Halloween: Jack Skellington

Just a couple of pictures I snapped today when I noticed the candle made Jack look extra-creepy.
The Betty Boop was a gift from John. And the little girl in the frame on the left is my late sister Ellen. She's 4 in the picture.

A Death in the Extended Family

My friend John in Liverpool lost his mum, Marie, today. She hasn't been well for some time. She was chairbound for a year or more, and John's been caring for her as much as he can, putting things on hold and devoting as much of his time to her as possible. He had been sharing some of the things from my blog with her, and Marie started calling me one day out of the blue and we became friends. We would just talk about how we were both doing or politics or what we'd seen on TV. One time she told me about working at a relief station for American GIs during World War II. I think she just needed the outside contact, and I was happy to oblige, because she was very nice and we sort of understood one another. It sounded like John was mostly caring for her by himself, and not many people were coming to see her.

Last week, she had a minor stroke and was taken to a care center. John called me to talk about it. He took it very hard. He sounded relieved that she was getting more professional care, but also a bit guilty about feeling relieved, and it was strange to him not having her at home all the time anymore. Sadly, he sent me an email just now informing me that Marie had passed away.

I wanted to publicly share my sadness, because she liked my blog and I loved talking to her on the phone, and I'm going to miss her a great deal.

John's pain I can only imagine.

I think Marie raised a really great son; one who did all he could for her, and one who misses her very much. I think John is a good testament to her.

Goodbye, Marie. I'll miss you.

Halloween: Shaun the Sheep of the Dead

Trailer mash-up combining Shaun of the Dead with scenes from my beloved Shaun the Sheep. It's more funny than cute, but I put it up because I'm such a Shaun fan.

Film Week

A review of the films I've seen this past week.

LAST OF THE RED HOT LOVERS (1972)
Alan Arkin is very good as a seafood restaurant owner who thinks he's missing out by not having an affair. He makes three awkward attempts at it with a sexy, modern woman (Sally Kellerman), a flighty young lady (Paula Prentiss) and a friend's wife (Renee Taylor), but each time is a disaster. Along the way, there's much mid-life crisis introspection, pretty much what you expect from Neil Simon. Not a bad movie, but like a lot of Simon, it gets a little tedious. *** stars.

THE ANSWER MAN (2009)
Jeff Daniels stars as a reclusive author who wrote a very popular book 20 years ago and is now trying to reconnect with the world. It becomes easier when he falls in love with a sunny chiropractor (Lauren Graham), but their relationship is rocky and, honestly, movie-manufactured. Most of the rocky moments they have don't come organically, but through the movie's need to keep the drama going. There are some great observational moments, but they're tempered by the way the movie meanders towards a grand point it never really makes. Kat Dennings and Olivia Thirlby have criminally small roles. **1/2 stars.

DAUGHTERS OF SATAN (1972)
The only thing scary in this unbelievably ridiculous horror movie is Tom Selleck's hair. His car is pretty hilarious, though; they want Selleck to zip around the Philippines in this little roadster, but his legs are so long he can barely get out of it without stumbling. No stars.

PSYCHOMANIA (1971)
Ugh. I hope someone apologized to George Sanders for putting him in this before he kissed the world goodbye. No stars.

DAY OF THE JACKAL (1973)
Edward Fox plays a nameless assassin hired by a radical group to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. A procedural film, following the Jackal's preparations for the assassination, and the attempts of the British and French police (led by Michel Lonsdale) to capture him. It can be a tad dry, but it's also riveting. **** stars.

Halloween: Pancakes?

Sure, why not. Halloween ads are always fun. And, honestly, so are pancakes.

TV Report: No Ordinary Family, Etc.

I wonder how long No Ordinary Family is going to end up staying on the air. There's something a little too high concept about it that just doesn't really work. I can see the pitch meeting as I'm watching the show: "It's Modern Family meets Smallville!" and it doesn't make me enthusiastic.

The show centers on a family who get in a place crash and develop ironic, Marvel Comics style superpowers. Frustrated Dad wants to be strong enough to hold his family together, gets super strength. Harried Mom who can't make time for both her career and family gets super speed. Daughter who is always texting remains clueless about her cheating boyfriend and betraying friends; suddenly she's a telepath. Son with a learning disability becomes a genius. You can predict what their powers are going to be long before they get them.

