The mid-1980’s Twilight Zone was actually really good. It had an appropriately creepy vibe right from the start, aided greatly by the reinterpretation of the classic theme music, courtesy of Merl Saunders and the Grateful Dead.
Continue readingTag Archives: Boogie Nights
X
Comments Off on X
Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned
Animation Analysis: The Transformers: The Movie
For the past ten years, one Rhode Island company has made me so deliriously happy, I’ve considered corporate personhood, so I could ask for its hand in marriage.
Hasbro.
They even threw in a rubsign. Hasbro is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
2006 was the year this little toy company had a subline of their Transformers toys called “Classics”; new figures of favorite characters from the 1984 cartoon. And a funny thing happened- these robots from an old show sold very, very well. Characters like “Bumblebee”, “Megatron” and “Optimus Prime” were familiar to a enviously broad range of people. They had staying power equal to Superman or Batman. The world was on the cusp of finding this out. Continue reading
Comments Off on Animation Analysis: The Transformers: The Movie
Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned
Inherent Vice
So one of my favorite directors made an adaptation of a novel by my favorite writer. That’s a big deal.
In fact, it’s a huge deal. There was a time when I and friends who also read Thomas Pynchon thought that Mason & Dixon, his masterpiece from 1997, was his final effort. Then we figured the swan song was his sublime Against The Day, from 2006. Inherent Vice came along in 2009, and we finally realized that we were witness to a thriving, percolating phase in the lifetime of a literary master.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson read Inherent Vice in 2009 and rightly deduced that it would be the most filmable of Pynchon’s oeuvre. Oh, how I long for a Terry Gilliam adaptation of Mason & Dixon, with a big budget and perfect casting, but this does just fine for the time being. Besides, now it’s on record that audience interest in Pynchon adaptations exists. Maybe someday we’ll get Against The Day, or, since I’m really blue-skying here, Gravity’s Rainbow*. It’s now in the realm of possibility. Continue reading
Comments Off on Inherent Vice
Filed under Girls of BIUL, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club
‘Til Tuesday
Comments Off on ‘Til Tuesday
Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
Fresh & Fruity
Fruit is a humorous word, as is fruity; “fruitiness” is inherently funny. I’ve never been called a fruit, but I don’t think this affects my judgment of it; I’ve been called a “faggot”, and I still laugh at that word. How can you not crack up at words that rhyme with “agate” and “toot”, particularly when they’re barked in anger? “Agate” is funny-sounding. “Faggot” is just “agate” with a funny hat. See what I mean?
Okay, I know it’s a fine line. What isn’t these days, when it comes to sharing dialogue? My point is, “fruity” used to be a thing. One needn’t necessarily be gay to be fruity, or even queer. Fruity is a sort of indefinable mien, typically the product of societal constraints, resulting in a general state of fruitiness. Like weirdos, fruits don’t refer to themselves as such, but are so named by the more ignorant of the species. To the unknowing, it’s like calling someone a “chair”, or a “table”.
As entertainment continues to move away from “hurting feelings”, a load-bearing pillar of basic comedy, another flavor of humor has been lost.
Fruit flavor.
Comments Off on Fresh & Fruity
Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee
New Kids On The Block
Savannah, Georgia, late 1990.
A young man of eighteen staples fliers around his college campus, advertising his upcoming periodical. And his Cult.
Comments Off on New Kids On The Block
Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Magazine Rack
You must be logged in to post a comment.