PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 90

For some reason I missed getting a copy of the Special Edition DVD of The Dark Backwards when it came out in 2007. That's about when I stopped going to BestBuy every tuesday and following what was coming out on the dvd sites. I was spending more on LEGO and I had been burned buying too many dvd's when they came out only to have a special edition 6 months later or find them for half the price at Target less than a year later. Waiting for movies to get cheaper to stretch one's entertainment dollar seems like a good idea.

I hadn't seen this 1992 movie for a while. I watched it alot when I found a copy on laserdisc back in 1994. It's the movie that introduced me to Adam Rifkin. I had mentioned his previous movie The Invisible Maniac just a few weeks ago, and like that over the top sort of movie, this movie is one people are going to have issues with. The world of Marty Malt, played by Judd Nelson, is what Rifkin, in his commentary, calls an alternate failed '50's sort of America. Marty and Gus, played by Bill Paxton, are garbage men in this filthy trash filled world. It's all rundown and there seems to be one super corporation, Blumps, supplying all the worlds needs. There are ads for their products, like Liquid Bacon, all over the place. Marty aspires to be a standup comic but he never gets any laughs. None, dead silence. Marty gets a bump on his back, thinks it's a bug bite and ignores it. It grows larger and larger. Marty gets worried and goes off to see the doctor. It's James Cann in a bit of a cameo. His nurse is played by Claudia Christian. Some of you might remember her from Babylon 5 where she played Commander Ivonova. While thumbing through the cheap laserdiscs back in 1994 I found the copy of The Dark Backwards that would become mine and noticed Claudia's name in the credits. It was cheap enough to take a chance and it turned out that I liked it quite a bit. Claudia is only in the movie briefly, as is James Cann. Lara Flynn Boyle plays Marty's girlfriend. She dumps him when the bump turns into a baby's hand. She doesn't even wait until it grows into a whole arm and hand. Marty's gets a big break when Gus introduces him to talent agent Jackie Chrome. Wayne Newton plays the agent, and like Paxton and Nelson, his preformance is spot on. It's well worth seeing the movie just to see those guys. Sadly for Marty his third arm throws a monkey wrench in his plans for stardom. His big break is ruined when it disappears. Turns out well for Gus when he gets the call to come out to Hollywood. Poor Marty goes back to the comedy club and tells of his recent experience having a third arm. He kills.

Rifkin wrote the script when he was just 19. He shopped his first movie around for several years trying to put the money together. He'd make some other movies first before he got the million he needed to make TDB. He says on the dvd that it hasn't made much of anything back. Many people aren't going to like it when they see it and they aren't going to tell people they have to see it. The dvd has a commentary that is mostly pretty entertaining and some interviews with Rifkin, Nelson, Paxton and Newton. There are some deleted scenes and extra bits. Good all around dvd. Certainly glad I upgraded my copy.

 

When I was at Wal-Mart this am to pick up a couple more Plano storage containers I noticed they had a copy of Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. It's a movie from that low-budget schlock house The Asylum. They make movies that sound like good movies that a just coming out. Previous to this they made 30,000 Leagues Under The Sea and in 2010 they made Mega Piranha. I wouldn't recommend much of what they have put out so far. MSVGO scores a 2.9 on the IMDb and that's not far wrong. I so loved the idea of the giant shark jumping out the the water and biting a plane in the trailer that I was interested in seeing the movie. I missed most of it on the Sy-Fy channel several months back. I hadn't noticed if it was broadcast again. I hardly watch that channel. Oh, occasionally I break down and check out tv guide online to see if there is anything of even vague interest in their saturday movie marathons. Once in a blue moon I fill a tape or disc with several movies to watch later. Watch with a finger on the fast forward button. The movie was only 5 bucks at Wal-Mart and I failed not wasting my money on a copy. For some reason it's only available as a print on demand dvdr over at Amazon. They want $22.49, which is crazy, it's a movie that isn't worth the 5 bucks that I pissed away. I still like the idea of the giant shark attacking the plane but like so much of The Asylum's work it's just not delivered in a satisfying manner. There's a lot of giant undersea critter action and it's done pretty poorly too. Deborah Gibson plays an oceanographer of some sort and there are some naval people involved. Lots of yakking, bad acting, and looking at instruments in confined spaces. Just the sort of scenes that you can make cheaply. Good for a low-budget movie. Learn from my foolish mistake and watch it on Sy-Fy. Blow that money on something better. I have to look on the bright side, it's another piece of plastic filling my house. Yay!

