Today's Mood

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Crimewave (1985)

Girl in bar: You're cute.

Renaldo the Heel: Keep talkin', baby. 

Maybe you'll tell me something I don't already know.

Happy 65 to Sam Raimi!
Any fans of Crimewave up in here?

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Maniac Cop (1988)

Frank McCrae: Whole city's goin' to hell. 

You can't take a pee anywhere anymore. 

A very happy 88th birthday to horror icon Tom Atkins!

Good Afternoon, Gratuitous Ray Santiago

I was hoping when I clicked on actor Ray Santiago's IMDb page today (after noticing that today is his birthday) that I'd see he would somehow be reprising his Ash vs Evil Dead role of "Pablo" in Evil Dead Rise, the upcoming Evil Dead movie (this time set in a city!) from The Hole in the Ground director Lee Cronin (see my previous post here). I haven't been paying much attention to EDR because why would I, I am sold on Evil Dead content alone and will see it no matter what -- no need to spoil too much. So I only realized now that EDR is focused on another batch of brand new characters, meaning no Ash, no Mia, and no Pablo. Boo! Anyway Ray's IMDb page might have been a disappointment on that front but his Instagram page turned out to be anything but...

... emphasis on the "butt," clearly. I can't remember when I learned that Ray was openly gay but it's not something I realized watching him play Pablo on Ash vs Evil Dead, not at all, and I was totally (ecstatically) surprised when I did get that information. Well one glance at his Insta these days and no such doubts remain -- it's hella gay up in there, bless him. He's got a cute boyfriend and a drawer full of micro-speedos and he is living his best exhibitionist life and we are happy for him! Also it looks like he also got interviewed by our pal Bryan Fuller for the upcoming Queer For Fear mini-series that's hitting Shudder this fall, which is something else to be excited about. Anyway in celebration of Ray's birthday I snatched up some photos off that Insta, and I have them after the jump, enjoy...

In the Marvels of Madness

Raimi, Raimier, Raimiest -- those were the words that kept kicking me in the face last night during Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe offering featuring Avengers and Scarlet Witches, Wizard Supremes and several very surprising guest stars, faces old and new, that will surely set comic-book fans toes to tingling. Speaking as an old-school Raimi fan from ye horror days of the Evil Dead films you can sense the maestro's presence early on in the details, but you know that scene in Evil Dead II where an itty bitty drip-drop of liquid turns into a firehose of viscera blasted into Bruce Campbell's face? That's the way the Raimi comes at us with Multiverse -- drip, drop, kablammo, baby. By the last act we might as well be watching Army of Darkness II for how deep his deliciously dastardly vibe, big on goop and goof, has infected the typical flat-ironed and steel-bellied tone of the MCU.

I've got no big desire to dip my own toes into plot specifics but the basic gist here is that fresh hero-to-be America Chavez (a winning Xochitl Gomez) has powers flaring up beyond her control and a whole raft of big baddies (many of them many-tentacled and goopy to the max -- all the better for Raimi to slam in and squish them with windshield-like glee) are chasing her through multiple universes to suck said powers straight outta her. And in every universe which America stumbles she stumbles straight upon the good Doctor -- Strange that is -- and he helps her... or he helps her by hurting her... it all depends on the mood and emotional gradations of that slice of the multiverse's Stephen. 

So Stephen Strange helps her or he doesn't, and the Stephen Strange we're familiar with, in our own chapter of the Marvel Universe,  decides to help her by going to his friends to get some help. Enter the sly and delightful Benedict Wong as Wong the now-reigning Sorcerer Supreme, and also enter Elizabeth Olson as Wanda Maximoff, last seen nursing her emotional devastations post-WandaVision with a very big very bright red book. If you're a comics fan you know that book is called the "Darkhold" and if you're not a comics fan the movie will explain it to you, don't worry. But I think you can guess by its name that that book, in the grand tradition of "Books in Sam Raimi Movies", is problematic! Necronomicon-ho!

