Dracula Untold

It occurs to me that a written opinion piece about a film isn't the most...fashionable?...way to go.  I would consider doing this via YouTube, but I just lack the kind of presence to make that work.  I can talk a mile of shit, but the minute I know someone is looking at me, I tend to lose steam.  Plus I only really know how to express myself through snarkily captioned pictures, culled from the internet.

MLM(IL) was kind enough to pick up Dracula Untold on Saturday, so we watched it that evening.  It's intended as the beginning of a series of reboots for the classic Universal Studios Monsters, re-imaging them, not as horror icons, but as dark anti-heros.  I just...I don't know.  I really don't.  The very thought of this re-branding makes me get all, I don't know, internet-fan-boy.  You know, the folks that rail and rant about reboots of their childhood favorites.  Not quite "Those fat whores are ruining Ghostbusters!" (which is a thing), but definitely not pleased.  Biased even.  So we popped in the DVD, and I told myself to just repeat "This isn't Dracula.".

Which is fair.  It's not remotely like the novel by Bram Stoker.  It kind of took up the fact that Stoker borrowed a name from Transylvanian history, and incorporated a bit of historical fact with a modern vampire-turned-romatic hero fiction.  This isn't exactly new territory, as Bram Stoker's Dracula did the same thing, to great effect (despite Keanu Reeves and Wynona Ryder).  I think I've mentioned it somewhere before, but I really dig that film.  It never gets old for me.  So, right off the bat I'm given a very easy out for my discomfort.  This is NOT Dracula.  They just happen to share a name.

This Rachel is not a Werewolf Mommy.

I'll be honest when I say that I'm not as familiar with the historical Dracula, or Vlad The Impaler, as I ought to be.  As much time as I spent in high school learning as much vampire folklore as my tiny, blackened heart could retain, I just didn't glean a lot of that part of history.

You just don't understand the beauty of blood and pain, MOM!!!!

I do have vague recollections of a TV movie about the historical Vlad.  It was riding on the popularity of Vampirism, hoping to capitalize on the new-born mainstream popularity of the hero-vampire.  So, except for some very basic knowledge, I was walking into Dracula Untold blind.  This worked in my favor.

I'm not going to get into the plot too much, except to say it wasn't that bad.  Just keep telling yourself "It's not that Dracula," and you'll be ok.  Basically, blah blah blah, enemy army, blah blah blah, have to save my family, blah blah blah, save Gotham...no, wait.

He's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now.

It had some good special effects, and it had some really terrible ones.  The ending was baffling.  I know it's meant to be the start of a new franchise, but it seriously made me want to punch a baby.

I don't know how great an endorsement "Not as bad as I expected" is, but it's the best one I can offer.  Don't buy it, unless you like horror-turned action and haven't placed the classic Dracula, in any of his many incarnations, on a pedestal.  But don't not at least rent it or borrow it or whatever.  It's not that bad.  It's almost good.

Just kidding.  I am Batman.

Horror Block January 2015

I got a Horror Block back in December, and as some may remember with October...I make lofty promises about unboxing videos that I don't deliver on.  Well, I come bearing video for January.  And photos of December, so bonus!

My Block ran late because of horrific weather in the midwest, so I got it about two weeks late.  That's at least a week after most people had made their videos.  I made one anyway.  For you.  For love.

For anyone who doesn't use subscription boxes of any sort, basically you pay whatever amount your box charges and get a surprise goody box full of mystery neatness.  Because of my fairly specific interests, I get Horror Block, brought to you by the sexy Canadian folks that are responsible for Nerd Block.  To illustrate how excited I get over each shipment, I've never been able to film an unboxing.  This remains true, because I'd opened my block before filming, and sorted through my goodies.  Hell, as per usual, I'd even watched a couple of unboxings.  It's hard to avoid when the weather gods cause your block to be so damn late!

Fuck you pretty boy.

The following are just some photos from December's Block, just so that anyone who might be leaning toward purchasing this amazingness can get an idea of what a box might hold.  I'm not even really going to caption, but prepare to covet.

When you squeeze him, his eyes pop out.  Filled with maggots!

