All posts by Eric Robert Nolan

Eric Robert Nolan graduated from Mary Washington College in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. He spent several years a news reporter and editorial writer for the Culpeper Star Exponent in Culpeper, Virginia. His work has also appeared on the front pages of numerous newspapers in Virginia, including The Free Lance – Star and The Daily Progress. Eric entered the field of philanthropy in 1996, as a grant writer for nonprofit healthcare organizations. Eric’s poetry has been featured by Dead Beats Literary Blog, Dagda Publishing, The International War Veterans’ Poetry Archive, and elsewhere. His poetry will also be published by Illumen Magazine in its Spring 2014 issue.
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A woman told me yesterday that I “have a dark soul.”

I am not quite sure how to respond to that.

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My review of “The Chernobyl Diaries” (2012)

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Well, this was disappointing.  Make no mistake about it – “Chernobyl Diaries” (2012) was nowhere near as good as its trailer made it look.   I’d give it a 4 out of 10, and that’s primarily for a great shooting location.  (This was filmed in Serbia and Hungary, but it sure as hell looked like something filmed near the titular doomed Russian nuclear reactors.)

You want a truly frightening new found-footage horror movie?  Skip this and check out the Australian gem, “The Tunnel” (2011).

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My review of “30 Days of Night: Dark Days” (the original comic).

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“30 Days of Night: Dark Days” is the second part of Steve Niles’ and Ben Templesmith’s original trilogy, and it’s a great read to which I’d give a 9 out of 10.  It expands on the pretty minimal story set up in the first book; we learn more about the vampires and see Stella Olemaun’s crusade to fight them.  It’sa first-rate, creepy, no-holds-barred horror comic.

My only quibbles are small.  Templesmith’s skilled and atmospheric art is sometimes so murky we have a hard time following the action, or even differentiating among characters.  There’s also a horrible plot point in which Stella apparently has sex with a vampire.  (It is as exactly as stupid as it sounds.)

This is still a great book though.

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My review of “Cabin In The Woods” (2012).

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The fantastic “The Cabin in the Woods” (2012) is a surprise-filled movie that is difficult to review without spoilers, so I can’t say much about it.  Suffice to say, I really, really liked it – I’d give it a 9 out of 10.

This is a smart, inventive film that is probably the most creative thing I’ve seen in a long time – it’s safe to say that I’ve never seen anything like it.   Do yourself a favor and avoid news articles or websites like imdb.com – you’ll enjoy this much more if you know little about it.

It actually takes a while to get going.  I had a lukewarm response to this movie for maybe its entire first half.  The end — which brings together a surprising number of story elements (I really can’t say more) – really redeemed it.  The buildup to that ending is a lot of things that have long been established as horror clichés.  But that’s intentional, as screenwriter Drew Goddard and producer Joss Whedon made it, I think, partly as a parody and partly as an homage to the genre.

A few caveats … if you’ve been looking forward to this movie for a while, as I have, you’re aware that it was very well reviewed.  But I’m pretty sure it got so much praise because it was creative and original – not because it was the best HORROR movie ever made.  The central plot device is too contrived and fantastic to be really frightening, and the movie is too self-aware to allow us to forget it’s just a movie. Parts of it were disturbing, but there’s just too much humor to make this a truly scary movie.  You’re not sitting down to “The Exorcist” or “The Shining.”

Also, various reviews seem to indicate a twist that is impossible to guess.  This isn’t true.  Horror fans – especially fans of a certain subgenre – will know the big reveal before the halfway mark, especially if they listen to the dialogue of the story’s antagonists.  Hell, I was just talking about it with another aspiring horror writer just the other day.  Don’t expect a surprise on the level of “The Sixth Sense” or “Unbreakable.”

Still, this was a hell of a lot of fun.  And what a GREAT Halloween movie it would make!!   It would also be fun to watch back-to-back with “Cabin Fever” or one of the “Evil Dead” movies, given their similar settings.

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“He … re-opened old graves in his heart to learn/ What laws the dead had died to disobey.”

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“The Third Temptation,” by W. H. Auden

(Part VIII of “the Quest”)

VIII. The Third Temptation

He watched with all his organs of concern
How princes walk, what wives and children say,
Re-opened old graves in his heart to learn
What laws the dead had died to disobey,

And came reluctantly to his conclusion:
“All the arm-chair philosophies are false;
To love another adds to the confusion;
The song of mercy is the Devil’s Waltz.”

