zrath

Netflixing

One Step Beyond (1959) Season 1 Disc 1
A new release from CBS Home Video, who recently brought out both seasons of one of my chilhood favorites,
"The Invaders". "One Step Beyond" is an old black & white TV anthology series which premiered before
"Twilight Zone" and so far seems to focus more on strange phenomena and the unexplained.
I have only seen the first Disc so far, so I may be in error.
None of the episodes were particularly scary, opting more for slight spookiness and weirdness.
A few examples include: a newlywed Southern belle who suddenly speaks and acts like a totally different
woman, insists she didn't commit suicide, and provides information that lead to the arrest of her killer;
a wife who senses that something bad happened to her missing husband and eventually leads the police to
the site of his car accident; several people who all have premonitions about the sinking of the Titanic
(that episode stars an impossibly-young Patrick MacNee! :D ). So yeah, you see where the show is at.
I'll be getting and watching the other discs.

Space: 1999 (1975-1977) all 17 Discs - both seasons
I used to watch this show on French TV, dubbed in French, and I remember being scared by several episodes.
This is the first time I've seen it in the original English, and the first time I've seen Season 2, which
was never shown on French TV for some reason. And the two seasons are very different in tone and pacing.
Season 1 is, according to producer Sylvia Anderson, a voyage into fear, fear of the unknown.
And wow, that explains so much! Season 1 feels like a horror sci-fi show! The opening theme music is pretty
awesome, but a lot of the incidental music is plain creepy. There are plenty of dark corners, skeletons,
horribly disfigured bodies, screaming, general creepiness and nervous laughter in the way of humor.
Brian Blessed was in one episode and wound up melted! But the one episode that really scared the crap outta
me was a little masterpiece called "Dragon's Domain", featuring a graveyard of spaceships overseen by a
tentacled creature that would teleport in, roar nonstop, and mind-control its victims into jumping into
its giant perpetually-open maw. Said maw would then spit out the dehydrated husks of its victims.
I WAS 10 YEARS-OLD, FER FANGED GOD'S SAKE!! At home, alone! I had nightmares for WEEKS!
Compared to Season 1, Season 2 is a bitching funky disco time packed with action-packed action! :D
All the music's been replaced, the intro is a thrilling disco number, and some light humor has been added.
There are unexplained cast changes a-plenty! Dr. Bergman? Gone! Kano the computer guy? Gone! Paul? Gone!
New people? Maya the alien who fills the Dr. Bergman and Spock role, and is a lot more fun to be around!
And she can turn into other living creatures! And dammit, she's cute! There's also Tony, the security chief
who likes Maya a lot and various other people who were never even seen in Season 1.
The show's lighting got brighter, chasing away all those dark corners. The uniforms got brighter too.
The show was changed to appeal more to the all-important American audience ('cause America had the money!).
Now that I have seen every single episode, I have come to the realization that I don't really like the show
much and that I used to watch it back in France just because it was on, and I loved the Eagles. And also,
Commander Koenig (Martin Landau) and Dr. Russell (Barbara Bain), the two main characters, looked a bit
like my mom and dad. It was weird to see them up there, on a moonbase, in charge of stuff. :)
My Dinky Toys die-cast Eagle Transport toy remains my all-time favorite die-cast toy ever.

The Chase (1966)
Heat + booze + bored Texas townfolks + escaped convict = recipe for disaster.
Oh yeah, this is a fun movie, filled with racism, adultery, small-town corruption, and vigilantism.
Marlon Brando plays the town sheriff, who turns out to be the only sane guy in the entire flippin' burgh.
Well, him and his wife, played by Angie Dickinson. The escaped convict is played by Robert Redford, who was
then an unknown. His wife is played by Jane Fonda. The rest of the cast includes E.G. Marshall, James Fox,
Robert Duvall, Clifton James and an impossibly-young Paul Williams. :D
The escapee is basically a good kid, just a little wild sometimes. He got sent to jail after being framed
for a crime he didn't commit. The bastard who did commit the crime is afraid the convict will come get him.
The bastard is respectable now, see? Director of the local bank, owned by the local rich guy.
The escapee broke out with a stone-cold killer, who wasted no time killing someone, and the escapee is now
blamed for that murder, which freaks out the townfolks even more. They're convinced he's coming back.
By the time the movie ends, it's a flaming trainwreck of a situation: horrible, but you can't look away.
This is why we don't hire people from Texas. :D

Wallace & Gromit: A Matter Of Loaf And Death (2008)
Just released on Region 1 DVD, this is the most recent W&M short, and it is hilarious.
It is a murder mystery, and I do believe this is the first Wallace & Gromit project to feature death,
albeit in a humorous sort of way. Watch for the Hitchcock, "Ghost" and "Aliens" references. :)
The DVD contains a couple of featurettes and one episode of "Shaun The Sheep" (the soccer one).

