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If DiCaprio actually had looked like a circus freak after he got his face beaten in, at least that would have given the violence a purpose. Instead he's as pretty as a picture two scenes later, and everybody else in the movie gets massacred.

Ugh. See, it put even sweet old me into a negative frame of mind.

Somebody suggest a good movie, please!

What other movies do you like?

Some, but by no means all, of my favorites, in no particular order:

Casablanca;
Grosse Pointe Blank;
The American President (yah, I know...but for some reason I just love this flick);
Bull Durham;
Bandwagon;
Singin' In The Rain;
A Hard Day's Night;
North By Northwest;
Chungking Express;
In the Mood for Love;
Dr. Strangelove;
Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control;
Mr. Hulot's Holiday;
Duck Soup;
The Conversation;
Apocalypse Now (Redux);
Tampopo;
Blazing Saddles;
The Maltese Falcon;
Iron Monkey;
Koyaanisqatsi;
High Fidelity

Those should hold you for a while...

Bandwagon? Wow. Dear friends of mine play the band Spitefire in that "film."

That's a pretty good list.

Just for fun, I'd throw in:

Silverado
Fail Safe (the original b&w version)
Unforgiven
High Anxiety (play spot-the-homage)
Blade Runner
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Animal House
Field of Dreams

That pretty much covers what I've watched this week.

:)

To go along with Vid's Wong Kar Wai selection above, I highly recommed Fallen Angels. One of those films that is just visually overwhelming and beautiful.
The Conversation is so damn good. Doesn't suprise me a bit that it's on your list, Vidiot.

High....anXIety!

Spitefire? Do you mean Spittle? The bad-guy metal band? Whoa. (If you don't, I need to re-watch that movie.) I grew up in Raleigh, NC, and it's so cool to see my entire childhood/adolescence in a flick.

And Fallen Angels is really really good too. The scene where we see the home movie ALWAYS makes me cry.

No one has mentioned Big Lebowski? Or does that go without saying? Yes, yes it does. Never mind.

I also like Thin Red Line, Apocalypse Now. Guys in uniforms and...umm, good story too. Yeah.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Love that movie. Want my life to be like that movie - all pretty and stuff.

My Wings of Desire DVD just came in this week. Might I also suggest getting your mitts on Howard Hawk's The Big Sleep? I have those on the brain at the moment.

I think The Seven Samurai is my favorite movie.

I have found that The Princess Bride is great for getting rid of that bad movie hangover.

I'm away on business w/ a laptop w/ a DVD-ROM. The only movie (non anime) that I brought with me is Seven Samurai. Me agrees with King Lupo.

Bah. It's just a rip-off of The Magnificent Seven.

Oh, of course, Vidiot! I have dozens of favorite movies! The Big Lebowski, Fargo, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Jackie Brown, The Bagdad Cafe ... and guilty pleasures, too - I think we own the entire Hugh Grant ouevre, heh.

I just haven't been excited about any new movies lately - any "recent releases" in the Blockbuster parlance.

Oh, there's one I love that's just a few years old - Lantana. That's a fabulous film. One of the most understated and intelligent - I want to say "adult" but it's not pr0n, it's just grown up.

I hear Legally Blonde 2 is FUCKING AWESOME.

being john malcovitch
the white balloon(iranian)
wings of desire
shall we dance?
and weirdly, I have to recomend 'blue crush'

I love old sentimental faves like:

Autie Mame (Russell, *not* Lucille Ball's version)
Bringing up Baby
Arsenic and Old Lace
The Philadelphia Story
His Girl Friday
Anything by Ray Harryhausen

Spittle!!!!! Yes yes yes, that's it. I had forgotten the name of the "band" and imdb had it as Spitefire. odd.

BTW, I am pleased to report that after all these years Mark E Smith can still throw together a decent band and put on a good live show. Cruisers Creek ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

The Big Sleep is entirely brilliant beyond belief. Around five years ago they struck a new 35mm print and added a couple things that were originally cut by the studio that Hawkes had wanted in (about 15-20 mins I believe). Lauren Bacall is so perfect in that movie.

If we're talking Bogie, it begins and ends with Casablanca. But Treasure of the Sierra Madre is also an excellent show.

Faves? If I'm pulling out old tapes, it's:

Aliens
Down Twisted
Dawn of the Dead
Where the Buffalo Roam (Bill Murray as Hunter Thompson, with Peter Boyle as his Attorney Lazlow)
Live and Die in LA
Big Night
Romeo is Bleeding (Lena Olin - good LORD is she attractive, far more so in Alias than that automaton Jennifer Garner, bleh)
Heat
Goodfellas
Skin Deep (an actually funny performance by oustanding turd John Ritter)
Year of the Gun (Andrew McCarthy of St. Elmo's Fire fame as an American journalist in Italy around the time of the Aldo Moro assassination; co-starring a young, fetching and [ahem] rather uninhibited Sharon Stone as the photographer from Newsweek)

As for new movies? I saw Matrix 2, it was palatable. A little chatty, though, don't go after eating, say, a largish bowl of pasta. Before that, hmm, the last James Bond flick, Die Another Day, it was an embarrassment. After the Tailor of Panama, I expect just a bit more from Brosnan's Bond than I would, say, that wattly bag of fruit salad Roger Moore.

