The Headless Horseman Does Ride Indeed...!

Pics of the truly haunting appearances of Headless Horseman preceding the parade at Mickey's Halloween Party on Wednesday night, October 26, 2016 at Disneyland...

More on our night at Mickey's Halloween Party later this weekend...

RTJ

Return to the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror...

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (aka "It Ain't the Tower of Puppies and Bunnies") at Disney's California Adventure is still going strong (at least for a little while). Yeah, there is scaffolding up around the structure here and there, and it is clear that Disney is more than anxious to start making changes to the place to turn it into a Guardians of the Galaxy attraction. I am not against a new attraction going in at all – sometimes you need to mix things up a bit to keep people interested in the park – but I am going to miss the Tower of Terror.

While I have been on it several dozen times, it is still clear to me that I have not ridden the Tower of Terror enough over the years, even if it does make my stomach drop out on occasion (but only after I have partaken of a big meal in the park somewhere). I love big, scary rides, and this one definitely counts for most people within that category. Unfortunately, I live with a couple of weenies (my dear wife and her mother) who don't go beyond Indiana Jones as far as bumpy and scary rides go, or even beyond Big Thunder as far as coaster thrills. They don't ride things like California Screamin' (my favorite attraction in the parks), Splash Mountain (that ultimate drop makes it a no-no), or the Matterhorn (hell, even I ride that one sparingly, since that ancient rust-bucket is a body bruiser for a person of my size, no matter how they may have updated it).

These pictures are from a trip to the park that we made in mid-September, when my mother-in-law Sande's best friend Mary was staying with us. Mary likes fast and scary rides, in general, and so has become my scary ride buddy over the past decade or so when she is in town. We were visiting the Tower after there was a bit of a freakout on social media about the Hollywood Tower Hotel sign having been taken off the outside of the tower a couple of days earlier (the one visible to the public driving past the park along Harbor Boulevard). People starting thinking the ride was closing down even sooner than the announced January 2, 2017 closure date because of this. I didn't see what the big deal was since the sign directly in front of the hotel, which bears the actual attraction name, is still lit up and changes back and forth mysteriously as it did before, so no one had taken that one down. Also, there was advertising all over the park telling people to ride it before January 2nd, so I was pretty certain they weren't going to jump the date on everyone.

The ride, of course, is still the same, just as eerie and fun as always (if you are into that sort of thing). It will be a shame to see it go (I am unsure of its status in Florida at this date). We got a little bit of extra fun on our wait as a trio of songbirds stood on a small stage in the lobby done up in period garb and warbled like the Andrews Sisters. They ran through at least four songs while we stood in the lobby, including Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar and Bei Mir Bist Du Schön (Means That You're Grand). They mostly stuck to the style of the day, though everyone once in a while, you could hear some more modern mannerisms slip into their voices.

I wish you were allowed to explore more of the lobby on your own instead of being stuck in between the stanchions. I know that everything you see if rather a forced view, and that closer examination would reveal there is likely not any more "there" there. But it sure is tempting to want to get closer to the tables and chairs and lobby desk and read, touch, and see everything even closer. 

Because I can at least sound authoritative when I discuss things in public, people kept asking me in line (and on a subsequent trip) what the reasons were for switching the ride. More than once I have been asked if perhaps Disney lost the rights to use The Twilight Zone trademark for the attraction, and I have been unable to answer this with any accuracy. I just assumed that Disney wanted to maximize their resources by promoting internal copyrights, such as Guardians, over borrowed/outside ones, and also wanted to get a jumpstart on working more Marvel properties into their parks. But if anyone knows if the TZ copyright is involved in its dissolution, please pass that along.

Luckily for me, I have friends coming down in a little over a week, so I know we will be hitting the Tower when they get here (or at least a couple of us will), and then a few days later, my brother, sis-in-law and nephew get here for some Disney fun, so I hope they take advantage of riding the Tower before it closes as well. I plan to visit DCA as much as possible between now and January 2, and fit in as many Tower visits as I can. I'm not going to be one of those to gripe about it going away, but I do want to make sure my memories of the place are solid before it does.

RTJ

What It Is, My Man, and What It Will Be...

If you are the sort of person who is nice and polite and checks back regularly with websites you enjoy and wonders sometimes why a website for which you retain a particular admiration doesn't update more frequently, then this post is for you.

Of course, I would not dare to presume that my humble website might be counted amongst those sites for which you hold particular admiration, but on the off-chance that it is to be counted within that group, then please let your eyes drift downward.

I have not posted on The Cinema 4 Pylon since July 10, and that post was Part 1 of what was meant to be a multi-part excursion into the world of straight-to-video action thrillers, a genre which I have largely avoided in recent years. The post was triggered by an impromptu and cheap DVD purchase in a Wal-Mart in my then just-completed holiday trip up to my home state of Alaska, and there was never meant to be a two-month gap between the first part and even the merest mention of the second part.

The last thing I posted before that was on the day after I returned from my trip to Alaska on July 7. It too was Part 1 of what was meant to be a multi-part excursion into something completely different, this time into a personal history of Disneyland and how my sense of the place was completely warped by a seemingly innocent children's book in my youth. The Part 2 and the Part 3 to that Part 1 were already written by that point – in fact, were written even before I left for my Alaska trip at the end of June – but I started to rethink the piece after I posted Part 1, and so has now been sitting in limbo until I have time to revisit it again. But it is the same story as with the first Part 1 I mentioned... it was never meant to get to this place.

So, why have I not been posting on here?

Well, a myriad of reasons. I can give those reasons in a list, but such lists turn into excuses, and then it just becomes a case of lying to myself. Basically, what I am saying in the end is that the Pylon became less important to me than everything else in my life. 

