Shit Gets Hairy....

Sorry. I'm just in one of those moods today, hence these pointless, sophomoric posts.





But c'mon, man.....even the most mature, sophisticated Joe should find this funny. No? Fine, then.

Wanna fight about it??

Just 'Cause.....

......this made me laugh out loud. Yes, I'm juvenile like that.

Book It! 2008 - Shutter Island

I can admit that I'm cheating a bit. By reading books that are in the process of being adapted into feature films, ones being made by highly-respected filmmakers, I'm sparing myself the experiences of reading shitty prose and sticking to quality lit. If a book is being turned into a movie, then odds are its a pretty good read, right? Safe to assume, no? Seems so to muah.

So thus far, in my newly-ignited penchant for readin a good book, I've breezed through a pair of great novels: Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and Jose Saramago's Blindness. And I've had basically nothing but praise for both, and very rightfully so. And in my recapping here about Blindness, I hailed it as the best book I've ever read, or something along those lauded lines. And at that point, it damn sure was.

But such an honor has been dethroned faster than the New York Yankees atop MLB's dominant-chair (sorry to all my die-hard Yanks fans/friends....I just can't avoid a good and factual play-on-words). Enter Dennis Lehane's mind-blowing, page-turning, head-scratching, and for yours truly, infinitely-inspirational work, Shutter Island.



Lehane, a Boston-area native, is no stranger to having his books become movies---both his Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone were turned into stellar flicks, by Clint Eastwood and Ben Affleck, respectively.

But the pedigree involved in the movie version of Shutter Island, scheduled for October of 2009 release, was more than enough to get me intrigued.....

Director = Martin Scorcese
Actors = Leonardo Dicaprio, Sir Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer (who was great in the slept-on Transsiberian), and Mark Ruffalo (who is quickly becoming one of my fave actors)

And then I found out that Shutter Island has a mysterious, gothic, seriously-macabre tone to it, and my geekdom went into overdrive. Think about that.....Scorcese directing an eerie, unsettling, gothic psychological thriller? That's fucking sweet music to my macabre-loving ears! [I kinda hope they dont change the film version's title to the rumored Ashecliffe, though; Shutter Island just sounds much stronger to me. And besides, that's the original's name, for crying out loud!]

But man, oh man. Marty S. has his hands full, my friends, because Lehane's Shutter Island is absolutely brilliant. Seriously. It's certainly a book tailor-made for a talented filmmaker to transform into a live-action creation, but by-God Scorcese better stick to his source material as closely as possible here. This book is the tits, man! I only put it down maybe four times, and those were either due to need-for-sleep or my PATH train stop had arrived, unfortunately. I'd MUCH rather have stayed within Shutter Island's vice-grip than be at work, but that's not neither here nor there.

I'm not going to get into any real specifics about the story itself here, because truthfully, I really want those around me go pick it up, like right now, and immerse themselves in it, so I have somebody to talk about it with. I'm sitting here pissed off as I type that I can't engage in a thoughtful chit-chat about the insanity and density that I just read. I honestly may not even get a good night's sleep tonight; the story is still unraveling and festering within my thoughts. I can't stop mulling over it.

I will, though, give a very-brief synopsis, just to entice those reading this....the calendar reads 1954, and U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels is sent on assignment to Ashecliffe Hospital, a home for the criminally-insanse-and-dangerous located on the remote Shutter Island, which is near Boston. He's assigned to go there with a partner he's never met before, Chuck Aule, and together they're supposed to locate a missing patient, a woman named Rachel Solando, who killed her three children and is batshit crazy. But as the two Marshals begin noticing how no person in Ashecliffe--including the wardens and the medical staff, led by Dr. John Cawley---seems to give a shit about the Solando disappearance, a freak hurricane hits, making any hopeful departure off the isle impossible, and strongly fatal. And this is where shit really gets heavy, with patients riots, mysterious surgeries, and tons more. TONS. MORE.

Suffice it to say, the story goes in places that I never imagined it would, directions I couldn't believe were being taken. Lehane's command of dialogue and character development, and just his handling of prose in general, is so superior, its a bit scary. I'm most certainly going back to read his entire book-ography now, surely on my to-do list. He's a writer that inspires aspiring scribes such as myself.

Reading Shutter Island could very well be a serious life-defining moment for me, just like seeing the film Grindhouse on opening day was for me last year. Both experiences are similar in that---and not to trivialize what I used to be so focused on or what any of my associates still do in any way; this is just my personal stance on the matter---they've each woken me up, to just how lame hip-hop writing really can be. For a lad like me, at least. I'll save my deep thoughts on this stance for a future posting, but I really challenge anybody to read a book like Shutter Island and try to make a case for ANY MODERN-DAY RAP ALBUM in terms of being more substantial or worth my time in a greater sense. And yes, this means Lupe Fiasco albums, or Nas albums. And don't get it twisted--I love both dudes' music. But there's no contest here, man.

Writing about lames like Flo Rida and Lil Boosie is a joke, really. What value will they have ten years from now? Fuck it---three years from now? I'm just saying, from here on out I'm focusing on covering things that really register with my heart and my brain, things that I can look back upon years from now and be proud that I shared a piece of it at one point in time. Things like a cinema-going experience such as the one I had while seeing Grindhouse. Speaking to those involved with it, picking their brains and delving into a genuine piece of singular, untainted, blood-and-sweat-soaked vision. Things like the novel Shutter Island, a stunning piece of art that can be digested numerous times, and most likely won't ever lose its impact.

Shutter Island makes me want to become a better writer. Makes me want to command my prose even half as well as Dennis Lehane. Makes me want to joggle my brain for narrative ideas and concepts, because I know I have a plethora of them buried in my head, I just need to shake them out a bit.

Makes me want to nurture and capitalize upon the talent I know I possess, a talent that I truly feel hasn't even scratched the surface. Not even one fingernail-ful of dirt.

Shutter Island is the exact kind of story I hope to one day tell and write: a superior work of fiction that consistently entertains, takes it time with exposition and character nurturing, grips the reader in a vice of tension and suspense, and then totally pulls the rug from under their reading-feet and sends their minds to a place where confusion and spine-tingles co-exist.

The Scorcese adaptation has just catapulted to the Number One Spot on my "2009 Most Anticipated Films" list, leap-frogging over The Wolfman and Watchmen.

Here is the writer who could have very well (only time will tell, for sure) changed my life (may sound a bit dramatic, but I'm so-sinsur), Dennis Lehane:



**And here's a couple of on-set images from the Scorcese flick....DiCaprio plays "Teddy Daniels," while Michelle Williams (yes, Heath Ledger's late baby mama, who just happens to be a pretty damn fine actress in her own right) plays Daniels' late wife, "Dolores"

Foxy!! <----Laziest Headline Ever

From her new cover story/shoot with the always-splendid GQ Magazine.....admittedly, I've surely thought that Megan Fox is "hot and sexy" since seeing her in TRANSFORMERS, but unlike nearly every other straight dude on Earth, I've yet to go 100% ga-ga over her.

Well, until now that is.....this shots have converted me. Sleeper, no more. Holy macerole! (as my grandfather would say).....









....posted here for no other reason than to have a quick stop for yours truly to salivate over them whenever yours truly deems necessary. Nothing more, nothing less....and that whole "now I'm sweating Megan Fox" intro above, while true, was just to make this seem less gratuitous.

Mission failed, miserably.

A Musical Massacre

I hate musicals. Never have seen, and probably never will see, ever, MOULIN ROUGE, nor CHICAGO. Call it close-minded or whatever, but there's plenty other things I'd rather do than listen to people sing and dance and shit.

But a couple weeks ago, I did, out of unstoppable intrigue, see a new horror-music-rock-opera called REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA. And I expected to hate it, but to my surprise, I really dug it. Sure, some of the acting is terrible and/or over-done, but overall its a pretty unique, fun little ride. Sort of like a new-age ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, if you will. Nowhere near as dope as SWEENEY TODD was, but still a good time.

Oh, and it has Paris Hilton in it, and she's shockingly tolerable. Even kinda sexy in a Goth chick way throughout.



Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, a dude who needs to intake some Ritalin while directing typically (those flash cuts and quick edits in his SAW movies are annoying and I hate them, with a passion), but he's a tad more subdued here with REPO!, and it works wonders. I no longer consider him a full-blown hack. Rejoice.

Comes out in early November. Worth a look if you're the type who digs for one-of-a-kind art.

Netflix Fix -- Cannibal Holocaust

[DISCLAIMER: A couple of the pics I'm posting here may be a bit groos, a bit now-I-wanna-vomit, and even a bit jesus-Matt-really-is-a-weird-fuck....but whatever, the pics help illustrate some of the points I'm trying to make here...and besides, if you wanna read about sappy, romantic, political, and/or social issue stuff, go to those other blogs. M.B.'s World is a bit stranger....]

Being a lover and appreciator (is "appreciator" even a word? if not, it should be....it rolls off the tongue quite nicely) of horror and darkly-tinged film, it's only natural that, from time to time, I finish a movie feeling a bit dirty. In need of a shower. In need of a Disney experience, even. Because, you see, certain movies drip of depravity, of foulness, and while watching them, you can't help but ask yourself, "Why in the hell am I watching this, voluntarily? Is this giving me EZ-Pass to Hell by doing so? Does this make me a sick fuck for doing so?"

This doesn't happen very often with me, truthfully, perhaps because I've seen so much crazy shit on film that it takes tons to make me cringe and feel filthy as a spectator. But holy shit, I've never, never, ever felt as wrong as I just did while watching Cannibal Holocaust. Just the title alone should suggest just how wrong this movie is. But the title alone is miniscule indication of just how wrong it is.



It's a film that's been in banned in countless countries, and as far as I know, is even restricted from Blockbuster and other video chains. The only places to acquire it on DVD are like Netflix and Ebay-like websites. It's one I've read about and heard about for many years now, whether through the various horror sites I visit daily or whatever other horror fanboy shit I've been involved in. And I knew that I'd never be considered a true horror hound if I've never seen Cannibal Holocaust, raw and uncut.

And my god, all of the hype and controversy is deserved, tenfold. Twentyfold. Four-thousand-and-fiftyfold. It's one of those movies where you can't fully tell whether what you're watching is staged or just some snuff film footage wrongly released commercially (its fake, for the record, but damn if its not convincingly executed). Made back in 1979 9but released in 1980) by Italian filmmaker Ruggero Deodato, Cannibal Holocaust is about a professor from NYU who is hired to find four 30-something documentarians who went to the Amazon Jungle's "Green Inferno" (an area where no White man has ever been able to survive and is inhabited by two savage cannibal tribes) and never were heard from again. So he goes there, links up with a grizzly tour guide and his equally-grizzly associate, and bravely enters the Green Inferno zone, where he makes good with the tribal folk and uncovers the crew's film cans next to their skeletal remains. Fun for the whole family, clearly.

The first half follows the professor and his journey, and then once he returns to the states with the film cans, the rest of Cannibal Holocaust is a mixture of his meetings with investors looking to release his findings as a documentary and the actual raw footage of the departed.



There are films that go off the deep end, and then there's Cannibal Holocaust, which is shot out of a Godzilla-sized slingshot and is hurled mailes over the deep end's line. Jesus, man. Nothing is left unseen. Everything from human sacrifice rituals to animal slayings are shown in all their wrong glory. The human murders aren't real, of course, but all of the animal slayings are, in fact, real. Yes, many an animal was hurt during the making of this film. A baby pig is shot in the had at point blank range. An overgrown turtle is dragged out of the water, laid out on its backshell, and decapitated, and then its limbs are all severed, and then its shell is smashed with a machete. A cute-little chimp's top-half-of-head is sliced off. And again, this is all shown, front and center.



And then there's what happens to some of the humans here. Honestly, a lot of this stuff, I couldn't even fully watch without looking away, cringing in disbelief and disgust. But like any good trainwreck, I couldn't totally step away. I had to make it to the finish line, here. For my own piece of mind. But man....one tribeswoman, assumed to have been sexually promiscous, is dragged through mud, then has an egg-shaped rock repeatedly, and violently, jammed through her you-know-what, and a clump of mud stuffed in her you-know-what, and then, just for good measure, she's bludgeoned to death by that egg-shaped rock. A guy is held against a tree by the tribesmen as his you-know-what is sliced off with a sharp rock, and then his limp body is eaten up.

Hmmm, what else....Oh yeah, how could I forget: a poor virginal tribesgirl is gang-raped by the three male documentarians, and then, since she's no longer pure, has a 10-or-so-foot spear jammed through her body, and this spear is then stood upright out in the open. Oh, and there's also the most vile abortion scene you could ever imagine, one I honestly don't even want to type out in written form. I'd rather just forget about it.



Although forgetting about anything I've just seen is pretty much impossible.



Do I feel proud for having watched this film? Call me sick or crazy, but hell yeah I do. Cannibal Holocaust isn't a film that should ever be critiqued, or reviewed in a traditional sense. I can't imagine anybody ever calling it a "great" or "superb" film; an important and groundbreaking one, sure. Both are valid. It's a film that can only be measured on how much the viewer(s) can endure; how much they can sit through. I made it through, from start to finish, so I shall pat myself on my back, no question.

But as I ponder it a bit more, I'm starting to grasp what Deodato may have intended here, the statements he aimed to get across, in brutal unflinching fashion. I eat chicken and steak and things that were once living, so why would I cringe as the tribespeople here do so, only while raw and five-seconds-after-breathing? It's all the same sense of savagery, in ways. Will I become a vegetarian now, though? Fuck no. I'm just saying....And then I can now comprehend the point Deodato seems to be making about the love of sensationalism out culture has. Sort of speaks volumes about our current Youtube fix, where we'd jump at the chance to watch something like a teenage girl getting her ass kicked by a group of other teen girls. What's the big difference between that and watching the savagery at play in Cannibal Holocaust?

This could just very well be a despicable piece of cinema. One that crosses the line of "freely-expressed yet punishing art with a statement to make" into the territory of "mean-spirited, heartless, cold, and just plain wrong imagery that only taints the viewer's soul." My stance is found somewhere in the middle of these two lines.

And the documentarians, fortunately, are four of the biggest scumbags ever, truly obnoxious and cruel in how they treat the primitive tribesfolk they intrude upon. So when they're all sickly murdered and fed upon, you sort of find yourself rooting for the cannibal tribespeeps. Because you realize that us "civilized" folk can actually be much more savage and cruel than any primitive person. Such acting is in a primitive person's DNA, but we civilized folk should know better. But some of us--such as the characters here--don't, so they deserve to decapitated and raped and eaten. Truth hurts.



This is just something I personally took away from Cannibal Holocaust. I could be wya off, or even a bit wrong for trying to justify the intense shit I just watched. Shit that would probably scare off any girl/date who stepped foot in my bedroom and saw the DVD cover in my collection, if I were to ever own it. And honestly, I kinda do wanna own it, just to have such a unique and nasty bit of cinema under my belt. Yes, I'm fucking weird like that.

I don't even know if I'll ever want to watch this flick again. But I'm sure glad I did, at least this once. Now I totally understand why it's looked at by horror lovers and experts as a true classic, an untouchable viewing experience, one of the most important films to ever hit the genre.

And now I dare anybody who reads this to watch it....but if you vomit or become furiously angry, don't blame me, the messenger.

Yes, this is what I tend to do on my spare time. Watch shit like Cannibal Holocaust, voluntarily. Deal with it.

**Interesting extra bit of trivia: the director, Ruggero Deodato, was actually brought on trial in his native Italy when this film was released. The government, from what I've read and heard, thought the images seen in Cannibal Holocaust were real, not staged. The animal slayings are real again, but the powers that be thought the stuff done to humans was all authentic. And who can blame them? I'd swear it was all real now, too.....and that being said, kudos to the special effects crew responsible for this, using resources available way back in the late '70s. Pretty fucking astonishing work. I'm surprised they're not hailed as some sort of genius pioneers.

