Sounds great, Arch! Texas Monster Kids Musings...bring it on!
2 Kudos
MOVIE NIGHTS!!
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 John T Chance |
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(06/10/08 6:13 AM) |
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Kezilla58 |
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(06/11/08 9:42 PM) |
Arch Stanton croaked: Yeah, well, we'll see how that goes. We'll give it a shot and see if there's anything worth listening to once we're done. 
Also, we're in the process of giving birth to a blog which will feature posts from our group. You can visit it from the very beginning at: http://monsterverse.com/blog Kezilla 
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sirharryflashman |
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(06/11/08 10:37 PM) |
Great idea and a nice start on the blog. The Romero and McDowell report from The Kid was a hoot. Hope to hear some podcasting in the not too distant future
from the Monster Kid Movie Maniacs of North Texas!
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Kezilla58 |
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(06/12/08 2:19 AM) |
sirharryflashman wrote: Thanks, Charles. We're all first time bloggers, and I'm still figuring out the program we're using, but we're aiming to get something new posted every couple of days or so, as well as a MKMM of NT podcast soon. Kezilla |
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Arch Stanton |
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(06/12/08 9:57 AM) |
Kezilla58 wrote:
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Arch Stanton |
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(06/12/08 3:32 PM) |
FXRH came over the other night and wanted to watch THE BLACK SCORPION on the big Optoma screen, so that's what we did.
We've often wondered how many times that obnoxious scorpion mockup (y'know, the closeup thing that drools) was used throughout the film, so guess what we did? Yep, we counted 'em. That's what psychos like us do. 56. That's the magic number. What's strange is that I really thought all of those mockup shots were the exact same thing, but they're not. Sometimes it drools, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it leans to the left and others to the right, and sometimes there's a big pincer in the shot. Pretty cool. We also tried to count how many scorpion models were in actual use during any one shot (in addition to the big one, of course). There were three of them in the train wreck sequence. And there was one shot that had four scorpions traveling in a line, but animator Pete Peterson may have used one of the models twice (just putting it back in line after it was off screen). So we think there were only three of the small scorpion models. Actually, the movie impresses me more every time I see it. The matte work on every shot with the volcano in the background is some of the best work I've ever seen. And the stop motion is terrific, despite a few shots obviously shot on 'twos' (meaning the animator only moved the model on every other frame, creating a slower, stilted effect) or double-framed in post production to enhance certain scenes. (We suspect that some of Harryhausen's work on THE ANIMAL WORLD was compromised in that way). And the next time you see it, take a look at the scene where they are supposedly examining the scorpion found in the obsidian. It's in a jar of water on the table, but it's obviously a frog -- not a scorpion! Never noticed it until this Optoma showing... Still, it's one of the greatest monster movies ever made. |
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oldmanster |
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(06/12/08 5:15 PM) |
56. That's the magic number.
No way! The film is too short for that many close-ups. Guess I'm gonna have to check myself. 
... Reed |
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Doctor 1313 |
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(06/12/08 5:48 PM) |
Melt the butter! Pop the popcorn! Pour the drinks! The Backyard Drive-In Theater is open for the 2008 Summer Season!
I have a few friends coming over this weekend for what is usually our weekly double feature! I'll let you know what's on the marquee! And don't forget our snackbar! DOCTOR 13 |
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Jelly Roll Norton |
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(06/12/08 6:07 PM) |
Hey Doctor 1313! I think I just recently replied to one of your posts on the backyardtheater.com forums. Nice! Here's a shot of my set up, not quite as lush as yours, but grass will be coming
soon! This has been a blast, finally getting a projector and putting this together. We recently showed FRANKENSTEIN and THE WIZARD OF OZ. My wife has been
on a Miyazaki kick, so we've also watched a bunch of them, too.
