Thursday randomness

The video for Eminem's "Mosh." Wow. A much better use of politically-themed animation than, say, last night's season premiere of South Park.

Weak as SP was, the debut of Drawn Together, the "reality show" featuring cartoon characters, was a great start. Ling Ling (Pokemon meets Bun-Bun) is my favorite character by far. Some damned fine voicework -- Tara Strong's Princess sounds almost like Hynden Walch's Starfire (to the point where I assumed Hynden did the voice until I saw the credits), Cree Summer continues to impress me (she's still the only pop singer I know of to cite Elfquest as an influence), and even Adam Corrola (the one stunt casting choice) does a fine job (as a sexist pig, go figure). Yeah, I take my 'toons seriously.

I also take my baseball seriously, which is why I have mixed feelings about the BoSox winning the World Series. On the one hand, they've been fighting this "curse" for ages. On the other, their ability to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory had transcended "bad luck" and become tradition. And when it comes to sports, I'm a traditionalist, dammit.

Still, this is a team that deserved to win, and which won two in St. Louis, in spite of Terry Francona's preemptive whining about not being able to use the DH (which struck me as similar to "Cowboy" Bob Orton complaining that he wasn't allowed to hit other wrestlers with his "cast"). They just dominated from the first moment to the last.

Now, of course, we turn our attention to the Cubs. . .

Over in justpopemotion (a community in which folks create music mixes for characters/shows), someone created a mix for my all-time favorite DC hero! Woot!

Last night's Mythbusters had an appearance by Ricky Jay! Woohoo! They also sorta busted the Bullseye killing-with-a-playing-card myth, although since they were able to get a card up to 1/4 of an inch into ballistics gel, I could see using a card to shred someone's throat. I've enjoyed the cast expansion this year -- Adam and Jamie are still the focus, but the build team is important. And Kari is hella cute.

Guilty admission: I really want to see the Spongebob Squarepants movie.

Off to a meeting.

The most important slasher movie

I've mentioned before how much I love this time of the year, as every channel shows more horror movies in October than during the entire rest of the year (although I suspect that airings of the Silent Night, Deadly Night series peak in December, and the Leprechaun movies are probably shown mostly in March).

And IFC, already a great channel, really has fun with this season. A few years back, they aired Adam Simon's The American Nightmare and a number the '70s horror flicks mentioned in that documentary.

This year, it's Italian horror.

On Saturday, it's Dario Argento night, as we get a documentary on the man and the films Suspiria, Inferno, and Deep Red. All are must-sees, of course, although beware the really awful dubbing.

On Sunday, we get Mario Bava night. Bava's not as well known as Argento, but he should be. We get another documentary, and two decent films, the cheesy Baron Blood and the wonderful Black Sunday.

But then we get the treat.

They're showing Bay of Blood.

The Mother of All Slasher Films.

Yeah, other films are important (Psycho did more for the murder-as-fetish concept than any film before and nearly since). But this was the archetype for almost every slasher of the '70s and beyond. Cunningham stole scenes from this (including the infamous Double Coitis Interuptis moment) for the F13 movies with less subtlety than Rob Liefeld (and much of the '80s were swipes from Cunningham, of course). It's not a "good" film in the traditional sense, or even a good Bava film. The "plot" is an excuse to have lots of folks die in ghastly ways. But so many of the horror cliches come from this movie. You've got the sex/death associations, the jarring musical cues, the shock ending, the random teens who wander into the plot just to fornicate and die, much of the country/city differential that Craven and others would play with, the local folks warning everyone of danger, etc. There are also twists that too many of the copycats didn't even try to replicate, but Bava was a lot better, even when wallowing in slasher heaven, than most of his compatriots. Folks who are fans of the genre might be disappointed that this film predates the "final girl" archetype, but it's easy to see even that part of the formula developing as a reaction to this film.

(aside: Yes, the film was released as "Twitch of the Death Nerve" later in its American run, but I'll still to the title that IFC is using).

I'd highly recommend all six films (and both documentaries) this weekend. Unlike, say, American Movie Classics (which considers the later Halloween films and anything featuring Larry Drake horror "classics"), IFC is showing groundbreaking works of horror that don't get seen often enough.

Now if only they'd make it a long weekend and add a night of Fulci.

iPods for Dummies

One for entertainment dummies.

And one for dummies who take the Peter Principle to extremes.