Perun's Hideout

How to make "King Kong" without a budget and why you shouldn't do it...

2010-01-20T10:31:00.001-08:00

So, I was cleaning up my place the other day and decided I'd need something running in the background. I went through my collection of DVDs (the "shitload of bad films" I mentioned in a previous post) and popped one in that sounded at least kind of entertaining, a film that went by the name of "SWAT: Warhead One".

The teaser was already pretty terrible. It tried to explain the entire exposition of the plot through awkward cutting and pretty pathetic subtitles that didn't even make any real sense. Apparently, the film is about a nuclear warhead that got stolen by Russian criminals after the fall of the Soviet Union and was bought by a Chinese mafioso in LA several years later.

What is funny about this plot is that the rest of the film doesn't have anything to do with it, because the Chinese guy later threatens to blow up a hospital for no apparent reason. Literally, the only character motivation he gets is, and I quote: "I'm the bad guy!" He actually says that in the film! Goddamnit.

Moreover, the movie is racist because the bad guy is Chinese, his right hand is black and all the SWAT members are white. There is also a guy in the film with an atrociously fake Russian accent and disturbing eyeliner makeup.

Apart from that, the whole film is boring as hell, and I didn't even pay attention to it most of the time because I found sorting notes and tidying my desk much more interesting. However, one question stuck with me... "where do these films come from?"

So I got the DVD out after this borefest ended with a pathetic attempt of a plot twist and typed the name of the film studio - Cine Excel - in a search engine... and I found the studio's website. And what is even better, they actually have trailers of some of their movies on that site.

So first, to prove to you that I'm not lying, here is the trailer to the movie I watched:

Even the "I'm the bad guy" line is in. Unbelievable.

Anyway, I checked the website a bit more extensively and had a look at the list of films, which are presented there with their promotional posters. Behold these works of art...

A few of the posters caught my particular attention. The first one was this incredibly well-done work that would never arouse the suspicion of being a photo montage:

I checked out the trailer, and seriously, I never thought you could make a boring trailer for an action movie. It is literally two minutes of people punching each other, and four words of plot exposition: "You killed my family!" And then comes the next punch.

And they're serious about it!

Then, there is one trailer that should make you think of another movie. In every bloody detail, that is.

You're right. That is basically King Kong except it has no budget, takes place in San Francisco, has the Abominable Snowman instead of a forty-foot gorilla and is shit. And did the girl actually call him "Snowy"? Oh boy.

However, that isn't the worst the site has to offer. No, not even remotely. I didn't check out all the trailers, but I am convinced that the following one takes the prize. I can't find any words to describe it, so just watch it...

Help! I don't want this movie to exist! :( Why are they doing this? And why won't they stop?

Youtube finds

2009-10-23T04:30:00.000-07:00

I have a sort of love-hate relationship with Youtube. On the one hand, I hate it when people keep spamming me with Youtube links on instant messenger programs... in fact, thanks to this I hardly ever use them anymore. I also don't know if I like the fact that the first thing some people do when they come over to my place is that they occupy the computer and show some random Youtube clips, typically obscure, half-forgotten pop culture clips from the darker realms of the nineties.

On the other hand, there is indeed much great stuff to be found there. It is a great place to check out new music, old video clips and if you're lucky, you stumble into a time frame when good movies have been uploaded and not yet deleted again. I have spent many an hour on Youtube myself, and will probably continue to do so in the future. I don't know how often I'll do this, but right now, I feel like posting some clips here.

I love Immortal, and it looks like they are slowly emerging to one of my favourite bands. Their vision of a world without warmth and light fascinates me, and their brilliant musicianship always captivates me. Granted, their image is a bit awkward -although unique- and I guess we all know those incredibly lame "Black Metal Panda" jokes. Nevertheless, they do appear a bit dodgy on their video clips, and sometimes, I'm not sure if they're joking or serious about it. Anyway, the following clip... I don't know if I think it's great or if I think it's ridiculous. It seems like treading a fine line while drunk, but I'm not sure which side they fall on. Although I have to say I really like the last thirty seconds or so. Note that Immortal not only live in a world of cold and darkness, but apparently also one in which lightning bolts provide unlimited electricity, so their guitars don't even need to be plugged in.

Also, they seem to be rather fond of hiking in the woods. All that is missing is a picnic basket and Yogi Bear:

The above video is obviously tongue-in-cheek (stupid wizard hat...), but somebody managed to edit it down to a third of its length and take all the humour out of it.

That's all for now, I guess.

The Visitors. A catastrophe in three acts.

2009-09-13T06:31:00.001-07:00

Dramatis Personae:

P: Me
PN: P's neighbour, an old man of 88 years.
M: P's best friend
MGF: M's girlfriend
PB: P's brother
Emergency rescuers and various mates of P's.

Act 1
Int.: P's bedroom. Night. P is fast asleep and dreams of werewolves, amazons and heavy metal.

PN: (from off) Help! Help! Help!

P wakes up and starts to realize the situation as the cries for help continue. He gets up, puts on the light and after a moment of groggy consideration dials the emergency number.

