PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 205

Beyond The Fog is the title of the first movie we watched tonight. It's a 1972 British Horror movie in the Hammer tradition. There's some murder and nudity in this story of family loyalty and madness. Mostly of the nudity is in the first third, the murder just keeps on and on like the Energizer Bunny. Stab stab stab. Some fishermen land on a desolate island with a run down lighthouse. They find some dead naked people and one live naked girl. American teens on holiday. The naked girl stabs the older fisherman. Ow ow ow. Then the second fisherman knocks her out. We meet a cop and the doctor who's taking care of naked girl. She's gotten dressed but slipped into a catatonic state from the Horror of Snape Island. That's one of the other alternate titles for the movie along with Tower of Evil. There's a pretty nice model of the island with it's rocks and towering lighthouse. The set of the building is pretty good too. The rocks are oddly shaped. You can see some pics and a synopsis here and the trailer on YouTube. They pack a lot of movie in a short 89 minutes. One sad or crazy thing unfolds every few minutes. I was hoping for more nudity but there's plenty of weird story that pops up to keep your interest engaged, at least for me. Hardly anyone survives the charnal house of Snape Island. The filming is pretty good and often there's a cool shot or something neat to look at. The dialog isn't the best but it's often wonderful. The characters are a mixed lot. It's easy to dislike some of them. I couldn't count the times I was thinkin', "That guy needs a stabbin'." The gore effects were mixed. The make up wasn't much better. The makeup job on the murderer was pretty sad. Still they burned that guy up pretty solid. That's the movie, a pretty solid piece of entertainment for the horror crowd. Nice to see TCM is running the odd little gem like this. Saves me buying a copy.

Ever imagined Jackie Chan and Jet Li in a movie together. Now you don't have to waste your precious gray matter on that, there is one. I picked up a copy of The Forbidden Kingdom and brought that. I sure enjoyed it, but I've got a big man crush on Jackie. The story is a re-telling of the very popular Chinese Monkey King story. The evil guy traps the Monkey King and turns him into stone. He's remains a statue until someone returns the fancy staff to him. It's in San Francisco 500 years in the future. That's like last year for me and you. Michael Angarano plays a kid who's fascinated with Kung Fu movies. He buys bootleg Kung Fu movies from an old Chinese guy in Chinatown. I didn't recognize Jackie for several minutes. He has the staff in the back of his shop. Michael is tossed back into the past and his new adventure as a chosen one kind of guy. There are the traditional training scenes and now Jackie is the drunken master. It's all come full circle. I think that's some Zen shit right there. There's lots of fighting and plenty of good kung fu. There's a pretty young girl who travels with the good guys. There's a pretty young girl with long white hair who's with the bad guys. There are several references to other Chinese movies. There's some comedy and lots of tragedy. It's an entertaining movie with a happy ending. I always like those. Rob Minkoff is the director and he's got a short but interesting filmography. Two Roger Rabbit animed shorts, Tummy Trouble and Roller Coaster Rabbit. Follow that with The Lion King, Stuart Little and Stuart Little 2, then The Haunted Mansion. The last movie was in 2003, this was his first movie since. TFK is a pretty big step up from THM, which maybe his weakest. I thought it was entertaining, but the combination of Jackie and Jet, coupled with the wonderful Chinese country side, man, that's some major entertainment. So what if the treak through the desert was sort of slow. It's the Gobi Desert. It's cool to look at. And really, what is the best way to experience the desert? ON TV. Hard to get a heat stroke on Sperhauk's couch in the middle of the Minnesota winter.

LEGOtensive Weekend Madness

It's damn cold and I would have stayed in and watched movies, read, or played with LEGO but all of the minor bit of socializing that I do hit on the same weekend. And most of that was related to the LEGO. Really the LEGOtensive weekend started thursday when I scored 8 grab bags at the LEGO Imagination Center. I stopped on the way home. Just on the spur of the moment. Wasn't planning to. It always good to go in to check out the Pick-A-Brick stock. Today there were 2x2 yellow tiles and black goblets. Now everything I make will have some of each of those in the build. Gotta use them parts now that I got them.

