WHAT DO YOU FIND IN THE BOTTOM OF A JACK-O-LANTERN'S LITTER BOX?

So, what exactly is it that I do when I take the day off from work for Halloween? What the hell else?

No, not that... sickos. Nah, I carved my third pumpkin of the last two weeks, baked some pumpkin bread muffins, watched five movies, read some Lovecraft and Poe, checked out a couple of History Channel documentaries on the bloodline of Dracula and the search for fossils that may have inspired the monsters of ancient Greek myths, and cancelled my plans to hit the skeleton rides at Disneyland (there are six of them -- what are they? And California Adventure doesn't count in this...) because my leg pain flared up early this morning. But I just took it as a sign that I should stay home and watch more movies.

[Not that I wanted to ditch everybody at work, especially since we are so busy this week, but... oh, fuck it. I don't give a crap. Every day is "crucial" there, which is the biggest indicator that it is all bullshit -- if you don't give your staff a breather now and then, they won't be breathing anymore. So -- I gave myself a breather...]

Jen had her schedule changed at the last second yesterday, so her closing shift turned to an opening one, which enabled us the opportunity to possibly hit the park for a couple hours. Disney, for completely idiotic reasons as far as I am concerned, closes tonight at 8:00 pm. A park with the fucking Haunted Mansion is closing at 8:00, when every combined Halloween/Disney nut in a five-mile radius is going to want to ride that freakin' ride. Idiots. Of course, the chances of Jen actually getting off at 5 are pretty small. So, thinking that the window for actually standing in incredibly long lines just before an early evening closing to possibly get on only one ride, combined with the leg problem, led me to call Jen and cancel our possible plans. Besides, we were at the park twice in the last two weeks, so it wasn't like it was going to be any different. Plus, we'll probably be there again in a couple weeks.

But this got me thinking about our different approaches to Halloween. For Jen, Halloween really is just one night, and while she does like to dress in costume (and takes great pride in doing so), it is only just another holiday for her. The big holiday for her is Christmas, a day which has grown smaller in importance for me year after year to the point where I sometimes no longer even recognize it. On the other side, Halloween is not just October 31 for me. I start celebrating it the day after my now infamous birthday, and the seven weeks leading up to the Grand Night are filled with endless horror and science-fiction films, book readings, various art projects, and a hell of a lot of writing. Until two years ago, I would spend the bulk of each Halloween (which I took off annually for almost 20 years) goofing around with makeup, planning the evening's costume and running a constant stream of scary flicks in the background, when I wasn't grooving to a lot of music by The Cramps, Man or... Astroman?, The Fleshtones and various other like-minded groups. For the last several years, I would run the box office at the Alaska Theatre of Youth/UAA Theatre for Young People's annual Halloween production, usually written, directed and acted in by a large group of my closest friends.

This all changed when I moved to OrCo (I don't call it by that acronym from that crap TV show). No friends means no parties to attend; no theatre means no Halloween show. I worked on Halloween last year, and that was a horrible mistake, because there is no way that I can concentrate at work when all I have is jack-o'-lanterns dancing maniacally in my head. Even though (or, perhaps, because) I watched two and a half films before I left for work that day, I still could not shake the feeling that I was wasting both my and the company's time with my performance that day. As a result, this year I chose to remove myself from the office for the day, even if it meant shutting myself in and keeping to my lonesome in the dark. It turns out, of course, that this is when I am happiest.

But, also unlike my life in Anchorage, much like the clash of holidays in the Jack Skellington fantasy, I now have to share October 31 with my beloved, who has only a basic regard for the day. All of the Halloween shopping, carving and baking is mine, and I pretty much watch all of the films on my own, as she doesn't enjoy the vast majority of horror and science-fiction films in which I tend to overindulge myself. To that end, I try to do some things where she is involved: going to Disneyland for the Haunted Mansion is one way, checking out carved pumpkin displays is another, and I now have to try and locate films that fulfill both my need for genre fare and her need for a film which she doesn't think is stupid. Last night, for example, we had a good time watching The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, which I had been pushing at her for about two years to view, and to which she finally acquiesed and found very amusing.

Now, to my big problem: while I am writing this, our door is being besieged by spooks and ghouls, goblins and catgirls of all shapes and size, and all of them adorably cute. Because we planned on not being home, and because we are trying to be good and diet for health reasons, we have no candy. We bought candy last year, but then ended up not being home, and then the giant bowl of it tormented us for weeks. Luckily, Jen is still on her way home, so hopefully she will pick up the emergency rations before I am labeled the curmudgeon of the neighborhood, and also get a lawsuit for false advertising, since I have a porch full of jack o' lanterns, two generic and one in the shape of Godzilla.

I didn't figure this in when I cancelled our evening plans. This will not happen again...

Happy Halloween, boys and ghouls!

[Bonus points will be given if you know the answer to the question in this post's title. Hint: It is from around 1981, and was an answer given by Carnak the Magnificent. If I have to tell you who Carnak is, then you have bigger problems to solve than this one.]

RRM #31: MASTERS OF HORROR, Pt. 3

One of the more distinct pleasures for me, horror-wise, in the last few years was the introduction of May into my life. While my friend Egg-or had previously recommended the film to me, as she knows many of my tastes well, it actually took a heap of "c'mon, c'mon" cajoling from my pal Flowers (his surname, not a nickname) to get me to finally take a crack at it. Knowing that I had developed a mild "thing" for Anna Faris, who has a minor but important role in May, Flowers slapped the DVD into my hand one day after work and gave me a look that told me he was pretty sure that I would eat it up, without actually verbalizing such a thought. The aftermath? While I didn't feel that all of the elements in the film worked -- May's conversations with her dolls early on almost me turn the disc off more than once (dolls annoy the hell out of me... not scare me, just annoy me) -- by the time its unexpected finale rolled around, the film stood revealed to me fully as the minor goth-comedy masterpiece that it truly aspires to be.

The strange part is I never remembered the name of the filmmaker responsible for May, only its star, Angela Bettis. Skipping to a couple weeks ago, I checked out the string of discs that fall under the umbrella of Showtime's Master of Horror series (the first eight of which I have given cursory glances at in the past two posts, hence the "Part 3" above). Ninth on my list was an entry called Sick Girl by someone improbably named Lucky McKee. "Who is this?," I wondered, and looked up info on this so-called "Master of Horror." To my happy surprise, I saw May listed in his resume, and from that point on, I eagerly awaited this episode in the mail. To my unhappy unsurprise, Sick Girl doesn't quite reach the heights of the earlier movie, even with Bettis once again in the starring role, this time as an extremely pent-up lesbian entemologist who is sent a package from Brazil which contains a very unique insect. She also starts up a what-seems-to-be meets-cute-dates-cuter relationship with Erin Brown, whom, if you've ever spent a late night "up" with HBO or Cinemax, is better known to the world as Misty Mundae, the pulchitrudinous star of about three dozen low-budget softcore lesbian spoofs from Seduction Cinema.

