THE NINTH GATE - "Leave The Unknown Alone" (1999)

 

This week's Saturday Night Special is a Roman Polanski film titled "The Ninth Gate." It was released in 1999, and starred Johnny Depp! You know I never planned on doing movies this new, and then I realized that what I think is new, is now 22 years old.

 

A lot of people think if you watch enough movies, you'll get smarter, but it's not really working for me! I regularly watch stuff like The Three Stooges or "Burn Notice," and probably shouldn't even be watching films like this where you have to actually think! Hence the age olde question, should entertainment be mentally painful?

 

So.............Pull my finger, and you just might find out!

Or............Do what Johnny and I do to relieve the pain and confusion, pour another one!

"The Ninth Gate" pits Frank Langella as Boris Balkan vs. Johnny Depp as a guy named Dean Corso.

Supposedly there are only three copies of a ancient book in existence, and Boris owns one and wants Dean to find out if the other two are legit or not, and he's willing to pay him a lot of cash to do it!

Dean travels to Europe to try and compare the books, and the other owners keep dying mysteriously!

Never ever trust a woman who has that particular tattoo in that particular location!

Dean Corso consistently finds himself in a lot of trouble, over and over, and over again!

To say that Roman Polanksi has a sketchy past is a bit of an understatement, but there's no denying that the man has an incredible eye, and has made some great films. His "Chinatown" is a real fave of mine!

Dean Corso starts noticing that some of the plates in the books are different. Why nobody noticed before is anybody's guess. If they had, there wouldn't be much of a story!

Time for more serious research! You would too, if it happened to you!

These two plates are so radically different, it's extra difficult to believe nobody ever saw the differences before!

The women in the movie are an odd lot! There's the Girl from Where, and the dead Baroness, or is it Memorex?

This is how Roman Polanski feels about your impression and understanding of his movie!

This is a large assemblage of creeps you're never going to know anything about, except that they are a bunch of freakin' devil worshiping weirdos!

"The Ninth Gate" was shot in Spain, Portugal, and France, and has some really beautiful scenery in it!

I believe this is the Château de Puivert in Aude, France. 

 

At this point, Dean Corso's problems are nowhere close to being over! More pain needs to be inflicted first!

I truly believe that if "The Ninth Gate" made more sense and was about 30 or 40 minutes shorter, it would be one of the best movies ever made, but that's a big 'if.'

DUNGEON FIGHT CLUB THROW DOWN

You probably didn't know that we have an annual Dungeon Fight Club Throw Down where we invite people that like to dress up as either good guys, or, bad guys, and fight each other. The event was held yesterday and we just got the photos back from K-Mart, so, let's take a look at some of the action!

Gary pulls up in his 'monstermobile' and shows us another one of his lame WTF costumes. This time he came as a bad guy called, Thing In Your Closet!

Joe and Allen are out in a field showing off for the girls, Joe's riding his steed in his wild costume (that his wife and kid made for him) and Allen shoots off on his bike that runs on jet fuel!

One of the spectators got drunk on his ass and has to be carried off the hill.

Tom and Andy are GOOD bad guys, makes perfect sense if you know them.

Whitey blows his horn signifying the beginning of the event. TA DA!! Let the battling begin!

Snarky Bug Head taunts some of the good guys standing around.

Rodney wanted to participate in the fun but only had time to put this super basic costume together for the event.

Greg and Mark fight it out in the storage yard, with that cool ride what goes to the winner of the battle. I have my money on Greg!

Jeanne pops in and gives us a bunch of love from the bottom of her... Heart! She wishes for the best men to be the victors!

Erik is here in his futuristic Viking costume. He swings that big ball around to keep in shape!

But, things finally went too far when Darrell (in a kitsch sink faucet getup) gets punched by an overzealous good guy (Mel) who uses illegal explosive brass knuckles.

So then, Mel's camp is retaliated against by the bad guys!

And Joey's gang is the next to be attacked, one more good guy camp for good measure!

To break up the action, The Fiddler (Roberto) plays a waltz tune on his violin to change the mood of the downwards turn the fight festival just took.

These two gals came to the event all the way from Japan, their names are there at the bottom.

Allen is still showing off for the girls. This time he's riding his bike backwards with his eyes closed when he goes right into a ravine! It's okay, he's fine.

Since things have calmed down, good guys and bad guys go over their strategies for the next round of planned clashes..

Brian finally shows up in his shaving cream can outfit and wants to know if he's too late to participate in the festivities...

He gets his answer with a direct hit!

The thing devolves again, but you have to admit, it was a Hell of a time!!

ILYA MUROMETS - "The Sword And The Dragon" (1956)

 

Tonight's Wednesday Weirdness is a Russian movie made in 1956 titled "The Sword And The Dragon."  The original title was "Ilya Muromets." I thought we had done pretty much every movie from the 50's and 60's that had a monster in it, then this thing reared up it's s ugly little head, and not just one, but three of them!

Here's one of the tag lines..."Eye-Filling Spectacle! Man Against Monsters!"

 

I'm sure if you were able to see a pristine copy of this film on the big screen, it would be absolutely captivating!

Here's yet another one of the tag lines....."The Largest Cast Ever Used in a Motion Picture!" 

 

Crowd favourite Shukur (Dalyokie Blizkie Gody) Burkhanov has the role of Tsar Kalin.

Beautiful shot of the village.

Equally gorgeous shot of complete and utter despair!

This cat looks straight out of Tod Browning's "Freaks."

Do you suppose that's a real bird that they just happened to capture a shot of, or a stuffed bird perfectly placed in position by the crew? Either way, it's a cool shot!

Here's another good shot of Tsar Kalin. What a smirk!

The Slavic Dragon seen in this film is known as Zmey Goronych, or Zuma the Fire Dragon, a mythical multi-headed serpent creature. 

These types of creatures can go by many names like Zmey, Zmei, Zmaya, Zmeu, Zmiy, Zmaj, Zmij.

To read more about Zmey Gorynych, try this monstrously amazing Gojipedia Site, which will tell you the whole story!

The fire-breathing Slavic Dragon is so popular in Russia, there's a giant statue of one at a Russian theme park named Safari Park Kudykin Mountain. Did you even know there were Russian theme parks? I really never thought about it before.

 

This 50 Ft. high fire-breathing sculpture/statue is one of the main features of the park that is located in  Kamenka of Zadonsk in Russia.

 

 

 This Park is legit. This is how far you have to walk just to get to it!

 For a very interesting tour of the Park, you can watch this short video, and the one that follows it!

This picture from the Park's website shows you they also like to have some fun with their dragons!

 

Unfortunately for this Dragon.........................

 

........................The Sword got top billing!

Reminds me, I haven't had shish kebob in quite a while!