Hiya! Sweet Little Lights! As a VBlogger .. a Kaijuman and and a Moth.. I have developed a bit of an unhealthy sleeping pattern.. actually it’s heart medication that kind of inhibits my ability to sleep but.. now that I am a virtual presence we glam that up a bit! It means I am not having a Saturday Morning.. so my anime block has been torn to shreds. So as a true VTuber..but for Blogging I decided to make reaction videos to anime I am watching. Not in any particular order either.. just kind in whatever order I feel like.. or at any time I feel like them. The Anime I chose to test this format with is Zombieland Saga Episode 2! I felt like something cute and silly..after those nasty thingies happened in America!
Annoying Guy..Funny Joke!
Okay so this is me reacting! To this episode! I notice that the title is I ❤ Hip Hop Saga. I do not like Hip Hop music myself… I oftenly don’t like the rhythm and the atmosphere. A lot of female Hip-Hop singers do what I call a lot of voice stunting…in changing the pitch of a tone while keeping it going. I do not find that pleasant.. like a flickering light! I don’t know wether to go or not! It confuses me and creates a bit of unrest! The episode starts with a lovely chaotic recap that I quite enjoy! I really do enjoy these 20 second blitz of information things! I have a good memory so a recap should be funny and this one nails that brief so yay!
We then get reintroduced to everyone again yet the names still do not stick to me! I am in awe by the design and the character quirks that shine through.. I know two names of the girls.. one of them being the main character.. the other being the one that is still zombified. The manager tells the girls his plans again and I must confess… I find him annoying! If I was a zombie I would probably bite him..he shouts at one of the girls for not reacting to him ..congratulating them for waking up… man. He is quite a bit of a Peepee-head. Kind of like this little kid with a Gigan-shirt I greeted recently… he just ignored me so my laserbeam put a hole in his shirt where Gigan (and kind of where his major organs) used to be… well now he has a reason to ignore me.
The opening that wasn’t in the first episode is not what I would have expected.. big Kaiju fights and Sentai stuff.. I assume that is a joke and it won’t be in here… could this show get any more awesome? I might die if it would be THAT awesome.. I am immortal now though so probably not! The music has a bit of a Jojo opening vibe to me.. the level of surrealism has that as well. The manager is too prominent in it though! I do like that very thick paintbrush outline though. This thing is my kind of jam! I do not like the slew of text at the beginning of the intro though it gives me One Piece trauma’s.. I stopped watching that show when half of each episode was the intro and all those maps and flashbacks! A pretty solid opening all in all but I don’t think it will stick in my head very well!
The manager continues to be super annoying and by now I would shoot a laser through his head.. but I would break my laptop .. but Oh my this guy is really vexing me! I do love how he is voice acted.. but the character is becoming annoying to levels that I actually am beginning to dislike this scene. He teases the characters about being a zombie and shows how they must keep the fact that they are zombies hidden. I wonder if all those humans have Anosmia or that zombies do not smell! They look fresh enough to smell.. but then again no one really says these rotting corpses stink.. so do zombies not stink?! I like how this anime brings up important philosophical questions like this. As the manager of a tropical resort most questions I get are all the same and with such obvious answers. Like “Can I leave my towel on a Poolbed in advance” or “Did you see my son.. he was wearing a Gigan shirt?”. I just wanna watch anime here and murder this annoying character manager guy!
Ai’s Great Escape!
The scene gets a bit funnier at the 5:00 minute mark. When a girl who I know is not named Saki or Sakura.. but the one with most of her face bandaged gets in an argument with Tatsumi! That is right I just learned the name of the manager. They talk about their knowledge of Saga and Tasumi tells he loves the region and knows everything about it.. when the girl insists he tells something he freaks out and tells her she should just use Wikipedia and that isn’t Friggin Wikipedia. He just wants to make them idols! I like how the girls can see through him.. but also how he brings in a fairly valid argument! I for sure am not very interested in factoids about the Saga region. The girls have to perform at Saga Castle the next day and now have to train! All the girls except Sakura think there is too little time.. but Sakura knows how this man works by now and she just agrees! He is just this odd! It was good for a chuckle!
Bandage face is called Ai! She is kinda cute! We do see her personality a bit more established in the next scene where only Sakura is trying to learn some dance poses.Saki just stares menacingly while the one who is still a zombie is biting white haired zombie girl’s foot! The blue haired girl has funny faces in the mirror and I just love her design so much! I want to hug her and possibly meet her during a speed date! She seems playful and well spirited. Ai however just stares intensely at Sakura. As we move to later we see the bitey zombie whose name I knew but forgot to bother white haired girl again while Ai hugs a pillow.. I hug pillows a lot! I relate so much! Saki the biker girl then has the greatest interaction with Sakura! She threatens her for not remembering who she is.. doing the whole High School gang skit! Bullying her for being a goody two shoes. It sells her character so well .. and we get a softcore Yare Yare Daze.. followed by.. I bet my Tamagotchi is dead by now! That made me laugh! The girl cares about her Tamagotchi even in this situation!
Ai chan and Juno which is the name of the White Haired girl.. try to escape the mansion.. which makes sense.. so would I.. well I would love to be an idol so maybe not!.. But well I expect a normal girl would behave like this.. the bitey zombie is named as Tae-Chan. We get a funny scene of Sakura trying to stop the girls and ripping Ai apart, her arms detaching like Legos and her eyes popping out! It looks so clunky yet very satisfying! Great scene! Sakura decides to go with them so she can convince them to go back.. but the girls just want to go back to Tokyo when they are harassed by a bunch of rappers. This is so silly but I love it! A cop would show up.. and wouldn’t you know it is the cop from the first episode. Ai steps into the light asking for help and reveals her Zombieness.. the cop shoots and for about three seconds the girls just stare at the window he just broke.. then everyone begins screaming in a hilariously timed scene! I love that comical timing! I am laughing so hard I nearly knocked over a lamp!
The second concert
Next we get the semi-emotional bit of everyone being bummed out being a zombie! Ai and Juno in particular, because they were just shot at. Sakura has a talk with Saki who wants to take over the world.. I am not sure if I like how overplayed her delinquent persona is. She wants to take over the entire country she says.. which feels like a really easy but cheap bridge for her to become an idol and take over the country. That way what annoys me more is that Sakura, when asked why she follows the sunglasses guy, doesn’t tell Saki anything. She told Ai and Juno earlier ..talking about wanting to see if her memory returns on stage. Saki can’t really object that even.. since she said Sakura SHOULD get her memory back.. it feels very weird that it is written this way! However we can’t linger too long as we move to the make up scene. Blue girls and ancient Japanese girls call each other by name.. but for some reason my brain doesn’t lock on! The names fade as soon as they come in! I do like how thick the make-up looks! I also like how the two Metalheads came back .. showing that Death Musume already has some fans! It feels slightly heartwarming and reminds me of my first followers Mallow and Emma!
As the concert starts the girls are surprised that their name has changed from Death Musume to Green Face. Well or at least Sakura is… is this going to be a thing that their name changes each episode?! Tae is still a zombie and is pretty much set on eating the crowd again.. when Sakura struggles to set up a show and the traditional Japanese girl just does some sort of fan dance everything seems super awkward.. but then a random element of the show is brought back.. if you pull to hard on an arm it falls of. So while Sakura tries to restrain Tae.. her hands some off and as she falls on the ground her head bounces off into the hands of a guy eating dried squid.. who feeds it to her with her eating it constantly! The girls play it off as some magic trick but Saki has fun with this chaos and wants to keep Tae’s head separated. She gets into a fight with Sakura which turns into a rap battle.. mostly because they start yelling insults and text to each other while Kotaro beatboxes over it.. caught by the rhythm the girls commit to this line.. while blue girl gets riled up and begins clapping and shouting YO YO YO YO! Traditional Japanese girl.. picks up an instrument I do not know the name of and plays some strings to give it a bit of a traditional tint… of course the crowd loves this and Sakura vents what has been bothering her. Even to the audience.
The concert is done and the episode is wrapping up! Just as i feared Saki’s way to take over the world is by becoming an idol.. but okay I guess I did not have to expect deep writing here! She has gained some admiration for Sakura who also explained her situation to the girl now and even if everything feels quite forced I had a lot of fun with it. I loved the jokes! There was so much humor that really worked. Saki bringing up the Tamagotchi even during the rap was a great callback and a lot of the humor is recurring. I really like that, it gives lines weight.. even though they are funny you can sense Saki is really annoyed that she lost her precious Tamagotchi! Her best comment was that she liked Sakura.. because her head was so egg shaped and she was a nice person so she reminded her of a Tamgotchi! The Tae-chan joke is used fairly well as well and even the little blue girl just fizzes with energy while Ai and Juno feel defeated so others can spotlight on stage.. it felt… Balanced and well thought out! I had a great time today.. BUT.. I also feel like this show won’t be funny for THAT long. I had a blast.. but it kind feels like a free fall ride. The first drop is super exciting but if it would go up again just to go back… each subsequent drop will feel less amazing. Oh well! We will see that later!
