Movies

Hercules in the Haunted World (1961) Directed by Mario Bava. I have seen most of Bava's best films and this is what he was really good at - taking a piece of crap and making it into an amazing, brilliantly colorful and surreal piece of crap. One of the best Hercules movies, but still a Hercules movie. He picks up big things and throws them or hits enemies with them. It's just so colorfully illuminated and doesn't resemble reality in any way, and that's what I really like. 8/10

One Good Turn (1955) Norman Wisdom loses his trousers out a train window, wins a walking race, creates havoc with a symphony orchestra, gets hypnotized to become a boxer, and helps save the orphanage. Not quite as entertaining as some of his others. 6/10

Movies

Starcrash 2 (1981) So re-named because it recycles a few minutes of space model shots and a few props from Starcrash. It is not a sequel to a low-budget High Camp post-starwars Italian space epic, but a cheap swipe from it. Hero and heroine fleeing hilariously costumed glitter-bearded villain land on planet where they encounter for the first time such things as water, eating, and casual sex. Every space set needs panels of blinking lights, but in this case they blink incessantly, needlessly and repetitively with no pretense of functionality - symbolizing the flawed mindset of the entire weak production. Even I could make a better movie than this. Really should not exist. 2/10 for a few unintended laughs.

Taxidermia (2006) If I had known what sort of thing this was going to be I might not have watched it. Depicts more things I never wanted to see than any movie of recent memory. It displays scenes from the lives of a competitive eater in communist Hungary and his disappointingly scrawny taxidermist son. The sort of movie that makes you say, "Oh, they have specially designed frameworks to lean on while vomiting!" A visceral experience in that you actually see lots of real viscera, as well as excreta and ejaculate. Kind of good in a horrible way, extremely well-made and convincing in the presentation its deranged premise. 7/10 for sheer daring.

Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988) Post-apocalyptic action sex comedy. One of the best of that genre. Fairly witty, well-made, good frog-mutant makeup/prosthetics/animatronics. 8/10

Movies

Johnny Guitar (1954) A Joan Crawford film, by Donna's request. A surreal western which bears only passing resemblance to anything that might ever have occurred in the old west. Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge, her hate-blinded nemesis, with their short curly hairstyles and skin-tight dungarees are from the 1954 west of dude ranches and wood-sided station wagons. All the characters are two-dimensional but they are not two of our three dimensions, not both of them anyway. Each person has a unique neurotic focus, and the dialog seems to make sense but is skewed in a baffling manner, leaving a feeling as if you suddenly discovered they had been speaking Dutch all along and you hadn't really understood a word of it. Filmed with the Republic Trucolor process, a form of Technicolor, which really brings out the splendor of the Monument Valley locations. Crawford is costumed with burning splashes of pure color that dazzle the eye, not least of which is the scarlet lip-shape inhabiting the lower part of her face. Bizarre and surprising throughout, but it left me quite weary and irritable by the end. 8/10 for weirdness.

Just My Luck (1957) Norman Wisdom must overcome absurd obstacles and cause repeated havoc if he wishes to win a huge amount of money at the races. Amusing. 6/10

Movies

The Green Slime (1968) Space station comes under attack by energy-eating blob monsters that can reproduce themselves from a single cell. It's amazing how a movie that has so much going for it in the way of sets, models, characters and story can come out so boring. It seems to me that much of it was shot too close - not enough variation between shots, not enough scale and depth in the scenes. Something about it has never worked for me - I had a hard time sitting through it years ago and it is still tough. 5/10

The Detective (1968) I didn't realize these two movies were made in the same year but they couldn't be more different. I first became aware of this from a trailer included on the disc with Sinatra's 1967 film Tony Rome. Now, Tony Rome is a tongue in cheek action drama full of snide lewd sexist and racist "humor," crude stereotypes and clumsy dialog that seems to be striving for a Playboy Magazine Lifestyle effect but the result is more like a waterlogged issue of Swank or Rascal. It's a dreadful and degrading film to watch. The Detective is the other side of the coin, as if he had to balance out all the errors of Tony Rome. It is genuinely intelligent and sensitive, and it addresses social and sexual issues in an outstandingly mature manner. Its treatment of homosexuality in particular is probably the most equitable to appear in any popular American media of the time. Sinatra plays a genuinely decent and unprejudiced man slowly being ground to pieces by a sociopolitical system that crushes decent people underfoot and raises bastards and assholes to positions of power and authority. This is a superior and powerful film with an excellent cast, with as much to say about our world today as it did then, and I think everyone ought to see it. 10/10

