By movie buff standards, my DVD collection is fairly modest. (No Blu-ray as of yet.) Still, shelf space in my humble lair is currently at a premium—at a premium because my lair is humble, you might say. Some recent reorganizing alleviated the situation, but I’m not about to stop buying movies, and space will be a problem soon enough. Still, at least the time of indiscriminate purchases, which resulted in my being the proud owner of turkeys like AVP 2: Requiem and Constantine, is over. Until I’m able to upgrade from crypt to castle, space considerations force me to evaluate more closely what I buy.

Regular readers (all three of you!) know that I like to rummage through DVD bargain bins. Since I’m a fan of almost every genre, I’m usually able to find a movie I like. Or six. (Recent non-horror additions include Serpico, The Elephant Man and Goodfellas.) In September, I came across Rats: Night of Terror, a slice of slightly tempting Italian cheapo horror from 1984. As is my habit when I only kind of want something, I dithered. Long story short, I didn’t buy Rats: Night of Terror. In fact, if memory serves, I left the store empty-handed. But soon after, in time-honored fashion, I began to regret my decision.

At least they had a nice one-sheet.

A few weeks later, I bought watchable Jaws rip-off The Last Shark, which happened to include the trailer for Rats: Night of Terror among the extras. Luckily, by a wide margin, it turned out to be the worst trailer I’ve ever seen! The horrendous costumes, wooden acting, and atrocious dubbing made me feel sorry for anyone involved with the movie. And the guinea pigs, which were used in lieu of actual rats(!), look to have been treated appallingly. The whole thing appears to be a sad, stupid and incompetent mess. And remember, these are supposed to be the good parts, the parts that make us want to see the movie! Only one shot, of city streets being fumigated by ominous government types, is noteworthy.

"Excuse me, why are we dressed like Adam & The Ants?"

Everything considered, I don’t particularly enjoy lousy movies. Oh, I have five Ed Wood, Jr. movies in my collection, and a few other duds like this one and the aforementioned pair, but I rarely seek out bad movies because they’re bad. (Wood’s oeuvre is an exception.) Competent storytelling, with a touch of invention or even artistic integrity, is perfectly doable on a small budget. Also, I suspect that connoisseurs of crap watch rotten movies because it makes them feel superior. That’s a pretty smug agenda, and not entirely compatible with being a true fan. So with the clear indication that Rats: Night of Terror would have been a real pain to sit through, I was relieved that I hadn’t bought it.

"Remember to eliminate every trace of this rotten movie, men!"

Reading about terrible movies can often be more fun than actually watching them. The IMDb bio of the late Bruno Mattei, who directed Rats: Night of Terror, claims that he “eventually had more pseudonyms than any working director in the world” and that he’s been called “The Italian Ed Wood.” Various sources also allege that the rodent epic was his personal favorite, and that’s is easy enough to believe. When your résumé sports titles like S.S. Extermination Love Camp and Women’s Prison Massacre, Rats: Night of Terror sounds like a Bergman-esque work of cinematic art by comparison. You know, now that I think about it, I seem to remember Rats: Night of Terror just barely losing out to Out of Africa at the 1985 Oscars …

Voiceover from the trailer:

“Rats! What do they want from us? Rats! Why are they man’s enemy? Rats! They’re watching! Waiting! Rats! Their time has come! Why do rats repel us? What is it about those little furry bodies that’s so frightening? Just think of them close to you in the night! Who can stop them? And how? Rats are here, under our feet, all around us!”

But not in my DVD collection. Phew!

Gospel: Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them in reply, “What are you thinking in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?” Luke 5:22-23

Word: paralyze – to render unable to function properly

Back in the olden tymes on the 1980s when I was a wee lass, I had a problem. Little Rachel has said or done something she shouldn’t have, and her parents want her to apologize to the hurt party. Little Rachel replies, at the top of her lungs, “No! I HATE sorry.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus had just healed a paralytic man and said to him, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” Some of the elders who witnessed this were upset with Jesus and said, essentially, “Who does this young punk this he is forgiving sins? Who died and made him God?” But Jesus plays is cool and says to them, “Which is easier, to say [to a paralytic], ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?”

Which is easier to say to someone who cannot move: “I forgive you for your mistakes” or “Get up and walk?”

Admitting you made a mistake can be difficult because it means returning to the scene of an error, of pain, of a rash decision, and looking at it with calm and compassion. “I didn’t mean to do that.” “I shouldn’t have said that.” “I” statements. Admitting you were wrong or behaved badly requires valuing someone else more than your pride.

