The Cinema 4 Pylon

Son of Terrible Movies: Frankenstein Created Woman [1967]

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:31:00 +0000

Promo ad for the Son of Terrible Movies' airing of Terence Fisher's Frankenstein Created Woman [1967], starring Peter Cushing. Dr. Frank-N-Furter wasn't the first mad scientist to go all "transgender-y" in the laboratory...

Son of Terrible Movies was the sequel show to The World's Most Terrible Movies, a late night movie package show that was shown on ABC affiliate KIMO (Channel 13) in Anchorage, Alaska in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Son of Terrible Movies: Frankenstein Created Woman [1967] from The Cinema 4 Pylon on Vimeo.

Son of Terrible Movies Promo: The Night of the Sorcerers [1973]

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:25:00 +0000

Promo ad for the Son of Terrible Movies' showing of Amando de Ossorio's The Night of the Witches, aka La Noche de los Brujos [1973], known in this clip by its American dubbed release title as The Night of the Sorcerers. Washed-out colors, bad wigs, and jungle garb abound...

Son of Terrible Movies was the sequel show to The World's Most Terrible Movies, a late night movie package show that was shown on ABC affiliate KIMO (Channel 13) in Anchorage, Alaska in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Son of Terrible Movies Promo: The Night of the Sorcerers [1973] from The Cinema 4 Pylon on Vimeo.

Son of Terrible Movies Promo: Horror Rises from the Tomb [1973]

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 13:19:00 +0000

Promo ad for the Son of Terrible Movies' airing of Carlos Aured and Paul Naschy's Horror Rises from the Tomb, aka El Espanto Surge de la Tumba [1973]. Son of Terrible Movies was the sequel show to The World's Most Terrible Movies, a late night movie package show that was shown on ABC affiliate KIMO (Channel 13) in Anchorage, Alaska in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Son of Terrible Movies Promo: Horror Rises from the Tomb [1973] from The Cinema 4 Pylon on Vimeo.

Son of Terrible Movies Promo: Dracula, Prince of Darkness [1966]

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 04:37:00 +0000

Promo ad for the Son of Terrible Movies' airing of Terence Fisher's Dracula: Prince of Darkness [1966], starring Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley and Andrew Keir. Son of Terrible Movies was the sequel show to The World's Most Terrible Movies, a late night movie package show that was shown on ABC affiliate KIMO (Channel 13) in Anchorage, Alaska in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Son of Terrible Movies Promo: Dracula, Prince of Darkness [1966] from The Cinema 4 Pylon on Vimeo.

Son of Terrible Movies Promo: The Creeping Flesh [1973]

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 04:30:00 +0000

Promo ad for the Son of Terrible Movies' airing of Freddie Francis' The Creeping Flesh [1973], starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Son of Terrible Movies was the sequel show to The World's Most Terrible Movies, a late night movie package show that was shown on ABC affiliate KIMO (Channel 13) in Anchorage, Alaska in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Son of Terrible Movies Promo: The Creeping Flesh [1973] from The Cinema 4 Pylon on Vimeo.

Into Un-Flickchart-ed Waters: Halloween Alien Invasion Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:50:00 +0000

For someone who has the second highest quantity of total films seen on Flickchart and spends an undue amount of time ranking films there, I have not commented very much. I only have around 30 comments after 18 months on the site (not counting comments to other users of the site), and for someone that likes to blab on about films as much as I do, that's an odd thing. It's probably because Flickchart comments are better suited to brevity, which is something that I don't normally like to approach in my own time. I save that for work.

Some of my comments on Flickchart have essentially been entire essays, such as the type I used to post on here in days past before I was systematically calculating my own demise due to an unbearable recent depression. In a dual effort to pique my interest in writing personally again and to maintain a healthy presence on that site, I have determined a single, firm ground rule be applied to my next round of Flickchart posts and beyond. The ruling shall stand that I may use no more than 250 words -- TOPS -- on any comment where two films are pitted against each other. Personal posts on the site are different, but for the bread and butter of Flickchart -- that of the film vs. film ranking battle -- I must heed this rule.

And now, since the intent of The Cinema 4 Pylon this month is to serve as a Halloween Countdown destination (and I apologize for not being as committed to the cause as I was last year, when I posted every day in October), I will use Flickchart's Genre ranking tool to have several alien invasion films climb into the ring and go at it, uh, film-o y film-o...

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) vs. War of the Worlds (2005)

This one was an easy decision right off the bat. These titles are from two of my favorite books, but only one book also stands as the progenitor of two of my favorite movies. Snatchers has been made twice into one of my favorite movies, as I also love the 1978 Philip Kaufman version with Donald Sutherland, and especially because it takes the same basic concept (that of the loss of identity to emotionless alien interlopers) and also makes it into a satire of the then burgeoning New Age trendiness. It the original Don Siegel version, however, that rules my universe, not least because it has Dana Wynter in it as my all-time favorite damsel-in-distress. I zeroed in on the film as a teenager after growing hearing about the film from my parents, and it hasn't failed to break my heart since, even if I am tired of the discussion about the film's true political intentions. An interesting discussion, yes, but after a while, I just want to watch it again to be scared to death. H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds also has a version in my list of favorite films, the 1953 original by George Pal, but Spielberg's 2005 re-do is only marginally successful, though it has much visual appeal. I really should give it another look one of these days.

Predator 2 (1990) vs. Not of This Earth (1988)
I am not a fan of either one of these films, but I can still make a pretty easy choice on this match-up. Predator 2 was no match for its original (though that film's appeal has definitely worn off on me since its original release, when I was excited to see it initially), but the second iteration is still a pretty worthwhile monster movie. Some good urban warfare, and I liked Danny Glover just fine in the role as the cop hero. An interesting assemblage of actors as well: Blades, Paxton, Alonso, and Busey the elder. I couldn't wait for Not of This Earth to come out on video in 1988 as we were still in that era when there was great interest vested in our part (my boys and I) in seeing Traci Lords' cans... and legally as well. To this date, I have still not seen the 1957 Roger Corman original (odd for me, yes, but it is now out on DVD and I will have my copy in mere days), so I cannot compare the two yet, but I remember being both mildly amused by the intentionally mega-cheap remake and rather bored at the same time. In the end, the scenery was nice but too brief, and by this point, I no longer care about that scenery. I will take Predator 2 for being an actual film, not just a publicity stunt.

The Creeping Terror (1964) vs. V: The Final Battle (1984)
OK, I will admit a massive fondness for the ridiculously terrible The Creeping Terror, a film so low-budget that they had to hire a newsman to read narration over most of the film because of the poor sound quality of the dialogue throughout (though there is actually still a lot of contention over why this occurred). A monstrous shag carpet-laden space creature with a downed spaceship, dines on various citizens of a small town, and eventually attacks a dance hall and swallows teenagers whole (and spits out their shoes)... oh, it is just so anti-awesome. Watch the MST3K version if you do, if only to keep you awake, but the regular film is a wacky, crappy time on its own. I loved the original mini-series V when it was first on television, and I stuck with it through its run in the mid-'80s, if only to chiefly ogle Faye Grant and Jane Badler. (Honestly, I lost the plot early on in the regular series.) Regardless, I have rewatched the two original minis (of which this was second) in the last few years, and still had a pretty good time. Not so with the newer remake series. I am flashing V for Victory...

Body Snatchers (1994) vs. The Faculty (1998)
Abel Ferrera directed the third official screen version of Jack Finney's seminal science fiction novel, and the story still holds up well in its relocation to an army base. Third in my heart, though, after the first two, but this effort is still rather creepy and the special effects are pretty well done. I was really excited for The Faculty from Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Williamson when it came out. In a slightly different sense, it is also a "body-snatching" film -- this time, teachers are taken over by alien parasites -- but the results are decidedly mixed. The cast is fun, especially the teachers, and it is more than a tad hammy in presentation. Seeing it recently, it is a serviceable enough sci-fi thriller, but no more than that. It seems to have been lost in the Rodriguez oeuvre, though there are other films on that list (Sharkboy or Spy Kids 3, anyone?) that deserve relegation far more. I am snatching "Body" on this one...

