Oscar Buzz Bin

"It stinks!"

One of the first posts I wrote for this stupid blog was a super long post with "hilarious" one sentence reviews of all the films nominated for Best Picture for the 2011 Oscars, whether or not I'd seen them or not. Well, it's getting to be that time again and the Oscar buzz is a' buzzin' and yet again, I have no interest in seeing many of these shameless Oscar bait movies. Yet again, the ol' sappy bio-pic is reigning supreme this time of year. Now, I actually went and saw "The King's Speech" in theaters for some unknown reason and it certainly wasn't awful. Great "Acting with a capital A" performances by Geoffrey Rush and that one charmingly shy British bloke, whatever his name is. Overall, though, kinda boring and rather unremarkable as a whole, but as you know, it won best picture AND best director. So, of course all the studios got their bio-pics locked and loaded for Oscar season, rounded up some big name actors and actresses willing to go big or go home and churned out the "For Your Consideration" promo material.

Tragedy and deaths in the family stories also seem to be popular this year, which you know, is just lovely. I have less of an issue with these types of movies than the bio-pics, though. I mean, at this point it's beyond a cliche. It's just shameless, desperate and above all, unoriginal and wholly uninteresting to me. 9 times out of 10 I'd rather watch a fictional story I'm unfamiliar with unfold in front of me than watch someone retell something that already actually happened.

Anyways, here's a bunch of this year's Oscar Buzz Bin movies that I'll probably never watch:

My Week With Marilyn - Michelle Williams might be a babe and all, but I don't need to sit through a 2 hour melodrama about Monroe's fling with some lucky young British turd.

The Iron Lady - Meryl Streep playing the tough old bird former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher? How this wasn't a fake trailer on "The Critic" is beyond me. Apparently you really can't make this stuff up.

J. Edgar - I am a fan of both Clint Eastwood's directorial style AND Leonardo Dicaprio as an actor, but you couldn't pay me to sit through 2+ hours of slogging through J. Edgar Hoover's rise to power. Who gives a shit?

We Bought A Zoo - Nope. Not even Scar-Jo could get me in the door for this one.

The Descendants - I love me some George Clooney, but this one hits far too close to home right now. Will probably never watch. Plus, it's made by the same guy who directed Sideways and I am NOT. DRINKING. MERLOT.

The Artist - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA fuck no.

Guard It Closely

"So you call home for Christmas. It's for certain that they'll cross you off the list. And you can't go home and you won't stay here. Refusing to believe a single word they hear"

Mom

In my 28 years on this planet, I've led a life mostly free of real tragedy and sorrow in comparison to many people in the world. I consider myself very fortunate. Raised in a safe suburb in a upper-middle class family, I had lost very few family members or friends throughout the years. When my aunt Joy died in July from lung cancer, I remembered thinking that this was the beginning of a long series of losses and funerals that I would be attending for basically the rest of my life. Both my immediate and extended family were getting older and that's just the way it goes. I figured I'd better just get used to it. Well, there was no way to ever prepare myself for my mom dying last week.

Greg Halman, 1987-2011

I recently joined Twitter for some stupid reason and thus far have been kind of excited/pleased by the speed and volume of information I can get from my feed, especially on sports and movie news. I may have to reform my opinion on the whole thing because the news I got so quickly while eating some breakfast at 7 AM kinda ruined my day.

Mariners outfielder Greg Halman, one of the few Dutch-born players in MLB, was stabbed to death. He was 24 years old. This news comes just over year after losing Dave Niehaus. The hits just keep on coming.

Halman was one of those Mariners players who had spent most of their time with the organization in the minor league system and one that Mariners nerd fans like myself wanted to be promoted to the big leagues whenever someone on the M's roster was failing and needed to be benched/replaced. He had potential to hit for power if given the chance to adjust to MLB pitching. He was a quality outfielder capable of making tough catches. He got his debut in late 2010 when rosters expanded, but he got a good chunk of playing time in 2011 before getting sent back down to Tacoma. He hit his first major league home run at Safeco with his Dad in the stands. It doesn't get much better than that for a lot of players. That's a moment you can hang your hat on.

Sad. Senseless. Tragic. As small as his contributions were to the team in the whole scheme of things, I appreciated them and for whatever reason, I really liked him as a player. He was intriguing and unique. A black European guy, covered in tattoos, rockin' a chinstrap beard, playing baseball for the Seattle Mariners. From a purely spectator viewpoint, he was fun to watch.

And per usual, Jeff Sullivan at Lookout Landing put it better than I can.

A year ago, Dave Niehaus died. A former coworker and fellow baseball fan texted me the news. Denial. Turned the radio on. The news was true, heart attack. Outpourings of grief. Disbelief. I didn't really know what to do with myself as the news slowly sunk in. I drove down to Safeco Field to pay respects, maybe find some fellow fans as lost as I was. When I arrived, there were more reporters there than fans. After standing awkwardly for a few minutes in front of the home plate entrance where the makeshift memorial was taking shape, I left feeling unsettled.

I still feel unsettled.

RIP Dave.

Shaun of the Dead (2004) dir Edgar Wright

Well, RIP October 2011. We hardly knew ye. November Coming Fire now. I turn 28 next week. That's fucked up. Get off my lawn, you little shits. Here's one last review I wrote the other day:

Wacky Brits and their backwards date formats!

 This flick is a delightful blast of comedy/horror/drama. I figured I'd throw up another softball to help the lady get down with the horror films. Fun fact: the first time we tried to watch it shorty after we started dating, she only made it about 15 minutes into it! She's come so far! I'm so proud!

Now, I've seen this flick many, many times, but it had been a couple years. It's remarkable how the trio of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost hit the ground running so hard with their first proper feature (which is more or less a continuation of the tone from their hilarious TV show Spaced, but within the context of a zombie disaster) and they haven't stopped running since. Just nothing but quality from this crew of Brits.

Anyways, one thing I love about Shaun Of The Dead is amidst all the humor and zombie carnage are a handful of emotional moments that hit unbelievably hard. They're so pitch-perfect that they just kind of blindside you and put a lump in your throat. I have no idea how they were able to pull this off....maybe it's just because I identify so easily with Pegg and Frost's characters. But, it's remarkable that they were able to switch from being funny to "Oh shit, my step-dad is dying right in front of me and he's trying to tell me he's sorry that he wasn't nicer to me when I was younger and that he loves me." That's some heavy shit, man. And Pegg plays these scenes with zero irony and just pure heart. These sorts of scenes don't usally work so well in horror comedies, but helps make Shaun Of The Dead a true one of a kind flick and one that I think will hold up very well in the decades to come.

Inferno (1980) dir Dario Argento

Preface: As I continue to slowly grind through Italian giallo/horror master Dario Argento's body of work, I've come to his semi-sequel to Suspiria. I've heard good things about this one, so let's get witchy already.

1:32: Main chick is reading about the Three Mothers. They destroyed the first one in Suspiria back in ol' Italy, and apparently the second one is in New York. Those Ellis Island employees must have been asleep at the wheel when they let HER in the country, am I right?!?! Huh?!?
2:20: Oh hey, music by Keith Emerson from 70s supergroup Emerson, Lake and Palmer. I have a feeling Moog keyboards will be involved
4:00: I was right!
5:04: It's been years since I saw Suspiria, but I take it the main character is the sister of the bro from that one and she's trying to figure out his crazy ramblings about witches
6:00: Ah, sagely old wise dude. Yes, give her advise. Whoa, not too much! Juuuuust enough to move the plot along. There we go, perfect
WARNING: SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP, DUH!

The Monster Squad (1987) dir. Fred Dekker

As I've mentioned before, my girlfriend is not a fan of horror films. They genuinely freak her out. So as I continue my eternal efforts to slowly expand her genre film appreciation, I started her off this October with the softest of all soft and cushy "scary" movies, The Monster Squad.