Friday Night Movies 284

 

Both our movies tonight were about fucking. It wasn't planned that way, the first movie, Sakuran, has been bobbing near the top of the queue for a bit, and the second just popped in the door this eve. Mike found a copy of Sakuran somewhere online, it's not readily available in the USA. It's a movie about whores in 18th century Japan. They live and ply their trade in Yoshiwara, a walled in area, with a water filled moat, separate from the city of Edo. Only men are allowed entrance through the guarded gate of the quarter devoted to the more naughty pleasures. We meet a young woman, Anna Tsuchiya (pictured above), who works in one such brothel. Here's a couple of the rooms decorations. Total eye candy. The whole movie is like that. I read that the director is more known as a photographer than a film maker. Goldfish figure in a lot too. They might be a metaphor. I don't know.

 

In Anna's flashbacks we find she was sold to this fancy house as a kid. The girl grows up rebelious, not being interesting in being a whore, but she soon learns that her interests aren't of any interest to her master. She gets tied up and beaten until she's old enough to learn. She's placed under the wing of the oiran, a high end courtesan, and trained up for the real work at hand. These ladies are supposed to be well versed in the arts and literature as well as the more sweaty bits of business. And it is a business with deadly people playing. Again and again Japanese movies remind us of how little life was valued in the past. It was a tough period, the only safety net was falling on the pointy end of your sword. The women weren't even allowed to leave the walled in area, life was hard and short for many, dying of suicide, vd or gettin' stabbed. That happens to the orian at the brothel. She snaps and attacks her customer with a straight razor. In the struggle she gets her own neck slashed. Anna moves into top spot with a promanade down the street in foot high shoes and super fancy glamour kimono. Pays to advertise, she soon becomes popular and several men are wanting her attention. The movie plods along at a pretty damn slow pace but often there is something nice to look at. It's definely a melodrama, and I'm just not into those that much. Worth taking a look at for the pretty backdrops and artful photography. Maybe best at the 1.5 speed.

 

I had been interested in our second feature Zack and Miri Make A Porno for two reasons. Seth Rogan cause he's in it and Kevin Smith because he wrote and directed it. Seth plays Zack and Elizabeth Banks plays Miri. They live in a crappy apartment and they are behind in the bills. They aren't boning, they're just friends and roommates. When the water goes out they head for their high school reunion where Miri goes after her old flame and Zack strikes up a conversation with Justin Long who's the old flames boyfriend. Turns out he's a gay porn star with lots of fun stuff to talk about. I was in stitches from all the dick jokes. After returning home the power gets turned off. Seth talks Miri into making a porno as a way to raise some cash. He's all fired up and has a plan. He collects a gang of misfits and talks his co-worker, the wonderful Craig Robinson, out of some money to rent a space to shoot. Zack writes a Star Wars porn parody, makes some costumes and builds a couple of sets. There's a lot more swearing in the way that Kevin Smith tells the story. That's why I like his movies so much. There' s more nudity in this movie than most Kevin Smith movies. Sadly, for some, it's mostly Jason Mewes and his ass. He does flash the full monty for those who are dick sensitive, so watch out. The gang gets cheated by the guy who rented them the space when it's demolished by the real owners of the property. Everything is gone but they ralley and the shoot gets moved to the coffee shop where Jack works. Zack and Miri have their scene on the second day and everything changes. They let feelings get in there and everything falls apart. Zack runs away and gets a job getting shot in the nuts with paintballs. Craig finds him and tells him they didn't finish the movie when Miri wouldn't do her scene with Jason Mewes. Cue the happy ending. Yay! It's a fun movie with lot's of very entertaining dialog. That's code for swearing and dick jokes. Lot's of...

Snack Warning: We often will try different chips. A trip to Target of late yields up several odd flavors. I'll let you discover those on your own. Friday Joe bought a bag of Doritos Tailgater BBQ chips and brought them along. The flavors are inspired by the NFL's John Madden video game franchise. The sister flavor of this limited edition is Stadium Nacho. We didn't have that flavor to try. No one ate very many of the Tailgater BBQ. We all thought that they had a weird flavor. Those those of foreign locations with little knowledge of US sports I'll explain tailgating. People arrive early at a sporting even and set up barbeque's in the parking lot, they cook food, eat it, and drink beer. I think putting BBQ flavor on a corn chip doesn't work very well to begin with and adding so much liquid smoke that it tastes like the asphalt you'd be tailgating on isn't making me want to keep stuffing them in my pie hole. I wouldn't recommend them and I don't think anyone there that night would either. 100% failure.

At work earlier Friday I tried some of the Lay's Baked Parmesan and Tuscan Herb. Very weird, both taste and texture. Not for everyone.

