Jack Kirby, quoted circa 1972:
"I see no wisdom in the eagerness to be found and approached by any intelligence with the ability to accomplish it from any sector of space. In the meetings between 'discoverers' and 'discoverees,' history has always given the advantage to the finders."
Kirby was referring to the Jupiter Plaque, an early-70s project to send humanity's contact information into space for alien lifeforms to discover...
Kirby's belief, much like that of noted super-physicist Stephen Hawking, was that any lifeform capable of finding us would most likely see us as some pitiful indigenous creatures standing in the way of some healthy colonial resource-stripping...
The accompanying Kirby art piece is his interpretation of what he'd've offered to the project if asked; West magazine did a piece asking various creative types for their spins on the concept + this was The King's contribution, showing Man as a race of powerful superbeings as a sort of 'Back the fuck up' to the rest of the Universe...
A 2010 quote from Stephen Hawking (seen here in his rarely public animation form):
"If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans." (You kinda gotta hear it said in yer head in his voice to get the real impact...)
Clearly an excellent case of great minds thinking alike...
And a tv series - Ghost King + the Hawk - featuring Jack "The King" Kirby's Ghost and Stephen Hawking (+ his intelligent BattleChair9000, which'd sound as much like Kit from the original Knight Rider as is possible) battling aliens would be better than any number of shitty Fringe + V + the like shows that dribble like babyshit across my tv screen...
Ghost King can, of course, draw anything into existence with his magic pen, like monsters or armies or walls or doors or holes, all the while chompin' down on an ectoplasmic cigar... And The Hawk can use his physics-powers to create wormholes, harness quarks, confuse + hypnotize others with his super-intelligent make-me-sleepy-talk, and woo another lovely guest-star every week... Heroes, powers, aliens, BattleChair9000...all's we need now is a gorgeous lab assistant who also happens to be a trained assassin or something... played by Bai Ling?
Here we are again, me with my damnable movie reviews, and you all with your... nipples, or whatever that business you have there is. I don't know, hell, all I do is watch TV! So, without further foreplay... fore!
Feed (C, 2005) Wow, this one’s twisted. An Australian Interpol agent/computer hacker who’s got some sexual dysfunctions of his own starts tracking down a perverse porno site where a guy broadcasts footages of the process of fattening women to beyond-morbid-obesity. The women are willing participants so I’m not certain why this is illegal, even though people are making bets on when they’ll die, and the feeder is slowly killing them by making them eat until the natural causes of that kind of weight do their thing. In any case, the cop is desperate to catch the pervert, who’s “lovingly” fed his current project, Diedre, until she’s over 600 pounds and can’t get out of bed. She keeps eating to please him and finds the whole thing romantic and sexy (eating‘s not all they do). The feeder has a fixation on his mother, who was also bed-bound obese, and he’s done with before with other women on his website, supposedly in the name of love. And the secret of what he’s feeding them is even nastier than the rest of the perversion. And yet he rationalizes the whole thing philosophically and tries to play a game with the cop. Disturbing, limit-pushing, and original horror isn’t particularly gory in a blood-and-guts kind of way, but the extreme corpulence, splattering food, and fat sex will put this one out of reach for most viewers. It’s a new kind of extreme, and it’s intelligently-made enough to not be easily dismissed as just a gross-out fest, especially since there are fat-fetish sites on the web not far removed from what’s shown in the film. It makes you question what can constitute love... and murder. Both can have strange motivations and take bizarre directions, especially in a society in which everything has become consumerism of some kind. Worth a look if you can handle it.
