In 1348, the plague known as ‘black death’ is cutting wide and deep through the populations of Europe and has reached England with a vengeance. Some men have taken to question God, while others blame Him outright, forcing the Catholic Church to take drastic measures to assert itself.
Watch the trailer here:
Those communities not yet affected by the disease come under suspicion of witchcraft and emissaries are sent to investigate and return proof to the religious authorities.
Bloke is being divorced by his wife, so his mates, who all have ‘spousal’ issues of their own, decide to take him on a wild weekend in the village of Moodley, where women outnumber men by four to one.
They’re all hoping for some Hoo-Hoo-Hee-Haa, wa-hey-hey sexy times I guess.
As our heroes are about to find out, the women of the village have been turned into demonic, zombie-like mutants with cannibalistic tendencies by a military experiment gone very wrong.
Watch the trailer here:
Marooned in the village with the last survivor of the military team, our gang will try its best to survive in creative and funny ways. Such as putting a severed head in a radio controlled truck for the zombirds to chase after, or filling a squirt gun with flammable fuel for the RC truck and spraying a zombird with it (a one time use, but hey…).
I’m frustrated. We’re watching a movie called “a cat’s tale” also known as “cats: the movie”, a live action shot on video (gotta stay mobile to follow the cats in the story), and I think they did a pretty good job at telling a story with creatures that, well, are doing pretty much as they please.
I guess it’s all in the editing, and thank goodness for video, otherwise the cost of film would be astronomical.
Point is, they did a pretty good job of it. Personally, I’ve been having a hell of a time trying to take pictures of Tito and the demon Mazuzu. Tito… Tito, the inexplicably paranoid kitty. I saw him creep up on a dust bunny and suddenly beat the crap out of it as if it were an intruder… Same thing with drapes. I don’t even ask anymore.
Oh, you wanted a photo?
I’ve taken to turning the camera on in another room because he sometimes (but not always) jumps nervously when he hears the electronic sound the camera makes. Yeah, he’s not exactly consistent about that.
Then he has to be approached in such a way that he senses me coming into the room, but not in such a way that he might think I’m about to move stuff (a big no-no which will send him scurrying). He is difficult enough to photograph in natural light, dark and jumpy as he is, but he also has an uncanny sense of the precise moment when the shutter’s about to close: he then closes his eyes or turns his head.
For every good picture we ever managed to take of him, dozens more were deleted.
Aaaaaahhhhhhh! It’s got me!
Oh, but Mazuzu is something else.
First, we can’t use the flash because his eyes, his blue peepers, are sensitive to it and he shuts them or turns away. We’ve practiced and gotten him used to being photographed without it, again in natural light. Given that the apartment is relatively dark, these two are making us work at it… If I contort myself and manage to get positioned just right for a close up, he will turn and present his rear end. Or close his eyes, still. But 8 times out of 10, I get the rear. At times, he’ll smudge his nose against the lens.
Kitsune’s blue peepers
Well, you know, what works in fashion ends up working in cat photography as it turns out. Load them up on catnip, turn the music up a bit, have someone rough-house them, petting them heavily while saying stuff like “work it Baby! Yeah, that’s right! Oh you like that?” And your subjects will squirm and mug for you…
If you want them to hold the pause, point the laser a few inches from their stoned – I mean impaired – noses and make it quick.
This. Is a lot of work…
The cats have been feeling their oats lately, playing just a bit more vigorously than usual and sleeping just as hard…
ZZZZZZZ-Whaaa..?
We’ve been going out more and more ourselves, spending most of this past Saturday at Golden Gate Park, starting with grilled fish, shrimp and carne asada in the meadow across from Mallard Lake. We had marinated the shrimp in a mix of Clementine-tangerine juice mixed with lime juice, brown sugar, thinly sliced shallots and shredded ginger which all came out deliciously fresh tasting.
Filets of sole and carne asada, with blackened seasoning on the fish.
Grilled peppers and beer, dried bread crumbs for our hosts.
Raven
Three hours later, we took a stroll around Mallard Lake where we saw this beautiful Blue Heron:
Great blue heron
Looking for parking around the Arboretum, I decided to drive around Stow Lake where we saw these geese with their goslings:
Canadian Geese and goslings
Finally, the arboretum with so many flowers in bloom:
Ed Pollack (Ron Perlman) has a tough job: he flies back to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska from the US on a mission. The small party he has waiting for him at their base camp will be tasked with laying the ground work for a new pipeline.
Ron Perlman as Ed Pollack
Matters are complicated by the presence of James Hoffman (James LeGros), a concession from the oil company KIK to political interests and environmentalists.
James LeGros as James Hoffman is watching the skies
Hoffman has observed and documented fluctuating temperatures preventing any notion of building a road as the ground would be too soft, and has a theory about strange behavior and visions affecting group members: Hoffman believes that climate change causes sour gas, a mixture of natural gas and hydrogen sulfide, to seep from the ground.
On an island off the coast of Wales, Cat Williams (Jennifer Evans) and her boyfriend are making sexy times in a field when they are abducted by aliens. On the aliens’ ship, the boyfriend gets a most gruesome anal drilling before getting killed, while Cat is implanted with a baby alien and released.
To put it in perspective, Eric Cartman had it real easy by comparison.
Watch the trailer here:
A week later, tabloid TV reporter Michelle Fox (Emily Booth) sells her editor on the idea of doing a report on Cat’s story for Weird Worlde, their “reality” show investigating yetis, aliens and other tabloid fodder.
Irish farmer Dan Reilly (John Lynch) has fallen on hard times and agreed to let an obscure biotech concern conduct fertility experiments on his cows.
The idea is to speed up the maturation process while simultaneously increasing the animals’ fertility. The research is conducted by a non-too-friendly scientist named John (Marcel Iures), assisted by local vet Orla (Essie Davis).
Marcel Iures as “John”
Dan, the farmer, doesn’t quite understand the science behind the program and probably wouldn’t care if he actually saw the money he was promised. But both he and the vet, Orla, have yet to see some dough.
In Marvel’s “Captain America: the first avenger” released this July, Steve Rogers is a weakling who never gives up his dream of joining the Army and go fight Nazis, despite the bullying and poor medical reviews. His character’s trajectory is pretty much told in the trailer: Rogers volunteers for a secret Army program to enhance his strength and reflexes by placing him in a waffle-maker and bombarding him with rays.
Watch Captain America’s trailer here:
Voila, instant super-soldier, ready to kick nemesis Red Skull und his minions in the keister.
A little over 40 years ago, another super hero was making less waves, off screen at least. Written and directed by American expat William Klein, “Mr. Freedom” is an interesting satire and counter-point to “Captain America”, which Klein made in his adopted country of France.
Uh-oh, you’re already sensing where this is going…
On a mining colony called Sirius 6B in the late 21st century, the survivors of two warring factions may have to join forces to survive a new threat: self-replicating weapons evolving of their own accord since being “fielded” by one side. “Screamers” are scavenging robots produced in underground factories for the alliance, burrowing just below the surface until they launch themselves at their prey, their razor sharp blades whirring at a painfully high pitch sounding like a scream. Scary and gory stuff.
Watch the trailer here:
They then slice their target to pieces and drag the gruesome remains below ground.
