tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61238142268225762392024-03-13T00:32:27.838-07:00straight to video: making movies sound better than they arewatching, so you don't have to.party McFlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09272964794032940132noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6123814226822576239.post-15276352243228035222016-10-29T11:48:00.002-07:002016-10-29T11:48:42.586-07:00Black Demon Religion ~ Halloween 2016.<i>Holy swords brought to this place</i><br />
<i>Unholy land we would consecrate </i>
<br />
<i>Ineffable knights of almighty wrath – His sacred purpose
showed us the path</i><br />
<i>Into the heart of darkness I led my men, in his name the jungle
we tamed</i><br />
<i>This barbaric land was our claim</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Heavy cyclopean stone</i><br />
<i>Choked with vines – overgrown</i><br />
<i>The temple before us arose from the trees</i><br />
<i>Pyramid of black</i><br />
<i>No turning back</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<i>To purge those within who toiled in sin</i><br />
<i>Their service to demons and other dark kin</i><br />
<i>Through past the gate – to seal their fate</i><br />
<i>Pyramid of black</i><br />
<i>Time to attack</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<i>The wretched came howling through dimly lit hell</i><br />
<i>Their simian screams a putrid death knell</i><br />
<i>We cut down those savages until we were worn</i><br />
<i>Our strength well spent, these half-men now bent</i><br />
<i>To the will of our righteous steel</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Then the stones groaned, the dust from them blown</i><br />
<i>By an ominous and evil wind</i><br />
<i>The howling displaced by the song of that place</i><br />
<i>The chorus of demons within</i><br />
<i>For their sons we had tamed, their progeny we maimed</i><br />
<i>In the pyramid of black</i><br />
<i>No turning back</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Death then came ripping, their curved claws flesh stripping, I
dropped my weapon and shield</i><br />
<i>My men they did take with their ill-tempted fate</i><br />
<i>Into chambers much deeper their cries growing weaker</i><br />
<i>Pyramid of black</i><br />
<i>No turning back</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<i>My faith, my penance, my oath – I think of my son – and the
things we have done. I'm glad he will never know.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<i>The tomb.</i><br />
<i>Beneath.</i><br />
<i>The world.</i><br />
<i>Here dreams.</i><br />
<i>Among effigies of men...</i><br />
<i>Carved from Rosewood...</i><br />
<i>One for each man lost...</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Red nails were hammered through idols of wood</i><br />
<i>As I lost hope I then understood</i><br />
<i>The totemic way that they tallied their kills</i><br />
<i>Then discerp their heads and open their necks</i><br />
<i>Prophecies told in their bodily spills</i><br />
<br />
<br />
Now as I bleed I bow down my head<br />
Cursing this place into which we dared
tread<br />
Parts of me skinless and parts of me
whole<br />
Parts of me tossed to their young and
their old<br />
With my own steel they force me to
kneel<br />
<br />
Served on an altar – to gods of
slaughter!party McFlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09272964794032940132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6123814226822576239.post-43145118931504952732016-09-13T09:15:00.003-07:002016-09-13T09:15:30.698-07:00As Is Customary - A Remotely Spooky Halloween Story by Josh Underwood (Re-posted Elsewhere)Night had swept the day clean and stars were the only residue left
behind to pepper brightly the swath of darkened sky that hung over
Lexington. The ember-like burn of the sunset had long since been
anchored down behind the mountains. Near the outskirts of the city,
the hills hummed with the sound of nocturnal insects and the
yammering of twilight scavengers. Kevin Holt sat on the porch of his
home with a grimace pulled tight over his face.<br />
He knew they would be coming. So he waited. As he did every year
on that night – stooped in his rocking chair – his shotgun
stuffed with shells.<br />
He spat a mixture of tobacco and saliva into the gravel and rolled
his tongue over the grain of his teeth.<br />
“They'll be coming any minute now.” said Holt, speaking to a
shadow that lingered behind the screen door of the house. “Now that
the sun has gone down, they'll come out.”<br />
“Why don't you just give it up, Kevin?” The shadow replied, it
was his wife Meryl. “How long you gonna fight this battle?”<br />
“Every year Meryl. Every year they come stalking up my drive
with their evil intentions, hellbent on forcing their devilish ways
on good hard-working Christians.”<br />
“It ain't as bad as all that.” Meryl sighed. “Come on inside
now, why don't you just let it go for once? Who's hurting?”<br />
Kevin stood, his chair belligerently scraping the porch. “Those
of us that fear the lord!” He jabbed his arthritic digit into the
air. “Those of us with a strong moral core! Those of us who have
enough sense to know not to let the Devil in on his unholiest of
nights! Those of us...” He trailed off and his shoulders slumped.
He spat again into the night. Meryl had gone back into the house and
left him alone to his ranting. He walked over to the door and peered
inside. She had gone back into the kitchen.<br />
The old man looked over his shoulder, and after making sure he
wouldn't be seen, knelt to retrieve something from beneath the step
of the porch. He chuckled as he found what he had prepared and left
there the night before.<br />
“This year'll be the last. I'll fix it to where they'll never
come back.”<br />
<br />
<br />
“SpearPOINT Marduk Report:”<br />
Spoken into OverDruid Nimrod's
Syntax-Bridge, the phrase – originating from the Alpha-Orionus Span
just beyond Betelgeuse – still carried its demanding tone even from
light-years away.<br />
The creature turned its head to the
sky. The large, glassy black orbs that protruded from its pale,
otherwise featureless face glimmered in the moonlight which sparsely
penetrated the surrounding trees.<br />
The Marduk, its body not completely
compliant with the atmosphere, produced a long, unwholesome and
dissonant tone. The vibrations of the call caused the surrounding
crickets to halt their efforts – and the Marduk was left in a
chilly silence – save for the wind and the creaking bark of the
forest.<br />
The Syntax it had brought was
malfunctioning – so in return it could not converse in the native
language of the planet it had come to.<br />
The OverDruid spoke again through the
transmitter. “SpearPOINT Understood: Syntax-Bridge malfunction.
Contact translation protocol unABLE. Proceed and make contact As Is
Customary?”<br />
A chortling cackle in retort came from
the Marduk – an eerie vocal clucking that resembled a backwards
mask of human laughter.<br />
The Marduk's slender legs and limbs
picked carefully through the woods – a ghostly vibrant contrast to
the vacuumous night.<br />
<br />
<br />
Thomas pulled on his pumpkin mask, the
final ornament of his costume. The smell of the latex and the
condensation of his breath on the inside of the mask an always
pungent reminder that the time was near. He smiled under his new
face.<br />
He had already put on his skeleton body
suit, becoming an amalgam of the holiday – nothing in particular
yet everything that it represented all at once. A mishmash that made
him happy. He could hear his brother's rowdy friends downstairs
getting ready to go out into the evening and cause trouble. After
coming home from school he had seen the rolls of toilet paper and the
spray cans hidden in his brother's room. Todd, his sibling, hadn't
noticed him snooping so Thomas had been able to avoid persecution.<br />
“We're going out mom!” he heard
Todd yell.<br />
“Don't forget your brother!”
demanded the parent.<br />
There was a roar of discontent from
Todd and his hoods.<br />
Thomas lowered his jack-o-lantern grin.
