Pass me a Tecate

Pimped out shopping cart...

Word has it that BASS WOLF died of a heart attack yesterday. I hope this is just an April Fool's Day prank... 

The 5,6,7,8's Playgirl Club

The 5,6,7,8's Playgirl Club 

I'm busy looking for any video compilations of the 5,6,7,8's. So far nothing, but thier website is cool!

NINJA SQUAD [1987]

Tagline: "Death is merciful punishment when a ninja seeks revenge!"

I bought the VHS of NINJA SQUAD for $3.99 used on the basis of the cover art alone. I edited the ninja battles with some Newport Cigarette commercials and premired it at AnimeFEST '04. I didn't think the crowd would sit though the 15 minutes of bad ninjitsu and cigarettes, but people really get into the battle between Ivan the Red and Master Ninja Gordon. You can also pick up some great ninja fashion tips from this movie. For your enjoyment watch Ivan's first battle in VCD quality MPEG here.

Panel two. 

500 miles of road rage...

Posted the KamiKazeCon O'HELL report from the weekend. I left out a few details, like the disappointment we had at Wasabi, the Japanese restaurant. After reading all the reviews it sounded like it was gonna be better then our favorite Sushi Bar, Blowfish. But it wasn't up to snuff. Still I needed something in my belly before the drinking to come during OtakuHELL.

alko14 Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

I also strongly recommend SPECS for all your liquor needs. SPECS was incredible, It'd take me a weekend to check out all the wines, the place is huge! And the prices weren't bad either. They had the big bottles of Bombay Saphire for $30, rather then the usual $40 that we pay around here. I was very happy that we stopped there before doing the show...

I've gotta mention that I was dog tired after driving the four hours plus to downtown Houston. I didn't realize there was a Starbucks in the lobby of the hotel until after HELL while drinking at the hotel bar. When I finally crashed in Bob and Emily's room I barely noticed anything. On the drive back I had 3 Cafe Americanos in me and I started to worry that I'd left a tape or some disks in Video Room 2, but everything seemed to be accounted for when I unpacked.

I was a fun trip, but I'm glad I came back Saturday. If I'd stayed I would've only spent money I didn't have to spend and I'd have been miserable if I'd slept on the floor again. Getting too old to do that sort of thing more then once or twice a year...

AV GEEKS: THOSE NAUGHTY ADULTS screen caps

Go to the ThoseNaughtyAdults gallery 

ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE screen caps

ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE 
Go to the MushroomPeople gallery

Jack Chick: Vampire Hunter

JESUS CHRIST: VAMPIRE HUNTER is, well, a nice try. It's humor gets really thin, and by the time Santo shows up I was already not really caring anymore. This probablly would've worked best as a short, like 20 minutes, or maybe 10. Ok, they've really only got maybe 5 minutes of good stuff here, and there's way too much padding. Even Roger Corman wouldn't have put as much padding as there is in this movie.

Or maybe I'm just too damn tired to be ironic anymore...

DIY HEINOMASKE!

DIY OtakuHELL! 
We'll be passing out free HEINOMASKES at OtakuHELL in KamiKazeCon! Get yours while supplies last! Can't make it to OtakuHELL? Print out your own Heinomaske, cut along the dotted lines and hold it in front of your face for full HEINO-VISION effect!

OtakuHELL Good Friday

OtakuHELL at KamiKazeCon, Friday, March 25th, Video Room 2, 10pm to Midnite, see you there! 

HELLo

Panel #4 
KamiKazeCon's HELLshow is currently dominating my focus. I'm busy cueing and encoding and making leaders and I still need to get another data card for the video loop. Yeah, I'm alittle distracted with video right now, so everything else is on hold this week. I apologise for the things and people I'm putting off until next week, but I'm hoping you'll understand and forgive me.

I'm getting pretty excited about friday's show. We've got a few new gimmicks that we're gonna introduce to the show and I'm wondering how they'll go over...

Gnomz.com - Comic Creator 

This is very cool. I've got to play with this a bit...

Red Idol

I got ahold of the GUITAR WOLF RED IDOL DVD last week and you just know I'm gonna unreel some of that noise at OtakuHELL at KamiKazeCon! The illo is from The FWAK! blog... 

REMEMBER...

