Chadzilla ROARS!!! (The Official Blog of Chadwick H. Saxelid, Writer)

Short Oscar predictions and revisions

The Oscars are upon us!

When the Nominations were first announced, I posted a prediction that 2012 will (finally) be Martin Scorsese's year to win that much deserved Best Director Oscar.  Although the arguments for a "deserved" win by The Artist have been vocal, I still think that Scorsese has an unbreakable lock this time around.

My original predictions were:

Best Picture: Hugo

Best Director: Martin Scorsese

Best Actor: Jean Dujardin (The Artist)

Best Actress:  Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs)*

Best Actor in a Supporting Role:  Christopher Plummer (Beginners)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role:  Berenice Bejo (The Artist)

Best Animated Feature:  [Since The Adventures of Tintin was not nominated, and the animated features that I did see all underwhelmed me, I have no idea which animated film will win, nor do I care.  None of them deserve it more than Tintin does.]

Art Direction:  Hugo

Cinematography:  The Tree of Life

Costume Design:  Hugo

Film Editing: Hugo

Documentary (Feature):  Pina

Foreign Language Film:  A Separation

Make-Up: The Iron Lady

Score:  Ludovic Bource (The Artist)

Writing (Original):  Asghar Farhadi (A Separation)

Writing (Adapted):  John Logan (Hugo)

*With the exception of my swinging back to thinking that Michelle Williams will win Best Actress for My Week With Marilyn, my opinions have not changed.

The one category that I could not predict with any personal certainty were the short films.  Until now, that is.  Last night the wife and I saw them and now I think I know who will be taking home the Oscar gold the Best Animated Short and Best Life Action Short categories.

Best Animated Short:  The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.  Incredible animation is used to tell the story of just how important reading is for all of us.  Great stuff.  None of the other shorts even come close to it.  Then again, I am a voracious reader, so I am biased.

Best Live Action Short:  I think that the heart wrenching Raju will be taking the Oscar gold this year.  It's a thought provoking and bittersweet film that haunts the mind long after it ends.  None of the other shorts came close to its emotional and intellectual potency.  

But...

The hilarious black comedy live action short Tuba Atlantic, from Norway, showed me that my dark sense of humor just might be genetic.  I loved, loved, loved it.

Oscar 2012 predictions

The Nominations were announced yesterday and I am certain that this will (finally) be Martin Scorsese's year to win that Best Director Oscar.

Best Picture: Hugo

Best Director: Martin Scorsese

Best Actor: Jean Dujardin (The Artist)

Best Actress:  Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role:  Christopher Plummer (Beginners)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role:  Berenice Bejo (The Artist)

Best Animated Feature:  [Since The Adventures of Tintin was not nominated, and the animated features that I did see all underwhelmed me, I have no idea which animated film will win, nor do I care.  None of them deserve it more than Tintin.]

Art Direction:  Hugo

Cinematography:  The Tree of Life

Costume Design:  Hugo

Film Editing: Hugo

Documentary (Feature):  Pina

Foreign Language Film:  A Separation

Make-Up: The Iron Lady

Score:  Ludovic Bource (The Artist)

Writing (Original):  Asghar Farhadi (A Separation)

Writing (Adapted):  John Logan (Hugo)

Watch (or record) the Oscars on February 26th, just to find out how my Oscar instincts fair this year.

 

Sunday, May 22nd, 2011: Post Rapture Watch

"We know without any shadow of a doubt it is going to happen" - Harold Camping on there being a Day of Judgment and Rapture on May 21, 2011.

As I type these words Family Radio founder, Open Forum host, and Judgment Day prognosticator Harold Camping has still not come out of seclusion to make any sort of statement about how (or why) his "Bible guaranteed" prediction that Judgment Day would occur on May 21st, 2011 did not come to pass.  (Although some are beginning to make statements for him.)  But Sunday is traditionally a day of rest and Camping has always been quite vocal about it being sinful to do any kind of work on the Lord's Sabbath.  So he might come out of hiding on Monday with a laundry list of justifications or excuses for being wrong, again.

Last Friday, on May 20th, I posted some rather sarcastic comments about Camping's prediction.  I also posted some updates at key moments in Camping's rather mathematically questionable timeline (to put it diplomatically) and, like many so many others, I had a good laugh at some of the foolishness.  But some some of it was also rather disturbing and saddening and, as was the case way back in 1994, when Harold Camping first predicted that Judgment Day was nigh, quite a few lives have been financially ruined and emotionally harmed.  That part is not funny, at all.

Now, of course, comes all the soul-searching and armchair commentary (of which I am partaking, obviously) and even some defense of Camping on the day after the non-event.  All day Saturday I googled Harold Camping and Family Radio, waiting for some kind of a statement, but none were made.  Now, with the silence continuing, I begin to think of something that I posted on a message board last week, during a discussion of the May 21, 2011 circus:

"I really do think that Harold Camping, the elderly man that has made this prediction, will probably pass away within a few days of May 21st; that he will not be able to physically cope with the disappointment of nothing having happened."

That opinion remains unchanged.  The ridicule and scorn that will be heaped on Camping in the days to come will be devastating, for, I believe, he was 100% sincere in his belief that the Beginning of the End would happen.  There was a time when I could pass as a "believer" and I listened regularly to Family Radio.  So I knew that Camping was not running some kind of  money making scam.  He truly believed that the End Times were supposed to be have happened yesterday.  But it did not, and with thousands of billboards across the country and the world reminding everybody that Judgment Day was yesterday, I am wondering what the shock and disappointment is doing to Camping.  

While Camping managed to keep himself isolated when he declared that "the Church Age had ended" and Family Radio listeners should stop attending organized churches and only be a part of non-organizational religious teaching offered by places "like Family Radio".  The "like" placed before Family Radio helped Camping wiggle out of the accusations that he was creating a cult, not unlike how the question mark used in his prediction that the world "might" come to an end in September of 1994 gave him an out when that time period came and went without theological incident.  But this time, as those aforementioned billboards and pamphlets and vans and tee-shirts and even television commercials, Harold Camping launched a massive attention getting campaign.

And now that he has the world's attention, he has to sit there and listen to them laugh and make jokes about him and his listeners and demand that he make some kind of public apology for being wrong.

Times are tough (and always have been).  Families are in crisis (and always have been).  There are earthquakes (and always have been) and wars (and always have been) and rumors of war (and there always will be).  Looking at the vague descriptions in the bible, it is very easy to want to believe that all these events mean that the great big mess we've made on this big blue marble is going to get cleaned up by a great cosmic sweep.

But that great cosmic sweep isn't going to happen.  There isn't going to be some great "rise to heightened awareness" because of what happened yesterday, or, to digress, what is supposed to happen on December 21, 2012.  There are no easy answers and all the positive changes must come from inside.  As the accused pedophile Michael Jackson once so wisely said, "start with the man in the mirror."

I don't share Camping's theological beliefs and dire doomsday fantasies, but I do hope that he is okay and that he learns a valuable lesson from his humiliating error in judgment and becomes a better man in his own last days.  

I also patiently await his statement.

UPDATE: Camping has stated that he will make a statement during his Open Forum program on Monday, May 23rd.  The programs airs from 5:30 to 7:00 in the afternoon/early evening, PST.

6 p.m. Saturday, May 21st, 2011: It's Judgment Day on the California Coast!

It's time to party!

It is officially 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 21st, 2011 in Kiritmati on Christmas Island: JUDGMENT DAY BEGINS RIGHT NOW!!!

According to Harold Camping the WORLD WIDE EARTHQUAKE and RAPTURE is beginning its journey of across the globe RIGHT NOW!

May 21, 2011: Rapture Watch

The End is Nigh, again...

 
Some time ago (two plus years, in fact) Harold Camping, founder of Family Radio and host of that station's Open Forum talk show, announced that Judgment Day would happen on Saturday, May 21, 2011.

Pack your shit, folks.  Jesus Christ is supposed to show up tomorrow to deliver some Old Testament judgment on non-believers like me and bestow a Heavenly Reward on the True Believers like Harold Camping and those that follow his "teachings".

You know, I do not who is worse.  Harold Camping or all those sad fools that willingly believe in his senile dementia induced ravings and "prophecies".

For someone like me, who lives on the West Coast of the United States of America, Judgment Day is tomorrow.  But for the folks that live in New Zealand and Australia, it should already be happening, for it has been Saturday, May 21st Down Under since approximately four o' clock in the morning, my time.  So, if you want an exciting look at the coming attractions for the impending apocalypse, just start Google searching New Zealand or Australia in the News section, like right now.  See what's happening there.

Then again, it isn't May 21st HERE yet and, since Camping and Company insist that Judgment Day will be happening on Saturday, May 21st, then it must occur at some point between the hours of three and four a.m Saturday, Pacific Standard Time.  That is when it will be Saturday, May 21st for all of us living on the California Coast and those ahead of us in the Land Down Under.  I don't know about Hawaii.  So, maybe, it will happen at some point around three fifty-nine in the morning, Pacific Standard Time.

Maybe.*

Jesus Christ, that is well past my bedtime.  Although it is most unfortunate that I will be in bed and sound asleep when Judgment Day arrives in the dead of night.  If you do show up, then you'll have to wake me up so I can face my Final Judgment.  Sorry.

