MST3K Episode #804 - The Deadly Mantis

Talk about a drag. This movie is one of the slowest movies I've ever seen on MST3K. It drags on FOREVER. I wouldn't call this movie one of the worst films on MST3K ever (compared to Manos: Hands of Fate and The Beast of Yucca Flats) but it's definitely at the point of being unwatchable. There's quite a few times when you just want to stand up and leave the room.

Now, the MST3K comedy is great, but it's almost not enough to keep you seated. I actually had to turn this one on and off several times and pick it back up again it was so bad. In this film, NONE of the actors are even worth naming.

The story is so hard to follow also. Mostly because it's just that boring. So The Deadly Mantis is about just what the name implies, a giant prehistoric mantis. The opening credits are the mantis' body suspended in ice at the North Pole. Because of global warming (I guess, it's never directly mentioned) the polar ice caps are melting. As it melts, a giant prehistoric mantis (about 5 or 6 times bigger than a 747) wakes up out of the ice and starts eating people. It starts out at an airbase (in Alaska or Canada!? I don't think it's ever explained...) where it intercepts a plane carrying to American soldiers.

The base goes on alert and finds crashed ship, but no bodies. Inside the ship, they find a giant thorn-like claw. They take it back to the military base for study. They bring the claw to Colonel Parkman, who decides to have it investigated to see what it is. After bringing it before a military council of some sort and they decide to have it sent to a paleontologist, Dr. Ned Jackson.

This is where the movie really begins. So Ned Jackson starts studying the claw, along with his annoying sidekick, photographer Marge Blaine, who apparently is tired of hanging around Jackson because he doesn't ever have any good stories (a stale romance is implied but isn't really admitted). After some study, Jackson believes the claw to be from a pre-historic giant insect and Marge gets excited as she finally gets her story. The two race to the military base to meet up with Col. Parkman.

When they get there, who should attack? The Deadly Mantis, of course! So the mantis attacks and they manage to escape and leave to Washington D.C. where Colonel Parkman and Marge start up a romance that is anything less than completely overt (at one point they're in a car together, kissing when Marge says they should go home and Crow says, "But there's a mantis in my pantis", one of the best MST3K lines ever). Together, they figure out that the mantis is going to try to fly south to it's normal habitat (how it got to the North Pole is anyone's guess in the first place) in South America or Africa. The mantis is then intercepted in Washington and attacked. Fleeing away, it then flies to New York.

Marge, Parkman and Jackson all follow to New York, where someone (the police, the army, normal citizens? Who knows!) traps the mantis in a traffic tunnel. The three go in to try to kill it and somehow, Parkman gets a hold of some gas bombs that he just starts launching at the mantis. After a few well-placed bombs, the mantis dies. After it's dead, Marge starts to take pictures and the mantis' claw starts to move and almost kills Marge. Parkman dives in and saves his woman while Jackson just stands there laughing. When Parkman asks why he's laughing, Jackson says, "Oh, don't worry, he's dead. Insect's bodies tend to still move even after they die." And that's pretty much the end of the movie.

Wow, I can't believe I actually described what happened. I can't believe I actually remembered. I must say I had to read a little bit more to jog my memory about this film because I'm telling you, it was awful.

(from left to right, Ned Jackson, Marge Blaine, Colonel Parkman)

An MST3K Thanksgiving

I just counted today how many Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes I've seen all the way through today and the lucky number is 46. These are just the episodes I REMEMBER watching from start to finish. I'm pretty sure I've watched three or four more that I don't recall actually finishing. Not to mention all the movies I've started but couldn't finish because I had to do something else.

Anyway, in the spirit of Thanksgiving and the realization that I've seen 46 MST3K episodes the whole way through, I've decided to put up some special MST3K "Turkey Day" clips for your viewing pleasure. I wish there was a channel that would play 30 hours of MST3K straight for Thanksgiving, my family could have it on while I'm cooking away. What a wonderful world it would be.

MST3K Episode #808 - The She-Creature

Wow, talk about a re-hash of The Undead. This movie is basically based on the same premise. Someone can use psychosis to bring a hypnotized person back in time.

