Quality Family Time - October 2018 Edition - Week 2

So last week, I subjected the girls to Battle Royale and while one was not impressed (Karen), the other (Lil) just hated it.  I really only had three films that I really insisted that Lil watch with me and that was one of them.  I figured this week, I'd ask her to watch one that I actually thought she'd like.  That's why we sat down on Saturday night and fired up Dario Argento's 1977 classic, Suspiria!

For those who don't know, Suspiria is about a young American woman who is invited to attend a very exclusive dance academy in Europe.  Once there though, she begins to realize something is not quite right about the place and as her fellow dancers begin to wind up missing and/or dead, she digs in further to see just what is going on.

My daughter is a dancer.  Actually, that's not correct.  My daughter is a dance fiend and she and her mother will pick apart every tiny movement in any dance that's done on film.  When it comes to ballet, she's a dance snob.  So last year when we watched Black Swan, I was pretty amazed that overall, she didn't have much of a problem with the dancing in the film.  I mean, there were times when she commented on something but it never pulled her out of the narrative.  In fact, she actually really liked the film.

With Suspiria though, this was not the case.  Things started out promising with Karen declaring after the first fifteen minutes that she didn't know how it could get any weirder.  Then, things devolved from there.  I thought they'd like the color, pacing, crazy plot, etc. but I underestimated something that reared its head almost immediately.  My wife has a thing about hair.

I know this is confusing, so let's go back in time about twelve years and let me tell you the story.  At the time, I was a staff writer for a site called DVDinmypants.  It was a pretty fantastic place with great people and a very open editing staff who was up for almost anything.  At one point, I pitched the idea of rewatching some of the old exploitation films of the 1970's and 80's with my wife.  We'd pick them apart and she could bag on my horrible taste in films as a teenager. Somewhere around film number three, I started noticing that Karen's first impression of any character in any film was based entirely on their hairstyle.  It just pulled her right out of the story, no matter what.

So, in Suspiria, when the dancers first show up in especially low-cut leotards and everyone has 70's hair, Karen was the first one to say something about it.  Then she noticed none of them had their hair in buns.  That became a pain point for Lil and I got to witness the transition as a mother passes her weird obsession to her daughter. 
  

As for the dancing, neither was really enamored with it, but Lil was the most harsh.  For those of you without teenagers, it's hard for me to communicate just how insanely sarcastic one can be.  Below are a few comments I overheard.  Please read the following in a tone that sounds like an audible eye-roll.

"This seems to be complete chaos. Nobody's in sync. Everyone just do whatever you want." 

"Oh wow.  Another dead ballerina."

"Does anyone in this film know how to correctly hold their arms when doing a pirouette?"   

And then... there was Karen.

Her:  I thought you said this was about ballet.

Me:  No, I said it was set in a ballet school.  It's a horror film.

Her:  It's pretty horrible ballet.

And when it was all over, I asked what they thought of it overall. 

Karen:  I thought it sucked.

Me:  What?

Karen:  It's so slow and the dancing is terrible.  

Lil:  I thought it was okay.  I didn't think it was horrible.  The dancing was horrible but the movie itself was okay.

Heathens!  I tell you I live with heathens!

If you've never seen Argento's Suspiria, you should.  As you can tell by the handful of stills here, it's beautifully shot and is a great story.  The soundtrack by Goblin is one of the few things that Karen and Lil liked about it.  They recognized how effective it was at ratcheting up tension throughout the entire run time.  

Check it out and then get ready for the remake which hits theaters later this month.  It's getting great reviews and I'm super excited about it.

Winners and Losers for Week 2!

Winners (Everyone Agrees)

The Giant Behemoth (a giant radioactive dinosaur invades London!)

The Black Scorpion  (a bunch of giant scorpions invade Mexico City!)



Winners (Cary Only)

Suspiria  (an American dancer invades a European dance school!)

Terrifier  (one of the creepiest killer clowns in ages invades your nighmares!)