That would be a Poltergeist mouse pad.

A The Shining t-shirt that I got to keep, because The Fixer got to keep the last one.

Rue Morgue Magazine

Ok, now for January!





That's it for now.  I watched Dracula Untold this weekend, so I'll be thinking out loud, or in print, or whatever, shortly about that.  *Spoiler* It wasn't as bad as I was expecting.  Coming up as well will be Annabelle and Penny Dreadful, and why Fry's is better than Best Buy.

I, Frankenstein

I got a chance to watch I, Frankenstein this Saturday, and I was only a year late!  I'd heard some bad things about it - nothing specific, just that it was lackluster, not a true horror, so on so forth.  I thought I'd take to the internets to share some thoughts, because why the fuck not?

Mostly my thoughts turned toward things I'd rather be watching.  These include:

• Gargoyles
• NBC's Constantine
• Underworld

I have my reasons.

Right off the bat, the film established itself as a "what-happens-next" story.  We're given the briefest of refreshers on the novel, and are then immediately launched into WTF territory.  The Gargoyle Order is introduced as generally shitty creatures, pretty much cementing my theory that all representatives of the Heavenly Host are just terrible.  Shame on you, God.

Which isn't to say the demons are any better.  I think my biggest beef with demons in this context is that I don't really understand why.  Why do they want to live like humans in order to destroy humans so that they can...make earth just like Hell?  Or something?  Is it a crowding issue?  Is Earth like the suburbs, and they're just looking to get away from the urban sprawl?  In any event, saving the Demon Horde from being completely stupid is BILL FREAKING NIGHY!

I have to admit to a gross bias in favor of Bill Nighy.  Frankly, he could do a reboot of Hannah Montana, playing the role of Miley, and I'd still watch that shit.  

Why would you do this to something you love?

I guess I should give the film credit for not dumping a pointless love interest in our laps, you know, until the last minute.  The effects were not terrible, and I suppose my official verdict is that I've seen worse.  It wasn't a bad idea, it was just not executed to its fullest potential.  Actually, it would have been a bitchin' idea had the weird, vague theology been left out altogether.  If you're going to have a Heaven vs. Hell engine driving your vehicle, it better be a fucking monster truck on steroids.  Not a fucking Nissan Leaf.

Do you know how shitty it is that I had to make this?  You've let me down again, Internet.

What I'm trying to say is that I'd watch it again.  On Cable.  If nothing else was on, and I wasn't in the mood to masturbate.  I'll save my Clearanced-WalMart-DVDs funds for something else.

Insert Ted Danson joke I didn't have time to think up.

 

The Terror Of "Super Why!"

Anyone with small children, and those who are small children at heart, will be familiar with the absurdities of most television programing geared toward kids.  There are often inconsistencies, or rules in a given universe, that defy logic or sometimes decency.  MLM(IL) and The Fixer are fond of complaining about the "stupidity" of these shows, and I'm just as fond of reminding them that they're not meant for middle-aged curmudgeons; they're intended for the enjoyment of small human beings who haven't lost the ability to find humor in absurd situations or magic in the mundane. 

Pictured:  Future shitty adults.

When I first came across Super Why!, my first reaction was to be kind of excited about it.  It had a fun premise:  storybook characters, or their children, solved spelling and grammar problems using other storybooks.  I thought it was cute that the main character shared a name with my son (different spelling, obviously). I liked that there was an even ratio of boy and girl characters.  The songs are memorable, and my son loves it when I sing them to him out of context.  The jury is out on whether that's a good thing.

Everything seemed great.  Annoying, but great.  And then I made a mistake I make frequently; I thought about it.  At the beginning of every episode, the title character introduces himself to the viewing audience ("Hi! It's me, Whyatt!") and reveals the entrance to Storybook Village.  Then his, I dunno, pager(?) goes off to alert him that one of his friends is having an issue.  Maybe he got a text?  It's easy to brush it off, that maybe Princess Pea or whoever texted him to kvetch about whatever pissy issue she's having.  But then there are episodes where people who aren't directly related to the show are having problems that have nothing to do with Whyatt.  Or, he'll receive a message that a family member is having an issue that NO ONE EVER would text a little boy about.  Big brother Jack (of Jack And The Beanstalk) is pissed about something.  Whyatt is instantly notified.  Mom and Dad are a-sneaking around (planning a surprise party for Whyatt), and he knows.  

