Hey, you know that stack of Severin Films DVD’s* I have here to give to some cinematically deprived soul out there? Yup, they’re still here, all boxed up and ready to go get shipped out anywhere in the US. Instead of picking a subscriber from a list, we’re changing that to whoever (and yes, you still have to live in the US!) replies to this post and is willing to let me be that not so Secret Santa who might have had a few too many Egg Nogs. Anyway, I have to go out for a few hours and will return later this afternoon, so you know what to do (I hope!)
*Note: there’s at least one Blu-Ray in the stack, Maybe Santa will slip up and add another? Who knows?
Alrighty, I haven’t done a giveaway in a LONG while, but I was going through a huge pile of movies here and found a stack of sealed duplicates that I picked up from a Severin Films sale last year when they were clearing out their DVD section, so I ended up with a dozen or so extras. Anyway, I like surprising people at random, so yep, I’m going to gift ONE lucky reader with these discs and that person has to do nothing but wait for the box to arrive. Of course, there’s a catch or two:
One, you have to be a subscriber to the blog. Two, you need to be a US resident. Sorry about that last part, but it’s far easier and a lot less expensive to just ship a box of movies almost anywhere in the US than to deal with customs forms and the package being delayed, opened and inspected by overzealous types out there.
No, YOU’RE throwing your back out dancing around the room to this!
SO, what IS inside the box, you ask? Well, let’s just say it’s a mix of genres and leave it at that. I think there’s one kid friendly film on the mix, a few horror films, a trailer collection and other strange stuff. Everything seems to be out of production from the distributor or rights have changed hands, so jump into the pool, if you’re able to. I’ll randomly pick someone off my subscriber list and shoot an email out to that person asking if they want the movies (say yes, please) and I’ll ship out your box around the end of the week. OR, you can reply in the comments without giving out personal info and if you’re chosen, we can work out the details via email. NO, I won’t sell your info to some shady company or send you those Sea Monkeys you ordered back when you were a kid. I guess it’s just me trying to be more human than “social” or something. An experiment, if you will. Humor me and be rewarded in the process. Good luck!
When a little film called Star Wars was released back in 1977, I was one of a seeming minority who didn’t go rush out to see it. Not that I didn’t want to, mind you. There were assorted issues and I was out of the loop for a bit in my movie viewing. It wasn’t until summer 1978 when a friend of the family popped by to ask if I was interested in going to see the film, which of course, I agreed to. We arrived to the theater late, walking in on the scene where Luke and his Uncle Ben are buying C-3PO and R2-D2, so that was disappointing. But we agreed to watch the film a second time and sat through the second part of the double feature, a rather unusual science fiction film from 10 years earlier called The Terrornauts. I’m guessing that whomever picked this as a good film to show with Star Wars had never seen either movie or just thought “well, it’s also a space flick sooooo…” (or something like that). Seeing movies in Times Square was very often bizarre like that, from what I understand and recall from a few odd occasions.
It followed me home- can I keep it?
Anyway, the plot: a small team of scientists working for Star Talk, a UK-based organization dedicated to tracking signals from outer space in order to find life on distant planets, get a lot more than they bargained for when not only do they get that signal, aliens decide to yank their entire facility off the Earth and deliver it to their planet where there’s an interplanetary war about to take place. Guess who gets to stop that war with more war in the lowest budget manner (we’re talking Woolworth shower caps as a costuming option, folks). Yes, we sat through this flick just to see the other one and yes, when I told friends at school, they all laughed at me for seeing Star Wars over a year late.
The more amusing thing was around a year later, The Terrornauts started popping up semi-frequently on local TV, so I was able to introduce it to some new friends and yes, we hated it, but found plenty of amusement at the visual effects and general cheesiness of the film. At least they got in a shot that’s replicated almost exactly on the film’s poster art. On the other hand this wasn’t an interstellar epic like Star Wars or even a This Island Earth on a less than shoestring budget.There are plenty of good intentions here, it’s just that the execution is somewhat off the mark.