Anyway, as many iterations as Benedict Cumberbatch gets to play with as Doctors Strange in this movie, the Multiverse of Madness belongs for me to Olson. And as she's proven time and again, Elizabeth Olson is doing the best acting in the entirety of the MCU. This movie doesn't change that -- it only triple underlines that. While I remain resentful that an actress this talented and multifaceted seems to have been swallowed up entirely by the superhero complex, it's hard to keep that anger at its necessary boil when they keep giving her actual meaty material to work with like they did with WandaVision and like they do in this movie here. She's exceptional, delivering a three-hundred-and-sixty degree range of emotion for poor embattled Wanda, the big-eyed girl whose torments know no bounds. There's something to be said about the cruelty and pain that superhero stories seem intent on inflicting upon women in particular, something I'm not going to fall down the rabbit hole with right now, but Olson makes the experience riveting nevertheless. 

And this movie isn't just cruelty and pain obviously, but as with anything you can label "Raimiest" the director adores butting said pain up against goof and camp and the broadest sincerity, threading the world's trickiest tone like a multiverse-sized camel being jammed through the eye of a needle, a needle in a pile of needles ten pyramids tall (dare I say a "time-stack?) His Wizard of Oz movie showed what happened when the balance was off -- yikes -- but he's got all his plates spinning here, and Multiverse of Madness will send you reeling from emotional high to high like we're leap-frogging a mountain range. As much fun as the last Spider-Man was (and I dug that sucker plenty) this one's much more my jam, and this is the one I'll be re-watching, high off its giddy obscene supply. This is not Sam Raimi chained to anything -- this is the MCU chained to Sam Raimi, and swooping straight through the fires of hell and up through the stars and back, demons screeching on our tails the entire time. What a great goddamned time at the movies!

Today's Mood

This makes me feel one thousand years old but posting will be light on here today because I've been having trouble with my right hand this week -- it keeps seizing up and twitching and it's driving me nuts, and every time I try to type it starts throbbing. If anybody has any good advice on treatments I'd love to hear them -- I've been trying to stretch it out and so forth but it's not getting any better -- that said I really haven't given it a proper break, which would involve not being on a computer or my phone, both of which make it feel worse, but alas I am an addict to those things and can't seem to stop for longer than a minute. Oh well! I'll just cut it off and that will be that, problem solved!

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1987

Picking back up my "Siri Says" series after a couple of busy weeks as we plow into its final stretch of entries -- as I explained one month ago I've only got around a dozen years left out of one hundred total to write up, so maybe we'll finish this series off before the world ends even! Wouldn't that be a hoot? This series, you might or mightn't know, involves me asking my iPhone to assign me a random number between 1 and 100, and then I give you my five favorite movies from the year that corresponds. Anyway that's how I did it for the majority of these posts, but now that we're down to such minuscule options I've just written the remaining years out on slips of paper, and I pick one that way.

Which brings me to this week's selection -- we'll be choosing our favorite movies from the movies of 1987! Which, well, all of these movies are coincidentally turning 35 this year, so prepare your cake-based celebrations accordingly. And you know what else? This is the last year that I had left from the 1980s! Whenever I finish off a decade like this I collect up links to all that decade's entries, so here those are for your glance-back pleasure:

Here are my favorite movies of 1980

Here are my favorite movies of 1981 

Here are my favorite movies of 1982

Here are my favorite movies of 1983

Here are my favorite movies of 1984

Here are my favorite movies of 1985

Here are my favorite movies of 1986

Here are my favorite movies of 1988

Here are my favorite movies of 1989

Personally speaking I have a deep fondness for a lot of 1980s cinema since I saw my first movie in that decade and slowly, across its span, found myself becoming the obsessive who types before you today, but... the 1980s? Not really the greatest decade for movies when it comes down to it. I can admit that. Don't get me wrong, there are heaps of great films, as all of those links above will show you. But when I steep myself in the general sense of 80s Cinema it's a lot of big budget nonsense that dominated, while even foreign art-cinema was in a kind of strange in-between place. But hey if the 80s are your favorite movie decade please let me have it in the comments! And it's possible I'm feeling less than enthusiastic about them today after going through 1987's specific offerings, which were a little wobbly in particular. But I found some great ones! (It's a really great year for horror movies, actually.) On that note here are...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1987

Wings of Desire

(dir. Wim Wenders)

-- released on October 19th 1987 --

Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn

(dir. Sam Raimi)

-- released on March 13th 1987 --

Broadcast News

(dir. James Brooks)

-- released on December 13th 1987 --

RoboCop

(dir. Paul Verhoeven)

-- released on July 17th 1987 --

Maurice

(dir. James Ivory)

-- released on September 18th 1987 --

---------------------------------------

Runners-up: Opera (dir. Dario Argento), The Princess Bride (dir. Rob Reiner), Full Metal Jacket (dir. Stanley Kubrick), Moonstruck (dir. Norman Jewison), Raising Arizona (dir. Coens), Fatal Attraction (dir. Adrian Lyne), Adventures in Babysitting (dir. Chris Columbus), Outrageous Fortune (dir. Arthur Hiller), The Last of England (dir. Derek Jarman), House of Games (dir. David Mamet), Near Dark (dir. Bigelow), Dolls (dir. Stuart Gordon)...

