Welcome to a brave new world.

It’s just the best video I’ve ever seen. Except my Halloween video from last year.

Lanterns at the Yosakoi Festival in Ikebukuro

D & Me in Nerima, home of Ranma ½

love from Japan!

We spent yesterday napping, unpacking, and getting D ready for his first day of training (today). And then napping.

Today was my first day on my own and I was adventurous enough to leave the hotel and take a long walk around the neighborhood. I made it to a Circle K (!!) where I bought lemon water and barley tea. All by myself, without D, the miraculous translator man. His college Japanese is serving us very well. But it’s hard not knowing the language. You feel cut off, left out. I’ve been practicing, though. Here is what I know:

ichi
ni
sen
chi
go
rokku
hachi
kyu
ju
…the numbers, 1-10, except 7. I cannot for the life of me remember 7.

Also:
kawaii
domo arigato
gomen nasei

Of course, you all know that next to last one because of a certain 80s song (it’s going to be in your head all day now, I promise). Gomen nasei has proven very, very helpful to me as I’ve fumbled around counting money, stumbled around walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk, and generally bumped into people in my usual way. “I’m very sorry!” I squeak, again and again. I’m getting very good at it.

Kawaii, cute, (say it with lots of enthusiasm and really hold on to that “i-i” sound: Ka-wai-eeeeeeee!) is a good way to refer to almost every product for sale in this country. It is all so cute and a lot of it is pink and much of it folds up tiny or nests into other cute, pink, tiny things. But I haven’t started any serious shopping yet, even though there is a four story department store (Prince Pepe) attached to the hotel. The stationery section alone is enough to keep me occupied for a day or so. You should see the Snoopy notebooks! Kawaii!

So, I’m adjusting, even if I keep falling asleep at weird times of day and I choke up and keep thinking of French numbers instead of Japanese. And today, when I ended up in the sleek, black hotel elevator with two French businessmen, I finally had the perfect opportunity to speak a foreign language I know. So what did I do upon leaving the elevator? I bowed.

-Anne Shirley, Anne of Green Gables

Well, who can be low for long, huh? It’s October! You know what that means…it’s time for my

Woo!
So, the rules:

This is how it worked last year:

I must watch one film every day. A day without a horror film will effectively end the experiment.

The film must be well within the “horror” genre - no mystery, no suspense, no chicks in prison*. “Thrillers” are marginally acceptable, but must have a body count of at least two.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 films are acceptable, but again, the film must fall within the horror genre. Just having Mike/Joel and the Bots along does not automatically qualify a film. The same goes for other hosted shows, like Svengoolie, Commander USA and The WOW Monster Show.

I must write a capsule review for each film and post it here. I will even use a silly rating system.

A film started before midnight but ending after the calendar has turned to the next day counts for the day on which the film started. That’s fair, isn’t it?

Watching a film PornStyle™ - that is to say fast forwarding through the slow stuff to get to the good bits - is acceptable IF I have seen the film before in its entirety, at regular speed. However, this can only be used three times during the month.

No repeating a film during the month. Unless I absolutely have to.

But honestly, I’m not sure I can hold myself to them. At least not until we return from Japan, around the fifteenth. I mean, I’m going to be seeing things I’ve dreamed of for most of my life, and I can’t really rush back to my hotel to watch a movie each night. But I promise to try and watch a movie or two while I’m there. Maybe even in Japanese. Wouldn’t it be really, really cool if some channel just happened to be showing Tetsuo: The Iron Man?

I did, however, start the month off right. Last night I settled into bed with my codeine and Hammer Studio’s Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1973), a really solid production and the last of Hammer’s Frankenstein flicks. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, actually. Peter Cushing puts in an incredible performance, as usual, as the mad doctor F., and makes you go right along with his plan to experiment on the sad denizens of an asylum/prison, twisted sense of ethics or no, because how could you not? It’s Peter Cushing and there’s just no arguing with his methodical passion. Even if he’s wearing a bad wig here that he purportedly said made him look like Helen Hayes.

But Peter wasn’t alone here. The entire supporting cast was excellent from Shane Briant as the handsome, young psychopath surgeon to creepy John Stratton as the asylum director. Madeline Smith is a vision and lives up to her nickname as the mute “Angel,” but my favorite was Bernard Lee in a small but heartbreaking role as a doomed sculptor. Add to these choice performances some really icky gore, a tacky yet affecting monster, and an excellent score and you have one fine movie, indeed. Happy October!