Category Archives: Movies

Missile to Wisconsin

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NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope Transiting the Moon

Last month, when we went north to the cabin, we froze. Memorial Day may be the unofficial start of summer most places, but not on Lake Superior. This time should be different. A gigantic heat dome is forming that will engulf the Eastern United States. With our only choices being to remain here in Sweat Louis or flee north, I choose the later.

This weather situation triggered a memory of an old, cheesy, Sci-Fi B-movie that I had once seen. In this show men travel to the moon, where they find oxygen, a breathable atmosphere and women. All that I could remember about it was a sequence where a party of astronauts were walking across the moon’s surface. They had to be careful to stick to the shade, because when one of their number strays into the sunlight, he bursts into flame and is incinerated. Through the miracle of AI, this rather vague description was able to find me the title of the film, Missile to the Moon. This 1958 movie was actually a remake of the 1953 film, Cat Women of the Moon. Both movies sport the same plot; a colony of desperate women lure unsuspecting men into their trap. Let the misogyny ensue. Maybe next time they could just send Elon Musk?

All of this is merely preamble to our next rocket trip north. Eschewing our normal route, we are headed to the cabin via Wisconsin. Although, we are both retired and under no fixed schedule, our visit to the Badger state is time limited. The encroaching heat dome will soon engulf that place too. Consequently, we have limited our itinerary to three attractions:

  • The House on the Rock – An eclectic, complex, crazy quilt of architecturally distinct rooms, streets, and gardens designed by Alex Jordan Jr.
  • Taliesin – Architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s estate and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
  • Witches Gulch – This otherworldly gorge is a mossy slot canyon in the Wisconsin Dells.

House on the Rock and Taliesin are closely located, but supposedly Wright and Jorden did not get along. There’s a story there. The Dells is devoted to waterparks and while we have chosen a more natural itinerary, our motel is fully pool equipped. I hope we don’t get sunburned. 😉

Candle in the Wind

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Photo by Mariloa Grobelska on Unsplash

Pictured is a statue of Marilyn Monroe modeled after her iconic pose from the 1955 film The Seven-Year Itch. The statue depicts the actress in a white cocktail dress designed by William Travilla. The original scene was filmed on a windy subway grating in New York City. Marilyn Monroe was a prominent American actress but died way too young. Yesterday, June 1, 2026, marks her 100th birthday. That would have made her more than a year older than Harry, who won’t turn a hundred until a year from this coming August.

Hanger 18

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Avro Canada VZ-9AV Avrocar

We left home, headed east and drove to Dayton. We got here early enough to visit the Air Force Museum. Anne noticed unusual behavior among the other couples. The men would stride off, leaving the women to follow as best they could. One woman asked her, are we having fun? She was, unlike the questioner. We closed the museum. I had a great time and appreciated Anne’s patience.

While working for Boeing, I would routinely travel to Dayton on business. I almost never had the opportunity to visit the museum. Long ago I watched a cheesy Sci-Fi movie called Hanger 18. Starring Darren McGavin and Robert Vaughn its story involved a UFO encounter with the Space Shuttle. Lives were lost and most of the movie dealt with a coverup, culminating with a fiery plane crash into Hanger 18 that burned all of the evidence.

In our family, this movie became lore. Every time I visited Wright Pat, my brother Chris would ask about the space aliens there. I am retired now and am finally willing to come clean. See above photo of the alien flying saucer. 😉 

Release the Kraken

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Jaws, octopus jaws, giant octopus jaws, cretaceous giant octopus jaws. Recently, a Japanese archeologist using a novel technique has found the jaws of giant cretaceous octopus in the fossil record, an animal that otherwise is composed of soft tissue. Searching the ocean floor for sedimentary nodules, then first microplanning these nodules and then reconstructing these slices like in a CT scan, images of these jaws have been revealed. Based upon the size of these jaws, scientists estimate the octopus’s size as large as fifty feet long. Fanciful artist’s impressions soon accompanied this discovery. 

Down through the ages octopuses have been reimagined as giant sea monsters, capable of attacking sailing ships. In reality the more modestly sized Giant Pacific octopus is as big as they get nowadays. Pictured above is one, with a hand for scale. One such octopus is the star of a new movie that dropped on Netflix today, Remarkably Bright Creatures. Starring Sally Field and Lewis Pullman as an aquarium’s odd couple. In this show, octopus Marcellus (voiced by Alfred Molina) coaxes these two humans together, so that they may heal each other in this shmaltzy melodrama. Both humans are wounded when they begin treatment. Comparable to another Netflix movie, the pandemic favorite, My Octopus Teacher, this movie could have been called My Octopus Therapist. 

Mark of the Octopus

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You could call it a love affair with all thing’s octopi, but at this point it is more like a one-night stand. The night before last, we watched the documentary, My Octopus Teacher. This movie tells the story of the year spent by filmmaker Craig Foster forging a relationship with a common octopus in a South African kelp forest. It won Best Documentary at the 93rd Academy’s. Its cinematography is mesmerizing, combined with its hypnotic narration, no wonder I was smitten.

