PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Happy Halloween, Cakesniffers!

Halloween has gone for the year. I had a dorky Halloween. 23 kids. I usually make some nicer handout than just tossing the kid a candy bar. Maybe later they might remember that Halloween that they got that comic book or some sticker they got in trouble for. I put a Donald Duck comic in a comic bag. I found I had many duplicates when I went through my Disney comics early in the year.  I certainly didn't do a very good job of record keeping. I need to go through everything again but I don't know when that will be. Hell, I need to read some of it again. I had some old stickers. I mixed and matched sheets of stickers and trading card stickers and each pack got over a 100 stickers. I used to go through the clearance section at Target and places like that and buy packages of stickers to paste in zines and that sort of thing. I had a lot of that left over or never used. There were lots of duplicate trading cards stickers left over from buying packages and boxes of trading cards to collect. I have several binders somewhere with all these card sets. I'll have to dig them out and decide what to keep and what to let go. I have given out cards and stickers in packages of candy since 1990. It always a different mix and occasionally I find cheap toys or weird things to pass along. This year was no different and here was an new opportunity to pass it along crap I don't need to someone who might stick it where they shouldn't. Can't be bad. Win-win in my book. Toss in some small candy bars. Everybody likes candy. There are some Rolos left to take in to work tomorrow.

I left work early, needing to clean house and return a pillow and get some groceries and make dinner and clean some more and take the window out of the front door. Then some kids came and they weren't very dressed up. They were better costumed between 6 and 8 and then it dried up. I only got 23 kids and they were scattered out and once there were 7 in a group. Nothing I remember standing out in the costume area. The kids seemed to like the size of the package. One kid told me I rocked. That made me feel good. And I got rid of many square inches of stuff.

Been clearing out old paper stashes about the house, combining all the underground comic stuff together. I went through 8 boxes of clippings last weekend. For years I have used the 10 ream paper boxes that are so common on the American business landscape. Employees bring them home all the time and you see them when they move. We empty over 3500 cases of paper a year and we can't keep them in the building for more than a week or so. Luckily,  our group is the ones most likely to unload the boxes so I had a good steady supply to pack all the stuff I had pulled from magazines over the years. I put all these clips in various boxes and marked them "Clips - To Be Sorted". I used to call them my Andy Warhol boxes. He used to take incoming stuff and put it in boxes. It could be mail, magazines, artwork, books, just about anything. Sealed up and stored. He had some 160 boxes when he died. They were auctioned off a while ago. Since I was alive I just pitched a shitload (more than one man can carry) of paper this last two weeks. Filling up my dumpster to the top twice in a row. It was fun to look through all those boxes and find some fun stuff. I also found comics and all sorts of stuff that now has been sorted into smaller boxes that won't be so heavy to carry. I got a bunch of boxes that are 8 1/2 by 11 and about 12 inches tall. Nice for comics and magazines. Standing up or laying down. I have stuff in them both ways. They are only about 25 pounds when full and the 11 by 17 by 10 boxes are usually over 40 when packed with paper. I am thinking about getting older and weaker. Don't want any of the 50 pounders about.

Friday Night Movies 82

Tonight we watched Imprint, the unaired Masters of Horror episode, directed by Takeshi Miike. He likes violent, torture filled stories and this is no exception. I haven't seen many of his movies. I didn't like Audition at all, nor Ichi the Killer. Imprint was a mixed bag. I liked some scenes but didn't care for the torture stuff too much. Billy Drago plays a 19th century journalist travelling in Japan. He's looking for a whore he had fallen in love with years ago. Normally I like Billy, he's often a good villian, but here he sits poorly with me with all his armwavin' facetwistin' overactin'. And he looks like he just fell off the Brisco County set. He was the main villian in that short lived Bruce Campbell series from the early 90's. Oh, so long ago. He makes his way to Demon-Whore Island and the fun begins. He meets a whore with a disfigured face who tells him the woman he is looking for is dead. Billy whines the story out of her and the tale she tells involves poor people, abortion, murder, deformity, prostitution, torture, fetuses floating in a river and more murder. Sounds like 19th century Japan to me. It was one fucked up place, glad I wasn't living then. The abortion topic kept Showtime from running this as part of the series. People who watch less tv than me wouldn't have missed seeing this, I wouldn't have missed it, but I got to see it and didn't have to buy it. Works out pretty well, huh.

