Warning: Not Safe For Work, strong language in this video. (more…)
Monday Funnies
Monday, July 12th, 2010Sunday Night Movie:I Sell The Dead
Monday, April 26th, 2010
So this week’s movie was a bit of a gamble for me as it was something I had never seen and further more was something I had heard little about.
I started the Sunday Night Movie habit as a way of utilizing my movie collection. I had realized one day that I rarely watched so many movies in my collection and when I did I tended to watch the same ones over and over. I started Sunday Night Movie as a regular event to enjoy those movies that I love but so rarely watched.
This is not one of those movies.
I Sell The Dead is a story about two men in the resurrection business in what I presume is the 17th or 18th century. Arthur Blake (Dominic Monaghan) is partner and former apprentice to Willie Grimes in the resurrection business. That is they steal corpses and sell them to doctors. Their lives take a dramatic turn down a path of bump in the night events when they discover that digging up some corpses leads to a much more active product than the pair is accustomed to finding. They have a number of serious threats in their wretched lives, There Dr. Quint (Angus Scrimm, Best know as the Tall Man in Phantasm.) who is extorting their services without compensation by threats of the law. Then there’s the House Of Murphy a rival gang of resurrectionists with a tendency for murder and mayhem, and of course there’s the very active undead who are always ungrateful for being dug up or unboxed.
This movie is supposed to be a comedy and as such one is expected to give it more leeway that a traditional horror film or dramatic feature for suspension of disbelief, however this film had too many flaws for me to do that. There are endless anachronisms, historical errors, and a general failure to understand just what it was that resurrection men did. (They did not sell bodies to doctors for their general practice, they sold them to schools and teaching doctors for study, instruction, and research.) In the end this movie was simply too much of a mess with too little plot and too much gag to work as a film.
I recommend pass if someone offers a viewing to you.
Today’s tid-bit of the weird
Sunday, March 14th, 2010Presented without comment:
The Big Bang Trip
Thursday, February 11th, 2010So on Tuesday this week I worked half a day because I went to Hollywood to watch a live taping of The Big Bang Theory.
I left work about noon, but our plans had changed an I knew we would not be leaving La Jolla where I work any sooner than 1:30, so I took along lunch at a near by strip club. No, not that kind of strip club. It’s a steak house called The La Jolla Strip Club. It’s a vodka bar and steak house. I had a really bug burger and some tasty fries. (more…)
Sunday Night Movie: Back To The Future III
Monday, February 8th, 2010
After last weekend’s Sunday Night Movie it seemed only right to select the final film in the trilogy as the weekend’s movie.
Back To The Future III completed the story arc started with Back To The Future II. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), when the time machine is struck by lightening it stranding Marty in 1955 and Doc Brown in 1885 the old west, seeks out Doc Brown — of 1955 — (Christopher Lloyd) to get home. Upon learning that Doc Brown was murdered in the Old West, Marty travels back into time in the new repaired time machine to save his old friend . Their plans for a quick return home are complicated by Biff Tannen’s murderous ancestor Mad Dog Tannen. (Thomas F. Wilson) and Doc’s growing feeling for the new school Marm of Hill valley, Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen.) There are plenty of stunts and action and even middle-aged romance in this film and in fact I think it plays better than the second film of the trilogy does.
Again the time travels story is simplified by the malfunction of the time machine upon arrival. This is the most classic method for maintaing drama in a time travel story. Even the progenitor time travel story, The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells, strands the time traveler by having his machine stolen shortly after his arrival.
I have not seen this film since its original theatrical showing and I was unsure how well the film would stand up over time in my mind and emotions. It did so pretty well. I had forgotten a few details but I remembered the arc of the film well enough. The cast was good and it was nice seeing Christopher Lloyd getting a chance to stretch his own acting and dramatic muscles.