April 2009

A&E's hit drama series " The Beast " starring Patrick Swayze and Travis Fimmel, wraps up the season as Barker and Ellis solve a life or death case that has been looming over Barker for years. The season finale premieres Thursday, April 23 @ 10PM ET/ 9PM CT.

In the season's final episode, "No Turning Back," the case that has haunted Barker for his entire career resurfaces and all the pieces finally come together. Barker gets a list of the six people involved in the Red Gauntlet operation and

Gene Simmons and the rest of KISS are wrapping up a whirlwind South American tour that has taken them through Argentina and Chile. The band played to sold-out houses and KISSOnline.com has photos and video from the concerts, including several full songs from River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires.

The fourth season of Gene Simmons Family Jewels premieres this summer.

More: KISSOnline.com

matter which way, no matter which destination: The Audi A4 allroad quattro.

The Audi R8 5.2 FSI quattro: Outstanding performance and fascinating design.

A&E Network takes tattoo television on a road trip through the cross-country travels of master tattoo artist Thomas Pendelton on "Tattoo Highway." The 13-episode, half-hour series will premieres Wednesday, May 27 at 10PM ET/PT on A&E.

Pendelton and his business partner and wife Monica have transformed a 1970s tour bus into a tattoo parlor on wheels, featuring a swanky interior and top-of-the-line tattooing equipment. It's a tattoo shop that can tattoo anyone, anywhere.

"From the creation

A lantern usually lights the way, but for Watanuki and his plague of a partner Domeki, a lantern hide

