Quill & Claw/Pen & Paw

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, ...

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 ...

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, s...

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 D...

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 anno...

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...

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 th...