What Has Six Legs And Makes Me Die Inside?

This week's Horror Roundtable is up at The Horror Blog, and we were asked:

"Name something in a horror movie that frightens you or makes you squirm but doesn’t seem to scare anyone else you know."

My reply to this query isn't exactly Earth-shattering - half the people who responded said something along the same lines. But let me just tell you: in order to find the image for this post here I googled the words "bug legs" without thinking and I swear to god I almost vomited from the images this phrase delivered. UGH. I'm going to have nightmares for weeks.
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Go Greenwood

It's taking about all the energy I can muster to push my fingers to the keyboard and write this sentence. This thrilling sentence. Well, that thrilling sentence, since that sentence is ended now. I think I'm delirious.

Anyway, as seen above, GvB has the cover-art for Jonny Greenwood (he of Radiohead)'s score to Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood. I hadn't seen it before. I'm guessing maybe somebody else hasn't. Hence this post. GvB also has a link to where two of the tracks from said score are streaming. If you care. I need my bed now. Bye.
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Today's Mood

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Robert Ford (Casey Affleck),
The Assassination of Jesse James
By The Coward Robert Ford

"He's just a human being."

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I Am Link

I'm feeling a little under-the-weather this morning - sniffles! - so I might not have the blogging joie de vivre we've all come to love and admire from me today... but here's some links!

--- The Golden Compass is playing on 800 screens for a sneak preview tomorrow night at 7pm... you can see if it's near you at this link (found via Cinematical). I already had plans tomorrow night of the unbreakable sort, so I cannot attend... [insert cursing the gods here].

--- I keep hearing amazing things about this Spanish first-person zombie flick [REC] so I figure it's high time I pointed it out - I mean, it's already slated for an American remake. Twitch has got a couple of clips up. I imagine it might get some Stateside play in the new year... one hopes...

--- I don't have much, if any, enthusiasm brewing for this Justice League movie, but they've found their Wonder Woman, apparently. She's nobody anybody's ever heard of, but she's tall, chesty, and brunette, so she's anatomically correct. So to speak.

--- This love letter from Roger Ebert to Werner Herzog is Roger at his finest.
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Say It Ain't So, Brad Pitt!

According to People (via D-Listed), Brad Pitt won't be doing any more nude scenes because he's afraid of embarrassing his kids. Fuck that shit! If I were Maddox I'd carry a framed picture of my father's ass to school every day and tell everybody that I got to go home to that. Anyway, in honor of this saddest of occasions, here's a little memorial to all we had and never realized would be snatched away from us so brutally:

You know what they say: you don't know what you got til it's gone. I think maybe Aristotle said that. Anyway, I'm gonna hole up with the director's cut of Troy and spend the next week in mourning. See ya.
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Kristen's Complex

Damn damn damn. Here's Kristen Bell on the cover of the new issue of Complex magazine (from here):

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Marry Me, Bryan Fuller

I don't know why it'd not occurred to me in the past, but after once again laughing my ass of at last night's episode of Pushing Daisies I decided to read up on the show's creator - as well as the co-creator of one of my favorite shows ever, Wonderfalls - Bryan Fuller. See, in last night's episode when, for a second week in a row, a Hitchcock-riff presented itself - Molly Shannon as Tippi Hedren being attacked by gulls had me rolling on the floor - I realized that Bryan Fuller is... what's the word? A Genius? God? (No offense to the boyfriend but) The Perfect Man?

So I went scouring the internet for some interviews with him and, after reading several, well, Bryan Fuller might just be the coolest man alive. And he's a gay! Here's a choice selection of quotes from him, all of which seem to have been created in a lab by scientists using some kind of genetic decoding of everything that makes me squeal with glee.

Bryan Fuller on how he got started (via Brilliant But Cancelled, 12/06):

"I never really fancied myself a writer. I was a huge, huge “Star Trek” fan, and I didn’t want to be a television writer as much as I wanted to be a “Star Trek” writer. And so I went to film school, and that was a very eye opening experience. Because I originally fancied myself as a director. And when I got there, it was just so technical. There were F-stops. And it was more than my delicate little brain could handle."

