The End is Near

So there I was, Friday night and me with no hot date. Same as always. Dead tired from dealing with things like an encounter with a person who has extreme cultural background differences from mine (rephrased from my earlier gnashing of teeth style statement), I decided hit the hay. Snoring in moments, the chaos stopped briefly. That is until my body decided to say, “Wake-ey Wake-ey!” at 2:00 AM in the morning. Oh the joy of insomnia.

Now around 2:00 AM, there's not much on usually except infomercials or M-TV glitz. Tonight, was a bit of an exception though as one of those wonderful cheap B-grade science fiction flicks was in progress. In this case, I was blessed with viewing “The Day the World Ended”.



Saved from watching the drivel on M-TV, I felt a bit of gratitude even if I couldn't sleep. Settling in to my already settled in state of a failed attempt at sleeping, I watched the campy acting. Ah, some good ol' fashioned Corman goodness. One thing can be said about films of this era, not only were they filmed in black and white, but the portrayal of good and evil mirrored the sharp delineation of light. No muddy gray evil-good guys or charcoal stained good-nasty women – no sir! The villains are easy to spot. And not only that, but the good guys triumph to boot. Sweet Sugar-Ray Leonard... it's a TKO!

While B-grade films like this might not hold up to the standards one expects from films today, it still has net value. And there's something to be said about black and white film. The artistic feel of it is simply awesome. So while I'm not really going to cover the content of the film, I'll say this: I had a bit of fun watching the film even if the acting was stiffer than an over starched shirt. Thank you Roger Corman – you made insomnia a bit more tolerable.