I ran into Dave Savage there with his two boys. His littlest guy held up the Castle Battle Pack and excitedly announced "I'm getting this!" He's a fun little guy. Very enthusiastic. I enjoyed his company at the TCBX last October. His older brother said they had built 4 castles recently. Nice. Dave was getting a bunch of bags. Some he was going to use for the LEGO group he has for the kids at his church. Nice. There were a lot of grab bags, more than normal. I posted they were there for the LUG. They go fast and I don't see them often.

I had just finished my Chinese Temple. I still haven't taken pics yet. Since I had cleared most of the building stocks tubs away it was easy to clear the building table for sorting. I counted the pieces in the grab bags while I watched episode after episode of William Tell. I picked up a three disc set of the one season series from 1958. It's only 30 of the 39 episodes of this British tv show starring Conrad Phillips as William Tell. It's produced by Ralph Smart who would later produce the Danger Man/ Secret Agent series. It was ok. I'm sure that I saw it as a kid but I could not remember anything about it. I sort of recognized the Austrian governor played by Willoughby Goddard. He's an awful guy. Tell leads the Swiss resistance. The resistance kills a lot of Austrian soldiers. Not a great job to be in. As I'm sorting I start to think William Tell would be a good LEGO theme. Got the crossbows already. William Tell was a great shot with the crossbow. At least in this series. He does shot the apple off his kids head in one episode.

After I sorted out the 8 bags I figured I had more than 3100 pieces from the bags. There were even minifigs in the mix. Usually you don't get many minifigs. This batch had a lot of red legs, tool rings, and many hand trucks with no wheels. I actually don't mind sorting pieces. It's sort of soothing and you can look at some part which might spark a use for it.

Friday I took the afternoon off of work and planned my afternoon. I made the mistake of stopping in at the LIC. Maybe there would be some bags left. Yep. I got the last three but two. I ran into Aaron there. He wanted some Pick-A-Brick stuff and was eyeing the last two bags when I left. Since I had more bags to sort that put my whole afternoon off. Those three bags yielded up another 1400 pieces. Many of them were mighty small.

After supper it was Friday Night Movie night and saturday morning I was out again in the 11 below zero weather to get a haircut. Damn it's cold and the wind is sharp and fierce. Glad I had my hoodie and two pair of socks. Gotta keep the top and bottom of your body warm. After lunch it was off to Brian's for the TCLUG meeting. 25 miles from my house.

There were some new sets to look at. The new Pirate ship. The Medival Market Place, both new Indiana Jones planes, lots of little cars, BrickMaster bonus sets, a couple of Star Wars. There's a shit load of stuff. We also had a chance to open the box for the huge Castle Chess set. It's an amazing bit of packaging. You can actually build the chess set and the storage box will hold it in place while it sits where ever it's going to sit. Besides Brian, there were Lonn, Erik, Gary, Tim, Jamie, and a new guy named Jason in the house. Lonn passed along a huge grocery bag full of Mega Bloks he didn't want any more. Mostly Dragon set parts but there were some Tyco parts mixed in there. I have a bunch of Tyco. They tried to get in on LEGO's brickbiz back in the mid 80's. Just part of their plan for world domination. About 10 years ago they were bought out by Mattel. They were the third biggest toy company in the US. I guess they failed. I still have some of their castle sets and lots of bulk bricks. They sort of work with LEGO. The bricks aren't exactly the same size. No matter. I have them seperated out. Someday I'd like to build a big castle out of them. Someday.

I headed for home about 5:30 pm. I made a quick stop at the Cub Foods. I needed pop and something for supper. I had finished William Tell on my friday afternoon off. I went searching for something to watch. I settled on The Thin Man series. They always make me smile and the mysteries are ok. I watched the first two films and went to bed early, 10 pm, but I was up again at 4:30 am. Couldn't sleep. Happens. Since I had only watched 1/3 of the six movie set I plowed ahead on that. Even though the movies get to be more comedic with the passing of time I don't think they get much worse. It's still a fun series to re-watch. At least for me.

