Sadly I don't think this is supposed to be a joke

Blood Sucking Freaks

Something recently has clicked with the world of entertainment...vampires are cool again. Some keen writer recently rediscovered that the struggle vampires face in trying to find true love in life (without eating and butchering everyone that come in contact with) is a pretty complex and timeless one. The best part is they discovered that they can market it to just about anybody! They can sell the romance and moral dilemma of temptation tweens...and middle aged women(Twilight, ) and sell the sex and blood to adults (True Blood). Needless to say some of this shit is pretty cool, and while vampires have not always been my cup of tea, here is some of my favorites of the genre from past to present.

The Lost Boys (1987)
My cousin from Arizona was visiting when I was maybe six. We went to the video store and this is what he rented and subsequently made me watch with him. Pretty much I shit myself. At the time Keifer, the Corey's and that guy from "Speed 2: Cruise Control" eating maggots scared the living poop out of me. Watching it now it's hilarious 80's cheese. And looking back on it, its probably one of the films that is single handily responsible for getting me into schlocky horror and horror in general. These are some glamorized vamps, but shit it's a fun flick. That said though I think i still have nightmares about the dude on the boardwalk playing psuedo-new wave/ glam-jazz shirtless with a alto-saxophone. See below...more terrifying then vampires could ever be.


Fright Night (1985)
This film was one that was actually supposed to be comical, and once again probably single handily contributed to my obsession.


Near Dark (1987)
A vampire movie in which, they never utter the word. I wouldn't say its high brow, but its a "serious" movie about vampires, with a more shall i say "scientific" solution...staring most of the cast of "Aliens." God damn I love 80's Bill Paxton.


From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
I think a lot of people wrote this one off as a big pile of shit upon its release. But Tarantino and Rodriguez were so far ahead of this Grindhouse film revitalization well before they actually made "Grindhouse." Amazing cast, great FX, awesome over the top action, and it never takes itself seriously. Damn fun movie.


The New Shit:
True Blood
I'm only four episodes into this show and I'm oddly intrigued. Its full of pulpy goodness, once again never takes itself too seriously, and likes to really fucking gross out and appall its audience in a way only HBO could pull off. Psychic Bar Maid Sookie Stackhouse finds love in "Vampire Bill" her very first vampire patron, in a world where everyone knows of, and mostly discriminates against vampires. Apparently vampires are fucking horny, cause this show is full of the most ridiculous sex scenes and just straight up absolutely bizarre shit i've seen on television. But like I said i'm oddly intrigued, and its from Alan Ball, writer of American Beauty and creator/writer of Six Feet Under. Shits getting good. True Blood vocab word of the day: Fangbanger - a woman who likes to have sex with vampires. Enough said.

Thirst (2009)
Park Chan-wook follows up his revenge trilogy (Lady Vengeance, Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance) with a film about a priest turned blood sucker. The trailer is what inspired me to write this blog. The Chan-Wook has an eye for visuals and violence, and doing so in the most intriguing, non-offensive way possible. I'm excited for this film quite a bit.

Favorite Movies of All Time: Phantasm (1979)

Dir. : Don Coscarelli
Starring: Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm

This is one of those movies that you have seen the cover of a million times but have never had any urge to actually grab it off the shelf. Not until my later years have I started actually picking up these familiar titles whose covers are ingrained in my head from the video stores of my youth.

My favorite genre of these lost video store memories is of course the horror genre. I don't know how many times over the years I've passed by movies like "Scanners," "Them!," "Night of the Creeps," and "Sleepaway Camp," only to find out now that all these movies are all absolutely glorious cult classic genre flicks. My favorite lost gem of them all though has got to be Don Coscarelli's astoundingly bizzare and creepy "Phantasm."

When Micheal's family dies, he finds out that his family...and all others taken to the local mortuary might not actually be being buried...rather their bodies are being used for other deeds...With the help of his older brother and the friendly local Ice Cream Man, Reggie, the three pair up to get to the bottom of what is just about the most bizarre plot you could imagine. Instead of being laid to rest Michael's family and all others taken to the mortuary are being compressed into Jawa-like hooded creatures by the mysterious "Tall Man," who then uses our dead as eternal slaves on his home world.

The most iconic image you may have seen before from this movie is "the ball," a human seeking metallic sphere deployed by the tall man that hunts down human prey, extends spikes and if it catches you, brutally drills into your brain and spews your grey matter out the other side. Sound awesome? Yes it is.

My favorite part about "Phantasm" is that much like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" one of its strongest suits is its excellent and artistic cinematography and soundtrack. While "TCM" lended itself to gritty art house like cinema, "Phantasm" exudes with abstract, disorienting sequences ala Dario Argento and all of Italian horror cinema. It's refreshing that Coscarelli put such work into this, it makes the film stand out amongst others of the genre at the time.

Although the plot may sound completely ridiculous, this is a movie I can watch over and over and still be completely sucked in and not be turned off by its absurdity. Its characters are great and completely memorable (i'll dare say The Thin Man and Reggie are two of the best horror characters ever) and while some of it is laughable, it delivers some seriously unsettling and jump worth sequences. See also the 3 sequels...which get worse as they go along but are still by all means watchable and enjoyable.

