Movies

Spring Cactus (1999) Drama of a young woman's dismal life of drugs, jail and prostitution in Taipei Taiwan, based on the real life of a real woman who died of heart failure at age 28. I would not have found this as interesting if it had been an American movie - in fact I wouldn't have watched it at all. I liked seeing the daily life, environment and circumstances in Taiwan, night clubs, karaoke hells, vomiting in fancy bathrooms, etc., not so much the actual story. Good acting and overall good production. 5/10

Movies

Office Space (1999) Mike Judge film, very popular with people who have worked in offices. Half a dozen really good laughs in the first half of the movie, when characters are being introduced and the protagonist learns the benefits of not worrying about his job, and then it becomes a heist film. You pretty much know where a heist film is going to go. 7/10

Movies

Revenge of the Zombies (1943) John Carradine is the ex-nazi zombie maker who experiments on his own beautiful dead wife, with Gale Storm and Mantan Moreland. Mantan is, as usual, the most interesting person in the movie. 6/10

Movies

The Taste of Others [Le gout des autres] (2000) A Donna movie, about people doing things like in real life. The main point seemed to me to be that the people who had formalistic systems of thought and action ended up unhappy and the people who changed ended up happy. Good if you like that sort of thing. 6/10

They haven't heard the end of this.

Although I have, with much help through forums and the bladecprepair manual, the heli working, they haven't heard the end of this issue. Anyway, they haven't heard the end of this angry parent. They haven't heard the end of this, Carter." Carter: "Oh, I think they have... "They haven't heard the end of this," I said. Now I took out my cell phone. And I called Bob's Market in Bridgehampton. They haven't heard the end of this, either. And they know, for sure, they haven't heard the end of this story. Luckily, they haven't heard the end of this. I have a feeling they haven't heard the end of this! But even if they do send him back to England, they haven't heard the end of this! Not by a long shot!" They haven't heard the end of this. They haven't heard the end of this yet. They haven't heard the end of this ...

The Worst I've Ever Seen It 2

This is the worst I've ever seen it. I've never seen (the problems) as deep or as wide. I've been with HP since 1987, this is the worst I've ever seen it. It's the worst I've ever seen it, said Tarter. I came back from my holiday up north to today being the worst I've ever seen it. Worst I've ever seen it,' Edgar says of problems seeing ball. I've been plowing snow for 35 years, and this is the worst I've ever seen it. "I've lived around here all my life and this is the worst I've ever seen it," he said. "This is the worst I've ever seen it," said Scott Smith, a lodging professor in the University of Central Florida's Rosen College of Hospitality Management. "This is the worst I've ever seen it," said Bill Woodfield, whose Galesville packing house opened in 1917. "I've been doing my ministry in Brandon for five years and this is the worst I've ever seen it." This is the worst I've ever seen it. We got 14 to 16 inches of rain (in the past few days), and around 20 inches in Searcy, he said. "It's the worst I've ever seen it since I've been here so far," a National Works Agency (NWA) employee, who asked not to be named, told the Observer. ... I've been logging 30 years, and this is the worst I've ever seen it. "[With] those unavoidable, or seemingly unavoidable injuries, it's the worst I've ever seen it." "In the 18 years I've been a lifeguard this last week is the worst I've ever seen it," said lifeguard Scott Zanville, 35, of Merrick. "It's the worst I've ever seen it," said Kenneth Cole, who farms in Uvalde and Zavala counties. This is the worst I've ever seen it, said Greg Harvell. "This is the worst I've ever seen it," said one network research veteran who has been in the business 20 years. But this year, the snowpack `` is the worst I've ever seen it,'' said. Heinecke. 'This is the worst I've ever seen it,' local coach says. "This is the worst I've ever seen it in the valley," said John Harris, chairman and chief executive of Harris Farms in Coalinga, Calif. Robert Krause: I'm 51 and I think this is the worst I've ever seen it." I've been fishing the Susky for seven years now and it was by far the worst I've ever seen it," he reported. I was at the airport today and it was the worst I've ever seen it. "I've been in the business 22 years, and it's probably the worst I've ever seen it," Collins said. You can definitely quote me on this: 'The heavyweight scene is the worst I've ever seen it.' The slot gully was "the worst I've ever seen it" according to a climber I met later on the Vesper Peak slabs. I've been a trapper for 20 years in Georgia, and this is the worst I've ever seen it." "It's the worst I've ever seen it," she told JET before boarding a military chopper after she was holed up in her home for nearly a week. "This is the worst I've ever seen it," said DiCarlo, who has been director of the food bank for four years. I've been in the business for 20 years, first on the retail side and now doing this, and it's about the worst I've ever seen it, he said. "It's the worst I've ever seen it," he told me. This is my 12th season, and I thought we had some bad times before, but this is the worst I've ever seen it, she said. This has got to be the worst I've ever seen it.

