Wanna See Something Really Scary?

Macy knows I like horror movies. She knows this both because I've told her on more than one occasion and because even a nine-year-old can look at my movie collection and know that The Evil Dead trilogy, Alien, and House on Haunted Hill aren't romantic comedies.

Like any child who thinks her dad is the most awesomeist thing ever, she wants to emulate me to a degree. I know this on an intuitive level; she seeks my approval when she follows in my footsteps. It's all terribly flattering.

She's been lobbying for us to start having scary movie night for a long time now and I want to oblige. Of course, this desire to indulge my daughter is tempered with my desire not to scar her for life. Or, if I'm being honest, my desire to not have to deal with a daughter who's afraid of the dark and has constant nightmares. When I was a kid I always wanted to watch horror movies. My parents generally didn't let me, but I managed to catch a few anyway. The Nosferatu knockoff in the TV adapation of Salem's Lot scare the living crap out of me. So did the ball/scythe mash-up in Phantasm. Seeing these things was thrilling and satisfying right up until the moment my dad would say, "time for bed." Then it was all terror and dread. Luckily, I was a firm believer in the ability of a thin sheet and a thick blanket to keep me safe from all manner of bogeyman.

I want to indulge Macy, who seems to have a firm sense of what is real and what is not. So I did what any responsible father would do in 2011: I solicited the opinions of my friends on Facebook. I explained the situation and my own desire to not thrust Macy right into The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I got several good suggestions, including Poltergeist, which of course I should have thought of immediately. I've been meaning to make Macy deathly afraid of clowns. Some other good ones were ghost stories like The Sixth Sense and The Others. These made sense to me as a way of easing Macy into this sort of thing, like a gateway drug, if you will. Let her get a little taste before pushing her head first into the bowl.

As luck would have it, I got home from work on Friday and discovered that both Signs and The Sixth Sense were going to be showing on movie channels over the course of the weekend. I set the DVR and we made plans to cook up a feast and watch scary movies while we ate.

A quick aside: I don't think Signs or The Sixth Sense qualify as either horror movies or "scary". There are a couple of moments in each, like when you first see the alien in the former at the birthday party or when the kid gets locked in the closet in the latter. But neither movie would have given me reason to sleep with my head under the covers if I had seen them as a child of Macy's age. Gateway drugs, remember.

Macy's impression of Signs was generally favorable, though she thought the aliens looked way too fake (she's right) and wasn't at all scared. The smothered chicken went over much better.

The Sixth Sense was a different story, at least as far as how Macy felt about it. She absolutely loved it. She thought it was creepy without being scary, exactly (which is how I feel about it as well). When she figured out the big twist she was suitably awed. We talked about it afterward and she totally got that Bruce Willis never talked to anyone except Haley Joel Osment after being shot in the opener. She's still talking about it the next day. The funniest part of the movie occurred when the boy handed the grieving father the box which contained evidence that his wife had intentionally poisoned their daughter, causing her death. The father opens the box, which contains a videotape. Macy, confused, asked, "what's that?"

The braciole we made for dinner wasn't as big a hit; I've adjusted the recipe though and I think it'll be much better next time. The tapenade appetizer was gobbled up though (I still can't get over the fact that Macy will eat tapenade).

All in all it was a successful weekend. Macy is, I think, a little disappointed that the movies weren't scarier. She told me she thought The Sixth Sense would have some of those gotcha moments when something jumps out at you. So I'm going to turn up the scare factor a little bit for our next weekend together. I'm hitting Amazon for some classics like Poltergeist, Arachnophobia, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. If she handles those -- which I have no doubt she will -- we'll turn it up a little bit more. I have extra blankets for her bed.

Haiku Review: Paranormal Activity & District 9

Paranormal Activity

see, it's not that hard
to inspire nightmares though
boyfriend was a douche


District 9

action-doc explores
alternate history of
nigerian scams

Haiku Review: Sherlock Holmes

first rule of fight club
is the fact that sherlock holmes
was never in a fight club

2010 Looks Like A Good Movie Year

Here is a list (with many trailers) of the sci-fi and/or special effects-heavy movies slated to be released in 2010. A bunch of them look like things I need to see:

Looks Like A Must See From The Trailer:
Alice In Wonderland
Inception
Legion
Shutter Island

Could Be Awesome Or Could Completely Suck:
Clash of the Titans (seriously?)
Jonah Hex (the comic book was about a Civil War-era bounty hunter)

Campy Good Fun:
The A-Team (will anyone die?)
Tron: Legacy

'The Funniest Movie Ever' Usually Sucks

I love movies of all kinds. I especially love horror movies, though most of them are terrible. Alien, The Ring, and Halloween (the original) are notable exceptions. A special place in my heart exists for movies that defy conventional genre labels. Donnie Darko. Fight Club. Memento.