I also suggest that you bring some coffee with you, so I can be reasonably alert for all the judging...

Now, if I do manage to somehow wake up safe and sound on the morning of Saturday, May 21st, I will consider Jesus to be a no show - because it will already be Sunday, May 22nd on various part of the globe upon which we all live. 

If that happens then I can only do one thing, begin anxiously awaiting the next End of Nigh moment....

Friday, December 21, 2012.

 

*UPDATE:  Well it turns out that my shoddy research and even shoddier math trying to figure out the exact time that the "Moment of Judgment" will occur has all been for nothing.  Yesterday I found this silly looking, albeit very sincere looking, video where Harold Camping states that a horrible earthquake will occur at six o'clock p.m. on May 21st wherever that is the time.  

So, according to Harold Camping, in approximately twelve and a half hours time (it is coming up on 8:30 Friday morning on May 20th while I write this update) it will be six o'clock in the evening, Saturday May 21st on the very appropriately named Christmas Island, which is, even more appropriately, where it all should begin.  I don't know where I will be at that time, either sitting through a screening of THOR or getting out of a screening of THOR, since it will depend entirely on whether or not we go to the 6:30 or 8:00 show.

Regardless of where I am, though, if nothing has happened in New Zealand by ten o'clock tonight we can all rest easy knowing that Harold Camping got it wrong.

AGAIN.

Excuse me, 2011?

If I could have just a moment of your time, please.  I have an important question to ask.

Where are all the good movies?  Really.

I am keeping a list on my iPad - and I am checking it twice, right this very moment, in fact - of everything that I am watching and reading this year (I caught this habit from James Reasoner's blog) and I could not help but notice that there is not a single new movie that I have seen this year that has garnered four stars. Not a one.

My worst of the year list already has five movies on it. Five. My best list only has two. Neither of which garnered four stars from me, they only made it to three and a half. One of those movies (Barney’s Version) is actually from 2010, so it does not really count as a 2011 release. But I saw it in 2011, so there it is. The other (Drive Angry 3D) is nothing more than a guilty pleasure. I just put it on the list for amusement purposes, and as a place holder until the better films to come out and - inevitably, I hope - knock it down to the Honorable Mentions section, where I will feel a bit more comfortable putting it. Then again, I just might create a "Guilty Pleasures" list for it, but "Guilty Pleasures" are getting fewer and farther between as I get older.

The scarcity of good movies (ones that feature interesting characters and/or compelling twists on familiar themes) is beginning to concern me. I understand that January and February are pretty much written off, artistically speaking. So a whole lot of cinematic garbage is dumped into the theaters in those months. But there are usually a few pearls amongst all the squealing swine, like last year's February release of Shutter Island, which made my Best of 2010 list. But we are now midway through the month of March and there is nothing.

Not a single good movie has come out. Yes, The Adjustment Bureau was a nice movie, but nice is not synonymous with good. Just because a movie gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling does not make it a good movie. It only makes it a nice movie.

But just about everything else, with the exceptions of the above mentioned films and, maybe, The Rite, has been mediocre to outright awful. Granted I am a genre fan, and I have always gravitated to horror, science-fiction and fantasy films, which have always had a spotty record of artistic success, but even the arthouse stuff isn't looking so hot right now.

It has been getting so bad of late that I am beginning to lose excitement over the upcoming genre movies. Paul? I don't like vulgar comedy, so that just looks painful. Super 8? The trailer only makes me want to watch Joe Dante’s Explorers instead. Thor? Looks like a bore. Captain America? Whatever.  Cowboys and Aliens?  Will Daniel Craig ever smile in a movie?

While my expectations for Paul are very low, I will still see it because I enjoy the geek centered comedy of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost enough to overcome my growing artistic hatred of Seth Rogen (Is that man ever funny?) and my distaste of vulgar comedy.  But my expectations of the other new releases this weekend are not that much higher. The Lincoln Lawyer looks like it fell out of the 1990s, while Limitless looks like something a studio is dumping into a theatrical release just so it can get rid of it while saying it tried "something different".

I can't say that I want something different, although that is always welcome.  Right now, I just want something good.

Oscar 2011 Predictions

There is a very real chance that The King's Speech will sweep, but I looking at the nominations I went with the "traditional" Oscar choices.  Here they are:

Best Picture: The King's Speech

Actor: Colin Firth

Actor in Supporting Role: Christian Bale

Actress: Natalie Portman

Actress in Supporting Role: Hailee Steinfeld

Animated Feature: Toy Story 3

Art Direction: Inception

Cinematography: Black Swan

Costume Design: The King's Speech

Directing: The Social Network

Documentary: Restrepo

Documentary Short Subject: Killing in the Name (wild guess)

Film Editing: The King's Speech

Foreign Language Film: Biutiful

Make-Up: Barney's Version

Music: Inception

Original Song: We Belong Together (Toy Story 3)

Animated Short: The Lost Thing

Live Action Short: Na Wewe

Sound Editing: Inception

Sound Mixing: Inception

Visual Effects: Inception

Writing (Adapted): The Social Network

Writing (Original): The King's Speech

"Future events such as these..."

I "joined" the 21^st century yesterday. I bought an iPad.

My purchase was far from an impulsive one, for I had already decided to get an Amazon Kindle, either by buying one outright, or by dropping subtle hints that it would make a great Xmas gift (i.e. telling any and all that asked what it was that I wanted for Christmas to get me a Kindle). I also knew that, if I wanted to get serious about my writing again, it was time to replace my aged to the point of being ancient desktop computer with something a tad more portable. Like a laptop. The reason being that my wife and I are, far more often than not, on the road and I seldom make it to the guest room to work.

And yes, I know that is a lame excuse for not being disciplined enough to get off my ass and do the work. Writing a story is considerably different from reading one. Writing a book is like going to the mental equivalent of the gym for a bout of serious weight training. Reading is simply sitting in a chair, or sprawling across a couch, or laying on a bed, and enjoying the hard work someone else has done.

But I digress (apologies to PAD) and need to come back around to the subject of this meandering and melancholic post, my purchase of an iPad and why it makes be both happy and sad.

As I said at the close of my second paragraph, my wife and I do a lot of traveling. We also do a lot of reading and movie watching. When we travel we always have a stack of books with us, as well as a portable DVD player and a bunch of discs. If she had not introduced me to the glory that is the iPod, then I would have been lugging around a stack of soundtrack CDs and a Discman to listen to them on.

That last sentence concerning "the glory that is the iPod" is the reason why I used quotation marks around the word joined in the first paragraph. The iPod (on my iPhone) was my first step onto the slippery slope that has slid me down into the digital abyss. I didn’t want to go there. I refused to get one for the longest time. I didn’t think that I needed one. I liked having stacks of CDs around with which I could visually measure the size of my ever growing library of movie scores. Then my wife (who, at the time, was my girlfriend) convinced me to get an iPhone. Her argument for investing in one was as sound as it was subtle: she just put one in my hand. That was all it took. Now I carry around more music in the palm of my hand (53 complete albums, currently, with a smattering of individual songs and tracks from an additional six albums that I did not count as albums) than I was every capable of if I were using a Discman and I have not even used one quarter of the available memory in my iPhone’s iPod. It also did not take me all that long to start bypassing purchasing discs and simply opting to download the music into an iTunes account. Now the only compact discs that I buy are the limited edition collector’s sets from specialty retailers like Intrada. Everything else is digital. It’s just easier and takes up a lot less space.

Which brings me to my second step onto the slope, and the one that resulted in my feet falling out from under me and my rocketing towards a digitized life: movies.

I not only collect film scores, I also collect films. My library currently hovers around some three hundred movies and television programs. That is not only a lot of movies, it also a lot of DVDs and, just like CDs, DVDs take up a lot of space. The step from downloading music onto my iPod to downloading movies to my iPod was as easy as deciding that it was far easier and, armed with a gift certificate for iTunes, much cheaper to download a digital copy of Tobe Hooper’s remake of Invaders from Mars than to try and find a reasonably priced used DVD. Since the disc was out of print at the time, and might still be, reasonably priced used DVDs were a tad difficult to come by and downloading a copy onto our computer was not only easy, but cheap. That was all it took. When we went on our next lengthy vacation, I filled my iPod with lots of music, and movies and TV shows I bought and downloaded from iTunes.

But I still carried a stack of books with me. I could not part with those, could I?

Then my wife and I spent a quiet, romantic weekend at a bed and breakfest in this rambling Victorian in Pacific Grove, just outside of Monterey. While there I was struck with the sudden desire to either read a "cozy" murder mystery or a gothic ghost story, neither of which I had with me. I was stuck in the middle of a science-fiction novel. There were no used book stores (a dying breed, it seems) to browse. But later I looked at the Kindle app on my iPhone (which I had begun to flirt with, downloading samples to see what it was like to read an e-book) and thought, "I could have just bought an e-book, downloaded it, and read it on my iPhone Kindle."

That thought was all it took to convince me that having a Kindle wouldn’t be so bad.

