Mal ,'Our Mrs. Reynolds'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
I have to thank y'all (and IIRC Hec in particular) for getting me to watch The Prophecy several years ago. I love that film's Miltonian view of angels, and that was a movie that, for all of its being a horror flick, does spend at least some time talking about some rather neat philosophical discussions about angels' relationships with God.
You're welcome! I know Matt's also a fan of Viggo's portrayal of Satan.
The other great Miltonian horror movie is Constantine.
Which is neat in that its version of Gabriel becomes an antagonist for diametrically opposed reasons to those motivating Prophecy's Gabriel.
And that Gabriel is also different from Hellblazer's Gabriel. But then the movie kind of shits all over the graphic novel series. It is a good movie; you just have to tune out the work on which it is based. I wished they had named the main character "Justinian", or something other than Constantine.
I have to thank y'all (and IIRC Hec in particular) for getting me to watch The Prophecy several years ago. I love that film's Miltonian view of angels, and that was a movie that, for all of its being a horror flick, does spend at least some time talking about some rather neat philosophical discussions about angels' relationships with God.
If I needed any more evidence that you people are my people...
I love all the Prophesy movies...even the truly dismal of them...for just this reason. That dialog about God and angels, heaven and hell. So. Very. Human.
Plus. Eric Stoltz. And Viggo. Then, Russell Wong. And Christopher Walken.
Y'all hear about the Reddit comment thread that's been optioned for a movie?
>[link]Poor Harry Turtledove...
the article says that the author would love to have a female marine show up, but I thought there were ancient Amazon tales about women warriors. Isn't it accepted that the Greeks and Romans encountered women warriors in northern Africa or Asia?
Okay, but 2000 marines, and only the Chaplain has had any latin? I'd bet money some of the officers had. And why the hell would HE of all people kill himself, assuming based on his Irish surname that he's supposed to be Catholic?
(No, seriously, that was awesome, go flash fiction guy.)
And why the hell would HE of all people kill himself, assuming based on his Irish surname that he's supposed to be Catholic?
Yikes, and good point. I didn't read any of the actual story, I'm just getting a kick out of the way Hollywood jumped on it.
Well, and he started asking his Spanish-speaking troops for help. Probably more luck finding them than Italian-speakers, but that would be the language closest to Latin.
Interesting stuff coming up on TCM.
On Thursday, 10/27 they're showing a slate of 70s Musicals including Fiddler on the Roof, Man of La Mancha and Hair.
Of particular note, they're showing Ken Russell's 1971 musical The Boyfriend starring Twiggy and Tommy Tune. It's only recently come out on DVD and well worth checking out. Russell uses it as an opportunity to go all whackadoo Busby Berkeley, but the story itself is a fun, light backstage drama and Twiggy is quite charming as the lead.
On Mondays in October, they're showing Horror movies. This Monday they're showing two fantastic movies worth checking out.
Horror of Dracula (1958) was the second movie in Hammer Studios reclamation of the classic Universal horror stable, and the role that made Christopher Lee a star. For many horror fans, it's Lee rather than Lugosi who is the definitive Dracula.
Later that night they're showing Curse of the Demon (aka, Night of the Demon), also a British film, and also from 1958. This movie, however, is quite different from the Hammer aesthetic.
It's directed by Jacques Tourneur, one of the great Hollywood noir directors and also a key figure in Val Lewton's RKO horror movies in the forties. Tourneur directed Cat People, and brings that aesthetic to this movie based on an M.R. James story ("Casting the Runes").
The movie is famous for two things: 1) It's reclamation of the Lewton aesthetic, which is lyrical and poetic, shadowy and suggestive. (In other words, the opposite of Hammer.) 2) The producers forced Tourneur to use a giant puppet special effect for the demon. Opinion is split on this with many people feeling this is in direct contradiction the vibe of the movie, and others think it's the coolest hairy monster puppet ever. (Tourneur wasn't against using the puppet entirely, but wanted to strongly limit what was visible of it. The producers wanted more monster for their money.)
The best parts of the movie, however, have nothing to do with the puppet demon and it's a very taut thriller with some extremely cool and creepy scenes.
Also, that little sample that Kate Bush uses at the beginning of Hounds of Love ("It's coming! It's in the trees!") is from this movie.
Keeping with this theme there's a whole night of Val Lewton horror movies on TCM and Halloween itself will be nonstop Hammer Horror, then a trio of movies - The Haunting, The Innocents, and Repulsion - which are notable explorations of horror/repressed female sexuality.