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{{{ COCKROACH MOVIE }}}

There are many movies with cockroaches appears as stage sets/props. Nevertheless, there are several movies featuring cockroaches as one of the “major actors” or the “side kick”. A movies entitled “Joe’s Apartment” (1996) is such a cool movie. It is a comedy and romantic movie.

Here is a website with comments on this movie in great details:

http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.6/articles/diljoe1.6.html

And here is the link to its big size poster:

http://www.moviegoods.com/movie_item.asp?path=/Assets/product_images/1020/&file=184192.1020.A.jpg

I hope you enjoy watching it alone or with someone special.

Good luck to you and your pet insects!

Takeshi

All the rights reserved by Takeshi Yamada 2006
E-mail: niceguyinny123@aol.com
For more articles about Hissers, please go to http://www.hissingcockroach.50megs.com/tt1.htm
My giant insect taxidermy gaffs are also featured in following website;
http://sideshowworld.com/SSA-15.html

{{{ GREAT COCKROACH MOVIE }}} (PART 2)

There are many movies with cockroaches appears as stage sets/props. Nevertheless, there are several movies featuring cockroaches as one of the “major actors” or at least the “side kick”. In this article, I want to introduce a great science fiction horror movie, which the giant cockroaches are the “main actors”.

In my previous article, I introduced a comedy & romance movie “Joe’s Apartment”, which features a lot of happy dancing & singing and wise common house cockroaches (Periplaneta Americana, or commonly know was “water bug”). In this movie, the cockroaches became the best friends of Joe, encourage him to take charge of his life and become happy human. It has a happy ending.

The movie I want to introduce here today is more serious in nature, reflecting the social, environmental and political nature of America then.

This movie is titled quite simply “Bugs” in America. Its Japanese title is “Moeru konchu gundan” (“A Teach of Military Force Made of Firing Insects”).

In this movie, giant size cockroaches such as the Madagascar Giant Hissing Cockroach (Gromphadorhina portentosa) and the Giant Cave Roach (Blaberus giganteus) are featured generously as the “firing super creature” came out from the deep under the ground. The large Hissing cockroach could reach 3 inches long, and the large Cave Roach could grow over 4 inches long. The movie was produced in 1975, directed by Jeannot Szwarc. It’s DVD is released by Paramount Home Video.

Here is a website with comments on this movie in great details:

http://www.horrorchannel.com/index.php?name=Reviews&req=showcontent&id=98

I saw this movie “bugs” on the TV (voice over in Japanese) when I was in Japan in the late 70’s. I understood this movie as a political statement of an artist with strong environmental concerns about America’s nuclear weapon tests and angry nature’s fight against humanity. These subject matters produced by fanatic activists in America (as the most advanced nation on this planet) were quite often trumpeted in TV news and magazines in Japan one after another. Many scholars and news media people seriously predicted, before the arrival of 2001, the human population would explodes beyond the capacity of ecosystem of earth, shortage of foods, irreversible air pollution, death of ocean, depletion of oil, and coming of “Ice Age”. WE NOW KNOW THEY WERE COMPLETRELY WRONG!

NOTE: Incidentally, there is a Japanese movie entitled “Bugs” (titled in English for unknown reasons) produced in Japan in 1996. It is 85 minutes long. This very poorly made Japanese horror movie does not contain cockroach species at all. In the movie, poorly crafted man-made dog-size Funamushi (“sea roach”. not even an insect) appear and attack people.

I hope you enjoy watching it alone or with someone special.

Good luck to you and your pet insects!

Takeshi

All the rights reserved by Takeshi Yamada 2006
E-mail: niceguyinny123@aol.com
For more articles about Hissers, please go to http://www.hissingcockroach.50megs.com/tt1.htm
My giant insect taxidermy gaffs are also featured in following website;
http://sideshowworld.com/SSA-15.html

{{{ GREAT COCKROACH MOVIE }}} (PART 3)

There are many movies with cockroaches appears as stage sets/props. Nevertheless, there are several movies featuring cockroaches as one of the “major actors” or at least the “side kick”. In this article, I want to introduce a great science fiction horror movie, which the giant cockroaches are the “main actors”.

In my previous articles, I introduced movies entitled Joe’s Apartment, and Bug.

In this article, I want to introduce a very entertaining and popular (block buster hit) movie categorized as an action, science fiction, comedy (yes, many funny scenes!), entitled, Men in Black (1997, PG 13, USA). In this movie, an evil cockroach-like extraterrestrial alien invades the earth and fight against Men in Mlack (MIB), which is a top-secret organization established to monitor and police alien activity on Earth. Unfortunately, the supposed to be cockroach-like alien does not resemble any kinds of cockroach species physically at all – he looks more like a robust giant vicious walking stick nymph. Nevertheless MIB call him “bug” and “cockroach” anyway. I assume the word “cockroach” has more psychologically negative and repulsive impact on people’s mind rather than walking stick.

In this movie, Madagascar Giant Hissing Cockroaches (Gromphadorhina portentosa) appear in multiple occasions, and they were used very effectively for most people. For the people who know hissing cockroaches, these scenes may not seem quite right because those giant hissing cockroaches on the movie screen are supposed to give scary impressions to the viewers but they do not, because those large cockroaches’ humble docile slow movements. The movie production crews could have modified the shape of the hissers, or at least artificially animated them to make them look more aggressive, to my personal opinion.

This movie was produced by Amblin Entertainment, Columbia Pictures Corporation, and MacDonald/Parkes Productions. Major actors include Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. Linda Fiorentino, Vincent D'Onofrio, Rip Torn. Its estimated cost is 90 million dollars, and earned 250 million dollars in the USA Box Office, and 587 million dollars in the world Box Office. It was a really big hit movie internationally, despite the subject matter of men against alien giant cockroach. This movie’s DVD is available with whole a lot of extras to enjoy the movie more.

I hope you enjoy watching it alone or with someone special next to your pet hissers’ tanks.

Good luck to you and your pet insects!

Takeshi

All the rights reserved by Takeshi Yamada 2006
E-mail: niceguyinny123@aol.com
For more articles about Hissers, please go to http://www.hissingcockroach.50megs.com/tt1.htm
My giant insect taxidermy gaffs are also featured in following website;
http://sideshowworld.com/SSA-15.html