All right, I’ve been lazy with the blogging and just settling for posting videos…
… and here’s another one!
I.
CANNOT.
WAIT.
One of my exes introduced me to the Krampus legend about 15 years ago, and I always get excited when I see him pop up in pop culture. I LOVE that they made a movie about it.
It looks pretty decent – I like the comedy dynamic of the cast (Adam Scott, David Koechner, and Toni Collette!) before the weirdness sets in. A commenter on another board said it looked like this generation’s Gremlins, which is another of my family’s strange, unconventional holiday traditions.
I got a notice in my inbox that the Enzian would be playing UHF for free, and since I was broke as shit, it fit my budget perfectly! I invited a friend and we met up for the movie.
[The Enzian did not pay me to write this entry, I just love going there and have for years, and wanted to spread the word!]
Not much of a review today, mostly a ramble due to heightened mental/physical activity this week.
Wednesday happened, as it always did. The usual ‘hump day’ jokes were going to be made, the Administrative Assistant was going to send out a humorous email reminding people to get their FedEx packages organized, and the week would begin its coast toward weekend.
Not Pictured: Joie de Vivre
So when I got a notice in my inbox that the Enzian would be playing UHF for free, and since I was broke as shit, it fit my budget perfectly! I invited a friend and we met up for the movie.
In my previous entry about the Enzian, I mentioned that it does outdoor, free events from time to time. Of course you’re encouraged to buy drinks and snacks, but due to my aforementioned ‘pre-payday’ state, I was quite broke. My friend ordered shrimp and grits. She, being a connoisseur of such things, pronounced them her favorite.
A Central Florida evening, complete with mosquitoes, thunder, and bats!
UHF is the story of George Newman, a class-A shiftless dreamer type who’s lost every job he’s had. He lucks into ownership of a tv station with a grand total of about 6 viewers, and despairs before he hits on the magic formula of putting the janitor in charge of a failing children’s show. There are some ups and downs, rags to riches, and though a lot of those cliches are present they at least feel fresher than not. The random, crazyass skits and wacky characters in the film keep it interesting, and its celebration of strange people and inclusivity is very much in the vein of Revenge of the Nerds.
Upon viewing it again with a friend who’d never seen it, I recognize that much of the appeal is based on nostalgia. That said, new fans might like the film because of its bizarre humor and also as a novelty since it contains a pre-breakdown Michael Richards, in one of his most insanely hilarious roles.
It holds a special place in my heart because UHF is one of the first movies I saw in the theater without parents. A friend and I were visiting my family in South Georgia and my aunt dropped us off at the theater to see it. THAT IS HOW OLD I AM. Granted, nowadays 10 is a little young to be unattended at a theater, but it was a theater in a small town where everyone knew everyone– and we were the only people in the theater. We ran up and down the aisles yelling and generally Being Loud. I don’t know, I still love it and it’ll always be one of my faves.
In Which The Author Doesn’t Say Much of Value Other Than An Apology
Happy Friday Eve, Dear Readers!
It continues to be a hell of a week – hell of a month actually, but I’m not getting into that.
But there’s hope on the horizon, swirling toward us like Falcor from the dawn-touched clouds in The Neverending Story – FRIDAY.
I Can See Friday From Here!
Although not a payday Friday. Ah well, can’t have everything!
Sorry I’ve not been posting much here. I’ve been watching stuff but haven’t had the mental energy for a really in-depth analysis of anything lately. I’m planning a round up of posts from the archives that will help orient new readers (HELLO AND WELCOME NEW READERS!), but haven’t sat down to work it out yet.
Go! Go what are you doing NOT going and seeing this movie right now? GO! It’s magnificent! I needed a 20-minute cool-down cry in the parking lot afterward to settle all my Feels.
If there is any justice in the world it will be the biggest movie of the summer! Ostensibly for children it’s really for the whole family.
BONUS: During the requisite pre-movie short film “Lava,” look for people in the audience sobbing uncontrollably or inexplicably enraged. These people are single. I’ll leave you to figure out which camp I was in.
I’ve always preferred horror that was multileveled, and The Babadook DEFINITELY delivers on that front. Mature and atmospheric, it ambles along at its own speed but draws you inexorably to the climax. There were times when my skin literally crawled, and others when I cried or gasped or wrung my pillow in anguish. At one point my eyeballs dried out because I was afraid to blink.
All these statements are true times a billion.
(Watching the movie was not a terrible decision: it was great and deserving of all the acclaim it’s received lately. Watching it alone, in the dark while a thunderstorm raged during an absinthe-related hangover – not one of my best decisions as an adult.) In this entry from a while ago, I lamented the state of modern horror movies and how much of a slog it can be to find good ones. Imagine my excitement to hear about The Babadook, and then imagine me being too damned lazy to actually see it when it came out.
THEN imagine me scrolling through the ‘What’s New’ queue on Netflix and finding that the mountain has come to me, so to speak. The story is a trope familiar in horror movies lately: a single mother, a weird little kid, a big spooky house, subtext of mental issues. Social isolation, inept cops, and a boogeyman monster that is terrifyingly effective in its simplicity: a hulking outline in stovepipe hat, its hands ending in spiky talons, and its face a white suggestion with a huge toothy grin. It’s a manifestation of everything we expect to find upon opening up a darkened closet, in the shadows under your bed, or in the rearview mirror of your car at night.
Just… just let me have a moment here…
Seriously I’ll be all good in a minute.
Ahem. All right!
So all that stuff I mentioned before is in the movie, and it’s totally effective and scary and atmosphere and underlying themes of trauma and maternal guilt and Freudian, possibly Oedipal stuffs also. Mom* is a widower, she was in labor with Samuel when she and her husband were in the car accident that killed the latter. The movie blew up the way that it did based on the performances of Essie Davis, who plays Mom/Amelia, and Noah Wiseman, who played Samuel. Wiseman is going places. I mean I hope making this movie didn’t traumatize him and make him never want to act again because he’s really gifted. He doesn’t go in for the precious, cutesy stuff at all. He reminds me of Luka Haas in Witness, actually. Samuel is strange and spooky, but also sweet, awkward and undeniably loves his Mummy, and at one point in the movie promises to protect Amelia from the Babadook if she will protect him. For lots of reasons, it’s an incredibly poignant and effective moment, with not an iota of schmaltz to be seen.
I’ve always preferred horror that was multileveled, and The Babadook DEFINITELY delivers on that front. Mature and atmospheric, it ambles along at its own speed but draws you inexorably to the climax. There were times when my skin literally crawled, and others when I cried or gasped or wrung my pillow in anguish. At one point my eyeballs dried out because I was afraid to blink.
Yes! Yes that’s it exactly!
I’m not going to spoil it and I don’t want to describe it too much, but it DOES NOT have a downer ending; it worked as both a horror movie and as as dark drama, and it doesn’t go in for the cheap scares. It’s the kind of horror that stays with you, that will come back to you in the middle of a meeting at work or in a well-lit restaurant. Although I WILL leave you with this pleasant little image, because you really ought to know what you’re in for. People who are well-versed in horror will like it, people who aren’t but like good movies will like it, and people who don’t like horror movies at all and are easily scared are encouraged to AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
Living alone, I find situations like these are best met head-on with the shovel I keep under my bed.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some windows to board up.
*You could easily make a drinking game where you take a shot every time Samuel shouts ‘Mam!’ in his adorable accent, but you’d also kill yourself because half his lines are him doing that. Somehow it never got old, though!