P: Hello, I am hearing cries for help from next door. My neighbour is an old man. I live at 1, Easter Bunny Street. That's in Misery Borough.

P wanders up and down the place for five minutes until police, firemen and emergency doctors arrive. They chop PN's door open with an axe. All the while, the cries for help continue. Finally, the rescuers get in, spend some time in PN's flat. Then they come out again.

P: So, what happened?
Rescuers: He had a bad dream.

Off.

Act 2, Scene 1
Int.: P's flat. Day. The phone rings. P answers it. It's M.

M: I wanted to come over to your place next weekend.
P: Great! We haven't seen each other in, what, a year?
M: Yeah, pretty much. I'll be bringing MGF along.
P: Cool, I'd love to meet her. See you next weekend then!

Act 2, Scene 2
Int.: P's flat. Evening. The doorbell rings. P opens the door. Enter M and MGF.

P: Hey, great to see you M! Pleased to meet you, MGF! How was the trip?
M: Pretty long, we had to take long breaks and there were jams all the way.
P: Wanna eat something?
M and MGF: No, we're stuffed.
P: Alright, then make yourselves at home. I haven't got anything to eat or drink here right now, so we're gonna have to do some shopping. But no haste, the supermarket is open till ten, and then we can still go to the one open till one AM.
MGF: Woah, supermarkets that are open till ten? What place is this?
P: Berlin, capital and largest city of Germany. Ever been here before?
MGF: Uh, yeah, with my school.
P: Anything in particular you'd like to see here?
MGF: Yeah, the zoo. And that place I was at with my school, it had carousels and people on fire.
P: Uh... yeah... no clue what that is.
MGF: And then there was this place with all the stones.
P: Place with all the stones?
MGF: Yeah, they go up and down and up and down.
P: Sounds like the Holocaust Memorial. I can take you there tomorrow. I've got to go to the area anyway, since that's where the library is and I need to pick up a book. Alright, shall we go and do the groceries now?

They leave for the supermarket. They get breakfast stuff and drinks. They return to P's flat. About an hour has passed now.

MGF: I'm hungry.
M: Yeah, and we need beer.
P: OK, so let's get down to the Kebab place. MGF can get something to eat and we can get beer.

Off.

Act 2, Scene 3.
Ext.: Berlin. The next day. P, M and MGF walk around.

P: Here's the zoo. So you're gonna be alright by yourself in there?
MGF: Yeah, sure I will. You two go eat your currywurst. I'm gonna see the elephants.

She goes in, M pays the 12 Euros for the ticket. P and M head for the best currywurst takeout in the world. It has a special 50th anniversary offer. They eat a currywurst and want to head for a record store. M's cellphone rings. He answers.

M: Yes? You're finished already? But it's only been an hour. Oh... OK. Alright. We'll pick you up.
P: Don't tell me she is done with the zoo after an hour. It takes me one hour to go from one end to the other without even looking at an animal. Heck, I could spend half an hour looking at the damn monkeys.
M: I'm fucking tired of her.

Off.

Act 2, Scene 4.
Ext.: Berlin. Evening. P, M, MGF and PB walk around. They pass the Brandenburg Gate, which just so happens to be the most famous landmark of Germany and shrine of European democracy. P, M and PB glance at it in awe despite having seen it about a zillion times.

MGF: Oooh, bicycle taxis! I wanna sit in one of those!
PB: Uh, you noticed that gate behind you?
MGF: I wanna sit in a bicycle taxi! Anyway, where's that dome?
P: You mean the Reichstag? There. (He points to the Reichstag building, a mere hundred metres away)
MGF: I wanna go up there!
M: (whispering to P) I'm so fucking tired of that thing. We've been up there every single time I've been in Berlin so far. I can't see it anymore.

They head up to the Reichstag dome anyway. Then they go have a burger.

P: So, what are we gonna do tonight?
PB: I'm off, I gotta sleep.
M: I'd like to party.
P: Yeah, there's a party at a place I've never been to so far. Let's head there.
M: Cool.
MGF: I'm gonna stay home and watch TV.
P: Are you sure you're alright with that?
MGF: Yes, no problem at all.
P: Sure?
MGF: Yes, you just go.

Off.

Act 2, Scene 5.
Int.: A club, with various people, including mates of P's. Enter M and P.

M: ...and then she always accuses me of not paying enough attention to her when I want to listen to music for half an hour. And she always sits there on her fat arse and watches talkshows on TV.
P: OK, let's just forget about her for a few hours. This place looks fine.

They head for the bar, get some beers and start enjoying their time. After a mere half hour M's cellphone rings.

M: It's MGF. She thinks she's hearing noises. We gotta go.

They head for P's place all the while arguing about what MGF could have heard. They come home and see PN's door open.

PN: This looks like my place but it isn't. I don't know how I got here. Where am I? What is this?
P: OK, I can tell you this is your place. It's all right. You just go to your bed, I'll watch out in case somebody is outside.
PN: Yes?
P: Yes. Now you have a good night.

P closes the door. They go get some beers and watch a horror film and then go to bed.