**The music, as heard in this trailer-of-sorts, is also worth noting....its this really serene, soggy-keyboard effect that really complements the brutality in a strikign way....and you'll also notice how bad the acting is, when its just scenes of dialogue. Well, its an old exploitation flick--acting is secondary, sometimes even third or fourth in importance. Simply par for the course:

Word to Zoey....and other news

Just to prove that German Shepherds are unfuckwitable in the canine kingdom.....as Zoey (my family's dog of 12 years, for those unfortunately not in the know) proves on a daily basis:





...And here's a wild news story that caught my attention, and now I'll be investigating it further out of pure intrigue:

"WITCHCRAFT RUMOR SPARKS RIOT AT CONGO SOCCER GAME

KINSHASA, Congo - Accusations that a soccer player was using witchcraft during a match in eastern Congo sparked a riot that killed 13 people, a U.N.-funded radio station reported Monday.

Most of the victims were between the ages of 11 and 16, Radio Okapi said. They were suffocated as panicked crowds ran for the exits during the mayhem Sunday in Butembo in eastern Congo's North Kivu province.

Radio Okapi said police tried to control the violence at Matokeo stadium by firing into the air to protect their commander, who was hit in the head and wounded by fans.

The two local clubs involved were Socozaki and Nyuki System, the radio said.

Dozens of teenagers marched through Butembo's dirt streets Monday in protest, and the regional governor, Julien Mpaluku, paid a visit to the hospital.

Mpaluku said the government was investigating.

He made no mention of witchcraft, but confirmed that soldiers had fired into the air to calm angry crowds. The shooting prompted panic instead, which became fatal "when the crowds all tried to leave at the same time."

"Most of the dead were children, only two or three were adults," Mpaluku said.

North Kivu has been the epicenter of violence between Congo's army and rebels over the last year which has displaced hundreds of thousands of people."

--some crazy shit right there, huh? I wonder how exactly "witchcraft" came into play, if really at all. Hopefully I can learn more soon enough

The Soup = Still.The. Best. Show. Ever

Now, THIS is what Righteous Kill should've been.....this trailer alone shits on the actual movie.

Lou and Spaghetti Cat > RIGHTEOUS KILL-era DeNiro and Pacino

Enjoy:

My Weekend Movie Recap - September 12-14, 2008

Not in a particularly wordy-writing-mood at the moment, so this'll be quite brief. My intention is to report back on new movies opening every weekend, assuming I'm able to see the major ones every wknd.

Here goes:



Righteous Kill

Sucked. Waste of time. A lame, run-of-the-mill script only put to celluloid because two of the medium's greatest actors ever, Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, share a large amount of scenes together, basically playing geriatric parodies of their own screen persona's. Both guys seem very past their prime, as evident in Righteous Kill. Their respective performances aren't necessarily awful, just extremely phoned-in and lacking any sense of verve. And the script is just so lame and undercooked that no matter what DeNiro and Pacino do here, it'll fail.

For instance, there's this plot "twist" that's so obvious and telegraphed that it feels a bit insulting, at least it did to me. It plays as if the filmmakers are saying, "Whammy! Didn't see that one coming, did ya?!" Too bad I figured it out about 20 minutes into the film, and that's never good. And then once this twist rushes itself in exposition during the movie's final setpiece, you're supposed to feel a bit of compassion for the unfortunate person, yet the scene is so terribly written and acted with such a scarcity of emotion, its like watching robots programmed to imitate DeNiro and Pacino.

But really, neither actor really seems to give a shit at any point. Totally going through the motions of a moronic story, full of anticlimactic scenes, wannabe-tense moments that inspire yawns. Pacino does, thankfully, have a few funny lines and choice moments, but not nearly enough. I never thought I'd ever think to myself while watching one of his movies that "Wow, Robert DeNiro kinda sucks as an actor," but I did a few times during Righteous Kill, and that's just blasphemic. I think I'll actually watch Taxi Driver one night this week just to rekindle the love again.

If not for sexy-ass Carla Gugino, I may have honestly walked out of the movie at around the 30-minute mark.



Yeah, she's hot.

Oh, and 50 Cent is a truly atrocious actor. He's always sucked in movies, but his performance here is painfully robotic, lifeless, vapid, etc.....stop acting, Curtis, for the love of God. The fact that you were able to share the same screen as DeNiro and Pacino is just plain sad. And speaks volumes of both iconic actors' current careers.

Up next.....



Burn After Reading

This one, thankfully, I really dug. A bit slow at points, and nothing much really happens overall, but then that's sort of the point here. The Coen Brothers' films are largely centered on the theme that despicable, asshole people bring upon themselves further torment by totally fucking things up. And Burn After Reading is chockful of low-lives and indesirables. But the performances are all great, particuarly John Malkovich as a fired, disgruntled former CIA analyst, and Brad Pitt as an airhead, goofy, in-over-his-empty-head trainer at Hardbodies gym.

George Clooney is also pretty top-shelf here, playing a womanizing married man who meets middle-aged dames online, has sex as soon as possible, and then runs his routine 5-mile jog immediately after sexy times conclude. And wait 'til you see the sexual contraption he makes in his basement---it's the funniest use of a dildo I've seen in a long time. Perhaps ever. Shit, I can't recall too many other funny dildo moments on film, outside of porn, and I don't watch porn really anyway so I'm not one to comment really.....oh, and I don't want to shortchange the Coens' go-to-actress, the quirky and invaluable Frances McDormand, who plays a fellow Hardbodies employee who also meets other through cyber dating, and is obsessed with extensive plastic surgery that she can't pay for.

Burn After Reading is all about how the worlds of these wild characters all come crashing tragically together, thanks to Malkovich's character's CIA memoirs falling into the hands of the Hardbodies employees, who try to blackmail him with disastrous, and pretty comical, consequences. It's also pretty cool to see Clooney and Pitt immersing themselves into roles of the moronically colorful kind. Shows that they can care less about their "suave, sex symbol" status(es) in real life. Well played, sirs.

Everybody involved just seems like they're having a ball making the movie, playing the hell out of their characters and just basking in the foul, dirty, dumbass-laden world of the Coen Brothers the entire time. And it's magnetic to watch. It's not a perfect movie, and the script could've used a little more fine-tuning. Especially with Tilda Swinton's character, who isn't given much to do and never is fully developed enough to really register.

But in the end, though, it's just an irreverent comedy that's hard not to like, that's pretty dark and violent in spots, but never less than entertaining. Especially the way the Coens use a couple of conversations between two CIA heads as they basically try to make sense of all that's going on, plot-wise, and continuously fail to do so, mirroring the bewildered feelings of the audience. Only here, that sense of confusion and intrigue makes for a fun little flick. I definitely recommend this one.

Oh, and once this hits DVD, I'm buying a copy and introducing a new kick-ass drinking game into my friends' lexicon: every time Malkovich's character says the word "fuck," or "fucking," we have to do a shot. Dude says the always-effective word like 300 times here. So yes, this game will wreck us into submission. Good times, it shall be.



And yeah, it's official: Brad Pitt is one of my fave actors. He's pretty much brilliant in everything he does, and unafraid to take chances. He doesn't get the talent-fueled priase that he deserves, mainly because of his larger-than-life persona, but man is he great on screen, and that fact is proven further in Burn After Reading. I fucking can't wait to see him in Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards next year. Gonna be awesome.

.....okay, once again I was wordy, despite saying I wouldn't be. Sue me.

Shots Fired

I'm a bit torn about something, concerning myself, brought into my thought process after another one of those "drinks, shots, more shots, another drink" nights last evening.

Should I be flattered or concerned about this: any time my friends and I go out to a bar/lounge/club/etc, I'm always the one to whom everybody says, "Do a shot!" Or, "Here I got you a shot." Or, "Let's buy Matt this crazy shot that none of us would ever do, but since he won't know what it is and he already has a buzz going, he'll do it anyway! It'll be fun!"

Now, I'm all for having a good time while I'm out, but I mean, why me? Every time?

My flattered side reasons like this: when I'm a bit tips, I'm a barrel of laughs. A wrecking ball of fun. I make everybody else's night a bit more enjoyable with my intoxicated antics, such as dancing ever-so-closely with some girl I just met, or unleashing my usual jokes but only more viciously now that I'm drunk. At least this is what I'd hope is the reason for everybody tossing mini-drinks my way at a furious pace.

