Yep, Nature Is Still Scary

Credit National Geographic. Yep those look like they'd hurt.

Hey you know that new movie about caves? Sanctum or whatever? Where a bunch of stupid white people go down a giant hole and get lost, because they’re fucking stupid? Well I think I know what the sequel will be – More Dumbass Yuppies Go Into A Cave II: Death by Poisoned Pincers.

National Geographic, your source for all things wonderful and terrifying about bare naked tribal breasts and nature, reports today that a new species of pseudoscorpion has been discovered living in the caves of Colorado. Wait, don’t get grossed out yet. It’s only 1/2 inch long (1.3 cm). Oh and it has poison-tipped pincers. Now you can get freaked.

Says Nat-Geo:

Pseudoscorpions are essentially scorpions that lack a stinging tail. However, the new species does have long, venom-tipped pincers that likely help it nab agile prey, such as springtails, in the gloom.

Most likely, the new pseudoscorpion lives only in Glenwood Caverns and Historic Fairy Caves, the study authors say.

“A lot of these caves are islands, almost like an isolated environment where invertebrates … evolve into being adapted to underground life,” said biospeleologist David Steinmann, a zoology department associate with theDenver Museum of Nature and Science. Steinmann collected the new species after it was discovered in 2000 by tour guide Micah Ball.

With its primitive eyes and pale color, the arachnid is perfectly suited to its dark, chilly existence and has probably been scurrying through the passages for millions of years, Steinmann said.

Pseudoscorpions are typically tiny and are actually beneficial, for they eat things like mites and other parasitic creatures that crawl in  your hair and poop in your bed.  They lack the famous tail of real scorpions but are something of a cousin to that family of arthropods. Still you’re probably looking at the photo and thinking, “I’m never ever going in a cave.” Which is good, because then nobody will make a movie about how stupid you were to go into a cave with poison-tipped pseudoscorps under every rock.

 

It’s astounding, time is fleeting, madness takes its toll…

One more Halloween video. Just one more, okay? And then we can go do the Time Warp again.

 

Horror-Thon: From Beyond

Pt. 1 of the movie, click next vid or go to Youtube to see the full movie.

 

Horror-Thon: Night of the Demons

Part 1 of the movie.  Follow links in the embed or go to Youtube to view the rest.

 

Halloween Movie Horror-Thon

It’s time, kids! Put your masks on! Watch the magic pumpkin! It’s time!

 

8 More Days to Halloween, Halloween

Silver Shamrock!

The third Halloween movie is known for completely breaking from the Michael Myers tale. It was subtitled Season of the Witch, and its plot is a conspiracy by an elderly, Irish toy and costume maker out to use old, Celtic magic to torture and kill young children through the use of television and cursed masks. His company, Silver Shamrock, runs a commercial that kind of goes like this:

The music was done by John Carpenter and it’s completely creepy. The lyrics go, “Happy happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, Happy happy Halloween, Silver Shamrock!”

Well what basically scarred me for life was that one, I saw this movie when I was a kid (Like a real little kid), and the image of the boy wearing the mask while the commercial comes on and how it basically crushes his head, and the woman’ disembodied robot arm attacking the protagonist, are burned into my mind. What makes it all the more creepy is that when I was little, my mom used to sing a Halloween song that went like this:

“10 more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, 10 more days to Halloween, Silver Shamrock!”

Add or subtract the days but yes, she actually sang me the Silver Shamrock jingle to get me excited for Halloween. I didn’t realize this until I watched the movie as an adult. Yet she can’t understand why I’m so into horror and “that blood and guts stuff.”

To quote an 80s PSA: “You alright! I learned it by watching you!”

 

Peter O’Toole’s Roles for Booze

He's drunk right now.

Peter O’Toole is a very iconic British actor, who will forever be linked with movies like Lawrence of Arabia and The Lion in Winter. O’Toole is also known for a couple other things: his drunkenness and willingness to take some of the shittiest roles in the shittiest movies to get paid and buy booze. For every Shakespeare role, there’s like four or five saccharine comedies. He’ll do a heavy role in The Tudors, then….well, read on.

