Scotland, PA

“We're not bad people, Mac... just underachievers who have to make up for lost time.”

I heard about this movie a long time ago and it had been sitting in my NetFlix queue for a long time. I thought oooh, a MacBeth movie. Sounds interesting. And it was.
This retelling of MacBeth takes place in 1970’s Scotland, Pennsylvania, hence the name Scotland, PA. Joe McBeth and his wife Pat work in the local fast food joint. Pat’s convinced that Joe should be running the shop rather than bowing and scraping to the owner Duncan. She's sure that she could be doing a much better job of running the place. The oh so simple plan turns out to be a disaster, as you might expect from a Shakespearean tragedy. Things look bright for awhile, but you know how it goes – no water, no perfumes of Arabia can wash those hands clean, and boy do they know it.
The cast in this movie was amazing – James LeGros, Maura Tierney, Christopher Walken, and Amy Smart.  All sorts of indy verterans were in this one. The atmosphere was great and the 1970’s fast food resturant location was inspired. I mean, it it also a bit campy, but I think that was the point. I love Shakespeare, so I’m fine with extremely accurate, line by line interpretations, but this whole retelling has the comedy and tragedy all at the same time. I wouldn't consider it to be Oscar winning or anything like that, but it was a great rental. I’m ashamed that it sat so far down in my queue for so long.

Rating: 4 Purrs for campy, bell-bottomed French fried fun with tragedy and Christopher Walken to boot.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

I picked up Sharp Objects because it sounded dark and spooky and a murder mystery to boot. It delivered on all of those counts, and then some. I tore through this book in just a few hours; I just couldn’t put it down.

In Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn tells the story of Camille Preaker, a Chicago journalist called back to her hometown to write a story about a murdered young girl.  Camille’s trip back to her hometown of Wind Gap, MO isn’t all wine and roses, in fact, her troubled childhood was enough to drive her to self-mutilate, carving words into her skin. Her highly dysfunctional family plays a key part of this novel, and to describe them in too much detail would take away a great deal of discovery. Camille’s mother is devoted to her youngest daughter, trapping the girl in a forever childhood. The father is barely there, bowing to the mother in all things. Camille isn’t so sure the police will solve the case; they think it’s a transient. Camille thinks it’s someone local. Who has killed to girls, and why? Will Camille find the truth?

Gillian Flynn does a great job building the suspense and slowly revealing the truth behind the mystery. The end is a double-whammy; you think you have it all figured out and then it’s something else, and then wham! It’s great and suitably disturbing all in one.  

This book was so much more than I expected. I thought I would find a decent mystery with a “cutter gimmick.”  Instead, I found a finely crafted mystery thriller way above the normal paperback thriller you take to the beach.

Rating: 5 Purrs for the creepiest mother since Joan Crawford

Recent Acquisitions to the Library

I just love Half-Price Books and their 20% off sale.

• The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham
  
• Brimstone (Pendergast, Book 5) by Douglas Preston
  
• Dance of Death by Douglas Preston
  
• Dark Angels: A Novel by Karleen Koen
  
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• Loving Frank: A Novel by Nancy Horan
  
• Diamonds Are Forever, You Only Live Twice, Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming
• The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Other Stories by Charles Dickens
  
• The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  
• Still Life with Crows (Pendergast, Book 4) by Douglas Preston
  
• A Pickpocket's Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York by Timothy J. Gilfoyle
  
• Collected Poems 1947-1997 by Allen Ginsberg
  

Recent Acquisitions to the Library

Here's a list of my latest trade additions from my favorite comic shop, Titan Comics. 