Hello there mortals! As per our pact, during this month where humanity is closer to the realm of the spirits and monsters than any other month this year.. I have swore to provide you with the strangest Horror movies I could find. The dictionary defines strange as Surprising, Difficult To Understand or Explain. Something not Previously visited, seen or encountered, something unfamiliar or alien. All these ring through when I watched.. what might be the weirdest movie I ever watch! Join me today as I review 1977’s: House!
Surprising
House is a 1977 movie of Japanese origins and was directed by Nobuhiko Ôbayashi! With the story written by Chigumi Ôbayashi and adapted into a screenplay by Chiho Katsura. It stars Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Obha and Ai Matsubara. It is labeled a horror comedy and has a runtime of 88 minutes. It’s IMDB score is a very nice 7,4 and on Rotten Tomatoes it even has a 90% critic approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 80% audience appreciation. So it seems like we are dealing with a good movie here for once! Do I agree?! I don’t really know to be honest! This movie is really out there! A part of that probably has to do with the fact that it is written by a 13 year old! That is right Chigumi the writer is a 13 year old girl and while she had help from a sort of professional screenwriter, the entire acting cast of the movie, which also includes Chigumi in a minor role, had no experience acting. Only the “old lady” has some real prior acting experience. Funnily the old lady is not played by an old lady! Do I notice?! I don’t know.. characters in this movie are weird I can’t exactly tell if acting slips up! I can tell they act abnormal but in everything this movie leaves me puzzled.
Maybelline Melon! Stuff your face with youth!
The plot revolves around a girl the sub calls Gorgeous or Oshare in Japanese..but she and her friends don’t really have a real name; they all get nicknames. There is Fanta, the best friend of Gorgeous, who tends to be the girl who cried wolf. She sees stuff and fantasises a lot. The subtitle names her Fantasy. Then there is Kung-Fu.. the girl whose life attitude is.. if at first you don’t succeed.. Kick it! Then there is Prof.. the smart one she is called Gari in Japanese. Melody is the musical one of the group and Sweet is the always helpful one. Finally there is Mac.. who is the fat one. And yes she is actively called the Fat one of the group .. her friends call her fat all the time! Different times 1977! These friends go on a vacation together to visit Gorgeous aunt. Reason for this is a training camp. Gorgeous would have gone with her father on a vacation but he has a new gorgeous girlfriend and she found it disrespectful to her mother who has been dead for 8 years. So instead she goes to her mother’s sister and provides her friends a training camp..after the original location became unavailable.. however it turns out that this house might hold more than the girls have bargained for. This time we do not face a tire or a condom.. this time our villain is a house…..kind off.
Hey that’s how my flat looks at night!
Difficult to Understand or Explain
There is no way for me to describe the weirdness that is this movie without going into detail about the plot so be warned, for spoilers! That being said, this movie is so weird that I don’t know what actually happened! I can only describe what I see and if that is real or some sort of allegory. This movie is so nonsensical and filled with weird events that I doubt my spoilers are even called spoilers. Still you have been warned! This movie is weird in every single sense of the word. Straight from the beginning we see weird things like a painted set.. standing in front of that actual scenery. For example when we see the girls arrive in the country we see a painted set of a mountain in the back.. however when the shot pans out we see that set standing in front of the actual sight.. in a blink and you missed it moment! Yet straight away it is clear this movie is not your average movie. The new step mother of Gorgeous is filmed in an angelic light, her clothes are always billowing in the wind.. even indoors. When the name Gorgeous is said we hear some sort of echo. There are parts of the movie that are shot in limited frames per second, we drop in and out of colour filters and visuals are often extremely confusing. In a way it at times feels like Jojo’s Bizarre adventures with it’s shifting colours text posing and with certain characters having their own musical themes. If two characters shine at the same time their musical themes ALSO both play. It oftenly reminded me of the PlayStation game LSD Dream Emulator and it has the same appeal that game has.
Rimmel Volume Boosting Lipstick! Have the biggest lips in the Hausu!
The movie is hyper stylised but doesn’t really follow a three act structure, it kind of does.. but the whole “We are in trouble now let’s fight off evil” discovery doesn’t really come until the very last minutes of the movie. So we get a very strange flow. The movie does begin with two high school girls being the best friends in the world. Fanta and Oshare are seen walking out of school together. When they are shot from afar and in the distance rather than zooming into them the movie instead blacks out everything else on the screen. They talk about a teacher getting married.. which shows us these girls know the gossip around town! We also discover Fanta has a crush on her coach.. I do not know what he coaches.. but we never see them train for anything either.. nor pack any form of sports outfit so it doesn’t really matter. The coach tells the girls training camp will be cancelled because his sister is rebuilding her inn so this summer it is not available. Gorgeous wouldn’t even go anyway because she has a vacation planned with her dad as mentioned before. But the billowing stepmother shows up and it pisses off Gorgeous so she finds a location for the training camp instead so she doesn’t have to be with the new happy couple.
Channel Number 5: So vibrant you will billow!
She writes her aunt that she hasn’t seen in 8 years for this and that woman agrees and sends a postcard and her cat! That is right! The cat her auntie has is sent along with the mail for some reason and it seems to have delivered the mail as it barely got stuck in the mailbox! Now Gorgeous has to bring the cat back so she HAS to go to her auntie! Not wondering how a cat she knew as mature already is still perfectly the same cat as it was 8 years ago. Oshare is from money and their house is super shiny, she wears pretty white dresses and constantly fixes her make-up, which causes her to almost be late for the train to her aunt’s house which will function as the new location for their training camp. Well that and she lost the cat.. the cat however boarded the train by itself and found a seat it is on and everyone thinks that is super cute. Disaster strikes when their coach has an accident at the shoe store. He falls off some stairs and gets his butt stuck in a bucket! He has to get that out before he can travel! So he decides he will join them by car later. As the train sets off Oshare begins to tell the story of her aunt. This is shown as an old silent Black and White movie.. that the girls react to as if they can see it. They are on a train.. but somehow they can see the black and white silent movie the director plays to us. Once they are done with this.. we see a cartoon train zip through the lands.. and we end up in the countryside.
Now that is a city I would want to live in!
Auntie.. who also doesn’t have another name except for that lives up a hill. She has one helper it seems as he calls her Mistress or Master and of course an old Wheelchair bound lady has no use for help in the house.. so instead this help/minion is a melon farmer and seller. Mac , the fat girl really wants to buy a big melon because she is hungry. She was also hungry on the train and she wants to head to the house quickly so she can eat! The girls travel to the house where the gates open magically and an not so old lady..with a very fake white wig is sitting in a wheelchair. The cat is returned to her and she tells the girls she is happy to see them. A sentimental music theme plays as well as the movie’s theme song…which almost always is playing. It has a very simple quality. A bit Zelda’s Lullaby esque or something youn find in one of those “my first piano book” things. It plays constantly! During scary moments, during heartfelt moments and during frolicking moments. And frolicking is something these girls like to do a lot. The old lady invites them in and for some reason everyone claps for her as she flicks a light switch!
Wow Blowfeld really overdid it with the plastic surgery this time!
Sweet is almost killed by a chandelier but Kungfu kicks a lizard into the spikey piece of glass instead so Sweet is saved and the cat begins to eat the lizard..which the girls think is cute. Then everyone goes do their own thing and get settled in. Sweet offers Auntie that she will clean, while Mac wants to chill her mellon, for which she has to use a well. Melody goes to the piano room and Gorgeous hangs out a bit with her aunt. Prof , Kungfu and Fanta think about starting to make dinner. Auntie seems to go sick from being in the sunlight to much so the girls have dinner on their own! Having a lot of fun and calling Mac fat again. Being called fat makes Mac hungry so she goes to find her Mellon.. but she doesn’t return. Fanta goes to find her so they can have the melon as desert and when she goes to the well she is mesmerised by the sunlight! She is so mesmerised that when she is fishing up the Melon she doesn’t notice the Melon has been replaced by Mac’s head! The head flies and bites her in the butt then vomits a bit.. and Fanta flees. Prof and Kungfu go check it out but they only find a Melon so they decide Fanta had another daydream and they fish out the Melon.
There has to be a comment that is more witty then.. She got eaten so now she gives head here!
Auntie joins them to come eat the Melon but Fanta feels uneasy and rightfully so it seems as auntie shows her the melon she is eating has eyeballs in them.. just to Fanta though! Who still believes she is stressed and making this up! The group saves a big part of the melon for when Mac returns and abandons the search for her to go do other things. Gorgeous goes to take a bath, Sweet starts cleaning and Melody plays some more piano… the other three don’t have traits that allow actions so they just show up when something goes wrong.. Which quickly it does. Sweet while cleaning encounters the cat named Shiro.. or Blanche in the subtitle and when her eyes glow green Sweet is attacked and seemingly killed by mattresses and blankets. Fanta of course notices this.. as Sweet calls for help. Melody however is also crying for help so Prof and Kungfu go to her instead.. only to find out Melody broke a nail! When Fanta tells her she just saw Sweet get killed by feather filled objects no one believes her. When they search they search the store room together, they do find all of Sweet her clothes laying around a naked doll that has the same ribbon in the hair as she did! So they draw the conclusion that Sweet must have gone to take a bath several doors ahead in the house.
