Being sick (yeah, now me too dammit), I had some time last night to put a small dent in my to-watch stack of "Ted movies" (as my wife calls them). If you're not a regular visitor, you might not realize that I love "B" movies, the low-budget efforts that I lovingly refer to as crap movies. There's a whole category here on Rocket Jones dedicated to them, full of reviews and trivia and related nonsense, and an updated list of my movie reviews. Now grab some popcorn and let's get on with this episode.

Back at the dawn of the nuclear age, a wave of giant creature movies hit the screens. My personal favorites from that time include Them! (giant ants) and Tarantula (giant spider - shudder - and an early bit part for Clint Eastwood), but I also had the pleasure of watching the following two.

First up is a cheesy little stinker called The Giant Gila Monster. See, there's this young man named Chase Winstead who lives in rural Texas. He's clean cut, polite and respectful, and works hard at the local auto repair shop. Two odd things about him though, somehow parts from wrecked vehicles he's towed tend to end up on his hotrod, and it seems that the townspeople trust him and his judgement to a ludicrous degree. I mean, the sherrif doesn't make a move without checking with Chase first, and overlooks the obvious theft of tires and such. Mental note: work on my "aw shucks" look, I've obviously underestimated its power.

Chase is the leader of the local hot rod club (if you're a classic car enthusiest, that's enough reason to watch this one right there), and they help the sherrif search the area when mysterious vehicle wrecks start happening and people start disappearing.

"Buying a car is just like getting married or goin' to New York City. Everybody ought to do it once, but nobody ought to do it twice." - Town drunk in The Giant Gila Monster

I'm not going to go into the plot much more than that, other than to say that Chase kills the giant Gila Monster in the end and saves his crippled little sister in the process (he steals car parts because he's saving his money for leg braces for sis). He also arranges to have the hottest DJ in the area show up to spin records at their club barn dance, and finds time to sing three songs during the movie. Other than the songs, this is a good kid.

And what, pray tell, could be wrong with the songs? Chase is played by Don Sullivan, who tried, and failed miserably, to become another Frankie Avalon. He wrote and performed the songs in this movie, and they are painfully bad. Painfully. Bad. Painfully. Bad. A little known fact is that in Texas it's legal to kill someone for playing the ukelele, and it's known at the Don Sullivan law. Painfully. Bad.

Ok, enough ragging on poor Don, who turned in a pretty good performance otherwise. On to the monster, the Giant Gila Monster. The monster is incredibly realistic, mainly because every time it appears it's a real lizard in closeup or on a miniature diorama. To save money (very low-budget) you never see the Gila Monster and actual people in the same shot, it always cuts from one to the other. Something I didn't know before watching this is that Gila Monsters are slow and ponderous critters. There's not much excitement when he's on screen, although it's fun watching him wreck an HO scale a train as it goes over a trestle bridge. You can almost imagine someone picking the lizard up and turning it around for another pass over the pile of toy trains hear the screams of the people trapped inside the wrecked passenger cars. Sheer comedy terror.

Merciless, I know. But I still recommend this movie. The plot is not awful, the acting is only fair to terrible, and Don sings three times, but it's still fun. And when you're watching a movie with the title The Giant Gila Monster, if you're expecting more than fun then you're expectations are set way too high.

Trivia: This movie, and it's sister flick Attack of the Killer Shrews, were produced by Ken Curtis. Ken Curtis started his career as a vocalist for Big Band leader Tommy Dorsey before going into pictures. He appeared in many movies including the small but important role of Dolan in Mr. Roberts, but he's undoubtably best known for his long-running television role as Festus in Gunsmoke.

Everyone loves giant beastie movies. The Japanese are famous for it, and most everyone else who makes movies rattled off a few. Even Denmark.

Yep. Denmark.

The movie is called Reptillicus, and I'll say right up front that this movie is rotten. Awful. Eye-gougingly, where's-my-electric-drill-I-need-to-put-it-through-my-temple, gargling ground glass bad. Making your kids watch this is grounds for a visit from the naughty-parents police.

I also recommend it (big surprise there, eh?), with reservations.

Like most movies, this one has it's good points and it's bad points.

Good: When the monster is first discovered, the explanation actually makes a kind of sense.

Bad: They hire a cartoon as night watchman at the lab where they're studying the remains of the monster. This guy is the prototype "Rose Nylund St. Olaf" story character.

Good: The monster regenerates itself. That's how they wind up with a whole monster even though they only started with a little piece. It also causes them to be creative when killing it, because blowing it up (as per usual practice) would just cause lots of explodey bits growing into many new monsters.

