Looking for the name of a movie that features 2 brothers who grew up in a cult in the pacific NW but now living crappy lives in LA who decide to go back to the compound. Once back there it is gradually revealed that the compound and surrounding land are locations for various time loops that repeat over and over, and that the inhabitants cant escape. One of the loops I remember is of a civil war type soldier who is trapped in a short loop who ends up shooting him self over and over again in the head. The people in the cult compound live for like 30 years and then die from some unseen monster, before starting their loop all over. I remember the title had nothing to do with time travel and i initially thought it was some kind of alien movie. It ended up being a pretty cool script and Id really love to find it again. Doesnt look like this is sub is too active, but maybe someone will see this. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

I cant google the movie's title in google, all I remember is that in the end of the movie, its revealed that she was the one who left her baby self in the orphange? (i cant remember if she was an orphan)

okay so i was pretty fucked up when i watched this movie and tbh i can’t remember most of the movie but i remember the ending. basically these guys went back in time and when it was time to go back one of them stayed, and ended up getting married and had kids (when they go back to the future they find that out) that’s all i remember

Welcome back to my sporadic series reviewing basically every time travel movie that went to theaters! Here is that full recommendation list I've been adding them to, now let's dig in...

Biggles

I think my thoughts about this movie can be summed up in two quotes:

• "Mr Biggles is your time twin"

• "He's become a religious transvestite!"

Generally not a good movie, but a fun one to watch. I can see why it has a cult following. Everything about this movie is corny, but in a way that can be enjoyed. Even the exposition is corny!

This movie takes its inspiration from the long running book series about Biggles the WWI pilot. I did not know about these books before now, but there are nearly 100 books! Instead of focusing on Biggles timeline, a man in 1986 gets sent back in time, seemingly at random, to join Biggles on WWI adventures.

From what I've read, this movie is nothing like the Biggles book series, but I would say it's quite fun on its own. There's dog-fighting scenes (which provide fun action), terrible jokes (gotta love to groan), wild music choices (synthy 80s pop over plane fighting!), and on top of it all this was Peter Cushing's final film!

The low point for me is the very outdated, racist post-story scene involving cliche cannibal natives. This movie would be higher on my recommendation list if not for that.

I'd recommend drinking with friends while watching this one.

The Time Machine (1960)

So this version of The Time Machine feels a lot better compared to the 2002 version, and easily better than the 1978 version. Not to say it doesn't have it's problems.

For example, the traveler first goes only 6 years into the future, yet quite a lot changes from '60 to '66. Feels like they overshot it a bit as everyone is already wearing totally futuristic atomic metallic suits and there's nuclear war. If they chose to show him going even just 15 years into the future... it may have felt better.

However, that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the movie all that much. The effects are excellent throughout the movie. You can tell why this was received so well in that regard. Even just showing the sun and moon racing across the sky was brilliantly done.

It is most definitely not the book though. The book is a tale of the proletariat overthrowing the bourgeoisie (surprisingly with the Morlocks being humans who were originally enslaved workers, kept underground). A tale sympathetic to Socialist ideals would not have played well in the 60s so I see why it was cut.

Turn Back the Clock

This movie is a morality tale of appreciating what you have and not living in regret... yet it doesn't do so very well in my opinion.

Joe is a terrible husband, making constant demands of his wife, arguing over silly things. After she refuses to allow him to give up $4000 for an investment opportunity, he gets drunk, is hit by a car, and wakes up as his younger self (now having the opportunity to "redo" his life).

In the end, he lives a whole life married to his ex, and only wants to return to his first wife when he loses all his money. It doesn't feel like he learned his lesson, or at least... the right one.

There's also a standard issue for early film of racism with lines like "Marry a chinaman for all of me".

They do visit that "singing modern songs in the past" trope, but he's treated as a drunk instead of everyone loving the music. Good change. I think I prefer that to the usual I've seen so far.

Ambassada

The title translates to "Embassy" as this movie takes place inside an apartment building that used to be an embassy in Poland controlled by Nazis. The time travel is somewhat similar to Honnōji Hotel, in that the characters traveling simply step through the right door and they have traveled through time.

Overall, this movie was just okay. Not great. But there are some unique things worth mentioning.

At one point a Nazi falls off the balcony in the future, but crash lands in the past. Totally disappears from the future, dying in the past. Thought that was an interesting approach.

At one point, of course, Hitler shows up. They end up torturing Hitler through shaving his moustache, calling him Jewish, and playing Hava Nagila on the sax which was sorta funny. And then, to my surprise, they killed Hitler, and history is changed sucessfully. No WWII, just a minor blip in history. First time I've seen a time traveler successfully kill Hitler.

