Wednesday, May 4, 2016

KING OF JAZZ - Paul Whiteman (1930)

So an anonymous comment suggested we check out this site for a ton of free cartoons featuring Oswald The Rabbit etc, and if you root around, there's a whole Helluva lot more there than that! And since I'm burned out and was looking a for a quick fix, I downloaded a short cartoon titled "The King Of Jazz!" But there was no title card, and I couldn't find anything about it on IMDB, but what I finally figured out is that this short cartoon is just part of a complete movie from 1930 called "King Of Jazz" featuring Paul Whiteman and his Band!

 So, there's a slight introduction, and then we find famed orchestra leader Paul Whiteman on an apparent safari! The animation is some of the early work of Walter (Woody Woodpecker) Lantz!

 Here comes a mean old lion!

 Paul Whiteman takes aim!

 But the lion pulls his skin down, and bounces the shell off of his ribs!

 The lion ricochets a couple more bullets off of his choppers, and now he's ready to be the hunter instead of the prey!

 Paul's in deep doo-doo now!

 The lion goes after Paul like the Macho Man Randy Savage getting ready to pounce on Superfly Jimmy Snuka!!

 The lion sharpens up his teeth, and he's ready for some chow!

 Some cool 1930's swing provided by violin virtuoso Joe Venuti changes the whole climate of the scene!

The lion busts a groove!

Al Jolson's "Mammy" was released just about a month earlier than "King Of Jazz!"

 While the music is jamming, Paul gets conked in the head by a coconut thrown at him by a monkey!

Freshly out of a job, Ted Cruz tries to explain what just happened! 
Check this out! In the Hungarian version of this film, Bela Lugosi had the role of the narrator!

Monday, May 2, 2016

GODZILLA vs BIOLLANTE / Toho Company - 1989

We're back in Japan! Today's story's about a scientist who combines the cells of a rose with those of Godzilla to create a biological creature more horrifying than anything seen before! Of course, they battle it out after Godzilla goes on a destructive tour of Japan.

I have a sound clip for your approval, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button located there by our atomic flower garden, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Here's a sample from... GODZILLA vs BIOLLANTE!

This is the reason I changed from a science major to an art major when I was a sophomore in high school, like, what in the Hell are they freakin' talking about?!

Boy, the larger the office space, the more distant you feel...

They even have a high tech Godzilla Monitor to keep tabs on the big guy!

Then, this weird Devil Dude shows up on TV to rap, a bad omen I'm sure!

Anyway, back to the story... Biollante has made its entrance, spawned in a large lake.

Biollante's a freaky looking thing, the center of the rose has teeth, and, check out those runners with alligator fangs!!

Then, the Super X-2 appears, designed to combat Big G and match his awesome fire power. Unfortunately, Godzilla hits the flying weapon with a blast that knocks it out of the air, and, lights out gang!!

Love this shot, it's hard to see, but, some army dude just shot Godzilla in the mouth with a special bazooka shell. So, the big guy completely destroys the building!

Now, Biollante and Godzilla start duking it out. Big G pours it on and explodes the crap out of a ton of blood thirsty runners!

I love these shots of Big B charging at Godzilla, twisted poetry in lumbering motion!

Biollante shoots out sharp toxic runners right through G's hands and body parts...

But, our Big Hero is full of tricks, he almost dies in order to defeat the mighty Biollante! Be back Wednesday when Eegah!! does his thang!!

Saturday, April 30, 2016

THE BUBBLE - Arch Oboler - "Fantastic Invasion Of Planet Earth" (1966)

I've got something grilled up medium rare for tonight's Saturday Night Special, and as a bonus, it's in "Space-Vision, A Step Beyond 3D!"

It's called "The Bubble" and it escaped into the general public in 1966!

The Bubble" is basically a weird freakin' one man extended "Twilight Zone" episode, and that one man is:
Mr. Arch (Light's Out) Oboler!

"The Bubble" has a very small interactive cast! Despite how strange and odd it might be, you have to think that Arch knew exactly what he was doing!

The three main cast members are Michael, 123 episodes of "Mod Squad" as Pete Cochran, Cole, Deborah (GIDGET) Walley, and singer, songwriter Johnny Desmond, who sang with both the Glenn Miller, and the Gene Krupa orchestras! "The Bubble" might not be the greatest movie in the world, but, without a doubt, it sure had one Helluva pop culture cast!

So what the Hell happened? Their small aircraft went down in an uncharted area during a storm, and though the area is inhabited, the residents seem incapable of direct communication!

The residents are all like a bunch of robots, but it takes our stalwart trio forever to think anything is wrong, even though they can never communicate with the locals, who all just keep repeating their individual mantras over and over again, ad nauseum! 

  Here's the kicker! "The Bubble" is in 3D, so there are lots of shots in your face that have no purpose other than to show off the "Space Vision" 3D technology!

 Like here, where a tray of beer bottles floats around mysteriously! Arch never bothers to try and explain why things like this are happening, you just have to accept it!

It's a great little town, and give Arch some credit here! Rent a carnival ride for nickels on the dime, and put it in the middle of main street, and you have unquestionable weirdness!

Most of the town looks like pieces of abandoned movie sets (That I'm sure Arch was able to get his hands on for a pittance)!

 
"The Bubble" was also released as "Fantastic Invasion Of Planet Earth," and if this is not the most deceiving poster of all time, then I don't know what is! It ain't in space, it's not fantastic, and there sure as Hell aren't any flying saucers like that in this movie, except every once in a while, some hovering object extracts somebody or something through a hole in the top of the dome, or dishes out a fiery death! This poster is possibly the worst example of false advertising in the history of film making! "A Sci-Fi experience that will blow your mind?" "A Spaced Odyssey?" Somebody was smoking something!!

This is the big alien listening/feeding booth that the locals go into to get their zombie fix!

Johnny messes with the hot seat in the big pod and that's when the eerie "floating masks" ala "Terror In The Haunted House" come into play!

It's all too weird so the trio accompanied by Johnny's new girlfriend, the hypnotized dance hall girl, decide to pack it in and head out of town! It won't take long for them to find out that there is no way out! Johnny is a ladies man and a lover, so you just have to wonder what their sex life was like!

It's hard to sleep when you're some kind of zombie/robot/freak! Deborah has no choice except to keep on nursing her newborn child!

They stick something in your face every chance they get!

Damn! We're trapped in some kind of humongous bubble, and there is no explanation as to why!!
WTF!??

Mike's character is taken all the way to the edge, and beyond! At one point he even wants to kill their baby just to save it's life!

Digging for God only knows how long, and how deep, Mike finally finds an opening underneath the bubble's wall, and as Arch would expect me to do, that's just where I'm going to leave it!
If you've got an Amazon Prime account, "The Bubble" streams for free right here! 
Lights Out Ya'll!!

Monster Music

Monster Music
AAARRGGHHH!!!! Ya'll Come On Back Now, Y'Hear??