About 9 am I crashed and slept til noon. After lunch I packed up the car with my Chinese Temple, a big box of ZNAP sets, and a grocery bag with snacks and stuff to show off. It wasn't as cold as it had been but it was still cold. Nice that library where we meet has indoor parking.

The meeting had Erik, Nathan, Roy, Alice, Dylan, Tom, Matt, Max, Gary, and me in attendance. The usual yakkin' occured. Some new stuff was shown off. Snacks were eatin'. Deals were made. Plots were hatched. Business discussed. Some went for Pizza afterward. After that I went home and watched the rest of the Thin Man series, sorted a bit and blogged a bit. Now it's late and I need to hit the hay. Work tomorrow. Yea! I need the rest.

Friday Night Movies 204

Dario Argento isn't a director whose films I seek out. I just don't care much for the content of many of his films. Mother of Tears was slightly better than the average but still had those kind of glitches that make Dario Dario. I acknowledge his unique style but it does not always work for me. He's also heavy on gore, some of which is so poorly handled that it's laughable, some of which is just unpleasant. If a movie is making my life less pleasant, it's going to score lower on the entertainment scale than a movie that brings me joy. I wouldn't score Mother of Tears very high and it seems that even Dario's fans don't care for it as much as the first two in the series. It scores a 5.5 on the IMDb, while the first two score a 7.3 and a 6.7. Susperia (1977) and Inferno (1980) are the first two films in the series. The third one came out 31 years later. People often say it's not the old Dario they like. D'uh. The trilogy is the story of three witches. They were evil and like killing people. But every super villian has their kryptonite. Young twenty something girls can kill them with pointed sticks and fire. Thankfully there are tons of young girls in the movie business to take care of the evil bitches. Jessica Harper plays the waif girl that brings the first witch down. Irene Miracle does the honors in the second and Dario's daughter Asia Argento offs the last mother in the third film. In MOT a coffin filled with evil is unearthed in a church yard. There's an urn chained to it. There are crosses chained to the two boxes. You'd think that would be some sort of clue. But they open it. There's a corpse in the coffin and inside the urn are some small statues and a piece of red cloth with runes on it. Turns out that red cloth is most of a dress from ancient times. It's packed with evil and short enough to leave the ass of the last mother hanging out for our perusal. There's a fair bit of nudity but none of it is really very sexy. Even Asia has a brief nude shower scene. Is it creepy that it's her dad filming her? I can't make up my mind. Mind you she's the kind of gal who seems to forget to wear clothes in her movies and photo shoots. A lot. The third mother, who's supposed to be the most beautiful of the three witches, has some pretty large and pretty fake boobies. And by pretty I don't mean attractive. The red dress and the three statues are the power up for her evilness and she soon attracts a gang of evil witch bitches from all over the world. They arrive, in their skanky outfits and make-up, and Rome goes nuts. People are killing themselves left and right. People are killing each other in the streets. Oh, there's a monkey in there too. I think it's part of the evilness that's going on. After some gruesome murders and torture scenes the evil witch is skewered by a huge pointy part of the building. I laughed. She was an evil bitch. 

I laughed even harder at Gramma's Boy and I'd already seen it 3 or 4 times. Allen Covert is a video game tester who's tossed out of his apartment when it's discovered that his room mate has been spending the rent money on Filipino Hookers. A good reason not to have room mates. After a disasterous night at his pal Jeff's house he winds up bunking at grandma's. She had three room mates but one just moved to heaven. Doris Roberts plays gramma and Shirley Knight and Shirley Jones play the room mates. They are a fun bunch, makers of many laughs. Linda Cardellini plays the romantic interest for our hero. She was in Freaks and Geeks and played Velma in the Scooby-Do movies. I really like Freaks and Geeks. Nick Swardson, who's also a standup comic, plays Jeff. He's wonderfully scarcastic and droll. My absolute favorite character in the movie is Allen's pot dealer, Dante, played by Peter Dante. He's a hoot. When Allen goes over there to score a bag we get a long shot of Dante's manass. He just didn't notice he was naked. Distracted I guess. There's a guy in a witch doctor outfit on the couch in the basement where they hang out. Dante met Dr. Shakalu in Pamona. Dr. Shakalu is going to hook Dante up with a lion. Dante wants the lion to protect his shit. Allen asks him if he can't just get a dog. Dante reasons that anyone can get past a dog but no one fucks with a lion. I had to agree that was true. There's a lot of swearing in this film. I always like good swearing. The movie moves along at a pretty rapid rate. There's a lot of really funny dialog and most of the jokes are a-ok. Some really tickled my funny bone. There's even a monkey. Dr. Shakala is going to hook Dante up with a monkey and Mr. Lee Ho is going to teach it Taekwon-Do. It's good natured and everyone looks like their having a great time. It appeals to many types of veiwers, it's part stoner comedy, video game comedy, romantic comedy, and old people comedy. It's gets a slightly surprising 7.0 on the IMDb. There's a happy ending and I always like that. It's a good addition to anyone's comedy collection.

