This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This week's theme is "long-awaited sequels".
It took me a little while to come up with three movies that fit the topic, largely because I'm not into the modern day movie series. But eventually, I was able to come up with three movies that fit the theme, more or less: some of these movies may not have been particularly awaited.
The Thin Man Goes Home (1944). Actually, this one wasn't as long-awaited as I would have thought. William Powell and Myrna Loy made The Thin Man in 1934, and the movie was popular enough that MGM decided to pair the two as Nick and Nora Charles again. And again. The fourth movie in the series was released in 1941, and then Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, sending the US into World War II. What does that have to do with this movie? Myrna Loy took a break from her Hollywood career to go on tours to raise support of war bonds for the war effort, and this movies, the fifth in the Thin Man series, was the first movie she made after that three-year hiatus.
Andy Hardy Comes Home (1958). The Andy Hardy movies had been extremely successful for MGM for a decade up until 1946, but after Love Laughs at Andy Hardy, and with the end of World War II, MGM must have seen the writing on the wall and ended the series. A dozen years later, they brought the Hardy family back, with the exception of Judge Hardy since Lewis Stone had died in the meantime. Mickey Rooney returns for one final film as Andy Hardy, trying to sell his old hometown on the idea of building an factory for an aviation company there. Of course you can't really go back to your old home again, and there were no further Andy Hardy movies made.
Psycho II (1983). Twenty-three years after the original Psycho, and three years after the death of Alfred Hitchcock, somebody got the idea to make a sequel. Norman bates is supposedly cured (I thought at the end of the original Psycho the mother personality had taken over and there was no more Norman) and let out of the insane asylum. He returns to the old Bates Motel, which you'd think would have been razed to the ground. Of course, once back at the Bates Motel, Norman finds that perhaps he might not have been so cured.
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3 comments:
I've only seen Psycho II. While it's no Psycho, it isn't terrible. I need to revisit it.
The only one I've seen is Psycho II, and I don't remember much from it. I just remember liking it more than The Exorcist II.
All the Thin Man movies are enjoyable though that first blush of the original is hard to replicate. This one was fun since it put the Charles in a different milieu and had the great team of Lucile Watson and Harry Davenport as Nick's parents.
I saw Andy Hardy Comes Home within the last couple of months and thought it was a flat-footed letdown. Obviously everyone else felt that way too they couldn't even get Ann Rutherford to come back as Polly Benedict!
Psycho II was a routine cash grab.
My first and third were ones people thought they wanted until they were released and the second an unspectacular but decent followup.
The Godfather: Part III (1990)-Long aborning (16 years between this and Part II) wrap up of the Corleone saga isn’t terrible but a mere shadow compared to the first two. A HUGE weak point is the decision by Coppola to cast his daughter Sofia (a decent director but an atrocious actress) in a key role.
The Rescuers Down Under (1990)-Thirteen years after The Rescuers the R.A.S. (Rescue Aid Society) sends their top two agent mice Bernard (Bob Newhart) and Miss Bianca (Eva Gabor) down under to save a Golden Eagle from the evil trapper McLeash (George C. Scott). So they hop on their trusty albatross Wilbur (John Candy) and are off on their big adventure.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)-Nineteen long years after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came this uninspired follow-up. It not that the film is horrible but for a Spielberg adventure, especially one with Ford in this role, it’s uninspired. It’s nice to see Karen Allen back in the fold but the idea that she and Ford would produce Shia LeBeouf (!!) takes the film even further into the negative category.
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