WIWLN (What I watched last night)

The Woman in Black, (James Watkins, 2012)

2012-02-25T22:14:00.002-05:00

I just finished watching Hammer Films' The Woman in Black with ~~Harry Potter~~ Daniel Radcliff, Ciaran Hinds and some of the most frightening CGI I have ever seen.

This film was pants-wettingly-scary, plenty of jump out of-your-skin moments.

True story: In 1984, my girlfriend and I went to see a Friday the 13th movie on a rainy, Easter Sunday before her parents took us back to Miami University. I remember thinking it was odd that there were so many small children in the same theater.

The movie was laughably bad, which is not always a bad thing with me. As I was explaining to my girlfriend that Jason was surely about to grab his next victim from under the stairs I paused long enough to jump out of my seat and somehow leap completely over her, landing on her lap and screaming the rest of my snarky comments about how predictable a movie it was into her ear, all because Jason Voorhees grabbed his next victim from under the stairs.

Better than drugs.

Funny Stuff

2012-02-15T09:54:00.001-05:00

To make something funny, add

an obese person

bigots (although it seems the only PC stereotypes left are Canadians and left-handed people. This is not a bad thing)

a sassy, black woman

animals that make rude noises

foul mouthed elderly or children

men in drag (England)

sex crazed, ugly people

Jerry Lewis (France)

men with afros

people with hairy moles on their face (China)

people with drug or alcohol addictions (extra points if it is a real person, no matter how tragic)

immigrants or anyone with a thick accent
potential homosexuals

clothing from the 1970s or hair styles from the 1980s

people using excessive profanity (unless they are Frank Booth)

2012-02-06T20:42:00.000-05:00

Bill Hinzman, the zombie from the cemetery in the original Night of the Living Dead, the ghoul that was "Coming to get you, Barbara." is dead. John T. at his superlative blog, Shocks to the System has written a very loving tribute to the man, his character and career.

I have written about my life long nightmares of gaunt, hollow eyed men pursuing me, but I never realized until tonight that it was Bill Hinzman haunting me.

I doubt I will sleep better tonight knowing he is dead. In fact, I hope comes to get me one more time.

Monday Morning Halftime Quarterbacking

2012-02-06T12:01:00.000-05:00

We are not big on sports in our house. The super bowl is pretty much the only thing we look forward to, and that is so Adrienne can make her "party to end football season" jokes. As for me, I am clueless. Last week someone had to explain what "punting" means (it is means to give up the ball, or in my case, let someone else answer the question I was stuck on).

This was provocative in the 1980s.
Shut, you will be old too someday.

I did catch the halftime show this morning on YouTube. Controversial superstar, Madonna performed, backed by seemingly every hard bodied dancer in North America. I said controversial because her provocative outfits and outspoken, hyper-sexualized persona, made quite the publicity, 30 years ago.

For all the moans and groans about the inauthenticity of her lip syncing, let us not forget that Madonna is not Aretha Franklin (or anyone else that has a voice we love to listen to). Her biggest attraction is, well the fact that she is Madonna and we have been her adoring fans since the mid 1980's.

There is an entire generation that has never known a world with out her. She certainly has been a star for as long as Niki Minaj, the cheerleader in the white wig, has been alive. Cee Lo Green also put in an appearance. I recognize him on The Voice. I remember thinking it was funny that he was wearing a Misfits t-shirt because I am certain that while Glen Danzig has a pretty good voice, Mr. Green does not cover any of their material.

The show was a nice pastiche of songs that I knew only peripherally from her songbook, I guess the new single was there in the middle, with the cheerleaders. It reminded me of Toni Basil's song "Mickey" (or Weird Al's version, "Rickey"). A hint to those competing in Madonna Land spelling bees , every word ends with the letter "MADONNA!"

Madonna isn't only a hot looking MILF (she is 53). she does have a good heart and is very active in a campaign to save the world. At around the 11:45, while she is writhing on her knees, simulating fellatio with Cee Lo Green, the camera reveals the football field has become a map of the world.

I never wanted to end hunger in Africa so bad.

(This was so cool I had to post this)

Our visit with Mercedes

2012-01-25T12:31:00.001-05:00

The Sanducky Mall and my dreams of monsters

2012-01-24T23:16:00.000-05:00

I returned to the center of the universe last week-The Sandusky Mall. Large malls were a novel phenomena in the heartland of the 1970s. These local edifices were both brothels, where the sin of lust was fanned to fever pitch and cathedrals that provided expiation and atonement. This was a sensual experience was irresistible to a dissatisfied, alienated teenager. I devoted countless hours to searching behind the mall's garish facades, prowling its promenades, searching the emporiums and boutiques and spending my quarters in the meretricious arcade, hoping to find that one thing that would bring gratification.