He didn't like going out with Todd either, but it was the only way
his mom would let him trick or treat. His heart was brave for
Halloween – and his want to fulfill the night's purpose was
stronger than his dislike for his brother. He grabbed up his plastic
candy bucket, a jack-o-lantern as well, and rushed downstairs.<br />
<br />
<br />
“Look Mouth,” Mouth was Todd's
nickname for Thomas. They all walked down the street together. Todd
and his friends weren't even dressed up. They looked ugly enough,
Thomas observed, peeking out through his pumpkin eyes. “just try to
keep up okay? And don't whine and cry when we get to that geezer
Holt's place.”<br />
Thomas stopped and tilted his head. He
hated going to Kevin Holt's farmhouse. It always meant trouble. Kevin
was Todd's favorite person to pick on. It didn't make sense to
Thomas, as it was that Mr. Holt was extraordinarily ill-tempered and
completely terrifying to the ten-year-old.<br />
Thomas stopped and fiddled with the
stump atop his mask – struggling perhaps with a rite of passage
that the preteen boy could never comprehend.<br />
“I said keep up Mouth!”<br />
Thomas pointed at a group of children
on a nearby doorstep. A parent opened the door dumping copious
amounts of sweets into their outstretched hands.<br />
Todd grunted. “Alright kid... Guys
hold up!” There were more groans from the boys. “Let my little
brother get some candy or my mom will ride me into the wall.”<br />
<br />
<br />
“SPEARpoint Report:”<br />
The Marduk leaned out from behind the
corner of a house, just so that its head dangled around the edge at
an unnatural height, to observe the lit street beyond. A series of
clicks and pops vibrated out from its throat muscles – a shapeless
utterance.<br />
“UnderSTOOD:” Began The Nimrod. “As
is Customary – Inhabitants augment their appearance for practical
or ritual purpose. UNDERstood: Also gift-giving-receiving Social and
otherWise.”<br />
<br />
<br />
Thomas was happy enough. His plastic
pumpkin was filled with candy. Halloween had been set free in his
mind and he merrily tromped along behind his brother, until he
remembered their mission's end. His Autumnal victory was cut short as
they reached the long driveway which led through the cow fields and
to Mr. Holt's farm. As the boys began their trek Thomas stayed
behind.<br />
“Come on Mouth!” Whispered Todd
Sharply.<br />
Thomas shook his head – the toothy
grin of his mask wobbling.<br />
“Just leave him!” One of the other
boys said.<br />
Todd shot his brother a worried look.
“Just stay here, okay? We'll be right back.”<br />
Thomas sighed as he watched the
teenagers walk off into the fields – where there were no more
streetlights.<br />
After awhile of waiting Thomas began to
grow uneasy. He thought about walking home but was afraid to go
alone. He was also afraid of being alone right were he was. To put
his mind at ease he sat down with his plastic pumpkin and began to
dig through his candy. He had gotten some good pieces. Full ones too,
not the fun-sized cheap bits from the dollar store.<br />
As he was wrist-deep in sugar, Thomas
stopped rummaging and held very still. A sound had pricked his
attention – or rather – a lack of sound – as he realized the
static hum of the chirping crickets had abruptly ceased.<br />
He stood up and dusted off his costume.
The boy turned and his mask began to shake, the only betrayal of his
abject terror as he saw the impossibly tall and slender figure
looming over him. Thomas gripped the handle of his treat bucket
strictly– trying to instill in him some sense of will as sanity
began to quickly peel back from his brain.<br />
<br />
<br />
“REPORT: Establish Contact – As is
Customary.”<br />
<br />
<br />
The thing stooped downward and held out
a gesturing finger to the boy. Thomas was quickly losing his footing
in reality – sweat was pouring out from under his mask. The
creature looked back and forth between Thomas's mask and the plastic
pumpkin he held in his hand. Several times it did this until it
reached out and slowly pulled up on the mask, revealing Thomas's
face, eyes wide and mouth agape with fear.<br />
A bubbling noise came from the creature
as it slid the mask over its own head.<br />
“MARDUK – Understood.”<br />
It had been enough for Thomas – he
forgot about his brother and his candy. Dropping his bucket he ran as
fast as he could in the direction of his neighborhood.<br />
<br />
<br />
Kevin Holt could hardly contain
himself. He squatted down in his hiding spot, watching one of the
Devil's own walk up to his porch. The lanky teenager, in some sort of
bodysuit, had already begged himself a whole bucket of candy and was
wearing a pumpkin mask to hide his face.<br />
“Can't hide your face from the eyes
of the Lord!” he screamed out. He struck a match and ignited the
cache of home made fireworks he had stowed nearby.<br />
The sound was immense – a crackling
cascade of popping shots and sparks. The visitor howled in dismay as
it was disheveled by the noise. It turned immediately in the
direction of Holt but then bounded in the opposite direction with
long strides, disappearing into trees.<br />
“That's right you Satanic son of a
bitch! You won't ever come back this way again! Don't you tread on
me!”<br />
The old man laughed until he fell flat
on his back.<br />
<br />
<br />
Todd and his friends all cringed
simultaneously when they heard the explosions.<br />
“Holt has a gun! He's shooting at us!
Run!”<br />
<br />
<br />
“UNDerstood – ATTEMPted CONtact met
with LOCAL HOSTILITY – As is Customary – Retaliate with Show of
FORCE.”<br />
<br />
<br />
Holt wiped his eyes and sniffed. He got
up and turned to go inside but something caught his eye, just along
the edge of the trees. The trick-or-treater was standing in the
foliage staring directly at him.<br />
“Get on out of here! Can't you take a
hint! Get before I call the police!”<br />
It was something about the way the
costumed stranger stepped out from the trees that caused Kevin's
resolve to pause. Delicately, with a calculated mixture of agile
certainty and tactical menace. The old farmer tried to move but found
his knees locked in fear. Fear of what he asked himself? Just a
greasy little punk with a stupid dime store mask? Then, as the
pumpkin-faced thing slowly began walking up the porch steps, and he
saw its glistening, unnatural skin in the moonlight, he knew. It was
fear of the Devil. The last thing he saw was the inordinately long,
gray fingers of the thing before they pressed his teary eyes into the
back of his head.<br />
<br />
<br />
“MARDUK responding. Local hostilities
disMissed. Attempted to make contact, As is Customary – to no
diplomatic end. NEUTRALization is suggested.”<br />
<br />
<br />
“Received: PLANET species inDIcative
of TRIBAL-lvl governing and mentality --- QUE for TERmination.
PREPARE total invasion scenario NI.BI.RU. And await further
instruction -”<br />
<br />
<br />
“Agreed. Received. MARDUK proceeding
with SHOW OF FORCE.” The Marduk removed its fingers from Kevin Holt
and hoisted his body up off the floor, carrying it into the woods.<br />
<br />
<br />
In the morning Meryl Holt opened the
door to the farmhouse and put a hand to her brow. She looked out over
the hills and called for her husband, who had never come in after his
ridiculous fireworks show the night before. She had heard the racket
from the bedroom upstairs and refused to have any part in it, but
since then become concerned by his absence.<br />
She squinted against the light of the
rising sun – completely unaware of the mess at her feet.<br />
She took a step forward into what was
left of a ragged Halloween mask, a pumpkin. She grunted to herself
and bent over to pick it up, but paused just before reaching it,
noticing the thick red fluid seeping out from beneath.<br />
<br />
Meryl Holt screamed as her
husband's head rolled down the porch steps – she had thought the
mask was empty – after all – there were no eyes to see through
the holes of the jack-o-lantern.party McFlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09272964794032940132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6123814226822576239.post-13217878725083228402016-03-17T11:49:00.001-07:002016-03-17T11:49:32.895-07:00It doesn't get any grosser than this (Prt. 2)The Captain is quick to discover the breakout and just as quickly
resigns to his fate. He introduces each of them to Dodger and banishes the group to the basement. After a few moments of awkward tension as the kids <i>watch </i>Dodger take a bath, both voyeuristic and perverse, we find that the basement is filled with
even more strange and medieval artifacts, including the portrait of
Torok from Troll – insinuating some sort of vague canon between the
two films. Perhaps the kids are trolls themselves, imprisoned by magic in grotesque mortal shells - longing to take up spear and fork alongside their master to wage war against Harry Potter and the rest of humanity.<br />
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That isn't the only way the two movies overlap, as Phil
Fondacaro (of Ghoulies 2 fame), the actor beneath Greaser Greg,
played Torok in Troll as well.</div>
