Monday update

1. Came in this morning to a meeting proposal from 8:30-1. After I finished laughing hysterically, I rescheduled that one. I'll be lucky if I'm caught up (on work, not reading LJ) enough to meet by ten.

2. shadesong's birthday party was this weekend, and it was a blast. We had tons of people, and there was a good enough crowd vibe that I never had to run upstairs to escape. I did spend a good chunk of time in my office, chatting away from the noise with folks like dicotomygrrl, asciikitty, and oneagain, but I also spent time in the party proper, and saw lots of folks I enjoy chatting with, like mgrasso, jmspencer, theloriest, and other nifty people.

3. Also in for the party, we had jenphalian, lbitw, sideshownate, slipjig, rafaela, elionwyr, and zarhooie crashing at our place. slipjig, with help from ayalanya (who was not crashing at our place), cooked a damned nice dinner on Saturday night that really helped reduce everyone's stress and get the party going on the right foot.

4. Work is eating my soul this week, and what little time isn't spent worrying about work will be spent on Elayna's upcoming birthday party this weekend, and the assorted fun stuff (in-laws!) associated with that. Any other time will be spent on the 261 Days of FIlm project. After that, I might be able to read LJ or catch up, but assume that I'm not reading anything, so if you need something, email me. I do plan on catching up on comments, at least, sometime today or tomorrow.

5. Incidentally, my old Emory email account was killed back in January (before it was supposed to be, but well after I technically had a "right" to it). So if you think you know my email address, but are not sending to either my LJ email or something at gmail, I'm not getting your message.

ETA: Anyone left out of items #2 or 3 was left out because I'm tired, stressy, and forgetful, not because I hate you or didn't enjoy spending time with you; part of what made it such a good party is that there wasn't a soul there that I didn't like.

Cookie dough for a good cause

liamstliam, as some of you might know, has a secret identity as a schoolteacher. And the National Honor Society students at his school are planning on a trip to build houses for Habitat for Humanity in South Carolina later this year. Needless to say, there are some serious costs involved, and the students there are attempting to raise some money to alleviate the costs. They're doing this by selling cookie dough!

Details (including pricing, flavors, and timeframe) can be found in this post, but this is primarily aimed at Boston-area folks (although the link also has info in case anyone wants to do a straight donation).

261 Days of Horror, Day 46: From Dusk Till Dawn

From Dusk Till Dawn. 1996. Directed by Robert Rodriguez. Written by Quentin Tarantino. Released by Dimension.

Shortly after college, I roomed with someone who was really, really obsessed with films. I'll call him Snobby McSnotterson, which sums him up nicely. He was technically a PhD student in philosophy*, but he was also the epitome of the classic art-house snob. If I were given God-like powers, he'd get his own personal Circle of Hell for making me watch John Turturro's Mac, a film that is exactly like a Uwe Boll film would be if you took away all the action sequences and f/x shots. Only longer.

But I digress.

The point is that Snobby, who (like any film fan - snob or mainstream - back in 1996) worshipped Quentin Tarantino. But after heading to the theatre one day and seeing From Dusk Till Dawn, he came back ranting about how much he hated every minute of it.

I'd already seen it twice by the point, but Snobby's hatred of the movie confirmed for me then and there that From Dusk Till Dawn was every bit the work of genius I thought it was.

The thing that bothered Snobby about the film (aside from the linear plot, sharp dialogue, good action sequences, and non-angsty vampires) was the juxtaposition of two genres. It's something that folks with better taste than Snobby have trouble with, and it tends to be one of the major sticking points for folks. I'm just fine with it, myself.

The first half of the movie is a damned fine crime flick. The Gecko brothers -- sharp Seth and psychotic and schizophrenic Richie -- are on the lam after Richie breaks Seth out of a Texas jail. After a gas station holdup that turns into a clusterfuck (leading to a dead cop, a clerk who gets set on fire, and a nice big explosion), the brothers hole up in a crappy motel with a hostage. While Seth goes to get some grub, his brother -- who has impulse control issues -- rapes and kills the hostage (offscreen).

The Geckos, needing transportation and, if possible, hostages, come across a the Fuller family. Papa Jacob is a preacher (and widower) who has experienced something of a crisis of faith. Scott's his adopted son, and Kate's his innocent but sexy teenage daughter. The Fullers grab them and their RV and manage to successfully cross the Mexican border. However, the Geckos plan to hold the family hostage until their contacts meet them at a strip club called the Titty Twister (which, like the movie's title says, is open From Dusk Till Dawn).

I can't say enough about the ten minutes or so spent at the Titty Twister before the movie transitions to horror. Chet, the Titty Twister's completely gratuitous barker**, gives the greatest spiel of all time, discussing all the different kinds of pussy available in the bar***. The patrons include a man equipped with the crotch pistol -- a spring loaded gun that shoots right from the groin -- first seen (but not equipped) in Rodriguez's Desperado; a strong but silent guy who seems to have no interest in the dancers; and the Gecko/Fuller multi-family gathering.

The group drinks for a bit, and then the show starts, with Salma Hayek as a the featured dancer. She's reason enough to watch this movie... but this is a horror review, after all, and we haven't had any horror yet.