Recent Viewing

A Matter of Life and Death (1946) David Niven should have died when he jumped out of a burning airplane without a parachute, but he didn't and they have to figure out what to do about it. I love any cinematic depiction of heaven, and this has some of the most wonderful heaven scenes ever filmed. On the other hand I am not too thrilled about trial scenes, which are just people standing around talking, but this trial takes place in heaven and is one of the most spectacular courtrooms ever depicted. I had been wanting to see this for years, after having seen a photo of the gigantic escalator they ride on to and from heaven. They were obviously working out some mixed feelings about Americans with this, after their wartime experiences, and it's always interesting to me to see how they are depicted from another cultural viewpoint. Entertaining overall, few surprises, much satisfaction. 8/10

Village of the Damned (1960) Mysterious force causes village women to become pregnant with strange threatening children. We always enjoy Monster Child movies, and this is one of the best. Demonizes not only children but conformity and mind control and, by allegory, nationalism. George Sanders is always a plus. 8/10

Those two were watched with Donna. Alone I watched:

Supertrain: Express to Terror (1979) Pilot/premiere of the short-lived and disastrous television program about a gigantic atomic-powered luxury train with disco, weight room, swimming pool and sauna. Hugely expensive models and sets filled with third-string actors who were apparently told to overact every single line. I have absolutely no memory of this program's existence. I may not have owned a TV at that time. Crooner Steve Lawrence is the star, and it seems anyone who could be spared from a guest spot on the Carol Burnett show was shoehorned in. A fascinating historical document. 6/10 for schlock value. Anything you ever need to know about Supertrain can be learned from this excellent website:

http://nbc_supertrain.tripod.com/

I DON'T LIKE EATING

I don't like eating. It's a chore and a nuisance to me and one of my main goals in cooking is to come up with food that provides the maximum nourishment with the minumum amount of eating. If I could have the food pills of old time Science Fiction, or simply not have to eat at all, that would be fine with me. I resent being a slave to an unthinking organism that always wants to chew or drink something, and requires hours out of the day for the refueling process. I don't like restaurants, because they are meant for people who like to eat, and want some kind of elaborate dining experience with lots of intense flavors and sensations. As an hyperaesthete, intense flavors are unpleasant to me and I like my food to be plain and simple. If I must dine out because of a social obligation I would rather eat something more like what I like than something I don't like, all kinds of crazy flavors and weird ingredients. I don't get to do that very often because everyone else wants something exotic or "interesting" to stuff in their mouths while they are jabbering at each other. I don't like to eat with other people either, and don't consider it the sort of thing that requires a group activity any more than gassing up the car or brushing my teeth - it's a matter of obligatory maintenance to me, not something to be celebrated. I also dislike dining out because having to pay ten dollars for breakfast or twenty dollars for dinner and waste two hours doing it when I don't even enjoy it in the first place seems foolish and wasteful since I can make myself a healthy meal at home for fifty cents and get it over with in about five minutes. I didn't just now start feeling this way - I have been like this for a long time, and I have been telling people these things for a long time and for some reason it doesn't seem to sink in. I am posting this for future reference so I can just direct people to it instead of having to continue to say the same things over and over again as I have for years, often to the very same people. Here it is as simply as possible, one more time:

I don't like eating.

I don't like dining out.

If I have to dine out I would rather eat inexpensive plain food - I am not interested in having a dining experience.

I would rather not dine out at all if I can possibly avoid it, and if I never had to eat again that would be great.

Movies

Pulgasari (1985) A tiny figurine, brought to life by a blacksmith's dying wish and a drop of his daughter's blood, grows into a giant iron-eating monster to save the people from an oppressive ruler. Pretty fair giant monster movie. What makes it different is it was made in North Korea, its director kidnapped from South Korea by orders of the oppressive ruler of the time. Apparently the monster is meant to symbolize capitalism which freed the commoners from the rule of the elite but ultimately became oppressive in itself. Interesting to see the medieval Korean costumes and customs, but there's nothing all that special about it. 6/10