Ouch! (almost)
While the film is far from Amicus Productions better known films, it has it’s share of fans out there who grew up watching this on television, so nostalgia wins here. However, it’s pretty much forgotten these days, as it isn’t legally available on disc and the digital version isn’t 100 percent flawless when you can find it online. I also had the luxury back in the day to read the book the film is based on, Murray Leinster’s 1960 novel The Wailing Asteroid, which is a “hard” science fiction tale much more suited to a film with a much more robust budget. The goofy bit here is Murray Leinster is the name of the ship at the beginning of the 1978 film Starcrash, which I saw shortly after it’s release (on Times Square, of course). Yes, I’ll have to get to that film again one day in review form, but not for a while, as it’s so mind numbing and silly in a like-ably weird manner.
Anyway, this post is part of The Hammer-Amicus Blogathon IV, hosted by Barry over at Cinematic Catharsis and Gill from Realweegiemidget Reviews. I’m posting a few days early due to a few previous commitments, but make sure to pop on over to get a peek at the other posts. As for me? Well, I’ll be back sooner that later- it says so on my contract!
So, my post for the blogathon below is all done and scheduled, but WordPress weirdness mucked up the header I wanted to use and you all just have to wait until the end of the week so I can yell at the sky and attempt to re-edit the piece. (Some of you know how this goes, I hope.)- I’m taking a few days off to sort out some health issues, but I’ll pop in and throw a few sentences together just to liven the place up a bit. Have a great week or just a good one, for that matter.
The next day, it was back to Deal$, where I purchased $5 worth of paper Halloween bags with Happy Halloween and Trick or Treat printed on them in orange and green ink, a dozen smaller plastic pumpkin buckets, four packages of Halloween confetti (bats, cats, ghosts, skulls and such; each bag came with a free pack of Halloween glitter), a few packs of giant Halloween stickers, a few glow sticks and a box of aluminum foil sheets. The previous night, I’d painted the buckets with the black enamel paint, adding large pumpkin faces to each bucket and using the orange fabric tape to cover up some misprinted text. The tape wasn’t exactly the same color as the buckets, but those Halloween stickers were quite handy in covering things up when needed.
Warning: flashy lights alert!
I dumped a bag of confetti and glitter in each bucket, then cut open four of the huge bags of mixed candy and poured the entire bags into one bucket. Then I started sorting the candy by type. Hard candy in one bucket, chocolate in another, gummy candy and small boxes of miscellaneous treats went to a third bucket. The funny thing was, there were also small sealed bags of mixed candy corn, a few rolls of Necco wafers, a lot of Smarties and (EEK!) a few sealed bags of Circus Peanuts. Those went into bucket four (the Trick bucket). Then I opened up a package of the paper bags and filled about 20 or each with a mix of every type of candy so when a bag was handed out, each person was guaranteed a little of everything. The small pumpkins were for carrying six bags each and I brought two buckets (one small, one large) to the security booth in the Oval to show to the guards on duty that afternoon.
Everything was approved, but one of the guards told me my skull mask was a bit too scary (boo!), so I pulled out one cute alternate I’d brought and got a thumbs up from him. Another more senior guard told me to just wear whatever I felt like (I’d planned to bring both masks anyway) and to just have fun. The next few days before Halloween was just me deciding what to wear and when to show up. The final outfit was a heavy orange sweater with an orange sweatshirt underneath, black sweatpants and a pair of black Chuck Taylors, plus the two masks, one of which was stored in one of the large buckets. As far as those buckets went, a few of the aluminum foil sheets went into two of the large buckets along with a few glow sticks. I’d remixed the candy selection to be a mix of everything, stuck a few sheets of foil in the bottom on top of the confetti, crinkled the foil a bit and put a few glow sticks in the bottom of the buckets so when it was getting darker, I’d use the glow sticks to give off a little extra light. The crinkled foil made for a nice effect.
Cute alert!
