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Some say the world will end in fire, others say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire, I side with those who favor fire.
2002-03-09 13:37:15
You know, that's a neat little couplet. I used to be fairly good at composing poetry in HS (at least enough to impress my teachers), but I pretty much gave it up in favor of prose. My problem always was that I couldn't bear to read poetry, as I like being able to remember what I've read. With stories and prose in general you only have to remember the order of events. Poetry is filled with hundreds of clever or artistic turns of phrase, which I always wanted to be able to quote at a moment's notice. It isn't a matter of getting the idea across, you always had to remember the exact phrasing and canter of speech for the full effect. Any time I picked up a book of poetry, I would find myself trying to memorize the whole thing and no longer enjoying it. Music, of course, is much easier since you have the tune to guide your memory. Now and then, however, I run across little couplets like this that make me wish I was capable of such cleverness.
Of course, it doesn't help that I've never been able to work out poetic meter....(iambic what?)
You know, I'm referenceing lileks in nearly every entry now, but it's just because he has such skill in his daily postings, and a surprising number of his interests and opinions match up with mine. Oh well, just a single quote this time..."If one can reach 40, believe that the tentacular insinuations of the Shriner cabal have snaked through every institution, as well as NOT know about Jack Chick cartoons, you’ve no business cracking a mike on a national show. "
I just find this amusing because of a few running conversations I've had with friends on the subject of Jack Chick tracts.
Finished up playing "Blue Shift", a Half-Life addition, a few nights ago. I have to say I am severely disappointed in the game. Why? Because it's exceedingly SHORT. I played it cautiously on the highest difficulty for about a week and was stunned when I discovered that it was over. Just on a whim I played it all the way through yesterday night and the sum total of the game was only about three hours long, and about 30% of that was talking. Whata ripoff! Too bad too, since I enjoyed the idea of playing one of the guards in the lambda complex, and I always like taking out the soldiers. (The AI in them seemed a little screwed up in this addition, but they still had the basic responses of running away from grenades and attacking in waves, making them more of a challenge than the "stormtrooper attack squad" style of the monsters.) The ending was especially fun, as you have to fight off the squads of attacking soldiers while charging up the transporter for the last time. In length and interest, however, it just didn't hold a candle to Opposing Force or the original Half Life. I only paid $19 on it, since I was assured by the front of the box that I would be getting $10 back for already owning Opposing Force. If I don't get my cash back, I really will feel ripped off. I understand they're charging up to put out a Half-Life 2 sometime in the future. Can't wait. I may even pick it up before the first wave of discounts hits, which is my usual strategy.
Speaking of which, went down to the local EB today and browsed for a bit. Severely tempted to pick up the collectors pack of DOOM, but managed to resist thus far. I really wanted to play the "Final DOOM" which never really made its way into the computer lab where I played the original, and I'm also tempted to see how the original Doom II stacks up to today's offerings. Could it really be as hard as I remember? Of course, I should mention that, as I never really owned the game itself, I was forced to play it through on the lab computers one level at a time. I would use the level hack to get to the level of my choice, and then be forced to start the level with 100% life, but only 50 bullets and a pistol. In that manner I worked my way upward through the whole game. Hell on earth struggling through some of those levels.
The zombie fans out there will want to have caught this week's Samurai Jack episode. There was a fairly interesting interpretation of the standard "flesh eating zombies wandering around the woods" story. In the proper light, it was surprisingly gruesome.
I've been compiling the more complete reviews in preparation for inserting them into my webpage. I'll post here when they go up.
Bowler: You see, there's a problem. If I were to admit to the existance of "Teen Wolf," I would then be obligated to recognize the existance of "My Mom is a Werewolf," and from THERE, I'd be forced to speak of "My Stepmom is an Alien," which I'm just not willing to do. :)
EK: My favorite was the Cosby-show version of the CB theater. For some reason, Cosby saying those lines in his typical Cliff Huxtable manner strikes me as hilarious. (Oh, and I didn't see the Boo-Berry pic used anywhere. Who was it substituted for?)
I'm slowly making progress on getting through the series for my next AMV. Thus far, I've watched up to the 11th DVD. Got a little more than that to go. (Was mistaken in my initial assumption as to its length.)
Quick review this time. After bemoaning the burning I was given by picking up "Beyond the Mind's Eye," I went browsing through the DVD section again and happened to trip over "The Gate to the Mind's Eye," the collection I wanted ORIGINALLY. It was $14 as opposed to "Beyond" which only ran for about $6, but I felt like I needed resolution from the previous hiding, so I picked it up anyway.
I've been burned again.
Well, not really. Only half-burned. I still CANNOT FIND THAT FISH-BIRD ANIMATED PIECE! It's possible it may be on the ORIGINAL collection "The Mind's Eye" which, AFAIK, I've never seen. If anyone out there knows where I can track it down, I'd really appreciate a name or a DVD that ACTUALLY CONTAINS that bit of animation. Send a comment to gte106k@prism.gatech.edu. I'd say just to post it in your journal here, but frankly I can't keep up with all the long posts that people have been tending towards recently. (Yeah, yeah. Hypocritical, I know.)
On the other hand, the "Quantum Mechanic" song by Thomas Dolby IS on this DVD, so I feel partially vindicated for my trouble. It turns out that all of the music in "Gate" is done by Thomas Dolby, who proves himself several steps above Jan Hammer, the musician for "Beyond." Dolby himself shows up a couple of times as an inlay into a few of the scenes.
The DVD as a whole is really an odd duck. Taken as a whole, the vids on this disc are vastly superior to those of it's predecessor ("Beyond" was 1992, "Gate" was 1994.) although of approximately the same length. ("Gate" lists as longer, but the last 15 minutes are the credit sequence.) The human form is avoided for the most part and the animation sequences are much more action filled, with definitive, if not entirely identifiable, images. Futuristic settings with soaring air-cars through minutely detailed backgrounds, pans through complex industrial labryinths, beautiful generated landscapes and ice fields, fantastical cave paintings come to life, absurd superimpositions of similar motions, and similar imaginative forms make up the subject matter of the DVD.
