NetFlix Love

About four or five years ago, YHP went through a period he likes to call his "samurai phase" after taking home Akira Kurosawa's epic "Seven Samurai" from the local library and giving it a gander on one lazy Saturday afternoon. This ultimately achieved two ends: One, it made him a huge Kurosawa geek, gobbling up almost everything the great director ever did including the little watched but brilliant character study The Lower Depths and even his deeply weird aborted comeback, the hard-to-pronounce Dodesukaden. And two, it piqued a general interest in Samurai movies of the early 60's to the point that he wore a ridiculous, thrown together samurai outfit to a Halloween party which included his eight-year-old's plastic toy sword. Thankfully, he grew out of the samurai part of this phase before purchasing a set of real samurai swords from eBay (although he spent a LOT of time searching through them), but he still enjoys an IFC broadcast of Yojimbo from time to time.

Fast forward five years and YHP has finally re-activated his NetFlix account after finally getting tired of playing superhero and canceling his City Of Heroes subscription. NetFlix will apparently save your queue long after you are dead, so all of his previous selections are still there, including a Chicago Bears documentary and Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance. Now, to be honest, he really doesn't recall exactly why or how that specific movie made his queue (instead of say one of, say, Sword of Doom which he STILL hasn't seen all the way through), but in the interest of cleaning up his list, he moved it up and, along with the first DVD of the 3rd season of the re-launched Dr. Who, finally received it over the long Thanksgiving holiday. After watching it last night, lets just say it KILLS him that he went so long without viewing it.



Beautifully filmed, wonderfully written and raunchy and violent as fuck, LW&C:SOV is just magnificent. Tomisaburo Wakayama is perfect as Ogami Ittō, the "Lone Wolf" of the title - most of his screen time is spent walking around pushing his Baby Cart Of Certain Death with a permanent scowl on his face. He speaks little, but makes every subtitled word count. LW&C:SOV also avoids the pitfall that so many other films fall into, the unpredictable performance of child actors. In most films, even the most experienced kid can ruin a scene with a forced line reading or problems with being able to "tone down" a performance. Part of the reason is script never called for Akihiro Tomikawa to deliver any lines apart from a few coos, but make no mistake, director Kenji Misumi uses the younger of the duo to great effect - especially the scene where, with his world crumbling around him, Ittō forces his son to make a decision between the toy ball (joining his wife in the afterlife, i.e. dying at his father's hand) or the sword (becoming a wandering assassin with his father). It's one of the most awesome scenes he's seen in any movie, and when Ittō remarks that it would have been easier for his son if he had chosen the ball, you'll understand exactly where he's coming from.



Another great thing about the movie is it's depiction of the anti-hero. The protagonist of LW&C:SOV isn't a cuddly fellow. In fact, when he pieces together the treachery that causes him to be disgraced from his Shogun, he matter-of-factly states "I have decided to become a demon" and considering his first appearance in the film is acting as an official executioner of what looks like a seven-year-old boy, it's really not much of a step down. But Wakayama plays him with such an air of menace and dread that the viewer just can't help but eagerly watch to see who he's going to fuck up next.

Did I mention the movie also features buckets of blood spraying out of various orifices both natural and man-made? 'Cause it does! Titties, too! At times it's like a glimpse into a 14-year-old boy's id shot in vivid technicolor. So buy it or rent it or live it, but for God's sake SEE IT. Meanwhile, YHP is filling up his queue - the DVD also included trailers for a few of the 5 other Lone Wolf & Cub movies.



Oh, right. The next movie on the list is the horrible action movie Shotgun he's going to take to a little get-together this weekend.

But after that, it's back to the Land of Hungry Ghosts.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And now an important message re: HOPE

A terrifying, blurry glimpse into the future!

So here we are.

Months and months of hype has finally, FINALLY led up to this moment. Years of planning, thousands of dollars, tons and tons of bickering and spiteful rhetoric has finally led to this. This is our shining moment on the hill, our chance to be something bigger than ourselves and participate in a scenario that will change the course of human history as we know it. Brothers and sisters, I am here to tell you that it has not all been in vain - Fallout 3 is a pretty good game.

