So... had a nasty bout of "shutting down" again as the weekend encroached. Fortunately a bachelor party for Andy and the consumption of vast quantities of alcohol + sidestream nicotine + attractive skin of the female persuasion headed it off pretty abruptly.

Well, maybe not headed it off, but ( distracted from it )As is apropos to the secretive, fraternalistic-order-like nature of bachelor parties, I won't divulge any more of the details, except to say that Andy did his usual and showed us all up on the dance floor at Halo (whoop... ingredient number five; music) before we made it to Echo, and shortly after leaving there we all collapsed in various states of disarray about the hotel room. By some miracle I awoke in time to run off to Easter service without waking anyone.

Easter service was something of an ordeal, but I slogged through via four cups of coffee beforehand and collapsing at 2:00 afterwards.

Not a great deal more happening... got out to see Watchmen again with a friend on Friday. I think the flick still holds up quite well; we even had applause at Rorschach's line again despite only a dozen people in the theater. The only bad point is that "Silk Specter's" relative lack of acting ability really sticks out more the second time around. Hers is probably the most difficult role in the film, and she is plainly the worst actress. (TJ? You finished with my copy of the book? I think I want to read it again.) Now word comes down that Rorschach is cast as the new Freddy Kreuger in the Nightmare on Elm Street remake. Part of me wants to see him in the part... but the rest of me realizes that a remake is going to be populated with more completely interchangeable night-time teen drama stars and be largely unmemorable as a result. Besides, Freddy's attitude is essentially the opposite of Rorschach... lighthearted sadism rather than downbeat sociopathic stoicisim. This also has him going from being the avenger of kiddie-fiddlers to playing one... not sure how I think that transition will go. Hell, at least they probably aren't going to turn him into a pot farmer, like Jason Voorhees.

Other flicks... I'm reaching the end of one of my "50 movie box sets" of DVDs, an accomplishment of which I am uncommonly proud and thus a completely hopeless case. I finished up a Corman flick "The Last Woman on Earth" (1960) the other night that I found much better than I'd expected. I don't think I've really grasped the core appeal of Roger Corman yet, but I think I got a glimpse of it in this flick. Corman is perhaps the most famously penny-pinching producer in the history of Hollywood. In a typical Corman flick the acting is rough (probably because they hadn't enough film for more than a couple takes) the sets are laughable and the props are terrible. But if you wanted to be on film, he's sure as hell the man to go to; he's the original master of throwing a thousand things at the wall in the hope that .1% would stick, he couldn't afford to put much of a budget into any of them. One of his other flicks, the original Little Shop of Horrors (no, the one the musical was based on) is laughably awful; essentially a series of running jokes all mashed together (there's the Russian/Jewish skinflint shop owner, the lotus-eater, the Jewish grandmother whose relatives were always dying, the sadist dentist, and of course Seymore, his mother, and Audry), the sets are threadbare (a flower shop interior consisting of three card-tables holding flowers and a cash register) and the monster is a nine-foot tall paper mache' construction. How cheap is the flick? The opening titles play over a clumsy pencil sketch of a city street complete with erase marks and Marquees where the titles don't really fit. Honestly, the only notable part is a creepily-good turn by Jack Nicholson (!?!) as a nebbish, tooth-sucking masochistic dental patient seeking out the most painful dentist in the city.

Anyway, ( Last Woman on Earth ) I know it was merely a story mechanism for the film, but the fact of the event's actual occurrence lends it a chilling quality that's probably lost on most viewers. Always remember, Mother Nature is a bitch who is totally planning to kill you at the first opportunity through crafty and nefarious means. By its own standards, the film is a somewhat clumsy (several scenes seem to be missing entirely) but surprisingly poignant examination of the failings of the human spirit under extreme circumstances. Characters flawed enough to grant surprising depth, and clumsily directed enough to be granted a touch of authenticity, this dollar-store cheapie ends up much much better than it has any right to be, and may actually be granting me a bit of insight into the "cult of Corman."

On the other hand, we have Dreamwork's latest offering; the 3-D animated feature ( Aliens vs. Monsters ), the film is not soulless, but it does perhaps possess some congenital heart defect. Pixar, even under the watchful eye of the mouse, created better realized characters of depth and sincerity without any dialogue the last time out, and managed to be more exciting and heartstring-tugging to boot despite similar burial beneath leaden social themes. From the moment I realized they were compiling 50's movie monsters into this flick, I really wanted to like this flick. And I do, but I seriously doubt this will ever be anyone's favorite CGI flick.

To quote Rorschach; Hrm...

I'd intended to dive back into regular (or at least weekly) postings here, but I find myself without much of interest to say. Work is... lending itself towards a pessimistic outlook on matters that I don't want to jinx by talking about directly (knocks furiously on wood), and I'm making a concious effort to stay away from opening the second bottle of Grey Goose lest I ramble on late into the night and arise the next morn incapable of productive work.

(Although I don't seem too capable of productive work even when perfectly well rested. Meh.)

So I'll just treat y'all to a couple brief (for me) book reviews, which will at least let me return one of the things I borrowed from the landlord upstairs.

First up: Mickey Zucker Reichert's ( The Legend of Nightfall )

This thing was a downright CHORE to get through. At the end, when things actually started to happen, I grew a little interested, but it took months to slog through that first 375 pages of horrible writing. There is nothing unique or interesting about this story... it's simply the author's masturbatory Mary-Sue adventure of the greatest thief / assassin / rouge / fighter / detective / magician multi-class 20th level character.

