Helluloid Cell

There I Was, Fretting

"What can Thursday's blog Intro be about? " because even at 05:37 in the morning the grey matter never stops working.  

     "Let's avoid the usual suspects.  Something different.  Nothing martial or maleficent."

     Well, I realised I had a backlog of film material, so thus we are here.  Art!

     This is a real blast from the past.  Up until recently, cinemas played reels of film through projectors, throwing the image upon a screen.  Each reel of film lasted for ten minutes or so and was about 1,000 feet long.  As one reel was coming to an end, the projectionist would cue up the successor on a different projector, which makes the next tale somewhat suspicious.

     Supposedly, the narrator worked in the projection booth and had cued up a horror film that they had no interest in watching, so they just let it run whilst they stayed in the box office.  Art!

 
     The platter did not engage; this is the disk that re-reels the played celluloid back into a reel again.  Thus there were thousands of feet of unspooled film that had to be rolled back onto the platter by hand.  Which took five hours.

     Nowadays it's all done with hard drives and digital projectors, much handier yet with no romance.  Art!

     You ought to be aware of the Youtube channel 'Terry Talks Movies' as we've mentioned it in the past.  Ol' Tel is an Antipodean from Melbourne who delights in watching and criticising films, especially horror and sci-fi ones, and has recently done a couple of livestreams.  Art!

Luna the cat makes a guest appearance

     'Replacement' as the first one was very glitchy, or so I'm told as I didn't see it.  Conrad was in this one for a good thirty minutes, the whole thing running for just over two hours, which I couldn't manage on a work night.  I did comment about the weather, which you'll have to take on trust as there's no stored Chat on the vlog entry.  Art!

     A collective comparison from Ol' Tel, and Conrad's attention was piqued because, despite it being a colour still from a monochrome film, I recognised - Art!

     The reveal that the 'invaders' are actually faceless robots is rather well done and a nice jump scare, especially considering the whole film's budget makes a shoestring look lavish.  There's also a rather amusing con

     ANYWAY that's us rather jumping the gun.  Let us look at the first film in this selection.  Art!

     Quite a genre mashup I think you'll agree, resulting in one of those uneasy miscegenations, a horror Western.  Ol' Tel seems to think it worth a watch, mainly because it's played dead straight, no camp poisons present, so Your Humble Scribe may have to indulge in a view if it crops up on Netflix.  Plus, as I know you want to see a bit of Frankenstein action - Art!

     Going by the principle of Chekov's Gun, all that delicate glass laboratory ware was always destined to be shattered apart in a fist fight.  Sorry, what's that?  O the plot.  Jesse James, in the dark clothing above, and Hank, the big lunk with the stitched head, meet up with Frankenstein's grand-daughter.  She's on a bender kidnapping people and replacing their brains, to turn them into slaves.  Hey, everyone needs a hobby.  At the end only Jesse and the infant Juanita survive, and he rides off into the sunset.  Art!

     I see the latest French fashions in hats have arrived this year.

     

     Now that we've got that out of the way, time for FILM REVIEWS!

     Since we've not done these for a while, let me recap:  we go solely by the title, perhaps also taking into consideration the colour palette of the bus poster, take things verrrry literally and may break any of these rules if we feel like it.  Art!

Props for using a chainsaw

EVIL DEAD BURN:  Another dodgy attempt to reboot the franchise, hmmm?  You can tell this is at the verrrry least a sinister film, thanks to the colour palette being all black, yellow and red.  O dear, was it 'inspired by'?  Number 6 in a franchise that ought not to have gotten beyond 2.  If they want to keep the 'Evil Dead' franchise alive, bring back the television series.  One is minded of 'Drag Me To Hell'.  Except it's not a horror film if it the evil can be defeated by a CO₂ fire extinguisher.  Art!

TOY STORY 5: Another franchise that has outstayed it's welcome.  One for the kids, going by the colours.  Let me crunch a few numbers.  The production budget was $250 million, with at least another $100 million for promotion, advertising and distribution.  That's a tidy $750 million.  The film itself turned $1 billion at the box office, meaning $500 million profit, so - still in the red.  Unsurprising as it's the most expensive animated film ever made.  Conrad suspects the law of diminishing returns is in effect here.  The loss will be partially balanced by merchandising, but Conrad isn't sure what amount that will be.  You never know, getting a tanking like this might put a part 6 into limbo forever.  Art!