We watched the rest of Sin City Uncut, blah, blah, blah. Joe wanted to see The Big Fat Kill first. That's the part of the story with all the whores. The whores are in control of Old Town, keeping both the corrupt cops and organized crime at bay, running it their way. That's the part of Basin City where you can get all sorts of naughty entertainment. If you're lucky you'll get a blow job and not stabbed in the heart. World doesn't change much, huh. Best stay out of Old Town, and stay off Demon-Whore Island too, at least during the day. Dwight's tryst with Shellie is followed by a visit from Shellie's ex-boyfriend, crazy cop Jackie Boy. That starts a chain of events that leads to the big slaughter. There are a lot of whacky characters and lots of violence. More funny Frank Miller dialog and lots of whores. Whores with pistols, bows and arrows, knives, shotguns, Japanese swords, swaztika throwing stars, machines guns and more. And like the next story it's got one wild idea piled on another. Mostly it works, often it makes me laugh, occasionally it's ludicrous.

The Hard Goodbye is my favorite story. Mickey Rourke plays Marv, a wonderfully tragic figure bound for vengence and doom. He wakes from a night with the beautiful Goldie to find her dead in his bed. Cops are on the way, sirens blarring. Way too soon. Who's framin' Marv? He wants to know and the juggernaut starts rolling until most of the bad guys are dead. And what a monster Marv is with Mickey barely recognizable under the make up by Greg Nicotero of KNB. And Mickey does a great job as Marv. Here's Rodriguez on casting Mickey Rourke:

"Mickey I worked with on Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and when I looked at the book again I told Frank 'There's only one guy I know who can be Marv, and you're not going to get it from any of his other work.' Because when I told him 'Mickey Rourke' he said [doubtful] 'The guy from 9 1/2 Weeks? 'You have to sit down and meet with this guy, because you're not gonna get it from any of his work. It's only because I know him and what a tortured soul he is, that he's as close as we can get to Marv without hurting ourselves.' He almost steals the movie, actually…That's such an iconic look for that character, the angles Frank would draw. We tried to recreate that on an actual human and when they first did Mickey it didn't look quite right, and I said 'Hey, he's got a lot more character in his face than that. Look at my friend [character actor] Danny Trejo's face and model the creases after that!' So the next one had Danny Trejo's lifelines all over the face, but with the angularity that Marv has, because we know part of it is that look. It's supposed to be this monstrosity that couldn't even buy a woman to be with him. That was sort of the tragedy of the character, is that he's always had a face like that so people always assume he's a criminal. So he became a criminal." ... Robert Rodriguez

I think I like the theatrical version best. There's more coming next year when Sin City 2 comes out, followed by 3 in 2008. I thought the whole process in making the movie was almost as interesting as the movie. It really is the best of the CGI based movies, and some corny dialog isn't going to keep you from having a good time getting your vengence on. Take a ride with Marv and Hartigan. There's some killin' needs doin'.

Friday Night Movies 81

I have had a copy of the recut version of Sin City since it came out December 13, 2005. I hadn't gotten around to watching it. I liked the theatrical release well enough. The story doesn't lend itself to repeated viewings in a short time period, at least for me. Sperhauk had expressed an interest in seeing it. It's a two disc set with the original theatrical release and a ton of extras on one disc and the recut version on the second disc. Rodriguez really loads the stuff on to the discs. The first Sin City dvd was pretty bare bones but this is a big fatty boom batty. Here's a list from Amazon:

DVD Features:

