Messages

1

/dev/random / Re: The Official Inclusive Non-denominational Holidays 2020 Thread (and 2023 also)

« on: November 14, 2024, 11:35:28 PM »

I started to rename this the "Christmas in perpetuity thread" but... whatever.

I know I know... it ain't even thanksgiving yet. But I've been hauling up the 900-thousand boxes of Christmas decorations from the basement. I get into Christmas a little more than I used to. Been downloading a bunch of Christmas tunes. Classic shit mostly - stuff my family always listened to through the 80's.

When I was a kid, sometime just before Christmas, we'd load up in the car and go riding around all over the place looking at Christmas lights on peoples houses. Usually the tape playing in the cassette player was Nat King Cole christmas songs or one of those Mannheim Steamroller christmas albums that were all the rage in the 80's.


https://youtu.be/yzGFPQQj9BQ?si=sbhYxrt_gRP3-HnP

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/dev/random / Re: Whatcha listening to?

« on: November 05, 2024, 12:29:56 PM »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuAat82uCCM


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjD5wn1YnsQ


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrIRMktvRM8


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W9PuLcoZMM

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/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: November 01, 2024, 08:02:43 AM »

October is horror movie marathon month for me.

In the past week, I've watched all 11 of the Friday the 13th movies in order. There's technically 12 of them if you count the 2009 remake (which I've never seen). I remember seeing #10 Jason X (2001) and #11 Freddy vs Jason (2003) when they came out in theaters. It's hard to believe that Freddy vs Jason was TWENTY ONE YEARS AGO! Damn that makes me feel old.

The earlier ones were pretty good. Personally, I think I liked #3 the best (the first film where Jason gets the hockey mask), perhaps tied with #4..

When Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982) originally came out in theaters, it was in 3-D. It would be great to see it on a big screen in 3-D again.

Back in the early to mid-1980's, 3-D was a big thing. I saw at least 3 different movies this October that were originally in 3-D. One was a lesser-known slasher called Silent Madness (1984). Also saw the 3rd movie in the Amityville series, Amityville 3-D (1983), which wasn't too bad. 3-D movies were supposed to revolutionize the movie-going experience forever, but... after the mid-80's, they just stopped filming them that way. I'm not sure why. I know it takes special multi-camera setups to film it. Perhaps the special cameras and methods for getting the shots were just too difficult or too expensive. I wish they'd bring them back and make more of them, though. It would be great for horror movies,... but on the other hand... the kinds of horror movies they're making these days aren't the same kinds of horror movies they were making in the 80's. These days, they seem to make nothing but awful teenage date night types of horror movies - a silly juvenile plot and premise with copious amounts of long drawn out suspense shots followed by screamy stupid jump scares. Shit like Scream or Final Destination.    



A yearly tradition for me, on Halloween night I always watch From Hell (2001), a movie about Jack the Ripper starring Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, Ian Holm, and Robbie Coltrane, based on an old graphic novel that was apparently pretty popular - never read it myself. Definitely my favorite horror movie of all time. Me and my best friend (who passed away a few years ago) saw it together probably 10 times while it was out in theaters, and I saw it probably 10 more times all by myself when I didn't have anyone to go with me. Back in the early 2000's when we lived in our old neighborhood closer to Atlanta, When I'd have nights off and no one else was available, I'd stop by the bar and have a few pints then head over to the theater and go see From Hell again. One time I brought a bottle of Jagermeister in with me and finished it off and ended up falling asleep in the middle of the movie. I woke up at about 1 or 2am, NOBODY in the whole theater except some hispanic lady from a cleaning contractor running a carpet cleaning zamboni machine.

Anyway, yeah, From Hell, GREAT movie. Well acted, brilliantly cast, great screenplay, and great stylish cinematography. The story is fiction, but most of the characters are real and most of the fine details about the murders are based on real facts of the Ripper case. Some people think it's a bit of a "gory" movie, but I don't really think so. It doesn't really show any close detailed shots of any particularly gory parts of any murder scenes. One or two scenes of throats being slashed. Again, the cast, the acting, the screenplay, the detailed sets, the fact that it's a historical period piece... it's great. A very very underrated movie, and my favorite horror film ever.

