Below are the most recent 21 friends' journal entries.

Monday, November 9th, 2009
doctorpinkerton	1:46p	Recovery from vacation... whew. What a vacation! The Arcade Expo this past weekend in Houston was fantastic, as you might have guessed from my going on in the previous post. For once, I didn't get to play all the games in the place! In fact there were several old favorite pinball machines I wanted to play but didn't have time for. But in the end, I had my share of the fun, and discovered some new arcade addictions (like Bally's 'Medusa' - WOW, what a game. That's going on my shortlist of games to get, when I get the space.) I managed to tape some footage of the expo, and interviews with some key people, on my good camcorder as well - to be edited later when I get the time. Saturday afternoon we also found time to visit the Fine Arts Museum, and take in their 'Moon' exhibit. Having just read about Alan Bean's artwork, it was a treat to see some of his pieces firsthand - for those not familiar, Alan is the only Apollo astronaut to also pursue oil painting, and his (very well done) canvases combine oil paint with lunar dust and pieces clipped off his own spacesuit... amazing... The real treat of the night was yet to come. We stopped at the Continental Club, which was close enough to the museum to merit a casual inspection (I had wanted to check out a number of clubs.) At the Continental Club was a poster promoting what was going on later that night - Dash Rip Rock opening for... holy shit, Mojo Nixon!? Unbelievable; Mojo had retired from live rock'n'roll 8 years ago to settle comfortably into a radio career (shortly after C.O.G. opened for him at the Howlin' Wolf in New Orleans), with only a single brief live appearance promoting oddball Texas candidate Kinky Friedman for governor a couple years ago. What an opportunity! We left for dinner with a Houston area friend (some great BBQ at Goode's) then returned to the hotel to play some pinball. At 10:00pm we returned to the Continental Club for the show. It was a three band bill, all Psychobilly acts. We caught the middle of the New Duncan Imperials set - they were absolutely great and I didn't hesitate to buy their CD. After them Dash Rip Rock appeared and ripped the place up. In between bands, I spotted Mojo and got a chance to talk with him briefly... Mojo was apologizing for his lack of memory, his age, his lack of hearing, eyesight, etc. (52 years of hard living will do that to ya) I told him to buck up, if Alice Cooper can still do it at his age, Mojo has NOTHING to complain about! Mojo got all wound up at around midnight and let loose with a short but sick set, culminating in his hit 'Elvis is Everywhere', and the coup de grace, an encore of 'Burn Down the Malls', the song that originally inspired me to listen to Mojo. Needless to say, I left satisfied and returned to the hotel to play games until I could no longer stand up (still managed to get the high score on 'Lord of the Rings'!) We returned to Louisiana via Reserve, where we were treated to a really nice dinner by old friend Ron Keller. Arriving home, we were greeted by our enthusiastic cat Bitsy, who enthusiastically welcomed us home with a tribute offering of a big freshly killed squirrel right in the bedroom. Hey - it's the thought that counts! Current Music: Mojo Nixon - 'Destroy All Lawyers' (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
taperoo2k	5:29p	Ashmolean picspam A little bit late, but here it is.... Oh and I'm going back later on in the week. One day with camera (armed with 18-125mm lens), one day without camera. ( Read more... ) Current Mood: bouncy Current Music: Looking Up - Paramore (Comment on this)
mshollie	9:41a	Writer's Block: Just another manic Monday Do you look forward to returning to work/school on Mondays or do you live for the weekend? What do you enjoy most about weekends? What do you dread most about school and/or work? View 762 Answers I live for the weekends. There's always something going on here.  Actually, there are things going on during the week as well. Monday mornings are a nice pick-me-up with froggy's radio show.  The rest of the week just drags on. (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
taperoo2k	4:43p	The Ashmolean rocks! Though i shall be returning next week, as i forgot to take my 18-125mm lens and kit lens. Flickr uploadr is being really slow today, hope i didn't kill my bandwidth last month with that flickr challenge lol. One picture for now (picspam coming later) - I've also murdered several beatles songs in the Beatles Rockband today hehe Current Mood: bouncy (2 Comments |Comment on this)
mshollie	8:00a	Writer's Block: Opposites attract (sometimes) In general, do you find yourself more attracted to people with similar or different interests, life experiences, political beliefs, and religious backgrounds? Do you think having some common interests/goals is essential for a successful relationship? View 492 Answers I'm definitely attracted to people with common interests. I don't know how my partner and I got together, because our interests are so different, but we must have something in common. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been together for so long. :) (Comment on this)