Science Fiction Sunday 27

 

I watched the two Universal Soldier movies today. I like Jean-Claude Van Damme in some movies and I always liked these. Not any great shakes they provide a bit of mindless action and pathos. In the first movie a super secret military group takes some dead soldiers from the battlefield in Vietnam and 25 years later finally has the prototype Universal Soldiers ready to field test. The first test are fine, but then a problem developes. And after all that work.

Even though the Uni-sol's are dead humans they are supposed to be a clean slate when it comes to their new life. Their brains wiped clean. But you know how tricky our brains are. The Uni-sol's have no emotion to get in their way. All their pain receptors have been shut down. Like the Energizer bunny they just on going and going and going. Pick up the wounded, slap them on ice, and revive them later.

The nosy reporter sneaks into the staging area of the latest Uni-sol mission. In fact she's the reason that things go bad. When spotted she tries to run away with the cameraman but they get caught. Dolph shoots the cameraman while experiencing flashbacks of Vietnam. It gets worse then. Jean-Claude gets flashbacks of the same experience and in his mind the reporter become the girl in Vietnam he didn't save 25 years ago. Soon J-C's on the run with the reporter and Dolph is slipping into his own fantasy world where everyone has to die. First it's the Colonel, played by veteran character actor Ed O'Ross, then the technicians get picked off. Soon everyone around Dolph is dead and it's him and Jean-Claude fighting it out on J-C's parents family farm. The reporter is still with him. He might have married her. In the second film he has a daughter but his wife has died.

The Uni-sol program is now legit but in comes the government money bag handler and closes the place down. Jean-Claude works there training the new generation of super fighting men and women. SETH the AI computer with the glowing blue eye decides that he needs to protect the program. He activates the Uni-sol's and sends them out to kill everyone. Isn't that always the first thing an AI does when it gains power. Kill the Humans! Like that's gonna help.

Jean-Claude kicks the ass of the new kids on the block. SETH needs to get a secret code to stop the auto shut down in 8 hours. Jean-Claude has the code. What to do? SETH implants himself into Michael Jai White and goes lookin' for Jean-Claude. You know how that's going to go from looking at the box. The daughter is saved and there's even a reporter who falls under Jean-Claude's spell.

The first in the series was directed by Roland Emmerich and it's better than it's sequel. It looks like Roland's working on a remake of Fantastic Voyage. I'm not sure why. US gets a 5.5 on the IMDb and it's probably as good as it gets. The second movie only gets a 3.2 and that's probably fair too. There are two more sequels and another in the works. They score even lower and I haven't seen them as far as I remember. I could easily have blocked some crap like that out of my mind and until I get my seen movies database up to date I'll just pretend that I haven't. They don't have Jean-Claude in them, so who cares.

Cleanin' Up The Death Star

 

That's Ralph. He's got a job running the floor cleaning machine on flight deck of the new Death Star. It's the first of it's kind. Ralph thinks the pay isn't the best but there's lots of over time. He's heard that Darth Vader has come aboard. More OT for him.

   

Most of the parts come from one of my favorite City sets 6649 Street Sweeper. It came out in 1995 and last year they brought out a new version with a grumpy guy running the machine. I prefer the old version. It just looks friendlier.