There were movies to see anytime I wanted, Baskin-Robbins ice cream, and the illicite thrills and temptations of Spencer Gifts (a fertile place for boys with active imaginations. My friends and I would go there to buy embarrassing items and have them delivered to friends while in class.) I spent most of my time and money in Musicland, soley buying albums from the import section and the bookstores. There was a Waldenbooks at one end, and later there was a Coles Bookstore at the opposite end. In these stores I could find interesting, eclectic and unusual music and research anything that my intellect desired, not what the prudish librarians deemed appropriate. They were windows where I could my face against the shiny glass to get a glimpse a new world.

Lon Chaney once appeared to
chase me through my basement

It was there that I was introduced to myriad monsters that would invade my subconscious at night. I have always dreamed about them, wild eyed, long haired, fanged mad men rushing from the darkness, or giant monsters attacking large cities, and the gaunt, hollowed men and women, that wanted to either dine or me or assimilate into their ranks.

One of my most vivid dreams was about vampires choosing to live and hunt inside The Sandusky Mall where they safe from the sun's destroying light. Eventually the mall was almost completely populated by vampires, who waited to consume the unsuspecting consumers.

Dawn of the Dead (1978) living dead, mall, sewing supplies, 'nuff said.

Even though David Cronenberg and George Romero would borrow heavily on some of the themes present in my nightmares, I never received any recognition for my nocturnal visions of closed consumer societies haunted by virus infected or hungry for human flesh monsters. While I should be flattered, after all, isn't plagiarism a high form of flattery? The reality is that they probably had no idea that they shared an unconscious mind with a preteen horror fan from void of Nowhereton, Ohio.

Rabid (1977)also had some pretty scary, gory mall moments

Shivers (1975) took place in an entirely closed community of apartments

SO I returned to the mall when visiting my family and hungrily stared through windows like the alcoholic, teetering on the edge of relapsing looking at the beguiling bottles of liquor behind the bar. I staggered from one end to the other and back, remembering where the Spencers, Musicland, Coles and Waldenbooks had been. There were gone and I have moved on also.

Hardcore, Paul Schrader (1979)

2012-01-24T20:35:00.005-05:00

Paul Schrader's Hardcore, 1979, is a dark, postlapsarian fable showing America's rapid and irresistible decline into debauchery and decadence. As the family of staunchly religious busnessman Jake VanDorn unravels, the forces of darkness move in to entice his teen-age daughter into their subterranean culture.

Jake VanDorn, living in the stoical and strict Calvinist Reformation community in Grand Rapids, Michigan, believes he is pure and protected as Adam did in Garden of Eden. He faces life headon, an uncompromising and stalwart member of the community and faithful servant of God.

Iris is the present for Kristen's childhood in
Eden and Niki's future in Gehenna

Season Hubley is the world weary Niki

The Eve(s) of Hardcore are VanDorn's adolescent daughter Kristen (Ilah Davis), who disappeared on a church trip to California, and Niki (Season Hubley), the sex worker that helps VanDorn search for her. Together with Schrader's Iris, the child prostitute from his screenplay for Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976), they create single entity; Hardcore offers glimpses of where Iris may have come from and how she might have ended up if she weren't rescued a brutal, rage fueled father figure.

The third character in the story of The Fall is the serpent, private detective Andy Mast (Peter Boyle). The serpent's role in the Fall was to open Adam and Eve's eyes. Once their eyes were open, God cast them out of paradise and into the broken world we all inhabit. Mast gleefully introduces VanDorn to the seedy and sinful world outside Grand Rapids by showing him a pornographic loop of Kristin having sex with two men.

... until Something Weird Video re-releases it on a compilation DVD

By the end of VanDorn's journey (he is called "pilgrim" by Mast), he can no longer stand aloof, free from the woes of the world. Instead, he becomes a participant, a perpetrator. After leaving Grand Rapids and dismissing Mast, VanDorn sets about searching for his daughter himself, enlisting Niki, the fallen Eve to help with the search. He submerges himself into the neon lit, sordid culture of pornography, becoming one of the exploiters, first as a ruse to find Kristen, and then for real as he forsakes Niki, dismissing the promises he made to her for her help.

In exchange for free product placement (billboards advertising
Star Wars glimpsed though out), George Lucas gave
Paul Schrader access to Chalmun's Cantina outtake

Niki questions him constantly, testing him, trying to get him to see himself in a new light, "We are not so different," she tells him. At the end of the movie, the most interesting question is what will their tomorrows be like?

