Apologies for the lateness. I was only going to have one excuse: Will “Braineater” Laughlin was in town for work (something about installing WarGames-like servers at Hill Air Force Base), and I invited him over for a home-cooked meal. (Note: There is no implicit guarantee of quality in the phrase “home-cooked meal”; it is simply a meal cooked at home. In our case, it has to be a meal Michele can leave in the oven while she comes to get me at the station, so last night it meant chicken legs, sliced-up leftover potatoes with sauce and parmesan cheese, and a hastily-prepared salad.)

Then I had to turn him loose early in the evening because the stomach flu which has been making its way through my family was making itself known in me, and I anticipated a night of some distress. Whereas its manifested as nausea in everyone else, with me it… Well, let’s just put it this way: “Loose stool” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

(Hope you’re not taking an extra souvenir microbe home to New Jersey, Will!)

Anyway. The new review for this week is for Frankenstein Reborn! (1998), a Goosebumps-wannabe from the Charles Band Movie Factory. I outdid myself here, generating a full-length review from a mini-feature that clocks in at under 45 minutes (originally intended for TV, see).

Nathan

…and now I’ve got absolutely no desire to pay to see the movie.

If you, too, wish to inoculate yourself against a reimagining of the venerable franchise which asks, “What if James T. Kirk were more like Anakin Skywalker?”, go here. (h/t)

Nathan

After months of after-hours work, the first issue of Arkham Tales is finally finished — which, in the electro-dynamic world of the 21st century, means that it’s instantly available for your download and consumption. After all, it’s free, and it was edited my yours truly, so you know it must be worthwhile, right?

(Special thanks to Chris Jackson and Crispin Burnham for their invaluable assistance wading through the slushpile.)

Now, let’s see… what other creative endeavors have I let slide?

Nathan

I received this from parties unknown in the mail yesterday: a copy of Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games by Christy Marx.

The manila envelope bears a return address in Pleasant Grove, UT, but no name.

O unknown benefactor, wherefore are you unknown?

Nathan

You may think that bringing my mighty critical powers to bear on an unabashed exploitation throwback like Bikini Bloodbath (2007) is a bit like swatting a fly with a Buick. All I can say to that is, “Eat Buick, loser!”

Nathan

Nathan

At the risk of being offensive:

Earlier this week, a Costco rep wandered into our office, looking for one of the previous tenants of the building.  (This kind of thing happens all the time; we’re on the ground floor by the elevators, so we have to act as the unofficial receptionists for the building, dealing with people who wander in looking for bathrooms or telephones or drinking fountains or the bank branch that moved or “Suite 800″ because they can’t figure out that that means the eighth floor…)

Anyway.  I mention him only because he was gay.  And I mention that only because he was clearly gay.  He was SOOO gay.  He was every limp-wristed mincing homosexual cliche cranked up to eleven.  He was impossible to imitate later, much less to parody; he was already a parody, the UberUltraAtomicFaggot.  I wanted to grab him by his lapels (his stylish, immaculate lapels) and shout, “Yes!  I get it!  After two sentences of conversation, I understand that you’re a Costco rep, and that you’re queer!  Could you dial it back, please?”

If I were as Mormon as this guy was gay, I would cultivate a mustacheless Brigham Young beard, eight wives in pioneer dress would trail behind me wherever I went, and the angel Moroni would hover over my head holding the Golden Plates.

Nathan

Well, the show must go on. Because if it didn’t, then it… wouldn’t. Hmm. I don’t think there’s any way to follow up that dictum with support except maybe to say, “The show must go on, just cuz.”

Anyway. This week’s new review is for Dangerous Worry Dolls (2008), which takes a standard women-in-prison plot template and slaps tiny killer dolls onto it. Did I mention that Charles Band directed? I think the fact that I partway enjoyed this one means that my movie judgment is well and truly fried.

