Adventures of Hercules
Lou Ferrigino
They made a sequel? Sweet Zombie Jesus, you have to be
kidding? Did they even watch the first movie before they slammed
down their cash to make the second? I thought not. Well
It's been two whole months, and then some, since I finished the Lou
Ferrigno Hercules movie. It took that long for the effects to
wear off and for me to recover from the shock. Unlike the first
movie, I managed to watch the entire thing without using the fast
forward button once. Like the first one, I had to turn the beast
off for a day and come back to it. It made my brain hurt.
Where to start. Well this movie seems to have been made by the
exact same people in the exact same style as the last. Same
cheesy 'special effects', same crap-tastic costuming, hell it even had
the same actors and the same freaking villain! I kid thee not,
the same actor playing the same villain. They resurrected the bad
guy, because he was oh so tough, you know with all the dieing he
managed to do in the end, and they used him again. Yeah, be
afraid Herc, be very afraid.
That's right. They resurrected King Minos, the evil user of
science, to fight against the power of the vaguely benevolent Gods and
the natural order of the universe. Was this movie funded by the
Roman Catholic church? I mean really, evil science? Science
the cause of chaos? In the end Minos didn't get any wicked ass
gizmos in which to battle the other bad guys with, he gets magic eye
beams, and a magic flaming sword. Make up your minds damn
it. is he supposed to be using a kick ass orbital death-ray
launched by the evil United States, or is he using the evil black
magic, invented by the United States? One or the other please.
Well the second movie actually seems to follow a plot that is at times
nearly makes sense. Well the story goes that Zeus' six magic
thunderbolts of something or other were stolen by some rebellious
goddesses led by Hera. These disaffected Hippies, thought to
gain, I'm not quite sure why they did it, but they did it anyway.
Well, yeah that's great, the thunderbolts are missing, the world is in
danger, send the Hercster to the rescue!
Well first of all, before all that started, some evil priests were
sacrificing a scantily clad babe to some god or demon of fire.
Two other scantily clad babes watch the goings on, and decide that they
don't like what they see, so they go for help. They consult a
pair psychedelic butterfly women, who tell them they need the help of
Hercules, and they'll find him in the forbidden valley. Just a
note, there's always a forbidden valley it seems in fantasy movies, and
the valley is forbidden for a very good reason. People in these
movies never seem to remember this fact.
Well The Herc gets to earth. The first thing he runs into is a
creature that I suppose is a werewolf, only it looks more like a
Greying cousin It from the Adams family, who happens to be wearing a
cheap baboon mask, with some dog-like sound effects added on top.
I'm not making this up, nor do I wish I were capable of making
something like this up. Brain Damage! Sadly the rest of the
movie doesn't get any better.
Once again to the so called special effects. The costumes are
cheap, both for the main human characters and for the monsters that
they fight. Some of the monsters use animation techniques.
Not that fancy-schmancy computer stuff, but the old fashioned
way. So old fashioned it seems, that they felt that they were
making it up as they went along. The stop-motion claymation that
they made use of, was out-done by such 1950s and 1960s fare as the
Sinbad films and Jason and the Argonots, not to mention Clash of the
Titians. No, it seemed more like a bad Gumby short at
times. The rest of the animation was just simplistic color,
bright primary hues mostly. Flat and boring.
Oh, I can't forget my favorite part of the movie, the Amazons fight
scene. Chicks with guns kick ass. It is a proven
fact. Much ass is kicked by chicks with guns. I cannot
reiterate this enough. Imagine my surprise and delight when the
Amazons were about to attack. And then disappointment when I
discovered it was just a bunch of men in drag. That's right kids,
rather than getting real amazon like women, they just dressed men up in
drag, gave them fake breasts and everything, and then dubbed it all
over with womens voices. No wonder the Amazons lost, not only
were they poseurs, they were also a group of confused young men.
Then there were the absolutely confusing aspects of the movie.
Zeus, at one point, confronts his arch nemesis chaos. I shall now
recreate the scene for you...
Chaos-chick: We're a lot alike you know, we balance things
between us?
Zeus: Oh yeah? Well poopy head, I gots me the time on my
side baby!
*A giant animated skull comes down and zaps her with a death-ray*
Zeus: Eat it clown!
