| listening to: samhain- initium big black- songs about fucking rites of spring- end on end sunny day real estate- diary rudimentary peni- cacophony elliott- false cathedrals flipper- sex bomb baby celtic frost- vanity/nemesis radiohead- amnesiac christian death- catastrophe ballet screaming trees- dust the minutemen- double nickels on the dime tom waits- nighthawks at the diner pj harvey- stories from the city, stories from the sea john cale- fragments of a rainy season nick cave and the bad seeds- no more shall we part the cure- the top cocteau twins- heaven or las vegas oingo boingo- farewell meat puppets- meat puppets II liz phair- exile in guyville idlewild- 100 broken windows kristin hersh- hips and makers kristin hersh- strings prick- prick depeche mode- exciter reading: neal stephenson- the diamond age charles bukowski- women charles bukowski- ham on rye john fante- ask the dust watching: inframan wonder boys shadow of the vampire traffic brazil the book of life lady terminator (see sidebar) |
| thousands. out of the thousands who are known, or who want to be known as poets maybe one or two are genuine and the rest are fakes, hanging around the sacred precincts trying to look like the real thing. needless to say i am one of the fakes and this is my story. -leonard cohen |
| mad girl's love song. i shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; i lift my lids and all is born again. (i think i made you up inside my head.) the stars go waltzing out in blue and red, and arbitrary blackness gallops in: i shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. i dreamed that you bewitched me into bed and sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. (i think i made you up inside my head.) god topples from the sky, hell's fires fade: exit seraphim and satan's men: i shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. i fancied you'd return the way you said, but i grow old and i forget your name. (i think i made you up inside my head.) i should have loved a thunderbird instead; at least when spring comes they roar back again. i shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. (i think i made you up inside my head.) -sylvia plath- nd i lift my lifde |
| the heart, a beggar- crawling on fragile legs stomach swelling with death a skin of dirt and despair obscuring the hungry twitching of a mouth that has forgotten taste emerges from the squalor of empty rooms and thoughts to clasp the wordless prayer that this first taste strewn upon uncertain lips will satiate but hunger is limitless and the heart gnashes half-broken teeth eager to rend. |
| the gutter is a hearse to carry me to my destination out to the ocean, eventually- after decay reduces me to a few whirling particles in the shit of rats in the stomachs of fish there, on the waves i can watch the sun slit open the belly of the sky and climb like a child all of this awaits me when i die in the gutter- so i'd best get started now. |
| Lady Terminator (1988) dir: Jalil Jackson starring: no one you've ever heard of sex quotient: too odd to describe violence quotient: blood and occasional gore, but all badly done violence to crotches quotient: you'll be squirming slightly...mostly from laughter best film fred savage ever did: the wizard, of course if you like this film, you'll like: anal rodeo. midget porn. naked lego time. chicken. a good woman who's like no one in this film. it's been a long time since i have seen a film that made my jaw drop at its sheer ineptitude. rarely does a film so stun me with its awfulness that i can do nothing but share its inane premise, poor dialogue, pathetic special effects, and wretched acting with the world. i spend vast amounts of hours wading through the mediocre for the one shining testament to bad cinema. thank you, lady terminator, for reminding me why i love the worst films imaginable. alright, i'll try to explain this one for you. it is an indonesian rip-off of the terminator...sort of. to say this rips off the terminator is to say that the magnificent seven stals blatantly from the seven samurai. essentially, this is the truth. the basic structure and plot are the same...oh, but what a difference a culture change makes. the lady terminator is not a cyborg. that would be too easy- instead, she is an anthropologist possessed by the evil south sea queen, who was robbed of her powers one hundred years previous when her 100th husband managed to, appearantly, sexually satisfy her (at least, the overtly loud, porno-styled dubbed moaning seemed to indicate that- the actress herself looked as though she were having a particularly unpleasant bowel clench from some strange-smelling burritos she found in the back of her fridge). as best i can figure out, her final husband managed to remove an eel from her vaginal cavity- the eel being the source of her power. then, using his magic, he turned it into a knife. the queen disappears, avowing vengeance. after this opening, many random shots are shown- lighting striking bubbling water, the lady terminator (who you've not yet met) walking down a hall, the lady terminator unloading her weapon in a crowded bar- don't worry. these scenes don't make any sense...yet. but you'll be seeing them about sixty more times before the film is through, so get acquainted with them. after this, we switch to the present, where a young female rock star is the talk of- indonesia, i suppose, as the location is never given. unbeknownst to the young star in question, she is the granddaughter of the 100th husband of the south sea queen (this is beginning to sound like tolkien), and the sea queen wants her dead. also confusing is the fact that the woman (my apologies for the lack of names- the film doesn't mention them often, and the sound is so muffled it's difficult to remember them...why don't i just call her the girl with the debbie gibson 'do...) is obviously not caucasian, despite the fact her grandfather is. nor is her great-uncle, who gives her the knife she needs to defeat