the groundhog day project

It did surprise me that I didn't have more to say about Innerspace . Or anything to say about it, really. It was like I could tell why I thought it was entertaining back in the day, and it was still fun, but there just wasn't much substance to it. Or I wasn't in the mood for the substance it had. And, so tonight, jump out of order to watch first Rent ( 621 622 623 ) and now back to 1987 for a little Adventures in Babysitting ... Both directed by Chris Columbus. Both co-starring Anthony Rapp. And not just a coincidence. I mentioned that Rapp was in the movie I'd be watching later to my daughter and the conversation turned to Rent and the poor adaptation that Columbus did, and yada yada yada Adventures in Babysitting is on now. And, while it has been years since I've seen this one, too, I feel like there will be things to talk about. Like Chris (Elisabeth Shue as the titular babysitter, not the director, who is clearly more at home directing this (his d...

I'm torn, on this final day with Halloween II ; I wanted to do some Christ-Figuring but I cannot decide if I want to do a serious sort of figuring focused on Loomis or a semi-serious one focused on Laurie, or a probably not serious at all one focused on Michael. The vital question, because I think we know what I got from a movie like this back when I was five years old, is can I manage all three. And, in the process make an even bigger farce of the Kozlovic-Black Scale of Christ-Figuring. Note, in case you are new: the scale is scored out of 25, but there are more than 25 items. 1 tangible and 2 central are easy here, but Michael and Loomis take the lead over Laurie with 3 outsider and Michael takes the lead with 4 divinely sourced (though I could make the argument for Loomis having that point, too). Michael: 4, Loomis: 3, Laurie: 2. No one gets the point for 4.5 miraculous birth but Laurie gets the point for 5 alter ego . I'm tempted to give that point to Michael as...

Lest I complain too much, I will get one last detail of scientist 's piece out of the way. scientist describes the the death of Nurse Karen (Pamela Susan Shoop) like this: ...for sheer nastiness, nothing beats the hot-tub boiling of Karen Bailey. This sequence is truly ugly, with long, loving shots of Ms Karen's hideously blistered face interspersed with equally loving shots of her bare breasts--which, by the way, shouldn't be bare; when Michael enters the room, her towel is beneath her arms; when he grabs her, it's mysteriously around her waist. Also disturbing here is Michael caressing Karen before he gets to work, another action at variance with the child-man concept of the first film. Except, while you could call the shots of Karen's face "lingering" (at best), calling them "loving" suggests that scientist might have a problem. Also, there are not shots of her bare breasts while Michael is killing her. He dunks her five times into the wa...

That being said, Carpenter made the choice deliberately to give Halloween II more gore than the original. The director, Rick Rosenthal, was trying to ape the original a little more, but Carpenter altered it, reshot scenes (and I believe shot a few new ones as well). Our friend from the other day , scientist , may think this means Halloween II has gone "off the rails", but the "rails" for films like this were headed toward more gore, toward an increased body count, because, well, that was inevitable. scientist also argues, "The whole point of Halloween is, after all, that its events have no point." But, while the original film may not offer a specific motive for Michael's kills, it does explicitly namecheck " fate ". Every person's fate is to die. Every character in a slasher film (even if at the time, there was no such thing as a "slasher film" just yet) is looking at the possibility that fate will come soon. scientist ...

...and I like the gore. But, I will get to that. First, the promised list, films released between Halloween and Halloween II that fit the "slasher" bill (even if they were likely not called that at the time; more likely, they were marketed as "splatter" films or "thrillers" depending on the intended audience. The films are: Driller Killer , Savage Weekend , Tourist Trap , The Hollywood Strangler Meets the Skid Row Slasher -- (How have I 1) never heard of this one, because that title is so amazingly evocative and on-the-nose as to a brilliant piece of art regardless of the film itself (and, it is worth noting, Friday the 13th was marketed based on the title alone, before a script had even been written), and 2) never seen it? Hell, too many of the movies on this list I have not seen. Also, since I am interrupting, a few of the films on this list push the definition of "slasher" a bit, but I was trying to be as complete as I could. And, I...

Yesterday was an exercise, a deliberate exercise, in reevaluating Michael Myers. And, it was really fun. Not entirely serious, but also not entirely tongue-in-cheek. In fact, I think my urge to even write such things is indicative of my tendency to embrace the bad guy, in film, and in life. My favorite subject as a history major was sixties radicals, and I even had one of my lengthy pieces on the domestic terrorist group Weatherman published (and I still have the urge to write more about them sometimes). I've got like two whole shelves of books related to that organization and other violent dissidents and radicals. And more titles on my Amazon wishlist. Speaking of--and I will connect these things in a better way as I go--my Amazon wishlist, I only just now moved to the top of my list Richard Nowell's Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle . It surprises me that I have not gotten around to buying it by now; maybe because Google Books will allows quite lon...