Losers 

None this week!

Exploring Japan, Vol. 12 - Maxell Aqua Park

Japan’s attractions and theme parks definitely seem strange to western visitors, but what about an aquarium?  Surely, an aquarium in Tokyo isn’t much different than an aquarium in the U.S., right?

Well, you’d be kind of correct, except for the jellyfish, the bar and the dolphin show, it pretty much is like any other aquarium.

The Maxell Aqua Park is located in the Shinagawa Prince Hotel.  It’s not a place you can kill an entire day in, but you can easily spend 3 -  4 hours here and not be bored.  Like any other aquarium, the exhibits are split up by region so you have Amazonian fish in one section, a giant tank full of sharks and rays that has a glass tunnel going through it, and lots of smaller interactive displays that show you where these animals live, what they eat and their life spans.  They also have a pretty cool series of rooms that the otters can move in and out of.  You can follow them from place to place which is pretty fun.

Almost all of the signage is in Japanese and English, however the interactive displays are in Japanese only.  There are also a couple of rides inside that you have to buy special tickets for.

Still, even without being able to read the language, the displays are fantastic.  Especially when you enter the jellyfish room.  

It’s like The Flaming Lips designed an aquarium.  Tube after tube of different jellies are positioned throughout the place and each has color changing lights that are synchronized, creating an almost psychedelic feel. 

Just beyond the Jellyfish room is something I’ve never seen at an aquarium before:  A fully stocked bar.  What makes this so unusual is that the room isn’t some fly by night concession.  It’s got a sophisticated atmosphere and check out these tables.

Those are real sea creatures inside.  Pretty cool, huh? 

Still, the thing that would bring me back here again is their dolphin show.  It’s completely indoors and features lights, music and narration that bring to mind a Cirque de Soleil show instead of the run of the mill aquarium dolphin show.  

Images are projected onto the falling water that inhance the action.  Dolphins flip, whales do tail stands and all the while, music and images float through the air.  

It’s a spectacular show, so much so that we stayed an extra hour to see it again. 

While there are better aquariums around, Maxell Aqua Park is truly unique.  It's one of the more expensive aqua parks though, so make sure you allow yourself enough time to check everything out and get your money's worth. You’ll be happy you did.

Horror Histories Vol. 11 - The Expedition That Inspired King Kong!

For years now, a small subgroup of movie fans have argued about which monster would win in a fight;  King Kong or Godzilla.  Many people who like one of those also like the other but you’ll find some rabid fans in both camps who fixate on their favorite.  Personally, my favorite will always be King Kong (1933) but that’s tinged with nostalgia.  Growing up, one of our local stations (WTOG Channel 44 out of Tampa, FL) used to show it once a year, uninterrupted by commercials and let me tell you, it was an EVENT!  At least to middle-school-aged Cary it was an event.

That said though, I’m still a sucker for a Godzilla movie and what you may not know is that without a real life giant lizard, the story of King Kong may never have been written.  It’s a fact and it all begins with an adventurer who was born into the Vanderbilt fortune. 

His name was William Douglas Burden.  He was Harvard educated and in 1928, absolutely dying to find an adventure he could hang his hat on.  Burden wasn’t the kind of guy who enjoyed the plush, lavish lifestyle his parents and relatives enjoyed. Instead, he was more comfortable with a machete in-hand, hacking through a jungle and soon he figured out how to make his dreams of adventure happen.  There was an animal discussed among scientists that begged for further research.  The problem was, no one had been able to capture one.

The Komodo Dragon is a meat eating beast that lives in what is now Indonesia.  At the time, the island fell under Dutch rule, so Burden wrote for and was granted permission to lead an expedition to Komodo and bring back at least one of the giant lizards. 

