In like a lamb, out like a minotaur

At least, that's what I'm expecting, given the meteorological fluctuations we have experienced as of late. A little preliminary, perhaps, given Punxatawney Phil's latest vision of the future (6 more weeks of winter). Then again, Staten Island Chuck, Phil's little known counterpart from the suburbs, foresaw an early Spring.

A tasty, plump little lamb

A life-like rendering of a modern-day minotaur

Honestly, with so many woodland creatures working vehemently against each other to give me wardrobe advice, I no longer know who I can trust.

A corpulent American groundhog

That being said, let's talk pictures, shall we?

Moving pictures, that is. My February pick for flicks comes from - everybody's favorite - the Sci Fi channel. Meeks and I had the pleasure of viewing the Sci Fi original film "Yeti" this weekend (not to be confused with "Yentl"). I tell ya, it was something else!

A Yeti of said picture

Starring an older, slightly weathered yet not entirely un-handsome Peter DeLuise (you may or may not remember him from his 21 Jump Street days....remember, he was the troll that always lurked just under Johnny Depp's glorious shadow) it follows the harrowing story of an unlikely, yet probably true, aviation disaster.

Brief Plot Synopsis

Sooo...basically its your run of the mill plane crash. A DC-10, flying over the Himalayas in the dead of winter runs into an electrical storm and crashes into a snowy peak. You know the story. The survivers, which all happen to be students from the generic "State College" are left with a pile of dead bodies, a nicely intact and oddly homey severed fusilage, and that age-old dillema: Should we let those human-shaped tasty morsels we've got lying around just go to waste?

Of course, nobody wants to be the first to take a spork to the ol' math team so the teens take to hunting fat grey rabbits with spears and practicing lame state college-type sexual innuendos.

The real trouble begins, when the bodies start disappearing! Suddenly the teens find they have to compete for their dinners with a huge, Middle Earth-esque orc-like Yeti capable of slow trudging steps and computer-generated kangaroo leaps through the snow. Terror!

Enter the mountain rescue team of Peter DeLuise and some spent Croatian eye-candy. On foot, of course, because the altitude is too high for helicopters to fly (but oddly low enough for fluffy pines and rabbits in their summer coat). The rescuers find the plane and its survivors, but decide to watch for a while through binnoculars before attempting the 10 yard ascent to recue them.

Long story short - the token Asian burns the bodies to keep them from being desecrated, the Yeti comes back and finding no frozen meat, opts for the fresh meat instead and attacks the teens. Mountain rescue intervenes, and fells the Yetis (there's two by this time) with a single bullet through the chest, a series of wooden stakes through the back, and an avalanche of snow to cover them.

Of course, the original Yeti miraculously survives to chomp off DeLuise's leg and beat him over the head with it, only to be lost forever down the side of a cliff.

Its cinematic genius, really. I have to say, the best part of the film was not from the main crew, but rather a minor character who was expelled from the plane crash early on and suffered a severed arm and two broken legs. This fellow was resourceful enough to use his severed arm as a splint for his broken legs, thus enabling him to climb down the Himalayan peaks to rejoin his group, only to be mistaken for a Yeti and shot in the face with a flare gun. I tell ya, when it rains, it pours.