Gabriel Over The White House (B&W, 1933) Extremely weird political fantasy in which the problems of the Great Depression are solved by establishment of a theocratic dictatorship. Walter Huston is elected president and plans to be a puppet for his party and ignore the problems of the Depression. He dismisses an army of the unemployed as anarchists and ignores their message. Then, while driving like a jerk, he has a wreck and goes into a coma. When he comes out of it, he apparently hears messages from archangels, causing him to side with the American people and he decides that government is the problem, because it's too tangled up with bureaucracy and has too many checks and balances getting in the way. He turns the army of the unemployed into an actual army to rebuild America. Congress wants to impeach him for overstepping his bounds, but he declares a state of emergency, dissolves Congress, and puts the country under martial law. Without government red tape to deal with he deals with the country’s problems, repealing the 18th amendment and opening federal liquor stores to create revenue. He declares war on racketeers, forms a federal police force (unhampered by traditional law and order limitations) to combat them, and has them executed by firing squad at the foot of the Statue of Liberty. Then he brings about world peace by strong-arming the European countries, building up America’s Navy and Air Force and demanding foreign countries pay their debts by no longer funding their own militaries. Peace and prosperity accomplished under America’s iron thumb, he promptly drops dead and ascends to Heaven. This is crazy stuff (and it’s even crazier that it was a hit), but during the Depression many conservatives admired the way Mussolini and Hitler were doing business and became convinced that only a strong leader with no Congress to deal with would save America from disaster. With plots like The American Liberty League trying to form military coups against Roosevelt and right-wing fascists like Father Coughlin stirring up dissent with misinformation on the radio and approving of Hitler and Mussolini, I guess movies like this were inevitable. Oddly, it was partially backed by William Randolph Hearst, who was usually a liberal Democrat and was one of the few in the media at the time to speak out against what Hitler was doing in Germany... even though the actions Huston takes in the film follow many of Hitler’s, and is much closer to fascism than any kind of socialism. As scarily-misguided as history has shown this film to be, it wouldn’t surprise me much if some Glenn Beck fans thought this was still right on, what with the tea-party types influencing the president, the authoritarian approach to crime, the radical shrinking of the government, the dependence on supernatural religious forces for guidance, and the strong-arm military “diplomacy” towards Europe. This is an amazing artifact of a time of American fear-driven wrongheadedness, and even though it’s not that great as movie entertainment, it must be seen to be believed.
Gene Generation, The (C, 2007) If you are motivated to watch this film for any reason besides it starring Bai Ling in leather outfits, then you and I will never understand each other. A rapidfire prologue tries to toss off some ridiculous premise about people stealing DNA and hacking it to make people die weirdly, or some other scientific mumbojumbo I wasn’t interested enough to try to dope out, yeah yeah, horseshit sci-fi-geek nonsense. Bai Ling is an assassin who targets these DNA hackers and tries to keep her degenerate gambler brother under control. The temptations of their second-rate-CGI city prove too much for him (even though he gets beaten up and peed on - yes, peed on - by loan sharks) and he steals a weird cyber-glove device that some bad guys want back, even though nobody (including the filmmakers) seem to really know exactly what it does. It’s stolen from him, though, and he has to get it back. The situation gets messy and Bai Ling has to commit lots of mayhem while BaiLing him out (heh heh, get it? yeeeah). When her brother is nearly beat to death and she’s shot and almost dies, she gets healed by a DNA hacker and continues her quest. It’s the usual lame sci-fi bullshit with the usual hackneyed sci-fi situations and too much nerd-pleasing junk for my tolerance level, but some of the actions okay (even if it borrows from The Matrix... again), and it does deliver Bai Ling in leather, which is all I was really wanting from it -- eye candy. It’s a little too dark to see her (or anything else, if you care) very well, and she has goofy geometric shapes painted on her face (so we’ll know it’s the future, because in the future that won’t look stupid. Revisit the movie in 20 years and see if everybody’s not doing it!) Junky but okay for what it is, even if it doesn’t really end so much as just trail off. Plenty of not-too-good techno music.
This is pretty sad, but it's footage so what the hell...
What a flirt. She makes me like bangs... :) "I am from the moon!"
Midnight Movie (C, 2008) Back in the glory days of VHS rental, you'd quickly learn one rule (although it didn't always stop you): the video boxes that had some kind of gimmick (blinking lights, 3-D press-out forms, etc.) would always be really stupid movies. Well, this DVD has a changing hologram card for a front cover. Nice to see some things have remained constant throughout the years and format changes. A handful of teens (who look more like twenty-somes, but that could be the hormones they've been putting in the milk these days), a biker and his girlfriend, and a couple of cops go to a theater for a midnight showing of an old 70's horror film. It's in black and white; even though they were pretty much done with that by the 70's it's necessary to distinguish it from the rest of the movie. Little do they realize that it's a snuff film in progress and they're going to be starring in it. The director is a lunatic who's obsessed with scaring people, and through some supernatural agency that's readily dismissed-with, he's managed to put himself into the movie and drag viewers in with him, where he kills them with a weird corkscrew-knife thing he made. He also wears a skull mask and overalls; it's probably supposed to remind us of Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I kept thinking of the Astro Zombies instead, which is much less flattering. The patrons get trapped in the theater (the supernatural elements conceal their presence from the outside world) and it becomes kind of a poor man's Demons as they try to escape the killer. It's stupid, but it's not completely terrible; it stays engaging enough, there's some not-bad gore, and the fart joke is pretty funny ("Damn scrumptious chocolate-covered rrrrrraisins!"), so there may be enough here to convince you to forgive some lunk-headedness. And, luckily, it's not a horror comedy; the killer's too preposterous to take very seriously, but since he's played straight, it's bearable.
