PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Christmas Snakes

I noticed a plethoria of snake movies on the SciFi Channel for Christmas. I don't know what it means, but I taped an 8 hour block and watched them today. They are pretty much crap. I still don't get that snakes thing. Maybe they don't celebrate Christmas on the SciFi channel.

The first wiggly hors d'oeuvre was the 2004 Boa Vs Python. A smarmy casino owner and big game hunter hosts a giant snake kill-a-thon for some other rich pricks. The snake escapes on the way and the hunt is on. The government enlists a tracking specialist and a guy who has a giant snake. Lots of people die, but who cares, mostly they are jerks or blowhards. A couple of civilians get theirs and a couple of soldiers get eaten but what are you gonna do. Not watch this movie again. Luckily I hadn't paid for it, although watching it on the SciFi channel means all the nudity is cut out. Not that some titties are going to make this movie any better, perhaps numb the pain for a moment or two. I'll buy some crap but it'll be crap that I like and want to watch again. There is no helicopter in the movie, just on the box, and the snakes are not that colorful. Then the giant snakes fight in the subway, one gets it's head lopped off by a subway car. It's bad CGI. Most of these movies have bad CGI. The acting isn't much better, but it goes well with the so-so direction. It's mostly average and there isn't a Bruce Campbell to make me care even a little bit. Into the bin with you, you undercooked pig in a blanket.    2.7 on IMDb.

King Cobra, from 1999,was the second feature I watched. It's definitely a meat and potatoes picture. And that meat is boiled meat, not something where you'd say, "Oh! That's good." There's not even a good gravy. The dvd box sucks too. Some scientists create an aggression drug which gets in a giant snake. Oops. The snake gets out. Double oops. It's a cross between an African King Cobra and an Eastern Diamondback. Is that bad? I could give a shit about snakes. Perhaps like many mixed race people, that snake is having an issue with it place in current racial society. Nope, it's just agressive and hungry. It's 30 feet long, and partially CGI and partially puppet. The puppets are done by the Chiodo Brothers, best known for their work in the recent Team America and the still wonderful Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Unfortunately, the snake puppets aren't the best. And neither are the actors, which include Hoyt Axton and Pat Morita, and an especially bad Eric Estrada who plays a flamboyantly gay man.   2.7 on IMDb.

Project Viper had a different twist. Snakes only in the name. Kind of like a soy burger. "Hey! That not real!". This low budget film was Jim Wynorski's 3rd film for 2002. He's made 63 films since 1885. I dare you to find a good one from this list. A liquid metal type of life form is created to live on Mars. It's a living thinking acid. Aboard a shuttle it gets loose and eats the crew. On earth a prototype is stolen, which manages to escape and it starts killing. The movies minor big names are Patrick Muldoon, whom some of you might remember as Smarmy Guy in Starship Troopers, and Theresa Russell, whom I don't remember in much of anything, although I have seen a lot of her movies. I always like to see Tim Thomerson, he's the sheriff, he's in a lot of low budget movies. Project Viper was just one of 116 in his thirty year career. You can actually find a good movie or 2 in his list of films, but you have to really look. Curtis Armstrong plays a science guy, but there's nothing to recommend about that. Nor is there really isn't much to recommend on this film either.  3.2 on IMDb.

As dessert Silent Predators was something you'd normally like alot but proved mediocre upon tasting. Like that Baklava I had at work last week. It had all the right ingredients but they just didn't come out right in the processing. There was one area where Silent Predators beat the last film. In Snakes! There was an abundance of snakes, but only the regular size type. No giant ones, just regular size, but a shit load of 'em. Based on an unproduced 1970's John Carpenter script this 1999 movie has nearly nothing to offer. That's a bit harsh. It has nothing to offer. Some rattle snakes attack a town. Big deal. Harry Hamlin's the good guy and Jack Scalia is the bad guy. Again big deal. I have to admit by the time I got to this movie I was pretty much disinterested in seeing yet another piece of crap. I was wishin' the snake would win but nope. They get trounced. At least they took some townies with 'em. Ha. The director Noel Nosseck has 39 things under directing on the IMDb. Many were made for tv in his nearly 40 year career and Tornado was one of them. That's a much better film than Silent Predators, plus it has the added attraction of Bruce Campbell in a non-goofy role. Harry Hamlin, you are no Bruce Campbell.  3.8 on IMDb.

