Letting the 2009 BBC adaptation of “Day Of The Triffids” play while I work. This has a remarkable cast: Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson, Eddie Izzard, Jason Priestley, Vanessa Redgrave, and Brian Cox. Eddie Izzard steals this. It helps that he’s playing the perfect Eddie Izzard character: charming, clever, subtle, and much more dangerous than you think.
This is the last of the three extant “Day Of The Triffids” film adaptations. I have been letting them all play, over the past week. They’re depressing as hell. There is no happy ending. Ever. And although the triffids are undoubtedly dangerous, people are the real monsters. Not most people. Most people are decent, and have empathy. Most people want to work together so that everyone can survive. Most people realize that we are all in this together.
But just a few are malicious. Just a few are sociopaths, sadists, and liars. Selfish. Cruel. And if people allow the worst among them to seize power, that’s really all that it takes for everything to go to hell.
The Shout! Factory blu-ray for “The Devil Rides Out” (1968) is quite well done. The print is clean and bright, and the extra features are fascinating.
This movie was part of a trend of 1960s “satanic” films, and while it’s not my favourite of that genre, I have a great deal of affection for it, in no small part due to Christopher Lee’s magnetic presence which anchors the film.
Watching “Pirates Of Blood River” (1962). What a great cast! Christopher Lee, Kerwin Matthews, Glenn Corbett, and a young Oliver Reed (yes, sadly the few female characters are little more than set dressing and prizes to be fought over… it irks me, but such was the era).
This movie is an example of a particular genre, which one sees more often in horror movies: a group of people (usually criminals) is betrayed by their greed, which leads them into a cul-de-sac of betrayal and death. If you haven’t noticed this before, keep an eye out for it: you’ll start seeing this plot everywhere once you start looking for it.
One of the things that irks me about this particular movie are the religious zealots who are so blinded by their hatred and superstition that they happily cause death and destruction to the people around them, because they are servants of “god” and they get a free pass. You see it a lot in movies set in the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly horror movies (maybe I just watch a lot of horror movies). You also see it a lot in places like Alabama and Washington, D.C. The word “evangelical” has become a synonym for “sneering hypocrite”.
But I digress.
I am amazed at what marksmen these Huguenots and pirates are with unrifled muskets and blunderbusses. You rarely see people in movies who are this accurate with actual rifles.
“Pirates Of Blood River” (1962) is a cool movie, worth watching. Do so, if you get the chance. The ending is rather abrupt and not entirely satisfying, but again, such was the era.
Finally sat down to watch “Henchman: The Al Leong Story“. I really wanted to pay attention to this, so I didn’t just play it while I work (which is usually what I do). That’s why it has taken me so long to view it.
I really enjoyed this documentary. It gave a good overview of his career, and I learned some things that even I, the founder of (as far as I know) the first and only Al Leong Fan Club, The Golden Horde, did not know.
I wish the background music were not so loud during the interviews, though. More than once, I wanted to shout at the screen, “TURN THE MUSIC DOWN!”
Even so, I suspect that I will watch this DVD again. 🙂
Also, I really should start updating the fan club web site again.
People say we are in a gilded age of this or that. Fantasy TV. Superhero movies. Whatever.
I am not sure I agree.
How many Batmen have we seen? How many Spider-Men? How many Avengers movies? Can you recall what happened in which movie? In which one did Quicksilver die? In which one did Quicksilver rescue people from a house? The colors blur in my memory until it is a mottled brown expanse.
Take Spider-Man. Some people like Tom Holland in the role. Some don’t. I don’t think I have an opinion. It’s like trying to have an opinion about one squawk in a cacophony of geese. It’s all just noise to me now. A Spider-Gwen movie might rise above that noise like a black and pink bouy in a sea of diluted mud, but it might not.
The stories told by Uncle Remus in “Song Of The South” are the stories of African-Americans. “Song Of The South” was based on stories compiled by Joel Chandler Harris — a white man, yes, but they were the stories of African-Americans, and Harris tried his best to tell them faithfully. Joel Chandler Harris was a journalist who actually cared about the people whose stories he was sharing. It’s easy to say, “Oh, those should have been shared by African-Americans,” but at the time, that wasn’t an option. If he hadn’t collected them, those stories might be lost now.