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Manzini, perhaps struggling with some sense of unflappable paternity, delivers a somewhat rousing and motivational speech to the kids - justifying their imprisonment with the time-honored adage that "normies" (or non-uglies) will invariably seek out to destroy what they do not understand. This is one of the few points in the film where a sort of pseudo-moral becomes evident - a fleeting solidification of reason within the movie's otherwise unchallenged and chaotic pace of madness. This is of course immediately terminated without remorse by the simpering, snot-glossy smirk of Messy Tessy, as she reminds Dodger of the task at hand - that her, along with the rest of the Hills Have Eyes orphans, must help him claim the affection of Tangerine.</div>
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Dodger and Tangerine's forbidden love seems to be in close orbit to the film's central purpose (to gross one out) perhaps appealing to that juvenile urge to always have what we can only imagine we need. A thirst for the social forbidden. The children see the apparent gap as a non-issue, where as I always thought it was more of an issue of puberty.</div>
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During a trip to sell her clothes and fishing lures, Tangerine informs Dodger about the nature of the business. Be it selling questionable attire to elbow-and-knee-dancers at underage dance clubs or panhandling is left to viewer speculation. Juice shows up once again, cementing his role as the heel and ticking that last box on his dickhead checklist after taking all of Tangerine's earnings for the night.</div>
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At this point we're brought back to the kids and learn that some of their fellows are missing. </div>
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As they search other garbage pails, they mention Ultra Violet, and Banana Anna (originally Anna Banana), two legit characters who are MIA.</div>
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They're concerned with their friends but seem to have no recollection of how, when, or where they were lost. I guess the pail-searching is founded but contradicting to the earlier notion that ugly people are just as well, by insinuating they should all be found in garbage cans.</div>
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As Dodger's relationship with the kids matures, he learns that they can sew - a collective talent they somehow all share despite their varying degrees of physical deformity and mental shortcomings.</div>
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Nevertheless their effort is spot-on and professional, also surprisingly clean considering the amount of bodily fluids involved with their day to day existence.</div>
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Tangerine puts in an order and Dodger immediately interns the kids into labor, to create the needed demand within a grossly unrealistic deadline.</div>
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The solution rests on the film's singular musical number - a laborious song about friendship and working together during which they break into a tailor shop and steal the needed tools to complete their task. Dodger drives them with conviction, but they shirk their duties after he leaves and sneak into a movie theater. Once there they proceed to thieve food and be generally disruptive. Continuing their brand of destruction, they later crash a biker bar and cause a brawl. At this point one would think the only theme the movie has championed is that ugly people are easily manipulated, aggressive thugs who steal and break stuff. However, when Windy Winston befriends a biker after farting off a dude's mustache - a more universal tone is fleshed out - that of the lowest common denominator - showing us that Winston's man-salute signifies that great resonance of truth which brings us all together.</div>
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Upon returning, Dodger and Manzini express their concern for the safety of the missing kids. Those accounted for inform them of the 'State Home for the Ugly', a horrible place where they fear their friends have been imprisoned (much like Manzini's basement only government funded). I have to admit I sort of relished the appearance of the two Barney Fife-level officers patrolling the street mid-daylight with a giant butterfly net, sacking less than attractive people and locking them up in small cells labeled with their offense (IE too old, too fat, Clint Howard).</div>
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They locate the Home and make devise a plan to infiltrate it under the cover of night.</div>
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In the meantime Dodger and Tangerine start raking in their dirty money, profiting off the bent backs of their broken and subordinate workers.</div>
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Juice continues to profit as well - steamrolling his girlfriend and her stooge into surrendering their gains.</div>
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Once Tangerine is introduced to the kids, her venomous glands begin to salivate even more at the pretense of fast fame and cheap thrills. She folds their efforts under her label and the stage is set for her spearhead into the fashion world - a show at the local department store.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-vWY7Dlkz6GKh2GjS9v9-M5QrAxeFYrDGW_EBtus1cERF0uxO1xVsHUlBm26N1aP5gUPQZmzDkifvudVlO7pnT1dbFCOim9MZEQDMWfkI8P4fb0OXu6SrG7qwDmenxdXum5b2J7o8eQY/s1600/GPK4.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-vWY7Dlkz6GKh2GjS9v9-M5QrAxeFYrDGW_EBtus1cERF0uxO1xVsHUlBm26N1aP5gUPQZmzDkifvudVlO7pnT1dbFCOim9MZEQDMWfkI8P4fb0OXu6SrG7qwDmenxdXum5b2J7o8eQY/s1600/GPK4.PNG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tormenting Tangerine 45b.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Tangerine tightens her grip on Dodger by adding seductive undertones to her demands - and threatens to report the kids to the State if they show their proud faces at the fashion show. She also begins to manipulate Dodger more often, slacking his plans to help rescue the missing Garbage Pails.</div>
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The movie begins to escalate - rolling toward its explosive (literal meaning upcoming) conclusion.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7qHuoT1Vcx3r_DVoUFt2Fx0Fyk7XeK3gZw9UXl5MECUscsaYNE7gM8AbzSzOuMsPSQVNCBSGZplTP1nAnUUYWtXh9Zn0_ubcU0wX8ufRruP9_TEw_A8dyxvxD077C22OYZ5dJxWOUmvc/s1600/GPK3.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7qHuoT1Vcx3r_DVoUFt2Fx0Fyk7XeK3gZw9UXl5MECUscsaYNE7gM8AbzSzOuMsPSQVNCBSGZplTP1nAnUUYWtXh9Zn0_ubcU0wX8ufRruP9_TEw_A8dyxvxD077C22OYZ5dJxWOUmvc/s1600/GPK3.PNG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Disgusted Dodger 31a.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
party McFlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09272964794032940132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6123814226822576239.post-32453190177428155072014-12-24T16:21:00.001-08:002014-12-24T16:34:10.385-08:00Ho, Ho, No!<div style="text-align: center;">
Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever (2014)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxqt9qe_Wc8wacchdzdRVzQuK33C7w-skc91Z6VVFUkJXfihUnO_yksyEPmDYyFnWlUbxTbYJS7YIufNT2dz-aoQKRPfTMFHtS720d746WFKF0RLrtVtI1PNpm4zhUTKzAdVavXYaWmZY/s1600/GC1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxqt9qe_Wc8wacchdzdRVzQuK33C7w-skc91Z6VVFUkJXfihUnO_yksyEPmDYyFnWlUbxTbYJS7YIufNT2dz-aoQKRPfTMFHtS720d746WFKF0RLrtVtI1PNpm4zhUTKzAdVavXYaWmZY/s1600/GC1.PNG" height="228" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
It's almost like modern Christmas specials shouldn't exist. It's possible the 'out of touch' fibers which genetically strangle my DNA are continuing their strict regimen of de-evolution as I become more and more of a cultural bigot, but, most post-millennial specials seem insubstantial - with no genuine message beyond that which is uncomfortably chorfed through acidic flaps of indigestion - stale aftertastes of better and more thought-out times where the season would shine through every time and cast a spell on those eager to believe in the holiday.<br />
Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever isn't as bad as it could be - for social media and internet culture to have ham-fisted this movie into existence on the worst possible medium (the Lifetime Network) is a deranged holiday miracle unto itself - which is something we should all be excited about (you know the sort of temporary excitement you feel when opening a new bag of Doritos).<br />
There is some loose plot about an expensive dog being stolen by a duo of crooks (who in themselves are so much a parody's parody that they cease to exist as human beings and fade into something akin to white noise) and a little girl's Christmas wish which enables her to hear Grumpy Cat speaking (voiced by Aubrey Plaza, the monotonous funeral dirge of her exhumed face-sounds finally made relevant by the sour and disparaging look of the dwarf cat). The word loose is a credit in reality, as the entire airy spectacle is one enormous summary of the Grumpy Cat phenomenon itself - being that cats are those creatures which rule our subconscious by occupying the 2% of our free web-browsing time when we aren't looking at porn. Combine this infatuation with a cat that looks abnormal (on a scale of weird that leans more toward cute) and fill the remaining space with humanized catch phrases and sentiments and you have a whole lot of money being tossed about to a clueless animal and its handlers.<br />
And it works! The movie was purchased by me! And gave me exactly what I wanted, to look at dopey animals around Christmas time.<br />