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Doctor 1313 |
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(06/12/08 7:10 PM) |
Jelly Roll, that is a sweet set up! I have a pair of drive-in speakers, too, but the pole is set further back on my patio. I feel bad for the neighbors,
because the back of my screen is wooden boards and ugly to look at, but oh well. Maybe next year we'll put something up behind it to make it less of an
eyesore.
DOCTOR 13 |
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Arch Stanton |
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(06/12/08 9:31 PM) |
oldmanster wrote:
About a third of the way through the movie, my guess was 60, so I was pretty damn close. I still can't get over how many different shots there were of the mockup. Someone really cared about this movie, that's for sure. |
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Joe Karlosi |
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(06/13/08 6:29 AM) |
Those backyard screens are really awesome. I envy you. Wish I could do the same, but I'd need money and a house of my own and backyard, first.
----------------------
"It's MORE ... than a hobby!" |
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Omega Man |
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(06/13/08 6:44 AM) |
Well, Joe, you can take solace in the fact that, depending on what part of the country one lives in, a backyard screen just isn't practical, no matter how
big it is.
Here in the Mid-South, outdoor shows would have to be restricted to two or three weeks in spring. Then you'd have to wait until September or October. Pretty much "forget it!" during the entire summer... Unless, that is, the audience doesn't mind sweltering and suffering in Vietnam jungle-like humidity, spending more time mopping up sweat than watching the movie. Summers are just a damp, muggy Hell here, day and night. I believe New York (and much of the Northeast) got a taste of the typical Southern Summer just this week, didn't it? Imagine the weather staying like that -- and actually getting even hotter and muggier -- for 3½ months straight. |
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Jelly Roll Norton |
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(06/13/08 11:47 AM) |
Thanks, guys. Believe me, I'm grateful and appreciative. I was patient, too -- to the tune of three years, during which part of the time I was laid off
from work. The main outlay was the projector, obviously, and it doesn't have to be outside. Some get nitpicky about the screen and audio quality, etc., but
it can be projected on the wall of an apartment just as easily. Anyway, it all comes down to sharing the experience with a few friends.
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Arch Stanton |
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(06/15/08 6:47 PM) |
Last night was a special night at our Monster Kid meeting as we celebrated the birthdays of both FXRH and Ryan Brennan - believe it or not, both were born on the same day (June 17) a year apart (FXRH being the elder). What's really weird is that another close friend (Ernie Farino, whom we ritually toast every year since he lives way out in Hollywood) was also born on the same day, and in the same year as Ryan. What I've never done is find out what time they were all born. That might be interesting... Amazingly, all eight of us were here again, so it was crowded and a little hot (we're in the high 90s in Dallas already). But it was still wonderful, with probably the widest variety of stuff we've ever shown. We started with a SUSPENSE TV episode in Kinescope from 1953 called 'The Black Prophet' starring Boris Karloff as Rasputin, the mad monk. Leslie Nielsen and John Colicos (we think, since neither was billed or is listed in the IMDb entry - though we're sure about Nielsen) costarred as the conspirators who plan to kill Rasputin by poisoning him. Both the audio and visual quality were poor, but there was no mistaking Karloff's robust performance, similar to his Wurdalak in BLACK SABBATH by what I saw. Someone else will have to judge it since I missed almost all of the show, as I was in the kitchen (as usual). But later, TV's Steve and I did have a lively debate on the quality of Nielsen's performance in FORBIDDEN PLANET, which I think is really terrible and the worst thing I've ever seen him do. I don't think the movie itself is very good, either. So there. Luckily, I missed almost all of the next show - an episode of THE DINAH SHORE CHEVY SHOW from 1957 with special guest star Karloff. But Boris obviously took a back seat to the other guest stars (Art Carney and Betty Hutton) since he was rarely