PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Kawase Hasui

When I saw this my mouth fell open and I just stared. It's stunningly beautiful. I know it's not a perfect scan but I can fill in the blanks. The way the blue is and the light, it reminds me of Maxfield Parrish. So does the picture below. They are all by the guy in the title. I didn't know him. I had a brief flirtation with Ukiyo-e in the 80's but after really liking Hiroshige and his One Hundred Views of Edo and a couple of other artists I never followed up and learned more. Too many. Art an expensive hobby. Tonight I was looking at some Japanese stamp sites. I think occasionally I might like to get back to adding to my Japanese stamp album but that's another expensive hobby even on a small scale. Cuts into the number of dvd's one can buy. Better look at the pictures and save them electronically. Less space and nearly no cost. Your time. First I came across this page by some Ukiyo-e dealer that also sells sets of stamps that depict woodblock prints. Then I looked at their Gallery of real prints for sale. This is page one of 9 pages of very interesting and often pricey items. The first guy up on page one? Hasui. Now he's an Ukiyo-e artist of the Shin Hanga movement. It literally means New Prints and they were modern artists working from about 1910 to 1960. I did a look on Amazon and there is a $499 book that going for 20 percent off. It collects all 567 of his prints. Here's a site that has most of them. Many are very nice. Himeji Castle has always been a favorite in just about any picture, even one without Godzilla.

Dragons and Harryhausen and BLADE RUNNER. Oh, My!

From the Animation Flash Newsletter I get:

THE WEINSTEIN CO. BUILDS A DRAGON DYNASTY

Bob and Harvey Weinstein have announced the unveiling of Dragon Dynasty, the new label under which all The Weinstein Co.'s Asian titles will be released, including ONG BAK 2, THE PROTECTOR (aka TOM YUM GOONG), BORN TO FIGHT, SPL, SEVEN SWORDS and DRAGON SQUAD, as well as a package of high profile titles, which was licensed from Fortune Star Ent. the distribution division of News Corp.'s STAR Group, which owns the world's largest contemporary Chinese language feature film library.

Dragon Dynasty library already includes the 43 Fortune Star titles, together with a special collection of 50 classic Shaw Brothers' movies and a number of independent acquisitions, including John Woo's seminal productions, THE KILLER, HARDBOILED, BULLET IN THE HEAD and A BETTER TOMORROW 1 & 2. The company has ambitious plans to continue building the library and will be acquiring titles across all genres of Asian films, such as contemporary action, martial arts, epic swordplay and hi-octane thriller. The titles selected for theatrical distribution will be released by The Weinstein Co. and all home video output will be managed by Genius
Products Inc.

The Weinsteins originally acquired the collection of Shaw Brothers' movies during their tenure at Miramax Films and brought the titles with them to The Weinstein Co. as part of their settlement agreement with the Walt Disney Studios.

Quentin Tarantino will actively work with the Weinsteins in all aspects of brand development for Dragon Dynasty.

For DVD, the Weinstein Co. is developing a number of Special Edition packages for its new brand, including 2-Disc Platinum Editions of Jet Li's world-acclaimed FIST OF LEGEND and TAI CHI MASTER. Each Dragon Dynasty DVD will possess a unique and carefully crafted identity, and will include many informative and exclusive special bonus features, such as rare
behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes, out-takes and specially commissioned documentaries and interviews featuring cast members, filmmakers and celebrity enthusiasts of Asian film.

Peter Poon, gm of Fortune Star, stated, "Fortune Star is excited to work with TWC and their specialized team in bringing our popular titles at the highest quality for DVD release to the U.S. market. The launch of Dragon Dynasty will be a tremendous boost to the Asian Cinema as it will now have a more powerful access to the American audiences."

Donnie Yen stated, "I'm delighted that my film SPL will be one of the lead titles for Dragon Dynasty. Harvey has put a great team together for the brand, and I look forward to collaborating with them on the upcoming release of SEVEN SWORDS. Finally, we Asian action filmmakers have a proper platform to present our work to the international audience."

Sammo Hung stated, "I hope this new label brings more fans to our films, so that we have an even bigger audience in the future. I'm very happy to see SPL, DRAGON SQUAD and some of my older films released by Dragon Dynasty. I'm a heavy hitter myself, and it's good to see TWC throwing its weight behind our industry!"

Harvey Weinstein stated, "Bob and I are extremely passionate about Asian Cinema and have always been enormous fans of Asian filmmakers from Akira Kurosawa to John Woo. We started building a library of Asian titles years ago and hope to continue adding to it for years to come. Bob and I are proud to launch Dragon Dynasty and hope to continue bringing Asian cinema the recognition it deserves. Alan Bergman and the Disney team have been incredibly cooperative with the collection of Shaw Brothers' movies."

Brian White stated, "I am really excited to be building the Dragon Dynasty brand with Harvey and Bob. Their passion and dedication to the genre is really quite extraordinary, and our collective goal is to produce imaginative, visually-dynamic, feature-laden DVD titles, which are designed to take the presentation of the genre to a new level of excellence, and bring to the widest possible audience all that is special and unique in the World of Asian Cinema."