the lady terminator. this, however, is the least of this film's worries. after a bit of cursory searching, i've found that the debbie gibson of indonesia is named erika. i knew a girl named erika once- she was a huge misfits fan. i suspect highly that her acting skills would have exceeded anyone else's in this film. besides, she would've just tackled the lady terminator and jabbed the knife in her within five minutes...but then the film would require even more scenes shown over and over again. this film is truly a moebius film- it folds upon itself over and over, showing the same scenes so many times it becomes almost hypnotic. alright...many of you are now wondering how this film relates to the terminator. well, allow me to enlighten you. there are at least five blatant scenes that are stolen from the terminator, right down to the camera shots...except they are in slightly more inept hands: 1.) the most blatant one is where the lady terminator cuts out her own eye. the scene is directly lifted from cameron's film. the shot of the exacto-knife, the shot of the terminator, the quick shot of the eye being cut away, the blood dripping in the water, then the eye falling amongst the blood- is reproduced precisely. however, there is a difference- the lady terminator examines the eye and pokes it right back in. another notable difference is that her eye grows suspiciously when it hits the water, as though it were...gasp...not real! of course, this scene makes absolutely no sense. it's just there to give the audience that lovely feel of deja vu. 2.) the shoot-out in the police headquarters, while not duplicated exactly, is far too close for comfort. of course, arnold did not have to deal with an ancient oriental man shooting a ball of energy at his head...this scene is shown at least three times over the space of fifty minutes or so, for no other reason than to pad out the running time. 3.) the romantic encounter between sarah connor and reese contains one final scene- their hands clasped together. this scene, and, really, the whole encounter, is thrown in in the middle of lady terminator for no reason- there isn't any nudity, but there is a massive amount of volume once more coming from the whoever was dubbing in the orgasms. in fact, the scene just seems inappropriate here... 4.) the sequence in which the lady terminator destroys a bar to get to erika...hmmm...erika, sarah...fairly close...contains the line of dialogue, "come with me if you want to live"...ripped right from reese's mouth. 5.) there are several other scenes i could use- shots of the stances the lady terminator takes, the scenes her being hit...hell, the whole end of the film is the terminator...right down to the big explosion, the moment of calm...then the emergence of the still going...zombie? yes, the lady terminator comes out with eggplant and glow in the dark makeup wadded onto her face, and the audience is supposed to gasp in shock...personally, i couldn't help noticing that i had seen better makeup in school plays...but the part i want to point out is the divergent point of terminator and lady terminator...sarah connor had no clue how to stop the t-800. none. she was dealing with something that seemed unstoppable, and it was only through sheer luck that she, in fact, succeeded in killing it. in lady terminator, however, erika had the damned weapon right there with her. she had it for the last thirty minutes of the film! hundreds of people were killed, and she didn't have the guts to go forth and stab the lady terminator (i'm really getting sick of typing that phrase...lady terminator...but there's not much left to go...so i'll keep on keeping on, as the song goes)...this woman is, as mrs. slocombe would say, "weak as water". ...now i realize that i haven't even skimmed the surface of this film and how incredible it is. it is one of the most mind-boggling pieces of cinema i've ever stumbled into. to describe it, even in detail, cannot give anyone the sheer power of this steaming cinematic ball of excrement. it has been too long since i laughed through an entire film, watching with surprise and horror at every new bit of stupidity that was tossed onto the screen. thank you, lady terminator, for everything. now, if only i could find old jalil jackson and convince him to make lady terminator 2: decision day, with a liquid lady terminator made from jello that is randomly tossed at the screen... wait. i didn't mention how the helicopter explodes, then hangs in the air for a few seconds, the balsa wood structure bravely resisting the flames...which is odd, because it seems as though the helicopter was a model that they had hanging off a string...but surely not. no. they used a real helicopter... go forth and rent this. it is a wealth of good times so deep that you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. |
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| here's where the evil eel slides up in the helpless anthropologist's sweet spot...what? this isn't in the original terminator? |
| reviews you'll be seeing soon: -troll 2 -rock'n'roll nightmare -sonny boy -erotikill -house of psychotic women -ninja wars -inframan -forever evil -the dark power -savage streets -the eerie midnight horror show -abby -no holds barred |
| sentinel in a field. the stalks there rise like soldiers solid against the spring wind that refuses to die into the still heat of summer my fingers find them and watch as they bend the stalks turning the hue of bone as they snap and tumble onto the ground. summer will come with autumn huddling behind it a solemn sister that does not speak but waits for the wail of her sibling to grow hoarse and i will remain here draped amongst the pale blossoms soon to fade, quick to return as the sentinel beyond seasons the general of an army that dies only to return and find me waiting strewn along the soil in the place where they had known me in the ten thousand springs of before. |
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