Movies

Plot Summary for
Os Trapalh?es na Guerra dos Planetas (1978) (Brazilian Star Wars Farce) Written by Silvio Ferreira Cosi.

Coming of the space, the prince Flick (Pedro Aguinaga) asks the Trapalh?es (The Dabblers) for help to free the planet where lives of the domain of evil Zuco. He offers a reward, it accepts for the four friends, that embark in a spaceship by a called hairy monster Bonzo. In the planet, they use tricks and they win Zuco, but they don't get to save Princess Myrna's life, that had been kidnapped by the thief. She should be substituted in the throne by Loya, exactly the girlfriend of Didi, that knew during the adventure in the strange planet. Already in the Earth, os Trapalh?es (The Dabblers) think that everything didn't pass of a dream, but they are convinced otherwise when they come across a jeep full of bars of gold.

Books

Bleak History by John Shirley. I admit not having read a whole lot of John's work because I don't always find the general tone resonates with me personally, and I tend not to seek out things which, like many of his recent books, are media product spin-offs. I was impressed by the quality of thought that went into Bleak History, the way in which people's inner lives and character are portrayed, and the fact that it isn't a simple jumble of cliches strung together in a formalistic plot. I was surprised by the direction the story went and the things that happened, not just leafing through a plot where things go the way you want them to. It's an action/adventure story and not so imbued with philosophy that it is a life-changer, but there is originality and hints of greatness in there. As a bespectacled scholarly middle-aged man I found little in the characters I could personally identify with, and wondered more than once (as I often do) why these things have to happen in New York City and not Topeka or Dubuque, but I found the matter-of-fact presentation of magical and occult events entertaining, and appreciated the way the ideas were not over-played. John Shirley hasn't written a book for me yet, but I got little bits of this one.

Movies

Battle Beyond the Sun [Nebo zovyot] (1960) I was mistaken in thinking this was made from bits of Planet of Storms like its companion films mentioned below. It's a streamlined version of the obviously ponderous other Russian film purchased by Corman, with a couple of obscene squawking monsters clumsily added. You get longer true-color shots of the monsters in the theatrical trailer - in the film they are only shown in quick high-saturation shots - but the shot of one actually eating the other is quite strong. All quite enjoyable for me, with extremely good model work and effects, many scenes resembling classic Space Art paintings come to life. 8/10

Movies

Thanks to R. Seth Friedman-Wolf for helping add great joy to my birthday celebrations. Most years I just ignore my birthday entirely but since we had a houseful of guests I made a point of it being my birthday and pretending to celebrate it. Seth had already given me a disc containing a Brazilian and a Turkish post-StarWars scifi atrocity which I watched in tandem on Saturday night. The premise of the former is that four Brazilian stooges are taken into space to help a prince find half a computer and basically create a feeble mockery of Star Wars. The Turkish movie just takes what looks like footage from a faded theatrical trailer of Star Wars and uses that for all the space stuff, then has the heroes be on a planet where they ride horses and use spears, and it makes the Brazilian one look fairly high budget. You can do a lot of SF in caves, or in Anatolian cave villages. The only ray gun type effects were actually hand drawn on the film. There is a karate expert guy who fights these guys in fake fur monster costumes and karate chops them in half and tears their heads off. The Brazilian one is called Tramps in the Space War or something like that and I don't know what the Turkish one is called.

