There's A Big Red Man Down There...
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Friday, December 28, 2012
STCM: Big Trouble In Little China
Massage Worker: Take your tie off please.
Jack Burton: Yeah I know what you mean, my wife gave it to me for Christmas.
STCM: Alien Resurection
"Who were you expecting? Santa Claus??"--Vriess (Dominique Pinon). Another excuse to watch a Blu Ray, from the Alien set, that I got for Christmas.
STCM: New Nightmare
"Every kid knows who Freddy is...he's like Santa Claus!"
Just to add frosting to the cake, there is a gingerbread mention by the Freddy monster toward the end of the film, when Heather is fighting him to get her son Dylan back. "I've got some gingerbread for you!"
STCM: True Romance
Christmas Moment: Quote from Clarence Worley (Christian Slater): "Your guy's interested because in that much shit at his fingertips he can play Joe fuckin' Hollywood till the wheels come off. He can sell it, he can snort it, he can play Santa Claus with it." All in reference to a big ass suitcase filled with bags of cocaine. I got this as part of the brand new Quentin Tarantino Blu Ray box set for Christmas, so I had to play it; beside it's an RIP tribute to director Tony Scott.
STCM: Scooby Doo And The Cyber Chase
The idea behind doing this theme on the Friday after Christmas is to have some decompression Christmas fun...it's a nice transition. This is Peanut's Choice...and a good one since his mom is Scooby crazy too. Christmas moment here comes at one of the levels of the game (level 5?) which is at the North Pole, marked in the game by a big ole "Santa Pole!"
STCM: The Return Of Doctor X (1939)
It's a "Jiminy Christmas" moment uttered by the frustrated reporter Walter Garrett (Wayne Morris), who also utters "you don't have to treat me like the forgotten man," which seems to tie it in nicely as with The Man Who Wasn't There, whose main character Ed Crain (Billy Bob Thorton) is certainly treated as such! What makes this Doctor X film so fun is that is an "earlyish" Bogart film, and certainly marks one of his rare appearances in a horror film. He's pretty damn creepy in the role of Marshall Quesne. It just love the old stuff!!
First Up In Spotting The Christmas Moment: The Man Who Wasn't There
This is one of the most underrated Coen Brothers films, it is also one of the strangest, but that fact gets buried a bit in it's veneer of extreme seriousness and the fact that it is a modern film in black and white. The strange little alien sub-plot is worth "the price of entry" so to speak. And, it has a Christmas moment too. A Christmas party at the department store Nirdlinger's Department Store. It's not nearly as festive an occasion as one might find at department store scene in movies such A Christmas Story, which sports a charming strangeness. Clip can be found here.
Friday, December 21, 2012
2012: Apocalypse Of The Dead (Zone Of The Dead) [2009]
This is an extremely good example of a film deliberately being rebranded because of the 2012 craze. It is, in fact, a perfectly decent shoe-string budget zombie film, originally Zone Of The Dead, that takes place in Serbia and involves Interpol agents attempting to move an ex CIA spook type, when all of a sudden everyone finds themselves surrounded by slow moving (or in some cases not so slow moving) grunting people who do not respond to commands or questions. Of course, they are zombies...but only the spook knows what they really are.
I'm actually kind of surprised that no one made a serious pitch to actually make a 2012 zombie film. When watching this for the first time, anyone expecting any 2012 tie in would understandably be confused. There is some mumbo-jumbo about a "day" and a "prophecy," but these are presented as Serbian Church teachings that are only barely mentioned. So, someone, somewhere, heard these, and thought, "hey he said "prophecy" once: let's put this on television as a 2012 thing---totally makes sense!." As I mentioned, as a zombie flick, it's really not bad. It's big claim to zombie fame is that it stars Ken Foree, who is really well known amongst us horror fans as a main character in Romero's Dawn Of The Dead (and as a cameo in the 2004 remake), and lately of Rob Zombie films.
Mayan Apocalypse 2012: National Geographic
This is probably the most serious thing posted here today. It's actually a pretty decent little documentary put together by Paul Murton for the National Geographic Channel (which re-airs tonight @ 10 PM EST). He examines all sorts of phenomena related to human reactions to the date. In all seriousness, I would personally love a good documentary the focuses on modern Maya Calendar Keepers--one that shows the Mayan understanding of the year/the date; which differs quite a bit from the commercial side of it that has been splashed all over the Internet of late. But this will do nicely. A couple of the topics that he hits on include so-called "prepers," religious takes on it as separating of good from evil, or as one guy calls it "the separation of the righteous and unrighteous" (which is bunk!), etc. Murton's response to this is to actually seek answers among the modern Maya. There he finds that Maya who are aware of what is happening in places like the US are commercial exploitation of this calendrical concepts. It is this commercialism that I am really trying to make light of here today...since this is not supposed to be a serious blog in the first place. What is scary about this documentary (since that is the basic criterion of the blog in the first place) is the appropriation of one groups important sacredness and turn it into something rather monstrous and yes, scary. I do recommend giving this one a look. For the Maya, this is really a date of celebration. So my attempt in being silly about this date is to encourage a little light celebration of the day, since we have had a week of horror from last Friday! BTW the Mayan date on their Calendar Wheel today is 4 Ahaw, 3 K'ank'in.
