Reflections on "Bad Movie Night" by Cap'n Howdy

 Bad Movie Night is coming up this weekend. For some of you that means you'll be at the Blogorium, inexplicably sharing in on the agony and the ecstasy of the best of the worst I can throw at you. For some, it will be a recap you take a look at later on, and think to yourself "wow, I'm glad I didn't have to sit through that." For the Cap'n, it's a fun, if admittedly unorthodox way to spend time with friends. It's also a good opportunity to clarify a few things, as I do from time to time. There's an inherent contradiction coming up, but I am vast and contain multitudes. Or I'm a walking contradiction. I can't remember. Anyway, let's discuss how Bad Movie Night fits into the evolving notion of the Blogorium and the Cap'n Howdy mission statement overall.

 Without fail, at some point during Bad Movie Night, someone is going to ask me if I'm going to see X or Y terrible movie, and I'm probably going to say "no". A friend recently asked if there was a review on the Blogorium for Tusk, and was confused / disappointed when I explained that I stopped watching the movie around the time that Johnny Depp showed up. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me, the point at which I realized that nothing Kevin Smith had in store for Tusk was worth investing any more time on. If you really want to know how I feel about post-SMODcast Kevin Smith as a director, there's a review for Red State out there that pretty much covers it. I'll add that it isn't particularly enthralling to hear his M.O. for making movies that aren't sequels is to get really high, record a podcast, and then turn whatever he comes up with into a movie. You know, like "Jaws with a moose." Nevertheless, I fully expect a question about how excited I am for Mallrats 2 (not at all).

 That said, it's totally fair to ask me that, especially at something called Bad Movie Night. Historically speaking, the get together-s hosted by the Cap'n have centered around horror movies or schlock, and primarily schlock. They're fun films to rally around, and are conducive to a party atmosphere. It's an informal crowd that comes to Blogorium events, and while you aren't expected to participate in any MST3k-like riffing on movies, I don't discourage making comments when something just doesn't make sense. The specious plot that bridges gratuitous nudity in Andy Sidaris films practically begs for some level of commentary. But I wouldn't do the same if I was at Nevermore (well, sometimes, but much more quietly). We do, on occasion, watch screwball comedies or more serious fare, and there's talk of branching into different "fest" directions, but let's stick with Bad Movie Night for now.

 Bad Movie Night was borrowed from a tradition my brother and his friends started more than a decade ago: during birthday celebrations, they'd each buy the birthday boy or girl the worst movie they could find, and everyone would have to sit through it. They would drink heavily and apparently it got quite loud. I'd never actually been to one, but the first Bad Movie Night was built loosely on that premise. Having had some experience with Horror Fest and Summer Fest, I thought I could program one that had some really entertaining stinkers, and we'd kick it off with a field trip to see Crank 2: High Voltage. Trust me, while highly entertaining, it falls squarely within the rubric of "bad movie". That was followed by The Giant Claw, Batman and Robin, Mac & Me, Troll 2, and Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky. A good time was had by all, and whenever possible, I've tried to keep it going.

 The Blogorium has existed in various forms over the years, but since I moved to this service, I've kept the "about" information over to the right basically the same. Sometimes, the phrase "Trash Savant" has come back to haunt me, because it implies that my movie watching palate is limited to sifting through lots of garbage to find the Least Worst Of. And I get it, because around the turn of the century / millennium / whatever, there was a point where the Cap'n and friends would go see anything. Like, literally, we'd just go see a movie to see a movie. How else do you explain watching The In Crowd, or Loser? Or the double feature of The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps and The Replacements when I had an entire multiplex to choose from? Yes, I saw 8mm and Idle Hands and the first two Resident Evil movies. On the big screen. I don't know why. Well, I do: they were playing and we had already seen Payback or whatever else we really wanted to see. Sure, I also spent the summer of 99 watching Eyes Wide Shut and The Sixth Sense, even The Blair Witch Project and South Park (and, yes, The Phantom Menace), but for some reason only the bad movies stuck.

 It continued over the years, and yeah, I would organize group outings for Alien vs. Predator or The Matrix Reloaded, or Professor Murder and I would just go see, well, anything. Again, allow me to stress that yes, we only saw Paycheck because we were too late for Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. I don't remember why we went to see Godsend or The Butterfly Effect, or even Saw. A lot of that was a throwback to high school, I think, when we would regularly go to the discount theater to see things like The Big Hit or Suicide Kings, or The Big Lebowski. And also Godzilla, Lost in Space, Scream 2, and whatever else was playing. It was fun, and cheap, and bad movies are tremendously entertaining. The summer of 2008 had to be a record for "what's playing this week," because I saw The Dark Knight, The Happening, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and The X-Files: I Want to Believe. One of them was good.

 But, over time, they became a smaller part of my cinematic consumption. I know that a lot of friends from that era didn't necessarily keep up with that, which is why I'm still chided for not having watched Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. I'll probably still get grief for it, because I have no plans to watch it, and what I'll go out to the theater to see grows more and more limited. Most of the things I've seen on the big screen over the last year ended up on the Best of List. The last two movies I saw were Birdman and It Follows, both based on the great word of mouth I had been hearing from friends. Despite what people might assume, It Follows was the first movie I saw in theaters from 2015. These days, if a movie just looks bad (like, oh, Seventh Son), I'm less inclined to see it just to see it. The last time that happened was probably Movie 43, which was every bit as forgettable and terrible as you've probably heard. Lockout was the last time I really had fun with a terrible movie, which is why it's playing as a double feature with Lucy at Bad Movie Night this year.

 Herein lies the aforementioned contradiction, because I do still watch bad movies. Hell, I watched Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster last week, and Sorority House Massacre II the week before that. They are, by no stretch of the imagination, good movies. In the past you'd have reviews up for those, instead of It Follows and The Babadook. In fact, Sorority House Massacre and Sorority House Massacre II are probably going to end up under the "Cranpire Movies" banner, which is what I tend to use when I want to talk about schlock. It's not that Cranpire will watch anything (even he has limits), but it's become a running joke between us that he'll sit through what I won't. Still, the two (technically three) Sorority House Massacre films are so disparate, even from each other, that I'd like to share their charms with you all. But I'm probably never going to watch Taken 3. And I doubt I'll ever finish Tusk.

 The funny thing about having had this blog for so long is that I'm frequently held responsible for reviews I wrote years ago. That's fair, I suppose, but I have tried to evolve as a writer and as a reviewer, so when I look back at a quarter review of something like Student Bodies and have to defend it when someone from the film takes exception to it, I cringe a little. Not because I didn't write it - I did, in the middle of a Fest - but because it's not really a review. It's a reaction to something that happened that I wrote quickly while people had a smoke break. It's a time capsule of a moment in the history of the Blogorium, but it's not how I would write it today. But you can't tell that to somebody who finds the review through a Google search - it's not an ongoing evolution of film criticism to them. It's a review, one that says the movie they like sucks.

