Easter Funny Kill Bill!!!

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

It’s been a little bit of a busy week wrapping up the 1^st quarter of 2016 and getting wedding / honeymoon information taken care of for August… but I’ve gotten a few movies in to share with you.

 

First up is the movie that was originally going to be featured on the Everything I Learned From Movies Podcast, 2006’s “Easter Bunny Kill Kill!” starring… nobody you know, it’s a very small independent film. We were going to watch this movie & review it… but based on the preview on the DVD, Izzy decided that it was too gory for her… so we switched it up to “Night of the Lepus” which turned out to be for the better. This movie follows a jerkass named Remington (first scene is him sticking up a convenience store in an Easter Bunny mask, then blasts him with a shotgun) who has sleazed his way into being the boyfriend of a single mom whose raising a special needs 16-year old (and I was trying to determine whether her occupation was a nurse or a stripper who wore a nurse’s outfit). Well, he’s all nice when she’s around… but once she goes to work, Remington is verbally abusive to her son… and threatens to kill his bunny… and then one night while he goes off to snort blow & f**k some hookers, he rents out her special needs son’s sweet virgin ass to a child molester. Yeah, this movie gets really dark, really quick. Well… as the title would imply, there is one person who can save his innocence… and that’s the Easter Bunny… who comes to save the day with a power drill, hammer & other assortments from a tool belt. I’m not going to spoil the ending… but yeah, this is a pretty low budget slasher flick. I mean… the acting was pretty bad, but not horrible. Given the movie that they were doing… who am I kidding? It was pretty bad. The “kill scenes” are interesting though a little sloppy on the editing… the music was pretty good for the atmosphere… but yeah, the dialogue was horrible… there’s a lot of “why would you do that?” moments… but yeah, it had an Easter Bunny. I don’t know… I give it 3 out of 10 stars or something like that. I liked Remington’s 10-second “Coke & Hookers” song that he sang in the mirror… and there was some stray titties… but that’s about it.

I followed that up with a movie that actually made me a little scared, the 2015 documentary “The Nightmare” which talks about sleep paralysis and is from the director of “Room 237”. Essentially the movie is a series of interviews with people who suffer from sleep paralysis, a condition in which people go to sleep… but then have lucid dream-like situations where they all seem to have the same experience… where the shadows seem to come alive and torment them, yet they cannot speak, move or even so much as close their eyes or look away while feeling absolutely terrified, sometimes with their breathing and other functions shutting down on them.  Think of it as an incredibly deep sleep where you’re in a dream that you can’t escape… basically the kind of stuff that Wes Craven turned into the “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise and the more recent “Insidious” horror franchise is based on… and basically most people who suffer from it think it’s bordering on the line of demonic possessions, even the atheists. This documentary pairs these interviews with some pretty good reenactments of their stories… and apparently there’s really no cure (except for one instance I won’t spoil) and the sleep paralysis gets progressively worse as you get older. I’d highly recommend checking out this movie… it’s very well done & interesting.

 

One reason that it scared me a little bit… is I’ve had a few dreams where there was a form of this (Oct 4^th, 2010 – “Wave of Killers” for one) especially when I’ve had a few to drink, but even when completely sober. No, it’s not a major thing in my life… but it’s happened before… and most of their stories started out like “Yeah, it happened a few times as a kid… and then it just got worse… and now I can’t even go to sleep, hold a relationship, find meaning in my life.” Okay, not that bad… they’ve actually all done pretty well for themselves considering the constant torment of sleep paralysis that they have… but yeah, just a little scary. Don’t worry, I won’t let it get to me. Does anybody else have these kind of dreams occasionally?

 

Saturday night, Izzy & I went to a swanky event known as the Sea Otter Soiree at the world famous San Francisco Zoo, and hosted by the Museum of the Farallones. At this event, we met with likeminded individuals who are interested in all things otter… and listened to a speech about the research being done in the area concerning the migration patterns, ecological benefits & everything else otter-related. Oh… and there was beer, of course… it’s a swanky event. Here are some pictures, including probably one of the best pictures of us ever taken…

 

 

 

Last little update… the next episode of Everything I Learned From Movies (eilfm.podbean.com) will be… drum roll… Day of the Dolphin!!!

 

But $teve, didn’t you already tell us about this wonderful movie months ago?” Yes, Izzy & I watched it a few months ago… but we wanted to elaborate… and share our vocal skills in recreating dolphin noises (well, Izzy anyway). It’s a great flick… and may contain the greatest scene in film history towards the end. Watch it! Let us know what you think! Then we can give you a shout out on the podcast! Until then, have a great day everybody!!!