Happy New Year-ish

2012-01-03T09:11:00.001-05:00

WIWLN is going on hiatus. Writing this blog i one of m y favorite things to do, but I have a couple of time crunches that are interfering with my watching movies and writing times. It is sad that this is happening now because there are lots of cool things that I want to see and write, especially now that so many of my favorite blogs are putting up their end of the year lists.

We are stuck between housing right now; we have one house that we can't move into and one house that we have to vacate very soon. This little apartment is already crammed full of moving boxes, but no definite date when the bank will let us move into the new place. The present delay has to do with Bank of America LOSING some of the paperwork. I won't bore you with the details, most of which I don't understand myself.

And also, my grand daughter is visiting us now. She is a riot, but exhausting too. Here is a video of the little angel, asleep in the car on the way home from the beach we went to on New Years Day.

Anyway, I hope I can get back to the blog soon.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Guy Ritchie, 2011)

2011-12-18T20:08:00.003-05:00

When I was in college, back in the eighties, a friend of mine had a cartoon on his door that showed two men outside a movie theater. One guy is telling the other that he didn't know if the movie he was good or not, but "it was worth the price of admission just to experience the illusion of motion created by a rapidly projected series of still images on a screen."

That pretty much describes my reaction to Guy Ritchie's latest film, the sequel to 2009's Sherlock Holmes. Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are re-united as Holmes and Watson, Aurther Conan Doyle's Victorian crime stopping odd-couple.

The duo dash around Europe, accompanied by gypsy woman, Madam Simza Heron (Niomi Rapace), trying to stop criminal master mind, Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris, Mad Men's Lane Price) bring about global chaos for his own means. But the story doesn't matter, it is raison d'être for Ritchie's elaborate action scenes.

These scenes are filmed with a special camera that shoots a thousand frames a second. When played back at normal speed, the characters fly in extreme slow motion through clouds of gracefully flying debris from a fusillade of bullets. Trees slowly blow apart as missiles tear through them on their way to exploding behind Holmes and Watson as they leap to safety.

Just as early film goers leapt out of their seats the first time they watched a cinematically captured steam locomotive arriving at the station or Justus D. Barnes firing his gun, point-blank into the camera at the end of The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, 1903), Ritchie's slow moving bullets and bombs are something modern viewers have never seen before. To sit in the theater and watch the brief seconds of action stretch to epic lengths, allowing every nuance to be carefully examined is exciting stuff. One could say it was well worth the price of admission just to experience that.

Neat Neat Neat

2011-12-16T15:57:00.001-05:00

The Damned, Dave Vanian, Captain
Sensible, bass player, Rat Scabies

Growing up in Stultified, Ohio, I lived for the unusual. Living in a town with a library that removed offense articles from magazines and record store that featured only family friendly music, stimulation was hard to come by.

The western world's booming roar of outrage over the fledgling punk rock movement was a faint reverberation through my hometown's thickly insulated walls of intolerance towards the unusual.

To me, those faint echos were tiny drops of gasoline sprinkled on the embers of my curiosity.

I borrowed the The Silver Fish, a 1970 something Dodge Malibu with a slant six engine and three on the tree transmission to drive to the local Bowling Green State University campus. Using The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature (the Internet in book form), I began my search for information about Punk Rock.

Of course, the most notorious punk rock band was the Sex Pistols. More of a media stunt orchestrated by svengali impresario and sex-shop owner, Malcom Maclaren, than a band, the Sex Pistols were about being shocking. Their fame (or infamy) was a product of their mocking andd disrepspect of some of Britain's most sacred cows. Fueled by their outlandish antics, their offensive lyrics, their fan's unusual costumes and the tragic life and death of Sid Viscous, they were a sensation without even having to play their instruments.

I bought Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, their only album, in a bin of 8 track cutouts at the local Woolworth's store and played it endlessly. I was enthralled because they said "fuck" alot and eventhough I am not British, their songs about turning concentration camps into vacation getaways and the infamous "God Save the Queen (we mean it, man), attacked an establishment very much like the one I felt oppressing me in my hometown. I mean, not really, after all I was a white, middle clas kid in the midwest. The issues that the Sex Pistols mocked were worlds away from my universe where the worst thing the authorities did was tell me I couldn't bring my walkman to school.

Lastly, what they lacked in musical skill they made up for in ferocity. Punk rock kicked way more ass than Chuck Mangione, or even The Who.