Hmm.... where to begin with this one. Well, The She-Creature doesn't really star anyone worth mentioning besides Elizabeth Taylor look-a-like, Marla English, who was actually in one of the greatest films ever made, Rear Window. All she had was a small role though, she walked into a room in one shot and that was pretty much it. The only other actors of note are Lance Fuller who played Brack in the MST3K movie, This Island Earth, and Tom Conway, who narrated Walt Disney's Peter Pan.

So this movie is slow. And I mean SLOW slow. Basically, a hypnotist named Carlo Lombardi has some type of psychic hold on Andrea Talbott, played by English. Meanwhile, Ted Erickson, played by Fuller, is dating a girl named Dorothy Chapell. Her father, Timothy Chapell, played by Conway, takes an interest in Dr. Carlo Lombardi because he figures he can make a lot of money off of his hypnosis and psychic powers.

So mysteriously, there have been a lot of murders just off the coast. Teenagers (who are often making out) are killed by some kind of monster. Erickson, along with his detective friend, start to investigate Lombardi because they believe he has something to do with the murders, as he has predicted each death. Erickson is a long-time critic of Lombardi, but witnesses him doing his hypnosis on Andrea Talbott, whom he instantly falls in love with (and out of love with Dorothy Chapell), and starts to believe Lombardi has some type of power. Lombardi reveals to him that through hypnosis, he can bring Andrea back to any one of her previous incarnations through an unconscious link in her psyche. He then tells Erickson that he can even bring her back to the dawn of creation (she's a reincarnated sea monster, ha!).

Together, Erickson and Talbott work together to find some sort of mental strength that can keep Andrea from being put under Lombardi's control. They fight back against Lombardi and he eventually dies, regretting his powers that he used for evil. Andrea is saved and Erickson and Andrea live peacefully ever after.

Or do they!? The movie ends with a giant question mark, which is just awesome. It was supposed to allude to alleged sequel, which I don't think ever happened. The jokes in this episode are top-notch, as Bill Corbett had just started his role as Crow T. Robot in this season (Season 8) and they were all trying to make the episodes as funny as they could to keep up with previous level of comedy when Trace Beaulieu was Crow. At one point, when the monster is walking around on the beach invisible and leaving it's tracks in the sand, Crow says "Donald Duck has the ring of power!" I laughed my ass off.

The comedy is good in this episode, although the movie is so bad you may not be able to handle it.

New Dissidia Scan...!

Finally, we get to see Cloud and Sephiroth's art for Final Fantasy Dissidia. No news though at all that I'm hip to. Also, there's a new video for the game, the five and a half minute video that Square Enix showed at the Tokyo Game Show. Enjoi!

The Critic

What a great show this was. Probably one of the most under-rated animated shows that was ever on TV. It was so much better than the filth/garbage/trash we have today like Family Guy and American Dad. I wish they would come back and make a new season. I'm telling you, it was so fantastic because it has this melancholy random humor that's great. Jay is (was) the modern day Charlie Brown, always being picked on and such. Just hilarious.

And Jon Lovitz is just pure genius. This show was great. I wish they'd bring it back to TV at least so we could watch it again.

Here's some links to my favorite episodes on-line:

Eyes on the Prize (one of my favorites)
Marathon Mensch
L.A. Jay
Dr. Jay

MST3K Episode #807 - Terror From The Year 5000

I actually liked this one! Besides the MST3K comedy, this wasn't that bad of a movie. Okay, okay, so really, it was. BUT... it's nowhere near as bad as SOME of the MST3K movies I've seen (Cosmic Princess, Hamlet, Outlaw, and Quest of the Delta Knights come to mind). This movie was more like This Island Earth, where the acting is bad, but it's mostly the fact that the concept was way beyond the capabilities of the time.

