Got Wood, Wolverine

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Hey y'all Happy Halloween! How is everybody doing? I hope the storm and its aftermath hasn't been too terrible for any of you guys and/or gals. All's fine at my end of Manhattan... the other end notsomuch from what I hear. (If you can throw some cash at the Red Cross.) Indeed due to downtown's troubles I've been cooped up at home (there's no electricity at my office), hence the blog silence. I've just been watching movies and junk. I'm making my first real out-of-doors foray (the local Dunkin' Donuts doesn't count) tonight to see the remake of Maniac way downtown from where I am.

I know there's tons and tons of news for me to catch up on - if I'm stuck at home another day I'll try my hands at blogging a little bit from here, but it might maintain semi-quietude around here for a bit until things start clicking back into place. If you're positively desperate for me though (don't say otherwise, please, I am fragile) you can read something by me over at The Film Experience where I wrote up a piece about Piper Laurie's performance in Carrie for Nat's Oscar Horrors series. Dirty pillows!

And hey look at this brand new shot of Hugh Jackman and his muscles in The Wolverine (via)! That sure is something, eh?

The 13 Whores of Halloween: Day XIII

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Elvira (Cassandra Peterson),

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)

"And if they ever ask about me, tell them I was more than just a great set of boobs. I was also an incredible pair of legs. And tell them... tell them that I never turned down a friend. I... never turned down a stranger for that matter. And tell them... tell them that when all is said and done, I only ask that people remember me by two simple words. Any two, as long as they're simple."

Happy Halloween, guys and ghouls!

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The 13 Whores of Halloween: Day XII

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Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee),
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)

"I am the muffin."

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poll by twiigs.com

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The 13 Whores of Halloween: Day XI

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Trash (Linnea Quigley), The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

"Well for me, the worst way would be for a bunch of old men

to get around me, and start biting and eating me alive.

First, they would tear off my clothes..."

Trash tears off her own clothes, dammit!

And she does her own biting, dammit!

The Tide Is High (But I'm Holding On)

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Hello! I got back in New York last evening after a few days off-line, just in time for all Sandy-doused hell to break loose. Well, almost, or perhaps. Eventually? We will see! I have battened down my hatches (double-sided tape) and what not - anyway, I won't be back to blogging just yet, as promised. If the city still stands, then tomorrow? I have a pile of TV shows and movies to watch, and cookies and ice cream to get me through. I will survive. Y'all stay safe! If you've got a Gyllenhaal to keep you warm, hold him close.

The 13 Whores of Halloween: Day X

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Rod (Jsu Garcia), A Nightmare on Elm Street

"I had a hard-on this morning when I woke up, Tina...

Had your name written all over it."

I mean... his name is Rod. Nuff said.

 (see more Rod here)

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The 13 Whores of Halloween: Day IX

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Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), Psycho

"I'll lick the stamps."

Listen, it's just a fact of life - John Gavin asks you to give up respectable girl propriety for a lil' afternoon delight, you put on your best bullet bra and you make a go of it.

Similarly, you then cheat and lie and steal just to get some more. It's just the way it is. Notice that it's not until Marion gets outside of town, far away from the diabolical hypnosis of his spell-casting nethers, that sense begins to work its way back into her. And so she finally decides to wash the lingering stink from that spectacular specimen of man off of herself, and be a good girl again... too late, too late.

The 13 Whores of Halloween: Day VIII

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Chris Hargenson (Nancy Allen), Carrie 

Oh, Billy. Billy. Oh, Billy. Oh, Billy. Billy. 

Oh, Billy. Oh. Oh, Billy. I hate Carrie White. 

I was torn over which "Nancy Allen in a Brian DePalma movie" whore to use - Chris, who mouth-coerces her asshole boyfriend towards villainy, or her good-time-girl in Dressed To Kill... ultimately I came down on the side of Carrie because I always come down on the side of Carrie, but there's always next year. 

Point being, Carrie White might've won our hearts as the virgin in pink ("It's pink, Mama") but Brian DePalma married the girl who will take out her gum and blow you in the front seat of your car, so bad girls win. (Unless the "good" girl has telekinesis, in which case I suppose they don't win so much as die by explosion and fire.)

The 13 Whores of Halloween: Day VII

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Barb (Margot Kidder), Black Christmas

"Capital F, E, little L, LA, TIO." 

Barb's more of a whore in words than a whore in deeds - she doesn't seem to do anything but sit around the house getting drunk all Christmas break. But she never stops talking about sex, and oh what glorious dialogue it is. I do wish I had more opportunities in life to say, "Darling, you can't rape a townie." It just never comes up. I need to run with better crowds. 

