I’m going to repeat that, because I think it’s important. This is a fish that looks like Pumpkinhead — the title monster from the 1988 horror film of the same name. And it therefore deserves the attention of this blog.
My friend Ann sent this to me after her husband ordered it in a restaurant. I don’t know where they were eating, Hell, probably.
A dude ate from this, people.
To each his own, I guess.
Friend: “Ok just finished ‘Chernobyl’ on HBO. Not sure what all the hype was about, to be honest.”
Me: “You’re the kind of guy who insists there is no graphite on the ground.”
I know these jokes are getting worse. I really ought to Dyatlov it back a little bit.
Have you ever wondered if the universe, as you perceive it, doesn’t exist? That it’s just an infinitely detailed illusion that occupies the senses of all your waking hours — and which ceases to exist when you close your eyes at night?
And that it is reconstructed every morning, all its imperceptible threads spun nimbly out of oblivion’s ether to meet your waking eyes with its whole cloth, its meticulous fiction?
Yeah, me too. Good morning.
Photo credit: Simon Eugster –Simon 16:19, 1 July 2006 (UTC) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)%5D
If a Jedi offers you a tour of the Jedi Temple, is it a tour de force?
(*%$#, even I can agree that one’s terrible. I’m sorry.)
“NOT TODAY, SANTA.”
— The Dyslexic Evangelical
I just cannot be partial to slasher films. It’s never been my preferred horror sub-genre to start with, and, at this point in my life, these movies have become so predictable and devoid of story that I often find them boring. There are exceptions — some of the the original “A Nightmare on Elm Street” films (1984- 2003) and “Child’s Play” (1988) were grotesquely creative and had terrific supernatural setups that were well executed. But even the attraction of John Carpenter’s original “Halloween” films (1978, 1981) is still mostly lost on me.
With all of that said, I’ll still say that my horror fan friends were right when they told me that 2018’s “Halloween” was a superior sequel. It looks a lot better than the segments I’ve seen of of the campier followups in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
It’s far better filmed and directed, it’s occasionally scary and it benefits from a very good cast. (Jamie Lee Curtis is of course quite good as the film’s heroine and perennial “final girl.” I’m also always happy to see Will Patton on screen, and I like Judy Greer a lot.) The script occasionally shines unexpectedly, too — the screenwriters have a truly impressive talent for making minor characters vivid with funny throwaway dialogue. (One of the three screenwriters is actor-writer-comedian Danny McBride, who I liked quite a bit in 2017’s “Alien: Covenant.”)
I’d be lying, however, if I told you that I wasn’t occasionally bored by this latest “Halloween” — simply because its basic, boilerplate plot and conclusion seem endlessly redundant with those of other slasher films. There are few surprises toward the end — one “gotcha” moment was especially nice — but the overall story is just too tired. I’d rate this film a 7 out of 10 for its merits, but I can’t actually get excited enough about it to recommend it.
Legit question for rural Australians — how do I kill the 30 to 50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3 to 5 mins while my small kids play?
If you’re anything like me, you’re endlessly regaled by all the viral jokes this past week referencing “30 to 50 feral hogs.” (And if you’re nothing like me, then you’re an intelligent adult and I congratulate you. But you can google the new trope, which I have paraphrased above, if you want to. It is the very height of preposterous predatory animal political humor.)
The jokes made me remember this little disappointment from the 1980’s — the Aussies’ own feral hog horror movie, 1984’s somewhat lethargic “Razorback.” If memory serves, I rented this sometime around 1986, I suppose. I got it on VHS from my nearest shopping center’s sole mom-and-pop video store, before Blockbuster Video’s invasion reached my area.
There are people out there who fondly remember “Razorback.” You can find some nice compliments about it over at Rotten Tomatoes. People enjoy its “atmosphere.” People like Gregory Harrison a lot.
I didn’t like it. Sure, it had a pretty neat electronic score that seemed trippy and cool to me as a young high school student. But that was its only redeeming quality. It started off with its depressing plot setup, which you can see in the first video below — the titular wild boar absconds with a baby boy. (The boar also thoughtfully burns the child’s house down as it departs, to underscore that fact that it is an asshole.)
