The Giant Claw - 1957

We'd just had the internet restored, and it had been a long day. The perfect recipe for a monster movie!

I didn't know squat about this thing. I just threw it on. Between the name and the year, I was guessing it would be at least slightly entertaining, but I'd been fooled before...

A dude is flying a plane when he sees a UFO. To us, they show a flying fuzz. He refers to it as a flying battleship, and everyone thinks he's nuts since it doesn't even show up on radar.

Eventually, we find out what it is - an alien bird. For some reason, the cover says it's prehistoric, but it's an alien. Trust me. Then for some reason, we get into matter and antimatter? Anyway, amazing effects and loads of death, and we end on probably the best death scene I've seen in quite a while.

The people in this movie really suck, though. They "save" the one pilot, but then he's just magically dead. And how did he get all bloody? And then poor Pierre. Why did they take him out with them? And then the couple were like, "Oh well, let's go over here and kiss." Blech.

Anyway, I love this thing. I don't know who's responsible for the travesty that's the wire-work puppet, but I love them. I love whoever did the effects. I really do. They made my day. Good Movie! (for a certain section of people - those who love old monster movies with questionable effects)

 

4D Man - 1959

I love to pick random movies off Tubi. I've been "fortunate" to find some real gems, but I've also found a lot of "what the heck did I just watch." I randomly picked this one, because it sounded awesome.

Tony is performing experiments after hours when he accidentally sets the building on fire. Now that he's out of a job, he decides to visit his brother, Scott. After the reunion, he steals Scott's girlfriend. Later on, she says she doesn't love him, but it's still pretty cruddy of Tony to go around kissing and falling in love with the woman his brother loves. I mean seriously, Linda asked Tony if he loved her the day after they met! Maybe it wasn't the day after, but it really looked like it.

Anyway, Tony's experiment is piercing a thick piece of metal with a pencil. They're sharing atoms or something, so it's 4D. Once Scott finds out about his brother's betrayal, he messes around with the equipment and gets his hand stuck in a piece of metal. Later, we find out he did it by sheer willpower, and the whole force field thing wasn't even necessary. Scott's brain is just wired to be 4D I guess.

Now, here's the interesting bit. Putting your hand through things, and eventually your whole body, apparently ages you. Who knew? How do you fix that? You touch someone when your "powers" are active and steal their lifeforce! Duh!

So, now Scott is a fugitive. He's murdering people left and right so he can keep walking though walls. He does get revenge on a couple people, but when he's on the run, he takes out some random people to recharge. The end was super weird. Betrayed by a woman? No way! But...did Scott survive? Was he behind the Cargonite? Do I care?

There's one part of this movie I haven't mentioned yet, and that's the music. It's what I would call aggressive jazz. I swear, it was so loud at times, it was hard to focus on what was happening in the film. Other times, it didn't seem to match the mood. 

Overall, I have to say this wasn't the worst way to spend an hour and a half. It took forever for Scott to go 4D, and I wasn't fond of anyone in the film, but it was goofy enough to amuse me. If it didn't have the distracting music, I could see myself throwing it on for background noise while I did other things. Decent Movie!

Pyro...The Thing Without a Face - 1964

I got some internet back, but only on my laptop, so I headed to Tubi to see what nonsense I could dig up. And here it is!

Vance is in Spain working on a reservoir. He's obsessed with Ferris wheels and uses them in his work somehow. I never really saw anything but his model. While house hunting, he comes across a woman, Laura, working on burning her own home for the insurance money. He convinces her to sell him the house, and they start having an affair.

Eventually, Vance starts to feel bad since he has a wife and kid at home. His wife knows, and Vance decides to cut off Laura. She isn't happy about it, but she does get Vance to admit that he'd marry her if his wife and daughter weren't in the way. Her solution: kill them in a fire! Her plans go awry when Vance decides he didn't like that he argued with his wife before he left and comes home to the house ablaze. He runs in and burns himself to a crisp. According to the doctor, parts of his body have carbonized due to the fourth-degree burns, and something happened to his brain. He's solved the very hard mystery of who started the fire. I don't know much about arson, but I think with the amount of crap Laura did to that house, it would be obvious it wasn't a gas tank explosion. Vance the great detective is now bent on revenge.

