Random movie flashback: Tales from the Hood

Or: Get your activism on...or else.

Part I of II, I felt it was getting a little long as it turns out I had more to say about the movie than I originally thought. Oh well! Gives me something to do.

So, I believe Saturday or Sunday morning according to my Twits, I had a random movie flashback and found myself watching Trilogy of Terror. You know what the fuck I'm talking about, what with the frightening dolls and Karen Black. Unfortunately, it still terrifies the life out of me, it seems. I was eating my grapes aghast the whole time. Just...uuuugh.

I really like anthology movies & TV shows done right, unfortunately they rarely are *sigh* I think the last good anthology type I've seen was Three...Extremes, and that fucked me up for some time as only asian horror can do.

Anyway, while I was feeling nostalgic, I drifted over to my another movie from my childhood. I kid you not, I think just about everyone I knew had this movie on tape somewhere in the house to unleash upon unsuspecting victims. And again it still scares the bejeesus out of me without much effort. If you didn't notice the title I'm talking about 1995's Tales from the Hood (as in, not the crypt you know). Goddamnit, it's something about little black dolls running after you that's just...unsettling as hell.

I've seen the movie again at different stages of my life, from being sheet-pissingly frightened as a child to being so-so apathetic towards it as an adolescent, to...being afraid of it again, I have no idea why. Umm...

I will tell you that there's something way deeper here besides little black dolls running after the KKK dude...the stories. Rusty Cundieff, who also directed Fear of a Black Hat and somehow found his way onto Chocolate News (I guess it's the David Alan Grier connection) and...just believe me when I say you know this dude--he manages to successfully, I think, combine supernatural horror with the horrors of reality.

What do I mean? Well, I mean the stories. Other than being a completely black cast (which is pretty rare for a horror anthology--shit, did I say rare, I mean never) I think this is what truly makes the movie stand out. If you haven't actually seen the movie before I won't spoil it too much for you, even though for the most part they're pretty straight forward. BUT...I just...weirdly contradicted myself, anyway--

The movie juggles several prominent & horrible aspects of the black community like gang violence, domestic abuse, drug abuse, and, of course, racism in different forms. The wrap-around story is that of three gang members on their way to pick up drugs from a funeral home (and they didn't question this, for real) and they get roped into hearing the mortician--played by the naturally frightening Clarence Williams III--and his strange tales. It's a weird set up that will have you either rolling your eyes half way through or still wondering WTF to the end but oh well. It's not a great movie or a perfect movie, but by damn it's original and pretty successful at being both scary (well, to me...dolls) and thought provoking.

The first story, Rogue Cop Revelation, is about extremely crooked white cops who take their new black recruit Clarence on patrol and the white cops end up beating a known (fictional) black civil rights activist to death and smearing his name posthumously. Clarence, who only sat by and watched this brutal beating and never reported it, ends up resigning and turning to demon booze to cure his, well, demons. Until a mural of the slain activist, Martin Moorehouse, compels him to bring his murderers to his grave for revenge, and zombie hijinks ensue.

I think this story probably ends up being the most successful because it's so damn close to life without going over the top, except for the, uh, zombie. Corrupt white cops killing a black man trying to make change? Minus the whole undead revenge thing (and the, uh, creative way in which one of the officers is killed) you can't tell me that shit doesn't sound awful familiar. The ending is also rather unexpected, in a good way...let's just say that no one really escapes Moorehouse's revenge, and it leaves you just thinking about it. It's not so much the undead soul that gets you, it's the fact that this DOES happen, sometimes right under our noses, always unfairly, and will unfortunately probably continue happening unless some serious change comes about *sigh*

The second story deals with domestic abuse and child abuse in a way I think is pretty damn believable. It's called Boys Do Get Bruised and it's about a little boy, Walter, dealing with a "monster" in his life. Well...I take that back, the story's believable but the way it's carried out kind of made me cringe at times. Mostly the teacher, I was wondering a few times where the hell he got off. And...yeah those signs of abuse were pretty damn obvious I thought. Goodness. The acting also just took a random dip in this piece. There's also a little not-totally-obvious hueism going on (dark skin=bad light skin=savior). Anyway, Walter finds a way to express himself through art, which proves to be deadly. Pretty good, but deadly. Boy musta had weak bones.

Aside from the annoying ass acting I found this also pretty successful in conveying its message. It's about a boy dealing with his abusive home life the only way he can--he draws the "monsters" he wants to destroy then crumples the paper up, effectively mangling them it seems. First he takes his vengeance out on a bully then on the real monster in his life. I felt particularly close to it because art & stories is the way I tried to express what was going on in my life at various times. I still remember the rather gruesome pictures of women and heads on stakes that I used to conjure *shudder* it's disturbing. The only place this fails I think is length. It's probably the shortest story and doesn't really bother to get all into the story, just abused boy & savior teacher. Not a lot to go on and it makes it pretty cliche. And the...uh...fight scenes. David Alan Grier was apparently using the force on people.