Bad: The monster itself is badly done (see Don Sullivan above). His primary weapon is a green acid spitball thing that is badly animated. Even for a badly done monster movie it looks amatuerish. Also, look for the guy getting eaten, it's obviously (badly) drawn in. Pitiful (and lots of 'badly').

Good: You get to see lots of pretty scenery around Copenhagen.

Bad: You get to see lots of pretty scenery around Copenhagen. In order to pad out the movie, it looks like they took stock tourist footage of the city and stuck it in here and there. At one point the lead characters go out for a night on the town and it plays like a travelogue.

Good: Pretty Scandanavian sisters. Woo-hoo!

Bad: The American General character. Another cartoon, although a super-heroic one. This guy was the inspiration for the slogan "I am an Army of One".

My favorite line from Reptillicus:

"Shoot it point blank, from very close range."

As opposed to point blank, from long range, I suppose. I think the biggest problem with this one is that it doesn't translate well into English and some of the dialog and motivations seem 'off' to me. Unlike The Giant Gila Monster, it isn't a strength here when the film tries to take itself seriously.

So there ya go, the horror of ukelele-strummin' hot-roddin' song-singing teenagers giant reptiles and extra cheese for your popcorn or chilidog. Enjoy!

Posted by: Ted at 06:35 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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Son TJ walked through the door at 11am, looking like crap. They sent him home from work after he started barfing. At 2pm, Liz was home, same thing. Dammit, I better not catch whatever they've got.

Posted by: Ted at 02:55 PM | category: Square Pegs
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The Little Joe II series of rockets did for Apollo what the Little Joe I did for Mercury*.

From Rockets of the World:

In order to make the flight to the moon, the Apollo spacecraft was launched atop a six million pound tank of explosive liquids called the Saturn V.

Once again, a Launch Escape System (LES) was fitted to the nose of the capsule to move the astronauts out of harms way during the boost phase, and the Little Joe II program was designed to test the LES.

At it's most basic level, the Little Joe II consisted of a series of structural rings covered by commercially available sheets of corrugated aluminum. Four fixed fins provided guidance, with additional control surfaces added on later flights.

The first Little Joe II flight took place in August, 1963 at White Sands missile range in New Mexico.

On the final test flight, as the rocket ascended it was intentionally sent into a wicked tumble before the LES was activated. It performed flawlessly, proving the system would work under worst-case conditions.

In all, just five Little Joe II flights were made. Studies were made to extend the program to test the Apollo Lunar Module, but the idea never went beyond wind-tunnel testing (the Little Joe II/LM stack proved dynamically unstable). There was even a proposal for an orbital version.

There are some really nice photos here at the Field Guide to American Spacecraft.

If you'd like to build a flyable model rocket version of the Little Joe II, JimZ has the original Estes plans available for free online.

*I've discovered some errors in the original post. Corrections have been made and noted.

Posted by: Ted at 11:40 AM | category: History
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Since today is a holiday for me (inauguration), I took tomorrow off as well for a nice four-day weekend. Only problem is, I stupidly promised to paint the living room on my days off.

In painting, 90% of the job is prepwork, so I don't skimp on it, even though I hate it with a passion.

Reading the paint can, I noticed the part that said if you want one-coat coverage, you should apply the paint liberally. Anything to make the job go quicker, says I, even if I don't understand the reasoning. I put The Shawshank Redemption into the DVD player (it's the only Tim Robbins movie we own) , and I let the paint know how disappointed I was in it for being white and how it was inferior to paints of color.

One wall and part of the ceiling is done. It looks nice.

Posted by: Ted at 11:16 AM | category: Square Pegs
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According to a new recent international survey, Icelandic women own more vibrators per capita than women in any other country.

Posted by: Ted at 08:03 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Somebody knocked together thier list of the 50 Worst Songs of All Time. Channelling my inner-lemming, it's in the extended entry, and I've bolded the ones I actually like (or can at least tolerate).

Thanks to the Llama Butchers and Lynn S for directions to the cliff. more...

Posted by: Ted at 07:08 AM | category: Links
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Microsoft's AntiSpyware Tool Removes Internet Explorer.

Via Fark (thanks to Mookie for pointing it out).

Posted by: Ted at 08:29 PM | category: Links
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We were supposed to be released from work today at 3pm because of tomorrow's inauguration ceremonies. Instead, this morning we got an inch or two of snow which caused a panic and we were released at 1pm.