It stands to reason that Worst Christmas Ever is a testament to our preoccupation with wallowing in the deep end of the low, reveling in it even - as we are made in the image of God Himself so we do honor the birth of his only son with radical and fanged indulgences of marketable and themed embarrassments and abandonment.<br />
It is what it most certainly was intended to be - as good as an animal-centric movie can be with a sub-tier animal actor on meme-generated crutches who obliviously rests in the shadows of real animal actors like Roddy McDowall and that dog from K-9.party McFlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09272964794032940132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6123814226822576239.post-18735203045745230062014-10-10T13:04:00.001-07:002015-03-04T20:28:04.326-08:00It doesn't get any grosser than this (Prt. 1)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht0Pue76HMsSnbjFUbBkKLNC5cyqVXd1TeZ-tRMDduRGD5ykqpfd2MSbEJWF-xJT1lET4qZYy3r8KGJHYTGGEKCl7XDcbgxKWRjg4hycWEusu_gcI5ieKkH5LovoJDFEls5T5HMBZH13I/s1600/GPK6.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht0Pue76HMsSnbjFUbBkKLNC5cyqVXd1TeZ-tRMDduRGD5ykqpfd2MSbEJWF-xJT1lET4qZYy3r8KGJHYTGGEKCl7XDcbgxKWRjg4hycWEusu_gcI5ieKkH5LovoJDFEls5T5HMBZH13I/s1600/GPK6.PNG" height="227" width="400" /></a></div>
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Garbage Pail Kids (1987) Prt. 1</div>
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Pry back the panel of the mind and you will find a bundle of
superficial and impulsive thoughts. Begin to untangle that bundle and
soon you will reveal the circuitry of deep thoughts. Questions which
hinder us on our climb up the daunting scale of spiritual
enlightenment. These are the concepts which keep our eyes open and
staring at the ceiling when we're trying to sleep – the
ever-inching inconsistencies we feel with what we've been told all
our lives about why things are.</div>
Eventually, either through science or discovery, most things which
exist have an origin that can be deduced and defined conclusively,
but the further back we look, the more often we hear ourselves ask
the question:<br />
“What came before that?”<br />
It has been said that landscape of the mind is infinite – and that
its powerful calculative skills can dwarf those of any artificially
thinking machine (or something, its been a minute since I've watched
Donald in Mathmagic Land), but I believe differently. I will agree
that our existential theories have come a long way and that we have
developed a great many theories as to why we are here why we've made
the things we've made. However, I believe there is a limit to what we
can derive from our current rung on the cosmic ladder, and, at some
point, whether or not we and our collective works are all just
complex curls of smoke and flame still flashing out in pre-determined
chaos from the mouthpiece of some great and ancient cosmic explosion,
we have to accept the possibility of things without origin - or at
least, beginnings so shrouded in spacial uncertainty that we lack the
facilities to give them dimension. In short – we have to accept for
now, that some things <i>just are</i>.<br />
And this, in my opinion, is how the Garbage Pail Kids movie came
to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
In 1987 there was a live action Garbage Pail Kids movie. I won't
spend much time explaining where GPK originated. Chances are, if
you're reading this, the trading cards were 90% of your pre-teenage
life at one point and you had doubles and triples stuck all over
everything you owned. You were talking up your parents for another
pack through your bloody, war-scarred begging-hole, which you
mutilated on a semi-daily basis by eating those sheets of pink,
powdery, quarry pit slate which came included.<br />
Oh I ate the stuff too – and who can say why? Perhaps it was
that in our childhood minds we saw it as our first extraordinary
challenge – a wild terrain for us to tame, subvert, and conquer by
chewing it to pulp and then spitting it out not two minutes later –
already eager for another slab to prove our toughness, our <i>greatness</i>.<br />
I never knew a kid who <i>didn't</i> eat the gum. It was part of
the process, and like the movie came to be, it <i>just was</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
The GPK movie is exactly what you don't expect it to be – that
being said – I personally had no preconceived notion of what it was
supposed to be before seeing it for the first time. Even as a kid I
remember sensing a disconnect with it, I almost resented it in the
way I resented Masters of the Universe (even though MotU did have the
luxury of an original story premise to ignore where GPK did not).<br />
They (the Kids) were just these horrible little characters with no
purpose other than to parody other things and commit the full
compliment of all childhood taboos our parents were at war with and sometimes even gruesome acts of
self mutilation, earmarks of healthy boyhood wonderment and
therefore very marketable, and very collectible.<br />
They were another multifaceted tool in the arsenal used against
our fathers, our mothers, those who loved us and wanted nothing more
than for us to be calm and non-disruptive. In the end the movie
reflected few of these noble concepts and became a parody of the
parodies themselves.<br />
I love this movie... now. Its easily in my top 100 (somewhere near
the middle). As an adult I have embraced it as an outstanding example
of the kind of malarkey they could get away with in the cinematic
80s. I also feel like its criminally underplayed, shoved underneath
other weird-ass quirky films from the same era. Too often when
talking with fellow fans of awful things I hear them restate my
comment with a question mark.<br />
“There was a Garbage Pail Kids movie?”<br />
To which I always respond “Oh yeah, and a cartoon.”<br />
But that will come later.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrkKy9e_nIn0pp1AK5xhkvMKolD-csyiqO4CzuLDQkwh41qZ5GOl8lBkLFAMdzhJd6g7BTp3pFpm2sdgbUAOVO-EqnRKG1sz7uzRm36O_zQJZAFf8CcP57wJgK2QTwTul6anSShXcOSP4/s1600/GPK19.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrkKy9e_nIn0pp1AK5xhkvMKolD-csyiqO4CzuLDQkwh41qZ5GOl8lBkLFAMdzhJd6g7BTp3pFpm2sdgbUAOVO-EqnRKG1sz7uzRm36O_zQJZAFf8CcP57wJgK2QTwTul6anSShXcOSP4/s1600/GPK19.PNG" height="113" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How old are those kids anyway?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Dodger is a troubled youth – much like the projected target
audience of the movie he just can't seem to fit in without rubbing
against the grain of society. Also, much like his <i>only slightly</i>
more popular parallel, Bastion, from the Never Ending Story – he is
consistently assaulted and shaken down by a particular group of
bullies who seem to specifically target him (though Bastion's bullies
seemed at least to be in his same age group).<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgowh5Ta4UGdPakE-kUzxY09HD6254ipiY9x4Iw6d27IF5SZW4Eh2XPJe7M5BY3h699xWBbXMHpfSYHhNNFLfsmx8fh6dsRqzkae8TR2VE07l-I-oOcBrez3WBtoO9xHT6kFzU-zMGbZ04/s1600/GPK20.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgowh5Ta4UGdPakE-kUzxY09HD6254ipiY9x4Iw6d27IF5SZW4Eh2XPJe7M5BY3h699xWBbXMHpfSYHhNNFLfsmx8fh6dsRqzkae8TR2VE07l-I-oOcBrez3WBtoO9xHT6kFzU-zMGbZ04/s1600/GPK20.PNG" height="113" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Great hair - Shaking down children must really pay off.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Dodger's group of bullies chase him down and corner him as the
film opens. The thugs are managed by a dude named Juice who, as you
can see, is just about as cool as his name.<br />
There's also Wally and Blythe, a surly, handsome woman who steals
her scenes with a sensuous sort of primitive doughiness.<br />
<br />
<br />
The real villain however, is a nemesis of the heart, Tangerine –
the manipulative girlfriend to Juice who begins to bend
Dodger's heart, tempered by his love her, to serve her own agenda –
more on this later.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH-II2cFbWLn6YF61Kx4-9kB5U_phTw9STZ2kyjh0zSbJ9X3-ehvYZvjKzZ-AKnIEvaEilAHcgmc-JVJm9H3olET7etC4QumXIy3hjO6xvCx7floRyznxMRsTvRZapf9TmWu7ovGL52sg/s1600/GPK22.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH-II2cFbWLn6YF61Kx4-9kB5U_phTw9STZ2kyjh0zSbJ9X3-ehvYZvjKzZ-AKnIEvaEilAHcgmc-JVJm9H3olET7etC4QumXIy3hjO6xvCx7floRyznxMRsTvRZapf9TmWu7ovGL52sg/s1600/GPK22.PNG" height="183" width="320" /></a></div>
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After the robbery – Dodger makes his way to the Curio shop in
which he finds refuge from his attackers. Run around the corner to a
magical book shop and you find yourself immersed in a fantastic
journey on the back of a Luck Dragon - take a wrong turn however into
a thrift store filled with bizarre antiques and you end up with a
garbage can packed with eugenically perverted midgets who wet
themselves and vomit uncontrollably. That's what they like to call
“the other side of the coin”. The shop owner, an out of work
magician named Manzini, has hired Dodger to do something... Though by
the look of it it is neither to clean or organize. As such the slime
encrusted pail which sits directly in the way of just about
everything becomes a point of interest. Dodger is naturally curious
and Manzini warns him never to touch it (then put it up fucker).<br />
Manzini has a lot of great dialogue which really dwarfs what
everyone else has to say in the rest of the film. I love that.