Haven't seen it.  Not missing much.

DUTTON RANCH: More of cowboys.  This poster came with a pair of headshots of people I don't recognise, and Conrad, in his wisdom, is guessing that this is a spin-off from 'Yellowstone', which must be popular with people who like Yogi Bear and the wide open spaces.  Art!

Beef, bears and Barbours

SUPERGIRL: Various critical thunderbolts have been out on this one for a while, and coming to it late like this means we get to see what the long-term box office take is.  Art!

A heroine for the ages

 

Or not

     So, on the 50% rule it's made $62 million profit, on a budget at least three times larger, so Conrad can confidently predict there won't be a 'Supergirl 2'.  Who knew that audiences wouldn't flock to see a sulky, petulant drunken protagonist!  Art?

DISCLOSURE DAY:  Some have described this as a sequel to another of Steven Speilberg's previous films, the name of which escapes me, and I cannot be bothered to look it up.  Sue me.  It's about aliens and shizzle, and stars the rather delicious Emily Blunt.  I thought the poster was her face behind a broken opaque mask, but - Art!

     Once you see that it's the outline of a finch it's hard to unsee , and I was helped to see this by an animated finch that appeared over my Google search.  Very clever, yet it still didn't compel me to watch the film.  Is that flipping the bird?

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2:  Art!

     I haven't watched 'The Devil Wears Prada' because it concerns fashion and I care less for that than I do about the ballfoot game.  To be honest I have no idea what 'Prada' is, perhaps bespoke garden trowels? so I can't give even a fig stalk about the second iteration.

The Belles Of Hell

By whom I mean Greta Nissen and Jean Harlow, who were the female leads in "Hell's Angels", Greta only until Jean replaced her when the film became a 'talkie' from a silent.  Art!

     In glorious monochrome.

     That's not where things end, though.  You see, I came across another version of HA, one that has been rendered in colour.  Art!

     This process is a lot easier to do now that people can utilise the processing power of a computer; back in the day they used to hand-tint the celluloid, frame by frame, which in the case of HA would have meant doing it for 11,000 feet.

     Which is where we came in.

Believe Your Eyes

 If You Must

What you need to understand is that Conrad has a habit of accumulating things like Bookmarks, Favourites and images cropped from teh Interwebz, and then hoarding them like a miser with coins or a collector with books.  So!  Of late I've been trying to get rid of this electronic detritus, which has informed the blog somewhat, in order to prove that I can stop buying books stop expanding these e-notes.  Art!

                                                

      I thought the four grim-faced commandoes (novel written under a pseudonym for Arthur Catherall) would be more appealing than a screenshot of Favourites.  

     The one I shall eventually concentrate on begins 'Malicious Compliance Want Me To Pro-' , which is an abbreviated version of the following:

r/Maliciouscompliance Want Me to Prove Your Kid's a Bully? OK!

but before we get anywhere near that I am going to take what seems like a willlld tangent.  Enter Jake Broe from the Youtube channel 'Jake Broe'.  Jake started his vlog with a report on the current Ukrainian drone campaign against Mordorvia SIT BACK DOWN THIS IS RELEVANT!   Art?

     Those little green dots are Wildberries logistics hubs, which Ukraine has been absolutely malleting of late.  The ones outside Barad Dur and Saint Petersbug have already been given a dose of doom, being either partially or completely demolished.  Art!

Art!

     Sorry, he got confused with the ending of "The Quiet Earth".

     You can appreciate the panoramic splendour of this shot taken from an aircraft - daringly aloft during hostile drone activity - which reveals how far away these burning warehouses are visible from.  

     No mention of any of this on Ruffian media at all.  If you relied on them for information you'd think nothing untoward was happening.

The fires are even more impressive from worms-eye view at ground level.  Art!

     Hmmmmm, suddenly the 'Special Military Operation' that was a thousand kilometres away is now camping, like a filthy rabid dog, on your doorstep.  O dearie me.  Art!

     Wow, Mordorvia now has TWO Mount Dooms!

     Not that you'd ever know from Solovyov or Skabeeva, they don't report unpleasant things THAT PEOPLE CAN SEE WITH THEIR OWN EYES.  It's almost as if they think if it's not reported then it doesn't exist.

