KFC Double Down

Grease is the word! I had to finally try one of those KFC Double Down meatwiches, and it was tasty enough -- two amazingly hot breaded chicken breasts, some sauce that reminded me of Thousand Island, some whitish cheese I didn't bother to identify, and a couple of strips of bacon. Health food, this isn't. And yet, despite the surely-deadly levels of fat in this, it wasn't overly greasy -- none of that throat-clearing one sometimes encounters after eating something too greasy. It all washed down pretty well.

It's a bit of a blunt instrument, flavorwise -- chicken/bacon/cheese/sauce -- not much in the way of flavor nuances, but then, it's a fucking Double Down, right? So, it doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is, and you shouldn't hope for it to be, either. Come in with low expectations, and you'll have them more than met. I liked it as a culinary curiosity, although I definitely wouldn't make it a regular part of my diet.

It certainly didn't feel like eating ball bearings, which is how Long John Silver's would make me feel (back in the 70s, the last time I had it). I ate it, was stuffed, but didn't puke or otherwise experience anything more traumatic than very greasy hands (handprint pictured above) and slight finger-burn because, with fried meat acting as "bread," there's no shelter for the fingers!

The Devil's Rejects (2/2)

I finally watched the rest of "The Devil's Rejects," which I thought was just terrible. Zombie tries to humanize the monster characters he created at the front end, showing them among their freako kin, and shows the hard-assed Lawman getting obsessive in his desire to bring them to justice. And, of course, instead of simply wasting the trio of nasties, the guy tortures them graphically, ensuring that they all ultimately get away, despite suffering some injuries along the way. But it's impossible to feel an iota of sympathy or empathy for the characters, given the horrors the unleashed on the front end. Zombie's editorial and directorial sympathies appear to be with the title trio of freaks, but they couldn't die soon enough, and an overlong ending with "Free Bird" playing is just too much to bear.

Looking at some of the reviews for this trash, I saw, to my incredulity, that Roger Ebert gave it like three out of four stars, but I just don't see it. It's competently shot, but it's just a pile of junk thematically. Bad dialogues, wafer-thin characters, a dreadful morality -- all of it.

Pass. Pass. Pass. Pass.

It's weird to compare this movie with one that clearly inspired it, like the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." In that one, despite the whole freak carnival of it, Tobe Hooper clearly identified with the hapless victims who end up on the wrong end of Leatherface's chainsaw. But Zombie so clearly identifies with the monsters in "...Rejects" that it's galling.

He could've written a more complex movie around Captain Spaulding, if he'd only had the writerly chops to pull that off, but that character was, by and large, only there for comic relief (what little there was of it). Anyway, blech. You feel like you need a shower and some brain bleach after watching this movie.

Pontypool (2008)

I just watched "Pontypool" tonight, and found it to be a very cool take on the zombie movie. It's a Canadian movie (or is, at least, set in Canada) and basically has this word virus that occurs when people say two words in close succession that have similar sounds. Like "symptom" and "symbol" or "Mister" and "missing" -- that kind of thing. It triggers a kind of crazy feedback loop in the minds of the victims, turning them into zombies, basically, as their brains short-circuit and they chase others around trying to kind of "complete the circuit" or something.

Anyway, it was nice to see a fresh take on zombies! The movie focuses on a small radio station in the middle of nowhere in Canada (I'm assuming somewhere in Quebec, since French-Canadian elements pop up a few times in it), and the story is seen almost entirely from the vantage point of the characters in the little radio station, with grizzled radio star Grant Mazzy as the protagonist of it (played by Stephen McHattie, who played the Svengali-like therapist for Elaine in SEINFELD, as well as Nite Owl I in "Watchmen" among various other parts). He has a great voice for the part of a radio host, and that's a nice element in it.

The virus is haunting enough to make you a bit paranoid about the use of language -- as a writer and editor myself, I am acutely aware of the use of language, and could spot the "triggers" the moment they appeared, thinking "Oh, no!" It seems like the filmmaker was kind of making a point about the damaging effects of talk radio on some level, although this thematic point doesn't get in the way of the larger effort.

I really liked this movie, and the tension is well-maintained in it, perhaps more so because of what you don't see -- most of the zombie horror is occurring outside, beyond the sight of the characters -- which helps keep production costs down, sure, but also creates a real kind of bunker atmosphere that was claustrophobic and haunting.

The director said: "At Rue Morgue's 2008 Festival of Fear expo, director Bruce McDonald stressed the victims of the virus detailed in the film were not zombies, calling them "Conversationalists". He described the stages of the disease: There are three stages to this virus. The first stage is you might begin to repeat a word. Something gets stuck. And usually it's words that are terms of endearment like sweetheart or honey. The second stage is your language becomes scrambled and you can't express yourself properly. The third stage you become so distraught at your condition that the only way out of the situation you feel, as an infected person, is to try and chew your way through the mouth of another person."

Good times! A welcome addition to the zombie movie subgenre! And be sure to watch past the end credits!

Severance (2006)

I watched the British horror movie/black comedy "Severance" last night, hoping it was something it wasn't. The trailers for it make it seem like it's this wry, dark comedy -- I mean, it's referred to as a horror-comedy, for fuck's sake...

