31 Days to Halloween day 3!

Maniac Cop (1988)



It's Saturday and I have a lot of nothing to do so I'll keep it short.

Maniac Cop has one goofy title, but it's actually a very solid and entertaining movie. New York City was a dangerous place in the 80's, but it gets a whole lot worse when a seemingly superhuman cop begins violently killing people for minor offenses, and sometimes for no reason at all! It's up to rookie cop Jack Forest to put a stop to this, and he's better do it quick because he's the prime suspect!

Ok, let me run some names by you.

Larry Cohen.
Bruce Campbell.
Tom Atkins.
Robert Z'Dar.

If your a horror fan your probably salivating right now but if you don't know what I'm talking about that's fine. Take my word for it, Maniac Cap is one of those movies where the stars aline and everything works great from the script, the great story, the acting and the excellent direction. Plus, there's lots of funny cloths and big 80's hair to laugh at.

Rating – 7 ½ out of 10

31 Days of Halloween Part 2 day 2

One Dark Night (1983)

AKA - Night in the Crypt

Here's an obscure one for ya!

Well to do Julie is trying to get into the sorority known as “The Sisters” but to do so, she has to spend the night in a mausoleum. What she doesn't know is that some of the other girls are planing on sneaking in there also to scare the crap out of her. What they all don't know is that a powerful, evil psychic named Karl Rhamarevich was buried there recently, and his powers are stronger than ever before.

One Dark Night is a gem from the early 80's with passable acting, good direction and great special effects. Movies with “teens” tend to be painfully overwrite and although it gets pretty cheesy at times at least it's good cheese and the script wisely keeps the dialogue from ever getting too silly. The first half of the film drags a little bit at times as events are slowly set up to get everyone to the crypt but once they're in there the film becomes genuinely creepy.

The mausoleum is excellently filmed with long tracking shots through it's dark, empty corridors. The psychic disturbances begin slowly at first; doors close and lock on their own accord, flower pots explode and so on. When things really start to go crazy Rhamarevich actually starts busting open coffins and using the corpses inside are floating weapons! Have you ever seen someone smothered by rotten cadavers? I didn't think so!

One Dark Night is a somewhat rare film but I think it's worth tracking down if you like horror movies or if your having a little Halloween get-together and you want to show something no one has ever seen before. When you see a girl accidentally step on a corpses chest and her foot goes right through it complete with a squishy sound, you'll thank me.

Rating - 6 out of 10

31 Days of Halloween Part 2 – The Revenge of 31 Days of Halloween!

Hello there! Once again it’s October and that means my favorite holiday is fast approaching. 31 days to Halloween! I’m going to carry on the tradition I started last year by providing reviews/summaries for 31 horror movies, one per day, to give you some suggestions on what to watch on Halloween night.

I will review mainstream movies and rare obscure ones. Great films and . . . uh, not so great films. Movies that will scare you and movies that will make you wonder if someone slipped some LSD into your morning coffee. And so without further ado, on with the show!


October 1st - Dracula (1931)

Universal Studio’s 1931 classic, Dracula, ushered in a new era of horror film making, led to the golden age of classic horror and introduced the world to one of the greatest stars the horror genre has ever known, Bela Lugosi. While the movie does have its flaws I think that it’s important to watch it while keeping in mind that no one had seen anything like it before up to that point. To the people who saw it when it initially released this movie was absolutely horrifying.

Originally Dracula was planned to be a lavish, big budget affair, but those plans were scraped due to the death of the legendary Lon Chaney who was originally going to play the count, and the beginning of The Great Depression. Instead they were forced to scale down the production considerably by using the stage play as a blueprint for the film. Tod Browning directed and after considering many actors Bela Lugosi, who was staring in the stage play at the time, was able to secure the part of Dracula after much persuading and taking a smaller paycheck than the other actors.

The basic story is so well known by this point that I don’t think a complete plot summery is necessary so instead some information about the filmmaking. While most fans seem to agree the movies opening is atmospherically spooky, the second half which takes place in London feels static and staged. This is because very little was actually changed from the stage play and scenes were filmed just as they were preformed onstage with very little camera movement.

