Category: film

Lando Calrissian Disguise Kit: Smoooooth

It isn’t very often that I have buyers remorse on eBaby and this time is no exception. While strolling the virtual aisle of eBay in the “nerd” section I stumbled across and item that I could not say no to. Actually, I am shocked anyone could say no to this. May I present to you…

…the Lando Calrissian Disguise Kit. Holy cow!

I know that this is just a novelty item but it’s nice to see LucasFilm Ltd has a bit of a sense of humor. Now if only they had official Star Wars Colt 45 12 packs for sale. Now that would be more of a VeggieMacabre-type item for review. Until they do that, you’ll have to just watch this.  Enjoy!

 

 

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Goodbye

Well, I guess this was coming. I mean, I post about as regular as Jamie Lee Curtis. (Activia joke) I need to get a different forum and narrow the topic to a specific direction. While Veggiemacabre has been great, I am a different person than 2007. Maybe better or maybe worse but not the same. I loved this place and the people I have met through it.

I know Matt ended X-E and started DinosaurDracula. This is sort of the same thing but going forward you will see more of a media side since I have invested so much into software. I have a vision and as soon as the know-how happens you’ll see. Thank you for a wonderful five years. Watch below to get the skinny.

By the way, Veggiemacabre.tv will still be here. Just leaving this blog.

Good Journey!

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Where Did You Go?: Me! And Another Creepshow Rundown

It’s no secret that I have been scarce to say the least but that doesn’t mean I am not with you in spirit. It’s really just work, you know. It’s not like I am doing exciting things with a whole new set of friends and priorities only to peek my head back here because I needed a sweater to wrap around my neck to match my pink popped-collar polo shirt only to see all my old friends still sitting here waiting, rocking Misfits t-shirts and drinking beer leading to an awkward, “oh heeeey…how have you guys been?”. No, it’s seriously just a wicked-crazy quarter that requires less fun and more work. Trust me, I am still the same and I am back to writing nonsense. Just like this paragraph. Total nonsense.

So how do I come back to normalcy? I am finding that writing is much like riding a bike for a long distance and then jumping off to a full running sprint; it’s awkward and you look like a fool until you get your groove back. I need to get my groove back. And what better way to get the ol’ groove back than to review a beer and discuss another Creepshow chapter that is near and dear to the heart. Let’s start with the Creepshow!

I am going to start with the intro to the entire movie for two reasons: one, it’s amazing and two, Tom Atkins makes it amazing. Just look at this perfect 1960’s style house that is modernized to the early 1980’s! This was my childhood, folks. All  in one shot and I love it so.

We can hear from the outside of the house that someone is in deep shit for having taboo literature and buddy, he is getting a lashing from the legend himself, Tom Atkins. Tom is giving the ol’ what-for over finding a copy of the comic, Creepshow, in his kid’s room and to defend himself, the kid points out it’s not as bad as some of the magazines Tom has in his sock drawer.

And that’s when his son learns about “five-figured justice”. You don’t TALK ABOUT TOM ATKINS’ SOCK DRAWER! The wife tries to calm Tom down but the foot came down and now the comic is headed for the garbage. Even after pleads from his son, Tom just really hates this comic book.

And there it lays in a Oscar’s house. But soon Tom gets an uneasy feeling as he heads back to the house because in the distance, you can faintly hear a creepy laugh.

Now that the law has been laid down, it’s Miller time. His wife is noticeably upset (based on her furious knitting) but what’s done is done and Tom kicks back a brew stating not once but twice, “That’s why God made fathers, babe.”.

Meanwhile, upstairs….

Let me first say that this kid is pretty cool. Noted he came from a Tom Atkins’ character’s loins but still, his room decor and choice of comics makes him a friend of Veggiemacabre. Anyway, he is also awesome because he is not scared at all of this thing looking in his window…

Had it been an all you can eat Indian buffet night and I saw that staring in my window, all I can say is the sheets would have been chilling in Oscar’s house with the comic. But not this stud! Nope, he smiles away pounding his fist into his hand. Vengeance is close at hand.

We come to the end of the movie but before the credits roll we get to see what Billy (Tom’s son) is going to do to his oppressive father. But even before that we get a nice treat by a little known cameo from..