Bryan Fuller, talking about the tough time he had with the networks creating gay characters for Dead Like Me, his first show (which I ain't seen and am throwing on my queue today), and Wonderfalls (also via B,BC):

"And the very real fact, unfortunately, is that homosexuality makes people uncomfortable. As much as we’ve had “Will and Grace” and the loathsome “Queer as Folk.”... I do see the purpose that "Queer as Folk" serves. There is a chance for people to look around and say “Okay, there are gay people all around us.” But for me, I hated all the gay people on the show. If anything, I would be the character in the parking lot with the baseball bat. They were all, down the line, just loathsome people and I really resented them being at the forefront representing homosexual culture when they were all so reprehensible."

Bryan Fuller on one of the inspirations for Pushing Daisies and his preoccupation with death (via B,BC):

"This is going to sound awful, but some of my fondest memories as a child were going to funerals because that was sort of a very social event and I got to see lots of cousins that I didn’t normally see every day. And they weren’t as sick of my shit as my immediate family, so it was easier to talk to them about TV and movies and things that I was sort of fanatical about. They would sort of put up with it. So I always had good experiences at funerals...

I’m really curious about what happens next? People talk about near death experiences. And what is it that they see? Is it a bright light? Is it the Care Bear Village?"

Bryan Fuller on the amazing Katie Finneran, who was hysterical as Jaye's gay sister Sharon on Wonderfalls (via AfterEllen, 3/04):

"She just sings on screen. She has impeccable comic timing, and is just a brilliant actress across the board. Also, she had a part in Night of the Living Dead as part of the zombie barbeque. If you get eaten by a zombie in a horror movie, I'm in love with you."

Bryan Fuller on why Sharon was conceived of as a gay character and what he'd planned to do with her (also via AE):

"Todd [Holland, co-creator of Wonderfalls] and I are both openly gay, and I think we feel a responsibility to having gay characters on shows we create. I had a gay character (George's father) on Dead Like Me, and unfortunately after I left that show they made the character straight, which I did not appreciate and frankly, thought was really shitty. But that was just one of many things about that situation that was uncool...

[Sharon]’s a very conflicted character, one of those Log Cabin Republicans. We have a line in one of the episodes where she’s a part of the Conservative Ladies of America and her sister accuses her of using the Republican Party as a lesbian dating service. It’s a different angle that will give us a richer context and help you understand why someone who is so politically conservative might still be in the closet...

In the second season, however, we'll be able to explore those ideas more freely. There are things that happen in the first season, for example, that are setting up huge character arcs for Sharon in the second season. Huge! We have so many big things coming for Sharon -- we're going to be seeing a lot of the lesbian lawyer in the second season."

Oh if only, Bryan! Anyway, as gay as Pushing Daisies is - and man, it don't get much gayer than a duet between Kristen Chenoweth and Ellen Greene, right? - I'm looking forward to a gay character any day now! I know, I know, let's just get this writer's strike resolved and make sure Pushing Daisies gets a second season first. Patience!

Bryan Fuller on his religious upbringing (via SuicideGirls, 1/05):

"I was raised with some fucked Catholic shit."

Bryan Fuller on why Wonderfalls maybe didn't find an audience (also via SG):

"ABC launched Lost and Desperate Housewives like summer movie blockbusters. Most networks will choose one or two shows to get behind and spend that money on. Wonderfalls was not one of those shows because they didn’t think it had those things that would appeal to a mass audience. It wasn’t boobies on the beach. I wish they had got behind Wonderfalls a tenth of how they got behind North Shore. They didn’t see the commercial appeal because our main character, while stunningly beautiful, was a bit of a tomboy. She was never in dress and although you did see her perfect stomach with a bare midriff. With the advertising, we weren’t like “Don’t you want to fuck Caroline Dhavernas?”"

Bryan Fuller on casting Diana Scarwid (who played Christina in Mommie Dearest) as Jaye's mother in Wonderfalls (also via SG):

"A friend of mine was asking me if I was fag enough to ask Diana Scarwid about Mommie Dearest and I said, no, but I was definitely fag enough to ask her about Psycho 3. She sort of stared at me when I went “Remember when you pushed that nun down the bell tower at the beginning?” She just said, stop talking."

On being weird (also via SG):

"I’m occasionally stoned on the marijuana but that’s as deviant as I get as far as substances. I think it’s that weird things interest me. Weird shit comes out of my mouth which may seem like genius to some people but it’s just weird."

