Picture Perfect Wednesday with Ralphie

 Yep. They will put your eye out...

The Electric Boogaloo of the Gods

Jupiter's Thunderballs (1903)
Starring: Anonymous Actors and Dancers

Director: Georges Méliès

Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Zeus's thunderbolts begin to fizzle, so he summons Hephaestus to repair them. While the upgraded bolts intially are able to call all nine Muses into Zeus' presence, it soon becomes clear that they work a too well!

Although not a very good example of how fantastic Georges Méliès' special effects could be--what we have here is rather clumsy and badly executed when compared to the perfection in some of his other films--this is one of my all-time favorite modern usages of the Greek gods. I don't think I will ever not feel like this is among the most fun three-and-a-half minutes of film that was ever made. Likewise, I don't think I'll ever have to supress the urge to make a Beavis and Buttlike like snicker and say, "He said balls" whenever I see its title. (I also think I'll never understand why both the French and English title reference Jupiter when the sets and costumes all reference the Greek names and versions of the featured gods rather than the Roman ones. Maybe it's a fourth-wall joke that's going over my head?)

Click below and watch "Jupiter's Thunderballs". If you end up not considering it among the best moments you had today, you may take me to task in the comments!)

Musical Monday with Atarashii Gakko!

Atarashii Gakko! is a Japanese rock girl band whose schtick is being weird and/or dancing in school uniforms. The topics of their song are school-related, pop-culture related, or horror/B-movie level sci-fi related; it some ways, it's what a girl band would be like if they originated in an anime/manga universe and their reality is now overlapping with ours. Their musical styles range from jazzy (as you'll see in the video below) to hip-hop to hard-rock edged pop.

Atrashii Gakko! formed in 2015 when its members were in their mid-teens. They are now all in their early 20s, so they'll either be breaking up for solo careers or re-inventing themselves any day now.

Meanwhile, here's a sample of what they offer via a video from 2019...

A fan posted the English translation of the song's lyrics to YouTube. Here they are for ease of reference:

--
Crossing Gate of Love 

The feeling of love that I can't tell anyone about 

Our eyes naturally meet 

The Desire Behind the Student Handbook 

You are the only one who I can consult. 

I said it many times to you... 

(Mizyu) "I can't help it, he confessed to me..." 

I like him so much. 

Why are you going out with him? 

I can't see anything. 

I don't need anything. 

I can meet him tomorrow again so I'm happy 

I almost forgot the light of love 

You are the only one who I can consult. 

I said it many times to you... 

(Mizyu) "I can't help it, he confessed to me..." 

I like him so much. 

Oh no! you're going out with him? 

I like him so much. 

I opened my heart and I told you my secret 

I like him so much. 

Why are you going out with him? 

I said many times to you... 

(Mizyu) "I can't help it, he confessed to me..." 

I like him so much. 

You are my Crossing Gate of Love.

--

If you're not afraid of color (and lots of strangeness), then you should click here and then here for a look at the music videos that first put these four young ladies on our radar.

Bones Coffee's Oh Fuuudge!

The Christmas Season is underway, and I'm going to be drinking and reviewing blends from Bones Coffee with appropriately festive themes over the next few Sundays. (I've previously covered Jingle Bones, as far as straight-up Christmas coffees go. Some consider Salted Caramel to be Christmas-y, and I've covered that one as well. You can read my reviews at those links, and maybe get a jump on your own Christmas coffee drinking.)

BONES COFFEE COMPANY: OH FUUUDGE!

I decided to get things started with the Oh Fuuudge! blend. I don't know if fudge is necessarily a Christmas-only thing--although I do have a friend who makes fudge only around the holidays as she's also making Christmas cookies--but the cartoon on the package will evoke strong Christmas vibes among Americans of a certain age since it consists of iconic images from "A Christmas Story" (1983). Of course, the name of this blend may do that all by itself for some. But I digress in a major way.

The Oh Fuuudge! blend is based on single-origin, Brazilian Arabica beans, and my review is based on a 4-oz. pre-ground "sample package". Other than informing consumers that it's a medium-roast, there is no specific mention of what should expected form the brews that result--although the name of the blend is something of a giveaway.

And there were early indications that Oh Fuuudge! would live up its name. There was a faint smell of chocolate from the package as I opened it. Strong and wonderful smell of chocolate and coffee filled my kitchen and office as the coffee brewed. As I poured my first cup of my latest Bones Coffee selection, I felt certain that I was about to drink something  that would taste akin to a melted block of fudge.