Returner (2002) vs. The Mysterians (1957)

Twin Japanese alien invasion films, but only one really connected with me. Returner, while fun for portions of its run, was far too much of a hodgepodge of just about every science fiction film that ever came down the pike, and I just grew weary of its dodging anything genuinely original in order to get to its underwhelming finish. Cute stars, though... The Mysterians, on the other hand, crosses over into that treasured kaiju era of the late '50s and early '60s, and I crossed paths with this and the rest of its Toho ilk as a teen. Moguera, the crazy-looking, pointy-nosed mecha controlled by the Mysterians, is a particular favorite of mine (its supposed to represent a giant robotic mole). It doesn't have a star nose like my favorite moles, but it gets the gold star out of this pairing. As candy-colored silly as it looks, it's The Mysterians for me.

The Twonky (1953) vs. The War of the Worlds (1953)

Arch Oboler's The Twonky is one of those films that seems, as you are viewing it, that you are lost in the course of a particularly devious but playful fever dream. (I resist describing things as "an acid trip," first because it is stupid, and secondly, because I have never been on one.) When I first saw it years ago on a UHF channel, it was in the middle of the night, and I actually was barely conscious due to illness. I kept images of a walking, manipulative but loyal television set tormenting poor Hans Conried in my head for ages, always wondering "what the hell the name of that movie was?" I would tell people about it and they would think I was crazy. I have seen it a couple of times recently, and while I treasure having the film in my knowledge, it is almost best remembered as that very fever dream. No matter my joy over The Twonky, it can't compare for my long-standing adoration of George Pal's still scary version of H.G. Wells' sci-fi classic. Many of the scenes still define screen science-fiction for me, despite years of directors trying to outdo it. It's not just sight, but the sound of the film, that live in my memory. If you don't know what I mean, then you haven't seen it.

Village of the Damned (1995) vs. Monsters (2010)

John Carpenter pulled off a remake (The Thing) that was equal to (and sometimes better) than the original over a decade before he tried to do the same thing to one of the creepiest films of the 1960s, Wolf Rilla's The Village of the Damned. All those eerily staring, blond-haired kids... I can't even think about it. And yet, this time, Carpenter really dropped the ball to such an extent, that I think it really affected the way that I viewed him. Everything is off in this film, and all even five minutes of this version does is remind me of exactly why I grow nauseous when I hear the word "remake." Hollywood has "Clockwork Oranged" me into turning fearful every time they decide to savage the culture of previous generations. Which is why I cling ferociously to a film like Monsters, which, despite a couple of missteps, is still one of the more original visions I have seen in several years. All the film did is make me want to know more, at every portion of the journey, and I was able to shake off the "Blair Witch"-style shooting of the film, which by this point has been done to death. But as long as the occasional good comes out of the style, then I guess that I will just have to learn to accept it.

It Conquered the World (1956) vs. Without Warning (1980)

This one comes down to choice of monsters. Do I go with what is widely considered to be one of the worst examples of an alien costume in Corman's It Conquered the World (which I genuinely enjoy as a goofy '50s sci-fi film despite this) or with the deadly alien Frisbee things with tentacles and teeth that devour their victims throughout Greydon Clark's neglected Without Warning? I saw this film for the first time on cable television at a friend's house late one night. Then I had to walk home about two miles alongside a forest that never seemed quite that creepy until after I watched these evil alien Frisbee things fling about and kill people. Without Warning was shot with the proper amount of spooky menace by Dean Cundey, who lensed Halloween just before this film and then broke through to the big leagues. The makeup effects by Greg Cannom, who would also go on to bigger things, are pretty nifty as well. Man, I want both of these films on DVD, but between the two, Without Warning is my choice.

Son of Terrible Movies Promo: Hatchet for the Honeymoon [1970]

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 22:40:00 +0000

Here's another promo ad from the Son of Terrible Movies, this time for their airing of Mario Bava's Hatchet for the Honeymoon [Il rosso segno della follia] [1970]. Son of Terrible Movies was the sequel show to The World's Most Terrible Movies, a late night movie package show that was shown on ABC affiliate KIMO (Channel 13) in Anchorage, Alaska in the late 1970s and early 1980s. For more about these promo ads and their background, as well as their influence on me as a teenage monster movie fan, click here.

Son of Terrible Movies Promo: Hatchet for the Honeymoon [1970] from The Cinema 4 Pylon on Vimeo.

Countdown to Halloween: Son of Terrible Movies - Fury of the Wolfman

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 03:30:00 +0000

To kick off October, here's another promotional clip from Son of Terrible Movies, this time featuring Paul Naschy's The Fury of the Wolfman (1972), otherwise known as La Furia del Hombre Lobo. Son of Terrible Movies was the follow-up to The World's Most Terrible Movies, a late night movie package show that was shown on ABC affiliate KIMO (Channel 13) in Anchorage, Alaska in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Son of Terrible Movies Promo: The Fury of the Wolfman [1972] from The Cinema 4 Pylon on Vimeo.

What is The Cinema 4 Pylon?

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 04:06:00 +0000

[This post was written to serve as the new Overview page on the tabs bar. I felt that I should post it in the regular stream as an introduction to those who are new to the site. Because I have been gone for so long, it serves as a re-affirmation of the philosophy behind the site.]

The Cinema 4 Pylon is a reservoir for the collected musings and writings of Rik Tod Johnson.

The true reasons behind the name of the site have yet to be fully revealed to anyone outside of its creator, who would be myself, though some small clues have been given to something short of a handful of friends over the last few years. None of these people actually cared about these clues, even those that have feigned the most interest in my pursuits, and those scant few clues likely went the way of most trivial discussions... swiftly and unceremoniously flushed from each listener's mind and straight out through their ears.

The Pylon was originally meant to serve (as I would mention time and again in its early days) as a form of writer's notebook. The initial driving philosophy behind the Pylon, aside from its largely cinematic bent, was that each successive revision posted on the site would link to earlier drafts, so that the evolution of an essay, story or review being written could be tracked from start to supposed finish. I had also originally intended for the blog to be totally private. It would soon turn out that all of these early intentions would be pushed aside as simply too constraining. Even I do not want to re-read old versions of anything I have written once I have pushed them forward to their maturity, and as for the privacy issue, if I wanted to keep a notebook for myself, why not stick to pen and paper? Why go online at all?

And thus The Cinema 4 Pylon gradually evolved into an open portal for my various meanderings online, whether writing reviews on other sites or merely indulging in rounds of tweeting. It has changed here and there in focus of material depending on the nature of my then-current discontent with how I was presenting said material, or to try out new series of posts (most of which I never paid enough attention to fully develop the concept even halfway, after which they were rather absentmindedly dropped from the rotation).

This current version of the Pylon really should be appended with a 2.0 (perhaps even a 3.0), as it is now involved in a massive process of being transformed closer to how I had wished for my eventual full website to appear once upon a time. After being absent from the blogging world since November 2010, Blogger underwent several changes that have now made it possible to get that process rolling. This is why an Overview page such as this now exists on this site. Blogger's most recent revision almost perfectly aligned with my need to get back in touch with my various creative outlets, after months of depression and basic loathing of the outside world. So, there will be many more changes at work here in the coming months. In the meantime...

...WHY HANG OUT HERE?

Regarding the approach of content on the Pylon, while some pieces are clearly written with the intent to inform the reader as best that I can (I have some friends that refer to me as Rikipedia, and while I do not agree with this nickname wholeheartedly, I do understand the reasons as to why I earned it), this site is not meant to be a historical reserve for cinematic fact. I do, however, go to great pains to research my posts as fully as possible. The Cinema 4 Pylon is merely meant to reflect my varied interests, and if you happen to share those interests and find this site enjoyable or enlightening, or end up being engaged in anything I have written, please leave a comment or two. That is all I ask.