doctorpinkerton	2:09a	Wow I'm currently in the largest arcade I've EVER been in, there are many RARE games in here dating back over 60 years, and EVERY game happens to be on free-play! Almost every game is in primo condition, shiny, new and playing correctly, and RUSH is blasting out of the PA system. Is this some kind of pinball-induced delirium? Or have I perhaps died and been reborn in videogame Valhalla? No, it's the Houston Area Arcade Expo, and it's happening RIGHT NOW! If all this sounds like your kind of thing, and you can make it to Houston, do yourself a BIG favor and come on out here. Here's proof (I promise I'll shoot and edit a better walkthrough tomorrow, but this should give you an idea of what you're missing!) Games I played Friday night: Quantum (real one's easier than my emulation at home) Sally (still hard as hell) Kings & Queens (Legendary electro-mechanical [E.M.] Gottlieb game) Mayfair (LOTS of stuff going on for a 1965 EM! Damned game almost plays ITSELF.) Slick Chick (totally restored... lots of fun! Can't wait to get mine repaired) Banzai Run (used to LOVE this one when it was new, still love it) Black Hole (mega challenging but I got to multilevel multiball after a few plays) Black Pyramid (run of the mill early 80's Bally) Medusa (total dark horse, WOW what a game... if I ever run across one I'm picking it up.) Apollo 13 (great game, didn't make it to 13 ball multiball) Lord of the Rings (played it practically in my sleep at 1:30am, got #1 high score. This game is too easy) Gorgar (original talking game, not in good shape, couldn't hear speech over the din) C.S.I. (Stern's newest game is MUCH better than expected) F14 Tomcat (I used to kill at this game, unfortunately couldn't even get to multiball) Spy Hunter pinball (never played this before; much better than expected) Simpsons Pinball Party (great game, and I made it to multiball; difficult on this game) Varkon (rare vertical pinball - wow... need to play this one some more) Pinbot (lousy condition playfield, but it played really well) High Speed (amazing restoration, with some really cool 'custom shop' touches and BLINDING lighting) Earthshaker (great restoration, but I didn't like the look of the LED lamps the owner had used.) World Poker Tour (I always liked this game despite the BAD artwork & poor reviews.) I also played some great Williams EM's that weren't at any past expos. Unfortunately I can't remember the names... LED lighting seems to be the new trend, and there's a bunch of companies selling the aftermarket bulbs. These bulbs are brighter than the incandescents they replace and put out less heat than their predecessors, which is great for reducing wear on the game's transistors and heat damage to a game's plastics and paint. However, on a couple of these games, the light is TOO blinding - distracting in areas that never had so much light output, and MPU controlled lights (feature lights) tend to exhibit an annoying stroboscopic effect, as LED's have no filament and therefore no 'phosphor lag' - so you can see their refresh rate. This leads to a 'digital' look as your eye follows the ball around the playfield (sort of like the LED taillights on cars these days.) Nevertheless, I think I will be treating my games to some LED's on the more inaccessible areas of the playfield, next time I do a major shop job on them... Current Music: Rush - 'Jacob's Ladder' (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 6th, 2009
mshollie	10:03a	Writer's Block: Green-eyed monster If your romantic partner told you that, given the chance, he or she would sleep with a celebrity/public figure you disrespect, would you be amused, jealous, or bewildered? How would they react if the situation were reversed? View 554 Answers I would be amused because we know each other better than that. My partner would probably freak out. (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
mshollie	8:34a	Writer's Block: Here's looking at you What is your all-time favorite, romantic movie scene? What about it speaks to you? View 996 Answers It would have to be Rick and Ilsa's time in Paris in Casablanca. It reminds me that life is too short to take too seriously; that we should always take time to enjoy ourselves and remember the good times.  Then again, Casablanca is my all time favorite movie, so a lot of it speaks to me. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
