"There are two kinds of fool. One says, 'This is old, and therefore good.' And one says, 'This is new, and therefore better.'"--John Brunner
11/1/02
Know what's kinda gross? Waiting on an overly-pierced bimbo who's wearing a halter top emblazoned with the logo of the local strip club, meaning that she works there, and she pays you all in ones...
I got something that looked like a spam, but it had a subject line saying that it was against MLMs. Typically, MLM spam wants you "invest" your money (ie, give it to a con artist). It seemed to be sent to only 3 people, so I checked out WorldWideScam. Especially since the email assured me that if I didn't join the fight against MLMs, I was a "dumbass."
Those with dialup, look out. Lots of animated gifs and such.
Thanks for searching my page for Dali works with children carrying snake heads! Hope you found what you were looking for!
Karl sends an url that reminds us that...
...Japanese people are crazy. "No thanks! Normally, I'd be quite content to eat a big slice of your head, but my eggy brains are exploding at the moment."
And there's a whole family of clinically depressed Egg People! "TAMAGOYAROU! TRIFLYandSTUPIDLY, FONDLYandPITIABLY--andPLEASURE!"
And what does one eat ones Eggsploding Head with? Why, Mr HAYAGUI, the Angry and Constipated Tooth! Say, why not read the diary (in Japanese, unfortunately) of The Happy Animal-Loving ButtPlug? Oh, if only buttplugs could talk! The stories they'd tell!
Probably the same stories that the overpierced bimbo would tell. But from a different perspective.
11/2
I really don't understand why this page, with its 50 regulars, is so popular with search engines. GO AWAY, SEARCH ENGINES! Hey, want the secret to getting more hits for your page? Mention "UNIX Security Guards" on it. I get a few hits a day for that.
Or, hell, just string together any random series of words. Today almost half my hits were search engine mistakes. "Ponytail bitch"? Speaking! "Bloating fetish"? Ponytail Bitch is Google's Number Two Expert! I recommend drinking a lot of water, or better yet, sticking your head in a bucket of it till you see the tunnel of light, you freakcase. "What did the skunks have that no other"...Err...Got me. "GI Joe homoerotic stories"? Sorry, but you, your Snake Eyes figure, and your other hand are pretty much alone here.
The toilet at the Store is leaking. But it's not the toilet's fault, as it's brand new. My theory is that our neighbors, Pizza Turk, are to blame. They used to dump their grease directly into the storm sewer behind the store until the Board of Health stopped them. I think that they've instead decided to flush the grease. I've had their pizza, and believe me, I don't see how they could have any grease LEFT. Grease is like a free topping from them.
I don't understand how people can misinterpret simple directions. Everytime I tell someone at the Store to look "right behind you," they look to their right or left. "No, BEHIND you!" makes them look to their left or right. No wonder people in horror movies die so easily. "LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU!" (looks in pants, gets stabbed)
Today the question was, "Where's your champagne?" I pointed 12 feet away from the register and said, "There, on the bottom 2 shelves." He looked at the top, fifth shelf. "No, the bottom two shelves," I said. He looked at the 2 shelves on the bottom, which ran a good 12 feet of champagne each. And then he looked at the shelf above, which had no champagne, and the shelf above that, and the fifth shelf above that. He finally grabbed a bottle of Australian chardonnay and asked "Is this it?" I got free from the register long enough to gently point out "No, these two bottom shelves." I went back to ring, and he grabbed a bottle eventually. It was spumante, not champagne, but I really decided that it was best to cut both our losses and just ring him up.
Scary part? Given his outfit, Blind Stupid Man had just come back from HUNTING. I wonder if the news tomorrow will mention the shooting of any upright-walking deer wearing clothes and smoking cigarettes...
11/4
I spent most of yesterday staring at stuff. That's unusual.
First, Kevin, Eric and I went to see Sadko, or The Magic Voyage of Sinbad, as it's known to the MST3K crowd. Definitely not as entertaining as that twisted Stalinist version of Gulliver's Travels, but fun nonetheless. It had a real goofy charm, and never took itself too seriously. The high production value was a plus. I was both pleased and confused to see that the score was by Rimsky-Korsakoff--Pleased because I like his work, confused due to his rather advanced state of being dead at the time of the movie. By like 50 years. The subtitles had the Bad Capitalists (in a Soviet-made movie? Really now!) repeatedly refer to the Oppressed Workers (in a Soviet-made movie? Do go on!) as "rubble." I kept expecting Sadko to disguise himself as a dinosaur and try to steal some Fruity Pebbles.
A bit of odd coolness was added by a pair of very old women who sat in the front row and talked in Russian. Revisiting their childhood memories from the Motherland?
Then I went home and--I'm ashamed to even admit this in public--watched TV!! Simpson's Treehouse of Horror. Well, yes, but. I'm getting close to linking the Simpsons and horror in my mind continually, but with an "ible" at the end. I remember when, like MST3K, I'd tape the Simpsons as I watched it. Because there would be jokes that I'd miss because I was laughing too hard at the joke before it. Now, I can barely smile. When Homer shot the clone that knew the way home, I thought "They will repeat this joke twice." Wrong. Repeated thrice. They should've ended the show 3 years ago.
Then I watched The World is Not Enough, one of the more recent 007 flicks, based on Ebert's 3.5 star review. I was a total fanatic for Spy-Fi back in the day, but I gave up on Bond, James Bond, a long time ago. It was a cotton candy movie; it went down easy and was fun while it lasted, but it left no impression once it was gone. What a waste of a great villian, too: A professional terrorist with a bullet lodged in his skull, which was killing his nerve endings, leaving him impervious to pain and fatigue. "He'll get stronger until the day he dies," we're warned. And he picks up a rock that's hot 'n it burns 'n stuff, and that's about it. Wow. Way to run with THAT concept.
Exactly how does one get the job of "professional terrorist," anyway? Is that a category on monster.com? Do you start an agency and hire temps to do the suicide bombings?
Today I went to the East Hartford SalvArmy, but only because I'm juice-free and BIG!Lots is right near it. That's one of the SalvArmy's that's a waste to go in. Everything is really overpriced--insanely overpriced, if you factor in that they're selling stuff that they get for FREE. Ah, a 1980s stereo receiver for $79.99. I could go to Best Buy and get a new one for that much, and it would have a remote AND could be returned if it didn't work. In their video selection there was "Patton, Part I" for $3. And no "Patton, Part II," of course. But that was a bargain compared to the $5 they wanted for a 15-minute long instructional video on how to set up your smoke alarm. Thanks, I'm waiting for the DVD with the director's commentary.
Tomorrow is Election Day, so get out and vote! As part of the election reform passed in the wake of the 2000 election, remember that Democrats, Greens and Independents vote on Tuesday, and Republicans vote on Wednesday. So you Neo-Cons can just safely sit tomorrow out! And America--in fact, the entire world--will thank you for that.
11/5
11/6
A customer told me today that she'd taken in a stray cat. The cat isn't skinny, but she keeps eating and eating. So she may be pregnant.
You probably can guess where I'm going with this.
I've thought about getting a playmate for Kill Kill before. But she's happy with the way her life is, and if she gets bored, she goes to sleep. And it would be heartbreaking to have Killsy hate the new arrival. I couldn't take a kitten to the shelter, even if it was no-kill and she might have a good chance of adoption, being a kitten and all.
So how do you tell if a cat will get along with a kitten before you get one? If I throw a toy mouse at Killsy, she annihilates it. But if it's a long-haired mouse, she'll grab it and immediately stop fighting and tenderly groom it. So there's some maternal instinct in her. But the only time she's ever hissed at me was when she smelled Jessica's cat's scent on me. But her cat is a full-grown male. Would she see a kitten as a rival or her daughter? If anyone has any tips, it's thoughtviper&hotmail*com. It's not like I'm in any rush to decide; it's not yet certain that the cat is pregnant, and kittens should wait 6-7 weeks before they leave their mommy's side.
I'm thinking of naming her Tura, for obvious reasons.
A wee bit late for Halloween is this streaming horror movie music site Kevin sent me. Remember, there's always room for Giallo!
Via the J-List ML, a site of crazy Japanese ads. Nicholas Cage pushes Pachinko, Godzilla theatrical trailers and the Komadori-Bros! who are advertising Gourd knows what, pants maybe, but their surreal animations are really funny. And check out both parts of "Hitchhiking Japan," which are fascinating in their "not about anything" way.
