Well, not Prometheus. Not yet. Hopefully this coming weekend, but we did watch another sci fi classic that's possibly just as good!...probably.
Trying to cash in on Star Wars in 1979 (just like Alien that same year) Disney released the Black Hole. I scored the DVD at the Salvation Army for a whopping $1.50 and it was STILL SHRINK WRAPPED! In a nutshell, there's a ship with a small crew, including Norman Bates, the Ernest "Mermaid Man" Borgnine (aka the old guy from Air Wolf), the bail bondsman from Jackie Brown, some lady, and a floating robot with eyes you can get lost in. They find another ship chilling out on the edge of a black hole. They board the ship to investigate. If you've seen Event Horizon or Sunshine, then you've seen two excellent films and you might get a vague idea that something bad is going to happen. Something bad does indeed happen! Exposition. Lots and lots and lots and lots of exposition about all kinds of cool things that happened twenty years ago (which would've made a great movie), and the thing that's going to maybe happen at the end of the film (which would have also made a great movie). They expositionize the hell out this story! Now I learned in elementary school that when you are writing you need to show, not tell. Could no one tell the writer and director this helpful little tid bit?There is so much potential in the film. It gets off to an incredibly slow start and when it finally gets moving we've almost reached the end.
Is the Black Hole a GOOD movie..? Eh, no. If you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out. The end is a trippy high light, but it's over so fast! Is it Shakespeare? You be the judge...
Trying to cash in on Star Wars in 1979 (just like Alien that same year) Disney released the Black Hole. I scored the DVD at the Salvation Army for a whopping $1.50 and it was STILL SHRINK WRAPPED! In a nutshell, there's a ship with a small crew, including Norman Bates, the Ernest "Mermaid Man" Borgnine (aka the old guy from Air Wolf), the bail bondsman from Jackie Brown, some lady, and a floating robot with eyes you can get lost in. They find another ship chilling out on the edge of a black hole. They board the ship to investigate. If you've seen Event Horizon or Sunshine, then you've seen two excellent films and you might get a vague idea that something bad is going to happen. Something bad does indeed happen! Exposition. Lots and lots and lots and lots of exposition about all kinds of cool things that happened twenty years ago (which would've made a great movie), and the thing that's going to maybe happen at the end of the film (which would have also made a great movie). They expositionize the hell out this story! Now I learned in elementary school that when you are writing you need to show, not tell. Could no one tell the writer and director this helpful little tid bit?There is so much potential in the film. It gets off to an incredibly slow start and when it finally gets moving we've almost reached the end.
Is the Black Hole a GOOD movie..? Eh, no. If you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out. The end is a trippy high light, but it's over so fast! Is it Shakespeare? You be the judge...
That's Roddy McDowell and Slim Pickens in their greatest roles!
Also, I shared one of my faves from childhood with the family, The Monster Squad. Still as good as I remember it. What I didn't remember was how inappropriate it is for eight year olds. Lots of excessive picking on the fat kid, casually tossing around the word 'faggot', and middle school kids being creepy peeping toms, oh, and the Wolfman getting blown apart into a bloody mess! Still awesome though. Tom Noonan is a cool Frankenstein monster. Dracula is better than Tom Cruise's Lestat. It's the makeup f/x on the Wolfman, the Creature, and the Mummy that steal the show. Too bad we don't see them more.
Needless to say I've lost my movie picking privelages again! I just got them back after losing them for The Great Rock and Roll Swindle eleven years ago. That's ok...Eleven years from now I'm breaking out Holy Mountain!
Wolfman's got nads.
ReplyDeleteAw! Fat kid farted!
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