Fortunately, the other book I've read was much, much better.

People have been telling me for at least a year that I needed to read ( World War Z )

In the end, the stories in this book are cleverly and powerfully told, with especial praise going to the book's overall structure for allowing a rapidly maturing author to present his work in the very best of light. Rarely misfiring, we can only hope the upcoming movie does the book justice. (They'd better keep the "collected interview" format... trying to tell a continuous story would completely miss the genius of the book.)

Avoiding work for a bit I went back through my old lj entries (via the e-mail notification on comments) and noticed an odd pattern forming
1) Post long-winded drunkenly maudlin self-pity party
2) Become bedridden with seasonal head cold.

Most of those happen around Feb 14th. Hmmmm… A clever person might reach conclusions based on these events.

Well, the cold’s already arrived, but we’re gonna try to avoid exacerbating the condition by avoiding the maudlin for a while. "Drunken" I’m not so ready to commit against. (Especially since someone has left yet another bottle of Grey Goose wrapped in a swaddling blanket in a basket on my front step again. Outta brie and avocado, though.)

At least the cold was well deserved this time. As mentioned but a few mere moments ago, I got the head cold walking down Bourbon street in the rain at 11:00 at night. Yes, I’ve been in ( New Orleans )

Afterwards we all crashed, but not before Kristen convinced me to start a facebook.

Yeah, I’ve joined the great unwashed on that social networking site. I swear the interface is really inane, so I’ve only fumbled through the initial workings. If I’ve somehow missed your account, and I'm sure I must've missed many, I’m in there under my full name. You should be able to find me.

( More Conference )

Eh, worth it.

Only ended up missing two days of work for it, but it punches such a hole in the week that it’s hard to recover anything worthwhile from the rest. Can’t really say I put the time to good use, either, as I spent a good bit of it groggily playing a borrowed copy of ( Assassin’s Creed )

Interesting concept, beautiful landscape, badly executed. Blessedly short.

The other thing I did was watch a few more movies in that "50-movie-pack" of old expired-or-abandoned public domain films. I don’t feel like giving it a proper review, but I’ll just burst if I don’t point this one out.

"Monster from a Prehistoric Planet" (Daikyoju Gappa)

Japan is destroyed by a pair of gigantic, reptilian chickens. Really. Yes, exactly like "the big chicken." Yes, the "Colonel Sanders" jokes write themselves. Also: you know what’s really, hilariously politically incorrect? A little Japanese boy in blackface and an afro-wig. Because they didn’t have any actual black people to be in the movie.

The only other notable bit was from the amazingly stilted performances in "The Monster Walks" about a tall German manservant who tries to manipulate a will inheritance by killing people and blaming it on a chimpanzee in the basement. The only funny bit was the heroine (Vera Reynolds) who collapsed into her beloved’s arms about twelve times while exclaiming "Roger, take me away!" in exactly the same cadence as the old Calgon commercials.

As for other stuff, I got a note that there was an auction going on at the ( Stone Mountain Antique Car Museum )I think they had the speakers turned up to accommodate the more elderly members of the audience, though, as I had to keep leaving lest I become deafened by the constant barrage of the auctioneer.

Lastly, just because I keep meaning to do this in greater detail, but doing it in detail means the scale keeps daunting me, a list of the podcasts I follow! (With brief summaries.)

( AWO )

( Destroy All Podcasts DX )

( Fast Karate for the Gentlemen )

( The Greatest Movie EVARRRRRRR )

( Lather's Blather )

( Deadpit )

( Rue Morgue Radio )

( iFanboy )

( Escape Pod, Pseudopod, Podcastle )

Is that all of em? Of course not... just the ones I've caught up on and still follow. I'm currently ploughing through the archives of The Ninja Consultants and Tom Vs. the JLA. I may review 'em when I get through the archives.

I'm actually curious if anyone out there knows of a good "animation" podcast; specifically not anime (I've enough of those) but other animation. It's struck me that I've missed a lot of the animated features that've come through lately ("Bolt," "Despereau," etc.) and don't even know which ones are worth hunting down now.

( Self-absorbed maudlin whining that no one should care about but myself )

Fuckit. I’m going to bed. I'm probably going to regret posting this, but you do funny crap on avocado, salt, and grey goose. Here's hoping I don't have a hangover in the morning.

So, first things first, I need to announce a three week hiatus for “movie night.” I’ll be out of town for the entire week of Christmas, and the first week back will have Thursday land square on new year’s day, so I figure everyone will have different plans. This coming Thursday is a little too close to my exit date, considering I’ve barely found any time for the holiday shopping yet, so I’m probably going to be running all over the place by then and even now haven’t had time to check some flicks for the next movie night.

On the other hand, it’s entirely likely that this trip to WI will provide another deluge of craptastic cinema from the discount bookstores and DVD palaces of the great cheesy north, so consider it a wash.

…especially since the seasonal shopping tonight brought me home with a copy of Uwe Boll’s “Alone in the Dark.”

Be afraid… be very afraid.

( Seasonal Plans ) the time investment alone necessary to dig through a book narrows the “casually encounter” field enormously.

…which is probably why I’ve such a determination to get through even the worst book I ever pick up. The current brick wall I’m pounding my head against is ( Science, Good, Bad, and Bogus )

Whew… didn’t actually intend to run through that review… much less that much philosophy of the pragmatist.

I was actually intending to lead it all over here… which is about as far from the target I hit as it is possible to reach.