My favorite punk band for many years was The Damned. They were ;ess apolitical than The Sex Pistols, better muscians and possessed a visual stylethat borrowed heavily from Hammer films. They are considered to have released the first punk single. Neat Neat Neat/New Rose was released October 22, 1976, nearly one month before The Sex Pistol's "Anarchy in the UK" saw record stores.

In his October 30th, 2008 show, famous British person, Craig Ferguson shares his reaction to hearing that first Damned single.

Here is the original line up, before guitarist Brian James left and Captain Sensible moved from bass to lead. Note singer Dave Vanian's ghoulish theatrical make-up. His fondness for performing in19th century styled clothing became trade marks for burgeoning Goth fashion.

These days, I often think about The Damned when talking about my dog, Eloise, whom I named after one of their biggest selling singles. She even has similar coloring to Dave Vanian's black and white hair when I saw them in 1986 at The Jockey Club. This video is from around that time.

More from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

2011-12-12T11:22:00.000-05:00

The Rock and Roll stylings of The Carrie Nations from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Thirsty for Love-Sex and Murder Online!

2011-12-11T21:50:00.002-05:00

I wrote about Thirsty for Love-Sex and Murder ( in its native tongue, Aska Susayanlar) before (read about it here). It is available at Google Video. Loads of fun and only an hour long, I highly recommend it. Subtitled.

The Commune (Elisabeth Fies, 2009)

2011-12-10T10:40:00.001-05:00

Despite a shocking opening that turns Sophocles on his head, 2009's The Commune quickly turns itself into a family melodrama that seems too familiar, but is also too alluring to dismiss. Spotlighting pretty, blonde Jenny (Chauntal Lewis), an adolescent in full "You just don't understand" mode who doesn't want to spend her 16th birthday away from her best buds. Mom (played by writer-director Elisabeth Fies) has had enough of her daughter's hormonally charged, emotional hemorrhaging and needs some time to herself. So off Jenny goes, to visit her visit her estranged father at his commune in the mountains.

Writer Elisabeth Fies populates the world of The Commune with an adroitly written cast of familiar characters. Her single mother has had enough of being over worked and under appreciated, while teen aged Jenny masks her fear of the unknown with anger and resentment. The father is both remorseful and unapologetic for neglecting his daughter for much of her life.

Once Jenny is away from home and friends, Fies quickly starts knocking out the almost stereotypical tropes she started with, until, like a crooked Jenga tower, the entire family and accompanying drama, collapse in pile of horror filled, Greek style tragedy.

Independently made on a modest budget, The Commune unfolds its real story in its own time. Just when the movie seems comfortably headed towards familiar territory, the direction changes into areas that horror films (or family melodramas) seldom go.

Sometimes my mind wanders

2011-12-03T13:32:00.001-05:00

Since Gilligan's graphic is more interesting,
I used it as the banner for this post.

Retrospace, is one of my favorite places on the Internet. If you have any curiosity about what life looked like in the good old days, an hour or two at Gilligan's site is time well spent. I saw this worthy posting the other day and it got me thinking about Josie and the Pussycats, my first taste of sex and rock and roll. Of course the drugs leg of the triangle would come from Scoobie Doo's Shaggy, but that wouldn't be until I was in college.

My introduction to the swinging, hedonistic pleasures of watching hot, leggy girls playing guitars happened in 1970, at age six, when the Hanna-Barbara series Josie and the Pussycats premiered as part of the Saturday morning line up. With the focus on the three leading female characters, it was more sexually charged than Scoobie Doo, this show soon was my Saturday morning favorite.

Josie and the Pussycats was also my first lesson in gender appropriate choices. I remember my mother having to explain why I couldn't have the Josie and the Pussycats lunchbox because it was for girls. I took home the more masculine themed Gunsmoke box instead.

Check out the ship, you're thinking
2001 a Space Odyssey, right?

A few seasons later, the show was became a rock and roll, science fiction spectacular, Josie and the Pussy Cats in Outer Space. By that time, I was too busy running around the yard yelling "Bang! Bang!" with my stick guns to pay much attention.

Speaking of running around with a stick in my hand, how could anyone miss the giant penis everyone traveled through space in?

Also premiering in 1970 was Russ Meyers and Roger Ebert's masterpiece, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. I can't think of one without being reminded of the other because they are so similar. Each features the loves and adventures of a racially mixed, all female band seeking success. Granted, The Kelly Affair, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls house band, had adventures that were not Saturday morning cartoon appropriate (or elementary school lunch boxes either).