I am no one important, nor do I pretend to be. I am merely a fellow with a great regard for the nonsensical, an appreciation for the carefree among us, but little of either regard or appreciation for those who sour the lives of everyone around them with their fearfulness or oppression. While I can engage in seemingly intellectual discussion about a variety of topics, I believe deeply in being as silly as possible in almost any circumstance. As my brothers and I have recognized in ourselves for a very long time, we are very serious about our silliness. Room should always be cleared in any social or business situation for the absurd to occur (while recognizing, of course, that such situations are already patently absurd from the outset).

As you may well surmise from even the merest glance at the content on this site, I am possessed of a massive love for films. At times, it may be possible that I am actually more in love with the very idea of film itself -- the fact that such an art form even exists -- than I am gripped with a fascination for any one specific film. And I watch films in droves... hundreds of films per year. All while holding down a full-time job and maintaining a home life. That said, if you do not come to an acceptance of the concept that the films which I do treasure most in this world are far, far more important to my well-being than the bulk of the human relationships through which I have bungled in this life, then there is little chance we would get far enough to create the next bungled human relationship on my list.

THE PYLON-OSOPHY

While at times, certain writings on this site might seem overly amber-colored when observing beloved items from my distant past, that fuzzy side effect of "nostalgia" is not my intention at all. I am not enamored of my childhood at all, nor do I believe that any period in the past (especially those that pre-dated my existence on this planet) was better than the time in which we live now.

However, I do look to the past to inform my present. I recognize that the foundation of my feelings towards film now began to be built due to my early exposure to the movies. I have been fortunate in that I realized that this particular obsession was developing at a relatively young age and began to take notes of the films I saw. I accepted any opportunity to see films in those pre-video days where our town lacked a movie theatre of its own. I watched films in evening school showings, hung out in church pews to watch various movies, and hardly ever missed a movie matinee or late night show on television in my teens.

I also devoured film criticism books as a teenager and began scouring libraries and bookstores for other volumes on the subject [you can read more about this here]. After ages of breathing in the dust of these pages, the result is that I can barely read movie reviews in newspapers or on websites anymore, unless there is a very personal touch at play within the reviewer's words. And rarely is any TV review worth even a first glance. I can't just take the blather of So-and-So from Action News Fear-Report on Channel 87 telling me how great the latest chick flick is. And if you are movie fan with any sort of integrity, then neither should you.

The point is that I now need to know that reviewer as much as possibly before I will accept their opinion of a film. Would you trust the opinion of a stranger who just walked up to you on the sidewalk and told you that you simply had to eat at a certain nearby restaurant? If so, then mister, you are a better man than I, and are probably a far more naive one who will end up in the back of a van someday. I would rather the person telling me that information is someone who knows me, knows my peccadilloes, and is more apt to weigh first whether I really would enjoy the food at that establishment.

Look, you may not agree with everything your friends say or do, but they are your friends and it is more than likely that they are going to weigh their experience with you before they invite you to something that you have a more than fifty percent chance of hating outright. When I was much younger, I would make my entire group of friends sit down and watch something like Eraserhead, which even I will admit is probably something that only a very select group of individuals should attempt to watch with some preparation. The only prep I gave my friends was my absolute thrill over discovering the film not long before. The first result of this is that many of them do not trust my opinion of a film to this day, and in fact, will bring it up a quarter century later if I were to tell them they "simply have to watch this film!"

The second result, after several other attempts to get various groups of people or even individuals to watch a current favorite of mine, is that I no longer recommend any movie to anybody, except on an individual basis and with intense knowledge of that person's background and interests. I can recommend titles to my pal The Working Dead (and vice versa) because we are roughly tuned into the same wavelength regarding films, comics, music and television. If something turns out to be a dud, then no harm and no foul.

But, I would never recommend something to anyone with whom I worked or just met until I got to know them for a while. I get asked all the time "Are there any good movies out right now?" and I always answer "There are always good movies and bad movies out at any given time. What type of movies do you like?" Sadly, the response is "All types of movies!" (which is a fucking lie in almost every case), because then I will say "Do you like horror films?" and the usual response is "Oh, not really." (Don't get me started on "all types of music" people...)

I caught flack for recommending or force-viewing the wrong films to the wrong people, and I amended my ways. Most people, though, employ a form of blanket acceptance of film reviews in the media. People will take in a critic's opinion of a film without really considering who it is that is giving that opinion. They know nothing of the person, but they accept their word simply because that review is in, for example, a "legitimate" paper. And they rarely bring to mind previous reviews that critic may have written, because the words in the review are purposely made to be generic and acceptable for the widest possible audience. Confusing the issue even more is the trend of the last decade or so of fake movie reviewers getting their paid, hack opinions into movie posters and trailers. The point is that the average person doesn't want to work too hard when choosing a movie, and the level of critical reviews in the world has sunk to meet that anti-demand.

Which is truly sad, because we would all be better off if people took just a little more responsibility in choosing their entertainment. Want to stop Hollywood from putting out shitty movie after shitty movie? Stop going to those shitty movies. The studios are only supplying what a largely uncritical public, too concerned with filling their spare time with any form of entertainment at all as long as that time if filled somehow, seems to demand.

Sure, I like to be surprised by an unexpected joy of a film, but I at least know what film I am going to spend my money on before I hit the theatre. The only information I need to know about a film before sitting down is who made it and who is in it, though I have certainly seen a trailer or two beforehand, because it really can't be avoided in this day and age if you have even the minimum amount of exposure to TV and the internet. And I rarely read any reviews outside of those film critics for whom I have developed a backlog of experience in gauging their work. I read Ebert on his website on Friday mornings, because I have read most of his books, have followed him on television for 30-plus years, and I have gained a deep understanding of his likes and dislikes, know a lot about his nature, and can put any one of his film reviews in perspective when placed against his others.

Likewise, for the past few years, I have read Scott and Dargis at the NY Times site, and have begun to create a similar backlog. Until recently, I did the same reading the critics in The New Yorker, having grown up reading Kael's collected review books, and also reading John Simon. The point is not that I agree with any of their reviews; in fact, more often than not, I don't. The point is that I understand where they are coming from due to continued exposure and study of their writing, and use it to determine the worth of their opinion. On a literary level, I have gotten to know them and trust them, whether agreeing or not.

But it is still not enough for me, which is where my philosophy of critical therapy comes into play. At the beginning of this section, I mentioned using the past to inform the present. It goes even further than that. The reason I write is to engage my mind and fight the series of depressions that have plagued me for many years. I finally learned how to combat that depression, and if I had recognized twenty years earlier that my only escape was through personal engagement through art ("art" described in whatever terms you wish to give it), I would be a far different person today. The problem is that every time I dig myself out of a hole, I will get comfortable in a new situation, and then not notice as I slowly fall back in again. Thus it happened last November, and now I making a new attempt to climb back out.

What you will discover here is that I don't simply watch a film and say "It was good. I liked that actor. The camerawork was kind of crappy, but it was really funny." I am not interested in thumbs up or thumbs down. That is a terrible way, with no apologies to Siskel and Ebert, to approach a film or decide the worth of a gladiator's life. Because not everyone brings the same baggage to a film. You and I can go into a movie, and one of us might have had a run-in with the boss or gotten a parking ticket, and the other one of us might have gotten blown an hour before, and our opinions of the movie we are seeing, no matter how much we try to remain impartial and open-minded, are definitely going to be colored by what happened to us earlier in the day. People say they use movies to escape, but no one can ever really escape from life. The mind can't help but wander to personal matters, and damn it, I want to know that in a review. I want to know what the critic carried into the film.

