Over at Alex on Film I’ve added my year-end awards post for the best (and worst) of the movies I watched in 2020 that were released in 2020. Because of the pandemic pushing release dates back I didn’t have much to work with. Only ten titles! And most of them were terrible. Still, the show had to go on . . .

Old-school gentrification.

Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel Emma. I think the rom-com Clueless still plays pretty fresh, and the two more traditional versions from 1996 (one with Gwyneth Paltrow, the other with Kate Beckinsale) are OK. For all the praise she received though, I think Paltrow makes the worst Emma. Then I finish up with the 2020 edition, starring Anya Taylor-Joy. I really enjoyed it, except for what they did to Mr. Knightley. Poor Mr. Knightley, as Emma’s father would say.

Her gun is bigger than his.

Over at Alex on Film I’ve finished watching the original trilogy of Jason Statham Transporter movies — The Transporter (2002), Transporter 2 (2005), and Transporter 3 (2008) — as well as the reboot The Transporter Refueled (2015). About what you’d expect from a franchise that apparently began life as a series of BMW car commercials. But maybe not quite as good as that. Generic stuff all around, though I didn’t think the reboot was as bad as reviewers made it out to be. Or, to put it another way, I didn’t find it to be as big a let-down.

Keeping up with the latest, the old-fashioned way.

Just a note to let you know that the quizzes are back at Alex on Film with another instalment of screaming headlines. This is the hundred-and-first quiz!

A truly classy vanishing act.

Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching some movies about invisible people. Meaning movies that have their nominal origin in The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells (though Wells himself wasn’t the first to come up with the idea, which is as old as antiquity).

As I say several times over the course of my notes, the Invisible Man (or Woman) is a plastic figure, capable of being hero or villain, victim or superhero. The movies may be thrillers, action vehicles, or slapstick comedies. There is no one generic Invisible Man, or Invisible Man movie. Here are just some of them:

The Invisible Man (1933)
The Invisible Man Returns (1940)
The Invisible Woman (1940)
Invisible Agent (1942)
The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944)
The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)
The Unseen (2016)
The Invisible Man (2020)

Him again.

Over at Alex on Film I’ve finished up working though the Halloween franchise (I had an earlier post after watching the original series and then the Rob Zombie flicks here). The only ones I skipped were Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1994) and Halloween: Resurrection (2002). Maybe I’ll get around to writing notes on them someday.

It’s a weird series. There’s no through narrative, even of the most strained, supernatural kind like in the Friday the 13th franchise. In fact, there’s not much to the whole Halloween mythos aside from the (literally) tortured relationship between Michael and Laurie. And the movies, with the exception of the first, are not every good. Aside from exploiting the brand it’s hard to see how or why they’ve hung around for nearly half a century.

Halloween (1978)
Halloween II (1981)
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later (1998)
Halloween (2007)
Halloween II (2009)
Halloween (2018)
Halloween Kills (2021)
Halloween Ends (2022)

Hang in there, Karen. You still have House of 1000 Corpses to get through.

Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching the Airport tetralogy: Airport (1970), Airport 1975 (1974), Airport ’77 (1977), and The Concorde . . . Airport ’79 (1979). I was surprised at how much I enjoyed them. Yes they’re trash, but it’s trash that has aged well, and each film has its own silly identity. I actually went to see The Concorde on its initial release, so many years ago now. Of course, after this it was on to Airplane! and other send-ups, since there was no place left to go. And Airplane! is still very funny today too. But don’t sleep on the originals.

Peek-a-boo.

Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching some (but far from all) of the Ju-on or Grudge films, both from the Japanese and American franchises. Along the way I muse a bit about the whole J-horror phenomenon. Is it over now? Did it ever amount to much? What was its significance?

Here’s the line-up:

Katasumi (1998)
4444444444 (1998)
Ju-on: The Grudge (2002)
The Grudge (2004)
The Grudge (2020)

The origin of species.

Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching the Species movies. In which Natasha Henstridge plays a murderous and broody alien who isn’t comfortable wearing clothes. Unfortunately, the movies aren’t quite as much fun as that sounds.

Species (1995)
Species II (1998)
Species III (2004)
Species: The Awakening (2007)

Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching the movies — three in total, not counting Castle of the Living Dead that he only got called on to finish — of Michael Reeves. The three movies are She Beast (1966), The Sorcerers (1967) and Witchfinder General (1968). Aside from dying young, Reeves’ reputation rests mainly on Witchfinder General, which is a really good period piece. The Sorcerers is more a curiosity and She Beast barely that.