God's Been a Real Sport to Me

Today's movie is:



1983's The Dead Zone

Starring: Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerritt, Colleen Dewhurst, Nicholas Campbell and Martin Sheen. Directed by David Cronenberg.

Ploteroonie: Teacher Johnny Smith gets in a horrible accident which forces him into a coma for five years. Once Johnny wakes up, he discovers he has the ability to read a person's future just by making physical contact with them. When the local police find out about Johnny's "powers", they bring him in on a murder case.

Type of horror: Supernatural

Any good?: I still like it, but it hasn't really held up well.

Scary?: Not really. A lot of the scares in the movie hinge upon the subplot about Martin Sheen's wannabe senator, but the whole thing comes off as really hokey and heavy-handed. Some of Johnny's visions make for tense viewing, but on the whole, this is one of those movies that probably scared you as a kid, but as an adult, not so much. However, there is a scene in the movie that has stayed with me for years...

Highlights: Not to give anything away for anyone that hasn't seen it, but there's a bit with Nicholas Campbell in the bathroom that still freaks me out to this day. I've seen much worse horror movie scenes since I first saw this, but it still never fails to make my stomach lurch. Other than that, I guess my favorite thing about the movie is the fact that Christopher Walken was quite the dumpling when he was younger. I may be alone in that opinion, but I really don't care.

Where can I get it?: Guess.


PS-It didn't dawn on me while I was picking this movie that it's the second Stephen King adaptation I've posted on in as many days. I guess I'll just go ahead and do a King theme this week. Yay, I like themes!

We All Shine On

My dog Pepper got loose earlier and I had to run all over the neighborhood to catch her. Ergo, I'm tired and I've picked kind of an easy movie today so I won't have to tax myself any further. Tired, and very, very achy. Arms kinda hurt, got this thing with my neck-- I'll be alright, don't worry about me any...

If anyone stops by the blog and is wondering what the eff is up with all the movie posts, click Here.

Now...Today's movie is:



1980's The Shining

Who it is: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd and Scatman Crothers. Directed by Stanley Kubrick.

What it be: A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.

Type of horror: Psychological/ supernatural

Good? Bad? Or mediocre?: Damn near perfect.

But what if I don't like scary movies?: Then stay far away. Between the big, spooky, isolated hotel, drunken crazy Jack, blood gushing out of the elevators, yicky bathtub lady in room 237, those damn twins and whatever the hell This is, there's enough in this movie to send someone with a weak constitution into the nut house.

Highlights: I wouldn't know where to begin. But when I think of this movie, the thing that always stands out for me isn't all the creepy stuff I mentioned above, it's the fact that it's one of the most gorgeous and well-shot movies I've ever seen. Yes, I'm the nerd that notices shit like cinematography. Seriously though, pay attention next time you watch it-it's breathtaking.

Where?: There.

Just for kicks, do you wanna see something funny?: "Don't mind if I do!"

F*ck That Noise

I need something light to make up for the memory of the bummer that is Last House on the Left, and with that in mind I bring you:



2000's The Convent

With: Joanna Canton, Renée Graham, Richard Trapp, Adrienne Barbeau and Coolio.

What do we have here?: A group of college students break into an abandoned convent and become possessed by demonic spirits.

Type of horror: If I had to peg it, I'd say

Supernatural

Any good?: I don't know that I'd say it's 'good', per say, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. It's a mindless B-movie, and it doesn't take itself seriously. So if you want high-quality horror, rent 'The Exorcist'; If you want a fun, silly movie then 'The Convent' is a fine choice.

Skurry?: Nah. It's a bit gory, but the effects are a tad on the cartoonish side. For example, whenever a demon appears on screen, everything goes all day-glo and blacklight-y. Mostly everything is played for laughs, so even the gore itself was funny. Aside from that, the fact that Coolio is in it should make it apparent that it's not scary

Highlights: I cannot express just how awesome Adrienne Barbeau is as Christine, who, as a bad-ass teenager, put the kibosh on the demon nuns' doings. Christine became an even more bad-ass adult, and she's fairly annoyed that some idiot kids have undone all her hard work. She's not in the movie very long, but when she is, it's heaven on Earth and 'The Convent' is worth watching for her alone.

Where it's at: Here.

It's Only a Movie...

Today's movie is:



1972's Last House on the Left

With: Sandra Cassel, Lucy Grantham, and David Hess. Directed by Wes Craven

Plotzky: After kidnapping and butchering two teenagers, a gang of rapists and murderers unknowingly seeks refuge with the parents of one of the victims.

Type of horror:

Exploitation

Was it good for you?: Gonna have to say no, Bob.

