Aeronautic Primates and Other Delights

Vacation! sol_se and I took a little mini-vacation to Santa Monica for her birthday. We got a fancy-schmancy hotel room with a balcony overlooking the ocean. We spent like 90% of our time in that hotel room because it's still a scary world out there, but we did make it to the pier and the ocean proper.

Otherwise, I've been playing a lot of Dragon Age: Inquisition. I'm not sure why. I'm not getting the same thing I get out of, say, a full Mass Effect run and it's taking a lot longer. At this point, I'm just used to it. I'm not going for any sort of completionist run. I am romancing Solas which is weird and I hate it but I've also never done it.

I only saw one movie:

The Proposal (2009)

The hotel just had basic cable (plus HBO and Showtime). This was playing on Lifetime. Cute, although I felt that at no point did the Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds character actually fall in love, so the ending didn't work for me.

Still living that Mass Effect lifestyle. Eventually I have to get sick of it, right? Right?

We also finished Steven Universe Future and I didn't cry, but I came damn close. Man, the whole Steven Universe thing is just so good, but Future is really dark and hard to watch in places.

Apparently Critical Role ended its second campaign last week. I feel a bit left out, but that's my own fault for dropping out of the fandom. I'm still in wonderment at how easily I used to be able to just sit and watch four hours of RPG play in a single go. I don't think I'm capable of that anymore.

The Conjuring (2013)
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)
Rifftrax: Dragon Wars: D-War

I'd never seen The Conjuring (although I did see The Conjuring 2), so sol_se and I pulled it up on HBO Max and watched it in anticipation of the third movie. It's pretty good, but I think The Conjuring 2 is probably better.

As for the third Conjuring movie, they really opened things up a lot, which I think was ultimately to the film's detriment. It's fine, but it's the least of the three films thus far.

Dragon Wars: D-War is a love letter to downtown Los Angeles in a lot of ways, if your love letters end in explosions. It has some incomprehensible mythology and roles for some currently well-known actors before they really hit it big.

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.

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.

It was my birthday on Monday! It's also been my first birthday in a long time that didn't coincide with TGIF/F. sol_se made it all magical with a present of Rifftrax and chocolate sheet cake!

Movies I've seen before are in italics

My Bloody Valentine (1981)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Rifftrax: Attack of the Super Monsters
Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
Rifftrax Live: Summer Shorts Beach Party
20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)
Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
Rifftrax: Wonder Women

Yes, we watched My Bloody Valentine on Valentine's Day. It is not good, but for the genre, it's not bad either.

I leveraged my birthday to make sol_se watch Ingmar Bergman. It occurred to me halfway through that a better introduction probably would have been Wild Strawberries, but alas. Still such a good film and unexpectedly funny in places.

Attack of the Super Monsters is... amazing. It's live action monsters-in-suits, but animated people. It seems like it should be the other way around or all animated. It's very bad and very well riffed.

I love Wet Hot American Summer and I may very well rewatch the prequel series now. I still haven't seen the sequel series all the way through.

20 Million Miles to Earth is one of the original Harryhausen classics and it stands up. It's no great shakes in terms of plot or anything, but if you want stop-motion monster action, this will hit the spot.

Mom sent me a gift card for my birthday and I used it to buy Criterion's Godzilla collection, which is all Godzilla movies 1954 - 1975 in a beautiful art book. In some ways, it's a downgrade from my existing Godzilla box set, because it doesn't have many special features except on the original, but it's gorgeous and complete and I love it. We watched Godzilla Raids Again which is... fine. It doesn't really get why the original is special and the climax is super-tedious.

Wonder Women has nothing to do with Diana Prince. It's a weird action-women-sci-fi thing, filmed with absolutely no regard for human or animal life.

I spent a lot of the week watching Project Runway with sol_se. Genuinely annoyed that seasons earlier than 17 are not available to stream anywhere. 

I had a very bad week otherwise. I've hit a pandemic crash after managing so well for ten months. I thought I had this s**t in the bag and I absolutely did not.

I'm No Angel (1934)

The second of two pre-Breen-enforcement-of-the-Code films that Mae West made, this one was entirely written by the saucy star. She does a lot of her winking, sexy antics. It's fun, but the week was weird enough that I had to watch it in three installments, a half-hour at a time.

Hello friends! It's a Happy New Year! I spent a lot of time watching TV this last week. sol_se and I finished Batman (1966) Season 1, Skin Wars Season 2, and Lovecraft Country. We're also in the midst of Steven Universe.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Blazing Saddles (1974)
MST3K: Mr. B's Lost Shorts
Death to 2020 (2020)
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

We have a tree! It's very pretty.

Movies I've seen before are in italics

MST3K: The Magic Voyage of Sinbad
MST3K: Viking Women vs. the Sea Serpent
MST3K: Samson vs. the Vampire Women
Jingle Jangle (2020)
White Christmas (1954)
Die Hard (1988)
Rifftrax Christmas Shorts-travaganza

My schedule after work has been a little cramped, so I've been taking to watching one half of an MST3K episode at night and then the rest in the morning while sol_se is at work.

We're working our way through a list of Christmas and Christmas-related movies. Jingle Jangle is marvelous. It's energetic and fun and made me tear up a couple of times.

White Christmas is a staple for me, but watching it with someone else made me see all of the flaws. Also, Bing Crosby was a reprehensible human being.

Yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie, fight me. Actually, don't. However you feel about it is valid.