J-List mentions that "Back during the 1990s, there was even a series of Georgia Coffee 'Twin Peaks' commercials that featured most of the cast of the show and a murder mystery that was slowly resolved as each commercial was aired." Those aren't on the site, and damned if I wouldn't kill to see those damn fine ads.
Pissed off about yesterday's elections? AngryDems.com, with a message board and the world's shortest petition: "Terry McAuliffe, You're FIRED!" Stupid Democratic Leaders! Ever occur to you that you might get more votes if you ran as DEMOCRATS and not Moderate Republicans with a different party name?!
11/7
It's late, as I went to the late showing of Spirited Away tonight. WOW. Utterly incredible. A great story that never goes anywhere near anything you could possibly predict, beyond "there's a happy ending." It's populated by wildly imaginative creatures, some lovable, some grotesque, and some of which you'll find lovable then grotesque then back again in turn. That's the Miyazaki touch--like Princess Mononoke no one's who you think they are, and the "villians" aren't so much "evil" as just having different agendas than the main characters. Even the worst character is a loving mommy! I also liked the way that the Spirit World seems confusing and scary at first (as it would to a kid), but then becomes a fully realized place with a lot of humor and sweetness, sometimes in a literal instant. At one point a monstrous Harpy-like creature becomes a tiny wide-eyed bird, and the audience giggled every time after that when she appeared. I'd like to point out that I got the "Plush Keychain Collection" from J-List for a mere $8 (sorry, but it's not on their page anymore), and of the 6 that they made lil' chibis of, 4 are of characters that at one point you think are the bad guys.
It kinda sucked that we saw the subtitled version. Sorry, I don't go to the movies to read, especially with the way Miyazaki fills the corners of the screen with bits of business. I stopped reading the subs during the one bit where the transformed rat recreates a squishing while sentient spiders made of soot watch. Err, that sentence makes perfect sense in context.
Unlike Mononoke, Disney's making no attempt in the US to push this great film. I can't promise that it'll make its way to your area. It was in Space Waitress' neighborhood a whole damn month ago, and she lives in like Greenland or Mars or something. Over here, inbetween Gotham and Beantown, we usually get movies like this right away, and this is the type of film that you NEED to see in a theater. Even if, like me, you saw it on a 1950s Cinerama screen, the kind that's curved inward. ConcavArama! FishbowlVision!
Speaking of great movies, I'm preparing to do a review of The Swarm, which, like King Kong Sucks, is a truly great disaster. In the mean time, here's a review of Nukie. "It's a goddamn half-assed rip-off of 'MAC and Me,' which was a quarter-assed ripoff of 'E.T.' Every second of this movie is like having a root canal performed on your genitals with rusty dental tools that are also on fire. For the record, that's bad."
"Fat, Bald, Ugly, Insecure, Broke? New Jedi mind tricks will get Swedish super models into your bed anyway! http://wwwwww.lightnight23.com/seduction.html"
That's a spam I got today. And I think it may actually be a REAL joke! No permutation of that insane "wwwwww" url works, and Google turns up nothing about "lightnight23" except other people mentioning the spam. Joke spam, man, I wish that I'd thought of that!
There's no way that I'm not going to mention a story that involves kittens, the post office AND New Zealand!
11/8
You can act real rude and totally removed and I'll act like an imbecile.
I grabbed my old Walkman out of the closet for some reason, and found a tape in it. I'm guessing that it dates from the mid-80s, as the first thing on it is Safety Dance. Everybody look at your hands! I wonder what else is on this.
"I Got the Message," also by Men Without Hats. All their LPs had at least 2 great songs on them.
I don't geddit. When did Connecticut become an adjective?
Fun Boy 3! Remember Fun Boy 3? 3 fun songs by the fun 3. Oh crap, "Fallout." Must be the Reagan era, as it's a synth dance song about Armageddon. Damned if I remember who did this. A guy and 2 gals, what's their name...Sorry, no idea. Next, the Human League! NO, not that song, but "Going Medieval" and "Empire State Human." "Tall tall tall, I wanna be tall tall tall, as big as a wall wall wall..." And "Black Hit of Space," the best song about a crap song becoming a number one hit. "It got to number one, then entered minus figures."
No, I don't have anything more important to talk about tonight.
"I Don't Know Why Sometimes I Get Frightened," oh great, there's another one I can't remember who did...it, done it, dood it. Hey, I'm an EX-English major, maybe there's a reason! SPLIT ENZ! That's who didded it, I bet! That's it! Woo, 80s fest at Bill's place!
Now this song I know right from the first note! "Land of the Glass Pinecones" by Human Sexual Response! One of my favorite songs about...something. It speaks eloquently of something, and you're poorer for not knowing it. And here's another classic, the instrumental from that 1978 local release, Cabbage Pump's "One Dead Pope Leads to Another." "Backwards guitar solo by Old Bean Gibb," as the liner notes said.
Dada. That's the name of the "Fallout" group. Not remotely Dadaistic, but they had a few really good songs. And the tape ends with a cut from Children's Dance Party.
The other side of the tape is all Fad Gadget and Associates songs. Okay, this wasn't all that interesting, but there you go. "All important rubbish, made to publish, made to last."--Associates, "Message Oblique Speech."
Speaking of rubbish, here's my reply to some email thingie Kevin sent me:
"Welcome to the next edition of getting to know your friends. What you're supposed to do is copy (not forward) this entire e-mail and paste it onto a new e-mail that you'll send. Change all of the answers so they apply to you. Then, send this to a whole bunch of people you know *INCLUDING* the person who sent it to you. The theory is that you'll learn a lot of little known facts about your friends."
1. WHAT TIME DO YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING? The alarm goes off at 11:18AM. I wake up around 1:30. 2. IF YOU COULD EAT LUNCH WITH ONE FAMOUS PERSON, WHO WOULD IT BE? GOD. I have some questions I want to ask Him. Like "Menstruation?! WHAT were you THINKING?!" 3. GOLD OR SILVER? Monkey! 4. WHAT WAS THE LAST FILM YOU SAW AT THE CINEMA? "Spirited Away." It rocked like a fox in a box wearing socks. Whatever that means. 5. FAVORITE TV SHOW? I have heard of this "TV" that you humans worship, but know little of it. 6. WHAT DO YOU HAVE FOR BREAKFAST? Monkey! 7. WHAT WOULD YOU HATE TO BE LEFT IN A ROOM WITH? Monkey! No, wait. I meant George Bush. No idea how I confused those. 8. CAN YOU TOUCH YOUR NOSE WITH YOUR TONGUE? Yes, but I have to cut it off with garden shears first. 9. WHAT INSPIRES YOU? Beer inspires me to go wee-wee. 10. WHAT'S YOUR MIDDLE NAME? DANGER! 11. BEACH, CITY, Or COUNTRY? Country. Or, as you say, COUNTRY. 12. SUMMER OR WINTER? SUMMER. And stop yelling! 13. FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Chunky Monkey! But only with chunks of real monkey. mmmMONKEY! 14. BUTTERED, PLAIN, OR SALTED POPCORN? Yeah, buttery and salty and hey, think you could dump some fucking lard on it too? I like mine with a defibulator handy. 15. FAVORITE COLOR? All white, except for her little pink nose and big pink ears. 16. FAVORITE CAR? Anyone that's paid for. 17. FAVORITE SANDWICH FILLING? Yes, if I eat enough favorite sandwiches. 18. TRUE LOVE? Yes, with a cat. 19. WHAT CHARACTERISTICS DO YOU DESPISE? People who turn into zombies and try to eat your brain. It's rude, no other word for it. 20. FAVORITE FLOWER? I hated him and his stupid dummy Madam. (Number of people who got that: Me) 21. IF YOU HAD A BIG WIN IN THE LOTTERY, HOW LONG WOULD YOU WAIT TO TELL PEOPLE? Until after I built the Death Ray. Then the WHOLE WORLD would know! MUHWAHAHAHAHA!! Was that okay? I'm trying to perfect my Evil Laugh. 22. WATER AS A DRINK? About half a gallon a day, actually. WATER AS CLOTHING? Not recommended in the winter. 23. WHAT COLOR IS YOUR BATHROOM? Yellow if I haven't cleaned it in a while. 24. HOW MANY KEYS ON YOUR KEY RING? Who wants to know, smart guy? Mebbe you can counts them better after I've rammed them up yer snoot! 25. WHERE WOULD YOU RETIRE TO? In the woods and mountains, in a secret underground headquarters, snug with my cat and Death Ray. 26. CAN YOU JUGGLE? I can fall down the stairs if I want. Does that count? 27. FAVORITE DAY OF THE WEEK: Bastille. 28. RED OR WHITE WINE? PABST BLUE RIBBON!! 29. WHAT DID YOU DO FOR YOUR LAST BIRTHDAY? Ate, slept, breathed. Just another day to me. 30. DO YOU CARRY A DONOR CARD? Yes. I won't be needing my guts when I'm dead. 31. SAY SOMETHING NICE ABOUT THE PERSON THAT SENT THIS TO YOU: Kevin respects my monkey fetish. He does not lock me in rooms with Dubya or try to eat my brains. The last part is because he's vegetarian, but still, you gotta respect the not brain-eating. He smells nice, too. I would marry him him if I was gay and also insane. 32. WHO DO YOU LEAST EXPECT TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? Mr Blinky, my invisible friend. 33. WHO IS THE PERSON YOU EXPECT TO SEND THIS BACK FIRST? You ask too many questions! ---------------------------------
11/9
Via Mark the Vet: "Let the Monkey Revolution--BEGIN! Remember to bring lots of poop."