on screen whenever I popped my head in. While I think Shore was cute as a button, she wasn't a great singer or performer. And this show was directed by someone with virtually no talent in doing musical/dance numbers. I missed Karloff's first appearance, but his second was sorta fun, with a lively song featuring him as a 'Zacherley'-like bandleader with a skull-headed baton conducting Shore and Hutton (both dressed almost exactly like Morticia Adams), and Carney (in a really creepy getup). Karloff seemed to be having a great time here, even though he was perpetuating his low-brow horror persona. And they had one clever visual gag - instead of the NBC peacock, it was a terrifically drawn bat. The whole show was really a big fat commercial for Chevrolet (one of the Karloff segments even had a phony ad for 'Shiverolet'... ughhh!). It's sad to think that this kind of BS started that early on. Dinner was my signature spaghetti and meat sauce (yes, again!) with hot buttered French bread. (This marked the first time I ran out of both spaghetti and sauce, and I made a ton of both.) And you won't believe the desserts! Reed again brought those great chocolate chewey cookies, and since it was a birthday party, we had to have cake... and boy, did we have cake. I got a quarter-sheet white cake from Albertsons, Kezilla's wife Carrie made a melt-in-your-mouth sour-cream pound cake with powdered sugar frosting, and Reed brought a Cookies & Cream Ice Cream Pie from Tom Thumb! Holey moley. The Ice Cream Pie disappeared almost immediately, but just a few of us seemed to want any of the other two cakes. Inexplicably, I woke up this morning and both cakes were more than half gone. Don't know when or how they were eaten. (I had some of Carrie's cake just a minute ago and it's one of those wonderful things where you have some, and then five minutes later you're back for more.) Frankly, I've never seen so many different cakes disappear so quickly. No one bothered at all with the Blue Bell homemade vanilla ice cream I bought... Our first feature turned out to be pretty embarrassing for me, but I'm fairly sure I was set up. In our e-mails back and forth before the meeting, someone mentioned they had this lost movie that had been restored called DESTINATION MARS! from 1957. I wasn't really paying attention, but I thought it sounded interesting. So we start watching it and there's this very serious pre-credit documentary about how it was the only film in history banned by the US government due to its communist doctrine, with interviews from some of the people involved, and damning testimony from a woman who says her mother was ruined by her father (the director), who also named every name he ever knew before the House Committee on Un-American Activities! Well, I'm ashamed to say that I fell for it hook, line and sinker. I fell for it even though the documentary was introduced by a guy named 'Travis Liberty.' I even fell for it when about ten people throughout the documentary kept stressing what a "classic" film it was, and I'd never heard a thing about it. Finally, I saw the light and yelled out, "I get it! This is a gag!" And so it was... A pretty good gag, too. The people in the documentary were very convincing, especially the embittered daughter. When the movie proper started, it had some great moments. My favorite is when they cut to a United Nations meeting to discuss the alien threat and every member is dressed like a stereotype of that country - the French guy wears a beret, a Mexican has a huge sombrero hanging on his back, etc. But my favorite is the Chinese representative who's wearing this absurd 'coolie' hat that looks like a huge straw hubcap. There are other hilarious moments too, such as the big mass attack of the Martian saucers (which look like hopped-up models from the original THE INVADERS series), and the "duck-and-cover" attitude of everyone once an A-bomb has been dropped on top of them. But DESTINATION MARS! doesn't sustain the humor as well as something like THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVERA, and that's probably because there are way too many characters introduced to ever become endearing to us. And the dialogue never really delivers (such as the paraphrased line from CADAVERA: "You think we're aliens? Is this some kind of Earth joke?!!!"), although the absurd scientific and philosophical jargon spouted by the aliens throughout the film is a lot of fun. So it's recommended - especially if you don't know the opening pseudo-documentary is a parody, which is impossible by now, of course. (Sorry about that.) Next up was THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS which I hadn't seen in