Not so Serious Movie review: Mondo New York (1988)

 

Every so often I watch a movie and I have to ask myself, "What the hell did I just watch?". Since I started reviewing movies here a few years ago, there have been many low budget disasters, poorly acted catastrophes, and problematic documentaries. But none, none, come close to the weirdness that is Mondo New York.

Mondo New York is in its own class of unusual.

Mondo New York is part documentary and part whimsical journey into the depths of the mid-80s New York City underground. I am a big fan of underground art, but even some of the artists or performances here were extreme for me.

The Virgil in this journey through the levels of underworld is a silent blond girl who walks from place to place, weaving in and out of each scene like a voyeuristic tourist. Sometimes she stays for the whole scene, sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes the artist or performers interact with her, sometimes they don't. But she remains the Virgil to our Dante.

Our tour guide starts at a punk rock bar, which is always fun. Then she strolls into an S&M art show, a poet exploding fireworks on his body, a rapper in a junkyard full of art, a spoken word performance that includes raw eggs and glitter, a cockfight, an Asian slave auction, and a voodoo ceremony in which the lead worshiper eats the head off a chicken.

All of this, and an array of crackheads, hookers, and other denizens of the streets.

(My late friend The Mutant is supposedly in the movie according to IMDB. Although I am not surprised he would be around those underground scenes, I couldn't find him. Perhaps he is in the background somewhere.)

As a snapshot of the strange and unusual of New York City, Mondo New York is a gem. I wouldn't recommend it to my mom or anyone's mother. Or anyone who isn't open minded. But as someone curious about alternative art and weirdness, I enjoyed it.

By the way, I would think other cities have similar scenes. Maybe not as many or as often, and some might be more hidden than others, but there is probably the potential for a Mondo everywhere. But I don't think I would want to watch more than one.

Maybe I'd watch Mondo Vegas or Mondo Miami. I would definitely watch Mondo Tampa Bay.

Grade: 5 chicken head stars out of 5.

You can watch it on SuperCultCinema's DailyMotion page here:

 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x944nru

Enjoy!

Not so Serious Movie Review: The Legend of Bigfoot (1975)

 

My most recent cinematic misadventure was The Legend of Bigfoot (1975). I was tricked into watching this. I thought it was a movie. It wasn't. It is a documentary that moves like Bigfoot walks - slow and plodding. Although there are some great nature shots, it adds nothing to cryptozoology or to the layman's belief in Bigfoot.

But I did learn something. Did you know mountain goats commit ritualized suicide so Bigfoot can eat? It's true. Ivan Marx says so in the documentary. He also says a lot of other bupkis and blather that is irrelevant at best, mind numbing at worst. For an hour and a half. That's a lot of not seeing Bigfoot.

An avid traveler and self-proclaimed tracker, Marx was a polarizing presence in the cryptozoology field. In the 10 years of this documentary, he claims to have some real Bigfoot footage. But is it real? It is really Bigfoot, a species of tall, hairy, man-like creatures who have stayed hidden for thousands of years across the globe? Or is Bigfoot actually an afro-clad creative writer in a hairy suit?

Things that make you go hmmm ....

Grade: 1 massive missing mammal out of 5

Book Review: Devil's Contract by Ed Simon

 

My Goodreads review: As much a philosophy book as a history book, Devil's Contract is a very interesting look at the concept of deals with the Devil in fiction and in history. While informative and very well researched, some of the philosophizing can be a bit wordy and there are also some parts where I feel the analogy was stretched to fit the narrative. But otherwise, I enjoyed this. Fun read.

As much a philosophy book as a history book, Devil's Contract is a very interesting look at the concept of deals with the Devil in fiction and in history. Throughout history, the idea of dealing with the Devil has been a part of the human experience. Author Ed Simon reminds us that the first humans in the Bible, Adam and Eve, dealt with the Devil, exchanging their eternal life for knowledge and an apple.

Needless to say, deals don't often go humans' way. Many times, humans need divine intervention to get out their deals with the Prince of Darkness. Simon discusses examples in which the Virgin Mary helps sinners get out of their hellish predicaments. Sometimes God has to get involved and sometimes the human is damned and has to live with their unfortunate choice.

Devil's Contract definitely made me think. I would never have thought that Satan's meeting with Jesus in the desert in the New Testament was an attempted deal with the Devil. Satan was appealing to Jesus's human side, which is always vulnerable. Simon goes through thousands of years of examples of vulnerable humans, from Marlowe and Goethe's Faust characters to the real Faust, to show this trend. The book is extremely well researched.