I've finally figured out the appropriate analogy for this collection. They're kind of a televised lava-lamp. Lots of form and figures and images and movement....going nowhere and signifying nothing. I realized this during an ACTUAL lava-lamp-like sequence
The experience as a whole is more dynamic and focused this time, despite, again, being partially assembled from entirely different sources. To a large extent, the difference between the two DVDs feels like the difference between someone attempting to work out the boundaries of the medium vs. someone fully familiar with the art form using it to defined purposes, generating specific artistic forms and stories. There's less of the "doesn't this look cool" feel of the previous one, with "Beyond"'s concentration on silly little toys like the fluid droplets in free-fall or the rotating, flexing geometric forms.
The difference, then, is the experience everyone had gained in the medium during the intervening two years between these two collections. There's still quite a bit of weirdness hiding in there, though. Some of the sequences go to the other extreme and become mind-bogglingly "busy" with flying incandescent spheres or hundreds of human mannequin forms walking in a dozen different directions. The mascot of the film, a little "wasp-knight" (front half, armored knight, latter half, metallic wasp tail) just looks kinda odd and moves weirdly. A few sequences are little more than tours of fictional buildings. A CG tiger moves rather clumsily and is modeled with weirdly prominent cheeks...making it look like a member of the squirrel family. There's several photomanipulation segments of photo insertion into odd filters and photoshop swirls that just don't look as cools as we're supposed to think they are. The "charge through the innards of the death star sequences get a little old, etc. etc.
The good points, however, prevent me from thinking that I wasted my cash. Among the better segments is a cool scene of futuristic fighters taking on an enormous titan on the horizon. It's just cool seeing a figure so large that he casts a shadow on the MOON. Further, there's an astronomical segment involving a passing meteor/comet giving off great clouds of space dust which looks remarkably like either the meteor from the ST:TNG opening, or the "Nova" intro they used to use. A strange, darkened mechanism reminded me of a CG version of the mechanism controlling Laputa. There's one good section with CG hands representing the flora and fauna of a forest (works better than it sounds) through texturing and movement from something called "Lakme: Excerpt from Opera Imaginarie". My personal favorite bit comes from the "Quantum Mechanic" bit where a gerbil running on a wheel gradually forms itself into a kind of zoetrope of a thousand vaugely human forms walking around each other and running through the bottom of the wheel or into "soild" sections of the construction. It works remarkably well with the music. Other segments for the song, however, don't work quite as well. In the final analysis, I think I prefer the AMV where I originally encountered the tune (which, naturally, I can't remember the studio for...nor can I find it on AMV.org). It was a rythmic compillation of Key, Armitage, and other cyborg members of the anime community. Technically, it was a little sub-par, but artistically it was very fun and well-connected.
A lot of the music itself is remarkably good for it's use primarily as only a background to the images. I'm not sure i would buy the CD if it wasn't for "Quantum Mechanic," which I just think is cool. Second to that is a lyrical old-styled trumpet-jazz bit called "Nuvouge."
All in all, a large improvement over "Beyond the Mind's Eye" both in substance and execution. "Gate," much more than previously made me want to pause the DVD and look closely at the screen so I didn't miss any of the details. Again, though, it's really only gonna be worth your cash if you're a collector of odd bits of animation.
Boy, that one was a chore to get through. I may take a break from reviewing for a bit. Or, maybe, I just need to find a film I hate again to get the old thesaurus jump-started again. -
'A word, if I might..."
2002-03-07 01:43:56
Needed to point out a correction or two, before I forget them again.
The monster is about half and half animitronic and rubber suit, not completely rubber-suit, which lends a kind of mechanical nature to its movements.
Wanted to point out the distinct lack of nudity in the film, although Ginger does get down to her skivies once or twice. Horror must be the only genre where clothes go ON as the budget rises.
While they do tend toward the viral version of lycanthropy, it's dwelt upon so little it might as well be magic.
Also. Plot holes. Why does it affect Brigitte so much faster than Ginger? What happened to Mom? And what the hell happens after the credits roll and Dad comes home? Just stuff to think about. DVD was nothing special, unfortunately. The only additional bit was a trailer for the film.
Also wanted to point out how cute I thought Ginger was, but couldn't find a clever place to put it in the review. Damn. -
"The Story of Oreo"
2002-03-07 01:14:05
Brought to you once again under the influence of that darkest beery syrup. (Although I seem to have misplaced my stein, so a spare coffee cup will have to do.)
Long one coming....
Damn it, Lileks did it AGAIN! (http://www.lileks.com/bleats/030602.html won't be a valid address until tomorrow, but the link would just go to today's bleat otherwise.) This time he reviewed a movie that's actually sitting in my pile in the corner! (Or it would have been, had I not forgotten it at home after my last visit with the old parental units.) Once again, I am forced to forgive him, however, for two reasons. First, he too recognized the status of the credit sequence as the GREATEST ENDING EVER SHOWN. "Now I can stop worshiping it . . . and go back to enjoying it. Beside, any small molecule-sized disappointment I had was healed by the end credit sequence, which just makes you sit up and salute and feel sorry for the World Crime League." My comment has always been that once you see the characters all walking in lock step to that perfect little tune (played on a Casio synthesizer) you realized that the World Crime League could never stop them. Hell, they couldn't even slow them down. Not sure if I'll write a review or not for this one, but I spent about three years (when I was 13) bugging the local comic shop guy for info on the BB sequel, unaware that it would never be made. Sigh.
The other reason I have to forgive him is because of his Backfence article from a few days ago. (http://www.startribune.com/stories/804/1902811.html)He talks about the Chicago "book month" where everyone in the city had an "assigned reading" book (voluntary participation, natch) and he had a few suggestions. One just cracked me up.