Nathan

I had meant to get this post up while there was still uncertainty — and after the last couple of elections, I felt I had a certain amount of leeway — but I’m coming just after the announcement of Barack Obama’s victory. (I’m sorry, but doesn’t anyone else find it just a little insulting that all of the TV commentary going on right now is, “And he’s BLACK, it means something that he’s BLACK, did you realize he’s BLACK?” Please tell me that everyone voted for him was actually throwing their support behind an individual, not a genotype.)

Unlike during the last Presidential race, I had pretty much eschewed political posts this time around. Partly it’s because I’ve been busy, yes, but I also realized that, no matter which side I came down on, I was far too moderate to be worth listening to this year. I’ve never heard the rhetoric get so polarized in this year, and it’s not just the blogosphere which has adopted full-on extremism. First it was the Republicans’ primary campaign which lurched between lamentable to irrelevant in their focus on hot-button social topics instead of solid federal policy; then it was the prickly intolerance of Obama’s loudest supporters, with their post-partisan, post-racial message of “Racism is the only reason anyone wouldn’t vote for Obama!” (Unless you were a female Clinton supporter, which was forgivable because you were being authentic to your womynness.)

It’s taken the Democratic Party’s behavior over the last four years which has pushed me to do something I haven’t done in the past three Presidential elections: I voted for the Republican.

As I did four years ago, I prepared two graphics, only one of which will ever see the light of day. Here you go:

Nathan

While tooling around Amazon.com, I found this:

Rio de Janeiro, the Wonderful City, land of Ipanema, Corcovado, Sugar Loaf and Ratatoing. A city where the most gifted chef in town is a rat! Everyone wants to discover the secrets of Marcell Toing s delicious recipes, but they are far from imagining the efforts this extraordinary cook puts into his search for the best ingredients. Every Thursday night, Marcell goes on a mission with his charming assistant Carol and his friend Greg, the worst waiter in town.
The three rats search for fine and rare ingredients that can only be found in restaurants owned by humans where they face real danger, from rat traps to cat attacks!

The story gets filled with more action and adventure, when a bunch of jealous rats decide to get together and put an end to Ratatoing s culinary success.

You’d think The Asylum had started a new children’s division, wouldn’t you? According to the Amazon listing, the studio is “Gaiam,” though googling that only gets me to a health-and-wellness company.

I’m just imagining the clueless dad (and it’s always the dad, isn’t it?) who thinks he’s scored with the $7.98 pricepoint, and is just waiting for those beaming, happy faces when they take off the wrapping paper…

Nathan

It doesn’t note that today’s the end of Daylight Savings Time, so I was awake, showered, dressed and sitting at my computer when I noticed that my computer clock said “6:45″ instead of “7:45″ like every other clock in the house.

Oh well, I guess that gives me a chance to catch up the blog on the last few days.

I had been planning to do my full latex-and-cotton-and-tissue zombie makeup for Halloween this year, but I’ve been so busy that I didn’t get out for supplies until Thursday evening. The local party supply place, which is the go-to place for makeup and costumes, was already closed. (You’d think that the night before Halloween they’d be open longer for last-minute shopping, like big-box stores on the night before Christmas Eve.) The selection at Wal-Mart and other general-purpose stores was paltry; Wal-Mart had, for instance, only black left of their cream makeup. Then when I got up Friday morning, I found that the latex I purchased last year, while still moist, was so thick that it wouldn’t soak through cotton, and I really didn’t have the time to add a dribble of water, shake thoroughly, check consistency, add a dribble… So I bagged it and just did something with the (pitifully sparse) selection of greasepaint in my makeup box. Next year, starting the first week in October, I’m getting that makeup kit back up where it needs to be.

For once, the weather was perfect for trick-or-treating, apart from some sprinkles of rain which were just enough to make us nervous instead of wet. When we’d canvassed our neighborhood far enough that little feet were tired, and after we visited a few specific friends by car, we settled down to Halloween movies. With a Friday night at our disposal, I told the kids that I’d just keep throwing in old spooky DVDs until everyone wanted to go to bed, or just fell asleep watching them.

First up was House on Haunted Hill (1959), reviewed in full here. Only twenty minutes into it, Emma decided it was too spooky for her, so she and her mother went into the bedroom and read “fun” Halloween stories. When it was over, Sariah said, “So what was the point of that?” Not even eight years old, and already a plot Nazi. It does a father proud.