HARRYHAUSEN PRESENTS MINDFIRE PRODUCTIONS

Ray Harryhausen will team with Mindfire Ent. on a series of new movies, telefilms, videogames and merchandising under the "Ray Harryhausen Presents" moniker, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. The projects will be based on Harryhausen's unproduced works. Several scripts are already in development - one set in Greek mythology and the other an alien invasion tale. The first film is set to start production in the fall.

Mindfire hopes to release one movie in the $15 million range and three telefilms in the $4 million range each year. Harryhausen will be involved in the development as well as oversee all CGI effects that will be done in the spirit of his original stop-motion special effects. Yarek Danielak's Arsenal Pictures will represent the films.

Harryhausen said, "utilizing the incredible advances in visual effects technology" would enable him to reach an entire new generation of audiences. "These stories are universal, and I could not be more thrilled than to revisit some of my favorite worlds - past, present and future - in
these new films."

Mindfire ceo Mark A. Altman, Mindfire chairman Mark Gottwald and Mindfire svp production Chuck Speed will produce alongside Christopher Aaron Wyatt (NAPOLEON DYNAMITE), Arnold Kunert and Marc Scott Zicree (STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, BABYLON 5), who also is helping adapt Harryhausen's stories for several of the films. Altman said a merchandising strategy is in the works for comicbooks, novelizations and action figures under the "Ray Harryhausen Presents" banner.

"Once we have some storyboards and scripts ready, we'll take these concepts to game developers," Altman said. "From MIGHTY JOE YOUNG to CLASH OF THE TITANS, Harryhausen films have focused on fantastic creatures and  mythological monsters. This translates well to console and mobile games." Moreover, online webisodes will be created to provide prequel or sequel extensions of the film and TV story lines.

BLADE RUNNER: FINAL CUT TO ARRIVE IN 2007 FOR 25TH ANNIVERSARY

Warner Home Video has retained long-term rights to Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER, reports VARIETY, paving the way for a new FINAL CUT in 2007 in honor of the 25th anniversary of the influential sci-fi thriller based on Philip K. Dick's novel. A limited theatrical release of the FINAL CUT will be followed by a collector's edition DVD containing all four versions of the Harrison Ford-starrer (including theatrical version, director's cut and international version).

The visual effects team included: designer Syd Mead, visual effects supervisors Mark Stetson (chief model maker), Bill George (uncredited miniature design and construction) and Hoyt Yeatman (uncredited visual displays), as well as vfx editor Michael Backauskas (visual effects
assistant editor), among others. And vfx supervisor Mike Fink worked as an action prop supervisor.

WHV, meanwhile, will reissue a remastered DIRECTOR'S CUT on DVD in September for four months before it goes on moratorium.

Chilling Classics Disc 5

The Witches' Mountain is the first movie on side A. It's an 1972 Spanish film called El Monte de las brujas. And it's as bad as that proverbial witch's titty is cold. This MIT study seems to indicate that the WT's are considerably warmer than origianally thought, but that does not make this movie any better, even by comparison. Back to stink on the mountain. In the movie a woman named Carla comes home to find some of her stuff disturbed. A little girl, who might be her daughter, has killed a cat and left it oozing in the bed. Looking for some one or some animal the pair move about the house and yard winding up in the garage. Turns out the girl was looking for a snake. The woman pours out some gas and burns the girl and the snake. She goes to see her boyfriend Mario. Not wanting to go on vacation with Carla he leaves town on a work assignment. Looking for a mountain location he picks up a girl on a beach and takes her to lunch. She's Santa and she decides to go along. They stop at her house and Mario waits outside for Santa to change and collect stuff for the trip. He hears loud weird music but when Santa returns she has not heard it. Creepy, huh? Not one fuckin' bit. It's a poorly filmed and framed movie, made worse by a not-much-panned and barely-scanned transfer. There are scenes so dark you can't see burning torches. We still havent heard anymore from Carla. Our newly minted couple head up the mountain stopping at a local inn. After the lady gets scared by someone peeking in her 2nd story window they more down stairs. Waking up in the morning Mario finds Santa gone. The inn keeper doesn't know anything, but he thinks they are a strange pair. Mario drives up the mountain and finds her almost immediately. She doesn't know how she got there. Oh, no. Shouldn't be smokin' Mario I guess. I joke but only because there are no jokes in the movie. And there is no sex or drugs and all the nudity was cut out or never filmed. There is just one tedious scene after another, ploddingly telling the story. It's taken just over thirty minutes to tell this much of the story. We still have no witches. Eventually we do get to see them but it's been over for me for a while. They lost me after Mario. What a fuckin' stupid mustache he has. You just want to reach over and rip it off. A bit later the car gets stolen and the couple walk until they find it. Did someone lead them to the old woman's home? It's getting late now and she invites the couple to stay for the night. Next day there's more weird crap going on. Mario finds people in photos who weren't there when the photo was taken. Wow. Still no Carla and no one's been killed or anything much is happening. I'm not gettin' my 40 cents worth here, let me tell you. Even after the witches showed up near  the end of the movie I didn't care. Not even when Carla showed up again. I didn't like her anyway. I was ready for it to stop. Who would like this. It gets a 3.6 on IMDb so someone I guess.