This movie was a longtime VHS-only gem. A half-remembered dream from an 80s child's nostalgic memories. I envy all who grew up with this movie and had "Wolfman has nards!" as a part of their vernacular. I didn't see it until they finally released on DVD a few years ago, but I love it all the same. It takes the classic Universal monsters Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein, the Mummy and the Creature From The Black Lagoon and puts them in 80s suburbia, hatching a plot to take over the world with only a ragtag club of kids to stop them. That is pure cinema gold, my friends.

I think it's fantastic that Fred Dekker, a truly talented director, took the time to make a kids horror movie that isn't stupid and doesn't pander just to kids, make it snappy and funny and inject it with some real heart and emotion. It's just an overall great flick that you can show to anyone at any given age and they'll probably dig it.

One thing I love about Dekker is how in both Night of The Creeps (another all-time favorite) and in this flick, all the one-liners are absolute show-stoppers. Dekker clearly knows the lasting power of catchphrases and quotes and it's like someone pulls the needle off a record before each one....shit just freezes for an instant before the goods get delivered. So cheesy, but damn it feels so good.


Also, there's lots of top-notch makeup and creature effects and Tom Noonan is particularly great as Frankenstein.

Ghoulies II (1988) dir. Albert Brand

Ha! More toilet humor! Brilliant!

Preface: Apparently the entirety of the Ghoulies movies are available on YouTube, which is currently far more accessible than their respective DVDs or VHS! Let's fucking party!

2:00: Carnies and Ghoulies, a match made in hell!
5:00: Already more critter action than the first one, all right
8:15: Holy fucking claymation!
9:30: What is with these movies and featuring dwarfs?!?!
11:30: Ghoulies bein' Ghoulies!

Maniac (1980) dir William Lustig

Preface: I'm kinda embarrassed that I haven't seen this yet as it's wildly regarded as a classic trashy slasher from the early 80s, a golden era for this particular subgenre. I mean, look at that fucking cover art! Sweet Jesus! Let's get grimy!

2:32: Heavy breathing, POV of the killer and 2 throat slashings all within first 2 minutes. Here we go!
3:00: Oh shit, it was just a dream!
3:30: Oh god, this guy is weird. He's got a shrine to his dead mom among other weird shit in his room.
6:31: Ah, yes, 1980s New York. Times Square. If there's one place I could time travel to and then IMMEDIATELY LEAVE, it would be here.
7:18: Outlook for these hookers: Not fucking good
WARNING: SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP, DUH!

La Horde (2009) dir. Yannick Dahan, Benjamin Rocher

Editor's note: For the rest of this month's flicks, I'm going to liveblog them as opposed to writing reviews after the fact. Fair warning, this might suck even worse!

Preface: so the last 5 years or so of horror flicks have pretty much been dominated by the French as far as quality goes. I remember seeing a trailer for this flick, which almost certainly contains zombies, and thought it looked pretty decent. Let 'er rip, Netflix!

3:44: AW CRAP SUBTITLES!?!?! Just kidding, subtitles are cool. Makes me feel like an intellectual.
5:00: Some strange robbery plot is afoot, details murky...
6:27: Teehee, French profanity!
7:00: Oh jesus, that is some bad shaky cam action. This is not promising
11:50: OH NO THE ROBBERY IS GOING HORRIBLY WRONG!!!
16:23: Huh, the robber crew are actually crooked cops. Must have missed that detail
17:00: Rut roh, sounds like a zombie apocalypse is brewing down the street...gunshots, sirens, screeching tires...
WARNING: SPOILERS AFTER JUMP, DUH!

Ghoulies (1985) dir. Luca Bercovici

HA! Get it? By "the end" they mean your butt! HA!

The poster art for Ghoulies terrified me as a child. The thought of a lil' green creature dude bursting out of a toilet while I might be sitting on it was pretty much the scariest thing imaginable to me for some reason. I mean, come on, that would really suck, right? You're sitting there, having a peaceful moment to yourself in the sacred silence of the bathroom and then BAM, some lil' dickhead gremlin pops up and bites your ass, or worse. Anyways, had I actually watched the movie back then I would have really saved myself a lot of troubling thoughts. There's only one lil' throwaway shot of a Ghoulie dude poppin' out of a toilet like a jack in the box. No one is even sitting on it at the time! Crisis averted!

Anyways, in the 80s, the horror movie subgenre of lil' creepers became popular. They were usually more cheeky and funny than scary, because I mean they're just lil' gross looking puppets doing stupid shit. Which, of course, totally rules.

So I was excited to finally start the Ghoulies quadrilogy after hearing bad to sorta good to utterly hilarious things about them. And to face my fears of that damn poster art!

Now let's be straight here: this first Ghoulies movie just kind of sucks. You know when you see a horror movie's runtime and it's under an hour and 20 minutes and you're like, "Sweet! Quick and dirty, let's do this." Then you watch it and you're surprised to notice that despite it's short runtime, nothing fucking happens for lenghty portions of the movie and it just drags and drags until something kinda crazy happens at the end? This is one of those flicks. It was the director's first film and boy, does it show.

There's this whole satanic cult angle to Ghoulies which I did not see coming. There are dudes with glowing green eyes (similar to the glowing blue eyes in Dune! And even crappier looking!), there's a duo of dwarf henchpeople that come out of effin' nowhere, there's a hilarious 80s party sequence with some seriously regrettable "breakdancing," and oh yeah, a handful of creepy critter shots sprinkled throughout the movie. The Ghoulies are barely in this one! They get summoned through the satanic bro, then they just kinda kick back and chill and cause some minor havoc towards the end of the movie. Then there's a HILARIOUS and inexplictably Star Wars-inspired showdown between the OG Satanic bro and the mute groundskeeper/secretly Obi-Wan Kenobi character who resembles the Grandpa from Troll 2. You simply can't make this shit up.

Obviously I came into this with my hopes set a bit too high for this sort of movie, but I'm told there is much more creature action in the sequels so I'm excited to see those, especially Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College (actual title!) Hopefully they ditch the satanic angle and just focus more on Ghoulies bein' Ghoulies.

The Thing (2011) dir. Matthijs Van Heijningen Jr.

Haha, you shoot a flamethrower like a girl! Boooo!!

First of all, fuck me for writing this post where I got way too excited, albeit cautiously, about the prospects of this flick. This was a horrible idea from the start and execution was even worse.

Secondly, I've written here before about how I try really hard not to get upset about remakes/reboots, etc because it's ultimately futile and a waste of energy. Hollywood doesn't care what us nerds think or hold sacred. But, god fucking dammit, this movie bothers me. I can't help it. I just love The Thing (1982) so god damn much that I can't help but be offended by this. Here are several reasons why:

-For all the prequel hype the makers drummed up, this is more or less a remake of Carpenter's film. Every signature scene from '82 from burning the remains of the alien outside with everyone standing around it to doing a test to see who's human and who's not is recreated hastily here. Just a total lack of creativity.

-There is ZERO, I mean fucking ZERO tension or suspense. Nor is there any real sense of claustrophobia or bleakness. It has a weak-ass opening scene where some Norwegian mouthbreathers fall into a crevasse and find the alien spacecraft, they do a what I'll generously call a "homage" to the opening title shot of the '82 movie, and then we LEAVE ANTARCTICA (the FUCK?!?!) to get introduced to effin' Ramona Flowers, expert paleontologist of dead animals or some stupid shit. Fucking great guys, let's just stumble into the movie all ass-backwards and forget any sense of dread and mystery the intro to the '82 film had.

-The CG, oh sweet merciful christ, the CG. There were some hopes early on for this movie to have a strong presence of practical effects similar to Rob Bottin's legendary and still disturbing work from the '82 flick. NOPE. The first time the alien bursts out of a dude in this one, it looks like a mixture of something out of a Aphex Twin video and Resident Evil 4. Just really, really cheesy and unimpressive.