Interestingly, despite the aroma filling the air, the coffee itself tasted like... well, coffee with a little bit of chocolate added. This Bones blends tasted almost EXACTLY like a mix I sometimes make myself here at home where I take Starbucks Pike Place Roast (or some other medium roast I happen to have on hand) with roughly 4/5ths pre-ground coffee to 1/5th unsweetened, 100 percent cocoa powder. The dominant flavor is still coffee, but there's an solid taste of chocolate, too. My homemade mix works especially well with unsweetened almond milk or unsweetened vanilla almond milk, both of which seem to bring out the chocolate more strongly. 

The Bones Oh Fuuudge! coffee behaved exactly like my homemade mixture when I drank cups first with the unsweetened almond milk and then with the unsweetened vanilla almond milk. Both softened the edge of the coffee while bringing out the chocolate flavor more strongly. The unsweetened vanilla almond milk mixed particularly well with the enhanced chocolatey flavor. I also tried it with sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream, and the drink almost became too sweet for my taste.

One aspect of Oh Fuuudge! that is superior to some of the other Bones Coffee offerings is that the flavors remain stable whether you drink it hot, room temperature, or over ice. When drinking it iced, the chocolate comes a little more strongly, but only slightly more than when it's hot.

Although my initial reaction to Oh Fuuudge! was mild disappointment, because the strong aroma the blend gives off when brewing didn't match the subtle chocolate flavor of the final result. Ultimately, though, this is a tasty coffee that will go great with Christmas cookies or desserts. And, of course, by itself if you're just looking for a caffeinated pick-me-up.

An over-caffeinated Christmas Elf

It's a Sala Saturday

Here's another strange one-pager, from 1983 and early in writer/artist Richard Sala's career. Click on the image for a larger, more readable version.

 

The Avengers Dossier, Page Twenty-Four

It's time for another look at a guest star from the fourth season of "The Avengers"!

JACQUELINE PEARCE
In "A Sense of History", Jacqueline Pearce was a co-ed keeping a dark secret.

Born in 1946, Jacqueline Pearce was just starting her career as an actress when director John Gilling declared that she had a "wonderful face for film" and cast her in key roles in some of the most gothic of gothic horrors from Hammer Films--"Plague of Zombies" and "The Reptile", both released in 1966.

Although Pearce made a number of film appearances over the years, her career was focused mostly on the small screen, with her distinctive face and attractive figure being seen regularly on British television from the mid-1960s through the late 1990s. As anticipated by her debut roles, she appeared primarily in horror and sci-fi programs, but also appeared in thrillers, dramas, and spy shows (such her appearance on "The Avengers". 

Pearce primarily played shady characters or outright villains, but no matter how evil the person she was portraying, she still managed bring humanity and humor to the role. Well... and a strong air of danger or spookiness, depending on the role. She is best known for her role as the villainous Servalan on the grim space opera series "Blake's Seven", but she also appeared in numerous anthology horror series, such as "Shadows", "Leap in the Dark", and "Dead of Night".

Pearce retired from acting in 2007 and moved to South Africa to take care of orphaned vervet monkeys. She returned to England shortly before her death from lung cancer in 2018.

Christmas is coming...

 ... but here at Shades of Gray, we don't have the Elf on a Shelf. Instead, we have the Wing on a Swing.

Musical Monday with Sinead O'Connor

Please enjoy Sinead O'Connor performing "You Do Something to Me" at what may or may not be one of the many holiday parties we've held for the Shades of Gray staff and luminaries over the years.

Bones Coffee's Gingerbread Man

With the Christmas Season approaching fast, here's a review of a holiday-themed flavored coffee!

This elf stays jolly by staying caffeinated.

BONES COFFEE COMPANY: GINGERBREAD MAN

Up front, I should state that ginger is not my favorite flavor; I don't hate it, but I also don't seek it out. Typically, I've encountered it only around the holidays because a friend of mine used to bake all sorts of cookies, including gingerbread men. Her cookies were great, even the ginger ones, although I ate fewer of those than the others.