Deep Red has a lot of fans but don't number me in that group. An 1975 Italian film by Dario Argento. He's one of those guys who are highly popular. I just don't care for him that much. He's more stab-you-in-the-eye-with-a-piece-of-glass than I like. Too many people who write pieces on the internet about these movies seem to enjoy the graphic murders over the story. This seems wrong to me. A psychic lady catches some murderous thoughts from someone in the audience at a demonstration and is murdered later. David Hemmings sees it and gets involved. I don't care for him. More murders happen. A pretty young lady beats Hemmings at arm wrestling...twice. He's such a twat. Hopefully he'll be murdred near the end of the movie. We shall see. I'll probably be disappointed. I have seen this before but don't remember anything much about it and it's not flooding back as I rewatch it either. It's not a bad movie, certainly not one of his worse, and some of the problems with it stem from the 26 minutes cut from the original 126. I just don't care for it that much. It's better than most of the movies in the pack and it's certainly worth a majority of that 40 cents as far as it goes. It was funny to see the murderer get run over and dragged by a truck. The truck finally stops with his head in the path of an on coming car. Squish. That was kind of funny, but, wait a minute, the murderer was with David Hemmings when the first murder occured. Hemmings doesn't figure that out for several movie minutes. He goes back to the murder scene and there's the real killer. She tries to kill him but gets decapitated by an elevator. Hemmings, sadly, did not die.

The Revenge Of Dr. X has a lot of other names: The Revenge of Doctor X; The Double Garden; Venus Flytrap; The Devil's Garden. It's a 1970 film written by Edward D. Wood Jr. This is it's only dvd release, and it's the same bad print that was on a previous vhs tape. It has all the same flaws according to Sperhauk. He spent some time comparing them. A scientist at an unnamed rocket range in Florida is overworked. His doctor tells him to take it easy. Go on a trip. Our scientist is played by James Craig, who has been acting since 1937, mostly in westerns. I guess he never learned much or forgot it all, he's pretty poor sometimes. I am sure he got no direction from Kenneth G. Crane. He didn't direct very many movies, mostly working as an editor. Before heading to Japan Craig stops at a roadside service station and snake farm. In with the snakes Craig finds a venus flytrap. He ventures into the swamp to find his own and takes it to Japan. There it inspires him to make a man size humanoid flytrap. It goes on a rampage, and eventually the scientist and the monster fall into a volcano. There's a more detailed synopsis on this page. It's pretty poor, certainly no Plan Nine From Outer Space, but it makes me laugh.

Bad Taste is such a fun movie, and that makes this piss poor copy an even poorer watching experience. It's without a doubt the best movie in the box and as such deserves a better copy to watch. There is a nice Anchor Bay release. A regular movie only edition and a 2 disc 50,000 copy numbered limited edition. You can still get the limited edition on Amazon. It's Peter Jackson's first movie and it was made on weekends over a 4 year period. It came out in 1987 and I saw it 9/16/89. Sperhauk and some guy named Steve, who used to come to movie night occasionally, saw it over at my place on Park Avenue. It a disgusting gore and goo filled movie, but it's funny and it has a great sense of humour. I was a fan of the director, who plays an alien and a human in Bad Taste, right from the start. It's a movie that lives up to it's name, and not to everyone's taste.

Friday Night Movies 60

First Men in the Moon is the 1964 adaptation of H. G. Wells 1901 novel. The script is by Nigel Kneale, who wrote the Quartermass tv shows and movies, and Jan Read, who wrote Jason and the Argonauts and episodes of Danger Man. Unfortunately this script was not up to their usual level. Perhaps the two of them shouldn't work together. The director was Nathan Juran, who started as an architect, switched to film Art Direction in the 40's, moved up to directing movies in the 50's, and at the end of his career, directed television in the 60's. He worked on several good movies and tv shows. He also made some highly average stuff. This is one of those highly average things, made less interesting by the inclusion of some really crappy characters. Cocksuckers! I just finished watching Deadwood season two and the high quality of the writing on that series puts an extra layer of stank on FMitM. I seem to be on the negative side of the film and many out on the internet are really liking this movie and it's characters. Here's one now. It scores a 6.5 on IMDb and 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. I think Rotten Tomatoes is a near useless site.

