I haven't forgotten you

It's been over a month since my last update, sorry about that.

I've been kind of busy lately, playing video games, hiking, biking, the normal stuff. Haven't had a lot of times to watch movies and when I do I usually want to watch one of the new blu-rays I've bought in the past couple months.

Hopefully pretty soon I'll get some time and I'll be able to get back to watching some really awful movies.

Squid.

The Manipulator (1971)

The Manipulator is a cheerful little story starring Mickey Rooney. Mickey stars as B.J. Lang, a down on his luck movie makeup artist who befriends a rising starlet. Together in his old studio lot they film B.J.'s movie and through this gain a friendship that will last a lifetime.

Kind of...

The Manipulator is actually about B.J. Lang a makeup artist who kidnaps a rising young starlet and forces her to make his movie, mostly while she's tied to a wheelchair.

Imagine being in an abandoned warehouse full of movie props with Mickey Rooney... also you've both just dropped enough acid to kill Timothy Leary. That's The Manipulator.

This movie is incredibly odd. This is certainly Mickey Rooney as you've never seen him before. I picture Mickey as a jovial fun to be around kind of guy, always laughing... that is when I don't picture him as his role on The Simpsons.

Now I picture him as this:

Mrs. Goritry?

The Manipulator is full of moments where you'll wonder to yourself "What exactly did I just see?" One moment Mickey may be on some sort of crazy tirade about God knows what and the next he might be in the middle of some sort of orgy with Mickey Rooney and hippies.

Did you think I was kidding?

This movie makes very little sense... shocking, I know. There's talky bits mixed in with the nonsensical bits but they all really make very little sense. I watched the movie and I couldn't tell you why Mickey kidnaps this girl... or frankly what any of the movie is about beside the basic plot.

It's a bad movie that makes very little sense... but not everything is bad about it. Mickey Rooney actually gives a very good performance, and despite it being completely out of character you find it hard to believe that this was once Andy Hardy. And while he gives a very good performance it totally doesn't make up for this acid trip of a movie.

The ten minute mark really sums up what you're in for. For about five minutes you're treated to a scene of insanity. It involves an elderly naked man and woman, painted white, dancing around in front of a strobe light while Mickey Rooney moves in front of the camera making crazy faces. Occasionally the man and woman are standing in front of a bush that Mickey prunes and sometimes they just standing in cobwebs. Sometimes they're dressed, sometimes they are not.

And sometimes this happens.

Instead of watching this movie save yourself some time and just drop acid and watch It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

5 Crazy Birthday Fish out of 5.

Davey and Goliath (1960)

I don't know, Daavveeyy...

You know, I don't think I had ever actually seen Davey and Goliath, about my only experience with it is Simpson's references. Other than that the only thing I knew about it was that it was made by the guy who did Gumby. Oh, and that it was full of Jesus.

And boy is it full of Jesus! Every episode wraps up with a nice little message of hope! So if you're unsure whether you should be nice to other kids, keep things you find, or be nice to minorities, Davey and Goliath will help you out.

On the Volume 1 DVD I bought at Target a while back you get four 15 minute episodes, plus one 30 minute episode. That's right, you get an hour and thirty minutes of Christianly goodness all for the amazing price of $1.

Stranded on the Island doesn't have a real religious message per se, more it tells you about how wonderful God is. Davey and his family all take a boat out to an island for a picnic, unfortunately they had no idea what God had in store for them! And by that I mean the tides. You see, because of the tides the Hansen family all get marooned on the island. It then turns into a harrowing true life Swiss Family Robinson where they have to learn to live off the land, learn how to make a fire, shelter, catch food... oh wait, they just leave the next time the moon God makes the tide come in.

My favorite part of this episode is the section where they talk about gravity and how you always fall down. Then there's this weird, trippy dream sequence where they fall up and talk about Newton's God's Law of gravity.... okay, the first strikeout was just me being a dick. The second one? Nope, that's straight from the show. God's Law of Gravity. You may also remember God's law about how for every action there's an opposite and equal reaction. I suppose I should be happy they at least acknowledge science.