I have seen exactly three of these films: "Lord of the G-Strings," "Spiderbabe," and a sci-fi spaceship sex romp of which I never found out the title (this is what happens when you are a guy who is channel surfing and you suddenly stop as breasts cross the screen -- you have to look, but you tend to forget the name of everything). They are certainly unique films, which is the best that I can say for them; despite the light lesbian groping antics, they are for me that worst type of film: boring. There were a couple mildly clever lines and puns here and there in the examples that I saw, but because I prefer my "erotica" a little dirtier, it just seemed to me that if you were going to have production values this low and scripts this inane, you might as well be doing real porn. What's the point? I can't imagine anyone past the age of 14 willing to crank one out to what is boring, fake action.

That said, Ms. Brown/Mundae is a cutie-pie, but her presence in Sick Girl is somewhat troubling, simply for the fact that her appearance makes you slightly forget the comic-horrific buildup and wonder when the hell the gaygirl rubbing and disrobing is going to begin. Also, her character is endowed with an annoyingly fast voice, which I suppose comes from a misappropriated attempt at character development from an actress who is merely adequate at best. Or maybe she is just bad, sending her lines spinning into the universe without a care. Either way, it takes away from the movie's beginning, but once the red red red starts to flow, the movie once again centers itself. As for Bettis, who is a better and far more engaging actress, she too seems to play with her character a little too much, adopting a series of goofy variations in her voice from time to time that are also a tad annoying. The story itself doesn't work overall, but that's OK -- it's all meant to be goofy fun, and displays a unique attitude towards "alternate" family lifestyles, which is refreshing. (I actually liked this movie more before I started writing about it -- funny how that happens sometimes...)

The tenth and final episode that I watched was the one that I saved for last: Jenifer by Italian giallo master Dario Argento. Again, disappointment played a role as I waded through this one, but perhaps my expectations were far too high, because the film itself it a nice bit of wetworks that is genuinely creepy from the first frame onward. Steven Weber, late of Wings and currently of Studio 60: Live on the Sunset Strip, surprisingly wrote the screenplay (from a Bruce Jones short story), and its no wonder, since he gave himself a brace of sex scenes with the monstrously faced but hotly bodied title character. Weber's cop character soon sees his family life torn apart when he brings home Jenifer, who he believes he has rescued from a maniac intent on chopping her into little pieces -- but there is a reason for this -- her black eyes and savagely torn mouth betray her as the most savage looking of creatures, but there is something about her that draws men to her, where they no longer see the monster. Oh, yeah... it's the hot bod. Men are such easily led pigs. And cats, they are apparently delicious... Well worth the time, this one is, and Argento really delivers in the blood department. (Again, my opinion of this episode changed with the writing, this time for the better...)

The List:
Masters of Horror: Lucky McKee's Sick Girl (2005, DVD) - 6; Masters of Horror: Dario Argento's Jenifer (2005, DVD) - 7.

RRM #30: MASTERS OF HORROR, Pt. 2

So this is where it happens
The power games and bribes
All lobbying for a piece of ass
of the Stars and Stripes of Corruption - The Dead Kennedys

I would normally save the lefty vitriol for an anti-Bush screed of my own fevered devising, instead of spending it on a followup entry to my survey of the first-season DVDs of the Showtime series Masters of Horror. But, to my great surprise, the series veered into that direction on its own with the fifth story that I encounted, Homecoming, from the oddball master of comedic horror and science fiction, Joe Dante. Bush is indeed the barely mentioned president here and America during the current "Mission Accomplished" War in Iraq is definitely the background, but the rest of the real-life players in the conflict are draped in pseudonyms, most openly, Robert Picardo's supremely slimy turn as Kurt Rand, whose position, actions, look and attitude mark him clearly as Bush's Goebbels-like policy wonk and Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove. Another character recognizable from the real world is Thea Gill as Jane Cleaver, who is an appropriately sleazy stand-in for the freakish cokewhore-thin Republican mouthpiece, Ann Coulter. There are others parodied here as well, but the chief point of interest here for horror fans is that this is a zombie flick disguised as political satire. Or the other way around. Whichever way it is, I found it extremely enjoyable, with some satisfying (if somewhat illogical) resolutions for the characters on "the other team." A lot of it is Of course, they were preaching to the choir here, so take from that statement what you will.

I've read a few people online, who proclaim themselves to be "horror fans," who decry the use of space in this series for such a polemic. These are probably the sort of people who respond to these films on a purely visceral level, and indeed, many of them point out that they don't want politics or, hell, intellectual thought at all, to intrude in "their" genre. These are likely the type of people who enjoy without hesitation the vast array of "torture porn" (a term that I snagged from Chris Gore) that has hit the horror field over the last few years. They probably enjoy the endless remakes of 70's "classics," and I'm certain a good portion of them are shocked to find that there are older versions. These are also probably the type of people who can watch Romero flicks without understanding the political underpinnings at their core, or even care that there might be. Then again, these are probably the sort of people who dismiss the Romero "Dead" flicks because the zombies are just too, too slow-moving for them. So, maybe these people are only dismissing Dante's attack not so much for the fact that he dares to put politics into a horror film, but because these zombies happen to shuffle along at a stifling pace. (Oh, they also tend to not be of the brain-eating type, so except for a couple of scenes, the gore factor is shut down. There's another reason for you idiots to dismiss this episode.)

I cannot accept for one second the reasoning that the horror genre is only for being gross, disgusting and/or scary. Since its beginnings, the genre, especially in the literary realm, has actually been one of the richer arenas for political, sexual and topical discourse, and just because you haven't gotten your daily allotment of mindless gore is no reason to denigrate a noble attempt at bitchslapping a corrupt administration, that for too long, has gotten their way. For the anti-intellectuals in the audience, I'm sure there is another spate of crappy "bloody, scary, gory" films just around the corner, some of them most likely starring Paris Hilton, to which you may get your jerk on. And if you really dislike "thought" in your horror, what the fuck are you doing watching Masters of Horror, where even the most innocuous entries have something interesting to say about either the horror genre or life in our world or both.

