Date Night with Captain Kirk

-


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

31 Films for Halloween, #31: Clown (2014)

-
Image
Ho-hum! Scary clowns. Pennywise, The Killer Klowns From Outer Space, Art the Clown, the Jester, Jack in the Box, Punch, the Joker... I'm sure you've seen it all, so that the idea of a "killer clown" no longer holds any prospect of new kinds of fear. Except, of course, for Mervo the Marvelous, who frightens all who yet live. But you haven't seen... Clown (2014). When the entertainer for a little boy's birthday party cancels, the boy's father dons a clown costume of mysterious origin to take over the duties himself and it turns out pretty well. At first. Unfortunately, the "costume" has further plans and hopes to make itself the father's permanent role. Ha, but I'm joking, certainly! I mean, snort, THIS guy?  Surely this guy isn't the scary thing in a horror movie? It is to laugh. Yeah. Well.  Just go ahead and watch "Clown". I'm sure it won't scare you. Let alone disturb so deeply that you curse me for recommending i...
Read more

Friendly Cows

-
Image
The Circle of Fifths is central to composing, or even understanding, any music complicated enough to include a key change. Not that anyone understands car gearshifts anymore, but they are a useful metaphor.  Just as you can't slam from first gear to fourth gear without it being pretty jarring, you can't jump from one key to another in music randomly without it being jarring.  In a car, you have to transition via neutral or other gears in between.  That's kind of how music works and the circle of fifths is like a gearshift that let's you do so. With three times the number of gears, and different ones for leaded and unleaded. Metaphors aren't perfect. Most songs, even ones that have nothing but melody, have chords (a group of notes played simultaneously).  Those chords are based on the notes of the melody of the song (the melody is the "tune"; the part of a song you would whistle).  Sometimes the chords are performed, sometimes not; but even when they are no...
Read more

31 Films for Halloween, #29: Polaroid (2019)

-
Image
I love this movie, because it's a great PG-13 movie, and don't let anyone tell you any different. Like many modern horror films (such as "Lights Out"; "Saw"; "The Jester"; "Terrifier") it's based on a previous short. The structure is a familiar one. A group of high schoolers encounter a Cursed Object (in this case, a polaroid camera) which leaves them marked for death, one by one.  Who, if anyone, will survive and how? In fact, this is pretty much the same plot as an episode of "Are You Afraid of The Dark?" and one of "Goosebumps". But, really, can't that be said of almost ANY horror plot? Where "Polaroid" distinguishes itself is the incredible APTNESS of the Scary Entity that is the threat and the "rules" of how the cursed camera works.  The polaroid isn't just some throwaway plot device (as it was in, say, "Back to the Future"); it is really IS the heart of the schtick and o...
Read more