Act 3, Scene 1.
Int.: P's flat. Day. P and M alone.

M: It's great that PB is showing MGF around. At least we have a few hours for ourselves now.
P: Indeed. How about this: We go out and eat something and then head for the record store?
M: Brilliant idea.

Off.

Act 3, Scene 2.
Int.: An underground train. Night. P's and M's cellphones ring simultaneously. They both answer.

P: Hey PB.
M: Hey MGF.
P: Yes, OK, you're done. We'll meet there. Fine.

P and M are pissed off. They get out the underground and proceed to wait in the glaring sun for one hour until PB and MGF finally arrive. They nevertheless proceed to eat and go to the record store, despite MGF's objections.

Act 3, Scene 3.
Int.: A flat of P's mates. A party. Night.

M: Now that MGF knows she can safely ignore the noises made by PN, she will be quiet and just watch TV.
P: (jokingly) I wouldn't know. I'd take any bet that she'll call the moment we start enjoying ourselves.
M: You know, she wanted to play hide and seek at the Holocaust memorial with me. I had to explain to her what the Holocaust was, without melting her brain by using the word "concentration camp".

The party proceeds slowly, but steadily, and finally, they start having fun.

PM: I can see your point about Neo-Platonic ideas in the lyrics to Hail and Kill by Manowar.
P: I have always likened Manowar to be more in the vein of Marcus Aurelius, though.
PM: Stoic? Nah.
P: What? If Fighting the World isn't stoic, then what is?
PM: You may be right.

M's cellphone rings.

M: You were right. She's hearing sounds. We have to go.
P: Break up with her. Sorry to be so harsh.
M: No, I'm glad somebody finally says it.

Off.

Act 3, Scene 4.
Int.: P's flat. Night. P and M talk about politics, while MGF watches TV. Eventually, somebody knocks on the door. P opens. He sees PN in his flat, the door is open.

PN: The sewing machine. It moved!

END.

Every word is a quote. It all happened exactly the way I put it there. You can't make shit like this up.

Killing fruit flies ist Krieg.

2009-09-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

Once again it happened. I'm busy and spend very little time at home, and even less in the kitchen. So I forgot that I had left a plate with tomato sauce in the sink. And perhaps there was an apple core in the trash can. Anyway, there is a massive population of fruit flies in my kitchen now.

This sort of thing happens. It sucks when it happens, but it's not the end of the world. It's happened to me three times since I live in my flat, and it never lasted longer than a week. That's because I am a merciless butcher when it comes to fruit flies. Seriously, my kitchen is a death camp for fruit flies, no matter how tasteless that sounds: It's true. I have no remorse on them.

There are of course simple and effective ways of dealing with them. The classic is having a bowl of water and vinegar along with some washing-up liquid, two or three drops, no more. To the flies, it's a weapon that would put Saddam to shame.

Nevertheless, it takes a while, and you have to renew it every two days, with the effect that my kitchen smells like vinegar. I hate the smell of vinegar, and I can't open my window at the moment. So I wanted to try something new out, something that does not smell as bad and perhaps gets even more at one go. Last time I had created a true WMD, but I had to clean the stove extensively afterward, and I don't feel like doing that again.

So I checked the internet, the wise and all-knowing encyclopaedia that gives us such great information all the time and never lets us down on some tips. For convenience, I looked it up in German. You know, German, the language spoken by Germans. The Germans, who started two world wars and did the Holocaust.

I stumbled on a page which had the same I tip I described above. I checked the comments at the bottom of the page, and one bloke wrote that he does not like that tip because it kills the fruit flies.

I had to re-read that again, and he actually wrote it. He had compassion with the flies.

The flies wouldn't even live without him. They don't need to live because your kitchen is not (supposed to be) an ecosystem. In fact, they are not even good for you. They can actually harm you. It is in your own interest to get rid of these damn beasts as soon as possible.

I wanted to write more, but my day at work is over. Anyway, what I mean to say is, some people go too far with this "I'm a good person" thing.

Thursday Night. A tragedy in three acts.

2009-08-28T02:29:00.001-07:00

So this is what happened last night.

Dramatis Personae
P: Me
PM1: A mate of P's (female)
PM2: Another mate of P's (male)
BT: Bar tender

Act 1, Scene 1
P is on his way home from work. The phone rings. P answers.

P: 'ello?
PM1: Hey, we're in the park enjoying the evening. Wanna join?
P: Yeah, I just gotta get home first to get rid of my stuff. I'll meet you in an hour.
PM1: Sure thing!

Act 1, Scene 2
P returns home, gets rid of his stuff and goes to the park. Here, he meets PM1 and PM2. PM1 is drunk, PM2 is tipsy.

PM1: Great you could make it, P! Want a prune?
P: Uh, sure.
PM2: We thought about heading to that pub now that it's getting dark.
P: OK, I just can't stay very long because I've got to go to work tomorrow.
PM2: No prob, we all have to get up early.
P: Alright then!
PM1: I'm so happy you could make it, P! Want a prune?
P: No thanks, I just had one.