I went into this with absolutely no idea what it was about. I just saw the title and was on board. I didn't realize that almost the first half hour would feel like an episode of House Hunters. Vance was really focused on finding the right house.

The end is also ruined because they show what happened in the beginning. Also, I'm wondering how/when Vance had the resources to make his super accurate face mask thing. When he took it off, the effects were pretty good, so props to them for that. All those good feelings leave when you hear the music. It doesn't match 90% of the time.

Overall, they shouldn't have ruined the ending. This movie was okay to pass the time after the first half hour. It was hard to feel any sympathy for the man who was cheating and then got upset with his wife because she was upset, and this was the one time he was telling the truth. I'll stay on the fence with this one. It wasn't quite good enough to push it over the edge into a good review, but it wasn't terrible.

Phantom of the Opera - 1943

I was curious why this was on the list, but we were dedicated to seeing what the movie had in store for us. I've read the book and watched the silent movie, among other things Phantom related. The book is my favorite thus far, probably followed by the stage show. 

This is one of those times where the writers took good source material and butchered it beyond recognition. From what I read, people were giving it fairly decent reviews, but I'm not sure if they were watching the same thing I was.

The music: This is opera heavy, but it wasn't what I expected. I also didn't recognize the operas. I don't know much about opera, but I didn't know there was an opera about the Revolutionary War, a Jane Austen opera, or one about Genghis Khan. These musical sequences would go on for an extended period of time. Wasn't expecting that. 

Raoul: So this character is a detective in the police department. We don't get background on his initial connection to Christine (were they childhood friends as in other versions?). He's trying to compete with a singer for Christine's heart, but he's also having to solve a murder. More on that later.

Christine: I wasn't shocked she was dumber than a box of rocks. She didn't recognize the Phantom's voice when he was trying to pull her into the sewer. She was leading on both the detective and the baritone, and it felt like she had one from each generation after her. At the end, she was a poop to both the men. At least she didn't faint. She probably didn't want to get dirty.

The Phantom: In a weird twist, the phantom is created by a woman throwing acid on him after he murders some guy. He thinks the man has stolen his concerto, but he doesn't know the whole story. While he's running, he finds a grate and lowers himself into the sewers. Then he splashes sewer water on his burned face. Eww by the way. He just pops up and murders the Carlotta character and her maid, and then he kills some undercover policeman to grab his cloak. He walks around the stage then makes his way up to the chandelier and spends an hour working on the large chains with a fragile-looking hacksaw. He actually didn't look that bad. The way he was obsessed with Christine was pretty uncomfortable.

The catacombs: Wow, these things are in really bad shape. There's a whole opera house on top of them, but when Raoul shoots one bullet into the ceiling, the whole thing comes down. And why did baritone man move his arm? 

The tone: In every other version of Phantom, the tone was very clear. It was a somber tale of love and regret. But for some reason, this one decided to go the goofy humor route. The love square was so weird. Why did they add the baritone dude as a love interest? Just so he could sing all the time? I didn't get it. It was like they wanted someone Christine's age, her father's age (I'm being a little unfair on that one), and then the Phantom was more her grandfather's age. The colors were bright and didn't match the murders. Every once in a while, they would have a little moment of humor, and it was just confusing.

A sequel?!: When I read they had originally planned a sequel, I was floored. What in the world made people like this? Was it because it looked good in color? I mean, it did, but still. Also, the fact it didn't happen due to Claude Rains's schedule was probably a blessing.