The rest of the movie is boring, because it’s yet another one of those monster movies where you never get to see much of the monster — right up until the movie’s poorly lit climax, which takes place in a slaughterhouse, I think? Which is supposed to be ironic or something? Don’t quote me on this stuff; 1986 was a long time ago. For comparison, think of the legion zombie “thrillers” always available on Netflix where the zombies are always outside, and the movie just follows the indoors arguments among three very-much-alive people inside a windowless warehouse. I want to invoke the inevitable “wild bore movie” pun, but I’m holding back, because my friends tell me that they have enough of that sort of thing.
I used my own money to rent “Razorback,” probably earned from either my confusing stint at McDonald’s (they just didn’t get me there) or my summer job cleaning boats and lobster traps. (I lived on an island, people.) I remember being slightly disgruntled that I’d wasted my hard-earned cash.
Honestly, though, I was a credulous kid when it came to a movie’s marketing. When I read the back of the VHS boxes, I took things at face value. I also had my heart set on something called “The Alien’s Deadly Spawn” (1983), which I realize now was just a no-budget early mockbuster ripping off Ridley Scott’s “Alien” (1979). (It was always out. I finally caught snatches of it on Youtube this past spring, and it looks pretty unwatchable.)
“Vanishing on 7th Street” (2011) kicks off with an extraordinarily good start — it’s begins as an especially frightening supernatural apocalyptic thriller. Nearly everyone in the City of Detroit disappears at once, leaving only several survivors to cope with ubiquitous shadow figures that wish to visit the same fate upon them. The opening scenes completely intrigued me, and one early moment made me jump.
Hayden Christensen is good enough in the lead role — he actually is a competent actor, despite the movies for which he gained infamy in the early 2000’s. (And I won’t name these widely panned films in which he starred, because I don’t want to start any wars with its ardent fanbase.) Thandie Newton is predictably quite good, John Leguizamo is predictably awesome, and the young Jacob Latimore is terrific too.
How sad, then, that this creatively conceived thriller so utterly loses its way. The film stumbles completely by the end of its first hour. We spend far too much time listening to four characters bicker in an isolated stronghold while the failing lights flicker around them. We also visit the same basic scare sequence a bit too often. (It’s pretty damned scary when the shadow figures encircle our protagonists at first, only to recoil when they’re repelled by the light. But it gets progressively less scary after the fifth or sixth time the movie shows this happening.)
There are enormous logistical questions about the plot’s setup and elements, too. Virtually all are left unanswered by the movie’s somewhat ambiguous ending. Was this … intentional? Was the movie intended as some sort of open-ended abstract art film, instead of a complete horror story? It certainly didn’t seem that way from its detailed and effective early scenes.
I can’t actually recommend this film. But it’s … different and interesting, I’ll grant it that. Based on the parts of it that scared me and piqued my interest, I’d rate it a 5 out of 10.
I like Chris Cuomo. I think he’s a good man and a good journalist.
And I feel awkward agreeing with anything uttered by that swollen orange cyst in the Oval Office. (It’s due to a Russian infection … an STD from when they f***ed with our electoral process.)
But Cuomo shouldn’t have physically threatened a man who called him a name. (You can find video of his near-altercation today with a heckler right here.) I have actually never heard the term “Fredo” employed as a slur against Italian Americans, and I’m from New York. But that’s really beside the point anyway — the severity of the insult isn’t the issue here.
To me, this is a straightforward free speech issue. The nature of the Trump supporter’s act of speech was nonviolent. Whether or not is was obnoxious doesn’t matter.
The threat Cuomo made against his detractor was explicit and credible. He threatened to “throw [him] down these stairs,” which were presumably nearby.
Suppose that I call Donald Trump “Benedict Donald” (the obvious play on “Benedict Arnold” that has been making the rounds on the Internet for a long time now). Or consider me calling him a “swollen orange cyst” above. Should Trump or one of his supporters have the right to threaten to “throw me down the stairs?”
I know it sucks, but those of us who oppose or criticize Trump need to hold ourselves to the same standards to which we subject the other side — that is, if we wish to consider ourselves free speech advocates. I’m just trying to be intellectually honest here. If we support free speech across the board, then we have to support all of it.
On a related note, I see that Sean Hannity defended Cuomo on Twitter, and said “he has zero to apologize for.” This strikes me as particularly gracious gesture on Hannity’s part — crossing the cultural divide to support another journalist. And here I am being a stick in the mud.
All of my admitted emotional biases are confused here.
This new mountain night
drains the waning day in violets.
Light declines to lilac, wine, pomegranate, black —
another plum-colored
sunset over Roanoke.
(c) 2019 Eric Robert Nolan
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 