King Ralph (1991) O’Toole played: the stuffy British royal who begrudgingly educates loutish, king by sheer luck John Goodman the ways of nobility. Booze required to play this role: Goodman, known for his appetite, likely tried to match the old man drink for drink and failed in the process. He’s wiry but he’s Irish, Johnny.

You see, in the early 90s there was a sitcom called Roseanne, and its cast featured exactly one, naturally talented actor with the charisma to make it beyond the TV soundstage. That was Affton, MO’s own John Goodman, who is now known for roles in Barton Fink and the Big Lebowski. This comedy fit right in that period when sitcoms were strong, and mainstream comedy basically took its cue from Jeff Foxworthy and Tim Allen. Goodman mugged, blustered and made a jackass of himself while O’Toole had to be the uptight English guy. It’s take 11,673 of the, “Americans are like ‘Blargh! I like things big and loud!’ and English people are, ‘Oh my old chap, you are so loud and big, I say!’” That’s it. Everything revolves around that dynamic. It’s really just painfully average, but clearly it bought O’Toole a lot of whiskey and probably required a lot to get through it.

The Nutcracker Prince (1990) O’Toole played: a character named Pantaloon, which I am not going to even to pretend to know what the fuck that is. Booze required to play this role: About as much as I’d need to care to find out who the fuck Pantaloon is in an animated Nutcracker movie.

This movie sticks out for being animated, and for featuring JACK BAUER in it. Yes, Kiefer Sutherland, and could his IMDB ever make for a “Act for Alcy” list (Same with his dad, Donald).  Anyway O’Toole voices…some character named after pants…. and I presume helps the generic, blonde cartoon girl beat the Mouse King and save the Nutcracker. The only way this is improved is if we assume the blonde, cartoon girl fucks the Nutcracker after the credits, and Pantaloon participates and there are ropes somehow involved.

Supergirl (1984) O’Toole played: Zaltar, the stock wiseman character that shows Supergirl the ropes of Earth life while bitching and moaning about the stupid crap the plot requires him to endure. Booze required to play this role: Probably not too much, because after all O’Toole had a still-hot Faye Dunaway and a young Helen Slater to hang out with all day.

Comic book movies used to be very weird, for you see, the producers would take a comic property and then promptly ignore half the stuff that makes the character endearing in the first place. It’s how Capt. America ended up with a motorcycle helmet in one movie, and Superman wound up fighting a clone of himself in another. Supergirl has had little luck in and out of the comics, and it didn’t help matters when in the 80s the movie’s producers decided to basically maker her a meager superhero, who couldn’t handle a very human witch with very squishy, human flesh and frail, human bones. O’Toole’s role is the sage character who provides some humor and basically urges Supergirl on to conquer her fears or something, and take down a human villain a Kryptonian should easily be able to crush in 2 seconds.

High Spirits (1988) O’Toole played: Drunken, downtrodden castle/hotel owner who is literally haunted by his dad and every generation of his family before him. Booze required to play this role: Enough to capture the essence of a failed business man with the ghosts of his dead relatives constantly in his shit.

Hmm, how do I sum up High Spirits? Let’s see, there’s Steve Guttenberg as his career started to ebb; Daryl Hannah doing a bad Irish accent but looking really, really hot; Liam Neeson being a boorish Irish ghost; Beverly D’Angelo playing a really sexy bitch like we know she can; and oh right: STEVE GUTTENBERG MAKES OUT WITH A ZOMBIE. This movie defines “fiasco.” There are tons of talented actors doing crazy fucking shit, decent special effects (for the time) producing tons of ghosts and hauntings, random character actors showing up and getting in one-liners, and STEVE GUTTENBERG MAKING OUT WITH A ZOMBIE. Why, yes I do have to put that in all caps. It’s the only way to capture the absurdity of this entire movie. It’s definitely a “so bad, it’s great,” movie. Peter O’Toole actually comes off as the sane, sober one and that’s saying a lot, especially compared to this next example.

