Gamera: MST3K (1991) Review

An epic battle between Sandy Frank’s version of the 1965 giant monster classic and the occupants of the Satellite of Love completes my review trilogy of the first Gamera movie. Love is found amidst carnage when a giant turtle meets a young boy named Kenny and the world conspires to keep them apart. Expect explosions, inventions, voodoo, and robot abuse when Mystery Science Theater 3000 first encounters Gamera – for the second time!

Most Americans associate Gamera with Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) if they even have a clue what the flying turtle is. If it were not for Sandy Frank’s particularly bad dubs of those old monster films, it is questionable whether or not MST3K would have become as big as it did. Thanks to a sale at Amazon, I ended up getting my hands on the box set of those episodes for less than half price a mere week after whining I couldn’t afford it. Maybe I should whine publicly more often?

For the storyline of the movie, please consult my reviews of the original film and the American version.

 

If you are not familiar with the show, MST3K featured a janitor launched to a space station by mad scientists where he was forced to watch “cheesy movies” as part of experiments. To alleviate his loneliness, the janitor named Joel built robots to be his friends. It is all an excuse to riff on and mock bad movies for laughs.

This classic episode opens with Joel (Joel Hodgson), Crow (Trace Beaulieu), and Tom Servo (Kevin Murphy) warming up in preparation for the next experiment, or film as we would call them. While the lone human stretches, the bots go through vocal exercises. Yes, it is sheer lunacy, which is what this show is all about, so go with it. Just relax, like the theme says…

Some Guitar Fun

A video from a father and son duo I am friends with. It has been a trip watching Chris Jr. move from drums to guitar and then evolve as a player. The kid has a lot a talent and learns it all by ear.

"Just Because" is a fun tune and this noodling around turned out well, I think:

Health 9-17-2012

I despise colds. ‘Nuff said.

Bleach Ep. 19: Ichigo Becomes a Hollow!

The mini training arc continues, Bleach style. Slapstick comedy mixes with an intriguing dive into Ichigo’s very soul when his quest to regain his lost powers takes a very dark turn. Will he survive his training? More importantly, will he survive being abused by little kids?

I think everyone has had one of those days where they have found themselves restrained in a magical straightjacket and subjected to torment by small children. I hate when those happen, they are real downers. So when saw Ichigo go through the events of this episode I empathized deeply with him.

But it is Rukia who gets the short end of the stick, both in events and screen time. The episode opens with Renji freaking out when he finds out Rukia will be executed and his captain, her brother, approves of this. Byakuya may be a pretty boy by anime standards, but his personality is cold to say the least. There is not a trace of positive emotion shown toward his sister and the whole encounter leaves her in a deep funk while she tries to let go of all emotions like a proper noble woman. That is all we get to see of her.

While she is in a black hole of despair, Ichigo is in a hole of his own.

China Doesn’t Just Copy Electronics: The J-21

The military aviation world got a surprise a couple of years ago when the Chinese government took the wraps off of the J-20 stealth fighter, but that is nothing compared to what just showed up. Roughly in the F/A-18 Hornet size range and possibly a competitor to the F-35 Lightning II strike fighter, it is clearly derived from stolen data from Lockheed and subcontractors of the F-22A Raptor program. That is a scaled down F-22 if I have ever seen one with a radome more like the F-35. The proportions made a lot of us on the Net think it was a Photoshop at first, but I had a pit in my stomach when I studied the photos and better ones came out.

I knew our defense programs has been thoroughly compromised by the Chinese, but seeing the tangible results has been an unpleasant experience. As far as cyber security goes, our most classified and protected programs are in the hands of a hostile foreign government. It makes you wonder if the federal government is competent at anything at all.

Meanwhile, China continues to push claims on disputed territories with no fear of being countered.  With the continued aggression in the Pacific against neighboring countries, is it any wonder an arms race has begun in the region?

Odds and Ends 9-15-2012

It baffles me that certain movies are not out on Blu-ray or took many years to get issued, such as Lawrence of Arabia. Having obtained a minty used copy of the special edition DVD set of The Right Stuff and watching it last night, I can’t understand why there is no Blu-ray of it. It is a stupendously beautiful looking and sounding movie that deserves the full high definition treatment. It also is the shortest over three hour movie I have ever watched. By watched, I mean repeatedly over the years.

