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I barely remember the first Fright Night, almost not at all. However, I do remember that it’s the first movie I watched when I started differentiating some scary movies from other scary movies. As a kid, all scary movies went into the same category as things I was too afraid to watch because it made it impossible for me to be in the dark without having a nervous breakdown. Watching Fright Night against my will at a babysitter’s house was when I finally saw a movie and thought… ‘wait a minute, this is as funny as it is scary, and there’s loads of adventure in it. This is kinda awesome.’ Big breakthrough. It created a fascination with vampires that lived a healthy life right up until Twilight came out, it’s been sick since then, but I have a feeling it will be back strong everntually.

Impressions about the trailer:

1. I’m sad there isn’t more David Tennant in it, he’s only in one scene of the trailer, and even that is so brief you can almost entirely miss it. No lines even! However, his being cast in the film is reason enough for me to go see it!

2. WTF? Is this one not going to be a comedy? Or is the total lack of laughs in the trailer just classic terrible advertising for a film, something which is happening more and more often lately.

3. To be honest, if I can get someone to go with me, I’ll go see this either way. Because… you know… David Tennant.

So, I won’t go off on a rant about Common and Fox News because it’s been well documented already. If you haven’t seen Jon Stewart’s take on it yet, watch that. It pretty much gets to the heart of the issue, and it’s hilarious. Same old Daily Show.

Instead of ranting, I’ve come up with an idea for retribution instead. In a perfect world, I’d be able to enforce this idea in order for Fox News to maintain their broadcast license.

Fox News is so terrified and ignorant of all things that aren’t really conservative white culture, so I think it’s time they met Tyler, the Creator. Back when I used to watch Mtv in high school, they would have times where a particular artist took over the station for an afternoon, or at least pretended to. Well, that’s what should happen to Fox News. Tyler, the Creator should get to direct for a full broadcast day. FN would have to use the same cast, the same personalities, and show the same programs as usual. The only difference is that Tyler, the Creator would direct every minute of it, interjecting whatever he wants whenever he wants.

I have a feeling it would go down in history as the most cathartic day of television ever produced.

It would be perfect, because if Fox News calls a guy ‘vile’ and ‘a thug’ who has lyrics like this:

Well, the devil is wrong and God is what’s right
I fight, with myself in the ring of doubt and fear
The rain ain’t gone, but i can still see clear
As a child, given religion with no answer to why
Just told believe in jesus cuz for me he did die
Curiosity killed the catechism
Understanding and wisdom became the rhythm that i played to
And became a slave to master self
A rich man is one with knowledge, happiness and his health
My mind had dealt with the books of zen, tao the lessons
Koran and the bible, to me they all vital

Then I can’t wait to see what they do with a guy with lyrics like:

I’ll crash that fucking airplane that that faggot nigga B.o.B is in
And stab Bruno Mars in his goddamn esophagus
And won’t stop until the cops come in

or

This is what the devil plays before he goes to sleep
Some food for thought some food for death, go ahead and fucking eat
My father’s dead, well I don’t know, we’ll never fucking meet
I cut my wrist and play piano cause I’m so depressed
Somebody call the pastor, this bastard is so possessed
This meeting just begun, nigga I’m Satan’s son

This was one of those movies I missed as a kid. Watching it now was a good reminder of just how ridiculous 80’s movies were. There was so very much that didn’t make any sense whatsoever. Just about all of the supporting characters were poorly acted and poorly written, in really simply ways that assume the audience must be  brain dead.

However, Jeff Bridges was great. His turn as a guy trying to learn to be human was worth the time spent watching the movie. That was it though.

Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is wonderful! Somehow, without even being all the way through, it became my favorite Neil Gaiman book. For those who read this blog regularly, you’ll know that’s no small feat.

It was the first novel he wrote on his own, and he sure did kick things off in style. Neverwhere is Gaiman’s imagination at its absolute best. Gaiman writes the stories that I wish all stories could be, filled with darkness and beauty and redemption and mystery. And, if Gaiman does in fact write the stories that I wish all stories could be, Neverwhere is the epitome of that.