But then my concerned side chimes in: am I really a wrecking ball of fun? Is it because I tend to do dumb shit that makes me look like a fool publicly, but gives those around me some secondhand giggles at my expense? I know for a fact this is the case often times, but is it that my friends are deliberately getting me to a drunken-enough zone where I'll act like a moron? If so, isn't that kind of fucked up?

And while I'm on the subject of going out drinking with friends....explain to me why some people never bring cash with them to bars/lounges/clubs/etcs? Like I'm not intelligent and aware enough to realize that this is a ploy to sucker people around you into buying you drinks, since "Oh shit man, I don't have any cash on me....can you get this round?" Knowing damn well you make way more money than I do. Grinds my gears.

In all, I think the solution to all this pondering is simple: stop going out to drink at bars/lounges/clubs/etc. Though, really none of my friends (or at least my single friends who aren't tied down with signif others all the time, to which I'm not angry but just stating a truth) enjoy the simple things that I do....watching DVDs, engaging in convo, going to the cinema, going out to eat and talking for long periods of time at the table after the meal is digested.

For the majority of my friends, fun only equals drinks and women in the vicinity. And I'm all for women in the vicinity, but when being in such a vicinity always and pretty-much-only leads to empty wallets and next-morning-hangovers, then what's the point?

I'm just saying....I wish I could just bypass the places of alcoholic and sexually-intended consumption and stick to simplicity on weekend nights.....that's the world I want to live in.

Book It! 2008 - Blindness

Remember Book It! ??

Back in grade school, I was a Book It! beast, filling my pin with gold stickers on the reg. Granted, some of the time I was shamefully rephrasing the book's synopsis on the back cover, but whatever. Apples and oranges, that was. Either the teachers didn't care, or just didn't notice. But fairness meant little to an adolescent me since my reward for a pin full of stickers was a personal pan pizza at the heavenly Pizza Hut. And shit, when I was a kid, there was no great eating-out restuarant imaginable.

But what made Book It! so cool was that, when I didn't submit to slacker-syndrome and rewrite the synopsis, it was a program that inspired me to put down my magazines and horror comic books and actually read a piece of literature.

These days, I feel like I'm in the midst of an adult Book It! program, a self-imposed one. The first entry was Cormac McCarthy's outstanding The Road, which I read last month. And just this afternoon, I finished the second entry: Jose Saramago's international best-seller Blindness.



What both of these, as well as my upcoming slate of books-to-read, share in common is that movie adaptations are on the horizon. And I figure, what better way to form a well-rounded opinion of each respective flick than to read the original novel first? Makes sense to me, at least.

Blindness is amaing stuff. I was in love with The Road after reading it, and I still am, but now, Blindness has usurped The Road as my fave book. Of course, I've yet to read a staggering amount of literature, but I'm working on that, and thanks to the pair I've finished thus far, I'm pretty amped about this mission.

The premise of Blindness is simple, but then simultaneously complex. For no explained rhyme of reason, an epidemic of sudden blindness strikes. One man loses his sight at a traffic light; a prostitute loses her's while in the act of fornication; and so on and so forth. This isn't your common blindness, though...it's a "white sickness," with those falling victim to it seeing all blinding white.

And from here, we meet our main crew of characters. The two aforementioned (the first blind man and the young, pretty prostitute) are amongst the pack, but our main protagonist is the wife of a doctor, who for some strange reason is the only person who never loses his/her sight. But out of love for her now-sight-less husband, she accompanies him to this abandonded mental asylum, where the government has quarantined hundreds of now-blind citizens. This is when the real horror, drama, compassion, romance, and hope springs up. The asylum is divided into three individual wards, with our "heroes" living in the first, and then this delinquent, criminal, cold-hearted band of misfits living in the third ward. This crew of scoundrels is closest to the food rations that the military supplies, and after confiscating the edible goods, they begin to demand things from their neighbors in return for grub--valuable belongings, but worse, sexual intercourse and whoring out of all women residing in the first and second wards.



I won't get into further spoiling specifics, but needless to say, a whole mess of shit goes down, mostly of the depraved variety, but also some of hopeful humanity. The doctor's wife especially, who does everything in her power to use her sight to help those in her ward, and they begin to forge a familial bond.

I honestly have nothing bad to say about this book. Every page felt necessary, every event served a purpose thematically and dramatically. Saramago's (who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning scribe, by the way) writing style has this acute sense of urgency, it's pretty much effortless to get immersed within his prose. There's no quotation marks separating dialogue, it all bleeds together, which is clever because it doesn't allow the reader any sort of line breaks to drift off or lose his/her reading momentum. And none of the characters are ever identified by name (a tactic also used cleverly in The Road). Each is distinguished by basic identification, typically that of the doctor's wife's discretion.....The Girl With The Dark Glasses; The Old Man With The Eyepatch; The First Blind Man and The First Blind Man's Wife; The Boy With The Squint; The Doctor; and so on and so forth.

Why I love this nameless technique so much is that it strips characters of any pre-judgment from the reader. No ethnicity in the name to form some sort of racially-wrong opinion from jump. No exact age or physical descriptions to visualize somebody more attractive or less attractive than he or she actually is. You're left to judge each character on just that precise thing: their "character." And in a story like Blindness, this is crucial. None of the characters can see each other, so they're left to rely on what those around them do, and what they say, and the feelings derived from their speech and actions. It's really, really intelligent on Saramago's part, I must say.

Best example: the young, strong-at-heart, warm (former) prostitute and the kind-hearted and philosophical old man forge a real love for each other....not in a sexy-times way, but in the way that they vow to live together if this epidemic ever blows over. They care deeply for each other, in ways that a meant-for-each-other husband and wife would in other circumstances. And really, this is only because they;re without sight. If the girl could see the wrinkly, pasty old man, she'd have never developed such a connection. Such is the cold way of humanity, a coldness that can be altered when something as basic as sight is deleted. It's really thought-provoking stuff at play, here.

This is a book screaming for a film adaptation, in my opinion. But one handled by an independent filmmaker, or somebody with real thematic and storytelling prowess. No big-budget blockbuster kinda dude. Or dudette. Somebody like Darren Aronofsky comes to mind for me (he did Requiem for A Dream), or maybe even Ridley Scott. But knowing that Fernando Merielles (City of God, The Constant Gardener) is responsible for the film coming out on September 26 (starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Alice Braga, and others) does make me feel a bit relieved. Only a bit, though, because the early reviews of it have been pretty mixed, which doesn't fill me with as much optimism as I'd like.

Turning Blindness into a worthy film can't be easy, because some really disturbing and bleak shit happens. Women are graphically raped and sodomized. One fiend has scissors jammed through his throat just as he's ejaculating on a poor woman he's forced to give him oral pleasure. The military blow unsuspecting blind men's heads off at point-blank range. There's a church where, in a sort of blasphemic, hopeless act of religious betrayal, all of the statues (Crucifixion, Mary holding the baby Jesus, etc) have white bandages covering the eyes.

I really hope that Merielles hasn't skimped on the extreme nature of the middle section of this story. Once our crew breaks free of the [POSSIBLE SPOILER] asylum, venturing fearlessly out into the real world looking for a roof over their heads and food to eat, the tone gradually shifts back into positive territory. But while they're in the asylum, it's really dark and harrowing. It'd make one helluva movie, and I sure hope it does.

I'll find out on September 26, when I see Blindness on its opening night. I can't wait....but I really hope that I'm not pissed-off while exiting the cinema. I'll always have the book to fall back on, but I sure would love to see this narrative materialized, visually.

Why Wasn't I Informed About This????

Gotta love New York City....particularly Times Square. Earlier this week, in a genius yet creppy as fuck promotional campaign for the 20th Anniversary DVD Edition of CHILD'S PLAY, a bunch of kids and midgets dressed as Chucky paraded around T-Square, with no real direction, destination, or motive.

Other than shameless promo.

I sooo would've went up to Times Square to snap a picture with some of these if I had known....







