It is always odd when you see a movie (or book or comic or whatever) which is caught in the middle of a major upheaval. Think of the early sound films with their awkward too square aspect ratio and everyone huddled around the camera in every shot so they can be near the microphone. […]
Read more "Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe (1953)"This is one of the strangest Tokusatsu films Toho made. Admittedly, that’s an awfully big claim, and there are a lot of contenders for the crown, but let’s just point out a few salient points: Despite what you might think, this is not a sequel to Toho’s classic faceoff between Kong and their own in-house […]
Read more "Kingu Kongu no gyakushû [King Kong Escapes] (1967)"It must be something about Bigfoot. Here’s one of the best movies I’ve seen from The Polonia Brothers — the legendary Grade Z filmmakers who’ve made an incredible number of memorably bad but surprisingly addictive DIY shot on video films for well over thirty years. It’s almost as good as Among Us (2004), which I consider […]
Read more "Reel Monsters (2022)"Before I get started, there is one thing I think I need to make clear here: The main villain wears a toaster on his head. Now I’ve said this about Donyaye Ayandeh before. In fact, I’ve been saying it ever since I first saw stills from the film in Tars Tarkas.net‘s review. Although I had […]
Read more "Donyaye Ayandeh [Future World] (2001)"(aka, Ori okeanis saidumloeba, The Secret of Two Oceans) Sometimes it is impossible to understand what is happening in the world of film without a solid look at the culture around a particular movie. Now for those interested in Soviet Science Fiction, there is a strange and rather awkward gap between the early science fiction […]
Read more "Tayna dvukh okeanov [The Mystery of Two Oceans] (1957)"Look, don’t hate me for saying this, but I like Cosmoball. Yeah, I know the reviews haven’t exactly been great, but the night I watched it, I was hoping to find something fun, light-hearted, and entertaining and had a great time watching this film. I almost regret not buying a copy when I had a […]
Read more "Vratar galaktiki [Cosmoball] (2020)"A TV series from New Zealand was shown in the United States? And only two years after it ran back home? I suppose stranger things have happened. Of course, at the time, Nickleodeon was still in its earliest stages, and desperate for low priced children’s shows to present. One of their offerings was The Third […]
Read more "Under the Mountain (1981)"(Literal translation: The Underground Chamber) It’s hard to believe this is a children’s film. I mean, look at the beginning of this film: darkness, and a deep, resonant surge of sound, glimpses of the mechanism of a Planetarium, alternating with a steady beeping and elegant Bengali script against blackness. In the heart of it all, […]
Read more "Patalghar (2003)"I didn’t watch this one back in the Eighties. It’s really not that hard to understand: the trailers made it look like a silly kids’ film, and it wasn’t that hard to see that it was, well, “inspired” by E.T. Oh, and probably by WarGames as well as it involved artificial intelligence. But for some […]
Read more "D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)"
rivets on the poster 