I don't get it either. It seemed random, like it was added simply
for the chance to let their effects crew draw a giant skull and then
have it attack someone. The entire movie was like that. It
also went along with the first flick in it's blatant attempts to
butcher the original classical mythology. Though at least this time
there weren't any giant robots to fight against. The movie did
make a fair attempt at destroying my sanity and giving me epileptic
seizures. Why did I pay money for this crap?
The worst part is, I have failed to learn my lesson and keep watching crappy movies.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Adventures in Bad 80s Cinema 1
Hercules - Lou Ferrigino
Well I found myself in Shopko as I was in need of toothpaste. All the
colors and flavors, I did have myself a good time all the way to at the
checkout line at the end. Well there lo and behold stood the usual
selection of $9.99 dvds. Having nothing else to do during my wait for
the old ladies in line ahead of me I decided to peruse their selection.
You've probably guessed that Hercules caught my eye. It wasn't even old
school Herc. It was the new(ish) Lou Friggno(aka the hulk) from the
early 80s. I should probably say it wasn't an it, it was a they. Yes,
two movies for 9.99 and they're Herc movies! I've seen a lot of Herc
movies, as a fairly avid fan of the MST3K, so on impulse I dropped my
$10 for this dvd. I could have asked myself "What's the worse that can
happen," But as I've said, I've watched a lot of MST3K, I already knew
the worst.
I know what you're thinkin, Lou Friggno as the Hercster? Who could turn
that down? Not me. Not me.
I will say right now, impulse items suck.
First of all there's the Mythology aspect. Now for an analogy. Imagine
a little midget dressed in Greek attire, this little one is Greek
Mythology. Now imagine three large men who are built like Lou Friggno,
and hung like mr ed, they're the director and the producers and whoever
else was involved in the making of this piece of work.
Lou 1 - Hey, look at that, I've always wanted to have sex with a midget.
Lou 2 - Me too.
Lou 3 - I like shiny things!
The midget - Hey guys...Eeep.
Well to make a long story short, no lubrication was involved and the
midget couldn't walk right for a month. You can fill in the rest
yourself and store it in your wank tank for as long as you need.
It really wasn't good. It was like potluck of Herc, Herc Cliff Notes.
If the notes were concocted by a autistic stoner child who kept on
getting suduced away by the wonderful, tasty chips that come off the
wall under the kitchen window. Thank god for this kid, because
otherwise I would have never known that Alantis was the capital city of
Thebes. Guess my grasp of history and Geography was a bit off.
Well then onto special effects. What can I say? It was the early 80s
and Disco was in it's final death throes, but sadly it wasn't dead yet,
at least not in this movie. Think the Bionic Man sound effect, but for
the deaf. They would add random flashes and shapes of color to signify
that the Hercenheimer was doing something noteworthy beyond flexing his
pecs and being all oily and confused.
Some of the idea's were fairly cool, just poorly executed. Jason and
the Argonots from how ever many decades earlier was more believable. As
was the stop motion claymation from those terrible Sinbad movies from
the 60s.
Herc ends up fighting three, count them, three different robots. I
shall repeat that last word since it bears repeating. Robots. Now to
repeat the statement one more time, Herc fights robots. I must have
fallen asleep in in my Myth classes, because I don't recall this
chapter of the stories. I know that Godzilla once fought a robot. Steve
Urkel too had a android nemesis. But Herc? They must have lost this
technology with the burning of the Library at Alexandria. To think of
all that we lost! Makes me wonder if the Egyptians had a Deathstar
floating around the Nile.
The swords and armor were made from what looked like shiny plastic.
They were of the vein of what one would expect from that era of movie
making. Gaudy and poorly thought out.
Once again, this is a movie from the early 80s, and a Herc movie to
boot. It leaves one last question. Where are the breasts? You have a
movie that had so much potential to be the fodder for late night
Cinemax addicts, and they threw it all away. The only exposed breasts
belonged to Lou, and though they were rather large, they also lacked
the soft allure of the female bosom. The entire movie is full of
fairly attractive women, and all of them scantily clad, would it been
so difficult to have them wrestle in mud? It's not like there's any
integrity left to the film anyhow.
Well I found myself in Shopko as I was in need of toothpaste. All the
colors and flavors, I did have myself a good time all the way to at the
checkout line at the end. Well there lo and behold stood the usual
selection of $9.99 dvds. Having nothing else to do during my wait for
the old ladies in line ahead of me I decided to peruse their selection.