 Or worse, it's The Mechanic review, which was a run of the mill Jason Statham movie, where I didn't feel one way or the other about it. In fact, by and large I gave up reviewing films headlined by Statham because they'd all be like The Mechanic - an overview of the plot, general comments about the action, he was good, the supporting cast was okay, the story was serviceable. Other than the Crank films, it's a pretty succinct reaction to most of his starring roles, and if I can't add anything to the conversation, I'll find something else to review. That doesn't stop people from reading The Mechanic review - which they do - and assuming that's currently how I feel about the movie. Honestly, four years later? I've forgotten almost everything about it. Even the "World Champion" ring, but it doesn't matter. Everything is contemporary on the internet.

 Which brings us back to Bad Movie Night and bad movies in general. As long as the Blogorium exists and posts can be found ala carte on search engines, people can and will safely assume that's all the Cap'n is about. And that's fair - I like the Dr. Re-Animator picture at the top of the page and The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman background scroll bar. Perhaps someday they'll change, but hopefully it gives visitors an indicator that things aren't taken too seriously around here. Please don't think that I don't enjoy bad movies: one of the things that drove me crazy in film courses was an attitude of intellectual snobbery, of a dismissal of "low art" that wasn't to be bothered with. It wasn't rampant, but there is an attitude of "if it isn't a classic or a modern classic, it's not worth bothering my time with". I remember working with someone who sneered at the idea that Peter Jackson would adapt The Lovely Bones because it was "pop fiction" and that he was "above" that*. He should just stick to Tolkein, I guess. Look how well that worked out for The Hobbit.

 Over the years, I've tried harder to provide a balance of "high" and "low" art, and to be honest with you, I don't watch a lot of these neo B-Movies. If you read my Hobo with a Shotgun review, you'll notice that I didn't have a lot of fun with the movie. I hated Machete Kills. There wasn't enough about Wolf Cop to merit a review, to be honest, and I don't watch Syfy Channel Originals. It's not a matter of being dismissive of them, to jump back a paragraph - I don't particularly care one way or the other, and I'm not going to tell anyone not to watch them. I try to mention them as little as possible, so unless someone asks why a Sharknado movie isn't at Bad Movie Night or Summer Fest, you won't hear about it in the Blogorium. It's the same thought process behind the Transformers series: I haven't seen them, I'm not planning on it, so why devote time and energy into insulting them? There are literally thousands of blogs that do that. But if you want to know about The Beach Girls and the Monster, I've got you covered.

 Moving forward, the goal is to try to bring you reviews for films you maybe haven't heard about, old and new. If it's a major release, I might review it if there's something worth bringing up I haven't seen anywhere else. Otherwise, you probably won't see it until the Recap. In the meantime, I'd rather focus on movies like Under the Skin or Spider Baby (to name a couple from last year). They're very different movies for very different audiences, but I really enjoyed both of them, and you might too. I'm always open to suggestions, but it's been a long time since the Cap'n would go watch literally anything. By the same token, I'll pay money to see Samurai Cop with an audience, even though I own two copies of Samurai Cop. It was worth it to see their reaction. That was the same situation with Things at last year's Bad Movie Night - I suffered through it alone so I could see the faces I made on my friends. And by the way, they could have left, but no one did.
 

 This year's Bad Movie Night is a... shall we say, unique assemblage of "so bad, it's good"**: Continuing in our trend of "being afraid of women in the 1950s," there's Devil Girl from Mars, followed by High School Confidential, Disney's The Black Hole, Raw Force, the aforementioned Luc Besson double feature, and a special Trappening. Because you shouldn't always know what you're getting at a Bad Movie Night. A recap should follow some time next week, and then after that, it's back to whatever strikes the Cap'n as worth writing about. Maybe schlock, maybe not. We're on the cusp of blockbuster season, so maybe those will make it into the mix. I'm not sure. Above all else, my goal for the immediate future is to make Cap'n Howdy's Blogorium as unpredictable as possible, so as to keep you from settling in to "this is what to expect." Hell, I might even go back and re-review some of the older posts, just for kicks. Stay tuned, and if you're on your way to Bad Movie Night, prepare yourself...



 * I never saw The Lovely Bones, so I can't weigh in on whether it was any good or not, but it's a similar attitude to refusing to read a book that's been adapted into a film - like Trainspotting - because that "taints" the source material. And yes, that was another instance that came up with a similarly dismissive person.
** That's a big criteria for me - bad movies that are just bad are a waste of everybody's time.

May the... oh, you get it already.

 There was a long piece here about why I wasn't obsessing about Star Wars anymore, but when I went back to look at it, the whole thing seemed silly. I was taking a lot of time to tell you that I wasn't going to worry about Episode VII and would just let it happen, but four or five times as long as the first half of this sentence. But now you know, and accordingly that answers potential questions about Star Wars on the Blogorium between now and December of next year, when I'll presumably review a new Star Wars movie.

 Wow, I just said the words "Star" and "Wars" three times in one paragraph. Maybe it is better I do some "conscious uncoupling" from all of the casting rumors and script details. In truth, I haven't been reading anything about it. I did watch The Shining last night. Not sure if you'll get a write up for that one, though. Or Band of Outsiders - there's plenty I'd like to say about both, but it could take a little while to get them in a coherent place.

 Anyway, stay tuned for tomorrow, when I'll be taking a look back to twenty years ago - it's a Retro Review of Reality Bites.

So, where were we?

 As you may have noticed, the Cap'n has been a bit more MIA in the Blogorium than I've been, well, ever. My routine of posting something every day whittled down to five days a week and then three days a week and then around the new year, to almost not at all. Part of that was that I was cramming in movies for the year end recap, part of it was that I just didn't prioritize correctly.

 Sure, some of it was work and when I had two jobs and was working every day it was hard to keep up the self-imposed schedule I had operated under since the Blogoium was on MySpace (I feel comfortable mentioning this since they relaunched and erased all the old profiles and that Cap'n Howdy's Blogorium no longer exists). But I found a way to write between movies at The Galaxy (also being demolished, which I hate, but there's nothing any of us could do about that so I'll honor it by name) and could even continue the Adventures in Projectioneering series while that lasted.

 Anyway, the Cap'n hasn't stopped watching movies, but as I feared, the longer I went without writing regularly, the harder it was to make myself sit down and do it again, even when I wanted to. Covering Nevermore was a good chance to dip my toes in, but then I let two weeks go by without reviewing any of the six or seven movies I saw after the festival was over (one of them, Heather Langenkamp's I Am Nancy, is a great companion piece to Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy and you should see it out).

