Effed Up Ess

The Tale of the Inception Dollhouse

2011-04-29T02:09:00.000-07:00

Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1994-1996)

In which I provide commentary on an arbitrarily chosen mid-season episode of a children’s TV show that’s over 15 years old. Internet!

Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society I blog you: The Tale of the Dollmaker. It’s a good start cause frankly I can think of only a few things more frightening than a dollmaker, one being the sight of Cliff Richards lounging topless by a poolside and the other would be somehow finding myself retroactively responsible for the production of A Serbian Film.

Dolls are great aren’t they? Her head goes all the way around! And this particular one can turn door knobs, I’m sure of it. Hang on, it’s Charlie Sheen’s favourite director.

Snort.

Is there anything more normal than finding an eerily detailed replica of an abandoned house in the dark attic of that very abandoned house? I think not.

Let’s have a closer look.

Closer.

Clooooser.

Normal?

Super-normal.

“I agree with you honey, very normal. Now let’s see if we can’t chin our way across this room.”

“Just a little further…”

"There."

I feel like I should say that at this point of the episode the mystery of the creepy abandoned house has been revealed and it turns out the little girl’s best friend vanished and her parents moved away because they couldn’t stand to look at the house anymore. That’s understandable, especially considering how many months and/or years it took them to meticulously build that weird replica of the house in the attic. I'm almost sick of looking at the house and I’ve only had to live with it for the twenty odd minutes of this programme.

I wish this show was real so I could go through that door instead of her!

I'll be honest, her sudden appearance from behind that wall freaked my shit right out. Anyway our plucky young hero gets dragged back from the Inception dollhouse (did I mention the replica dollhouse is an Inception replica dollhouse?) just in time. This part I have a problem with. That poor girl is staying at her aunt and uncle's place for a few days, and she has to sleep on the couch?

What in the hell is that all about? I mean I know I was a child in the 90s so my memory might be hazy, but I remember there being beds for children to sleep on. Maybe I'm misreading the situation though, in the very next scene it seems like the uncle might be building her a bed.

Either that or they're gathering leaves to fill her pillows with. This is when I started getting flashbacks to Funny Games.

Girl’s gonna smash up some porcelain I bet.

Or just some straight-up vandalism.

“Hey dollface, high five!”

Wait for it.

Waaait for it.

Yeah.

These guys know what I'm talking about.

Now our young protagonist meets a cute raccoon friend.

As you can see they just hit it off right away.

Ready for the kick?

Once the cabinet has been vanquished they're free to escape the dollhouse within the dollhouse by going through a Donnie Darko wormhole. At no point however does anyone contemplate the prospect of dying alone.

Dollface gets her hands back though. Hurray!

Unfortunately it seems like that is Dollface’s actual face. Well fear not - if anything this episode has taught us that life is complicated, and not everything will work out the way you expect it to. We could all die alone with porcelain hands in an Inception dollhouse that our presumably Wiccan parents constructed in the attic as part of their post-graduate degree in Multiverse Architecture. Now give us a smile.

Witches Be Shoppin'

2011-03-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

Season of the Witch (1972)

Starring: Jan White, Raymond Laine, Ann Muffly

What's all this then?: I’ll be clear from the start and admit that I watched this film because I thought it was Season of the Witch starring Nicolas Cage and Robert Sheehan from out of Misfits (an up-and-coming young mentalist himself and potential heir to Cage’s loony throne). So sadfaces all round when it turned out to be an odd little feminist-baiting witch film by George A. Romero from the early seventies. It’s still mental though so no harm done.

Say what?: Season of the Witch apparently concerns ‘a bored, unhappy suburban housewife who gets mixed up in witchcraft and murder’ which is kind of true, but in the same way that Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is about a member of the police force investigating drug-related deaths in Louisiana. No I won’t be dropping the tenuous link to Nicolas Cage.

Some notes: These were all written during the first three minutes.

