Movies: Eegah

A drizzly Sunday, far too warm for this time of year, coffee, paper, and now Eegah (1962).

Eegah (1962)

Cute woman in nice car, chats to boyfriend who pumps gas. They arrange to meet up, but shock, horror, she drives into a giant. A prehistoric giant. Thankfully her boyfriend and father discuss over her head and agree she's probably wrong, patriarchy rules ok. His hair is completely ridiculous, and he looks like a bonus chromosome kid. 

They go up in a helicopter to try and spot him, there is an awfully long scene of helicopter shots. Her father finds the giant and begs for his life. We cut quickly to a swimming pool scene with bonus c/some kid is singing in a richie valens/teen angel kinda way. This song goes on and on. Make it stop. 

The kids are going out to find Daddy, he's got a dune buggy and so now we get some garage surf music. She appears to be having an orgasm as they go over the sand in his water filled tyres. This scene also goes on for some time.  

They decide to get some rest, so it's obviously time for another painful song, which has full backing band except it's just him out in the desert. Mind. Blown.

they find her fathers camera, pouty c/some boy decides they need to look in the next ravine, cue more shots of dune buggy drives. sigh. He really is a whiny little fuck.

Plus side, Roxy (the chick) is carried off by the prehistoric giant, and taken back to his cave - where her father is. Ahhh, sweet. Our giant appears to have electric spot lighting, and is thoughtfully checking Roxy for lice. Caring. Roxy shaves her father and the giant. That was unexpected. There are a number of shots of native lizards, so it's kinda a bgrade movie, with porn, for me.

They escape. Giant pissed. Rampage. Cops. Swimming pool and more bad music. 

As I said, bonus chromosome (this is his general look throughout the movie)

And the trailer

And because I'm vindictive, here's 90min of campy giant fun. There's also a MST3K version around...

Movies: The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)

The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)

We open with a woman being strangled. The credits roll. A voiceover tells us a Hungarian defector is coming to Yucca Flats to talk with the 'top brass', some Kremlin agents are awaiting him (and his briefcase). The world's worst shoot out ensues, and our (presumed) hero is driven off so we can have a car chase. The music is dramatic, the voiceover dramatic ("Flag on the moon, how did it get there?') and oddly poetical, the car chase dire. I can feel myself drawn in, to both the glass of red in front of me, and the movie.
Distinct lack of monsters tho'.
"Yucca Flats. The A Bomb". The briefcase is destroyed. A car drives off into the night. Now I'm writing like the voiceover, or William Shatner. "Vacation time. Man and Wife. Unaware of scientific progress", this really is superb stuff. The man and wife and no longer with us, a pair of poorly manicured hands has seen them off.
Our voiceover has popped up to point out the beast is the noted scientist we met *just 12 minutes ago*.  Apparently the beast is Tor Johnson (ex Swedish wrestler) - trivia from Wikipedia, George The Animal Steele played Tor in 'Ed Wood', think I'll try and find some wrestling footage for this post. I couldn't. I've failed you all.
There is a lot of chasing, shooting (and generally missing), and voiceovers in this short (53min) movie. Everyone is named multiple times, but no character development and the music is exhausting!
Great stuff.

Movies: Track of the Moon Beast

Coffee. Post gig Sunday. Papers finished, nice xmassy type music (Gesuldo's Madrigals) finished. Must be time for bgrade happiness.

Today - Track of the Moon Beast (1976). We have an asteroid going to hit the moon, a native american dancing, and a small man sitting at a very large desk. The credits suggest the producer had three assistants, and a script assistant, this bodes well...

We open with a wide long shot of a motorbike coming towards us, an nice homage to Mr Arabia, our motorcyclist appears to be an archeologist...oh cock, I have seen this flick before. Ah well, in for an espresso...  Some forced exposition to introduce characters (tick mark). I think I watched the MST3K version. Oh there's a lizard. No really, I suspect that'll be a highlight.
Kathy, a photo journalist is hitting on our archeologist Paul. I know his name now as Kathy has said 'Paul' about 5 times in the last minute. Yikes!! A meteorite has fallen and hit our hero, sadly this hasn't improved his acting, or hairstyle.