Now, if you want more zombies, though they really aren't all that scary, you could watch Tobe Hooper's entry, Dance of the Dead. Only marginally successful, though its post-apocalyptic America barely hanging on to civilization is fairly well-rendered, especially given the scale the budget allows it to portray, Dance seems to be Hooper's attempt at sci-fi psychedelia. The visuals are rather effective for the bulk of its length, but the entire effort is undermined by Robert Englund, who, as the Grandpa Al-like M.C. of the danceclub where zombies are forced to dance for the crowd's entertainment via electric shock torture, is simultaneously great and annoying at the same time. When I say "undermined," I mean that Englund is far too "big" to serve the story. He pulls off the role just dandy, but his presence is so strong he pulls us away from the main characters to the point that we no longer care about their story. (Also, the creepy sight of Englund running his icky tongue up the body of a naked clubgirl is certainly far more shocking than anything else they could have sprung on us.) This could also be the fault of the screenplay (by Richard Christian Matheson from a short story by his incredible father), but the whole thing seems to build to very little. The visuals, the action, the epic setting... they all seem to cry for a greater, more impactful resolution, and it all fritters away to... blah. Still worth seeing, however.

Mick Garris may have created the Masters of Horror series, but his entry in the inaugural season, Chocolate, is my least favorite episode thus far. Not that the concept, that of a man who starts to have his life interrupted wildly by his own intrusions into the mind and body of another person, that of a woman nonetheless, isn't intriguing, and I was very pleased to see Henry Thomas (E.T.'s little buddy, Elliott) in an extremely adult role. But the wrap-around is weakly managed and the main plot just doesn't pay off for me. Also, he is supposed to be entranced by this woman's paintings and talent, but they are, to put it mildly, absolute crap. Besides, the girl he is boning before he starts all this nonsense is far hotter than the one that he pursues. There is, though, the jaw-dropping scene of Thomas having to portray himself feeling the sensations as the woman being penetrated sexually by her boyfriend. And to think that E.T. could have simply pointed with his finger to do that...

Finally, there is Incident On and Off a Mountain Road, directed by Don Coscarelli, who brought us the Phantasm series, Beast-Master and Bubba-Ho-Tep, and from a story by Bubba-Ho-Tep scribe Joe Lansdale. More than just a slasher story, this one interested me the most out of the batch, due simply to Coscarelli's success with his previous attempt of Lansdale's material, which, like Matheson's story, I had read years before. This neatly turns the tables on the whole woman-in-peril genre, with former teen idol Ethan Embry turning in a dastardly though bumpy performance as the survivalist husband of Bree Turner, who is basically cajoled and abused into a form of vengeful feminism. This could be sad news for the serial killer known as Moonface (who I believe used to moonlight in McDonald's commercials about 20 years ago...), who just so happens to run into the girl while pursuing his latest victim across the titular mountain road. Two problems with what is actually a twist-filled and surprisingly energizing slasher romp: 1) because of various signifiers, the ending is never in doubt, and I feel the piece would be a little better if it were, and 2) Moonface is too cartoonish to make the film totally successful. Because of his monstrous appearance, he becomes almost, even without speaking, like a latter-day Freddy, where his just being there is supposed to be frightening. The problem with that is Moonface hasn't even earned this feeling. (Perhaps if he had a series of films to botch this up it might be forgivable.) Besides, for the lead character's turn to work the way that it should, shouldn't her adversary be less of a cypher? At no point does Moonface really betray any recognition of the assbeating he is about to receive. On the bonus side, Angus Scrimm (you know, the freakin' Tall Man? Ya betta recognize...) pops up in a fun and very different role. The piece ends up being good, though, not as great as I hoped it might.

(To be continued in Pt. 3)

The List:
Masters of Horror: Joe Dante's Homecoming (2005, DVD) - 7; Masters of Horror: Tobe Hooper's Dance of the Dead (2005, DVD) - 6; Masters of Horror: Don Coscarelli's Incident On and Off A Mountain Road (2005, DVD) - 6; Masters of Horror: Chocolate (2005, DVD) - 5.

RRM #29: MASTERS OF HORROR, Pt. 1

I no longer have any premium channels on my cable selection. The reason? Sure, if you get HBO or Showtime, you not only get tons of movies but also some quality original series, but my problem was with paying the extra for these channels, but never having the time to actually watch any of them. I loved Deadwood and The Sopranos, but I came to the realization that it just wasn't worth it, especially when I found out that in order to purchase the DVD sets of these series, I need to put half the gross national product of Luxembourg and sign away my firstborn (no problem there) just to get one season of the shows. (HBO highly overcharges for their series, much like Fox did at first, i.e. the exhorbitant amount you initially had to pay for each season of The X-Files -- my collection pretty much stopped after the second season, and I was a hardcore fan through to the end. Now that they have reduced the prices for the extinct series, I might go back and grab at least the new two or three seasons.)

Suffice to say, I cut out the HBO, figuring that the money I would save on a channel I only watched for a couple of shows (the movies are mostly unletterboxed anyway, and I have a NetFlix subscription), I could put towards actually owning Deadwood, as opposed to staring at it longingly through the glass at Suncoast.

As a result of this premium channel boycott, I had not seen the relatively new (now in its second season) Showtime series Masters of Horror, which from its description would seem to be exactly the sort of show that I would call up my cable outlet to have added to my already monstrous bill. Classic horror directors (well, most of them anyway) creating one-hour movies from scripts often culled from classic horror collections or developed by the directors or by horror-aligned screenwriters. Argento, Hooper, Landis, Carpenter -- you know the roll call. Oh, yes... and some upstarts, too, like Lucky McKee and Takashi Miike, which would seem to keep some of the old farts on their toes.

Even before getting to the quality of the series, let's talk a bit more about overpricing. Instead of releasing these episodes (13 to a season, natch...) as a set, each one, owing to the popularity of the directors involved, has been released individually. That's one hour of television for a list price of $16.98. Grabbing them on Amazon will afford them to you for $9.97 apiece discounted. With shipping, that's still well over a ten-spot for slightly less than, in most cases, sixty minutes of entertainment (not counting the extras). You can be the judge on whether that is worth it to you, but I have a NetFlix subscription and the ability to rent them four at a shot. I can weed through them and find the ones that might be worth owning someday. And, because we are in the holiday season, and also because I had been putting this series off for a few months, I naturally put a host of these episodes on the top of my queue.

