El Capitan

I don't often write about celebrity deaths here because generally they don't affect me in any deep way, even if the person in question had some kind of influence on me. Once in awhile though, someone will pass on out there and I get unexpectedly emotional.

Late last night I read about the death of actor Leslie Nielsen, who was originally from the Northwest Territories and made his name in the classic comedies Airplane! and the Naked Gun series (which was spawned from Police Squad, although I never saw any of those). Around the time I was 10 or 12, I probably thought this was the funniest man on the planet.

Anyways, as it was Sunday night and I was already sitting around trying to think of a movie to watch, I decided to pay tribute to Mr. Nielsen. Looking into his acting career, I was amazed to see that he'd been in almost 300 movies and shows. Even more interesting was the fact that until he made Airplane!, at which point he was already in his 50's, he was a dramatic actor. So I downloaded two of his old serious movies. Last night was Forbidden Planet, tonight will be the original Poseidon Adventure. In both movies he plays 'The Captain'.

R.I.P. Shirley.

Cinqo de Mayo's on Tuesday, in September

In April of 2007, I went to see a movie called Grindhouse in the theatre. It was actually a double feature, two films done by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, a sort-of homage to 80's style slasher/gore flicks complete with fake trailers between the two features.

It was, to this day, the single best movie-going experience I've ever had. The theatre in question, the Van East Cinema, is owned by a local Asian family who - appropriate for such a film - don't give a shit what you do so long as they get their cash. It was epic. People were passing around joints in the line, I walked in with a twelve pack under my arm, and as the lights went down my friend Frankie opened his trenchcoat and removed a bottle of rye, saying, in an Irish-Italian mafioso voice, "Perhaps we could strike up some kinda deal!?"

Amongst the fake trailers at the 'intermission' were Hobo With A Shotgun, Zombie Werewolves of the SS, and Machete. And guess what? Robert Rodriguez has gone ahead with his promise to make Machete into a full-length feature. Trailer is available here, and an excellent interview with star Danny Trejo ('Tortuga' on Breaking Bad) is available here.

Choice excerpt:

AVC: How are you able to be so prolific?

DT: I love doing it. Let me tell you something. When I was young, I was an armed robber. I did robberies. And there’s no adrenaline rush like that. When you’re using drugs and doing robberies, it’s hard to distinguish whether you’re doing robberies to support your drug habit, or doing drugs to support your robbery habit. Those guys that flip on motorcycles—it’s like the same kind of adrenaline. It’s unreal. The only time I ever felt that was when I heard Andrey Konchalovskiy yell, “Action!” And then I was like, “Wow. Here we are again. This whole adrenaline—” But this time I didn’t have a gun. I was like, “Wow. This is awesome.” I just totally got hooked. I found my calling. And then when I got my check, I said, “Fuck.” [Laughs.] “Wait a minute. For the first half of my life, I went to prison for being a bad guy. Now they’re paying me to be a bad guy.”

AVC: Did you take acting classes?

DT: In 1985 it was a little different. I would just go with the extras and the director would see me. I was always Inmate No. 1, and I always had one line like, “Kill ’em all.” [Laughs.] It was like, “I can do this.” I remember a director handed me a shotgun and he said, “Kick in this door and take control.” There was a poker game going inside, and the director said there would be a couple of stunt people inside. He said to improvise. So I kick in the door, somebody jumps up, I bash them with the shotgun, and I ask this guy, “Oh, you wanna die, huh?” This lady starts screaming, and I put this gun right in her face. So the director yells, “Cut! Cut! God, Danny, where did you study?” I said, “Let me see. Von’s. Safeway. Thrifty Mart.” [Laughs.] So all this stuff I was doing, I just knew. You’ve got to remember, I was Inmate No. 1 for the first five years of my career. So shit, I know how to be an inmate.

Scheduled for release on September 3rd and featuring a cast of - I find this hard to even comprehend - Robert de Niro, Steven Seagal, Lindsey Lohan, Michelle Rodriguez and Cheech Marin, not to mention Trejo, well, guess I know where I'll be.

this post's got the Devil in it..

NHL Playoffs started earlier this week. Coincidentally, the same day they started I came across the Wikipedia page for the New Jersey Devil, from which the team derived their name. I'd never really thought much about the name the Devils and just assumed they were claiming to be 'a hell of a team to play' or some such play on words. Now that I think about it, that would be kind of strange for a team hailing from such a god-fearing place as the U.S. of A.

But so, it turns out the name stems from a local (not-so)-urban legend: a prehistoric flying creature still living deep in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

I came across this through another bizarre stroke of synchronicity. Last Sunday I had a horrid night of sleeplessness, passing out right after coming home and waking up at 4 am dehydrated (damn! those Sunday evening sponaneous park raves), then going on an early morning mission for rolling papers. I never did fall back asleep, and sometime around 8 am I suddenly got it into my head to rewatch the Blair Witch Project, which I hadn't seen since it was in theatres. No idea where the urge came from, but the movie was surprisingly as good as I remembered, making me think all the hate it received was nothing more than an ADD-inflicted mainstream backlash.

The next day, Tuesday, we went on a day-trip to Teufelsberg -German for 'Devil's Mountain'(!)-, an awe-inspiring abandoned American spy base outside of Berlin. To get there and back, one must take the S-Bahn twenty minutes, hike through some woods and over some hills, and finally sneak through one of the many holes cut into the fence. During the journey there and back, I noticed a lot of man-made weird stick statues/structures throughout the woods. Negin mentioned that Veronica made several Blair Witch references during their previous visit (was my first time). Having just watched it the day before, I came home and started reading on the making of the film. According to the wikipedia entry, the Blair Witch Project was criticized initially for it resemblance to the film The Last Broadcast, which told the story of a group of documentary makers heading into the New Jersey Pine Barrens in an attempt to film, you guessed it, the legendary New Jersey Devil.

Well, not sure if all that made sense. On a more straight-forward note, anyone interested in seeing my photography of Teufelsberg and the spy base? I must say that if there was any movie this place reminded me of, it was definitely another of the great 90's horror flicks - Session 9.

The Thing vs. G.I. Joe

What we have here is, potentially, the finest art ever to grace the puke-stained armpits of YouTube with its presence.

I present Simon Gesrel & Xavier Ehretsmann's stop-motion masterpiece for Zombie Zombie - not to be confused with the also excellent Zombi.



Now drive that road til death sets you free!

darkness

Dark Days is a documentary from about 8 years ago. I just got around to watching it late last night. Still fascinating and relevant. Marc Singer, the guy who made it, had never made a film before and was actually living in the tunnels with the other characters.
All the music is by DJ Shadow and Uncle. Apparently, they edited the film using his music, and then realised they would need permission. Shadow is notoriously against others using his material so the filmmakers came up with a scheme to have 'an attractive female friend who would go backstage after a show and personally hand-deliver' a letter. Still, after setting up a meeting, he was totally prepared to say no, until he saw some clips from the film.
Watch it, intense, difficult, beautiful, dark, watch it.

Earlier, we found a small jazz and crepe bar by the river with a film room in the back. We watched Mon Oncle and a very strange black-and-white puppet movie, I guess what passes for horror film in ye olde days. Film filled Sunday!