Movie Review: Titane (2021)

the horror continues... 56 nights till Halloween!
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tonight's feature: Titane (2021) on Hulu

SPOILERS(?): If you like your movies weird, French, dark and seemingly pointless, Titane may be the film for you. Although hailed by critics and the Palme d'Or winner at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, I am gloriously unencumbered by the allegories and metaphors and am required by law to dumb things down for my own simple man viewing needs. This is what smart people call "body horror" and I am apparently not a fan.

Alexia is a serial killer stripper with a titanium plate inside her head from a childhood car accident. She LOVES cars, so much so that she ends up getting pregnant by one (not kidding). Somehow the constant murdering gets too crazy and she ends up deciding to disguise herself as a boy who went missing 10 years ago by cutting her hair, strapping down her boobs and breaking her nose. She moves in with the boy's steroid-addicted, firefighter dad and becomes part of the erotic mosh-pit techno dancing firefighting crew, although they think she is an effeminate boy who is mentally challenged.

After a while, one of them figures out she's not who she says but the dad protects her and eventually acknowledges "whoever you are, you're my son". What? Anyway things get weirder and weirder (if that's possible) as this half-cadillac baby inside her causes her to secrete motor oil out her hoo-ha (and more). The missing kid's mom even shows up and she knows the storyline is bullshit but she doesn't care or stick around. Finally there is a climactic birthing scene that I refuse to acknowledge further or describe in detail and the movie ends. Interesting themes and originality can only carry a film so far. Body horror might be an ok genre but in Titane it felt like a weird contrivance for a film that couldn't decide where it belonged. Whatever. 5 oil squirts in your boxer briefs out of 10.

Movie Review: The Yellow Wallpaper (2021)

the horror continues... 57 nights till Halloween!
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tonight's feature: The Yellow Wallpaper (2021) on Prime

SPOILERS(?) Not really sure how to describe this film version of The Yellow Wallpaper. I guess for starters it's a massively influential early feminist story from 1892 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that illustrates the oppressive nature of the patriarchal society of the time. But as a film, it's just almost entirely oppressive and bleak and nearly unwatchable. The movie is listed as a horror film but the only real horror here is sitting through a solid hour and 39 minutes of a depressed woman getting more depressed and going insane because of it.

The Yellow Wallpaper is an excruciatingly tedious and unpleasant experience and it took everything I had to get through it. It was an epic endurance test, like watching someone slowly peeling wallpaper, which is exactly what happens for the last 10 minutes or so. Maybe I'm SUPPOSED to feel like this after watching, in which case, they nailed it. Otherwise, if you're looking for something frightful for the Halloween season, look elsewhere. If you must watch it, bring a pillow. For all it's worth, I give The Yellow Wallpaper 3 remote country estates out of 10.

Movie Review: In the Earth (2021)

the horror continues... 58 nights till Halloween!
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tonight's feature: In the Earth (2021) on Hulu

SPOILERS(?): Imagine getting kidnapped deep in the woods by a lunatic who drugs you to keep you from trying to escape. Then imagine escaping with a few less toes only to run into the lunatic's scientist wife who is trying to communicate with the forest using science, but she can't so she uses an ancient dusty spellbook called "Hammer of the Witches" (new band name?).

Add all that together during a pandemic, along with a malevolent forest, the spirit of some old guy in a stone edifice, lots of loud scary music, a bunch of strobe lights set all over the place, a ghastly mist of mushroom spores, and you end up tripping balls. A lot of tripping balls. Trying to avoid getting murdered. That is more or less the premise of In the Earth, which gets a grisly 5 chopped off toes out of 10.

Movie Review: The Night House (2020)

the horror continues... 59 nights till Halloween!
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tonight's feature: The Night House (2020) on HBOmax

possible SPOILERS(?): The Night House was a fairly compelling ghost story that kept the tension and interest for a majority of the film. Except towards the end, where things got supernaturally wonky.

Beth is a recent widower whose husband mysteriously took his own life. As the tale unfolds you are drawn layer by layer into the enigma onion that was her husband, Owen. What was he up to? Bad things? Uh oh. Tell me more! Owen was an architect who designed their beautiful house on the lake. But he had other secrets! Like another house across the lake that was nearly identical. Owen also had some strange photos on his phone. Maybe even some dead bodies lying around.

Eventually there's a part of the movie where Beth is like, "Yes! I'm going to totally bone my dead husband's ghost. I really miss him." (note: not an actual quote) and I was like "No please, please don't kick me out of my cinematic dreamscape with some cheap ghost boner" which switched quickly to "OMG to whom does this ghost boner belong?" which felt like some reality show where ghost boners get voted off ghost boner island. (new band name?)

Anyway, I liked the movie despite the parts where the evil spirit is just picking people up and throwing, choking, dragging, and smashing them against a mirror. I mean, if he could do that all along, why didn't he do it earlier? Why all the forcing someone else do it?? By the time it was over I wasn't mad about it, so I'll give The Night House 7 mirror image houses across the lake out of 10.

