Movies, noted

*  To my surprise (come on, it's not as if Ridley Scott movie sequels have been riding high lately), the new Blade Runner movie has received really good reviews.   I wrote here recently that watching a DVD of one of the narrator-less versions really made me wonder about the original being overrated, but nonetheless, I'll probably go watch it next weekend.

* Now for a movie review you don't need - the 2006 widely acclaimed Pan's Labyrinth by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro .    Just saw it on Netflix this past weekend, and I have to say I don't really get the critical enthusiasm.   Yeah, sure, while somewhat visually imaginative and well made, I had too many reservations.   For one thing, the violent cruelty of (and even towards) the stepfather felt too gratuitously graphic.   But the main problem was that I didn't feel the story had any narrative push to it - things happened, but there was no feeling of building towards a climate.   (There was no reason, for example, to see why the girl was given - or imagined - the quest like tasks with a time limited urgency.)   I also didn't really feel convinced about the girl's character being portrayed consistently, with a rather key "breaking of the rules" during one fantasy quest not being foreshadowed or explained satisfactorily.   The movie has an interesting, if not novel, premise,  but it just isn't fleshed out well enough.   There is next to no interplay between the fantasy sequences and what is happening in reality, and that is what I think the movie really lacked.    

*  Also watched 1978 cheapo disaster flick Avalanche being given the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 treatment on Netflix.   What on Earth were Rock Hudson and Mia Farrow thinking?   Evidently desperate for money that year, it would seem, even though Hudson had gone through the 1970's consistently earning money on the long running TV detective show McMillan & Wife.   (I remember little about that, except that I think it had one or two funny characters in it.)    Hudson looks chubbier than I ever remember him in this movie, too.   I see that he would have been about 53 at the time (I would have guess a bit older than that), and within 6 years of the film, he would be diagnosed with AIDS and die shortly thereafter.    Anyway, the MST3K episode featuring it did make me laugh, a lot.  (Mind you, most episodes do.   Why isn't it confirmed as coming back for another season??)