 But this isn't about navel-gazing and making excuses. Nope, I found a gimmick to get the Cap'n back in the swing of things, and it's either going to re-invigorate the Blogorium for the next two months or kill me in the process.

 I call it The ABCs of Movie Masochism. It's borrowed, in concept, from the anthology film The ABCs of Death and in practice from a friend of mine who is doing something very similar to cleanse his palette from two months of cramming 2012 movies into his brain. I've selected 26 movies, each corresponding with a letter of the alphabet, and I'm going to watch all of them and review them on the Blogorium, by the end of April if that's possible.

 For the record, because friends of mine have already been confused about this, I don't mean to imply that I'm watching 26 terrible movies to punish myself and others. Yes, there are some schlock picks in the list, but the "masochism" comes from undertaking this task in a short a period as I can humanly accomplish it.

 It's absurdly ambitious for the Cap'n, considering that I work an 8-5 job during the week, but what the hell? I want to do it, and I want you to join in on the experience of it. Either in person or vicariously - if I know you, you're welcome to join me for double features every Saturday night until I'm done.

 One thing I can promise is that if you come to the Saturday screenings, you'll see two movies that you never in a million years would think of putting together. I'm not going to reveal the titles of all twenty six films yet, because it'll be more fun for you to find out the day that the review goes up, but each one is either a movie I've never seen or one I've never reviewed here before. Many of them are connected in unusual ways, even if you really have to bend over backwards mentally to figure out how.

 So stay tuned, readers, because I'm just going to put them up as I go along. I may tell you what the next one is at the end of each review, I may not, but know that every film is a hint towards something coming in the next two months. And to prove that I'm sticking to this one, the first review will be up tomorrow, and the next one the day after.

Cap'n Howdy Presents: (New) Adventures in Projectioneering!

 Well, I wasn't expecting this. It's been twelve years since the Cap'n worked for or in a movie theatre, and that was one of those "chain" types (it still exists which is why you might have noticed the fact I no longer identify it by name) and I thought that I'd probably never find myself in a projection booth again. Not because I didn't enjoy it, but because it tends to be the kind of job high school students get over the summer or stick around through the fall and move up from concessions to usher to projectionist. I know this is the case because it's what I did.

 The Cap'n is no spring chicken, so it seemed like if I'd been away for so long and that the younger generation was no doubt better equipped to handled these new fangled "digital" projectors we hear about. Speaking of which, true story: when I went to see The Dark Knight Rises a few weeks ago, before the IMAX showing, I saw it at a large (but different) "chain" multiplex and when the movie ended I could see the Windows toolbar at the bottom of the screen. As in, no film whatsoever, we were watching a projection of somebody's digital copy of The Dark Knight Rises. I'm not making justifications for people who pirate movies, but it's an uphill battle convincing them that you're in for a better experience watching a theatre's projected computer screen for $15.

 Anyway, so with digital projectors being in vogue and projectionists not really in demand (you can program those things and they run themselves, reducing the person in the booth to a minimum-wage IT employee), it hadn't crossed my mind in some time I'd ever be working in a theatre again. But then I got word from a friend whose husband worked for a local theatre that they needed a projectionist and all I needed to do was drop by. And all of a sudden, with limited funds, a very part time job, and lots of spare time I could be using to make money (sorry readers, but this here Blogorium is a labor of love, not a lucrative cash cow for the Cap'n), I decided why not go check it out.

 Now this particular theatre was enticing because I've been going there since I was a kid. It's been here since before the Cap'n lived in this state, and while it's changed hands a few times over the years, it turns out one thing hasn't changed at all: the projection booth.

 I expected to be rusty at threading a projector (and I was) but I had no idea I'd be working with machines as old as I was, kept in working order by a dedicated team making the best of what they had even when parts were in short supply. And by that I mean "we don't make that kind of part anymore" short supply. It's impressive to see projectors that I saw movies on as a kid still playing films today, including The Dark Knight Rises. 35mm film is still where it's at, as far as this Luddite is concerned.

 The other thing I'd forgotten was how much fun it is to physically thread the film through the machine - yes, it can be maddening when you have four movies starting within five minutes of each other (still better than eight to sixteen), but there's something about being in the background, watching the audiences sit down to watch a movie, and getting everything ready. Because much of the equipment isn't automated, I also get to do little tricks like lower the lights on cue, adjust the sound between trailers and the film, and sometimes physically lift the shutter covering the lens.

 It's the kind of thing you forget that you enjoy doing, a job that's entirely behind the scenes but results in people being able to escape somewhere else for a few hours. Being a projectionist is a unique sort of job in that you are responsible for the experiences of anywhere from two to two hundred people, but only you know what that responsibility means. I'm not diminishing the front of house folks (who are all very nice and laid back people - the atmosphere of the theatre is very laid back with no uniforms or restrictions on facial hair, etc.). Believe me, they get the complaints if I do my job badly, but don't think I don't know if I goofed up. Chances are I'm trying to fix it, and every time a piece of film is a little too loose or rides to the side of a roller, I am hoping that doesn't sully your moviegoing experience. People don't go out to see movies that much any more, so it is incumbent on me to make it worth your while.

 Do I make too much out of this? Maybe. I mean, it's not like I'm making much more than what I did twelve years ago. But I enjoy doing it, and I'd forgotten how much I could enjoy doing it, even as a second part time job. If I ever get a call back from full time work, or if the Blogorium magically turned into a hit or something tomorrow, I still think I'd hang on to this gig for as long as it lasts. If nothing else, the stories will be good, and I have a few already.

A Quick Note from Blogorium Headquarters

 Greetings to all readers in... internet land? (It doesn't have the same ring to it as TV Land, now does it?) Well, the Cap'n is hopping in between non-Blogorium related jazz, including my non-Blogorium job. Yes, it's true, the Cap'n cannot live off of the Blogorium alone - or at all. I don't make any money writing this, which is either a point of pride or something I'm too foolish to have capitalized on at this point. Take your pick.

 At any rate, I have to run off here shortly and will need to be up bright and early tomorrow morning to keep things running here at Blogorium central, so today's entry gets the short straw today. But don't worry, I'll make it up to you later this week.

 It's probably for the best, because after watching Alien twice this weekend (the 1979 theatrical cut and the 2003 "alternate" version Ridley Scott put together for the Quadrilogy) with both commentaries available, I have some thoughts about Prometheus, including the TV spots that continue to give away more information than I think I want to know. There's a lot of speculation out there, and the Cap'n will be adding his, with the benefit of some specific images from Alien and Ridley Scott's own words about the Space Jockey, the Derelict, Ash, and his desire to explore certain aspects of the Alien universe. All of them seem to feed into Prometheus, what we know about the film (which isn't much) and what we think we know isn't the case. Anyway, it's not going to hurt things for me to have to wait until Thursday to get to that.

