I Hadn't Realized This...

But before I posted that review of The Donner Party last week, I hadn't posted a movie review to this blog since February 9, 2015--or just over seven years ago.

Granted, a lot has happened since then--heart attacks, losing my apartment, my suicide attempt, moving back in with Mom, switching jobs more than once, etc.--but you'd think, in all that time, I'd have at least posted a "Popcorn Kernals" entry to catch up on all the movies I've seen since then. And I have seen movies since then.

I'll try to be better at posting here after I've seen something for the first time--or for the 101st time, for that matter.

Movie Review: The Hateful Eight (2015)

On a desolate plain somewhere in the American west, there's a cabin--a waystation, really--where a group of travelers have gathered to wait out a particularly nasty snowstorm.

John Ruth (Kurt Russell) is a bounty hunter shackled to his latest catch, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) is another bounty hunter. Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) claims to be the new sheriff in town. General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern) is also there, along with cowpuncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), dandy Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), and Bob (Demian Bichir), a mountain of a man in a huge fur coat.

And at least one--possibly more--of these strangers is lying about who/what they are. And a deadly confrontation looms.

Sound interesting? It's not.

In fact, The Hateful Eight is a tortuously slow, dull, uninteresting mess served up by cinematic magpie Quentin Tarantino, whose first few movies I loved to pieces, especially Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, but whose recent output has left me cold. Those movies didn't frustrate, even anger, me, though, like The Hateful Eight.

Here, Tarantino has assembled a stellar cast, has set them down in a spectacular location and has shot the film using 70mm cameras handled by Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson.

Why, then, is this movie so goddamn dull?

Maybe it's because, after having gathered a great cast, several of whom have worked with Tarantino before, the writer/director doesn't give them much to do except stand around in period clothes and talk at each other.

And talk. And talk. And. Talk.

There are bursts of action, but these are so infrequent that viewers might be forgiven if they take naps between bursts. And the performances are so universally broad that the viewer could easily mistake The Hateful Eight for a live-action cartoon--with a lot more swearing and blood, of course.

I watched The Hateful Eight all the way through, hoping there would be a twist or explanation or something to redeem the nearly three hours I'd spent with all these unlikable, murderous folks.

But no such relief arrived. The pain only ended when the credits rolled.

Movie Review: The Thing (1982)

Remakes are a tricky business. If you adhere too closely to the original film, you lose a lot of the juice that ran through it (plus, people will point and call you a copycat). If you wander too far from the original, though, you risk alienating the very audience you're trying to attract.

So when John Carpenter, director of such horror classics as Halloween and The Fog, decided to tackle a remake of Howard Hawk's production, The Thing from Another World, there was a curious combo platter of elation and trepedation amongst horror fans: Would Carpenter hold close to the original short story by Joseph Campbell Jr.? To the original film? To neither?

Try a little of all of the above.

The story begins in the Arctic, with Norwegians in a helicopter hunting a German Shepherd with a rifle, shooting at the dog until it runs into a camp of scientific observers for protection.

What the observers don't know--what the Norwegians discovered, much to their horror--is that the dog is not just a dog: It's a creature from outer space capable of mimicking any lifeform it comes in contact with. Thus begins a fight for survival between the alien and the staff of the camp--and, ultimately, with said staff fighting with one another, trying to figure out who has been taken over by the alien and who, if anyone, is still human.

Carpenter's camera prowls the cold, desolate halls of the Arctic base, watching the remaining survivors become increasingly desperate until, by the end, there are only two--neither of whom is sure whether or not the other is an alien or not.

It definitely helps that Carpenter has populated this desolate station with numerous recognizable character actors, including Kurt Russell, Richard Dysart, Richart Masur, Wilford Brimley, Keith David and Donald Moffat. And the synthesizer score, surprisingly, isn't by Carpenter himself, but by master Italian movie composer Ennio Morricone.

Another terrific film for a cold winter's night.

Movie Review: The Donner Party (1992)

The wind blows. The snow drifts. Walking becomes an increasingly difficult chore.

