At The Movies - Halloween Edition

It's that time of year when I love watching horror movies. Now I will acknowledge that the all-time best horror movie ever made in my opinion is THE SHINING starring Jack Nicholson. But I admit...I have a guilty pleasure for horror and science fiction "b-movies" from the golden age of cinema. I absolutely love them...even more so than contemporary horror pictures with bigger budgets and better special effects. I have some favorites of mine that I usually come back to year after year around Halloween. Here's just some of them...

KING KONG (1933) - I remember in the 80's watching the 1976 version of King Kong on TV. I thought it was great. My dad watched it with me and told me that it was nothing compared to the 1933 version. Months later we both caught the original version on TV one night. I absolutely loved it and agreed with my dad it was much better than the 76 version. Now that they have a 2005 version, I still say the original is the best.

FRANKENSTEIN (1931) - There have been numerous remakes and sequels of this film, but the original is still the best. Boris Karloff stars as "the monster" who is both frightening and misunderstood. I am still amazed sometimes how well this film holds up after all these years. I have a tradition of mine that every Halloween night I watch this movie. It's the perfect vintage horror movie.

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) - This is one of those rare occasions where the sequel almost lives up to the greatness of the original. "The monster" is raging and demands a mate from his creator...and so the chaos begins. This is a fun film to watch...with plenty of mad scientists and monsters and angry villagers. Great movie.

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954) - While this movie isn't the best "movie monster" film by any means, "the creature" is one of my favorite movie monsters. I mean...just look at him. He's so cool!

WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953) - In my opinion this is the BEST vintage science fiction movie ever made. And when I say "vintage" I mean circa 1950's. Make no mistake...no arguement about it...this is the best. Classic 1950's paranoia, classic flying saucers taking over the world, death rays, goofy looking aliens...it's all here. The Tom Cruise version in 2005 was great too, but I just have a special place in my heart for this one. Great movie.

THE BLOB (1958) - The fifties produced some great b-movie science fiction movies, and this is one of them. A meteor has crashed to earth and a liquid gooey ooze has leaked out of it. Now the giant jello mold is on the loose and it's soaking up unsuspecting 50's teenagers. Fun movie.

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1959) - From the 50's to the 70's Hammer Studios in England gained fame with their own productions of classic american "gothic horror" movies. A lot of them starred their two top actors...Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and a lot of their titles are just great. This is their take on the classic story from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, starring Sherlock Holmes. I had actually never caught this one before, but I happened to catch it recently on TV. It was pretty good. Hammer films are a lot of fun to watch, and are filled with "gothic creepiness."

GODZILLA (1954) - Yes, it's a man in a big lizard suit....but it's still Godzilla. In my opinion the japanese never quite understood how to make a great monster film back in the day, but they did happen to create an icon that has stood the test of time. Still one of the most recognizable "monster roars" ever put on film. A classic.

THE FLY (1958) - Often overlooked when compared to other more well known movie monsters, "The Fly" is a great character. A scientist toying with transfiguration technology accidentally gets his atoms crossed with a fly. The end result is one of the best movie monsters ever created. The scene where the scientist finally reveals his hideousness to his wife is one of the best moments in movie monster cinema. Throw in a great performance by the great Vincent Price and you have a true classic.

POLTERGEIST (1982) - Now this isn't a "b-movie" by any stretch of the imagination, Jenny and I just happened to catch it recently on TV. It had been forever since we watched it, so we decided to re-watch it. Written by Steven Spielberg and directed by Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) POLTERGEIST has to be in the conversation for best horror movie of all time. It's super scary, very creepy, and surprisingly gore-free (or I should say gore-tame.) This was the movie that forced the creation of the "PG-13" rating, and it's not hard to see why. Still a classic after all these years, and still scary as you-know-what.

Texas Fight!

I always laugh when I see this commercial.

Wake Up With Al

Okay. Here's a hilarious story....

So I was sitting at home last Friday eating lunch with the kids when Ben says to me..."Do you know who my favorite weather man is?"

Now...I thought this was a rather odd question because, well...I didn't know Ben knew ANY weather men or women. So I looked puzzled and I said, "No...who?" He answered, "Al Roker." I practically fell out of my chair and choked on my food. I asked him how he knew who Al Roker was. He said, "Because I see him on the weather channel in the morning." Now I confess...Jenny and I usually turn on the weather channel every morning, but it's to check the forecast...and NOT because of Al Roker.

So after being taken back by this whole conversation Ben added, "Also...my favorite show is WAKE UP WITH AL." I just started laughing and Ben laughed too. Now when he wants to make me laugh he tells me Al Roker is his favorite weather man.

Kids are hilarious sometimes...

