PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Unknown World 1951

Unknown World is a 1951 movie about a trip to the center of the earth. That's not giving anything away, it's all in the poster. It's supposed to be shocking and daring but don't believe it. It didn't live up to it's hype even when it was new. It looks pretty amateurish. There are some effects but they aren't that great. There's not much reason to watch it at all.

 

The Wikipedia says that some of the story elements are similar to the story of The Core. That's another fairly poor movie that is watchable. So is Unknown World but it's still no excuse to watch it.

 

Here's a better movie to wash the taste of UW out of your mouth. Fiend Without A Face is a 1958 British science fiction movie that was good enough to make to Criterion's list of films. I've always liked it and have seen it several times. That's the nice thing about some of these old films, they have rewatchability. The movie is set in Canada in the province of my birth but it was filmed in Surrey England. I always wondered why they picked Manitoba.

 

It's got Marshall Thompson, some guy in a hat, a woman in a towel and those invisible floating brains. What, you can see it? Lucky you, it won't be able to sneak up on you and strangle you with it's highly flexible, and stranglely, spinal column. Here's the description of the movie from the IMDb: A scientist, experimenting with telekinetic powers enhanced by a nearby nuclear power plant succeeds in creating a new form of life. This new creature grows in intelligence until it finally escapes his laboratory. Once outside the lab, and closer to its nuclear power source it multiplies. The creature is also invisible, so no one knows what it looks like.

 

The scientist's creations eventually become visible so Marshall and the Air Force can fight them off. Luckily you can kill them with an axe. It's all works out pretty well in the end. The movie is directed by Arthur Crabtree and written by Herbert J Leder. Neither men are giants in their field but they turn in a nice workable monster movie that's well worth seeing. I would heartily recommend it.

Vexed Series 2

I got the second and last season of this British tv crime comedy from the library. You don't even have to do that, I see they're all on YouTube. Acorn TV also has them but they want 5 bucks a month to watch all their videos. They have a lot of British tv to watch and that suscription might be worth it for a few months while a person goes through their offerings but so far most everything they have has been at the library or NetFlix. A lot of the tv I see is worth watching once and not much more. Even my favorite series I might have seen only 2 or 3 times.

Toby Stephens plays D.I. Jack Armstrong. He's a London Police Detective and Miranda Raison plays D.I. Georgina Dixon who's new to the department is is his partner. They don't get along so well when they first meet in the opening episode but they do seem to have some fun solving crimes. I had fun watching them and you might like them too. I thought Toby and Miranda had better on screen chemistry than Toby had with his previous partner, Lucy Punch. I took the descriptions of the shows from the Wikipedia. Saves some time, you know, rather than thinking up my own.

Episode 1 - DI Jack Armstrong and his new partner, bright fast-tracker DI Georgina Dixon come together at a car showroom where top salesman Karl Mercer is found dead in the boot of a car. The suspects are all employees of the car dealership from sales staff to mechanics and Georgina is exasperated by Jacks casual attitude and he is annoyed by her determination to solve their first case together.

Episode 2 - The mismatched detectives investigate the murder in a university library of student Laura Edwards who is studying gender studies. Jack goes undercover as a mature student to aid their investigation of the tutors and students and the complicated world of gender politics. In their private lives Georgina meets her perfect man and Jack obsesses over his girlfriend, Danielle, to the amusement of Georgina with his descriptions of their relationship.

Episode 3 - Demoted to "missing persons" for a week, after Jack had defaced the Chief Constable's poster, Jack and Georgina investigate missing solicitor Ted Finch. When his body turns up in the river the detectives have to determine if it is suicide, murder, or an accident by checking into his life at home, work, and the last place he was sighted, the gym. Georgina's father unexpectedly appears as a crime prevention consultant.

Episode 4 - When the front runner contestant, Alison Clarke, on a cookery show is murdered Georgina goes undercover to solve the murder from suspects numbering the other contestants and the hosts of the show Robert Randall and his assistant Sue Goretti. Georgina takes the contest seriously and Jack takes advantage of her cooking skills to enhance his love life.