While I like my Iview Cypad 7” Android based tablet, I do need more horsepower. The Google Nexus was a disappointment in my view, since it has no HDMI out or memory card slot. The new Kindle Fire HD 7” looks terrific, but still lacks the slot and leaves you tied to Amazon’s proprietary store. Even with that, it is the current top candidate for a replacement. Ainol, a Chinese manufacturer, has a new tablet, the Novo 7 Fire, that has everything I want, but there are some early technical problems involving overheating. Its specs beat both the Nexus and Fire HD, so if they work out the difficulties, that is the one I would like to get.

After many years, Black Mesa rolled out yesterday. Black Mesa is a mod for the Source engine that recreates much of the original Half Life with all the bells and whistles of newer technology. I did a short run as far as the highly annoying jumping the crates level and have to say the wait was worth it. The attention to detail is simply amazing and the voice acting isn’t bad at all. There is a possibility they may do the Xen levels later, but hardly anybody liked those. I can’t wait to get into the fire fights and see how they are executed.

Making Faith Godly

Making a challenge when teaching Sunday school has its consequences. This post is one due to the fact that I have to live up to the challenge I delivered to the men in my class to write about their faith this week. Diaries, journals, wives' diaries, letter, mother's diaries, blogs, or whatever it took were part of my request.

 

So here I am, writing about my faith. It is more rambling than I would like due to being written during a hectic day yesterday and a very tired day today.

 

Faith is the first critical step towards finding salvation through Christ. Yet there are different kinds of faith, from the material to the spiritual. Only the most paranoid have no faith, though I suppose they do have faith in the idea that the world is out to get them. Simply having a belief in something unseen (ref. Hebrews 11:1) is not religious in itself, as was pointed out by the class during a lesson I taught in Elders Quorum this past Sunday.

No, there is more to it than that. So I find myself contemplating my faith in God and whether or not it is a Godly faith.

 

An Impressive Bit of Socially Engineered Blog Spam

Going through my email account revealed a comment waiting to be approved. While posted from that ever witty pseudo being, Anonymous, it looked legit at first before going off the rails:

Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point.
You definitely know what youre talking about, why
waste your intelligence on just posting videos to your weblog when
you could be giving us something enlightening to read?
Look at my homepage ... free porn

No video on the post is a wee bit of a giveaway even before the pornography offer (link deleted by me). Misspelling is no longer a surefire indicator that something is spam, so that can be forgiven. The idea of using constructive criticism as a form of social engineering in spam is a new one to me. I know it made me read the entire thing, so I bet this one is fairly effective.
Fiendishly clever is the phrase that applies, methinks.

UPDATED

Meanwhile, the Russian referral spam continues unabated. This time it is one from super-online-search . com that takes you to a site you do not want to visit.The Huns are at the gates, I tell you.

UPDATED 9-13-2012

A comment for another post is another clever variation of this that turned out to be a way to get clicks on a “survey” site as well as the video.

I'm having this exact problem with the video: http://www.youtube.com/(removed by me)  I've put one comment on the video site, but Youtube won't let me link your post as part of the explanation. So far, you are the only post that has tried to make sense of this stupid spam issue. Thanks for posting!

The identity of the commenter was “Ron” but the link to his profile is the afore mentioned survey at sprezzaturarrd . blgospot . com. Interesting development because it looks like they are aware of people trying to spread the word. Notice how the video gets another hyperlink via the comment?

Sadly they did get a couple of clicks out of me verifying the profile, but somebody has to take a look to see what is going on to warn others.

Runaway Inflation Is Now Unavoidable

Bernanke has chosen to do the worst thing possible and that is an open ended qualitative easing. If you have savings or an IRA, expect to lose your shirt since interest will be held low and hyper inflation will lower the value of every penny you have. I suggest looking up the Weimar Republic in German history to get an idea of what is going to happen now.

Stock up on foods and goods while you can, your purchasing power is going to decrease very quickly now. Buying ammo would also be prudent since it will be going sky high after this news is absorbed.

Incompetent and suicidal are the only words I can find to describe this development. It looks like a desperate bid to influence the election.

