A movie that I thought was great as a kid that I recently went back and watched is the remake of the classic 50s movie The Blob. Now I don't enjoy most horror, but the kind that is of the cosmic variety I can't get enough of and this is one of the best examples.
Compared to the original, there's not much changed from the basic concept (which always was paper thin) but a lot of the details are a bit different and overall, I think the human element of the story is a lot better in the '88 film, as it focuses more on the monster. It certainly takes itself just a bit more seriously while still having more intentional humor throughout. But the real fun comes from the absolutely amazing practical and special effects throughout that are gloriously 80s and far more gory than the original but most of the affects still look great.
It just seems that when people bring up all those lists and talk of gloriously great 80s effects movies, this one hardly ever seems to get mentioned, and that's just a darn shame because this movie is nothing less than great.Trailer included below:
Believe it or not, the Disney company was not always seen as the truly evil empire it currently is, and they actually put out good stuff every now and again. One of those great gems they put out was the 2009 movie Up. Spawning many memes and being a generally great movie overall has given it great longevity and fondness in the eyes of most.
Enter now the address of 13222 Herriman Rose Blvd in Herriman, Utah is a a near perfect exterior and interior replica of the protagonists house from that movie. Created by the Bangerter Homes company specifically as a way to promote themselves and create a tourist destination, the company received permission from Disney to create it and painstakingly researched every known detail with Disney in order to create it.
It is now privately owned and the owners do have a website detailing it's history and some FAQs about visiting here: http://www.therealuphouse.com/ Also, Disney itself loves the promotion given by the house and made a short film about the family living there that you can see on youtube:
The only shame about the place is that it's stuck in the general area of Provo which is basically the leaky butthole of Utah, with the highest concentration of jerks in the state.
So, unlike most posts I make about forgotten films, this one is a bit more justifiably so. I can't really say it's a great movie at all, but it is one that I like nonetheless. Because of that I don't really universally recommend it to everyone, but I will recommend it to those who are sufficiently nerdy.
A movie that typifies not being the sum of it's parts, but the parts are really cool. Like the poster here, absolutely awesome.
Radioactive Dreams is a movie about a couple of kids that are stashed away by their fathers in a remote bunker/fallout shelter when a nuclear World War 3 breaks out. Starring They have enough food and water to last them 15 years, and they develop a near unhealthy obsession with becoming PIs like in the old pulps they read. They then find a way to break out of the bunker, and the movie is mostly about them encountering the crazy new world around them while attempting to become legit PIs as they get tangled up in a mystery revolving around missing launch keys for an un-launched nuke.
The movie has a very unique visual style, with both 80s punk vibes and also has a heavy influence form old detective pulps from the 30s and 40s, to the point that the two main characters last names are Phillip and Marlowe (hint, hint nudge, nudge, wink wink). The soundtrack is so delightfully over the top 80s, that it almost feels at times that the movie was really a vehicle for the soundtrack than anything.
What most people who watch it may know is that it was one of the many movies that really inspired the Fallout series of games. Although Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog were the bigger influences on the setting, this movie I think is the one that really inspired the more absurdist and dark humor that is in the games. It's also likely that it was also the source of the juxtaposition of 30s and 40s culture with the post apocalyptic setting.
Despite these neat facts, the movie is pretty disjointed in tone, you just can't really jive some of the slapstick elements with some of the really dark crap happening in the story. That stuff seems to really work in the Fallout games, as they do it far more gracefully with less slapstick and more dark humor, but for the film, it's pretty jarring. It also suffers from having some pretty unsatisfying story threads, all while being a little too focused on the music at times.
It seems I'm not alone it this appraisal, as the film wasn't given a wide release in the US, was never even released on DVD, and you can't even find a trailer for it online in the English language! But on the bright side, the film is so forgotten, I found multiple copies of the full movie that you can watch on youtube for free that I will link below.
Still, if you want something really out of the ordinary for a post apocalyptic film, and don't mind something a little disjointed, or if you're just a massive fallout fan, or love 80s pop music, go give it a shot.
Cronos is a very interesting movie to me as it's something that is quite tonally different from other films about the same topic. To boil it down basically, it's a vampire movie. However, unlike a lot of other vampire movies out there, it doesn't glorify any aspect of vampirism, nor does it try to state there is any kind of sensuality to it. In fact, I'd say it presents it more like a kind of (almost) family friendly fairy tale with just some very dark elements to it.