Impulsive Octopi and Green Aliens

 
This set, 30040 Octopus, showed up at Target, hidden in the bottom row of impulse items at the checkout stand, sharing a spike with a Racer bagged set. I picked up a couple of the Atlantis sets to take to the last TwinLUG meeting. I was planning to use the octopus in the Undersea layout when we went to the Mall of America. There's nothing special about the parts but he's not a bad looking beast. He's got 8 black tentacles and 4 of those small white spikes or barbs. Could come in handy. 42 pieces for @2.99 isn't too bad, but there's no minifig and most of the parts are common black parts. Today I popped into the ToyRUS in Bloomington at lunch. It's is near the Target I went to for batteries. I needed some for work. The TRU is where I found the Toy Story impulse set 30070 Green Alien on Spaceship. It's got the green alien and a little space ship for him to ride on. It kind of reminds me of some of the earlier small space craft sets. It's got some 3 red and 3 white 1x1 tiles, a couple of those lime green modified plates, three white cheese slopes and one of those trans-black windscreens. Bricklink says 26 parts and the minifig. TRU is charging $3.99 each. Cheaper than buying an alien on Bricklink. There are two on there right now for under 4 bucks, everything else is over $4 and some by a whole lot. The highest price one is Lillian's World in Hong Kong. Twenty bucks each. Her site says free shipping but there are other fees and upgrades that it's not that great a deal with the prices being what they are. She's always one of the highest priced sellers. Wonder what's up with that. Oh well, keeps me from buying any of her stuff. So now I have a few Aliens. They have nice shirts, those are interesting to me. And they have the short legs. Extras of those will come in handy. So, nothing to exciting but good parts and a few of them.

Science Fiction Sunday 89

I got NetFlix to send me a copy of Meet The Robinsons. It's a 2007 Disney animation produced by John Lasseter and directed by Stephen J Anderson. It's a time travel film based on the William Joyce book A Day with Wilbur Robinson. Lewis is a smart orphan who isn't very good at being in the real world. He's a bit too weird for normal parents looking to adopt. Couples have turned him down 124 times. He sure wishes he had a family and if those couples don't want him he'll find out who his real mom was. She might still want him. He builds a mind reading machine for the school's science fair in hopes he can pull her face out of his momory. An evil bowler wearing man from the future steals it.

  

A kid with a time machine drags Lewis into the future chasing after the Bowler Hat Man. The movie starts in 2007 and jumps to 2037 and the world is a much better place. Wilbur Robinson, the kid from the future, crashes the time machine when they get there. He talks Lewis into trying to fix it. Lewis meets the rest of the Robinson family during his stay at Wilbur's house. He likes them and they like him. They are a whacky bunch, for a time there's one piece of schtick after another. More and more of the plot unfolds as Lewis and Wilbur try to fix the time machine and continue to battle the Bowler Hat Man. It's a really gorgeous movie with lots of nice stuff going on. Can't take it all in on one viewing. Listened to the commentary by Anderson. He too was adopted and wondered who his birth mom was. At some point he realized his parents were his parents and his birth mom was his past. I really enjoyed the soppy ending, brought a tear to my eye. This is one I will want to watch again.

I'll be working my way through The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collecion over the next few weeks. This week it was Tarantula, a 1955 Jack Arnold film starring John Agar and Mara Corday. Leo G. Carrol is a science guy living in the desert. In the opening scene a man stubbles across the desert in his pajamas. After collapsing, he rises and finally reveals his face to us. His head's all weird looking, deformed, lumpy, hair uncombed. He collapses once again. John Agar is a doctor who's called in to look over the dead guy found in the desert. The local cop think's it's Leo's lab assisstant but he wasn't deformed a week ago. John thinks it looks like acromegaly but that takes a while to develop, not just a week. Mara Corday shows up to work at Leo's lab and John strikes up an romance with her as the movie rolls on.

 

Leo has some large animals out at his lab. He's been injecting them with growth juice and they are busting out all over. He's going to solve the world's food problem. Instead the tarantula gets out and keeps on growing. Turns out Leo had also injected himself with the growth juice and he gets more and more deformed and crazy. Like his assistant, who was injected a few days earlier, the juice will kill him. The tarantula becomes something of a problem as it rampages around the country side. A real spider was used in many shots, adding a level of reality. The shots aren't too bad either. Eventually the sherriff tries to blow it up with dynamite and when that doesn't work, he calls in the air to surface missiles. The plane with the rockets was piloted by a young Clint Eastwood. It's an entertaining movie that I have seen several times. It's like an old pal, one you're comfortable with. The effects are ok, the makeup weird and cool, and the giant spider is something that would scare more than Ron Weasley if it were running around in our neighborhoods. Hopefully the science guys in our universe aren't working on growth juice, though a guinea pig the size of a great dane might be cool.