Looking a lot like my hometown.

Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching various movies about what’s known as TEOTWAWKI or The End of the World As We Know It. It seemed like a good time.

Most such movies have a common ancestor in Richard Matheson’s novella I Am Legend, though there are earlier literary precedents. It’s just that Matheson’s story tapped into what would become the dominant apocalyptic paradigm: not just the last man on earth scenario, but the war of that last man against all that remains. Hence the zombie apocalypse.

Matheson’s novel was first filmed in 1964 as The Last Man on Earth, and most recently in 2007 under its original title, but its most famous adaptation was 1971’s The Omega Man (not coincidentally, given the genre, these were all star vehicles, with Vincent Price, Will Smith, and Charlton Heston as the last men on earth). Unfortunately, watching The Omega Man again for the first time in years I found it fell short of how I remembered it. It’s really not much of a movie.

The Road (2009) is a more general vision of the end of days, with lots of faux-Biblical mutterings and a muddier more realistic look. I didn’t like it at all. But then I didn’t care for McCarthy’s novel much either.

Red Spring (2017) replaces zombies with vampires, which is actually more of a return to Matheson’s story. It’s hamstrung by a low budget. The Night Eats the World (2018) brings back the zombies and takes us to Paris, which was at least a nice change of scenery. I Think We’re Alone Now (2018) goes in a slightly different direction, being one of the few such stories to posit a last man on earth who is happy in that role. Until others come calling. Though not a great movie, it’s the most interesting of this bunch.

Don’t let go of that plane, Tom!

Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching the Mission: Impossible films, with Tom Cruise as super-agent Ethan Hunt. This is considered to be a rarity among movie franchises in that most people think the series got progressively better. I’m not so sure. The later offerings (and the series is still ongoing) have been slicker productions and more expensive but they’ve also been more generic. They have nevertheless, always been entertaining in a Hollywood blockbuster sort of way. Here’s the line-up:

Mission: Impossible (1996)
Mission: Impossible II (2000)
Mission: Impossible III (2006)
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

Does the name Mike Banning ring a bell? You’d be forgiven for finding it the generic and forgettable name of a Hollywood action hero, which is the Mike Banning I’m thinking of. He’s the presidential bodyguard played by Gerard Butler in the trilogy Olympus Has Fallen (2013), London Has Fallen (2016), and Angel Has Fallen (2019). There are plans for more but I think I’ve had enough. Already I have trouble telling them apart. The perfectly generic and forgettable vehicles for a Mike Banning.

Boo!

Over at Alex on Film I’ve been wtaching the Riddick, or Chronicles of Riddick movies. So far there have been three: Pitch Black (2000), The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), and Riddick (2013). Will there be more? Probably, though the franchise hasn’t been a blockbuster. I’m not sure I’ll be sticking with it though.

Over at Alex on Film this week I’ve been watching some films by S. Craig Zahler: Bone Tomahawk (2015), Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017), and Dragged Across Concrete (2018). Punishing stuff. I don’t think he’s made a great movie yet, but I think he will.

Just a kid. Looking out of the corn.

Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching the almost totally undistinguished Children of the Corn movies. I say “almost” because the first movie isn’t bad, and in later episodes you can catch Charlize Theron’s debut and Naomi Watts in a leading role before she was a star. But mostly these movies are awful, which shouldn’t be surprising as they were being produced by the same company driving the Hellraiser franchise into the ground. Apparently Stephen King didn’t even keep track of how many there were. Though I guess he was getting paid since he usually received a credit for coming up with the title of the series (if nothing else).

Bottom line: the first movie is still worth seeing, but I would avoid all the others.

Children of the Corn (1984)
Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992)
Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)
Children of the Corn: The Gathering (1996)
Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998)
Children of the Corn 666: Isaac’s Return (1999)
Children of the Corn VII: Revelation (2001)
Children of the Corn: Genesis (2011)

Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching Rowan Atkinson’s Johnny English trilogy: Johnny English (2003), Johnny English Reborn (2011), and Johnny English Strikes Again (2018). I feel like I should be surprised at how long-lived a phenomenon Bond parodies have been, but then Bond is still with us and apparently going strong so . . .

Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching a bunch of movies about people racing cars around. Not on a racetrack, but across country. For cash prizes or treasure. For a while in the late ’70s and early ’80s these were a thing, especially if they were directed by Hal Needham and starred Burt Reynolds. I guess the Fast and the Furious franchise today is the only direct inheritor, but it’s morphed into something else now. Leaving these movies alone in their nostalgic goofiness. Watching them again was a very fast trip down memory lane, but I’m pretty sure it will be my last with any of them.

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
Scavenger Hunt (1979)
Smokey and the Bandit II (1980)
The Cannonball Run (1981)

Over at Alex on Film I’ve posted a year-end round-up of my picks for the best of 2019 on screen. That is, the small screen. I watched all of these movies on DVD. Not a very impressive line-up, I’ll admit, but that’s what makes the exercise fun.

But how do you think kids feel about you, Chuck?

Over at Alex on Film I’ve been watching the Child’s Play movies, which are headlined by the murderous doll Chucky. A better-than-average horror franchise that covered a lot of ground over thirty years. Alas, the 2019 reset was a total disaster.

Child’s Play (1988)
Child’s Play 2 (1990)
Child’s Play 3 (1991)
Bride of Chucky (1998)
Seed of Chucky (2004)
Curse of Chucky (2013)
Cult of Chucky (2017)
Child’s Play (2019)