TODAY I WATCHED... (Movies, TV) 2018

Dinosaurus! (1960)

While excavating a harbor on a Caribbean island, workers discover a tyrannosaur, a brontosaur, and a Neanderthal man frozen in hibernation. A thunderstorm layer revives all 3 and the fun ensues. A decent enough flick, with dinosaurs realized with a combination of stop animation and puppets and comedy relief supplied by the Neanderthal.

Bob's Burgers
The Simpsons
The Walking Dead

I watched both episodes of Bob's Burgers last night too.  Even the rerun versions of that show entertain me now.


I actually think I'll be buying the complete seasons set of that show when it's finally done because I missed so many early episodes when I didn't "get it".  Unless it runs on forever like The Simpsons.

The season 2 premiere episode,The Belchies, is the episode that reeled me in and made me a huge Bob's Burgers fan.

Timeless
Kevin Can Wait
Man With A Plan
The Terror

Last night I watched an old "Twilight Zone" favorite on Hulu ("Time Enough at Last") and also an episode from the short lived mid '80s "TZ" revival, "The Shadow Man" (directed by Joe "Gremlins" Dante) on YouTube.

Time Enough At Last still holds up even if you know how it ends.

But every time I watch it I ask the same question:  What does he do next?

To me, it's not as dire an ending as the episode makes it out to be if the man has any sense.  He's all alone in the world and now can't see to read all his precious books.  Dude, you have the whole world at your disposal; I don't care how cataclysmic the final annihilation was, somewhere out there are glasses so start looking for them in opticians labs.  Or picking them off corpses.  Worst case scenario, just find a magnifying glass. 

This episode becomes less compelling every time I see it because I've come to think that Burgess Meredith's character is just a self-absorbed idiot.

The Goldbergs

Roseanne
The Middle

Watched a couple more classic "Twilight Zone" episodes on Hulu last night... started with "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" but then decided, f**k it, I might as well go all the way back to Season 1, Episode 1 and watch them in order instead of cherry picking.

So I followed up "Maple Street" with the first three episodes of S1: "Where Is Everybody?", "One For the Angels" (with Murray Hamilton, later seen as the Mayor in "Jaws," as Death) and "Mr. Denton on Doomsday," with a young Martin Landau as a bad-guy gunslinger.

I was familiar with "Where is Everybody" and "One For the Angels," but I don't think I'd ever seen "Mr. Denton" before. Probably because it took place in the Old West, and I've never been big on cowboy stuff.

Last night I watched:

Wonder Woman

It's definitely the best of the DC movies (since Man of Steel to now). That's not really saying much, though... It was an entertaining flick, but there were some very noticeable flaws. The CG and special effects were often mediocre. Some of the story seemed to be put forward with little to no explanation.

Warcraft

Video game adaptations to movies just don't work. You either have to explain everything, or just take it on faith that the audience is full of people that have played the game(s). I never played World of Warcraft, so there were times when a bit more explanation would have served me well. I think the movie could have been well served with some use of practical effects on occasion, too. It was ok as a "bubblegum for the brain" time waster, but I'll never watch it again. The true mark of a mediocre movie.

The Last House On The Left(2009)-remake of Wes Craven's grindhouse classic about a group of criminals who rape two young girls and leave for dead only to have the parents of one of the girls find out about them and seek a brutal revenge for the daughter. While this movie didn't out do Craven's original Last House(the gang of criminals are not nearly as scary and nasty as the ones in the original) it was still fairly decent and at least was better than some of the other remakes that have been made over the years. I give it 2.5 out of 5 chainsaws. Review based on unrated version.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Watched a couple more classic "Twilight Zone" episodes on Hulu last night... started with "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street" but then decided, f**k it, I might as well go all the way back to Season 1, Episode 1 and watch them in order instead of cherry picking.

So I followed up "Maple Street" with the first three episodes of S1: "Where Is Everybody?", "One For the Angels" (with Murray Hamilton, later seen as the Mayor in "Jaws," as Death) and "Mr. Denton on Doomsday," with a young Martin Landau as a bad-guy gunslinger.