doctorpinkerton	8:14p	Long time no post! Sorry for the lack of info. I've just been really really busy... doing the backstroke in a really complex flow of projects, plans and evil schemes! This week, I'm simultaneously working on: Writing new music (Evil is Fun!!!) I'm making Wednesday nights our new 'music writing' night. Having a regular night for this will accelerate things... Casting the perfect Lab Girl (still searching...) Also casting another backup musician; everybody needs a backup. Possibly even me! My vow for next year is NO GIG TURNED DOWN. Fooling with electronics (fixing Z's old Western Electric telephone, an old Peavey amplifier, the C.O.G.'s PA system, and the usual pile of computers.) LOVED the old school telephone BTW - gotta get one to go with my old school (1974) modem! Yes, it actually works... Working on making my day gig last by upgrading my company's products' compatibility with Windows 7 (actually with Vista & 7, although I haven't had to really worry about it until now due to Vista's extreme unpopularity with the I.T. crowd.) Cleaning up some more 'Morgus' TV footage for his forthcoming first DVD (I already did this 4 years ago - but I have learned a lot about video since then. Also I can now do MUCH better color correction with this nice Macintosh and Final Cut Pro.) The coming weekend will be a real break from all that, as I'm going to be hitting the Houston Arcade Expo. Yeah, I know I had vowed that my next trip to Houston would involve a C.O.G. performance, but fear not. I've got an Evil Plan to make that happen soon... soon as I line up a good band to perform with over there, or a con that will play along with my plot (still looking for THAT too unfortunately...) P.S.: New 'Sarah Jane Adventures' was lightweight fun, but I'm stoked for November 16th, for some REAL 'Doctor Who'. (Anyone else think K-9's acting kind of schizo lately?) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
foywonder	12:38a	REVIEW: HARDWIRED Cuba Gooding Jr. won an Oscar a little over a decade ago. Around that same time Val Kilmer, himself coming off an Oscar nomination, was starring as Batman in the highest grossing blockbuster of its year. Less than a decade ago Cuba Gooding Jr. and Val Kilmer were on the Hollywood A-list. Today they would consider themselves lucky to get on a list in Hollywood, any list. HARDWIRED marks the ill-fated convergence of two actors whose decade of poor career choices (and in Kilmer's case, reports of being impossible to work with) has left them floundering in the doldrums of direct-to-DVDdom once restricted to over-the-hill action movie stars of the Nineties. I would say something about how the mighty have fallen but given some of the god awful movies these two have made in the past ten years (Cuba Gooding Jr. in particular has no one to blame but himself) this all seems like natural progression. Gooding Jr. and Kilmer have been brought together by the writer of MANSQUITO and the director of CUBE ZERO to star in a low budget high tech sci-fi thriller crafted from the residue of every cyberpunk movie Keanu Reeves has ever starred in. In all fairness, HARDWIRED is fairly competently written and directed. The problem is that competence cannot overcome just how unoriginal and unexciting it is. Nearly every aspect of the plot feels stale and there are action sequences so underwhelming I found myself wondering if the director was aware these were supposed to be action sequences. Set in a not too distant future, I know you're going to be surprised to hear this given how rarely Hollywood goes this route, but the planet and its populace is ruled by greedy corporations. There is a clever bit in the opening credits showing famous landmarks with recognizable corporate logos painted on them. The McDonalds Golden Arches adorn the Hoover Dam. A Gatorade logo is scribbled across the Taj Mahal. The Statue of Liberty's torch now flashes a holographic Playboy bunny logo. Trojan Condoms now sponsors the Washington Monument. Then the actual movie begins and it's all downhill from there. Never a good sign when the highlight of a motion picture involves a few instances of Photoshopping. Lucas Gibson (Cuba Gooding Jr., who appears to be aging badly and rapidly) is an ex-soldier critically injured in a car accident that kills his pregnant wife. He awakens with no memory, only alive because his sister allowed the Hope Industries to plant an experimental life-saving microchip in his head. Val Kilmer looks far less like the fresh-faced Val Kilmer seen on the DVD art and more like a bloated, coked-out version of himself on the constant verge of sweating coifed with this bizarre hairdo that straddles the fence between surfer dude and caveman. Kilmer is the villainous corporate kingpin Randolph Hope - or Hope's right hand man. I got bored and confused after awhile in regards to his identity. Mostly, I just didn't care. I doubt Kilmer much cared either. I'd reckon 90% of his scenes are just him from the head up on a view screen. Kilmer didn't just phone his performance in, in the spirit of this high-tech future, he webcammed it in. Randolph Hope is the wealthiest, most powerful man in the world and as we all know from watching crummy movies that the wealthiest and most powerful people on the planet are always looking for ways to become even more wealthy and powerful. Gibson has been chosen as a test patient for this chip they plan to market as "an upgrade for people's minds" that is really just a trillion dollar scheme to sell