But as I mentioned in my Goodreads review, Simon can lose the reader in his philosophical points. There are a few sentences that just didn't make sense, no matter how many times I read them. There were also several sentence fragments that had me scratching my head, thinking I missed a word. Although these grammatical faux pas made me stop, they didn't take away from my overall enjoyment of the book. But it means Simon's editor could have used another look through.

Some of Simon's analogies were a stretch. I still don't understand how capitalism is a deal with the Devil and if it is, what about other economic systems? Are they better? And the section on the atomic bomb wasn't very clear. What about other weapons? Does mutually assured destruction mean we have all signed deals with the Devil?

I did however really like Simon's conclusions on "terms of service" and other agreements we automatically sign in exchange for the ability to use our phone and apps. The power of these devices and programs comes with a choice. Usually it means we agree to send our user data and sometimes our personal data to companies that don't have our privacy in mind. Is that a deal with a Devil? Maybe not in the Biblical sense, but maybe in a modern, technology sense.

That's the point Simon wants to leave us with. As we no longer believe in demons and Devils as they did five hundred years ago, are there still Devils in our society and we still dealing with them?

Recommended. 4 Devil horned stars out of 5.

Long live The Mutant

 

This week, my longest e-friend passed away. I never met him, but we conversed on these innerwebs for over 25 years. That's a long time and it deserves a story.

Way back in 1997 or so, when the World Wide Web was more Wild, Wild West, I found a webpage entitled you-suck.com . If I remember correctly, Yahoo! pointed me there from their list of "Cool Links" webpages. Back then Yahoo! tried to categorize the entire web. There wasn't much to visit, so maybe they did a good job.

You-Suck.com wasn't exciting, unless you liked travel pics. But it was subversive and it was edgy. Here is a screen shot from 1998. At different times, there were links to a guy calling himself The Mutant and he traveled around the world.

 

I had no idea who this Mutant was, but I knew he was interesting. So in November 1999 I decided to write him (yes, I still have the email!):

From: Jordi Scrubbings <torgo99 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Hey Mutant
To: root at you-suck.com

Dear Mr. Mutant,
You rule! Me and my friend go to your site daily. How
often do you update it? It needs a Mutant daily diary.
Other than that the site is one of the best on the
net. I am curious though, is there or has anyone ever
proposed a "Mutant" fan-club? I would like to start
one if there isn't one already. Please respond. It
would mean a lot to us.
  Jordi Scrubbings
  torgo99 at yahoo.com

 He wrote me back!

 Hey Guy!

Thanks for the kind words about my site;  it just sorta exists
as a snapshot of my life.  If you poke around enought there are
pages in there from 95 or so.

I don't have the time to update it often or even to create a weblog
due to work and school.  I have negative free time,  if there is
such a thing.

But I *have* thought about the weblog 'thang and moving my root level
page (http://wwww.you-suck.com) to that format in the near future.
I'm working on some Perl scripts that will minimise the amount of
work a weblog takes to maintain,  and when they're finished I'll
change the root page.

I do have a mailing list;  if you're interested send an
email to ListBot at you-suck.com,  with the text 'Info' in the subject
field and you'll get subscription instructions.  You can subscribe
or unsubscribe at will,  so if you just want to see what it's
like feel free to sign up.

WARNING:  we talk about a lot of wild and sick shit,  so if you're
easily offended you won't like it!!!

Hey!  I've got some 'bots that you might like.

http://www.you-suck.com/CtySongBot    Generates the lyrics to country songs
http://www.you-suck.com/ScandalBot    Generates the next Clinton scandal

This isn't a 'bot that I've programmed but a PhotoShop image one
of my buddies did

http://www.you-suck.com/BillGates      The leader of the Evil Empire himself

So what are you up to at Florida State?  If you're ever going to be over
UK  way,  and find yourself in London drop me a line!

Away I went into MutantTawk mailing list. I still have a large collection of the many interesting links and conversations the group provided. Many from The Mutant and dozens from his wide array of eclectic friends. While the threads continued until 2013 or so, the group conversation on 9/11/2001 was the most impactful. The Mutant spent many years working on Wall Street and many of his friends were still living in New York City, and those who weren't there still had fond memories of the City. Their perspectives brought the tragedy to my inbox in a personal way.

MutantTawk eventually died out and was replaced by social media. I eventually followed The Mutant and a few of his friends and his new wife on Facebook,Twitter, and Instagram. Along the way, I also discovered who The Mutant was. He was Dr. Dave Coker, International Investment Banker and "pioneer in Fintech" - the space where technology aids finance and transactions. The Mutant was telling us about Bitcoin when it was less than $100 a coin. It is now near $100,000 a coin. When he writes about being financially well-off, there is little doubting him.