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/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: October 19, 2024, 03:09:21 PM »

October is horror movie marathon month for me. I've downloaded probably 60 or more movies to watch. I won't list them all but here's some of them:

...

• Vampyr (1932) old black & white 1930's German-made vampire movie... if you couldn't tell from the title. No idea what it's about, will be the first time I've ever seen it. Watch it here.

I am somewhat of a horror movie fan, but at the same time, I find most of the movies labelled as "horror" to be pretty ridiculous, so I also tend to avoid horror movies... until October rolls around, and then I binge the living hell out of them, assuring that I don't feel the need to watch them any other time of the year unless I really want to.

Vampyr (1932) -
I didn't get to watch this one last year so I just kept it in the folder and waited until this October. I was hoping it would be something comparable to 1922's Nosferatu, but... no, not really. I have to say, some of the camera work is really good and very innovative for a film from 1932. Many extended shots where the camera sweeps smoothly all the way across a large room and then moves through several rooms and doorways in one unbroken really smooth shot. It was probably very hard to keep the camera that steady over that distance without using a wheeled camera mount running on tracks. But that's almost everything I have to say that was GOOD about it. The guy who plays Allen Grey, the male lead, tends to have a dopey look on his face throughout the movie. The "vampire" in the movie is not as prominent as it should be, and is NEVER EVEN SHOWN BITING ANYONE! The story has almost no similarities to the Bram Stoker's Dracula except that there IS a vampire, it only stalks at night, and you kill it with a stake through the heart... and it's going after the young girls/sisters living in one house. The whole thing is VERY slow moving and weird. The story isn't presented as clearly as it could've been, and at times, you really have no idea what the hell is really going on - you're watching it saying, "What the hell does this have to do with anything? Are the shadows on the walls ghosts or demons or what? Are they the shadows of real people or intended to represent ghosts or evil spirits or something?" Some things it explains with the text of intertitles (like from silent movies, even though this one has sound), and other things are revealed through shots of text in the pages of a book that one of the characters is reading... but there is very little dialogue. The spoken dialogue in the whole movie could probably only fill one piece of paper.

Rating it, I'd probably give it a 3.5 out of 10.

If you want a good old black and white horror film, I'd recommend these instead:

• Dracula (1931) - This is THE classic Dracula movie, starring Bela Lugosi. I don't really like it either. The acting is fairly bad in my opinion, but not everyone agrees. It IS based entirely on Bram Stoker's Dracula, and it's certainly better than Vampyr.

• Nosferatu (1922) - It is a silent movie, music score only for audio, all dialogue and narrative come from intertitle text. I've only seen it in it's entirety once, and that was 2 years ago on it's 100th anniversary, but from what I remember, it was much easier to follow than Vampyr, less confusing, and it progressed at a much better pace. From what I remember, it mirrors Bram Stoker's Dracula pretty well... which is one of the problems the movie had. If I recall correctly what I read about it, the Bram Stoker estate sued the makers of the movie and had all known copies of it destroyed. However, a few copies managed to survive in the wild for many years, and now it is considered public domain.
  
  (In 1979, they made a fantastic remake of the 1922 Nosferatu called Nosferatu the Vampyre, starring Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani. An EXCELLENT remake of it. The scene where the rats infest the city will blow your mind. There's SO MANY DAMN RATS, IT'S INSANE! NO CGI! REAL RATS! IT'S GLORIOUSLY DISGUSTING!)

• Phantom of the Opera (1925) - Starring Lon Chaney, another 100% silent film. Haven't been able to find any really clean version of it - I suppose this is just one of those movies that didn't get preserved as well as it could've.

• Frankenstein (1931) - starring Colin Clive as Dr Frankenstein and Boris Karloff as the monster. Probably the best 1930's black and white horror film. Although in my opinion, it ties with this one...

• Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - also starring Colin Clive and Boris Karloff. Many people think this one is better than the first one... I sort of agree... but in my opinion, I say you just put the two of them back to back in a double feature and say ALL THE Frankensteins is the best and be done with it.

