cinema history class: them!

Session: Bring Your Own Movie Month, Week 3 (Dave)
Movie: Them! (1954)
Directed by Gordon Douglas

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Plot:
Giant ants are discovered in New Mexico. And they've spread. The military desperately tries to hunt them down before it's too late. Horror ensues.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

Soon after Keith treated us to a giant monsters month (which included a giant scorpion movie), Dave brought (for his BYOM month entry) a giant ant movie. The guys in class were shocked to find out that I had never seen Them!, since it's acclaimed as one of the classic giant monster flicks. Wait until they learn that I haven't seen Tarantula.

At any rate, Them! deserves its acclaim. The mechanically-achieved ant effects weren't as effective as the stop motion that was used in The Black Scorpion, but  it was still worlds better than the typical CGI which looks impressive but fails to actually scare. The story was engaging and frightening. If you forget the square-cube law, you could almost believe.

Special kudos to young Sandy Descher, who played the little girl in shock at the beginning. One almost wishes that she had a bigger role, because she did such a good job pulling off what she had.

Perhaps the best part of Them! is the very ending where the scientist gives his ominous warning about the evils that have been unleashed. This immediately made me think of the physicist, Robert Oppenheimer. Upon witnessing Trinity, the first nuclear bomb test, he famously quoted the Bhagavad-Gita, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." That was the perfect way to end the film.

Ratings

Me: 9.5

Bob: 10

Christina: 10

Joe: 10
Keith: 10

what we have left of cream

Back in June when we took Cream to the vet for what we all knew was his final trip, Blair and I were assuming that we would bury him in the yard. We're Jewish, so our mindset is to bury. We have buried a bunch of cats in the yard over the years. And we just assumed that that's what Sharon wanted too.

We should have discussed it with her.

As we got close to home with Cream's body -- with normal traffic, this vet is about 45 minutes away -- Sharon finally told us what had been on her mind. She wanted him cremated. As I would later learn, she didn't like the idea of bugs eating his body. I have some thoughts on that, but the fact is Cream was her cat so Blair and I respected her wishes.

So we drove back to the vet, dead cat in the car, and filled out the forms. But it's not quite as simple as that. You can have your pet cremated with a whole batch of other similarly situated pets. For an extra fee, they'll cremate your pet by itself and return the ashes to you. And, of course, the crematory has lots of memorial souvenirs you can purchase to remember your pet. Cream was Sharon's first pet -- she barely remembers life before him. So Blair and I pretty much gave her carte-blanche to get what she wanted.

So Sharon has a little urn necklace, with a little bit of Cream's ashes in it. And a yin-yang pendant with Cream's noseprint and pawprint engraved on it. And the ashes (except for what's in the urn necklace) are in a satin bag in a box. At least until such time as Sharon decides to spread them out in the front yard where Blair created a Cream memorial garden (mostly flowers with white or off-white colors).

I am thinking about this now because of the timing. Cream took his final ride in June, right before Sharon went to California. When I heard from the vet's office that they have our Cream souvenirs, I asked if they can hold on to them for a bit -- Sharon didn't want someone else to pick them up without us. So yesterday -- Sharon's first Saturday at home after her trip -- she and I went to the vet to pick up Cream.

And somnetime soon we have to go into Manhattan and find a suitable chain for the yin yang necklace.

In the meantime, we have our memories.

cinema history class: address unknown

Session: Bring Your Own Movie Month, Week 2 (Joe)
Movie: Address Unknown (1944)
Directed by William Cameron Menzies

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Plot:
In the 1930s, two German expats -- one Jewish, one not -- maintain a business partnership and friendship in San Francisco. When one returns to Germany, they find their friendship tested. Horror ensues.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

I have been attending this class for something like eight years. And this is without question the most powerful movie we've seen. I tried, after we watched it, to describe the power. But words failed me.

They still do, to some extent. 

The story is obviously a big factor. It addresses topics such as loyalty, love, hate and cowardice. And it addresses the issue of how seemingly good people can be seduced into embracing evil.

But the film's greatness goes beyond that. I question whether this really qualifies as film noir, but the dialog is very noirish. And the cinematography is incredible. I loved the scene where the censor exited the theater after ordering the actors to cut dialog. He slowly gets smaller and smaller -- a tiny silhouette of black against a white background. And I am still haunted by the vision of Martin, terrified, peering through the iron fence around his villa.

We have seen some great movies in this class, and I have given out a bunch of tens over the years. But this may be the tenniest ten I've ever tenned.

Ratings

Me: 10

Bob: 9.0

Christina: 9.2

Dave: 10
Keith: 10

cinema history class: the little girl who lived down the lane

Session: Bring Your Own Movie Month, Week 1 (Me)
Movie: The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)
Directed by Nicolas Gessner

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Plot:
A secretive teenage girl, just trying to mind her own damn business, piques the curiosity and concern of various townsfolk. Horror ensues.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

Sometime in the mid 1980's -- I forget the exact year -- I was pulling an all-nighter for a differential equations exam. Sometime in the wee hours I took a break and turned on the TV. A movie -- The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane -- was starting. I had never heard of it before, but that first scene was engrossing enough that I stayed with it. And it stayed with me. For years and years I remembered the film. Not in its entirety, but certain pivotal scenes. And the ending. I didn't watch it again, but these scenes were burned into my memory.

Last year, during lockdown,  I streamed it. It was just as engrossing and good as I recalled. And that was when I decided to bring it for BYOM month. Little Girl is a small but powerful movie. The screenplay was adapted from a stage script (via a novelization. As a result, there is a small cast -- only five roles of any substance, and there are never more than three of them together. But the dialogue is lean and efficient -- and sharp. It's not really a horror movie -- more of a psychological thriller. And it does thrill.

The rest of the class received the movie quite well. There were some concerns over some plot points, but nothing that anyone seemed to feel ruined the movie.

Ratings

Bob: 9.0

Christina: 9.3

Dave: 9.5
Joe: 10
Keith: 9.5

test footage part 2

Last month I wrote a brief post about shooting test footage for Three Slices of Delirium.

Keith's friend and (what? assistant? technician, film editing expert?), Steve, threw the footage onto backgrounds. This seems to be part of a process of seeing how much we can get away with using green screens vs. actual sets or locations. It is also helping us (and by "us" I mean "Keith") figure out what he can do to make the green screen shoots look more realistic. In this case, the chair that Chris used helps to give  the scene more depth. Possibly adding other real objects will help more.

This first snippet is of Chris running some dialogue from his slice, "The Last Kiss of Ullalume."

We also shot a couple short snippets of me as Professor Crisp in "The Premature Burial."

And another take: