#so in this one we have: john waters movies on vhs because john waters is tacky and amazing and i love him;

[kindsoulbuddy]

Today I watched an older video of “Tasting History with Max Miller” on YouTube, and was oddly amused by the idea of chartreuse jelly with peaches being the last thing many 1st class passengers ate on April the 14th, 1912.

That prompted me to research more about the Titanic. One thing led to another and I’m looking up photos of the wreck of the Titanic, as you do. I typed “Titanic today”, because I heard the wreck is literally vanishing.

And then…movie showtimes appear in my Google search. Multiple theaters, multiple showings.

Being a little confused, I looked deeper into this, and as it so happens:

We are now at the 25th anniversary of the film “Titanic”.

Why are we still captivated by the Titanic and it’s maiden voyage, which happened 110 years ago?

Why am I still thinking about the Titanic movie? That was apparently 25 years ago! But it feels like 84 some days.

Was I the perfect age at 11/12 for the 1997 movie to capture my imagination? I guess so. I was the perfect preteen age for the Titanic film, as well as The Spice Girls and later as a teenager, the Lord of the Rings. The stars aligned for me.

You think people are nuts about it now? People were Titanic-Crazy in 1997/98! The local library hosted a Titanic movie night (“A Night to Remember”, an old black and white film), and I also attended a Titanic themed tea party. I read the CD insert of the Titanic soundtrack while listening to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”. My mom sewed a beautiful costume for my sister who dressed as Rose for Halloween, complete with the Heart of the Ocean “diamond” necklace.

Old tech alert: I remember when the 1st vhs ended and it was time to take the 2nd half of the movie out and pop it in the vcr.

“Well, I believe you may get your headlines, Mr. Ismay,” - Captain John Smith. Then…black screen.

Technically it’s a disaster movie, but it had the love story and that did it for many people.

If I’m honest, the love story wasn’t my favorite but the sinking in almost real time was thrilling. I also loved and still love the costumes and the set decorations and the music.

I think seeing a young girl finding joy in life and deciding that she’s never going to be small and meek ever again, was my favorite thing.

Rose got to do everything she and Jack talked about (including, I imagine, throwing up on the Coney Island roller coaster). If she hadn’t met Jack, she’d be long dead inside, if not actually passed on. Her life force was in danger of being snuffed out at 17. She was literally suicidal. I think they could have had this storyline without the whirlwind romance but, at the end of the day that’s what sells.

I vividly remember my theater experience watching it. I was not allowed to watch 2 scenes:

1. When Jack draws Rose like one or his French girls. (So, I peeked through my fingers anyway. And seeing the gorgeous Kate Winslet posing nude on a couch awakened something in me…yeah I’m Bi. My friends swooned over Jack; I had complicated feelings about Rose, and didn’t understand them yet.).

2. And toward the end when we see frozen dead, wide eyed people being pulled from the dark water. I actually listened to my mom and didn’t look; many years later I looked and I’m still sorry.

I also remember looking around me during Jack’s death/“I’ll never let go!” scene, and seeing in every direction in the movie theater, crying women and girls. Tears streaming down faces, heaving sobs, ugly crying. Faces lit up by the blue light the screen was giving off; the scene was a blue dimly lit one.

I never cried at that scene. But I always cry or tear up at these scenes:

1. The father telling his children they’ll be separated only for a little while, as they cry for him from the lifeboat.

2. The scene when the 3rd class mother tucks her children into bed, telling them a bedtime story. The lifeboats were gone, and the ship was sinking fast, and she knew they would die.

I’m not sure how, as a parent, you don’t feel something during these scenes.

I’m not going to go to the theater to experience 4k Titanic. But it’s fun to revisit this movie.

[cassowary-rapture]

Holy shit this just reminded me of something

When I was a teenager, I was really into online journal sites, and through one of my Diaryland accounts, I started talking to this guy who said his name was Bryan. Nothing too in-depth; he'd just comment on my posts sometimes

I was really into movies at the time, mostly indie, foreign, or kind of fucked up ones. Ones that were hard to find in my area. The video rental places didn't really carry that sort of thing. With our dial-up internet and rickety old desktop, it took 12+ hours to download an album's worth of mp3s, so it didn't even occur to me to try to download a movie. We got Netflix eventually, but it was very new and while the selection was much better than what I could find in person, it was still pretty limited

At some point I wrote an entry complaining about how badly I wanted to see Battle Royale and how I couldn't find it anywhere. It was driving me crazy. Bryan commented saying that he owned a video store and would be happy to send me a VHS copy of it, so I gave him my address. When the package arrived and I opened it, I burst into tears. It had just hit me that it was pretty fucking stupid to give my mailing address to some random internet person and that I was half-expecting the package to contain a severed head or porn or something creepy like that

BUT IT DIDN'T. I went from crying from anxiety to crying because I was relieved and he'd been much more generous than expected. Not only had he sent me Battle Royale, he'd also thrown in two other movies -- Visitor Q and Oldboy -- and two books -- The End of Alice and Geek Love. Granted it was kind of a weird move to send a bunch of stuff about murder and incest and pedophilia to a teenage girl, but I was a very edgy, morbid 18-year-old, so it was kind of perfect

And it was very touching. I barely knew the guy. He just commented on whatever angsty bullshit I was posting and chatted about John Waters and David Lynch with me, since those were some of the few "weird" directors whose work I had access to. And yet he spent time and money assembling and mailing this little care package to me. He was just a really kind person who was very passionate about movies and excited to share that with someone who was just getting into them and starting to go beyond the sort of thing you'd see on TV or in chain video stores

I tried to look him up years later, since I still remembered his name and the name and location of the video store -- Black Lodge Video in Memphis, TN -- and came up empty-handed. But I just tried again, and THIS IS HIM. Or was, unfortunately

Bryan Hogue, co-founder of Black Lodge Video, has died

And apparently he was a million times cooler than I realized at the time, and even more obsessed with movies. Just...what a guy. I'm sorry I'll never have the opportunity to thank him in person. But very pleased to see that Black Lodge Video is still around!! So maybe I'll get to visit someday and ramble at some random employee about what a nice thing their co-founder did for teenaged-me

icant even explain why i feel this way about it but this meme, this specific version, just makes me so emotional i love it so so much. its very heartwarming. peace n love on planet earth

[hawkins-losers]

Nightmare on Elm Street vs Halloween | Robin Buckley x Reader

Summary: You and Robin have a heated cinematic debate about horror movies

Word count: 0.7k

Request: if u haven’t could u do #80 w robin!! (80. crashing your lips together during an argument)

A/N: I do think that Robin is right in this debate and I would love to have cinematic debates like that with her. Anyone else?

‘‘What? You are so wrong and for so many reasons,’‘ Robin argued while stacking the returns after scanning them. ‘’How is Halloween better than Nightmare on Elm Street? John Carpenter is a great filmmaker, but Wes Craven brought originality and a strong premise. He created a memorable villain and unforgettable images- Glen’s gore bed death? The bathtub when Nancy is falling asleep in the bath and Freddy’s hand is the water? The ending? Fucking brilliant! Halloween can’t beat that.’’

Nightmare on Elm Street was a great horror classic, but in your opinion, it wasn’t better or scarier than the original Halloween.

‘’Michael is a much harder villain to escape than Freddy. Freddy targets the children of the ones who killed him. His killings are about revenge. No one stands a chance against Michael. He goes on a stabbing spree without any clear motivation other than to kill every bastard in sight.’’

’’Yeah, but Freddy is scarier. He hunts teenagers in their dreams and kills them in reality. That’s terrifying!’’ A shiver ran down her spine at the thought. ‘’There’s also no way to escape him. You can run from Michael or hide, but the only way to escape Freddy is to not sleep...except you can’t just stop sleeping. Your body needs sleep or else it’s gonna shut down and you can fall into a coma- Is a coma induced still considered sleeping?’’ Robin questioned.

You shrugged, not knowing the answer.

Technically, a coma is a prolonged state of unconsciousness. During coma, your eyes are closed and you do not respond to sounds or other things in your environment. Unlike sleep, you can't be awakened, even with vigorous or painful stimulation.

In a coma, the brain doesn't go through normal sleep cycles. Someone who is sleeping may move if they're uncomfortable, but a person in a coma will not. Therefore, a coma is not the same as sleep.

Would Freddy care though?

‘’Any ways, you’re fucked.’’ Robin looked over your shoulder. ‘’Steve! Come back me up here,’’ she called to her co-worker who was fixing a display some group of kids had knocked over ten minutes ago. ‘’Can you tell Y/N-’’ 

Steve shook his head before Robin could even finish. ‘’Your girlfriend, your debate. I’m not getting tangled into this again. The last time I participated in one of your cinematic debates, you ended up siding together and shouting at me for finding a movie boring-’’

‘’Because you were in the wrong!’’ you blurted, turning on your heels to face Steve. The guy had terrible movie taste.

‘‘The Shining is a masterpiece and you’re just too basic to understand get it,’’ Robin added, making Steve relive his nightmare. ‘’Jack Nicholson gave an incredible performance and so did Shelley Duvall. The staircase scene was shot 127 times due to Stanley Kubrick’s perfectionism, and Jack Nicholson destroyed nearly 60 doors to get the shot to Kubrick's liking.’’

‘‘Do I even need to bring up the iconic elevator scene?’’ 

‘’Here we go again…’’ Steve mumbled under his breath, getting horrible PTSD.

‘’Thirdly,’’ Robin continued where she had left of, taking the stack of returned and scanned VHS to put back on the shelves. ‘’Heather Langenkamp hotter than Jamie Lee Curtis.’’

You couldn’t disagree. You had watched Nancy reminded and paused Nancy’s bathtub scene too many times. ‘’I’ll give you that one,’’ you said, following her to the movies section of the store.

‘‘Ha!’’ Robin exclaimed, turning around with a victory grin forming on her lips. ‘’That’s another point for me!’‘ 

You furrowed eyebrows. ‘‘Another? When did we agree you got a point in the first place-’‘

You didn't get to finish your sentence, Robin's lips crashing on yours, the debate forgotten for a few seconds. Usually, it was you who would kiss her in the middle of a rant. It was nice to have the table turned.

You grabbed her green Family Video vest and pulled her closer, prolonging the kiss. 

If you hadn’t been in the middle of her workplace, she would’ve dropped the stack of movies and kept going, but a customer could walk in anytime - and poor Steve was annoyed by all the kissing. 

‘‘Does that give me a point?’‘ Robin asked. 

You bit your bottom lip and sighed. The hold this girl had on you... 

‘‘Okay, you win,’‘ you said in defeat. ‘’But, I still stand that Freddy is easier to survive. If you are not one of the kids of the parents who killed him, you’re safe. Michael is a deranged, murderous psychopath who kills babysitters. We both are babysitters and we can’t run. Oh, and need I remember you that he killed his sister when he was six years old. Babe, we would not survive.’’

-

Taglist:  @broadway-or-noway @violetsleftfist @thelaststraw3​  @cursedandromedablack  @Slashersimpfor  @savagejane1  @wh0reforbucknasty  @eddiemunson-slut  @slvdsjjk​  @hehehehannahthings  @dreamdancers-world  @grace-loux  @iamharrystyleslover

Robin Buckley taglist: @uhidklol-26 @prettyplant0  @ran-rap  @eddiemvunsongf   @batorchids222  @scarlet-kazuha  @saphmoth  @uhidklol-26  @you-makeme-crazier-blog​  @spongebob-in-the-upsidedown  @swiftbyul

[amorremanet]

#aesthetic, because why not: myself, because i was going to put in an app to make moodboards on an lgbtq aesthetic blog, and made four damn aesthetics about myself for it before deciding that i don’t actually have enough free time to commit to that (3/3).

[aion-rsa]

Marvel’s WandaVision Episode 8: MCU Easter Eggs and Reference Guide

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains WandaVision episode 8 spoilers and potential spoilers for the wider MCU.

“You didn’t think you were the only magical girl in town, did you?” 

Agatha Harkness makes good on that line from last week’s episode in WandaVision episode 8, which functions as a trip through Wanda Maximoff’s entire MCU history. Not only does it reveal previously hidden (and crucially necessary) depths to her character and her relationship with Vision, but it successfully adds new elements to her established origin story. These new wrinkles pull from Wanda’s entire Marvel history, and have massive implications for magic users and even mutants in the MCU going forward.

Here’s what we found…

Sitcom Influences

Among the bootleg DVDs Wanda’s father is selling we can see Bewitched, Malcolm in the Middle, I Love Lucy, Who’s the Boss?, I Dream of Jeannie, and The Addams Family, all of which have been major touchstones for WandaVision throughout its run. But Wanda’s favorite? That would be The Dick Van Dyke Show.