That's the first two stories...I'll talk about the other two later on in the week.

All aboooooard! The Midnight Meat Train

I have to admit, I haven't really gotten to see many Halloween movies for it being Halloween and what not. Well, you know AMC does the horror movies and they did it this year in collab with FearNet, which is an abomination to some and less so to others.

FearNet.com, however, just got awesome for their free showing of Clive Barker's Midnight Meat Train, a movie adaptation of the short story by the same name, from the Books of Blood anthology. I know that sounds like a bad porno but I assure you it's quite terrifying. Fantastic! You may not have kept up with the story but Barker got shafted big time by Lionsgate films and they decided before the movie even premiered that it wouldn't do well, so they only released it to a few theatres, a few being...eh, I guess less than a thousand in this case. It wasn't a worldwide premier let's say and there were plenty of people anticipating it! What a shame.

So, fast forward a bit and hear it is. The story is about Leon Kaufman, a young man disillusioned with his current city of residence, New York. There's been a string of subway murders recently and Leon gets caught up in the massacre when he finds himself taking a strange trip *dun dun dun*

The movie, from what I can remember of the short story (which is sad because it's right there in front of me now) is pretty different. In the movie Leon is a photographer who likes to take pictures of dying people. If you've ever seen the film Ab-normal Beauty, a nice piece of Asian cinema, and lo-and-behold this director hails from Japan.

Anyway, I'm not done watching it quite even though I could pretty much tell you the ending anyway. It's insane, but I won't! It's so gory but I'm a little disappointed by the gore because it's mostly CGI. The bright-red computerized blood really clashes against the dark movie. There's some really good color going on with the yellows and reds and blues by the way. Real artistic :D the effects are great too (eye ball pop action!)

Now all I need is for my laptop sound to be not shite...

Women's Studies assignment: Boxing Helena

For my Women's Studies class, our first major project will be to watch a film! Any film we like, she says. The thing is, we have to study women's roles in film so whatever film we choose, we watch it through a feminist lens in so many words.

For me, I was a little dismayed that I couldn't call upon my random list of Obscure Movies to give me a good woman's role--then, not even a negative role. How androcentric my movie list is, I thought. Wow. I could think of plenty of movies but not many with a significant female role--one that I could easily dissect and make a paper on anyway.

So I gave it some thought and with my burgeoning Clive Barker re-obsession, I said "Hey, Hellraiser is pretty decent and I could write a role on the two main female characters!"

Through fate and weird circumstance, I couldn't get hold of a copy of Hellraiser but I found something else--a little movie I'd seen long ago called Boxing Helena.

Ah, a cult movie after my own heart, directed by Jennifer Lynch, the daughter of the Master of Someone's Reality, David Lynch. Yes, Miss Lynch tried her hand at surreal film and it does ring of a knock-off of a Lynch film. If you've ever heard of this movie it was probably in a negative sense, as in many people--and I mean movie goers, critics, the box office--felt the movie sucked aloud.

And I saw it a couple of years ago and I say nay! it doth not suck aloud; but...silently. See, the movie is about a miserable creep of a doctor obsessed with a miserable bitch of a model. It's a love story that really gets rolling when the lovely model, the titular Helena, is run over by a truck (randomly, one day) and the doctor Nick winds up amputating her leg.

From here Nick gets a little...uh, crazy and takes off her other leg. Then both her arms. Then shit happens. I mean if you click the Wikipedia link and you're dismayed by the ending spoiler, believe me, that summary gives nothing away. You really have to experience the sheer creepiness for yourself.

So why choose this film? For one thing, I actually kinda liked the film. It's not the best damn thing ever but its tolerable. Also, Helena's role is an interesting one--she starts off as the stereotypical bossy bitch. She's beautiful and she knows it and she doesn't have the time of day, night or afternoon for poor Nick until she gets humbled by having no limbs and relying on him for everything.

I also like the theme of objectification in the film. Nick goes screwy and takes it too far with the cutting of the limbs and that interests me--it connects with how I feel about men objectifying women. Rendering the beautiful woman powerless so she can't control you anymore, and she's totally yours. It's wonderfully symbolic I think.

And I'm putting all this in my paper. Yep. I feel an A!

Incubus: THE UPDATE

So...I watched it, obviously.

Wow. Let me tell you, not a bad movie. Flawed--the Esperatalian not being the least--but in all really good! Until the credits. When was the last time you saw a movie drop off at the credits? THE CREDITS?

Anyway, a more in depth summary...there's a mythical Deer Well on the mysterious island we're on that's supposed to be a sort of Fountain of Youth: it either makes you young again or makes you beautiful. Whatever. So naturally the vain, greedy, whatever corrupt souls come to this well, which is also a breeding ground for evil succubus that lure them to the sea to drown. I made that up a little.



Enter our heroine evilette Kia, who after drowning a random dude decides she's tired of the easy pickin's around here and wants to capture a noble soul for Satan. Her sister Amael warns against it but Kia is young and fancy-free and sets her sights on Marco, played by William Shatner in a role that surely brought the paycheck in that week.



Marco, rockin' his velvet sweatshirt and not sweating an inch in the sun, is a wounded war hero who has faced death with courage the movie says. He and his sister Arndis--who I swear has the hots for him--live in a shack. Kia mysteriously drops by and an eclipse passes overhead, inexplicably & randomly rendering Arndis blind. In the meantime after the eclipse passes, Marco & Kia flee to the woods where Kia tries to drown his ass, but the Shatner Charm overwhelms her and they just end up fucking.

Kia, outraged that she was tenderly made love to (no, seriously, she's mad), runs back to her sister. Also outraged at this act of love (wtf?), the two of them summon the titular demon Incubus who comes to make havoc of Marco's life.




And...goat.



That's about it. Like I said, pretty good short movie, if you're used to seeing the Infallible...James...T...Kirk it'd probably be a surprise. Hidden secret, Shatner can actually act. The b&w was pretty crisp too, kinda Bergman-esque, and there were some...unique angles going on that shows the director was at least trying. The story itself, in essence, is kinda "okay" but the performances made it work I thought.

Here's some other assorted caps I took to give you a feel for what I sat through...or laid rather.

I am the Mole

Hee, I'm so proud of my Blogroll...s. I'm officially reppin' black, atheist, ladies and queer. I just noticed yesterday! I found it amusing.

Let's see...I'm back to cult movies, slowly making my way through El Topo, which is fucking with my mind, and thinking about some more David Cronenberg. After seeing Videodrome I suddenly remembered, I love him. I was just mad at him about the Fly (STILL)--and not even mad at him, I think I was so angry at Jeff Goldblum I just freaked out and started hating everyone involved. He DOES that to me.

Um, back to the weirdness that is El Topo aka the Mole. The movie, by the way, is the story of a violent gunslinger in the desert and his travails *shrug* I haven't gotten to the end of the movie yet so I can't even begin to explain it coherently.

Alejandro Jodorowsky is one of those people you hear of and know about, but you've probably not seen any movies/books whatever by him. He's almost like "Yeah, that guy". I'm really not sure what made me download El Topo other than I'd heard of it and I like cult films, obviously. All I need right?

Shiiit, I wish I had been prepared. El Topo is a mindfuck-and-a-half. There's a coherent plot when you get down to it, and that's actually the worst part because if you want the plot, you have to dig for it. It's like stream of consciousness and it's sooooo...SURREAL (which, believe me, is the point). It's so artsy--in a good way mind--I don't think I can handle much more. Usually I'm just content to ride out whatever happens when it comes to surrealist films *shrug* but for this one...hm. There's so much interesting symbolism and such interesting imagery that I simply must get to the plot to understand it better. It's one of those things you just kinda run to Wikipedia immediately after watching.

The movie is in Spanish and I was lucky enough to find English subs...some of the subs are a little off though. Either mistranslations or just bad Englishes--like at some point a man says to his slave woman, "Besa otro" or something to that effect, and the subs go "Kiss the other too!" and really a simple "Kiss the other!" would have sufficed...and there's a few more instances of subs just going overboard. Oh well, interpretations being liberal and what not I guess.

Hm, I start college next week. Well, week after next, but I leave next week. I'm thinking of just making a small list of movies I want to see before I go. And then make a new "watch when bored" list.

One day I'll just learn to read.

Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom

I don't think I mentioned it here, but I got my hands on a cop of Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom. Now I can join the ranks of Snobby Movie Lovers, I think.

I'm not totally done watching it (I think I've got about 30 minutes left on it, I started last night) but I figured I'd do a reviewlette of what I've seen so far.

Anyway, I'm only going to talk about 3 things, as in the only 3 things that matter. Those 3 things are plot, acting, and hype. Uh, I'm trying to structure myself so I don't run off on a tangent for no reason.

Pfft. Anyway, plot. I became familiar with the Marquis de Sade, oh, a few years ago let's say. I honestly don't know. I think it was about 2 or 3. Anyway, I was very interested in all the controversy behind this crazy ass French dude so I read the 120 Days of Sodom and part of my humanity died over a week because that's how long it took me to get through the first chapter more or less. And then I gave up. I give this to say that, yeah, I'm familiar with the damn book and I'm insane for actively seeking this movie. I became familiar with it...last year. Yuh.

So all that out of the way, in terms of plot both the book and the movie are about, to summarize, some whacked out libertines kidnapping some teens (more or less) and doing increasingly depraved acts. And that's about it in a nutshell minus the Wikipedia article.

To get this out of the way, the more I think about it, the less I consider this merely a "gross" movie or a shock film as people will sometimes bill it. And the book is the same way, it's not there for you to dare your damn friends to read it and feel all hip, it's rare that someone will write something just to write it (I'm not saying it doesn't happen though :P oh we know it does).