This is like the least fashion cordinate group of people ever!
Melody cries out for help again… so Fanta goes to investigate.. it turns out Melody needed toilet paper. This quest allows no one to notice that Gorgeous has gone upstairs to do her makeup after a bath! Shiro the cat shows up and uses his magic on the mirror that Gorgeous is using.. this results in her seeing her aunt taking over her body.. but she thinks that is just a figment of her imagination. So she continues to do her makeup! Even when the cat casts a second batch of magic and the mirror begins to shatter she doesn’t seem to react. As she stares into the shattered mirror suddenly her skin comes off in shards.. only leaving a red glowing presence… which apparently kills her.. We are reminded the coach is on his way by a very weird jumpcut that shows him stuck in traffic. Since traffic is so busy he decides to go eat noodles instead. Fanta goes to search for Gorgeous and she discovers her in full bridal makeup in her aunties room. She acts very strange and when Fanta tells her she isn’t feeling safe here, Gorgeous says she will call for help. She uses the phone and then says it is out of order. No one questions this and to calm Fanta down they decide to let Melody play the piano again to calm her down. Gorgeous goes outside and juggles with some orbs of light which apparently takes her so long that Kungfu and Prof go to find her. Prof now suspects something is wrong but doesn’t want to share it because it would scare Fanta too much! So Fanta is left with Melody alone!
Olay facial cream really took a hit after it gotten all Catwoman like..yes the Halle Barry Catwoman!
This of course leads to Melody being killed. The piano glows in all sorts of colours of the rainbow and Melody notices she can not stop playing anymore. With a wild and trippy shock effect we notice some of her fingers have gone missing. She giggles a bit when she sees this and tries to play the piano again and this causes the piano to eat her. She gets sucked in and ensnared by the wires while the little hatch in front of the keys chops bits off her. Her arm is flung inside a fishbowl and as Fanta tries to process what she sees she grabs the arm.. and faints by the sight..pulling the fishbowl with her to the floor. Prof and Kungfu could not find Gorgeous so they try to punch a door open before returning to Fanta and Melody now missing. They worry about the fish in Fanta’s dress more than their missing friend..but now do conclude something is wrong. This time Kungfu decides to phone for help.. not trusting Gorgeous realising that she too has become a “ghost” But Kungfu is attacked by the telephone and defeats it in a fight. This however leads her to be kicked into the garden by Gorgeous where they have an anime fight!
She might be Gorgeous but she wil blue ball you!
Kungfu ends up being kicked back into the piano room, where through a journal they found earlier Prof realises the way to fight off this evil is to beat up the painting of the cat. As Kungfu wants to kick it she is eaten by a lamp! All hope seems lost as we see trippy visuals of all the dead girls and their body parts floating around an abstract background.. we also get Visuals of Sweet’s body.. being in a clock being grinded into just blood by the gears..so she might not have been a naked doll killed by mattresses after all? Luckily the girls once again can see these animations meant for the crowd and they react to it. This causes Kungfu to return from the afterlife…. well partially.. just her legs return.. she kicks the cat painting and with lighting the painting vanishes along with Kungu! The evil seems vanquished.
I said PiaNO! Don’t eat her. But I guess I did my cries did not strike a chord.
We cut back to the coach who has arrived at the plot of land and the Melon guy tells him the girls are dead! Showing his true colors as an evil minion of the woman! He wants to prevent the coach from going up the hill and he does this by……. trying to sell him Melons. Coach Togo says he doesn’t want to buy a melon! This upsets the farmer guy and he asks what fruit the coach likes! The coach says he only likes bananas. The farmer is so shocked by this that he is defeated and her turns into a pile of skulls and bones… however.. for defeating this evil coach Togo has to pay the ultimate price… he says bananas are everywhere.. and he turns into a pile of bananas.
I’m a Chiquita Banana and I am here to say.. “If you don’t buy a melon, you’ll become me yay!
Back inside the cat painting is now back on the wall having recovered because something in the diary was misinterpreted and the cat painting begins to vomit. The room begins to fill with blood like cat vomit and Prof and Fanta now on a raft try to paddle away from it , trying to get to safety. Prof however falls in the cat vomit/blood because she lost her glasses and can no longer see. This makes her clothes disappear and she suddenly begins to smile widely as she happily lets herself drown in the red liquid.Fanta paddles into another room and encounters Gorgeous who helps her off her raft. Tired Fanta cuddles up to her best friend and says she wants to rest. Just giving up and allowing herself to be eaten.. or well that is the term used for those who died. They all got “eaten”.
Acid! Using the right kind versus using the wrong kind!
The movie ends up with the billowing step mother showing up to befriend her new daughter in a tranquil environment. We get an explanation for what has been going on that I am not going to spoil .. you can discover what this was about by yourself.. but of course it does not make that much sense either. That plot has no resolution as everyone dies. Gorgeous tells her billowing stepmother that her friends will be awake soon and that they will be hungry..hinting that her friends are ghosts now as well and that the billowing stepmother will be fed to them.. but no! Gorgeous eyes glow like the cat and the head of her fathers new girlfriend catches fire and sort of melts off. Which cuts off to a character/credit roll featuring the girls frolicking in the mountains.
The hills are alive with the sound of a confused audience!
Something not Previously visited
I haven’t even come close to capture all the weirdness. There is an odd dancing scene where Auntie zooms around like a witch on the ceiling! Auntie stops existing at one point as she becomes more interwoven with the house and so does the cat. It goes so weird that one point Gorgeous as a ghost can manifest as a mouth or eyes inside the house just showing random body parts. There is a dancing skeleton as well and so much more! There is so much random stuff happening all the time that it feels as if we are watching a story that is free from the restraints of sanity itself. Dialogue flows odd, people can break the fourth wall but sometimes can also not. There is a scene where Kungu is attacked by random burning objects that she just kicks away and then wonders… well that was weird.. Anyway I wonder where the rest of the group is. Nothing follows common logic, it is a combination of bizarre scenes mixed with a very thing overarching narrative.
I fell into colours once.. .it was not fun!
By going through the plot in the way I did I will admit I omitted the one link with the sane world it still has to make it even seem more odd.. but to be honest..even knowing of what this ghost actually is relates in any way to what is happening. In a way it’s a story about eternal despair and the girls are just nourishment for the suffering of the entity to go on longer. While Auntie sort of is the ghost.. the cat is also a part of the ghost..but it can travel and he is also established as a Witch’s cat implying auntie is also a witch.. but she is not. Also what we see as auntie might not be auntie it might actually be the entire house.. but it is all very unclear. Even when all the answers are given to you! Yet strangely that is this movie’s strength.
See this is what happens if you fall into colours!
This movie is like a fever dream, they are impossible to explain to people yet we can not help but be entertained by our own strange dreams. Rhyme and reason are cast aside for entertainment and it does result in both hilarious as well as kind of spooky scenarios. The comedy in this movie is genuinely funny, the silliness, the bizarre choices to play several soundtracks trough each other, the pink filter that comes across the screen. The fact that the old lady isn’t even an old lady it all is super light! The guy turning into bananas had me in stiches! He did NOTHING in that movie but it was amazing. Yet at the same time I can still see the horror part of it! We aged out of that but for the time that movie had some very spooky visuals and without knowing what is going to happen.. not even having a clue, there a lot to like. There is no real movie like this in all it’s strangeness.
One of these faces will be your expression while watching this movie!
Something Alien
So how do we rate this?! I do not know! I really liked the movie but there is also SO much wrong with it. The characters are more 2 dimensional than most of our Waifus. There is no real plot and dialogue can seem more random than your random Lucky Star episode. The movie is written by a thirteen year old girl and by Arceus it shows! This movie in a way feels like one of those meme things where a comic book artist or a painter or whatever draws their children’s drawings as proper cartoon characters but leaves the nonsensical in it. Is it a good drawing?! Sure?! Is it a good creature?! Uhm.. tricky! I loved watching this.. but do I love it as a movie? Do I love the experience?! Once more I compare it to having a dream! There are very weird dreams and I love telling people about them and that my brain can work in that way, do I love the actual dream?! I am not sure.
Best kill of the movie!
There truly is nothing to compare this movie to, the acting is very uniquely directed, the sound design that is a mix of weird 70’s music with classic tunes and character music playing trough one another is also not something I have really experienced and as for the story… <Mind Explosion>. Giving this movie a grade feels about as right as grading a super market customer or a shopping cart as a grocery store product after it fell into a fridge or was accidentally labeled with a price. Sure it is there in the same realm and you MIGHT be able to enjoy the customer like you enjoy your chicken fillet..but would you?! I would be super entertained by seeing a kid fall into one of the fridges at my super market but after facebook ask me to leave a review I will never say 10/10 kid fell in the fridge! Worth a watch.. but extreme weirdness warning!
Hello once again mortals and welcome to another Halloween movie review! By the forces of collective chanting, or close enough .. a twitter pole, you have collectively commanded me to watch WEIRD monster and spooky movies! The previous review was about a tire that kills called Rubber. However.. Another thing that shares the namesake of that movie spawned a movie of it’s own! A foreign film. So join me while I review the German movie Kondom Des Grauens, or as it is better known throughout the world…. Killer Condom.
