Hell Is Other Robots

This documentary put an end to my movie marathon, and it was a peculiar ending indeed. Hell House records the lengths a certain church goes to in order to scare people into believing. To this end, the luminaries of this church put together a haunted house for Halloween that, instead of having ghosts and skeletons and the occasional chainsaw-tottering maniac, shows real "horrors" such as abortions, homosexuality, and rave parties. After the lavish production, the attendees are offered a chance to go and pray and join the church so that everyone can have a happy ending and avoid the torments that would most certainly await them in hell. All very uplifting, tolerant, and unbiased, goes without saying.

It also goes without saying I had a blast making fun of these very scary people who would rather spend lots of time, money, and energy in scaring people with beliefs different than their own, instead of putting that time, money, and energy to better use. A few ideas that come to mind are, I don't know: feeding the hungry, clothing the homeless, sending kids to school, buying books and school supplies for those who cannot afford them, working with the local community kitchen. And that's without actually thinking about it for more than two seconds.

So yeah: a very interesting documentary that will make you shiver and shake your head in disbelief. I wonder what Bill Maher would think of these people...

Pulp Horror

I hadn't seen Creepshow in about twenty-five years, and I was eagerly anticipating the time when I would watch it again. I only had about three mental snapshots of different parts of the movie, and I wasn't even sure those pictures belonged in this film, but they did. Afraid that I would be disappointed, though, I tried not to get too excited about it, reminding myself that it was an old movie that was going to be terribly dated. But I needn't worry: every single one of the five stories in this collection was great fun to watch, and Creepshow definitely placed second (out of four) in last weekend's movie marathon.

For those of you who have forgotten, Creepshow was written by Stephen King and directed by the legendary George A. Romero, a team-up made in heaven… or perhaps hell. One way or the other, the movie made me smile like an idiot, and if I enjoyed the first story, Father's Day, I liked the second one (The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill, in which Stephen King is priceless as a yokel who finds himself in the center of a meteorite crash) even more. In an unexpected serious role, Leslie Nielsen was great in Something to Tide You Over, and The Crate proved to be the source of one of the aforementioned three mental snapshots. (The first one being Stephen King running around in his garden, and the second one a certain character buried in the sand.) Finally, They're Creeping up on You amped up the gross-out factor and closed the horror anthology in a satisfying manner.

Needless to say, I have Creepshow 2 lined up and ready to be watched, but those scares will have to wait until next week. It's going to be fun!

Who Wants to be a

Slumdog Millionaire was the second movie in the DVD marathon I found myself enjoying while snowed in last weekend, and it was by far the best of the lot. Actually, it doesn't need to be compared to any of the other movies I watched to ascertain its greatness. I don't usually find myself attracted to what I call "Oscar bait," so I hadn't really made any efforts to watch the celebrated movie by Danny Boyle. However, I must say I'm happy my girlfriend brought it home, because SM turned out to be a blast.

By now, you all have probably seen it already, and so I am curious to know what you thought about the film. I really liked its narrative flow, and how every question led to a passage in the life of Jamal, showing that he would have been the only one able to answer all those questions right. The love story was also moving, even though Jamal's puppy-dog devotion (as my friend Glen called it) could be a bit sad and overpowering at times. Finally, the sibling dynamic was also great fun to watch, and you went from loving Salim to hating him every other scene.

Besides compelling characters and terrific acting, SM also boasts good direction, a solid script, and a very cool soundtrack, so I guess it's no wonder it captivated audiences everywhere, and I must urge you to watch it if you haven't done so already. A great movie!

Shake It, Baby!

Nothing like being snowed in to have a movie marathon on DVD. The first of the four movies I had the pleasure of watching was The Strangers, which wasn't all that great, truth be told. The tension achieved throughout the movie was probably the best part, but other than that, the movie left me indifferent. The couple trapped in the house does more than their fair share of idiotic things, and it is kind of hard to feel for their plight when you can't stop thinking they deserve what happens to them. The fact we don't see the killers' faces was a neat idea because it made it all more terrifying. However, nothing more terrifying than the camerawork, which was atrociously awful. The director of photography is one of those guys who thinks that making the camera move and shake and tremble during dialogue scenes adds to the tension and the idea that there is something off, that there is danger lurking in the shadows, but nothing could be further from the truth. This only looks amateurish, tries the audience's patience, and accomplishes nothing but to take you right out of the story. You are not prying into a private conversation; instead, you are reminded there is a camera crew shooting the exchange for your viewing pleasure, and the artifice of fiction becomes inescapable. Why would you want to yank your audience right out of the world you are creating, especially when the events are supposed to be based on a true story and you are striving to make the scenario look plausible and as close to real as possible? Don't they realize this trick achieves the exact opposite effect? This only makes a movie that wasn't all that great to begin with look even worse, so watch it at your peril.

Master Merchant

Something's recently gotten into me --a merchant spirit I didn't know I had in me. This feeling could also be called the "let's get rid of stuff I don't need and make some money instead" syndrome, something pretty new to me, as I tend to keep everything I buy. Well, maybe not anymore.

