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.

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* 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. 

“Once more unto the maze, dear friends, once more.”*

* apologies to William Shakespeare

This was our 6th year to search the Pumpkinville Corn Maze, but it was first time that Charlotte brought a friend with her. I edited her friend out of the obligatory Maze Entrance Photo. I'm not sure how her parents would feel about her being on the blog.

The temp was predicted to be 85 degrees, so we arrived when the maze opened at 10 AM. I was worried that it would be miserably hot in the corn field by the afternoon, but we were fine. The day was overcast and windy. It felt like autumn.

I would have booked a campfire if it would have been about 20 degress cooler: 

"Campfires are available but must be pre-scheduled. We get the fire going for you, provide adidtional wood, roasting sticks, picnic tables and chairs. Bring your own food and beverages, roast hot dogs and marshmallows! If you have a large group have folks bring folding chairs. Electrical hook-ups can be arranged for $10. Campfire cost:  Campfires are $25 for the first two hours and $10 for each additional hour."

We split into two teams. We went left. The girls went right.

Sure, the design looks small on paper, but my Fitbit had counted 13,000 steps by noon (we had walked our dog that morning, too.) I wore my Adel Sweet Corn Festival t-shirt to match the day's theme.

Charlote and her friend enjoyed shopping for pumpkins and gourds more than traversing the maze. I walked around and took pictures to kill time.  

Daphne and I had a fall wedding, and we decorated the reception tables with white pumpkins. They were harder to find 19 years ago. I'll always have a soft spot for them. 

When it comes to nostalgia, I don't think anything beats traditional, orange pumpkins. 

It was fun and worrisome to part ways with Charlotte and her friend (I won't even get into maze symbolism.) As we walked up the first row I said, "This feels so weird. We've never been in here by ourselves..." Daphne nodded in agreement. Then I added, "But no one is going to complain a whole bunch and ask to sit on our shoes, either." Daphne laughed.

We all had cell phones. Char checked in every 20 minutes or so by calling or texting. She was really good about it. Sure, technology is great, but holding a phone is not the same as holding a hand. At one point I spotted Charlotte laughing and running down a row about 30 yards parallel to us. She had no idea I was there or how relieved I was to see her. 

I know that children have to grow up, but giving your kid freedom can be scarier than any Halloween movie. 

It's Finally October!

The fall temperatures are going down and the Halloween decorations are going up.

 

I love this month!

The Garage Theater 2.0 presents: "The Lord of the Rings"

Daphne has wanted to watch the Lord of the Rings movies with Charlotte for a long time. (It's hard to believe that The Fellowship of the Ring is already 20 years old.) We finally decided that Char was mature enough to enjoy the films. We also decided that the best way for her see them for the first time would be on the "big screen."

The garage theater was going to make a comeback! Yes! 

I was excited because I had some improvements I wanted to make. I used the electronic equipment I bought from shopgoodwill.com last winter instead of just computer speakers and a DVD player. 

Now I can control the volume with a remote!

The Realistic Minimus 7s work well as satellite speakers for the Yamaha subwoofer.

My old Proxima projector doesn't accept HDMI cords, but an early model Blu-Ray player still has the RCA outputs.

The Roku SE from 2015 also has HDMI and RCA outputs. Now we can stream Boomerang cartoons until Mom's ready to watch the show with us.

I'm sure using the yellow RCA out degrades the Blu-Ray's picture some, but the image looks a lot better than what I got with a HDMI to RCA converter. 

What's a movie experience without popcorn? I recently rediscovered my Stir Crazy popcorn maker. I had this before we were married. The Stir Crazy is fun to use, and it pops a lot of popcorn at once. I like this better than microwave popcorn, but the real deal at the theater still can't be beat.

All of this would  have been a waste of time if Charlotte didn't enjoy Lord of the Rings, but she did. She loved The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. I think we'll finish The Return of the King on Friday night. I'm dreading the scene with the giant spider, and we've already warned Charlotte. 

I was proably seven when I first watched Earth vs. The Spider on Saturday afternoon TV. The scene where the Sheriff is attacked by a giant tarantula terrified me.

Speaking of being scared, I think I'll keep the garage theater open for some of my favorite Halloween movies. I'll let you know if something really jumps out at me.

Another Unnecessary, but Kinda Cool Project

My dad had all kinds of supervision duties when he was an elementary principal. We were always going back to school. We'd go back on Tuesday nights for JV basketball games. We'd go back on Friday nights for varsity football games. On Saturdays we'd go back for volleyball games.

I swear Dad would yell that it was time to go anytime I was watching a favorite TV show. I hated that; whatever I was watching would become an eternal mystery. VCRs were not available yet, and so I would never know how the show ended. I remember wishing for an endless power cord so we could take the TV with us in the car. 

I think that's what drew me to this Casio portable TV at Goodwill. This would have been a game changer for nine-year-old me.

Since it was manufactored in 1998, I knew that the Casio TV-770 couldn't receive modern digital TV signals. As is, it was useless as a TV. I didn't care. I thought it was cool, and I had a suspicion that I could do something with it.

A Google search turned up YouTube videos of people wirelessly playing movies on their tiny, portable TVs. How were they doing that?

They were using an antenna signal booster. 

An antenna booster takes the signal that an antenna receives, strengthens it, and sends the stronger signal on to your TV. In theory, you should receive a cleaner (less pixelated) image. 