I'm on drugs, Daavveeyy.

The Kite is hilarious. So there's this new kid at school, he's kind of nerdy, redhead with glasses. Davey makes friends with him and invites him to play baseball with him and his friends. Instead of choosing the really good player, Davey chooses the new kid to make him feel included. Uh oh, you know where this is going. The new kid is going to screw up and everyone is going to be mad but we'll learn some lesson from it all. Winning isn't everything and you should always be nice to everyone or something along those lines. The good player that Davey didn't pick is up to bat and hits it into the outfield where Teddy (that's the new kid) is the only person to catch it! Here it comes, he's going to miss it... but he doesn't. Teddy catches it. Hilariously I might add. You see, with stop motion it's pretty difficult to do a kid running to catch a ball... so instead Teddy flies about 30 feet across the field and catches it.

It's witchcraft, Daavveeyy.

Well now I'm confused. What lesson are we supposed to learn from this? Then I realized there's still about ten minutes left.

Davey and Jimmy then invite Teddy to come over to Davey's house and help them finish building the kite that they're making. And that's when Teddy kind of turns into a dick.

So they're back at Davey's house and they're almost finished with the kite when Goliath accidentally breaks it. Teddy and Jimmy are mad, but Davey forgives him because he loves him and that's what you do with people you love. Also they have enough material to make another one. So they make another kite and Goliath start sniffing around at the kite tail so Timmy does the reasonable thing and starts kicking Goliath. That'll learn em.

So they start flying the kite and Timmy is taking way to long a turn. When Davey asks for a turn Timmy goes back to his dickish ways and runs off into the forest with the kite. The string of the kite gets stuck in a tree and snaps off, sending the kite into some power lines. Timmy then yells that he's glad he broke their stupid kite. Way to make friends there new kid.

Luckily Jimmy and Davey have enough materials to make a third kite. So Jimmy and Davey are flying their kite when they notice that Timmy is standing at the edge of the forest watching them... like some sort of troll. Except he sulking. He's all sad because he was a dick... I guess. Then Davey brings up the very valid point that God would forgive Timmy. You know, if Timmy was a dick and broke God's kite. God would totally forgive him. Maybe New Testament God. Old Testament God would rain fire down on his Ginger ass. Either way they all learn a lesson and they all learn to share the kite, even Timmy.

Finders Keepers. It's Goliath's Birthday! And all Goliath wants is a big ol' steak. Sadly Davey only has $1 and that's not enough to buy you a big juicy steak... even in 1960. Davey needs at least TWO dollars to buy a steak. So Davey decided to do some odd jobs for neighbors to earn that extra dollar. One of his neighbors pays him $.25 to run some errands in town, another will pay him a whole dollar to mow her lawn and weed her front planter. $1 was worth a lot more money back in 1960.

So Davey starts doing his days worth of work to earn that $1.25, and while in town running errands notices the new dog salon. They have a very nice collar in their window, and Goliath would much rather have that then a steak. Only problem being is that the collar costs $11.

Davey's prayers are answered when his neighbor accidentally drops $10 out of her purse. Now, Davey doesn't know it's hers. He just finds it. Finders keepers.

Well of course the neighbor calls Davey's mom telling her that she lost the money. $10 dollars was worth a lot more back then... enough to call your neighbor and tell them you lost it... apparently. Well Davey's mom informs him that the neighbor lost the money, so now Davey knows where the ill gotten $10 came from. Still, finders keepers. That collar is going to be Goliaths!

Well on the way to buy the collar God makes Davey feel guilty so they end up buying the steak instead and giving the money back to the neighbor. Awwww, good Christianly values. Then Davey makes Goliath a new collar out of his sisters old necklaces and his moms old earrings... and everyone is happy. Especially God.

