstory and didn't help the plot. Plodding, slow, pretty miserable. (We got it because it included the original film for cheap.)

Gremlins
Awwww yeah Gremlins. What's not to love? For the ladies, you have Gizmo. For the slasher nerds, you have killer green monsters. For movie fanatics, you have Robbie the Robot walking around in the middle of the movie. The effects mostly hold up well, the acting is good enough, and I'm quite pleased to have this one on Blu-Ray now. I wish Gremlins 2 was out too.

Santa Claus (via MST3K)
Uhhhh... hunh. The featurette was arguably more interesting than the film itself, as apparently this movie introduced Santa Claus to Mexico in the 1950s and was something of a known entity to boomers. This I find hard to believe-- the movie has Santa Claus fighting the Devil in places, but generally it's a bunch of surreal set pieces and what the 1950s probably considered political correctness with a bunch of kids from around the world doing native song things... which came off as more or less racist. All the more reason to see it, really.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Christmas (arguably not a movie)
We caught this and it's generally pretty funny with some extremely disturbing yet funny images involving blood and hiding in furniture. I'd describe it in detail but that would ruin it for you. Also, it's got that Huddleston guy in there who you may remember as the old/real Jeffrey Lebowski.

The Omega Man
Never saw this one before, and I think overall I liked it. It's very 1970s in parts, specifically the music and some of the supporting players introduced about 50 minutes into the film. Heston was pretty great, the mutant bad guys were pretty flat (essentially smarter zombies/cultists), the look was mostly pretty good. It didn't feel like a particularly expensive flick, but for the five bucks I paid for the Blu-Ray I had a great time. Worth seeing, movie nerds.

I need to watch some more Apes movies this week.

Movies I Have Recently Watched/Rewatched

My Internet and Phone went out for several days, which pushed along the large amount of DVDs and Blu-Rays viewed in my den of crap. Here's some of what I watched.

THX-1138
Bought this in like 2004 but never watched it. Caught it after midnight this weekend, which is the right time to watch pretty much any science fiction movie made in the 1970s. I don't know what it is, but it makes them all better. Which is good, because this was a bit of a drag. It looks like a very expensive student film, with tacked-on CG bits. But it's arguably worth seeing, just because it's really funny to see a movie with such a strong anti-consumer, anti-conform message from the guy who can owe his lifestyle to toy collectors. And, you know, tons of groundbreaking movie tech. But also toy collectors.

Inglorious Basterds
I missed this in the theaters and bought the Blu last week. Totally worth seeing. I look forward to rewatching it in the new year. If you can take a little bit of blood, it's a genuinely entertaining piece of work.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Haven't seen this in years. There were lots of neat costumes and setpieces, and the writers clearly loved writing the Kirk-Spock-McCoy exchanges. But man, Sybok sucks. And the desert guys distracted by the Uhura Fan Dance was straight out of Bugs Bunny.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
I remembered this being awesome, and it was largely very good. Great composite effects, wonderful costumes, decent pacing. A lot of motivations were weird, but it was worth seeing again. And will be worth re-seeing again, again.

Kill Bill Vol. 1
Still awesome. Especially the back half.

Planet of the Apes
I saw the entire series after midnight on the Disney channel many moons ago, which is, of course, the ideal time to watch them. This one aged really well. Some of the makeup could be better, but the cinematography was certainly decent and I'm looking forward to rewatching the sequels.

Gremlins is on the list for the week, can't wait to see it again.