 

Friday Night Movies 203

Netflix regurgitated up a copy of Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu, which here in the USA is called Tokyo Gore Police. It's the future and the police have been privatized. There's a big corporation making a better life for the citizens of Japan. You know that's going to go badly. Our heroine is a troubled gal who's police dad was murdered in front of her. She's still troubled by that fatefull day. She's a cutter too. We see too much of that even though it looks pretty fake. This movie really tries to live up to the gore part of it's name. There's plenty of police action, but you hardly know you're in Tokyo. The police look so cute in their whacky future highly stylized samurai inspired uniforms. Wait, cute isn't the right word. Stupid. That's the right word. It's a movie long on style and short on entertaining story. I can't stay interested in scene after scene of gore effects very long. Some are good but there's nothing to make me care for these people. The director is a makeup and effects guy who worked on some other Japanese movies where people have machines and other organic oddities merged into their bodies. It's a sub-genre with quite a few films in it and I can't think of one that would get into my top 100 films. I wouldn't recommend this film to hardly anyone but some people would like the gore and there is a story of police corruption in the name of the great god's of greed and power. Vengence and multiple decapitations would get a good rating from some on the IMDb. And the guy with the two foot penis that shoots bolts of energy that kill is something you don't see in the movies that often. There are enough weird things to get some people all crazy here. And that's crazy on both sides of any fence, but it's not going to be a movie I would need to watch again. You can see some video clips and the tv commercials that run through the movie here. They occasionally made us laugh. Robocop did the same thing but put a better movie around the ads.

Some nice guys lent us a copy of Ghost Rider. It's Nic Cage as the Marvel character Johnny Blaze. At 17 he's a motorcycle stunt guy. Him and his dad have a show on the midway of a carnival. Johnny sees a letter that says his dad's got cancer. Johnny makes a contract with the Devil to save his dad.  The Devil, played by an Emperor Palpatine looking Peter Fonda, tells Johnny he has to abandon his old life. Oh, that Devil. Desperate to save his dad he agrees. Don't do it Johnny. Dad's cured. Yea!! Dad dies in a jump right away. Darn that devil. Johnny runs away, leaving his favorite girl. Years later they run into each other. Except now she's played by Eva Mendes. She's a tv reporter and Johnny is still a motorcycle stuntman. But he's the best. He can't seem to get hurt, no matter how hard he falls. The Devil's son is hankering for more power and he doesn't want to wait until the end of days to take over. Who would? That seems a long way away. The Devil turns Johnny into the Ghost Rider, the Devil's Bounty Hunter. His body turns into a flaming skeleton. Don't worry he's got his pants on and a nice leather jacket. His bike turns into a monster machine that leaves a trail of devastation and fire. He's got a magical shotgun and a magical flaming chain. There are some good effects. The dialog is a mixed bag as are the characters. I'm not sure I like Nic Cage's hair cut. Mostly the movie was entertaining and there was usually something to look at. This was the longer version which clocks in at 123 minutes. That's nine extra minutes but it sure went by faster than the previous movie. It didn't seem to do so well when it came out. It's got it's own style and I enjoyed the effects and the action. Nothing outstanding just fun entertainment. And I almost always like Nic Cage. I'd just rather watch him in something like National Treasure. I should throw Face/Off on the player soon. He was very entertaining in that. There's a version of Ghost Rider in the Sky at the end of the movie. I always liked that song. You can see some versions at YouTube. Here are the ones I liked. Vaughn Monroe, Duane Eddy, Neil Levine on the Lawrence Welk Show, the movie version. There are other versions by Johnny Cash and A pretty good one by Frankie Laine.

Trip To Market

 

I started this a while back but didn't get finished until the Medieval Market Place hit the LEGO Imagination Center and I got my cows. The chicken design came from there. It only has 1 chicken, rooster and duck. I made more chickens with parts I had but quickly ran out of the white 1x1 brick with studs on all four sides. The set also comes with a complete turkey.

   

It's a trip to maerket for John the Cooper. He's got some furniture to deliver and some some barrels and tubs to sell. You can see more pics over at MOCpages.