Some have questioned the quality of Tod Browning’s direction and claim the man responsible for the electrifying first half of the film was his cinematographer Karl Freund, an immigrant from Germany who had been apart of the expressionist film movement there. Looking at some of Freund’s past credits like The Golem and Metropolis it’s easy to see how this is probably true. Still, the second half is not a complete loss, as the film is saved by the amazing performances of Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye.

Very few people think of Dracula as he is depicted in Stroker’s original book; old with pointed ears, a long white mustache and two bushy eyebrows that were almost “meeting over the nose”. When people think of Dracula or he is depicted in the media most people see Bela Lugosi, the definitive screen Dracula. His performance is memorizing from his movements to his slow deliberate line reads, or even just when he’s staring into the camera. He conveys about him an unearthly aura that is both frightening and seductive, one of power and corruption, of hunger and lust. Lugosi would become a household name and while the role would propel him to stardom it would also typecast him for the rest of his life.

Dwight Frye’s Renfield manages to be frightening, pathetic and sympathetic, sometimes all at once and at other times switching from one to the other at a moments notice. When he returns from castle Dracula he’s a raving mad man, obsessed with blood and the coming of his master. While he’s under Dracula’s control occasionally the last bit of humanity within him tries to break free, but always to fruitless results. The scenes where he ascends from the ships hold on The Vesta and the one where he quietly crawls like a spider toward the sill body of a fainted maid, eyes on her throat, are perhaps the most frightening moments of the film. Dwight Frye was a versatile and talented actor, but his performance was so great and the movie was so popular that like Lugosi, he was fated to play similar characters in films like Frankenstein, The Vampire Bat and Dead Men Walk until his untimely death in 1943.

If you haven’t seen Dracula for some time or if you’ve never seen it at all then consider dusting off or renting a copy this Halloween to see where it all started. This is a pivotal movie in film history and as a plus; it’s safe enough to watch with the kids.

Rating – Seven and a half out of ten.

I’m my own Worst Enemy – Part One

Some times I suspect that I’m secretly plotting against me to destroy myself. I regularly sabotage projects that I’m working on, break things that belong to me or I’ll forget what the hell I was doing in the first place. I even trick myself into forgetting to eat sometimes and if it wasn’t for my wife I would have probably wasted away by now.

I imagine the evil me is like the evil Spock, the same but with a goatee. Then again, I already have a goatee. Maybe then it's me without a goatee. Well, I don't have a full goatee, it's more like half a goatee on my chin. So I guess it's like Spock with a mustache? Ah, forget it.

Example – Being the good nerd that I am I downloaded the release candidate of Windows 7 to install on my computer. (I build my own computers and I’ve managed to sabotage myself there too, but that’s another story.) I back up all my important files, burn the ISO file to a disc using Nero and I install the operating system.

When the installation is completing and the time comes to enter my activation key I type it in and get a, “this is not a valid key lol” message. The hell? I type it in again and it’s a no-go. Well crap. Grumbling under my breath I go over to my wife’s computer and start downloading a Windows 7 ISO file and I get a new key for it. (At this point I am thinking that the key-code is directly linked to the specific file you downloaded, which was wrong as I would find out later.)

I install a new program on my wife’s PC do I can burn the damn file again and I get up to grab a blank DVD off my desk. I forgot that I’d just opened the DVD drive and I kick the tray you put the disc in and I broke it. I broke it really good. (Because hay, if you’re going to break something you might as well do the job right.) Now it's a cup holder sticking out of her computer.

At this point I’m a little upset. I’m under the belief that the install key-code is directly linked to the ISO file that I need to burn, and now the DVD burner is out of commission so I'm screwed. It's possible to install Win 7 off a flash drive but I don’t have one that’s big enough to hold all the data. So now I’m getting ready to reinstall Windows XP on my computer, re-download Windows 7 and reinstall all the crap I need to burn it to a disc when I get the bright idea of trying to use the other code I got off my wife’s computer.

Of course it works and if I’d done that in the first place I could have saved myself hours of time not to mention the time and money it will take to get a new DVD drive for my wife and to install it. Oh, and speaking of my wife she's forbade me from working on her computer until after finals are over because she’s afraid I’ll break something else and cause the thing to burst into flames or something along those lines.

