Football season ended with the mother of all upsets, upsetting to all but most football fans, of course. Dr. Ernie will not devote much more blog space to any more discussion about the game...since he still finds himself stopping in the middle of the day to once again realize what gloriousness occurred that Sunday.
However...in all the babble about the commercials, because our lives have been reduced to rooting for company ad campaigns, nobody pointed out how honest the Coca Cola commercial featuring Bill Frist and James Carville was.
Here were two guys, Frist with his red tie and flag pin, Carville with his blue tie and no flag pin (he probably hates America), going nose to nose, trying to find something they agree on.
Eventually, 30 or so seconds later, they do find something to agree on: Coca Cola.
The taste? The seductive red and white logo? The sexy bottle? Or the fact that politicians on both sides of the aisle really do agree that sucking big, fat corporate Cokes is a good thing, all the time, any time. Forget ideology, go drain a Coke.
It was honest, though I'm sure the people who made it didn't design it that way. It was an afront to anyone paying attention...if they weren't in a Coke stupor by halftime (Dr. Ernie preferred lager).
Indeed, this Coke is for you, America. They drink it down, smile, and walk off together, finding that they really are on the same side. As they waltzed off into the sunset, I thought I heard them whisper in unison: Go fuck yourself, America!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
More of the Night Nobody Came Home?
Too often, Halloween is not cold or gloomy enough to watch a horror movie. It may be unseasonably warm, a 65-degree evening, which might help the sheet-wearers in the streets but doesn't lend the same bleak aura a good January or February evening can.
Which is why a good return to Halloween III: Season of the Witch is warranted (the snow falling outside). Here's a horror movie that may warrant a good remake these days. Now 25 years old, we need a few techie tweaks and just that much more cynicism to bring this back to life. Whether it be a remake or a re-imagining (which is more like a fantasy remake of the thing that used to be your favorite movie), this one is thematically ripe for the early 21st century.
Including one of the most maniacal and maddening movie jingles ever recorded (more on the music later), Halloween III might be even more cult today if it wasn't called Halloween III. The TV age meets Stonehenge in a madman's plot to murder the children of America on Halloween night. There isn't a Why? to be found, really. There is no 'why' when a man with command of a toy factor and an unhealthy obsession with the real origins of Halloween decides to teach people that the damn holiday is not about putting on a mask and begging for candy. It's about being sacrificed in a big circle of stones (or TV monitors).
Halloween III is not, of course, a Michael Myers film. There's no Dr. Loomis, either, as he, too was burned up in that ER. Instead, Carpenter and Hill produce the film and Tommy Lee Wallace directs. And boy, has he watched a lot of Carpenter. He's got Dean Cundey as the DP, to boot, meaning the film looks great. If you liked any of Carpenter's films before this (including the Carpenter-Hill-produced and Rick Rosenthal-directed Halloween II), this has more of the same, including eerie shots of hospital hallways, eerie shots of hospital rooms, creepy masks, silouettes, and guys walking very slowly while chasing you. One of those slow-walking figures is stuntman Dick Warlock, who played an excellent Myers in II. He also zapped a casino cheater with a cattle prod in Casino, a role Dr. Ernie cited when he met Warlock in person. The film lovingly references the first two films with various shots, plenty of musical cues, but only occassionally approaches the menace. But there is some menace to be found:
A pleasant old man gleefully leads a tour through his factory before informing our hero that he plans to kill every kid in America wearing a Silver Shamrock mask at 9pm, Halloween night. At that time, he'll show the Halloween commercial with the jingle for the 10 millionth time and as the synth music speeds up, the on-screen pumpkin will flash and flash and flash until...
...until the mask crushes your head and makes bugs and snakes crawl out. Because apparently that's what happens when you craft a microchip with a bit of Stonehenge rock in it and play that freaking commercial. Conal Cochran, played by the excellent-evil-businessman Daniel O'Herlihy, well...something is bugging him about Halloween's bastardization into a crass, commercial holiday about wearing toy masks and begging for sugary treats. To play the ultimate practical joke on the kiddies, he's going to use crass commercialism (and one evil jingle), along with tiny pieces of Stonehenge to kill the children of America. Cochran's going to resurrect the 3,000 year old ritual of Samhain (and he pronounces it correctly here, unlike Loomis in II) by stealing a pillar from Stonehenge (not explained how he carted a piece of Stonehenge from England to Northern California with scants days to spare before his biggest project ever) and harnessing it's 'devastating' powers. And only the epileptics might be safe if they saw that commercial...at least their parents might actually think of turning the damn TV off.