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Quake / Re: tastyspleen.net turns 20!

« on: October 17, 2024, 07:32:37 PM »

thanks goes to MrsQuadz

Thank you, MrsQuadz. And RailWolf.

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/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: October 08, 2024, 01:10:36 PM »

Another good one passed back in August apparently, but for personal family reasons, it wasn't announced to the public until October 1st.

Actor John Amos passed away at age 84 on August 24th.



He played the dad James Evans on the old 70's sitcom Good Times. Sure, Jimmie Walker as JJ was popular and quotable, but without John Amos, it wouldn't have been worth watching in my opinion. My favorite episode was season 1 episode 2, Black Jesus, where the dad (John Amos) insists that Jesus was black, so JJ paints a picture of "Black Jesus" (see the above pic) and it becomes the family good luck charm.

Me? Watch Good Times? You DAMN RIGHT, I do! I might be a white boy that grew up in the 80's and 90's but I love me some black 70's sitcoms - Good Times, The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son, also the early 80's reboot of Sanford & Son minus the son Lamont (played by Demond Wilson) just called Sanford... it was pretty good, although not quite as good as Sanford & Son.

Beats the hell outta the crap they have on network tv now, that's for sure. I can't name one single sitcom on network television that's worth watching anymore. It all sucks. Especially if it's on ABC.

Fact about John Amos you maybe didn't know: You could kinda tell just by looking at him, the man played football. Throughout the 60's, he played football for various leagues, starting out with the AFL (later became NFL) Denver Broncos but was cut after a very short period, and then other teams in the Continental Football League, United Football League, and the Atlantic Coast Football League.

My favorite John Amos movies:

The Beastmaster (1982) - Always loved that movie as a kid. Was one of the best "sword & sorcery" genre movies from the 80's. They used to play it on TBS a lot back in the 90's, and I'd also rent it from the local Blockbuster Video every once in a while.

(Dunno what the hell a black guy was doing roaming the countryside with a young white boy. Yeah, maybe it's kinda weird,... but... he's the dear old dad from Good Times, so we don't question it.)



Coming to America (1988) - One of the greatest comedy movies of all time in my opinion. Eddie Murphy in his prime, and Arsenio Hall, both of them getting in makeup and prosthetics to create even more hilarious characters throughout the movie. And the great John Amos as Mr. McDowall. Also... the debut of Samuel L Jackson ...yelling and pointing a gun at people, just how we always love him.

Die Hard 2 (1990) - Die Hard... is a Christmas movie. It's been decided... not by me, but hey, I'll go along with it. At the very least, it's a really good action movie, definitely what I'd consider an all-time "classic", certainly as an action movie, but just as a good well-made movie in general in my opinion. And Die Hard 2 was a very solid sequel. Honestly, the entire catalog of Die Hard movies have something to offer for the action movie fan. If you're the kind of person who hates the Die Hard movies... you either hate Bruce Willis personally for some reason, or you're just not that big of a fan of the action genre... so I'm sorry, but your opinion about the Die Hard movies doesn't count.

He was in lots of other movies, and he never really played any lead characters.


Also...

(Haven't seen it yet... but WANT to.)

More on the topic of Roman history...

Saw a commercial for this on youtube the other day. Anthony Hopkins as Emperor Vespasian. Should be pretty cool. Something about Roman gladiatorial games and such.

Those About To Die - Peacock original miniseries


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFQcZRCZABo

Saw this a couple weeks ago. 10 episodes, about 1 hour each.

Verdict:
MEH. 

Not altogether historically accurate. It takes plenty of "artistic liberties", and it's not all that great.

The end of Season 1 sets the stage for a Season 2... which I anticipate would be even LESS historically/factually accurate than season 1, but so far, I haven't heard if Peacock plans to finance a 2nd season. I kinda hope they don't. I'd be tempted to watch it... and I don't want to.

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/dev/random / Re: HBO's GAME OF THRONES - OFFICIAL THREAD

« on: October 02, 2024, 12:36:23 AM »

I heard (well... SAW to be accurate) Haunted talking about HBO's House of the Dragon in discord.

