So I’m sitting up late working on a design in the living room and there’s a terrible Syfy movie on in the background about giant spiders. I glance up from my laptop just in time to see a real, live, unacceptably large spider hiking up the wall directly behind the television. If the movie was at all creeptown that shit would’ve been like if The Ring had been unsettling.

Anyway, if you are going to watch Ice Spiders, I feel you could greatly improve your viewing experience by watching it in a 100+ year old home that you share with impossibly huge arachnids. You should probably just go to bed though because I’m positive your dreams would be more entertaining.

Oh hell, it’s 6am. I’m too tired to write about the tornado. Bedtime!

I have an elaborate, likely Skinner Pigeon-ly, system for getting optimal Netflix recommendations. My interpretation of “like” is loose to say the least. I might hate a movie but like the idea of it, and so I want similar movies with the same themes less poorly executed, to pop up on my lists. And maybe I liked something but my only reason is, say, that I’ll watch anything featuring Julian Sands. (See also: Helena Bonham Carter.)  If I clicked “hated it” for everything I hated, my recommendations would be nothing but director’s cuts or full screen releases of movies I’ve already watched. No really, this was what started my obsessive ratings-tweaking.

You know who else I find so endearing that I’d watch anything she was in? Melissa Joan Hart, the most underrated actor I can think of at 5-something AM. Oh hey, Julian Sands and MJH both played witches. Maybe I have a type?

I should probably devote some time to implement a complex series of Google Alerts filters that will keep me from missing out on all the latest developments in awesome. (They do get complicated. I finally just got my “anteater” alert to stop emailing me little league stats.)

Case in point: I had no idea Skunk Anansie was back together!

It is not TELEPHONE, but I LIKE IT.

You know what else I like? Except not really? How these shoes I lovelovelove finally go on sale, and they’re no longer in my size. I am linking to them (Aldo’s Ambrosio) because I feel like someone should enjoy them even if we weren’t meant to be together. This is Very Mature Adult of me; I am definitely the kid who would buy something at the thrift store that wasn’t my size just because it was too me and then I would send it off to friends who lived far, far away.

I walked away from these in gray (!) in the store for $70 (?!), and then again in the outlet for $50. And I didn’t keep good tabs on them online because I honestly don’t care about shoes unless I really need to replace some. But now I’m having non-buyer’s remorse.

OH! In the mere minutes that I’ve been writing this the gray just became an option again, but still not in my size. Y U Do, Aldo?

Is this what it sounds like when doves cry?

As a fan of the supernatural thriller type movie I am happy to suspend disbelief to a degree beyond that of my more obnoxious spoil sport nerd friends. You can even hit me with some preposterous fringe bullshit like aquatic apes or hilarious hybrids or really stretch string theory if you want, but when your human characters react in ways that defy explanation, you’ve lost me.

I was really into this movie I was watching tonight when the lovely protagonist is startled awake by scary sounds from the empty apartment above and decides to investigate barefoot and in a negligee. What horror flick could this be, you ask? ALL OF THEM EVER.

Who would do this? Granted, I am a kid who can’t sleep without socks and the idea of being barefoot somewhere that isn’t my bathtub horrifies me –but who wanders around dark, unfamiliar, vacant places after hearing who-knows-what busting shit up in the immediate area without grabbing their slippers, or better yet throwing on actual shoes? Someone who is going to step on a rusty nail or through broken glass and/or a puddle of blood, that’s who.

Of course I am aware there are a stupillion more significant problems with the genre, many of which account for the extremely irritating extremely vulnerable ladyvictim trope, but this absurdity drives me bonkers. Instant spell breaker.

While I’m complaining about petty things –how useless is the new Netflix layout that provides the opinions of everyone in the world except the people you’ve specifically told them you care to hear from? I want to read random strangers’ reviews of movies just about as much as I want to overhear them on their cell phones.

For example, here is a 1 star review of The Big Lebowski:

Not that it is a film beyond reproach — but no plot? Really? This person rated Beverly Hills Chihuahua five stars. We are 18% similar, it says. If they can produce movie recommendations based on my ratings, why wouldn’t they screen out reviews from strangers that I’m less than 50% taste-compatible with? What is the point of collecting huge amounts of data and then not utilizing it?

I am done complaining for the afternoon! It is time to go have dinner with a puppy. (Sadly, not my puppy. But related! We are like second cousins.) There will be pictures!

Puppy!!!

In an accidental feat of awesome timing, Don Netflixed The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T and we watched it on Sunday before even realizing Monday was Dr. Seuss’s birthday. (Thanks Google!)

This live-action musical is visually interesting and perfect for a Dr. Seuss tale. The sets and costumes, and even the musical instruments have all of the whimsy required for a Suessian world. The 500 seat piano set is incredible and the furniture in Mrs. C’s and Dr. T’s suites are fabulously wonky. But the story and the characters were maddening.