It's a big practical joke, see? That'll teach these kids, who though it was about Snickers and Jolly Ranchers. No, it's about sacrifice...children and animals, according to Cochran. This injustice of forgetting the damn point of Samhain is so great he'll kill off his clientele to prove it. And Stonehenge...who knew it had powers that look like something from The Keep? Both films appeared in 1983, the same year as Return of the Jedi, a film with far, far superior laser beam effects (and Ewok jattering to match the Happy Happy Halloween jingle.
But no one can. And no one can stop buying the masks as they fly off the shelf and send characters looking for more in Santa Mira, Body Snatcher town, where everyone is employed by Silver Shamrock (except the locals). Seems everyone's a robot, because it's tough to get help for plans to kill every kid in America with your product. The shareholders of Silver Shamrock are nowhere to be found, though by now they've doubtlessly been replaced by suited yes-men.
Someone's head gets twisted off by Dick Warlock. A woman suffers a 'mis-fire' when she fiddles with the secret chip in one of the masks (not long after she notes the decline in quality of the mask, itself). Another woman is swapped with a droid and keeps coming at our hero, even with one arm and spewing mustard blood. Speaking of mustard blood...Daniel O'Herlihy was very good, and perhaps only Angus Scrimm could have matched his aplomb. Silver Shamrock's final business plan does seem like something from the Tall Man's realm.
"Turn it off!"
A TV blares an insane jingle...when it's cut by the station, a child robotically changes channels and finds the jingle again. And again. Consumerism, mindless and disruptive to real life and relationships. A witchcraft ritual corrupted into another American Wallet holiday. A six pack of Miller High Life. The dude from The Fog, and a cameo by Michael Myers in a (diagetic commercial for Halloween on TV. These are only a few of the elements wrapped up in the still-not-well-put-together Halloween III. But Wallace must have had fun giving us a 'Halloween' film.
Complete with music, yes. It's Carpenter and Alan Howarth again, tinkering on the synths while watching the film, giving us a completely synth score with plenty of eerie cues and ominous rumblings. Think all of Carpenter's score up to this point...including Christine (the same year). And a few more keyboards. Very excellent, and very unavailable for some time until Buysoundtrax.com re-issued it last year in expanded format. So as Dr. Ernie dusts off the old Varese release, he reaches for the credit card, and somewhere in the distance someone is screaming, "Turn it off!"
Which is why a good return to Halloween III: Season of the Witch is warranted (the snow falling outside). Here's a horror movie that may warrant a good remake these days. Now 25 years old, we need a few techie tweaks and just that much more cynicism to bring this back to life. Whether it be a remake or a re-imagining (which is more like a fantasy remake of the thing that used to be your favorite movie), this one is thematically ripe for the early 21st century.
Including one of the most maniacal and maddening movie jingles ever recorded (more on the music later), Halloween III might be even more cult today if it wasn't called Halloween III. The TV age meets Stonehenge in a madman's plot to murder the children of America on Halloween night. There isn't a Why? to be found, really. There is no 'why' when a man with command of a toy factor and an unhealthy obsession with the real origins of Halloween decides to teach people that the damn holiday is not about putting on a mask and begging for candy. It's about being sacrificed in a big circle of stones (or TV monitors).
Halloween III is not, of course, a Michael Myers film. There's no Dr. Loomis, either, as he, too was burned up in that ER. Instead, Carpenter and Hill produce the film and Tommy Lee Wallace directs. And boy, has he watched a lot of Carpenter. He's got Dean Cundey as the DP, to boot, meaning the film looks great. If you liked any of Carpenter's films before this (including the Carpenter-Hill-produced and Rick Rosenthal-directed Halloween II), this has more of the same, including eerie shots of hospital hallways, eerie shots of hospital rooms, creepy masks, silouettes, and guys walking very slowly while chasing you. One of those slow-walking figures is stuntman Dick Warlock, who played an excellent Myers in II. He also zapped a casino cheater with a cattle prod in Casino, a role Dr. Ernie cited when he met Warlock in person. The film lovingly references the first two films with various shots, plenty of musical cues, but only occassionally approaches the menace. But there is some menace to be found:
- Where is everyone in that town?
