ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN (1958)

A wealthy woman is still in love with her worthless husband despite the fact that he spends nearly all of his spare time shacked up with some nasty skank down at the local watering hole.  He doesn’t even try to hide that shit either!  One evening, the wife is driving home in a rage when she sees a spaceship in the road.  She jumps out of her whip and runs away.  The local police can’t find any proof of her story, so she continues home where she bickers with her husband and then falls asleep.  It’s exciting stuff.  Things go around and around like this with the local cops doing next to nothing, the husband cheating and the wife getting pissed off for 56 minutes of the film’s 66-minute runtime.  Finally, with the film nearly over, the spurned woman grows to 50 feet tall and goes in search of that silver-tongued ding-a-ling slinger she calls a husband.

Whatever genius came up with the expression “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” back 73,000 million hundred years ago was probably referring to ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN.  The poster (with artwork by Reynold Brown) has passed the test of time and become one of the most iconic posters of the 1950’s science fiction boom, but the movie itself is a stinker.  Short runtime, crap special effects, below average acting (the deputy was especially annoying), a person who "pulled a boner", boring script, abrupt ending, low budget, small cast and sets that consist of a house, a bar, some random fields and a small street. People bad mouth PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, but I think that film is way better than AOT50FW.

Worth watching for those who are curious, but most others will probably end up falling asleep and dream of something more exciting.

Remake - Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (1993)

THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957)

"We carve an idol out of our fear and call it God."

Back in the day, a knight (Max von Sydow) returns from his stint in the Crusades to find his homeland ravaged by the Plague. Already disillusioned by his experiences during the Crusades; he now begins to doubt the existence of God. One morning while getting ready to ride his horse, he looks over and Death is stand there. Looking at him. They talk and the knight challenges Death to a game of chess, believing that the game will buy him time to live longer in this smelly shithole existence we call Life. Death agrees. The game isn’t shown and the film isn’t just these two chatting while they play. No, instead the knight is still on his journey home and the film goes along for the ride as he encounters different people and events.

I love arthouse cinema and while I do watch quite a bit of it, I don’t review it often simply because I’m too dumb to properly express my feelings about it. That said, while I’m sure that I’ve missed various themes and details, I still find THE SEVENTH SEAL to be a great movie. Even all these decades after its original release. At times the pace is slow, but I’m not sure if that’s really true or just a symptom of my stupidity.

Whatever, fuck it. Slow or not, THE SEVENTH SEAL is still mandatory viewing for anybody serious about movies and especially world cinema.   Recommended.