The story is about a painfully ordinary guy who finds a girl bleeding in the street one night and decides to help her, and is pulled into an Alice in Wonderland style story of a world that exists under the surface of the world we know, in this case, in a place called London Below.

The prose, the descriptions, the characters, and the story are all spilling over with magic. Neverwhere is like the story my heart longs to read.

God, I love Neil Gaiman. Speaking of which… less than one week until his Doctor Who. OOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH YEEEEAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

I know, I know… it seems like all I write these days are ‘five things.’ I just like doing it, and since I post less frequently now it gets more of what I’m currently loving onto the blog.

This week it’s all sorts of random.

1. Dead Space 2

More scary, gruesome necromorph action. Great story, perhaps even better than the first. Entertaining and engaging from start to finish.

It also had two of the best action scenes I’ve ever seen in a video game, or anywhere.

Bonus, here’s an awesome minimalist poster for the original Dead Space, via@Frank Russo. 

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2. Never Let Me Go

I really did love this film, but in part it was bittersweet because I love Ishiguro’s book so dearly. There were so many tender moments that didn’t make it to the film that I missed. The nuance and complexity of the book can’t possibly translate onto the screen completely, so even while I was enjoying the film I also found myself pining for the novel.

However, the movie should most definitely be praised. It was well filmed and well written. Most of all, any mention of this film needs to celebrate the acting. The performances of the leads were achingly powerful. It’s no surprise by now, but these are three young actors who should be turning in dazzling performances for decades to come.

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3. TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light

I guess I’ll need to use the word bittersweet one more time if I’m going to write about the new TV on the Radio album. The album is brilliant, but just a week after its release the band’s bassist, Gerard Smith, died of lung cancer at the young age of 36. It’s so sad, and can’t but influence the way I listen to the album.

While nothing works as a silver lining in a death like this, one couldn’t ask for a better swan song, however involved his illness may have allowed him to be in the album’s recording.

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4. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

Seattle’s own indie favorites are back, and the album is faaannnnnnntastic. Such a joy to listen to. The band grew into a deeper sound without losing what makes them great.

Now, hopefully touring won’t eliminate any chance that J. Tillman releases some more solo stuff in the next year or two.

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5. Thor

I loved it. A really fun introduction to a character not many folks know, at least in the comic incarnation. It was funny, action packed, had enough human drama to be engaging without taking itself too seriously. It would have been disastrous if the film hadn’t acknowledged how silly the whole premise is, but it was able to be badass and have heart without forgetting that at the end of the day it’s a comic book movie based in Norse mythology.

Often, when movies ‘don’t take themselves seriously,’ that’s code for taking a dump on film and calling it a comic book movie. Examples of this include Ghost Rider and both Fantastic Four films. Blech! Not so with Thor, well crafted and charmingly acted, I was sad to see it end.

It looks like Thor is going to have a modest, but healthy opening weekend. Yet, since it is doing far better critically and amongst audiences than other films which have had similar weekends, like Fantastic Four and Clash of the Titans, I’m hoping it will perform better over the long term than those films and be more successful overall.

There’s certainly a whole lot of stupid shit on tv. So, calling it the idiot box isn’t exactly unfair. Still, there is certainly plenty of television programming that I enjoy with no hint of guilty pleasure.

Here are five shows I’m enjoying the fuck out of lately.

1. The Killing [AMC]

Based on a Danish series, and set right here in my very own Seattle, The Killing is the the story of a single murder investigation. Promising, beautiful young high school student Rosie Larsen goes missing, and when her body is found it’s clear she’s been brutally murdered. The Killing shows the events that follow as the police hunt for the killer, from the perspective of a detective on her last case, her new partner on his first investigation after moving over from vice, a political candidate connected to the murder, and the family of the victim.

The show is smart, engaging, and beautifully filmed. Plus, it’s set in SEATTLE. Oh yeah, I already said that. Still, SEATTLE! In glorious HD on screens across the country.