Inevitable: I didn't bother to lock the door right after closing tonight, as I figured that if all the store's lights were off and I was wearing my coat while keying in the code to activate the alarm, it was pretty obvious that we were closed. "Are you open?" asked a guy.
"No," I said. Then he looked at his watch. Possibly the watchface said "U R A RETARD," as he walked away without a word.
11/10
If the FBI is really all that concerned about people making "unlawful duplicates" of The Swarm, it's no wonder that they still haven't caught the Anthrax Guy.
In a leap of incredible imagination, the theme song has a string section playing like bees! Because The Swarm is about insects, and not chiggers or pube crabs, no no! Appropriately, the brass sounds like it's farting. Because this movie is one big, gassy stinker.
The credits roll with the all-star cast. Michael Caine! Katherine Ross! Fred MacMurray! Slim Pickens! Patty Duke Astin! Henry Fonda as Dr. Krim! "Anytime a cop's beatin' up on a Krim, I'll be there!" Zack Norman as Sammy in Chief Zabu! Under the credits, the Air Force sends a crack team of asscracks to a missile base. These are rifle-armed dudes snappily dressed in bright orange jumpsuits with matching crash helmets. If this is camoflague, possibly they expect to go into combat with the Great Pumpkin.
Screenplay by Sterling Silliphant. Oh, Babar, you are such a silliphant! The festively-dressed troops go into the missile base, in a scene so full of tension and suspense that it's like you're in line at the DMV. You know, you're tense because it's boring, and it's suspenseful because you're afraid that it'll never end.
Room full o' dead guys! As we already are sure that they've been kilt by bees, director/producer/dipshit Irwin Allen gives us a series of close-ups showing the corpses without a mark on them. Maybe instead of stinging them, the bees...I don't know, crawled up their nostrils and suffocated them. Slipped them Bee Roofies. Did the hypnotic magic bee dance of sleepy-sleeps. Maybe the bees told the guys that they were in an Irwin Allen movie, and they died of embarassment.
A soldier takes off his crash helmet and it's SWEATY DILLMAN! Bradford Dillman, who kinda takes the whole "all-star cast" thing down a notch in quality. He is sweaty! Like he dunked his head in a bucket of vaseline. I think that this is fake sweat. "Red Two to Top Kick," he mumbles into his walkie-talkie-sweatie, even though he looks more like Number Two, if you follow me. "RED TWO REPORTING IN!" screams a guy in a helicopter to General Richard Widmark. (Please note: The first guy we see is sweaty, the second line of dialogue we hear is screamed. These are important thematic elements)
After they send in the Pumpkin Men, they send in the Green Berets. Wow, since the Green Berets are the best, I wonder how good you must have to be to become a Pumpkin Man! Since Sweaty Dillman seems about to pass out over the non-carnage in the missile base, maybe all it takes is a weak stomach. He almost shits his jumpsuit when Michael "Anything for a Paycheck" Caine appears. "How did you get into the complex?!" yells (theme!) Dillman sweatily (theme!). "It's a complicated story--it starts a year ago--but let's skip that." says Caine. Now, I'm me and not Michael "Whore" Caine, but Me would find something different to say when I walked into a room full of unstung corpses and screaming sweaty gaily-dressed Pumpkin Men pointing M16s at my coconut. Like "I didn't sting those dudes! In fact, since bees DIE when they sting, here's a bunch of bees in teeny weeny body bags!" And even if I didn't, I wouldn't say the line like Caine does. You know that tone of detatched, disinterested irritation you get from the people at the DMV? Say his line aloud in that voice. Then, say it again, but after you've had 2 hours sleep in 9 days after downing a case of Bud and some Qaaludes with a mouth full of peanut butter while thinking of your grandparents having sex. Then tone it down a peg. Yes, Caine's a good actor when he wants to be, but he devotes THAT much enthusiasm into this role. He's doing it for the paycheck, but he knows that the paycheck's gonna be giving him paper cuts all movie long.
General Richard Widmark, whom I will refer to as General Dick from now on, as that's what he generally is, comes in and starts screamin'. Radar techs spot an "enemy force" moving away from the missile base "at 7 miles per hour." "Whatever it is, it's big!" says the radar guy. So big it's not really discernable on the radar screen they show us. General Dick dispatches a flight of helicopters to intercept them.
Allow me a moment to talk about Irwin Allen. In 1978, he was Big Time. He wasn't regarded as any kind of genius, but his films were huge money-makers. He was coming off the crest of The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. His specialty was the "all star cast disaster movie"--hell, it was a genre that he personally invented. Killer Bees were an actual hot topic back then, and when he announced that he was making a movie about them, there was concern that the movie would cause a panic. The pre-movie hype and massive advertising assured us that the bees would be scarier than Jaws--and "they're for REAL!"
When I first saw this movie many years ago, I thought that it might be pretty intense. Then the helicopter scene came, with this classic dialogue:
11/11
It was a hardly a beautiful day, but we had record high temps in the upper 60s, so I decided to make one last stab at hiking Gay City State Park. On the way there, it started raining. Oh, the irony! In the Alanis Morrisette "rain on your wedding day" sense of irony. As Jessica's husband Ron said of that song, "A thousand knives when you need a spoon? That's not ironic! That just sucks!"
I was nearly home from the failed hike when it stopped raining. How ironic! But I was near the Rails to Trails/Valley Falls Park area, so I went there. I got a bit drizzled on, but other than that, it was great. I was the only person there--hell, besides a crow and one squirrel, the only non-plant life there. It was actually kinda weird, hearing no birdsongs, just the brook. Okay, at the beginning of the Valley Falls connection, I did hear some guys screaming for no discernable reason. But they seemed to be in that one part of the park, and everything fell silent as I walked away from there.
I looped back up to the Trail and walking up a 75 degree slope covered in wet dead leaves isn't really all that easy. On the walk back, by Valley Falls I heard the screaming again, but now it was accompanied by fireworks or hammering or someone trying to start a backfiring lawnmower. The hell? Then someone yelled "You're hit!" "I'm hit? Fuck! Life sucks!" It must've been a bunch of d00dz playing paintball. Happy Veterans Day!
Mike in the UK sends The Cat Urban Legends Page. It's huge, but I haven't had time to read much of it, with the bee-watching and all. Some of the stories I've read are kinda evil, as they're spread by cat-haters.
Who was the Man in the Iron Mask?
Dumbya's email's been cracked!
I'm the number two result on Metasearch for "animated toilet constipated"! GEDDIT?! Number TWO?!
That's the Karmic payback I get for that puerile Dillman joke last night...
Oh, GREAT, now I'll be the world's only source for the freak who searches for "puerile Dillman joke"!
*ping*ping*ping*ping! Oh, now I geddit! The missile base's giant TV doesn't go "sqeaky squeaky squeak" like Space Ghost's monitor, it goes *ping*! It rolls down and General Dick holds out his right arm and declaims "Citizen! Are you getting enough oxygen?" With his left hand, he taps some blue cards on his desk. "What are your superpowers?" Cr/aine rubs his clawlike hands together and says, "This SUCKS! Gimme me some gum!" Dr Ross raises her left arm in mild alarm, and sings "She's a sweet and simple girl, my LINDA! A lovely lava lass you see--" "SHUT UP!" yell Dick and Cr/aine. "Yeah, we hate you!" Sweaty Bradford Dillman holds his hand up and yells "HELLO, my name is BRAAAAAD!!" ALL HAIL BRAD!!
No, fuck you. If you can't stand the refs, get out of the kitchen!
General Painintheass says that Cr/aine, on the orders of the President, is in charge of "this whole operation." "What are the limits to my authority?" The general sighs more dramatically than Al Gore did in the first Presidential debate, and says "None." Cr/aine gives General Dick a significant look, and then straps on a giant greasy dildo. Painintheass tells Dick, "YOU will give Dr Crane the full equipment! Whatever manpower he needs!" Cr/aine looks General Dick up and down, thinking "fresh meat!" "Without question!" General Dick looks aghast, and asks "Without...question?!" as Cr/aine waves a French maid's uniform in his face. Nooo subtext!
The big screen TV goes back up, but only with one *ping* this time, and Cr/aine looks at Dick, then looks at Dillman, who looks uncomfortably away. For the first time, I realize that Dillman's orange jumpsuit has zippers over his nipples. Not pockets, just zippers. Dillman looks more uncomfortable than ever, although I will admit, less sweaty. "I would like my leather pouch," says Cr/aine. Okay, now I'M uncomfortable. "The one with the sunflower seeds!" Oh, what a relief! He's Johnny Sunflowerseed, about to spread the magic joy of sunflowers all over the missile base! Crimeny, but this base needs a little brightening, what with the BLiMs and the fact that the WHOLE DAMN MOVIE is taking place on ONE set. Oh, jeez, Cr/aine wants to make it his headquarters. How convenient for Irwin Allen's set budget! Cr/aine gives the General a list of people he wants contacted: "Just tell them that the War I've always warned them about has begun." Then, in a shocking development, he MOVES HIS HANDS AWAY FROM HIS BACK!
WHOA! That was wierd! I tried to click on another open window, and XP restarted the computer. This is a sign from GOD (ie, Gates) that I should stop typing about this awful movie and do something enjoyable! Well, at least that's how I'M reading the sign. G'night!
11/12
I can't get this to work directly, but if you go to Ebert's review archive and make the search field Movies by Star Rating: From: Zero stars To: 1/2*, you can read 15 years of really funny shit!
In the missile base's infirmary, we hear peedoo!...peedoo!...peedo! Yes, Irwin Allen didn't even spring for "the machine that goes *PING*!" He had to settle for "the machine that goes peedoo." And Cr/aine's holding his hands behind his back again. Is he trying to stop himself from racing off the set and strangling Irwin Allen?
Dr Ross yells, "They've killed all the Durant family, except for PAUL!" "We must go to him," monotones Cr/aine in a tone of...extreme...alarm..."And collect my paycheck."...ZZZ....I'm sorry, but I must've dozed off there, what with the extreme...alarm...in Cr/aine's...YAWN...voice...zzzz...WHAT?! Did she say that bees killed all of DURAN DURAN?! GOOD WORK, BEES! "And I'm hungry like the Africanised killer bee!" If you play "Girls On Film" backwards, it says "Turn me on, dead Simon le Bon killed by bees while you were sweating and a yacht was falling on you." YES WAY, dude, really it DOES!
If you were watching this video with me, you'd notice two things: I don't share my popcorn, and there hasn't been a sweaty person for a whole 2 minutes, and Kill Kill is asleep on my Penthouse magazine rack. Wait, that's three. And ruthless efficiency! FOUR, four things! And if we have learned anything about The Swarm, it's that I took a sock off to trim my toenail and now I can't find it! The SOCK, dopey! It's not like I could LOSE my TOENAI--What? Oh. I'm sorry, but this movie is so riveting, that it's like your attention is a rivet and this movie is a sock. And socks don't rivet, if you follow the gist of my nub.
Let's try again. There hasn't been a sweaty person for a whole 2 minutes, and if we have learned anything about The Swarm, it's that there's always a bee around the corner and a sweaty guy screaming.
In other words, that damn kid Paul's back.
"WEEEAIOU!" screams Paul, making sure that he uses all the vowels. "WEIAU UMMA BEE N'YAR!" And, well looky there, a gigantic BEE is floating over Paul's hospital bed, licking it's chops or wiping it's ...bee whatevers, and if you find this horrifying scene from the realm of nightmare funny, BAHAHAHAHA! Me too! Giant blue screen bee! Oh, that's just silly! And Paul is so sweaty, that--well, let's just say that some Japanese porno makers saw this scene and invented bukkake. Eww!
Bee-lieve it or not GEDDIT THAT WAS A BEE PUN, there is no giant bee! Paul was hallucinating over a doctor who is wearing giant goggles and banging Paul's head against the wall because doctors need to dress like bees and beat up kids in the Bug Trauma Lab and...umm...Well, I have no idea why he didn't just dress up like the Simpson's Bumblebee Man and stab the kid with a needle while yelling "AY CARUMBA!" But then again, I'm no doctor! Paul subtly says his lines, "AUUGGHH! gettim AWAY thereza BEE in here OOOh wee, eee--a bee! --help!" Direct quote, my Liddle Kadiddles, direct quote. Nice LAYdee, make with BEE going AWAY, FROINLAIVIN!!! wee, eee!
The bee-like doctor is about to start jumping up and down on the hospital bed while screaming "I'M NOT GOING TO JUMP ON YOU!" when Dr Cr/aine says "Paul, Paul, listen to me--there is no bee!" A giant bee appears over Cr/aine, right above his snazzy brown turtleneck and snappy earth-toned leisure suit with the big brown leather patches on the shoulder and elbow pads. "eee, no no no, nice LAYdee, horrible LEISURE SUIT! wee, eee, help!" screams Paul. "No, Paul, there is no bee! It's only a nightmare, like this movie! Reach out! Yes, reach out! It won't hurt you! Reach out! Further! Like Depeche Mode said, Reach out, Touch Faith! Your Own--Personal--BEEJESUS!" Ha ha! I made part of that up! Guess which part!
"Thank you, Doctor!" says all-star caster Alejandro Ray (who?). "I tried everything to make his imaginary giant bee go away! Dressing like a bee! Smacking him around while dressed as a giant bee! Making buzzing noises! Smearing him with honey! Doing my special ass-shaking dance to tell him how far it was to the next pollen source! Taking him to the morgue to see his parent's corpses while humming Rimsky-Korsakoff's 'Flight of the Bumblebees--THAT KILT YOUR PARENTS!' I wonder where I went wrong! Well, I've got to run down to the children's burn ward and light my farts, and then to the kids' leprosy clinic to play 'I got your thumb!'!"
"Gotta go!" says Cr/aine, ND dROSS whoops! Hit the caps lock! And Dr Ross thanks him. Cr/aine gives her his Bedroom Eyes, or what passes for them in The Swarm, as in any other movie they'd look like mild gas discomfort. No wonder Cr/aine leaves the room so quick. Silent--but deadly!
WOW! This is GREAT!
I found my sock!
11/13
Gunther and the Burgundians. A 60s hippie band? No, the world's richest DOG and his horny handlers.
For those who were too lazy to go to that Ebert page yesterday, Kirk sends the direct link to his most negative movie reviews. He kindly sent an explanation pf the "geeky magic" that makes it work, but my brain left my body by the second sentence. My programming skills end with the VCR timer.
He probably could tell me how to link directly to this Cabot cheese radio ad, too. But all you have to do is click on the first link, "How to Advertise." Yes, it's an ad, and I'm no fan of ads, but it's Pretty Damn Funny.
I think that this very short blog entry is also P.D.F.
Well, it's 1030PM and I haven't even had dinner yet. I'll post this, and *maybe* send up some more of The Swarm later. Yes, it's taking far longer than King King Limps, but this movie's that much more dopey.
