No more half-jellybeans, they were way to hard to cut in half anyway. No, from now on, it’ll be from 1 until 5, with the following meaning:
1 jellybean: so bad it’ll reach through the screen to kill house plants, small animals and brain cells
2 jellybeans: I’d rather relive the ‘80s…
3 jellybeans: as Pike asked his Wild Bunch: “why not?”
4 jellybeans: I was glued to the couch
5 jellybeans: they should teach this in schools
“Incident at Raven’s Gate” – (1988, Australia, 94 minutes – rated R)
This was also released as “encounter at Raven’s Gate”, most likely due to elements reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s “encounters of the third kind”. However, the aliens in “incident at Raven’s Gate” aren’t the least bit friendly, as we’ve seen now in many a horror film from Oz, everything out in the Bush is menacing.
Continue reading “JBoD double matinee: Oz encounters and a skin flick”
It’s been a quiet weekend at the homestead, Saturday being our wedding anniversary and the weather turning to rain, mostly. Thanks to a break in the downpours we were able to drive to the beach at the Western end of Sloat boulevard.
Rhuda-an snapped this with her new Canon Powershot SX20, the clouds were stunning.
We then drove up to Twin Peaks and took this photo of the city…
Here is a local taking in the view…
Dinner consisted of a hachis parmentier, a layer of two beef patties mixed with a whole onion and shredded broccoli, squash and baby carrots, topped with a layer of garlic mashed potatoes, with a thin spread of shredded spinach with grated white cheddar.
Sadly, no pics this time but we’ll do this again!
Cats have a way of looking at you which conveys certain expectations. They give us plenty of credit, it’s true, thinking we (the pink monkeys) are perhaps smarter than we are. A case in point may be what to feed them, another maybe when to empty the litter box. At best, when we don’t get it, the result is an annoyed meow with a look of disappointment and impatience.
At worst, as was the case yesterday, it will look like something exploded under the bathroom sink where we keep the uncovered litter box.
There was Feline Pine all over the floor in a 360 degree dispersion pattern. No question who did it either. When the naked one does a number 2 in there, a couple of things happen.
For one, he transforms from Kitsune into his evil self, Mazuzu Whang, running through the apartment yelling and growling, leaping on and off the furniture like a chimpanzee on acid and crack. You would think that taking a crap is the single most exciting thing of his day. Then, the stench spreads across the rooms.
Because Sphynxes can dump turds the size of which will make you do a triple take, and boy do they stink. In the first days after we brought the beast home, we used to eye each other suspiciously until we realized who the culprit was: to add insult to injury, he used to miss the box, you see… He’ll then look at us quizzically with his tail curled in a question mark: “do you get it, human?”
Some believe that people are at their best when things take a turn for the worse. I don’t think that way.
I do know that animals often put us humans to shame in many aspects, such as loyalty and faithfulness. This video from Japan of a dog protecting another is a great and moving example.
Both dogs are reportedly receiving veterinary care after being rescued.
A nod goes to a friend of the blog who is auctioning a print to benefit relief efforts in Japan, please take time to check out his photo stream here.
UPDATE: the island of Tashirojima appears to be safe for the time being. Its small human and very large feline populations have so far managed to escape major harm but are running low on food…
From wiki: fixed-net fishing was popular on the island after the Edo Period and fishermen from other areas would come and stay on the island overnight. The cats would go to the inns where the fishermen were staying and beg for scraps. Over time, the fishermen developed a fondness for the cats and would observe the cats closely, interpreting their actions as predictions of the weather and fish patterns. One day, when the fishermen were collecting rocks to use with the fixed-nets, a stray rock fell and killed one of the cats. The fishermen, feeling sorry for the loss of the cat, buried it and enshrined it at this location on the island.
“The plague of the zombies” – (1966, UK, 91 minutes – NR)
How about some cartoons before the main attraction? You can either rent or stream “Happy Tree Friends” cartoons before watching “the plague of the zombies”: short and oh-so-very-cute animations with cartoonish beavers, elks, hedgehogs, anteaters, bears and squirrels getting ‘dispatched’ in extremely gruesome ways…
In Jesse Jackson’s tone: enucleation, decapitation, immolation, evisceration, amputation, the list goes on.
So good it even makes me wince at times, and you have to love the little public service tips at the end of each short: “don’t forget to floss”, “a smile doesn’t cost anything”, etc.
And if you are familiar with the series, you ought to revisit it every so often. It will keep you sane in a mad world. Yes, really.
Now, onto our feature, “the plague of the zombies”: in late 19th century England, Sir James Forbes (Andre Morell) receives word from a former student practicing in a small village in Cornwall that strange deaths are occurring amongst the local population.
Watch the trailer here:
The former student, now Doctor Peter Tompson (Brook Williams), is relieved to see Sir James turn up to assist, but his wife Alice (Jacqueline Pearce), well not so much.
Continue reading “Midnight Movie Madness: “the plague of the zombies””
The Catapocalypse is indeed coming. Terrible, innit?
“The cats of Mirikitani” – (2006, USA, 74 minutes – documentary)
Sometime around the summer of 2001, film editor Linda Hattendorf develops an interest in 80 year old homeless artist Tsutomu “Jimmy” Mirikitani who accepts to become the subject of her documentary project.
Jimmy’s subjects are mainly cats, tigers and the internment camps where he spent three and a half years, at Tule Lake, California during WWII.
Watch the trailer here:
After the September 11th attacks, which brought forth images reminiscent of the Hiroshima bombing with a city covered in ashes and dust, Hattendorf convinces Jimmy to leave behind his shopping cart and multiple layers of clothing, and move into her apartment.
Continue reading ““The cats of Mirikitani”: persistence of vision”
This week, two films which can be broadly characterized as creature features: Mystery Science Theater 3000’s skewering of Lamberto Bava’s “Devil Fish” and Larry Cohen’s “Q: the winged serpent”.
Bava’s “Devil Fish” was ‘remade’ in 2010 for the SyFy channel as “Sharktopus”.
Interestingly, many elements of “Q: the winged serpent” were ‘borrowed’ in 1998’s “Godzilla” as well, but not credited to Cohen…
Doing a review of an MST3K is like reviewing a review, in a way, but “Devil Fish” is so bad that this “commented” version made it much, much more palatable.
Continue reading “Midnight Movie Madness: tentacle difficulties and uncivil serpents”
“Creatures of the Pink lagoon” – (2006, USA, 71 minutes – NR)
Sometimes trying to decide on a good movie to review doesn’t mean the movie has to be all that great. I think there should be something interesting about it which doesn’t necessarily figure in the budget number, cast or other factor, since the review is always going to be subjective after all.
And since I’ve been fighting the flu most of the week, with cocktails of Sudafed and Vodka, I got in the mood for some silliness.
Continue reading “Spoofing old horror: “creatures of the Pink lagoon””
