Tag: Journal Entry

Kaiju Mono A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Kaiju Mono (2016) – A Movie A Day 2021 #17

Kaiju Mono Japanese poster

With the recent announcement that Godzilla vs Kong will be released earlier than expected (and on my my birthday), kaiju movies have been on my mind. Plus, with New Japan Pro Wrestling beginning their first tour of 2021 today, pro wrestling has been on my mind as well. So with both of those things on my mind, I figured it was about time I watched Kaiju Mono, a kaiju movie starring the current IWGP Intercontinental and Heavyweight Champion, Kota Ibushi.

Kaiju Mono is about a skinny, nerdy lab assistant who is turned into a giant pro-wrestling superhero in order to fight a giant monster (called the Dai Kaiju Mono, or just Kaiju Mono in English) that is wrecking the city in search of its lost egg. The lab assistant, Hideto Nitta, has some quick success in his first encounter with the beast, that gains him some instant fame. However, the many different directions he’s pulled in because of his new celebrity status causes him to lose focus on what was important to him before, specifically, his massive crush on Miwa, the daughter of the scientist Nitta works for. On top of all of that, there is a secret plot by some foreign agency to steal the secrets that gave Nitta his extraordinary new abilities. It’s a simple story and a straightforward plot, and that sets up a good base for a whole bunch of goofy comedy and a few cheesy and fun fight scenes. 

That being said, the comedy stylings of Kaiju Mono will not be to everyone’s liking. I’ve seen enough of these types of lower-budget Japanese movies to come to expect a certain degree of overacting and groan-worthy jokes and situations, but I can understand that it might be an acquired taste for some people. Make no mistake, Kaiju Mono is a comedy first and a kaiju movie second. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a parody of kaiju movies, but the argument could be made. Either way, Kaiju Mono does go off on some weird tangents (like the “joke” contest to decide whether or not the scientist will help fight the giant monster), and it does feature many plot points that end up being jokey versions of action and sci-fi movie clichés. I thought it was all in good fun though, and I had a smile on my face the whole time I was watching (even when I was shaking my head). 

I do think my personal experience was heightened immensely by the fact that the star of the movie is one of my current favorite professional wrestlers in the world, Kota Ibushi. Seeing Ibushi outside of a wrestling ring and getting goofy in a movie like this was so much fun to watch. He didn’t have to stretch his acting muscles very much because it felt a lot like he was just acting as himself. Ibushi’s personality in every wrestling show and interview I’ve seen comes across as quiet, humble, and dedicated, and that’s about how he acted for most of this movie. And of course, the rest of the time he was kicking, punching, and Phoenix Splashing a giant monster. So yeah, absolutely top-notch stuff from Kota Ibushi. He should be in more movies. 

Ibushi isn’t the only wrestler in Kaiju Mono though. One of the most frightening pro wrestlers alive, Minoru Suzuki, makes a cameo at a certain point. Suzuki also basically plays himself, and he gets real dirty when he takes his own brand of fighting to the giant monster. Ibushi and Suzuki are also joined by female pro wrestler Saki Akai. Akai has wrestled for promotions in Japan such as Tokyo Joshi Pro and DDT, and in Kaiju Mono she plays a beautiful and dangerous spy who is trying to steal Nitta’s secrets. Akai was great as well, and seeing her in this made me want to look up some of her matches. In addition to the wrestlers, there seem to be a bunch of cameos that I didn’t always recognize. I’m pretty sure one of the NJPW commentators was in the movie calling the battles like pro wrestling matches, and there were a number of Japanese celebrities I didn’t recognize until I looked them up afterwards. I’ll let them be a surprise, because if you know them then it will be fun to spot them, but if you don’t know them then it won’t matter if I name them or not. 

Overall, Kaiju Mono was a good and silly time. I think you can tell exactly what to expect by watching the trailer, so if it looks interesting to you, then you’ll probably enjoy the whole movie. If you’re a fan of Kota Ibushi, then the movie is an absolute must-watch. If you don’t know or don’t care who Kota Ibushi is, then you might still have some fun laughing at this goofy take on classic Japanese monster movies. 

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Wonder Woman 1984 A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) – A Movie A Day 2021 #16

My favorite WW84 poster.

I really don’t know what people want from movies sometimes. I waited a few weeks after its release to see Wonder Woman 1984, and in the meantime I’ve seen mixed reviews for the film at best. It’s currently at 60% on Rotten Tomatoes and hovering around 5.5 on IMDB. There is a fair amount of review bombing going on (which has to be one of the absolute dumbest forms of protest), and some of the nastier reviews seem like they’re just looking for stuff to complain about. Don’t get me wrong, opinions are fine and great, but some opinions are better (and more well reasoned) than others. By all means, have your own opinion and defend it with whatever reasoning you think you should, but Wonder Woman 1984 definitely better than the impression a casual glance at any collection of online reviews might give you. It’s certainly not the best movie ever made (nor is it trying to be), and it’s probably not even as good was Wonder Woman (2017), but it is a fun superhero movie with some touching moments, campy laughs, and admirable performances. I’m not trying to by cynical here though, so I’m just going to leave the rest of the online chatter behind and talk about the movie from the only perspective I really can: my own. 