"Severance" trailer

The biggest problem: NOT FUNNY.

And it's not simply a matter of an American kind of failure to appreciate British humor on my part -- if anybody understands both black comedy and dry humor, it's me. The problem was that the movie just wasn't funny -- sure, there were a few wryly amusing gags in it, but the movie just fails completely to live up to the promise of its premise. Seriously, you want horror-comedy? "Cabin Fever" delivers that aplenty. This movie doesn't.

For all of the front-end mentioning about the company retreat, there's almost no actual satire of workplace bullshittery in it. I imagine the writer pitched this movie with that otherwise solid concept and ultimately failed to offer a comedic payoff.

The characters aren't well-developed, and the situation just devolves into a hum-drum slaughterfest against some completely uninspiring villains (near as I can tell, they're pissed-off Hungarians out for revenge). The writer was clearly trying to make a political/satirical point about arms dealers getting what's coming to them by getting killed by and large by the weapons that their company makes, but it falls flat -- the writer just didn't know what to do with the premise.

For example, the nebbishy guy (in the clip above, caught in the bear trap) -- they play that moment for comedic effect by having the others try to free him, and they slip their grip on the trap, leading him to get yet another snap of the trap on his leg, making him scream all over again.

Okay, I get it -- funny on the first slip, sure. And then they do it again. And again. And again. Four times? Five? And, oh, big shock -- his leg gets severed. Ha. Ha. They overuse the joke and the nebbish doesn't even get the satisfaction of doing anything more than screaming -- he should at least get to scream out something about the people being butterfingered fuckwits or something. It's like the pie in the face -- the first pie, sure. Okay, but halve the laughs with each subsequent pie, until only the crickets are chirping.

The American protagonist in it ("Maggie") gets points for being an ass-kicking chick -- she fights hard and at least has the benefit of making the right moves at the right time (she's a stone-cold killer); there's a drugged-out Brit male character (can't remember his name -- I'll call him "Limey McGee") who also survives, but he's just a dolt and a twit -- it felt like the writer had extra-fondness for that character (maybe reminding the writer of himself? Not sure), who just gets high and trips out most of the time, and sloppily fights his way to survival before ending up with a pair of Slavic escort babes and a stated desire for a foursome at the end of the movie.

Oh, and they led off with the Small Faces' "Itchycoo Park," the bastards. Of course, at that point, I didn't realize how sucky the movie was going to be, so there was still hope then.

The movie's just a drab slaughterfest, not nearly as smart or funny as it thinks it is, and it was a big disappointment. FAIL.

The Devil's Rejects (1/2)

I watched some of "The Devil's Rejects" last night, before falling asleep (yeah, it put me to sleep). Rob Zombie is an acknowledged fan of Horror, but watching that movie (or what I did of it), I knew that being a fan of Horror and being able to actually write and/or direct a horror movie is a very different thing.

What I saw of it was mean-spirited and icky -- there's clearly money behind it, because it doesn't look cheap, but there's just something terribly foul (and dirt-cheap) in this movie -- good horror confronts the viewer with the sublime, and there's simply nothing sublime in this movie. There is misogyny, cruelty, foulness, barbarity -- and there is a sense of editorial approval on the part of Zombie for the villains (they're too repugnant to even be considered "antiheroes"). It's weird to imagine the raw cynicism at work in the filming of this movie, like the aesthetics of pretend depravity -- "Oh, I was Naked Girl Corpse Number 1 in "The Devil's Rejects"). And there's precious little humor in it -- it appears to take itself very seriously, and that misses out on a vital element of horror: HUMOR. Even black humor is humorous, and this movie piles on the carnage without a lick of humor in it (it reminds me a bit of oh-so-serious Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers" -- which also took itself incredibly seriously as it bludgeoned the audience into submission, while pretending to be offering some kind of cogent social commentary). The victims of the "Rejects" aren't deserving targets -- they are unfortunates in the wrong place at the wrong time. Horrific, sure, but Horror? No. The character of Captain Spaulding brings only the barest whiff of humor to the story, and even that is just a tiny whiff that gets overshadowed in the bloodbath.

My intuitive sense of Zombie in this movie is someone with the means to indulge his enthusiasm for the genre, without having the narrative, intellectual, or aesthetic chops to really pull it off. Now, I haven't seen the rest of the movie, but what I saw of it was fucking dreadful -- horrible people doing horrible things to people -- that kind of inverted ethic where fans of this are supposed to identify (?) with the killers at the expense of the victims (?) -- not sure where he was taking it, whether the trip is worth taking, and so on.

I enjoy Horror, but to me, this wasn't really Horror -- it's the same reason I avoid so-called "Splatterpunk" and "Torture Porn" and the whole "Saw" franchise. Popping people into the meatgrinder isn't Horror in my view, although it is surely horrific. Maybe my intrinsic sense of righteousness demands that the evil be punished, and the lead characters in this movie most definitely need to be napalmed -- and I'm not entirely sure that this'll even happen.

Movies like "Straw Dogs" and "Deliverance" are, while not marketed as such, most definitely Horror movies (and horrific) -- they call forth a monstrous dread in the viewer, invoke Terror and Horror in graphic ways -- but there is enough character weight in these harrowing movies to carry the audience through. Since the killers are the nominal protagonists of this movie, there is nobody to identify with (except for sympathy for the victims and the actors starring in this movie). It's very dehumanizing.