You've probably guessed that Hercules caught my eye. It wasn't even old
school Herc. It was the new(ish) Lou Friggno(aka the hulk) from the
early 80s. I should probably say it wasn't an it, it was a they. Yes,
two movies for 9.99 and they're Herc movies! I've seen a lot of Herc
movies, as a fairly avid fan of the MST3K, so on impulse I dropped my
$10 for this dvd. I could have asked myself "What's the worse that can
happen," But as I've said, I've watched a lot of MST3K, I already knew
the worst.
I know what you're thinkin, Lou Friggno as the Hercster? Who could turn
that down? Not me. Not me.
I will say right now, impulse items suck.
First of all there's the Mythology aspect. Now for an analogy. Imagine
a little midget dressed in Greek attire, this little one is Greek
Mythology. Now imagine three large men who are built like Lou Friggno,
and hung like mr ed, they're the director and the producers and whoever
else was involved in the making of this piece of work.
Lou 1 - Hey, look at that, I've always wanted to have sex with a midget.
Lou 2 - Me too.
Lou 3 - I like shiny things!
The midget - Hey guys...Eeep.
Well to make a long story short, no lubrication was involved and the
midget couldn't walk right for a month. You can fill in the rest
yourself and store it in your wank tank for as long as you need.
It really wasn't good. It was like potluck of Herc, Herc Cliff Notes.
If the notes were concocted by a autistic stoner child who kept on
getting suduced away by the wonderful, tasty chips that come off the
wall under the kitchen window. Thank god for this kid, because
otherwise I would have never known that Alantis was the capital city of
Thebes. Guess my grasp of history and Geography was a bit off.
Well then onto special effects. What can I say? It was the early 80s
and Disco was in it's final death throes, but sadly it wasn't dead yet,
at least not in this movie. Think the Bionic Man sound effect, but for
the deaf. They would add random flashes and shapes of color to signify
that the Hercenheimer was doing something noteworthy beyond flexing his
pecs and being all oily and confused.
Some of the idea's were fairly cool, just poorly executed. Jason and
the Argonots from how ever many decades earlier was more believable. As
was the stop motion claymation from those terrible Sinbad movies from
the 60s.
Herc ends up fighting three, count them, three different robots. I
shall repeat that last word since it bears repeating. Robots. Now to
repeat the statement one more time, Herc fights robots. I must have
fallen asleep in in my Myth classes, because I don't recall this
chapter of the stories. I know that Godzilla once fought a robot. Steve
Urkel too had a android nemesis. But Herc? They must have lost this
technology with the burning of the Library at Alexandria. To think of
all that we lost! Makes me wonder if the Egyptians had a Deathstar
floating around the Nile.
The swords and armor were made from what looked like shiny plastic.
They were of the vein of what one would expect from that era of movie
making. Gaudy and poorly thought out.
Once again, this is a movie from the early 80s, and a Herc movie to
boot. It leaves one last question. Where are the breasts? You have a
movie that had so much potential to be the fodder for late night
Cinemax addicts, and they threw it all away. The only exposed breasts
belonged to Lou, and though they were rather large, they also lacked
the soft allure of the female bosom. The entire movie is full of
fairly attractive women, and all of them scantily clad, would it been
so difficult to have them wrestle in mud? It's not like there's any
integrity left to the film anyhow.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Round and round they go.
The general theme to this blog, at least in the beginning was that I would visit a place with my camera and take pictures along the way. Pretty damn simple. Except that I've been writing about adventures that don't really require photos, and I've not been bringing my camera since most of the events have arrived on short notice. It doesn't help that I went from having a lot of free time but no money to some extra money but little free-time. Paradoxes are a bitch. Growing up sucks. Here we are. Thus, I don't update too often. Only when something new and vaguely interesting comes into my life.
I live a dull life, as these pages will attest.
We kicked off the evening with BBQ at Sandmanns. If you ever visit town, be sure to give them a whirl. The food is inexpensive, plentiful and delicious. To the point that I feel the need to pimp them here to people who live across the far corners of the world.