Oh, I had fought getting a Kindle. I hated the very idea of e-books. Books were meant to be printed on paper, not a computer screen. (So writes the man who writes a blog that numerous people read on their computer screens.) But they also take up a lot more space than DVDs and CDs. I have always lived in apartments or rooms that were literally overflowing with books, DVDs, and CDs. Even without sharing my living space with a spouse, I had little to no room for the books that I bought and hoped to read. At the moment my wife and I have six filled to overflowing bookcases in the house and my wife half-jokingly refuses to allow me a seventh or eighth one. But I love not only reading books, but collecting them as well. With a Kindle, the "need" for more bookcases is negated. With a Kindle I could carry around the inventory of a small bookstore in the palm of my hand and still have space leftover for some magazines.

Which brings me to my purchase, the iPad. I opted for the iPad because 1) I was in the Mac Store and could walk out with it then and there, 2) there is a Kindle app on my iPhone, so I already have one, it was screen size that really bothered me, and 3) the iPad has a lot more memory and could be used to store the movies and TV shows on my iPhone iPod, which would give me more space for music and...

Now I have an iPad. I should be happy, so why am I so depressed?

Because I still remember a scene from Galaxy of Terror, wherein a confused Robert Englund asks a reading Ray Walston if what the man is holding is in fact a book. "Yes, it’s a book," Walston’s character replies. "Do you want to hold it?" He offers it to Englund’s character, who recoils as if from a dangerous animal and refuses to touch it.

Nothing I had ever seen before, nor anything I have ever seen after, has ever disturbed and depressed me like that moment. "Please," I remember thinking, "please do not let me ever live in a world without books, without book stores, or without libraries."

I am happy with my new toy, but I cannot keep from holding it in my hand and thinking of that scene.

And the Winner is...

The nominations have been announced, here are my predictions for the winners in this year's Oscar race:

Best Picture: Avatar.

Best Picture Animated: Up.

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)

Best Supporting Actress: Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air)

Best Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)

Best Score: James Horner (Avatar).

Primal fear and Paranormal Activity

In the last few years I have managed to whittle down my description of the horror genre to a very simply and almost universal sounding general truth: "The horror genre dramatizes or explores the fear, or terror, that results when the irrational intrudes upon the rational."

Stephen King described that very same thing, albeit it in a better illustrated manner, thirty-one plus years ago, in his foreword to his book Night Shift:

"At night, when I go to bed, I am still at pains to be sure that my legs are under the blanket after the lights go out.  I'm not a child any more but... I don't like to sleep with one leg sticking out.  Because if a cool hand ever reached out from under the bed and grasped my ankle, I might scream.  Yes, I might scream to wake the dead.  That sort of thing doesn't happen, of course, and we all know that.  In the stories that follow you will encounter all manner of night creatures; vampires, demon lovers, a thing that lives in the closet, all sorts of other terrors.  None of them are real.  The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn't real.  I know that, and I also know that if I'm careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle."

I am much the same way.  I also suffer from the same semi-irrational fear.  My adult mind knows that my and, more than likely, King's collective fear is rooted in the dread of having an actual intruder attack while we are asleep, when we are unaware of the danger that looms over us.  Oren Peli, Paranormal Activity's writer and director, understands this perfectly, for he enacts that familiar to us all nightmare scenario of something grabbing an exposed foot and yanking someone out of bed while she sleeps with gooseflesh inducing power in his film.  That scene, and the ones before it, as well as the final one that followed it, are nothing more than our most primal nightmares brought to life.

I understood that intellectually, when driving to the theater last night.  I knew that I would be seeing those primal fears of the dark and the unknown played out as entertainment.  Like King, I knew that what I would be seeing was not real (and, being an atheist, I do not believe that "paranormal activity" itself is real) but I was uneasy about seeing the film.  I was afraid, you see, that it would have a negative effect on me beyond simply getting me to the edge of my seat and nervously anticipating the moment when the next jump scare would explode out of the sound system.

Because, as I said, I suffer from Night Terrors.  A sleep disorder that causes me to snap awake in terror shortly after falling to sleep.  Sometimes I just snap awake.  Other times I grab my fiance and repeatedly ask her if she is all right.

And sometimes I wake up screaming my throat raw, leap out of bed, and try to escape whatever it is that mind think is attacking me.

My fear going into Paranormal Activity was that it would strike the Night Terror nerve, and it did.  Watching the movie, at times, was like watching some of my worst episodes happening to other people.  I lost a night's sleep worrying about whether or not I would have an episode, which brings my line of thought back to the film's title.  

It was once believed that nightmares were caused by assorted demons (their names are legion, you know) tormenting some poor unfortunate soul.  Many still believe that to be true.  I do not.  I just cannot buy Ultimate Evil doing the psychological equivalent of sneaking up behind me and going, "BOO!"  I mean, I expect more out of Ultimate Evil than some stomping footsteps in the night.  In the dark.  When I am asleep.  Is Ultimate Evil a six year old?

But as I lay in bed alone last night (the fiance is out of town this weekend, hence my night out at the horror show) I worried about having an episode to the point of getting angry.  I eventually fell asleep and woke up this morning without incident.  Unless I had one and just don't remember it.  That happens, a lot.

Although my critical assessment of Paranormal Activity remains unchanged (while it is certainly an unnerving viewing experience, it is also not very "good" as an actual film) I nonetheless have to tip my hat to Oren Peli for making me fearful of going to sleep last night.  Even if it was not quite the way he intended.

Until next time, pleasant dreams...?

 

Chadzilla's "Top Ten" Favorite Movies of All Time.

Two of the many things that you should know before reading this list: (1) I can count and (2) I am very well aware of the fact that my Top Ten list does in fact contain 11 movies.

A few more things that you should know:  (3) This is a list of my ten favorite movies, not a Ten Best Films list.  If it were a Ten Best Films list, then one of my Honorable Mentions would be on it and more than a few of the movies on the list wouldn't be.  A favorite movie, to me, at least, is far different from a best (or great) one.  While some of the listed movies (two, at the very least) do represent significant contributions to the art of cinematic story telling, most of them are simply movies that I love to curl up with.  Some give me warm and fuzzy feelings, some engage my intellect, and most of them fall somewhere in the middle.  All of them mean more to me than the average "flick" and, as I move down the list, I will try to explain to you, at times, why that is.  I am not searching for agreement, just a nod of understanding.  (4) My explanations, when given, are just that, explanations.  I will get around to reviewing (if I haven't already) the movies listed here at some other time.

The fifth (5) and final "you should know" thing: the listing order of the movies.  I have put them in order of release date for ease and comfort.  But if I were to have to list them in order of personal/critical importance, then the first two movies would retain their first and second place slots.  The rest could be shuffled around to various points, depending on my given mood and feeling about a particular movie at the time.  Since my number one choice is, without a doubt, the most important movie I feel I have ever seen in my life, I have, for my own odd reasons, kept the list limited to those films that had an emotional and intellectual impact on me during my formative years that were released during my formative years; hence my other preference for listing them by release date.  That also explains why so many of them (the first seven) are from one ten year period and why they do not represent a wider critical sampling of genres, filmmakers and eras.

Okay, enough of this yammering!  On to the movies:

1) Jaws (1975): Of all the movies that I have ever seen (and I have seen a lot of movies) not a one has come anywhere close to the impact that this super thriller had on me.  For me, JAWS is so much more than the very first summer blockbuster, or the first movie to ever gross in excess of 100 million dollars during its first run domestic theatrical release. JAWS was, and remains, a defining moment in my childhood.  The movie not only terrifies as a horror/monster movie, it also exhilarates as an adventure movie.  Its characters look, sound and feel like real people.  People that you come to care deeply about.  Its monster is iconic and, during the second half, becomes far more than just a mere shark.  Every monster movie that has come after it has either copied it outright, or riffed on its story beats.  Thus JAWS has become more than just a textbook example of the art of telling a certain type of story, it has become the textbook.  It is my opinion that no other movie has ever come close to its story telling perfection.

2) Halloween (1978): Simplistic and simple minded, this cheap (it only cost $300,000 to make) and quick (shot in 28 days) exploitation thriller made the filmmaking team of John Carpenter (director/co-writer) and Debra Hill (producer/co-writer) a genre powerhouse for the next few years.  It also had as big an impact on me, in its way, as JAWS did.  Up until the time I saw Halloween, horror was something that happened somewhere out there, either in another time (those old and dated black and white movies from the 30s, 40s and 50s, or the Hammer Studios period Gothic thrillers, etc.) or some other, easily avoided place (JAWS and Alien, as scary as they were, both took place in areas easy to avoid, the ocean and outer space, respectively).  But Halloween was set in a small town that looked just like mine.  The streets and houses where it was filmed (in Pasadena, California) looked like the streets I walked to school on and the houses my friends and family lived in.  When the movie ended (and oh, how I remember just how powerful and terrifying the ending of Halloween was back in 1979, before it had been carbon copied into a tiresome and to be expected/dreaded cliche) I could easily imagine the bogeyman himself could be lurking in the shadows of the house I lived in.

Like JAWS, Halloween went on to break box office records and it became the top grossing independent film of all time (until The Blair Witch Project came along in 1999) and every mad killer on the loose movie that came after it either copied it outright, or riffed on its story beats.  But, like my number one choice, Halloween is a classic of its kind that can be copied, but never replicated.  No matter how hard they try; and try they have, repeatedly.