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE (1959 – 1962 release)Directed by Joseph GreenSTARRING:Herb Evers – Dr. Bill CortnerLeslie Daniels – KurtVirginia Leith – Jan Compton (head of Jan Compton)Adele Lamont - Doris PowellBonnie Sharie – Blonde StripperPaula Maurice – Brunet StripperEddie Carmel – Beast in the Closet“Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”William Congreve (The Mourning Bride – 1697)Amen to that, Brother William. Just ask Dr. Bill Cortner, mad scientist extraordinaire in The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. As the handsome doctor will learn, a woman’s rage - nothing to ignore under the most typical of circumstances - will become particularly acute if you keep her severed head alive in a pan of blood. But let’s back up a step. We are getting ahead of ourselves, and we certainly wouldn’t want to miss a single element of this consistently sleazy, brilliant, and wildly watchable piece of B-movie history. Let’s begin with this: As Brian Senn points out in the liner notes of the wonderful Synapse Films DVD release of Brain, this is the only time a studio’s publicity campaign ever undersold a picture. The Artist International publicity department release read: “an adventure into a terror-filled world of science gone mad were anything and everything can and does happen.” Hells bells, considering the mad dramatics and blood-rich insanity of the proceedings, this blurb qualifies as dignified understatement. Let’s get to it.Our film begins with a black screen and silence. A woman’s breath is heard first, then her voice, frail and thin: “let me die.” The voice gathers strength for another effort, but can manage nothing stronger. “Let me die.” Then the titles come up in white over black, simple and brutal, accompanied by the weighty, baroque theme music of Abe Baker and Tony Restaino (their one and only film credit. The film, in fact, is stuffed with names in which the appellation “one and only film credit” will apply, including most of the principal actors and, for all intense and purposes, the director, Joseph Green).The scene chewing (and no film as yet in the files of Radiation Cinema has more wonderfully chewed scenes as does Brain) begins in an operating room where a collapsing breathing bag tells us a patient has just died. Those in attendance stare down for a moment at the still body. “I should have know he was as good as dead when they wheeled him in,” says Dr. Cortner (Bruce Brighton). And right there with the first line of dialogue, the utter weirdness begins: What does this line mean, exactly? The Doctor should have realized the patient was a lost cause and – what? Not even tried? Just gone through the motions? Put the poor bastard out of his misery with a pillow? And why aren’t any vitals being checked? Where is the mad scramble to save the patient after a heart stops? Where are the Vaseline covered electro-pads or the concerned, back-humped doctor bouncing up and down on the dead patient’s chest like a frenzied poodle? Not here, that’s for damn sure. In this laid back operating room, nurses and doctors simply gaze down at the dying/dead man as though vaguely interested and only mildly confused – a staff doing the daily crossword puzzle in the break room.“You did everything you could, Dr. Cortner,” assures one of the nurses.“Everything? Says the doctor. “Everything but save my patient.”“Everything in the books,” clarifies a younger attending surgeon who will turn out to be Dr. Cortner the Younger. The young whipper-snapper strides dramatically away from the operating table, then turns: “Now, Dad, do I have permission to take over and do things my way?” “The operating room is no place to experiment,” says Dad, sounding haggard. This is clearly not the first time that junior has asked dad if he can borrow a body, so that he may do things “his way.” Clear also is that the doctors and hospital staff of yesteryear were not subject to the litigious environment of our own time.He’s dead,” says young Dr. Cortner. “I can’t do any harm.”“Very well,” says Dad. “The corpse is yours. Do what you want to do.” Jesus! Let’s hope the young doctor isn’t into anything too . . . experimental.Yessiree, the weird bells that signal unusual weirdness have begun ringing, and they won’t really stop until the end credits roll.What young Dr. Bill Cortner (Herb Evers) wants to do is crack open the dead gentleman’s skull, clip electrodes directly to the brain, and thereby stimulated the motor areas to invigorate the heart. Dr. Cortner is a trail blazer in the area of exposed brain stimulation, a field in which he is the sole advocate and pioneer. His procedure works, and the patient is brought back to life and wheeled from the operating room (although presumably he will need a skull plate of about 6 inches square fitted later). Nurses scurry out as well so that our two Doctors are left alone. As the two remove their masks, snap off their gloves, and do a little post-opt scrubbing, it is revealed that Dr. Bill the younger not only believes in brain stimulation, but further, has developed a secret “special compound” in his off-hospital laboratory that, when used in conjunction with cerebral electric shocks, will make transplantation of any body part possible. It is made equally clear that Pop thinks his son’s work is all bullshit and nonsense.Painfully obvious as well is the son’s desperate need for any hint of fatherly support – not a speck of which is forthcoming. Sure, Son, you just saved my patient. Whoopee shit. Now what about the aftereffects of skull removal, clamps squishing the gray matter, and electric shock to the brain? A Doctor may experiment on “rabbits, mice, monkeys – but never people,” lectures the old fussbudget, wagging his finger. As for your transplant experiments – impossible!“It can be done,” yelps Dr. Bill, his lips in a pout. “I’m close. So very close!”This generational bickering is interrupted by the entrance of Dr. Bill’s fiancée, Jan Compton (Virginia Leith), who is either the elder Dr. Cortner’s nurse or secretary (she comes in wearing a lab coat, but is also ordered about like a girl Friday). “I’m so proud of you I could kiss you,” she says to the young Doctor, referring to his surgical success. As doc junior moves in for a soul kiss, Jan turns her face. “Careful or your father might report us.”“And stop the floor show?” says dad, practically leering. “Once you two are married it won’t be fun to watch anymore.”“I can promise you one thing,” says Jan, looking her future husband up and down, “your grandchildren won’t be test tube babies.” Well, alright then. Father? Son? Future daughter in law? Shall we all take a breath before things get irrevocably creepy?Jan is hustled out of the room to see to the senior doctor’s travel arrangements for a medical convention. Elder Doctor waits for the door to close before boring in. Son, let me ask you something. The superintendent came down on me like a ten-ton bag of shit. He thinks you’ve been stealing body parts from the hospital amputee cases. You know – arms, legs, hands, stuff like that. Would that be you, Son?So what if I have been stealing a stray part now and then? barks junior. Jeez, Dad, aren’t you the one that’s always harping about the need to experiment? Damn, Dad, can’t I do anything right?Son, try and pay attention: with regard to experimentation, Cats, Mice, Rabbits – it’s all good! Humans and their appendages – bad! And that means even when they’re dead, Son. I can’t cover your ass forever. Now, two final things before I go. First, for God’s sake, stay away from the family’s “country house.” The place gives me the creeps, and you spend to much time there as it is with your Godless, hideous experiments. I think it’s unhealthy. And second – are you paying attention? -- “the line between scientific genius and obsessive fanaticism is a thin one. Now, I want you on the right side!” Sure, Pop. Have a great convention. Knock ‘em dead.With that Dad is out of the picture, off to his medical convention, and he can be thankful he has a good alibi for the next few days. No sooner does the lab door stop swinging on Dad’s exit than a nurse tells Son that someone named “Kurt” has left an urgent message. Kurt (Leslie Daniels) will turn out to be junior’s hysterical, over-dramatic, deformed lab assistant (every mad scientist must have one. One day, someone will write a great scene in a great film: all movie lab assistants from various horror films - with their drools, hunchbacks and shrill laughter – sharing a pitcher at the local tavern, bitching about their madmen bosses). The nurse says that Kurt insists that Cortner come immediately to the country place, as something terrible has happened. Say, I’ve got an idea, says Dr. Cortner, pulling his fiancée close for a snuggle, lets make a weekend of it. You’ve always wanted to see the place! While this doesn’t exactly have the makings of a weekend in Vermont, the two are off.And as the couple motor along through the country, exchanging wind-blown smiles, the film transforms completely into a nitro-burning funny car, tires completely melting as we go into the heart of strange. The doc, it turns out, is as aggressive a driver as he is a surgeon and crashes the car over a guard rail. Dr. Cortner is thrown harmlessly down a slope of soft grass, but Jan is not so lucky. She is left in the blazing, wrecked car, her decapitated head sent into the backseat. We see her