... Empire of the Sun (dir. Spielberg), Prince of Darkness (dir. John Carpenter), The Stepfather (dir. Joseph Ruben), River's Edge (dir. Tim Hunter), Hellraiser (dir. Clive Barker), Predator (dir. John McTiernan), The Running Man (dir. Paul Michael Glaser), Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 (dir. Bruce Pittman), Withnail & I (dir. Bruce Robinson), Street Trash (dir. James Muro)

Never seen: My Life as a Dog (dir. Lasse Holstrom), Au Revoir Les Enfants (dir. Louis Malle), Angel Heart (dir. Alan Parker), The Believers (dir. John Schlesinger), Matewan (dir. John Sayles), Making Mr. Right (dir. Susan Seidelman), Ishtar (dir. Elaine May), Who's That Girl (dir. James Foley), The Dead (dir. John Huston), September (dir. Woody Allen), The Last Emperor (dir. Bertolucci)

---------------------------------------------

What are your favorite movies of 1987?

Good Morning, World

I'm sad that there isn't a better quality clip of this here in honor of chin-legend Bruce Campbell's 63rd birthday but I guess in 2001 he did a little stint on a show called Beggars and Choosers which had him playing a "straight" actor who seduces his gay agent (played by real life homosexual Tuc Watkins) and these videos are the living proof. Gay kissing and such! Anyway I had never heard of this show until this morning, even. Did any of you watch it? A happy 63 to The Man!

Nightstream Fest: Bloody Hell

As part of this here ongoing Nightstream Festival  I watched an online panel (which featured our pal Final Girl Stacie Ponder!) that was on the subject of "Camp Horror" -- meaning Camp by way of Susan Sontag, not Jason Voorhees. And the panel got me thinking about a few things... not all of them being Stacie's Movie Shelves... one of them being: what would Straight Dude Camp be? The origin of Camp is mainly queer, specifically with regards to Gay Men; on the panel Stacie talked about her idea of Dyke Camp, and how that's a little different. But the riddle of Straight Dude Camp only riddled me for about two-point-five seconds, because I have seen Road House, and I have seen Road House many, many times. It's Big Muscles and Bigger Violence, a la any Schwarzenegger joint.

Bloody Hell isn't exactly that -- we're probably too self-aware in 2020 to go back to that place again -- but it made me think of that at times, and for that I thank it. I love me some Big Muscles and Bigger Violence, and Bloody Hell's got those thing sin spades. It stars Ben O'Toole and Ben O'Toole's carved-from-marble torso, both of whom are trussed up like Robert Conrad in Wild Wild West for half the film, and if I haven't sold you by now then I don't know my audience. 

O'Toole plays Rex (see -- Rex is totally a Schwarzenegger character name) as a former Marine who in our opening scene thwarts a bank robbery in spectacularly violent fashion. Unfortunately for all hunked-up action-stars it's not the 80s anymore and violence is now freighted down with repercussions, and so Rex is sent to prison for his spectacular vigilantism. His case sparks a big public debate though, turning him into a media sensation, and so when he gets out of jail several years later the first thing he sees is his own face on the tabloid rag in a checkout line at the grocery store.

In a touch that feels lovingly borrowed from the Evil Dead movies -- which gave us Bruce Campbell as the hyper-aware action-figure of Ash, which is probably even closer to what Bloody Hell is gunning for than the earlier references -- Rex has a slight hint of a split personality, in that he sees himself outside himself and has conversations with this second self. Basically it's an excuse to give Rex somebody to talk to since he spends a good chunk of the film chained up in the basement of a Finnish serial killing family, but we're getting ahead of ourselves there. O'Toole is a big actor, and this gives him twice the maneuverability.