All that he put his hand to prospered so
That soon he was the very King of creatures,
Yet, in an autumn nightmare trembled, for,

Approaching down a ruined corridor,
Strode someone with his own distorted features
Who wept, and grew enormous, and cried Woe.

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YES!!

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I was TRYING to make a friend remember these the other night (she’s my age), and she just didn’t recall them …

These sold for like $8 or $10 at the supermarket, and if you were seven years old, you begged for one.  The shirt and pants had this weird plasticy smell!  And they were STUPID costumes, because the shirt often carried the name and an illustration of the character depicted (i.e., a child pretending to be Dracula would wear a shirt with “Dracula” written across it).

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“The Vagabond Poet”

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I got acquainted for the first time yesterday with “The Vagabond Poet,” Don Blanding.  Dear Lord … this guy’s life sounds like an adventure novel.  (A WWI veteran who enlists to fight WWII at the age of 47?!)

I particularly like “The Poet and The Woman,” the first poem on the page at the link.

http://palmsartgallery.com/don_blanding

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My review of “A Beautiful Mind” (2001)

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I finally saw “A Beautiful Mind” (2001), and I really liked it.  It had a fantastic script with great performances by Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Paul Bettany and Adam Goldberg.  I’d give it a 9 out of 10.

I had no idea that Crowe was this good of an actor.  He had a “Rain Man” role in this film, in which an established actor can show his range by portraying a mentally ill person.  Yet even his terrific performance here was maybe outshined by Harris’.  I don’t know what it is about Harris … but he grows on you.  He’s a great actor, even in a somewhat one-note role like the one he has here.   He can be forceful and intimidating, and even genuinely frightening, but also sympathetic at the same time.  (See his performances in “The Stand” miniseries (1994) or that Saturday-afternoon, guilty-pleasure standby, “The Rock” (1996).)  Plus he’s just got a damned cool voice.  And those crazy-ass eyes that bore right through you.  Seriously, if Ed Harris were your Dad, would you ever f%#@ up as a teenager?  Ever?  I would never come home late with beer on my breath, EVEN IF ED HARRIS WERE AN OUT-OF-STATE UNCLE.

Ron Howard’s directing was good – very good.  Still, I couldn’t help comparing him with other directors who have a genius for this kind of source material.  This is a movie where the main character comes to doubt his perceptions of reality – when I think of films like “12 Monkeys,” “Vanilla Sky” or “Jacob’s Ladder,” I couldn’t help but wonder if their directors really would have given a tour de force with this story’s fantastic elements.  Think about it … if Terry Gilliam had directed “A Beautiful Mind,” wouldn’t this great movie be even better?

All in all, though, this was an excellent film.  I cheerfully recommend it.

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I hate to be a wet blanket …

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… but I’m disagreeing with those lauding “The Simpsons Guy,” the crossover between “Family Guy” and “The Simpsons.”  This was an average episode, and not a great one.  There was just too much self-referential humor and the running gag about the former copying the latter ran too long.

The “chicken fight” joke has always been lost on me.  I never got it the first time, and usually grab a snack whenever it pops up.  (Doesn’t it usually last like five minutes or more?)  A genuine team-up between Bart and Stewie would have been funnier than the character contrast, and there were too many weirdly dark moments (including the final chalkboard joke).

All I’m saying is that both shows are brilliant, and this landmark episode didn’t really reflect that.

Still, there were some nice moments — including the Emmy gag and the cameo(s) by James Wood.

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“The Second Temptation,” by W. H. Auden

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Part VII of “The Quest,” by W. H. Auden

The Second Temptation

His library annoyed him with its look
Of calm belief in being really there;
He threw away a rival’s boring book,
And clattered panting up the spiral stair.

Swaying upon the parapet he cried:
“O Uncreated Nothing, set me free,
Now let Thy perfect be identified,
Unending passion of the Night, with Thee.”

And his long-suffering flesh, that all the time
Had felt the simple cravings of the stone
And hoped to be rewarded for her climb,

Took it to be a promise when he spoke
That now at last she would be left alone,
And plunged into the college quad, and broke.

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