The show has fairly likable characters played by likable actors (always glad to see Kay Panabaker show up; I adored her on Summerland and Phil of the Future), but it's hampered by at least five major problems. First, there's the predictability. A lot of critics have been referring to it as "The Incredibles without Pixar," but really it's just Fantastic Four. Second, there's the implication at the end that the show is going to get very mythology-heavy, which, after Heroes is not an encouraging sign. Too many characters and the show will just sink under the weight of them. Third, the lame framing device of Mom and Dad in marriage counseling, talking straight to the camera (a camera which never stops moving or shaking, making it hard to look at this show). Fourth, the fact that it's going to take this show far too long to decide if it's about superheroes first, or family first.

The fifth problem is that it's derivative. I'm still making my way through old Marvel comics, and after reading through the first 40 issues of Fantastic Four, you can really see where all No Ordinary Family has really done is advance television to a point comic books were at five decades ago. It's not really a groundbreaking concept, it's just a complicated one for network TV to handle. The second episode airs tonight, and while I'm still intrigued, I can already feel my interest waning.

Other stuff:

:: Last Thursday's was the best and funniest episode of 30 Rock in some time.

:: I can't even remember watching Saturday Night Live this week, except that they did another "What's Up With That?" sketch. I know it's just one joke, but I like it. It's punchy, it's silly, and I dig the music. It's random and stupid, but it's one of the only things SNL does anymore that makes me laugh.

Oh, right, sketch where Kristen Wiig is supposed to be sexy. I find that funnier than anything she's done on the show this season. Also, whichever new girl that was doing the Miley Cyrus impression, her impression is hilarious, but there was no point to that sketch other than it's supposed to be funny that teenagers are flighty and, um, young. Find something to do with it: the impression itself is really, really funny.

Zack Snyder Directing Superman

I like it.

It's no secret that I loved 300 and Watchmen, and I like the idea of seeing a Superman film in the same style. It's got to be better than that Bryan Singer abomination, at least. I'm still not xazzed about Christopher Nolan overseeing the whole thing (haven't seen Inception, but I really don't like The Dark Knight), but I'm really curious to see what Snyder does with it.

I know a lot of bloggers are ranting today about this, but frankly, consider that it could be Robert Zemeckis or Tony fucking Scott making the new Superman movie. I wouldn't even bother to see that mess.

The only problem I have right now is the news that the villain in this movie is apparently going to be General Zod. I think that's a lame idea. One of the biggest problems I had with Superman Returns--other than the terrible casting and that it turned Superman into such a pussy--is how slavishly devoted it was to Richard Donner's 1978 classic. It had the same score, it had some of the same shots, it had Marlon Brando... it was, as I said at the time, as if Bryan Singer just wanted to take Donner's work and sign his name to it. So hearing that the sequel to that lesser carbon copy may just be a lesser carbon copy of Superman II is pretty depressing.

Come on, guys, crack a collection of Superman Archives, or something. There are so many other villains out there besides Lex Luthor or Zod that haven't been seen in a Superman movie. Use Brainiac or Bizarro or Darkseid or Metallo or Parasite or Livewire or, shit, even Toymaker. At this point, I'd rather the villain were Mr. Mxyzptlk than just watching a remake of Superman II, no matter who directs it.

Step it up, DC. Bad enough Marvel just wants to offer me movies that are nothing but set-up for The Avengers. Make something worth watching.

Past Time for This Year's Halloween Banner

As you can see, I couldn't bring myself to ditch Kristen Bell entirely. So, while Pulse is a terrible, absolutely wretched movie, it's a horror pic with KB. This is Electronic Cerebrectomy material.

Halloween: William Shatner Recites "The Raven"

Kathy Griffin Addresses the Recent String of Gay Suicides

There have been a tragic number of gay suicides in the last week or so. It distresses me to read about kids being bullied so badly that they kill themselves. Bullying--any kind of bullying--is wrong. It's the thing that angers me the most.

What I especially appreciate in this video is the way Kathy lays this at the feet of, in part, the government. When we pass things like Prop 8 or DADT, what we're doing is not just legislating bigotry, but legitimizing homophobia. We're saying it's normal to hate, marginalize, and legally bully people because they're gay. I'm tired of being patient with such infantile notions. These suicides are made possible because our government coddles people who would take the rights of others away out of hate, fear, or discomfort.