Having said that, Terror From The Year 5000 stars super-babe, Joyce Holden, as Claire Erling, the daughter of prominent time-travel professor, Howard Erling (played by Frederic Downs, who coincidentally, was also in The Hellcats, another MST3K head-hitter as well as Night Train To Mundo Fine [Red Zone Cuba]) and Ward Costello as archaeologist, Professor Robert Hedges.

So the movie starts out with a doldrums monologue about how man went to the moon in the 20th century. Then it goes into the movie, where it explains that Howard Erling and his pasty/oily assistant, Victor are trying to conduct science experiments about traveling into the future. Basically, they put something into a capsule, send it to the future, and as they do, the equivalent item from the year 5000 comes out. So they put a little statue into the machine and out pops a statue of a woman's body, a Venus De Milo type thing. So what does Erling do? He sends the statue to his friend, Robert Hedges, to carbon date the statue. After carbon dating the item, Robert realizes the item is from "THE YEAR 5000" (which is incredibly stupidly impossible). So then Robert gets an invitation to Erling's experimental island and decides to go. When he gets off the plane and into his car, he soon realizes he's being followed. What ensues is probably the most pathetic car chase ever. So when he stops the car, his chaser gets out of the car and who is it? Claire Erling, professor Erling's daughter! She explains that she was the one who invited Robert and then remarks about how cute he is. The two of them then go to the island.

When they get there, it's revealed that Victor is actually quite diabolical. He really wants to further the experiments with sending things into the future, while Professor Erling wants things to slow down a bit. Another hilarious character that's introduced is the old peeping tom, Angelo, who lives in a pin-up-plastered shack outside the mansion where he apparently just sits around looking at porn mags all day. So Victor and Claire have some sort of relationship, although it's never really developed as Claire practically jumps Robert as soon as he gets there. After a few nights at the mansion, Robert realizes that Victor has sent living creatures through the time-machine, as he finds a suitcase with some type of dead alien dog in it at the bottom of one of the swamps on the island.

After this, it's pretty much hazy. Victor and Howard get into some kind of fight... The movie basically drags on for the whole huge chunk of the middle. Howard spends most of his time trying to convince Erling that Victor is trying to send living creatures through the machine, which Erling doesn't believe. Victor finally sends a keyring that he has with some Greek translated on it to the future and what they get back is some sort of golden coin with the words "save us" on it, inscribed in Greek. So, sometime after this, Angelo is caught peeping on Claire, which is immediately forgiven, because the Terror shows up right after, which is just hilarious. One minute, dirty old Angelo is outside Claire's bedroom, spying on her changing, and then literally five minutes later in the film, they're like, "Angelo, go get help", like he's their saving angel.

So, Victor somehow brings a living being from the time-machine back to their time, who immediately attacks him. Did I mention the terror has giant rhinestone-type glittery circles all over it's black costume (ROFL!)? Anyway, it attacks him and burns him up with radiation poisoning when Professor Erling, Howard, and Claire are all in town watching a movie. When they get back, they see he's hurt and tell Angelo to go get help. So good 'ole Angelo runs out into the swamp and gets killed by the Terror. Then, they decide to call for a nurse, who ends up getting intercepted by the Terror. The Terror kills the nurse and then puts on her face and goes to the mansion where Erling, Howard, and Claire are. Once the Terror (disguised as the nurse) gets there, Howard and Erling decide to leave (to go and find Angelo, I believe!?) and Claire stays behind to take care of Victor. While Professor Erling and Howard are gone, Claire goes to her room while the nurse "takes care" of Victor. The Terror reveals that in the future, because of the people in the 20th and 21st centuries, 7 out of 8 (or some crap like that) babies are born with radiation poisioning and are born mutated "freaks". She needs to bring Victor back to the future with his pre-radiation genes to start populating the planet with new healthy babies. Just then, Claire comes in there's a weird conflict dialogue between Claire and the Terror. She then leaves and the Terror and Victor go into the room and fire up the time-machine. When Claire sees them doing this, she realizes that the nurse is from the future and they start fighting. In the cat-fight, the Terror's pretty nurse face gets torn off and reveals her true ugly face. The Terror then starts attacking everyone.