Let me talk again about the movie version of the plot. In Pasolini's vision, the libertines are fascist and the story is set in Salo, 1944. I think I mentioned some of the Nazi/Fascism undertones and they're not undertones like I thought, they're unavoidable and in your face. I think what this does for the movie and the book is really...highlight how absurd the book is if, for some reason, you didn't catch it the first time. Pasolini doesn't alter lines or plot (much) from the book and, should you choose to interpret it like I did, somehow it becomes a satire of all things. And I think of the book and the depravity of the officials/dignitaries and suddenly it makes perfect sense. And I think that gets lost in the...

Hype! Whoo-hoo, I made it to another point! Uh, obviously because of the explicit pr0nz and notorious shit eating (in the appropriately titled "Circle of Shit") and just the general nonsense that happens in the movie (not to mention that Pasolini was, uh, killed not too long after he made it) its gained a fair amount of notoriety and controversy. Which is really a shame, because once you hear all the bad things about the movie and you actually choose to watch it, it turns out its not nearly as bad as you could have imagined. I mean yeah there's lots of nudity and sex and Pasolini shies away from...nothing, for some reason I was expecting it to be way more graphic than it really is.

Now as for it being extremely disturbing and uncomfortable, that's all true. All of it. This movie is made for no one and anyone at the same time :/ but once you get past that there's the...

Acting! That was awkward. For some reason towards the end of my watching of the movie (well, to my stopping point) I just kinda blocked everything out and focused on the acting. I don't know why either. Uh, for the acting I just wanted to say that I thought it was pretty good considering what the characters were working with. Again, Pasolini didn't alter de Sade's dialog at all so those poor guys had a lot of awkward and grandiose lines, but the actors & actresses pulled them off like it was child's play. And the kids acted victimized. So much so you'd think that shit wasn't staged.

So that's it, my journey into Salo :P de Sade isn't my favorite person and this isn't my favorite movie ever, but I honestly can't say it's bad watching.

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Tomie

So, in my quest for things to do, I have been making my way through most of the Tomie movie series.

Tomie, if you don't know, is like Japanese for "Immortal Psycho Bitch" or something because that's what she is. Tomie is the girl who can't die, doomed to constantly drive men wild with her beauty and women insane with jealousy until they just ban together to kill her crazy self. Only, like I said, bitch won't die, no matter how much you burn her or how many parts you cut her up into. Such is love.

Tomie was originally a popular manga series by the guy that brought us the great Japanese hororr flick, Uzumaki, Junji Ito. I'd actually like to get into the manga series if I ever win the lottery, but for now I'll watch the films on bootleg.

In some sort of order, I've watched the first movie, Tomie; it's sort of sequel, Tomie: Replay, Tomie: Beginning which is more of a prequel, and now I'm looking at Tomie: Re-birth, which...is just there I guess. As of right now I think there are 7 films in all, giving American grown favorites like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street a run for their money in terms of longevity.

The problem with the series, as it is with Jason & Freddy, is the formula will eventually get stale after a while. The plot is essentially the same for every movie with a few exceptions: Tomie is reborn somewhere from a random limb (she can regenerate from ANYTHING), makes some guys obsessed with her (and probably some women mad at her), she gets her man cronies to kill some people off and is ultimately killed and taken apart, buried. Except she winds up coming back because SHE WON'T DIE, DON'T YOU PEOPLE PAY ATTENTION TO THE POOR SUCKERS BEFORE YOU?

That being said, it doesn't mean the movies aren't fun. Most of them so far seem to suffer from poor pacing (especially the first) and blah storytelling. But in all, if you've got nothing better to do and you enjoy seeing a pretty girl kill some fools off like I do, then it's a pretty good series. I know I'm liking it, even though it's best not to watch all the movies at one time or else you'll go irretrievably mad for Tomie.

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Suspiria

Yup, I finally watched Suspiria. The whole thing, actually, is available on Youtube and in pretty decent quality, sound and visuals.

Anyway, this is my first time sitting through the whole thing, and I must say...well, usually before watching movies as highly regarded as this, I tend to just drop my expectations so I can watch the movie. I wasn't expecting much outside of "pretty girls dying" and that's pretty much what I got :P and there's a witch involved. You can tell Argento just took his flimsy plot and ran with it, and never looked back; it was basically an excuse for him to exercise his DIRECTORIAL MIGHT and just make an interesting piece of art.

That's how I viewed it, by the way, as an...artwork, so to speak, not really a film. Because, seriously, if you go into it expecting a "movie" I do think you'll just sit there and go mad. And it is very artistic, with his startling use of color: the red blood is very vivid, there are certain scenes just enhanced by greens and blues and reds (it seems he stuck mostly to primaries), and if you sit there and try to figure out "wtf why?" you're going to miss the whole point of the movie.

