Bee Movies

Ha!  Do You See What I Did There?
O you did.  Well, it still impresses me, and I'm the one that matters, since I write the blog.  Mostly.  I think we did experiment by having my kidneys and liver as guest editors on a couple of occasions, which did not end well**.
     Anyway, this comes of raking over the television career of Irwin Allen, who also had a career in fillums.  "The Poseidon Adventure", anyone?  The classic original, of course, not the cheesy low-budget remake.

More "An extended life-threatening trauma" in my opinion

     A pioneer by any measure, especially his own, Ol' Ir ventured into films only after having ventured into journalism, running a magazine, doing a radio show and directing an advertising company.  So he had seen a bit of life.  
     Thus we come to his pioneering (that word again) fillum "The Swarm", made in 1978, when - when - I'll get back to you on a particularly evocative event for that year.  Art?

That's a swarm of bees.  Just so we're clear.

     It's a terrible film, featuring in one of the Medved Brothers books about same.  Hey, whoever said 'Pioneering' had to be good!  Unusually, the hero is British; I suppose because the bad guys are bees and, no matter how good a British character actor is at conveying eeevil, they can never get the size right.  It only made back $10 million in South Canada on a $21 million budget, although if receipts from around the world were added in it might actually have made a small profit.  After all, there are people out there who'd pay to see South Canada laid low by a band of buzzers, right?

Close enough

     It only scored 4.4 over at IMDB, but if you want to see a film where a nuclear power plant explodes because of bees, then this is your film!
     The surprising thing is that it inspired a cheap knock-off imitation - which, considering that we're talking Ol' Ir here, is bordering on hilarious - called "The Killer Bees", which is about giant mutant hedgehogs - no, sorry, that was a advert for cider, wasn't it? Mutant flesh-eating bees.  They are, of course, far more intelligent than the film's cast, which doesn't save it from a 3.2 score at IMDB.

What, no SPOILER warning?  Tut!

     There is also a 2007 film called "Black Swarm" about weaponized wasps, so I'm not sure if that counts or not.  I'm pretty certain, however, there are some slightly tipsy film renters out there gawping at this and wondering when Natalie Portman and the ballet will show up.

I had this edition!

     There is also the above, which features giant wasps.  I suppose one giant buzzing thing is much like another if it's the end of the world.

 - And I Feel Fine
Ha!  Do you see - O you got the REM reference.  It's just that there's that line of theirs -

" - that's me in the corner -"

     - from "Losing My Religion", and Conrad, being a pedantic hair-splitting anorak, wondered what happened if you happened to live in a lighthouse?

Spot me a corner

To Coin A Phrase
I have created several in my time, although this one was lying around to hand already.  "You've come to the end of the line" - usually spoken in 1950's British police film dramas, where the gruff but lovable police sergeant corners the mis-understood teen, and persuades him to throw away his purloined Smith & Wesson before the SWAT team swoop in and riddle him with laser-sighted Heckler & Koch submachine guns giving him a cup of tea.
     Where was I?  Oh yes.  Art?

     This is the vista from my top deck perch on the bus, looking at the tram terminii in Ashton town centre. Yes, that's the plural of 'terminus' because there's two of them.  This is, literally, the end of the line.  You have to get off and walk from here.

The Killer Shwarma
I know Ol' Ir can't give the greenlight on this film treatment, because he's dead, but if Asylum are interested, I'd work it up into a screenplay for $85,000.
     There's this shwarma, see, and it gets <thinks> possessed by the spirit of a <thinks> bee-keeper, whose hives have been compulsorily-purchased by the council to make way for a <thinks> retaining wall and who dies of <thinks> cadmium poisoning.

The shwarma in question

     And you see it coming to life over the shoulder of the <thinks> commissioning architect, who has his back to it.  It inches closer and closer to him -
     Suddenly he turns, frowning and says "Odd - I could have sworn that was further away." as the shwarma stops dead.  He turns back to his mobile phone -
     - AND THE SHWARMA DIVES ON HIS NECK AND STABS HIM WITH IT'S HUGE POISONOUS FANGS SO HE DIES SHRIEKING IN MORTAL AGONY.
     Of course it has a happy ending as the shwarma ends up for dinner.

Hacked apart and eaten!

**  Yes, but he would say that, wouldn't he? - Yours Faithfully, Conrad's Liver and Kidneys.