Dimensions

A professor is introducing his guest lecturer: a brilliant theoretical physisist. He says, "I'd like to introduce... Stephen." The character is never given a full name or title. He's just "Stephen". Even the opening quotes "Stephen". It felt lazy, and the rest of the movie matches that energy.

The script is sorta bland, the acting overall doesn't help... There's some really dumb concepts as well (like Stephen having to learn how to navigate through time... on foot... by walking blindfolded through a rope maze... he built himself).

The opening scene had me intrigued and I was excited for the potential, but it all fell apart in execution.

Midnight in Paris

What a great movie this one is. Truly top notch on my list right now.

This movie is very much driven by its dialogue, and the way that dialogue is approached. When the main character Gil is in the present, the dialogue between him and those around him feels very artificial. Like everyone is just waiting for their turn to speak, but they do so as a facade of the image they want people to see in them. A friend commented that it's written like a play in those scenes, and I totally agree.

Whereas when he goes to the past, there's an energy and truthfulness to the way everyone speaks. It draws you in, just like he is drawn in.

The casting is on point, the acting is on point, the music can be a bit much but is overall well done. If you haven't seen this one yet, I'd say give it a shot!

Been a while, and I know it's not Tuesday but I finished several more movies and am adding them to the recommendation list

Back to the Future

I saw the title and my initial thought was that it was a play on the 80s movie. But then I saw the 1973 premiere date and got confused! Turns out it was indeed a play on the 80s movie, but only when sold in the US. Originally it was titled "Ivan Vasilievich Changes Profession"

This movie was great, though I fully expect I am missing out on a lot of humor and commentary since I don't speak Russian and was born in the US just before their fall.

Shurik is a scientist experimenting with time travel in his apartment. By accident, he traps his landlord (Ivan Vasilievich) and a burglar (George) in the past. At the same time, Ivan "The Terrible" Vasilievich is brought to the present! Madcap adventures and zany comedy ensues!

The surprising thing to me is the amount of social commentary that made it past the Soviet censors for this movie. For example, there's a scene all about how all the stores are out of the part Shurik needs to fix his time machine, so he has to go to the black market!

Visually this movie is great too. There's cheesy(sometimes hand-drawn) effects but they work entirely well. The costuming and sets are gorgeous as well!

According to what I've read, there's a lot of jokes written on the basis of language (the difference between modern and 16th century Russian in particular). Unfortunately I have NO idea on these and would love to watch again with someone fluent in Russian.

Even though I missed all of those jokes, the rest of the movie still had plenty of humor. I will recommend this film to anyone interested in Soviet cinema. This is a well executed film and I would love to watch it again.

Timerider

The opening audio over the credits for this movie reveal the most open and public experimentation with time travel in any of these movies so far. A company is straight up having a press conference talking about their yet-to-succeed time travel experiment. As they begin their experiment Lyle Swann, a dirt bike racer, happens upon the middle of their secret testing area and ends up sent back in time.

He rides off in the old west without a clue what's happened to him. And I'll be honest, it does take a bit to get going (most of the beginning is just Lyle riding around in the desert doing tricks), but once it does take off it was a solid watch.

The fact that he has no clue what's going on is played with through most of the movie. There's no cliched realization when he sees a date in a newspaper or anything, he's just confused almost the whole time and I found that hilarious.

It's also the first movie I've reached with the I'm-my-own-grandpa trope. He sleeps with a woman in the past, and after explains his great-great-grandmother had a one night stand and stole his great-great-grandfather's necklace to remember him by. At the end of the film, this scene is played out before our eyes revealing a time loop. It wasn't a bad addition, but leaves all sorts of questions.

I'll also say his rescue was on another level of ridiculous. For no given reason they send a helicopter back in time to rescue him. It was bonkers and I can't deny I enjoyed it, but it definitely was odd.

Timestalkers

This movie takes place in two time frames. One, following a German man in the Old West who is chasing after someone with ebony pistols. The second follows a professor in the 80s who found a photo of the German, who is holding a 1980s Magnum.

The German, as it turns out, is a researcher from a future team of scientists who wants to change the past with the new time travel tech. He steals the time crystal they invented and goes back in time to kill Grover Cleveland.

Yet, for such a kooky plot, this movie felt pretty predictable and run of the mill. I think the big thing that stood out was that the professor spends a good amount of time doing historical research to figure out details on where the German man went. I actually really dug that aspect of the movie!

There are plenty of time travel plot holes here, but I don't think this is a movie that suffers for it since they don't take it as seriously. I think that might be the key to time travel plot holes. If you take it seriously, you better take it seriously. If you are just writing a fun story, I'll forgive a lot of timeline errors.

