A Few Damn Good Scary Movies, You Know, Right In Time for the Holidays

Yeah, the old DJ here is playing requests. One of my fans seems to have asked me, in my grand and infinite knowledge to list three really good scary movies they could rent or watch.

Of course, they would ask when request this when the MotherUnitPrime was visiting and we know how well that goes. But it did buy me some time to really kinda dwell on what they were inherently asking. Art, as a rule, should spark emotion. It's one of it's main purposes. To find what makes our hearts tick and to recreate that sensation, often times, repeatedly. Sometimes that emotion is love, empathy, sadness, or, in the case of this political season, derision. There's nothing wrong with this. I like to think that's what the world is about. Keeping that thought and definition of art, I sought out titles that, at one point, made me shiver with emotional fear.

I'm a bad person to see a scary movie with. Sure, sure, sure, I jump with the rest of the audience at the right time. I say, "ew" at the right use of gore. But I'm too analytical and that sometimes hurts me. I know, as that poor man is walking alone from his dorm that fateful night, there's a cameraman, a director, a script person, and a special effects supervisor ready with the fake blood pump.

I know. I just killed the moment for you, didn't I?

The fact is, with that concept, I sometimes get pulled out of the movie. It's when I'm too absorbed, when all the ingredients hit the same stride of acting chops, decent writing, strong direction, and technical confidence, and forget, for a brief moment, that I'm watching a work of fiction. When I care if that young lady gets help across the street; should the dog live; stuff like that is when I know-yeah, you have a good scary movie.

And, no, I won't resort to Mariah Carey's Glitter. Scary for a totally different rubric.

Something else? There's way too much scifi on the list. I guess that says soemthing about how I view the future or something.

10.)  World War Z  Okay. I'm lying, right off the bat, with this movie. The movie I should be mentioning is the one that got me in elementary school. That one night I couldn't sleep. This was before any kind of channel selection. Before any ability to decide what I wanted. I just clicked on a black and white movie and there was the brother, saying, "they're coming to get you Barbara!"

I was intrigued.

And my little self did not sleep that night. The scar had been cut into my psyche. I still watch the movie when it is available and the husOtter is far from the television.

But here's the thing. When VHS came around, and rewatching things on YouTube ad naseum, the flaws started to flake off and I started to see where the movie could have cleaned up some. That's not a bad thing, folks. Look at Star Wars. Led up to a terrific love triangle and then...two are (ewwwww) related.

Some fucked up authoring, right there.

Time passes and this movie pops up onto my radar. Now, don't get me wrong, there's a crapload of horror movies out there prior to this moment, but this one? This one took the trope and refined it as a hurried moment that is buried in the story. Finally, all of those week ends of the tale, like what the fuck was happening with everything was suddenly sorted out. Now? I got to see it with a more global view. Better? It had an ending that actually worked and gave a, albeit small, closure.

9.)  Invasion of the Body Snatchers (70's remake)-Lately, if you haven't been following, I've been very critical of Hollywood. More bent on cash flow, they're remaking movies left and right, realizing that people aren't willing to risk paying such expensive ticket prices on a movie that is, well, a risk.

Sometimes there's a payoff. Hey, I'm not stupid. And sometimes, well, there's a sheer money grab.

Then there was this great 70's movie, with Donald Sutherland. It took a great horror movie from the 50s and turned into our biggest fears, right there, when our biggest fears were being played out in real life. People were turning on one another. The children of the 60s were now the adults of the 70s and they feared, still, each other. And, like World War Z, there's a sense of scope, that makes escape totally impossible. Shiploads of alien pods being set up and people being dragged in for "health screenings" where they are given drugs to help them sleep. And...oh, my spine's tingling.

Sounds so much like when you find out your friends are for Frump.  And they have been silent for so long.

8.)  The Exorcist-Here's the thing about this movie. The movie itself fails to scare a jaded audience that's been watching this year's political races. But there's something deeper that it hits. I think it might be better to mention other titles out there that play the same horrors to much better and much more modern affect, like the terrific Conjuring 1 and 2, but I'm talking about finding yourself the original.

There's an art film, the first horror movie ever to nominated for Best Picture, but, again, it was symbolic of the fears that were coming to light in the 70s. The youth culture now had become an enemy within the Nuclear Family, literally, a little monster upstairs that wants to upset the wealthy status quo.

And only religion can quell it.

And that's only on the analogy front.

It's also a scary as fucking a chainsaw. Jolts? We got them. What's even better? There's no stalking. And the good guys HAVE to go into the room and face the possessed child. No turning back. All tightly packed. Good stuff, yo.  Enjoy.

7.)  Twilight Zone-The Movie  Not what you expected, is it? The Twilight Zone was a terrific program back in the 50s and 60s that took the hottest topics of the day and turned them on their heads with delicious creativity and sparsely used horrific mystery. The filmmakers of the 80s had grown up on their imaginations of the darkest corners of the mind and made four short films that were of the highest production values of anything on the screen at the time. Three were outright horror and one was a wonderful amalgam between horror and children's movies that enlightens but horrifies with it's implications.

All of the movies are excellent.

But let me direct you to the last segment, "Horror at 30,000 Feet." In it, one of the greatest horror performances I've ever seen.

See? I have this brother, we'll call him Yutzface, who is petrified to fly. Scared to no end.

And John Lithgow is him. The man, scared beyond belief during a thunderstorm while flying, looks out and sees a monster on the wing of the aircraft.

The piece is directed by Mad Max creator, George Miller, and is an exercise in horror. No body count. No more than a cabin on a plane in a very, very bad situation. Fuck Snakes on a Plane. This will make you freak out until the plane....you'll see.

And, you know what? The other films are damn good, too. The first segment, by John Landis, shows a Donald Trump type, a racist bigot, suddenly get zoomed back in time to experience everything everyone else who was a minority has experienced. Spielberg is in there too, with a meditation on aging and the mind which is not scary, but has spooky overtones. There's another short, by Joe Dante, about a boy who wishes things into existence. Again, no body count, but a delicious piece of scares. Watch. Enjoy.