I let you know. With rare exception, I don't consider the way that I write a film critique to really be about the film in question. I am always writing about myself. While I deeply appreciate film technique and history, I am really more interested in how I approach a film, what I got out of the film, what I can learn from a film, and how it might have affected me days, weeks and even years after I have seen it. It might seem egotistical, but you try and live your life without your ego getting in your way. And it may seem rude, but I don't really care about what anybody else -- whether a close friend, a professional film critic with an English degree, a trumped-up weatherman thrown into a celeb spot on the local news, or a mouth-breathing lardass who likes to have the endings of films spoiled for him -- cares about any film. In the end, I really only care what I think, because that is the opinion with which I must live. Just as yours is all you really need.

THE FINAL QUALIFIER...

If you don't love Buster Keaton, Preston Sturges, Bugs Bunny, Kurosawa, Fritz Lang, Val Lewton at RKO, kaiju eiga, Universal monsters and Hammer horror films, Ray Harryhausen, or the Marx Brothers, well... then goodbye, sir or madam. The Cinema 4 Pylon is not the place for you. But if it is, please enjoy looking around while I fully renovate everything on here. I will be introducing some new topics and features in the coming year, and am currently busy creating new sections as well. Please weigh in with your comments good or bad as you see fit, and I am always eager to engage in conversation about any film.

Narwhal,

Rik Tod Johnson

Flickchart Comment #30: Career Opportunities (1991) vs. The Coca-Cola Kid (1985)

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 22:54:00 +0000

vs.

I don't think it would be out of bounds to state that most of us who engage routinely in cinematic discourse live somewhat of a lie. The same could be said of anyone who delves into any art form deep enough to begin to believe that their selections within their chosen medium are bred solely from a studied and intellectual set of criteria. Sure, it's fun to puff oneself up with pretension and attempt to convince others that the reason one attended a certain film was because of the director's mise-en-scène, the subtleties of framing used by a particular cinematographer, or one's appreciation for the underrated mumblings of the film's scruffy, cult figure of a star.

But, sometimes it just comes down to the boobs.

Possibly the truest models of the range of my youthful lust, Career Opportunities and The Coca-Cola Kid both came out within my twenties, and I saw them both in theatres. I saw The Coca-Cola Kid first, in what would now be described as an "arthouse cinema," but which was really the only true form of alternative movie theatre in my hometown at the time (they also showed pornos back in the day, so it was only part-time in its art leanings). And I didn't go to The Coca-Cola Kid for the boobs, but rather because the film had garnered some decent press on its way to being released in the States, and I wanted to see something different than that which I had been practically force-fed up to that point in time by Hollywood. (OK, I wasn't force-fed -- I qualified it with "practically" -- but when you are a film fanatic, you takes what you can gets sometime, and back then, Hollywood flicks were pretty much, outside of video, the only game in town.)

When Kid came out, Eric Roberts was young and freshly scrubbed and rather oddly interesting in his acting choices, and for a brief period, could actually get people to plunk down into a movie seat (briefly). He wasn't that great, but he could get you to pay attention. (My personal favorite film with him is Larry Cohen's truly absurd The Ambulance, where he is teamed up in the over-the-top but low-budget thriller with the great Red Buttons.)

I went to The Coca-Cola Kid with the hopes of seeing a halfway decent film... and I came out with Greta Scacchi on my mind. I have fallen in love a hundred times or so looking at a movie screen, and in that tiny movie theatre in 1985, the immediate object of that desire was Ms. Scacchi, so different from that which I was used to, but absolutely adorable. She also happened to be naked in the film, which cut out a lot of mystery (chiefly, answering the question "Would she get naked in a movie?")

Scacchi invaded my brain enough for me to rent Heat and Dust (one of the first Merchant-Ivory films I saw), and see White Mischief, Good Morning, Babylon and Shattered in theatres. After Altman's The Player in 1992, I pretty much lost track of her, but as she has matured yet still retained her classic Italian beauty over the years, I have caught her in a role here and there. And each one reminds me of when I first saw her in The Coca-Cola Kid, which still holds up as a fine, offbeat comedy to this day.

Career Opportunities, like many of John Hughes' offshoots, really doesn't hold up in the same way 20 years after its release in 1991, nor is it of the same quality by any measure of the Scacchi/Roberts film. At the time though, fresh off dragging some friends to Dennis Hopper's The Hot Spot the a few months earlier (which they hated), they at least agreed with me that the ample nude footage of Jennifer Connelly and Virginia Madsen were to be commended. All we knew is that the teen star of Labyrinth, whose name we really had not committed to memory, had truly grown up.

Then the poster for Opportunities showed up, and while I am not necessarily all that focused on what Zappa termed "mammalian protuberances" (I am an elbow guy), if ever there was a poster designed to sell tickets to me instantly at that moment in the universe, it was the one for Career Opportunities. If there was a guy in the theatre lobby in that period who saw that image and didn't dream of being in the same exact position that Frank Whaley was in that one-sheet (see above), then it would have been immediately evident the guy wasn't batting in even the same league, let alone team.

My friends, male and female, would have gone to the film even without the poster such as it was, since we pretty much were attending en masse any film with John Hughes' name on it. But, for the boys in my little gang, the poster made it a sure bet we would be there opening weekend. I distinctly recall being only mildly amused but roundly disinterested in the film outside of the actors, and Connelly's part in the film really can't be chalked up as a performance. Performance art, perhaps... but acting was not her strong suit in the early days of her career. In fact, despite her ample charms and the various means by which they are exploited in Opportunities (and yet, in a very PG way), her character was almost vapid enough to almost dispel the notion from my mind at the film's close that I adored her absolutely earlier in the film. Talk about a 90-minute stand.

Of course, I recovered my initial adoration once I was left to my own devices (ahem...) to reflect upon what I had seen in the film, and after The Rocketeer solidified my feelings later that year (playing the part named and designed in the original comic book after Bettie Page), Connelly became my gold standard for film beauty for a good decade. (At least until she read her Oscar speech a few years later from a piece of yellow legal pad paper. Improv is apparently not her strong suit...)

To recap: two beauties from my past, who have turned out to have lengthy, distinguished careers, starring in two movies that I watched a lot back in the day. In the end, as always, the overall quality of The Coca-Cola Kid tips the balance in its favor. See, it's doesn't always come down to the boobs. But it is a damned attractive way to reach such a decision.

Gamera Vs. All Mankind - Act III: Requiem

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 14:09:00 +0000

An impromptu storyboard page by my brother for Act III

A little, long-unfinished business here to which I must attend...

Under the Cinema 2 tab that now adorns the top of the Pylon, alongside the brace of other tabs to which I was recently given the means of installation, I have built a page featuring the initial sketch version of Gamera Vs. All Mankind, a short, operatic, animated film that my brother and I contrived based on somewhat of a dare from my best pal Leif.

I will dispense with the full story here, as I will be adding it to the Cinema 2 screen in the near future, where I have also placed the libretto for Acts I and II for those interested in what the wholly synthesized voices in the cartoon are singing. However, as all of this business was initially published on the website that I had built as the ultimate destination for those who visited the Pylon, it seems that I neglected to published Act III of Gamera vs. All Mankind here as a regular post.

If you are at all interested, click here to watch the very rough sketch version of our would-be kaijû opera cartoon and read the first two acts. We never got around to doing the sketch version of the third act, and the music for it was never completed either, but you can read the lyrics to get the general idea of how it was to be concluded. At some point in the future, I would love to finally get around to fully producing the short to completion, but there are a lot of obstacles to work out first.

Gamera Vs. All Mankind

A kaijû opera in three tiny acts

Music by Mark Otis Johnson
Libretto by Rik Tod Johnson

ACT III: Requiem

[As the two ships head furiously for the island’s shore, the pirates/scientists have turned their theme “Bigger and Better Things” into a near-sea shanty, which they indulge themselves in as they prepare their weaponry for landfall... ]

Pirates/Scientists
Yo Ho! Ho Yo!
To bigger and better things!
Yo Ho! Ho Yo!
To bigger and better things!