nerve-twitching hand seeming to reach toward the sky, but when the doctor comes running up, the hand sinks into the flames. Thinking fast, the doctor takes his jacket off and gingerly wraps up Jan’s head inside it. You can see the wheels turning in the doctor’s head (this is why doctors get the big bucks – they can think on their feet. Average citizens like ourselves would be wasting all this precious time in the grips of something useless like mind-numbing horror and grief), and sure enough, he plucks Jan’s head out of the back seat as though gingerly snatching a hot, baked potato from the red coals of a bonfire. Dang, that’s hot! Indeed, luck is with the doctor this day. Not only was Jan’s head sliced cleanly, but his precipitous accident has occurred within trotting distance from the country place. So, tucking the head under his arm, he begins his rather sheepish, mincing run to the house. I say mincing because actor Herb Evers is forced to do a sort of running-in-place, simulated run for much of the scene. The scene screams for a true tracking shot, with a camera on a dolly, or perhaps even multiple cameras – all well beyond the budget, of course, so what Evers is forced to do is take very short steps, looking furtively around while limbs and leaves go by his face slowly. The director even treats us to a shot of Evers’ feet doing their happy, little prance. I have never seen documentation to substantiate my suspicions, but I would wager the actor’s soon-coming name change (he went from Herb Evers to Jason Evers very quickly after the picture’s release) was the result of watching himself in this scene. No man could come away with even a shred of dignity. Cortner, who is meant to look like a desperate man defying God and Heaven, racing with the head of his beloved through miles of countryside; manages only to look like a seven-year old swiping a sack of cookies from the cupboard, sneaking to his secret closet.Once at the country estate, we meet “Kurt,” Dr. Cortner’s lab assistant. The country estate, we discover, is Cortner’s house of hideous blunders – a warehouse of botched experiments and living mistakes, of which Kurt is the primary example. Never out of a lab coat, Kurt is an ex surgeon who has lost his arm in some passed accident - and was willing to chance one of Dr. Cortner’s experiments. Cortner grafted on a dead arm, hoping to regenerate it. It hasn’t taken very well, however, and is simply attached to Kurt’s shoulder like a half-warm, shrunken thing of rubber. There have been successive procedures, but each on leaves Kurt’s arm a bit more shriveled, a bit harder and thicker. It seems to cause Kurt much pain, as he is constantly messaging it, or perhaps it itches. Whatever, Kurt is now conscripted in slavery as only Dr. Cortner, once his formula is perfected, can transplant a living, arm; replacing the rancid, mummified limb Kurt presently carries around like a dead log.And that’s not all the country estate has to offer. Locked in a closet is, as Kurt will later put it, is “the sum total of Dr. Cortner’s mistakes.” We don’t see this thing until near the end, but we can hear it hiss and gargling as it tries to breath, gulping and groaning wetly from behind the door, and can only imagine the twisted face and misshapen breathing holes that could produce such choked gurglings.The procedure for keeping Jan’s severed head alive is accomplished with seeming ease. We quickly find Dr. Cortner taking off his surgical gloves, while in the background Jan’s head, still unconscious, is set upright in a pan of blood and formula. She has electrical pads and surgical clamps attached to her like scaffolding. Beakers are in stands around her head, filled with the dark serum, sent bubbling into the tray by tubes.After it’s been established that Jan’s head has about two days to live, tops, Dr. Cortner dashes off to find a body. Where does one “find” a body, asks Kurt rather stupidly. “There are ways,” says Dr. Cortner, leering a bit. “There are ways.” Before leaving, Kurt begs the Doctor to have a look at the thing in the closet, which, after all, was the reason he asked Dr. Cortner up to the country house in the first place - before the Doc got all sidetracked with the severed head of his fiancée. Cortner begrudgingly agrees, and opens the tiny viewing door into the closet. The slurping, gagging noises from inside increase as we see Dr. Cortner’s face register horror (far more distress, it must be said, than was registered at the sight of his love’s bodiless head). I can’t deal with this now, proclaims the doc, who is forced to establish his priorities: First a body for the head of my fiancée, then the misshapen monster in the closet. And just where does our mad scientist go when scouting out bodies for the head of his bride-to-be? Why, strip clubs, whorehouses, beauty pageants, and modeling agencies, of course. Hell, he even spends a few hours simply tooling around side streets like a teenager looking for a lucky hook up. The bulk of the rest of the doctor’s film time is taken up with his distinctly smutty, shockingly unhurried, search for a body beautiful. Meanwhile, while our doctor is prowling through the sleaziest, cheapest backrooms the city has to offer, Jan has come to life, and yipes, is she one unhappy head. And really who can blame her? Gals, put yourselves in her place: Her boyfriend has turned her into a loathsome, bodiless head, set her in a bedpan full of yuck, and left her with a monster and a yammering, overdramatic flunky. She is fit to be tied, except that there is nothing to tie. But there is one, glimmering, ugly bright spot for Jan: the serum that courses through her head has given her telepathic powers. She now controls the creature that gurgles in the closet, can order it about, and plans to use it to exact her revenge. As she strengthens and develops her link to the closet monster, Jan bides her time by engaging Kurt in a torturous bitch-fest, finally running her trap so that in one of the later scenes Kurt shouts “Dr. Cortner should have cut your tongue out!”The films sputters for a bit in the center with Jan and Kurt bitching at one another other like God-blighted siblings ("You're nothing but a freak of death, and a freak of life!" Kurt screams at her during one heated exchange), and Cortner sampling the lower depths (and taking a distinctly unprofessional pleasure in this quest); but the film kicks back into high gear for the home stretch once Jan convinces the closet thing to make a lunge for Kurt. The beast thrusts its hand out the small closet window and tears Kurt’s arm off (the good one), pulling it right off out of the socket and back into the darkness of the closet. Kurt stands paralyzed in an orgasm of pain, his face pressed against the closet door, then commences a glorious death scene - with actor Leslie Daniels definitely earning his day’s pay. Kurt lurches around the laboratory/house for a few minutes, tramping up and down stairs, flapping his useless flipper and leaving blackish trails of blood and gore over the walls. Jan provides the background music with her insane cackle througnout. By the time Kurt finally slumps to the floor, his lab coat is drenched.Moments after Kurt finally (finally) calls it quits, Dr. Cortner arrives home with the winner of the evening’s talent search, a body model with a surly attitude (Adele Lamont). After finding Kurt’s bloody corpse in the lab/basement, Cortner thinks fast: Throwing a spare lab coat over Kurt’s body, he returns upstairs with some drinks, drugs Adele, and carries her downstairs for some quick surgery. “These things have to be done,” says Cortner, talking to Jan who is watching with a grief-stricken expression (oddly, Jan the Head has the best moral compass in the film, as well the only discernable sense of remorse or guilt over the atrocities that are planned for her sake). He stretches the unconscious girl on the operating table. “When she does come to, it will be your head consciously awakening for her,” he tells Jan (if anyone does manage to figure out how that could work, would you please drop me an email and try to break it down? I can’t quite bring it into focus). The finale comes as Jan manages in one last burst to bring the beast in the closet out into the light, as it tears the closet door off its hinges in an effort to get to Dr. Cortner. The creature, the result of all Dr. Cortner’s mistakes, comes rampaging out of the closet (the part is played by carnival performer Eddie Carmel, often billed as the “Jewish Giant.” Mr. Carmel suffered from Acromegaly and stood in the vicinity of 8 feet tall. He is given layers of lumpy makeup here, and a huge plastic eyeball, but all one really notices is his amazing size). The beast creature kills Cortner, but not before biting a good-sized chunk out of his face first (the monster holds the flap of flesh up for a moment, staring at it curiously, before letting it splat to the floor). The creature also sets the lab on fire by knocking over a Bunsen burner into a pool of alcohol (I’m not a scientist, so I have to ask: do all labs have one of these burners going 24-7? And why are they always set near something as flammable as a lacy curtain or a tray of alcohol?). As the flames lick around her pan, Jan screams “I told you! You should have let me die!” Jan and Cortner, who may be already dead, burn up with the building as Jan’s cackle plays in the background. The Monster escapes the flaming