Last night I dropped my mom off at, of all places, the Iron Horse, a downtown bar/restaurant. I can’t stand the place, and think the food is awful (their catering sucks, too). I can’t imagine how nasty “cheap steak” must be, but you get what you pay for. Somehow, her friends she was dining with love the place.
My in-laws, who run a downtown bed and breakfast, also steer people away from the place. I can not understand why people go there.
I finally got my copy in the mail last Saturday. I didn’t watch it until Monday night, though. It was hideously funny. Most surprising was when I received the DVD, it came with an autographed silhouette of Trace Beaulieu!
This movie was about a mission to Venus. Why scientists would think Venus more habitable than Mars is completely unknown to me. Some spies find some kind of doomsday robot machine thingy and take some pictures of it. Because of this, the mission is changed and the schedule moved forward. Three of the astronauts are replaced with women. The men argue about this for some reason.
After launch, the Earth is destroyed in what looks like a series of rips in the film, but are probably meant to be special nuclear effects. The astronauts realize they are the last people left alive, and start to freak out. They also realize that because they used fuel to avoid debris from the exploded Earth, they won’t have enough to safely land on Venus, so they have to kick someone out of the rocket. Instead, an emergency happens and one of the guys has to separate a booster stage manually via a spacewalk he knows he won’t return from, because the boosters will fire when it happens. So one of the female astronauts goes out with him because he “doesn’t have enough mass” to get it unstuck. Together they un-stick the booster and the rocket takes off, leaving them stranded.
But WAIT! What’s that over there?? It’s an empty Russian rocket in space near Venus! (insert deus ex machina here)
The two astronauts that were stranded now become the main characters of the story, but they never take their helmets off again, because now they’re different actors with different voices! They attempt to follow the rocket, but a mysterious voice over the radio claiming to be the hive mind of Venus (or something like that anyway) tells them the rocket is gone, and they can’t land on Venus because the people living there are peaceful and don’t want any warmongering ex-Earth scum living with them. The voice tells them they will have a new beginning somewhere else, and that’s about it. They kind of imply that the people of Venus shoot the Russian capsule off into space toward some other planet, but nothing is resolved.
Until vacation! Even better, there are only 5 more working days!
Last night around 9pm I got on the I-90 freeway to make my short way home. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as short as it should have been. Just after the last exit (too late to get off the freeway), I rounded a turn and saw backed up cars as far as there was freeway to see. After coming to a complete stop, I began the slow creep forward. It was so slow going I had to adjust the way I think of freeway speed. I was doing almost 11 minutes per mile. It took me 32 minutes to travel 3 miles.
About 3/4 of a mile from the next exit sat a sign that said Left land closed 2 miles ahead. Whoever placed that sign has no idea of distance, because the lane ended at the exit, less than a mile away. In fact, had the sign actually been 2 miles back the traffic may have been a little better. Only thanks to the trucker heroes that block lanes, though. I saw several jackasses drive through the rest stop and out the other side to get ahead of a bunch of cars, and one car that did this and continued up along the shoulder as long as he could. He cut off the car right in front of me, too. At no point did I ever see any police or traffic directors.
Yes, we went to try out. No, we didn’t get on stage. Here’s to hoping they’ll pick our names randomly now.
Actually, they pick all the names randomly. It seems to be quite difficult to get on.
Yes, I know I skipped a couple of episodes. They are DAP Central editions and for some reason they don’t burn well on DVD+Rs. I’m going to reburn on DVD-R and was told that solves several problems. I don’t know why, but it’s worked once, so I’m willing to go with it.
Despite starring Gregory Peck and Gene Hackman, MST3K somehow still got hold of this dud. Perhaps that’s why they got hold of it. This movie was about a team of three astronauts living in space for five months, to aid research for man’s extended-living in microgravity. When they’re about to come home, something goes wrong with their reentry burners and they become stranded in orbit with limited oxygen.
