Two Inches Below the Heart

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Wednesday night, we finally watched a movie that we’ve anticipated since we first heard about it on “Electric Boogaloo” the documentary about Cannon Films. The working title of this movie may have been “Space Vampires in London” and based off a similarly named novel… but this 1985 sci-fi feature from director Tobe Hooper (“Poltergeist”) & the writer of the sci-fi classic “Alien”… also premiered the flawless nude body of 19-year old French ballet dancer Mathilda May (still f**king stunning at over 50 BTW). I’m talking of course… about the movie “Lifeforce”!!! Now… I had never heard of this movie before the documentary… and I have no idea how that’s possible. It must have REALLY tanked. It also wasn’t on Netflix either streaming or via mail… so I actually bit the bullet… and purchased the Blu Ray sight unseen (thanks Amazon). So the story picks up in deep space… where an American-British collaboration space team is exploring Haley’s Comet, when they notice a large (phallic) spacecraft in the comet’s tail… and discover a weird sort of holding cell with these flawless humanoids in suspended animation (and some charred remains of giant bat creatures). Well, they decide to take three of the humanoids & one of the bat creature corpses on board… and set the course back to Earth. Spoiler alert: Something goes wrong. So then the shuttle is free-floating in Earth’s orbit (auto pilot) and they send another team of astronauts to go get them… but find that everything & everyone on board has basically been charred… except for the three humanoids. They bring them down to Earth… and soon find out… the horror that they’ve unleashed on the planet!!! Okay, that’s all I’m going to say… because I want you all to watch this movie by any means necessary. Hit me up if you want to watch it again! I’m not going to lie… based on the documentary (and other Cannon Films), I went into this movie with low expectations & just wanted to see some 80’s effects and some Mathilda May boobage… but this movie was f**king legit in a lot of ways. Here, I’ll break it down:

 

What I Liked About the Movie:

 

·         The Special Effects – Look, I recognize that some of the green screen portions of the movie are a little hokey & jaunted… and some of the puppetry effects are slow & dated by the 80’s… but compared to what I was expecting & have seen from other 80’s movies, this sh*t is on point! The green screen portions may be a little dated… and the comet is ridiculous… but the backgrounds & sheer visuals of it are on point with 2001 & some of the H.R. Giger type stuff. The puppetry effects aren’t bad… and there are a LOT of explosions. Knowing that the movie was done on a budget… I was seriously impressed.

 

·         The Symphonic Score – The London Symphonic Orchestra scores this movie… and it’s f**king amazing! They build great tension throughout… but it doesn’t seem old & repetitive. I think the end credits song is even one of the classics that they use on NFL Films presentation. Great job with the score!

 

·         The Randomness of Things – There are guilty pleasures of mine in movies… and it’s often from just not knowing what to expect. This notion of unpredictability was alive & well in Cannon Films movies. This movie is no exception. Because you really have no idea what to expect from the storytelling, the acting, the effects, and how they keep trying to connect these random threads for little or no reason… it keeps you glued to the screen… because you don’t want to miss the craziness (or random boobs). The “she’s a masochist” scene… whoa!

 

·         Sir Patrick Stewart – YES!!! Captain Picard is in this movie… and the scene where he’s on the table & the aura of Mathilda May is speaking through him to our protagonist… fantastic!

 

·         Mathilda May – Let’s not f**king joke about it… gorgeous. She may only be on screen for like… ten minutes maybe? She may not actually say any words in the movie (dubbing?). Make no mistake that she’s the focal point of the movie though in every conceivable way. I feel like teenage Angelina Jolie took some notes after catching her dad watching this movie & turned it into her empire.

 

What I Didn’t Like About the Movie:

 

·         The Vampire Thing – Look, I know that this is based on a story about space vampires… but this movie didn’t really have vampires. I also know there’s the whole thing at the end of the 2^nd act where Professor Exposition starts saying that perhaps the legends of vampires of the old world were based on these humanoids and blah blah blah… but you know what’s NOT explained? The giant bats!!! Is that part of their maturation? Once they hit a certain galactic age, do they just sprout wings and become fanged gargoyles? (I smell a sequel?) These humanoids suck the “lifeforce” out of humans every two hours to keep from… basically exploding into dust… and from what I can tell, their powers are being stunningly sexy, strength, being impervious to bullets (grenades?), some telepathic powers, the ability to transfer their lifeforce into other people & shattering glass with their comatose expressions… but they don’t transform into bats, rats or any of that other vampire stuff… garlic is fine… there are no fangs… there’s no cloaks and/or poofy shirts… hell, there’s not even clothes unless I assume the set was about 40 degrees and they just wanted to drape a sheet over the actor to keep them from freezing to death! What’s the one traditional vampire thing about the whole movie? How they can be killed… IRON STAKES THROUGH THE HEART… or as the movie puts it, something like “The Old Way! Leaden iron… through the energy center… two inches below the heart!” You know… the Old Way. None of these newfangled ways like… grenades.

 

Overall, I’d say that you have to check this movie out at least once! Hell, I’m going to watch it a few more times… probably because it’ll be an episode on the Podcast… but I may be getting ahead of myself on that one. The movie is a little difficult to find… but well worth it.