I generally don't seek out and review things I don't think I'm going to enjoy to the fullest, so I would probably have skipped the Gingerbread Man blend if it hadn't been included as one of the five flavors in the Christmas sampler pack. As such, this review, like most of my Bones Coffee reviews, is based on a 4-oz. pre-ground sample pack and brewed using my trusty drip coffeemaker. Also, like most of Bones Coffee's flavored blends, it is based on their medium-roast made with Arabica beans from Brazil.

When I first opened this package, and as the coffee brewed, there was no particular aroma that I could detect, other than perhaps that of coffee--this was not one of those times where the blend previewed itself by filling the air with wonderful scents. Although the aroma wasn't quite strong enough to make it down the hall to my office, the kitchen and hall was filled with a very pleasant gingerbread cookie smell.

The smell wasn't really present when the coffee was poured, nor was it present when I took my first sips of it. It turned out, though, that this is another Bones blend where the flavor grows stronger as you drink it. Initially, no flavors are present except a basic, but wonderfully smooth coffee taste with just a touch of something else--something spicy with a slight hint of sweet. This was tasty enough that I could probably have finished the whole cup without adding any unsweetened almond milk. I added some, though, about halfway through the cup, after I'd determined that the Gingerbread Man blend was another of those Bones blends where the flavor grows stronger in your mouth as you drink more of it. The drawback here was that the flavor was not one that I was particularly fond of.

As I mentioned, ginger is not a favorite flavor of mine, so that was already a strike against this blend. However, whatever flavor the Gingerbread Man blend is, it's a spicy, almost herbal one that I can't place. Further, this flavor moved from slightly sweet to bitter and sour the more I drank. Whatever this flavor is, it's not like any gingerbread cookie I've ever had. (Including some gingersnaps that I went out and bought, just to make sure I remembered what ginger cookies taste like. Yes--I go through such great sacrifices to ensure accuracy in my reviews! My coworkers were grateful for this review as well, if only for the cookies they got to eat.)

At room temperature, I did not like this blend at all. The herbal/spicy flavor retreated a bit when this coffee was consumed cold, but it tasted even more sour than when it was hot. The flavors seemed to build quicker, and I couldn't even finish the first cup of this blend over ice; adding unsweetened almond milk didn't help much. When I tried am iced cup with sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream, the flavors mixed to put me in mind of sour milk. This was not a blend that works iced.

I think this is the first Bones Coffee blend I've tried that I've been nothing but disappointed with. Perhaps it's meant to be consumed in tiny espresso cups, and then only one cup at a time, because I can't recommend drinking it by the tumbler- or mugful as I do.

Sari Maritza demonstrates how to drink Bones' Gingerbread Man

(Speaking of people outside of the blog-o-sphere, as I did above when I brought up co-workers amd cookie-baking friends, I mentioned when I reviewed the Sinn-O-Bun blend that I was going to give a pack of it to a friend who really, really likes cinnamon to see what her opinion of it was. She brewed it, and drank it, and she LOVED it. She also had her Significant Other, who isn't one for flavored coffees and who usually drinks his so black and strong he almost has to chew it instead of drink it, try a cup... and he enjoyed it so much that they've ordered a bag of it.)

It's 120+ years old... and still amazing!

A Turn-of-the-Century Illusionist (aka "An Up-to-Date Conjurer") (1899)
Starring: Georges Méliès and an Anonymous Dancer
Director: Georges Méliès

Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

A magician (Méliès) brings a mannequin to life as a beautiful ballet dancer, and he then proceeds to make her appear, disappear, and go through even more amazing transformations.

I have stated previously that I find the Georges Méliès films that are basically just magic tricks performed using in-camera-editing among his least interesting. I keep finding exceptions, however, so I think maybe I just happened upon some of his least interesting "stage magic" films... and the film I'm posting about today is one of the foremost exceptions to what I thought was a general rule. It's not as charming as "The Famous Box Trick" but it's ten times more impressive technically than "The Vanishing Lady".

"A Turn-of-the-Century Illusionist" is barely one minute long, and I guarantee that you will feel that it was time well spent if you enjoy movies at all. This 120+ year-old movie makes it very clear why Méliès is viewed as the father of cinematic special effects: This film has better and more believable transformations and other visual trickery than many of the ones made now... and Méliès was making it up as he went where the modern filmmakers are doing plug-and-play with decades of technical and technological developments.

You can even take a minute and watch this great piece of film history right now. And feel free to speak up in the Comments if I steered you wrong.