A rescue is planned, an untested rocket shot quickly into space to save the slowly suffocating astronauts. Gene Hackman breaks down and goes crazy, one of the other astronauts decides he can fix the engine on an EVA, and the other one keeps a level head. EVA astronaut cuts his suit on a sharp bit of metal fin and dies, solving part of the oxygen problem. The rescue ship gets there just as the astronauts are running out of air (of course).
I give this movie one empty seat, for not including Ernest Borgnine in this Poseidon Adventure in space.
I just finished watching The Castle of Fu Manchu, starring Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu. This was back when they used white actors instead of Chinese people to play Chinese people (remember the old Charlie Chan movies?)
Anyway, this movie was so noxious I’m surprised I didn’t smell it before I put it in my DVD player. Fu has a secret weapon that can turn water into ice. He uses it one time in the movie, at the beginning, to sink a cruise ship. He tries to hold the world hostage, but doesn’t make any concrete demands. Scotland yard sends some detective over to do something, and Fu kidnaps a doctor to perform a heart transplant on another guy for some reason. Seriously, this was a bad film!
I give this movie five empty seats because it stinks! (insert “ok” finger sign here)
Oh boy, where do I start? I watched this movie last night in my continuing adventure to watch all of Mystery Science Theater 3000 from the beginning.
This steaming pile of holiday drivel was a terrible idea—unless you’re a Martian I guess. Let me explain. The movie starts out on Mars, with little Martian children watching Earth-broadcast TV about the holidays and Santa Claus. Their parents, upset about them watching Earth TV but also upset because the children never laugh or play or have fun (never mind the fact that they have no toys!), decide to kidnap Santa and bring him to Mars to make the Martian children happy.
So they pop over in their rocket, and begin looking for Santa. When the find Santas all over the world, they kidnap two children and ask them about it. They reply that the real Santa lives at the North Pole, so the Martians take the children there. A goofy Martian servant, Droppo, provides the comedy relief when he hides in the “radar box” that houses the mechanism that protects the rocket from Earth radar.
The children escape the rocket, and are attacked by a super cheesy man in a polar bear suit. As Servo points out, you can even see the head piece overlapping the body. After their escape, the children run to Santa’s workshop to warn him of the Martians. It doesn’t work, and they all get taken by the Martians back to their own planet, where they treat Santa like royalty and provide a giant machine that makes toys by pushing buttons. Now, why they didn’t use this for their children in the first place is beyond me.
One of the Martians, upset by all this holiday cheer, kidnaps Santa, but doesn’t realize that it’s Droppo in a Santa suit—the whole time he has him! When he returns to demand the rest of the Martians send Santa and the children back to Earth they pummel him with toys and he is knocked silly. Droppo escapes by switching two light bulbs around on a control panel (you think I’m kidding?) and everybody has a good laugh and Santa and the kids go back home.
I’m going to give this movie 0 empty seats—for the number of people that watch this every year as a Christmas tradition. Come on, there can’t be anyone that does this…
I almost wet myself laughing at this video:
Ef et’s no’ a Utilikilt, et’s CRAP!
For those of you that don’t know, Lorien and I are leaving for our cruise on the 11th of July. We just got our packet of information from Carnival. Although we were registered early, we didn’t get a free upgrade this time, so we’re stuck with an ocean view cabin. Last time we lucked out and got a balcony upgrade.
Last night the Dubs played the Knitting Factory (it used to be the Big Easy) Concert House. Let me share some observations about their “renovation.” The chairs and tables are as rickety as they were about 4 years ago, the last time I was there. It’s not a big venue. The balcony was closed, but they kept letting people up there until it was full.
But enough of that. Let’s talk about Pedestrian, the opening band. Merriam-Webster defines pedestrian as follows:
1: commonplace, unimaginative
2 a: going or performed on foot b: of, relating to, or designed for walking
I’d like to add the following:
3: A band that opened for the Young Dubliners. For more information, see (1)
It makes you wonder whether they even knew of the other-than-walking definition of pedestrian. The sound engineer running the show had to be about 15 years old—he had no idea what he was doing, and just kept turning the volume up despite the awful warbling distortion that it caused.