That isn't true, of course: the Cinema 4 Pylon is meant to be a representation of my mind, and my mind is all that I have going for me when all is said and done. What has happened is that I split that mind into too many fragments in recent months, and some of those fragments have taken on a life of their own unexpectedly.

THE SHARK FILM OFFICE

Most important to me of late has been the success I have been having in getting The Shark Film Office to finally take off its water wings. The Shark Film Office has been around since 2006, but I just never committed to it back then, and kind of wrote it off altogether, especially when I went through my darkest period a few years ago and almost completely stopped writing. When I turned the engines back on the Pylon last September, however, I then followed suit on my animation blog, the Cinema 4: Cel Bloc. Once the Cel Bloc was up and running again to my satisfaction, I started to think seriously about The Shark Film Office and whether to revive it or not. There was a moment or two where my cursor hovered over the "Delete Blog" button (I, of course, had saved out all of my text elsewhere), but doing so seemed to trigger something in my head. I started thinking more and more about how I would do the site if really, truly committed to the shark site.

Knowing that Syfy had a full week of shark movies coming up at the end of July with six brand new premiere films was the kicker, and just before that was the latest edition of Discovery's Channel's Shark Week, which allowed me to expand to documentary reviews as well. But something happened on Google+ for me that allowed me to rethink my whole plan. I was getting a ridiculous amount of views on my Google+ page, far more than any of my friends on there were getting, and it was all happening since I started up the Pylon again last year. I don't know what triggered it, but now my Google+ posts were showing up high in search results for any subject on which I posted, most often in the Top 10 results. Sure, I would rather that the actual articles would show up in the search results instead – but, hey, a link is a link, and these results were translating into Rik-diculous numbers of views and in turn getting people to visit my websites.

THE DYNAMIC DUO

In this mix are a couple of other projects that my writing partner and erstwhile pal, Aaron Lowe, and I have been bashing out over the past few months that have also proven to be a lot of fun and get us a little notice lately: Visiting and Revisiting with Rik and Aaron and We Who Watch Behind the Rows: Stephen King in Print and on Film.

I have written about both of these projects on this website already, and you can find out more on both by visiting the links to them above or going into my bio page. Of course, we have run into some difficulties in not just maintaining both of our own original sites (his is Working Dead Productions) when we spread ourselves out a tad thin with not just extra blogs, but also in maintaining a working life and a family life. In my case, I had been out of work for well over a year, which has allowed me a lot of free writing time and given me an opportunity to revive the blogs and get my shit together in that regard. Additionally, I have a wife who works, but our only charge is a small cat. In Aaron's case, he has a regular job and a wife and daughter, though they expanded recently with the addition of a second newborn daughter. So, now his writing is often done with baby in one hand.

We have really enjoyed the first response to our first few attempts on both sites (the first several articles for each, you might recall, were split between our respective pages before we decided to build new sites for each title), and have big plans moving forward. Aaron and I are always throwing around ideas for a podcast, either audio or video, though I seem to be the one really holding us back in that regard.

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN

Coming up first though, is the annual Countdown to Halloween in October, something in which both Aaron and I have taken part in recent years, and plan to continue this year. Countdown to Halloween is a handy site which allows people who run Halloween-oriented blogs, or blogs related to horror, toys, candy, masks, costumes, etc., to gather in one place and have people who are into any of those topics easily find websites of interest. Taking part in the Countdown gives bloggers access to badges they can display on their site and allows them to expand their audience.

I don't know what Aaron has planned for his own site, but here is what I can tell you about two of mine and We Who Watch as well:

The Cinema 4 Pylon – Semi-regular posts throughout October on various monster toys in my collection, more about monster trading cards, Halloween music posts, and a couple more editions in my relatively new The Monster's on the Loose! series, where I discuss the horror-related films, shows and cartoons that were most instrumental in developing my interest in the genre when I was but a wee lad.

Cinema 4: Cel Bloc – I have articles on several cartoons planned for October, all with spooky themes (naturally), with a concentration on Walt Disney cartoons this time. Scheduled shorts to include Lonesome Ghosts (1937), The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1949), Sicque! Sicque! Sicque! (1966), Spooks (1930), and Trick or Treat (1952).

We Who Watch Behind the Rows – Aaron and I are spending part of September reading Stephen King's first officially published novel Carrie (1974) and then watching the four film projects derived from it: Brian De Palma's seminal version (1976), the rather belated and unnecessary sequel The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999) with Emily Bergl, the unnecessary TV remake (2002) with Angela Bettis (who makes it watchable, of course), and the still unnecessary theatrical remake (2013) with Chloe Grace Moretz. Then we will post about all of them throughout the month of October. Sorry to tip my hand on the films, but I haven't rewatched them yet; those are just my opinions going into this process, having seen all of them before. [There is also a Filipino version of Carrie, though I doubt we will find a copy in time for this series.]

We have not discussed plans for a Halloween film or two on Visiting and Revisiting, but that may be because it is hard to find horror films that neither one of us hasn't seen already. The next film we plan to cover there is Miracle Mile, which we will hopefully get to in the next week or two.

BACK 2 THE BASE

The robustness of our combined plans, of course, are always going to be hampered and/or enhanced by what we do personally. Speaking for myself – and really, I probably shouldn't even be that bold – I have told you all of this without relating to you the good fortune of recent weeks: that I have started to pick up freelancing work. Yes, this means money, which is alway a good thing to have, but it has also meant a reduction in the amount of free time that I have at hand lately. It started out small, as a mere handful of hours that has blossomed into a great many more than I was anticipating, and it has been nice to be able to work completely from home and at my own pace. And now a second project has landed in my lap at the same time, so I am now having to learn how to balance this along with everything else. But I feel productive in a societal and monetary sense again, and this will helpfully keep the wolves at bay for a short period.