The Dick Van Dyke Show episode that the Maximoffs watch is season 2 episode 21 “It May Look Like A Walnut”, or as Wanda’s dad calls it “the walnut episode!” This installment finds Rob Petrie (Van Dyke) staying up late to watch a spooky sci-fi movie on TV, while his wife Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) tries to ignore it because it freaks her out. In the movie, aliens from the planet Twilo come to Earth in disguise to slow down humanity’s development by feeding us walnuts that contain the chemical element “absorbitron.” The walnuts take away our creativity and our thumbs – the two things that get us into outer space to challenge their Twiloian supremacy. The next day, walnuts seem to be the only food that Rob can find. He comes to believe that Laura is either playing a trick on him, or that the Twiloites have really invaded.

Why would WandaVision go out of its way to mention this episode in particular? Well, Wanda can certainly empathize with a protagonist who comes to believe his world is fabricated. And Marvel Phase 4 does seem destined to spend quite a bit more time in space.

The scene of Malcolm in the Middle that Vision watches but doesn’t quite understand has Hal build a deck, only for it to collapse on him. In the third WandaVision episode intro, Vision builds a swingset, only for it to suddenly collapse in front of him.

Wanda’s father sold DVDs as a trade and even had a Malcolm in the Middle box set in there. That’s pretty damn impressive, since he was killed by that bomb in 1999 and the show didn’t start airing until early 2000. That’s some Spaceballs VHS technology right there!

While at the HYDRA facility, Wanda watches The Brady Bunch. The episode appears to be season 1’s “Kitty Karry-All Is Missing.” When Cindy Brady’s beloved Kitty Karry-All goes missing, she thinks her brother Bobby stole her. The Bradys have a trial and everything! But it turns out the Bradys’ dog Tiger actually took Kitty Karry-All. Perhaps that’s why Agatha needed Sparky out of the way – dogs are unpredictable.

Wanda’s assurance that “He’s not really injured. It’s not that kind of show” is as much a commentary on superhero storytelling in both comics and in movies as it is about sitcoms.

Agatha Harkness

Kicking things off with an Agatha Harkness origin story is an inspired move…

Placing Agatha’s origin in witch-trial era Salem in 1693 ends up being a little piece of misdirection. She’s not on trial for being a witch, but rather by her own coven for seeking too much power. 

We get a sense of Agatha’s family here, with Agatha’s mother leading the coven against her while Agatha is still just a young witch. This doesn’t match her comics origin, where she was already centuries old by the time the Salem Witch Trials rolled around – she is old enough to remember Atlantis being above water. In the comics, she was a leader of the Salem community when the trials began. 

Agatha’s mother’s name is Evanora Harkness. She doesn’t appear to have a counterpart in the comics.

The Latin chant that the witches are repeating appears to be “mors monstru naturale” which would translate to “natural death is a monster,” which…given Agatha’s seemingly immortal nature, tracks pretty well.

The magical “crown” of energy that appears on Agatha’s mother’s head very faintly resembles the headgear that Wanda wears in the comics as the Scarlet Witch. Granted, it’s blue here.

Agatha’s use of “purple energy” may be the most damning sign of her intentions yet. In comics, purple is often coded as the color of villains.

We also learn the origin of the brooch Agatha has been wearing all through this series, with Agatha having taken it off her mother’s corpse. 

In the final scene with Agatha and the twins, she floats above them and holds them at will like marionettes. This is probably a reference to Master Pandemonium, whose reveal made the children look like hand puppets…except they were his actual hands.

Because comics!

Let’s dig into some of the spells Agatha says…is one of them “crystallum possession”. I also definitely heard an Imperio something in there, which calls to mind the Imperius curse from TERF High Harry Potter. The Imperius curse allowed the witch or wizard to control the victim’s body like a puppet.

The Scarlet Witch

Hoo-boy, we get a LOT of Wanda’s comics lore introduced in this episode…

This episode makes it pretty clear that Wanda was born with her abilities and that Strucker’s experiments merely amplified them. Should we officially welcome mutants to the MCU? If her powers were latent, then perhaps so were Pietro’s. The fact that Strucker’s experiments killed all the subjects except for Wanda and Pietro could be seen as further evidence of their mutant heritage.

We get some very different explanations of Wanda’s magical powers than we’ve had in the past, all via Agatha, and all of them referencing various ways Wanda’s powers have been explained in the comics in the past.

Why didn’t that Stark Industries bomb explode and kill Wanda and Pietro? She may have unknowingly cast a “probability hex” on it. For many years Wanda’s “magical” powers were explained as a mutant ability to alter the probability of outcomes, no matter how unlikely.

Later, it was revealed that she was a master of “chaos magic,” another term introduced here. Furthermore, now it seems that being able to wield chaos magic gives Wanda a specific magical title, that of “Scarlet Witch.” We…do not have to tell you where that comes from.

The vision (sorry) that the Mind Stone gives Wanda would appear to be one of her future, fully Scarlet Witch-ified self. This particular costume, which evokes a long jacket and crown, is very similar to the one she’s worn in the most recent Marvel Comics.

When Agatha finally discovers that Wanda is the Scarlet Witch, she says that the Scarlet Witch was supposed to be “a myth.” Big Buffy the Vampire Slayer vibes in this exchange! Buffy often faced off against foes who once thought she was just a fairytale created to spook demons and nothing more.

Agatha’s “That accent really comes and goes, doesn’t it?” is a terrific joke at the MCU’s expense. As well as her “so many costumes and hairstyles” also feels like a nod to Wanda’s changing looks in the comics just as much as it is about the chameleon-like nature of the WandaVision universe.

Vision

The scene of Wanda coming across the disassembled remnants of Vision’s body in the SWORD lab is taken from West Coast Avengers #43 into #44. Instead of dying heroically, Vision was taken out of commission by the world’s governments for trying to take over all of the world’s computers. He was reduced to nothing but metal and circuitry in order for writer John Byrne to drive home Vision’s lack of human biology. 

That disturbing scene of Vision being “dissected” with his body stretched out across multiple tables is a direct nod to a panel from those comics.

It also reminds us a little of how Thanos had Nebula pulled apart in Avengers: Endgame. At least Vision is offline!

Vision was then resurrected in the white form that we see here in the mid-credits scene, and brought back without his emotions or any connection to his past life as Wanda’s husband or Billy and Tommy’s father. This was one of the catalysts for Byrne sending Wanda into her Dark Scarlet Witch phase that abruptly ended when Byrne stormed off of West Coast Avengers for the cardinal sin of “being edited.” For more on this, type “Why did John Byrne” into Google and let autocomplete take you on a fun ride.

We’ll have more on White Vision in just a moment.

The Stark Bomb

The toaster commercial from the first episode was always supposed to be a reference to the Stark Industries bomb that tore apart the Maximoff household. That commercial also had the blinking red light of the toaster show up despite everything else being in black and white. We now see that the bomb itself had a very similar blinking red light and sound.

The popular running theory was that the commercials tracked to the different stones, and while that may still be applicable, do they also/instead track to Wanda’s memories or key parts of her life? 

We saw the toaster match up with the blinking light on the bomb.

We know the watch had the Hydra face on it. Could this match if future Wanda floating in through the stone was actually a paradox and not just a vision?

The paper towel commercial mentioned Lagos too prominently to not pair with that moment of trauma.

Does the fruit snack commercial match up with her conversation with Vision in the Avengers compound?

The anti-depressant commercial does track fairly well with Wanda’s visit to SWORD.

It feels like the only one that doesn’t have an obvious pair is the tesseract bubble bath. Give us a shout in the comments if you can figure out what that matches to.

Westview

When Wanda drives through Westview for the first time, she passes by the normal versions of Herb (John Collins), Mrs. Hart (Sharon Davis), and Phil (Harold Proctor). Notably, Harold is putting up an ad for piano lessons when in the second episode, playing the piano was his talent. It’s also when Wanda magically turned his grandmother’s piano into an illusion.

As Wanda transforms Westview, we see a billboard for “Super” paper towels become “Lagos” brand paper towels (ala the commercial from earlier this season), which “makes cleanup a snap!”

When the Coronet theater marquee transforms, it’s showing two Walt Disney Productions films of the appropriate WandaVision episode 1 era, Kidnapped and Big Red. But before that it’s showing Tannhauser Gate. Roy Batty, call your agent, please.

Fake Pietro

It’s revealed that “Pietro Maximoff” was indeed a complete fake. A “Fietro” as Agatha calls him. He became her “eyes and ears” and she refers to his manifestation as “a crystalline possession.” We sense there will be more revealed about this in the finale, as Evan Peters has been M.I.A. since his appearance in last week’s post-credits scene.

The Post-Credits Scene and White Vision

In West Coast Avengers #45, Vision’s personality was wiped completely, so by the time he was reassembled, he appeared as “White Vision”. He completely lacked emotion and didn’t even understand why Wanda was hugging him upon entering the room. This became the status quo version of Vision for a while until his old personality, look, and feelings for Wanda were eventually brought back. But hey, this version got to be a playable character in the 1991 arcade hit Captain America and the Avengers!

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

What are the chances that White Vision will have James Spader’s voice?

We wrote more about that post-credits scene here.

Spot anything we missed? Let us know in the comments!

The post Marvel’s WandaVision Episode 8: MCU Easter Eggs and Reference Guide appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2Pb5kUp

[futuristicthingkryptonite]

T Rex Rar

Hear Me Roar T Rex

T-rex Roar Jurassic World

About: Super cool t rex roar or roaring sound effect requested by malik. Thanks for the request. Title: T Rex Roar Uploaded: 10.07.10 License: Attribution 3.0 Recorded by levitb File Size: 158 KB Downloads: 141667. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. Rex roar could be a call for a tiger to investigate, or attack. Scientists now think that their snarls are used to stun potential prey (and even their trainers). Tigers can produce sounds. Electric Warrior is the studio/Mixtape Album by artist/Rapper/DJ T. Rex, and Album has highlight a Pop, Rock sound. It was released/out on 1971 in English dialect, by some Music Recording Company, as the follow-up to last studio/Mixtape Album. They've now reissued T.Rex's Electric Warrior. Check out my short film, OAK 12, a kaiju VHS movie. Watch here: World 2: Fallen Kingdom promo- https://youtu.be/dPt5WUQN.

Instead of producing the terror you may suspect, cinema’s most famous roar would probably just confuse a lot of animals.

If you made it to the recently re-released 3D edition of Jurassic Park, you’re going to hear a dreadful sound that terrified audiences two decades ago. Tramping through the rain and the mud, the tyrant lizard bursts onto the screen and bellows a soul-shuddering shriek. It’s a noise that is almost as iconic as any other visual effect (which all still hold up, 20 years later) from the film.

But no one has actually heard a T. rex roar (or likely ever will), so how do we know if the sound that shook audiences twenty years ago is accurate?

Bones and teeth and, if we’re lucky, soft tissues may fossilize, but roars do not. We have only a few clues as to what dinosaurs actually sounded like (if they even roared at all), looking to their relatives for help. The closest living relatives of dinosaurs, birds and crocodilians, certainly make vocalizations, but the bird’s hoots and chirps and the crocodile’s throaty garglings are a far cry from what you hear in Jurassic Park. As far as we can tell, if the T. rex did make its own distinct vocalizations, it probably sounded nothing like the infamous movie roar.

Of course, the sound engineers in the film weren’t aiming to exactly reproduce the sounds of the cup rumbling T. rex. They didn’t have a 65 million year old phonograph to go by, so they created the tyrannosaurs screech by combining the yelps and yells of other living animals. Movie sound engineers have been cleverly combining various tones for years (don't forget the famous Tarzan yell!). For example, sound designer Ben Burtt produced the famous Star Wars blaster noise by hitting a tightened steel cable with a wrench. And for Chewbacca’s guttural call he mixed together walrus, camel, and tiger noises. (You can even play sound engineer at home! Get a slinky and a microphone and you can easily recreate the Star Wars blaster sound.)

According to the bookThe Making of Jurassic Park: An Adventure 65 million Years in the Making, the T. rex roar from the film was a combination of a baby elephant’s squeal, an alligator’s gurgling, and a tiger’s snarl. Its breath was the sound of air escaping a whale’s blowhole. Drawing from these animals, you can almost hear the composite T. rex roar from the film. Indeed, amateurs have tried recreating the combination and the result is pretty convincing.

If any of the animals that made up the roar heard it, they would be confused, perhaps even intrigued.

The T. rex roar could be a call for a tiger to investigate, or attack. Scientists now think that their snarls are used to stun potential prey (and even their trainers). Tigers can produce sounds in a range lower than what humans can hear. These infrasonic sounds can rattle and paralyze prey. And if you record these sounds and play them back to tigers, they may even attack the audio speaker.

Elephants use infrasound too, but for communication instead of paralysis. Though “language” means something different for humans and elephants, the trumpeting trunks of the largest land animal have intrigued scientists for years. There are entire projects that simply sit in the African jungles and hit the record button hoping to learn more about elephant communication. The Elephant Listening Project is a non-profit almost entirely dedicated to studying the rumbling calls of elephants. For decades a team lead by naturalist Katy Payne has recorded elephants’ “silent thunder” and the context in which it occurs, hoping to decipher the complex context and social cues that are held within. (You can learn more about this fascinating work in this short documentary by 60 Minutes.)