-Oh yeah, they decided to fuck with some of the logic behind the alien's abilities. In '82, the lil' bugger could not replicate any non-organic material, with clothing being a big issue. Now, in the 2011 PREQUEL to that movie, clothing is no sweat for it, but stuff like fillings and earrings, etc...now THAT'S the big red flag for everyone. Okie dokie.

-They also altered the alien's behavior. Not only is it way more aggressive in revealing itself to it's victims, but it turns out it just likes to stomp around and chase people down like it's a god damn retard tyrannosaur and not a stealthy, shapeshifting trickster.

-The last third of the moving made me want to throw a brick through the screen. Just unforgivable. We're talking chasing the alien back to the spaceship, having a budget bin version of an already budget bin Alien Vs. Predator-like throwdown on the ship, more TERRIBLE CG including the ship's super tight Windows 95 screensaver navigation system(?!?), a shitty attempt at a "dark" ending and then a lil' kicker over the end credits (which even uses the same same font/ennio morricone theme song from the '82 flick) where it slavishly links up the final events that lead to the beginning of the '82 movie yet pulls every punch possible.

If you're going to make a prequel, make a god damn prequel. Don't just steal shit from the first version and then piss all over it.

God fucking dammit, look at all that. A bunch of paragraphs filled with nerd rage. I'm so embarrassed! DON'T LOOK AT ME! *sobs*

The Hitcher (1986) dir. Robert Harmon

This movie kind of blows in that punch-pulling, middle-of-the-road thriller kind of way. It has a few great moments, but it also makes literally zero sense and requires you to suspend logic in ways you may have thought were previously impossible.

To sum things up, Rutger Hauer decides to terrorize poor lil' C. Thomas Howell (stay gold, Ponyboy!) all across the great state of Texas. During this spree of terror, the following things happen:

- Ponyboy brings this whole god damn mess upon himself by voluntarily picking up a hitch hiker. Whoopsadoodle!
- Rutger Hauer, channeling an insane mixture of David Hess, the Terminator, his character Roy Batty from Blade Runner and his own crazy Dutch self speaks almost entirely in non-sequiturs and riddles as he decides to single out Ponyboy to stalk, terrorize and generally make his life a complete hell.
- Ponyboy ditches Hauer several times throughout the movie and has many "PHEW THANK GOODNESS THAT'S OVER! I'LL NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN!" moments, only to have Hauer show up at perfectly opportune times to frame Ponyboy for various criminal acts and killings.
- During a high speed police pursuit, Hauer shoots down a police helicopter with several well placed shots from a simple handgun. Yep.
- The movie hints several times at the ol' WHAT IF THE HITCHER ISN'T REAL AND IT'S BEEN PONY BOY DOING THIS CRAZY SHIT THE WHOLE TIME WHOOOAAAAAAA!!!! angle, which is the only fucking way that this movie could work. This angle would have actually saved the movie, but the writers must have decided that was just wayyyyy too crazy and to go with the more realistic angle that involves shooting down helicopters with handguns and Hauer surviving multiple car crashes and leaping from the back of a moving bus through the windshield of the following truck. Yep, that makes way more sense. Totally.

The good thing is that this movie actually had a budget somehow and so there are several big ass explosions that look great and all the chase scenes are filmed well and include some pretty insane stunts. The directer clearly had a promising future, which is why he spent the last decade making Jesse Stone TV movies with Tom Selleck.

I had to see this because Hauer is one of my favorite actors and he is pretty awesome in this. Just totally batshit crazy and relentless. So there's that. Plus, they made a direct to video sequel with Jake effin Busy AND a shitty remake with fucking Boromir, so you just know it's worth your time.

Basket Case 2 (1990) dir. Frank Henenlotter

Editor's note: my output has been fucking dismal this October so I'm making up for it with longer and crappier reviews. Lucky you!

If you're a goon for filthy, trashy and gory horror movies, then you probably already know Mr. Henenlotter's name and hold him in high regard. Throughout his film making career, he's done nothing but deliver the goods in the form of low budget, darkly humorous horror gems full of practical special effects and general grossness.

Basket Case, Henenlotter's first feature, concerns this Duane fella who was born with a siamese twin in the form a giant, bulbous head thing with an arm attached to his side. Naturally, this lil' guy known as Belial is just kinda evil and is rage-blackout-pissed all the time. Just super aggro. He can't really talk, so he just screams all the time like Sam Kinison or something. But, he does have psychic link with his bro Duane, of course.

Somewhere along the line, Duane's parents decided to separate the twins. Apparently this was an unethical move because they had to find some sketchy ass doctors who were willing to check their Hippocratic Oath at the door. Duane ends up keeping his evil lil' discarded bro in a basket to hide from the outside world.

Fast forward a few years. Due to the aforementioned psychic link, the bros decide to go to the filthiest burg of them all, New York City in the early 1980s, in order to exact sweet revenge on the doctors who separated them. They do just that, which results in this iconic scene, and lots of other wacky hijinks ensue due to Duane's previously sheltered life getting a big ol' dose of big city reality. It's a great, great flick. Tons of gore and really crappy/awesome creature effects for Belial.

So this here sequel that I intended to write about 4 paragraphs ago, it was filmed 8 years later with same dude who played Duane yet the events of the film are meant to take place directly after the end of the first one. Love it!

Duane and Belial get taken in by a long lost aunt who, bless her kind heart, has devoted her life to sheltering the freakshows of the world. She quite literally has an attic full of freaks she has taken in from all around the world. I mean, who doesn't, right?

Despite this seeming like the perfect place for Duane and Belial to get their chill on, wacky hijinks ensue, freaks assemble to defend themselves from invasive tabloid reporters, Belial continues to be kinda evil despite finding love with a shy female head-arm-thingy simliar to himself named Eve (yes, there's a tender love scene) and it ends with Duane flipping out because he can't be normal in spite of himself and ends up re-attaching Belial to his side with a lil' DIY surgery.

Overall, not as gory as the first one, but all the awesome creature prosthetics are great and it's a generally zany and bizarre lil' flick. And of course, there's still Basket Case 3: The Progeny out there, waiting to be viewed.

OCTOBER 2011 - TO WALK THE NIGHT...

You know the drill. It's god damn October. Watch horror movies and listen to Danzig. Time to party.

THE UNSEEN:

Ghoulies (all of them, finally)
Basket Case 2
Brain Damage
Swamp Thing
Candyman
The Hitcher
Rabid
Shivers
Pumpkinhead
Dark Night of the Scarecrow
The Stepfather (1986)
Monsters
Maniac
Dead and Buried
Deep Red
Black Death
Santa Sangre
The Horde
I Saw The Devil

Gonna make a few trips to Scarecrow Video to see what other jams I can find. Love that place.

Definitely going to catch the probably crappy Thing prequel in theaters and maybe Melancholia if it hits theaters here this month.

Crappy reviews to follow. Happy October, goons.

2011 Seattle Mariners Post-Mortem

Habitually, I went to check the MLB app on my phone this morning while riding the bus to see who was pitching for the Mariners tonight, only to realize that no one is pitching for them tonight and won't be doing so in a game that counts for another 181 days or so. That's a familiar hollow feeling.

The marathon is over and the Mariners finished, but barely. It's hard to believe and even harder to remember that this team was briefly in contention for the AL West or at least for the Wild Card. Then they stumbled. Then they got back on track. Then they lost 17 straight games. 17 fucking games. In a row. After it got around 10 games I just kinda wanted them to just keep losing for the absurdity of it all. They fell about 5 games short of the historical record for consecutive losses. They couldn't even win at losing.

So much went wrong. Not as much as in 2010, but still, so many things went wrong. There was Justin Smoak's multiple injuries and terrible slump after his hot start. There was the Carlos Peguero experiment that lasted about 2 months too long. There was the continued struggle to score runs. Again. Not as bad as in 2010, but still really really bad. Ichiro "slumped" as much as a player like Ichiro can. Yeah, he had a bad month and a half, but falling just short of 200 hits after 11 seasons is hardly a failure in my eyes. Chone Figgins bascially ceased to exist. Milton Bradley continued to be wildly entertaining to watch, but still couldn't hit the ball to save his life. Then he got released around the halfway point. Like it would have made a difference. Oh, yeah and Adam fucking Kennedy batted clean-up multiple times during the season. I mean, come on.