Never Take Candy From A Stranger (B&W, 1960) aka Never Take Sweets From A Stranger. Unusual Hammer film dealing with a different kind of horror: child molesters. The nine-year-old daughter of the new school principal in a small Canadian town comes home with tales of funny games she and a friend played at the house of old Mr. Olderberry. He gave the two girls candy to take off all their clothes and dance for him. The parents are outraged but they find the local community -- and especially the Olderberrys -- are against their pressing charges. The Olderberrys are wealthy and powerful enough to control almost everything in the area and it seems like they may get away with the crime because the locals refuse to testify, but the case goes to trial anyway. The little girl testifies and Olderberry’s lawyer grills her aggressively and tries to make her look mentally ill, claming she’s making the whole thing up. But whatever the outcome of the trial, it won’t be the end of the family’s dealings with the creepy candyman. Even though the film has to handle the explosive subject matter with 1960 gloves, it’s still strong stuff and makes a hard impact, and manages to be lurid without getting graphic. Until the DVD came out (as part of the Hammer Films Icons of Suspense collection), it was one of the most difficult Hammer films to track down.
Roman (C, 2006) Roman is a lonely, introverted welder who has no life. He has no friends and can’t even really get along with the guys at work, because all they know to talk about is what they saw on TV, and Roman doesn’t have a television (besides one he drew on the wall). He sits around slowly drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and hoping to catch a glimpse of the girl who lives in an apartment a few doors down, who he fantasizes about marrying. One day she talks to him and likes him despite his crippling awkwardness, so they start a relationship. But Roman doesn’t deal well with encouragement and accidentally kills her while trying to stop her from going home. He’s wracked with guilt and hides her body in his apartment, keeping her in the bathtub, buried in ice. It doesn’t do a great job of keeping her fresh, and his walls is soon tiled with stick-up room deodorizers. One day another girl (a weirdo with plants in her hair) knocks on his door to get help when she locks herself out of her apartment (she doesn’t want to bother the landlord because he’s constantly watching loud porn), and Roman starts a new fixation. He tries to avoid her but she interprets his reluctance as playing hard to get, and she pursues him. So, they end up dating while Roman’s still trying to keep the dead girl in his bathtub iced down. He eventually starts disposing of her piece by piece (after having sad picnics with the pieces). His new (live) girlfriend turns out to be death-obsessed, which Roman finds crazy, and they break up... and Roman’s almost out of pieces of the other girl. Soon he’s back to measuring out his life in empty beer bottles and pork-and-beans cans and room deodorizers... until he gets a second chance. Weird, existential indie film is slowly paced but engaging. Despite the morbid subject matter it’s not really presented as a horror film; Roman’s twisted but not menacing, just sad, passive, and (overly-aggressive moments aside) even kind-hearted. He just doesn’t really know what to do with the situations he’s been handed. And even with decaying body parts around, it’s more of a low-key black comedy than a scarefest. Not badly done and an interesting experiment for the patient. Roman is played by Lucky McKee, who wrote and directed a somewhat-similar film called May, which you may have seen, ha ha. (Hey, that kinda shit was funny when Forrest J. Ackerman used to do it, cut me some slack!)
Sheba, Baby (C, 1975) Pam Grier is private detective Sheba Shayne (a dickless dick, if you will, but you really shouldn't), who goes home to Louisville, KY when her father starts getting knocked around by thugs who are trying to squeeze out his financial aid business so they can replace it with a loan shark enterprise. When Pam borrows her dad's car and almost gets blown up, she's pissed and determined not to let the scumbags get away with it. Then hit men murder her father and she goes on the rampage, blowing hoodlums away with a magnum and making one pimp-lookin' loan shark drive his fancy car through a car wash with the windows rolled down. Her new boyfriend wants her to lay off, afraid that her reckless pursuit of revenge will get her killed, but there's no stopping Pam. She puts on a wet suit and swims out to assault a boat loaded with slimy gangsters, and they capture her and try to intimidate her by dragging a guy behind a boat, but she doesn't scare -- or give up -- so easily. This isn't bad (hey, it's got Pam Grier in it, how bad can it be?) but director William Girdler has a tough act to follow, trying to match Jack Hill's work with Pam. Despite some good action scenes, this feels watered down when you stack it up to Coffy or Foxy Brown. Still, if you've already seen both of those, it's more Pam!
