Still Having Fun at Flix!

Encanto was a good time, and last Sunday we watched Elf on the big screen. More importantly, Char isn't too old to pose for photos with her dad.

Anticlimactic

 I've written about this book before. I preordered Cemetery Dance: A Fifteen Year Celebration on August 12, 2009. That was one year and six days before our daughter was born. 

Charlotte turned 11 this year, and the book had still not arrived. I don't know about you, but I think 12 years is a long time to wait for something to arrive in the mail.

The book, renamed The Best of Cemetery Dance 2, finally arrived on our doorstep last October. I nervously cut the tape on the cardboard, gingerly removed the book from the nest of packing paper, and cautiously slid the book out of its protective sleeve.

I opened the book to the first page of signatures and heard a cracking sound. Not good.

The page was glued to the one before it, and some of the signatures were buried in the adhesive.

After waiting 12 years and two months, my book arrived defective. So much for opening the book to the sounds of trumpets...

I shook my head, took a couple of pictures, and contacted Mindy at Cemetery Dance. I was never worried that they would not send a replacement. I just was not in the mood to repack the book and go to a UPS store.

I received my replacement book and a mailer sticker for the damaged book within a week. 

"The twins are alive! God bless you, Doctor." - Steven Banks 

This copy looks much better.

I thought I'd be more excited about finally having a autographed copy of The Best of Cemetery Dance 2. But I haven't even bothered to put it in my book case. It's sitting unceremoniously on top of the case underneath a vintage Star Wars ball cap.

The book will eventually get its spot on the shelf, but I'm going to make it wait awhile. See how it likes that...

7 4 2 6: Solving a Mystery

I've had this combination lock since I was a kid. I think I found it in a box that my dad bought at a farm auction. 

It had a paper tag wired to the shackle. The tag read "7 4 2 6." Those same numbers are written and scratched all over the lock's back cover.

7 4 2 6 has to be the numbers to the combination, right? I tried spinning the dial to 7-4-2-6 about a hundred times in my lifetime. I tried the sequence clockwise. I tried the sequence counter clockwise. I tried turning pass the 7 twice. I tried turning pass the 4 three times. It didn't matter. I'd tug on the shackle after each sequence, and the lock would not move. It was so frustrating. What were theses numbers for?

It's not that I thought about it very much. Every few years I'd find the Gougler lock sleeping in a box in the garage or our basement. I'd try those numbers again, and again I'd get the same, locked results. Then I'd put it back in the box. Ten-year-old me wouldn't let adult-me throw it away. That would be admitting defeat.

Charlotte likes to say that that if you have ever clapped your hands once, then you never really stop clapping. You just take long pauses between the claps. I guess I never stopped trying to open this lock. I just took decade-long pauses.

The last pause began when we moved in 2013, and eneded in the summer. This time technology finally caught up with me. I Googled "Gougler Keyless Lock," and I actually got results:

I learned that my padlock is a Red Dot No. 30-S. Its "touch-click" feature made it a popular lock for schools in the 1950s. You can feel ten different "clicks" as the dial rotates. If you know how many clicks you turn to in either direction, you can even open this padlock in the dark. 

So, I always had the correct combination; I just didn't know how to use it!.*slaps forehead* The numbers on the lock's face have nothing to do with it. The numbers are for "clicks" not for positions. The combination begins at 0:

Counterclockwise: 7 clicks

Clockwise: 4 clicks

Counterclockwise: 2 clicks

Counterclockwise: 6 clicks

I was stunned when the shakle opened for the first time. I felt a sense of relief, satisfaction, and wonder as I looked at the open lock in my hand. I laughed out loud and mentally gave 10-year-old me a high-five. 

We did it. After all those years, we finally did it.  

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

I thought about cleaning up the lock's case, but I don't want to erase the lock's history. 

I understand the irony of writing the combination on the back of a combination lock. I also understand how forgetful kids can be. That's why I think this padlock was used in a school. I can imagine some principal in the 1950's with a black frame glasses and a buzz cut announcing to freshmen, "Everyone has a locker, and eveyone has a lock - use them both!" 

