FIRST CONTACT (2023)

The closing shot should have been in the opening scene of the movie.

An old nerd is messing around at his country estate on some kind of scientific contraption.  Shit happens and aliens start showing up.  Very, very slowly showing up.  More crap happens and people get possessed and have either glowing blue eyes or glowing red eyes.  The ones with the blue eyes seem kinda chill, the ones with red eyes are here to bring a ruckus.  Unfortunately, Will Smith isn’t around to slap the shit out of them.  Lots of talking happens and a couple of people die, then a dude looks up to see a spacecraft about 0.00000000005% the size of my Depression filling the entire sky.  Fin.

I have a massive weakness for alien invasion stories, but, even with that proclivity in its corner, I was still disappointed in FIRST CONTACT.  The acting was okay and the look of the film was alright, the problem is with the script.  It’s a fucking snoozer.  If I had written this crap, I would have tossed it in the rubbish bin.  I’ve told my cat better stories than this.

Anyway, FIRST CONTACT is watchable and fun to make snarky commentary and sounds to, but as serious entertainment it’s just meh.  Okay pacing, boring story, mid-range camera work, zero tension, zero nudity, zero cheerleaders, a little blood, zero ninjas, boring dialogue, boring scenery.  Worth a watch if you're extremely bored.  Or extremely depressed.

THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1993)

Jack Skellington is the most popular, the most handsome and the tallest citizen of Halloween Town.  Notice I didn’t say smartest.  Cuz dat motherfucker is dmub!  One day, Halloween, to be exact, Jack is super sad and goes for a stroll in the woods.  Being a simpleton, Jack gets lost and comes across some strange looking trees.  Each one has a differently decorated door on it.  Jack investigates the tree decorated with the image of a decorated tree on it.  Soon, Jack is in Christmas Town and totally losing his shit over the snow and bright colours.  Back in Halloween Town, he devises a plan to bring the joy of Christmas Town to Halloween Town…by kidnapping Sandy Claws.  I told you he was an idiot.

The story might be silly, but the presentation of the story is fucking amazing!  I love the unholy reindeer baby mice out of this movie and have seen it around 14 million times.  Probably doesn’t hurt that I identify as Goth and I love the fuck out of Oingo Boingo.  And Tim Burton and Catherine O’Hara and Halloween and Chris Sarandon and Musicals and stop-motion animation.  Fuuuuck, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS is awesome.  The only legitimate complaint I have about it, is it’s too short.  76 minutes just isn’t long enough.

My two favorite songs are "What's This?" and "This Is Halloween".

FRANCIS GOES TO THE RACES (1951)

Taking up immediately where the original film ends, FRANCIS GOES TO THE RACES finds the kind-hearted dummy Peter Stirling (Donald O’Connor) and his shit-talking buddy Francis hanging out at a racetrack.  Peter has the hots for the granddaughter (Piper Laurie) of a local thoroughbred owner but he fails so fantastically at flirting with her that he ends up nearly being fitted for “cement slippers” by a local crime boss!  Francis has to save the day.

Obviously, FRANCIS GOES TO THE RACES isn’t going to be the height of Cinema, but for entertainment, I was completely satisfied.  And I was impressed by the performances of the entire cast.  Literally everybody played the entire thing straight.  The overall tone of the film felt serious and it worked because it made the shit-talking by Francis just that much more humorous.

The only negative thing I have to say about FRANCIS GOES TO THE RACES is early on in the film Francis wanted to split up with Peter.  That made me sad and really depressed, but eventually Francis changed his mind and they were buddies again.  That made me happy, but I was still sad.

I know this is dumb, but the shot at 1:30 of Francis and Peter walking down the road side-by-side reminded me of the original opening credits of The Andy Griffith Show made 9 years later.

Part 1 - Francis (1950)
Part 3 - Francis Goes to West Point (1952)
Part 4 - Francis Covers the Big Town (1953)
Part 5 - Francis Joins the WACS (1954)
Part 6 - Francis in the Navy (1955)
Part 7 - Francis in the Haunted House (1956)