We’ll add Gamera to the extinction list
And put wads of money in our fist!
Yo Ho! Ho Yo!
To bigger and better things!

[The ships reach the island at positions far down the beach from each other. Hasigawa, now seemingly mad in love with a girl he has never really met, lifts his eyepatch to search down the beach for Rainbow. As it turns out, each of the major players is searching for something at this time…]

Hasigawa
Where?
Where did she go to?
Once I thought my heart would fill
Now I fear it’s empty still…

[Rainbow is searching her cabin desperately so she can doll up for Hasigawa; Mr. Aoyagi, the translator, stands behind her trying the missing object out on himself, smacking his lips and dabbing them on a tissue in a mirror.]

Rainbow
Where?
Where is my lip gloss?
I want to plant one on that hottie!
What the hell! I want his body!

Morimoto
[Peering through a telescope]
There!
Far down the shore!
In that quay there lies our quarry!
Men, we must hurry
Or poor Gamera may die
And we’ll all be--!!

Takada
[Peering back through his own telescope, reading Morimoto’s lips…]
Sorry??!!
Why must he worry?
He doesn’t realize
That everything I do
Is for our country’s greater glory!
I will lead us…

Pirates/Scientists
[Wheeling cannons, howitzers and all manner of arms across the beach…]
Yo Ho! Ho Yo!
To bigger and better things!

[All of the parties start rushing across the sands towards each other, each one singing their part of the quartet…]

Hasigawa
Where?
Where is she now?
Rainbow
Here!
I'm ready for him!

Morimoto
Now,
I fear the worst, men!
Hasigawa
Where?

Rainbow
Here!

Morimoto
[pointing at the pirate/scientists]
There!

Takada
[pointing at the Greenpeace team]
There!

All
NOW!!

[There is a beat as Hasigawa and Rainbow come face to face in front of the two warring factions. Rainbow jumps at Hasigawa, throws her arms around him and knocks him into some nearby bushes. Clothes come flying out into the air. Another beat, as the translator looks at the warriors, and then he, too, jumps into the bushes. The battle commences, with much bloodshed and death and general gnashing of teeth. After several moments, the noise and din of the battle is broken up by something even louder… the terrifying cry of Gamera, the giant flying turtle.

All of the survivors stop to stare at the creature, who is standing there holding a giant cup of tea, and wearing fuzzy bunny slippers on his feet, looking as if his solace has been disturbed. In the palm of one giant turtle hand sits little Toshio, who has at last found his protector. The pirate/scientists raise their weapons and charge Gamera, putting up siege towers and blasting cannons at him; the Greenpeace warriors raise their weapons at the pirate/scientists and charge them at the same time.

Gamera, however, having no need for either side, shoots flames out of his mouth, incinerating the whole lot of them. Soon, every human on the island is a charred pile of ashes except for Toshio, Rainbow, and Hasigawa, who have come up for air from behind the rock where they were making out, and Mr. Aoyagi, the Translator, who pops up with them. Gamera growls at the Translator.]

Toshio
I beg you, Mister Man,
What did Gamera say?

Mr. Aoyagi, the Translator
He, uh, asks what brings you here today?

Toshio
Oh, you see…
My daddy told me,
Because he works in the Diet…

[Gamera raises an annoyed eyebrow, and then burns Toshio to a crisp, either because he hates politicians or the kid’s annoying sing-song voice or both.]

Toshio

AAAAHHH!!!

[Gamera then starts to spin about, jets blasting from the four limb-holes in his shell and jets off into the sky.

[As he and an ever-smiling Rainbow get dressed behind the bushes, Hasigawa lights up a cigarette from the flaming skull of a nearby burnt body, puts his eyepatch back on (but over the opposite eye), grimly looks at Rainbow, and walks away without saying a word. He climbs aboard the IKR ship and sails off.]

Rainbow
Wait! Tadashi!
Where are you going?
Why must love bring such stings?

[The translator walks up behind her, also smoking a cigarette that he lit from the charred remains of Toshio. He stares at the boat sailing off and looks unblinkingly at the sad, skimpily dressed girl.]

Rainbow
I don’t understand.
How could he ever go?

Mr. Aoyagi, the Translator
It’s… it’s…

Rainbow
Complicated.
Yes, I know.

Mr. Aoyagi, the Translator
[winking at Rainbow]
To bigger and better things?

[Rainbow grabs him and throws him behind the bushes. Clothes go flying into the air.]

FINE

Gamera Vs. All Mankind, Copyright © 2006-2011 Silly N' Serious Productions.
Libretto, Copyright © 2006-2011 Rik Tod Johnson.
Music, Copyright © 2006-2011 Mark Otis Johnson.
All Rights Reserved.

The Return of the Blogger Named Me

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 14:27:00 +0000

Yes, that is Marley and Me in the background.

My apologies to anyone setting down here briefly over the next couple of weeks. Having gone AWOL from the blogging scene for roughly ten months (not entirely of my own choosing), and after weeks of telling myself that I just needed to jump back into it, I finally ran smack-dab into yesterday.

Luckily, yesterday was a Saturday, so I had the time I needed to deal with what I found when I opened up Blogger for the first time in ages. If it had been a weekday, I would have been in trouble. I would have gone to work thinking about everything I needed to do on Blogger instead of concentrating on my job (and right now, concentration is rather the most important weapon in my work arsenal, given that we are trying to complete the next issue of our magazine).

I returned to discover that Blogger had undergone several major changes. Thankfully, they were all to my liking. A cleaner, more efficient user interface and immediate access to site statistics were nice additions, and there are several others I won't mention. The actual editor for creating posts is now far more pliable, with more room given to write (I have never understood why so many WYSIWYG editors give you such a tiny box to write in that makes it possible to see only the barest portion of your post. The original Blogger editor only allowed me to see about a paragraph and a half. Frustrating...) But my favorite new item was the ability to build stand-alone pages that create tabs which you can display across the top of your homepage. Suddenly, your blog could get a little closer to looking like a real website!

This is something I had long wanted, and had spent a good amount of time a couple of years back trying to get a regular website up and running which would get me closer to my original vision of what I wanted to do. The problem was that I already had the Pylon going for several years at that point, and I became frustrated in trying to devise a way to merge both sites properly. I had so much material on the Pylon and on its then-current sister site, the Cinema 4 Cel Bloc, that I didn't see the point of transporting all of it to a new site. The logistics of such a move made my head swirl. And with time and money at a premium in my life, I gave up the proposition.

But now that I had pulled a Rip Van Winkle on blogging, and woke up several months later to find that the entire Blogger world had changed (but without seeing weird little men playing nine-pins or my having grown a massive white beard), I could consolidate my efforts into just improving The Cinema 4 Pylon.

And thus, you will discover that changes are at hand. After posting for the first time since mid-November (and I will not recount the reasons at this moment), I started messing around with the layout for the site. Because I ran into this just yesterday, I still haven't quite worked out exactly how things will look, but first I corrected the banner on my header (one small reason I gave up on the site for a while was that I could not locate my original art files, which I also found going into this weekend) and also resized the site. I began to build the stand-alone pages, but I have not quite put up (or created, in some cases) the material that will eventually go into these, so please be patient.

And now I will celebrate with a round of figurative nine-pins and the dancing of a sprightly jig (also figuratively, since my back will not allow it) for posting two days in a row. Hopefully, my interest is piqued enough to keep me going.

Flickchart Comment #29: Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) vs. Killdozer (1974)

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 17:45:00 +0000

This isn't really that tough a choice... as a lifelong Apes series fan, picking Escape (the third film) is a foregone conclusion. But, however ridiculous the title may seem, Killdozer holds far more cachet with me than one might imagine.