I was familiar with "Where is Everybody" and "One For the Angels," but I don't think I'd ever seen "Mr. Denton" before. Probably because it took place in the Old West, and I've never been big on cowboy stuff.  

You're making me want to watch the entire series in order.  I haven't done that in a while; maybe after I finish Stargate Atlantis I'll make TZ my next workout binge.

Leatherface wrote:

The Last House On The Left(2009)-remake of Wes Craven's grindhouse classic about a group of criminals who rape two young girls and leave for dead only to have the parents of one of the girls find out about them and seek a brutal revenge for the daughter.  While this movie didn't out do Craven's original Last House(the gang of criminals are not nearly as scary and nasty as the ones in the original) it was still fairly decent and at least was better than some of the other remakes that have been made over the years.  I give it 2.5 out of 5 chainsaws.  Review based on unrated version.

That's pretty much the same reaction I had to it.

tohostudios wrote:

You're making me want to watch the entire series in order.  I haven't done that in a while; maybe after I finish Stargate Atlantis I'll make TZ my next workout binge.

I've never watched the series in order before, in fact there are probably quite a few that I've never seen over the years. But whenever I come across "TZ" while channel surfing I always stop & watch, so since Hulu has the whole shootin' match laid out in order I figured screw it, it was time to run the table on it. There are what, 120 some-odd episodes in the original series? That should keep me busy for a couple of months at least. Especially since I have the attention span of a fruit fly so I may only be watching an episode or two every so often...

Anywhoo, I watched two more TZ's last night - "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine" starring Ida Lupino as an aging movie queen (seen that before, it's a good'un) and "Walking Distance" (I'm not sure if I've ever seen this one in its entirety; it looked vaguely familiar but it didn't ring any bells).

Started getting drowsy during "Escape Clause" so that's where I'll start tonight.

One of my favorites that not many people talk about is "The Howling Man"  There are some clunkers in the series especially when they expanded it to an hour; a lot of those episodes would have been better served being only 30 minutes.  But by and large TZ is one of the more consistent science fiction/horror/mystery TV shows we've ever seen.

tohostudios wrote:

One of my favorites that not many people talk about is "The Howling Man"

I'm not sure I'm familiar with that one. I'll holler when I get to it

Fat Freddy wrote:

tohostudios wrote:

One of my favorites that not many people talk about is "The Howling Man"

I'm not sure I'm familiar with that one. I'll holler when I get to it

 It's in Season 2

Excellent doc on HBO about Andre the Giant. He was awesome.


Did I learn anything new? Not really, but watching all the old footage brought me right back to my childhood and watching the WWF with my grandfather.

Are the stories of his legendary alcohol consumption true?

tohostudios wrote:

Are the stories of his legendary alcohol consumption true?

I guess. Everyone seemed to have a story of Andre drinking a case of beer at a time or multiple bottles of wine. Or cognac. Sometimes all 3. But all in good nature. As big and imposing as he was, you really get the impression that he was a true gentle giant. The doc did a nice job. There was no mud-slinging or malice. Everyone loved Andre. Even Vince McMahaon welled-up when they talked of his death.

Yeah I've always heard/read that Andre was a nice guy who only drank to such a degree to ease the physical pain he was feeling.  Which just makes his life story all the more sad.

"The Crawlers" (1993)


Nuclear waste dumped in a remote forest area mutates the trees, which then strangle a bunch of people with their roots. Yep, that's the whole plot of this horribly cheap, terribly acted, snail-paced direct-to-video piece of crap. This was the worst movie I've seen in quite some time.
"The Crawlers" is also known as "Contamination .7", "Creepers," and "Troll 3," but no matter what name you want to call it, this movie sucks!
AVOID.

Another FF "public toilet" special.    Every time I read one of your reviews like that I think of what my brother said one time when talking about all the crappy movies he's seen, "I've seen more s**t than a public toilet."

tohostudios wrote:

Another FF "public toilet" special.    Every time I read one of your reviews like that I think of what my brother said one time when talking about all the crappy movies he's seen, "I've seen more s**t than a public toilet."

This one was even s**ttier than usual!