On the good side there are some special effects by Ray Harryhausen. There are nice modern space craft in the open sequence, house's bursting apart, the sphere in the 1899 flashback, a giant caterpillar "moon cow" and some of the Selenites, who are the tunnel dwelling ant like critters who live on the moon. The movie puts a modern spin on the novel by linking the story to a modern moon landing with a lunar lander. After landing on the moon the modern astronauts find a British flag and an 1899 summons stuck to a rock. On the back of the summons they find a hand written proclamation claiming the moon for the Queen. The summons leads a group of UN officials and scientists to an old man in a nursing home. On earth. Yes, he was on the moon 65 years ago and here is his flashback. Unfortunately he's a boring selfish git who can't tell his own story very well. And not only is he boring, he's a liar, a swindler and a depraved layabout. I didn't find any of the characters very good or interesting, and that's important to me. The mad scientist was wacky and yelly and eventually a mass murderer. The movie adds a moronic romantic plotline and the woman added to the story is a whore. I kid, but it was 1899 and she is driving a car and living in an English country cottage with a man she's not married to. She's a modern 1960's woman transplanted to the previous century. And she's a pain in the ass. There's a lot of slapstick in the movie and a lot of walking around, but there's also a lack of excitement, even in scenes like the giant "moon cow" attacking our travellers. The Selerites come out and blast it with rays. It pretty much just falls over. Then the swarm strip it's flesh off screen. Later we see a giant skeleton. But that doesn't happen until nearly an hour into the film. The sets are mostly ok and the effects are fair for the day. I don't think I'll bother to buy a copy but I might catch it on Turner Classics if it ever shows up.

I did buy The Sight and I am glad I did.  This is Paul W. S. Anderson's made for tv movie. After the poor reception of Soldier Anderson went back to England and worked on this pilot with Andrew McCarthy and Kevin Tighe. I have never been a fan of McCarthy but Tighe I have come to admire in the last thirty years. I mostly remember him from the 70's series Emergency. He's seems to be always working, not big parts but good characters in most things. He's often the hard dad, up tight business man, or tough cop. He's good in these roles, and he's good here, as are most of the cast. McCarthy is an architect who travels to London to start work on a restoration commission. He's been hired to revive an old hotel, Tighe is his builder. When Honor Blackman intentionally steps in front of Andy's $71,000 rental car he runs her down and that changes his life forever. Blackman has a special power and she passes it onto him after her death. Don't worry, she'll be back to explain things and then catch the light. McCarthy is the new chosen one. At first he's unaccepting but he soon gets involved in the police investigation of a serial killer. There are a bunch of ghosts who talk to him and occasionally help him. Like the police they never seem to be there when you need them. These ghosts are the victims of the serial killer and they need closure and a trip up the spiral stairway to heaven. It's nice. You see it in images through the movie and more clearly at the end. Lot of people get killed in this story and the rest seem to get smashed in the face with shovels. Ow. It's a pretty tight story with good camera work and wonderful locations. I don't care for the too often used serial killer plot normally but this one kept me interested all of the way through. Mostly because of the story. There are some twists and turns and a guy gets impaled on some rebar. Ouch. The special effects are better than most of the made for tv movies and pilots you see on the SciFi channel. Perhaps it's the way they used them. I got a copy from DVDPlanet but neither it nor Amazon seem to have the dvd anymore. Cocksuckers! Have a nice fuckin' day.

Friday Night Movies 59

"Bond. James Bond." It's got to be one of those classic lines from films by now. One that is copied and adapted to some situation that just can't live up to the line. There's another one later in the film. Perhaps two. In our on-going program to make sure Greg gets to see all the good Bond films we have arrived at number 3, 1964's Goldfinger. Perhaps one of the best. Certainly one of the most audacious Bond films. It seems to be universally accepted as the template for the rest of the series. It has a very brassy soundtrack with an opening credits song by Shirely Bassey, belted out like a bicycle chain to the face. Goldfinger pits James against Auric Goldfinger played by Gert Fröbe, who utters another favorite line. "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die." Gert's voice was dubbed. Too German sounding. James seems to be continually in the hands of Goldfinger and his Korean henchmen, lead by Oddjob and his metal hat. But, of course, they can't kill James, he might know something. They kill some other people including Shirley Eaton and Tania Mallet. Here's IMDb's bio for Mallet.

     Tania Mallet was born in the seaside resort of Blackpool, England. She took a course at Lucy Clayton's School Of Modelling, and started working as a model at just 16 years old.
     In 1963 she was considered for the role of the lead Bond girl in From Russia With Love (1963), but she didn't get it. However, the following year she was cast in the next Bond film, Goldfinger (1964), playing the ill-fated Tilly Masterson. She agreed to appear in "Goldfinger" as an experiment. She was earning £2,000 a week as a model, and after much bargaining managed to secure only £150 a week as her fee for the film. She claimed that she could not afford to continue working as an actress, because she was earning more as a model.
     Tania had mixed feelings about her time on "Goldfinger." Filming was fun, but in her personal life her long-time boyfriend had died at the same time. She took a couple of other tiny roles in smaller films, including Michael Winner's "Girls, Girls, Girls," but had no desire to pursue a career as an actress.

Eaton plays her sister, who is killed by asphyxiation after being covered with gold paint. Which, according to Snopes, wouldn't really kill you. Overheating, my guess last night, and toxic elements in the paint would get you eventually. Still, her gold painted body is another of those iconic images on film that people remember. And while Greg knew that Bedlam was the other film in which someone is killed by being covered with gold paint, I still can't believe he hadn't seen the Bond movies when they came out. Joe was saying this was the first one he got to see. He went with a whole gang of kids from his school. It was a big event. I know I saw it in the theater, but not until it's later run as a double bill with From Russia With Love. By then my brother and I were going down town and seeing films in various theaters, often with other kids from the neighborhood.