Horror, for all of its reputation, is not a dehumanizing genre -- it actually places a huge and high value on humanity, and approaches issues of what makes us human by exploring the horrors of Man and Nature. None of that is evident in this movie.

(I'll comment on the rest of it after I've watched it, which I'm only doing out of a sense of narrative closure -- judging from the front end of it, I think I know what's coming on the back end)

Cabin Fever

It's nice to see that Eli Roth's "Cabin Fever" (2002) still remains one of my favorite horror movies. It's dark, gruesome, and darkly hilarious. It has some of my all-time favorite horror movie moments, including this one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMS9Rv3ksrU&feature=related

Bahaha! In the context of the movie (where some college kids go off to a cabin and get infected by a mysterious and horrible disease that picks them off one by one), it's just too perfect a set up, and the group cohesion falls apart as they're confronted with their own mortality. There are some very memorable images from it

Of course, it's not some sensitive Emo fable -- rather, it's a darkly funny exercise in mayhem, and nothing is sacred. It's got some stupid elements in it, it's got some funny-as-hell elements in it, and it's got some seriously horrific elements in it -- basically, a good time IF you enjoy horror movies.

I finally got it on DVD over the weekend, after not having seen it for years (and often touting "Harmonica Man" from it, which is, sadly, not properly shown on YouTube), and was pleased that I enjoyed it as much or more as I did the first times I saw it.

The asshole characters are extra assholish, and the plague falls on the just and unjust in roughly equal measure, coupled with rogue rednecks on the rampage (itself a bit of a wink-and-nod at the preconceptions of the characters).

It's fun, it's funny, and it's horrifying, and in a culture that runs from death and disease as much as ours does (I mean, who wouldn't want to run away from death and disease, right?) -- it hits a nice nerve, and bravo to Roth for tapping it (and the mean-spirited nature of the protagonists in it amuses me, too -- the selfishness of youth?)

Some horror fans I know hate this movie, but I think they're wrong -- it's all kinds of good, and you can't help but laugh while you're busy grimacing and squirming from it.

Book: The Ruins

I may link to some of my older Amazon reviews, just for fun, before sorting out future reviews with Amazon...

http://www.amazon.com/review/R12WIRUEI41UZD/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Music: Swervedriver remasters

I love Swervedriver, and when I saw that they were reissuing their albums as remasters, I jumped on that, more out of a show of support for the band (and really, really wanting them to turn out new material -- hint, hint?) -- not because I needed the albums (which I already have), or even the additional tracks (there are four on each of the albums I bought -- "Raise" and "Mezcal Head" -- which have some of their best tracks). But I was secretly hoping that the remasters would really make the albums even better than they had been in the past (as was the case with the remastered "The Who Sell Out," the Small Faces's "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" mono remaster, and the New York Dolls's remastered debut album [which is the best remaster I've yet encountered -- it's fantastic if you run across it -- like a whole new album]).

Anyway, I was disappointed that the Swervie remasters don't sound different from the original albums -- they may indeed be remasters, but if so, the producers did so with a very, very light hand, as I can't honestly discern anything new. I tend to listen to my music with headphones, so any changes are immediately apparent (again, in the case of the three excellent remasters above, it's very, very clear that they were improved), and I just didn't pick those up on these.

But I would still recommend them if you've never heard Swervedriver before (I would also recommend "Ejector Seat Reservation," which is one of the best albums of the 90s, not that anybody would know it). If you have the older Swervie albums, there's not much reason to get these remasters, unless you just want to support the band in some way, shape, or form (or, for some reason, don't have the bonus tracks).

Defendor

So, I watched "Defendor" last night, under the pretense that it was some kind of darkly comic take on superheroes (kind of, I don't know, "Mystery Men" meets "Taxi Driver" or something). The trailer certainly makes it seem like that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do7ur4ji7r8

But no. It's not like that at all. The trailer is misleading. I'm not even going to put a spoiler warning in this, because there's nothing to spoil. Woody does a good job with his character, but he goes almost "full retard" on it (to coin the term thrown out in "Tropic Thunder") -- Arthur Poppington in it is a serious mental defective and/or mentally-ill guy who's a nitwit wannabe do-gooder. There's more than a little "Don Quixote" in this quest for justice, with the prostitute/junkie played by Kat Denning as his Sancho Panza -- alternately, Arthur is Jesus and Kat Denning's character is Mary Magdalene. There are plenty of "This Is Jesus" movies out there, where a simple-but-good character offers some redemption for a dirty, ugly world (typically by dying). It's been done and done.

This movie is at war with what it's trying to say -- the comedic possibilities of it are completely undermined by the obvious handicaps of Arthur. The guy needs institutionalization or at least a halfway house. The weight of his moral crusade is offset by his near-inability to really clearly see reality around him -- that's the Don Quixote in the mix. Captain Industry is his image of evil, and he fixates on this Serbian crimelord (who could be windmill or Satan, you choose) as Captain Industry, and tries to go after him bravely, and stupidly, and becomes martryed -- inspiring people in the world around him to do and be better people.