Shrooms (C, 2007) . Note to filmmakers, and pay attention because this is really, really important: cameras are for recording images, and they need light to do their thing. When you film in the dark with a blue filter, all I can really say is thanks for the fucking radio show. College-kid idiots vacation to Ireland with the purpose of doing some magic mushrooms. While they’re brewing them their Irish guide tells them a horror story about ghostly masked slashers that supposedly haunt the woods they’re going to trip in. Some of them sneak a dose ahead of time and spend the night hallucinating. A guy encounters a talking cow, then fucks something (apparently the filming-in-the-darkness-loving filmmakers decided that much of their movie was none of our business) through a car window and gets his cock torn off. Or not. Or maybe he’s attacked by vines. Or possibly nothing happens to him, because he’s fine after a while. Having a girl who ate mushrooms that allow her to (maybe) see the future doesn’t exactly help maintain a narrative structure, especially when the director lacks the skill to build one in the first place. When dawn comes you think you’re getting a reprieve from all the blue-filter shit, but suddenly it’s dark again. The tripping people wander around the woods trying to find some missing asshole, and they run into inbred primitives who like sex with animals. Then they wander around some more, and a guy in a hood stalks them (or not; anytime something starts happening the movie goes somewhere else, or someone has a vision, and it’s back to wandering around again). If the movie had been lit it might have convinced me to try to work with it, but since so much of it looks like glimpses of a basement, straining to make anything out of it is just tedious. Too bad, because an impaired-people-on-’shrooms-getting-terrorized-in-the-middle-of-nowhere scenario would have a lot of potential... IF the filmmakers had decided to actually do something with it. Instead, this is basically a radio play about people calling out each other’s names, while blue-tint Rorschach patterns play on a black background. Is that a girl running through the woods... or a vase, or a cat? I guess it all depends on how much you hate your mother. Me, I hate the motherfuckers who wasted a good premise with a for-shit execution.
This is the talking cow scene, which is all anyone really seems to have liked about this movie...
Telephone Operator (B&W, 1937) Here's an artifact for you movie archaeologists to dig up, a disaster movie (and romantic comedy) centered on the role that actual human beings used to play in telecommunications, and the importance of telephones in dealing with emergency situations. A couple of switchboard girls initially have nothing more dangerous to deal with than a couple of corny guys flirting with them. The movie wants us to see these two as a couple of happy-go-lucky lovable wiseguy types, but they really act like jerks; not only do they persist in unwanted flirting that goes past obnoxiousness into harassment (at one point one of the girls tells them something that sounds like "You two should go hire some whores!" - I don't know what she's actually saying, but that would definitely be an appropriate response to their behavior), they also adopt Southern accents when they talk to black people, and they goad little boys into fistfights so they can watch. They get jobs as linemen, stringing phone wire, and use testing the lines as an excuse to annoy the girls some more. It bothers one of them so much that she traps one of them on the roof of a house during a thunderstorm, in hopes he'll catch pneumonia. Then one of the operators sees her boss's wife sneaking off to a mountain cabin with a boyfriend, and she steps in to stop her from ruining her marriage, even though it costs her her job. Then all that intrigue gives way to another kind in the last ten minutes, when a huge storm causes a dam to break and flood the valley (real footage of a San Fernando Valley flood is used effectively). Even though she's been fired, our brave heroine breaks into the phone office to keep the lines of communication open, risking her life to make calls and warn everyone even as the office is about to be washed away. Fast-moving, hour-long little B-movie oddity that's way outdated but still worth a look.
Here's a music video for some ancient folk song somebody made out of flood footage he lifted from Telephone Operator... it's as close as I can get.
Wild Panther (C, 1984) aka Ye Bao. Confusing but action-packed kung fu movie set in modern times and leaving no plot point unmuddled as the criminal underworld tries to find a missing list. A dying man passes a paper (not a list but a map) to our remarkably non-handsome hero, who used to be part of a special commando squad called The Wild Panthers. One of the chief bad guys lost a hand to him (and had it replaced with the ever-popular metal one) during the war and wants revenge for that, as well as the list. The Wild Panther guy has a cute girlfriend who's also a great fighter, and who spouts some of the most incredibly awkward dubbed dialogue imaginable. Things don't go very well for our hero, whose wife and child are kidnapped and murdered by the criminals, and then his girlfriend is raped, beaten, and injected with truth serum. He puts on his old military uniform (which disappears in some subsequent scenes) and goes on a vengeance hunt, but he also ends up beaten and shot full of truth serum. Lucky for him the bad guys are the type who never kill the heroes when they have the chance. Even with all the underworld to deal with, he still takes the time to fight one of the good guy cops just to have another fight in the film. The bad guys (most notably a guy with long hair and the top of his head shaved -- I guess they think the "Ben Franklin" is a cool look in Asia) are sometimes pretty effective, and other times are Keystone Kops clowns. With weird jungle traps, an obvious dummy thrown off of a building (when falling to your death, always stand at attention!), music from The Amityville Horror and an instrumental disco version of Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy," and lots of gunfire and explosions mixed in with the kung fu. The dubbing is worse than usual, and the intricacies of the plot are incomprehensible. Has good talent (including Wong Tao and Eagle Han), and was directed by Lee Tso Nam, so it should be better than it is. Too bad the movie wouldn't let us know what it's about, because it looks kinda interesting...