In the end, I will be posting here on the Pylon again regularly, I just need my schedule to align with my goals a little more. For now, blog-wise, I remain focused on the shark site online, but there is another contender for my time of which I have yet to speak except to a small handful of individuals. Even with this utterance, I hope that they shall remain mum as to its details in the public venue, especially in response to this posting.

I have committed myself to a personal writing project offline that will hopefully turn into a completed book over the next year's time. Knowing that I am a few months into the project will also give you another idea as to why The Cinema 4 Pylon has suddenly been relegated to second class citizen status within the universe of its own creation. More details will be released in coming months. Or not at all, if the entire thing goes kablooey on me. In which case, forget you ever read this...

RTJ

The Last Halloween Round-Up? Sad Days at Big Thunder Ranch...

Yes, we are all happy that Star Wars Land is going to be a reality. The old fans, the newer fans, the misguided in between, we are all happy. The only problem with the creation of the upcoming and long dreamed of Star Wars area at Disneyland is that one of my most prized areas of the park is going to go away: the Big Thunder Ranch area.

When it was first announced that Big Thunder Ranch was going to be closed for good going into construction, some people panicked and thought Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was going bye-bye as well. Not the case, especially since Disney just spent a lot of money overhauling the ride in making it even cooler only a couple of years ago. No, as far as can be surmised, the popular Western railroad-themed rollercoaster directly across from the ranch area is staying put, making people who like to be tormented by TNT-wielding goats all the more joyous. 

I am not necessarily a fan of barbecue. I have been taken to task by my friends for it, some of whom are carnivores to the near point of cannibalism, as I see it. I prefer to be the omnivore nature meant me to be, and even survive as vegetarian around 60-75% of the time. But I am a burger connoisseur, and so meat never truly goes out of the picture for me. Regardless, I have just never warmed to barbecue and its too damn sweet for me sauces (though I will partake of a good spicy sauce when confronted with it... no turning that down).

As a result, I have never actually eaten in the barbecue dining and theatre area inside the Big Thunder Ranch area. I have walked through many a time, and have stood and watched the occasional group of musicians perform on the stage in the barbecue area. I have even seen Woody and Jessie from Toy Story parade about signing autographs and making every kid go bonkers. But I never felt at home sitting down amongst a pack of ravenous moms and dads and caterwauling kids sucking meat off of ribs and adding an extra color or two to every piece of apparel hanging on their sweat-laden bodies. As pleasant as it sounds, no.

So, why do I love, and why will I dearly miss, the Big Thunder Ranch area? Simple. Halloween. As ballyhooed as Disney's annual money-churning Halloween parties are, as crazy as people get over even trying to secure tickets to at least one of those parties each year, as frantic as my friends get when they do manage to snag tickets themselves, for me, the only area of Disneyland that really says "Halloween" to me is the Big Thunder Ranch area.

Even more so than the Haunted Mansion, which naturally, does have Halloween charm all year around, but because of Jack Skellington, also has Christmas spilled over into it. Quite heavily. And while I am one of those that has never relented his fascination with what he considers one of the most gorgeous animated features ever, I am a little tired of the annual makeovers of the Haunted Mansion for each September-December period. (It actually closes around January 5th, but who is counting?) My longtime chum Alexis, with whom we spent the day on Tuesday while I took these photos at Disneyland, even whispered to me that she really wished the Haunted Mansion was still normal (abnormal) during at least Halloween. It makes sense to me, since the movie takes place as Halloween is ending. If the Haunted Mansion maintained its usual ghostly pallor at least through the 31st, it would be no contest.

The Big Thunder Ranch area even usurps Main Street in Halloween flair. Sure, the entrance has the giant character pumpkin heads standing guard over it (that, frankly, seem a little worn after several years), and yes, there is that giant Mickey pumpkin in the Town Square that is magnificent for family photos. There are decorations all over Main Street, from one end to the other, every little thing is orange and yellow and pumpkin this and that. And none of it warms my heart like the Big Thunder Ranch area. It is most likely due to Main Street being such a busy thoroughfare that is hard to relax and take any of it in for very long, especially when you add horse-drawn carriages, motorcars, marauding packs of Dapper Dans, and a thousand strollers to the mix.

But Big Thunder Ranch still seems so secluded. It is deceptively well-hidden. Everyone knows where it is, but it still feels like everyone kind of forgets it is there until you either leave Fantasyland via the exit by the bathrooms next to the Village Haus (the Pinocchio-themed restaurant), or come from the opposite direction walking along the Rivers of America. You can't mistake it once you are there at this time of year. Pumpkin-headed people greet you at the sign at the entrance and in the woods to your right. The barbecue area is so deeply decorated that it is hard not to imagine you and a hundred other BBQ patrons were traipsing through the insides of a monstrous, record-shattering pumpkin, and you have become wrapped within its colorful entrails. (Well, that's how I see it...)

In visiting this area for the past few years, we have gotten to see special contests and activities that are part of Mickey's Halloween Party (which take place in a walled off fortress-like area open only during the nights the parties are held), but one of the most fun is when they have professional pumpkin carvers onsite, many of whom spend their time carving images of Disney characters, both famous and obscure, throughout the season. Unfortunately, we did not get to see that this year, and to be honest, the lack of actual carved pumpkin attendance was pretty disappointing. There were a handful around, but not like before. I chalk this up to the place going away, as it appears the usual Disney oomph is not being put into it this time. It is probably wise anyway. Shouldn't really entice an audience to want to come back to something that is going extinct.