The bad guys are just footnotes in the movie -- they're bad because they're bad, and we don't see much of them, not nearly enough. Kat (I'm not even digging again for her character's name, it's too much work) is the snarky hooker with a heart of gold who gloms onto Defendor for some reason. Blah blah blah.

I read that this was director (and writer) Peter Stebbing's first effort, and it shows in my view -- the narrative is just off, the characterizations are off, the pacing is bad, the movie doesn't know what it's trying to be (except, as I see it, a vaguely Catholic Christ-influenced superhero narrative in the mold of, say, "Constantine," "Hellboy," "The Crow," "Dogma," "Forrest Gump," "The Matrix," and probably "Legion" -- although I didn't see that last one). Movies with that emphasis you can kind of spot because the people in it area invariably wretches kind of at odds with life and with themselves, and are, in some way, shape, and form, healed by the redemptive power of the nitwit Messiah and his sacrifice.

I would have preferred it to have been more like "Taxi Driver" if it wanted to be serious; or more like "Mystery Men" if it wanted to be funny. But while it's framed as an action/comedy-drama, there is precious little comedy in it, and while it strives for some kind of poignancy, it just amounts to a stupid man going up against evil men, and in his stupidity (while condemning himself to death), manages to bring them to justice.

To fix the movie, I'd have increased the pacing of it, the dramatic structure, made it either funny or serious (or at least seriously funny), would have aced Kat Denning's pointless character and upped the role of the friend who cares for his half-retarded buddy, Arthur, and would have beefed up the roles of the villains in it considerably.

Anyway, don't see it expecting it to be funny or exciting (e.g., action) because it's not. Apparently the studios wouldn't touch this movie because they found it difficult to characterize, and that was a wise move on their parts -- some things things are difficult to characterize because they're visionary; other things are difficult to characterize because they suck. This is the latter. It doesn't suck completely -- it could have been good, but it needed serious work on the script to actually flow properly.

Watch "The Crow" -- it's a far better movie.

Sunshine

(This was also from November 11 of 2008, although I rewatched "Sunshine" yet again the other night, so it's on my mind -- new comments are in brackets).

I watched most of "Sunshine" again last night. It's an almost-great SF movie that unfortunately falls far short near the end. It's unfortunate, because they set up this great stuff, and then blow it. Now, as is sometimes the case with movies like that, I make "sense" of it by spoofing it a little. What follows contains spoilers, so if you're intent on seeing the movie, don't read it!

[I read in the wiki entry that director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland took a year to write the script, and went through 35 drafts!!! Given how the story lurches badly in the third reel, I wonder what they were thinking in the overall process -- I think they could have salvaged the movie, but were clearly locked in around a particular arc that derailed what could've been a masterpiece]

I think what really happens aboard Icarus II is that Cassie goes insane, and kills off the rest of the crew, projecting this in the personage of Pinbacker. She seems to be the nicest person aboard the ship, certainly the softest, which is why nobody would suspect her. Thinking of it this way, the movie makes more narrative sense, rather than having Pinbacker as this hack-and-slash villain who miraculously survived all that time aboard Icarus I, only to pounce on the astronauts on Icarus II. And it being an "inside job" would account for all of the various breaches of security and protocol that afflict the crew -- that, and perhaps a collective psychosis resulting from their long voyage toward the Sun. The flakiness of psych officer Searle, for example, evident at the outset, busy nearly blinding himself, kind of tripping out, and Captain Kaneda, who's not much better [he is incredibly passive for a spaceship captain]. The crew can basically be split between sane and insane crew -- with Mace, Corazon, and Capa being the sane members, and Kaneda, Searle, Cassie, and Trey being the insane ones. Harvey is mostly a coward, so I guess he caucuses with the insane ones, under the circumstances. Cassie for awhile talks Capa into things, before he eventually gets his wits about him and completes the mission. The key is why is Cassie so intent on stopping the mission? She's easily the most wishy-washy member of the crew, but perhaps that's because she's so keen on maintaining this mask of sanity.

Anyway, that outcome makes it a more satisfying movie than the whole bogeyman-in-space outcome of a straight read of the story gives you. Of course, the film's production people don't really give one the above; there's not enough slack in the story to really run with that interpretation -- everything is what it appears to be. It's just that if they had done the above, the movie would've been more compelling than it ended up being. Plus, it's amusing to think of it like that, since Cassie is so clearly supposed to be the most sensitive of the astronauts, given her constant careworn looks on her face throughout it [a Rose Byrne trademark].

I did the same thing with "Forrest Gump," among other movies -- like you can believe Gump led this uniquely ultra Baby Boomer life, or you can believe he's just deeply delusional and builds this fantasy world out of what he sees on television. I like the latter interpretation, as it mocks the generational fellatio the filmmakers perform on the Baby Boomers, versus it being this case of this dullard leading a superhero's kind of life.

