Whatever.

Blogiversary

2014-12-05T04:32:00.002-05:00

Two posts this year. I didn't even have the energy to do SHOCKtober reviews. I think we might have to call this one. But hey, that was a solid ten years, right? (Eleven technically, but again, two posts this year). Though, it's still helpful for me to be able to click one link and see all my race reports - but I'm way behind even on those.

BQ

2014-09-07T10:33:00.001-04:00

ἐξελαύνω

2014-03-04T16:13:00.000-05:00

Gaudeamus igitur, iuvenes dum sumus!

Well, I didn't BQ last year, but "to march forth" means even more this year. So this year's theme is running.

First, for my legs, our old friend Heraclitus: πάντα ῥεῖ. All things flow.

And now from Pindar, who wrote odes to victorious athletes, from his Pythia 11, dedicated to Thrasydaeus of Thebes for his victory in the foot race at the Pythian games:

Μοῖσα, τὸ δὲ τεόν, εἰ μισθοῖο συνέθευ παρέχειν
φωνὰν ὑπάργυρον, ἄλλοτ᾽ ἄλλᾳ ταρασσέμεν
ἢ πατρὶ Πυθονίκῳ
τό γέ νυν ἢ Θρασυδαίῳ:
τῶν εὐφροσύνα τε καὶ δόξ᾽ ἐπιφλέγει.
τὰ μὲν ἐν ἅρμασι καλλίνικοι πάλαι,
Ὀλυμπίᾳ ἀγώνων πολυφάτων
ἔσχον θοὰν ἀκτῖνα σὺν ἵπποις:
Πυθοῖ τε γυμνὸν ἐπὶ στάδιον καταβάντες ἤλεγξαν
Ἑλλανίδα στρατιὰν ὠκύτατι. θεόθεν ἐραίμαν καλῶν,
δυνατὰ μαιόμενος ἐν ἁλικίᾳ.
τῶν γὰρ ἂμ πόλιν εὑρίσκων τὰ μέσα μακροτέρῳ
ὄλβῳ τεθαλότα, μέμφομ᾽ αἶσαν τυραννίδων:
ξυναῖσι δ᾽ ἀμφ᾽ ἀρεταῖς τέταμαι.

Muse, it is your task, if you undertook to lend your voice for silver, to let it flit now this way, now that: now to the father, who was a Pythian victor, now to his son Thrasydaeus. Their joyfulness and renown shine brightly. With their chariots they were victorious long ago; they captured the swift radiance of the famous games at Olympia with their horses. And at Pytho, when they entered the naked footrace, they put to shame the Hellenic host with their speed. May I desire fine things from the gods, seeking what is possible at my time of life. For I have found that those of middle rank in a city flourish with longer prosperity, and I find fault with the lot of tyrannies. I am intent upon common excellences.

I love that last line. I am intent upon common excellences. I don't need to be the best; I don't need to win the race. Just let me do well.

Happy ἐξελαύνω/Exelauno Day!

Chasing Me

2013-12-07T13:01:00.000-05:00

2013 South Boston Catholic Academy 5k
Garmin: 3.13 miles, 18:45 mins, 5:59 min/mi.
Official: 3.11 mi, 18:46 mins, 6:03 min/mi, 15th of 308 overall, 5th of 59 in M03039

I beat my course PR (19:45) but placed worse, because last year it was snowing which depressed turnout, and this year the Somerville Road Runners invaded, and most of the people who beat me were wearing their singlet. Oh well. I was racing against myself, and this beats PR time from last July (18:52) so I think I'm officially back.

6:04 at 191/203
5:59 at 187/199
6:01 at 188/190
5:25 at 190/190 (44s for .13mi)

Ran pain-free the whole way. I think my HR monitor was off for the first half, because my numbers were lower and steadier in the second half (dropping to 182 and then nicely rising to 190). I wasn't even hurting until we passed the Sugar Bowl (at about 1.8 miles) and ran into the wind. I had to pass lots of people at the start, and I had lots of space behind me when I hit the wind, but couldn't quite catch the guy in front of me, though I did close the gap to two seconds. Pretty great all things considered.

Blogiversary

2013-12-05T05:32:00.001-05:00

Ten years.

9662 posts but only 131 since last year. And apparently I didn't even finish posting my SHOCKtober reviews. I'll get on that, at least. My new job has a pretty severe filter on its internet access, so I can only get on really through my phone (and sometimes on my laptop tethered to my phone) so it's even harder to hop on here when I see something I want to comment on, especially when there's Twitter.