""Story of O." Result: Entire city avoids eye contact for the entire month."
For those of you who happen to know what this is, his comment is absolutely hilarious. For added hilarity, go to your neighborhood Gorin's Ice Cream parlor and check out the sundae menu. Specifically the Oreo sundae. Can't believe they get away with that.
KZ: Whoa. Didn't realize you were gonna be THAT local. Remind me to buy you a beer at AWA.
Bowler: Count me in for another "animation fan" as opposed to only "anime fan." I do my best with the occasional mentions and reviews here, but if you try to shove something different down an obsessed fanboy's throat they're just gonna hate it more. I would like to see some Anime cons start showing more varied animations, like Merrill's Hell shows or Brad DeMoss's early videos. Eh. I'm planning on sneaking a few surprises in the VAT room this year. (Where'd I put my DVD of "The cat came back"... what? It's a music video!)
OK, everyone stand back, I'm about to geek out in the middle of a review.
As I've mentioned in the past, I'm really not that much of a vampire flick fan. I admit to several very good flicks out there, but, for the majority of the attempts, the concept has always felt tired and worn every time they trot the poor old thing out to send it through its hoops one more time. Sure they come up with variations, sure they add concepts, rework the ideal, and hell, it's always good for a lot of pseudo-sex scenes in every available permutation and combination you would care to witness. (Read: thank you so VERY much Ann Rice x Vampire the Masquerade x Razorblade Smile [further aside, in England's weather I can think of nothing LESS comfortable to wear than that all-pvc-and-grommet affair]) Of course, the popularity of the concept with the goth crowd led to a minor boom of sub-par potboilers on a yearly basis for the past, what, five, six years?
Anyway, I do have an alternate. No, it ain't zombies. That's just a coincidence with the cheap DVD aisle. I've always been much more a fan of the lycanthrope concept. I could go on for hours about the reasons. The concept of the pure personification of rage. The ultimately destructive nature of man. The tormented soul either incapable or unable to take his own life to prevent the taking of others. The inherent tragedy lent to the role by Lon Chaney. Even the origins of the first archetypes allow for infinite interpretation. From the Skinwalkers of the southwest, the Bearsaarks berserker warriors of Scandinavia (as well as Geri, Freki, and Fenris), the Loup-garou of Gaul, the Lycanthropy genetic defect (leading to excessive body hair growth and a severe sensitivity to light), the speaking, sentient Big Bad Wolf of those most Grimm brothers, the fur belt given to evil sorcerers by Satan, the handful of "werewolves" executed by the Spanish Inquisition (including an individual so insane that he insisted his enchanted belt was under his skin and insisted they turn him inside out to reveal it...which they were happy to oblige), finally bringing us down to the rather more pedestrian Hollywood version. The legends surrounding various versions of the werewolf are far older than those concerning vampires. Long before primitive man had to worry about something as esoteric and ephemeral as any brand of "risen dead" or "evil spirit," they had to learn the very real danger posed by the dire wolves and their smaller kin. Put simply, I find the core concept of the Werewolf a rawer, more visceral expression of the killing, animalistic rage that lies at the center of our existence as animals. "Ah," you say, "but that just marks it as more primitive. The horror surrounding a Werewolf is the same as that surrounding the everyday hack-and-slash boilerplate slasher horror villains like Jason and Leatherface. The Vampire is a more sophisticated, elegant subject for fans of TRUE horror. People able to winnow out all of the subtleties of the interaction between the Vampire and his/her(because God knows female Vampires sell more tickets) victim. The victim is afraid, but also attracted! It is the attraction of the utterly alien. It is the lure and the beauty of death and the uncertainty of what lies beyond. It acts as a microcosm of the real world and our everyday interactions with one another while all the time being unaware of the thoughts that go on behind innocent eyes." To which I reply, naturally, "You've been reading Goth poetry again, haven't you? Just say it, Vampires are about SEX, RIGHT?"
Seriously, though, the concept behind the Werewolf can be just as carefully and artistically drawn and conceived as any other horror trope, and is, in fact, more inherently tragic in construction. Let's see, the Werewolf is an ordinary man or woman 90% of the time. But something bad happened to him. Every once in a while, now, a different face shows. He becomes angry. Violent. Breaks things he holds precious, injures or kills the ones he loves. Destroys the community he lives in.
Tell me, is there anything more inherently horrifying than an alcoholic father?
No wonder those who survive the "bite" of a "Werewolf" grow up to become ones themselves. (and people tell me that horror has no real utility in this day and age...)
And that's just a two minute example of an extrapolation on the "Werewolf" concept. So how come it never caught on? Well, the trope doesn't lend itself for adaptation to an underground fashion trend and the tragedy of the concept isn't easily expressed in maudlin poetry form in the back of smoke-filled coffee-houses.
The problem with being a lycanthrope fan is that the vast majority of the films.....well....they really suck. No wait, they really REALLY REALLY suck. Out of all the Werewolf flicks ever made, only a handful do slightly better than absolute refuse. The reasons are innumerable. The simple difficulty in creating a Werewolf suit that doesn't look utterly idiotic (poor Lon Chaney Jr. did his best with what he was given, and acted wonderfully outside of the makeup, but most of his films end up sub-par because the monster looks silly), doesn't move stupidly, doesn't present such an overwhelmingly or underwhelmingly difficult obstacle for the heros to overcome, the plotwise difficulty in explaining the contrived manner how someone could get close enough to be bitten, but isn't torn to shreds, the idiotic attempts of Hollywood to rescue the affected character from his tragic fate or somehow redeem the monster, the story difficulty involved in having a monster that shows up only once or twice a month, the modern attempt to explain away the monster as a transmittable disease (see KZ's disdain for the similar explanation for Vampires), the difficulty in having a sexy female monster (see Vampires) sprouting a full coat of hair, the extra budget for all the gore and the accompanying downgrading, and the fact that there hasn't been a fashion trend pouring money into the idea's pockets. Off the top of my head, I can only list "Howling V" (a wonderful little whodunit romp through an abandoned castle...all the rest were awful except maybe VII, which I haven't seen), "An American Werewolf in London" (while played for laughs, it was still hideously DARK, unlike "...in Paris" that had to wander around in circles to find itself a happy ending) a bare few episodes of "She-Wolf of London" ("Wolf," even with Jack Nicholson was hideously bad), the Werewolf segment from "Waxworks I",
And now, Ginger Snaps.