Pitching continued to be a bright spot. Felix had another incredible year and Michael Pineda debuted and had an impressive rookie year. Dustin Ackley made his debut and was every bit as awesome as every smart baseball person said he'd be. Perhaps even better. Mike Carp proved he belonged in the majors after his second call-up of the year and established himself as a legitimate clean-up hitter. There are more promising young players in the organization then any other time I can recall, which does give me some amount of hope for the next few seasons.

I went to about 15 games this year, I think. Sitting in the King's Court for the NL rules "road" series against the Florida Marlins was my favorite. Perhaps my favorite game I've been to at Safeco. Felix became the first Mariner pitcher to get a hit at Safeco. Miguel Olivo hit a clutch home run right to where everyone's "Hit It Here" sign was pointing as we chanted his name. It was glorious. Needless to say, whomever came up with the King's Court promotion deserves a raise.


I also witnessed the 8 run comeback against the stupid Toronto Blue Jays, although that was more the work of Toronto's terrible bullpen than Seattle's batting line-up, but you know, that's why they play the games and all that.

Having a job at Harborview and being able to walk down to the stadium after work provided me with a lot of good times this year. I'm thankful for that. I already miss having that as an opportunity on any given day during a homestand. Something to look forward to next year, I guess.

Watching the results of last nights crazy tie-breaking Wild Card games made me intensely melancholic, nostalgic and jealous all at once. Those moments, those god damn victorious moments, are exactly why people follow this stupid game. They are so glorious because they are so god damn rare. I legitimately worry that the Mariners will never provide me with moments like those ever again. I don't even know what I'd do with myself if the Mariners were to make the playoffs again, let alone get a shot at the World Series. It seems so fantastic and unrealistic. I can't comprehend it. But, the mere thought of such things quickens my heartbeat and gives me shivers.

There's no other way to end this post than by quoting Joe Posnanski since I basically paraphrased/plagiarized him above:

"Elation. Sadness. Mayhem. Champagne. Sleepless fury. Never been a night like it. Funny, if I was trying to explain baseball to someone who had never heard of it, I wouldn’t tell them about Wednesday night. No, it seems to me that Wednesday night isn’t what makes baseball great. It’s all the years you spend waiting for Wednesday night that makes baseball great."

"Heat" (1995) Dir. Michael Mann

Once every year or two, I get a strong urge to re-watch the movie "Heat" for many reasons.

1. I love Michael Mann's visual style
2. De Niro's character and his dedication to professionalism with no words wasted
3. Pacino's character and his wide-eyed freakouts and dogged determination
4. Kilmer's character and his badass ponytail
5. The bank job/shootout scene in downtown LA
6. Incredible soundtrack
7. It was a pivotal movie of my youth

My dad took to me to see it in theaters. I was in 5th grade, which means this movie is now 16 years old. Wow......anyways, I remember it having a ton of hype because the big name actors involved. I don't think I'd even seen "The Godfather" movies at that point, but I knew it was a "big deal" that Al Pacino and Robert De Niro were in the same movie for only the second time ever. My dad was psyched as hell to see it.

We emerged from the theater some 10 hours later (movie is super long, man!) and I was just floored by the whole thing. I didn't comprehend some of the more subtle themes of movie, but it was such a visceral, raw and emotional movie-going experience. It had weight. It wasn't a comic book movie or a hollow action flick. For whatever reason, it resonated with me even then.

And I would revisit the film often as I got older, noticing new cool things about it here and there, quoting some of Pacino's more ridiculous lines and always regarding it as personal favorite of mine. It made me a huge fan of Michael Mann and lead me to discover his earlier gems like "Thief" and "Manhunter." No one tells a crime story quite like Mann. And no one films it as well as he does either. And he can also bust out incredible action/adventure films like "Last of the Mohicans." Okay, enough gushing already.

I think the major reason why "Heat" stuck with me so long as youngin' was that it dealt heavily in shades of gray with its characters and story in ways that I probably hadn't been exposed to much at that point. Pacino is the good guy, the cop, but he completely neglects his family life. De Niro is the bad guy, the bank robber, but he's really a pretty decent human being with many admirable traits. His crew of dudes, Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, the guy who played Cerrano in "Major League", are also decent people trying to provide for themselves and their families. You end up rooting for the bad guys and it's heartbreaking when they lose. The protagonist/antagonist storyline that dominates so many of our fictional stories couldn't be further from reality and sometimes that's what we want. There's nothing wrong with that. Escapism is more fun. But, the accurate portrayal of complicated real life morality in "Heat" is what made such an impression on me and for that I will always appreciate it.

“You know, we are sitting here, you and I, like a couple of regular fellas. You do what you do, and I do what I gotta do. And now that we’ve been face to face, if I’m there and I gotta put you away, I won’t like it. But I tell you, if it’s between you and some poor bastard whose wife you’re gonna turn into a widow, brother, you are going down.”

"I said fuck it, I'm on one"

Dawg days of summer. 3 unrelated thoughts:

• I am currently signed up for two half-marathons, one in Idaho and one in Victoria, BC. 2005 Eric Sanford would not be able to comprehend 2011 Eric Sanford. Progression through unlearning? (cue Snapcase riffs.) 
• "Attack The Block" and its soundtrack, two of the best things to come out this summer. I loved "Super 8," but ATB eclipses it in almost every way. If it's playing near you, go see it. Hopefully it hits DVD soon because I want to watch it like 20 more times.
• Cancer is fucking dumb. Relatives, co-workers, everybody getting hit with it. What a stupid world we live in when we can't even figure out how to fix our bodies when our own cells go all haywire.

Quit bumming me out.

The trailer for the prequel to "THE THING" doesn't make me want to kill myself

Kiiiiind of a sick poster/tagline

In fact, it looks surprisingly awesome. Or, at least, as good as it can look for being a follow-up to one of the best horror/sci-fi movies ever made. From the looks of it, Norwegian director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. just might have gotten the memo on how to not completely botch a remake/prequel/reboot/whatever the fuck they call them these days.

I just watched the trailer and I'm kinda flippin' out a little bit here. Before I say more, go ahead and check it out:

http://www.firstshowing.net/2011/watch-first-full-trailer-for-universals-the-thing-prequel-emerges/

Here are your "MAC WANTS THE FLAMETHROWER!" bullet points:

• Using hints of the original Ennio Morricone score is BRILLIANT because it instantly gave me goosebumps. That is one of my favorite movie scores ever because it fits the desolate, isolated and paranoia-inducing vibe of the movie so well. So, bravo for that.
• The chick who played Ramona in "Scott Pilgrim" seems to have the Kurt Russell role, which is cool and modern and stuff, I guess. Next thing you know they'll give 'em the right to vote and own land! Hiyooo!
• I wish they'd give it a different title just because having to put (2011) after the title will juust annoy movie nerds and video store workers until the end of time.
• Flamethrowers, someone yelling "BURN IT!", that same husky dog, similar wardrobes to the original....all killer.
• Looks like there might be a lilllll' bit too much CGI for my liking, but I'll hold judgment on that until I see it. The brilliant practical effects of the original will probably never be matched or duplicated in this era, but hopefully there's a good amount of real gore.
• The only thing more annoying than remakes of classic movies is complaining and getting all righteously indignant about remakes of classic movies. Hollywood is going to keep shitting on your memories whether you dorks fucking like it or not. So, as someone who holds John Carpenter's original film close to his heart and was dreading this prequel, this trailer is a breath of relief. It could still totally fucking suck (some of the dialogue in that trailer is pretty stilted), but at least it looks like they stayed true to the look and feel of the original.
• October 2011. The annual horror-a-thon plus seeing this flick in theaters. Bring it the fuck on.

