Session: Monsters International -- Big! Hairy! Scaly! Scary!, Week 4 Movie: Yongary, Monster from the Deep (1967) Directed by Kim Ki-duk
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Plot: A giant reptillian monster awakens from his subterranean slumber, thereby keeping a young couple from consummating their marriage. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
The biggest flaw in this movie is the acting. The deliveries are all wooden and lifeless. I haven't seen the like since Barbara Bain in season 1 of Space: 1999. In fairness to the movie, we were watching an English-dubbed version. It's quite possible that the original dialogue as delivered by the original actors sounded more real. The poor delivery is a contributing factor to the monster being the lead character. The personal drama that's built in -- newlyweds trying to get some time together, two families joining -- becomes an easily-forgotten sideshow, since the voice-actors fail to inject any real emotion into any of it.
Another weakness is that a lot of the plot is really not adequately explained. And it's really annoying how the kid is treated like a hero after he was directly responsible for multiple deaths. And it's really not clear why he starts dancing to music no one else can hear.
Still, as a giant monster movie -- similar in feel to the Japanese cinema, this has some exciting monster action and destruction. But it was just so hard to care about anybody.
Here's another one of my songs, recorded by Tobias Wilson.
This is a song that took me 35 years or so to write. It went through many iterations and versions, including one that got recorded and released on a CD. I'm not sure if I ever wrote up the story behind this song -- I didn't find anything in a quick search, so I'm gonna go ahead and share. If I'm repeating myself, please forgive me.
If you want the TLDR version, it's essentially: A friend in high school made a stray comment. I used it as a title for a song, which underwent numerous rewrites until what I have now.
The extended version:
It started with a stray comment a friend made when I was in high school. My friend, Melinda, was listening to music on my Walkman. At some point she said she should give it back to me and stop "dancing to music no one else can hear." The phrase struck me as a great song title. At the time, I was doing a lot of songwriting. Sadly, most (that is, all) of the songs I was writing at the time sucked. Back then (as now), song ideas often started with a turn of phrase that caught my attention. So I kind of tucked that into my mind as a title to use.
If I recall correctly, I did use the phrase as a song title at the time. The song sucked and has been mercifully forgotten in the mists of time.
The current song started taking form when I was in grad school. At the end of my first year, I went home for the summer. The woman I was dating stayed in Ann Arbor. And I wrote a song about missing her while we were apart. I don't remember the whole thing, but I do remember the first verse:
I'm lying in bed With you in my head, Wondering where you are now. Can it be? Are you thinking of me Even though I'm not around?
I also remember the chorus:
Your song is with me wherever I am Even though you're not here. And all around me there's music. Music no one else can hear.
For the record, I originally wrote the verses o the tune of Air Supply's "All Out of Love," which begins:
I'm lying alone With my head on the phone, Thinking of you 'til it hurts. I know you hurt too But what else can we do? Tormented and torn apart.
That's something I still do sometimes -- I write lyrics with the melody of an existing song in mind. Then I go and change the melody.
Anne, the woman I was dating, liked the song. Or at least she liked the gesture.
But I wasn't really satisfied with it. I liked the first verse and the chorus, but not the rest.
A few years later I got together on a weekend with a work friend, and together we reworked the song. We combined the verse and chorus into a new chorus, with a melody I wrote. I added a bridge. My friend and I wrote some verses, and - voila! - a new song was born. I was actually pretty proud of that. Even more so when a friend and his brothers recorded it for their first (and, to date, only) commercial CD. That got me into ASCAP, which is cool. I blogged something about that album here.
But at some point since then I became disenchanted with the song (Scott, if you're reading this, please forgive me). I won't go into my reasons. If you like it, I'd hate to convince you to not like it.
Anyway, over a period of years I rewrote it. Again. This time I stripped out the verses and turned the chorus into the first verse and chorus. I then wrote a couple new verses and modified the bridge. In so doing, I removed everything that my old coworker had done. But I turned it into a (mostly) different song, which I like. And I think Toby did a great job with it. And if I ever get around to putting out an album, this will likely be the title track.
I hope I remembered all the details. If not, ask for your money back.