Yeah, this is another positive review. Get over it, I only buy the films I think I'm gonna like anyway.
Ginger Snaps is that rarest of all horror films, a good Werewolf flick. The story follows the exploits of two adolescent girls (15 and 16) named Ginger and Brigitte Ferguson as they battle through the banality of everyday life. Yeah, they're the designated "outcasts" from their High School. Creepy sisters obsessed with death and dying, blood and guts, but not cool enough to be considered fashionably Goth. (Although, frankly, the film establishes us so firmly entrenched in Xerox suburbia I doubt they'd know what to make of a goth. Shades of Edward Scissorhands.) The opening finds the hollow-eyed, mousey Brigitte walking in the head-down, hurried-but-silent manner of the high-school geek avoiding eye contact. She then meets up with her sister, and together they contemplate their mutual suicides later that day with the hilariously maudlin/punk manner one expects of their stereotype ("Shit...Wrists are for girls. I'm slitting my throat. You should definitely hang.") .......as a class project. They're assembling a slide presentation of their own faked deaths for a class project. The following photo sequence for the opening credits is ghastly fun. The simple photo of Brigitte, throat slit, blood everywhere, with a suicide note that says "No Comment" appeals to the gallows comedian in me.
As the film continues, it's easily seen that they have no friends aside from each other, although Ginger's amply developing (ahem) physique gets her several (ahem) offers of friendship from the boys. She really remains an outcast out of loyalty to her terminally unpopular sister. We also get to meet the lineup of potential vicarious "can't wait until THEY get it" characters.
Now I must issue two warnings. First, this is not a film for dog lovers. You see, something has been roaming around the backlots and threadbare bastions of wilderness at the edges of the community, and its been killing dogs. Gruesomely. One of the first things we see is the (identifiable) remains of "Baxter"'s latter half strewn around his doghouse. In fact, most of the gore throughout the entire film is dog mess. The rest is all fake blood.
Second, however, I have to issue a warning to the audience. A warning so rare and so rarely used that I have to beat it a few times to get all the dust out. TO ALL THE GUYS IN THE AUDIENCE: be warned. You remember back in grade school that one time when you got a free recess period because all the girls had to go to the gym and watch a "special" film? Remember that? Welcome to one of the central themes of the film. There's even a section of the film spent in the nurse's office where we get "the talk" in enough excruciating detail to make every guy in the audience squirm. "Why? Oh God why?" I hear them call. Well, it actually has a long established connection with the concept of lycanthropy, back when menstrual cycles were thought to have a direct connection to the cycles of the moon, and where such concepts had direct connections to primitive magical thought concerning hexes and transformation magic, as well as some cultures believing that the sight of menstrual blood drove men mad. If I wanted to be offensive, I would point out that it's been no mystery that certain parts of the population turn into monsters about once a month. (AHHHHH!! No hit! No hit!) This film doesn't really care about those aspects, although it does draw stark parallels between this particular aspect of the girls' "development" with the lycanthropic transformation.
You see, both of the girls are several years "late" at the beginning of the film. As part of a revenge plot against the "pretty bitch" of the film (for the horror amateur, this is the alternate "stand in" for first victim when the sexist jock isn't available) the two girls sneak out one night and are on their way to kidnap her dog when A) they stumble across the most recently deceased member of the Fido family and B) Ginger gets her first period. If you've ever been camping in bear country, you know what comes next. Something bites Ginger. Well...bites is rather inaccurate. It savages her pretty badly. It's big, it's vaguely humanoid, it's never really clearly seen, and then it Minky-Momo's it's way out of the story. (ie. watch out for trucks!)
Afterwards, Ginger starts to change. She has mood swings. She is suddenly interested in boys. She has frequent cramps and bleeding problems. (Female readers: "aaannnd??") And then she gets these bloodthirsty urges to kill things. ("Ooohhhh.") From here, things start to spiral. Details would give too much away, but there is this one wonderful sequence that deserves special mention. Imagine this: There's a dead body on your tiled kitchen floor. Blood, milk, and orange juice is rapidly pooling everywhere. You've gotten blood all over your hands, and you've just heard the garage door start up. You've got thirty seconds to do something. What do you do? Brigitte and Ginger pull it off! We also learn some interesting facts about the problems of putting a still-warm body in a freezer!
This isn't a perfect movie. There are problems with this film. The biggest is the final werewolf form, which looks better than most rubber-suit jobs or the fake-looking CG of "AAWIParis", but still doesn't quite manage natural-looking movement or expression. It comes off as rather rubbery. Further, for some reason all the Loup-Garou in this film are remarkably hairless. The last 15 minutes begin to feel formulaic. The final scene of the flick is rather contrived, but at least it doesn't cop out. The final "communion" between Brigitte and Ginger was written in a rather nonsensical manner (or rather NOT written, as Ginger has a bit of trouble with enunciation at that point) where I couldn't figure out what was going on until later. One proto-werewolf just looks plagued with fever blisters. Oh, and the tail thing was just odd.