As you can tell, this thing isn't getting a good anything review. I refuse to even call him by the hallowed name O.G (explained in book review). We actually checked how much time was left twice, and we were disappointed both times. We did try to hit some high notes with the music, but it was mostly to amuse ourselves. It was so bad, Mom thought I just made her watch it. She didn't believe it was on the list. To be honest, neither do I. Since I liked the original story so much, it was tough to see it treated this way. This movie totally missed the whole point of the story, and it hurt to watch.

Captive Wild Woman - 1943

Next up in our Universal list was this...movie.

John Carradine is a doctor who is planning to use the ape from Whipple's Circus to experiment on. He plans on using the "glands" of his nurse (and apparently part of her brain) to make the ape more human. Surprisingly the change is instantaneous, and enter Paula! She has a mystical power over the lions and tigers at the circus, so she helps Fred with his act. One day she gets angry and turns back into an ape.

Ok, so the lions and tigers were a bit much. They credited Clyde Beatty for the animal sequences, and you could tell the footage was from somewhere else. And for this movie being an hour, it felt long. They spent so much time harassing those animals, I was rooting for them to eat someone. They would also shoot blanks at them to keep them in line. It was frustrating. 

At the end, it looked like a bunch of the cats escaped. Fred was more interested in popping back into the ring and dealing with one lion. And they never resolved that, so there's probably big cats all over the place now. Also, see how the poster shows the ape kidnapping a girl? LIES! She kidnaps Fred! And then - THEN! while she was trudging off with Fred thrown over her shoulder, they shot her in the butt, and she died. The End! It was so abrupt. Did the one woman tell the others how Paula and Cheela were the same? Did they believe her? Did anyone want to question why the doctor had an elevator behind his wall? So many unanswered questions, but of well. Let's do a strange outro about messing with nature. So confusing and weird.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - 1973

In April, I watched the 1945 version of this movie. It made me want to read the book again, which I did in May. Both experiences were positive, but this particular version caught my eye because of one person: Shane Briant. This man is in one of our favorite types of movies. He's in one of the weirdest Barbara Cartland adaptations, The Flame is Love.

The story in this movie is basically the same as the others. There's no reason to rehash it, so I'll focus on what I liked. Shane was pretty good in this, better than Flame. This particular adaptation, while not being entirely explicit, gave more of an impression of Dorian's vices. Other than that, I don't remember the other version having so much inner dialogue. Of the two, I think I prefer the one from 1945.

That being said, this felt like a made-for TV movie, but it was still a good watch. The portraits were better in the 1945 version, but I'm still giving this a Good Movie! review.

The Leftovers (2014) and The Wire (2002) - first impressions

Our internet was out, so I decided to try and go through some of my backlog of things to watch. I wanted to see if some of the shows I had waiting were up my alley. These reviews are based on the first episodes and are mostly for my reference.

The Leftovers - confusing start. I'm not sure where I heard about this. People disappear, and three years later, there are no answers. It's not a Biblical thing since "bad" people and innocents are taken as well. There's a weird cult of people that don't talk, but they chain smoke and want others to stop wasting their breath. To top that off, animals are getting murdered. By people and packs of dogs...then by people. This show was depressing me, so I'm going to pass on it.

The Wire - I heard someone mention somewhere this was a good show. It was a while ago, so I'm not sure exactly what put it on the list. It starts out with a murderer escaping justice. The judge wants to talk to a detective that was sitting in the courtroom watching the witnesses being intimidated. After that, a plan is set in motion to take the criminal's empire apart. I personally wasn't super interested in this one. I think the main character had something to do with it. He wasn't very likeable, which made him hard to watch. I did enjoy seeing Idris Elba, but I didn't see him enough to make continuing with the series worthwhile for me. It seemed like a decent show, I just couldn't connect with any of the characters enough to care about them.

 

Forgotten Heroes: The Robert Hartsock Story - 2019

Scrolling through Tubi's Leaving Soon! list, I saw this. I'm not normally a documentary person, and I definitely steer clear of stories regarding working dogs during the Vietnam War. But this one caught my eye as it was the story of the only dog handler to receive the Medal of Honor.

