Friday, August 27, 2010

Macabre Macrame'

There is more to Edgar Allan Poe than "Quoth the Raven, nevermore." He is difficult, as he quotes Latin without interpretation and is prone to rambling "Old English" drug induced wordiness. I have a copy of his "complete tales & poems" (Dorset Press), and can only highly recommend a few as will follow. I can't imagine a reader sitting through all thousand plus pages while remaining upright. The fellow was indeed a natural genius of the dirge mentality. He is however, too depressing for the sane of us. Too much downers my man. One sentence should be one sentence, not two pages: "The Purloined Letter" for instance. It could have been jolly good but the punchline is in Latin. And E. P. regurgitates and ruminates for 1 1/2 pages. The 5 (pfft) star story has one of my favorite lines in it however: "We gave him a hearty welcome, for there was nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man..." For my money, nothing worse than a seven star out of ten is worth a read. "The Pit and the Pendulum" is the dude's best, 9*. 8* star stories: "The Black Cat", The Masque of the Red Death"-that's it! 7* (so readable), "The Gold Bug", "The Fall of the House of Usher", "A Descent into the Maelstrom", "Ligeia", "The Tell Tale Heart". Those 4 famous stories are still tough to read after the titles. Forget "The Murders in the Rue Morgue". It could have been a 7. It's a good story (the monkey did it), but again the punchline is in a language that I did not study; French.

here's the website

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Pasted from Ezine/One of 2002's Best Films="Spun"

...on meth that is.

My own personal preface: I will always feel that "crank" chefs deserve the death penalty.

Having said that I will proceed.

I'm just a bi-polar old man but I think this film is so hilariously nasty that it is a must-see.

"I can smell the snail trails all over the store."??? If you are not familiar with that phrase it's in here. It is uttered by one of the quintessential Spanish sleaze princesses. Let's see, what else? The decongestant used to make speed is kept behind the counter as it is supposed to be. But the clerk has no problem selling thirty bottles at a time, as long as it is for a good cause. I almost busted my stitches when the nude blonde in the handcuffs was blank down below, a la 1950's mens mags or "Barbie". We can see a meth factory, but no hair please. A brilliant commentary. This whole epic is an absolute symphonic cacophony.

WARNING: Careful with that axe Eugene. This one is a hard "R" rating. I mean R leaning on X.

If this movie isn't a cult classic it deserves to be. Don't get me wrong. I'm not nostalgic for the homemade poison which it revolves around; never got into it, thank goodness. I did some equally dumb things maybe. Want to snort some aerosol spray cooking oil?

Sometimes it helps to laugh at this mean world. This movie did make me do that. Edgy would be a mild description. I rate it a thousand stars. Seldom does a film hit its mark so perfectly. It's a bulls-eye for director Jonas Ackerlund. The characters are brilliant caricatures in a very sad theme and Mickey Rourke absolutely "cooks".

The writing deserved an Oscar. Just genius.

The animation deserved an Oscar. No airbrushing there.

The makeup deserved an Oscar. They took some really good looking actors and made them look like trash. Except for Mickey. He probably didn't need a lot of help, as he fits the niche. And Mom didn't need much help. Don't look too close. She's just your average American, but I had to turn away.

I cannot tell any more. Just hold on tight.

Seriously though, this film is disturbingly desperate when the laughs are over. The bad thing is, it can really get this horrible. I've seen a friend pick up lint out of the carpet hoping that it was crank. Just tweaking man. This junk is rife in America and it makes me cry, not laugh. SPEED KILLS!!

Jim William knows what he is talking about. He was a drug-induced catatonic schizophrenic for a short time. Much was lost then. Much bonus time was gained, along with a multi-faceted identity.


WEBSITE: http://themaven.synthasite.com