And now, some videos;

I guess I am going to have to make my own rips of the songs from Beyond the Valley. By the way, Roger Ebert wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, not Russ Meyers as the trailer says. Oh well.

(I just posted five songs from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, see them here before they get taken down.

Ken Russell dead at 84

2011-11-30T09:01:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite film makers, director Ken Russell died this week. John T. at Shocks to the System shared from his personal experience as a film student under Russell's tutelage and Aylmer at Unflinching Eye wrote a short but very insightful analysis of Russell's films and relationship to British cinema.

My among my favorites of his films (alongside Tommy and Salome's Last Dance, which I wrote about earlier) is The Lair of the White Worm, from a story by Bram Stoker. It is a fairly traditional British horror film, a group of aristocrats and non-aristocrats band together to fight a super natural evil in the lush countryside. But since Ken Russell seldom did anything traditionally, the film is rife with wild, psychedelic, sexual and religious imagery.

Post Thanksgiving Trailer a thon-I have been warned

2011-11-28T12:53:00.001-05:00

It seems that our trip to New England has left me bedridden for the the day. My tools to fight boredom between naps are a laptop, an Internet connection, and a set of DVDs Named Horror Do Not Watch Alone. Curiously, the discs identify themselves as "Do not watch" when I put them in my laptop.

I started with Blood Tide. Not really much of a movie, I was surprised to see James Earl Jones and José Ferrer. Jones adds a touch of artistic integrity by quoting Shakespeare most of the time he is on screen.

This moring I watched The Undertaker and his Pals, which promised to be a "shocking expose of today's blah blah blah..." Even at 63 minutes, the movie was too long, although there was plenty of tastelessness to be found.

Next on my list is Fangs of the Living Dead, the main reason I bought the box set. My (bootlegged) copy is of pretty inferior quality and I am hoping that the version here will be in better shape.

Random Rumblings: Black Flag - 1983 - Culver City

2011-11-20T09:50:00.000-05:00

I saw this this morning from Scott (gotankgo)'s web site.

Random Rumblings: Black Flag - 1983 - Culver City

What I am watching tonight: Dracula's Fiancee (2002, Jean Rollin)

2011-11-18T19:08:00.001-05:00

There are a handful of directors that I love purely because of their beautiful visual style; I just want to grab individual frames from their movies, blow them up to poster size and decorate my house with them.

Jean Rollin is one of those directors.

I am watching his 2002 film, Dracula's Fiancee courtesy of Netflix streaming.

Like other Rollin films I've seen, it is less about the.plot or the girls and more about the images:

At around the 12 minute mark, we see a mother superior's S&M doll collection on her desk.

Ten minutes later, a novice doffs her habit for a diaphanous dress and belly dances around the library

And so on...

I wonder if l should go back to the beginning to start over and fill in any plot holes I may have missed when a dwarf, dressed as a clown, offers a baby to an ogress to eat, but what's the point? I am on a mad, sureal journey that has no origin and probably no destination.I am simply thrilled to be on the trip.

Blogged from my Android phone

Insomniac Theater Presents: My (Pretty lame for a guy that calls hmself a horror movie fan) Shocktober Movie List

2011-10-30T21:13:00.001-04:00

The Halloween Spirit appeared, for the first time this year, on Friday night when Adrienne and I went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a loving tribute to many of the movies I saw as a kid. This was the first time in (way) over two decades that I had been to a "live" RHPS showing. Fortunately it wasn't at midnight because there is no way I could have stayed up that late.

It was a great show; in addition to the antics in the audience, there was a fairly well choreographed stage show. Many of the men and woman in the audience wore jaw-droppingly revealing costumes, often made up of bustiers, lingerie and thigh high stockings held in place with a garter belt. I was hoping to see amongst the usual Playboy Bunnys, sexy nurses, maids, stewardesses and pirate babes, some serious female role model type costumes like Slutty Secretary of State or Supreme Court Dominatrix.

Usually, I the month of October to a festival of horror films that I used to share with my children, but due to some personal issues, I haven't felt much like it this year.

But, that the heck, a good scary movie can be like the best 90 minutes of an LSD trip; weird, thrilling, colorful, and then it's over. In no particular order, here is what I've been grooving on this month:

Check out the door in the desert

Velvet Vampire (Stephanie Rothman, 1971)-Speaking of trippy,this was a unique, female helmed vampire film from the early 1970s has plenty of the "Oh wow" stuff. Not hindered by a low budget, our characters struggle for survival in the beautifully shot California desert. Made during they heydays (and nights) of the sexual revolution, the husband and wife openly compete for the chance to have sex with the vampire. Featuring the impressively sexy Celeste Yarnell and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Michael Blodgett and his hair, Velvet Vampire was well worth the time it took to get it from Netflix.

