Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century is the movie for this Sunday's "monsterdon" watch party over on Mastodon, our fediverse sibling!

• Just start watching that movie this Sunday, March 16, 2025 at 9pm ET / 8pm CT / 6pm PT
• and follow #monsterdon over on mastodon for live commentary. For example, you can follow that hashtag here: https://mastodon.social/tags/monsterdon
• I usually open two web browser windows on a computer side-by-side. But you could follow the mastodon commentary on a phone app while watching the movie on TV or something.

How to watch the movie:

• tubi (US, England, Canada, Australia, NZ?): https://tubitv.com/movies/585867/yeti-giant-of-the-20th-century
• youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgn2Uc6sL6I
• youtube (with Portuguese subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywr1316LeME
• youtube (with Romanian subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=311lhBXmTeg
• youtube (WARNING low-res / clipped, only watch if nothing else available): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh7rKslDbb4
• ADBLOCK NOTICE: uBlock Origin on firefox works on the youtube and tubi versions above
• someone plans to stream it on https://miru.miyaku.media/ at that time
• if you want to pay and/or watch ads, look here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/yeti-the-giant-of-the-20th-century

an industrialist's orphaned grandchildren and their collie befriend an awakened Yeti.

...

While RKO and Universal Pictures battled over King Kong's rights, Dino De Laurentiis—the producer of the 1976 King Kong remake—announced another giant monster film which would be filmed in the Himalayas, entitled Yeti. Although his version ended up not being made, this film was a low-budget cash in on De Laurentiis' project, which aimed to beat it to theaters....

In a contemporary review, Maurizio Porro of the Corriere della sera was most negative, writing that "[t]he film was shot on such a low budget (the rudimentary effects are accomplished through obvious image superimpositions) that in comparison, the Taviani brothers look like Cecil B. DeMille. But it is not the only issue: [...] the story and screenplay are completely missing. Mystery and suspense are absent, whereas ridiculousness is in full effect, dominating the proceedings."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeti:_Giant_of_the_20th_Century

Reposting bc the original post didn't federate for some reason?!

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/19375332

!sumo@lemmy.world

The top sumo wrestlers in Japan compete every other month in tournaments that last two weeks. The March tournament just started a couple days ago, and for the rest of the tournament I plan to post daily links to recap videos. You're welcome to come join and discuss and/or ask questions.

Imagine two linebackers crashing against each other but they have no padding and they're allowed to do judo throws and there's a priest urging them on. That's basically sumo.

Americans tend to think of sumo as a funny thing, but in reality it's a quasi-religious endeavour. The wrestlers live communally in a highly stratified environment training daily, and the referees perform shinto-derived rituals before and after the day's matches. The wrestlers gain weight to make them harder to push, but underneath that weight they are all muscle.

Anyway check it out!

• !sumo@lemmy.world
• https://lemmy.world/c/sumo

He had never been in Corless’s but he knew the value of the name. He knew that people went there after the theatre to eat oysters and drink liqueurs; and he had heard that the waiters there spoke French and German. Walking swiftly by at night he had seen cabs drawn up before the door and richly dressed ladies, escorted by cavaliers, alight and enter quickly. They wore noisy dresses and many wraps. Their faces were powdered and they caught up their dresses, when they touched earth, like alarmed Atalantas. He had always passed without turning his head to look. It was his habit to walk swiftly in the street even by day and whenever he found himself in the city late at night he hurried on his way apprehensively and excitedly. Sometimes, however, he courted the causes of his fear. He chose the darkest and narrowest streets and, as he walked boldly forward, the silence that was spread about his footsteps troubled him, the wandering silent figures troubled him; and at times a sound of low fugitive laughter made him tremble like a leaf.

https://www.libraryofshortstories.com/storiespdf/a-little-cloud.pdf

!sumo@lemmy.world

The top sumo wrestlers in Japan compete every other month in tournaments that last two weeks. The March tournament just started a couple days ago, and for the rest of the tournament I plan to post daily links to recap videos. You're welcome to come join and discuss and/or ask questions.

Imagine two linebackers crashing against each other but they have no padding and they're allowed to do judo throws and there's a priest urging them on. That's basically sumo.