In essence, when I watch this film I get a more Twilight zone-ish vibe from it in that the impetus for the condition isn't biological, but is actually technological (which is pretty unique) as well as the fact that it really could have been used for good or evil depending on the constitution of the person who used it.
From what I see, the movie is really well appreciated, but not overly well known, and I think the real reason there is that it is blatantly an actual foreign film, and despite certain characters speaking English, others do not and are subtitled, which give the movie a very different tone than most. Also, it was never really given a wide theatrical release in the US, but has gained a very supportive following afterwards. In any case, it's an excellent movie and is worth watching if you have the chance.
Big thanks to my brother for tipping me off to this guy. he does a great series of videos on mysteries, cover-ups and conspiracies that are pretty darn in depth but still very entertaining. He's got over a million and a half subscribers, so it's not like he's an unknown or anything, but I figure I'll give a shout out to him here anyways. Here's video he did on a case that was actually featured on the show Unsolved Mysteries that got a hell of a lot more crazy and complicated after it aired on that show:
It's worth checking out all his other videos as he does a really good job on a lot of other topics some of which are a bit shorter. For example, he did an awesome video on the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park that I thought was absolutely great, so check it out, too. He also does some shorter videos that are very interesting, like this one about a bizarre series of hiker deaths in Siberia around 1993:
A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon a really cool couple of posts in the r/abandoned subreddit of someone who came across the filming location for the Hawkins Lab in Stranger Things that actually is an abandoned mental asylum. There's not too much info on the facility itself, but they did put up an excellent array of very cool pictures of the place that I thought was fascinating. Feel free to check it out at the source:
I remember ages ago, as a teenager I partially saw this one on late night TV and thought it was hilarious then, but didn't remember the title of it for the life of me. I had to search for it for a few years until I was finally able to find it and nab a copy for myself. You'd think that a movie about a beauty pageant in a small Minnesota town would be relegated to chick-flick territory, but this is just a movie that I can't help but love and I heartily recommend this one to just about everyone I know.
Back in the day, this movie was universally panned by just about everyone and completely flopped at the box office. However, compared to other teen comedies of the time, I say this one has aged far better than nearly all of them and has a much more enjoyable tone than just about all the rest.
I think my opinion has been proven correct as it has undeniably gained a massive cult status in the years after it's release. Even Allison Janney (the actress who plays Loretta, and later went on to star in The West Wing and I, Tonya) says she is recognized and asked about this film more than any other of her roles she has done. The cast is also pretty star studded and includes not only Kirstie Alley, Kirsten Dunst, and Denise Richards (of course a 29 year old would be playing a teen) but it was the film debut of Amy Adams, has a small but effective role for Will Sasso, and has a cameo by Adam West.
Lona Williams is the writer of the film and is most known for having written for the early seasons of The Simpsons (you know, back when it was funny and relevant), and she even has a gag-role playing one of the judges for the pageant who has absolutely no lines in the entire movie. She was inspired to write the film as she actually was a beauty pageant contestant when growing up in a small town in Minnesota.
The premise here is pretty simple, yet effective, so I'll just put the trailer here for you to decide, but I still just say to go and watch it, as it still deserves far more appreciation than it gets.
The original title of the movie in Britain was just The Mercenaries.
There's a real shortage of good mercenary movies out there, but among the few that are good, is Dark of the Sun. Released in 1968, it tells a common tale of the time, being set in the Congo, and involves mercenaries being hired to rescue European civilians in a remote mining town, but this is only a cover for the real mission on retrieving 50 million in diamonds in the company safe. There's tension with not only the enemy rebels, but also a potential the enemy within, namely a former nazi being one of the mercenaries on the team, which is of dubious trust. It's a pretty simple premise, but with excellent action and a soundtrack so good, it was reused by Quentin Tarantino in inglorious Basterds. It's also got some big name stars in it for the time, as well as being super controversial for the extreme action in the day. It still holds up and I would highly recommend it. Here's an HD remastered trailer for the movie:
Finally got around to watching the Netflix series Love, Death and Robots, which was meant from the get go to be a spiritual successor to the film Heavy Metal (that I have talked about before). Other than a reliance on computer animation, which I don't entirely blame them for, it's certainly a worthy successor.