Limbs

2013-11-17T18:47:00.000-05:00

Evidence that PJ changed his mind on Smaug's look even after An Unexpected Journey was released.

RIP

2013-11-09T08:43:00.002-05:00

Blockbuster Video.

I think I rented almost every movie my local on the VFW Parkway had. And then I started in on the one in Needham. Thousands of dollars, at least.

Title

2013-11-09T08:32:00.001-05:00

Boo.

Chasing Me

2013-11-03T18:40:00.000-05:00

2013 Baystate Marathon - Lowell, MA

Official: 26.2 miles, 3:29:47, 8:01 min/mi. 329th overall, 96/211 in M3039
Garmin: 26.53 miles, 3:29:57, 7:55 min/mi, 175 avg HR, 191 max HR

54, cool, sunny, windy. Blue Bikilas. My leg felt better when I woke up, but not healed. I used the foam roller and warmed up on an exercise bike a bit and tried not to aggravate it. I got to the start line early and tried to stay warm pacing around. There seemed to be no point in trying to do a warmup run (not sure I would for a marathon anyway). I did a quick little few steps of jogging and right away I felt my calf seize up. At this point I had no idea what to do or think or expect. I figured I either would DNF, or it would suddenly loosen or at least dull after maybe 10 miles and I'd tough out a BQ, or anything in between. I wasn't in a good mood, though, and kinda didn't even want to be there. It's been almost six years since I've run a marathon and occasionally during training the distance struck me as a lot, as it used to as a novice, and now I found it particularly daunting.

I also got stuck on the outside of the chute and had to crawl through a barrier to get inside. Unlike the last few races I've done, they seemed determined to start at 8am sharp. I did meet the volunteer leading the 3:05 group and said hello, and told him I hoped I didn't seem him until the finishing area. We started and I did end up behind the pace group, but the distance between us was steady so I didn't let it bother me too much. The crowd up front was a lot thicker than I was expecting. A BQ in last year's race would have put me around 75th overall, but it felt like a couple of hundred people were around me, even after a couple of miles, and the 3:05 group was about 20 guys at least. My calf was hurting but not terrible, but everything else felt okay for the first mile, so I felt a little hopeful. I could see that my HR was way too high though, maybe not untenably high, but worrisome. Sometimes the monitor gives bad readings early on (you have to wet it, and sometimes when I put it on early before a race, it dries out until I get sweaty). Then after about a mile or so, suddenly my stomach clenched up and started hurting. I think it was my abs, in fact, not my actual stomach, and not a stitch. I had done one last ab workout on Friday after skipping them for a while, so I guess that was it? I didn't think I had gone that hard. Anyway, that really worried me, but it faded just before we got to Mile 4. I was planning on GUs every four miles, and we were coming up on some hills, and you know I love passing people on hills, so I took my shot and passed the whole pace group right before the big hill, and then made the GU my treat for running up it.

I was starting to feel more confident. My Garmin distance was more or less matching the mile markers, and I was on pace with the cushion I wanted. But it seemed like the pace group was going too fast, and I had trouble staying in front of them. We made it to the Tyngsborough bridge and I was still ahead of them, and I was thrilled to see that the renovation that happened in the interim had gotten rid of the awful cage-like pedestrian crossing, and replaced it with an actual sidewalk. That was horrible and scary when I ran in 2007 and I couldn't confirm whether it had been renovated. Then again, it turned out not to matter, because this year they closed the northbound side of the bridge to traffic anyway, so we were out in the road.

On the north side of the river, though, the pace group started to catch me, and then before I knew it, had engulfed me. And it soon became a nightmare.

I'm not exactly a people person. I'm an introvert, for one thing. I'm not a shut-in or anything and I can have a perfectly good time in a crowded bar (or a World Series victory parade!). But I'm definitely a lone wolf when it comes to running, and I can count the number of times I've run with another person on one hand. I've certainly never run in a tight group, like I'd see them do in cross country practice.

So I wasn't used to it, even under good conditions, and these were not good conditions. It was the 3:05 group so it was entirely men, and men are gross. These men, I noticed early on before I passed them the first time, were particularly gross. I've never seen so much spitting and so many snot rockets in a race before, and I've run races in the snow.

