Month: November 2015

Primer

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Primer. ERBP 2004.
Primer. ERBP 2004.

Before watching the movie:

I’m not sure how long ago this movie came to my attention. I think it might have been when this comic was published, which was roughly six years ago, but I’m not sure but that it hadn’t come up before then. It seems to have the reputation of being the densest time travel movie ever, but then it seems a vast majority of the audience couldn’t understand Back to the Future Part 2.

The most specific thing I know about the plot is that it concerns a time machine with rules often cited as probable for potential real time machines, but rarely used in fiction because it limits the kinds of stories that can be told. The title always makes me think of a textbook, but I think it’s more likely to be about priming the machine due to those operational restrictions.

Between the highly cerebral reputation, the independent production, and a synopsis I saw that is likely to just be describing the first scene in a zero-tolerance approach to spoilers, it seems entirely likely that this could be an hour and a half of two guys in a room talking about what they’re going to do with the machine and only at the end revealing the actual result. I have seen duller “people just talking” movies about mindbending concepts. (See Mindwalk, which adapted a nonfiction book about physics by having a few characters meander through an art gallery talking. Or maybe don’t.)

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Ghost Dad

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Ghost Dad. SAH Productions 1990.
Ghost Dad. SAH Productions 1990.

Before watching the movie:

I may have mentioned a multipack of cheap movies I bought with gift money late last year, about half of which I reviewed. There are still a few more candidates in that set, but I wandered away from it for months. This is one of them.

Since before I acquired the set, I’ve been reluctant to cover Bill Cosby for obvious recent events reasons (warning: serious article on an alleged humor site), but I think the moratorium has worn off, and I’ve been interested in this movie since years before I started the blog, when I saw it in a discount movie bin back when I was just starting to decide that I didn’t want to buy videocassettes anymore.

The summary on the box sounds a lot like Ghost, only with a dad. And this dad, who is a ghost, instead of being played by Patrick Swayze, is Bill Cosby, who is, as Cracked put it, America’s Dad. It essentially sounds like instead of trying to be a lover while working out the whole being dead thing, he’s trying to be a father. Which actually also sounds like Jack Frost, only not as a snowman. This train of thought is getting circular and silly, and is best dropped at this point.

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Parenthood

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Parenthood. Imagine Entertainment 1989.
Parenthood. Imagine Entertainment 1989.

Before watching the movie:

I always thought this had something to do with a Bill Cosby book that doesn’t seem to actually exist. I’m probably thinking of a section of Himself, but I thought he wrote a triptych of books on growing up (I couldn’t give a title for this), raising a family (the nonexistent “Parenthood”), and getting old (Time Flies). If one of his books of comedic anecdotes were filmed, he’d probably have been cast as the star anyway.

It sure seems like I’ve reviewed this before. It seems to be a sibling to Father of the Bride, and the synopsis sounds an awful lot like Cheaper By The Dozen, which not only has a “suggested by” not-remake with Steve Martin, but also, as I discussed, seems to have been made many times as many different movies. So, here we go again?

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Alien

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Alien. 20th Century Fox 1979.
Alien. 20th Century Fox 1979.

Before watching the movie:

This is definitely not part of the Movie Monster Month series. Because it’s a new month, of course.

I have the impression that this movie basically invented Sci-Fi-Action-Horror as a subgenre, or at least is why it’s so predominant. I don’t dislike that combination, but I do mind that it seems to have choked out the alternatives, at least through the 80s and 90s.

But anyway, this is very ingrained in culture, so the scariest part is that I haven’t seen it yet. Ripley is up there with Sarah Connor (in Terminator 2) for awesome female heroes, and John Hurt’s most famous role is as the guy who explodes. There’s a walking backhoe fight. (That’s Alien 2 I think) These are things it’s impossible not to know.

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