3) Manhattan (1979): I hope that you didn't get whiplash from the jarring switch in tone from my first two choices.  While Woody Allen has stated that he is not too fond of this particular movie - and the real life scandal involving him falling in love with, and eventually marrying, the daughter of his former romantic partner taint it - I flat out adore it and consider it to his very best movie.  Manhattan is a scrumptious love letter to the vistas of its titular setting, with the wonderful music of George Gershwin providing a perfect counter balance to the story's cynicism and neurotic humor.  Now that I am older (and I have to admit here that I saw this movie while in college, rather than during its theatrical run; but that I do remember its theatrical run with remarkable clarity) I appreciate and understand Allen's self-absorbed characters and how their selfish romantic entanglements and wanderings serve as his artistic farewell to the 1970s with each repeat viewing.

4) The Fog (1980):  Remember my warn and fuzzy comment?  Well, The Fog applies.  I know how strange it sounds to call a movie about zombie-style sailors ripping people apart with fish hooks "warm and fuzzy," but there is just something cozy about this movie.  I once read a comment on a message board describing the feeling of the film as "lived in."  That works for me.  Also working for me is the excellent locations used for filming.  Stinson Beach, Bodega Bay, Point Reyes National Seashore, and the towns of Olema and Point Reyes Station, were all used to bring the fictional Northern California town of Antonio Bay to picturesque life.  Also helping are the aforementioned powerhouse team of John Carpenter (director/co-writer) and Debra Hill (producer/co-writer) casting their movie with actors that look and sound like real people.  While no cinematic classic, The Fog remains a Halloween viewing favorite of mine to this very day.  It also contains my favorite John Carpenter score.

5) Maniac (1980):  Although he appeared in numerous classic movies (The Godfather Parts I and II, Taxi Driver, and Rocky, to name but a select few) character actor Joe Spinell could very well be best remembered for co-writing and starring in this notorious and gruesome splatter movie; one that the famous film critic Gene Siskel identified as one of only three movies that he ever walked out on, without finishing, during his professional career.  I can't fault Siskel for doing that.  As much as I like Maniac, and I like it very, very much, I still have to admit that it is a largely plotless and, on its surface, quite pointless collection of violent murder and bloody mayhem.  Something that looks far better suited for an all time worst list.  Then why did I put it here, on this list?  Because, from the very first time that I saw it, this movie has fascinated me.  It is not the gore; any hack with a camera can film gore, and has.  It fascinates because I can see what it was that Spinell was aiming for and, truth be told, not quite able to pull off.

On the commentary track for the laserdisc and DVD, a close friend of Spinell's talks about how much work Spinell put into creating the character of serial killer Frank Zito.  Spinell claimed that his performance was "for the children," the children of abuse that could grow up to become abusers.  According to some sources, Spinell spent time interviewing both police and criminal psychiatrists to help "get inside" his character's head.  The resulting performance, I think, is one of the best, if not the most realistic, depictions of a disorganized serial killer to ever be captured on film.  One that would not be equaled, if not surpassed, when Michael Rooker played the title character in the far more successful (artistically, at least) Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

6) The Thing (1982):  John Carpenter's box office hot streak came to an abrupt end with this critically and commercially reviled adaptation of John Campbell's classic short story Who Goes There?  The Thing was such a catastrophic failure that it was something of a minor miracle that Carpenter managed to retain a directing career after making it.  But he did and, in time, this dark and almost nihilistic examination of paranoia and identity crisis ("If I were an imitation, a perfect imitation, how would you know if it wasn't really me?") has become one of the most respected genre films of the 1980s.  Who would have thought that possible back in 1982?  Me!  I've loved The Thing from day one and knew it was one of John Carpenter's best films.  Sometimes you just know and have to wait for the rest to catch up with you.

7) Day of the Dead (1985):  George A. Romero's eagerly anticipated "conclusion" to his Zombie Trilogy met a fate at the box office similar to Carpenter's The Thing.  Critics felt that Romero had run out of interesting things to say and do with the zombies and his "fans" whined bitterly that the movie was talky and took forever to get to the wet stuff, which is evidently the only thing they seem to like about his movies.  I disagree with the former opinion and have no respect whatsoever for the latter one.  With fans like that, who the hell needs naysayer critics?  This entry (production woes stopped it from being the final film in a trilogy) won the top place in my heart with Romero fearlessly pushing his "they [the zombies] are us" conceit (first stated outright in Dawn of the Dead) into the literal with his most wondrous of creations, Bub, the zombie with a "soul."  Great stuff.

8) Tremors (1990): Just how much did I fall in love with Tremors on the first day I saw it?  I paid to watch it second time on the big screen; on the same day.  As far as I am concerned, this monster movie has the best set of easy to relate to blue collar heroes since Jaws.  Val and Earl, as played by Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward, are real to the point of casting their own shadows in real light.  Another bonus in the film's favor, it is a horror/comedy that knows enough to root its humor in its human characters and its frights in the monsters.  It strikes and keeps a balance between the two that, at times, achieves in practice the very name of the fictional Nevada town in which it is set, Perfection.

9) TIE - Darkman (1990) / Ed Wood (1994):  That something made by the inimitable Sam Raimi (made long before his Spider-Man mega-success) would make it onto my all time favorite movies list could be considered a given.  I was quite the Horror Geek back in the day.  But a film made by Tim Burton?  My mind boggles!  (I am far from the biggest Tim Burton fan.)  Darkman beat out Evil Dead II by a sizable margin, because it got me hooked back on reading comic books again.  At the time of its release, I liked to refer to it as, "The Best Comic Book Movie never made, ever."  Still feel that way, actually.

Burton's Ed Wood, on the other hand, is a wonderful biopic of a man that never was.  His version of the sad and pathetic life of Ed Wood is the fairy tale that every bad movie fan needs to see.  Because it manages to give a reasonably happy ending to what was a very unhappy life story.  Don't believe me?  Then read Rudolph Grey's book Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. and then watch Tim Burton's film immediately thereafter.  You will understand what I am saying.

10) Up (2009):  As lovable and fun to quote as Doug the Dog is - SQUIRREL! - it is the touching love story of Carl and Ellie that begins the film, and Carl's palpable grief over her death, that make UP such a wonderful viewing experience for me.  This movie has me laughing and crying every time I watch it.  No other film I have seen has ever got across just how memorable and meaningful the "boring stuff" in life truly is.  How just being deeply in love with someone can be all the adventure a person truly needs for a happy life.  It is also one of the few films that really gets across the power of grief and what kind of journey the grieving process can take you on.  Damn, now I want to sit down and watch it again, right now!

And that is pretty much it, folks.  Now you know what I have been doodling about for the first half of September.

Honorable Mentions: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), the Western that explained the genre to me well enough to turn this one time Western hater into a genuine Western fan.  Rollercoaster (1977), a cracking good suspense thriller with a top notch score by Lalo Schifrin.  Magic (1978), The Brood (1979), David Cronenberg's harrowing family thriller, and, on the flip side, John Hughes touching look at the pains of growing into a true adult, She's Having a Baby (1988). Highly recommended movies, one and all.

25 Writers That Influenced Me.

Lee Goldberg has participated in a meme that, although I don't write professionally or even all that regularly, I just have to chime in on.  So, here are 25 writers that influenced me:

1. Peter Straub, 2. Stephen King, 3. James Herbert, 4. William Goldman, 5. Ramsey Campbell, 6. Raymond Carver, 7. Joe R. Lansdale, 8. Peter Benchley, 9. Charles L. Grant, 10. Edgar Allan Poe, 11. H.P. Lovecraft, 12. Ray Bradbury, 13. Robert Bloch, 14. John Carpenter, 15. David Seltzer, 16. Richard Matheson, 17. Rod Serling, 18. Jeff Rice, 19. Whitley Strieber, 20. William Faulkner, 21. John Irving, 22. Joe Bob Briggs, 23. Roger Ebert, 24. David Cronenberg, 25. Wes Craven. 

I Have Been, I Am, I Will Be...

First off let me wish you a very Happy New Year.  I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to 2009.

It's hard for me to believe that this blog o' mine has been chugging (and, at times, limping) along now for well over three years.  I'm working on year four now.  Thank you all for visiting and taking the time to read my opinions, blatherings and pontifications.  It means a lot to me.  I know you're reading, because I check the visitor stats.

And to those that encouraged me to hang in with the blog back when I went through a really bad time in 2007, thanks.  2008 was a far better year for me.  My emotional keel has never felt so even and, as I said before, I am really looking forward to 2009.  Why is that?

First off, there are the books that are coming out in 2009: A Dark Matter by Peter Straub, Critical Mass by Whitley Strieber, Meg: Hell's Aquarium by Steve Alten, and Contagious by Scott Sigler are just four of the books that I am looking forward to reading in 2009.  I've already placed my orders for them.

2008 was the best year ever for scratching my soundtrack collector's itch.  A huge amount of titles were released on CD, either in expanded edition reissues or for the very first time, and several gaps in my music library were filled.  2009 is getting off to a splendid start with the release of Lalo Schifrin's complete score for The Dead Pool, the fifth and final Dirty Harry adventure.  Intrada, my go to place for the countless limited editions released, will be starting the new year off with a promised limited edition release of Jay Chattaway's score for the Chuck Norris action film Missing in Action. Great stuff.