The Big D
Killer Condom had a 1998 (limited) cinematic release and became available for purchase and later streaming in 2000. The movie is defined as a Horror Comedy and thus is a viable target for me to watch during the Halloween month. Also allow me to reiterate that this movie has indeed seen a cinematic release. It was even a selected candidate for the Berlin Film Festival. It is based on the comic book stories Kondom des Grauens by Ralf König who along with the big man himself the director Martin Walz also wrote the screenplay for this movie. Actors like Udo Samel, Peter Lohmeyer and Leonard Lasink might be unfamiliar names to you all but I can assure you.. for a movie named Killer Condom they did a mighty fine job! In fact I was really stoked on the acting in this movie! But what I loved more here is the directing.
If it wasn’t already clear… campy movie alert!
The Big man behind the screens or the Big D as we call him in line with this movie’s sense of humor is Martin Walz. A director who mostly directed short films and a German tv series here and there. The most stand out title of him being Apokalypse Pink… I want to see that now. Regardless.. while the movie is absolutely ridiculous the director manages to bring it into frame as if everyone in this movie is deadly serious. Even the plot is fairly serious.. so it never feels Scary Movie like levels of cheap. This is more of a dry humor and WTF is happening kind of humor. It knows it pulp of the highest level but it leans so heavily into this that it actually feels quite distinct. I was expecting American Pie levels of infantile humor but despite being very in your face but instead the jokes feel more clever and flowing. There is this sarcastic undertone in the movie that one would have if you are dealing with this situation so while I almost never give credit to a director.. I really think this movie makes a lot of good choices! … For what it is of course. This is no masterpiece by any means but it is kind of like midnight kebab. You don’t want some fancy kebab after a night of heavy drinking, you don’t care about the flavour profile.. you just want some greasy meat on a bun with rich sauces.. the greasier the better. Mister Walz here choose to make a midnight Kebab rather than a fancy meal.. unlike Rubber who sold midnight kebab but tried to sell it as luxurious dish.
However this post does not promote unsafe sex! I dislike children anyway!
While obtaining a copy of this movie, I stumbled upon the movie on YouTube where at the time of writing this movie it is still available for watching. It has been there for almost two years now so it is fair game! Well fair enough!.. I still will try to pick up a copy from Germany if the world goes less gaga because I really enjoyed myself with this movie. I must give you a warning though, I speak a fair bit of german, while I did need the subtitles to guide me, I must say I did thoroughly enjoy the german dialogue. At times it is sharper there is more cleverness to it than the english subtitles show.So some dialogue I might love , could be a tad less entertaining for you if you lack the ability to understand German. It is mostly a “modifier” though. Bonus points as I had a lot of fun with the subtitles as well. Fun fact H.R. Giger functioned as a creative consultant for this movie. Hansruedi Giger is known for his work in movies like Aliens and Species. So that is a pretty big name! Finally I would like to confess I have not read the comic. So I will not compare how they hold up next to each other and review the movie as it’s own thing.
That news station really needs a better artist!
One “Nutty” Movie
The protagonist of this story is called Luigi Macaroni..which according to IMDB is spelled differently but we never see the name so I will spell it like this so you hear how it sounds correctly in your head! How sweet am I.. thinking about your heads! Luigi is a detective in New York..which already is incredibly funny because he is super Italian in the movie, super german in real life and acting super american. However Luigi is quite special.. he is your run of the mill gruff “noir” style detecive.. but he is heavily into the gay scene. When he meets a young man named Billy at Hotel Quicky, a love hotel in the seedy underbelly of New York he instantly falls in love. However he also has to work a case. In Hotel Quicky 7 guys have had their penisses bitten off by the hookers..but all of them deny it and say it was the condom. Luigi decides to investigate and to do so he takes Billy to this room .. where stuff went bad. To have a little fun while he investigates. Then he sees a creature looking like a condom. It bites off his left testicle and after that Luigi swears revenge against the creature because no one bites of the Macaroni family jewels and lives.
I woul make that face as well if someone told me that subtitled line!
Not even kidding that is the basic plot of this movie. It goes even stranger by the end so from here on out you have a spoiler warning. The first part is literally the synopsis in my own words but as we go on… we find out that it definitely earns a spot on the list of weird movies. The plot does go over the top ridiculous but manages to stay clear from normal tropes like “it’s aliens” or it’s a curse. No this movie is surprisingly original in a plot that dare I say it makes some weird form of sense unlikely as it may be.It is a story that deals with themes as Transgender people , Transvestites, Gays and the Adult companion industry. While it has fun with the scenes never does it ridicule them and strangely enough all characters react very realistically to one another. For example Luigi ends up in a weird form of triangle relationship with the young boy Billy and former cop, gone crossdressing entertainer Bob, who now likes to be called Babette. Babette is in love with Luigi and desperately tries anything to get him. Babette has a cheap shrink who told them that Luigi sounds like a type that is attracted to people like his mother.. so Babette tries to be that, while Luigi can only see her as Bob still, in part because they had a night together and he is gay.. and loathes the idea of having to be with a woman…as his tradional italian family tried to push it on him very much.
And I don’t care much for either! I like girl’s minds and personalities though!
There never is too much of a joke about being gay, instead it is very solidly done. At one point a cop has to go undercover and he is dressed up in a leather gimpy harness and you think this is where the movie oversteps its boundaries but we find out that it is Luigi having his fun because the other cop Sam has been kind of rude and lame to him before! The two even bond over the weird event. This movie was made in 1996 and the comic is even older but the themes are still relevant today.. and I think they are explored in mostly harmless and sometimes even entertaining ways. In fact speaking about foresight they have a presidential candidate with comb over hair a red tie and a much much younger trophy wife whose catchphrase is ! Let’s make this country strong again! A hypocrite who adheres to old very old values while being quite a sleazeball himself. Huh!…
So it’s not just the Simposon that predicted this!
Regardless of it’s sober tone the movie also dares to go way beyond in terms of plot. This involves killing the first killer condom in a creative way.. by creating a fake dick out of a gas hose, then when they bring the thing to a coroner’s office they discover it is actually a living creature that seems to have been artificially designed.Research is needed by they discover a link between a missing scientist and elements of this research. The man made organic rubber for military purposes but killed the project and decided to focus on genetics as well but soon after no one heard of the man before. Suddenly more condoms show up around the city, mostly still targeting hookers and gays…but eventually even the presidential candidate. Who then of course is out of the race because no one would want a president without a male reproductive organ to lead the country!
I bet the camera man who filmed this wondered what he was doing with his life!
Standing Tall
The story goes completely wacky at the end, involving even things like the Millenium Bug into the main part of the plot. There is this very christian hospital director lady who believes the world will end on December 31 of 1999 as the lord will come and judge them all. She wants to have cleansed the city off all all the Sodomy that happens in the city before then. No more homosexuality, no more prositution. So when the professor came to the hospital she kidnapped him and made him use both his sciences ot create the ultimate weapon against Sodomy. To keep him under control she creates a drug filled jelly, which he always craves and he can get in in return for compliance. and by using his genetic skills to splice his living rubber, some sort of pupa and a virus the vil killer condoms were invented. Including a Magnum Queen.
I bet who-ever wears this sleeve drives a Peel P50 car (google it)
The final encounter is not a gunfight but it is this gloomy/old timer cop making a speech about tolerance, about accepting people who make different life choices than what is said in the bible. He tells us that god created these people as well , while he understands that god wants them to live a good live, isn’t loving another person and caring for them what makes you a human in the first place. The rest of the speech is interrupted by a film noir narration of Luigi saying he did not know what came over when he was speaking and that he hoped that annoying Angelic light and Angelic hymn in the background would stop soon.Since this hospital has a big mental ward a person dressed like an angel also walks in and nods at him approvingly as he continues the speech, while we only hear complaining.
Not part of the speech ..but a nice time stamp!
The movie ends incredibly cute as well with the detective going on a small vacation and he gets the boy! Billy called him Cop as nickname (though in german it’s a bit more a slangy nickname) and then Luigi ponders if he wants to quit after this weird case.. he tells Billy he would miss Billy nickname him Cop.. Billy tells him he loves the man and he would call him Cop for as long as he wants. While the two do a little love play.. “you you say it again” .. Cop.. “again please” Okay.. Cop” … “One more time please” Kiss me…..Cop.. we pan out for the ending. So while the two also have one of the funniest sex scenes I have seen n a moviie there is also room for cute romance. In the end i was left with a very weird but strangely engaging movie. I don’t think I could imagine a better story about killer condoms.
The Flacid Stuff
Now this isn’t a perfect movie by any means, it is very one note and rarely veers away from the Killer Condom plot. When we see real live stuff it is mostly complaints about the bitten of Nut.. or how a man with no Penis can not possibly win a presidential election campaign. This movie has no chill or cooldown; it’s 1 hour and 45 minutes of scrotum related jokes. Oddly entertaining ones but still we never see Luigi kick down with a beer, go watch a game with friends. Either we talk about him being gay, we talk about his transgender friend.. his feelings for Billy, somewhere in between lust and love and of course the Killer Condoms.That can come across as stale…yet they also explain this by making it a Macaroni family trait to get so obessed.Don’t expect deep characters and more so a list of which person slept with another.