Frikkin' cool....

So Much For Scholarships....

Maybe it's because I have a niece now, a cool-as-all-hell, two-and-nine-month old barrel of awesome named Gianna....but stories like this actually grind my gears a bit all of the sudden.

So there's this 22-year-old chick named Natalie Dylan, for those who haven't heard about this yet, who is basically slutting herself out for what she seems to believe is a good cause.



Basically, she needs to pay for grad school or some shit, so she's selling her virginty to the highest bidder. And the whole shebang (emphasis on "bang") is being hosted by that haven of debauchery and wall-to-wall whoo-ahs out in Nevada, The Bunny Ranch.

It was originally thought that this whole mess was being put on by Howard Stern, a rumor that of course was easy to buy into....turns out Stern isn't the pimp here, its whoever runs the Ranch.

This chick is taking polygraph tests, and other highly scientific procedures, to prove that she is in fact a virgin. Smart move, being that she's actually pretty fuckin' hot, and I personally found it hard to believe that a girl as smoking as her would still cling tightly to her V-card. The cherry is still ripe, sort of speak.



And naturally, horny guys with little shame and large bank accounts have already set the bidding war ablaze, with the tally so far up to like $275,000 just to spend time with Ms. Dylan and (I'd sure as hell hope) lay the pipe. See, she claims that this isn't all about money, and that she's going to make sure that the guy gets along with her, and that it's somebody she isn't disgusted or sickened by.....

Right? She better watch her ass, then. Say some poor dumbass drops like $300,000 just to stake his claim on her cherry, sort of speak, but then she has dinner with him and decides, "Nah, kick rocks, loser." Dude would be liable to smack a bitch, I'd think.

My main issue here, though, is how fucking lame men are that they'd pay any sum of finance to have sex with this girl. I mean, sure, she's pretty sexy, and she's untainted goods. But shit, $275,000?!?!?! Paying for sex never makes sense to me, honestly, so I have deeper confusion-heavy issues at play here.

Besides, isn't this really a form of prostitution? Kind of illegal? Probably not....I'm sure that I'm missing some sort of loophole, or whatever law being enforced in my head isn't in reality an actual law to break.

The respect I have for Natalie Dylan is small, really, simply for the fact that she's selling her purity in a public domain. But I can't help but respect her business savvy....if only ever-so slightly. She knows she's gorgeous, and she knows that the male gender is pretty much blinded by sweet tail, so why not put herself through grad school by stealing some lame's hard-earned paper? She could very well just ditch the poor fool once the sexy times have ended. Kick him out of bed, show him the exit, and count her money that was most likely earned after about three minutes of actual physical interaction, sexually. Talk about "easy" money.

But that respect only lasts so long.....I guess I'm most bothered by how the media has turned this into an actual news item. Why? Maybe because idiots such as myself will discuss it. And sex sells, now and forever. But man is this a sad time we live in, when bullshit such as The Hills is must-see-TV and churns out talent-less drones of celebrities, and when some over-the-hill blowhard like John McCain could damn well be our next leader.

What to do, what to do.....

Martyrs Watch -- Like, Seriously Man?!

Another day, another surge of Martyrs anticipation. It's almost becoming a parody of itself at this point, my longing to see a film that I won't see until at least early 2009, yet drooling over new bit of press and info that emerges.

First, a fresh take from some other lucky summa-da-bitch who has seen it, taken from Ain't It Cool News:

"The recent French horror resurgence is already mutating beyond anyone's wildest imaginations. Haute Tension [High Tension] may have gotten most of the attention from folks in the genre ghetto (and, in my opinion, undeservedly so) but more recent works like A l'interieur [Inside] have really started to push the envelope, taking the horror film in directions it's rarely gone before.

And then there's Martyrs. Good God. Fuck pushing the envelope, Martyrs tears up the envelope, burns it, mixes the ashes with blood and hands it back to you as a cocktail.
.....
One person puked at the midnight screening of this, and quite frankly I was shocked there weren't more such reactions, or more walkouts. Another person during the Q & A tried to unfavorably compare it to Haneke's Funny Games, but to me it's Funny Games that pales in comparison. Haneke showers his audience and characters with contempt, while Laugier has nothing but respect and empathy for his creations, even the monsters, and for anyone who watches them. This is a beautiful, horrible, tragic, ghastly, shocking, heartbreaking work of genius that lovingly scars you for life.

Martyrs is one of those films you can't unsee, and wouldn't want to."

---

Next up, a brief news item that discusses how the film is practically banned in its own home country, thus proving that I'll have to settle with watching it on DVD eventually, not in a dark, comfortable cinema....beggars can't be choosers, they say....this taken from Bloody Disgusting:

"After the premiere of his French horror film, Martyrs, director Pascal Laugier took the stage in front of nearly 1,400 screaming fans, who gave the film a standing ovation. During the Q+A session, which took a very interesting turn (more on that soon), Laugier told the audience that the film received an "18A" rating in France - the equivalent to an X-rating here in the States. What's even more shocking is that Martyrs is the first film to receive the rating without containing a single scene of sex. From what we're told, this is as close to being banned as you can get. Thank God the film has been sold in nearly 40 countries, including here in the States, where Dimension Films will release it on DVD next year."

"Love Shutdown"

The following has to be said, if not for any other reason than to state my peace before apologists and D-riders alike tirelessly defend the song's merits and try to convince yours truly that its a "creative, next level" exercise in artistic limitless-ness.

But here's the bottom line, because M.B. said so: Kanye West's new song, "Love Lockdown," is fucking terrible. Ear-tainting repello. Audible horror. Insert any other pairing of words describing "music" and "inferior."

It's basically "T-Pain singing over a clusterfuck of a Europop instrumental, as performed underwhelmingly by Kanye West." When I first heard it last week in my co-worker's office, I honestly thought it was a goof. "This can't really be his new single," I wondered to myself. But then the song continued.....and West kept singing horribly....and the beat started adding in new irritating and muffled sounds....and then West faux-sang some more....and then I started shaking my head in a torrent of confusion, disgust, and an ounce of humor.

Fucking T-Pain has anybody with vocal chords thinking they can sing. Give T-Painful credit for that, at least. He's changed the game, single-handedly. For the worse, of course, but changed it nonetheless.

I know, I know....Kanye West is full of emotion here, and the words seem heartfelt enough. But conviction and genuine feeling don't cancel out the fact that the song sucks. He can't sing worth a shit, the lyrics are far from impressive, and the beat is just downright grating.

I've never been a huge fan of West as a rapper, but here, I'd gladly rather he spit some hokey punchlines. At least when he delivers goofy raps with conviction, I can tolerate them because his production is usually great and he can flow a bit. But this singing shit of his has to go. Now.

They're saying that his new album is called 808s & Heartbreak.......which leads me to believe that it could very well be an entire album of cry-baby, whiny, "I miss my girlfriend," emo bullshit. All shitty singing, from Intro to Outro. Dear God, if this ends up being the case, I may not even download it for free.

It's been said many a time already on the respective blogs and AIM status lines of several colleagues of mine already today, but I'll say it on my own here: Rappers, for the love of all that's listenable, stop singing. Or trying to sing. You're a rapper, and you get paid tons of money to write words that rhyme together. Stick to that script. Leave the singing to dudes like Ne-Yo.

"Love Lockdown," if I never hear you again, I'll die a happy man.

Points do, though, go to Kanye West for being a bit daring and shaking his artistic cage a bit. It just didn't work, man. So go back to your old formula, por favor.

The audio travesty itself:

**M.B. Note: so every clip of the song playing on Youtube has been taken down, by the record label, I'd presume. Copyright reasons, surely, but I'd like to think its because even they know the song smells foul. Wishful thinking.

Martyrs Watch -- Sick Concept Art, pics

Blah blah blah....even more reviews sare surfacing from the Martyrs screening held this week out at the Toronto International Film Festival.....all are glowing, chock-ful-of-praise, fawning.....blah blah blah.

I'm fucking dying to see this movie even more.....etc etc etc.