Ancient Aliens: The Mayan Conspiracy
This is a very silly show that I get a kick out of watching. It fascinates me because it goes out of it's way to show some of the most amazing and astonishing accomplishments of human civilizations all over the world...but, of course, they all have to be the work of aliens that visited various ancient peoples....if that were the case, why the differences in these cultural accomplishments? They try to point out that these differences are less than their supposed similarities (pyramids being the ultimate example), when, in fact, all one has to do is watch to see that the differences matter a great deal more than the real or imagined similarities. In this, the old, really over tired notion of "King Pacal"--real name Ki'nich Janaab Pakal, is supposedly see in an ancient flying machine on a large stone burial sculpture. This is really a depiction of Lord Pakal descending into the traditional death vase....but it doesn't stop the from fashioning a "flying machine" out the pict (see below). This was first put forward by Erich von Däniken, who incorrectly stated that it was fro Copan; it is in fact from Palenque.
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| If you look carefully at the "seat" on which Lord Pakal is resting on, you will see the image of the Death God--not utilized on the model. |
2012: Doomsday (2008)
The above title post is a bit confusing since obviously today is supposed to be doomsday and the year is most decidedly 2012! Actually this is a made for Syfy movie that was ostensibly made to cash in on the 2012 Phenomenon. That would have been fine, I have a lot of schlocky love for a lot of their really bad Saturday afternoon fare...however this is something that I really didn't expect from them....I rapture film. It's Christian propaganda film, based on the idea that what the Mayan Long Count calendar was really counting down to was the taking up of all the true believers, and all us sinners are to be left here to face Christian "end times." Some archaeologists find a crucifix in a ancient Maya temple and start babbling something about Christians being there long before the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century. I don't know who these earlier Christians could have been, since the religion is only 2,000 years old and the Long Count had been counting down 3,000 years before Jesus was born.... It doesn't make any sense. The long count calendar ran out about a little over 3 hours ago, according to the winter solstice....looks like everyone is still here, whether anyone likes it or not.... Wish I could recommend this a "fun Syfy crap"--but it's not. Even the daughter of The Monkey's Mickey Dolenz, Ami, can't save this one!
Friday, December 14, 2012
December Horror Fun: Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker
Jeez, I can't believe that I just put on a killer Christmas movie that has Mickey Rooney in it! But...oh well... Actually I've seen this movie a couple of times, but not in a while, I know it has all sorts of killer toys (of course) and a little kid that doesn't talk, other than that I don't remember a great deal about it. It gets a 3.7 on IMDb, but that's never stopped me before. Found a clip of some killer toy action on You Tube.
December Christmas Fun: Silent Night (2012)
This is supposed to by a remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night. It just debuted last Friday in Canada, where it was made, though it is set in the US...so I decided to rent it and check it out. Interestingly it has Malcolm McDowell in the role of the sheriff....
December Horror Fun: Black Christmas (1974)
It's really hard to imagine that the late Bob Clark gave two of our most iconic Christmas films here in the US, and they could not be further apart in viewing experience! This film was universally reviled all over the country and banned in some places upon it's release in 1974. It not only helped birth the slasher genre that would go on to be such a Hollywood obsession in the 1980's, it also brought the idea of a Christmas horror film fully front and center--love it or hate it, there was no denying that Christmas horror films were here to stay. It proved that there was indeed an audience for a horror film set at such a seemingly sacred and/or "merry" time of year. On the other hand, in 1983 Clark brought us A Christmas Story, the central character of which is a frustrated little boy who just wants a bee bee gun from Santa, and constantly endures admonitions of "you'll shoot your eye out!" I think only Bob Clark could have pulled that off. RIP!
December Horror Fun: Casper's Haunted Christmas
The is Peanut's Choice this morning before he heads off to his Goopy's and the grown-ups get down to some serious Christmas Horror. Besides, I grew up with Casper too and always had a soft spot for him! [Note: sorry about the subtitles!]
December Christmas Horror: Gremlins
Classic Christmas monster fest and not too hard on the kiddies, of which I have one of!
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