The stories are all shot in various animation styles, and are anywhere from 7 to 17 minutes, and unlike the Heavy Metal movie, they don't have any story themes connected between them. It has a lot of dark humor, excellent horror with some great lovcraftian influences, a whole host of good sci-fi, and some even have a good moral story to them.
If you have a chance, go check it out, but if you can't or even if aren't interested in the series as a whole, I would still highly recommend the following episodes: "Pop Squad" is heavily inspired by blade runner and equilibrium, "All Through the House" is a standard Santa story, but a little more demented, "Night of the Mini Dead" is just one of the funnies things I have ever seen, "Kill Team Kill" is about spec ops soldiers confronted with an augmented grizzly bear made by the CIA gone wrong and is just as funny, and "In Vaulted Halls Entombed" is an excellent eldritch tale in the modern world, and "Lucky 13" is about a nugget pilot being given a cursed dropship. There are others that are great as well, but those are by far my favorite. In fact here's a low-res clip of the night of the Mini Dead:
This movie was huge when it came out and was lauded by just about everyone in the business, but when it comes to people talking about great crime or cop movies today, it never seems to be remembered anymore, and I think that's a huge crime unto itself. Perhaps because so much of it's style and atmosphere is just dripping in the 80s may have made some people think that it has aged poorly, but I happen to think it just makes it a stronger period piece, and has made it even more fun to watch now.
Without giving too many spoilers for those that haven't seen the movie, it's about secret service agents investigating a counterfeiting operation that is responsible for the death of an agent. The great Willem Defoe plays the villain, and the movie also features John Turturro, Robert Downey Sr., and Dean Stockwell.
The movie is most notable to me for a few reasons, but the most interesting points to me are that despite the fact the Feds are still the good guys, the film doesn't shy away from showing them massively screwing up due to hubris and outright stupidity, as well as blatantly doing bad and illegal things to get their man. It also really delves into showing the slow corruption of a good cop into a crooked one over the course of the story.
The film also has one of the best car chases committed to film, and there is just an immense amount of style to it that is unmistakably forever cemented in the 80s. I mean, come on, the entire soundtrack was done by Wang Chung and it's absolutely great! Another reason I love it, is that is shows LA for what most people really know it for, in that it's a dingy, dirty, and nasty city, instead of glorifying it, like an overwhelming majority of movies set in LA do.
The movie's tone is dark, gritty, and unapologetic about it (and that's how crime movies should be IMHO, and that's just another reason I love it), which is a great contrast to the very bright and upbeat visual and audio style of the time it's set in. So if you like dark crime or cop movies go check it out and you won't be disappointed. Normally, this is where I'd put a trailer for the movie here, but I figure I'll put the music video for the theme song here instead, as that really sets the tone for the film.
People often think of this movie like it's an outdated relic of the Cold War, that also lives under the shadow of the first movie. Its true that perhaps the first is more memorable (for better or worse), than 2010 and it has certainly aged a little worse than 2001, but I still feel it is often unfairly forgotten compared to it's predecessor. Despite this movie having been a respectable box office success when coming out, I find not many people talk about it today. outside of complete sci-fi film nuts like me.
Assuming you have actually seen 2001, the premise of this one is easy to grasp: in this possible future, the Cold War is still raging, and despite NASA wanting to go out and find out what happened to the Discovery mission, budgets have hit hard and they are unable to complete their own craft before the USSR are able to send one for themselves to the area. So, the US are forced to send their own specialists to hitch a ride with the Soviets to see if the Discovery is recoverable, reactivate HAL, solve the mystery of it's failure, and see if whatever caused the disaster is still a threat.
First, there are the downsides. Yeah, 2010 had some really big shoes to fill from the get go, and unless the people making the film were planning on breaking the bank, it was naturally going to have some trouble in the visuals department compared to the first movie. That being said though, despite some special effects scenes being hot trash (like the awful blue screened spacewalk scenes), there are still a lot of scenes that are still fantastically good, as it was still made in an era with actual physical models and sets instead of the ubiquitous green screens of today.
Note that this movie came out in 1984, and uses curved CRT monitors for the Dicovery sets, but the original sets in 1967 had managed to show flat screen displays almost 30 years before they were invented!