A Short Comment on the Embassy Attacks

Weakness is never a virtue and never, ever respected in the long run. What we are seeing in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen is the end result of trying to appease evil. Nothing good can come of that, so I expect a lot more to happen now that the United State is perceived as weak.

I have always advocated spreading democracy and republicanism to all states on all continents. Once I believed that it would encourage peace, but then I grew up and ceased being a teenager. Now it is because I believe that everyone must have their chance and be judged upon their resulting behavior.

Does that sound ominous? It should.

The Obama state department has been an abject failure since the beginning, insulting allies and cozying up to people who genuinely hate the West. Fear of offending our enemies and a perverse desire to offend friends has been a hallmark of this administration. So it was only a matter of time before the chickens came home to roost.

Al Qaeda and their associates coordinated the initial attacks on 9/11/2012 with the hope they would spread. Killing Osama bin Laden turned out to be as meaningless as I expected. This is a much bigger movement than one man.

Watching the media rally around the President and try to make Romney a bad guy for making a rational, not to mention needed, statement about the groveling message from the Egyptian embassy staff has been a depressing sight.

Once again, I repeat that weakness is not a virtue.

Gammera the Invincible (1966) Review

An American producer imports a giant monster movie from Japan and splices in new scenes. Godzilla, King of the Monsters? No… Gammera!  The result is something kids will enjoy and adults will find very silly. Park your brain – you won’t be needing it for this movie about a 200ft tall flame spewing turtle. And just what is the mysterious Plan Z? UPDATED September 2012 with DVD screen captures and revised text.

In 1965, Daiei Studios released Gamera the Giant Monster to cash in on the giant monster craze started by 1954’s Gojira. It was a decidedly low budget film that surprisingly did well and spawned a series of sequels. While never as big as the Godzilla series, many a kid watched the films about Gamera, the children’s friend.

The version reviewed is the first Americanized one distributed by NTA, not the even more heavily edited Sandy Frank one most of us saw on TV back in the 1980’s. This one is only mildly incoherent by comparison.  On to the review!

Gammera the Invincible begins with an overly serious narration introducing the setup. Dr. Hidaka (Eiji Funakoshi) is in the Artic to conduct some serious research. On what, I do not know. But he is a serious scholar and don’t you forget it! There he and his lovely assistant Kyoke (Harumi Kiritachi) meet an Eskimo chief. Pleasantries are barely exchanged before a squadron of Soviet bombers fly by at low altitude.

11 from 9/11

Watching the 9/11 ceremony streaming from the memorial site and listening to the names of the murdered read off has made the memories come back with a vengeance. One thing that strikes me is the names come from every ethnic background. When Bin Laden and company launched the attack, they did not attack just one hyphenated American, but the entire country.

I wish people would remember that this year when identity politics have gotten the worst I have seen in my forty plus years of living.

It is painful to listen to the families of the fallen speak and they are only up to ‘P’. It is one thing to remember watching what happened over a decade ago, but to see and hear just a fraction of the people whose lives were permanently changed reminds us of the very human dimension involved. So many kids left behind missing their parents and growing up without their presence are reading names.

Never forget.

Slow Motion

Since Saturday, I have not been doing so great, but managed to get out to socialize and go to church, though I missed the first hour of that. The drive home felt like it took a small eternity, which made me think of the excessive use of slow motion in modern action movies. Interesting in small doses and a massive chore to sit through when over used.

So today has been more of that wading in mud feeling. For over a week I have been working on two review posts and hope to get them up tomorrow at the latest. Part of the delay has been not feeling well, the other… well, sometimes reviews are painful to write. I have no idea how professional movie critics retain an ounce of sanity.

Actually, that would explain a lot of reviews, wouldn’t it?

New YouTube Based Blog Referral Spam

Well that is interesting. The Russian spammers have come up with a new one that delivers up a YouTube video of a Grand Theft Auto 4 sequence. Why would they do that? Well, the account holder gets money from the ads that run before it plays. This is why you see pretty girls doing reply videos to just about every subject out there – they make a lot of money from people clicking on them.

So if you see youtube.com in your referring sites, do not click and enrich the Russian mob.