 In the meantime you'll find a Retro Review tomorrow, a Video Daily Double on Wednesday, and then thoughts on Alien and Prometheus Thursday as we head into the film's release next week.

 Additionally, I'm mulling over when to bring back What the Hell Week, as I've decided to check out four or five films that under normal circumstances I'd avoid like the plague (one of them is This Means War) and maybe that's where a full examination of the Saw series will land. Or I might hold that off until closer to Summer Fest, which is still up in the air with respect to date and location. I was going to hold it after the 4th of July, and Friday the 13th makes sense, but nearly everyone I know is going to see Neko Case on the 14th, which takes away a prime day of Fest activity. Also, I'm torn between schlock-heavy or focusing on some really creepy horror films that have gone largely unseen since the Nevermore Film Festival.

 Well, I'm being summoned, so all this and more will be addressed soon. Until then, send in your suggestions of what you'd like to see for Summer Fest. I'm still not ruling out this year being the "Remake" Fest...

Retro Review: My Favorite Entries of 2011

 As I did last year, I'm going to look back at a few pieces I really enjoyed writing in the past year. When you put out as much material as the Cap'n does, the "overload" factor tends to push essays and reviews to the side. It's true that 2/7ths of the week is devoted to Video Daily Doubles and Trailer Sundays, but since I switched over to "Retro Reviews" and not "From the Vaults," Tuesdays have been devoted to looking back with material that didn't exist previously. There's a lot to dig through, even as my schedule grew more hectic and I couldn't publish as consistently a body of work as I would have liked to.

 Here are a dozen or so pieces from 2011 that I thought worked. I liked them, had fun writing them, and am happy to include them in the Blogorium If you've read them before, I hope you have fun revisiting. If you haven't, I hope you take the time to check them out and are as pleased as I was.

 January 20th, 2011 - The Curious Case of David Cronenberg

 January 25th / Feburary 1st, 2011 - Retro Review(s): Dazed and Confused / Tron

 February 21st / 24th, 2011 - Blogorium Review(s): The Red Shoes / Black Swan

 March 11th / July 9th, 2011 - Cinephilia: Meme Without a Cause / Two Reasons I Don't Always Understand "Geek" Culture

 April 28th / August 22nd, 2011 - TV Talk: The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror I-X / XI-XXI

 May 12th, 2011 - Blogorium Review: Blow Out

May 30th, 2011 - Blogorium "Review": The Hangover Part II (not my favorite, but people do love it).

 June 13th, 2011 - We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming...

August 9th, 2011 - Retro Review: Dungeons & Dragons (An Imagined Conversation)

September 13th, 2011 - Spoiler of the Day: Hannibal

October 13th, 2011 - Meanwhile...


Feel free to poke around and see if you find anything else you like. It's a sampler of the many types of posts that make up the Blogorium. You can pick any Video Daily Double and find something silly, by the way...

*Ahem*

There will be a Horror Fest at the end of Shocktober this week. But not just any Horror Fest:

 HORROR FEST 666

 Coming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday - October 28th-30th, 2011

 Horror Fest 6 will happen at Cap'n Howdy's Borrowed Basement in Scary, North Carolina. Come rain, come shine, from dusk til dawn horror movies will play. Sunday from 11:30-6 we'll be watching a steady diet of 80s slasher flicks chosen by you, the readers, including - 976-EVIL, A Night to Dismember, Intruder, April Fool's Day, Visiting Hours, and Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.

 BYOB but since this isn't my place, let's not go super wild, eh? Let's go regular wild and enjoy the horror movie madness! Muahahahahahaha!

Soliciting Ideas for Spooky Doom!

 Let's take a moment to discuss Horror Fest, shall we? The Cap'n has a backlog of movies for Horror Fest, and voting is still underway for Slasher Sunday*, but I'm always looking for something hiding in the margins waiting to splatter all over our Horror Fest faces...

 Wow, that sounded dirtier than I intended. Oh well, I put it there, I'm not removing it.

 So, where were we? Right, obscure horror films. This is the time of the month when I hand over the floor to you, the reader, to offer up your choicest choices. They may well end up in the Fest on Friday or Saturday and delight, horrify, and amuse us all.

 Here are some of the lesser known titles I'm leaning towards, in no particular order:

 The Dead - I've been hearing good things about this zombie film from Africa for the better part of the year, but very few people I know have ever heard of it. Let's change that at the end of the month.

 The Puppet Monster Massacre - Yes, an all-puppet horror movie. It's short, it's violent, and I think people are really going to get a kick out of it.

 All the Boys Love Mandy Lane - You've probably seen my review of the film from earlier this year, but I must stress that the review makes it look more lukewarm than it actually is. I don't know if or when this film will officially make it to the U.S., but in the meantime I'll happily include one of the better slashers from the last five years at Horror Fest.


 Stake Land - A marriage of two of my favorite kinds of movies: post-apocalyptic and vampires. I think it will fare well with discerning Fest-ers.

 Doghouse - Okay, this is the second zombie movie on the list, but I can't leave out a film that stars Stephen Graham (Boardwalk Empire), Danny Dyer (Severance), and Noel Clarker (Mickey from Doctor Who) as lads on the outs with their respective girlfriends / wives, who gravitate to a small town filled with ravenous zombie lasses.



 I think everybody has at least heard of Attack the Block by now. I think you'll like it.

So that's some of what I've got (the newer stuff anyway). What about you? Something surprising? Shocking? Something super gory for after dark? Leave a comment, make your case, and I'll see if I can find it before the 28th.

 Sound good?


* I know I said I wouldn't weigh in on the movies, but seriously? Visiting Hours? I know that Bootstrap Bill Shatner is in the movie, but it is one of the films I've actually seen and was bored to tears for most of its running time. If you want to watch it, I suppose we could watch it, but may I suggest Savage Weekend? Check out this review and see what you think.

News and Notes: Technical Edition (with Books)

 - Let's start with why it doesn't matter that Starz decided not to continue its contract with Netflix. This news is being treated the same way that Netflix's split with Showtime (and the never-to-be HBO deal), but I for one am happy to hear this.

 Consistently, I've found that Starz content on Netflix tends to be the most egregious examples of "pulling a fast one" on streaming viewers. In an era where "full screen" means something very different than it did five years ago, Starz streaming movies and TV shows on Netflix were constantly shown as "letterboxed" 4x3 images. If you aren't quite sure what I mean, try watching a show like MTV's Jersey Shore on a widescreen TV. See how the black bars are still on the top and bottom of the screen, even though it doesn't fill out the left and right of your TV? This is a fake "widescreen" that only really worked on old television sets.