I think Victor dies, I don't really remember. Anyway, Professor Erling and Howard show up and save Claire. The Terror dies and then Howard warns that they need to go to the future to help out. Professor Erling then gives some BS speech about how they are the future and that they can change the world and prevent the radiation poisoning. And then that's it.

You have to wonder if they're kidding you at the end of this movie. Not the worst concept, but definitely a failure to execute.

LMN - Our Mother's Murder (Daughters)

This is probably one of the best (coincidentally, meaning one of the worst) Lifetime movies. This one is a pure classic. I've probably seen this movie maybe two or three times, off and on, since about 1997. As it's known on Lifetime, the movie is called Our Mother's Murder. I believe the original title is "Daughters". The movie is supposedly fact-based, or based on a true story.

So anyway, the movie's biggest star is pubescent boy fan-fav, Holly Marie Combs, who's biggest role was a character called Piper Halliwell from the uber-crap-fest WB network superstar show, Charmed. So Combs plays Alex Morrell, daughter of Anne Scripps Douglas, a famous heiress to the Scripps Howard newspaper chain. While the real-life story is pretty tragic, the movie, taken as a movie, is pretty bad.

So Alex Morrell narrates the entire movie. In the first two minutes of the film, you already hit your own head at the blatant campiness of the line, "When mom got married, she was practically almost a virgin". YIKES. So she goes on to say how her mom grew up with all this money and was really nice and protected. Then her mom married her dad and had two girls, Alex, and her sister, Annie, who's played by Sarah Chalke, who's biggest things she ever did were two "Wow, who gives an F" shows, Scrubs and How I Met Your Mother. So after Alex's mom and dad had the two of them, they then divorced.

So it starts with Annie and Alex both coming home from being away at some type of boarding school or something. They come home and find their mom racing out for a date with a "much younger man". So things escalate and eventually the mom marries the guy, who's name is Scott Douglas, played by James Wilder, a Lifetime movie regular. Turns out he's a carpenter with a bad drinking habit. Annie and Alex both suspect of him trying to move in our their mother because she's innocent, naive, and vulnerable, not to mention one of the wealthiest single women in the US.

So after a while, Anne (the mother) and Scott get pregnant and have a daughter, Victoria, often called "Tory" (what a terrible name). This is where things escalate. During a Christmas party, Anne has invited some relatives of her ex-husband, Annie and Alex's father. Scott flips out (it's suggested throughout the movie that he has some sort of inferiority complex with Anne's ex-husband) and takes Tory away from the party. Afterward, he hits Anne for inviting her ex-husband's family. After a while, things settle down. A couple years later, Anne throws another party for her daughters' friends and Scott comes home to find Anne smoking around Tory. Again, he flips out and beats attempts to beat her up, but one of Anne's friends comes in to find him and he pushes her down the stairs. The police arrive and Scott claims it's an accident. This is when Alex flips out and gets Scott to try to attack her.

The drinking/anger/beating happens again until Scott and Anne go out for a night of dinner and dancing with Anne's friends. Scott obviously doesn't fit in with the high and mighty wealthy people as he keeps trying to get them to hire him to be a builder/contractor for them. They laugh him off as they never talk business at social gatherings. Scott gives one of Anne's friends a business card which he laughingly throws in the ashtray when Scott walks away. When Scott comes back and sees it, he flies into a rage and gets in the car with Anne. Here, he tries to push her out of the car while it's going over 90 mph. He roughs her up so badly that he almost kills her and Anne runs away to hide with Alex.

This is where the second half of the movie begins. The rest is all about Anne trying to get separated from Scott and take Tory with her, which Scott finds out about and starts tormenting Anne, even threatening her when she sleeps. Eventually, Scott murders Anne and this is where the movie ends.

Pretty brutal and it's crazy that it's a true story. The movie teaches a valuable lesson to women about abusive relationships, but again, taken as a movie, it's just not that good. The best acting job is done by Wilder, who plays the part of a psycho pretty well (as he is type-cast to play these types of roles in a lot of other Lifetime movies). Holly Marie Combs more or less narrates the entire movie and just tries to look pretty most of the time. Anyone who's ever seen Charmed knows she's not the greatest actress.