The T. rex roar might even turn on an alligator. When they hit sexual maturity, alligators let out loud rumbles to attract females and warn other males. The vibrations from these displays are intense enough to shake the water above the gator like a Tibetan singing bowl. With a roar as loud as the T. rex’s in Jurassic Park, who knows how many female alligators would slink their way over.

Put it all together and you get that soul-shuddering sound. It will likely live on forever in YouTube clips and Internet soundboards because it is so unearthly, so bizarrely forceful. The T. rex roar wasn’t scientifically accurate, but it accomplished exactly what the sound engineers wanted. And experts like John R. Hutchinson agree that Jurassic Park’s T. rex is the best depiction of the animal to date, brought magnificently to life with colossal animatronics and CGI that was decades ahead of its time.

And Tyrannosaurus rex only gets cooler with scientific accuracy. New research has upgraded the bite force of its steak knife-filled mouth and (probably) given it feathers. Regardless if it could really scream as it does in the film, it still would be the scariest thing with feathers you have ever seen, lest you think feathers are too “cute” for the tyrant lizard. But sadly, Jurassic Park 4 has chosen not to give its dinos feathers, missing a wonderful chance to convey real science to a huge audience. To quote prolific dinosaur author and blogger Brian Switek: “A velociraptor without feathers isn’t a velociraptor.”

Hear Me Roar T Rex

Though it had fake roars, computer-generated movements, and bones made of hydraulics, Jurassic Park’s Tyrannosaurus rex was a real animal that stalked the earth. Regardless of how many animals the most famous roar in movie history would confuse, it will endure simply because life really did find a way to evolve such a wonderful, terrible lizard.

T-rex Roar Jurassic World

Image: Screenshot of the first entrance of the T. rex via the Jurassic Park 4 movie website.

[snowydaydrabbles-blog]

Can I get slashers helping out their s/o who is just too stressed by work/people to cope with the outside world?

Of course! Thanks for the request! Hope it turned out well. I haven’t done much writing since Slashersass. 

Michael

When you hit your worst days he finds you, somehow. Silent in his approach, his presence foreboding.

Michael never speaks. Never moves first. He observes, until you're ready to approach him yourself.

But you're never scared to- not really. You've seen this man so many times, and you know what he's capable of. Brutal, thoughtless slaughter; hunting down his targets with accuracy and terrifying stamina. He was still every bit the monster that acted out his wrath in Haddonfield. You never forget this.

You can accept that your relationship is strange and dangerous, but when he lets you in and holds you it matters less and less.

Life was hard, and miserable; and making a comfortable fortress out of the towering, masked man's laps and embrace made the world look a little kinder. So you stay, and so does he.

"How do you always know?" You ask, pointlessly, to the masked man stationed in the darker corners of your bedroom. "Whenever I have... just, a bad time- you always know. You always show up." Michael only peered on from the safe veil of night. You remained in bed, eyes heavy and voice strained. "Why?"

The questions that hung in your mind were countless. You'd never find your answers- and research does nothing to shed light on the Michael you've come to know in private.

So you resign, as always, to instead hang your head and scoot out from under the covers. Patting the edge of the bed, you beckon him to finally approach- and when he does, you move in. Michael Myers sits, stiff, in the comfort of your bed; you crawl into the strange comfort of your watcher and curl around his middle, with your nose nestled into his stomach and his hand guided to rest atop your head.

Michael never fights you. He obeys. You purge your stresses and worries unto his listening ears, and he listens- you know he does. The shitty, unbearable customers from work, or the rude and hurtful people that take over your days disappear. You see the news- the reports that showcase the gore and cruelty your midnight companion is capable of.

You don't think that Michael is capable of love- not real love. You're certain, however, that this unique affection that your Boogeyman has shown is reserved only for you.

Jason

His ragtag shack has always been it's own kind of comfort. Surrounded in nature, on the outskirts of Camp Crystal Lake; Jason guarded the old docks and waters that became his grave. He embraces your company those rare times you make the trip- you don't yet understand what made you worthy of his complacence and company, but you drink it in whenever you can.

Today wasn't special. It wasn't a happy, bright day where you'd arrive with snacks and books and spend the sunlight hours just taking in the day with the quiet company of the undead camp guardian.

Today was stress. It was anxiety, anger, sadness, and frustration- you didn't want to brave the storm alone. You made the drive, and found your way into his dilapidated home- he wasn't there, not yet anyway.

So you took a seat on the filthy floor and waited. You watched the sun fade away between the gaps and cracks in the walls, until finally he showed his face. Jason knew you'd came.

This man was an anomaly- some kind of supernatural manifestation of vengeance. When people welcomed themselves into his campgrounds the wrath rolled off of him in waves- you'd seen it once, and the ungodly violence that he created fascinated you. Never had it been directed at you.

Some would say you were sick to keep visiting him, if only they knew. This was your little secret. A friend.

He left his fury at the door and welcomed you in his own way. Dropping his weapon, he towered at your feet and regarded you with companionable silence until you found the strength to speak.

"I don't know what I'm doing here anymore," your eyes were downcast, and the typical smile that coloured your voice was absent. You sounded hollow, in a way that Jason surely understood. He remained silent, reacting only with the tilt of his head.

"You're always here though, and..." you managed a bitter laugh as you moved to stand, grappling onto his torn and weathered clothing to haul yourself up. "You let me hide here, with you." And it was comfortable, despite the lack of any modern luxuries or furniture. "You're... just, always here."

The physical comfort was out of bounds, but he always let you talk. It would be a strange scene to anyone that didn't know him, or the camaraderie the two of you have built; a towering wall of masked, greying muscle and you, half his size and pouring your heart into the air between you. You spoke about your job, your schooling, about the people around you and what they did to ruin your day. Those little things ate away at you, and burst forth in your rants that brimmed with the frustration of the week.

His silence was comfort, and his presence became your strange little home away from home. Jason listened, and while he couldn't speak you could see what investment he could manage in your woes. A shift in his posture, the tilt of his head, a hitch to his breath, and a blood-curdling growl.

You always left him with a hopeful smile.

Leatherface

Bubba Sawyer was a working man in his own right.

He protected his family, fought off prying eyes, and fed the ones that depended on him. Stress was nothing new to him- it was a way of life, a mechanism for survival. He understood pressure, and how easily it could break you.

It was duty, as far as he could understand it. A duty that he shouldered without complaint. He was built to handle it, even at his worst.

But you weren't. It was easy to drown in it; to dwell on what created it and let it overwhelm you. Bubba's seen the tears and the agony, and for a man who had no mind to speak, he managed his comfort you better than anyone who had the heart to try.

When the butcher found you, cradling your head and fighting off the tears welling in your eyes, he knew. You'd met your limit, and something had to give before he could see you smile again. So he moved in, working with clumsy, too-big hands to gather you in his arms and find somewhere safe to hide from the burning Texas heat. It's like you were weightless- a protected treasure, as long as you were cradled so gently to his chest. You listened to the wet rumble of each breath, and the lazy rhythm of his heartbeat. It helped, somewhat, to calm the storm that gathered in your head.

It didn't take him long to find privacy, hidden away by the long-dead grass of the homestead, settled under the shade of a resilient old tree.

Bubba didn't urge you on. He just waited, with a unique patience, for you to break.

"I just want it all to stop," you eventually croaked, curling your fingers into his weathered old apron. "I can't seem to do anything right anymore."

Your friends, your family- it felt like you were failing them. Missing this deadline, or forgetting a special date; you could see it in their faces. Hear it in their half-hearted assurances that it was all fine- really, they promise.

"I'm trying so hard, Bubba," tears began to gather again, stinging your nose and pinching your voice. The Sawyer nodded quietly, taking in the sight of you with his kind brown eyes. "But it's just too much. I need a break, too, right?"

He hugged you close and managed a garbled hum of understanding. Your words somehow always reached him.

But words weren't something he could give in turn; touch was his major communication- and was something he was happy to share. A hug, or a meek nuzzle of the cheek. He'd bury the remnants of his nose into the crown of your head and just mumble his happiness.

Today he only sat with you, with his face buried in your hair and his hands wrapped gingerly around your much tinier wrists. He hummed old tunes, and squealed out warbled attempts at old-timey songs. It wasn't much, really, but it was enough to bring life to your little laughs and help you forget your problems for now. He let you cry, and shout, and whimper, and vent- because sometimes all you needed was to purge.

He waited faithfully until you could wipe your eyes and pull your wrists free; he let you turn into him and pull yourself up for a long, thankful embrace. Bubba relished in the comfort of your arms, and the smell of your hair. He drank in the sight of your weary smile, and the sound of your worn-down voice.

"I just... want to stay here, but only for a while." You whispered. "I think- I want you to just hold me... just for a little bit, okay?"

Leatherface offered his own wide, crooked smile. He wouldn't turn you away. Not as long as you held him like you always do, and give him your fine company.

Ghostface (Billy Loomis)

Billy never mentions the elephant in the room. It's not his job to bring it up.

All he does is take you in, gladly, when daily life becomes too much. Whether it's work, high-maintenance friendships, or just one of those stupid little things that eventually gets to everyone- Billy gets it. And while he can't fix whatever hangs heavy in your mind, he can still play the distraction.

"Wanna watch a movie?" He'd ask, with a long, lazy smile. "Got Halloween, damn near every movie, too."

When all you do is offer a shrug, looking so drained and desperate to just disappear for a while- it breaks his heart. Really.

"I like your style." Billy joked idly, as he set up the night's entertainment. "Sets the mood just right for the marathon."

"Marathon?" you murmur, already looking exasperated.

"Fuck yeah," he chuckled, as his modest little TV flickered to life with the first scenes of John Carpenter's Halloween. "You know there's another one coming out, right?" Making himself cozy beside you, he gestures wildly to a haphazard pile of VHS tapes- almost as if he'd prepared for this some time ago. "I mean, we got time, sure, but that just means we got room for some reruns." Curling an arm around your shoulders, he urged you to nestle close into his side as the opening credits rolled.

"Does it have to be Halloween?" You ask belatedly, slowly resigning to press a cheek into his shoulder and just enjoy his warmth. You could feel another laugh rumble in his chest, and his grip tighten on your arm.  "Saw it pop on TV a couple days ago. Got me thinking of you." Billy was already peering down at you when you dragged your gaze up to fix him with the attitude of your rolling eyes. "What if I'm not the Michael Myers type?"

Billy almost looked offended, with a squint and a mock, accusing frown. "First of all," he started, ignoring the sudden snicker that almost lit your tired features, "Everyone likes Halloween. And secondly," he grappled onto you with his free hand, shaking your still-laughing frame with a look of dramatic pain washing over his face, "We don't accept just any shitty old slashers in this household."

You struggled to regain your composure, not realizing the whispers of a smile that lingered on your lips as you wriggled your shoulders free of his hands. "No? What if I told you that Friday the 13th is my all time favourite?"

Loomis shook his head, but didn't resist when you drooped into his chest and locked your arms around him. "You'd be banned. For life, probably." You didn't get to see the stupid happiness painting his face when he stated with absolute finality, "You're free to like that campy shit- just not here, obviously. This is a strict, Michael Myers household."

Billy never needed to mention the issues that brought you to him. He's never been good at helping people when they're down. So he distracts. With stupid jokes, and corny old movies. It's a hit or miss, whether or not it works. Today, he was happy to preach the glory of Michael Myers and give you a reason to forget your problems- at least until you left again.

[himitsusentaiblog]

Memories of an Oldtaku- Evangelion

Yes, this isn’t about Tokusatsu, this is about anime.  I really wouldn’t be a fan of the one without the other and the two are inextricably linked in my life. Today is a really important day.  Today is the day the 1995 TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion hits Netflix.  I don’t know of any other series that’s almost 25 years old that could make such a splash getting released on a streaming platform.

It is one of the most influential anime series of the past 30 years.  That’s no joke. It’s also been really hard to get your hands on in the US for about a decade without dropping serious cash for out of print DVDs or worse, imports Blu-Rays.

Now, however, this important work is available (along with a new dub) to anyone with access to Netflix.  That’s a big deal.

Why?  Well, I am not going to go into the quality of the show or its deeper meanings and impact.  That’s for other people to go on and on and on about as they have for the last 24 years.  What I want to talk to you about is what this series means to me and how it impacted my life.

The original Neon Genesis Evangelion premiered on Japanese TV October 4, 1995.  For me, it premiered in John Rong’s living room on a fansubbed VHS Tape in March of 1996.  John (real name Zhiqi) was a friend of mine from college who, along with my kind of mentor Kevin, were the enablers who got me hooked on anime and tokusatsu. 

Seriously, John provided me with so many fansubs of shows that are now classics.  Vision of Escaflowne, Mobile Suit Gundam 08th MS Team, Slayers Try, Magic User’s Club and the second set of 3X3 Eyes OVAS (his personal favorite).  Many were the weekends I would trek up from Hurst to Dallas just to hang out with him and watch/swap tapes.  It was a glorious time to be a young fanboy.

