photo class misery and the Dark Age of '87

Photo sure is frustrating. You guys almost got an angry rant last night filled with threats of violence, but this morning I feel better. This weekend it will be time for me to turn on my video camera, as I'm going to have to use some of the advanced features for some technical stuff. Shit!

I am most comfortable with editing now, the Final Cut class is a piece of cake. As for photo, you won't see me on the side of the stage taking blurry photos of hardcore bands. Band photography sucks and I think only girls do that anyway.

The last tape I watched was an Australia supernatural horror film called Alison's Birthday from 1979. Pretty budget, but they managed to get a whole mini-stonehenge up in this one. I enjoyed it very much and it may warrant a full review.

As always, I've seen a lot of stuff that I have not been able to write about. Stay away from Dark Age, another Australian movie, but it sucked to the max. Directed by Arch Nicholson in 1987, it's the tale of a giant croc. Could not tell what was the real croc and what was the fake, which is impressive, but then I'm no wildlife expert so maybe I'm just a fool and all of you are like "dumb wooden croc!". They do a car chase with the massive crocodile on the back of a flatbed trailer truck, but unfortunately it's covered by a tarp. Seeing the fake crocodile speeding down the highway could have a very memorable image, though people already compare this movie to Free Willy due to the on-land rescue mission of a sea creature. This is a salt water croc, so does it live in the sea sometimes? Anyway, cool how the conservationists, who don't want this bloodthirsty croc killed, are the heroes, and the poachers are the scum who get munched, but this is almost too Earth Day for even a militant vegan like me. You know how these 80's enviro movies can be - I'm all for the cause, but the preaching gets old. Almost funny subplot where Burnham Burnham has personal mystical ties to the croc, man, I hope I'm not being culturally insensitive to the Aborigines. Actually, this did work for me at the end when they bring his remains, in a ritual, to this very same killer croc who does escape to the way back wilderness - oops, I guess that was a spoiler! Burnham Burnham was also in Howling III: The Marsupials.

I swear I get the feeling that the whites in Aussie are the worst after this movie and Zombie Brigade. Self-hating whites in the Australian film industry? Animal liberation in the movies. It's never been done right. Never have I been less moved by animal liberation than in 28 Days Later. I've talked about this before, so enough for now.

I'm feeling a bit of fondness for Dark Age right now, thinking of the late Burnham Burnham and some of the movie's more sentimental moments. What's with me? I totally hated it and those better not be real crocs getting shot in the massacre scene! Yes the worst violence in this movie is against crocs and if the shotgun carnage is real, then it pretty much undermines the purpose of this film much like René Cardona Jr.'s Beaks: The Movie. If it was simulated croc killing, well, impressive FX then.