As for the movie, it is not the racist propaganda that people who have never seen it assume it to be. If anything, it’s the opposite. For example, it shows a world where black and white children play together — in a movie made at the height of the Jim Crow era. The songs won awards, and the wonderfully talented James Baskett won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Uncle Remus — the first African American to win one (he wasn’t allowed to accept it at the main ceremony, due to idiotic 20th century racism). The worst thing that can be said about the movie is that the live action parts are dull, aside from when James Baskett is singing.
I know it’s just a dumb Disney movie, but I wish people recognized that “Song Of The South” was a small step forward for our society, at a time we really needed it. As a work of art and a cultural milestone, it and the people who made it deserve far more respect than they get.
I made some notes during “Avengers Endgame” (2019). Sadly, the condensation from my icewater rendered my nearly incomprehensible handwriting completely incomprehensible.
But I’ll try to decipher it. There are, as you might reasonably expect, “spoilers” below. (If you care about that. Personally, I think the movie is entirely predictable and that “spoilers” don’t apply. But you do you.)
20 minutes – Get on with it
40 minutes – Finally, some action… briefly
75 minutes – Thor is … The Dude
80 minutes – Is the movie going to start, finally?
105 minutes – Nebula is hard core
115 minutes – I know what this reminds me of: the extended edition of “Lord Of The Rings”, where they included all of the extra scenes which were interesting in a “DVD extras” kind of way, but which weren’t included in the theatrical release because they would have slowed it down and had people checking the time. All of these “Ant Man irons his pants” type scenes would be great in an extended director’s cut, to watch after one has seen the two-hour theatrical release. On the other hand, one of these scenes made me tear up a little bit. (I do not remember which one.)
150 minutes – Blah blah blah. Thanos loves to hear himself talk. Why does every wanna-be mass-murdering fanatic want to bore people to death listening to his manifesto?
170 – Can’t make it to the funeral on the day your dear friend is being interred? No problem! It’s a green screen funeral!
Final thoughts…
I thought it was an okay movie. It was entirely what I expected, which is what it is. It was a little more predictable than most of the movies that led up to it, but that’s a given, really. I mean, did anyone not say to themselves, “This is where Captain Marvel shows up,” about thirty seconds before everyone looks up and notices the big space ship isn’t shooting at them anymore? But you can’t really blame the movie for that. They set up the story arc and the characters in the previous few movies, and at this point it’s just dominos falling. But aside from all that, I enjoyed it, once it got going (which was a little over an hour after it started).
However, I do have some problems with the plot. As I have mentioned before, Thanos’ plan to cut the universe’s population would put us back to 1971 population levels. Not even 50 years. Whoop-de-doo (in the big scheme of things). On the other hand, what do you suppose would happen if the Earth’s population were to double suddenly? Like say, five years after everyone has adapted to those people being gone? All of the jobs have been filled or eliminated. Food supplies have been reduced to what’s needed. People who lost loved ones have mourned and moved on, and in many cases have remarried.
Imagine the chaos, the misery, the starvation and death that would follow when the population doubles in an instant. This is not a happy ending.
I had a conversation earlier today in SWTOR general chat. Some alt-right dipshit was complaining about “cucks” and how “toxic masculinity” was demonizing and/or feminizing all men, and other such hateful nonsense. I pointed out that “toxic masculinity” was just a new name for something very old: the loudmouths and bullies who were the villains in every Western made in the 1940s and 1950s. And that calls for men to be better than that were nothing more than a call to return to the values epitomized by John Wayne and Alan Ladd.
I then pointed out that the problem today is that too many people hear the song “Coward Of The County” and think that the Gatlin boys are the heroes of the story.
Personally, I think “The Quiet Man” (1952) and “Shane” (1953) should be required viewing for any boy who thinks being a bully is part of being a man.
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Blackmoor Vituperative
I had a conversation earlier today in 
