An all-girl Japanese punk band that I saw at Japan Nite 2000 at the Fireside Bowl. Music varies from catchy, fun cutsey-pop (which I like) to standard, screamy eighth-grade punk (which is not as good).
Read my micro-review of the film.
The Spanish/Mexican/Italian answer to Conan or Clash of the Titans. This one feels more like the latter except with lots of topless cavewomen and signature Fulci close-up gore. It was not as horrible as I was expecting, but it is still loaded with cheesy costumes and feathery (male) hair. The whole thing seems to have been filmed day-for-night, through fog and out-of-focus. There were even some pseudo-zombies near the end!
Another movie that has no reason for being enjoyable, and yet I thought it was pretty good. This could have turned into a 00’s running zombie crapfest but, fortunately, plays more as a better-than-average Aliens clone.
This should be an awful movie. The fact that it is produced by Adam Sandler should be enough of a deterrent. But it turns out, as long as Adam Sandler is nowhere near the front of the camera, with his terrible delivery and annoying baby-talk voice, a movie has a chance to be funny. Kevin James knows how to play the title character earnestly, without the Sandler-esqe winks to the camera after every joke. The stupid premise actually works as both a parody of Die Hard or Rambo and as a goofy SNL-type character skit movie.
Another Japanese movie. This one is about a future where the only way to keep those rotten kids under control is to pick a class of forty or so 15-year-olds to battle to the death on a deserted island. The film was well-paced, entertaining and features one of my favorite actors, Beat Takshi. It could have used a quite a bit more character set up so that we actually care about (or at least can distinguish) the kids who are getting killed. Still, it’s a fun, wild ride.
Japanese horror movie about a town in which the inhabitants slowly become mesmerized by uzumaki. Uzumaki translates to spirals. Mind you, this is not a metaphor or symbol. They are literally obsessed with spirals: snail shells, winding staircases, etc. Once under the power of the swirly-swirls, characters start to become suicidal, pale and ghost-like. The acting is terrible and story thing never quite makes any sense, but it might be worth watching just for some of the typical contorted Japanese-y ghouls.
This is a bootleg CD release of The Mummies’ shelved debut record. The recordings are uncharacteristically clean and professional. I can see why they decided not to release this. Without the on-a-budget mayhem there is not much to distinguish the band from the hundreds of other garage rock rehashers. Also missing is much of the organ playing that features in most of their best recordings.Thankfully, a 20 minute live recording is also included as a track which more than makes up for the sterile first half.
An extremely well written fantasy novel that steers clear of most of your standard fantasy fiction clichés. Sure, there is magic and mythical beasts, but the story is all told with such plain spoken realism and believability that you never feel totally nerded out. In many ways it is like Harry Potter for grown ups—you’ve got your “Snape” character and “Malfoy” character—sans the “anything goes” magic system (Batman… er… Potter, use your handy shark repellant spray…er…I mean wand).
You know I loves to get comments. But let’s not deceive ourselves here, visitors and their witty comments are a rarity around here. I was quite excited to see that I was getting lots of comments in the last day, but it turns out some less-than-moron with small genitals is taking the time to answer CAPTCHA forms just so they can post links to their stupid male-enhancement scam websites. For the time being comments are disabled until these trolls go away.