Miles-blogging #15

   
A milestone: Miles is one year old today. We've seen him grow from half his present size, a baby who could barely open his eyes and to whom we had to somehow feed tiny spoonfuls of milk on the day we brought him home, to this tough, curious, confident and headstrong little boy who drinks and eats like there's no tomorrow. It's been a fun year, often sleepless and occasionally worrying, but he's a happy boy who often seems very smart for his age and loves a good laugh.

Miles's language comprehension is gradually getting better all the time: he understands several things in both English and Thai although he's still not talking, but he does have his own word for milk, "na-na-na" (the Thai word is "nom"!), and says "o" when he points and wants to go somewhere. He's also fascinated by books: four or five times every day he wants to be read to and loves looking at big picture books. The rest of the time he likes to explore everywhere around the house, and one of his favourite things is to play with a broom and try to sweep the floor. He also likes music – he kind of jumps up and down a bit when he dances – and especially likes toys that make specifically musical sounds. He wais all the time now when he meets people, and now he waves goodbye too. All in all, he's a normal healthy kid, a little advanced in some areas, and we're very grateful.

And I figured out why so many people ask if he's a girl: Thai boys his age uniformly have short, jet black, spiky hair and are dressed in garish superhero t-shirts, whereas Miles's hair is longer and brown and he has better clothes sense. No wonder he's such a babe magnet for a one year-old.

1970s SF film

The Giant Spider Invasion, 1975, USA   DIRECTED BY BILL REBANE
This is a movie from which aspiring film makers can actually witness the mistake of shooting with the wrong backing, as well as inadequate funding, for whatever vision for your film you may have. The Giant Spider Invasion was always going to be a B-movie, but director Bill Rebane ended up with something more resembling a pioneering work of before-its-time gonzo film-making, having had a total of five producers during its creation and a shooting schedule that went ahead without ever having a complete script from which to work. The plot is hokum enough: a meteor crashes to Earth in Wisconsin and opens up an interdimensional gateway that somehow enables giant spiders to hatch from stone eggs and terrorise a small town. This is car-crash scriptwriting with added nonsense science, and while it was always intended as a send-up of ’50s monster movies Rebane clearly found himself struggling to keep the tongue-in-cheek vibe going, working against enormous production problems and a budget of a mere $300,000 from which to wrestle a passable movie. The final committee-designed script borrows clichés from everywhere, and provides a variety of small-town sub-plots that try hard to keep the interest up but are nothing more than a vehicle for some weak jokes and very mild titillation. Rebane also got some of the lowest-rent special effects of any ’70s skiffy movie, best being a VW Beetle effectively disguised as the biggest spider of all, with its red tail lights serving as the spider's eyes. Possibly the weakest aspect of all is the cinematography, with outdoor scenes poorly shot and devoid of any adequate lighting: it's often hard to see what's going on but if you could you'd definitely see the join. One thing I did like was the cast who all seem to share a "let's make a crap monster movie!" vibe, and there are some bigger names involved including Alan Hale Jr. from Gilligan's Island. Rebane himself is the first to acknowledge this film's many flaws calling it "The Giant Spider Disaster"; yes it's rubbish but in a strangely lovable way, and if Rebane had been able to defy his producers and flaunt its faults instead of trying to hide them, this film could have been far more admirable than it eventually turned out.

(Cross-posted with cult_movie)