Episode 5 - When the headmaster of a hugely popular local primary school is murdered by a knitting needle in the neck Jack and Georgine quickly arrest one of the last five mothers to see him that morning. Realising they may have made a mistake further investigation reveals the headmaster was taking bribes from the mothers wanting their children accepted by his school. The school secretary is poisoned and Jack mesmerised by one of the mothers does not realise he too has been poisoned. Georgina's father announces he is divorcing her mother.

Episode 6 - The unconventional detectives investigate a robbery from the safe, at a family-run jewellery store, of a diamond belonging to a famous footballer. The thieves knew the combination, an inside job, so all the family and staff are suspects. Jack is distracted by an invitation to be best man at his brother's wedding, an invitation with a sting in the tail from a brother he despises. Georgina has problems when she experiments with online dating and is overwhelmed by the response.

The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 5

The last series of The Sarah Jane Adventures started airing Oct 3 2011. There were only three stories broadcast. Each story was in two half hour parts broadcast over two nights for 3 weeks. They had 6 more episodes to shoot but Elisabeth Sladen had gotten sick before they could start filming. She died early 2011 and the BBC decided not to continue the series with another actress. That seems like the right thing to do. So now the series is done and I did enjoy watching them. The stories are about the same as the previous series. There's plenty of running around while incompetent aliens try to take over the Earth. They always put a stop to that nonsense so we're still safe. It's all pretty predicable but the adventure moves along pretty quickly. Not sad that it's done, I enjoyed what we have, but I wouldn't be needing to see them again for the most part. You can see the three stories on YouTube below.

Sky - Sarah Jane gets  a new baby that turns into a teen overnight. Alien babies, huh.

The Curse Of Clyde Langer - Everyone hates Clyde. Bummer, huh.

The Man Who Never Was Part 1 & 2 - Who was that guy?

Alphas Season 2

I got through the whole second season quicker than the first and there were a couple more episodes. I was fast forwarding more than the first season too. The shows were similar enough to the first season but they ramped up the drama and added a dire threat in the story arc. They added a new regular, a tiny little blond woman who only remembers 4-6 weeks back but can learn any physical task or movement by seeing it. They first meet her at the fight club. Yep, this show had a fight club episode and the little blond woman kicked all the men's asses. Most action shows have a fight club episode sometime in their run, especially shows with regular fight scenes. I'm not always fond of them. I'm not too fond of Alphas either. They ended with a big ass cliff hanger. I'm never too happy with cliffhangers. To me it's like telling the fans that you care so little that you're going to leave them with this big ass hole to fill. Considering the target audience that's kind of a dick move. All that aside I was sad that I didn't get much more out of the show. Still, I watch more shows I like than the opposite. At least now I know I won't need to watch it again.

Stephen Fry - Out There

Here's the first episode of Stephen's travels around the world visiting with various gay and lesbian folks and the people that hate them. Some places are pretty awful so it's a mixture of good and sad. As usual Stephen's common sense and intelligence remind me that the villain is ignorance and fear. Here's the second episode.

Naked City

I had been looking at the bootleg set of the 1959-1963 tv series Naked City on some site and wondered if any of the shows have been issued on a legit dvd. Turns out a few of the 139 episodes had made it to dvd but not the whole set, at least until next week. The reason I mention it is that the $179.99 set is $25. 48 on Amazon today. That's 86% off! I put my order in. It's just too good a deal to pass up. It's a 29 disc set. The first season programs are half hour long but they switch to an hour long format for the next three years. It's a crime show that I remember watching but have no idea what the episodes are about. I do know there are lots of guest stars and many of them went on to be rather famous. Once I get the set in my hands and watch it I'll let you know what you missed by not buying it so cheap.

QI XL K

Some nice person posted the first 7 episodes of the current series of QI. Stephen Fry is the host and Alan Davies is the regular panelist in this British tv panel game show. I enjoy it a whole bunch and was happy to see them up there. The current season is only half over and once the other episodes get posted I'll add them or make a new post.

Episode 1 Knees & Knockers - David Mitchell Sara Pascoe Jack Whitehall

Episode 2 Kit and Kaboodle - Noel Fielding Colin Lane Ross Noble

Episode 3 K-Folk - Phill Jupitus Katherine Ryan Josh Widdicombe

Episode 4 Knits and Knots - David Mitchell Ross Noble Sue Perkins

Episode 5 Kings - Bill Bailey Jimmy Carr Jeremy Clarkson

Episode 6 Killers - Jason Manford Trevor Noah Sandi Toksvig

Episode 7 Knowledge - Jo Brand Jimmy Carr Graham Linehan

Just so you can waste more time here's the 2013 version of Big Fat Quiz Of The 80's.