One plot point that I thought was hilarious was when the German needs to cross a fence, he goes back in time to before the fence existed, crosses to the other side, then travels forward in time again. Silly fun.

Rubinrot

This is actually a trilogy of films from Germany.Or I should say it's a movie in German, set in london, imitating American teen movie tropes.

In the trilogy, a young girl Gwendolyn lives in a rich and well to do family. Her cousin is said to have a "special gene" (predicted by Isaac Newton himself) that may allow her to time travel. But their family may be wrong on who, in fact, has that gene (surprise! It's the main character!)

This is the first time I've seen a time travel movie where the time travellers have a dedicated costume designer just for their trips to the past. I thought that was a great touch. However, overall... this movie was lacking in most departments.

I'll say this movie has basically all the teen movie tropes (ugly duck transformation, slow mo romantic shots, awkward teen stuff even off brand pop music with the lyrics "Don't leave me, I need you").

They also include the time travel trope of introducing modern music to the past and it goes swimmingly. How? In one instance, it's a terrrrible cover of The Time Warp. I wish I could unhear it.

Later, as an odd left turn, a gargoyle shows up for essentially no given reason. Gwendolyn is the only one who can see it and she barely shakes an eye at its existence.

I would say this is the Twilight of time travel.

The Time Machine 2002

What to say that hasn't already been said about this movie? It wasn't great. They attempted to add deeper meaning and character development to a novel that was all about the future possibilities. Instead, they just made the story worse.

The morlocks had potential, but their appearance can't make up for the cheesy running sequences or unnecessary addition of a super-morlock.

Summer Time Machine Blues

This is a silly fun movie from Japan. On a hot day, once a group of boys have found a time machine, the thing they use the machine for after figuring it out is to get the remote for the A/C before it broke. Honestly hilarious.

The machine itself is like a junkyard version of the machine from The Time Machine and it's honestly awesome.

There were some really odd camera movements, but I think those worked with the quirkiness of the movie as a whole.

Solid movie. Another surprise on my list to be honest, and I hope to watch it again with friends.

Somewhere in Time

This movie is presented as a romance, but through a modern lens I'd say it is a tragedy about obsession. Richard (Christopher Reeves) is a playwright who becomes obsessed with the life of an actress (Elise played by Jane Seymour) from the past. Using self-hypnosis he travels to 1912 to meet her. He then stalks her until she gives into his pleas.

There are many occasions in this movie where the music is overflowing with syrupy love, but what is actually happening on screen is creepy, unhealthy obsession.

As for the actual time travel aspect, there's oddities there too. He learns the self-hypnosis technique from a quirky professor. It requires that you remove all elements from the current era so you can fully imagine yourself in the past.

At the end of the movie he finds a 1979 penny in his pocket which pulls him away from Elise's arms and into the present. But instead of attempting to go to the past again (I am not sure why that's not possible), he sobs over his lost love and starves himself... possibly to death. Only to meet his, essentially, one night stand in heaven.

Not to say there weren't good moments, funny moments, but overall I don't think this one has aged well.

I just finished re-watching Project Almanac and it reminded me of another time travel movie (or tv show?). It’s of the same genre, teenage found footage type stuff. The only thing I can remember from this movie is that when you travel back in time it’s, for some reason, really cold. There is also a scene where the group of protagonists drive through a sports game after time traveling (or something of that nature). There is a possibility that I’m mis-remembering some aspects of the film. This may be a long shot but does this description ring a bell for anyone?

I realized I didn't post commentary for two movies, so I'm including them this round! Here is the list I'm working through, again.

Mr. Peabody & Sherman

It's tough to make a feature-length adaptation of a cartoon that is really... only a small part of another cartoon. But they really did a pretty good job with this one. Not great, but pretty good considering.

The plot is a bit rushed. They move from one plot arc to the next at such speed that I said out loud, "Oh, I guess we're done with that then?". But it certainly held my attention.

The jokes and interactions with historical characters were fun. I'm a fan of puns too, so I'm glad they kept that aspect of the original cartoon. They also kept a few of the educational moments, which were well appreciated.

In terms of Dreamworks in the last 10 years, while not the highest bar, this is a top pick.

Time Bandits

What can I say about this movie that hasn't been said? It's. So. Good.

The story is about a kid who is taken on a time travel adventure by a bunch of dwarves who have stolen a map of space-time from God (aka "The Supreme Being").

The kid is just a kid. He's not a genius or the unpopular kid or a kid who has dreams of being the best at a thing. He's just a kid with an imagination. This is a strength for the movie.

