Random Film of the Week(end): The Man With Two Brains

Posted on June 29, 2013 by geelw

Depending on the mood you’re in, The Man With Two Brains will either be the dumbest movie you ever saw or you’ll be laughing so much that you’ll need to rewind some scenes a few times just to take them in and make sure your eyes were functioning properly. Of course, the truth is the film actually slides between both ends of that particular scale and pretty much doesn’t care whether you get every joke it throws at you.

That was pretty much the template for most of Steve Martin’s comedies back in the day before he settled into those more mundane and family friendly big box office reliable flicks that make some of his older fans cringe because they can see he’s just collecting a better paycheck rather than doing the comedy (or music, as the man can play a mean banjo!) he probably wants to.
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It’s here! The Funny Lady Blogathon!

Posted on June 29, 2013 by geelw

Whee! I made it, Ma! Top of the World! (BOOOOM!) OK, OK, it’s just my first Blogathon submission, that’s all, but still – nice to get some new readers and yep, I’m poking around to contribute more articles elsewhere… OK, back to work… where was I again? Oh, right…(BOOOOOM!!)

Movies Silently

I am just marvelously excited! The Funny Lady Blogathon has launched! My fellow bloggers have joined me in celebrating the wonderful funny women of classic film!

Some have contributed reviews, some have contributed articles. I invited my Tumblr friends to make animated GIFs for the occasion and they did themselves proud! Come and see all the wonderful treasures that have been contributed!

A special note to participants:

Thank you so much for making my first blogathon a success! Please give me the URL of your post to make it easier for the readers to find your contribution. You can email, tweet, Tumblr message, anything you like.

I have arbitrarily divided the ladies into three categories covering the time when they did their most famous work. It’s just a guesstimate to keep things tidy so don’t be mad if I put someone in the wrong slot.

Blogs with direct links to…

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Pacific Rim “Under Attack” Featurette: It’s Not Really Trouble if You See it Coming…

Posted on June 28, 2013 by geelw

Um… “Forewarned is forearmed?” is that how that old saying goes? “Forehead is foresight?” Oh, I’ll get it one of these days. Anyway, everyone needs that big summer movie that’s not too cerebral yet entertaining and not insulting to fans of those old kaiju classics they grew up glued to the TV watching, so here you go. “Forsooth is Forspelt Forwrong?” Hmmm… let me give up now and find something a hell of a lot more productive to do. This too hot weather is making me nuts. Well, that and a few other things, but we’re working on those little issues bit by bit. Small movies, for one – they’re back thanks to WP bouncing back the html coding when I hit “Publish”. Yeah, that needs to get taken care of, grrrr…

UPDATE: Aha. Figured out what wasn’t working. Big Flicks Are BACK (part deux)…

Random Film of the Week: The Incredible Shrinking Man

Posted on June 28, 2013 by geelw

So, the great horror/sci-fi/fantasy/ author Richard Matheson passed away last Sunday and I’ll have to admit that I hadn’t thought much about him lately until a few months back when on of Jack Arnold’s best films popped up on TCM at an ungodly hour and I sat glued to the TV once more with a fine bit of top shelf “B” movie bliss . I hadn’t seen The Incredible Shrinking Man in a few years, so I was glad to stop the clock on the work I was doing and spend a little time catching up with a few old friends.

Matheson and an uncredited Richard Alan Simmons wrote the film (from Matheson’s own novel The Shrinking Man) and unlike a lot of 50’s sci-fi featuring gigantic radioactive mutated versions of normal creatures, it’s lead character Robert Scott Carey (a great performance by Grant Williams) who gets scaled down in size after his radiation exposure. I recall the novel was even darker in tone and had some scenes that certainly wouldn’t fly past the censors of the era, but I’ll let the readers in the crowd find all that out on their own time.

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Pacific Rim TV Spot # 6: Daytime Drama With a Twist (and No Strings Attached)…

Posted on June 27, 2013 by geelw

A-ha, so there ARE daylight battles in Pacific Rim! Excellent. I was almost under the impression that this film was going to take place over the course of a very long and busy night or perhaps the behemoths those human-powered Jaegers face off against were part vampire or something. Well, the effects team isn’t trying to hide any wires holding things up, that’s for sure. Although I’m secretly hoping for a “blooper” reel of Gerry Anderson-inspired shenanigans (wires and all). Hmmm… I wonder how Guillermo Del Toro would feel about making a film based on the old UFO TV show? Oh, wishful thought machine OFF, as I need my few remaining brain cells for tomorrow’s crunch of writing…

Pacific Rim “At the Edge” Trailer: Prophetic, Aren’t We?