Science Fiction Sunday 26

I actually watched a couple of science fiction films this morning. Still working out of the w-z box. First up with tea was Zarkorr! The Invader. It's a 1996 low-budget monster movie. Zarkorr busts his way out of a mountain in California. Rocks are flying. Red lights are flashing. In New Jersey Our Hero Tommy finds out he has to save the world from the monster. The aliens picked him because he's the most average guy they could find. He has a chance to save the world from destruction by killing Zarkorr. He heads down to the local tv station where a dinosaur expert is on a local news show. That turns into a hostage sitation right quick. Tommy isn't very good at communicating but he does persuade one of the cops that show up over to his way of thinking. They run off with the dino lady. She's mad at first but slowly she comes around to Tommy's way of thinking and decides to help. They head for the west and help Tommy kick Karkorr's ass. It's low-budget and Zarkorr isn't in the movie very much, but there are some twists and goofy bits in the script that kept me entertained. It's short at 78 minutes but for that movie that's just the right length. You can see some pictures and read some fun stuff about the movie here, see some video here, and see the trailer here. One of the two directors, Michael Deak, mostly worked in makeup and special effects. His filmography is rather impressive. The other director, Aaron Osborne, was mostly a production designer but he directed two other films. He followed KTI with Kraa! The Sea Monster. I saw it years ago and have forgotten most of it. You can see the trailer here. Looks like some stuff blows up. Osborne preceded KTI with Caged Heat 3000. I haven't seen it but I can imply from the title that it's about chicks in jail in the future, and we all know that future chicks are hot.

Some directors I find I might like one or two of their movies and not care for the rest of their output. There could be any number of reasons for the lack of interest. John Boorman is one of those directors. He directed Zardoz in 1974. It was after Deliverence, a movie I just don't care for. Seen it, don't need to see it again. Same with the Emerald Forest, and Excalibur. I did like Exorcist II: The Heritic much more than those. I thought it was pretty wild when I saw it in the theater when it was new but when I saw it three or four years ago I was less impressed. Most of the rest of his work is drama and I'm not much of a drama guy. Genre films are my main interest. In Zardoz, sean Connery plays Zed, the Exterminator. I read Boorman wanted Burt Reynolds to play the part be he couldn't do it. That would be weird, huh. Zed sneaks aboard the giant head of his god, kills Arthur Frayn, and arrives inside of the Vortex. That where the Eternals hide out. When things started falling apart they collected the knowledge of man. They kept it safe from the post apocalyptic world of the Brutals and Exterminators, without helping them in anyway. What dicks. Arthur has been selectively screwing around with the mortals. He arms some of them and turns them into killing machines. Zed has questions when there are changes. After he sneaks into the Vortex he finds out that Arthur was his god. And his god was fooling him. Bad god! That's just the first eye opener for our fightin' fish out of water. Death hangs over his head in the Vortex but it's death that he's been trained for and death is the salvation for the curse of immortality.

Friday Night Movies 202

Netflix provided a copy of the slightly longer unrated version of Hancock. It's 102 minutes instead of 92 minutes. Neither Joe nor Mike, both having seen the movie in the theater, could tell us what the new minutes were. I hadn't see it before, I didn't know either. It made me laugh and it was sad at the same time. Much better take on the superhero genre than we normally see. Kind of like Unbreakable in it's discovery, but much funnier, at least in the first half. The second half of the film takes a darker turn as Hancock finds out his origin story. It's not a happy one. Cheated by the gods again. Man, that's gotta burn your ass. I liked Will Smith as our troubled hero, who does get the clothes burned off his ass while saving some people from a burning building. I like Jason Bateman. Some of you might have seen him in the televison series Arrested Development. He was the son trying to pull things together and save the family company. Things did not go well for the Bluth family and at first things aren't going to well for Hancock. His crime fighting leaves a travel of choas and destruction that is a pleasure to watch. Sucks if you have to pick up after him. Or have the side of your building repaired. I thought the CGI was fine and there's a constant stream of jokes and funny situations. I'd be an irresponsible superhero. I know some shit would get broken. I'll probably pick one of these dvds up when they get cheaper.