Everything I touch I destroy.

The next morning I wake up and like each morning I take my good old 150mg Wellbutrin tablet and I put another in my pocket. That’s what I was supposed to do anyway. Instead I took one and then stuck the other one in my mouth; just barely managing to catch myself before I could swallow it. Close call! Thinking about how scatterbrained I can be sometimes I throw it away, get another tab out of the bottle and what do I do? I promptly swallow the damn thing.

I’m trying to poison myself. "See kids? It's a happy pill so eat the whole bottle! NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM!"

I figure I can handle the high dosage but I’d really rather not risk it so I try to induce vomiting but all I can throw up is water. Oh, I should mention that now I 'm running late for work. I drink a glass of salt water as an ipecac but it doesn’t help, so now I’m speeding to work with a belly full of saltwater and buzzing away on 300mg’s of a strong anti-depressive and life it just peachy. At work I felt like I had just drank a pot of espresso and I was wired until 1030 when the effects began to wear off, not to mention the fact that I was dehydrated from the glass of salt water I drank and I felt like crap.

I must be stopped before I can do any more damage. I'm my own worst enemy.

The Internet Tubes Are Clogged – Swine Flu Edition

We haven’t had a big health scare for a while now, so this was probably inevitable. Move over Avian Flu and SARS! Swine Flu is the hip new illness on the street and everyone’s catching it! At first I naturally assumed that the Swine Flu would turn you into a Pig Person, (http://www.thepigpeople.com/ ) but when I started looking around for information it turned out that it’s more along the lines of the regular flu with slight modifications, which disappointed me to no end. I want to see werepigs damnit!

I’ve been reading up on CNN and the BBC News and I educated myself on the nature of the illness, plus when new news breaks I’ll occasionally check the WHO web site (No not Dr. Who) and the CDC. Because I’m informed I know that at this time there isn’t much to worry about so getting stressed over a nasty case of the flu won’t accomplish anything. (Seeing how I live a 15 minuet drive from the boarder to Mexico it’s nice to know what’s going on.)

Three cheers for the internet and the information revolution!

But wait. . .this article from neteffect says that the interwebs are spreading bad information about the swine flu?!?! http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/25/swine_flu_twitters_power_to_misinform Damn your black twisted heart internet, how could you do something like this to us? This wasn’t part of the deal!

In the past, (not even 10 years ago) we primarily looked to the major television networks, the radio and newspapers for researched, balanced and accurate reporting in regards to world and local events. These sources had to be reliably accurate because if they weren’t then they’d lose the trust of their customers and then they wouldn’t make any money. (And we all love money right?)

In the world we live in today any random knucklehead can say anything they want and thousands upon thousands of people all over the world will get that message in a matter of seconds. There doesn’t need to be any fact checking nor does the people need to have a credible background. People have an opinion and they post it as news on their website, blog, message board, twitter ect. Maybe they think the information they’re providing is correct, maybe they mean well or maybe they’re just spreading misinformation on purpose because they’re assholes. Who knows.

The point is that when you’re getting information from some random person there’s no way you can be sure if it’s accurate or not. Do a little Google search right now; there are people who think that the flu is come kind of biological weapon and that thousands of people are dying in the streets. If I’m on twitter and I start posting that I live near the epicenter of the outbreak and there are white vans going house to house in my neighborhood taking people away how do you know whether or not I’m telling the truth? Ya don’t! It could be true and it prays upon public fear, so it would probably be very easy to spread that rumor right now.

A real actual photo of the Swine Flu in action back during the 1976 outbreak. Here Swine Flu appears to be attacking some scaffolding in a church.

I’m not tying to pick on twitter here, it’s just that the ability to instantly deploy information plus an information hungry public plus the inherent anonymity of the internet equals one big cluster f*^&. For another example let’s look at CNN, not the stories but the comments attached to them. (A brief word on “user’s comments”. If you ever want to push yourself to suicide then go to CNN and read the users comments for a while. It’s one of the saddest places on the interwebs.) Now let’s see what people are saying about the Swine Flu!