I felt very hemmed in, and unable to run the way I run. At one point, I almost bought it on a fallen tree branch that I couldn't see coming. And in general, I tend to speed up on hills and slow going downhill, which is backwards from what most people do (it's mostly a consequence the VFFs and forefoot striking). I was also stuck over on the right side, and I had told my parents to look for me on the left side after the Rourke bridge, right around the halfway point, so they could hand me a bottle of chia fresca I'd made.

And finally, the other guys were chatting with the pacer, and they asked how exactly he was pacing himself, and he said that he was aiming for 3:04. And then suddenly he said, hey let's go for 3:03, and everyone seemed fine with that. That was the last straw. If I'd been healthy, I had been thinking I could go closer to 3:00 than 3:05, but there was no way I could do even 3:03 on this leg. I had to get out of this situation.

So with all that in mind, I started trying to make my way to the left, but the only way to do that was to let the scrum pass me. Finally they did, after I lost a lot of side-to-side distance, and now my watch and the mile markers were parting ways.

And now I was running just a little slower than BQ pace, by a few seconds only, but it seemed a little early for that, since now the westerly wind was at my back, and the north side of the river is mostly a gentle downhill slope. Finally we got to the Rourke bridge, where we'd start the second loop, and it turned out to be this bridge that I should have been worried about, because it just killed me. Instead of my left calf loosening or dulling like I'd hoped, my right calf now joined it, probably tired of compensating for the other. I got to the end, and the crowd was probably ten times the size that I remembered from 2007 (which is why I told my parents to met me here, as they'd stood her last time, and were easy to spot). I did see my father, and he saw me, so I kept to the left as the road turned right, leaving the pace group well in front of me, when some asshole started running along the crowd towards me, perfectly timed to pass my father just as he was trying to hand off the bottle to me. I think I screamed at the guy, and somehow did grab the bottle without breaking stride. But it wasn't what I needed just then.

I saw the rest of my family in a blur, and started sucking citrus and honey and chia seeds, hoping they'd help. They did, but not enough. I made it to 13.1 and my legs were screaming and my HR was bumping 190. And those hills were coming up again.

I thought about stopping, quite a lot. There didn't seem to be much point, after all, especially after the 3:10 group passed me, so I wouldn't even be able to beat my original BQ goal (3:10:59). Then again, I didn't have a cell phone on me, though I did at least think to write my mom's and my sister's numbers inside my bib (a trick I picked up at the Phoenix marathon, and I'm shocked all races don't do that). Given the road closures, there was no way they'd be able to get me once I crossed the river again, even if I did find someone with a phone. And I had no idea what the official Aid situation was. I didn't remember seeing Aid stations at the water stops, but I hadn't been looking for them. I've never needed one before.

I slogged on until about Mile 14, when I saw Joe Caruso standing all by himself, waiting to cheer me on. As soon as I saw him I started shaking my head, and yelled out "it's not happening, Joe. Sorry." I have no idea why I felt apologetic at that point, and I doubt Joe did either, but it seemed to be the thing to say. I shook his hand as I went by and probably almost tore it off, or at least got his hand all snotty. Sorry again, Joe :)

It was the friendly face I needed, though, right when I needed it most. This is where I broke down in the 2007 race, after all, so at least it all felt familiar. This time, though, I never stopped or even walked. I kept running, and watched as more and more people passed me. Then again, some of them were breaking down too, and I didn't feel so lonely.

I crossed the bridge again, the point of no return. On the other side, I started to feel a bit better. Maybe the chia was kicking in, or the endorphins could finally dull the pain a bit, though my hips were now barking too. I charged through the wall at any rate with a growl and my head held high. I did math in my head (my favorite pastime when running) and decided that an easy 9-min mile could let me break 3:30. That seemed good enough. That's still faster than most of my BQing lady friends!

So I felt better probably through 23 miles, with zero incentive to push much past 8:45, because why risk the DNF after going that far? And at about 22 miles the crowd returned, and I drew a lot of energy from them, especially all the love I got for my Dana Farber singlet. I started counting the minutes until I could rest, singing songs under my breath to distract myself.

But then my other old worry resurfaced: my hamstrings. Back in my heel striking days, my hamstrings would always go on long runs. At Phoenix, I was having a great race until the 25th mile, until my left hamstring tried to secede from my body. I had to stop completely, and then jogged at about 12:00 to the finish. I haven't had problems with them since switching to forefoot striking, but then, I also hadn't gone over 20 miles.