But 7426 is written in four different types of handwriting. Wouldn't one set of numbers be enough?

The scratched numbers at the top look like a child's handiwork. The same goes for the numbers on the bottom. The numbers written in the middle and on the left side appear to be written by a much surer and mature hand. 

I'm guessing the numbers were put there for a forgetful kid in a series of forgetful kids. That makes me wonder how many different kids used this lock? 

That's a mystery I'll never solve.

Better than the Alternative

"Look at this. It's worthless - ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless." - Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

It's too bad that people don't become more valued as they age. You don't earn your youth, but it takes a lot of effort to get old.

Awhile back I went out with some co-workers on a Friday afternoon. There were 10 young teachers (under 30) and a few lifers like me at a local dive. A retired teacher from the regulars' crowd introduced himself when he overheard us talking. He listened to a few of the teachers complain about their job, and then he tried to join the conversation, "I was at UHS in the 80’s, and our biggest problem was…” I can’t quote his whole story because none of the younger teachers were listening. Their eyes had glazed over as soon as he mentioned the 80's. The guy could sense their discomfort, and he let his story fade and fall like a dying leaf in autumn. He was back on his barstool a few minutes later. 

I winced when he left because that guy is my future. I’m almost him now. 

There are approximately 100 teachers at my school. According to the latest seniority list, there are over 30 teachers who have taught 6 years or less. If you tell a young teacher that you’ve been teaching longer than they have been alive, they’ll say something like, “Wow. That’s really impressive,” but they’ll look at you as if you’re as useful as a sundial. 

Last week a co-worker told me that his history with video games started in middle school with Halo (2001) on the Xbox. I failed to mention that I was playing Pac Man on my Atari when I was that same age. I just nodded and pretended that I played Halo back then, too. 

It's kind of possible...

The staff at UHS gets to wear jeans on Fridays if we wear a shirt that matches the chosen theme. Last Friday was "Your Favorite T-Shirt." This wasn't an easy choice for me, but I went with my '93 Lollapalooza concert shirt. It's pretty faded, but you can still read the bands names. 

I think this a cool, school appropriate shirt, even though one teacher commented, "'93? That's the year I was born!" He didn't say it like that was a compliment.

Maybe I should wear this shirt instead?

Everything I have is getting older. My body, my clothes, my music, and especially my stories. I can stop telling people that I was hired in 1992, but I'll still be 4th on that seniority list. Fashionable clothes and hair dye won't change that, so I avoid both.

I'm not complaining about being in my 50's. I bought a "Best of the 90's" CD at Goodwill for nostalgia's sake (even my technology is old.) The songs were fine, but they reminded me how miserable I was when I was in my 20s. I recycled that CD when I got home and smiled at my wife. Screw time travel.

Sure, I now better understand Leonard Cohen's lyric, "I ache in the places where I used to play." But random body pain comes with the territory. Most of the time I'm just happy to be here. 

Charlotte is in 6th grade, and the rumor at our house is that I’ll retire when she graduates from high school. Six more years might sound like a long haul, but I’ll also be parenting, and we all know what parents say about time passing. 

I haven't really thought about what I would do if I retire in 2028, but I know one thing. I won't try talking to any young teachers at the bar. 

“It’s paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone.” – Andy Rooney

Not Sure About This

Charlotte surprised us when she exclaimed, "I know what I want to buy from Amazon!" Both Daphne and I were sure she was going to ask for more fidgets, but she didn't. She wanted to buy this:

"A cat backpack? Are you serious?"

"Yes! Earl will love it. I'm going to take him outside to see the world!"

I was dubious, but we couldn't say no. It's Char's money, she did the research, and she was going to be the one who wears it. When the backpack arrived, we were surprised again. It seems to be really well made. 

Earl doesn't look so sure.

Char was sure, though.

At first, Earl cried out quite a bit. His protest was expected. The only time he's in a carrier of any sort is when he goes to the vet, and he hates that.

Earl settled down about halfway through our walk. He sat up straight and seemed genuinely interested in his surroundings. 

