in a town...!

RIP, Bobby Fischer, you strange, obnoxious, brilliant, neurotic, self hating Jew expat chess champ, you.

I have seen approximately one zillion movies over the last two weeks but since I've flipped the DVDs over and over at Amoeba since then, without keeping a list, I've forgotten most or all. So I'll just single out the ones that were good enough to remember, namely:

Feast, the 3rd season Project Greenlight winner and a perfect example of the horror/comedy. Think Sean of the Dead or even Grindhouse. Group of folks trapped in a bar while the zombie apocalypse (or whatever) tries to get in. Bar the doors, load the rifles, protect yer mama, etc etc etc. Featuring Navi Arwat (Numb3rs, Thoughtcrimes) in an ass-kicking horror hero role, and some other awesome people too.

Criminal, with Maggie Gyllenhaal, John C. Reilly and Diego Luna. I sat down to watch this and immediately thought I'd seen it already. Which was not outside the realm of possibility, because I do tend to seek and consume any and all heist/caper movies within consuming distance, and I'm good at forgetting titles. But I am not good at forgetting Maggie Gyllenhaal's crazy flared nostrils, and I had definitely not seen those in a heist context before, so I settled in and figured I hadn't seen this, but that it just shared qualities with this Argentinian heist film Nine Queens that I'm quite fond of, only with currency instead of stamps. Of course it turned out later to be, in fact, the American remake of Nine Queens, so I get points for recognizing it to begin with -- but either way, it's still a delightful snappy heist film in its own right, and John C. Reilly really IS a doable leading man. Also Diego Luna is friggin gorgeous.

Bad Blood (Coisa Ruim), a Portuguese thriller on the Tartan imprint. Good old-fashioned "family moves back to their ancestral home only to find dark secrets lurking there" kind of story, erring on the psychological thriller side more than the horror side, and pretty disturbing and creepy. Think a Portuguese version of any of those blockbuster Jodie Foster-protecting-her-daughter kind of dramas, coupled with some M. Night Shymalayan small town creepy tradition ambiance.

The Weight of Water, Kathryn Bigelow-directed interpretation of the Anita Shreve novel. Starts out feeling like simply one of the better made-for-TV thrillers, but with an extra hot and talented cast lead by Sean Penn, Catherine McCormack and Sarah Polley, and filled out by Josh Lucas and Elisabeth Hurley. No, for serious. Both Catherine McCormack and Sarah Polley carry this film on their quite substantial shoulders; McCormack is a reporter gone back to a distant New England island to research the murder of two Norweigan immigrants over a century ago, and Sarah Polley is the lone survivor of that massacre, seen in flashback. There's a definite socio-political comment made near the end of the film that is less than awesome, but the rest is all moody, creepy, twisted and atmospheric. Also, there's SEAN PENN.

So, you? I'm looking for movies that fit in one of three o genres, either the heist/caper/con artist genre, or the "a group of friends go into the woods on a camping trip only to encounter such and such supernatural horror" horror genre. Anything that takes place in a distant cabin, down a dark road, at a country house or beach house, or on a college campus gets extra points. And then, the Tartan Asia Horror probably-will-be-remade-with-Sarah-Michelle-Gellar genre.

I've seen all the Mamet capers and probably lots of others, the Oceans Eleven and Italians Job and Thomas Crown Affairs, both original and remake -- but STILL, if there's an awesome caper out there that I haven't seen, I WANT it, so don't be afraid to rec me things I've probably already seen.

As for cheap horror, I'll take anything from The Descent/The Cave/The Hole/The Cabin type to House of Wax/Scream/Urban Legend type, just, anything, dude, bring it ON.

As for Asian horror, I like good old The Grudge/The Eye/The Ring type movies, anything Pang brothers, etc etc. Again, go ahead and rec it even if you think I've seen it. Also, any remakes of any Asian horror gratefully received.

And for those of you not interested in caper or horror flicks, please enjoy an NBC News Correspondant's defense of the new Britney Album.

practice day

As in, practicing what it would be like if I were for some reason awake during the day. Yesterday I flipped fully around, the day before I didn't sleep at all, nor the day before that, and today I woke at ten tonight. Well, at least there's new SGA.

I dreamed I was on a colony ship heading out to space, populated by the cast of thirtysomething. If Ellyn didn't sleep with Gary we'd all die, somehow, and there were space waves crashing against the side of the ship, and Nancy and Elliot suspicious of our motives, and I got to shower with Melissa at the end. We went to space twice and came home twice, but the third time it was anyone's guess, and probably we'd all die out there, at the hands of infidelity and the vacuum. I also dreamed that I smothered Houlihan, our new cat, and she came back from the dead to haunt me. Too many zombie movies? Never.

If luck's on my side I'll conk out again in the next couple hours, and sleep the medicated sleep of the confused until sometime during daylight tomorrow. And if luck's on my side, someone will deliver food to this part of town so I don't have to put pants on to make it happen.

In gearing up for my Yuletide assignment, I bought someone's handily burned off of old VHSs from the Lifetime airings versions of thirtysomething on DVD, and watched the whole show in order for the first time since, like, 1992. (There are no official released DVDs, nor any concrete/believable information about the release of said. Like when yuppiedom expired, all the vestiges of its era went with it. Except for some reason we can still buy Murphy Brown on DVD...) It's brilliant, this show, political and clever and pushy and with that great late-80s early 90s vibe that informed so much of my life.

And now that I've written and posted The Thousand Nights and a Night, roughly 3000 words about Michael, Gary, Melissa, and winter in the Philadelphia suburbs, there is exactly one piece of thirysomething fic on the great internets at large. The saddest fandom of one ever, so lonely and confused. I mean, there's such a great MSCL presence in these parts, you'd think that someone would have put fingers to keyboard with the thirtysomething clan, but NO. Nada, zip, zilch. So anyway, if you want to warm the cockles of my heart (and it's my birthday in two weeks!), feel like writing thirtysomething fic? 500 word drabble? If we break, oh, three, I'll even make a website! If not, will the two or three of you who can hear this and who actually watched thirtysomething go on over and read my yuletide fic? Just, you know, so I'm not thirtysomething-ing into a vacuum, so I'm not riding a colony ship all alone into space, just waiting to float unnoticed until a wormhole takes us into oblivion. Think I'm having megalomaniacal abandonment issues? Maybe so. Maybe so. *g*