There's always these high-caliber actors who hit the curb on these
movies but refuse to compromise their personal integrity.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLtVkSz2KyRwNbJnvQwbmTnL0n_-SLkhBYf0rZXHZyqjcosqz1DnaK42vG47dtRoSMgMt0Du53G_Zrg7gfuzWjtVGL3eowNKwN_i22yOJfO03uAU7rCtQubIPAh3NvrAd2-ssMT5aQqC0/s1600/GPK24.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLtVkSz2KyRwNbJnvQwbmTnL0n_-SLkhBYf0rZXHZyqjcosqz1DnaK42vG47dtRoSMgMt0Du53G_Zrg7gfuzWjtVGL3eowNKwN_i22yOJfO03uAU7rCtQubIPAh3NvrAd2-ssMT5aQqC0/s1600/GPK24.PNG" height="182" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small; text-align: start;"> “Losing is relative my dear boy, what matters is conceding with grace.”</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Manzini intensifies his ominous warning by comparing the trash
can to Pandora's box – furthering Dodger's infatuation with it.<br />
Not long after, when Tangerine stops by the Curio – Dodger uses
the opportunity to awkwardly reveal his teenage crush for her by
luring her in with the promise of helping her with her “Creations”.
After making sure no one will see, she agrees to step inside. It is
at this point that we begin to see her dualistic malignity – as she
begins to play one side against the other – dating Juice for the
obligatory social value pressed onto her by her peers while leaning
on Dodger to supplement her selfish endeavors.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1DVk7MAy_7ykxw_QycV9l1GuyNs2ZJVU8pkGEVYE_IruznP57IANbnxmCJW5NQIn3MJqvQ1RlAAVT40MeusjpTMEnATCstuv3NrbQHcrYKi70Gz7DWKJJ2uUo66V9aqfb_1NcviKamjs/s1600/GPK25.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1DVk7MAy_7ykxw_QycV9l1GuyNs2ZJVU8pkGEVYE_IruznP57IANbnxmCJW5NQIn3MJqvQ1RlAAVT40MeusjpTMEnATCstuv3NrbQHcrYKi70Gz7DWKJJ2uUo66V9aqfb_1NcviKamjs/s1600/GPK25.PNG" height="182" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This statue is as cold as my soul.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjva-igqXZqCkBX9SbdafHbQFnTQkQE5YKMQsJdjdW0Svp8xdeClDV-s0dmjA04djYe9yMUxCw2VrS9Bxkze3qLh8HLTg-6N6A9MCuyb9Vc5iZKBLk2KCP-EsyQVe5qJTNWHTkfHRjYJ3s/s1600/6a00e0098eb615883301538f74d49e970b-800wi.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjva-igqXZqCkBX9SbdafHbQFnTQkQE5YKMQsJdjdW0Svp8xdeClDV-s0dmjA04djYe9yMUxCw2VrS9Bxkze3qLh8HLTg-6N6A9MCuyb9Vc5iZKBLk2KCP-EsyQVe5qJTNWHTkfHRjYJ3s/s1600/6a00e0098eb615883301538f74d49e970b-800wi.png" height="152" width="200" /></a>Tangerine's “Creations” are outfits and fashion accessories
that she labels as funky and off-beat - 100% of which resemble that
shirt Denise made for Theo in that one episode of the Cosby Show.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Her indifference is crushing. Dodger tries to entice her with
buttons, pins, beads and repeatedly she rebuffs. Just as his
abasement is reaching a boil, Juice and his jackbooted thugs return
to give him another lamming.<br />
But Dodger is now in his element, and they are on his turf. Using
the objects in the store he proceeds to evade the thugs with
Globetrotter levels of improvised, environmental precision. The
scuffle ends up tipping the pail – disaster!<br />
Slime begins to ooze onto the floor as the bar is raised.<br />
Juice throws Dodger into the outside manhole and opens a valve of
raw sewage onto him. The Kids, now loose from their tin prison come
to the rescue – and we're given our first raw exposure to the
deranged cast. 'Kids' is a relative term at this point, after seeing what they have
to offer. Only some of them resemble actual children.<br />
The appearance of the Kids is a traumatizing event. As
none of their apparent characteristics are ever given any sort of
development prior to or during the meat of the plot – their lack of
a unified theme (other than the fact they're all about about the same
height) is fairly abrasive. The result is a stubby-legged mass of
nonsensical dialogue and unappealing parts and textures which
shambles through the movie, more like a single, multi-limbed biologic monstrosity than seven individual characters.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7OTYshTa_VelBeB4sAlbzNwJtj5fF30WBpPPUM5hmWphr9E2YMoxQ1txkjt7J9Kv7ZRQ2o_8NBdJQK-T4vPLLnE48h9p10xeFt_72m1eUSUhFqQeFhIYAeAicwi8I2NUmtEqTf8-5A2I/s1600/GPK13.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7OTYshTa_VelBeB4sAlbzNwJtj5fF30WBpPPUM5hmWphr9E2YMoxQ1txkjt7J9Kv7ZRQ2o_8NBdJQK-T4vPLLnE48h9p10xeFt_72m1eUSUhFqQeFhIYAeAicwi8I2NUmtEqTf8-5A2I/s1600/GPK13.PNG" height="228" width="400" /></a></div>
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In fact, only two of the Kids ever show any sort of individuality
beyond the others, who essentially remain as walking fart jokes.<br />
Greaser Greg, a parody of a subculture from the 50s, and Ali
Gator, both diligently assert their would-be alpha status within the pack
through aggressive and confrontational displays of leadership. For
instance: Greg is the only Kid who is seen brandishing a weapon –
while Gator is constantly alluding to his taste for human flesh. The other Kids are obviously a pass-out to purists – “book to
film” nerds who would undoubtedly question the adaptation's
relevance to its original source material – an issue already standing on
weak legs considering the exclusion of Adam Bomb and Jay Decay.party McFlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09272964794032940132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6123814226822576239.post-75488315139755415372014-09-17T22:46:00.002-07:002014-09-17T22:53:05.433-07:00Some quick thoughts on Willow Creek.<div style="text-align: center;">
Bobcat Goldthwait's</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Willow Creek (2014)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
~spoiler free~</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Found footage. Like there's just all this footage lying around
everywhere. Found footage films have become somewhat of a chore for
me. A trend which has somehow outlasted the generation that
originally appreciated it and lapsed into a new generation of horror
fans who think it's something new. I normally avoid these movies
since having watched the adversarial boner-killer that is V/H/S,
nothing but a baited hook to oldsters like me, but it's <i>fucking
hard</i> because there are <i>so many </i>being
made. However, having said that, I remember fondly the somewhat
limited resurgence of it when Cloverfield came out and I found myself
wondering 'Well what makes me like Cloverfield, when I really can't
stand this sort of thing?'.<br />
It has something to do with
subject matter. Hell, who doesn't like giant monsters – and
suddenly the found footage aspect of it was somehow newer, edgier and
more engaging. I found myself for a time seeking them out again.
Movies like REC were fairly thrilling to me, while others, like
Paranormal Activity, I found to be just as insipid and dull as the
Blair Witch series ever was.<br />
While the sub-genre made good progress in the capable hands of
those who were willing to try something new – it fell on its ass
when directors and producers relied on nothing but jump scares and
loud noises. The popularity of the found footage movie did well
within the mainstream either way and suddenly the horror movie was
getting another shot at the big screen.<br />
So yeah, in short it was a thing and now its just kind of a thing,
limping along behind its recently panned-out success with
straight-to-video releases and cash-ins, pandering its way down the
line of bored people who want to recapture the realistic horror of
found footage.<br />
Often I see a movie that snags my interest and often when it ends
up being a FF movie I kind of pout for a while and then forget all
about it.<br />
But in this case – my willingness to buy anything Bigfoot won
out and I decided to watch Willow Creek.<br />
Promising me 'the monster movie of the summer', with its visceral
red jacket and bitching cover art it tickled the buying bone just
under the wad of blackened organic tar that is my congealed lust for
simian destruction.<br />
I went into it skeptical as always – skepticism being a strange
taste in my mouth because as a horror fan with no recognizable
standards – the dignity of being a snob about these movies is an
opportunity I've long since passed up (I will never once ask you to
put any faith into anything I say about anything ever, good luck!).