advertising space in people's subconscious while also forcing implantees to buy more consumer goods. Remember that episode of Futurama where Frye was being freaked out by corporations transmitting commercials directly into his dreams? Gibson spends the early portion of HARDWIRED being tormented by pop-up ads that look like flesh and blood people pitching products and the only way he can make them leave him alone is to either buy or steal the product. That could have been the basis for an acerbic science fiction farce, but HARDWIRED insists on being JOHNNY MNEMATRIX GOES FREEJACK. Gibson finds himself caught up in a conspiracy he has to crack before the powers that be detonate the chip in his brain. Fortunately, there's a resistance group of young keyboard jockeys with colored hair led by Michael Ironside out there fighting the power. They want to help Gibson get his memory back and hope his military skills will come in handy in order to finally strike back at Hope Industries and undo the stranglehold their form of ruthless cyber-capitalism has on our freedom. A lengthy scene of an amnesiac movie character getting their memory back when we in the audience already know everything he is remembering does not make for compelling drama. Stale subject matter, pedestrian storytelling, and lifeless suspense builds to an anti-climactic open ending that hints at a sequel that would be based around Cuba Gooding Jr. waging cyber warfare with Lance Henriksen. HARDWIRED: REWIRED? No thanks. "You ruined my life," declares a corporate henchman to Lucas Gibson. "You deleted mine," responds Gibson. Might I suggest you delete HARDWIRED from your movie-watching queue before it ruins your night. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
mshollie	12:17p	Writer's Block: Time traveler If you could go back in time to another decade, which decade would you choose and why? Would you want to return or stay there? What if you could bring one other person with you? Submitted By iammeanttolive View 885 Answers I'd go back to the 1980s. I was reasonably happy back then. I was in college, which I enjoyed, and the music was just incredible! I had good times back then. Of course, I'd like to bring froggy with me. We crossed paths back in the '80s, but I didn't get to find out how wonderful he was until the early '90s. I wish I'd known him sooner. I'd have discovered that much sooner just what a great person he is.  He'd get to hang out with our crazy group of friends. If I could change anything about that time, I wouldn't have had my traumatic experience back in 1981. I would have had a gentle, loving relationship. :) I'd wear my punk rock haircut and wild makeup and turn up the Sex Pistols to volumes unknown. Current Mood: loved Current Music: Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK" (Comment on this)
infrogmation	1:01p	"Interests" According to LiveJournal, I'm interested in too many things. My user profile can only have more interests added if existing interests are removed. Any suggestions on what I should stop being interested in? (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
mshollie	6:48p	Writer's Block: Would you talk to the dead? Have you ever participated in a seance? If not, would you consider it? What spirit would you summon and what question would you ask them? Do you believe we can get messages from the dead? View 660 Answers I've never participated in a "real" seance, but I used to play it when I was a kid. We'd call up "Barnabas Collins" and people like that. It was fun. I don't think I'd want to participate in once because of the fakery that often happens. I do have a Ouija board buried somewhere, though. Don't know if it actually works. I also have tarot cards--lots of tarot cards. I believe in using the cards for insight into my and others' lives. Sometimes we get messages from the dead, sometimes we don't. (Comment on this)
infrogmation	12:51p	Funeral with Music tradition in New Orleans John McCusker explains the history of the New Orleans jazz funeral: Times-Picayune video (3 Comments |Comment on this)
taperoo2k	11:39a	A Month in 31 Pictures, Flickr style. Is a challenge that I have been doing via Flickr. The concept is simple, you take one picture for everyday of the month. Mines a bit of a mixed bag. I offically ran out of ideas last night while in the Port Mahon waiting to see Smilex play. I will be blogging about each photograph on my photoblog in the coming weeks. ( A Month in 31 Pictures - image heavy. ) Current Mood: accomplished Current Music: A View To A Kill - Duran Duran (Comment on this)
Friday, October 30th, 2009