The Dunwich Horror

Uh oh. This is a bad one. So this came on late on TCM around Halloween and I thought I'd sit down to watch it. Boy, was I in for a ride on the stupidity train. This movie was like The Langoliers combined with Touch of Satan, trying to be Arabesque. Wow. The only thing missing from this film was Tim Matheson.

So the movie is supposed to be based after an H.P. Lovecraft story, but I've read it's very loosely based (Most of the characters in the movie aren't even in the story, let alone entire plot elements!). But that's a good thing because you don't want to be connected to this movie in any way, shape or form. TRUST ME. So, first of all, the movie "stars" Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee. I haven't seen any other Dean Stockwell movie except for The Langoliers, a film adaption of a Stephen King (who sucks in my opinion) story, which could quite possibly be the worst movie of all time. Sandra Dee is best known for her roll as Gidget in the 1959 classic, Gidget. What she was thinking when she decided to make this heap of crap movie, I doubt anyone will understand.

So the plot of the movie is pretty strained. There's this girl, Nancy, who's played by Dee. She and her friend work at a library with a copy of the Necronomicon. Right off the bat, it's like WTF!? Okay, so bare with me here. There's an old professor, Dr. Armitage who comes in and examines the book every now and again. One day, Wilbur, played by Stockwell, comes in, looking evil, or maybe just slightly gay. He tries to get the Necronomicon but Dr. Armitage doesn't want to let him get it. But since it's a public library, Nancy gives it to him. She also decides to go over to his house, because she's slightly intrigued by his mysterious darkness (or gayness).

So Wilbur drugs Nancy and starts using her in these bizarre rituals. Did I mention that meanwhile throughout this movie, there's random, half-second shots of naked people in finger paint running around? Some shots are violent I think, some are bizarre orgy-type stuff. All absolutely pointless. So he puts her on this stone table and impregnates her while she's passed out while all these evil spirits fly around. Apparently, he has to impregnate her and do these rituals on her to open a portal so that the beings (which are his ancestors) who lived on Earth before humans can come back.

Are you kidding me? Isn't that the stupidest thing you've ever heard? So Nancy's friend, who's name isn't even worth mentioning, comes by Wilbur's house looking for Nancy. Wilbur's weird, frightened little kitten of a father tries to make her leave, but she goes upstairs to the top floor where she's apparently eaten by some type of beast made out of hands, eyes and teeth. So the monster gets out (apparently it was somehow locked in the top room of Wilbur's home) and starts going on a rampage. Oh, and Wilbur's mom is in a mental institution, too. Did I get to that? The relevance of that is never exactly explained other than Wilbur had some type of evil birth. Anyway, is it wrong to say I don't even remember the end of this film?

Oh, and did I mention that Roger Corman was the producer of this movie? Yeah...

Mr. T Facts

I got these from here. They're at the bottom of the page.

23; That's the number of people Mr. T has pitied in the time it has taken you to read this sentence.

Mr. T's edition of the VH1 show 'Where Are They Now' was the shortest in the show's history. It was 10 seconds long, and consisted of a black screen with the words "Right Behind You" written on it.

Mr. T is allergic to doorknobs. That's why he can only kick through doors.

The last time Mr. T went to McDonald's, Ronald McDonald greeted him. What occurred next proved to be the most violent beating of a clown ever recorded in human history.

Despite popular belief, if there is a fool in the woods, and nobody is around to hear his jibba jabba, Mr. T is still able to pity him.

Originally the A-Team was named T-Team and consisted of Mr. T and six of his genetically engineered clones driving around in a van made of pure gold. Producers changed the format after every criminal known to man was killed in the pilot episode.

Mr. T's hair style is actually a complex array of antennas that can triangulate the exact location of any fool in the universe. His gold chains can then transmit pity to those coordinates.

When Dr. Bruce Banner gets angry, he turns into the Hulk. When the Hulk gets angry, he turns into Mr. T.