     On a side note, people have been wondering why the Kozaky have been destroying the orc equivalent of Amazon.  One reason is that the Ruffian army either doesn't equip it's men properly or with sub-standard kit, so Wildberries has been the go-to agency for supplying orcs with forks.  Art!

     QED.  All this kit has suddenly vanished from the website, how surprisingly!

     Jake put forward the calculation that all this destruction has inflicted $2 billions - dollars not rubles - on the Ruffian economy and left 40,000 orcs without gainful employment, and has been a very apparent and immediate shock to the residents of Mordorvia; unlike sanctions, Wildfireberries burning down occurs in real time and right in front of the ex-employees.  
     Once again, no mention on Ruffian media of all these jobless orcs who are now liable to be hoovered up into the SMO, despite all the video clips of the miserable masses evacuating.  Art!

     Whoever posts these clips is going to vanish as soon as the clips do.  Can't have you contradicting the official dictum of Nothing Is Happening!

     Art!

     What you see here, gentle reader, is the offspring of Satan.  Our narrator of the next tale, Teacher Of ThirTeen Years, hereafter TOTTY, stated that on occasion she had to deal with pupils akin to the above, particularly Spawn Of Satan, hereafter SOS.  This particular reprobate became a bully with itchy palms, suspected of stealing items, but with no security cameras in classrooms there was no proof.  Mama and Papa were called in many times, whereupon Mama denied her little darling ever did anything wrong: which couldn't be disproved thanks to no security camera footage.  If I Didn't See It Then It Didn't Happen, as per Solovyov et al.  Art!

Mama

     Reading between the lines, the school administration were expecting even more trouble from SOS, since they installed cameras in the rooms he was taking classes in, without notifying anyone.  Mama also insisted on being called or e-mailed in the utterly hypothetical instance of SOS committing a crime.

     Cue malicious compliance from TOTTY, whom led the teachers response to SOS being a complete bottomhole.  Mama got up to 15 e-mails per day for ten weeks, despite complaining about this electronic barrage.  After all, she'd requested it, hadn't she?  Art!

     Then SOS tried to assault TOTTY with a chair, in full view of the classroom camera, and was restrained by other pupils and staff.  This led to yet another meeting with Mama and Papa, where Mama once again stated If I Didn't See It Then It Didn't Happen.

     Cue camera footage.  

     SOS was expelled, fined and got a criminal record.  Justice!

     Nor is that all.  Apparently Papa had been kept in the dark about just how badly behaved SOS was, along with many other things in the marriage, which lead inexorably to a -

     Divorce!

     I love a happy ending.

More Ungentle Shoeing

Not the usual suspects today.  No, today I am focussing the frothing nitric ire of BOOJUM! upon one of the Tate brothers, a pair of ne'er-do-wells whom like to big themselves up on teh Interwebz, and who fled Romania after being investigated by the police there and who then fled This Sceptred Isle because they were being investigated by the police - see a theme emerging?  Art!

     This is Andrew, who usually wears sunglasses to conceal how goat-like his features are.  The South Canadians have incarcerated both brothers prefatory to extraditing them to Perfidious Albion, and Andy was bleating about this.  Art!

     'No contact with the outside world' - apart from being able to send messages via your mobile?

     The internet populace has not been kind to them, and is resounding with ribald mockery, full of concern for the poor cannibal, the poor dear. 

     Conrad would not be surprised if this pair of sex offenders vamoose off to Mordorvia if they get the chance, the Ruffians not being very fussy about whom they let in to stay.  Art!

     Not the rock-hard image he likes to portray, hmmmm?

Behemoth Bulldozers Of Barsoom

That has a nice alliterative ring to it, nicht wahr?  The images might not be exactly of 'bulldozers', quite, and I only used the name 'Barsoom' because it began with 'B' since the background is pretty definitively not the Mars of Edgar R. Burroughs.  ANYWAY another of Angus McKie's artworks.  Art!

     From that spacecraft flitting by in the atmosphere, I can tell that it's the 'Hooded Ghost' and that this is probably a book cover for the author Brian Stableford.  Allow me to dig a little - 

When Spinning Was Not Winning

We have mentioned the hideously dangerous centrifuge as part of an Intro, and put up an illo as proof of how major a muck they can make.  This item concerns a practical example of a numpty interacting with a centrifuge, and it ending badly.  Art!