6,)  Drag Me to Hell  Ah, good old Sam Raimi. See, VHS killed the horror flick. Made on the cheap, horror movies became like pornography in the 80s, easy to come by and not very creative. That's where Sam came in. He made a cheap zombie movie (really, only one zombie, too), called The Evil Dead. But it was like Georgio Romero's Night of the Living Dead. A piece of pure creativity. And he didn't stop there. He went on to make movie after movie as a writer, director, producer.

The experience meant that he could get creative with each moment.

And then he made Drag Me to Hell. A tale about a woman who is not a saint, so her punishment isn't wholly excused, makes an executive banking decision that hurts the financial situation of an old immigrant. Shades of life today, where corporations make the call without the full story. The old gypsy curses her to a series of spectral punishments for over a week until the devil carries her off to the world of the dead. The scares are real, the story flows from incident to incident, ratching up the nightmares like a Hitchcock film. Is there a body count? Not really. But the invisble demons making havoc are worth the nightmares. Give it a go.

5.  It Follows  A simple premise that follows many modern horrors. As soon as the female lead has sex, the nightmares begin to taunt her. In this situation, a lisless night out with a boy who disappears gives her nightmares and this oncoming feeling of dread. Then things start to happen, like a stalker. She thinks it was the boy-and when she finds him, she realizes that there's a beast out there that follows a person until they couple with someone, and then follows the next victim until the someone is dead. The horror is too real for any woman who just has that one guy they need to escape from.

4.  Jesus Camp I used to love Vacation Bible School. It was a great way to start up several bromances, hot teens I could hang with and yet leave at the end of the day without having to worry about the algebra on page six. Basically it was a church oriented mildly mature babysitting service. Made sense. They could earn a few bucks, and those pesky teens, prone to the evils of free time in the summer, won't get involved in any kind of shenanigans.

The key? The church could earn a few bucks.

Our current vice schmuck, Pense, see, is part of the board of one of those money makers-Focus on the Family. They have a pretty extensive cash cow out there in bogus gay conversion therapies and, why, yes, look, gay conversion therapy made it to the GOP platform.

Same for these camps. Tax free money for the higher up. And, just like any drug addict, you can get the kids addicted to church going and afraid of not doing otherwise. An ongoing source of funds, all motivated by fear and guilt.

Not unlike my mother's parenting styles.

Jesus Camp is a different kind of horror movie, albeit an unintended one. It's actually a documentary about several of these camps in the town of Devil's Lake, North Dakota. Yes, cut off far from the real world, so the kiddoes wont' escape. They minister to these children, screaming and yelling and making them cry, instilling that fear.

Remember, these tend to the GOP members that say they fear the indoctrination of children into the Islamic faith.

The stench of the horrors coats you and, by the end, you want to vomit, even though you've not seen a single piece of gore throughout the film. The horror is real. These people will be bringing their children into your hometown. At one point, a young girl, 7 or 8, starts to 'minister' to an older woman at a bowling alley. This is setting her up to be a victim. But the parents encourage it. It's a nightmare to behold.

3.)  Poltergeist  The thing I enjoyed about movies like Coraline, the Conjuring 1 and 2, even the Exocist, is that, even though the scares are real and the nightmares are right before us, there's no high body count. Surely, the stakes are medium, but more for something intangible. Our spirits. Really, I have yet to find a horror movie that is worthwhile with ghosts. The Sixth Sense is excellent, but really, the score of the movie is wide and vast.

But Poltergeist is a delicious, old school haunted house tale. Gory, monstoours, and moving at an incredible clip, it covers a ton of ground in a short amount of time. It's so good that old story tropes appear again, and are told so creatively and novel, we don't mind, but we suspect where the tale is going from the very beginning. There's also a deeper allegory of how the family is separating itself from the traditional past-escaping if you will-and forging ahead into one with technological horrors. Great scares, clear writing, a sight to behold.

2.)  Silence of the Lambs  Rarely is the movie as good as the book, but when you have a team like John Demme has assembled, this movie rips through the Oscars like bullet to the brain. Top notch performers give career changing performances and, yes, well, the movie reads just like the book it's based on. The true horror is not the serial killer, but the fact that the federal government has one locked up in Pennsylvania and are using him for information. A dangerous liaison develops and the symbolism begins-two wrongs don't right a situation.

What's better? By having the crafted hands of Anthony Hopkins play doctor Hannibal Lector (a character so good, they keep bringing back with terrible sequels and awful television programs, jsut to milk the franchise-fuck them all, come back to this point and see where the horrors began) for a mere 8 minutes of movie time, shows a confidence. He doesn't do a thing from his cell, but he's more threatening in language (thanks to an excellent script) than an angry man with a pistol. His physicality, limited to that tiny room, means the performer has to fill the space with manic energy and, yes, you start to become scared every time the police interview him. To combat that, they bring a young cadet, played by Jodie Foster, who is also so skilled, that you fear for her life.

Incredible stuff.

1.)  The Thing  Supposedly this is the horror movie ever made, and I tend to agree. A lone artic science base finds a stray dog being chased by a Norsk helicopter and save it.

The dog kills the other dog and escapes. Seems the Norweigns found an alien buried for a few centuries under the ice. A creature that can shape shift into any other creature.

And the adventure is on. Here we are talking about art and I cannot thank John Carpenter enough for his skill. You have all the needed requirements for horror, isolation, paranoia, lack of trust, increasing violence, and a setting of dread. A beautiful score and mostly unknown performers means we're not sure what to expect. Only one really famous name (Kurt Russell), so, we, as an audience, will guess he'll survive. But the rest of the movie? Who will? Since any of the teammates can be the alien as it expands its grasp, what can they do to find the truth?