At some point it hits you:  Whyatt knows everything that is going on in Storybook Village.  Every move everyone makes, he'll be watching you.

And then, and THEN, everyone drops everything so that he can have an adventure to solve mundane issues.  His family literally sits at a dinner table, waiting for him to decide what he wants to eat, for 20 minutes while he summons his friends - presumably from their own dinners - to solve his "problem".  And that's 20 minutes in t.v. time.  In real life, these adventures probably take about 3-4 hours. 

In Three Billy Goats Gruff, Red Riding Hood wants a piece of cake, but her grandmother won't let her in the kitchen.  Rather than explaining why she can't come in, Grandma just keeps yelling at her to get back outside.  Ok, sometimes adults seem irrational to kids, but name one fucking kid who doesn't question every goddamn thing that an adult wants you to do, or not do.  Red never does.  The solution to her "problem" isn't asking Grandma "why?" or "may I have some cake?".  It's to wait patiently for Whyatt to show up, as he inevitably always does, have an adventure, and "solve" the problem.

What the fuck is going on?  In Bedtime For Bear, Whyatt's mother needs him to come home to put his baby sister Joy down for a nap.  Or does she?  She never asks him, he just knows, via his "Super Duper Computer", and shows up.  And she waits for him to do so.  So she knows too.  She knows that her son has some sort of preternatural knowledge of everything that is happening at any given moment.  She knows his "secret identity" as Super Why.  Everyone knows, because it's not a secret.  Everyone lives their lives, knowing that Whyatt will not only know their problems, but solve them.  But no one has any real problems, so they make a polite fuss over minor inconveniences, and then wait patiently for him to appear.

I've come to two possible conclusions.  The first works in two scenarios, that it's all a fantasy in Whyatt's mind.  Either his real life is so stressful and god-awful that he exists, in his imagination, in a fairytale land where he has the power to solve every problem ever.  Everyone loves him, everyone is patient with him while he's out adventuring, and he has total control over this world.  Basically what I'm saying is Whyatt isn't just "Super Why," he's super abused too.  That's horrific.  The second scenario for this all being a fantasy is that Whyatt is in a coma or is dreaming.  If this is the case, all I want to know is if the final episode will end with Whyatt waking up at the Great Northern Hotel, laughing maniacally while staring at a snow globe.

Holy shit.

The second possibility is probably just as disturbing.  In this setup, Super Why! takes place in the real world, but in some sort of pocket of supernatural phenomena controlled by Whyatt.  Everyone is trapped in this endless story being made up by a little boy.  Hell, his family might not even be his family - just some shmucks that wandered into the wrong town.  He constructs and destroys at will, creating his ideal life with perfect friends and a perfect family.  In doing so, he keeps everyone in a never ending nightmare.

What the fuck, PBS?

Nutrisystem

First off, just so you know, this is in no way sponsored by Nutrisystem.  Frankly, I don't have the readership for major companies to give a flying fuck what I think of their products.  That, of course, has never stopped me from telling people what I think of things.

As I was thumbing through the weekly Walmart ad, I noticed that Nutrisystem offered a product called Jump Start.  I'd considered using meal delivery programs before, but I'm broke all the time.  The system offered at Walmart ran about $45, and I figured that's what I buy in groceries, per person, per week.  I mentioned it to MLM(IL) and The Fixer, who both agreed to try it out with me.  MLM(IL) went with the Nutrisystem D version.  I was pretty excited because, if nothing else, I was off the hook for cooking for a while.

First thing:  you still have to buy groceries.  You're expected to buy yogurt and vegetables, string cheese, fruit, and nuts.  This is on top of the fact that weekends are free-days, so you still have to grocery shop for those days.  So right out the gate, one could easily double their grocery bill by using this plan.  So far this is going awesome.

