I was a late bloomer to watching the True Blood series on HBO but I have read the majority of the Southern Vampire Mysteries (not the last one though.) I’ve written before that I’m a sucker for not only horror/scifi movies but for parallel universes that combine paranormal elements in to everyday life.
Let’s get to the fact that Charlaine Harris’ novels are like drinking a mocha on a spring afternoon. The mocha is pretty tasty, but you drink it and it’s gone, the sun is still shining and you go back to your car to the next adventure.
It’s unmitigated fluff, but it’s amusing to me at least.
And the funny thing is that her descriptions of juke joints in the south is pretty dead on. I like the quirky (everyone use’s that damn word about these books, but it works) characters because I can pretty much identity them here in Hoots Central. The books focus on small town life, petty gossip that can be heard by the heroine which is the basis of the series of Harris’ novel and those subcultures that make a small town interesting.
Oh, and they are dime-store mysteries thrown in with a bit of Harlequin Romance where the sex is just lying out on the table. There is not doubt that all the characters are very unapologetically sexual. Groovy.
And that, campers, is why I read them because they are light, get some of the gist of small-town Southern USA (especially regarding the easy, or sometimes tense, banter in a bar) and there is that bit of hypocrisy that goes along with anyone who is blind to one cause and devoted to another or is just high falutin’. Happens everywhere (although the TV series has pretty much beat me in the brain with the Fellowship of the Sun, although having read the books, I know where that’s going and it’s important to the canon of the tale.)
So I’m fixin’ (because like Sookie Stackhouse, I’m southern) to talk about the differences between the two mediums, why I think they work and that’s it’s just soap opera fun in all reality.
There I said it, we have a new soap opera on the air where you get to see the sex, the gore, the betrayal, loyalty and supes. This is not your Dark Shadows of 40 years ago, but it’s the same premise behind all the glitter of HBO.
And, I rather like it.
Major spoilers after the break and I’m talking serious spoilers from the book so you have been warned.
I just want you to know that after two years of waiting, I finally saw The Host.
And, I have to also tell you that never watch foreign films that are dubbed. Just want the rhythm of them in native tongue. I hate dubbed movies but if you like them, good for you.
The Host is honestly a hell of a lot more political than I thought it would be. And I want to spoil it for you.
But I won’t.
Let me just say that this is a movie about how one thing, no matter how small impacts other things. One action has a reaction. And it’s also about how government doesn’t care about one person and they aren’t going to listen. That a family will come together, despite how they sometimes dismiss their siblings, in the end.
I’m not afraid of horror movies at all, but I jumped a couple of time.
And Hostie is mean.
On another note, it’s always to know when to be grateful. We complain so much (I feel like I’ve been whiny lately myself) but here’s the story on how I got The Host. I mentioned it casually to Homer, not really expecting for her to remember.
But she ordered it from Netflix almost immediately. Sometimes you have to find the joy amongst the chaos.
Get it if you like monster movies. It has a little bit of everything.
You know weird, creepy stuff fascinates me and Aunt B. asked for ghost stories earlier today so I went on a ghost hunt.
This video is definitely creepy and if horror movies freak you out, I wouldn’t watch it but for the rest of you I present Ghosts, Spirits and Demons. (No seriously, that’s the name of the video.)
Very few movies will scare you from the beginning to the end. There, are, however, certain scenes from movies will scare the hell out of you and sometimes they are in movies that don’t work as a whole, but whack you in the head with scenes of some scary ass shit.
Over the next few days, let’s play with this and see what wigs you out.
“The Exorcist III” is uneven, horribly melodramatic and long, but there are a few scenes in the movie that set up some real creepy stuff. This scene creates anxiety. I’m glad I didn’t know about it when I first saw the movie. Why is it effective, because of what happens in the hallway, the fact that mundane things are happening such as janitors walking around and the nurse is just going about her nightly business.
The scene works for a variety of reasons and unfortunately the clip doesn’t give it the credit it deserves. But, in the context of the the entire scene (which lasts much longer than 59 seconds), it is uber freaky.
I didn’t have Internet access for a couple of days, so I picked up a book at the local market just to idle through a bit in my free time.
I read it in a day. Didn’t expect that, campers.
The cover said “The best horror novel of the new century – Stephen King.” I thought I’d give it a whirl. I mean, if Stephen King liked it, it might be worthy.