So I went past 23 miles, and maybe it was the last couple of rolling hills, but damn, I don't even know how to describe it, they just felt *wrong*. I had to cut back, again preferring to finish at any speed than really injuring myself.

They didn't get worse, and sort of went in and out. I got to the last mile and the last bridge, and crossing it was the strangest thing, they were like resonating with each other, one after the other, threatening to bounce right off my bones. But without pain, really. Or maybe a lot of pain. It was hard to tell. And then the 3:30 pacer passed me.

That sucked. Granted, he too seemed to be running a bit ahead of pace, but it wasn't the image I needed just then, and once again I couldn't put on any speed because of my hamstrings. Oh, and I had to make FIVE ninety degree turns over the last mile. You remember that thing about VFFs and uphill/downhill? Yeah, I don't really corner well either.

I banged them out, and made the penultimate turn, onto the main street, and a big crowd greeted me. Then several things happened simultaneously. I saw my sister and her kids on my left and heard them cheer for me. At the same time, I could hear the announcer at the finish line, and he was telling us we had about 30 seconds to beat 3:30. And then another runner bumped into me on my right as he tried to kick, and turned to apologize. I grinned and told him GO FOR IT and gave him a friendly push on the back.

I'm not sure what came over me at that point, but looked at the crowd and started raising my arms like Tom Fucking Brady trying to get them to make some noise, and they responded with a roar. I made the final turn, saw the clock, and bolted across with three seconds to spare on the gun time.

I usually slow down after a finish line, but I feel like I stopped on a dime this time, though I didn't fall. Someone with a blanket saw me immediately and walked me as far as the lady handing out medals, and I joked that it would probably pull me to the ground it was so big (only Phoenix had a bigger one). I was a limpy mess, but I had my wits about me. I got my bag, grabbed some food, and found my family.

First half: 1:31:57
Second half: 1:57:52

Positives:
1) I finished.
2) I hadn't run a marathon in almost six years, or more than 20 miles since then.
3) I'd never run more than 20 miles in VFFs ever.
4) I didn't stop.
5) I didn't walk.
6) I broke 3:30
7) With a 47-minute PR.
8) I don't think I ever actually bonked. I think my fueling plan worked: GU every 4 miles, water and gatorade when I could grab it, that bottle of chia fresca at the half, and a few salt pills. I weighed the same after the race as before, and I had gained a couple of pounds during the taper as planned. I felt tired, sure, mentally and physically, but I think only from the pain. But I never felt spent or lightheaded.

Coterie

2013-11-02T21:47:00.003-04:00

Perfect:

I wish it were real!

Movie

2013-11-01T22:07:00.001-04:00

The Undying Monster (1942)
directed by John Brahm
rating: 7 out of 10
rented on DVD from Netflix[/size]

Just the spooky ending to the month I needed, and I'd read good things about Brahm. I was expecting a knockoff of The Wolf Man, but it turned out to borrow most heavily from The Hound of the Baskervilles. It's a complete B-movie, with a running time barely over an hour.

But it's very well done for all that. Cinematographer Lucien Ballard would go on to make noirs like The Killing (and westerns like True Grit, Ride The High Country, and The Wild Bunch), and you can see the pre-noir style here with the gothic sets and lighting. There's even an innovative camera move that we take for granted today: a POV shot from the werewolf's perspective, all shakey-cam as it rushes towards the screaming victim.

The cast is fun, and demonstrates the film's forward-looking ways again: the pair of detectives from Scotland Yard who come to investigate features a female detective! Sure, she's the butt of a few too many jokes (among other awkward B-movie humor), but she's also shown to be competent at her job. The female lead was fun too: when the screaming and howling begins, she asks for her revolver and races towards the action.

Movie

2013-11-01T22:06:00.001-04:00

Midnight Son (2011)
directed by Scott Leberecht
rating: 8 out of 10
rented on DVD from Netflix[/size]

Let's start with: I'm convinced that the lead, Zak Kilberg, is the secret love child of Brandon Lee and Dana Ashbrook (Bobby on Twin Peaks). He talks like the former and looks like the latter. It's eerie.

I went into this expecting something along the lines of either Martin (which I liked) or The Insatiable (which I thought aimed for a target and missed). But Midnight Son is its own creature, though its natural lighting and handheld camera work reminded me of Near Dark.