I did recently buy the Good, the Bad and the Ugly on DVD, though. Lee van F**king Cleef, Superbadass.

RE: Bogart

Preach it, Fes!

But how about:

Shakespeare In Love
Pulp Fiction (love that last scene)
Better Off Dead
L.A. Confidential
Apollo 13
Amelie
Office Space
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Ravenous
Saving Private Ryan (for the first scene if nothing else)
Run Lola Run
The Shawshank Redemption
Airplane

And anything the Python Boys did, but especially The Holy Grail.

But as far as recent releases go, tiz, and assuming you've seen Finding Nemo, you're pretty screwed ;)

(Although I am eagerly awaiting the release of Better Luck Tomorrow and City of God on DVD.)

I just took in Tom Tykwer's "Heaven" and it is simply beautiful. Made from a Kieslowski (sp?) script. Tykwer is the director of Run Lola Run, Winter Sleepers, etc. This stars Cate Blachett and Giovanni Ribisi and is just wondeful. See it!

Other than that, yeah, Wong Kar Wai is my favorite probably. And older Wenders before he started to suck. And Herzog.

Barfly.

Aguirre, totally. Kinsky at his most demented (if that is possible).

Shakespeare In Love. C'mon, that's like a Lifetime Network production.

I saw 28 Days Later this weekend. It was quite fantastic.

Also enjoyed The Hard Word (Guy Pearce, Rachel Griffiths). But beware: extreme Aussie accents included.

I liked Shakespeare in Love, but I'm a romantic twit. Did anyone see Scotland, PA? That was clever enough, too.

The BBC version of Pride & Prejudice with Colin Firth is a terrific way to spend a rainy day on the couch.

And y'all are proving my point - where are the new movies?? Did cinema end with Donnie Darko?

What am I, chopped liver? I just gave you two brand spanking new films.

I didn't see 'em until after I finished whining!

City of God! That's a must rent when it comes out, tizz. If you've yet to see Y Tu Mama Tambien, you probably should. It's not wow-fucking-tastic, but it's better than most. Umm, what else? Igby Goes Down was one of my favorite flicks from last year that nobody's mentioned yet. Frida was pretty good. Or, you know, you could just watch "Son-in-Law" over and over again until everything else seems like pure cinematic herion.

As an aside, I am back from vacation, and that means today is SwapMasterDisk Day. I have received masterdisk notifications from exactly four of you. A solid 21%.

Fes, I am having big-time issues with my file server where the CD-R resides. I hope hope that I can get it squared away this evening.

Okeydokey. What about the rest of you??

Also: what happened to the Blue? I come back last night, I log on to clear out the bazillion spams I got in my inbox, I post one snotty six-word post about how people without kids are pussies, and Mefi goes into the digital equivalent of a coma.

I was warned not to breed by a vision of myself from the future, that appeared as a giant crow wearing a straw hat.

I bought a straw hat on vacation! That's so eerie.

A straw cowboy hat!

It kicks a significant amount of ass.

Are you saying that you're my dreamcrow?

No. But perhaps your dreamcrow is using me as a conduit to send you clarifying information. Dreams can be interpreted in wildly different fashions and I, as an extreme example, never remember my dreams.

Is that like a clarifying moisturizer?

I think our wires are crossed. I always wake up remembering your dreams.

Why exactly would a chorus of naked pirates sing "Up Up and Away in My Beautiful Balloon" anyway?

No idea. The subconcious is a strange and terrible beast, my friend.

I can't wait for Valley Girl to come out on DVD in August, and Sixteen Candles to come out on DVD in September. Neither of them is a terribly good movie, but I've been waiting forever to fill out my 80s porn collection.

Swimming Pool likes sort of interesting. I haven't seen it yet as it's barely playing in a theater near me. It might be one to watch out for though.

Adaptation starts off strong and finishes incredibly weak.

I liked Amelie (mentioned above in comments) a bunch. I mean really, really, really a lot. See it immediately if you haven't yet.

Punch Drunk Love doesn't make any god damn sense at all, but it might be worth seeing if you haven't already. I don't remember liking it too much in the theater, but friends have been raving about the DVD.

There's a new Dio DVD out. Well, come to think of it, that one probably might actually suck. A LOT! (although it couldn't possibly suck nearly as hard as Gangs of New York - why was that dreck so highly praised anyway?)