I'm still reading comics, but have opted out of reviewing individual issues, unless they are one shots, and will instead be reviewing entire story arcs.  I'm also flirting with the idea of giving up on many serials and simply picking up the occasional trade collection.  But there are some serials that will have to ripped from my cold, dead hands.  Stuff like The Walking Dead and Hack/Slash.

Looking forward to this year's Wonder Con, Bay Con, and SiliCon, of course.  We might even attend a few more, although I seriously doubt that we will even come close to breaking the seven Cons attended record of 2007.  That was exhausting.

Finally there are the movies.  2009 is looking very good on several fronts.  Let me start with January, which is looking like the new October.  January alone is seeing the theatrical release of at least eleven horror movies:  The Uninvited (the American version of A Tale of Two Sisters), David (Blade: Trinity) Goyer's The Unborn (which is not an adaptation of David Shobin's novel), My Blood Valentine 3-D (which may or may not be in 3-D, depending on what theater you see it at), and After Dark Horrorfest III.

I don't know about you, but I really missed attending Horrorfest last year.  There's just something about getting to see the kind of low budget crap that used to play in theaters before video became the new drive-in movie venue.  Considering just how badly Horrorfest 2007 tanked (and that failure was the primary reason After Dark Films skipped 2008) I'm surprised that they are coming back for another round.  Although this year's offerings look to be a distinct improvement over 2007's tepid offerings (the film's are The Broken, Slaughter, Perkins' 14, Butterfly Effect: Revelation, From Within, Dying Breed, Autopsy, and the Korean thriller Voices) I would not be at all surprised if this turned out to be the Event's swan song.  I hope it isn't, because I love the idea of Horrorfest.

February = Friday the 13th.  March = Watchmen (despite what Fox has done with their lawsuit).  Then there is the new Star Trek, Terminator: Salvation, 2012 (which will probably be crap, because it's a Roland Emmerich flick, but it has an AWESOME teaser),  Final Destination 3-D (that isn't the official title, but it might as well be from a marketing standpoint) and Saw VI.

I passed on seeing Saw V and will probably do likewise for Saw VI, but I will be watching the film's box office numbers rather closely.  The fifth entry barely made it past the first film's 55 million box office take, which is far below the large returns of the second and third films, so it is clear that the Law of Diminishing Returns is whittling away at the franchise.  Although Saw VI might be able to get the 30 million opening, the drop-off looks to be faster.  Then again, Saw V was a strike picture and thus had to rely on excessive clips to pad out its running time.  But the final numbers on Saw VI will show if the franchise can squeak to number VII, or shut down at VII.  Either way, I doubt that will be the end of Saw.  The logical leap would be for Lionsgate to turn it into a DTV franchise.  That's what I would do, if I ran Lionsgate.  But I don't.

And that is the stuff that I'm starting out the year looking forward to.  I'll get back to the reviewing the stuff in a day or two.  Until then, Happy New Year!

Marvel Mashes Marriage

Well, Marvel went and actually did it.  They erased Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson's marriage.  As the shock settles in all I have been able to think about it is..."Fuck you, Marvel.  Fuck you, very much."

That statement comes not from a Fan Boy, but from a widowed husband and father of a 13 year old boy.

I'm no Marvel Zombie, but I do (or did) read more Marvel books than DC...until now.  As of January 10th I made the decision and today, January 11th, I make the official announcement that I will no longer purchase any Marvel Comics products.  I'm even going as far as seriously thinking of just selling off all of the Marvel based stuff cluttering up my apartment.

Or maybe I should just throw it away, the way Marvel did a marriage that has lasted 21 years.  God (or Joe Quesada) forbid that fictional characters actually grow and under go the inevitable changes that a realistically depicted life would bring about.  Let's forget that these stories have some emotional heft to them, that a generation of readers (there are readers of Spider-Man that have only known a married Peter Parker) are left feeling like two of their best friends have gotten a divorce.  Intellectually I can understand the need for conflict.  Conflict is the engine that drives stories.  But emotionally I wonder what this says about human relationships.  That they are disposable, meaningless, and can be walked away from and forgotten.  Made to have never existed.

I'm just a reader and not even a regular one.  I knew this development was coming, so I was already avoiding Spider-Man books on general principle.  But now that the moment has arrived I cannot believe the depth of my anger over the treatment of two fictional characters.  Yes, it's silly.  Yes, it's stupid.  Yes, I am far too emotional to rant about how much marriage means to me.  How much my own marriage meant to me...and how devestating the death of my wife was to me.  Hell, I'm still dealing with it and it's going on five fucking years.

But I don't have to deal with Marvel Comics.  So Joe Quesada, I'm not buying Marvel Comics for either myself or my son.  You're not getting any of my money.  I'm voting for the marriage to return in the only manner I can...with my wallet.

Until then, Fuck you.  Fuck you very, very much.

Irony 101

This is what happens when stupid people breed and then send their even stupider child to school:

The complaint that really makes my blood boil is the "firemen" comment.  The firemen of the book are not fire fighters, but book burners.  The firemen are STARTING fires, not putting them out.  It's called irony, something stupid, book banning people just don't understand because they don't read stuff that challenges them.  I swear, idiots like these, and not the terrorists, are going to destroy this great nation.

Blah-Blah-Blah

It seems that I have been struck with a bad case of the Blahs this week, because nothing is getting my mind percolating with ideas or opinions.  Although you might not have noticed, thanks in very large part to my Thanksgiving weekend binge on comic books and my burning through the DVD box set of the Puppet Master movies, I really haven't written anything in the last three or four days.  I've just been feeling rundown, mentally that is, and have succumbed to the urge to just kick back and veg, instead of approaching everything I read or see as potential Blog Review fodder.

But I know my constant readers (hi mom, hi dad) appreciate that I post a new review or opinion piece every single day, give or take.  So, for them, and just to shake out the few thoughts I have had about what I have been watching and/or reading in the past week, I post these little thumbnail "Thoughts of the Week":

On DVD:

The Tremors Attack Pack (Tremors/ Tremors 2: Aftershocks/ Tremors 3: Back to Perfection/ Tremors 4: The Legend Begins):  Tremors is one of my all time favorite movies, I can never get tired of watching it.  I also think that its three sequels are also a lot of fun, so is there anything that could make the "Attack Pack" any more awesome than it already is?  Well, the box set could have included all six episodes from far too short lived Tremors: The Series.

Next on deck?  It looks to be Puppet Master: The Legacy, which could be subtitled WHEN STOCK FOOTAGE ATTACKS, and, for Christmas, the holiday classic that is Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys.  (Hey, it's even set on the day before Christmas Eve, so what could be more appropriate?)

TV Episodes:

I've been happily burning through the Walker, Texas Ranger - The Complete First Season box set that's been sitting atop my coffee table. I'm down to the last episode of the second season, so it's a good thing that another Walker Texas Ranger box set is on the way and a third one is on pre-order. I don't think that I can ever have enough Walker, Texas Ranger.  But if I do, I have three seasons worth of The X-Files to watch and review as well.  I'm just about done with the second and, in my opinion, best season.  Should I ever get tired of those then I also have The Rockford Files: Season Two and The Incredible Hulk: The Complete First Season to pass the time.  They're all like Potato Chips, it's impossible to stop with just one.

Books:

All I learned from Stephen Oates William Faulkner: The Man and the Artist : A Biography was that William Faulkner was a miserable man, who lived a miserable life, and who wrote some truly great literature.  Other than that, I can't say anything else about the book.  If you love reading Faulkner (and I do) or are just interested in literary figures, then you might get something out of reading it.  From now on, I'm just going to stick to reading Faulkner's writing.  At the moment I am reading two books, The Murder Room by P.D. James (which seems to be a good 300 page murder mystery stretched out to fill 400 pages) and, having grown tired of reading about unpleasant characters in unpleasant situations, I set it aside and cracked open No Regrets by Cindi Myers. I have no clue why picked up a fistful of titles in Harlequin's Blaze line, because I have always found the sex scenes the most boring parts of a romance (no doubt due to the fact that I have written a lot of erotica in the past), nonetheless the book is light, frothy, and quick.  An almost perfect way to clear out the stuffiness left by The Murder Room.  Reviews of both should be forthcoming, but I'm not all that fired up about writing them, so expect them to be short ones.  Next on deck are two Christmas themed mysteries, Santa Cruise by Mary Higgins Clark & Carol Higgins Clark and Murder, She Wrote: A Little Yuletide Murder by "Jessica Fletcher" & Donald Bain.

Movies:

We took in two post-Horrorfest theatrical releases in the last week, or so.  Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny was a whole lot funnier than I thought it would be.  It's the best film of its kind I have seen since The Blues Brothers (and is twice as vulgar).  Casino Royale has to be not only one of the best Bond movies I have ever seen, but it's also one of the very few films in the franchise that bothers to be even remotely faithful to Ian Fleming's original books.

Comic Books:

Fallen Angel #11 is calling to me, but I haven't picked it up yet.  I'll also be reading The Walking Dead #33, Friday the 13th #1, and Manhunter #26.  You should expect reviews of Angel, Friday, and Manhunter.  I'll be reviewing the most recent Walking Dead trade collection by the close of the month.

Well, that's it for now, new reviews should start popping up by this weekend, at the latest.

Take care.