Halloween was the next day and I decided to head out around 1:30 PM with two big buckets of mixed candy, some loose paper bags and four smaller bag-filled buckets. The plan was to hand out filled bags and hand out empty bags to those who wanted to take a chance at picking their own goodies. I lived about three minutes away, so if I needed a bathroom break or to get more treats, it was a short walk to get home. When I got to the park, one of the security guards told me I was a bit too early, but I told him we’ll see what happens as it happens. There were smaller pumpkins loaded with paper bags of candy all set to be grabbed from a table when I returned home for a break.
Just may be a future wife.
I still remember my first “customers”. At about 1:45 or so, A dad pushing his daughter in a kid-sized wheelchair walked up to me. He wore a harness with a toddler securely strapped in. The younger child was fast asleep. “Is that candy free?” he asked. “The freest!” I responded. The security guard gave me a thumbs up (He was munching away on a bag of candy I’d given him earlier) and nodded as I handed the dad two bags of candy to inspect. He want through both bags and said “Okay, this looks fine.”, before handing one bag to his daughter in the wheelchair. She wore a pink sweater under a small puffy jacket, pink tights with big stars on them and was holding onto a plastic wand of some sort. When she got the candy, she smiled broadly and said a quiet “Thank You.”. I smiled back, leaned forward a bit to ask her name and then, *BOOP!*, she reached out and conked me on the head with the plastic wand she was holding. “Trick or Treat!” she laughed. Her dad laughed as well, as did I.
Dad then asked if I could give him an extra bag for his son, who was arriving via school bus about a half hour later, and of course, I did. I also asked if he wanted to grab a bag of candy for himself, but he declined, saying he’d swipe a little from the other bags. A few minutes later, a person dressed as a clown arrived and joined me. The security guards all knew her well and introduced us. The clown wore blue overalls with multicolored stripes, a blue shirt with stars, a blue fuzzy jacket and a huge blonde Afro wig. The first thing she did after shaking my hand was mime a big sneeze and gold colored confetti flew out of the wig, landing all over the place. “Does that every year” One of the guards said, laughing. “Oh, the team from Maintenance just loves November the first” another guard joked.
Even with all my current health issues, my favorite holiday is coming up and I’m very likely going to to once again take part in an annual Halloween candy giveaway. A few residents have been doing this for about a dozen years (some for much longer) and it’s always rewarding to see those smiling kids, some of whom have popped up over later years as teenagers and young adults to grab a bag or two of treats (or a few bags of treats). Meeting all those parents over the years has also been rewarding as I’ve found a whole lot of parents who like not having to take their kids again out unless it’s to a Halloween party they’ve been invited to later. (but not too late).
More like before midnight, honestly.
One early October morning in 2012, I went to the management office and inquired about handing out candy to kids in the complex. There was yes, a full background check.They also checked my state and city ID and address to see if I was a resident here. The process took about a half hour or so but it gave some of the staff something else to do other than whatever other tasks they did. Then, a security officer went over a few basic ground rules with me. I had to be inside the Oval area (an outdoor oval-shaped park open to residents), sit on a bench near the security booth, stand near the booth or both (the security guards were more or less protecting me from any rowdy antics). I was told not everyone celebrates the holiday and to be respectful and don’t “force” fun or candy on anyone if they refuse. I also had to let security search the candy I was giving out and it all had to be sealed. They also wanted to see what I intended to wear on that day. If the mask and/or costume were deemed too frightening, I’d need to have a backup handy.
I got a rock (and a roll- that’s a sandwich, right?)
The next day, I did some shopping. The first stop was Deal$, which is now a Dollar Tree ($1.25 Tree, actually), where I bought $40 worth of bagged mixed and wrapped Halloween candy and a few $1 Halloween masks, which were simple pull over the head masks with mesh faces. I bought three with skeleton faces. three with Ghostface inspired images and four cuter cartoony masks, just in case. Then I went down the street to a small thrift store and bought a few irregular orange sweatshirts (3 for $5). The shirts, I found out later just needed to be laundered and were “irregular” only because they were labeled incorrectly by the manufacturer.