Wonder Woman 1984 picks up Diana Prince’s (Gal Gadot) story about 65 years after her adventures with Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) during World War I. The year is, obviously, 1984, and Diana is living a relatively quiet life working at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. while staying out of the spotlight as best as she can. She’s still helping people by performing heroic deeds as Wonder Woman, but she’s trying to keep that part of her life a secret. Her lives as Diana and Wonder Woman start to cross over when an artifact ends up at the Smithsonian and a newly hired gemologist, Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), is tasked with finding out exactly what it is. It ends up being something imbued with great power, and local celebrity/con-man Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) has been searching for it for a very long time. Long story short, Diana, Barbara, and Maxwell all end up receiving certain benefits from the artifact, and those benefits effect them each in different ways. Maxwell, however, is driven to take more and more power, and as he gets what he wants, the entire world starts to pay a heavy price for it. Diana has to stop him, but her own desires and the actions of Barbara stand in her way emotionally and physically. 

The first thing I really love about Wonder Woman 1984 is the fantastic cast. Gal Gadot is just as perfect for Diana Prince now as she was back in the first Wonder Woman movie. She’s always the strongest presence on the screen, and Diana’s character arc is touching and significant. Kristin Wiig is also great as Barbara Minerva. The character of Barbara can come off as somewhat of a stereotypical nerd who just wants to be popular, but Wiig’s performance kept me invested even when it was abundantly clear where her character arc was headed. And Pedro Pascal is fantastic as Maxwell Lord. Max comes across as a cheesy TV personality when we first meet him, but when his sinister side comes out, Pascal manages to balance humor with a kind of manic desperation and danger. Max also has a tender side that humanizes him, and that makes his fall as he succumbs to his darker tendencies all the more tragic. Maxwell Lord is easily one of the more interesting villains in any superhero movie. 

Plus, yes, as you’ve probably seen in the trailer, Chris Pine is back as Steve Trevor, and he adds a ton of heart and humor through his performance. How is Steve Trevor back? You can maybe piece some things together from what I’ve said so far, but I won’t say any more about it. It’s fun finding out how Steve manages to be alive after having died 65 years prior, so I won’t spoil it here. 

Beyond the performances, I just think Wonder Woman 1984 is just a fun superhero movie. The action set pieces are memorable, and even though some of the jumping and swinging feels a bit floaty to me, that didn’t distract me from the overall enjoyment of seeing Wonder Woman in battle. Many action movies these days have that kind of floaty feel to any CGI aerial action, so I think the effects here are at the very least on par with most other superhero blockbusters. Some of the best moments can be seen in the trailer (like Wonder Woman flipping a truck and leaping above it), but there a bunch of fun fight scenes on both large and small scales. 

As much as I enjoy the action in Wonder Woman 1984, it does take a while for it all to really get going. Except for a brief sequence where Wonder Woman stops some robbers in a mall at the very beginning of the film, the first half of the movie is all about character building and setup. There’s a lot of talking and drama, but there’s not a lot of action during this time. So if you want wall to wall fighting, you’re going to have to wait a bit. For me though, I enjoy the characters enough that I wanted to follow them and learn more about them and their relationships before they inevitably start fighting and falling apart. The first half of the movie didn’t feel like a drag to me, but I could see where others might want to see a bit more punching and kicking.

I do think the character building in the first half of the movie is important though, because it helps make the final few scenes more emotionally resonant. Even though, yeah, certain things can come across in a heavy-handed way towards the end of the movie, I am totally fine with a bit of comic book cheese in my comic book movie. I enjoyed all of the resolutions, and I even got a little teary one or two times. Maybe I’m just a soft touch when it comes to these things.

The story in Wonder Woman 1984 is good in a very comic-booky way. Getting from point A to point B and beyond can often take a lot of logical leaps, but I’m fine with that. This is a movie about a world filled with gods and magic, so I can buy into more than a few convenient coincidences and reality-bending scenarios as I’m enjoying my bright and colorful entertainment. I have certain expectations when I go to see a superhero movie like this, and Citizen-Kane-level storytelling isn’t one of them. I’d like to have good action, interesting characters, and some nice emotional beats. Wonder Woman 1984 has all of those things and more. I was very entertained for the two and a half hours I spent watching it, and I’m looking forward to watching it again sometime soon. 