building, carrying the body model, and their survival hints at another movie I would love to see; but alas, this was Director/Writer Joseph Green’s sole movie.Time for the Good Stuff.The Good Stuff Pt. I: Slumming with the DoctorOkay, once Dr. Cortner gets his fiancée’s severed head stabilized in a pan of fluid and blood, gets the electrodes all hooked up, and has the inter-pan drips working to his satisfaction, his real work begins. Finding an adequately hot body proves to be the real challenge. Cortner turns out to be a very discriminating shopper, checking out many venues, refusing to submit to an impulse purchase. His first stop, though, really sets the tone: a decidedly low rent strip club. If a less selfconscious, sleazier, cheaper slice of American life has ever been brought to the screen, at any rating from PG to XXX, I haven’t seen it. The music sounds as lively as a drugged serpent, the customers all seem to have shiny faces and crooked teeth (men and women), and one can almost smell the feather boas, stale sweat, and perfume. The strippers all look a pound or two over their fighting trim, and all have the pale, translucent skin of the true night crawler. Our doctor casts his eyes on a blonde stripper (Bonnie Sharie - billed as “Blonde Stripper) doing a heavy-hipped, coarse bump and grind and follows her back to her dressing room, which looks like a poorly lit bathroom with a couch. Here’s a taste of their witty repartee:“Are you hustling for the house?” he asks her flatly.“I hustle for myself,” snaps Blondie, indignant. “I’m the leading lady around here. I can sit with the squares out front, or I can relax back here with “friends.”“I bet you haven’t got an enemy in the world,” says the doc, giving her a leer that seems right at home in the squalor.Eventually, another much larger and tougher looking stripper shows up ( Paula Maurice – the “Brunet Stripper” of the credits) and the two pros compete for the doctor’s attention with some trashy talk:“It kills her to see me make time,” explains Blonde Stripper to the doctor.“You’re the only thing that’s going to be made around here tonight, honey,” quips the Brunet (Sa-nap!)The doc seems a little put off by such antics and beats it, which incites Blonde Stripper to launch herself at Brunet Stripper for screwing up the deal with a “guy with class.” The two end up rolling around on the floor in a real hair puller (a scene that was deleted from the orginal release but has been put back for the Synapse release).Now, why would such a tawdry exhibition be the good stuff, particularly as the overall effect of the scene virtually demands a post-watch shower? Well, I think it touches on the reason I love B movies so much. Consider: if the film makers had had any kind of a budget, they would surely have hired a couple of professional actresses, maybe even a couple of big names – and we would have been presented with a very well-appointed set (made to appear “cheap”) and a couple of beautiful, smooth skinned actresses with perfect abs portraying “strippers.” Hell, they probably would have had fully rounded characters, been given a little back story for depth, and would have been given actual names instead of Blonde and Brunet Stripper. They would have had gum-chewing Brooklyn accents straight from some dialogue coach, and the end result would have been brimming with talent, dolly shots, and breathtaking close-ups .As it was, the producer and director of this little piece of B had to work with what they could afford talent-wise and, for all intense and purposes, simply plunked the camera in the middle of the room and turned it on. The lighting came courtesy of the ceiling lamp and maybe a single spot. The result? Gritty and cheap, to be sure; and one of the most authentic portrayals of a fifties strip club you are ever likely to find anywhere, complete with (I would wager a month’s salary) real strippers with real Brooklyn accents. I would say you can’t buy a scene like that, but actually the reverse is true. You can buy one real cheap; but the trick is to stay low ball. If you pay too much, you start attracting actual actresses and other quality ingredients. This is a wonderful time to observe that neither Ms. Sharie or Ms. Maurice (Blonde and Brunet) ever had any other screen credits, save Ms. Maurice’s single screen turn as the “Kooch Club Proprietress” in 1961s The Dead One – a B zombie picture once available from Something Weird Video but now sadly out of print.Ms. Sharie and Ms. Maurice - Ms. Blonde and Ms. Brunet - I salute you, where ever you are. You certainly were, and hopefully still are, the good stuff.The Good Stuff, Pt. II: Leslie Daniels as KurtRecently a friend and I were discussing the merits of Herschell Gordon Lewis, legendary producer/director/writer of such drive-in fair as the Wizard of Gore and Blood Feast. I am not a fan, primarily because Gordon had absolutely no sense of style. Sure, he sloshed animal intestines around to good effect (this was revolutionary, actually, ushering in new age of acceptable gore) but aside from this significant innovation, a Gordon production simply ambled from scene to scene with all the tension of a drowsy pig. The set for a “kitchen” in a Gordon film consisted of a card table set against a bare wall. A “police station” was a card table with a typewriter, set against a bare wall. A “bedroom’ was a bed set against a . . . well, you get the idea. The acting in Gordon movie constituted young men and women, usually friends or family, trying to keep a straight face as they read their lines quickly, terrified of wasting Mr. Gordon’s money. All of which made for something completely unwatchable and, odd considering the copious amounts of splattered innards, boring as gray cinders (I speak here of Gordon's "gore" films, for which he is primarily known. His early sixties "nudies" are a different matter. For example Scum of the Earth from 1963 is an exciting and very watchable piece of film making. I think once Gordon found animal guts, he simply saw no reason to struggle with other more difficult, expensive elements of film production).The Brain That Wouldn’t Die comes dangerously close to falling into this same non-descript pit. It manages to keep its cheap snout above the muck, though, due to just a sprinkling of imagination in the camera work and editing departments (Director Joseph Green, working in poverty, manages a slick moment or two. The car wreck, for example, does manage to convey “car wreck,” no small feat when you consider that no car was scratched and stunts were so minimal that primary actors could do their own at absolutely zero risk).But the main reason for seeing this movie (other than the sight of a severed head in a pan) is the swing-for-the-fences performance of Leslie Daniels as the deformed, grandiose Kurt. Kurt is not given a last name, and that is as it should be. After all, did Fritz (Frankenstein, 1931) have a last name? did Karl (Bride of Frankenstein, 1935) or Ygor (Son of Frankenstein, 1938). Even sniffling, mad R. M. Reinfield (Dracula, 1931), gibbering and eating flies, became over time, simply Reinfield. Leslie Daniels’ Kurt, in true lab assistant tradition, has been enslaved to his mad scientist though some cruel play of fate; in this case the doctor’s promise to heal his dead, blackened arm. Kurt knows in his heart of hearts that all is a lie, and this knowledge, which he cannot face, has driven him into a desperate, dark corner of the mind. Every word he utters, every sentence, seems tinged with the weight of madness, his eyes nearly always ablaze. Instinctively, Daniels moves to center stage whenever he speaks, commanding the moment. He is a ham, you bet, but one well worth watching. Appropriately, he is given some of the richest, if most overblown, dialogue in the movie:“Can’t you realize?” says Kurt to Cortner as the two stare down at the newly panned head of Jan, yet to regain consciousness. “Can’t you see? There is a pattern to all that lives. An order and arrangement! She had a heart, and a brain, and her spirit was in both, not one or the other!”“No,” says Cortner, a bit lamely, “I will give her a heart and a brain.”“Yes,” says Kurt, thrusting his body forward like a politician leaning over a lectern, “and what of her soul? You say you love her, and that you can remember her love for you. Then how can you make of her an experiment of horror?”Later, when discussing the “mistakes” Cortner has made with Jan the Head, he has this nice speech about the beast in the closet: “No, there is a horror beyond yours (Jan has just called herself the ultimate horror). And it’s in there. Locked behind that door! The paths of experimentation twist and turn through mountains of miscalculation and often lose themselves in error and darkness.”They do indeed. These are the same dark paths that actor Daniels pitches himself along, sometimes losing himself in darkness and drama as well, but in the end, when the final toll sounds, Kurt is given a death scene to rival the most histrionic in history. It seems to go on forever. Yet when it does end, and Kurt sinks down into a pool of his own blood on the stone floor of the lab, you can feel the air go out of the picture in a death rattle. All that’s left, really, is to kill off the pompous Cortner and the pathetic, raging Head, but by then they are simply loose ends. Leslie Daniels has become the real watchable madman.WATCH THE TRAILER BELOW! – Radiation Cinema