- An old women knitting in a rocking chair...is she real?
- A product demo from hell in the toy factory's 'test' facility
- Phone calls that go nowhere
- That damn Halloween jingle...
Two more days till Halloween, Hallowee, Halloween,
Two more days till Halloween, Hallowee, Halloween,
Sil-ver Shamrock!
A pleasant old man gleefully leads a tour through his factory before informing our hero that he plans to kill every kid in America wearing a Silver Shamrock mask at 9pm, Halloween night. At that time, he'll show the Halloween commercial with the jingle for the 10 millionth time and as the synth music speeds up, the on-screen pumpkin will flash and flash and flash until...
...until the mask crushes your head and makes bugs and snakes crawl out. Because apparently that's what happens when you craft a microchip with a bit of Stonehenge rock in it and play that freaking commercial. Conal Cochran, played by the excellent-evil-businessman Daniel O'Herlihy, well...something is bugging him about Halloween's bastardization into a crass, commercial holiday about wearing toy masks and begging for sugary treats. To play the ultimate practical joke on the kiddies, he's going to use crass commercialism (and one evil jingle), along with tiny pieces of Stonehenge to kill the children of America. Cochran's going to resurrect the 3,000 year old ritual of Samhain (and he pronounces it correctly here, unlike Loomis in II) by stealing a pillar from Stonehenge (not explained how he carted a piece of Stonehenge from England to Northern California with scants days to spare before his biggest project ever) and harnessing it's 'devastating' powers. And only the epileptics might be safe if they saw that commercial...at least their parents might actually think of turning the damn TV off.
It's a big practical joke, see? That'll teach these kids, who though it was about Snickers and Jolly Ranchers. No, it's about sacrifice...children and animals, according to Cochran. This injustice of forgetting the damn point of Samhain is so great he'll kill off his clientele to prove it. And Stonehenge...who knew it had powers that look like something from The Keep? Both films appeared in 1983, the same year as Return of the Jedi, a film with far, far superior laser beam effects (and Ewok jattering to match the Happy Happy Halloween jingle.
But no one can. And no one can stop buying the masks as they fly off the shelf and send characters looking for more in Santa Mira, Body Snatcher town, where everyone is employed by Silver Shamrock (except the locals). Seems everyone's a robot, because it's tough to get help for plans to kill every kid in America with your product. The shareholders of Silver Shamrock are nowhere to be found, though by now they've doubtlessly been replaced by suited yes-men.
Someone's head gets twisted off by Dick Warlock. A woman suffers a 'mis-fire' when she fiddles with the secret chip in one of the masks (not long after she notes the decline in quality of the mask, itself). Another woman is swapped with a droid and keeps coming at our hero, even with one arm and spewing mustard blood. Speaking of mustard blood...Daniel O'Herlihy was very good, and perhaps only Angus Scrimm could have matched his aplomb. Silver Shamrock's final business plan does seem like something from the Tall Man's realm.
"Turn it off!"
A TV blares an insane jingle...when it's cut by the station, a child robotically changes channels and finds the jingle again. And again. Consumerism, mindless and disruptive to real life and relationships. A witchcraft ritual corrupted into another American Wallet holiday. A six pack of Miller High Life. The dude from The Fog, and a cameo by Michael Myers in a (diagetic commercial for Halloween on TV. These are only a few of the elements wrapped up in the still-not-well-put-together Halloween III. But Wallace must have had fun giving us a 'Halloween' film.
Complete with music, yes. It's Carpenter and Alan Howarth again, tinkering on the synths while watching the film, giving us a completely synth score with plenty of eerie cues and ominous rumblings. Think all of Carpenter's score up to this point...including Christine (the same year). And a few more keyboards. Very excellent, and very unavailable for some time until Buysoundtrax.com re-issued it last year in expanded format. So as Dr. Ernie dusts off the old Varese release, he reaches for the credit card, and somewhere in the distance someone is screaming, "Turn it off!"
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Brad Renfro...lost life in an ongoing lifestyle
Dr. Ernie awoke in the middle of the night to some sad news, courtesy of the electronic beeping by his bed.
The 'hyper-real' Marty Puccio, actor Brad Renfro, was dead.