Act 2
Two train stations later, PM1 and PM2 need to get some cash from the bank. PM2 heads for the cash machine, gets the cash and returns. PM1 heads for the cash machine and does not return. Meanwhile, a rugged Turkish man passes by with five children following him.

PM2: So many hungry mouths!

They start singing In the Ghetto by Elvis. Finally, PM1 returns and they go out.

PM1: Hey P, can you lend me five Euros? The machine ate my bank card, I have no idea why. Could be because I didn't remember my PIN though.
P: Sure thing.
PM1: Thanks! It's so great you could make it! (Hugs P)

Act 3, Scene 1
They enter the pub and sit down. After a while of consideration, PM1 and PM2 order a beer, P has a Scotch.

PM1: I'm so happy you could make it. (Kisses P)
P: Yeah, so am I.

They listen a while to the music playing, Death Magnetic.

PM2: Crap album.
P: Well, it's not that bad, only the songs are all twice as long as they should be.
PM1: And the production sucks!

They proceed to head bang nevertheless.

P: It gets pretty boring after a while though.
PM1: Yeah! They should put on something different. (Reading from P's t-shirt) Like Iced Earth! Or Exodus. I'm gonna ask if they have Exodus here.

She heads for the bar and returns. A few minutes later, BT comes to the table and talks to PM1.

BT: We don't have Exodus here unfortunately.
PM1: I want Exodus!
BT: Look, we don't have Exodus on the computer. You just come back to the bar when you think of something else, right? (Off)
PM1: I want Exodus!
PM2: They don't have Exodus.
PM1: What did BT want here anyway?
P: She told you they don't have Exodus and you should come up with something else she can play?
PM1: Huh?
PM2: They don't have Exodus.
PM1: I want Exodus!

PM1 gets up, heads for the bar and talks to BT for about five minutes. Then she returns.

PM1: Stupid bitch!
P: What's the matter?
PM1: I wanted Exodus, but they don't have Exodus. So I asked them for Pantera, which they didn't have either. And she didn't want to play Maiden. So I asked them for Slayer, and she said she's gonna put them on. Stupid bitch!!!
P: But Slayer isn't half bad...

Cue: Slayer, Reign in Blood (Album) P, PM1 and PM2 start to head bang.

PM2: Angel of Death is one of those songs where you should turn your brain off when you sing along to the lyrics.
PM1: It's so great you could make it! (Hugs P)
P: Yeah, Piece by Piece is a great cuddling song. Odd I never noticed that before.

This goes on for a while until the album is near-over.

PM1: I gotta go home. I'm drunk. I'm so sorry I'm drunk.

They go.

Act 3, Scene 2
They head for the train station.

PM1: I'm drunk, I'm so sorry. It's so great you could make it, P! I'm so drunk. I'm so sorry about that. What's that, is that supposed to be a door? Oh, I'm so drunk. And I even lost my bank card. I'm so sorry. But it's so great you could make it, P!
P: Yeah, it's great that I could. Now you don't worry about being drunk and just take care of yourself, right? See you on Saturday.
PM1: Yeah, see you on Saturday, my sweetie.

(All off)

Epilogue
The next day at work, P gets a phone call from PM1.

P: 'ello?
PM1: Hey P, what bank were we at again yesterday?

Information irritation

2009-07-06T11:05:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or do people just like to discuss without reason? And could it be that information is not a blessing, but a curse?

The other day, I was at a Leonard Cohen concert. In case you are unfamiliar with him, he is an old singer/songwriter who is in his seventies now and makes pretty calm but good music. It's not the kind of gig where you rush to the front and go crazy, but where you sit back and listen to the music. I don't think there would ever be a moshpit to "Who by Fire" (although I have seen weirder things happen).
Anyway, it was seating only, and each seat was numbered. The ticket gave information about what block your seat is in (in case you were seated in the stands), and the numbers of your seat and the row it was in. If you have ever been to a stadium, you know it. Big signs displaying the number of each block, little numbers at the end of each row and a small number on the back of your seat. And just to make sure, there are people at the gates -each gate leads to two adjacent blocks- telling you which side your block is on. It is literally idiot-proof.
So I had a seat in the stands, and I found it immediately with no problem. Get in on the right side, have a short glance which way the row numbers go and there you are. No problem. And yet, some people are even too stupid for that. So when the gig started, there were two people standing next to the row in front of me, staring at the row number, at the seats (which were taken), and at their tickets. They literally stood there for minutes looking around not knowing what to do. Only after they were nearly panicking, they asked the people who were sitting in what they thought were their seats about it, and they had no clue either. After another few minutes had passed, a security person came to them, and explained that they were simply in the wrong block, and they just needed to go to the neighbouring one. They still did not seem to understand the concept, but went as the security led them. Case solved? Of course not, because now the people in the seats were irritated and started discussing for no apparent reason. First two songs spoiled because people just couldn't think to save their lives.