It's at once a romance and a vampire origin story, and those two threads intertwine quite nicely, as Jacob learns both how to connect with another person and accept her flaws as well as his own. Of course, his flaws are that he bursts into flames in the sun and craves human blood, but that's where the horror comes in. Rooting for Jacob to become a more whole person also means rooting for him to become a monster. That's a nice inversion of the usual trope.

Movie

2013-11-01T22:04:00.003-04:00

Curse Of Chucky (2013)
directed by Don Mancini
rating: 7 out of 10
rented on BD from RedBox

The series swings back to horror after two black comedies (all written by Mancini, who also directed the very silly Seed of Chucky, so the swing back feels like a creative one, not a business decision) and gets back to basics, though it eventually reveals that it's a sequel and not a reboot.

It's pretty standard: Chucky shows up, pretends to be a doll, swears a lot, and kills a bunch of people. The setup is very good, keeping all the action in one location. More importantly, Mancini takes time to establish his characters and let us get to know them before the slaughter starts. Mancini also confirms that he's got chops as a visually interesting director. Brad Dourif sounds like he's having as good a time as ever, and his daughter Fiona* handles the starring role well.

*there comes a time in every Deadwood fan's life when you learn the awkward trivia that a lot of the whores on the show were played by the daughters of the older male actors. Fiona was a Chez Ami whore, at least.

Movie

2013-10-29T15:23:00.001-04:00

Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)
directed by Darren Lynn Bousman
rating: 5 out of 10
rented on BD from Netflix

The first movie from the same crew that did The Devil's Carnival, and in every way it feels like a beta version of that.

I'll skip the details of my criteria for judging movie musicals, but one of them is that the songs reflect the emotions of the characters, instead of merely describing the plot or acting as set pieces. As Bob Fosse said (in a quote I coincidentially just read for the first time about two hours ago), "the time to sing is when your emotional level is just too high to speak anymore." The best musicals are those where the songs come about because they characters have feelings they cannot express through prose and have to burst into song instead.

So that's a problem in a movie like this, which comes as advertized: like Les Mis, it's an "opera" in which nearly even single line is sung, which to my ear sounds awkward even when done well. There are, after all, lots of feelings you can express through prose with normal acting but the actors in these sung-through musicals always seem distracted from that in trying to hit their notes.

So I was a little disappointed when I saw what the structure would be. That lasted until Anthony Stewart Head appeared NO ONE TOLD ME TONY HEAD WAS IN THIS I HAD NO IDEA HOW DID I MISS THAT?!

Ahem.

Though, really, even he wasn't enough to save it. Few of the songs were memorable, and most of the cast seemed to struggle with the unusual rhythms and rhyme schemes employed by composer Terrance Zdunich, who despite having the most interesting voice has an even smaller role here than in The Devil's Carnival, where he played the Devil. Those songs still regularly get stuck in my head.

Still, it picked up in the middle and there were a few strong sequences built around the better songs. But its low budget also shows, and it relies too much on comic-panel cutaways to provide a lot of the plot, backstory, and action.

It would make a good trivia question, though: in what movie did Paris Hilton portray Paul Sorvino's daughter?

Movie

2013-10-28T22:46:00.000-04:00

Addams Family Values (1993)
directed by Barry Sonnenfeld
rating: 7 out of 10
watched on Amazon Prime

I had the first movie on VHS when I was a kid (I was 11 when it came out, so I was pretty much the target audience, with the 'safe' rapping and all) which meant I watched it a lot, but somehow I'd never actually seen the sequel. I guess I assumed it was the usual sequel stinker. But I've seen enough praise for it here and there, and when I saw it on Amazon I decided to correct the omission.

This was after I had gone to the haunted house at Castle Island with my niblings, and my little nephew was scared by even the most inocuous things, and I was thinking how I would have loved that shit at his age. That led me to wonder what the difference there is, and how I had gotten into horror and learned to enjoy it as far back as I can remember. I don't ever remember a time when I didn't insist on having something scary as my Halloween costume (and still do).

What was my first exposure? There were all those John Bellairs books, but they weren't the first. Watching old Universal horror movies with my parents? Couldn't have been too young for those. Bunnicula? I remember having a fair number of random scary books like that, including one book that was sort of like The Zombie Survival Guide for vampires. I found even more at the library, including this one I have never been able to track down, that was this very dark and macabre anthology. The only story I can remember from it was one where a boy became a werewolf by doing this ritual that involved wearing a wolf skin and dancing around under the moon.

Anyway, Addams Family Values is delightful, and I wish I could have met girls like Wednesday Addams when I was a kid.

