I was a bit surprised this movie came up randomly. It’s a Soviet film, made in the 60s. I haven’t seen it before, but my wife had – I had to stop her from blabbling about it, she doesn’t understand the concept of spoilers. 

Before I talk about the film itself, I want to talk a bit about the attitude of Soviet and ex-Soviet countries – at least Russia and the Ukraine – towards war, World War II, and the effects. For Americans, WWII is history. We lost some  400,000+ soldiers, a terrible loss of life. Large portions of the population were mobilized, rationing put into place, and the entire industry geared towards the war effort. We supplied almost every other Allied power with arms, munitions and supplies. 

The USSR had 8.6-10 million military deaths, another 2+ million permanently disabled and 7-20 million civilian deaths. Belarus as a functioning country basically ceased to exist so bad was the damage to the population and the countryside. The war touched literally every single person, especially in Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus. I like to tell friends and family that as bad as D-Day was, the Germans that we fought in France at that time were on vacation from the Eastern Front. 

There isn’t a single family that didn’t lose someone to the war, for whatever reason. “The Great Patriotic War” for them isn’t a history lesson, it’s something that people remember vividly through accounts passed on from living or dead family members. I think it is very important to note that the Germans didn’t just want to conquer Russia – their goal was the genocide of all Slavic peoples, with “Generalplan Ost.” Just as much as they wanted to remove the Jews, they had plans to kill 90% of all Slavs and use their territory for German colonies. If the Soviets had not fought as they did, then they would have been exterminated just as surely as the Jewish people. 

My mother-in-law’s father left high school the week of graduation to enlist as war broke out, never finishing it. He fought in the beginning of the war, when the Soviets suffered truly staggering defeats – and was captured along with millions of others. As their family tells it, he and a small group managed to escape captivity – the beginning of the war was especially chaotic, and it was difficult for the Germans to manage the sheer number of prisoners, many of whom would become partisans. 

They escaped back to the Russian lines, where a Lieutenant (the highest ranking soldier who escaped with the small band) was executed on the spot for being a traitor. The idea was that the Germans would have never allowed anyone to escape so easily, and thus the only answer was that the Germans allowed them to escape to work as spies. It was a chaotic time.

 So, my wife’s Grandfather served the remainder of the war in a Penal Battalion, a group who got the most physically intensive, dangerous jobs. He survived the war. He hated to talk about it, and drank heavily. He couldn’t stand the sight of blood, and would have nearly manic episodes when he saw even a little – difficult to avoid in a village where they butcher their own animals. He woke up in the middle of the night screaming. He hung himself about 15 years after the war. 

The war deeply affected everyone, and many, many people will break down into tears remember their personal stories. On May 9th, “Victory Day,” U.S. media shows the massive military parades that Russia puts on – usually in a disparaging light, as saber rattling. The fact of the matter is, Victory Day is when most Russians remember their dead. It really is a huge holiday, with hundreds of thousands of people marching with portraits of their lost family members or visiting museums and exhibitions.  

My point is, that when you equate Russia and any other former Soviet country with WWII, remember that for them this was and is a big deal. Their soldiers didn’t go home to a country with a booming economy and bright prospects – they went back to dead family members and a country ruined by war. 

So with that out of the way, onto “Ivan’s Childhood.” 

This movie does not glorify war, and there is very, very little fighting. We mostly follow “Ivan,” a boy whose parents were killed by the Germans. He hates the Germans with a passion, outright rejecting the idea that they might have scientists or artists – “but I saw them gathering books and burning them!” He works as a spy, or an reconnaissance agent – running behind enemy lines to gather their dispositions, keeping track of unit types and numbers by using different berries sticks and nuts to represent different formations. 

He managed to evade the enemy and swim across a large river, and when friendly forces pick him up, they don’t believe that he is who is says he is. “Call HQ 51!” He demands, and Lieutenant Galtsev doesn’t believe some wet, dirty kid who washed up in his area. Ivan, who is only 12, acts with authority seriousness – not at all like a kid in the middle of the war zone. When the call to HQ is made, the Captain on the other end is ecstatic that Ivan is still alive, and rushed to get him. Ivan collapses from exhausted, only after carefully writing out the intelligence he gathered. 

