Archive for the ‘popular culture’ Category

Have a Cold?

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

I kind of want one if it would take me back to the time when these fabulous commercials would interrupt As The World Turns which I watched in a decongestant haze on the couch while my mom made me buttery alphabet noodles out in the kitchen.

*Thanks to a touch of tuesday weld for the link. Laura, I love your stuff.

Uncomfortable Rapping

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

PRZ-007374There was a time in American history, a dark and unsettling time, when varied and inappropriate persons decided to join in the newest pop culture trend: in other words, white people tried to rap. And too often, they did it in order to sell stuff.

Let’s explore this uncomfortable phenomenon.

First, let’s take a moment to remember what the real rappers were doing in the late 80s.  Enjoy Eazy-E, and note that by no means is the song after the fold safe for work:

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What Ever Happened to My Transylvania Twist?

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

MonMadI hate to see this Month of Madness go,  I really do.  It’s been hard at time, to sit down for yet another movie, to put D through yet another movie, and to watch yet another movie I didn’t mean to watch at all because the planning of all this got the best of me and I forgot to have something I really, really wanted to watch on hand.

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Madness Marches On

Sunday, November 1st, 2009

MonMadAnd so, we made it to the last week. The last week of D asking me “did you watch your movie today?” as if reminding me of my vitamins; the last week of scouring Netflix, the library, and The Internet Archive for last-minute movies when my plan for the night went awry (or I just changed my mind); the last week of my super, even uber-cute Halloween blog theme; the last week of feeling utterly and delightfully self-indulgent.

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I’m Listing

Friday, October 30th, 2009

vlad!Really, I feel like the boat is about to tip over.  It’s October 30? 30? Here I am in the stretchiest home stretch and I’m a little panicked.  Have I missed a day? No? Have I written an entry for each one?  No.  Can I manage to catch up on all of the reviews in under 30 seconds?  Let’s try:

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Night of the Living Dread

Friday, October 30th, 2009

October, please don’t go.

I mean, I know we need November (D’s birthday, and all that big old turkey feed) and December and everything, but my gosh, I love you and I want you to stay.  I’ve spent each of your days watching fabulous (or fabulously awful) movies and doing those little things that only seem, well, social appropriate in this one month a year: eating mini Reese’s cups by the bucketful, using the term “spooktacular,” and screaming at men in the dark.

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Side Tracks

Monday, October 26th, 2009

I’m a bit sidetracked.  Don’t worry – I haven’t missed a movie.  But there are so many other things to do right now that I’m not the devoted reviewer I should be.

For instance: music videos.  In the spirit of the season, D & I stayed up way, way too late the other night finding scary music videos online.  For me, it was like revisiting those years long ago, when MTV played nothing but videos (as crazy as that might sound) and I was frightened to death by the haunting vision of Grace Jones in her Demolition Man video:


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One Weak Week

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

In trying to write about the movies I viewed this past week, I’ve run into a rather sticky problem: I cannot for the life of me remember what I watched Monday.

Oh dear.

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Weekend Frights

Friday, October 16th, 2009

coffee posterSo much coffee today!  Coffeeeeeee.  I don’t drink coffee very often, especially not fully leaded coffee.  Especially not large super jazzy lattes with almond flavoring so sweet and almondy that you can’t resist their siren song. The thing made me drink it!  I was powerless to stop myself.

So, this post is brought to you by the letter C. COFFEE.

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Some Magical Day

Monday, October 12th, 2009

Tuesday, October 6

The Body Snatcher (1945)

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This is one of those horror films I first read about as a kid, in a book checked out over and over from the library.  Darned if I can remember the title now, but it was a guide to horror movies, aimed at a young audience; something to get us kids hooked right away so that we could grow up to be the pushers. I’m not sure, but I may have been the only kid who ever checked that book out – it was always in when I went looking for it.  It covered all of the films you’d expect: Frankenstein, Dracula, all that stuff from Universal.  And then it went on to introduce me to Fritz Lang’s M (1931), Rondo Hatten, London After Midnight (1927), Freaks (1932), and the shadowy films of Val Lewton.

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