[Other options include having the Icarus II crew actually interacting with Pinbacker -- making him another character, instead of simply a monster out to kill the crew of the sister ship. One could also eliminate Pinbacker entirely and run with the ghost ship in space and the Icarus II crew quietly going insane. The character of Harvey is completely wasted, too -- it's clear that nobody on the crew likes him, and he's not keen to be there (having family at home, it's understandable where his heart and head is) -- but that gets wasted, along with everything (and everyone) else. There are serious flaws in the movie -- bad decisions made at key points that lead to an inevitably bad outcome, and the writers basically just throw the characters into a blender and hit "puree" and that's that. "Alien" was clearly some of the source material for this movie, but "Sunshine" lacks the good writing of that, so one ends up with a movie that has a good enough concept, great set design, a good cast, and half of a good story that is completely squandered by the end, as the writers force the conclusion they want to reach.]

The Last Winter and The Strangers

(this was from November of last year, from another blog)

I watched "The Last Winter" and "The Strangers" over the weekend, part of my usual Halloween frightfesting. Although the former was well-reviewed, I felt there were some big-time problems with the actual writing of the story; it could've benefited from a few more revisions of the screenplay, I think. My sense was that the writers were happy to indulge Ron Perlman in it, and as such, his character got away with a lot more than he should have, to the detriment of the overall narrative. Also, the "hero" in the story would've been better off as an early victim, as he doesn't quite do his part in the story. Further, the story arcs a certain way that doesn't do half the cast justice in it. There were some good eerie moments in it, but overall, I think the work didn't fully use all of its resources.

I was much more impressed with (and scared by) "The Strangers" -- which was a far simpler story than "The Last Winter," but while it might've been only four cylinders, it was running smoothly on all four of them, and made excellent use of terror and dread in the story to build into a real nightmare of a story. The primary weaknesses were the "true story" lead-in to it -- that wasn't necessary, was distracting (esp. since the "true story" basically alludes to the Manson family murders, as well as a creepy personal experience of the director).



It filled me with dread, made me so grateful I no longer owned a home in the country, for sure. I'm used to dealing with city weirdness, but it's a different brand of weirdness to country creepiness.

Food: The Gemini Bistro

I ate at the Gemini Bistro, and really enjoyed it. It's on Lincoln Avenue, and has a lot of dark wood and old-school kind of elegance and ambiance. Everybody's impeccably-attired and the service was tip-top. It classifies itself as an "American bistro" -- which to me means a bistro with fast service, for which I'm grateful, not being one who likes to wait.

I had the Prix Fixe menu (served from 5 to 6:30 p.m.), which is three courses for $31 ($49 if you want wine with each course). I opted for the lobster bisque, short-rib ravioli, and German chocolate cake.

The bisque was really tasty, with very tender lobster chunks in it, great color and seasoning. I could have probably had that bisque the whole evening, just with some bread (the bread is served in shiny metal cones with attached butter caddies). Great flavor. I savored it.

The short-rib ravioli was tasty, qualified as a "medium" plate serving (Gemini does small, medium, and large plate servings, depending on the menu item), and while it was maybe a half-dozen round raviolis nicely seasoned and accompanied with shards of aged parmesan, it was enough, I found, to fill me up. The taste was good -- rich and hearty, but also very delicate.

The dessert was beautifully plated -- a three-layer German chocolate cake, a square of reasonable size (in Chicago terms -- everything here is served in bistro portions), and a pretty little dollop of hazelnut ice cream atop a hazelnut fruit spread (I asked the waiter about that, and he told me what it was, but I forgot the fruit that was representing, there), and a sprig of mint. The cake was tasty, if not mind-blowing, but the ice cream was a nice treat, served very cold and it kind of upstaged the cake a bit.

The bar is a nice, long, broad thing, and they do full meal service there, too. I had the best Old-Fashioned I'd ever had in Chicago there -- their "Velvety Old-Fashioned" which was a blend of Maker's Mark, Cointreau, and Bitters, with the requisite mulled cherry and orange wedge garnish. It was fantastic. I often use the Old-Fashioned as my benchmark beverage for a bar, to test their mettle -- not because it's a complicated cocktail, but because it's such a simple one. And I am pleased to say that they nailed it -- strong and flavorful, I had two of them, and had a little trouble putting my jacket on when it was time to leave, and my head was spinning for about an hour after leaving. That is one good cocktail!

I had no complaints about the food or the service -- both were very good. I don't have any complaints at all, really. The Gemini is a nice place -- very Chicago, in its mix of elegance coupled with a lack of pretension. The only discordant notes (and they're minor, truly) were the music -- when I came in, Cream was playing, which just doesn't fit with the decor and overall ambiance of the place. Not that one wants the trademark Smooth Jazz(tm) or whatever, but it just didn't fit with the beauty of the place -- the music changed later, but it still wasn't quite right. Also, the television in the top corner above the bar seemed out of place. Sure, I get it -- a bar with a television -- who doesn't have that? But at the same time, the place seems too sharp for such a common contrivance. Maybe its absence would be felt, but something about the Gemini Bistro, to me, makes it seem a classier place than that.

But those are very minor complaints. I enjoyed the food, loved the cocktail, savored the ambiance, and appreciated the setting. All in all, I'd say it's well worth your time, if you're in the area. A great place for brunch, lunch, and most definitely a place to take a date.