I really don't enjoy spectator sports. Before I got lazy, I used to love playing games like soccer (football for the rest of the world) and badminton. I was reasonably decent at baseball, I even liked to run. Then, I graduated high school and drifted more towards geek culture and the computer gaming and general nerdiness. Yeah, I've played Dungeons and Dragons, and despite that I do one day entertain hopes that I will actually get to kiss a girl. It'll happen. Maybe. If I'm really lucky.
Anyhow, I just don't excited about watching other people play games. I don't gamble, and I'm not playing. I have nothing invested in whether or not a team wins are loses. I've lived in too many places to be attached to a club just by the fact that they 'represent' my home school/city/state. I've always been like that. I just take no pride in something that arbitrary and lame. Somebody else won a game that I wasn't playing. Meh.
But then, I watched Blood on the Flat Track: Rat City Roller Girls over that wonderful service that is Netflix. I found a new sport to appreciate.
Roller Derby has been around in one form or another since the 1930s. It's popularity waxes and wanes over the years and has been experiencing a resurgence over the last decade or so as leagues pop up all over the country. I hear it's really quite popular over on the west coast. But here in the midwest we have managed to cobble together a few teams. Which is cool, since It means that I didn't have to go far to experience this new delight.
Let me describe Roller Derby. Imagine one of those ancient Roman Chariot races where the chariots try to speed around the course and pass each other while beating the crap out of their . Roller Derby is kind of the same, in the fact that wheeled competitors are going around in circles around a track while inflicting harm. That's about where the comparison ends. Derby is a team sport where the opposing teams wear roller skates. The basic gist is as follows, there are about six players from each team on the floor. They're broken into two groups. The pack is made up of the majority of the players. They skate around in circles together as a big group, elbowing one another and generally carrying on in good fun.
Now for the scoring of points. Each team has a player called a Jammer. They start well behind the pack a moment or so after each round begins. The Jammer's job is to try and pass as many of the opposing players as possible. For each player they pass, they are awarded one point. There's some strategy here. The first Jammer to pass the entire pack is given the title of lead Jammer. It is in their power to call off the round whenever they please. Thus the strategic element to the game.
Then you have the coach, whose job it is to stand on the sidelines and yell “Skate faster!” and “Keep Skating.” The dude must be somebody's retarded brother. The special guy that wears a bike helmet and swim floaties wherever he goes, and he was just given the job to shut him up and make him feel special. Really, a coach on the sidelines is nearly completely useless in this sport. But hey, I love how the absurdity adds to the color. Don't change a thing.
Honestly, the spectacle gets repetitive quick for people like me. Roller Derby is rather linear and simple in nature. The players always go in the same direction. They always have the same goals. It's about like NASCAR, but with more intentional violence and far less deadly crashes. Yeah, they're really not allowed to get too physical out on the floor.
Where does it get interesting then? Well, here abouts anyway, the Roller Derby teams are almost entirely made up of female members. That's right. Girls on skates. Wait, it gets better. Girls in skimpy outfits on skates. Glee! Sex and violence. All the aspects that make for good entertainment. Women in hotpants and stockings bouncing off one-another.
That's about it. But what more does anyone need?
So, I had several weeks heads-up with the derby. I knew it was coming. I could have brought my camera. But I didn't. Why? Well, for the same reasons I don't often get pics at conventions of girls. I just feel like an utter perv. I am a perv. I know this. Known it for a while. But I don't like to draw attention to the fact.
But, should you ever get a chance, take in a match and make sure you experience this great sport live. Girls in skimpy outfits grinding and colliding with one another. Life is good.
The local league has two teams, and they import other teams to play against from such places as Chicago, Kalamazoo and Stepford CT. After watching Blood on the Flat Track, I looked up Roller Derby on my old friend Google and found our local league. I mentioned it to the Fat Man, who had also seen the documentary, and we made plans to hit it for my birthday celebration this year. Last year it was the Art Institute in Chicago. God, I'm a dork.
I'm waiting for the day that Derby gets the international attention that it disturbs. When it replaces soccer/football as the world's sport. Not likely to happen, since flat tracks and rollerskates are a lot more expensive than a ball and a field. But hey, it can at least make a showing in the Olympics. If Synchronized Swimming is recognized, Roller Derby is desperately under represented.
I live a dull life, as these pages will attest.
We kicked off the evening with BBQ at Sandmanns. If you ever visit town, be sure to give them a whirl. The food is inexpensive, plentiful and delicious. To the point that I feel the need to pimp them here to people who live across the far corners of the world.
