Invaders From Mars (1953)

There's one spoiler that I ALWAYS give away, without the slightest twinge of conscience, and that's the old "it was all a dream" routine. There are plenty of classic movies (like THE WIZARD OF OZ, for example), that end up with the protagonist regaining consciousness, but you don't feel cheated at the end, and when I give it away, it doesn't matter. And if the suspense depended on you being fooled, well, you really ought to feel cheated. No one should feel cheated when the kid wakes up at the end of "Invaders From Mars", but even if you haven't seen it. Knowing that it's all a nightmare will make the implausible dialogue and weird sets go down much more comfortably. And it's a good nightmare. The silent cold stare of the alien commander (the head in the globe) still scares the shit out of me, and the odd Disneyish characters make it all the more nightmareish. There's a lot of sci-fi coming out of the fifties, but most of it was last fifties. This was four years pre-sputnik, and that gives it an odd, fairy tale feeling.

Koko the Gorilla Cries Over the Loss of a Kitten

This made me cry. Watch it, and you can cry, too!

This week in Conservative Attention Whoring. Killer Fawn out-herods Coulter

I usually bristle at the term "attention whore". It usually a term that boring people apply to interesting people, but conservative attention whoring is definitely a thing, and it goes way beyond youtube. It's a great example of why conservatives are wrong about the market being the best way to sort things out. The market rewards this kind of assholery, and this kind of assholery is destroying the Republican party, America, and arguably, the world.

This is full of fail. She's about as sexy as a Foley Catheter, her delivery is lackluster, and telling Republicans that they have no balls may not endear her to her audience.

Mysteries and Scandals: The Paul Lynde Story

Back in the sixties and seventies, he was a guest star on everything, though he was a little too... intense to succeed in a lead role. Turns out he may have been gay.

Old School Anime: ASTRO BOY (1960)

When I was five years old, I had two favorite shows. Fifty years later, this is the one worth watching. The other was "Supercar", one of those old marionette shows.

"Astro Boy" is the English Language version of what has been called the first anime, in many ways a forerunner of Stephen Spielberg's AI. He's a sort of superhero Pinocchio, a thinking and feeling robot created by a grief-maddened scientist to replace a dead son, cruelly abandoned by the scientist for not being a real boy (failing to grow). The pathos and humor that made anime a huge part of world culture are well-represented here.

From Wikipedia:

Astro Boy was adapted into the first popular animated Japanese television series that embodied the aesthetic that later became familiar worldwide as anime.[3] It originated as a manga in 1952 by Osamu Tezuka, revered in Japan as the "God of Manga."[4] After enjoying success abroad, Astro Boy was remade in the 1980s as Shin Tetsuwan Atomu, known as Astroboy in other countries, and again in 2003. In November 2007, he was named Japan's envoy for overseas safety.[5] An American computer-animated 3-D film based on the original manga series by Tezuka was released on October 23, 2009.

Trailer for the 2009 computer generated feature:

More episodes of the original ASTRO BOY can be seen at this youtube channel:

Electra-Glide in Blue (1973)

Directed by James William Guercio Starring Robert Blake

IMDB page

Trailer

I'm going to go home and watch this now, and I'll post in the comments to let you know how I like it. I haven't seen it in (Jesus Christ!) forty years, but I loved it when I was 15. James William Guercio is better known as a record producer (Chicago, Blood Sweat and Tears), and this was the only film he ever directed-- but in 1973, it was the American entry at the Cannes festival (So I guess every country submits a film? I'll admit that I know nothing about how this works), and it was a big hit there according to the advertising blurbs in the New York Times. I remember tightly controlled cinematography, a lot of close-ups of things. I was impressed by such things back then.

Robert Blake (Before Baretta) plays a motorcycle cop, and he solves a murder. I don't remember much more, but the trailer looks great.

Ten Minutes of People Predicting a Romney Victory

Starring Dick Morris, who Jon Stewart calls The King of Wrong Mountain

!!!!

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Democalypse 2012 - What Doesn't Kill Us Makes Us Stronger Edition - Media Accountability
www.thedailyshow.com
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SLY and the FAMILY STONE: Greatest Hits!

Sitting here at McDonalds, listening to headphones.  People probably wonder why I'm acting so crazy, bopping and weaving in my booth .  Here is why.

It Came From Hollywood (1982)

A comedy documentary?  It's pretty shlocky, but before video stores, the internet, and Mystery Science Theater 3000, this was where I got my first look at the films of Ed Wood, and a ton of the classic bad movies that would become hipster touchstones in the nineties and beyond.

Directed by Malcolm Leo and Andrew Solt.  Written by Dana Olsen

Starring John Candy, Dan Ackroyd, Gilda Radner, Cheech and Chong.

With scenes from Plan Nine from Outer Space, Glen or Glenda, Blackbelt Jones, Maniac Reefer Madness, The Hideous Sun Demon, The Violent Years, some unbelievably racist piece of shit with Al Jolson, and so much more!  See the wikipedia article linked below for the complete list of films.

 
IMBD             WIKIPEDIA             TRAILER

Homicide: Life On the Street S1 E2 Ghost of a Chance

Directed by Martin Campbell Written by Paul Attanasio, Story by Tom Fontana.
Starring Kyle Secor, Yaphet Koto, Daniel Baldwin, Ned Beatty, and Richard Belzer
Originally broadcast Feb 3, 1993

 Rookie Homicide Detective Tim Bayliss feels the awesome responsibility of solving his first real case as primary detective: the brutal murder of 14 year old Adina Watson.