Movies

Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) Most Tennessee Williams stories had to be extensively expanded and adapted to make it to the screen, and this is no exception. Imaginative direction using flashbacks and locations expands the story from just a couple of people in a room screaming at each other, and the harsh and twisted details are considerably altered to fit the tastes of the time, which adds a bit of a wtf factor at the end. Nevertheless this is a consistently fascinating film, with excellent performances all around, most notably that of Geraldine Page whose transformation from booze and drug addled despair to confidence and power is remarkable. 9/10

Movies

Bagi, the Monster of Mighty Nature (1984) Osamu Tezuka's animated action melodrama of bio-engineering. Addresses his favorite topics of love, loneliness, and what it means to be human, through the travails of a half-human half-lion laboratory escapee and her bond with the son of the scientist who created her. A good example of his work. 7/10

Laughter in Paradise (1951) Inveterate practical joker Hugh Griffith dies laughing in the opening scene, leaving an Eccentric Will which requires his four heirs to act in exact opposition to their natures if they wish to collect their fortune. Many familiar faces to viewers of British cinema, including Alastair Sim and Fay Compton, with able support from Joyce Grenfell, perhaps the most stereotypically British actress of all time. Also introduces Audrey Hepburn as a nightclub cigarette girl. An enjoyable entertainment. 8/10

Movies

Great Decisive Battle! Superior Ultraman 8 Brothers (2008) One great thing about Japan is that childlike adult males are a market demographic. After the apparition of a threatening mirage over Yokohama, a young man begins having dreams and visions indicating that he and his friends, and a handful of older men in the neighborhood, have lives in an alternate world where the television fantasy of monster-fighting Ultraman is real. When an evil alien begins to bring giant monsters into this world, they must remember their childhood hopes and dreams, and recall their true nature as defenders of the planet. Though I don't know that much about the TV show, this appears to be a multigenerational reunion of actors from different periods of the program. What pleased me was the emotional sincerity of it, the complete lack of irony. It is so hopeful and touching at times I was quite moved. "Regardless of how bad the situation is, the light in people's heart will never disappear." 10/10

Believe in Ultraman!

Movies

Petulia (1968) Richard Lester at his peak as a creative director. One of those nutty stories about a poor schmuck whose life is knocked akilter by a crazy person. Perfectly reflects the spirit of the times in its style, technique and subject matter. Excellent casting in every role, especially the supporting work of Shirley Knight and Joseph Cotten. Howard Hesseman also appears as a dope smoking hippie. Certainly the best Lester film I have ever seen, probably the best he ever made. There is something bizarre and unexpected in every single scene. 9/10

Movies

Yor, Hunter from the Future (1983) Directed by Anthony M. Dawson (Antonio Margheriti), filmed in Turkey. You think it's going to be just a caveman movie with this one guy Yor always saving everybody from full-size walking artificial dinosaurs (!) and apemen, and hang-gliding on a kind of a pterodactyl thing he killed (!!!) to save people from the apemen and stuff like that but he has this medallion around his neck and wants to find out who his parents were and when they finally get to the island that he originally came from as a child there are all these darth vader ROBOTS and a teleporting EVIL OVERLORD and running around shooting rayguns in a factory and stuff and it's just nuts. It keeps up a real good pace with another nutty thing happening every few minutes so no matter how goofy or crummy it seems for a while suddenly there is a big fake dinosaur spouting blood from its face wounds or something blowing up or something. Not only is it a good cheap caveman movie it is also a good cheap scifi movie, a winning combination! Ridiculously fun. 8/10

Movies

Spaceways (1953) Melodrama of smoldering passions among the scientists in Britain's fledgeling space program. Howard Duff must become the first man in space, to prove he isn't a murderer. They manage to do it all with stock footage and no space model shots whatsoever, despite the promise of the poster graphics. Its SF pedigree is impeccable; screenplay by Paul Tabori from a radio drama by Charles Eric Maine, but it seems heavily processed for a popular audience. Little input from actual scientists on the barnlike spaceship interior. Disgruntled "scientist's wife" Cecile Chevreau's peevish eyebrows and icy hatred, and the nifty science van with whirling antenna on top are for me the most memorable features. Overall a good looking movie and entertaining enough. 7/10