Okay, now's the time for the Finnish serial killing family. I won't spoil the fun of the A to B to Finnish serial killing family, but suffice to say that Rex ends up in Finland and in their basement trussed up like Thanksgiving, and must summon all the power of his crazy abdominals to get himself out of this situation. It involves kicking children in the face, romancing the local blonde pretty girl, an extremely juicy leg stump, and a scene I refuse to believe wasn't inspired by the jaw-dropping finale of my beloved 1981 slasher Just Before Dawn. Bloody Hell is a lot -- a lot of fun, a lot of gore, a lot of large rampaging pustules, a lot of that v-line that guys who're really in shape have... it's a lot!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Crimewave (1985)

Nancy: I'm not that kind of girl! 

Renaldo the Heel: Well, with a 

little practice you could learn to be.

Sam Raimi directed Crimewave (which was written by his roomies, the Coen Brothers!) four years after the original Evil Dead movie and two years before its sequel -- Has anyone seen it? It's one of the few Sam Raimi movies I have never seen; I should totally get on it right? I believe Bruce Campbell's role is on the smallish side -- he's not the lead -- but because we're Evil-Dead-quote'd out at this point we're using this movie to wish Bruce a happy 62nd birthday today!

.

What Do We Want? Deadites!

.

When do we want them? NOW!!!! New news on the Evil Dead front today -- the series is getting a new movie, one called Evil Dead Now, that like the 2013 film from Fede Alvarez will be totally unconnected to the original franchise... save, you know, Deadites and the Necronomicon and whited-out eyeballs and drool and barf and the like, one presumes. If you saw the terrific Irish horror film The Hole in the Ground last year then you're familiar with the new dude doing the rebooting -- here's my review of it; if you haven't seen it it's on Amazon Prime and I very much recommend you give it a shot. I dug it. (Ha ha get it, cuz it's called The Hole in the Ground. I am so damn clever.) Aaanyway Raimi & Campbell will at least be producing this new one; here's what Bruce had to say:

"We’re just getting off the phone with Lee Cronin, who is writing and directing the next Evil Dead. It’s called Evil Dead Now. Sam handpicked Lee – he did a cool movie called The Hole In The Ground. We’re going to get that sucker out as soon as practical. From this point forward, they kind of have to stand on their own. Which is fine. And liberating. You could have different heroes, different heroines in this case. This one’s gonna be a little more dynamic. We just want to keep the series current. And the mantra, really, is that our heroes and heroines are just regular people. That’s what we’re going to continue."

If you want nay need your Ashley J. Williams fix, and who doesn't, you can always go and watch the Starz series Ash vs. Evil Dead, which is entertaining enough for repeat watches and blessedly just sitting there waiting for you on Netflix right this minute. And in related news...

Awwwwww look at Baby Bruce Campbell! pic.twitter.com/W1NVLS4ffO

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 8, 2020

Watch Out For That Treeeee

.

I just re-watched the original 1981 Evil Dead earlier this week (once again due to my current Gaylords of Darkness obsession, mentioned earlier today) and talk about a movie that holds up. I usually always watch Part II because I dig its humor and Bruce Campbell is at his hotness peak there, but the first movie should not go under-loved -- it's a good damn time at the movies, with shocks and soul-tickles a'plenty. I was also serious when I asked this question on Twitter...

.

Do we think Scott gets raped by the trees in the forest in the original Evil Dead as well? When he bursts back into the cabin after trying to run off he is TORE UP and that possibility never occurred to me until this viewing pic.twitter.com/CcMzDw06dK

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 4, 2020

.

... which I didn't get any replies to, because maybe people thought I wasn't being serious? Or was maybe that I was being light about Tree Rape? I'd never be light about Tree Rape. I actually think the film might be implying that and it's not something I'd ever realized until this watch. Obviously it's not in your face like the gratuitously terrible scene with Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) since the one with Scott (Richard DeManincor) happens off-screen, and that makes a huge difference in its impact. But it does inform the Evil Dead Universe in its way. It should just be noted!
.