I was sure that this was going to be a disaster, but I was wrong. I have to learn to be more trusting of Char's judgement. Char is having a lot of fun, and Earl, well, Earl is putting up with it. 

I Finally get to See the King!

I have had this VHS tape since I was a teenager.

Blow Out was written and directed by Brian De Palma. The movie stars John Travolta, Nancy Allen, and John Lithgow. With that kind of name recognition, Blow Out has been easy to find on cable, DVD, and Roku. The Criterion Collection even released a special edition Blu-ray of Blow Out ten years ago. There is no reason to own this film on VHS.

King of the Mountain was directed by Noel Nosseck. It stars Harry Hamlin, Dennis Hopper, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, and a modified Porsche 356. When HBO stopped airing King of the Mountain, my VHS tape became the only way I could watch this film for years. 

In the 2000's, I ordered a DVD copy of KOTM from ioffer.com, but that turned out to be a bootleged copy of a nice VHS tape. Every so often I'd see this DVD on my shelf and wonder, "Is there a legal DVD out, yet?" The answer was always no. I read rumblings that copyright problems with the soundtrack kept it from being released, but I don't know that for sure.

On Friday night  I was shopping eBay for spaghetti westerns, and I stumbled onto an auction that looked too good to be true.

Whaaaaat? There's a legit Blu-ray of KOTM? I checked Amazon, and yep, Scorpion Releasing (who?) put out a DVD and a Blu-ray of KOTM in Nov of 2020. How did I miss that? Well, there was a lot going on in 2020...

Anyway, I didn't mess around with an eBay seller. I punched the "Buy Now" button and let Amazon Prime work it's magic. The next day... fanfare, please!

Here's some Bootleg to Blu-ray comparisons:

I've already watched the Harry Hamlin and Noel Nossaeck interviews. They tell interesting stories of movie making in the late 70's and early 80's. This film could not be made the same way today.

Let's compare what's really importatnt: the image quality. VHS vs. Bootleg DVD vs. Blu-Ray

VHS:

Bootleg DVD:

Blu-ray:

The bootleg DVD was an improvement over my old VHS tape, but check out the Blu-ray's detail on that tree on the left. I hadn't even noticed the white lettering on the tires before. There's no way KOTM has looked better on home video.

That Porsche 356 is such a cool car. And that's really what all this is all about. I couldn't care less about the acting or the music industry storyline. This isn't a film review.

The cars in this movie are the stars. Dennis Hopper looks more dangerous than the night street racing. His alleged coke and alcohol fueled perfomance is truely unhinged, but his rat-rod 'Vette looks awesome. Joseph Bottoms's '69 Mustang is a stud. There are cameos by a Ferrari, a Superbee, a couple of Firebirds, a Datsun 240 Z, and some Porsche posers in the background at a German car repair shop. Deborah drives a cool, vintage Citroën. Even the beater pickup that Dennis races is sweet. 

These are the cars that I dreamed about when I was a kid. It's a lot to fun to see their details more clearly for the first time since then. Looks like I can finally toss my old VHS tape. 

Happy Halloween '21

Charlotte created this mini cemetery using decorations from the Dollar Tree. I like how it turned out. This display is a keeper. 

Char also used pumpkins and gourds to create this Halloween "Battle Royal." It's actually a bit graphic.

We gave out small packages of Smartfood popcorn and M&M's. That's one of our favorite movie snacks. I brought the projector back outside this year. I started with It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. It's cool when parents linger in the driveway to watch Lucy snag the football back from Charlie Brown's kick. After three showings, I switched to classic Scooby Doo cartoons. 

Some trick or treaters sat down with their popcorn and M&M's and enjoyed the show.

I walked to the sidewalk to get a "wide angle" view of our house. I accidentally caught Daphne standing in the window by the front door. Looks creepy.

It was a nice night. Char had a friend to run around with, and the evening's weather was clear and cool. 

Oh, I almost forgot. Char made her own costume this year. Currently, one of her favorite YouTube clips is "Guy says "porky worky" and gets attacked by pig." ---> link. She has laughed so hard at this so many times.