Yesterday, I stayed home and Flora, the housekeeper who came to clean the house. Anne, Jay and Carl went to Point Lobos and walked along the coast. Come the afternoon, Flora finished and the four of us went to Monterey. After lunch, we hit the aquarium. Typically, we go there first thing in the morning, trying to beat the rush. This time it was the reverse. We closed the place. By the end of the day, the aquarium really clears out. Our last two hours there were the best that I ever experienced. The field trips had all left, and the place was actually quite empty. The docents outnumbered the remaining visitors. At closing time, I swung by the octopus to see it one more time. Previously, it had been curled up on itself in a corner, barely visible. This time it was out and about. There were three of us there to watch him, a man, a docent and myself. We were all checking him (a male Pacific octopus) out as he did the same to us.

That night, I continued my octopus-adventure. I watched a Sea Hunt episode entitled “Mark of the Octopus”. This sixties TV show featured Lloyd Bridges as frogman Mike Nelson, a sort of skin-diving detective. In this episode an evil doer was murdering fellow divers and covering up his acts by leaving his victim’s bodies covered with red hickeys that were supposed to be caused by some killer octopus’s suckers. Nelson wasn’t buying it and in twenty-six minutes had solved the case, brought the perps to justice and exonerated the octopus.

In her book, The Soul of an Octopus, author Sy Montgomery describes these creatures as such: “A giant Pacific octopus—the largest of the world’s 250 or so octopus species—can easily overpower a person. Just one of a big male’s three-inch-diameter suckers can lift 30 pounds, and a giant Pacific octopus has 1,600 of them. An octopus bite can inject a neurotoxic venom as well as saliva that has the ability to dissolve flesh.” This sounds pretty scary. They are certainly other worldly and the fact that they are intelligent makes them fascinating to me. An extraterrestrial from our own world. Behind glass they don’t act frightening. More curious, as I was of him. Not that I was ready to plunge into his 47 °F tank, but I think that the water temperature had more to do with that.

I Really Don’t Care Do U

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The House for Melania

I do care. I seethe with rage. Yesterday, saw the unveiling of two things that are better not viewed, Melania and the Epstein files or at least more of those files. In all honesty, I have not seen the movie, but then again nobody else has either. About the files, I have no intention of wading through them. I did checkout the DOJ website, where I had to attest that I was 18 or older, unlike the children describe within them. In this same vein, I warn readers about what follows.

████ reported an unidentified female friend who was forced to perform oral sex on President Trump approximately 35 years ago in NJ. The friend told Alexis that she was approximately 13-14 years old when this occurred, and the friend allegedly bit President Trump while performing oral sex. The friend was allegedly hit in the face after she laughed about biting Trump. The friend said she was also abused by Epstein.

As explicit and X-rated as these quotes maybe they pale in comparison to what the DOJ has elect not to reveal. Apparently, their sense of propriety prevents them from doing so. We will see where that goes. This latest drop is still a work-in-progress, what with reports of pages suddenly disappearing.  

Complainant reported his ex-girlfriend’s daughters were victims of Epstein’s and one was murdered. While working as a limousine driver, complainant recalled picking up Donald Trump in 1995 to take him to Dallas Fort Worth Airport. During that ride, complainant recalled some of the things Trump spoke about on his cell phone were very concerning and described being “a few seconds from pulling the limousine over on the median and within a few seconds of pulling him out of the car and hurting him due to some of the things he was saying.”

With the release of these documents there is also a new term of art. A disclaimer that announces that simply appearing in these files is not an indication of guilt. That being said, maybe being mentioned thousands of times is a preponderance of evidence that does signify guilt. Individually, these statements are bad, but collectively they are damning and I hope reinvigorate calls for justice.

Donald Trump, the president, had parties at Mar-a-Lago called “Calendar Girls.” Jeffrey Epstein would bring the children in, and Trump would auction them off. He measured the children’s vulva and vaginas by entering a finger and rated the children on tightness. The guests were elder men and included Elon Musk, Don Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump. Attorney Allan Dershowitz was also there with Attorney Bob Shapiro. We were taken in rooms, forced to give oral sex to Donald J Trump. Forced to allow them to penetrate us. I was 13 years old when Donald J Trump raped me. Ghislaine Maxwell was also present.

Enough about these files, at least for now. About the movie, the reviews are in:

  • If syphilis was a movie! — Indiewire
  • I can’t understand a f*cking thing she says! — Variety
  • Should be considered a war crime! — Hollywood Reporter
  • Like being taken hostage by the Taliban! — NY Times
  • Seeing Melania’s journey from Slovian prostitute to First Lady is like going barefoot through a field of Lego with explosive diarrhea! — Roger Ebert
  • If Epstein did kill himself, watching this film may have been why! — Screen