Take the Ticket. Enjoy the Ride.

Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know

Yeah, that's right. I haven't posted anything since Obama trounced McCain in the presidential election. Why? Because for the last 20 days I've been slavin' away in the pursuit of academic merits! I've been getting piledriven by midterms, suplexed by classroom management plans, and atomic elbowed by advanced Russian grammar! It's been a rough coupl'a weeks is all. But, have I learned anything? Let's find out.

Byronic heroes are dicks: So I have this class called Russian culture. It's all about Russian literature that has been written at the turn of the century, right before the tsars where 86'd so the Bolsheviks could set up shop. Apparently it was pretty hip at this time to integrate what us literary hipsters call a "Byronic Hero" into Russian novels. Anywho, Byronic Heroes (taken from Lord Byron; famous romantic poet, Greek revolutionary, and sexual deviant) are dicks. But they're kinda like cool dicks. Frank N. Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. I'm not sure why this archetype took such a strong foothold in Russia, but we've read about four books now that prominently feature a bored intellectual who uses his good looks and cultural acumen to woo ladies and then break their hearts in front of the men who really love them. Interesting, no?

Rewards can punish kids just like punishments can punish kids. But maybe they can't?: There's this dude goes by the name of Alfie Kohn. He's all about reforming the classroom to be less about rewards and punishments, and more about student/teacher democracy. To which I say, "Awesome! In this perfect fantasy world, do I have my own butler on a luxury space station orbiting planet Goodtimes?" Yes it's wrong to teach kids that they're in school in order to get a letter on a piece of important looking paper. Yes it's wrong to make kids afraid of participating in class discussions because they think you're going to punish them for wanting to learn. But let's just take a step back and realize that our entire society is based on a system of rewards and punishments, and that's just a cold hard fact that kids are gonna have to deal with.

Eastern European wedding customs are bizarre and unsettling: One day in my Slavic Folklore class, we watched a home movie of a wedding in some village located in Yugoslavia. Now, I mentally checked out about thirty minutes into the thing, because at the end of the day, you're watching someone's poorly made wedding video. Here's what I remember seeing though: The entire village population dancing in the street while firing pistols into the air, the groom attempting to sharpshoot an apple that has been hung from the bride's roof, the groom attempting to pay the bride's sister for permission to enter the bride's room to claim her as his own, lot's of funny hats, a very long church ceremony where both bride and groom looked nervous at first, but then slightly tired. Messed me up good.

Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon is badass: I'm about five TPB's (that's "trade paperbacks" for all you plebians) into this series, and I freaking love it. It's like an existential western road movie with vampires, demons, angels, and a horrendously botched suicide inspired by Kurt Cobain's own demise. There's a cinematic quality to Ennis' and Dillon's work that I've never seen in another comic book. And it is also home to a character called The Saint of Killers, who is possibly the most terrifying, grizzled, pissed off, and vengeful fellas I've ever seen. This doesn't really have to do with school, but it was nice to spend some downtime with the Reverend Jesse Custer, his gal Tulip O'Hare, and their mutual undead friend Cassidy the Irish vampire.

I can't think of any other important lessons that I learned over the last 20 days, and I blame this on the fact that my brain was getting punched in the nuts for at least 16 of said 20 days, and just wants to exit my head via my ear so it can saturate itself in a healthy brine of fried chicken, apple beer, pizza, and David Lynch movies.

Politics, Shmolitics.

Halloweenie Roast 6: A Symphony of Horror

The 6th annual Halloweenie Roast has come and gone, and it was a pretty good one! This year's theme was horror movie musicals. On the agenda was The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Cannibal: The Musical, Sweeney Todd, and F.W. Murnau's silent film Nosferatu (it included music by Type O Negative, so it still fit the theme). We got through two and a half horror movie musicals (didn't get the chance to do the Nosferatu) before the group consciousness decided that it was time for sleep.

This was also the very first Halloweenie Roast that has taken place outside of my parents' basement, so that's kind of monumental. We fit about eleven people fairly comfortably in our dinky apartment, gorged on various chili dog creations, and experimented with new flavors of Doritos (spicy chili Doritos are way good, btw).

Highlights of the evening were when I tried to carry five twelve-packs of soda plus one big case of bottled water up the stairs to our apartment. I realized that it was a bad idea when I dropped them all mid-staircase. Luckily, the collateral damage of my overzealous soda-carrying ego only amounted to one diet Dr. Pepper, which exploded on the pavement; Matt Garcia's weird Hawaiian BBQ potato chips (they'd be good on a peanut butter sandwich! Don't knock it 'till you try it!); Danny's and Emi's giant tub o' popcorn (we ate most of it! Gluttony!); and Wong's visible disgust regarding Tim Curry in drag.

All in all, it was a good roast. Any suggestions on next year's theme? Or maybe other forms of debauchery that we could include in the glorious roast tradition? Anywho, thanks to everyone who came and brought food and stuff. You guys are sexy bitches.

We Found A Witch, May We Burn Her?