Science Fiction Sunday 256

 

I had to watch the Terror Of The Zygons on Dailymotion today. The library has the dvd but I'm far down the list and it won't drop into my mitts for several weeks. Rather than wait I watched it on DM. Not to bad a picture, but the streaming kept getting interupted. I don't know if it's the site or Comcast. The serial is the 80th and it's the first of the 13th season. It aired from August 30 to September 20 1975 and there were 4 parts.

 

The story starts with an oil rig being destroyed. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) calls the Doctor in to help. At the end of the last episode the Tardis gang had recieved a message from the Brig and they rushed off to help. Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Slayden), Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) and the 4th Doctor (Tom Baker) arrive in the Tardis and meet up with the UNIT forces in Scotland. My favorite character Sgt Benton (John Levene) is still with the team. There have been several oil rig attacks and no one saw anything. The Doctor finds a fang print in the cement of the rigs pillars.  

 

It turns out to belong to the Loch Ness monster wich is being controlled by the shape shifting aliens, the Zygons. The team chases after the Zygons and get caught. They escape and run some more. There's secret passages, underground hideouts and loopy plans to take over the world with the power of Nessy. Some aliens sure are dumb. Good thing, I guess. Good for a laugh, anyway. I'd give this serial a slightly better than average score. The story moved along fairly well and the props and sets were pretty good.  On the other hand, the monster was pretty poorly done. The beast was kind of stiff and the green screen to make him appear with the actors just made me sad. I did like the attempt to make the Zygons ship more organic than their usual alien hardware. At least, I hope that's what they were going for. Maybe it'll explain it somewhere in the extras on the dvd. I'll have to wait to see those extras until I pop up to the top of the library queue. Usually the disc have been around enough that they rarely have more than one or three people on the queue. This disc came out last September so it's just started circulating. For some reason NetFlix doesn't have the dvd.

Friday Night Movies 447

We watched Iron Man 3 movie BluRay. It looks and sounds great but I thought it was way too long. I had enjoyed the 1st of the series and some of the 2nd but I wasn't that impressed with the 3rd. It might be me but I find the large blockbuster comic based movies less interesting than I used to and I'm not that keen on seeing them. There's an overly uninviting intro to the characters that kills a half hour before the movie gets more interesting. It's written and directed by Shane Black who's written some good films over his career. He's only directed one film before this one, the 2005 film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I found it to be entertaining and bought a copy to re-watch. It had some nice bits of acting from Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer. Shane wrote all 4 of the Lethal Weapon movies and most people know what those are like. I'm much fonder of his The Long Kiss Goodnight and The Last Boy Scout. I've seen both of those several times each. They both did so-so in the box office but gained a nice fan base afterward.

Shane's first attempt to direct a big budget superhero action film has mixed results for me. I found I really enjoyed the crime fighting parts, when Tony is trying to figure out what the Mandarin is up to and what's causing the mysterious explosions, but I found the character development uninteresting. That story telling style is one of the reasons why I'm not a Marvel comic book fan. I tried and I did read most everything that the company produced in the 60's but by the mid 70's I had lost interest. I kept up with the DC line for a while and in 1978 I sold my comics when I moved to the US. Over all I much preferred the DC type story telling style, who needs all that drama that Marvel generates. Most people seemed to like IM3, it scores well on the media sites, but I'm not planning to pick one up. I don't know that I would want to watch it again. Time will tell.