( Looserz )

…what? Oh, sorry, did you think I’d look down on someone for drawing porn? I’m afraid you’re looking for the lj of someone much more hypocritical than I. (Oh, I’m sure I’m a hypocrite… just not so much on this particular subject.)

‘Nuff for now.

So the grant that's been making my life hell for the last four weeks is finally handed over to the department for packaging and mailing on monday. The thing is literally out of my hands now, and I feel like I can relax a bit and take it easy.

The world, however, decides that the proper way to celebrate is to have me wake up sick as a dog this morning. Nothing life-threatening (or even the flu, since I got my shot this year), but let's just say that I couldn't hold a conversation longer than a minute at this point. Thankfully I've stocked up on cold meds in preparation from the last time I got knocked for a loop like this. (Incidentally, when sick, my energy levels vary wildly. Don't worry if I just cut this post off mid-sentence. It means I went to bed.)

I am, however, really bored. And probably too contageous to go anywhere. "Hitman: contracts" has proved a little distracting, but there's really only two ways to play it: 1) puzzle through the clues to figure out how the game wants you to do it, and accomplish it without raising the alarm once, or 2) get frustrated with #1, and simply kill every living person in the hotel until it tells you you can leave. I haven't gotten to #2 yet, and that kinda feels like missing the point of the game.

On the other hand, Canada has perfectly executed its plan to prove me a hypocrite. It's proven that it can take the crappiest, shallowest, most reprehensible material from TV land, the REALITY TV SHOW, and if they animate it, I will watch the fucking hell out of it.

Yes, I got hooked on ( Total Drama Island )

Whoop..... can't swallow. Need more painkillers. Laters.

W’all glory be! A movie review? And not even one of those one-paragraph, spoiler-free, matchbook-sized reviews for the Thursday night movie lineup?

Yeah, why not. As is pretty evident by now, the windup to and presentation of the Thursday night flicks scratches whatever itch I have for pushing my crappy horror flicks on other people. (‘Least it does most of the time… this week was a little disappointing… I think a lot of people had Halloween plans, and presenting two good movies is kind of anticlimactic with an audience used to enduring bad ones.) Added to that the absolutely vile nature of the interwebs lately due to the election, and any desire to break through my writer’s block is pretty effectively stifled. (Here’s my typical day: 8:40 in the morning, with the election matters weighing heavy on my mind, a brilliant revelation occurs to me! A metaphor or perspective that sets all of the issues of the election right before me! I become determined that I will write the whole thing out in clear, concise, fair language and post it for the betterment of mankind. Follow this with nine hours of it festering in the back of my brain while I sac mice, feed cells, run assays, and try to write abstracts. All the while, the inspiration seeps out like so much sewage from a septic tank, trickling down into my person like a bone-weariness better suited for someone twice my age. Get home and discover I don’t care enough to try. Repeat upon awakening tomorrow morning.)

Anyway, enough about that. I’ve actually been pretty steadily upping my consumption of frivolous media lately (also possibly a response to the toxicity of politics… try to dilute the poison out)… I finally got caught up through all the ifanboy podcasts, am well under way in the archives of Escape Pod, have cut some of the fat from my weekly comics to make room for the occasional graphic novel (Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is surprisingly good and nearly impossible to find), finished that (in retrospect) terrible “Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius” and started in on a book about scientific frauds, and am about 2/3 of the way through the last volume of Little Nemo (amazingly imaginative, but I’m not sure anyone but myself would find it interesting). On top of that, I finished out Ben 10, and am somewhere around 70% of the way through the backlogs of Dr. Who (recent seasons) that I drifted away from while I was doing my thesis. (Really, really enjoying Donna Noble, though the writing’s is drifting out of control like a process control loop with inadequate response delay.) Yes, I know I still haven’t posted any con reports… may never do so at this point. For the summation: AWA… I couldn’t make myself care enough to do as good a job as I should’ve. D*C: wandered, got a couple hilarious (and expensive) signatures, saw Basil Gogos on a panel, ran into a lot of people, including the seasonal run-in with Molly and her husband, and spent an inordinate amount of time shopping, as I always do. Birthday: for once made the parents fend for themselves for what to get me (which they do to me three times a year) and they came up with… Monty Python, Stagecoach, and Species III. Huh. Halloween: Three hours driving around getting lost on the way to a party that was nearly over by the time I got there. Not doing that again.

And lastly, work: through the infinite wisdom of the administrators at the VA, it has been determined that the best way to resolve all the disastrous parking problems that have been grating on everyone’s nerves is to make it so that the WOC employees are no longer allowed to park at the VA. Yes, that’s right. As of Jan. first, certain types of employees, as determined by the way they are paid, will not be allowed to park on hospital grounds. They will have to either purchase $600 (sememster) parking passes on Emory campus, or park at the North Dekalb mall and be shuttled in, effectively doubling my commute before we even start considering the shuttle.

Guess what kind of employee I am.

Now, the review. What cinematic treasure could possibly have pulled me back to the computer after all this time away? What masterpiece is making me shake all the dead bugs out of my keyboard and rattling the dust from my flabby skillz in a vain attempt to entertain? Why it’s a work that only I could appreciate.

