WEEKEND!!! :D

Check it out: This is my "Friday" AND the stressless-est day of my work week!

I have, effectively, 3 hours before I need to pay close attention to what's going on (because there is a 2nd master control op working the back area, which starts hoppin' around this time), and then 2 hours later I'M OFF FOR 3 DAYS!!!

WOO-HOO!

All it took was working 2 extra days last week (and getting paid, thanks to overtime, as though I had worked 3 days) for me to SO appreciate my weekend! I think we often forget that receiving extras in life is excellent, but being reminded of the cool stuff we already have in our life is really quite cool, as well! :)

So, every once in a while I check out the movies at Hulu, just 'cause it's kind of like when I was a kid and would watch movies on HBO on the weekends or during the summer. You know? Like, you don't get to pick any movie ever made, so the selection is limited. But unlike HBO back then, you can watch any of these movies whenever you have the time.

It's like being on a desert island and, like, a native comes up to you and says "Okay, we've got a multiplex hut on the other side of the island, and the movies are free, but we only have these movies to choose from. But you can watch any or all of them you want. But you have to pick from these."

Are ya feelin' me, here, or am I just a madman?

Anyway, I find it novel.

And I particularly like Hulu's selection, because they include both past hits AND past Oldies-But-Baddies! :) Like, if you haven't seen the movie, you don't know what you're getting into, necessarily, lol.

BUT...

They also include movies that might not have been successful financially, but were good flicks, none the less!

FOR INSTANCE:

Back in 1996 there was this overlooked classic called The Phantom. It was based on an old 1930s Adventure comic strip. Now, as geeky as I am, I actually wasn't a fan of The Phantom before the movie came out. I was aware of it, I knew it was part of comic-book history and inspired comic books that came after it, but I had never bothered to read any of the daily strips or the comic books that came after it. (As opposed to The Shadow, for instance. When the Alec Baldwin film came out, I had already been well-versed in the radio series -- when Orson Wells played the titular character -- and even read Bill Sienkiewicz's late-80s comic book miniseries. So when the 1994 flick came out, I was aware of the radio show that started it all, as well as the pulp novels and early comic series, as well as how they deviated from the original source material. None of this is true for The Phantom.)

But I'm kind of a sucker for '30s/'40s genre stories. It's probably seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark back when I was 10 or 11, but a adventure movie that is based on a comic book hero and takes place in the 1930s/1940s... COUNT ME IN! :D

This flick also had the added draws of Kristy Swanson (whom I had been crushing on for a long time by that point) and a screenplay by Jeffrey Boam.

Now, I should point out that in June of 1996 -- when The Phantom was released -- I was 4 years into my study of fiction writing, and Boam has become a minor deity for me. he was one of my boyz! I don't remember my high school graduation, but I remember the rehearsal for it. And while I waited during the rehearsal, I was reading the novelization for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (which was a novelization of a Jeffrey Boam script). Before Last Crusade, Boam had given us one of the last scary mainstream vampire movies, The Lost Boys. (I mean, yeah, Lost Boys also sort of sealed the deal, making vampires sex symbols rather than monsters forever more, but I really loved the flick and still remember it fondly.) And sometime around Last Crusade, Boam also gave us the badass follow-up to Lethal Weapon! That was (for a teen in the '80s, anyway) an AWESOME movie!!! Ridiculous amounts of violence, revenge, male bonding... It was my generations' equivalent of 300! :D

And then I was living in L. A. while they were shooting Lethal Weapon 3, and my agent scored me a copy of Boam's screenplay for that movie, and that was one of the most amazing reads ever! I was in Austin by the time the movie actually hit cinemas, and I remember being astounded that reading Boam's screenplay was exactly like watching the finished product! I can't describe the experience and do it justice, but it's like this: I read Boam's screenplay, and I have just as much fun reading the movie as watching Lethal Weapon 2, right? Then I see the movie, and it is exactly the way I remember it! EXCEPT for the fact that Richard Donner is a badass director, so his shots were better than I imagined! So I had already "seen" the 2nd-best version of the movie when I read Boam's script, then I saw the BEST version of the film when I actually saw the movie.

Like I said, hard to explain.

But so, I see trailers for The Phantom and notice that Boam wrote the script, and I was sold!

Then the movie comes out and I'm one of, like, 100 people who go see it and everyone forgets it was even made, lol.

