Phenomena Trailer

Watched on 1/30-31, about half each time.

Has a very young Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasance,and a razor-wielding chimp. Argento is an acquired taste for me, I actually prefer Lucio Fulci for entertainment value even though Dario is the "better" filmmaker. Argento has a lot of good scenes and sequences, although the movies overall are usually not satisfying. I do like one thing he said once---"We rarely solve mysteries in life, so why should the movies be any different?"

I saw it once before at a university in Portland. I was vacationing there. I had seen in a local paper that there would be a screening and walked there, only to find that it was just a VHS tape projected on a screen in a classroom. And it was the cut American version! Still had an okay time.

I like SUSPIRIA and DEEP RED better, but this isn't bad.

MONTH-END SCOREBOARD:

Books read: 3 Movies watched: 14

Working on several books so February should be better.

Watched nothing....

....other than having a Stone IPA and watching most of 42ND STREET FOREVER VOL. 4: COOLED BY REFRIGERATION, but didn't watch all of it. I skipped the bad 70s comedy parts. I should investigate to see if there's some kind of trailer of sorts out there, although it would seem odd to have a trailer for a compilation of other trailers.

What I did do was finish another book: THE UNLIKELY DISCIPLE by Kevin Roose. The writer transferred to Liberty University [the one founded by Jerry Falwell] for a semester and wrote about his experience there as an undercover non-believer. It was different than I thought it would be, he actually got quite involved with the people he met there, especially his dorm mates. However, he could not get past some of the crap they have in their curriculum especially regarding science, and one of the problems with the institution is that they view the academics of the school as secondary to the religious aspect.

I was amused that although he went to an Ivy League school he had a lot of difficulty with some of the coursework, especially the religious stuff because he had zero background knowledge of the Bible. It was also interesting that guys at Liberty spend a great deal of time talking about girls' boobs, maybe more than guys at secular colleges. I found it funny that although he felt more "spiritual" during his time there, he never really felt a desire to convert or get "saved." He learned to fake a lot of the talk and more or less passed, although some people suspected something was a little different about him.

So here's my story....I am a Christian, although very open minded and not sure about a lot of the evangelical tenets. When I was a junior in high school I transferred to a small conservative Christian private high school mainly just to get away from my small town public school. Pretty much every course had some kind of conservative religious talking point, even the sentences in the grammar exercises [we had to diagram things like "When will people realize the world does not owe them a living?"]
The education I got there was pretty poor, but at the same time I liked a lot of the people there and did admire some of the staff who were "missionary volunteers" and drew no salary. I ended up graduating from there. The school closed about eight years ago...they had a sex scandal in the late 90s and a lot of parents withdrew their kids. Enrollment never recovered and they shut down a few years later.

It was an interesting environment. There were a lot of missionary kids and kids from other countries, mainly Latin American and Japan. You also had a lot of kids who were sent there as some kind of punishment or because their parents couldn't control them.


I later spent a year at a Christian college [that was way less conservative than Liberty, although drinking, smoking, and dancing were still verboten] but wasn't happy there and transferred to a larger state university.

Anyway, THE UNLIKELY DISCIPLE was a good read...it took me back to those times in my life.

Intruder Trailer

Look out, the trailer ruins the ending!

Realized I messed up and posted this to my old blog. Anyway, saw this on Thursday evening [I believe.] This was a movie I'd heard about for years and couldn't see in its uncut version, but now it's on Blu-Ray and has the "honor" of being the first Blu disc I've bought for a movie I haven't seen.

It's a little slow--they do a lot of "story development" involving the supermarket that is about to close. The slasher film isn't my favorite genre, but this was fun enough, although it was a little predictable.

It has a big reputation among horror geeks I think because an uncut film was hard to find and it also has the Raimis involved in it.

A lot of my movie buys are "for a rainy day...." There have been a lot of times where I'm in the mood for a movie and end up selecting something I bought years before and never watched. I don't know that this is something I want to watch over and over, but I'm sure I will someday.