This was also a time when the name Gainax was a magic word to those in the know.  These were the fans who made good, who went pro and changed the industry.  Sure, they were mostly known for a decent movie called Wings of Honnêamise (or Week Old Mayonnaise if you were among my friends), the awesome OVA Gunbuster and the fantastic TV series Nadia: Secret of Blue Water. Any new project of theirs was something special.

I was hooked on Evangelion from the opening theme song.  Seriously, Cruel Angel’s Thesis is one of the 10 best Anime OPs of all time, right up there with Tank from Cowboy Bebop.  It gets you excited for the show to come, is upbeat and lively and just fits with the show in general.  The rest of the music was great as well and I remember buying so many bootleg soundtracks at cons.  Back in those days, the most common CD soundtracks were from SM (Son May) Records and were Hong Kong bootlegs of the Japanese originals.  I had SO many SM Records, heck I still have a few to this day!

Sadly, the fansubs ran out after 8 episodes.  We didn’t know why until it was revealed that an American company had picked up the rights to Evangelion for distribution.  That company was A.D. Vision (later ADV).  At the time, why were mostly known for releasing hentai (porn) anime but apparently, they had sold enough smut to move into the big leagues by purchasing the rights to the hottest anime on the planet.  

To say I was stoked to get a US release was an understatement.  I rushed out to my local comic shop (Lone Star Comics) and pre-ordered the first volume.  It was EXPENSIVE, like $29 and these were 1997 dollars, for only two episodes a tape but I had to have it.  Being the Subtitle snob I was (and to some extend still am) I ordered it Subbed.  Back then you had to choose, there was no dual-audio format it was one or the other unless you double-dipped to get both.

I made a good friend at that Lone Star, one of the workers named Glenn.  We ended up bonding over Godzilla, Gamera, MST3K* and especially Evangelion. We would get together each time a new volume was released to watch it, we went to Anime Convention together and played so many import PS1 and Saturn games our fingers developed callouses.  I still remember when they decided to screen two episode of Evangelion that had not yet been released on VHS at Project A-Kon one year.  The theater was packed!

This wasn’t just a show.  It was a phenomenon at the time that helped propel anime from just a niche thing to something bigger.  It also propelled ADV from a smaller distributor to the biggest player on the Anime licensing market.  They had fingers in everything and expanded so fast that they were doomed to fall less than a decade later.  Part of that had to do with them wanted to produce and Evangelion live action movie in partnership with WETA Workshop.

That fell apart due to ADV’s reach exceeding its grasp and after a series of bad releases, failed partnerships and just plain stupid financial moves, they imploded.  What remains today are splintered bits of what they were but they were on the way out, supplanted by Funimation, long before their final demise.

That left the North American rights to Evangelion in limbo.  Worse, because the property was so big, none of the anime licensors in the US could really afford it or wanted to spend that much on a 20+ year old show.  So, the staggering classic became a hard to find, expensive purchase on ebay.

That’s when Netflix, who seems to possess infinite resources, decided to snap up the property.  Now, we can watch it again in HD as it has never been seen before.  That means a ton to me as it’s like being able to revisit a piece of my formative years as a fan looking as shiny and clean as it does in memory but never did in reality before.

So anyway, Evangelion was a big deal to me.  I made friends over it, got deeper into fandom because of it and even got into a fansub group to sub the movies!  Oh yeah, I was part of an old-school VHS Fansub group complete with Genlock cards, manual timing and the whole nine yards.  Now excuse me, I have to go watch the OP for the first time in 10 years and get all misty eyed.  

Oh and for the record, I don’t care what anyone else says, Asuka is best girl! Go watch it for yourself and see!  You can now!

*My Pull File at Lone Star listed my name as Rex Dart: Eskimo Spy thanks to Glenn in a reference to the MST3K episode where they riffed Godzilla Vs. Megalon.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Lost in Space (1998)

Lost in Space should've tried for some campy fun. Without a bit of self-deprecating humor, all you have left is an astonishingly poorly written sci-fi story. The plot holes are abundant, the dialogue sounds like it was written by an alien and the special effects haven't aged well at all. There’s little to look forward to if you happen to stumble upon this space waste.

The Robinson family - emotionless, robotic father John (William Hurt), neglected mother Maureen (Mimi Rogers), their sexy daughter Judy (Heather Graham), their annoying, squeaky-voiced second daughter Penny (Lacey Chabert) and prodigal son Will (Jack Johnson) are blasting off to finish construction of a space gate that will allow the rest of humanity to escape Earth, which is becoming increasingly uninhabitable. Accompanying them is Major Don West (Matt LeBlanc) and the transparently evil, mustache-twirling villain Dr. Smith (Gary Oldman). After an accident, the crew finds themselves lost... IN SPAAAAACE!

The film uses computer-generated images extensively, and they look awful. I'd be willing to cut it a break but the effects in “Jurassic Park” hold up. What's this movie's excuse? Worse, the effects become increasingly awkward the longer you watch. At first, it's merely mechanical components moving around. They look weird, but you can look past them. Then, we're introduced to a pet alien for Penny. It looks like a cross between an ugly Furby and a Pikachu but at least it can’t get any worse right? Wrong. Wait until you see the final antagonist, a spider-like humanoid whose design looks like it came from 10-year-old doodling in science class.

To populate this lousy-looking film, we have some of the worst-written characters I’ve ever seen. Evidently, writer Akiva Goldsman has never heard of subtlety. In fact, they've probably never heard a human being speak. The worst offenders are John Robinson and Dr. Smith. William Hurt had to know how awful this enterprise was because he gives his performance the same level of enthusiasm as someone being walked to the gallows. You can’t imagine anyone falling in love with him because he seems incapable of emotion. In the film's best (worst?) scene, John is about to venture into the unknown, perhaps towards certain death. He approaches his wife and whispers in her ear “I love you, wife”. Who wrote this?! As bad as he is, Gary Oldman's blows him out of the water. All of his lines have to do with how he can’t be trusted because he’s “a monster”, or something to do with death, or some other creepy line. He’s so bad he’s good.

If by some kind of unexplainable virtue you're able to ignore the flaws already listed, there's more.

Towards its conclusion, Lost in Space introduces a time machine without any understanding of how it might work. The Robinson family’s ship crashes on a habitable planet. Nearby, they discover a time distorting generated by an older version of Will (Jared Harris) who has retrofitted his ship and is living all alone with an older version of Dr. Smith - everyone else being long-dead.

“Why are the two ships in different spots?”

We learn an alien spider bite has mutated Smith into a spider-like human/alien hybrid. After dispatching his younger self, he announces his plans to steal the time machine, travel to Earth's past and take it over.

"Why would you hurt your past self? Did Spider Smith carefully calculate the blow he delivered to himself? He risked accidentally erasing himself from existence with that attack. Wouldn’t that have been a wild development? Spider Smith just ceases to exist because he killed himself in the past? And why does Spider Smith want to take over the world? I get wanting to amass power and money but what would he gain by killing every single person on the planet?"

After a bewildering weakness is exploited, Smith is gone. Now, it’s time to wrap it up. The planet's crumbling, the present-day ship blows up, killing everyone but daddy. But wait, they can use the time machine to prevent all this death! so how far back does dad travel to? A mere 2 minutes; barely enough time to fix anything.

“Why?!”

I can’t get over this climax. It’s just so poorly written. There are plot holes filled with more plot holes, no one acts logically. No rules are established as to what can and can’t happen. There's so much wrong with Lost in Space it is fun to pick apart, but if you’re looking for something that’s “So Bad it’s Good”, I’d hesitate to recommend it. Yes, it's that painful. (On VHS, January 16, 2015)

[thecompostpile]

I try to write about every movie I watched in 2020: Rushmore

2/20

Rushmore 

I want to start this review off with a shout out to The Archive in Bridgeport, Connecticut which is a record and video store that I have been meaning to go to for a while now. I finally made my way there and was extremely impressed. I didn’t look through much of their records but did go through their DVD and VHS collection which was really fun. I think pretty soon physical media is going to be very important. More and more people are relying on digital media and stuff is getting left behind. This is going to erase a lot of stuff from The Cannon and create a new Cannon of things that only exist on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu or one of the other streaming services. A movie like Pink Flamingo isn’t on any streaming services, most John Water’s movies aren’t. Anyway, I ended up with four DVDs because I only have a DVD player you’ll see all of them reviewed throughout this series. Here is the first the Criterion Collection Rushmore. 

I have fond memories of Rushmore. I wanted it in high school and loved it. I wanted to be Max Fisher.  I wanted to live in a Wes Anderson movie. Since then I have seen every Wes Anderson movie except The Darjeeling Limited.  Moonrise Kingdom is one of my absolute favorite movies of all time and when summer comes around I will certainly be watching it. So I was kind of excited to watch Rushmore again. I don’t think I have seen it since high school and now almost ten years later I like to think I am a much more thoughtful and smarter movie watcher. 

Rushmore is fun. If you don’t think about the plot too much it is really a fantastic movie. It looks cool, it's funny, the characters are enjoyable. Bill Murray is always going to be one of my favorite actors and I hope one day he asks me to be my dad. I certainly understand why I liked this movie a lot when I was a kid. It is a movie for bratty teenage boys. One of the things I had forgotten was how many emo songs got their names from lines in the movie. Fall Out Boy has “Tell That Mick He Just Made  My List of Things to Do Today”, Brand New has “Sic Transit Gloria”. It certainly makes sense much like emo music this movie is about a white boy who throws a temper tantrum when he doesn’t get what he wants (the girl) and doesn’t care who gets hurt.

Max thinks because he does a lot of stuff that gives him the right to stay in school. Max thinks because he writes plays he deserves to have everyone pay attention to him. Max isn’t a very good friend because when he doesn’t get those things he wants he lashes out whether it be on Luke Wilson or Bill Murray or Rosemary Cross or even himself. Now I don’t think that is wrong. I certainly acted like that when I was in high school and to have a movie that depicts that kind of attitude as hard to watch as it is, is important. 

What is cool about this movie is even though it was used it was the Criterion Collection so there are all sorts of special features on it. All the storyboarding Wes Anderson did for the movie. Some skits from the 1999 MTV movie awards where Max performs movies that were winning awards. Interviews with the cast. I think the Criterion Collection is extremely important to physical media and will try to pick up more of their stuff during their sales. 

If you asked me a few months ago I would have told you one of my favorite directors was Wes Anderson. Moonrise Kingdom is honestly one of my favorite movies. I watch it almost every summer. But recently that thing happened to me where someone pointed out the flaws in his work to me and now I can’t stop noticing them. So now I think one of my plans is to rewatch a lot of his stuff and write about it here. To get a better understanding of Anderson and his movies. I also think I would like to do a little research into him as a director. I like how all of his movies look and would like to start to figure out who he is ripping off. Watch more French New Wave stuff and get a better understanding of his influences.

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

12 and 27?

ooh okay, so at age 12 i was definitely taping movies off tv and obsessing over them and getting my friends to love them too. john water’s crybaby was a big (super age inappropriate lol) one for me. the first wives club also came out on video that year and all i had wanted for my birthday was to see it in theaters and when my mom couldn’t afford it i basically cried for days, so once we had it on vhs i never stopped watching it and performing the closing number alone in our living room. 12 was also the year i discovered one of my earliest girlcrushes, andrea parker on the pretender, which was really not a kids’ show, but clearly that never stopped me? she had that ‘could kill you or kiss you’ energy that really should not have spoken so well to me as a 12 year old so again, hi, very young very gay. anyway so at 12 my blog would have been a ton of gorgeous women and me flailing about how amazing they were with no idea how queer i sounded, plus movie musicals i didn’t fully understand and some life angst about how 6th grade was boring and they wouldn’t let me or my friend josh be the leads in the assembly play i’d written even though they happily took my play and used it and put us both in ‘backstage’ less visible roles because we were the weird unpopular kids

and at 27, my blog would have been half-tv and half returning-to-college rambling, because that’s the year i listened to a friend i’d made before panic-attack-nopeing out of the workforce and decided to try again, letting financial aid cover my portion of our bills while i studied. this was also a wild year for tv so while there would’ve been a lot of the west wing and gilmore girls on my blog already, i would have been going through cycles with every new show as a lot of them premiered and then crashed. scandal, smash, once upon a time, nashville, pan am, hellcats, the playboy club, secret circle...basically, 8 years ago i would still have a blog that was just as multifandom, but without netflix yet so i’d only be talking about what aired on major networks--and instead of writing novels i would be suffering through utah weather, probably posting photos alot. on my way to and from college on the light rail train, every day i would pass the vampire penguin that somebody had graffitied onto a prime spot for commuters to witness. it had fangs and was my favorite thing for ages before they painted over it. i definitely would have blogged about that. #vampirepenguinforever

send me an age and i’ll tell you what i would’ve been blogging about then

[itsblosseybitch]

The Reel Dunne (Griffin Dunne interview from INTERVIEW magazine, October 1988

Hollywood Wunderkind Griffin Dunne eloped at 18, produced a movie at 23, and has been acting all along. Victoria Hamburg stopped by to catch up.