Secondly, a lot of people now look on the Cold War aspect of the story as silly and as something that has not aged well either. I tend to disagree with that, as I love the idea of this now being an alternate-future type of story kind of like Star Trek: First Contact or Man In the High Castle. That, and the overall moral to the conflict is still applicable today, just not between the US and former USSR. As the movie states, "our governments are enemies, not us" is a quote that rings true and can be applied to a lot of situations today. Some would say this movie is cheesy because of it's setting and the time it was made in, but I say that is all hogwash (although I admit, Helen Mirren doing a Russian accent is just laughable).
The model shots are just gorgeous though and they still hold up.
As for the parts of the movie that are an improvement over the first one is that it's nowhere near as slow paced as the original and can certainly be enjoyed by a much wider audience for that reason alone. As much as I love the first film, it is way too self indulgent and drags on far longer than is welcome by most. Even for people like me who love the first film for it being a massive special effects spectacle, the pacing can still ruins some of mood and tension intended by the story, as well as having a confusing ending for most, which brings me to my next point.
I absolutely love the atmosphere created by this film, it just reeks with mystery and foreboding, which is a big plus in my book when it's done correctly and it's delivered in spades here. Also, compared to the first, there is far more tension, higher stakes, better character development, a (now) very unique setting, and scenes so ominous and creepy, it tingles the spine, great acting showcased throughout, and an excellent 80s soundtrack that really sell the mood.
Another amazing aspect of the film is that most of the Russian crew seen in the movie were actual Russian, Ukrainian and Latvian actors who either defected or emigrated to the US during the Cold War. It's a rabbit hole, so I wont go into it here, but you can read about some of the actor's stories on Wikipedia here:
So, despite it not being as pretty as a film as the first, I think almost every other aspect of it is far better that than 2001 and I have certainly re-watched 2010 far more than the original. Basically, if you like good classic Sci-Fi, you can do far worse than this one, so give it a shot. The trailer was remade in high def by a dedicated youtuber which you can watch below, but even when remastered, it really doesn't do the movie justice IMHO:
George A. Romero is rightfully known as the father of the modern zombie movie. Without him, we wouldn't have either the good or the bad zombie flicks out there. However, this movie he did in 1973, could likely be seen as the original version of 28 Days Later.
People forget that despite the fact that 28 Days Later was the start of the re-invigoration or 2nd wave of the Zombie craze, that it wasn't really a zombie movie, but a contagion movie. The Crazies was really the one to pioneer this idea, as most other contagion movies of the time just had death as a consequence of the outbreak.
As with his zombie movies, I think Romero really loves telling the tale of the survivors, which can be good, but more of then than not, the most interesting part of the movies by far is the world building. Seeing everything fall or collapse because of the zombies was always the best part of the 'dead' series of movies and it's no different here. Basically a military bioweapon is accidentally released upon a small town that causes people to go completely homicidally bugnuts.
The setup is really the best part of the movie, and in the original script, was really to just be glossed over, but thanks to the screenwriter Lee Hessel, it was then expanded upon in the final filming script and the movie is much better because of it. So, the military takeover of the town because of the outbreak is just full of horrifying and mind-bending visuals and is nothing short of impressive. However, to be fair, the movie does start to peter out with the intrigue and tension to a bit of a muddling pacing when focusing on the survivors later in the film, but does have a decent ending in my opinion.
So, I can see why it may have been a bit of a flop when initially released, but it certainly gained a resurgence with a cult status after release on home video. So much so that there was a remake of the movie made in 2010, but like most reboots, was pretty trash compared to the original. But, if you like Romero films, or something of a similar vein to 28 Days Later, give it a shot and I think you will not be disappointed.
Back in the day, I remember the absolute crap-storm of a media sensation that surrounded his fraudulent arrest and trumped up charges, but I'm sad to day I never really watched much of his content until relatively recently, and surprise, he's pretty entertaining.