Other things I watched on Jan 21/22

Ended up watching LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS, which I won't bother to post a trailer for.

Also caught MESSIAH OF EVIL via the "Creepy KOFY Movie Time" website. I love horror hosted shows and used to watch CKMT back when I lived in the Bay Area, so I'm happy to see I can still watch old episodes online.

MESSIAH OF EVIL had one thing I found pretty creepy....the idea of ordinary looking people attacking someone as a mob in a public place. A group of them [they are sort of like zombie-like cult followers that eat people] attack someone in the supermarket. The most effective scene has a young woman admitted to a movie theater, with the CLOSED sign put up right after she goes inside. She sits down in an empty theater, but then gradually more and more people show up sitting behind her, and she realizes something is wrong. She tries to leave but the doors are locked and at that point her fellow moviegoers get up and go after her....

It's one of those cult movies I'd heard about on various message boards but never managed to see until now.

Finally finished another book, THE BROTHERS SISTERS by Patrick DeWitt, a western of sorts about two brothers who are hired killers. Read it over a couple of days, it was a really good read. Second book I've finished this year, and the first novel.

Stake Land

Almost finished with this one....will write about it later.

Late on Jan. 20 I watched BEST WORST MOVIE, about TROLL 2.

Manos The Hands of Fate - Trailer

Yes, it's probably the worst movie ever made, at least in the low budget division. Personally, I think a lot of bigger movies are worse because they have the resources to do better, also more people are involved in making decisions who theoretically should know better. Still, this is pretty bad, and very hard to watch even with the Mystery Science Theater crew to help you through it. I've never tried to watch it in its unedited form, that would be the bad movie equivalent of the triple black diamond ski run.

It still has a creepy vibe at times...the idea of getting lost somewhere and not being able to leave. It's the bad movie Hotel California.

There's a great article about the making of the film [the fertilizer salesman who wrote and directed was convinced he was making a masterpiece, which is probably why this movie has endured among bad movie fans, nothing is for laughs.) The bad part is that it is harder to laugh at Torgo [the guy with the beard stumbling around] when you know the backstory....he allegedly was on acid through a lot of the shooting and took his own life not long afterward.

I only half watched this, though, I was fooling around on the laptop, but I suppose it still counts. This was actually watched on Sunday night/early Mon. morning.

Monday night we watched BLACK SWAN which I've seen three times now. I think that was the last film we saw in the theater, making 2011 the first year I didn't go to the movies at all. Was a little disappointed by the Blu-Ray, apparently it is grainy because the film was in 16mm [not a film buff, but that means it was intended to be grainy.] We mainly got the disc for the extras, though, so it was still worth it.

Think I'm only going to post trailers when I feel like it.

Suspiria International Trailer

For Jan. 15....watched it on my new Blu Ray player.

Also saw the DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK remake.

I never saw the original [was only a very little kid when it was broadcast] but this was only average. I can see why it didn't do well, although I cannot see why it got an R rating. Supposedly it was for "pervasive scariness." During the 80s the ratings people were really tough on horror films, and thing have seemed to loosen up over the past several years [and it's not been as big of a deal since whatever is cut out is made available on video] but maybe things are back to how they were. This really should only be a PG-13 which is what the filmmakers thought they were going to get.

Worth a rental I guess, but kinda blah overall.

Semi-watched MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE (the MST3K version)

Chillerama - OFFICIAL TRAILER

Watched this on Tuesday.

Not nearly as good as it might seem--it's a Troma-esque version of GRINDHOUSE but seems overlong with four "mini-features" only three of which are that good, and the second "Curse of the Werebear" not really fitting and slowing things down a lot. One of the big reasons to watch these is for the gore and the T&A, but there isn't much of either until the last 20 minutes or so.

The third feature, "The Diary of Anne Frankenstein" is a case where the best joke is the title, but it's sort of neat for its faux-Universal vibe. It's sort of like Springtime for Hitler written by bored 12 year olds while in history class.