Blind Man's Bluff is easily my favorite episode. You see, this very special episode deals with race relations. No, seriously. It starts off with Goliath growling at another dog because that dog has spots. Davey likens this racism. Davey then gets a call from Jonathan, his black friend, who wants him to come over and visit with his cousin. You see Jonathan's cousin Scotty is a racist. He hates white people. Fortunately for everyone Scotty is temporarily blinded. A science explosion. Jonathan feels that if Scotty gets to know Davey without knowing he's white it will break him of his racist past.

Kill whitey, Daavveeyy.

So Davey become Scotty's nurse while his parents are away... because there's nothing safer than a young child caring for another blind, young child.

Well, the days pass and Scotty becomes more and more friendly with Davey and then the day comes when he's going to get his bandages off. It's the moment of truth. Scotty sees that he's been tricked into being friends with whitey and runs out of the doctor's office. Seriously.

The next day Scotty comes over to Davey's house and tells them that he has learned to love crackers and that it was wrong for him judge people based on the color of their skin. Even Goliath becomes friends with the spotted dog.

If only we could temporarily blind all racists the world would be a much better place.

To the Rescue. In this special half hour episode it's summer vacation time and that can mean only one thing... bible camp! Davey and his friends are off to bible camp and they're about to lean a very important lesson about working together.

You see, none of the kids can work together. The picnic tables aren't set, the cooks assistant oversleeps, the... well come to think about it as far as I can tell that's the only things that goes wrong. Plus that's not really kids not working together, that's just kids not helping. Either way all the kids go on a canoe trip to plant trees in a recently burned part of the forest... but there's a surprise waiting for them.

You see, while the kids are out in the forest there's a plane crash! And it's up to the kids to help out the father and daughter stuck and hurt in the plane... because if I'm ever in a plane crash I sure hope that the first responders are people from a bible camp.

We should probably wait for trained medical personnel, Daavveeyy.

It's okay though, because the father and daughter have relatively minor injuries... despite the daughter being ejected from the goddamn plane. Yep, the daughter receives a broken leg with the father receiving a broken arm. The marry band of youngsters are able patch them up and help them down the mountain. And they were able to do it because they worked together. Go them.

Davey and Goliath isn't a bad show. It's a little religious, sure, but it's produced by the United Lutheran Church... what did you expect? It's also oddly... nostalgic? I'm not sure if that's the right word. I think because there's been so many parodies of the show that even though I haven't seen it before, you feel as if you have. It's worth the $1 it cost and it's an interesting look into a type of TV show that really doesn't seem to exist any longer.

1 Birthday Fish out of 5

Lady Frankenstein (1971)

I hate it when I run into a movie like Lady Frankenstein. A movie that may not be great, but wasn't horrible. Sure, you probably didn't notice it sweeping the '71 Academy Awards, but it wasn't a bad movie.

Lady Frankenstein gives a somewhat new twist on the whole Frankenstein story. This movie follows Tania Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein's daughter. She's just returned home after completing medical school and would like to work on her fathers experiments... though she isn't aware that her father has progressed from experiments on animals to humans.

The first part of the movie is your typical Frankenstein movie, Victor Frankenstein is paying a grave robber and his band of merry body thieves to bring him fresh corpses to experiment on. Well, long story short "It's alive!" and that's when things start going downhill.

And not just because it's ugly.

You see, The Creature kills Victor Frankenstein. Woops. It also escapes the lab to wreak havoc on the countryside. Double woops.

Well Victor's lab partner wants to go to the police, but Tania doesn't want to tarnish her father's good reputation. So of course they remain silent and allow The Creature to go on a killing spree.

And kill he does! Usually people having sex. Seriously, I think he kills at least three people mid-coitus. I'm pretty sure this is the movies attempt to throw in a little bit of boobies. Either way, he goes on killing people while Tania comes up with an ingenious plan to stop The Creature.

I'll admit, the plot gets a little muddled here. You see, Tania comes up with a plan to create her own Creature to kill the other one. Gee, nothing could go wrong there. And all while planning this out she falls in love with the lab assistant, Dr. Marshall... and then we go further down the rabbit hole.

