Sentence of the Day: Bones and All Review, rogerebert.com

“Ingesting people across state lines in 1980, Maren finds herself on her own after her father runs away when she turns 18, only leaving behind a tape recounting her earliest episodes of cannibalism and her birth certificate.”

— Carlos Aguilar, review of Bones and All, rogerebert.com

Things Self Liked: A Quiet Place, Part II

John Krasinski, such a sly one: makes a sequel that still puts him on-screen despite his character dying in the first. But it makes complete emotional sense.

This is a very stylish horror movie. Mebbe not Alien level, but still. It’s very stylish.

Another thing that shows Krasinski’s slyness: he introduces us to ugly Cillian Murphy. Think about that for a minute. UGLY CILLIAN MURPHY.

The actress who plays his deaf daughter is absolutely amazing, and there is of course Emily Blunt.

Emily Blunt. Emily Blunt. Emily Blunt.

Even when she’s running, she looks like a ballet dancer.

Also, the filthiest feet (But why does Cillian Murphy’s character wear boots when EVERYONE ELSE IS BAREFOOT)

Also, clever use of an oxygen tank.

Self loudly gasped at least once.

Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.

“What Is Going On?”

The Simpson housekeeper who tried to send the police away after O. J. just delivered a beating to his wife brings to mind the sister in The Invisible Man, the one who insists, while the MC (played by a terrific Elizabeth Moss) is obviously shaken and upset and they are sitting in a car in the middle of a deep, dark, narrow road in the middle of a deep, dark night: “What is going on? What is going on? What is going on?”

Ugh. Self wanted to kick her! Dear Sister: Do you think you could hang on to your curiosity just a little bit longer. Perhaps until you get to a safe place? JUST DRIVE.

SHEESH.

But then, this is a horror movie. In a horror movie, there must always be An Obtuse Character You Want to Kick. This might be a blonde cheerleader. Or an Asian male. Or Samuel L. Jackson standing with his back to a shark tank.

Stay tuned.

Watching “10 Cloverfield Lane” in Fort Bragg

Self and five tweenies. Who were very restless and kept kicking the row of seats she was in. They’d stop whenever self turned her head. But they’d start again. Anyhoo.

GRRREAT movie.

The lead has an uncanny resemblance to the Sigourney Weaver of Alien. So uncanny is the resemblance that self thinks it must have been part of the reason why she was picked. So many little homages to that earlier (CLASSIC, GREAT) movie: especially, the heroine’s looks. The fact that her best scenes occur when she is barefoot and wearing a skimpy tank and very tight blue jeans. There’s a real American heroine for you. Gal can do anything, and she looks great in skinny jeans.

Who was that girl? She looked so like Dakota Johnson. And there were notes of Jena Malone in there as well.

Her male co-stars were playing against type: John Goodman (How that man can make dancing look creepy, self knows not. But he pulled it off) and the other one who looked like a shrimpy Ben Affleck (with a LOT of facial hair). She loved that the other man looked about half the size of Goodman. And was only up to the heroine’s shoulder. Clearly, not the type to inspire confidence.

Great, great movie to watch in Fort Bragg on a Sunday afternoon.

Stay tuned.

Eerie: A WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge Post

Oh, witchy witchy time of year.

Last night, self’s humble abode was visited by the ghosts of medieval knights, Jango Fett, Alice in Wonderland, a devil, and a myriad other apparitions.  They all willingly posed for self, after she bribed them with extra candy.

This morning, she looked up the WordPress Photo Challenge, and it was, appropriately enough:  EERIE.

Here are her three eerie places (as evidenced by these photographs):

• a deserted alley, Venice
• a bed in Manila
• the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose

Venice, somewhere near San Toma’. Was not yet tourist season.

Manila:  A new bed

Spookiness in the Winchester Mystery House Labyrinth

Have dear blog readers ever watched the Jeepers Creepers movies?  They are so terrifically creepy.  Justin Long was in the first one.

What about The Omen?  The original version, with Gregory Peck?  Super eerie.

But the creepiest movie of all has got to be Nicholas Roeg’s adaptation of a Daphne du Maurier story, Don’t Look Now, which starred Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie.  Self only saw it once, but the image of the child in the red raincoat, the resounding cavernous spaces of Venetian churches, and the woman who speaks with dead people and tells Sutherland’s heartbroken father to Beware and Take Care are etched into her memory forever.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

Of Significance Today, the 1st Friday of December (2012)

None of the things in the list below have anything to do with each other, but here goes:

• Today was the 41st Anniversary of Pearl Harbor.  On the radio this morning, she heard Pres. Roosevelt’s voice, tinny and full of static, addressing the American people.  Self, an incorrigible writer, grabbed a pen and pad and took notes.
• Today self tried a Mixed Berry Pie from Gracie’s on Laurel Street in San Carlos.  She’s always had a fondness for Gracie’s, for this is a local fave.  Not to mention it has the same name as her Dear Departed Gracie, whose death in April 2011 broke self’s heart.  But — back to the Mixed Berry Pie.  That is, OMG, the BEST, absolutely the BEST Mixed Berry Pie self has ever tasted.  Absolutely bursting with berries, and just the right amount of tartness.  Perfect heated up, with a dollop of ice cream.
• The Man was watching Predator 3.  The one with Adrien Brody.  He gets to bare his chest.  Thank God, he is very buff.  Self loves these Predator movies.  There’s no finesse about them at all.  This one even has a yakuza.  You know, that Last Stand Scene in the first Predator, when the Native American guy decides to stand and fight, and the Predator shreds him in something like two minutes?  The same thing happens here.  Guess who gets to be the sacrificial victim this time?  Come to think of it, Predator is sort of like Survivor, only of course one has aliens.  But the thinking is the same.  That is, they both encourage self to imagine herself in that place with those people, and she always ends up coming to the same conclusion:  She will be the first casualty.  The first one kicked off the island.  Indubitably.
• In the commercial break, self learns that Justified Season 4 STARTS JANUARY 8!  OMG, there he is: Timothy Olyphant in the Stetson (only this time self isn’t sure if it’s still white).  OMG, OMG, OMG!

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

“Snow White and the Huntsman”

The abovementioned was the last movie self saw before leaving for Scotland.  In fact, she saw it only a few hours before the husband took her to the airport to catch her British Airways flight to London.

Self liked it so much, she wanted to blog about it immediately.  But it turned out to be quite a hectic week.  At any rate, having finally settled down in Midlothian, Scotland, and having grown more accustomed to a significant increase in her daily intake of wine, she is at last ready to blog about the movie.  Hallelujah!

Let’s see, what are the things self liked so much about it?

• Chris Hemsworth —  Methinks the hunk can act!  He might even be a better actor than Channing!
• Kristen Stewart —  Several weeks (maybe even months) ago, self discovered that Niece G hates K-Stew.  Unaccountably, self loves her.  She loved her in “Panic Room” and in “Into the Wild.”  She was a good choice to play Bella in the Twilight movies.  Here, K-Stew has a vomiting scene.  Unquestionably, no other actress can give herself over so completeley to the portrayal of a woman who is about to die in a particularly nasty way.    K-Stew’s face actually goes all red, and she starts toppling this way and that on the snow.  Tell self there isn’t another actress in the entire world who can vomit so convincingly.  Self is serious.
• Charlize Theron and her various get-ups.  In particular, the yellow-green, embroidered-all-over gown, and the one with black feathers.  But it’s also Charlize’s acting:  you really, really feel her pain, her wanting to be “the most beautiful” because that is the source of her power.  Admittedly, her character goes to very extreme lengths.  There’s a shot of Charlize’s naked back that self found shockingly repellent.
• The voice-over.  Self really needed that voice-over, especially in the first battle scene.  It elicited from self an unexpected level of stomach-churning tension.  The only other movie that’s gotten self to this level of stomach-churning tension was “Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2,” the one with Jessica Biehl, and last year’s “Immortals.”
• The scenery (Scotland?).
• The death scene of the King, Snow White’s father (Nasty as all get-out)
• The background music, especially that ethereally voiced song which played during Snow White’s dash across the Scottish moors.  There was also the appearance of a startlingly huge white stag (which immediately called to mind Miyazaki’s powerful “Princess Mononoke”:  self recalled seeing the Miyazaki movie at least four times)
• The battle scenes were pretty rousing, as well.

