Blogtober Prologue: Screw Your Courage To The Sticking Place

I grew up in the 90s, and you know what that means: Disney was a huge part of my childhood.

In a lot of ways, I was lucky to grow up in the greatest part of Disney history.  I experienced first-hand the Disney Renaissance, the oft-overlooked Decline, the Dark Ages, all the way up to the current Second Renaissance.  There was, however, a major blank spot in my Disney experience: the original Beauty and the Beast.

I knew the movie, of course, but I never saw it from beginning to end until earlier this very year.  Therefore, I have no major emotional connection to it.  I enjoyed it, but it wasn't part of my childhood the way that other movies were.  Which brings us to the subject of today's review.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (2017)

Blogtober Qualifications: Magic, monsters, dark shadows, wolves, wardrobes

I won't be spending oodles of time comparing and contrasting the two versions of the film, since that isn't what I'm here for.  Besides, at the end of the day, they're different things, and you'll get different experiences from them.  This is just how I feel about the new movie itself, having just finished watching it for the first time less than an hour ago.  I'll also be doing my best to avoid major spoilers, but I make no promises.  So here we go!

For starters, the whole thing is just gorgeous.  You could put the whole thing on mute and just have the scenes playing while listening to soft music, and I reckon you'd have a pretty enjoyable experience.  There's a particular scene early on which Belle goes on a bit of walk away from the town, and she winds up on a hill in the distance, looking back at the town occupying its own hill, and she and the village are both breathtaking.  It's almost self-defeating, in a way, since it makes you really wonder why she's so unhappy in such a picturesque place, but I guess looks aren't everything.

Speaking of Belle, she's certainly worthy of speaking of.  As a quick aside, I grew up with Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger is the first literary character I can remember having a crush on.  Emma Watson, who here plays Belle, played Hermione in the Harry Potter films.  As such, mine may not be the most objective opinion on the matter.

Still, if my opinion can indeed be taken at face value, she did a commendable job in the role.  She's given unfortunately little to do for a while in the second act as we focus on other characters in a song interlude or two, but it's a relatively short drought.  Again, I don't intend to compare the two versions of the film, but I will observe that, in the original, Belle's headstrong nature and resistance to authority were more or less told rather than shown, but that isn't the case here.  My favorite scene involves her yelling at a door.  I offer no further context.

The others generally do a great job filling their roles, especially Ewan McGregor, who is tasked with the unenviable prospect of replacing the original film's most charismatic character, and Josh Gad, whose job it is to bring depth and dignity to a character who was, originally, little more than a sniveling worm.  They both succeeded, to say the least.

As for the story itself, it's more or less the same as the original, outside of some new, small plot additions and a bit more character depth, as well as a smattering of new songs (all of which fit in perfectly).  There is, however, one major improvement.  If you choose to compare the two, you'll get the feeling that, in planning the live-action version, someone was assigned to trawl the internet looking for articles on every single plothole in the original version, for the sole purpose of filling them in.  It makes a difference, and goes to show how much a throwaway line can explain something that just doesn't make sense.  The film's internal timeline still falls apart a bit in the third act, but that's nothing new, and the climax is engaging enough to distract from it.

Overall, my experience was an enjoyable one, and I would easily watch it again, probably sooner than I would the original.  I doubt it will replace the original forever, but for most people who are experiencing the story for the first time, this will be *their* version, the one they grew up with, and it's more than deserving of that.

Before I draw the review to a close, I want to highlight one thing.  Blogtober is, at the end of the day, a celebration of Halloween.  Today's entry is the prologue, but if you're still doubting that this movie should be on a Halloween list, I would like to point you to the most horrifying sight the movie has to offer.

That right there? That's a face. A face, and arms, and what can only be described as "wardrobe breasts."  It terrifies me.

But enough of that.  Tomorrow Blogtober begins in earnest.  We'll be sticking with the theme of magic and monsters, but this time, rather than vaguely medieval Paris, we'll be in 1920s America.  It should be good to be back home.

Until next time!

Current interests:
Listening - Beauty and the Beast: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2017)
Playing - Golf Story (2017)
Reading - Baltimore or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier & the Vampire (2007)
Watching: Unsolved Mysteries (1987)

My History With Horror, Part 3: Inundated

I am the sum total of everything I have ever experienced.

I know that isn't exactly an original thought and, at best, is most likely me just waxing poetic.  But the sentiment is also true.  Every experience I've ever had, everything I've loved and hated, everything I've picked up and left behind, has led me to who I am today.  I've been lucky enough that the great tragedies in my life have been relatively few and far between, and I've had people to help me through.

It's because of that good fortune that the major things that define the various periods of my life tend to be whatever I'm obsessed with at the time.  In my early childhood it was video games; in my late adolescence and early teens it was anime and all things Japanese; in my mid to late teens it was being an awful person; and in my early twenties it was getting married to the woman I love.

My mid-to-late twenties have been defined by two things my younger self believed himself to be too good for.  One of these is the horror genre.  I still love video games, I still love Japanese culture, but horror has made such an impact on my life in the last five years that it's honestly astounding.  The best thing about acquiring new loves is when you can combine them with your old loves.

After all, some of the most creative horror these days comes from Japan.  I may have an irrational fear of holes, but only the Japanese could have made me afraid of spirals.  Earlier this year, I was looking for a new video game I could play that had the trappings of the Gothic horror genre.  I had exhausted the Castlevania series and was looking for something new, something I hadn't tried before.  This search led me to a game I genuinely believed I wouldn't enjoy, but so bad was my craving that I decided to go for it.  That game may now be my favorite game of all time.

My point here is that, by realizing that the horror genre was not something that I should consider to be beneath my my auspicious attention, I have discovered so many new things I love, and I'm still discovering new things all the time.  It has led to my current writing project, which I believe to be my greatest ever.

I give full credit for this awakening to one man: James Rolf.

You know him well, I'm sure, or you've heard of him, at least.  I discovered him, as I'm sure most of us did, through his Angry Video Game Nerd videos, the backlog of which I was watching daily for months on end.  They got me through several rough patches, and just generally made my life more enjoyable while I was sitting around doing nothing all day.  My dad was also a big fan at the time, and one day he says to me, "Have you seen Monster Madness?"

The answer was "No," but not for long.

For those not in the know, Monster Madness was a series of videos that James Rolf did every October.  Every single day of October, for ten years straight (except for 2012, which featured a new video every other day), he would highlight and review a different horror movie.  That's more than 300 videos, and he's clearly very enthusiastic about it.

In 2008, for the second year of Monster Madness, he reviewed every single Godzilla movie, from the first one in 1954 all the way to the (then) newest one in 2004.  This was the first year I watched because I was and am a huge Godzilla fan, but my interest quickly spread from there.

If you've never seen the series and you have even a passing interest in horror movies, I strongly urge you to watch it.  If you have seen it, watch it again.  It's well worth your time.  From there, if you're interested in horror but not quite ready to dive in, there are some other documentaries I could recommend.

The first would be BBC's A History of Horror, a three-part series hosted by the always amazing Mark Gatiss, Doctor Who alum and Mycroft Holmes himself.  It's inspired by his own personal love for the genre, as well as his own particular favorites.  It is, obviously, very focused on the British side of the genre, but this is to its benefit, trust me.

The other would be Birth of the Living Dead, which is specifically a documentary about the making of George Romero's seminal Night of the Living Dead.  It's different from the other two examples I've given in that it's focused on one film, but that film essentially created the modern perception of zombies.  Besides, Romero is just such a likable guy and the story is so fascinating that it's well worth a look.

It's amazing to me that, for a genre I always thought was beneath me, horror is now so important to me.  In just the last few years I've acquired a favorite classic monster (Frankenstein's monster), a favorite slasher villain (Jason), and a favorite horror actor (Peter Cushing).

Tomorrow serves as the prologue to Blogtober: a new review every day from September 30th through November 1st.  I'm going to try to also intersperse other posts here and there, reviews of horror games or comics, as well as another retrospective here and there, but I won't make any promises in that regard.  One thing I can guarantee, however, is that tomorrow night you'll be able to read my first review.  It's sure to be a magical one.

Until next time!

Current interests:
Listening - Dio: The Last in Line (1984)
Playing - Bloodborne: NG+ (2015)
Reading - Baltimore or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier & The Vampire (2007)
Watching - Unsolved Mysteries (1987)

My History With Horror, Part 2: Teenage Terror (Well, Not Really)

Bit of a shorter entry today, since I actually don't have all that much to talk about today.

My teenage years were more or less devoid of horror movies, though they were no less horrific for the lack thereof.  There was, however, a very memorable date.

I was fourteen or fifteen, thereabouts.   We had met through a mutual friend, and she actually had the same name as my wife, though I knew my wife first.  The relationship ended, of course, poorly, of course, but I still remember the first movie we went to see together.  I can't quite remember whether or not it was our first date, but it was definitely one of the first.

We went to see a movie in the theaters, a movie by the name of Boogeyman, and searching for the year it was released (2005) confirms that I was, in fact, fifteen.  I wasn't particularly interested in it, since I was a fifteen-year-old boy and therefore too good for horror movies, but she thought it would be a good idea to watch something scary for our first movie.

I acquiesced to seeing Boogeyman, but what I did not see was anything scary.

A lot of horror movie aficionados will tell you that, if a horror movie is rated anything less than R, it isn't worth seeing.  I don't particularly agree with this sentiment, since I believe that horror can work with neither violence nor sex, as long as the horror itself is effective.  Watch Garfield's Halloween Adventure for proof.  But I digress.

Boogeyman was rated PG-13, and it is definitely a point of proof in favor of the former argument.

There was no suspense, no sense of dread, certainly no Halloween feeling, and even the title monster would be more likely to elicit groans of boredom than shrieks of terror.

Admittedly, I haven't seen the movie since, and I don't remember much about it, but I don't feel like that's really a defense it should claim.  I do, however, try to refrain from endlessly bashing anything, even things I despise.  I don't despise Boogeyman, but I slept just fine that night.

I didn't really have anymore experiences with horror movies as a teenager since, as previously mentioned, I was above all that.  There were other scary movies sprinkled between the ages of 11 and 20, but they aren't really relevant at the moment.  Honestly the scariest moments from that decade came from video games, but that's another story for another time.

Tomorrow brings my 20s, a decade that isn't even over yet and already contains more experiences with horror films than the previous two combined.

Until next time!

Current interests:
Listening - Regina Spektor: What We Saw From The Cheap Seats (2012)
Playing - Dead of Winter (2014)
Reading - Baltimore or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier & The Vampire (2007)
Watching - Unsolved Mysteries (1987)

My History With Horror Part 1: Childhood With Chucky

I'm extremely impatient for October to start.  Seriously, it's four days away and I can't stand it.

I love anything seasoned with even a modest amount of Halloween feeling, that vague sensation of dread, the color of burnt orange right behind the eyes, the crunch of dead leaves as my fingers brush across the page (or, more usually these days, a touchscreen). Slap a sticker of a Jack o'lantern on something and put down money that I'll buy it.  The odds won't be against you.

I try to put off my hardcore Halloween feeling binge until the month of October actually starts, but every year its creeping tendrils snake their way into the end of September, if not farther ahead.  I'm capable of avoiding any of the movies on my daily October list, but I find myself finding more and more overt ways of sneaking a taste, so to speak.

I signed up for a free trial of Comixology's Unlimited program, just so I could raid their selection of "borrowable" horror comics.  Even before that I was reading through the entirety of Mike Mignola's Hellboy universe.  My wife and I have been watching through the first six movies in the Child's Play/Chucky series, just so we can be prepared for the release of Cult of Chucky next month. We also watched the entirety of the first season of Stranger Things in one day, which I realize is not abnormal, but I'm notoriously slow with watching any television series.  I'm also replaying Bloodborne, having just beaten it a little over a month ago.  These are things I don't typically do, but such is my craving for the Halloween feeling that I just. Can't. Wait.