I really don't enjoy spectator sports. Before I got lazy, I used to love playing games like soccer (football for the rest of the world) and badminton. I was reasonably decent at baseball, I even liked to run. Then, I graduated high school and drifted more towards geek culture and the computer gaming and general nerdiness. Yeah, I've played Dungeons and Dragons, and despite that I do one day entertain hopes that I will actually get to kiss a girl. It'll happen. Maybe. If I'm really lucky.
Anyhow, I just don't excited about watching other people play games. I don't gamble, and I'm not playing. I have nothing invested in whether or not a team wins are loses. I've lived in too many places to be attached to a club just by the fact that they 'represent' my home school/city/state. I've always been like that. I just take no pride in something that arbitrary and lame. Somebody else won a game that I wasn't playing. Meh.
But then, I watched Blood on the Flat Track: Rat City Roller Girls over that wonderful service that is Netflix. I found a new sport to appreciate.
Roller Derby has been around in one form or another since the 1930s. It's popularity waxes and wanes over the years and has been experiencing a resurgence over the last decade or so as leagues pop up all over the country. I hear it's really quite popular over on the west coast. But here in the midwest we have managed to cobble together a few teams. Which is cool, since It means that I didn't have to go far to experience this new delight.
Let me describe Roller Derby. Imagine one of those ancient Roman Chariot races where the chariots try to speed around the course and pass each other while beating the crap out of their . Roller Derby is kind of the same, in the fact that wheeled competitors are going around in circles around a track while inflicting harm. That's about where the comparison ends. Derby is a team sport where the opposing teams wear roller skates. The basic gist is as follows, there are about six players from each team on the floor. They're broken into two groups. The pack is made up of the majority of the players. They skate around in circles together as a big group, elbowing one another and generally carrying on in good fun.
Now for the scoring of points. Each team has a player called a Jammer. They start well behind the pack a moment or so after each round begins. The Jammer's job is to try and pass as many of the opposing players as possible. For each player they pass, they are awarded one point. There's some strategy here. The first Jammer to pass the entire pack is given the title of lead Jammer. It is in their power to call off the round whenever they please. Thus the strategic element to the game.
Then you have the coach, whose job it is to stand on the sidelines and yell “Skate faster!” and “Keep Skating.” The dude must be somebody's retarded brother. The special guy that wears a bike helmet and swim floaties wherever he goes, and he was just given the job to shut him up and make him feel special. Really, a coach on the sidelines is nearly completely useless in this sport. But hey, I love how the absurdity adds to the color. Don't change a thing.
Honestly, the spectacle gets repetitive quick for people like me. Roller Derby is rather linear and simple in nature. The players always go in the same direction. They always have the same goals. It's about like NASCAR, but with more intentional violence and far less deadly crashes. Yeah, they're really not allowed to get too physical out on the floor.
Where does it get interesting then? Well, here abouts anyway, the Roller Derby teams are almost entirely made up of female members. That's right. Girls on skates. Wait, it gets better. Girls in skimpy outfits on skates. Glee! Sex and violence. All the aspects that make for good entertainment. Women in hotpants and stockings bouncing off one-another.
That's about it. But what more does anyone need?
So, I had several weeks heads-up with the derby. I knew it was coming. I could have brought my camera. But I didn't. Why? Well, for the same reasons I don't often get pics at conventions of girls. I just feel like an utter perv. I am a perv. I know this. Known it for a while. But I don't like to draw attention to the fact.
But, should you ever get a chance, take in a match and make sure you experience this great sport live. Girls in skimpy outfits grinding and colliding with one another. Life is good.
The local league has two teams, and they import other teams to play against from such places as Chicago, Kalamazoo and Stepford CT. After watching Blood on the Flat Track, I looked up Roller Derby on my old friend Google and found our local league. I mentioned it to the Fat Man, who had also seen the documentary, and we made plans to hit it for my birthday celebration this year. Last year it was the Art Institute in Chicago. God, I'm a dork.
I'm waiting for the day that Derby gets the international attention that it disturbs. When it replaces soccer/football as the world's sport. Not likely to happen, since flat tracks and rollerskates are a lot more expensive than a ball and a field. But hey, it can at least make a showing in the Olympics. If Synchronized Swimming is recognized, Roller Derby is desperately under represented.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)