• Available Subtitles: Spanish
• Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (DTS 5.1)
• Commentary by: Robert Rodriguez & Frank MillerUnknown Format,Robert Rodriguez & Quentin TarantinoUnknown Format
• Recut and extended theatrical release with over 20 minutes of additional footage- separated into four stories
• Original theatrical release including:
• All-new feature commentary with Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller
• All-new feature commentary with Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino
• An audio track featuring a recording of the Austin premiere audience reaction
• Exclusive never-before-seen extras:
• 15-minute film school with Robert Rodriguez
• The movie in high-speed green screen
• The Long Take: 17 uninterrupted minutes of Tarantino's segment
• Sin City Night at Antones -- filmmakers, cast and crew party
• 10-minute cooking school with Robert Rodriguez
• Bloopers
• Teaser & theatrical trailers
• A Hard Top With a Decent Engine: The cars of Sin City
• Making the Monsters: Special effects make-up
• Trench Coats & Fishnets: The costumes of Sin City
• Booze, Broads & Guns: The props of Sin City
• How it Went Down: Convincing Frank Miller to make the film
• Giving the Characters Life: Casting the film
• Special guest director: Quentin Tarantino
• Sin-Chroni-City interactive game
• Complete Sin City Graphic Novel - The Hard Goodbye

Here's what's added to the Recut version, according to a guy at Amazon:

What's New in the Extended Version?
"The Customer Is Always Right" (the opening sequence with Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton) has no new footage, but now goes straight into the one-minute epilogue with Hartnett and Alexis Bledel that closed the theatrical cut. "The Hard Goodbye" (with Mickey Rourke as "Marv" ) has two new sequences totaling about two minutes: Marv encounters his mother and finds his gun, and talks to Weevil in the club. In "The Big Fat Kill" (with Clive Owen and Benicio Del Toro), some short dialogue is restored, along with another wicked slice by Miho (Devon Aoki)--about a minute total. "That Yellow Bastard" (with Bruce Willis and Jessica Alba) has about 3.5 new minutes: there are more visitors to Hartigan's hospital bed, including his wife and a nurse; Carla Gugino's Lucille character comes to assist Hartigan when he wants to get out of jail (probably the best addition); and Mr. Shlubb and Mr. Klump have some more lines. --David Horiuchi

The box and marketing mentioned over twenty minutes of new stuff but you can see the new scenes add up to about 6.5 minutes. Mike was right when we were trying to guess what was new in That Yellow Bastard. "Not much, but those credits at the end of the story are pretty long." Each story has long credits and that is what makes up the remaining two thirds of the 20 minutes. That's nearly a 300 percent lie. Some one needs to have their nuts kicked. I vote for marketing people. Sperhauk tells me that Lucas is putting out Star Wars in a 30th Anniversary box next year. Frankenstein and Dracula came out with 75th Anniversary editions with some slight bit of new material. Repackage, resell, revenge. And that's what's going on in Sin City. Just with more dead bodies.

The theatrical film is broken up and presented as individual stories like the original comic presentation. It's those Frank Miller comics that I don't care for. I don't like Miller's art in those comics. I tried reading them nearly ten years ago, sitting around the Dinkytown DreamHaven on quiet sunday afternoons, but I couldn't get interested in the story because I don't care for the art. It was the same way with Gaiman's The Sandman comic. People just raved about it but the first few issues I looked at sure left me cold. I didn't like the art and couldn't get interested. I don't know who drew The Sandman and I don't care enough to look it up at some Neil site. Anyway, I'm complaining about Frank Miller. I don't care for the art which luckily the movie makes more interesting to watch. Miller's dialog is a problem too. It's his style here, I understand that, but it's turning people off. The stories are simple, good guy bad guy, lots of violence. People are shot, stabbed and clubbed, often and repeatedly. A guy gets his weiner shot off and that's no Oscar Meyer. They aren't happy stories, but they got style, and weiners gettin' shot off. The first story of the recut version is That Yellow Bastard with Bruce Willis as a battle worn cop who's caught up to the murderer rapist son of a Senator. Miller's stories seem to take place in some nebulous 50's USA where powerful politicians are above the law, especially in the corrupt Basin City. It worked better in the recent Batman film. That minor point aside Bruce becomes a relentless killing machine who lets nothing stop him in his goal of killing that yellow bastard, who is literally yellow in this near black and white film. The second story was a brief sketch to fill out the book, I guess. Josh Harnet is a hired killer. He kills a woman, then rides an elevator. It's the piece that Rodriguez did before he had gotten Frank Miller's permission to make the film. Miller would say yes of course and get to co-direct the film. He's on one of those commentaries, as is the guest director Quentin T. I am more curious about the latter. He's got a great bunch of actors and the performances are really good. After watching those two segments we opted to wait until next week to go on. I don't know what that means for sure.