Batman: The Brave and the Bold: Vol. 1 (2009)
This DVD contains the first 4 episodes of Season 1 of the new Batman cartoon. The show is done in a more
lighthearted way than "Batman: TAS" and "JL/JLU", going back to the campier side, per se.
The art style is kind of chunky and I can see Kirbiesque bits here and there.
Batman is paired with another superhero in each episode, and they're pulling some of the more obscure ones,
like Red Tornado (I had to look him up) and Blue Beetle (though it's a new Blue Beetle, or something).
Aquaman seems to be channeling Brian Blessed. Green Arrow's a bit childish and very competitive with Batman.
Personally, I've been enjoying the show, it's a lot of fun. Here's one of my favorite exchanges:

Plastic Man: "Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Because I’m seeing gorillas, riding pterodactyls,
with harpoon guns, stealing a boat."
Batman: "It’s Gorilla Grodd."
Plastic Man: "It’s messed up is what it is!"

How can you not love such ridiculousness?
I wouldn't buy this DVD though, or any other "Volume". I would hold out for a complete season pack.

Torchwood: Children of Earth (2009)
I've touched on this briefly in another post. Russell T. Davis is a horrible man and I wish him misery.
What he's done to his creation is reprehensible and the acts of a petty vengeful being.
This 5-part mini-series, making up the totality of Season 3, was a crucible for me. I mean, I started
watching Season 1 of this dumb little show that apparently wrote its own slash fiction, ha ha ha. And by
the time Season 2 came around, to my surprise, I started liking the dumb little show and caring about it.
I've never had any emotional attachment to ~~Battlescar Angstactica~~ "Battlestar Galactica",
but dammit, I cared about that bunch of misfits led by the man who couldn't die!
I was pretty much crushed by the end of "CoE".
That horrible man says he has Season 4 all planned out.
I'm not sure I want to see what he has in store.

The Astonishing Work of Tezuka Osamu
Tezuka who? The creator of "Astro Boy", "Kimba The White Lion" and "The Amazing 3", that's who! :)
I was hoping this was a documentary about the man widely regarded as "the Disney of Japan" and "the Father
of Manga", but it turned to be a collection of his experimental animation work. Of all the shorts
gathered on this DVD, only two of them were familiar to me: "Jumping" and the hilarious "Broken Down Film".
"Jumping" is a first-person perspective cartoon about a child who starts jumping progressively higher and
farther. It's pretty neat and works in Tezuka's signature peacenik and "green" tendencies.
"Broken Down Film" is a retro black and white cowboy cartoon with an old timey soundtrack. The cartoon
is badly damaged, so the frame gets out of synch, or breaks, or dirt gets trapped. All these problems
are actually exploited by the characters in the cartoon in a rather Tex Avery-like twist. Funny stuff!
There are over a dozen additional shorts, some incomprehensibly Japanese in subject matter.
One really good short is "The Legend of the Forest", the tale of woodland critters and fairyfolk versus
evil developers. The short actually changes animation style several times during its run. It's neat!
If you're an animation buff, this is worth a rental.

House, M.D. (2004) Season 1 Disc 1
So yeah, everybody loves House and lots of people seem to have House icons on their Live Journal accounts.
I like Hugh Laurie as much as the next guy, but I disliked medical shows and coroner shows.
Maybe it's something about not liking gore, maybe it's something about losing my mom and my brother to
cancer and spending interminable hours in a pauper's hospital (LAC+USC) watching over my brother.
Recently, I decided, "to heck with it, I'm gonna see what the fuss is about".
I Netflixed Season 1 Disc 1 and started watching. Right from the first episode, there's a problem.
Rory Gilmore (well, the actress who played her on "Gilmore Girls", one of my guilty pleasures) is a patient
and I get to see a hole carved into her throat by a scalpel in loving details. Oh boy.
Okay, I figure it's just a fluke, let's press on.
Episode 2: a kid is brought in with some kind of neurological problem. Halfway into the episode,
he's strapped into a chair and a computer arm drives A LONG FUCKING NEEDLE DIRECTLY INTO HIS RIGHT EYE!
I couldn't press Eject fast enough.
Rule #1 of the Kzinti Freehold: YOU DO NOT FUCK WITH THE EYES! EVAR!
Thank you, I'm done with "House".

