Category: movies

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A Laurel and Hardy Party #7: NIGHT OWLS and LADRONES

(1930; director: James Parrott)

I’m not a laugher. Never been a laugher. Even when I was a kid. I remember watching old Looney Tunes cartoons with my younger cousins while they were LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY. They were falling to pieces. Every time that Bugs got the upper hand on Elmer Fudd or The Coyote got flattened by another anvil, these kids lost their shit.

Meanwhile, I, age 9 or 10, just sat there quietly. I liked the cartoon, too. I was enjoying it. I was entertained. It was good. I was happy. I probably had a smile on my face.

But I didn’t have the physical reaction that my cousins did. And to this day I still find myself in the same situation all of the time and I don’t know why. I have a sense of humor. I like to laugh, but I’m very stingy about it for some reason. I mostly laugh at real-life mishaps and accidents rather than jokes or movie gags. For that stuff, I tend to smirk and think “yeah, that was good.” I rarely cut loose and explode.

I guess I’m just a creep.

And I mention this because Night Owls made me laugh my face off. It bored a hole through the stone wall. This is my favorite short so far on my Laurel and Hardy journey.

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Okay, So What the Hell Happened to Fandor? (Also, I Prattle On About Arthouse Theaters)

Maybe the most arthouse-y streaming service of them all, Fandor, looks to have gone the way of the Chevy Nova in December and NOBODY is talking about it.

Was I their only subscriber?

Or are we all still numb from Filmstruck’s demise last November?

Fandor’s deal was (is?) that it was all about independent films. They made a big thing about their selection of Werner Herzog classics. They had Hal Hartley movies. Oodles of short films from all eras. A scattershot, but interesting, selection of deep, deep catalog stuff, like 1940s cliffhanger serials, old B-westerns and Pakistani movies from 1963. You could browse movies by what country they were from. You could browse movies by what festival it played in, from Cannes to Venice to SXSW to the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

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A Laurel and Hardy Party #6: THE HOOSE-GOW

(1929; director: James Parrott)

“Jason, how come you haven’t reviewed a Laurel and Hardy short since June?”

“Jason, where in living fuck are the Laurel and Hardy reviews?”

“Jason, what happened to your Laurel and Hardy review series? They’re the only thing that I liked on your stupid site!”

“Jason, your Laurel and Hardy reviews are the light of my life. Please bring them back.”

Absolutely no one has said any of the above to me, but I am still keenly aware that I’ve neglected this series for too many months now. What can I say? The dog ate my homework. New Year’s resolution: More Laurel and Hardy reviews. Or at least finally get to the second disc of the Essential Collection DVD box set.

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A DECEMBER TO DISMEMBER at the Richardson, TX Alamo Drafthouse,12/8/18

The best thing about Christmas is the day off from work.

The second best thing about Christmas are Christmas horror movies. I’m decrepit enough to remember when Silent Night, Deadly Night was a major media controversy, mostly for its poster that some felt was too disturbing for the kids of 1984 to see. At the time there were also very few Christmas horror movies (there was pretty much just Black Christmas and maybe Christmas Evil, when it came to what you could find at the video store back then). Exploitation filmmakers just didn’t go there often.

Whole different story today. Now, kids come out of the womb already jaded and no one bats an eye at a Santa slasher or a few severed heads rolling under the Christmas tree anymore–and we have about seven thousand holiday hack-’em-and-slash-’em flicks for your approval.

Where to start? The creeps at the Alamo Drafthouse in Richardson are here to help with their SECOND annual Christmas horror mini-marathon. My kinda holiday party.

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A Ramble About the Unfortunate End of FILMSTRUCK

Internet streaming of movies is one of the best bad ideas of the current age.

On the surface, it’s amazing. It’s convenient as all fuck. It doesn’t get more convenient. You can sit in your living room, drunk, stark naked, at 3 AM on Thanksgiving Day, and punch up a movie on your TV. You don’t have to look for a credit card. You don’t have to pay for everything that you watch. If you don’t like something, you can ditch it and look for something else at no extra charge. Doesn’t matter. It’s a buffet. It’s the perfect thing for our 21st century fucking lazy asses.

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DISMEMBER THE ALAMO at the Richardson, TX Alamo Drafthouse, 10/27/18

You know what the weirdest thing is about sitting in a movie theater for nine hours to watch five horror films in a row?

When it’s over and your eyes feel like poached eggs and your ass is numb and your legs are stiff and you sorta zombie-walk back to your car and all of the popcorn, beer, milkshakes and pizza that you’ve taken in are starting to do weird things in your stomach… you kinda still want to sneak in one more movie. (Whether you prefer that sixth movie at home or in a theater depends, I guess, on your feelings about using public restrooms.)

It’s insane, but when the show is good and you lived through it, you become a proud weirdo.

And these Alamo Drafthouse bastards do this thing well.

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