Could have been better...the Werebear segment didn't fit with the rest of it [a gay comedy combining the "teenage werewolf" from the 50s with the bear subculture] and would have been better on its own. I did like the connecting story of the drive-in and its patrons [who take center stage in the final segment, Zombie Movie] but that should have been given a little more time.

I'm an unapologetic lover of exploitation movies, so this at least was worth an instant viewing. Today's movie is going to be the most exploitative that I've seen for a while [assuming Netflix has it coming today....]

Yes, books too.

Decided to have books as part of the blog too instead of doing separate blogs for both.
Similar to my personal blog, it's more something for me to read, like a diary instead of something for others to read [although I don't care if they do.]

Finished CUSTER DIED FOR YOUR SINS by Vine Deloria Jr.

Written in the late 60s, the book covers the issues and problems facing Indians in America [note that you rarely, if ever, see Indian people refer to themselves as "Native American."]

What I found especially interesting was his insistence that the Indian struggle was separate from the overall civil rights movement. He was very leery of the liberal tendency to lump all minority groups/issues together. Many would be surprised at a lot of other things he said too....he thought Indians should make use of the corporate model as a path toward greater sovereignty [I believe at one point he speculates that the corporate model was actually a representation of the traditional Indian way of life.] Bet the Occupy crowd would not care for that....

Deloria passed away in 2005, I've been looking to see if there's anything out there giving his opinions on what had changed and what hadn't. Some tribes have gotten more independence due to casinos and other business activities. My particular tribe has done well, although some of that might be due to our history of assimilation--we are probably more likely to embrace that kind of thing, although I think larger tribes like mine tend to make better use of casino revenues [basically the way any large government body should make use of revenue, to put it toward the community.]
I've seen smaller tribes here where I live torn apart--disenrolling members to get a larger slice of the pie.

I'll probably check out some of his other books over the course of this year.

The Business of Fancy Dancing Trailer

Sometimes the movie experience is more than just the movie. I'm a huge fan of Sherman Alexie, the Indian writer [poetry and novels.] He also wrote the screenplay for the excellent film SMOKE SIGNALS, and went on to write and direct this in 2002.

I rewatched it last night with the commentary by Alexie and lead actor Evan Adams [who played Thomas Builds-the-Fire in SMOKE SIGNALS.] When I first saw the movie on TV years ago I didn't like it so much, it seemed to ramble and seemed short on material even though it was over 100 minutes long. The commentary helped me appreciate it more [and was also very funny...Alexie is a hilarious speaker.] Alexie regards it as an unfinished film that succeeds in some places but not in others.

Indian movies that are actually created by Indians are hard to find---movies that portray Indians realistically are almost as scarce. SKINS is another good one.

Full disclosure: I'm somewhere between 5/16 and not quite a half Indian, from two different tribes. I identify as such even though I am not "obviously Indian." I'm from the paler part of the family, I have a lot of other family members who are pretty dark. I'm originally from a community that is majority Indian. Indians are obsessed with credentials, especially mixed bloods like myself.

Mystics In Bali 1981 - Trailer

Here it is....

On Jan 2....

Watched REEL INJUN, a documentary about American Indians in the movies.

Really liked it, but would have liked to see more Wes Studi [a distant relative.]

Was touched by the story Russell Means told about how he and the other Indian boys knew they were going to have to fight the white kids any time there was a Western playing at the movie theater. And I'm sure there were a lot of Westerns playing back then....

For Jan 1, 2012

This is Remembrances of Movies Past, basically a list of films I saw in 2012.


For New Year's Day: ONDINE. I will write more on it later.

It's about an Irish fisherman that finds a lady in his net who may or may not be a selkie [Celtic mermaid legend...a seal-woman who can shed her seal-skin and live among humans.]

The movie does a good job of causing you to want it to be true....and making you believe, even for a moment, that it might be.