Aeronautic Primates and Other Delights

Last week was crazy busy at work, so I didn't have the spoons to post. So here we are with a double feature! I'm feeling kind of down right now, so no life updates or commentary.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Creep (2014)
Free Guy (2021)
Jakob's Wife (2021)

Rifftrax: Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare
Best in Show (2000)
A Mighty Wind (2003)
Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)

It's all Mass Effect all the time! I played through all three games in like a week and now I'm playing through again, making all the worst possible decisions (I'm going to need a chart for ME2).

Rifftrax: House on Sorority Row
Rebirth of Mothra (1996)

House on Sorority Row wasn't actually that bad as slasher movies go, which made for a good Rifftrax.

I've never seen the Rebirth of Mothra trilogy, but Mothra is sol_se's favorite, so it seemed like a good time to break it out. It's definitely more kid-oriented than I was expecting. They snuck a Ghidorah on me despite saying Ghidorah several times.

Started the week out of it after my second vaccination jab. Had to take Sunday off of work.

I spent most of the week playing through Disco Elysium a second time. This time I went in on physical attributes. It's unlocking a lot of weird monologue asides, but not a lot functional. It is also locking me out of a lot of options I took for granted in my charisma/intelligence playthrough.

Then Friday came and it was all Mass Effect all the time baby! Which was somewhat dampened by a depression wave that hit hard Saturday. I'm playing female Paragon Infiltrator, romancing Liara (but you bet your sweet butt that I'm dropping her like a hot potato for Garrus in ME2).

Movies I've seen before are in italics

Ginger Snaps (2000)
The Raven (1935)
Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla (1994)

sol_se hadn't seen Ginger Snaps, so I was into it. Still a great werewolf film with a lot of fun layers. The faux suicide aspect is... a lot, though.

We tried to watch The Strange Case of Dr. Rx (1942) but there was such a horrifically racist depiction of one character's servant that we just noped out. We switched over to the other classic horror movie Peacock had on offer: The Raven, featuring Bela Lugosi at his most unhinged. Poor Karloff is wasted, though.

Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla is one of the most inept kaiju films I've ever seen. Bad editing, bad writing, a clear angle at toy sales. It underutilizes both Mothra and BabyGodzilla, which is a crime in my book.

On Wednesday, sol_se and I celebrated the third anniversary of our first date. I took the day off and we ate Cheesecake Factory and watched movies and Project Runway All Stars.

Movies I've seen before are in italics

One Dark Night (1983)
Speed Racer (2008)
Rifftrax: The Amazing Mr. X
Rifftrax: Radical Jack
Rifftrax: To Catch a Yeti
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)

One Dark Night is weird. It's about a dead psychic messing about in a mausoleum terrorizing high school girls who are there as part of an initiation. It sets up a particular twist ending pretty clearly and then just... doesn't do it. Apparently the distributors cut the original ending? I didn't love it.

We watch Speed Racer every year because it's the first movie we ever watched together. It was nice to actually watch it on the anniversary this year, as last year we were delayed by the pandemic and the move.

I typically wake up earlier than sol_se so I watch Rifftrax and catch up on Twitter. Sometimes it's more Twitter than Rifftrax, as when I slogged through The Amazing Mr. X. Sometimes I'm practically stapled to the Rifftrax though, as with Radical Jack. Overall, the Rifftrax Friends subscription is paying for itself.

We're still working through the Heisei/Versus era of Godzilla in order. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah is one of my favorites, as it really decides to work in all the goofy stuff and isn't shy about it.

More Project Runway! I also finished Ted Lasso. What a good show.

Been having a run of meh-to-bad days. I need to get vaccinated so I can get out of the house again.

Movies I've seen before are in italics

Rifftrax: Death Promise
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

With Terror of Mechagodzilla, I've officially taken sol_se on the full tour of the Showa-era Godzilla movies. I might like to do the Heisei series next, but I don't own most of it anymore, so it would be somewhat difficult.