Was it scary?: Hmmm. When something in a movie scares me, I enjoy it-my heart rate speeds up, I get a vicarious surge of adrenaline-it's fun. When I watched LHotL, I just got this hollow feeling in my stomach and I got really sad afterwards-kinda like how I felt when I watched Requiem for a Dream. This movie is really bleak and disturbing, so I guess it is scary in that it makes you afraid for humanity.

Highlights: I guess I can be nice and give a shout-out to chainsaw dad, otherwise I'm drawing a blank.

Yeah, well, what if I still want to see it?:

Have at it

Sunday Music Dump

If You Can't Find a Friend, Make One

By request:



2002's May

Starring: Angela Bettis, Jeremy Sisto and Anna Faris

What's the deal?: A lonely young woman who was traumatized by a difficult childhood desperately attempts to connect with the people around her.

Horror type:

Psychological

Didja like it?: Yes, I liked it a lot, but not at first. I've seen it twice, and the first time I watched it I came very close to turning it off before it was even half over. I didn't have any issues with the overall quality of the movie-the performances are good, decent story, etc-it's a nifty little flick. My problem with the movie had more to do with me than anything: the character of May was so horribly socially awkward that it made me cringe, and it was painful to watch her interact with the other characters. I hate feeling embarrassed for another person about as much as I hate being embarrassed for myself, and May made me feel mortified on her behalf times 10.

Scary?: No. The ending is a bit on the disturbing side, but it wasn't scary.

Highlights: 'Member how I said the ending was kinda disturbing? That. And Angela Bettis did an amazing job as May, regardless of how uncomfortable she made ME feel.

Can I haz it?: You can find it

Here

And not that I condone such a thing, but someone has the whole movie uploaded onto YouTube, so you can hunt it down there if you like. I ain't linking it, though. Damn the copyright Nazis, they ruin everything.

Cranium Blowout!

Today's movie is:



1992's Dead Alive aka Braindead

With: Timothy Balme, Diana Peñalver, Elizabeth Moody and directed by some dude named Peter Jackson. I think he's still making movies, I dunno.

Plot: A young man's mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey. She gets sick and dies, at which time she comes back to life, killing and eating dogs, nurses, friends, and neighbors.

Kind of horror movie:

Zombie

Yay? Nay?: YAY!

Is it scary?: Bwhahahahahaha...No. It's a comedy for Christ's sake-not scary in the least. HOWEVER, it's totally gross and disgusting, so if you have a weak stomach I'd advise against watching it. Just be sure and tell me if you can't watch it so I can call you a wiener.

Highlights:

Father McGruder.

Oh and when Lionel lays the smackdown with the lawnmower-that was pretty snazzy.

Where might I find such a film?

Here.

'Capital F, E, Little L, LA, TIO'

In case you hadn't noticed, the glorious month of October is here. October is probably my favorite month: my mom and my daughter both made their entrances into the world in October; it finally starts to get cool outside; and most importantly, Halloween is in October.

I bitch and gripe when I see stores dragging out their Christmas stuff 2 weeks before Thanksgiving, but I don't have this problem when I see the same stores displaying costumes and candy in the middle of September. I LOVE Halloween, you see, and one of the reasons I love Halloween is because you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a horror movie on TV during the entire month of October. (Worst. Metaphor. Ever.)

I like horror movies a whole lot, and I figured that I could do some posts relating to that all during the month of October. I pondered watching a horror movie a day, and then posting about it, but amazingly enough, some days I don't feel like watching anything, so I quashed that idea rather than set myself up for failure. Also, more often than not, I tend to ramble when I talk about something I've just seen, and I don't have the time or energy lately to devote to a daily, long-winded shpiel.

So, what I have decided to do is this: For the rest of the month, I will post some basic info about various horror movies that I've seen over the years, both good and bad. I will TRY to do this on a daily basis, but I make no promises. Even if it's not daily, I figure I can at least get about 4-5 new posts up a week during this time, so the blog will be updated more often than it has been in the last several months. Yay.

First up:




1974's Black Christmas

Starring:Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, John Saxon and Andrea Martin.

Whazzit about: A Canadian sorority house prepares for the Christmas break. An unseen psychopath sneaks into the attic, menacing the girls with obscene phone calls, and starts to kill them one by one.

Type of horror:

Slasher

Good? Bad?: Excellent. Well-acted, well-written, creepy-as-fuck, and also rather innocent for a slasher movie (translation: no boobies. Not that I have anything against boobies.)

Is it scary?: Yah. It's not all-out mayhem, but it's got atmosphere out the wazoo. Plus you never actually see the killer's face, which heightens the aforementioned 'creepy-as-fuck' factor.

Highlights: Margot Kidder as foul-mouthed, drunken sorority sister Barb. Bless her heart, you just want to keep her in your purse so you can whip her out at parties.