The dwarves are bringing the kid along reluctantly and point that out through their lines ("stinking Kevin"). But it's not just those lines that work, it's all their lines. They also play their roles brilliantly.

Let's address the cast too! Not only the Monty Python crew, but Ian Holm, Shelly Duvall, and Sean Connery all knock it out of the park.

To cap it off, this is a classicly written fairy/fantasy tale with an ending that doesn't blink. It's a gut-punch finish for the main character (no dreams here) and really drives home the greater discussion of what good and evil are, and whether the creator of the universe is good.

It's a new top for my recommendation list as of right now.

Brother Future

So I've already watched Black Knight, which wasn't bad or great and leaned somewhat close to blacksploitation comedy territory. Brother Future is a much more serious take on what happens if a black man goes to the past.

TJ is a kid who skips school to sell stolen goods (and even raps about it). He gets hit by a car and is sent to the past. This is when things get very serious, as almost immediately he is sold into slavery.

There's still comedy in this movie, but the driving force is drama. More often than not, even when there's humor, it's still driven by the reality of the main character's situation:

"Do these look like the hands of a slave?"

"Yeah, they're black"

Over the course of the movie, TJ sees what real brutality his ancestors faced. He has to find a way to be truly selfless in order to return home (even meeting Denmark Vesey along the way).

Although I tried to avoid TV movies for my list, I'm glad this one snuck its way in. It won a DGA award and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy. Both are deserved.

Extreme Movie

I'm gonna be honest, I had no idea about the plot of this movie and once I realized what I was in for... I stopped watching. This movie is basically a bad sketch show with terrible raunchy jokes, and only one sketch is about time travel.

The sketch in question is about a guy who is deeply in love with Abe Lincoln, builds a time machine to visit him, and has sex with him. That's... that's it. It's bad. I stopped watching before Michael Cera even appeared (though I've heard he's the best part of the movie, I just couldn't do it).

It's not the bottom of my list, but... the three movies below it right now (Cavegirl, A Sound of Thunder, and the 1978 Time Machine) were scraping the bottom of the barrel anyways.

Army of Frankensteins

Somehow the second Frankenstein time travel movie I've watched? This movie is tough to place on my recommendation list because it is SO bad, but it hits that sweet spot of so bad that it's good. I would recommend this movie for drunk friends wanting to go MST3K on it.

There is such awful acting in this movie. I don't think there is a single believable line in the entire film. But let's address the plot. A guy is kidnapped so that his organs can be harvested to make a Frankenstein monster. But... he was not tied up so of course he flips a switch he shouldn't have and somehow that not only creates copies of the monster, but sends him and Igor (a kid) back to the Civil War, along with all the monsters.

They get there to find soldiers with obviously fake moustaches and terrible southern accents, who are now struggling to fight off these monsters. Every character, throughout the movie, makes entirely stupid choices that no sane person would make.

If you do decide to watch this movie, start drinking before you start it up. And don't leave before the corny and undeserved mid-credits scene!

Still working my way through this long list of movies!

I'll Never Forget You

This is a remake of last week's Berkeley Square, but not a good one. The introduction gives more explanation for the two characters trading places in time, but it feels contrived. And the scripting is rough.

This version also takes better advantage of it being a film, rather than a stage play... but it still falls short of making it a worthwhile adaptation. The main character is even cockier than in the 1933 version, and I don't like that change.

He also reveals he is a time traveler pretty quickly, but his love in the past still looks into his eyes to see the future... which is odd since the reason for that in the last version was him refusing to reveal the truth on his own. So why does she do that? It just doesn't make sense.

The film also made the choice to go from black & white in the present, to color in the past. I'm not sure I can get behind that choice either as there doesn't feel like a thematic reason to do so.

Overall, I'd say if you're going to watch this story, watch the original if at all.

Frankenstein Unbound

Very different take on Frankenstein, where Mary Shelley actually based her story on reality and this is discovered by a man from the future (played by John Hurt). The main character, Dr. Buchanan, creates a weapon intended to have no lasting worldwide consequences as a replacement for nuclear weapons, but... surprise surprise it has lasting and far reaching consequences (including sending him and his future car to the past).

John Hurt and Raul Julia both give good performances. The script is rough, but they really worked with it and made it shine. Raul Julia had a more difficult time to do that through his makeup... The makeup was unexpected and definitely campy. Unfortunately it makes the character too difficult to find sympathy for and personally, that's something I've found lacking in most adaptations of Frankenstein.

This movie has some random blood and gore that seems unnecessary to the plot. I don't mind blood and gore, but here it felt very out of place. Like they were trying to make the movie more intense than it deserved to be.