Figured I'd give it a go. I even took a few weeks and rewatched the whole Game of Thrones series as a refresher.

Boy. Did THAT suck, or what?

...

But... Game of Thrones folder got deleted right after I watched the last episode. Bwip, deleted. Not gonna watch that again.

So yeah, I did watch it one more time. And yeah, I still think the ending kinda sucked, maybe even moreso now in light of how important the events of that last season were really supposed to be. I also noticed many glaring and obvious plot holes... or sometimes just very questionable plot points. I can't even remember any of them now, but I KNOW they were there, because I had a good laugh several times at how bad they were and how I didn't notice them the first time around.

It took me several weeks to start watching House of the Dragon. I tried on about 3 occasions, got about 5 to 10 minutes in, and was so bored that I felt compelled to stop watching and go do something else. So yeah, there's that: it takes a good while to get into it. Game of Thrones was much more interesting.

It's also a little confusing because things jump forward in time at different parts with different actors playing the roles. I remember at one point it clearly let you know with a fullscreen caption that it was "5 years later", but at other times, it didn't tell you... (unless the version I downloaded cut it out - I don't think it did). Also, characters don't appear to age logically. Some are cast to look much older and taller than they should be, or compared to how little other characters in the same age range have aged in the same time.

Because of all this, the story certainly has just as many holes as Game of Thrones, if not MORE (personally, I think MORE).

Also, the fairly obvious and obnoxious injecting of post-modernism and modern feminism into the story is stupid and a big part of what makes the overall story less interesting. So tired of Hollywood trying to inject their new age "woke" philosophy into everything. It fucking RUINS art when you turn it into a vehicle for your little "message." 

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/dev/random / Re: The Good Old Days thread

« on: October 01, 2024, 06:02:23 AM »

Remember baseball cards?

Remember Pete Rose? One of the greatest baseball players ever until they kicked him out for betting on his own games. His nickname was Charlie Hustle... Better Call Saul got it from Pete Rose.

1986 Topps Pete Rose card.



(Pete Rose passed yesterday.  Dunno the cause of death yet. Rest in peace, Charlie Hustle.)

I'm about 90% sure I've still got this one in a binder somewhere as well as most of the entire set of the 1986 year Topps.

Remember baseball cards though? You used to be able to find them at grocery store checkouts, gas station checkouts, etc. And for a while there in the 90's, you could actually find baseball card and sports memorabilia stores that would BUY them for close to what their value was. Doubt you could find anyone to buy them for what they're worth anymore... unless it's older stuff - 1970's and before.

Oldest one I have in my collection that I remember... 1959 Topps special 3-player Cleveland Indians card  featuring Minnie Minoso, Rocky Colavito, and Larry Doby, "The Destruction Crew."



I have no foggy idea what it's worth.

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/dev/random / Re: Hurricane Helene

« on: October 01, 2024, 05:16:50 AM »

Foc - how did you make out?

Easy-peasy here. The old farm pond next door that usually overflows during heavy rains filled right up to the rim and looked like it was juuuust about to spill over and go through my yard, bypassing the dam like it sometimes does,... but it never quite made it. My Neighbor had a small little tree on the property line that split down the middle, and on his other side, he had a younger oak (maybe 40-50yrs) growing against the bank of a culvert that uprooted. I still have 2 or 3 pretty ancient live oaks (200+ yrs probably) and some southern red oaks, they all made it. We got a good bit of rain, but it only lasted a day or two - I guessed that the storm would halt in place and dump water on us for probably 3 full days nonstop, but it moved on through luckily. Some folks around here might've had the odd tree down, but we never even lost power.

I went to Ingles yesterday to do grocery shopping and had to head into town to hit up a bank first to take out 400 bucks cash because they had a sign at the door saying "we are accepting cash only right now, no credit cards or checks." Ingles is a southeastern only chain with stores in NC, GA, SC, and TN. Their home office is either in Asheville or Black Mountain NC - both are completely underwater.