A typical winter day in Chicago? Sure. But also the conditions dealt with, to varying degrees of success, by the Donner Party.

When I was in grade school, I used to tell a joke that was, at the time, hilarious to me: "Donner Party, table for four...wait...Donner Party, table for three?...um...Donner Party, table for two?" And so on.

This was long before I had any real knowledge of the Donner Party--what they'd gone through, the losses they'd suffered, how any of them survived.

Ric Burns--younger brother of Ken Burns, director of The Civil War, Jazz and The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, amongst many other television events--wrote and directed this documentary way back in 1992 for the PBS series American Experience. I saw it when it first aired and subsequently bought the DVD of the program. Unfortunately, like most of my DVD collection, it was lost when I had to abandon La Casa del Terror back in 2016.

But like so many other movies, I've been able to replace my copy of The Donner Party and gave it a view on a recent cold winter's night.

And it made me shiver, though not from the cold.

You likely know the basic story: A group of settlers, led by George Donner, left from Springfield, IL, in the spring of 1846. They tried to beat the onset of winter in the Sierra Nevada mountains. They failed. The snows set in and dumped feet of snow in the passes the Donner Party would need to travel through. The party bogged down, used up what little provisions they'd brought along and, eventually, resorted to cannibalism to survive.

There's much more to the story, of course, and Ric Burns, like his older brother, goes into great detail and uses a combination of period photography, new footage of the locations where the grisly events took place and interviews with experts on the subject, all narrated by David McCullough (who also handled the same duties on The Civil War) and with actors like Timothy Hutton, J.D. Cannon and Amy Madigan giving voice to the unfortunate souls.

I re-watched The Donner Party on Super Bowl Sunday--I didn't care about either team and have long since given up caring about the commercials--and found that, even in the relatively cozy confines of la Casa de Mama, I was more than capable of feeling a chill.

V-Day 2022

As regular readers of this blog likely know, I'm no fan of Valentine's Day, mostly because I've rarely had any reason to celebrate it.

This year? Is no different, really. I'm not attached to any woman. No woman is attached to me. I'm alone. And the likelyhood of that changing is remote, to say the least. Not impossible, mind you, but not likely.

Still, I know others celebrate this day. So the photos below--all posted in previous years--are my Valentines to you. Enjoy.

Today's Weather

Today, the temperature crept above freezing for the first time in several days.

This is significant, as the higher the temperature climbs, the more the snow melts. And the more the snow melts, the easier it becomes to walk down the sidewalks without slipping and landing on my ass. And the more often I can make it from Point A to Point B without landing on my ass, the better I feel.

According to Accuweather, the temperatures are supposed to stay above freezing (during the daylight hours, anyway) through the end of the week.

And next weekend? Highs around 20. Dammit.

SNOWMAGEDDON 2022 PART 4: THE SLUSHENING

The snow that fell last week is still around, thanks to temperatures well below freezing for the past few days.

That may be changing in the coming week, though.

Most forecasts agree that a midweek warmup is in store, with temperatures making it near--and possibly above--40 degrees.

In the long term, this means that the snow that fell last week will be history come this upcoming weekend.

In the meantime, though, the snow will turn to slush by day, then refreeze at night.

So...it's sloppy walking by day, and slippery walking come nightfall.

Step carefully, my friends. Having broken my ankle a couple of times and sprained it on countless occasions, I can attest: It's no fun to walk on slushy, semi-frozen sidewalks.

SNOWMAGEDDON 2022 PART 3: THE SNOWRECKONING

Yep. I came in to work today. I called the company's weather emergency line, and the message stated the the company was open. Dammit.

It took about half an hour longer than usual, and I had to trudge the six blocks from the train station to the job with my head down and my legs moving ever forward through the drifts.

(No, I was not going to wait for the CTA bus that runs on the street where I work. That route doesn't run frequently enough when it's clear and 75, much less when it's cold and snow is drifting across the road.)

But I made it. I'm here. Along with, maybe, five other people.

That's all.