Found footage, to me, often translates into a method of delivery
which increasingly rouses suspense from the viewer, even though
there's nothing really happening but the mundane self-indulgent
posturing of whoever it is that has the hand-cam. This could also be
translated into being lazy. The viewer knows something is supposed to
happen at some point so they're always on edge – paranoid about
that inevitable moment when something is bound to bother them. This
is the primary source for those annoying back-of-the-DVD quotes:<br />
I was on the edge of my seat! (waiting for something to happen)<br />
A jarring experiment in suspense! (because the movie is called
'All These People Eventually Die' and they just keep drinking and
cursing like frat boys)<br />
And I'll admit that initially Willow Creek did seem lazy to me. In
fact, if I didn't have the infatuation with Bigfeets that I do I
would have found it unwatchable – as the first hour or so of the
movie is nothing but a Sasquatch enthusiast and his reluctant
girlfriend out on a trip to the original Patterson film site. It was
shot on location so it was interesting to me in the way a documentary
about the Patterson film would be, so I kept with it.<br />
However the movie does has a turning point. During the first night
of their trip into the woods to reach the site, they are awoken by
vocalizations in the distance. This is a nearly 30 minute, single
shot scene where the couple sits frozen in their tent, afraid to move
an inch, only whispering to one another frantically as the noises of
clacking wood and ape-like wailing grow closer. If you end up loving
or hating this movie, this is the scene you should at least give a
nod to.<br />
The entire shot is very organic and very real – mirroring that
painfully human moment we've all had – sitting up from our beds,
remaining as still as we can – even willing our hearts to beat
softer – persuading our lungs to expand more shallowly –
straining to hear, what we thought we heard, somewhere not so far off
in the darkness. Moments pass without it, the sound of some <i>thing</i>
in the shadows which is aware of you, and you ease up a little, your
muscles relax, only to have it come in again out of sequence –
freezing its hold on you now with more emphasis, causing more
deliberation, because it has become <i>louder, closer.</i><br />
Its a brilliant scene because we've all
been there. That moment where rationality shifts out of existence and
you think to yourself “This is it. There is something out there
that maybe isn't quite explainable and I can't handle that”.<br />
The movie is worth watching for that
feeling alone – and after it – the remainder is almost
inconsequential.<br />
<br />
I've always thought of fear as
something that bothers the soul of you, your mind and your heart –
not just some cheap shock popping in off angle to yell in your face.
To me there's a difference between being startled, and <i>being
afraid, </i>and it takes a real talent to project that difference on
screen. I wasn't overly impressed with Willow Creek but for that
scene, and if you, like me, like to remind yourself from time to time
just how irrational we can be – I suggest you watch it.party McFlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09272964794032940132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6123814226822576239.post-21569792541713872922013-08-11T21:26:00.000-07:002014-08-30T14:06:54.919-07:00You thought they were from another planet... You were right!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /></div>
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Illegal Aliens (2007)</div>
<br />
Inhabitants of Earth are at perpetual risk from alien invasion, so
says the PSA at the beginning of Illegal Aliens, which not only warns
us of this danger, but informs us of how the Intergalactic Council
has taken steps to protect all of humanity. Entrusting the safety of
countless lives within the capabilities of a highly trained trio of
shape-shifting extraterrestrial agents – the Council sends these
officers to Earth – instructing them to assume the shape of the
locality.<br />
Two of the aliens, which in their native form look like giant
Wacky Wally wall crawlers, are seen barreling through the stars,
cutting off spacecraft and chirping tired tropes about how badly
women drive. The third alien, however, is in the form of a pig
screaming through the vacuum of space. It's a pretty peculiar choice
which is never really explained as anything other than a set up for a
joke about bacon as the pig alights into flame and begins burning up
as it enters the atmosphere.
<br />
The aliens strike down somewhere in LA at night and form a massive
crater upon impact. A nearby hobo, sure enough with bottle and brown
bag in hand, is unsettled from his cardboard nest and wanders out
drunk and agape, as he watches the smoking hole and listens to the
aliens arguing in their own language about which form they should
take.<br />
Chance intervenes and blows a porn magazine into the crater and
fate is set in motion. Three sexy girls arise from the crater – all
dressed in lingerie. I really can't tell you how many times as a
young boy I wished that sexy women would just appear wherever I was
and save me the effort of having to mentality facilitate them, but I
never once imagined that sexy girls would emerge from a pig-crater in
some soupy back alley.<br />
The aliens walk into a nearby bar packed with the usual thugs –
and this one guy comes out from behind the bar and immediately begins
to rub his face all over these strange street women in their
underwear without question. He smacks one on the ass and it leads to
a goofy bar fight, I guess to demonstrate the fact that the women
have some form of martial training.<br />
<br />
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Several days later, the aliens have made their home in LA and are
lounging about, still in underwear, waiting for some action. There's
this surreal third-wall moment where the alien Lucy, played by Anna
Nicole, is watching herself on television (actual scenes from the The
Anna Nicole Show which ran legitimately from 2002 to 2004, ending
three years before the filming of this movie), insinuating that the
real Anna Nicole had been a shape-shifting alien crime fighter all
along. I think it was meant to be a humorous nod to her bizarre
behavior on the show but I for one think far too critically about
really pointless shit for this sort of existential thinking to ever
lock into place.<br />
The surlier of the trio, Cameron, establishes herself as the
leader of team through her affirmative dialogue and take-charge
attitude.<br />
The third girl never had a name, or it was mentioned so little
that I never caught it. I didn't care enough to give her a
place-holder.<br />
<br />
While the Illegals are busy acclimating into society, the movie
shifts once again back into space, and to a fourth alien who is
approaching the planet.<br />
Now, being a fan of professional wrestling, I feel the need to
prepare an aside for anyone who isn't familiar with the 90s era
female wrestler Chyna. Chyna, born Joan Marie Laurer, is a big girl.
A relic, really, from a time when lady wrestlers could and would
match up against male wrestlers and hold their own. I won't take too
much time harking on the fact that Chyna was probably meant to be a
man. With her enormous build and muscle tone, squared jaw and breasts
that were at best tacked on tenuously for given intervals of time
between frog splashes and moonsaults, you can't say she wasn't
trying. Anyone who lived through the 90s and watched WWF knows this
already. I guess I can say it was good to see her, though the movie
was made six years ago and she's probably even more of a canvas mat
accident now.<br />
The fourth alien, a rogue scientist known as Rex, inhabits Chyna's
body as opposed to shifting into one of his own.<br />
Rex walks Chyna into the same bar the Illegals entered previously
and shoots the owner. She (excuse the pronoun trouble) immediately
takes over the bar and uses it as a base of operations, recruiting
the delinquents within into a hardcore smash and grab crime scheme as
she begins hijacking convoys and stealing experimental technology.<br />
<br />
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Chyna's long years of professional acting as a professional
wrestler instinctively lurch into play as a strange behavioral tick
manifests, which makes Rex's voice pinch off into octaves of
screeching and cringe-inducing guttural heaving while dialogue is
delivered. An awkward choice, the sort of decision that makes you
almost wish you had some sort of directorial commentary just so you
can sleep at night...<br />
Rex's first hit is a truck filled with cool top-secret boxes.
After stealing it, she proceeds to blow up more cars with the
face-rubbing guy from before, and one other, as a high-profile heist
crew who later plant explosives and infiltrate government buildings.
