The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - L is for Lingerie!

We're so close to the midway point in The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge that I can almost smell the M...but we're not there yet - there's still L to pay...because this time...

L is for Lingerie!

The Notorious Bettie Page  (Picturehouse Entertainment, 2006)

Before the Camera:


Gretchen Mol  (US TV's Life on Mars)
Chris Bauer  (TV's True Blood)
Cara Seymour  (American Psycho)
David Strathairn  (Freedom Song)     <-----I worked on that one!
Lili Taylor  (Say Anything)
Austin Pendleton  (The Great Smokey Roadblock)
Norman Reedus  (The Boondock Saints)
Kevin Carroll  (Being John Malkovich)
Michael Gaston  (TV's Nathan Dixon - unsold pilot)    <----I worked on that one!
and
Sarah Paulson  (TV's American Gothic)   <-----I worked on that one!
as Bunny Yeager



Behind the Camera:

Directed by Mary Harron

Produced by Lori Keith Douglas, Mary Harron, Pamela Koffler, Katie Roumel, Guinevere Turner, Christine Vachon, and John Wells

Written by Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner


 

Thigh high silk stockings. Black leather bustiers. Insanely high heeled pumps. Millions of women (and men) have worn them over the years, but never did anyone pull them off quite as well as the incredible Bettie Page. Bettie was a unbelievably popular pinup model of the 1950's whose pictures went from innocent bathing beauty shots to record covers, playing cards, and even intricate fetish clothing and bondage and discipline photos and nudie loops. The movie tells her story, starting out with her childhood in Tennessee, through her first marriage in the late 40's to Billy Neal (Reedus), her fateful meeting with photographer Jerry Tibbs (Carroll), that led to her employment by the brother/sister team of Irving and Paula Klaw (Bauer and Taylor), and eventually through to the Senate subcomittee investigation of the rather tame business of pornography in those days. Through it all, Bettie remains a sweet, loving and innocent woman, fully aware of what she is doing, but never seeing anything wrong with it.


This is just practice, right? There's no film in the camera?

This is a very fun movie spotlighting a personality whose image we've all seen many times, but showing more of the real person who brought those images to life. It's not a big deep thinking movie - but it does provide a very solid portrait of who Bettie Page was, according to the reports of those who knew her. Gretchen Mol does an outstanding job playing Bettie; not an easy task by any means. She maintains the joy Bettie brought to her life and her work, shows the depth of the woman, and has an outstanding body that is on display several times across the course of the movie. She is supported by a very able cast, with kudos to all, and a special shout-out to my old pal Sarah Paulson, terrific as photographer Bunny Yeager. If you've ever enjoyed a picture of Bettie Page or wondered about her, I definitely recommend this flick. Check it out!




Let's Get Out of Here ?

Around 1:20:00, Bettie's boyfriend is ready to go.





Eye Candy ?



Duh.



And lest we forget, the real Bettie was scorching hot too.



Buddha Man's Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "The Notorious Bettie Page. An hour and a half
of a beautiful woman in lingerie telling you nudity is okay. Yep,
that's exactly what a movie should be."

 I'll say it is! Thanks, BM, and til next time, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - K is for Kirk!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge  is proving to be a lot of fun - we've been noodling around a lot of movies and TV shows so far...let's go a different direction with another of our semi-regular departments, one presided over by that notorious Batman villain and reading raconteur...

Bookworm's Book Club!

Yes, boys and girls, welcome to the Book Club edition of The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge. OK. Well, one of them anyway...yes, let's go with...

K is for Kirk!