-    A woman follows a man in a business suit through a forest, absently reading a newspaper. She gets hit repeatedly in the face by branches as she walks behind him. He also eats an egg with his bare hands and then there's a surprise baby in the flowers. SYMBOLISM Y’ALL.
-    Then she’s on a swing in a white cotton dress. Bodyform for you.
-    Hipster Kennel, newspaper-slapping
-    Phew but thank god it was all a dream. It’s probably nothing, wouldn’t worry about it. The end!

About the Hipster Kennel:

Then what happens?: Joan Mitchell (who most characters refer to as Joanie throughout the film which is more distracting that you’d think) starts to go a bit potty after her daughter leaves for college but women’s-liberation-so-hush-now-it’s-the-seventies. Women be drinkin’!

For reasons I can’t recall, possibly the weird hipster kennel dreams, Joanie decides to become a witch. This comes fairly easy to her because apparently all it takes is a bit of bargain hunting and some ingredients for curry.

For everything else, there’s MasterCharge. This is a fairly significant shopping montage, because afterwards she’s basically a witch.

That was fast!

To witch a long story short: She has an affair with her daughter’s boyfriend and then shoots her husband dead because she thought he was the evil dream monster trying to break into her house. This makes her a complete and utter…

I'll be right back...

2010-12-02T02:09:00.000-08:00

So about six months ago I told my blog I was just popping out for some cigarettes, but in actual fact I was popping out to GET A DAMN JOB. Anyway I'm back now. Right now at least.

Hey did you know it's been snowing in Ireland? This is my dramatic interpretation of how Ireland in general (and Dubliners in particular) have progressed in their management of these events:

Thank GIF It's a Boring Sunday: Jersey Shore

2010-04-18T07:26:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm a duck. Meet some of my good friends. A few of them don't know what clothes are, but man can they kick it on the ones and twos. I'm not sure what that means. But I'm a duck so whatever.

And, lest I forget, here's the perfect musical accompaniment:

Driving With Crazy

2010-04-14T05:21:00.000-07:00

As an (almost) 26-year-old learning how to drive, I had some expectations of what the experience might be like. Throughout the first lesson for example I couldn't escape the thought that it would be the perfect timing for a zombie attack. Now as I approach my 8th lesson I look back at those naive introductory moments in the hope that the living dead will actually smash through the passenger window and devour my instructor feet-first*.

On that note here are my top tips for anyone considering some driving lessons in the future:

- If you get even the slightest notion at an early stage that your instructor might be a sociopathic lunatic, you're probably right.

- Definitely do not pay for a course of lessons in advance.

As a die-hard Justin Bieber fan might regretfully say in about two months time (right after he invades Poland): I was just following orders, mistakes were made, ZOMG. It's about time I moved on and focused on what's really important, i.e. all the retorts I've been saving up for the tenth and final lesson:

1) I'm glad you've been able to drive since you were ten, were you a dick then too? You seem like you have experience.
2) Who would have thought someone going for driving lessons didn't know how to drive?
3) I know you really didn't like it when I messed up the gears that one time, but when you said that it really causes damage to your piece of shit car all it really did was make me really smile. Really.
4) Negative reinforcement, oh and plenty of shouting, is the best way to make people feel comfortable and confident on the road.
5) I stalled it on purpose at that junction the other day. The look on your face.
6) Passive-aggressively controlling the clutch and then being surprised when I can't get a feel for the car is clearly good instructing.
7) With that in mind, I like when you shout and swear about letting the clutch up when you're the one holding it down.
8) That time you said "I can't take my eyes off you learners for one minute" during my second lesson is probably an indication that you shouldn't be an instructor. Because no, you cannot, that is your job.
9) I just love your singing voice, do you know My Humps?
10) Fuck off and die. LOL :-).

* For the sake of your health and well-being I'll be revealing the name of the instructor and company I've been learning with as soon as I'm finished the course.

Thank GIF It's Friday: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

2010-04-08T12:44:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls in twelve simple (i.e. incomprehensible) steps. I've even thrown in the ideal music to complete the entire experience (via fork/knife):

Warning: Contains scenes of mild peril

An open letter to the future

2010-04-07T12:14:00.000-07:00

As someone who greets each ~~Skynet-friendly~~ amazing development in robotics with a healthy dose of fear and disgust, this new towel-folding robot should have been terrifying.

