Last movie watched...

[Michael Knight]

Agreed Greg M 

[I, Cosh]

Bubba Ho Tep: isn't quite as good as you want it to be but has a lot of heart, which makes it massively endearing.
Series 7: shite.

[Colin YNWA]

I remember really enjoying the start of Bubba Ho-Tep and feeling it lost its way a little towards the end?

I thought Series 7 was very interesting and the fact that Cosh (I) calls it shite makes me more intrigued to revisit and I'm keen now to re-evaluate.

[PsychoGoatee]

I loves Bubba Hotep.

Tonight we watched... Nightmare Beach! Amazing stuff from 1989, featuring John Saxon and Michael Parks, fun stuff from Italy. In that great period where they'd play over the top metal while the killer did their kooky stuff, very very fun stuff.

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

Sand. Teenagers are trapped on a beach by a cthulian style horror that's hidden beneath the sand- put one foot on it and your lunch. The usual bikini wearing bimbo's were there but it didn't leer at them to long indeed I was rather surprised how quickly it dumped the tropes and had the [spoiler]'hero' boyfriend almost killed about half way through.[/spoiler] The special effects were minimum and pretty ropey [pun intended] but it was a rather neat idea I thought and I did feel a bit sorry for the poor monster fodder in the end. Seen a lot worse than this despite the many plot holes.   

[CrazyFoxMachine]

21 Jump Street

Finally got around to watching this Lord & Miller live action romp. Carried largely by the occasional bit of inspired surrealism and the charisma of Tatum & Hill - it's not breaking a great many moulds but it rattles along at a good pace and the hilariously brazen ties to the original are well done. Yeah, don't regret buying this purely on the strength of the directors alone. Not baaayyd.

[Greg M.]

The Black Hole (1979) - What an odd film. A Disney movie with a largely middle-aged cast, which was supposedly aimed at adults but was marketed heavily to children - I had Black Hole wallpaper as a kid. The film's tone is all over the place, veering from being a cheesy Star Wars bandwagon-jumper to something much darker, weirder and more cerebral, particularly in the unforgettable scene of Reinhardt's final fate. Two surprises for me this time around - the ship's captain is Robert Forster, the guy out of the brilliant Alligator, and the fact I'd totally forgotten that [spoiler]Ernest Borgnine gets blown up whilst ditching his mates and fleeing in an act of cowardice.[/spoiler]

[Colin YNWA]

Having read a load of Prog for 1979 and 1980 I've been thinking of watching Black Hole as I've not seen it for years. Always loved my Maximillion and Vincent action figures as a kid, but had this nagging feeling that the film was very different to what we'd been sold it as when young.

Interesting to hear your thoughts on it and think it needs to go on my Lovefilm list, with dragonslayer...

[Spikes]

Oh yes, The Black Hole was a bit of a fave back in the day, and definitely a bit of a strange beast.

[Tjm86]

Black Hole has always had a strong place in my memories.  I had the story LP as a kid and still remember far more of the film than any other of my youth and still remember the bubble gum card set.  You are right though, it is a very peculiar creature.  IIRC a lot went wrong in the editing and production process with the result that the finished film didn't do anywhere near as well as Disney hoped.  There are some impressive moments and some stunning scenes but it doesn't hang together brilliantly.  The closing scenes suggest someone on a very bad trip.

[Spikes]

In regards to the ending; If you compare the film, to the novel, to the comic book adaptation, then they all differ quite significantly.

[Mardroid]

I seem to remember my mum actually won the Black Hole LP. (Not the story in this case, the music of the film. I forget the correct term for that now.) Very cool, atmospheric theme tune.

While the film was okay, I never really took to it. While I like a bit of weirdness, that ending was perhaps a bit much. That big red robot was a great looking design though. Very archetypal somehow of how a big bad robot should look.

I guess the little spherical guys were interesting in a different way. Their design was original, although mainly on that cute comic relief side of things.


It's been some years since I've

[JamesC]

I too watched The Black Hole recently ( if anyone has NOW TV, it's available to stream).
There's a lot to like about The Black Hole, not least some of the design (the logo is ace), the 'Forbidden Planet' esque baddie and the fantastically malevolent Maximillion. There's also a lot of really naff stuff, like the rubbish baddie soldiers.
Overall it's a fun and fascinating watch. You can see the ambition on the screen and while it isn't totally successful it's a brave effort. In lots of ways it reminds me of Tron which had similar ambitions and similar problems a few years later.

[Mardroid]

I seem to remember my mum actually won the Black Hole LP. (Not the story in this case, the music of the film. I forget the correct term for that now.)

Soundtrack. It's weird and irritating how certain word will just pop out of my head sometimes, often when I really want to use them. It's like I get a kind of self hypnotic blind-spot sometimes. And other times, like now,  when I'm no longer as focussed, ping! Word/phrase drops into my lap.

[Tjm86]

Troutmark in Cardiff had the first three of the comic book adaptations.  The 3rd continues from where the film ended.  The artwork is fairly generic and the story enters around an alternate Cygnus. There was a fourth issue printed but it seems to go for silly money (£300 + on ebay)!