You see, Tania needs a body for her Creature... so she talks Dr. Marshall into killing the grave robber. It doesn't work out, because the Creature kills him before Dr. Marshall can. A lot of killing going on. You see, all those people who were killed are actually people responsible for bringing the creature to life. So let this be a lesson, if you're a grave robber or just a mad scientist you most likely are having a lot of sex.

Then something happened that confused me. Tania starts hitting on the retarded manservant. I mean that he's literally retarded, not just dumb. I assumed she was doing this because they needed a new body since Tom the grave robber was killed. The box implies that it's because Dr. Marshall is an old man and she wants his smart brain in the body of the hot, but retarded, manservant. I'm not sure which it is, and frankly I'm not sure the movie does either... but I'd like to think it's a mixture of both.

The more you kill people the more I love you

So they kill off poor Tommy and transplant Dr. Marshall's brain into his body. They can now battle the original creature! Or perhaps live happily ever after! Either way there's a battle royale between The Creature and Dr. Marshall in Tommy's body. For some reason having your brain put in another body gives you incredible strength.

Dr. Marshall/Tommy win of course, which gives Tania and Dr. Marshall/Tommy just enough time to make sweet, sweet love by the fire. You see the townsfolk and police have finally figured out what's going on at the old Frankenstein place and of the course the only thing to do is march up that hill torch in hand.

And that's really how the movie ends, the townsfolk burning down the castle and Dr. Marshall/Tommy and Tania doing it while the castle burns down around them. I'll admit, it was an odd ending but I guess if you got to go might as well be that way.

Overall not a great movie, but it's a watchable movie. It just gets weird and convoluted in places.

2 Birthday Fish out of 5.

Squid.

The War Between Mushroom and Peas

Usually I put the year up after the title as well as a picture of the DVD cover, but there's one problem... I can't find any information about this movie. None, zero. I looked it up on the IMDB as well as Googled it and couldn't find anything about it.

I wanted to go with something different today so I busted out one of the many, many dollar cartoon DVDs I have. I decided on The War Between Mushroom and Peas because... did you see it's name? Something tells me that's why I bought it in the first place. Also from now on I'm referring to it as TWBM&P because it's way to goddamn long to write out.

So I read the little blurb on the back and noticed it said:

This must have DVD features the following stories:
1) Little Red Riding Hood
2) Childrens Album
And Other Animated Classics

Color, English, Approx. 60 Minutes

Let me point some things out that are wrong about this.

1) This is not a must have DVD, seriously, no one is rushing out to add this to their collection.
2)Little Red Riding Hood is not on this DVD, in fact only two shows are: TWBM&P and something called Ilaya the Great. I assume those are under the category "Other Animated Classics".
3)60 Minutes... actually it's about 26 minutes. TWBM&P is about 17 and Ilya the Great is about 9 minutes.

We're off to great start!

So let's start off with TWBM&P. Imagine if Salvador Dali took a ton of acid and decided to write a fairy tale. That's pretty much what TWBM&P is.

Meet the King of the Peas

So the king of the Mushroom Kingdom... no, not Mario, decides he needs to husband up his daughter, Princess Whitey. That's right, Princess Whitey. She has many suitors but she's in love with... Browney. So if you're keeping score Princess Whitey is in love with Browney. Browney also spends his day doing manual labor in a field. Oddly enough that's where this story ends. I really figured we were in for some delightful racism... but nope, it really just ends with that.

So the suitors come from all across the land trying to woo the beautiful(?) Princess Whitey. You have the smartest man in all the land, the richest man in all the land and... well this is supposed to be the most beautiful man in all the land.

All man, baby...

Well apparently along with getting sweet, sweet Princess Whitey whoever marries her also gets a huge hunk of the Mushroom Kingdom. So of course the King of Peas wants in on this action... and by that I mean he declares war on the Mushroom Kingdom.

Well the King of the Mushroom Kingdom decided whoever can stop the King of Peas will be the right man for his daughter.

Yes, the King of the Mushrooms looks like a... you know

Well the most beautiful man, the richest man, and the smartest man all fail miserably. So it looks like the King of Peas has won... what's this? Browney swoops in and saves the day? Well who would have guessed.