Renfro became known to many when he appeared in the The Client, a 1994 Grishamizer that saw the 12-year old hold his own among Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon. But his defining work, in Dr. Ernie's humble opinion (and never more humble than now, on this very sad day), was the 2001 Larry Clark classic Bully.
Bully is better known to Dr. Ernie and his motley associates as one of the films that ruined my life. In a good way, like taking bad medicine. Bully had a deep impact on me and several others...and all during separate viewings. It's almost as if we'd each discovered an underground drug, then one day found the paraphenalia in the others' house and came clean about having indulged. For Dr. Ernie, it was a late night in the early part of this fading decade when I happened upon the film on Cinemax and simply...could...not...turn...it...off.
Bully was based on Jim Schutze's book of the same name, which reads like a fiction-style true crime account of the real case of Marty Puccio and Bobby Kent. Long story short...Bobby Kent is the titular bully who is terrorizing his 'best friend' (Puccio) and an assorted circle of Floridian misfits, druggies, ex-teen-whores, and the like. Eventually, after cementing his status as of the cinema's most appalling human beings, Kent is murdered by Puccio and the rest of his motley crew.
No doubt there are descrepencies with the real case in both the book and film (the film follows the book, down to the dialogue the author could not have been privy to very closely). However, it's Clark who brings a whole lifestyle, an entire essence to the screen like no other 60-year old director obsessed with teens could.
Because of Renfro's depiction of Marty Puccio, Dr. Ernie and friends identified a 'Puccio lifestyle' and have been tracking its horrible path across our very neighborhood, so far from the subdivided streets of the Hollywood, FL setting. In fact, the Puccio lifestyle can be found all over the USA.
Wearing no shirt on a hot, aimless day. Lounging on the couch. Chugging an MGD out of your parents' fridge with your younger (shirtless) brother looking on. Smoking weed while sweating profusely in bed with a disturbed teen girl. Getting smacked around by your 'best friend'. Brutally murdering said 'best friend' along with some of the stupider people you could find. Getting the same disturbed teen girl pregnant. Saying "FUCK IT" at the breakfast table while your grandmother looks on. Getting arrested and led out the front door by an army of Florida PD while your family watches Wheel of Fortune.
Making a science out of an aimless, directionless, failed surfer, suburban American existence.
Doing nothing and wasting a day in total leisure, but without the criminality and significantly more brain cells could certainly account for a Puccio Day. Anywhere.
What
a
waste.
Renfro was a talented kid. Bully is Clark's best film and largely because of how good, and how real Brad Renfro was. Perhaps because he truly embraced the Puccio lifestyle off-screen, even getting arrested for attempting to steal a yacht while making the film. And dying from as-yet undetermined causes after a night of drinking. He's been battling addictions, including heroin, apparently. He was partying. He was only 25 years old. The Puccio lifestyle does not a long life make. The real Marty Puccio is doing life in a Florida jail cell after having been originally sentenced to die in Old Sparky. He has now outlived the fine young actor who gave him perhaps more life than he deserved--immortally--on film.
I hope Clark or perhaps Michael Pitt or Nick Stahl say a few words about this. It's been rather unsettling to read the news today, and see the press pictures, including stills of Bully.
Do yourself a favor...http://www.amazon.com/Bully-Ed-Amatrudo/dp/B00005U14H/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1200540638&sr=1-1
R.I.P. Brad Renfro---the hyper-real Marty Puccio
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
In The Ninth Year of a Genre-Less Decade
It's 2008 now. That means the last decade of the 1980s is nearly 20 years ago. In addition to acid-washed jeans (and jean jackets), expect it all to come back. Dr. Ernie is (mostly) at peace with this reality. The onslaught has been underway at the movies for a little while now, with no signs of stopping.
Only the patina of time can make things cool again (or cool once), and now well into the 21st century one can to stock up on checkered Vans thanks to the Internet. Or find every 80s movie on DVD, right in time for the Format Wars to rage again.
The remakes are inevitable. Sometimes, they're even warranted. It's time to stop feeling old and join Dr. Ernie in listing those films that will appear again before us and make us think long and hard about what we've been doing here...
After realizing the 80s are...20 years ago these days, Dr. Ernie has begun thinking of films that probably will, should, or could be remade with warrant. Any actual remakes of these films will be noted (either done or underway, announced, etc). Of course, Dr. Ernie cannot be blamed for prescience, nor accused of any other science.