 

• 

• 

Ivan hallucinates and dreams and has nightmares. His dreams are mixed, of good times with his family, running and playing – and of darker times, of people screaming and dying. His waking life is similarly plagued by nightmares, and he often has vivid imaginings about war, being a soldier and of the terrors he has seen. He remembers looking down a well with his mother, seeing the stars at the bottom (you really can see the stars in the reflection of the war). Then he is at the bottom of the well, and his mother is being shot at the top, screaming. He’s lying down in his bunk, listening to the adults talk about a mission. Then he’s with his sister in a truck, sharing apples in the pouring rain. 

Ivan is a child. The men he’s with know he’s a child. They want to send him to a military academy in the “rear” but he fights them – he’ll run away, just as he ran away from the orphanage. They know he will, too. Really, the three men in his life all view him as a son, or a brother. It is obvious they love and care for him, but can’t take care of him. Literally everywhere is a warzone, and they know that if they try to send him away, he’ll get into even more trouble that they won’t be able to help with. 

The film does an excellent job juxtoposing childhood and the reality of war. Ivan acts like an adult in many ways – he’s brave, self-sacrificing, patient and can suffer quietly. Yet he is still a child physically and mentally, and the brief moments that he escapes to his childhood are torn away again by real life. 

He plays “soldier” in a church while waiting, just like any other boy – hunting the enemy. Then he sees writing on the wall – “there are only 8 of us we will die now!” and other messaged scrawled on the wall of the church, the last messages of Soviet soldiers captured by the Germans before they were all killed. Ivan is torn away from his game back to the fact that his family is dead. 

I won’t ruin the movie, I recommend you watch it. Soviet cinema has some truly excellent movies, and this is one of them. It isn’t a Hollywood action movie, it is a sad story about a boy who lost everything and those who fought around him. You can watch it on youtube. 

If you have extra time, take a look at this video if you want a good representation of deaths in World War II, including Soviet. 

I encountered a small hiccup in my original movie list. I couldn’t find a way to watch Dismal, some horror movie. So I went to my random movie site and picked another movie from the same era, same genre. The problem is that there are a shit ton of movies. Every single movie that popped up was some obscure “C” horror movie. Not on netflix, amazon, hulu – not available on download or any of my usual “privateering” websites. 

So, out of frustration that I was wasting too much time, I randomly selected “The Bone Snatcher” from Amazon. Same era, same genre. So let’s get to the snatching of bones.

I hope you’re scared out of your skull already. 

The movie starts off with a few Austrailian guys dicking around with some surveying work. It’s all fun and games while you’re an Aussie in the desert, until your buddy sees some sort of anomaly that you need to get a sample of. So he takes a hammer to what is clearly not a natural phenomena, and oh guess what? He gets sucked inside it by some big ‘ol beastie. To be fair, I wouldn’t have expected it either.

They really kill suspense in this movie. I mean, we see flashes of Mr. Snatcher right from the start. They do this “freeze” mechanic too, where they slow the picture down for several frames and shake it around a bit to create tension I guess. Just don’t show the monster in the first 15 seconds man, you’ll build the tension naturally. If you go out on a first date, you (whatever your preferred gender is) don’t just whip “it” out 30 seconds in.  Using that same logic, there should be some sort of buildup in the movie. 

Like this gem, right after Mr. Snatchington kills the guys. 

If a poorly made foam prop won’t scare me out of my skull, I don’t know what else would. Oh wait, yes I do. 

The absolutely terrifying “super vision” of Mr. Snatchel would. Take a look at this – the military will want to get their hands on this technology, can you see how it isn’t normal colors? That means that it’s working. 

Oh yeah, those are the intro credits on the screen. They blow this secret like 4 minutes into the movie as well. I mean, what’s the point of watching at this point? We’ve literally seen the Snatcher, we’ve seen his secret vision power, and we know he’s gunna kill a bunch of people. Come on. 

Alright, so then the movie switches over to come Arctic station where a genius scientist guy is working – you know he’s a genius because he’s wearing a Hawaiian T-shirt. It’s basically a uniform for socially awkward geniuses. There’s a huge problem in some distant station he’s helping manage, they’re all gunna die, oh no. His assistent says that nothing can be done, she can’t unhack the system or whatever.