Today, there was a problem with the metro. My town has two metro railways, an underground one and an overhead one. The underground is called "U-Bahn", the overhead one "S-Bahn". They are administered separately, but use the same fees and so on. But they look completely different, and it is pretty hard to mix them up, because one is underground and one is overhead. It's really not difficult.
The "S-Bahn" is currently in a crisis and pulled a great number of their trains out of traffic to repair them. It's annoying, the schedule is f'cked up, but it's not too hard to deal with it. For commuter convenience, the "U-Bahn" stations have notifications everywhere saying that the "S-Bahn" is currently not operating properly. It's a good service, not strictly necessary, but still not bad to have.
This morning, in addition to the "S-Bahn", there was also a delay in the "U-Bahn" for unknown reasons. The electronic signs in the "U-Bahn" station notified commuters about that, in addition to the information about the "S-Bahn" delays. I.e. two delay notifications on one sign that don't have to do with each other, especially because it specifically said which was which. It was top-notch information, nothing more to ask for. And yet I overheard two women discussing about what it meant, how these two bits of information go together, and if they accidentally went into the "S-Bahn" station. They did not even think about considering that they were two separate pieces of information that just happened to be displayed at the same time.

There should be less information published, so some people's blatant stupidity is not exposed.

Damn Commies.

2009-06-03T12:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this does it.

The other day, I sat in a boring lecture trying not to fall asleep, when the professor said something like "blablabla, and therefore there are not only negroes in Ethiopia, blablabla".

I admit that I listened up for that instance, and that I would not have used that word. However, it was obvious that from the start, this prof, a semitologist mind you, did not use this word with discriminatory intent, but simply because he grew up with it and his mind slipped for a moment. I remember that some of my teachers, red to the bone, used that word too, without discriminatory intent or effect (since there were no blacks either in my school class, nor in this lecture).

BUT, one student, a white girl, interrupted the professor, saying: "Did you just say negro?"

The prof was perplexed and didn't even remember doing so. The girl stormed out, not before rudely asking another student to give her the attendance sheet at once. Several days later, the website of the student assembly, a lair of red f'ing communists -and I am not exaggarating to the slightest, even their logo has a red star on it- had a news item about "racist remarks in a lecture", however not even quoting it because "it would keep its discriminatory effect even when paraphrased". The page went on for three or four paragraphs of incredibly boring babble and really didn't say anything at all.

The week after that, I was in the same lecture again, only this time, a group of students from the assembly had gathered up front and said that this would not be an ordinary lecture but a necessary discussion about racism. It was obviously an attempt at a trial, and I had none of that. I packed my stuff, said good-bye to my friends and got out, slamming my door on the way, rather loudly as I was later told.

Somewhere along my way out, a bloke gave me a leaflet which had hammer and sickle on it. I asked him what that was about. He said: "We're Communists". I gave him the leaflet back and passed him. He laughed stupidly.

And, since it's apparently Commie weeks, a day later, there was a stand which said: "Save China, Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea from Capitalism". I read it out to a friend of mine and couldn't help laughing. One of those guys said: "Communism is better than this capitalist system." I replied with: "Really? This system allows you to say such bullshit."

I didn't catch his reply, and I didn't care. What the hell is wrong with people?

Whatever

2009-04-06T12:01:00.000-07:00

I wrote a short text today for language practice. It's one of those things where in the end you wonder if this is not some deep psychologic babble. I'll let you judge, here is the translation:

I was writing a letter when I heard a sound. I went outside the room and opened the door. Nobody was outside. I went back to the room and sat down on the chair. I heard the sound again. I stood up from the chair and looked out the window. It was raining. I said to myself: "It's nothing. Only the rain." I looked at the clock. It was two minutes past eight. I had to stay up until midnight. Unfortunately, I had already been awake since two o'clock in the morning on the previous day. I don't know why, but I cannot sleep well. Maybe it is because I always think about things that happened days and years ago, and I cannot forget things that are far in the past. It was raining outside, and it was dark. I heard the sound again and again, until I noticed that it was only in my head. Relieved, I went back to the letter.

It may be bullshit, or I may be insane. Probably both.

A movie review

2009-03-08T19:01:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know. Everybody does movie reviews and it's about as original as putting mushrooms on a pizza, but bear with me. I've got a shitload of really bad films on DVD and I literally paid a fortune for them (for reasons I don't want to elaborate right now), so I've got to do something with them. Reviews of bad movies are always nice to read, and I hope that mine prove to be more entertaining than the films themselves (which isn't hard to accomplish anyway). The little twist is that you will probably never get to see the films I am going to review here, because they don't get any sort of major distribution, i.e. you will never see them on TV or in the cinema, and if you ever find them in a "5 DVDs for 3,99" bin you'll put them back in because the titles and cover pictures already indicate everything this movie is going to be.

The movie I am going to review now goes by the name Shark, or Great White. Apparently, the film got two releases and was retitled at some point. Way to suck people into watching this twice, because even once is more than enough for a lifetime. Anyway, I am going to refer to it as Shark here.

I am not exaggarating when I say that this film is so traumatisingly bad that I still get nightmares from it, two and a half years after watching it. It's not bad in the Ed Wood "so bad it's funny" style, and it's not bad in the way Wanted was, because that was so bad it was just forgettable. A few months after watching that one, I had to read a review of it to remember that it was the film which actually featured a century-old loom that told names of assassination targets in binary.

