Time to inform the stock holders of how I fragrently blew their cash. As noted, I accumulated, after ‘tip jar’ fees from Amazon and Paypal (although Paypal takes a smaller cut), about five hundred bucks. Which, again, astounds me, and thanks again to everybody who contributed!
I had basically planned to buy another bunch of movies with those donations, but instead squandered a hunk of it by finally retiring the long-standing debt I’ve owed Techmaster Paul for the site’s bandwidth charges. I finally have that debt payed off, and put about $200 of the donation money in that direction.
Then my old, dinosaur CRT monitor started flickering in an ominous fashion. Therefore I used another $200 to finally go ahead and buy a flatscreen monitor. As long as my hard drive hangs together, I should be good to go on the computer front for a while now. Fingers crossed.
That left me about a hundred bucks. I went ahead and went on a DVD-R spending spree, purchasing films that aren’t currently available on the commercial market, and some of which probably never will be. The remaining funds helped me buy copies of Zabriskie Point, Boom!, Dondi (a film I’ve been waited to see ever since the Medved wrote it up in the original 50 Worst Films of All Time book), and, following my review of The Beach Girls and the Monster, an assortment of Gill Man type movies, most of which I’d never seen.
Those came in last night, purchased from Horror Theater Video. I gave them a quick gander, and the majority of them offered presentations ranging from servicable to pretty decent.
The exception was the Indian Jaws rip-off Aatank. Frankly, I think this should have been sold with a warning about a) no subtitles, and b) pretty lousy quality. I’d call it a three on the ten point scale. I realize it’s an extremely rare item, but it literally looked to have been duped from a third generation copy of an Indian TV showing, complete with commercials and such. I must admit, I think it’s pretty much unwatchable. Given that the DVD-R doesn’t even fast forward that cleanly, I might not even bother to try to cherry pick the killer shark stuff. Again, a rare item, but the company probably should have been a little more upfront about the presentation issues here.
Things were better from there. The German Beast in the Lake (aka The Monster of Contanza Lake) is subtitled, and the presentation is just OK (probably a six), but something I can work with.
Destination Inner Space, which I saw as a tot and barely recall, also appeared about a six. However, the colors were oversaturated, and when I adjusted my set, I put the copy closer to a seven. It’s like an EP video copy, really. Certainly watchable. I suspect Beast in the Lake might look a bit better with the color turned down too, but I haven’t tried it yet.
At about a seven (video tape copy level) is Zaat!, aka The Blood Waters of Dr. Z.
Island of the Fish Men (aka Screamers) was probably the best of the lot, a solid eight. It’s the dubbed English version, but there are foreign subtitles. It appears to have been ported from an overseas DVD. Supposedly this version is uncut compared to the American version released here back in the day.
Not a Gill Man movie, the Italian Jaws rip-off Monster Shark looked pretty good, also an eight.
Anyway, that’s where the money went, and I hope nobody is too angry about my spending choices. I wish more of the money had gone directly into films, but certainly that monitor was something I needed. I realize using a goodly hunk of the money to retire my bandwith debt is a tad dodgier, but there you go. I’m also sorry for taking a flier on Aatank, which really wasted ten bucks. I knew I was rolling the dice on that, and I guess I should have been a little more cautious.
Now, of course, its time to really repay everyone’s generosity by getting some pieces up. I’ve been very busy with visiting family lately, and watching Cubs games, and the weekend after this I’ll be out of town for about a week to visit Joe “Opposable Thumbs Video” Robin and his wife Tina, and their new baby. However, I’ll try to get some stuff up before I leave, and will get back to writing upon my return.