Bethesda has managed to make a game that will satisfy most of the diehard Fallout series fans and casual gamers alike. Aside from a few problems with the game locking up on me (fixed, I think, by clearing out the hard drive cache), it has delivered on all fronts - an engaging story, solid and easy-to-pick-up gameplay and, form what I've heard, quite a bit of replay value. With that in mind, I give Fallout 3 a 5/6 quarters erection:

Also, today is election day for this country so it's a good time to post another patented IGBALOH Pointless List!

And go vote. Or don't. Me? I probably won't because I think this voting thing is for queers.

TOP 7 THINGS THAT HAPPENED DURING THE '08 ELECTION THAT I CAN PUT INTO LIST FORM

7. THE MCCAIN GIRLS

Hey! Remember the McCain Girls? These lovely ladies appeared on the scene early on in the campaign with everyone's favorite electoral provocation, song parodies! Clever little ditties like the one above and "Here Comes McCain Again" cheered up one sector of the electorate which desperately needed it and enraged the other which sometimes needs to chill a little. Of course, it all turned out to be a hoax perpetrated by one H. Jon Benjamin, who, apparently expanding his horizons beyond pulling fast ones on infants, had to be laughing at the whole mess from the sidelines.

6. LARRY SINCLAIR



Back in 1999, a dashing young rogue by the name of Larry Sinclair found himself alone in Chicago, IL and met a man who inquired if Mr. Sinclair may have a taste for certain illicit pharmaceuticals and some company for the evening. When Mr. Sinclair agreed, this person naturally called the state representative's office and a certain young Mr. Barack Obama was on the case! Arriving at the upscale hotel lobby, the two eventually absconded to the back of a rented limo where crack-smoking and head-giving abounded! And yet, to this day, Senator Obama refuses to recognize this special night even occured! And the mainstream media, of course, just ignores it because Mr. Sinclair failed a lie detector test. FOR SHAME!

5. MALCOLM X, JR.

But not all journalists are so yellow! One intrepid blogger by the name of Pam Geller has stumbled upon the story of the century and she is shouting it from the highest blogmountain! While going over the reams and reams of evidence that Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen and therefor CANNOT possibly run for president, Ms. Geller uncovered unmistakeable proof that Barack Hussein Obama is, in actuallity, Barack X! It's hard to discount these allegations, especially since, oh, I don't know... THEY LOOK EXACTLY ALIKE! OPEN YOUR EYES PEOPLE!


4. ASHLEY TODD



Man, does election season bring out the crazies. When Ashley when to the Pittsburg 5-0 with some fucked up story about how she was mutilated by a crazed negro Obama supporter, Drudge was all over that shit. Instead of muttering stuff about ACORN and blaming the growing support for Obama's campaign on the popularity of black celebrities, all the closet racists had something concrete to point to. That is, of course, until the wacko finally confessed she made it all up.

3. JOE THE BOM-AHH JOE THE PLUMMER



Smell that? It's a fresh marketing gimmick, straight out of the RNC's labs! You would have thought Joe Wurzelbacher had proved Barack Obama was the anti-christ and then strangled him with his bare hands on his own front lawn instead of had just having a polite discussion about economics. Of course, once the meme had traction Joe and Sara did their damnest to shoehorn it into any and all interviews regardless of whether it was pertinent or not. Hence, the video above.

2. SARAH FUCKING PALIN



THE QUESTION WASN'T ABOUT FUCKING BILL AYERS YOU FUCKING CUNT. DO YOU HAVE ANY FUCKING ANSWERS THAT DON'T INVOLVE JOE THE FUCKING PLUMMER BILL FUCKING AYERS OR KARL FUCKING MARX YOU SPASTIC FUCKING HALFWIT? IF YOU HAVE TO TAILOR YOUR ANSWER IN SUCH A WAY AS TO NOT OFFEND THE FUCKING ABORTION CLINIC BOMBER DEMOGRAPHIC THEN YOU HAVE SOME SERIOUS PROBLEMS LADY.

This woman will be president one day.