at least twenty years. The print was so good, it might have been made yesterday. And isn't this John Agar's finest performance ever? I'm not kidding. I just saw FORT APACHE and SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON the other day on TCM, and he was terrible in both. (By the way, I always assumed Agar got into the movies because he married Shirley Temple, but TV's Steve says he actually started before they were together. Anyone know for sure?) Anyway, the movie is well-directed enough to draw you in, but terrible enough to make you laugh. The underlying motive of the bad alien brain (Arous or Eros... get it?) creates some stuff too strong for little kids at the time this came out, but parents were none the wiser, I'm sure. This is obviously a horny alien - when he finally gets a body with a penis, that is. Two things I have to mention that we cracked up about were the incredibly hairy wool coat that Agar wears throughout half the movie (even though it seems to be summer), and the way all of the military guys move around in their chairs when Agar has caused a nuclear explosion. Watch these guys over and over and you'll see that no one seems to have a clue as to what he's doing, like the director just yelled, "Okay, guys! Just pretend you're back in Romper Room!") . It makes you realize how a little camera tilting (ala VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA) can make a big difference in cataclysmic believability. One more thing I have to mention is that our beloved Jack Pierce was the makeup man on this, and it may be the first time he ever attempted contact lenses, which are actually pretty good. (I think Count Gamula said that Pierce later scratched someone's cornea with a contact lens on a TV show he worked on, which is why eye specialists are now required for such scenes.) THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS is highly recommended, of course, and a double bill with THE GIANT CLAW would be a guaranteed crowd pleaser at any Movie Night gathering. End of Part 1 (yes, folks, it was a loooong night)...
Last Edited By: Arch Stanton
06/15/08 6:58 PM.
Edited 1 times.
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Doctor 1313 |
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(06/15/08 9:13 PM) |
We had the first summer screening of Backyard Drive-In Theater 3008 two days ago, and being Friday the 13th, that's what we decided to watch. No one wanted
to hot tub, so I turned it off, and the sound was crystal clear in the evening air. I served brats and french fries, and for dessert I carved and decorated a
cake to look like Jason's hockey mask (even though the iconic character doesn't appear in the first film). After the movie, we all started gabbing, and
it soon became apparent that it was too late to watch a 2nd feature. Next week. I forgot to spray the yard for bugs and as a result got gnawed on by a bunch of
mosquitos. Where's PIc when you need it?
DOCTOR 13 |
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Kezilla58 |
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(06/16/08 12:16 AM) |
Doctor 1313 wrote: Love your back yard set up, Doc. I'd never get away with it as all the houses are on top of each other here, and I have a very squirrelly neighbor that would probably call the cops on us complaining about the noise. Sounds like a blast though. Kezilla |
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ryanbrennan |
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(06/16/08 12:59 AM) |
We started with a SUSPENSE TV episode in Kinescope from 1953 called 'The Black Prophet' starring Boris Karloff as Rasputin, the mad monk. Leslie Nielsen and John Colicos (we think, since neither was billed or is listed in the IMDb entry - though we're sure about Nielsen) costarred as the conspirators who plan to kill Rasputin by poisoning him. Both the audio and visual quality were poor, but there was no mistaking Karloff's robust performance, similar to his Wurdalak in BLACK SABBATH by what I saw. I got a better look at the guy later in the show and he was not John Colicos. It might also be mentioned that this Televersion of Rasputin's demise dispensed with most of the methods used against him and stuck to only poison and bullets. As most of you will know, Rasputin died of drowning after having been both beaten and stabbed. Fascinating individual. |
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Wich2 |
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(06/16/08 8:27 AM) |
...and frozen...
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Arch Stanton |
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(06/16/08 5:14 PM) |
Okay, on to Part 2...