Come here often? pic.twitter.com/rlDiCQIxsd

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 4, 2020

.
Anyway! Tree Rape aside! I'm here because of yesterday's big Sam Raimi news, that he's in talks to take over the Doctor Strange sequel, subtitled In the Multiverse of Madness, after the first film's helmer Scott Derrickson dropped off the flick several months back. I am one hundred percent... well maybe ninety percent... ambivalent about this news. Mostly because there have been tons of rumors that Raimi was going to make another horror movie soon, and I want that way more than I want him to get swallowed up by the Marvel machinery. They take everything dammit! See also:
.

I am extraordinarily pissed off anew that Marvel has swallowed up and robbed us of all the great Elizabeth Olsen performances we should be getting pic.twitter.com/ZmaHhneXvW

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 31, 2020

.
(Seriously, I know those glimpses of the WandaVision show in that Superbowl trailer were hella weird but Olsen is so much better than this nonsense and should be gifting us with complex adult performances by now. She barely works besides for Marvel now!) Anyway I know that Sam only made one of, if not the, greatest superhero movies ever made. His Spider-mans are legendary.

Doc Ock forever. And admittedly his brand of cinematic nuttery is exceedingly perfect for the Doctor-Strange-verse, with its pulsing transmogrifying realities shifting on top of one another -- I have no doubt he'll find some ways to blow our minds. Plus the Multiverse story is supposedly a hardcore horror one, from what I first read about it, and that makes Raimi even perfecter. I will probably come to regret my hesitation. Except not. Except unless he takes his paycheck and makes Evil Dead 4. Then all is forgiven. As long as he finally answers my tree-on-man rape query. Make an entire sequel about that dammit!
.

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1981

.

I know I should be putting the finishing (or thereabouts) touches on our "Best of 2018" list but I need a break from that, so let's distract ourselves this afternoon with an afternoon round of our "Siri Says" series, which we haven't done since before the holidays. So I asked the lady who lives inside of my telephone for a number between 1 and 100 and today's pick is "81" so we will now head to The Movies of 1981 and pick our five favorites.

One sidenote about this year: 1981 is known far and wide as the prime year for my beloved Slasher Film genre - dozens of them were released in the wake of the enormous success of the original Friday the 13th the year before, capitalizing on its patented brand of nubile things plus knife tips. There are enough that I could make a list from just those and have plenty left over! Maybe I will sometime. But not today. Today we're being classy. Well, you know, as classy as I get. I still made room for Sam Raimi and exploding heads. I ain't no dummy.

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1981

Raiders of the Lost Ark

(dir. Steven Spielberg)

-- released on June 12th 1981 --

The Evil Dead

(dir. Sam Raimi)

-- released on October 15th 1981 --

Blow Out

(dir. Brian de Palma)

-- released on July 24th 1981 --

Scanners

(dir. David Cronenberg)

-- released on January 14th 1981 --

Possession 

(dir. Andrzej Zulawski)

-- released on May 27 1981 --

--------------------------------------

Runners-up: An American Werewolf in London (dir. John Landis), Time Bandits (dir. Terry Gilliam), Mommie Dearest (dir. Frank Perry), Reds (dir. Warren Beatty), Halloween II (dir. Rick Rosenthal), Body Heat (dir. Lawrence Kasdan)...

...... The Decline of Western Civilization (dir. Penelope Spheeris), Lili Marleen (dir. Fassbinder), Lola (dir. Fassbinder), The Burning (dir. Tony Maylam), Pennies From Heaven (dir. Herbert Ross), Road Games (dir. Richard Franklin), My Bloody Valentine (dir. George Mihalka), The Howling (dir. Joe Dante)...

... Polyester (dir. John Waters), Looker (dir. Michael Crichton), Superman II (dir. Lester / Donner), Happy Birthday To Me (dir. J Lee Thompson), The Funhouse (dir. Tobe Hooper), Escape From New York (dir. John Carpenter), Excalibur (dir. John Boorman), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (dir. George Miller), Friday the 13th: Part 2 (dir. Steve Miner)

--------------------------------------

Never seen: Thief (dir. Michael Mann), Gallipoli (dir. Peter Weir), My Dinner With Andre (dir. Louis Malle), Shock Treatment (dir. Jim Sharman), Taxi Zum Klo (dir. Frank Ripploh), Endless Love (dir. Shana Feste), Arthur (dir. Steve Gordon), Chariots of Fire (dir. Hugh Hudson), Diva (dir. Jean-Jacques Beineix), Quartet (dir. James Ivory), Modern Romance (dir. Albert Brooks), The Postman Always Rings Twice (dir. Bob Rafelson)

--------------------------------------

What are your favorites movies of 1981?

