Play it Cool

The synopsis was compelling, but when I watched the movie I felt like I was fooled like a person at a carnival who believed that for the price of a ticket I can see a six-legged sheep.

To put it bluntly, this movie is afraid of its subject matter. The synopsis warned of a scene in which a man violently forces himself on his stepdaughter, but the scene is so bad that it;s comical. The “violence” is him slapping her, which knocks her out. This actually made me laugh out loud, especially with the slapstick sound effect.

In case you’re not aware, this is a Japaneses movie, which makes the failure more ridiculous because there are many Japanese movies that handle this subject matter masterfully. The only visceral thing about this movie was trying to resist ejecting it from my player. That was a constant struggle.

The dialogue is so bad that you can derive more drama from an old Godzilla movie. I tried to imagine that the writing was stylized so as to give it a chance, but it was impossible. It truly seems like whoever wrote the screenplay had no social interactions in real life and definitely conducted no research into anything depicted in the movie.

I wasn’t kidding about the acting being so bad it was funny. The sexual scenes are hilarious, especially when an old man is trying to pleasure the young woman with a massage, and she looks like she is having an epileptic seizure, all while hiding her nipples and being engulfed in a blanket from the waist down.

In addition to desperately hide breasts at all costs by the characters themselves, the cop-out technique of having nudity obscured by objects in the scene being at the right place in front of the camera is aggravating, not artistic.

Nothing is accomplished through acting. Rather; dialogue replaces action. Instead of the woman being seductive, a co-start says. “You are seductive.” You can place the voices over two rolls of toilet paper side-by-side and you would have the same performance.

Every character is either a caricature or a a lifeless prop.

Don’t trust any of the sales points or the synopsis. It is pure deception.

Scald – Ancient Doom Metal

This album reminds me of the first time I head Manowar, which was the “Into Glory Ride.” That is not to say that SCALD is in any way similar in style. It’s the feeling of discovering something amazing and being unable to shed the music from my consciousness.

Every song on “Epic Doom Metal” is solid, and much of it is so memorable that ear worms will haunt you for a long time.

The title is a bit of a misnomer because the musical style isn’t doom, although there is a bit of ’70s flavor and the spirit of the greats from that era.

I am unsure if the vocalist is a permanent member or a sessions player, but his voice is a major reason why these songs are extremely enjoyable. It’s hard for me to compare him to anyone else. Suffice it to say that the vocals are clean, with a notable passion that delivers the lyrics in a heartfelt performance.

Manowar unified many factions of metal, and this album will do the same, whether you favor Power Metal, Death Metal, Doom, or the myriad other styles. There is no way that you will fail to respect this music. I foresee that this album will become legendary.

Ancient Doom Metal is extremely recommended.

Evilenko

Most movies about serial killers are so watered down that they could be played on a woman’s romance channel. All of them ignore the fact that serial killers are sexual predators. That behavior is completely omitted from the movies.

Some movies show a little bit of gore, but not enough to paint the picture, even when the killer is the type who wants to horrify those who discover the bodies.

Why do movie-makers leave these things out? If you read books about the killers, every detail is vividly described. Why are you forbidden from seeing such things in movie?

Perhaps it is a remnant of Hollywood self-censoring so that religious imbeciles are appeased. Perhaps it is a remnant of the Victorian Age when man was exalted to ridiculously unrealistic levels. No one can live up to an ideal, so bizarre expectations lead to misery.

There is unfounded worry that seeing rape will turn you into a rapist, or that if you watch porn then you will be less likely to vote guilty in a rape trial. Beyond that, it is considered low-grade to show things as they really are. Again, details of the behavior of serial killers is described in books. Why not in movies?

Most movies about serial killers are basically just soap operas. The dialogue is completely fiction, as is the behavior, so much so that the character names in movies should be changed. It’s deceptive to name a movie after a serial killer when almost nothing in the story is true.

The day may never come when a movie satisfies the type of person who enjoys reading true-crime books and studies in criminology. many Americans are sexually repressed, sexually ignorant, and squeamish. The ones who aren’t don’t comprise a large enough audience for a movie to rise above the low standards.

Evilenko is not an exception to anything I have stated, but it has Malcolm McDowell.

In one of the many bonus items of the new 4K transfer on Unearthed Films, Malcolm stated that he did not want to depict someone who is real. He wanted to use his skills to make a character.

If you are familiar with Malcolm, then you will agree that he gave an impressive performance. He truly became someone else.

It was interesting to see the bland life in a communist country, but it was ruined by the British accents. This isn’t England. It made me recall how much I despised a cable show about Catherine. Everyone spoke in English accents, and some Russians were played by Africans. My point is that, if a there is some effort to bring authenticity, like wood carvings that are common in Slavic countries, why ruin that with a completely different ethnicity, whether it’s Celtic of African? That is understandable in a high school play, but not in a period piece.

Another annoyance was modern slang. Russians do not have the same stupid sayings as Americans. This kept shattering the illusion that I was watching something take place in Russia, even with the backdrop.

The dialogue was lazy in many places. I never want to be smarter than the movie. I can’t count the number of times I finished sentences in my head that the characters spoke word-for-word. Some situations were also as easily predictable.