• Serenity: Those Left Behind by Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad
• The Death of Superman
• We 3 by Grant Morrison
• Pablo's Inferno: An innocent child's descent into the Underworld and Beyond by Rhode Montijo
  

Recent Acquisitions to the Library

I've been quite the comic book geek lately. Here are some of my newest acquisitions:

• Zebediah the Hillbilly Zombie - Redneck Bites the Dust by Scott Mills
• Lost Boys: Reign of Frogs Vol 1
• Doctor Who Classics
• Doctor Who
• Locke & Key by Joe Hill
• Serenity: Better Days
• The Dark Tower series
• Helen Killer Vol 1
• House of Mystery Vol 1
• Buffy Season 8
• I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space
• Buckaroo Banzai: Return of the Screw

Final Girl Film Club: The Devil's Daughter

You know, I went into The Devil's Daughter not expecting much. You know, 1970's TV Movie about devil worship and all that. Surely it won't be much of anything. Color me embarrassed - it was actually pretty good. It's on par with a long Night Gallery or Twilight Zone episode (love those), and about half-way through, I said to myself, man this seems really familiar. I've actually seen it before, some time or another, probably when I was home sick from school and needed something to watch on TV.

In The Devil's Daughter, Diane Shaw returns home for her mother's funeral. She's never really known her mother, and at the gravesite, enter Shelley Winters. (Has she ever not been large and scary? Even in the Poseidon Adventure she was scary and she was supposed to be a nice character...) Lilith is a friend of dear old mom, and why don't you dear sweet girl come home and stay with me while you find a job and get settled? Of course, a nefarious plot must be afoot, and really, it's not too hard to figure out early on, but getting there is half the fun in this movie. 

Shelley Winters is more than enough of a reason to watch this movie - she's camp personified. She's like that crazy old lady that bakes you cookies all of the time that you just can't get rid of, and the cookies are missing the sugar but you don't have the heart to say anything. Her two neighbor friends are unsettling, like two overgrown idiot twins, even down to the same outfits. But the kicker comes at the end, in true, ta-da, movie of the week style. Again, it's not a shocker if you have seen any horror movies at all, but it's well done and like I said before. It's  just like ending up a Night Gallery episode, and my TIVO really knows just how much I love that show. 

Rating: 5 Purrs, cause you gotta love a movie that features an over-the-top painting of Satan that every character just pretends is perfectly natural for 3/4 of the movie, and of course, the mad, smiling face of Shelley Winters there at the end - now that's creepy

Recent Acquisitions to the Library

Here are a few of the latest books I've added to my library:

• Tristessa by Jack Kerouac
• The Dead Travel Fast by Eric Nuzum
• Ghost by Alan Lightman
• Eat This, Not That by David Zinczenko

We've been slowly accumulating the Mystery Science Theater DVDs as well. Man, you gotta love those guys.

Sydney White

I rented Sydney White because I think Amanda Bynes is just adorable. What a Girl Wants was a  cute little movie and I liked She's the Man. Amanda Bynes makes the movies - she's cute, funny, not afraid to dress like a boy or fall down - very Lucille Ball. Sydney White was a disappointment, especially after seeing She's the Man, which was really very goofy and funny. 

Sydney White is a retelling of Snow White, with Amanda Bynes starting her first year of college and finding herself facing the "evil witch" aka head of the big time sorority and crushing on the handsome prince aka the fraternity boy next door. Sydney ends up at The Vortex becoming the "Snow White" and taking care of the resident outcasts (the seven dorks), and of course ends up making changes all over campus, true fairy tale style.

It's a cute idea, it just falls flat. I'm not sure if it's the directing, the script, the fact that Bynes seems almost manic in her humor, or that she seems a little too fake-baked to be appealing. I don't know, I just know that I was disappointed. (One thing that didn't disappoint me was the scene where Sydney is shaving her legs at the sink and one of her friendly dorks walks in. It's a shot of her oh-so-very long legs and wow. She's got legs and she knows how to use them. (Have I mentioned before that I am very much a leg person?) It feels slightly wrong to have that kind of reaction to someone 13 years or so my junior. It makes me feel like a dirty old lady, but seriously, she's become kind of a hottie. But I digress...)

Sydney White - it's not quite a fairy tale but you can't have everything I guess. 