Needless to say, I'm glad he's not only been able to put the haters back in their place, but has gone back to doing what he does best: doing youtube videos about spicy topics with blatantly dark and politically incorrect humor. He's done a lot of videos about a number of topics, but my favorite series is his is the "Absolute Mad Lads" series that documents both famous and (more often than not) infamous people from history. Below is an example, about the little-known and curious tale of Frank Amodeo:
As I have said before, I'm pretty picky with my horror movies, and this one certainly passes the bar. It's an obviously low budget affair, but manages to do a very good job of it and has some pretty good actors in it to boot. The most famous ones in it to me are: Ray Stevenson, Richard Brake, and Michael Smiley. It's also a fun blend of horror, alternate history, action, and sci-fi, which is a pretty good blend in my book and it's also has some pretty obvious and subtle references to some classic video games.
The plot is pretty simple, but with details that were pretty unique for the time. A hodge-podge group of mercenaries are hired by a businessman to retrieve a piece of lost tech from an old WWII Nazi bunker in the middle of a modern active war zone (presumably in the Balkans). As the film goes on, and as they conduct their mission they start to experience odd occurrences, and find a man hiding in the bunker that may be more than he appears. It's not too heavy on developing most of the characters, and there isn't much more to the story than that, but it really does a great job of ramping up the tension and intrigue as the film goes on, and has a delightfully twilight zone inspired ending.
Another interesting bit of trivia is that the film was something of a passion project for the creator, with he and his wife mortgaging their home to make about $200,000 of the $300k budget for the movie. The film was fairly successful, raking in over $460,000 in in it's release, despite having a very limited one. It also managed to gain a pretty big cult following and had made enough on rental/streaming sales to spawn a couple of sequels as well, but the less said about them the better.
Anyways, despite the reviews being pretty consistently middle of the road for this film, I would give this one a big thumbs up and would encourage you to watch it. Anyways, since when have pro reviewers been right in recent history anyway, eh?
General Aviation is stuff that usually doesn't interest me too much, but when the War Zone had this on their site a while back, it really grabbed my interest as it's not something you see everyday. Behold, a business jet doing approaches to an aircraft carrier as they are the camera jets used for the filming of Top Gun 2:
This one will be a bit longer than most of my posts on films, especially for a film that is known for being so short. It's also not really that forgotten, but rather, I don't think it is given the recognition for it's huge significance today and at the time.
Basically, during the great drought of Trek shows before the garbage that is Disco, but after the nu-Trek Jar-Jar films released, there was a small number of fan studios putting out some high-quality Trek content. In particular, a new one was just starting and released a preview for what was to be a full length feature in a faux-documentary style. Thankfully the full preview is still available on Youtube:
Why was this such a big deal, you ask? Well, first off, instead of trying to re-imagine the original series era of Trek, this one faithfully recreates it. The Jar-Jar Trek was required to be different and was way too heavy on the gloss and lens flares, making everything seem fake on screen. On the other hand, Axanar tried to feel more grounded in it's sets and effects, giving it a more gritty feel. Unlike Enterprise and the nu-trek shows, it also wasn't trying to re-tread old ground, but was trying to flesh out something that had never been told first-hand in the trek universe before. As well as being faithful to established trek, it was also respectful to it's audience.
Naturally, because of these things, it was getting much higher viewing numbers than the new show that released at the same time, Disco. It was also getting a lot more fan hype and enthusiasm surrounding it, and the entire internet was praising it while using to compare to Disco and how trash that show is.
So, naturally, because the boneheads in charge of CBS hate both Trek and it's fans, and have no business sense whatsoever, the lawyers started seeping out of the woodwork to swarm on Axanar like flies to a carcass. Because Axanar wasn't doing anything conceptually different than has been done with Trek fan-films in the past, CBS came up with new draconian restrictions on fan-films with the threat of legal action if it was breached, and handed cease and desist orders to the studio. That action had the affect of not only killing Axanar, but nearly all other trek fan projects going on at the time.
I look back at this now and realize my worst fears at the time were completely right in that this was the first big blow to the Trek fandom and was the beginning of the end for Trek in general. Now Star Trek is permanently dead, never to be born again.
The only place that Trek lives on is in a small community of the PC gaming sphere, despite the garbage that is Star Trek: Online. With the revival of many Trek PC games on GoG.com, and with the release of one of the greatest trek mods of all time, Armada III for Sins of a Solar Empire, there is a bit of a resurgence of classic trek fandom that lives on. Not only that, but little known to most people, there was to be a major mod project tie-in for Axanar at the time it released.