So, it's 20 April. The noteworthy 4/20. And there will be some very stupid things happening today in the name of marijuana. I wonder how the animating spirit of the plant feels about all of the silliness, like this bud dressd as a Christmas tree + those t-shirts that beg cops to hassle the wearers. Anyway...
Known to Man since at least the Third Millennium BC, marijuana has been cultivated + processed for use the world over as hashish, hash oil, bhang, kief... as well as the plain ol' buds + shake so familiar to most suburban Americans.
Today would be the smart day to organize Legalization Rallies here in the US, but, of course, the people who were in charge of that prob'ly got too high to remember to organize... Oh, well. What a waste; I think that'd be the kick in the pants that the US economy could use (lots of taxable sales, lots of new employees for the companies that'd need to grow, harvest, process, market + distribute) + would put the lie to the 'gateway drug' theory (in reality, pot is a gateway drug only when sold by a drugdealer who'd much rather see customers spend all of their money + be frantic to do so, and therefore introduces said customers to cocaine, crack, meth, etc., with their higher addiction factors + health risks...).
So, do your own little part to appease + honor the spirit of marijuana today: smoke some if you gots, have a nice nature walk, do something nice for a friend (or a stranger), take a nap, listen to some amazing musicks... whatever works for you!
Shame about Petrus T. Ratajczyk, a.k.a. Peter Steele. From that picture Igor posted, looks like rigor mortis is already setting in in some areas. Yoiks! Peter Steele, indeed! Want mustard with that? I heard that after that issue came out, one of his bandmates informed him that Playgirl mostly sells to gay guys, which got Pete a new fanbase that he wasn't really looking for, which resulted in the song "I Like Goils." Not the most open-minded guy, Pete, but, nobody's perfect. He definitely wasn't, but he never bullshitted anybody about that.
I do hate that this guy is gone (even though he’s always seemed to kind of want it, if his songs are in any way truthful, and they’ve certainly always rung that way), because I’ve been listening to him since the first Carnivore record. Carnivore was one of my favorite bands back in the day, and still are, really. To this day I can’t think of Russia without Pete’s Brooklynized “Das vidanya, mothafuckas!” going through my head, and every time Catholicism comes up I hear “Stand up straight, stomach in, shoulders back, sound off! Ang-ga-ree, Neur-o-tic Cath-o-lics!” And “Monkey wrench in my hand/ In my groin a swollen gland/ Tonight perform brain surgery/ Or some gynecology/ Clockwork Orange fast becoming/ Rampant street gangs overrunning/ After darkness waging war/ What do they keep living for? / Sex and violence!” are lyrics I remember well enough to sing in the shower. That may not speak well of my mental state, but, ‘tiz true. And who else in metal ever had a creative vocabulary enough (I had to turn off my spellcheck just to make Microsoft allow me to type some of these words) to come up with things like:
“The atom germ wars of centuries gone Precipitate genetic mutation Social degeneration Creatures formed of malignant science The children of technology Plutonium anthropology Who will cleanse the mess left by the past? Who will expurgigate the sacred cytoplast? To rid the earth of abomination I proclaim my nomination as the... Thermonuclear warrior! Strands of malformed DNA strangulate our future Chromosomal executioners Recessive traits for life forms emerge through evolution Facilitate cellular revolution"
or
"Jesus Hitler Adolph Christ Is this the second coming? Or the fourth reich? His mother a nun raped by a Nazi At the end of the second great war Gave birth to a son who would change the future For better or worse he's not sure I am what should never have been The ultimate abomination Have I returned to save the Jews Or to destroy them? Hear me my fellow Nazolics Come join the neo-theofascists Keep der race pure, practice eugenics And swear to the holy Swazifix! Rrrrreich und roll..."
I also liked Type O Negative quite a helluva bit, especially the fact that they never took themselves seriously. Who else would name their greatest hits album "The Least Worst Of"? Or put a commentary track on their DVD where they mock their own lyrics ("I want some chicken... I want it fried! Everything fried!") and pretend to be sobbing during parts where Pete's singing some unhappy-personal-relationship lyrics?