Movies

Pinocchio in Outer Space (1964) Belgian animated sequel; because of his misbehavior he has become a puppet again and must strive once more to be worthy of boyhood. A fortuitously appearing highly-evolved space turtle voiced by Arnold Stang takes him to Mars where they uncover the origin of the mutant space whale that has been destroying Earth's communication satellites. I first saw this at a saturday matinee at the Skyline theatre in Canon City Colorado, probably 1967 or 68 - nothing in it that would interest any mature adult but being enmeshed in the twilight of eternal childhood I still find it thrilling. Actually contains a handful of scientific facts so you feel a little smarter afterward. 8/10

Movies

Humanity's End (2009) I learned of this from looking at the pictures on the front of a dollar-a-night DVD machine at the grocery store and began to wonder what a direct to DVD scifi cheapy looks like these days now that CG effects are probably the least expensive part of a movie. Unfortunately you still need to have a good script, competent direction and a certain amount of just plain making sense, even if you can fill the sky with exploding spaceships. It started with seven minutes of unintelligible narration needlessly explaining the elaborate back-story, illustrated with imagery made "old-timey" looking by the addition of both fake video scanlines and fake film blotches and specks. That's what they used their advanced technology for in this - to simulate film and video effects on their all-CG space model shots - camera motion, blurry jerky in-and-out zooms etc. Nonsensical and needless stylistic muddle. It was great that they could make so many spaceships explode but it seemed at times they just cut them in at random and I kept wondering what was happening, and whose spaceship that was that just blew up. That's not how you want your scifi movie to go, with people wondering what's going on. The dialog was equal parts plot exposition and snappy retorts, and after half an hour I said "I just want to see ONE MINUTE with nothing stupid in it." But I didn't so I quit. I really said that, and that is not what you want people to say about your movie.

Movies

Hell Drivers (1957) Excellent British thriller about men who must drive huge trucks full of gravel as rapidly as possible on dangerous winding roads. A lousy enough job to have even if it weren't under demeaning conditions with people messing with you psychologically and physically all the time. Patrick McGoohan as the heavy is amazingly creepy and volatile, David McCallum and Sean Connery in minor roles are as young as I have ever seen them. Turns out quite as satisfactorily and spectacularly as one would wish. 9/10

Movies

It Happened to Jane (1959) It can't be just the nondescript title that kept this Doris Day vehicle languishing in obscurity while her much more painful later films are well-known, even popular. Young widow operating a struggling Fresh Lobster business takes on reprehensible railroad magnate (Ernie Kovacs) to get economic justice, and to do so she ends up on I've Got a Secret and the Dave Garroway show, and becomes owner of a steam train. Jack Lemmon is her leading man and lawyer (who drives a great Studebaker Commander convertible) and they work well together. This is an all-american feelgood David vs. Goliath screwball comedy that really deserves wider viewership. With Mary Wickes and Parker Fennelly, and good location shooting in Olde New England. All-around good fun. 9/10

Movies

The Inhabited Island - Final Battle (2009) The second half of the mammoth Russian fantasy film. Not as enrapturing to me as the first, maybe simply because it was not so fresh and new to me, maybe because there is less diversity of locale and event and more shooting, yelling and chasing. Still loaded with astounding spectacle and intelligent story, and things don't turn out quite like you expect them to. 8/10

Movies

What's Good for the Goose (1969) In a departure from formula, Norman Wisdom is a middle-aged banker who falls headlong into the Generation Gap in what we nowadays would call a mid-life crisis. Directed by Israeli powerhouse Menahem Golan, and featuring The Pretty Things in the hipster disco scenes. These stories tend to be rather painful to watch at times, involving a certain amount of delusion and humiliating realization. Wisdom's schtick is more effective in the slapstick '50s style comedies, and seems a bit forced in a more realistic setting. He has the look of a fellow whose time was past, and this seems to have been the beginning of his transition from film to television. Probably best to avoid it. 5/10

Movies

The Locked Room (1929) Complicated melodrama in which most of the trouble is caused by people trying to protect someone else's honor. Barbara Stanwyck in the leading role and Zasu Pitts as minor comedy relief. Pretty archaic. 6/10

Message From Space (1978) Of all the cheap Star Wars copies three stand above the rest: Battle Beyond the Stars from the U.S., Italy's Star Crash, and this from Japan's second-string studio Toei. Star Wars gave permission to jumble together any crazy sci fi looking stuff with a bunch of mystical magical fantasy and say it was science fiction. This has a strong infusion of the aesthetic of Japanese children's adventure shows in its crazily costumed silver-faced horn-helmeted villains, but there is the usual abundance of ray guns, sword fights, explosions, and model spacecraft zooming nonsensically around. Sonny Chiba and Vic Morrow lend their star power. It seemed a bit more interesting when I saw it in the theatre but if you want to see one of these things it will do fine. 7/10

Veteran (male) character actor Eisei Amamoto as the

Grand Empress in the best electric wheelchair ever.