.

Army of Maniac Cops

.

I don't think any of us appreciate how good Bruce Campbell looks in William Lustig's classic 1988 B-movie Maniac Cop - I've posted about it myself before but, still. It deserves repeating. More repeating. I got to see the movie projected on 35mm with Mr. Lustig there for a Q&A last night at the Roxy Cinema just around the corner from my office and man that movie is just a good time at the movies. They're screening the print again tonight - it's the director's own copy! - along with the sequel, if you're free and open to fun things I recommend it. For fun. And here's a video I took of Lustig telling a little story last night:

.

William Lustig talking about hm and Larry Cohen coming up with MANIAC COP #maniaccop #williamlustig #larrycohen #film

A post shared by Jason Adams (@jasonaadams) on Jun 13, 2018 at 6:10pm PDT

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Army of Darkness (1993)

AsAsh: Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! You see this? This... is my BOOMSTICK! The twelve-gauge double-barreled Remington. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety five. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?

Army of Darkness came out on this day 25 years ago! I didn't latch onto the Evil Dead train until several years later when I was in college - hard to believe now given how soulless and cynical I am but once upon a time I was a wilting flower when it came to Scary Things; thanks to my religious upbringing I wasn't allowed to watch anything that would've fallen under the category of "Truly Fucked Up" and truth be told even once I was able to I didn't even want to. 

I spent my first couple of years of college being one of those "Gore is pointless; give me atmosphere and tension over that garbage any day!" folks. And then at some point in short order I saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (which I know technically doesn't show anything, but it remains the Gateway Drug all the same) and the Evil Dead movies (and probably Peter Jackson's Dead Alive around the same time) and that was that was that. I weep for all the lost years I could've been collecting Fangoria now. 

(You guys did hear that Fangoria 

is coming back, right? Yippee!)

.

I Am Link

.

--- Sasha's Fierce - I was just thinking about American Honey actress Sasha Lane earlier today (for a post you're all going to enjoy tomorrow morning, wink wink) and wondering when the heck she was going to show up in something since she was tremendous in that movie, and he we are! I have conjured greatness from the ether with my thoughts once again. Sasha is in the process of signing on to the Hellboy reboot! The one that we're excited about despite its immediate Del Toro history because of director Neil Marshall and an amazing cast that already includes David Harbour, Ian McShane, and Milla Jovovich.

 .

--- Vroom Vroom - This almost became a "Quote of the Day" post but then Edgar Wright kept talking and talking and the good quotes kept coming and I realized I'd have to quote the entire thing for that so instead here I will just send you over to Vulture where the Baby Driver director got asked about the movie crossing the 100 million dollar mark this week, his biggest hit ever by a whole lot, and he used the occasion to smartly celebrate original screenplays. Lord knows I wasn't a fan of Baby Driver - an anomaly among Wright's work for sure - but I'm happy for its success all the same for all the reasons he elucidates here.

.

--- Scarlet Spider - Tom Holland needs to dust off his "That's a spicy meat-ahh-ball"'s because he's about to play the real-life Italian teenager Pino Lella (you have no idea how hard I am wishing his last name was "Grigio") who was forced into the German Army during WWII and used his time there saving Jews by ferrying them through the Alps. Kind of Schindler's Mountain, then. It's called Beneath a Scarlet Sky and it's based on the book by Mark Sullivan - anybody read it?

.

--- Peak Peaks - I could spend all day sharing links about Twin Peaks with you because some of the best writing on the internet is happening right now thanks to David Lynch's triumphant cacophony of sound and image aka That TV Show, and because I am currently reading two books about the world (this one and this one, and I can't believe I never knew that second book has existed for 25 years until this week).

But here's just a pair -- I wish they'd formatted this better (the embedded tweets are pretty sloppy) but Birth Movies Death did an amazing round-up of the overlap between images we have seen on the new batch of episodes with images from Lynch's artwork. He's been playing with some of these his entire career. 

