Jamie Lee Curtis

What can I say about this ultimate lady? Let me start with some titles. The Fog, Halloween, Halloween 2, Terror Train, Prom Night. That’s right, she is one of the greatest “final girls” or “scream queens” ever and all before her later films of a lighter but comically genius fare, which include A Fish Called Wanda (wonderful comedy from writer John Cleese of Monty Python) and True Lies (with Arnold Schwarzenegger). I love True Lies and I don’t feel guilty about it; Everyone should come ‘on out and confess their love for this movie. Like Melanie Griffith, Curtis’s mom was also a Hitchcock blonde: the famous Janet Leigh, best known for her role as Marion Crane in Psycho. As a side note, I just re-watched Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (a redundant title if there ever was one). Curtis’s character, Laurie Strode, finally faces her fear, The Shape, and man she kicks ass! This is one of the most empowering horror movies I have ever seen! As another side note, I didn’t mean to give her really tiny hands in the drawing of her. I assure you, the real Curtis has normal size hands….. I think.

This is just a sample of some of the people that I really love. I could go on and on and on and could list thousands or maybe tens of thousands more, so let’s stop here!

Wait a minute! I like "Batman and Robin"?!

There has got to be a secret cult of people who love Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin. Where is this group because I want to join! This is the one with Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger), Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman), Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone), and Batman and Robin (George Clooney and Chris O’Donnell). Joel Schumacher apologized for this movie! I watched it on TV recently because I wanted to see the scene where Uma Thurman transforms from her nerdy scientist persona into Poison Ivy and for some reason I kept watching. Whoo boy is this a bad movie. But, something about it changed for me this time around. Instead of hating Arnold Schwarzenegger’s constant “Everybody chill” or “Cool party” one-liners, neon set pieces, batsuit nipples, and Chris O’Donnell, now I think I like them. Ok, maybe not Chris O’Donnell. But, Batman pulls out the Batman credit card for cheesy-goodness sake! And Mr. Freeze gives a really great stink eye! Batman and Robin is one mess of a movie, but it is a fun mess. What makes this movie so different from other campy flicks? Why did I first hate this movie and find it blasphemous to the Batman genre? Is it its self awareness? its Hollywood budget? its big name actors? There are plenty of campy movies that are self aware or are campy for the sake of camp like Grindhouse, Cabin Fever, even my beloved Army of Darkness. So that can’t be its supposed downfall. Maybe it’s the big name actors? But wait, Arnold is in this and he used to be a king of camp and cheese, with such beauties as Conan the Barbarian, Running Man, Total Recall, and his introduction to the world Pumping Iron. So what is so different here? He is practically the same loveable powerhouse of muscles goofball he is in all of these movies. And Uma Thurman plays Poison Ivy like a femme fatal, a vamp with an over acting swagger. This movie has also been accused by critics of being homoerotic because of the close up shots of Batman and Robin’s butt, cod piece, oh and the nipples. Now since when is this a bad thing? I think if Batman and Robin were made in the 80’s it would be a cult classic. It blows a loving kiss to the campy original 60’s TV shows and movie. I know I am giving this movie a lot of credit, but something turned my cold stone heart into a warm loving embrace for Batman and Robin. And I don’t feel I need to apologize like Joel Schumacher did.

Oh and I added some links over to the side of my page! Everyone should check them out, especially http://www.kindertrauma.com/ because if you were ever scared as a kid or like movies at all, then you will love this site!

For the Love of Boring/Slow Movies: Part 1

There are endless amounts of films out there that are boring. And usually “slow” equals boring or vice-versa, but for the sake of keeping it simple let’s just stick with boring. Here are some examples of some of my favorite, most boring movies!

I will go ahead and start with a movie that for about 15 years was my “number one”. “Blade Runner” directed by Ridley Scott is a fantastic unfaithful sci-fi adaption of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Whenever I talk to people about “Blade Runner” I always make the mistake of mentioning that it is a perfect film, which a friend of mine once replied “Isn’t it kind of boring.” In my mind I am thinking “I know, isn’t that great!” When you realize that this is technically a sci-fi action movie it makes it seem even more boring. There are long drawn out scenes of replicants harassing their human counterparts, beautiful long shots of the cityscape, and Deckard (Harrison Ford) and Rachel (Sean Young) staring at one another. The movie seems to go on endlessly, but because you are so sucked in by its gorgeous story and set you don’t notice until maybe the second or third viewing. For me it took about the 12th viewing. I went to see the recent release of the director’s cut of the director’s cut …cut on big screen. I was so excited and the movie was awesome even though it was the first time I really realized how boring the film really is. Remember, boring does not mean bad.

“Dune” may be the longest movie in history. Of course it really isn’t, but it sure seems like it is, especially if you put it on in the evening and curl up in your bed to fall asleep to it and hours later you wake up and it is still on. By morning the credits are rolling. Yes this is an exaggeration and “Dune” is wonderful. There are so many weird things about this movie. Only David Lynch could turn a quintessential sci-fi book into a weird unique film. The scene when the Atreides family, including Paul (played by the all around badass Kyle MacLachlan), are getting ready to board the “ship” to head to Arrakis they all turn around to pose and the Duke Leto Atreides is holding a pug dog in his arms. This is such a hilarious and random thing to have him holding this silly little puppy for a dramatic scene. The first introduction to the evil Barron Harkonnen is unforgettable. If you haven’t seen this movie you should. Just make sure you are fully awake and ready.

There is the original masterpiece “Night of the Living Dead”, the incredible and socially aware “Dawn of the Dead”, and then there is the least liked and most boring “Day of the Dead”. A group of army men and scientists try and get along underground after the whole country has been taken over by the undead. There is constant fighting between the tough guys and the scientists to the point of boredom. However, there is one extra special treat in this underrated third installment. A scientist manages to teach a zombie how to behave by giving him human flesh as treats if he does well. The zombie, who the scientist lovingly calls “Bub”, remembers from before he turned into a flesh eating monster how to listen to head phones and shoot a gun! Although the movie seems really long and there is a lot of yelling it is essential to the dead series and is one of my favorite zombie movies.

Almost all movies become watchable if they are on “Mystery Science Theatre 3000”. Most people know what MST3K is, but for those of you who don’t, it is about a guy and two robots, who, are forced to sit in a theatre and watch bad movies and to make it more bearable they make fun of them. We are watching them…watch and make fun of horrible movies, it’s fantastic. Anyway, there is one movie that I absolutely loved that was shown on MST3K and was replayed on Comedy Central over and over again called “Alien from L.A”. I watched it constantly growing up. It stars Kathy Ireland (yep, the model) as a “nerd” whose father goes missing in an underground world. She goes off to find him and returns to the surface world as a new woman. Sounds great right? So I went out and bought this movie and watched it without the MST3K guys there to make it hilarious. And guess what? It is really boring. It’s not because nothing is going on; because there is a lot that goes on; it is because everything that happens is nonsensical and dull. But, I still loved it! I have tried showing this to other people and they have a hard time sitting through it. Oh well, you should give it a try! The drawing that is accompanying this is about as good as the movie.

Follow up to "Body Double"

Even though this movie may have been made out of spite, to me it came across as a labor of love.  Perhaps that makes it more personal.