Tom Savini and Marty Schiff who were also in cameos in Dawn of the Dead! Instead of a motorcycle gang, this time they are garbage man who thumb through the discarded comic looking specifically at the dumb stuff advertised between the stories. One in particular caught my eye.

I know this was from an earlier segment but I love this ad. “By selling Bolt, the family newspaper nobody knows about and win great prizes like:

  • A bow and arrow
  • Pistols and rifles
  • Surveillance equipment
  • Cannon and Tanks
  • Nuclear warheads

Seems like a bargain! Especially if I am selling a newspaper nobody knows about!

Anyway, they flip to the voodoo doll ad that had already been cut-out. Already been cut-out? Uh oooooh!

Looks like Tom was in some considerable pain last night and didn’t get much sleep. That is probably because little Billy sent away for the Voodoo doll which surprisingly was an awesome buy!

I really don’t know the moral of the story here. Don’t hit your kid?  Don’t mouth off to Tom Atkins? Be careful what you hide in the sock drawer? Well, I think what we have here is that if Iran really wants a nuclear warhead, they are looking in the wrong magazines.

Just ask Tom Atkins.

 

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Where Did You Go? Mothers

Man, it has been a while since I have written a “Where Did You Go” post. So, as I sit at the work station for Wake Forrest Medical School waiting for them to redo their entire database I think I will use this time to be productive. Let me pay homage to the ones who birthed some of the cinemas greatest characters. And by moms, I mean the ones I care about and probably no one else does.

Lane Meyer’s mom in the movie, Better Off Dead, is about as amazing of a character as you can get. Her complete absence from reality, alternative homemaking skills and her unrelenting sweetness makes her so enjoyable to watch I just wish she could have had more of a dominating role in the film. Let’s see…she wanted to cutback the grease of bacon so she boiled it, dressed as a reindeer on Christmas morning, bought Lane a stack of TV dinners for his Christmas present, improvised a recipe that was wet from the rain and cooked something to life, and invited the neighbors to dinner to welcome the new French foreign exchange student to America by making French food. You know…”fronch fries, fronch bread, fronch dressing..”? Simply amazing. She was perfectly balanced dumb, ignorant, crazy and sweet. She’s like the buddy’s mom in high school who you could get to buy you beer but never did because the thought of hurting her feelings was not worth the fun. I love her.

Played by actress Kim Darby, she has had a long career dating back to the 60’s and has been in many TV shows like Murder She Wrote (shocker) the 1970’s classic Fantasy Island and films to include a major role in True Grit with John Wayne and was Debra Strode in the hilarious Halloween: Curse of Michael Myers. She has been nominated for an Emmy and a few Golden Globes in her time and has had a long career teaching acting at UCLA. Currently she resides in LA and was married to James Stacy who was the bartender in the evil Disney movie Something Wicked This Way Comes. All in all, I know her best as that wack-a-do Mrs. Meyer who played an amazing role as mother to Lane and Badger Meyer, in Better Off Dead and that is why she is top of this list.

Oh boy Nancy’s mom, Marge Thompson, from the 1984 Nightmare On Elm Street was an inflatable dartboard when it came to being a parent but when it came to handling a child molester, she was got shit done. This chick lit the dude on fire and took his glove as a souvenir. It almost worked too had he not, you know, come back in the dreams of kids and killed them in their sleep. Doh!

The reason she is on this list is because of her complete naiveté and her love of all things vodka. Even when her daughter woke up from a nightmare in a hospital and produced the hat of Freddy Krueger, she was still in denial! Also she taught us the hazards of smoking in bed:

And doors can be used creatively.

The woman who played this drunken, twice killed, and living in denial mother is the great Ronee Blakely who almost won an Academy Award for her role in the movie Nashville, loosely based on the story of Loretta Lynne. She had been in a few films and TV shows through the 1970’s to 90’s but besides Nightmare to Elm Street, I only really care that she was in the Tales From The Darkside episode, “The False Prophet”, appeared in the forgettable 1987 Return to Salem’s Lot and sang back up vocals to Bob Dylan’s song “Hurricane”. Other than that, she will always be the lady who funneled vodka and sort of killed Freddy Krueger.

