Friday, October 29, 2004
Hosted by: Ahchie
Movies:
The Invisible Man, Robert Blake, Phantom of the Paradise, Conan the Destroyer
and other Ahchie offerings
The Beast with Five Fingers (1946)
White Zombie (1932)
The Secret Lives of Dentists (2002)
Cyborg (1989)
In the Year 2889 (1967)
Mars Needs Women (1967)
XBox:
NFL 2K5
Quotes:
"Keep your chin up."
"Why?"
"So I can kiss you."
The Beast with Five Fingers
"I know his kid. Spawned in bilge water."
Captain John Ramsey, In the Year 2889
"If he gets the rest of his clothes off, we won't catch him for a thousand
years.."
Constable Jaffers, The Invisible Man
"Eat the olives off his teets."
Throcksmorton
NFL 2K5 Results:
Game 1: Baltimore (Ahchie/Diesel) defeats Cincinnati (Throck/BNature) 3 to 0
Game 2: Cleveland (Diesel/BNature) defeats Buffalo (Ahchie/Throck) 12 to 3
Movie Reviews:
In the Year 2889
Review by The Diesel
Brilliant movie, if only for the fact that it is daring enough to go out on a limb and take place in the year 2889, when most movies play it safe and venture out only a couple hundred of years from today. Curiously, the world witnessed more change between 1955-1967 than it will see from 1967-2889. The clothing, hairstyles, weapons, and bikinis of the distant future are all identical to those of the 1960's. While it’s unfortunate that powdered wigs never came back into fashion, it's encouraging to know that my closet of dress slacks and sensible sweaters will be as popular as ever in 800+ years.
A nuclear explosion kills most of humankind and leaves a majority of the unlucky survivors savagely mutated and incessantly hungry. The mutants are easy to identify as they have sharp flared out teeth, bulbous eyes, severe eczema, and faces so stiff they appear to be Botox junkies. While a mutant’s fingers are noticeably longer than ours, including razor-sharp fingernails, they tend to bend easily putting into question their true gripping power. One hungry mutant had trouble grasping a rabbit from a trap because his long flexible fingers couldn't get a firm hold on the animal.
The rarely seen dark side of alcoholism is explored when Captain John, the cantankerous military man leading the survivors, destroys Hillbilly Tim's little brown moonshine jug that had "xxx" written on the side. Captain John confesses to others, if not himself, that "If I had known he was an alcoholic I wouldn't have destroyed his jug". Alcoholic Hillbilly Tim, frustrated that he has no more firewater to squelch back the demons, runs into the ever-present fog at the end of the yard and enters the horrific world of mutation.
While some may watch this movie out of curiosity to see what the future will look like, at its core it is about the evils of nuclear weapons, our need for community, the triumph of the human spirit, and the little brown jugs that make life worth living.
White Zombie
Review by Ahchie
Starring Bela Lugosi, White Zombie was perhaps the first zombie movie ever made, coming 36 years before George Romero made zombies famous. Before Night of the Living Dead tarnished the reputations of zombies with its all they do is eat brains portrayal, zombies were actually considered as an alternative to cheap labor. In fact, disguised as a horror movie, White Zombie was really just a study in the pros and cons of using zombies for slave labor (see below for a list of arguments for and against).
The film starts out with a couple inexplicably traveling all the way to the most remote area in Haiti to get married at a rich man’s plantation. Apparently no family members were invited and the sense is that the couple just wanted to get really far away.
Being the only girl on the island, the bride to be quickly becomes a target. After marketing his zombie slaves as being suitable to work in the sugar mill as well as on the plantation, the local zombie slave lord and the plantation owner make a gentleman’s bet on whether or not the plantation owner can win over the girl and get her to fall out of love with her fiancé. To make things easier, and significantly lessen his own chances of winning the bet, the slave lord gives the plantation owner some of his special zombie powder. The powder is free, because, like any good powder dealer knows, that is all it takes to get the plantation owner hooked and therefore coming back for more.
Once the wedding plans are ruined, the zombie slave lord shows off his candle carving skills, and the girl becomes the full time piano player, the film loses its momentum and eventually its audience, proving the point again that most zombie movies are generally better served by being movie shorts.
Arguments For and Against Using Zombies as Slaves
Pros
They don’t complain
They are always on time
They have good posture
They can work 24-7
They do not get involved in office politics/gossipCons
They are extremely slow
It’s hard to tell if they understand your instructions
They are not suitable for the company wiffle team
They desperately need a wash
They ignore emergencies/problems that inevitably come up**When a fellow zombie fell into the giant vat at the sugar mill, they just carried on as if nothing had happened. One is left with the understanding that the sugar that comes out of this mill has a certain percentage of zombie in it, which would explain the abnormally high fiber content on the label’s nutritional information.
Suggested Alternate Titles for "The Beast with Five Fingers"
The Beast with 4 1/2 Fingers
The Beast with A Crooked Finger
The Beast with Eighteen Fingers