Mr. T made his van go twice the speed of light because he wanted to prove that quantum physics was a bunch of jibba jabba.

If you were ever foolish enough to get into a fight with Mr. T, there would only be two hits: Mr. T hitting you, and you hitting the surface of the Sun.

Mr. T's incredible greatness has been attributed to the fact that his genetic code doesn't have any A, G, or C. His genetic code is in fact, nothing but T's.

During one of his frequent time-traveling adventures, Mr. T was accosted by a horde of frenzied Olde Englishmen who believed he was "Mr. Tea" and that he was going to supply them with all the tea and crumpets they could possibly desire. With a single blow, Mr. T knocked the entire mob unconscious. To this day, English people still have gnarly-nasty teeth.

The vegetarian group PETA one time tried to establish the catchphrase "We PETA the fool who eats animals." Upon learning of this blatant theft of his catch phrase, Mr. T founded McDonalds.

Mr. T's GMC van does not travel on solid surfaces, but instead mathematical planes. In other words, it can go wherever Mr. T wants.

Small animals find Mr. T irresistible and can be found playing in his mohawk. Mr. T tolerates them because "they don't give me no lip."

Mr. T invented Asian people, because he thinks they're cute and don't take up much room.

When Mr. T has nightmares, people around him start dying for no reason.

Mr. T was once clocked at 100 fps. That's 100 fools pitied a second.

Mr. T once got into a fight with a ninja. He killed the ninja, but only after the ninja had cut off two of his fingers. Those fingers grew up to be Gary Coleman and Webster.

Mr. T defines love as the reluctance to murder. If you're still alive, it's because Mr. T loves you.

Mr. T can count past infinity

Remember, only you can prevent forest fires. But also remember that you can't do nothinÕ, because Mr. T is the one who starts them, and no one can stop that crazy fool.

Mr. T was fired from the Psychic Friends Network for always predicting pain.

When Mr. T puts on his dancing shoes, you better start running.

World champion eater Takeru Kobayashi once ate 53.5 hot dogs in 12 minutes. Allotted the same time, Mr. T ate Kobayashi.

Mr. T was the first man on the moon, and claimed it by carving a gigantic "T" stretching from horizon to horizon. In his wisdom, he carved it on the dark side, as a warning to any aliens who might even think of attacking.

ANIMALS RULE! TIMOTHY CONQUERED!

Grizzly Man may be the greatest documentary film of all time. Not particularly just because Timothy Treadwell was crazy, but because it's a great portrait of a man. Timothy Treadwell was not just some nut-job, but a guy who had real problems that real everyday people have. He got into alcohol, then drugs for a bit and then reverted back to a child-like state mentally to kick his drug/alcohol abuse habit. When he was a child, his big thing was animals. So when his life totally went on the fritz, he just kind of resorted back to it like a mental auto-pilot.

But the part I love about Timmy Treadwell is that he actually tried to be an island. He left the confinements of human civilization to try to live with bear civilization. He thought that since he was rejected by humankind that he was just forsake it and live without people. In his mind, he developed this incredible mental fantasy that somehow bear social hierarchy was superior to human social hierarchy and that he was needed and loved by these bears and that he was their companion.

He also became their hero in his own mystical world. In real life, Timmy was nobody's hero. But out in the woods, he could be a hero to animals because they couldn't think or talk back to him, so he could just imagine their responses to his nonsense. They were just kind of puppets that acted in his psychological make-believe fantasy world. Puppets to make him believe that he was the hero, the alpha male, the samurai, the "kind warrior".

