Movies I’ve Made My Wife Watch
Over twenty years ago, in the period before I met the woman who would soon move in with me and much later become my wife, I used to watch movies quite a lot. This was the golden age of VHS video and small video shops with quality making way for quantity meaning there was a neverending stream of films to rent of every genre imaginable. Some were great, some were appalling, some were both great and appalling. In the period since I met my now-wife I have introduced her to some of these films as they’ve sprung to mind or I’ve accidentally rediscovered them somehow. I love all these films for their nostalgia factor or because I genuinely think they’re fabulous. My wife does not always share my opinion despite repeated attempts to change her mind. Cry Baby My wife – being a woman with eyes – already had a bit of a thing for Johnny Depp. Thus, she had no problems at all agreeing to watch Cry Baby and there was no need for The Restraining Device. This, along with Hairspray, formed my introduction to my wife of the wonderful world of John Waters. Is there a more enigmatic film director on the planet? There is not. The film is a great 1950s-style musical with great songs and wonderful cast. “Look!” I said to my wife. “That’s Traci Lords.” “Should I know her?” she asked. “Er.” “Where do you know her from?” “Er.” Wife’s review: So good. John Waters can do no wrong. The Beastmaster My wife describes this fantastic fantasy adventure (my words; not hers) as my “Hawk the Slayer”, meaning I feel about The Beastmaster in the same way she feels about Hawk the Slayer; she has fond memories of the latter while accepting its many flaws and assumes I feel the same way about the former. I do not feel that way, though. She is wrong. It has Marc Singer, witchcraft, human sacrifice, Rip Torn, scary leathery bird things, and ferrets. That’s the sort of pedigree you won’t find anywhere else. The Beastmaster shits all over Hawk the Slayer. That’s all you need to know. Note: under no circumstances ever watch Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time. Just. Don’t. I’m not kidding. Wife’s review: It’s nice that you like it but it’s not very good. Running Scared Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines. Cops. Sick and tired of getting nowhere with the criminal elements of Chicago they decide to retire to Miami. They’ve just got to survive the homicidal tendencies of Jimmy Smits and a montage to the sound of Sweet Freedom by Michael McDonald....
Californian Water
Source: What does California have in common with a decades-old Saudi Arabian water mystery? An interesting and worrying comparison on the misuse of water in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s and misuse of water in California today. Saudi Arabia: The government announced next year’s wheat harvest will be the country’s last. The Saudis are drinking desalinated water from the ocean — a process too expensive to use for irrigating farmland. Agricultural production is in a free fall. The country has less than half the farmland it did in the mid-1990s, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Its fling as a major food exporter was nothing but a brief mirage in its long history. Instead, the government announced that to feed its 30 million people, it will rely almost entirely on crops imported from other countries. California: For the past two years, stories similar to Saudi Arabia’s have been bubbling up in the Central Valley, which produces about 10 percent of America’s agriculture. Wells are going dry, farmers are forced to chase water ever deeper underground, and the ground is sinking. […] Some California aquifers have been so depleted by irrigated farmland that the state is now pumping water that trickled down more than 20,000 years ago. Rainwater won’t recharge these ancient aquifers. When it’s gone, it’s gone — at least for the next 800 generations or...
Birds Of England’s East Coast
Something for ornithologists and amateur bird-watchers alike, a selection of some of the more rare birds you might just spot out and about around the eastern coast of England between late summer and early winter. Factory Swan Named because their black feathers were believed to be the result of soot belching out from late Victorian factories when the birds were first identified living in large groups alongside the Thames estuary these swans are actually 19th century immigrants from Iceland whose colouring made them easy to spot by predators once that country underwent The Coldening during the early 1800s. Their beaks have a very distinctive red flash along the top in adulthood, the result of staining from the swans’ preferred food source of subterranean cherries. Narcissus Tern Visually very similar to other terns along shorelines across northern Europe but distinguishable by silver flecks across the breast and eyes typically 15% larger than other birds of the Sternidae familiy, it is, however, the behaviour of these seabirds that gives them their obvious name; prior to courting – and to a lesser extent immediately before feeding – the Narcissus Tern will often seek out highly reflective surfaces and stare at itself intently, grooming when necessary, but sometimes simply staring at itself at the expense of all other activity. Some bird experts suggest this forms a means of “psyching itself up” although there is no consensus of opinion. Magpie Eagle Not a magpie and not an eagle, but actually a medium-sized hawk typically residing in urban areas in a rough triangle formed of London, Colchester, and Ramsgate during the colder weather, moving to the countryside as the temperatures increase. The bird’s feathers form a black and white fractal pattern that roughly resembles birds in flight but it’s the hawk’s unusual penchant for stealing bright objects with which to decorate its nesting areas – vacant beehives – that gives it part of its name; the remainder being a printing mistake from the definitive 1932 publication of British Hawks & Turtles that’s yet to be rectified. Logan’s Turnstone Like other turnstones the Logan’s Turnstone lives by the coast and feeds on insects, crustaceans, and molluscs, most often in areas with seaweed-covered rocks. Unlike other turnstones the Logan’s Turnstone often throws itself off cliff edges in large numbers once it reaches what is for the bird old age; for reasons not understood it will not use its wings and will either smash itself on the surface below or, if above water, allow itself to drown. The name Logan’s Turnstone was adopted in the 1970s after the movie Logan’s Run, replacing the previous and politically-incorrect name of...
