A Movie Nearly Every Night: Night Caller From Outer Space

Night Caller from Outer Space (1965)
Dir. John Gilling
Starring: John Saxon, Maurice Denham, Patricia Haines

No, God, don't make me watch it again!

It's also known as Blood Beast from Outer Space although neither title adequately describes this movie, except that there's something from outer space and he does like to visit at night, but I don't know that he's necessarily a blood beast, although maybe that part was left out of the finished film, you know, when they edited it down to give it pace and tension.

Oh wait...

Still, in the mode of educational film viewing, I have picked up some valuable life lessons:

Never tell the military brass everything you know about glowing spheres and aliens. You're a scientist, dammit. Those animals just have guns.


Don't expect them to believe you if you're a woman, even if you're somewhat mannish and a scientist, dammit.


If your planet needs women with "looks, personality and ambition" you can pick up a couple hundred through an ad in "Bikini Girl" magazine.


Girls with these kinds of Goon Show characters for parents are easy targets ...


...as are girls who look like Lesley Gore.


Remember that aliens are all around you --- what's the circle behind his shoulder? What's the weird round thing hanging from the ceiling? You think they're harmless, but they look just like the alien space ship --- just like it. Don't get me started on rubber band balls.


And now, the moral of the story --- spoiler alert --- spoken by the Saxon as he watches the alien with bad dental work but "a gentle voice" hop into his glowing rubber band ball and shoot into the sky.

"Let's hope they find the cure and tell us," says ace, not entirely British scientist Jack Costain.

The world is full of hate and war, friends, and Jupiter 3, who lost all their people to "man" made destruction will now repopulate with 20 dopey girls who go alone to porn shops in answers to vague ads looking for "models". That's what you want in your society, because war is the killer:

Seriously??? This alien guy is out for peace and this is how he does it??? He killed the sleazy guy that ran the porn shop and your scientist girlfriend who was either too smart or not good looking enough to help populate a planet! That means the "cure" is swiping Earth's stupid girls and killing the smart ones! No! Bad! Bad! Where the hell is the RAF?!? Shoot that alien down! Shoot to... oh never mind it now.

Which brings us to our closing lesson:


Friends, when life gives you lemons, you make John Saxon and it will all be better again.

Platelet count: 20

Story Time

Hey, Li'l Hateful, I just watched Hot Tub Time Machine and they had a beer luge at a party. What is that anyway?

Well, little reader, I don't know about beer luges, but I can tell you about a very famous booze luge from Long Beach. Come up to ol' li'l hateful's knee.

Once upon a time there was this angry troll who lived in a house with a carefree sprite. The angry troll would go to work every day and deal with her crazy boss who would ask her to do things like come up with a campaign for public television using "spokes-monkeys" and other things that gave her upset tummy problems. But the carefree sprite would get her nails done and party with her friends all day long and then come home with her boyfriend and drink a suitcase of Bud Lite every night through a glow-in-the-dark beer bong.

The troll tried to be happy like the carefree sprite, but she was just too bitter and angry at the world. The sprite felt sorry for the troll, so one day, the sprite said "We'll have a party in the house and invite all our friends and we'll have Jell-O shots and an ice luge. I know a woman who does ice sculptures and she'll run surgical tubing in a corkscrew down the middle -- you pour at the top and 'catch' it from the tube straw at the bottom. It's like a beer bong in ice! A friend of mine has a frame. Come on, troll. You know you want it."

The angry troll was dubious. How could this solve anything? Booze? On ice?? Then, when the luge arrived, the driver decided to test it by pouring water through the tube at the top. But, uh-oh! the tube goes through ice and the water froze halfway through the block. The party was ruined. The troll fumed and fussed. The carefree sprite did shots.

Then, a magical pimp came through the kitchen door. "Boil the gin," he said, since no one was drinking it. "Alcohol doesn't freeze and you can pour that down the tube until the ice melts."

He was right! Within 2 hours of downing Jell-O shots and boiling Ralph's Plain-Wrap gin the ice luge was working. Even the angry troll tried it!

And they all lived happily ever after.

(Not So) Urgent Care

2:00 - Leave work

2:20 - Arrive at hospital; take a number

2:30 - 2:50 - Waiting room television choices are ESPN with closed-captioning and SpongeBob SquarePants without

2:50 - "Hi, I'm Nurse TeeHee." (I know that's not her name, but my left ear was all muffled and foggy and I was too shy to ask her to repeat it.) "Come on back and let's get you set up in a room."

2:55 - Vital signs checked (left arm hurting from blood pressure cuff), drugs listed and confirmed, and that's the end of Nurse TeeHee.