The Guard from Underground is Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 1992 film about a huge, tall but thin, sumo wrestler who kills people.  There's not much else going on. He, like Hartigan in the previous film, has been let out of incarceration because he is crazy. It's the same the world over in movies, once you acknowledge that you're crazy the health care professionals often let you go. I know, it's crazy, but there you go. A young woman arrives at her new job in Department 12 at the Akebono Company. She's an art consultant and the new department is in the business of buying and selling art treasures. The killing starts off slowly when newly hired sumo guy kills another security guard at the Akebono Company. He's a security guard too. Ironic, huh. Everyone comments on his size. We did too, finally coming to the conclusion that not all sumo wrestlers are massive. I think those are the showy ones. And really, when you are thinking of sumo wrestlers, it's the bigger the better. You want to see a 400 pound (181 kilo) man's quivering ass cheeks while they are grunting each other out of the ring. Luckily, there was none of that. Not a bad film, it was slow to catch my attention, but still just a crazy guy killing people in brutal ways. One woman is crushed in a locker. There seemed to be too much blood. I didn't care for the people in the story, they were barely more interesting than they were pathetic, it didn't get me rooting for them. It fact we were all rooting for the killing of the guy who was creepy and sexually harrassing the new gal. She just ran away when he dropped his pants in the break room. I don't know what he was attempting to do but he had just snapped on a rubber gloove. She didn't report it and a male co-worker, who knew what the creepy guy was up to, just sat on his hands like a useless co-worker you don't mind getting brutally murdered by a psychopath. At the end of the night of carnage there is a lesson to be learned. Hire a security company that screen's their security guards better. We figured they would make money off of the lawsuit but are the Japanese litigious like here. Or would they just roll over and take it in the pooper?

Friday Night Movies 80

Joe vetoed Dust Devil - the Final Cut. It's out now, in a three disc set. It's a very good movie but one filled with darkness and blood. Beware! Joe didn't feel he wanted to see it again. I veto once in a while, there are just some movies that I don't want to see. We are a democratic group, we watch crap, but mostly willingly. I had picked up a copy of Dominion - Prequel to The Exorcist and we watched that. It's an interesting item, not for the movie but for the story behind the film directed by Paul Schrader. He shot the film and the studio was unhappy. Schrader was fired and Reny Harlan came in and reshot the film. It didn't do well when released. Schrader was let finish his version and here it is on dvd. I am not a Schrader fan. I like one scene from Cat People. I didn't like this too much. I remember liking the Harlan version better. It was a long two hours with Father Merrin and his journey of faith. Glad I don't have to take a journey of faith. This version of the demon/devil was pretty poor. Not very scarey. It's partly the approach to the story. Schrader is more laid back than Harlan, who mostly makes action movies or thrillers. I might like it more once I hear the commentary.