The Most Incredible Halloween Cake Ever

I made this cake for Halloween. Now I am certainly not a huge fan of the Barefoot Contessa (who, disgustingly enough, named her show after the film about the fictional Spanish sex symbol, Maria Vargas, who coincidentally enough, was based after Rita Hayworth, an absolute BOMBSHELL, the exact opposite of Ina Garten), but I must say that this was probably the best cake I've ever had IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. It was absolutely amazing. The frosting too is incredibly decadent, I had to use only half of it on the cake, but it was still unbelievable. Absolutely delicious. Here's the recipe:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups good cocoa powder
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup sour cream, at room temperature
• 3 tablespoons brewed coffee
• 1 recipe Orange Buttercream, recipe follows

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 12 by 18 by 1 1/2-inch sheet pan.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars on high speed until light, approximately 5 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well. Combine the buttermilk, sour cream, and coffee. On low speed, add the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture alternately in thirds, beginning with the buttermilk mixture and ending with the flour mixture. Mix the batter only until blended.

Pour the batter into the prepared sheet pan, smooth the top with a spatula, and bake in the center of the oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool to room temperature before frosting.

Orange Buttercream:

2 cups sugar

2/3 cup water

6 extra-large egg whites, at room temperature

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 1/4 pounds (5 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3 tablespoons Triple Sec or other orange liqueur

1 tablespoon orange food coloring

Combine the sugar with 2/3 cup water in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan and, without stirring, bring to a boil. Cover the saucepan and allow the mixture to boil until the sugar dissolves. Uncover and continue boiling until the mixture reaches 240 degrees F on a candy thermometer. Pour the syrup into a heat-proof measuring cup.

Place the egg whites and cream of tartar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat on high speed until the eggs form stiff peaks. With the mixer on high speed, slowly pour the syrup into the egg whites. Continue beating on high speed until the mixture is absolutely at room temperature, about 10 to 15 minutes.

With the mixer on medium speed, add the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, and then add the vanilla and liqueur. (If the mixture becomes runny, the meringue was too warm and the butter melted. Chill slightly and beat again.) Add the food coloring and combine.

Terra & Kefka in Final Fantasy Dissidia

They released some new scans this week of Final Fantasy Dissidia. The biggest revelation here is the shots of both Terra's and Kefka's EX Forms, which are absolutely unbelievable. There's also a new video showing and explaining the EX Forms of Squall and Zidane. Interesting stuff!

MST3K Episode #519 - Outlaw

What can I say about this movie? Well, let's first start with the movie's preconception. The movie's title is actually "Outlaw of Gor" and takes place in a fictional Counter-Earth called Gor. The Chronicles of Gor series is a series of science fiction/fantasy novels/philosophy books written by John Norman, a philosophy professor. The series is known for two things. The first is the Chronicle's science fiction stories interlaced with philosophical ideology and bondage-based erotica. The second is it's subculture that actually tries to live out these philosophical ideologies and bondage erotica rituals. In the series, the philosophies and the pornographic behavior are integrated into each other to form the lifestyle of the Goreans, the people who populate the planet of Gor. The internet based on-line subculture that follows the "Gorean" lifestyle listed in the books also call themselves Goreans.

The series is almost like 90210, The Republic, Marquis de Sade (not going to be linked, too pornographic), and Star Wars combined. Try to imagine the plotline of Star Wars as stories about Luke Skywalker, giving dialogues about slavery, freedom, the universe, Darwinian evolution, and communism all while having various perverted sexual relationships with free women and his sex slaves. Wow, doesn't that sound like pure garbage?

You can tell John Norman thinks he's a really clever guy, mixing romance novel/pornographic fantasy situations with big philosophical concepts and Conan the Barbarian-esque action. Really, all he's doing is appealing to the perverseness of geeks/nerds everywhere who read sword and sorcery science-fiction or fantasy.

I mean, one thing that's absolutely never even remotely spoken about is the fact that works like this really appeal to science fiction audiences because of how socially awkard they can be. Go to any Blizzcon, Comic-Con, or any other science fiction based gathering and you'll realize that some of these people are freaks! Couple their absolute lostness in their fantasy mental realm with any type of normal desires any human would have, twisted by social inability and absolute frailty, and what do you have? The perfect candidate for this type of crap.

