{"id":5806,"date":"2016-10-11T08:17:39","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T13:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=5806"},"modified":"2016-10-11T08:17:39","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T13:17:39","slug":"belated-movie-reviews-95","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/10\/11\/belated-movie-reviews-95\/","title":{"rendered":"Belated Movie Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much like The Tingler<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, the makers of\u00a0The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues<\/a>\u00a0<\/b><\/i><\/b>(1955) do not fixate on the monster of the day, but attempt to use it as a pivot to more important matters. Unfortunately, the monster is not critical to the tale, and so this tension-free movie, while fairly logical, does little to excite horror, sympathy, or even mystification. The problem appears to have to do with motivations\u00a0<\/em>, in that these are either cloudy or disappointingly cliched. The chief scientist is concealing something, but for what reason is never really made clear; his assistant, who is attempting to sell the secret to an unnamed third party, might as well have been nicknamed A Boy and His Speargun;\u00a0<\/em>the daughter is distressingly predictable and mundane, nary a surprise to spring. We’re told, in a most sterile manner, that the secretary hates the scientist because her only son died in service to the scientist, but outside of a persistent glare, there’s little to convince us that she hates him – why work for him? The cops are cops, and the odd bruising on the sultry, traitorous blonde’s thigh are never acknowledged nor explained.<\/p>\n

Additionally, there’s bad story-telling. The victims, from the young couple in the boat to the freighter crew, might as well have neon signs over their heads – the cops may not know who’s doing the killing, but the makers of this movie seemed to think that tension is not good for the audience’s health – so we know who did what when.<\/p>\n

Where is the emotional engagement, the puzzlement, the red herrings, the terror at difficult decisions?<\/p>\n

Oh, maybe 10,000 leagues further down.<\/p>\n

Don’t bother with this snoozer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much like The Tingler, the makers of\u00a0The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues\u00a0(1955) do not fixate on the monster of the day, but attempt to use it as a pivot to more important matters. Unfortunately, the monster is not critical to the tale, and so this tension-free movie, while fairly logical, does \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5806"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5815,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5806\/revisions\/5815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}