Last week, I went to McKay's and sold a few CDs I didn't care for and hadn't really listened to in years, and if that was surprising (and believe me, it was), what I did next was even more shocking: I got rid of some DVD sets. Crazy, right? Truth be told, I had already sold the first season of Nip/Tuck last year, and even though I thought that was an isolated phenomenon, I was wrong. The horrendous first season of Hex followed suit not too long ago, but my thirst for selling DVDs couldn't be quenched. Only thus can I explain why I sold the first seasons of BattleStar Galactica and Veronica Mars, which I had bought and enjoyed very much. However, I bought those two a long time ago, and while I kept telling myself I would go back and buy the remaining seasons, it never quite happened. This, combined with the certain knowledge I wouldn't be watching any of the episodes I already had again, helped me make a decision which wasn't all that painful to begin with.

What might come as more of a shock is what I sold next: Firefly. I know everybody thinks it's so good and all that, and while I think it could have been a terrific series, the first (and, thanks to Fox, only) season was --just okay. So I sold it. And, much to my honest surprise, that wasn't the last Joss Whedon show to go. Can you guess what I'm going to tell you next? I sold Buffy.

Actually, I only owned seasons five, six, and seven, and even though I kept telling myself I would get around to buying the first four one of these days, it never happened. Even when the first four seasons went on sale at Walmart for fourteen bucks each, I didn't buy them. Even though the price has stayed the same for about two years, I still haven't felt like buying them. And when you take into account that those seasons are by far the best ones, and I still wasn't buying them, well, it got me thinking. And then it got me selling.

Isn't there anything sacred?, you might ask. Well, of course there is. I would never sell Angel. I would never part with The X-Files. Scrubs and Futurama will always have a place on my shelf. But hey, is that eight seasons of Smallville I see over there? Hmmm...

Sloppy

I enjoyed The Chase because it was a fun story with cool characters. The Van Dorn Detective Agency operating in 1906 makes for a very interesting setting, and I would like to see more adventures starring their star detective, Isaac Bell. In The Chase, Bell is sent to stop the Butcher Bandit, an outlaw who robs banks and murders every single witness in his spare time. Nobody knows who he is or what he looks like, so Bell has his work cut out for him. The story keeps building momentum and, except for the whole earthquake deal, it never loses steam. It is a fun rollercoaster of a read that leaves you satisfied and wanting for more. That's good.

What's not good is Clive Cussler's writing skills. I had never read anything by him before, so I don't know if his previous books are as sloppily written as this one, but man could this guy use an editor. You could say I'm picky, and maybe you're right, but Stephen King would positively die if he saw all the unnecessary adverbs Mr. Cussler loves to use and overuse. In addition to that, his not exactly elegant prose and some jarring dialogue detract from what could have been a really excellent book, but that's not the worst offense. The worst part is Cussler's uncanny ability to forget his characters' names and call them something else. Two examples:

One of the main characters is a detective called Curtis. Well, halfway through the book, Curtis becomes Carter in a particular scene, and I almost lost my sanity trying to figure out who this Carter was and where Curtis had gone. A few pages later, Curtis became Curtis again, so I thought "Oh, well." But then, later in the book, Curtis becomes Carter for the second time, only to revert to his previous name a couple of paragraphs later. How can you mess up like that? Did he not re-read his manuscript? And what about the editor? It is not as if there is another character named Carter and the author mixes up both names. There is no character named Carter at all, and I therefore find this mistake very aggravating.

The second example comes toward the end of the book. A young boy named Stuart brings a message for Horace Bronson, and Isaac Bell rewards him with twenty dollars, fifteen more than the boy was expecting. But when Bell gives him the money, it's Warren's eyes who are big with disbelief, not Stuart's. Who the hell is Warren? As it turns out, he is but another mistake of Mr. Cussler, because he is unquestionably referring to Stuart. How do you go from Stuart to Warren? And, even worse, how do you make that mistake in the space of five lines? It is not as if Stuart showed up early in the book, and then, when he reappeared two hundred pages later the author had forgotten his name. No. Stuart shows up in one paragraph, and he turns into Warren on the next!

And yet, despite these unfortunate lapses, The Chase was a lot of fun, so at least I got that much out the book. However, I keep wondering if this is something he does in all his books. If you know anything about this, please let me know!

Poor Alice

I thought my love for all things Alice knew no limits, but I have just been proved wrong. I started watching the 1985 made-for-TV Alice in Wonderland, and I could only stomach half of it. Natalie Gregory, the girl who plays Alice, is either wearing a horrible wig or she got the worst dye job I've seen in my life. Either way, she looks unnatural, which, added to her not-exactly-amazing acting skills, makes the movie hard to watch. But that's not the worst thing by a long stretch. I would point out the cheap effects and the even cheaper costumes (and I mean, really), and I would still fall short of its glorious awfulness. The worst part by far was the horrendous singing, which was pointless, uninspired, and ubiquitous. I mean, the lyrics didn't even rhyme!

However, at the same time I found about this movie I discovered a version of Through the Looking Glass starring Kate Beckinsale as Alice, so, if nothing else, this movie helped me find this potential masterpiece. Regardless of how it turns out, I doubt it will be more embarrassing to watch than this one.