Something to scream about

Sometimes a photo is in fact, worth a thousand words. I was sent one today, and I gotta admit, it made me pause.... then it made me laugh really, really hard.

You see, with Halloween fast approaching many folks are scrambling to get a costume together. An obvious last-minute choice is someone who's been ripped apart by a non-specific superhuman or undead adversary. It's a good one too, I'm a big fan of flesh wounds, check it out:

For those of you interested in going the chewed-up victim or zombie route, let me point you in the right direction. Actually, let me point you in a direction, and you can judge for yourself whether or not you want to go there.

Target would like to help. In fact, you can choose between a variety of ready-made flesh wounds tailored to suit your needs. Including this one (you may want to cover the eyes of your children):

They probably should be selling it in a brown wrapper. Happy Halloween everybody!

Not-so-great expectations

Or...

Movies that are good despite Winona Ryder being in them.

I have to say, I love AMC's Fearfest. I am a junkie for scary, paranormal, freaky keep-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat stuff. I love it. I love campy horror, cheesy horror, and most especially, the kind that makes you want to sleep with the lights on.

So you can really expect me to fill up my DVR to capacity in the week leading to Halloween.

Right now I am watching Bram Stoker's Dracula on Fearfest, which is a movie that I love dearly. As you probably know, Winona Ryder is one of the stars.... and not only does she have that permanent bewildered dumb expression throughout the movie, she has to do it all with a british accent. Now, you'd think that this would hurt an otherwise good movie, but somehow her wooden presence comes off as not too bad. It got me thinking, what else has she been in and managed to not ruin with her doe-eyed mediocrity?

I've already talked about Dracula, now here are some other movies I just can't hate, even though she's in them:

Lucas (1987)

Now this movie is just charming, and she makes a pretty adorable kid. So far so good.

Beetle Juice (1988)

I find myself completely unable to hate on 80s-90s Tim Burton, because back in the day he was awesome. Beetle Juice is a sweet story set in a whimsical setting that you totally believe while you are watching. It just knocks on the door of over-the-top, but there's still enough believability and heart that you get totally sucked in.

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Ok this is one of my all-time favorite movies. Ever. As far as I'm concerned, Ryder was a prop in this movie. Yes, her character was important but she really didn't have to do much. I'll say it over and over again: back in the day, Tim Burton was amazing.

Reality Bites (1994)

This movie is sooooo 90s. I have to admit, I have a hard time explaining exactly why I like this one, because the characters are whiny and few are even all that likeable... but there's something about it that sucks me in, that I really dig. I mean, thats kind of how I feel about the 90s anyway, so.....

Girl, Interrupted (1999)

Angelina Jolie totally steals the show on this one. In fact, she may be the only reason this movie is any good, which is a testament to what she did with her role. Elizabeth Moss and Britanny Murphy are good in their parts too, definitely good supports to the story. As for Ryder, I wanted to slap her repeatedly during the movie. Her character was just frustrating, and barely came off as anything other than an animated doll.

The Darwin Awards (2006)

If you're watching this movie for the stellar acting, you're doing it wrong. This movie has about a zillion cameos and a completely wacky, over-the-top premise. Just enjoy it for the mind-popcorn that it is and move on.

Star Trek (2009)

Awesome movie, and I'm not even a trekkie. You probably don't even know Ryder is in this, it's such a small part.

-----

I guess awful is too strong of a word. She's not awful... she's just painfully mediocre and I can think of so many talented actresses who could have played these parts so much better. These movies aren't good because of her, they're good despite her. Sigh.

Okay I'll bite

Oh dear, sweet Ryan, I hate it when we fight like this. I had no idea when I threw down my little gauntlet that you'd take it so seriously. It's... adorable.

But let me say this. Getting into it with a ginger is not something for the faint of heart. Getting into it with a girl is treacherous. If you combine the two, well, you may not make it out alive. Are you sure you can handle it? And I must say, for someone who writes regularly on the failures and triumphs of today's cinematic efforts, you used a lot of photos to beef up that spirited post on what you claim to be some of your very favorite movies.

Is a photo worth 1000 words really? Well maybe, but if the first thing I see when I open your blog is a giant blank space with a little blue question mark, I'm not sure whether to scroll down or just move on, maybe check Facebook or something.

So already you start off at -1000. If this was Jeopardy, you'd be pretty screwed right off the bat.

But as I read, barring your little jab at the great John Hughes (what the hell, man? I'd look out for lightning if I were you), I find that I don't disagree with what your are saying for at least a few lines, until you call me a silly Ginger and refer to my opinion on Back to the Future Part II &III as bonkers...

Who says bonkers these days? -50.

Who argues with a hot girl? -100.

Then you use rottentomatoes.com and imdb.com, which I'll admit can support an argument for a film's merit, but really I think most of what appealed to people in those last two installations was the fact that they fell in love with Doc and Marty in the first movie.

And I'm only gonna say this once: Doc on LSD would pretty much be exactly the same, god bless him.

But hey, I'll give you 10 for effort. Yay you.

Now at this point I start to wonder if you are really enjoying a glass of wine (or the whole bottle) as you write because you just start saying crazy things.

Crispin Glover is the reason the movies were disappointing? You've gotta be kidding me. If they needed that character so bad, they'd have recast him. They did it for Jennifer and no one noticed or cared. That character, though key in the first movie, was a fairly unspectacular guy and could have been played by just about any random skinny white nerd.

I think you just wanted to put a photo of him surrounded by rats didn't you?

So for Back to the Future II, I say the parts that were actually IN the future were awesome, but the rest was just a stream of consciousness that was utterly forgettable.

And then Part III is in the old west? IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE.

Also, Mary Steenburgen is more annoying than that kid from The Santa Claus, which I also didn't like. But you probably loved it didn't you Ryan?

+20 for saying Mary Steenburgen was annoying.

-100 for liking The Santa Claus.

Finally, I haven't seen II and III in a while, but come on, don't you think I have better things to do with my time than watch mediocre sequels that just make me sad? Granted they weren't as bad as the Matrix sequels but I don't think me watching them again will prove anything to either of us.

Personally, I'd rather celebrate 80s movies that were awesome, not stew over what was less than.

If you were counting, here is your point total: -1220

I believe that's a FAIL.

Thank you for playing. I hope you have learned something today my dear.

Seacrest out.

Great Scott!

In case you haven't figured it out from some of my previous posts, I am a child of the 80s. They were a bright, delightful decade, and I mourn for those of you who missed them in all their acid-washed glory.

Yep. I love the 80s.

I love 80s movies. The 80s gave us some timeless gems, including The Terminator, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, The Goonies, Airplane!, Die Hard, Dirty Dancing, Rocky IV, Karate Kid, two of the three GOOD Star Wars movies and many many more.

The 80s gave us Back to the Future. Well, it gave us three of them but the first on is the only one I like. I was actually arguing with a friend over the trilogy recently because he thought I was crazy for not liking all three. Oh well, he has his own blog to sing the praises of one awesome movie and two painfully mediocre follow-ups.

You can catch his blog here. Your move Ryan. Don't make me call you yellow.


ANYway so correct me if I'm wrong, but every child of the 80s has seen Back to the Future, probably several dozen times. Every child of the 80s secretly wishes they drove a Delorean, and every child of the 80s remembers Marty McFly's Nike high tops that laced themselves up. I gotta admit, the part of Back to the Future II where they were actually IN the future was pretty bad ass. The shoes were bad ass... and I know every guy on this planet would love to have a pair of shoes that can lace themselves, am I right?


Well guys, now you can have them.

What?

Can it be?

Feast your eyes, baby. If you've got the green, you can have the shoes... and I'm talking THE shoes. The ones from the movie. So place your bids and let me know how it goes.

For the auction, click HERE.

Why I hate animal movies

Caution: spoilers in this post.

So this weekend some horse movie came out and everybody seems shocked that it didn't do very well in the box office (12.6 million in fact, and my guess is this movie will be hard pressed to make back its 35 million dollar budget).

But really, who cares. Obviously at least 80% of the people who are so shocked the movie didn't do well didn't go see it. They probably wisely decided to spend their $11 on a movie that won't bore them to tears, like The Social Network (Also, no one wants to see Diane Lane looking matronly.... I mean, come ON). I don't blame them, because animal movies suck.

Case in point: I actually Googled to see if the horse dies at the end of the movie. I shouldn't have to tell you why I did that. You know why. It's because in most animal movies the animal DIES, and then I cry. News flash: I don't like to cry at movies. It's embarrassing. People mock me for it. In fact, the only animal movies that I didn't cry during were Jaws, The Birds, Piranha 3-D and Cujo, for obvious reasons.

Also, it doesn't matter if it's real animals or cartoon ones. I remember seeing Bambi as a kid and having nightmares of his mother dying for weeks. Same goes for The Lion King and The Land Before Time (yes, that one counts). Disney sure does like to kill 'em off don't they?

Everyone I know who saw Marley & Me said they cried all the way through it... and then at the end? You guessed it. He effing DIES. Thanks Disney. You advertise the movie to be a comedy and so nobody brought tissues.

How about Old Yeller? He got rabies and his owner, a child, has to go shoot him. Yaaaaay. You go Disney! Making us cry since 1957. Good job.

So there's that. Animal movies = tearjerkers. I don't need to be reminded that beloved pets and animal friends die way too soon, and I most certainly don't need to see it on a 50-foot screen for $11 that I worked very hard to earn.

Then there's the ones that are just stupid. Like animals who talk. It's supposed to be cute I know, but come ON. I would rather eat a live jellyfish than watch two hours of talking animals trying to save the world or going on an epic journey or whatever. Dumb. And now they've even started doing them in 3-D animation so the animals can act like people too, instead of just sounding like them! Creepy. I mean, there was some movie last year about hamsters or something who were spies or whatever and I would seriously vomit in my mouth every time the preview came on. Now there's another one called The Guardians with talking owls and I have no idea what the hell it is about but I'm going to avoid it as diligently as I avoid my ex-boyfriends.

And really, who makes more crappy animal movies than anyone? Disney.

Ok, so I'm not a big fan of Disney (recently anyway) for a lot of reasons. First of all, Disney studios has the power to pretty much take anything and turn it to crap. My latest Disney-induced heartbreak came in the form of Alice in Wonderland... which had all the potential to be delightfully whimsical and creepy, only to be homogenized into something that was nothing if not disappointing. Goofy might be a good word here. Ugh. I'd give more examples but I don't have all day. It's as if Disney has this motto that everything they do has to be what, family-friendly? Funny? Appeal to everyone? Offend no one? Well in the process they're turning out movies that will either put me to sleep or give me diabetes.... but I'm getting off topic here.

The point I'm making here is this: go see a movie with people in it. They're way less likely to break your heart, make you cry, or remind you that mortality can't be controlled.