I just purchased my first DVD ever: one of my all time favorites was just released on DVD. Now I just need a TV and a DVD player. Baby steps.

And it has full length commentary by the director and selected scene commentary by Babs. I'm in heaven.

No man can watch that, witchstone, unless he is:

A) gay

or

B) planning to become gay.

It's a fact.

Um, is that a carrot that Barbra is coyly not-simulating fellatio with?

*shudders*

Please. If movies could turn someone gay, every man who had ever watched Apocalypse Now would be gay. Have you ever seen What's Up Doc? It's brilliant comedy. Brilliant, I tell you.

And yes, that's a carrot. What's Up Doc, Bugs Bunny, you know.

This movie was Madelaine Kahn's first movie role and she's fantastic.

Gotta weigh in here on the no Streisand side. She makes my skin crawl.

A 400 lb. Brando could, indeed, turn many a man to the lavender.

I wonder what kind of movie ideas we can come up with from a mummified monkey.

That's a Wrap: The Monkie Mummy Movie Story

Oh my sweet Christ I misspelled monkey.

I think we can get Brendan Fraser to co-star opposite the monkie mummy. My people are calling his people as we speak.

Wait, they're rereleasing Sixteen Candles on DVD? Will there be extras this time? Like running commentary from the guy who played Jake Ryan?!? Tell me!

I just bought Quest for Fire on DVD. It's held up pretty well since I first saw it when I was, like, 8. (In retrospect I am shocked that my parents let me watch it at that age. But it should give you some insight into my personality.) I still think it's one of my favorites.

My list of favorites varies from day to day. Today it's Quest for Fire, Streets of Fire, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Poltergeist, and American Werewolf in London. I am no cineaste.

The movie that made me scream "Give me my money and my soul back, you bitches" the loudest would have to be Happiness. That movie actually sapped the chemical reserves in my brain that generate pissed-offedness. I couldn't get angry for weeks after that fiasco.

I think it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that the monkey would outshine him.

And also, not a day goes by that I don't think of or refer to each of the following:

Dune
Das Boot
Blade Runner
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

Y'know, I never saw Dune.

Dude! It's got Toto music in it!

Seriously, a lot of people hate it, but I just dig the whole atmosphere of the movie. So many great moments.

I've never seen or read Dune, but I do own Pee-Wee's Big Adventure on DVD...

"Oh really? Where are they hosing him down?"

Now you see why I have to beat the women back with a baby panda.

And John, I have to ask what possessed you to put Blood Sucking Freaks on your Netflix queue?

"And when they finally pulled his body out of the twisted, burning wreck, he looked like THIS!"

Pee Wee's Big Adventure. There is none greater. Thanks for reminding me, ufez.

...and, uh, kaf.

A list that has both Blade Runner and Pee-wee on it is a helluva list.

Movies that i will happily sit and watch anytime include Saturday Night Fever, Pulp Fiction, and Get Shorty - the essential Travolta.

Tizzie, if you're talking essential Travolta, how could you skip this one?

Movie question: I just bought my very own copy of the Live and Die In LA soundtrack (it's awesome). BUT there is a song missing from it. At the very end of the movie, where Willem Dafoe's girlfriend and Jane Leeves are getting ready to take off in Willem Dafoe's ferrari, there's a song playing that goes "Well, they got them a new religion... it goes baby everything all RIIIIGGGGGHHHHHHTTTTT..." THAT song is not on the soundtrack CD! If anyone can get me the name and artist (it almost has to be Wang Chung, I figure, but damned if I can find anthing called "New Religion" or any variation thereon by Wang CHung), I'll be in their debt, and I always make good on my debts *arched eyebrow*

Dude, it's called BLOODSUCKING FREAKS. Isn't that reason enough?

Actually, I know nothing about it. Does it...suck?

When I was in college, I took two entire semesters of "The Films of Ingmar Bergman" - Smiles of a Summer's Night, Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Persona. That is the kind of useful knowledge that comes in handy in later life. Unlike, say, microeconomics.

Other foreign films I love:
Fellini's 8 1/2 and Amarcord
Kurosawa's Ran and Seven Samurai
Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock
Truffaut's Breathless and Small Change

When I win the lottery, they will all be mine!

And Fes, my cds are ready!

I'm in utter awe at your NetFlix queue lupo. Not only how many you've got queued up, but how many you've watched already.

What did you think of Gummo? I haven't seen it for about four years, but I do remember it giving me that creepy "Aunt Cynthia is drunk and eyeing me suspiciously" feeling.

and, Apropos of nothing, I've just learned I'm going to the gambling mecca of Shreveport, LA this weekend for a bachelor party. My heart is palpitating at the thought of imminent debauchery.

Having a little traveler with me now makes me disinclined to watch any movie that might make me
a) sad for our imminent apocalyptic future
b) aware of horror-show that is family life
c) scared that there are psychopaths/criminals/ne'er-do-wells lurking in my backyard.