Four out of five stars: * * * *

http://www.geminibistrochicago.com/

How To Train Your Dragon

I took the boys to see "How To Train Your Dragon" (or whatever it's called). It was cute. The boys seemed to enjoy it. As ever, CGI graphics just get better and better -- rich details like the pebbled hides of the dragons just come to life. It was rated PG, and I think that was, perhaps, justified -- there's nothing scary in it or anything, but there are lots of explosions, fires, the dragons, and what-not. The protagonist ("Hiccup") strikes me as a very Gen X protagonist -- just something in his manner feels that way to me, which is kind of funny to see in a kids movie -- like they know that Gen Xers are parents, now, so they craft a kiddy protagonist that kind of plays to things we can relate to (sort of like how so many of the older kiddy movies had gratuitous Elvis references -- something for the Boomers to wink and nod to) -- but it's funny, because Hiccup is sarcastic and facetious, and so I think any Xer parent taking their kid to it'll be like "Yeah, I'd probably say the same thing."

The aerial scenes are lovely, quite breath-taking on the big screen -- the heavenly clouds, the lovely countrysides, the swooping dragons. All of that. Good stuff. You really felt the propulsive motion of those sequences.

I think the Vikings portrayed in it must be from the Orkney Islands, because they have Scots accents (I know, right? Vikings with Scottish accents? I consoled myself with thinking they were somewhere near the Orkneys). Unless, somehow, Scots accents are seen as inherently barbaric. Not sure, not sure.

But I think the movie had a nice balance of character development and certainly a curiously pacifistic message that jumps out at you in this time of our country fighting two wars abroad (remember them?) -- and one moment that particularly makes you think of today's new reality for survivors of wars.

I won't reveal any plot points or surprises. I'd not say the movie was up there with "Up" or "Wall-E" necessarily, but it was a good effort, and it certainly kept my attention.

One (big) complaint: Enough with the 3-D movies already -- we know you're doing it just to rack up box office receipts, you bastards. Not EVERY movie need be 3-D. It set me back $33 to see this movie -- and that was at a matinee.

Band: Mission of Burma

Mission of Burma rocked Double Door last night. They did a great job. Probably the best small-venue show I've seen (or at least tied with Buzzcocks, who I also saw at Double Door). They brought it and played amazingly well. Definitely no sense of phoning it in, like with Dinosaur Jr last year (at the Vic). I'm actually sore from all the jumping around I did.

The audience was of mixed aged, since M.O.B.'s early fan base is comfortably middle-aged, now. Lots of indie music geeks (*koff*) and their coolio nerd-girlfriends. But M.O.B. really brought it and had the room thumping. They did two encores, including "Red" (one of my all-time faves of theirs), and finishing with "That's When I Reach for My Revolver" (which Moby covered many years ago).

Red (circa 1983)

Money well-spent. Very glad I caught the show. It was pretty amazing, all the activity out in Wicker Park, at the main intersection -- since the gentrification of that area, it's become quite the dating mecca -- Meatmarket Central! All the gals in their Saturday Night duds, all the tool guys trying to look sharp. It makes me want to bring a camera down there and capture it sometime -- the volume of humanity on the prowl is too amusing.

Flicks

I got the "Justice League" movie (direct-to-DVD) and was pleasantly surprised by it -- much of the Bruce Timm-directed production team was involved with it, despite the different animators, and the result was very solid. My boys LOVE the movie, and I've watched it a couple of times, think it was fun, well-done. Not treading new ground, storywise, but it was marvelously well-executed and fun. A lot of in-jokes for comic book fanboys and -girls, but it was a compelling work, and I look forward to seeing what else Bruce Timm and company turn out. They have making good animated superhero stuff down pat!

"Push," an ostensibly SF paranormal thriller (involving superhumans) had some arresting images and at least a theoretically usable premise, but it didn't fully cohere the way it needed to -- the whole didn't equal the sum of its parts, and one of the characters (played inertly by Camilla Belle, who appears to have taken the Katie Holmes School of Acting to heart) is a big drag on the overall story. It could have been a good thriller, but I think it got out from under the creators of it, and didn't fully deliver. I think my favorite sequences involved the Screamers/Bleeders, who had a sonic scream attack...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwaiD8ZVYOU

Although the precognitive Watchers were also interesting. Surprisingly, Dakota Fanning did a good job in her role as one of the Watchers (although she was distractingly hunchy -- is that just her being "in character" or does she always have such rotten posture?) She's kind of a pint-sized Kate Hudson, and her relationship with lead character "Nick" (played by Chris Evans) was more convincing that the cobbled-together love interest Evans was supposed to have with Camilla Belle's wooden character (who reminded me of Selma Blair's "Why Is She In This Movie?" role in HELLBOY).

"Coraline" is the latest Neil Gaiman triumph -- and I say that as a bad thing -- I'm not a fan of Neil Gaiman's work. He's just too British for me, too affected, too something. Some people love his work, his dark fairyland, gothic-infused mentality -- the same folks who worship Tim Burton worship Neil Gaiman as their Tolstoy. But it doesn't quite ring true for me -- his work doesn't reach me, and I can't exactly say why. Something about his writing style, his sensibility, something. The technical achievement of the movie outweighs the larger themes of it, in my view -- a movie that's fun to watch but which doesn't particularly deliver the goods. I just kind of watched it, enjoyed it after a fashion (despite the constant, cloying British eccentricity routinely demonstrated by the supposedly American characters in it).