Dino 13

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Monday night, Izzy & I stumbled upon a documentary called “Dinosaur 13” about the discovery of the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil ever found in the Black Hills of South Dakota… and incredibly bureaucratic sh*t storm that ensued once the United States government, Bureau of Indian Affairs & lawyers got involved. To sum it up, a few lifelong paleontologists were doing their thing one day… when they found the largest& most complete T-Rex fossil ever… and they bought the fossil from a guy for $5,000 which was by far the most ever given for a fossil & the guy agreed to it. Well, they took it back to their institute to excavate, clean up & prepare the fossil that they named “Sue” for a new museum in their hometown of Hill City, South Dakota… and then 30+ military vehicles popped up, threw them out, and confiscated all of their fossils… not just “Sue”. Well, what happens after that is borderline ridiculous… but hey, that tends to be the way when certain entities are involved. Now, the story is pretty interesting… and I ended up enjoying the movie overall… but I can’t recommend this movie from a pace standpoint. The movie is 90 minutes long… but I feel like if they had taken out a bunch of the unnecessary, super-pretentious, artsy fartsy BS that this movie would have been pretty entertaining… if only 70-75 minutes. Another major pain in the arse… was the subtitles. There were a lot… in small font… and always in white font… usually where at least a third of the subtitles were over a white image in the background… so you often have to pause the movie to see what it’s saying… or just fill in the blanks on your own… which if very frustrating and pointless to telling your story. So… if you like dinosaurs, check it out. If not, it’ll probably just frustrate the hell out of you… it’s on Netflix.

 

Friday night, Izzy, Katie & I had a booth at Zoo Lights located at the San Francisco Zoo… where they of course have thousands of Christmas lights up throughout the zoo for people to come see… and then a few booths of people selling their goods. We had a lot of super cute art and we made sure to have an emphasis on animals as the zoo clientele would hopefully appreciate some adorable sloths, pandas, and other animals… but unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of traffic on Friday night. How did we react? We went and checked out the lights. Here are some cell phone pictures…

 

BIG NEWS EVERYBODY!!! IZZY IS AN AUNT!!! Her sister gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Everett on Thursday… so Saturday we headed up to the Sacramento area with her mom & her half-sister Melanie (who I met for the first time) and we went to see the little bundle of joy… BEHOLD!!!

 

Afterwards, we stopped by The Canyon Grill & Alehouse nearby for some drinks and snacks… and then we met up with some family friends from the Jeep club that they were a part of and had dinner at a pretty unique place called Al the Wop’s… which sounds like a horribly racist name for a place… but hey… some terms get grandfathered in, I guess. It’s located in the city of Locke, which apparently is mostly abandoned… but it’s a pretty cool old Chinatown that’s been in disrepair for the most part. Again, a unique location… that I want to go check out during the day sometime. In the meantime though, here are some pictures…

 

Sunday night, we were set for another night at Zoo Lights… but it had been raining hard all day & incredibly windy, especially at Ocean Beach where the zoo is located… and with the anticipated low turnout, we decided to just stick in & watch football (also our fellow artist Katie had finals this week). However, Izzy & I also had some beer stuff to do… so we kegged our Belgian Chocolate Stout…

 

…and bottled our Barrel Aged Cider.

Only a few more days until yet another EPIC Utah Christmas vacation to see the family… and I’m pretty grossly unprepared… but hey, it’ll be fun. Unfortunately I’ve had some issues with my credit card at the perfect time for present shopping… but hey, you do what you can do. Absolute worst-case scenario… I’ll be back in Utah where my bank is for almost two weeks, so I can just take care of my finances directly. Anyway, I’m digressing… probably one more post later in the week… but don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from the blog for a bit while I’m in Utah. I have no idea where I’ll be or what I’m doing most of the time… but I promise that it’ll be full of entertaining anecdotes& probably some brewery tours. So if I don’t see you before then, have a fantastic holiday season everybody!!!

Road to NHC: Part Three

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Sunday, we (sobered up and) spent the entire day at the San Diego Zoo & it was Izzy’s first time (and my first in about 7-8 years) and we just had a wonderful time… pictures of adorable animals…

 

That evening after checking into our hotel, the San Diego Marriott Marquis…

 

We had dinner at the Karl Strauss Brewery a few blocks away… great food & great beer…

 

Monday was the drive-back day… and we timed it so that we could get back to Rose City Pizza until for an early lunch…

 

After that… it started to get hot… like over 100 degrees going through the Grapevine mountain pass between L.A. and the Central Valley… and Gretchen had a full load of kegs, swag & other crap… so she overheated a little bit… and I’ll admit, I was scared. I don’t do the heat well. I had no idea how bad the damage was. The only other time I had an issue with her was in Gilroy when she overheated on the way to the 6^th ring of Hell a.k.a. Garlic Festival… but I take pretty good care of her with standard maintenance. Long story short, after letting the radiator vent, we turned the heater on (f**k my life!!!), opened the windows and made it through the mountain pass… immediately stopping on the other side where it flattens out at Jack in the Box for a shake and some ice water… crisis averted… but it was still well over 100 degrees the entire drive back. Izzy was a trooper & always making sure that I was okay and hydrated (the sun was on my side). She’s the best!!! I’m lucky to have her.

 

Long story short, we made it back to town in the early evening… and I started dreading going back to work… but that’s neither here nor there. It was an amazing trip& I can’t wait for the next one!!! Hope you all enjoyed coming along with us virtually… and until next time, have a great day everybody!!!