the groundhog day project

So, Octopussy begins with Bond (Roger Moore, again, and always my baseline for evaluating any Bond) trying to blow up some satellite thingy, failing, and getting away in a plane hidden in a horse trailer (in a sequence that is not nearly as exciting as I remember it being when I was a kid). And, thinking on what's coming in this film--it has been a while since I've watched it--it's occurred to me, because sometimes I can't quite put my finger on what these old movies put into my head all those years ago, that--and maybe this is odd since I was just seven when this film came out--that this is where I first heard of Faberge eggs, and when I was an undergrad history major, I took a few Russia-specific history classes and even did some research into Faberge eggs and how much they cost to own, what makes each one unique, stuff like that. (Now, two things occur to me: 1) that was a really long and convoluted sentence. I apologize. 2) Writing that just now, it occurred to ...

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...

It’s not just feminism that birthed the slasher film. I’m reminded of CNTV 393 at USC, particularly September 27, 1994. Jess’ announcement—“I’m pregnant”—we only hear from outside the window. We are only in the room in time for Peter’s reaction. Essentially, we are with him , not with her. Not right then. That day in class we watched Ten North Frederick , starring Gary Cooper. I barely remember the movie and only generally recall the notion of “male melodrama.” But, fret not, because I still have my notes. Not the quality of notes I might have from more recent forays in the college classroom, but there’s some useful information. For instance, Professor Casper defined the male melodrama as a movie that “traces a series of adventures, professional labors, and sexual episodes of a male protagonist through which the male comes to some understanding about the meaning of life, usually involving spiritual values.” The movie is, on the surface, not about Peter, yet we are with him again—...

Silent Night, Deadly Night is awesome and it amuses me that the main character is named Billy considering how the killer in Black Christmas calls himself Billy*. Silent Night, Deadly Night falls right in the middle of a big wave of slasher films and is full of blood and breasts and stuff actually happens... unlike Black Christmas . While Nowell’s (2010) argument that Black Christmas was a pioneer film for what would become the slasher genre it almost is not a horror film at all. Instead it’s something more of a drama, with hints of melodrama and interruptions of horror. It’s strange amalgamated structure is on purpose, of course. As Nowell describes it, “It was Canadian and it was the product of a complex network of transnational indutrial shifts that had been unfolding in the late 1960s and early 1970s involving the Canadian government, the Hollywood majors, America’s theater-going youths, and independent filmmakers from around the world” (p. 61). Nowell argues that Black Christma...

The prank caller in Black Christmas seems to have two very different messages. First, he’s got the whole sex pervert thing going on (with that life-threatening coda in that initial call) then he gets weirder with the baby stuff... and Peter is introduced over the phone. That’s interesting. It occurs to me that the film doesn’t 100% confirm that Peter is not the prank caller. In fact, the change in tone from sexual to something more aggressive would make sense considering his openly negative reaction to Jess’ news about their baby. Of course, I say that “100%” line because of a) the scene in which Peter is there for one of the calls* and b) the twist ending. The movie isn’t bad—let’s get that out of the way. It’s actually pretty good for a Canadian horror film. But, I think it might work better if Peter were the caller/killer instead of just a red herring. The horror works better if it is closer to home. I don’t mean that it always does. I mean for this story, taking place so much w...

The original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was released 1 October 1974, but the crawl at the beginning of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 establishes that it happened on 18 August 1973. This one was released 22 August 1986, but is set “14 years” after the original. That isn’t important information, but after yesterday ‘s blog entry, the discrepancy was noticeable for me. What is important to note is that this film doesn’t really seem to be cashing in on the popularity of slasher films. It’s not one of Nowell’s (2011) “carpetbagger cash-ins.” Hell, I’m not sure this film falls within Nowell’s “first teen slasher film cycle” in terms of timing. Looking at the release dates of just the more popular slasher films I’ll be watching this month, I see no real gap from Halloween in ’78 to Halloween H20: 20 Years Later in ’98. That is to say, there’s a 4 year gap between The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in ’74 and the original Halloween , and a gap of four years after H20 to Jason X . I think N...

Today was not as long as yesterday. Haven't watched today's movie yet, either. It's Friday the 13th: A New Beginning . (By the way, the stuff I would have included had I not become eminently susceptible to attack from Freddy Krueger (assuming I was in Springwood, Ohio, not Lake Oswego, Oregon)--I will throw some of that into this blog tomorrow, when I watch A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge . I kinda wish I'd at least had a dream about Freddy Krueger since I was starting to fall asleep before the movie ended last night. But no, instead I manage a couple sentences with a couple typos, a sad little excuse for a blog entry.) I wanted to talk about genre since, with A Nightmare on Elm Street last night, I got into the second third of this "month" of slasher films. Nowell (2011) provides an elaborate description of what makes a slasher film a slasher film. First, I rather like Nowell's definition for what genre is: At its core, film ge...

Lake Oswego, OR - It is late. Had a long day of traveling that did not go as planned, but ended up ok. Since I'm not at home, that meant watching the movie then writing this, so I'm an hour and a half or so behind my usual schedule. But, I have little to say today. I got a lot of notes today reading through a new book I found--Nowell's ( 2011) Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle . A lot about genre, about defining what is or isn't a slasher film. But, I'll get to those notes in a couple days. For now, there is this: Today's film, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter is one of the best Friday the 13th movies in my opinion, possibly one of the best slasher films all around. It encompasses and encapsulates so much of the tropes of the slasher film without feeling particularly arbitrary about it. But, I wanted to share something I learned about the original Friday the 13th today. Nowell (2011) deals with slasher films using terminology out...