I had a vacation March 12-20, but when I came back, work was a trash fire, so we're doing a double this week.

Movies I've seen before are in italics

Rifftrax Live: Night of the Living Dead
Freaky (2020)
Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)
La Dolce Vita (1960)
Vampyres (1974)
8 1/2 (1963)
Leprechaun (1993)
Leprechaun 2 (1994)
Leprechaun 3 (1995)
Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
Toby Dammit (1968)
Zach Snyder's Justice League (2021)
Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)

Rifftrax Live: Octaman
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)
Rifftrax: Catwomen of the Moon
Rifftrax: Honor and Glory

I liked Freaky a lot, although I had less trouble buying Vince Vaughn as a teenage girl than I did as a slasher-style killer.

I hit a stopping point in the Fellini box set. I worry that I spent money on a box set for a director that ultimately isn't for me. Don't get me wrong, I liked La Dolce Vita up until the last vignette and I still love 8 1/2. I just don't think the set is bringing me the joy that, ironically, the Ingmar Bergman set did.

Vampyres is a lesbian vampire film that desperately needs a plot. sol_se and I kept waiting for the plot to kick in. Eventually we realized it just wasn't going to happen and we resigned ourselves to finishing the movie.

On St. Patrick's Day, I remembered that I had a triple feature of Leprechaun movies. They are quite bad. We decided that Warwick Davis is actually playing three separate leprechauns with three separate sets of rules, perhaps in three separate continuities. Of the three, the second one is probably the "best", although it has some rapey subtext, so I can't recommend it. So basically don't do what I've done.

We watched all of Zach Snyder's four-hour cut of Justice League more-or-less in one sitting. I probably like it better than the theatrical release, although I have objections to some of Snyder's decisions, most of them centered around Superman. Snyder does not understand the character on any level.

You may have noticed a lot of Rifftrax. I just put in for a subscription to Rifftrax Friends, which is their streaming service. Yeah, everybody has a streaming service these days. They just have so much of their catalogue on there, it made more sense than waiting for stuff to pop up on Pluto or Amazon Prime.

The fact that I don't have a Godzilla icon is tragic, but I'd have to cut something like 39 other icons in order to upload a new one, owing to the fact that I still have old icons from when I had a paid account.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Rifftrax: Gammera the Invincible
Variety Lights (1950)
Rifftrax: Bermuda Triangle
Lucky (2020)
Color Out of Space (2019)
The White Sheik (1952)
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)
Satanic Panic (2019)

Two things happened in the last week that are probably going to alter the content of the movie lists for at least a little bit. First, I bought Criterion's Essential Fellini box set on sale. It's fourteen of Fellini's greatest films. I'll be watching all of them in order, except I'm skipping La Strada because f**k that movie. Second, sol_se subscribed to Shudder, the horror-dedicated streaming service. We already have something like 40-50 movies in our shared queue.

Variety Lights says it's co-directed by Fellini, but the other director basically just put his name on it to give him a leg up in the film industry. Still, it's Fellini's script and it follows some of Fellini's particular interests. It also features Fellini's wife in a major role. I liked it, but it was tricky to get through because the protagonist was kind of a terrible person.

Bermuda Triangle was awful. Just awful. The Rifftrax team worked really hard to make it work, but they were stretched a bit thin during the interminable scuba diving scene.

Lucky has an interesting concept. Every night, a man comes and tries to kill the same woman. If he's killed, he simply disappears to reappear the following night. sol_se and I were ready to dig into the mystery, but eventually the film came out waving a big flag that said "ALLEGORY FOR VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN". Overall disappointing.

Color Out of Space is very good. It's also disturbing as hell. Nicolas Cage goes full Cage, so your mileage may vary.

The White Sheik is Fellini's first full directorial effort and I was not expecting much. It's just not a film that really comes up when you talk about Fellini, so I figured it was probably him still working out the kinks. It is, to some extent, but it's also a very easy watch. There's very little that really wows, but the story is solid and keeps you interested.