Ladies and gents, I give you ( Trailer Park of Terror )I went into this thing expecting a z-grade starless waste of time that only made passing reference to the source material with talentless b-grade actors wandering through their lines and an incomprehensible plot (“Campfire Stories” anyone?) excused only by nudity and lots of red karo syrup. You know, the typical direct-to-DVD fare. What I got instead was a surprisingly competent flick, an adoring adaptation of one of the most obscure titles I’ve ever seen, and a flick that occasionally elevated above “average” into “not bad” on the strength of a pretty solid characterization in the writing. Barring a couple detours into nastier territory, and the inherent trashiness of the material itself, the flick is a pretty good cliché-driven flick. One last time, I can’t believe that anyone cared enough about this flick to do a good job, and yet they did.

Gorram it, ( I’m gonna do something creative tonight. )

….erg, not terribly creative, was it? I really need to plot out a couple hours each day during which I CREATE… and it needs to not be quite so close to sleepy-time, for I’ll find a million easy excuses to avoid such self-enrichment.

…fuck it. I’m gonna go watch TV.

Well, this seems to be the month for injuring my hands.

Last Friday, right as I was getting into the groove of sectioning, the damn cryostat bit me. (For those of you who don't know, a cryostat is a large device constructed out of cold and razorblades.) I was trying to trim the block with a spare razor, and the block split, making my hand jump and I dragged my middle finger across the point of the fixed blade. Gave me a nasty cut from the top knuckle up to the nail bed. Bled like a stuck pig for a good five minutes (dripping everywhere) before sealing up. Fortunately, I'd just finished replacing the blade with a new one, so I hadn't any worries about contamination from specimens, and I'd had a tetanus booster not too long ago.

Today, though, I was getting my lunch outta the microwave (TV dinner: chicken fried steak) and slipped. In grabbing for the falling meal I naturally stuck parts of both hands into the searing biscuit gravy before it splattered all over the floor. I actually stood and waited for two seconds for the intense searing pain to go away before realizing that the gooey gravy wasn't gonna run outta heat any time soon and began desperately trying to get the grease off. It's really not that bad, though it turned my fingertips bright red for a while and now, nine hours later, I'm raising two sizeable blisters in very uncomfortable spots on my hands.

I've been pretty incommunicado lately here on lj, but for a couple good reasons. My current schedule, usually plauged with cancellations, is starting to become more regular again, and Monday's the only day I've had evenings free for quite a while. The advent of 4th edition D&D is reinvigorating players in some of my games (no verdict yet... no one's got the system down to an extent that'll let 'em judge), and the others are finally having their own schedules stabilize enough to become regular again. Blessedly, Rock Band is back to one or no days a week (serious worries about carpal tunnel there for a while) and Sundays, normally free, are stacked up stupidly as the "are you free this Sunday to do blah de blah?" Let's not forget movie night either, and my (occasionally futile) attempts to sit through the movies before I offer 'em up to y'all for the weekly screenings, since it's been so enormously long since I've seen most of 'em.

Oh yeah, the other problem with Sundays?

Check what my parents did:

Father's birthday, Mother's day, mother's birthday, father's day. Each separated by a week. Add AWA staff meetings in there, and I've little enough time.

Atop all that, add my generally getting lazy. The Tivo is nearly full at this point, my eyes being bigger than my available time, so I try to let a little pressure out of it each day, churning through episodes from all those seasons of South Park I never saw.

Truth be told, with seasonal scheduling fucked up by the writer's strike, the only thing I do watch on TV any more is cartoons. The new Venture Brothers is hilarious thus far (including more Triana!) and I keep up with most of the rest of the Adult Swim lineup on Sundays. (Excluding Tim & Eric. That's just shit.)

That, and keeping up with the movie releases, and keeping up with my reading and following my podcasts and reading my webcomics and trying out new music and picking up a weekly allotment of comics and reading about world events and trying to follow up things with friends and trying to track things on lj kind of leads to the following...

( The cost of being wired )

How do I keep ahead?

How do I retain what I have while not neglecting the flood of incoming new experiences?

How do any of us keep our heads above water?

What... give in to the communal resourcing? Everyone pre-chews everyone else's food for em?

Eh. I've drifted rather far afield from my original point, whatever that was. Truth be told, I was hoping this would turn into something profound, but it had been rattling around my head too long and getting tangled up with all the other crap in there. Even worse than my apparent inability to keep up with everything is my resultant inability to find the time for actual creation of anything original to myself, but that's another long rant/whine for another time. Especially since ranting against the deluge of material I can no longer keep ahead of with one of my characteristically enormous free-form essays would be hypocritical in the extreme.

"Breaking news? What's going on?" "There was a school rocking." "What?" "Some kid brought a guitar to his high school and started rocking. 15 people were rocked." "Wow, what would make a kid do that?" "Apparently he played a lot of Guitar Hero."

So, having added not one, not two, not three but FOUR stars to expert level Guitar Hero III (including two to the final tier), and even having gotten some preliminary planning for AWA done, I thought I'd sit here and soak my arm in a bucket of ice for a while and make an lj post.

With the approach of the tenth movie night this week, I think this is a good time to look over the whole proceedings and see how it's turning out.

( Summation )

Ah well, let's look at the turnout for the flicks:

( Past Movie Lineups )

9) Hellraiser and Death Bed: The Bed that Eats. In all honesty, if I can't lure the handful of "I'll make it next week, honest" friends out there who never quite make it to the show with Hellraiser as the "hook"... I'm kinda out of ideas. It's just an awesome film in every respect, but it's still an "unseen classic" for a surprisingly large number of casual horror fans. Went over quite well, I think, and I even screened it a couple days later for Jeff, who had missed the beginning, and so had just skipped the showing. Did have a high-moderate turnout, which was encouraging, but probably sets the "as many as I should expect" high-water mark. For the first time, Dan, who was sick, couldn't make it, but Andy and Lisa made it out again, and brought "Death Bed" with them.