The Cliche Factor

I've been pretty much aware that Bill O'Reilly is nothing more than a bloviating dumbass, a pox on the intellectual purity of humanity, for several years now.  His recent vitriol about horror movies is one of the minor reasons why.

Arrow in the Head goes off on this tempest in a teapot more than I will, because it ain't all that.  Op ed pieces like this are par for the course.  When horror movies are popular, and right now they are very popular indeed, then we get "Why are people watching these horrible films?"  When horror movies are not popular, and the time will come when they will not be, then we will get "Has the horror filmed died?"

People getting up in arms over the graphic violence in horror films is nothing new.  There were even "Parental Groups" and theater chains that protested the Universal Horror Classics (which were considered quite gruesome in their day, but now are considered wonders of restraint).  Bill O'Reilly shows a stunning amount of ignorance when he states that Saw III was something that would not have been seen in America ten years ago.  Excuse me Bill, have you ever seen Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs, Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist, The Omen, Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th, Maniac, or countless other horror films?  But then again, research and fact checking isn't The O'Reilly Factor's strong point.  Spinning the facts for exploitation and personal gain are.

With all the concern and attention being focused on torture these days, is it any wonder that a great many contemporary horror movies, from Saw to Hostel, are focusing on it?  I'm also not surprised that O'Reilly is not at all aware of Saw III's intelligent subtext about the all consuming and destructive nature of the desire for revenge, as well as its sly commentary about the "proper" uses of torture.  He is not, and never has been, interested in educating himeself or his viewers.  He only seeks to entertain...and for that he should be ashamed.

A Pundit's Deficit of Decency

This isn't about politics, it's about common human decency and one individual's utter lack of it.

There is a certain popular political pundit, one who shall remain nameless, that has a new book out.  In that book she makes some callous comments that were no doubt meant only to inflame, injure, and insult:

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis.  I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' death so much." [Emphasis mine.}

"These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks only happened to them."

"They believed the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony.  Apparently, denouncing Bush was an important part of their closure process."

If you want to know just how morally reprehensible each and every one of these statements is, just substitute in John Walsh.  Is there ever a moment in time when John Walsh doesn't rub the death of his son, Adam, in somebody else's face?  It seems to me that he goes out of his way to remind everybody about it and that he wants the entire world to share in his exquisite agony.  I mean, really, when is he just going to get over it?

Do you see what I mean?  Can you even begin to comprehend the point I am desperately trying to make?

The man that John Walsh was died the moment his son Adam did, an entirely new man was born from the ravages of the agonizing and completely unsharable grief that consumed him.  Just as the man I once was died the very moment my wife did.  A new one, with a vastly different world view, personality, and understanding of the true "meaning of life" has been forming in the three years since the doctor said to me, "I'm sorry...she's dead," and I turned and literally collapsed into my father's arms.  I don't know what happened after that.  I think I screamed.  I know cried.  Great, heaving convulsions wracked my body while, in my soul, there was nothing but pain.

That pain is still very much there, even though three years have almost passed.  The regret, the resentment, the torment of wondering what I could have done differently to save my wife from the ravages of alcoholism, it's all there.  It will never go away.  It has become one of the defining moments of my life.  Right up there with the birth of my son, who is also suffering in his own private little hell.  One that is removed from mine, because it is his and his alone.  After watching the American version of the film Dark Water, my son cried for twenty minutes.  He turned to me at one point and sobbed, "I'm NEVER going to see my mommy again, not until I'm DEAD!"  It was a chilling statement to hear for an eleven year old boy.  My greatest fear is that he will try and hurt himself, just so he can see his mother again.  I was quick to voice that fear, telling him that, if he ever did intentionally hurt himself, he wouldn't see his mother.  That there were rules to life we must follow.  Those rules, I have found, have nothing whatsoever to do with truth, justice, and the pursuit of happiness.

He will also carry the pain of Rosie's death in him for the rest of his life.  It is every bit as defining to him as a person as it is to me.  Our reactions are as different as our personalities.  He has found Faith, I have have lost it.  Rosie is still an integral part of his life, and always will be.  For me, I am learning to live with only one hand, one leg, one eye, one ear.  My other half has been severed and the spiritual therapy has only just begun.

But we live in a disposable society.  My wife had not been dead for even one week when an acquaintance approached me and asked, "So, you think you'll ever get married again?"  She hadn't even been dead for six months when people started asking me when I planned to start dating again.  Un-frakking-believable.  But, as I said, we live in a disposable society.  This is why I am reluctant to talk about it, even here, on this blog.  Because a part of me fully expects to hear, or see reflected in certain comments, "Dude, when the hell are you just going to get over it."

The answer is, never.  It isn't something you "get over," it is something you learn to live with.  It will saturate every aspect of my life until I die.  Learning  to live with the death of a loved one isn't easy, for anyone.

Which is something this political pundit, one who, as far as I can tell, has never been married or mothered a child, seems emotionally incapable of understanding, much less relating to.  Some day she might come to understand the soul shattering torment that is the death of a loved one.  When that time does come, no matter how vile her statements of the past may have been, my heart will go out to her.  Because I know and understand that pain all too well.  I wouldn't wish it on anyone, not even her.

Where Have All the Bookstores Gone?

First, author James Reasoner talked about the shrinking number of local used bookstores on his blog.  I share in his joy of wandering aisle upon aisle of used books, to have that wandering pay off with finding something special.  Like the time, back in the 1980's, I found a paperback edition of Peter Straub's long out of print first novel, Marriages.

Then, two days later, in my bag of purchases from Bay Books, the neighborhood used bookstore I shop at, I found a saddening article in their newly launched newsletter:

Cody's Books, the venerable independent bookstore that has served generations of UC Berkeley students, is closing its Telegraph Avenue store on July 10 after 43 years.  A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books, one of the most popular independent bookstores in San Francisco, is up for sale.  Keplers, in Menlo Park since 1955, closed its doors last year on August 31 only to open them again on October 5.  An infusion of money by a shocked community has reopened the store, but for how long?  Now Valencia Street Books in San Francisco is scheduled to close.

In less than one week, by those who use them frequently, those that own and operate them (Bay Books is a family owned business), and those that comment about popular culture, there was the sad acknowledgement that the Internet (where I'll admit to doing most of my shopping for books, CDs, and DVDS, both new and used) and Big Box stores (where I do not) are slowly absorbing yet another part of what used to be our Cultural Heritage.  Before it became a one huge, endless shopping mall of sameness, that is.

It's sad that Mom & Pop stores, small and independently owned chains, and even regional markets are quickly becoming a thing of the past.  That an afternoon cruising the various local, independent neighborhood stores, is pretty much a thing of the past.  Just like a night at the Drive-In, or just lounging on the couch and taking in a Godzilla flick, or some old Hammer horror movie, or some vintage Drive-In schlock, with Bob Wilkins/Captain Cosmic and/or John Stanley popping up between the commercial breaks for a comedy skit or interview.  Independent and localized commerce and entertainment is, far too quickly, becoming a nostalgic memory for a greying generation that can remember life before the Internet, home video, video games, and cable television took over.

When will the decay of our "Cultural Heritage" into one of Big Box disposability ever stop?  Or will it?

Hype on a Plane.

This morning I opened the Arts & Entertainment section of the Sunday paper, and what did I see?  An article about how hugely popular the movie Snakes on a Plane is on the Internet.  Something that both I and the readers of this blog have been very well aware of for quite some time.

But for those of you (Hi Mom and Dad) that haven't heard, Snakes on a Plane is a movie about a no doubt tough-as-nails federal agent that-doesn't-follow-the-rules, played by Samuel L. Jackson, who has to escort a murder witness from Hawaii to Los Angeles, so that the witness can testify at an important trial.  Those that want the witness "taken care of" decide on a rather unique way of doing so: a package containing an assortment of deadly snakes is hidden in the cargo hold of the plane that the witness and agent are taking to Los Angeles.  (Exactly how a passenger flight would be carrying something that contains such a massive, thus quite heavy, amount of snakes is....well, just don't pester me with this thing you call logic.)  The snakes (which, in the film's script, have names like Hannibal, Scarface, and Kong, who is evidently a twenty foot constrictor) are soon loose and causing all manner of havoc.  Then it's all about federal agent Samuel L. Jackson fighting the Snakes on a Plane.

This movie hasn't even come out, yet its title has already formed a sizable cult following.  Fans of all ages are showing their adoration for the film's plot synopsis title, Snakes on a Plane, by flooding the Internet with trailer parodies.  Just how many trailer parodies can one movie generate?  A lot, evidently.  I also think that these two fellows have done an excellent job of parodying the film's rumored storyline.  (It could be a Cliff Notes version of the actual movie.)  It is now even possible to get some fan created stuff to either wear or hang on your wall.  I might even spring for a Snakes on a Plane shirt, just to have something to wear on opening night.  Yes, I will be there.  Even if this movie starred C. Thomas Howell and Jeff Fahey, and was directed by either Uwe Boll or Fred Olen Ray, I would be seeing it.  I'm just that kind of guy.  To corrupt a statement by Carl Kolchak, "I've seen more b-movies than college students have junk food dinners."

