Sunday Music Dump

Obligitory Thanksgiving Post

I watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving earlier this evening, much as I do every year, and as always I came away with more questions than answers. For instance: Snoopy prepares a lavish feast of pretzels, jellybeans, and enough toast and popcorn to nourish a small country. Why that food? I mean, how much more trouble would it have been to shove a turkey in the oven? Not that hard. And you already had all that toast-add some broth and celery and go ahead and make the damn dressing.

And what's up with those kids? Do they not have homes to go to? That butchy Peppermint Patty just straight-up invited herself and an arseload of other kids to Charlie Brown's house and expected him to feed them and then had the gall to complain when the meal wasn't up to her standards. Then Charlie Brown remembered that he and Sally had to go to his Grandmother's house to eat and got all worried about being a bad host so he invited those ungrateful shits to go with him-which I'm sure they didn't appreciate. Seriously man, no wonder he became a surly heroin addict.

You know what, though? Now that I think about it, Snoopy did make a turkey for himself and Woodstock there at the end, so perhaps he made the crappy meal as revenge for Patty's rudeness. Maybe ol' Snoop is smarter than I thought. 'Course, that brings up a new set of questions, not the least of which is why in the hell Woodstock would eat turkey, since he's also a bird, which would kinda make him a cannibal.

Anyway...

I'm going to be busy the next couple of days, so I figured I'd go ahead and get a holiday post up. I don't have much to say other than my scathing indictment of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and so I bring you This (and this, this, and this-sorry, it's in four parts), which is arguably the most classic Thanksgiving episode of any TV show, ever (and no, it's not a CB Thanksgiving.)

If I don't post anything between now and Thursday-and I don't know why I would-I would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Sunday Music Dump

That's 2 and a Half Hours I'll Never Get Back

For some inexplicable reason I rented Transformers from Netflix about a month ago, and I finally forced myself to watch it last night. I honestly don't know why I had the urge to check it out, other than the fact that I think Shia LaBeouf has turned into quite the handsome and somewhat talented young man. That doesn't completely explain it though, because it generally takes more than a crush to get me to watch something (case in point: Stephen Colbert had a role in the Bewitched remake, and to paraphrase Meatloaf, I would do anything for love, but I won't watch that.) So, why?

-I don't attach any kind of nostalgic signifigance to the Transformers; I never had any of the toys and I never watched the cartoon, so that wasn't a factor.

-The movie was directed by Michael Bay and as far as I'm concerned, the world would be a much better place if he never stepped behind a camera ever again, so lord knows I wasn't expecting some stellar film viewing experience.

-The rest of the cast was kind bleh, so that ain't it either (in all fairness, I did not know before watching the movie that Hugo Weaving was the voice of Megatron, so that was a nice bonus. And the Buffy nerd in me is always pleased to see Tom Lenk-aka Andrew-in anything, and that helped dull the pain a little as well.) But Jon Voight? Josh Duhammel? Megan Fox, who just may be the shittiest actress alive? No, no and NO.

I'll never know why I rented it, and I'll never know why I forced myself to sit through the WHOLE THING. 2 hours and 33 minutes I devoted to this movie, and that's not counting the days I actually had it in the house before watching it. 2 hours and 33 minutes of Michael Bay fellating the military industrial complex and slobbering over Megan Fox's stomach. 2 hours and 33 minutes of lame jokes (a dog pees on one of the Autobots-TEH FUNNY! No one in the movie can pronounce Shia's character's last name, Witwicky, correctly-OW! My sides!) and overdone explosions. 2 hours and 33 minutes of "Optimus Prime is kinda cool and Shia IS cute, but Jesus Harold Christ, this movie is STUPID!"

Oy.

RIP

I went through an odd phase when I was about 15 or 16, which consisted of me reading every Ira Levin novel that I could get my hands on (I liked This one the bestest). Since then, I'd say I read at least one of his books a year and I enjoy them just as much now as I did all those many years ago. To say that I'm a fan would be a pretty fair assessment.

To say that I'm totally bummed out would also be a pretty fair assessment.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ira Levin, author of the best-selling horror and suspense novels "Rosemary's Baby," "The Stepford Wives" and "The Boys from Brazil," all later made into popular films, has died at age 78, according to media reports.

The New York Times reported that Levin died on Monday at his Manhattan home. It quoted his son Nicholas as saying the death was apparently of natural causes.

"Rosemary's Baby," about a woman who believes she has been impregnated by the devil, was published in 1967 and made into an Oscar-winning movie the following year starring Mia Farrow and directed by Roman Polanski.