It all comes together really well and then gets rammed down your
throat so you can really taste the experience.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEa5JWOKsWIyMYJYcCyl-B_5zWiVolHho1t9uLbJMepol21bh8Vm7JY8rUBpHlXyoqn_PQYlXqqZcDkM1sDdvAptUnCwdz-ZcrGAcWIJu13S8kyLipMVGoIsavjmkLVoaab9ZZNEc09Uc/s1600/IA16.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEa5JWOKsWIyMYJYcCyl-B_5zWiVolHho1t9uLbJMepol21bh8Vm7JY8rUBpHlXyoqn_PQYlXqqZcDkM1sDdvAptUnCwdz-ZcrGAcWIJu13S8kyLipMVGoIsavjmkLVoaab9ZZNEc09Uc/s200/IA16.PNG" width="100" /></a></div>
<br />
Intermittently I was treated with the background noise that was
Anna Nicole Smith. Her off-key line delivery and incessant jokes
about her own vacuum of character seemed to punctuate the movie every
time the action tapered off. She had this strange adult-child
mentality that prevented her from filling any other role than the one
who farts and laughs at her own farts. Most of her screen time was a
randy combination of sluttiness and clumsy stupidity, which did loan
the role a pinch of authenticity, as Anna Nicole's legacy is not
exactly brilliant. In retrospect I realize that her space pig moment
from the beginning of the film was symbolic, a personification of
everything we came to know of the woman through MTV and her time
spent in the train wreck obituaries that were the celebrity tabloids.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJFsFK1FiCBAAtbQ0CVEoOjQvqjat_8zor1YswraQHM45PKkoayK3BN39nidgL1a2XbvtiYdfMoly8ONKJKfnCNkAVUaYBNmSwT5ny5fhCiZju_JZZr6dQIHqEVNUyiiHth5WhJ7cIPDE/s1600/IA6.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJFsFK1FiCBAAtbQ0CVEoOjQvqjat_8zor1YswraQHM45PKkoayK3BN39nidgL1a2XbvtiYdfMoly8ONKJKfnCNkAVUaYBNmSwT5ny5fhCiZju_JZZr6dQIHqEVNUyiiHth5WhJ7cIPDE/s200/IA6.PNG" height="137" width="200" /></a>The Illegal Aliens answer to a sentient computer-being known as
Syntax, who cues the women in on the recent developments concerning
Rex's technological thefts. They deduce that the offender must be
alien in origin as well. He also informs them, based on unseen and
unexplained algorithms, that all the items on the snatch list are
parts needed to built a 'Mega Gravitron' – a weapon of mass
destruction powerful enough to destroy the world.<br />
<br />
The girls go on a stakeout – attempting to case the next
location on Rex's agenda from a building across the street. At this
point Lucy (Anna Nicole) pulls a dildo out of the couch she's on to
bring some levity to the gritty, true crime plot that's been keeping
me white-knuckled for the longest forty minutes of my life. She
sticks it in her ear, and then waves it around like a light saber.
We're to assume she doesn't know what a vibrator is, even though the
aforementioned looseness of Lucy's personality would contradict her
confusion... Or maybe it's simply that they don't have vaginas on her
home planet, or maybe their vaginas are in their ears.<br />
The warehouse explodes, the aliens move in, and there's a chase
scene with a lot of synchronized fake-breast shaking.<br />
Rex hijacks a bus, and it was revealed to me then, that Lucy can
shape-shift into complex working machines as well, because she turns
into a car and the other girls get <i>inside of her</i> to catch up
with Rex. There's a car chase of no significance in a generic
under-bridge area, Rex's car flips, and Lucy turns back into her
human form with the other aliens sitting on top of her – answering
the Transformers passenger mystery for all of us.<br />
<br />
After his plans are foiled by the Illegals, Rex begins to rattle
off a bit of prose, revealing his plot to destroy Earth and move his
own home planet into its place. This is because the star which warms
his own world is very quickly dying – and total orbit
re-synchronization is obviously the most easily executable course of
action.<br />
<br />
Rex then once again attempts to steal another important component
for the Gravitron. This time the Illegal aliens commandeer a bus from
its driver to chase her down – so far displaying no actual talent
or skill as space-faring secret agents but rather cruising through
the movie on nothing but their ability to wear low cut tops and
demand favors with pouty orgasm faces.<br />
The chase ends up intersecting with a speeding train – Rex rams
it – and after another explosion we cut back to LA – leaving the
outcome open for speculation, or most likely a director's cut.<br />
<br />
Cameron offers a bit of background on the criminal Rex as Lucy
retires to the bathroom for what I can only generally summarize as a
roaring “session” of diarrhea. Carmen's recounting of Rex's
relationship with her (they dated before Rex became a woman) is
shouted over a seamless, deafening wash of farting and liquid fecal
pounding. Rex was a scientist who was part of a rebel group, trying
to take over, and demolish other planets to remedy their dying star
(mentioned before). He was imprisoned by Cameron herself, and then
escaped several years later.<br />
<br />
Syntax informs the ladies that there is but one last piece Rex
needs to build her weapon (even though at least two of her attempts
to steal parts had been unsuccessful by this point). The final and
most important part of the Gravitron, the Colliding Syncotron, is in
possession of the scientist who built it, and the only man who can
operate it, who resides somewhere in Montana.<br />
Traveling to the home of the scientist, the women find that the
place has been ransacked – there's an overturned bowl of Cinnamon
Toast Crunch, some pretty heated suspense music, and a fork in the
microwave which is about to explode. I don't know if this is a real
thing or not, I almost got went to try it (don't you look down your
nose at me, I'm not a Googler, I learn by living my life damn it) but
when the entire building atomized in a bloom of smoke and
conflagration I quickly put the the utensil back into its drawer.<br />
I can't say at that point I hadn't learned anything from Illegal
Aliens. I had learned two things actually, that forks may explode
when microwaved, and that the resulting explosion would more than
likely level several hundred square feet.<br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
They find that Rex has kidnapped the scientist. Lucy transforms
into an ATTACK CHOPPER and proceeds to gun down Rex's caravan of
vehicles. More trucks explode. There's so much exploding in this
movie. I can't tell you how many times something explodes in Illegal
Aliens. I don't know if they were trying to drown the movie in
explosions to soften its slightly autistic edges, or if the movie
itself was built around a surplus of leftover theatrical-grade
explosives.<br />
The scientist wakes up in Cameron's crotch, Rex is gone, and the
Syncotron has been destroyed.<br />
<br />
The Illegals immediately tell the scientist that they're
extraterrestrials, who are trying to stop the apocalypse. He buys
into it pretty easily, which I took to be a little unbelievable, but
at this point the end of the movie was in sight and I just wanted to
clench, pinch, and flush.<br />
In the next scene, seemingly out of context, the director suddenly
remembered the third, nameless alien hadn't had much development, or
really any at all. Attempting to quickly add some depth to her
character, she is seen working on a muscle car – insinuating that
she may be a beautiful woman, but she's also a <i>strong </i>woman
who ignores all gender assigned convention and can cut it on her own
in a two-fisted man's world. That's all I really got though, I guess
it was supposed to last for the rest of the movie and forecast her
attitude through to the end. Sort of like, “This is who this girl
is if you didn't know,” attempting to dilute the objectivity of
women which the film had lavished on up to that point.<br />
Their way of telling me “See? We're not really just trying to
get this movie by on lady lumps and belly-shirts alone,” although
she was wearing a belly-shirt while working on the car.<br />
<br />
Soon after, Cameron and the scientist go on a date. This is to get
the two of them out of the house so Rex can attack while the only
semi-capable alien is out of the picture. The nameless alien (muscle
car) is attacked and knocked out, Lucy (farts) is taken, and Syntax
the intelligent computer, is destroyed, garnishing a reserved nod
from me as Chyna delivers the pretty swell one-liner “CPU later.”<br />
<br />
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As this icy BM of a movie neared is final round of gut-shivering
bowel cramps, I was taken to Rex's island lair – where the Mega
Gravitron sat primed and ready.<br />
Not missing any opportunity to include Anna Nicole's asshole into
the script, Rex forces both her and the scientist to anally receive
mind-controlling suppositories, so she can force Lucy to transform
into a Syncotron replacement, and the scientist to operate her.<br />
Soon after the Gravitron is powered up and aimed at the moon –
which Rex intends to blow up to move the Earth on up and out.<br />
<br />
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<br />
The two free-roaming aliens fix Syntax and get him to locate the
island. As they touch down, Rex summons large, mutant crabs to attack
the women, which get mowed down when Homeland Security decides to
show up with an army of helicopters. This gives the ladies a chance
to prance through the destruction on the balls of their feet, shaking
their upper halves, again with that weird plastic rack motion that
reminds one of a light switch flicking on and off rather than
anything remotely sexual.<br />
<br />
Some of Rex's thugs make up their mind to save the world because
they're pretty attached to it. I was eager to wrap this session up as
I felt, personally, I had absorbed as much from Illegal Aliens as I
could and once again I didn't care much to dissect the contrivance at
hand.<br />
That being said, between the decision to save the world and