Kristen Bell Mondays

Song of the Week: "Over the Rainbow"

I've been listening to a lot of jazz the past few days--early stuff from the 1950s--and this version of "Over the Rainbow" by Bud Powell just really struck me today. It's a nice day for it: quiet, cool, and sunny.

Halloween: Mickey Mouse

Had a couple of pics from The Haunted House hanging around. Halloween-related cartoons today are too cute.

Sunday Hottie 296

KAYLANI LEI

You Ladies Are Killing Me

Nope, still love Hellcats.

Halloween: "Ghostbusters"

I used to see this music video all the time. Today, what shocks me is not the amount of celebrity cameos, but the fact that Bill Murray even appears in this.

This video also makes me think about why there shouldn't be a Ghostbusters 3 unless you can be really, really careful about it. The first movie may have appealed to kids, but they made a comedy with Lovecraftian mythology and a sense of the weird. That's why it worked; it was a comedy first, an adventure second, and a movie that appealed to kids third. The problem with Ghostbusters 2 is that it aimed at kids first, and it was dumb and silly and too into its marketing potential. A third movie has to be a comedy, or at least a comedic take on the genre. I'm afraid today it would just try too hard to be cool, and then just be this pointless action movie without any character.

Anyway, I dig this video. And I love the guitar riff. This is great pop. Or maybe great kitsch.

My Cinema Autobiography

So, continuing on with what is apparently my favorite subject--me--we get to 1985. Beverly Hills Cop was the number one movie for the first 9 weeks of the year. I didn't see it until I was older, but I remember hearing Harold Faltermeyer's "Axel F" on the radio all the time.

Another movie I didn't see for years but have a vivid memory of just the same is Dune. I didn't know what it was, but I remember seeing action figures at Toys 'R Us. I still think it's insane that there were Dune action figures. Unless you were going to have Baron Harkonnen rape your sister's Ken dolls, what was the point of that? Did they really think kids were going to rush out to see Dune and then beg their parents for the toys? I don't think Universal understood the point of Frank Herbert's masterpiece for one second, to be honest.

The other memory that really stands out for me at the time is when it came out on video. The guy at the video store was handing out a small piece of paper with the rental; it was a glossary. I haven't seen that kind of thing happen since.

Huh, Avenging Angel and Tuff Turf came out the same weekend. What a battle. I also see that Gwendoline and Tomboy came out the same weekend. Tawny Kitaen or Betsy Russell? Don't make me choose! (Because Betsy Russell will win.) (Mischief came out two weeks later, too. Apparently February is when everyone wants to see teen sex comedies.)

Okay, now, Fantasia was re-released in 1985, and maybe that was the time we went to see it. That would actually make more sense to me. (And it was the same re-recorded version that came out in 1982.) With the history of the E.T. incident under our belt, it might make more sense that my Mom thought we should leave early instead of letting me get freaked out by the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence. Still, as I was now 8 instead of 6, I hope I'm wrong...

The first movie I know for sure we went to see in 1985 (in March) was a Disney movie, though: Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend. I was a dinosaur kid, and I had to see a movie about people discovering a still-living brontosaurus family. I liked the animatronic dinosaurs, but even as a kid I was pretty underwhelmed. I'd kind of like to see it again just to see how bad it is; I remember seeing it just a year or two later and thinking what a shit movie it was. It couldn't compare to going to the Field Museum and seeing the skeleton of a triceratops or a parasaurolophus or a brachiosaur.

I used to put together those wooden models of dinosaur skeletons. I was never quite as meticulous about it as I should have been, though. I loved models, but I was always too impatient unless they were snap-together kits. I didn't have enough patience. Too bad.

Also in March: The Care Bears Movie. There was an audience full of kids clapping along to that song at the end of the movie. That would make me nauseous today, but hey, I was 8. I liked the Care Bear Cousins, because one of them was a lion and one of them was a rabbit. I've always loved rabbits; I always wanted one as a kid, but my parents would never let me have one. I saw Watership Down on TV one year (they aired it in two parts across two nights, which is odd, considering how short it is), then read the novel--the longest I'd read, up to that time--and have been in love with rabbits ever since.