Long story made short, he did just that.  In fact, he brought back three and two were put on display at the Bronx Zoo briefly.  They died in captivity.  However, they made quite a sensation.  Estimates put crowds at close to 30,000 people a day, visiting just to get a glimpse of the dragons.  Also on display in the Komodo dragon exhibit was a stuffed gorilla.  Believe it or not, that garnered crowds as big as the ones waiting to see the dragons themselves.  

  

Which is where Kong comes in.  See, one of Burden’s close friends was Merian C. Cooper.  Cooper had turned his attentions to Hollywood after leading a life of adventure himself.  He’d spent time as a bomber pilot and was a prisoner of war in a Soviet camp for nine months.  He escaped from the camp and made it to the Latvian border and freedom.  By the time he and Burden were palling around in New York, he was already enamored with film and while his Wikipedia page will tell you that Cooper thought of the idea for King Kong in a dream, it’s hard to ignore some signs that point directly to Burden’s Komodo Dragon.

For instance, Burden and his expedition brought cameras and filmed their exploits.  The films were used to drum up the excitement around the exhibit.  Cooper borrowed that angle for Kong.  Burden’s wife accompanied him on the expedition.  She ran the cameras and at one point came face to face with a Komodo dragon while the hunter assigned to accompany her was away.  He came back and shot the beast before it could get to her.  The idea of a beautiful socialite along on the expedition was another thing that Cooper borrowed for the film.

Finally, Burden had come up with a special name for his find.  He called them “King Komodo”.  Yep.  Cooper borrowed that also.  He kept the setting in New York and added something that he and Burden had talked about.  That was the idea that maybe the dragons died at the zoo because they were homesick for their native land. 

Now, this takes nothing away from King Kong.  The film is groundbreaking and the script is fantastic.  I say this a lot here but, this movie is a classic for a reason.  King Kong is one of those movies that everyone should see at least once.  That said, without Burden’s expedition to capture a living dinosaur, Cooper’s giant gorilla movie would have been a completely different film altogether.

Looking for something to read this weekend that has giant monsters wrecking cities?  Well… I got nothing.  That’s not entirely true.  I’ve got a few things on my Amazon Author’s page for you to check out but none of them have giant monsters.  Still, you may enjoy them so click on this link and see what's there.

And go watch King Kong!

Watching Train to Busan with Two People Who Hate Me for It Now

The Halloween movie watching continues and last week, we watched an extremely divisive one.

A couple of things you need to know up front. 

1. My daughter is obsessed with all things Asian right now.  Earlier this year I came back from the 24 Hour Film Fest in Boston and I was raving about this film.  Since it's Korean, she was the one who put it on the list of things to watch this year.

2. I sold my daughter on it based on the fact that there is a Korean boy’s baseball team on the train and they are all around her age.  She was (very openly) hoping for some eye candy. 

SPOILER ALERT – Read Further At Your Own Risk

What I didn't tell her was that the whole damn team is dead in the first 20 minutes except for one boy and one girl.

Yes, I fully admit this was a horrible thing to do, but what's done is done.  The simple fact is Train to Busan is a great movie and I knew I'd probably have trouble getting them to watch it unless I offered up some temptation.  It's one of those horror films that starts slow, ramps up quickly and then never lets up until the credits roll.  Even with the deaths of the baseball team, my two viewing companions hung in there for a long time, but with about a third of the movie left, the bitching began.

Wife:  This is way too tense.  I can’t take it.  I'm going to hang out in the dining room.

(She continued to watch while also "working on a craft project".  After the movie was over, the craft project was exactly the same as it had been when she started. She'd watched the whole movie, just from further away.)

Daughter:  Aaagh!  They killed the only cute Korean boy left.   That’s it.  I’m done with this!

(She got up from her spot on the floor and moved into the dining room also, however she didn't watch as much of the rest of the film as my wife did.  Apparently the lack of Korean boys really was a deal breaker.)

And once the credits rolled, the complaining didn’t let up.

Both:  I can’t believe you made us watch that!