Themes I'm noticing here? I'm very, very frightened by large groups of people doing bad things. Sorta like Washington. Or? Not necessarily bodies piling high, but spirits being torn. Better? Lotsa small room horrors, stuff that's up close and personal.

Movie Review: Ghostbusters

The internet was built on whining.

It's why it is so popular during big election years.

Recently, I whined a bit too. Not because of Trump's obvious stupidity, but because something dear to my heart. I had gone to see Disney's wonderful Finding Dory, but there was the film's director right up there on the screen and he was, personally, thanking me, for coming to see his movie.

My kvetch? It would be nice that he didn't have to thank me. He could, you know, just make a movie and we'd go.

Sorta like a cornfield out in Iowa with a baseball diamond.

"If you build it, they will come."

My whine was simple and I was taken to task on it.  The crux of it was thus:   I'm tired of retreads and sequels. But in the space of a Tweet, I cannot detail the depth of my concern or be able to elaborate.  The argument they (my friends) made was especially valid and, to some extent, I do agree.  They pointed out that Hollywood is playing it safe. It's better to spend the money on something with a seeded fanbase than to put the dough on a novelty. Franchises, like McDonald's and Burger King are dying across the nation, but in the movies, it's what they're looking for. My friends pointed out that it's expensive to see movies, especially with a family of four or more on something that it is not tried and true or remotely true.

I get that.

My argument is still the same, however. There needs to be more originality in Hollywood and less business. If we look at from a business aspect? Yes, I get it. I don't, however, have to like it. And I don't want to be thanked before every picture.

I'm smart. I like novelty and new and art. This is all very easy for me to say and believe this. I think people go to sequels and reboots for these reasons, but, also, because there's nothing else out there to go see. Original titles do seem to jump to the screen during the Oscar run. So there is that.

I should also point out, reboots and sequels do have a place in my universe. Please, where would my soul be without the Star Wars saga? Porn itself is terribly repetitious, really a bit "hard" to find something new in that genre, ahem. Same with horror movies. But, sometimes, just sometimes, the character is befit a sequel. We want to take the journey again.

I also think of that one time I ended up a teacher's aid and projectionist for a Film Appreciation course.

I took the final, passed, and they let me stay, ahem to earn some money.

Anyhowitzer, we played the movie North-By-Northwest and several people in the audience noticed that Eva Marie Saint had on heels during a pivotal chase scene. They could not embrace the time and the fact that, when this movie came out, Hitchcock movies tended to have juicy roles for women when such things were rare (and, sadly, still are...but we'll elaborate about that in a minute).  It led to a moment in the film where she fell, which lead to an increase in the tension on the face of Mount Rushmore-but those in the audience, whilst liking the movie, had not reached that level, yet.

And I learned, as I saw that happen from my little booth above the classroom, that reboots could do something very powerful. Imagine if that audience had seen a reboot with much of the same key elements thrown in. That audience would really 'get it.'

They can introduce and update classics to a new audience. Hitchcock, in my belief, would be awesome to remake nowadays. His themes about the loss-of-self and identity theft are perfect in our digital world. With a handsome lead like Tom Cruise on vacation with his wife in Morocco and someone runs up to him on whispers in his ear and then is killed-puft The Man Who Knew Too Much. Channing Tatum flirts with a nice young lady at a PetSmart before heading home to visit on his weekend with his daughter in Bodega Bay, bringing a pair of cute little lovebirds he purchased. The young lady leaves PetSmart, googles the name on the credit card and starts to follow. And gets attacked by birds in the parking lot as she pulls into town to get gas. BOOM! The Birds returns. Do it in 3-D and in Imax. Get a maximum scary soundtrack and release it in July, with air conditioning blasting.

See? It has a place.

When it's thought out.

Which brings us to this week's review: Ghostbusters.

No new title. No "The Next Generation." No Part two, three, or four or whatever.

Just a reboot.

And not a very good one. It's, well, it's alright. I really wanted to like this movie; I wanted it to prove me wrong. I'm always rallying that there needs to be more women's roles out there. And when I heard this was coming, I was geared.

'Cause I love ghosts, too. A strong cast was listed, but, well, the whole set up was awkward.

And it didn't play to their strengths.

It exists in a world where there is no Ghostbusters, so they were starting up from scratch. In it, someone, a random character is trying to bring about the usual Apocalypse, but by making accelerated machines that bring spirits over to this plane of existence.

And our characters figure out the scheme.

They have cool equipment, to be sure, but it's not really explained. It makes me wonder if the writers were given the script as an assignment, like homework for school, and just followed the outline that the teacher gave them. In no short order, the assignment for the script asked for:

logo generation
equipment creation
the end of the world
places for cameos that do not further the story
no onscreen deaths, even if we're talking about ghosts
no scares, since kiddos need to buy the toys
special car
firehouse where it happens
a visit by the mayor

All the things that happened in the first movie.

Ideally a few ways could ahve been approached. Make it sequel-that ghosts don't exist any more, but are slowly coming back. How's about it's original in the fact that the bad guy actually helped develop some of the tech they are using?

Humor is lacking but comedy is based on conflict, but all of the characters get along, so there's nothing there. Chris Hemsworth has some fun by showing up as the blond secretary, playing against horrible female stereotype (and nice part of the film, actually). But the two best friends who separated, Melissa Macarthy (who I adore, but here just complains) and Kirsten Wiig (who I also adore, but does nothing particularly funny-was she supposed to be the straight man) just don't click.

I will say that that Kate McKinnon is a surprise to behold. She takes something that could be stock and turns it into a random, confident, event. Get this young person in more movies, people. She's magnetic. Also a nice surprise? Leslie Jones. An SNL alum, gets a pretty poorly written character. African American, she's appears uneducated and that bothered me. But, again, there's a personality there and she doesn't come off as one-note. She, too, needs more screen time, SOMEWHERE. I liked her, despite everything. I would like to have known why she suddenly felt kinship with the rest of the cast. Instead, she just shows up, asks for help on something she observed, and....joins the team.