The same weekend The Care Bears Movie came out, Return of the Jedi was re-released, and that was worth a few more trips to the cinema. My Mom's favorite part of the movie was the final confrontation between Vader, Luke, and the Emperor. Between the initial release and this one, we saw the movie a total of 13 times. I've never beat that number. Nothing that comes out today is likely to beat it, frankly.

On 7 June, The Goonies came out. That movie just perfectly encapsulated my generation of kids, with all of our bike riding and swearing and camaraderie. That was the first movie I ever saw that really felt like it was mine, about me and my friends. It just got us kids, and we loved it for that. I know I saw it a few times. It remains one of my favorite movies of all time. I had the board game, by the way. Remember that one?

A couple of weeks later, Return to Oz was released. I think this remains an incredibly underrated, wonderful movie. By this time, I had read all of L. Frank Baum's and Ruth Plumly Thompson's Oz books, and I was really excited to see Jack Pumpkinhead, my favorite Oz character, in a movie. What a wonderful job they did with him, too. I read all I could about the making of that movie, and even saw a special about it on Nickelodeon. I was thrilled to find out that the voice and operations of Jack Pumpkinhead were by Jim Henson's son Brian. I was still very fascinated with puppetry and physical special effects.

For some reason, I remember going to see Return to Oz with just my Dad over at the Palace Cinema. But Jayne must've seen it too. Or did she see it on video? Jayne, if you're there, what do you remember?

Back to the Future came out on the Fourth of July weekend. For some reason, I don't remember seeing it in the summer. It was quite a success: it was number one for 12 weeks, with just a one-week interruption (by National Lampoon's European Vacation). But I remember going to see it at a second-run theater--the Tivoli, I think. I loved it, of course. And it sparked a crush on Lea Thompson that refuses to go away entirely. The fact that it starred Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties, possibly my favorite TV show at that time (and still a favorite--I watch reruns on one of the local channels every Saturday afternoon), was a pretty big deal for me.

On 12 July, the weekend before my birthday, Joe Dante's Explorers was released. My Mom took a couple of friends and myself to see it. Another flick I immediately loved. Still a fave, and one of my favorite Jerry Goldsmith scores, incidentally. The idea that you could build a spaceship out of a Tilt-O-Whirl was kind of palpable with me. And, since computers were still new in homes--we had a Wang computer that my Dad had from work, and not a lot of other families had computers yet--the idea that you could use one to generate an airtight capsule was the kind of science fiction magic that seemed realistic to, you know, a kid turning 9 in 1985.

The next week, my old nemesis E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial came back to haunt me. It was re-released, and this time my Mom very wisely talked me into facing my fears and giving the movie another chance. Although I still found the same parts intense, I rode through it and absolutely loved the movie. It was immediately one of my favorites. I don't think Steven Spielberg has ever made another movie as good as this one. When it came out on video a few years later, I got it for Christmas and watched it over and over again. It's still one of those movies, like The Godfather, that, if I catch it on cable, I have to watch through to the end.

If only all my fears had been conquered so easily.

And only a week after that, on 26 July, The Black Cauldron was released. I loved it. I was so excited about seeing it, and when I finally got to (at the Ogden 6 again, I believe), I thought it was fantastic. My love for it grew mysterious over the years, too, when the movie was never re-released again and Disney very rarely pushed the fact that it ever existed. It didn't even hit video until sometime in the mid-to-late 90s. I can see the problems with the movie now--it looks like a big compromise between the desire to make something epic and groundbreaking in Disney animation, and the second-guessing of it as something too intense for kids--but I still enjoy it.

The best thing it did for me, though, was to provide me an entry into the world of Prydain. Dell Yearling reprinted all five of the Lloyd Alexander Chronicles of Prydain novels, and the second book (The Black Cauldron) had a movie tie-in cover. That's how I found out about the Alexander novels and devoured them, including the collection of Prydain short stories, The Foundling and Others.

My parents actually used to take me to bookstores all the time. By then I was totally in love with fantasy and science fiction, and they used to buy me books all the time and encourage me to read. As I've said several times here, I read Charlotte's Web in the summer between kindergarten and first grade, and ever since then I've been an avid reader. The Chronicles of Prydain are great books to read when you're 9.