Don’t let your little boys take music lessons or they’ll turn into fruity fascist wackos, says this film. No really. As the film progressed we found ourselves turning slowly to each other with our mouths open, our eyebrows at their WTF positions.

The incessant hammering of “musicians are queer” and “this is what happens when you don’t let boys play baseball!” was overwhelming to the point of absurdity. Boys must be allowed to be REAL BOYS. The horror of this mother being brainwashed into thinking piano lessons are something her fatherless son should do! It’s like seeing Touch of Evil for the first time and choking on your iced tea when you see Charlton Heston painted brown. First you think “How can this be real?” and then you think “How could I forget that this is totally real?”

Wikipedia notes, “Although he had written the original treatment and all the song lyrics, Geisel himself regarded the finished film as a ‘debaculous fiasco’ and omitted any mention of it in his official biography with Random House.” I want to read his biography to see what sort of mommy issues he had. Why the hatred of the piano? Why the need to swishify the villain? The whole thing just seems so shocking coming from the man who created lasting works that introduced children to political and moral issues like racism (The Sneetches), environmentalism (The Lorax), and internationalism (Horton Hears a Who!).

Here’s a clip of an awesome song sung by the villain as his team of dressing men help him suit up for the grand opening of his institute:

Art hid with art, so well perform’d the cheat,
It caught the carver with his own deceit:
He knows ’tis madness, yet he must adore,
And still the more he knows it, loves the more:
The flesh, or what so seems, he touches oft,
Which feels so smooth, that he believes it soft.
Fir’d with this thought, at once he strain’d the breast,
And on the lips a burning kiss impress’d.
~Ovid, Metamorphoses (Translated by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, et al)

In a twist of the Pygmalion story, German film director Karl Freund’s sculptor is a skilled surgeon shown as a benevolent doctor healing deformed children in his last film, 1935′s Mad Love. His Pygmalion, Dr. Gogol, played by Peter Lorre, is a study in loneliness and obsession; short, bald and, well, Lorre-esquely strange looking, Gogol never misses a public beheading or a night at the horror theater where Yvonne Orlac plays the role of a tortured dutchess.

The film opens with him ogling a wax statue of her character in the Parisian Theatre des Horreurs before her final performance. After the show, he brings flowers to her dressing room and professes his love and deep upset at her leaving the stage. She explains that it really must be her last performance as she is meeting up with her husband, famous pianist Stephen Orlac, that very night so that they can finally begin their life together as a married couple. After an awkward, creepy exchange, someone comes in to bring her down to her farewell party that has begun downstairs, and seeing her biggest fan the respectable Dr. Gogol there, insists that he come join in the festivities.

At the party everyone is stepping up to give her farewell kisses (in exchange for cake) and yet another oblivious numskull suggests Dr. Gogol have a go — which he uses as an invitation to introduce her to his tongue. The assembled French actors shrug it off assuming it is some custom from his strange foreign country full of short creepy fellows, and they proceed to emulate what I can only imagine becomes a new trend in fashionable molestation.

Perhaps mortified by her reaction, or upset by the frenzy of ridiculous kisses that he’s started, Dr. Gogol leaves in a hurry, passing some workmen taking down the wax display of Mrs. Orlac. He bribes them to deliver it to his home instead of the melting pot. There are all sorts of other things happening in the film, but for our purposes here you only need to know that he has his housekeeper brush her hair and maintain her see-through flow-y robes, while he plays the organ to her, calls her Galatea and discusses with her his crazy scheme to get Stephen Orlac into the loony bin and have the real Mme Yvonne for himself. You’ll have to watch the film yourself to see the Pygmalion/Galatea story played out in its tragi-comedic way. This was Lorre’s first American film, and it is no wonder he became a horror favorite.

Parting ways with the original book, Maurice Renard’s The Hands of Orlac, the story here is not about Gogol as a scientist/medical genius playing God. Initially he saves Stephen Orlac with the best of intentions. He did it for Yvonne, and because he was the only one who could. The results (as preposterous as they are) could not have been known to him, silly horror-”science” aside, he’s accomplished something miraculous — the first successful hand transplant. This is the story not of his scientific obsession, but of his misguided idea of love making him a monster.

“I have conquered science! Why can’t I conquer love?”

In the following scene we watch the further unraveling of Dr. Gogol:

Why is he so crazy? Which came first, the craziness or the loneliness? Surely someone would be so impressed by his brilliance, and his kind focus on treating unfortunate children and mutilated soldiers, and being surrounded by the lovely nurses at his practice, he could find someone to be with? Is his mistake thinking he could attain a gorgeous actress? Does your pity end when he persists after discovering she is married? Or does it linger, tugging your heartstrings over his sad eyes and obvious mental illness? I, myself, am not sure when or if I ever stop feeling sorry for this fellow. Clearly we are meant to think him out of his mind to consider that Mme Yvonne would return his feelings; her a beauty, and him an odd foreign unlovable beast.