Levin's 1972 novel "The Stepford Wives" involved husbands in a Connecticut town replacing their wives with submissive robots. It was twice adapted by Hollywood -- a 1975 film starring Katharine Ross, and a 2004 version with Nicole Kidman.

"The Boys From Brazil," published in 1976, featured the infamous Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele, seeking to clone a new Third Reich. The 1978 film version starred Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier. Levin's first novel, "A Kiss Before Dying," published in 1953, was twice made into movies.

Levin also wrote for the stage, including "No Time for Sergeants," starring a young Andy Griffith, and the long-running "Deathtrap." Both were later adapted to the screen.

Yahoo News

Sunday Music Dump

It Was the Boogeyman

Our final movie for this month is:



1978's Halloween (You were expecting something else?)

Starring: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Kyes, P.J. Soles, Charles Cyphers and Kyle Richards. Directed by John Carpenter

Whazzit about?: Michael Myers has been in an institution since he was a young boy, after murdering his sister. Now he's escaped and is heading back home to terrorize the quiet community which still remembers him.

Type of horror: Slasher

How it is: I'm physically incapable of saying anything bad about Halloween-I think it's THAT good.

"It's Halloween, everyone's entitled to one good scare": I am watching the movie right this minute, and it just showed the part where Laurie Strode is cowering in the corner, and you see Michael Myers emerge from the darkness just a few feet away, ever so slowly (see the above photo for a reference point.) Even if you ignore everything else in the movie, that scene alone is enough to get Halloween stamped with the 'scary' tag.

Well, that, and the part where she's trying to get away from him, and she's trying to get into the house, but the door is LOCKED and stuff and she can't get IN, and he's like RIGHT BEHIND HER, and she's yelling for the kid to open the DOOR, and it's taking him FOREVER and it made me pee my PANTS a little. For serious, if they'd based the whole film around just those 2 scenes, they would have had a scary-albeit short and confusing-movie, but they didn't. They decided to be super-nice and they threw a whole bunch of other creepifying stuff in there to fill it out, making Halloween one of the greatest horror movies EV-AR.

Highlights: The music:

When I checked Blog Music the other day to see if they had that song (which they did, obviously), I put my headphones on and checked to see if it worked, and swear to god, I kept looking over my shoulder the entire time it was playing to see if anyone was coming at me. It's a very, very effective little tune and it damn near made the movie.

Where it be?: There it be!

I Said "Strong Christian Overtones!"

Last year around Halloween, I posted "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and it made me happy. This year though, I've decided to move into the 21st century since apparently The young kids ain't 'down' with Snoopy no mo, and I live in abject horror of becoming irrelevant (actually I don't, but I've got a momentum going here.) So this Halloween I'm taking it to the next level and posting a SPOOF of "ITGPCB". Enjoy some Robot Chicken on this fine All Hallows Eve afternoon, and I'll be back later tonight with my final horror movie post.

My Family's Always Been in Meat

Today's movie is:



1974's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Starring: Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain, William Vail, Teri McMinn and Gunnar Hansen. Directed by Tobe Hooper

Plot: Five friends visiting their grandpa's old house are hunted down and terrorized by a chainsaw wielding killer and his family of grave-robbing cannibals.

Type of horror: Splatter

Any good?: I liked it, save for one itty bitty detail, which I'll elaborate on directly.

Is it scary?: I'm from Texas, and I grew up being told that TCM was based on a true story (the film claims as much at the beginning, but that's been long since debunked) and that messed with my head a great deal. If you're 8 years old and you have grown-ups whom you trust telling you that a grunting, chainsaw wielding madman once shared your state, and he liked to don a mask made out of man-flesh, chase young teens, carve them up and EAT THEM, it tends to make a young lass uneasy. Thankfully I didn't actually SEE the film until after I'd been disabused of that nonsense, but it's still pretty terrifying.

Highlights: It's a small thing, but I liked the fact that Marilyn Burns, the lead chick, was monkeyshit crazy by the end of the movie. They could have had her play it all calm and filmogenic (what, filmogenic is a word. It doesn't mean what I'm implying it means but who says words can't evolve?), but they decided to go the realistic route and show how a person actually would respond to being subjected to those kinds of shenanigans.

Lowlights: I think this is the first time I've done a lowlights section, but something in TCM begs for it to be created: The character of Franklin, the whiny, obnoxious, annoying wheelchair-bound brother of Burns' character. I hated Franklin so much that, the first time I watched it-sorry to be all spoilery-when he got killed, I actually stood up and pointed at the TV Nelson Muntz-style and went "HAW-HAW!" No one else was in the room to hear my outburst, which makes me look really pathetic, but that doesn't make it any less true...