Well Babette Identifies as a woman now and we always were known for being able to multi-task!
Of course this movie tells about the seedy side of the gay scene and not your regular run of the mill standard couple. This isn’t Mitchell Pritchett and Cameron Tucker from Modern family. No this is about the guys who sleep around. I know that here at least those guys are still part of the active gay scene. They are just as real and out there as the monogamous romantic ones but it can be a bit confronting how straightforward they are about this. Love comes into play but Luigi is still “that type”. The stereotype people look down on the most. Given his looks and age though.. it seems very plausible that he would fall in that “seedier” side of things.I should not even count it as seedy as to each their own and if that makes them happy good on them.Still these are not the type of guys you want in the front and center of your picture, these are the guys you kinda try to hide in the back. That might make the protagonist a tad unlikeable.
He is a bit of a sarcastic prick! I kinda love that about him though!
Sometimes the humor goes a bit too far. Luigi for example has a 32 centimeter dick! The idiotic size is used as a plot device for a few things.. like the existence of the condom queen monster, it is the reason Billy falls so very hard for the man and it is probably the reason why the first Condom could only bite off one nut! So once more it isn’t pointless and I doubt this is a writer self insert..but it does feel a bit cheap. His personality screams out that he is a top and that is very much established throughout the movie so again it oddly “fits’ ‘ as both Babette and Billy have clear bottom persona’s and tendencies..but still it feels like too much.. though I doubt Billy would say that.
Would you kindly subscribe to Pinkie’s Blog?!
Then there is the issue of the condom noises. They make almost gremlin-like noises, with shrill laughs and then yelling “wee” when they are launched. It feels really weird in comparison how stoic the rest of the movie is. It is very funny to see no one believe the guy that a condom bit of his testicle even though he saw it and was of sound mind.. and the way he just yells “F you guys t wasn’t Billy who bit it of it was a condom creature” I love that deadpan humor…but then we get condoms that ride rubber duckies while humming a cheerful song on their way to their next meal..it clashes so heavy with the dryness of the rest. I would have preferred if the condoms just growled or had some weird insect like sounds like the thing they were based on. Condooms going Woo, Woo.. Teeheehee is kind of adorable in a strange way, in fact at times they kinda sound like Jawa’s I just think that might be a tad too much. Even for a movie about killer Condoms.
They do swim in blood at their home though so they also have some edge!
You don’t need Protection
I expected to hate the rotten guts out of this movie but for what it is I think we pretty much got the best of what we would have gotten. It’s message is still relevant and it is kind of funny to see a 90’s take on that.. even for that alone it is worth a view. The humor is often cheap but there is a cleverness in both the choice of words and it’s delivery that honestly reminds me a bit of the way dialogue flowed in the anime Keijo!!! Admittedly this is way better in german than in english but even with subtitles it oftenly works. Just .. Germans have a fair bit of extra words that can be combined into a pun. While it really never ever gets scary.. and I don’t think we get more than one fatality this is a funny and unique monster movie to watch. It gets about a 58% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 5,3 on IMDB but honestly if you can shut off your brain and just enjoy the weirdness this easily provides you a 6.5 out of 10 entertainment.. midnight kebab!
When the Hooker heard “Blow your Nose” she put a condom out of it from habit (not how it happens in the movie.. this is my joke)
Watch this with some drinks and with some friends and don’t take its impact on a community too serious! This is a 90’s B movie trough and trough but one that is oddly consistent in the world that it builds. You can see it’s comic roots pretty well because the dialogue is very VERY to the point and that in this movie has it’s charm for me. I did not get scared but..as an grey-sexual , homo-romantic female I have little to do with condoms as it is! Oh right I am single as well.. so yeah pretty good movie for me that kept me entertained… I never had to Troyawn during my sitting but it never got Durexciting either.
I did not expect the movie as much as I did! While it is easy to point out it’s flaws and cast shade at it for the themes and it’s infantile subject matter.. I don’t feel that is justified! This movie is called Killer Condom… we already know it would be THAT which I could arguable hate about the movie! For what it is I think it does a great job! I dont think anyone could do better. And lucky for you this movie is on YouTube! And since I pay for my blog… I can share this with the world now!
Thanks for reading and if you liked this blog please consider supporting my Ko-Fi. My current movie is gaining some extra cash for my move and get some money to give me an actually blogging workspace! That way I can keep reviewing strange movies for you in the future! Of course I will also do that if you just leave a nice comment!
It is not that uncommon to list a reputable movie when people ask you for their favorites. People will tell you their favorite movie is Parasyte, Avatar, 1917, or maybe the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings series. We claim Dangerous Liasons is our favorite movie while it is actually Weekend At Bernie’s . Pinkie’s Guilty Movie Pleasures is all about celebrating those movies like Weekend At Bernie’s. In this installment I will tell you about my traditional christmas movie since 1998. Big Trouble in Little China!
I love 80’s movie posters! I wish I could be one when I grow up!
The Story about a weird tradition
Yes I said it this movie is my traditional christmas movie. Before I start with the movie a little story on how this came to be. I grew up with catholic teachings, about two years before discovering this movie I stopped believing in god already. I still believed in a supernatural force but it felt like a balance to me. In hindsight kind of like Karma or Yin Yang or something more intangible as a person guiding us. I guess that concept came from bullying or so. Regardless , I still kept up appearances and traditions for my family’s sake.
However that changed when in 1998 I was supposed to take my Holy Sacrement of Confirmation thing.My local minister banned my uncle from church from being gay, (we got warned not to invite him prematurely) and during an Easterlike dinner.. in my mother’s rentable party place he took from the Kid’s Menu. Which was very limited.. for each child they made a snack. They would make new ones.. but that would mean the children would have to move to last in line. The Minister did not take one but FOUR children’s snacks. When my mother said.. those are for the kids .. he basically said that him going first was gods will and thus he was allowed to take these. I heard this and along with the message about my uncle I was done with him.. and that church I was already just pretending to be a part of. I banned everything about it from my life.
So when it was Christmas eve my family would go to the late evening services and wanted me to come along but I refused to ever set foot in that man’s church again. I would listen to a man preach who thinks gay people are bad.. but he who takes stuff that is meant to make children happy .. was send by god and he deserves it more! Dad got very angry with me because he had to play the organ and he wanted me to see. Yet I kept refusing. I told dad that I love him and I would see him play anywhere but in church. He yelled at me a lot and made me very upset. He went very mean spirited when Mom stood up for me. She told him that if I would stand up to the minister and god for not liking what I saw, I should stick with this. She said she would stay home with me and we did. Still sniffly and upset Mom told me if I wanted to watch a Christmas movie.. but I was not in the spirit… so we looked for the least xmassy thing that was on tv on Christmas eve… and now nearly each holy eve I watch Big Trouble in Little China. Mom would go back to church the next year, yet when the priest began to talk Shiitake about me as well as slipping into a quite dogmatic approach to Catholicism one by one my family sided in my camp.
This tradition is only kept up by me though!
Protagonist? Sidekick? Jack Burton!
Having such a victory in fighting for my own beliefs gave this movie a bit of a underlying town for me. I did not have to be so afraid to do my own thing. It was okay to be different. Funnily enough that is in a way what this movie is as well. What based on the poster and the styling should be a generic action flick is in fact one of the most unconventional once I have seen. Nowadays we do have more of this Meta-movie humor but back in 1986 .me and this movie share a birth year, it probably was quite unheard off. It was back in the time we would get a Cis-gender, white , straight male lead with an equally straight but usually less competent minority sidekick. The white guy knows everything and the minority bumbles around. In the end the white man gets a girl and defeats the big bad and they all live happily ever after. John Carpenter wanted to make a movie for once where everything is not what it seems and than I don’t mean everyone could be an alien venus fly trap thing thing. (Yes double thing)
So he created this movie , allegedly not even caring if the movie would do well or not! He just wanted to make this. That passion can be seen in this movie. That love can be felt in nearly every scene. He wanted to make a movie where the hero.. isn’t actually the hero but the sidekick. He wanted to make a movie where everything goes against what you expect of action movies. Today this movie might not seem like that unconventional.. but this movie is still filled with some delightful anticlimactic moments, side stories that are glanced over and characters that get tossed aside. In the spotlight is one of my favorite action heroes of all time. Jack Burton! A trucker of his beloved “Porkchop” Express , as American as he can be. Gambler, Seducer and tough guy! He dresses like John Mcclane, is witty like Indiana Jones and spouts one liners faster than Arnold and Sylvester. He is also JUST an american trucker. He doesn’t know how to fire guns, he doesn’t know martial arts, he hasn’t ever killed a man. He’s just a trucker that got in over his head.. and unlike most.. “in over their heads” type action heroes he doesn’t magically get good at this either. He lucks out, muscles his way out or even more oftenly doesn’t do anything to contribute to the plot. I love him!. Not in a romantic way.. even though he is a failure.. he is still way to manly.
He’s more american than McDonalds!