Even though Pete was a scary-lookin’ guy (any 6’8” NYC garbageman is going to be imposing, especially if they’re on antidepressants and were known to start songs with “This is the United States of America and you’ve got the right to hate who you want, so let’s start bustin’ heads!”), served time at Rikers and a psychiatric hospital for drug possession, and was prone to doing odd things (he signed a record contract with his own blood and semen), I know a guy who got to hang out with for quite a while after a show once, and said he was one of the nicest, friendliest people you’d ever want to meet, and very appreciative of anyone liking his bands. I was a little bummed that Pete used to be an outspoken atheist but then re-discovered Catholicism during a moment of weakness when he was in drug rehab… but, eh, like I said, nobody's perfect.
Ah well... shit happens. Last week, Bruce Roehrs, and now this. I guess it's true, Everything Dies.
Funny appearance on Jerry Springer ("I'm less miserable.")
Who's gonna tell this man he can't wear a headband?
Day Tripper, negativized...
Anyway, off to the drive-in.
Babysitter, The (B&W, 1969) A cute blonde babysitter named Candy invites her hippie friends over for a party as soon as the people who hired her leave. Not only does she never check in on the kid, I don't think they even bothered to cast the role; they just show a blanket in a crib and say it's an eight-month-old. The dad (a prosecutor and sexually-frustrated husband whose wife doesn't seem to want to spend time with him other than bridge and dinner parties) gives Candy a ride home. They stop off for tacos and she tries to seduce him, and he's so bored and lonely that it's not difficult to do. Meanwhile, some violent bikers are plotting a way to get a member of their gang off of death row. They decide to try blackmailing the prosecutor with evidence that his daughter is a lesbian, but then Candy shows up and provides them some higher octane blackmail material by making out with him in the pool, then bed. It shouldn't even work since he wasn't doing much to keep the affair a secret, taking Candy dancing in clubs and such, but he's spooked. Candy and some evil friends come up with a plan to make the blackmail problem disappear. Nudity-packed black and white Crown International drive-in fodder is better than you'd think, since it does have a plot and isn't just softcore padding, and they even take the time to do a little character-building (such as the prosecutor's discouraging efforts to avoid the affair by trying to patch things up with his wife), and occasional forays into artiness.
Best Friends (C, 1975) Richard Hatch and his ugly buddy Pat get out of the army and travel cross-country to California in a camper with their girlfriends, with plans to marry them when they get there. But Pat soon proves unable to handle that kind (or any other kind) of responsibility, and he tries to talk Hatch into running off with him to live out some Easy Rider fantasy on little Kawasakis. Hatch is in love with his girl and has a truck-driving job waiting on him, though, so he doesn't go for the idea. So, Pat tries to break Hatch up with his girlfriend so he can have him all to himself. He tells her that Hatch is a womanizer, and even tries to get her bitten by a rattlesnake, and even tries to force himself on her. Hatch has soon had enough of the psychotic Pat and things turn violent. They try to reconcile things but the situation appears destined for tragedy. Odd, junky drive-in fodder from Crown International has a lot of filler and some weird character motivations (Hatch knew Pat since childhood -- wouldn't there have been some previous hint that Pat's unbalanced? Or, did Pat's injured hand wreck his psyche?) The movie's not deep enough to really explore its own premise very much, even though the existential ending makes you think it had some ambition to be art.
Hustler Squad (C, 1976) An unorthodox army major is given a tough WWII assignment -- kill a bunch of top-rank Japanese officers when they gather at a whorehouse for some R&R. He decides that the only wa to accomplish this without making it a suicide mission is to infiltrate the whorehouse with prostitutes he's trained as killers, and have them assassinate the officials while troops invade other points on the island. He rounds up his squad anywhere he can find them - prisons, brothels - until he finds women desperate enough to take on the mission. He finds four women (none particularly stunning, though one does resemble Traci Lords a bit) and trains them; most of the training is just a lot of running, since everybody already knows how to do that and it'd be less challenge to the cast. After almost getting sidetracked, they parachute in, join the busload of prostitutes, and go to the big officer-brothel (under the guidance of a fat Japanese guy who says nothing but "okay okay okay.") One admiral is actually a nice guy, and surprisingly the other Japanese aren't depicted as evil sadists the way they usually are in these movies -- they're just goofy, playful drunks. The prostitutes are horny so they decide to do the killing after the sex, and premature ejaculation kind of makes motivation easier. One guy gets strangled by thighs, and another is electrocuted in a bathtub. The rest of the island is raided in a capgun rampage. Despite the exploitative title and plotline and being from Crown International, this film could almost get a PG, since there's hardly any nudity and the sex is sub-softcore. Basically, a cheap, junky, dismissible action flick that doesn't show up in a lot of even the skangier movie reference guides but will be hailed by critics as an innovative work of genius if Tarantino ever remakes it.
