Dinner and a Movie with Moxie

Monstrosity (aka The Atomic Brain) (1963)  Welcome to the late 1950's when mad scientist films, and films about giant monsters were all the rage, in response to the new age of atomic technology, this was the era that gave birth to films like Godzilla, and the numerous giant monster films of the later 1940's-1950's.  This era also gave birth to films inspired by the what the power of harnessing atoms could do for the world of science, and it seemed the possibilities were limitless.   One of those low budget atomic age mad scientist films was Monstrosity also known by its television release title The Atomic Brain from 1963.  This is a film about a rich old lady who wants to live forever, and a mad doctor who has found a way to make it possible, by using atomic power to transplant her brain into the body of a beautiful young woman, his past experiments included him transplanting the brain of a dog into a man, bringing a dead woman back to life (basically creating a zombie), an

  Jumanji (1995) Often it seems the case is that some of the most beloved films from our childhood, are actually not well received by the critics, even if they were successful in the box office.  One of those such film is Jumanji from 1995, which I remember when it came out it was hugely popular with all of the kids I went to school with, myself included.  In 1995 I was 14, one year older than one of the stars of the film, Kirsten Dunst, who played one of the main characters, and I feel like with kids my age this film was really popular, but I have talked to my friends who were '90s kids and they also seemed to have fond memories of this film growing up, opposed to what Roger Ebert said about the film is his review where he says that it would be traumatic for young children, and that they would struggle to sit through this, well as a kid, and with younger friends who were kids when it came out, I can definitely say that he was wrong about that.   Jumanji is a classic family film, t

  The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962) AKA: The Head That Wouldn't Die The 1950's and 1960's were the atomic age of science fiction and horror films, featuring a plethora of films about mad scientists, and creature features, of science and atomic energy gone wrong, many of these films became cult classics, written off by critics at the time, but developing a strong underground following.   One of these great cult classic mad scientists films was The Brain That Wouldn't Die from 1962, though to be fair the film was actually completed in 1959 with the title The Black Door, but wouldn't see a theatrical release until 1962.  The film follows the story of a brilliant brain surgeon who is performing secret experiments in a lab in his families country home.  He is experimenting in techniques to keep tissues alive so that it can be transplanted, and also in a technique to keep that tissue from being rejected from the body.  His past failures had resulted in a man made mon

 Heavy Metal 2000 (aka Heavy Metal: F.A.A.K.2) (2000) When I was a kid, I remember the first time I watched the classic animated film Heavy Metal, and it just blew me away, and to this day it is one of my all-time favourite animated films, and maybe the film that truly made me appreciate animated films, it was everything that Disney wasn't and I loved it.   It was lewd, crued, and loud, everything I wanted in a film.   When I was 18 I discovered Heavy Metal magazine, and would buy every issues as soon as it came out, and then in 1999 I read that Kevin Eastman (co-creator of the Teenage Ninja Turtles, who grew up in Sanford Maine), Simon Bisley, and Eric Talbot (names I all knew from my love of Heavy Metal magazine) were working on a new Heavy Metal film.  I was so excited, and as soon as it was released I found a copy at my local music/media store in the mall, and I bought a copy on VHS, and watched it over and over and over again.  The film had great music, some great daring anima

  Carnival Of Souls (1962) The 1960s were the age of independent filmmakers, anyone one who could scrape together a bit of money and have some working knowledge of film making could make films, and some of those films were the most exciting, groundbreaking, and experimental.  My favourite film from that era was a 1962 independent film called Carnival Of Souls.  This film has an interesting story behind it, Herk Harvey who worked for a company in Kansas making educational and industrial films, was on a trip in California and passed by the Saltair Pavilion near Salt Lake City UT, and came up with the idea of a horror film.  He contacted his friend/coworker John Clifford to come up with a screenplay based on his idea.  They got local Lawrence Kansas business owners to donate money to make the film, and Harvey had met actress Candace Hilligoss in New York, and asked her to star in the film (paid her a little over $2000 to be in the film.  So with a budget of merely $33,000 they set out to

  Night Tide (1961) The 1960's was an interesting time in science fiction and horror as low budget filmmakers were taking chances and making more unique and interesting films, without the huge budget of the major motion picture companies, with directors and producers like Roger Corman showing that anyone with a dream of making a film, and just a basic working idea of how to direct and a dream, a new crop of directors and filmmakers were creating strange and new films.   One of these films distributed by Roger Corman's Filmgroup was a bizarre fantasy/horror called Night Tide, starring a young Dennis Hopper in his first lead role (he'd only done supporting roles up to this point), about a sailor who falls in love with a mermaid(?), while on shore leave at Santa Monica California.  The film is part horror, part murder mystery, part fantasy, and part romantic drama.  The film takes place mostly at the amusement park on the pier in Santa Monica, where he meets and falls for a gi

 The Invasion (2007) 2007 saw the fourth and most recent remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, inspired by Jack Finney's novel The Body Snatchers from 1954.   This new version isn't so much a remake of the previous versions that had come before it, but more so a reimagining, that is more applicable to the modern world.  In the film, the alien spores come to earth attached to a space shuttle that crashes, spreading the debris and the spores.   The spores spread like a virus, from the special features, it looks like the SARS virus that was a huge deal in the media around the time of the film's making was an inspiration for making the Invasion spread more like a virus pandemic.   Now watching this in 2021 for the first time, the whole pandemic concept seems a lot more real and terrifying than it was in 2007 when it was released.  I don't remember this film coming out, and that makes sense since it was a box office flop, and received generally negative reviews from the