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Future Fear A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Future Fear (1997) – A Movie A Day 2021 #15

Future Fear DVD

Wow. I did not know what I was in store for when I picked Future Fear for my daily movie. I expected a good amount of low-budget cheese since it’s a movie produced by Roger Corman and starring B-movie queen Maria Ford, but yeah, I got way more than I expected. And that’s definitely not a bad thing.

Future Fear is a sci-fi action movie starring the aforementioned Maria Ford as Anna, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, Jeff Wincott as John, a geneticist who has been drawn into a nefarious scheme, and the always entertaining Stacy Keach as General Wallace, the brains behind the nefarious scheme. The main plot of the movie focuses on a slightly futuristic game of cat and mouse as Anna chases John into and through some sort of secret military installation. John is carrying something Anna wants (or more precisely, something General Wallace wants Anna to get for him), and she seems like she might just kill John to take it.

As the chase continues through the entire course of the movie, the background of the story is told through numerous flashbacks. We learn about how John was dragged into the nefarious scheme that General Wallace talks about to himself from time to time, we learn about the romantic history between Anna and John, and we learn about how Anna and John got to the point to where they’re (maybe) trying to kill each other. The background is pretty wild and involves a global pandemic, the origins of life, religion versus science, and the rise of a Fourth Reich. Bear in mind though, the majority of the movie more or less only involves the three characters I’ve already mentioned while they’re living and working in an underground bunker. So all of that grandiose background information? We learn about it through conversations primarily between Anna and John. We are told, not shown, that the planet is dying and Anna and John are fighting to save or destroy it.

The way the story is told is what really hooked me. At first the constant cutting back and forth from action to the dialogue-heavy flashbacks was a bit off-putting. I didn’t know if I was going to get into the movie, but by the end of the opening scene I was all in. The movie opens with Anna chasing John, both of them in helicopters armed with machine guns. While they continue the chase for what feels like a really long time, the flashbacks start with “one year earlier” flashing across the screen. We see uptight and disciplined Lieutenant Anna meeting laid-back and free-spirited John as Anna informs John that he’s going to be working for the military. John resists the demand, but he can’t resist Anna. Meanwhile, in the future (or the present depending on your perspective) Anna and John continue their helicopter chase. Then, slightly less than a year back in the past, Anna and John are having an Alice in Wonderland themed dinner complete with Alice and Mad Hatter cosplay for Anna and John. They get intimate on the table, but back in the future/present, the helicopter chase is coming to a dangerous end. Then the chase moves into the underground bunker. At this point, about fifteen or so minutes into the movie, I was hooked.

The flashbacks are full of fabulous melodrama. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that Anna and John’s relationship goes to some spectacularly awful places, and it’s mostly a lot of fun seeing what tragic misstep they’ll take next. Some of the scenarios get pretty dark, but it all works to show why Anna is so angry but still seems to have such a hard time killing John as she chases him. Oh, and the Alice in Wonderland (i.e. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass) stuff continues throughout the entire movie. Alice metaphors have been utilized in countless movies and are really overdone, but the devotion to numerous and obvious Alice references in Future Fear is kind of endearing. John has an Alice in Wonderland obsession of sorts (with a bit of Humpty Dumpty thrown in), so Alice is a near-constant motif throughout the movie. John even starts dreaming about Alice in his recurring nightmares about his father. Oh yeah, John’s father was in the military and died, so John is traumatized by that, and that is also tied into everything else that’s going on. There’s a lot of stuff going on in Future Fear.

One person who didn’t have much going on when filming Future Fear was Stacy Keach. As General Wallace, Stacy Keach gives about 90% of his performances alone in a dark room. Wallace is in the movie quite a lot, but he’s often either talking on an intercom or just talking to himself. This is one of those instances where it seems like the biggest star in the movie was able to shoot nearly all of their scenes in one day in one location and be done with it. I’m not saying Stacy Keach is bad though. Quite the contrary. Wallace demands attention with his soliloquys even though no one is around, and his words build him up as the worst of the worst. Wallace is a Nazi-inspired, white supremacist, religious zealot who wants to use an alien virus to cleanse the planet. Did I mention the alien virus yet? Yeah, there’s an alien virus, and that’s what’s causing the global pandemic. See? Lots of stuff going on.

I don’t know if anything I just wrote makes sense, but really, Future Fear does make sense in it’s own way. Whether or not you as the viewer buy into the sense it makes is going to be an individual experience though. I enjoyed the movie for the over-the-top, melodramatic performances and the campy action told through an almost dream-like structure of flashbacks and dream sequences. It’s some high-concept stuff jammed into a low-budget movie, and it’s great to watch late at night when you’re already kind of tired and heading towards sleep. Will it put you to sleep? Maybe, but you just might enjoy it more than you expect. I know I sure did.