House of the Devil (Ti West, 2009)-I have had a copy of this for quite a while, but never got around to watching until recently. I probably won't watch it again.

The Others (Alejandro Amenabar, 2001)-Even though I have seen it many times and the plot holds not twists for me, this ghost story still raises goose pimples on my arms. Told in a restrained, methodical style, The Others is my favorite kind of horror. Nicole Kidman is awesome as a mother at her wits end, but James Bentley and Alakina Mann are just as amazing as her children. Only flaw, the body of the movie is so scary that I was exhausted by the finale.

Attack the Block (Joe Cornish, 2011)-I had never heard of this movie until the night I watched it. More of a sci-fi actioner, there was plenty of humor and it was lots of fun.

Day of the Dead (George Romero, 1985)/Diary of the Dead (George Romero, 2007)-I am not sure why I watched these two so closely together, considering the 22 years that separates them. Watching them together made the similarities (or cliches?) too obvious. A group of largely unlikable characters are thrown together to battle the living dead, stretching the veneer of civilization thinner and thinner until it breaks. Romero has said that his living dead movies are vehicles to comment on society (couldn't find the interview, sorry). On a personal note, I have dreamed about gaunt, hollowed eyed zombies pursuing me my entire life, even before I became obsessed with monster movies. Watching a decomposing, reanimated corpse struggle with an unwilling victim still sends me into a panic.

Twilight (Catherine Hardwick, 2008)-Although I am not on the band wagon, these wildly popular books and movies turned the vampire mythos on its head. No Gothic castles, coffins or cloaks or stakes here. The vampires of Twilight never sleep, drive Mercedes Benz and look sexier in direct sunlight. My post about it is here.

I don't know why the movie isn't playing, but you can see it here instead.

Another movie I already wrote about was Matthijis van Heijningen's The Thing. I guess it made quite an impression on me, but now, two weeks later, I don't remember much of it.

Jennifer's Body (Karen Kusama, 2009)-Who can resist Diablo Cody's snarky dialogue? Watching this for the third time last night, I still got plenty of laughs from demon possessed Megan Fox's catchy retorts. However, the thing that stays with me the most is Amanda Seyfrid's eyes;

The Woman (Lucky Mcgee, 2011)-I don't usually like to use this space to say negative things, but I thought this film was pretty ho-hum, even the brutally violent last third. It was simply another twisted tale of female empowerment from Lucky Mcgee and Jack Ketchum. Here is a video clip of someone being escorted from the Sundance premier:

That is all for tonight; it is early enough that I may have time to watch another film tonight. I hope so because I would love to go on that journey and maybe get a glimpse of the inside of my own soul.

Curiosity Killed the Cat

2011-10-23T18:11:00.001-04:00

Today was a beautiful fall day, high around 70 degrees. There is a definite advantage to living in southern Georgia. I am taking it as pay back for the crushingly hot summer. How did I choose to celebrate this beautiful gift of a day? By stretching out on the couch in my big fluffy bathrobe and watching Twilight (Catherine Hardwicke, 2008).

Yes, I know, I had a nearly infinite quantity of alternatives to watch-hundreds stored on an external hard drive, a Blockbuster right around the corner, plus all the movies available for free over the Internet. But my interest was piqued yesterday during the trailers for The Thing and I decided to take a peek at the supernaturally beautiful Cullen clan and the amazingly plain Bella (Kristen Stewart, doing her long, tall drink of tepid water impersonation, not at all like her totally kick ass Joan Jett).

I don't want to make fun of Twilight because, at this point, it is like making George W. Bush, they have all been made and the world has moved on. So I am going to be brief.

Basically, the movie breaks down like this:

Vampires acting subtle and mysterious while wearing awesome clothes, driving really nice cars, and having a fantastic place to call a crypt-10 minutes

Not very interesting special effects driven action-3 minutes

Amazingly banal teenage inner monologues-102 minutes

Trying to catch a glimpse of Rosellie Cullen (Nikki Reed) in her baseball uniform-5 minutes.

Nikki Reed playing baseball, insert "America's Favorite Pastime" joke here

By the way, Nikki Reed co-wrote (at 13) and starred in a much better movie about teen-age angst, 13 (also directed by Catherine Hardwicke, 2003).

Everyone knows the saying, "Curiosity killed the cat/satisfaction brought him back," I fear those two hours are gone forever.