The negatives are far out-weighed by the positives, though. (At least for this pro-lyco fanboy.) Emily Perkins (Brigitte) does an admirable job in all aspects of her character, from comedic relief to a believable "concerned sibling" to the "final girl" in a slasher flick (although she's got some of the odder lines), and Katherine Isabelle (Ginger, first film was in a remake of "Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus"...he he) does nearly as good a job in her transition from social outcast to terrified victim to school harlot to psychotic animalistic killer. Her performances later in the film would measure up well to the more psychotic performances of Spike and Drusilla mixed togeather. Ginger's only real problem is the light prosthetics she wears (teeth and something around the eyes) in the latter half of the film restrict her range of expressions to extremes. The only other actor of note is the "man wise in the ways of the dark" who they come to for help...the local drug dealer (reminds me of Buffy's "Oz" for some reasons). The girls' parents also get some wonderful scenes that serve mostly to embarrass the hell out of their children. Dark, ironic humor counterpoints the gradual panic of the girls and fills the film out nicely. They even manage to make fun of some of the more ingratiating trends in horror flicks. While burying a body....."Do you think she's pretty?" "If I wasn't here would you eat her?" *Snerk* "No!...God, that be like....fucking her....ewwww." The gore and violence is filmed carefully for maximum effect in the film without attempting to fill every frame with blood.
Summary: one of the very few good werewolf flicks, but not quite on the level of a "Lost Boys" for Werewolves. Guaranteed to make all the guys in the audience squirm at least once. -
"Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day..."
2002-03-04 00:17:39
(Written Friday night, so ya'll have to wait on my comments on the Eltingville cartoon...except to say I SHOULD NOT KNOW THE ANSWERS TO THAT MUCH OF THE TRIVIA! (whimper))
Well, once again AMV.org is down when I wanted to do an entry. I'm mad, but it's that impotent, frustrating kind of mad, where you know you're in the wrong for being even the slightest bit indignant that the person doing you a favor out of the goodness of their heart. I hate that. Keep up the good work Phade! (Assuming he's one of the thirty or so individuals reading this regularly...
So, first off..... HOLY CRAP!
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/28/arts/music/28GRAM.html
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE? The soundtrack to "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" got best album of the year? I OWN that CD! I never own Grammy winning CDs! "Oh Death" got best male country vocal? The Soggy Bottom Boys won an award (Best country vocal collaboration)? They don't even exist!
And one more thing....
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS GOT A GRAMMY? WHAT THE HELL? I LOVE TMBG!
I'm sorry, this is like what happened when I found out that TV's Frank was a head writer for Johnen Vasquez's "Invader Zim." Two great obsessions of mine that go great together! Now all I need is a Miazaki horror flick...
Once again lileks is horning in on my territory. (http://www.lileks.com/bleats/022502.html) Can't really blame the guy, though, since he's gotta live off his writing, and schlocky horror, good or bad, is just an unexploited vista of remarkable vastness and ease of mechanical targeting. Plus, he pretty much backs up what I had to say about witches in my commentary on "Horror Hotel" so I'll let it go.
Plus, he brought to my attention the pustulant rantings of one particularly odious foreign correspondent: http://www.lileks.com/screed/olivegarden.html I could rant on this particular little twit for an hour or so, but lileks already did that for me. The only thing I would add would be to point out the most obvious descriptor for such an individual. Bigot. The guy makes vast assumptions as to the intellectual capacity of an entire country (the US) based on his impressions of the capitalist pig-dogs that would conceive of such a thing as a chain of Italian restaurants all selling the same thing. Good God man, how frickin' drunk were you? After reading this, I can be certain of at least one thing, I know a hell of a lot more about his country than he does about mine. Hell, he should be required to know as much about ALABAMA as I know about England to talk like that. I'll even give him a handicap. He can cover Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Altogether they're about the same size as that country that dominates most of your pre-1800s history lessons, right? Blah. Attitudes like this are what drive the misconception that Europe is an impotent, egotistical whiner living off of its ancestry instead of bothering to justify its own position in world politics.
I've also come to the discovery recently that KZ is spreading around the net like a plague, rapidly transfecting across to EK's message board (that was you, right?) and wending his way into the seething morass of PsychomummugaijinSlamfest. Hrm. Methinks I see a challenge to my ubiquity within the odd points of anime fandom arising. (Kidding. Actually that's nearly all the places I frequent, along with a couple of awa lists and boards. BTW, Pgaijin isn't usually that active. Don't worry about regular swampings...)
Speaking of mysterious plagues sweeping across the states (like my little segue there?) I wish to speak to you about a terrifying possibility. The possibility of strange, cosmic rays from outer space penetrating the protective atmosphere of the earth and causing certain horrifying effects to occur within the populous. No, this isn't about the Fantastic Four. I am speaking about the terrible events leading up to...(dum dum dum) The Night of the Living Dead! (1968)
This is sorta where it all started. This flick was filmed on a tiny budget, was expected by everyone to bomb out at the box office, but soared into cult status. Its probably the best know "classic" zombie flick ever, and led to innumerable parodies (of varying caliber), a remake (for the sake of putting it in color), and the late-night rerun favorites "Return of the Living Dead" (I-III, with IV in the works as we speak) that practically define crap gorefests. This isn't even mentioning Romero's OWN sequels (sort of) "Dawn of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead".
So what's all the fuss about? Well, for one, it was George Romero's first film. Directed, written, acted (although in a tiny part), and edited by him, it bears the unmistakable stamp of one man's ideas and visions throughout. Wait, am I talking about a cheesy horror flick here? I mean, let's get real. It's just a zombie flick, right? Well, no. You're not gonna believe me when I say this, but "Night of the Living Dead" is something a little more than that. It's well made, yes. It has some very scary bits, yes. It has some stupefyingly silly and dated "horror science" wandering around in it as well. However, this film has something that elevates it above its immediate predecessors such as "The Last Man on Earth" whose scenes of undead malcontents vandalizing Vincent Price's property were its direct inspiration. We get scenes of actresses panicking, and then sinking into a catatonic stupor. A few bits of snazzy camera work, and, most telling of all, a single shot sequence of a car approaching for 3/4 of a minute in the opening scene.
It's an art flick.