Rating: 3 1/2 Purrs - it would be more if the movie had seemed less forced and contrived. I can accept rom-coms to be that way but this seemed stilted rather than fantasy.

The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

I first picked up a Preston and Child book because I really liked the movie Relic and I was curious about the source material. The book was substantially more robust, as you would expect, and different enough that the story was surprising. The Cabinet of Curiosities is the third story by Preston & Child to feature the mysterious Agent Pendergast and have a ton of interesting historical info on museums, natural history, and New York history.

In The Cabinet of Curiosities, construction workers at a new building site uncover a ghastly collection of bodies, all mutilated in the same fashion. Enter Agent Pendergast, the tall, pale agent involved with the earlier Relic and Reliquary novels who seems to be extra rich, full of endless facts, and borderline sexy (maybe that’s just me). Pendergast investigates with the help of Nora Kelly, an archeologist at the New York Museum of Natural History, much to the chagrin of her bosses and the building’s developer, who has the mayor pretty much in his pocket. Things heat up when the city is plagued by new killings that mimic the bodies found at the construction site, and Kelly’s boyfriend, William Smithback Jr., Times reporter, starts throwing out clues in the press. Is the serial killer just mimicking the19th century scientist who was looking for the secret to immortality or is the killer that same scientist become immortal.

I really liked the story here.  Why I like most about Preston’s & Child’s books (at least those that I have read) is the crazy amount of detail that is included about whatever the main storyline is – Relic and the whole DNA sequencing bit, this one with urban archeology.  The incredible detail about the museum and the mechanics of how it works is so interesting to my Art History, museum studies brain. Plus, I find the tall, pale, spooky Pendergast sexy in a weird sort of way. It’s probably the oversized brain he seems to have and his interest in the weird and spooky cases. It’s probably a hold over from my Spooky Mulder crush days. (Okay, so I still have a Spooky Mulder crush. I’ll admit it.) The story seems long at points but the tightly woven climax is page-turning.

What I didn’t like – Nora Kelly actually falling for the slime bag Smithback. I didn’t find much of value in his character but hey, maybe it’s my Pendergast crush talking.

Overall, if you like Michael Crichton books and his ability to turn future science into interesting stories, but like a little horror/sci-fi thrown in, you might check these guys out.

Rating: 4 Purrs, and not just because of Agent Pendergast

Death Sentence

"You go near my family, and I will cut out your goddamn guts like I did your fucking friend. Do you hear me?”

I was really surprised at how much I liked this movie. I had pretty low expectations going in – it’s a revenge flick so I didn’t expect much depth or much besides some gore and some angry scowls.  You know, some Charles Bronson blowing some guys away and maybe some Chuck Norris action here and there.  I was really surprised at how unexpected things were in this movie.

In Death Sentence, Nick Hume (Kevin Bacon) is a family man. Everything seems swell. He’s got a great wife, two great sons, a high paying job and a beautiful house. There’s some tension underneath the surface there though,…and after Nick Hume brush with the dark side of the city, all the underlying ugly comes out.  Nick and his star hockey player son are driving home after the game and have to stop for gas in a not so great part of town. You know, THAT part of town. The one that always shows up in these movies, the dark and not so safe looking one that you of course have to stop at because your car just happens to be out of gas right at that moment. Well, the bad guys come and kill the all-star favorite son, and when Nick hears that even though he can identify one of the doers, the guy won’t do much time.  Nick wants revenge, so a hunting he will go. The problem is, the gang doesn’t just sit back and take it, and that’s really when all hell breaks loose and things veer from what I think is the standard formula.

What did I like most about Death Sentence? Well, it was raw.  Nick Hume isn’t one of those Commando types that underneath his clean-cut exterior lies a ninja or a Army Ranger. No. Nick Hume is a normal family man. He may want revenge and he goes after it full force but he's not too slick about it.  His revenge is half dumb luck as it is  skill, in fact more dumb luck than anything.  The acting was spot on, with maybe the bad guys being a bit over the top, but that’s pretty normal. John Goodman's character was so evil – but went a long way to almost make you sympathetic towards the gang guy and his cohorts. There’s always a bigger fish in the pond.