Taken (2008)
Aka "Liam Neeson Kicks Ass And Takes Names". I've already written about this in a normal post, so I'll
just remind y'all that this is a really cool action film packed with a few surprises.
Uncle Liam plays a retired CIA operative whose daughter is kidnapped by Albanian white slavers mere hours
after she arrives in Paris with a friend. The full fury of Uncle Liam is unleashed! DARKMAN SMASH! :D
The DVD I got from Netflix is the theatrical version, recut for a PG-13 rating to satisfy those assholes
at Fox. They did release the "Extended Cut" on DVD though, and I'm planning to get that eventually.

More later...

Current Mood: peckish
Current Music: The Black Dog - "Silenced" album

Tags:

Well, it's been an interesting week...

Monday: Urrrrrrrr, I did something bureaucratic and time-consuming, but I can't remember what.
Oh well!

Tuesday: I went to my local EDD office to get some info on my unemployment benefits claim.
My one-year claim ended on July 25th, and there's still money in it, and I'm still unemployed.
So I was wondering what was gonna happen. Do I file another claim? Does the extension kick in?
Instead of spending a long time trying to get through on the phone, I figured I'd go to the office.
I tried the website but the info was simply not there.
Anyway, I get to the office, and it's a pale shadow of what it was 3 years ago.
It's basically a reception area and a bank of computers for people to browse job listings.
No one at the office has access to claim information any more.
They made me wait my turn to use a phone to call the EDD office in Sacramento.
What. The. Frak.
And when I got through to a living human being, she basically took my information down and told me
somebody would be in touch within the next 10 days. (!!!!!!!!)
WHAT. THE. FRAK.
It's, like, nobody has access to the information! Not even the people who work there!
What manner of complete insanity is this!?!??
ZRATH SMASH!!!

Once home, I found an e-mail from

slipdragon that he received the money I sent him. He's moving soon and he was
selling a bunch of stuff. Of particular interest to me was a large plastic tub full of Lego.
We're talking about 45 POUNDS of high-tech ABS goodness! According to him, the tub contains all the
Classic Space sets from 1979 to the mid-80's. That's pretty incredible in itself, but there's more!
Early Star Wars sets like the X-Wing, B-Wing, A-Wing, Y-Wing and TIE Advanced, along with a Cloud City
playset and this Millenium Falcon. I only have the tiny Mini Falcon, so that's totally awesome!
I've seen a photo of the tub, I could see bits of partly assembled sets that match the description.
He mentioned that he was missing a lot of instructions, but thanks to the massive Lego Internet presence,
finding scanned instructions and complete part inventories is easy as cake, and piece of pie. :)
My plan for this tub is to sort everything and rebuild as many sets as possible. Some will go on eBay
and some will stay in my permanent collection. I have a lot of Classic Space stuff already, so all the
duplicates are headed for the auction block. I'm hoping to fill some of the holes in my collection.
This will be a long-lasting project, I've got my work cut out for me. But I'm not complaining! :D

That night, I watched Disc 1 of "Torchwood: Children of Earth", with the first three episodes.
Hummmmmm, wow. What's with the alien that looks like the missile silo creature from original "Half Life"?
It's much smaller of course, but still. I was dreading how this was going to end.

Wednesday: The driver's side power window on the F(n)ord (St)Ranger, which had been acting up for a month,
finally decided it wouldn't go down anymore. No amount of pushing on the door could coax it to lower.
So I called Joe The Mechanic, who's familiar with the patient, and made an appointment for the next day.
I completed my errands for the day with the driver's side window up, the passenger side window down,
and the climate control on full. The air conditioning doesn't work, so it was blowing in outside air.
Driver's side window stuck in up position + no A/C + L.A. summer = DEATH! Well, sort of...
Netflix e-mailed me to let me know that Disc 2 of "Torchwood: Children of Earth" was en route.

Thursday: I was up bright and early at 08:00. I stopped at McDo for a couple of Sausage McMuffins and
arrived at Joe's at 09:00. They opened the driver's side door panel and started diagnosing the problem.
Turns out the motor was dead and needed to be replaced. Joe called around and found one, but it wouldn't
be there until the next day. So they rigged my window to stay up, despite them having removed the motor
and the bracket and everything else, and sent me on my way.
Once I got home, I found an e-mail from Slip with the shipping confirmation number for the Lego tub. W00T!!
Said tub is scheduled for delivery early next week. Excellent! I gotta make sure I'm home to get it.
I also found Disc 2 of "Torchwood: Children of Earth", with the last 2 episodes, in my mailbox.
I watched it that night and found myself wishing harm on the writer/producer, RTD, aka Russell T. Davis.
I am so glad this man is no longer involved with "Doctor Who".
However, Auntie Sue (

selenesue) told me that Season 4 of "Torchwood" is already planned.
Well, golly, there's NOT MUCH LEFT of Torchwood after "Children of Earth"! What's going to happen?
I went to bed at 02:00, slightly angry. Argh.