Next is the portion sizes.  This neither surprised or bothered me.  No fucking duh, your meals are going to be dramatically scaled down.  If you're like me, and you're guilty of eating pasta as if you've been impregnated by a particularly virile and hairy Italian, then what passes for a serving of lasagna are small enough to make a weaker woman weep.  MLM(IL), on the other hand, is ready to gnaw her own leg off.  And this is with her (I suspect) cheating while she's out of the house.  She's very popular at work, and her patients show their love and appreciation with donuts.  The Fixer is also hungrier than he'd like, but he's doing surprisingly well.  I have, however, had to promise to make a big batch of cheese mashed potatoes this weekend.

Probably the biggest issue we've had so far is gout.  Not flair-ups, but triggers.  I've had to do some swapping among the meals to make them Fixer-friendly.  One of the lunches is a "loaded baked potato," which in reality is instant mash.  That's fine.  I haven't actually eaten one of these, I traded them for the tuna pouch lunch that comes in the D system.  More on that in a moment.  The potatoes, I'm told, are tasty.  The Fixer didn't realize til too late that there was bacon pieces in them.  I imagine there is also something like butter, sour cream, and cheese.  MLM(IL) also enjoyed them.  I ended up with the tuna because she claimed that it sounded gross, or that it wasn't enough, or...actually, I don't know what her beef was with it.  She just didn't want it.  That worked in my favor, since it turned out to be surprisingly tasty.

I also had to swap for a trail mix bar lunch in his pack.  Cashews.  Fucking A, can this man eat nothing?  I traded him a chewy caramel chocolate thingy, which was also fine because even though I like caramel and chocolate, that just sounded gross.  I also had to take one of his dinners, a pasta dish that at first seemed safe - turkey sausage in some sort of cream sauce - until I realized it ALSO had bacon.  WTF.  Why the fuck does there need to be bacon in everything?  I mean, don't get me wrong, I super dig bacon.  Just, you know, not in every goddamn thing!  I appreciate that Nutrisystem understands that their food is kind of gross, and diets suck, and that when you're starving all you want is bacon. 

I guess I shouldn't blame Nutrisystem.  Bacon has been so damn trendy lately.

I blame him, somehow.

I don't know if it was defeating the purpose, but everything was so damn bland, and I resorted to salting the living fuck out of everything.  But there was nothing that wouldn't involve a full-scale black mass, and possibly a blood sacrifice to Satan, to save those fake Oreos.  Oh.  My.  God.  So nasty.  I'm literally dreading the day I'll have to eat those fuckers again.

Which will probably be Friday.  Because, Sweet Baby Extreme Sports Jesus, it worked.  Each plan promises varying potential losses.  I think Fast 5 is something like 5 lbs per week, or two weeks, or whatever.  Jump Start promised up to 5 pounds in 2 weeks.  I've lost 9 in one.  The Fixer lost 12.  I don't know about MLM(IL) because she somehow managed to avoid weighing herself.  Or, she did it when we weren't looking, and just didn't share.  Either way, she wanted to keep at it.  The Fixer has adapted in such a way that when we had our "cheat day," well, let's just say there was a violent reaction.

So, here we are, headed into week two.  If I feel like it, I'll blog about this topic again, but not week by week.  That's boring as fuck.  And I have more interesting things I want to ramble on about.  Sorry this post wasn't more...not about dieting.  I mean, really.

The Things

I'm finally home alone, or as alone as a stay-at-home mom ever is.  Which is never, but a one year old doesn't demand a lot of conversation - or that the channel be changed to The Chew or Rachael Ray.  How I loathe daytime T.V.  I suspect that it's a manifestation of (more) mental illness that I've come to prefer the PBS kids shows.

Not you Pittsburgh PBS.

Anyway....

This is going to be even briefer than a drive-by-post, more like a heads up that I'm still alive for those who are actually following along. 

We survived Christmas, but barely.  We weren't able to do a terrible lot for Stinkbug, and even though he's a baby and won't remember this Christmas, I still felt like shit for it.  I still kind of do.  I reached out to the community at The Bloggess, and was floored when total strangers were willing to help not just me, but my sister as well.  My sister had hit a major bump in the road toward getting her nursing license and had been out of work for a long time.  Between one sister trying so hard - only to get nowhere most of the time - and the other treating her kids like pets that she not-so-secretly hates, I stress out a lot. 