So was everyone else it seems.

Three freakin' hours on the commute home. My forty-minute cruise to go 26 miles turned into a neverending slow-motion journey thanks to several nitwits in tricked-out piece-of-shit Hondas (or similar) who believed that physics didn't apply to them. As I finally drove past the multi-car wreck they caused, I could tell that at least two of the cars wouldn't be taking to the roads anytime soon. With any luck they weren't insured either, so it'll take even longer to save their pennies to get their homey-mobiles rolling again. Assholes.

Posted by: Ted at 06:36 PM | category: Square Pegs
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That's me. Scott and Eileen are planning a one-year tour of the US, taking the backroads and poking into all the little odd nooks and crannies of our country.

From their FAQ:

Why are you doing this?
Two reasons. One, to explore the less-charted areas of America and capture what we find in words, still photography, and moving images. Two, to audition thousands of small American towns for the role of our new hometown. At the end of our trip, we'll choose one of them as the place to start a family.

Like CG Hill of Dustbury, I'll be adding them to the blogroll (eventually) so I can keep an eye out on their progress.

Posted by: Ted at 11:55 AM | category: Links
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In England, bar and pub owners are being advised to spray their toilet seat lids and covers with WD-40. Seems that patrons like to use the smooth surfaces to snort cocaine from.

"A chemical reaction takes place with the cocaine that causes it to congeal and become a mess so it's unusable," a police spokesman said. "It's one very small, very cheap way in which you can very seriously restrict the amount of drug use in your premises."

The manufacturer of WD-40 has already issued a statement reminding folks that WD-40 should not be ingested (it's right there on the can), but you just know some half-drunk yahoo is gonna do it anyways and the result will be an injury (real or lawyer-real) and, well, you know what comes next.

Posted by: Ted at 10:12 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Over on the right, plus the archive of all taglines that have appeared is here.

Posted by: Ted at 06:05 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Ho Tep: 1. Relative or descendant of the 17 Egyptian Dynasties, 3100-1550 B.C. 2. Family surname of an Egyptian pharaoh (king).

Bubba: 1. Male from the Southern U.S. 2. Good ole boy. 3. Cracker, red neck, trailer park resident.

We had a mini Bruce Campbell movie marathon last weekend, culminating in our first viewing of Bubba Ho-Tep. Basic storyline:

Elvis (played by Bruce Campbell) is still alive and living in a nursing home in Texas. He had switched places with an Elvis impersonator years before when he got tired of all the hype and burdens of his celebrity. Also living in the nursing home is John F. Kennedy, who's being kept hidden there by the government. His disguise is so complete that they made him black (played by Ossie Davis). These two elderly gentlemen must team up to defeat an ancient Egyptian mummy who's killing the residents of their nursing home.

Keep that in mind, because they play this movie absolutely straight within the parameters of that backdrop.

In other words, this is not the movie that you expect to see. Given the plot, you ready yourself for horror served up with a thick frosting of comedic farce. Instead, what you get is a surprisingly introspective and complex look at life. At the start, Elvis is just existing, and doesn't really start to live until JFK piques his curiosity about the mysterious deaths happening in the home. Yes, there is a mummy and he's killing elderly residents and that's central to the plot, but it also manages to be peripheral to the real story of two old guys taking control of their lives again and standing up for what they know is right.

This is a low-budget indie film, but thankfully most of the money was spent on casting and not special effects. Campbell's Elvis is subtle and brilliant, and Ossie Davis's JFK is eminently dignified, yet occasionally there are lapses that make you wonder if he's not just a mentally unstable old man. Besides Campbell and Davis, Ella Joyce (who co-starred in television's Rock) plays the nurse who takes care of Elvis. Her character is at once professional and compassionate, and she manages to portray the weary detachment of one who's spent too long taking care of and watching the elderly die without completely burying her affection for those under her care. One of the administrators is played by Reggie Bannister, who you might remember as the guitar-strumming tuning-fork-wielding ice-cream dude from Phantasm.

The movie is based on the novella by Joe Lansdale and according to what I've heard remained faithful to the original work.

A funny moment was when Elvis and JFK were talking about the mummy and how he was a "soul sucker". This made me think of another Elvis-themed movie (but I couldn't remember the title). In that flick, a teenage rocker kidnaps Elvis for his mom's birthday because she's a huge fan. In that movie the little sister sleeps with the lights on because she's afraid of "the slimy soul sucker". When I mentioned it to my wife, she immediately knew the movie and title (Heartbreak Hotel).

