Movie: Men Behind the Sun

So, we all know about the holocaust, and the horrible things that the Nazis did to the Jews, but most people don’t realize that the Japanese were doing very similar things in China during WW2. Enter the Chinese movie Men Behind the Sun, directed by T.F. Mous. This movie focuses on the horrible human experimentation by Unit 731, a biological warfare development team. Unit 731 did such wonderful things as testing the limits the human body with frostbite, decompression, and taking out someone’s stomach and attaching the esophagus directly to the intestines.

The film itself splits itself between some of the scientists, Chinese prisoners, and children who are at one of the facilities. The children are a member of the youth corps(think Japanese version of Hitler Youth). And it shows, very graphically, a good deal of the experiments. While many people think that the film is too much of an exploitation flick to have any credibility as an education piece, I highly disagree. I think the extreme fashion that these things are shown simply adds to the realism and severity of the crimes that were committed. It’s very apparent that the director did his homework on the subject matter and feels very strongly about what he’s showing. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart, but this was the first movie in a very long time to make me have to just kind of sit and think afterwards. It literally put me into a state of quiet shock.

Now, a REAL warning about the movie. The original version did have a few incredibly controversial scenes. In one scene a real cat is eaten alive by frenzied rats(about a 4 minutes scene) on camera. Those rats are later set ablaze towards the end of the film. While it is difficult to excuse animal cruelty in a film for nothing more than entertainments sake, you should not let that alone turn you away. Even without these scenes, the movie holds a lot of power, and is still incredibly gross(for you gorehounds).**On top of this, there is real footage of a young boy’s autopsy that is used during the film too.

All in all, this is a definite buy if you’re at all interest in the subject matter. It’s gruesome, it’s intense, and it’s powerful. Not for the faint of heart, but worth trying anyways.

9/10

**note: as of the writing of this review, the only version available in the US is a release that has the cat/rat scenes cut out of the film. I was able to get the uncut version in a limited edition boxset that was recently released, but appears to already be out of print.

So, I’m sure you’ve all seen the new Skittles commercial where the guy turns anything he touches into Skittles, right? Well, this commercial is flawed. If the man turns anything he touches to Skittles, then how is he clothed? And he mentions having a kid.. How the fuck did he have sex without turning the other party into a big ol’ cummy pile of Skittles? It’s this lack of attention to details that is killing this country!

Fuck you, Mars, Incorporated! Your $21 billion of annual sales can’t buy you out of THIS one!

…actually, that’s false. I’d totally be willing to forget everything for a mere $100.

The ball is in your court, sirs and madams. YOUR court. I await your email.

Recently I have noticed various things that EVERYBODY seems to say… and because of that, you know they’re lying, or just overstating something.

“I’M CURRENTLY DATING THE BEST (guy/girl) IN THE WORLD! I’M SO IN LOVE!” - Now, when you have like, 8 million people saying that, how can everybody be dating the best guy or gal in the world? That motherfucker must really get around.

“I’M THE PARENT OF A BEAUTIFUL (age) KID!” - …Then we see the picture and know they’re lying about a part of that sentence…

“MUSIC IS MY LIFE!” - I’ll just do a direct translation here, “I listen to the radio in the car, and go to sleep to my CDs, but the actual music is not a very influential to my life whatsoever. But if I say it’s my life, it gives me an excuse to be condescending to you about your taste in music.” People who say this also tend to listen to a very small slice of music. That is a big indicator that they are full of shit. If your music IS your life, then shouldn’t you have a broader taste in music? That’s a lot of life wasted listening to the same 3 bands over and over. -NOTE: This also works if you substitute “music” for another form of media, like movies.-

“THE BIBLE” (listed as a favorite book on profiles[like on MySpace or Facebook]) - This means “I’VE NEVER READ THIS, BUT IF I PUT IT THERE, IT MAKES ME A GOOD PERSON!” -NOTE: This can usually be substituted for any holy book, as anyone who’s actually read them can tell you they’re quite boring, and not high on entertainment value.-

“I’M CREATIVE, SMART, AND FUNNY.” - Generally in the sense of an introduction or “about me” section of a MySpace/Facebook type site, usually not stated quite as boldly, but also generally has “unique” thrown in there. This typically translates to “I quote movies/music/books/comedians a lot and laugh at my own jokes.” Sometimes, “funny” can also mean “I purposely act like a dumbass for cheap laughs.”

So, my conclusion? People need to STFU, or become more original, god damn it.

As I promised you here are a few pictures of the kittens we got last october, Orion and Nebula.

Orion (Ryan)
Ryan’s the more assertive one of the two. He’s also very attached to my wife, he insists on laying/sleeping on her shoulder. He’s growing up fast though, soon he’ll need both shoulders. His fur is very thick and soft and has a beautiful pattern.

Nebula (Nebby)
Nebby is a bit of a weirdo. Sometimes we think she has brain damage. She walks kinda funny and will ‘flop’ in the most inconvenient places in the most uncomfortable ways and sleep. She’s a bit smaller than Ryan but almost as soft.

I promised my wife that if the first appointment with the IND went well, we would look into getting kittens. A few days before that appointment we also happened to see a little ad for kittens in one of the local supermarkets, so I had the number handy when we went there.

Well as you can read in the previous post, everything went more than fine so once home I called the number from the ad. Some guy picked up with a very heavy accent, I could barely make out what he said. Apparently they were willing to drop by and show us the (2) kittens they had left and we could decide which one we wanted.

About half an hour later we saw a van pull up and a couple came out, walking back ‘n forth in front of the complex, apparently with no idea where we lived. We walked outside and they came in the hallway, the woman holding a small box with 2 kittens inside of it. One was gray striped and the other black with some white. Mew, mew, mew! They were both very cute so we took both of them, and the couple (Polish from what I gathered) were relieved.

Ellen still had no clue what the heck we were doing until we handed her one. We took ‘m inside and let ‘m roam around a bit. They smelled so they had to be washed as well. We were told they were about 8 weeks old but they were much too small to be of that age. I’m guessing they simply wanted to get rid of them. We think they never even left their ‘birthbox’ until now.

Then of course it was time to name the 2 new feline additions to our family. So, as is my custom, I went with the astronomy genre and named then Orion and Nebula. Ryan and Nebby for short. I’ll add some pictures ‘n stuff in the next post.