N.B. - Why Mercedes McNab isn't starring on a hit TV show is one of life's baffling mysteries.

Movie

2013-10-28T22:45:00.000-04:00

V/H/S (2012)
directed by lots of people
rating: 5 out of 10
watched on Netflix Instant

Well speaking of feeling awkward, that sure was heavy with bros being bros and violence against women, eh?

Well, I liked the one with the vampire, which I saw coming except for the very last bit which was fun (though, writing this now, I feel like something else pulled the same trick). The haunted house was pretty fun. The slasher one was forgettable. The framing story was pretty crap. The ghost one was unsettling in that Paranormal Activity, found-footage style where the camera refuses to look where you want it to look (or vice versa).

My favorite, to no surprise if you've been reading these threads, was Ti West's. And for all the tricks and visual effects and loud noises, the scariest moment in the movie was a simple pan right.

Movie

2013-10-28T22:43:00.002-04:00

From Beyond (1986)
directed by Stuart Gordon
rating: 7 out of 10
rented on DVD from Netflix

How had I not seen this, I wondered. I'm a big fan of Lovecraft, Jeffrey Combs, and Re-Animator. Had Dagon (which I watched shortly after it came out in 2001) really been so bad that I hadn't sought out From Beyond since then?

Yes, yes it was. Dagon was awful. Terrible. It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen and I've seen Pieces, people.

Well, I got to it eventually and whatever Gordon lost by 2001 he still had here. Combs is great, and the action is appropriately gross and bonkers. The real treat was seeing Ken Foree, who played Peter in Dawn Of The Dead, playing a very different type here. I think he even got more naked than Barbara Crampton so I didn't even have to feel awkward about gratuitous female nudity!

Movie

2013-10-28T22:42:00.000-04:00

Witchfinder General (1968)
directed by Michael Reeves
rating: 7 out of 10
rented on DVD from Netflix

Not particularly a horror movie. There are no actual witches, alas (only Punchado is giving me my witch fix this month). For the first half it's a progenitor of torture porn, as Vincent Price either commits or oversees murder, torture, and rape. Sounds fun, right? And then the second half is basically a revenge-flick, albeit with a hero who isn't very good at it (he blows it at least twice).

I was impressed with Reeves's direction, though, and I'm curious to see more.

Movie

2013-10-28T22:38:00.001-04:00

The Last Will And Testament Of Rosalind Leigh (2012)
directed by Rodrigo Gudiño
rating: 8 out of 10
watched on Netflix Instant

This is basically a one-man play, apart from a few voices on the phone, and Vanessa Redgrave's wonderful narration.

Every Doctor Who episode is arguably a horror movie, except the Doctor is there to save the day. Well, imagine "Blink" without the doctor and you'll have an idea how unsettling this movie was, despite being deliberate and meditative. Those who didn't like The Mist's take on despair might find this more subtle.

Who knew that one of the scariest things in a movie this month would be someone dropping their fork at dinner?

Movie

2013-10-28T22:37:00.000-04:00

The Initiation (1984)
directed by Larry Stewart
rating: 6 out of 10
watched on Netflix Instant

I was hoping this would be some crazy story with witches or demonic lesbians or something, but the sorority setting is just that. Instead it's a Halloween knockoff, with a killer escaping an asylum and stalking young pretty people, except they apparently couldn't afford an actual Steadicam. Hell, the majority of it doesn't even take place in the sorority, but in a mall.

Still, there's an impressive amount of characterization done between the killings, and the dialogue can be quite snappy. I'll admit I didn't see the big twist coming, mostly because it's ridiculous. But in a good way, at least.

Plus it stars Vera Miles (Psycho, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) and Daphne Zuniga of Spaceballs.

Movie

2013-10-28T22:30:00.001-04:00

Frankenweenie (2012)
directed by Tim Burton
rating: 7 out of 10
rented on BD from Netflix

A fun extension of Burton's old short (which I've seen but can't remember in detail at all) which expands to include all the great Universal horror monsters. It's a particular treat for anyone who was once disappointed in the gap between the advertizing and reality of Sea Monkeys. Otherwise it's just Burton being Burton along with some old friends (it's the first time, I think, he's worked with Winona Ryder since Edward Scissorhands, which is pretty bonkers).