But the Internet fans aren't the only ones in love with the title Snakes on a Plane.  Star Samuel L. Jackson reportedly agreed to do the movie based solely on the script's title.  "That's the only reason I took the job: I read that title," Jackson is quoted [in David Hiltbrand's Knight Ridder article] as telling the entertainment Web site Collider.com.  "You either want to see that or you don't."

But is all this attention good for the movie?  I don't think it is.  Remember, the adoration is focused not on the film, but on it's title.  I can't help but be doubtful that the adoration of a goofy sounding title will translate into actual ticket sales.  Not with all the parodying happening some four to five months before the film is scheduled for release.  By the time Snakes on a Plane actually takes flight, the joke will be yesterday's news.  New Line Cinema doesn't even have an official trailer for the film yet.  But why should they rush to create one when they have people making stuff up that could wind up being more fun than the movie itself?

While Mainstreamers are giggling about Snakes on a Plane and discovering the kind of fun that Movie Geeks have been having for years, the article states that some people are making plans to dress in either pilot or flight attendant uniforms when they see the movie, I'm becoming more convinced that Snakes on a Plane will have a rather short life in movie theaters.  One comment on the Message Board that I frequent put it best, "There is no way this movie is going to live up to the hype."  Just go back and read the plot synopsis, I'll wait.

Okay, you're back.  That plot synopsis could pretty much be the story line of any number of disposable DTV thrillers, not even the snakes are all that unique to the concept.   Killer Buzz did it with killer bees for the Sci-Fi Channel not too long ago.  What was once a simple, modestly budgeted summer thrill ride has now become the source of slang.  Instead of C'est la vie, people now say snakes on a plane.  Well, the article says they do.  No one has said it to me in that context.  Although the office I.T. guy did approach me about the movie a few weeks back, because he knew I was the kind of guy that would know about it.  (And yes, I did.)

I also think that the movie will no doubt suffer a huge backlash when it is revealed not to be the wicked funny parody of silly b-movies that everybody seems to want to think it is, remember Snakes on a Plane is supposed to be serious.  Even if it does have a large opening weekend, the drop off is going to be staggering.  Can anybody remember the last so-bad-it's-good camp classic that actually made some serious bank in its theatrical release?  Movies like that build up their audiences over time.  While there is a lot of love for the title Snakes on a Plane, I find it hard to believe that there will be all that much love for the movie itself.  My geek instinct keeps telling me that Snakes on a Plane will just be another here and gone theatrical movie that will enjoy a healthy life on DVD, which is precisely where it belongs.

"You know, this would make a great movie."

I cannot recall how many times I have made that statement while reading a particularly good, or just entertaining, book (comic or prose), or during one of the rare times I have actually played a video game. What is it about enjoying something that makes me think it will automatically make it a good, or at least entertaining, movie? Hell, I thought a movie that featured Nemesis couldn't go wrong. Well, it did and I was.

Looking back over the many botched and/or just plain uninspired movie versions of books I've loved, I begin to wonder if, in my desire to see a forest, I have lost track of what made that singular tree I had been climbing so much fun. (Okay, that is a really bad metaphor, but I’m not the best of writers.)

While King’s epic novel It is filled with all manner of monsters, insightful drama, and powerful characterization, it is the novel’s haunting opening that, twenty years after reading it, I can still recall it vividly. It haunts me, even today. It is the fate of little George’s paper boat, the one his brother made for him. The one he had gone outside to play with in the rain, and which led him to Pennywise’s deadly trap:

"The boat dipped and swayed and sometimes took on water, but it did not sink; the two brothers had waterproofed it well. I do not know where it finally fetched up, if ever it did; perhaps it reached the sea and sails there forever, like a magic boat in a fairytale. All I know is that it was still afloat and still running on the breast of the flood when it passed the incorporated town limits of Derry, Maine, and there it passes out of this tale forever.”

How the hell do you translate that to a movie?  Answer, you can't.

Heck, they couldn't even come close to capturing the power of when Pennywise snares George:

What he saw then was terrible enough to make his worst imaginings of the thing in the cellar look like sweet dreams; what he saw destroyed his sanity in one clawing stroke.

"They float," the thing in the drain crooned in a clotted, chuckling voice.

For quite a few years after ready that, just whispering the simple words “They float” could send shivers up and down my spine. And what horrible thing could a child see that would be so nightmarish as to destroy his mind in “one clawing stroke?” How do you communicate that? You can't. The mini-series just had Tim Curry tilting his head and snarling into the camera while having some goofy looking fangs stuck in his mouth. Nowhere near as powerful an image as the one King implied in his narrative.

An interesting point was shared by author Bruce Joel Rubin about the filming of his script Jacob's Ladder. During a hospital scene, the main character sees the abyss open up before him and he is then tormented by demons. Director Adrian Lynne wanted to make this journey a literal one. Rubin was dismayed by this, but Lynne’s responding rhetorical question is a perfect example of what separates the grasp of a simple movie and what a much more interactive work can do. “Bruce,” Lynne said. “Tell me how many carpenters and painters I will need to construct ‘the abyss’.” Rubin then understood the vast gulf the separates the theater of the mind from the theater of the eye.

In the completed film, the main character is placed on gurney and taken for what he believes will be a routine test. But the trip becomes one into nightmare. It's my choice for the best sequence in the film. Because it communicates the gradual descent into hell in subtle, easy to grasp terms.

The difference between how the scene was written on the page and then how it was translated to the screen perfectly illustrates the almost unbridgeable chasm between limitless imagination and limited reality. Books and games contain levels of personal interactive experiences that no manner of cinematic trickery can recreate. The trick, as Lynne so perfectly understood it, is to translate the feel of the material into a different format. One filtered through the eyes, not the mind.

The cause of my mulling over this really isn't Silent Hill, though it clearly applies. No, what got me stated thinking this over was Dreamcatcher, of all things.  I enjoyed King’s novel when I first read it.  I thought it was scary and, sprinkled throughout its hundreds of pages, that it had some genuinely touching moments of emotional clarity. I thought, and still do, that it showcased a new maturity in King's approach to characterization. Many times King’s characters felt like over grown kids. The characters of Dreamcatcher came across as real adults with real problems. My two favorite scenes of the film are when the alcoholic Peter helps a woman find her lost keys (a wonderful piece of character building, both in the book and the movie) and when the nasty Shit Weasel makes its first, horrifying appearance. Both scenes stay very close to King’s source novel, getting the rhythm of the narrative down better than King himself does when he adapts his own work to the screen. But the SW scene is slightly off and it took me several days of thought to figure out what was wrong.

In the novel, Beaver brings about his own death by reaching for a clean toothpick that he desperately needs. In the novel, King can get inside the character’s head and communicate Beaver's need for this pacifier. In the novel it plays out as a some what credible moment of human foolishness. In the movie, it doesn't. Because the inner connection to character's motivation is missing, and screenwriters William Goldman and Lawrence Kasdan (both of whom should know better) do nothing to communicate that motivation. So Beaver just does a very stupid thing a viewer may or may not be able to relate to. It dozen’t translate, because it isn't translated. They only recreated the scene pretty much as it played out in the book.

I used to think that was enough, not any more.

Now, I am fully aware of how very easy it is to say “My way is better” without having to have undergo all the work of actually creating something of my own to offer us as an example. But I am going to do it anyway and just hope I do it well enough that I make the difference between recreating and translating pretty clear. Instead of having Beaver reaching over for the toothpick, I would have had the SW start chewing through the toilet seat. Lord knows, the creature was designed with enough frakking teeth to do so. A panicked Beaver attempts to flee, is attacked, Jonesy arrives, the SW, now finished with Beaver, rises up to attack…then pauses; because Mr. Gray is behind Jonesy. The scene is now successfully translated to a visual medium, with the chain of events only slightly modified for the new format.

This was the probelm I had with Silent Hill, just so I can beat a dead horse.  For me, the movie was like watching someone play the game from within a soundproofed room. I couldn't even interact with the gamer. All I could do was just sit there and watch the game unfold, because the translation was focused on recreating the feel of the game rather than focusing on translating it to the screen.

As a cinematic legend once said, "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

So the point of all this rambling? I no longer find myself yearning for something I really enjoy to get the “big screen” treatment. Reading it and enjoying it for what it is, that's more than enough for me now.  I'm content to have Watchmen, The Walking Dead, Fallen Angel, and novels like Meg and Cell remain what they are, entertaining reads.

And it only took me a little over twenty-five years to figure out the utterly obvious!  Clueless indeed. ;)

"The suffering...the sweet, sweet suffering."

As the Horror Genre's popularity surges and wanes like the ocean tides, there never fails to be a cycle of articles about the popularity, or lack of, the Horror Movie.  When Horror is hot, there are the puff pieces filled with blatherings and pontifications about why they are so popular.  When it is not, then there are puff pieces stating that, like the American Western, Horror Movies might have taken their last breath at the box office.

Yeah, right.  I've been a Horror Fan for most of my 38 years on this Big Blue Marble, and I have been through, at least, three surges wherein the genre owned the box office.  I seriously doubt that a genre as mutable, and with such a large and sustainable fan base, will ever die.