Rather than further vent my excitement over seeing this movie sometime within the next year (fingers crossed), I figured it'd be cooler to just post some pics of the insane concept art used in pre-production, that I've happened across in my daily net-scouring exercises.

Check 'em out:







And here's a new poster, that's equally quality:

Season of the Fix -- Fringe

Call me a glutton for punishment, or even a tad masochistic, but I sure do love stories that confuse the fuck out of my noggin. Lead me down one narrative path only to detour toward some unforeseen one that boggles my mind. Sometimes never even landing at one sensical destination. This is the rationale I use to justify my heavy love for David Lynch films, and shit like Memento.

The press-ignited promise that the new Fox show Fringe would be such a televisial feast was enough to have me plopped, ass-first, on my couch to watch its pilot ep. Its the latest brainchild from that creative nerd J.J. Abrams (Lost, Cloverfield, next year's new Star Trek movie), meaning naturally that expectations are a smidge on the high side over here. Did it live up to my self-imposed hype?

Undecided still, I am.

Background check: So there's this really-crazy shit that goes down on a nighttime flight, myseriously. With the plane appearing as if its about to go down, crash in a blaze of glory, the passengers flip into a frenzy, but what seems to be an impending crash ends up being something else altogether. And wild. The passengers' faces start melting, or forming pussy burn-like lesions all over. It's tough to tell, exactly, as the lights keep flashing and its tough to get a clear view. But this makes it all the more cool to watch.

Fast forward to a pair of FBI agents, the female named Olivia Dunham and the dude named John (played by some guy who looks a helluva lot like Thomas Jane), secretly in love, cuddling post-whoopie in some seedy motel room. They each are called to the plane scene, the plane hasn't crashed, though. It landed itself smoothly, as a result of some new technology where planes can self-operate. Inside, though, lie the decomposed, nasty-looking corpses of all the passengers. And from here, a whole bunch of head-scratching shit goes down. Dunham's lover/colleague is burned in a botched arrest attempt, after a shady dude who could be responsible for the plane debacle ends a chase scene by blowing both agents skyhigh, fireballs full of the same contaminated chemicals that turned those passengers into comatose lepers, leaving loverboy hospitalized with a similar decomposition, while Ms. Dunham just has a facial flesh wound. No heebie-jeebie juice got into her blood.



After some investigating, Dunham finds a link between both incidents: some former doctor, Walter Bishop, who's now locked in an insane asylum. The blonde cutie then tracks down the nutjob's son, Peter (played by Dawson's Creek has-been possibly come back, Joshua Jackson), so she can question him in the asylum. Sucks for everybody involved, though, being that Peter hates and resents looney-tunes-Walter.

Things moved along swiftly, not exactly leaving me floored or pinned to the tube, but compelled just enough to not change the channel. But fortunately, the final moments brought about a pretty unexpected twist that played out quite well, and planted some seeds of possible-dopeness that I'll now have to keep watching to see if they blossom into a quality series.

Such as, just what in the hell is this Massive Dynamic company up to? And will Abrams turn Massive Dynamic into another Dharma Initiative, with fake commercials and websites, the whole nine? I hope not, 'cause that'd sure be unoriginal as a mug.

This is all a bit wordy, I know, but its somewhat mandatory to be so. Fringe has layers of shit going on, mostly intriguing and some snooze-worthy. I must say, I went into the show hoping to be instantly grabbed, just like the first episode of Lost did some however-many years ago. Fringe is definitely worthy of further viewing, but like True Blood last night, the show has only hooked me so much. The jury is out.

If it continues to up its sci-fi/X-Files-ish ante, I'll be one happy camper. Chick who plays Olivia Dunham, a first-time-in-my-eyes-at-least actress named Anna Torv, seems more than capable to anchor the show, and Pacey-himself, Josh Jackson, isn't as annoying as previously thought. For now, at least.



A smile is on my face. I now have two new idiot-box shows to invest time and energy into....maybe I should try out a new half-hour comedy sitcom next, instead of only dark trippy hour-long genre drama. We shall see. Ohhhh.....we shall see.

Matt Barone = Fashionisto

Obviously, this post's headline is the ultimate oxymoron, a total okie doke. Utter bullshit. I'm about as far from a fashion icon as Adam Sandler (you ever see him dressed at awards shows? Hilarious, dude literally comes straight from his local pub in sneakers and t-shirts. Classy guy). Yet, earlier today, I still somehow found myself seated in attendance at a swanky Manhattan fashion show. Runway, and all. I must've been like Waldo in that spot. "What doesn't fit here? Oh, yeah, that dude wearing black Air Force 1s, baggy Sean John jeans, and a solid gray colored shirt."

Not that I voluntarily attended this shit, now. I was there for business purposes, checking out a new R&B singer who performed in between runway sets. She had one hell of a voice, but her two songs sucked overall, and she had three lifeless yet attractive drones as backup dancers.

But all wasn't lost, fortunately. I did get first-person, right-in-front-of-me looks at a couple of smoking-hot celeb gals: Mel B, and Danity Kane's blonde babe Aubrey O'Day. And neither failed to meet, and well, exceed, expectations.


Of course, I know jack-shit about women's style, so don't expect me to comment and/or critique any of the pieces I saw. Lucky enough I was even seated in one of those traditional white foldable chairs, next to people taking notes on that clothing, snapping camera phone pics, chit-chatting with the trendy person next to them. It was like I was Anne Hathaway in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, while she say wide-eyed at that fancy fashion show. Except I can give a fuck about high-end fashion. And I'm not a really hot actress. But apples and oranges, these are.

First up was Khloe Kardashian's new line, called "Dash." Creative name, right? Womp womp. But surprisingly, Khloe (the fugliest of the otherwise bangin' Kardashian sisters) wasn't as beastly in-person as she seems any other time. Not saying that she was hot or anything; rather, she's a quintessential girl that I'd go after during a drink-full night out in Hoboken. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. As for her clothing line, blah blah. I'd never buy any of it for a girl.

[actually, Khloe looks good to me in this pic, too....let me find out I'm developing a thang-thang for her now....]



Then the singer, who I was there to see, came on. Her name is Kreesha Turner....nice voice, strong stage presence, really cute. But wack-ass songs. Send her back to the studio, EMI Music. Asap.

Then to the grand finale....Mel B's new lingerie line, Ultimo B. What a jip! Mel B herself didn't even model any of this "sexy" underwear. Fuck! But cot damn, Mel B is a sight for sore eyes in person. Dare I say, she looks BETTER in person.

[here's her modeling some Ultimo B, in an ad....sweet, huh?]



I love that woman. Ditto for Aubrey O'Day, who modeled one of Kardashian's outfits, a skintight yellow t-shirt and flatteringly form-fitting jeans. Her body is crazy. I'm not super into blondes, but for Aubrey, I'd make an exception any day.



As for Mel B's lingerie line.....not exactly an expert opinion here, but I'd be pretty content if a girl I was with stripped down to her skivvies and was wearing a piece of Ultimo B. Sexy stuff. Too bad, though, that all the girls wearing it today were rail-thin.

Aubrey was also carrying around some shitty little white dog the whole time, a dog wearing a black shirt and looking mucho embarassed. Poor pooch....what's with these blond socialite types using mini-canines as accessories? Shouldn't the ASPCA be on top of this by now?

'Tis all.

Wait....was this at all sexist, or chauvinistic? Oh well, if it was, whatever. I'm a dude, right? Just being honest here. Mel B and Aubrey O'Day are badd chicks.

Don't expect to hear more about yours truly attending fashion shows, however. I haven't felt so out of my element in ages. I'll stick to movie screenings and things of that sort. Much better to be in darkness than in light surrounded by people who's every move is dictated by what Elle, GQ, or Vogue magazines tell them is "in."

It's Macys all the way for me. Now, til eternity.

Season of the Fix -- True Blood

Save for Lost, I really don't watch too many television shows, and this is something I've long wanted to change about myself. Problem is, I'm sans DVR/TiVo here at the apartment, and my schedule varies on a daly basis so much that I'd be hard-pressed to stick to a regular, consistent weekly viewing ritual. Lost, being such a clusterfuck of brilliant sci-fi and intriguingly "what the fuck" enigmas, had me hooked from day one, when that poor sap got sucked into the airplane propeller. And ever since I've been unable to look away.