infrogmation	11:10a	New Orleans on the Silver Screen Two people on my LJ friends list have posted about Hollywood films using some good New Orleans scenery but having actors speak with "Southern" accents little like how New Orleanians talk. I agree -- Friends and I have been discussing and laughing about this for years. Comments on few of the films, either mentioned by others or pop to mind at the moment: Benjamin Button (2008) I discussed this film earlier. One of the most beautiful usages of New Orleans scenery Hollywood has done. Alas mostly Hollywood standard for the accents, though not as bad as some, and at least they didn't try to give New Orleanians a faux "Cajun" accent. JFK (1991) -- I'll take a pass about assessing the "conspiracy theories" here in interest of preserving the small segment of the internet remaining devoted to neither porn nor arguing about the Kennedy assassination. I will note that even if it had nothing to do with Dealey Plaza, the Garrison - Clay Shaw case seems to have rounded up a cast of colorful characters that seem out of a lost novel by Tennessee Williams or John Kennedy Toole. A number of them still alive at the time have cameos in the film (including my former trombone teacher, the late Layton Martens). If Kevin Cosner looked little and sounded less like Garrison, I have to say that John Candy's portrayal of Dean Andrews is uncanny. A fair amount of good local location shooting. The real trial was actually at Tulane & Broad, not the old Courthouse in the Quarter. After seeing "JFK" on the big screen, my date and I got into a cab and started discussing the film-- a well done bit of cinema, certainly the story should be taken with more than a grain of salt, but who expects accurate history from Hollywood, it's entertainment. The cab driver quickly injected himself into our conversation in a heavy Yat accent. "Every thing in the movie is true! It was exactly like that! I know, I was there!" We had gotten into a cab driven by one Perry Russo. (I wonder if he circled his cab around cinemas showing JFK when the movie ended in hopes of starting just such conversations.) Becoming increasingly worked up as we drove along, he amplified on the theme, and made claims including that many of the scenes in the movie which I thought were obvious re-creations were actually secret original footage discovered by Oliver Stone. I sort of enjoyed his rant as a colorful anecdote, but after we got out of the cab my date confided she'd been frightened by the experience, worried that the driver was a dangerous maniac. I later learned that Russo said he wanted to expose the Conspiracy because he didn't want that chicken-shit Oswald to get all the credit for the patriotic accomplishment of putting down that Commie bastard Kennedy. If I'd know that then, I would have been creeped out too. The Big Easy (1987). One of the worst for making New Orleanians into Cajuns. Great historic footage of Bucktown Point, a gone pecan since Katrina. Live and Let Die (1973). One of the classic era James Bond films. The New Orleans scenes are too breif, and the chase along the Bayous with the caricature Southern Sheriff is far too long. Highlights for me are the scenes with Dejan's Olympia Brass Band, including many now gone greats, and trumpeter Alvin Alcorn knifing the secret agents as the baby-faced killer. Tightrope (1984). Some interesting local scenery, edited into geographic impossibilities. The Prytania Theater broke into laughter during the foot chase scene where they're running through Jackson Square, turn a corner, and are in (IIRC) Metairie Cemetery. Local model Kathy B. as nude corpse #1; Kathy B. was known as "the Official Tits of the 1984 World's Fair" as she was also the model for the giant mermaid statues at the main entrance. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). The only New Orleans scenery is right at the beginning. It shows the area near the foot of Canal Street, with the old Canal Streetcar, the old Louisville & Nashville Railway Station and the former pedestrian walkway over the tracks. I think this was around where Canal Place is now; I and most New Orleanians are too young to remember it now. The Wacky World of Doctor Morgus (1962). Low budget sub-B movie featuring well loved local horror host not at his best. Some good footage of Canal Street and the Moissant Airport, and lots of real New Orleanians saying the dialogue. Also features an appearance by exotic dancer Chris Owens, who astonishingly is still entertaining on Bourbon Street. (I can recall joking with friends about Chris Owens' improbably long career more than a dozen years ago. How naieve I was then! Now I realize she is one of New Orleans' eternal fixtures, like humidity. She was probably here before Bienville landed from France, and will still be here a thousand years after the city sinks into the Gulf, doing the cha-cha for an audience of entertained marine life.) The Savage Bees (1976). I think I last saw it some time in the '80s. Killer Bees movie, with some footage of a Volkswagan Beetle with plastic bees glued all over it driving through the French Quarter and into the Superdome. A friend who saw them filming a scene in the Quarter thought it looked like the movie was going to be pretty stupid; she was right. Miller's Crossing (1990). The story isn't specifically set in any particular city, but most of the exteriors were filmed in New Orleans, making very good use of the city to get a late 1920s look. Deja Vu (2006). Mentioned here. First film to do much filming in New Orleans after Katrina. They could have had lots of astonishing footage, but mostly didn't because it would have overshaddowed the story. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
