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Saturday, June 17, 2017

Fool's Views (5/1 - 5/31)


The rush to find good seats for Turkey Day gets more challenging every year!

Greetings, my friends!

Well, life returned to semi-normal, following the whirlwind world tour that was April. In fact, the biggest difference was that due to the femalien having a mite bit of knee surgery (nothing serious and completely planned), she was required to spend time on the couch in the evenings so that she could use her passive-motion machine to keep any scar tissue from building up. And, well, if you’re going to be spending time on the couch, you might as well be watching movies, right? As a result, I think she watched more movies this past month than she might have in the previous six, including many of those listed below and a couple more on her own! Who knows, maybe she’ll get her own blog started before long.

This past month also marked our 3rd Annual Turkey Day in May (held, as tradition dictates, in the Kryptic Konfines) with plenty of delicious homemade pizzas and terrible/terribly entertaining films enjoyed alongside my fellow bold and brain-dead pals. Among them being Hellbent for Horror's Scott Bradley, who flew all the way from San Francisco to join the festivities, thereby stealing the crown from Hidden Horror contributor Craig J. Clark for "Furthest Distance Traveled for Turkey." Believe it or not, the lovely bride was even in attendance for the first time ever - we were wondering if Hell was going to freeze over or if her head would explode, but neither occurred. Miracles never cease.

Crammed in five more Kurosawa efforts, as well as an assortment of “hey, I’ve never seen that and hey, there it is on the library shelf” (Cast Away, Muppet Treasure Island, Man of La Mancha, although the latter was also tied into my ongoing Peter O’Toole festival, which may be losing steam – we shall see.)

As always, feel free to leave your two cents worth – we’ll make sure you get some change back.

Enjoy!

Friday, June 16, 2017

WILLARD (1971) Blu-ray Review



Willard (1971) d. Mann, Daniel (USA)

Bruce Davison stars as the title character, a shy and awkward young man slaving away in the factory office under the thumb of his bullying ogre of a boss (Ernest Borgnine, superb) who stole the business away from Willard’s father. To make matters worse, he has no real friends except those of his batty bedridden mother (Elsa Lanchester) and spends his spare time waiting on her and/or making repairs on their crumbling abode. But Willard’s life takes a dramatic turn when he discovers a nest of rats living in the backyard, especially once he discovers that they can be tamed and trained to perform certain simple tasks... like infiltrating his boss’ dinner party or assisting in petty thievery.