     Technically it was an ultracentrifuge, which can have a rotor speed of 100,000 revolutions per minute, meaning that by the time you've counted 'One -' it's already done 555 revolutions.  These things are anchored into the floor with enormous bolts to prevent any unwanted 'walking' but there are limits to the shear strength they can sustain.

     As with Nigel the Numpty.  He loaded the rotor asymmetrically, meaning that the rotor spun out of alignment within seconds, then destroyed itself and the spindle it spun upon, getting punched out of the stout steel walls of the ultracentrifuge chamber, which are armoured against this kind of accident.  Up to a point.  

     The rotor continued going through the wall of the lab building and across several hundred yards of car park.  By the grace of the good lord aloft nobody was injured.  Our narrator doesn't mention what happened to Nigel, although I see a firing in his future, as well as potential criminal charges for negligence and a gap in his CV where he cannot mention this employer.  Art!

     That was an accident where the centrifuge walls were not breached.  Luckily for anyone in the vicinity.

Watch Out, Agatha

Art!

     Yes, I can totally see the Enid Blyton of crime fiction getting taxed until the pips squeak.  Just leave Lord Peter Wimsey alone, or there'll be trouble.

If I Were To Mention 'Discovery'

You Might Think I Meant That 'Starry Trex' Spin-Off

'Spin-off' in the way an ultracentrifuge spins off, and destroys the laboratory it's based in, which, if Art will put down his bowl of anthracite and milk - 

     Yeah, a centrifuge is not to be messed with, considering they can be spinning at 30,000 revolutions per minute.

     BUT you'd be wrong! as I've never seen an episode of 'Discovery' and have no reason to remedy this deficiency.  I'm still working my way through Season One of 'Smallville' and then have Season onward of 'Lost' to catch up with, so that's me spoken for.

      ANYWAY what I wanted to address is the South Canadian legal description of 'Discovery', which we here in the Allotment Of Eden know as 'Disclosure'.  Art!

Also known as 'Attack of the Giant Hands'

     

     The rules for Discovery came in after 1938, so you won't find them in the film above, which is 1932 vintage.

     What are they?  O I thought you'd never ask!  It's a set of procedures before trial that seek to attain and maintain transparency, where each party exchanges information and evidence, preventing 'trial-by-ambush' where one side suddenly reveals hitherto unknown evidence, and fostering settlements before a case comes to trial.  Art!

     You can see Vinny scheming and plotting to get hold of the opposing counsel's information - which is all completely uncalled for as discovery would grant him this information anyway.  Doesn't Marisa Tomei look delicious?  I MEAN an excellent technical witness?
     ANYWAY why am I going on about South Canadian legal procedures?

     Funny you should ask.  Art!

     This is Donnie Dorko's suit against the BBC, alleging defamation because they spliced together two film clips that were actually 50 minutes apart, which he alleges amounts to defamation.  The whole clip amounts to 12 seconds.

     In reality Donnie never expected the case to proceed to trial, as what he wanted was $10 million or so from the Beeb for him to drop the case and make it go away.

     This has not happened.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  The BBC has retained counsel and is now pursuing several avenues, including the surrender of financial records.  The Beeb alleges that DJ Tango earned more than $1 billion over the course of 2025, so he has not lost money due to their broadcast, and they intend to prove that in court.  Art!

Conrad unsure if this is the 'Paint Licker' or the 'Coke Sniffer'

     Mister Smug here runs the 'Donald Trump Revocable Trust', because Daddy cannot be trusted with anything complicated.  There are over 400 businesses that fall under this umbrella and THE BEEB WANTS ACCESS TO THEM ALL.  Which Judge Lett has granted them, arguing that BOOH's 'brands, properties and businesses have been impugned, with subsequent reputational and economic damage'.  So all those records need to be viewed by the BBC's attorneys, an action The Nodfather will inevitably jib at, because he wants as little scrutiny as possible.  Discoveryuncomfortable, hmmm?  Art!

     Meet Mike.  Michael Popok, South Canadian attorney, and whom went into the case on 'Meidas Touch' on Youtube in some detail.

     Firstly, he said that the entire case may yet be given the heave-ho, as the clip Don Snoreleone is having fits about was never shown in South Canada; secondly, he rather cruelly dismisses the program it was from, 'Panorama', as having little presence or viewership on streaming services.  Art!