Christmas Cottage (2008, direct-to-video) O’Toole played: wizened old artist who sagely guided a young Thomas Kinkade to “paint light,” which resulted in a slew of treacly, hammy landscapes of cottages near lakes. Booze required to play this role: Enough so O’Toole wasn’t even aware he even did this project.

This is the motherlode of every bad, alcoholic decision Peter O’Toole has ever made. I mean, it’s a fucking Thomas Kinkade biopic. Kinkade decided that selling banged-out, cheery landscapes and having a hundred stores selling prints of his “light paintings” (Which anyone versed in Impressionism will tell you is NOT what Kinkade’s work qualifies as) while he peddled ho-hum, bland American Christianity wasn’t enough. Nah, he needed a fresh-faced handsome actor to play him and Peter O’Toole to be his fictional self’s mentor. Marcia Gaye Harden even appears in this, clearly having reached barrel’s bottom in her career. Not so for O’Toole though, and that’s really the point of this whole article. He knows he can show up in even this, get paid, get drunk, and walk right out knowing he’s Lawrence of fucking Arabia, and not even that hack Thomas Kinkade can take a shit on his reputation. Balls. Peter O’Toole has them. This is a man who has clearly not given a fuck his whole life, and you can’t help but respect him for it, no matter what piece of crap he agrees to appear in – even if he’s blotto during the whole bit.

 

“Sherlock” Casts Older, Smarter Brother

Believe it or not, Sherlock Holmes had a brother. His name was Mycroft, the older, smarter, more eccentric brother who worked for the British government in some unknown capacity. He co-founded the Diogenes Club, wherein the pivotal rule was no talking while the other antisocial members sat in silence, reading, smoking and drinking.

It’s been going around that Stephen Fry, famed British actor, has signed on to play Mycroft. This is excellent. Fry is one of those names that isn’t known to many Americans though his IMDB page reveals countless TV and movie roles. Personally I have a private game where I try to track talented, British actors and the various American movies they appear in – especially the shitty ones (Peter O’Toole in the Thomas Kinkade TV movie ranks at the top right now). Not that Sherlock 2 is guaranteed to suck, it’s neat to see one more actor of British stock add his spin on the classic Arthur Conan Doyle series.

That having been said, there is one, albeit far-fetched scenario, I’d like to see play out for a Sherlock Holmes movie. Since we have Fry playing the canonical brother Mycroft, what about the other Holmes brother, the one whom only appeared once in 1975′s The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother?

Think about it: Downey. Fry. WILDER. Gene Wilder. Sure he’s 77, but so what? Bring him on as a consultant or something, just get this role cast and make sure he has a hand in it. The first Sherlock movie cranked up the humor anyway, so why not trust the words of the man who wrote Young Frankenstein, only one of the greatest genre comedies ever? Wilder has already tackled the Sherlock Holmes canon, so it’s a perfect fit. Have him come in, talk about the making of Smarter Brother, describe Sigerson Holmes and find an actor who can bring to life Wilder’s creation while adding his own flavor.

It’s only going to be pure win when Fry walks on for his Mycroft scene, solves Sherlock’s case with no evidence whatsoever, and saunters back to his club to drink beer and read the classics. It will only get sweeter if younger Sigerson comes in and snorts at his brother “Sheer-luck” Holmes.

Make it happen, Hollywood.

 

Bettie Page Reveals All (Trailer)

The woman who unwittingly launched a movement: Bettie Page participated in a documentary, Bettie Page Reveals All, near the end of her life. Her actual voice is heard during narration, and it features commentary by Hugh Hefner as well. Page is of course associated with her pictorial spreads in men’s magazines in the 1950s, among them pulp and fetish books. Page’s modeling career was very brief but prolific, appearing in dozens of magazines and leaving behind hundreds of photos, and even short, now rare 8 mm films. Her image graces numerous reproductions of those photos, along with posters, t-shirts, hoodies, figurines, and other merchandise. Page’s look forms the basis for modern burlesque and pin-up modeling, and has been absorbed into the punk culture.

