The Dragon Pearl 2009 Story by Ron Saunders, John Armstrong and Mario Andreacchio, screenplay by Philip Dalkin, directed by Mario Andreacchio.
A PG film about a trip to China. A couple of young kids meet on their parents archeology dig in China. They meet a dragon and have an adventure.
It's about average for what it is. I enjoyed it but wouldn't necessarily watch it again.
Iron Mask 2019 Screenplay by Oleg Stepchenko, Dimitry Paltserv and Alexey A Petrukin, directed by Oleg Stepchenko. A Russian Chinese co-production that's a sequel to Forbidden Empire. Starring Jason Flemyng, Jackie Chan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rutget Hauer, Helen Yao and Charles Dance.
Titled Тайна печати дракона in Russian, the English translation is Viy 2: Journey To China. Titled 龙牌之谜 in Chinese which translates to The Mystery Of The Dragon Seal in English. It's called The Iron Mask or just Iron Mask in the US.
Jason is a cartographer who's mapping Europe, Russia and China. Along his route he helps a young man who turns out to be a Chinese Princess. Jackie is in prison in the Tower Of London with Tzar Peter I, Arnold is the Warden, he likes a punch up, anyone who beats him can go free. The Tzar escapes and winds up on a ship with Jason's wife. They are bound for China.
The Princess returns to her town to find an evil sorceress is posing as the Princess. There's a lot of leaping about and yelling to get that set right. There's plenty of nice scenery along the journey. It's a nice production but the dialog is kind of poor. I enjoyed the movie and hope they get to release the third film. It's supposed to come out in 2022 but nothing so far.
Amityville In Space 2022 Written and directed by Mark Polonia. Mark had directed over 70 pictures in the last 37 years. From the look of this one he hasn't learned how to make a good movie yet. He seems to be following The Asylum's business plan, make low budget horror movies, make a lot of them, don't worry that they aren't very good. I thought AIS was worse than some of The Asylum's poorer pictures. Mark's a big liar too, there's nothing in the movie that looks like that poster. There is a house in space, it's been exorcised from Earth. You can see it in the trailer in the title above. It's sad looking. Most of the effects are poor.
There's a space ship filled with spacemen and women who are traveling about the galaxy blowing up black holes with bombs. They spot the house near a black hole. A strange humanoid enters the ship and gives the human's hallucinations. A priest comes to help them and some of them live to escape.
We were joking about while watching, there was a complaint that I thought was quite valid, the film makers don't seem to take any steps, even baby ones, to make their movie better. We were coming up with all sorts of ways to improve scenes and ways that wouldn't increase the budget. Is Mark lacking imagination? Could be. I think he just didn't bother. I wouldn't bother watching the film again.
Another 4 film package with big monsters munching people and causing havoc. Three are water based and one lava based. Hardly anyone in them I had heard of, and the production values aren't always so great. All four movies are crammed on a single disc.
Dead Sea 2014 Brandon Slagle is the writer and director. He's written a story about a lake dwelling monster that appears every 30 years to snack on the locals before getting back to sleepy bye-bye land. The locals are miserable creeps who force people into the lake as sacrifices so they can stay there. I've seen this plot over and over and it doesn't have anything new to add to the convo. The production is particularly weak on this one. Not worth the watch.
Robocroc 2013 Berkeley Anderson wrote the script and Arthur Sinclair directed. This time the monster is a crocodile that's been taken over by military nanobots that are quickly turning the croc into a robot fighting beast. Dee Wallace plays the hard ass bitch that runs the project. Corin Nemec plays the hero, a zoo keeper who takes care of the crocodile. I remember him fondly from Parker Lewis Can't Lose. He's done a few of these made for TV monster movies of one sort or another. Him and Dee are both OK here, I'm happy when he saves the day and I'm happy when she gets some payback for being such a murderous POS. Occasionally it's amusing but not enough to make me like it more than I did. The CGI is fair to poor, the general production values are low, the acting is average or below, nothing much new here. It's better than the first movie but it's doubtful that I would watch it again.
Supertanker 2011 Another TV movie, director Jeffrey Scott Lando wrote the script with Nate Atkins. Some moron has developed an anti-matter liquid from a meteor. It's unstable and the only safe place for it is in a containment field in a cold underground bunker in Alaska. When someone tries to move a tiny bit of it they find out unstable it is, a whole town in Canada is wiped out. Now there's a new plan to drop it into the Marianas Trench.
Velizar Binev is the captain of the supertanker that's been specially pimped out to carry the world's most deadly substance. If it was let lose it would destroy the whole earth in a short while. Everything about this project is really stupid. Callum Blue plays a containment expert, he and his team are called in to ride along with the substance on a supertanker. Ben Cross plays the evil company man. They're all characters you've seen.
