Category Archives: Movie Night

Movies that I, my wife, our son, or all of us, watch.

Movie Night: Doctor Who – The Aztecs (1964)

Year: 1964

Director: John Crockett

Production Company: BBC

Leads: William Hartnell, Carole Ann Ford

Screen Shot 2013-03-29 at 7.33.14 PMI’m a firm believer in entireties. I need to watch movies from the very beginning. I listen to entire albums. I have to read book series from the very beginning, and authors’ books in general in chronological order.

And of course, I absolutely must watch TV series from episode #1. I don’t have OCD, promise.

And so, naturally, when it came time to introduce Little Satis to Doctor Who, there really was nowhere else to start. We might end up getting on to the rather good “New” Doctor Who, but for now, it’s time to revisit the past.

Sadly, Netflix has a Doctor Who deficiency, and The Aztecs is the only episode(s) from the very first season. It meant that we really missed any introduction to the Doctor, his purpose and his shenanigans, and were expected to know quite a bit of background. As you can imagine, this bugged me, but alas, there is nothing to be done.

In brief, the Doctor and his companions – Susan, Barbara and Ian – arrive among the Aztecs prior to their invasion by the Spanish, and their eventual extinction. Emerging from a sacred tomb, the Aztecs take Barbara to be the reincarnation of a god. Sadly, Tlotoxil, the High Priest of Sacrifice, takes exception to Barbara’s insistence that human sacrifices are not necessary to bring on the rains. He denounces her as a false god, and goes to extremes to expose her for what she really is. Meanwhile, the High Priest of Knowledge, Autloc, begins to believe Barbara’s predictions of doom, and defends her against his own kind.

Ultimately the Doctor persuades Barbara to admit she’s not a real god; in shame, Autloc leaves the Aztec villages, and Tlotoxil gains control over all. Despite all that Barbara tried to do, he completes the sacrifice of the “Perfect Victim”, ending the eclipse that of course showed up at just the right time. The Doctor and his companions escape, sending the Tardis off into who knows where.

The Aztecs 7

Jacqueline Hill as the reincarnated Yetaxa.

It was difficult to come at this from the point of view of a child in the 1960s. By comparison to today’s media, or even to later episodes, the production quality, editing and acting was generally pretty poor, with wooden swords and shields and costume jewelry very obvious. However – there was nonetheless a sense of excitement, of something new and different about the show, and as the episodes progressed (it’s split into four parts) Little Satis and I were drawn in, and found ourselves very much immersed in the fabricated world of the Aztecs, cheesy though it might be.

Knowing what was to come, and the glory of the future doctors, it felt like a very suitable beginning. I wish we had been able to watch the very first episode, but until Netflix increases its canon of Doctor Who, that will have to wait.

Have any of you ever seen classic Doctor Who, and if so, what was it like that first time?

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Movie Night: Stop or my Mom Will Shoot

Year: 1992

Director: Roger Spottiswoode

Production Company: Northern Lights Entertainment

Leads: Sylvester Stallone, Estelle Getty

stop-or-my-mom-will-shootThis was a strange movie, and I have a feeling it was an attempt to capitalize on Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s foray into family comedies (e.g. Twins). Sylvester Stallone should not do family comedy.

Sylvester is a New York cop in L.A. with everything going for him…until one day his mother decides to visit. Sly obviously has mother issues, because he spends the first twenty minutes of the movie trying to call her – to tell her not to come.

It turns out he can’t stop her. How could he? She’s a New York jew (yes, that’s right; Sylvester Stallone, the Italian Stallion, is playing a jew). She arrives, and of course all sorts of chaos ensues. Never mind that she tries to stick her nose into his love life (with his superior on the force, no less), she also vacuums at three in the morning, makes breakfast for twenty, and washes his gun.

It turns out this is an important plot point, because she tries to make it up to him by buying semi-automatic weapons for him from a truck in a back alley. Unsurprisingly, she ends up witnessing a drive-by shooting, and becomes pivotal in tracking down arms smugglers. She, of course, won’t say anything until her son is put back on the case.

Eventually Sly and his mother begin to reconcile, and when the bad guys capture her, it’s time for him to burst in, guns a-blazing. Sort of. The showdown of the movie involves Sly on the ground incapacitated, and his mother blowing away the bad guy with a gun larger than her head. Oh, and he finally makes it with the captain, and they get married. Or something.

The absolute honest truth is that this movie didn’t have a lot going for it. It’s a shame; Sylvester Stallone is an under-rated actor, and Estelle Getty was reasonably humorous. The problem is that the screenwriters didn’t have the guts to push beyond the comfort zone of stereotypes, clichés and tired one-liners. There weren’t any really bad moments in the movie…there just weren’t any really good ones, either. The cast is entirely predictable; the sexy love interest, the overbearing mother, the over-manly protagonist who can’t express his true feelings, the peer who’s got it out for the good guy, the bad guy bent on smuggling those weapons and getting away with it too, if it weren’t for that pesky mother.

I can’t say it felt like a waste of a movie night, but there just wasn’t anything special about it. Oh well. Better luck next time, Sly.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

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Movie Night: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Year: 1948

Director: Charles Barton

Production Company: Universal International Pictures

Leads: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello

Well that’s gonna cost you overtime ’cause I’m a union man, and I work only sixteen hours a day.

A union man only works eight hours a day!

I belong to two unions.

51F4U16LZjL._SX500_Oh my, this was too long in coming. After too many Jackie Chan and superhero movies, it was time to introduce Little Satis to the birth of comedy.

His first impression of course was, “Ew…black and white?”

I tried to explain to him that yes, they did have color back then, but they just didn’t use it very much. I also tried to explain to him that just because it was in black and white didn’t mean it wasn’t any good.

It turned out I didn’t need to do much explaining. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a showcase of the duo at their very best, in an absolute farce of a movie with more holes than plot, and whizz-bang cracks every two seconds. What’s so amazing to me in watching these movies is the feel of spontaneity and dynamism that exists throughout; you almost feel as if you’re watching a stage comedy performance. Yet at the same time, every joke and pun fits perfectly into the plot (which is, of course, a joke of its own), and never feels over-rehearsed or generic.

In a nutshell, Dracula travels to the United States with the Frankenstein monster, hoping to find a new brain to revive him and make him his servant. The Wolfman is hot in pursuit, but of course can’t go around at night, because of the full moon (which apparently rises every night). Dracula sets himself on Lou Costello’s brain, of course, it having “no will of its own, no fiendish intellect to oppose his Master.”

Through a series of frankly bizarre and calamitous events Abbott and Costello manage to defeat Dracula, blow up the Frankenstein monster, toss the evil assistant out of a window, and save the girl, who is inexplicably attracted to Costello.

I don’t get it. Out of all the guys around here that classy dish has to pick out a guy like you.

What’s wrong with that?

Go look at yourself in the mirror sometime.

Why should I hurt my own feelings?

However, above the comedic gold, perhaps the true gem of this movie is the chance to see Bela Lugosi return to his infamous role as Dracula (as well as, to a lesser extent, Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolfman). He is to me the epitome of Dracula (I’m so sorry, Christopher Lee), and to this day when someone mentions the name Dracula, I hear Lugosi’s lilting and sinister Hungarian accent, and see his cape folded over his face. His stone-faced demeanor is such a contrast to the shenanigans of Abbott and Costello that he brings if anything more of a chill than were it a serious movie. His character observes the two as though they are the world’s greatest fools; there’s a moment early on where the expression on Lugosi’s face is priceless:

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Oh, what a joy this film is; and of course the goal was achieved: opening Little Satis’ eyes to movies that were made before he was born.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★