FRANKENSTEIN’S DAUGHTER (1958)Directed by Richard CunhaSTARRING:Donald Murphy – Oliver FrankSandra Knight – Trudy MortonJohn Ashley – Johnny BruderSally Todd – Suzie LawlerHarold Loyd, Jr. – DonFelix Locher – Carter MortonThe DNA, that beautiful double helix of genetic instruction, has become seriously degraded in the Frankenstein lineage by the summer of 1958.Family Patriarch, Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive in Frankenstein, 1931), was a brilliant scientist, driven mad by the sheer, uncut light of his genius; bringing life from death in the isolation of his watchtower laboratory. Here was a frail, lonely Icarus, touching the face of God with his mind. The cavernous, damp stone rang with his shattered sanity.The Doctor’s son, Wolf Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone in Son of Frankenstein, 1939), with his perfect illocution, crisply groomed mustache, and baronial manner; will do much to restore the Frankenstein name. Yet his Achilles heel will be his devotion to his father’s memory. His painful descent is nurtured by family pride; a son’s blind love for his father. By the late 1950s, the grandson of Dr. Henry, Oliver (Donald Murphy, Frankenstein’s Daughter, 1958) is a jittery date rapist – a near pedophile - working as a live-in flunky for a retired, research analyst; conducting his experiments in the spare room of a suburban residence somewhere in Los Angeles County. Unlike his Father, our Atomic Age heir is not driven to his Godless research by the horrible engine of genius nor a sense of hereditary duty. No. Not quite. In the case of Mr. Oliver “Frank”, his poorly-funded experiments are conducted as fitting punishment for teenage girls who won’t give his middle-aged ass a tumble in the back seat of his employer’s borrowed carAnd with that, we have touched upon the glory of the maligned, beloved work of Director Richard Cunha, who was at the helm for this enduring, radioactive fragment from the Atomic Age. Say whatever negative you want about Cunha’s work and you will probably be right. Yet his films were never without their own poorly-funded experiments, done in the blink of an eye under the powerful duress of time; all of which produced a kind of scattershot lunacy that simply keeps me riveted. He produced a quartet of drive-in offerings: All made in the span of a single year (1958): She Demons (his best work), Giant of the Unknown, Missile to the Moon, and Frankenstein’s Daughter. I find myself watching these films repeatedly, never for hidden subtext or moments of deepening meaning (there simply aren’t any of those); but more to enjoy the sharp stab and flash of oddball edginess, and something more; a certain connection I find difficult to understand. I wish deeply that I could say critical opinion has been mixed regarding Cunha’s work, but it hasn’t. Critics have pretty much spoken with one voice through the decades: Cunha is not good – he is, in fact, terrible. Critics reviewing Frankenstein’s Daughter in year of release were brief and pitiless: The New York Times couldn’t decide which of Cunha’s films – Frankenstein’s Daughter or Missile to the Moon - was the “cheaper, duller piece of claptrap,” deciding it hardly mattered. Both were “simply horrible bores.” This was typical of the contemporary mainstream. In the ensuing years, even critics normally very sympathetic to B-movies and their makers have been equally consistent in their opinion. Pscychotronic has called Daughter “incredibly shoddy,” while Bill Warren (author of the towering Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties, McFarland Classics 1982) has said flatly that “Frankenstein’s Daughter is one of the worst films ever made.”Cunha has never received the chic renaissance awarded Edward D. Wood, Jr, (Plan 9 from Outer Space). As the above indicates, judgment has been harsh and swift, and a revival ala Wood seems highly unlikely. The work of the two directors has similar appeal, yet Cunha lacks Wood’s flea-bitten, bug-eyed panache. There is nothing in the Cunha oeuvre to match the straight-up, outcast vibe of Glen or Glenda (1953); and Cunha’s casting never gathered quite the fascinating collection of social misfits, borderline deviants, charlatans, and drug addicts as represented in Wood’s happy troupe. In short, there is nothing obvious for current social outcasts and borderline deviants to latch onto in Cunha. Even actors that worked with Cunha have been less than flattering in their memories. In a 2009 interview in Videoscope Magazine, Sally Todd, ravishing starlet of Daughter, has called the film, “terrible,” claiming that Cunha was virtually a non-presence on the set: “I really believe the director, Richard Cunha, is a myth. I don’t think the man ever even existed . . . he was always hiding in the shadows.” Star and B movie icon, John Ashley, who delivered lines as though forever, propped on one elbow, reclining by pool or seaside, has said that Daughter was, “really rock-bottom.” This from an actor whose career, while marvelous (check out his work in Brides of Blood or any of the Eddie Romero "Blood Island" pictures), was not exactly littered with A-list titles; and who surely knew rock bottom when he saw it.Why then, do I love it so? Sure, I have a crush on ex-playmate, Sally Todd, but even Ms. Todd’s urgent appeal doesn’t account for my affection for Daughter. Well, let’s get to it and see what comes up by way of answer.Our story begins with Dr. Henry Frankenstein’s grandson living under an assumed name, Oliver Frank, and working for a retired scientist, Carter Morton (Felix Locher), as a research assistant. Morton is working on a formula which will eliminate all destructive cells from human tissue, allowing humans to live forever. “Imagine,” says Morton in the early going, speaking in a completely unexplained heavy Swiss accent, “man will be ageless!” We can be thankful that dear Carter is a harmless crackpot, as the absence of death would create a horrid, overpopulated world of murder and a holocaust of competition for dwindling recourses; a complete a hell-on-earth, in less than a decade, but no matter. With Oliver “Frank” as his right hand man, constantly running the old man down with negativism, his failure is assured. Oliver Frank is working for the professor only so that he may have access to a working lab, a place where in secret he continues in the Frankenstein tradition of re-animation.The early scenes between Morton and Frank establish the heir of the storied lineage to be a petulant, snotty ass hole; chipping in with snide comments at every turn and generally grinning up his sleeve at the old man’s dottiness. Never fully explained is why Morton keeps this snide prick not only on the payroll but living under his roof. Unexplained also is the continued employment of the household gardener, Elsu (Wolfe Barzell), who will fulfill the Fritz/Igor role for a new generation. Elsu scores high on the creep-o-meter, shambling around the house seemingly at will, constantly slobbering over Morton’s live-in niece, Trudy (Sandra Knight). In our non-to-subtle introduction to the grimy, smallish Elsu, we find him slowly handing Trudy a cut flower, saying, “From the garden, Ms. Trudy. I didn’t like killing it,” – and here actor Barzell stares meaningfully into space – “but some things are more beautiful in death.” Got it?We will quickly learn that the repulsive goblin Elsu isn’t the only aging house employee drooling over Trudy, who, it is prudent to add at this juncture, is a teenager. Like so much in the film that is never explained, Trudy’s presence is left to conjecture. Where are her parents? Why is she living with an Uncle of completely different nationality? Anyway, graying-at-the-temples Oliver paws desperately at Trudy as well, forcing kisses and threatening gropes upon her whenever kindly uncle is not around. Yes, Trudy will be in counseling for years, trying to make sense of her Uncle’s house over oversexed but welcome guests.While the nefarious Oliver torments his boss, we also follow Trudy and her friends, which include Trudy’s boyfriend, Johnny (John Ashley), her best friend Suzie (Sally Todd), and Suzie’s boyfriend, Don (Harold Lloyd, Jr.). This gang of kids spend most of their time playing tennis, going to movies, and making fun of Suzie who tries to convince them she has seen a monster. Johnny is particularly annoying in his dismissal of Suzie’s tales, claiming she tells stories for attention, but good girl Trudy (Todd always played the bad girl, thank heavens) backs up her story, sort of. Trudy has been having nightmares where she dreams she becomes a monster, just like the one Suzie describes seeing (huge teeth, bushy eyebrows). It is soon revealed that Oliver Frank has been experimenting with Niece Trudy, mixing in Uncle Carter’s magic elixir in her punch, testing the formula. If the cell-saving potion works, the new generation of Frankenstein’s monster can live forever! Unfortunately the formula has a negative side-affect, it turns Trudy temporarily into a deformed, very toothy monster, racing around town at night like Dr. Hyde but unable to clearly remember anything in the morning save her own confused exhaustion (caring but crushingly ineffectual Uncle Carter thinks things might be remedied by a substantial breakfast of eggs and bacon. Thanks, Uncle Carter. You're tops!). The film trundles along on these wobbly legs for most