I can’t really think of anything I disliked about Death Sentence. I was way better than I expected. It felt pretty tightly edited. Backstory was concise. The story was compelling and there was plenty of action and rough stuff.  I’m not sure I’ll buy this one cause I’m kind of  sad about the whole thing but I wish I had seen it in the theater. It would have been worth the full-on evening ticket price.

Rating: 4 ½ Purrs for a near perfect revenge flick that doesn’t make you feel dirty like  some of those more grindhouse flicks can. I did think of something a little off – that guy's aim was pretty darn good for someone who had never shot a gun before. But hey – it’s Hollywood. Everyone hits targets right on in Hollywood.

The Executioner Always Chops Twice: Ghastly Blunders on the Scaffold by Geoffrey Abbott

I picked this book up from my paperback book club and I think this might be the very first time I was disappointed. The Executioner Always Chops Twice seemed like it might be a quirky list of mishaps and goofs, but instead it was a pretty dry collection of whoopsies and gore.

Geoffrey Abbott knows his stuff  - he is a former Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London. The problem is he reports in such a way that it becomes almost tedious to finish them all. There’s a ton of stories in here (I think 80 to 90, somewhere in there), some illustrations to help with the imagination, and plenty of gore to aid in the nastiness. Not only are there amusing last words and whoops I missed your necks accidents, there are pretty detailed accounts of how executions are performed.  I think the real problem wasn’t a lack of interesting stories or last words, I think it’s that after 50 or so, it just gets to be a challenge to get through them all.

On an interesting side note, I had an up close look at a botched hanging last month when we stayed the night in a historic, haunted hotel in Clayton, New Mexico. The Eklund has photos of the whoopsie hanging of Black Jack Ketchum – you can see him caught, noose around his neck, on the platform, and beheaded because the noose was tied in one of the ways Mr. Abbott describes. It was a bit gruesome to see photos, but hey, I had to look.

I don’t know that I would recommend The Executioner Always Chops Twice to anyone looking for a laugh, but it can be darkly comedic for a while. It’s just that after about 30 examples, you get immune and it gets a bit depressing and then a bit boring.

Rating: 3 Purrs for lots of historical and background information but some hisses for needing some comic relief – off with its head with a flamingo croquet mallet

Aswang

Oh NetFlix, how you have betrayed me.  I took your recommendation. I trusted you. You said, Aswang, it was a big old too-do at Sundance some years back.  It caused a panic at the midnight showing. It's scary. Fie! Fie I say! I think maybe the panic it caused was people trying to leave because it was so damn boring.

In Aswang, Katrina is young, unmarried, and pregnant. She strikes a deal that looks pretty good on the surface – Peter Null is a rich man, and to keep his money he needs an heir. Problem is, his wife can’t have children. Solution- he hires Katrina to pretend she is his wife. Katrina’s problem is this – why is the family so damn creepy? Why is the housemaid giving her hard cider and getting her drunk? What about the weird dreams and the weird dried up baby cocoons in the trees surrounding the house?

What I could have liked about this movie was the idea behind it all. Aswang, Filipino vampires, would be scary, but not in this movie. Instead they creep around and have weird, phallic sucker tongues that get squished in windows. I mean, soul-sucking vampires that like to eat children. That’s scary. The problem is, none of it ends up being scary. The story is thin. The atmosphere is practically nil. The big twist, or the one thing I saw as possibly a twist was obvious from the beginning.  The acting is poor at best and laughable most of the time. 

I hate to be so negative about a horror movie. I mean, I LIKE bad horror movies. Usually there is something I can find that makes me laugh or spooks me or has some camp value that I'll remember fondly. But this, well, this one was bad with no camp value. Bad with no Manos, Hands of Fate value.  Bad and the cardinal sin of all movies - just plain boring.

Rating: 1 Hiss for nothing. I mean, I can’t think of anything here.