The continued fascination with Bettie Page revolves around several points, one being her physique and looks, which are iconic, though they were staples of women’s fashion at the time. Yet the way Page wore that look, along with her beaming, cheery face draws out an animistic, sensual reaction. The other main point about Page’s biography is her complete disappearance from the spotlight after 1959, when she became a born-again Christian. Page began to minister with figures such as Billy Graham after her retirement from modeling. Page’s fast rise to fame in the prudish 50s brought her infamy, the likes of which she could not handle. This combined with her abusive past lead to an unstable and tragic figure for whom abandoning her career made the most sense. Page went through numerous divorces and was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. Page lived penniless while her image was scooped up and reinvigorated by artists, writers and musicians starting in the 1980s.

It wasn’t until she found proper management that she was able to license her likeness and name to the thousands of products featuring her then-youthful, evocative form and trademark hairstyle that Bettie Page finally achieved a modicum of financial stability. Page attended fan conventions, gave interviews and lent her story to several different fans, but always refused to be photographed at her current state. These links contain some of the few contemporary images of Page, taken during her revival years. Though she is clearly much older, the bangs were in tact and so was her ruby red, broad smile. Luckily Page was able to enjoy her golden years as a revived celebrity. This documentary looks like it may contain some of the authoritative discussion and data on her life. Her appearances on film in any respect are very rare, so to have Page provide an interview for the film is one of the world’s last looks into the mind of a woman who launched a thousand portfolios.

 

Oh the Horror

I’m a huge fan of thrillers and horror movies, but I admittedly have strange tastes in them – or at least I think I do, based on what seems to be popular now. I just can’t get into the constant remakes (I’ve been disappointed too many times by the ones I’ve seen), and the “torture porn” of Saw or Hostel doesn’t appeal to me. The great thing about horror is to be told a scary story, something that’s unreal or even too real, but still exists in the realm of nightmare, and follows the logic of a nightmare. That said a great story, or even just great acting and set pieces are what hooks me. The story might absurd on its premise but if well-done, I can ignore the absurdity. Budget doesn’t matter to me either; it’s the execution that counts more than anything. Hence I can’t get behind Eli Roth or Michael Bay’s take on the horror genre.

For my money, John Carpenter was probably the best horror director/producer of the last 30 years, and right behind him are George Romero and Tobe Hooper. It’s just a shame they’ve turned out so many turkeys or gone outside the horror genre and directed movies that really didn’t play to their strengths too well. Stephen King, for all the crap he gets from critics, has penned many great horror stories that will stand the test of time, and some of them have been made into great movies. The Shining especially stands as a great example of King’s writing brought to the screen (The TV movie that King had more creative control over is inferior to Kubrick’s take on the book).

The beauty of horror is the feeling of being downstairs with your friends, holding a flashlight under your face, and telling some crazy urban legend you’d heard or a scary story you got from an older sibling or cousin. People like to be scared, chilled and put in suspense.

At the risk of rambling, here is a very brief list of horror films that I like and capture what I love about the genre. They’re not in any particular order.

• Silence of the Lambs
• Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein
• The Mist
• Carrie
• Halloween/Halloween 2 (Not the Rob Zombie versions)
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre
• From Beyond
• Creepshow
• Night of the Living Dead
• The Shining
• Alien
• Behind the Mask
• Evil Dead 2

For someone who is not a horror movie fan, watch those and you might end up being converted by the end. I’ve omitted several other great films, but like I said, I wanted this to be brief. Each has repulsive elements which made them controversial, and contain elements of horror movies you see copied across multiple films within the genre. There is a noticeable drop-off in terms of chronology, but that’s mainly because I feel that movies made before the mid-80s tried harder and were grittier. Additionally there wasn’t a reliance on repetition and remakes like there has been since the 90s.

Netflix is probably the best resource to obtain horror movies now, but Youtube has not shortage of ripped movies available. In fact several well-known horror films are public domain, meaning you can find them for free in video stores or on the internet, and you aren’t breaking any laws by downloading them. Listverse has a list of public domain horror movies you could find and watch right now, or you can just watch Dracula right here on Youtube, thanks to user loserfest.