I'll be back soon, with my thoughts on films that I'm, on average, 2 years late getting around to seeing; the horrors hidden in plain sight in the cartoons I let my son watch; possibly a Horror Block unboxing; and my love letter to Honda for making the greatest holiday commercials EVER.  And, now that MLM(IL) is not around during the day, I'll FINALLY get to watch every horror film on Netflix. 

Such an old meme.

It's A Holly Jolly Blog Post

Bear with me guys, I'm attempting to write this from a Nook. I'm being dead serious.

So, for all of you that follow my Instagram (which would be a whopping zero), you may know that I don't have a Christmas tree. This isn't for lack of holiday spirit, or whatever, so much as I live with a fat bastard named Bob.

Destroyer Of Worlds.

Ok, now it's a full day later and I'm on a PC because that Nook b.s. just wasn't working out.  Fuck you Nook.

But, back to the issue at hand, my lack of tree.  I lack a tree.  Because of that fat fuck up there.  Instead we opted to go with a wreath, suspended over the exercise bike on a lighting mount meant for a small stage.  Because The Fixer is also The Builder.  We'd call him Bob The Builder, except that El Gordo Fantastico, pictured above, is Bob.

Just don't tell El Santo his secret identity.

Wait.  What?

Here, I'll walk you through some of the highlights.

That would be the Starship Enterprise.

Ecto-1.  Jelly yet?

We had to choose between the Delorean from Back To The Future I and Back To The Future II.  We went with part II because it's the one I got a paperclip on the fastest.

And then there's Precious Moments Sheriff Woody.

Of course, as a stand in for an actual tree, I had to include the sentimental ornaments.  Stinkbug's first ornament is up there, as well as an ornament My Lady Mother (In-Law) gave to The Fixer and me.  You know, one of those "couple" ornaments.  I've also got a couple of metal stars with bells that I found at the 99 Cents Only store.

I should mention that it is now three days since I started this blog entry.  And since it's taking me so fucking long to write this thing, I might as well make it my magnum opus to The Holidays.

Yesterday I got to spend way more time than I'd have liked to figuring out what the fuck The Fixer did to our bank account in a misguided attempt to buy me a Christmas gift.  I appreciate that he wanted to get me something awesome, and that he wanted it to be surprise.  But then Amazon had to go and ruin it by making me have to sign in under his account to fix whatever the fuck happened.  I'm still not sure I understand, except that he's devastated that my gift is no longer a surprise and that I won't actually be getting said gift.  At least, nowhere near in time for the actual day.  I'm ok with this, plus I'm terrible with surprises.  One of the reasons that I don't cope well with subscription boxes is because I'm bad with surprises.  I oscillate between dread that whatever it is will be awful, and I'll have to pretend to love it, and hyping whatever is in the box so much that I convince myself that it has to be a pigmy tyrannosaurus  rex, and why the fuck aren't there air holes in that box?!?!?!?!  YOU'RE GOING TO KILL IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey guys.  Hey.  Have you seen this?

Yeah, this.

I have been seeing this clog up my Pinterest and Instagram for two weeks.  For fucking real.  No one I know actually does things like this.  I think at some point in the 80s my mom would have given it a go, but I mean....  So of course, I did my own.  Interesting (questionably so) point:  I don't have ANY cookie cutters in those shapes.  Not even plastic I could wrap in aluminum foil.

I have moose and squirrel.

If you didn't read that in a bad Russian accent, we just can't be friends anymore.

It's actually pretty simple, which if you clicked the link on the original ornaments you'd see.  But I don't do simple.  I do stupid.  I make life - and crafts! - harder than it needs to be.  I didn't have a good name-brand cooking spray on hand, I didn't have a store brand from a major retailer.  I had garbage from the 99 Cents Only store.  That shit was mostly water, but weird slime water.  I also don't have any parchment paper.  I thought for sure I was going to destroy the cookie sheets, which would be only fair since they aren't mine.  They belong to ML(MIL), and turnabout is fair play.  She made brownies in my pan, took said pan to work, and left it there.  Six months ago.  She now claims I never had such a pan, that she never made brownies, and even if I did own said pan, then I must be the one who lost it.  Because I leave the house so much!  I don't know if she fully understands the life of a shut-in.