11/14
Camilla sends today's proof that Japanese people are insane. Kikkoman, apparently with a head made from a fish-shaped bottle of the soy sauce...does stuff. If one of you 3 readers who speaks the language could explain it, especially the part with the white cat, I'd appreciate it. (I found the all-Japanese homepage for it, and a gallery of images)
I didn't post about The Swarm last night, as I faced off with the first scene in the movie that didn't suck. Note that I didn't say "was good." Henry Fonda arrives as Dr Krim, and suddenly the film had a second actor who neither underacts like Cr/aine nor overacts like Paul the Wee, Eee, A Bee! Boy. It's a sad comment on the acting that the other good actor is Bradford Dillman! He actually reacts to other character's lines as they say them, rather then just waiting stone-faced for the other actor to finish.
Dr Krim is an immunologist, here to find an antidote for the bee's poisonous stings. His wheelchair has a wheel which squeaks loudly and often and, of course, only when the Foley guy remembers to make the sound effect. Krim hasn't oiled it because he's "studying yoga, and with a couple hundred years of practice, I should be able to levitate!" Which is about as close as this movie's going to flirt with wit.
Cr/aine leaves Krim and Dillman in a room filled with the body bags of the bees' victims. Dillman makes a sneering comment about Cr/aine being upset to be around the corpses, which is pretty stupid, given that if Cr/aine showed any less emotion in the scene someone would be stuffing him into one of those bags.
Next scene: Slim "Dr Strangelove and nothing else" Pickens goes toe-ta-toe in nookular combat with the General! At first I really thought that Slim was packin' him some chaw in his cheeks, but then I realized that he's just done got him some chipmunk cheeks a-goin' on. His "stupid" son is on the base, and he wants to see him! Since we already saw Dr Krim a-checkin' out his son's toe-tag, he ain't so much stupid as all daid and stinky and showing as much emotional range as Cr/aine. By an interesting and very believable fluke, Slim has the power to shut off all the water to the base, immobilizing it. "Yew won't have enough water to flush yer toilets when Ah get through with yew!" Wow, I really woulda thought that a NUCLEAR MISSILE BASE wouldn't be vulnerable to an INSANE REDNECK just because he's a PLUMBER. All the Soviet Union had to do was send in some KGB agents to flush Tampax down the terlets, and they could've launched a first strike! I would also think that it'd be illegal to threaten to shut down a NUCLEAR MISSILE BASE during a major emergency, and also just ever so slightly INSANELY DANGEROUS too, but since The Swarm has been virtually a documentary ever since the bees shot the helicopters down, I guess that Professor of Nuclearology Irwin Allen knows best. And General Dick lets the raving mad blackmailing redneck waltz right into the NUCLEAR MISSILE BASE. There's another thing that we're lucky that the Commies were never smart enough to try. But at this point, It looks like the Commies could've just knocked on the door of the NUCLEAR MISSILE BASE wearing a shark suit and said "Candygram!"
After Slim gets through the base's incredibly tight security by walking through the same cheap chainlink fence that people use to keep very small dogs from running away, Cr/aine walks into the UCD,HWIS! (Unrefrigerated Corpse Depository, Hoo WHEE It Stinks!). Krim the Magnificent, which would be a good name for a kids' magician, birthday parties my specialty, covers up the white, unstung face of a stinky corpse named "Slim Junior." Again, this is because the screenplay says "Cr/aine is HORRIBLY REPULSED!" while Caine himself shows the same deep inner turmoil I show when I'm staring at the wall to avoid eye contact while riding in an elevator.
"Anything?" Cr/aine montones. "The toxic content in their tissues is the highest I've ever seen!" crows Krim crabbily. "It's even more virulent than the Australian brown-box jellyfish!" Which is a line that made the audience nod its collective head and say "The what?!" Maybe the Australian lunch-box jelly sandwich is very toxic, but you know...What the fuck is it?! He couldn't say "Ten times as virulent as a king cobra!" or "Twenty times as smelly as the underwear of a really sweaty guy who eats Taco Bell every night!" or "About one-tenth as virulent as the love child of Eminem and Ann Coulter!" Great. Now I'm going to spend the rest of my life afraid of going to the toilet, a-feared that there'll be an Australian brown-box jellyfish in there once Slim Pickens won't leave me enough water to flush! THANKS, Professor of Virulent Toiletology Irwin Allen!
Time for some dialogue peanuts! CR/AINE: "We've been fighting a losing battle against the Insects for 15 years! But I never thought that I'd see the final face-off in all my lifetime! And I never dreamed--that it'd turn out to be the bees! They've always been our friends!!"
And this is where the movie lost its battle in the theater. Back then, it was considered incredibly rude to talk during a movie, or even laugh inappropriately. Dammit, we paid $3.50 to get in, we deserved to watch the movie in peace!
But "The Bees have always been our friends" line...Well, the 3 stoners began laughing, and there must've been other stoners, as they started laughing too. And then so did the straight people. The Swarm had officially crossed the line between "scary" and "ludicrous." In theaters across the country, this was the line in the sand. The Swarm was now a comedy. For the wrong reasons.
Slim is in the HOUSE! The house full of corpses anyway. He finds his son, hugs his reeking corpse and overemotes his tearless crying, and tries to lug his kid out of there like he was a sack of garbage. "You can't do that!" says General Dick. "The only way yew can stop me is to shoot me, and I'd be mighty obliged if yew did!" ME TOO! Oblige the man already! General Dick looks at Cr/aine with a total "DOY?" expression. Cr/aine looks at Krim, who Cr/aines him back with a blank look. "Michael, if you're not gonna act, I'm not either!" Cr/aine looks blankly at Dick. Dick looks blankly at Slim. Their acting really seems to be along the lines of, "SOMEONE in this elevator just farted! But NOT ME!" Slim totes his rotting young'un out the door. Yeah, let's not wait and find if the Bees are more toxic than the Australian brown-nosed duck-billed flying wombat fish that crossdresses because they're carrying some VIRUS, let's just let the senile ol' coot with a mouthful of twenty chaws of Red Man drag the festering corpse around town with him and prop him up in the booth at McDonalds while he has lunch.
General Dick stares at Cr/aine with a look that says "How much are they paying you? General Dick's not getting paid enough to stay in this stinking pile of bee poop!"
Tomorrow: RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN arrives!
(It's not all that significant, I bet, he just got there before I turned the VCR off)
11/16
RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN arrives! And he's "here reluctantly." Irwin Allen must have some secret sex tapes involving Richard and Paul the Wee, Eee, I See Richard Chamberlain's Pee-Pee! Boy. "RUDE son of a bitch!" says General Dick. "He didn't even introduce us!" and I so wish I had a video capture device, as the General closes his left eye and scrunches up his mouth and he looks like somone who couldn't make up their mind as to whether he'd go to the Halloween party as Popeye or Jonah Hex or Some Dude With His Face All Fucked Up Who's Also Constipated.
Cr/aine listens to the tapes of the missile base being eaten by bees. This is subtly introduced by several lines of dialogue and a close-up of a speaker playing the tape back. Folksy white trash dialogue:
11/17
On the other hand, it's hardly work to just cut&paste stuff I didn't write, so there's a post here tonight anyway.
Re Kikkomasu, Camille ponders thusly:
Speaking of the Tempura, another perplexing facet of this (what? Short film? Educational video?) um, piece, is the bizzarre kitten-faced Tempura shrimp. There seems to be some unresolved anti-feline hostility here. I notice, upon repeated viewing, a couple of things:
The white kitty appears to be refusing to eat his egg, perhaps rejecting the flavor-enhancing power of Kikkoman? After a prolonged breakfast table power struggle, Kikko-man finally loses his temper and exacts the appropriate punishment for bad little kittens who won't eat their soy-doused omelette. Note to Killsy: eat your nice eggy-weggs.
Also notice the sugar-cube-head guy with the, uh, what is that, anti-square-root tattoo on his cheek. Is the sugar cube some sort of reference to the incomprehensibility of the entire thing? Is he a co-Superhero? Or just another really buffed ingredient? And who the hell is that other weak-ass guy with the leaky green vase for a head?
Kikko-man's sense of style is somewhat contradictory. He could cut about a foot off the toilet-paper loincloth without compromising the fashion impact of the loincloth/cape ensemble. His bedroom is spartan and lonley - a discarded cape and a box of tissues on the floor point to a somewhat cavalier attitude towards his living arrangements, but the flowered quilt betrays his romantic (or mama's boy?) side.
His sleeping companion seems awfully young.
Clearly there's lots to be studied here. Maybe the NEA will give me a grant to analyze it? Well, it's worth a shot. Meantime I'll add a splash of Kikkoman to my cereal and contemplate the new day.