1. IOWA PICKS OBAMA



In the weeks leading up to the Iowa caucus this year I kept hearing an echo. This echo returns every four years and it says basically the same thing: "What's so goddamn special about Iowa?" "How come those farmers get to go first every year?". Well, besides the obvious ( e.g. someone has to, you douche) I'd say it's first in the nation status can be put down to the fact that nobody usually gives a shit about Iowa. We don't have any large population centers. No grand structures. I doubt Des Moines is in the running for the Olympics anytime soon. But once a fucking year, the arcane and unknowable electoral process forces all Americans to cast a glance towards the middle of the country for a split second, and without an Iowan in the race, this year's caucus was up for grabs.

And Iowa nailed it.

And for the first time in my life, I'm really proud of my state.

Happy Halloween, kids!

Rudy Ray Moore 1937 - 2008

And I just got around to watching The Human Tornado and Disco Godfather this weekend, both of which were frikkin' awesome.

One thing that struck me about The Human Tornado was a scene in which Dolemite, on the run from a racist sheriff is forced to hitchhike back to California. He is picked up by a guy who is one of those 70's cartoonish homosexual characters that always seem to take the brunt of the "hero"'s pent up masculinity in these types of movies, usually resulting in either deviant's gruesome demise or at least a macho ass whompin' with a bunch of homophobic slurs thrown in for good measure. Instead, the lisping stereotype chauffeurs Dolemite and his crew to L.A. and is eventually thanked by the Bad Motherfucker and leaves the film happy and in one piece! I have to say I was surprised and a little touched by that development.


He's kicking honky ass in heaven now.

As you can see (or maybe you can't - apparently I live in a cave), I've been busy.

BONUS MEAT PHOTO - MUST CREDIT YHP!!!!!:

While I was uploading the above video, I stumbled upon some photos taken earlier of my son's birthday party including this one of Godfather's Pizza's All Meat Combo:



Yep. That's bacon.

Hail The Old, Ugly Flesh

So here's how YHP decides which movies to record on his DVR: during the commercial breaks for baseball and football games, he uses his TV remote's "guide" function to scan all of the movie channels looking specifically for movies that were made between the years of 1970-1990 that he has never heard of. I'm actually kind of at a loss to why I do this, but I've so far settled on an overall weariness to the concept of irony which is omnipresent in most films produced within the last few years. Conversely, I could just be an old fart yearning for a simpler time or an elitist, pretentious douchebag looking for something to snicker at. Whatever works.

Anywho, he sees a movie labeled "Shivers" produced in 1973 which doesn't ring any bells with him and reads the plot summary which describes the movie as a horror film set in an apartment building that involves parasites. This hits all his requirements so he hits record.

Later he has some freinds over and, looking for something to watch and discuss, decides to watch the first few minutes and see what he captured and almost immediately is treated to what looks like footage from a snuff film - an overweight, older gentleman has set upon a schoolgirl in what looks like a hotel room and at first, it looks like he's trying to rape her. Turns out, he's just trying to strangle her and cut her open with a knife, but really the first impression is that this is a fucking ugly-ass movie. YHP's friends leave and he stops the film and considers deleting it, but reconsiders. After all, how bad could it be? As it turns out, it's pretty fucking bad.

The acting is wooden and the actors are uniformly ugly and often nude. The location is ugly, a Montreal high-rise full of small, dingy apartments. Child actors are put into sexual situations, including a lovely scene where two snarling eight-year-olds in bikinis are led around on a leash. The plot is laughable with scenes of homosexuality and incest seemingly inserted randomly to "shock" the viewer. It has a kind of standard, "zombie apocalypse" kind of ending, where the unappealing hero is swarmed under by rapist zombies and a coda that hints that this is but the first battle in the global war on oily, horny parasite hosts.

Finally my curiosity gets the better of me and I Wiki this film only to find out something I missed during the credits - this is David Cronenberg's first film!



Now the dream-like logic of the film kinda makes sense, and the preoccupation with sexual issues. Also, the bad dialogue and corny, laughable actions of the hero make sense - it's a great director's stumbling first stab at a full-length film!

So, yeah, see it if you have a chance. It's got that classic 70's decor and fashion up the wazoo. Just be prepared to watch some of the ugliest people ever shot on film (including a man who's looks improve when several parasites get stuck to his face) and some creepy sexual situations ("Have you met my daughter, Erica? She's a very beautiful girl. Come here, Erica. I just know you'll like my daughter, Erica.").



Long live the new flesh!