"Death Bed" is.... well... Ah hell. Lemme give y'all a proper review.

( Death Bed: The Bed that Eats ) is not the craziest movie I've ever seen. It may be the craziest CONCEPT for a film I've ever seen, but I'd have to sit down and think about it for a long time. It is stunningly nonsensical in that, given how amazingly dumb the initial idea is, the director still actually manages to tell a story about a killer demon-spawn bed. It's like some sort of bet was lost, and the result honored to the fullest. It's obviously supposed to be funny at some points, but I'm conflicted about whether it was supposed to be funny all the way through, on the basis of its concept. It was hilarious, yes, but I'm just not sure if it was intended that way. Anything I could say to evaluate some aspect of the film would have to be prefaced with "considering that it's a film about a killer bed"... so there's really no reason to try a standard eval. If you are at all intrigued, even in a "passing a car wreck" fashion, by the idea, you should totally check this movie out. If you aren't... then there are some people in Area 51 looking for you. To quote Jason: "My day started with a pig on the interstate... and ended with Death Bed."

First, to get the necessity out of the way:

Wooo... turns out I was right about the drawing power of "classical" horror flicks... record low turnout this week. So, let's try a famous favorite for the all important eighth movie night!

The Horror: Creepshow (1982, 120 minutes) Stephen King and George Romero write a two-hour love-letter to EC comics. Do I really need to say anything more? The flick is an anthology of five stories written in the style (or perhaps even more viciously) of the old "Tales from the Crypt" comics. While opting occasionally for blatantly cartoony scare-takes that deflate the impact of a couple scenes, the star studded cast (including King's best acting job, Adrienne Barbeau, Ted Danson, and Lesie Nielsen in a non-comedy role as a revenge-driven killer) also features something you will never see in another movie.... me leaving the room. As a nine-year-old kid I stumbled across the comic-book version of this film and the final story so terrified me, it instilled a lifelong cockroach phobia. As my only actual horror-related psychological trauma, there is no force on earth that could make me watch the movie version of that story.

The Horrible: Creepshow III (2006, 104 minutes) Yes, three. In 2004 or so, James Dudelson somehow got ahold of the rights to the Creepshow franchise which had been, until that point, sitting contentedly at a single sequel. The resultant massacre (reprising his work from "Day of the Dead 2: Contagium") pissed off pretty much everyone who ever saw it. Lousy acting, hideous direction, literally the cheapest animation I've ever seen in a feature film, the entire thing comes off as a weird conglomeration of the rejected scripts from every late 80's, early 90's cheap horror series. The quality deficit is only amplified by placing it under the title of a long-respected cult favorite flick. (And even moreso by screening it immediately after the first.) That said, it's kind of amusing in its audacity and wandering incompetence on every level. A magical TV remote? A haunted hot dog? Seriously?

(For those who are concerned, I should note that I didn't actually buy the latter, but ended up with a screener copy given to me by an irate reviewer who didn't want the thing anywhere near him anymore.)

This looks to be a truly hellacious week. ( Whining )

It is kind of infuriating, to be honest. I haven't been to the theaters in months, and the only flick I've watched outside of movie night was out of a "50 movie box set" last Saturday. I pulled out ( Black Dragons )In all, an enjoyable but forgettable espionage flick. Lugosi is pretty much the only reason to watch it, though the puzzling plot, outlandish and unbelievable as it might be, is also fun.

Fairly momentous crap going on in interpersonal circles this last week. I don't know that I actually feel up to talking about it, either from simply delving back into such things or the tightrope awkwardness involved in delicately discussing 'em.

More importantly, it's probably not my place to discuss 'em anyway, as it's not directly involving me or impacting me in any manner other than tangential. My own life is actually doing rather well; with a canceled game this weekend, I had the whole of Saturday and Sunday to myself, and I used it to finish off a couple of video games, browse through one of my unopened movies, and get out to Oxford for the weekly visit. I've also discovered that ever since I reorganized my place to pretty much direct everything at the TV, I'm feeling less impetus to go online, and more to just veg out or play PS2. (Finally beat Resident Evil: Veronica X after having to re-do the entire last third because I got the weapons mis-sorted between the two characters. Also finished off "Puzzle Quest" as much as I'm likely to bother with.) I'm not sure this is an improvement. On other media slore fronts, I'm finally catching up to present with my podcast backlog. In theory I should hunt down another podcast to listen to now that I won't be able to download 90 'casts to get me through each month, but I've also got a vast backlog of songs culled from EKW's posts and related places to browse and decide which are keepers, so I may do that instead. It's also a little surreal now that I'm finally catching up with the present that the 'casts are talking about actual current occurrences that I recognize, instead of releases from three years ago.

Ah, screw it. You know what I haven't done in a while? A movie review! I settled down last night with a bevy of beer bottles (three bud lights...'cause I had to get rid of 'em... and two harp's) and a random pull from the shelves, netting myself ( City of the Living Dead, ) a gorehound treat, center-staging another of Fulci's incredible over-the-top set pieces. However, I'm not sure anyone else could even tolerate the thing. It's an excuse to film a bunch of cool scenes, shoot some boring exposition to loosely tie the thing together in a bundle, and sell it on the strength of its blood. There's worse stuff out there, but I'd only give this to someone already familiar with Fulci's antagonistic relationship with linear narrative.


