Rarely Recognized Advances

Caught the season finale of Big Love tonight. Overall, it was a good season. Not as good as the first, but still really good. The finale was filled a lot of character decisions that push the boundaries of "suspension of disbelief" and was fairly lackluster all things considered. Part of the problem with the finale is that it doesn't leave you craving for season 3. In the end, the status quo is maintained. Bill is still fighting Alby, they still have Weber Gaming, and Ben is still going the polygamist route. Disappointing. Here's hoping the show doesn't take a precipitous dive in quality next season.

Hollywood scored a record $4 billion dollar summer. Not surprising considering the insane amount of tent pole franchises that were released this year. Holy crap were there a lot of big name movies! More than I can remember during any other year in recent memory. Here's a prediction: Next year will be seen as a major disappointment. There isn't a whole lot of huge films coming out next year. Indiana Jones 4 will be big, but I don't see it making anymore money than what Spidey 3 did this year. 10,000 B.C. is going to be a major flop, I think, as well as Speed Racer (does that film even sound appealing to anyone?). Iron Man will do some bank, but will probably end up with a high first weekend and then drop off considerably, tailing off around 200 million. The Dark Knight is my "sleeper" pick to be the box office champ next summer. I think most people will be thinking Indy 4, but I think Batman Begins is fresher in peoples' minds and I think the whole Joker aspect will drive people to the theatres in droves. But really, there isn't a whole lot of big stuff coming out next year, which is going to lead to the inevitable drop off in box office receipts and you'll no doubt be reading many articles about how the sky is falling and Hollywood executives are pissing their pants trying to make the audiences come back. Yawn. Hey Wolgamott, didn't I tell you?

One film that is getting zero buzz and that I'm most curious about is the apparent remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. It's supposedly going to be released next May, and yet I have seen next to zero info about it. No trailers, no news, no anything. It's the most mysterious thing about next year's movie lineup, even moreso than "Cloverfield". At least that film has some damn teaser trailers and enough news to keep people guessing! Still, I'm eagerly hoping to hear something about this film. Maybe they are planning on revealing some badass trailer upon an unsuspecting public with the release of I am Legend?

I hate technology. Mostly because it always fails when I'm around it. But there are some advances that I greatly appreciate. Take the vending machine where I work, for example. In the "old days", popping in a couple quarters and pressing the buttons for your desired candy was a scary thing. Maybe one out of every 10 times, you'd get a machine where the the steel spiral thingymabobs that held the candy would be off by a little bit. It would spin, you'd watch your Reese's Pieces come forward, only for it to become "stuck" because the spiral moved its set length and your candy didn't happen to be in the correct position. Usually, you'd start cussing and try shaking the machine. Always a bad idea if the Darwin Awards are to be believed. Anyhow, we have a new vending machine where I work and the same damn thing happened to me. The spiral spun. The candy was stopped right before it could drop. I cussed. Then a strange thing happened. The machine paused for a few seconds and then spun again until the candy fell. Turns out, the machine has a sensor at the bottom that reacts to the candy hitting it. So, if it doesn't sense anything, it auto continues to turn until the candy falls. You're guaranteed not to lose any money because the machine won't stop until it gives you your item. Why the hell didn't they of this for the last 40 years?


My mom surprised me today with a copy of the final issue of Weekly World News. This magazine was an integral part of my childhood (and probably explains quite a bit now that I think of it). I moved a lot as a kid and every time I made sure I knew where the closest gas station was so I could head over each week and pick up the latest issue. I was with Bat-Boy from the beginning and I was there with Ed Anger bitching and moaning about America. I wanted to write for this magazine and would come up with ridiculous storylines so I could feel as "cool" as the writers at WWN. Ah to be a kid again! I haven't bought an issue in years, but I would still make a point to check out the cover every time I went to the grocery store and if it was particularly good, I'd pick up an issue and thumb through it while waiting to check out. I'm sad that I'll never be able to read about Satan appearing in a U.F.O over New York ever again and even sadder that there will be one less time I smile while at the grocery store. Apparently, they are continuing the website but that's just not the same, you know? Weekly World News, you will be missed!

