Tagged: the goonies

Stranger Things: Please Use Practical Monster Effects!!

Stranger Things Season 2 finally dropped this Halloween and damn was it good! So much fun and such a total and complete trip down memory lane. The show plays off of the wonder filled nostalgia of the 80’s and almost perfectly captures the magic of movies like Poltergeist, E.T., The Goonies and The Lost Boys to name a few.

This show couldn’t possibly get any better at delivering the ever so sweet 1980’s cinematic magic could it?  Well I say it could do the job way better, after watching the second season it was apparent once again that this show could really up it’s game by ditching a lot of the shoddy CGI effects it uses for it’s monsters.

 

 

The show sure looks and feels like an 80’s Amblin flick, that is until they introduce us to the other worldly monsters. Then it quickly becomes very apparent it’s 2017 and that some questionable CG has entered my 80’s fantasy! So for season 3 of the show, I think they could do better, to really recreate that magic of old, it’s time for the show to incorporate practical creature effects! Puppetry, makeup, animatronics!

 

 

Imagine the creatures on the show if they had the feel of E.T., The Gremlins or Pumpkinhead?! The CG takes me out of the moment, the realism fades quickly and I imagine how much more effective the experience would really be if it just gave this tweak to say 75% of it’s fx work. That alone would give us the ultimate nostalgia trip, let’s face it, fans would go nuts for this and especially those who are real fans of the genre the show’s replicating. So help me spread this idea #strangerthings80sfx & Let’s demand that 80’s special effects magic be utilized for the next season!!!  They’ve come a long way with practical fx work and blending with CG or using CG to eliminate wires & puppeteers would take the show to a whole next level of 1980’s love….

 

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The 8 Other Movies “Super 8” Owes it’s Success to…

So I’m here to tell tell you a few things today, as you guessed “Super 8” is the movie to see this summer, I loved it. Secondly it’s very obvious that JJ Abrams was a fan of The Goonies and E.T. and was trying his best (he succeeded) in replicating the nostalgic vibe of those movies for the big screen this year. He gave us that feeling we all have missed for so many years in our summer movies. But most of all it was a formula that had been used many times throughout the 80’s not only in E.T. and The Goonies but many more that have been all but forgotten.

It was a formula that seemed to put kids on dangerous adventures, most often supernatural ones, usually in small towns or the suburbs and most often trying to prove to their parents some crazy story to be true with often times unlucky results. These stories were filled with wonder and most of all they were so undeniably fun to watch that to see a movie like “Super 8” or even Joe Dante’s latest movie “The Hole” in this day and age is a breath of fresh air. So here today in response to Super 8 I’d like to honor 8 more movies Abrams was likely heavily influenced by when he made his latest

1.  The Gate (1986) To say JJ wasn’t influenced by this movie when making Super 8 would be a crime!! Continue reading

Evil Ms. Santa Claus vs The Goonies!

Yeah, Yeah I know it’s way after Christmas and nobody gives two shits about the holidays-but the other day I discovered a neat little flick that I will definately remind everyone about next year-but while it’s fresh in my head I thought I’d mention it here. The film Cuento de Navidad entitled in English as A Christmas Tale (Not to be confused with Rare Exports) was a film included in the Spanish horror dvd set 6 Films to Keep You Awake. In a nutshell it’s a great little horror thriller that only clocks in at 71 minutes in length-but has alot going for it.

First of all it’s directed by Paco Plaza the man who’s responsible for the amazing  REC & REC 2 in which the american movie Quarantine was based. Second it stars Continue reading