2 August saw the release of Follow That Bird, the Sesame Street movie, and while it wasn't as good as the other Muppet movies, I still enjoyed it.

23 August: Ghostbusters re-release. Yup; bustin' still made me feel good. (And really, doesn't it always. And yes, I meant that as an awkward double entendre.) And a week later? Gremlins re-release. I caught both of those a couple of times.

27 September was the release of another Disney movie that doesn't seem well-remembered: The Journey of Natty Gann. I remember liking it a lot as a kid, but being underwhelmed by it years later. I totally had a crush on Meredith Salenger, though. I don't think I've seen her in anything since the remake of Village of the Damned. (Although according to Wikipedia, she had a small role in Race to Witch Mountain, and I don't even remember seeing her in it.)

For some reason, I remember that I had the novelization of The Journey of Natty Gann. I think I got it through one of those Scholastic Books fliers we were always getting in school.

November saw the movie version of another saccharine cartoon: Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer. I know we went to see it--my sister loved Rainbow Brite--but I don't remember thing one about it.

Thanksgiving weekend an animated 3D movie called Starchaser: The Legend of Orin was released. That was the first time I ever saw a movie in 3D. I really enjoyed it, even though it's pretty much a Star Wars rip-off. I think my Mom was shocked by it, though, because of the sex jokes and some swearing. She used to get that way. I actually own this on DVD. One of my curios from the 80s.

On 29 November, Santa Claus: The Movie was released, which I am quite confident in calling one of the worst movies ever made. We went to see it; my Mom watched it at Christmas for a few years. She likes the early parts of the movie, which are kind of the origin of Santa Claus, because it fits in with her favorite idea of Santa, which is sort of folksy and old European. The rest of the movie even she admits is crap.

13 December: The Jewel of the Nile. By this time, I'd seen Romancing the Stone on VHS, and I'd love it, in part because it starred Louie from Taxi. We saw this one second run at, I think, the Tivoli. I loved the Billy Ocean song "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going." Can you imagine Michael Douglas or Kathleen Turner being in a music video today?

And then the year capped off for us with a reissue of 101 Dalmatians.

Oh, I see that, also at the end of that year, the IMAX film The Dream Is Alive was released. We went to see that at the Museum of Science & Industry's big OMNIMAX theater. It was a perfect movie for my Mom and I, because it was about the space program and what it took to be an astronaut--a dream of mine at the time--and was narrated by one of my Mom's favorite people, Walter Cronkite. The space program was one of our things, my Mom and me.

Wow, 1985 was a good, fun year for movies.

Cinema Bio Addendum (and My Parents, with a Little Health Report Update Thrown In)

I'm just going to navel-gaze here for a minute.

In the first installment of My Cinema Autobiography, I talked about seeing The Dark Crystal with my sister and my Dad and not remembering--even though she tells me it's true--that my Mom went with us. My sister Jayne commented on the post and said she remembered going as a whole family and that she and I sat up front by ourselves, closer to the screen. I don't remember that at all; I remember just the three of us going and seeing it.

I was talking to my Dad earlier today, and he mentioned that we actually went to see the movie twice--once just the three of us at the Palace Cinema, and once the four of us at the Ogden 6. I just think it's weird how Jayne and I can each remember completely separate times we went to see the same movie.

Dad and I talked for a bit; part of the reason I've been doing the My Cinema Autobiography stuff is that it brings back things I'd forgotten from when I was a kid: times spent with my family and my friends. Dad remembers a lot of stuff from my childhood that, sometimes, I only have brief flashes of.

My Dad was a pretty active father, actually. He always wanted to go out and do stuff as a family, and if Mom didn't want to go or wanted to go shopping or something--my Mom went through a period of depression where she didn't get out of bed much--we would go just the three of us.

My favorite memories of that time are of getting up on Saturday morning and Dad making us pancakes. He would cut them up for us with a pizza cutter, too, while we listened to his Beatles and Beach Boys 8-tracks. I didn't just like Saturdays because there was no school, but because my Dad was going to be home, too. We liked to play with Dad, because he was a big kid sometimes. Not in a soft way--he was always our Dad, not one of those fathers who tries to be a friend and then was ineffectual when disciplining you or explaining what you did wrong, because he could be firm--but in a fun way. We used to build models or wrestle in the living room.

