Octopus Overlords

Yeah it's been over twenty years since I tried that one but it didn't hit me like the magic that is Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise, Down by Law, or Dead Man. Or the original Coffee and Cigarettes short films. Dead Man's one of my favourite films of all time.

Or am I thinking of Mystery Train?

Seeing Gus Fring as a young jive-talker named Yo-Yo in a silly hat is almost worth the price of admission.

Air Force (1943), dir. Howard Hawks. Starring John Garfield, John Ridgely, Gig Young, Arthur Kennedy, and Harry Carey. As you can tell from the date, this is a patriotic flag-waver, and it tells a better story than some Hollywood propaganda of the time. The crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress (including a guy named Tex, a tough guy from the Bronx, a Minnesota farm boy, and a bad boy who comes through when it counts) is sent on a routine training mission from San Francisco to Honolulu. The flight of nine B-17s is fully tricked out with everything except ammunition. They arrive at Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941, to find the aftermath of a little situation. With little sleep, they're forced on a tour of the Pacific theater where there's no safe haven anywhere, but they exemplify all that's good about America and so they persevere. The movie doesn't dehumanize or ridicule the Japanese, which is not to say that they're portrayed in a good light.

IMDB says "Aerial scenes were filmed in Texas and Florida because airplanes appearing to be Japanese were not allowed on the west coast due to a fear of Japanese invasion." Combat scenes are quite good overall.

The Omega Man (1971). Charlton Heston, some other people. In 1975 a Russian-Chinese border war leads to biological warfare and near extinction; our story begins two years later. Interesting take on a post-apocalyptic world is hampered by some cheesy dialog, often badly delivered, and oy, that soundtrack. I was going to call it "stuck in the '70s" but it's really closer to the '60s. Enjoyable enough on a camp level, but it's not a very good movie.

The opening credits feature the credit "Based on a book by Richard Matheson", and does not give the title of the actual book, I Am Legend. I like everything else Matheson ever wrote so I have to assume that the book is better than the movie. Wiki says "The Omega Man is the second adaptation of Matheson's novel. The first was The Last Man on Earth (1964), which starred Vincent Price. A third adaptation, I Am Legend, starring Will Smith, was released in 2007, and appropriated this film's tagline." I dimly remember being underwhelmed by the Will Smith version, and now I'm curious about the Vincent Price version.

Starve Acre, a Shudder exclusive.

Slow-burn folk horror starring Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark. This is not going to be a film for everybody, but I loved it because I love slow, cinematic folk horror. This one probably misses some opportunities to be scarier, but I don't think it's really trying to be that kind of a film. It's less of a horror film than one designed to put you into a constant sense of uneasiness. With a lesser cast it might have been pretty mediocre, but I found the two stars riveting.

Kraken wrote: Fri Mar 14, 2025 9:12 pm The Omega Man (1971). Charlton Heston, some other people. In 1975 a Russian-Chinese border war leads to biological warfare and near extinction; our story begins two years later. Interesting take on a post-apocalyptic world is hampered by some cheesy dialog, often badly delivered, and oy, that soundtrack. I was going to call it "stuck in the '70s" but it's really closer to the '60s. Enjoyable enough on a camp level, but it's not a very good movie.

The opening credits feature the credit "Based on a book by Richard Matheson", and does not give the title of the actual book, I Am Legend. I like everything else Matheson ever wrote so I have to assume that the book is better than the movie. Wiki says "The Omega Man is the second adaptation of Matheson's novel. The first was The Last Man on Earth (1964), which starred Vincent Price. A third adaptation, I Am Legend, starring Will Smith, was released in 2007, and appropriated this film's tagline." I dimly remember being underwhelmed by the Will Smith version, and now I'm curious about the Vincent Price version.

I’ve seen them all. The Vincent Price version is a little closer to the book in the middle and in the general atmosphere, while Omega Man is a little more true to Matheson’s original ending where we find out who the legend is and to whom.

The Missouri Breaks (1976). Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Harry Dean Stanton, Randy Quaid. Nicholson and gang are down on their luck horse rustlers. A member of their gang is caught and hanged in the opening scene. Our gang takes an elaborate revenge on the land baron who lynched their friend; he, in turn, hires Brando for protection. Wiki says the movie was not well received in its day, but I think it's quite good.

I just finished with the Final Countdown. Amazon has a lot of grade A oldies that are fun to watch. I like the cinematics from those days better the the ones produced in the last 20 years.

The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959). Harry Belafonte, Inger Stevens, Mel Ferrer, and nobody else. While coal miner Belafonte was trapped underground in a cave-in, an unnamed country released clouds of radioactive isotopes into the stratosphere. It circles the globe, kills everybody, and then fades away because it had a very short half-life. When he realizes that rescuers have stopped digging, Belafonte manages to claw his way out and finds an empty world. I guess those isotopes must have evaporated corpses, because we never see any.

Released just five years after the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, this film is all about race. Ultimately, it has nothing meaningful to say. TCM's Ben Mankiewicz said the cast wanted to include an interracial kiss but the producers squashed that as too radical. If you overlook the wishy-washy racial conflicts, it's a fairly decent last-man-on-earth movie. Belafonte's character is an engineer, and he sets up a plausibly comfortable oasis.

dbt1949 wrote: Sun Mar 16, 2025 6:25 am I just finished with the Final Countdown. Amazon has a lot of grade A oldies that are fun to watch. I like the cinematics from those days better the the ones produced in the last 20 years.

If that is the one where the aircraft carrier goes back in time, it's one of my favorites

Punisher wrote: Sun Mar 16, 2025 10:02 pm

dbt1949 wrote: Sun Mar 16, 2025 6:25 am I just finished with the Final Countdown. Amazon has a lot of grade A oldies that are fun to watch. I like the cinematics from those days better the the ones produced in the last 20 years.

If that is the one where the aircraft carrier goes back in time, it's one of my favorites

Love that movie. Seen it many many times. Go Kirk go!

Watched My Neighbor Totoro with the kids tonight. Probably haven’t seen it in 15-20 years.

While the parts with Totoro and Catbus (especially Catbus) are fantastic and well worth the price of admission, the rest of the film is really pretty dull, tbh. The animation is beautiful (as always), but you’re mostly just left eagerly waiting the next time the fantasy characters show up.