The month of Hallowe’en

I am so looking forward to this holiday. I went to the store last week with my brothers and we checked out the decorations. We had fun critiquing the merits of each piece.

My brother is planning to be a fortune cookie with foam wrapped appropriately and, when approached, he will dispense cryptic advice. I am considering being a Halloween sale rack.

Last year was pretty much the best Halloween I’ve ever had. My brother and I watched about 15 horror movies working up to the date. All my birthday presents were Halloween decorations. I got to decorate two whole rooms in fine, spooky style.

This year will be scaled back. There are still classic and new movies to watch and some decorating to do. I already have 2 green and black tarantulas gracing my room.

I’ve been working on a Halloween project which I need to mail tomorrow. It’s a mock website with capsule reviews of horror movies divided into categories, such as werewolf, zombie, slasher. Each category has 5 in-depth treatments of movies: The Exorcist, Nightmare on Elm Street, and so on. There are links to helpful sites and early info on movies for 2008 and beyond. Plus, a bunch of horror movie posters and images. It’s a present for my brother.

I’ve been debating on whether to post some of my reactions to the 70s and 80s horror movies I watched last year. People I talked to were deeply disturbed by my opinions about the movies of their youth. The problem is that these movies were meant for a teenage audience. Maybe I won’t, I’d hate to ruin someone else’s fond childhood memories.

On second thought…

I have read true adventure stories, I just don’t remember the titles.

An exhaustive and disgusting one about the Donner party. What really horrified me was the murders of two Native American men that some of them committed and and were never tried for.

A biography of the Victorian Sir Richard Burton and his explorations in Africa. He was such a rogue but I have to say I kind of liked him.

Inn of Sixth Happiness – about Gladys Aylward who tries to save Chinese orphans during war. It reminded me of Dodie Smith’s Hundred and One Dalmatians.

And the Burke and Wills expedition in Australia. If you ever needed a definition of human folly, this would be your best bet. Poor Billy.

The Commish, 1991-1995

The Commish is Tony Scali (Michael Chiklis) who loves his wife and son dearly. He is not glamorous; he’s balding and heavy-set. But he’s smart in dealing with the city politics, tough with the villains, and tender with the victims of crimes.

It’s kind of like a male version of career versus family, except that his sense of justice and honor also gets thrown in the mix.

Michael Chiklis is better known for his award winning role in The Shield. But if you ever wanted to see a gentler side to the actor, this is the ticket.

This is an older series and it shows in visual quality but I deeply enjoyed season one because of the good work done by all the actors.

true adventure book challenge

New territory for me. Here is the 5 book challenge list for good true adventures.

SPOILERS AHEAD

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The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz – In 1940, 7 guys in a war prison escape across the Siberian arctic with only an axe.

Alive by Piers Paul Read – 1972, 45 people on a plane crash into the Andes. 16 people live, some by resorting to cannibalism. (I saw the movie but couldn’t sort out who anybody was.)

Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger – 1991 – a perfect storm – that is it can’t get any worse – hits Andrea Gail, a fishing boat with 6 men. They all die.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer – 1996, 8 people climb Mt. Everest, 5 of them die. Edit: reading Touching the Void instead.

No Horizon So Far by Liv Arnesen – 2 women traveled across the Antarctic on foot in 2000.

eh, staying inside this weekend.

new Paddington Bear

I am pleased to learn about the new Paddington Bear movie which is supposed to be released in 2010 by Warner Bros. I’m too old to want new things, and doubt it will top the the old version with its stop-action bear and animated family. But I am happy that Michael Bond’s series might become the newest thing with little ones. The books are too charming to lose.

F/X (1986)

I’m continuing to record my comments on my mystery movie watching.  See the special topics page for the list of movies to be watched.

 I didn’t expect much from this movie.  In fact, I paid more attention to choosing the book to read while I watched it.  I didn’t read the book.