An extremely unfortunate biproduct of this is that now I watch musicals, romantic comedies, and sitcoms far more often than is healthy, and all of my favorite DVD's are getting dusty.

Can you still drink at 18 in Shreveport? (Not that it's all that relevant to me personally. I'm just wondering if another institution of my misspent youth has fallen.)

(And, my CD's are ready.)

Oh. Oh, dear. More insane hot dog manipulation.

And in case anyone missed it.....the Octodog!

Cyrano, to the best of my knowledge, Louisiana had to raise the State drinking age to comply with National laws thanks to one Secretary of Transportation Libby Dole (Reagan Admin) and her strong-arm tactics of withholding Federal Highway money from any state that didn't. They were the last hold-out though.

And ana, that's one great site. If you don't post that to MeFi soon, I will.

Sorry, ufez, it's been done.

Just so long as it's been done, cyrano, I can now freely go back to avoiding work in peace.

Dude, it's called BLOODSUCKING FREAKS. Isn't that reason enough?

Actually, I know nothing about it. Does it...suck?

I saw it when I was about 12, in the heady days of horror viewing that turned me into the maniacal sociopath I am today. Even then, I could see that the movie's use of alienation techniquess was sadly lacking. The very concept of suture seemed lost on the filmmakers. It was as if they had never contemplated the censorship of the female gaze.

Then again, it did feature:

a. 1 Crazed chainsaw-wielding midget
b. Achilles tendon dissection
c. Power drill into forebrain
d. Cage of naked slave women eating severed genitalia.

Enjoy!

I still like it okay, but I used to think (when but a kid) that "The Blues Brothers" was the best movie ever made. It had it all: great old soul and blues music, car chases, violence, humor, cameos galore, and Carrie Fisher handling automatic weapons.

Really, what more could you want from a film?

I love me some Bergman too, Tizzie. If you didn't see it in your class, seek out "Hour of the Wolf", still my favorite of his.

I really like Tarkovsky's "Stalker" too, though I wouldn't recommend it if you are sleepy.

I really do love horror movies, when they are well done. One of the most enjoyable I've seen recently was "Dog Soldiers" and, surprisingly, "The Ring", which I found more enjoyable than "Ringu".

It is rare to find a horror movie that is actually frightening. I would say the #1 scariest movie for me, barring all the "Showgirls" quips, is "The Exorcist".

Gummo was OK. A lot of the stuff that Harmony Korine does is, IMO, kinda...cheap. I mean, here are some kids going around killing cats. And I find this disturbing. Of COURSE it's disturbing. How hard is it to make the killing of cats disturbing? It's like at the end of "Kids", when Chloe Sevigny gets "dead-horsed" (as the meat-heads used to say in college). It's easy to shock people. It's much harder to be subtle.

Having said that, there were some very cool visuals and some great dialogue. I liked the pacing. I just wish there had been a little more substance.

And Ufez, before you awe at how many movies I've watched, consider how stark and desolate my life must be if I can find that much free time. :-)

As a child, there were three movies that I found genuinely scary: The Exorcist, The Shining and Salem's Lot. (The image of the dead kid floating outside the window literally gave me nightmares for years.)

I also find Nosferatu (the original, not the Herzog version) hella creepy.

"dead-horsed"? That's just wrong. Not as wrong as doing it, mind you, but wrong. I liked Kids quite a bit and I'll still re-visit it every 18 months or so just when my rose-colored glasses are on the strongest.

My roommate freshman year thought it was a great movie too, although he thought it was "hilarious". I think I spoke to him about 4 times the rest of that semester.

Re: "dead-horsed". The term always disturbed the hell out of me, and I'm sorry I mentioned it here. It's frightening that a society should require different words to describe various kinds of rape. Kind of how the Eskimos have (supposedly) 100 words for "snow".

Anyway, sorry for the sidetrack into seriousness.

The image of the dead kid floating outside the window literally gave me nightmares for years

My traumatized brutha! Exact same thing here.

cowboy_sally - I would guess that sixteen candles will not have any extras. Hughes' flicks typically don't, and Amazon doesn't list any extras

Valley Girl though will have a directors commentary and at least one other alternate audio track.

All my nightmares are about elevators (that don't go where you expect them to) inside abandoned downtown department stores. And there's always one department still open. It's dark except for spotlights shining on half-disassembled mannequins and dressmakers dummies, headless and dusty. I'm desperately searching through racks of moth-holed wool coats and dresses stained with soot, the last tattered remnants of old glamour.

But hey, you have your nightmares and I'll have mine.

This weekend, I watched "Withnail & I" for the first time.

I will never be the same.

One of the funniest movies I've ever seen.

Please tell me you are all familiar with this film.

"Balls! We want the finest wines available to all humanity. We want them here. And we want them now."