Seriously - the more I read, the more I fall in love. He obsesses over obscure horror bits, he wants to gay-bash the characters in Queer as Folk, and he imagines the afterlife to be something like the Care Bear Village. You are most definitely my sort of weird, Mr. Fuller.
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No Mo' Mrs. Voorhees?

I always knew, in my black heart of hearts, that the whole "Patty Clarkson will play Mrs. Voorhees" rumor would likely never come to pass. I mean, sure, Patty's shown herself to be perfectly willing to dive into low-budget horror in the past - she did Larry Fessenden's Wendigo and Lucky McKee's The Woods, after all - so perhaps if the stars aligned it could've maybe happened, but I think at this point we can agree it's not to be.

Especially now with word from ShockTilYouDrop that the latest Friday the 13th - to be directed by TCM-remake-auteur Marcus Nispel - is not really a remake after all. Sayeth STYD:

"Platinum Dunes' Friday the 13th project. What do you label it? Remake? Re-launch?

After speaking to a source close to the project who wishes to stay outside of the spotlight (for now), we're striking the former term out of future reports on the film.

"It's not a remake," says our insider. Don't even expect an origin tale - as some production listings around Hollywood are pegging it as. Imagine if there was a story to be told somewhere between parts two and four, just add water (from Camp Crystal Lake, duh), insert a leaner, meaner, faster Jason Voorhees, set to "blend" and you've got the recipe for what Dunes, writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift and director Marcus Nispel got cookin'."

Well there's already something "between parts two and four" and it's called Friday the 13th : Part III and it's in 3-D and it's awesome. Eyeballs a'poppin!

This whole "leaner, meaner, faster" nonsense is giving me Rob Zombie's Halloween inspired shivers, too. Jason's about the quick slice-n-dice, the slow lumbering build-up and the jump scare; he's not about seventeen-minute long torture scenes. Let's hope they remember the spirit of fun inherent to the series - these were never ever meant to be taken at any level of seriousness - and don't make it an ugly mess.

Maybe there's a juicy older camp counselor part for Patty? Or she could always don the mask and overalls! She'd certainly make for a leaner Jason!
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Today's Mood

Here's to a VERY Happy Birthday for the amazing Anna Faris!

Doing to Ryan Reynolds exactly what I'd do if I met him:


Samantha James (Anna Faris),
Just Friends

"You and I are gonna be the greatest musical manager team
since Jessica Simpson and her father
only you and I get to mreow and they can't,
'cause it's illegal. I looked it up."

I know I've talked about how incredibly funny Faris is in this otherwise mediocre (at best) movie - hell, she's incredibly funny in every movie she's done - but it bears repeating, especially since she still ain't getting the respect she deserves. I'm gonna keep on hitting this same note until somebody out there listens!

Now I'm just counting the minutes until Gregg Araki's Smiley Face hits DVD in January so I can laugh once more. I won't laugh until then, I swear to Christ!


Okay I lied; that picture totally has me cracking up. Love ya, Anna!
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Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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The Ice Storm (1997)

I guess we can consider this a belated Thanksgiving-themed Way Not To Die, seeing as how the film revolves around the splendid holiday and I didn't do one of these last week, so busy was I filling my maw with mashed potatoes.

Anyway, nobody - and I mean nobody! - can tell me that little Mikey Carver's death (uh... spoiler?) in The Ice Storm isn't one of the most affecting deaths ever put on-screen. The accident itself is so haunting - the crisp air, the silence - and so beautifully shot that it's permanently etched itself into my brain. I haven't read Rick Moody's book on which the film was based so I don't know if he describes Mikey's orange parka specifically or not, but if not then the costume designer Carol Oditz [side-note: How did she not receive an Oscar nomination? Not to mention a win. Not just this jacket but so many pieces of this film's wardrobe I can instantly conjure up memories of - Christina Ricci's red cape, Sigourney Weaver's giant wooden necklace, Joan Allen's bubble umbrella, Allison Janney's semi-psychedelic black-and-white "key party" dress] deserves huge accolades for finding such a perfect costume. Not only is it just right period-wise, but - and I'm sure Ang Lee had something to do with this, as well - it accomplishes so much all on it's own. The contrast of its day-glo orange on the black and white scenery is... striking, to put it mildly, and when it does come time for the wires to fall and electrocute poor Mikey the parka itself speaks for the violence and horror - that shock of color, if you will - of the moment while Lee - naturally - keeps all else restrained. And from a practical standpoint, when Ben Hood (Kevin Kline) comes upon the body a little while later, the costuming choice makes Mikey all the easier to spot. It's a perfectly rendered scene - both tragic and beautiful - in a film full of such moments.

