I think it’s quite fitting that, in my CD shelf, this disc sits right night to its brother in crapdom, Primus. I’m not sure what possessed me to buy this. Aside from the ultra-catchy hit “500 Miles,” this is a collection of boring Scottish tavern shanteys—the type of stuff white people looking to connect with the “old country” will pretend to like. Bleeech.
Conceptually, Primus is a great band. Weird humorous lyrics, bizarre singing, complicated song structures and expert playing all around. In reality they are just boring to me. The guitar noodles around and the songs just go on forever. This is one of those records that has one memorable hit, “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver,” but the rest of the tracks are nowhere near as good.
Luigi Cozzi’s Hercules is one of the greatest movies ever made about bear punching. Part of what really sells the bear punching in this film is the pure rage depicted in the facial expressions of the movie’s star, Lou Ferrigno. In order to demonstrate this, I have compiled some best stills from the movie for your browsing enjoyment. Note the vein-popping fury shown here as Mr. Ferrigno enters his fugue state of uncontrollable ferocity.
Fully enraged, let the bear punching begin!
There’s only one place for the likes of you… SPACE!!!
Raaarrrrr! Die erector set monster! DIE!
Chariots of the gods? Hell no! Chariots of throbbing rage!
I am Hercules, son of Zues.Taste my FURY!!!
I will crush your puny minons and feast on their souls!!
My back may be against a wall, but your false gods will wither before my screams!
Arrrgh! By the gods, my wrist is aflame!
The weak shall perish!
Something, something FURY!!!! Expect a glossy coffee table book soon.
It’s kismet, I tell you. Yesterday, driving around town, I was listening to this CD all day. Lo and behold, that night, as we were flipping through channels, TCM was playing Harum Scarum in glorious HD! Admittedly, this is not the strongest Elivis soundtrack you will ever hear but it makes up for it’s rock and roll shortcomings with a heaping dose of cheese. The movie is about as anti-politically correct as you can get and features a browned Elvis seductively wooing an exotic 10-year-old dancer. Great stuff. Girl Happy is about a bouncy as the king could get (I think they actually sped up the tape to make it extra-jumpy) and provides the rollicking that Harum Scarum was missing.
Another great two movie compilation from The King. Everyone knows how great “Viva Las Vegas” is, but track two, “If You Think I Don’t Need You,” is really the best song on the record. Roustabout is the weaker of the two soundtracks because it goes for a more standard movie musical vibe than the rock ‘n’ roll. Yup, there’s a song called, “Carny Town” and it’s not the only carnival themed song on here.
Quite possibly the weakest of the Potter movies. Nothing seems to happen and it feels overly long (and there is still another half to go). At this point in the story there doesn’t seem to be any surprises left and we are left just connnecting the dots from the shocking ending of the previous movie to what I expect will be a wild and exciting CGI-rific climax in part 2. Unfortunately, those dots consisit of mostly brooding teen angst set against a tent. Well, a magical tent.
I do love pinball and this documentary is about a bunch of people who also love their pinball too. It was entertaining but not particularly informative. Sure, anyone who sees this thing will cite the story of how pinball needed to proven as a game of skill rather than a game of chance in order to become legal. That interesting but it’s only about five minutes of the running time. The rest is mostly devoted to the connection players, collectors and creators have with pinball. I have seen this type of documentary too much: dip to black, overlay a text comment/chapter title (as opposed to narration) then fade in to some weird guy who is obsessed about a niche topic yammering on about how important his niche interest is. If it counts for anything, this documentary does have great title graphics.