Don't believe me? The final sequence is a still montage with hard zoom and focus shifts on pictures of men carrying meathooks. Watch the whole movie with this in mind, and many of the sequences make much more sense. It feels like Ingmar Bergman was moseying around behind the camera during some of the scenes. There's really no other way to explain it. The STORY is pure 60's horror-science and fatalism, but the way the scenes are shot, all angle-y and such, tell you that Romero was aspiring to become the Hitchcock of cheap horror. Damned if he didn't manage it. The "arty" aspect is kinda clumsy and a little overboard at times, but the overall effect is very well done. Especially during the entire opening string of events where Barbara (Judith O'Dea...who appears to be another one of the leading ladies who make a cult-classic film and are never heard from again) is chased into the old farmhouse by a lone wandering flesh-eater. The film also introduces something that horror films up to that time had been lacking.
Gore.
Yes, that's right, the art schools are to blame for the introduction of internal organs to the silver screen. Gore usually occurred off-screen in most films before this or was limited to the odd severed head or bloodless, disembodied hand. The phenomenal success of this film caused something of a revolution in what people realized would be tolerated on screen, not to be topped until ‘74 with the appearance of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (whose history is something interesting in and of itself.) Think about it. "People chewing on identifiable organs" does sound like an art school stunt, doesn't it? The gore here really isn't that bad for the seasoned veteran, but could be pretty shocking for the amateur. Zombies get their heads staved in with a sharp tire-iron, two people get themselves roasted alive and picked apart for the chewy center by the browsing nightwalker, we're treated to a close-up of the previous inhabitant's partially eaten corpse, and let's not forget little Kyra and her trowel. Due to simple expense, we tend to see only the result of the violence, not the act itself. Someone off-screen is struck and a crunching sound is heard. Cut to fallen offender with a hole in his head. Apparently, they could afford some detonating blood-packs, though, since we get to see several of the undead blasted with a rifle. There's even a close-up scene of the good guys hacking the fingers off of a pushy undead salesman. Fortunately, the sluggish cannibals were too clever for them, and stuck a paper-mache hand in instead.
Anyway, the story. Something is happening to dead people. They're getting up and attacking the living! That's about it. A group of individuals get stranded out in the middle of nowhere in a farmhouse as the insomnia-laden, midnight-munchie-motivated dead wander around outside, trying to get inside so they can start their really swell house party. Watch as the hapless souls struggle futilely against their fates! It's fun!
Just like in "Children..." the whole gang is here. Not the same gang, but a different "classic stranded victims" mix. There's Barbara, the young beauty who breaks her "fight or flight" response early in the film and just goes catatonic, becoming the most "helpless female victim" ever. (She breaks a heel in the opening sequence and it's all downhill from there.) There's the bickering married couple Harry and Helen Cooper with their sick daughter, there's an all growed-up Wally Cleaver and his girlfriend, and there's the real main character, Ben (Duane Jones), who's the character we all figured WE would be in these films. The guy with the firm grasp of the obvious and the penchant for going out on the front stoop and clubbing a half dozen slow-moving undead to their....uh....undeath. (Oh, he's the "strong black man" of the film playing opposite the conniving cowardly Harry Cooper. The little social commentary one could glean outta the flick comes, rather predictably, from their interaction. With all the bickering in there, I felt like I was watching a few scenes from "12 angry men.")
In a similar spirit, and noting the remarkable frequency with which the dead seem to get up and wander around, I've decided to make a list of things you should and should not do when confronted with the suddenly cannibalistic corpse of your dear departed.
First, never flee into wooded or heavily overgrown areas unless absolutely necessary. There are ALWAYS more zombies about than you think, and their penchant for getting snagged on the underbrush or running into trees means there's always a few pinballing around the woods.
Second, if surrounded by a slowly advancing circle of those hungering for the flesh of the living, IMMEDIATELY charge the weakest point in the circle. It'll only get worse if you wait. The best point to charge is the section with the most missing limbs. Especially if they're missing legs.
Third, immature undead are always the worst of the bunch. Avoid at all costs.
Fourth, never choose one of those old classic American box-homestead houses to hide out in. There are way too many ground-level windows to board up, and the layout of the house can be puzzled out in a few minutes by the more clever legions of the night. Try for something postmodern. Oblique angles tend to confuse the undead, leading to much more stumbling about in circles than constructive banging at your windows. The disadvantage, however, is the tendency to use cheap particle-board in construction rather than the solid oaken doors of the older homes. Even the half-decomposed can knock through a badly made door as was ably demonstrated by a more darkly-compexioned Michael Jackson so many years ago.
Fifth, unlike vampires, where one has to essentially guess at which of the myriad of weaknesses and killing techniques apply THIS time, zombies are, with few notable exceptions, vulnerable to a sturdy smack to the head. Once all their thinking-bits are scattered over the living room rug they tend to loose their appetite, along with everything else.
Finally, and this one is important, zombies tend to be single-prey predators. This is a last-resort matter, but if a head zombie manages to down a fleeing victim, the rest of the pride will gather around until there's nothing left. The reasons for this are pretty simple. Even the weakest victim can likely relieve a zombie of an arm or two, so a small immobile buffet is better than a mobile feast any day. Besides, if you get there early you might get a piece of liver. Mmmmm. Liver. Therefore: need to exit out the back? Kick an expendable character out the front. Fleeing a rapidly gaining horde? Smack the fellow running next to you in the shins with your tire-iron. Just remember, you don't have to outrun the hordes, you just have to outrun your companions.
