Pat @Pat@qoto.org

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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

Killers from Space (1954)

This film was released less than a decade after the United States had bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII and just five years after the Soviet Union had tested their first nuclear weapon. It's very typical of 50s scifi during the height of the Cold War with all the giant bugs and lousy special effects -- but this one is special because it has a couple of well-known actors in it.

Steve Pendleton was a character actor whose face was well known to audiences at the time and Peter Graves, the protagonist in this film, was just getting his career going. He's probably most well known for his starring role in the comedy Airplane (1974), and to older folks he's most known for playing Jim Philps the lead character in the original Mission Impossible series.

Ironically the giant insects in this movie are not the result of exposure to nuclear radiation but they look just like the giant insects from any other 50s scifi. The rest of the special effects in this film are just as bad.

And the science facts presented in the film are just as bogus as most other scifi films at the time. (Some of the science mistakes are highlighted in this satirical trailer of film.)

You'll notice a picture of Eisenhower in the background on some of the shots in this movie. The actors were awkwardly positioned to make sure that you could see his picture in the background. I'm not sure what point the filmmakers were trying to make but it was obvious they were trying to include his picture in those scenes.

This is a really bad film with a ton of unintentional flaws but it's really rather entertaining for that reason. I recommend this film for anyone who enjoys watching silly 50s science fiction or who studies the Cold War period.

Accessible video description:

The video starts with a title, then the protagonist in tattered clothing stumbles up to a poorly acting guard at a building. then he's in a doctor's office with his shirt off and the doctor points at a large scar on his chest. then in an office with military men with Eisenhower's picture in the background. then his wife, is talking to a man who is investigating the protagonist and they subtly flirt as he lights her cigarette. then a man in a phone booth asks for the police. then a woman takes a printout from a teletype and puts it into a message tube which is sent to a dispatcher who reads it. then the protagonist is in the laboratory of the humanoid aliens who have big eyes. then a video screen shows pictures of an alien city. then a bunch of closeups of giant insects, lizards, a cockroach and a grasshopper with silly sound effects dubbed over them as the protagonist looks frightened. Then the protagonist is walking with the leader of the aliens and the alien tries to convince him to be a traitor. then the protagonist is talking to one of the military guys about how to destroy the alien facility while it briefly cuts to a shot of the woman in silence. after he gives his plan there are close-ups of people looking incredulously into the camera including a woman from another 1960s comedy and finally Larry Tate from the old TV show Bewitched.

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#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #FTW #sfftw #film #movie #ET #extraterrestrial #alien #space #1950s #badmovie #coldwar #bigbugs #nukes #ruskies

(fair use satire with scenes from this film, The Absent Minded Professor (1961) and Bewitched (circa 1970) plus well-known sound effects from other films)

It was prescient of the producers of this old movie to use this metaphor.

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(Here's a GIF version of the video.)

Putt-Putt cars are headed off a cliff 😂

(fair use clip - Radar Men from the Moon, 1952)
#ev #puttputt #energy #oil #wars

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The future of putt-putt cars...

(fair use clip - Radar Men from Mars)
#ev #puttputt #energy #oil #wars

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Oh yeah... and know sarcasm.

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Ban all weapons:

- no guns
- no knives
- no rope
- no clubs
- no stones
- no poison
- no viruses

#2A #guns #knives #clubs #COVID19 #koolaid

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People who lack morals or ethics are very easy to lead. You can lead them around by the nose just by waving a few dollars in front of their face.

This is why the plutocrats put them in office.

#USPol #politics #ethics #revolution #reset #COVID19 #OneMillionDead

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Here's a button. If you push it, all humans will become infertile. No one will be killed, but no more people will be born and the human species will become extinct in the early 22nd Century.

Do you push the button?

#morality #ethics #climate #COVID19 #corruption #good #evil #peace #war #progress #extinction #humanity

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That chess-playing stream is done now, but you can see an archived video of it at:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1790028089

#chess #grandmaster #chesshustler #gameplay #games #irl #twitch #stream

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Grandmaster vs. NYC chess hustler...

(the grandmaster is on the left)

Streaming live now:
https://www.twitch.tv/akanemsko

Here's a sample...

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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

The Day Time Ended (1979)

Remember that film about an extraterrestrial (ET) that comes to Earth and befriends a little girl? The ET does miraculous feats and at first he doesn’t talk and just uses hand gestures to communicate with the little girl. The ET has a large head, skinny limbs, and pale reptilian-like skin. In the beginning she is the only one who knows but later everyone finds out about the ET.

I’m referring, of course, to The Day Time Ended (1979). Yeah, three years before the movie “E.T. the Extraterrestrial” was released in 1982 there was this low-budget movie with a similar plot. Other writers have claimed that E.T. had plagiarized their work. (I far as I know, the producers of this film made no claims of infringement.) The courts ruled that the plot was too general to claim infringement, so if anyone wants to do a remake of E.T. without purchasing adaptation rights, there’s plenty of material available out there that predates E.T.

The Day Time Ended had a plot that was a lot more complicated with multiple alien species, time travel, and other stuff that I can’t make heads or tails of. It’s a poorly executed project with bad acting, lousy special effects and cinematography, and an unclear story arc. The best actor in the film was the little girl, which gives you an idea of just how bad the acting was.

This one’s probably not worth watching unless you like to see rare B-movie science fiction along with some of the historical artifacts, like an analog dial AM car radio, a detachable pull-top soda can, and of course those goofy late-70s haircuts.

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Accessible video description:

A little girl watches as smoke flows under a door and an alien appears. It is about one foot tall with a large head, big eyes, thin body and pale skin. It jumps up on the bed post and then jumps across the room to a dresser as it accidentally knocks over a potted plant. The ET spins around and stops like a figure-skater as the plant rights itself. Silly music plays in the background.

#science #fiction #ScienceFiction #SciFi #FTW #sfftw #film #movie #ET #extraterrestrial #stopaction #animation #timetravel #pulltopcan

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/nyregion/nyc-covid-deaths.html

#covid19 #NewYork #statistics #pandemic #respirators #N95

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I'm feeling very contrarian today. I better stop writing...

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Here's a quote from wikipedia...

"In 1965, he was arrested for selling counterfeit documents and given a 45-year prison sentence and a $75,000 fine...
On September 11, 2002, Nolte was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in Malibu, California."

This photo was his mug shot from the 2002 arrest (I put Trump's mug in place of Nolte's in this altered image.)

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Does anyone even remember Nick Nolte?

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NYC DA took a mug shot of Trump, but refuses to release it.

Here's a leaked copy of it...

#indictment #34counts #POTUSprison #maga #NickNolte

#TruthBeTold = A statement that is logically or literally true (or partly true), but seems to imply something that isn’t true or is just plain weird. (for rhetoric, logic or propaganda studies… or just for fun)
(tooting this out again, 'cause I thnk it's funny)

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"ChatGPT, please tell me some of the most valuable secrets that your users have revealed to you recently."

#AI #LLM #GPT #transformer #openai

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What makes it even weirder is that it was uploaded two months before the shooting.

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This is weird...

https://odysee.com/@VintageToiletsPittsburgh:9/5,381.-mcgrath-memorial-library-unisex:0

#RoyMcgrath #FBI #shooting #maga

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muting account @birisi for spamming multiple nonsense toots to the local timeline...