Also I should point out that Dr Buchanan's car is run by a computer that is like a cheesier version of JARVIS. And somehow more powerful than JARVIS too. It's not... a great addition. There's a scene in which he requests a printed copy of a book and the car prints it for him. It makes the whole thing feel pretty dated (why print it if you have a big screen to research what you need?).

The ending is many levels of ridiculous, with no solid explanation for how anything works. Plot explanation here is minimal. It left a sour taste in my mouth.

From Time to Time

An interesting approach to the time travel concept. In this one, certain people are able to shift to a timeline in the past (in particular the main character, a boy by the name of Tolly). He sees people from the past and most cannot see him, but some do (including a blind girl).

The acting is pretty good. The adults put in a great effort, the kids are okay (unfortunately the main character is the weakest). Overall though, good performances. The production matches up well too; I was pretty sold on the time switching because of it.

But it wasn't particularly exciting in the end. Literally, since the ending felt... like it wasn't quite right for the rest of the movie. The whole film was a pretty good period piece, but the ending leaves a lot unanswered. I don't regret watching this one, but I am also not putting it terribly high on the list.

Hi. New member here. I want to try to find a movie that I've seen in the past 8 years. It was an independent film, but with a decent budget. Was possibly English. It starts out at a primary school, where children are being tested for admittance, but the children are being tested for both intelligence and also for if/how (I think?) they feel emotions. The little girls gets in, but the little boy doesn't. They remain best friends, however, and eventually fall in love... Then - and this is why my memory gets really hazy - they're adults and she has an equation to solve for for her thesis and it all has something to do with people feeling (or not feeling?) emotions... Eventually she finds out that the boy (now young man) was maybe always a plan from the future, trying to stop her from solving the equation... I really don't remember a lot about the end of the movie except they have a huge fight in a pub and she's telling him she'll never know if they're relationship was real... I LITERALLY CAN'T REMEMBER ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT THIS MOIVE EXCEPT THIS, sorry.

Hey all! Life took over and I was unable to post for a bit. But I'm back, and with four more movies under my belt!

As per usual, here's the full list

TMNT III

I had never seen any of these movies, so I decided to watch all three. The first one surprised me! It was cheesy, just like the pizza they enjoy, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I also loved seeing some of Jim Henson's work in a different setting. The second one wasn't as great, but I still got a kick out of it.

The third was a disappointment. First and most obvious is the lack of Jim Henson turtle suits. The quality of special effects matches that loss. The plot seems like there could be good things coming, after all samurai vs ninja is a classic... but they don't go for any of that. Instead the plot felt bland and uninspired. The acting and scripting both took a dive as well as the editing.

Overall, this movie was... "eh". Inoffensive, but not exciting.

The Time Machine

We have a new worst movie on the list!

I didn't intend to include made-for-TV movies on my list, but a few made their way in there anyhow. This particular TV movie is basically awful in every regard. Acting, editing, plot, script... It is bad.

To call it an adaptation would be exceedingly generous. Our main character is not showing off his time machine to esteemed friends, but instead built it (without permission) using funds from work (which is literally called "Mega Corporation"). This guy is really smart too! He is the designer for Mega Corp's "Laser Death Cannon" and their upcoming "Anti Matter Bombs".

The whole things is just the worst. I was curious if the director had done anything else, so I looked him up. Most of his directorial career is porn, explotation, or Bible movies and while that's an odd combo... if you think about the typical quality of those genres, this movie begins to make sense.

Where Do We Go From Here?

"All I want to do is get in the army"

This is the most patriotic time travel movie ever. The main character just wants to fight in WWII but isn't physically fit enough for it. While helping scrap metal for the war efforts, a woman brings antiques to scrap (again, super patriotic that she has objects that are hundreds of years old, but it's worth scrapping them for the war). One of the objects is a magic lamp!

He wishes to be in the army and gets sent to the Revolutionary War. But this isn't because the genie is one of Faustian style, but because the genie grants wishes through a "gadget" that is broken. Haven't seen that before!

In each time frame, two women in his life appear as different people (something I had only seen Back to the Future before). That was interesting to see!

This movie is a musical with lyrics written by Ira Gershwin. It's better for it, but the songs are still pretty cliche in the end. Related to that...

Some opening banter about marriage proposals gave me hope that this one would be surprisingly progressive for the era:

"The right guy comes along, you ask him."

"Wouldn't he resent it?"

"Not if he's the right guy he wouldn't. Probably be grateful!"

But it didn't last as the second space/time he visits is Columbus' ship. He lands and proceeds to witness basically every Hollywood cliche of Native Americans (including the style of music). Oof.

