Happy Birthday to Me!

It's my birthday on Tuesday, May 7. I invite you to celebrate by having one of the following for dinne: Spaghetti with tomato sauce, ground beef, and peas, or sweet-and-sour chicken with pineapple over steamed rice, or curry chicken or beef with carrots over steamed rice.

You can also celebrate by drinking coffee with some variety of creamer in it. Lots of coffee with lots of creamer... something vanilla or chocolate flavored would be most suitable.

Also, as part of your celebration of my birthday, you can get yourself a present! From now until Midnight on May 7, all NUELOW Games products at RPGNOW and DriveThruFiction are 44% off. Click here to check out the nearly 100 items that can be yours for next to nothing!

Get yourself a present that's also like getting a present for me, because I get a tiny royalty on each product sold! (I recommend one of our Robert E. Howard anthologies if you haven't already checked them out. For something very different, you might also consider "The Sheik" by Howard & Hundal, or the poetry collection "Shadows of Dreams." It would be a fantastic birthday gift to me if one of those items ended up back on a best-seller list for a day or two.)

Of course, if you already have all of what NUELOW Games has to offer, or you just want to celebrate my birthday by getting me a birthday present, you can always order me something off my Amazon.com wish list. Or just get one of the items for yourself... it's all great stuff!

So... happy birthday to me! I hope we all have a great day! And please remember: I won't object if you buy me a present! Even if it arrives after my birthday. It's the thought that counts, right?

The Best Epic Rap Battles of History, Vol. III

Nice Peter and Epic Lloyd continue to bring us the best rap battles history has ever known. And here's some of the best of the best for your enjoyment and edification. The line-up this time include:

Tesla vs. Edison


Gandhi vs. Martin Luther King Jr.


Bruce Lee vs. Clint Eastwood

 

Over the Hills and Far Away...

"Over the Hills and Far Away" was originally recorded in 1987 by the late Gary Moore. Supported by an excellent video, it tells the story of a man framed and condemned for a robbery he didn't commit. Here's the original version:



The song's been covered a couple of times, most effectively by Finnish hard rockers Nightwish in 2001. Here's their version, along with its video:

Artwork inspired by "Over the Hills and Far Away", borrowed from here.

It's (Good) Friday

And Sadie's looking forward to Easter weekend (weekend)

The One That Got Away (and more)

I was at the dentist yesterday and while I was in the chair Katy Perry's "The One That Got Away" came across the radio they have running for background static. I was reminded of what a nice song that is, with an even nicer video. So, through the miracle of YouTube, here it is.


And with nice songs invariably follow parodies and covers. Here are a few of the best ones I've come across, starting with "The One Who Turned You Gay" by Shane Dawson and Totally Sketch.




And then there's "The Husband That Ran Away" from La Coacha.




Here's a straight (and touching) cover and original video by Ralph Vincefied

Katy Perry, who must have lost her shirt in the tough economy.

A welcome to new visitors!

When I wrote a review of the drama "Pinprick" (which can be read immediately below this post), I didn't realize that titling it "Are Teen Girls Really Like This?" would place Cinema Steve on entirely new search engine radars. I SHOULD have realized it, though... the combination of "teenage girls," "pinprick" and "lover" all appearing right at the beginning of the post are like honey for bears when it comes to certain webizens and their search engines..

Laura Greenwood: Teen star of "Pinprick"

There are both plusses and minuses to this new potential audience that are finding my little corner of the web.

The downside: I'm deleting three or more spam comments per day for all sorts of interesting products and websites of the adult variety.

The upside: Possibly some new readers! Welcome! I think the Tectonic Tuesday series here, the Saturday Scream Queens series at Terror Titans, and the many picture series at Shades of Gray are good places for you to start. Come of the pretty pictures! Stay for the reviews and commentary!

(BTW, for those of you out there who are operating some of those interesting adult websites and/or selling interesting "toys" that have "flesh" or "pocket" as part of their trademarked brand-names, you should find yourself another internet marketing firm--assuming you yourself aren't just incompetent in using spambots. You're not getting value for your money or effort if what I'm seeing in the process of admin'ing comments to my blogs is any indication.)

Are teen girls really like this?

Pinprick (2009)
Starring: Laura Greenwood, Rachel Blake, Evin Nagy, and Zoltan Ratoti
Director: Daniel Young
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Teenaged Charlotte (Greenwood) is keeping a secret from her recently divorced mother (Blake): A mysterious, hunky man (Nagy) is living in her closet. Things go from complicated to nightmarish when he decides to leave the closet and become her mother's new lover.

"Pinprick" is a somewhat bizarre drama that will have you asking yourself what logic-defying action the characters will take next, or how they will next try to complicate a situation that could easily be solved by calling the police. As film unfolds, it becomes more and more illogical, eventually presenting a plot twist that gives rise to the film's eventual non-ending ending -- a twist and ending that completes the film's rise toward a pinnacle of complete nonsense.

"Pinprick" is a Swiss/Hungarian production starring English, Australian, and Hungarian actors. It was marketed in the United States as a horror film, so for roughly the first half of the movie I kept looking for increasing hints and clues that the man in the closet was a figment of Charlotte's diseased mind -- and I think the film might have made more sense if it was. I've never been a teen girl, and I've never had raised a teen daughter, so maybe they do behave as bizarrely as Charlotte does. Maybe they will hide strange men in their closets in order to spite their parents, and when said strange man starts taking over their home they will basically take his place in the closet? (I do have a sister who was once a teenager, and I don't think she would have let a guy live in her closet, but how can I say for certain?)

Maybe if writer/director Daniel Young had spent a moment or two giving viewers some details about the characters up front, even if those details would have to be reinterpreted in the light of the twist in the third act -- that twist might even have made a little more sense if he had. We get a tiny bit through a conversation that Charlotte and her mother have at the very beginning, but a little more might have helped dispel some of the confusing air that exists throughout the  picture. At the very least, some indication in regards to how the hunk ended up in Charlotte's closet and why she didn't run screaming from the room at that first encounter would have been helpful.

If not for the fact that the film kept me engaged, despite my sense of it being nonsense and despite it not being a horror film even though it was marketed as such, this would have rated a Four. The strong performances from the cast, as well as some nice cinematography, coupled with the way the film's pacing kept me interested, all add up to a movie I can't bring myself to condemn too harshly. If you're in the mood for something odd but well crafted, "Pinprick" might be worth a look. (My advice would be to pick up the "Midnight Horror Collection" or renting it as a streaming movie rather than paying for it on a DVD by itself. The mutli-disc "Midnight Horror Collection" features several other mis-marketed films, as well as two actual horror films.)