Despite the names involved, I was still hesitant in approaching some of the episodes, especially given that many of the "Masters of Horror" have generally moved well out of their prime. So, to not only find that the level of quality is extraordinarily high in the series, but that John Carpenter and John Landis, two of my favorites in my youth, have pulled off some of their best work in years, was the most pleasant of surprises. I watched the episodes in ascending order of interest, and because Carpenter had disappointed me so much over the past decade, I started with his entry, Cigarette Burns. The premise, that of a theatre owner who tries to gain capital by pursuing a legendarily evil film on the black market for a shady millionaire (played with reptilian elan by the incomparable Udo Kier), seemed to be the set-up for a bad noir tribute, possibly The Maltese Falcon with a can of film, but the actual result turned far blacker and nasty than I expected, approaching a Lovecraftian malevolence in its payoff scenes. It's the sort of fire that I haven't seen from Carpenter in a long while (though its quite obvious from the score that his composer son is following in his dad's cheesy synth footsteps). In fact, it may be the best thing he has directed since his initial heyday.

Also showing some spirit is Landis, bringing his trademark American Werewolf in London black humor to the fore for a crack at a Native American mythic figure, Deer Woman. Co-written with his son, Landis' script sports some characters with wonderfully lived-in textures (and only hinted at backstories), as if this were part of an ongoing series of its own. Brian Benben's not-so-Holmesian imagining of the possible theories surrounding the murder that starts the story is priceless enough to have to be seen. Deliciously gory but never actually frightening by any means, this almost comes off the way that I wished the new Night Stalker had been: a bloody, wacky time. (Oh, yeah... and for the more prurient-minded, such as myself, Deer Woman is freakin' hot... hooves and all...)

After the relative successes of the first two discs, I was wholly unprepared for the mild disappointment I received while watching Re-Animator director Stuart Gordon's Dreams in the Witch-House, itself also adapted from a festeringly creepy vision by H.P. Lovecraft. It's hard for me to put a finger on why it didn't quite work for me -- perhaps the bad job on recreating the "rat-face" character that haunts the denizens of the ancient house, or perhaps a couple of miscast actors, or perhaps it was the feeling of Gordon going one too many times to the H.P.L. well. While the episode isn't bad at all -- in fact, it's actually well-done despite the above demerits -- but after viewing the first two discs directly before this one, this one left me wanting something a little more from Gordon, especially given what his Lovecraft obsession has driven him to create before. Call it the Curse of the Re-Animator.

There has seemingly been much ado over the bizarre Japanese shockmeister Takishi Miike's entry in the series, Imprint, to the point where even Showtime wouldn't show it in its uncut form. Could it be that his potent combination of prostitution, S&M, pissing, torture, and aborted fetuses just might upset our more puritanical, though hypocritical, bedrock of American society? Nah, couldn't be... I believe that its problems rose merely from the horrid casting of Billy Drago in the main role. Drago was smooth as the villainous John Bly in Brisco County Jr., and was creepily swell in the Frank Nitti role in De Palma's The Untouchables a zillion years ago, but his character in Imprint calls for an actor of a far more sympathetic mein than Drago can muster, especially given his haphazardly over-the-top line renderings in moments where a little more subtlety should have been called upon in the acting department. That he sidesteps this process hurts the surrounding story, and undercuts some of the shock in the scenes to come, where underplaying would have served them better. Drago has his place, but its not in a role like this. It also doesn't help that Miike resorts to having his Japanese actors speaking English, and quite bumpily, when subtitles would have actually added immeasurably to the piece. I said "some" of the shock is undercut by all these mistakes, but not all, and Miike goes to town here with some of his trademarked straight-from-hell savagery. Outside of the relatively staid Chakushin Ari [One Missed Call] (which I adore) and the brilliant Ôdishon [Audition], my reaction to most of the Miike films that I have seen has generally been, "What an asshole," but then I find myself thinking about them for days and slowly building an appreciation for his mindfuck weirdness. Same story here... much like Ichi the Killer, the immediate result was that I wanted to snap the disc in half, but then I couldn't get the goddamn thing out of my mind. Maybe it's not your barrel of sake, but it's for a feeling like this that I even go to the movies in the first place. You know, that happy feeling of needles being jabbed underneath your gumline...

The List:
Masters of Horror: John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns (2005, DVD) - 7; Masters of Horror: John Landis' Deer Woman (2005, DVD) - 6; Masters of Horror: Stuart Gordon's Dreams in the Witch-House (2005, DVD) - 5; Masters of Horror: Takishi Miike's Imprint (2005, DVD) - 7.

HOLLYWOOD BULL-EVARD (AT LAST...)

If you paid $21 bucks a shot to sit inside a historical landmark theatre to watch a new 3-D version of a deservedly popular and brilliantly animated classic, one could be led to believe that you were there with a sense of purpose. After all, you have to negotiate traffic in Los Angeles in some form or another to reach the theatre (more on that in a bit), and once you reach Hollywood Boulevard, you have to make your slow, monotonous way down the street to even reach the theatre, let alone find parking. Unless you are a tourist from parts unknown who has just decided to take in a film, chances are that you have arrived at this particular theatre with a sincere desire to see this film in this scenario, especially given the fact that this 3-D re-release is showing nationwide in, at least, hundreds of theatres.

The movie is Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, originally released in 1993, and yes, we could have seen the new 3-D version at any number of theatres closer to our home. But, because this is one of my favorite films, and because Jen rocks to the Nth degree, she purchased reserved tickets to see the film in the El Capitan Theatre, a historical landmark building which was revitalized in conjunction with the Disney Company and reopened in 1991. Currently a first-run theatre for Disney films, the El Capitan initially opened in 1926, and of great personal interest to me, the world premiere of Citizen Kane occured there in 1941. Next door to the theatre is a Disney-run soda fountain and souvenir store, and the whole thing sits across the street from the Kodak Theatre, home of the Oscars, and down a bit from Grauman's Chinese.

As I stated yesterday just before I left for this adventure, it is amazing to me that we had yet to make this sojourn into Hollywood. We had been to Beverly Hills for a television taping, but for two people so steeped in movie arcana that we can see the names of Monty Woolley or Pola Negri on a slab of concrete and know exactly who they are, you'd think this would be the first place we would go. But going into L.A. is not a thing that you want to do everyday unless you are being paid a great deal of money to do so. Plus, conflicting schedules for off hours have also conspired against us, as has a severe deficiency in the amount of traveling pals arriving in this area to influence us into visiting the more touristy areas.