The movie hasn't anything new but I got through to the end, carried along by Callum and Velizar, they stand out as the better than average actors on the shoot. Not enough to make me want to watch it again.
Dracano 2013 Keith Shaw, writing as Lindsay James, wrote the script and Kevin O'Neill directed. Corin Nemec gets to fight dragons in this tale. It's a bit better than the other films on the disc, it has a bit of sense of humor and I liked that. Troy Evans plays the General that heads the secret military operation that deals with the dragons that live in volcanoes. They are cocooned in eggs that only hatch when they are exposed to the air. In the network of underground lava flows the dragons float around the world. Occasionally an eruption creates a problem. Remember Mt St Helen's? Nuked to cover up the dragons. Who knew?
This time the cover up doesn't go so well. Corin is a park ranger on his day off, he encounters some people on his hike into the desert, they are all surprised there are dragons. There's plenty of running about and yelling. The CGI dragons aren't too bad in the back ground, up close they lack a bit. I enjoyed it more than the other three films and probably would watch it again sometime.
Он - дракон is the title of a 2015 Russian romantic fantasy about a girl and a dragon. Он - дракон translates to English as He's a Dragon. In the US and the UK it was re-titled I Am Dragon. I thought that was kind of a poor choice.
It's the first movie for director Indar Dzhendubaev, he co-wrote the screenplay with Aleksey Arsenev. Timur Bekmambetov is one of the producers. He's also a director, you might have seen Night Watch, Day Watch, Wanted or Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
The story is set in the past, one that had dragons in it, villages used to sacrifice young women to the dragon, singing a song to attract them. For years no dragons came and the villagers stopped singing the song. A young Princess is being married off to a Prince from another kingdom. During the ceremony the Prince's men sing an old song from the time of the dragons. A dragon comes and carries her off to an island.
It's a nice island, be cool to live there. Still, no shops. No nothing. The Princess falls into a pit that the dragon can't get too. It makes a lot of noise and then disappears. She meets a young man she assumes is also trapped there.
Bit by bit the secrets are revealed and the romance takes over the story.
It's a pretty picture, nice locations - real and imaginary, good props, costumes and sets. The dragon was pretty good too. It was a bit heavy on the melodrama for my taste but it was still entertaining.
I picked up this 4 movie set because it has a film directed by Don Coscarelli. Don was the director of the Phantasm series and Bubba HoTep. Besides Don's movie it's got one movie with Merlin and a couple with Dragons. It's another set from Echo Bridge Entertainment and that means the 4 films are all on one disc. The bit rate isn't that high but I'm not going to spend actual money on these movies. The Coscarelli movie is $10 on it's own DVD. I paid about 3 bucks for the four movie set and that probably was a bit more than it's worth. Especially since one of the movies is also on the other Echo Bridge fantasy movie collection I watched a while ago.
First up is a 2009 locally made production called Midnight Chronicles. It's produced by Fantasy Flight Games and the movie was made in Chaska and Roseville Minnesota and over in Pepin Wisconsin. One of the guys in the local LEGO club, Jeremy Stomberg, works at FFG and he worked on the movie as the prop master and set dresser. The IMDb says it was a pilot for a TV show and some props and costumes were donated by the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. It's based on a game that Fantasy Flight Games put out. I don't know what the game is like, I'll probably never know, but the movie is pretty dull and uninteresting. It's some sort of fantasy world where the dark god Izrador and his orcs run everything. The humans are downtrodden and oppressed. Some don't like it. The movie is awash in political intrigue. There's plenty of yakking and not much else. The actors are mostly amateurish but they go well with the so-so script. The sets and props are OK but often rather spare. The CGI is typical low budget, the kind better kept in a dim world. This movie moved pretty slow, even after I started watching it at 1.5 speed, in fact the more I speed it up the slower it seemed. I did like the library scene at the end of the movie but it still doesn't make the rest of the movie better. I won't be bothering with it again.
The Beastmaster is a 1982 movie that was directed by Don Coscarelli. It's much better than the previous movie and it's a bit above average. Maybe. At least it was more fun to watch. It's certainly gotten it's share of new fans over the years. It played on cable a lot and a lot of people grew to like it. I think I had seen it before. It's not on my watched movie list but the movie came out before I started the list. I put it down on the list so I know I have seen it.
It stars Marc Singer as a guy who can control the animals. He makes pals with an eagle, a couple of ferrets and a black tiger. It's a regular orange and black tiger dyed black. Rip Torn is the main villain, he tosses children into a fire as sacrifice. If you guess where he'll wind up at the end of the movie, and you guessed something with fire, you'd be right. There's all the usual fantasy warrior stuff with a good number of fights and plenty of running about. There's a bit of romance with Tanya Roberts being the gal Marc falls for. John Amos turns up as a good guy, he joins with Marc to take down Rip Torn. There were a couple of sequels and a TV series after the movie. I haven't seen any of those. I'd probably watch this over again some day but that day might not come with so many other things to watch over again, as well as the interesting new stuff.