doctorpinkerton	10:43a	Thumbs DOWN from Pinkerton Let's see... the C.O.G., having been ostracized from Voodoo Music Fest for the 7th year in a row, confronts a choice: do we meekly apply for next year, or do we DESTROY VOODOOFEST? What was that? We're EVIL BASTARDS? Oh yes, I almost forgot! In that case, Filbert, plug in the WeatherTron! Time for me to have some FUN... Current Music: Rod Serling interview (3 Comments |Comment on this)
mshollie	8:07a	Birthday Wishes... ...to my dear friend assassin_kittie !!!!! Hope you have a great day today! Current Mood: happy Current Music: "Birthday": The Beatles (1 Comment |Comment on this)
foywonder	12:16a	HALLOWEEN HORROR REVIEW ROUND-UP ("I GOT A ROCK" EDITION) Been a busy month for me review-wise. Also been a painful one - been dealing with a root canal the past week. Should be no surprise I have had a plethora of horror movies to review over at Dread Central considering this is October, the prime month for horror cinema. Below are links to a dozen reviews I've done the past month of a few theatrical/DTV/made-for-TV horror movies I have subjected myself to and written about the past month. As usually, click the link in white to read the full review. Or just go rent TRICK R' TREAT and enjoy the best Halloween movie in ages. You choose. Given this is the month associated with Halloween what better film to begin with then DEADLY LITTLE CHRISTMAS. Yep. A super cheap HALLOWEEN knock-off that was at least good for a few unintentional laughs. A psychopath seating the dead bodies he has accumulated at the table of The Last Supper could have been an effective image if not for the cheap green Styrofoam plates Jesus and his disciples were eating from, killing the ambiance of the moment. Not to mention the annoying little fact that The Last Supper is associated with Easter, not Christmas. DEADLY LITTLE CHISTMAS REVIEW Watching MTV's original Halloween movie MY SUPER PSYCHO SWEET 16 may have been the longest I watched that channel in one sitting in over fifteen years. This teen slasher is designed to poke holes in those obnoxious narcissistic "My Super Sweet 16" teen princesses both figuratively and literally. My Super Psycho Sweet 16 proved to be surprisingly more watchable than I had anticipated yet was still lacking due to the satirical side poking fun at these spoiled teen princesses throwing their grotesquely elaborate egocentric birthday bashes lacking any real edge, not to mention the edge of the blades the slasher uses also not being nearly cutting enough. The script almost appeared unwilling to bite the hand that feeds it, as if MTV ordered up a slasher movie parodying one of their most popular programs while instructing the writers to pull their punches when it comes to ripping on the superficiality of that particular program. MY SUPER PSYCHO SWEET 16 REVIEW MUTANTS... Ugh. When you make a movie called Mutants you better deliver on the mutants. There are no mutants in Mutants. Painting some people up so they look like sickly zombies with a few skin disfigurements does not qualify as a mutant in my book, certainly not mutated enough to justify calling a movie Mutants. There is one teeny tiny scene with something mutated enough to qualify as a mutant and all it's capable of doing is sitting in a corner doing nothing for its few seconds of screen time. MUTANTS (2009) REVIEW If you though Al Gore's AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH had a preachy global warming message then just wait until you see THE THAW and this this is a chiller about ecologists getting infected by prehistoric parasites. Val Kilmer gets top billing even though he really takes a backseat to a bunch of really stupid college age characters. Your girlfriend perfectly healthy just a few hours ago is now covered in bug bites, appears to be seriously ill, and is vomiting uncontrollably, and now you are pissing blood; your first thought is to accuse her of cheating on you and infecting you with an STD? THE THAW REVIEW LYNCH MOB proved to be a surprise treat. Not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination but an enjoyably quirky black comedy about mafia mamalukes after a witness protection turncoat stashed away in a tiny Georgia town controlled by cursed Confederate cannibals. Whether or not you enjoy Lynch Mob will hinge greatly on your reaction to Michael H. Cole's strange performance as Weasel. The moment he opens his mouth and out comes a voice mimicking Peter Lorre... Weird to say the least. I was completely taken aback at first by this guy that looks like a seedier Andy Richter talking with a voice more suitable to Igor from an old Frankenstein flick. No explanation for his accent - or for why he's named Weasel, for that matter. It took a bit but his performance began to grow on me once the film made it be known