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Girl of Time, a review by Tom

Girl of Time (1983/Japan) IMDb | Wikipedia Intercontinental Video (Hong Kong) Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi Writing: Wataru Kenmochi (Writer), Yasutaka Tsutsui (Writer) Length: 104 min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85 Audio: Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Subtitles: Chinese, English

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Stars:
Tomoyo Harada as Tomoko Yoshikawa
Takako Irie as Tatsu
Wakaba Irie as Noriko
Kiyomi Ishii as Student 'B'
Ittoku Kishibe as Toshimi Fukushima

Plot:
A romantic 16-year-old high school girl in love with a classmate starts dreaming about events before they actually happen. As it turns out, the object of her love is actually a space alien affected by her own romantic views of life and because of their unified wave length...

Extras:

• Scene Access
• Trailers

As you probably know, I am a big fan of the anime movie "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time". That movie is kind of a sequel to a successful novel from the 60s (the advise-giving aunt in the movie is the main protagonist of the novel). That novel has spawned multiple adaptions in form of movies and TV series. The most famous of those is this movie.
This movie never really clicked for me. Probably because I was expecting more a story like in the anime version. But you can see many parallels between these two movies though.
I just read that there was yet another live-action movie released this year. Can't wait for a DVD release outside of Japan.

Rating:

(From Tom's Time-Travel Movie Reviews on December 9th, 2010)

The Old Dark House, a review by Danae Cassandra

The Old Dark House
Year of Release: 1932
Directed By: James Whale
Starring: Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Lillian Bond, Ernest Thesiger, Eva Moore
Genre: Horror

Overview:
Weary travelers find shelter in a mysterious Welsh manor in this definitive "Old Dark House" thriller and cult movie favorite by horror pioneer James Whale (the director of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and The Bride of Frankenstein, and subject of the recent film Gods and Monsters).

Greeted with an animal-like grunt by the mansion's hideously scarred butler (Boris Karloff), three disoriented voyagers (Melvyn Douglas, Raymond Massey and Lillian Bond) find themselves in the unwelcoming company of the psychotic Femm family, whose members include a religious fanatic obsessed with mortality and other matter of the sinful flesh (Eva Moore), her browbeaten brother (Ernest Thesiger), and a scripture-quoting homicidal pyromaniac (Brember Wills)... all watched over by their androgynous, 102-year-old father (Elspeth "John" Dudgeon). Relieving the story's overwhelming weirdness are Charles Laughton and a young Gloria Stuart (Titanic) as two confused visitors to the strange estate.

As witty and surprising as it is darkly unsettling, The Old Dark House is a ghoulishly delightful treat, a one-of-a-kind macabre comedy blanketed with rain-soaked, gothic eeriness orchestrated by one of the foremost directors of the American horror film.

My Thoughts:
I find, for whatever reason, that I'm not as fond of this film today as I was when I first watched it four years ago. I still like Charles Laughton and Boris Karloff's performances. I still think that the cast do a good job creating unique, eccentric characters - and that not only Karloff, but also Eva Moore. That level of religious zealotry is both extremely off-putting and genuinely frightening. Gloria Stuart's character, however, seems even more silly, stupid, and just plain annoying today. The cinematography still creates a really spooky, old, dark house, but the print is in need of a good restoration/HD remaster. That shouldn't matter, but I think it actually does. Still, the script is good and the cast is top notch, so I'd still recommend it to fans of old films and classic horror.

Watched For: Hoop-tober 3.0, Horror/Halloween Challenge 2016

Bechdel Test: Pass
Mako Mori Test: Fail

Overall: 3.5/5

Horror/Halloween Challenge Films: 4/52

(From Horror/Halloween 2016 Challenge on October 5th, 2016)

Farscape Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: An energy ball penetrates the hull of Moya and floats through the ship. When Aeryn shoots at it it expands and encapsulates Crichton. Shortly after Crichton and some animal is spat out of the ball. As it turns out the animal is some pre-historic version of Crichton's. And then the ball spills out another Crichton, this time a more advanced version than the regular one. When they finally understand what the ball is, they are forced to return one of the three "genetic samples" or Moya will be destroyed.

My Opinion: A typical "transporter accident" episode, this time not with a "good" and "bad" guy but with three guys that live on a scale from emotional to logical whereas the future guy could easily join the Vulcans. It was OK, but nothing special.

Synopsis: The crew has bought some new food supplies but it might be infested by a parasite. Thus Dargo and Chiana have bought a Vorc that is supposed to kill that parasite. Soon the question arises whether the Vorc is some kind of hoax sold to strangers. But there is actually some larger creature on the ship and it is attacking the crew. Or is the Vorc itself the parasite?

My Opinion: Evertime I watch this episode I had forgotten how the parasite story turns out, the only thing I remember is that the little critter is innocent and dies in the course of his duty. It's a very sad moment when he dies in Aeryn's arms who holds him like a baby. As I said before, it's amazing how real all these puppets on the show feel. Reminds me of "There is ... another ... Sky ... walker".


Synopsis: John awakes in a hospital and is told that it's shortly after he crashed Farscape-1 and blew the experiment. But John is not falling for this again. Still, in the beginning everything is much more realistic than the holo show the Ancients created. But then his shrink is a blue woman that looks suspiciously like Zhaan. Now the question is where is he and what does the person want that keeps him there.

My Opinion: One of these wacky episodes take that place in John's head and where even more weird things happen than in a usual episode. Funny to see this episode one day after Galactica's Six Degrees of Separation with the difference that John ignores Head-Scorpius (or "Harvey") in his head and Baltar ignored a real Six in the real world. What I also find really enjoyable, is when these alien characters are placed in a real-world environment. On Moya it all feels natural but when Dargo and Chiana ride a cabriolet on a highway somehow that looks really strange.

Synopsis: In order to hide from the Peacekeepers, Moya has entered a nebula that strongly reduces sensor range and makes it hard to navigate. Aeryn takes a shuttle to take a look at the other side but when she returns she is 165 cycles older and claims to have lived a long and peaceful life on a planet. Then she returns to her granddaughter. But John won't give up on her and follows her only to get stuck, too. But it's not them who live in the wrong time frame, it's the nebula where time stands still and Moya has to get out of there quickly.

My Opinion: Faster aging (at least from the POV of the viewer). Another common theme throughout science-fiction series. I like this kind of episodes, especially when more than one character is involved, even when it's always undone at the end of the episode. It gives the authors and the characters a chance to undergo a certain developement, to create a relationship that might not be possible under normal circumstances (e.g. when they are both military) or that so far is only an allusion. So yes, that was a good episode.

(From Farscape Marathon on September 3rd, 2009)