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Cut and Run A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Cut and Run (1985) – A Movie A Day 2021 #14

The artwork used in the Cut and Run poster.

Today’s movie choice was another decision largely guided by the film’s poster. Whenever I want to watch something old and trashy, more and more I find myself going to Tubi and skimming through their catalog. I’ll find a movie that looks somewhat interesting, then I’ll keep clicking through the recommendations that movie pulls up until I find something that forces me to stop. This time, it was Michael Berryman that gave me pause. The poster for today’s movie, Cut and Run, features an amazing image of Michael Berryman getting ready to swing a machete at a group of unsuspecting people in what appears to be some sort of jungle lake or river. That was all I needed to see. My search for the night was over.

Cut and Run is an Italian production, but it was filmed primarily in English with a predominantly American lead cast. The film stars Lisa Blount (of Prince of Darkness fame) as Fran, a reporter who is looking to break a huge story to boost her career. Fran is joined by her cameraman, Mark, as she heads to South America to follow a lead that involves a bloody drug war, a supposedly dead cult leader, and her boss’s missing son. It’s a very convenient set of circumstances that sets up what the movie is really mostly all about: Fran and Mark trying to stay alive in a South American jungle as they are chased by vicious natives and, of course, Michael Berryman. 

Cut and Run was directed by Ruggero Deodato, and even if you don’t know that name, you might be familiar with his most famous movie: the notoriously brutal Cannibal Holocaust. While Cut and Run is not anywhere near as violent and disturbing as Cannibal Holocaust, it does share a lot of the same themes. The movies are so similar that even before I realized who directed Cut and Run, I was noting many common themes. I won’t spoil anything for either movie, but both of them focus heavily on the juxtaposition of savagery and civilized society. That theme is central to Cannibal Holocaust and is explored in nearly every second of its run time. The theme takes more of a backseat in Cut and Run, but it’s still very clear when we see repeated feeds of Fran in the jungle being transmitted live to plush, high-tech offices in the United States. Also, both movies feature similar locations, and the usage of the native people is largely the same. So yeah, there are lots of similarities, but Cut and Run is WAY more accessible for general audiences.

I do think I watched the tame version of Cut and Run though. Looking at a few reviews, I see people referring to excessive violence and nudity. I saw some violence and nudity, but not to the extent I see some of these reviews describing. Also, some of the edits looked very abrupt and janky, so I’m going to blame that on the additional cuts. 

I’d be interested in watching Cut and Run again with the longer, more extreme cut so I can see what I missed. As it is, I enjoyed what I saw. It might try to do a little too much for a movie that’s basically about violence and survival (there’s a Jim-Jones-esque sub-plot and the missing son thing feels unnecessary), but it’s still fun. I will say that I was very disappointed when a certain character didn’t make it to the end of the movie, but I got over my grief and still managed to have a good time. As for a recommendation, I think Cut and Run is a fun action movie with some nice, cheesy violence. If you like action movies set in a jungle (which seemed to happen a lot in the 80s), and if you like Michael Berryman, I’d say give the movie a shot.

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Jennifer’s Body A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Jennifer’s Body (2009) – A Movie A Day 2021 #13

Jennifer’s Body poster

For the first time this year, I just watched a movie I’d seen before. I vaguely remember seeing Jennifer’s Body around the time it came out (probably in the theater), but all these years later I could not remember anything about it. I had a sense that I didn’t care much for it at the time, but I couldn’t articulate any reason why that might be. I’ve since grown to enjoy other movies by director Karyn Kusama and stars Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox, so when I came across a poster for Jennifer’s Body the other day it made me want to revisit the film. Then, when I was looking for something to watch last night, I stumbled across the extended version of the DVD that I must’ve picked up on one of my used-DVD buying trips and forgotten about. So my decision was made, and I watched the extended version of Jennifer’s Body. And I have to say, I really enjoyed it. 

Jennifer’s Body stars Amanda Seyfried as Anita (or Needy as everyone calls her), a nerdy and reserved high school girl. Needy’s best friend since childhood is Jennifer (Megan Fox) who is popular and beautiful and, from an outsider’s perspective, the exact opposite of Needy. Jennifer drags Needy to a concert at a local bar in their small town, but after getting separated when a tragic event takes place at the bar, Jennifer begins acting strangely. As more deaths continue to rock the small town of Devil’s Kettle, Needy begins to suspect that Jennifer might be involved. 