Time is what our next movie is all about. Beyond The Time Barrier is a 1959 Edgar G Ulmer film that stars, and was produced by, Robert Clarke. You can get it on this rather cheap dvd 4 movie pack. Unfortunately the 4 movies are crammed onto one disc. BTTB looked ok for the most part. You might remember Clarke from The Hideous Sun Demon. He wrote the story, acted in and produced that film. I remembered seeing that on tv when I was a kid and scenes from that movie stuck with me for ages. I hadn't seen BTTB before. It's written by Arthur C Pierce who went on to create some other low-budget sf movies in the 1960's and wrote some TV, like Fantasy Island, in the 1970's. Ulmer has other more interesting credits to his name. He started in the film business in Europe when it was still silent. He came to Hollywood and worked on westerns in the 1920's. His first film was a Canadian produced film about the horrors of VD. A year after that he directed the 1934 Bela Lugosi & Boris Karloff film The Black Cat for Universal. Edward had an affair with Shirley Alexander who was the wife of the nephew of Carl Laemmle. Unfortunately Carl was the head of Universal and his power black balled Edgar from all the major studios. Sometimes cause and effect are a bitch. Edgar and Shirley did marry and they had a daughter Arianne. Shirley is script supervisor, and Arianne acts, in many of Edgar's films including Beyond The Time Barrier.

 

Robert plays a jet pilot who travels into the future in his experimental plane. He doesn't know it until he lands and finds the air field in ruins and deserted. He goes on a bit of a recon and finds a futuristic city where he's knocked out. He awakes to find that the world is in ruins from a cosmic plague that happened in 1971. The last of the humans live in the underground city and mutants live on the surface. The humans are having trouble reproducing and many are deaf mutes. One of them is the daughter of the Supreme. He's the boss guy but he gives in to his daughter's wishes and saves the pilot from torture at the hands of the Captain of the Guard.

  

Robert doesn't quite fit in but they won't let him leave. He plots with the three other time travellers in the city to escape. Arianne Arden (Ulmer) plays one of the time travellers. She goes nuts and releases the angry mutants from the prison. Fighting breaks out and Robert escapes. He tries to take the Supreme's daughter with him but she's killed. He leaves and returns home.

 

It's not a good movie for the most part but I sure found it easily more entertaining than IM3. I certainly laughed more often and that counts for a lot. The science is a poor as the effects. Sometimes the experimental plane changes shape and markings. Just like magic. When Robert leaves to go back to his own time he does this by going left instead of right. The mutants wore obvious bald caps but they were put on their heads by Jack Pierce. He's the guy who did the original make up for the monster in the 1931 Frankenstein. Some of the sets are pretty nice. I liked the upside down pyramids. They used the large unoccupied buildings of the Dallas Texas Fair Park for their sets and a couple of Air Force bases for the locations. There's a bit of stock footage and in a couple of shots of the mutant prison are from another American International Pictures film: Journey to the Lost City. I don't remember ever having see that. I'd recommend this picture, just because it's pretty silly and it makes me laugh.

Hand Of Death 1962

 

What movie has John Agar, Joe Besser and Butch Patrick in it? That's right, Hand Of Death. Joe and Patrick only have small parts but John is the poor scientist who gets some of his nerve gas in his system. That's bad for him. He turns into a beast that can kill with a touch. Of his HAND! Ahhhh!

 

Of course he becomes a hunted beast as the bodies pile up. It takes a while to get there and there aren't that many bodies. It's a bit slow moving but that's partly the style of the time and partly to pad out the movie to 60 minutes. I saw it a few years ago when Greg lent me the bootleg dvd he had gotten at a convention. There still hasn't been a real dvd release but there are plenty of bootlegs and you can see it on the Internet. It's nothing great but it's worth a look for the fan of the 50's low-budget sf movie.

Here's a 1975 Chinese movie called The Hand Of Death. It's directed by John Woo and stars Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung. Neither of them are the main stars of the movie, that's Dorian Tan. Tan's abbott is killed and he goes after the guy. Jackie tags along. There's a fight every so often. Again typical fights of the mid-1970's, heavy on the sound effects. While it might be more for the Hong Kong kung fu fan it can give the novice Chinese movie buff a good idea what the Hong Kong movies of the 1970's were like. Sadly the movie isn't that good. It's not that it's a bad movie either. It's just kind of typical of the time and place. Asian Cinema wouldn't start to get interesting for a few more years. Woo's breakout film, A Better Tomorrow, came out in 1986 and he's been directing movies since 1968. Jackie was knocked out during one of his stunts, so that's something. It's one of the many accidents that Jackie lists in his autobiography. He's kind of an interesting guy but not all his movies are the best.