Lucky for her, I found one of those silicon mats for baking cookies.  It actually worked very nicely, with pretty much no sticking.  My final product peeled off nicely.

I initially bought some star mints from the 99 Cents Only store, then decided that they looked kind of glassy.  I didn't want a stained glass effect, at least not right off the bat.  I wanted to recreate the solid, minty wonder of the original ornaments, only Canadian themed.  I've decided that moose and squirrel are strictly denizens of Canada.  I know squirrels aren't, but shut up.

I then wandered over to the Albertson's for an actual name-brand mint.   From this point there's just going to be a bunch of pictures.

Jack-pot!  Red and green!

There was some...spillage.

 

I had only one real complain, at this point, and that was that my cutters weren't flush to the mat.  I spent a lot of time with a butter knife trying to remove that mess before it hardened.

Over-excited candy.

 

My photography skills are excellent!

While I was rummaging around for Moose and Squirrel (they're proper names now, deal with it) I came across another cookie cutter that was large and mysterious.  I couldn't figure out what the fuck it was supposed to be.  A deformed clown?  A...deformed clown?  That was literally all I could think of.  I wondered who in fuck bought a deformed clown cookie cutter and when that person planned on killing the rest of us.  With the cookie cutter.  Thank Baby Jesus, it wasn't a deformed clown.

It's a choo choo train!  Sort of.

The red and green mess of a train segued nicely into the red (and therefore Communist) Moose and Squirrel.  For continuity of a theme, I named the Boris and Natasha.

You may have noticed that there's another misshapen train.  I decided, unwisely, to attempt a stained glass train with leftover Halloween candy.  What matters is that The Fixer appreciates all of my "art" projects and it now hangs at his desk at his office for all of his co-workers to be totally jealous of.

That's love, of which they got none.

Of course, this moosey bastard had to go and assault me with a deadly weapon.  His ass.

That's not red candy, that's the red red kroovy of my dismembered thumb.

******

I don't know about you guys, but Christmas isn't really such a big thing for me.  I mean, I enjoy some of the decorations, I enjoy the foods, giving gifts to my family, so on, so forth.  But, and I really can't stress this enough, I'm not religious.  And when I say "not religious" I mean "not Christian." This shocks a lot of people because they assume that everyone is.  I've somehow found myself surrounded by a lot of people who won't hesitate to rip your face off if you dare to utter a "Happy Holidays" in their presence.  Because Jesus is the reason, or whatever.  Because there aren't other religions.  Because they're the only people who matter, and when they carry on about peace on earth they really meant only for them.

I wasn't initially planning on ending this on a soapbox, but seriously guys.  Unless you're obviously Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist, I don't know what you are.  I live in an area heavily populated by Latinos and Asians.  Some of those Asians are Catholic.  Some of those Latinos are Muslim.  You think I know?  You think I'm going to take a fucking survey, just to make sure I'm greeting someone with the correct holiday reference?  Fuck you.  You're lucky I'm not burning your house down because you think Sunday night is fucking All-Night-Karaoke-Night.  People work on Mondays, you tool.  If someone is going out of their way to be pleasant, which is hard this time of year if bitches in festive holiday sweaters with cars outfitted in Rudolph antlers trying to kill me and my son as we cross the street are any indicator, then fucking appreciate it.  They aren't making a political statement (probably).  They don't know what's safe to say anymore, because you've got nuts who flip the fuck out when you say "Merry Christmas" and you've got nuts who go extra bonkers if you say "Happy Holidays."  But if someone says either, I say "You too!"  If someone says “Hanukkah Sameach!” I assume that they are feeling festive and joyous.  That's fucking awesome, and my Hebrew is atrocious, so I say "Back at'cha! And a Happy New Year too!"  because people being happy this time of year is so fucking rare anymore.

And, for the record, it's taken me an entire week to write this fucker.