The plot, like I said, is basically a dance school is actually a coven for witches, and anyone who tries to escape or tell about it dies in horrible ways...and our American lead lady Suzy must figure out the mystery and kill the witch before she, too, winds up with an ax somewhere unpleasant. Things happen in this movie that make no sense, but again, trying to view it as a "movie" and nothing else will drive you to madness and that's it. It's like watching Eraserhead and trying to make sense of it.

It's also important to understand that the movie is part of the Three Mothers trilogy that includes Inferno and Mother of Tears, so...you know, that weird plot does get expanded on, elsewhere.

In all, I enjoyed it for what it was. I didn't get all overly critical, and I was genuinely frightened by the soundtrack that almost becomes its own character in certain scenes. So that's another classic movie that didn't totally disappoint :P And now, some of my favorite moments from the movie, screen capped by yours truly! Meaning they're not that great quality...but oh well, such is Youtube.

You'll probably recognize a few of these, such as the heart stabbing and the girl falling in barbed wire (oh lord did that STILL take me by surprise), but I tried to go for some deeper caps too.

Black Snake Moan

AKA Late to the Party again :P

LJ copy-pasta, now with fotos. All fotos nicked from IMDb.net, SO graciously.

Anyway, I talked about my first viewing of this movie a while ago and I threatened to talk about it...so I've seen it 1.5 times since then (that is, I've seen it once all the way through and once about half-way) so I'm not going to go on it for a while, that is to say, I'll try to keep it relatively short and give my first impression :P

First off, I remember when this movie was first released waaaay back in 06. There was a big roar about it and no one was ever really sure what the movie was supposed to be from the trailers: was it a comedy? A B movie-styled exploitation film a la something like Grindhouse? Was it serious, funny, black comedy, dramatic, what? Why is Justin Timberlake in it? Does Christina Ricci fuck Samuel L. Jackson? Does Samuel L. Jackson say "motherfucker"?

All these questions, then the movie came out and it got some...lukewarm reception, then it was pretty much in and out real quick, if you get my drift. I think you do. Anyway, all I knew is, I just assumed it was going to be a funny movie and I knew I had to see it.

Well, I couldn't have been wronger. There's anything scarcely funny about this movie, it's an actual DRAMA...and Samuel L. Jackson does, indeed, say motherfucker.

_{"I'm tired of these motherfuckin' hos on my motherfuckin' radiators!"}


The plot is, you have Rae (Ricci) and the love of her life, Ronnie (Timberlake, who actually gained a wee bit of respect as an actor from me). Ronnie goes off to join the army, and Rae inexplicably finds herself being fucked by the town drug dealer, Tehronne (David Banner...no, not the Hulk, the rapper).

It becomes apparent that Rae is...how you say...the town ho. Like, fucking everyone and being fucked by everyone, getting fucked up on drugs and good ol' fashioned LICKAH.

But then on the other hand, you have Lazarus (L. Jackson), a god-fearing blues musician & farmer who's going through a divorce (damn, she cheated on him with his brother) and generally having a few issues. One night, he finds our local whore Rae stranded and beat within an inch of her life on the side of the highway and brings her home and nurses her back to health. He also chains her to a radiator and works to change her whorish ways.

Now, all in all, if that doesn't sound like a damn farce then I don't know what is. But no, as I said, this is actually a serious movie and a very good one at that.

This is basically the story of people with a magazine-subscription of issues, finding each other and STILL having issues: Lazarus, not only going through a divorce but also just trying to put his past behind him and find himself, and figure out his future; Rae is the town whore AND a victim of sexual abuse/incest that her mother allowed to happen; her boyfriend Ronnie is, well, a pussy with severe anxiety and can't even hold a damn gun.



The movie is also really symbolic and metaphorical, especially Rae being chained down. The imagery of her in the chains is kinda something that has to be seen to be explained properly... It's hinted in the beginning that Rae has something like pneumonia and she's hacking all over the damn place but when she's in Lazarus's care she's better again, something I saw as maybe a "sickness of the soul", like she's a sinner and damned, but when she's freed from her bonds she's cured.

Speaking of which, I didn't mention this but I enjoyed the dynamic between Lazarus and Rae (and his preacher friend to some extent, but he's not important right now). That means no, he didn't fuck her. Didn't even think about it, and that's good. The movie does a pretty good job of showing how, even though the two characters are worlds apart and wildly different, they're actually at similar crossroads in their lives. The way Lazarus pretty much descends on Rae and forces his care on her is kinda funny but at the same time telling of how badly he wants to find his place after his wife drops him for his younger brother. And his name being Lazarus, that dude that Jesus brought back from death, coincidence? Yeah, no. While he's helping to heal Rae, she's also helping to heal him, essentially bringing him back from the dead.




Also, Rae's relationship with Ronnie is where it gets a little shaky, but you know how people with problems tend to congregate. Ronnie's in a weird space where he knows he's in love with the residential ragdoll (I LOVE that) but he still has faith that he can "fix" her like she fixes him and deals with his damn near crippling anxiety.



