Best line from Lilo & Stitch.

Posted by: Ted at 03:44 PM | category: Cult Flicks
Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 14 words, total size 1 kb.

The X From Outer Space.

I always considered myself the guy who never met a Japanese monster movie he didn't like, until now. I kept waiting for this movie to fall over the precipice into the "so bad it's good" category, but no matter how hard I wished, it just stayed firmly in the 'bad' place.

From the TV guide:

A spaceship returns to Tokyo with a spore, which grows into a spear-spitting monster.

There was actually more plot than that. Basically, the spaceship is sent to Mars to find out why the previous six ships haven't reported back. The Japanese suspect a mysterious UFO is causing the disappearances. The UFO appears, spaceship finds sparkly egg spore and returns to earth where the egg hatches spore grows into a giant monster named Guilala (Goo-La-La). Which attacks Tokyo.

"Fireball" and "spear" must be synonyms in Japanese.

Scientists find solution. Monster is reduced back to spore, and they "Shoot it out of the universe" on a rocket to nowhere. Tokyo saved.

Love triangle not resolved, no further mention of UFO nor missing spaceships.

Plenty of cheesy 60's pop music in the soundtrack if you like that sort of thing. If you ever have the chance to see this one, run screaming in the opposite direction. If you can do that and shoot fireballs at Tokyo at the same time, so much the better.

Update: I did some further digging and found the following in a movie review:

they defeat GUILALA using a rare material known as "Guilalium", which blocks GUILALA's main drive; it stops the flow of energy. Using some remaining jets, the Japanese Defense Air Force literally bukkakes the mighty monster into his small, harmless spore form. This movie marks the first bukkake scene in history.

That ought to be good for a few Google hits, eh? Anyway, this movie does seem to have it's champions among the cult movie afficianado's.

Posted by: Ted at 09:13 AM | category: Cult Flicks
Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 330 words, total size 2 kb.

Many have already written about the passing of Captain Kangaroo. I grew up watching him (and Romper Room with Miss Maryann, and Beany & Cecil). He was my first best friend.

Also, the incredible Ann Miller has left us. In my opinion, she was the greatest female tap dancer of all time, and one of the overall best as well. If you've never seen her work, on January 27th, the Turner Classic Movie (TCM) network is going to air a tribute to her with four of her movies - On the Town, Easter Parade, Kiss Me Kate, and Hit the Deck - and an interview from 1997. I'll be setting the TiVo for this one.

Posted by: Ted at 09:33 PM | category: Cult Flicks
No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 119 words, total size 1 kb.

Another in a series of Cult Flicks and Trash Picks posts.

Riki-Oh, The Story of Ricky

A friend at work lent me this one, with plenty of warning which I'll pass along to you. This is the most violent movie I have ever seen, with the blood and gore reaching absurd levels.

Basic plot: Ricky gets sent to prison where he winds up the target of practically everyone. He wins in the end.

It takes 90 minutes to tell the tale, and along the way people are disembowelled, chopped with machetes, impaled and... jeez, I can't go on. It's that graphic. Oddly though, you tend to de-sensitize and the story is just enough to keep you watching, if for no other reason than to be able to say that you've seen it (uh, that would be me Tim). The cartoonlike quality of the acting helps with the belief suspension too, especially the characters reaction to pain. And there's plenty of pain spread around for everyone. For instance, one guy is ripped open, and with his dying breath tries to strangle his opponent with his own entrails (I don't think so, Tim).

Anyways, I'll return it to my friend and thank him, and now I can say I've seen it. This movie is only for dedicated blood-freaks and Asian cinema devotees.

Posted by: Ted at 06:53 AM | category: Cult Flicks
No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 224 words, total size 1 kb.

I got to watch two fun movies yesterday that met my definition of 'decent', and both had guest appearances by Victor and Nic's furry little buddies.

In the SciFi flick Angry Red Planet, the explorers are attacked by a weird giant rat/bat/spider creature thing that was pretty cool.

Towards the end of Attack of the Puppet People, two of the shrunken victims are chased by a rat as they make their way along a city street. A cat comes along and scares off the rat while the people make an escape.

Two great movies, two football games (although the Ravens lost, dammit), and two hockey games in the evening (the Caps... *sigh*). It was a pretty good day, ya know?

Posted by: Ted at 07:30 AM | category: Cult Flicks
Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 126 words, total size 1 kb.