Here’s a nice little Swine Flu FAQ with CNN’s Dr. Gupta. http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/27/cnn-answers-your-faqs-on-swine-flu/ Wow, educated, rational down to earth information! However, take a look at the comments bellow. Some of my favorites -

donna

April 27th, 2009 5:50 pm ET "The flu in 1918 was responible for the deaths of between 20 to 70 million people worldwide. That is the estimate I saw. If this flu is the same strain except it has become a variant of that virus how can this not be a crisis for the world? There is good reason to be concerned if they don’t get a handle on this quickly."

Panic much?

Hilton Mauldin

April 27th, 2009 8:27 pm ET "EUCALYPTUS OIL. Why has clinical Medicine overlooked this item. Dr. David G. Williams reported on this item in 1999. He related a personal experiience that he had on a trip to Australia. He became infected with the Flu and observed some cleaning ladies breathing fthe fumes of Eucalyptus oil on a cloth. They related a story about one s grandfather in WWI were the military sprayed a barracks with the oil and put the solders in the barracks for a day and stopped the epidemic. I have used eucalyptus oil drops and breathed the fumes to ward off colds and other respitory ills. It works. I suspect Clinical medicine is only after the $$$ to be made. Why not research the history on the properties of EUCLYPTUS OIL along with the washing of hands.

You’ve found the cure! Hurray!

Paige

April 28th, 2009 10:34 am ET "I was wondering as far as the swine flu is concerned, would it be tied to the rocket launch that N. Korea sent into the ocean last month? It just seems crazy that the majority of the infected are in the costal states, especially mexico, which is directly across from Korea. I believe that the virus seems to be man-made and could have possibly been sent into the ocean to where it would contaminate the water."

So the flu comes from the ocean which was contaminated by Kim Jong-Il’s rocket and it ended up near Mexico City. You heard it here first.

Concerned Citizen

April 28th, 2009 3:40 pm ET "Could this outbreak of swine flu in Mexico City be a failed assasination attempt by the Mexican drug cartel on President Obama’s life - using the virus-infected people as “suicide bombers” to contaminate intended targets? How can the US be sure that this is not a biological attack from a foreign country using its people as soldiers to carry out this “virus” war?"

Uh, probably not.

John Staumph

April 28th, 2009 12:23 pm ET "How was this not concocted in a laboratory someplace? You are telling me that swine, bird, and human flu mutates into one, and can harm humans, and it can occur all over the world? Wouldn’t the virus keep mutating by the time it hit Britain, Scotland, etc?"

Yes, by the time it hits the UK it’ll have probably also mutated with an umbrella, a ladder and a bowl of tapioca. Then we’ll really be in trouble. In that case I guess we’d have to change its name to the Bird-Umbrella-Ladder-Swine-Human-Tapioca virus, or BULSHT for short.

As a society we’re bombarded with an overwhelming amount of information on a daily basis. Twitter, news reports to your cell phone, text messaging, the gazillion news sites and blogs online and the many 24 hours cable news networks. We are becoming/have become addicted to information culturally ever since (in my opinion) 911. We need to know what’s happening where at all times, so when there isn’t enough information coming out in regards to a dangerous situation like swine flue, is it any wonder that people are latching onto whatever they read and excepting that as fact?

Even when presented with what facts are available people are still not satisfied. They need more information and if the information isn’t there or if it’s not the information they want to hear then they’ll make stuff up. This is normal human behavior of course, as a species we’re constantly trying to make sense out of our surroundings and filling in the gaps in our understanding of the natural world around us. But how do we distinguish between the good information and the bad information? If I make a claim that could be true and sounds true how can you tell if I’m being honest or not?

The answer is to remain skeptical at all times. When people make extraordinary claims ask for evidence. For example –

Bad info - Studies have shown that vaccinations cause autism in children!

Skeptic – Oh really? What studies? Where were they conducted at and by whom? How many studies were done and were the results consistent? Have the findings been published in a major medical journal?

Bad info – Uh, errrr, well we don’t really know if they are causing autism or not and we don’t have any real evidence, but what if it’s true?!?! It could be for all you know!

Skeptic – Oh brother. . .