But still, there's tons of shows I wish I was a regular with: Heroes, Dexter, Prison Break, for starters. Wish I would've watched Six Feet Under. Know I should've been up on The Wire since day one. Californication seems like a winner, as does Weeds.

So this season, being rather intrigued by a slew of new shows, I've vowed to give as many as possible a real shot.

First up, is HBO's True Blood, a show that seems right up my twisted alley. Vampires. Extreme content. From the respected creator of aforementioned Six Feet Under, a fella named Alan Ball. Seems worthy of being my first potential-TV-addiction for this new season.




The premise is a compelling one, at least to me. Sookie Sutherland, played by the increasingly-attractive one-time Oscar winner Anna Paquin, is an innocent-enough chick working as a waitress at a dive bar called Merlotte's Bar & Grille, a popular local haunt in this nondescript Southern gothic town. (Sookie Sutherland is quite the name, isn't it? Many a perverted joke could be inserted here, but I'll resist the urge....for now). Her brother, Jason, is a construction worker of sorts, who's also banging every cute piece of tail this side of the Mississip. Sookie's best friend, the livewire, sassy gal named Tara, harbors hidden lust for Jason, and she's just been hired as a bartender by Merlotte's namesake owner, Sam, who not-so-secretly loves Sookie.

The catch to all this is....vampires co-exist in society. They're seen in a cloak of intrigue, the public has this love/hate relationship with them. There's talk of some sort of Vampire Rights Act, and its spokeswoman goes on Real Time with Bill Maher to discuss its ramifications. This drink called True Blood, made from blood obviously, is sold in select locations for vamps to consume, in the hopes that'll prevent them from seeking blood within humans, thus killing folks. Humans who slurp on a vampire's blood feel a fix, a high such as drug intake. And there's also people referred to as "fangbangers" who get sexual kicks out of letting vampires bite them, and have rough dirty vamp sex with them.

All a bit sordid, eh? Indeed, and True Blood holds nothing back, in terms of sexual nature. Jason has a whole running sequence where's fucking this fangbanger chick, who shows him a homemade sex tape in which she takes it from behind from a vampire. See here:



Shit hits the fan, emotionally, though, once Bill, a mysterious and suave vamp, enters Merlottes and catches the open-to-suggestion eyes of Sookie. And here, an inevitable forbidden love affair is seed-planted. And in a fit of unexplained rage, Jason strangles the fangbanger he's banging to death. Or so it seems. And thus, the inaugaral season of True Blood is underway.

At first, I was a bit bored. The characters seemed a bit goofy, and sort of like caricatures. Especially TKTK, who seemed to be a hackneyed "strong outspoken Black female" character. But as the hour progressed, things picked up nicely. The stuff with Sookie's brother seems like it'll develop quite nicely, and the staff at Merlottes is filled with colorful enough personalities to promise some serious drama as the season moves forth. I wish there was more vampire insanity, but I'm sure that'll come in time. Or at least a horror lover such as myself could hope.

I'm not 100% sold, but I'm definitely willing to continue on the True Blood ride for a couple more weeks. Giving it a benefit of the doubt. The way this first episode, called 'Strange Love,' ends is pretty effective, continuing a seedy plotline that appears in the first 20 minutes but then seemingly disappears for the remainder of the episode, and it doesn't bode well for poor Sookie.

And speaking of Sookie.....when the fuck did Anna Paquin become so hot?!?! She's always struck me as a bit plain-Jane, run of the mill in her cuteness. But here, she's damn close to reaching va-va-va-voom territory, and I for one am not peeved at it, at all. Check her fine self out:



Hopefully True Blood keeps getting better. There's such strong potential here at work. I could easily seeing the show self-imploding if the wrong turns are taken, narrative wise. But as of now, I'll consider my newfound TV kick at a cool 1-0record.

Up next, J.J. Abrams' Fringe, on Fox. Starts tomorrow night. I'm there, dudes. Now, off to the new season of Entourage, a show I have thankfully submerged myself in. Without Ari and Drama, the show would suck, real talk. And from what I can tell, all of these characters are doing the EXACT same shit as always. The writers better add some new blood into the show, or take some unforeseen plot turns. Otherwise, I'm jumping ship rather soon.

--
Oh, by the way, that crazy-ass '80s gem Night of the Demons is on later tonight on the godsend Monsters HD. Hell fuckin' yeah. Shit creeped me out royally as a wee lad. Let's see if its held up over the years.

Remember when that possessed girl sticks her lipstick up her hoo-hah?! Sick, right? Oh, I forgot...most of the heads reading this probably don't even know what the hell Night of the Demons even is. So that called-out scene just either made you run to Blockbuster, or shake your head in disgust. To each his/her own, I guess. Diff strokes for diff folks.

Let The Right One In.....viva la American theatres

Great, great news....actually news that I read a few weeks back, but I figured it's worth mentioning here, to hopefully ignite some little bit of buzz amongst friends and associates.

An amazing, haunting, and touching little "horror" film, called Let The Right One In, is getting an extremely-deserved theatrical release here in the states, starting October 24, just in time for All Hallow's Eve. It's from Sweden, and won the top prize at the Tribeca Film Fest a few months back. I caught it during Tribeca, and absolutely adored it. I'll write more about it closer to release, but basically, it's about a shy, socially-awkward little boy who moves into a new apartment building and befriends a little girl who lives nearby, and who just happens to be an immortal bloodsucking vampire.

What was so amazing about the film, really, was that, despite a few striking and creepy "horror" sequences, it's really this heartfelt and dark love story, showing how these two vastly-different children forge a close, loyal bond in the face of murder, mayhem, and societal outcasting.

I'm telling you....international cinema is fucking bodying anything American studios are doing, genre-wise. And of course, some dumbass studio is already prepping a remake.

Losers. Do yourselves a favor and catch this original one when it drops in late Oct. Here's the great-lookin' poster.





....and the trailer:




It's a special one, I swear.

Bring The Pain

It doesn't happen very often these days, but every now and then, a new rap album drops that reinvigorates that inner-fire of mine with excitement. That oft-forgotten realization that I'll be bumping said album for months to come, not that initial 2 or 3 spins in my iTunes before disappearing into oblivion (sorry, recent Nas and Lil Wayne albums, I've already deleted you from any current playlists).

That new Elzhi album, The Preface, gave me this feeling not too long ago. Another album that's set for October release recently did the same, but the fact that I own it is something I can't even divulge, so I'll save my praise of it for next month.

This past week, another record injected my ears with this sense of hip hop eupohoria: DJ Muggs vs. Planet Asia, Pain Language



Muggs has always been a fave producer of mine, and here, he's in gloriously muddy, dark, macabre, hardcore places here sonically. Planet Asia, an MC I've always liked but sadly slept-on as a whole 'til now, kills it throughout. Beats bang. Lyrics score. Every song wins, and even the skits are bleak bits of grit.



Some samplings:

"Sleeper Cell"



"Pain Language"



"All Hail The King"



....told you. The shit is so so serious. If you know anything about me, you'd know the type of rap I've long preferred, and this Pain Language is just that.

And it's about to establish permanent residence within M.B.'s iTunes.

A Nightmare on Grunauer Place

This may be the first time I've ever woken up visibly rattled from a dream.

Came back from a Barone family reunion (real good times, good food, good people), back here to my parents' house, and possibly because I was up dumb late watching Blood and Black Lace, I was fucking pooped. Continued to read my latest book (blog about it to come), but then started dozing off so I just 'F it' and took a napparoo.

Almost instantly, I became engulfed within this really bizarre sequence of events in dream-form. All taken place outside, near some sort of swampy area. A handful of people I knew, such as my mom, some of my cousins, a couple celebrities, and my dog Zoey, were present throughout.

All of the episodes teetered toward the macabre spectrum of tone. I don't clearly recall each, most are a bit foggy. One I kinda remember being about a miniature Me, all six or so inches of me, being stuck within some cupboard as a giant was coming to find and kill me. Don't ask. All I know is that this scene abruptly ended and bled into the next one.