The Thing (Matthijis van Heijningen, 2011)

2011-10-22T16:26:00.001-04:00

I just came from watching (the prequel to) 1982's The Thing, confusingly enough also called The Thing and I am giving it a 3/4 jar full of change (I am looking for an original icon to use to rate movies) of terror.

It wasn't a perfect film, or probably even a very good film, but the reason I am giving it so much change is because I spent most of the last half of the film trying to curl into the fetal position. That is very difficult in a theater.

There was a distinct lack of the wink-wink, in-joke references that make movie dorks feel special and almost no annoying, red-herring, "It was just the cat trying to get out of the locker, not a giant, brain eating alien" scares. These things made the film easier to take seriously.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is one of Horror's far too few strong female characters.

The movie doesn't need much more analysis than this; it was an adrenaline-izing experience. I can't comment much more than that because I was trying really hard not to jump out of my skin.

More The Thing (2011) Videos

Insomniac Theater Presents: Salome's Last Dance (Ken Russell, 1988)

2011-09-18T10:14:00.000-04:00

I watched Ken Russell's Salome's Last Dance (1988), and wow, what a blast. I can't thin k of any director I have been as devoted to as Ken Russell.Looking at his IMDB page, I have watched ten of the 19 feature films listed.

Just like his earlier film, The Boyfriend (1971, with Twiggy and 6 foot, 36 inch Tommy Tune), Salome's Last Dance presented as a story within a story. However, instead of focusing equally on the actual setting of the play, Salome is almost solely about the performance of Oscar Wilde's banned play, Salome, for it's author, put on by staff and customers of a brothel.

Russell's love of literature was also featured in 1988's Gothic, about the famous, 19th century, horror story writing contest that produced both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and John Polidori's The Vampyre. Told as a luadenum induced hallucination, the viewer gets to see, among other things, breasts with eyes for nipples and Henry Fusell's The Nightmare come to life.

Russell's flamboyant, visual style was completely unleashed in 1975's The Who's Tommy, which took viewer on an insane, psychedelic trip. Don't be tempted to watch this movie under the influence of drugs, the film is hallucinogenic enough.

Tommy starred Oliver Reed. Reed is best know (to me) as the hairy chested Leon in Hammer's 1961 Curse of the Werewolf. He was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Ridley Scott's massively overrated Gladiator. I know that sometime the weight of sadness that descends on Russell Crowe is so overwhelming that many nights, he goes in his study and stares at his Best Actor Oscar and weeps in shame, knowing that it should have gone to Chow Yun Fat for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Reed played Urban Grandier in Russell's 1971 The Devils, a stew of sex, religion, political intrigue, hysteria, and lesbian nun sex. Clearest memory, besides the big orgy wherein a statue of Christ is sexually assaulted by a bunch of "possessed" nuns, is the arrival of the witch hunter leads his entourage onto the scene, looking and moving very much like a rock star with his long hair and purple tinted glasses.

Salome's Last Dance is is a visual treat as the lounge in the bordello becomes transformed into the setting of Wilde's play. Wilde's prose, mostly unadulterated, flows from the mouths of the elegantly costumed whore and johns in a delightful cadence. Imogen Millais-Scott, as Salome captivates the viewers eyes as she prances around the stage, the petulant teen-ager whose desires lead to her undoing.

This Sht Psses Me Off!

2011-08-09T19:02:00.052-04:00

I am tired of people forwarding me emails or exhorting me to copy-and-paste their facebook status to mine, espousing the fallacious belief that America can be saved from its debt crisis if I and my family would buy only American products from locally owned businesses. Even more so tonight when I got one that promised "if every American spent just $64 more than normal on USA made items this year, it would create something like 200,000 new jobs" after reading about John Boehner walking away from President Obama's "grand bargain" due objections over raising revenue by "removing tax breaks for oil companies, corporate-jet owners, and hedge-fund managers." ("No 'grand bargain' on the debt ceiling," from The Week, the Best of the US and International Media, July 22, 2011, volume 11, page 2).

Walmart and other big box stores that buy cheap foreign products to sell at lower prices are not the evil here. I don't buy things from Walmart because I hate America, I do it because it is more affordable. My family is not financially independent enough to spend more when given the option to pay less. I am sure there are many Americans out there who feel the same way (you know who you are).

The evil here is being told by some rube that the solution to our financial problems is to make the Americans who have the least, do the most. Meanwhile, the small majority that owns the most crooks their bejeweled fingers and discussions over America's future grind to a halt in an attempt to keep tax breaks on their corporate-owned jets. There were less than 117 million households in America in 2006. Of those, less than 2% (around two million) earned more than $250,000. At that same time, 20% of households (that is, 20 million) earned less than $20,000. Those two million wealthy households earn 125 times more than the 20 million poorest (Wikipedia). Which group has more hedge-fund managers and corporate owned jets? Which group has more resources to fit the debt crisis?