“Quick, destabalize the turblenerds” says Hawaiian.

“No, don’t do that, it will destabalize the turdosphere, and they’ll all die!”  Assistant cries. 

Hawaiian smirks. “I know. Do it anyway.”

And then all the people are saved, and the boss comes out and says “Hey wow, you’re cool and you’re going to Australia. 

Hawaiian (remember, he just had the shirt) arrives and gets a menacing Omen from some bushman on the side of the rode, then goes to some sort of station…like a police station? A company security  station? I don’t know, all the people there have uniforms and have guns, but I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention, other than that the guys were “badass” pricks and there was this hot chick who found Hawaiian’s condoms and it was embarrassing for him. But they totally banged later on.

While driving out to some other base, they take a detour to find the knuckleheads who smacked some rocks with a hammer, and DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!

THEY FIND SOME SNATCHED BONES. Actually, they’re just picked clean and red. Remember, these nerds just thought they were driving to another base or something, look at their weapons…Why? TO FIGHT SNATCHERS!

So after hottie and Hawaiian bang each other, almost immediately the Snatcher comes for them all. We also find out an even bigger secret. The Snatcher is not a snatcher. It is…a SNATCH…ES! That’s right, plural. The Snatcher is actually ants or something. They eat up one guy and everyone shoots the ants but…I mean, you know how shooting ants would go. So the biggest asshole douses everything in gasoline (doesn’t light it) and all the ants run away. They don’t like gasoline. Or PETROL as the Aussies call it. 

The truck malfunctions of course, some people die and almost die, everyone splits up and they run out of gasoline to scare the ants away. Then we see the double secret. The ants are not just ants. They’re doppelganger ants. Doppelgants who use bones to walk  around and snatch more bones.

More shitty drama, and eventually they chase the ants down into a mine and blow some up – until Hawaiian finds the queen, and can’t kill it. He’s a scientist, remember? Scientists don’t kill sciencey stuff, they do science, god damnit! 

Well, he does kill it with a knife and all the ants run away and then the movie goes fast forward.  The hottie is now out of her Outback gear and in her sexiest red dress, and they’re saying goodbye to each other. There’s one line that says “oh yeah, they quarantined the whole area. It’ll be safe now” and she heads off.  As she drives off into the desert, the Bushman (from the beginning) gets a crazy eye and says “ASHLOBO” (or whatever the word was they used for the ants) and we see that there is another queen in the car with the girl. 

I don’t know if she was in on it? Was Hawaiian in on it? Was it just an accident? I mean, it looked pretty well packed in a box, all nice and snug, so someone was in on it. Just not really clear who.

So the movie was pretty terrible. I’m actually kind of pissed I end up watching all of these movies by myself, because they’d be great to watch and make fun of with someone.

Duty is heavier than a mountain. 

We’re approaching unknown-territory for me. I can probably count on two hands the number of movies from the 70s I’ve seen, let alone Westerns. Two Westerns, I think. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, and Tombstone. 

I was happy that “My Name is Nobody” had decent reviews, but my pre-movie sentiments were kinda negative. At this stage in my life, working from 9-5, with two hours a day (minimum) in traffic, then family life with a 3 year old a two hour time investment is a pretty big risk. Time is more valuable than money, and it’s a pity to waste it frivolously. I say this as my wife is giving the toddler a bath, yelling at him for taking a dump in the bathtub, so…I suppose the grass is always greener.

“Pa? Ain’t nobody faster on a draw than him?” 
“Faster than him? Nobody!”

There ain’t Nobody faster than Jack Beauregard, an older gunslinger who can still kick some serious ass. We’re first introduced to Beauregard in a barber shop, where he’s been set up to be killed – but he turns the tables real fast, and kills ’em all. By the end of this first scene, I was sold and pretty pumped to watch the rest. Armed with a beer or two, I settled in for a good show. “Sorry hunny, can’t help. Busy with schoolwork.” 

To be honest, what really stuck out for me this entire movie was the sound. I’m no expert on how this stuff is or was done, but it seems to me (especially in comparison to newer movies) that they filmed the movie and added the sound (including dialogue) later. The effect that this has is that every sound is deliberately chosen, even sound is exaggerated and carries far more weight with it than in a newer movie. 

Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.

The entire intro scene we hear the clock ticking. We hear every little comically exaggerated grunt and swipe of the blade. Personally, I think it adds a lot of character. 

The music is no different – the warbling of what we consider “typical” Westerns is there, at appropriate times. They add music for comic effect, like the distorted “ride of the Valkyries” when the Wild Bunch comes into town. The lack of music is just as noticeable, adding tension at the perfect moments. 

The movie is described as a comedy, but it seems much more lighthearted to me. I read that the movie is a parody on the typical “Sphagetti Westerns” (so called because they were made and played by Italians) but I don’t have enough experience with the genre to have an opinion on that. There are funny moments, but like I said – they just seem exaggerated and lighthearted. 

“Nobody” is a great addition to the film. Compared to Jack’s serious and ‘all-business’ attitude, he’s laid back and relaxed. He seems naive and stupid, but he’s just as badass – and just as fast – as Jack. Nobody is faster than Jack, remember that. 

He spends the entire movie trying to convince Jack to go out in a blaze of glory, by taking on the 150 members of the Wild Bunch, but Jack wants no part of that. So Nobody finally takes matters into his own hands, and steals Jack’s train – staring down the conductor in the bathroom, who’s bladder shy and can’t piss. 

The movie wraps up with Jack takin’ em all on. He shoots and kills a whole ton of ’em, with Nobody helpfully tallying the dead. Nobody finally comes to the rescue with the train, and off they ride for their final duel – who’s faster?

Well, we won’t ever know if nobody ain’t faster. Or if Nobody is faster. 
Jack makes his way off to  Europe with the gold and some words of wisdom. 

You might notice this post wasn’t as high energy or sarcastic – no big push for humor. I just really enjoyed this movie. All the elements came together so that it was a relaxing distraction from the day-to-day grind, and it left me wanting a taste of another Western. Perhaps it wasn’t terribly high-brow, but it was funny where it should be funny, impressive where it should be impressive – and yes, it was even thoughtful. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it! 

When I started this little project, I was utterly and completely honest about the randomness. I used the random movie picker to select random movies from every decade. If I hadn’t heard of the movie, it was on my  “to watch” list. Most of the time it was the first movie that came up. So up came the next movie!

Rotten tomatoes gives it a 38%, which is what I saw when picking it. Really most of the movies I picked were rated pretty terribly, so I wasn’t too pumped about it all. Just gotta tell yourself that it’s all in the name of science, right?

This is number 2, and watch watching BloodWhatever 8 last week, I figured that it’s no big deal if I hadn’t seen the first. Boy! You better watch Phantasm I first! At least, it took me a bit to put all of the puzzle pieces together. There are really only four folks you gotta worry about.

Mike, the young adult. I think he was a kid in the first movie? He has magic dreams, and the Tall Man wants him dead.

The Tall Man. Yes, that’s the guy on the right in the picture. He’s pretty tall I guess – I looked him up, the actor Angus Scrimm (Awesome name) is 6’4″.  But then again I’m 6’5″ so maybe he ain’t such a tall man after all.

There is Reggie. He’s an uncle or something? He’s this middle aged balding guy who kicks ass and likes to bang younger girls. I don’t remember what his relationship is with BLAH BLAH but he looks like an uncle. 

The Girl. I forgot what her name is. She sees magic dreams too, and Mike wants to help her.  

The movie is classified as a horror, which…I guess it is? But it is not scary in the least. It’s quite corny. I mean…So, I don’t know if I want to spoil this for you (spoiler, I do want to spoil it) but in the beginning of the film, some literal Jawas attack the heroes. 

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• 

Either Star Wars ripped off these guys, or the other way around. Those are legit Jawas. Except we find out that they’re actually a bunch of dead people that The Tall Man shrinks down with crystal-ball magic. Who knows? Maybe Jawas are dead shrunken people too. Shifty little buggers.

Anyway, Reggie, the Tall Man and Mike all have some sort of history that I don’t really get cause I didn’t watch the first one, but they wall want each other dead. Plus Mike is hallucinating about some magic girl that he needs to save.

So Reggie and Mike get a bunch of homemade weapons, like flamethrowers, power drills, chainsaws, guns, hammers, etc. and just head off into the wide world to kill The Tall Man somehow. 

They go over yonder.

They go thither. 

They go to.

They go fro.

They go yonder and thither and to and fro, all together. Turns out Reggie picks up a hitchhiker on the way (CAN’T BE A BAD IDEA REGGIE YOU OLD MAN) because he really wants to bang her. 

No, I’m not joking. The lines in the movie surprise me sometimes for having been from the 80s. Mike gives Reggie a hard time about picking up some random chick – 

“She needs our help. Besides, have you looked at her? It gets hard out here!”

“You’re thinking with the wrong head!”

Phantasm 2

To be honest, Reggie makes the movie. It doesn’t seem like it, but he’s just this horny old man with corny lines that really pull the movie together. His hitchhiker girl tells him to wake her up when she gets back – “That’d be great” He says with a lecherous old man smile. Most of the movie is actually pretty forgettable. There was a priest in there somewhere, and some more little Jawas. It’s Reggie “Come on, let’s Kick some Ass” Jabronovich (I don’t know his real last name) that makes me want to  keep watching. I really don’t give a shit about any of the other characters, especially the Tall Man and his stupid ball, which really only drills a hole in someone’s head? Stupid.  They fly around and try to impale a bunch of people. 

So Mike and Reggie don’t kick a whole lot of ass, but just enough. There’s a chainsaw duel, even! A few henchmen who aren’t Jawa sized, and some explosions. Just enough variety for even the most demanding palate. I think it hillarious that they usually save their firearms for last – hammers, flamethrowers, drills – all of that is first on their mind when they need to fight. 

I won’t spoil the end (REMEMBER THERE ARE 3 MORE MOVIES) but I enjoyed it overall.  I don’t think I would have watched it on my own, but I don’t regret it. If I were a betting man, I’d say this movie was a cult classic. Great one liners, cheesy dialogue, boobs, action and gore. Suspenseful music, in a predictable way… wiiiiiiiwidididididid.

My biggest regret is that I watched it alone – I would have loved to watch it with someone else to talk about it, Mystery Science Theater 3000 style. 

Edit: You might notice that the title is a bit different from my original post - Bloodfist VIII: Hard Way Out was released under two titles. 

Well! Some of you might be disappointed that I won’t be commenting on what is surely a terrifying horror film, “Dismal,” but I can’t. I can’t find a way to watch it that won’t give my computer Computer-Herpes, so I’ll try to “acquire it” for Friday. 

But lucky you! That means we get to discuss Bloodfist VIII: Hard Way Out. This movie earned every character of its 6 syllable title. I find that the syllables in a movie are like rank in the military. The more it has, the better. Also it probably has grey hair and a pot belly, but don’t we all. 

Thar Be Spoilers In Them Thar Waters, Capn.

Before you ask, as I know you must, yes there are actually eight (8) Bloodfists. Bloody fists. Actually, lemme check – yes, eight. I knew there were at least eight, but I needed to see whether or not there were more. There are not, but Don “The Dragon” Wilson has been in plenty of other similar films. 

I think that from the name alone you can probably guess what type of movie this is going to shape up to be. And you’re absolutely right. I knew it was going to be “bad, but probably so bad that it’s good” and I was absolutely right! That stereotype exists for a reason. Only god will know whether or not it was filmed and directed with this in mine, but Bloodfist VIII: Hard Way Out was a real blast to watch. I even let me three year old sit in for some parts with me. 

“Oh no! Look out, the bad guys are coming and the gas is leaking out of the car! Oh noooo! It’s gunna blow!” 

Actually, Viktor (my kid) has his cars lined up for ambulance to do jumps over other cars, in tribute to the movie. The ambulance crashed, started leaking gas, and exploded. There wasn’t an ambulance in the movie, but he’s only three. The car scenes got him all riled up. 

The acting is corny. I mean, like really corny. I’ve never seen any other Bloodfist, so I didn’t know anything about our hero Mack (Don “The Dragon” Wilson) or what type of an ass-whooping those mean-old-bad-guys were in for. 

The movie starts up with a really awesome Jazz solo. I mean, if you’ve got a jazz solo from from a homeless man rocking a pair of jazz-glasses within the first minute of the movie, you know you’re in for a treat. 

A guy dies pretty quickly, and then a bunch of stuff happens and we meet Mack in his school. Where his son studies, and is bullied but is actually really smart and zaps the bullies with some super-smart radio trap. He gets the girl too. Dad gets the girl also, but makes sure to tell his girl that Mrs. The Dragon is actually dead recently so he’s available. 

Things happen real fast. The kiddo disrespects dad, won’t even call him Mack. Then some Italians try to kill them, oh no. Why can’t High School teachers live in peace without the Italians trying to kill them! 

So Mack tries to figure it all out, his son finds out he’s actually really cool and not some loser teacher and is an ex-CIA killer or something. He kills some more guys.

Let’s talk about those guys he kills. Holy cow, very much were they bad guys. Just like, greasy, leather clad, out-of-shape baddies. They even had UZIs. If there is a weapon that is more of a bad guy weapon than an UZI, I don’t know of it. The greasos use these guys liberally, too. Really they just open up without any regard at all – with some of the fancy camera work, it looks like they’re literally just firing into open crowds of people trying to kill “The Dragon.” Don’t worry, because they can’t hit shit. I mean that, because you can’t even see bullet holes or impacts. I think their bullets just phase out of reality or something.

Anyway, I really don’t want to recap the whole movie – just watch it. Turns out it wasn’t the Italianos, it was his CIA boss who was trying to become a bigger CIA boss and was killing anyone who had any type of dirt on him – like the Dragon. And The Major.

The Major was some rich guy who The Dragon knew from the Old Days. The Major hacks every Intelligence Agency in the world from his  sweet hacking setup you see there. He gets shot in the head by the bad CIA guy. The woman dies too. She’s a bad guy, but Mack – I mean The Dragon – thinks she’s a good guy. The Dragon’s Son blows her up later with a windex bomb that he made out of some random stuff he found while handcuffed in a storage closest on an old tug boat or something. It was a pretty big explosion. 

So, in the end of it all, The Dragon shows everyone how cool he is, and that he can kick really good. His son loves him again, and calls him Dad because he isn’t a nerdy teacher anymore, but is a cool CIA murderer. 

This movie was just a pleasure to watch. It wasn’t deep, it wasn’t particularly good, but it was just fun. The fighting had all kinds of cool (for the 80s-90s) fighting moves in it, with lots of big THWAKS and PAPOWS! that made it even better. 

The drama and acting was really bad which was fun to watch of course. It was goofy. Everything from facial expressions, to the actors themselves and their movements was just “off.” And that made it interesting and lighthearted. Honestly, I’m kind of upset that I saw this while so far away from Maine and its abundance of perfectly legal Pot. This would have been a great movie to watch while stoned (maybe too great, to be honest. Let’s have standards.) All in all, I’ll probably watch a couple of the other Bloodfists with my wife later on at some point. She really liked the part where the son told his Dad that he loved him. 

He sits in his chair, staring at the board. His foot twitches. He shifts from right to left. Elsewhere, the creaking of wood and scrape of metal on the floor can be heard. He coughs. He picks up his pen and looks at it for a moment before putting it back down.

The bell rings, and he stands, shuffling out of the classroom with the other students. He attempts to flirt with a girl, and is rebuffed. The girl turns and talks to some other guy. Soon, the day will be over and everyone will go home to consume their food and sleep for the night. Tomorrow the school day begins early.

 

If reading that tickles your fancy, then perhaps you should watch “The Imperfect Human.” Clocking in at around 20 minutes this, this “documentary” follows the lives of, well, imperfect humans. Supposedly. Those quotes I used around documentary were supposed to be air quotes, and I should be using them a lot while talking about this video. I feel a bit bad, because I’m one of about 40 people to have watched this, and…uhhh…not particularly happy that I did. 

Written and directed by a “Luke Borgnis,” this is video is obviously a student/amateaur production. Having said that, I was impressed in general with the quality of the video work, but then again, Luke didn’t do that. I don’t really want to shit on his work, because I’m just some guy whose own stuff probably also deserves to be shat upon, but…well, just bit. So, if Luke ever reads this…Sorry Luke!! It’s nothing personal, and I’m sure you’re a great guy and all! 

