Better than a kick in the knee

Sweet news kiddies. Apparently Alexandre Aja is going to be remaking the 1970's Jaws rip-off Piranha.

Still not intrigued? Well how about this- IT'S GOING TO BE IN 3D.

My God, the terror.

I can't wait. Seriously.



For those of you who have not seen it, the movie is pretty easy to break down. Just take the plot from JAWS and superimpose it on a Floridian landscape and BAM, you've got Piranha. The only real difference here is that in JAWS the shark comes seemingly out of nowhere to wreak bloody havoc and in Piranha thousands of flesh-eating mini-blenders are released from a government tank....by accident.

All in all it's a fun movie if you've got some time (and brain cells) to kill.

Trash, Sleaze, and all things in-between

I'll say this now- I friggin' love me some movie trailers. I especially love the kind of movie trailers that make you think you're going to see a masterpiece when in fact you're about to see the worst kind of movie possible. Thanks to the good folks at Synapse Films, my appetite for bad trailers and even worse movies is fully satiated.

A few years ago I was flipping through a copy of Rue Morgue Magazine when I happened upon an advertisement for a DVD entitled, 42nd Street Forever. It advertised itself as a collection of some of the most bizarre underground movie trailers of its time and in doing so had completely won me over. It takes its name from the infamous 42nd Street movie theaters where, aside from playing blue movies and exploitation films, it became something of a haven for unscrupulous characters to partake in their dark habits.

Much to my surprise, I was actually able to find a copy at Best Buy of all places. I probably only got into it for about ten minutes before I realized that this was something special. Here were trailers for movies so bizarre, so outlandish, that they almost HAD to be preserved for future generations to ponder in dumbstruck awe.

Based on the success of the first, Synapse has since come out with a 42nd Street Forever Vol. 2, 42nd Street Forever XXX Special Edition (take a guess what it's about), and just recently a Vol. 3.


Now, I've got Vol. 2 at home and for the most part I dig it. My only compliant about the second edition is this- there's just too much of the old blue "Sex Ed." trailers. Don't get me wrong though, as much as I love weird movie trailers I have an even bigger love of boobs and porn, but for some reason the abundance of "Dick and Jane" teasers just outweighed the horror/sci-fi trailers that I really came to love. I had almost wished they just kept the blue stuff at a medium level and continued with the other genres.

Well.....now I sound like a prude. In any case, I highly recommend you check them out. There's really nothing better to strike up conversation at a boring party or break the ice with new friends than playing movie trailers for films like "Werewolves on Wheels" or "They Call Her One Eye".

Lunch....with a side of risk

Ever since I started dating my girlfriend I have begun to take odd chances with the things I eat. Now, she's not really one of these people who are obsessed with Asian culture, buying all sorts of big-eyed kitty anime figures and such, but she does have an interesting way of finding strange items from the East.

Thankfully for me and my stomach we have a small, but very authentic, Asian grocery store right up the street from our house. They have any number of yummy dried noodles and spices with unpronounceble names. It didn't take long for my wandering eyes to fall on this strange franchise of "Ramen" noodle meals.

Obviously it's called "U.F.O" which apparently still stands for "Unidentified Flying Object" (according to the box). While the many diagrams and the lack of English on the directions made it seem complicated, the stuff really is pretty good. Because we don't have a stove at work I had to get creative and just dump the contents into a rubber-maid container. After adding some hot water from the coffee machine, I put it in the microwave (which according to pictorial directions equals death) and heated it up for three minutes.

The end result was quite yummy. Just add the strange brown stuff from a package, along with the spices, and you've got yourself a nice meal. It sat in my stomach for a good two hours while giving the illusion of being full. But, much like all Asian cuisine, it was only a matter of time before I was ravenously hungry again.

Fido

Now that I've gotten the coppery taste of Howard the Duck out of my mouth I can talk about a movie that I liked, and for good reasons too.