Sometimes, trailers are the best medicine for an addicted Monster Kid, so we watched everything available on the AROUS disc. The one I was most interested in was THE GIANT FROM THE UNKNOWN, which I've never seen. It looks absolutely ridiculous. A Spanish Conquistador as monster? Have to see it. And the trailer for THE COSMIC MAN reminded me that I have never figured out how they got the giant ping-pong ball spaceship to be suspended above the ground without opticals. Anyone know the secret? Count Gamula brought an episode of THE MONKEES that starred Lon Chaney Jr., and it was terrific. That show was way ahead of its time with the quick intercutting of scenes and the instantaneous establishment of goofy characters. In MONKEES IN A GHOST TOWN, the band's car breaks down in a deserted ghost town that happens to be where two crooks (Len Lesser and Lon Chaney Jr.) are waiting to hook up with 'Mr. Big.' They capture the boys and lock them up so they can't interfere with them transferring their stolen cash to the crime boss. Lesser is best known as Jerry Seinfield's unscrupulous uncle in SEINFELD, and he plays George to Chaney's Lenny in an obvious take-off on OF MICE AND MEN, Chaney's biggest mainstream hit from 1939. This had one funny gag after another, especially when 'Mr. Big' shows up and it's Rose Marie from THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW. In order to stall their execution, the Monkees get her to start singing horrible vaudeville-type songs ('Baby' Rose Marie was actually a big kiddie singing star in a bunch of shorts back in the late '20s - I just saw one on TCM the other day!). Anyway, everyone was just terrific, including Chaney. Don't know whether this series is available on DVD or not, but it's one of those that you just can't go wrong with - innovative and hilarious, just like the Monkees' only feature film, HEAD. I think everyone watched another episode of THE MONKEES while I had to deal with my crazy wife. I can't remember. But I was certainly back when we started up our next feature, GORGO. That's another one I hadn't seen in years. Initially, I was disappointed with that choice, and after about ten minutes I was about ready to take it off -- then it really picks up! I think we were all surprised how entertaining it turned out to be. Y'all know the story, of course. Baby Gorgo is captured by salvage guys Bill Travers and William Sylvester, then enormous mama Gorgo comes to rescue him, destroying most of London in the process. This should have been one of the films that Kezilla recorded for y'all to hear because the comments were fast and furious. We definitely had a lot of fun with the varying heights of both Gorgos, and there's a shot (at about the 30 minute mark) that has a matte shot of the Thames river with the London Bridge that's supposedly taken from the deck of a ship. In the foreground is a tent with people around it. Well, if you look at the people, they're just cardboard cutouts! Truly amazing and goofy as hell. I think I would love GORGO a helluva lot more if it weren't for the monster suit. (By the way, I'm pretty damn sure the same suit is used for both mama and baby Gorgo). The bottom jaw just flaps around (and there's no tongue!), and the claws on the arms are ridiculously big. The claw feet are huge too, but that's not as big a deal. But the miniatures are some of the best ever created. Much better than anything I've seen in a Toho film. Unfortunately, they didn't shoot them in high-speed, so the momentum of size is lost. And, again, check out the varying sizes of the Gorgos, especially at the end. When baby Gorgo is walking next to mama, he's about to her hip, but when they're swimming away, he's the size of a chipmunk! Again, we watched a bunch of trailers off the disc, including GORGO (it's always great to see different takes, and this had several), CITY OF THE DEAD (aka HORROR HOTEL, which I absolutely have to see again), BLOOD AND BLACK LACE, RUBY (did y'all know that Curtis Harrington was gay? The things TV's Steve knows...), HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (gotta see this again, too), and THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE. Everyone except Steve and Ryan was gone by now, but we decided to watch the third episode of THE INVADERS called 'The Mutation' starring one of our big faves, Suzanne Pleshette. She's initially a stripper in the episode, so that was a great turn-on. And this was the first one that had an alien die and dissolve right in front of our eyes. In fact, there's a shoot-out at the end where aliens are dissolving left and right. It was great. We enjoyed that so much that we took a step back and watched the second episode, called "The Experiment' with Roddy McDowall and Laurance Naismith. No dissolving aliens here, but the sets were incredible, especially this MRI-type machine that the aliens use to try and turn David Vincent into a zombie. This episode could have used the dissolving aliens, though, since several are killed during a terrific finale. My guess is that the producers realized they needed another cool hook after this, hence the dissolving aliens in 'The Mutation.' Ryan and Steve finally left about 7:30 am, and that may be a record! Until next week... |
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