Americans tend to think of sumo as a funny thing, but in reality it's a quasi-religious endeavour. The wrestlers live communally in a highly stratified environment training daily, and the referees perform shinto-derived rituals before and after the day's matches. The wrestlers gain weight to make them harder to push, but underneath that weight they are half muscle.

Anyway check it out!

• !sumo@lemmy.world
• https://lemmy.world/c/sumo

Originally published in 2012. Winner of the Hugo Award and the Locus Award for Best Novelette.

Has an interesting style. I'm not crazy about it but obviously it's respected, so I thought some people here might like it.

Link: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/cadigan_02_18_reprint/

Seems like a Sunday afternoon kinda song...

"Bowling Balls" samples the drum beat of Madonna's "Justify My Love," which was based upon Public Enemy's instrumental "Security of the First World",[2][3] which was in turn based on the end drum break of James Brown's "Funky Drummer".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Balls

Friends don't come easily and this I know
And every time I make one they always say they gotta go
I wanna talk with people and look 'em in the face
I wanna take 'em home and they can stay at my place
All the talking I could do, I would never lie to you
We take a quick ride, homicide, then I confide in you
And I can love you and technically even though you're dead
You'll always be around me 'cause I'm keeping your head

HD video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efbPh7IF120

Critters (1986) is the movie for this Sunday's "monsterdon" watch party over on Mastodon, our fediverse sibling!

• Just start watching that movie this Sunday, March 9, 2025 at 9pm ET / 8pm CT / 6pm PT, which is ~~2am Monday UTC~~ CORRECTION 1am Monday UTC bc of US daylight savings
• and follow #monsterdon over on mastodon for live commentary. For example, you can follow that hashtag here: https://mastodon.social/tags/monsterdon
• I usually open two web browser windows on a computer side-by-side. But you could follow the mastodon commentary on a phone app while watching the movie on TV or something.

How to watch the movie:

• someone plans to stream it on https://miru.miyaku.media/ at that time
• tubi (US, England, Canada, Australia, NZ?; uBlock Origin adblock on firefox works): https://tubitv.com/movies/100001406/critters
• if you want to pay and/or watch ads, look here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/critters

The plot follows a group of small, furry aliens with carnivorous behavior escaping from two shape-shifting bounty hunters, landing in a small countryside town to feast on its inhabitants.

...

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 52% approval rating based on 50 reviews, with an average of 5.5/10. The site's consensus reads: "While Critters ekes out some fun from a game cast and screwball tone, the titular monsters fail to deliver the credible menace that makes a creature feature satisfying".[7] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film three out of four stars: "What makes Critters more than a ripoff are its humor and its sense of style. This is a movie made by people who must have had fun making it".[8]

Marylynn Uricchio, film critic for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described the film as an enjoyable, if unoriginal, low budget monster movie. Uricchio wrote: "Critters isn't a memorable or even very slick movie, but it is good fun. What it lacks in substance it makes up for with a perverse kind of charm".[9] Caryn James of The New York Times complained that the movie lacked humor and suspense: "Critters just doesn't make the audience laugh or jump often enough".[10]

Alex Stewart reviewed Critters for White Dwarf #83, and stated that "Critters scuttled by quite pleasantly. Nothing really stands out, despite M. Emmet Walsh as the sweaty sheriff, and a scene wherein a couple of Heavy Metal bounty hunters blow away a Baptist church, but the film actually thinks through how the Browns react, as a family, to the anti-social little aliens".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critters_(film)

This is titled "The Hardy Boy Poems" but they're really paragraph-long short stories, i.e. flash fiction stories which "hint at or imply a larger story".

The basis for these is the Hardy Boys series of books aimed at young boys. These were old even when I was a kid, but I keep seeing these "Hardly Boys" book cover edits on !memes@lemmy.world so people must still be aware of them.

This collection is more risque and suggestive of hidden violence and despair than the mainstream books. In the preface, the author (?) says this is in tribute to the "unwholesome but healthy amounts of anti-authoritarianism and lurid detail" that the original Hardy Boys books had before they were stripped of all such things in the late 50s. The result of these new stories is a world that is far more interesting, far more dangerous, and far more realistic than the world presented in the mainstream books.