Merlin And The War Of The Dragons is on that other fantasy film set from Echo Bridge. I watched the 8 films back in May. The movie is from The Asylum and it's not that good. I didn't re-watch it, why bother.
Dragonquest is another fantasy film from The Asylum. It's not too good either. It's got more of a sense of humor that the Merlin film and Marc Singer has a roll in the movie. Still I won't be watching it again, ever.
Now that's done and while I'll keep it for the film by Don it's debatable that I need to bother.
I'm sad to say that The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens is a Canadian film. It's a 2008 fantasy film written by a gang of writers and directed by Mark McNabb. Mark wrote the story with Scott J Jones and Kelly Rae Irwin. Virginia Carraway, Charlie Fitzgerald and Casey Jones worked on the screenplay and Barry Cowan wrote the annoying voiceover script. All those writers and not anything really original in the story. They all spend so much time explaining everything they forget to just have the story tell itself. It's got poor dialog, lame comedy and on top of that it's pretty preachy. The special effects aren't very good at all.
Billy is an 11 year old kid who gets some magical powers. He has a couple of pals who help him along his mystical adventure. There's the all knowing girl who spouts facts all the time and the good natured goofy kid. Roddy Piper is the owner of a curio shop and he's the only person in the movie that I knew. He's pretty awful in the role but I guess he didn't want to make the other actors look bad. It's a pretty much amateur cast all around. There's a plot by Loki to screw up the river or something and it's all one of those events that has a special book and a ticking time clock. The kids have to go about trying to save the river. There's even a dragon but it's so poor looking that it was sad to watch. It ended with a To Be Continued banner, so fuck those guys. Now that it's over I can move along to something else. I couldn't recommend it. You're better off watching something better. You know, Harry Potter, for example.
Here's an interesting article on the BBC News site about a shipping container filled with LEGO parts and sets that fell off a ship in 1997. The parts are still washing up on the beaches in Cornwall. Plastic in the sea is a big problem.
I had been hoping to pick a copy of this set at the LEGO store the day TwinLUG was putting on a display. The manager gave participants a 30% discount for helping and displaying stuff. Of course they didn't have it and I wound up buying some other stuff. I did luck out and got a copy of the Monster Fighters 9468 The Vampyre Castle that had been marked down to $80. With the 30% off the cost was $56. Not too bad for a large set with a good supply of the pieces I want. From that sale I saved $10 in VIP money which I used toward that $50 set. It's a good thing too. It's a $50 set with 376 pieces in it.
That makes the parts about 13.5 cents each witht he tax added. Not a good average but it's got a dragon in it and that's what I was interested in. If I hadn't gotten it as a discount I'm not sure I would have gotten it because I just wasn't that impressed with the rest of the set. There's a fairly nice catapult, something we've seen before, but the rest isn't that interesting. Here's the box and the set followed by the description from the Brickset site.
Travel to Dragon Mountain to battle its fire-breathing guardian! Load up the large catapult and fire it at the dragon’s tower! Defeat the dragon and the Dragon Wizard! Search for the King’s stolen gold hidden in the dragon’s nest and find the secret potion room. Then overpower the Dragon soldier on the steps of the tower and rescue the princess from the dark dungeon! Includes 5 minifigures with weapons and accessories: 2 King’s Knights, princess, Dragon Wizard and a Dragon soldier.
• Includes 5 minifigures with weapons and accessories: 2 King’s Knights, princess, Dragon Wizard and a Dragon soldier
• Features large catapult, spiral staircase, tower with dungeon and dragon nest with secret gold compartment and potion room
• Large catapult features wheels and a catapult function
• Weapons include 2 swords, spear and a staff
• Accessories include a treasure chest and 2 shields
• Destroy the tower with the powerful catapult
• Free the princess from the dungeon
• Defeat the wizard in his tower
• Find the hidden stash of gold
• Discover the secret potion room
• Launch an aerial attack with the dragon’s poseable wings
• Measures over 8" (21cm) high, 9" (24cm) wide and 5" (13cm) deep
• Catapult measures over 1" (4cm) high, 4" (12cm) long and 3" (9cm) wide
• Dragon measures over 4" (11cm) high, 13" (35cm) long and 13" (33cm) wide
I sure like the new designs on the dragon shields. The Lion shield is ok but lions are common and dragons are fuckin' dragons. More costumes add variety to the Castle guys in stock. I might wind using a bunch of them if I continue to work on the Medieval Village I've been tinkering with. Here's the 5 minifigs in the set.