Only the patina of time can make things cool again (or cool once), and now well into the 21st century one can to stock up on checkered Vans thanks to the Internet. Or find every 80s movie on DVD, right in time for the Format Wars to rage again.
The remakes are inevitable. Sometimes, they're even warranted. It's time to stop feeling old and join Dr. Ernie in listing those films that will appear again before us and make us think long and hard about what we've been doing here...
After realizing the 80s are...20 years ago these days, Dr. Ernie has begun thinking of films that probably will, should, or could be remade with warrant. Any actual remakes of these films will be noted (either done or underway, announced, etc). Of course, Dr. Ernie cannot be blamed for prescience, nor accused of any other science.
Monday, December 31, 2007
New Year's Eve Sucks
2007 is ending.Dr. Ernie had a better-than-usual year at the movies, and if I can find and sort through all my ticket stubs, I may have attended more films than the past two years combined. Maybe.
Dr. Ernie is trying to recall any films or books set in the year 2008, so we may have a fiction/reality comparison. Nothing comes to mind.
However...2008 may well be a better year for very few reasons. This being one of them:
http://www.phantasm5.com/ (Assuming the film appears in 2008...silly ass-umption).
Angus isn't getting any younger! For goodness sake, won't you dig into your pockets and give Don Coscarelli a few bucks? It may speed up the process. And teaming up with Anchor Bay? I hope this doesn't mean straight-to-DVD (albeit a nice Anchor Bay DVD).
Speaking of DVDs...I was wondering why there hasn't been a DVD boxset of the Phantasm films. 'Boxed' in a sphere, of course. Well kick me for not paying attention to PAL releases, because:
http://www.amazon.com/Boxset-dvds-Limited-Collector-Phantasm/dp/B00116AC28/ref=pd_bbs_5?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1199119900&sr=8-5
A lot of good that does Dr. Ernie.
But that only means that after V, Anchor Bay will have five flicks to box (or sphere) for Region 1. And there is much potential in this department...
- Phantasm II: Not available on DVD (NTSC, at least).
- Phantasm III: Finally showed up on DVD in '07 (http://www.amazon.com/Phantasm-III-Lord-Reggie-Bannister/dp/B000MV8AC2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1199119349&sr=1-2). Yes, Anchor Bay.
- Extras: Good stuff...when they bother to release the movies to begin with. Doubtless more stuff available...
- A working ball...or at least a proper paper weight. Housed in a coffin. With a coupon for a black undertaker's suit (or least free alterations).
And finally...
Did you know? The Tall Man is older than Dick Clark.
Did you know? The Tall Man is older than Dick Clark.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Nights of the DVD Round Table
A gift with toys before the inevitable remake:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000K15VSA/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance
Seems a must, with the only omission being a copy of the soundtrack in the nifty briefcase. But that's okay...one can spend a few more pesos for a special Amazon 3-CD version.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000Z0OX9O/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance
Which, of course, is incomplete. However, it does have some 'new' material for the addict.
In fact, a modest sum for yet another DVD Holy Grail...so long in the making that it's appearing on no less than three (3) formats (DVD, HD, Blu-Ray). Dr. Ernie is rolling the dice on the DVD version...because that's how Dr. Ernie rolls. Time will only tell if the blacks are black enough, if the silence is silent enough, if the glowing replicant eyes are clear enough...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000K15VSA/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance
Seems a must, with the only omission being a copy of the soundtrack in the nifty briefcase. But that's okay...one can spend a few more pesos for a special Amazon 3-CD version.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000Z0OX9O/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance
Which, of course, is incomplete. However, it does have some 'new' material for the addict.
In fact, a modest sum for yet another DVD Holy Grail...so long in the making that it's appearing on no less than three (3) formats (DVD, HD, Blu-Ray). Dr. Ernie is rolling the dice on the DVD version...because that's how Dr. Ernie rolls. Time will only tell if the blacks are black enough, if the silence is silent enough, if the glowing replicant eyes are clear enough...
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Dr. Ernie rides into the fake internet sunrise
Dr. Ernest Dzvirko has recently been frequenting the cinema more than usual, meaning something bad might happen soon. Case in point...
Langford's Castle affords stunning views and an unlisted phone number.
Langford's Castle affords stunning views and an unlisted phone number.
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