I’m deliberately leaving the specifics of the plot somewhat vague, but you can tell even from the trailer that Jennifer’s Body is something of a black humor, monster/supernatural horror movie. There is quite a bit of comedy mixed in with the blood and horror, and for the most part I think it all comes together very well. The comedy serves to enhance the horror rather than dilute it, and that’s something I appreciate in any movie like this. I can be pretty picky when it comes to horror comedies that I enjoy, and Jennifer’s Body has the tonal mixture that I like. The horror is treated seriously even when there might be jokey lines or situations surrounding it. That can be a fine line to tread, but when it works it can make for some great moments. And yeah, I think there are some great moments in Jennifer’s Body.

Another aspect of the movie really helps sell some of the more ridiculous situations are the lead actors. Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox play their roles extremely well, and I was buying into all the nuances their performances conveyed. Like, does Needy like Jennifer as more than a friend, and does Needy realize she likes Jennifer more than a friend? Is Jennifer jealous of Needy’s boyfriend Chip or is she just annoyed by him? Is Jennifer acting like she is because of what’s happened to her, or did her traumatic experience just bring up a lot of suppressed emotions so Needy is seeing her best friend’s true nature for the first time? These are some of the things that are unstated or often understated that I was thinking about in the earlier parts of the movie. A lot of that is explored to some degree before the final credits, but Seyfried and Fox do a great job of raising those questions with a few looks and gestures. 

Plus, the movie’s writing is solid (it was written by Diablo Cody), and the direction is great. Karyn Kusama directed Jennifer’s Body, and even though I haven’t seen a ton of her work (probably because she’s been doing a lot of TV over the past five years and I don’t watch a ton of television), watching this movie again has solidified me as a Karyn Kusama fan. I first noticed her when I saw and loved The Invitation a few years ago, and now I need to see some of her other movies. 

As for Jennifer’s Body, I think it has an undeservedly bad reputation. I think it got a decent following on home video after its not-so-great theatrical run, but it’s barely above five stars on IMDB. That’s too low. It’s a fun horror movie with some decently bloody scenes and a lot of good, dark humor. If you, like me, haven’t seen it in years and have a hard time explaining why you might feel not-great about it, give Jennifer’s Body another shot. And watch the extended version if you can. I couldn’t tell you what’s different about it since I haven’t watched the theatrical cut again, but I can tell you that I enjoyed it. 

P.S. This trailer makes Jennifer’s Body look a lot more jokey than I felt the extended version of the movie actually was while watching it. So, take the trailer with a grain of salt (like you should with most trailers anyway).

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Prospect (2018) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Prospect (2018) – A Movie A Day 2021 #12

Prospect poster

Like many other people around the world, I’m a big fan of The Mandalorian. I’m a fan not only because it’s a fantastic series that makes exceptional use of the larger Star Wars universe, but it also introduced me to Pedro Pascal. I know now that I’d seen Pascal in some of his previous roles including parts in Kingsman: The Golden Circle and The Equalizer 2, but The Mandalorian was the first time his name and face (what little we see of it) really stuck with me. I’m at the point now where I will watch pretty much anything he’s in. So when I was cruising through Netflix and saw Pedro Pascal in a sci-fi movie, it was an easy decision to stop searching and end my usually-too-long Netflix browsing session.

The movie I stopped down on was Prospect. It’s a sci-fi thriller/drama from 2018 starring Pedro Pascal and Sophie Thatcher. The story takes place sometime in the future where Cee (Thatcher) travels to an alien moon with her father (played by Jay Duplass). Cee’s father, Damon, is a prospector, and he and Cee are on the alien moon to dig up enough valuable gems to set them up for life. Naturally though, a score as big as the one Damon describes to his daughter comes with a lot of dangers and drawbacks. Not only are the gems volatile and dangerous to acquire, but Damon was given the information by a group of ruthless mercenaries who are currently guarding the site. On top of that, Damon and Cee’s landing pod goes off course and breaks on its way down to the surface of the moon, the air on the moon is toxic, and Damon and Cee have a strict time limit or they’ll be abandoned when the main ship in orbit departs on a set schedule with or without them. So yeah, lots of problems. Also, there are bandits/people trying to survive in the moon’s forest, and that’s where we meet Ezra (played by Pedro Pascal).

I don’t really want to go into any more detail about the plot beyond the setup, because the twists and turns that the story takes are really well done and deserve to be experienced rather than explained. All I’ll really is is that what follows after the setup is a tense and dramatic story of survival, trust, and humanity. There is some action here and there, but for the most part the movie focuses on the tense relationships between the characters as they try to move forward in what sometimes feels like a hopeless situation. 

Prospect is a very pretty movie. The jungle of the alien moon feels familiar in many ways, but it also always feels slightly alien as well. At times the overgrown vegetation is pleasing to look at, but when you look closer and see the plants overtaking a rotting spacesuit or the remains of a previous dig gone wrong, you start to get a sense of the dangers the plants might be hiding. Also, the air feels thick with all sorts of things floating around, and if you have pollen allergies like me, you can really start to feel it in your head and chest just watching the movie. 