There are times when comedic elements in a horror movie are good and times when they are downright dreadful. While I love Dead Alive and the incomparable Evil Dead series there are countless other titles that have mimicked the style and gone spiraling down to the horizon in flames. The Australian travesty Undead is one such celluloid abortion, its poster a deadly siren song promising awesome and delivering only pain. Some people absolutely loved Black Sheep but apparently I'm lacking a certain mental component that allows me to understand Kiwi humor. I don't get it either, because I grew up loving (and still love) British humor, even the really dry stuff.

But I digress, initially I was worried about Fido. Thankfully however, my fears were pretty much unwarranted.

To summarize, Fido takes place in an alternate 1950's in small town U.S.A. It is a world that has been through the ravages of "The Zombie Wars" and come out bright, shiny, and well equipped on the other side. The so-called savior of this world is a company called ZomCom, whose scientists first realized that the zombies could be killed by destroying the brain. Now, if you've ever seen any zombie movie worth a damn you know that this is typically the case (RTOLD excluded of course). What makes Fido so interesting is the way it builds upon this world. Yes the movie is hokey, yes it's silly, but it somehow successfully straddles that fine line between the absurd and the rational all the way through.


Billy Connolly is great, as is the rest of the cast. Everyone plays their part with a glint of sappy 1950's innocence and it gives the whole story a nice, albeit very surreal, glow. The sets are pristine and cookie cutter, just as one would predict of the time, and the music is refreshingly cool.



Anywho, I recommend.

When memories lie

As a kid there were a lot of movies which scared me and that in retrospect weren't scary at all. The same can be said for comedies too. There are just some things that interest kids that don't necessarily translate well to adult life (If you could actually call my current status adult). Still, last night I fulfilled a rather shameless impulse and watched the 1980's flop fest Howard The Duck.

I think I should preface this by saying that all flops in the box office are not necessarily flops in the cult cinema market. I personally loved Steven Spielberg's 1941 will outright fight anyone who tarnishes its name. You can also add The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai in the 4th Dimension to that list along with Cobra and the illustrious Commando.

It's not really the premise that bothers me so much but the absolutely horrible dialogue. Sure, this is like bitching about the dialogue in a porno but one can only handle so many teeth-gnashing puns without the reinforcement of boobs before one loses their mind.

There are a couple of interesting special effects in the film that warrant a raised eyebrow but for the most part the entire movie is crap. The only real redeeming factor for the whole debacle is the enigma of the movie itself and the history it brings. This is George Lucas at his lowest, bringing all his previous successes down to a level of 1980's new-wave punk, neon lit, leather jacket wearing idiocy. It really is no wonder that he absolutely refuses to even utter the words "Howard the Duck" and has oftentimes walked out of interviews when even asked about the film.

Anyways, if you're the kind of person that needs to slow down their car to look at a fiery car wreck, then you'll probably not heed. To everyone else, just turn away. You'll thank me in the end.

Things to hold things

I'm not exactly sure where the initial urge came from but for my entire life I've been fascinated by boxes and containers. There's just something that I find appealing in things that can hold other things. Backpacks, briefcases, suitcases, footlockers, and even lunch boxes all hold sway over my senses.

I guess it's because of this that I gave in to my dark addiction and purchased a new metal lunch box from here.

After spending oodles of money on Christmas gifts for friends and family I couldn't resist buying this bad boy. Once it arrived it probably only took about fifteen minutes before I started covering the metal surface with stickers of all shapes and sizes. Some people would call this eccentric, I call it normal.

House of Mysterious Secrets

http://www.houseofmysterioussecrets.com/
If you're anything like me then you like strange stuff. There's really no better place to find such items than The House of Mysterious Secrets.

I'm not sure exactly where I stumbled across this store- it might have been in an issue of Rue Morgue or just simply through someone's link on Myspace- but it has since become one of my favorite places to shop online. They have simply everything a horror or sci-fi buff could want, with low prices to boot.

I think one of the best aspects of the site is the owner and operator, Kevin. I've really never shopped at a place where the guy running it contacts you after a purchase to say thanks and then throws in a discount immediately. He's friendly and funny and more importantly he gets you your goodies fast and on time.

Again, thanks to HOMS I never have a problem finding unique gifts for friends' birthdays or Christmas lists. This is one place that I highly recommend.