Seriously. I think this should go on 9622's list of Must See Films.

Also, I think we should have a Must See List of Films.

I've not even heard of it, CC, but between your recommendation and NetFlix saying "People who liked this film also enjoyed....Barton Fink" I decided it's worth a shot. Tis in my queue. At the rate I'm going through NetFlix movies, I should get to it sometime around September of 2019.

Mr. Ufez, I can tell you that I loved them both. Bump it up your list and you won't regret it.

Withnail & I is one of my favorites.

Never attempt anything without the gloves!

Smokey & The Bandit is by far the best movie ever. It's simple life lessons still apply today.

Ahhh! I loved Withnail and I! Richard Grant is now one of my all-time favorite actors because of that movie...it's on our list of near-future Netflix rentals. Might just have to purchase it though.

Swap update: still waiting for master disk notification from these monkeys:

eyeballkid
chico
tj
cyrano
jpoulos
soundsofsuburbia
yhbc
dogmatic
liam
fishfucker
mikrophon

Bring it, you apes!

i'm just holding my breath until "DUDE WHERE'S MY CAR 2" comes out.

that is going to FUCKING ROCK.

RECOGNIZE.

True story: The first time I saw The Exorcist was when I rented it in college. The same night I watched it the dorm I was living in had some kind of plumbing problem that flushed a lot of rust into the pipes. So, there I was washing my face getting ready for bed and I open my eyes to see the previously non-demonic sink filled with what looked pretty much exactly like blood. Then I look in the mirror and see my face covered with the same.

Yeah, I freaked.

I wasn't allowed to see horror movies as a kid, so I didn't see The Exorcist until the 25th Anniversary release a few years ago. I was very disappointed. Not only with the bad special effects, but because I thought it was going to delve more deeply into weird Catholic shit and the exorcism was really a letdown. The Shining also greatly disappointed at age 24.

The only film that has given me nightmares is Psycho, which I saw at the tender age of 16. I had two: one the night I saw it, and one the night after I read about the remake.

I was just talking about this with a friend after we saw "28 Days Later." She often has horror movie nightmares because her mother was taking her to movies like The Omen and Alien when she was 5 years old.

The first movie that ever gave me nightmares was Orca which I saw when I was about 5-ish. There was, I think, an eerie scene with a lot of dead fish being used as bait hanging on hooks in the water. I also seem to vaguely remember a movie involving a giant squid? It had a scene where a lady leaves her baby stroller by the beach and walks off to do something then a bus drives by in the foreground and when the bus is gone *gasp* the stoller is in the water with no baby in sight. I think there was a good guy killer whale in that one that gets sent after the squid.

To this day I have a mild-to-get-me-on-the-boat-NOW! phobia of deep water and I think I know why.

Speaking of Harmony Korine, his latest venture with Larry Clark, "Ken Park," has been banned in Australia (I've never really had the desire to see any of his films).

The WORST horror movie related incident I ever saw didn't happen to me (thank god) but I sort of witnessed it. College, 1985, and there was a Nightmare on Elm Street triple bill (Nightmares's 1-2-3) playing on HBO (this was near Halloween). Basically, six solid hours of Freddy Krueger mowing his way through the teenage population Anytown High School. Now Freddy is sort of goofy and funny if you're a grownup in full command of his or her faculties, so to remedy that? We dropped a significant amount of acid about an hour prior to viewing. Trust me, it changes your WHOLE perspective on the not-sleeping issue, not too mention one's mullings on that razorblade glove Fred wears.

Anyway, the six hours were up, and shaky but still tripping we settled in for cigarette after cigarette and laughing uproariously at wildly unfunny things. All except one of us, "Dennis" who declared he was going to bed. Now, Dennis had this bedtime habit of going in his room, grabbing a beach pail of his toiletries, then going into the bathroom to perform his evening ablutions while leaving his bedroom door open. While he was in the bathroom, another of our group (in a moment of purest distilled evil that I hope never to see again), stood, gave us a grin, and whispered that he was going into Dennis' room and (good god) getting under his bed.

Which he did. We waited as Dennis finished, bid us good night, and retired to his room. We waited a seeming eternity as we knew that Dennis was doffing his threadbare robe, dousing the light, and slipping under the covers, the last still-hot embers of the LSD flicking the juicy bits of his gray matter, the images of six hours of carnage only just stopped streaming across his eyes. It was, for us, an eternity.

And then he screamed. A man's scream of crystalized fear is a primal, unnerving sound.

Later, piecing together the disparate reports, Dennis had laid down, adjust the covers, and begun the long, rather slow spiral toward sleep that often occurs on the tail end of a trip. He was lying in pitch black, face up, when a disembodied hand that he couldn't see closed over his face from below. Dennis' first thought was apparently to sit up, but his attmepts to rise were stifled by increasing pressure on his face by the hand which, he later reported, "... felt like it was trying to drag me into the bed."