Both films were very important to me at the time of my life where I was slowly being morphed from a kid with no clear loves except for baseball (at which I was, and remain, a horrible player), conservation (I was an avid Ranger Rick reader in my youth) and being a general pain in the ass into a full-on science fiction and horror fan. My sources were few: with just the original three networks (ABC, NBC and CBS), a small local library, two bookstores and zero local theatres (we had to drive 14 miles to see Star Wars -- or any film -- when it first came out) at my disposal (and, of course, no VHS yet and the internet was still light years away), I somehow made the change. The media which inspired me most was clearly film, beginning with the original King Kong a couple of years earlier, but around the ages of 12 and 13, I had convinced my mother that it was just fine for me to stay up mega-late on Friday and Saturday nights and watch movies until about three in the morning.

It was on CBS where I used to watch both of these films, not long after their original release. My friends and I would often play at reenacting Planet of the Apes in those days, not because of the films, but because of the NBC Saturday morning animated Apes series that was airing at that time. Escape was actually my first Apes film. I would see the second, Beneath the Planet of the Apes next, and finally the original, which became one of my favorite films (and frequent nightmare producer). As did Escape, with its very creepy ending and the sadness of its last reel staying with me to this day. Seeing Escape first is probably why I have always taken the apes side in the series, seeing that it rather ironically turns the tables on what the first two films set up, as humans are the real villains in this one. Perhaps not when seen through the eyes of the entire human race -- the apes seemingly do have to die in order to attempt to prevent an unthinkably hairy future -- but then again, when have I ever agreed with the anything the human race thinks is the right way to behave?

Around this same time, CBS late night programming granted me regular viewings of films like Killdozer, originally a made-for-TV production. In addition to the Night Stalker and New Avengers episodes that preceded these movies at night, this is where I first saw the Beatles in Help! and Yellow Submarine, as well as dopey films that became weird favorites to me like Hello, Down There. Killdozer, while the film is not all that great, did engage me enough as a youth to make me begin paying closer attention to credits sequences, where I discovered the name Theodore Sturgeon for the first time. A trip to the library, and I was suddenly having my fragile little teen mind truly blown for the first time. I was already reading Burroughs and Silverberg -- probably far more suitable to my age -- but Sturgeon was something far different. Sturgeon led to Sheckley led to Asimov led to Clarke led to Ellison. Ellison was a particular favorite early on, and because of this, by the time I swiped my mom's copy of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when I was 14, I was probably prepared for the onslaught a little bit more because of watching a seemingly stupid little TV movie called Killdozer.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled diatribes...

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:40:00 +0000

The Pylon is back and open for business. Sorry to disappoint you.

No Shelving Left: Demeking (2009) and Giants & Toys (1958)

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Every once in a while, you have to take a chance. (I'd use the phrase "leap of faith," but that just gets you holy wars.) I get restless and impatient when I hear about a film and know that it is available on DVD (and sometimes has been out for a good while in that format), but cannot find it on Netflix. Actually, you can usually find it on Netflix, but it comes with one of those annoying green "Save" rectangles, the result of which is very little information as to when Netflix might be getting that title.

And so I hit Amazon. If that is a bust, then it becomes a search for the movie company's website or even eBay, though I cannot stand that site. But I can generally find that for which I am searching on Amazon.

Thus it went for two titles I came across about a week ago whilst flitting about the 'nets, both of of which were Japanese releases about which I had previously heard nada. This is not unusual. I am not a haunter of other film or DVD sites (except those which see fit to return the favor), and so new releases or film trends tend to only hit me in a glancing way. I am rushing past everything in my world these days -- where time has increasingly become a premium -- and so I only pick up on things in the periphery.

However, I am very good at following up if something even catches my interest slightly, and so it was that I ended up ordering, sight unseen, two Japanese films whose premises intrigued me enough to warrant a swift purchase from Amazon, once I surmised that Netflix was going to fail me utterly once again. Luckily, I was able to grab them for less than $30 total (always check the alternate new and used versions underneath the retail price area, where I always shoot for "new" if I can help it), and since I have Amazon Prime shipping set up, I already have them in my possession.

It's true. I will never truly grow up, and I will certainly never grow out of daikaiju films. For the uninitiated, that means Japanese giant monster movies. No matter what strides I have made in my overall taste for quality filmmaking, I still need to see some stunt guy mucking about in a rubber costume every once in while, knocking down cardboard buildings and making a general wreck of everything in sight. It's some form of therapy, I suppose, and it represents a large portion of my internal happy place. But while I revel in the simplicity of the form, I am always open to filmmakers attempting to take the basic kaiju formula and expounding upon it, bringing some new elements into the mix or attempting to take it to a more exalted level. Such was my delight, whatever demerits others might give them, in Cloverfield and The Host, two recent exercises in doing just what I described.

When I ran across the title Demeking the Sea Monster [Demekingu], I thought "Oh, it looks like just another kaiju film," which translates in Rik speak to "I've got to see this right away!" Even warnings that the titular monster only appears late into the film and only sparingly at that did not sway me. The premise was interesting enough -- a man in 1969 uncovers a prophecy relating to the attack of a creature from the stars which won't occur for another 50 years, and begins preparations to do battle with the creature -- and the few images I could find of the creature seemed fun enough to warrant spending 11 bucks (since Netflix was an epic fail in this department) on getting the Cinema Epoch DVD release via a seller on Amazon.

Having now watched the film, there was so much more to it than expected. There is a vibe not unlike Stand By Me (perhaps intentional, though still very different in execution) to the proceedings, and seems to make darkly satirical comments on the nature of "the hero's journey." I quite enjoyed the film, though yes, the comments about the length and attention actually paid to Demeking are accurate, though she has a pretty goofy but cool design to her. (I am guessing her since she lays eggs everywhere, but then you know how twitchy those space monsters that land on earth via asteroid can be sexually.) I am not regretting my purchase in the least, but it does make me wonder if there is a sequel in the works out there of which I am unaware. The story comes from a popular manga, and you know how long some of those things can be. That things are left relatively up in the air is pretty definitely laid out, so maybe there is potential for more?

The second film is a Japanese mass media satire from 1958 called Giants & Toys [Kyojin to gangu], directed by Yasuzo Masumura. I had honestly never heard of the film before last weekend, though I had seen two of Masumura's films previously, both of them far more sexually oriented in nature: the absolutely crazy, psychosexual horror epic, Blind Beast [Môjû] from 1969, and the middle segment of the Hanzo the Razor films, Razor 2: The Snare [Goyôkiba: Kamisori Hanzô jigoku zeme] from 1973.

I won't get around to watching Giants & Toys until this weekend, but the basic setup is that a trio of candy companies are doing battle over the selling of caramel, and one of them introduces a new "fugly" spokesperson for their candies. The tomboy with hideous teeth becomes an overnight sensation via some campaign which seems to involve spacesuits, ray guns and squirrels, but things apparently begin to go awry from there. The film is said to satirize just about everything in sight: business ethics, media culture, commercial advertising. Perhaps to push this point, the Fantoma DVD box not only goes so far as to compare it to Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, but also name-drops its director, Frank "Tish Tash" Tashlin (the former Warner Bros. cartoon director), as well as Billy Wilder and Dr. Strangelove.

Hard to say if any of this holds up with my eventual viewing, and I could be out 15 bucks if it ends sucking, but its certainly a lot more promising than waiting around for Netflix to start carrying the film. As I said, sometimes you have to take a chance. I blew $16 four weeks ago to watch what turned out to be a crappy, mostly-2D but supposedly 3D Wes Craven film in the theatre, so sometimes these chances backfire. But that whole "cracking eggs and omelet" thing holds up pretty well over time, so the only thing to do now is watch the movie and see.

[Editor's Note: When Giants & Toys was first looked up on Netflix over a week ago by yours truly, I did indeed get one of those annoying green Save boxes. However, it now has Add instead. I don't know if something occurred where it went down briefly and long enough for me to go hellfire crazy and order it, but I have found other reviews since where the writer had rented it via Netflix. So, no one's bad, but confusion all around. And by "all around," I mean just me...]