The video tries to make a sort of nature documentary about humans, so that we can share some sort of close impromptu moment with other people. It’s so heavily scripted that there is no way anyone could suspend their disbelief enough to pretend that this was some chance meeting of a skittish deer in the woods and not what it really is – a bunch of friends helping to put together a cheap student piece. 

Actually, I’m not convinced that a couple of the people aren’t homeless. The second and the third subjects really cracked me up. A guy in a sweater standing on an overpass while the narrator tells us he is thinking, and changing his thoughts while the guy’s face contorts into different expressions of thoughtfulness. His sweater has a big ‘ol hole in it, and the fact that he looks like a crazy person standing on a bridge and gazing out over traffic leads me to believe that the drivers below will think he’s trying to kill himself. No one stops on a highway overpass to reminisce about their life. That’s not sharing an intimate, unscripted moment with another human being, it’s looking at a future suicide victim. 

I originally thought that subject number 3 brought her dog into her backyard for a quick poop.

The dog would poop, not her.  

I say this because she is dressed for pooping. She is wearing her bathrobe and slippers still, clearly not ready for the day in any way shape or form. I thought it was her backyard, but really it looks like a small dog-park. Is this something that people do? Take their dogs for walks in their night clothes? I would never go outside in my robe and slippies, regardless of how comfy it would be. Slippers are an indoor shoe, and what? She’s going to track in all that dog crap into her house again?

I almost forgot. She’s walking outside in her bathrobe and slippies in a public park while talking to herself about things that haven’t happened yet or might not ever happen. Perhaps this movie will be about the inner lives of the crazy and nearly homeless. 

But no, the tone of the movie shifts immediately. We are greeted with a bunch of birds and some pretty deep stuff about the birds not realizing that they’re being watched by satellites and stuff. They realize nothing.

But Heinrich relizes!!! Oh, boy, he realizes a whole lot. The film shifts in tone again, to little snippets of commentary about people all going about their daily lives. From this point forward, it gets pretty irritating to be honest.

“Rhonda realizes. She realizes that she realizes.” 

“Emma needs. She needs to care. She was born with this need.” 

“Noah hass a need. Now he has an idea.”

Andrea believes. She believes…”

“Paul evaluates. He evaluates…”

“Carlos anticipates. He anticipates scoring. He hopes to score.” 

“Ken observes. He observes confrontation.”

“Matthew protects. Matthew protects his daughters.”

“Roger dreams. He dreams of his mother’s heartbeat. He dreams.” 

This goes on until the end of the movie, interspaced with some non sequiturs that have nothing to do with anything. It is in human nature to compete. But really the meat of the film is based around the fact that “Humans verb. They verb noun.” 

I understand what Luke was going for here, but it just ends up being pointless in my opinion. I don’t connect with any of these people. If anything, it pushes me away because hearing that some guy “verbs” really just pushes me away. It sounds awkward and inhuman, not close and intimate. Most of these people were in the same restaurant too, so we really don’t get a good picture of what people do exactly…just what those people in some restaurant do. 

 

 

 

So as far as being an “experiental blog” I really just felt mild irritation that I was wasting my time with this video. Part of that is my fault…My random movie picker apparently picks from literally every piece of media, regardless of how big or small. I’m going to make sure that I get a “fuller” experience next time, and I’m thinking about messing with the scoring system so that I get all 7+/10 movies…But then again, that might be going against the spirit of the game by picking and choosing. But I bet there are way, way more bad movies than there are good movies. 

Anyway, tell me what you think, or if you have a preference on the type of movie. Next film is supposed to be “Dismal (2009)” and I’ll need to do a little bit of research on it. 

Welcome to what the Army would call mandatory fun time.

In this titillating blog, I will be watching one new film for nearly every blog post, and making some remarks about the film. Perhaps it will be train of consciousness, perhaps it will be a critique or just random thoughts. Maybe I’ll write a poem. You can’t be sure, because the future hasn’t happened yet, and well, I can change my mind at any point in time.

Using the site “https://www.random-movie-picker.com/” I selected a random movie from every decade until the 60s or so. I made sure this wasn’t a movie I had seen, and that the genres were varied enough to keep it interesting.

I really don’t want to watch 6 different romantic comedies from 60 years of human development.

Other than that, it was all random.