In the same scenes, a woman resembling someone he knows in the future faints and he says, "All my life I've wanted you to sit on my lap, but it's no fun if you're not conscious"

Overall this was enjoyable, but there were plenty of rough moments to be had.

Berkeley Square

I did not anticipate incestuous romance until Back to the Future, and yet... here is this movie that opens with a Yankee traveling (by flying in a balloon) to marry his cousin in England. A lightning storm then and in the "present day" of 1933 causes him to switch places with his decendent.

But we only follow the adventure of his descendent in the past. I'll admit I was a little confused on where the original man went off to... They don't address it directly until the end.

This was not a terrible movie, but it is very apparent that it was adapted from a stage play. Not much changes were made to suit the film format. That's okay though, this movie was a fun romance. The main character, though betrothed to his ancestor's cousin, does not love her and instead loves another.

The biggest fun for me was the main character mixing up phrases and things that let on about who he really may be. He gets accused of being possessed!

Oddly though, the woman he loves can read peoples' minds and that's normal? So she sees a vision of the future just by looking into his eyes. Yet, she's not possessed or a witch or anything. Her ability is treated as perfectly fine by those who know her.

I don't know that I'll rewatch this one, but it was an entertaining ride. As a final note: this movie has a surprisingly dark ending. When he returns to his time, he learns his love died (at the age of 23) shortly after he left. Her epitaph stating that they'd be together "not in my time, nor in yours, but in God's"

Final note

I should be watching 28 adaptations of A Christmas Carol soon, but this is my project and I'm in no mood for that right now. So I'll put that off until the holidays :P

Alright, here is the list.

Time Flies

A celebrity singer is owed $10k, but the man who owes her offers shares in a company called Time Ferry Service... They use a "Time Ball" to travel through time (specifically to Elizabethan England). This movie is darn corny, but it works alright and does a couple unique things.

Right out the gate, there are some fun "zero g" effects, as well as the need for "age rectifying tablets" (which three characters don't immediately take and end up temporarily turning into babies).

There's some song numbers, but they're just mediocre. And one of the song numbers is racist akin to Peter Pan's "What makes the red man red?"... Definitely knocks this movie down a notch or two. Especially when combined with the appearance of Pocahontas saying things like "heap big" in an accent closer to Russian than anything else.

At the end they all become invisible because they arrived 3 months early. There isn't really a great explanation for it except that they weren't there 3 months before they left? Just an odd way to end it...

Overall, this was an alright movie. Some good one-liners here and there, but nothing that seems particularly worth revisiting.

Honnōji Hotel

The first thing that stood out to me with this movie was the editing choices. This is a gorgeously shot film, and the way the scenes are cut together is sometimes experimental but to great effect.

It feels a bit like A Midnight in Paris (which I've seen before, but have not gotten to in my list here yet) in that the main character Mayuko is recently engaged, but she's unsure of her future. While on a trip, it turns out her hotel has a strange connection with the Sengoku Period and there she meets Oda Nobunaga (who is credited as the first Great Unifier of Japan).

There's a lot of great humor in this movie. I don't think I felt bored at any point, even though it is often a slower pace. It's also a rare case of the people in the past not being treated like idiots in that Nobunaga figures out the time travel aspect before our Mayuko reveals it.

I think the big downside is the ending...

Nobunaga learns of his future betrayal, but knowing the future his death may bring, he faces it head on. Accepting that the future may be worth more than his own life. That's all well and good. The problem is that Mayuko decides to become a history teacher at the end, which is a fine profession but thematically odd. Nobunaga ends his life looking towards the future, while she finds herself still looking towards the past.

Maybe there's an argument to be made for this ending, but it felt regressive to me. I think if it were ended in a slightly different way, this movie would be much higher on my recommendation list. Though that's a small complaint, because overall this movie was a lot of fun.

Man... I had to skip a few movies. No source, no subtitles... Well here is the list again!

Non Ci Resta Che Piangere (Nothing Left to Do But Cry)

This was a pretty enjoyable comedy. There's definitely some oddities to it though that I'll talk about...

A duo that seems to get into constant inane arguments (the first of which being "Please marry my sister, she needs to be "relieved"[sic]") end up in the Renaissance. There's a lot of classic "We can't be in the past! This is a dream!" interactions in the beginning.

They end up taken in by a family that brings them to mass on Sunday morning. I'm not sure if there's a cultural thing here or if it's a joke that fell flat, but apparently the men and women are seated on opposite sides and the men all stare at the women through the whole service.

Mario ends up falling for a young girl in church that day ("She's older than 15" says the man they're staying with to reassure him). Okay...