Friday: Up bright and early at 08:00 and at Joe's at 09:00.
The motor was scheduled to arrive by UPS at 10:30, so I chilled and read the current issue of Car & Driver.
I also browsed Popular Mechanics and saw a blurb about the new Nerf gun coming out in September.
It looks like a WWII submachine gun and uses a 35-dart drum magazine. Check it out.
The forward grip slides back and forth. If you cycle the grip back and forth once, pressing the trigger
shoots one dart. If you keep the trigger down and cycle the grip repeatedly, you get rapid fire.
I had an old Edison Giocattoli toy submachine that worked the same way, it shot little rubber shells.
Can you believe I originally bought it at Toys'R'Us in the '80s? How things change...

The motor arrived at 11:00, and upon opening the box, it was discovered that it was the wrong part.
But of course!!! Story of my life! They sent the passenger side window motor, an exact mirror image.
Time to go home? Yes! Because the new part wouldn't get here in time to be installed. OH BOY!!

I had promised

girlfmkitty that I would help her move boxes today, so I rang her up once I got home.
Since no one from the EDD had contacted me yet, I filed a new claim on the website. Can't hurt, I guess.
After getting some late lunch (those McDo McMuffins are made of lead, I swear!), I went over to her old pad
to load up the (St)Ranger. We made two trips in total and got a lot done. Her new place is a couple of
blocks from my default Trader Joe's, amusingly enough. Plenty of stuff in walking distance too.
I got home early enough to be able to put some items up for auction on eBay. Click here to see my auctions.
I've got some of them newfangled Lego Star Wars minifigures like Admiral Ackbar and Mon Mothma and stuff.
By the way, if anyone local has something they want to eBay, but can't do it for whatever reason, I'm
willing to help out. I have a digital camera, I know shipping, and I can do write-ups. Just let me know.
I didn't get a call from Joe The Mechanic, so I had no idea if the right motor had come in or not.

Saturday: Joe called me up at 09:00 to let me know the right motor was there. I rolled out of bed,
prepped, and got there at 10:00 sharp. They put the motor in, put everything back together and voila!
I gave Joe all my cash and he let me pay the rest of the bill later. He's such a cool guy!
I got home at around 13:00 and called GirlKitty to tell her I was ready to help with the actual big move.
After grabbing some lunch stuff from Ralphs, I went to her new pad to greet the fridge delivery people
while she and Auntie Sue went back to the old place to pack more stuff and supervise the movers.
I ate lunch, read my Car & Driver and laughed at the pathetic usable range of the all-electric Mini E.
The rest of the day was taken up with moving stuff to the new apartment, unloading everything, stacking
boxes willy-nilly, and trying to figure out where to have dinner. Dinah's Family Restaurant won out.
3 of the 5 of us had chicken fried steak, myself included. We don't why. :D
After dinner, there was one final load of stuff to grab at the old apartment. To my surprise, everything
fit in the back of (St)Ranger. Everybody's ass was draggin' while we unloaded the truck at the new place.
Finally, I was done! I went home and immediately showered, checked e-mail and stuff, then went to bed.
It was almost 03:00.

Sunday: I stayed in bed until 14:00! Woooooooooh!
To my surprise, I was not nearly as sore as I thought I would be.
I had a late lunch at In-N-Out, then did some grocery shopping, then put up some more stuff on eBay.
Then I relaxed and watched "Taken", with Liam Neeson. OMG what a kick-ass little film!
Neeson's daughter goes to Paris and promptly gets kidnapped by white slavers. He's a retired agent,
like an older version of Michael Westen from "Burn Notice", and he goes to Paris to get her back.
The film is cowritten by Luc Besson and contains at least two scenes that made me go "F*CK!" out loud.
It's less than 90 minutes but it's jampacked with ass-kicking goodness and action-packed action! :D
The Kzin says "check it out"!

And it took me two hours to type this, and it doubled in size and picked up several links in the process.
I think it's time for beeeeeeeeeed!
Bonne nuit!

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: WipEout Fusion game soundtrack