"The years they passed and so did we."

Oh, my poor neglected blog. I'm like a kid who ditches an old toy when given a new one. Except that new toy was working full-time again. Whattayagonnado?

It will never cease to amaze me how seasonal and memory-flashback inducing music can be for me. I put on "Dookie" by Green Day and I'm in fifth grade again driving down Ruston Way with my mom on an impossibly warm Northwest summer evening. I hear the Green Album by Weezer, which I just now realized is 10 years old (fuck!), and I'm instantly back in high school in Spring of 2001, driving around Puyallup just blasting that record. I throw on "The Only Reason I Feel Secure" by Pedro The Lion and I remember what a mopey little depressed dipshit I was during my freshman year of college. I put on "Panopticon" by Isis and I suddenly miss stroking my gigantic and gross red beard I used to have and have flashbacks to filing used CDs at Everyday Music. I hear "The Eye of Every Storm" by Neurosis and I feel a chill in my bones as I recall trudging through various snowstorms in 2008.

Anyways, Summer is finally here in the Northwest and I just wanna listen to upbeat music, hang out with friends, go swimming, drink good beer, watch baseball and feel content.

And I want to say rest in peace to one of the kindest people I've ever known, my Aunt Joy Christine Barnes. She lost her battle with lung cancer last week after fighting it for 4 years past the initial diagnosis. She made the most of those 4 years, that's for damn sure. I just returned from her funeral in Southern Maryland, which was one of the saddest, yet profoundly uplifting experiences I've ever had. A lot of people are missing Joy right now and I'm one of them.

"Call it what it what it really is."

A smattering of thoughts:

NEEEEERDS!

• My band Envision played a big ol' show last Friday at the 5th annual Rain Fest at Neumos. Posted some of my thoughts here on the Envision blog. Also, that show marked the release of our 7 song 12" EP, which you can check out right here. I'm really happy with how it all turned out. It sounds great, the vinyl is awesome and the cover and insert look just fantastic. It's a shame it took us over a year to actually put it out, but I'm glad we did. First 12" I've ever been a part of. Maybe we'll finally take a drive down down the coast this summer to play with all our California buds and sell some a couple records.

Pretty self-explanatory

• "Hobo With A Shotgun" finally came to Seattle and I saw it last night. It did not disappoint. Rutger Hauer is one of my favorite lesser known actors (Roy Batty 4 life!) and it was great to see him in a leading role again, even in a flick as utterly trashy as this. He actually brought some dramatic and emotional weight to the role which helped the movie not completely drown in it's own filthy retardation and low budget Canadian-ness. Tons of real gore, zero CG, sick Carpenter/Goblin-inspired soundtrack, hilariously over-saturated colors in every shot and lots of "acting" by complete idiots. Just a completely glorious mess.
• I have come to absolutely despise job applications and job interviews. The impending doom of my cushy temp job ending next month has me stressed the fuck out.
• Following the Mariners this year has actually been fun and doesn't make me want to chug Draino. Hovering around .500 is all I can ask more. Felix, Pineda, Smoak and really the whole rotation and bullpen have been a pleasure to watch so far. This is my favorite thing on the internet right now.
• Algernon Cadwallader has a brand new full-length that I can't stop listening to. The band has willfully leaked it on the interwebz, so I feel okay about posting a download link here. If you're unfamiliar, Algernon is a Cap'n Jazz/American Football worship band from New Jersey and they're just wonderful. Plus, they're playing Seattle again with Jason Clackley (total studmuffin) on June 8th. 
• Paging Mark Henry, you're famous on the internet! 
• Wasabi Peas and Almonds are a delicious combo.

Bellingham: Punks, Hippies, Pizza and Good Music

I lived in Bellingham, WA, from 2002-2007. During that time I earned a mostly worthless degree in journalism, booked a shitload of shows on Western's campus and in various basements around town, played in several bands, had a long term relationship that lasted far too long, worked at a record store for about 18 months, refused to grow up and had a lifetime's worth of good times with friends. My feelings on the city of Bellingham have ranged from blissful to indifferent to hateful and everywhere in between. I wrote at least 2 or 3 regretfully angry and cringe-worthy songs about the place, that's for sure.

Having lived in Seattle for the last 4 years, I've come to realize that my ugly feelings towards the place were more indicative of my own unhappiness with myself during those years. Sure, Bellingham has plenty of annoying shortcomings and utterly bizarre characteristics, but it's just a goofy small college town in the northwest corner of Washington and it certainly has it's own charm. I've been fortunate to make regular trips up their for band practice with my buds in envision for the last 2 years and I really enjoy maintaining a connection with the place. And going to Rudy's Pizza on the regular, of course.

It's come to my attention recently that there is a recent bumper crop of bands playing some particular styles of music that really do it for me and I feel compelled to write about them. Now, obviously I'm no Bellingham expert anymore and my perspective is definitely skewed as an outsider, so take all this with a grain of salt or as the ramblings of ex-Bellingham dickhead on the wrong side of his 20s.

Trees & Stars

15 seconds into the "Kientz EP" and I was sold. My jaw physically dropped. The bands that do the American Football/Mineral/"End of the Ring Wars"-era Appleseed Cast kind of sound this well are few and far between. I mean these guys nail it, but in a way that doesn't sound like a cover band. it sounds like a bizzaro version of those previously mentioned bands that could have easily been a contemporary of them. The opening song "200 Mississippi" gives me chills as it captures feelings of hopelessness and resignation with such flawless, raw authenticity that it's just breathtaking. By the time the last song "Unfortunately, This is The Apocalypse" comes along with its somber trumpet melodies in the background and then the searing reverb-drenched guitar lead kicks in, well, it's pretty much game over. I look forward to seeing this band live some day soon, I hope.

Download/stream the EP here

So Adult

Full disclosure, this band features and has featured in the past some of my favorite people in the world, so I'm highly biased. That said, So Adult seem to have emerged as one of the best and hardest working bands in Bellingham these days, playing tons of local shows and even touring to the East Coast and back. They do an incredible job of paying homage to bands like The Replacements, The Lemonheads, Husker Du and bits of Dinosaur Jr all while delivering catchy tunes that are all their own. Their "Rookie" Ep from last year is one of my favorite EPs ever and they have a full length on the way.

So Adult's Facebook page has some tunes on it you can download/stream.

Anyway, Soon

Another band that totally took me by surprise by doing a Mineral/Sunny Day Real Estate/Appleseed Cast-influenced sound shockingly well. That is to say, this is as wussy as it gets. Which is awesome. What I really like about this four song 2011 demo is how sparse-sounding the songs are. Nothing showy, just mellow guitar noodling and sad sounding melodies all held together by rock solid drumming. The last song, "Listless" showcases the band at it's most Mineral-y and even throws in a nice, warm sounding keyboard line. In case you can't tell yet, I'm a complete sucker for this shit. Also, excited to see this band live someday.

Download/stream a whole bunch of Anyway, Soon's jams here.

Livingston Seagull

This band of Bremerton transplants know how to make compelling pop-punk. It's hard for me to name any solid comparisons, but at times they sound like early-era Jawbreaker and Dillinger Four and then other times get kind of Husker Du-ish. The demo CD-R I picked up from them when they opened for  Algernon Cadwallader has 5 songs on it and they all have a refreshingly raw sound and honest vibe. Not to mention almost frustratingly catchy. Shit gets stuck in my head for days. If someone were to ask me what pop-punk from the Northwest sounds like I would definitely point to this band. There's something just intangibly great and comforting about these songs.


Livingston Seagull is also apparently single-handedly keeping Myspace alive, jam some 'Gull here.

Omnivore

I recently stopped calling myself a vegetarian and have been thinking a lot about kinds of responses I've been getting so far. To be fair, I've been a really shitty vegetarian for a long time, taking occasional meat-cations when the mood would strike or if it was something that was too good to pass up. Baby back ribs and steaks have long been weaknesses of mine. And as any uptight PC vegan warrior would gladly point out, I was technically a "peskatarian" all along since I occasionally ate fish. Mostly sushi because, well duh.