I can't imagine why the last movie scored better than the rest, I guess people really like Harry Hamlin. I prefer the Bruce guy, especially in these kind of movies. It's so hard to get a low budget film to work. Some of the ones that do work are some of my favorite movies. At best, these four films are a help fillin' time 'til you die. Still it's better to make an effort to watch something better. On the plus side that's 4 more movies on my yearly list, and lord knows that list isn't about quality. I should just break 200 new movies this year, and they can't all be winners. Luckily most aren't stinkers like these. That's some bad cookin'.

Friday Night Movies 38

Our first feature is the 47 minute silent black and white film The Call of Cthulhu. The film makers present the film as being made in 1925 by a Lovecraftian Society. Like a silent film it's got title cards, scratches and several hairs. There were complaints about about fake film aging, but that was none of my business, so onto new business. It's a nice little short, but I couldn't tell you if it's a good version of the story. Maybe. I think I read that story 30 years ago but I don't remember anything about it. I don't care for Lovecraft much at all. I never found the stories to be frightening, rather I found them to drag on with little or no pay off. Just not my cup of tea. The director, Andrew Leman, was a prop designer on 3 films, Galaxy Quest, Scream 3 and What Lies Beneath, but doesn't seem to have done anything since 2000, at least according to the IMDb. There are some nice sets and props in the film and you can get a lot of crap from one the film's sites. It's not a cheap dvd to buy so maybe borrow one.

The Matt Helm Lounge came the other day, it's the 4 disc box set of Dean Martin's Matt Helm films, of which 1966's The Silencers was the first. It was followed by Murderers' Row the same year, The Ambushers the following year, and two years later The Wrecking Crew. They are nice letterboxed editions packed in two slim double-disc Amray cases stuffed into a nice box, with a picture of Dean and some gals on the cover. I've been a fan of these movies since I saw them in the theatre back in the 60's. I was 13 when they first started coming out and in those days my brother and I, and occasionally other kids, would take the bus downtown and see a movie. We did this many weekends. Sometimes we would spend all our money on candy and have to walk home to East Kildonan. Only 3 or 4 miles. Most of the movie theaters were in the downtown area. There was the Odeon, The Metropolitan, The Capitol, The Lyceum, and a couple I can't remember the names of. Back to Matt. I had read the Matt Helm books by Donald Hamilton. Either my dad had them or I was searching for more spy thrillers after reading the James Bond books. They were ok as I remember, but nothing like the movies, more serious. I was a big Dean Martin fan, and his Matt Helm is a lot of fun. There's drinking, girls, and fighting. Lots of jokes, not always great, but occasionally pretty funny. So I liked them back in the sixites and still like them. I bought a set of prerecorded tapes several years ago, just two movies, The Silencers and The Wrecking Crew. I didn't have a copy of The Ambushers but I managed to tape Murderers' Row off of TCM.

I liked all the series, and maybe 1966's The Silencers is the best of the lot. I'll find out all over again as I watch the rest of them. In The Silencers Dean is forced out of retirement by ICE, an undercover super secret organization, to chase down the evil Victor Buono. Dean photographs girls in their underwear. He gave up spying for girls in their underwear, and he has a round bed. A round bed that dumps him right into a huge swiming/bathing pool. Needless to say he's rather reluctant to come out of retirement. But, eventually the forces of light and dark push Dean just a bit too far and it's on. Luckily, there is nearly as much underwear in the spying game as in the men's magazines of the day. Victor is the head of Big O, a super secret undercover evil organization, and he has an evil plan. Not a cunning plan, an evil plan. There is no place for underwear in his cold cold heart. He's going to explode an atomic bomb in New Mexico and hopefully start  a war between the USA and the Russians. His masters, the Chinese, would certainly profit. Stella Stevens plays the hapless cute girl caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time. She has a wonderful series of beautifully timed pratt falls into some dirty water. It made everyone laugh out loud. It was truely a delightful scene. Eventually Matt gets the bad guys and the girl. There is a good cast including Arthur O'Connell, Robert Webber, Roger C. Carmel as bad guys and James Gregory as MacDonald, Helm's boss. I think they are all worth checking out and this is a nicely packaged and priced set, even though there are no extras.

The Gift

Where I work we have a Christmas potluck for lunch. We also swap inexpensive presents within the core group of Office Services. Since we are keeping the present between 5 and 10 bucks, I often think that some creative sort of wrapping is in order. Some years I do better than others. One year I used a Geri suggestion and wrapped a smallish gift with 2000 feet of crepe paper. Every 20 wraps I would put in a candy, so the victim would release candy as they unwrapped it. One year I made a nice paper lion out of old National Geographics. It was about 18 inches tall and had a large can of nuts shoved up it's ass. I know, I know. A few years ago I found a cute teddy and packed him in a sealed, with glue, balsa wood box. With Dangerous Beast signs.The lady that got it still has the box, she liked it so much. The bear seems to be the switchboard mascot. He's always on the move.