So Browney saves the day and gets Princess Whitey in the end. It's uplifting. Really.

Then you have Ilaya the Great. It's about overcoming adversity.

Ilaya is born.
Ilaya gets sick.
Ilaya's town is attacked.
Ilaya is too sick to do anything.
3 wiseman call Ilaya a pussy.
Ilaya says "Nuh uh!"
Ilaya overcomes adversity.
So can you.

That's pretty much what I got from the 9 minutes of Ilaya the Great.

Cancer? Get out of bed you wuss.

4 Birthday Fish out of 5.


Squid.

Horror of the Zombies (1974)

I've done some scientific research and I've come to a conclusion: the more names a movie has the worse it is. Case in point, Horror of Zombies. Also known as The Ghost Galleon, El Buque Maldito, Ship of Zombies, The Blind Dead 3, and Zombie Flesh Eater. For those of you keeping score that six names. Six. You know what that means? Pretty bad movie.

About twenty minutes into this movie I realized that I had seen it before, and let me tell you it takes a pretty awful movie for me to completely forget about it. So after realizing this I remembered what I was in for. A really bad movie.

The first and last time this movie is actually good.

I remember this movie feeling very disjointed, like I was missing something. I could never really figure it out, but this time I realized what it was. Remember all of those names up there? The one you should really know about is The Blind Dead 3. That's right, this movie is part of a trilogy. A trilogy that I haven't seen the first two movies of. Imagine sitting down and watching Back to the Future for the first time, no not the first one, Back to the Future III. Sure you could probably piece together why Marty and Doc Brown are playing cowboys and Indians but you can bet you're going to be a little confused.

Horror of the Zombies starts out making little sense and then evolves into a weird train wreck.

You have a bunch of fashion models who go out on a boat for a publicity stunt, I'm not 100% sure what kind of publicity stunt, but one nonetheless.

Hello? Publicity?

Well they're out on a boat in the middle of the ocean but in contact with some kind of weird/evil rich dudes who are in charge of the "publicity stunt". Well of course shit goes south. The models hit a patch of fog that shouldn't be there and get lost... oh noes!

Well for some reason, I'm not sure why, the rich guys kidnap another model who is going to go to the cops and tell them that they managed to lose a boat full of models. I guess maybe not all publicity is good publicity?

So the models eventually find a boat in the fog, and of course the first thing you do when you come across a creepy ass boat in the middle of the foggy ocean... you board it!

So now the (stupid) models are on board the SS Cursed by Ghosts and need rescuing.. and who better to do it then the two rich guys, their hired hand, their kidnapped model, and some woman who I honestly forgot who she was.

And then the Knights Templar show up... as zombies.

Okay, stop right their. Seriously, that's the what we're working with here. That's the plot of this movie. I have three words for you Zombie Knights Templar.

The story is muddled and crappy, the acting is awful, the script appears to be non-existent, the...



Oh to hell with it.

3 Birthday Fish out of 5

Squid.

Day of the Panther (1988)

What do you get when you mix martial arts, the land down under, bad acting and an awesomely bad script? Day of the Panther. That's right our movie takes us to everyone's favorite island of convicts and gives us the harrowing tale of an undercover cop hellbent on revenge for the killing of his partner.

What do you get if you mix Crocodile Dundee and Bruce Lee? The killing machine that is Jason Blade. That's right his name is Jason friggen' Blade. How awesome is that? If I continue calling him by his full name instead of him, he, or just Jason it's because he has the greatest name in cinematic history.

Our movie starts out with Jason Blade and his partner doing an undercover operation, and by that I mean they're sneaking around in the kitchen of a restaurant where a drug deal is going down. Apparently they have a much different definition of undercover in Australia. Either way the drug deal goes to hell, the buyer kills the sellers, our two undercover detectives get caught in the middle and have to fight their way out of the restaurant. Luckily it's a Chinese restaurant so everyone in the joint knows karate; that way Jason Blade can really showcase his talent.