it was shooting more for black comedy than straightforward horror. You know you're watching a black comedy when one of the main characters is a creep with a taste for little girls that speaks in a Peter Lorre accent and the film actually makes this total creep into a somewhat likeable comic foil. It's a bit more palpable knowing this guy will get his just desserts in the end, possibly by becoming someone's dessert. LYNCH MOB REVIEW A 3-D movie from The Asylum? What could possibly go wrong with HAUNTING OF WINCHESTER HOUSE? So I rented the DVD from my local Blockbuster and as I was walking out the door I opened the case to get a look at the glasses - the glasses that were not included with the movie. I asked the clerk and he told me that the distributor never sent them the 3D glasses like they were supposed to. The movie is available on the disc in both 3D and 2D but if I want to watch the 3D version I'd have to have my own 3D glasses sitting around somewhere because someone on the distribution end screwed up royally. I don't know if this has been a problem at other Blockbusters or if there just seems to be some sort of jinx going on when it comes to me and Asylum films. Suffice to say this annoyed me to no end. HAUNTING OF WINCHESTER HOUSE REVIEW Originally intended as a remake of the early Eighties Jamie Lee Curtis slasher TERROR TRAIN, Thora Birch stars in TRAIN, a non-slasher non-remake that only serves to give torture porn a bad name. Train is a vile film. It's also frequently dull and insultingly dumb to boot. The horror genre often gets a bad wrap and movies like this are why it gets that bad wrap. This even gives torture porn a bad wrap. With the Saw films or Hostel or this past summer's The Collector or even notorious gorefests like Cannibal Holocaust you can at least somewhere within them find some level of intrigue or suspense or foreboding, characters you care about or villains you fear, at the very least some sense of macabre fun or artistic merit that at least attempts to justify the repulsive imagery. Writer-director Gideon Raff (The Killing Floor) seemed to be so more interested in outdoing Saw and Hostel in the gruesome department that he completely forgot about making a halfway decent movie to make those gruesome moments relevant as anything more than mean-spirited sadism for sadism's sake. I'm no prude when it comes to gore. I can appreciate a good bloody kill. But all this execrable movie is is a pointless exercise in seeing characters you're given no reason to care about rendered helpless and getting eviscerated while screaming or crying. TRAIN REVIEW "Spike" from Buffy the Vampire Slayer ditches his British accent, packs a six-shooter, and rides out to the Wild West to star in HIGH PLAINS INVADERS, a surprisingly decent Syfy original movie that could best be described as STARSHIP TROOPERS goes west. One look at the design of the creatures and its easy to see the Starship Troopers influence, though they are still somewhat unique with their long forked tails, impossibly toothy scolex mouths, and their ability to shoot back. The design of the thorax actually had me expecting them to turn out to be vessels driven by smaller aliens inside. Still not quite sure how these alien bugs would have the engineering know-how to build a gigantic spaceship capable of interstellar travel. I'm sure Bob Lazar could explain it. HIGH PLAINS INVADERS REVIEW We're back to the Wild West - sorta - for another Syfy original GHOST TOWN. This couldn't possibly be about ghost cowboys, could it? You know how a lot of horror films open with a famous quotation that corresponds to the theme of the film? The makers of Ghost Town should have dug up a quote about the pointlessness of existence because their movie exists for no purpose and achieves no other goal than to provide Syfy with two more hours of worthless filler. GHOST TOWN REVIEW A strong argument could be made that there was no reason whatsoever to make WRONG TURN 3: LEFT FOR DEAD. An even stronger argument could be made that there was no reason to make another sequel to WRONG TURN as bad as this. What are you more interested in when watching a Wrong Turn movie: (a) characters getting stalked by an inbred cannibal and having to fight to stay alive or (b) escaped cons incessantly arguing over bags of money, who is going to carry those bags of money, how they are going to get away with the bags of money, and who is going to double-cross the others and try to make off with the bags of money? WRONG TURN 3: LEFT FOR DEAD REVIEW A Charles Band movie about puppet-like creatures? The hell you say! SKULL HEADS is Band's latest mini-marionette monster movie, but there's one major problem - they don't do anything! Yet to my shock the movie is not a total failure. Skull Heads hearkens back to the Full Moon features of the Nineties, the ones shot in Italy or Romania where much of the film centered on idiosyncratic characters in a Gothic locale, the ones where Sherilyn Fenn got it on with werewolves and mini-monsters prowled the hallways of gloomy