20 more favorite films in no particular order:

61) House on Haunted Hill
62) Rosemary's Baby
63) Night of the Living Dead
64) Ace Venture, Pet Detective
65) The Shawshank Redemption
66) The Truman Show
67) Raiders of the Lost Ark
68) The Neverending Story
69) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
70) Freaks
71) The Clash of the Titans
72) Karate Kid II
73) Matinee
74) The Burbs
75) King Kong (1933)
76) The Ten Commandments (1956)
77) Contempt
78) Safe in Hell
79) The Mouthpiece
80) Night Nurse

Worst Movie Ever?

I've seen a lot of bad movies, but Dead Clowns has to be right up there. I'll save my comments for the next Splattercast, but my goodness...I'm flabbergasted at how a movie like this can get distribution from a place like Lion's Gate. Doing a little research, I noticed that the film was actually made back in 2003 and has been released in Europe. It must have gotten noticed across the pond by Lion's Gate. Maybe it did some great business over there? God this movie is terrible. It's a bad, bad ripoff of The Fog with clowns that look like Fulci zombies.

While everyone is clamoring about the upcoming football season, being the basketball junkie I am, I've been following USA basketball. This is what I like to see. Basketball is my sport of choice and I've been angered by the way our country has performed in the recent Olympics and World Championships. There is no reason anybody should ever beat us. Ever. Yeah yeah, I understand how the rules are changed slightly for international play, and I get that the world just goes into a zone defense to stop our athleticism, but if anybody seriously thinks that Argentina can field a better group of players than the U.S., you're insane. Our problem the past few years is a lack of interest by the players themselves, a neglect of the "team concept", laziness, and the refusal of superstars like Kobe and Shaq to play. I hate Kobe Bryant, but does anyone think we would have lost a game the past couple years if he was on the team? If we've got our best on the court, and they aren't taken out every 4 minutes in an effort to get "everybody minutes", nobody can beat us. With Kobe and Redd draining 3 pointers from everywhere, we've now got some bonafide "i can hit a shot from anywhere on the court" players. Now, if someone can coax Shaq into stomping on some twig Euro centers for us, we should be good to go :)

Speaking of sports, Florida St. just named Drew Weatherford their starting quarterback. This isn't surprising, but both Weatherford and Xavier Lee suck, so it doesn't really matter. Weatherford is a scarecrow who is mediocre at best. Lee has great athleticism, but since he has never really been given the opportunity to play, he always forced a lot of stuff when he was in the game, causing a lot of turnovers. It's kind of sad because Lee was a huge recruit and in my opinion, should have been given the keys to the car from the beginning over Weatherford. Bowden is just way too loyal.

The next two Netflix movies coming are Entrails of a Virgin and The Legend of Hell House. I remember seeing Entrails a long time ago and remember it being pretty hardcore when I watched it, but at the time, I hadn't seen much "extreme" horror so I don't know whether or not my memory makes it out to be gorier than it really is or not, so I figured I'd revisit it in preparation for our "gore-a-thon" next Saturday. I'll have to dig up my Slaughtered Vomit Dolls notes. I've done a little preparation for this and already and I've been having trouble coming up with anything positive to say about these "gory for the sake of being gory" movies. I think it will be fun to sit down and watch all of these with everyone, but I'm wondering how much we'll actually be able to take? 7 or 8 hours of straight torture and murder may be enough to turn all of us psychotic :) I'm most interested to hear what Jeff has to say about these movies. He's got far more expertise in this area of horror than I do and I think he's the one in the group that "likes" these movies. I can't honestly say that I enjoy watching torture for the sake of torture. I'm not against extreme gore and violence in movies by any means, but if there is no real context or subtext to why it's there, I find it as nothing more than pretentious horror geeks trying to "push the envelope". Still, I'm looking forward to watching the movies with everyone. It should be a fun time....as long as Deejay doesn't go nuts and slit our throats :)

Speaking of which, I'm twistedly looking forward to seeing Halloween next week. A bunch of clips were released this week but I forced myself to not watch any of them and I've been avoiding clicking on any Halloween news or message board threads and every time a trailer pops up on TV, I change the channel immediately. I've been doing my best to put my mind in the best frame possible for when we see it, sorta by trying my best not to think about it at all. Still, I'm a horror fan at heart and it's impossible not to get a little excited about the film's upcoming release. Halloween happens to be my favorite horror film ever, by my favorite filmmaker ever, and even though there's that "how could you remake this!!!" teen punk angst popping out, the fan in me still would like to see the movie be really good. On one level, I hate the idea and Rob Zombie directing, but on another level I'm so damn curious that my anticipation is really growing.