Link to the collection: https://www.beardofbees.com/pubs/The_Hardy_Boy_Poems.pdf

It's the 70s, and these three vets just got out of Vietnam after doing some crooked business there, and are on a boat headed home. But then two of them screw over the third guy, and throw him in the ocean! Luckily he survives, and gets washed up on an island where these Japanese World War 2 soldiers are holed up unaware that the war is over! And one of them teaches him "the art of the samurai"... The rest of the movie is the neo-samurai guy getting revenge on his former buddies.

It's a pretty entertaining movie if your expectations are low and you're in the mood for a campy but heartfelt action movie with a 70s feel. The ending is kinda sad tho.

• original trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mU3-sgKLS8
• I watched it on Tubi, which is free in I think the US Canada England and Australia/NZ: https://tubitv.com/movies/515830/death-force
• free on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZh6phbL_zM
• free on youtube? you have to log in which I didn't do; the movie length is 9 minutes longer, and comments suggest uploader might have replaced some of the music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM3FcIyg3qQ
• ADBLOCK NOTE: uBlock Origin on Firefox should work on the links above
• if you want to pay and/or watch ads, look here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/fighting-mad

Apparently it was originally released as "Death Force" but the opening title says "Vengeance is Mine" for some reason; looks like it was released on home video as "Fighting Mad". From IMDB images I see it was "El Samurai Negro" in Spanish and "Deathforce" in Swedish!

• https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076024/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Force

C.H.U.D. is the movie for this Sunday's "monsterdon" watch party over on Mastodon, our fediverse sibling!

• Just start watching that movie this Sunday, March 2, 2025 at 9pm ET / 8pm CT / 6pm PT, which is 2am Monday UTC
• and follow #monsterdon over on mastodon for live commentary. For example, you can follow that hashtag here: https://mastodon.social/tags/monsterdon
• I usually open two web browser windows on a computer side-by-side. But you could follow the mastodon commentary on a phone app while watching the movie on TV or something...

How to watch the movie:

• someone plans to streams it on https://miru.miyaku.media/ at that time
• archive: https://archive.org/details/c.-h.-u.-d..-1984 (edit: fixed link)
• tubi (US, England, Canada, Australia/NZ?; uBlock Origin adblock on firefox works): https://tubitv.com/movies/480176/c-h-u-d
• if you want to pay and/or watch ads, look here: https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/c-h-u-d

The plot concerns a New York City police officer and a homeless shelter manager who team up to investigate a series of disappearances, and discover that the missing people have been killed by humanoid monsters that live in the sewers.

...

Lawrence Van Gelder from The New York Times stated in his review for the film, "C.H.U.D. makes no pretension toward serious thesis about government or the environment. It is meant to be light commercial entertainment, and in the category of horror films it stands as a praiseworthy effort".[10] Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club wrote, "Perfect for bleary-eyed late-night viewing and pretty much unwatchable at any other hour."[11] Patrick Naugle of DVD Verdict called it a fun film that focuses more on entertainment than deeper issues.[12] Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out New York included it in Time Out's list of best New York-set films, calling it "more funny than scary".[13] Bloody Disgusting rated it 4.5/5 stars and called it "definitely one of b-movies best kept secrets".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.H.U.D.

!bmoviebonanza@lemmy.world previously discussed this movie over a year ago: https://lemmy.world/post/6703046

https://pixelfed.fediverse.observer/dailystats

based on the 1995 novel Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, the first installment in Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, which was published as The Golden Compass in the United States. It stars Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra Belacqua, Nicole Kidman as Marisa Coulter, and Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel, alongside Sam Elliott, Ian McKellen, and Eva Green. In the film, Lyra joins a race of water-workers and seafarers on a trip to the far North in search of children kidnapped by the Gobblers, a group supported by the world's rulers, the Magisterium

...The film received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the casting and visual effects, but criticism for its pacing, characterization, and screenplay...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Compass_(film)

• free on dailymotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ww5zk
• a reboot / miniseries was made of this book series several years later, supposedly it's pretty good but it's not free anywhere I could find: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials_(TV_series)