Up next you have the most mind blowingly awesome scene in Australian cinema. Linda, Jason Blade's partner, is watching a drug deal go down. He tells her to wait, but that's not how Linda rolls. She's going to go down and check it out... and Linda knows how to make an entrance.

Little known fact: everything in Australia is made of balsa wood.

Remember how I said that this was a mind blowingly awesome scene? Want to know why? Because these are the three guys that Linda ends up fighting:



That's right, it's old man mask man! Cower in fear when he looks like an old man but is actually a really bad ninja!



Skull mask man with bat that has spikes in it! Okay, I can see where he's going with this. Skull masks are kind of scary, and a good way to intimidate others. The third guy must be really scary!



Pig... mask... man? What happened to Rocksteady there Bebop? He late? Seriously, I know that Pig Mask Man has a machete but really? Were there three masks and skull guy got the only good one? Was there just not a costume store on the way to the drug deal and you had to use what costumes you could scrape together from your mom's basement?

Also, if you've ever participated in the candy giving holiday of Halloween you've probably worn a latex mask. Let me ask you something, how was your peripheral vision out of one of those things? There's a reason kids get hit by cars on Halloween and it's not just because they're stupid. It's because you can't see worth a goddamn out of those masks. No wonder they get the crap kicked out of them by Linda. Also, want to see the greatest thing? During her fight with Skull Mask Man Linda pulls off his mask and...



He has a friggen' skull painted on his face! Why in God's name does he need the mask at all!?

So are you wondering why she's fighting three guys in masks? Get in line buddy because I'm pretty sure so is everyone else who viewed this movie.

Long story short Linda manages to dispatch the three guys in the goofy masks and is killed by their boss, the only one not stupid enough to put on a mask and parade around like it's Halloween. Though he does look a lot like George Michaels.



So on to the meat and potatoes of the movie. So now Jason Blade has learned that his partner has been killed. Thankfully he was already going undercover into the group that killed her, and actually undercover this time, not spying on them from fifteen feet away.

The great thing is, the moment he shows up at the airport two bumbling detectives are assigned to follow him because they think he's a gangster hitman. Despite the fact about 20 minutes later he tells their boss that he's actually undercover... yet they follow him throughout the movie. I guess the captain just likes wasting manpower. On the other hand I don't know if there's a Mayberry in Australia that these two could be policing instead.

Basically the rest of the movie is bad karate fights with plot kind of sprinkled around it.

You have Jason Blade working for the local gangster in Australia, and his right hand man is George Michael looking bastard, the guy who killed the drug dealers at the first and Linda... this guy really gets around.

You also have Jason Blade's Sensei, William Anderson, who happens to be Linda's father and his other daughter Gemma... is also Jason's love interest in the movie. I would think after you lost one daughter you wouldn't let your other hang around with a guy who tends to get into kicking fights with the gang that killed said daughter... but that's just me.

You also have the greatest 80's/karate movie plot cliche ever... you see the gangster boss holds a great big karate championship each year and he wants Jason to fight in it. Do these kinds of things actually happen? I mean I know there's karate tournaments, but are there huge underground tournaments held by stereotypical mob bosses where the worlds best get together and fight perhaps to the death? You see it constantly in movies, but you never hear about these kinds of things being broken up by the police in real life.

Either way you bet your ass that Jason Blade and George Michael end up in the ring fighting against each other. Sure it's not during the tournament, you see they find out Jason Blade is a undercover cop before then... but oh, ho, ho you bet they duel it out in the ring. You also probably guessed that Jason Blade is getting the crap kicked out of him but makes a miraculous recovery and wins. Frankly I'm surprised this fight didn't take place at dusk with the Sydney Opera House in the background.

So of course Jason Blade saves the day with a little help from Sensei Anderson and Gemma... But don't worry, Jason Blade will be back for Strike of the Panther. And you can bet your ass I'll be watching it as soon as I find a copy.

2 Birthday Fish out of 5

Squid.