Alyssa and I checked out the new Super Target yesterday and are extremely happy to report that we will no longer be going to Wal-Mart ever again. Yay. The prices (at least right now) are cheaper or the equal for what we buy grocery-wise and their fruit isn't nasty and fly ridden like Wal-Mart's. Speaking of Wal-Mart, I heard that they got rid of all of their self-checkout's because people were stealing electronics by distracting the employee's? That's funny if it's true.

Here's another 20 of my favorite films and an obligatory picture of Joan Blondell

41) Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
42) Back to the Future
43) Curtains
44) The Blob (1958)
45) Robocop
46) Escape from Alcatraz
47) Five Star Final
48) Three on a Match
49) Pet Sematary
50) American Psycho
51) Cube
52) Happy Gilmore
53) Creepshow
54) The Day the Earth Stood Still
55) Invasion of the Body Snatchers
56) The Wolf Man
57) Existenz
58) Street Trash
59) The Fly (1986)
60) Seven Samurai

It's filthy hot outside

This hi-def war is so stupid. Judging by some of the comments posted on the site, most people find it moronic as well. Personally, I have no real desire for a hi-def player right now. Standard definition suits me just fine. If I don't have a problem watching 70 year old film prints barely hanging on to life, I certainly can stand watching one of the near archaic DVD's on my bookshelf. There's no doubt that I'll eventually get a hi-def TV. My girlfriend insists that she just doesn't see any real jump up in meaningful quality, so there's no real reason to purchase one. Inevitably, everything will be going to HD, so I know I'm going to have to get one at some point. However, I will not be repurchasing all of my DVD's. In fact, I probably won't be buying many HD flicks at all. It'll take many, many years for DVD to go the way of VHS (which I still watch and love, by the way. Screw you HD) and by that time, maybe HD-DVD will have finally given up its losing struggle (I'm of firm belief that the reason it is losing the "war" is because its name is too close and similar to that of DVD. Blu-Ray just sounds futuristic and it rolls off the tongue. HD-DVD sounds like a standard DVD with more extras while Blu-Ray sounds like something from outer space). In any event, I'll be sticking with standard for the foreseeable future.

I went and saw Sunshine last night. It's really good. Not much beneath the surface and the plot seems to fly in 20 different directions during the last third of the film, but it's great fun to watch. It's got a real Event Horizon-ish vibe going on, so much so that at times it feels like a remake of that film. I guess you can consider Sunshine a companion piece to Event Horizon? There's some gore in Sunshine, but the main difference between it and Horizon is that it focuses far less on the "this ship went to hell and came back!" aspect. Sunshine is more grounded in "reality", though that term may be a reach. Still, it's a definite must see in the theater.

Scientists are throwing together the proteins needed in order to create life. This will happen at some point in the future regardless if the 3-10 year prediction doesn't hold water. I wonder what will happen then. Will religious people get all up in arms or will they just shrug and say "Um...somebody had to make those proteins in the first place" :) Then what happens when scientists start making things "out of thin air" by using nothing more than energy and molecules, reenacting mini "big bangs"? Then what are people going to say? It probably won't happen in my lifetime, but I'd love to see what happens to society in 100 years. Who knows, maybe by then science will have stopped the aging process, or reversed it, and I'll be able to find out!

It's been so damn hot across the country that I'm not surprised to read articles like this. Have you ever noticed that when it is scorchingly hot, you don't find any articles on sites like Drudge or the mainstream media for that matter, about how or why it could be related to global warming? However, when temperatures get low or there is some freak snow storm, all you get is stuff about global warming? It's a textbook example of trying to demonize and ridicule a certain topic. That's fine, though. We'll all find out who was correct in 50 years :)

Here's 20 more of my favorite films off the top of my head:

21) Red Dust
22) La Jetée
23) The War Game
24) Commando
25) Predator
26) Predator II
27) A Simple Plan
28) Terminator 2: Judgment Day
29) The Great Mouse Detective
30) Evil Dead II
31) Spider-Man 2
32) Scream
33) A Nightmare on Elm Street
34) A Nightmare on Elm Street 4
35) Aliens
36) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
37) Them!
38) Goodfellas
39) In the Mouth of Madness
40) Cannibal Campout

Way too busy

Finally got Deadlantern updated.