The acting in Prospect is great as well, and that’s probably the biggest reason why I enjoyed the movie so much. Thatcher and Pascal have great chemistry in their antagonistic relationship, and their performances help enhance the tension of every scene. Pascal in particular is wonderful. Without spoiling anything, there is one scene rather late in the movie where something gross and potentially traumatic has to happen. Rather than focus of the spectacle of the gross actions taking place though, the camera focuses on Pascal’s face as everything is happening just off screen. Pascal’s reactions tell you everything you need to know, and the range of emotions he conveys in that single shot are pretty amazing. 

I would recommend Prospect to pretty much anyone who enjoys a good, tense thriller/drama. If you enjoy science fiction as well, then that’s a great bonus. There’s enough sci-fi jargon to scratch that sci-fi itch, but there’s not so much that it’s going to block people out who don’t care about spaceships and alien worlds. The focus of the movie is largely on building characters with a bit of action, so if that’s your thing, definitely check out Prospect.

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Frankenstein Reborn (2005) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Frankenstein Reborn (2005) – A Movie A Day 2021 #11

Frankenstein Reborn DVD cover

After watching The Curse of Frankenstein, I felt like I might be getting on a Frankenstein movie kick. After watching Frankenstein Reborn, I might be off that kick.

Frankenstein Reborn is a low-budget take on the Mary Shelley’s classic tale. Writer/Director Leigh Scott not only took inspiration from the original novel, but he seems to have drawn upon other adaptations as well as other horror movies in general. That’s all well and good, but the resulting movie isn’t that great. There are some positives here and there, but overall I got kind of bored. 

Let’s focus on the positives though. I mostly enjoyed this new version of Dr. Frankenstein (Victor Franks as played by Rhett Giles). When we first meet Dr. Franks, he is being questioned about a series of murders in an evaluation to see if he’s sane enough to stand trial. I also enjoy the framing of the story with Franks telling us what happened so what we see might not be 100% accurate to what really happened (just like the novel and just like The Curse of Frankenstein).

I also enjoyed a lot of the practical makeup and gore effects. There are some very gruesome and bloody murders in Frankenstein Reborn, and even though the effects look relatively cheap, they’re also a lot of fun. The approach to the gore was to just add more and more blood to cover up any deficiencies in the makeup, and I approve of that mentality. Plus, the creature wasn’t bad to look at. Well, his face was good, but no attention was paid to the rest of his body, so that felt a little odd. But overall, yeah, I enjoyed the effects.

What I didn’t care about so much was the story or how it was told. It starts with Dr. Franks and his assistants using biological nanotechnology (or something) in an attempt to cure a man with a degenerative condition that will leave him completely paralyzed sooner than later. Stuff happens, and the patient is eventually killed and turned into a monstrous creature. And okay, I’ll admit to tuning out at times and probably missing some story bits, but I really don’t think I missed too much. The story is not very deep, and in the end it turns into the creature murdering a few women and then going after Dr. Franks himself. It’s a superficial reworking of the source material that ends up focusing more on stalking and killing than tryig to tackle themes regarding the human condition. Certainly, Frankenstein Reborn is no Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.

The editing of the movie was also somewhat off-putting, especially in the beginning. Victor Franks’ tale is told out of sequence for a while, so I was having to think about what happened when while I was still trying to figure out how all of these characters related to each other. That kind of storytelling can work well, but here it just wasn’t grabbing my attention well enough for me to put in much effort to keep up. Maybe that’s my fault, but regardless, that was also a big reason why I started checking out mentally. 

I might give Frankenstein Reborn another shot at some point, but it probably won’t be for a long while. For anyone else vaguely interested, I’d recommend maybe trying out some other Frankenstein movies before venturing into this one. 

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Ava (2020) A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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Ava (2020) – A Movie A Day 2021 #9

Ava movie poster

With its exceptionally strong cast featuring Jessica Chastain, John Malkovich, Common, Colin Farrell, Joan Chen, and Geena Davis, I was excited to get home and watch Ava after coming across it in one my local Redboxes. The writeup promised exciting action with Jessica Chastain as Ava, an assassin who ends up on the run after a job goes awry, and I do enjoy a good assassin-on-the-run action flick. And while there absolutely are a number of fun action scenes from gun fights to hand-to-hand combat, the main focus of the movie was split between action and some heavy drama as Ava’s troubled past comes meets her dangerous present. Now, I love a good drama as well, but overall I did come away from Ava feeling like maybe the divided attention paid to both the drama and the action didn’t quite come together in a way that enhanced both. So overall, I enjoyed Ava, but I was hoping to enjoy it a lot more.