Speaking of dying, this brings me to the most recent "Why are Horror Movies so dang popular?" article, courtesy of MSNBC and Newsweek.  (Let me just share the needless trivia that I obsessively read and re-read Newsweek's 1979 Summer of Fear Horror Movie Special Issue, which featured Alien on its cover.  The feature article "examined" the high amount of horror movies coming out that year: Alien, The Amityville Horror, Prophecy, Phantasm, The Brood, The Dark, and the re-release of John Carpenter's Halloween, to name but a very few.  Great year for the Horror Fan, wasn't it?)  All in all, this article is nothing new, but it does address a subject that Final Girl touched upon a short while ago, namely the amount of torture in contemporary horror.

I pretty much agree with Wes Craven comments.  That the increased blood-letting and brutality is probably a reflection of the post 9/11 and post Abu Ghraib (with a nod to the "Everybody wants to punch an American in the face" vibe that is reportedly so popular out there) more than anything.  Putting things in perspective, compare the horror movies of the Vietnam era (Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Last House on the Left, and The Exorcist) with those of the post Vietnam Era (The Omen, Alien, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dawn of the Dead, Halloween, and Prophecy).  I think the difference in tone and approach to violence are noticeable.  To push the point further, watch a fistful of eighties horror to contrast even further.  (Friday the 13th, Maniac, The Thing, Day of the Dead, and Re-Animator.)

Things changed, for the worse as far as I am concerned, when Scream came out with its post-modern wink at the audience.  Everybody was in on the fun and horror, for several years, lost its teeth.  I think people flocked to The Blair Witch Project in large numbers because it was supposedly scary, not gory.  My favorite horror movies of that era were movies that managed to give me the willies, not the self-referential giggles.  (Session 9 comes to mind.)  Being a genre first and foremost, horror has been swallowing its own narrative tale since day one.  Every fan knows the structure of the story and the rules, being snarky about how everybody does doesn't add anything to the story being told, other than a vague feeling of contempt for the material.

Now that horror has its teeth back it might be a tad over zealous in showing that.  But I think it's a good thing.  It has me looking forward to both Slither and Silent Hill, rather than dreading them.  Neither looks to be one of those faux-horror joke fests, although Slither clearly has a sense of humor, or action movies that pretend to be a horror movie.  (Why yes, Resident Evil, I am glaring at you.)

While I might pass on some of the harder edged stuff, I fully intend to enjoy this current surge for however long it lasts.

The obligatory "Out with the Old, In with the New" retrospective essay thingie - January 1, 2006

It was sometime in the late 80s and the man on the 38 Geary bus was not only quite drunk, he was also quite lost.  "Where are we?"  He asked again and again.  "Excuse me.  EXCUSE ME, Mr. Magazine Man, where are we?"

No, I was not the drunk man on the bus (I had been clean and sober for, at least, three or four years when the incident occurred).  I was Mr. Magazine Man.  I had lived in San Francisco long enough to know the best way to handle a situation like the one that was happening was to simply ignore it.  So I did, until the drunk man picked me out.  After all, I was easy pickings.  I was the guy closest to him (just across the aisle) on a practically empty bus and, although I kept my nose buried in the latest issue of Fangoria magazine (wavering between pretending to read and trying to read, depending on how much noise the drunk man was making), I had to respond.  So I told him, "Outer Richmond district."  I think that satisfied the drunk, or perhaps my stop came, because I don't remember much more of this event other than the drunk guy being lost and not knowing where he was and asking me to tell him.  That and my best friend Remo ribbing me about it as we walked back to my apartment afterward.

So, like the drunk on the bus, I ask where are we?  Or, more importantly, where the hell am I?  I mean really, where am I on the great bus ride of life?

The Entertainment Stuff:

I don't do lists, because I don't keep that much track of what I've watched, read, or listened to.  I figure that, if I can't remember it off the top of my head, then, perhaps, it wasn't all that memorable.  I also do not feel qualified to pick a best or worst, only what I like and disliked.  On that note, George A. Romero's Land of the Dead was my favorite film of the year.  Sure the DVD is a tad disappointing, but, in my opinion, the movie is not.  I think that, given time, it will find an audience every bit as adoring as the ones for Romero's Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead.  My least favorite?  The rancid piece of shit that was The Fog remake.  Stick with the original, it's ten times the horror movie the remake wants to think it is.

Favorite books?  That's a hard one.  I buy more books than I could ever possibly read and, because of this, I am at least a year behind in my reading.  Of the original 2005 stuff, I enjoyed C.J. Barry's futurist romance Unmasked the most.  Barry is my favorite romance writer, you're going to have fun with anything she writes.  (Yes, I do realize that I just ripped off what Dean Koontz said about the late, great Richard Laymon, sue me.)  One the media novel front, Lee Goldberg delivered something very rare in a media tie-in story, an emotional punch.  Diagnosis Murder #5: The Past Tense was one of the few, very few, media novels that I awarded a five star rating under my revised standards at Amazon.  I only give five stars to stuff I think is an exceptional example of its genre.  The Past Tense is that sort of book, I recommend it unreservedly.  I will also say that if you aren't reading Peter David's Fallen Angel, then you are missing out on something truly special.

Music wise, there's nothing I have to say.  I listen to soundtracks, new age, and soft jazz and none of the albums I picked up in 2005 (that were 2005 releases) struck me as anything special.  I'm still impatiently waiting for the Killer Klowns from Outer Space soundtrack that I ordered to show up.  Now it will have to count as a 2006 release.  Damn independents.

TV?  Other than Surface (which is just "o.k." in my book) I'm not watching anything.  Heck, I've read more books based on TV shows than have watched actual TV shows.

What am I looking forward to seeing, reading, or hearing in 2006?  Well, on the movie front, there's Poseidon, Bloodrayne, Slither, and, although I still think the resemblance to Joe R. Lansdale's work is a tad too pronounced, Monster House.  Books?  Only Stephen King's Cell and Whitley Strieber's The Grays stand out.  On the media novel front, I'm looking forward to Peter David's Battlestar Galactica novel and Lee Goldberg killing me in Diagnosis Murder book seven.  Writing reviews on Amazon pays off in the most entertaining of ways, no?  Music wise?  I'm looking forward to getting that previously mentioned Killer Klowns soundtrack, other than that, it's just wait and see what comes out during the year, if anything.  I am hoping that Lalo Schifrin, who did such a wonderful job releasing his marvelous scores for Dirty Harry and its sequel Magnum Force, will get around to releasing his scores for Sudden Impact, The Dead Pool, and Amityville II: The Possession.

The writing stuff:

Oh, this is the hard one.  When it comes to writing, I'm pretty much the Stanley Hastings of the group.  A gifted amateur, in other words.  (At least I think I'm gifted, don't tell me otherwise.  Please.)  2006 looks to be no different than 2005, writing wise.  A curious blend of daydreaming the writer's life while scribbling out the occasional story in between the stuff I write here.  (At least I'm writing everyday.)  I struggle onward, continually wondering if starting this blog was a good thing or a bad thing.  I will continue to put something new on it everyday though, because, apparently, people are reading it.  The visitors stats have grown to over 50 a day, at least.  That surprises and delights me.  So I assume that some of y'all like what you read and are staying for more.  Thank you if you do and, if not, thanks for visiting at least.

One interesting thing I've noticed is that, whenever I tell myself to "get serious about this writing thing," I get depressed and demoralized.  Perhaps it's the whole job thing, or the constant complainants from professional writers about the professional writer's life.  I don't know.  It seems like so much work with zero fun.  I've wanted to be a writer and, although I haven't been published all that much professionally, have considered myself one since 1978, when William Goldman's novel Magic opened my eyes to the cool possibilities of writing and decided that it was the writer's life for me. 

I know now that I will probably never be a "professional" writer.  Whenever I give myself professional goals I just seize up with a curious blend of terror and feeling unworthy and get nothing done.  I do my best when I just sit down and begin describing what it is I see.  Writing for market isn't my thing, writing for myself is.  I will continue to do that and, if someone finds it worthy enough to pay me money for it, terrific.  If not, that's fine, I'm still going to do it nonetheless.  For me, it isn't about making a living and supporting my family, it is about doing what I love to do, write.

What I think it is, is this.  While I navigate the confusing path that is my life, I have been learning, observing, and processing that information.  I have known the heights of joy (holding my newborn son in my hand and saying, "Hi, I'm your Daddy.") and the depths of emotional torment (sitting in intensive care and watching my wife struggling to get away from death's door, only to have the son-of-a-bitch reach out of the darkness and pull her in.).  All of it has been a learning experience and, more than likely, has given me something to say about the human condition.  Right now, because of the distractions of life, I am still learning how best to communicate that in my writing.  Lots of writers start truly writing in their late thirties and early forties.  There is no reason why I should be any different.  Author Jack Ketchum basically told me this in an interview I listened to this morning.  By focusing on what I wasn't doing (which was selling) instead of focusing on what I was doing (which is writing) I was letting the unfinished business get me down, when it shouldn't.  I'm right were I need to be.  Writing every day and learning how to best communicate my ideas and opinions.  I also think that I'm getting better at it.  When I look back over my shoulder, and see how far I have actually come, and then look forward to see how far I have yet to go, it isn't nearly as intimidating.  Besides, life is a journey, not a destination.

So my unique little writer's life inches onward, just like my sobriety does.  One step at a time, one day at a time.  Today is only just one step of many both taken and yet to be taken.  Every day I take another one...and a new personal goal is achieved.

Be well in 2006.