Next I threw in a screener disc of The Legend of the Crystal Skulls, a documentary that ran on the Smithsonian Network. Thanks to the latest exploration on the famous crystal skulls attributed to the Mayans or Aztec in various museums or private collections, including the most famous “Skull of Doom,” one of two conclusions can be reached:

1) They were made with modern electric tool in the 20th century.

2)The aliens who made them and gave them to the Mayans or Atlanteans or whoever in eons past used advanced tools exactly like what would become the technological state of the art in the modern West, post 1940. It’s a miracle!

Worth watching for the one guy who says, I remember my past life in Atlantis, and they used crystal skulls all over the place!

The final movie was Invaders from Mars (1953), a movie I haven’t seen in roughly thirty years. I even forgot it was in color. It’s a wonderfully paranoid little piece showing the tenor of its times, predating but treating the same themes as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Little David Maclean is the only one who sees a flying saucer land in the sand dunes behind his house, and when his father goes out to investigate he comes back… changed. And then people all over town and the nearby military base change too. It bogs down a little in middle with all of the military maneuvering (my kids aimed derision at the parade of stock footage — again, I’m been raising them right), but it’s still an effective little classic.

And then to bed. Sariah was ready to go to bed ten minutes before the end but stuck it out, Jason had already catnapped during the Crystal Skulls doc, Alex missed the last twenty minutes of Invaders entirely, and I will admit to fading out for five or ten seconds at a time through that same timeframe.

Saturday was Jason’s birthday, and I think the present that he loved most was the sonic screwdriver/psychic paper set I picked up. David Tennant has worked many wonders in our house, like persuading Jason to get his hair cut and care how it looks. It’ll be a shame to see him go. (I haven’t passed the news along to Jason yet; he’ll cry for days.)

Nathan

By popular demand (no, seriously, someone did ask for this), here’s a recent family photo we had taken.

Edit: From left to right: Sariah, Emma, me, Alex, Michele (ain’t she cute?), Jason. Jason was miffed that I wouldn’t let him wear his denim jacket in the photo.

Nathan

The last two for Month of the Living Dead: Chopper Chicks in Zombietown (1989) and Zombies Gone Wild (2007).

I’ve come to the realization that I’m quite sick of the standard Romero-bastard zombie: communicable (which means most of the zombies will be barely dead), flesh-eating, and vulnerable to headshots. Next year, I’m going to have to go out of my way to focus on voodoo victims, scientific reamination experiments, alien/demonic possession, and and good ol’-fashioned vengeful corpses.

Nathan

I don’t know if “gig” is the right word, as that implies payment or recompense, and the only recompense I’m getting out of this one is — free Archie comics!

Thanks to my friend Bill Galvan, who’s currently drawing the main Archie title, I heard from the Archie Comics PR crew, who were looking for someone to review their output on the Newsarama message boards. Seems the guy who used to do it for them went out and started his own comics review site, which promptly sank. The deal was simple: they’d send me everything Archie Comics publishes, and I’d review what I like. There was no expectation of uniformly positive reviews (which is good, because that’s not how I roll), but if I didn’t generally like the sort of stuff Archie publishes, I wouldn’t be interested in the deal?

So my first installment’s up here, complete with added comments from my kids on the comics they read. (They have not yet learned their father’s gift for longwinded reviewing. Give them time.)

Nathan

Today I was sustained as the Second Counselor in the Bishopric of our ward. The short version is that I’m one of the two counselors to the leader of the local congregation — who, as of today, is someone brand new in the position. (See here for a concise description from Wikipedia on the role of a Bishop.) I shall now add this new ball to my juggling routine until I decide what other ball(s) need to be dropped.

And my title is facetious. Just two weeks ago, I taught the brethren in the Elders Quorum about the importance of “getting both feet in the boat” and committing your all to the Kingdom of God. Now I’m being given an opportunity to see how I walk the walk.

Nathan