pulling the suppository out of Anna Nicole's rectum, I realized the
weight of the choice they had to make. These men were not cowards,
and by far the true heroes of the movie.<br />
<br />
Anna asks why her poopy hole is sore (actual words used in the
film) and then dive-tackles Chyna for one of the most unappealing cat
fights I've ever witnessed. The whole ordeal was a mangled mess of
cavernous, stationary, bowling alley cleavage and a
not-quite-definable masculinity that was drowned in baritone
caterwauling.<br />
<br />
With Anna pulled out from the machine – the world celebrates –
Rex is thrown into the machine and in one final explosion, it takes
the whole island with it.<br />
<br />
After I had finished with Illegal Aliens, I cast it aside like a
dejected lover. Well, not a lover really, more of a Family Dollar
backside prostitute – whom I envisioned looking much like Cameron
or any of the ladies from the movie. I had had my way with it and to
be honest it had been a horrible lay. One cannot expect the warmth of
more satisfying company when you look for companionship within the
marsh, but that's not why we came here, is it? Hopefully now, if
you're reading this, you're a little wiser and can save that ninety
five minutes of your life for something more productive. Like
microwaving a fork.<br />
<br />
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<br />party McFlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09272964794032940132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6123814226822576239.post-16867180622706546542011-05-25T18:50:00.001-07:002013-08-11T19:38:31.628-07:00in the middle of the ocean, a new form of horror is taking shape.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
it has to be annoying. you spend years of your life deeply steeped in genetic and biological scientific study - or let's say - days on end of meticulous militant training... real top-of-the-class stuff. you excel and overcome physical and mental adversity for weeks, months, years, until it finally pays off. you're enlisted to become part of a high-tier government project. your life is paid for - sure the work is a little risky and there are a lot of dangerous secrets flying around, but your long ordeal has finally gotten you into the big leagues. you're exceeding where most others have failed, pressing your mind and body to the limits and breaking down all the walls in a world of advancing technology.<br />
<div>
so one night you're working out in the middle of the ocean on a top-secret black operations-funded oil rig, and things get a little frumpy...<br />
<div>
everyone has to expect some setbacks right? some money is lost, valuable data compromised, maybe even a person or two or three or four dies? all in the order of crisis management. nothing you can't handle. sure enough. that is unless a group of curious survivors casually drift up at the most inopportune time to climb aboard at the exact moment there is a compound-wide security wipe-out and stroll right along into the heart of your laboratory - touching everything they can see, breathing all over the specimens, and arming themselves with very costly firearms that will most likely be taken out of your paycheck if you survive. drink all the coffee in the break room and eat my sandwich out of the fridge while you're at it. well great, thanks. hey, and fuck you. why did your yacht full of heroin have to blow up on my shift? like i don't have enough to deal with with this rabid clump of mutant DNA sliming up all the vents and liquefying people?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
so proteus is one of several horror movies i've seen that takes place out there on the high seas. inevitably i always assume that sea-creatures will end up being more terrifying than shore-side monsters, as the ocean is already packed with soulless abominations that exist purely to strike terror directly into the deepest portion of your gut. it was less satisfying, then, that the <i>thing</i> which stalked the half-sunken halls of the film ended up being a bit more man-made than something that was just unearthed and swam up from the blackest depths. but i'm a man, i deal with these things - and i'm not one to turn my nose up at a genetic experiment gone wrong - leviathan or mutant alike - who's really that picky?</div>
<div>
so we kick this bitch off with a group of six drug dealers (one of which is actually an undercover cop) and about twelve bags of dope being loaded onto a yacht to escape some ordeal with the triads. one fellow, paul, is already bleeding through his face and missing a few fingers right from the start - so i was sure that more dismemberment was to come.</div>
<div>
at some point during the opening credits the boat blows up and the crew is set adrift on a raft until they plunk into a seemingly abandoned oil rig. normally i would complain about the plot-crutch of a group of inexperienced people insisting on worsening their situation by exploring some hollowed-out place of misfortune they probably shouldn't... but i let it slide this time seeing as they were floating abroad with nothing to eat but a bag full of drugs.</div>
</div>
<div>
now i knew some dank shit was already happening inside. there was at least one panicky security officer running from some serious color-tinted monster vision already teased before the smugglers got on deck.</div>
<div>
after making themselves comfortable (as they always do), the group discovers lumps of clothing laid all about the rig - and plenty of empty animal cages and living quarters. the whole place is dripping with slime - and paul (the fingerless fellow) goes off almost immediately and gets taken out by the red lens filter and ingested... i guess? his face sort of melts off into some awesome late 90s CG effect.</div>
<div>
my faith wavered a bit when i put the slime and the clothes together like some tubby-limbed child doing grade school math while waving his arm and grunting at the teacher... i had already nailed this flick down as a slime creature feature which i'm never pleased with. not the good kind - like the blob - but the sort where they just toss a bunch of fluid around and insinuate you to death. not to say i have an aversion to slimy movies, i just prefer to see the stuff in action.</div>
<div>
anyhow anyhow anyhow.</div>
<div>
so eventually you're told what's going on - after a few of the people who have died start showing up in spanking condition - though it was fairly straightforward all along. a crazy doctor named shelley (name drop) was hired out by an eccentric billionaire to explore the boundaries of human DNA to potentially unlock the secret of eternal life. the doctor mentions that the body and all of its elements are 95% water and that the trick was to exploit the meatier remaining 5% into something that would defeat death.</div>
<div>
it just has to sound good normally, but i found myself making a 5% meatier effort to explain the contrivance away and caught the reflection of my contorted face on the television screen and thought it was a jump-scare.</div>
<div>
so this biological element was tested on a great white shark (always good to test that radical and unstable virus on something with five rows of teeth) they nicknamed 'charlie'. from this point on the creature is referred to thusly.</div>
<div>
most of this knowledge comes from a tape which alex (the undercover DEA agent) finds, that shelley had made himself. </div>
<div>
it got a bit more interesting when they explained that charlie sort of gelled himself and slopped out of the tank to take over the remaining staff on hand - gathering their traits and forming a mental collective - but it was still a little hands off for my taste. a lot of the kills were made by reusing actors who had come back after they had died to kill again by jamming a feeding appendage down the throat of their victim.</div>
<div>
just before the doctor succumbs to charlie on camera, he hints at a way to defeat the entity by using a large amount of heroin.</div>
<div>
sometimes you just get all the best cards...</div>
<div>
there's a lot of menial elements in the movie that i've not even bothered to mention - various little thickets of disinterest about the characters who you don't really care for to begin with - but i'll just let that sauce marinate until i forget i've left it on the stove.</div>
<div>
let's get to what i really want to talk about - and probably the reason you should watch this rank load yourself - the final confrontation.</div>
<div>
the final battle against charlie gets real when alex's girlfriend (a previous victim) returns and tries to pull on his muscled heart just before his escape from the rig. she offers to show him charlie's "true form" and begins to buckle and gag until a five-story-tall creature ERUPTS FROM HER FACE which is genuinely awesome and looks like a cross between the universal studios jaws ride and a street shark. alex begins to pelt the monster with BAGS OF HEROIN, each time prompting it to stop what it's doing and lap up the smack.</div>
<div>
this is just to slow charlie down until he douses the beast with gasoline and scrambles a trail of it back to a mess of hand grenades (the most overused method of ending large killer things, second only to 'laying prone behind an upward-angled pointy stick') but it doesn't even matter - at that point in the movie i had gotten what i came for.</div>
<div>
proteus has lain mostly dormant since 1995 for good reason. at first most would probably decry it as one of many similar movies that rolled out unhindered off the aliens meets abyss craze - but they aren't aware of the key issue this movie provides - and that is: under the most extreme and particular circumstances - drugs are good for something.</div>
party McFlyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09272964794032940132noreply@blogger.com1