Huh?

It's these kinds of plot loopholes that make the tale fall sour.

It's not a total loss. Like I said, these stars are massively likeable, so it's like hanging out with old friends. And since it's a reboot, that works too.

And special effects wise, this was a beauty to behold.

But I'm still stuck on why did the bad guy use ghosts to bring the end times?

The whole thing is awkward. Don't get a comedy writer to write a ghost story, I guess.

Yes, I'm looking at you, Kevin Smith. And, apparently you, Paul Frieg.

So it, too, is the middle of the road. I'm kinda hoping for a sequel, thinking they can get another run at this.  They have great performers, images that are awesome. But, yet again, poor writing drags it all through the mud. ARGH!

Movie AND Attraction Reviews: D-Box Motion Theater and Star Trek: Beyond

For all the vilification that accumulated over the years in hatred for both Michael Jackson and Captain Eo, I have to admit, the two have always had a very special place in my heart. For one, I am and was an 80s kid. I ran home to see the premiere of Michael’s Thriller. And when I heard he was making another such film, I ran my butt out to Disneyland (our home park from Colorado) and waited a decent sweltering 3 hours for it’s opening, along with Star Tours.

So, on a recent trip to EPCOT, when the heat got too much and much aligned film (everyone seems to love to hate that blasted little ditty from the 80s, maybe it reminds too many of their boulderized childhoods), we arrived late and ended up towards the back of the house. Now, I had known for some time that the theater here at Walt Disney World was on an actuator, and, like Star Trek, the entire huge house could move back and forth, up and down.

I just never realized it. I like to be me and the screen.

However, sitting to the back? I saw it. I saw the heads in the house bob with the beat of the music, and they were not just jamming. Loud sounds? Thump went the floor. Explosions made the seats shimmy. Suddenly, that movie I had see a few gazillion times was interesting, even on a minor level, again.

Growing up in Colorado, I eventually outgrew the sights and sounds that made the state a tourist destination. Eventually, everyone who came to visit seemed to want to visit the same five things and, well, it killed my sense of adventure for my homestate. Which is too bad, if you’re an outdoorsy-hippie-tree-hugger, it truly is the place to be.

It’s all that green.

But when I moved to Florida, I figured out-I don’t know everything here. I did not grow up here, so, basically, everything had a novelty to it. It’s wonderful. Crappy t-shirt stores suddenly take on a renewed vigor. My circles expand and expand and even old digs like Disney World still provides a newness I was not getting from hugging all those pine trees and digging out splinters.

This week’s quest led me to an item I stumbled upon, something called, “D-Box.” Now, one has only to visit my blog to see my undying love for movies, heck, even my brief mention for my love for the craptacular Captain Eo in the preceding paragraphs should show you, I dig cinema. When I heard about this concept, I was interested, at the very least.

How it works is that an adopting theater removes a row or two of seats, and places several of the chairs with these D-Box chaises. Now, you have to remember, I’m sure there’s an expense here, so they do add to the ticket price. And they’re retrofitted, too, so they’ll have to fit in a previously built theater. I notice there were two rows about the ninth row in, where we would normally position the speakers to aim at. A bit of a perk. The seats would have to be reserved seating as well, so that patrons who did not pay extra would not hop into the empty or available spaces. In fact, it looked like once a seat was reserved, it activated, making sure the theater was getting its money’s worth.

It was, well, interesting.

First off, that big theater with Captain Eo? Clunky. Large, grandiose movements. With each single seat having it’s own axis, I noticed these seats with D-Box were detailed in their motions and smooth. I did not feel jarred, per se, but since your feet are on steady ground, you are slightly more aware of the angles you are tilting. There’s a dial for you to select your intensity, but I did not toy with it, noticing that the ‘normal’ setting was strong enough.

Yes, you can even turn off.

Why would you want to, however? You paid extra.

I don’t recommend holding food that’s too full. Just in case. And put them away from your feet, also, just in case. They turn it on during the trailers, and even then, I was briefly impressed. The movement was perfectly coordinated with the movie and, as the length of the film progressed, I noticed I tended to forget the special seats we were in.

I also noticed that it keeps you from falling asleep. Such seats would probably not work for Casablanca or something deeply boring like that nine hour snooze-fest of the English Patient.  But for an actioner? Perfect. Something with running and jumping. We also thought it might be good with a decent horror flick, something where the seats jolt you at those specific moments. It’ll make you fear the chair more than the movie.

But let’s be real here. Movies in the theater are going down in the ticket sales department. People aren’t willing to risk the extra prices for something they don’t know, so reboots and sequels abound all over the map. Like 3-D prints of common movies, it looks like here’s Hollywood finding another way to wrestle another few dollars out of our collective pockets.

It’s fun, it’s neat, but I don’t know if it is something I would go out of my way to experience again, which is saying something. The only location is a half-empty mall off the edge of downtown Orlando, far from the various parks, so I wonder what the theater was thinking-it was not trying to pull tourist dollars.

I realized, as the movie went on, as I said before, I like to be me and the screen. I like the immersive-ness of that connection. And, on some attractions, that’s what makes it terrific. Look at Star Tours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. By having you in a StarSpeeder 3000, no matter where you sit and, basically, watch the movie, you still feel part of a larger whole. Harry Potter’s Forbidden Journey shows films and has a dark ride component, and, again, the guest is totally immersed. Here? I was still in a theater. And with the rows of these special seats so far back, all I had to do was turn my head. I luckily saw the film, Star Trek: Beyond, in 3-D, so that helped some, but, again, the smells of popcorn wafted in and took me back to the realities that I was still in a theater.

There were points, too, when the motion was subtle and I forgot about being in such a specially designed seat, but these moments were too far and few between to really catch my attention and more of an effect of the quality of the picture than the reality of the seats we were in.

How was the Movie?

I supposed you’ve enough of my babbling here to make it this far, and you shall be rewarded. With everything going on while watching this flick, you’d think I’d not have an opinion.

First off, you do not need to see this movie in 3-D. I am not one for it myself, I will only go if it is the only time I can go. The fact is, movies these days are not made to be in 3-D and are usually digitally created after the film’s production. The only time I think it truly enhances movie going is with a bland title like Avatar, which holds no true originality, but does work better as a theme-park-kinda existence on an Imax screen; or, better, in the already 3-D animations that are coming out of Laika studios. I’m thinking Coraline, ParaNorman, or the upcoming Kubo and the Two Strings. The artists are making 3-D models, and I, for one, want to see it.

But Star Trek? Nah.

I’ve been slightly critical about the recent reboots of Star Trek. The television show, especially The Next Generation, really plied on the science. It was true science fiction, stuff that would make Neil Degrasse Tyson proud. However, the reboot, in order to pay for the superb special effects, needed to apply to a large audience. So the science, which tends to be cold (and, if you watched the television show, only in the engineering rooms), is toned down and the interplay is played up. But J.J. Abhrams does something well-he makes delicious ensemble pieces. Pick your character and, in two hours, they will have some screen time. In the previous incarnations of Star Trek, Spock and Kirk, all the way. Now? Every character has their due and it works like a small soap opera. That keeps the settings changing and the plot zipping forward.

And, as a follow author, it is a bitch to write in long form, I can only imagine having to tackle it in a two hour screenplay.

That is where we are with this picture, too. Here, we have a new baddie with a grudge coming after the famed United Federation of Planets and our heroes and their ship are caught in the fray. Do I need to elaborate? You will see it again. Is it good? Yes, and, I found slightly better than it’s predecessors. This time, J.J. has let Justin Lin take the helm and he seems very bothered by the plot of it all, so he keeps the talking bits curt and the point, and I did not mind. The problem? The plot is intricate, with ties to this moment and that moment. If you are not paying attention, the tale can ride away from you. I suppose I could elaborate, but it defies description.

Let’s see if I can do it some justice without releasing spoilers: Bad guy wants a weapon with known success and the Enterprise has it. Destroys the ship and scatters the crew. Each member of the crew follows their own trajectory in the plot until their combined knowledge wins the day.

Yeah, no details because with eight major characters, the reading would make your head explode. Should you go see it? If you like this kind of movie, sure. Even if you are not into Star Trek, it has enough running and jumping that it can be seen as summer fare.

On a sidenote, and I do not believe I’m giving any spoilers here, Idris Elba is playing the villain. I always hated the stereotype of English men always being the bad guys, but, well, here’s Idris having to take that rein again. Not only that, for some reason, they put a mask on that beautiful face of his. Why does Hollywood have this image that he can’t just...you know…be? I really think Hollywood, like so much of Washington, has little concept of the audiences they are playing to. Why is this?

So, yes, this movie is entertaining, but not enough that if you elect to just Netflix it when it becomes available. For me? Just seeing the brief moment of Sulu with his husband was awesome, truly, in terms of visibility, but, like with hiding Idris from our prying eyes, why were they even worried about it. Why not just have John Cho’s version outright be gay? Why just push it aside to a footnote? The argument could be made that such things are really not tantamount to the perils of the tale, IE:  by that point in the future, it is enough commonplace that to make an issue out of it in the storyline, THAT would seem out of place, moreso. There was a point, in Star Trek, The Next Generation, where dear Counselor Troi, when the ship encounters a race of hermaphrodites that abhor gender identity simple states about the Federation, “they aren’t as accepting as our cultures have progressed.” So, by not identifying it, they have, in a way, shown that it really isn’t, in the end, that big of a deal.

Maybe it isn’t.

But go if you’re interested. I liked it. And I’m not even a Trekkie. I found it progressed quickly and I’d probably like it regardless of the moving seats or not.

Movie Review: Finding Dory

How could I say no?

I had come back from one of the more morose travels I had ever experienced and knew I need to go to My Happy Place. However, sometimes, when you live up the road, getting to Disney World is a bit of a production. THere's animals and food and money and gas and time there and back and lines and.....and...

But a movie? How's about a Disney movie?

I wish I could say "spoilers" at some point in this review, but, really, do you not know, by now, what's going to be happening in a Disney/Pixar sequel? If you don't, that's kosher on some level. Pixar does tend to mix in some truly original approaches (80 year olds sword fighting in a balloon? Look at Up/Frat initiation with monsters? Look at Monsters University), and, to some extent, their own original send ups (Tangled is massively creative), but overall, you are aware of their delicious witty timeless commentary, their upbeat understandings, and their positive endings.

Finding Dory fills each of the boxes. But, really, nothing more. Instead of Nemo being lost, it's Dory's history and realizing her failing memory from the first movie is the impetus for a new adventure. So? For some reason, her memory comes back and she decides to find the family she had forgotten about. Cue music.

The sea, however, covered so expansively in the first movie, doesn't hold much more for them to discover, so now the action is moved to an animal rescue facility and the cute characters within. And, just like in every Pixar movie, stars line up to say their three lines and get on the marquee. But unlike usual padding of resumes, there's something to be said about the scripting. Yes, this is a rehash, but there's still some fun things going on. And it's always a good idea to get in on the fun. That's what these stars are doing.

Outstanding is Ed O'Neill, of Modern Family and Married with Children fame, as another curmedgoen, this time, in the color changing octopus named Hank. His character is fully fledged with fears and concerns and it plays well with the optimist that is Dory. All cool things? Dory's memory concerns are treated like a learning disability and I appreciated it. It showed the stress the parents were under and the ways they addressed it. If felt this added a heart to a supporting character. Ellen's protrayal was as a comedic relief, a supporting character in the first movie. Such a decision made sense when moving her to a protagonist.

Where the movie fails? Well, animations run on the edge of our reality or fully in another reality. That's the glory of it. A glimpse into a world that isn't as visible to us. The toys in Toy Story are still bound by the realities of our own; and, in the original Finding Nemo, the same thing applied. However, here? The interactions between humans and the fish go a bit extreme in that department, especially in an overlong third act, where they steal a truck (!).

Fact was, however, since I had been on the journey for so long, I didn't truly mind. And kids won't care. But? Still? I wish they had held to their usual high expectations for themselves all the way through. By that point, you could see the Pixar heads' aggravation with Disney treating them like a cash cow. You could hear them saying, "fine, you want a sequel? Dang...here's YOUR BLOODY SEQUEL! Now shut it while we make more of the movies we want to see!!!!"

That being the case? Yeah, a good movie. Not a great one, by any sense. Not the deep artwork we saw before, just a joyous engagement. Watch if you want, but don't worry, you're not missing canon or anything.

Why I Left

The kids were screaming.

So was my soul.

I know, I know, so dramatic, isn't it? I'm so dramatic. Even I know when too much is too much.

But it works.

I had not been on a ruder flight to Colorado, since, of course, the last flight to Colorado. It made sense. A terrific, maybe a not so terrific, excessively hot vacation had come to a close. The kids, stuck waiting on line to meet Mickey McCheese and now they were stuck on a plane with various boring adults. No wifi (which sucks moosedick, dear Frontier), no more cool hats or sugar options. They ran up and down the aisles or stared at whomever, making sure that their various targets would hate every child in existence. The adults were just as bad, but I think that they weren't tourists, unless they were grandparents. Instead, their prostates sang in unison, so that when the seatbelt light went out and we evened out, they formed a queue at the lavatories.

Just like every other attraction in Florida.

Yeah, I was annoyed. I was annoyed that my family would not come back to Florida and I, instead, had to fly to Colorado to see them. So, even if the flight was filled with gold and free coffee (another reason to hate Frontier, the fuckers, you had to pay for coffee), I probably would have found something wrong.

That's me, all angsty-like.

I had to return home. Dad was sick, mother, well, she was always ailing with something, but now? She needed an oxygen tank to get around-or, as the world of the theater calls it-props. She needed props to keep the show going. So wasn't moving.

When Mohammed couldn't make it to the mountain, the mountain came to Mohammed, no?

So I flew out. It'd been a decent four years since my last return and I felt in necessary, no matter how much this queen protested. Family is family, after all. And, no matter how much they work on me trying to develop a hatred for them, I still loved them.

Liking them, well, that was a different story.

But as I flew and got a shitload of reading done (probably why I'm in such a mood to write), I thought that, maybe, just maybe, I should put down why I finally gave up the ghost and moved to Florida. I noticed, in casual conversations, I give so many reasons as to why, I realized I probably should put it down some where. I think, too, that the reasons I left my homeland multiplied as the years passed, and I realized the hold my wonderful misery had on me. I'm from an ethnic family. Misery and suffering is pretty much omnipresent. As I suffered out in the snows of Pikes Peak, it did not occur to me that I was suffering, I thought it was what I was supposed to do.

Here's the thing. A good portion of this particular trip involved planning for the end of life of my parents. Not because they are dying, they're not. They are acting as if they are, but that's nothing particularly new. But I realized that I'm STILL holding on to the pain that I had there in Colorado. I don't want to die with that feeling.

I'm pulling a let-it-go moment. This is it. I've started this list before. Time to bring it to a close.

And sing Disney tunes.

I had long heard of "burnout." They actually have lessons and workshops on it when your undergrad. When you are an idealist and young and think that nothing can happen to you. I had been at my job teaching at the school for the deaf for a decent twenty years when they hired the only applicant for a principal. Now, think about that. The only applicant. Deaf schools are vital to the Deaf community. They are place where Deaf Culture thrives and sign language is internalized and grown.

But they only had on applicant. And since they didn't have a principal, they hired the first person who applied.

She didn't last. The school had been there for over 100 years. That mean many of the things they did there had been set in stone. Technology was a struggle. Many of the teachers were about to retire, which meant that a newer, younger staff was about to take the reigns. And the school, desparate and afraid of losing the budget from the government grabbed the first person who came along. She was great, actually, but she was not ready for what was before her. She didn't last and the newer teachers, were unable to step up to fill the gap.

Hiring had to come from within. I was offered the position, but, in all honesty, I'm no administrator. I don't like telling people what to do, and, frankly, your job would be mostly calling parents to talk about issues. I was not young, like most of the pregnant staff (I shit you not and that is not a sexist statement...we hired 12 young women who were preggers within their first 6 months of the job....a crisis was looming), nor was I ready for retirement.

They asked, as they looked for a new principal, if I would fill in in the afternoons while the super took up the mornings?

No extra pay, but a crapload of street cred. It'd only be a week or two.

Sounds good.

4 months passed. I had to help with everything, since the superintendent was in another building and didn't know half of the staff or the students beneath them. I had to interview possible new hires. The ones who were Deaf did not have degrees or experience in anything. The ones who had experience could not sign, knew nothing of the culture to begin with.

And my brain started to frazzle. I started staying at the school until 8 or 9 at night and had to come in on Sundays to do lesson plans-since our population kept increasing. Deaf students were failing the state-mandated tests. So? Schools, afraid of the special education students bringing their scores downwards, would ship them to the state school.

A place that had been failing their state tests for pretty much the same reason.

And the super was already yelling at the staff to get the kids to pass. Kids with a 1st grade reading level.

The flames had begun. I began to burnout. Vacations taken were filled with sickness as my body was so plagued during the week. Yes, I eventually moved my coworker into the position and shared her office (all the while, teaching English) and had to get her up to speed.

For no extra cash.

I quit the job the next year. And everyone was surprised for some reason. I guess that meant I did a good job, but not once was I thanked, not once was a kudo handed my way. The job, my FIRST teaching position ever, had been soiled by items out of everyone's control.

I remember the last school play I did not direct, my first time in 20 years. A young lady (not pregnant...yet) had taken the reigns with her performing arts degree. She had special effects, movies, it was incredible. I remember trying to get the same things for years, but I would ahve to sew the costumes, alone, in the basement; I had to build the sets because the vocational classes and the maintence crew was too busy to do so.

Yet I had installed a young blonde and, funny, she got the men to work for her. Go figure.

It was time to leave. THe place was in good hands.

I took the job for teaching the deaf in the public realm, and set up a mainstream program with my colleagues still at the Deaf school.

My first meeting at the new job ended at 5. Union rules. I went home and made dinner. And saw a movie, midweek, with my husOtter.

If such a change could lower my heart rate, it was time to start doing things for my own sake.

I took the job at the Deaf school because that's what I wanted. But it was my first job and it really defined me. Without much experience, I didn't realize that there was a whole different culture in public schools. I was seen, suddenly, as an equal. My meetings came to an end. I wasn't working from item to item.

I could teach.

It was time to leave and see what else was out there.

I am more grateful than this article elaborates, believe me. But yes, those classes about burnout had suddenly struck my brain like a match.

And I was on fire.

In the fall of 2007, my grandfather, a great man, passed away. He had said, in my last deep meeting with him, upon meeting my husOtter, "you know, he could be part of our family, too, with him living with us." He got it. In his own way, his history would not let him say with confidence but his dying heart knew, his grandson was happy and living with someone. As we placed him into time itself, I realized that man had done everything from the same seat in his house for eons. My father was born in the house that my grandfather would eventually die in. All my aunts and uncles.

But they had moved on. We had. But he had stayed. He never saw Paris, never could afford it. Maybe he didn't want to, and that's alright too.

With his deepening connection in those final days and hours, I saw more of him and me and realized that, even though he passed away happy, knowing he had communicated his wishes for eternity.

Suddenly, my fate came into a bit of a clearer focus. Would it be alright if I passed away in the hosue I was in now? Would it be okay to move onto the Secret Worlds without never seeing Paris?

Yes, I'd be fine.

And that kind of confidence defined him. And it defined me.

So? I wanted to move to Florida. Why was I waiting? You know the cliche. What would you do if you knew you'd not fail? Move on and try a different life.

I did. I wanted to be like my grandfather. I wanted to be confident into my last days. And such a risk was a rare and alien thing.

I left Colorado with him in mind. He never got to Florida as it was. I was to take him there, then.

Speaking of passing, I had to head back. It was a last minute thing, my own stepDad was not doing well.

Guess what happened when I posted about heading back on social media?

Nothing. Only two people even noticed.

Fancy that. Now, that's not directly attached to my grandfather, but it is the environment I had no realized I left, until, of course, I left. Wealthy barons of all sorts pander to the Colorado territory and, to some extent, it's why shootings tend to happen there. People just feel entitled.

And when I announced this recent visit, people were like, "great, you should come back."

Not, "who/what/where/when."

Only two found a reason to put down their various hookahs and call in their private choppers for a visit. Okay, that was mean...but funny.

Two. I lived there for my whole life. Two. People who tell me I'm wrong on social media. Just two. We all want a standing ovation. People are busy. It typified what I'd been up against my entire life. A culture of entitlement that I had not expected and was part of, sadly. And when I left? It became more and more apparent.

Like the lady screaming that at the gate attendant that she was in Zone One for her flight's seating and, ergo, should step ahead, after all, she had 5 children.

The lady at the nail shop arguing I needed a full back massage for 59 extra dollars.

Fuck you. No, I don't. I need a foot massage and some cookies.

My own mother made very similar observations, I recall, when we visited New York to see members of her family.

I guess, in the end, you can't go home again. And, since home is where you heart is, I guess my heart was not into it.

So? I left then and I'm still happy I left, now. What is it they say? People tend to pay more attention to critical reviews AFTER they've consumed something. Go figure. I'm thinking that's what happened here. I didn't realize how yucky things were until long after the fact.

So? I left.

Movie Review: The Conjuring 2

There was a ghost story in the news.  I remember it vividly. Every night, the buzz over the book, “The Amityville Horror,” made all the crime and economic woes of the seventies pull into a very different perspective.

“You could be living down in Amityville.”

Oh, how my morbid soul would have loved it.

My older brother even read the book. This was a big step. He didn’t even read the directions on the shampoo bottle.

I was hooked.

Then? Then there was a Halloween documentary special on ghosts. Right there on HBO. My mother treated us to cable upon the passing of my father-it made sense, for soon we’d be latchkeys and need something to do.

And I watched that ghost video show a few times.

A precursor to YouTube videos, I’m sure.

On that little movie, they played back the tapes from a very documented case.

The Enfield Haunting.

The fact was, the tapes had just been released, and, due to the proximity of the famed Amityville haunting, the press was keeping the attention up and as strong as possible.

I was enthralled. My mother was hesitant. She noticed something was up when, instead of heading downstairs at the Emma S. Clark library, to the kiddie stacks, I instead went to the Dewey triple O’s.

I was researching. I found out the tales of Bell Witch Haunting. The Amityville Horror. The Borley Rectory.

And Enfield. Information about that was still short. But it would keep my interests for quite some time.

Until this Christmaskkah, when a friend told me about a special right there on BBC. I had to watch.

And I remembered. The chills and fascination returned.

It’s with this visage I came to watch the The Conjuring 2. I absolutely loved The Conjuring. Yes, it take massive dramatic license with the books I had read. But? The tale was full. And this was not a dead teenager movie. This movie (the Conjuring) truly was like the Amityville Horror. There were no dead bodies. But there were scares; pale faces; spooky rooms; ripped wallpapers. I loved it for the same reason I loved the Haunted Mansion. The long drawn out sequences and the feeling that there’s just something spookier around the next corner. There’s something creepy going on. And the audience was drawn in.

I was annoyed that they made a sequel.

Then we saw it.

Okay, they should have called it The Conjuring 2 as a subtitle. Because, what James Wan has done? He’s recreated the first scary tale, keeping all the fun creepy stuff and the two main protagonists, and plopped them down in a new, ‘true-life’ ghost story.

And this movie is actually pretty good, believe it or not.  The only drawback? Well, the sequences are a bit drawn out. It’s evident to me that he’s got experience enough that he knows the audience expects a jump with every specific, lingering camera angle. So those moments tend to be longer and longer,

But I will admit, at least twice, there were scares that had NOTHING to do with jumping, but were so deliciously creepy that I applaud their use. In fact, at the conclusion, I realized that special effects were pretty much not uses. Instead, a production design that kept us well aware of the house’s mapping and claustrophobia; actors that telegraphed their concerns so well, that I was a bit worried.

Do you like the Haunted Mansion at the Disney parks? You like the mood and atmosphere over just the standard dark-ride scares or those cheesy Halloween prank houses with teens in bad make-up? Then you’ll like this movie.

Ugh.

I shouldn't write about this. I'm, by no means, an authority on guns, or violence. Heck, I don't anyone who survived, and I don't know who was slaughtered.

I'm not the correct choice, but, at the same time, I feel compelled to author something. 

Cause I'm here. I'm a member of this nation, this planet. And I'm gay. 

There was a massacre at a gay nightclub. 

Not only that, I've been here before. 

Nathan Dunlap, upset over being fired, walked into a Showbiz Pizza place and shot up the place.  Article

The same place behind my middle school where, when I had extra quarters, I'd walk over and play video games at. 

That was close. Too close. 

See, there was a shooting in Colorado-as a school a friend of mine had just finished student teaching at. I had driven by and talked to her while she was there.  Yes, it was Colombine.

I knew that school.

That was close to home, emotionally, physically.

And then there was a shooting in a Colorado movie theater, during the The Dark Knight Rises.

The same...too close. That was the theater I had seen numerous movies, including taking my tyke of niece to see various cartoons with large popcorns; my dad and I escaping to see The Blair Witch Project to see if it was real or not. 

There's a humor in all of this. It may seem like I'm the harbinger of death, doesn't it. But the fact is, I don't own a gun, never will. In fact, it's something my husOtter completely agree on. We're men of faith. Thou shall not kill. 

Neither will we. 

No guns. 

I mean, what good will they do? I love hearing how great they are and how people are so proud of having them and keeping people safe. I have YET to hear of one story where a mass murderer was stopped by a bystander with a handgun.

You're going to google to prove me wrong, which is interesting. Because it says something more about you, the reader, than my statement. You need to justify yourself. As if the piles of dead bodies aren't enough to convince you that there's a problem. 

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Where was the Pope's gun? Just curious. I saw 10 men with guns around Reagan. And they were trained. And they fucked up big time. 

Now? Let's stop for a minute. When did it become a conversation about weaponry? 

And when the fuck are we getting to Orlando?

There was a shooting in Orlando. The thing I thought I was unqualified to talk about. But, like the other shots that were fired, are waaaay too close to my heart. I am gay. 

I know, surprise.

And I've been to gay clubs. Our safehouse. Before I came out, it was the only place I could others of my tribe, my color, my community. I got my first apartment across the street from the gay bar and would go there to watch football and play pool. It was a place where I could be, where many could just...be. To hear it shattered, again, by a religious nut is, at once, upsetting, and strangely, predictable. 

The fact is, we got marriage rights, but we're far from out of the woods yet. I mean, if the governor can declare a state of emergency without mentioning the word lesbian, gay, or anything about a sexual minority ONCE, you know, still, the state of Florida hates you. Even if it happened in a gay club. They don't even acknowledge that you exist. Lest we forget, Florida was one of the few states that didn't want to issue marriage licenses. 

Reminds me of the 80s, which I also lived through. When no one seemed to want to mention anything about the AIDS epidemic.

*)  EDIT:  I found this. Please notice who DIDN'T acknowledge the LGBT community: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/how-lawmakers-responded-to-the-orlando-mass-shooting/

In fact, fucking Fox News with their ongoing coverage. That media outlet, which has singlehandedly kept gay rights at bay for the past few years is reporting about this, the fucking dingletwats. This is the channel that would invite Ralph Reed and Dobson on as "experts" on all things nongay.

And they're getting ratings.

Or my friends who, instead of checking on me or my friends, posted about, "here comes Obama, watch, he'll want our guns!" Not...are you okay?

And I'm not okay, not one bit. Pile this heap with shit from my nieces (yes, plural) dying in a car wreck, being robbed, both the cat and the dog dying, and then 10 weeks of the flu-and you have me in a corner, so I'm going to get all catty. Sorry.

I'm just so sorry.

No, I'm not blaming Islam, either. I did have some pause that, after 4 days of visiting us in Orlando, President Obama met with the Saudi princes at the White House-a country that executes gays. Yes, that's state business, but....come ON. 

Yes, I'm venting. The fact is, gun control may not be the answer, but I do believe, strongly, that research needs to be completed. Something that the NRA refuses to allow so they lobby against it. Makes sense. With every shooting, people buy more guns. Less violence in media? Sure, that's an old chestnut, but if it were totally true, there'd be MORE violence, not less. I do like the idea of doing background checks. That doesn't keep guns from people, IMHO. But, like, what the fuck do I know. I want something to happen, but my head's too wrapped up in everything to really know what course of action to take.

Here are some actions you can take, however:

One Blood

Please donate blood. Of course, I'm a bit peeved about this too. Imagine if my husOtter was dying and needed blood. But the gays? We can't donate. Fuck!

Pulse Tragedy Fund through the Center of Orlando

Pulse Victims Fund via Equity Florida

But enough with the prayers. If the community wasn't already in your prayers, then you don't start now. DO. Let's DO something.