Session: Monsters International -- Big! Hairy! Scaly! Scary!, Week 3 Movie: The Black Scorpion (1957) Directed by Edward Ludwig
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Plot: An earthquake strikes Mexico, triggering the birth of a volcano and giant prehistoric scorpions. Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
We're in an age where so much is done through CGI -- and in which CGI is steadily improving. Most of what we've seen in class is pre-CGI and is therefore somewhat cheesy. I don't recall seeing much stop-motion animation to date. But this was awesome. Not in a "wow! this looks so real!" sense. It was more that it was really creepy and disturbing -- as if, despite not looking real, it triggered some visceral fear. That actually jibes with what Blair has told me -- that no matter how real some CGI looks to the conscious mind, there's some way that, subconsciously, we dismiss it.
As if to drive it all home, I recently saw A Quiet Place Part II with Asher. It features state-of-the-art CGI monsters that look real. But, in the theater, they just didn't get to me the way the scorpions (and other baddies) in Black Scorpion did. The shame is that they ran out of money in production, and had to resort to painting the scorpions into cels in some scenes.
I was puzzled by all the drool -- those scorpions really salivate a lot. But that helped to give them character and make them much more scary.
There was a point in the film that I thought it was ending. And I was kind of frustrated with that, thinking that they hadn't wrapped things up properly. Fortunately, that phantom ending (as I call it) only marked a transition to the real climactic scenes. These, including the railroad crash and the final battle in the stadium were superb.
Two years ago, LIDS hosted the Region 4 Summer Meeting. That was the first Daylily convention I attended. I think we were planning to attend the Region 4 Summer Meeting in Connecticut last year, but that got cancelled (OK, postponed) because of COVID. Maybe we weren't planning to attend. I don't remember for sure.
At any rate, that meeting was postponed until this year, and Blair and I attended. So this was my first "away" daylily event. Of course, despite the fact that things are opening up in this post-COVID reality,* the event was scaled back in many ways.
Because of various logistical issues, we were only able to take one day for the convention. So we missed most of the open gardens. I really wish we had been able to see more, but...c'est la vie.
We did make it to the D'Esopos' garden (see accompanying pictures). Though they don't have any daylilies, theire garden is a must-see. Chrissie and John D'Esopo do all the work themselvs and have turned their garden -- full of evergreens and conifers -- into an amazing shrubtastic fantasy world.
After the business meeting, hosted by the Krodels, I participated in the garden judging workshop. I went through the same workshop two years ago at the end of that Regional Meeting, but never followed up on the paperwork needed to get credit for taking the workshop and become a garden judge. I won't follow up this time either. I enjoy the workshops, and the information I learn by attending them. But for the time being I have no need to become a judge. Even if it would mean getting a vote on the Stout Medal winner.
Each attendee was given a daylily fan. We got Heavenly Curls (Gossard, 2000) and Zoot Sims (Bachman, 2003). Since Heavenly Curls is cream-colored, we'll be putting it in the little memorial garden we've been building for Sharon's cat, Cream, who passed away last month. I'm not sure where we'll put Zoot Sims, but that's a nice tall one.
Next year in the Finger Lakes!
___________________________ *Yeah, yeah...I know...Delta variant, remaskings, yada yada. Don't get me started.
Session: Monsters International -- Big! Hairy! Scaly! Scary!, Week 2 Movie: Gorgo (1961) Directed by Eugene Lourie
As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.
Plot: Treasure hunters sell a giant reptile as a carnival attraction. Turns out it's just a baby -- and mom is pissed Horror ensues.
Reaction and Other Folderol:
I went into this expecting Gorgo, which was a British production, to be a copy of the Japanese monster movies. And I was right. In many ways this had the look and feel of those movies -- which, as I mentioned last week, I don't really care for. The big difference, though, is that this was done much better. Visually, it was more impressive.
When Gorgo stepped on buildings, the destruction looked more real than what we got in the typical Japanese-made monster movies. I actually loved watching the scenes where the rubble was falling on people (including some well-placed visual jokes). Those reminded me of Earthquake, the 1974 blockbuster* which was (as best I recall), the first horror movie I ever saw. And the scenes in the subway were also really interesting. I kept expecting to see characters get pushed onto the tracks and then get hit by a train. I realized that wasn't gonna happen when the tunnels started collapsing. That was some great stuff.
What I found most interesting is the fact that this horrible horrible monster was, in fact, the sympathetic figure. All she wanted was to get her kid back -- after the kid was taken by the horrible, horrible humans. And then, when she got the kid back, she was content to just go back out to sea. No need for extra gratuitous vengeance.
If the Japanese horror movie industry had headed more in this direction, I may have even become a fan.