The Good Mortal Kombat Movie
Now what is the plot of the movie? It is quite ridiculous as is the rest of this movie.. but with a main character like Jack you might have already figured that out. We see Jack win a bet against Wang Chi.. a gambler and denizen of Little China after he delivered some pigs there. Not good for his money Wang allows Jack to take him to the airport where he meets his fiancé who has his money. In the airport they meet Gracie Law.. a journalist trying to help another chinese girl in this country. During a scuffle these girls get mixed up and a street gang takes the wrong woman. A chinese woman with green eyes. A evil chinese Spirit named Lo-Pan needs a chinese woman with green eyes to become flesh again.. if he can complete a ritual with her he becomes powerful and eternal and he can rule the earth. Jack still wants his money though.. only to have his truck stolen by the same supernatural forces that now hold the chinese women with green eyes. So Jack has to save the world.. to get his truck back. What other way can he hook up with Gracie Law anyway? Oh and of course an ancient Chinese Sorcerer joins their side and gets them high somewhere around the midway point of the story.
Who the Frizzlestick is THAT pokémon.
I doubt that any of this is based on any form of real chinese mythology. This belief is aided by the fact that John Carpenter said he based the character of Lo-Pan on Shang Tsung of Mortal Kombat.. which you can immediately see. His three henchmen called the Three Storms are based on Raiden.. which is SO obvious it almost hurts. Jack Burton walks almost the entire movie with a shirt with the japanese flag on it and while every character is supposed to be a Taoist in this movie, there are buddhas everywhere. Sets all feel very cartoon/comic- or even videogame-ish. Which enforces the feeling like your watching a Mortal Kombat movie.. that is actually better than the other two (though one of them definitely still is a guilty pleasure of mine) . Actors perform in a cartoony way that reminded me of my beloved saturday morning action cartoons. Overacting feels intentional and during my rewatch of this movie.. I really felt like.. darn they should make this into a cartoon. In a good way! So not like Sindels “To bad… you….r… about.. to die” line but the same goodness from one of the better Turtle Episodes or something. (The old show kids .. not the nickoledon ones) All in all. .we got a live action , Mortal Kombat Kartoon (yes thats how you spell that)
Subtle!
The art of the Anti Climax
The journey that Jack makes trough this very unique experience is quite unique on it’s own. Why? Well because Jack has a lot of things to figure out. During one gunfight for example he doesn’t do anything at all.. because he forgot guns had a safety switch. In yet another he wants to pull a knife from his boot (which holds near infinite knives) but he drops it, while he goes to find it his sidekick mops up everyone in the room. It’s a bit like inspector Clouseau and Cato Fong but way more in your face. We constantly see Jack struggle, like when he is shocked when he kills someone for the first time… but also when he shoots his gun in the air to be intimidating and knocks himself out by the concrete that comes down from the ceiling he shot. This movie resolves most things trough an anti climax which is so much more rewarding than it sounds. We see a new monster for three seconds when it vanishes with a litteral poof. It is set up properly though as if it is about to be something big. Like those tentacles just outside the mines of Moira or even the Balrog. But poof and it’s gone. And just when you start expecting the unexpected.. the expected happens.. just to throw you off again.
Oh this guy! I wish we could see more of him like this!
It is amazing how entertaining this movie is to me despite that almost not a single action seen leads to a satisfying end. I mean.. these ends are satisfying.. but they don’t seem to be correct.. in a narrative sense. No one liner when defeating the big bad, his generals aren’t even defeated before he goes down and even than they don’t go down by Jack being a badass. The action is engaging enough on it’s own to justify this weird flow.. and that weird flow is funny enough that you want to see more of it. I’d nearly call this the anti-action genre but it is just shy of being that zaney.. which comes in part due to 20th century fox who did not get that Jack is not supposed to be the main hero and demanded a few extra scenes where he is at least hyped up as one. This movie delivers in not delivering what we always saw up until the late 2000’s and I adore it for that. It is really unique and so zaney.
There are few really good sequences in this movie! A lot actually!
Surprisingly Real
What gets me most about this situation though is how oddly real it still feels. I mean I know there aren’t that many evil chinese sorcerers out there that do not realise western girls have green eyes, I doubt chinese gang wars happen in little china on a daily basis and I am pretty sure there are no real Beholder like spy creatures in this world, nor exploding thunder gods. I even doubt there would be a Trucker who likes his Cabin that much he is willing to risk his life for it, or a reporter who would be that dumb. Yet it does seem to ask some questions when telling its story. How would a real trucker react when he would get dragged into this story. Why would that reclusive character care to know about Western Girls. Why would bad guys just let you walk out if there boss is shot?
Remind me again.. what character was this guy based on?!
Characters usually don’t end up going for the fancy kills, character progress can reset immediately simply because they are in so much over their head. For example when Gracie escapes a trance just to get brainwashed again. She did not know what her assailant would do to her so she made the best of her situation. Even if it made the seen more futile. There are a few of these scenes in the movie where we are shown “dead attempts”. Not everything that happens succeeds and as such it doesn’t feel like the plot is always moving forward… which again makes it much more real to me. One liners are used to announce a killing blow .. without pay off , kill shots end up being dumb luck or a reflex and even bonds that are forged over the course of this movie are broken by the end simply because of the impracticality of it all. This is not a realistic action movie by any means, yet at the same time it takes a quite realistic approach to the people in the story, without losing that cartooniness.
Can someone turn this into a 90’s cartoon already?!
I’d say the same goes a bit for the direction. The acting feels hammy .. but it feels like it needs to be as well. It’s spot on for this type of movie. Is it Kurt Russel’s best role? No.. but he IS the best Jack Burton he could be. Is the story sharply written? No.. you could tell this story much crisper and sleaker.. yet this feel like the actual tale.. that later got made greater trough stories… like the one Egg Shenn (the chinese sorcerer) begins to tell at the very first minute of the movie. Nothing is really wrapped up to nicely..but why finish your opponent off dramatically when you can do it practically. I can’t fully explain what I experience when I see this movie.
I see a incomprehensible mess that really doesn’t do what we expect from our movies, filled with fun but “wrong” characters that seem as if they are in the wrong position.We follow the story of luigi.. that goes to help Mario save princess peach.. but luigi is the main character..so why doesn’t he get to save his princess? Also why is the red guy so more effective? It doesn’t make sense to tell the story this way.. but when you can finally see it from that perspective it makes total sense! Along with what this movie means to me by ritual.. this just makes it something I can’t help but enjoy a little bit more.. every time I see it. If you haven’t seen it yet , I think you should see it too!
When Ross asked Chandler, Rachel claims this is her favorite movie, Chandler answered Dangerous Liaisons. When Ross asked what her actually favorite movie was Joey answered Weekend at Bernies. It was a great scene from Friends that does show truth. We all claim “Spirited Away” or The King’s Speech or some at least well acknowledged movie is our favorite movie while there are plenty movies that might give us more joy. Movies that make you laugh each time and we can’t help but to secretly adore. Yesterday one of mine was on local television and so it is time to start my captain’s log and confess about those movies I love but never talk about! Mission 1… Galaxy Quest
(such great box art)
Glory Days
The movie came out in the Netherlands in august of 2000, very lowkey it flew under the radar for me until I finally rented it someday it might actually be really fun. In a way it can be seen as the Star Trek counterpart for Spaceballs which spoofed mostly Star Wars. Where the way more famous latter movie had characters actually set in the sci-fi world but being able to break through the fourth wall plenty of times, this movie is basically the exact counterpart of it. In this movie the crew of an old sci-fi show gets called into space to deal with an evil tyrant named Sarris. However since they are only actors they don’t really know what they are doing. Everything is based on a lie and they are in over their heads. It doesn’t seem like a very original plot but it has the heart in the right place and has some very nice messages about fandoms throughout.
(The Thermians are actually Squids this is just how they see us)
Jason Nesmith , played by Tim Allan, used to play suave captain Peter Quincy Taggart on the tv show Galaxy Quest. Along with his fellow actors Gwen DeMarco , portrayed by Sigourney Weaver, the elitist Alexander Dane, brilliantly depicted by sir Alan Rickman, the always cheerful Fred Kwan, played by Tony Shalhoub and grown up childhood star Tommy Webber, Darryl Mitchell, all he has left now is a handful of gigs to relive their glory days.These gigs vary from constant fan conventions to opening electronic stores. Galaxy Quest is clearly inspired by Star Trek and is focussing on the world of the Trekkie rather than the world of Star Trek itself. The actors in the movie can not find other gigs because they are to connected to their respective roles, an issue that still feels quite relatable.. looking at some careers.Their magical days of succes are over now. The movie deals with what is left for these actors when the golden days are over, what becomes of star trek ..or galaxy quest past it’s runtime which is where the movie really shines for me.
(You can just smell the Gorn being close by)
Conventional
Jason is the only one about his crew that is super excited to visit these conventions. He loves how people look up to him, think he is a real Starship Captain, he takes on any gig he can find to be with his fans. Much to his crew’s dismay. He treats them like lesser elements of the show and they hate him for it. They hate him for taking this so seriously while they are tired of gig. Alan Rickman’s character is so fed up from using his catchphrase he has a little panic attack every time he has to go on stage. At first the show seems to depict fans as your typical geek depiction of movies. Cosplayed, unhealthy looking way to shy and insanely obsessed with even the tiniest of details. Think Stewart of the Big Bang Theory.
(Justin Long plays “the geek”)
When a group of actual Aliens show up at a convention of course Jason thinks they are just another bunch of weirdo’s taking things way to serious like that one kid who ask them about how computers of level 2 could operate something, while seventeen episodes earlier it was clearly show those computers do not have that function. It’s a funny and sort of credible scenario, between the cosplayers it’s something hard to distinguish what is real and what is not.
(I can get why he thinks the ship is a set.. but that haircut!)
When Jason visits the bathroom though he hears some convention goers talk doodoo about him and he realises how much everything is a charade. He now knows the crew hates him and how he is a terrible person for allowing people to believe he is a real captain..just so he can feel cool. Now at the same low his colleagues are.. The hurt captain has a falling out and resorts to drinking The next day he wakes up to four crazy fans at his house.. telling him he has to help them stop an alien warlord. Thinking this is some crazy larping gig he will get payed for Jason agrees.. only to quickly find out ..now things are real. Again the premises doesn’t feel original at all yet on an emotional side this one connects to me so much more. It’s the standard “in over your head” plot.. but the build up for this one is perfect.
(Is it weird that I feel hungry for Takoyaki right now?)
A Fake Reality
It takes a while for Jason to realise what he is doing is real.. after all he has been desensitized to all the sci-fi stuff by doing these sorts of gigs for 18 years. Yet when he finds out this is real.. something changes. He finds a drive to finally do something real.. he can make a true difference, it pushes him to take risks he normally would not have taken. He needed to realise his world was fake ..to realise this was real, to be able to step up to the plate and take on the challenge the movie presents. When he can get his crew involved he becomes super excited. Finally they can be the heroes they really are. The next few scenes have them revered as heroes.
(The galaxy is filled with dangers, like edgelords, frogbabies and piglizards)
After all the alien race they are helping led by Mathesar have found their footage, they saw their historic tellings and think this is the greatest crew of space adventurers that ever lived. Their race does not have a concept similar to acting. Everything they film is true.. so by their logic so was this. To get the crew to help them they reconstructed the ship to every minute detail. Tommy can fly the ship just like he would in the show. Alexander gets the food of the race he played and Gwen…has to say what the computer says because that was her job on the show.
(She kinda looks like Claire from Modern Family)
No matter how hard the crew tries however, it doesn’t take long for cracks to appear in this reality. Gwen’s role of repeating the computer, isn’t very practical or even useful, it’s just how female sci-fi roles were written in that time. She doesn’t know what else to do. Tommy over 18 years forgot what he used to do on set to control the spaceship, even then he was just busy with acting not actively thinking on how to steer a ship. Things did not happen because of his piloting skills, things happened because of plot. So when he steers into a minefield this time.. things go bad very fast.
(Why are missles always more effective than lasers anyway?)
Fred was just saying lines on the job he has no real idea how a beryllium engine sphere works, so his reports to the captain are filled with doubt. Jason doesn’t realise he is not actually Peter Taggart.. and expects they have plot armor..but this movie tells them .. you don’t…. well of course they don’t die which would have been the most likely outcome..but still they suffer a big loss. I really like that they don’t actually have the skills and acting out the part is not always enough.
(1/10 Villian not Edgie Enough add more SKULSS PLOX)
A Real Lie
The third act of the movie is focussed on the actors fessing up to their lies and coming to a realisation that they are not the actually heroes of Galaxy Quest. They are not what keeps it alive. In truth it is the fandom. The show is over.. so it’s not the writing or their acting that keeps them having their job. It’s people who love their adventures.. much like these aliens they were trying to help. It’s those crazy sweaty guys that cue up for you and ask you stupid questions about terminal 125B-Q, it is those people who see you as a real captain.
(I would open a hairsalon on Themaria)
Galaxy Quest is not made by the actors who love being praised.. it is made by the people who praise it. These aliens made their ship.. and trough communication with some hardcore fans on earth the group is able to get stuff done. We see them come to terms with thinking as a fan.. treating this like it was real.. like the characters are real.. because in the hearts who made this ship.. they are real. At a certain point Rickman has to say his catchphrase to a dying Thermian..who just wants to here “By Grabthar’s Hammer You Shall be Avenged” .. because it means so much to him. Thus for the first time the phrase really gets meaning! It became real! Such a nice scene!
To me Galaxy Quest is not just about the jokes and the dry humor. It’s not about it’s predictable plot.. it’s the motivations that drive this movie. It’s not about the fight against some generic alien. Sarris is pretty generically designed.. if you think evil alien. you probably have one or two features of Sarris included in there. He is green, Lizardlike, Has warpaint, evil looking armor.. he speaks exactly like you imagine him to to do etc. Galaxy Quest is in essence NOT a movie about a Actor getting in over his head, even if that is the plot. It’s about how fans can make something made by others greater. How they can understand it better and elevate it to another level. It’s about how an adventure did not have to actually have happened for it to be real. It’s a message to never stop loving!
(If you stop loving what you love Saris will kill you!)
I really love and watching this movie always makes me happy to be a geek. Loving a show isn’t a bad thing.. even if a story is fake it can inspire us. Maybe one day a Trekkie will actually discover warp speed based on the show, maybe one day aliens will read my blogs and use technology to give me anime powers.. because I inspired them.. who knows! Fiction can touch us in different ways and respecting it’s fandom is key. We as fans do not create shows.. or movies.. or have a say in what type of game we get. It’s our duty as fans to keep alive what we love!
Which Popcorn flick is your Guilty Pleasure? What movies are you overly positive about? Let me know in the comments and spread some love!
Way back in days of old, there was a legend told. About a hero know as Galavant Square jaw and perfect hair, Cojones out to there! There was no hero quite like Galavant!
This bardic song ushered one of the most memorable tv shows I have ever watched. It’s one of the rare examples of british tv that I like! In fact I love this little show! Even if it got cancelled after two seasons and was subject to terrible critic reviews… maybe it’s the worst thing after all.
Blackadder the Musical
For those who have never seen this amazing show, it is a british musical comedy set in a medieval fantasy world. It’s not very high on fantasy elements though it’s all fairly tame with just some minor magic and a mythical creature sporadically spread throughout the series. We follow the fallen hero of Galavant who has lost his love Madeleina to the evil king Richard. Who usurped many other countries. Along with dethroned Princess Isabella and his trusty companion and squire Sid. Very early in the show we discover that Medalena isn’t exactly a damsel distress but a spoiled rotten power hungry wench who sleeps with just about everyone except for King Richard and Galavant.
A hilarious journey with plenty of twists and turns ensues. With enough betrayals to mimic game of thrones and enough dry humor to be Black Adder, the old classic Rowan Atkinson show we already got a different sort of beast. Yet that isn’t where it ends. The show is a musical epic, where each episode has one or two amazingingly humorous, well written songs that start very disney and as the show goes on become more and more broadway spoofs. A combination that i haven’t ever really seen nor would I think it would work out. For example take this song where the two villains and the two main heroes start growing closer together despite their differences.
A Sacrilegious Crusade.
As it should be with these kind of shows, nothing is safe from being the subject as jokes. The characters all share this fourth wall like awareness which enables to tell them how much their lives differ from all the tropes we have been spoonfed. This show lives to kick down your classic tropes. As much as they possibly can. Even pirates do not roam the see, no they are landpirates.. .who still sing about the sea. Character know their series switches epsiodes, they are aware they have low Nielsen ratings because of the singing, and they know that because they live in the middle ages there is a big chance their children will die from one of the many nasty diseases. So.. there is just a hint of deadpool sprinkled throughout the series mostly during the songs.
So with dead baby jokes, constant slut jokes, plenty of virgin jokes as well and jokes making fun of the token character and plenty of minorities this show isn’t exactly politically correct. Yet all the jokes are also innocent enough , it’s just that no one is spared. In a way that is part of it’s charm. I never felt insulted at least, even if they make plenty of gay joke and poor jokes never I felt wronged. The jokes again mostly focus on the tropes and hardly tackle reality. So if you are easily offended perhaps this might not be the best show for you but at least to me it was all fairly innocent. Galavant is very aware of that it is set in medieval times, troughout the entire show, which means characters will not care about being politically correct and this song from the second season makes that and my entire point about this paragraph very clear.
Actual actors singing
A cute touch of the show is that all the actors who star in this show are the ones singing and again the series has some fun with that. For example Luke Youngblood who plays Sid might not be the strongest singer of the group but that results into his lines being “cut” by weird jump cuts to other locations or characters taking over his lines and such. Meanwhile Joshua Sasse who plays the titular character is singing quite well and gets so many songs that sometimes Galavant himself doesn’t really know what to do with a song.. being unable to think of words fast enough because he has so many songs.. or him running out of breath. When Vinnie Jones character Gareth sings.. it sounds awful. Because it’s Vinnie Jones, no one would imagine he could sing and the show makes it very clear to us that he really can’t . Gareth and the show are very aware of that though with him barely getting any songs and when he finally gets a song alongside madelana she talks about how different she is from him. She tells how she likes fancy meals and fancy wines on the rhythm of the music. Vinnie Jones lines are “I want meat and more meat” and Beer Beer Beer Beer Beer Beer. Why waste rhymes on a non singer after all yet it all brilliantly works out. Characters are so aware of who they are they can get annoyed for being dragged into a song that doesn’t fit their style or notice when a line seems out of character.