We have a song now. It's so bad I'll include it below.

Paul is changing. (part of me wants to complete that by saying, becoming cosmic). And he's beginning to nibble on people, not in that sexy toe-sucking way. Thankfully the cops have pulled in our native american as an expect (cos the cops had seen something they'd never seen before, at which point I know I'd call in an native american).
Apparently the man was killed by a Tyrannosaurus rex. Yes. Their reasoning was as good as you'd expect.
there is an awful lot of nodding in this movie, which is certainly better than their dialogue, so I'm not complaining. Now our NA remembers an old legend he heard about the same thing happening. Wise NA. The lizard who walked like a man. Only 30mins to go. Be strong. Paul's weird brain growths are multiplying, and he's dominated by the moon. Everyone is very worried. Why god why [a question the script assistant shoudl have asked themselves]. Things are now dire - from a viewing perspective - I hope it ends soon. The tension is too much.

the 2015 music longlist

Righto, I've done the initial cut and have a list of 32 to cull to 10 (ish).

Because I know you all care, here's the full 32.

Admiral Fallow	Tiny Rewards
Amorphis	Under the Red Cloud
Anekdoten	Until all the ghosts are gone
Bruce Soord	Bruce Soord
Crippled Black Phoenix	New dark age
David Gilmour	Rattle That Lock
Delaney Davidson	Lucky Guy
Father John Misty	I Love You, Honeybear
Gazpacho	Molok
Gloryhammer	Space 1992: Rise of the Chaos Wizards
Godspeed You! Black Emperor	Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress
Iron Maiden	The Book of Souls
Julia Holter	Have you in my wilderness
Kamasi Washington	The Epic
Karnataka	Secrets of Angels
Mark Knopfler	Tracker
Mountain Goats	Beat the Champ
Nightwish	Endless Forms Most Beautiful
Nordic Giants	A Seance of Dark Delusions
Ozric Tentacles	Technicians of the Sacred
Phoenix Foundation	Give Up Your Dreams
Public Service Broadcasting	The Race for Space
Redtenbacher Funkestra	Dr Hypenstein
Sam Hunt & David Kilgour & The Heavy 8s	The 9th
Shooglenifty	The Untied
SJD	Saint John Divine
Susanne Sundfor	Ten Love Songs
Tim Bowness	Stupid Things That Mean The World
Trembling Bells	The Sovereign Self
Wilco	Star Wars
Zero She Flies	The River

Steven Wilson : Hand. Cannot. Erase.

Movies: Manos, Hands of Fate

I've seen this before, at least twice. And it's dire. I'm approaching this highly caffeinated and hoping I can cope.

Manos: Hands of Fate (1966)

This movie is rated as #5 on the all time worst by IMDB. It's not an unfair comment. The rockabilly type soundtrack is quite fun, but the scripting is appalling, the dubbing worse, and really everyone should watch this, more than once. Who-ever was the editor for this movie deserves a bullet (or medal) for the cuts...

A nice wholesome American family head off in the car, ending up on some backroads, which as we all know, means CULTISTS !! [you'll note that True Detective used the same theme as Manos, see influential]
The Master is away! But the wholesome family is lost! woe! The master likes her, this bodes well for her, not so much for the husband. The daughter (and fluffy black poodle thing) are happily playing until, ARGGHHH, the dog is killed. 'Get back in the house damnit!' it's all on for young and old [(c) BHR].  FFS the acting in this movie makes Orlando Bloom look like an academy award winner. Oh dear, it's only 20mins in, I've still got 48mins to go. Pray for me dear readers.
Again with the old man and young wife thing. Ahh the 60s. And the demands to do stuff to the mexicans, ahhhh cultural awareness.
They won't let them escape, and now the child has run off. Cue much wailing from the woman.
I will say Manos has surprisingly good taste in women, even if the Master looks like a bad mexican impersonator.
oh manos, thou you dwelst in the deepest caverns...
superb stuff. Hang on, did the Master just rub his nipples?? I don't need to see that! Shocking stuff. The Master is now pissy that his harem keeps arguing, well what the hell did he expect? And now, in a surprise to no-one, the harem are fighting each other - to some quite cool sax lead jazz. Sadly no jelly wrestling, think they missed a trick there.
(25mins to go, I can do it! I can !!)
Ahhh another wife fighting scene. If one went well, two will be better [Iron Maiden adopted this approach for guitarists, see influential].