3:00 - I start to wonder how long this will take

3:10 - Wow, has it really been 10 minutes? That's not bad.

3:15 - Are there any water cups? No ... maybe I can fill up one of those gloves and drink from that

3:20 - Notice "turn off cell phones" sign -- suddenly tempted to turn on my cell phone

3:25 - Ohhhhhhhh so that's how you get the chair to go back

3:30 - The leg rest goes up. The leg rest goes down. The leg rest goes up. The leg rest goes down.

3:35 - Turn on the cell phone and play demo games that I can't afford to buy

3:40 - Turn off cell phone

3:45 - Dammit, people! I have cancer. Doesn't that rate for anything? Okay, I know it's not related to the ear infection, but what the f...?

3:50 - Maybe I'm not that sick. This thing just needs to clear up, right? Why did I panic and come in? But if I leave I'll lose that $25. What to do. What to do.

3:55 - I should have paid $10 to the primary care physician. I might have been in and out by now ... of course she'd recommend another pap smear ("But, doctor, it's an ear infection.") and looking things up on the Internets.

4:00 - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

4:10 - "Hi, I'm Dr. MuffledInTheBadEarName! Let's take a look at you. Looks like swimmer's ear." "But we don't have a pool." "Stop using Q-tips and I'll get you a prescription for ear drops so we can get you out of here, okay?"

4:15 - Meet up with frustrated and impatient cousin/roommate in lobby and leave the hospital

A Movie Nearly Every Night: High School Confidential!

High School Confidential!
Dir. Jack Arnold
Starring: Russ Tamblyn, Jan Sterling, John Drew Barrymore, Diane Jergens, Mamie Van Doren

Seven years of high school
high in school
seeking acceptance in the hipster slang
of the lingo
and jive

Flaunting authority over the authority

with a cheroot
a knife, motorcycle boots
and a '58 Chrysler Imperial convertible

She says her name is MaryJane -
blast off, popcap, swinging hitsville
while squaresville Michael Landon
looks on with disapproval on his lettermen's brow

Would you know the difference?

Chicken
doll
square
scram
Arlene, the square doll chicken
Will this square doll scram?

Joan, the weed head
grasshopper
popper
with the copper
what's to stop her

in this cautionary tale
of
high school
teens, Jerry Lee Lewis
and weed

Complete the scene
with
Mamie Van D
double D

And some swingin'

hep cat
Beat poetry

A Movie Nearly Every Night: The Year of Living Dangerously

The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)
Dir. Peter Weir
Starring: Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hunt

Welcome to Jakarta, bastard son of the imperialist West

I like movies about journalism. I like Peter Weir movies. So why didn't I like The Year of Living Dangerously?

Friends, while living in Los Angeles you have a lot of bad days. Traffic sucks, your job is pointless, someone's broken into your car for the third time in a week -- so you need a movie antidote for your tiresome, mundane-but-still-stressful life. That movie used to be Gallipoli. I'd come home from my 3 jobs and pop that sucker into the VCR and sit back and think "Wow, at least my day wasn't that bad."

Guy Hamilton at the mic ... okay, I love that his name is Guy Hamilton

So this is Mel and Peter Weir teaming up again just a scant year after Gallipoli and he's a journalist in crazy, rebellious 1960's Indonesia, so I figure it's going to be pretty good or at least somewhat pretty. Besides, I like Linda Hunt and I remember when it came out how nutty it was that she was a woman playing a man -- now, after the fact, it's difficult to buy into her being Billy because I know she's Linda Hunt, but at the time she could pull it off.

Still amazing, but I know it's you in there, Linda

And Sigourney Weaver is always cool and this is post-Alien pre-Ghostbusters Sigourney, so it's interesting to watch her work into the role of Jill. Honestly, she's not good with the accent and I don't buy her as being British, but there's still something to her that makes you think "Well, so what. She's doing just fine anyway." Maybe I have a girl crush, I don't know. She's a role-model and I don't think you'll find a lot of girls my age who weren't a little inspired by Ripley. So, not great, but I can't help cutting her a little slack.

And those sunglasses are to die for

But this movie just didn't go anywhere. Yeah, stuff happens and he's out for a story and may screw over his friends to get it (Yeah! Go, Mel, GO!) but you're not entirely sure that he will and does he get it in time and isn't he a little too late to everything? It's kind of flimsy and I don't know if it was because I was sleepy or if it really is just sort of ... flimsy. There's no other word.

Is Mel contemplating leaving her a nasty voicemail message? Then it must be love.

However, it does have some interesting and lovely Peter Weir touches because, yet again, he uses the magic of Russell Boyd behind the camera (and kooky Maurice Jarre for the music), but it just wasn't enough to make this compelling film viewing for a Tuesday night.