So, yesterday was the time and Hollywood Boulevard was the place. The initial feeling is that the street is an unbelievable dive, but for the two block area where the aforementioned theatres rest, the place has essentially been scrubbed up with some of the cleansing philosophy behind Disney's rerigging of Times Square. But, on the way, one passes an innumerable chain of tattoo parlors, bars, suspect eateries and lingerie/porn shops before getting to the touristy chocolate center. Since our "45 minute" drive turned into the usual two hours of tedious crawling, we ended up parking and then dashing to the theatre just in time to take our seats for the curtain rising. Our reserved tickets, with which we were to be given free popcorn and a soda, allowed each of us to acquire a souvenir bucket with a Nightmare wrap full of crunchy blandness (though we were starving by this point, so it was appreciated) and a plethora of crappy Pepsi products from which to choose. (We are decidedly of the Coke fringe.) Again, thirst was an issue, so we made the best of it, Jen choosing a bottle of lemonade and I a generic Pepsi. (Did I mention that our VIP pass did not gain us iced beverages, merely refrigerated bottles?)

Our seats were in the balcony, but I barely noticed the journey to the seats as my gaze was averted by the beauty of the decor in the palace, gilt and golden in a mock Indian-style, with the side boxes filled in with a pair of elaborate Nightmare-inspired diorama. A costumed figure at the organ in front of the stage played This is Halloween to the delight of the patronage, and it is no exaggeration to say that every seat in the house was filled by the time of the curtain's rising, which was mere seconds away. A special short introduction to Disney 3-D allowed everyone time to get their glasses in place, which, sadly, were not marked for the event in any way except on the plastic bag in which they were handed out. (It would have been cool for the name of the flick to appear on one of the arms or some such place, but, oh well...) Before the film proper could proceed, the audience was treated to a 3-D rendition of Pixar's Knick Knack, a charming and light concoction about a globe-bound snowman's battle to free himself for the love of a lovely lady knick-knack sunbather. It's success as a 3-D trifle even made Jen wonder aloud if it was originally shot in 3-D, so sumptuous was some of the action.

Nightmare, on the other hand, as a 3-D subject, only succeeded partially. Its rendering into the format only pointed out how obviously it was not intended for 3-D. This is not to say that it detracted from the film at all -- it didn't -- but it is quite clear from the staging in most of the scenes how 3-D effects were the furthest thing from Henry Selick's and Tim Burton's minds. Things that would naturally pop out at the audience in the course of a planned 3-D film (and there are potentially a great many of these moments in Nightmare) tend to veer off to the side or disappear without fulfilling the promise they could have had in the format. That said, many scenes were definitely given a Viewmastery richness and deepness that the previous version lacked, though again, the effect is merely fleeting and trivial. But the experience was special enough for me to thank Jen deeply for this finally fulfilled portion of my birthday booty.

But what of the audience surrounding us? Why were they there. From the floor below, I could laughter and joy from the obviously enraptured crowd, but somehow, in a special reserved VIP section of the balcony, where people paid extra money to sit, we somehow ended up with people who really didn't seem to want to be there. To my left was a family of four, or what seemed to be a family of four, who chatted amongst themselves for the entire film. If you are going to pay over 80 dollars to see a film, and especially a musical at that, don't you think that you would like to friggin' hear the goddamn film? These people were talking like they were in the crowd for the matinee-priced showing of the latest Hilary Duff crapfest (and the father clearly was out of his element, being twitchy and not overly concerned with events upon the screen). But, at least the Chatty Family were keeping fairly quiet and to themselves despite their slight transgression upon my ears. The teenybopper girls next to Jen were not so quiet -- she said they seemed to be there for a birthday party -- and the girl directly to her right apparently had zero interest in the movie, being there only because her friends were. She kept trying to convince herself that she was having a good time, and vocally, by repeating the mantra of "That's funny" over and over every time something that was quite obviously funny to the rest of the crowd was speaking on the screen.

Jen and I knew why we there, but what about these people? WHY is it that some people can't fucking shut up during a goddamn movie? It's bad enough the world has been taken over by people who just have to talk on their phones in the middle of a film, and will get up and shuffle past you, sometimes forcing you to get up during the course of action on the screen (and this is them being polite and considerate of their phone behavior -- some of them just sit squarely in their seat and chat). But since when did the movie theatre become everybody's goddamn living room? I'm OK with genuine reaction to the film, such as a scream from an onscreen jolt or an innocent child's goofy questioning of the movie, but that's just about it. Perhaps we should be less concerned with math scores in this country, and a little more concerned with fucking etiquette.

Enough ranting, though... the remainder of our evening was spent first by determining whether or not it was worth it to wait for a seat in the Disney Soda Fountain (we decided against it, though we will do it next time) and whether we should see another film while we were on the boulevard (again, we decided against it). As we left the theatre, a girl asked us if we wanted a free poster, and I said "No" when I noticed it was for The Santa Clause 3. As I passed her, I saw that the other side was actually a special poster for the event we were leaving, so luckily Jen grabbed one. We loped down to Grauman's to take a long, nostalgic glimpse at the concrete autographs, and then took some time to goof on the horrible costumes of the character-draped street people who hornswoggle tourists out of money for bad pictures. (Jen said the Spider-Man guy obviously had read the primer on "How to Stand Like a Super-Hero", but the effect was that he just looked like a creepy ponce in long underwear.)

Some tall weird guy in a lot of multi-zippered leather, who may have been in costume but we weren't really sure, grabbed Jen by the chin and made a quick kiss-kiss noise before walking off through the crowd. Since he was standing near Pinhead, I wasn't sure whether he was trying badly to be a Cenobite, or was just some perv in multi-zippered leather. (Probably the latter.) We were incredibly hungry, but the food court options didn't appeal to us in the mall area (plus, the lines were all at least twenty people deep, and the couple that weren't, well, we worried about "why" they weren't twenty people deep.) On our way back to the car, we had to exit back through the Kodak Theatre entrance, so we took some time to check out where we would be attending the Oscars in a couple of years (heh...) and then split.

The car ride back? We left at seven and arrived 2 1/2 hours later near our home, famished and thirsty and wondering where all the goddamn traffic had come from on a Saturday night. We had rolled along at ten miles an hour for well over half that time, and it is no surprise that the food we picked up before hitting the homestead was gone in no time, some of it well before home. The experience? Despite the adversity of the traffic both ways, the talking girl and the family, the ungainly welding of film techniques, and the lack of food for half the day (luckily, I had fasted for over 18 hours the day previous), I still had a ball the entire way. It's called adventure, and even with all the bumps in the road, I wouldn't have it any other way.

One question, and this one is on behalf of Jen --- Disneyland carries Coke and the Soda Fountain right next door to the El Capitan is a Coke place. So, why does the El Capitan Theatre, owned by friggin' Disney, only stock Pepsi?