The same team behind the Armada III mod were asked to help make this tie in, and they started work on it even before the final version of Armada III was finished, calling it Axanar: Strategic Operations. However, because of the CBS actions, this project was quickly cancelled. But the same team still couldn't be kept down and now have a similar project to carry on the original spirit and setting now called: Ages of the Federation: The Four Years War. It is well into an early build release and it is still undergoing development with additional releases expected soon.
At the same time, the same team also announced a sequel to the mod that takes place purely between the Motion Picture and the TNG era, which is what I am most excited about, as it's my favorite era of visual style for Trek, but with not much exploring that time frame. So, all you real Star Trek fans who like stuff that isn't trash, go give 'em a look-see.
Forgot to mention that I saw the new Top Gun: Maverick last week and was pleasantly surprised. As far as a spoiler-free review goes, I'll have to give one here: The downsides was that it had some cheesy and clunky dialogue, way too many quick-cut edits during the action sequences, some slow moving parts, some really bad sound effects, and less accurate flying scenes than the first movie.
Does that mean I didn't like it? Heck no, thought it was great! It was well worth the price of admission as it was not only very entertaining, with no woke garbage being shoved down my throat, but was full of great acting by all involved, visually amazing affects and flying scenes, great humor, and a halfway good story that gives the impression effort was put into it instead of it being a soulless cash grab.
Also, I don't think it's a spoiler to say the following, as it's been posted everywhere on aviation sites all over the web for years, since the film was made in freaking 2019 and delayed to the point to near eternity. Despite having to wait till the end of the movie, you also get to see the real star of the first film strut her stuff again after being on loan from the San Diego Air and Space Museum. Gorgeous.
Highly underrated and nearly forgotten compared to other SNL movies.
With the death of Norm Macdonald not too long ago, I am remiss in mentioning his own SNL movie that was made and sadly forgotten by most people, Dirty Work. I suppose with his passing, it may have gotten a resurgence in popularity, but I feel I need to mention it anyways.
As with most SNL movies, it's low budget and full of a lot of dumb humor, but hey, you know exactly what you're getting with this one. In my mind, it's hard to go wrong with Norm Macdonald and Artie Lange along with some of the SNL cast in a movie. I'd also be remiss in not mentioning that it was also one of Chris Farley's last film roles before passing and despite being a minor role, its one of the funniest characters he ever plays on screen. Add to that, a great list of cameos, with parts by Don Rickles, Chevy Chase, and small snippets of Adam Sandler, John Goodman, Rebecca Romijn, David Koechner, and the movie was even directed by Bob Saget.
Worth it for his role alone.
There are a lot of SNL movies out there, but this one is one that deserves a little more attention and appreciation that it has gotten in the past, so go give it a watch if you're a fan of old SNL when it was actually funny, Norm, or Chris. It's a cheap, lowbrow movie, but still gets me to laugh pretty dang hard, and is among the best of the SNL movies to this day.
In other news, Breaking Bad was a pretty good show, but I'm really enjoying the spin off Better Call Saul a lot more, as he was easily one of the top three characters in the show. Most of the characters in Breaking Bad were pretty unlikable, so I'm glad I can watch a show revolving around more of the actually enjoyable characters.
Little Barrie - Better Call Saul Theme
and just for kicks and giggles, all the original Better Call Saul promos:
House is a movie that isn't talked bout that much these days, and I really doubt it was talked about that much when it came out either, but it's worth checking out as a solid B-movie horror flick.
Now, I'm pretty picky about my horror movies, and I personally cannot stand ones that just revolve around nothing but gore-fests and jump scares, or even the popular slasher flicks. I prefer my horror movies to have a sizable psychological element to them, and this one fits the bill.
The movie is paced a bit slower than most, but it builds to the ending. Its a bit of a twist on the standard haunted house idea in that the house has no dedicated spirits haunting it, but it preys upon and amplifies the deep fears and pains of it's occupants, in this case, a Vietnam Vet with deep regrets revolving around his son and his wartime experience. The house itself is really cool as well, and I wouldn't mind living in it, provided it's not supernatural as in the film.
It does have it's issues, but overall the movie is pretty good, and I like to think (but it's not likely) that the movie's Vietnam antagonist was inspired by Stormtroopers of Death:
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