Godzilla (Gareth Edwards, 2014)

If forgotten, the sins of the past are likely to be revisited on the future. As the only nation to have nuclear weapons used against them, Japan has a duty to remember the scale of devastation Fat Man and Little Boy had on the unsuspecting cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. They commemorated these attacks by re-imagining the bombs as giant, invulnerable radioactive monsters who would devastate entire cities. It was fitting that The Doctor and I chose to honor the memory of the frightening destruction of the war by spending Memorial Day watching Gareth Edwards' thoroughly American remake of Godzilla, a creature spawned 60 years ago by the Japanese to remind us all of the monstrous effects of the most violent weapons ever unleashed on humanity.

Insomniac Theater Presents: The Prodigal Son (Sammo Hung, 1981)

In the 1970s, martial arts films from Hong Kong began to flood grindhouse theaters and late night television slots in America, creating a “Kung Fu Craze” that captivated action film fans. Martial arts director/star Sammo Hung, actors Lam Ching-ying and Yuen Biao made several standout films together together that not only fed the craze but also elevated the quality of film-making of the genre.  In the 1990s, my daughter and I used to watch bootleg VHS copies of these movies together.  One of her favorites was 1979’s The Prodigal Son, which was both a kung fu comedy with breathtaking action scenes and fight choreography and a warm tribute to the Peking Opera origins of the stars.

Insomniac Theater Presents: H.P. Mendoza's I am a Ghost

I started this blog in 2010, when I became ill and couldn't sleep.  The Insomniac Theater  was a chance to dump some of the obsessive thoughts into the larger muck pond of the Internet. My daughter's cat, Olivia, would pad into  my room as I set up my laptop and put on headphones.  Tucked under my chin, she would watch the colors of on laptop screen while I explored all the movies I could get my hands on.  We were a weird pair, me with my nearly useless limbs and this scrawny, angry black cat the only two creatures awake in the house.  A perfect time for ghost stories.

 H.P. Mendoza's ghostly chiller I Am a Ghost would have been a perfect movie for those nights.

TWIN TALES OF TAGALOG TERROR!

This special “I can’t believe it has been so long” edition of What I Watched Last Night presents a classic, double creature feature from the islands of “It’s More Fun in the” Philippines. Come to a land of beautiful sunsets, lush jungles, gorgeous, exotic women, blood thirsty vampires and horny, homicidal plant-people monsters and prepare your mind for the Twin Tales of Tagalog Terror!

The first feature was 1964’s The Blood Drinkers (aka Blood is the Color of Night), directed by Gerardo de León. The Blood Drinkers was the good movie for the night, a sure fire winner of a vampire film with its tragic love story and doomed search for redemption.  There is even a rubber bat (named Basra!)

Basra, the Bat

Good Bye, Easynews

Here are my usage and loyalty statistics from Internet Usenet Provider Easynews:

"USAGE: 3,158,654,239,388 bytes web (2941.73 gigabytes), 204,150,990,984 bytes NNTP (190.13 gigabytes)
You have downloaded a total of 3131.86 gigabytes.
You've accumulated 3141.23 gigabytes (3,372,872,660,059 bytes) for downloading.
You have 9.38 gigabytes (10,067,429,687 bytes) remaining.
Your account will cycle on 2013-06-16
You have been signed-up continuously since Sat May 31 09:19:00 MST 2003 (10.03355514 years)."

After over a decade of using Easynews to get access to Usenet (probably one of the oldest Internet thingys still in use), I decided it is time to say "Farewell"

Usenet is the Internet without HTML.  It predates the World Wide Web by 10 years.  It started as a way to post messages among, well, if you want to know more, here is the Wikipedia page.

I do not know what I did with that 3000 gigabytes of stuff.  Probably a disturbingly large part of that  was pornography.  

At the very least, Easynews gave me access to a pretty large library of arcane and esoteric stuff.  That is the big advantage of Usenet over torrents:  stuff gets posted on a server so anyone who knows how can download it quickly, wholly independent of who many people are seeding or leeching or whatever the heck torrents are about.

Their service record is impressive.  There were very few technical glitches that affected me.  Easynews often give out free gigabytes to customers when troubles do come up (they are very generous). 

It has been a long, strange trip indeed.  