Crap, now I want my money back -- and I didn't even spend any...

I AM BEING "THAT GUY"...

Yes, I will be wearing the shirt of the movie that I am going to see...

Much like Fallon wearing chainmail to the comic book shop or to The Lord of the Rings or, hell, to the grocery store or the Port-O-San, I am geeking out this afternoon. As the final link in my annual birthday-chain, which causes my once wholly unmemorable date of birth (now made famous by some "terrorist attack" that made a couple of buildings disappear -- perhaps you have heard of this...) to be extended to the point where my last present plays out, I will be attending a showing of the new 3-D version of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas this afternoon. The place will be the famous El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, and Jen and I will be making the drive to L.A. in about an hour of so to get our "reserved" seats for the event. We are also planning to take in some of that special Hollywood atmosphere -- you know, heroin addicts and tranny hobags. Actually, except for attending a showing of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, we have yet to really do anything Hollywood-oriented since moving to the area, which is incredibly strange if you know anything about either one of us.

So, today is the day, and I'd be hard-pressed to say that I haven't wrestled incredibly hard with whether or not I should wear one of the awesome Jack Skellington shirts that Jen has heaped upon me over the last six years. I just don't want to be that guy. (Bless Jeremy Piven for PCU.) But, I reasoned, I wear these shirts when I go to Disneyland and ride the Haunted Mansion, so why wouldn't I wear it to a special release of the movie? Wearing the shirt of the band you are seeing is certainly egregious, but a club atmosphere is all about cool. Even if everyone there is a drunken, sweaty Neanderthal, the point is to imagine that you at least give off the appearance of cool. Not so at the movies... the theatre experience itself is a petri dish of geekiness, where trivial recall is the very font of genius, and if one wishes to display one's preference for worshipful attire, so much the better. Besides, I am only wearing a silk shirt with Jack Skellington buttons and the image of the Haunted Holiday Mansion emblazoned on the back -- very tasteful as far as this kind of stuff goes. It's not like I am going in makeup as the Pumpkin King...

...not like I did two Halloweens ago...

So, yes, I have broken down, and I am being that guy...

Happy Birthday to Me.

RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #28: GOJIRA

True to form, I am spending every spare moment (which would be those where I am either not with Jen or engaging in writing projects) making my way through a monstrous stack of DVDs and an equally impressive lineup of flicks on my DVR. Many of these saved films came from a surprising source: The Sundance Channel, where a late night program of Japanese, Korean and Hong Kong horror movies, titled in typical "hip" marketing style as Asia Extreme, has provided me with a most interesting though slightly disturbing look into another world. My discovery of the show is mere timely fortuitousness; I can get any of these movies easily enough through Netflix, but since I am only registered to rent four titles at once, this means it takes a bit to get near certain titles on my list. The Korean titles are definitely the ones with which I am having the most trouble philosophically, particularly where the rights of prostitutes and the abandonment of teenage daughters who stumble into prostitution are concerned. These film make the Koreans seem about as obsessed with women of easy virtue as the Japanese seem to be with wig-bedecked girl ghosts and kaiju-suited union actors. I know its most likely not the case, but it is very easy to type a culture from the films that make it across their borders. I know that there has been a flood of Korean films lately that aren't of the horror or prostitute-torture-and-rape genre, and some that have been praised to a high degree, and I look forward to seeing what else the country has to offer in the way of cinema. I am certain much of it is very rich and expansive in tone and deserving of a deeper peek. Eventually, I may reach these films in my queue.

But not until well after October. This month, as always, consists of a concentration of matters macabre, and this effort will be aided by the arrival of a couple of prime DVD releases, of which I shall post more information in the next couple days once I actually view the damned things. Of prime importance to me, though, has been the release to DVD about a fortnight ago of the original Japanese version of the first official kaiju flick, which was redubbed and recut with additional Raymond Burr footage into an haphazard amalgamation known as Godzilla, King of the Monsters. While I have seen the Americanized version about three dozen times throughout my life, the Japanese version titled Gojira, which features a half-hour of previously unseen footage (at least, unseen in this deprived country) has eluded me to this point.

Watching the real film for the first time was an incredible revelation. Unlike the multitude of ever-cheesier (though fun) followups, the original film was filmed in black and white, and features a philosophical viewpoint nearly as dark as the film's atmosphere. Deftly filmed and remarkably subtle shots of the monster's footprints left in its aftermath help serve up a ever-growing sense of doom until the monster finally appears, and with each subsequent appearance of the creature, the ferocity of its attacks grow ever more intense, until Tokyo is left looking like Hiroshima after the A-bomb. This is precisely the point. That Gojira is revived by hydrogen bomb testing (and by the Americans no less, though the filmmakers seem to hold a complacent Japanese populace largely to blame as well) is a dramatic stab at guerrilla politics that allows this superior effort to rise at least the size of three Gojiras above the rest of the kaiju pack.

And while, surprisingly, I am not really a fan of DVD commentaries, except in very rare instances, the spate of information provided by the pair of Godzilla fanboys on the extra track is actually unbelievably rich in detail and depth. Additionally, while you don't want to do the whole cover-judging cliche, this DVD comes wrapped in what I consider to be one of the most attractive package designs that I have seen thus far for a DVD. Since it displays merely the grimacing image of a monstrous black-and-white Godzilla, this is no small feat. An additional bonus is that two more Godzilla films, the rushed sequel Godzilla Raids Again and the quite enjoyable monster mash Mothra Vs. Godzilla are being released in the same pristine format in about three weeks. Part of the Toho Master Collection, the DVDs, like Gojira, will feature both the Japanese and American release versions of the films and will have commentaries, likely from the same two overly informed geeks. Outside of seeing the original films in their theatrical heyday, has there ever been a better time to be a Godzilla freak?

Oh, and, if you haven't, go see The Illusionist. A film this delightful needs an audience.

The List: The Illusionist (2006) - 8; Crank (2006) - 5; Huo Yuan Jia [Jet Li's Fearless] (2006) - 7; Murders In the Rue Morgue (1932, TCM) - 6; Honogurai mizu no sok [Dark Water (2002, Sundance) - 7; Nabbeun namja [Bad Guy] (2001, Sundance) - 6; Samaria (Samaritan Girl) (2004, Sundance) - 6; Gojira (1954, DVD) - 7; Ju-On (2000, DVD) - 7; Dr. Cyclops (1940, TCM) - 6; Kyuketsuki Gokemidoro [Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell] (1968, TCM) - 7; Paycheck (2003, DVD) - 5; Un Flic (1971, DVD) - 8; Finding Neverland (2004, DVD) - 7; Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha (1999, DVD) - 6; Shogun Assassin (1980, DVD) - 7.