For further commentary of effective ways of dealing with the undead, I would suggest referencing these helpful chaps well known for their commitment to the elimination of the meandering deceased:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000-02-04&res=l
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-02-27&res=l
So, back to the review. The acting in this film is pretty uniformly good, especially that of the head zombie. The people in the house aren't half bad either. Watch closely for the role of Kyra Schon as mommy's best little gardener and one of the more famous and haunting little faces in all zombie lore. (She's managed to milk this cult-celebrity for quite a while now, as seen at her webpage http://www.in-design.com/~kyra/) The zombie attacks really only occur a couple of times in the film. Most of the time the zombies kinda tromp around outside or hammer apathetically at the doors. When they do come in earnest, especially in the first and the final sequence, the scenes really are quite vicious and frightening, although much of the film looses its impact after the first viewing. The most mood-breaking incidents of the film, however, are when a television is unearthed from the farmhouse and we get the full "explanation" of what is happening. Not only is the TV filled with, by far, the worst actors of the film, the explanation is just hokey. A space probe on its way back from Venus is blown up in transit when it is seen to be emitting STRANGE RADIATION (wooo). The resulting fallout is what's causing all the undead uprisings. Frankly, the switch from a disease (The Last Man on Earth) to RADIATION is something of a sign of the times. I'm tempted to draw similar parallels to the fact that half the group spends the entire movie hiding out in the cellar (bomb shelter?), but I'd be guessing at connections I'm not certain the director wanted. The only real flaw besides the television is one scene of overacting Barbara (the catatonic) indulges in.
The film really is classic in every sense of the word. It established tropes that have been fed upon for decades, is presented with an emphasis on acting skill and storytelling ability, and is just generally a good and worthwhile movie. Its only real flaw is its apparent knowledge of the fact and rather presumptive attempt to raise itself to the level of social or artistic commentary. In doing so, it occasionally pulls out of the fun-loving schlock horror entertainment and makes the film less fun to watch as we are tisk-tisked at by the example of the bitchy couple or treated to a bit of the surreal by the hysterical nature of Barbra. As a classic, it's a film everyone should have seen at least once, but personal taste may preclude it from an inclusion in a DVD library.
(For those who have seen the film-----------------------------------------------------------------
Spoiler: On the "social commentary" front, you gotta wonder at a film that makes an ending out of a good-old boy shooting a strong black man in the head.)
Next time: Two sisters have an entirely different take on the whole "cat fight" concept and unleash a whole big bucket of awkwardness on the male members of the audience. -
" You told them all I was crazy / They cut off my legs / now I'm an amputee God damn you..."
2002-02-26 17:27:10
Got outta work early today since I had to come back to my room and get my capture card in working condition for some official applications at work. Took me all of ten minutes to get it working right (OH! The color corrector's off! No wonder I couldn't see anything!) so I've got some time to finish up my review. It's at the bottom.
Meanwhile:
I know of many people who can sympathize with this:
http://www.machall.com/index.php?strip_id=105
Kusoyaro: I, for one, had NO IDEA how to pronounce "Hermione" while I was reading the books. I took to just not talking about her character. As far as the layout of the books...well...yeah that is the case. I mean, they are children's books. I never touted them as GREAT ICEBREAKING LIT, but I do like the variety of story they strike up among the anchored bastions you mentioned there. Your comments are legitimate, but it is sort of like complaining about the repetitive nature of most Sherlock Holmes stories, albeit on a more closely defined set of similarities. Harry does go to school, and a lot of those points (if there is to be any story at all) are natural ramifications of remaining at the same setting in each book. If it's any consolation, the end of the most recent book is NOT a "return to status quo."
Lord Rae: Dammit! I missed the season finale of OZ? Crap, when does it repeat?
Bowler: Feel free. I'm certianly not going to be able to do it, as pencils and I have a strictly working relationship. No extracurricular activity outside of the office for me. And I couldn't draw a straight line with a ruler.
EK: Know you're busy. Don't worry about replying quickly. Also, from the numerous responses, you must be feeling like the poor schmoe who wants to leave the (rapidly uglifying) party before the cops show up, and is now the subject of repeated attempts to drunkenly coax you back to the fold. Count on no such thing from this quarter. This is more an attempt on my part to identify the root cause of the AMV's rapidly souring public image in a search of a solution.
Re: CD. Drat, I'll have to look for it. Re: The rest of it:
"I know, but I still don't feel I'm up to a level where I'd feel comfortable entering Masters yet." (Qua? You entered last year...) 'Maybe this year, if my big project works out. One problem is that my videos tend to be more fast paced and action-oriented, and that seems to be frowned on in Masters. *shrug* "
Bit of a quandry here. As the Judge for Master's, anything I might say could come back to haunt me. Hmm. I'll just say that it utterly and completely "depends." No genre is "frowned upon."
"I honestly DON'T CARE if I win ANYTHING, as long as people enjoy my work. One person approaching me after the show to say "hey, that was cool" is worth just as much - or more - than any slip of paper IMO."
Oh, naturally. I still remember when I recieved the ultimate compliment. Someone told me that seeing my video made them go out and hunt down the album. 'Course, it was my Tool video....
"Yeah, deadlines and exhibitions help. I don't know if COMPETITION inspires me, but looking at others' work (particularly Hsien's, of late) makes me want to keep pushing my editing further."
Actually, I was speaking less in the manner of the competition itself driving improvement, but the "bringing of everything together in one place to watch the 'best of the best' wherein everyone can enter as equals" stuff. Trying to improve your video specifically to beat other people...that's a little less inspiring.
"Which one are you overseeing?
Uh...all of them? (at AWA) 'Cept Dance, that's TJ's.
"Expo just seems less contested, less volatile; more friendly and free-spirited and fun than the others. I kind of get the feeling that Expo entries are for the love/fun of the craft, whereas Pro and Masters are Made With The Goal Of Winning.
Am I making any sense? "
Distressingly, yeah. This is rather disappointing, as I thought the general "for the fun of it" nature of all the contests had been maintained. Is there some backbiting I'm unaware of? (No, not asking for names.) Even the Master's contest was meant in fun, much the same way the dress code at "Let's Classy!" is. Problem is, I'm not certian how to keep the nature of the contests casual without altering the rules beyond recognition.
Now the review:
Pasted from the bottom of the last journal:
Got outta work early today since I had to come back to my room and get my capture card in working condition for some official applications at work. Took me all of ten minutes to get it working right (OH! The color corrector's off! No wonder I couldn't see anything!) so I've got some time to finish up my review.