But my main reason for visiting the Big Thunder Ranch area each Halloween is the log cabin. Built in 1986 simply to be something for visitors to view, and used for many other things in between, including a gift shop and coloring station, at Halloween in recent years, the log cabin becomes the Scare-Dy-Crow Shack, a old-timey Western home for pumpkin people involved in all sorts of mischief, and displaying images from Halloweens past. For me, it is a shot of pure Halloween adrenaline. The best part is that there are rarely more than four or five people inside the cabin at any given time, so you can get a real feel for the place and kind of dig in and enjoy the old posters, postcards, toys, and trinkets, as well as the colorful costumes on the various pumpkinhead people hanging out inside.

Tiny pumpkins are stacked on top of slightly bigger pumpkins to make candle holders. A smiling pumpkinhead sheriff with a draped hat stands in the corner next to his nemesis, a masked pumpkinhead with a more crooked grin bedecked all in black. Across the room is an elegant lady pumpkinhead on a bench, which gives visitors an ample place for a photo opportunity. (Sadly, my one picture of her did not come out well.) And in a nook off the center of the cabin, with stanchions blocking the area to keep people from getting in on the action, are two more pumpkin cowboys arguing over a game of poker.

At the end of the cabin is a gorgeous fireplace area, and set into it a cauldron, which lights up green and has something mysterious bubbling and misting out of the top. It is marvelously atmospheric, even when you have just stepped in two seconds before from a brightly lit Southern California day. The cabin itself has a couple more pumpkin people staging a hoedown in front of the side entrance, and a real life fiddler -- Farley the Fiddler, to be precise -- was there entertaining tourists and handing out stickers, while he played a mix of traditional music and Disney standards. [You can follow Farley the Fiddler on his Facebook page here.] 

Just outside the cabin is the area where one of the large, lovely draft horses is kept, and where you can nuzzle his nose should you wish. (He's a pretty sweet horse.) And right across is the goat petting area which is fairly irresistible to most of the young and some of the old.

I knew this would be my one chance to visit the park before Halloween, though honestly, if I really wanted to go by that date, I would just have to hitch a ride with Jen to work, since that is where she is employed. But it's not as much fun to hit Disneyland on your own (though you can use the Single Rider Lines all you want). [As a note, the Big Thunder Ranch area will close for good on January 10, 2016.]

So, this trip to the Big Thunder Ranch area at Halloween time will have to serve as my main memory of the place, general lack of carved pumpkins and all. If you have ever been able to attend this area, I hope your remembrances are as fond as mine.

Recently Rated Movies: Catching Up with Christopher Lee (the actor, not my brother…) Pt. 1

In resurrecting many of the old regular columns on this blog, my favorite was often Recently Rated Movies, wherein I would shorthand my usual long-winded blathering and comment oh so very briefly on a series of films I had recently seen and rated on IMDb. To begin this column regularly again, I am tying it into a project in which I have been engaged for the past three weeks. I have been employing the Charts function on Flickchart to create lists that show me which films of one of my favorite actors I have yet to see. Because I have watched so many films overall (11,000+), for there to be films for someone like, say, Boris Karloff, they would either have to be films I have intentionally putting off for one reason or another, films that were harder to find in the past, or simply something I had little interest in viewing.

I began the project with Bela Lugosi, and quickly knocked out eleven of his films in short order (luckily most of them are barely over an hour long), including the infamously terrible (and justly so) Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla and Mother Riley Meets the Vampire. I then leaped over to the aforementioned Mr. Karloff (there was some slight crossover), and not only also took down eleven of his films, including three out of four of his late ‘60s Mexican flicks (where all of his scenes were directed at the same time by Jack Hill and then inserted into the films proper), but also four of his Mr. Wong films from the late ’30s and early ‘40s.

And now, I am on the chart for the recently departed Christopher Lee. He has 133 films listed on Flickchart (overall, he has 278 acting credits listed on IMDb), and of those 133 films, until the other day, I had seen ONLY 68 of them. That leaves a massive amount of his films left to see, and I doubt I have the time left or the energy to see them all. Lee himself had a quote he was fond of repeating where he is regularly told by fans, “I have seen all of your films!” His reply, “No, you haven’t.” Well, now I have ticked nine more films off that list over the last few days.

[Editor's note: All films are rated on a scale of 9.]

The Puzzle of the Red Orchid [German title: Edgar Wallace: Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee | Alt. English title: The Secret of the Red Orchid]

Dir: Helmut Ashley

TC4P Rating: 4

When is it called for to have the very British legend Christopher Lee, with his deep and memorable speaking voice, to have his dialogue dubbed into English? Specifically, an American accent? When he originally recorded his dialogue for this would-be thriller based on an Edgar Wallace story (as many European films were in the ‘60s), it was reportedly into what I have read in some places as some rather decent German. That aside, it is incongruous to say the least to watch Lee in numerous scenes while hearing a ridiculously square and far too rigidly pronounced American accent pour from his lips (and obviously not matching what he is really saying), especially given that there is no attempt at all to try and match the timbre of his famous voice. 

A minor plus is that this film moves pretty fast, though the characters are involved in a mystery I don’t really care about while Chicago gangsters are kidnapping people in London. There are some fairly stilted attempts at comic relief, but like everything else in this movie, the dubbing also kills the chance for any humor to translate properly for the viewer. It’s not as horrid as you think it will be going into it, but it’s still a bit of a chore to watch.

