Some notions, no matter how far-fetched they might appear, are simply too exciting to just whither and die.
The long rumored and awaited Guillermo Del Toro project “at the mountains of madness” based on an H.P. Lovecraft story is getting some renewed interest from a new source, Steven Spielberg.
The new production will likely rely on the motion capture technique Spielberg became familiar with in one of his most recent projects.
We can’t wait…
Summer, the way it should be… Until we point the Bodmobile to points North like Mendocino county, the pointy eared folks continue to “grace” us with their homebound antics.
Nurse Jenny, taking Mazuzu’s pulse:
Mazuzu’s rear end is about to receive some ‘unwelcome’ attention, but those nether regions require regular cleaning he fails to provide for himself. Let’s just say his eyes are about to go big.
Meanwhile, gentleman Tito tries to entertain Jenny with bird watching, despite his audience’s seeming lack of interest.
This summer is unfortunately a sobering time as well, with fires, unpredictable winds and storms displacing many, destroying homes and lives. We have friends currently threading through very dire straits and they are foremost in our thoughts.
Do cats dream? Yes, and not just about chasing mice or stealing food from the kitchen. We found out Kitsy likes sour cream, and hot sauce, which of course sends him sauntering to the litterbox right quick with what I call a bad case of volcanorifice. Cats like watching movies as well.
They just get it all confused at times, which in turn confuses us. In other words, you can never trust what a cat thinks…
We haven’t even seen “the woman in black” yet, but after watching this clip from “Fry & Laurie”, they’ve decided to… Re-enact what they haven’t seen yet. What imagination they have… But first the clip:
Somehow, from this, Jenny started acting the part of the kitteh in black:
Mazuzu, still too weak to really play, acted the narrator, as if there was one, but it doesn’t matter because – well, because…
Gigadoon is Tito’s new(ish) nickname, by the way, and Jenny’s is Gigic with hard G and pronounced Guiguitch. Balkans style. Sort of. Doesn’t matter.
In the haunted house, Tito finally surrenders to fitful slumber…
The month of May, when plants grow and bloom, has been spectacular this year. Ka-Pow!
Bookending a visit to the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park were a solar eclipse on the 20th preceded by the apparition of the Perigee (or Super) moon on the 5th. Whamo!
This trip to the Academy of Sciences was made even more enjoyable because of the San Francisco Neighborhood Free Days, making our visit free. Zing!
Having said that, and after viewing all the exhibits, it is well worth the regular admission price. We will take you along on our trip in three segments. The fourth would have been the Planetarium, but since photographs were forbidden and the material copyrighted, we are left with the aforementioned celestial shows available to all (or most). Zoosh!
I have played with the solar eclipse pictures a bit as the originals look like this and are not sexy enough (crash!):
Corny jokes are all that I’m left with, along with growing paranoia.
Just over a week ago, I was trawling (geddit?) through our Netflix queue looking for something to watch, promptly found “Trollhunter” sitting two thirds of the way down, and jumped over to Nekoneko to re-read her review.
By the way, if you’re interested in watching “Trollhunter” I recommend you read her write up. Because you see, I did not finish it. And I wanted to review it. By Grabthar’s hammer, this was not to be…
Continue reading ““Trollhunter”: Norway José”
“The adventures of Tintin” (107 minutes, USA, 2011 – rated PG)
Perhaps the most difficult thing in adapting material like Hergé’s comic books has to do with tone and pitch. To say the themes and characters are dated or fixed in time might be unkind, but it’s safe to say Tintin is steeped in tradition. And in some instances, some would even say good riddance.
Tintin’s adventures spanned about 40 years from the 1930’s until the 1970’s, a period which started between world wars, through European decolonization, the nuclear age, race to space and the cold war, with a hero combining Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts’ ideals with the romantic depiction of the journalist as defender of the Fourth Estate.
It’s Caturday, but before I get to the pointy eared people, I thought I would announce a pet food recall. Diamond Pet Foods has announced a voluntary recall of dry pet food because of salmonella. It also includes Costco’s Kirkland Signature and Nature’s Domain Products. You can read more about it here. I have also discovered that Natural Balance is also recalling some of their food made by Diamond. You can read that announcement here. The recall includes dog AND cat food, so please check your labels. I don’t want to read about anyone losing their much loved pet to this.
I might add, that while food appears to have been the problem with Kitsy being sick, it was not because of salmonella. The other two were eating the same food and they were fine. Now that he’s on a grain-free food, Kitsy is doing much better. He’s scrawny, but he’s eating well, so he should gain weight again.
Now it’s time for the pointy eared people to shine.
For your enjoyment, two related videos:
While Mazuzu continues his recovery, Jenny shows signs of boredom. Add to that the oh-so attractive scent of freshly laundered socks and she’ll leap into action, ‘sploding the contents of the laundry bag all over the kitchen floor.
She spent so much time rolling in it, biting and clawing, that we actually noticed two colored spots on her gut: a solitary dab of orange and a light blue one where she was, erm…- fixed.
Weird, I know, but there you go. Getting the socks all over the place was just the “apéritif”, and she moved on to paper towel shredding on the bed, attacking our toes and my calves, throwing one of her stuffed toys in the air repeatedly (we had to cover our coffee mugs just in case).
Hours later, the little Hellion’s crashed on the cat tower recharging her batteries while Tito’s out chasing some flying thing, perhaps imaginary.
… What Nurse Jenny does most of the time: keep Maz the Schnazz warm:
“The grapes of death” – (85 minutes, France – NR)
Thirty years before the excellent comedy “Bottle Shock” came out, this little known gem drew its inspiration from the troubled French wine industry. Question is: was it a diamond in the rough or straight up zirconium?
Marking a return to the Midnight Movie Madness review format is this bit of a curio from 1970s France, written and directed by Jean Rollin. I found this looking through Z-movie listings (I mean Zombies), although “grapes of death” isn’t exactly about zombies created by bad wine made worse by overused pesticides, it could have been called “les dégueulasses“, as country folk develop extremely bad acne, smearing it everywhere from car windows to… Well, anywhere.
Continue reading “Midnight Movie Madness: “the grapes of death”, egg yolks and Beaujolais”