And second I loved this piece at the Ringer praising Kyle MacLachlan's brilliantly fractured performance as Dougie Jones and Evil Coop, and what it all means, and I just have to share the article's conclusion (slightly spoilery obviously) because this is super on-point about the entire show's purpose, i think:

"With every tic and affectation — every burst of violence from Evil Coop, every slurred pronouncement from Dougie Jones — MacLachlan further delineates the differences between the first Twin Peaks and the follow-up. At first, the tensions in this season simply seemed like a result of Lynch and Frost making the story they wanted to make, regardless of nostalgia. But heading into The Return’s final stretch, frustrated nostalgia almost seems to be the point. It’s even written into the text: The typically catatonic Dougie comes alive whenever he makes contact with iconic motifs from the original show, like coffee or cherry pie. These aren’t meta references for meta’s sake. Instead, they’re part of The Return’s larger meditation on how much or how little people, places, and things can shift over, well, almost 30 years. We see it in the diminished state of Catherine Coulson, who was dying of cancer when she filmed her last scenes as the Log Lady; we see it in Amanda Seyfried’s Becky Burnett (née Briggs) following in her mother Shelly’s footsteps by getting trapped in an abusive relationship. Most of all, though, we see it in everything MacLachlan is doing, and how well he’s doing it."

.

--- Never Halt - The second best show on TV isn't quite on TV yet but it will be in a few days - Halt and Catch Fire returns for its fourth and final (sigh) season on Saturday night (smartly side-stepping the clotted Sunday night landscape) and Vulture chatted a very fine chat indeed with its breakout bleached wunderkind Mackenzie Davis, mi amor. A big chunk of the conversation is about how her character in Ridley Scott's The Martian was Korean in the book, and she has some really interesting stuff to say about the position she found herself in with that whitewashing controversy. God I love her. I can't wait to see her in Blade Runner - she (and Villenueve) are the things I'm most excited about there by leaps and bounds.

--- Gang Bang - It's the 50th anniversary of Arthur Penn's film (although just calling it a "film" seems too small a word in this instance) Bonnie & Clyde (perhaps you have heard of it) and over at The Film Experience Eric wrote up a very fine little ode to the movie and its long, deep legacy, and oh yeah its incredible white-hot movie-star pairing with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. I mean they're so hot they burned the Oscars fifty years later!

.

--- Gone West - Despite all the beefcakey trailers I still haven't gotten out to see Ingrid Goes West yet (it's been a busy dang week) but there are a good pair of interviews with its cast going around - our pal Jose got to chat with Aubrey Plaza about it over at The Film Stage and the talk turned to how fucking great Bette Midler is, of all things, but why not? Aubrey says she's dying to put together a movie where they play mother and daughter and what a coincidence I am dying to see that movie. Make it happen! And second over at BuzzFeed our pal Jarett got to talk to Ingrid co-star and resident slab of hunk Billy Magnussen and Billy calls himself "a piece of ass" and my life will never be the same. I don't know how Jarett didn't just fall out of his seat. Stronger than me!

.

--- Chinny Chin Chin - Bruce Campbell's second memoir came out yesterday - it's called Hail to the Chin and it shares his exploits of the past fifteen years ever since he wrote and released his first memoir, the eminently enjoyable If Chins Could Kill. I think he's a little rough on his chin. It's not that crazy a chin, Bruce. Anyway he chatted with BD about the book and says he's got a third one already in the works but we shouldn't plan on seeing that for another fifteen years. No word on what the "Chin" title will be. He also talks about Ash vs Evil Dead's upcoming third season there, I guess but I skipped that part because I didn't want spoilers. Oh and there are also a couple promo videos (for the book) starring the man right here. (thanks Mac)

.

--- Twilight of the God - As if I needed more reason to fall harder head over dick for Robert Pattinson after his great streak of acting roles culminated in this month's tour de force in Good Time (here is my review) he went and talked to the LA Times (thanks Mac) about his stiff case of cinephilia, and he said he's currently been binging the movies of Ken Russell, including The Devils. I want to watch The Devils with Robert Pattinson! He calls Oliver Reed's performance therein "unreal." Oh, Rob.

.

---  And Finally some TV casting news to thrill about - Barbara Hershey, whose career is lots and lots more than starring in Beaches but who will always be Hillary Whitney to me all the same, has joined the new season of The X-Files! She's playing "a powerful figure who represents a mysterious organization" and given where the last little run of episodes ended (with a kind of apocalypse breaking out) I imagine that'll be something to see. Just like Beaches!