Um, like, if I wanted to see this movie, like, where could I, you know, find it?

Here

Warning: If you decide to see Black Christmas, make sure it's the 1974 version, and not the 2006 version starring Michelle "Dawn" Trachtenberg. That movie couldn't have stunk more if someone had rubbed a turd all over the film stock. Blech.

I Am Old Yeller's Morbidity

I've been uber busy this past week, and I've had a lot on my mind. Couple that stuff with the fact that I'm the laziest woman that ever lived, and the end result is that I've neglected the hell out of my blog. Hopefully things will settle down by the end of this week and I'll be able to devote even five minutes to posting anything.

I DID have about five minutes to devote to posting something today, but my brain is so preoccupied that I couldn't think of anything (actually, I did think of something, but who wants to read an incoherent five paragraph rant about how much of a pain in the butt it is to clean dried-up silly string off the side of a tree? Seriously, the whole post would have consisted of me going "GODDAMMIT!" over and over again-you're better off not being subjected to that). Then I remembered farting around on some silly quiz site yesterday, and I thought I could post the results of some of the tests I took. I really hate resorting to internet personality tests to fill up space on the blog, but fuck it, a new post is a new post, and that's all that matters.



Which Horrible Affliction are you?
A Rum and Monkey disease.


Which Evil Criminal are You?
A Rum and Monkey crime.


Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Sunday Music Dump

Sunday Music Dump-Covers Edition

Mighty Little Man

About a month ago, I acquired another dog (for those of you keeping score at home, the TDYL Pet Tally now stands at 5.) His name is Patches (aka Patch, aka, Patchouli, aka Padamamie, aka Pothead, aka Patrick Star, aka Petra Haden...In case you were wondering, I HATE the name Patches) and he's a Jack Russell mix. He's about 3 months old, and he's quite the feisty little beast.

The first week that we had him, he attempted to make friends with Lily and Pepper and they, being the brave souls that they are, would jump on the couch and cower, just out of his reach. As you'll see, he's quite a vicious looking character. However as time has passed, the girls have become accustomed to his frightful visage and they've all decided to try and live together in harmony, I guess for my sake.

As for just HOW well they get along, Pepper does her best to put up with him, and will even play with him if the mood strikes her, which is exceedingly rare these days. At the ripe old age of 4 1/2 years old, Pepper is getting to be a cranky old bitch (and yet she's still my favorite, I wonder why). She's also become camera-shy for some reason, so she does not make an appearance in these photos.

Lily on the other hand has taken to Patches quite swimmingly and has assumed a bit of a maternal role in addition to being his bestest buddy-it's all really very sweet if you're into that kind of thing.

As for Patches himself, he's pretty well-behaved for a puppy, especially a male puppy. He doesn't chew very much and he's picking up the house training thing rather quickly, I guess because he goes out with the other dogs. He's kinda hyper, and when he's hungry, he drags his food dish into the middle of the floor so that I'll trip over it and feed his little fat ass. He also likes to sleep next to my head, and when you talk to him in the right tone of voice, he'll back-sass you. Oh, and he likes to chase and kill crickets and if you scratch him on the back just right, he does this full-body shiver thing-I swear, it's fucking precious...

So, I kinda like him, I guess. Just a little. Yeah.

Why?

I wasn't going to post anything relating to the Britney Spears VMA performance, but this little tidbit has me perplexed:

An Emmy Awards show source told Usmagazine.com that Fox is “in negotiations” with Britney Spears to make an appearance on Sunday’s telecast. “The idea is to have her come on and apologize for the VMAs,” the source reportedly said. “She’s weighing the offer.” A source close to Spears reportedly told US, “I can’t say this is 100 percent not true...[but] if she is doing anything for the Emmys then it’s not going through the official channels.”

Apologize? For what? Don't get me wrong-I saw that pitiful display the night it aired, and I'm not saying it was good in any way, shape or form-she acted high, she looked dumpy, and Oh mah Gawd, her HAIR. But it's not like she came out and dropped a deuce on the stage, she just didn't put on a good show. Have people gotten so sensitive that they have to be compensated for witnessing 4 minutes of mediocrity?

There's no chance in hell that Britney can gain my respect at this point: I figure her best bet is to disappear for about 10 years and make her comeback by appearing in a John Waters movie, then MAYBE I'll give her a chance. However if she apologizes for the VMAs, in my eyes, she will have blown it for good. Embrace your suckitude, Britney-it's all you have left to hold on to now.


Oh, and if you want to apologize for something, say you're sorry for getting out of cars while not wearing any underwear-that's just uncalled for and I REALLY don't need to see that THING again.

