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The Coming Soons
2007-11-20 02:29:00
I've given the blog something of a makeover, which probably should have taken about forty minutes, but ended up sucking about three days out of my life. Many thanks to Tips For New Bloggers, without whose sage advice I may well have irretrievably spiralled into an all-consuming madness.Old school evil overlord Josh "J. Elvis" WeinsteinFirst up, if you haven't been clicking your way to Cinematic Titanic frequently (and if you haven't, shame on you), you may not be aware that they've got an interview with MST3K's J. Elvis Weinstein, who discusses, among other things, his early stand-up career, his upbringing ("my father had a shrug-based philosophy of parenting"), and just why he left the show after Season One. Go take a look right now, it's a laff riot. I'll still be here when you get back. Go. Shoo.Welcome back!Trailers. They're good aren't they? Yes. My brother's friend Tommy calls them "the coming soons". Here are a couple I found while I was archiving some VHS stuff a...

Get Ready to be Happy
2007-11-13 10:57:00
Originally this post just read "JOEL IS BACK JOEL IS BACK JOEL IS BACK JOEL IS BACK" about four thousand times, but then I thought I should actually offer some kind of information as well as ineloquently express my childlike enthusiasm.Joel, as I've said, is back. Joel who? JOEL EFFING HODGSON, that's who. The creator and original human host of MST3K, the man out of whose seething, fecund imagination the whole presmise emerged like a giant beautiful flower. His new enterprise, "Cinematic Titanic" reunites MST3K veterans Trace Beaulieu, J. Elvis Weinstein, Mary Jo Pehl and TV's Frank Conniff for a new and doubtless arse-shatteringly brilliant riffing project. If that doesn't make you pee a little in your undies with giddy anticipation, then you're an evil robot made of glass from the future in space.It's not actually clear what film is going to be the first to get the CT (as all the kids are calling it) treatment yet. Joel is keeping that under his big geniusy hat until it gets...
More About: Happy , Ready , Get Ready

An Actual Review: MOONSHINE (1969)
2007-11-05 03:40:00
The movie, also known as 'The Devil's 8', opens on a work farm in the Generic Deep South. I think it's supposed to be Tennessee, or Mississippi, or one of those places with lots of s's. A fight breaks out between two prisoners, Faulker and Henry, and the guards unwisely relax their usual high level of vigilance so they can watch the scrap, grin, and chaw some tabacky. I say 'unwisely' because the prisoners use the fight as a distraction to escape into the woods where, confusingly, a large yellow helicopter is waiting for them. Faulkner turns out to be an FBI agent who press-gangs the prisoners into joining his operation against Rome County's biggest baddest bootlegger, Burl (Ralph Meeker).Needless to say, the escapees are a rag-tag motley crew of no-hope lifers who have nothing in common but contempt for the law. Faulker's main interest is in Frank (Ross 'Sidehackers' Hagen), Burl's former right hand man - until Burl framed him for murder, killed his brother and stole h...
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Classic VHS Slashers: The Mutilator
2007-10-29 17:18:00
Click on the image to be spirited away to the fairy kingdom.Years ago, when I was a younger man with a thick mane of wavy dark hair and my eyes were wide blue orbs full of optimism and ambition, I found myself standing in Clooney Video with a tape in my hand, wondering if it would be worth the three whole pounds they wanted for it. It was the Vipco release (not pictured) of 'The Mutilator', and it had some very impressive 'The Burning'-style box art and a tag-line of almost haiku-like perfection: "By sword. By pick. By axe. Bye bye". Come to think of it, this was only about eight years ago and my hair really started thinning out some time in late puberty, so perhaps I could have laid the nostalgia on a little thinner.Anyway, 'The Mutilator'. It's about a guy who mutilates people. It would be a huge let-down otherwise, I think. You'd probably be disappointed if you picked up a film called 'The Mutilator' and spent three whole pounds on it, then discovered too late at home t...
More About: Classic

Classic VHS Slashers: Blood Song
2007-10-28 08:38:00
Hey Kids! Click on this image to enlarge! It's f-u-n!'Blood Song ' is probably the most frightening Frankie Avalon movie you'll ever see. Probably. In this 1982 movie he plays Paul Foley, a hatchet-happy loon recently dismissed from the laughing academy who chooses to go straight, gets a business loan, creates a successful refried beans franchise and retires to a life of golf and philanthropy. Just kidding. He goes around killing people.The twist (sorta) is that prior to his graduation from the institute of advanced basket-weaving, he gave blood to a young girl ('Angel' star Donna Wilkes) badly injured in a car crash. This transfusion results in a psychic connection between the young girl and the former star of 'Beach Blanket Bingo', and she has visions and dreams in which she witnesses his murders in moderately gruesome detail. Needless to say, the young girl and the crazed killer find themselves on a kooky collision course with wackiness!Another not-that-bad movie with some...
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Classic VHS Slashers: Final Exam
2007-10-25 15:43:00
Click on image to magickally embiggen.This is something of a step up from the last effort, I think. 'Final Exam ' is a more deliberately paced, less derivative movie, and one which the producers believed in enough to release a novelisation by Geoffrey Meyer. Less sleazy and stupid than 'To All a Goodnight', (not that I have anything against stupid, sleazy films; some of my best friends are stupid, sleazy films) 'Final Exam' suffers from flaws not typical to the genre. For instance, a glut of character detail, soapy subplots and an excess of scenes in which nobody is even slightly killed.The performances are actually fairly decent; despite being immediately recognisable stereotypes, the characters are fleshed out about as well as you can realistically hope for in a movie about knifing freshmen. All in all, watching 'Final Exam' is a painless procedure, but you should avoid any temptation to watch it more than once to establish beyond all certainty that, yes, the killings were...
More About: Classic