Movies

Golgo 13: Kowloon Assignment (1977) Japanese/Chinese action film starring Sonny Chiba as Duke Togo, super-assassin. Whereas the manga is pretty cerebral, focusing on the technical details of doing the impossible, this has a lot of chasing and fighting in exotic locales, including a Hong Kong junkyard which you don't get to see too often. Chiba has about fifteen lines as the taciturn Togo, and there is a topless night club scene so it's not a total loss. Otherwise a fairly standard film of its type - absurdly contrived with lots of bright colors and loud gunshots. I like those little '70s Datsun and Toyota sedans, and I think there was even a Hillman Minx in there. 6/10

Movies

The Sky Crawlers (2008) Animated aerial combat fantasy based on a series of popular novels, taking place in that eurostyle neo-retro alternate world the Japanese like so much. The style in these days of digital animation is to do machinery and landscapes in 3D while keeping characters to a conventional anime' 2D look with painted backgrounds, and it blends pretty well. The flight scenes are photorealistic and goose-bump inducing - in fact it has the most thrilling and chilling first two minutes I have ever seen in a movie. At two hours, considering the slow pacing of the land-based story, it is very long and the Big Mystery apparent from the beginning turned out to be exactly what I expected. If you like this sort of thing, maybe look for something a little shorter or more interesting. I suggest Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise. 5/10

Movies

It's a Great Feeling (1949) Dreadful Warner Brothers vanity piece - Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan play themselves and show why they are no longer remembered. Doris Day at her peak of freshness is never given a decent song - anything good she gets one verse and chorus and that's it, negating my entire purpose for watching it. It's a back-lot picture, about trying to make a picture on the back lot, so everybody who was between takes gets roped in for a cameo. Filmed in luscious technicolor - beautiful but stupid. 3/10

The high point of the film: Joan Crawford KNITTING???

Movies

Project Moonbase (1958) Co-written by Robert Heinlein, a tale of the year 1970 when Enemies of Freedom are plotting to destroy the US Space Force space station. Their scheme goes awry, and a survey mission intended to photograph the far side of the moon is forced to make the first lunar landing. Makes a good attempt at gender equity considering the time it was written, though even the female top space pilot can be brought in line with the threat of a good spanking. Corrugated fibreglass panels must have seemed the material of tomorrow as they are used for the walls in all the spacecraft. Also a nice effort to depict weightless life in the space station by showing people walking on walls and ceilings using magnetic boots. Overall more of a TV show look to it, due to bright overhead studio lighting, but I'd call it a pretty good try. 7/10

Movies

A Stitch in Time (1963) Norman Wisdom gets into every kind of trouble, mostly medically related, including clinging to the roof of a speeding ambulance while wrapped up like a mummy, and being photographed by the press dressed as a nurse at the wheel of a brand new Hillman Imp. Funny. 7/10

Norman Wisdom frozen in a block of ice.

Movies

Follow a Star (1959) I am having a "Norman Wisdom" phase. In this one, Norman unknowingly becomes a singing sensation when his unscrupulous employer lip-synchs to recordings of Norman's voice - but Norman has a complex about singing in public which requires all sorts of antics before the problems are resolved. I like these movies because they are undemanding, cheerful, occasionally amusing, and overall pleasant. Wisdom has an appealing "good-hearted bumbler" persona, and amid the pratfalls and scampering there are moments of comedic brilliance. 6/10

Flight to Mars (1951) Filmed in dense Cinecolor - lots of deep greenish and reddish-brown tones. First rocket to Mars encounters underground civilization with a fabulous sense of style. Not many women but they all look fantastic in their satin micro-dresses, and the men wear red capes over black tunics with a lightning-bolt insignia on the chest. Great chairs too, and the walls and doorways are all crazy angles. Not super-thrilling but pleasing to the eye. 6/10

Movies I have been unable to finish watching:

The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) Dario Argento is a unique cinematic genius, and I am willing to tolerate a certain amount of cutting and bleeding to see where his complex psychodramas end up, but there is way too much raping in this one to suit me.