But comedy is the bread and butter. Who doesn't like to laugh? It's the one genre that everybody likes, even though one person's hilarious knee-slapper is another person's why-are-we-watching-this-again whipping boy.

Which brings me belatedly to the subject of this post. If I had a dime for every time someone told me," you've got to see __________. It's the funniest movie I've ever seen!" I'd have, like, a pack of Juicy Fruit, because that's all you can expect for $1.10.

The thing is, I have yet to like any movie used to fill in that blank. Here's a partial list of movies that have been presented to me as The Funniest Movie Ever. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, but whatever. You're not paying for this content:

1. There's Something About Mary -- There sure is, but that something isn't comedy.


2. O Brother Where Art Thou? -- I actually liked this movie, but it wasn't very funny.


3. My Big Fat Greek Wedding -- One thing I don't have to worry about with Donna is her ever using this or any movie like it in that blank. God, she's awesome.


4. Napolean Dynamite -- I got tired of Jon Heder in like eight seconds. The only thing I liked about this movie was the White Stripes song playing over the opening credits.


5. Superbad -- At least its title had honesty going for it.


6. American Pie -- This movie bored me and it was full of boobs for God's sake.


7. Scary Movie -- I don't remember anything about this one. That can't be good, right?


8. The Big Lebowski -- I know this one is dripping with cult cachet and all that, and to be honest I didn't see the whole thing. That's because what I saw didn't make me laugh.


9. Tommy Boy -- Should have been rated 'U'. For ugh.


10. Wedding Crashers -- I'm too depressed now to go on. Thanks, usually-reliable Vince Vaughn.

Star Trek And Lost: Separated At Birth?

We went and saw the new Star Trek movie last night. It was actually pretty good. Very entertaining. The plot moved along, the actors were fine, although I thought the dude from Lord of the Rings was trying a little too hard to be like Deforest Kelley's McCoy. The guy from Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead was great as Scotty.

That said, I was struck by how many parallels there were with Lost. I was kidding yesterday, but it turns out I shouldn't have been. There were a lot of common elements:

	Star Trek	Lost
Lack of respect for the current timeline	Romulan miners go back in time to wipe out the planets of the Federation, rewriting the original series canon and invoking howls of outrage from nerds everywhere.	Turning a donkey wheel causes the island to start skipping around in time randomly -- Undoubtedly because no donkey was involved in turning the wheel, a clear violation of OSHA guidelines.
Guy stuck in a box waiting for his relief	Scotty hanging out at Ice Station Zebra with some sort of Chernobyl monkey.	Desmond in the hatch, pushing the button, ready to shoot first and ask questions later. Questions like, "are you here to relieve me?"
An overt symbol of the protagonist's plight	James T. Kirk (the "T" stands for Tigerbeat!) playing with the miniature starship in the bar after getting his ass totally kicked.	Kate's toy airplane, a memento of happier times. Like when her best friend got killed and she blew up her father in his trailer.
A man out of time destined to set things right	Spock, looking every bit the 240 years old that Leonard Nimoy must be by now.	Daniel Faraday, with his plan to detonate an H-bomb on a small island populated by his friends, thus saving them all. Wait, what?
Man of science / man of faith dichotomy	Spock, boldly embracing the logic that Uhura is hot and he should totally mack on her, and Kirk, whose faith in his ability is matched only by his determination to get his face pounded by everyone else in the movie.	Jack, the stoic doctor who doesn't go in for any of the religious mumbo jumbo but is totally down with time travel, and Locke, who believed the island had a destiny for him. Said destiny turned out to be getting strangled by an extension cord and wearing someone else's loafers, but still.

Summer Movies in February

A bunch of movie trailers for summer. Link via Instapundit.

Haiku Review / Kung-Fu Panda

fat bear learns kung-fu
and great truths along the way
funny? not so much