I've been trying to figure out this fantasy football thing. There doesn't seem to be any handy dandy "Help" section on the Fox Sports site. Apparently, unless we do the draft live online, I'm going to have to manually upload everyone's picks and manage all of them...or something. Don't hate me if I bungle this thing, guys :)

I'm been on a movie overload recently. Tonight I caught The Final Cut on IFC. It stars Robin Williams as a "cutter". In the future, people can get implants in their brain that records all of their memories. When they die, Robin Williams goes through their life and edits a "movie" of their lives to play during their funeral, editing out all of the bad stuff. I thought the premise was fantastic and that the movie was really good. I wish it had focused more on the ramifications of the technology (solving crimes, morality, etc.) rather than on Williams' sort lame backstory, but I think the film is definitely well made and thought provoking. I'd wager that this will be a film a bunch of scholars write about in 10 years.

Alyssa and I rearranged our living room. It's actually livable now and not just a bunch of junk cluttered around. Maybe we can finally have that house warming party now.

There was tons of political stuff I wanted to talk about, but I've been so busy that all of it has left my memory. Maybe next week. Until then, here's 10 more of my favorite movies

11) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
12) Kiss Me Deadly
13) Head-On
14) Re-Animator
15) Baby Face (1933)
16) The Most Dangerous Game
17) Sleepaway Camp II
18) Heat Lightning
19) Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman
20) The Thing

I like the blank way you fill up my mind

Alyssa and I went out into the country Sunday night (after stopping by Taco Bell to try those new chicken taquitos) to watch the Perseid meteor shower. We watched for an hour and only saw 3 comet particles burn up in the atmosphere. Disappointing. Maybe there was just too much light from the city still glowing up the sky from a distance.

We're watching The Mummy next class period. Can. Not. Wait.

The guys seemed to really dig The Body Snatcher on the latest Splattercast. Even Deejay seemed to like it, which I found sort of surprising. Next up on my list The Ghoul and a companion piece of sorts to The Body Snatcher, the Peter Cushing/Donald Pleasance vehicle The Flesh and the Fiends. This underrated film actually focuses on Burke and Hare rather than the Robert Louis Stevenson short story that Body Snatcher is based on. It'll be interesting to see how they compare the two.

Rather than post all 113 of my favorite films in one post, I'm just going to do 10 or so at a time. These are in no particular order since most of these will just be off the top of my head until i start getting down to the last 20 or so, but here's the first 10:

1) Big Trouble in Little China
2) I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
3) Halloween
4) The Last Man on Earth
5) Requiem for a Dream
6) The Body Snatcher (it's fresh in my memory!)
7) Wild Boys of the Road
8) Paranoiac
9) Cell 2455, Death Row
10) Vertigo

I am mad at technology. Mostly because I just don't understand it. I've got this problem that's annoying simply because I don't get how to easily fix the problem when I know an answer is floating out there somewhere.

Last friday, Turner Classic Movies had a Vincent Price marathon and there were a couple flicks that I had to obtain. There are multiple reasons why TCM is the best movie channel on television, but one of the foremost reasons is that they show old movies that are unavailable on DVD or VHS. Every once in a while, the occasional unreleased horror film will be shown. One of these films was The Mad Magician which I've only read about and eagerly wanted to record. I've got my computer hooked up so that I can watch cable television on it and used Windows Media Center to record the film while I was at school . So now I've got an unavailable copy of The Mad Magician sitting patiently on my harddrive. Awesome!

Well, sorta. I hate watching movies on my monitor, so I decided to use Media Center to burn a DVD of the film. It'll burn the film all right, but after 2 freaking hours, it was only 25% finished. It seems the "this may take several hours" message is right on. I got sick of waiting and tried to look for an alternate way to burn the disc. There must be an easier way, right? So I look at the file and it is in some div-r format. I tried opening it in Premiere and it is an unsupported file type. I tried using MovieMaker and got the same message. I was hoping to open up the damn file and trim the bit of commercials I recorded before and after the film but apparently I can't do that. I'm assuming I need to convert this div-r file to something else in order to allow me to open it in an editing program, but damn if I'm not just pissed off at the whole thing. I went into the Media Center options to see if it can output my recorded movies to a different file type but couldn't find any such option.

I really like the ability to record these rare films on my PC. I've normally had to make due with taping them to VHS, which degrades the picture quality something terrible, and I really don't want to go back to that way of procuring stuff like The Mad Magician. I know there must be an easy way to correct this situation. I just wish I had that knack for "getting" technology that all my other friends seem to have. Eh, I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough.

Now, time to go watch Slaughter Hotel