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May News Roundup

4 May

May 3, 2011

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STUPID NEWS PLAGUES COUNTRY

Mr. Blog to Mock Headlines Nationwide

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Ah, those wacky Turks.

Makes you wonder how Turkey manages to stay an independent country. One day Iran may knock on the door.

“Who is it?”
“Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Please sign this.”
“Okay.” (Signs long legal document without reading it.)
“Hah! Now all your base are belong to us!”

Good luck, Turkey!___________________________________________________________________________________________

Ah, a true silent but deadly fart.

But all joking aside, this is a serious danger. Poison gas has a long history going back to antiquity but it was perhaps the battlefields of World War One where it reached its gruesome apex. But some good came of it. Take the case of Rondo Hatton. Once he was your average good-looking guy. Dime a dozen. But the war came, and Hatton, fighting on the front, was gassed by the enemy. Later he developed acromegaly, the same disease that brought fame and fortune to The Elephant Man. His features grew big and distorted. Hatton, who was once voted the Most Handsome Boy in school, became an ugly hulk. And of course a movie star. He went on to fame as The Creeper, a character he played in a Sherlock Holmes film. Money and celebrity followed. He could often be seen tooling around Hollywood and New York in his solid gold Rolls Royce, bikini-clad women dangling from him like bling to a rapper. Women wanted him, men wanted to be him, bi-sexuals went either way. When he died in 1946 he got a Presidential state funeral and his body embalmed and put on display in the White House Rotunda.

Or he had a short and sad life, his disfigurement exploited in a series of small and cheap films. Take your pick.

Either way, I choose to end not with a picture of the tragic Mr. Hatton, but with a picture of Captain Kirk fighting a killer fart.

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How come Ghost Hunters never deal with this?

This then is the final proof that ghosts do not exist. Sorry, no ghosts, spirits, or poltergeists.

However, it is certain and unequivocal proof that houses are sentient creatures. They live and breathe, they have hopes and dreams, they hate it when you paint them ugly colors, chaff when you install aluminum siding, and see everything you do in the privacy of your bedroom, you weirdo.

Next time you see a construction worker tearing down a house, you are seeing a murder. A building collapse? Self-preservation. Think about it. Animals have PETA, but what about homes? Who will speak for the houses?

Not me.

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Ah, the fearsome Steven Seagal. Who wouldn’t tremble in fear at the sight of this guy riding a tank?

For a short while he had a bit of a career. He was never much of an actor, but before he got bloated he was a pretty good karate guy. Unfortunately he was gassed during World War One and developed acromegaly. His features grew big and distorted and Seagal, who once had a slightly promising movie career, became an ugly hulk.

What? That’s the same thing I wrote about Rondo Hatton? OK, take out the World War One thing and it still stands. Bloated? Check. Features grew big and distorted? Check. Ugly hulk? OK, ugly is in the eye of the beholder, but hulk? Check.

Anyway, now he has a career pretending to be a policeman riding a tank to a cockfight.

He must be proud.

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I don’t know what that means, don’t want to know what that means, don’t want you to tell me what that means.

Dave Cummings?

Late Night Movie House of Crap Double Monster Mayhem: Konga and Gorgo.

6 Apr

NEW April 6, 2011

King Kong and Godzilla. Gamera. Even Cloverfield. We love them all, yet what is the appeal of the giant monster movie?

Godzilla (1954) was a strange piece of Japanese social commentary. Created by the radiation from the atomic bombs dropped during World War II, Godzilla was a parable about the horrors of nuclear war. In subsequent films the monster became a symbol of Western imperialism, Japanese patriotism, and a defender of Mother Earth.

The giant ants of Them! (also 1954- obviously a banner year for giant mutations) were even more explicit anti-atom bomb metaphors, this time on the United States side of the Pacific. Both Godzilla and Them! were unabashed in their message.

The most famous monster was also the first, outside of some impressive stop-motion dinosaurs some years earlier. King Kong (1933) has been interpreted in various ways. Notably, certain critics see a clear racist message in it, though I think it is a far stretch. At any rate, whatever messages it may have contained were very much out the window by the time King Kong Escapes (1967) rolled around.

Even the silly, kid-friendly flying turtle known as Gamera (1965) began as a nuclear-spawned menace and, like Godzilla before him, turned into a protector of nature.

However, those are big issues. Mr. Blog is not here for those. The Editors and Staff of Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride did not watch Terror of MechaGodzilla for social commentary.

So what is the appeal of the giant monster movie?

We watch them to see guys in rubber suits knocking over cardboard cities.

Late Night Movie House of Crap presents Konga and Gorgo.

Konga (1961) is about an ape named Konga (yes, an ape coincidentally and totally believably named Konga) who, due to a scientific experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong, grows to giant size and knocks over several cardboard buildings. The catch this time is that it is not Tokyo or New York getting crushed, it is London. And while the original Godzilla had Raymond Burr Konga has Michael Gough. Yep, that’s Alfred the butler playing the bad guy. Watch the trailer and make sure to spare some love for the horrible, horrible ape suit.

Oh those wacky Brits.

Not content to rip off King Kong, they went ahead and ripped off Godzilla.

Gorgo (also 1961- obviously another banner year for giant mutations)  is actually (slightly)  deeper than the average monster movie. Yes, it has a giant dinosaur from the sea like Godzilla, and yes, it has an annoying kid like Gamera, and yes, it tears up a city like every other rubber monster out there, but this has a twist: It is about parenthood.

Far be it from me to spoil a cheesy movie from fifty years ago, but what the heck? The monster is only a baby and the parents are looking to get him back. If this sounds a lot like Gappa the Triphibian Monster (1967, Japan) then yeah, I mix them up all the time too. It is a cross we must bear.

If you watched either of those trailers and looked for subtlety, for social commentary, then these films are not for you. If you like silly suits, paper-thin plots, bad acting, and not-so-special effects, then pull up a chair my friend.