When Griffin Dunne was 23 and managing a concession stand at Radio City Music Hall, he followed the cultural cues of his native L.A. and, with a couple of close friends, optioned a story for a movie. Nothing terribly out of the ordinary for a Hollywood-wise L.A. youth. What was not ordinary, however, was that the story--Ann Beattie’s novel Chilly Scenes of Winter--was actually made into a film, starring John Heard, and released by United Artists. 

Chilly Scenes of Winter marked the emergence of the young Griffin Dunne as an actor and leading producer of American films. Son of writer Dominick Dunne (and brother of the tragically murdered Dominique Dunne), Griffin moved to Manhattan after high school to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Over the years, his film credits have grown to include An American Werewolf in London, Johnny Dangerously, Almost You, After Hours, and Who’s That Girl, and in his role as a producer, he has been equally canny. Along with his longtime partner, Amy Robinson, he has produced John Sayles’ Baby It’s You and co-produced Martin Scorsese’s After Hours. 

This season, Dunne’s dual career is in full swing. He produced Sidney Lumet’s Running on Empty, which was released in September, and is currently producing Lasse Hallstrom’s (My Life As A Dog) first American film, Once Around. He stars in Dorris Dorrie’s controversial second film, Me and Him, playing the part of a middle-aged man with two problems--a midlife crisis and a penis that talks (distributors have decided the film is too controversial for America, and it is being released in Europe this month). Dunne will also appear in the HBO movie Lip Service alongside Paul Dooley. 

Dunne is as funny and charming off-screen as he is on. Dark, intense, and boyishly handsome, he is a natural storyteller, whose enthusiasm is contagious. Victoria Hamburg found him at home, in his West Village penthouse overlooking the Hudson. The apartment is airy and sunlit, with oversize windows, a fireplace for the winter, and a terrace with real grass for the summer. It is the perfect refuge from the hustle of the city streets and the madness of the entertainment world on which Griffin Dunne clearly thrives.

VICTORIA HAMBURG: I’ve been having my own private Griffin Dunne Film Festival. I looked at After Hours, An American Werewolf in London, Almost You, and Who’s That Girl. The movies that you’ve produced have more social commentary and a greater basis in reality than the movies you star in. The ones you act in are more like myths or fables about the dilemmas of modern man.

GRIFFIN DUNNE: It’s funny--as a producer, you think about material for material’s sake. You look for really rich characters and movies that have something to say. It’s much easier for me to find movies to produce than to act in. You have more control over material, and there are wider choices.

VH: What’s this film you were doing in Boston?

GD: It’s called Lip Service. It was just a great piece of writing by a guy named Howard Porter. He wrote Boy’s Life. It was on Broadway a while ago. David Mamet executive-produced this film and asked me if I’d be in it with Paul Dooley. William H. Macy, who’s an actor, directed it. [OP NOTE: There’s a misprint in this article, where’s he’s referred to as W.C. Macy. Or maybe Griffin was trying to be funny and make a reference to W.C. Fields]. It’s his first film. He did an incredible job, and it was great to work with a director who was an actor. It’s about these two talk-show hosts on one of those morning shows like Hey, Wake Up, L.A. It’s called Sunny Side Up. It’s been run for ten years by a kind of boring, staid broadcaster who’s like a Walter Cronkite of the morning circuit. They want to spruce up the ratings, so they bring in a sort of Regis Philbin type, and that’s me. It’s Regis and Walter on this morning show, and they’re two very different people. I idolize him, but he hates me. I’m always trying to get him to be my friend. There’s something very touching about it. It’s also very sad, because the public taste being what it is, I blow him out of the water. I’m so filled with energy and kooky ideas. I’m always looking for the lowest common denominator in human behavior, and people love it. They just lap it up. Dooley’s character gets fired.

Anyway, in this movie, for the first time I play a guy who is completely happy. He has a vicious mean streak, and then it’s gone, and he’s the happiest person on earth. I had a great time, because I usually play people with a tremendous number of problems. This guy hasn’t a clue of the problems he has, because he never listens. He never hears a word he’s saying. Somebody will be talking to him and he’ll interrupt them to ask, “How’s my hair? Do you think I’m attractive?” or some terribly vain question.

VH: Do you think that it takes being oblivious like that to be a happy guy?

GD: Yeah, basically, I mean, to not have a clue about anybody else’s suffering or even what color shirt they’re wearing is a different version of happiness. I’ve seen people without any sort of self-doubt. They just amaze me. 

VH: When you were talking earlier, I was thinking you sound like somebody who doesn’t suffer from self-doubt. 

GD: Who doesn’t have self-doubt at some point?

VH: Well, I know, but it doesn’t seem to paralyze you in any way.

GD: No, it doesn’t paralyze me. It’s a fleeting thought, but it was nice to play somebody so completely confident and ebullient in everything that he’s doing. The guy I played just had no problem offending somebody, because he had no idea he was offending them. Terrible hurt would cross someone’s face and he would just go right on talking. It was endlessly interesting.

VH: It seems as if we’ve reached a point where there’s a new Hollywood. There are people who are our age, in their late twenties, mid-thirties, who are now in a position of making decisions in the studios. Are they doing it differently? Is something going to happen that’s different from the way that people have been making movies in the past?

GD: Probably not. Even though movies are making more money than ever, they are still based on the star system. And the star system is getting stronger and stronger. Having name value is becoming more and more important. People are taking fewer and fewer chances. What I’ve noticed is that it’s getting to be taken for granted that this is the way to go. Even the smaller outfits have now figured out ways to hire major stars with name value. I think part of the problem with film is that the good movies--with interesting stories and actors--are not huge weekend movies. They’re competing against star vehicles with rotten scripts and one charismatic star that make the big kill for two or three weekends and then gradually dwindle away. The movies that don’t fall into that category are racing quicker than ever for the video stores. All this means that they’ve yet to figure out long-run releases. And the attitude is getting to be more and more--even among my peers--”I’ll wait for it on cable.” People look at small or interesting or intimate movies as the kind they’d prefer to see at home on their television sets rather than at a theater. Movies are considered failures much sooner than ever before. The failure rate has really sped up, and the success rate is much further down the line because now you have to look at the videocassette sales and rentals. 

VH: I think it’s incredibly frustrating for all the people who go out and kill themselves for six years to get a project to finally happen, who risk everything they’ve got and go out on a limb for it, and then, even if it’s reasonably successful, it’ll probably run for only two or three weeks and end up in the video store, and who’s ever going to look at it then?

GD: It’s extremely frustrating. It’s like they spend six years to make the videocassette. 

VH: Right. Whereas if you’re writing a book, even if nobody buys it, it will still be there somehow in a more lasting way.

GD: You notice how books and videocassettes are almost the same size...

VH: How did you feel when you were making Who’s That Girl and people kept calling it “the Madonna movie”?

GD: I assumed they would. She is an extraordinarily huge star, and a great deal of commotion happens around her when she’s out in public.

VH: How did the filming go?

GD: It was pretty wild. I guess I didn’t really expect it to be. I remember there was a marathon race on a Sunday. We were shooting in Manhattan. Here are these people who are nearing the end of a twenty-six-mile run. They could have placed respectably, but they pulled over to the side to watch the shooting and let the other runners go on. By the time they got to where we were shooting on Fifth Avenue, they had been running twenty miles. They took a breather to watch the shooting, to watch Madonna getting in and out of a cab. They just threw it all away to watch this. Everybody had a camera when we were working on that picture. Cabs would drive by, and little old ladies would pull out lenses longer than their entire frames and just whack off a few pictures. It was a bit of a carnival atmosphere.

VH: Which do you prefer, acting or producing?

GD: I don’t know. Acting is what I originally wanted to do. That’s really what I’m supposed to be doing. Unfortunately, the business of being an actor is a lot more disheartening than the business of being a producer. As an actor, you’re beholden to the material and the taste of other people who are developing projects that you may or may not get in. As a producer, you come up with the idea. Everything that my partner, Amy Robinson, and I have done, we’ve thought of and developed. The script for After Hours came from a student at Columbia University. 

VH: You get offered a lot of roles that you turn down--if you kept getting parts that you wanted to do, would you end up acting instead of producing?

GD: It depends how far along I am in the producing. I’ve lately had a painful decision to make. I’ve turned down work because I’ve been too far into producing a picture. It wasn’t easy to do. 

VH: Do you feel you naturally lean toward acting?

GD: I’ve always leaned toward acting. I’m very good at working on stories, casting, and crewing up, but when the movie’s being shot, there’s always the frustration I feel watching other actors working. That goes away once the film’s finished shooting. It’s almost the reverse of what I feel as an actor. There’s a certain relief that, once I’ve finished shooting, I can be in the editing room or in the screening room, watching the rough cuts develop and watching the picture just get better and better.

VH: Have you ever wanted to direct?

GD: Yeah, I think about that more and more.

VH: The relationships between an actor and a director and between a producer and a director are very different.

GD: The relationship between an actor and a producer is, in fact, one of total opposites. As producer--particularly during shooting--your job is to worry and to predict what horrible things will happen. You worry about time, scheduling, and logistics. You have to fall into a certain logic that does not come to me naturally.

VH: I always think it’s a combination of being the baby sitter, the whip-cracker, and the pacifier. In a way, all the things that you do make you feel like you have no control. On the other hand, you realize that ultimately you do have the control.

GD: What you’re doing is watching other people create and have a fantastic time. Amy and I have always worked with directors who have respected our opinion and relied on us heavily for story development, casting, and the creative part. But once the movie is going, it’s just this big monster rolling along that you have to keep in check. It’s much less creative. I mean, you can look at dailies and say, “Gee, it looks a little dark in that scene” and “Why does she have that expression on her face?” but it’s pretty much out of your control, with the exception of the ultimate ability to slow down or speed up the process. And sometimes even that’s questionable. But as an actor, your entire job is not to worry. Your job is to help others, create an atmosphere where you can be totally spontaneous, get lost in the part, and develop intense relationships with people. When I’m acting and things are going well, I have an extremely good time.

VH: It sounds like the acting and producing provide a perfect balance for you.

GD: Yes. Absolutely. I remember when I produced my first movie, Chilly Scenes of Winter. I was a desperately hungry actor who lived and died by my last audition and what people thought of me as I walked out of an office. That’s what most people think when they’re starting out. It’s an unnatural environment when you go in and read and show your personality to someone and they say yes or no. It takes awhile to get the hang of that. I was not good at it. I would clam up and freeze at auditions. I could not be free. So producing a movie was entirely liberating. There I was, in a casting room, auditioning actors whom I not only admired but envied, wishing I was in their position. I was 23 at the time, and I remember being in this office in Los Angeles, in Culver City, pre-screening the actors before the director, Joan Micklin Silver, met them. Bringing in all these actors I’ve admired my whole life and interviewing them, I thought, This is crazy. They thought it was pretty crazy, too. They thought, How old is he? But I did see how the audition process worked, and I thought, This is not so threatening.

VH: I’ve always thought of you as the boy wonder. I mean, there you were, producing a feature film. That’s not easy, but you were at the point where you and Amy could convince somebody to give you the money to do it. How did you manage that?

GD: We also had a third partner, Mark Metcalf. All three of us were actors. Mark was probably the most successful of the three of us, because he had produced Animal House [He also played Niedermeyer in the film]. We had a really good book by Ann Beattie, and people wanted it.

VH: How did you convince Joan that she should let you guys do it?

GD: She came to us. She wanted to make the movie. 

VH: But you didn’t know anything about line-producing, right?

GD: No. For a year before we actually got it off the ground, we interviewed everyone. We called people right up out of the DGA [Directors’ Guild of America] book and said, “We’re doing this movie. Would you talk to us? Will you tell us about line-producing? Will you tell us what this means? Will you tell us what gross and net are?” We knew nothing, but we found that complete strangers were willing to share their knowledge and expertise with us. So we learned a certain amount the year before we actually met Joan. All we knew was that we wanted to make this movie, and we had the material. Several times, people said, “We’ll make this movie, but you three have to go.” And we said, “No, we come with it and you’ll have to go.” We pulled it off, and they let us do it. We had a production manager, a man named Paul Helmick, who was close to 70 years old [laughs]; he was Howard Hawks’ first assistant director, and he had incredible stories about the movie business. We learned a lot from him. We were the producers, but he knew the nuts and bolts--who to get on the crew and what the hourly wages were and all that.

VH: What would you say was the most important thing that you learned from doing the movie?

GD: Well, because I was so young, I sort of learned how the world works. I learned how decisions were made and business was run. The business section of the newspaper became interesting to me: why people were fired and hired. Just the decision-making process, and people taking responsibility for their decisions.

VH: You grew up in Los Angeles, didn’t you?

GD: Yes.

VH: So you must have had some sense of how it all worked. Your father was in the business. 

GD: Yeah. I knew my movies. I loved movies. But I didn’t know anything about the details of making a movie. Casting was an instinctual process to me. Amy and Mark weren’t from the movie business. They grew up loving movies, and that’s what the three of us had in common. Being from Los Angeles and having parents in the business was not really helpful. I could talk to my father about what I was doing and the problems I was having, and he would understand what I was saying, but he wasn’t in production then. He was extremely supportive of me, just as Amy’s and Mark’s parents were supportive of them.