    Thus having little influence.  So Pumpkinhead cannot possibly have suffered the loss of $10 billion as a result.  To quote Mike: "They apologised, which is a very British thing to do," and may have encouraged King Piggy to press further, mistaking humility for weakness.

     Going back to the BBC; Mike describes them as 'coming out swinging', meaning the boxing term not lifestyle choice.  In order to prove that what they said is the truth, and thus cannot be defamatory, they have subpoenaed almost 100 individuals of the Trump Crime Family and their Consiglieres.  The list includes his current wife Ivanka, Jared Kushner - some sort of orbiting parasite, I believe - Steve Bannon (whom makes Boris Johnson look well-groomed), Michael Flynn, Stephen Miller and The Paint Licker.  Art!

     You may remember Sydney Powell, one half of the comedy duo Powell and Giuliani, both of whom have been subpoenaed, despite Fat Caligula claiming that Powell never worked for him.  O and Roger Stone as well, the criminal pardoned by BOOH.  A right rogue's gallery!  Art?

     Chuck Tobin, one of the BBC's attorneys, who is seeking to get Pimpkinhead to make a deposition.  This is one of the pre-trial discovery measures where witness statements are taken under oath, which Trump and his attorneys will storm the gates of reality to prevent happening, as once again, scrutiny.  Art!

     Meet Magistrate Judge E. Letts.  It should be obvious to you that she is a woman, and also black, both of which are going to bring the Orange Land Whale to the brink of a rage-induced stroke.  Why have we circled back to her?  O I thought you'd never ask!

     Because Trump's attorney, from the law firm Sleaze, Cheeze and Wheeze, has now hastily dropped the 'economic damages' part of the suit, seeing how hard the BBC are punching, claiming that the case has 'evolved' and they are only after reputational damages; a claim that cut exactly no ice with Letts, who refused to separate either aspect.

     Conrad is pretty sure this case will fizzle out before it gets to court, as the Saggy Senile Sepia Sackbut won't allow himself to be depositioned nor have his business secrets exposed.  Art!

How he sees himself             How he really is

     Lay in more popcorn.

Getting Rid Of More Old Bookmarks And Favourites

Art!

     Hmmm low editorial standards here, methinks.  No, NASA did not once consider nuking the Moon on purpose.  The organisation did not come into existence until mid-1958.  Who was around long before NASA?

     That would be the South Canadian Air Force, who thought detonating a nuke on the Moon would pick up their nation's morale, which had been a bit dented by the Sinisters and their Sputniks.  Saner, cooler heads prevailed and the A-119 project was later shelved.

     Demonstrating folie a deux, the Sinisters also had a 1958 speculative 'Nuke the Moon' project dubbed E-4, which was also allowed to lapse.  Art!

     The scientists involved were not sanguine about guaranteeing the launch would be successful, meaning there was a non-zero chance of a live hydrogen warhead falling back to Sinister territory.

More Of Mister McKie

And his pie in the sky.  Or, rather, gigantic spaceship.  Art!

     This has the feel of a book cover to it, and reminds me of 'Childhood's End'.  I've had a thorough scope of the cityscape here and cannot find any hidden elements or Easter eggs, only a small notation to lower port of '8N'.  I do note that the skyscraper to starboard is extremely narrow for it's height, which must surely bring up critical construction issues associated with it's architecture?

     Or - is that just me?

     A bit of digging seems to bring up this image with several others as illustrations for a book - Art!

     From 1976, about human colonies in space being established 'Within your lifetime'.  Ah the optimism of fifty years ago -

I Did Mention This, Briefly

So the algorithm may have picked up on 'orca', which makes a pleasant change from oscilloscopes.  Previously it was a metaphor about naval blockades and how Perfidious Albion manages challenges to her hegemony.  Art!

     I didn't watch the clip or take stills from it but - you may be ahead of me here - having five tons of anything hit a mere boat is not going to end well for the boat.  Art!

     Teenage vandal orca biting off a boat's rudder.  

     Hom. Sap. don't hunt orcas so why they're being so destructive is rather a mystery.  Ichthyologists say youngsters falling into bad company.  Quite possible true.

     Don't forget - 'orcas' not to be confused with 'orcs'.  The latter are just as destructive but are land-mobile.