This year I was thinking of getting rid of the giant yellow plastic tool box that Gene had given me a few years ago. I have no use for it, all my tools are in the kitchen drawer that serves the same purpose as a tool box but lacks easy mobility. I think about getting rid of it every year, but it really seems a bit of a dirty to pass it along to some other sap. What to do, what to do? I hit upon the idea of filling it with crap a few weeks ago. This would serve two needs, the needed present and the constant need to get rid of stuff. I am in a purging mood now. Time to strike while the iron is hot. Let the material goods pogroms begin. Anyway, to get rid of the huge toolbox, and a whole lot of stuff. What an idea. I started collecting stuff and with the help of Simba and E. V., who donated a nice pile of things, I got a whole tool box full. As a matter of fact, the frizbee wouldn't fit, so it was a tool box and a bit full. I made of some pictures of the process and made a photo album out of them. Take a look.

I have a list of everything, but it's too late to add it tonight. I'll post it when I get a chance. There are well over 125 wrapped presents. Some of the wrapping paper was down loaded from the internet and the rest was a handout from a local paper vender. It came at a fortuitous time.

Ages later, after everyone has forgotten about it, here's the list. Part of the program to get rid of everything that I can.

Gifts 1 - Donald Duck Comic, Daughter of Destiny Mousepad(EV), Jello - Elan (2), Balsam Incense (Simba), Summer Picnic 2005 -DCI Frizbee, Dick Van Dyke DVD, Abbott and Costello DVD, Pen, Slinky JR, America Space Digest, Davanni's Magnet.

Gifts 2 - Needles, Excerciser, 3 Giles Repritns, Leslie Ford Book, Lawrence Block book, Robert Nathan book, Can Cooler, Cherries - chocolate covered, 3 Plates black (Leeann Chin), Harry Poter Flyer, Star Notebook (Simba).

Gifts 3 - Kirk Douglas DVD, Winter themes CD, Jelly Bean Tin, Yellow Highlighter Magic Type, DCI Magnet set, 7 pen refills, 3 Dinosaur magnets (Phyllis), Magnet (Jayson), 2 pencils, bodywash sample(target), 2 Pizza Hut grated cheese (Target), Goosebumps - noisemaker (Simba), 2 cardholders, Japanese Card, tape measure (CUB), Star Candle (Simba), Moist Towelette (Target), Hand soap sample (Target), Salty peanuts ( Jackie), cassette, remote touch pad, plastic tube, 2 pens.

Gifts 4 - Crimper (Simba), Mug (Uline), Candle Holder (Simba), Plastic Cutlery, phonecord, ruler,black elec. tape, balsawood, Ursala Bean Toy (Simba), lanyard, cookbook, 3 1/4" floppy disc, Dementia 13 DVD, Pumpkin Pen (EV), Tree & Snake (EV), Bobcat,Red Neopet (Simba), Oce Ball, BestBuy CD (BestBuy), telephone line protection, towelettes, Big Mug.

Gifts 5 - 4 batteries, plug protector, spring, blade for box cutter, penny, 3 paper clips, 2 spring clips, nut and bolt, bolt, 2 rubberbands, safety pin, blue marble disc, 2 lego,misc part, push pin,riesen, 3 vikings, 2 post its, tab, 2 clips, keychain, 3 buttons, 3 shirt clips, card set, clear stone, clothes pin, 4 pads.

Friday Night Movies 37

The Skeleton Key was our first feature, and it didn't keep the talking down for the longest time. Kate Hudson is a care-giver, who goes into the bayou to take care of John Hurt, who's had some strokes. He's pretty much a set of eyes. Gene Rowlands is his wife. It's a slowish build for the first hour. It's more of a thriller than a horror movie, and it's not very thrillish. There is some scarey stuff, mostly involving washing John Hurt. I find being a care-giver pretty scarey. There's a locked room in the attic and it keeps drawing Kate up there. Once opened it leads to her down fall. Serves her right. Stay the fuck out of there! Snooping always leads to trouble. The ending is pretty good, with a bit of a nice turn around. Directed by Iain Softley. His last movie was KPAX, which I think didn't do too well when it came out in 2001. I didn't see it. I'll listen to the commentary sometime and see what Iain has to say. It's nice looking and probably one of the last movies shot in New Orleans before the levees broke. I should have waited and bought it when it got down to $7.50 at Target.