I ran into Dennis about four years after that event, at a fraternity barbecue, and in the telling of old stories this one came up. He told me, stone-faced and flat-voiced, that he still checked under his bed each night prior to turning out the light.

The only film that has given me nightmares is Psycho, which I saw at the tender age of 16.

See...it's all about your age when you see it. I just saw Psycho for the first time a few months ago and it didn't really do much for me. I appreciate all those things you're supposed to appreciate about it, but it definitely didn't scare me.

Can I confess here that I really, really, really want to see Freddy vs. Jason?

Freddy vs. Jason? Who wants acid?

The only movie that really threw me a scare was Cronenberg's The Brood. Something about those murderous little homonculi tipped a switch in me, I don't know why. But I won't watch it to this day.

When my dad was in college he took a girl to see The Birds. A couple of guys had smuggled in some real birds under their coats and during a bird attack scene, they let the birds loose in the dark theatre. The birds, of course, having no idea what was going on, started dive bombing people and everyone freaked out. He ran into this woman years later and she said she still got freaked out by more than two birds together.

This is silly, but I have to admit that Candyman really freaked my shit out. I remember driving around for hours afterward with my high school boyfriend (just your average Upstate NY motorcycle-riding, satan-worshipping hesher), who was also too afraid to go home.

We were *probably* high.

Oh, Scanners. Scanners freaked me out too. Probably because I was, like, 7 when I watched it.

9622: still freaked out by more than two birds together

Oh, and along the lines of Fes' story (though not as purely wretched), the first time I ate acid I watched the Faces of Death trilogy with a grouchy pitbull asleep in my lap. Have you ever sat completely still in a beanbag chair for 5 hours? I'm telling you, it can be done.

Cyrano, my fear of deep waters has nothing to do with movies and everything to do with these freaky creatures that live in them.

Yeah, them things and Shark Week on The Discovery Channel.

I have discussed it before, but "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" is the real child trauma movie that turns me into gibbering jell-o even today. Peach flavor.

And Witchstone, you really thought The Exorcist wasn't a good movie? I mean I can see that it had it's scholcky elements, but the special effects weren't bad for the time, and you have to appreciate the little sound tricks they did.

Have you guys ever seen "The Keep"? Extra points for having Jurgen Prochnow as the Nazi with the heart of gold, it concerns an ancient vampire in a keep in the Carpathian Alps. The Nazis occupy the keep and, being the naughty nazis they are, wake the slumbering sucker.

It also features Ian McKellen and Gabriel Byrne and really ridiculous effects. Also, it has very bad sound. This is made up for by the Tangerine Dream soundtrack. You heard me! Tangerine Dream! Yay!

Re: The Exorcist, parts of it were good, but mostly I found it very cheesy and ridiculous. My companion and I laughed many times throughout the movie because it was so heavy-handed. As I said, I was expecting much more delving into Catholic rituals, religion, etc.

I find it very easy to be startled during a movie (loud noises making me jump, etc.) but very difficult to be actually scared by a movie. Most movies go for the cheap thrills.

Why do you and I fear small killer non-people, Kaf?

*dry-swallows two Paxil and an ancient, crumbly Quaalude, waits for answer that will surely chill the hot black rime of the heart*

Although the freakiest 10 minutes of film I've ever seen were in Fire in the Sky, a rather ridiculous movie "based on a true story" of alien abduction starring D.B. Sweeney. But the part where he "remembers" what happened on the alien ship freaked me out.

I just saw Psycho for the first time a few months ago and it didn't really do much for me.
I still lock the door when I take a shower because of Psycho Funny what a movie will make you do.

Well. I guess Witchstone would like The Exorcist better if Streisand had burst in during the "Power of Christ compels you!" but and broken into a medley of the Yentl soundtrack.

Alright, that does sound interesting.

um. "bit", not "but".

And Fes, the little homunculi motif is some freaky-deaky shit.

I suspect that deep in our hindbrain history we as a species had to deal at some point in our evolution with some small murderous freaky-deaky non-people, and we haven't quite forgotten.

Dolls and mannequins and dummies, oh my.

Karen Black in Trilogy of Terror, Anthony Hopkins in Magic, the clown in Poltergeist...

The Fairies

Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather.
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.

High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music,
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen,
Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back
Between the night and morrow;
They thought she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag leaves,
Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
As dig them up in spite?
He shall find the thornies set
In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather.

-- William Allingham

That little poem about the Sidhe folk scared me something fierce when I was a kid. No Darby O'Gill, me.

One of the freakiest movies I ever saw I found in a video store in South Bend, Indiana. I forget what it was called, but it looked like it was homegrown--made with a video camera and two or three actors playing multiple roles. It was about a doll that went around raping and killing people. The thing is, it was SO amateurish that it was hyperrealistic. It was like Chuckie meets the Blair Witch Project.