Krabat (2008) German film about a boy who becomes apprentice to a sorcerer. Takes a long time to develop and too much of that is squalor and humiliation.

The Room (2003) Some people seem to find a Transcendent Badfilm experience in this clumsy vanity flick, made by a guy with money and nothing else. Having made the study of Badfilm a pastime for some 30 years I found it to be merely Poorfilm (a term I have not yet succeeded in popularizing) - tedious and uninteresting.

Uzumaki (2000) Based on the most bizarre and grotesque manga I have ever read, or rather on the first few volumes before it really gets going. This is an amateurish production which seems to take the approach of slavishly reproducing every panel of the manga, presenting it in that dull greenish tone popular among beginning filmmakers these days who mistake style for substance, and using mediocre visual effects as a substitute for drama. A very disappointing experience for me, and an extremely dull and lousy movie.

Movies

Test Pilota Pirxa (1978) Polish/Soviet SF based on a story by Stanislaw Lem. Test Pilot Pirx is sent on a space mission with a robotic crew member and he drives himself crazy trying to figure out which one it is. If it is your goal to see every SF film ever made, include this. It's a bit slow. The future city scenes appear to be Chicago. 6/10

The Bulldog Breed (1960) A Norman Wisdom film. Unsuccessful in both love and suicide, Norman joins the Royal Navy. Because of his absolute incompetence he is put in charge of the ship's dog, and thus accidentally becomes the first man in space. Moderately entertaining at times. 6/10

Be careful what you wish. Now that I am seeing many movies I have wanted to learn about for a long time I am finding that most of them are not very good.

Movies

Fantomas (1964) Fantomas is a super-criminal and master of disguise originally appearing in a silent crime serial, and this is his campy revival. The French have been careful about not letting much of this sort of pop drivel escape to the outside world, but it's heartening to know they have done something other than art films and classy heist flicks. This came to my attention through a Russian release with French and dubbed Russian audio, but I had to work a little to find a copy I could watch with english subtitles. If you like to see cars driving around you're in luck as this has lots of over-extended auto chases, but I found the "careening down mountain roads in a car with no brakes" sequence to be most elaborate and fairly thrilling. There is more dangling from a rope ladder off a helicopter in this film than I have ever seen in one movie before. The one thing I think they really deserve credit for is the thought they put into the disguise bits. Usually when someone is "disguised" as another character in the film and they are simply played by that actor they will put them in a split screen and you know you are just looking at the same actor in two different suits. In this case they deliberately made up the disguised version a bit off, with the ears an odd shape or the eyebrows wrong, and part of the face off-color and slightly shiny like it really was a mask. Good thinking. Pretty lite fare overall, and at times I wondered if it would ever end, but it was good for educational purposes. 5/10

Fantomas and Lackeys in Secret Submarine:

Movies

The First Nudie Musical (1976) They have three weeks to make a movie or they will lose the studio! I am finding that the addition of nudity to a genre film does not improve it. It just makes a bad movie a different kind of bad. Mostly a collection of vignettes and blackouts connected by a tenuous plot and some songs. I actually laughed really hard one time, and I don't think I have seen nude tap dancing before. 5/5

The Core (2003) Huge disaster will wipe out life on earth unless a band of stereotypes performs an insanely dangerous task. Hunky scientist, spunky gal, finicky professor, eccentric inventor, geeky hacker, even what I can only call the "black mammy" - the middle-aged woman of color who nowadays says, "My duty is to look out for the health and safety of this crew!" instead of what they used to say. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm just saying that is what I saw. I have to give them credit for making it as nonsensically spectacular as possible as they knock off characters one at a time, allowing for both tragic irony and noble sacrifice. Kinda long at two hours, but they wanted it to be epic and it was. I think this formula really does best at ninety minutes - it makes them keep things tight, less talk and more action. I was impressed when the hunky scientist finished his sales pitch to the top brass with the super-convincing act of roasting an apple with an improvised blowtorch to show what would happen it they didn't send an earth-boring magma train to re-start the spin of the titular core. Yes, a train. That was pretty impressive, having a subterranean train. Anyway if you want to see one of this kind of movie this one is a pretty harmless one that will keep you stupified for two hours, and Stanley Tucci is always a plus. 7/10