The Master now has a burning hand. It's getting very biblical. But he's getting more crazy, and his wives are getting very very lippy. Our slightly less wholesome family are now making their escape, although the wife is complaining a lot, thankfully she's got a strong man to help.

Ahhh superb stuff. You all need to see this.

I am too good to you lot, here's the complete movie:

Movies : Brain Twisters

I've damaged myself, again. My ankle has decided doing ankley things is well beyond it, and is staging a collapse.

Therefore I'm watching movies. First up, Brain Twisters from 1991. The director appears to have a lot of roles in teh credits, which is an excellent sign.
Oh noes, cute jogging blonde (complete with cassette walkman! and those stupid headphones that floated off your head all the time) has been knocked over by a car. We cut to a geeky looking guy staring at comp/video screens. We know he's geeky as he looks like Seinfeld. oh dear his research project might get cancelled.
We've cut to a couple of college students, Ken doesn't seem alright.
A period of what may loosely be termed character development occurs, followed by the end of Maisie, a rapidly introduced and dispatched character.
The doctor (the earlier geeky guy) appears to be a nefarious character, but refuses to sleep with a slutty student to help her grades. But he does recruit her into his research programme, he works with computer programs. And we all know they lead to bad stuff, he also uses peoples heads when they're dead. People behave oddly, more murder, incompetent cops, irrational behaviour. It's all here. With perms. Lots of perms. And pacing which a glacier would look askance at. Laurie is getting suspicious of the doctor tho', and she doesn't like vanilla icecream. That may come back as highly relevant, but I doubt it.
Slutty girl is now showing she's able to use computer programs. Exciting times, except she's gone a bit crazy which won't end well for her boyfriend.  Laurie is now watching a video she stole from the doctors lab, he's now gone around to her place with nefarious intents. Woohoo 8bit graphics, surely by '91 we were past that? But set up for a sequel, which is probably the most terrifying aspect of the movie.

The movie is 91mins long, but feels much much longer.

The full movie is also on youtube if you look really hard ...

Movies: Prime Evil

Sunday. B-grade, horrors.

Prime Evil (1988)

We open (the voiceover helpfully informs us) in the middle ages during the Black Death, with a bunch of priests who are pledged To Satan. We quickly switch to the modern day, in New England, where more priests are sacrificing a naked virgin for 13 years of more power. Woohoo there's even dirt spot on the camera for one scene.
Oh dear god, there's a woman wearing lycra looking like superman, it's not pretty. Not pretty at all.

Two girlfriends are discussing sex, they end up fighting concluding with the throwaway line "Don't you want to get poked?".
A nun is going to be sent undercover to the satanists, for some highly convenient reason she knows all about it. We switch to some trendies shagging, with a Lurch like character snaking around. Things end badly. Ohhh the non Lurch guy knows karate (well it is the 80s).
Sleazy priest is making moves. smooth (this is one of the satanic priests). The nun has been accepted into the Satanists!
it's fair to say this movie doesn't rock along. There's a lot of bad 80s stuff. Painful stuff.

The devil has appeared, he's either got cornflakes stuck on his face, or some serious acne issues. It's tough being the devil.
Bad priest is successfully making moves on the chicky babe (Alexandra). I've kinda lost the will now, but the end is in sight.

(note: you *might* be able to find the entire movie on youtube...)