Muppet Metal Meltdown

Dave, this is for you:

Terminator Salvation

Cons
A) Why does John Connor sound a lot like Batman?
B) Why is John Connor so fucking flabbergasted by a Terminator with human skin and characteristics? Didn't one just like it visit him twice in his teenage years?
C) I'm so glad Sony Corp and Oakley survived Judgment Day...and could keep it together long enough to sponsor the Resistance...
D) If mankind was single handily destroyed by technology becoming self aware...why in the hell would the resistance use high tech gadgetry to try and destroy it? I always pictured the Resistance as some down and out "Road Warrior" type bad asses who used the scraps of the post-apocalyptic world to defeat the machines. Not a bunch of way too attractive, gadget carrying super heroes. They're supposed to be the damn helpless underdogs.
E) Acting and screenplay is completely void of any emotion or urgency.
F) Seemingly complete lack of care about original films

Pros
A) All cons are eliminated by the awesomeness that accompanies amazing freaking FX, entertaining as hell action, and robot warfare.

/rant

Guilty Pleasure: "Veronica Mars" (2004 - 2007)

Guilty pleasures, we all have them...time to air some grievances:

I'll admit it. I spent the entire summer of 2006 catching up on every episode of the CW / UPN, teen noir / detective / awesome drama "Veronica Mars." As far as dramatic teen television goes, I'm not ashamed to contend that this gem was a head above the rest of the crop.

While others fixated on "The O.C." or "Friday Night Lights," for their secret soapish teen drama fix, I myself found fairly latched to this particular brand, solely for it's total dedication to being so damn nerdy, yet incredibly smart, with well written, witty as hell dialogue and solid fuckin addicting story lines.

The show could be basically summed up as a sexed up, t.v. version of Rian Johnson's Brick. The show is completely rooted in detective noir and long winded mystery. The first two seasons of the show followed one overarching mystery that lasted over the entire season. Teen sleuth Veronica Mars (the smoking fucking hot Kristen Bell) navigates through high school bullshit to solve these mysteries (the death of her best friend, her rape, and the death of a school bus load of her classmates) in a episodic narrative page turning fashion akin to shows like "Lost" and "Twin Peaks." Bell's sassy and sci-fi savy (she says "frak" a lot and makes a ton of BSG references...hot) detective is brainy, witty, and for once an intelligent, female protagonist; something that's usually hard to find with shows aimed at this demographic. It's fairly refreshing to watch.

Yet apparently the demographic looking for that sort of refreshing change in formulaic teen TV doesn't exist. UPN forced creator Rob Thomas to dumb down the shows mysteries for the third season. The result was mostly single contained, mystery of the week type episodes, rather than one awesome, long and engaging season long mystery. The show started airing sporadically, and was of course canceled before they could get a full third season in.

I highly recommend blazing through the first two seasons of this show if your looking for a good addicting TV fix. Let the heckling begin, I'm sure I'll address more embarrassing shit I enjoy in future blog entries.

Favorite Albums of All Time : The Walkmen - Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone (2002)

Favorite Song: Wake Up

Favorite Lyric: "They're winning, I know it's not fair, but what is? I'm giving up hope. I've stood in line so many times. How could I do it all again?"

Why?: The Walkmen are a band that strike a chord with me unlike any other. Hell, the title of my blog is the title of one of their songs. The songs on their debut "Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone" are without a doubt the band at their most simplistic and stripped down, and that is what I love about it the most. I feel as if each of their albums suit me for different mood, albeit they are always ho-hum sort of depressed moods at vary levels. The Walkmen's songs exude sort of an honest pessimistic optimism (if that makes any sense) that can just make everything in life seem alright, as self destructive as that sounds. It's an approach, that for me at least, is one of the most honest, down to earth and real things I've heard a band do in the past 10 years or so, it's unmatched. They tell life how it is, no bullshit, in the most poetically, disturbingly accurate way I can imagine. All this talk of the songwriting though isn't meant to overshadow the incredible beautiful music that accompanies it all. It's simple, sparse, haunting, and really does transport you back about 60 years, back to a time that seems a lot simpler and real. Hamilton Leithauser's voice is chalked full of drunken swagger and slurring, and it's perfect for stories he's telling; their ones you can see yourself sitting around drunk rambling on about with good buddies, songs about love, boredom, reality, and the confusion and frustrations of life. Everything down to this albums title is damn near perfect and relevant to me, it really is my favorite album of the 2000's by a long shot.

I really enjoy this snippet from Daytrotter.com about the band, they can describe what I'm trying to say here a whole hell of a lot better. Later on in the article they go on to compare the band to Leonard Cohen, which I have to completely and whole heartily agree with.

The Walkmen walk and shuffle and juke, their music a corpus of deft reflections of man through the centuries - the dotted line that has met us here from somewhere far off in the distance, only to connect with a new, side-winding or nascent other dotted line on the other side of here. They follow, in both tune and lyric, the never-ending travels of man - no one in particular and no one of any significant importance - just man as he stumbles about out the doors every waking day and finds mischief, confusion, romance, fogginess, temptation and potential enlightenment brewing like a stew before his nose. They seem to subscribe to the idea that you learn something new every day while there are holdovers in the procession of inference and critical processing, of actually digesting those valuable lessons that come with difficulty.