Hannie Caulder (1971)

Dir: Burt Kennedy

TC4P Rating: 6

Let’s not get carried away here. Sensei Tarantino loves this film and has pointed to it as an inspiration for Kill Bill. It is easy to see why he loves it, and it is also easy to see the inspiration it served. But this is not a great lost classic. It’s merely a fairly decent western with an excellent male lead in Robert Culp, and some good, disgusting supporting roles for Strother Martin, Ernest Borgnine, and especially Jack Elam. 

There is also a dandy small part for Christopher Lee as the expert gunsmith that Culp and female lead Raquel Welch call upon to customize pistols with which Welch’s title character can exact revenge on the raping and murdering trio played by Martin, Borgnine, and Elam. The movie has some wit to it, and is engaging from start to finish. Welch is hardly believable in her gunslinger role, especially in what she is allowed to wear during the era in which they purport to be, though I mark this up to the ‘70s and the need for the studio to sell her remarkable exterior (if only they knew how). 

I do have a complaint about the blood, which gushes forth from numerous bullet wounds throughout the movie, as being too obviously fake. It rather galls me about the third time it happens. Other than that, watch it for a prime example of just how assured and captivating Robert Culp can be in the right role.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

Dir: Does it even matter?

TC4P Rating: 5

Let’s talk about product. Pure product. Yes, I am one of those original Star Wars kids from 1977. I read the paperback (with the purple cover and the pre-film character designs by McQuarrie) numerous times before the film was released that summer, and I bought the comics, toys, LPs, trading cards, posters, blueprints, t-shirts, puzzles, games, prints, and what have you without a second thought. Like any other religious convert, I gave up my allowance on a weekly basis to the Force reverently for a handful of years, and it never once struck me I was being manipulated at all as I followed the adventures of Luke, Han, Leia and their pals through the next couple of films. Nor would I have cared if I did realize the manipulation at hand. I was in my teens, I loved what I loved, and I didn’t want to hear otherwise.

Though George Lucas has crippled my opinion of his creation due to his obstinate mishandling of it in recent years, I still maintain a soft spot for the original films, enough so that I am like everyone else who can’t wait to see what J.J. Abrams will bring us come winter. Likewise, I am equally excited about Disney’s plans for a new Star Wars Land in the park. While that might further define me as a “sheeple” in regards to blindly going along with the rest of the flock, the quality of the product is likely to be so high that I couldn’t resist if I wanted, lest I be branded a curmudgeon, hipster, or troll or some unholy combination of the three.

But there is a difference between product of a remarkably high caliber and just mere product, rendered to the blandness of pabulum, still to be considered sustainable entertainment but absolutely lacking in real character or emotional depth. Even more interesting is when product of the second variety spews forth from the same factory creating the higher form. And thus, from that off-white void, crawls out Star Wars: The Clone Wars, animated to the far brink of what was accepted as popular animation in the year in which it was released (but no further), brightly colored, swift moving, and sporting the mind-numbing, political denseness that plagued the three most recent Lucas productions. However, it does have several presumably exciting battle sequences, mostly involving the younger Obi-Wan and Anakin, along with a young Padawan named Ahsoka (sadly, Lucas did not name an older brother for her as Supasoka, but I feel he would have), for those that have not already seen similar scenes in many, many other films. Therein lies the key to the film’s existence, both as product and as a part of Star Wars culture. It is also the same key that explains my reticence to embrace the later productions from my once beloved font of space opera entertainment.

I am no longer twelve years old. I might act like it at times. I may still adore most of the things I loved when I was that age. I may even still own most of the things I owned from that time (and I largely do). But I am no longer twelve. I am a 51-year-old man watching a film designed to attract actual twelve-year-olds to a possible entry point into the Star Wars universe, or to keep the kids already inclined to be inside that universe further entertained and to get them to buy the comics, toys, etc. that go along with it. Just like when I was that age.

So, I am no longer the target audience for Star Wars: The Clone Wars. In fact, I am about thirty years past it. But it does not mean that I can’t watch the film, have an understanding of it, nor speak my piece on it. But I can't embrace it like I did those earlier films. It’s just really no longer mine. I knew this when it was released, and so I put off seeing it. And I only watched it last week because it was film highest up on the Flickchart list of Christopher Lee films I had yet to see, and if there was going to be a Chris Lee flick I hadn’t watched, it was not going to be a Star Wars one. And so watch it I did. Mr. Lee voices his Count Dooku character from the later films, and he does his usual excellent job. He is barely in the film, and the rest is taken up by the politics, battle scenes, and Jedi nonsense I mentioned earlier. What the ads should have read is "Come for the Dooku. Stay for the product."

Attack of the Seriously Slutty Princesses: The Disney Halloween Party 2010

Honestly, for the first hour or so at the Disney Halloween Party at Disneyland Tuesday night, I didn't even really notice the costumes. Sure, I did mention to Jen the astounding amount of younger kids I saw dressed as one of the Super Mario Bros. (and even at least four people dressed as mushrooms from the games), and I also pointed out a couple of truly cool costumes here and there. But in noticing the usual feast/horror for the eyes that comes with younger women dressed, body-appropriate or otherwise (and it is more than often that "otherwise," hence the horror side of the equation) in too tight or absolutely revealing Halloween costumes of their favorite characters, I was very negligent.