Now, in contrast to “Mirror, Mirror,” which asked the audience to swallow the fact that Lilly Collins aka Snow White could blend into the countryside while wearing an absolutely sumptuous and voluminous mustard-colored cape, in this movie Snow White has an appropriately haggard look (She’s been locked up in a tower, all these years), and she gets muddy.

When self first saw the previews for this movie, when she saw the trolls or whatever you call those CGI creatures, she just didn’t think it would work.  A fantasy Snow White?  With Snow White brandishing a sword?  Puh-leaze!  She’d already seen “Mirror, Mirror,” and liked it immensely. How could there be two Snow White movies in the same year?  It was like 2006 all over again, when audiences were treated to two competing movies about magicians:  “The Illusionist,” starring Ed Norton and Paul Giamatti, and “The Prestige,” which featured Christian Bale and Michael Caine.  Why does Hollywood do this?  There was also 2007, when there were two competing bio-pics on Truman Capote.  Audiences that year had to choose between not only two very different portrayals of Capote, but also between Catherine Keener’s and Sandra Bullock’s portrayals of Carson McCullers.

But, you know what?  Self had exactly the same attitude when she saw the “Star Trek” re-boot, and she emerged from that movie totally believing in J. J. Abrams and Zach Quinto.

So, “Snow White and the Huntsman” now joins “The Exotic Marigold Hotel” as one of her favorite movies of 2012.

Stay tuned.

Bernini’s MEDUSA at the Legion of Honor, and Thoughts on Ridley Scott’s ALIEN

So many exhibits, so little time!

It seems like forever that self’s been wanting to go see Bernini’s Medusa, which has been on loan to the Legion of Honor from Rome’s Musei Capitolini (and is leaving shortly!).  Yet another legacy from the wonderful John Buchanan, who put in the pipeline so many great exhibits at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Leafing through the museum’s Fall 2011 magazine, self sees, in close-up, a picture of this magnificent sculpture.

How curious:  last night, self and the husband watched “Alien,” and this time around (only her nth viewing of this classic), self was particularly struck by the tight close-ups of Ripley’s face when she is in the space pod, escaping from the Nostromo.  There’s a lot of shaky cam work (Ridley Scott must have been among the first to use this technique), but the focus is entirely on Ripley’s face.

There are so many ways Scott could have chosen to portray that moment.  He could have shown the engines thrusting, or the pod moving through space.  He could have shown Ripley in action, busily pressing buttons or what not.  But no.  In that scene, he showed only Sigourney Weaver’s face, her open mouth, her closed eyes, her projection of pain and exhaustion (everything shaking horribly, and the image becoming very blurred at times).  And looking at the picture of the Medusa in the Fine Arts Museums magazine, it is something of the same expression!

This is from the museum magazine:

Her hair is turning into writhing snakes which, according to Ovid, was a punishment from Minerva for having had an affair with Neptune, god of the sea.  The punishment also made Medusa an instrument of death by turning anyone who looked upon her to stone . . .   Bernini’s depiction does not describe the incident but rather the agony of Medusa’s initial dramatic transformation.  Her face is contorted with pain and anxiety and her mouth is open as if crying out.

What is remarkable about Bernini’s interpretation of this ancient mythological creature is that it conveys passion, emotion, and the humanity of the moment, rather than the monstrous and horrific aspects of Medusa treated by artists and sculptors hitherto.

Self wishes she could “capture” an image from somewhere.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

The 2011 Scream Awards (Spike TV)

This Awards Show is definitely more fun than the MTV Movie Awards, and of course way more entertaining than the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the People’s Choice Awards, or any other.

For one thing, the costumes are fan-TAS-tic!  All exotic feathers, glitter, blackened eyes, sumptuous velvet, zombies, Harold & Kumar  . . .