 MTV released their Jersey Shore DVDs in the same fashion, and Starz did it with everything I watched from them on Netflix. It's a lazy alternative to providing 16x9 enhanced content and it actually diminishes the size of the picture on your screen. While it might have been nice to watch newer Disney films on Netflix, it certainly wasn't worth the drop in picture size. Not in this day and age. Netflix is hurting, and more companies jumping ship isn't necessarily good news for them, but I avoided the "Starz" section of Instant Viewing like the plague after being burned repeatedly. Good riddance to bad rubbish, if you ask me.

 - Speaking of "Full Screen," it makes me chuckle when I see stores (like one I will soon no longer be with) that still sell new DVDs with that moniker. Widescreen has slowly become the norm, and the pan-and-scan 4x3 discs are less and less desirable for customers. Many studios don't release new movies in "Full Screen" anymore, because it doesn't mean the same thing it used to. Not so long ago I would have to pay careful attention to the DVD cover of a movie I wanted to pick up in order not to buy one with a butchered "full" transfer.

 Every now and then, I put this video up, just to give folks a primer of what I mean by "pan-and-scan," because it doesn't just mean removing the black bars from the top and bottom of widescreen films:



  I often wonder what families who made the transition from standard TVs to widescreen TVs do with their collections of "Full Screen" DVDs when watching them. What probably happens is that they set their TV to automatically zoom in on the image so it fills the whole frame, creating an image twice as messy as the one shown above. Imagine taking a "Full Screen" image and then stretching it out even further to the left and right, because that's what probably happens. Yikes. I've seen it done before with VHS (hell, I did it once with the Star Wars Holiday Special) and if you really don't mind things looking messy, I guess it's watchable. But again, we were watching the Star Wars Holiday Special here, and mostly in fast-forward.

- Some time in the near future the Cap'n might have a book review up again. It's been a while, I know, but I've started reading Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror by Jason Zinoman. From the introduction, it certainly seems to be interested in Wes Craven, Sean Cunningham, George Romero, John Carpenter, Dan O'Bannon, and Brian de Palma and uses the William Castle produced, Roman Polanski directed Rosemary's Baby as the point at which Old Horror passed the torch to Modern Horror.

 I was a little nervous starting out because I have followed much of the history of Night of the Living Dead, The Last House on the Left, Halloween, and Alien, but the chapter on Rosemary's Baby already included an anecdote about Vincent Price I don't think I've seen anywhere to this point as well as a more balanced approach to Castle's involvement into bringing the picture to Paramount than is evident from Robert Evans' The Kid Stays in the Picture. The next chapter is about Hitchcock, particularly Psycho's oft cited influence on Modern Horror, and seems to be adding some nuance to the claims that it spawned the slasher films of the next two decades. Anyway, I'm clearly only starting the book, so I'll give it a proper review when I finish. I will say that it really makes me want to start working on a book idea I've had for years...

Cap'n Howdy Presents Handy Answers to Your Questions

Today I thought I'd throw a bone to visitors that happen across the Blogorium via Google, Bing, or one of those other search engines that I've forgotten about (seriously, Ask.com is still out there?). This is also a way to address the many strange queries, subjects, and searches that bring folks here, in the hopes that this entry will be a handy portal to other essays, where I may not directly address your questions.

In case regular readers weren't aware, the Cap'n gets a bunch of one-time visitors, often coming in based on the oddest of criteria, so I'll share that with you as well.

Are the Coen brothers auteurs? - this question pops up more often than any other, in various forms, because I posted an essay from my final in a Theories of Authorship: The Coen Brothers to the Blogorium (found here). For people looking for more information on Joel and Ethan Coen, I also posted a series of other essays on The Ladykillers, Forever Young Film Preservation, A Serious Man, Barton Fink, Doppelgangers, Incongruities, Social Commentary, The Man Who Wasn't There, The Hudsucker Proxy, Music in their films, Influences of Film Noir, No Country for Old Men, Uncertainty, Re-adaptations, True Grit and the "other" Coen brothers.
What is the source of Hamlet's melancholy? - Apparently, high school students have trouble with Hamlet, and go to the internet to find answers. Sometimes, they end up at one of the Hamlet Week posts. In Hamlet's own words (from Act II, scene 2):

HAMLET
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king
and queen moult no feather. I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so.

Now, astute readers will note that Hamlet is toying with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, upon realizing they were sent for by Claudius and Gertrude, and that his "wherefore I know not" is a ruse. He is principally irritated because of this:

HAMLET
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

I will not explain what it means, high school students, but if you have the slightest idea what's going on in Hamlet, this should sufficiently answer your question.


What is different in The Other Guys unrated? - One visitor was referred to my review of The Other Guys, which clearly didn't help out, as it was a review of the theatrical version. The answer to your question is "not much": there are about 9 extra minutes worth of footage, including a car chase fist fight, another Hoitz argument with an ex, a more specific monologue about corporate greed, and a new stinger at the end of the credits. The big difference is that the dialogue is considerably filthier, with most of the "tame" versions of cursing replaced with their vulgar counterparts.

Did Anton really shit on Joaquin Phoenix? - No. According to IMDB: "the 'feces' was [sic] actually a combination of humus and coffee grounds. The mixture was inserted into a tube that was taped onto Antony Langdon's (Anton) back that went down to his butt." As the review and supplemental materials on the disc assert, nearly everything in I'm Still Here was manufactured through camera trickery.

No Country for Old Men hotel scene. - I see that I was not the only person who was skeptical with the assertion that Anton Chigurh was, and then magically was not, in the hotel room before Sheriff Ed Tom Bell walked in. The sequence analysis, which goes (nearly) shot by shot can be found here.

Now, some of the really weird ones.

Expendables Stallone cap. - It took me forever to realize that "cap" was in reference to "screencap" and accordingly I had no idea why so many people were looking for "____ cap" and being sent to the Blogorium. There's not a lot I can do about this, as it's simply an unfortunate side effect of using the slang term "Cap'n." Sorry.

"cop knows how to use his dark side for good" - Another reference to The Other Guys, from Ice-T's narration, one that I suspect is a reference to the Showtime series Dexter - the narrator suggests that the cop in question should move to Miami, where Dexter is set and that is a rough approximation of the show's concept.

Alicia Marek - Alicia Marek plays Jeff Fahey's wife and Lindsay Lohan's mother in Machete, and spends the second half of the film naked. Because I mentioned her by name in the review - along with the rest of the cast - anyone looking for naked photos is invariably cock-blocked by an actual review of the film. I'm not sorry for that.

Slutty renaissance - My absolute favorite way that someone found the review of Satan's Little Helper. I'm almost positive it wasn't what they were looking for - unless you weren't looking for an actual "slutty renaissance" - but it does match my description of Katheryn Winnick's costume for most of the film.