Posted on June 25, 2013 by geelw

“At the Edge”…of your seats, that is. Get it? Get it? A ha ha. I’m on a roll with mustard tonight (and a wee bit too much cheese, I admit). Or I forgot to eat, am quite delirious and about to keel over in this absolutely BLAZING summer heat. Eh, I ate a bit earlier, kids, so stop baking those cookies and pies (for now)… I’m going to sleep now anyway, as I need to crawl out of bed and boogie on downtown to see some cool tech at CE Week. I don’t think there will be Jaegers there, but if there are, I’ll let you know at some point. I hope to hell those machines are very well air-conditioned!

Random Film of the Week(end) – (Summer Edition!): Sunshine

Posted on June 22, 2013 by geelw

Spoiler: Sunshine has a “happy” ending. End spoiler. I had to put that up front because Danny Boyle’s excellent 2007 sci-fi film is a layered downward emotional spiral with some solid performances throughout. The story pretty much sets up the fact that this is going to be terminally gloomy stuff (despite the positive sounding title): the crew of the Icarus II sets out from a suffering Earth to relight a dying Sun with a massive nuclear explosion seven years after the first mission fails. Yeah, that’s not your average blockbuster summer comedy hit storyline, that’s for damn sure…

As Icarus II gets closer to its target, it’s discovered that first Icarus didn’t actually disappear as much as become something of The Old Dark House in space (minus any comedic elements). When the new ship links up with the old in order to snag its bomb and it’s discover what happened to its crew, things get more than a little strange as a few shocking elements come into play…

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Random Film of the Week(end) – (Summer Edition!): Ball of Fire

Posted on June 22, 2013 by geelw

(thank you, Victor Creed!)

Imagine this as a movie idea today: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow being an extremely talented exotic dancer type and those dwarfs a bunch of stuffy but eager to learn elderly eggheads she ends up hanging out with to teach them all the things they didn’t know. Once you get your eyeballs above the obvious jiggle-tease material and plentiful opportunities for modern day humor sixteen writers working together come up with, the results would probably be pretty darn terrible.

I can see the trailer now: two minutes, thirty eight or so of slow-mo cleavage shots and some special guest cameo coot rattling off one-liners, plus someone getting hit in the nether regions with a golf, basket or other ball, maybe a nice pratfall, a fart joke, a fat girl joke and some annoying music on that soundtrack that doesn’t even fit. Yeah, that’s not a movie I’d want to see at all. Fortunately, Howard Hawks’ 1941 film Ball of Fire takes the Snow White and thanks to a wonderfully funny and sassy Barbara Stanwyck helping loosen up those old guys (and an even stuffier Gary Cooper), a great script and plenty of screwball humor, it still holds up today as a total riot.

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In Japan, There’s A Gatchaman Live Action Movie Being Made. Dance.

Posted on June 21, 2013 by geelw

If you’re of a certain age and did not know this yet (meaning ME), you’re probably a bit too grinny after that minute thirty plus and perhaps either one of these two teaser trailers. Well, we’ll see what it does in Japan and more of what will happen in the near future with a home video release down the road, as it sure won’t be dubbed and show up here anytime soon I bet. How do I know? Well, if I run up to some kid or adult on the street all thrilled at this news and yell GATCHAMAAAAAN! at him or her, there’s a 99.4% chance I spend the weekend in the local lockup until this is all straightened out. Yeah, I went there… even though I have no idea where I went or why I went in the first place. That stuff happens when you lose your thinking cap… Am I out of coffee again? I forget…

Shout Factory Wants You All Howling – I Say Oblige Them.

Posted on June 21, 2013 by geelw

Thank yooooooou, Shout Factory (awoooooooo)! Getting Joe Dante’s classic werewolf flick The Howling back into circulation on DVD and Blu-Ray? Nice. Now I can stop telling folks I run into campfire tales of how awesome (and freakishly LONG) that wonderful Rob Bottin-created transformation sequence was while also rambling on about Pino Donaggio’s excellent score and how the film managed to be at turns scary and silly as well as packed with in-jokes and plenty of references to other films. Huzzah! That and I can stop getting picked up by the fuzz here for setting campfires to lend a scary atmosphere to things whenever someone asks me about the film. Well, and carrying an axe in public, using said axe to chop up the nearest wooden sign for firewood (I don’t go after trees, as we need them around here), scaring little kids by acting out the transformation and a few other minor offenses. Er, um… saaaay, isn’t that some nice *new* cover art on the right up there?

(“Exit, stage left!” Oops, that’s YOUR right. Damn, you Snagglepuss!)