Honor Blackman plays an iconic character from the film. Pussy Galore! Who doesn't like that. She's Goldfinger's pilot and the leader of the Flying Circus that will bring death-from-above to the locals at Fort Knox. After a quick wrestle in the hay, it's Mr. Bond's wee wee that saves the day. In the book this is an even greater feat as Pussy is a thinly disguised lesbian. Maybe not even that thinly disguised. The movie makes no mention of Miss Galore's lady likin' predilection. Oh, well, it's still a corker.

War in Space was a 1977 Japanese alien invasion movie. I hadn't seen it before making it number 112 for the year and I still have some of that Chilling Classic 50 Movie Pack to get through. WiS wasn't too hard to get through. It was a bit slow at times. Some aliens have taken up residence on Venus in anticipation of attacking earth. Human like aliens have infiltrated the earth defense forces. It's looking bad, time to revive the defunct military program Goten. That's it on the cover, with the drilly front. How practical is that? The other ship below the Goten is the Daimakan. The aliens also have small fighters called Hell Ships which have an evil look to them. The Daimakan just looks fat and bloated. It's kind of silly once it's oar/lasercannons start waving about. There is a big fight between the ships and the Daimakan gets it's burning ass handed to it by the avenging Goten, which made me snigger once it unleashed it's rotating six-gun-like barrel guns. What really made me laugh? The Space Beast! A wookie like critter with a huge axe and horns who made it's screen debut before Star Wars, at least according to the pamphlet in the dvd. The movie didn't get released here in the US until 1979. They find the Space Beast on Venus, where the earth guys are battling the aliens. Eventually they blow everything up and head back to earth with the crew that's left. I went home to bed.

Late breaking news! - Monday 5/22/06 10:39AM - Sperhauk just reported to me that the dvd interview with the War in Space special effects guy contradicts the dvd pamphlet. He said that Toho made the movie to cash in on the popularity of Star Wars and they started and rushed out the movie in a few months. WiS was released in middle December in time for the annual New Years Celebration. Most of the Godzilla movies of recent years were released in this time period, occasionally on my birthday.

Spin and Marty

I finally got around to watching The Adventures of Spin and Marty. It was pretty entertaining. A Disney produced serial that was part of The Mickey Mouse Club. The first series ran from November 7, 1955 to December 9, 1955. Twenty five daily episodes over 5 weeks which total up to about 4 hours and forty minutes of good natured fun and learnin'. The story is simple. Boys at camp bond. They also ride horses and have mild adventures. There's a rattlesnake at one point. It scares a horse and Marty fractures his arm. He's had a hard time at camp. Marty is the rich fish out of water. No parents. He was raised by a domineering gramma and Perkins the comical bulter. Marty is played by David Stollery and Perkins is played by J. Pat O"Malley. Tim Considine plays Spin. There's a whole pile of other kids and a comical Chinese cook. Harry Carey Jr. plays the horse wrangler and camp counselor and Roy Barcroft plays the owner of the ranch. Leonard P. Geer plays Ollie the whiskery ranch hand. I never saw these when they originally aired but they ran in syndication for years. I enjoyed them then and they still are good. I doubt they would appeal to many kids today. Too corny. Too slow. I hope they release the two sequels and the Annette serial. Tim Considine also did two Hardy Boys serials for The Mickey Mouse Club. There was a book called Marty Markham that was adapted. The Spin character was expanded. After the series there were novels and comic books. That's Marty on the left and Spin on the right. The dvd has a short visit to the ranch featurette with Spin and Marty all growed up. They joke around a bit on the barely recognizable ranch. Harry Carry Jr. gets a short 6 minute interview. Leonard Malton does an intro to each disc. It's a nice package, all the Disney Treasures have been, but they disappear soon.

Chilling Classics Disc 4

The Snake People is a 1971 mostly Mexican horror movie also known as Isle of the Living Dead or Isle of the Snake People. It was Boris Karloff's next to last film. All of his scenes were filmed in Hollywood and cut into the Mexican shot scenes. Here's the plot summary from the IMDb.

The inhabitants of a small, remote island have been practicing voodoo rites and worshipping an evil priest named Damballah for years, but the local law officials generally turn a blind eye to this death cult's bizarre activities. Captain Labesch (Rafael Bertrand) arrives from the mainland, determined to crack down on the island's lawlessness and clean up the ineffectual, hard-drinking police force. He appeals for assistance from wealthy plantation tycoon Carl Van Molder (Boris Karloff), who owns nearly half of the island and wields a great deal of influence over the population. Van Molder has made the study of parapsychology his life's work and believes in the secret powers of the mind. He warns Labesch not to interfere with this forgotten island's ancient ways. Also visiting is Van Molder's niece, Annabella (Julissa), a temperance crusader who wants her uncle to help fund the International Anti-Saloon League. She falls in love with handsome police lieutenant Andrew Wilhelm (Carlos East), despite his fondness for rum. Meanwhile, beautiful native girls are being transformed into zombies, and a sinister snake dancer named Kalea (Tongolele) leads them to attack and devour any meddling policemen who get too close to their unholy rituals. When Annabella is kidnapped and prepared to be the cult's latest human sacrifice, Labesch and Wilhelm have to infiltrate their ranks to save her, and they finally learn the secret identity of the all-powerful Damballah. Summary written by Anonymous.

