Metaluna Mutant

Good show, The Thing is a good example of building tension slowly, slowly. Aside from a brief scare with the beginning dog chase, the next 40 minutes or so is just tension and mysterious dread slowly building. The reward for the viewer's patience is true suspense and terror. Alien has the same patience requirement. As for Macready blowing up the chess computer, I've always thought of it as an example of how they eventually beat the thing. The chess computer is smarter and beats Macready - so Macready ups the stakes and beats the computer by destroying it. The Thing is smarter than them, craftier and more powerful. It will eventually get them all. It's only when Macready gives the speech "we can't let that thing get away..." when they realize that, no, they aren't going to survive. But their self sacrifice and resolution -- their humanity -- can beat it. Remember, the Thing doesn't have any sense of self sacrifice, as shown in the blood test scene. They sacrifice themselves by blowing up and burning down the camp, knowing they won't survive but that will beat the thing and save the world. And of course, let's not forget how misunderstood The Thing is -- here's a story written from The Thing's viewpoint. As for offending aliens with alien movies. I'm reminded of the scene from the Doctor Who, where the Doctor (an alien himself) is fighting alien invaders when someone mentions "It's like the movie Alien" The Doctor says "There's a horror movie called Alien? That's really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you." And next week RAISING ARIZONA! These were the happy days, the salad days, as they say.

This episode is a good example of why I love the show when June really gets involved in the discussion.

While I think Frankenstein is a better horror movie, I think Bride is a better film in general. But Universal monsters needs a place - there are just too many horror film tropes it spawns. As mentioned upthread, Young Frankenstein is almost a complete recreation of Son of Frankenstein - same exact plot, characters, the Inspector with the artificial arm, etc. Watch Son, then Young Frankenstein. YF copies some scenes from F and Bride (the child, the blind man etc), but the plot is SOF. It's like watching Zero Hour then Airplane. Glad to see the theme of Frankenstein wanting to create life while ignoring his wife -- while ignoring the very thing which naturally allows him/them to actually create life. Also, the theme in the book is about not escaping the results of our prying into natures secrets, not "secrets we were not meant to meddle with" which is one of the film's themes. Yes, we can create life, built an atomic bomb, clone dinosaurs etc - but they don't go away.

Glad to see at least one other person absolutely hates Forrest Gump. I've had the same take away as Robins when I saw it over 20 years ago. No sarcasm, it's a film with with an absolute hatred for the optimistic social movements of the 60s. Dan rails against the universe until he gives up in the storm to find peace. He surrenders. He gives up. Jenny tries new things and tries to find her own identity, her own place with participation and experimentation. Her reward is aids and death. Stop struggling to improve yourself or society is the message it expounds. On the other hand, for a film that despises baby boomers, I always found it interesting that contemporary baby boomers 25 years ago loved it. Weird.

The traditional "action adventure music" during the "barrel chase" is used on purpose. It's to show that trio chasing the shark still have the idea it's "just a big shark". Quints playful bragging about 2 barrels stopping a giant marlin shows even he thinks it will be like a normal shark hunt. But notice after those 2 barrels don't even slow the shark down -- and even Quint's face shows this realization -- the music gets somber and trails off, menacingly. The trio realize this is more than just a big fish. A simple "He-man action chase sequence to kill the monster" isn't going to work. This is a primordial monster and it will be a fight to the death. The action music after for the rest of the film is menacing, not rousing.

I think one of the major points glossed over was upending the "noble Mafia criminal" trope that the Godfather films spawned. When I saw the movie my first thought afterwards was that I loved how it subverted the HUGE cultural Godfather Mafia myth. The film basically tears down all the noble, family first, "we're not animals, we're businessmen, our families are important" theme of both Godfather movies. They are venal, fairly dumb, violent thugs and not criminal masterminds looking to create an Empire. They are making jokes, robbing, getting loot - but then murdering someone because they get irked for 2 seconds, destroying their own efforts.