Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Shake sham!

I've been a fast-food apologist for years now, but I was frustrated by a couple of my local McDonald's. 8:30pm, and neither had Shamrock Shakes available - on St. Patrick's Day!!! Now I understand that not all locations offer the seasonal treat, but these two Mickey D's didn't have any shakes available at all! Uncle O'Grimacey is gonna hear about this and he won't be happy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPujLdtvu0

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Ki ki ki, ma ma ma

I just watched the original Friday the 13th film over the weekend. I've never been a big slasher film fan (just as I prefer atmospheric horror fiction to the splatterpunk variety), but I figured I'd see what all the fuss is about.

In the distant past, I'm pretty sure I had seen (not in theatres, but on video & DVD) the first films in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Hellraiser" series, as well as the 2003 monster mash, Freddy vs. Jason (in a fit of truly random behavior), but they didn't make much of an impression with me. Nonetheless I decided that it was time to catch up with at least some other of these cultural tent-poles.

I started with the first four "Hellraiser" films, in great part because the recurring villain Pinhead intrigued me. Obviously his dramatic appearance catches the eye and suggests something pretty darn macabre in his origin. His backstory, as related in fleeting scenes over the first three films, is properly mysterious, tied to the mystical puzzle boxes that serve as the other iconic image of the series, and is sprinkled with that easy pathos that populist movies dish out daily to keep their villains from being merely one-note baddies. Doug Bradley plays him well, with the perfect booming voice, despite not being given a whole lot to do beyond exude sarcasm.

Hellraiser, the first film in the series, is based on a Clive Barker short story (which I have not yet read), and wraps up in a more satisfying way than just being a final showdown between good and evil, as so many of these horror movies do. Still, it feels like an excuse to mortify flesh than to tell a really great story. Later films seek to expand the universe, but work no harder to come up with a deeper story. The fourth film, reviled even by many fans of the series, actually does come up with some more unique storylines, set both in 18th century France and a sci-fi futuristic spaceship, but the film ultimately falls prey to poor execution (foreshadowed by the opening credit, "Directed by Alan Smithee"). I'm not sure if I'll bother with the rest in the series - they were straight-to-video jobs anyways.

Friday the 13th has an even longer legacy (and roll-call of films), being the standard-bearer of the pre-Scream slasher film. One cannot wear an old-school hockey mask without evoking the (undying) spirit of the film series' lead bad guy, Jason Voorhees (I suppose the same could be said for people pounding nails into their head bringing Pinhead to mind, but that is a less-common thing to encounter, thank heavens). The original 1980 debut proved to be one of the most profitable films of all time, due to low overhead (unknown actors, location sets, minimal effects). It is also one of the murkiest looking films I've seen not filmed by John Alton or Gordon Willis. But that murkiness is appropriate, with the filmmakers relying on natural light (or darkness) to augment the reality. So you often can't tell exactly what's going on, which doesn't really matter, 'cause you know it's all bad. The only "pretty" shot in the whole film is at the end, with the girl in the canoe, and one shouldn't get too comfortable during that one...

The first film works as something like a whodunnit (whereas later sequels make it perfectly clear that poster boy Jason is doing the killing - the films' successes rely on this fact - so the only question is how). But one barely cares, as the characters are all too shallow for one to really be concerned for their ultimate safety. However the mystery, such as it is, plays fair and is reasonably tied up at the end, and, from what I understand of the later films, it leaves ample room for future stories.

Being a slasher neophyte, I can't really say if the deaths portrayed in the film are particularly inventive, as is demanded of more seasoned cinematic gore hounds. They seem pretty surprising to their victims and painful too. Throughout the film I was often reminded of my idyllic youth growing up in a small-to-medium sized city in the Midwest in the late 70s, with similar shady one-lane highways and lakeside summer camps (but minus the homicidal maniacs), but that's such a personal reaction that I'd can't really credit the filmmakers with that one. Ultimately I'm inclined to see more films in the series in the hopes that, like this one, they will waste 90 minutes of my life with some panache.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Thanks to Patrick, I Am Not a Number, But a Free Man!

In this season of inaugurations, I begin this blog with a brief appreciation of the late actor, Patrick McGoohan, star and creator of the late '60s television show, The Prisoner. It's a series that can be appreciated for its surreal imagery, its pitch-perfect location (the architectural wonderland of the Welsh village of Portmerion), its Cold War-era spy shenanigans, or its allegorical, counter-cultural themes. But the show only becomes an unforgettable experience through the granite-solid performance of McGoohan himself. With a near-perpetual lugubrious scowl on his reasonably handsome mug (and who wouldn't strike such a pose, being kidnapped and trapped in the British equivalent of Disneyland's "It's a Small World" ride), it's his distinctive voice that carries the bulk of his acting for him, an assortment of purrs, growls and barks that offer no respite to his unyielding belief in personal freedom. (His physical acting can be a little weird though - he runs like a little girl.)

One of my heroes, Patrick McGoohan passed away in Santa Monica on the evening of Tuesday, January 13, 2009. He was 80.