House of the Devil

I watched "The House of the Devil" the other night, and liked it well enough. An indie horror flick, very self-consciously crafted to appear to have been shot in, say, the mid-80s, with the simplest of touches -- characters' hairstyles, the mom jeans, the rotary dial telephones, the big Walkman -- and it looks very much like it could've been a movie of that time.

It delivered some good atmosphere and some startling moments, although I felt that too much time was spent creating the mood and when things get out of hand, they get out of hand almost too quickly for it to really work properly, in terms of pacing, like going from too little to too much all at once.

Also, the meta-factoid at the beginning basically throws any proper suspense out the window -- not having context for what was happening might've made it work better on the face of things.

As an exercise in cinematic style (e.g., simulating an 80s horror movie), they definitely hit all the marks properly. As a horror movie itself, I don't know if it'll qualify as a classic of the genre.

I don't know if this was deliberate on the part of the director or not, but there's a lot of eating in the movie -- it kind of draws attention to itself, like business for the characters to do. It becomes a little distracting, all the nibbling that goes on. Maybe they wanted the characters to have more to do than just, say, smoke (which some of them do, too). Not sure. But it was a little distracting for me.

Also, the overall conceit of the story was less than I'd hoped for, and the payoff didn't quite deliver for me. Like they ended at both a good and a bad point, saying more by showing less, but also kind of copping out (just because of the rushed elements of horror in it making the payoff feel perhaps a bit contrived).

Greta Gerwig (one of my indie film crushes, right up there with Parker Posey) is in it, in a small role as the protagonist's friend.

Drag Me To Hell

I watched "Drag Me To Hell" last night (no, not a documentary of my life of the past ten years, although the title does make me think of that) -- and it was fun. I watched the unrated version. I mean, it's GROSS, but it's so over-the-top that you can only laugh at it. Sam Raimi seems to channel "Evil Dead 2" in a big way with it, that kind of madcap, hyperkinetic horror (or is it simply his directing style?) that is Raimi's trademark.

It's quite a contrast from "The House of the Devil," which was far more serious, and was more quietly and earnestly horrific (and with a much-smaller budget), whereas DMTH was just having a good time delivering the shock and awe kind of stuff.

As intended, I sympathized with the cutie Alison Lohman in the role of Christine Brown, hapless loan officer at a bank who denies an old Gypsy woman a loan and gets cursed for her troubles. Things go from bad to worse for her, leading to all sorts of embarrassments and woes.

The diminutive Lohman carried off her role very well, and she literally goes through hell in the course of the movie, which adheres to classic horror tropes throughout. Her boyfriend, Apple pitchman-turned-guy-trying-to-be-a-regular actor, Jason Hill, does his part, although he's always distracting to me. I always think "Hey, Apple Guy!" I'm sure he hates that, but that's what he gets.

Anyway, the movie has some genuinely horrific/gross moments in it, but plenty of laughably scary-dumb moments in it, too (not laughing at per se, so much as laughing with -- I mean, when a would-be sacrificial goat gets demon-possessed and starts spouting demon-speak, what can you do BUT laugh?) Clearly, while wanting to deliver a straightforward horror romp, Raimi and company didn't take themselves TOO seriously. When the little kitten's in the scene, you know what's going to happen -- indeed, I said "Here, Kitty Kitty" almost the same moment Lohman's character did.

I knew where it was all going, but enjoyed the ride, all the same. It's curious for me to contrast this movie with the other one (it's kind of like contrasting the apocalyptic movies "2012" and "The Road" -- while ostensibly dealing with the same subject matter, one is lighthearted and gleeful, the latter is as serious as a heart attack).

Gettin' down and dirty with Alison Lohman.

Which one did I like better? I don't know. This one was more FUN, if that makes any sense, although in terms of delivering creepiness and a generally horrific vibe, "The House..." may have delivered more out-and-out chills.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

I watched "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" at long last, and enjoyed it, almost despite it being a West Anderson movie. I say that because Anderson's made a career out of dishing out a certain type of ambiance in his works -- trying out-Salinger Salinger, is how I typically put it. Not so much with "Bottle Rocket," but from "Rushmore" onward, he ladles that kind of quirkily patrician kind of world that conjures up the Glass Family that so occupied Salinger. J.D. Salinger's taut style of writing certainly influenced me in the 90s, when I read most of his books, but to see it served up onscreen (albeit somewhat adulterated by way of Anderson) is, somehow, I don't know -- arch?

He must be a fun and/or indulgent director, as he has his usual band of actors who appear eager to work with him again and again (Tim Burton has that same quality).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spCknVcaSHg

Anyway, "...Fox" is fun and enjoyable because while you can't for a moment ignore that it's a Wes Anderson movie, the stop-motion and Roald Dahl source material for it renders it palatable and charming. For example, having George Clooney voice Mr. Fox might seem questionable, since the man is so busy being (or trying to be) Cary Grant Lite that he can't occupy any scene without derailing it -- but since it was just his voice, it lets the character of Mr. Fox come through more than it otherwise would have. Quite the opposite with Bill Murray as the Mr. Badger -- I love Bill Murray, but he kind of overwhelms his character a bit -- you can just SEE Murray in the character so much, which amuses me. Bill Murray is so Bill Murray that even as just a voice, he possesses anything he touches.