Instead it was kind of disheartening. I mean apparently it takes twenty minutes to fold a single towel. A TEA TOWEL? This seems to further emphasise that not only will we fail to see the machines take over in our lifetime, but we most likely won't all have Robin Williams-inspired robot butlers either. Who in the hell is my imaginary grand-daughter going to marry now? A human man? A human woman? That's not the imaginary future I signed up for.

With that in mind here's another petty grievance I have with a certain future-focused pop culture entity of my youth and young ranthood:

Robert Zemeckis, you have five years from now in which to develop hover boards as affordable, recreational products or I'm uniting the youth of the late 1980s to mount a civil lawsuit against you. In fairness we've upheld our part of the bargain by styling ourselves on the post-millennial kids of Back to the Future: Part II:

Queue for Dalston Superstore, January 2010

Drive-by Movie: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

2010-04-05T15:37:00.000-07:00

Let’s face it, we don’t all watch films and Trololol men in the ideal conditions in which they were intended to be seen. Sometimes you’re sitting at home in your rainbow-coloured slanket flicking through channels and you just land 37 minutes into The Monster Squad only to realise that it’s not actually a kid’s film at all, it’s just about kids who in fact call eachother faggots and homos a lot. Other times you’re simply in the same room as The Ugly Truth, hiding behind a pillow and praying that you don’t die alone. And that Katherine Heigl does. Then there are those moments when you’re watching a film in bed, on your computer, in your Precious’s mother head-scarf and for whatever reason you just want to get it over with so you skip through to parts that look interesting. And that’s a drive-by.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

Reason(s) for skipping: A heady combo of sleep deprivation and the film itself being basically unwatchable. It states from the start that it has nothing to do with the original film, but it fails to mention that it also has nothing to do with things making sense and being enjoyable.

Percentage actually watched: Around 10%. I was about fifteen minutes in (and two extended musical numbers, oh lord) when I gave up and decided to make it go by faster. And then this happened:

What I think it’s all about: Sex and drugs and stuff. And iconic shots of women either naked or in their underpants:

Trailer Quote: “It’s like the original... on acid!” – Someone who has never taken acid

After that unscheduled two weeks in Dial-Up Country

2010-04-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

I'll be posting entries once again on a regular basis. Seriously, remember dial-up? This was me for the past fortnight:

I should probably thank my lucky stars though that great-aunt Mildred finally upgraded from this system in the last month:

I'll be selling this equipment* soon if anyone is interested.

*Stethoscope not included.

Hi Photoshop, have you met my FACE? - Twilight: Eclipse Edition

2010-03-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

Photoshop: Oh hey Kristen, how are you?

Kristen Stewart: Y'know, nervous and stuff.

Photoshop: Sure, sure.

Kristen Stewart: So hey, have you met my face?

Photoshop: I don't believe I've had the pleasure. Wait wait, hold on. We have met haven't we?

Kristen Stewart's Face: You could say that, yeah.

Photoshop: Damn! How've you been girl?

Kristen Stewart's Face: Wanna hook up?

Photoshop: You betcha.

They have sex, and this is their baby (wow, triplets!):

Ashton Kutcher & Katherine Heigl - Finally dead!

2010-03-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

The thrilling second part (see here for part one) of our completely inaccurate and ill-informed excerpt from the equally thrilling thriller Killers starring Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher that is COMING SOON:

Blue Mondays: Modern Talking - Atlantis Is Calling (SOS For Love)

2010-03-22T11:24:00.000-07:00

They've got talent (and hair!) to burn. They've got your number Lady GaGa, they're onto you:

Heigl & Kutcher: The dream team of 2010

2010-03-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

I just read a very brief synopsis of Killers, the upcoming comedy (and potential masterpiece?) starring Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher. I haven't even watched the trailer (that would be research, yikes), but if everything else I've seen either of them in is anything to go by (psst, click on the image to see it larger):

He's a spider with the head of a boy but the...