Star Trek-Section 31: Cloak  by S.D. Perry 

Section 31 is a shadowy "black ops" organization hiding somewhere in the depths of Starfleet, operating from Jonathan Archer's time through Jean-Luc Picard's. It was introduced and featured in five episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; and then it was given more history with four episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise. The idea of this group proved popular, so the conspiracies uncovered in the movies Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (featuring Kirk and crew) and Star Trek: Insurrection (featuring Picard & company) have been retconned into Section 31 plots. And before the episodes of ST: Enterprise aired, there was a four book Section 31 series released, one each for The Original Series (TOS), The Next Generation (TNG), Deep Space Nine (DS9), and Voyager (VOY). (And I just realized this review might be well-nigh incomprehensible to anyone not already versed in Star Trek lore...or Lore......)
    Ahem. Belay that digression, mister!
    Cloak is the TOS series entry, and it starts out as a derelict starship is found drifting by the Enterprise. Everyone on the derelict is dead, and it appears the ship's captain - an old friend of Kirk's - was the last to die, and may have murdered the penultimate victim. Marking this as a bigger conundrum - that next to last corpse is not listed as a crew member or passenger on the ship's logs...of course, Kirk seizes on this enigma like a dog with a bone, and together with his crew sets out to get to the bottom of this baffling mystery. At the same time, Spock and McCoy have subplots that firmly lock this book into continuity as occuring around the TOS episodes "The Enterprise Incident" and "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" (and yes, that is an episode title from the show) in Star Trek's third season. The rest of the usual suspects are around in support as Kirk finds romance and a cadre of scientists possibly working under the auspices of a rogue element in Starfleet. Can he uncover the rest of the conspiracy and restore the good name of his late pal?
    I first came upon S.D. Perry as the author of the six Resident Evil books from the early part of the 21st century. I enjoyed those books despite having never played the game up to that point, and I've since been pleased to find Ms. Perry stopping by fairly regularly in my reading in Gene Roddenberry's universe. This is a solid classic Trek adventure, with a good mystery, and our regulars well handled and speaking dialogue easy to "hear" (in the mind's ear) in the voices of the actors who played them. Because the opponent here is a shadow organization, there's not a lot of direct confrontation - but it's still a good yarn well told. As a part of a series, this is pretty standalone - but that's a result of the four books occurring across a couple of hundred years of Federation history, so they can be read singly or in any order. In any case - if you like to read stories set in the worlds of TV shows you watch, this is a safe bet. Check it out!

And til next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - J is for Jaws!

The Video Vault of Mora Tau! 4/12/11


As The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge rolls along, it's time to visit another of our semi-regular departments, and find a video clip or three lurking in the depths of the Video Vault of Mora Tau. Let's see - something biting - maybe something starring the most famous Carcharodon carcharias of all...you know that must mean...

J is for Jaws!

I was nuts for this movie when it came out - my mom took me to see it and it was scary and marvelous - and it kind of started the whole Summer Movie thing that's still going on 35 years later...and of course it pervaded pop culture in a big way - and it's still inspiring new creativity - like this clip - let's take a look with a quick SPOILER ALERT:

That's awesome! There's also a 30 second version of the movie with everyone played by cartoon bunnies - it's cute - but I don't want this post to run longer than Berlin Alexanderplatz, so I'll leave that one for you to find on your own...






Universal Studios obviously enjoyed the profits the first movie brought in, and they went right in to the sequel biz (though on a bit more of a delay than is usual for a success like this - part two was three years later in 1978, part three didn't show up until 1983, and unfortunately, part four escaped onto movie screens in 1987) but Universal also geared up another Jaws - the one that took place on their studio tram tour - here's a pretty good video of what a Jaws fan got when they put their tushie into a tram seat...this time in Florida...

Another really cool offshoot of the first movie was a parody song compilation that hit the radio in 1975. Dickie Goodman put the piece together, an interview between reporter Goodman and the shark, with the shark's answers to Goodman's questions being little snippets of popular songs from that year. How they got away with that I will never know - you certainly couldn't do it these days - the rights to each song would be astronomical if the artists even all agreed to let you use their songs.


Now, some clever soul has taken Mr. Jaws and paired it up with footage from the movie - so check this one out!

This thing was so popular in Southern Illinois in 1975 that local station WCIL was actually playing it every hour on the hour for several days in order to keep up with the phone requests - and I was so inspired that at 8 years old I sat down with a tape recorder/radio, and put together my own song compilation parody - "An Evening with Howard Hughes" - topical due to Hughes' recent passing. I sat for about a week, listening to the radio, and with each song played tried to come up with a little vignette which would pay off with the song's refrain - then I'd quickly get my vignette part onto the tape, and then hit record to catch the little piece of the song I needed. Did the whole thing "live" like that.  I did probably 12 or 15 little bits, a few more than Mr. Jaws. It was silly, but my family praised it. I wonder if that tape's still around here anywhere?

Need I say it?

But I digress.

I also had the tabletop Jaws game, which was pretty cool. Here's what it looked like:

Jaws', er, jaws were spring loaded, you put all the junk in his mouth, which weighted it down and held it open. Then using the hook pole thing at the bottom, each player would take a turn pulling an item out of the shark's mouth. Eventually the jaws would spring shut on someone, and the game ended. Winner had more junk in their pile. A silly game, but fun. I also later used my Jaws as the centerpiece of my first Halloween party. He sat on the kitchen table surrounded by food, and in his mouth was Luke Skywalker, and I had squirted that jelly-like "Vampire Blood" from the tube all over - lovely centerpiece!
 