Diane Freeling from the movie Poltergeist is probably my favorite movie mom for a couple of reasons. One, she is just cool and hip. She seems like the mom who brings cupcakes to Carolann’s classroom, buy’s Robbie the cool sneakers that all the kids are wearing, makes sure Dana has condoms before she goes on a date because we all know she was pretty loose in the movie and remember to keep cold Coor’s beers in the fridge with tightly rolled joints for when Steve gets home from a hard day of work. Two, I love the way she didn’t lose her shit like I would have when this happened:

I would have “Hiesman-ed” over Carolann on my way out the door.

Diane Freeling was played by the beautiful JoBeth Williams and she is no stranger to brilliant acting. She made her debut just a couple of months before Poltergeist with Dustin Haufman in Kramer v Kramer and went on to do a number of big films like The Big Chill, Poltergeist II, and the Tim Allen abortion known as Jungle 2 Jungle. (Never trust a film, music group or insurance company with a number representing a preposition) Also she was most famous in the late 1970’s and early 80’s as her soap career as Brandy in the show Guiding Light. And know you know. Oh! And when I was looking up info on JoBeth the first site that came up was from Wikifeet; a whole site dedicated to celebrity feet photos.

We are going to end this one on a high note, folks! Good ol’ Doris from the movie we all love, Night of the Comet. She is the cliché mom we all hate. It’s obvious that she isn’t the birth mother to the two girls in the movie because she plays the role of a wicked stepmother to the T! Married to their dad who is a Green Beret on deployment to Honduras, she is throwing a comet party and letting every guy in the neighborhood get a free ride (if you know what I mean). Well, the youngest smart-ass girl gets a little pissed off when she sees her stepmom flirting with the neighbor, Chuck, and lets loose with one of the greatest lines in cinema history: “Jesus, Doris. You were born with an asshole you don’t need Chuck.” That line resulted in this series of events.

The lesson? Don’t slap in a punching contest. But don’t worry, Doris gets turned into Tang right after this scene.

Doris was brilliantly played by Sharon Farell and what a ride this lady had! She has been in Hollywood acting since 1959 and has been on such shows as My Three Sons, Matlock, THE VERY FIRST EPISODE OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, Freddy’s Nightmares and Emergency. Her movie roles were pretty extensive too but besides Night of the Comet the only other one I really care about is It’s Alive where she played the mother to Satan. Which, if this was another blog that would have taken the cake for her movie-mother roles. But not this one so go suck one!

I’m sorry. Don’t do that. You know I love you.

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Just When You Thought It Was Safe…

Do you have completely irrational fears? Not like a fear of being trampled to death at a Miley Cyrus concert or a fear of the moon falling into the Earth, because while those are odd fears and highly unlikely to happen, they are plausible. I am talking about fears that defy logic and reality. I am about to share one of mine with you and it all started on a summer day in the year 1985 when my Uncle Nat introduced me to the movie, Jaws.

I can’t think of a single movie that had that much of an effect on me. Going to the beach every summer always had a shadow of a shark looming in my head and I was content to just make sand castles for my micro-machines, drink Ecto Cooler Hi-C and get grit in my mouth from eating Doritos with sandy fingers. But when I was told to go rinse off, that music, oh that music started in my mind and I was ever so quick to get in and get out while other kids played in the surf. No surf fun for me. I saw what happened to Alex Kintner. 

Since that fateful day in 1985 I have had this lurking unease that a giant great white shark could appear at most any body of water to include lakes, ponds, SWIMMING POOLS, jacuzzis, baths, really hard rains, full sinks and toilets. I even had a dream that there was a free-floating shark roaming around my house and I had to hide in the fridge to escape being eaten. Then Rue McClanahan showed up and things got weird but that’s for another post. I need to stay focused.

Even today as a rational, working and (maybe) intelligent adult, I still get an unease that somewhere there is a swimming devil that wouldn’t mind chewing me up. This plagues my soul and got me thinking. Have you ever read the Stephen King book, Mist? I might be mistaken but essentially the military accidentally opens up a…something, and all these horrid creatures come out and kill people in the worst ways imaginable. What if (stay with me here) a parallel universe crossed with ours and air-breathing great white sharks that can fly showed up and could hide and attack when least expected! I seriously have thought about this. And I think it would look very much like this:

 

 

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