The movie starts with Ava on a mission. It’s a quick setup just to get you familiar with Ava’s work and a bit of her personality. Ava is an efficient killer, but people in her organization have problems with how she handles certain situation. Ava has had issues with getting too emotionally involved with the people she’s sent to kill (not romantically, more in a “what did you do to make me kill you” kind of way), and Simon, one of her superiors played by Colin Farrell, doesn’t trust her anymore. Ava’s direct contact, Duke (played by John Malkovich) is a disciplined and fatherly figure, and he seems to trust Ava to do what needs to be done. But when we see one of Ava’s missions go wrong and nearly get her killed, it seems clear that someone is gunning to put Ava away for good. This is the action part of the movie, and I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Meanwhile though, Ava takes a break from killing to go to her hometown of Boston, and that’s where the drama comes in. We learn about Ava’s dark past with her parents, sister, and ex-fiancé, and on its own I think it could be a good drama. Geena Davis plays Ava’s mom, and Common plays her ex-fiancé, so clearly the acting is great. I guess the thing that never really clicked for me is that Ava’s family life and her life as an assassin never really cross over. Obviously Ava’s troubles influence her character and affect her ability to survive as people are trying to kill her, but the drama side of the movie and the action side of the movie felt distinctly separate in a lot of ways. There’s never really a climactic scene where Ava is forced to reveal her new life to her family (well, there sort of is, but it’s very minor), and even though family ties end up being important to Duke and Simon and their work within the assassination organization, Ava is never really forced into the same position. I suppose that’s why I say the drama didn’t enhance the action and vice versa. It feels like a lot of dramatic buildup with no real payoff.

That being said, I did enjoy the movie. The actors are all great, and even though I would have preferred that the story took different turns, the people in the movie kept me invested in what happened to their characters. Also, there were multiple action scenes that I really quite enjoyed. Jessica Chastain is a good action hero, and I look forward to seeing her shoot and beat up a lot more people in the future (like in The 355 which I keep seeing trailers for in the theater).

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The Curse of Frankenstein A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) – A Movie A Day 2021 #8

original U.S. poster

So yesterday I wrote about being a big fan of spaghetti westerns despite feeling like I hadn’t seen nearly enough of them. Well, I have a similar story for you today. I love Hammer’s classic horror films, and I’m even named after Christopher Lee in large part because of my parents’ love for Hammer horror as well, but there are a good amount of movies from Hammer’s golden age of horror that I haven’t seen. The ones I have seen I’ve watched numerous times, but I’ve never really made a strong effort to watch the entire filmography. That might very well change this year with my A Movie A Day challenge, and it starts with today’s movie: The Curse of Frankenstein.

The Curse of Frankenstein stars Peter Cushing as the iconic mad scientist Victor Frankenstein. The story starts with Victor haggard and in jail, and the main portion of the film is told in a flashback as the possibly insane scientist recounts the story of how he ended up imprisoned. I enjoy the framing device, because it lends itself to the possibility of an unreliable narrator as plot unfolds. We see a young Victor as he becomes the head of his rather wealthy household after the passing of both of his parents, and we follow him as he becomes research partners with his former tutor, Paul Krempe. Victor and Paul make a scientific breakthrough when they discover how to bring a dead puppy back to life, but their strong friendship begins to fracture when Victor decides the logical next step is to bring a human back from the dead. Not only that, but Victor is determined to make a perfect human specimen by gathering the best body parts and organs he can find. You can probably see where this is headed, so I won’t spoil any of the main plot.

The DVD I watched it on.

The Curse of Frankenstein is naturally a familiar story to anyone who has read the book or seen Universal’s classic take on the source material, but Hammer’s version is different enough to stand completely on its own. As I understand it, Hammer originally wanted to do a more faithful remake of Universal’s film, but Universal threated to sue if Hammer’s movie was too close to theirs. That forced rewrites and changes to the creature’s makeup, and in the end I think it was for the better. I thoroughly enjoyed The Curse of Frankenstein, and I like it a lot more than Hammer’s version of Dracula which came out the following year. From what I remember, Dracula is a lot closer to Universal’s film, but in some ways it feels like an inferior adaptation. My thoughts on that might change once I watch it again (which I plan to do), but from what I remember, Christopher Lee as Dracula was the best part of the whole movie. The story seemed to be a truncated version of Universal’s movie with a finale that was not very satisfying. I didn’t feel the same way at all about The Curse of Dracula though, and I imagine the forced rewrites made a huge difference.