Alas, Salma smells the blood from one of Richie's injuries, and she vamps out and attacks him. As does the rest of the staff. See, the Titty Twister is a vampire feeding ground, and a trap for the long-haul truckers and bikers who patronize the place. And if I said that the first scene was a clusterfuck, that's nothing compared to this one. Richie dies quickly, and the rest of the bar's patrons get taken care of over the next few minutes. But our heroes -- including the patrons mentioned above -- fight back, using crucifixes, fire, and stakes to take out the vamps. When all is said and done, all the vamps are dead, and all the major humans (Richie excluded) are alive. We learn that the silent guy is a war vet named Frost, and the guy with the crotch gun is Sex Machine. The heroes stake all the victims (vampires in this mythology do not require three nights to be turned), but Sex Machine gets bitten on the ankle.

As the heroes argue about what to do (especially now that they hear vamps on the outside waiting to come in), Frost goes into a rambling speech about his days in 'Nam, only to be interrupted when Sex Machine, fully turned, chomps on his neck and also gets a bite in on Jacob. As they struggle, Frost throws Sex Machine through a door even as he fully vamps out, and Frost and the new vampires chase the remaining characters into a storage room filled with loot from truckers who've been killed at the Titty Twister on previous nights.

Gearing up for a final showdown, Jacob makes his kids promise to kill him when he vamps out. They reluctantly swear to do so, and the four survivors make their move, using holy-water filled condoms, stakes, crossbows, and whatever else they can get their hands on. Alas, Jacob does, indeed, turn into a vamp (although not before killing the vampiric Frost), and his son kills him. However, Scott gets attacked by a group of vamps, and his poor sister is forced to put him out of his misery.

Just as it looks like Seth and Kate are doomed we see a few beams of sunlight shining through bullet holes, which means that it's dawn. Alas, the humans don't have enough ammo to make any more holes. Fortunately, Seth's contacts do show up, and Seth convinces them to blow through the door. The sunlight (reflecting off the disco ball) takes out the remaining vamps, and the two survivors escape. Kate asks Seth to take her with him, but he refuses, telling her, "I may be a bastard, but I'm not a fucking bastard." As we fade to credits, we see the backside of the Tittty Twister, which looms over an ancient Aztec temple on a cliffside, with hundreds of trucks and bikes from past victims lying in the ravine behind it.

The disjoint between genres in From Dusk Till Dawn is what makes it work for me, and part of what drives better people than Snobby McSnotterson to distraction when processing the film. Unlike other films that hold off on the horror aspect until Act 2, there's no hint of it (other than in the poster) before Salma Hayak vamps out. Until that very second, all the traditional horror tropes -- the first--person stalking camera, the creepy looks by the evil people, the ominous musical cues -- are missing. And I adore that lack of segue. One of the major themes of many horror films is the examination of how ordinary people react to encountering the supernatural. Few films from this category really build up the pre-horror situation before revealing the monsters, however (and almost all of them give the horror away to the audience, and often a few victims, early on). Here, we essentially have a crime movie interrupted, and those who like movies to fit into nice little boxes have trouble dealing with it.

As folks who read my review for Near Dark might remember, I'm not a big fan of vampire mythology in movies unless it's done very well. If there's no logical space to explain the monsters, just have the heroes fight; that's what we get here. Likewise, we don't get the vampire angst and whining that was in vogue back then (no thanks to a certain Tom Cruise movie from a few years earlier). These vampires are nasty, evil creatures, and they don't waste any time emoting.

With From Dusk Till Dawn, Quentin Tarantino proved that he had more writing chops than he'd been given credit for, expanding out of the crime genre that he'd mastered (and in which folks like Snobby wish he'd stayed). Likewise, although Robert Rodriguez had used plenty of gore effects in his previous movies, he'd never given us a horror flick before. Don't think we'd have Grindhouse if it weren't for this movie.

Rodriguez and Tarantino have a solid cast, with Harvey Keitel playing against type as the gentle father still grieving over the loss of his wife, and George Clooney also playing against type (back then, at least -- this was his first movie lead after hitting it big on ER) as an amoral criminal. In supporting roles, Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin (playing three characters, including Chet), Salma Hayek, Tom Savini, and Fred Williamson all turn in great performances as well. Even Juliette Lewis gives one of her better performances here, and Tarantino (as Richie) manages to hold his own well enough (in a part that admittedly doesn't demand as much as the others).

As with any Rodriguez and Tarantino flick, the soundtrack here is phenomenal. We get "Dark Night" by the Blasters, "Mexican Blackbird" and "She's Just Killin' Me" by ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughn's "Mary Had a Little Lamb," and some great songs by Rodriguez's own band, Tito and Tarantula. All perfect music for a Texan crime flick or a Tex-Mex horror movie.

From Dusk Till Dawn is simply one of my favorite movies, horror or otherwise, and if both megatalents associated with it have done better work since then (and they have, in the form of Kill Bill and Sin City), this is still my favorite flick associated with either of them, and the movie that, to me, showed just how far they could go.

*Meaning he was working towards a Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy, which amuses me.

**I mean, this bar is the only business in the entire area, at the edge of a cliff. No one drives to the parking lot and gets out without having a clue of what they're in for.

***White, black, Spanish, yellow, hot, cold, wet, tight, big, bloody, fat, hairy, smelly, velvet, silk, Naugahyde, snappin', horse, dog, mule, and fake.