VH: Did you ever have moments where you were totally terrified because you didn’t know what you were doing?

GD: You know, I really didn’t. I was having such a good time. Nobody ever once said, “You’re a fraud. You’re 23 years old. Who are you to tell me this?” I knew the material. I knew I had a tremendous love and conviction for this book and for the script that Joan wrote and for Joan as a director. I didn’t really have any doubt in my ability.

VH: You and Amy have been producing together for such a long time. How does that work? Is there a role that she plays and a role that you play?

GD: I guess so. We bounce off each other very well. Whoever calls us knows they’re going to get both of us on the phone, and we’ve figured out how to talk without talking at the same time, so that we build on each other’s thoughts. We finish each other’s sentences.

VH: Do you do good cop/bad cop?

GD: Yeah. It depends who the person is. There are certain people she gets along better with and others I get along better with. People get treated well, so there hasn’t been any real tension on our sets coming from the production. Basically we’re both good cops. But we use that good cop/bad cop routine. 

VH: How does she feel when you go off to be in a movie? Does she produce things without you?

GD: The day-to-day stuff is a lot of phone work, you know. Producing is all about talking on the phone. When I’m off acting, Amy is doing the day-to-day work in the office. We talk every day. It’s like I’m in foreign land, acting with complete strangers. I’ll call her, and she’ll fill me in on what’s going on. Then, if I have a few hours left in me, I’ll knock off about eight or nine phone calls. So I’m still doing my work. I never fall out of contact.

VH: You sound driven.

GD: Well, it is a driven thing. Amy is a very driven person, and sometimes I have to work hard to catch up with her if I’m doing two jobs. It’s a lot of work. I’m getting tired just talking about it. [laughs]

VH: I’m always interested in people who are able to make movies in New York. Do you and Amy feel pressure to do something in L.A.? Sometimes L.A. seems like a private club to me: you have to do time there or you have to have been a member.

GD: No, I don’t think so. I mean, the reason we’re doing well is because of the material. We choose to live in New York. We have to go to Los Angeles an awful lot for any number of reasons--to meet writers or talk to the studio about financing--but there’s been no pressure on us to move to Los Angeles. In fact, I think it would be a little stifling, because we could fall into that club atmosphere you’re talking about. A good deal of the time there is spent talking about “Have you read this script that was just submitted that all the agencies are reading? Did you get on top of this? Did you get on top of that?” And it’s a cyclical effect. You start buying something based on word of mouth and who’s attached to it--basically for all the wrong reasons. I think this distance gives us a little perspective on what the story is.

VH: How did you find the script for Running on Empty?

GD: Amy and I had been interested in radicals--the real hardened ones, the ones who had been living underground and thought that they were still fighting a revolution, who surfaced only to kill a bunch of people for a political idea that grew out of the ‘60s and had somehow gone terribly wrong. I had absolutely no sympathy for them. I understood where their politics originated, but I felt that they were in a complete dream world. They were the same criminals that sell drugs, or blow away cops to rob a bank, for no political reason. The idea that they thought there would be some kind of public uprising over killing a couple of security guards was delusion at its highest. We talked about making a movie on this subject, and then we came across an article about the custody procedure involving kids whose parents were radicals--two boys, 11 and 9. They were younger than the characters in our movie. Their parents were found with a cache of weapons, fighting to overthrow the government so that we would all be free. They were a lot harder than the characters in our film, but we were struck by the family aspect of the story. We went to Naomi Phoner  [author of Running on Empty] with the article and talked about the origins of the parents and their political beliefs. We concentrated on the case of blowing up a napalm plant in the early ‘70s. Their pictures were plastered in every post office in the United States and they were on the Ten Most Wanted list. What effect would that have on their children?

VH: When I read articles about these people, there’s always something about them that makes you feel as if they could have been friends of yours in college. There’s something very ordinary about the people who did those things.

GD: Yes, but living on the run for so long, living underground where there’s a network of people that can help you--that’s got to warp your idea of society, because you have ostensibly left society to lead this kind of life. The society you’re trying to overthrow is very different from the one you have in mind once you’ve been underground for a few years.

VH: Did you actually try to contact people who were underground?

GD: Yeah, we spoke to a few people--they were hardly on anyone’s Ten Most Wanted list, but they had a lot to hide from. Naomi had some friends from college, in fact--former SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] higher-ups who were no longer wanted by the law.

VH: How did Sidney Lumet become the director?

GD: He read the script. We were at Lorimar, and Sidney had a contract at Lorimar. We had thought of Sidney quite a bit before we seriously approached directors. He read it and contacted us and told us how much he loved it.

VH: It seems like a good time to make a movie like Running On Empty. Here we are, with the Presidential elections before us...[laughs]

GD: When we were testing Running on Empty, we would show it to college kids. Researchers would ask them about their knowledge of ‘60s radicals, and they would talk about Jane Fonda. I guess they thought she was an SDS student or something and that she lived in the underground. There was very little awareness about the people who were trying to end the Vietnam War.

VH: How much does giving people something to think about have to do with your decisions about what movies you produce?

GD: We assume that other people will be interested in thinking about what we think about. What initially attracted us to Running On Empty was not so much making a political statement. What really drew us to the story were the family and the conflicts in the family. The movie is a sort of extreme exaggeration of what happens to boys or girls when they hit a certain age, when they look at their parents and they’re not parents anymore. They’re human beings with a lot of problems, and they become aware of what it took to raise them. It’s the first feeling that a kid might have of compassion toward his parents, of a sense of even feeling wiser somehow. That’s what attracted me to Running On Empty. It’s that story of looking at your parents and feeling in a funny way stronger than them. You suddenly have this knowledge that the decisions you make can hurt them. If you don’t want to hurt them, you make the proper adjustments. The alternative is to grow up and hurt them because you’ve got to live your own life. This movie is about all the complexities that go on in a family. Maybe there will be disappointment for a lot of politically minded people who think they might find an answer in this movie. It comes out in a much more family-oriented way.

VH: Your parents are remarkable people. I remember reading the story that your father wrote about your sister’s death and the murder trial that followed it. I particularly remember the description of your mother. I’ve always thought that she was unbelievably courageous. 

GD: My mother’s an extraordinary person. She’s the strongest person I know. 

[Ellen Griffin Dunne founded Justice for Homicide Victims in 1984 to support victims of homicide with legal and financial assistance, as well as counseling and referrals. In 1989, a year after this interview was conducted, Ellen was recognized for her advocacy work by then-President George H.W. Bush. Ellen also suffered from multiple sclerosis starting in the early ‘80s. She passed away in 1997. Justice for Homicide Victims is still operating today.]

VH: Do you think being raised by people like that allows you to try things that other people wouldn’t ordinarily try?

GD: It sure helps. I grew up in a very supportive environment. My parents were not easily shocked by the decisions I made. I was sort of a handful; I got into a lot of trouble when I was growing up. They never succumbed to total despair when I fucked up. I think that’s an important lesson for parents. I grew up with the confidence of knowing that my parents always thought I was going to come out O.K. They always thought I was going to make it, whatever I did.

VH: Did you have any heroes? 

GD: I grew up idolizing people all the time. It’s harder and harder to find idols, but for as long as I can remember, I was always a worshiper of other people. 

VH: Who?

GD: I was only 9 years old, but I had this obsession with John F. Kennedy. I was convinced I would someday know this guy and we’d become really good friends. [laughs] I called his wife Mrs. Kennedy, and I’d call him Mr. Kennedy whenever I talked about him. I used to write him letters--nothing very political, just to tell him that it was my birthday last week, and my brother did this, and that things kind of stank around the house but that I’d work it out. I would get letters back from his secretary saying that Mr. Kennedy had received my letter, and that was perfectly fine. I remember we used to go to church every Sunday, one day I just put my foot down and refused to go. I just said “I’m not going.” Big fights. They went to church and left me locked in my room. When they came back, my brother and sister and the whole family were glowing. John F. Kennedy and his wife had gone to church that day, and they sat right behind my parents!

VH: Don’t you think they made it up?

GD: Well, even as I’m telling you, I find it just incredible.

VH: Were you a gullible child?

GD: I was always gullible. But I can’t believe they’d be that cruel. I used to lie for years afterward--with the conviction of a total liar who believed it--about the time I went to church and John and Jackie were sitting behind me. Even telling you this, the lie seems true. I turned around, saying, “Hi, Mr. Kennedy, I’m Griffin Dunne. I wrote you these letters.” “Oh yes, Griffin. Oh yes, I got your letters. Just wait until after the service. We’ll talk.” And then as soon as the service was over, he tapped me on the shoulder, and I climbed over the pew. I’m between him and Jackie, and he says, “Have you met my wife?” “Oh, hi, Mrs. Kennedy. Nice to meet you.” He says, “Go on, about those letters.” And we were talking as we were walking outside, and we became friends in that moment. Anyway, he was my major hero. It’s been downhill ever since.

VH: Were you raised a Catholic?

GD: Yes. 

VH: Has that had any lasting effect on you?

GD: Well, I think there’s something very Catholic about that fantasy. I was raised a Catholic, and it helped me in being an actor in plenty of ways. I hated church. I always thought those priests gave rather weak performances. I think that’s sort of how I became an actor--an early fantasy was if I were a priest, I’d do a much better job. When I became an altar boy, I became the church-clown altar boy and would bring the priest the wrong vestments. 

VH: On purpose?

GD: No, it just worked out that way, but I got laughs.

VH: I’m half Catholic and half Jewish. I think that what I get from being Catholic is that I’m always guilty about something I did that I shouldn’t have done. And what I get from being Jewish is that I’m always guilty about something I should have done that I didn’t do. I heard the other day that the movie you were in that Doris Dorrie directed was banned in this country. I have a feeling this isn’t true, but this movie has a controversial reputation. What’s going on here?

GD: Well, I think it’s probably a “European” movie in that it’s going to open in Europe. 

VH: What’s this movie about?

GD: It’s a sensitive tale. It’s about this guy whose penis starts talking to him and it just totally freaks him out. You never see it, so I don’t know why it’s banned. It’s based on a book called Two by Alberto Moravia. It’s a very typical tale, about this guy who’s an architect. He’s at the brink of having some kind of boredom breakdown--he’s married and he has a kid and feels trapped. His penis starts talking to him, screaming at him to wake up and enjoy life. You never see it. It’s all in his mind. It’s basically me talking to myself the whole movie and talking to women and the people in my office. I’m a very ambitious guy in the movie who starts to get ahead through the power of the seduction. He’s a philanderer, very Italian, both cocky and confused at the same time. He has all these desires of getting ahead and finding the perfect woman. I thought the part had a certain kind of charm to it. It might be banned because the movie turns out to look like one of those Ralph Steadman drawings with the back of people’s heads blown out, you know, like a shotgun went off in their mouth. Everybody’s totally distorted, and weird shit is coming out of their mouths. Everybody is very unattractive in a funny way. It’s not as funny as people thought it would be. It’s a much harder movie. 

[This last part is interesting to read, because as someone who has watched Me and Him, there’s no animation in the movie whatsoever. I wonder if that was the original plan for the film but it got scrapped for the final product for whatever reason, probably due to budget constraints. I know there’s a ‘70s film based on Moravia’s book as well. My friends over at The Projection Booth did a podcast on this movie, and Doris Dorrie was interviewed and I don’t remember a word being breathed about any animation sequences, so this is the first I’ve heard about this. Griffin is not a big fan of this movie (neither am I) so he hasn’t talked much about it since, and he said he didn’t want to be interviewed about it for the podcast.]

VH: Her other movie, Men, seemed to be about how people of the opposite sex don’t really like each other.

GD: Yeah. I hadn’t thought that at the time, but I definitely think that now. It’s a battle of the sexes, but it’s a battle over which is the uglier sex. There’s nothing terribly crude about it, sexually. Emotionally, it’s very crude. But being directed by a woman on something as intimate as this is a little like playing the part of a dog and being directed by a cat about how you’d feel about being a fire hydrant. You know, the dog’s going to look at this cat and go, “What the fuck do you know about a fire hydrant?” How would you know how I’d feel about sex? Both of us sort of drew a blank. We had no idea what the other was talking about. It was a totally non-communicative experience. I did my job and she did her job. There really weren’t many ways we could help each other out. 

VH: Do you think that people genuinely believe that the sexes basically don’t like each other?

GD: No, I think they do like each other, and I think that was what we disagreed on. As much as we would verbalize it and have many discussions, it always boiled down to the point that cruelty between the sexes was different. We disagreed on that. The movie is about how the two sexes dislike each other intensely, which was not, I felt, in the script. 

VH: What are you doing next?

GD: Starting a movie with Lasse Hallstrom, who did My Life As A Dog. Amy and I are going to produce a movie. I’m going to be in it. Small part. Nice part. It’s a story, set in Massachusetts, about an Italian-American from a big, close family, whose sisters have all been married. She’s the eldest and the last one to get married. Everybody’s encouraging her to finally get married to this guy she’s been with for six years, and this guy turns out to be a real wimp. He finally admits to her, “I’m never going to marry you.” She’s devastated, and she goes off.

