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TCM Genre movies schedule...

RJDiogenes said:
^^ Thanks. Have you read it? It doesn't really sound like my cup of tea, but I may get it for the sake of supporting Claudia.
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Honestly, I have a copy sitting on my bookshelf that I really do want to check out, but deadlines and editorial work keep getting in the way. (Most of what I read these days I read for work; squeezing in free reading is a challenge.)

And I gather she's working on a sequel.
 
The Green Slime was all sorts of fun. I love the garish creatures and bright lurid colors which just made everything work in a sort of daydream way. There was no trying to keep the creatures in the shadows in this one. Lots of retro rayguns, rockets and fashions and even First Contact-like extravehicular fight on the ship's hull. I should hunt down the MST3K treatment but I'm glad I watched it as-is first. A lot of the SFX looked like the asteroids and Satellite of Love FX actually, lol (and Thunderbirds...).
 
Watched Countdown. Wow, what a contrast in film making between it and a movie that would come out just a year later, 2001: A Space Odyssey. It straddles that line between 50's B-movie in story telling style and trying to be a a more "serious" film. Even with obvious help from being able to shoot scenes in actual NASA facilities the production still suffers from lackluster production values most evident in the costuming, lack of visualizations for key space scenes (one of the key spacecraft maneuvers is only represented by the camera view inside the cockpit rotating orientation) and the general staid cinematography.

I wonder if Robert Altman was depressed with his finished product after viewing Kubrick's film. You'd never guess those 2 movies were made just a year apart.
 
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I thought I had seen Green Slime, but now I'm not so sure. I'll have to check On Demand.

I'm not sure about Countdown either.
 
sojourner said:
Watched Countdown. Wow, what a contrast in film making between it and a movie that would come out just a year later, 2001: A Space Odyssey. It straddles that line between 50's B-movie in story telling style and trying to be a a more "serious" film. Even with obvious help from being able to shoot scenes in actual NASA facilities the production still suffers from lackluster production values most evident in the costuming, lack of visualizations for key space scenes (one of the key spacecraft maneuvers is only represented by the camera view inside the cockpit rotating orientation) and the general staid cinematography.

I wonder if Robert Altman was depressed with his finished product after viewing Kubribk's film. You'd never guess those 2 movies were made just a year apart.
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Perhaps it was a wrong director matter. This kind of film appeared to be out of Altman's skill set. Some directors can effortlessly and successfully move through a number of genres (Robert Wise & Franklin J. Schaffner come to mind), while others cannot.
 
RJDiogenes said:
I thought I had seen Green Slime, but now I'm not so sure. I'll have to check On Demand.
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Wait til you get to the theme song!

Just read up on this thing and it was shot in Japan with a Japanese director which probably explains a lot of the presentation of this movie.
 
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The "riffing" of "Green Slime" was, alas, little more than a "proof of concept" demo reel to sell the KTMA station manager on the idea for the series. It was only 15, 20 minutes long, not the entire movie and there was not much, if any actual "riffing". Joel performed an intro in what would evolve later into the SoL bridge and then segued to the movie. In that respect, it was little different from the various other "horror host" material presented upon local affiliates.

Considering the ending we got to the series, the Satellite of Love suffering a decaying orbit and burning upon atmospheric reentry, "Green Slime" would have been a better "swan song" offering. Given the station in that movie experienced the same fate. It would have made for a neat parallel with that final host segment.

I recall the first time I saw that movie, around 1976. Back then, I had this distinctive habit of imagining films as far more frightening than they really were. It didn't help (or did, depending upon your point of view) that I had a buddy who exacerbated the issue by describing them as more frightening than they really were. Example, between his gift for gab and my overactive imagination, I expected "Willy Wonka" to be something akin the string of "Saw" movies we have today. So, when it came to "Green Slime", I envisioned something with the horror factor we later got with "Alien". Needless to say, I was somewhat "underwhelmed" when I finally saw it at a (different) friend's house during a "sleepover". "I'm supposed to be scared by these cute' lil' buggers?!"

Well, if nothing else, it had one of the coolest themes I'd ever heard!

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Redfern said:
The "riffing" of "Green Slime" was, alas, little more than a "proof of concept" demo reel to sell the KTMA station manager on the idea for the series. It was only 15, 20 minutes long, not the entire movie and there was not much, if any actual "riffing". Joel performed an intro in what would evolve later into the SoL bridge and then segued to the movie. In that respect, it was little different from the various other "horror host" material presented upon local affiliates.

Considering the ending we got to the series, the Satellite of Love suffering a decaying orbit and burning upon atmospheric reentry, "Green Slime" would have been a better "swan song" offering. Given the station in that movie experienced the same fate. It would have made for a neat parallel with that final host segment.
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I found the pilot on Youtube and was surprised that's all there was, it seemed ripe for a full-on riffing but they never came back to it apparently. I like the poetic idea of ending the series on it.
 
Redfern said:
Back then, I had this distinctive habit of imagining films as far more frightening than they really were. It didn't help (or did, depending upon your point of view) that I had a buddy who exacerbated the issue by describing them as more frightening than they really were. Example, between his gift for gab and my overactive imagination, I expected "Willy Wonka" to be something akin the string of "Saw" movies we have today.
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Same here. When you are younger--you take everything more seriously. I wasn't as creeped out by THE SHINING on film. It seemed--at the end--that Jack was home at last.

But why--TCM--did you have to put the cool space movies on a Wednesday?
 
I'd never heard of The Green Slime before, so I just watched the trailer on the TCM app, and it is hilarious. It has one of the best, ridiculous over the top trailer narrations I have ever encountered.
 
Watching THE GREEN SLIME, which came out two years after STAR TREK debuted, makes you realize just how smart and inclusive TREK was for its time. THE GREEN SLIME was released in 1968, but it's portrayal of a futuristic space-faring society is straight out of MAD MEN: clean-cut American white guys run the show, women are mostly secretaries and nurses, and minorities are apparently invisible.
 
Mr. Adventure said:
Not to take away from your point but the main female character was a doctor, at least.
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That's why I said "mostly." But even still, it's a very 1950s vision of the future, compared to STAR TREK.

And, as I recall, even the woman doctor does more screaming than doctoring.
 
Mr. Adventure said:
It was a funny time, so much change going on, I can't imagine the movie being the same even two years later.
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1968 was an indeed a cusp year in all kinds of ways. I find it hard to wrap my head around the fact that the same year produced 2001, Planet of the Apes, The Green Slime . . . and Barbarella, too. :)
 
Another thing about "Green Slime" that made me respond, "What the h3ll?!"even as a lad of 13 was a hangar pressurization sequence. A rocket at least half the size of a Saturn V enters a hangar nearly the scale of the "vehicle assembly building" at Cape Canaveral. The scene cuts to a shot of an instrument panel with a tube gauge indicating the rising pressure. It reached "1 atmosphere" in roughly 2 freakin' seconds! It probably would taken longer to "explosively decompress" if the hangar doors gave way!
 
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