Evil Dead ( Fede Alvarez, 2013)

The last time I saw a movie that such an intense audience impact as the new The Evil Dead  was 1999's The Blair Witch Project, which left some poor girl  weeping in terror long after the lights came back on.    Even though the remake of Sam Raimi's 1981 The Evil Dead  wasn't the life changing event I hoped it would be, it is still had a good time.  Unless you are the poor guy behind  me who fainted during the tongue-cutting scene (at about 2:09 in the red band trailer).

 Fede Alvarez's  version of The Evil Dead is a basic "5 Stupid People in the Wrong Place" movie where the beginning sets out the back story.  In this case, douche-bag brother Dave (Shiloh Fernandez, the hunk from Little Red Riding Hood) and his girl friend show up at his little sister Mia's (Jane Levy from the US version of Shameless) cold-turkey heroin intervention.  I did a lot of eye rolling, especially over the horribly bad choices the characters made before the crazy happened.  Seriously, the best thing to do would have been to drop Mia off at a nice clean rehab under a qualified doctor's care and everyone else find an Al-Anon meeting.

Worst moment:  Mia seriously burns herself and everyone wants to take her to a hospital.  Everyone except friend Olivia (Jessica Lucas), the worst nurse  in movie history.  Nurse Ratched is against going to a hospital because "She would just get the same treatment I'm giving her."  Not really, in a hospital they have real doctors and medical equipment.  All she brought is a large supply of Chlorazepam.  Seriously, when others need medical attention, Dave's girl friend and an old first aid kit in the shed at the first line of defense.  Granted, by the time they needed bandages, the nurse was out of the picture, but she still should have brought bandages. 

Once the supernatural stuff starts to happen, the movie's pace quickly speeds up.  There is very little of the vacillating between "She is a demon" and "She still my sister."  

From 1981's The Evil Dead

I wasn't sure I wanted to see until I saw Sam Raimi's car in the another trailer.  Not because I am opposed to remakes, but because I didn't think it would be any good.  Too often I've seen low budget, independently made horror movies redone with large budgets, CGI, and TV stars trying to  make the jump to movies and found them lacking.

Not all source material needs to be treated with an almost fanatical sense of reverence, after all, this is not The Koran. It isn't the duty of every remake or reboot to is to be extended homage to the original (ever see Gus Van Sant's Psycho?).  And don't get me started on the "It's not as good as the book" crowd.  In both cases, people seem to forget that it is an original movie first, then a remake of an older film or movie version of a book.

This Evil Dead is not a shrine to Ash, Scott, Cheryl, Linda and Shelly, the characters of the original (and the word deadites is never said).  It is its own thing.  Once you get pat that, it is pretty kick ass horror movie and I am glad I saw it.  There was plenty of the jump-out-of-your-skin moments.  It certainly kicked the ass of the guy behind  me.   

I can't really think of a better recommendation than that.  

Can't Sleep

Hey all, I want to tell you that I have not given up on writing this blog, but health issues have gotten in the way of  that.  To those that have questions, you can read about it on my other blog.

Hopefully I will soon get to the point where I can put some sentences together to make a paragraph return to the theater.

M

Happy Thanksgiving from the Insomniac Theater!

A major part of every holiday is gathering together with loved ones and sharing a special meal.

Thanksgiving dinner is awesome unless you're what's for dinner.

Insomniac Theater Presents Blood and Roses (Roger Vadim, 1961)

Last night, or early this morning, since I didn't start it until after midnight, I watched Roger Vadim's 1961 vampire film, Blood and Roses, loosely based on Sheridan Le Fanu's 1875 novella, Carmilla. Carmilla has been adapted for film many times, probably the most well known and accurate adaptation of is Hammer Film's The Vampire Lovers (1970, with Ingrid Pitt).  The Vampire Lovers was the first part of Hammer's famous, sexier, lesbian-ic vampire trilogy, The Karnstein Trilogy.  I first read the story in 1977 in a pulp magazine that I bought in a bus station.  It  featured lots of shots of Ingrid Pitt, Yutte Stensgaard, the Collinson twins and their decolletage.

Elvis Costello

I want to thank Ted for reminding me what a great artist Elvis Costello is.  Elvis Costello and his music has touched my life many times, as a child, growing up and as an adult.

Beyond the Black Rainbow (Panos Cosmatos, 2010)

Psychotronic, when applied to movies, loosely means quirky and obscure  (thank you, Wikipedia)  Quirky and obscure pretty much describe all my favorite films.