Sharks Gotta Swim, and I Gotta Blog...

Hey! Here's a great idea! Get your health back and then wear yourself back down by creating so many blogs that you couldn't possible keep them current!

Not convinced sufficiently that I actually need any sleep or rest, what do I decide to do once I begin writing again regularly? I started a third blog! The trick this time, though, will be to not post on them every single day, which was the case on the still-under-personal-suspension Cinema 4 Cel Bloc. (Really, the main problem there was not the frequency, but the insane lengths of certain posts. It will return, though, in some form in the future, possibly a weekly.) This new blog is not meant to be a daily; again, weekly posting is more the idea, and the emphasis is on the specific characteristics of a certain type of movie:

THE SHARK FILM OFFICE has its hook set squarely for sharks of all sizes, though the first entry is for a tidbit that most fishermen would have thrown back. But not this hardy veteran of the waves! No... I reel them all in! (Get it... shark movies? Reel them in? Ah, forget it...)

With my mind clearly set on cataloguing as many cinematic references to sharks, or appearances by sharks, or films actually starring sharks as possible, I have chosen to start with the first instance that crossed my path: a rather slight dialogue reference in the 1994 movie Sirens, otherwise known merely for the rampant display of Australian hottie nudity in front of a rather flustered (is he any other way?) clergyman played by Hugh Grant. The shark bit is quite a quick mention, but a nicely gruesome one, quoted by a pre-fame Portia de Rossi. (Whether her fame which followed the pre-fame is geared more towards being a supporting star on Ally McBeal, co-starring on Arrested Development, or her offscreen sexual conquests of the distaff variety I leave entirely up to you...)

The purpose of all of my blogs is to have some fun with movies as I cross paths with them. The best part, such as with Sirens, is in running smack into the side of a reference and then slowly realizing that this is exactly the sort of thing for which I have been seeking. Sometimes, there may be a lot of posts, sometimes few; it all depends on what I happen upon in my travels.

I have plans for a couple of other variants, but for the time being, until I get this new one off the ground, the others will have to wait. Until then, keep swimming past the open portholes...

http://sharkfilmoffice.blogspot.com/

RTJ

THE LIST ON THE SIDEBAR

So, I hop onto Blogger on Sunday morning, and I get this invite to jump my blog over to Blogger Beta, a new test version of the software that comes fortified with all manner of bells and whistles and 7 essential vitamins and minerals. Since I haven't had any cereal yet that morning, I flung myself at the opportunity, mainly out of sheer ennui and the promising prospect of being able to easier maintain the sidebar lists and fonts and colors.

Of course, I could easily do all this in HTML, but that would mean "work", i.e. tediousness and mucho copying and pasting of code. As a result, I had put off anything along the lines of a list of favorite movies, and had settled lazily for the minute amount of space that the Blogger profile allows you for maintaining such a list. My profile list tended to cut off after about movie #18, no matter how much I cut out articles and punctuation... infuriating it was, indeed.

But, no longer! At last, I can easily put up a list of my favorite or most influential movies in my lounge-filling life as an industrious time-waster. The problem? Where to begin, and where to end? What do I place on the sidebar list? What merits the most attention? Certainly, I start with what I pretty much have insisted is the truth: that King Kong is my favorite film of all time. Not the best film of all time; just my favorite: the one that has had the most impact in my existence, pro or con. The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Kane and Duck Soup closely follow, but where now?

I can't just put up every classic film that I have seen or appreciated. No, for the most part, these have to be films that I keep returning to, whether I intend to or not. The ones that I pop in when I need a pick-me-up or when I need some soothing relief from the world outside. This return can also be exhibited in how much some of these films inhabit my head; there are few films that I can go through without a visual cue or snatch of dialogue from one of these films superceding the images that I am watching freshly on the scene.

Most importantly, this is my canon. Not the canon of film; though a great many of these films may fall onto that "list", just as many of them don't. My intent here is not to say "These are the greatest films of all time!" and then pass the tablets on to Moses (though if I had, there would have at least been a commandment about "Thou shall not wing cigarette butts from moving cars"; "he's" "God", "he" should have been able to foresee the whole cars-and-smoking scenario... reprehensible habit brought about by selfish and willfully self-destructive ignorance meets environmental shoulder-shrugging and aesthetic torture.) No, these are simply, for lack of a better term, "My favorite films". Of course, I don't call the list that; such an act would limit the list, and the list needs to have a little more life to it than that tag. I found it can best be summed up by the title "Leave Me Alone! I Have to Watch These Again... and Again... and Again... and Again..." It's probably the closest to the truth.

I was originally going to declare a 5-year moratorium on recent films, for the simple fact that often one gets caught up in cycles or viewing trends and obsess on certain themes or current directors and stars. Sometimes, one gets too anxious to flaunt their "latest discovery" and jam it down the world's throat. I have done this on many occasions myself (Damien or Bubba, I am sure, will bring up, ad nauseum, the Motorama debacle). I remember particularly an incident back in the early 80's, which took place after my first purchase of a certain video, and my rampant desire to have everyone in my clique see this great movie which had taken over my world. There is still a group of about ten people who have never forgiven me for placing Eraserhead before their eyes. That this movie is on my list will tell you what I think of their shortsightedness, but they are all still my friends, and I respect their right to be blazingly incorrect. Dopes...

I eventually tossed out the idea of a moratorium and forged ahead with a decree that I may place films of recent vintage, but only when their influence on me has begun to shape the way that I approach films as a whole. Thus, Brick, which is probably the film that is both my favorite film within the last 12 months and also the film that I most regret not seeing in a theater, ends up on the list; likewise, Sin City gets on there, too, and the list is able to reflect some of my current tastes, but with immense restrictions on placement.

The other battle that I have encountered with myself is the level of influence. Certainly, a schlock film like The Monster That Challenged the World doesn't pop up on most people's favorite movie lists, but it's on mine; not for quality or brilliance, mind you -- it's merely OK -- but for the fact that the film was seen as a teenager in a group of films on a certain afternoon movie block, and helped engender a profound shift in my viewing habits. That I can still watch the film today (I do own it on DVD) and enjoy it is the key factor to its inclusion. Other films that I saw early in life that I once felt held huge influence over me did not make the list, however: Doctor Dolittle, which was one of the first films I saw as a toddler, may have held sway over me for a handful of years (even to the point where I wanted to become a veterinarian), but its power disappeared as I matured, and watching the film today is nearly impossible for me, especially after I read the real Dolittle books in elementary school and realized the filmmakers had it all wrong. (The Eddie Murphy versions? Don't even get me started on that crap. Hopefully, someone will come along some day and do the books justice. They will have to cut down on the time-period minor racisms, though...)