I waited for Badder Santa to get to $7.50 at Target. It is the unrated version of Bad Santa. It sure made me fuckin' laugh. That Billy Bob Thornton is one fuckin' funny dude. And that fucking midget/dwarf/little person, what a fuckin' hoot. I nearly bust a nut giggling. Finally, a movie with just enough swearin' for me. Shiiit, ain't that something. Billy Bob and Tony Cox are a Santa and Elf team that work department stores during the Christmas season. Then they fuckin' rob the bitches. Both are wonderful, and they swear up a motherfuckin' storm. Bernie Mac plays the seedy head of security and John Ritter plays the very repressed manager of the store that is the home to the latest Santa robbin' venture. When John tells Bernie about Santa assfuckin' someone in the large ladies dressing room, I could hardly keep my head from exploding, I was giggling so hard. Lauren Tom plays Tony's wife, she doesn't appear in many movies, mostly she's a voice actor. She's Amy Wong on Futurama and Connie on King of the Hill. She's a great bitch. I don't care for Gilmore Girls but I like Lauren Graham in The Pacifier and I liked her in Bad Santa. She's funny and cute and sexy. And a big special shout out for Brett Kelly , who plays The Kid, he was great. He was also the wonderful Francis Bischetti in 3 episodes of Dead Like Me. Terry Zwigoff directed, it's his 4th film. He directed Crumb and Ghost World.

Stephen Fry & J K Rowling

You can hear a very nice conversation between J K Rowling and Stephen Fry. She wrote those Harry Potter books and he reads them to me. I really prefer the Fry audio books over the Jim Dale audio books. They just sound more right, and from this interview Rowling does like his work. It's an enjoyable 27 minutes. The 6 books are just a few minutes short of 101 hours. I put them in my iTunes so I can have them playing on my pc. That way I don't have to touch the actual cd, keeps better that way.

Older, fatter and even less talented

Greg bought a copy of Hillbilly Monster, a 2003 film by Conrad Brooks. Brooks was a pal of Ed Wood. He acted in several of Ed's pictures, and continues dabbling in the low budget arena to this day. Just reading the titles of the pictures he's been in is a hoot. Certainly more hooty than Hillbilly Monster. Here's the plot summary from the IMDb.

While "working" for a travelling freak show, the Hillbilly Monster escapes his life of humiliation and servitude. Alone and afraid he becomes injured by an unfriendly bear trap. Befriended by a psychologist and a strange groundskeeper, he recovers from his ordeals in the wilderness and moves on to live a free and better life.

That almost makes it sound like a real movie, doesn't it. Unfortunately the execution is so poor even I couldn't find anything worth being joyous about. Even the pretty girls aren't. It's also the 3rd in the Jan-gel series. I haven't seen those but a reviewer on the IMDb said it was the best of the three. Sad. It didn't even make me laugh, and neither did Grandparents from Outer Space. Conrad and some older gal are the grandparents looking for their grandkids who are stranded on earth. At least it's only 40 minutes or so. Still it was like diamonds, forever.

Greg also lent me the slightly better but still not very interesting Horror Maniacs, or The Greed of William Hart.  A short 52 minutes b-feature from 1948 Horror Maniacs is a Burk and Hare type story. Two greedy guys start killing people to supply a doctor with cadavers. Naughty naughty. Don't bother with it.

Friday Night Movies 36

She Creature was our first feature. I hadn't watched this since I got the dvd back in 2001. I remembered liking it and like it still. It was part of an HBO series that used the titles from old American International movies from the fifties. They made up their own new stories. Roadracers was part of the first wave of these remakes. This was the second wave of five titles, and like Roadracers, She Creature was the best of the lot. Fortunately, She Creature came out on dvd, with a few extras and a commentary by Stan Winston. Still no dvd of Roadracers. Why, Robert, Why? Sebastian Gutierrez wrote and directed She Creature, and he also wrote the recent Gothika. Stan Winston did the mermaid effects as well as serving as a producer. The talented people in his company built a wonderful mermaid, and while this is a mermaid story, it's no Little Mermaid that's for sure. Our big mermaid can't afford a top made of shells, and she has sharp teeth. Don't get distracted by the boobies. Bite, bite. It's a nice dark little piece set in Ireland in 1905, amongst circus people, fake carnival freaks and sailors. Hardly anyone gets out alive. Staring Rufus Seawell, whom some people will remember from the wonderful Dark City, and Carla Gugino, who was the mom in the Spy Kids series and Lucille in Sin City. The rest of the cast is good, special props going out to veteran character actor Aubrey Morris and Reno Williams, who's character is going to hell. It's pretty much hell for everyone in this period piece. Seawell is the barker and owner of a sideshow attraction, always on the make with the fake, where he has Reno as a zombie and Carla as a mermaid. She comes complete with tank, tail and soothing siren song. It's this song that saves the marks from the zombie when he breaks free of his chains. It's a cheezy piece of theater. When a real mermaid crosses Seawell's path he can't pass up the opportunity to better his situation even at the cost of a man's life. Their fate's are sealed. The mermaid is tranported on a ship to America, but that goes not the way of good. Those are not friendly eyes.

