Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-01-02 (Thursday)

On Sun, 12 Jan 2025 19:14:22 -0700, anim8rfsk <anim8rfsk@cox.net>
wrote:

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

On 1/12/2025 1:05 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

On 1/3/2025 8:32 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

On 1/3/25 1:30 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
 

What did you watch?

 
 
What did you watch?
 
 

 
I watched:
 
 
 

The Wolf Man (4K disc) 1943 version of the Universal Studios classic
about a man who is bitten by a werewolf and turns into one himself.  On
the commentary they said the movie was a huge success.  I forget the
names, but when all the money came flowing in, one guy bought his wife a
diamond ring, another got a $50,000 bonus, and another asked for a $25
raise, and to the guy who requested the $25 raise, Universal said, no.
 
When I pulled out the box set, I had a general idea of which movies I
planned to watch, but not the order.  My first thought was to go to
Wikipedia, figure out the release order, and watch in that order.  But I
*wanted* to watch Phantom first, so that's what I went with.  Turns out,
Claude Rains stars in this movie too.  And he stars in "The Invisible
Man." Had I known that I would have started with "The Invisible Man" and
watched in release order.  In addition to Claude Rains this movie stars
Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man and Bela Lugosi as a different werewolf.
I was on the fence, but I decided to hold off on watching "The Invisible
Man" until the reboot's sequel is released. I'm holding off on watching
"Frankenstein" for similar reasons.

 
Does the set include the Abbott and Costello movies? Have you ever seen
Young Frankenstein?
 
 

 
No Abbott and Costello movies.  I don't think I've ever watched any of
their universal monster pairings.  Actually, I'm not sure if I've
watched any of their movies all the way through from beginning to end.
I think I've only ever seen clips on TV.

>
I saw bits of them on TV as a kid but only recently did I sit all the way
through them. They are certainly a must watch if you enjoy the universal
monsters in general.
>

Sadly DK Classics doesn't have a playlist for just the monster movies
but they do seem to have ALL of the Abbott and Costello movies
available to watch for free on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4RT8-2QSxo&list=PLBFa2yUBFRr74T53yOb2zHkNIY4-OrHjs

That includes 79 different movies from the pair.

Oh, and what do you know. A simple web search for Universal Monster
Movies brings up this list of free movies. It's only ten movies so
it's a short list but it's something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-ePgEaTSus&list=PLm1HLShlNLCLIONqFtFqeGFH-qtA9mpW5

 
The set has: The Mummy, Creature From the Black Lagoon, Phantom of the
Opera, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Frakenstein, The Invisible Man,
and The Wolf Man.

>
I got the individual Monster sets as they came out that included busts of
the creatures and all the extras you could ever want.
>

 
I have watched Young Frankenstein once or twice.  I did a Frankenstein
movie marathon a few years ago but skipped Young Frankenstein (and the
original).  I'll be watching the original, and Young Frankenstein along
with the other Frankenstein movies in my collection in a few months when
the Bride of Frankenstein remake comes out.
 
 

 
 
The Wolfman (4K disc) 2010 remake of the 1943 classic starring Bencio
del Toro as the Wolfman and Anthony Hopkins as his father.  I watched
with a new commentary.  The guy doing the commentary talked about how
much of a mess this movie was to make, in particular due to the director
being replaced along with other behind the scenes fighting.
Unfortunately there were often long gaps of silence, I suspect because
much of what he was saying being edited out.  That wouldn't have been
too bad but for whatever reason, they muted the movie audio, so whenever
he was speaking there was just dead silence.
 
 
The Creature From the Black Lagoon (4K disc) 1954 Universal Studios
classic about a group of scientists who go on an expedition to find a
strange fossil and find a living creature instead.  This was just above
background noise with the commentary, but it did generally hold my
interest whenever I looked up to watch.  On the commentary they said the
movie was originally going to be shot in color and 3D, but they crunched
the numbers and realized that they could save $100,000 if they shot it
in 3D black and white instead. They also mentioned they weren't going to
let the elaborate suit they constructed for this movie go to waste, so
they quickly cranked out a sequel.  My box set only includes the 4K
version, but a 3D version is also available too.

 
It’s got a lot of fun 3-D shots in it and knowing it’s in 3-D explains the
stuff that they stick right into the camera.

 
I am extremely annoyed the box set doesn't include the 3D version.
There are several different versions of this box set and I think all of
them include the 3D version *except* the set I bought.  But it wasn't
100% clear if the 3D version was or wasn't going to be included until I
opened it up and looked.
 
 
 There are two sequels although

none is nearly as good as this one.
 

 
I just know the character from "The Monster Squad."  He was probably the
weakest / easiest to kill monster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OQqB1bnhBw
 

>
there’s also the uncredited 2017 remake “The Shape of Water“ which I
absolutely hated, but most creature fans seem to like
>
>

Now you are eligible to join my friends Creature Facebook group. :-)
 
I had the 8 mm Home movie version when I was a kid and loved it.
 
I saw it in 3-D in the theater (unfortunately anaglyph) decades ago as part
of a series of 3-D movies they showed at midnight and if you watched the
first four you got the last one free.

 
I vaguely remember it came on TV when I was around 10 or so, and
everyone said it was in 3D.  They didn't have enough of the anaglyph
glasses.  They gave a pair of something but whatever they gave me didn't
work and I ended up not watching the movie.

>
I know I have a 3-D version of it and I’m sure it’s side-by-side so it must
be polarized.
>
>

 
I’m pretty sure there was a

cheerleaders movie, and a couple Andy Warhol movies, and creature, and then
the free movie was the completely unwatchable fantastic invasion of planet
earth. Starring the guy from the mod squad who died recently. it just came
out on Blu-ray. I think but it’s absolutely terrible. When it ended, like
two in the morning the film just ran out and the screen was white and you
could hear the end of the film go flat flat flap across against the
projector. We looked around and there was nobody in the projection booth or
anywhere in the theater that we could find. We finally made sure all the
doors were locked and went out one that locked behind us. couldn’t do
anything about the running projector though.