The Mutant was also an old punk from the 1980s New York City underground. He had a mohawk, dyed his hair pink, wore tattered clothes and a headpiece with "666" on it, and frequented the London pub and ethnic market scenes. I doubt he fit the mold of international investment banker. But that's what kept me interested. He was an original.

In 2013, I started my journey to get my MBA from the University of South Florida. I had very little background in the numbers side of business. But I did have a great and powerful ally - The Mutant. Early in my studies, when I first enrolled in graduate-level accounting and finance, I messaged Dr Coker and asked if I could pick his brain. Within a few days, we talked via whatsapp or some other app for over an hour. He gave me valuable insight and information, from how to think about accounting to where to find my books cheap. It was a great call and much needed to give me confidence in my new adventure.

Fast-forward a few years, and Dr. Coker put himself out there much more. He became a lecturer at a university in London and was making appearances on BBC and other channels to opine about Brexit and the fintech issues of the day. He was also doing a lot of freelance writing on various websites. As a follower of his work, and as a friend, I tried to watch or read it all. I even watched his financial lessons on his various youtube pages. I learned something new every time.

One of my goals was to eventually go to London and have a pint with the man, the myth, the legend, The Mutant. All I had to do was get my career in order and my finances in order and buy the ticket. If you know me, then you know finding career stability has been a decade-long struggle. 

Although I did follow The Mutant's financial advice and finally got into Bitcoin in 2020. I've tripled my money.

Alas, in late October 2024, I received a direct message from The Mutant on twitter.

Hi there

How are you?

I got diagnosed with terminal cancer, given 18m to live so unlikely to hop on tiktok

Let me know how you're doing!

Still creating

Coker.me

I couldn't believe it. I immediately replied to him on twitter with the hopes of maybe arranging a month to visit. Unfortunately, I didn't get a reply.

On December 6th, 2024, Dave Coker's wife posted on Facebook that he passed away. My longtime e-friend was gone. I'll never have that chance to say hello in person.

As Dave, he taught me about finance, technology, and how to make money. As The Mutant, he taught me that having a career wasn't everything. Being yourself, no matter how different, is important. And there is a way to balance both.

RIP, my friend.

PS: when I received word of his illness, I wrote him into a small scene in the rough draft of my new novel. The final version should be published sometime in 2025. Including him was my way of saying thanks. Long live The Mutant.

Novel number two update number one

 

I haven't mentioned it here yet, but I have mentioned it on my social media. But I should mention it here, because it is a good idea to mention good ideas when there are good ideas to be mentioned.

Novel number 2 is a thing. It's a big mess of a thing that is currently under construction. It is over 64,000 words of a rough draft. It's gonna take some work and some time. I think I am approximately 66% through the plot. Which means it will probably be somewhere around 80,000 words. Which is a lot for a fiction novel. Which means a lot of editing needs to happen. And we need a title and a cover and formatting and printing and publishing.

In time, dear reader. In time. But that's a good thing. We are closer today than we were yesterday. And closer yesterday than we were the day before that.

What is novel number two about? Like novel number one, it is about the Devil. This time however, pro wrestling is involved. And novel number two is darker. Much more evil and bigger in scope. Sprinkle in some occult and some heavy metal and there is something there.

A big mess of something.

Not so Serious Movie Review: Battalion (2018)

 

In a world where CGI space ships destroy Los Angeles, only one team of Australians cosplaying as US Marines can stop the alien invasion.

Why not Australian military? Why make the US military look like idiots in a half-baked low budget snooze fest? The uniforms were bad, the gear was bad, the interactions were bad, the logic was AWOL, and almost everyone spoke with an Australian accent. Whoever the military advisor was for Battalion should be sent to Fort Leavenworth for making the US military look bad.

Other than that .... that's it. It's just bad. I wish I had something positive to say about Battalion. The camera work was shoddy, the dialogue wasn't good, the action scenes were meh at best, the CGI wasn't great, the aliens had no motive other than destruction, and despite CGI scenes showing spaceships blowing up cities, most of the "action scenes" were on a beach or in the woods.

Battalion is easily one of the worst war movies I have watched. When you make a movie with a small group of people, it is a good idea to keep the idea small. Especially if your budget is small.

Grade: 1 CGI star of 5

Would you want to go to war with this motley group of ragbags?