This final one was the episode that did me in, in terms of waking up in a bit of a breathless panic. There were four of us in my mom's Durango, she herself may have even been driving. Although God I hope not. Whoever the driver was, he/she insisted on being a daredevil and speeding toward this gross, nasty-looking swamp, which began like the ocean-break on a beach, and he/she kept speeding toward the swamp-beginning. None of us others in the Durango were pleading with he/she to stop or anything, which made it all the more off-putting.

I was seated in the back part of the truck, where you'd typically put bags and boxes and coolers and shit. But, of course, this was all being seen my from POV, so as the truck submerged into the swamp, the driver tried cutting the tire violently, turning the Durango to the left. Yet, "turning" is an exaggeration, being that it was hardly shifting, instead sinking deeper and deeper into the swamp.

Then, the lights in the car shut off. And then I could hear the engine giving out. And my breath began cutting short. Gasping. Yet none of us were screaming. Or crying. Or yelling to the heavens above for help. We were just taking it.

But then, suddenly, the lack of oxygen forced me to look up, as in "Holy shit, I can't breathe!" And as I looked up, I noticed that I was back in my bed. Lights off in my room. My book lying next to me. Phone blinking because of three missed calls.

And I was back in reality. Breathing comfortably. Safe. Swamp-free.

Damn, that dream kinda fucked me up.

Netflix Fix #4 -- Blood and Black Lace

Really tired right now for some reason....it's a Saturday morning, 10am, which is an ungodly hour for yours truly on a Saturday morning, mind you. Have a family reunion picnic to hit in like an hour; otherwise, I'd be coutning dozens of sheep right now, or rather, I'd be in the midst of some dream that I won't remember at all after waking up. It's strange. Maybe like once every two months do I have a tangible dream. Does that have any significance, or underlying meaning? Aren't you supposed to remember your dreams? Aren't they somewhat important? Ahh, nevermind.

At least I didn't dream of that creepy-ass end shot from Sleepaway Camp. Sheesh. I thought that crazy bitch Angela and her little surprise would show up in an uncomfortable nightmare, for sure. Oh well, there's always tonight. Or tomorrow night. A boy can dream, can't he? Wait, actually, hopefully no, he can't. At least not about Angela's disturbed self.

Anyway....another reason why I'm bit fatigued at the moment is that I was up 'til about 2am watching Blood and Black Lace, an Italian "giallo" flick that I've been wanting to see ever since it made the Bravo channel's "100 Scariest Movie Moments" special from a couple Halloweens ago. I have that special on VHS, by the way. Fucking love(d) it. It put me on to so many unique and dope movies I may have otherwise never even heard of. Blood and Black Lace a primo example.



Made way back in 1964, directed by "the great" Mario Bava. I put that adjective in quotations only because I've yet to see all his films (a sad fact that Netflix will eventually change), even though he's regarded as a God of Italian horror and genre ish. So I can't fully call him that without knowing firsthand, just how I see such praising. But after watching Blood and Black Lace, I'm definitely excited to catch up with his entire catalog, because this flick kinda rocked. Not a hands-down masterpiece, by any means, but one that I'd imagine was hugely influential on any filmmaker who made horror, namely "slashers," during the 1970s and 1980s.

There's this serial killer, who looks exactly like No-Face from the Dick Tracy movie (the enigmatic force who ended up to really be Madonna's lounge singer character, remember? Dick Tracy ruled, by the way)in a mask that seems like a woman's stocking and a black hat/black overcoat combo.



This killer is stalking and shortening lifelines of a group of models, hot chicks who all convene in some sort of studio and fashion-house on the daily. There's this diary floating around, too, that holds secrets and treachery that's gone down within this crew, and the killer is hellbent on finding said truth-holder. So naturally, six people die in the process, all pretty graphically.



First off, the positives, and there are many here. To get the morbid out of the way, the death scenes are all very, very well done. Tight close-ups of victims faces; framing shots that hide the killer from the audience's view; prolonged tension, but not so long that interest is sacrificed. You get one girl's face burnt off by a piping-hot lamp, another's face jabbed forcefully by a glove with three rusty metal spikes sticking out (ouch!), another smothered by a pillow after having burnt-face chick fall on top of her....this flick has a reasonably high bodycount, worth noting only because it was made back in '64. Extensive corpse pile-ups are something most commonly associated with '80s horror, at least for me. So I could go out on a limb and say that without Blood and Black Lace, we'd have no Friday the 13th, Halloween, good ol' Sleepaway Camp, Prom Night, etc. I could be wrong, though; Psycho is more influential, I'd imagine, but still. Bava definitely broke some ground here.

Also worth mentioning....typically, the actresses in older movies aren't that hot. Maybe it's the fully-clothed style of garment worn back then. Who knows, but I'm rarely turned on by old film actresses. There's exceptions, granted, but not often. Blood and Black Lace, however, has some en-fuego beauties. Most stripped down to their underwear during the money shots. As Peter Griffin would say: "That was freeaakinn' sweeet!"



The use of color in this film is really something to see, too. Lavish, rich, bright shades of red, yellow. The blood, especially in a scene where one gal is submerged in a bathtub, face first, until her breathing abilities are finished, reminded me of the "gorgeous red" shade seen in Suspiria. That bathtub scene is actually one of the pics I posted above. The most red of all here, though, are the mannequins found in the fashion-house. Not sure why these dummies are so crimson, but the fact that they are strangely adds to the creep factor.



Now, on to some negatives. The majority of the music heard is this live band sounding jazz stuff, which takes away from the tension and creepiness rather than adding to. Music in horror is crucial, and when used right, like in Halloween or Psycho, it can make a slasher's kill scenes unforgettable. Here, you feel like getting up and doing a bit of a jig during a couple of the death scenes, scenes that are otherwise brilliantly shot. Secondly,
and this isn't really Bava's fault, but more to blame on whoever packaged the DVD version, there's some horrendous voice dubbing afoot. Akin to those Godzilla flicks, there's hardly any effort made to match the English dialogue to the mouth(s) of each Italian thespian. It's laughable, at times.

But, for me, the biggest issue is a large one indeed: Blood and Black Lace isn't scary. At all. Sure, some scenes have a nice bit of tension, and mostly all the death scenes are very effective. But this plays like more of a crime noir than a slasher horror. Not knocking that, one bit. I just went into the film thinking it was a pure creepshow. But on further investigation, before watching, I learned that it's actually an Italian "giallo," which is a term used for films covering crime fiction and mystery blended with horror elements.

The identity of the killer is pretty well covered, so in that respect the mystery factor works. I didn't guess who the killer was 'til pretty late in the game, and usually I'm good at doing so.

In all, Blood and Black Lace is a really strong flick...not as scary and horrific as I was anticipating, but once I accepted that it wasn't a full-on dread affair, I eased into enjoyment. It's pretty damn bleak in its own right, and groundbreaking in its direction and willingness to escalate the corpse count. I'm really looking forward to seeing what else Mario Bava has to offer. In time, I'm sure I'll be taking those quotations away from "the great."

Now, off to the Barone family reunion picnic. I hear chicken teriyaki is on the menu. My stomach is ecstatic.

Batshit Crazy, Which Means I Kinda Love It....

....on the glorious Monsters HD channel, I just watched that cult classic of slasher genericness, Sleepaway Camp, from 1983, I believe it was.



A really shitty movie, at the end of the day. Some terrible acting, laughable dialogue, pointless characters, ripped-off elements from the original Friday the 13th. But still, there's this intriguing tone of "what the fuck" going on throughout, some sort of sleazy macabre effectiveness that can't be denied. Some of the murders are pretty creative, but nothing, and I repeat, NOTHING, can prepare you for the final moment (assuming it's never been spoiled for you, or you haven't seen it already). Holy shit. I forgot just how bonkers the final shot is....part cardboard cutout of our disturbed main character, Angela, part dirty porno. All sadistic weirdness.

I won't spoil it here, I'll just implore that everybody go out and rent this flick ASAP. Trust me.....you'll never see an ending like it again. I promise.



Wow. Just wow. Needs to be seen to to believed....