The most briljant character in the show Timothy Omundson who plays king Richard. Who is very much like the king Richard in Robin Hood. Mostly the disney version. He has a small heart and actually wants to be loved, despite that he is evil. As the show goes on we see him grow into the main character more and more over Galavant.. which is great! The chosen hero trope gets shattered again by this show. One of my favorite jokes throughout the series is that Richard turns out to be a virgin, a quality which apparently attracts unicorns. Each time Richard is bragging about his sexual conquests a unicorn shows up to signal he is lying. Which obviously Richard will try to rationalise with that the unicorn must be mistaken or is not a real unicorn, only to be proven time and time again that it is legit. It’s that kind of humor throughout the show. It just tries to have fun with it characters and actors. The show knows it’s to out there to have any credibility so they just make sure both the actors and the people have a fun time. This is very well illustrated in the song “secret mission” where two enemies band together to stop an even bigger evil. Rules of the world phase in and out as it works for the comedy and thats exactly how this show should be.
Wonderful Chaos
This show is a show where anything can happen, it’s one of those kids who wants to colour outside the lines just to be different. Yet never does that colouring make it look ugly. You can still see where this story is going ,you can understand the characters because it’s so much about them. They sing about what they think and due to that we get a lot more insight in them as we would trough normal dialogue. We know what drives them and plagues them and it all just feels great. Galavant feels like a middle finger to the standardised writing that has come over most western media. I’d compare it to family guy but it has so much more pay off, their side stories bland together so well.
The narrator is a jester who lives in their world for example. Of course Madalena also sleeps with him and when Richard suspect that he thinks she likes Jester because he is funny, he wants a lesson in comedy from the man. While Richard is to evil to understand killing people is not funny, the Jester calls it comedy gold, not just to please his king but because to us the viewers it’s a very funny scene. Very similar to when Spongebob sang the FUN song with Plankton. Some side characters realise that they are the “red shirts” (A star trek trope for faceless people who always die during missions) of the show and they plan to kill the main characters to end the show.. just so they can have a happy end. Which becomes a returning joke for them or others like them. They often sing about their bliss in their missery. Yet nothing beats the character arc of Richard in the second season! Those final words he ushered, that final song the show goes out on, it knows so incredibly well what it is and what we want to hear as an audience that I count it among my favorite show endings off all times.That line at the end .. was just perfection… of course to see perfection you will have to watch the show! Until then here is a sexy song. That one is very spoiler friendly and one of my favorite songs from the show!
Dear guests, today I want to talk to you about the recent, dark horror comedy, Ready or Not. The movie stars Samara Weaving (The Babysitter) Andie MacDowell (Groundhog Day) and Henry Czerny (Mission Impossible) as well as a slew of lesser know people in a movie that is all about a very deadly game of hide and seek. One that is aimed at a chuckle rather than a jumpscare. How good is it?
Hide and Seek
Grace (Samara Weaving) is about to marry Alex Le Domas, heir to a family that made their money with board games. She quickly notices how strange her new, filthy rich, in-laws are. Her Aunt never smiles, her father in-law sees her as a golddigger and her sister in-law, her brother in-law clearly is a boozer and her sister in-law clearly is on drugs. The rich sure are different. Yet she has no idea yet how strange the family is. On her wedding night she has to play a game at midnight. The Patriarch tells how their family made a deal with a mysterious man, who promised them fortune if they performed this little ritual. From a magic box you have to draw a card with the name of a game, of all the games one leads to a life or death scenario.. and wouldn’t you know it .. Grace draws that card.. the life or death game being hide and seek. The family starts hunting her with weapons from the earliest days of America. What follows is one of the most twisted and disturbed but funny movies that I have seen in awhile. Because of how polarised it is however, I do find it somewhat tricky to be invested in either the horror or comedy side for it.
Scream and Laugh
While Weaving plays a briljant Grace and kept me invested throughout the entire movie, I had some difficulty how to feel. The movie clearly aims to be funny, with snafu’s happening and zippy and spunky dialogue. There are moments of clear slapstick and the comedy is actually good. The evil aunt calling her niece ‘brown haired niece’ because she just doesn’t care at all about the family and just about their pact and wealth is great and feels both funny and fitting at the same time. The slapstick comes from reasons and the follow-up is acted out well as a well deserved punchline. The revealed set up also makes sense so comedy wise this movie is quite solid and good for a few chuckles. However it is when the horror elements come in we ask ourselves if that chuckle was right or bad. There is this sequence of body-horror somewhere in the middle where Grace suffers some horrible injuries, brought to life in such a visceral manner. I could really feel her pain. There are parts segments in this movie where I really feared for her, once again due to the great acting of our lead actress. This movie is a dark horror-comedy and it certainly lives up to that name, however I would have liked to see it blend a bit more. One scene I am watching a comedy, the other I am watching a horror movie and it pulls both parts off, however each time they switch, you feel like your thrown for a loop.
Watch and Listen
Visually I loved this movie, the Le Domas mansion is so interesting, and it feels like an actual house and not just a set. Clearly some care and clever design went into this place. It feels like the family owns this place, their signature can be read all over it, from the first generation only mentioned to the modern one we see today, it feels like they all had their impact on this place and which room goes where makes sense.Because this house has ‘servant’ exits as a sort of “secret’ passageways (not a spoiler this is in the first five minutes of the movie) they can play around with who is where in the house at all times as well. A great plan that works quite nice. It also looks stunning. The way scenes are chosen to be filmed (in a cinematography sense) with very close shots of everyone makes the film feel a bit claustrophobic while making the mansion seem way bigger. This works greatly and to me amplifies the small scope of Grace misadventures. At times this can lead it to feel a bit ‘reality tv-ish’ because most of the camera work is done by guys holding camera’s without to much rigs and such, which can make the framing a bit boring but it does work for this film and small locations, it never feels like it’s a 2 walled set, it feels as if you are trapped in a room with grace.. and the camera guy. The sound design while nothing special again portrays how quirky and strange the rich can be which is a important theme throughout this movie, so while I wont remember anything except for two pieces of music, it does work.
Write and Rewrite
The movie’s plot focuses on the families deal with a mister Le Bael , who allegedly demands a sacrifice, because his toy gave a certain card, and whether or not this belief is just rich man superstition or not, slowly building up to their memorable and funny conclusion. Writing-wise I have some issues with the movie though. Two very important characters flip around in their beliefs a lot, Grace moves from frail and scared to ‘final girl’ very quickly and the movie sets up a few plot points that it doesnt follow up on. It works well in the theme of ‘rich people are weird and quirky’ but really it could have been a bit more tweaked. Most of the family stay extremely superficial throughout the movie where they never get past their trope. It fits the cult feeling of this movie very well but it reduces the impact of outsmarting people. Grace managing to sneak by the oblivious guy or the uninterested woman , who only cares for the family for their money, doesn’t seem like too much of a victory. However one person hunting Grace is depicted as almost a Terminator. Locating her with pinpoint precision, taking plenty of abuse and even catching up with her in a seemingly impossible situation. While the movie sketches a interestingly and deviously dark and funny cat and mouse game, it doesn’t really pace out the wiggle room the mouse has that greatly. There are some rules and confinements in place that limit Grace, but when such an obstacle is overcome the writers have to prevent her from just ‘leaving’ the movie. One in particular feels very forced where we have to assume A LOT in the term of a board game families power. So when the movie gives Grace some freedom and then has a change of heart it kinda feels cheap. One can argue that is okay with cult-horror , but no one particular scene they really messed up combining their terminator with one of these ‘freedom retcons’
Judge and Score
Ready or Not is a good horror-comedy that does a lot of things very well. It however is a movie that never becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Each scene I value on it’s own and most score pretty high. Never though did I really feel I was watching anything but a movie. It did not suck me in, but it did made me relax and laugh and enjoy my popcorn. In movies like Maleficent 2 , I hate the convenient twists and the extremely unlikely ending. It tries to be an epic and make us feel for the character and get sucked into their world, thusly anything that I would think never happen… I deem as bad. The disney movie having plenty of that. This one though very much knows that is cult and campy pulp, from the trope-like concept to it’s execution, it never pretends to build an amazing world or mythos. There is just this 90 minute movie meant to entertain you in a really nothing more nothing less type of deal. So how do I rate this? This one is a bit tricky. For what it is it’s a great and very enjoyable watch. Yet it is also too shallow to be really good. .. So with that in mind I have no choice but to rank it as a Berry-Kiwi cocktail. If you can turn of your sense of logic for 90 minutes it is more than likely a Berry Good movie. If you want some semblance of sense.. you’ll mostly taste the Okiwi, but all in all this a great blend.
Pinkie's Paradise 