I remember that my Dad always used to like to have a bologna sandwich with Ruffles potato chips and a bottle of Pepsi for lunch. I got my love of soda from him; he had a hard time giving it up, too--not as hard as I did, but a hard time--and I remember him trying to switch to Diet Rite for a while and then finally giving it up. He gave it up because of his blood pressure, which is part of the reason I gave it up; my Dad's never had weight problems like I do.

We used to watch TV during the day when we were done playing. The three of us never missed The Three Stooges, but we also used to watch badly-dubbed kung fu movies or Godzilla movies or wrestling; whatever was on local TV.

Sometimes we'd get up early, around 5 or so, and go fishing. I once saw a field mouse and thought it was the coolest thing; we used to have so many animals around then. There was an otter in the local pond. We would pretty much only catch bullheads and bluegills, but some of the bullheads got really, really big. We once tried to tie a big one to my bike, and it pulled the bike into the pond. After fishing, we'd usually go have breakfast at McDonald's. Back then, McDonald's was a rare treat and not a default setting. My Dad, rightly so, didn't want us eating it too much. Though we did used to eat Burger King more, but probably because they always had Star Wars or Muppet collector's glasses.

That was a really fun time, going to see movies or fish or go to an arcade or just playing all day with my Dad. Saturday was my favorite day of the week because he'd be home. I dreaded Sunday because of Sunday School, but the day before was the best time.

You know, this post sounds like I'm being a little unfair to my Mom... I just bring up all this stuff about my Dad because we talked today and all this stuff was sparked in my mind. I don't mean to imply that my Mom was never there or something. She liked to do other stuff like go shopping--and there is no hell like being trapped in a Sears and looking at all of the housewares when you know the toy store is just out in the mall--and sometimes she was too depressed to get up, but we did a lot of fun stuff too.

My Mom always loved to take us to Showbiz Pizza and play video games and just watch us kids have fun. She loved to go to the movies, too, and like I said earlier, she took us to see Return of the Jedi a number of times because she loved it as much as we did. She used to shelter me and humor me when I was scared of E.T. or of aliens or, when I was real little, of the shadows the tree created in my bedroom in the morning, which I was terrified were the Flying Monkeys.

My Mom had a garden, and it was always neat to look at (and to play with my Star Wars figures in). She had a feeder that hummingbirds used to feed from. I remember one time when a bird flew into our patio door and stunned itself; she looked after him while he recovered, and he even sat there as she petted him.

She would take us to the pool a lot of days in the summer; the pool was within walking distance, and it was a really nice one, too. She took us to see Halley's Comet when it passed by. I remember when she woke me and Jayne up in the middle of the night so we could watch the Berlin Wall get torn down live on television. And I used to love it when she would drive me and Jayne around on dark December nights to see peoples' Christmas lights while we listened to Bing Crosby.

The best thing my Mom did for me was, at a very early age, to get me deeply interested in outer space and science fiction. She had always been fascinated by the space program--she was born in 1957--and was a huge fan of Star Trek. She made me watch Cosmos with her and got me interested in reading real SF and books about space travel and speculating on what might be out there on other planets. It's a love I've nurtured my entire life, and it's thanks to her sharing her own love with me.

I guess I'm just more nostalgic tonight than usual. But those were good times and, damn it, now they're gone. I sure am glad they happened, though.

I've gone through a long stretch in my life that I'm just coming out of, where I focused a lot on the negativity I felt from the things in the past that didn't go the way I wanted or that made me feel bad or embarrassed. Lately, I've been thinking about just how much fun and love and adventure there was in my childhood, and it's made me feel better to have a more even picture of my past. Sorry to indulge in it so often here, but it's kind of like self-therapy for me. (And it's cheap, because I can't afford to go see the therapist.)

I'm feeling so much better these days.

Halloween: The First Charlie Brown Trick or Treat

I've been reading a lot of the original Peanuts strips lately and really enjoying them. Here's the first time Charles Schulz ever did a Halloween strip, from 1951. (Click it to make it bigger, these are pretty small.)

It's October!

I think I'm going to be posting Halloween stuff every day again this year, so do don't go getting sick of my favorite holiday early!