Back to Bubba. The plot makes sense in the context of the background story, with plenty of wry little twists and snicker-inducing moments. The special effects aren't awful, and at times they're pretty darn good. The ending was a little hokey, but it matched the tone of the rest of the movie.

Recommended.

On to the DVD itself. I got the collectors edition for Christmas, and the extra features are wonderful. There's a "music video" that basically highlights the guy who did all the music, and he did a helluva job too. Remember the low-budget that these guys worked with? There isn't a single actual Elvis song in the movie, but you don't even realize it until after it's over, and it isn't because the sound track is full of soundalike crap. There are two commentary tracks, the first with the producer and Bruce Campbell talking about the making of the film (very nice), and the second with "the King" providing his insights as the story unfolds (lame). There are a few other extras included too.

Posted by: Ted at 04:35 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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My all-time favorite, Archie Leach, aka Cary Grant. Red has stories and photos.

Posted by: Ted at 08:13 PM | category: Links
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I had an Atari 800. Went into hock to pay for that pitiful thing, but man was it great. Two of my favorite games for it were SCRAM, a nuclear power-plant simulation, and an Avalon Hill (I think) wargame where you built up a military industrial complex until one side attacked and then you nuked it out. Think Battleship, the Armageddon edition.

The Atari was also the last PC that I knew intimately. In those days if you wanted to do anything beyond primitive BASIC gaming you had to be familiar with the chipsets and command sets available. Hell, I wrote a simple parser/compiler and a disk drive controller using BASIC.

The "bible" for Atari geeks like me was called De Re Atari. All About Atari. I owned a copy, well worn in a 3-ring binder. It's cool that you can still reference it, but now it's online.

Posted by: Ted at 12:04 PM | category: Links
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For Christmas I bought my wife a serger (fancy type of sewing machine). Last night she asked me for parachute patterns so she can practice on that pile o' ripstop nylon I bought.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Posted by: Ted at 11:42 AM | category: Rocketry
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1 Shouldn't that be followed by a maniacal laugh?

Posted by: Catt at January 18, 2005 12:14 PM (FP3k0)

2 you conniving...conniver. But hey, somebody's gotta come up with a plan right?

Posted by: shank at January 18, 2005 12:20 PM (+H1yK)

3 make kites!

Posted by: Victor at January 18, 2005 04:16 PM (L3qPK)

4 Well, at leastit wasn't a bowling ball with the name "TED" inscribed on it (so she'll know who gave it to her).

Posted by: Tuning Spork at January 18, 2005 08:51 PM (D69Vl)

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A comparison between the murder rates of Iraq and Chicago. Sure, it's just fun with numbers, but that doesn't mean a pearl of wisdom isn't hiding in there.

Found via Diplomad.

Posted by: Ted at 06:02 AM | category: Links
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Blaxploitation.com: A Soulful Tribute.

Posted by: Ted at 05:15 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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Esa Tikkanen spent two decades in the NHL and now he hopes to become a coach. Since the NHL lockout drags on (and on and on and on), he's taken a player/coach position in the new Asian hockey league, with the South Korean team Halla. The league consists of teams from Japan, South Korea, Russia and China.

In less happy news:

The NHL's official puck supplier has laid off half its staff, a result of the hockey lockout that entered its 123rd day on Sunday.

InGlasCo, of Sherbrooke, Quebec, laid off 20 of about 40 employees from a plant that normally produces about 300,000 pucks and souvenirs for the 30 NHL teams.

"The business has been down since September, we haven't shipped anything to any NHL teams, no souvenir or licensed products"

Yet another group of people directly impacted by millionaires having a biggest-dick contest.

Posted by: Ted at 06:12 PM | category: Square Pegs
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Hasbro Toys is ready to roll out a new Mr. Potato Head line, this time tying into the Star Wars franchise.

Darth Tater.

May the force be with Sheila O'Malley for pointing that out.

Posted by: Ted at 02:18 PM | category: Square Pegs
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We're using a LinkSys router/switch for our in-home network, and it's been absolutely trouble-free since we got it a couple of years ago. We've also gone to some trouble to run cat-5 cable into the upper floor of the house.

Lately we've been talking about getting a laptop and how nice it would be to have a wireless connection for it. I don't want to go completely wireless because we do some things on the net I'd rather not have go out into the ether, so what I'm looking for is a router/switch that is both wireless but has at least 2 ports to accept cat-5 cable. Anyone know of anything to fit those specs? Recommendations?

Posted by: Ted at 11:26 AM | category: SciTech
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