Quentin Tarantino is unleashed, everyone gets to show off their cool leather jackets, and there is even a category for Best Mutilation (In this category, something called The Reverse Bear Trap, from “Saw 3D:  the Final Chapter.” Self shudders to think).  As well as glimpses of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ann Hathaway, and Gary Oldman, accepting the award for Most Anticipated Movie (for “Dark Knight Rises”).

Thank goodness, NO nominations for R-Patz, K-Stew, and only one self knows of for “Harry Potter,” though the latter did win one major award category (Self forgets:  Was it something like, Best Movie of the Decade?)

The year the MTV Movie Awards stopped being fun was when “Twilight” appeared.  Because every single year after that, “Twilight” or one of its clones won Best Movie.  Yaawn.

Anyhoo, back to the Scream Awards.  Bradley Cooper accepts the award (Best Thriller) for his movie “Limitless,” which was a bad movie but was certainly better than “Red.”

Nic Cage is inducted into the Scream Hall of Fame.

Darren Aronofsky wins Best Director for “Black Swan.”

Some British actor wins “Best Science Fiction Actor” for his performance as Dr. Who (He beat out Daniel Craig —  for “Cowboys and Aliens” —  and Chris Evans aka Captain America, imagine that!!!)

As far as self can tell, the only celluloid vampires up for an award are the ones in “Let Me In” (which wins as Best Horror Movie).  Wait, that’s not quite right:  “True Blood” was up for Best TV Show (The winner in this category:  “Game of Thrones”)

Best Science Fiction Movie was “Super 8.”

Kate Beckinsale makes an excellent sartorial choice in choosing to appear in purest white (She looked great).  Self loved Chloe Moretz’s black lace dress (She’s growing up faaast!)  There was a preview of the new Sherlock Holmes movie.  And of the new Nic Cage-as-Ghost Rider movie.

Cuba Gooding, Jr., standing next to George Lucas, delivers the best line of the night:  “I know what you all are thinking:  Finally, some black men!”

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

“Super 8” Likes

• A woman with her hair done up in enormous rollers appears at a crucial juncture.
• The performances by Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning and Riley Griffiths (the “fat kid”/auteur) are really fine.

*     SPOILER ALERT!   *   SPOILER ALERT!   *   SPOILER ALERT!

• As in all the best horror movies, something sensational happens to the sheriff.
• The driver of the getaway car is stoned.  (In the future, all drivers of getaway cars should exhibit similar form of mental impairment.  This is what is called “raising the stakes”)
• The opening, a lingering shot of a sign announcing “7XX days since Last Accident,” changed to “1” day was a masterpiece of economical story-telling!  Yup, it sure was (Did it come up to the level of Spock and Uhura exchanging stolen kisses in a spaceship elevator? ‘Fraid not.  But, dear blog reader, let’s not dither over apples and oranges.  The point is, Abrams really knows how to get a story moving.)
• Number of times self actually gasped:  3
• Number of times self closed her eyes in expectation of violence (And, it really takes a lot to make self close her eyes.  She never did in “The Hurt Locker.”  In fact, self thinks the last time she was induced to close her eyes during a movie was when she watched “Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2”) :  1
• Number of people in the movie audience who clapped at the end:  About 10.  Self couldn’t count very well in the dark.

Questions:

• Why does a sleepy town with population of 12,000 need six full-time policemen?
• Why was Elle Fanning’s dad such a jerk?
• Why did Joel Courtney’s mom have to be so pretty?
• How come the Army didn’t finish off Dr. Woodward when they had the chance?  Why allow this dangerous and subversive man to teach high school biology?  Why were they not more apprised of the danger to National Security by allowing this man to live?
• Why did school authorities allow Dr. Woodward to keep a locked trailer on school grounds?  What if he were a pervert and had a stash of X-rated magazines in there, wouldn’t the school then be exposing itself to the possibility of a lawsuit?  Oh educators of xxx town, why oh why are you so lame?
• And the million dollar, most bothersome question of the day:  What the heck was inside those little white cubes?  (Self went through half the movie expecting little aliens to come popping out.  But that would have seemed too much like an “Alien” rip-off.  And we all know J. J. Abrams is too classy a director to stoop to such cheap tricks)
  

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.