Aeronautic Primates and Other Delights

I'm losing track of a lot of things. I finally just gave up on bullet journaling. I don't know how much longer I'm going to keep up with this feature. I don't really check Dreamwidth anymore, so maybe it's time to just let this go.

I watched exactly one movie in the last two weeks:

Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster (2021)

I saw this documentary at the Laemmle NoHo 7. I was the second-youngest person there. Not a lot in terms of new information, but nice to spend 100 minutes engulfed in classic horror information again.

Sorry I missed last week. Work was crazy busy to start the week off and then by the time it calmed down, it felt too late. So we're covering two weeks today.

I've mostly been playing Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (although I've kind of quit due to some disappointing forced plot elements). sol_se and I have finished Star Trek Season 2, but are kind of on a break from the show accidentally. We're trying to watch a horror film per day in October, although I think it will be more like we will watch a horror film for each day in October. So, some days may have no movies, but there will be 31 total by the end of the month.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Lured (1947)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Enola Holmes (2020)
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
The Vampire Lovers (1970)
Black Sabbath (1963)
MST3K: Pod People
Re-Animator (1985)
Bride of Re-Animator (1990)
Beyond Re-Animator (2003)

So Lured is early Douglas Sirk, stars Lucille Ball and George Motherf**king Sanders, with highish billing for Boris Karloff. It was okay. The plot didn't make a lot of sense, it had that weird thing where people who barely know each other get engaged, and Boris Karloff isn't throughout the film, just in one little bit.

In a turnabout of the way things usually are, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a classic Hollywood film that sol_se had seen but that I had not. It's a lot of fun. Marilyn Monroe is a comic genius, frankly, and Jane Russell is extremely horny throughout the film.

Enola Holmes is pretty good. I did not care for the compulsory heterosexual agenda, but Millie Bobby Brown is an engaging lead. I've also come around to being pro-Henry Cavill, his take on Superman aside.

Not much to say about Star Trek III except that Uhura got sidelined and I do not stand for that.

Sol_se loves a good lesbian vampire film and The Vampire Lovers is definitely in that category. Ingrid Pitt makes for a very seductive vampire. Plus Peter Cushing can never be a bad thing.

We watched the first episode of Monsterland and found it somewhat disappointing. It's definitely good, but also very depressing. It's not the spooky stuff that the trailers intimated. To get to a properly spooky place again, we watched Black Sabbath, a trilogy of terrifying tales from Mario Bava. It definitely did the trick.

I finally showed sol_se Re-Animator after talking it up for some time. She loved it and we immediately set about watching both sequels, one of which I had not seen. The quality of the series generally declines, but all three films are enjoyable to one extent or another.

I didn't watch very many movies, as I've been going back and forth between rewatching Encore! Season 1 for comfort and watching Hannibal Season 1 for... reasons? I don't know. I like it very much, even if it's dipping heavily into territory I usually find stressful af.

Frankenstein 1970 (1958)
Popeye (1980) w/movie night gang (virtually)

Frankenstein 1970 was a passable monster romp. It's main attraction is Boris Karloff chewing scenery, which I will always pay good money for.

On Saturday, I had a virtual movie night using Netflix party where we watched Robert Altman's Popeye musical. It's not a very good musical and it's a strange movie overall. It was good to connect with friends, even over a text chat.

Unless Criterion Channel has some really boffo offerings in April, I expect to be movie-light for a while as I work through Hannibal.

Once again, incredibly early, but I love Festivids and I get very excited.

Dear Festividder,

Here we are again. This is my third year in Festivids. This could be your first, your fourth, or somewhere in between. If it is your first time, I hope my requests do not terrify you in their verbosity. If you've been doing this for a while... I hope my requests do not terrify you in their verbosity. In any case, thank you for being awesome and adding to the Festivids experience!

Festivids is probably my favorite time of year, because vidders get to share the things they love with each other!

I hope that you have fun making whatever vid you make and that you love the end result. Festivids is about sharing love and squee and feelings and I will be happy with whatever you make for any of these seven fandoms, especially if you love them even one-tenth as much as I do.

Music-wise, I am easy-going. The right song is the right song for a vid. I do have a bulletproof musical kink for Celtic-infused folk and/or rock music, but in general, my tastes are cast far and wide -- rock, pop, folk, bluegrass, dance, alternative (whatever that means), singer-songwriter, rap, metal, emo, punk, New Wave, etc. I've found that genres I don't care for become amazing when they are the right choice for a vid, so there's nothing you should really avoid, as long as it's appropriate to whatever you're making.

The shortlist:
Almost Famous (2000) [safety]
The Body Snatcher (1945) [safety]
Gravity Falls (2012)
The Howling (1981) [safety]
Raumpatrouille / Space Patrol Orion (1966)
The Thin Man series
Vertigo (1958) [safety]

( Almost Famous (2000) )

( The Body Snatcher (1945) )

( Gravity Falls )

( The Howling (1981) )

( Raumpatrouille / Space Patrol Orion (1966) )

( The Thin Man series )

( Vertigo (1958) )

Thank you so much for taking part in this amazing time of year. I just know that you're going to come up with something great!

Hugs and squee,
Jetpack Monkey

Title: Boris Karloff: Frontier Psychiatrist
Author: Jetpack Monkey
Song: The Avalanches - Frontier Psychatrist
Fandom: Classic horror movies

Summary: Starting with The Man They Could Not Hang, Columbia released four mad scientist films starring Boris Karloff in an eighteen-month period between 1939 and 1941. The other films in the series were The Man with Nine Lives, Before I Hang, and The Devil Commands. As a tribute, I created a short video to illustrate the general shared tone of the films and their similarities in structure, casting, theme, and direction.

The song I chose, The Avalanches' Frontier Psychiatrist, is constructed from audio clips and samples from previously recorded materials. I picked this song in particular because it calls attention to the fact that the Columbia Mad Scientist series was itself constructed from "used" parts, taking elements from Karloff's past successes in films like The Man Who Changed His Mind, The Invisible Ray, and even The Walking Dead.

Password: therapy

Download 17.4MB MP4 (right/ctrl-click, "Save link as...")

Notes: This vid was created as Classic-Horror.com's contribution to the Boris Karloff Blogathon over at Frankensteinia.