Billy Bob Ho-Tep

Yeah, what can I say? I think part of what makes this movie work is that our protagonists are two of the largest icons in American history. At least they say they are, and with a nice touch they are both victims of American conspiracies. This is sort of a one up on ABBOT AND COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY. They should make a follow up called FRANKENSTEIN YEAH YEAH YEAH with the Beatles encountering Dr. Frankenstein's Creation in their pre-pop years in Germany. I can see it now, Stuart Sutcliffe's body in Frankenstein's castle strapped on the revivifing table while the lads are chased around the catacombs by squealing girls. Luckily Ringo shows up in the end to save the day...

Paging Doctor Goldfoot!

Gundam on a bike

Hey, can anybody read what the caption sez?

1110409563191 Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

Dominion of bad computer animation

I sure hope this is a game and not another CGI animated Shirow movie. Because it sux, badly. Watch the trailers and judge for yourself... 

Mysterians

The Toho classic where aliens not only invade but they set up an ant mound like base and abduct our women for breeding! Play the MYSTERIANS drinking game: take a drink everytime they hold a meeting in the movie, take a drink everytime there's a shot of the ALPHA or BETA, and take a drink everytime there's a shot of the MARKALITES...

Britanime?

Quick, name a stylized animated feature film from a small island country that had wide theatrical release in the U.S.A. Ok, WATERSHIP DOWN is probablly acceptible, too.

I watched YELLOW SUBMARINE for the first time in many years. I admit, I had written the movie off as trippy hippy bullshit. But this viewing I was armed with the insight of having read about the making of the movie and interviews with animators who'd worked on YELLOW SUBMARINE and came away enjoying it. Yeah, it's still alot of trippy hippy bullshit, but I admire the design and craft of making a very non-traditional animated feature that succeeded so well in the mainstream market. And they made it on the cheap, too.

On the downside the success of YELLOW SUBMARINE inspired Ralph Bakshi to use the same methods to create a series of really bad animated movies...

Gif find..

SXSW SUXXOR!

"Speaking of sxsw, those assholes revoked chunklet magazine's press pass. The official reason is that they weren't going to cover the festival enough, but through the grapevine I heard it was because they were advertising their free party/day show too much. I'm thinking of making t-shirts that say "sxsw destroys music" and wearing it around all week. The festival itself is such an awful thing but, damn, I love all the parties. So, yes, I'd like that cake and I'll be eating it too." 

GODZILLA: FINAL WARS glimpsed...

Here's the opening and title sequence for GODZILLA: FINAL WARS. Stuff good. You may notice it's more action orientated then previous entries into the Godzilla series. Sure, we still have scenes of old military types looking at screens of giant monsters stomping all over the urban landscape. But we also got some gun ballet and wire-fu, too. Oh, yeah. How could I forget THE ATRAGON!

PHTO0019 Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

This Chinese propaganda artist makes me cringe, yet I find these paintings fascinating. Like a car accident or something like that... 

The Art of James Bond. 

Final Wars Remix

Forbidden Video I love this movie. You can pretty much figure out the story even without subtitles. I mean, hey, It's just a Godzilla movie. There's really only so many things you can do with a giant radioactive lizard...

Godzilla at G-FEST Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

Toho Scope

Crowned

Had my teeth cleaned the other day. With the barnicles knocked off my teeth I now have big gaps between my teeth where bits of food collects. I'm forced to floss and brush after I eat anything because bits are now getting trapped all the time. Grrr... As I was driving back to work after Dr. K tells me I need even more root canals I quickly add up all I've spent on my new crown and realised it amounts to about 1/10 of what I make annually. Makes my head hurt.

Crowned Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

Brewing Company - Rahr&Sons: Fort Worth, TX

Brewing Company - Rahr&Sons: Fort Worth, TX
Bruce sez I should have SHECKY here. Time to make a phone call...

Muzik

MY KINDA MUZIK showed up in yesterday's mail. Turns out I already had alot of these Bollywood music videos from 2001. Still, it was a fun DVD to have playing in the background while I was editing video last night. I just checked and couldn't find it on Amazon, but it is available from IndiaPlaza.com along with MY KINDA MUZIK VOLUME 2.

STASH 05 & 06 showed up in today's mail, there looks like a few student shorts and music videos that'll work perfectly for OtakuHELL at KamiKazeCon.

Tooth and moral decay

I'm off to see Dr. K in an hour. I'm really not looking forward to this, even if it's only a simple tooth cleaning session. Mostly because I'll end up putting another outragious charge on my credit card that will take forever and a day to pay off... Strange thing: I posted on the KamiKazeCon Forum about OtakuHELL/AnimeHELL. I go back today to see if there's any replies and find the posts are deleted. WTF? What happened? Did I do something wrong or post something inappropiate?

23320 Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

...Never Having to Say I'm Sorry

My eyes hurt... 