Sunday morning, my birthday, we (Donna, me, Dr. Howl and the Stangs) went out for breakfast at Pig'n'Pancake and while waiting for our pancakes and pig fragments, part of the discussion involved two films (Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women) which had been made from parts of the Russian movie Planeta Burg (Planet of Storms) by proteges of Roger Corman. When Seth came over that evening he brought me some SF DVDs including Battle Beyond the Sun, the other movie made from the same source material. Even better, that disc contains Star Pilot, a.k.a. 2+5: Missione Hydra (1966). It seems to me to be a fixer-upper, that they just tacked together the best they could with what they had. There is some splendid Italian SciFi stuff with a sexy alien commander in tights and a sexy professor's daughter who soon shares the alien commander's wardrobe - including garments with a CLEAVAGE PORTHOLE in the chest. A round plastic window over the cleavage. The professor's daughter also spends some productive time in a full-body fishnet suit with scarlet feathers attached to the bikini zones, and much of the photography of her focuses on her very long legs, especially when she is stuck rolling around on the spacecraft ceiling in "zero gravity," exposing her black garter belt up to the hip. The scenes in general are beautifully composed and very pleasing to the eye. BUT!!! Suddenly the incoherent plot is made even more incoherent by the almost random inclusion of footage from the American micro-budget fixer-upper Doomsday Machine which includes space model footage from the superior Japanese film Gorath. There was also a notable lack of background music for most of the movie, and the "fighting" was unusually inept and unconvincing play-fighting. And then there were a WHOLE LOT of fake fur monster suits. More than I have ever seen on one crummy looking little star treky sound stage in my life, jumping around going ooga booga. It's just what the doctor ordered, a visually fascinating and conceptually head-poundingly screwed-up delight and really fun to watch with the founder of a UFO suicide cult and our wives. I can't even give stars to any of these movies because they are skewed at an angle to our reality and cannot be judged.

Movies

It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) The title and the monster suit are the weak points of this archetypal space monster movie from Edward L. Cahn and actual SF writer Jerome Bixby. It's 1973 ; people still smoke unfiltered cigs in space and the female crewmembers, a doctor and a scientist, still clear away the dishes and pour the coffee. The action takes place in a well-realized multi-level spacecraft with that magical space gravity that requires no explanation. Low dark ceilings and lots of shadows add to the oppression of being trapped in a box with an impregnable thing with big claws that will rip you up and suck all the fluids out of your body. Nice scene of walking down the side of the ship as it zips past the stars, all-around adequate production. Never gets really exciting, but it's fun to see every thirty years or so. 7/10

Movies

Land of Doom (1986) Post-apocalyptic cheapie filmed in caves in Turkey so they didn't have to build any sets at all. Motorcycles crapped up with frameworks and jaggedy sheet metal, only two modified pickup trucks, some left-over gladiator costumes and gas masks, voila! It's the future! Problems with the most basic continuity like keeping people on the same motorcycle from one shot to the next. People go to sleep in one place and wake up somewhere entirely different. Lots of attempts to make shots of people driving seem exciting by playing cheap synthesizer chords over it. One of the crummiest of its genre. 2/10

Movies

Invisible Invaders (1959) Early "scientific" (non-occult) zombie movie from Edward L. Cahn - invisible aliens possess the bodies of the dead, but only dead MEN, not women. Donna came in after about fifteen minutes and immediately started laughing at everything, which really bothers me because I stupidly try to take everything seriously and imagine what if it really were possible and true, and it takes me a while to loosen up and try to get on her wavelength, and then she says "Oh, you can make fun of it but I can't." So I can't win. ANYWAY, there are some pretty weird ideas here that go beyond the level of what the average zombie movie has become - because ideas were pretty much all they had to work with and they didn't have a million bucks to spend. Funny how not having money forces you to be creative. Same music in this movie as in Angry Red Planet. Very competent use of stock footage. 7/10

MOVIES

I was going to watch the Buster Keaton movie Parlor, Bedroom and Bath (1931) from the Buster Keaton Comedy Legend series from Passport Video - until I discovered that they had put a STUPID LOGO that says Buster Keaton Comedy Legend, in the corner of the screen THROUGH THE WHOLE MOVIE, the STUPID DAMN BASTARDS!!! I SPIT on you, Passport Video, you DESPICABLE VERMIN!!!!

Movies

Conspiracy Theory (1997) A nostalgic look back at fin-de-siecle kookery. Takes you back to the good old days of Art Bell Show nuts and their primitive nut-zines. Mel Gibson really was a good actor - I have known actual conspiracy kooks and twitchy oddballs and he really has it down. More chasing around and shooting than I really care for, but the story was complex enough to make it worth wading through all the guys yelling freeze and people crashing through windows or getting hit on the back of the head. Had some good twists on the basic concepts, like why certain nuts always seem to have a copy of Catcher in the Rye. 6/10