Pasted from the bottom of the last journal:
In order to counteract the effects of seeing such an American French film as "Brotherhood" twice, I counteracted the effects by watching a terribly French American film, "The Professional." (No, not Golgo 13.)
Despite the fact that this film is an action film concerning a professional hit man in Chicago, despite the presence of ludicrous amounts of killing and fight scenes and the use of ordinance that, I'm sorry, would never be authorized for use inside of an apartment complex, despite the presence of a cooly-unkillable juggernaut of skill and professionalism in the main character, an assassin, this is still a remarkably European-feeling film. The pacing is remarkably languid, gliding from scene to scene and concentrating on closely controlled character development. There's none of the "ohmyGodwe'regoingtoloosetheaudience becausetheyhavealltheattentionspanofacaffinatedferret!" pacing that we normally see in American action films.
The remarkable "French" feel of the film can be attributed solely to the director, Luc Besson. Prior to this film, he was best known for directing and writing "Nikita" (La Femme Nikita 1990) and as the writer in the awful American remake of the same film, "Point of No Return," neither of which I have seen. The Professional, IIRC, is a direct offspring of these two films, as the main character "Leon" is based off of a minor character in the Nikita films, and is acted by an actor Besson worked with for the first time in those films, Jean Reno.
The film itself circles around two exactingly developed, but exceedingly odd characters. Luc Besson readily admits that he knows nothing about the mafia, and thus pretty much invents his own fairly strange version of the American crime syndicate which employs Leon as a professional hitman. Leon is something of an idiot savant. He walks through obstacles with an amazing degree of conserved skill. He moves silently and quickly around or through defenses almost casually. He kills quickly and efficiently without wasting a bullet. He has a code of honor concerning who he kills. His feats reach remarkable heights of absurdity when confronted with innumerable odds. He seems entirely unkillable even under the worst of conditions. However, he possess next to no social skills. He rarely talks, not in the "I'm far too cool to talk" manner, but in the "I'm crippling-ly shy, don't really belong here, don't speak the language very well" manner. He never drinks anything stronger than milk, which he is sure to get plenty of every day. He has a child-like love for musicals. He can't read and speaks English with a limited vocabulary (although we never hear him speak Italian at all). He is easily embarrassed, and is treated like a child when dealing with his boss.
Oh, and let's not forget the plant. Leon keeps an excessively-leafy plant with him through all of his numerous moves and tends to it with a botanist's eye, only to have it stolen from him at the end of the film by the girls from Noir. Yeah, you know that plant you always see in Noir? Well, I'm pretty sure that they dug it out of the park and stole it from Natalie Portman before their series started.
The second character is Mathilda, played by Natalie Portman, age 13. Mathilda is kind of thrown to Leon's mercy by a couple of coincidences after her family is slaughtered by a crooked cop looking for his drug money. Mathilda is kind of a fucked up kid to begin with, though. You see, her family is a household of French stereotypes of Americans. The "sleazy lowlife attempting pathetically to con a pittance of cash, abusive but occasionally kind man" is her father, the "obsessed with superficiality and clad in hideous spandex" is both her mother and sister, and the "innocent" is her little brother. Living in such a strangely warped ideal of American squalor (the apartments are in disrepair, but they're ENORMOUS!) has driven little Mathilda to take up smoking at age 12 (why, hello Gwynneth...) wear a choker and an army surplus jacket at all times, develop a crush on Leon, and become a sultry prima-donna wannabe. All punning aside, her character has been forced to grow up before she had a chance to be a kid, at least in her own eyes, and Portman pulls off an amazing acting job. Why couldn't she have given little Annakin a few lessons?
The third character is the crooked cop in question (Norman Stansfield), played by Gary Oldman, who really wanted to be in Reservoir Dogs instead. I'm sorry, but laid next to the complex depths of character development in Leon and Mathilda, his character just screams the Quentin Tarrentino "flat character played at 90 decibels" to me. He's a crooked cop for the sake of being evil (or the love of money, which amounts to the same thing). He takes uppers before a slaughter so that he can better experience the effect of firing shotguns timed to the classical music on his walkman. He's prone to ludicrous monologues. (Stansfield: It's always the same thing. It's when you start to become really afraid of death that you learn to appreciate life. Do you like life, sweetheart? That's good, because I take no pleasure in taking life if it's from a person who doesn't care about it.) He dislikes it when you kill his men, and will try to kill you for it. That's it. That's his entire character, and it does fit in a nutshell. He literally feels like he walked in out of another film, most remarkably in the bathroom scene.
I've really already told you the plot of the flick by now. Mathilda wants Leon to help her get revenge on Stansfield, and he (sort of) agrees to help train her. There are a couple of other characters, but they really aren't necessary for understanding the storyline, and the plot has very few twists and turns. What you really watch the film for, besides the explosive and stylish action scenes (no frickin' hop-saki here...) is the interaction between Leon and Mathilda. Mathilda pulls Leon into a ridiculous game of charades, and shows a frighteningly casual attitude towards killing (Can we use real bullets now?) Leon is alternately amused and embarrassed by her antics.
Perhaps the best example of the "Europeaness" of the film is also one of its funniest moments. Mathilda, bored at having been left behind at the hotel, decides to act on her crush and, all serious-like, with typical childish impetus, tells the guy at the registration desk that Leon isn't her father...he's her LOVER. Then she flounces off. Naturally, this gets them kicked out of the hotel. This is absolutely hilarious, but no American movie would ever do it because it's on our list of "absolutely never to be found funny!" topics, and thus can never be touched with a ten-foot pole. More's the pity.
In the final analysis, this is a near-perfect movie, with the slight caveats of my problem with Gary Oldman's character and the odd French take(amusing actually) on typical life in Chicago, I can think of nothing in this film that could be improved. If you haven't seen this film before, go out now and rent it. It'll show you where Amadalya got the skills to fight the Empire.
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