Via Kirk, the horrible history of Michael Jackson's face. The comments and comparisons are hilarious, and the pics of the loonie disturbing. Yes, his nose really is rotting off his face.
And, no, The Swarm--Your evil will NOT defeat me! We shall meet again, and next time, it is I who will be the Master!
11/18
On repeated listenings, Bradford Dillman speaks with a British accent before he launches into full-blown Suth'n hick, with a big smile on his face. Again, this makes no sense. It really looks like Dillman was just goofing around, expecting Irwin Allen to yell "Bradford, cut that out!" and reshoot the scene. Guess ole Dillsy wasn't counting on the fact that Irwin didn't care. There's nothing in this movie to suggest that any scene was shot more than once. Irwin "One-Shot" Beaudine!
(Digression: William "One-Shot" Beaudine was a legendarily bad Hollywood hack director, famous for never reshooting scenes, no matter how bad they came out. Low budget producers loved him; he was always under budget. The only film I've seen by him is Billy the Kid vs Dracula. Now I know that you're reading that title and thinking "I'll bet THAT was a good movie!" but it really wasn't. I remember one scene where Drac walks around a stagecoach verrrry slowly, and you can see a fat, t-shirted member of the crew perfectly reflected in the stagecoach's window. He stands there until someone must say offscreen, "Get out of the shot!" and he looks startled and walks away. How much effort would it have taken to reshoot a scene that lasts a minute? A minute's worth, but that was too much for ole "One-Shot." end digression.)
Cr/aine hears "something" on the audio tape that buzzes loudly and makes guys scream and die, but he's not sure what it is. YES, he's been screaming or monotoning about the terrible Bee Threat all movie long, but he's really not sure what BUZZES and KILLS. Maybe it's man-eating AM radios!
Meanwhile, a pair of kids on bikes ride with a bike between them, on a major road where every car (and every one a Ford) is doing 2 miles an hour. Yes, it's time for Paul the Wee, Eee, It's a Bike! Boy to return. And guess friggin' what, he's sweaty already. The kids are gonna bust him out of stir, namely the hospital. Paul the Wee, Eee, I'm Wearing a Lovely Pair of Burgundy Cordouroy Pants! Boy manages to sneak out of the hospital by closing the front door verrrry slowly. There is no scene showing him sneaking past any hospital staff, but I assume that they were all put into a trance by his sweaty musk. The kids race off on their Schwinns with monkey bars, pausing to say hello to...umm, the Engineer Cowboy who wants to get his freak on with Olivia "Human Bean Bag Chair" De Havilland. He's wearing a lovely deep red cordouroy leisure suit with a cowboy hat. Did I mention that this movie's from 1978? He's got him some roses to give to Olivia in the movie's enthralling romantic subplot involving slurp Hey I finished my beer, I'm gonna get another one, as no man alive is strong enough to face this movie sober. Anyone want anything while I'm up? 'Kay. *pop* fizzz Where were we? Somewhere GOD DAMN ENTHRALLING, I betcha.
Ben Johnson! That's the cowboy with no fashion sense's name. He goes into a diner/sody-pop fountain and talks to Rita, who's depressed and very pregnant. It's Rita from the missile base tape, get it? This kind of makes you almost feel an emotion, so Irwin cuts away to--
IRWIN?!?!
That's so close to--
KERWIN!!!!!!!!! AUUUGGHH!!!!
Whew, now I'M sweaty. Okay, since Kerwin Allen had a scene that almost worked for a second, he instantly forgets lovely Rita pregnant maid, and instead we get who-frickin'-cares dialogue between Ben and the diner owner. Do they talk about the mass slaughter right up the road? Nope, it's all about Ben's chances with scoring with the school marm. The weirdest thing about this scene is that they're drinking big cups of coffee that obviously, and I mean distractingly obviously, don't have coffee or any other liquid in them. The hell? Really, why are they pretending to drink? They couldn't have put ice tea or something that'd look like coffee in the cups? Did the movie's budget for cordouroy go over by a dollar? Maybe Irwin decided that his movie needed to cut across all the disciplines and include the beloved art-from of Mime. Ben leaves to continue his wooin' of Olivia Oyl, but he gets stuck in an imaginary box.
Fortunately, he pulls himself out with an imaginary rope, and delivers the most heart-breakingly beautiful lines of romantic dialogue I've ever heard that also include someone's resume: "Maureen...I'm not too good with words. But I am a retired master mechanic! And my education--Well, it's all in these hands! And you know--what I know--I want to say!" Maureen looks tenderly into his eyes and says, "Yes, Ben! You want a hand job!" HAH! "Your roses speak most eloquently," is what she says, in the most drawn-out drawl in history, "And Ah'm mindful of it!" You're what? Mindful?! Who talks like that?! Who EVER talked like that?! Fiddle-dee-dee, Rhett Butler, but apparently screenwriter Sterling Silliphant hasn't left his house in decades.
Back at the missile base, and boy is Irwin ever getting his $100 investment on that set back, a radar dude says "I'm picking up a massive swarm!" Then he scratches his crotch fiercely while asking for some RID. General Dick wants to send out some choppers with bug spray to kill the Swarm, because it was SO SUCCESSFUL the last time they used helicopters. "Bees, bees, millions of bees! We'll gas 'em all with DDTs!" "Let's talk--ALONE." says Cr/aine, and Dillman looks like he's going to cry. Why doesn't DILLMAN get to talk about bees?! Cr/aine and the Dick have a nice quiet discussion over bee-killing tactics. In the center of the room. Screaming their heads off.
Paul and his Wee, Eee, Kill the Killer Bees! Boys are back at the site of the killing by the killer bees of Paul's parents who were killed by killer bees and Kill Kill is playing "kill the toy mouse" as I type these killing words and I'm soon to be Google's top choice for searches for "kill" and "killing"! (I'll put in "kil" "killimg" and "killibg" just to be safe) Why do they go there? To KILL killer bees by KILLING killer bees! With killer Molotov cocktails. I guess Paul the Wee, Eee, I'm Killing Killer Bees! Boy stole Steal This Book, since there was no Internet back then to learn Molotov cocktail recipes from. (For killing!)
They lug up a big bucket of bombs, which has apparently appeared by magic, throw the Molotovs at the bee-tree simultaneously but the bombs land several seconds apart. Paul the Wee, Eee, This Movie has No Continuity! Boy and his anti-bee co-conspirators run as fast as their cordouroy pants can go wiff wiff wiff, and hide under 3 handy trash cans. Paul is instantly covered in sweat, and this time it's just gross. There's huge drips hanging off of him. This is the first movie ever made where the entire cast was self-basting.
ping! ping! go the angry bees as they slam into the metal cans, which would work better if Irwin hadn't decided to keep cutting away to show the bees crawling on the surface. Maybe they're actually tapping out Morse Code! "zzz, zz! Paul, why did you fire-bomb us, zzz? We bees have always been your friends!!"
Paul's grand plan is so successful in killing 9 of the 40 million bees that the remaining 39,999,991 decide to go kill the entire world. If Ren were here, he'd slap Paul and scream "You BEE-diot!" THAT WAS MY SECOND BEE PUN!!
This is a good time to point out that the Bees are really Corn Puffs. The cereal, blown by wind machines. This is why, when they attack those garbage cans (there's a metaphor for this movie in there, I think) they fly in and then just fall to the ground. And then, when they realize that no 39 million bees can ever hope to defeat man's proudest creation, the trash can, they "fly away" just like the film's being run backwards.
Cut to the Mystery Machine! Freddie and Daph--err, Cr/aine and Dr Ross--are racing in a van to find Paul the Wee, Eee, Sorry About the Unleashing Armageddon Thingie! Boy. Yep, world's about to be et by bees, and Cr/aine's out to find Paul. Way to prioritize! But has he an ulterior motive? Yes, it's the NEXT totally-enthralling/gag-reflexing love subplot! "I really like you." monotones Cr/aine. The kind, loving, psychotic non-look on his face, in any other movie, would be the hint that the rape/murder is about to begin. Dr Ross just nods like a bobblehead and says "I like that! I really like that!" Yes, we now know what project the guy who wrote the great romantic dialogue for Bad Guys moved onto next. But where's the male/male nipple-rubbing?