Alas Barb's smart-ass sex-fueled comebacks put her on the wrong side of the actual murderer holed up inside their sorority house and she ends up on the business end of a crystal unicorn of all things. Yes, unicorns have business ends. They're like mullets that way.

Bend It Like Bana

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(click to embiggen) I considered photo-shopping all those distracting words off of Eric's midsection there (something about Tom Cruise being a serial killer?) but I figured I'd mess up the shapeliness of his Bana-ness under that tee and that'd be a loss too great to bear. I did manage to find the picture without the type...

... but as you see, it's cropped ever so slightly north of the shot with the type, and that is a loss too great to bear. God he's despicably perfect, isn't he?

Anyway here's the deal - I'm offline for the next four days. I'll be back Monday; in the meantime you'll continue getting your daily fix of All Hallows harlots, no worries. And if you're celebrating Halloween this weekend, have a ghoulishly grand time!

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Two Days!

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Bryan Fuller's Munsters reimagining Mockingbird Lane airs on NBC this Friday night at 8pm, I hope you've set your DVR... hell even better, I hope you've organized a viewing party where you'll all dress up as your favorite Munster! That would be awesome. I'm not doing it, but it would be awesome. I would be Herman I guess - the tall guy always has to be Herman. (My inner Lily yearns to be free.)

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Gattaca (1997)

Jerome: My eyes are prettier. 

Oh sure there might be vital lessons about the self and scientific responsibility and all that jazz to eke out of Gattaca, but the moral implications of biological engineering haven't come anywhere near being as important in my life these past fifteen years as Jude Law's eyes have, so, as they say, the eyes have it.

Yes that's right, Gattaca was released fifteen years ago today. It was the first time I ever took note of Jude - I didn't see Wilde until years later, and it was still a few years before he became a star (deservedly so) with The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Anyway, Gattaca's awesome. Anybody else a fan? It's a shame Andrew Niccol's made nothing but crap ever since. 

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... enjoying this view.

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Frankenweenie in 175 Words or Less

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At least I'll always have Weird Girl and Mr. Whiskers, eh? They were far and beyond the best thing about Frankenweenie, which I wanted to love a lil' bit more than I did. As usual with Mr. Burton it's the little character quirks and designs that delight, while the story leaves you ever so slightly wanting. Whereas the original live-action short felt ace at just half an hour (bonus points for Shelley Duvall goodness), the padding to get this one up to feature-length sticks out all willy-nilly like Sally's autumnal padding after she leaps from her tower in The Nightmare Before Christmas. For better and for worse it plays like a Tim Burton Retrospective, with hints of Christmas and Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands and even Ed Wood (hey there Martin Landau) stitched together to keep it bopping along. (As an aside, the brilliantly funny speech Martin Landau's teacher gives about the importance of science in the face of the mindless thought-police is definitely making the video that will accompany Tim's eventual honorary Oscar.)

Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?

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Suffy the Snowman in Day of the Xmas Dead

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This is why I get up in the morning. I get up in hopes that something this incredible will present itself to me. And here we are, and here it is, and today is an excellent day.
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The 13 Whores of Halloween: Day VI

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Lucy (Sadie Frost), Bram Stoker's Dracula

"Quincey... you're such a beast. 

Will you kiss me, Quincey?"

There's no sating Sadie's thirst! She's got three suitors - hey we did a Do Dump or Marry for them once! - yet she can't help herself from rubbing herself up on every Tom Dick and Werewolf... 

Hell she crams her tongue down her best friend's throat too. Lustful sinning wanton thing, be damned! Or you know, that's how the story goes. But she does so fabulously!

She's gonna wear white, dammit!

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Good Morning, World

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A happy 65th birthday to Kevin Kline, a man who was a huge part of my adolescence that I never seem to give much thought to these days. I mean, for Soapdish alone he deserves all my eternal affections (same goes for Sally Field who, under such conditions, I was unjustly harsh to in my Lincoln review - forgive me, Sally! We'll always have The Sun Always Sets!) but besides that look at the list - Dave! Grand Canyon! A Fish Called Wanda! The Ice Storm!!! These were some of my favorite movies when I was just starting to realize how much I wanted movies to be a part of my life. (Although my college course in cinema and race got me over Grand Canyon pretty quickly.) I hope that Charlie Kaufman's Frank or Francis works out so I can be reminded of what he can do.
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Vincent Price One Time

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

A Simple Plan (1998)

Hank: Everything goes to sleep.

Happy 53, Sam Raimi!

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