Movie

2013-10-28T22:27:00.001-04:00

Elko (2011)
directed by Alexander Yan
rating: 7 out of 10
watched streaming on Vimeo

There was a point in Catfish (or maybe it was the trailer) where it made you think it might be a social media horror story. It ended up being something very different, so there's still unexplored territory available that Elko tries to delve.

I think Elko could have used a little more space to develop itself - the description notes that the boy is "Internet-obsessed" but that doesn't completely come across in the film (even on a second viewing). And while the girl's motivations are deliberately opaque, it might have helped to see why she was sticking with this particular weirdo. Still, it's an effective use of editing and sound, and for all its interest in modern concerns, it ends up right back with Edgar Allen Poe.

Movie

2013-10-28T22:26:00.000-04:00

I Sell The Dead (2008)
directed by Glenn McQuaid
rating: 6 out of 10
watched on Netflix Instant

Another Burke and Hare movie! Obliquely, but still, these guys are popular. Larry Fessenden, Dominic Monaghan, and Ron Perlman seem to be having a good time dealing with zombies and one fairly creepy vampire. This is one of those movies that occasionally turns animated, particularly in transititons, for no apparent reason. I thought it might have been an adaptation of a comic book, but nope. There is a comic but the film came first.

Clash

2013-10-25T12:40:00.000-04:00

The marathon kicked my ass physically, mentally, and emotionally, so while I've been keeping up with horror movie watching, the desire to write about the has waned. But I got fired up to write a mini rant about Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. so maybe this will get the other juices flowing:

You'll be hard pressed to find someone with his head lodged farther up Joss Whedon's ass than me. That being said, I am seriously not feeling this show. At best it's like early Dollhouse without that show's incredible cast (I've also seen comparisons to early Fringe, but again, same problem). And it only took six episodes to get to "Man on the Street" which demonstrated the show's potential. With SHIELD the only actors I find compelling at all are Gregg, who is doing great work but clearly cannot carry the show on his own, and Ming Na, whose character is barely more than a sketch so far.

But I think the problem is deeper than that. The entire concept just doesn't feel like a Joss Whedon show. Everything Joss has done until now has been about marginalized people. Buffy was about high school outcasts. Angel was about society's outcasts. Firefly was about outlaws. Dollhouse was about quasi-slaves and later rebels. And each had, for part or all of the time, antagonists that were institutions. Buffy clashed with her principal, or the mayor, or the Initiative, or the Watcher's Council. Angel had Wolfram & Hart, Firefly had the Alliance, the Dollhouse had Rossum. Some of these were outright evil, sure, but they were mainly just corrupt in that David Simon / The Wire sense. Hell, even Dr. Horrible fits in here, given how much of a loser Billy is, and how his story becomes a tragedy when he joins the big institution of the ELE.

With SHIELD, though, our protagonists work for the big institution. Sure, we have our point-of-entry character Skye but she's already mostly assimilated (and who isn't working for me either in concept or performance in any case), and without rubbing off on SHIELD in any way. I think that's what made the reference to Snowden/Manning/Schwartz so clunky (apart from the writing and delivery). The show is taking a side, has to take a side, that its showrunners aren't comfortable taking. Even in The Avengers, SHIELD was an antagonist. They fiddled with the Cosmic Cube, they were making super weapons, they manipulated the Avengers, and they tried to nuke New York. Despite clunky attempts in most episodes to justify why this small group is handling a big problem, instead of SHIELD as a whole (or Iron Man), there's little indication that the group on the Bus is going to be on the margins in any real way.

This isn't to say that a procedural set in a big institution can't work. People do it all the time! It's just that it seems to clash with the sensibilities of these showrunners. It all just feels wrong, and I think it would even if Ward were played by Enver Gjokaj or J. August Richards, Skye by Dichen Lachman, Fitz/Simmons by Fran Kranz and Summer Glau, etc. Or if the cultural zeitgeist weren't so currently skeptical of SHIELD's real-world analogues.

Movie

2013-10-15T20:24:00.002-04:00

Warm Bodies (2013)
directed by Jonathan Levine
rating: 7 out of 10
rented on BD from Netflix

I have to admit, even though I saw the Romeo and Juliet parallel early on, it didn't occur to me that the two leads were named "Julie" and "R" until they had an actual balcony scene.

With that, since I'm pressed for time, I will outsource the rest of this review to Geoffrey Tennant:

You know what I think? I think it's painfully accurate. Two idiots meet. They fall in love. They're happy. Briefly. Then all hell breaks loose. Happens all the time.