Looks like the storm held on to crazy amounts of water and waited until it got up to the smokey mountains to drop it all. All that water came washing down off the mountains and into the valley all at once. All the little towns through the main valleys just turned into rivers. Somebody posted before and after pics in discord of Chimney Rock NC. It's 100% gone, the WHOLE TOWN, nothing left. If the news is saying it's really bad... they're still understating how bad it is. The entire smokey mountain tourist area is likely completely gone. Like you said, there's likely a lot of people that are never going to be found. The interstates through there are major trucking arteries too and there are lots of spots destroyed that will take a long time to rebuild, so this is probably gonna effect some shipping around NC SC and northeast TN mostly.

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/dev/random / Re: The last movie you saw....

« on: September 10, 2024, 03:15:30 PM »

One of the all time greats.



Last movie I saw with him in it... probably Conan or Coming to America, I love those. Conan was a classic, cannot be remade, I don't care WHO you put in it. You'll never get a hero as great as Arnold, and you'll never have a villain as great as James Earl Jones playing Thulsa Doom.

He was also in The Sandlot and Field of Dreams, two good baseball movies, also forever classics.

One of my favorites of his that some people may forget about...

A Family Thing - 1996 - James Earl Jones, Robert Duvall - Synopsis from IMDB: When an old woman dies, she leaves a note for her apparent son (Robert Duvall) which tells him that his biological mother died giving birth to him. She begs him to make peace with his half-brother (James Earl Jones) living in Chicago.

Currently available on tubi for free:
https://tubitv.com/movies/312415/a-family-thing


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65tMREjQXAQ&ab_channel=VideoDetective

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/dev/random / Re: Whatcha listening to?

« on: September 01, 2024, 05:13:48 AM »

R.I.P. Jack Russell


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg06B46VVys&ab_channel=greatwhiteVEVO

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/dev/random / Re: The Good Old Days thread

« on: August 27, 2024, 08:09:51 PM »

Remember this - Where's the beef?

Heard of that one a million times but I never saw it on TV myself that I remember.

I do remember a hundred and one different versions of the juicy fruit commercial all with the same twangy song.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ92qqzutcE&ab_channel=ArcadeSpookyTree

They even parodied it on one of the Star Wars parody episodes of Family Guy.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSnp8mEPmEw&ab_channel=SBellah714

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/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: August 17, 2024, 10:32:52 PM »

I love cartoons.

But I don't love this one. Pretty fuckin' creepy, honestly.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWi2WTqD59A&ab_channel=vson8

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/dev/random / Re: Whatcha watchin'/streamin'...

« on: August 17, 2024, 07:56:29 PM »

I love cartoons. Mostly the old stuff. It would be cool if there were one streaming service that had ALL of the old stuff. There's a bunch of stuff on youtube but it tends to be less than excellent quality - some of it looks to be copied to digital from a worn out VHS source... or copied to digital many years ago when visual quality wasn't as important.

Found a channel on youtube called Old Classic Cartoons with a bunch of old Disney character and Walt Disney Silly Symphony cartoons, and a bunch of ComiColor ones as well.

https://www.youtube.com/OldClassicCartoons

2 from there...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M21UsdJnkBY&ab_channel=OldClassicCartoons


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJmiTdM6yzs&ab_channel=OldClassicCartoons

And 1 more that I found somewhere else...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYEmL0d0lZE&ab_channel=fireurgunz

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art, music, etc. / Re: The 100 Greatest Guitarists

« on: August 16, 2024, 12:05:48 PM »

...Stevie Ray Vaughan...

Interesting bit of trivia I just learned about.

From the wiki page for 80's soft rock musician Christopher Cross:

Cross was the original owner of fellow Austin guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan’s legendary “Number One” 1962/1963 hybrid Fender Stratocaster. Vaughan purchased the guitar at Ray Hennig’s Heart of Texas Music in Austin in 1974, only one day after Cross had traded the guitar for a Gibson Les Paul.



Although... I'm kinda wondering if that was a straight trade. A Gibson Les Paul is typically worth a good bit more than a Stratocaster.