No, Shark is something else, and not in a good way. You can probably already imagine the plot from the film's title. Yes, it is about a shark terrorising a small village and some disillusioned bloke tries to convince local authorities of the threat and eventually they team up and kill the beast. This film tries to add a special shock effect by having the shark swim up a river on the American east coast several miles and state that this is based on a true story that happened at some point in the 1910's. It did, but the plot of this film has about as much to do with the real events as Raiders of the Lost Ark has to do with the history of flight, as in, there are some old aeroplanes in that film.

So what is it that makes this film so exceptionally bad? Let's start with the shark itself and its attacks. For the most part of the film, the shark is portrayed by a rubber fin that is sometimes leaning to its side at a pretty big angle. It also varies in size. The attacks happen at any time of the day and at any place in the river, no matter how shallow it is. In fact, at one point, a bloke who is standing in the river fishing is attacked and eaten up by the shark, and at another point the shark attacks some guy who is trying to fix a watergate at night time. This does not sound as spectacular as it actually is, but you have to imagine the bloke is standing on a pedestal, with only his rubber boots a few inches in the water, and the shark attacks him.

The most memorable scene of the film has a group of people jetski in the midst of the river. One guy's jetski breaks and he attempts to get it going again while sitting on it, without even the tip of his shoe in the water. As menacing music is cued, a big rubber fin which is driven forward by a red motor approaches the jetski and then the bloke screams and falls into the water. The next picture shows a shark eating a fish (footage that is credited to some institute of marine biology or whatever).

The film's protagonist is a marine biologist who is the only one to recognise the wounds of the victims as those of a shark and not, as everybody else says, a cougar.
By the way, I've got to get this out now. A cougar? This film is supposed to take place at the American East Coast, and there are no cougars at the American East Coast! Apart from an isolated population in Florida, every bloody cougar in North America lives west of the Mississippi!
But it's not like this is the biggest geographic screwup in the film. Tell me, what American East Coast state has license plates that say "California" on them, and how many towns there have road signs pointing to Nevada? Seriously, I live in feckin' Germany and I can tell that something's not right there!
Anyway, back to our hero, the marine biologist, who seems to have gotten his office from the college's doorman. During the entire length of the film, he desperately tries to keep his teenage son from rafting on the river. He is so paranoid about it that it becomes obvious that he is not doing that only because of the shark. No, it is later revealed, and this is no joke, that our glorious marine biologist is... afraid of water.

After this H-Bomb of plotholes is dropped, the sad remains of the film are tidied up by two stock characters, the initially disbelieving but eventually supportive county sheriff (complete with stupid sunglasses and 'tache) and the drunkard who is ridiculed by everybody but becomes the hero of the day. At the end of the movie, he stands atop a bridge crossing the river, drops some obviously empty gas canisters on the shark (which is just about to attack the marine biologist's teenage son and his mates on their rafts) and fires at them from a clearly uncharged sniper rifle, and even I could see that although I literally couldn't tell a pump gun from a kalashnikov. The shark explodes in a pathetic attempt to imitate the end of Jaws, only that this is like somebody trying to copy the Mona Lisa, but instead of using paint he uses dog shit and instead of painting the Mona Lisa he draws a picture of the sewer I'm about to drop the DVD in.

I hate this movie. It's not funny, it's just bad. It's terrible. As I said, I am traumatised from this film, I have seen it two and a half years ago and I still remember every pathetic bit of it. Even the actors, as terrible as they are, do not deserve to be in such a movie. I hope they at least got some of the money I had to spend on this so they can buy themselves a gun and shoot their brains out because they can't possibly lead happy lives anymore after being in such a movie.

What a bloody waste.

Berlin's Underworld

2009-03-05T11:32:00.000-08:00

I was doing my groceries today (actually, I only bought four onions and a can of corn), and decided when I got out of the supermarket to have a Currywurst at the take-out in the parking lot there. When I got there, I saw the bloke, a Korean, sitting on his chair staring into nothing. He didn't even notice me. Only when I said "hello" and placed my order he did jump up and fixed the Currywurst in no time.
You might ask how I know that the thing is run by Koreans. Well, it is called "Kim's Take-Out". Every bloody Korean I've ever known was called Kim, so I'm just allowing myself to conclude the obvious.
Anyway, as I was eating, I noticed three Asian blokes next to me who were talking loudly all the time. They were obviously in some sort of relationship to the guy in the take-out, because he kept staring over to them with a very uncomfortable facial expression.
I thought to myself, "maybe they're part of the cigarette mafia who keep selling fake Chinese cigarettes at the train station over there, and they are here to get their protection money from the take-out's owner". Then I smiled uneasily and told myself not to think in stereotypes so much.
A minute later, some bloke got over to them and bought a carton of Chinese cigarettes from them.

The worst thing about clichés is when they prove true.

Terrabyte again.

2009-02-11T12:12:00.000-08:00

I found Terrabyte's website. I wish I hadn't.

