Wednesday, April 30, 2008

It got you where you are today.

These are just some of the things people put into the Google search engine that led them here:


"alyssa milano scoring"

"is coach schneider gay?"

"club dead and rape"


"michelle pfeiffer waxwork"


"her father was rouging her young nipples"


Please end up here in more disturbing ways in the future so that this can become a regular feature.

(I'd also like to say that some people need to learn how to search properly to get narrower results. Alyssa Milano might be athletic, and where will that leave you but with empty hands?)

Quotable: Heavenly Creatures (1994)



"All the best people have bad chests and bone diseases. It's all frightfully romantic!"

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Life Lessons: Reality Bites (1994)



Charlane
: Times are hard. You're just gonna have to swallow your pride. Why don't you get a job at the Burgerrama? They'll hire you! My Lord, I saw on the TV, they had this little retarded boy working the cash register.

Lelaina: Because I'm not retarded, Mom. I was Valedictorian of my University!

Wes: Well, you don't have to put that on your application.

Raping the Dead: Volume 1

Dirty headline, Dirtier deeds.

So many horror remakes... It's enough to make you want to steal a child's homework, strip it of its substance, and cash it in for a $20 million opening weekend! By this time next year we'll be seeing Prom Night 2, probably sans the Hello Mary Lou... Tragic.

Who knew the 80's was such an innocent time after all? Poltergeist earned a solid PG back in its day and we got face ripping, homicidal clowns AND parents toking up on their personal stash! Things have changed, and it makes me want to cry or, god, even harpoon a CW starlet.

These are the latest classics on the chopping block, and my perceptions of what they may offer come their time to pollute the box office.

Note: I'm not anti-remake entirely. Give me The Thing, but you can keep Black X-Mas, Glen Morgan, and whichever studio exec pulled that one out of your drain.

VOLUME 1

Friday the 13th (2008)

Downsides:
  • Mama better get a move on. Mrs. Voorhees doesn't even have the entire runtime! Jason's making his masked appearance right away in this revamp. Does this mean no big blue sweaters and schizo "kill her, mommy" monologues? A mother needs time to avenge!
  • This success could mean we'll be getting nine more sequels (and spinoffs) of descending coherence, and that's considering this first outing has very small odds of being coherent itself.
  • Defenders of director Marcus Nispel's other remake, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, can credit it with the occasional grimy tension. But mentioning it in the same breath as Tobe Hooper's masterpiece? It's like complimenting my shoes while you shank me in the face.

Upsides:

  • Jason's not scary. Never was and never will be. Well, maybe when he wore a bag on his head and took cues from Mario Bava. Truthfully, the "mongoloid maniac" is always at his best when he appears out of nowhere... which is exactly where you know he is. This movie could seriously reinvent Jason! It won't, but it could.
  • Jason's back on Crystal Lake turf. No more trips between the moon and New York City. He knows his ground, and knows not to fuck around...


I hope they keep:
  • Annie (to the Gas Station Dog): Hey girl! (looks down and laughs) Excuse me... hey BOY!
  • Crazy Ralph (still on his loony bike): I'm a messenger of God. You're doomed if you stay here!
  • Officer Dorf: What, you just get off a spaceship or something? Come on... Columbian gold, man! Hash, the grass, the weed, dig it?

Rosemary's Baby (2010?)

Downsides:
  • Everything. But we will probably get to see Rosemary's actual baby this time around! It will be computer generated and voiced by Miley Cyrus. What was Roman Polanski thinking by leaving things to the imagination? He clearly didn't direct enough music videos.
  • No Mia Farrow or Ruth Gordon, but Jessica Alba's in because she knows someone in craft service.

Upsides:
  • No apartment can compete with The Bramford, but there's plenty of potential for creepy locales. Not to mention creepy neighbors and their chocolate "mouse."
  • New fans will discover the original classic, confused by this version's choice to give the devil-baby voiceovers ala. Look Who's Talking.


I hope they keep:
  • Old people sex orgies.
  • Minnie Castevet (on her pregnancy cocktail): Snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails!
  • Guy Woodhouse (on unconscious rape): It was kinda fun in a necrophile sort of way.