Falling for Fall

This weekend I spent a lot of time outside raking leaves. As you can see below they're all starting to fall around here. Still though this is a beautiful time of year. The kids really enjoy the colors in the trees and all the halloween decorations. It's a fun time.

The Dragons - Game 7

Yesterday was our 7th game of the season. It was very cold, it was an early game (9:30 in the morning) and half of our team was out sick. But still our kids played on and they played great. Now it's one more practice on Wednesday...one more game next week...and then after that it's the team party.

At The Movies

THE WIRE: SEASON 4 - This season of THE WIRE was very different from prior seasons...yet just as good. Instead of focusing solely on the gang-bangers versus the cops, in season 4 you also get the story perspective of the youth that's often caught in the crossfire. Here you get to know 4 Baltimore teens who are caught up in crime and crime around them, yet they also struggle to find opportunities in a neighborhood that offers very little. Once again the stories and drama here are first rate. Once again...a great season in a great series.

THE INFORMANT - Matt Damon stars as Mark Whitacre, an employee of Archer Daniels Midland in Illinois. He turns informant and begins working with the FBI as a whistle blower in a price-fixing scheme. But before you perceive Whitacre as someone with honorable intentions, you soon realize that the whistle blower has some skeletons in the closet of his own. This is a classic example of a "dramedy." It's got plenty of drama, but yet never becomes pretentious and maintains a sense of humor throughout. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, THE INFORMANT is definitely worth checking out. Great film.

KNOWING - Nicholas Cage stars as John Koestler, an astrophysicist at MIT. His son's elementary school digs up a "time capsule" that was planted there by students in 1959. One of the objects in the capsule is a piece of paper filled with numbers. John soon discovers the paper is actually a list of dates...dates that predict catastrophic events over a 40 year time span. John races against time to try to stop, or warn against the last three remaining events that still yet to happen. Critics blasted this movie pretty hard when it came out but I actually enjoyed it. The third act gets pretty far-fetched, but the ride up to that point is pretty fun and somewhat interesting. For a rental I'd say this is a pretty good movie. Much better than I expected.

THE JACKET - It's 1991 and Adrien Brody plays a Gulf War Vet who returns home from duty in the first Gulf War....only to find he suffers from amnesia and mental instability...(or does he?) He is institutionalized and sent to a mental facility, despite his belief that he's not crazy. Once he arrives he is routinely juiced up with special drugs, harnessed in a straight jacket, and stuffed in a box for periods of time. Now stay with me here...I'm still explaining this thing. So once he gets packed away somehow the drugs enable him to travel ahead in the future to 2008. Then...after he travels back and forth in time he discovers the truth about what got him institutionalized and crazy antics ensue. Whew! This film felt to me like it was trying to be a clone of the movie JACOB'S LADDER (1990), and JACOB'S LADDER was much better than this. Though I admire the effort here for trying to think "out-of-the-box," (no pun intended) overall I didn't care for this one. I don't mind "weird" in a movie, but there has to be a point to it. There were times here that it moved way beyond "weird" and just became "ridiculous."

Fun With Jib Jab

After having a blast making the "Monster Mash" piece, I came up with this one starring Ben, Jackson, and Luke. In the spirit of JAWS...I give you "JOWLS!"

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Monster Mash!

We came across this from Jenny's uncle and family. We thought it was so funny we had to try it ourselves. Happy Halloween everyone!

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More Signs Of Fall...

We're just about at the peak of fall around here. Next to summer, fall is my favorite season here in Michigan. The colors in the trees are amazing, and we have a blast celebrating Halloween all throughout October. The kids and I raked leaves for the first time today. Well...I should say I raked leaves and they jumped in them. The fall colors don't seem to be as vibrant as they did last year. That might be because we had a very cool summer this year. But even a less-than-vibrant fall around here is still beautiful to look at. Also...the kids are full on in the spirit of Halloween. Every other day they're playing dress up in all sorts of outfits. Plus, they enjoy drawing pictures of Halloween and decorating the house with their artwork. Finally, Ben got a small pumpkin at school when his class went on a field trip to a local farm. He brought it home and we painted a face on it. The pumpkin's name is "Mr. Happy."

Pumpkin Day at the Farm

On Sunday the 4 of us went to Grandma's Pumpkin Patch, which is a local farm just north of Midland. The kids had fun feeding animals, playing on the tractors, running through the corn maze, picking out pumpkins, playing in bouncy houses, and there was even a haunted house to run around in. It's one of those places that just comes alive when it's fall. As I've said in prior posts we're surrounded by vintage midwest farm country, so the "fall harvest" is very big around here. Anyway, the kids had a blast, and they were kind of bummed when we left. But they felt better when we bought a box of cider donuts for the road.