“The Ruins”, by Scott Smith (the same guy that wrote “A Simple Plan”) is one of those novels I’ll be thinking about for a long time.
Although the novels are completely different, it reminded me a bit of “The Body Snatchers” by Jack Finney. Claustrophobic with a wry, gallows sense of humor, the book was unusual in the fact that they main characters, except for The German, were all extremely shallow and unlikeable.
But, you knew them. You understood the prissy girl, the slut, the control freak and the teacher/jock, they are people in our day to day lives. And it’s written in a style that hinges itself on psychological tension stretched so taut that you find yourself with a fine, almost drowning sense of the wiggums.
And that’s why “The Ruins” works so well. We don’t like the main characters, but, by God, we know them.
As a horror movie fan, this more than makes me happy:
“George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead,” written and directed by the man behind “Day of the Dead,” finds film students shooting a zombie movie in the woods confronting a real-life zombie invasion. The indie production stars Michelle Morgan and Joshua Close. “Stuck” opens with a car driver (Suvari) hitting a man (Stephen Rea) with her car while returning from a night of partying. It was directed by fantasy specialist Stuart Gordon (“Dagon,” “Edmond”). Also screening in the horror and gore program is British director Adam Mason’s “The Devil’s Chair,” a thriller starring Elize du Toit, Matt Berry, David Gant and Louise Griffiths.
Other Midnight Madness titles include Japanese director Hitoshi Matsumoto’s “Dai-Nipponjin”; Hong Kong director Wilson Yip’s “Flash Point,” starring actor/fight choreographer Donnie Yen (“Iron Monkey”); and “Frontier(s),” a thriller from French director Xavier Gens.
Stuart Gordon!!! George Romero!!!
****sigh****
Someone, anyone, drive me to Toronto in September.
I love me some splatterpunk and Craig Spector and John Skipp were really good at it. Well, this one is for Kathy T. because Naveen Andrews who plays Sayid on Lost will be starring in their next movie. Cool.
Sean Braisted writes of a possible run by former governor Ned McWherter’s son, Mike McWherter for senate against incumbent Lamar Alexander. Carter opines as well.
Harrison Ford is back. He’s not a president or Secret Service agent or frolicking on the beach with a pre-crazy Anne Heche. He’s someone you might remember. You know the guy named after a state. Indiana, you are looking pretty good.
We all have to as American citizens follow this crazy thing called the law. Getting snarky with Lord Cheney.
Remember those Weight Watchers cards that came out in the 70’s that you could instantly put in a recipe box. I remember my mom had some because this was a marketing technique used to target SHM’s back a few decades ago. Well, want to see some of them. Go here. Appetizing, umm, not. The author of that blog calls this one fishsnuff.
Social networks seem to be the technology people dig right now. I played around on Tumblr today. Very odd. A blog but not as it is a tumblelog. I RSS’d my feed from here and it always posts twice. It’s very interesting though as it held my attention for awhile. This article from LifeHacker explains it better than I can.
I’m out. Give your hubby, your wife, your lover, your dog, your cat or your fish a big old kiss and be nice to each other.
The Man With The Screaming Brain really sucked but it was Bruce so I’m staring at the television screen like a dog waiting for a Begging Strip and Alien Invasion isn’t much better. With this said, Alien Invasion is known as the highest rated film on the SciFi channel ever.
For some reasons that makes me chortle. And yes, that is Gabriella from Xena. Good B-movie fun.
And if you haven’t see Bubba Ho-tep, shame on you. Ozzie Davis as John F. Kennedy! Bruce Campbell as Elvis. What’s not to love about this? I saw it again for like the third time a couple of weeks ago and just swooned and you should see it. Why, you say. Because it was based on one of the greatest novellas ever written by the wonderful Joe Landsdale.
But this makes me happier than anything: BRUCE HAS A NEW TELEVISION SHOW!!!!!
Oh, I’m winded.
Now, it’s called Burn Notice. Oh, I so hope this doesn’t suck. It could, you know. And he’s not the star but I don’t care.
Dear Sam Raimi,
Put this man back to work. We need more Evil Dead kind of movies and less Spiderman. I realize this isn’t a good financial move but my pleasure is more important than, you know, anything else.