The eyes are just ludicus in King Kong Escapes. I like Japanese big monster movies, and I understand they are low budget features but this one has one of the worst costumes of any of these movies. That King Kong suit is pretty laughable. By comparison the mechakong suit isn't too bad. What's really good is Dr. Who, played by Eisai Amamoto. He's a hoot. The lack of teeth on his lower jaw had me completely fascinated, but that's just me. This is the US version of the movie and the dialog is pretty funny. There are several good things going on in this movie, but you wouldn't know it here. Three people, including me, were drifting off near the midpoint. It picked up near the end when the two Kongs fought it out on the giant radio tower. Then I went home and bed.

Kill, Pussycat, faster, faster

Gary had this test on his blog. I took it. My first two choices were an 80 % natural causes and 53% poison. Better not get married, eh. Remember, most murderers know the victim. Many are wives and husbands, with a good smattering of children. Luckily my family is fairly non-murderous, they mostly drank and died on their own. One uncle smoked and died in a bed fire. Good for him, but stay the fuck away from me. I never liked that uncle anyway. As a bit of foreshadowing he burned a hole in my mother's couch. Fell asleep smoking while drunk. So, I know my mother didn't like him much, either. Once, my brother and I hid in the bushes in front of our house and called to him. He was drunk and lost. He was walking up and down the sidewalk on the other side of the street, looking for our house. My mother came out and made us stop. That was fun. Someday, I'll tell you the story of Elroy. Remember that night Mike? How about the burping in the alley and the lady opening her window and yelling at us? Good times...

I got a 33% eaten, which is yet another reason for not getting a pet, especially the kind that eats. Did you hear about the face transplant lady in France. She lost her face when she got up in the middle of the night for some reason and her dog attacked her and bit it off. I want to know what happened to the dog. I didn't hear anything. Maybe they put that dog on the guillotine. That would be something. But, I'm sure I would have heard about that. That's something that doesn't happen everyday after all. I am pretty sure they don't have the death penalty in France, it's that way in the EU, still dogs don't count. When did you ever hear of a dog getting to vote. Not only do they not get to vote but dogs often are eaten. Ironic. I liked the test where I turned out to be John Sheridan, beats getting eaten by a bear.

The Saint

My The Saint Megaset came today. I am on the 6th episode. It's great. A big shout out to the technology gods for 1.5 speed dvd players, with audio. The Saint Megaset consists of 14 discs with 47 episodes and a smidge of extras. Mostly trailers. There were 118 episodes of The Saint. This set collects all of the color episodes of the 1966 to 1969 seasons. The 1962 to 1965 seasons were black and white. I don't have any of those on dvd. I have many on tape from various runs on cable. There are two sets of the b&w episodes out now, but they haven't gotten cheap enough yet. The discs in the Megaset were originally sold as individual discs at 25 bucks each, or $350 a set. They were also sold in 2 disc boxsets at 40 bucks a set, making the Megaset only $280. Then the 14 discs were collected in a different and larger box with a retail of $200. Still too high. This is how A&E was marketing their dvd's. I waited and got the Monthy Python Megaset for way cheap. A month and a half ago I was looking on Amazon and The Saint Megaset was listed at 60 bucks. Mother...I figured it was a mistake or on clearance, and ordered one. It took forever and I thought they were going to cancel it but nope. It got shipped last week and arrived here today. I found it on the stairs when I got home. I just looked on Amazon and the sets are back up to $180. It's still too high. Sometimes a guy just gets lucky.

Roger Moore is The Saint, he's the best of any of them. I've read many of the books and stories as well as seeing episodes of the 60's series several times over the last 40 years. Moore captures The Saint of the books. They adapted many of the short stories to tv episodes, especially in the b&w days. If you haven't seen The Saint, he's running on BBC America. I don't get that high end channel but I can wait.

John Sheridan

Earthlink had this link to a test to see which SF/Fantasy character you are. I took it and came out as John Sheridan from Babylon 5. Man, how cool is that. He's a favorite of mine. I need to watch that series from the beginning again. I've only seen them 5 or 8 times each and that's hardly enough.