One thing bad movie lovers will instantly notice about this scene is that they really aren't in a van, but the front end of a prop van that has stagehands making it wobble. And, unlike any other vehicle ever made, it has curtains draped behind the front seats. Ha ha! How dumb! NO van ever made has curtains there! This is just a really cheap way to hide the fact that they didn't build the whole van! Why, it's as ludicrous as putting a shower curtain behind an airplane cockpit, and how incompetent a filmmaker would you be to stoop THAT low?!
11/19
I went to Noyaqaatsii, and I'd like to tell you to run out and see it! I'd like to tell you that, but I can't. It kept seeming like it was leading somewhere, but then it'd just meander away from any possible point. It looked great, but not consistently. Koyaanisqaatsii was a brilliant, hypnotic, ground-breaking film, but it was instantly copied by lesser talents, most notably in the advertising world. Reggio just doesn't match himself, but how could he, after 20 years of being ripped off? If the Qaatsii trilogy had been done over 5 or 10 years rather than 2 decades, it would've been a contender. Now, it's been so imitated that--well, it's cool to look at--it just looks like a much better, smarter MTV video by a d00d with Photoshop and and a Mac. In fact, the music is great, better than the the movie. So, rush out and go buy the soundtrack.
Before the movie Kevin and I went to Trout Brook, a great local brew pub just up the road from the cinema. We were the only people in the dining room, and by that I mean the ONLY people in the dining room. This was great, as we got quick, excellent service, but also sucked. If this is what Trout Brook is like at dinner time Monday, how long will they be in business? It also sucked in the sense that I couldn't finish their usually excellent veggie burger, so bland was this veggie burger. And Kev held up a slice of his white pizza at an angle and said, "Yeah, it's a biiit greasy!" as grease poured off the tip of the slice like water down a drain spout. I guess that you wouldn't schedule your best chef for the day when 2 people eat there. We left a 20% tip anyway, since we're the people who are the real trickle-down effect in this economy. And we're poor! (At least I am)
It's a sad comment on Nayoqaatsii that I've spent less time thinking about it since I saw it than I have about The Swarm. Not that that's meant as praise for the bee flick, and Ah'm mindful of that.
It hit me on the way to the theater what Dillman's English-to-Southern accent meant--He was making fun of Olivia de Havilland, an English actress faking a Southern (but not Texan) accent. Well, she gets points for trying. The only other people with accents are using their own, so that almost everyone in rural Texas sounds like they're from L.A. It still leaves no explanation besides incompetence why Irwin left Dillman's joke in the movie.
The make-believe tea party with the empty coffee cups--at the end of the scene, the diner guy takes a sip of nothing and makes an "Mmm, mm, good!" expression. If this was Twin Peaks, he'd say "That's some damn fine air!"
A more important question: Why have they spent the entire movie trying to track down the bees when they're right where they were when they killed Paul's parents? And it's not a question of "Maybe he didn't tell them," as they recovered his parents' bodies. Did the 40 million bees in 1 tree somehow escape their attention?
Well, the cat's out of the bag and the bee out of the tree now. Cr/aine spots the bees and yells, "They're headed towards Marysville!" Which is an interesting observation, as there's 4 seperate swarms heading in 4 different directions. Welcome to Marysville, the continent.
The BEES are about to kill everyone, so cue the Huckleberry Hound music! Doo-DOO-doot-doot, doo-DOO-doot-doot! Fred McMurray has flowers for Olivia at the school. In a "hilarious" interlude, he's made to wait outside her office while a kid with a huge lollipop and a Dorothy Hamill haircut stares at him--licking, licking, ever licking his lolly OF DOOM! Doo-DOO-doot-doot, doo-DOO-doot-doot! In her office, Olivia ends a phone call with "That'll be all right!" and instantly hangs up, without saying "Goodbye" or even waiting for the caller to say "Yeah--ALL RIGHT!" It's one of those little touches that master auteur autisitic Irwin uses to totally destroy any shred of "This is not a movie" atmosphere.
Fred has flowers for Olivia, and we're back to the SO INTERESTING intense romantic rivalry over this old chubster. I guess that she's the only member of AARP in town that gives blow jobs. She remembers Fred "in short pants," which either means when he was young enough to not wear Depends, or she's having difficulty breathing. "Well, I'm willing to beg now!" says Fred, apparently referring to that time when Oilivia was dressed as a dominatrix. The phone rings, she says "Hello? [1/16th-second pause] Yes, blue will do!" and hangs up. That so reminds me of every 2 second phone conversation I've ever had about colors! Hey, Irwin, I gots a new word for you: VERISIMILLATUDE. Yes, it's long and has more syllables than you're used to, so let me boil it down: "If you're trying to give the illusion of real life, SHIT SHOULD MAKE SENSE."
Fred asks her to marry him, and she claims to be "already married to this school!" Oh, GREAT. Like there isn't enough bad acting, now someone's channeling SHATNER and his old speeches about the Enterprise. Fred says, "I know people just think of me as that old man behind the aspirin counter!" Yes, we do think that, so long as drop "behind the" and "pirin counter" and spell it "ass." Wow, that was a pretty labored joke! I feel like such an aspirin!
ACTION NEWS TEAM CENTER comes to town, in their very hip earth-tone leisure suits. Ace reporter chick Ann says, "There's more to this than just a family killed by bees, I can sense it!" Yeah, there was the whole NUCLEAR MISSILE BASE being wiped out, but I guess NO ONE KNOWS THAT, as the good retarded folk of Marysville didn't think it was worth anybody's attention. Sorta like the Tree of 40 Million Bees they decided wasn't worth checking. Imagine the interviews with the local yokels: "Yeah, Slim Pickens had his dead son in a bodybag at the MickeyD's from that NUCLEAR MISSILE BASE that was wiped out, and Tina at the diner's preggers by another guy kilt at the NUCLEAR MISSILE BASE, and the BEES shot down them heli-chopsters, and you know what? Take a look at this! My dog done ate a whole box of Crayola! 64 shades of dog shit, ain't that worth puttin' on your network news? Oh, sorry, I said 'ain't that worth puttin' when I meant to say 'isn't that worth putting.' That's how we talk here in rural Texas, which is nothing like how they talk in L.A. Do you have the latest copy of Variety and a cup of raspberry nutmeg vanilla chai?"
Cr/aine races down the same street Paul the Wee, Eee, Am I Still in this Movie? Boy raced down, honking his horn just like Paul did! WOW, that musta been foreshadowing or some shit! "THE AFRICAN KILLER BEES ARE COMING!" screams Cr/aine in his loudest screamy-scream voice yet. And, if you've seen King Kong Lives, and boy have I ever, you know what this means: Everybody runs in a different direction at once. The policeman yells "You call the park, you call the ballfield, I'll call the school!" which are apparently the only important parts of planet Marysville. (Foreshadowing from me: Maybe they should've called the local nuclear power plant)
"DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?!" yells Cr/aine as air raid sirens wail and everyone runs like nutty-nut-heads, "THE KILLER BEES ARE COMING! THE ONES NO ONE OUTSIDE OF TOWN KNOWS ABOUT, DESPITE THE WHOLE NUCLEAR MISSILE BASE MAASACRE!!" I remember laughing hysterically over his line "TAKE YOUR CHILDREN WITH YOU! IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANY CHILDREN, TAKE THEM IN!" But just now I realized that he says "If you see any children on their own, take them in!" Man. Now I really hate this movie! It destroyed a cherished teenaged stoner memory!!
Olivia the Overaged Beefy Sexpot is on the mike! She warns the schoolchildren to run inside from the killer bees, and--yes--She forgets that she's from Klanstown, CSA, and uses her natural English accent! In the second sentence, she kinda recovers, but she uses both English and Southern accents in one sentence! Then goes to Southern, then back to English! Bradford Dillman, you are a comic genius!! Kerwin Allen, you are a FUCKIN' RETARD, as you left in not only the part where Brad made fun of Olivia's goof, but left in her multiple goofs that inspired it, too.
Now, if you're like me, right now you're smearing barbecue sauce in your hair while fucking a dead camel and thinking, "Sure, The Swarm is the greatest movie ever since the time I camcorded my toilet backing up after I flushed 8 weeks of poop and vomit after eating live roaches, but it's missing just one little thing. Puppies being set on fire? No, that's not it. Someone eating their own intestines? Nah, but close. Oh, wait! What this movie needs to make it a totally giggle-icious funfest and gay lark in the park is--"
"8-YEAR-OLDS BEING KILLED BY BEES!!"