And there's one last thing about the movie I want to talk about real quick, is how real it was. Like, the ending wasn't necessarily a downer but it wasn't happy either. It didn't resolve everything like you'd think it would because, really, there is no resolution: these people are probably going to have all their little issues until the day they die, like we all will, and all they can hope to do is start getting them under control and taking care of themselves.

And so, in conclusion *ahem* I was surprised by Black Snake Moan and pleasantly so. I'm actually glad it didn't turn out to be the "B-movie" I thought it was going to be, otherwise all that potential would have been wasted...

Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Me

Ah, I have fond memories of watching Alfred Hitchcock Presents when I was a little thing, with my dad. My dad launched my love of old B&W movies and shows, even though when he was making me watch them I hated them.

Anyway, he didn't need to force me to watch Hitchcock Presents, I just did. On my own, even. It was more accessible than his movies, like Psycho and the Birds which pretty much scared the piss out of me.



Anyway, the reason I got into Hitchcock Presents more is because even though Hitchcock's movies weren't all necessarily horrible, grim tales of evil birds and crazy trannies and Jimmy Stewart, frankly after being tricked into watching Psycho I was thoroughly traumatized and swore off them for a while, whereas Hitchcock presents were more along the lines of murder mysteries where the villain was usually caught and the body count wasn't as high. It was essentially still the Hitchcock experience, only toned down for TV, which was fine with me.

And they were still frightening too because they had the man's signature touches. The zooms, the themes (damn those adulterous wimmens!), the atmosphere, even in the ones he didn't direct himself. Take the episode I just finished watching, the Creeper: a tale about a serial killer preying on blond women alone in their apartments. All through the half-hour episode you get hints at the killer, various likely suspects, and it just builds and builds until the killer strikes!--

AND YOU NEVER SEE HIM.

Well, unless hands count.

That makes it just more terrifying, the "more is less" attitude that you can see in his other movies, Psycho being the most noted.

I didn't actually get Hitchcock's dry wit when I was younger, and it didn't even help to take the edge off the episode which probably had me crying or deeply confused by the end. Not much has changed, except every so often I get his jokes.

Anyway, I also loved how the episodes would usually end with some moral ending with the villain getting caught, but Hitchcock told it in such a way that you suspected that wasn't what really happened at all.

So that's my retrospective for today, until then, I bid you all, good evening.

Parents (1989)

Hold on, I'm double blogging.

I was blogging here (the Mojica Marins entry) and on my LJ at the same time, but now I decided I'll put this here too!

Anyway, I was watching some ill-gotten Tales From The Crypt episodes and for some reason I started thinking about an old (well sort of old) little movie called Parents. Its the story of a little kid living in 50s suburbia, where all the weird shit happens. His life seems idyllic (even if his parents are a little freaky) until he starts having these horrific nightmares (they really are the stuff only drugs could dream up); he then begins wondering just where his parents get their meat from...

This is the part where you scream "PEOPLE! PEEEEEEEEEOPPPLEEE!"

Jeez, I remember seeing just the video cover for this movie when I was a kid, back when people used to have to go to the store and rent their movies. Remember that? Anyway, the cover alone scared the piss out of me. Then one day, years later after I became mildly desensitized to horror (mind you, I can and will still cry at certain movies and/or shows), I saw this movie on TV. I actually instantly remembered it from my childhood and I'd caught the beginning, so I said "Hell, what else am I doing today?"

I wasn't doing anything, obviously, so I watched the movie. And boy is it LOL-funny. I mean, it still probably would have scared the piss out of Baby!me, but Sortaolder!me has balls and little to no fear depending on the occasion. And the movie is pretty funny, and its really supposed to be.

For one thing, Dennis Quaid makes me lawl anyway. He plays his role of eerie-ass father to a tee. The little kid, who I don't actually know, is pretty good too. And there's a little twist at the end that's just "wtf..." but at that point you just don't give a damn anymore.

Good ol' movies from my childhood. I better go finish hunting down Tales from the Crypt eps before they're taken down again. I'm looking for season 3 and beyond (well, just short of the latter half of 6 and all of 7 really) because those are the ones I don't have yet :P and no one likes season 1. NO ONE.

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Silk

I just wanted to talk a minute about the movie I watched yesterday, Gui Si or Silk.

The movie is basically a ghost story as only Asia can produce. And I do mean ASIA. This movie has about as multi-national a cast as you can expect from Taiwan (I don't know if that was a dis or not) with a Japanese guy who looks like he just walked out of some visual kei band, a Taiwanese guy, and we even brought someone from Hong Kong! AND AN AMERICAN who effectively acts as the black guy in a horror movie, i.e dies very early.

Okay, so all that aside, the movie is basically about crippled scientist Hashimoto inventing something called a Menger Sponge, a device that can both defy gravity and capture ghosts.