This chart from from Fair Economy shows some of the things that could be done by those who can afford it, if they chose to.

However, just like me, they are not giving their money away.

One last thing, rubes, the president that is really responsible for America's messed up financial state is not Barack Obama. President Obama is trying to help the majority of Americans, not a wealthy elite.

Please leave your comments below (and not on my facebook wall!)

Security Risk; how to avoid the "...make frustrating changes to your browser." warning.

2011-08-04T16:28:00.000-04:00

I love living in the age of computers and the Internet. They are two tools that have given opportunity and access to worlds I never even thought could have existed. I can write and publish whatever I want, edit video or music at home without expensive machines (or software), and learn interesting things about people, places and things. Occasionally, the Internet and my computer work against each other. Sometimes when I am searching for images on the Internet, this pop-up will appear:

A careful reading would reveal that this warning has many grammatical errors and is written in a non-Microsoft style. But many computer users never read these things, myself included. I would try to close it, but as soon as I clicked anywhere, my screen would be replaced by a short animation that looks like my computer is being scanned.

There is the C: drive, a CD/DVD drive, etc., all things that exist on many computers. A closer look reveals that this computer has two hard drives, C: and D: ; unusual but not unheard of. Plus there is a floppy drive, which is obsolete, and the disc drive is only for reading CDs. I know enough about my machines to know that is not what my computer would look like in a Windows Explorer window. There is also the familiar, green progress bar that tell the user ~~exactly how slow Windows Vista is making their computer run~~ the scan's progress. Then there is the scary parts; a list of all byte-sized nasties that are (supposedly) currently residing on their computer and that their computer is unprotected from viruses. Also,

Most people have very little idea of how their computer functions. To them, as long as it does what it is supposed to, why bother? Being told that they are in danger from unknown sources causes a great deal of anxiety.

To increase their anxiety, when the bogus scan "completes" this window pops up:

As with the first image, someone has made a great effort to make this look like a real message from a Windows computer. Windows users are used to single or double clicking on a window just like the one above to solve their problems. Unfortunately for the inexperienced, this simplicity creates a misguided trust that is easily exploited. Clicking anywhere on the screen gives permission for the download of what is definitely not the answer to any security problem.

What is downloaded is an executable file (a program) that is malicious (mal-ware). It won't fix the problem, in fact it will create problems that were not there before. Also, it will urge the user to purchase more software to fix the problem. Of course, once they have the user's credit card info, the gates are open for all sorts of mischief, including identity fraud.

My chiropractor, a young man who grew up using computers, fell victim to just this kind of scam. When buying the extra software didn't help, he took his computer to a shop that charged him hundreds of dollars in labor for their attempts to restore his damaged computer to its previous state. A few days later he received a call from his credit card company, alerting him to suspicious activity in his account. Someone was using his card to make cash advances.

Even regular vigilance and precautions can let a Windows user down. Two years ago, despite having up-to-date virus and malware software, and running regular scans, one of my computers got bit by a nasty rootkit virus that drastically affected my Windows XP desktop. When I had to pay hundreds of dollars to get my machine restored, I needed to get serious about finding something better than Windows.

That was when I decided to get serious about finding a secure operating system. I chose the Ubuntu Linux distribution because I heard it was simple to use, utilitarian in purpose and well supported. Plus, most Linux software is free, including a Microsoft Office like suite of programs, really good audio and video editing software and The Gimp, an image manipulation program that rivals Photoshop creating amazing graphics.

Linux machines are designed to be more secure. I had no idea how that rootkit came to ravage my Windows XP system, but suddenly, my slow computer became even slower, my browsers were hijacked and I could no longer run scans or do a system restore. However, trying to replicate the same mistake that lead to my previous trouble brought this message up on my Ubuntu laptop:

The Ubuntu operating system recognized that a file had been downloaded and was trying run without my permission. Because of the way programs are launched, in order for this particular program to run, I would need to give permission for it to run. This step makes the user think about what they are doing before proceeding to deliver their virginal computers over to the seething hoards of Gommorahh.

As for the Apple users who believe their machines are invincible, this article and this one should wipe that smug grin off your faces.

Please feel free to leave your comments below.

Anniversary

2011-07-29T17:35:00.002-04:00

This was me, a year ago.

God is good.