Through eyewitness accounts of friends and family, the life of Hartsock comes to life. Letters he'd written to his sister and his parents are revealed of his experiences and his bond with his partner, Duke. A lot of the documentary is the journey to the moment of Hartsock's death. 

Duke's fate was heartbreaking, and I did cry. And just to clarify, he died of a broken heart basically. He wasn't one of the dogs that were left behind or euthanized when his usefulness was done.

Hartsock was a true hero. His exemplary actions saved men and dogs. And while Duke wasn't with him at the time, I'm sure their bond was never really broken. I hope more people will hear about Robert Hartsock and the sacrifice he made. The documentary was well done, and I'm glad I decided to watch it. It was never boring, and that's a pretty big compliment from me - Good Watch!

 

Infra-Man - 1975

This movie is also listed as The Super Infra-Man, but I refuse to give him the extra adjective. It's a contender for our cinematic universe.

This one starts off strong. Some school children are singing about picking up a fallen bird when BAM! A dragon lands on the road, the bus goes over a cliff (the kids jumped out, but RIP bus driver), a whole city burns, and then we're at a research facility.

Generic Colonel Sanders (my daughter noticed the similarity, and now I can't unsee it) learns about Mount Devil and the dragon Princess living inside with her whip. She sends her "monsters" to attack the Professor, but they get distracted. They're also supposed to be taking over the world, but the Professor is top priority. In a bit. The plant guy is busy attacking the research building.

To combat these new threats, the Professor turns one of his assistants into Infra-Man. Or a highly agile bug. What follows is a mess of stuff. It would take me way too long to go through everything.

Lung needed to be the hero. He had the moves, while Reima went around un-Infra-Man'd too long. I also don't know why he decided to fly every time he transformed. He was next to the things he was fighting. The end was super crazy. Actually the whole thing was nuts, and I loved it. The extremely foul-mouthed children had us questioning the subtitles, but I totally want to watch this again. Infra-Man, but more so Lung, has easily earned his way into our cinematic universe. Fun Movie!

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man - 1943

A monster double feature!

The Wolf Man is back thanks to some grave robbers. I'm not sure why they chose this particular grave at this particular time, but whatever. He's been "dead" for four years, but the full moon wakes him up. Now whenever the moon is full, he kills. He's aware of what he's doing and wants to die.

He tracks down Maleva, the gypsy woman, to beg for help. She agrees, and they head off to seek out Dr. Frankenstein. They find out he's dead, and Wolfie begins to lose hope. At one point, he's spotted and chased. He ends up in the underground area of the Frankenstein ruins, where he finds the creature. Breaking up the little ice wall, Bela monster is free, and the two are fast friends.

A doctor has tracked Wolfie down following the trail of full moon murders. When Elsa Frankenstein pops up, I had high hopes. She did pretty good for a bit, but then she fainted. The woman in the other movie fainted so much, I think she's given herself brain damage. Anyway, a dam breaks, and water flows through the "epic" battle between the two monsters.

This one ended abruptly, and I hated it. Frankenstein ('s monster) is totally fine, but Wolfie should be as well. The problem is, I couldn't see another movie with him. Oh well, maybe he got his wish and died. Too bad the doctor didn't die as well. I don't know what's up with these men and their thirst for power, but why do they keep wanting to fry up the monster and set him loose in the village? So odd...

BUT! Lionel Atwil, my new hero of these movies, was also present in this movie. I was afraid he was going to be a "red shirt," but he lived! He wasn't a villain this time, though, so that might have had something to do with it. He's moved up in the world. He's the mayor now!

The Mummy's Tomb - 1942

Back to our Universal monsters!

When this movie started, I was confused. I was wondering if I'd seen it before. Maybe I hadn't been paying enough attention, but old man was rehashing The Mummy's Hand. He spent a whopping ten minutes doing that.

Well, apparently geezer High Priest survived his bullet wound, and the mummy was just a little charred. I suppose HP just re-wrapped him, and he was fine. Kharis, our mummy, is now being resurrected to take revenge on the bloodline of the Bannings. Not sure why he waited 30 years to do that, but whatever. Kharis is brought to the States by the new HP, who takes up residence as caretaker of the local cemetery.

Once Kharis is out and about, he's pretty nimble. He climbs trellises and uses his jacked-up arm with ease, but only when he needs to. Poor Jim, though. He was just a bystander who tried to protect the dogs. Jim fainted only to get kicked in the head and be doomed to death.

I want to talk about the end. It was nuts. Dude went into his own house with a torch! Then, the mob just started throwing torches at his house as well. So, yeah, they set the whole house on fire. I don't know why they're all impressed with themselves, but we'll be seeing the mummy again.

I'm not giving this a good movie review. Babe was murdered in a stupid way. How do you go from walking down a main street to being stuck in a dead end with some tires? At least Babe tried to fight back...

Stage Fright - 1950

I randomly recorded this movie off TV because it sounded interesting and had Marlene Dietrich in it. I'd read a couple things about her life during WWII that really intrigued me. I had no idea this was an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

The movie is based on a book by Selwyn Jepson (published as Man Running, Outrun the Constable and Killer by Proxy). The name sounded familiar, so I checked, and I'd read his name a few times while reading books about the SOE. I'd love to get my hands on one of his novels now! He wrote numerous novels and was the screenwriter for a few movies as well.

Jonathan is on the run. His decision to help the woman he loves cover up the murder of her husband has led the police right to his door. He convinces Eve, a young woman in love with him, to hide him while he figures out what to do next. She takes him to her father's house, where she gets him interested in the case as well.

I'm not going to say much more than that. I really liked this movie. Eve was a bit annoying at times with her fawning over Jonathan and lying to Smith, but it didn't bother me enough that I wanted to throw something at her.

The end made me smile, but not because of the reason you might think. It's unusual for me to get surprised, but in this movie, something happened that pushed it over the top for me. A lot of the time, I'll get itchy fingers and need to do something while a movie is on, but this time I was glued to the screen. I'm pushing this one up into the Great Movie! category and would definitely watch it again.

Berserk (anime series) - 1997

After I read the first manga, I was trying to figure out if I wanted to keep going down the Berserk manga path. There are 14 deluxe editions, thick books, and they aren't cheap. Watching this series was research for me. How invested am I in Guts and his story?

This 25-episode series showed me the origin of Guts. He's taken in by a band of mercenaries led by Griffon. I'd like to try and describe Griffon, but I can't really find a word that describes him accurately. He's ambitious and has the mojo to attract most of the people around him. I had a "love polygon" diagram at the end showing how different characters were connected.

There's still a lot of blood gushing everywhere (the manga had a ton of people cut in half), but it wasn't terrible. I wouldn't let a child sit down and watch this, it is NOT a cartoon. It's hard to describe the depth I found in it, and I don't think everyone would see everything I saw. This is not a show for everyone. It's also not something to watch if you are wanting to feel better about your day. And for what it's worth, the end credit music sounds like old-school Smashing Pumpkins. It's not...

The last episode was just insane. I'm talking about jaw-dropped, 'what the heck did I just watch?' insane. Not only was it crazy, it was one of the most frustrating cliffhanger adventures I have ever seen. The way it ended made me jump to the internet to try and see if any of the immediate questions I had were answered in the manga...they were.

I still haven't 100% decided. It's a big investment of money and shelf space, but my plan currently is to read through the manga again and make my final decision after that. I found this particular series to be interesting, and even though I was slow to get involved with the story, once I got a few episodes in, I was binging them. The series did its job. I want to see more. It may involve dedicating a large amount of shelf space, but we shall see. Good Show!