The Menger Sponge, you see, is a tiny cube that can expand into billions of...other tiny cubes. It can read different energy frequencies and, it's explained in the movie, ghosts are just another...energy frequency pretty much. So ghosts = energy and the Menger Sponge can capture the energy and trap the ghosts. You can spray them in your eye, on bullets, on anything they're so tiny. When used as eye drops, the MS solution lets you see the ghosts. Got it? That's how damn deep this movie is!

Hashimoto, like all good Japanese guys in horror movies, is a crazy motherfucker with a crack team of researchers (one semi-intelligent chick, one...not-so intelligent teen girl, and one air-headed guy that couldn't die fast & painfully enough) and they've captured the ghost of a little boy. Hashimoto hires Dec. Tung, the only guy in the movie with some goddamn sense (besides the ghosts, and they can't speak), to help him figure out the life of this ghost boy. Tung is hired because he is apparently, like, superhuman and can see the eye color of a Norwegian 2000 miles away running track. And he can read lips.

Hashimoto, it turns out, is pretty obsessed with figuring out where the kid died and why. And when he does, it turns out he wasn't a crazy motherfucker at all, just a fucked up one with a complex (he'd diabetic & crippled).

Tung has some mommy issues of his on, notably his mother with Lou Gehrig's disease and he just won't let her die.

This movie is a great notch above your typical ghost story as, instead of cheap thrills and ladies with long flowing black hair wanting to kill yo ass (and they do), it also focuses a lot on the science of catching the ghosts (thus the Menger Sponge) and why the ghosts linger on like they do. It is explained, that the mystery of the ghost boy is that he has not vanished basically (think "unfinished business") and ghosts are a fleeting form of energy that are supposed to vanish, as Hashimoto says "No matter how much you love the world...or how much it loves you".

The movie focuses not just on the unfinished business aspect, but what makes ghosts stay--is it out of love, as Tung believes, or out of pure hatred, like Hashimoto says? The question, like all good philosophical rumblings, isn't answered concretely in the movie. You're left to your own devices with two endings demonstrating both theories, Hashimoto's ending and Tung's.

It's one of the more enjoyable movies I've watched this week, and I've watched a bunch. It's also one of the most enjoyable Asian horror films I've seen in a while, since after watching so much of Sundance's Asia Extreme, I'm feeling...not jaded, but just tired. Cliches exist everywhere and they perpetuate (I'm looking at you, Ring series) so I shouldn't be surprised or anything.

Man Bites Dog (It Happened In Your Neighborhood)

Somehow, last night I ran across Man Bites Dog. You may have heard of it, it's a B&W mockumentary following a crazy spree killer as he spree kills. Yeah, really.

I have to admit, that's one of few times I've gone into a "cult movie" pretty blind. Usually I like to do a little research to see what I'm getting into, but all I knew about this movie was, it's pretty infamous in its own little right, its violent, and its French. It didn't take away or add to my enjoyment of the film, but that's not to say I didn't enjoy it. I actually only watched 10 minutes of it because...it was like 2:30 AM, but thanks to OnDemand I can go back and finish watching it in a while.

I have to say, the 10 minutes I did watch were pretty violent but I lol'd like a howler monkey at the ridiculousnes. The premise alone is pretty funny to me.

I'm gonna find a website of cult or obscure movies and/or art house films and just check off the ones I've seen so I can feel pretentious. We do love feeling pretentious :D the list is getting long, and I seem to have been getting really lucky lately. Between watching the Sundance film channel and IFC, by...like, August, who knows what I'll have seen or half-chewed (half-seen).

I'm also addicted to Asian Cinema. Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Hong-Kong...ian, Indian (that's right!), I really like it. It's a breath of fresh air from the usual Western cinema. Yeah, not just American cinema, but Western in general. Sometimes I really do get tired of seeing long, drawn out European existentialist theatre or totally uninspired Hollywood...I've been watching some South American films lately too (mostly from Brazil I think) and they can be nice too, but they can also be just as bad as what we get up in North America :P

But Asian Cinema has its faults too of course...like ever since the Ring and the Grudge took off, I can't tell you how many cheap knock-offs I've seen. Ooh, scary pale girl with long hair. Stop. Um, you'll mostly see me watching Asian horror because its so damn AWESOME, but that's not the only thing I like of course...I like the dramas and the comedies too.

So I watch the Sundance channel and they do this...spotlight feature every sunday called Asia Extreme (or something cheesy like that) where they show the...most extreme Asian movies (usually from South Korea or Hong Kong) they can think of. It's mostly the grotesque-yet-artful horror/thrillers you may come to expect. And by mostly I mean...all. And it's not bad, but like most horror movies in ANY country its very hit and/or miss. Yes, hit AND/OR miss.

Anyway, it looks like I'll be tuning in tonight. It's been many Sundays since I've bothered and lately I haven't been interested (one miss too many). Something called Cinderella (oh no) is coming on and it looks to have nothing to do with the children's story. I better actually research this one...help me, IMDB!