But Jen wasn't (and she didn't believe me that I hadn't noticed, but I indeed hadn't). She was the one quickest to point out (or at least smirk) when some particularly slutty version of Alice in Wonderland or Pocahontas swung into view. It was at the exact moment when I mentioned I hadn't really seen all that much in the way of rampant sluttiness, or at least a handy amount of décolletage, that the gates burst open. As this is not that sort of site, I have nothing in the way of visual proof of the onslaught that then took place over the next three hours, but suffice to say that we had several hours worth of decent chuckles in watching the series of bastardizations of character designs into handy excuses to either increase the population of Orange County or to put you off your food. The best part was a particularly hurried Cinderella who actually began to fall out of her dress. This shocked even the great Carnak...

Jen and I were mainly there for the atmosphere and the fireworks, but there is a note to make regarding the attractions (i.e., the rides, in Disney parlance). The big secret about attending the Disney Halloween Party is that you can pretty much walk on and off even the mega-popular rides like Indiana Jones and Space Mountain because almost every kid in the place is concentrating on standing in line for candy, which frankly, is the opposite way to trick-or-treat. There should be effort put into it. Patrons of the event stand in endless lines throughout the park to receive their treats, and as far as we are concerned, they can have it.

As a result, in the first 75 minutes we were there, we had already ridden Indy, the Haunted Mansion, the Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Space Mountain (the Ghost Galaxy version for Halloween), and this was with a bathroom stop, a soda purchase, and a very relaxed gait, enjoying the  mood of the park. The longest line was Space Mountain, and that was a mere ten minutes, as promised on the gate sign (possibly the first time the wait announcement ever actually matched that which actually occurred on that attraction).

I will say this now, and it will come as a shock to my friends who know how thoroughly I love The Nightmare Before Christmas, but I am tired of the annual reworking of the Haunted Mansion into its holiday form featuring Jack and his pals. The truth is, I wish they would start up the Nightmare version just after Halloween (you know, the way the movie starts), and let us have the real Mansion back for the actual month containing Halloween. It's not that I don't enjoy the Jack house (I actually do love it), but one of my fondest park memories was a full on Halloween midnight ride a few years back, and now I can't get even close to matching that feeling with the outright whimsy of Burton's creations overriding the place.

And the fireworks? A massively cool success... Zero flying through the air behind the castle, animation of a giant Jack Skellington on a balloon hanging over the proceedings, and the discovery of some new aerial tricks in Disney's ever-expanding fireworks bag. I thought there would be more concentration on the Mansion itself, but they managed to work in a lot of more obscure references even with the overall Jack theme. (A side note: it was also neat to see ol' Clara Cluck at the rear of the Halloween Parade. I wondered how many of the guests actually know who she is.) I shot some video of the first couple of minutes of the fireworks, but as it was on my crappy phone, I am not too happy with the results.

But we were quite happy with our evening out at the Disney Halloween Party. The fireworks alone made it worthwhile, and for us, the price wasn't bad (Jen's status at the park got us tix for $35 apiece). And it is truly amazing to ride Indy and Pirates back to back and not run into a single kid or teenager. That alone was a magic trick worthy of the Disney name.

Chapter 427: In which our hero whines and whines about something that no one put a gun to his head to do (it may have been a better option, though...)

For two of the last three Halloweens – the count of said holiday celebrations, up until last Friday, since I moved here in 2005 – I have spent my evening hours in the comforting arms of Disneyland. Not having my old network of friends here has greatly reduced my chances of hitting a Halloween party, and thus, costuming has become a non-factor and I have fallen into merely going to some appropriately decorated environs and enjoying the evening riding some rides, watching the parade, looking at pumpkins and getting a kick out of the variety of costumes on display from the younger denizens of the park. I usually make a goal of riding a full set of what I call “the skeleton rides” – Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, the Jungle Cruise, the Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – any ride that has a skeleton or at least a skull on display, of the three-dimensional variety only, somewhere in the attraction (Peter Pan’s Flight does not count, even though the ol’ skull-and-crossbones is readily apparent on some of the flying ships). I also attempt to purchase the season’s first gingerbread cookies at one of the candy shops, of the most excellent type that make my knees buckle as I walk whilst devouring them. I don’t ask much, just a handful of rides and some pleasant atmosphere, and I am good to go. It has proven on the previous two trips to be a very relaxing experience, of the sort of fall day I never really got to taste when in Alaska, where fall is almost an afterthought at times, since the initial downfall of snow that signifies winter seems to actually beat autumn to the punch on occasion.

Last Friday, on Halloween 2008, jumpy and almost bursting to be let out of work, I went to Disneyland.

It was the worst three hours I have ever spent at the park.

I’ve been at the park when it has been pouring rain through driving winds, to the point where everyone else in the place is scrambling frantically to be let out of the park, while diving under canopies or leaping inside shops for fear of even getting hit by a single drop of water, and I have been absolutely fine. It just meant less people in line for the rides to me. A little rain, even a shitload of rain, is nothing to me. I’ve also been at the park with a sinus cold and a rising fever, and with my head threatening to cleave itself in twain in order to relieve itself of the immense pressure building up behind my eyes, and while perhaps after a bit I did retire to a hotel room to rest up, or perhaps even caught myself napping on one or two rides due to my illness, I still managed to keep a smile going while bopping from attraction to attraction. I’ve even limped through an entire two days of park time while my knee filled up with fluid after wrenching it once more stepping off a ride, and still had a terrific time at the park level, even while biting my lip from the pain. I can take a lot at or into Disneyland in order for myself to simply enjoy Disneyland.

I lost it on Halloween 2008.

Here is a partial list of what went awry when Jen and I went to the park that evening with my erstwhile working companion Raw Meat and his girlfriend Raw-Chel. Keep in mind that this is an extraordinarily superficial list, of the sort that only someone who has been immensely spoiled rotten as regards the Disneyland experience can put together. The point is, I turned into a whiny baby that evening, perhaps not fully in front of everybody, but it certainly led to my wearing a full-on monster-sized pout throughout much of the evening.