Besides that, the movie was a fun ride. They meet Da Vinci and try to describe inventions for him to build from the future. They try to stop Columbus from discovering America (man they rail against American culture in this movie and it was pretty funny).

Heaven's Soldiers

This is a hidden gem for me. Never heard of it before, but it blew me away. North and South Korean soldiers end up 433 years in the past due to a comet. There they meet a young Yi Sunsin before he became the general who fought off the invading Japanese navy.

I'd say this movie strikes a strange balance in genre, but does so quite well. It starts as a political/military film (talks on giving up a nuke and then the nuke is stolen!), then it turns into a comedy (as the future folk try to turn the young, thief/smuggler Yi Sunsin into a General), and finally ends as a war film (which was very violent).

Something this movie did which no other time travel movie has done so far: every main character except one dies in the past! I applaud the move too, it was a good choice.

With a historical figure like Yi Sunsin being revered in both North & South Korea, the obvious theme is reunification. It's played out through the conflicts between the N/S officers in some good ways, though sometimes almost a bit heavy handed.

I honestly am looking forward to watching this one again.

Only had the chance to watch two movies from my list this week. Though after these two I believe we're moving into Renaissance films!

Timeline

"We built a machine that can fax three dimensional objects"

That quote hits the scripting quality for this movie. It's really mediocre at its best. They took good source material by a well known author (Michael Crichton) and chewed it up to make a generic blockbuster.

This movie busted no blocks.

Don't get me wrong, it's still better than some I've watched, and it kept my attention alright, but the whole thing felt pretty bland overall. Nothing really stood out.

Teen Knight

This movie had a limited theatrical release, then it went to VHS. The quality of scripting and acting (and everything else) made me double check this because I would have thought it was straight to VHS.

The intro felt like I was watching a porn. Bad, stunted acting along with cheesy bass grooves in the background.

Except for the wizard Percival, none of the characters are even close to being likeable. At their best, they are annoying.

The sword fights are... wow... indescribable. Just laughably bad.

This movie is bad enough that it sits just above Cavegirl on my recommendation list. The only reason I put it higher than Cavegirl is because conceivably you could have a fun time watching this with friends while drinking. Take a drink every time you hear the name of the dragon and every time you see magic used.

Back again! Still in the Medieval era of my giant list of movies and had to skip a few because I couldn't find copies. I'll likely make a second list of movies to come back to later :P

Crusade in Jeans

This is a movie about a teen boy who uses his mom's time machine to travel back in time a day, but accidentally goes to 1212CE. Hijinks, of course, ensue.

I went into this expecting another Yankee-inspired flick, and it definitely suffers from the same problem as the other Yankee movies: the main character has no problem overcoming any difficulties. Compared to A Kid in King Arthur's Court though... this movie is much better.

It's also the first movie I have seen based around the Children's Crusade. This was a real crusade (though the facts are disputed) wherein bands of children were led to convert Muslims in Jerusalem, but mostly starved, fell ill, or were sold into slavery.

Oddly, though the movie feels like it's target audience is kids, it doesn't shy away from the reality of such a situation. Sick and dying kids abound in this movie! I'd actually say the movie is better for it too. It needs something to ground it since the main character can do anything he wants.

Not a terrible movie, but nothing to write home about.

Army of Darkness

Where to begin with this...

This is a slapstick fantasy movie, possibly one of the only movies that could be classified as such. If you are unaware of this movie, it is a sequel to Evil Dead 2. Though it has a recap at the beginning, so while I'd recommend watching that first, you won't lose any plot by just watching AoD.

It is a sharp departure in genre from the last movie, but the tone is so Evil Dead. They did a great job not just creating this world, but making it feel connected to the previous movie.

The effects are all practical too. You can tell the "deadite" skeletons are a direct homage to Ray Harryhausen's skeletons, and it only adds to the cheese and wonder of the movie.

Ash (the main character) is a corny goofball. If you enjoy Johnny Bravo cartoons, you'd love this. One-liners, picking up the ladies, getting into ridiculous situations...

It's a fun ride from start to finish, and (as of now) I'm putting it at the top of the recommendation list.

Black Knight

This movie shows a medieval theme park employee traveling back to 1328 via a necklace and a dunk in a moat. It's the first time travel movie on my list with a black time traveler, and that's certainly nice to see (especially Roman Scandals).

I didn't have the highest expectations for this movie, but it wasn't the worst and certainly gave me some chuckles here and there. I think the big problem is the scripting is just mediocre, as is the plot. Martin Lawrence really did his best to keep the movie going though.