We're still slowly working through the Godzilla box set from my birthday. We're firmly in the weeds now. At least Godzilla vs. Hedorah isn't as bad as Son of Godzilla.

Satanic Panic probably should have been a better movie. It's fine. It does what it wants to do and it does it in less than 90 minutes. I'm not sure what choices they could've made to improve the film, but I do feel like there were missed opportunities.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

She Done Him Wrong (1933)
MST3K: Prince of Space
MST3K: Parts the Clonus Horror
MST3K: The Mole People
Life of Brian (1979)
Rifftrax: Fun in Balloonland
Gojira (1954) (with David Kalat commentary)
Tenet (2020)

She Done Him Wrong is part of a collection of Cary Grant comedies on Criterion Channel (subscribe today!), but it's really Mae West's show. Everything thing she says is innuendo of one variety or another.

Tenet is kind of a brain scramble. I liked it! I'm pretty sure some of it doesn't hold up upon further reflection, but I'm trying to avoid that.

I spent a good chunk of the early week bingeing What We Do in the Shadows (FX). However, this weekend sol_se and I settled down for a couple of DVDs.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Some Like It Hot (1959)
Audition (1999)
All Monsters Attack (1969)

Look, Some Like It Hot is one of the all-time great screen comedies and sol_se hadn't seen it, so that was definitely happening. I love this movie, although sol_se openly wondered how I didn't spend the entire movie cringing due to the chicanery and deception. It's easier when you've seen a movie 8-10 times.

This is my second time seeing Audition and the first in something like 15 years. I remembered certain moments with crystal clarity, but others felt new to me again and at least one moment was deeply repressed until it was too late. A very disturbing movie.

We cleansed our palate with the eminently goofy All Monsters Attack, where Godzilla's son Minya talks like an off-brand Goofy and teaches a little boy valuable lessons about violence (it's good!).

Doing another maxi-list because I was on vacation in Florida meeting sol_se's parents (they like me, they really like me!).

Movies in italics are ones I've seen before.

Cronos (1993)
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
White Christmas (1954)
El dia de la bestia (1995)
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
My Man Godfrey (1936) w/sol_se 
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) w/sol_se and her parents
Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017) w/sol_se 
The Twelve Chairs (1970) w/sol_se 
Invasion of Astro-monster (1965) w/sol_se and her parents
Dark Star (1974)
Soylent Green (1973)
High and Low (1963)
Day of the Triffids (1962) w/sol_se 

Cronos is exceptional, especially for being Guillermo del Toro's first feature. It's also sort-of kind-of a Christmas movie (the same way Die Hard is a Christmas movie).

Everything I have to say about TROS is here: https://twitter.com/Jetpack_Monkey/status/1209345740863991808

I watched Murder on the Orient Express as a way to cleanse my palate, post-Star Wars. It's a delightful, star-studded film that I enjoyed greatly.

Right around Christmas, I watched a string of classics, the weirdest of which is Day of the Beast, which is about the search for the Antichrist on Christmas Eve. I cried the most at It's a Wonderful Life, though. Every damn time.

Not a lot to say about the multiple films I watched while visiting sol_se and her folks, except they're all favorites, with the exception of Invasion of Astro-monster, which was kind of a dull disappointment.

Criterion Channel has a load of 70s sci-fi films running this month (and only this month), so I checked out Dark Star (weird, interesting, but not good, per se) and Soylent Green (which entirely hinges on its well-known twist).

I watched High and Low at the recommendation of sol_se's dad. It's very good, although not entirely what I expected. It's about one-fifth moral drama and four-fifths police procedural.

Day of the Triffids has two potentially great plots going for it: a post-blindness apocalypse and killer mobile plants. It wastes both of them and becomes kind of a boring trudge where stuff just happens.