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Previous Ways Not To Die: A Mouthful Of Flare -- Taken By The TV Lady -- Bitten By A Zombie -- Eaten By Your Mattress -- Stuffed To Splitting -- Face Stuck In Liquid Nitrogen -- Crushed By Crumbling Church Debris -- Bitten By The Jaws Of Life -- A Machete To The Crotch -- Showering With A Chain-Saw -- In A Room Filled With Razor Wire -- Pod People'd With Your Dog -- Force-Fed Art -- Skinned By A Witch -- Beaten With An Oar -- Curbed -- Cape Malfunction -- In The Corner -- Cooked In A Tanning Bed -- Diced -- Punched Through The Head -- Bugs Sucking On Your Head
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A Pushing Daisies Public Service Announcement

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I'm ripping this off from AICN but it's muy importante so getting the word out is critical: tonight's episode of Pushing Daisies, the one where Molly Shannon and Mike White guest-star, is airing at 9pm instead of the usual 8pm. I know I'll be running home post-work to reprogram my Tivo.

And seeing as how there's been no Katee Sackhoff in the past couple episodes of Bionic Woman and there's no sign of her in the preview for tonight's episode I think it's high time the show got shafted from the venerable Season Pass. What a BORING mess it is without her. I'll tune back in if Katee ever shows back up, but otherwise I couldn't care less. See ya, losers!

I mean Michelle Ryan and crew by "losers" by the way. Not y'all. Never y'all! Y'all rock! Y'all roll! So on, so forth, love in an elevator. ... I think I'm going a bit batty today. A bit. A weeeeee bit. Sigh.
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Gratuitous David Beckham

It's all sporty up in My...Pants today, huh? All of these are swiped from a huge gallery at JJ of Mr. Golden Balls playing some game - what? am I supposed to pay attention to details? - and looking fine as usual in Australia yesterday.

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I Don't Need No Reason For More Jake!

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I'm posting this picture of Jake Gyllenhaal (swiped from the Master of All Jake-Ceremonies herself) just because I think he looks especially adorable in it and I hadn't seen it before and this Namath-news is still happily playing out in my brain. Swoon.

That's all. Carry on!
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Today's Mood

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Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar),
Southland Tales

"Scientists are saying the future
is going to be far more futuristic
than they originally predicted."

One thing that I haven't mentioned amidst the brief vitriol I've spewed at Southland Tales is this: the one shining beacon of hope is SMG's performance as the politically-minded porn-star talk-show host Krysta Now. She's terrific. If the entire movie had had a grasp on what it was trying to do, on its tone, like she has, then it all would've worked out much much better. Yay Smidge!
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Jake Gyllenhaal In A Football Uniform

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Oh dear. It's too early in the morning for my mind to be filled with these dirty, dirty thoughts. From DH:

"Universal Pictures is planning a biopic of 60's American gridiron legend Joe Namath with Jake Gyllenhaal to play the Hall of Fame quarterback reports Variety.

Namath was the first football player to achieve real rock-star status. The Pennsylvania kid scored a record salary and became a sensation on the field, in nightclubs and on Madison Avenue as the first star to become a magnet for commercials.

His success was a key factor in paving the way to a merger between the then two football leagues and helped establish football as a TV sport.

David Hollander will write the script once the writers strike is over. Gyllenhall, currently filming Jim Sheridan's "Brothers," is next committed to an untitled Doug Liman sci-fi thriller."

First off, it's good to see Jake's filling up his calendar with work for the future; I wouldn't want the relative (financial) non-success of the projects he's picked lately to harm his ability to grace our screens. Especially if he'll be gracing our screens with... lockerrooms... and... jockstraps... and... I'm sorry, I have to go and find a paper bag to breath into right now.
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Eva Green's Sleeves

This post is specifically for the boyfriend, who is obsessed with Eva Green's penchant for wearing long sleeves. He loves her for it. Seriously; it's a little weird. But then that's why I love him. Well that and he cooks for me. I need to eat!