Think about this in relation to the "Goreans". You're 30 years old. You're a couple hundred pounds overweight. Your mom and dad split up when you were six. You live alone and have been made fun of (often so cruelly, it's been absolutely unbearable) since you were about eight years old. You've been pretending you're Conan the Barbarian, Red Sonja, Xena, or some other barbaric science-fiction weirdo since you were twelve and you've never quite come out of it. You have a job, which pays for you to live somewhere and your (usually fast) food, along with your toy collection (which you started at 8 years old), your comic book and science fiction movie collection, and your monthly subscription to EverQuest and WoW. When you see a book that provides you with the fantasy role you insert yourself in also with the sexual situations you wish you were in, you're going to be incredibly attracted to it. It's going to live out another part of your fantasy beside the running around, being handsome, manly, strong and important.

The funny part is that this has NOTHING to do with Joseph Campbell's pyschological undertones of the Hero With A Thousand Faces. These people are not relating to heroes by being psychologically connected with the symbolic representations of the emotions/experiences that all humankind relate to on a subconscious level. The people who engage in these Gorean subcultures are so far removed from reality that they try to make their fantasies manifest in reality by believing that they're something they're not. In a sense, these Gorean subcultures are filled with people who are completely in denial.

Having set this foundation, let's look at the actual movie, "Outlaw of Gor".

THIS MOVIE SUCKS. The main character's name is mentioned 55 times in the opening ten minutes. When I watched it, I was like, "Are you kidding me?" Considering all the MST3K movies tend to be really bad, it comes as no real surprise that this movie is awful. This movie is also a disgusting man-flesh feast. At the end of the movie, MST3K plays back all the male crotch shots of the entire movie all in a row. I'm telling you, absolute hilarity.

The movie is actually a sequel to the B movie super-flop, "Gor". It's main star, Jack Palance, isn't even in one of the lead roles, he plays a bad wizard, who's banished near the end of the movie anyway. So everything starts with probably one of the most annoying movie characters ever, college professor Watney Smith, played by legendary actor, Russel Savadier, who coincidentally was also in another big-time winner, Alien From LA. So Watney is seen in the beginning of the movie, chasing down girls in a pathetic 80s bar. The main character, Tarl Cabot, whose name says everything, is a lonely professor who's in the bar with some sort of big, ugly, magic 25 cent machine plastic ring. So Watney, being the pathetic, ugly guy he is, can't get a girl, so he sees his fellow professor, Tarl Cabot (what kind of stupid name is Tarl anyway? It's almost like John Norman took the name Carl Tabot and just switched the first letters and thought, "Wow, this is kind of Science Fition-ish.") also sitting in the bar alone.

After a bit of banter, they decide to go to some other awful 80s bar when they're mysteriously warped by Tarl's ring to the land of Gor. The funniest part is you never actually see anything at all, they're just sitting in the car with lights flashing outside the car and then it cuts to them being in the middle of the desert. Pathetic.

So here they are in Gor, and Cabot is extremely excited that he's back, as I guess he was there in the previous movie and apparently had to leave. This is where the movie gets stupid (boy, you thought it sounded stupid before!). They go into the city, where Cabot is known as a hero and they're welcomed into the castle. Apparently, the king, who loves Cabot, wants Cabot to rule as king after he dies and marry his daughter, who Cabot is in love with. But the king has an evil new wife who ends up sleeping with Watney (disgusting) and poisoning the king, then stabbing him to death, because apparently she wants to rule the kingdom? I don't know, her motives are never really explained. Anyway, Watney helps her frame Cabot and Cabot then escapes the city with a blonde midget (who they show more crotch shots of than anyone else in the entire movie).

This is where everything gets hazy. They free some slave girl and she ends up trying to be Cabot's love slave. Then they get captured by bounty hunters and are brought back to the castle. They end up fighting in some type of wanna-be colliseum-esque thing and Watney comes out and says that the queen killed the king, not Cabot. Some slave throws a spear in the queen and boom, done.

I mean, it's sad that you can pretty much summarize the entire movie in just four or five sentences, but that's it. But at least now you know there's another stupid internet community based on these terrible books (and even worse movies).

Hilarious random fact: "Gor art" is a top search on google image. ROFL.