JABOOTU the bad movie dimension

30 years after King Kong, Irwin Allen schools Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen in how it’s done.  You’ve been served, bitches!

So simple.  So beautiful.  How has this knowledge been lost to Man?

I never actually got out to see Avatar, partly because of my fears that the film, at an overly pithy 162 minutes, was just too short to really tell it’s amazingly complicated story with the detail and nuance required.

Luckily the new “special edition” version due out in theaters soon is eight or nine minutes longer.  Still a little skimpy, but getting there.  Plus, it apparently has a longer beastiality love scene, by which I mean we get to see the hero (presumably via his avatar) screw the cartoon blue alien chick.  Because otherwise, you know, how would we be able to perceive some sort of emotional connection between them?  Remember how flat the relationship between Bogart and Bergman in Casablanca was?  Or Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in It’s a Wonderful Life?  No worries here!

Anyway, I’m totally hyped.

Don’t know who long I can stretch this one out, but maybe some of you guys would be interested in seeing some of these, following the Bermuda Depths review. Quite a few MotWs are posted in chunks on YouTube. They may not stay up, as I’m sure there are copyright problems with at least some of these. For instance, the really quite good Kolchak knock-off (made by the same producer) The Norliss Tapes is available, but also out on an official DVD. So I could see that coming down.

For now, though, enjoy. Today’s selection is Trapped. In sum, James Brolin ends up, well, trapped after hours in a department store patrolled by vicious and very intelligent guard dogs. Consider it the dark side of the Amazing Doberman Gang movies popular around the same time.

First part here.

By the way, if that article really whetted your appetite, you might want to pick up a copy of this book.

Of all the mad scientist plans I’ve ever seen, putting the brain of the sadistic mistress you betrayed and murdered into the head of a lion, embiggening it, and then stitching on condor wings so it could fly, operating under the natural assumption that it would then just do as you commanded, seemed the least likely scheme ever to come back and bite you in the ass.

Those guys just can’t catch a break.

As I’ve noted before, Chicago has suddenly become a toddling town in terms of genre movie events. October 6th sees the 6th annual Music Box Massacre, and what a line-up they have this year. So far it includes:

Trailer Trash (Vintage Horror Trailers!)
Phantom of the Opera (Lon Chaney Jr. silent with live organ accompaniment!)
The Raven (Boris Karloff & Bela Lugosi) 1935
The Wolf Man (1941)
Psycho (50th Anniversary!)
Killer Klowns From Outer Space (with the Chiodo Brothers in Person!)
Rabid (David Cronenberg)
Pet Sematary
The Funhouse (Tobe Hooper)
House By The Cemetery (Lucio Fulci)
Theater of Blood (Vincent Price)
Fright Night (80’s Awesomeness!)

More info here.

Requested by Jabootu’s own Liz. I find waiting to see you and Charles at B-Fest un-bear-able. (Do you see what I did there? Man, I still got it.)

In a nutshell: It’s about the best movie ever made, at least while you’re watching it. After then it’s probably not quite as good as Kung Fu Hustle, although it’s close. Most fun I’ve had in a theater in years. Hurry and see it while it’s still on the big screen. It’s not doing well and won’t be out for long. Strongest recommendation, though.

Like Monday mornings, this monster sucks.

Actually, I was back yesterday. But following my week of constant contact with my fellow humans–enjoyable, but exhausting–I just wanted to veg out, so I more or less stayed off the computer.

Work is about to start, but I’ll pop back on later. Given this, I’ll probably hold off on restarting Monster of the Day until Monday. Past that, I hope everyone had a good time while I was gone. More later.