Tron XXX Parody - An unfortunate combination of recent reviews for Tron Legacy and a Video Daily Double post about The Simpsons: A XXX Parody led some poor guy to the Blogorium. Alas, such a thing is real, is being made, and is titled "Pron."

Grandfather Granddaughter Porn - No. Just, No. I don't know why this sent anyone to Blogorium (thanks, Turkish Google search engine!), but you won't find that here. I don't know where you would find it, I'm not going to help you find it, so yeah... good luck with that, pal.

Confessions of a Supplement Junkie

If there are any trends to follow at Cap'n Howdy's Blogorium, the most apparent to readers is my interest in waiting to review films until after they reach DVD or Blu Ray. Ironically, I almost never discuss the chief component of why I tend to wait: the supplemental features. The Blogorium is - not atypically - slanted towards reviewing the films in question, rather than the "special features," but I'll level with you and admit that the Cap'n spends almost as much time researching the facets going into making the finished product.

Its primary purpose is to provide readers with as much contextual information as possible: no work of art - the term being used in its broadest definition - exists in a vacuum, and I find the most erroneous reviews share one thing in common: the blogger / critic / historian failed to factor or properly recognize one or two very important pieces of information*. It is my abiding creed to "always do the homework" before presenting something to an audience. If I can't, I try to acquaint readers with the fact that there are mitigating factors.

For example, watch any of the extras on I'm Still Here and the conceit of the film is immediately apparent. Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck make no attempt to disguise I'm Still Here as "reality," and Affleck's commentary track is a step by step illumination of how they created a faux-verisimilitude using clever editing tricks, ADR, and capitalizing on the expectation of audiences that the presented film as a genuine "document" of Phoenix's downfall. One might assume that this would diminish I'm Still Here, but I found myself admiring their versatility in using what we assume to be true in the narrative's favor**. Similarly, the expansive background material covering Scott Pilgrim vs. the World's creation only increased my admiration of Edgar Wright's abilities.

Alas, I can't merely hang my hat on the "know your subject / impart to your audience" excuse; in the last two days, I spent the bulk of my time watching "making of" documentaries: The Social Network's "How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook?", Piranha's "Don't Scream, Just Swim," and An American Werewolf in London's "Beware the Moon." For inquisitive readers, that amounts to 318 minutes worth of "supplement." (The Piranha "making of" documentary is actually forty minutes longer than the film).

Rather than short EPK featurettes, I prefer lengthier documentaries with some meat on their bones, ones willing to go beyond "it was great to work with blah blah blah" designed to sell a film you already own. Increasingly, filmmakers are pushing to include comprehensive "behind-the-scenes" pieces on the discs themselves, and often they hold up with separately released films like Hearts of Darkness or Burden of Dreams. I'm also not opposed to longer interviews, roundtables, or critical assessments - all central to films in the Criterion collection, a company I am unabashedly a follower of.

The problem for you, the reader, is that the time I spend putting together background information on films often inhibits my "reviewing" time. I am reticent to review supplements or Blu Rays, largely because there are many fine DVD review sites that already do that. I sincerely doubt audiences that frequent the Blogorium care about the Cap'n consistently reporting on "image quality" of Blu Rays, and I'm not targeting this blog at consumers, so I would feel like the Cap'n is trying to sell a product rather than direct you towards a movie. But I do soak up supplements. Regularly. So if I'm a little slow to get a new piece out, don't think it's because I don't want to, but because I'm (at times) focused on catching up or learning something I didn't know about films previously covered.





* For example, lauding a film because your favorite writers were credited for a draft of the film that in no way represents what you saw, as was the case with an overly effusive Jonah Hex review I read last year.
** I also realized there's an invisible - but evident when pointed out - camera trick in Phoenix's opening monologue that masks two separate takes.

Five Movies: The Cap'n Presents His Favorite Pieces of 2010

Originally, I had planned to close out the year end recap on Saturday, but ended up bouncing around from town to town in order to take care of financial business. While I could *technically* "sneak" that piece in the weekend spot before yesterdays Roger Corman trailer Sunday, I think instead we'll treat it as a "day off" from the Blogorium. The Cap'n and the Cranpire did close out Saturday night by watching the Corman produced Forbidden World (also known as Mutant), hence the Trailer Sunday. We'll get to Forbidden World later this week...

Today, I'm going to provide links to my favorite articles / reviews / columns / posts of 2010. Technically it's not a "Five Movies" but all five deal specifically with film, and in many cases deal specifically one film or type of film.


1. Horror Fest: A People's History (Part One, Part Two) - I had possibly the most fun I've ever had compiling these stories and then editing them together into an overlapping oral history of Horror and Summer Fests. This version of Part Two finally fixes the glitch and allows readers to see Barrett's advice, correcting a text color issue I missed in the first go-round.

2. Re-Adapting and the Tainted Discourse of "Remakes" - a piece dealing with the curious case of True Grit, a film which appears to be a remake on the surface but is being classified otherwise, and the ramifications of shifting that argument.

3. Winnebago Man vs. Best Worst Movie - What appears, at first, to be a comparison piece of two films is also a study of the "YouTube" generation, "secondary fame" for films, and the way audiences relate to films in a post-MST3k world.

4. My "Mixed Tape" Manifesto - A (sort of) open letter to the creators of Greensboro's Mixed Tape Film Series, a sound concept which continually underwhelms me in its execution, but could easily be improved if the creative minds behind it would follow their own advice.

5. Coen Brothers Final Day One: Auteur Theory - This post is visited more than any other that doesn't have the words "Thankskilling" or "Leprechaun 3" in it, largely by students who are (hopefully) citing it for their papers. If you aren't, I will find out somehow - eventually your professors are going to check online, and I hope they find blog, where it came from. I appreciate all of the traffic, and I'm glad to know people find the research I did useful, but don't steal it. It's going to be painfully obvious when your teacher sees a quote from Harlan Ellison's Watching, a book they know you haven't read.


Bonus favorites:

Hamlet Week - Where I nearly drove myself crazy watching five major adaptations of Shakespeare's play and comparing and contrasting them with each other and the original text. Days One (Laurence Olivier), Two (Mel Gibson), Three (Kenneth Branagh), Four (Ethan Hawke), Five (David Tennant), and Six (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead).

The "Twitter" Experiment - and why you'll never see the Cap'n open a Twitter account.

Cap'n Howdy's Documentary Roundup

Welcome back to the Blogorium, readers; today the Cap'n will take four quick looks at five documentaries that have, alas, been sitting on the "to write about" pile since May. I don't have quite enough to say about them individually, although I do recommend all five films for various reasons, and many of them are available for Instant Viewing on Netflix.

Champion - Joe Eckhardt and Cecily Gambrell's documentary about ubiquitous character actor Danny Trejo is fascinating and frequently enlightening, helping to separate the actor from his character "type." Trejo - who first landed on my radar with a small role in Desperado - began his life as a criminal and drug addict, but after serving prison time in San Quentin and entering a 12-step program, he cleaned up and became a drug counselor.