MSNBC

Eat It

I feel like shit.

That's probably not the classiest way I've ever started a post, but the point remains: I am not myself. All week long I've felt tired, weak, slightly depressed and kinda anxious. It's like that feeling you get right before you get sick, only it's lasting FOREVER. On top of all that, I've had insomnia for the past 3 days, and my hair is looking kinda ratty.

But I didn't come here to bring everyone down with me. That's just a bonus.

Really though, I haven't felt like posting anything all week, in fact, today's the first day I've even looked at my blog at all since Sunday. It's funny too, because I've read and seen a bunch of things that I probably would have posted about had I not been feeling like the Corpse Bride all week, but it was not to be. Actually, I came very close to posting about something last night, specifically Viggo Mortensen's bizarre Colbert Report cameo, but obviously I didn't. (Seriously, those 2 guys together on my TV at the same time? I don't want to be crass, but if I was feeling better, I would have feared for the integrity of my drawers.)

I'm starting to ramble, so I'll get to the point of this post. As I have previously stated, I feel like doodoo, and as much as I love you all, I'm more concerned with the state of my own body and mind right now. I've got over-the-counter meds and my big ol' down comforter to take care of the body part, and to take care of the mind part, I'm going to watch this movie-it always cheers me up.

After that, I'm getting my ass to bed, and hopefully I'll sleep more than 10 minutes.

Goodnight.

Or day. Whatever the hell...

Sunday Music Dump

RIP

Yay?

Talk about a turd in a punchbowl:

Pete Doherty is being lined up to play a zombie in a new BBC sci-fi show. With his dead-eyed expression and pale skin, the singer, 28, already looks like the flesh-eating undead. Buffy The Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, 43, wants to cast Pete in Ripper, a spin-off of the cult series. Anthony Head, 53, will reprise his role as Giles to battle monsters in England.

'Joss admires [the] pop references in Doctor Who and thought it would be great to get some British musical and comic cameos in the new series,' a source tells the Daily Star. 'Pete seemed the obvious choice, with his love of the macabre. The blood paintings and the self-styled night creature are perfect. 'It's thought he'll play an approximation of his real-life persona – the zombie remnants of a rock star and poet unable to rest and therefore haunting London – with grisly results, of course.' If Pete signs up, he'll begin filming in January, for a June air-date.

Hmmmm.

I'm beyond pleased that the long-talked about Ripper spin-off may actually see the light of day-I'm a Buffy nerd, and so I care about this kind of stuff. But seriously, Pete Doherty? Do I love Anthony Head as Giles enough to suffer through watching Pete Doherty acting his way through a heroin haze?

Answer: Yes. Yes, I do.

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I Get Mist-y

It dawned on me the other day that I haven't posted hardly anything in awhile that wasn't music or a video of some kind. I've just been busy lately, and when I do have time to post, I don't feel like putting much thought into it.

Today isn't ANY different.

Awhile back, I read that Frank Darabont was going to adapt the Stephen King short story, The Mist, into a big-deal Hollywood movie. I was kind of excited about this because : A) I'm a goofy movie nerd; B) Darabont has done pretty well with King adaptations before (Shawshank, The Green Mile), and: C) The Mist is my absolute favorite King story (not my favorite NOVEL: that honor goes to the Shining. That book scared the piss out of me, of course I was 11 when I read it.) I love any story about a diverse group of people, trapped together in a confined setting, uniting against an unspeakable horror-it gives me a happy.

Well, yesterday I saw the trailer for the movie, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's always nice to see Marcia Gay Harden and Andre Braugher in anything, but I'm a bit troubled by the presence of Thomas Jane. I saw him in the trailer and had a horrible Dreamcatcher flashback (that movie was so bad, it gave me PTSD.) Come to think of it, I honestly don't think I've EVER seen a movie that starred Thomas Jane that didn't suck fuzzy monkey balls. I don't have anything against the guy personally, but yeah, his movies are not so good.

Maybe it's just me, though. Maybe I like The Mist too much as a short story to be objective enough. Someone else watch the trailer and tell me what you think.

Sunday Music Dump-"I'm Old" Edition

As I mentioned the other day, my birthday is coming up. Since the odds of me bringing it up again are slim to nil, I thought I'd devote today's SMD to that not-so-glorious day in history.

The idea of a bunch of birthday songs seemed inapropriate since it's MY birthday, so I decided to go a different route. I dug up a list of the top 100 songs for the year I was born (1976 to be precise), and picked a handful of songs that I...Don't hate, from said list.

I thought long and hard ('bout 2 minutes, tops) about including a couple of them, because I'm a little ashamed that I...Don't hate them. You can mock me if you like, but I'll make you pay. Is it really worth it?