It seems that this is a bad review, but despite the flaws of the movie, I enjoyed Malcolm’s performance, and some of the bland aspects of life in a communist setting were effective. If you converse with someone from another country, you might discover drastic differences in life. Someone from a small village in Ukraine might be shocked that half an aisle in a supermarket is composed of many different brands of coffee, for example. You might have an entire room in your house specifically for your trove of DVDs and posters covering most wall space, whereas someone in another country might only have the bare essentials.

Watch the movie for Malcolm, but if you want to discover the deeds of the serial killer, he described his rapes, tortures, and killings in court. If you read those transcripts, you will discover everything that this movie left out.

Candlemass interview with Mats and Johan

Finntroll on the 70 Tons of Metal

JESUS WAS AN ASSHOLE trailer

Bill Zebub Friday

Bill Zebub will offer a limited amount of movie packs for BLACK FRIDAY. You can actually get them before that day. Email bill@billzebub.com and you can begin life anew.

The 30-packs will go for $260 and the 10-packs will go for $100. Each is a random mixture of Blurays and DVDs.

Get it for yourself, or get it with the intention of giving the coolest gifts possible to a shitload of people. Each movie will be autographed.

Jesus was an Asshole

Bill Zebub’s much-anticipated movie “Jesus was an Asshole” will resume filming after a brief Kickstarter campaign, which is here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/billzebub/jesus-was-an-sshole

Please share the hell out of that.

For a limited time, you can get the BD-R of behind-the-scenes footage in addition to an uncensored movie cover, or you can opt for the Bluray that will be autographed (for the same price as it will be in retail shops without an autograph). Other goodies await, like the popular Dickshark shirt that is sure to get you into lots of conversations with strangers.

Remember if you ignore your director, he will disappear.

KILL THE SCREAM QUEEN lives again

KILL THE SCREAM QUEEN (click that) is getting a re-edit. This movie stars Debbie Dutch, Kerri Taylor, and others.

There is a Kickstarter for this, which will allow you to get a limited-art uncensored cover, as well as other goodies. Go here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/billzebub/kill-the-scream-queen unless you are stupid, cheap, and shallow.

Just kidding. Participate only if you are extremely interested.

Homework

I saw “Homework” during the era of VHS rentals. I was a pre-teen at the time, so I think the rental was through an older friend.

The movie was magical. As a pre-teen, I saw wondrous boobs. I fell in love with the blonde and was mesmerized.

As for Joan Collins, I didn’t know who she was. She had great tits, but her face reminded my of an ant. with a wide top of the head narrowing down to a tiny chin. Again, I was a pre-teen, so bear that in mind. I hadn’t seen boobs in real life, and I didn’t know that old women could have nice tits, so that was earth-shattering, ha ha. This was a movie that made me realize that an otherwise boring or bitchy woman could have immaculate breasts, so I should always keep that in mind in any encounter with such.

For some reason, this movie escaped my collection. I remember when I ravenously purchased movies that had only previously been seen on cable, theaters, or via rentals. I amassed a VHS library, later upgraded to DVD whenever possible, and then Bluray and 4K.

Homework is now available through Unearthed. For some reason, I only vaguely recalled that Joan Collins showed her boobs in this one, and I have seen many boobs since those times, in real life. I don’t mean to say that I am tired of boobs. A boob at any moment will freeze me in adoration no matter what. What I meant to say was that the boobs of Joan Collins are not more enticing than the boobs of someone who isn’t Joan Collins.

What I forgot was the blonde I wanted to marry. I don’t know if she was in any other movies. Perhaps I shall have to find out. Anyway, it was interesting seeing a girl who was at one time a woman in my eyes (because I was a pre-teen when I had a crush on her). She is now a girl in my eyes. I don’t mean an under-aged girl of course. She was an actress who played a younger character. It is almost like I am a ghost who can glance at any moment in the past, traveling time to experience lost moments with much greater awareness and knowledge in my current form.

One of the differences between modern movies and those of the eighties is, the characters who were teens could be naked in the past movies. I don’t mean that in a pedophile way.

It’s strange that even in a comedy, life is presented the way it is rather than the silly idealistic way that propagandists and human-resources styles ruin depictions of characters. I fully expect gangster movies to have mob bosses who reprimand underlings for using racial slurs. But yes, the drama in comedies of the past is vastly superior to many commercial films of this shallow era.

Show people how they are rather than how you expect people to behave in a corporate environment. It’s simple.

I was overjoyed to watch this and I marveled at the differences in my perception as an adult. It’s also interesting which parts I forgot and which parts I anticipated.

A newcomer will not, of course, be flooded with memories and having fallen in love with any of the characters, but this is a great time-capsule. Unlike the modern sex-comedies that have characters behaving unrealistically and striving to make a joke at every opportunity, this shows relatively average people going through their own experiences, sometimes funny, but never for the sake of a cheap laugh.

It’s worth seeing this difference in writing sensibilities.

There is an interview with the director, which reveals some bittersweet history of this movie. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I will just mention that this is a bonus chapter.

Again, I don’t know why I never pursued this movie when I was able to own it. Perhaps it was because I didn’t find Joan Collins attractive, except for her breasts. I had totally forgotten about the blonde who was was my imaginary wife. Perhaps it was too traumatic to admit that it was a love that could only exist in my head.

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