Obscure Beauty: Pedro Almodóvar



The Viva Pedro box set has cost me time, money and friends. It's worth losing all of them.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Picture montages are fun!

(And an excuse to remain uninspired and pillage other people's work!)



These captures are from the opening to Dario Argento's whacked-out fantasy-horror classic Phenomena, also known as Creepers.

I love this opening, one of the best in Argento's career, and one of the best locales he's had to work with. And I love this film.

It stars lil' Jennifer Connelly, pre-Labyrinth, before her dedication to playing characters on the verge of killing themselves. She plays Jennifer Corvino, an insect-schmoozing school girl who just happens to be sent to the school girl murder capital of Switzerland --the Swiss Transylvania! Donald 'Dr. Loomis' Pleasance is her older (but not in a weird way) entomologist friend who helps her get in touch with her own telekinetic bug powers so she can overcome bouts of sleepwalking, do battle with a mutant child dwarf, and befriend a chimpanzee!

It can be as moody as it is incoherent. Bat-shit crazy nonsense with awesome atmosphere, so goes my love for Argento.

Did I mention that I love this film?

Quotable: The Opposite of Sex (1998)

"My mother was the kind of mother who always said she was her daughter's best friend. Whenever she did, I thought, "Great! Not only do I have a shitty mother, but my best friend's a loser bitch!'"

Sunday, April 27, 2008

If loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right!


Ahh, the pleasures of guilty pleasures... Poison Ivy is just enough daddy-stealin', lesbian-lovin', body-doublin', creepy eroticism to be one. I discovered it as a kid on late night television -- edited but sleazy on TNT -- back when TNT used to air good trash cinema, not just the high profit garbage cinema they air now. Honestly though, how would anyone have found The Shawshank Redemption without them?


Poison Ivy caught Drew Barrymore at the peak age to not show the goods, so it's all skeevy Tom Skerritt and that (probably lovely) anonymous woman's tits. But that SCORE! It's sultry from the opening credits, it's courtesy of David Michael Frank, and it sounds like what late night TV should sound like. It lets you know things are heating up for those truly great bits. The bits where the naughty Lolita, known only as Ivy -- as named by the tattoo on her upper thigh -- sways the hubby to go down on her in front of his unconscious wife, while wearing the wife's best dress no less! Those bits.

It's pulpy, constantly amusing, and dare I say... kind of thoughtful? It's got Sara Gilbert as Darlene Connor as a bi-curious loner, tire swings, teen-to-dog standoffs, car accidents, pill-popping, fucking in the rain on car hoods! Proceed with caution though.... I'm seriously weirded out by Tom Skerritt on full display in the unrated cut. I'll stick to my childhood comforting TV edit thank you.

Katt Shea seems like a genuinely skilled filmmaker. It all looks very nice, and just the opening scene of the sexy/innocent Ivy floating by on a tire swing is enough to prove the woman's talent. And then she did The Rage: Carrie 2, so who really knows...

Give it a look sometime. Late at night, edited for cable.


*Specifically chosen screengrabs to make it look suspiciously more arty and sexy than it actually is.

Life's little discoveries...


I too am disgusted with the pun in the title, but still retain all artistic copyright.

One of my favorite (degraded, but beloved) little people in cinema caused a small revelation for me today.

I looked up Hungarian actor Mihaly 'Michu' Meszaros. I knew him at his best as Hans, the sharply dressed butler in the 80's horror film Waxwork. He bows like no other and greets his guests at the door in a sound byte perfectly ripe for my future ringtone: "WELCOME to the Waxwork!"

I've loved him ever since.


Little did I know that Meszaros is also TV's beloved ALF! It's as if two very sweet worlds collide. Well, he's ALF as long as he's in full-body shot that is. So every time you saw ALF scurry past the sofa in pursuit of a kitten, that was all 2 feet, 8 and 3/4 inches of Michu Meszaros!

"I got some cool pogs: ALF pogs! Remember ALF? He's back... In pog form!"