of its length: Oliver slipping Trudy his monster Mickey Finns, the dirty “gardener” trying to collect body parts for Oliver Frankenstein from local car accidents (Elsu is a pointedly incompetent sidekick, bringing the doc pieces of mangled hands and limbs, explaining that it was the best he could scrounge before other cars showed up. “You fool,” snaps Oliver, “I have no use for this! It’s a head I need! Everything is ready except for the brain!”), and Suzie unable to convince anyone abut anything. Eventually Oliver manages to wrangle a date out of Suzie and runs her down in his car when she rejects his advances in a particularly oily scene (I have to go home now, pleads Suzie, who has had to wiggle out from underneath the lecherous Oliver. My dad doesn’t know I left the house. “I snuck out,” she tells him, looking a very fresh 17 or so. Remember, Oliver is a good 45 years old if he’s a day. Goddamn!).After killing Suzie, Oliver makes the best of a bad situation and, in a moment of inspiration, decides to graft Suzie’s head on the body he’s got in cold storage. Viola! And the beauty part is, a female brain will be even better than the original creations brought to life by his ancestors, which were straddled with independent, male beans. As Oliver explains to Elsu, “a female brain is conditioned to a man’s world and therefore takes orders where the others didn’t.” Ah. This is a decidedly strange conclusion for our shifty-eyed, rabbity madman to come to, as not a single female in the movie has taken one of his “orders” seriously. I would have thought about the third time one of the movies’ compliant females slapped the piss out of him for touching her, a reevaluation of his hypothesis might have been in order; but stubborn is the genius will, I suppose. Somewhere in these high-strung shenanigans Trudy throws a barbecue, and we are treated to the contemporary stylings of Page Cavanaugh and his Trio, laying down a few numbers for the “cats.” Did I mention that Uncle Morton near the late middle of the film dies in prison of a heart attack, having been arrested for stealing a necessary chemical from the company which once employed him as a scientist?If all this seems to lack a formal plot structure or linear sense, that’s only because, well, it does. In fact, none of Richard Cunha’s work ever had the benefit of traditional movie elements, like plot or coherent script. Events seem to happen on top of each other, perhaps a line here or there meant to string things together, but with Cunha, these fussy, film school details don’t mean anything, or rather have no weight in the jumble of shots and ideas that give a movie that stamp of Cunha. The tale ends up with the evil, silly doctor getting his but good via a beaker of acid to the face, which somehow makes him completely immobile, and the poor monster burning both them to death in kind of a lab accident. So all’s well that end’s well (except for the monster, who presumably burns to death with Suzie’s brain and consciousness screaming inside, but now were getting too picky). The film ends with the surviving young people tossing poor Don into the pool (Don, it must be said, gets over the fact that his girlfriend has burned to death in the body of a monster with breathtaking ease, but then the young are so resilient). We roll to credits with pretty boy Johnny and Trudy necking while Don comically splashes around theatrically and cries for help.So, nothing as yet would explain this films’ enduring appeal beyond fodder for the loathsome MST3K. Perhaps we will find something worthwhile when we get to the Good Stuff. Well, when discussing Cunha’s work, there is no such thing as good stuff, at least not in the traditional sense. Such a designation would place emphasis in the wrong place. Let’s call it, for the sake of Cunha, the interesting stuff:Interesting Stuff Pt. I: The Monster and the MakeupThe monster makeup was done by Harry Thomas, and I have always thought it very good; yet odd. The problem being it is in no way female. The story goes something like this, according to an interview by uber-fan Tom Weaver with Cunha in Fangoria Magazine #31 (this brief conversation still stands as one of the few shards available to Cunha scholars, if there are any other than myself): no one told makeup man Thomas that the monster was supposed to be female. This is completely believable as Cunha, according to Sally Todd, was not exactly a dominant presence on the set, and was, to put it kindly, a delegator. When Harry Wilson (the actor that played the monster) stomped onto the set for his first scene, Cunha was beside himself, as he had envisioned a sexy monster befitting Sally Todd. Well, crap! No time for regrets or changes now. Time is money, people!. Roll ‘em, Goddammit! Monster comes to Life -- Take one! Cut! Print! To make matters even worse, a compromise was struck: Thomas smeared about a pound of lipstick over the mouth of the creature. There! Now it’s a girl! And people wonder why I love B-movies. Speaking of the monster, it is perhaps the most clumsy and unthreatening monster ever brought to the screen. With actor Wilson playing the Daughter, lurching in a particularly robotic way and dressed in what looks like a vinyl warm up jacket and fireman’s gloves, one could escape the monster’s clutches easily with a brisk walk. Indeed, in the final showdown, Johnny, no fighter by any means, manages to ward off certain death by rolling an operating table between himself and the rampaging creature. He holds her at bay, in fact, by simply and gently sliding the wheeled table around a bit. “Kill them!” demands Oliver Frankenstein hoarsely, but his creation simply isn’t up to the task. “Oh, Johnny,” says Trudy, as she and Johnny watch her dead uncles’ house burn down, killing Oliver and his monster, “it was gruesome!” Well, maybe, but it was also pathetic and near harmless.Interesting Stuff, Pt. II: Harold Lloyd, Jr. and the ballad of Daddy-BirdThere is something heartbreaking about watching slight, sad Harold Lloyd, Jr. in this film. Lloyd, Jr. was the son of silent film comedian, Harold Lloyd, and had a very dismal and short life. Lloyd, Jr. was gay and at least a bit of a masochist as well as a chronic alcoholic. He would often return home to his father’s house after a night of high times badly beaten and bruised. The nights of beatings and blackouts finally resulted in a brain hemorrhage in 1965 that ruined the young man for life. He only lived a meager six more years, dying in 1971 at the age of 40.There is barely a moment that Lloyd, Jr. is on screen where he doesn’t look lost, or desperate, or just terribly alone. He is the butt of jokes in the film, barely tolerated and never more than an apology waiting to happen. The moments when he is caught smiling, he looks suddenly wan and hopeful. Sally Todd has said that she felt awfully sad for him, as he was gay and forced to do a passionate necking scene with her. “Back in those days, people were still hiding being gay and Harold was very gay and trying very hard to hide it. But we all knew.” Cunha gives the pale boy a moment, though, that's all his own, as he performs two numbers with Page and boys; “Special Date” and the jazzy, oddly named “Daddy-Bird.” To watch Harold Lloyd, Jr., performing his heart out with the Page Cavanaugh Trio at poolside, so enjoying this brief moment of complete acceptance; is to endure a moment of strange and wondrous sympathy. There is a scene near the beginning of Daughter, when all the kids are about to enjoy an afternoon of tennis, when Lloyd, Jr. has his head resting in Todd’s lap, that one cannot help but pray was a moment of brief, warm comfort.And maybe such a moment touches upon my reasons for treasuring this very bad film. Struggle and failure, brief moments of safe harbor, reach us in ways the brilliance of success never can. Daughter's appeal is also rooted, somehow, in a very personal nostalgia - those brief blinks of film time when a viewer wonders if anyone, anywhere, sees what they see; those quiet seconds every film-lover has when a film, regardless of quality or cold logic, becomes theirs. Perhaps it is the place that Daughter creates in the mind; a drive-in moment surrounded by the gentle, vast darkness of summer night and flickering images on an immense, white, curved wall. Crickets . . . speakers hung on window edges; and the smell of grass. Where noble boyfriends took a long, silent walk toward the lights of the concession stand, feeling the warm evening of promise on their fresh skin, the dew covering their sneakers.A place where a collection of utter, swinging nerds like Page Cavanaugh and his Trio could play cool at a hip-cat barbecue; that place of American imagination where Harold Lloyd’s sweet and fragile son could sing and beam like a happy child under a shower of poolside applause, instead of being beaten to near death in some sordid "fag" affair in the shadows of Los Angeles. A place where Sally Todd forever walks away, smiling at you over her shoulder while those long legs make her high heels ring the sidewalk, her figure working its perfect magic in a simple gray dress.It is a land that never was, but can never vanish because Richard Cunha, through no fault of talent, captured it completely by accident. It is, indeed, a terrible film, but one saturated with moment.Take your own private moment to WATCH THE TRAILER BELOW! –Radiation Cinema!