Jenifer is Dario Argento's episode of Masters Of Horror. It's a series on Showtime. Each episode gets it's own dvd. Dario's story starts as a comic by Bruce Jones and Berni Wrightson from an issue of Creepy. I probably read that story but I don't have any recollection of it. Steven Weber stars in and wrote the teleplay. He's a cop who saves a bedraggled blonde from a man who is trying to chop her head with a meat cleaver. Cleaver guy is killed and Steve checks out Jenifer. Her eyes are big and black. Her mouth is a chainsaw accident with a swirl of jagged pointy teeth. Damn, that bitch is fucked up. More cops come and Jenifer is taken to a mental institution where you see her in the shower. She's got a nice body and they keep showing that off. Steve can't get her out of his mind. It's like he's obsessed by her. He checks her out of the mental institution and brings her home to the house he shares with his wife and son. Bad move Steve, you should have gotten rid of her when she savaged and ate your cat. Now your wife and kid are gone is gone. Smartest and luckiest people in the movie. More off screen killings occur. KNB provides the gorey corpses for Steve to find. There's a whole lot of sex on screen. Turns out Jenifer is a naughty monster. It just gets worse and worse and ends with Steve taking Jenifer into the woods to whack her. And the cycle starts all over again with the hunter who rescues Jenifer from the crazy Steve. It's a slight piece, not too original, but well made. It would be nice if they issued the series in a lower priced package. 10 bucks for a 58 minute movie is a bit steep, even with all the extras. None of us are rushing out to pick them up. John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns was a much better story and worth the ten spot.

A pair of loaners

Sperhauk lent me a copy of Fando and Lis. It's a 1968 movie by Alejandro Jodorowsky. I think the early history of the movie is more interesting than the film. It premiered at the Acapulco Film Festival and was accepted very poorly. People yelled at the screen, fights broke out, and mass evacuations occured. People didn't go home. They stayed out front of the theater working up their anger. They rioted and Jodorowsky had to escape in his limo. When it opened in Mexico City later, more people rioted. The film eventually got banned in Mexico. It's like the riots at the premiere of

Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring
1913

On May 29, 1913, in Paris, Les Ballets Russes stages the first ballet performance of The Rite of Spring (Le Sacré du Printemps,) with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky. The intensely rhythmic score and primitive scenario -- a setting of scenes from pagan Russia -- shock audiences more accustomed to the demure conventions of classical ballet. The complex music and violent dance steps depicting fertility rites first draw catcalls and whistles from the crowd, and are soon followed by shouts and fistfights in the aisles. The unrest in the audience escalates into a riot.

The Paris police arrive by intermission, but they restore only limited order. Chaos reigns for the remainder of the performance. Nijinsky and Stravinsky are despondent. However, Sergei Diaghilev, the director of Les Ballets Russes, comments that the scandal was "just what I wanted."

The ballet completes its run of six performances amid controversy, but no further disruption. Both Stravinsky and Nijinsky continue to work, but neither creates pieces in this percussive and intense style again. In later years, The Rite of Spring is regarded as a path-breaking 20th century masterpiece. The work is often heard in concert and the ballet is set by many prominent choreographers. After extensive research, Nijinsky's original setting is reconstructed and presented by the Joffrey Ballet in 1988.

I like art riots. I wouldn't riot over F&L, it's certainly no path-breaking 20th century masterpiece, or The Rite of Spring. I don't need to see the former again and I might even have a copy of the latter. I might have been more impressed with this movie 30 years ago, and more patient. Now I don't care much for it, life is too short, much better to watch something I like more. I feel no connection to the story or the characters. There isn't that much story, and it's not a very nice one. In the recent Metabarons comic Jodorowsky had too much story. You could not shut those robots up. If you need some allegorical shit AJ is the man to go to. There was an interesting documentary about Jodorowsky on the disc. The first hour was pretty good. Jean "Moebius" Giraud, the comic artist, was one of the people interviewed. They have collaborated on several comic books. I always enjoyed the art of Moebius. I even like Lt. Blueberry, the western comic he does under his own name.

Greg lent me a copy of I Am A Sex Addict. This is a personal documentary by and about Caveh Zahedi. He was addicted to prostitutes back in his mid twenties. It's an entertaining piece, with a clear defined story, and a good sense of humor. He was kind of stupid when he was younger and he doesn't mind letting you know the mistakes he made. There's therapy involved. Now that I've seen it I don't think I'd go buy one for me to have but I'm glad I saw it.

