Time to present another melange of mini-reviews, and this time, albeit for no particular reason, all of the movies featured are ones whose principal titles (i.e. excluding 'The') begin with the letter M.
MONSTERS
A long-planned-to-watch movie duly watched recently (18 March 2022, to be precise) was this one – Monsters. Directed and written by Gareth Edwards (but not the legendary Welsh rugby player, I hasten to add!), and released by Vertigo Films in 2010, Monsters is all about 230-ft-tall tentacled aliens brought back to Earth from elsewhere in the Solar System as tiny samples that were inadvertently released when the NASA space probe carrying them crashed during its re-entry. Now they've bred, enlarged greatly, and have taken over northern Mexico, with the southern USA imminently in similar danger. Two brave souls – American photo-journalist Andrew Kaulder (played by Scoot McNairy) and his employer's young-adult daughter Samantha Wynden (Whitney Able) – are desperately striving to elude these mega-aliens' slimy clutches while making their way back home to the USA from Mexico. Monsters is very entertaining and engrossing, though the aliens, which can live both in water and on land, are scarcely seen until the second half of this movie. Also, once you reach what you assume to be its end, you then need to view the beginning again, closely, because that is actually the end of the movie, chronologically speaking, and it reveals the fate of the two lead characters (though obviously you won't have realised this when watching the movie the first time). In 2015, a sequel, Monsters: Dark Continent, was released, but it received less public praise than the original. Please click here to view an official Monsters trailer on YouTube.
MASTER OF THE WORLD
My movie watch on 19 February 2022 was Master of the World. Directed by William Witney, and released by American International Pictures in 1961, Master of the World stars Vincent Price as the memorable if tyrannical Jules Verne character Robur aka the self-proclaimed Master of the World, and combines plot elements from the two Verne novels in which this brilliant but deranged megalomaniacal inventor appeared (Robur the Conqueror, 1886, and Master of the World, 1904). It also includes a major additional plot element, in which Robur uses his superior flying machine to threaten the world's governments with annihilation unless they stop all warfare and destroy all weapons. Like that is ever going to happen! Also starring a young Charles Bronson in the hero role of US government agent John Strock who is intent upon halting Robur's mad machinations (and machinery!). Master of the World is gorgeously presented and very enjoyable throughout, containing plenty of wonderful steam-punk visuals, plus a couple of (melo)dramatic songs sung over the end-credits. A sequel, entitled Stratofin, was planned, but never made. Please click here to view an official Master of the World trailer on YouTube.
MANDIBLES
On 17 April 2022, my movie watch, on the UK TV channel Film On 4, was a truly bizarre French movie from 2020 entitled Mandibles, supplied with English subtitles. Directed by Quentin Dupieux (aka Mr Oizo in his parallel music career), who also wrote and edited it as well as taking charge of its cinematography, and released in 2020 by Memento Distribution in France, Magnolia Pictures overseas, Mandibles is all about two imbecilic friends – Jean-Gab (played by David Marsais) and Manu (Grégoire Ludig) – who discover that the boot (trunk) of the stolen car being driven by them contains a giant dog-sized fly, very much alive but of undetermined origin. They decide to train it (as you would do!), so that it can steal money from banks and bring it back to them (of course!), but en route to this highly implausible outcome they become embroiled in all manner of farcical disasters, not least of which is that Dominique (the name that Jean-Gab has given to the fly) eats their pet dog. (Clearly, no-one associated with this movie had ever examined the mouthparts and feeding capabilities of a genuine fly!) Mandibles is undeniably humorous if decidedly surreal, with all of the characters playing their absurd roles in a totally straight-faced manner, which only adds to the thoroughly yet deliberately ridiculous, hilarious nature of the entire movie. Please click here to view an official Mandibles trailer on YouTube.
THE MOLE PEOPLE
30 April 2022 was designated B-Movie Watch Night by me, in honour of which I viewed the classic(?) b/w sci fi film The Mole People. Directed by Virgil Vogel, released in 1956 by Universal Pictures, and featuring the Hollow Earth theory as its central premise, The Mole People focuses upon a team of archaeologists (no famous actor names playing them) who discover (as you do...) a lost but still very much alive Sumerian civilisation populated by Ishtar-worshipping albinos and enslaved mutant mushroom-gathering mole men with scaly skin and huge clawed hands living inside a hollow inner Earth deep below an Asian mountain. Originally believed to be heavenly messengers from the goddess Ishtar herself due to their light-producing flashlight (which is too powerful for the sensitive eyes of the Sumerians to bear after living underground for millennia), the two surviving archaeologists are eventually denounced as fakes, and are sent into the Fire of Ishtar to be burnt alive – only for them to discover that the 'Fire' is merely sunlight, shining through a crevice high above. To the Sumerians and their unpigmented albino skin, the sun's rays are indeed deadly, but not to the archaeologists, who duly survive, only for the entire civilisation to then face an unexpected, cataclysmic earthquake. It's all happening down in the depths! Be sure to click here to view an official trailer on YouTube for The Mole People – go on, you know you want to!
MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR
After buying it for £1 two days earlier, on 8 March 2022 I watched my VHS video of the 1967 TV movie Magical Mystery Tour, directed by and starring The Beatles – that's £1 of my money and 54 minutes of my life I'll never get back! Words such as self-indulgent, pretentious, and tosh came readily to my mind when viewing it – what were The Beatles thinking of?? It was apparently heavily criticised as abjectly poor after making its TV debut on the BBC on Boxing Day 1967, with those fans of it who existed claiming that its problems arose from the BBC showing it in b/w when it was manifestly a colour movie. That won't have helped, certainly, but a far greater issue was that it is alternately too dull and too nonsensical to be even vaguely interesting, imho. What is it all about? Who knows? Something concerning four or five magicians in the sky adding magic and mystery into the journey of a coach tour and its party, as far as I can tell. Sadly, they fail - at least for me. Overall, it more closely resembles a series of quite decent music videos for various Beatles songs (especially the beautiful sunset scene encapsulating 'Fool on the Hill', and a Copacabana/Coconut Grove cabaret setting for 'Your Mother Should Know') but linked together by a trite, unfunny, and sometimes soporific coach-tour-themed scenario. Apparently much of this latter footage was unscripted and therefore wholly improvised, and it shows! I actually like a lot of the Beatles' output, I always have done, which is why this movie came as such an unexpected, bitter disappointment for me, after having wanted to see it for so long. My verdict on Magical Mystery Tour? Why it wasn't magical is a mystery, at least to me, so I'd be at the tour office bright and early the next morning, demanding a full refund! I plan on watching soon what has been described as The Monkees' answer to Magical Mystery Tour – Head. It's said to be even worse than MMT – can't wait… Meanwhile, here is an official trailer for the DVD release of Magical Mystery Tour on YouTube – you have been warned!
To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.
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