That's a lot of story for 91 minutes. Boris looks pretty good for a guy who had been dead two years when this movie came out. It's not a very good movie even with all that stuff going on. There's not much point in watching it other than seeing a poor Boris Karloff movie.

There's little much better to recommend with the second movie on the A side of the disc. Sisters of Death is a 1977 revenge movie. Some sorority girls are having an initiation ceremony, with a gun, and surprisingly one of them gets killed. Seven years later the remaining girls are invited to a mansion to be murdered in revenge. The father of the dead girl starts killing the girls. There's no sex or nudity or gorey violent deaths. It's all pretty pedestrian and it has a stupid ending.

War of the Robots is stupid all through the movie. It's a 1978 Italian film about an dying alien civilization that sends some ships to earth to steal a couple of geneticists in the hope that they can be used to provide a cure for what's ailing them. Some soldiers from earth try to rescue them. There's lots of bad fighting and way too much talking. Here's someone who spent a lot of time documenting the movie. Some people like to watch these Italian movies for their fun cheese factor. And they are like a blast of aerosol Cheez Whiz in the face. Not always something that I would be interested in. There's lots of running about in halls, space battles and bad makeup for you to complain about in this movie but really what's the point. At best this movie deserves a half hearted "Hey." Remember the guard at the door of Prince Herbert's father's castle in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. There are actually two guards, one on either side of the doorway. John Cleese is running toward them from a distance. They cut to the guard and back to John several times and John seems to be no closer. Then he's right there, killing the guard on the left. The other guard's tepid "Hey." the only response. That tiny scene still is better than anything in WotR. Better still than if you could take entire cast and the crew of the Italian movie, grind them up and extract their accumulated talent and turn that into, say, a nice pastry. That less than a minute Monty Python scene would be more filling. 40 cents for a bad bearclaw. How often the world fails me.

Another failure, Oasis of the Zombies, by one of the kings of failure, Jesse Franco. That's all in my eyes, some people actually enjoy his movies, but this one does seem to be commonly disliked. Franco's movies often have a lot of nudity and sex. This is often their only appeal. This movie is about Nazi gold. Back during WWII some gold transportin' Nazi's were killed by allied troops at a desert oasis in Africa. Years later the son of one of the Allies leads a group to find the gold. They find the oasis and the gold is still there. Unfortunately! Yep. Zombies! Nazi zombies, and you know they are usually the best kind. The movie was called Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies on video somewhere. Here's a guy with some detail for ya and some pictures and video clips. It tells where to find the random gratuitous breast shot. But it's too little too late and the zombies suck too. All in all a boring zombie movie.

Friday Night Movies 58

La Llorona is a 1933 Mexican Horror movie that is based on the legend of the Wailing Woman. Greg bought it from some bootlegger at some convention. It has no subtitles and we are Spanishly challenged. Here's the summary from the IMDb.

In modern day Mexico, a man on the street is supernaturally killed after hearing the eerie sound of a wailing woman. We then arrive at the manor of an upper class family, who are celebrating their young son's birthday. A mysterious cloaked figure is eavesdropping on them, taking advantage of secret rooms and passages. Eventually, the intruder (who appears to be possesessed) kidnaps and attempts to murder the boy at a pagan altar using a sacrificial knife and stone. While this story unfolds, two flashbacks to the Elizabethan and Inquisition era are related, explaining the origins of the "wailing woman". In one, a woman with an illegitimate child has been abandoned by her lover. His formerly faithful friend forces him to a duel over this betrayal. The woman kills her baby and herself, and upon her death a wraith ascends skyward from her corpse. In the other story, an Indian woman has her baby taken from her by the authorities, and she descends into madness and suicide, with her spirit also leaving her body upon death. An ancient ring worn by the principals, as well as the knife and stone, are the bonds between the stories. Summary written by GoblinHairedGuy.

Short, 57 minutes of the original 73, we watched it with the speed turned up, yakking the while. It wasn't that bad. Nice big sets and props. No wrestlers but there was a guy in a mask and some secret passages in an old dark house. I have seen other uses of this legend in other entertainment media. Couldn't tell what you for sure. I'll bet you've heard of it before.