The plot of the movie pits the Foxes against three farmers, and it escalates through the course of the story (and, I think, drags a bit in the third act -- I found myself getting a bit fidgety, and being surprised that it's only 87 minutes long -- it felt a bit longer owing to that third act). But it's dryly funny and clever and cute and is a cool effort. My boys loved it and wanted to watch it again and again. I think Anderson was smart to avoid lapsing completely into self-parody with it -- the venue change let him do his thing without it appearing that he was doing his same old thing (and yet, yes, he was doing his same old thing, but I didn't care, because I enjoyed the movie a great deal). The power of stop-motion puppetry! Never, ever underestimate the power of puppets, where kids are concerned!

Oh, and I can instantly irk B1 just by imitating Mr. Fox's call-sign that he does (you can hear it at :04 in the trailer linked above). I do it and he says (in this admonishing, irritated tone) "Dadddddyy. Don't. Do. That!"

Deadgirl

So, I watched "Deadgirl" last night, part of my recent horror movie filmfest of the past few days, and this one is, by far, the most horrific of the three I just saw. Like squirm-in-your-seat horrific, and also, perhaps, the most classically constructed as a horror story (in the sense of the supernatural leading to the fall of the characters).

That said, it was certainly not a perfect movie, although it was a creative spin on the classic zombie movie narrative (and something I'd actually conceived in the 90s as a story idea, but something I never wrote, because it's just too fucking gross). I'll mention the problems I had with it first...

First, it was too long -- they needed to edit it more tightly. Fewer shots of protagonist Rickie biking around town aimlessly, less time dicking around (pun intended) in the abandoned mental institution. They could've probably trimmed a good 20 minutes off it without consequence.

Second, Rickie (played by Shiloh Fernandez -- there's a name for you) was miscast -- the actor playing him didn't at all convince me as the burnout/loser character he was supposed to be (especially when contrasted with Noah Segan's ghoulish "J.T." and Eric Podnar's dopey "Wheeler" -- those two were perfectly cast and believable in those roles). Fernandez might've come across as weird, but he just didn't fit the burnout/skater/outsider/freak-n-geek character we're supposed to believe he was playing.

Third, Rickie is far too passive of a character in the narrative -- way, way too many shots of him looking on in horror at the admittedly horrific goings-on, or scowling meaningfully at nothing, looking all Walking Wounded. Clearly he's got a lot on his mind, but the story doesn't really give him much to do -- he's perennially railroaded by his out-and-out psychopathic friend, J.T., and rather than really being active in the story, Rickie just coasts along.

I know why they did that -- they wanted Rickie to keep his hands somewhat clean, compared with the horrific hog wallow presented by J.T. and Wheeler. We're supposed to feel some level of sympathy for Rickie, who at least has a modicum of bystanderly compassion in the story, but his half-hearted and half-assed attempts at doing the right thing don't carry much resonance, and since he never really follows through, they are weak, at best. For a protagonist, he's very weak.

Especially when contrasted with J.T., who largely steals the show with his villainy. The wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time, as the primary villain in the movie, J.T. rides roughshod over the story as thoroughly as he does over the other characters -- and that's not a bad thing; it's fun to watch him be disgusting and horrible in a human trainwreck kind of way. Clearly Noah Segan was having a blast playing the flat-eyed teen psycho (oh, and I looked him up -- the actor's a Libra. I figured. Librans always have those doll's eyes).

Fourth, the love interest (sorta), JoAnn (played by Candice Accola), is weakly played in the story, so whatever she's supposed to represent to Rickie is lost by the weak characterization of her, so what ultimately happens to her is lessened -- she doesn't have far to fall, because she (and his relationship to Rickie) is only very barely fleshed out. Again, it doesn't convince or persuade beyond a "Oh, sure, what the fuck?" from the audience.

The plot is what the title says it is -- a couple of high school losers find a zombie chick restrained in an abandoned asylum and make her their sex toy/slave. That's it. And it's plenty fucking horrifying, and if they'd just tweaked the script a little here and there, they'd have really nailed it, I think. It does succeed in being incredibly disturbing, and while it may on the face of it appear to be anti-woman, I think it was more accurately anti-man (or anti-teen boy, anyway) -- because the women characters in the movie (including the zombie Deadgirl) are actually sympathetic, compared with the guy characters, who are all creeps and weirdos (with the exception of ineffectual Rickie, who just manages to wince emotionally now and again, and, at least up to a point, display some modicum of decency).

A few more revisions to tighten the story up, a more sharply-written script (better dialogue and characterizations) and a better-cast Rickie would, I think, have made it a canonical horror movie. As such, it emerges as a horrific movie with a lot of dark promise.

I would advise against seeing it if you are a horror movie tourist -- if you enjoy horror movies, you'll be ready for it (and still horrified), but if you're just a tourist, it'll freak you out for sure. I will say that the gore elements of it are understated, but the implications of what's going on are damned horrific.

I just like coming up with blogs

I love coming up with new names for blogs. Mixes of words that nobody's thought of, yet.

This one will be all reviews, all the time. Reviewing everything. Even reviewing reviews, if you're not careful.