 
 
 
 
I was just thinking I might like to have one of these in my display collection - so I went online to look for them. Guess what? Turns out losing the license to a media property does not mean you have to stop making the toy. And if you're clever in your box copy you can even tweak the original license holder a bit. Take a look:
 
 
 

Yeah, get that movie title in there twice! Nice! This toy was available as recently as this past Christmas, so there you go!

There is one collectible from the movie I really would like to have in my collection. It's from McFarlane toys - here's what it looks like:



It's on Amazon at a no-longer-retail-let's-gouge-the-collector's price of $200+ So, if anyone out there has a spare one of these lying around, I can promise it a good home.
 
 
 

And I think that will do it. Til next time, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - I is for Incredible Movie Posters!

Maniacal Movie Poster Monday #11!


It's Monday again and we're so far into The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge that we can no longer even see A behind us in the distance...I'm really enjoying meeting this blogging challenge with so many other amazing writers...it's like we're all a big team...and we don't have to feel solitary...because as we all know, there's no I in Team...especially since...

I is for Incredible Movie Posters!

The Incredible Melting Man  (American International, 1977)

Having seen the movie, I'm not sure anything could prepare you for the lackluster experience of watching it. That mundane poster is a good start, though. It was a good idea for a new movie monster, but legend has it the director was making a comedy/parody and the producers shoehorned that into a serious horror movie. Result - duh, losing!

And because American International obviously never shied away from hyperbolically using the word Incredible...

The Incredible 2 Headed Transplant  (American International, 1971)

One that must be seen to be believed - look at that cast - Bruce Dern, Pat Priest

(one of The Munsters' Marilyns), Casey Kasem (!) Big John Bloom,

and TV horror host Seymour (Larry Vincent) as the creepy gardner.

What are you waiting for?

We finish up with one of Don Knotts' most delightful comedies - a truly

fun family film with an animated pescatorial Don swimming around

helping us out during World War II. Check this one out if you've never seen it!

Til next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - H is for The Howling!

Saturday Night at the Movies! 4/9/11


Who cares what picture we see?


Slim Pickens does...and it's no entertainment slim pickins when...

H is for The Howling!

Okay, that trailer has some spoiler action going on - but we're talking about a thirty year old movie, and that's the trailer they were selling the movie with back in the day - so there you go! It's a truly wonderful frightflick with a love for the genre and the classics that came before - and it has a sterling cast too. Of the two werewolf movies that came out close together around this time - the other not even getting a namecheck here (that's what the internet is for, after all!) - this is my pick. The other movie does hold a special place in my heart - it was the movie I took my first date to see - yes, I knew how to wow the women even then - but this movie is the one I'll watch anytime - like maybe tonight, if you care to come over...anyone know if the moon's full tonight...? *gulp*


Til next time we meet, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - G is for Gary Busey!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge rolls forward, and today we have to acknoweldge the blog's Good Luck Charm - the man who promotes motorcycle helmet safety better than anyone in the world...yes,

G is for Gary Busey!

Sadly, Gary couldn't be here with us today - so let's review one of his movies instead...take it away, Buddha Man!

Diary of a Serial Killer (Image Entertainment, 1998) Gary Busey (TV's I'm With Busey), Arnold Vosloo (Darkmans II and III), and Michael Madsen (Die Another Day) star in this low budget thriller. Busey plays Nelson, the kind of journalist so committed (or needing to be committed) he'll go on a several week alcohol binge or throw on a wig and dress to write articles "through the eyes" of alcoholics and crossdressers. When he accidentally stumbles across one of serial killer Stefan's murders, it looks bad for Nelson, until Stefan (Vosloo) decides he'd like the journalist to start a new project: "Through the Eyes of a Killer." As he puts the nutjob off as best he can, Busey tries to contact cop Madsen several times, but the creepy Vosloo has a way of turning up each time and stopping him. Eventually, Stefan forces Nelson along for one of his killings and then starts eyeing Busey's girlfriend (Julia Campbell - my old buddy from The Twilight Zone: Rod Serling's Lost Classics) as a potential victim. Will Nelson be able to stop Stefan, or having seen through the eyes of the killer, will he be corrupted into a life of murder?

Not a single woman was harmed, or indeed, photographed, for this picture.

This one turned out okay, carried along more by the cast than anything else. In terms of their performances, all three actors add to this movie, but Vosloo is 100% into his role, Busey is 90-95%, and Madsen is his usual 70% or so. Busey seems a tiny bit uncomfortable as the hero, and it might have been interesting if he and Vosloo had switched parts. Madsen simply always seems a little bored, and weirdly, he just disappears from the movie in a way that more suggests behind the scenes strife than coherent screenwriting. There's not a whole lot of objectionable material happening here in terms of gore or nudity, so this one might also come off a bit TV movie-ish, so I can only really recommend it to fans of the stars or serial killer kompletists.