IMDB              WIKIPEDIA             AV CLUB            PREVIOUS EPISODE

MST3K: The Sinister Urge (1960)

From now on, Saturday is Mystery Science Theater 3000 day, and I'm starting with an Ed Wood masterfece.

Written and Directed by Ed Wood
 with a short, Keeping Clean and Neat (1956)
 Originally broadcast on Comedy Central November 5, 1994


  IMDB     WIKIPEDIA     TRAILER     ORIGINAL VERSION     MST3K WIKI

Frank Zappa's 200 Motels (1971)

  IMDB          WIKIPEDIA          TRAILER          GOOGLE

A series of surreal vignettes about how "Touring can make you crazy".

Written and directed by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer.  Starring The Mothers of Invention, Theodore Bikel, and Ringo Starr.

A generous sampling:

Dick Cheney: An Unauthorized Biography

Aired by the Canadian News program "Fifth Estate", October 2004


 As an added bonus, a couple of clips from my favorite story of the Cheney vice presidency.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Charles Chaplin in MONSIEUR VERDOUX (1947)

Charlie plays a serial killer?  65 years later, the idea is still shocking.  Yes, it's a comedy; a dark comedy for a postwar world that had seen horrible things.

Directed by Charles Chaplin, Written by Charles Chaplin from an idea by Orson Welles

Starring Charles Chaplin and Martha Raye.

LINKS:

IMDB                      WIKIPEDIA                     TRAILER

Homicide: Life on the Street, Season 1, Episode 1: "Gone For Goode"

The first episode of a classic cop show.  Originally broadcast after the Superbowl, January 31, 1993

Directed by Barry Levinson.  Written by Paul Attanasio

Starring Richard Belzer, Clark Johnson, Ned Beatty, Kyle Secor, Yaphet Kotto, Melissa Leo, Andre Braugher, Jon Polito, Daniel Baldwin.

 

LINKS:

WIKIPEDIA (SERIES)                WIKIPEDIA (EPISODE)              IMDB

Batman: The Movie (1966)

Adapted from the TV show, and completely entertaining.
Directed by Leslie H. Martinson, Written by Lorenzo Semple Jr. from characters created by Bob Kane
Starring Adam West, Burt Ward, Cesar Romero, Lee Meriwether, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin

Main Links:

 IMDB                               WIKIPEDIA                              TRAILER



More Links

BEHIND THE SCENES CAST INTERVIEWS
(video) at TexasArchives.org
Check this out!   Who knows what's "rare" in the age of the internet, but this is sure interesting!  See Cesar Romero in full Joker makeup, smoke a cigarette in his undershirt!

VIDEO: THE BATMOBILE REVEALED!
George Barris, the designer of the original car, tells some stories

VIDEO REVIEW
by annoying English kid in a blazer.  Correction:  EXTREMELY annoying Australian kid in a blazer.   You know the type: he makes fun of the jokes as if they were supposed to be serious, and seems to be continually mocking Batman: The Movie for its lack of realism.

THE BATMAN: THE MOVIE DRINKING GAME
at hoosierinanity.blogspot.com.  WARNING: DON'T ACTUALLY DO THIS!

Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster (1965)

IMDB Page       Wikipedia       Trailer       Article (Zombo's Closet)

Mary Shelly had nothing to do with it.    Aliens come to earth to snatch women in bikinis for breeding stock.   

Directed by Robert Gaffney.  Starring James Karen and Marilyn Hanold

(I couldn"t manage to create an embed for this page.  This is actually a link to another site.)

Marilyn Hanold (Princess Marcuzan) as an earthling.  Playboy, June 1959

Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! (1965)

Ladies and gentlemen... welcome to violence!

Directed by Russ Meyer, with Tura Satana, Lori Williams, Stuart Lancaster



IMDB                Wikipedia

Chatterboxxy!

Boxxy!




All six Boxxy videos to date compressed into two and a minutes, with music from the New York Dolls.  Made with KDENLive on Kanotix Linux. Music by the New York Dolls

Magnus Pyke: All about the old guy from "She Blinded Me with Science"

This is one of those things I've always been curious about for years, and finally googled.  Who WAS the old actor from Thomas Dolby's 1982 Classic, "She Blinded Me With Science"?

Well, he wasn't an actor.  Dr Magnus Pyke was a real scientist who happened to be great on TV,  and that made him a familiar face on British information programs.    Americans probably know him (and probably not by name) only because of Thomas Dolby, but he was easily better known to Brits than Dolby at the time, and his lengthy 1992 obituary in the British Newspaper, the Independent, doesn't mention Thomas Dolby or his song at all, not that surprising, because the song was not a hit in Britain.

Magnus Alfred Pyke, food scientist and broadcaster, born London 29 December 1908, OBE 1978, Principal Scientific Officer (Nutrition) Ministry of Food 1946-48, Deputy Manager Distillers Co Yeast Research Outstation 1949-55, Manager Glenochil Research Station 1955-73, Secretary and Chairman of Council British Association for the Advancement of Science 1973- 77, books include Manual of Nutrition 1945, Six Lives of Pyke 1981, married 1937 Dorothea Vaughan (died 1986; one son, one daughter), died London 19 October 1992. 

 

"Good Heavens, Miss Akimoto... You're beautiful!"

On a British game show in the seventies.

Here's Thomas Dolby telling funny stories  about Dr. Pike at a 2011 concert