So, she went as a muddy Porky Worky. 

Good times.

The Only Bad Movie

Rock Valley had at least four businesses that rented movies when I was growing up. Grocery stores had candy, movies, and video games hanging by the checkouts. Gas stations were crammed with VHS boxes, motor oil, and salty snacks. This was great for a kid who loved movies.

Competition was tough, though. The shelves were usually picked clean of the popular titles. That wasn't a bad thing. I watched Paul Newman in The Hustler after school when I was senior. That was the only movie that was left to rent. It was so good; I stop watching the clock. I was almost late to suit up for that night's football game. I ran out the door right after those thugs broke Paul’s thumbs.

My college dorm didn’t have cable, and I didn’t have much cash. I checked out movies from the university's library out of necessity. The offerings were mostly art-house and foreign films. I didn't mind; these weren't movies I could find at Casey's. While I was watching 'Round Midnight, a girl who was looking for my roommate knocked on my door. When she heard the French language and saw the subtitles on my TV, she said without any sarcasm, “I didn’t know you were smart.” (How do you react to that?)

A friend snuck me into his Politics in Film class. I watched screenings of movies like The Manchurian Candidate and The Brother from Another Planet. He wrote analysis papers based on our conversations, and I saw movies on a big screen that I wouldn't have seen otherwise. 

Friends at work introduced me to the action of John Woo films and the humor of MST3K. I discovered Italian gialli, German krimis, and Japanese kaiju films through the internet. My dad only wanted to watch war movies, and Daphne's dad is really into spaghetti westerns, so directors Sergio Leone and Sam Fuller are old friends. 

I also learned a lot by reading Tim Lucas's magazine, Video Watchdog. 

It was here that I discovered the crazy world of Turkish films. I was inspired by the 2002 article, "Yilmaz Atadeniz: Superman of Turkish Cinema” by Kaya Ozkaracala and David White.

"Between the mid-1960’s and the early 1980’s, the Turkish film industry produced some of the most frenetic and colorful B-movies in the world...  these films were irresistible celluloid meeting rooms for international popular culture; a place where America’s Batman could match with France’s Fantomas and Italy’s Killing went mano-mano with Frankenstein’s monster.”

Check out that movie poster on the back of the magazine. A rip-off of an American Superman fighting a rip-off of an Italian Killing: who wouldn't want to see Kilink Istanbul'da? 

"Looking back, the most intriguing quality of these films is their sheer shamelessness. Absolving themselves from any responsibility to obtain permission for some of the more famous characters, Turkish filmmakers turned copyright infringement into an art form...”

As interesting as these Turkish mashups sounded, I was intimidated by overseas shipping costs. I also wasn't sure I wanted to watch Turkish language films on VCD with no subtitles. (A VCD is a CD that contains digital video and audio files. The video quality is close to a VHS tape.)

I was able to see Kilink Istanbul'da (with English subtitles) a few years later with the help of a Greek DVD lable, Onar Films. Helmed by Bill Barounis, Onar Films (basically a one-man operation) released 16 Turkish movies on 14 discs. There would have been more releases, but sadly Bill died from cancer in 2011.

I have the complete set of the Onar DVDs.* Each one is from a limited numbered run.

In these movies you can find Turkish versions of  Captain America, Santo, Spider-Man, James Bond, Tarzan, and two different Supermans (Supermen?) to name a few. The special effects are sometimes unintentionally funny, and the film elements can be scratched and grainy, but all of these films are watchable. It's cool to see how these movies take elements from all over the world and spin them into something uniquely all their own.

You can tell that Mr. Barounis loved these films, and that he put a lot of effort and pride into each of his DVD releases. He wrote the 40-page Turkish Fantastic Cinema Guide that was included with one release, and other DVD extras include documentaries on various Turkish film genres, bios, trailers, and filmographies.

Many of the DVDs arrived with a mini reproduction of the film poster.

Kadin Dusmani (Woman Despiser) is my favorite of the Onar releases. It is amazing what the director could do with some rubber halloween masks and a fog machine. Kadin Dusmani matches all the requirements to be an Italian giallo film, but it came out before the gialli were popular, so this Turkish film copied no one. 