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I Am Sylar
Airs April 20th, 2009 @ 9PM on NBC
SYLAR’S NEW ABILITY BEGINS TO TAKE ITS TOLL ON HIM
NBC Official Episode Description (May Contain Spoilers!) ▼

EMMY AWARD-WINNER ZELJKO IVANEK, NOAH GRAY-CABEY AND CLINT HOWARD GUEST STAR – Sylar (Zachary Quinto) continues his unusual partnership and begins to have an unexpected identity crisis. Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) take measures toward bringing down Building 26. Meanwhile, Matt’s (Greg Grunberg) new found fatherhood changes his priorities. Elsewhere, Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) sets a plan in motion to right the wrongs of his government operation. Jack Coleman, Hayden Panettiere, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Cristine Rose and Milo Ventimiglia also star. Lisa Lackey and Ellen Greene also guest star.

4 4oz. Filets
½ C Butter
¼ C Fresh basil, chopped
5 Cloves garlic, minced
2 T Olive oil
Salt & pepper

· Add oil to a large pan (preferably cast-iron), heat oil over medium-high
· Season steaks with salt and pepper, lay them in the pan with the heated oil, saute about 3 minutes or until golden color on the bottom side
· Flip steaks, put pan in a 400 degree oven for 5 minutes (medium), cook less or more depending on how you would like your meat cooked
· Take out of oven, add butter, garlic and basil to the pan over medium heat until butter starts to brown
· Pour sauce from pan over steak and serve
· Side of frits optional

Frits with Kelsey's Secret Seasoning Blend

16oz. Shoestring fries, frozen
¼ C Chili powder
1 T Cumin
3 T Garlic powder
3 T Dried parsley
¼ C Salt
1 T Pepper
3 T Steak seasoning

· Blend all spices together in a small bowl
· Fry or bake the frits according to directions on packaging.
· When frits are done cooking toss with a generous amount of seasoning
· Serve a generous portion with filet

By Chef Dean Dellaventura
Ingredients

4 to 6 oz. NY Strip Steaks
8-12 eggs (2 per person)
4 lbs. white potatoes roughly chopped
1 medium onion (diced)
1 green pepper (diced)
3 oz. season salt
½ stick unsalted butter
1 cup whole milk
Salt & pepper
¼ cup olive oil

Scramble the eggs and milk together and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
Mix potatoes, season salt and potato together and place in a baking pan.
Heat oven to 350° and roast potatoes (stirring frequently) until they are soft and lightly browned (about 30-40 minutes).
In a large sauté pan, over medium-high heat, melt 1 Tbsp. butter and add peppers and onions and sauté until both are soft. Salt and pepper.
Toss cooked potatoes in sauté pan with the rest of the butter and mix the onion, pepper, potato mixture well.
Season the steaks with salt and pepper.
Get a grill pan very hot and cook the steaks to desired temperature (115°-120° for medium rare).
Place 1 Tbsp. butter in another sauté pan and melt over medium heat. Add eggs and cook until dry and fluffy.

BUON APPETITO!!

12 Eggs
¼ C Milk
1 ½ C Pre cooked or frozen chopped spinach, drained
1 C Brie cheese, cubed
½ C Shallots, minced
2 Cloves garlic, minced
2 T Olive oil
Salt & Pepper

· Crack eggs into a large bowl, whisk in milk, salt and pepper
· In a 12 inch pan heat olive oil, saute shallots and garlic, about 2-3 minutes
· Add spinach, stir until coated with oil
· Pour in egg mixture and top with cubed brie
· Cover and turn heat to low cook about 5 minutes, then place in 375 degree oven uncovered about 10 minutes
· Take out of oven cover and let rest about 5 minutes flip onto a plate and cut like a pie