2010-03-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

In these wild and heady days it really is worthwhile to set some time aside to sit quietly on an upturned petrol can in the garden shed and take stock of your life. Also, Irish Spiderboy:

Thank GIF It's Friday: Troll 2

2010-03-19T04:28:00.000-07:00

Oh my gawwwdd it's a load of GIFs from Troll 2. I still can't believe how much better it was than Troll 1, truly a step up in quality to rival The Godfather Part II. Crazy witch woman is definitely Troll 2's answer to Robert De Niro.

Couple of Marlon Brandos right here:

Shot in one take, can you believe it?

Robert Duvall is the ginger one.

In fairness this isn't even the worst film Diane Keaton has taken part in.

Come on, you know the words!

2010-03-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

This is one of the weirdest things I have ever seen and figuring out what the hell might be going on here is my new favourite game:

(Via FourFour)

Blue Mondays: Taco - Puttin' on the Ritz

2010-03-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

This song kind of flops down on the couch in your brain and passes out right then and there. And it even makes you think of Fred Astaire dancing with a light saber cane. What's not to like? Oh yeah, that part at 0:42.

Can you say whoopsy! I mean what is this, Australia in 2009? Psst, no this is not Australia in 2009.

Thank GIF It's Mother's Day

2010-03-12T16:38:00.000-08:00

And so we come to Mother’s Day, the most important event in every woman’s diary (maybe even life?). In much the same way that Precious compresses a lot of serious social problems into a linear structure that we can all digest, so it is that Mother’s Day invites us to compress all the affection we feel for someone (and if you don't then you're fucking weird and don't deserve love?) in a way that they can digest (and if they don't get anything they're worth less than other people?). I mean otherwise we’d all go around telling people how amazing they are all the time, or like just being generally nice to them cause they make us happy or something. What kind of a world would that be? Anarchy on the streets!

So thank you, Mother’s Day, for letting us substitute acting like proper human beings on a regular basis with tossed-off gestures like buying your mother a few chocolates or a single disc DVD with Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler in it (order it now!).

Thank GIF It's Friday: Valley of the Dolls

2010-03-11T07:54:00.000-08:00

And because I know you want to listen to the Valley of the Dolls theme song now recorded extremely badly over footage of the turning vinyl LP, here's the link!

I'm a fucking idiot because I can't make a lamp?

2010-03-09T05:39:00.000-08:00

No, you're a fucking genius cause you can't make a lamp. I've always liked reappropriated film posters, the crazier the better (I'm looking at you Poland). I stumbled onto these ones for the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Tx (which you can buy at Poster Cabaret - PLUG!) and I think they're sufficiently nice and shiny.

P.S. Review of Troll II later in the week, and it's an absolute lock for a Thank GIF It's Friday slot sometime this month.

Blue Mondays: Boytronic - "You"

2010-03-08T02:38:00.000-08:00

This would have been called Memory Monday, but it seemed kind of disingenuous since the only thing I remember about the 1980s is Enya's Orinoco Flow. I'll save that for another day. The day that I drown in a stylish watercolour ocean.

And the Oscar for Biggest Creep goes to...

2010-03-07T16:12:00.000-08:00

A little harsh maybe, but he is such a creep.

Thank GIF It's Friday: The Room

2010-03-05T06:28:00.000-08:00

I've found that these work best if you have this playing in the background. Especially the last one.

I totes love your upcycled garbage pants, xo xo

2010-03-04T17:04:00.000-08:00

A story has been doing the rounds for the past few days about a homeless man in China called Xi Li Ge whose personal style has apparently inspired a new collection by Dolce & Gabbana:

Now I've mentioned before that suggesting something aloud, whether as a stupid joke or a serious idea that you actually want to carry out, brings that concept one step closer to existence. So let's address the ~~lazy joke~~ elephant in the room and just say that Ben Stiller has to claim a little responsibility for this. He put the concept out there into the system and now look where we are.

Putting aside the massive amount of things that are wrong with this - namely the trivialisation and commodification of a major social problem faced by millions the world over - we need to ask ourselves a very important question: Haven't annoying hipsters been doing this forever?

$ffed Up E$$

2010-03-04T08:32:00.000-08:00

My soul wept when I watched Kesha interviewing Kesha. I want Gary Oldman to perform an exorci$m on this video: