I'm Not There

                              Great Halloween Commercials Elvira's for Coors Light Party This commercial premiered when I was in 6th grade so despite what "very special" sitcom episodes told you, I did not care about beer at all. If you look closely, this commercial has it all: monsters, stupid puns, cool music and yes, beer.  Elvira herself has always been a fixture for Halloween promotions whether it be drinks, wacky movies or theme parks.  Speaking of which, she is currently performing her last show at Knott's Scary Farm.  She's so hot.   What makes it great is the attention to detail to the various creatures walking around.  They could have had 4 cheap looking monsters but the fact that it's a congregation of creatures with awesome music really yells "Halloween Party."  Even if there is a random bear and a Ruth Buzzi walking around.  I guarantee that is the last time most of you will hear a Ruth Buzzi reference this year, those of y

McBoo Hoo If you ask any kid that grew up in the United States in the 80's and 90's, an essential Halloween tradition was going to McDonald's during October to get a custom Halloween pail. Usually a Happy Meal would come in the classic cardboard box or a white paper bag (depending on how rough your side of town was).  However, starting in October of 1986 to celebrate Halloween, McDonald's would introduce these beautiful Halloween pails: These guys used the Happy Meal food as guts that you would then pick out and eat, kind of like how a spider sucks up the guts of a fly.  Gross.  Typically Happy Meals would have the promotional toys inside but in this case, the pail was the treat!  If the toys were a skeleton, this would be an exoskeleton.  Spiders have exoskeletons.  Once you finished the food, you had a nice bucket to go trick or treating with and could fill it with candies and/or pennies from cheap houses.   After depriving children from these in 1988,

Halloween Decorations Everybody Had If you grew up in the 80's and 90's you will remember that when houses that decorated for Halloween, it typically wasn't an extravagant ordeal like you see today with intricate lawn ornaments and electronic monsters.  During the month of October, I remember walking home from school and noticing more and more houses get in the spirit and decorate their windows as the month progressed.  That's right, people used to dress up their windows so that spooky decorations would face the outside world and put a smile on  anyone who appreciated the holiday.  Most of the time, these decorations were flat cardboard cutouts with the same image on both sides.  Sometimes you would see a shiny raised plastic decoration that stood out.  However, the most common and (in my opinion) the coolest decorations were not extravagant pieces of art at the time but they evoked the essence of Halloween, usually in the form of monsters and jack-o'-lanterns.

The best thing about the IT reboot: 1-   The chemistry between the friends of The Losers Club.  The combination of writing and          delivery,  especially by Finn Wolfhard really makes the friendship believable and       entertaining making it easier to get invested in the kids. 2.   The performances of everyone in the movie are complimented by an interesting story.         Beverly's individual story with her father really stands out as both disturbing and very  well acted.   3.   IT not relying on cheap jump scares like many contemporary horror films. It build         suspense  nicely with  great cinematography and pacing.   That  projector scene tho.        Also, the New Kids on   the Block references, this  movie's got the right stuff.

Darkish Universe Originally published  TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2017 I just finished watching Universal’s second reboot of the Mummy and the launchpad of it’s Dark Universe. This movie is “ish”. Not “ish” as in the censored radio version of what Van Helsing was but rather as what has been reported, this movie keeps changing as Dr. Jeckyll from actionish to horrorish making it hard to know what to expect. Not in the good way but more in the “we just won’t abide by conventions of either genre because it’s easier to tell this story.” Overall, the film is ok at best and tolerable at worst. If I was to compare this to Dracula: Untold, I would choose Dracula as the superior film and start to the Dark Universe. Tonality is the biggest flaw in this movie. From the very beginning, as great as an actor as Tom Cruise is, something in his performance in his first scene, did not convince me he was smart ass military adventurer thief. Military adventurer thief absolutely, the guy has

Back when I was so cute

With Halloween season fast approaching, horror movie marathons are a must.  One of the first films screened here was The Creature From the Black Lagoon, the first in a series of three films prominently featuring the Creature.   Knowing what I know about the series as a whole,  re-watching the original this year made me think of it in a different way.  The whole saga of the Creature has some strong parallels with the stories of a great number of Americans.  Let's explore the major plot points of the franchise starting with the 1954 original. In a far off land, people, animals and "others" go about living comfortably in their habitat until the "civilized" outsider "discovers" an artifact.  Fair enough, but then he returns and brings with him more professionals like him, initially in the name of science. Once they get word that there is a creature just freely swimming around, greed and the need for notoriety replace science and lead them to a b