Countdown to Halloween 2011, Week #2: Stuff That Helps Me to Not Be Afraid of No Ghosts

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 14:35:00 +0000

The stuff that helps me to not be afraid of no ghosts (apart from the fact that I do not believe in the supernatural at all) comes courtesy of the local Ghostbusters chapter wthin my own home. What that translates into is that I have my own Ecto-1 at hand -- also known in some quarters as the Ecto-Mobile -- still on call for "cleanin' up the town."

I have figures of all the main Ghostbusters (technically, Real Ghostbusters) figures, but they never quite made it out for Halloween, so their time will have to come next year. However, for some obscure reason, I always seem to have the figures of Louis Tully and Janine Melnitz inside the Ecto-1. Slimer and Stay-Puft are also forever lurking about my place on one shelf or another, in the same way that the Ecto-1 is always on display, so they made the picture as well.

Gotta be ready in case "Paranormal Activity" suddenly becomes a real thing...

Countdown to Halloween 2011, Week#1: What do you mean, "The party's over?"

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 12:53:00 +0000

Halloween is over, and while Grover is not the sort of monster one normally associates with the holiday, here he perfectly expresses my sentiments about today...

What to Watch, What to Watch...

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 19:04:00 +0000

My plans for the weekend did get switched up quite a bit yesterday morning when the early Saturday double feature I was planning at the Starlight Cinema City Theatres (where they run cheaper than anything pre-noon showings of all films in their lineup) was canceled by torrents of rain. One of the films I had been planning to see was Saw 3D, after catching up with the last three installments in the torture-laden series over the previous few days. Keeping in the Halloween spirit, I was going to follow that up with Paranormal Activity 2, having just seen the first film a couple of weeks back.

But it was not to be. I was already feeling run down from a quite stressful day at work on Friday (in which everything was handled just fine by EOB -- and that doesn't mean Edgar Octopus Burroughs), had some possible follow-up in the a.m., and then the rain hit around 5:30, just as I was setting up plans for the day. The rain was actually a relief since I was feeling so tired, and it became a very easy thing to burrow into the blankets on the couch and knock out a couple of movies.

Knocking out movies is what I tend to do well, and since I last posted my October genre-related choices on October 21, I have added many more films to my roster. Here's the update:

10/21/10 Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl 2009

10/22/10 Black Sheep 2007

10/22/10 Dead Silence 2007

10/22/10 Monster Beach Party A Go Go [aka Stomp! Shout! Scream!] 2005

10/23/10 Silent Scream 1980

10/23/10 Boogens, The 1981

10/23/10 The Hills Have Eyes 2 2007

10/23/10 Darkness Falls 2002

10/24/10 Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film 2006

10/24/10 The Boogeyman 2005

10/24/10 The Boogeyman 2 2007

10/24/10 The Satanic Rites of Dracula [Elvira edition] 1973

10/24/10 Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy 2010

10/24/10 Five Million Years to Earth [aka Quatermass and the Pit] 1967

10/25/10 Resident Evil: Apocalypse 2004

10/25/10 Feast 2005

10/25/10 X the Unknown 1956

10/26/10 Resident Evil: Extinction 2007

10/26/10 Evolution 2001

10/28/10 Saw IV 2007

10/29/10 Saw V 2008

10/29/10 Saw VI 2009

10/29/10 Trail of the Screaming Forehead 2007

10/30/10 Happy Birthday to Me 1980

10/30/10 Frankenstein Created Woman 1967

10/30/10 Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed 1969

10/30/10 Red: Werewolf Hunter 2010

10/31/10 Scared to Death [Elvira edition] 1947

10/31/10 The Haunting of Molly Hartley 2008

10/31/10 The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters 1954

As you can see from many of the choices in the past ten days, one of the themes for me this time was to make my peace with much of the modern horror that I have been avoiding so much over the past decade. This drive is probably going to carry over into November for a couple of weeks, now that my interest has been piqued and there are some films that I definitely want to see while the genre is still holding my full attention. To be sure, it hasn't all been pretty -- there are a lot of films that I would have been better off not seeing -- but one of the pleasures of focusing exclusively in one genre for any length of time is divining that clear line between the sublime (however ridiculous in execution) and the pure dross, the dreck, and the utter crap.

I am still planning on hitting the Saw 3D/PA2 combo, but next weekend instead. And as I often do at this time of year, I use September and October to fill in some noticeable gaps in my sci-fi/horror DVD collection, not least of which was picking up copies of the Nightmare on Elm Street 8 movie box set, Bigas Luna's mind-warping Anguish, Romero's Day of the Dead, the Night of the Creeps Director's Cut and the Pumpkinhead Collector's Edition, with the film presented in widescreen for the first time, as opposed to the original MGM release in pan-and-scan which made so angry after I bought it. (All pan-and-scan releases are to be considered automatic garbage if there is a widescreen version readily available, and especially if it is just due to studio-driven idiocy.) And I finally did get my copy of Teeth. I figure if I rent a film four times in six months, it is probably time to get my own disc.

So, what to watch for the rest of Halloween? Hard to say... so many choices, so little time. Jen and I are planning to watch at least a chunk of the recent Kids in the Hall mini-series on IFC, which is reported to have some horrific elements (the Grim Reaper is one of the main characters). Jen is not a horror fan in the least, so I have to find shows and movies where I can get her to dip her toes in the chilling waters without totally immersing her in a way in which she would not be happy. The Kids in the Hall help to forge a compromise in that area. Until then, the day is mine. I will likely choose a triple threat of films from the ones shown in the stack in the picture above, all of them purchases I have made in the last couple of months.

Or I might just end up reading some Poe or Lovecraft. After all, it's my day, just as it's all yours wherever you are. The point is to enjoy yourself.

Halloween! ["Happy" adjective only applicable depending on your situational POV...]

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 15:30:00 +0000

Oh, so this is the big thing to which we have been counting down? Anything feel noticeably different now that we are here? Do you feel any different?

Me? I am doing the same thing that I always do, 365-12, 24-7. Halloween might be a date on the calendar to the general public, but for the vast majority involved in this Countdown to Halloween blogroll, our great love for the traditions of the holiday is something we tend to celebrate throughout the entire year.

Speaking for myself, counting down a mere 31 days until a calendar point is actually rather, for lack of a better term, pointless. Not that I haven't had fun concentrating on blogging once again, but being in the Countdown hasn't garnered me one single comment out of the normal few friends that are kind enough to stop by and pay a visit to my too long dormant working notebook. Sure, I can't wait for Halloween to roll around, but chiefly because it convinces people who would normally "tsk, tsk" such obsessions to drop their guard a little bit and let the rest of us fly our freak flags without judgmental commentary. Not that I don't enjoy being given a chance to tell "the general public" to shove their negativity up their collective ass, but it is nice once in a while to hide unnoticed amongst the phonies dressed up for what they consider to be just another holiday.

But I don't feel any different today. There is no power in waking up into a holiday, except that which you have created within your mind. I got up like I normally do on a weekend, watched a movie, wrote a little bit on a short story I started a couple of weeks ago, took a shower, fed the dogs, and saw Jen out the door and off to work. I stacked up a few DVDs of which I have passing interest in viewing today and made some breakfast.

Nothing different, nothing ghostly, and nothing spooky except that which is derived from dwelling within the atmosphere I myself created within the apartment for the holiday. A lot of monster toys, some minor decorative effects and glowing devices, and a grinning, big-eyed, triple-fanged lit pumpkin. Perhaps there will be trick-or-treaters knocking on my door today; perhaps not. I will not be attending any parties or performances. I am going to just spend a quiet, relaxing day doing what Michael Scott on The Office, in what might be the most brilliant line recently written about October 31, suggested: "Halloween should be a day where we honor monsters and not be mad at each other."