Where?: Here

Host With the Most

I've had a super-busy weekend, I'm tired, and Harper's birthday is today, so I don't particularly feel like (nor have the time to devote to) posting about a movie today. Instead, you get NOTHING! Good day, sir!



I'm kidding of course.

I ran across this video the other day of a special that was on American Movie Classics back in 2004-"20: Entertainment Weekly's Scariest Movies" and I thought I'd get it up on the ol' blog, since it pertains to what I've been doing. Well, that, and it gives me a chance to foist Bruce Campbell onto the more unsuspecting of my readers (he's the host of the special.)

I can't tell you much about the special. I watched it when it first aired, but I don't remember much about it, except Bruce refers to Wilford Brimley as an "Unstoppable killing machine" and there's an interview with Michael Rooker of "Henry" fame and he doesn't slaughter the interviewer, so based on those 2 things alone, I'm putting "20" in the 'win' column.

You can watch it Here (Google won't let me embed the video. Bastards) and I will return tomorrow.

Sunday Music Dump

TV Says You Gotta Shoot 'Em in the Head.

Today's movie is:



2004's Dawn of the Dead (As seen in my blog header thingy.)

Starring: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Mekhi Phifer, Ty Burrell and Matt Frewer. Directed by Zack Snyder (300)

Plot: A nurse, a policeman, a street gang member, his wife, a salesman, and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall.

Type of horror: Braaaaaains

Sucky or sweet?: I really, really liked it, which is strange because I'm usually the one bitching the loudest whenever I hear that someone is filming a remake of something. I might even go so far as to say that I liked it better than the first one, which was draggy in parts. Heresy? Maybe, but if you've seen the original you know I'm right (and just for the record, I loved the original.)

I don't wanna get eated: I mentioned in a conversation earlier that zombie movies don't scare me as a rule, because I know it can't happen. If you're dead, you're dead and you ain't coming back. But even I will admit that there were a couple of things in here that made me jump, specifically the part at the beginning when Ana (Sarah Polley) tries to make her escape from her zombified husband and the neighbor kid. Zombies may not bother me, but being chased does. Oh and if you aren't down with gore, you might want to stick with something like This instead. Then again that might be scary too-it's a big machine! And it freezes things! OH NOES!

Highlights: Um, well, I can think of a lot of things, but if I listed all of them, the highlights section would end up looking like a recap, and I got things to do. Alright, I'll narrow it down to 3:

1) Sarah Polley. She was totally believable and totally bad-ass, plus I think she's neat in just about anything, so it stands to reason that I would like her in this as well. Biased? Why yes, yes I am.

2) The music, namely Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" during the opening credits, and the mall-living montage set to Richard Cheese's "Down With the Sickness"-they're the perfect compliment to their respective sequences. At least I thought so, and it's my blog, so there.

3) The celebrity shooting gallery. Ving Rhames' character hangs out on the roof of the mall quite a bit, and he develops a friendship with the guy from the gun shop across the way. They communicate by way of those dry erase boards like they have in diners, using them to chat, play chess, whatnot. Towards the middle of the film, when all of the characters are going a little stir crazy, they come up with a new game: they point out various zombies on the streets below who share a passing resemblance to various famous people, while Ving and Gun-Shop dude pick them off with rifles. It was hilarious and realistic in a warped way (I could see myself playing a game like that, you know, if there was a zombie invasion, which there won't be because it's zombies, doy.)



Where it's at: Braaaaains

Let's Me and You Go For a Ride, Otis

Quick one today, as I am cold and achy and in a hurry to crawl under the bed covers:




1986's Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

Starring: Michael Rooker, Tom Towles and Tracy Arnold

Plot: Serial killer Henry serves as mentor to dim-witted fellow killer Otis and as the object of Otis' sister's affections. Loosely based on the confessions of Henry Lee Lucas.

Type of horror: It's not a slasher exactly, but it's the best descriptor that I can come up with right this minute.

How is it?: I would say that it is a good movie, but it would take-to borrow one of my father's pet phrases-an "act of congress" to get me to watch it again. There's a whole lotta ugly in this film.