For some reason, maybe it’s the cold weather, this season seems to be one of holding fast to grudges. At the same time, it’s also the perfect time for apologies, putting the past behind us, drinking mulled wine, and xeroxing our butts at the office holiday party.

I don’t necessarily like doing it all the time, but I don’t hate saying “sorry” anymore because I know once I say it, I feel better. That’s why when someone apologizes to me, I know what they’ve been through. What if they don’t mean it, I hear you nay-sayers say. Well, if we never admit we’ve made a mistake, we can never learn from them. If we can never learn from our mistakes or allow others to make them, then we truly are paralyzed.

The Box is a 2009 science fiction/thriller based on the 1970 short story by Richard Matheson called ‘Button, Button.’ It was adapted before into an episode of the 1980s version of the Twilight Zone.

The film was written and directed by Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko). The films stars Cameron Diaz and James Marsden. They play a couple who receive a box from an unknown man who then offers them 1 million dollars if they press the button. But they are told that somebody that they dont know will die.

I have to say that i really enjoyed this film. I felt that it started really well and had a very good ending which worked well. The only disappointment was during the middle- some parts becoming slightly ridiculous and unbelievable. I felt that the plot was a very clever idea and i also thought that both Diaz and Marsden gave very strong performances. The film is creepy, mysterious and interesting and i was pleased that i went to see it.

Film Rating: 7.5/10

It’s Monday and it’s December, a deadly combination.  It’s hard to find the energy, and will power, to get out of bed in the morning.  If you’re still feeling grogy, here’s a vid of some old-school Group B-er’s hitting the dusty trails at 80+ MPH.  Better than your average triple expresso…

I already wrote about this last year, so I’ll try not to repeat myself (please click here to see my post from last year…with pictures).

At 8:30AM on 1941 December 7 (Hawaiian time), (and 3:30PM on December 8 in Japan), the U.S. Naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was attacked by Japanese Kamikaze pilots.

It is taught in America that it was a sneak attack by the Japanese, but in Japan it’s said that America’s embargo on Japan was a declaration of war.

Either way, war is bad all around and it’d be nice if the world could be peaceful.

+++
And also, as I mention in my post last year, 1980 December 8 was the day that John Lennon was murdered.

She’s So Unusual, Cyndi Lauper’s debut album is a 80’s pop music masterpiece.

First off, it features not one but FOUR of my favorite pop songs of all time: Girls Just Want To Have Fun, She Bop, Time After Time, and the best of them all, All Through The Night.  The rest of the album features some stellar tunes (Money Changes Everything, When You Were Mine) a few ehhh songs (Yeah Yeah), and one dud (Witness).

What gets me most about the album is how it perfectly captures everything I remember about the 80’s.  Watching MTV when I was a wee little 4 year old.  Going to the mall.  Going to the arcade.  The awesome clothes.  The onslaught of pop culture.  I don’t know why, but I feel like I’ve been transported back to a really wonderful time when I listen to this album.

I remember back in 2001 one night when I couldn’t get any sleep.  I sat on my bed looking out the window at the stars and All Through The Night came on through my headphones.  It was a great moment in my life.

I think going to give up the fight with my poor internet service tonight and post another “Favorite things” pic post quickly to be sure to make the “deadline” tonight (lol, so srs).

So, once again, some of my favorite MJ photos:

Part 4
Part 3
Part 2
Part 1

Stop off at Fried Green Al Qaidas which is the official Zappadan site this year…

Something to wake up to. Planet of the Baritone Women:

Film: Zabardast (1985)

Language: Hindi

Slide Show Link:

Click Here

Film: Ankahee (1985)

Language: Hindi

Slide Show Link:

Click Here

Giallo, that distinctly Italian crime subgenre, has some signature characteristics. There’s usually a ludicrous whodunit plot, some striking visuals, and a groovy soundtrack. Fans like me watch these movies for the flash, since there’s precious little substance. And we’re seldom given anyone to really root for, becauseall the characters, even the heroes, are frequently utter jerks. Dario Argento’s Terror at the Opera (1986) provides a fitting example when a stage manager tells the protagonist, an opera singer, that a stagehand died while she was singing. Apparently, it was “molto strano”. With his very next breath, he tells her to leave her costume in the dressing room for refitting. She hangs her dress on the coat stand, turns back, and asks him to accompany her to the opening night party. Yikes! There’s cold, and then there’s heartless, know what I mean?