I started going vegetarian around 2004 in an effort to "eat healthier." Well, that didn't really happen for a couple years as I was pretty much just eating the same bullshit without beef, chicken or pork. It wasn't until I learned more about getting protein and other needed nutrients from other non-meat sources that I started getting healthier. I also started losing weight sometime in 2007 due these dietary changes and walking to work and all around Seattle in general. Then I actually started working out again a little bit and lost more weight. Then I met Cassie who got me back in running and now I'm a fucking runner and can do nearly 10 miles with relative ease. These changes would have seem unfathomable in say, 2005.

These changes were partly spawned by the choice to become vegetarian. Now that I'm healthy, I feel perfectly okay with eating meat on a more frequent basis. But, being the environmental sustainability nerd that I am, I like to make the effort to make sure I know the source of the meat, as well as avoiding fast food. For me, it was never about animal rights. It was about reducing impacts on the environment through not supporting the current mainstream food and farming system in America and being healthier at the same time. I still believe in that, but there are plenty of ways to do so and eat meat when you feel like it, too.

But, the way people have been reacting to me not being vegetarian anymore has bothered me. Some act like they won some of competition that I wasn't aware of participating in. Some react in a told-you-so kind of fashion, like it was just a phase. Some just can't believe that I'm no longer the one being picky about what's for dinner and having to be like, "Um, yeah I don't eat chicken soooo..." Which I still kind of do depending on the situation.

I don't think it's fair to call it a phase since it was a choice that helped jumpstart the way view food and a healthy lifestyle. And it just goes to show that despite how much more socially acceptable being vegetarian has become in the last decade or so, it's still one of those stigmas that people (read: meat-eaters) really hold onto as something that's strange or peculiar.

So here's to being an omnivore, but remaining conscious of what you put in your body and where it comes from. Uptight vegan warriors can still fuck off and die.

So I got a dog....

His name is Rookie. He's a Corgi mix of some sort. He's a pretty chill dude, too.

I've never had a dog before so I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing when it comes to all this wacky dog stuff that people do, but luckily I have Cassie to keep me and our new buddy in line. She grew up with dogs.

Our cat is super bummed and envious of all the attention, but she's total jerk and deserves it.

I had to try hard to not write this post in CAN I HAZ CHEEZBURGER-type language, so you're welcome for that.

The 2011 Seattle Mariners: Why I Still Care

The word summer is like a drug to folks in the Pacific Northwest. Just mention it to some pasty white office drone while he's waiting for the bus in the rain in his bright orange Northface windbreaker and goofy looking hiking boots he got at REI and watch him get that faraway look in his eyes while he gets pummeled with memories of sun and swimming and warm evenings and playing in his backyard as a kid until dark and and and and....what else?

Baseball!

My dad pointed out to me once that the opening day of Major League Baseball is the physical proof that we made it through another year and another winter. This rings very true in the northwest and even truer in places where snow covers the ground from October to March.

So to me, the Seattle Mariners, even at their worst, can provide me with good feelings. Especially on a 75 degree day at Safeco Field. I can think of few places I'd rather be at any given moment.

The Mariners home opener is quickly approaching on April 8 and I will be in attendance with the Sanford clan and my girlfriend Cassie. My dad and I have made a point to go every home opener we can, starting back in 2001 (Ichiro's debut, no big deal!). We've missed a few years here and there, but have been consistent the last 4 seasons.

The team lost 101 games last year for the 2nd time in 3 seasons, and I witnessed quite a few of those losses in person. It wasn't pretty. The M's have been a truly bad team for most of this last decade and things won't be getting much better in the near future. Yet here I stand, excited as all hell for another season of punishment.

Why?

Because a day spent watching a bad game of baseball is still significantly better than a day at work or doing something similarly boring.

Because every 5 days or so during the season I get to watch Felix Hernandez, one of baseball's most dominant pitchers and last years AL Cy Young award winner.

Because I get to keep watching Ichiro play the game like no one else does.

Because no matter how much baseball I watch, I'll still probably witness or notice something I've never seen before. At any given game, you never know what you might see.

This perspective is terrifying. Hail to the king, baby.

The 2011 season will be significant for another much more depressing reason. It's the first season in the team's entire 34 year existence that Hall of Fame announcer Dave Niehaus won't be in the booth doing the play-by-play. The man who narrated all of the team's most memorable and most mundane moments died last November of a stroke.

Back in the Kingdome days

Now, I never met the man, but when you've accumulated an absurd amount of hours listening to someone call your team's baseball games, year in and year out, you come to feel like you know him. He was funny, well-spoken, had an instantly recognizable voice and wasn't afraid to call out the home team for poor play. When the M's truly struggled, you could hear the frustration in his voice. He was on your side. The fan's side.

Ken Griffey, Jr. said in an interview after Dave's passing that it was like everyone's grandfather had just died. I can personally say that I've never been so affected by the passing of someone I never met, but god dammit, it still hurts and it's only going to hurt more when the regular season starts without Dave for the first time. That's one aspect of this season I'm not looking forward to.

I'll end this post here even though I have more Mariners-related thoughts to share, but I'll save them for another day.

Rest in peace, Dave Niehaus.
Go Mariners.

"Battle: Los Angeles" (2011) dir. Jonathan Liebesman

You know your movie isn't very interesting when this poster just probably just makes most 20-somethings wonder what the band 311 is up to these days.

Well, I liked this movie better when it starred Will Smith and was called "Independence Day," but this was a decent lil' thrill ride. Bullet points!

• First off, what a stupid fucking title! My brain just puts an "Of" in there every time, which makes me think of the Rage Against The Machine record of the same name, which makes me think of 10th grade, which makes me realize that was like 11 god damn years ago which is insane. Almost as insane as aliens blitzkriegin' the shit out of Los Angeles. 
• Aaron Eckhart plays the lead role as the middle-aged marine about to put in his papers to retire when a bunch of nameless, nondescript aliens drop into the Pacific and start hangin' ten off the coast of Santa Monica. What a rude stunt to pull on a American hero on his last day of work. Sheesh!
• Will Smith will always be much more fun to watch than Aaron Eckhart. But, the one leg up this flick may have over "Independence Day" is that there was no computer virus involved in bringing down the alien spaceships. But, then again, it didn't have Jeff Goldblum either.
• Michelle Rodriguez stops by to play Tough Soldier Chick (Trademark), spits some sarcastic one-liners and impresses the stereotypically chauvinistic male soldiers. Check, check and check.
• The shaky-cam action flick has been around for quite a while now and isn't going anywhere it seems, and I'm still torn on it. Some flicks pull it off better than others, especially when it's used sparingly. But, "B:LA" just feels like I'm watching my friend John play a wild-ass, but terribly predictable first person shooter video game.
• Why, god, why would aliens that flew through space from another planet/universe have guns that shoot bullets? I'd be pretty bummed if Earth got taken over by a bunch of under-achieving lazy punk aliens who can't even develop cool shit like lasers to shoot humans with. COME ON.

Go see this if you need an alien invasion movie fix to tide you over until "Super 8" this June. Otherwise, peep it on cable some day when you've run out of "Man Vs. Food" repeats to watch.

Emerald City Comicon 2011

Set phasers to NEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRDDDDD - photo by Jim Berry

I just got my 3 day pass to this year's Emerald City Comicon on March 4th-6th and it got me all excited and nostalgic about the previous cons I've gone to.

I remember when my good bud and then roommate Keith roped me and our roommate John into going with him to ECC in 2007. He probably said something like, "Yeah, it's a total shitshow full of mouth-breathing dorks, but it's really fun and there are lots of deals to be found and some cool folks to meet." And that was that. The three of us rolled down from Bellingham to the Qwest Field Event Center, took photos with Star Wars dorks, met comedian Brian Posehn, I bought an old Transformer for probably way too much money and had a general good ol' nerdy time. I loved it. I was hooked.

Keith Tusken Raider-ing John

Keith was also key in getting me back into comics in the first place. I absolutely loved the X-Men in the early 90s like every sane boy my age and made many trips to The Spider's Web on River Road in Puyallup, WA, to buy as many X-Men related comics and trading cards as I could afford. But, then you know, I started noticing girls and playing hockey and other stuff teenagers from the suburbs do and kinda forgot about comics.

Years later, when I moved in with Keith, John and sometimes Alex at the legendary-in-our-own-minds "Bro Compound" on Humboldt Street in Bellingham, Keith showed me some newer, more violent and off-the-wall comics like "Punisher: MAX," "Preacher" and "Y: The Last Man." Slowly, but surely I started checking out more newer comics and trades (or "Graphic Novels" as high-brow arty folks who don't want to admit they read comic books call them) and have been reading weekly comics since 2008 or so.

Getting back to why I really enjoy going to ECC every year, it's really just the whole experience. Where else am going to get to hear Leonard Nimoy read excerpts from his poetry, see Thomas Jane drunkenly amble around the con or drool over Kaylee from "Firefly" from afar? And don't even get me started the folks who dress up as various comic book and movie characters. It's just a totally authentic freakshow of nerdy humanity and I love it.

Keith: Dude bro, you were awesome in "Deep Blue Sea!"

Tom Jane: "Yeah, whatever, check out this shitty comic I wrote." 

Since 2007, it has grown an incredible amount in size, popularity and in the notoriety of its celebrity guests. In 2008, it switched venues to the Washington State Convention Center in downtown Seattle, which is better for its size and close proximity other businesses downtown like restaurants and such. And it expanded to three days this year for the first time instead of two, which I think will make for a more relaxed atmosphere.

Another thing I love about ECC are the celebrity and writer/artists panels. This is where a bunch of con-goers cram into a conference room and listen to the guests talk about pretty much whatever they feel like. And if you're lucky, they'll allow part of the panel to be Q&A. This is where people really let their freak flags fly and ask the most absurd, obscure and/or utterly embarrassing questions. And the best part is how unflinchingly nice almost all the guests are, no matter fucking stupid the question. They know that these folks are the ones that make it possible for them to have careers and these are the true blue fans, so they better not make them angry if they want to keep making money playing make believe with fictional characters. But, like I said, it's witnessing these kinds of jaw-droppingly weird and embarrassing interactions alone that make the price of admission well worth it.

This year I'm mostly excited for a handful of writers and artists, but most of all for Jeff Lemire. He writes "Sweet Tooth" which is probably my favorite comic on the rack these days and also wrote the heart-breakingly sad and awesome "Essex County." He was there last year, too, but at that time I was unfamiliar with his brilliance, but luckily I had the foresight to buy "Essex County" from him and ask him to sign it. That's the other cool thing about these cons. The writers and artists will sign pretty much anything you want them to for free and are almost always really friendly and will shoot the shit with you about their work. Some artists will do sketches of their characters for you for a small fee, too, if you're into that.

I definitely want to catch Wil Wheaton's panel. He's most well known for playing Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" back when he was a teenager, but he now he's a writer and occasional actor and is one of the most genuine and hilarious public speakers I've seen. He usually reads a bit from his books and tells embarrassing stories from his Star Trek days. Always a good time. He's been a guest at ECC every year since I started going.

The big name this year is William Shatner. I'm no trekkie or anything, but I think Shatner is pretty hilarious in general and I definitley want to catch his panel on Saturday. Leonard Nimoy was the big name last year, and Stan Lee of course, but Nimoy's panel was absolutely hilarious and had the aforementioned poetry reading and some of the best/worst Q&A questions I've ever seen. So I'm sure Shatner's panel will be totally ridiculous.

Con-life, baby. I'm ready for it.

"Cool Hand Luke" (1967) Dir. Stuart Rosenberg

Whoooaaa the 60s, mannnnnn.

As I watched this movie for first time in a good 5 years or so, my girlfriend asked me why I liked it after the 3rd or 4th time something horribly demoralizing happens to ol' Luke in the southern prison camp he gets tossed in after a night of drunkenly chopping off the tops of parking meters. It was a fair question that made me pause, but I came up with a few reasons.

• The most obvious reason is Paul Newman. This was one of his career defining roles they say and you can't help but like his rascally and uppity nature. Newman was 42 when he made this movie, his hair was already starting to grey, but he was really in his prime from what I can tell. The dude was a stud. And I swear to god, 75% of his dialogue begins with "Yeah, well....(enter nonsensical musing here)."
• Maybe one of the reasons I like this movie is that my dad used to quote the famous line "What we have here....is a failure....to communicate" all the damn time when I was younger. That's definitely the reason I sought out the movie in the first place. It's a movie from his generation and it's from the turbulent late 60s which makes it interesting to me on it's own. And Newman's character has been highly influential on damn near 50 years worth of movie protagonists who love to stick it to the man, mannnn.
• The score by Lalo Schifrin is awesome, with a great, simple main theme played on a guitar and some other kinda wild parts like this one song that sounds like several banjos looped with reverb on it. Pretty cool.
• The whole movie is an exercise in subtlety. We hardly know a damn thing about Luke or what has gone on in his life or why he has such a hard time with authority. We get one glimpse into his back-story when his ailing mom, step-brother and nephew roll up in a pickup truck to visit him. Hardly a god damn thing is explicitly said, but we can deduce that Luke's father took off before he was born, his mom is dying from emphysema, he's had a complete falling out with most of his family, he almost got married but shit fell apart and he was always his mom's favorite son. He is stand-offish, but perhaps only because he's embarrassed of his situation. You can tell he cares deep down. They give him his old banjo, his mom is seen silently crying knowing this will be the last time she sees her son and that's it. When Luke receives word later that his mom died, his reaction is utterly heartbreaking.
• The movie must have made a big impression on me when I first saw it because I named one of my old bands after the character Dragline, played by George Kennedy (who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor). Dragline's character arc is very interesting. He starts out as morally nebulous and as the top dog amongst the prisoners, he bristles at Luke's smirking and uppity attitude. He's set up as a villian; a huge, hulking illiterate southerner with questionable motives. On Saturdays, the guards allow boxing matches between the prisoners and Dragline naturally challenges Luke and pummels the shit out of him, but Luke refuses to go down. He just keeps getting back up after every knock down. Later that night, Luke bluffs his way to win a huge pot at poker with a nothing hand. After that, ol' Dragline decides he likes Luke's non-traditional ways and becomes his loyal friend and supporter of all of Luke's future antics. But, when Dragline comes along on Luke's final escape attempt, he has that classic and sad "Aw, shit, I've been in prison too long and the outside world scares me" realization and knows that he can't hang with Luke's brash nature.

Watching this movie in 2011 is a bit weird since the cultural context has changed so much, but as far as old and "classic" films go I find "Cool Hand Luke" to be highly watchable and equally funny and sad. I can't say the same for that many older films.

How to bum out your girlfriend in 20 movies or less

Months ago, my girlfriend expressed interest in learning more about movies. She's not a movie nerd like me, but she knows good flicks when she sees them and definitely has specific tastes, not to mention an incredible memory for what she hears and reads. Like we'll watch a movie once and she'll quote back the whole thing at random times and I'll be like, "huh?" I still regularly botch quotes from "Super Troopers" and I've seen that movie an excessive amount of times.

But, there are a great many classic or well-known movies that she hasn't seen yet. I was excited that she wanted to learn more so I made a list of 20 movies that I thought she should see at some point for a variety of reasons. Some are personal favorites of mine, some are important benchmarks in their genres and some are just kinda standard classics. We were in the midst of a year long LDR when I made the list and she didn't want to watch them alone, so the list had to chill for a while. Recently, my girlfriend moved across the country to live with me here in Seattle because she's awesome like that and we have begun to attack the list.

Here's the list, which is no real particular order:

1. Blade Runner (1982) dir. Ridley Scott
2. The Godfather (1972) dir. Francis Ford Coppola
3. Rashomon (1950) dir. Akira Kurosawa
4. Rear Window (1954) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
5. Heat (1995) dir. Michael Mann
6. Alien (1979) dir. Ridley Scott
7. Aliens (1986) dir. James Cameron
8. Full Metal Jacket (1987) dir. Stanley Kubrick
9. RoboCop (1980) dir. Paul Verhoven
10. Akira (1988) dir. Katsuhiro Otomo
11. Princess Mononoke (1997) dir. Hayao Miyazaki
12. Jaws (1975) dir. Stephen Spielberg
13. Cool Hand Luke (1967) dir. Stuart Rosenberg
14. The Outsiders (1983) dir. Francis Ford Coppola
15. Stand By Me (1986) dir. Rob Reiner
16. The Terminator (1984) dir. James Cameron
17. Die Hard (1988) dir. John McTiernan
18. The Thing (1982) dir. John Carpenter
19. Rocky (1976) dir. Sylvester Stallone
20. Phantasm (1979) dir. Don Coscarelli

As you can see, that's a pretty dudely list that's heavy on the horror, sci-fi and action flicks. The girlfriend has a strong aversion to horror films because they genuinely freak her out and cause visceral reactions. I keep telling her this is awesome because I haven't had those sorts of reactions to many horror flicks since I was a young buck. So I'm excited to show her some shining examples of the genre and hopefully she won't break up with me after she watches "Alien" for the first time.

The other night, we started in on the list and she chose "Cool Hand Luke" to watch first. I hadn't seen it in a good 5 years I'd say, so it was fun watching it again and I'll post a "hilarious" review soon here, and will probably do the same for these flicks as we watch them. If we make it through half of them and she's still speaking to me, I'll consider our relationship solid as a rock!

A preview of "Drive Angry 3D" and why Nicolas Cage is one of my favorite actors

As previously mentioned, I really enjoy Nicolas Cage movies. There are 3 categories of Nicolas Cage movies. There are the objectively good ones, where he was actually trying to give a good quality dramatic performance like "Raising Arizona," "Adaptation" and "Leaving Las Vegas" (for which he won an Oscar for Best Actor).

Then there the arguably good Nic Cage movies, and these are some of my all-time favorite movies in general. Flicks such as "The Rock," "Face-Off" and "Con Air" all display Cage's now infamous wide-eyed craziness and tendency to go overboard on delivering his dialogue, which help make these movies endlessly entertaining and very quotable. So, you can make the argument that despite the flaws and over-the-top nature of these sorts of Nic Cage flicks, they are still fun to watch and generally well-made action movies.

2 things: 1) He's Castor Troy and 2) WOOOOOOOOOO

Then there's the genuinely bad Nicolas Cage movies. The ones he clearly made just to get paid and he probably didn't really give it 100%. This makes up a good chunk of his recent output. As I understand it, he blames his financial adviser, whom Cage is suing, for stealing his money and mishandling his taxes among other grievances. So the dude is basically broke and will more or less do any movie he's offered. This has led to such gems as "Next," "Knowing," "Season Of The Witch," "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," and "Bangkok Dangerous." And that's only the last 2 years or so. All objectively "bad" movies, but all fairly entertaining. Some more than others. Like the remake of "The Wicker Man," one of my personal favorites of this sort.

Bottom line, I respect the man's work ethic and I can usually find some sort of redeemable quality amidst all mind-boggling crappiness.

So let me tell you why I am excited for "Drive Angry 3D."

1. Nic Cage.
2. I love 3D movies. That is one gimmick I can get behind.
3. I love revenge flicks, and this one looks chock full of it.
4. Hot chicks are a big plus.

Plus, it seems like there's satanic cult/exploitation movie angle to this flick that I wasn't expecting from the initial teaser trailer.

Some other things we can deduce from the full trailer:

• Hell is indeed already walking the earth.
• David Morse must also really need work.
• Lots of badass muscle cars, naturally.
• Some devil cult killed Cage's daughter and stole her baby, so there you have it: THE PLOT!
• Satan's administrative assistant, played by William "HE'S GOT SPACE DEMENTIA" Fichtner, is out to bring Cage back to hell or something.
• Yep, that's a hatchet cutting off a bit of Cage's hair (well, probably a wig) in slow motion, deal with it.
• Brief shot of April from "Eastbound and Down," glad to see she's getting work.
• Hot chick with a southern accent, short shorts and very unclear motives: check, check and check.
• Lots of explosions, flying cars, Nic Cage's badass gun and some very questionable CG.
• And for the record, Nic Cage is not concerned in the least about his chances of being let back into hell. Just so we're clear. Good.

Welp, sign me up.

"The Mechanic" (2011) Dir. Simon West

Ben: So, uh, Jason...you wanna...uh, get some beers later? Maybe pick up some chicks?

Ben:........Jason?

Jason: I'm sorry, mate. What's your name again?

Ben: (sigh)

Two of my favorite actors together in an action movie about professional hitmen directed by the guy who made "Con Air," what could go wrong?

Well, a shitload could go wrong actually. And it did.

First of all, Jason Statham is awesome. The dude has made himself into one of the very best action stars of the 2000s. From getting his start in British crime movies like "Snatch" to blasting his way through punk-ass eurotrash henchmen in the "Transporter" movies. Not to mention the insanity of both "Crank" movies and even stealing the show in the woefully underachieving "The Expendables." And he's done it all with full-on male pattern baldness! He just doesn't give a fuck.

Ben Foster, on the other hand, is an actual "Actor" with a capital A. No one plays a troubled or slightly crazy young man with issues better than this guy. He's got that shit down pat. He gained notoriety in small, but scene-stealing roles in "3:10 To Yuma" and "30 Days of Night" and then gave an incredible performance opposite crazy-ass Woody Harrelson in "The Messenger" as an Iraq War veteran given the duty of going around to the families of soldiers who died in combat and giving them the awful news. It was one of the very best films of 2009 and it was a bit overlooked by most folks. He was also awesome in the sci-fi flick "Pandorum."

So, with a real critically acclaimed role under his belt, I guess Foster decided it was time to do a fun action flick. I know I would if I were him. Sounds like a good time. But, maybe he should choose his scripts a bit more carefully in the future because this is clearly a one-star kind of movie. Statham and Foster never really show any kind of chemistry, not even in an adversarial kind of way. This is definitely not a buddy-buddy kind of action flick, their characters form an uneasy sort of bond. But even then it still felt very forced.

No real motives are given for why any of the characters do what they do. We have no idea why Statham is a hitman, we just know he's really damn good at it and his "fixer" is played briefly by Donald Sutherland of all people. Then he dies and his son, played by Foster, is total fuck-up but wants to somehow avenge his dad's death, Statham reluctantly tries to mentor him and it all just kinda falls apart and doesn't really go anywhere until the completely absurd ending.

Clearly I'm devoting far too much thought to a shitty action flick that got dumped off in January, which is where Hollywood buries the flicks they already know are intrinsically bad and won't make much money. That's what happens to completely unnecessary remakes of Charles Bronson movies that no one saw the first time around. But, you know, shit got blown up, bad dudes got their bones broken and Jason Statham was a badass.  There was just no need for 2 major stars here. I think Foster could definitely rock his own action flick and hopefully he will some day.

The Appleseed Cast - "Steps and Numbers"

Perhaps my favorite song by this band. I've been feeling this band really hard the last few months. Just the wimpiest of wimpy jams. I highly recommend both "Low Level Owl" records.

When the outro kicks in at the 4 minute mark, it is just chill-out city, population: you.

"Do you feel alone in the secret? Are you standing there just weeping? Do you feel the light is gone?
Is it hard to remain strong in the face of all you know in a world that's brought you low?

Stand there, dance with. Stand there dance with a memory. The caption reads, 'It's all over now.'"