I'm not going to be so cruel to provide a link to it (mostly because it also contains his real name), but upon reading it, I got this strangely rewarding yet infuriating feeling that you get when you realise that all your prejudices and stereotypical assumptions turn out to be true.

Here is an excerpt from his "About Me" section (his website is in German and English):

"My main interests are physics, chemistry, minerals and China. I have got also other interests: history, geography, philosophy, airplanes, weapons. Concerning China and East Asia I am interested in its history, in its culture, in its art and in its philosophy. I like Chinese buildings and objects. My favorite food is from East Asia. I like very much fried noodles with chicken meat. I collect minerals. My most favorite mineral is rock crystal with its nice symmetric crystals. I like to work and play video games on my PC and I do many daily tasks with my PC. Programming is interesting, too. I like to read books. Most of the books are specialized books, but as entertainment I also read novels (thriller). For example I like the book "The Lord of the Rings" and also the movie. Another entertainment for me is to play video games and to watch movies. My favorite video game is "Deus Ex" and my favorite movies are "The godfather" (all parts) and "Star Wars" (all parts). "

He doesn't study computer sciences, but I was absolutely fucking right about everything else. He has a lot of small, useless programs for download that he programmed himself. They are mostly physics and mathematics related. He also made a few Java Applets, but on those pages, his English is so terrible that I have no idea what they're supposed to be doing.

My curry.

2008-12-31T08:35:00.000-08:00

2008-12-08T12:37:00.000-08:00

You've all been waiting for it all year long, now here it is: The ultimate FIGHT OF THE YEAR!!! It's been a long and hard wait, but it was worth it, for the two adversaries have been training hard for this encounter. Now the time has come to choose your favourites and take your bets. Who is going to win? Who is going to become Master of the Universe?

THE AYATOLLAH... or... THE GORILLA?

There.

2008-11-21T15:35:00.000-08:00

Nope, nothing good to say about the week. If going to the cinema was the highlight, you know the rest of the week was worthless. Full stop.

Monday's coming up...

2008-11-16T13:26:00.000-08:00

Oh fuck it. Monday's coming up. There are times I feel that Mondays aren't all that bad, and I ask myself what all the fuss is actually about. But this term, Mondays are absolutely atrocious. All day, I'm stuck in lectures I don't have the slightest interest in, and somehow, the prospect of yet another work-filled autumn week isn't appealing to the slightest.
No, there isn't anything to look forward to next week. For a while, it seemed that at least I would make it to the Slayer gig on Wednesday, but my wallet just laughed at me.
I'm really trying to find something positive about next week, but the only thing that at least gives me a hint of comfort is the thought of getting pissed on Friday night to forget about the ordeal of the past five days.
To give you, dear reader (if you even exist) an example, tomorrow is that awful lecture I share with Terrabyte, whom I have spoken of a few posts ago. Last week, I watched him open his briefcase -indeed, he does not carry his stuff in a bag like everybody else, but a fucking briefcase!- to take out his pens, and I saw that it was full of plastic bags and -catch this!- underwear. Indeed, last week I was the third person to join the exclusive club of people who saw Terrabyte's underwear (the other two being Terrabyte himself and his mother). I fucking hate my life.

I'm going to write a retrospect of the coming week on Friday. If I have anything positive to report about it, please post a comment (you don't have to write more than just an asterisk or anything like that), and I'll have a pint (or shot) on each of you. Yes, you got that right: I'm already planning my Friday night breakdown one week in advance.

Marx is dead.

2008-11-02T05:46:00.000-08:00

The other day, I was making my way through campus, when I saw some of those hopeless, self-styled Trotzkyists passing out leaflets to everyone who could not run away fast enough.
Of course, I got one as well, but this once, I stopped and checked out the other leaflets and books they had lying around on their stand. As was to be expected, everything was about Marx, Lenin, Trotzky, Rosa Luxemburg and all those other people who have been dead for half a century or -sometimes much- more. As dead as Communism should be.
I really felt like arguing with those people, especially because their claims actually insulted my intelligence, but alas, I was already late for class. Specifically, they were claiming that the United States of America are responsible for the recent war between Russia and Georgia, and that it is only the latest coup in American imperialism
Seriously, I'm certainly not an advocate of W's foreign policy, but there' already so much shit you can attribute to it that you don't need to make up shit like that. Some of the arguments these would-be revolutionaries made are so ludicrous that I really can't find any words for them: For example, they justified Russia's invasion of South Ossetia and Georgia by claiming that these territories had been under Russian control for centuries.

Let that sink in for a moment.

What they are, quite literally, saying is that Russian imperialism is OK, American imperialism isn't. A territory having been under foreign control for centuries, its political opposition deported to prison camps in Siberia, its resources exploited with no revenue and its cultural life quite simply killed is OK if the foreign power is Russian and therefore any Communist's darling, but if a nation so much as attempts to ally itself with the democratic and free powers of the west, it's not OK because... it's just so fucking popular to be anti-American?

