The young people of today may not realize just how scary the word Satanist used to be here in the United States. You see, being a Puritanical society most people had a fear of God. But if there was one thing that could scare them even more then God it was Satan. And thanks to Hollywood hits like The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby those fears were suddenly rationalized in celluloid.

Yes those kindly old neighbors are trying to stealthily allow Satan to rape you in your sleep. And yes, the reason your daughter has started cursing and crab walking everywhere is because she is possessed by a demon. And yes, that scary blind man constantly sitting in that chair in the attic is guarding the gateway to Hell.
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It isn’t often that I get to force Anna to watch something she has no interest in. Typically I have to find some way of piquing her interest or there simply is no way she will go. Take Midnight Meat Train, for example. While she isn’t averse to gore or horror films by any means, trying to talk her into driving 20 minutes to one of the worst areas of town to watch a film that might be terrible wasn’t an easy task. But after informing her on the treatment the film was receiving from Lionsgate, she became interested enough to see if the movie really deserved to be stashed away in the far reaches of the metro area. Of course after watching it we both realized why the film isn’t getting a wide release, but you have to give her credit for making the effort. (more…)

Well my little sister’s wedding went off with nary a hitch resulting in a pretty positive family get together for all involved. My father somehow managed to stay controlled throughout the proceedings, which considering his was giving away his baby girl is quite the feat. Sure he lied during his toast about not crying during the wedding ceremony, this was in an effort to squash the rather large pool circulating about taking bets on just how quickly he would cry, but other then that small misstep he was shockingly composed the entire weekend.

During the reception Meghan and Jake (the newlyweds) had a nice change of pace by eliminating the tired cliché of clinking glasses to have them kiss. Instead, they asked for the guests to tell a story about either or both of them, and while I chose not to tell a story at that time, I thought it might be fitting to tell a story about Meghan during this review. Trust me, it somehow ties together with The Mirror Crack’d. (more…)

Lots of interesting stuff to talk about today; The Dark Knight, my little sister’s upcoming wedding, a new addition to the Where the Long Tail Ends family and maybe even a review of Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil’s Son-In-Law. Now normally I would have a totally self indulgent opening to bump up the word count before I go into my review, but today I feel like changing things up a bit in honor of the unconventional Petey Wheatstraw. For a brief moment in time I even considered rhyming the review, but I’m quite certain that would have driven me, and possibly you, insane.

But like I said earlier, I have other matters to discuss before I tackle Petey Wheatstraw. First up is the incredibly thick cloud of hyperbole surrounding The Dark Knight. Now I liked the film, quite a bit actually, but for people to make this out like the second coming of The Godfather is more then enough to choke a donkey. Yes Heath Ledger is outstanding in possibly one of the first great performances of the year, but could we hold up on the Oscar talk until, I don’t know, the year is over with? (more…)

If I haven’t made it readily apparent, I watched a ton of movies as a child. And by ton I mean billions, quite possibly literally. Growing up in Wisconsin I tended to have a lot of free time. Now, unlike the kids of today I spent most of that free time outside.

I created countless games and would spend hours playing them. One of my personal favorites was a version of baseball involving my basketball hoop and a tennis ball. You see I was always the pitcher and the object was to throw the ball into the square of the backboard for a strike, and if the ball hit the rim that was the equivalent of the batter hitting the ball. Trust me, it totally made sense to me and was a blast to play.

But when I would get tired of playing my own personal version of BASEketball I would bike to my local video store and rent a movie. Now it didn’t take long for me to work my way through the giants of the day and I soon began to search out far riskier fare. As an interesting side note, I know have the odd ability of identifying a good two decades worth of movies solely by their cover art, often times coming up with my own idea of what the movie was about based on these images.

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