Strangely, it was then that the tattooed, muscular, Charles Bronson-esque Trejo began appearing in films: while visiting a young man he was sponsoring on set, Trejo met an old friend from prison and joined the cast of Runaway Train, first as an extra and then as Eric Roberts' boxing coach. Champion features a number of interviews with actors and directors who work with Trejo, including Robert Rodriguez, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Steve Buscemi, and Antonion Banderas, but the star of the show is Danny Trejo, who tells much of his own story directly to the camera, and whose presence on-screen is palpable beyond the "tough guy" in Machete.


American Swing - The true story of Plato's Retreat, the Manhattan "swinger's" club, focuses on the people who worked there (and a few visitors, like Buck Henry) and pays particular attention to Plato's founder Larry Levenson, whose appearances on Donahue and Midnight Blue only increased the club's infamy. Directors Jon Hart and Matthew Kaufman compile the fond recollections of the sexual freedom of New York in the 1970s and early 80s, while paralleling the rise and fall of Levenson with his "anything goes" couples' retreat. Some of the stories must be heard to be believed, and if you saw the Plato's Retreat segment on VH1's "I Love the 70s," this documentary does a fine job at contextualizing the lurid - and at times disgusting - scene from the people who knew it best.

Small Town Gay Bar and Bear Nation - Malcolm Ingram's 2006 documentary on gay bars in rural Mississippi is endlessly watchable and, at times, infuriating (specifically the appearance by Reverend Fred Phelps, who you may know as the man whose group pickets military funerals). Ingram's tour of bars that are, were, and (at the time of filming) will be is a portrait of life where being who you are is literally life-threatening - as was the case for Scotty Joe Weaver, an Alabama teen murdered, semi-decapitated, and burned for being gay. The struggle with finding self expression in the Deep South is primarily Ingram's focus, although the sense of community stemming from these "small town gay bars" resonates the most in the end.

I would be inclined to say more about Ingram's 2010 documentary, Bear Nation, but I'm positive that the one hour version (with commercials) I saw on Logo is anything other than truncated (IMDB has the running time listed at 82 minutes, making it double the length of what I saw). As it is, I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of Bear Nation, which documents the rise of the "Bear" movement - gay men who are hairy, overweight, or have a less effete build than the stereotypical "homosexual." Of particular interest amidst the interviews with bears, cubs, twinks, and admirers is the rising debate about bear culture being appropriated, sanitized, and marketed, creating new divisions in what was otherwise considered a welcoming subculture. While I understand that Kevin Smith executive-produced Bear Nation, his section in the version I saw was rather long, and its purpose - to demonstrate bear culture in mainstream media - may have been more effective if it were counter-balanced with other examples, like John Waters' A Dirty Shame. Again, I haven't seen the entire film, so this may be an erroneous comment. I look forward to seeing Bear Nation in its full form and highly recommend Small Town Gay Bar.

Don't You Forget About Me - A 2009 documentary released on DVD this year, Don't You Forget About Me is a retrospective of the films of John Hughes, who for all intents and purposes defined "teen cinema" in the 1980s with Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and The Breakfast Club. In 1991, Hughes walked away from directing and the spotlight, occasionally writing under an alias (with Beethoven, Maid in Manhattan, and apparently, Drillbit Taylor). The documentary interviews many of his cast and crew, including Judd Nelson, Howard Deutch (who directed Pretty in Pink), Kelly LeBrock, Mia Sara, Geddy Watanabe, Annie Potts, Ally Sheedy Richard Elfman (Oingo Boingo provided Weird Science with its instantly recognizable title song), Andrew McCarthy, along with admirers Kevin Smith, Jason Reitman, Richard Roeper, and Roger Ebert. The usual holdouts - Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, Emilio Estevez, and the normally available Anthony Michael Hall - are nowhere to be found.

The central purpose of Don't You Forget About Me is also its biggest weakness: filmmakers Matt Austin, Kari Hollend, Michael Facciolo, and Lenny Panzer want to know where John Hughes is hiding in Chicago and why he won't return to "save movies" in the 21st century, and the film is split between interviews with collaborators and the crew of Don't You Forget About Me trying to find Hughes. Why? They want to show him the documentary footage they've completed in the hopes that Hughes will be so touched, he'll return to public life. Instead, Hughes rightfully chooses to ignore the filmmakers who appear at his home, unannounced, and the end result is a documentary that's more self-serving than inspiring.

I understand that their interest in appealing to Hughes (who died after the documentary was completed) and attempting to show him his impact on a generation of filmmakers, but the on-screen presence of the documentary crew distracts the focus of Don't You Forget About Me, turning the film into more of a personal film, like Winnebago Man or Bowling for Columbine, than a true focus on the subject. In the end, I found myself rooting for Hughes to dismiss this ragtag film crew, in part because they openly admit how dubious their stalking of John Hughes is, and at least one of them clearly knows their conceit won't work. Don't You Forget About Me is half interesting career retrospective and half self promotion, and the halves don't add up to anything more than an interesting curio.

Plans for the Year(s) to Come

As promised last week, here is an excerpt from my "personal statement" designed to lay out some research plans for the future. Additionally (and because you're such nice people), I'm going to include some extra "deleted" ideas, along with plans for the Blogorium in the coming year:

Intertextuality in film has always fascinated me; following the connective tissue from one film to another - homage, imitation, discursive elements, or direct references – I followed the influences of Fritz Lang on Ridley Scott or of Preston Sturges on Joel and Ethan Coen, developing a lexicon to express trends apparent in my research. Accordingly, I consider furthering the development of intertextuality in film history to be a crucial component in my graduate studies.

I am also interested in pursuing research into theories of authorship, particularly in the “post-auteur” and “anti-auteur” positions taken by filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh and the Coen brothers. The development of the term auteur and its subsequent backlash is a movement within film theory that is fascinating to me, and exploring the usefulness of “director as author” in a contemporary setting - one removed from “auteur” as catch-all phrase in the 1980s – seems to have been largely abandoned in the twenty-first century. Is the auteur theory still valid? Has the term lost all meaning, or has its mutation rendered directors afraid of being “branded” the author of their films? Alternately, there are a number of “authorless” or minimized directorial presences in cinematic “mash-ups” like Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django.

One field of research that appeals to me is the idea of artistic repetition; this is not limited to direct remakes (although the trend towards those merits investigation), but also the presence of virtually identical stories that appear persistently over a period of time – Yojimbo / Fistful of Dollars / The Warrior and the Sorceress / Last Man Standing – and the differences between recurring themes in literature and film compared to direct repetition of title, plot, and marketing. For example, how is does the 2009 remake of The Last House on the Left differ from the intertextual relationship between The Virgin Spring and Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left?