Now, on to the movie night! We've made it all the way up to Movie night #7 without any serious disasters! Last week was even a high point, the prospect of "Lifeforce" drawing eight or nine people out to witness the carnage. So I guess it's time to push my luck. Much like the Italian horror flicks, this one isn't likely to appeal to as many of y'all...

Classic Horror! I've been putting off the classics for quite a while, since my own knowledge of them is pretty limited, and most of my friends aren't big fans of the old stuff, but what the hell. I'll give it a shot.

The Horror: Carnival of Souls (1962, 80 minutes, b&w). I came across this flick very early in my collecting days, and it completely blindsided me. This disturbing little film managed to completely creep me out despite (or even partially because) of a mediocre supporting cast and special effects limited to camera tricks. The film builds a thick, tension-driven atmosphere and depends strongly upon a confused, genuinely frightened performance from the lead, Candace Hilligoss. Though modern audiences may be blasé about it, this is one of those films that I wish was better known. Approach it without being determined to "outsmart" it, and I think it will reward.

The Horrible: Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959, 80 minutes, b&w). OK, look, I don't own Manos. But instead of that, let me offer up what may be the most famous bad movie of all time. "Plan 9" was... it was Ed Wood. His "greatest" achievement. This movie is so bad, they made movies about how bad it was. The script is literally laughable, the story incomprehensible, the actors can't act... it's like the real Garth Merenghi's Dark Places. I literally just finished watching the thing for the first time. It hurts. In the opening scene I had a psychotic break and thought one of the characters was getting a shovel to club the scriptwriter with. It's so bad that I may defer to a different flick if we don't get enough people to ridicule the thing and soften the blow.

Those are our movie lineup for next week.

God help us all...

See how clever I am? By setting it so the weekly announce is here, it's encouraging me to do more frequent writing on LJ! Never mind that setting up a movie night is further decimating my weekly free time...

( Whining )

Without further ado, I present the picks for this coming week.

The Good: "An American Werewolf in London." (1981, 98 min) One of the most famous black comedies in the horror genre, this film also contains some of the most spectacular practical gore effects and one of the few Werewolves in the history of cinema that doesn't look profoundly stupid. Be warned; the film is a bit in love with its own ridiculousness and mines it for humor. While the pacing will be too drawn out and irregular for action-hungry gorehounds, when the film sporadically delivers, it delivers in spades. (Warning: Intermittent gratuitous nudity. Of both types.)

The Bad and Ugly: "Innocent Blood." (1992, 113 min) Holy crap, a theme! This later flick by Landis was re-named by distributors "A French Vampire in New York." While not a true sequel (like the boring CGI piece of crap that was "An American Werewolf in Paris") the parallel concepts are pretty obvious. Landis must have been phoning it in for large segments of this flick, with a much jokier script falling flat repeatedly, a barely-understandable lead, and effects that look like complete jokes in comparison with Werewolf. Why watch the movie? Three words: Vampire Don Rickles. (Also, Warning: Nudity. Right there in the opening. Bam.)

This will also serve as a test of whether a theme to the pair is a good idea, or if the repeated concepts just bores anyone who stays for both flicks.

Edit: Whoop! Forgot to say, please add a note, e-mail me, etc. if you're interested in showing up so I have a rough number. Again, though, I won't take it as binding.

(The following was composed before the move. An update on the move will come when I finish unpacking. Which has stalled because the new place came with a fridge full of BEER! Coors light and Bud, but still, free beer!)

( Halleluiah! )

This may be a little scattered. ( whining )

Hmm... what else while I wait on my ipod to update with the latest batch of podcasts...

Sure, why not: Memage

Leave me a comment, describing me with just one single word. It can be nice or mean or obscure, just reply here with whatever the first thing is that pops in your head.

Then (only if you want to) post this original message on your journal and see how many strange and interesting things people say about you.

I always look for some enlightenment from these memes that involve the audience. Never know what to expect.

Hmm... weighty stuff rattling around in my head, but it's all too disjointed to cover. Weirdly, in light of the comments on Objectivism in the last post, I happened across the movie version of "The Fountainhead" on AMC the other day. Only caught pieces, but it was just as bombastic and overblown as you'd expect from a film trying to preach a new philosophy. Final shot was of the main character's wife ascending a construction elevator to the top of the world's tallest building, her husband the architect awaiting her, profiled against the sky in rolled cuffs and partially-unbuttoned shirt, standing like a Doc Savage pulp cover. Hilarious in its earnestness.

Speaking of rampant radical idealism, I caught the latest Miyazaki flick. Or rather, I borrowed it from a friend.

( Tales of Earthsea )This anime somehow just manages to be profoundly boring. Miyazaki's standard "cast" of anime characters are here, but every one of them seems aware that their characters are paper-thin, and they almost seem to grimace as they let out each trite line. There is some action scattered throughout, but the segments between have a distinct "filler" mouthfeel. The concept is too threadbare, the story is too simple, the characters defined in clichés (Arren turns into Shinji for a while there) the SFX aren't spectacular, and the world is surprisingly non-fantastical. It's a fantasy world without anything very neat to look at. Practically no magic, or monsters until the very end... lets' go spend twenty minutes on the farm.

What this was, very clearly, was someone else taking all the pieces of Miyazaki's successful works... the strongheaded little girl, the fantasy world, the flying segment, the cast, etc., and then trying himself to create a blockbuster by shoving them all into his own favorite fantasy work.