"Some guy just died. It's pretty weird. Wanna go to a party?"

To compensate for the insensitive weasels and shrill hellcats that often populate these callous movies, Italian filmmakers will usually include a character that’s so innocent and goody-goody as to nearly induce vomiting. This person, sometimes an ebullient colleague of the main character or some absurdly kind neighbor, inevitably suffers a grisly death at the hands of the killer. This person adds nothing of value—other than a cool death scene. To craft a genuinely sympathetic character in a giallo, the actor has to do all the work, through sheer talent and star power. As it happens, that’s just what veteran character actor Karl Malden did in Argento’s The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971), in which he plays a blind one-time reporter. His Franco “Cookie” Arno has inane dialogue like everyone else around him, but Malden’s acting chops and charisma help him rise above the material. And although his is a small part, it’s one of the better performances in the Argento back catalogue. Leonard Maltin once wrote that he “brings his innate dignity to every role he tackles,” and that quality is certainly on display here. Imagine, dignity in a giallo!

Malden's blind ex-reporter gets the feel of a crypt.

When Malden passed away on July 1st, at the ripe old age of 97, the media was already in a frenzy. Six days earlier, some controversial pop star or other had expired from an accidental drug overdose, and consequently most people were far too busy elsewhere to notice that a Hollywood legend had died. It’s pretty disconcerting that a suspected pederast gets saint-like status upon his death, while a genuinely decent guy and top-notch actor is practically ignored. Watch Cat o’ Nine Tails to see how Malden injects sincere warmth into otherwise trashy, but certainly entertaining, material.

(article source)

Over the weekend, HBO held the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame 25th Anniversary concert and, just like many other shows have done in recent months, it too included a moment dedicated to the late King of Pop Michael Jackson. Michael’s friend Stevie Wonder and John Legend sang “The Way You Make Me Feel,” with the former breaking down in tears in the middle of the song, as the Examiner can confirm.

Things got off to a good start, with Wonder urging the audience to welcome John Legend as he deserves to be welcomed on stage, with wild applause. As Legend sat at the piano and started to play, Wonder began a brilliant rendition of Michael’s hit. At the second verse, though, something seemed wrong as Stevie suddenly covered his face with his hand and appeared to be sobbing uncontrollably. The memory of Michael, who was one of his closest friends, was too strong to allow him to go on.

The music continued to play, but it took Wonder several good seconds to catch his breath and regain his composure. When he did, he sang just as beautifully as before, for which reasons the crowd gave him a standing ovation at the end, while Legend hugged him warmly. Fans on websites that are currently hosting the video say that, of all the tributes Michael Jackson has been paid in recent months, this was certainly the most sincere and, because of it, the most moving.

“Legendary performer Stevie Wonder performed a tribute to Michael Jackson on HBO’s Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame Anniversary Concert, and it was enough to bring the man to tears. During a performance of Jackson’s ‘The Way You Make Me Feel,’ Stevie starts to break down during the second verse of the song and takes a few seconds to recover. At the end of the performance, John Legend embraces the icon as he receives a standing ovation,” Examiner writes of the performance.

Below is the video of the highly emotional Stevie Wonder & John Legend rendition of Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel.” Enjoy.

Spraytan for xmas? X

Agony: The Life and Death of Rasputin (Elem Klimov, 1981)

What a crazy movie. Klimov uses a mix of biopic drama and historical footage to illustrate the life and times of the famous Rasputin. I have to say I knew little about Rasputin going into this movie, so this could be completely historically inaccurate for all I know. Regardless, Aleksei Petrenko give a fantastic performance as Rasputin as he depicts insanity and a calm sense of control all in one. His performance is nearly Klaus Kinski-esque ala Aguirre.

The film fails with its historical footage. I understand the purpose of the film was to illustrate a certain time in Russian history, but I think the historical events important to Rasputin’s life could have somehow been incorporated into the fiction portions of the film. Also, every time a new character was introduced, text appeared on the screen with the character’s name and description – an absolutely terrible decision. Anyway, the film is great when focused on the craziness of Rasputin. Other sections are average.  7.5/10

PSA: It happens. It happened to this Trifecta of Perfecta quite a lot in their day, I reckon!

l to r: Emilio Estevez, MOLLY RINGWALD, and Judd Nelson

If they are not all as high as little 80’s kites, I will eat my hat. God bless ‘em.