Fun fact – People claim studies show that acupuncture works and they're right. . . but they don't tell you that the studies show that it's no more effective than a placebo! http://articles.latimes.com/2006/feb/06/health/he-briefly6

Be on the lookout at all times for potentially incorrect or misleading info and take everything you read or hear with a grain of salt until it can be proven. (Or as proven as much as it can be anyway.) Always do your own research and verify that something is correct and don’t just look for information that supports what you want to believe. There are too many people who want to push their agenda on you for one reason or the other. I think that if people were a little more mindful then a lot of false information and rumors could be avoided.

I don’t mean to sound cynical and say, “Trust no one!” I’m just saying to stay calm and be mindful that there’s a lot of bad information flying around, so don’t go into a panic if you aren’t exactly sure what’s going on at the moment. The Internet hates you so be careful out there!

Pete

Earth Day 2009

Today is Earth Day, a very important day for each and every one of us. On this special day, let us consider the greatest known threat to all life as we know it. Our mortal enemy – The Planet Earth.

Since the beginning of recorded history the Earth and humans have been at war with each other, most scholars agreeing that the conflict began when Benjamin Franklin discovered fire by rubbing two keys together in 1956. The Earth, sensing our species to be a threat to its survival has since tried to wipe us out at every opportunity. Being a cruel planet, The Earth relentlessly launches attack after attack upon our people and due to the fact that Earth is incapable of mercy, we must never become complacent in our struggle to destroy it.

In the summer it roasts innocent puppies in hot cars and in the winter it strikes at the elderly in their poorly heated appartments. Sometimes it will create a great storm and try to fry people with lightning. The Earth is a horrible shot, (scientists currently believe this is because the Earth has cataracts which impair its vision) and theterrible death rays rarely hit anyone. However, the Earth has more destructive tools at its disposal.

Every year the Earth takes time off from its busy schedule to launch deadly tornados at our great nation’s trailer parks. (Right after it’s jazzercise sessions on Thursday afternoons.)

Deadly tsunamis wreck havoc on our undefended coasts and hurricanes sweep inland devastating property and killing hundreds. (But only the poor people.) Even the ground we walk upon is not safe as the Earth can make it tremble, collapsing our buildings and interrupting baseball games.

But there is hope! With the human population being at such a high level today our potential to destroy the planet is better than ever! Here are some fun ideas that you can do right at home to help us to win this age old struggle. –

1. Kill a tree. Trees convert yummy-nummy carbon dioxide into nasty corrosive oxygen. If you have the necessary equipment such as a chain saw, axe or a beaver you can cut down a large sized tree, but if you cant do that just killing a sapling will help to make a big difference. (Tip - Killing saplings is something you can do with your children on an Earth Day outing!) If you are cutting down a large tree be careful because it will try to fall on you or your house in retaliation. Also, trees can uproot themselves to carry off our womenfolk, so be wary.


2. Release more pollutants into the air. With more nations industrializing we are polluting better than ever, but sadly in the United States we’ve been seriously slacking as of late. Start burning your garbage instead of throwing it away. It saves work and makes for a fun Friday evening! Take up smoking; it’s good for you and the kids will love it! Also consider starting a tire fire. Get the community involved and make Earth Day in your town into Tire Fire Day!

3. Dump hazardous chemicals into the ocean. The ocean is a forsaken realm full of misshapen monsters which will one day arise from the depths to wage war upon mankind. (As prophesied by the late Kevin Bacon.) Encourage local businesses to dump waste byproducts into the ocean to stop it before it’s too late. Also, you can help at home by going to the beach with your family to dump fertilizers into water or you can pour things like antifreeze and mercenary into your local storm drains.

These are just a few ways you can help to destroy the planet. If we all work together as a team I’m sure that one day soon the Earth will be dead and we’ll all finally be able to rest in peace. Happy Earth day!

I has a bass.

For years I’ve been thinking of getting one and learning how to play and Saturday I finally went out and bought one. I expect it will take a full year of practicing an hour each day until I don’t completely suck, but the little bit of progress I’ve made in just the past few days has me really excited. Here is a picture Les took of me being a nerd as usual.

All I can think about is getting off work so I can go home and play. (But of course at this point “playing” my bass consists of practicing coordination between my two hands, building up finger strength ect.) The creature balanced on my knee is our cat Newly, attempting to blend in with her surroundings in order hide from the bears that roam about my apartment.