But without a tenth of the skill. Too many McGuffins, but the ending apparently can be completely laid at LeGuin's door... the Draco Ex Machina drew criticisms of the book as well.

Completists, you'll want to pick this up just for posterity. Everyone else? Be thankful that Sci-Fi is blocking the stateside release because of their own series by that name. The Ghibli reputation is saved by this little legalistic finagle. Now maybe that licensing money can go somewhere more productive.

MISTMAS CHERRY!

..............................
...............
....shit. One line and I screw it up.

Ah well, at least I can give y'all your present! And it is.....(*drumroll*).... my not whining about what I had to do at work so I wouldn't have to come in over the holiday weekend!

Yeah, it's the thought that counts. (Believe me, you din' wanna know.)

Had a pretty placid Christmas here at the Wagner estate. It being a (roughly) "third" year, we weren't due at either my father's or my mother's relations for the holiday and we got to just stay here and relax. Much less hectic, but claustrophobically close quarters with the fam that led to a bit of run-and-hiding to read comics and the like.

Nice, and a little surprising, ( haul )I confess, listening to all these guys prattle on about their stuff is making me consider the unthinkable..... nah. I don't even have a microphone. Or, you know, skill.

Briefly, lemme touch on the last volume of ( Genshiken )

Now for the real reason I sat down to type. You see, I was compelled. I know I obliquely promised a review of "Street Trash," but I have actual requests for reviews of this movie.

I went in to work yesterday, largely just to wrap up some data entry I didn't want accumulating any further. I called it a half day, though, and went out to hit the comics store and grab a burger at North DeKalb Mall. (Check out the jalapeno burgers at Wendy's. Surprisingly good! And if you get yogurt instead of fries, the dairy puts out the fire right afterwards! ) It being a half day, I wandered over to the theater to see if anything was playing right then that I could kill time in.

As it happened, there was something!

( I AM LEGENDarily bad )
Look, I'm not gonna try to convince people not to like this movie. Yeah, I know what it looks like above, but listen. I've no problem with people considering this movie stand-alone. It's got some action, it's got some effects, it's got some decent acting, it's got a fairly shallow Mickey Mouse-eared conclusion. I can deal with the anti-science angle (God knows I hit it enough in horror flicks) and the brainlessly-presented pro-religion angle (I'm Christian, after all). But it tells a story, and if you ignore a number of small things, it's internally consistent and delivers its message. The butterfly motif is even perpetuated throughout the film.

Just know that this movie stabbed and killed a much better story than itself, and is waltzing around Buffalo-Bill style ("Will you fuck me?") wearing its skin. I cannot watch this film without seeing the heart's blood of a better story leaking out of the shoddy stitching.

Will Smith, I took your first incident with "I Robot" to be merely a case of an innocent bystander. Someone decided to fuck the still-warm corpse of Isaac Asimov by stripping the name off one of his most famous books and slapping it on to a completely unrelated action movie. ("I Robot" was a collection of short stories... none of them even remotely related to that movie.) You signed on because you'd never read the book, and it let you jump around and shout a lot.

Now you've done it again with Richard Matheson.

That's two strikes, son.

On a side note, this movie makes me so mad, I want to punch Bob Marley in the face.

(PPS: I feel I should note, lest anyone think me mad at them, that I don't hold it against anyone who told me to go see this flick. You couldn't have known I'd react this badly.)

I won't lie, I was more than a little disappointed with the lackluster response to my last post. Having some actual news about something I thought was really fuckin' cool would, I thought, totally trump any crappy movie review (movie and/or review) I might toss up to catch a browser's attention. I found it fuckin' fascinating and highly enjoyable while it was happening, so I thought an audience might be equally impressed. (And before I forget to mention, it does reflect well on the couple of y'all who did stop by and sound a note or two, Darius and TJ.)

But it's not like I can really hold any righteous indignation on the topic. I've kinda set myself up to fail in this respect over the last few months with the slow tapering off of material posted here. (OK, not so slowly. More like the spasmodic jerks of a 14-year old trying to learn manual in a rusted out Chevy until he finally kills the thing with a rattling gasp.) The problem kinda feeds on itself too, as I find it hard to write when I don't know if there's an audience out there any more. Heaven knows I haven't checked in on lj in three weeks (or more) and have no intention of trying to catch up at this point (internet time being what it is, those posts are now banished to the furthest realms of pre-history). In fact, this may just jump-start the cataclysmic event so long in coming....

The time of the great culling.

I just set myself up for too much. I read too many comics (physical), follow too many webcomics, check too many websites, have too many lj "friends" on my list, play too many RPGs weekly, have a mountainous stack of books to be read and, spreading out from my left hand as I sit here typing, are uncountable DVDs. (Uncountable largely because the stacks of Borders & Half-Price bags merge with comics bags from Oxford Comics somewhere after four feet.) The DVDs and books are staying, natch, as it costs me nothing to keep 'em around, but the comics... geez I've gotta make some decisions. My nasty habit of following comic series long after I stopped finding them enjoyable (re: Cerebus) way out to the bitter end of cancellation is just another millstone around the neck of my media-slore habit. (Though occasional gems still get through... like the hilarious "Modot; Mental Organism Designed Only for Talking.") The webcomics are pretty much the pinnacle of my problem. I literally check (counting) around 150 webcomics on a regular basis. (Sorta daily... depending on whether I have time and whether I remember the update schedules for particular ones.)