There’s no way around it, AMC produces brilliant television entertainment.

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2. Community [NBC]

My love for this show is no secret, so this is nothing new.

What is new? The fact that the last two episodes of the season are a paint ball spaghetti western, featuring Sawyer… In other words: !!!!!!!

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3. Doctor Who [BBC]

Another show for which my love is well established here on the blog. Still, the sixth season is finally underway and it’s aaaammmmaaaazzziiiinnnnnggg.

The two-part season opener was so much fun to watch, and it set up all sorts of craziness that will play out over the course of the season. Stephen Moffat, you are a wonderful, wonderful man.

Episode three is coming up this week, but next week is episode four, ‘The Doctor’s Wife’, which was written by Neil. Fucking. Gaiman.

Doctor Who, FTW.

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4. Being Human [BBC]

I’ve had this show on my Netflix queue for a while, not realizing that it was scheduled for an American version. I’d heard good things about the original, and then more good things about the Americanized version, so it got moved closer to the top of my queue.

The show is about a werewolf, a vampire, and a ghost who share a flat in England and try to live life as normally as possible.

Emily and I watched the whole first disc, about three hours worth, on Saturday.

The show is really great. Entertaining, and equal parts dramatic, sexy, scary, and funny. The acting has really impressed me so far.

We’re still early in our experience of the show, but the vampire character is my favorite vampire depiction ever. There are all sorts of things pertaining to vampires where I thought, why hasn’t anyone ever pursued this idea about vampire stories before? Well, early signs indicate they are pursuing a great many of these threads on Being Human.Plus, the guy who plays the vampire is hot, so that’s a bonus, too.

Color me excited!

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5. Game of Thrones [HBO]

I need to write a whole post about the casting on this show, delighting in the perfect casting of some characters while also doing the tiniest bit of whining about the misfires, as least in my opinion.

The season is well underway now, and I’ve been really sad at the end of each episode. I just want it to keep going! It will get to a moment I loved from the books, and I’ll be enjoying it, and then, BAM, credits. Grr!

I don’t know what might happen to my brain when season one ends, perhaps I’ll just start breaking things, or I may just go catatonic for a while.

Jesse Eisenberg and Aziz Ansari?

Umm, yes please.

1. Iron Council – China Miéville

This book was fantastic. How to describe it though… how about: a western that read lots of weird fiction and then did mushrooms.

One character, Judah, is one of my favorite ever. Seriously.

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2. The Foundation Trilogy – Isaac Asimov

These books were recommended to me in high school by my friend Dave, and they’ve been on my to-read list ever since. Finally, I have read them.

I’m only through the original trilogy, but I’ll read the other four soon enough.

It’s tight, simple prose telling a science fiction story focused more on sociology than space ships, although there are certainly plenty of space ships, too. I’m excited to delve further into the fiction of Isaac Asimov.

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3. Rendezvous with Rama – Arthur C. Clarke

The hard sci-fi to beget all future hard sci-fi, Clarke unveils the most original and stunning sci-fi civilization as if it’s no big deal. The attention to scientific detail is so engaging. There’s a reason the major British sci-fi award is named after this guy.

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4. The Complete Stories – Flannery O’Connor

I finally got around to reading O’Connor. It’s really amazing reading a life’s work of short stories because you get to experience their growth as a writer before your eyes, in just 500 pages or so. O’Connor writes of the soul of the arrogant, white, protestant southerner with an honesty, hilarity, compassion, and contempt that are each startling in their turns. She was really great at pulling the rug out from under a reader, or even just punching you in the diaphragm.

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5. Falconer – John Cheever

Cheever’s most famous work, a prison drama set in New York. Cheever writes unflinchingly of depravity without ceasing to care for his characters. He wrote of the darkness and perversity within the white, wealthy, Connecticut/Westchester County, country club set of the 50’s and 60’s in the same way O’Connor wrote about the south.

The Old Spice guy is still lobbying to become Luke Cage, and apparently he’s even met with Marvel.

That would be awesome on every possible level.