Van Nuys Blvd. (C, 1979) A creature that's a cross between Chevy Chase and a lizard, which is called a "Bobby" (get some eyebrows, Bobby!) complains that his pretty girlfriend is naked too often (oh, it's just terribly annoying when gorgeous girls won't put their clothes on) and is always wanting to screw him (she's just a pest!). He's fed up with his small town and decides he'll never amount to anything unless he goes to Van Nuys Blvd. and drives his van up and down the street all night, which is apparently how a Bobby measures success. So he drives all the way there, awkwardly orders a "hambuhduh" (get a tongue, Bobby!) and is ambush-screwed by the waitress who brings it to him (which probably annoys him since it keeps him from driving up and down the street). Then a bunch of highschool douchebags (say, that's a good name for the sequel!) trash some cars, for humor. Ha ha, so funny! Nothing cracks me up like the potential for difficult insurance claims! And who knew watching two people simultaneously eating the same hamburger wouldn't be sexy? At all? Some goober gets picked up, fucked, and then released back into the wild by a biker chick with glitter eyeshadow. Bobby gets tossed in jail for drag-racing his van when he's caught by the notorious Officer Zass (say it aloud, it's one of the cleverest jokes in the movie), who tries to bust every Van Nuys cruiser he can trump something up on. When they get out, Bobby and his new friends (including a guy named Chooch, and a girl named Moon, who has a chooch) go to Magic Mountain, to ward off a plot from happening. They watch girls dance (put your scalp on straight, Bobby!). People make out, get drunk, and do things that I'm guessing someone thought were funny, such as falling off of things. Bobby's hairline recedes visibly during the film. Girls who run their fingers through it probably get a souvenir to take home. They race go-karts and Chooch gets purse-slapped by an old lady, because old ladies committing assault is fuh-nee, buddy! Officer Zass (say it out loud again, make the most of it!) gets handcuffed to his cop car by a girl and a biker robs him. Eventually he almost dies of exposure, and it's heee-larious! The kids play air hockey, pinball, primitive video games, volleyball, and frisbee just to kill some time running the gamut of everything you could do in the 70's besides eat hamburgers and fuck. A pig gets loose on a beach and a fat guy chases it. So funny! Some movies would stop right there and say that, alone, was enough entertainment, but not Van Nuys Blvd., the movie that cares, because it tops itself by including a scene where one of the guys gets his mouth stuck open trying to eat a too-big sandwich, and then a guy who looks just like Borat gets his thumb stuck in a bowling ball. Ha ha! Imagine such a thing happening! A girl sneaks a boy home in drag so her parents won't care if he spends the night, and her dad tries to make out with him, even kissing him on the bottom. This is perhaps the only actually humorous situation in the film. Bobby and his new girlfriend Moon plan to drag race their vans again. And, lo, they do. Crown International drive-in fodder has no plot to distract the audience from their groping, but it's not badly shot and doesn't really get boring because there's enough goofy shit happening to keep it moving, even if there's no point to any of it. Lots of bad disco music, and a really, really slaps-you-across-the-eyes-with-the-stupid-of-it stupid ending. Most of the guys in this film look like they're in the early stage of acromegaly. You could watch this movie, or you could just run around with your pants off for a while screaming "VAN NUYS!" It'd be pretty much the same experience.
The theme song is kinda catchy as horrible disco-funk goes...
Heard about a new recipe for Spelt Tagliatelle, included in the Australian Penguin Press cookbook The Pasta Bible, which includes sardines, prosciutto, salt and "freshly ground black people."
While I think that the new trend toward culinary experimentation are wonderful, this may be taking things a bit too far... do haveta appreciate the insistence on freshness, though, right?
As a general rule, I am not a filmgoer. The combination of crowds of unknown-to-me humans, high prices + sticky carpets is a general turnoff, along with the troublesome issue I have with being near-narcoleptic when in a darkened room with air-conditioning and a comfy chair...
I do like watching em at home, if they're of interest, though I often have to break up the watching into a coupla sessions (...remember the narcolepsy). And I just discoverd that two films are due for theatrical release on 18 June 2010, both with some excellent source material to mine (or, possibly - sadly - ruin...). Let's hope they don't suck; they both seem to have a lot of potential...
The Killer Inside Me
Starring Casey Affleck, this won't be the first filmd version of Jim Thompson's most gripping novel, which crawls into the head of Lou Ford, a small-town sociopathic deputy sheriff in Texas. An earlier version starring Stacy Keach came out in 1976. If this is as dark as the novel, it'll be a fuckin' winnr.
Plus, it also stars the ever-lovely Jessica Alba...