One day in the not too decent past, an executive at DreamWorks SKG said to another executive, ‘hey – wouldn’t it be awesome if we made a movie about a guy without any man friends – but then he gets married and he needs to find a best man, so he has to go on all these man-dates? You know, we’ll throw in some touchy-feely stuff about men getting in touch with their emotions, some relationship discord, oh and a guy with no apparent means of support who turns out the be the answer to his prayers!’ If at that moment, the second executive had shot the first executive in the face and then dissolved his body in a tub full of lye, the world would be a better place. Unfortunately he didn’t – or if he did, it wasn’t in time to stop I Love You, Man from being filmed and released – and ultimately, that’s all that matters.I don’t understand Hollywood’s obsession with loneliness. It seems like every season we get at least 5 different flicks zeroing in on just how awful it is to not have a best friend of 20 years / wife / girlfriend / boyfriend / sympathetic German shepherd / father figure / etc. Usually, these movies are designed to prey on that biologically imprinted fear that women have of instantly turning into spinsters when the clock strikes midnight on their 30th birthday. However, apparently having mined that vein of comedic ore for all it is worth, the studios have turned their attentions to the male of the species. The trouble is, the emotional range of men on film in a comedy is about as extensive as my collection of DVD’s that don’t contain girls going wild – that is to say, almost non-existent. Paul Rudd’s character, who fits the scenario pitched by the studio exec in the opening paragraph, never really convinces us that he actually cares about only being friends with women. If the protagonist doesn’t actually buy into the premise of the film, then how the hell is the audience supposed to come along for the ride? In fact, Rudd manages to remain almost completely anonymous throughout the entire picture, with aspects of his personality only emerging as a particular scene calls for them. Sure, they load him with cutsie insecurities and the inability to communicate in a macho fashion, but by the end of the movie it’s easy to see why men avoid him like he’s Richard Simmons at a pool party. Just like John C. Reilly, if Rudd isn’t paired with a strong male lead – ok, if Will Ferrell isn’t in the movie – he sucks. Don’t be fooled into thinking that Jason Segel is that guy, because he isn’t, and Andy Samberg is only in the movie long enough to collect his paycheck and shame the director for giving him any funny lines. It boils down to this. You can give me as much projectile vomit and funny billboards as you want, but you can’t make me emotionally connect with Rudd, the human dial tone, and you can’t make me love this shitty movie.

Serves 4-6

Crab Cocktail-

1 pd. dungenous crab or lumb crab
2 avcoados, small dice
1/2 red onion, small dice
1 scallion, thinly sliced
1 bunch fresh dill, chopped finely
1/2 cup mayonaisse
1/2 tsp tabasco
salt and black pepper to taste

Toss all in a bowl and blend well. Place in the refrigerator while making the dressing.

Bloody Mary Vinaigrette-

1 cup Mrs. 'T' s Bloody Mary Mix
1/2 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup vodka
salt and lot's of black pepper

Let this 'marry' for at least 6hours. If you like you can make it the day before.

Garnish-

2-4 cups mache

In a beautifull bowl, small plate or martini glass place the vinaigrette evenly on the surface, about 2 Tb.
Place a 6th of the mache in the center of the plate. Place a 6th of the cocktail on top of the mache.
Garnish with a dill sprig.

For something different, cut wonton skins in a triangle and fry won ton skins. You can eat the crab with this.

Serves 4-6

8-12 large Prawns or 12-18 Jumbo Shrimp, peeled leaving the tail on, deviened and butterflied
2 Tb.olive oil
salt and garlic pepper to taste
2-4 cup cooked Beluga Lentils in chicken stock
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
1 -1 1/2 cups pear tomatoes, cut in half
3-4 shallots , sliced thinly
1/4 cup fresh thyme leaves
1/2 stick butter
salt and pepper to taste
Roasted Garlic Buerre Blanc (recipe follows)

Roasted Garlic Sauce-
8 garlic cloves
1/2 cup vegetable oil
Roast on medium heat until golden brown and soft.
1 cup white wine
1 cup cream
1/2 pd. sweet butter
salt and pepper to taste
1 lemon, squeezed

In a saucepan, reduce the white wine by 1/2. Add the cream and garlic. Reduce by 1/3. Using an inverted blender puree the mixture. Add the sweet butter on low heat slowly until incorporated. Strain. Add salt and pepper and lemon.

In a saute pan add the 1/2 stick butter and melt on high heat. Add the shallots and cook for 4 minutes. Add the tomatoes, pine nuts, thyme and lentils. Saute another 3 minutes. Separatethe lentil mixture into 4-6 seperate bowls. In the same pan add the 2 Tb. oil below the prawns and heat on high heat. Add the prawns and cook through tossing around frequently. Place 2 prawns or 3 jaumbo shrimp in the middle of the lentils tail up. Pour some sauce around the lentils.

Serves 4-6

1 maine lobster, poached for 4 minutes in boiling water and 4 minutes with the heat off, cooled
andmeat removed and small dice
2 champagne mango, diced
2 avocado, diced
1 small fennel bulb, finely diced
1/2 small red onion, finely diced
6 obha leaves,julienned (specialty aJApanese shops) if you can't find it then mix 50/50 mint and cilantro
1/3 cup mayonaisse
1Tb fish sauce
1Tb ponzu
1/2 tsp. chili oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 lime, squeezed
8-12 wonton skins, cut in half
1 cup oil
1 bottle fine quality unfiltered sake, ice cold
garnish - micro cilantro

16oz. Chicken or fish broth
1 C White wine
20 Little neck clams
1 T Saffron
1 t Chili flakes
2 Shallots, minced
2 Cloves garlic, minced
1 T Butter
¼ C Fresh parsley, chopped
Salt & pepper

· Fill a large bowl with cool water, ½ C flour, and clams let sit about 10 minutes. This will make the clams spit out any remaining sand.
· Drain water and add clams to fresh cool water while you make the broth
· For broth, saute shallot, garlic and butter in a stockpot with a pinch of salt and pepper. Add wine and reduce by half, then add broth, saffron, and chili flakes, simmer 10-20 minutes so saffron can release its color and flavor.
· Add clams and cook about 5 minutes, or until all of the shells are open
· Serve in soup bowl with garnished with fresh parsley
· Sourdough bread optional
· Warning: If some of the shells do not open discard those clams they are bad

12 Lamb chops
½ C Olive oil
5 Cloves garlic, minced
¼ C Mint, finely chopped
¼ C Rosemary, finely chopped
Salt & pepper

· Mix all ingredients together in a zip-lock bag and marinate for at least 1 hour or over night
· Over medium-high, heat oil in a sauté or grill pan
· Sear lamb lollipops on both sides about 2 minutes per side
· Place in 400 degree oven for about 5-10 minutes to finish cooking
· Serve over fennel salad

Fennel Salad

1 Fennel heart, sliced very thin
1 Red onion, sliced thin
2 C Baby heirloom tomatoes, halved
¼ Mint, chopped
¼ C Parsley, chopped
2 Avocados, cubed
½ C Olive oil
Juice of 2 lemons
Salt & pepper

· Mix all ingredients together in a bowl
· Serve under lamb lollipops