Mike brought the latest episode of Cinematic Titanic. The group were trying to make fun of Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks and they broke a new record. They put 3 of 5 people to sleep. Me and Greg were the only ones who made it through the 89 minutes and I was strugglin' there for a while. And what a tedious struggle that was. "Drift off," said my brain, "put yourself out of this misery." There were a few funny jokes that broke the sound barrier but they were few and far between. The staging of the commentators continues to be annoying and there are just too many people up there not saying anything funny. It's sad really. FCOF is a right piece of crap from Italy. American producer Dick Randall directed the movie in 1974. It was his first and last, which is a good thing. It gets a 2.2 on the IMDb. It's hardly worth that, even though it has a great assortment of elements. There's a dwarf, a hunchback, some naked girls, a mad science guy, rape and murder, graverobbers, not one but two neanderthals living in a  cave, a castle and some irate torch carrying villagers. Unfortunately it's not done well and the movie is not a pleasure to watch. Add the dull and uninspired CT yakkin' over plot exposition and the floating silhouette blimp covering the naked lady's best parts and you wind up with a tiresome snoozefest. What was point of that? After 6 tries you should have realized that you can't put lightning back in the bottle and maybe everyone should get new jobs not in tv.

It's a trip, baby!

   

I'm still watching movies out of the w-z box. I wanted to watch something while having dinner and working on some landscaping. I put X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes. Roger Corman directed the film starring Ray Milland in 1963. Ray is a doctor/science guy who invents a drug that lets him see everything. He can see through the human body and helps save a young girls life during surgery. As he takes more and more of the drug his vision gets weirder and weirder. Pretty soon he can't see much of anything we could relate to and that is making him crazier and crazier. He accidently kills a guy, runs away, and winds up in a side show with Don Rickles. This was Don's first movie appearance. He was pretty good. He transforms Ray into a healer but that soon goes to hell and Ray's on the run again. His gal pal keeps on rescuing him and after a disasterous trip to Las Vegas to cheat at cards Ray winds up in the desert where he finds religion and ends his problem. It's a pretty darn good low-budget film, which gets a nice boost on the dvd by having an interesting Roger Corman commentary. He's kind of droll but I enjoyed the time spent listening to him reminisice about his past. He'd originally made the story about a jazz musician and the trouble he gets into with drugs but it was harder to get a drug movie made. He changed it into a doctor and an experimental drug. It was a 15 day shoot. Two months of editing and post and there was the completed movie. He directed several movies a year in those days as well as producing many more. Some are pretty entertaining. Corman is 82 and still producing. He's produced almost 400 films in his over 50 years in film.

       

Gas! -Or- It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It was a 1971 Corman film that was not as entertaining for it's story but more it's cultural position. A really bad gas gets let out of a military research center and it kills everyone over 25. The left overs have a hard time getting their shit together. They clump into tribes and fight amongst themselves. It's really dated and not very good in many ways. It was Corman's last film for American International Pictures and he'd only direct a couple more after that. It's on a double dvd with Wild In The Streets which is why it's in the w-z box. All of these films were AIP movies which was one of the best low-budget picture houses in the 1950's and 60's. They started the Beach Party pictures with Annette Funecello and Frankie Avalon. Wild In The Streets is a far cry from those. It has it's moments, like Max Frost and the Troopers singing Shape of Things to Come. and it does serve as cautionary tale. Max is the head of a popular rock band who wonder why they can't vote at 14. A senator is trying to push through a 18 year voting age. You should be able to vote if you are asked to go fight for your country, he says. Christopher Jones, 23 playing 15, is joined by Richard Pryor, 24 playing 15, in this bad trip for oldies. Max and the senator sign up together and change 14 and Fight to 15 and Ready. More and more the teens take over and soon the over 35's are rounded up and put into camps where they are fed LSD. It's a bad scene, man. Next it's the oppressed 10 year olds are thinking of taking over. Good luck getting roads built when 10 year olds run the country. I thought anarchy was cool when I was young but I realistic enought to know that isn't going to work. I also wanted to have a good road to drive my car on. Max never thinks that far ahead and when you get down to it, he's pretty much a jerk. He turns very facist when presented with power. Hope that 10 year old kicks his ass after the movie was over. Serve Max right.