Young folks who unintentionally document the last horrific moments of their lives have become a pretty reliable horror/sci-fi convention nowadays (Cloverfield, Diary of the Dead, Quarantine). It's also become quite a popular critical stance to describe these films as an exposition of how much we love iPhones and YouTube, which I guess has some merit. I'm pretty sure we're about two skips and a jump away from full on Philip K. Dick/William Gibson-style transhumanism. Bearing this convention and what it means for us in the information age in mind, it's nice to go back about ten years and watch The Blair Witch Project. This film pioneered the handheld POV convention while continuing to prey upon the audience's fear of the dark. Much like Orson Welles did with his radio broadcast of Wells' The War of the Worlds, Dan Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez combined a timeless fear with a new technological medium with such palpability that people actually thought it depicted real events.
Though the brilliant marketing campaign could be credited with the massive profits that this film accrued, it wouldn't have worked if the characters and situations came off as unbelievable. Even thought the movie is about an unexplained disappearance perpetrated by a dead witch, it feels painfully real. For example, the three types of college film students are represented perfectly (yes, there are only three types!). Heather is the serious one who thinks film is her way to make some difference in the world, and that documentary filmmaking is the only "true" art form and blah blah blah. Josh is the goth-geek who had a helluva time in high school, so he turned to his own world of horror movies and industrial music and tells people that he wants to make movies because he's an artist, but really he just wants to be famous. Mike is a frat boy who happened to have sound/recording experience, so studying film would be the easiest way to graduation. Oh, and let's not overlook the fact that all three of these characters start the film ugly and end the film butt-ugly. You saw Cloverfield. There's no way people that good looking could exist in the real world. And I'm pretty sure that they get better looking as the film goes on; hair artfully tousled with a smattering of fake dust, clothing rips that strategically draw the eye to ample cleavage or chiseled biceps a la personal trainer. Not in Blair Witch! Those people actually look like they're going through absolute overexposed, malnourished, hunted hell! The handheld camera captures the dirt under their fingernails, the sweat in their hair, and of course the fountains of snot and tears that gush out of Heather's nose as she comes to grips with the fact that they're gonna die alone and terrified in the middle of nowhere.
After re-watching Blair Witch, I've decided that modern POV movies aren't really a critique as much as they are an exercise in embracing the upgrade. They're flashier, heavy on the CGI, and star some flawlessly attractive people. They are the iPod to Blair Witch's Discman. Whoa. It feels weird to even write "Discman."

When There Is No More Room In Hell....

They're Probably Pretty Cool...Probably.

It's just barely October, and already I'm getting a serious urge to subject myself to lots of horror movies and lots of fun-size candy bars (truth be told, I start getting those twinges of blood/candylust around the end of August). The following is a list of movies that I've always wanted to see, but as of yet have not. I'm thinking that they might make the cut for the 6th annual Halloweenie Roast. Anyway, here goes:

Cemetery Man: From what I've read about this flick, it sounds pretty much right up my alley. It's basically about this dude who works as a cemetery caretaker. When zombies start to rise up from the graves in his cemetery, he takes responsibility for the zombie invasion and tries to kill them before they can leave, so as not to disturb the sleepy town surrounding said cemetery. Eventually he falls in love with a dark, beautiful, and recently widowed woman and their relationship takes a tragic turn when she becomes one of the cursed undead. Does he kill her? Does he decide to join her in zombie damnation? I don't know! That's why I'd like to see this movie. That and the zombies and cemeteries and brain mutilations.

The Last House On the Left: This one is important to me for a few reasons. It's Wes Craven's first movie, and I'm interested in taking a look at his first stab (get it?) at horror movies. Also, the story sounds both fascinating and terrifying. It's about a pair of girls who go to a rock concert and get killed on the way home. The movie then puts you in the perspective of one girl's parents who unintentionally welcome their daughter's killers into their home. Instead of taking a predictable turn and having the killers terrorize the quaint suburban family, Craven has the girl's parents find out the truth about their guests and cruelly mete out vengeance as the night progresses.

Wait Until Dark: Unlike many movies that I haven't seen but want to, I haven't spent much time reading about the synopsis of this flick. What I do know is that Audrey Hepburn plays a blind chick who gets mixed up with some seriously evil dudes (one of which is Alan Arkin! Him playing a psycho is 75% of why I want to see this movie) and terror ensues. The other 25% of the reason I want to see this movie is for this one scene I saw whilst watching Bravo's "Hundred Scariest Movie Moments" when Mr. Arkin leaps out of a dark room ready to attack the blind Ms. Hepburn. She can't see him! You can! Terror!

Dead End Drive-In: I know nothing about this one, save that it's a horror movie set in a drive-in theater, which is something Sheree and I have talked about a lot. The drive-in is one of the most perfect places to set a horror movie. It's dark, there's lots of opportunity for horny teenagers to fornicate before getting their throats cut, and the snack bar is open all night! Anywho, I might be overexcited to watch this one, because as you can see by the cover, it's probably a piece of fried crap.

I Am Omega: This one I know will be a total piece of fried crap. But, it's not on this list because I think it's a possibly brilliant exercise in horror, no no no, my friends. It's on this list because The Chairman from Iron Chef America is the protaganist and he battles zombies in a complete ripoff of both I Am Legend and Omega Man (see? I Am+Omega). Tell me that you're not just a teensy bit curious to see how they managed to take that concept and run with it.

The Hills Have Eyes: Just so we're clear, I don't mean Alexandre Aja's remake (which I've already seen. Meh), but Wes Craven's original. I just like the idea of a mutant clan that terrorizes travelers in the Southwest deserts of America. See that guy on the cover? He doesn't have any fingernails! In real life!

Right. That's definitely not all of them, but it's a good list so far, and I'm getting tired and hungry. 'Kay, bye.