Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews It’s kinda funny. It eschews notions of romance, and really, it’s more about the friend, who reminds me of Tony Goldmark. I couldn’t get that image out of my head — the deadpan, Internet snarker-troll, self-deprecating, black comedy hamball. And that’s what the book is really about. This guy is an amateur filmmaker and it talks about his love of weird, foreign, independent cinema and his friendship with Earl, a black urban youth. And in the background is Rachel, an acquaintance who is forced by Tony’s mother to hang out with because she’s dying of cancer. The story’s not about…
-
-
Why Am I So Damn Fascinated By Five Nights at Freddy’s?
I think it got popular because of the Let’s Plays. It’s always fun to watch people freak out. Bill Cosby said when a person is scared, that’s the only time they’re really being themself. I’ve been watching Let’s Play’s, reading the entire FN@F wiki, playing the memes. Yet I don’t own the game, and don’t plan to. It’s all jumpscares. I hate jumpscares for two reasons. They’re cheap and meaningless ways to control the audience. And I hate the way jumpscares make me feel, like a weak little kitten, manipulated, afraid of everything. Just like elementary school. Yes, I have a double standard. Deal with it.* So why am I…
-
Genre Mixing
Lacking creativity? Can’t seem to come up with something other than a rehash of The Thing or Pocahontas? Try genre-mixing. A genre is nothing but a set of tropes and expectations. Some of the best arts in the world were created by taking standards from one set and applying them to another. Horror is an excellent mixer. It’s the onion of the cinematic world. All the settings have been taken? Put it in space (Good example: Alien. Bad example: Leprechaun 4: in Space). But no, let’s make it a comedy (Good example: Shaun of the Dead. Bad example: Killjoy). Dean Koontz is known for hybridizing, some to success and some…
-
Why Do We Keep Remaking Carrie?
Why does Hollywood keep remaking Carrie? Is it that good a story? I understand the appeal. It’s simple in concept and appeals to base emotions. We all want to have superpowers. We all want to exact revenge on certain people in our lives. We all feel suppressed by “the rules” whether that’s government or religion, they always seem to have the same ridiculousness and irrelevance. But do we need four movies to tell us that (five if you count “Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver”, but let’s not talk about that). There’s the original Sissy Spacek version (1976), “The Rage: Carrie 2” (1999) which I loved, but is really the same basic story, “Carrie” the…
-
Hot Girls You Don’t Know About: Hannah Fierman
All right, since you can’t get enough of Morgan Smith Goodwin, here’s another. Let me introduce you to my new jam — Hannah Fierman. I first discovered her a few days ago in the movie V/H/S (which is an excellent horror movie, and I recommend it highly). She has a role in the first part of the movie that I immediately drew to. The first thing you see is her big eyes. I like girls with big eyes, it gives them an innocent look. But these are huge. They are unearthly, even. I do like girls that have an unconventional appearance, like Lily Cole. Although I’m still undecided about the…
-
The Worst Movies I’ve Ever Seen
The other day, my wife was talking about the worst movies that her parents had ever seen (the winner was something called Zardoz). But then she said their worst movie probably wouldn’t hold a candle to what I’ve seen. She tells the truth — The Evil Dead, Night of the Creeps, and Dragon Half are just some of the staples in my DVD library. And those are the ones I like. Even though it’s easy to make a bad movie, no one’s really sure how. Some involved people whose head was up their own ass, making “films” with a “message”. Some knew they were making trash and didn’t care. Some…