VH: That’s not you, is it?

GD: Hell, no. That is a wimp. So she goes off, and she meets a man who’s close to her father’s age. He’s a very outgoing, tough businessman, who is rich. He sort of tries to buy his way into the family emotionally and financially. While they’re happy for the daughter, the family doesn’t like the man. It’s a battle of the patriarchs and how the man gets caught in the middle. The family never can quite let the husband into their hearts. It’s very painful and it’s very funny. It’s a brilliant script. It’s written from the heart by a woman named Malia Scotch Marmont [This is a misprint. Her name is Malia Scotch Marmo, and she’s also been credited as a writer for Hook and Madeline], who was at a Columbia student. We found the script through the Sundance Institute. 

VH: What do you play?

GD: I play the brother-in-law. He’s a guy who is heavily influenced by this very outgoing businessman and starts to take on his mannerisms, much to the discomfort of his wife, who dislikes him. I’m the only one who thinks he’s a pretty good guy. It’s going to be a great movie. I’ve been in Boston with Lasse. He’s from Sweden. I’m showing him the difference between Italian-Americans from Massachusetts and Italian-Americans from New York.

[The movie that Dunne is talking about would be released as Once Around in 1991, starring Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfuss as the leads. Interestingly enough, Dunne would end up playing that very wimp boyfriend in the movie. The brother-in-law would be played by Tim Guinee].

VH: What’s the difference?

GD: Well, as far as I can tell, the Italian-Americans from Massachusetts are more Yankee at heart. They really are closer to the family, the Mayflower, and they sort of cling to that. They feel a little more American than the New York Italians, like they got there first. The dialects are obviously very different. But we’re trying to make those differences clear to Lasse. 

VH: This is his first movie in English?

GD: Yeah. It’s set in a very particular region of the United States. We can help him with the research and the regional differences, but when it comes to the matter of the heart, that’s his job and that’s where he will shine. 

VH: If you could do anything you want, what would you do?

GD: I would have the kind of life where I could bury myself in work for an intense period of a year and then leave work for six months and travel somewhere, maybe live in a completely different area of the world and soak up whatever differences and experiences I might gather there and revitalize myself, then do it all over again. I’d have the kind of control of being able to walk away from something I’ve created that will be there when I get back. 

VH: When we were talking about family and relationships, I wondered how come you’ve never been married.

GD: Oh, I have been. I have been. I’ve never mentioned it. Everybody who knows me knows that I’ve been married, but I’ve never talked about it before. It hardly deserves this sort of melancholy face I have on right now. 

VH: You’re smiling. [laughs]

GD: Yeah. That kind of melancholy. I was married, when I was 18, to a girl who was maybe 19, whom I had met in high school. She was the daughter of the--at the time--head of a film studio. She was very, very beautiful and probably still is. I have no idea. I haven’t seen her since.

VH: Since you married her?

GD: Yeah, I married her and then I never saw her again. [laughs] Didn’t work out. We got married in Tijuana sort of on a dare. When I was 17 we crossed the border to go to Tijuana, and the highway patrol pulled us over, and they knew for some reason we were going to get married. They brought us into the office and tried to talk us out of it. It was a humiliating experience because she was older and the highway patrol cop was sort of hitting on her. I mean, she was really gorgeous--there was just something about her; she exuded a real intense sexuality. I was madly in love with her, as anyone who ever laid eyes on her was. So the highway patrolman is hitting on my wife-to-be, and the other guy has got me in a room, telling me that I should hold off and not marry that piece in the other room for a couple of years, until I know what I’m doing. I was in such a rage that when I turned 18--on my birthday--we got in a car and went right back to Tijuana and got married.

VH: And how long were you married?

GD: A whopping one year. I came back to--we were going to keep it a secret--the apartment we had gotten. I carried her across the threshold of this apartment that had no furniture in it and the phone was ringing, so I dropped her on the wood floor and got the phone--

VH: What a guy.

GD: Well, you see, she was voluptuous, so she weighed a ton. I got the phone, and it was my father, and he was saying “So, how are you?” I said, “Fine.” “Anything new?” I went, “No, no.” He said, “I just came back from the most beautiful wedding I think I’ve ever been in my whole life. This boy--Oh, God, he must have been your age, maybe a little older. But he and that bride, my God. You know the parents--very dear old friends. Your mother and I, when you get married, that’s how we want to do it. Everything was done just right.” And I thought, Why is he telling me this? Why did he happen to go to this beautiful wedding of a peer of mine, and why is he telling me about it? He must know. This is a sign. So I just murmured, “Well, it’s a little late for that.” He said, “What?” I said, “We just married this afternoon in Tijuana.” He roared with laughter. And I was silent. And he said, “Now wait a minute.” He had this kind of chilly tone. “I can’t tell if you’re joking with me now or what.” I said, “No, no. We really did.” And he said, in the coolest voice I have ever heard, “I think you had better come over here right now.” We went over, and both he and my mother were freaked out. I finally got a divorce--not because of that but because it didn’t work out.

VH: Did she get remarried to an aluminum-siding salesman and have six kids and end up living in Kansas?

GD: No, actually she is married to Fabian. I haven’t been married since then. It will happen. But when it does, the highway patrol won’t be involved. It will be a simple, private family affair. 

[All evidence indicates that Griffin’s first wife was Kate Netter Forte. I actually read about this on the website whodatedwho but since that website is a dubious source, I mentally filed that under the ‘Unsubstantiated’ category and didn’t look into it any further. Kate’s father was producer Douglas Netter, and it’s reported that she met the former teen idol Fabian on the set of the film Disco Fever, where she played a character named Jill. She’s in about the halfway point of the film. Forte was married to Fabian from 1980 to 1990. She was the president of Harpo films for 18 years before being let go in 2013. Some of the films she helped produce include Tuesdays with Morrie and The Great Debaters.]

[Victoria Hamburg is a producer who helped produce the Keanu Reeves film Johnny Mnemonic (1995), directed by Robert Longo]

[swampgallows]

after SEVERAL DAYS ive finally completed my own version of this. not to be confused with husbando squares. i had to really reach for a couple of these as i was trying very hard to make this a favorite list and not a kin list but you can see the parts where i failed

descriptions under the cut, starting at the top and left to right:

JAN VALENTINE from Hellsing: i was obsessed with this dude when i was like 13. i wanted his beanie and i loved his fucked up piercings. also the first blowjob i ever saw. i covered my eyes. traumatizing!

RED DEATH from Venture Bros.: a dignified killer. the voice of clancy brown is absolutely integral to this character and my affinity for him. cant go wrong with a murderous family man. “brownies? yes, thank you!” plus he had a sick mohawk in the 80s.

GENERAL GRIEVOUS from Star Wars: coughing bastard wields four glowsticks at once. what’s not to love?

LURTZ from Lord of the Rings: ground zero for the closest thing to a sexual awakening

KUP from Transformers: that’s just ME, babey! old know-it-all curmudgeon stops at mcdonalds for one black coffee and leaves

JANE LANE from Daria: if i’d watched Daria in high school instead of college I would have modeled my entire existence after her. she treads between being an ideal older sister and being the greatest lesbian/girlfriend ever

THRALL from Warcraft: thrall practically raised me through my teen years and was there for me as a surrogate orc dad before he became an actual dad. the horde is thrall’s family and when i say i’m his child i MEAN it

MEWTWO from Pokémon: mewtwo knocked my socks off when i encountered him in cerulean cave in 1998 on pokémon red, and then once i found out about the first 10 minutes cut from the english version of the movie in 99, it was all over

REXXAR from Warcraft: that’s just my strong asexual mok’nathal husband. i used to pal around with him in desolace back when he was champion of the horde, and once he made his way back to his people at thunderlord stronghold we consummated our vows

DIN from Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons: this is the only zelda game i have ever played, one i bought with my own money, with CASH, and i played the shit out of it. i love nature magic and dancing and din has both. 

CHERNABOG from Disney’s Fantasia: i warped the VHS watching this part over and over as a kid. he’s called chernabog now but he was referred to as “satan” initially, and bela lugosi modeled his movement (though they ended up using the director’s poses instead). when he unfurls his wings? that’s the real shit

TWILIGHT SPARKLE from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: i love all of the ponies in their own way and despite how much i abhor tara strong’s VA work twilight remains a top favorite. her anxiety and perfectionism show the downsides of her ardent studiousness, but dont portray her erudition in a negative light. a lot of cartoons i saw growing up always had an “egghead” nerdy character who was unpopular for doing well in school or caring about academia. while i know as an adult that it’s all essentially worthless it’s really affirming to see that pressure candidly portrayed while also not being totally dismissive of it. school was one of the only things i was ever good at, and twilight’s character shows both its heavy downsides and the ways in which it actually can be applied to the real world. 

[free space] GARROSH HELLSCREAM from Warcraft: literally me

WASHU HAKUBI from Tenchi Muyo!: one of my longtime faves! washu is a genius scientist, but with tenchi muyo being a mythological sci-fi series, that points her closer to witch/mad scientist/alchemist. i also liked the gimmick of her being thousands of years old but insisting on portraying herself as a short snarky teenager. plus i love her crab motif and her little wooden cheerleader puppets

JOHN SILVER from Treasure Planet: bear cyborg dad. super huggable, great voice, and has a lil irish jig follow him around in the soundtrack. neck rolls + tooth gap = hell fuckkin yeah babey

AIUSHTHA THE ENCHANTRESS from DotA 2: sproink!

PEPPER ANN from Disney’s Pepper Ann: this show made me excited to attend middle school LMFAO because i related to pepper ann so much as a kid. much like twilight sparkle, PA is super neurotic but has an explosive, if not borderline delusional, imagination. she dressed and behaved like an actual kid, and plus she looked like me too. even in the 90s it was rare to see a kid with glasses that wasn’t shafted to the poindexter stereotype, especially a girl (e.g. Gretchen from the fellow Disney show Recess). i liked that she wasn’t feminine but also wasn’t a hard tomboy; she gave me space to feel like i was allowed to exist outside of that kind of gender binary (and especially her younger sister Moose blows all gender expectations out of the water). 

ASUKA LANGLEY SORYU from Neon Genesis Evangelion: foundation of my childhood identity along with all the trauma and posturing therein. think garrosh if he were a 12 year old girl who piloted a mech

DEVIL ZUKIN from Dance Dance Revolution: amazing outfit, rocked the konamix. i like evil zukin too but devil zukin is the fave. sleeveless crop top hell yeah

UNDYNE from Undertale: my bi awakening at 25. strong fish lady love spagety

HELLBOY from Hellboy: mike mignola’s art style has influenced a lot of my own. he’s a demon who chooses to be the good guy and that’s everything to me. he loves kitty cats and pancakes and punches nazis, and hellboy ii: the golden army is one of the best movies of all time.

BLACKARACHNIA from Beast Wars (Transformers): LOVE this bitch. she got to hang out with tarantulas and also expressed that moral grayness i totally love, chillin with rattrap and makin jokes. spider motif is v good also

LEAH from Stardew Valley: life goals. wife goals.

NAILS from Cool World: this movie fucking blows LMFAO it’s absolutely awful but it has the most banger rave soundtrack next to hackers and ralph bakshi’s animation as always is a spectacle. Nails is a hapless anxious cop-spider who can barely load his own gun and looks like a predecessor to a Cuphead reject. plus he’s voiced by charlie adler so he’s got huge personality. funny spider guy

HAWK MOTH from Miraculous: i know what i am. im a bitch who loves bug motifs and villains who are outwitted by literal children, who are utterly convinced they are doing the right and just thing, who stare a redemption arc in the face and go “...nah”

[ashchambers]

TOP 15 FALL OUT BOY SONGS as of 2 February 2019

15. Save Rock And Roll - Save Rock And Roll (2013)

“So fuck you,  you can go cry me an ocean and leave me be”

My favorite track from this comeback album. How could it not be, it’s got Elton John on it.

14. Bishop’s Knife Trick - MANIA (2018)

“The glow of the cities below lead us back, to the places that we never should have left”

Probably my favorite track from Fall Out Boy’s most recent album. I just feel like this song has the most emotion I’ve seen in a FOB song recently.

13. Saturday - Take This To Your Grave (2003)

“I read about the afterlife, but I never really lived more than an hour”

A concert staple, I have seen this song live five times and every time it brings a new appreciation to this song for me.

12. Sugar, We’re Goin Down - From Under The Cork Tree (2005)

“I’m just a notch in your bedpost, but you’re just a line in a song”

I have a portion of this song tattooed on me, so that’s all I have to say about that.

11. Chicago Is So Two Years Ago - Take This To Your Grave (2003)

“Loaded words and loaded friends are loaded guns to our heads”

This song is a really good representation of early Fall Out Boy to me, I got to see this performed live at their big Chicago show in September and it was very emotional.

10. Thriller - Infinity On High (2007)

“Crowds are won and lost and won again, but our hearts beat for the die hards”

I have a special place in my heart with this song, not only do I love it, but it is also my best friend’s favorite songs and we always sing it together.