The story is about a man sets up a fake killing for a witness protection service but something goes wrong and he finds himself on the run.   He has to use all his special effects skills to outwit his enemies. 

It’s not really a mystery but that’s OK. It’s more of a fun action movie with a few twists.

Z is for Zodiac; A is for Alice

Z is for Chinese Zodiac. I always loved the story behind the Chinese Zodiac and I liked that all the signs were animals. It made it seem much friendlier. Seemingly unpleasant animals like pigs, rats and snakes get to shine. The only animal I object to is the Rooster – a hen doesn’t match the rooster’s characteristics. All in all, I much prefer them to their Western counterpart.

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A is for Alice. I thought that Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There was much better than Alice in Wonderland. I think that it was because the game of chess imposed a little order on Carroll’s wild whimsy. Also, the whole sequence in which the hard glass becomes mist that leads you to another world – what could be more magical than that? The Jabberwocky poem prepared me for T. H. White’s Sword in the Stone. And Alice’s goal – to become queen – seemed better than her previous goal to reach the garden.

Board Game – Betrayal

Today was my birthday and I had a lovely time visiting with my family.  We played a new board game: Betrayal at the House on the Hill.  Various people refer to it as House on Haunted Hill; Betrayal House; or, Horror Hill House.  Whatever it’s called, it’s a great Halloween game.

It’s like Clue for grownups.  It’s complicated to learn – many, many rules and counter-rules.  It’s has scary, violent stories, and it’s not for kids.

I got to be the monster a couple of times.  The first time I didn’t understand the rules and failed to win.  My character, a creepy little girl with blonde curls and a teddy bear was possessed by an evil living house.

I did much better with the zombies at the Bates motel scenario.  I should have deployed my zombies slightly better but, overall, I think my tactics were good.  I still failed in my mission but only by a couple of points.

I think I played it about 5 times in the past two days and I am looking forward to playing it again.

pirate treasure & Usagi Yojimbo

X is for treasure on pirate maps. The big, sprawling Χ was the best part. What would be there? Who knows (except the dead men) but it was fabulous. I think I carried a little of this with me when I started taking algebra. I have no math aptitude or liking. But algebra was the best because you solved for X. Of course, you wanted to find X, that’s where the treasure is!

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Y is for (Usagi) Yojimbo. Yeah, I cheated but I’ve just started reading this series and I couldn’t wait. Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai is a long running adventure series about a rabbit warrior in Feudal Japan. This is a deeper story than I first expected. Though there are some light moments, this definitely a story about honor and valor. Usagi is a ronin because his master died and he will not find another. He wanders the country helping the defenseless and generally being a hero. This series won me over. It’s got action, humor, intrigue, pathos, friendship, mystery, villains and, well, all the good stuff. It’s well plotted and the characters have depth. The artwork is simple and cartoony and the characters are all anthropomorphic animals. One conceit I quite like is that a breath holding a skull floats over the heads of the dead. Another good thing is that I believe children would enjoy it despite some violence and some serious themes.

V is for Valentine; W is for Wallace

V is for Valentine’s Day, my other favorite holiday. Like Halloween, I like the decorations associated with it: cupids, hearts, doves, flowers. I like the love poetry and the nice valentine’s cards, not the vinegar ones. I associate it with the goddess Venus more than St. Valentine performing secret marriage ceremonies or Lupercalia with its runners and goat skins. I’ve always thought of it as a day to take time to appreciate love, beauty and grace.

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W is for Hilary Knight’s Where’s Wallace – the picture that predated Where’s Waldo quite a bit. Knight did the Eloise series. The premise is a bored orangutan keeps escaping from the zoo to have adventures. The zookeeper dutifully goes to hunt for him, while tacitly enjoying the outings. There are several other characters who pop up on each page. I like the cat, she has a lot of personality. The artwork is good and there are lots of gentle jokes besides the seeking game. This isn’t that good a picture of it.