Are these Turkish movies great films? That depends on semantics. I can say that these films are not bad. I have learned that a movie's budget, language, color, year, and quality have nothing to do with a movie being bad or not. 

This is not my theory, but I agree with it:

The only bad movie is a boring movie. 

And that brings me to my latest movie purchase: 

The Man Who Saves the World (Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam) is a Turkish science fiction! fantasy! martial arts! superhero! film from 1982. How can this be boring?

The Man Who Saves the World is sometimes called Turkish Star Wars because the filmmakers blatantly stole footage, music, and sound effects from the original Star Wars movie. But that's not the only movie they stole from.

"The musical soundtrack is entirely lifted from popular movies. The main theme used is "The Raiders March", composed by John Williams, from the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark. Other scenes incorporated the music of Moonraker, Ben-Hur, Flash Gordon, Giorgio Moroder's version of Battlestar Galactica, Planet of the Apes, Silent Running, Moses (!), and Disney's Black Hole" (wikipedia).

I first read about this movie and its blu-ray release on the Spaghetti Western Database, of all places. 

The website for Big Bosphorus Media has information about the film and video examples of their blu-ray's transfer, but there's no info about the company. I'm actually surprised anyone can sell a physical copy of this movie with all of the copyright infringements. The fact that it's only for sale for the month of October is also weird, "Once it's gone, it's gone!" 

The whole thing seemed a bit sketchy, but that didn't stop me from ordering a copy.

It even came with a mini movie poster!

This just arrived, so I haven't watched the whole movie. I did take it for a test drive to make sure the blu-ray worked. It does. 

The exposition was a bit of a chore to get through (like this blog post), but it was surreal seeing Murat and Ali flying around the Death Star. (It's been noted that the Star Wars images are squeezed, and it looks more like the Death Egg.) I was happy to see that the film makers inserted their own rubber halloween masks into the cantina scene, "That's what I'm talking about!"

Welcome to my collection, The Man Who Saves the World. You're in good company.

-------------------------------------------

* Side Bar: After Bill Barounis died, Turkish film critic Ali Murat Guven helped Bill's family by selling what was left of the Onar DVDs for them. It wasn't easy for him to get the DVDs from Greece to where he lived in Istanbul, but he took no profit from the sales. 

I ordered the discs that completed my collection from Mr. Guven. As a gesture of appreciation, Ali included personalized posters signed by producer, director, and actor Kunt Tulgar and actor Aytekin Akkaya. 

I didn't make the connection until yesterday. Aytekin Akkaya?  He's one of the stars of my newest blu-ray! That's Cüneyt Arkin kicking rocks on the movie poster. Mr. Akkaya gets second billing:

Without even knowing it, I already owned a personally signed poster of one of The Men Who Saves the World?

This needs a frame. 

Nov. 1st update:

I bought a frame.

Whew. And it looks I got my copy just in time. 

She's with the Band

The Urbandale Middle School band joined forces with the high school marching band at the football game on Friday night. Daphne directs the 7th and 8th grade bands, Char plays percussion in the 6th grade group, and I was a parent volunteer. The night was a family affair

The UMS band stood on the sidelines and played the fight song along with the upperclassmen. Char is in there somewhere.

I found her in the sea of instruments, and she had zero intrest in being photographed. 

Not that I blamed her.

Not that I put my camera away, either.

The UMS students sat with the UHS band in their appropriate instrument sections during the game. That put Charlotte on the track with the rest of the percussionists. Both bands played the fight song when UHS scored.

I snuck down there for one action shot. Char wasn't pleased. Her eye-roll was almost as loud as a drum roll.

I don't know why I got such a kick out of seeing the "Monson" name tag on her drum, but I did. 

Size is relative. There are times when Charlotte is standing in our kitchen or running around with her friends, and I think, Man, she is getting so tall. Then I see her standing by high schoolers, and I think, Man, she looks so small. 

Time is not on my side for that one, though. Some day the only little girl I'll see is in my memory.