Mirror images and a tennis racket.
Who brings a tennis racket on assignment to Jakarta?

Noooooooooooooooooo
Mel running to save someone from unnecessary death again
and failing again

In the end, regardless of outcome -- enter on a plane, exit on a plane; right or left -- it's all about the shadow puppets. Billy shows us the prince and the princess; Peter Weir shows us the Gibson and the Weaver. The lights go out and the show is over. If you dig that, then this is your movie.


If you're tired and cranky ... rent Gallipoli instead.

What The... whatever

Platelet Count: 19

Dude.

No, I have no idea why. I haven't even had spotty marks or bruising or nose bleeds or any of the stuff that came with it the last time they were that low. It doesn't add up. I feel fine. I look okay. My hair is shiny and my nails are growing (as mom says), so it doesn't make sense.

Am I screwed? Well, not yet.

See, if this latest hormone therapy doesn't work I've got to switch to chemo. Now, I don't know what you know about chemotherapy, and I may have mentioned this before, but it drops your platelet count into the cellar. Since I'm already in the cellar, this is a problem, but it's not a problem yet.

In 2 weeks they'll draw some more blood. In 3 weeks I get another MRI --- same as the last one including the foot tape, apparently --- and another PET scan (aka: the No Coffee Or Food scan). In 4 weeks I go back to Vegas for sales training. In 5 weeks I meet up with the doctor to discuss what is or isn't working. He said he would call me before the sales trip if there was anything troubling on the scan. I told him not to call because I was going to Vegas and don't want to know before then. Anyway, if the hormone thing isn't working, I'll know then and THEN I get the bone marrow biopsy. I know, he keeps promising and not following through, but maybe this time...

The good news is I went through another round of Zometa yesterday and I feel fine today. The cousin/roommate, however, is sick.

Oh, I Know...

This just came on the online chat at work:

Visitor: Kellogg's Apple Pop Tarts are my favorite. I haven't been able to find them in grocery stores for a few months. Why?

Reminder: we sell office supplies.

That is all.

Big Girl Pants

Yeah, sorry, haven't posted anything on here in a long time, but last week was a gaggle of busy. We watched some movies, but I think I slept through a couple of them and the phone rang through a few of them, and we were out at Costco or buying booze the rest of the time, so not a lot of free moments.

Knowing full well that my co-workers read this, I'm going to out myself and spill some beans; take it out of the closet and wear it on the street; put it out on the stoop and see if the cat licks it up.

I'm moving into outside sales. I'll have my own team of sales people and we'll be chasing the local dollar. (Co-workers, I will explain details later.)(I will.)(Patience is a virtue.) What does this really mean? It means I spent an hour absorbing information from my "What Not to Wear" book and went out to buy clothes yesterday, real, adult, grown-up lady clothes from Macy's. I now have nice pair of trousers --- NICE trousers, not those crazy red and gray plaid type that I usually get, but suit trousers, but not too suity because I still need to be comfortable. By the way, ladies, JC Penney is a good place to shop for the suit shirt. Macy's had them, but can someone please explain why or how the pirate blouse frilly-front look is in style? For normal color and lapel size go to JC Penney. Trousers there, on the other hand, lean toward the polyester blend ... and ... uh ... hhhuhhhhh ... sorry, had a shudder moment. You know, pants that will spark if they rub together too much are just no good. They had those or Dockers ... cahhhhh no, just don't do it. Spend the extra and go to Macy's.

This also means I go back to Vegas in October to learn how to be a saleslady powerhouse. I'm excited about this job and I want to do well, but, friends, anything called "Boot Camp" gives me the fear. Do I have to run through tires while pitching clients on paper prices? Am I going to cry like Seegar on the wall in An Officer and a Gentleman? I just hope I get a better movie room theme at Planet Hollywood this time, you know, like Hope Floats or Bad Boys II.

Where does all this fit in with stage 4 cancer? Gosh, I really don't know.

A couple of weeks ago my leg popped back into the hip socket and now I can sleep at night without taking an Oxycodone (which, by the way, leaves me all woolen headed and sullen; I don't know how those people on Intervention pop them every day) and I have more energy now than I've had since the diagnosis. I mean, I know it's there, lingering, doing it's cancer thing, but I can't honestly tell my boss that I won't take this new job because of the cancer if cancer isn't stopping me.

But, okay, I know, every time it's high it goes low again. You don't have to remind me, but right now it's high and I'm riding it for as long as possible. So I have 4 dress shirts, a new skirt and some business trousers ready for a go. Now I need some decent shoes and no more than 5 pieces of flair.

It's a good thing.