Apparently, if you connect an antenna signal booster in reverse from a VCR and send the signal to a passive "rabbit ear" antenna, the rabbit ears become a VHF signal transmitter, like a very weak TV station. You can pick up whatever is playing on the VCR (or a DVD/ VCR combo player) with the portable TV's antenna.

Here's a very scientific diagram: 

This is exactly the kind of unnecessary thing that I wanted to try! 

I use to have a DVD/VCR combo player that I kept at school. That player was mistakenly barcoded as UHS property by the I.T. team and then later discarded because they deeemed it obsolete. I didn't care back then, but now I wished I had it. I'd need a combo player with a cable out connection to play a DVD on my little TV.

A GE antenna and a Philco player followed me home from Goodwill. 

I bought an antenna booster from Amazon, and used a female to female F-Type connector to join the antenna to the booster. 

A VHS copy of Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island was the test movie. Are you kidding me? This works? (The picture looks better in person.) 

So, I'm in my basement with a large screen TV across from me, but instead of using it, I'm watching a DVD of Freejack on a 2.3 inch screen. 

Does that make any sense? No.

Is it fun? Yes.

I'm going to count this as a win.

Halloween Isn't the Only Thing Sneaking up on You

Char, that evil, Jack-in-a-Box clown at the grocery store isn't what you should be worried about. 

Unbeknownst to Char, she was ten minutes from getting her flu shot. Let's just say it wasn't a welcomed surprise... 

I can't say that I blame her. 

She's Feeling Blue and Happy About It

Char has been asking to get her hair dyed since second grade. At first she wanted to go with bright pink, but for the last few years she has asked for blue. 

Daphne would reply, "I think that's more of a middle school thing. Why don't we wait until you get into sixth grade?" The question was rhetorical. Daphne had no intention of dying Char's hair before that.

Sixth grade is here, and Char had not changed her mind. She still wanted to go blue. Daphne asked a few of her students at the middle school what they used when they dyed their hair at home. She ordered supplies from Amazon, and they got to work on it on Labor Day.

Before shots:

It's now a waiting game...

Done! She's blue! After shots:

I don't see colors very accurately. Daphne and Charlotte say that they really like the color and are happy with how it came out. Good enough for me. Daph used a semi-permanent dye, and I assume the blue will fade with time. But I hope not too quickly. Hair color is just harmless fun.

Am I Coming In Clear?*

I wanted to watch the Olympics in our basement this summer, but we cut the cable cord last January. Our Rokus are handling streaming duties, and the TV antennas upstairs bring in local channels, but the TV reception in the basement stinks.

Small antennas like this one do not work well down there. I could get channel 8-1, the HSN, and four different channels showing the same televangelist. Channel 13-1 (our Olympic channel) might come in if I stood in one spot with my arms raised like I was in a Mr. Bean skit.

While moving into our house, I discovered that the previous owner left behind a large TV antenna in the garage attic. It's the size of what you would have seen attached to a house in the 1970s. I suspect he placed it up there when the house was being built. There's no way that antenna could have fit through the access hole in the ceiling. 

I would have never ditched cable TV eight years ago. Back then I thought that worthless antenna was taking up valuable storage space. I was going to dismantle it with a bolt cutter and throw out the pieces, but I forgot. I'm glad I did. Now that attena is like finding buried treasure.

The previous owners also left behind a satellite TV dish on our roof and a nest of cables in the garage wall. I pulled the wires out and found the cable for the attic antenna with Daphne's help.

I connected the antenna to the cable that ran around the house and into the basement. Then I ran downstairs and did a channel search on my TV. Nothing happened because I forgot to connect a cable to the TV (in my defense, I was pretty excited.) I ran the channel search again, and I was watching Olympic volleyball in no time flat.

Looks "good!"

Alright! Go USA!

I began watching other channels when the Olympics were over. I had forgotten how much I like the programs on PBS and MeTV. A lot of those shows air when I'm either alseep or at work. I wondered if there was a way to record them without having a cable service's DVR. 

One affordable option is the Mediasonic ATSC Digital Converter Box. I didn't expect too much for $30, and I was pleasantly surprised. The Homeworx is a bit clunky, but it works. I can record and watch shows without any kind of a subscription. That's cool. I like it.

You have to provide your own external hard drive to store the programs that you record. I went with a Seagate 1TB drive. The Twilight Zone airs at 11:30 PM, but now I can watch it when I want. 

The Mediasonic instructions really are terrible, so thank goodness for the people on Amazon who answer questions and leave ratings. This converter box would be a converter brick without their help.

Svengoolie was airing The Beast Must Die (1974) on Saturday evening. I recorded that while we were watching Lego Masters upstairs. I watched the movie last night (spoiler alert: Dumbledore is the werewolf) and had a lot of fun. I enjoyed being able to fast forward through the commercials and rewind when needed. 

MeTV airs shows I haven't seen before, like Mannix and Cannon, and programs that I haven't even heard of before, like The Time Tunnel and The Invaders. All of these programs run after midnight, so recording them is the only way for me to see them on my "big screen." 

I've also been absorbing America's Test Kitchen, Cook's Country, and Milk Street on Iowa PBS. Food Flirts is a hoot. There are gems to be found on the Laff, Comet, and Mystery channels as well.

Is any of this necessary? Not really. I can find most of this stuff online through one streaming platform or another. 

Am I having fun? Absolutely. How else am I'm going to record Svengoolie? 

*Did you ever notice in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory that the American actor playing Mike Teevee sounds a bit odd when he says, after being sent through the TV, "Am I coming in clear?" That's because he was hanging out with the British actress who played Veruca Salt, and her accent had crept into his own inflection.