Got milk?
To store the candy, I found a great deal in Summer 2011. A local hardware store had a special on what they called “DIY” Halloween buckets, which were large orange buckets, some of which were unpainted or were misprinted on one side. “How much for a bucket?” I asked. “Tell you what” the clerk said. “it’s a slow day. so buy $10 worth of stuff and I’ll thrown in two buckets for free”. That was too hard too pass up, so I asked if the store had cloth tape in orange (I needed two rolls) and some black enamel paint. The clerk (he was actually the shop owner) pulled a drawer open and and picked two rolls of orange tape out, then from behind the counter, he produced a medium sized can of black enamel paint. “Just opened this yesterday. My son painted that sign.” He pointed at a sign for the buckets. It was $11 for the tape and paint but the owner added four more buckets for a buck each. He rang me up, then wrote me a receipt on a small pad and tore off a copy, placing it, the tape and the can of paint in one of the stacked buckets. “Thanks for the business” he nodded and flashed a wide smile as I nodded back and left the shop. There was still a lot of work ahead for me…
OK, we’re still here, smoky acrid skies and all. (coughs. Thanks, Canada!) Some thoughts on the current scribbly situation along with other randomly generated ramblings:
Yes, we’ll continue to blog, albeit at a less than rapid clip than I’d prefer. The effect of pair of strokes I had a few years back have jumped up to remind me the writing process can be extremely daunting, especially when speed and quality are the issues. I have to constantly check my work, go back and edit, then reread everything before hitting that publish button or else you’d all be asking for an English translation into English or begging for me to start posting in Semaphore or Braille. Yes this takes a while to do and I hate it, but trying to rebuild a skill set is supposed to be a constant battle (at least in terms of the writer acquiring an honest, original “voice” in which to write in). Or something like that. Learning should always challenge.
That 10-yard stare makes for a common sight.
I’m also planning to reestablish connections with certain PR firms that I’ve previously dealt with (Hi there (again!) in order to receive (or get back to receiving) products to review. For a while, I was strictly purchasing products I reviewed or meant to review. But that’s gotten to be fairly expensive over the years, as I believe the “best” way to properly evaluate something is to actually pay for it while also pointing out its positive and negative aspects in a fair, unbiased (or biased in some cases) manner. “Biased”, of course, in that I’m a fan of some entertainment genres that don’t get the proper respect by too many very well-paid, freebie-loving “influencers” and “journalists” these days and I’d love to do my small part in helping raise a more positive impression of these genres. Tall order, especially in this giveaway friendly age. But it’s something I like to do as much as I can, while I still can. Granted, the current landscape is rife with those aforementioned (and extremely wealthy in many cases) types who expound on all sorts on products via a current format where some are paid to review and/or gift stuff from assorted sponsors, easily raking in hundreds to millions of fans who often rely on opinions of always raised voices and shock-tainted performances a more than actual facts. Personally, I’ve never been paid to review anything (although, a PR firm sent me a $50 Gamestop card after I’d posted a favorable review, which, by the way, had NO effect in my impressions). No one has ever told me they’d pay directly for a positive review, However, I have been asked a few times how much I’d charge to review something, or asked to review particular products primarily for some sort of payout and long term gain as other products to arrive later, but still haven’t taken that more lucrative bait.
SO Predictable (for me, at least!)
Of course, this makes me the absolutely dumbest person alive on a few fronts. But one has to have principles and mine are simple to a fault. Laugh if you must- I’ll wait. (Cue 1960’s era laugh track).
That said, I keep reading that ALL games/media writers are somewhat corrupt or in on the payola game and they all can be bought with games, movies and other free media. I suppose I’m making a point and a difference here, But someone has to reign it in at some point as it’s just making proper critical evaluation quite the dying art these days. Call me crazy, but some of the old ways and days need to make a return, purely for sanity’s sake. But that’s just me. I guess.
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 