Appetizer, anyone? The movie of the night was Cannibal Apocalypse. It actually was fairly good, which is leading me to wonder if I�m becoming more jaded or simply more tolerant of things that are bad. After all, it had earmarks of bad cinema � Italian produced, starring John Saxon . . . but I found myself becoming very intrigued with the story and wondering why John Saxon is so underrated. He�s actually rather good looking in that sort of chisled, beady-eyed kind of way that screams �Prime-time Soap Opera�. Actually he was on Falcon Crest if I remember correctly. Anyhoo, this was actually a war drama mixed in with a horror flick having to do with cannibalism � the idea was that the cannibalism was actually a VIRUS that originated during the war and spreads much like rabies or AIDS, through saliva or blood contamination. One could see that as an allegory for war itself, how hatred spreads like a disease from the top eschalons of the idiots in charge yet send the little people to do all the dirty work for them. And a love story intertwined through it as well. There was also the crusty old police captain who actually had some of the best lines. �In the SEWERS? Well, ashes to ashes, and shit to shit.� Captain McCoy, Cannibal Apocalypse This is apparently Tarantino�s favorite movie by the director, Anthony Margherita (which translates to �daisies� oddly enough) who also directed Cannibal Feroux. Cannibal movies are rather well-liked in Europe and Japan. In fact, John Saxon mentioned on a DVD extra interview that this is one of his most popular films in Korea, or at least it was at one time. If you look at some real live-action Korean and Japanese films you will see this trend. And I don�t mean the stuff you find at Blockbuster, I mean when you go to the little hole-in-the-wall Asian shops that have videos next to the bucket of squid and kimchee. One note, you will get to see a few live rats catch on fire. Obviously, this film was not monitored by the ASPCA. Most of the end of the movie takes place as a chase scene in the sewers of Atlanta (I expected to see a crazy guy in a mask with a candelabra float by) and one of the cannibals, a nurse from the insane asylum, dies horribly and is beset upon by rats. Now I was thinking that that�s a bad idea, at least in the real world, as rats are well-known carriers of disease. Or was the plague carried by the fleas on the rats? Anyhoo, it didn�t seem like a good idea to let the rats start munching on a virus-laded cannibal. There�s also a fun scene with one of the cannibals getting a bazooka shell right through his midsection, with the obligatory camera shot through the hole in him. There is also an eye-gouging scene, which is one of the things I simply CANNOT watch. In Kill Bill pt 2 I had to avert my eyes from that scene as well. I don�t know why, extreme violence to a poor fake jelly eyeball I can�t watch, yet I can watch a rubber finger get cut off by a pair of mini snips. And the blood used in this film looked very good. Not like red paint. There�s some fun extras I still have to finish watching. Then it�s ABC Afterschool Specials for a while. Gary comes home tonight. Dingo had a much better night last night and he didn�t howl at all. I think he�s resigned himself to the fact that MIL isn�t back yet but hopefully will be soon. At least he�s been eating, which he didn�t do last time, and yesterday he was such a good dog and didn�t leave any stinky presents! Although he did leave a #1 stain but I�m so used to Max the cat pissing everywhere I just pulled out the steam cleaner and the carpet enzymes and got that cleaned in a jiffy. We have to wait for Max to pass on before we can replace the carpet. I know how terrible that sounds; I�m not just WAITING for the poor animal to die just so I can get new carpet. But it stands to reason that it�s silly to replace the carpet while we have an incontinent animal in the house. And actually, Max will probably outlive us all, just like Gary�s grandmother, whom I call Miss Joyce. Miss Joyce is 99 years old and has been in a care facility for quite a long time, and physically she is not doing too well. She does recognize people but has trouble with people she hasn�t seen in a long time. It was her son, Allan who died. Bob, the FIL, went to tell her (she lives in Tucson as well, and Bob visits her every other day) and she couldn�t quite wrap her head around who had died. She first asked if Allan�s mother was still living. Well, yes. She�s right there! Later, she was heard telling one of her housemates that her �daughter-in-law�s husband died� which I thought was an interesting way of putting it together. Perhaps in that way she�s dealing with it without having to. Apparently, though, on July 4th, when Bob went to visit, Miss Joyce was insisting on getting dressed so that she could go to the funeral. Well, since she can�t get out of bed and since the funeral was in Boise, that was out of the question. Bless her heart. Gary and I must go visit her soon. It will be about 113* again today, and it will be getting hotter next week. The monsoon with the haboob will be here soon. We can sure use the rain. Like maybe every single Monday for like, a year. If only the hurricanes and tropical storms that park over my parents� house can just float over here for a while.
|