Or maybe we were just stoned.

As a badly socialized American male, fear gets mistranslated into anger. I think I might take the afternoon off, get me a sack, catch me some homonculi, and smack 'em to jelly against a flat rock.

Thornies in my bed, indeed. We'll just see who flinches first, ya doll-eyed freaks.

Homunculus hunt!

Bring it, you little bitches!

*hands kaf a frog gig*

You grab 'em, I'll sack 'em.

*scuffle*

Changeling that, you little freak!

*tussle*

Fes! Help!

Or maybe we were just stoned.

The fact that you were in South Bend Indiana lends credence to that theory.

Use the gig, man!

*placekicks tiny bastard*

We need to fetch that one, 'fore he tells his fey little friends.

*pause*

Know what we need? Cattle prod, that's what.

*rides in on Shetland pony*

*hands Fes cattle prod*

*exits: Stage left*

sorry, the suspense was killing me

Just great. All you did was piss them off.

I'm not big into horror movies, but "Creepshow" scared the bejesus out of me.

'Course, I was about seven or eight years old at the time.

But I think the BEST movie ever has to be "Cannonball Run II."

Can you name another movie that has
Burt Reynolds
Dom DeLuise
Dean Martin
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Frank Sinatra
Jamie Farr
Telly Savalas
Marilu Henner
Shirley MacLaine
Katherine Bach
Sid Caesar
Jackie Chan
Foster Brooks
Tony Danza
Tim Conway
Richard Kiel
Don Knotts
Ricardo Montalban
Jim Nabors
Arte Johnson
Joe Theismann
Mel Tillis
AND Abe Vigoda?

Quite a galaxy of "stars".

The Grinch is still the scariest movie ever. The cartoon version, not the Jim Carrey vehicle. Well, the Grinch was the scariest movie for a wide-eyed innocent 5 year old such as myself.

I was such a little wuss.

And I love Withnail & I, that is such a great movie.
" I don't advise a haircut, man. All hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hairs are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos, and transmit them directly into the brain. This is the reason bald-headed men are uptight. "

Not to mention Jack Elam:

Have only heard of "Withnail", never seen it.

But if ColdChef thinks it's funny, I am there.

Goodly fuck, Cyrano! I almost swallowed my tongue there!

*shudders, fires up cattle prod in one hand, waggles sack [quit that laughing!] in the other*

Alright, you little sweatsuit-wearing morphodites - prepare to have your tiny humanlike asses KICKED!

My favorite Jack Elam movie is Support Your Local Sheriff (also starring the inestimable James Garner, Henry Morgan and the sadly underused Joan Hackett) which few people seem to have seen, but is one of my family's favorites.

"Pooberty hit her hard--it'll do that you know."

Another old favorite: A New Leaf, starring Walter Matthau and Elaine May.

So many good lines from Withnail & I:

"There must and shall be aspirin!"
"I assure you I'm not officer. I've only had a few ales."
"They're throwing themselves into the street gladly, to escape all this hideousness!"

And the Hamlet soliloquy at the end is truly heartbreaking.

so many more.

Someone's in my fruit cellar! Someone with a fresh soooul!

Speaking of Bruce Campbell, Bubba Ho-Tep is coming out in September! Kick ass!

You know what else comes out in September? Underworld (otherwise known as Vampires vs. Werewolves). I hope it's good because I've been longing for a good vampire movie. I hope the love story isn't cheesy, but love stories in action films tend to be.

(Although it kicks ass more because I worship Joe R. Lansdale than because of Bruce Campbell.)

(Not that there's anything wrong with Bruce, mind you.)

Not that it's necessarily a scary flick, but when I was a kid, my dad thought it was a good idea to let me stay up late and watch Soylent Green.

It was many, many years before I would eat anything I couldn't immediately identify. Way to get your kid to try new foods, Dad.

Also - cannot wait for Bubba Ho-Tep. Bring it on. Elvis AND Bruce Campbell. Yay.

::runs in, breathless::
This just in:Britney Spears is not a virgin!

I realize this is apropos of nil, but the mind boggles.

The mind boggles? Hmph.

Sadly, at the Major News Organization (tm) where I work, they're covering it. I saw them cue up one of her videos as I rushed, screaming, from the room.

It is with much regret that I have to back out of this round of CD swappage. I only have half a tracklist, and I'm going to be too damn busy over the next month.

scariest televised event ever?

the 3-2-1 Contact about the sun -- OUR SUN -- going supernova.

i still get all shivery when i think about that.

i'm all : "COME AND GET ME SUN"

and it's like : "YEAH, I"M ON MY WAY"

and I'm like : "WELL, NOT FOR ANOTHER MILLION YEARS OR SO, HA! I'LL BE LONG DEAD"

and it's all : "THAT"S WHAT YOU THINK!"

and I'm all "oh crap."

