Listening (1994) – A very worthwhile SF drama. Two broke grad students work on computerized mind-reading technology in the garage with equipment “borrowed” from the university. One backburners his wife and daughter for Science; the other lives in a studio apartment with his sick grandmother and pilfers other things to get by. When a third member of the team brings the necessary final breakthrough to allow mind-to-mind communication, she also introduces sexual tension that throws their personal lives even further out of whack. And naturally, both venture capitalists and the CIA are hot for the technology once it breaks through.
It’s a well-told tale, quiet and subtle where it needs to be, paranoid and over-the-top where it needs to be. Recommended.
Ape vs. Monster (2021) – That’s right, it’s The Asylum’s mockbuster for Godzilla vs Kong, and of course it’s bad. A space probe with a chimp on board (which has apparently been lost for decades, and no one even wonders how the chimp is still alive) crashlands in New Mexico with some alien goo on it. Not only does the goo mutate the chimp into the methhead version of Kong, but it also mutates a Gila monster into what I’m told is one of the stock CG models from 3d model company Turbosquid. NASA puts the daughter of the original scientist who sent the chimp into space, who’s now half-scientist-half-activist, into figuring out what the plot is.
You know that a movie like this is going to contain locations which don’t look anything like where they’re supposed to be, cheap CGI, Eric Roberts, and stock footage of the Pentagon, but the most notable (in a bad way) part is the script. The dialogue is atrocious; I would be impressed by GREAT actors who managed to get those lines out of their mouth, and DOUBLE impressed by unknowns working for scale. The whole thing seems like someone belated remembered on Friday night that the script was due Monday morning, and the result of the first-draft screenplay cranked out under the influence of desperation and massive loads of caffeine was shot as-is.
Meltdown (aka High Risk) (1995) – Jet Li stars in a knowing Die Hard ripoff. Two years ago he was the police officer who failed to stop a bomb that blew up his wife and a busload of schoolkids; now he’s the bodyguard and sometimes body double (just roll with it) for a Hong Kong action star who thinks he’s Bruce Lee but who actually comes across more like Jackie Chan. And a bigwig shindig attended by his client (high in a skyscraper) is targeted by the same terrorist*! Much punching, kicking, shooting and exploding results!
*They keep calling him a “terrorist,” when at most he’s an extortionist; unlike Hans Gruber in Die Hard, this criminal mastermind known as “The Doctor” doesn’t even pretend it’s not all about the money.
I do visit your Movies Seen Recently for views and tip offs about movies.
But I have not often commented. Just wanted you to know your are being read.
(You deserve a medal for enduring “Ape vs Monster”.)
Thank you, but it really wasn’t as bad as it good have been (which is high praise for an Asylum movie).
Did you find High Risk enjoyable? Or just goofy and stupid?
When I saw the trailer to Ape vs. Monster, I was suprised at how much it came across as a not-trying rip-off RAMPAGE with The Rock.
High Risk: All of the above.
Ape vs. Monster: I haven’t gotten around to seeing Rampage, but the idea that The Asylum ripped off one movie in order to rip off another movie wouldn’t surprise me.