It’s Friday — do what feels right!

In August 1985, Lesley Visser of the Boston Globe wrote this about the Mets and manager Davey Johnson:

Six hours before a game with Montreal in July, bullpen coach Vern Hoscheit called for the computer to run. Three hours before the first pitch was thrown, manager Davey Johnson looked over the printout. And at precisely 8 o’clock on national TV, Danny Heep (.288, 6, 30) started in left field for the New York Mets in place of veteran George Foster (.260, 16, 64).

Why go with a role player over an all-star?

The computer knows: Heep was 8 for 15 against Montreal starting pitcher Bryn Smith while Foster was 1 for 12.

Such printouts have become as much a part of baseball strategy as stealing signals and riding the pitcher. And its foremost advocate and practitioner today is the Mets’ Davey Johnson.

The former second baseman who made four All-Star teams, and majored in mathematics at Trinity University in Texas calls himself, “the perfect mix for baseball and computers.”

It was Johnson who once went to Earl Weaver with a computer printout making a case for himself batting cleanup – on a team that included Boog Powell and Frank Robinson. Weaver junked the data and continued to bat Johnson near the bottom of the order – but Johnson didn’t give up his love of statistics, his firm belief in the symbiotic relationship between probability and baseball.

In fact, after he retired as a player in the 1960s, Johnson went to work selling computers for Litton Industries. He introduced the computer to minor league baseball when he managed the Tidewater Tides in 1983. By then, Johnson had read “The Hidden Game of Baseball” (about exotic statistics), “Computer Baseball” and Ernshaw Cook’s highly regarded “Percentage Baseball.” Johnson has added such phrases as “favorable chance derivation” and “upslope of the sine curve” to baseball’s lexi-con and perhaps its lore.

“Players aren’t machines,” Johnson said recently, “but the chances of something happening in a particular situation are illustrated by the computer. I don’t run my club by computer, but I use it as another tool.”

As a tool for baseball managers, a computer does the things it would for any business manager. It doesn’t make the decisions, but it can make sure any conceivable bit of information, or any combination of information, is instantly available.

In the back offices of Shea Stadium, Russ Richardson spends 20 percent of his day preparing the daily reports for Johnson and his staff. (When the team is on the road, Richardson prints out the reports ahead of time, and the statistics are not updated until they return home.) In a warren of small rooms, he has an IBM System 36 for the Mets’ accounting demands and scouting reports and an IBM PC- XT for the baseball reports.

“We designed a system to give Davey a kind of computerized scouting report,” said Richardson, 29, the data processing manager. “If Davey wants a printout of every catcher in our minor league who hits with power, we can give it to him in 10 minutes.

“If we wanted to get all the left-handed pitchers who have a grade 7 fastball – that’s one that may reach 90 miles an hour – we can get all those players spit out of the computer, including all major and minor league players,” he said. “You could do the same thing by hand, but it would be very time consuming.”

When Johnson was hired in October 1983, his first moves were to hire Richardson and to call the Elias Sports Bureau on Fifth Avenue. Richardson spent six months entering the lifetime batting averages of every Met player vs. every National League pitcher and information on every Met pitcher vs. every National League batter – all supplied by Elias. He used a standard, off- the-shelf database program called Dbase II, which includes a programming language that can be customized so he could get out the kind of data needed.

“I tried one of those things,” Montreal manager Buck Rodgers joked. “I put in all the information, pushed all the buttons and it came up saying, ‘Fire the manager.’ I’m never looking at a computer again.”

“It keeps track electronically of what we used to do manually,” said Johnson, “plus it graphically displays certain things I’m looking for in a game. Other things are useless, though, like programs that enter the weather report or the playing surface – those things don’t determine games.”

The Chicago White Sox use the Edge 1000 (entering everything from where the ball crossed the plate to where it went in the field) and the Los Angeles Dodgers use a Compaq. The Red Sox computerize only their scouting reports.

The Milwaukee Brewers, the Minnesota Twins and the Cleveland Indians use computers for little more than to store statistical information that had been compiled by hand.

“We don’t have data processing seminars for baseball yet,” Richardson said. “Hopefully we can get to that point, where we can get together and share information so we don’t all have to re- invent the wheel – without sharing secrets, of course. A lot of people feel, if we’re using this to get a competitive edge, we don’t want to lose that edge by sharing secrets.”

Johnson said he thinks clubs “could optimize their lineups and retrieve important data by using the computer correctly.”