You would think that Germans, of all people, and Berliners, of all Germans, would know the difference between Democracy and Communism, which is essentially the difference between freedom and slavery.
I don't want to claim that what Marx thought up is what Communism eventually turned out to be. That would be injustice towards one of the world's greatest and most important philosophers. But history proved that Marx, like all good things, should be consumed in little doses. A little bit of Socialism is an enrichment for any democratic society. But whenever anybody tried to install Communism as a form of government, it failed bitterly, becoming an oppressive, inhumane dictature. I probably wouldn't even attribute it to the system and its ideology if it only happened once or twice- but it happened every single fucking time somebody tried it, essentially proving that it does not work.
It certainly was worth a shot, but now that we have seen how dramatically it failed, let's try something else, or let's just stick with what we have. Seriously, democracy isn't all that bad if it allows me to waste my Sundays writing my worthless ideas on an even more worthless online blog...

Students suck.

2008-10-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

I hate it when new terms begin. For the first two weeks, all students flock into the lectures, disciplined and highly-motivated only to drop out one by one until only a hard core of regulars is left by mid-term. And at the exams, you meet people you literally haven't seen in half a year.
I don't even mind it so much in the lectures themselves, but I get stressed out with everything surrounding it. It takes you half an hour to get your half-arsed parody of a meal in the cafeteria because the first-terms did not inform themselves how to pay properly, or they never heard anything of etiquette and just stand still in the middle of an aisle, effectively blocking it. And that's not even mentioning the mile-long queues that make it look like you'd actually get something decent to eat (but it's the same old shit as always).
Then there are those bicycle-Hitlers who have nothing better to do than insist to shove their bike in an overloaded tube at half nine in the morning, when catching a breath of air is already a challenge.

So, I was sitting in this lecture entitled "basics of marketing" that the BA system forces me to endure when I noticed this loser who is most likely studying computer science -for now, I will call him Terrabyte, due to his rather enormous body size- incessantly turning his head to my direction. Obviously, he kept staring at the girl sitting next to me, who was actually quite pretty, but unbearable for the thick cloud of cheap perfume she had floating around her.
So Terrabyte kept turning round to her, though pretending to "just look around the room" after having his eyes feast on her for an extra second or five. I'm not going to go into detail of how obnoxiously ugly Terrabyte was, but I got a kick out of imagining the conversation ensuing had he actually had the courage to chat her up after the lesson (I love unrealistic scenarios). It probably would have gone something like this:

Terrabyte: "H-h-h-h-h-hi. A-a-a-a-are y-y-y-y-you i-i-i-i-in th-th-th-this c-c-c-course as w-w-w-ell?"
Chick: "You saw me. Go figure, freak."
Terrabyte: "I'm... n-n-n-n-n-not a f-f-f-freak. I'm a l-l-l-level four d-d-d-d-dragon w-w-w-wizard."
Chick leaves.

Later on, the lecturer later passed the word to a colleague of his, who was also a rather attractive woman. Needless to say, Terrabyte did not turn around anymore from this point on.
I did not have the misfortune of hearing his voice until yesterday, when the next lesson took place. The female lecturer I mentioned was holding this one by herself, and it was obvious that Terrabyte did his utmost to impress her, miserably failing on the way and making a complete arse of himself instead, trying to discuss a quick example she had used to illustrate a point. Instead of the ten seconds it took to name the example and go on, Terrabyte forced her to justify her choice of words for five minutes.

I'm aware of the irony of using an online blog to vent my anger over such pathetic losers as Terrabyte, but quite honestly, I don't care.

...

2008-09-23T15:10:00.000-07:00

And I still don't know what to write about. I suppose this will become the theme of this blog: No clue what to write about, but waste webspace nevertheless. So, I got myself Death Magnetic by Metallica and The Cosmos Rocks by Queen + Paul Rodgers the other day. Good albums, both of them. Especially the Queen one. Sounds pretty good live, too. Oh, I forgot to mention, I went to see Queen on Sunday. Perhaps that is something to write about.
By the way, I just can't get over this news story about a beautiful North Korean defector who got involved with several South Korean officers and turned out to be a spy.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4619191.ece
Just like in the good old days. Some things never change.

Stormtroopers ahoy!

2008-09-15T07:56:00.000-07:00

I still don't know what to write about. I just felt that I should make a post to get this whole thing going. For some odd reason, I've currently got You Really Got Me by Van Halen stuck in my head. I haven't listened to that track in months. And it's not even that great a song.
Anyway, I revisited a nice NWoBHM album today, Filth Hounds Of Hades by Tank. As the band's name already suggests, the music has the subtlety of the proverbial sledgehammer, but it still is a good listen if you've got a sense of humour. Not to mention it contains immortal song titles such as Who Needs Love Songs and (He Fell In Love With A) Stormtrooper.
I guess I'll leave it at that for now..

Yes, a blog...

2008-09-13T15:07:00.001-07:00

So, I decided to have a shot at this blogging thing. Everybody has a blog these days, and there is hardly anything that could possibly boost your ego more than flooding the internet with your half-arsed thoughts and opinions. I'm not quite sure whether I'll have a special theme to this blog or if I'll just see how it goes until I lose interest in two month's time. Until then, cheers!