Is it scary?: Yes. Henry and Otis have no redeeming qualities to speak of, and there's not a whole lot of character development, aside from making it very clear that these 2 just plain like killin' folks. There's no tension-breaking humor to make what you're seeing go down more smoothly, and there's nothing that happens that makes you think "That could never happen in real life". Henry and Otis aren't mask-wearing boogeymen, they aren't mad geniuses-they're the type of guys you see mugshots of on the news everyday. They're contemptible people, doing revolting, believable things and it makes for one bleak and disturbing movie.

Highlights: Michael Rooker was EXTREMELY believable as Henry. I don't know that that's a highlight (or even a compliment), but I didn't have anything else to put here, so there ya go.

You can find it Here.

Mother, What's Wrong With Me?

Today's movie is:



1973's The Exorcist (For the purposes of this post I am covering the re-release, aka "The Version You Haven't Seen")

Starring: Jason Miller, Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb and Linda Blair. Directed by William Friedkin

Plot: 2 priests attempt to exorcise a demon that has possessed the body of a young girl.

Type of horror: Supernatural/Psychological

Gooderbad?: I like it, I do, but I'd probably like it more if I hadn't heard all my life that it's the GREATEST HORROR MOVIE EVER. I hear that and my instinct is to rebel and say it sucks, which it does not, not by a long shot. Is it the greatest horror movie ever made? I can't say, but it's damn near perfect regardless of what genre it falls into. So if you haven't seen it, I recommend giving it a shot, even if you don't like horror movies.

Like, how scary is it?: You know something? I've seen this movie twice: once when I was 15 and once when I was 30. At 15 it didn't faze me in the slightest. At 30, it did. The difference (one of them) between me at 15 and me at 30? Motherhood. The idea of something hurting your child and you not being able to do anything about it is just about the worst thing in the world, and I felt a lot of empathy for Ellen Burstyn's character.

Second worst thing in the world? Guilt, and as such, the other thing about this movie that got under my skin was Father Karras' anguish over the death of his mother and the way the critter that possessed Regan taunted him with it. This movie fucked with my head and not in a fun way. As for the whole demon angle, I suppose that if pressed I can admit to finding This a teensy, weensy bit unsettling. That's not normal...

Highlights: I managed to get a chuckle during the movie, amazingly enough. Shortly after Regan begins to exhibit some slight changes in her behavior (long before she gets busy with a crucifix), her mother takes her to a doctor for testing, and the doctor comes up with a brilliant solution: Ritalin. Oh how I laughed and laughed. Then I think I cried a little bit.

Where?: Here

Cheryl, There's Nothing Out There, Trees do Not Attack People

Today's movie is:



1981's The Evil Dead (I'm gonna go overboard, I just know it.)

Starring: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor, Betsy Baker and Theresa Tilly. Directed by Sam Raimi

Plot: Five friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where they unknowingly release flesh-possessing demons.

Type of horror: Supernatural/Splatter

Didja like it?: "Like" is a gross understatement of how I feel about this movie. I want to marry and have little growly, foggy demon offspring with The Evil Dead. They'd be a bitch to clean up after, though. Seriously, I do love this movie, but in all fairness, it's not perfect. Some of it is really amatuerish, some of the dialogue is painfully corny, and the acting (not that I would EVER speak ill of Bruce, you understand) is perhaps not so good. I love it despite all that.

Or maybe it's BECAUSE of all that. This movie was made for practically no money, by a bunch of kids (Sam Raimi was around 20 years old during filming) who did it just because they liked making movies and they ended up crafting a horror classic. Some of the inexperience was bound to show up in the finished product, but you also see a lot of creativity and an arseload of innovation that money can't buy (but it can EARN it after years of hard work-hello, Spider-Man movies.) You can watch it and focus on the faults I suppose, but you'll be missing out if you do. It's a fun, violent, occasionally disgusting movie about demon possession-take the stick out of your butt and enjoy it.


I'm scared, hold me: This movie had a reputation when I was a youngster of being hella scary. So much so, that I couldn't even bring myself to watch it until I was 17. After I watched it, it hit me that I had been surrounded by weak-stomached weenies during my entire childhood. Alright, alright-some of it is pretty nasty: you've got blood spurting out of orifices that were not made to spurt blood; body parts alternately imploding and EXploding; PUS; putrified innards-it's a very...WET movie I guess you could say.