Yeah, he's a little out there - and you have to watch your endocrine system around him...but we like having him around. Here's a quick clip from the amazing series I'm With Busey that shows why.

And that will sprinkle us with victory powder for the night! Til next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge - F is for The Falling!

The April 2011 A - Z Blogging Challenge is upon us still, and today we discover that despite our best efforts, we're all getting an F for this one....yes, that's right...

F is for The Falling!

The Falling - aka - Alien Predators  (Continental Motion Pictures Corporation, 1987)

Before the Camera:

Dennis Christopher  (Fade to Black)

Lynn-Holly Johnson  (For Your Eyes Only)

Martin Hewitt  (Endless Love)

Luis Prendes  (Tuareg: The Desert Warrior)

J.O. Bosso  (only movie)

Yousaf Bokhari  (Iguana)

Yolanda Palomo  (only movie)

Christina Augustin  (only movie)

Christina San Juan  (Soup for One)
Pablo García  (El Jardinero)
and
Carlos Ramírez  (only movie)
as
The Gas Station Attendant



Behind the Camera:

Directed by Deran Serafian

Produced by Carlos Aured, Eduardo Rossoff, Deran Sarafian, Eduard Sarlui, Michael Sourapas, Helen Sarlui, and an uncredited Edward L. Montoro

Written by Deran Serafian and Noah Blogh  (based on original screenplay "Massacre at R.V. Park") (?)



For his second film as writer/director, the ever eclectic Deran Serafian mashes up some youth comedy with sci-fi horror and gives us...kind of a mess, actually. Damon (Christopher), Samantha (Johnson), and Michael (Hewitt) are three "youths" (all three were hovering just around thirty years of age) careening through Spain in a big RV. It doesn't take long for us to discover that they're all pretty goofy as characters, with Damon lusting for Sam, who's lusting for Michael, who's lusting to drive a car real fast (?) The Plot drops in, literally, as Spacelab falls to Earth coincidentally just ahead of the path they're taking through Spain. We then crosscut between the silly antics of the "kids" and the scientists checking out the smashed remains of the space station, which turn out to be scorching with some alien microbes that promptly set about taking over the humans and animals nearby, turning them into lurching zombie looking beasties. The microbes grow inside the bodies too, so when they occasionally burst open you get some nice slimy spidery lizardy animatronics. Eventually our star trio drives into the town where the outbreak has spread, and soon their vacation has turned to a trip into terror. And silly jokes, as the goofy side of the script never stops trying to balance the slime and gore with humor, jarringly. Who will survive and what will be left of them?


Now that's an offbrand wiper blade right there.

I first saw this flick on VHS under the title Alien Predators in the early 90's. Seeing it now in widescreen thanks to MGM/HD under its other, more pretentious title, I gotta say...meh. The three leads are not given that much to work with, as from moment to moment they're called on to banter lightly back and forth; give heartfelt monologues striving for drama; run screaming; or shriek at a gory special effect as one of the critters splortches forth from some poor sod. Consequently, you can't really identify with them, especially as the script has them fall back to the silly side even after they realize alien monsters are trying to kill them. I have always liked Christopher and Johnson, but they're just not showcased well here. I hope the trip to Spain was a blast for them in any case. Back at the movie, it is not helped by the low budget, first by only having three known actors in the cast (look how many people in that cast list up there did no other film work). And by the way - that cast list is the whole cast. All of them. That's all the speaking parts in the movie, though there might be a couple of extras here and there. The creature effects are pretty well done, but they can't manhandle this thing across the entertainment finish line all by themselves, and they get no help at all from the lack of production values, lack of visual effects, wobbly supporting cast acting; schizophrenic lead acting, indifferent direction, or poor scripting. You know what that means, right? Skip this one every day, and twice on Sunday!





Let's Get Out of Here ?

Around 29:20, Martin Hewitt has finished breakfast. And then around 1:25:00, Lynn-Holly Johnson wishes she was back on the Bond movie.
 
 
 
 
 
Eye Candy ?

She's certainly not the greatest actress in the world, and she's not given much of a chance to be hot in this movie, but gosh darn it, Lynn-Holly Johnson's pretty cute, so she's in!

Buddha Man's Capsule Review



Buddha Man says "Whether you call it The Falling or
Alien Predators, don't bother calling it at all."




You said it, BM. Til next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!