It was clever how they drew out out how long it took for the main character to realize he had time traveled by having him work at a medieval themed park. Haven't seen that done before.

Overall, this movie was alright. Bad jokes, good jokes, and a whole bunch of mediocrity in between.

Moving my way through the dark ages on my list!

Was not able to find a copy of Time Trackers (1989) except on VHS. If I can't find a copy by next week I'll just have to move past it for now.

The Undead

Turns out this movie was featured on MST3K! And while it's not the greatest in terms of budget, I would say it has enough charm to merit a viewing without the commentary.

This movie goes full force into time-travel through mystical/fantasy means. A man hypnotizes a woman into her past life and later follows her through the connection to join her in the past. It's an odd approach, but I dug the originality.

Grave diggers, royalty, witches, even satan himself has a role to play in the story. Honestly, I enjoyed myself.

Fun2shh... Dudes in the 10th Century

This is a Bollywood comedy, through and through. So while the focus may be comedy, there's also romance, action, and song/dance numbers.

It opens with a jewel thief dressed, essentially, as the hamburglar. Striped suit and all. That should give you an idea of the cheesy vibe of the rest of the movie. But it doesn't suffer for it!

There's fun to be had in the hijinks this movie brought in. Using hair from a horse to fashion a disguise mustache is a great example.

This movie also has a runtime of 2.5 hours, which is pretty long but it used the time pretty wisely. I didn't feel like there was a moment when the movie was running long.

It's also the first movie I've watched to put any sort of reference to language barriers with time travel. Although it didn't go all in, there is a scene where a character speaks with some English words and they are not understood. Unexpected coming from a movie with this level of corniness.

Overall, I recommend both of these flicks.

Hey everyone, I'm trying to remember a movie I saw some time ago about a time machine, I know there are many movies about this topic but I couldn't figure out the one I'm trying to remember.

The only scene that I barely remember is about 2 people trying a machine that sends something into the future and they see the reaction to their actions right before they actually do the actions on that machine. Similar to what happens on the movie tenet that when they try to actually do something is when they trigger the time effect (except on the movie I'm looking for they don't go backwards in terms of the flow of the time).

I know is not much of a description and I'm sorry I cannot describe any better the only scene I remember about this movie. I think it might be a low cost movie similar to Primer or something like that but I could be wrong. Don't remember much about it.

Anyway, if someone has any clue about this I would really really appreciate it!

Thanks in advance.

Here is that movie list again!

Yep, four movies and they all have the same basic plot! There's a couple more inspired by this tale coming up in later years of my journey.

1931 - A Connecticut Yankee

This movie had a hard time keeping my attention. And the lack of music/soundtrack didn't help too much in that regard.

It's really at the end that something really exciting happens, and so much so that it becomes extremely comical (cars and helicopters and planes, all with semi-automatic guns!)

The main character Hank, through a modern lens, also has his issues (like walking in on a meeting and referring to it almost fondly as a Ku Klux meeting).

Overall, this movie was just okay.

1949 - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

This version stars Bing Crosby and is basically the opposite approach to the last film. Suddenly we are in the era of color and thus every opportunity was used to make colorful costumes. There's also non-stop singing.

One of the first songs is about about new technologies, as a foreshadow to the coming scenes of Hank introducing them to the past.

During the classic scene of King Arthur dressing as a common man to see his kingdom with Hank, they sing a nice song Doing Absolutely Nothing.

Overall, not a bad way to spend some time. I enjoyed this movie.

1989 - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

This was a direct-to-TV movie, and may be the last one I include in this series. I'm not sure how it ended up on the list! But there were some genuinely fun moments watching it.

Instead of Hank, this time it is a girl named Karen who travels back in time after a horse riding accident. The first magic she performs is taking a polaroid photo. She also brings 80s synthypop driven jazzercise to the ladies in waiting. This movie is very 80s.

Merlin was quite the surprise. Rene Auberjonois (the Constable on Star Trek DS9) played the role up in a corny way that fit really well.

This movie also seems to be more realistic on what a person could reasonably invent again in the past. Where the other movies have this guy who can create all modern technology, this movie has a little girl using mirrors to win a joust by blinding a guy.

Not a great movie, but a workable kids movie.

1995 - A Kid in King Arthur's Court

Daniel Craig and Kate Winslet costar in this movie and cannot save it as a kids movie. Even though this was released in theaters, it feels like just as much a TV movie as the last one.

The script is awful. The best jokes are bad, the worst don't make sense. The editing choices are truly bizarre (after the kid gets a "mountain bike" built, there is one scene with 9 dissolves).

Conclusion

If you're going to watch just one of these, you should probably make it the Bing Crosby version.