The horror genre, which is often considered a barren field for critical study, remains a point of focus I hope to expand on during my studies. Over the last five years, I made a concerted effort to collect and research the various theoretical approaches to horror, from Carol Clover to David Skal to Robin Wood and Barbara Creed. I am particularly interested in the way that gender and violence are portrayed in horror, from the “slasher” era to the present, with particular focus on the way that “Final Girl” variations are portrayed in French horror films like High Tension, Martyrs, Them, and Frontier(s).

Horror films are often undervalued in critical theory because the volume of low quality releases often overwhelms films with something to say. Does a high profile flop like Cursed overshadow a feminist reinterpretation of werewolves like Ginger Snaps? In order to combat the assertion the genre is “lacking,” I have hosted annual horror festivals in the summer and autumn to expose audiences to films lost in the “white noise” of aggressive marketing for sequels, remakes, and gimmick releases.

With regards to film history as a social movement, I have a long-standing desire to pursue the history of independent cinema from the 1950s to the 1980s through the venue of the Drive-In, where distributors showcased non-studio pictures outside of major cities. Until the advent of home video effectively killed the Drive-In, I suspect one can trace the movement of independent cinema from smaller territories across the U.S. by following Drive-In “culture,” despite James Naremore’s doubts that such a thing ever existed (based on a passage in More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts).

---

Meanwhile, as the blogorium moves into year three on Blogspot, I've been making plans to improve on the existing weekly layout. It's becoming increasingly obvious to the Cap'n that I'm running out of "readable" posts for the "From the Vaults" on Tuesdays. Starting in January, I'm planning on replacing that feature with alternating "Four Reasons" and "Five Movies" posts in order to incorporate their presence back into rotation. I'll also open up Tuesdays to what I call "retro reviews," based on films I've seen in the past but never reviewed, or expansions on existing reviews from the Myspace era*.

I'd also like to invite readers to help pick a section tentatively called "Best of the Blogorium," built from your suggestions, votes, and picks for favorite reviews, features, essays, and other random posts. The "Best of the Blogorium" would then appear as a tab on the right side of the screen, allowing new readers to see the Cap'n at his best without being overwhelmed by the sheer number of posts to wade through.

Down the line, I might consider adding direct links to help readers find copies of Thankskilling, Coen brothers text books, and other horror films featured during Horror and Summer Fest, but that's a bit off yet.

That's what I've been working on, and hopefully the first signs of new directions in the Blogorium will appear in the coming months and years. Keep reading, and I'll keep writing.

* It turns out that most of the "reviews" in the old Blogorium were barely a paragraph and only gave the tiniest amount of information possible, something I feel I can adjust.

A Series of Modest Proposals

(or, a nice way of saying "While it's sitting in the PS3, I still haven't watched Harry Brown yet and therefore can't review it.")

Hello, dear readers. The Cap'n has two things going on this week that contributed to a lack of blogging yesterday and (almost) not one today: 1) I'm feeling a bit under the weather, 2) I've been working on applications for graduate school, which are time consuming and while technically "film" related (being those are specifically the programs the Cap'n is applying to), they don't translate to compelling blogorium material. Perhaps, once I'm positive that they have or will not be looking at the blogorium, I'll share with you my "personal statement," which lays out a number of topics I'm looking to expand on here and in an academic setting.

In fact, if I don't actually post the statement itself, I will happily share the topics of study at a point in time other than today. Today I'd like to pose a series of proposals that you may feel free to answer, not answer, or dismiss and answer some question not posed by the Cap'n but you feel I should know anyway. Is it "lazy" blogging? Oh, almost certainly, but the outcome of several of the answers will directly influence future reviews, commentary, news, and pieces like "Five Movies" and "Four Reasons."

Without further ado:

1. While I am on the record that I have no interest in seeing Avatar, I remain on the fence about Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. As you may remember, I was, perhaps, rude (to understate it) to fans of the film during its theatrical showing, mostly as a result of their very public outcry against movies people were seeing not called "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World." That being said, I remain a fan of Edgar Wright and have, with a few small exceptions, not heard many bad reviews. I'd like for someone to give me a measured reaction, if possible, and to sell me or not sell me on the film. What works? What doesn't?

2. As I always am, the Cap'n is fishing for recommendations. While I regularly visit DVD review websites in search of something I've never heard of (and have found quite a few that I'll be looking into soon), I also like to turn to the readers and ask them what they've seen lately that they think I should check out. Just because I make it a mission in life to expose others to films they haven't seen before doesn't mean that I have my finger on the pulse of under-watched cinema at all times. Help a Cap'n out, folks.


3. I have seriously been toying with the idea of recordinging and hosting downloadable "rogue" commentary tracks for films that don't have one. While the model is similar to RiffTracks, I don't intend for them to always be comedic. Whenever possible, I'd like to bring in other people who can speak authoritatively about the film or add a perspective on the movie that would be interesting for audiences. If you'd like to see (or hear this) and, more importantly, would like to be a part of this, let me know. I have the initiative, but lack certain key ingredients (like recording equipment).


4. Finally, I'm still looking for a really good title for December's mini-horror fest. Merry Mayhem is the only one I've come up with so far, and I'm not really in love with it. Don't make me turn this into a contest, folks! There could be a prize in it for you!

Damn You, Weather!

The hideous Sou'Easter is upon Blogorium central. If folks are still wondering (or feeling foolhardy), tomorrow's "One bourbon, one scotch, one beer" is still going on. I might end up watching them by myself, but what the hell?

It's a good line up:

Bourbon - David Lynch's Wild at Heart

Scotch - Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Beer - a surprise.

plus I'm throwing together trailers for films that were considered in each category. No stupid snowstorm and freezing temperatures are going to chase the Cap'n off of a movie night, although I suddenly understand why I've never tried a 'thon in January...

---

Confession time: Remember when I was talking about those Criterion discs? Okay, so several of those "would like to have"'s were movies I ordered used from Amazon. Mona Lisa, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Night and Fog, Salesman, Insomnia, Nanook of the North, Peeping Tom, and Dead Ringers are all on their way.

My criteria for these Criterions had everything to do with being able to get them for less than $20 apiece and the relative ease of locating the films. Most of them never show up in stores, and I've been oogling Salesman ever since I parted ways with it, so I'm glad to have it on the way.

---

Adam has been gently reminding me that J.D. Salinger died yesterday, and that the unlicensed movies should be coming any day now. Heh heh. May I suggest Shia LeBouf for Catcher in the Rye? Don't even ask me what they should do with Franny and Zooey. Heh. Heh. Two words: Brett Ratner.

---

Stay warm, and risk those broken limbs for movie night Saturday!