Last night, or rather, early this morning, my film fan friends and I saw Beyond the Black Rainbow at one of the Psychotronic Film Society of Savannah's monthly Friday night midnight shows (I am sad to say it was the first time I had ever been to one, hopefully it won't be the last!).

The Skull (1965, Freddie Francis) Trailer

Found this today in a bargain bin; I am going to watch it tonight:

 

Vampyros Lesbos (Jesus Franco, 1971)

Jesus (Jess) Franco is an extremely frustrating film maker to appreciate.  If the trailer for his latest film, Crypt of the Condemned is any indication, his latest film is a soft core (maybe hard core?) pornographic film that takes place solely in an apartment with three naked and extremely friendly women.  But he also is responsible for for one of the greatest, modern vampire movies, 1971's Vampyros Lesbos.

Brave (2012), not the usual princess fantasy

(Bloggers often assume their readers are interested in why they posted in a while.  I have no such illusions.And even if I did feel the need, there really isn't any good explanation.  So, onto Brave.)

My granddaughter and I have been watching tons of kids movies (I think I will wait another year before introducing her to Let the Right One In).  Often, they are painful to watch:  So full of confusing plots, dialogue mostly consisting of sounds of surprise, and saccharine musical numbers that I find myself praying for the commercial breaks.

The musical numbers are the worst part.

Despite my lifelong hatred of Disney, (as a child, my parents dragged me to every Disney film that played in our local theater.  When I say every, I mean not just the ones in the recognized canon, I am also talking about the nature flicks.  Disney nature films never vary-cute, playful animals struggling in a literal fight for their lives against human oppressors, who relentlessly hunt, poison, tortured, etc. them. Fuck you, Walt Disney, for ruining my childhood).

Portos dos Morto arrived!

I just got my copy, now i need to find a place and time to watch it (away from my 4 year old grand daughter.)

Portos dos Mortos II

Earlier today I posted this.

A few hours ago, I received this via Facebook:

Hi!
My name is Isidoro B. Guggiana, producer of "Beyond the Grave". I saw the post on your blog. Are you interested in an English subtitled screener?

Holy Shnikes!

Portos dos Mortos (Beyond the Grave)-please help me find this movie!

I read about this here and have not been able to find anything about getting a copy of this DVD for  myself.

Couch Potato (Laziest post ever!)

This weekend I watched:

Death and Dying

My wife asked me to help edit her video for the "Death and Dying" class she is going to teach this summer.  She filmed a ten minute introduction in a local cemetery, sitting among the markers while going over the course objectives.

A Confession-You don't have to say you love me

I am going to share something that is really personal with my (subscribed) readers, I don't want this to appear on my facebook page because I have to associate with those people in real life and I don't want them to know.

All my life, at least since I discovered EA Poe (in second grade!), I have wanted to be a writer;  the kind of writer whose words on paper will make the reader's blood run cold in terror.  I started a new blog for that kind of content.  There will be no witty, carefully structured commentary on popular culture or delightful anecdotes about my personal growth as I strive towards acceptance of my new life as a professional invalid.

I am calling that blog Samples, although I don't know why.  I hope that some of you will take a peek at it, although there isn't much there right now.  Here and here are a couple of things I would love to share, they have plenty of warts and I am betting your thoughts would be very constructive.

Until then, this has been stuck in my head since last Thursday's 30 Rock.

I am so excited!

and I just can't hide it!

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Thought you might like to know...

I never blogged about the final Harry Potter movies because, well, I couldn't find anything new to say about them.

On the March 3 episode of the National Public Radio show Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, host Peter Sagal and the panelists discuss the latest news from the wizarding world

Listen to the complete show here

Tuesday Afternoon

 At Miami I had to read selections from Robert  Ardrey's African Genesis (1961, I think) which put out the ideas that mankind was born on the African Savannah and  aggression (and the invention of weapons) fueled the survival of the species.  This was leading up a discussions about how visionary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick and futurist Arthur C. Clarke then extrapolated those ideas to create the world's most expensive pornographic film, 2001, a Space Odyssey (money shot here)

I never know what my friend Todd will send me, but it is always worthwhile.  Today was a video clip that, even though it pre-dates Ardrey's book by a few years, takes that same evolutionary trip backwards, from space to the African plain and a pre-technological society (not killer apes!) to welcome the Star Child, all in under 8 minutes.