I decided last night, after innumerable viewings of Halloween II over the course of the past 36 years, that Laurie does not shoot Michael in the eyes. I mean, yeah, he's purely and simply evil, and he's got some Cult of the Thorn pseudo-immortality going on, but as soon as Michael was back for The Return of Michael Myers in '88, it was either suspend my disbelief over eyes healing, accept that it takes 7 years for eyes to grow back when you've got cult of the thorn magic in you (even though the specifics of the Cult of the Thorn were still a couple movies off)... Or, the obvious option, which didn't occur to me until last night. 1) Laurie does not shoot Michael in the eyes. She shoots him, sure. But, she is not that good (or lucky) with a gun. 2) Michael, being all supernatural evil and serving the (incorrectly identified) Celtic Lord of the Dead Samhain, cries blood. It's not just an interesting visual, blood coming down like tears. It's tears. Michael i...

When I wrote about Halloween II before , I referred to my younger self, standing around watching the scene in which Loomis tells Sheriff Brackett that he shot Michael 6 times being filmed as "a wee little, impressionable child." Today, when someone on Facebook asked people to post an image of a fictional character that impacted their life, I posted an image of Michael Myers, atop the stairs at the Doyle house in the original Halloween . I wrote about my impressionable self and then I talked about Michael's psychosexual fury (Clover 1987 1992). The slasher film is explicitly tied to visible acts of sex. The kind of thing my mother would try (and usually fail) to cover my eyes for. Not the kills, which were more gory than the original. (I actually only just now learned that the decision to add more gore than the original was Carpenter's decision, not director Rick Rosenthal's. Carpenter supposedly even directed some scenes to make them bloodier. Since the orig...

Killers wandering the streets. Young people dying when they make the wrong choices. Doctors and sheriffs ineffectual. And, evil never dies. This is the world introduced to me by Halloween when I was a kid. Long tracking shots. Deliberate use of the background and the foreground. POV shots to both put us in a role of the killer and to manipulate us into feeling him approach. A simple but evocative score. This is the cinematic marvel introduced to me by Halloween when I was a kid. It gave me something to be afraid of, and it gave me something to love.           One observation, and it only just occurred to me. Who was coming to look at the Myers house? Laurie leaves keys under the mat for her father because people are coming to look at the house. Did they ever show up? Did Michael kill them, too? Or did they get lucky because he was loitering outside Haddonfield High? Later Brackett and Loomis get into the house because the front door is unlocked. Mayb...

Consider another angle. Maybe Michael isn't Laurie's id . Rather, Laurie is Michael's super-ego. Michael wasn't waiting for the opportunity to kill again. He could have done that at any time. He was waiting to be judged for having killed. This is why he follows Tommy first. He can feel a connection with Tommy. Tommy is just like him, a little boy full of imagination and potential. And, Laurie looks after Tommy. Like Judith didn't look after Michael all those years ago. This means Laurie's repression is even more important to the story than already suggested. She isn't free of Michael's violence (up to a point--and that point matters) because she doesn't have sex and do drugs (Notably, Michael probably has no idea Laurie was smoking in Annie's car. He's following them, but that doesn't mean he can see what's going on inside.) but because being that pure, virginal girl, she can pass judgment on him. He wants approval. He wants disa...

So then there's little ol' me. I'm two, I'm three, I'm four, I'm five. I'm all the ages since. And, honestly, I am still figuring out what the fuck all of the things around me are for, and I am blessed with the wonder that is cinema. Movies are just one of many stimuli that get injected into the mix. And, Halloween is just one of those movies. But, oh what a movie. And what a great movie to see often growing up, watching the way it is put together, the way it is structured. There's not really any fluff. There's odd choices here and there--Annie could have just driven past rather than stop and talk to her father, for example, then there's no risk of getting caught with that joint. But then, does Brackett tell Loomis about the robbery details? And, do we know just how worried Laurie is at getting caught over this one transgression? Each detail serves the whole. And, some of the details are beautiful. That high pitched music cue when the light g...

So then there's little ol' me. What am I--two, three, four, five? Somewhere in there. My brain is still figuring out what the fuck all of the things around me are for, and blessed with the wonder that is cinema, movies are just one of many stimuli that get injected into the mix. And, Halloween is just one of those movies. But, oh what a movie. Whether you take Michael as representative of fate, of death, of the inevitable, of moral judgment, of Laurie Strode's id--yes, that's a thing; just see Muir (2009) and it's right there along with his section about fate--Michael is some... thing . However much he appears an average kid in that opening, however much he looks like a normal man without his mask (when Laurie briefly gets it off of him right before Loomis shoots him), and however much the sequels explain him, he is a force of nature, or a force beyond nature. More supernatural than natural... Except, that isn't really true. I mean, in this film and this film ...

Nathan Steinmetz (2016), writing for Bloody Disgusting , breaks down the original Halloween simply: Halloween , the original Halloween , isn't about a lineage of evil, or psychic kids, or Druid cults, or live streamed haunted houses or even Busta Rhymes. Halloween is about Michael Myers and, perhaps most importantly, the concepts of fear and responsibility. It's about The Boogeyman. A specter of judgment and fear designed to scare children into behaving and punish those who don't. I think I can get behind that. Like the horror film version of Bentham's panopticon. Kids, don't go out at night and get up to no good things like smoking pot and having premarital sex, or a mindless killer just might find you, strangle you, slit your throat, or pin you to a kitchen cabinet with a knife, then leave you as part of a tableau of warning ... I've got so many different articles and blog entries, even a couple books on Google Books, open on my phone, plus a binder o...