Speaking of Christopher Lee, he plays the creature in The Curse of Frankenstein. Lee’s creature is very different from Boris Karloff’s monster, so to compare the two would do a disservice to both. Lee, despite not having any lines, still manages to convey a strong sense of danger and tragedy. The scenes when the creature escapes are quite tense, and a lot of that has to do with Christopher Lee’s menacing presence. The makeup for the creature might not be great, but the acting done through the makeup makes all the difference. The focus of the movie is almost always squarely on Victor Frankenstein, but Christopher Lee’s presence as the creature perfectly enhances Victor’s character arc.

The Curse of Frankenstein is largely considered the start of Hammer’s iconic run of horror films that helped bring horror back to mainstream audiences. From what I’ve read, many people consider it to not be one of the strongest entries in that lineage compared to the movies that would follow it, but I thought it was great. It felt like it had more drama than horror, especially in the first half, but the classic-feeling horror definitely ramped up as the movie went on. The final few scenes are great, and watching Peter Cushing’s Frankenstein walk further and further down a dark path until it’s too late to turn back was fantastic. I think The Curse of Frankenstein should be on every horror fans required-viewing list. 

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4 Dollars of Revenge A Movie A Day Journal Entry

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4 Dollars of Revenge (1966) – A Movie A Day 2021 #7

The cover of the Blu Ray I bought for $1.

I often cite The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as my favorite movie of all time, so it should come as a surprise to no one that I love spaghetti westerns. As much as I love the genre though, I feel like the number of spaghetti westerns I’ve actually seen is pretty low for a self-proclaimed enthusiast. I’ve been trying to rectify that situation over the past few years, and that often leads me to buying and watching cheap, random spaghetti westerns on various collected DVD and Blu Ray sets. And that’s exactly what led me to today’s movie, 4 Dollars of Revenge. 

4 Dollars of Revenge is an Italian western that, from the title, sounds like it might be in the vein of Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy. While there might be some superficial similarities between 4 Dollars of Revenge and the first two of Sergio Leone’s Dollars films, I think the makers of 4 Dollars of Revenge were just trying to cash in on the familiarity of the title. 4 Dollars isn’t bad, but it definitely feels like a rushed attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Italian westerns at the time. 

The story is about a Captain in the U.S. Army at the end of the American Civil War (1865). Captain Roy Dexter is sent on a mission to take a fortune in Confederate coins to Washington, but after becoming the lone survivor of an attack from Mexican bandits, Dexter is framed for orchestrating the whole fiasco. Dexter is sent to prison, but he escapes and attempts to hunt down the men responsible for ruining his life. That’s where the “4 dollars” of the title come in, because Dexter leaves one of the Confederate coins near each body as he goes about his mission. Although, the coins are worth way more than a dollar, so again, the filmmakers/marketers were just trying to cash in on Dollars. 

Looking at the case of the Blu Ray I bought for one dollar at at a Dollar General (which contains a second spaghetti western that I’m sure I’ll be watching soon), one of the writers of the original Django from 1966 wrote 4 Dollars of Revenge. That got me extremely excited, because Django is another of my favorite classic Italian Westerns. Watching the movie though, I was a bit disappointed in how choppy the story felt, especially in the beginning. Granted, there was a lot of setup to be done to establish characters and potential villains before Dexter got sent to jail, but the early scenes felt like a jumble of disparate scenes that had very little relation to each other. Up through Dexter’s brief trials and imprisonment, I was doing well just to keep up with who was who and how they all related to each other. The plot settles down a bit once the revenge starts, but I felt like the movie has a weak opening, something Django absolutely did not have. Looking at the IMDB page might have given me a reason for the scattered scenes though. There are a bunch of writing credits for 4 Dollars which make me think it was written by committee. That’s rarely ever a good idea, and this movie is a prime example why.

4 Dollars of Revenge poster

I did like the characters though. I was pulling for Dexter to get his revenge, and the bad guys were sufficiently scummy and fun in their own ways. The action got a bit silly at times (like seeing a whole bunch of guys fall off of rocks in the exact same way throughout the entire film), but it was still fun to watch. I also enjoyed some of the bookends the movie offered in the final scenes. I like a good callback within a movie, and 4 Dollars had at least two high-quality callbacks to earlier scenes. I also really enjoy the idea of leaving a coin with each body as Dexter’s revenge is enacted. Dexter didn’t set out to murder everyone, but his hand was forced, so he took advantage of the situation in the best way he could. There were some really good visuals throughout the movie too, especially in a particular night scene where Dexter is alone in the dark with a man he intends to kill. 

So overall, 4 Dollars of Revenge isn’t great, but I enjoyed it fine. I’m also a huge spaghetti western fan though, so I’d only really recommend it to my fellow enthusiasts and completionists. It’s not as violent or funny as a lot of the more popular and well-made Italian westerns are, and I think it could get kind of boring to action fans or even revenge movie fans. I think it was worth the fifty cents I paid for it though.

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