Ignoring the superficial aspect of the film entirely, let’s look at a redeeming quality. Perhaps this does not do anything to further the Hollywood image of scientists as non-creeps and people with normal, fulfilled lives capable of healthy relationships — but I was surprised by the fact that this wasn’t about a lost soul wearing blinders to keep out everything but his great work that will help the world while destroying the lives of those around him. The Pygmalion addition to Renard’s story gives it more depth than if Freund had followed a more familiar science fiction tale. Even the other film paired on the dvd with Mad Love, Devil Dolls, is a heavy-handed tale of Evil Scientists too single-minded to even know how evil they are. Mad Love is not a brilliant film, and the story of recycled body parts has been done over scores of times before and since. But it does stand out for me after being positively buried in anti-science films. I don’t normally like remakes, however I would love to see this done with a different type of casting for Dr. Gogol, but with the same treatment of love being the monster-maker.

Here’s a quick and dirty rundown of the past two weeks in movies:

• Waxwork – this was funny because Don kept saying “I remembered this being better!”
• Waxwork II – I enjoyed the Bruce Campbell “Haunting” bit.
• Masters of Horror: Dario Argento’s Pelts – there should be more raccoons in horror movies.
• The Mad Doctor of Blood Island – I am pretty sure this has the same exact ceremonial dance scene as Brides of Blood.
• Beast of Blood – kept waiting for the same dance scene.
• The Machine Girl – great concept, amazing fight scenes, totally sick.
• Tokyo Gore Police – blood-gushing amputated feet as jet pack!
• The Attic Expeditions – like Cemetery Man, I feel this would’ve been better when I was a teenager.
• Hour of the Wolf – I liked this so much more than Bergmen’s Persona.
• Werewolf of London – the drunk ladies take this from great to awesome.

I tried out the Netflix Watch Instantly thing the other night. I watched the first episode of Forever Knight (1992). I liked the viewer and think this would be even better if I had a cable to connect my macbook to my HDTV. Should look into that! Forever Knight was entertaining enough that I’d go ahead and watch the next few episodes. I wasn’t big on Buffy the first season, but my coworkers at the video store assured me that by the third season I would be completely hooked. I’ll give this a similar stab.

I wish Netflix would make an rss feed of your ratings available. That would make a great WordPress widget, wouldn’t it?

Coming up I’ve got:

• Tombs of the Blind Dead (1973)
• God Told Me To  (1976)
• My Man Godfrey (1936)
• Double Indemnity (1944)

Music I’m enjoying lately:

• Teru’ah – in high school I hung out with the John half of this duo. I love it when my talented friends continue to increase their excellence.

After bouncing around in my queue for several months, bumped by the Heartbreak of 2008 (Doctor Who, Series 4) and stuck behind The Riches (a series I think is absolutely fascinating but is so painful to watch, for me, that I haven’t been able to finish), the weekend in Ohio with friends over the holidays was the kick in the butt needed to finally get my hands on Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. With Kara’s animated description and enthusiastic review I was entirely sold on it. It would be a couple more weeks before I had time to get to the disc that was holding it up, and then Netflix bursts my bubble with a “not available from your local shipping center … on its way and should arrive within 3 to 5 days” message, and so this much anticipated viewing was put off again until this past weekend.

I’m saddened by all the hate this movie has gotten. Why is anyone knocking the effects on a low-budget indie film from the 70s? No seriously. Could you have done better with the same limits? And for a directorial debut, and first and only production? I’m even more saddened that it took the theft of George Barry’s work to get this released leaving him creditless for over two decades. Think of what he could’ve done in that time.

Forget all of your glossy effects snobbery and look at Death Bed: The Bed That Eats as a truly unique story, with a remarkable set up. The monster cannot hunt screaming girls through the woods. There’s no heartthrob hero. One of the strongest characters is a kick-ass black woman — the only one who actually fights back! Then, mid-”Yeah!” moment, your fleeting joy is brought down in a sloooowww and twisted way. Just when you’re asking “how did this bed even happen?” the narrator launches into the history. There’s a fantastic moment when the bed has a “pleasant” dream; character development for a bed. Barry is brilliant. We’re talking about a genre that is built entirely on crap no one was meant to pay attention to at drive-ins. I love crappy gross-outs with all their flaws and eye rolling dumbness, but this — I couldn’t take my eyes off it! This, I would watch again.

The reviews I’ve read have missed key points in their synopsizes while insisting that the backstory and plot makes little sense. I can think of a few minor holes, (namely how does it make munching sounds without teeth? Answer: I don’t really care! It’s a bed that eats. There’s digestive-fluid vision!) and they did little to mar my enjoyment of this fun, ridiculous, original flick. I wish the big budget horror Hollywood darlings could come up with something this creative and different on their own instead of churning out weak remakes of Asian films. I can’t think of one decent American horror movie made recently. Plot holes in Death Bed: The Bed that Eats? Have you seen M. Night Shyamalan’s stuff? Victor Salva’s? Rob Zombie’s? C’mon.