So, the list is fluid and ever-changing. At some point, I may grow disenchanted with a film and remove it; I also reserve the right to promote films if I perceive within myself a shift towards enlightenment towards it. And the most important factor is that I have put this list together over the last week, and it is still growing. If you read it and are shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that I left off a certain flick when you know full well that I love that film, then send me a comment or email, and I will either add it or post my reasons for not including it. Perhaps I will add it, perhaps not. The list grows as I think it up. As I stated before, I have never really had a list like this, so I am winging it. Much like a smoker in a Versa with a spent cigarette on I-5: I reserve the right to fling my garbage wherever I like...

RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #27

Too much time has passed, too many movies have piled up, and I'm too far behind to carry forward as I had planned originally. The Texas story, the subsequent depression, the illness and the injury will have to be put aside as I am longing to get back where I was; I fear that if I linger any longer than this paragraph and the next on such matters, then I will get stuck in that state interminably.

So, it is onward and upward. The depression has been met and declared a silly thing, the cough is still fighting my lungs and the leg is slowly, ever slowly healing (I hope - it does feel far better over the last few days than it had), and my back is around 95% at the moment. Being able to type for endless hours again -- and not just at my place of employment -- well, I never knew how much I would miss it.

"And now I'm back/to show you/I can really shake it down..."

In time for the greatest month in the history of months (that would October, you numbskulls), I am ready to hit the comeback trail. To do so, though, I must do a little clearance sale of the ratings for all the films that I have been watching while out of commission. So, I will start off with a handful of Recently Rated Movies entries to get the ball ricocheting. As a result, films that I saw a couple of months ago are just showing up on them, like the mildly disappointing but still fun Clerks II. It's not that the film was bad in any respect; it's just immensely hard to follow up a film that I have seen about fifty times (including an actual first release viewing in an "arthouse"-style theatre) and have generally memorized deep in the nooks and crannies of the cranium. A handful of terrific lines, as is the norm in a Kevin Smith film, and it actually is fun to hang out with Randal and Dante again (in order of preference), even if they are older and sadder, but not necessarily wiser.

Speaking of older and wiser, a delirious hangup on a Woody Guthrie/Billy Bragg tune from Mermaid Avenue (the first volume, that is) had me jumping at the chance to watch Ingrid Bergman wander about the island of Stromboli in the film of the same name. I will consider it a lesson learned. Heartfelt passion for a film idol can lead a man down some strange paths. Woody Guthrie dreamt up a lustful fantasy lyric; Billy whipped up a belated, singsongy-smart melody. I ended up watching one of the most boring films in existence. (Not uninteresting, but soul-wrenchingly boring.) At least Isabella Rossellini eventually crawled out of the smoke of that volcano, so it's not a total loss. I'm sure some huge auteurist suckoff will leap to Roberto's defense, throwing up the "island as character" smokescreen, and that's fine. Go live there if you're so sweet on it.

What? No takers?

The List:
Clerks II (2006) - 6; Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) - 6; Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic (2005, DVD) - 6; Dog Soldiers (2002, DVD) - 7; 9 Songs (2004, DVD) - 5; Fall of the Roman Empire (1964, TCM) - 7; Attack of the Sabretooth (2005, Sci-Fi) - 2; Bamboozled (2000, DVD) - 7; Fearless Freaks (2005, IFC) - 8; Ercole sfida Sansone [Hercules, Samson and Ulysses] (1963, TCM) - 4; The Black Rose (1950, FOX) - 5; Stromboli (1948, TCM) - 5.

RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #26

The List:
Tou tiao hao han [Fearless Fighters] (1971, FLIX) - 6; Cellular (2004, DVD) - 5; The Forgotten (2004, DVD) - 6; Female Trouble (1974, IFC) - 7; Pon [Phone] (2002, Sundance) - 7; Stagecoach (1939, TCM) - 9; Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep (2006, Sci-Fi) - 4; The Clairvoyant [The Evil Mind] (1934, TCM) - 7; Wonderland (2003, IFC) - 6; Tommy (1975, FLIX) - 5; That'll Be the Day (1973, FLIX) - 6.

RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #25

The List:
Spaceballs (1987, TCM) - 6; Die Tausend Augen des Dr. Mabuse [The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse] (1960, DVD) - 6; Pop Gear (1965, FLIX) - 5; Sasquatch [aka The Untold] (2002, Sci-Fi) - 4; Sasquatch Mountain (2006, Sci-Fi) - 5; Sasquatch Hunters (2005, Sci-Fi) - 3; Ripley's Game (2002, IFC) - 7; The Last Unicorn (1982, FLIX) - 6; Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965, FLIX) - 4; Godzilla (1998, FLIX) - 4; Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974, FLIX) - 7; Watership Down (1978, FLIX) - 8; Gamera daikaijû kuchu kessen [Gamera, Defender of the Universe] (1995, FLIX) - 6.

RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #24

The List:
Just Imagine (1930, FMC) - 5; Aru kengo no shogai [Samurai Saga] (1959, IFC) - 6; Ibun Sarutobi Sasuke [Samurai Spy] (1965, IFC) - 6; Brick (2005, DVD) - 8; Inside Man (2006, DVD) - 7; The Mask of Zorro (1998, DVD) - 7; Jisatsu Saakuru [Suicide Club] (2002, DVD) - 5; Snakes on a Plane (2006) - 6; H (2002, Sundance) - 6; Jôi-uchi: Hairyô tsuma shimatsu [Samurai Rebellion] (1967, IFC) - 8; 24 Hour Party People (2002, IFC) - 7; Hostel - 6.

RECENTLY RATED MOVIES #23

The List:
Into the Night (1985, Showtime) - 6; Sora no daikaijû Radon [Rodan] (1956, AMC) - 6; Monster (2003, IFC) - 7; Office Space (1999, IFC) - 7; Trapeze (1956, TCM) - 6; Elephant (2003, DVD) - 7; Spider Baby, or The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968, DVD) - 6; The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977, FMC) - 6; Pretty Dead Girl: A Musical Necromance (2004, IFC, short) - 6; Caché (2005, DVD) - 7; The New World (2005, DVD) - 6.