As such, I have no choice but to force anyone who finds themselves reading along to experience that early taste with me; I am the leather jacket-clad hoodlum, hiding behind the school building, offering you the illicit substance that is Halloween feeling.  There are plenty of friends I could call on to help me exert peer pressure, but the one I'll be talking about the most (today) is Chucky himself.  Mind you, he won't actually be talking because, let's be honest, he never stops once he starts.

I didn't see many horror movies as a kid.  My mom was oddly contradictory in the way she raised me, in that I wasn't allowed to watch R-Rated movies, except sometimes I was, and one of my earliest memories is playing Mortal Kombat on Sega Genesis.  With my mom.  So it wasn't always consistent.  My dad, for the most part, didn't really care what I watched or played, especially played.

Actually, looking back, violent video games have been a part of my life for literally as long as I can remember.  As an adult I feel compelled to question the wisdom of that parenting decision, but hey, I turned out okay, thank Satan.

Anyway,  I remember a time when I was around nine or so.  My mom and I were visiting some cousins of mine in Florida, as we did most summers.  One night the adults were doing whatever adults did in the 90s and my cousins and I, and maybe one or two of their friends, were gathered in a room, and Bride of Chucky had been rented for us.  I genuinely don't know why, or how that choice got past my mom, but there we were.  I remember vividly the feeling of that viewing.  It was a small room, with four or more kids packed into it, and it was summer in Florida, so, as you can imagine, it was freaking hot.  I was seated next to my older cousin Rachel, because of course I was since, as a kid, if she and I were in the same state, I stuck to her like a puppy.

I can't pretend to remember or know what anyone else thought of the movie when it was over.  I remember that, at the time, I wasn't scared at all, but other than that, I can't even remember how I felt about the movie itself.  What I remember is the feeling.  These were my favorite people in the world, and we were in a dark room, watching something I vaguely knew we shouldn't be watching, something that could very likely give me nightmares.  It was high summer when we watched it, but, looking back, it just feels so much like Halloween.  That right there is proof enough that it doesn't even have to be fall to be Halloween.  That's the first time I ever saw a horror movie without an adult present.

A bit later, a couple years or so, it was summertime again.  At least, I assume it was summertime because I was staying with my dad and I'm fairly certain he had to work the next day, so it wasn't the weekend.  Anyway, he had long since gone to sleep, and I just didn't sleep in those days, so I was left watching TNT or TBS or one of those Georgia channels they had in the 90s and maybe still do have who knows, and coming up next was Child's Play.

I had a slight sense of dread about this, but I had seen Bride of Chucky and made it through fine, and I was a big boy now, gosh dang it, so I buckled in and watched it through (with occasional commercial breaks).  All alone.  In the dark.  And as any fan will tell you, Child's Play was much more of a "horror" movie than Bride of Chucky is.  Now again, at the time I wasn't really afraid of the movie itself.  Then I tried to sleep.  That's the first time I ever saw a horror movie alone.

Now, I'm all for doing what you can to keep kids away from things that might make the wrong impact on them, or give them a skewed outlook on what's acceptable in polite society.  I am also, however, completely of the mind that kids should have that experience with fear every now and then.  Fear is a big part of being a kid, being afraid and not understanding why.

I'm an adult now, and I'm still afraid, but now I understand why.  I have a whole new host of rational (and irrational) fears that I understand perfectly.  But Chucky?  Chucky is a childhood friend, one I've recently reconnected with after far too long.  He's the same as he ever was, but now he's on my side.  And he's always down for some Halloween feeling.

Tomorrow: my teenage years.

Until next time!

Current Interests:
Listening - Sweeney Todd Motion Picture Soundtrack (2007) / Dio: Holy Diver (1983)
Playing - Sword of the Samurai (1989)
Reading - Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Volume 1 (2014)
Watching - Unsolved Mysteries (1987)

Announcing: Blogtober!

Halloween is a pretty big deal for me.

In fact, I just love the fall season in general, especially the month of October.  As such, back in 2014, I created what would become a yearly tradition for me: each year I make a new list of movies, one for each day of October, as well as one each for September 30th and November 1st.  I schedule each movie to a day of the month, and on that day I watch that movie.

Each year's list is different, and sometimes I allow myself some favorites that I've seen, but for the most part the movies are always new to me, or at least I'm sitting down and watching it in completion for the first time.  The only major exception to the rule is the November 1st movie which, every year thus far, has been Nightmare Before Christmas, as a way of laying the Halloween season to rest for the year and allowing it to pass the baton to Christmas.

The reason all this is relevant to the blog is that I'm adding a new wrinkle to the blanket this year: every day that I watch one of the movies on my list, I'll make a blog post detailing my thoughts on the movie that day.  These won't be critical analyses, or even full-on reviews, but rather just my thoughts in the immediate aftermath, whether or not I liked it, things I may have noticed, trivia I have on hand, things like that.  I'll be calling it Blogtober, which is a completely creative and original name that I'm sure no one has ever used before. /sarcasm

As for details on the movies themselves, I most likely won't be revealing the full list on here, just to keep some suspense about what the next day will bring.  I will go ahead and say that not every one of them will be a horror movie.  The criteria for the movies allowed on the list are vague and undefined, even to me.  They tend to have monsters in them or an atmosphere of dread, but sometimes it's just a case of feeling right to me.

Highlights of previous lists include: Hotel Transylvania, Hellraiser, The Crow, Big Trouble in Little China, Spirited Away, and Uzumaki.  Just from that list you can see how varied the selection of movies can be, so hopefully I'll have a little bit of something for everybody.  I'll also be making other, smaller posts here and there about other Halloween-themed things I may be interested in, like horror games and comics, or just more general posts about why Halloween is so special to me.

And before anyone tries to call me out on it, this list is absolutely, 100% inspired by Cinemassacre's Monster Madness, and Blogtober is my tiny contribution to filling the void that left behind.  James Rolf carried the torch for 10 years, and he deserves a rest.

Until next time!

Current Interests:
Listening - The Fratellis: We Need Medicine! (2013)
Playing - Slain: Back From Hell (2016)
Reading - Frankenstein Underground (2015)
Watching - Unsolved Mysteries (1987)

It's All Downhill From Here

Hello there!

My name is Jordan and, if you're reading this, congratulations!  You get to be witness to my first ever completed blog post.

I'm new to this whole thing, but I already have a strong suspicion that the first post is the hardest; the "where-do-I-start"est, if you will.  I bandied about for a while trying to decide what this first post should be about, and I've finally decided to shoot from the hip, more or less.  We'll see how this goes.

First of all, who am I?  I'm a 27-year-old amateur writer born and raised in Georgia (the state), now living in Manitoba, Canada, with my wife of nearly five years.  I consider myself to be a massive nerd with a wide array of interests, and I'll give pretty much anything a fair shake.  Once I become interested in something, I dive into it headfirst for a while.  I plan to dedicate some time to most of these interests on this blog, assuming I stay on the ball.  Speaking of which:

What's this blog about?  Basically, anything that interests me, which, as mentioned above, is a wide river, the current of which can change with barely a moment's notice.  But rest assured, I try my best not to talk about anything unless I know what I'm talking about.

On a more specific note, I like finding new ways to experience the things I love, and a lot of times these ways are obscure or relatively unheard of.  Things like one of my favorite movies having a new sequel in the form of a comic book, or a new, obscure work in a favorite genre, things like that are always a treat to find, and I'll be highlighting some of my favorite examples.

But generally, I just enjoy talking about the things I love, and I plan to do a lot of that here.  I haven't really come up with a set post schedule yet, but I have some early plans, including starting out with a bang come October, which I'll lay out in more detail over the next week

So, if you're reading along and decide to stick around, welcome aboard!  I hope I can be entertaining, maybe insightful, and who knows?  Maybe I'll introduce you to your new favorite thing.

Until next time!

Current Interests:
Listening - Rush: Rush (1974)
Playing - Bloodborne: NG+ (2015)
Reading - Hellboy: Midnight Circus (2013)
Watching - Unsolved Mysteries (1987)