 

Wednesday night, I met up with some of the future in-laws for dinner at Elevation 66 Brewing to celebrate my future mother-in-law’s birthday. It was a lot of fun… the food was great… the people were even better… here are some pictures…

 

Saturday, Cesar, Heather & KJ were in the Bay Area… so while Heather was at a seminar in Oakland, the boys Cesar & KJ came to have fun with us… and we had a great breakfast at a place called Grindz in Pac Heights… and then went to check out Japantown… and then relax (long night before for them) by watching “Animal Fight Night” on Netflix… seriously, that show is DOPE!!! We ended the evening with dinner at Elevation 66 (yes, twice in about 48 hours… boom!). Here are some pictures…

 

Sunday, we had a birthday party for Izzy’s mom & sister Tess at the Aunties’ house… and we get to see the wee nephew Everett… here are pictures of that too…

 

 

Lastly for this update, Izzy & I had some brewing stuff to take care of. First up, we had our Barrel-Aged Barleywine to bottle (and test before various birthday celebrations in the coming months) so here are some pictures of that…

 

…and then we had an empty barrel with a little souring going on… so we barreled our intentionally Sour Chocolate Stout from the double batch a few weeks ago to age in the barrel and get a good sour going that we can visit in a few months…

 

...kegging our regular Chocolate Stout...

 

…and lastly, we transferred our Homegrown Galena Hopped Pale Ale to secondary.

 

Whew… a pretty busy week if I say so myself with both of us working full-time… but a LOT of fun & a LOT more fun to come. So until next time, have a great day everybody!!!

SF Beer Week 2016 - Part Two

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Wednesday night, Izzy & I continued our mild SF Beer Week adventures with a visit to Fieldwork Brewing in Berkeley. This brewery is HIGHLY regarded within the brewing circles that we keep, both professionally & amateur… and for good reason. They always have a wide variety of brews on tap (usually at least 12 different options) and they are CONSTANTLY changing… and some very unique options made in-house. For example, when we went on Thursday, they had options such as:

 

·         Mandarina – Tart Saison

·         Good Conduct - Barrel Aged Imperial Stout

·         Olde Dubliner - Imperial Dry Stout

·         Black Thai – Thai Tea Espresso Porter (very nice)

·         Chocolate Milk – Brown Ale with lots of TCHO chocolate & lactose (milk sugar)

·         Amarilloweisse – Dry Hopped Berlinerweisse

·         Coconut Milk – Double IPA with LOTS of hand-toasted coconut & lactose

·         5-6 different versions & levels of IPA with different hop characteristics

 

So yeah, I recommend checking them out if just for the fresh options & variety… and they also have Crawlers now, which are basically 32 oz aluminum cans of their fresh beer that you can take home in addition to their growlers.

 

Thursday night, Izzy & I visited Seven Stills Distillery’s Taproom for a special release of… BEERCEPTION!!! See… it’s a beer within a beer! How you ask? Well, as you may remember, Seven Stills specializes in making whiskey from distilled craft beers. Well… for Beerception… they barrel aged their Whipnose IPA in a Whipnose Whiskey barrel… and dry hopped the barrels with Chinook & Citra hops. Nice little spot… right over by Laughing Monk Brewing too (will check another time, private event Thursday) in the Dogpatch… go check it out… well, in a few months… they’re still getting things put together… it’s a work in progress…

 

Saturday, we did a new first… and that’s a DOUBLE BATCH!!! What’s that mean? TEN GALLONS of beer made… in ONE BREW. BOOM!!! SCALING IT UP!!! Well… sort of… see…this is how we did it different. We basically just doubled the grain bill ingredients (malt extract mostly in this case) to make a SUPER strong wort… and then diluting it down so that it’s ten gallons of wort instead of the five or so that we started with. Why? Because we wanted to make ten gallons of Stout to run a few experiments with… including some souring… and we wanted to cut the time in half (maybe more since we used cold water to dilute at the point where we were trying to cool the hot wort). Here are some pictures from our double batch of Chocolate Stout…

 

Sunday was the day of the big SF Homebrewers Guild / Seven Stills Barrel Aging Competition in which Izzy & I BOTH had entries of our delicious beverages. We had both a barrel-aged hard cider… and a barrel-aged Scotch Ale… and there were over 30 other barrel-aged beers there to try… and a few dozen others… so times were good. Food was provided by Casey’s Pizza Van… and yeah, EVERYBODY had a great time!!! Here are some pictures of the event…

 

Towards the end, they announced the winners for the Top 3 in the Barrel Aging Competition… and top for all of the other homebrew shared… People’s Choice, of course since there were almost all of the beer styles involved & with unique twists like Mexican Chocolate Imperial Stouts and all kinds of stuff. Well… the winners were announced… and some great beers won…

 

 

The Barrel Aged winners were announced… and we didn’t win for either beer… so we were mildly bummed… but then, the non-comp People’s Choice was announced… and somehow… we had won!!! Even though both beers were part of the competition…

 

Does this sound incorrect? Well… it should… apparently when you get a bunch of drunken hipsters together to tally up votes, math goes to the wayside. It’s a mix of Steve Harvey & a Hanging Chad… but when all was said & done… apparently Tricera-Scotch actually won 2^nd Place in the Barrel Aged Competition… and we don’t have a picture with the 2^nd place ribbon because… well, they just took our ribbon & didn’t replace it with anything… so yeah. Then again, I’m pretty sure that everything was just tallied wrong… and based on our feedback throughout the event… I’m pretty sure that we ACTUALLY won… even if it won’t show on the official ledger… regardless, LOTS of great beer & LOTS of great people!!! Even taking home 2^nd Place is pretty f**king amazing… and we’ll take it!!! WOOHOO FOR TERRIBLE LIZARD BREWING!!!

 

Anyway, so a great SF Beer Week 2016… and now we just get ready for the Super Bowl… and the clusterf**k that will be upon the Bay Area for the next few weeks. More on that to come… until then, have a Happy Groundhog Day everybody!!!