Oh, Stephen...

I find myself reading Stephen King's collection of short stories, Everything's Eventual. It's got some pretty decent stories (Like 1408, which is a movie, and I think Riding the Bullet and stuff like that).

But I think the majority of them are just...so-so. I read what have to be three of the most random King short stories ever: "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away", "The Death of Jack Hamilton", and "In the Deathroom".

I know King writes more than horror. He's known for his horror, but some of his non-horror stuff is really good too. But, then again, this collection so happen to be mostly horror & dark tales. My point is, these stories are just random period. Random as in, "Wtf was that?"-random.

First, All That You Love...is about a salesman who's about to kill himself. He also collects bathroom graffiti. That's about it. The ending is ambiguous with the salesman, one Alfie Zimmerman, still trying to decide his own fate.

It's actually pretty intense until you get to the end. Then you realize the whole damn story is really vague. He's a salesman with issues, but what issues? He collects bathroom graffit, why? He's worried about leaving his collection behind and being seen as crazy so he runs out in the snow. There's not really any rationale in suicide so maybe that's the point, but still. It feels like this story is just a collection of potential ideas that don't really get off the ground enough...

Next, The Death of Jack Hamilton is just odd. Yes, that Jack Hamilton, a Dillinger cronie. It's pretty well written and interesting enough, but it's just so damn random. Wtf is it doing in this collection? It kinda throws off everything in the collection...I guess it's King flexing some historical fiction muscle, which is nice enough I guess.

In the Deathroom, I'm still not even sure what it's about. Some guy named Fletcher is caught in what I can only assume is the Cubano Gitmo. I don't really know. He fakes a seizure and takes everyone down Rambo-style. And it has a happy ending! I don't get it, Stephen.

Anyway...I just wanted to get that off my chest, since those three stories have been kind of getting on my nerves. And I'm currently not busy right now :P

Sweet Copypasta, and Law and Order.

Alright, alright, I'm like a little short of being a total TV junkie. TV comprises up to 30% of my day, which is sad in a way. I love obscure little movies, I love MSTing the hell out of shit, I like...watching...movies and TV. YES.

Anyhow, I wound up watching The Day After Tomorrow today, and I JUST learned it's by the same fool that did 10,000 BC (and Independence Day...and Godzilla...there's a pattern emerging). And...suddenly it all makes sense, his movies that is.

Anyway, I can't stand TDAT. It's just...stupid. Really nice special effects and drama, but little else. Can I get a science check on that movie? Seriously, at it's worse I don't think global warming would do half the shit going on in that movie. Hurricanes forming over LAND? Deathly freezing temperatures? Tornadoes tearing Los Angeles in half? ("That's a tornado!") In like...a week? Are you kidding me? We'd have to fuck up the planet something awful for that to happen...AND the Earth would have to be hurtling towards the sun. With COMETS.

It fails as a preachy message too, saying basically that if we don't clean up our act we're going to get massive 200 ft/60 m waves right in the face for our insubordinance. Bleh, bring it on Nature. It's true we do need to clean up our act or else start looking for a new place to live (what's up, Mars?), but you also have to take into account that the 200 ft/60 m waves wouldn't even be happening for, like, 100 years. Not 2 fucking weeks, that's really, really, really drastic.

Anyway, that movie got picked to death for it's lack of scientific basis AND threadbare entertainment value when it came out in 2004. And it's nice to see 10,000 BC is basically getting the same treatment. You'd have to be some special kind of crazy for wooly mammoths in the freaking desert. The desert. Don't you wonder why wooly mammoths are wooly? It wasn't because they were avoiding the sun!111!

*drinks some green tea*

Uh, speaking of my chronic TV/movie habit, a new episode of Most Evil is coming on at 9. For once I'll catch it on time :D (I have not the benefit of TiVO) It's about...gangs. Gangs...evil? Well the last episode was about redemption, and that was hardly about the scale of evil the show is based on at all. But I'm addicted ;_;

About Law & Order, you may have heard that this is probably its last season :/ and you know what, it might as well be. For god's sake, nearly everyone we know and love on that show (or, at least I know and love) is either dead, running for president (or failing, Mr. Thompson), or just leaving. Who are these hip-looking young people? There were only 3 reasons I really watched Law & Order in the first place (4 if you count the addition of Det. Green):

1. Jerry Orbach
2. Watching Sam Waterson/Jack McCoy go unrealistically far off the deep end
3. I'm addicted to crime shows.

And now 2 of those reasons have been taken away from me. Away! Ah, one of my favorite shows is basically on its last leg, and since Det. Green is leaving (damn if I can remember that actor's name), it won't have a final leg to stand on after this season. Give it a rest, Dick Wolf, let it die :/ you've still got SVU and Criminal Intent. And my undying love and adoration. Hooray :D