Classic VHS Slashers: To All A Goodnight
2007-10-25 05:41:00
Click on the picture to enlarge. But you knew that, right?Ah, VHS. The smell of warm plastic. The reassuring chunkiness of the large clamshell cases. The agony and the heartbreak when the tape snaps loose from its reels. Nostalgia aside, there are still quite a few good movies, not all of them particularly obscure, which have yet to be released on DVD, and so there's still a lot of plastic out there worth holding on to.One such item is the semi-classic not-at-all-bad-if-you-like-that kind of thing slasher movie 'To All a Goodnight'. A knock-off of the late Bob Clark's 'Black Christmas' (even the house looks quite similar) and a precursor to 'Silent Night, Deadly Night' and other seasonal slashers, it was directed by 'Last House of the Left' star David 'Krug' Hess from a screenplay by the Incredible Melting Man himself, Gabe Kaplan lookalike Alex Rebar.Despite the fact that these two people are obviously morons, the movie actually delivers as much fun as you'd hope to fi...
More About: Classic

Wang Yu - The Iron Man
2007-10-21 01:37:00
No stranger to dismemberment, Jimmy Wang Yu has in fact been shorn of body parts so often that you can narrow down his ouvre by saying "It's the one in which Wang Yu has a full complement of extremities." Here, for instance, is his 1975 movie "The Iron Man ", in which the young Jimmy boy is de-handed by perennial Wang Yu villain Lung Fei, but grows up to find the most advanced prosthetic hand known to science (which looks uncannily like a normal hand in a black glove).Needless to say, his revenge is brutal, bloody, and badasstastic.

He's as Gentle as a Kitchen
2007-10-20 06:52:00
Here's an 'intimate interview' with Bela Lugosi from, I assume, the late 1940s. Conducted by Dorothy West, it's not exactly a piercing insight into the world's favourite Hungarian, but it's interesting nevertheless. Note Ms. West's response to Bela's revolution-era troubles in his native land - she comes within a hair's breadth of actually giggling at his forced political exile. Enjoy! I command you to enjoy!
More About: Kitchen , Gentle , Gent

Do you Rifftrax?
2007-10-20 06:27:00
If you haven't visited Rifftrax yet, shame on you. Here you can find ha-ha-larious audio commentaries by the second-best human host of Mystery Science Theater 3000 for some truly arse-batteringly bad movies, from the pretentious and stupid (The Matrix, Lord of the Rings) to the simply stupid (Road House, Crossroads).Mike Nelson, frequently assisted by Kevin Murphy (MST's Tom Servo from Season 2 onward) and occasionally by Bill Corbett (MST's Crow T. Robot from Season 8 onward), bring a whole new dimension to films you would never otherwise watch. Under what other bizarre, possibly sinister circumstances would you find yourself renting 'Aeon Flux'?Here's a taster from Nelson and Murphy's commentary for the pompous, overblown stinkburger that was Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. Watch it, then go to Rifftrax and give them all, or at least most, of your money.

Midgetastic!
2007-10-19 05:08:00
I know we're not supposed to call them midgets, but is it really preferable to be called a 'little person'? I mean really.Anyway, here's a clip from 'War of the Zodiacs' featuring a tiny little man in a dog suit fighting a bunch of... guys... dressed up as... wizards. Or something.Incidentally - unless otherwise stated, all the Youtube, Blogger, Photobucket, etc. clips I link to on this blog are ones I've uploaded myself.