Off Model Mickey

Kikaida

Tale of Time Lost

Simple set up: 4 aging wizards show up in town looking for some slackers. The hero of the story is a schoolboy who wastes alot of time, so of course the wizards take his youth and leave him as an old man who proceeds to pad out the movie (as in WASTES OUR TIME) with slapstick hyjinks. It's all fish-out-of-water type stuff until the last reel where the school children trick the wizards and get their youth back.

Ok, that may be a bit too harsh. Like all these Russian Fairy Tale flicks TALE OF TIME LOST plays like a fever dream. The movie opens with a talking dog. No, that's not quite right. The dog actually explains to us that we're hearing his thoughts because, "everybody knows dogs can't talk!" Oh yeah, that's the speed this movie runs at. And it only gets stranger from there...

Served

I've been neglecting the animehell.org site for a few weeks now. I need to get some content put together to put up. The PRIVATE SNAFU shorts and of course I wanted to put together a new flyer for Surat's PANEL OF DOOM. And I really need to get something for the Kamikazecon AnimeHELL event on Good Friday... I also need to move this blog from the Poehosting server to the animehell.org server. Gotta get to work. More later...

1108043826402 Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

Ultraman on DVD

Say what you will about 4Kids but their release of ULTRAMAN TIGA is top notch. Two disks in the DVD case with a few extras thrown in. You get the original Japanese episodes with English subtitles, unedited. It's a pretty sweet deal, actually. I'd recommend this to any Ultraman fan...

Image Entertainment's release of ULTRAMAN TIGA & ULTRAMAN DYNA is a movie I'd recommend for any body who'd like to get a taste of Tiga. It's alot of fun, even with it's flawed message.

ULTRAMAN GAIA: THE BATTLE IN HYPERSPACE is my favorite of the bunch. It's something of a love letter for the fans, especially the kids who've watched the show. And it works as a movie outside of the Ultraman universe. It works for me at least. I've read reviews from folks who don't get it, and are upset that it's not a typical Ultraman movie. To me this is why it's stronger then the other Ultraman on DVD.

El Santo en el Tesoro De Dracula

A great Santo flick from '67! There's a time tunnel, wrestling, Dracula, wrestling, tresure hunting, and WRESTLING. Amazing.

She-Devils on Wheels

What can I add to this that hasn't already been said? It's a Hershel Gordon Lewis Biker flick about an all girl biker gang. What needs to be added to that description? Loads of fun all the way around....

Katana-Fansubs

Katana-Fansubs
Gotta send this link to Chris, they've posted fan-scripts for Samurai 7.

DVD and YOU

Learning and burning DVDs has become a turning point in my video hobby. I've learned quite a bit about DVD authoring since I bought my external DVD burner, and I've learned the limitations of the software. It seems I can't make the kind of DVDs I want with the authoring software I have. But I'm too short on cash to invest in pro quality software right now. Magix Movie Edit Pro 10 looks promising, and it's cheap, too. I think I'll look into it this weekend.

21a Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

That was my reaction, too... 

Farewell to the Mystic Knights

Watched this last night, as a wave of nostalgia came over me. Renting this is something of a guilty pleasure: the fun of watching Oingo Boingo on stage, the regret of knowing that the band broke up. This goes on my to-buy list, something that I can toss on the DVD player for a joyful background noise...

Say, exactly what are you selling here?

Say, exactly what are you selling here? 

Mechanical Violator Tsar Saltan

HAKAIDER seems to have no relation to the Hakaida in the Kikaida series. Not that it's really a problem. No, Hakaider just plows along on rails to it's inevitable conclusion, filled with wild imagery and way over the top action set pieces. While Hakaider doesn't have the narrative depth of it's televison predecessor it's pretty operatic as these things go. Right up to the end when our hero rides off into the horizon.

THE TALE OF TSAR SALTAN is THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS of Russian Fairy Tale movies. In the bonus features of this DVD is an animated short based on the Fairy Tale of the Kingfish and the Fisherman, and it's a nice bit of cartooning.

Vassilisa the Beautiful is a twist on a basic fairy tale. Vassilisa is a princess who's been cursed to live as a frog and a clever hunter must overcome a series of challenges in order to free her from the curse and marry her. It's alot more fun then you'd expect.

Suicide Club. This is that movie that opens with a bunch of japanese school girls jumping in front of a high speed commuter train. Where can you go from there? Into even more body parts and blood. It got under my skin...

And I really should post a better review of AN EVENING IN PARIS, someday...