Me:  I didn’t “make” you watch it.  You wanted to watch it.  You told me to put it on the list!

Daughter:  But that’s because you said it had cute Korean boys in it!

Me:  It did!

Daughter:  But you killed them!

Me:  I didn’t kill them!  The zombies killed them.

This went on for days.  Literally.  Days!  We watched it a week ago on Saturday and I was still getting comments about it yesterday.

The fact is though, Train to Busan is a great horror film. Even amidst the complaining, there were grudging acknowledgements about this.  My wife repeatedly said that she cared about the characters and that the script was well written.  She and my daughter both talked about how real the zombies were and how tense the movie was.

If gory, scary films are your thing, this one is highly recommended.  At least it's recommended by me.  I can't speak for the others in the house.

Other films we watched in the last week.

Dracula (1931)

The Creature Walks Among Us

Mimic

Crimson Peak

The Bride of Frankenstein

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

The Blackcoat's Daughter

Watching Black Swan With My (almost) 15-Year-Old Ballerina

So those of you who know us, know that October and Halloween hold a special place in our household.  We start watching horror movies in September as we countdown to Oct. 31, mostly because we have too many we want to see and not enough free nights to watch them.   

One movie in particular has been on the waiting list for a few years because of its content.  That movie is Black Swan.

Spoiler Alert:  Don't go further if you've never seen it.

For those that don't know, my daughter is a ballerina.  She's been dancing for more than a decade and she's about to turn 15 in a month.  After a few discussions with those that had seen it, my wife and I decided that she was old enough and so last Saturday we settled down and fired up the television.

Put simply, Black Swan is about a ballerina who is so intent on being perfect that she's losing her mind.  Along the way, we're subjected to watching her deal with jealous rivals, an overbearing director, brutally graphic injuries and we watch her display some weird tendencies and nervous tics before we start to question just what the hell is happening to this woman.

As my family sat down to watch this, I thought I knew what we were getting into but I figured my wife and daughter probably did not.  I mean, I hadn't seen the movie yet, but I'd heard a few spoilers.  I knew it would have some graphic violence and gore.  I also knew that my wife and daughter love "creepy" horror movies but aren't as into the insanely bloody stuff.   

Imagine my surprise as I became the one cringing and my daughter became the jaded expert.  Some examples:

Scene - Our main character splits a toenail while dancing and graphically deals with the bleeding herself.

Me (squirming on the couch):  Ugh!  

My daughter (nonchalantly):  Yeah, that happens all the time.  Most of our feet look like they've been in a car crash.

Scene - Our main character steals some lipstick from the woman whose place she desperately hopes to take in the cast.

Me:  That's a little bit psycho.

My daughter (shrugging it off):  We had people stealing stuff for a while.  It seems to have stopped now though.

Scene - Our main character has a tendency to nervously scratch to the point of breaking the skin.

Me:  Yeah, I think she's losing it.

My daughter:  Not necessarily.  I've seen people do that. Or play with their hair incessantly.  Stuff like that.  It's just a nervous tic.

Scene - Our main character takes a piece of glass and stabs a rival.

My daughter:  Okay, I've never seen that happen.

Me:  Thank goodness! 

Anyway, the bottom line according to both my daughter and my wife is that except for the insanity and murder, Black Swan was the most accurate portrayal of a ballet company they'd ever seen.

I already knew my daughter was a hell of an athlete (the kid has a six-pack for crying out loud) but watching her not bat an eye during that toenail scene made me realize just how tough she is.

If you haven't seen Black Swan, watch at your own risk.  We all loved it, but we're kind of twisted that way.

Other movies we've watched in September.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
Wolves (2014)
The Monster That Challenged The World (1957)
31: A Rob Zombie Film (2017)
Them! (1954)
The Mummy (1959 - Hammer)
Lifeforce (1985)
Southbound (2015)


Coming next week:  How about a free short story about vengeful Louisiana ghosts?  I'll see what I can do.