Close Encounters And Other Movie Title Translations
I happened upon an old Japanese poster for the science fiction movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind recently (pictured below) and was pleased to see it contained the title that the film was released under in Japan. If you’re not familiar with the Japanese language then it roughly says “The aliens who keep stealing our stuff are back” which, I think you’ll agree, is a much more descriptive title for the immensely flawed (yet enjoyable) film. Close Encounters isn’t the only film with a better title in a foreign market release. Here are a few others you might already know: 1972’s science fiction movie Silent Running was known in Iceland as Crazy Space Gardener. The distributors of 1980’s Caddyshack in Portugal knew they’d get better attendance with a film called Disruptive Golf Course Rodent. Also from 1980, the comedy 9 To 5 became known in Saudi Arabia as This Is Why Women Should Not Work In Offices. Fantastic Voyage was given a 1966 release in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) as Very Small Donald Pleasence Movie. It was the same reverence for the actor that also saw Upper Volta give a 1980 release for The Pumaman as Donald Pleasence Versus The Flying Man And The Giant. The excellent 1982 Steve Martin movie Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid has a wonderfully surreal title in English but in Nepalese it makes far more sense as Monochromatic Film With Most Amusing Coffee-Making Scene. In 1989 the modern classic Road House was released and the following year saw the film make an appearance in Honduras as Incompetent Doorman Keeps Getting Employed. The distributors of Afghanistan were obviously a little confused with Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris in 1972, hence the title of its limited release, Not Entirely Certain What Is Happening Outer Space Film. Of course, you can’t have a list of oddly-translated movie titles without including (and finishing off with) 1977’s surprise hit, Star Wars. In Lesotho: The Princess In The Sky Ball. In Tonga: Colourful Sword Warriors In Space. In Czechoslovakia: Gold Robot And White Robot In Robot Story. And, finally, in Guyana, demonstrating that sometimes cinema distributors just use the posters as guidelines: White Couple Erotic Adventures In The Great Black...
Compute! Full Page Adverts
I never collected Compute! magazine – there were computer magazines better suited to my Sinclair ZX Spectrum – but happening upon the Compute! Magazine Archive online brought back warm memories of listings, technical talk (some of which is still beyond my understanding and I’ve worked in the industry for decades), and wonderful adverts. It’s probably because I’ve not been as interested in other subjects in quite the same way I’ve been interested in computers (although, again, decades of working in the industry does take some of that shine off it all) but computer magazine adverts hold a fascination that adverts today don’t. If marketing people could take a piece of that charm from old adverts and inject them into modern attempts to track us and get us buying stuff we don’t need I might even consider whitelisting some of the sites. Probably not. Anyway, here’s a selection of full page adverts, some good, some less so, all just lovely anyway. An office at United Microware’s game division headquarters: “Gentlemen, it’s time to market our games. It’s time to market the hell out of them!” “Which games are these again, Jeff?” “It’s mostly our exceptional science fiction games, Ted. Meteor Run, Alien Blitz, and so on.” “Gotcha! What’s our strategy?” “Ginger-haired female clown looking quite surprised that there’s a pile of computer games under her hand.” “Your wife’s a clown, isn’t she?” “What of it?” “She’s a redhead too, isn’t she?” “And? What are you trying to say?” “Nothing. Nothing. I’m completely on board with this marketing approach.” Great, colourful artwork, a sci-fi theme, and a subtle message, easily missed completely, that this game might – only might, mind you – contain hyperspikes. Hyperspikes! Fair play to Small Systems Engineering for grabbing my attention and getting me excited for… a BASIC compiler! You can sort things at lightning speed! That’s the power of bald, grumpy-looking aliens who’ve been working out and can squeeze into their power armour. A great piece of advertising here evoking thoughts of a thrilling cinema experience in what you know is probably a disappointing 2D block graphics lump of misery. Still, there’s all the thrill of the nighttime game mode where your car has to avoid the ghosts. I guess they can clog up the demister or something. Then it’s blurry viewing and a traffic stop for driving without due care and attention. And ghosticide, which is a real crime. An office at Mimic System Inc’s software division headquarters: “People want to emulate an Apple II+ on their Commodore 64 and now, thanks to us, they can!” “Hoorah!” “Next step! Advertising. And I think you’ll like...
Photography By David Stewart
There’s a very distinctive style to David Stewart‘s photography – especially the pictures of his that really caught my eye, anyway – and that’s one of very staged, very clean, very coordinated, very well lit, often very static shots, with occasional touches of humour or absurdity. Click on the photos below to view the images in their full glory on David’s site, along with a great many others. Four beautiful books of his photos are also available to...
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