"IN SLO-MO!!"
"WOW, THERE MUST BE A GOD, CAUSE THERE THEY ARE!!! Wow, GOD, thanks for the DYING CHILDREN! In SLO-MO!!!"
It'd been really revolting if this was filmed in a way that it wasn't obvious that the slo-mo was being used to hide the fact that the Corn Pops were being blown by wind machines and that the kids were obviously listening to a second (or hundredth)-set director yelling "Now! Fall down from the Corn Puffs and die NOW! Tiii-MMY! I said DIE from the flying cereal, not EAT it!"
We get a close-up of one of the dead Dorothy Hammil-headed children, and bees are crawling on a giant lollipop.
THAT'S what you get for messing with the SATANIC BEE POWERS of FRED MACMURRAY, you little bastard! And the mad panpipes of Hell sing "Doo-DOO-doot-doot, doo-DOO-doot-doot!"
NEXT: Bees attack a refrigerator! BEE THERE!
11/20
Karl (or "Ksweetiehoney" as he apparently likes to now be called) sends All Your WHAT?! "What's the mystery sound at the end of this video? I imagine it's Paul the EEE! WEEoo! A BEE! boy."
I'm excited (but you probably aren't) to find out that New Zealand's "Hard News" writer Russell Brown has a blog! Maybe you don't fantasize about living in NZ like me (and now that the HS, or Homeland Security, is a reality, I fantasize about it a lot more), but it's a good source for "how the rest of the world sees America." Scroll down to the first entry for a glimpse of that, although much of it is good reading.
Well, time to watch the bees. Prly won't have time to post much on it tonight, though.
11/21
Well, I ain't got squat today, not even after viewing more of The Swarm last night. Today, one of the owners asked me if I got bored at the New Store. Well, there's only so much Civilization II that even I can play, and I mentioned that I thought of buying a TV/VCR combo. He remembered that they'd got a free one as part of a Beringer's wine promotion, and he'd bring it over the next day.
SW33T!! I'll actually be getting paid to blog!
I was thinking of moving the reviews to a different part of the site, so that those who don't want to read them don't have to, and those that like them can link directly to them. That'll free up time for me to write The News, and there'll be a link to the reviews from here, so you don't have to add another bookmark if you like both formats. And since there was that law passed that no blogs can have normal names like "The News," I have my name for the movie review section:
Unfortunately, the VCR is in the store where Mr Poopypants (the guy who steals booze) works, so hopefully it's still there and he didn't steal it for money to buy tequila. Otherwise, I'll have to start shopping around and buy my own. If that happens, the timeframe on this idea will get pushed back a bit.
Just so that you didn't come here for nothing, here's one of Kim/Neg's favorite sites, Overclocked. Remixed video game music! Check out the insanely cheezy and impossibly catchy Final Fantasy Macarena!
And I apologise for spelling "sweet" as "sw33t." That was totally uncalled for.
11/22
The promised TV/VCR never appeared today. Hopefully tomorrow. I spent the day editing the old reviews into Trick Lobster: Strange Reviews of Strange Movies, then I spent the last 2 hours tweaking to get everything to work. There's absolutely no reason for you to go there, as there's nothing new. I suppose that I should get all glib on The Swarm then, if for no reason beyond making sure this link works. LATER: Okay, it works. More or less. Be among the first to click on a TRICK LOBSTER review!
11/24
Thanksgiving may end up being a Big Deal at the New Store, if Saturday was a preview. Weird day; busy when it usually wasn't, and vice versa. I had our first 20 minute line of customers, which would've been better if the line hadn't started 15 minutes before the enforced mandatory closing time. According to the clock and state law, I had 6 illegal sales.
Every time you start running late, everything conspires to make you later. The alarm refused to set; everybody on the road drove below the speed limit. It's not like I had anywhere to go but home. But "Home is where the Heart (And Cat) is," and it's not like there's a lot of quality time spent in the store or the car.
I turned on the computer and fed Killsy. The DSL refused to connect, over and over and over. "Please tell me this isn't happening," I moped. I eventually gave up on waiting for it to magically connect and called the Help Line. "Did you know," said the Robot Voice after I clicked through 15 voice mail options, "that if you can't connect, turning the modem off for 2 minutes will usually fix the problem?" No, Magic Voice, that I did not. And damned in the Voice wasn't right. But I'd pretty much lost enough patience by this point that I didn't want to subject my delicate psyche to The Swarm.
Today I did the laundry and then watched Ebert. I rewound the tape, hit "eject" to Swarmify, and nothing happened. I hit eject, play, all the buttons, and nothing happened. I could get a picture on TV mode, but no sound. I turned it on and off a dozen times. "Please tell me this isn't happening," I moped. Remembering last night's struggle with the modem, I pulled the power plug from the VCR. Couldn't make it work any worse than not at all, right? WRONG! It EXPLODED and now I'm DEAD!
HA HA! Had you going there didn't I!! This magically made it work. I really hope that this TV/VCR at work isn't a myth, as obviously I have to replace my home VCR soon.
Karl's sending me harassing emails about this Swedish Shockwave farm. Lots of crazy clickables--singing horses, KISS dolls, games and Lord knows what else, due to the Swedishness! Karl also urges us to Save our Spunky Bottoms.
How quaint! I'm the only result if you search for Purgin Gulf War! THOUGHTVIPER.COM! Serving the ill-defined needs of the semiliterate for over a year!
Well, I'm going off to fight the Bees again. Don't now how far I'll get, but if I do, there'll be a new Trick Lobster link here.
11/25
I clicked on the "SBC DSL" icon and it popped up immediately. That's bad. Normally it takes two minutes. It means that it's not going to connect. Like I learned a few days ago, it's now Error 678 time. Well, I learned my lesson last time: Turn the modem off for 2 minutes. Umm, that didn't work, and I can't call the help desk (without feeling stupid) if I didn't do the other thing they said, turning the computer off for 2 minutes also. So I boiled Past-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat that gets Second Billing, and waited for it to cook before I called the help desk. Still no connection, so I picked up the phone to call them.
There was no dial tone. Apparently someone in the household had been chasing her toys, and unplugged it. And I laughed at her antics and--GAHHH!!!
Beejesus Christ! She was just chasing this icky centipede! IN OUR HOUSE! Gahh, but that's gross! Now she's kinda disappointed, as the centipede is balled up in a paper towel in the trash. And she's hunting for another centipede...
sigh Kids these days! It's all about the Britney and the piercings and the centipedes.
New Trick Lobster: The Swarm gets sweatier and loudier.
11/26
When I got home last night, there was water running down the condo driveway. My first thought was, "Don't tell me that another water main broke, like last month." My second thought was--well, I didn't have a second thought. Until I got up this morning and turned the tap, and got a loud cre-e-eak instead of water. They'd turned it off to fix it. Great. So I brushed my teeth with ice water and spent the whole day at work feeling icky. It was also cool that I was so blogged-out last night that I decided not to shave until this morning, when I couldn't, and so I looked as classy as I felt. Nothing like feeling as sweaty as a Swarm character.
So, once home, I turned on the shower to blow the brown dirty water out of the pipes while I shaved. Kill Kill, like every cat (or me), loves predictable routine. The alarming sight of The Mommy showering at night got her all upset. She'd peek at me from a distance, and if I moved closer to her, she'd flip out and run away. When I got in the shower, she did her usual thing of sitting on the toilet lid until I was done, then following me into to the bedroom to nap on the bed. She never does that at night, but she does it every morning that I work.
This morning, when I couldn't shower, she decided that that meant it was my day off. I normally fire up the Pookie and read my mail while I brew some tea on days off, and she cried for some Friskies wet. She only does that on my days off. Weirder still was Monday: Normally I have Sunday--Monday off, but this week it's Sabbath--Thanksgiving. She jumped on the bed like it was a work day, but when I went in to pet her goodbye, she saw the water bottle in my hand that I only take to work. She jumped up and meowed plaintively, pacing around the bed. She's NEVER done that on my workdays. Does she have a concept of Two Days Off?
Mike in the UK sends the trailer for a terrifying new movie.
11/28
Know what the world needs? The greatest comic strip EVER!
GONTER'NAND!!
(Yes, I put exactly as much work into that as it looks)
New Trick Lobster: The dramatic conclusion of that damned bee movie!
11/29
"The Liquor Store--on fire! Will history blame me--or RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN'S ASS?"