"I saw sumthing something naasty in the woodshed!"
/Cold Comfort Farm

And witchstone, I can't believe you've seen A New Leaf. Hilarious scene where she tries to put on her "seductive" nightgown and can't tell the back from the front, and gets her head stuck through the sleeve. Genius.

I never thought Britney was a virgin. She's from Louisiana, people!

Do you have a confession for us, ColdChef?

Oh baby baby.

Les Vacances de Mr. Hulot! Awwwright. Way to go vidiot! I thought I was the only one that loves that one. The fact you haven't seen Withnail though, ... get going.

Wong Kar-Wei's Days of Being Wild - 1990.
Rebels of the Neon God -1992, by Tsai Ming-liang from Taiwan
.

Other faves? Decalog by Kieslowski. Rippin'

Ah, Fellini, La Strada- 1954 with Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn
Le Notti di Cabiria [Nights of Cabiria] -1956, starring Giulietta Masina

Need I mention 8-1/2 and Amarcord? Before you win that lottery, tizzie, see the ones above.

Any movie with zombies!

A Travolta must see.... Swordfish. Wicked soundtrack to boot by Paul Oakenfold.

It's summer, movies? Not really lately.

alicesshoe, yes - thank you for the reminder about LaStrada. I need to see that again.

And thank you for the reminder about the lottery, too. I probably ought to buy a ticket if I ever really want to win.

Tizzie: someone else has seen it! Fantastic. Elaine May also wrote and directed that film. Yes, the nightgown scene is fantastic.

And Cold Comfort Farm! One of the most fantastic films ever...er....filmed. "And what do you do, Ruben? I mean when you're not eating people?" I highly recommend this film to fans of quirky British comedy.

Swordfish! Gah! I loved the first 15 minutes, but the next 2 hours of the film sadly did not live up to them in any way whatsoever. Bad bad bad plot. Nude scene was ridiculous. And no one can get me to believe that the 2 best hackers in the world both happen to be goodlooking men.

Swordfish was painful. Travolta as anything but a moron just doesn't work for me.

My wife and I watched it, keeping track of nonsensical "hackerspeak". Our favorite phrase:

"Poppin' the firewall, droppin' the hydra..."

Best when recited in a Pauly Shore voice.

Also, just watched Princess Mononoke again. All those Miyazaki flicks are so great. Now if only they would release a full-length Starblazers movie I could be truly happy.

But surely, half-naked Halle must have made up for some of that?

Although I do agree with you somewhat on Travolta. After all this time, when ever I see him I still think "Vinny Babarino."* My mom says that I used to read the credits at the beggining of Welcome Back, Kotter and always refer to him as "John Trav-a-tola." I was 6, whaddaya want.

*A co worker of mine says he was recently in a gay bar and the actor who played Arnold Horshak kept coming on to him. No word on whether there was any "ooh ooh"

Oh my god--you mean actors can be gay just like other people???

I just saw Miller's Crossing and liked it a lot. Kaiser Sosay!

Was Kaiser Sose lurking in the woods in Miller's Crossing?

Look into your heart! I'm praying to you! Kaiser Sose is in the harbor, killing many men!

I see great crossover potential!

I even named my ball python Kaiser.

I think an even greater crossover would be if John Turtorro said,

"Look into your heart! I'm gonna fuck you in the ass Wednesday!"

"a movie involving a giant squid? It had a scene where a lady leaves her baby stroller by the beach and walks off to do something then a bus drives by in the foreground and when the bus is gone *gasp* the stroller is in the water with no baby in sight. "

that's Tentacles, Cyrano!
An Italian Jaws-era exploitation flick. I loved that move, for exactly that scene.

Sweet!

Thanks, dong! And now it's off to ebay!

Ah, Shelley Winters.

Shelley Winters, invited to audition for a supporting role in the 1990 film B, simply sat down on the casting director's desk, pulled a pair of Oscars from a large bag and asked, "Do you still want me to read for this part?"

Man, I just heard that anecdote! Wasn't that in "Swimming With Sharks"?

What's the rumpus?

Um. Is it kind of like the Wumpus?

Please don't thump us!

Man, I just heard that anecdote! Wasn't that in "Swimming With Sharks"?

Yes it is. In fact, when I was googling the story (I'd heard it somewhere), a review for Swimming With Sharks came up. Is the movie any good?

Yeh, I liked it, though it seems a little ludicrous in spots. It's one of those poison pen letters to the film industry. See it for Kevin Spacey though.

"Swimming with Sharks" is fantastic.

"You. Don't. Have. A brain."

It's a mean, hateful movie. But Kevin Spacey is great.

ok. I may have to have another look to see if Swordfish was as good as I thought it was *ahem* *kaff*... the music being good still stands though.

Tickets. Tickets. gechur tickets, for the lottery then.

i like it

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