The Lion Princess has no name. She has a nice dress and hair piece. The Dragon Wizard has a nice hat and costume. If you added a black 2x2x3 slope in place of his legs you could get a nice robe effect. I almost wish they wouldn't put those hanging bits on the legs as decoration. I like the beard which is the same one that the Ninjago Master had in white. I never seem to tire of more interesting minifig accessories. I do tire from trying to get them all used. DW's also got red hands which can come in handy useful at times. Alien hands or mittens, you never can tell what job they'll get until you build something.
More soldiers. That's seems to be what I want the least. I could use more villagers and travellers. As usual I have to make them up out of other sets. Not overly sad that I spent the money but I'm glad I had the VIP money to get that 10 bucks off.
Sperhauk lent me his copy of the Kino Video dvd of Die Nibelungen. It's a two disc set of the 1924 Fritz Lang silent films adapting the 800 year old poem Nibelungenlied. I hadn't seen it before. I have seen many of Fritz's movies. You might remember his Metropolis, or Fury. I've seen the former several times. Once I even watched a multi-reel 8 mm film version of Metropolis. It was back when I lived in Winnipeg. Mike Hall had a copy, at least I think it was his. I think the place we looked at it was Ed Ackerman's studio. I'm not sure who else was there, Mike, Steve, maybe they remember. Those guys were part of the Winnipeg SF fan group in the 70's. It took a while to watch the movie, stopping to rewind each 8 or so minute reel. We didn't have but the one take up reel. We stopped for burgers at the Salisbury House after watching a fair bit of the movie. I think we spent as much time as it took me to watch the 5 hour long Die Nibelungen. The first movie is Die Nibelungen: Siegfried and the second movie is Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge. They were released about 6 months apart. I liked seeing them in one long sitting. More depressing. I'm joking. It's a comedy. Of death.
Die Nibelungen: Siegfried. The fellow in the title is a young prince of Xanten and he's out to win the hand of the princess of Burgundy. On the way over to her house he runs into a dragon. Wow! You should see that dragon. Look here's a couple of pictures and you can see the scene here on YouTube..
So, now I'm thinking Siegfried is a bit of a dick, killin' that dragon for no good reason. I just know what that dragon would say, "Just quenching my thirst, why you gotta get all stabby on me?", but it's a silent movie and you can't hear what he's sayin'. It's a full size articulated dragon puppet, about 60 feet long. I think it's a bit weak as dragons go but I still like it. The work that went into it must be admired. Siegfried bathes in the dragon's blood and becomes invincible. Well, except for his Archille's Heel. It's not really his heel, it's the spot on his back that got covered by a leaf, his skin didn't get any of that dragon's blood, so it's vulnerable. That will be important later. Siegfried beats up the King of the Dwarfs and gets a net of invisibility.
Siegfried arrives at Kriemhild's castle and there's a lot of bad livin' goin' on. It sweeps Siegfried up and carries him off to Iceland where Kriemhild's brother Gunther has to wrestle Brunhild to win her hand in marriage. That's my two ancestors. Germans and Icelanders. I'm not going anywhere with that. Siegfried turns invisible and helps Gunther. That later back fires and Brunhild turns against Siegfried. Hagen, some knight at the court, kills Siegfried on a hunt, after learning of that weak spot. Brunhild kills her self when the plot complicates up a bit and Kriemhild vows revenge for the killing of Siegfried.
Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge. Kriemhild tries to get her brothers to kill Hagen but they like him better than her and won't go along with her plan. Some knight comes from Attilla the Hun's castle with an offer of marriage from the great warrior. Kriemhild goes to see what's happening, and thinking of revenge, she marries the guy and bares him a son. She invites her brothers for a festival and bribes some of the Huns to attack them. It all goes wrong and Hagen kills Kriemhild and Atilla's son. It gets worse and nearly
everyone dies. A rather dire story. That's the whackest Attilla I've ever seen. Not that I've seen many, mind you. He's got a great castle. Great thick high walls, a huge thick doors, topped off by some nice wooden pillars and a thatched roof. Great for burning everyone in there to death. While it may not be the happiest story, it sure has some nice interesting sets and characters. Very stylistic, as you might expect from the director and that period in Germany. Here's a site with some German color postcards from the time the movie was released. that's one of them up on the left. Here's a shot of Kriemhild and Attilla in what I can only describe as "quite the costume."
They might dress well but they aren't the people you'd like to spend some time with. The whole movie has this unreal look to it. Fairly interesting even if the story plods along at times. I was glad to see it, though I don't know if I will want to see it again too soon. It's worth checking out for it's unusualness.