Galaxyquest

It’s fascinating — there was a period where they really tried to make Tim Allen happen, even though it’s obvious that he’s not very likeable and is a bad actor to boot. But they really tried!

Heh heh — they felt the need to resort to the Sigourney character stating out loud that people like the Tim Allen character, and looks at him adoringly like only Sigourney can do.

Wow, have they redone the effects for this 4K version? Probably not, because they look awesome and they seem to have forgotten how to do good CGI these days.

I assume everybody knows the plot of this thing, so I’m not going to comment on that. But rewatching this now, I’m kinda impressed by how efficiently they get things underway — if this was made today, it would have taken them two hours to get through the setup instead of 20 minutes.

Perhaps they wouldn’t even have gotten to the alien ship until the final scene, and then only the second film would have gotten to the actual plot.

I remember liking this movie more — I’ve seen it a couple times before? I rebought it now because it’s on 4K… and it looks really good, but I’m just not all that into the movie this time around. I know, I know, it’s a movie for twelve year olds, so that’s a thing, but I’m also just thinking there should be more gags?

I mean, I like the general thing and I love Sigourney Weaver in this, but for me it’s just not as funny as I think it should be.

OK, the final quarter of this movie is just irresistible — it’s exactly what this movie should be. Lots of fun, and over-the-top sentimental. It’s great.

So despite having some reservations about the middle bit:

Galaxyquest. Dean Parisot. 1999. ⚄

Stars of the Roller State Disco

Oh, suddenly we’re in the 80s… 1984, even. So it seems like Clarke had a hiatus at the BBC for a few years? Ok, Danton’s Death was in 1981, so that’s not very long, but that seemed quite 70s, and this looks like an extremely 80s sci fi thing.

Nothing has been explained yet, but it seems like all these kids are living in a state run roller skating rink? YES I KNOW! It’s great!

(Echoes of Skateman…)

Oh, it’s like an unemployment agency slash jail? If you don’t have a job, you have to stay in the roller skating rink until you get a job…

Very helpful people trying to get them into jobs.

So… what they’re doing here is basically talking about the problems kids have in general, but with everybody skating around all the time, which certainly gives things more visual interest… I’m really into this for some reason!

This is very strange… you’d expect this sort of thing would be about how horribly these kids are treated and stuff, but we basically follow a couple of pairs of people, with most of the time spent with this guy — who wants to work building fine furnishings, so he’s turning down job after job he’s offered, even when they sound perfect.

And these guys who do random destruction, and … are subjected to treatment which is doing more random destruction.

So it’s… extremely metaphorical.

(No, he’s not.)

Wow, this is really something… Clarke keeps what’s going on vague, and then he just hits you over the head in the final scene.

It’s a fascinating little film — looks great, wonderful performances, original script — I really enjoyed watching this one.

Stars of the Roller State Disco. Alan Clarke. 1984. ⚅

Forbidden

One of those rare instances where a librarian takes her glasses off, but doesn’t magically transform into somebody else.

This seems really, really familiar. Have I seen a later remake or something?

Yeah, this was “inspired” by a novel that has been done five times. Even the same year as this one.

Oh yeah:

I bought a box set of Frank Capra’s early movies…

This is a very strange variation on this story — the concept is that a small town librarian is tired of her boring life, so she takes all her savings and goes to mix with High Society until her money runs out.

Lots of potential for high jinx, fun and drama.

This is much more realistic and not as much fun.

Oh, right, this is a pre-Code movie…

This movie doesn’t have the plot I was expecting at all! Which is probably why I’m finding it extremely confusing — every other scene I’m going “is that the same character as in that other scene”? But it’s also just a bit hard to tell, really. And now the plot seems to be about corruption in city gummint?

Adolphe Menjou not being very memorable is probably part of the problem for me.