Several times the band would break out into a 1970s five-minute guitar solo. I started to chuckle to myself at first, but after a short while it just made me sad. When his acoustic electric guitar stopped working he tossed it down on the stage. During the final jam session they called a song the keyboard got knocked over. Which reminds me, the keyboardist spent a lot of the concert on his hands and knees crawling around the stage mashing buttons with his hands to play background music tracks. But don’t take my word for it. You can download free music from their site, just be warned that you get what you pay for.
The Young Dubliners played a much quieter show, but it sounded great. They also had Eric Rigler along with them, who was brilliant. Several songs were played from their new album, several from old albums, and even a couple of yet-to-be-released songs from their next album (due out in Spring 2009).
All in all, the opening band was way too loud, the venue was surely nothing fancy, but the Dubs put on a good show despite their lead singer obviously having a cold or sore throat. He was a trooper and still did a good job. The fiddler was amazing, and Eric Rigler was a star.
Great Big Sea released their new CD today, called Fortune’s Favour. Having pre-ordered it online, I received my copy with yesterday’s mail. I got home late, though, and only started listening to it this morning. Having only heard six tracks so far, I must say it’s quite a departure from what they used to do, although the last album or two has shown this trend less severely. I can’t pass judgment until I’ve listened to the whole thing several times, and I hope I like it, but I haven’t been able to just jump in and love it like the older ones.
I watched The Unearthly yesterday, and really have a feeling of deja vu. I think I watched it a long time ago, before I decided to watch the entire series from the beginning.
Anyway, this movie had two great short films for kids, one about posture with inappropriate teacher-student contact, and one about appreciating your parents.
The Unearthly is about a doctor that is working on a miracle gland that will grant eternal life, but he just can’t get the knack of installing it into people, they end up disfigured and crazy. His friend, another doctor, “refers” patients without any family to him to further the experiments. What this doctor friend got out of the deal was unclear. One of the guests figures things out and tries to help the others escape.
I have to give this movie five empty seats to represent Tor Johnson’s classic (and stinger) line “Time for go to bed.”
War of the Colossal Beast is the sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man, by virtue of using the same-named main character. They had a different actor portray the colossal man, who after his fall from the Hoover Dam in the last movie somehow survived though he became horribly disfigured in the process. He emigrates to Mexico where he raids trucks for food.
Glen (the main character) has a sister that believes he is still alive. She hears a rumor about a missing truck in Mexico and somehow connects this with her brother. She travels down there, locates him, but finds him crazy and rampaging through the countryside. With help from the local police and US Army, they bake bread with drugs in the loaves and trick Glen into eating it so they can capture him and return him to the US. He breaks free, is recaptured, and breaks free again to terrorize an observatory and a bus full of junior high school students. His sister finally breaks through his craziness and Glen chooses to electrocute himself on high tension power lines rather than continue his horrible existence.
I rate this movie two empty seats, one for the original actor that played Glen and one for his girlfriend, who apparently abandoned him and was not seen in this film.
Perhaps the most disturbing short film ever produced, Mr. B Natural, precedes this film. First off, “Mr” is definitely a “Mrs” and has an annoying habit of popping up in young boys’ bedrooms. It’s a total sales film for Conn, a musical instrument manufacturer, and the stinger for this episode was appropriately chosen from this short and not the actual movie.
Yesterday I watched Viking Women and the Sea Serpent, another episode from MST3K season three. It’s a movie about a bunch of beautiful viking women tired of waiting for their husbands to return from pillaging overseas, so they go out in search of them. While sailing, they encounter a sea serpent and it wrecks their boat, causing them to be stranded in barbarian country, where they find their missing husbands enslaved. They rescue them, are betrayed by one of their own who later repents and calls down Thor’s wrath on the barbarians to let the vikings escape.
I rate this movie one empty seat, for the teenage male viking that stowed away on the ship full of women but never got anywhere with any of them.