Stacy Keach is a baaaad man... It's been mentiond that Thompson himself did not care for this film. Maybe he'll zombie up for the premiere of the new one + let us know what he thinks. (I'm betting it'll be something like "bbbraaaaaainnnzzzzzzzzz... grrururggggghh!")
Jonah Hex
Starring Josh Brolin, this one is based on the DC character, a drifting bounty hunter with a disfiguring facial scar who roams the post-Civil War wild West. The comic was often kickass, but there was also an updating that flung Hex into the future that left a sour taste... At it's best, Jonah Hex was a powerful image+text reimagining of the Spaghetti Western genre. Hex is an antihero much like Clint Eastwood's classic Man With No Name, that character itself drawn wholecloth from Toshiro Mifune's classic ronin in Kurosawa's Yojimbo.
...and - again with the fuckin' casting - this 'un also stars the striking Megan Fox.
Maybe I'll get to the moobiehaus after all this June...
Another interesting stretch of musicks, giftd to me during my Saturday delivery route by the Shuffleuppagis inside my iPod. Some comments follow.
The Flaming Lips covering Shine On... is, of course, excellent, + reminds me that the physical version (the digital version came out late last year) of the 'Lips + Stardeath and White Dwarfs Dark Side of the Moon should be out anytime now. If you're into the whole "things" thing, the vinyl would definitely be a cool "thing" to have.
Circle of Wolves is typical Phantom Tolbooth, though from the later Power Toy, which is considerd a less potent distillation of the Daylight in the Quiet Zone / One-Way Conversation era PT. Don't take that to be anything other than a subtle hint to go get those earlier releases... there ain't no shitty Phantom Tollbooth rekkids!
The Curse from Bison B.C. is a solid rockr from these British Columbia-based stoner metallrs earlier album Earthbound... their new one - Dark Ages - should be available right now. Go get it!
Van Buren by Arms + Sleepers is from the 2009 split (with The American Dollar) EP From the Inland Sea. I checkt out the EP cuzza TA$, then went back + scored the earlier Matador from Arms + Sleepers. Good stuff!
...and that's my iPod RoundUp for this weekend. Hope you find something interesting to check out!
So, it's official... singer-person Peter Steele has passed away at the age of 48, from what appears to be heart failure. An interesting singer with a long musickal history. Prior to Type O-Negative, Steele was rockin out with early thrash-metallers Carnivore. Sad to see another rocker pass this year...
Gather your thoughts, fans, + remember him like I will...
So, is this gonna end up being the funniest fuckin' parody album title + cover this year? Looks that way to me, bitches...
Don't have an opinion about the Kid 606 album, aside from the spot-on cover + title, but the original Songs About Fucking is a post-punk classic from before Steve Albini was everybody's first choice for indierawk producer (which means that Spot, who did the engineering on alla them SST rekkids by Dinosaur, Jr., Sonic Youth, Husker Du, Meat Puppets, etc..., was the indie producer of the day). And what a good day it was... Sure, Albini recorded Nirvana's In Utero and some other late 80s/early 90s tasties, but Spot was behind the best of the best of the great punk/post-punk of the early- to mid-1980s, so I'll come to your haus + hammerpunch you in your goddamnd clavicle if you talk shit on Spot. Or I might just write something poopy about ya... Whatever...
So, last Tuesday was the release date for the new Red Sparowes rekkid The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer. The rekkid is excellent, and is sitting comfortably right now as my favorite of '10 so far. The live show that night at the Bottletree here in Birmingham was equally super-duper...
The opening acts were: Mr. Gnome (interesting 2pc rock; strippt down + with she-vox) - I just wasn't that into their set, prob'ly cuz I was still relatively sober... Doomriders (way metal + tight as hell...) - the guitar-playing singer was nice at the merch table, + screamd like he was bein' skinnt while onstage. The bassist also did some solid singing + the guitar leads (sometimes twin'd out b/w both guitars) were very tasty. Their newest rekkid Darkness Come Alive (out Sept'09) was mixd + all by Kurt Ballou (of the band Converge + Godcity Studio), who also handled recording the Young Widows another waaaay heavy band that was here in Birmingham opening for some killer post-rock/post-metal bigwigs when Russian Circles came thru late last year...
and then came the main act:
Red Sparowes (fookin ruled)
bass. guitar. guitar. guitar. pedal steel guitar. keys. drums. no vox.
Amazing multimedia show, with suitably trippy filmicks washing around behind the band, who workt their musickal magicks with lots of shimmer-y delays + echoes. Aptly enough, the film playing on the screen that comes down between stage + crowd between bands was Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii (sadly soundless), setting an appropriate tone for a solid set of psychedelic musical exploration.
Check out one of their live clips (sadly, not from this show/tour; it seems to feature an earlier line-up):
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