Here she is at the London premiere of The Golden Compass last evening (via D-Listed):


She is a stone fox, that's for certain. And in related news, I'm sooooo pleased that the film got a good notice in The Guardian. My worries dissipate... a little. Only 10 more days til we'll see for ourselves, anyway!
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Pics of the Day

Well... yeah. Obviously I'm posting the first official shots from Indiana Jones and the Something Crystal Something. Via JJ:

Harrison's still got it! If by "it" I mean "a flask of Jack Daniels." And I do. Obviously.
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Early Rainbows Arrive

Some asshole lucky soul received the big-time box-set of Radiohead's In Rainbows in the mail by mistake yesterday! As y'all remember, the single download version was released pay-whatever-you-want a few weeks back; a second option, for those of us psychotically-obsessed (like me), was to pay around 80 bucks for a Disc-box that includes a second CD, as well as a hardcover book with loads or artwork and vinyl copies of both albums as well. All in a pretty binder thingamajig. In a word: Insta-orgasm. It's due to be released on December 3rd.

Anyway, some "person" has already gotten their copy. Over at atease this "person" downloaded a bunch of pictures of said set; here are a couple:


You can see more at the link.

Sigh. Why do the fates never smile upon meeeeeeee? Oh well, it's only a few days, aka FOREVER, until I hold it in my own greedy paws. I'll survive. I'll survive by making everyone else's lives miserable! Ha ha ha! You suck.
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Hi There, Mr. Joker Man

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Is it wrong that I'm suddenly finding Heath Ledger as The Joker (pic from ComingSoon) tremendously attractive? Something about that pose... rowr. He can gas me with nitrous-oxide any time.
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I Am Link

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--- Two pretty faces have joined the cast of the remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger - Simon Baker and Shane West (via DH). In better news, the delightful Rebecca Pidgeon, aka Mrs. David Mamet, is also listed in the cast; I've loved her ever since The Spanish Prisoner ("Well dog my cats."). Plus, Hope Davis!

--- Watching the Watchmen - The first pics from Zach Snyder's adaptation of Alan Moore's Watchmen have surfaced. I'm still undecided as to whether this is a good idea or not.

--- In the heat of the holiday moment I forgot to offer up a link to last week's Horror Roundtable at The Horror Blog, so here ya go - we're talking about books n' stuff.

--- Damion checked out Skull & Bones, a new gay horror flick, at Queering the Apparatus; he says:

"Ultimately, while I don't think the movie is great, I really admire Slaughter and what he is trying to do here, and I think this movie is worth seeing... but this film may be trying to do too many things in too short a span. It is, at once, campy, thrilling, horrific, silly, irreverent, shocking, socially conscious, rebellious, proudly irresponsible, perverted, and too tame... and that is a lot for one 73 minute movie to embody."

So I guess I'll check this one out eventually... I've been burned by recent queer cinema so much in the past couple of years I (shamefully) don't really even bother anymore... it's nice to get a heads-up to something possibly somewhat interesting.

--- Again I was bored silly by last night's episode of Heroes... not even a shirtless Zachary Quinto could draw me in. There was one moment's saving grace, though - how hysterical was the moment when Cheerleader caught Kristen Bell spying on her tender ash-pouring ceremony and we watched as Kristen clumsily looked for someplace to stash her Big Gulp cup? THAT, my friends, was comedy. Otherwise, a big fat meh. How much can I care about characters that continually believe whatever they're told by complete strangers? Everyone behaves like a total moron constantly so the threadbare plot can creak forward with all the urgency of my grandmother putting together a puzzle. Blah blah blah. I'm to the point now where I hope Kristen is killed in next week's "shocking" mid-season finale so I can stop watching altogether. And I'm sure y'all hope it happens too so y'all can stop listening to me bitch. It's win-win!

End rant. There's an interview with Kristen Bell over at E!Online is my only point here.
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Today's Mood

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Burke (William Fichtner),
Go

"So, Zach.
Would you say you're open to new things?"

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