Agreed...

Random Abode Spookage & Monsters #7: Inactive Model Division

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 06:32:00 +0000

As a child, I made models by the dozens. Always had something being glued together... cars, jet fighters, dinosaurs, monsters. It wasn't that I really loved doing it, but every month or so, I would convince one of my parents to purchase one or two new model kits for me. Suddenly, I found myself putting together some tank battle set or T. Rex, but the truth is that I was never very good at it.

To me, it was always like putting together any other puzzle, like a jigsaw, but you don't have to glue jigsaws. Well, some people do, but that has always seemed silly to me. Model-wise, I was sloppy. I never had the patience needed to build one to perfection. I hated the smell of the glue, I hated getting it on my fingers, but my real downfall was in the painting. Zero skill with the brush and too many other things to do not to rush the job. I would begin to paint, something would drip no matter how careful I was, and I would see other models that master builders would do and it would drive me crazy. Why can't I do it that way? Why do I always end up with blobs of glue at all of the critical seams and joints? Honestly, I had never considered sandpaper at that age, but as I said, it was more about having the model rather than completing it, so I never ventured too deep into gathering tips about doing them better. Mine was a cursory interest; my real love at that time was baseball cards, and the modeling thing was probably just a way of getting my parents to buy me more stuff.

Eventually, I wearied of the hobby, but to this day, I still have a soft spot for the idea of model building. Like most hobbies, deep down it's merely a silly and addictive time-filler, but also lovely when done right. It was with just such an attitude that I forged through life, and when the time came that I had mad money to burn, I would go back to trying out model building. But a twist came with my new purchases in adulthood: I never actually built them. I have a handful of kits that I have bought over the intervening years between childhood and now -- mostly monsters -- but the fear of screwing up a paint job to the point where I would cause physical destruction to my surroundings in my frustration always loomed too large for me to get over it. Which is where the appeal action figures laid for me. They were already finished, they came with swell accessories, and best of all, unlike most models, you could play with them.

I have gone onto a couple of model boards recently and read some of the disdain for Tsukuda's officially licensed horror/sci-fi model kits of the late '80s and early '90s. Large, vinyl kits of the sort to which I never had access as a kid. As a monster nut, when these were released, I was naturally drawn to them. Bosco's, the only real game in town as regards comics and collectibles in Anchorage, Alaska (and home base to many of my very good friends -- and my little brother -- at one point or another), sold these kits pretty regularly in those days. I would stare at them up on those higher shelves in the store every time that went in (which was then about three or four times a week), but the price tag of roughly $50 a shot gave me pause.

Finally, after mentioning it briefly to my then-spouse, she surprised me at my birthday with the Frankenstein kit, based on the Jack Pierce-designed Karloff makeup of the original Universal film. Awkwardly titled "A Monster of Dr. Frankenstein," Tsukuda Hobby Jumbo Figure Series No. 38 may have its drawbacks according to finicky, nit-picking hobbyists, but to me it has always proved to be a daunting figure of horrific beauty. Once again, though I was happy to own the damnable monster, my fear of totally screwing up the paint job meant that I was doomed to let him lie in his giant cardboard coffin for the next 20-plus years.

Every few years, I would pull him out of the box again, snap his limbs and hands into place (he is meant to have some articulation points) and stare intently at what I had always felt was a pretty accurate sculpt (though apparently, I am so wrong), and muse about the purchase of new paints and brushes. And then, after a few days of display on my dining room table which was meant to provide the impetus for my to actually complete my monster, he would end up back in the box and back up on a shelf in my game closet. I couldn't make the leap.

However, finally owning the Monster kit opened up the floodgates just enough where I was determined to get the other Universal monster available at the store, Tsukuda Hobby Jumbo Figure Series No. 39, "Mummy Man." I had my eyes on the Tsukuda King Kong model as well, but it ran for $100 at the time, and so I opted for the half as costly Mummy figure, with the intention of saving up for Kong (which never happened). This model seems to be based on the Kharis figure from the later Universal series, not the 1932 Karl Freund classic with Karloff as Imhotep. It didn't mean anything to me when I bought it, however; the main thing was that I had a Universal model kit. A kit which I stared at a lot. A kit which I would think about completing. A kit which never got painted.

And so now the monsters and I live thousands of miles from where we started, and we are now at this juncture where I have them up and out of their boxes on our apartment's dining room table. There is a lot of staring going on as I think about what is involved in bringing these creatures fully to life. I have been looking up paint colors online and reading hobbyist tips and tricks. But I have also begun to feel the eventual frustration looming in the near distance.

It's enough to make you quit while you are still behind...

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

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 01:26:00 +0000

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.

It's Alive! Freshly Carved and Ready for Action This Weekend...

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 05:51:00 +0000

While I have yet to light the candle that will bring him to life, here is why I did not write very much this evening (apart from watching three Halloween specials, two Halloween episodes of NBC comedy series, and Saw IV).

The best part was having the pups convince themselves they were helping me the whole time, especially Isabelle. We are pretty sure that she just thinks a pumpkin is just a larger version of her favorite thing on the planet -- a carrot, also orange -- and she spent much of the evening trying to snarf up every little shred that got flung about the place whilst I carved.

Tomorrow? Pumpkin #2...

Son o' the Return o' the Comic o' the Jack-O'-Lantern Undead...

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:17:00 +0000

My beloved and I attended the Disney Halloween Party (with awesome fireworks) last night, but a massive headache and a serious lack of sleep the last couple of days have eaten away at my time to put up a decent post about it this evening.

In lieu of such a post, I am cheating a bit for the second night in a row in this Countdown to Halloween (last night was a mere picture of a slice of my dining table full of monster toy sets, with only text in the title, so it was a real cheat). This is a comic page that was drawn on a camping trip last August by my brothers Mark and Chris, for which I provided the dialogue.

The twist here is that the comic page is absolutely improvisational, a massive derivation of the surrealist drawing game called Exquisite Corpse, where artists draw unconnected and unseen images on their own half (or quarters if there are more than two artists participating) of a folded piece of paper, and when it is revealed, the two separate images forge what is hoped to be a rather remarkable single image. We adapted it to where either I would write the dialogue (being currently uncomfortable with my art skills, unlike the olden days) in the first panel, and then one of the brothers would draw the first and then the next panel, and then I would fill in the dialogue for the art in the second panel and then start the third, and so on... or it could start with art in the first panel, dialogue in the first and second, and so it goes forward until completion. Get it? Got it. Good.

The reason I am rerunning this particular comic page is that it is entirely Halloween-based, being all pumpkin riddled and whatnot. Murderous Jack-O'-Lanterns make for delicious fun as far as I am concerned. If you want to see what I originally wrote about this comic, visit my post about it at http://cinema4pylon.blogspot.com/2009/08/comics-on-road-to-nowhere-pt-4-of-11.html.

Enjoy!

Got a Party to Go To...

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:10:00 +0000

Cousin Huet and Brother Dave... Not So Much Resting, but Having a Peaceable Time

noreply@blogger.com (Rik Tod) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 05:34:00 +0000

When Jen surprised me with these for my birthday about three years ago or so, I didn't realize that I even wanted them. I didn't even know they existed, so therefore I never had a craving to own them. But there they were, heavy and bulky and surrounded by that annoying Styrofoam shell-casing that shreds as you pull them out of the packaging so that it gets all over your floor, so that you keep discovered minute white, foam pellets for the next three years every time you look down.

I had never known that I wanted them, but I am sure glad they are here now. It turns out they were one of the most unique and cool surprise presents I have received since a certain someone scored me an eighteen foot that lit up with "LIBRARY" in giant, two-foot-high block letters (and that only weighed about 250 pounds). Storage is impossible, since the foam shredded so much, so they now stay relatively out in the open for most of the year. I just make them a little more prominent come Halloween time. And now I can't have a holiday without 'em.