Tag Archives: alien
My Uncle Gary, The Bargain Bin Junkie
My dad has four brothers; the oldest, Gary, was born in 1951. Gary was a hippie for a while, and saw 2001: A Space Odyssey in the theater (probably on acid, shh). He’s a blue collar intellectual, a salt-of-the-earth fellow who knows about cars and Greek philosophy and cooking and political theory and electrical stuff. Gary worked at a newspaper in Port Huron, Michigan for 25 years and then retired. In 1985, his left index finger was severed in half by some machine. When he removed his work glove he felt something dangling which felt like a string, and later he asked the doctor what it was, only to receive the reply, “that was your tendon, it had been pulled out”. (That detail has no relevance to anything—I just wanted to make you shiver.)
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Posted in All Posts, Greg's Essays
Tagged 2001 a space odyssey, alien, alien 3, aliens, armond white, avp, avp: alien vs predator, bargain bin, bargain bin junkie, blade, blade runner, danny glover, event horizon, john carpenter, lord of the rings, martin scorsese, michael bay, mortal kombat, nimrod antal, paul w.s. anderson, predator, predator 2, sam neill, soldier, soldier 1998, soldier movie, the thing, uncle gary, underworld, uwe boll
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10 Audacious Zombie Movies
A gorgeous shot from The Plague of the Zombies (1966).
Now that Mad Men‘s back and I’m watching AMC, I keep seeing ads for The Walking Dead. I really, really, really don’t like The Walking Dead.
Even setting aside its dubious social politics, I think it’s thoughtless and ugly and boring. It has a routine as codified and rigid as Scooby Doo, but instead of that show’s good-natured-if-dull hippyism, it’s got nothing but contempt for its characters and audience. It’s a death march to samesy gore scenes in which the human body pulls apart as easily as tissue paper full of spaghetti sauce. I’m not impressed, and I resent it.
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Posted in All Posts, John's Lists
Tagged 10 audacious zombies, 10 best zombie films, 10 best zombie movies, alien, andrew parkinson, best zombie movie, best zombie movies, black christmas, blind dead, bob clark, brian yuzna, bride of re-animator, carnival of souls, criterion, criterion collection, dan o'bannon, danny trejo, dayo f the dead, dead & buried, dead and buried, deathdream, flannery o'conner, gary sherman, george romero, gloria katz, grapes of death, hammer horror, henry portrait of a serial killer, homecoming, i was a teenage zombie, i was a teenage zombie music video, i zombie, i zombie the chronicles of pain, joe dante, john damico, john elias michalakis, john gilling, jorge grau, les revenants, let sleeping corpses lie, levar burton, lucio fulci, mad men, made in u.s.a., made in usa, mariel hemingway, masters of horror, messiah of evil, night of the living dead, pinhead, plague of the zombies, return of the living dead, return of the living dead 3, return of the living dead iii, rise of the zombies, robin campillo, ron shusett, scooby doo, scooter mccrae, shatter dead, smug film, smugfilm, syfy channel original, syfy original, ten best zombie films, ten best zombie movies, the 10 best zombie films, the 10 best zombie movies, the beyond, the deer hunter, the monkey's paw, the plague of the zombies, the walking dead, troma, troma films, vietnam war, willard huyck, zombie movies, zombie movies 2012
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Shelley Duvall: And All At Once I Knew
By and large, the film community has a frustrating habit of undervaluing some of our less conventional actresses. Great talents like Viveca Lindfors, Alfre Woodard, and Catherine Burns tend to promise more than they’re ever really allowed to deliver. We embrace the hell out of our oddball actors like Walken, Goldblum, and Buscemi (and with good reason, what a harvest of incredible parts those three yield), but it seems to me that things are tougher out there for a woman who’s not conventional enough to be a romantic lead.
So, I’d like to take a moment here and profess my appreciation for one of the rare talents of all of cinema, a woman who, despite major criticism, consistently gave some of the best and most memorable performances in film history.
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Posted in All Posts, John's Essays
Tagged 3 women, a saucer of loneliness, alfre woodard, alfred hitchcock, alien, annie hall, arthur c. clarke, arthur c. clarke the star, bedtime stories, bernice bobs her hair, brewster mccloud, bud cort, buffalo bill and the indians, catherine burns, christian bale, christopher walken, faerie tale theatre, falconetti, frankenweenie, funny games, jeff goldblum, joan of arc, lillian gish, mccabe and mrs. miller, michael murphy, naomi watts, nashville, paul simon, popeye, razzie, rene auberjonois, robert altman, sally kellerman, shelley duvall, steve buscemi, susanne lothar, tall tales and legends, the birds, the children's hour, the shining, the star, theodore sturgeon, thieves like us, time bandits, twilight zone, veronica cartwright, viveca lindfors, william wyler
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Always Finish the Goddamn Movie
I live by a couple of rules in life: the early bird catches the worm, treat others as you would like to be treated, once you go black you never go back, and always finish the movie you started no matter how goddamn horrible it is.
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Posted in All Posts, Jenna's Lists
Tagged alan price, alien, casino royale, essays, fred zinnermann, high noon, idiocracy, jenna ipcar, john huston, joseph mcgrath, ken hughes, lindsay anderson, malcolm mcdowell, mike judge, o lucky man, reviews, richard talmadge, robert parrish, sergei parajanov, shadows of forgotten ancestors, smug film, smugfilm, val guest, woody allen
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