manors. One particular Full Moon feature I am strongly reminded of is the very first Subspecies. Not just because of the castle and ancestral family dynamics; that film was also marketed around these strange little creatures that turned out to not have much screen time and contributed next to nothing to the action. SKULL HEADS REVIEW Next up is my review of DISTURBIA 2 THE STEPFATHER. It's from the same people that remade PROM NIGHT last year so that alone should tell you all you need to know about the film's quality. Not even the beautiful Amber Heard is next to nothing can save this family. Amber Heard of All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is Michael's girlfriend Kelly. She is less a character than a body to be objectified. She has a line telling Michael that she likes it when he looks at her. I think that was Cardone's way of trying to justify why Heard spends most of the movie either in a bikini or in her underwear - not that I'm complaining. But the big dramatic moment when Michael looks at that sketch on the "America's Most Wanted" website and fully realizes that his mom's fiance is this family killer, a look of horror fills his face, the music swells ominously, and the director immediately cuts too ... a near full-screen shot of Amber Heard's bikini bottomed ass strutting past the pool. Seriously? THE STEPFATHER (2009) REVIEW And finally, saving the worst for last, perhaps, is a 1995 horror comedy starring Fred Travelena from the makers of the immortally bad ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE that never saw the light of day until finally getting a DVD release this past month: NIGHT OF THE DRIBBLER. I have a surefire theory as to why this movie went unreleased for 15-years - somebody watched it. I also watched Night of the Dribbler. Did so with a friend used to me subjecting him to film's of dubious quality. I'm lucky he's still willing to be my friend after Night of the Dribbler. At first it's just harmlessly lame, then we looked at the clock and realized only 15-minutes had passed. I could sense his Hulk-like rage was building with each passing minute, with each leaden gag falling flatter than the next, intensifying during the long stretches where there didn't even appear to be any jokes but you just knew the filmmakers thought funny stuff was happening. Can't say I blame him. This is a guy that watched "Mystery Science Theater 3000" religiously and has helped put on bad film festivals and here he was telling me afterwards that Night of the Dribbler was quite possibly the single worst movie I had ever subjected him to. You cannot fathom was such a declaration entails. NIGHT OF THE DRIBBLER REVIEW (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
taperoo2k	1:06p	Picspam time. I have been a bit slack on the picspamming front of late.... I also need to start working on my next picture for my photography blog. ( Read more... ) Current Mood: artistic Current Music: Girls On Film - Duran Duran (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
doctorpinkerton	11:53a	C.O.G. invades Houston? A friend in Texas writes in: "Did the Houston remount fall through?" This question probably deserves to be addressed in an entire post. For the moment it's been pushed back, yet again. The problems are twofold - first, my current band lineup objects to doing a show without a guarantee and consequently taking a loss, just to get a foothold in a new city. Understandable, but I can get around that. The thing that really needs to happen to get C.O.G. to Houston (or any other city outside Louisiana for that matter) is connecting with a compatible band, or a promoter, who can help get a crowd in. There is no sense in us transporting hundreds of pounds of equipment hundreds of miles to play to 20 people. Unfortunately, to clubs, the intensity of fan support is only expressible in number of bodies. This is due to the simple fact that clubs stay open by selling alcohol. As some people have pointed out, a con might also work, but the problem with cons is that they're generally underequipped to handle a live band. I'm unwilling to haul a PA system (an entire extra truck's worth of equipment) that far, and most cons would be unwilling to rent a PA system (which can easily cost more than they would even be willing to pay the band.) However, if anybody knows of a con that might be willing to talk about making it happen, I'm all ears. My favorite Houston band, Black Math Experiment, is reforming to play a show in early December, and we had made overtures about getting on this show, but the promoter was skittish about putting an out of town band on the bill. I aim to open for them the next time they perform, likely to be spring, but that's not been booked yet. If anybody knows a drawing (and compatible) Texas band that would be willing to perform with us, PLEASE let me know! I really want to make this happen, finally. We just need some smart ideas and connections to blast 'reality' out of the way!!! Current Music: Pinball 101 DVD (6 Comments |Comment on this)