I had picked up the newly released US edition of Jackie Chan's Thunderbolt. I already had a crappy tape copy I made from a rental video at one of the Chinese video stores that used to dot the city. Most of them are gone now. I found a Chinese dvd at Cheapo but it was a pretty poor one. This new copy is pretty darn nice. Widescreen and good picture and color. Thunderbolt is Jackie's racing movie, with a heavy dosage of cops and robbers. Jackie and his father are high end car mechanics. They have a car shop and home made from cargo containers stacked in a U-shape with car bays in the center. They work with the police to catch illegal racers on the streets. One night they have an encounter with bad guy Cougar, played by Thorsten Nickel. He's not only an illegal street racer, he's an international drug dealer and all around scumbag with his blonde ponytail and leather clothes. Jackie catches him up, out driving him, and the police haul his ass in. His gang shoot up the cop shop to break him out. Many people get blasted, cops and crooks alike. Cougar wrecks Jackie's car shop, beats Jackie and his dad, and kidnaps Jackie's sisters. Jackie will race him in Japan or the girls will die. There's still alot of movie left and Jackie goes through some serious stuff getting to the race. It's a bit darker than the usual US movies he does, Jackie doesn't smile much here. Eventually they get to the last big race and guess who wins. Anita Yuen plays a reporter that falls for Jackie and wins him over even though she's rather annoying and all-gettin'-him-in-trouble. She's cute and so are Jackie's sisters. Most of the actors are ok with the exception of Thorsten, he's wonderfully bad, over acting and mugging all over the place, with his teeth and his hair. You really enjoy his defeat. The fights are fun, some of the stunts are pretty crazy. Thorsten uses a crane to pull one of the shipping containers out of Jackie's shop/home. Jackie's still in it, sleeping. Thorsten smashes it against the rest of the building, nearly killing Jackie's dad and sister. There's a great fight at a Pachinko Parlor. The racing is mostly pretty good, there are lots of crashes.

Anus Clenching Adventure

I had a colonoscopy yesterday. How unpleasant is that? Let me tell you. Pretty awful. Of course, I'm completely a big pussy when it comes to medical stuff.  This is something that you are supposed to get done when you are 50. I let it slide until I started having all the doctor visits in relation to my high blood pressure. I had to wait 6-7 weeks as there are only so many doctors working butt street at my clinic. After reading the handout sent by the Endoscopy department I had a couple of sleepless nights worrying about that. Anal tears, that just doesn't sound good, does it. One in a thousand. Not great odds. Mostly you don't die. You do need immediate surgery. Still that wasn't as worrysome as the no eating.

You can't eat anything the day before the procedure. Damn. You can drink clear liquids and pop and coffee but no milk or cloudy stuff. No solid food. I didn't like that very much but what came later was even better. You have to go buy two bottles of Fleet Phospho-Soda to clean you out. And I mean clean you out. I bought the Lemon Ginger flavour and it was awful. I had to chug down the three doses starting at 7 PM the night before. You take a tablespoon and 8 ounces of something to mix it in every ten minutes. It sure was awful tasting. I had to wash my mouth out with a Halls Cough Drop. It takes a while to work but the first results are explosive. Now I'm no stranger to explosive diarrhea. My past diet has included too many greasy dishes piles one upon another. But that usually doesn't last all night. I hadn't slept well tuesday night and now I was up all night again. I'd doze a bit then I'd be up again when the pressure got too great. In the wee hours of the morning there wasn't much solid matter left . Sperhauk likened it to pissing out of your ass. Truer words were never spoken. Three hours before you leave for the procedure you have to repeat the Fleet treatment one more time. It takes much less time to get that 24 plus ounces of liquid through your system. It's more like a liquid freight train, going down a steep hill, with no brakes and a drunken motorman who's passed out with his hand pushing the throttle wide open and his foot wedged in such a way that the dead man switch is still locked down.

As I was lying there about 6 AM shivering I was thinking about comedy. Pooping equals funny. And that's a universal truth here on planet earth. Every culture likes jokes about anything to do with the butt. The South Park guys careers have largely been built on the humour of something coming out of someone's ass. And occasionally in. I thought it would be kind of funny to arrive at the Endoscopy department with some surprises pasted to my butt. When they first see my butt there would be some weird things either side of my butt crack. I could make some joke about being cleaned out so well and not knowing I had eaten those things. There could be anything pasted to my butt with spirit gum. I thought of a Matchbox car, a pickle slice, maybe a coin, a piece of lego. Just takes a bit of imagination, and some spirit gum. Maybe add some chocolate. Yummm! Wait a minute, that's some kind of mixed message there. Very confusing.

I was telling Sperhauk about this concept when he was driving me to the clinic which was way across town in Saint Louis Park at the Meadowbrook Building of the Methodist Hospital. He dropped me off and went to get his oil changed. He'd come back in a while and pick me up. I got signed in and was taken back to the prep area. The undressing went fairly well. I had a hard time with the gown ties. I kept getting my hair caught in the strips of cloth. Finally I tied it in front of my face and pulled it over my head. The intervenous needle insertion didn't go so as good. The hurse couldn't find a good enough vein near my elbow and choose to use my right hand. She had some trouble and I looked down. Not so good. I nearly passed out, getting to that point where your vision tunnels and you stop most everything. The nurses yelled me back and wet toweled me to near normallacy. The nurse had hit a valve in the vein and it got irritated and swollen. Really fast. I had never heard of such a thing before. There was a bubble under my skin nearly 2 inches long and a half an inch high and wider. It's mostly gone this morning. There's a bit of what looks like a light bruise about 2 inches long and an inch wide. It's fading fast. The other hand got choosen as the third alternate and it went so smoothly I didn't notice hardly anything.