Holy shit. I never really tallied 'em up before. Jebus. I might have a problem. I mean the (physical) comics averaged around $20-25 a week ($30 since getting an actual job), but the investment I've got in webcomics far outstrips (heh) that and has to be staunched. The lack of any monetary investment means I've little reason to dump flailing or rapidly-worsening webcomics as they start to spiral the drain or go into infinite holding patterns.

The friends page on lj is in similar peril. There's a lot of people I just hop over habitually because I know there's going to be little there to interest me, or they're run by media slores like myself who hit goldmines of links every damn day and increase my reading exponentially as a result. In truth, most of the people to be biting the dust (assuming I grow the balls necessary to actually trim the list) are people I haven't read for quite a while and/or people who've never known who I am. Hell, there's even a couple I've kept on despite heatedly reviling out of a misguided attempt to retain alternate perspectives to my own opinions. (Screw that.)

The world (& the internet) are just too damn big.

As if I don't have enough troubles, I've started listening to podcasts.

( Yet another damn media to abuse and occupy my time )

...Jeez, four pages and no proper reviews yet.

What the hell am I going to review? I've seen so much crap since last I posted something, I don't even know where to start. (Oh for Pete's sake. I had a list here somewhere...)

*Sigh*

Here, two books:

It must've taken me two and a half months to get through F.Scott Fitzgerald's ( Tender is the Night ) Much like any story set during the Spanish Civil War, no story told by F.Scott Fitzgerald can ever be said to have a happy ending. The writing is subtly crafted and carefully woven, but it is done so in the service of such a pointedly plain and depressing story, the latter half is like creeping up on a car wreck in a traffic jam. The pointlessly morbid manner in which the crowd all slow down to look, hoping and not hoping for visible blood and gore serves as an all-too-real commentary on human nature, and yet you find yourself inching ahead in perfect accord with the rest of the sheep for your glance at tragedy before the traffic breaks open again just beyond the wreck and you've gotten through the book. Recommended only for people looking for downers and lit majors. (But I repeat myself.)

The second book was forced upon me by my father. I return the favor often enough that I can hardly complain, but my reduced reading time lately puts good books at more of a premium, so I admit I got rather impatient over this one.

The book is ( The Medical Detectives )

Interesting case studies highlighting the skill of epidemiologists and the air of assumed authority held by federal officials of the age somewhat hampered by clumsy writing.


(Oh here's my list.... Eastern Promises? 30 days of night? Sheesh this is old.)

Next time, Mike Lackey's film debut!

So, I've had a particularly craptacular couple of days...

( Fuck Karma )FUCK KARMA.

*Sigh*

So lemme distract myself with an attempt at another movie review, and, in a fairly timely fashion, I'll be reviewing yet another recent remake, and once again perusing the works of the infamous Rob Zombie.

Ladies and gents, just in time for the season... ( Halloween )

It should be noted for the more squeamish that the violence isn't as brutal or prolonged as currently grace the screens through the genre of torture-horror. These are straighforward killings, a couple surprisingly non-descript, and several of very nude women (feeding a more disturbing market). In the latter half there may actually be more nudity than violence.

The first half is very, very good. Almost brilliant, although the core concepts are pretty simple (watch psychopathic kid develop, insight into Michael Meyers). The latter half is fun enough, as we ape the original with some new taut, firm nudity spread judiciously about and a few appropriately vicious *shock* moments. Then it just falls flat on its face in the last ten-fifteen minutes.

Recommended, though with the above caveats.



( Meme )

Wellp, another year has come and gone, and once more my birthday proves to be little more than an ( annoyance )

Plus, there's been a couple much more important family tragedies. Yet another aunt (other side of the family) has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Though they caught it early, I still worry, as she's had some really weird medical problems recently and how much horror the chemo is gonna wreak on her system just makes my gut unsettle. On the other end of the scale, my favorite cousin and his wife just lost their baby, the first great-grandchild of the family.

I'd really appreciate it if any of y'all could add them to your prayers. Comfort, support, and guidance are the watchwords...


Gah! Enough depression and moping. It may be my party, but I don't really wanna cry (if I want to). I just don't especially want to do anything other than crash into bed.

Entertainment! In my waning free time I wandered through a few PS2 games. Beat the original "Syphon Filter" (which I got for, like, 2$) over the course of a week. Blocky fun headshooting pixellated guards, though I had to hunt down a walkthrough for a few frustratingly obtuse points. I've neglected Guitar Hero terribly, though tonight I filled in all the stars on 80's "Hard" except for the 5th on "Play With Me." Expert I'm about halfway through and still 5-starring on the first try. That'll drop off quickly.

Gaming.... nah. Too much to talk on, and I don't wanna be here all night.

Movies! Woot! Somehow I'm finding more time to watch movies now that I'm employed than I did whiling away the hours at home. (Probably guilt over "I should be sending out resumes instead of watching crappy films." niggling at me while I tried to enjoy the schlock) And oh, are they schlocky.

Lessee how many I get through.

The flick I perused last night while assembling awards into their covers was practically a "How To" instructional on the best way to totally derail your classic monster movie. I give you (with not a small bit of pun-estry) ( Horror Express )Great, promising beginning, ridiculous, contrived, idiotic second half that ends up just slightly too bizzare to be funny.

Soooooo much to report on. Dear Lord, where to even begin?

Ah! ( The job! )

And best yet, my first paycheck arrived the first day of ( Dragon Con )

Uh. Apparently the problem with writing in a stream-of-consciousness structure is that you're not certain of having a good ending ready...