9. XO - From Under The Cork Tree (2005)

“To the love, “I left my conscience pressed between the pages of the Bible in the drawer, ‘What did it ever do for me,’ I say. It never calls me when I’m down, love never wanted me, but I took it anyway”

The next two go together so well, what a great way to end an album (one of my favorite albums of all time).

8. Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part To Save The Scene And Stop Going To Shows) - From Under The Cork Tree (2005)

“If you are the shores, I am the waves begging for big moons”

There are a lot of memories associated with this album, it was a consistent album in my life growing up and there is just something about this song that I really relate to.

7. Golden - Infinity On High (2007)

“And I knew the lights of the city were too heavy for me”

For sure my favorite ballad by Fall Out Boy, Patrick’s vocals are just so pure on this track.

6. (Coffee’s For Closers) -  Folie à deux (2008)

“We will never believe again, kick drum beating in my chest again, we will never believe again, preach electric to a microphone stand”

Gotta love the movie quote song titles.

5. The (Shipped) Gold Standard - Folie à deux (2008)

“I wanna scream ‘I love you’ from the top of my lungs, but I’m afraid that someone else will hear me”

There is just something about this song that pulls at my heart strings and puts me in a mood that only Fall Out Boy can do.

4. The Carpal Tunnel Of Love - Infinity On High (2007)

“Take teardrops of mine, find yourself wetter”

This song has been on of my favorites by Fall Out Boy since I started listening to them. Named my blog with lyrics from this song.

3. A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me - From Under The Cork Tree (2005)

“I don’t blame you, for being you, but you can’t blame me for hating it”

TOP THREE BABY! These were hard for me, because Fall Out Boy has been a part of my life for such a long time, it is hard for me to pick my favorite songs, that is one reason why I have a hard time explaining why I love these songs so much. I can not thank Fall Out Boy enough for this music video though, I remember like it was yesterday, the video premiere on “Fuse” my mom had to record it on VHS for me, while I was at school. I have probably seen this video more times than I can count.

2. The Pros And Cons Of Breathing - Take This To Your Grave (2003)

“And if I could move, I’m sure it would only be to crawl back to you, I must have dragged my guts a block, they were gone by the time we (talked)”

Again, another song that is hard for me to explain why I love so much. I grew up listening to this album, it helped more during my formative years and no matter how many times I’ve heard this song, I just can’t help but love it a little bit more every time I hear it.

1. Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes - Folie à deux (2008)

“Nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedy”

Number one! This choice has changed a lot over the years and probably will continue to do so. Right now in my life, Disloyal Order of Water Buffaloes felt like a right number one for me. When this album first came out, I had been listening to Fall Out Boy for like three or four years and I took this album for granted. As I have gotten older, this has turned into one of  my favorite albums of all time, it stands the test of time and I love it.

[yetihideout]

“The Mick Jagger of Jewish Ladies”: Helen Hanft 

April 3, 2019

Happy Birthday to this incredible lady - the late, great Helen Hanft (1934-2013).

I started talking to Helen after getting in touch with her for the Divine documentary that I was assisting with (I Am Divine, 2013). In 1978, Helen co-starred with Divine in The Neon Woman. She played Connie, the loud, brash and miserable older sister of Divine’s character, Flash Storm. It’s a great performance, full of terrific one-liners and her chemistry with Divine was perfect.

If you read any information about Helen, you will find a lot of recurring words; loud, brassy, eccentric, legendary.

She was a goddess of off-Broadway and a darling of playwright Tom Eyen who wrote many plays that featured her, including Why Hanna’s Skirt Won’t Stay Down (where she played Hanna in what many consider her signature role), Who Killed My Bald Sister Sophie?, What is Making Gilda So Gray?, Sarah B. Divine!, Areatha in the Ice Palace, Women Behind Bars and the aforementioned The Neon Woman.

It was her performance in that play that caught my attention.

In 1991 I was in full-on John Waters/Divine obsession mode and was buying anything and everything I could lay my hands on. Through a mail order company called Movies Unlimited, I found a sketchy VHS tape that contained one of Waters’ early short films (The Diane Linkletter Story) and the “only existing performance of the infamous The Neon Woman show”.

Shot on crude, black & white videotape with almost indecipherable audio, I was finally able to see Divine large-and-in-charge onstage in a truly amazing role (and one which actually stands as my favorite Divine presentation). Amidst this performance, I began to notice (and hear) an amazing, obviously older actress that was able to go head-to-head with Divine. Unfortunately, the video had no cast information so I had no idea who she was.

Fast-forward a couple of years to 1993 when the ensemble comedy, Used People, was released. This was a film I was drawn to immediately because of its large cast of unusual character actors (i.e Sylvia Sidney, Doris Roberts, Marcia Gay Harden, Joe Pantoliano, etc.) Surprisingly, a memorable, red-haired woman popped up in a scene showcasing a familiar and unforgettable voice. It was her! Connie from The Neon Woman! At last I was able to place a name to that wonderful personality. Helen Hanft.

Slowly I began to realize who she was, remembering her almost immediately from her bit part roles in other films like Coming to America (1988), Moonstruck (1987) and, most memorably, as the evil Department of Motor Vehicles lady in License to Drive (1988). Her name quickly rose to the top of my favorite character actresses.

Needless to say, I was excited and nervous at the opportunity to speak with her for the Divine documentary in the spring of 2011. However, the second I heard her voice on the phone, my heart melted and all of my inhibitions flew out the window. We immediately hit it off, talking for over an hour. I found out she collected cookie jars, so during one of my thrift store shopping trips, I found a bizarre “Bobby Baker” cookie jar that I thought was unique and odd enough to send to her. She loved it. We would talk on the phone every few months for the next couple of years.

Like my friendship with the late Susan Tyrrell, our conversations never revolved around her career. There were brief mentions of her roles (I expressed my appreciation for her scenes in Used People in which she stole laughs from Shirley MacLaine) but the majority of our talks were about our families, our pets, politics and life in general. We even talked about eventual visits to meet each other. It was a joy to talk to her and we made each other laugh. I hope she got as much enjoyment out of our chats as I did.

I last spoke to Helen about a month before she passed away, telling her about a photo I had just purchased of her onstage during The Neon Woman. She was surprised to hear that there was memorabilia available of her on eBay. “I never see a penny of that!” she laughed.

I recently found a fun article by Tom Eyen in a December 1974 issue of After Dark magazine entitled “The Many Mad Women in Tom Eyen’s Life”. In it was a small profile on Helen that summarized her perfectly. Titled, “The Mick Jagger of Jewish Ladies”, Tom writes that “Helen…was born to scream for the sins of the world. She is a joy for actors and crew to work with and particularly sweet to the little people (that is, anyone under the age of six).”

I feel incredibly lucky to have experienced Helen (albeit briefly) and am still deeply saddened by the passing of this truly unique, irreplaceable personality that we will never see again.

[theliterateape]

Problematic Movies of the '80s | Weird Science (1985)

By Don Hall

It’s interesting that statistics show that kids today aren’t having as much sex as we did “back in my day.” When I was a teenager, I was constantly overwhelmed by the Constant Boner of Young Adulthood. I thought about girls and tits and sex almost to a degree one could call mentally unstable. I was not alone. Most kids in the ’80s were consumed by sex. As an act, as a conquest, as a reward. Somewhere along the line (Hey! Let’s blame technology on the decline in teenage libido!) dudes were more consumed with winning at Fortnite than mastering the Art of the Seduction. 

Maybe it’s the far more complicated sexual landscape we face today and all the work required just to let someone know you want to fuck (because that is pervy and rapey and to indicate that you are not primarily interested in someone’s opinion or state of mind or hopes and dreams is to proliferate the culture of objectification and, if I had all of that in my 14-year-old brain, I might’ve decided it wasn’t worth the effort as well…)

No, today, sex has to be the last thing on your mind if you ever hope to have it. Not so in 1985. In 1985, there was a horny, stupid ideal of the perfect woman and the movie Weird Science exemplified it. Given today’s sex robots and unlimited free porn, I’d say we haven’t gone too far away from the concept — using technology to manufacture the sexual partner who does not question, holds no complications, and is universally desired is a booming industry.

What I remember about Weird Science is Bill Paxton as the hysterical bullying Chet, the song, and Kelly LaBrock. While LaBrock wasn’t really my type she was definitely hot. No question.

This is also a John Hughes film. Certainly a fan of The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I was a far bigger fan of Weird Science. Perhaps it was that I identified more with the two nerds with no game than I did with any of the characters in most of Hughes’ films. Perhaps it was the idea of creating a woman who liked me no matter what my flaws had been. It may have to do with the fact that most of Hughes’ protagonists come from wealthy families from the Northshore of Chicago and these two idiots somehow felt less so (despite the million-dollar home Wyatt’s parents own).

In terms of Hughes’ movies and the concept of problematic moments, the dude got it wrong a lot. From Long Duck Dong in Sixteen Candles to Judd Nelson peeking up Molly Ringwald’s skirt and still ending up being her best choice for mating material in The Breakfast Club, Johnny Boy taught the young lads of the ’80s a host of bad lessons whilst cracking us up.

Weird Science Written and Directed by John Hughes 1985

In my experience, there are very few actors who, with their very presence, can sum up an entire archetype without actually doing anything. Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, Judi Dench, John Candy. And Anthony Michael Hall. From the second you see he and Ilan Mitchell-Smith in their high school gym shorts standing, watching girls do gymnastics, Hall exudes the very essence of the high school geek. All legs and awkwardness, his mouth hung slightly open most of the time. His is the picture next to the dictionary definition.

Weird Science banks on this as he and Mitchell-Smith enact Hughes’ ’80s high school version of Frankenstein/Mary Poppins. The two boys, Gary and Wyatt, are all desire and disappointment as, on a sleepover watching a colorized version of Frankenstein on TV, Gary gets the idea to create the perfect woman via dial up modem computer. They need “more power” so Wyatt hacks into what appears to be the Pentagon’s servers and this juices up things so that electrical magic happens and Lisa (Kelly LaBrock) appears in sports panties and half shirt amidst the chaos.

“So. What would you little maniacs like to do first?” she purrs.

Lisa takes them on a magic carpet ride to a blues bar on the Southside of Chicago, the mall, and ultimately throws a party at Wyatt’s parents’ house (these kids come from very well-off families!) that includes hundreds of teenagers, a young Robert Downey Jr. as a bully, a nuclear missile and the Australian bad-guy from the original Mad Max. No, this doesn’t even have to pretend to be rooted in the real Evanstonian world of his previous films. This one is pure fantasy.

In the end, as all Mary Poppins-inspired tales must, the boys have gained confidence in themselves (and girlfriends!) and Lisa moves on to coach scores of idiots in exactly the same manner because that’s all that incels need, a hot super model with magic powers to guide them.

Problematic moments & themes

While I’m uncertain that Gary and Wyatt learn to not fetishize and objectify women (let alone create one using 1980s Max Headroom graphics) the fact that Lisa is imbued with genius level intellect — I mean, they scanned in a picture of Einstein when building her! — and is in control of everything from the moment she appears. In terms of agency, she never relents an iota of it throughout. She takes no shit from anyone.

Sure, she begins the process of having sex with 15-year-old Wyatt but we immediately find out that he passed out and no sex was had. Lisa, despite being the Frankenstein’s Monster, is completely in charge and badass. In essence, the boys really did create the perfect woman — beautiful, confident, intelligent and no one’s object.

Chet (Bill Paxton) is problematic in that he loves to throw the word “faggot” around but he ultimately gets owned and punished for being such a turd, if not specifically for being a raging homophobe.

Fortunately, Hughes hires a whole room full of black actors for Weird Science. Unfortunately, they all play characters named Bar Patron, Guy at Table and Bartender.

The scene in the blues bar is funny in that fish-out-of-water sort of way and the black men are never treated as anything but masters of their domain. If Gary hadn’t gotten drunk and then done a skinny white kid’s version of a pimp-hat wearing black caricature for far too long, it wouldn’t even raise a flag on the play. Admittedly, I found his cartoonish impression of a black man to be pretty offensive. All he needed was some blackface makeup and he’d be Kingfish from Amos and Andy.

Did it hold up?

Weird Science is problematic but not for the reasons I thought it would be. In the lens of 2018, the feminist perspective is strong given that the initial impulse to create is small and objectifying but the creation herself is an ideal of feminine strength and power. The blues bar is pretty rough when we add the kaleidoscope of diversity on top.

Given that Hughes wrote the screenplay in two days, it’s amazing it isn’t far more troubling and, more importantly, the movie is still funny. The avatar of uncool that was Anthony Michael Hall in his teenage heyday steeps this goofy ass Frankenstein story with too many hysterical throwaways and moments at the expense of the rich, white kid to completely dismiss this as crap.

And the Thomas Dolby title song is pure pop culture genius, as sticky and memorable as almost any movie song ever written.

Overall

Scale of 1 to 10 1 = Classic 10 = Burn all VHS copies of it

Weird Science gets a 4

Next Up: Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)