Just a quick congratulations to J and Aron who have just completed their Kickstarter campaign, Prospero’s Price. A fusion of Lovecraft and Shakespeare, at a whopping 7253 Dollars! It’s been a rocky ride with the campaign being suspended by someone who thought he was being plagiarized without even looking at the details beyond the words “Tempest” and H.P. Lovecraft. It was a pain and short sighted but in a silver lining sort of way gave the project free publicity once the the kerfuffle ended. And once that was settled they finished the campaign with over twice their targeted amount.
Good news everybody! After much drama J and Aron’s Kickstarter campaign, the Shakespeare/H.P. Lovecraft extravaganza Prospero’s Price, has gone over it’s final stretch hurdle of 5000 dollars! Now with less than 23 hours to go let’s see how much we can get them in the final sprint! Once again you can click here! or click on the banner add to contribute your ten cents (or hopefully a whole lot more). So let’s make this count for them!
This weeks selection I’d put off seeing since a friend of mine recommended them to me as a double feature. And it was a while before they were in at the same time.
Of course when I say “Recommend” what I mean is he thought that these were one of those “this is a creator’s mind on drugs“ kind of film that you may like if you are in a very strange sort of mood.
And both of these films American Astronaut and Stingray Sam are very, very weird filling a very small genre of “Cowboy Science Fiction Musicals”… done on a very small budget.
I confess when American Astronaut was first recommended to me I got it mixed up with the horror film “Astronaut’s Wife” though pretty much the name is the only thing these two films have in common. American Astronaut takes place in an unspecified future where space is a run down frontier, astronauts are pretty much just space truckers and women are so scarce that a mining baron is able to control his workers by having “The Boy who saw a Woman’s Breasts” tell them stories about his experience: “They were round and soft, get back to work.”
From there we have the Astronaut trying to get rich with a string of deals involving the aforementioned boy, while being chased by a mass murdering psychopath.
This is all done in black and white in the style of an old 1930s film serial only with a smaller budget. Special effects consist of models on strings and off screen sound effects. Sets consist of ordinary barns and dive bars and the Astronauts space ship consists of a single room set with a steering wheel in the front. Still lots of fun if you are in the right mood.
Stingray Sam is pretty much more of the same only in this case the title character has been conscripted to help save the “Carpenter’s Daughter” (an adorable six year old wearing a pink tutu over a lumberjack costume.) The budget of this one is slightly more than American Astronaut. This one uses paintings for sets and a small moving doll that the characters can be beamed into for easy carry and sneakiness (don’t ask) but other wise more of the same.
Still kind of fun if you are in a very specific kind of mood.
Well today is indeed Saint Patrick’s Day. It’s a holiday I’ve had extremely mixed feelings about. Mostly because in elementary school they took it WAY too seriously.
I’m not talking about being the odd kid out for not wearing green or that silly tradition of pinching. I’m talking about genuinely getting in trouble for not wearing green. It had gotten old by fourth grade.
Later I somehow missed all of the “adult” celebration of Saint Patty’s (I’m not much of a Guinness drinker) so for the most part once I got past the “forced to wear green” thing the only thing about Saint Patrick’s was all of the sales on books about Irish folklore.
However besides all of that Saint Patrick’s day is that it’s my sister, Juliet’s birthday. This of course gives it a lot of emotional weight. (For her mostly but it rubs off. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me for winning a prize at a school parade that neither of us knew was also a contest.)
Anyway a very happy Birthday, Juliet and hope you have a goodone.