The procedure went well enough. I was pretty well sedated. I don't seem to remember much of that half hour or so. There was some pain as they poked about with their 5 foot probe. I wonder if people make alien jokes there. My discomfort was mostly in the area around my appendix scar. I was told by a doctor years ago that I have some discomfort there because I probably have an adhesion from my past surgery. Surgery could fix it, or I could loose some weight and live with it. I didn't get the surgery. You can see a monitor screen from where you are lying. I didn't see much of it. I don't care for that sort of thing at best. It's funny I can watch the goriest horror film but anything real gets me all creeped out. I am sure that's why I don't like the slasher type film very much. Who needs to be reminded that people are fuckin' shit up.

Then they roll you down to the prep area so you can get over the sedation and pass gas. Big long winded trumpets. There's some funny stuff there let me tell you. Those trumpet calls are like signals to the nurses, once they subside they come in and give you some juice. The doctor comes in after a while and he tells you the news. Mine was good. No polyps. No anal tears. After getting dressed I could leave.

Since we were right in the area we stopped at Half Price Books. I got a couple of Harry Potter books. I have over 60 books related to Harry Potter. When I got home, thanks to the help of Sperhauk, Yea, I had a sorrily missed cup of tea. With Milk. I had some Cheerios. Later I had some nice bbq pork sandwiches.

You aren't supposed to drive for 24 hours. You have to sign a paper saying you agree to this. My boss said he was driving later that night. A lady at work said her husband came home and cut the grass and was feelin' pretty damn poorly and was all pale and white lookin'. I took friday off, just in case. So I'm sittin' here dubbin' Lenny Henry episodes. I did that yesterday afternoon too. Shows from the 80's. I hadn't seen them in years. Still funny in spots.

Today I feel much better. Things are getting back to normal. I'm even thinking about going out and getting a burger from The Steak Knife, to celebrate, my ass being fine and all. Maybe not tomorrow but today. I don't eat that much greasey food anymore. The title came from a Rand Holmes comic. Harold Hedd #2.

Chilling Classics Disc 3

Haunts was first on the A side. May Britt is a confused lady living in a town with some strange murders going on. Her sissors get used in a murder so the local cop played by Aldo Ray is snooping around. More people get killed as the story unfolds. It's not a great movie or you probably would have heard about it. It's fairly well made but some scenes are too dark, too slow, or pointless. It's got Cameron Mitchell as May's creepy uncle. And you know he's never in much of anything good. She thinks he's the murderer. You can see some small pictures at this movie downwload site. Eventually the murder is caught and some more people die. I didn't really care. That's most of 40 cents wasted.

Christmas Evil shares the A side, and it was a bit better. I might have gotten 20 cents worth out of the side. In 1947 a young boy learns there is no Santa. His dad dresses up as Santa and his mom sneaks the kids down the stairs to see Santa unloading his bag. Rushed back up stairs the two excited boys talk in bed. The older claims that Santa is their dad. No, cries the disbelieving younger brother. He sneaks downstairs on his own and sees Santa feelin' up mom's nylon stocking covered leg. Santa's face is just inches inches from her crotch. Really, that seems like two tramatic episodes in one. The kid grows up and becomes a toy maker. It's a pretty crappy toy factory. Our boy is also a part time voyeur, spyin' on the neighbors, his mind flashing back to Naughty Santa and mommy caught in the act. He starts making a Santa costume. After lots of slow moving and fairly uninteresting scenes our guy slips off the edge of the raft of sanity and goes out dispensing toys to the good kids and death to the bad kids. Seems kind of harsh. What happened to that coal thing that was always getting mentioned when I was a kid. It's really gotten tough in some places. Eventually it all comes to a head and Santa flies off into the sky in his van with the sleigh painted ont he side. I have no idea what that was all about. And since it was the end of the movie I soon forgot it all. You can read more here and here.

Side B has The Driller Killer up first. New York Artist guy, played by the director, slowly goes crazy from the pressures of his life. He's got two annoying women in his apartment. One is his girlfriend and the other is her secret lesbian lover. They have a naked shower sequence. There's a crappy and noisey band downstairs, an art dealer who's buggin' him to finish some new work, and all of the filth on the street is really starting to bug him. Especially that human filth. All of these people become more and more annoying. He starts by killing derelicts, then drills holes in his friends. He does use a drill, so the movie lives up to it's name. Which is about all this horror classic by Abel Ferrara has to offer for me. You can see a body count here and a more serious review here. I just don't find this sort of movie that enjoyable. Ferrera directed Bad Lieutenant which wasn't too bad. Had Harvey Keitel, but I never thought it lived up to it's name. I thought he should have been much badder. He wasn't even Tony Soprano bad. I didn't get my full 40 cents worth again.

Horror Express is also known as Panic in the Trans-Siberian Train. That's a much better title. This isn't a great movie, but it's not totally awful. It's got Peter Cushing and Christoper Lee. They have an ancient frozen ape man in a box in the baggage car of a train. There's evil inside that frozen dude. It doesn't get released until he's thawed out. Then the killing starts. On a train. In a snowstorm. You don't see that every day. It's got Telly Savalas as a cossack. There's fighting and more killing. It's probably a good 23 cents worth there. Not counting tax.