Game #60 Preview: 6/10, Arizona Diamondbacks @ San Francisco Giants

Chase Anderson RHP, 1-1, 3.12

Madison Bumgarner LHP, 7-2, 3.38

Ender Inciarte - LF	Norichika Aoki - LF
A.J. Pollock - CF	Joe Panik - 2B
Paul Goldschmidt - 1B	Angel Pagan - CF
Yasmany Tomas - RF	Buster Posey - C
Aaron Hill - 3B	Brandon Belt - 1B
Chris Owings - 2B	Brandon Crawford - SS
Welington Castillo - C	Matt Duffy - 3B
Nick Ahmed - SS	Justin Maxwell - RF
Chase Anderson - RHP	Madison Bumgarner - LHP

Games since a Diamondbacks' starter went seven innings: 20

Into San Francisco we go, and I continue watching bad movies until the D-backs win. Given the location, I could make tonight's feature an appropriate one, such as The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, which has a giant octopus terrorizing San Francisco, but that one is actually quite good, with special effects by Ray Harryhausen. There's always The Room, of course, which is the piece de resistance of badfilm; I'll save that one for if we get swept, I think. I may need to ensure my Sunday trip to the supermarket involves some hard liquor. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. For now, here's my review of the epic viewed as a result of Wednesday's loss, The Beast of Yucca Flats.

Some films are thoroughly bad; in others, there's one aspect which stands out, towering above all the rest, like a skyscraper of pure terrible. In The Beast of Yucca Flats, that aspect is the makers' painfully obvious inability to shoot sync sound. This is covered up with copious, semi-coherent narration (such as Clefo mentioned on Twitter - "Flag on the moon: how did it get there?"), or by filming people in extreme long shot, from behind, and even at one point, from inside a car so that all you can see is their shoulders down. Not that the rest of the film is Oscar-worthy, but that aspect was staggeringly painful.

The story is no great shakes either: an escaping Russian scientist is pursued into a nuclear testing area, where a blast of radiation transforms into a a killing machine. He is played by Tor Johnson, who was actually a former pro wrestler, and is best known for Plan 9 From Outer Space. A convincing scientist, he is not. There's also a vacationing family who get caught up in things, while the task force tracked with hunting the beast down, consists of about two policemen, one of whom is unable to distinguish the beast from the family patriarch, leading to an over-long aerial chase, which I presume was there only because the makers got the use of a plane for the day.

Much like the opening scene of a woman being strangled in her bedroom, it bears no relation to the rest of the film at all, and you get the sense much of this was made up as they went along. Even at a mere 54 minutes - and say what you like about these movies, they don't hang around for Michael Bay length - this rapidly becomes more a chore than a pleasure, and there's only so many times you can snigger at the woeful aspects. The final shot, involving a baby rabbit, does achieve a fractional degree of poignancy, but was, apparently, entirely fortuitous. It's a shame, as the rabbit was easily the best actor, going on to success in both Night of the Lepus and Watership Down.

I may have made that last bit up. Anyway, here's the entire film. You'll understand why I do not want the team to extend the losing streak any further tonight.