1. THE WEATHER: It was reported throughout the week, and all through the day, that the weather on Halloween in Anaheim was going to be windy and rainy. Windy and rainy, everywhere you looked. The day, at 6:00 am, may have started out that way, but it was pretty much gone by the time we left for the park at 4:00 pm. Just in case, with dark clouds scattered throughout the skies threatening more of the same, it seemed like we were in for it. This would have been fine with me (note my previous mention of enjoying rain at the park). When it rains at Disneyland, most people turn into pussies. The tourists understandably split for the hotels or restaurants (or both), and the less hardy locals, which is most of them, hightail it for home. This leaves myself and Jen and a group of the more waterproof amongst us to bop on and off the rides all we wish. We were actually hoping this might be the case, and I wore a light jacket and my Jack Skellington scarf just in case. It proved to be too much, as the weather actually got warmer and warmer into the evening (perhaps due to the Santa Ana winds), and the fact that the crowd on the Disney streets kept swelling due to the rides constantly breaking down, did not help the temperature factor either. I sweated through most of the night, even after removing the jacket and scarf early into the proceedings.

2. THE RIDES BREAKING DOWN: Oh, I am sorry. Didn’t I just mention that the rides kept breaking down? Well, they did, and always at the worst times, too. We grabbed a Fastpass for Indiana Jones once we got inside the park, and were supposed to go back between 6:40 and 7:40 pm to hop on it. We rode Pirates (and not without incident; more later), but Haunted Mansion was broken down on the worst of all possible nights. So we got dinner (which was the only thing that went well) and then went to Mr. Jones. Our Fastpasses got us to within about forty feet of actually getting on the damn thing – and then they told everyone to evacuate the building as soon as possible! Everyone inside the ride had to make the massive trek back to the front, hundreds of people all filing out, and every one of them grouching about it as they did so, including us. A fire department official entered the ride as we had just left it, but we never found out what happened. So we made our way back to the Haunted Mansion, which by then was open again, but so many people had been waiting to ride it, that the line rolled out through the front gates and over towards the New Orleans train station. The sign flashed a full 50 minutes wait to the impatient reader (composed, this time, of normally patient me), and so we decided to find easier prey. We first walked around the corner to check out the candy store and were met with a massive wave of people departing Splash Mountain, which had also just broken down, and wouldn’t be back up again, they announced, for at least another hour. All of the disappointed riders of that attraction poured into the streets of New Orleans Square and into the lines of the all the other rides in the area, which made everything hotter and more crowded. We hit Big Thunder, and met a longer than usual double set of lines there, but managed to get through it relatively quickly, all things considered. We took another pass at the Mansion, but the line was even longer than before, and while the sign still said 50 minutes wait time, we knew from a glance that it was even worse than that. With the prospect of getting out of the park before the crowds blocked Main Street for the impending fireworks, we decided to just catch the train at New Orleans station and get the flock out of there. Thankfully, even though we had to wait for two trains, at least they were running on time.

3. THE CANDY STORE: So, you go over to the candy store in Critter Country to get away from the whining crowd streaming out of Splash Mountain, and you figure if everything else is going to go wrong this evening, certainly you will at least be able to continue one of your new Halloween traditions, and make off if the most delicious gingerbread man cookie (with Mickey Mouse ears dipped in chocolate) in the world. Alas, it was not to be. Not a cookie in sight, not even an empty tray where they used to live earlier in the evening. I had gotten one of the cookies a couple weeks earlier when I took my parents to California Adventure, so I knew that the gingerbread had hit the park for the season. But nothing in sight. That was nearly the breaking point. I sat down on the rabbit bench outside of Pooh Corner and pouted briefly, in much the same style I did back when my friends used to call me “Tigger” (before the name was stolen away from me by a mustachioed weirdo). Following that, we marched over to the Mansion, where, as I said before, 50 minutes turned to a possible 75, and we left, sans gingerbread, sans happiness in the Happiest Place on Earth. Even seeing Primeval World on the train did little to quell my anguish. Oh, tortured soul…!

4. THAT FAMOUS PIRATE RIDE: The less said here, the better. The ride was fine, but a relentless onslaught of flash photography in the front of our boat caused one of our party to stand up while we floated through the pirate caves, and then to yell quite sharply at the clicking moron to knock it off. There was an attempt to calm down our party member, then I had to tug on their shirt to get them to sit down, and then Jen spent the rest of the ride fretting about being met at the ride’s end by a suit or a security person, who would then lead us out the park. Jen was afraid, too, that said behavior would come back at her in a more corporate form, as she was the one who signed we troublemakers into the park. As Pirates was the first thing we did, it definitely set a certain mood of anxiety and frustration over the rest of the evening.

5. THE FIREWORKS: I wanted to see the fireworks, but we had to get out of there. I briefly mused that perhaps it was best to not stay for the ‘works anyway, since our luck that evening would probably demand that the event be cancelled. We were gone by nine, and honestly, I am not sure if they ever did go off. Raw Meat says he didn’t hear them from his apartment, and he usually can, as can we, though Jen and I went to the store to find something to cheer us up.

The cure that evening for me? I nearly righted the ship by watching three movies – The Devil Bat with Bela Lugosi, and a pair of Herschell Gordon Lewis gorefests, Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs – before retiring for bed. I finally got some semblance of a decent Halloween, but I had to meet it on my own terms, and on my own field of battle. And man, did I get whiny. Spoiled rotten? You bet. Spoiled on the Halloween Disney experience from now on, and time to seek out new party opportunities instead? Only time will tell. I’ve got a whole year to figure it out.