“I could write a book detailing what is extraneous and what isn’t,” he said, spitting tobacco juice on the dugout floor.

Is he likely to do that, Johnson was asked?

“Not until I retire,” he answered with a smile.

That March, Bruce Weber of the New York Times did a long profile of Johnson that quoted him saying, “Knowledge always makes things easier.” Weber went on to write:

There is a famous story about Johnson and Earl Weaver that took place in the late 1960’s, when Johnson was studying mathematics and his interest in bringing computer technology to bear on baseball was burgeoning. He created a program called “The Optimization of the Oriole Lineup,” in which he fed to the computer the batting statistics for the Orioles’ starting team, and had the computer manipulate the various lineup permutations to determine which one would theoretically produce the most runs. Then he presented his findings to Weaver as proof that he was managing ineffectively. Weaver took one look at the printout and threw it in the trash.

“He was feeding information to the machine that was irrelevant,” Weaver recalls testily.

Johnson admits now that the original program was inadequate. But through it, he discovered the usefulness of a statistic called on-base average, which represents the relationship between the number of times a player reaches base on a hit or a walk or by being hit with a pitch and the number of times he comes to the plate. The batting order devised by the “Optimization” program corresponded precisely to a ranking of the players according to their on-base average. “It makes sense,” Johnson says. “If the guys hitting at the top of the lineup get on base more often, then more guys over all are going to come to bat.”

Johnson tempers his past assessment of on-base average as the definitive word on lineup construction, but he still feels it is, as he puts it, “underrated.” “You use it,” he says, “and you adjust your lineup according to that and the other things you need: power, speed, giving guys enough playing time to keep them sharp and happy.” Last year [1984], Johnson used the on-base average as a basis for replacing [Mookie] Wilson in the leadoff spot in the batting order with [Wally] Backman, a change from 1983 that produced demonstrably profitable results.

Johnson has a number of statistical studies under way, and he keeps with him a fat, bound wad of printouts of pertinent data. He’s keeping track of trends, he says, somewhat mysteriously. “things that will make it easier for the players to be aware of what might happen.” Asked to be specific, he terms the information “classified.”

This post is part of a small series of posts on sabermetrics in the early ’80s that I’ve done sporadically for the last few months. If you’re interested, the other posts are here, here, here, and here.

Not gloating, just Tears for Fears is awesome.

where's my damn flying car already?

12/16/89

Dear Journal,

Today I went out with Mitch and we had a lot of fun.

We saw Jason, Charles, Yanmei (the bitch!), Rose, Penny and Elaine at the movies.

What a coincidence! Really! But it was really fun anyway. And I think that me and Mitch will have something going. Also at the movies (we saw “back to the future II”) I found out that Charles wants to go with (make-out with) Rose but I know that Charles is just desperate (someone told me.) so he asked Rose and they will probably go out. He might like Rose but I still know that he’s desperate. Elaine is really upset because she really likes Charles and thought that he kind of liked her too, so now she’s depressed because she wanted Charles to ask her out. Oh well. I hope things work out between them because if they don’t things can get messy between Elaine and Rose.

Between these type of diary entries and watching old episodes of Dynasty via Netflix (if you’ve never seen a catfight between Krystle and Alexis you are missing out, my friend), I have about all the 80’s drama I can stand.

There’s nothing like going on a date only to find out that you’re being stalked by half a dozen of your classmates. That sort of thing only happens when you’re a kid or a character in a movie filled with wacky misadventures. As annoying as it was to have the group sitting a few rows behind us at the movie, I found it even more irksome that the entire crowd also followed us on the seven-block walk back to my apartment building. It gave us something to laugh about, but made the date more awkward by a factor of ten. The only real privacy Mitch and I had was the elevator ride up to the fifth floor and the three foot walk to my apartment door. There was no kiss and I don’t think we even held hands, so I’m not sure what made me believe that the two of us might “have something going.” But at least I was completely over my crush on Charles and could be a mere bystander in the unfolding love triangle surrounding him.

A few words on Back to the Future Part II. I remember enjoying the movie but feeling cheated that the it ended with a cliffhanger which reduced the film to a trailer for the third installment (the first movie did that too, but still felt more complete). I did love all the special effects, including the hoverboards, flying cars, and holographic theaters, and managed to suspend all disbelief regarding the time travel logic, so that I could enjoy the movie for entertainment’s sake. It’s something I wish I could do more often today.