Friday Night Movies 79

Bandh Darwaza is often called the Bollywood version of Dracula. It's got a vampire that's for sure. He's pretty amazing, all yelly and smashing through walls, with his red eyes and pointy white teeth. That's him there. What a looker! Bandh Darwaza or The Closed Door is out in a two disc set with another Ramsey Brothers movie, Purana Mandir, part of a series of International Horror dvds from Mondo Macabro. Here's a guy from the IMDb who liked it: I love the movie, 28 October 2001 Author: Enosh Sunny ([email protected]) from New York, United States. It is one of the best movies by ramsay's. Nobody has ever been so good in this field as is Ramsay. The best maker of horror movies. He's the best. The presentation of the movies is superb and i really like the imaginations which he brings up as his creations.

The story is pretty typical. The wife of a childless couple takes the advice of a creepy lady and secretly goes to see the Master of the evil cult that lives on Black Mountain. The wife meets with the Master and a deal is struck. She must give up her first born female child. The Master impregnates her himself. Horrified at what she's done the wife does not tell the husband anything. When her first child is a daughter the wife refuses to give the kid up. She's killed by creepy lady who runs off with the kid. The husband, a local rich land owner, follows and kills the Master. He retieves his daughter and as the movie moves forward in time the daughter has grown up and is now in love with Kumar. He has eyes for some cuter gal and spurns her. She does stupid things and creepy gal reunites her with the somewhat restored cult. I know, it seems to go on forever. It's a long movie, 2 hours and 25 minutes, with many scenes of tedium or singing. There aren't the big production numbers that Bollywood movies are known for, but there is a bit of gore and a couple of scenes with gals in bathing suits. You can't have nudity or too much sex in Bollywood movies. I was speculating on an underground Indian porn scene. I know there's one in Japan. There's a ton of places for Indian porn on the internet. But there's no nudity here, just endless talking and the great vampire. He returns in the later part of the movie and rages his way from set to set. He's pretty fun to watch but he doesn't make up for a long slow movie with the goofiest score. It's all over the place. That musical hodge podge provided some entertainment value, and certainly some parts of the movie were comical in execution. I laughed out loud some. Greg kept complaining that it was awful, but he had bought the dvd and needed to work that out of his system in his own way. I doubt I'd buy a copy myself, so many other movies and tv shows are higher up my ethereal list, but I might dub one.

I do have my own copy of The Hebrew Hammer. I saw it on the Comedy Central a while ago and bought it when it came out on dvd. It's directed by Jonathan Kesselman, who also wrote it. His commentary is one of two that I know of that has features the director and his mom. Do you know the other? It's my favorite Adam Goldberg movie. He plays Mordechai Jefferson Carver or as he's called in The Chood, The Hebrew Hammer. HH is a private eye, a jewish Shaft in this blaxploitation parody, who dives a pimped out blue caddy with a Star of David representin' in the back window. Andy Dick plays Damian, the evil son of Santa, who is bent on detroying Hanukkak and takin' out Kwanzaa. He wants a one holiday season. Melvin Van Peebles is the head of the KLF. I bet you can figure that one out. Judy Greer plays Esther who is sent to recruit Morty to the JJL. I don't remember what that one was. Peter Coyote is her father and head of Security at the JJL. He's an eyepatch wearin' guy who likes a bit of a nosh. There's one joke after another as Damian carries out his evil plans and Morty tries to stop them. Most are good,  but a few, eh, not so good. I laughed out loud several times, but I like a bit of rudeness. There are so many sight gags it takes multiple viewings to catch them. Morty and Esther chase down Damian and throw a beating his way. They fall in love, with way more Hammer skin than we need, and the movie has a happy ending. Dinner with mom, Nora Dunn, and a nice bit of guilt for dessert. Oy.

Here are two favorite things. Red Cross stamps and butts. These Fin stamps are Semi-Postal stamps. The two numbers on the stamps are the postage rate (larger#) and the surcharge (smaller#) collected for a charity. This set was issued May 5, 1949 and collected money for the Red Cross. Semi-Postals are very common most other places than the USA. Very big in Europe where many countries have issued a lot of Semi-Postals and are still issuing them today. I don't normally collect Finland but at one time I was picking up interesting sets at shops. This was a set too fun to pass up. I like the artwork and the colors. I figured when I go through all my stamps I'll save the ones like this that are fun to look at, or have Red Crosses on them.