And then there's the tree rape. For those that are unaware, there's a scene in the movie where one of the female characters gets violently molested by a bunch of roots and branches. It was called misogynistic by some when the movie first came out, and Sam Raimi later said that he regretted including it in the film. I don't know. There's no way to make light of rape in any instance (unless someone is raping a clown, maybe), but I never got the fuss over it. It's a very creepy scene (shortly after I saw it for the first time, I flipped my shit during a walk in the woods when I snagged my foot on a tree root) and while I'm very much against rape (doy) in any form-real or fictional-I didn't think it was anything to get pissed over. It's foliage-what, a bunch of trees are gonna sit around watching E.D. and get it into their tree-heads to go out and rape someone? And now that I've put that thought in my mind, I'm never going to be able to look at Treebeard the same way ever again...

Highlights: Shit, I think I covered everything already. I guess I can show some love for Bruce Campbell's unibrow:




Where it's at: Here

My Mother Told Me to Never Do This

Today's movie is:



1986's The Hitcher

Starring: C. Thomas Howell, Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jeffrey DeMunn

Plot: A young man who escaped the clutches of a murderous hitch-hiker is subsequently stalked, framed for the hitcher's crimes, and has his life made into hell by the same man he escaped.

Type of horror: Errr, slasher?

Like it or not?: I really, really, really like Rutger Hauer, and he's really, really good in this so I liked it for him. That's about it.

Fear Factor: On his own, my man Rutger was totally horrifying as John Ryder, one of the best villains ever. BUT! For a horror movie to work well, you have to give a rat's ass about the intended victim(s). If you feel nothing for the hero (or worse, you actively hate them), it's not scary because part of you is rooting for their grisly death and it puts you on the side of the villain by default. C. Thomas Howell's character in this movie was so damned annoying that I was PRAYING for him to buy it (same goes for Jennifer Jason Leigh, sadly) and thus I felt no fear on his behalf. So in summation: The Hitcher=not that scary. Or maybe I'm just a sociopath, I don't know.

Highlights: That's got to hurt (Spoiler)

Where?: Here

Sunday Music Dump

Headphone Girl image by Mok Designs, Copyright Koen Mok

And Now For Something Completely Not-so-Different

I am not feeling my best, so I'm going to take a break from doing my little horror movie posts for a few days. However, I don't really want to NOT post something, so I'm harkening back to the semi-old days and posting a movie. In keeping with the current theme all things scary movies, it's a horror film-possibly THE horror film: Nosferatu (it scared me, it did, and I don't care what anyone thinks of me for admitting that, either.)

Enjoy (or not) and I will return on Monday (probably.)

This is Your Wake-Up Call

Today's movie:



2004's Saw

Starring: Leigh Whannell, Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Ken Leung, Dina Meyer, Shawnee Smith and Tobin Bell.

Plot: A sadistic serial killer known as 'Jigsaw' is kidnapping people to teach them the value of life by making them choose between losing a part of their body or hurting someone else to survive.

Type of horror: Splatter


Good or bad?: I liked it a lot, although I don't know that I think it warranted having a sequel released Every Single Year since it first came out.

Scary?: There's some extremely gory and cringe-inducing moments in here: if that's what sets your heart to racin', then sure, it's scary.

Highlights: I wouldn't call it a highlight, but the thing I liked most about Saw was the reasoning behind the kidnappings/tests. Most of the victims were chosen by Jigsaw because of something he perceived in them to be a flaw and he felt that they were throwing their lives away. The basic idea was that when faced with their own mortality the victims would see the error of their ways and change accordingly. His motives weren't completely altruistic (he was a sadistic monster to be sure), but that little glimmer of twisted good samaritanism helped raise Saw a few notches above being mere Torture Porn.

Where?: Here

You'd Think I'd Be Happy...

But when I heard him announce this on his show last night, it just made me uneasy. I'm sure he knows what he's doing though.

I hope.

NEW YORK (AP) — Stephen Colbert has announced his candidacy for president on "The Colbert Report," tossing his satirical hat into the ring of an already crowded race.

"I shall seek the office of the president of the United States," Colbert said Tuesday on his Comedy Central show as red, white and blue balloons fell around him.

Colbert, 43, had recently satirized the coyness of would-be presidential candidates by refusing to disclose whether he would seek the country's highest office — a refusal that often came without any prompting.

Shortly before making the announcement, Colbert appeared on "The Daily Show" (the show that spawned Colbert's spin-off) and played cagey, claiming he was only ready to consider a White House bid. He entered the studio set pulled by a bicycle pedaled by Uncle Sam and quickly pulled out a bale of hay and a bottle of beer to show that he was "an Average Joe."

Colbert said his final decision would be announced on a "more prestigious show," which turned out to be his own.

"After nearly 15 minutes of soul-searching, I have heard the call," said Colbert...

The rest of the article: AP