Movie Review: Run (2020)

so it begins... 60 nights till Halloween!
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tonight's feature: Run (2020) on Hulu

Run was a decent little nightmare of a movie, even if the character development was severely lacking and it felt like I was watching a longer version of the spoiler-heavy trailer. Sarah Paulson was pretty convincing in her role as psychotic mom Diane. Not terrifying but a little edge-of-my-seat dramatic with a solid "huh?" ending. I've seen better, and I've definitely seen worse. It could have used another 10 minutes of setup before the big reveal? Another character? Nobody knows. Anyway, 6 dangerous prescriptions you shouldn't be taking out of 10.

Maegashira & The Brought Low live at Cake Shop NYC 12.10.2010

Maegashira's last show at the Cake Shop NYC 12.10.2010

The Brought Low at the Cake Shop NYC 12.10.2010

The Gates of Slumber "Children of Doom" (St. Vitus cover) Live in Helsinki 3.13.20

Filmed live March 13th, 2020 at On the Rocks, Helsinki, Finland. Video by Jason Rich. Edits by S Janiak.

Karl Simon - guitar / vocals
Chuck Brown - drums
Steve Janiak - bass

follow: https://www.facebook.com/thegatesofslumber/
https://www.instagram.com/thegatesofslumberdoom/
support:
music: https://thegatesofslumber.bandcamp.com
patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thegatesofslumber
merch: https://thegatesofslumber.bigcartel.com/

Apostle of Solitude - "Apathy in Isolation" 4.10.22 Rehearsal

"Apathy in Isolation" from "Until the Darkness Goes"...

Chuck Brown - Guitar, Vocals
Corey Webb - Drums
Steve Janiak - Guitar, Vocals
Mike Naish - Bass


https://www.apostleofsolitude.com
https://www.facebook.com/apostleofsolitude
https://www.instagram.com/apostleofsolitude
https://apostleofsolitude.bigcartel.com/
https://apostleofsolitude.bandcamp.com/

Wolftooth "Hellespont" at Desertfest London 5.1.22

I caught some Wolftooth at Desertfest London

Apostle of Solitude - "The Union" 3.27.22 Rehearsal

"The Union" from "Until the Darkness Goes"...

Chuck Brown - Guitar, Vocals
Corey Webb - Drums
Steve Janiak - Guitar, Vocals
Mike Naish - Bass


https://www.apostleofsolitude.com
https://www.facebook.com/apostleofsolitude
https://www.instagram.com/apostleofsolitude
https://apostleofsolitude.bigcartel.com/
https://apostleofsolitude.bandcamp.com/

Apostle of Solitude - "Confess" 3.6.22 Rehearsal

APOSTLE OF SOLITUDE * ALBUM RELEASE SHOW * SATURDAY MAY 14th at RADIO RADIO with LO-PAN & VEILCASTE

Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2560019044132314/

Chuck Brown - Guitar, Vocals
Corey Webb - Drums
Steve Janiak - Guitar, Vocals
Mike Naish - Bass


https://www.apostleofsolitude.com
https://www.facebook.com/apostleofsolitude
https://www.instagram.com/apostleofsolitude
https://apostleofsolitude.bigcartel.com/
https://apostleofsolitude.bandcamp.com/

Pub Sigs "Straight Arrow" BSU Quad Bash 8.25.95

Pub Sigs "Straight Arrow" BSU Quad Bash 8.25.95

double dream: old jams on the news, birdy field trip bird swap

i had a couple weird dreams back to back this morning:

in the first, i was in an unfinished basement watching the WTHR 5pm news. mom and dad were upstairs. anne marie tiernon mentioned someone found an old box in the attic of a muncie home containing some lost cassettes. she and scott swan proceeded to read aloud all the names of the old jam tapes the pub sigs made while we were at ball state. some of them i didn't recognize, but she did say "monapipu" "improviliminal" and "tingle". scott swan even misread one with a medical procedure, something like "boy, we haven't done an appendectomy in a while". they had a cardboard box on the desk and were pulling them out one by one. i shouted for mom as they started and she hit a button on the vcr to record it. they were acting like it was a the world's biggest discovery and i was sitting there in shock. after they finished i stopped the vcr and rewound the tape, but realized the tape was already recording when she hit record again, which actually stopped the recording as they started reading the titles. stan sollars suddenly was there and i explained to him that someone must have left all their vintage pub sigs recordings behind when they left college. it was very strange.

in the second dream, i was sitting at a park bench relating a story to josh hart about my wife taking the birds to a bird store on a field trip. they had just returned and there was a commotion in the bird room. i noticed mango wouldn't go into her cage, because there was another mango already in it. turns out my wife had accidentally brought a 2nd sun conure home, not realizing she left rosie the quaker behind. so naturally i put on a pair of red sweatpants and white sneakers (with no shirt) and took the new sun conure in my hand. i got to the bird store, trying to suck in my no-shirt wearing gut, and explained what happened to the owner. she was skeptical at first, but i think she wanted me and my gut out of there. i found rosie and brought her home.

the end??