Interview with Susumu Kurobe, the Original Ultraman
2007-10-19 04:04:00
Here's a jolly interview with Sususmu Kurobe, the first actor to bring Ultraman to life on screen. The interview is pretty jokey, and it's quite clear that Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish are only barely aware of what Ultraman actually is, but it's all in good fun and Kurobe seems to be amused by the whole thing.
More About: Original , Interview , Origin , Robe

WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE: And I Have No Problem With That
2007-10-19 03:21:00
As much as I hate to challenge the central theses of virtually every James Bond film ever made, I don’t think that the extinction of the human race is all that bad a thing. A recent article in Philosophy Now by Eric Dietrich began cheerfully and quite promisingly with much the same declaration, but then, much to my disappointment, descended into misty-eyed science fiction and crackpot speculation. In his ‘After The Humans are Gone’, Dietrich moves from premise to premise with a jarring, violent, almost audible, lurch from sense to nonsense. It goes something like this:1. Humanity will become extinct.2. Humans aren’t all that good anyway.3. Robots will take over the Earth4. These same robots will philosophise. Now, I realise that some people will have trouble even with the first premise, and a few rather innocent souls might find themselves choking on the second, but personally, the third and fourth part of this ‘modest proposal’ are what stick in my craw. Instinctiv...
More About: Problem , Going , Goin

Not So Much Kissing, Though.
2007-10-18 01:14:00
Here's one of the many, many, eye-licious fights from the scandalously not-available-on-DVD classic from Lee Tso Nam, 'Mission Kiss and Kill'. It's more fun than putting on a pair of new socks.
More About: Kissing

Ask Jimmy
2007-10-17 18:29:00
Like all normal, healthy, well-balanced people, I love Jimmy Wang Yu more than life itself. That's why I was both amazed and humbled when he offered to do a semi-regular guest spot on my blog, answering YOUR questions about love, life, happiness, and relationships.So if you have any questions about sensitive topics and don't particularly feel like sharing them with a real human being, send them to Jimmy via me at the.eye.candy.man@gmail.com. By a bizarre coincidence, I just happen to have been emailed our first question by a reader who somehow managed to anticipate this very feature!Dear Jimmy (it reads),I am a rich millionaire with lots of money. The car I drive is from the future and all the clothes I wear are wi-fi enabled. Including my pants. Despite this, and a full head of thick, wavy hair, I can never impress women because every time I try to eat peanuts in front of them they laugh hysterically and shriek "gaylord" at me or throw schnapps in my face or vomit on my shoes. Be...

You Know, THAT Guy
2007-10-17 16:02:00
Ever found yourself watching a kung fu movie and asked yourself "Who the hell is that guy? He sold some bogus aphrodisiacs to Sammo Hung in that last movie, and now he's Cliff Lok's stupid incompetent faintly homosexual sidekick!" Well of course you have. So here, to help you identify those oh-so-recognisable but not-so-famous faces, is the Eye Candy Guide to That Guy in That Kung Fu Movie.I'll think of a better name later, honest.Along with the actors' name and photograph I'll name a couple of movies they're in, although this shouldn't be taken to mean I'm naming their best or most important movies, or the ones in which they eat up gobs of screen time by playing dominoes and fingering their huge hairy moles.That Skinny Guy with the Weird TeethDespite looking like the geeky ideal victim for anyone looking to extort lunch money or administer a fierce wedgie, this bony, awkward-looking fellow has an incredible range of fast, flippy, Peking Opera-trained 'fu at his command. J...

Shanghai Lil and the Sun Luck Kid
2007-10-17 07:02:00
Yuen Jing Chan's 'Shanghai Lil and the Sun Luck Kid', also known as 'The Champion' and 'Karate King', is a little-seen basher starring Chin Han and Shih Szu (or 'Soo Soo' if you believe the American trailer). Released by Shaw Brothers, it it has virtually nothing in common with most SB productions, and is much more akin to the raw, sweaty, outdoorsy Taiwanese bashers we all know and love so well. As far as I know there are no plans for Celestial to release a remastered version, so the old English dubbed fullscreen VHS will have to do for now at least.If you like your kung fu polished, acrobatic and full of mad, mad shapes, this is probably not a movie for you. If, however, you like your kung fu tough, angry and unpolished, this movie could tickle your fancy like nobody's business.So here's a little taster, the first action scene in which Chin Han, just released from prison, is set upon by some goons. While here, Soo Soo - I mean, Shih Szu - shows us how not to turn up a...

Blogging: It's Not Just For Virgins
2007-10-17 06:41:00
Yes, it's true that everyone thinks that bloggers are underweight shut-ins hiding in their mothers' basements picking the dried tears from their Snakes on a Plane T-shirts while they endlessly press F5 in the hopes that some lonely soul has reached out to them by commenting on their interminably detailed analysis of a bootleg DVD of the 2004 Osaka Cosplay Expo. And like so many offensive, narrow-minded stereotypes, it's mostly true.Like most relatively normal people, the urge to create a blog was in me almost totally non-existent, although I did once consider creating a mock blog called EXTREME SPORTS DOUCHEBAG. The word 'blog' itself is pretty grotesque; it's a sound that should never come out of the human body except during defecation. However, like most people, I suffer from the idiotic delusion that my opinions actually matter, and that bored office workers might be inclined to relieve the crushing tedium of a Wednesday afternoon by reading them and then write "LOL" in th...
More About: Blogging