Blues to Greens, and Back Again...

My mother arrived in town today, and in three days, she will be entering the front gate at Disneyland for the first time in her sixty-three years on this planet.

Obviously, going to Disneyland was never much of a priority in her life, but now that she is going to finally be down here where I now live -- and also because Jen can get us into the park for free – she is going to take advantage of the opportunity. My stepfather Stan has not been to the park in well over forty -- closer to fifty -- years, and recalls Walt Disney landing in a helicopter outside the park and stepping out to greet the park-goers, shaking hands with dozens of patrons, my stepfather included. (Reminds me of the time I ran into Salvador Dali just after my clock melted…)

Disneyland was always a priority in my life, or rather, a dream for me, since I never got to go there as a kid, though I was constantly obsessed with doing so. Since I was but a wee one, I owned (and actually still do) a Little Golden Book about Donald Duck desperately trying to catch up to Huey, Dewey and Louie on a haphazard chase throughout Tomorrowland. As Donald did so, he ends up accidentally riding all of the attractions, while always staying focused on catching those bratty nephews. Back in my reality, I watched the Wonderful World of Disney faithfully since I was a child, and truly relished the episodes where Uncle Walt and people such as the Osmonds or Kurt Russell would wander about the park, playing and singing and getting into all sorts of nonsense, which only instilled the dream deeper within my soul. For years and years, I watched relatives and friends and relatives of friends and friends of relatives head off to Anaheim to get doused in the Disney magic. Yes, I was often invited, but it was always a matter of money, and a matter of time, keeping me home. I would watch them all go off to that mythical kingdom. And that’s all I ever did. I watched them go, and then I watched them return, ears on their heads, smiles on their faces... and I never even got a crappy T-shirt.

I didn’t make it to Disneyland until my thirtieth year, in 1994, near the tail end of a marriage where my wife contended she never had any interest in going to Disneyland – even though I am the greatest person in the world, along with Jen, with whom someone should attend such a place -- and so I went with my brother Otis and my pals Robear and Robin for two days of non-stop running and mucking about that left us thoroughly exhausted trying to fit everything inside the 9:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. time-frame that the off-season park schedule allowed us. I returned home to even more insipid jealousy that merely tapped another nail grimly and firmly into place on the lid of a certain coffin… and then Disney became a dream for several more years, until Jen happily entered my life.

This morning, a blustery, oddly cold Sunday, as I waited to catch the bus to my office so I could knock out a day’s rote busywork in relative seclusion from the rest of the staff (i.e., actually get some stuff done), I stared at the palm trees lining the outer walls of a trailer park across the street from the bus stop. Seeing them caused me to flash Chuck-like on an image captured in my mind upon my first trip to Disneyland, which happened to be my first personal study of palm trees not waving in the breeze in an episode of Hawaii Five-O or a similar filmed entertainment venture. After three-plus years of life here in Orange County, one would think that I have grown immune to the sight of palm trees, of any species. But I haven’t. They are still so foreign to me, as are many of the local trees, most of which one can not even get a casual glimpse of in Alaska. My first thought upon seeing the street where I now live was utter joy over all of the different trees in view.

And this same thing struck me as I stared up from the sidewalk of Katella those many years ago and peered quizzically at those palm trees just down the road from the Holiday Inn where we stayed, all four of us crammed into a tiny room. I don’t know why Southern California -- which so often seems to me nothing but miles and miles of the same goddamn, endlessly paved and strip-malled city, separated only by names forcibly given to instill citizens with some small sense that it isn’t one goddamn, endlessly paved and strip-malled city – I don’t know why that, out of all the things down here, I mainly identify with the trees. Especially since most of the trees around here aren’t even actually native to the place.

I reflect on these three different scenarios -- my first trip to Disney, my first steps onto the street I now call home, and even casual trips down the road -- and I wonder if my parents are able to see this area the same way I have since first being here. I somehow seem to be able to carve the asphalt and billboards and street signs and box stores out of my mind almost automatically, and concentrate on the trees, no matter what type they are, no matter if they are native and local. I seem to be able to blot out the industrialization and smog and a million snotty fools to focus my concentration on what is still good and natural in this area, even if transplanted much in the same manner as I.

Do my parents, having just left Alaska to drive through the wilderness of Canada and straight down through the entire West Coast to get here, have to see things this way too? Outside of the natural urge to sightsee and take in one’s total surroundings, in order to keep their sanity in check, do they have to lose themselves in the wayward forest of each city, now lining the sidewalks and medians of a eight-lane exchange near you? And when my mother walks into Disneyland on Wednesday morning, will she feel what I felt upon my first meeting of state-locked Alaskan and giant, anthropomorphic mouse? Will she take in the manufactured splendor, and then, when it begins to overwhelm them, will she seek to find comfort in the green of the trees that lie about the park, often masking even more of the artifice about them?

I ask only because it seems sometimes that my mother has become another person to me. I often do not recognize her on the phone as the woman who raised me. And while I know I have changed and she has changed slightly over the years, sometimes the difference that now lies between us – politically and socially – is just too much to take for me. But I spent a week last year at the hospital as my mother went through major stomach surgery, and I was able to remember how much I loved and cared for this woman. And seeing her own mother – my Granny – earlier this year, lying in a bed in a nursing home in Wisconsin, absolutely unable to recognize or remember me for even a second, only has sharpened my resolve to reconnect with my own mother for good.

And now she is here, in my new city and home, and finally ready, some thirty-five years later after the time I wished it to happen, to adventure through Disneyland with me. Funny how things work out…