But the movie is good! :D

I mean, if your taste is similar to mine (like, if the things I described above interest you, too) then you should have a good time watching it!

To that end, I'm linking to it, just in case you've got a couple hours and are curious...



ALSO...

As I was browsing Hulu's current movie titles, I was astounded to find THE REMAKE OF DAWN OF THE DEAD!!! :D

If you haven't seen it yet, this is an EXCELLENT movie!!! The first couple of Halloweens after the movie came out, I made re-watching it part of my holiday tradition! (of course, being a bit of a snob, I prefer watching the Director's Cut, with more talking -- and character- and story-development -- but free is free, right?

So if you're in the mood, check it out!



As for me this weekend, I have some exciting prospects!!! :D

I should have the first disc of Season 1 of Castle in from Netflix when I get home, so I can introduce Brian to that show!

Actually, before the show started, he introduced me to it by playing the trailers on ABC.com for me. He was really excited about it, but that was months before it actually came out. I believe he forgot about it until I mentioned it recently.

So I get to re-watch the brilliant first season with my li'l bro.

Also, I recently purchased the series Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital, and Brian said he would be down for watching that with me, too! :) I like King's TV work, and Kingdom Hospital promises to keep us in that Halloween-y mood. ;P Plus, Brian and I had forsworn pay-TV when the series originally came out, so it will be cool to finally see it!

But that's Friday and Sunday...

For Saturday... Texas Spirits is getting together to take some new group pictures for our brand new site (which should be up and running Monday) and then we're going to watch Paranormal Activity!!! :D

Have you heard about this movie yet?!

It's purported to be The Exorcist for the New Millennium. The Net-trailer gives you just a few hints at the story and focuses on the reactions of audience members watching it.

Now, you can say "Yeah, they don't want to show the actual movie because it sucks," but I've heard hard-core Horror movie guys who have seen it swear that this movie is scary.

It's only in limited release right now (and Austin is one of the lucky cities that has it), and I believe that actually speaks well of the movie.

See, Hollywood (and by "Hollywood" I'm referring to the industrial structure that pumps hundreds of millions of dollars into a single film so it can make a billion back, the mainstream organization, if you will) is suspicious of anything new. It is especially suspicious if this something new was created by someone who isn't part of the conglomerate, with their own money, without input by the established collective. If they by an original movie, they usually let it screen in NYC and/or L. A. and then release it on DVD and ship it off overseas.

Rarely do new, original, truly independent films get a wide release.

However, if a film elicits a strong enough reaction from test audiences to make the studio that purchased the film think they might actually make a lot of money off this flick, the movie gets a limited release. If the limited release creates enough word-of-mouth buzz and makes enough money, then the studio puts it into wide release and lets the dough roll in.

The last time I recall this happening with a Horror movie was The Blair Witch Project.

Now, that's the next thing you might protest. "Omg! I remember everyone and their dog telling me The Blair Witch Project was SO SCARY, but then I saw it was just annoying and stupid!"

Okay, first of all, I can explain that phenomenon...

Austin was one of the limited-release cities for Blair Witch, and I saw it back before everyone else did.

And, believe it or not, it was scary back then, lol.

See, the first round of people who saw Blair Witch in limited release were serious film fans. We were a lot that can sit through a weird movie (that, at that time, we weren't certain if what we were looking at was actual found footage or a clever storytelling device) and just get lost in the characters and story. So the minimalist scares -- the stuff you hear but don't see, the stuff that's implied but never explained -- really did create a haunting, creepy-ass effect that stuck with us after we left the theater.

And then we ran out and told everyone we knew "This is the scariest movie ever!"

And then, after months of hearing a few people -- and a lot of critics -- talk about how scary Blair Witch is, the movie is finally released across the nation.

And everyone rushes out to see it, mainly based on curiosity and our eager proclamations, and is disappointed, lol.

But I think this is due to 2 phenomena: (1) we over-hyped it for everyone else ("scariest movie ever" is kind of a lot to live up to when we just went into the theater expecting little or nothing) and (2) if the only horror movies you've seen are the high-budget, ultra-violent, SFX extravaganzas, then a little home-movie with whiny young people not seeing anything really is quite a let-down, lol. ;P

But all of that notwithstanding, I get the impression that Paranormal Activity really isn't another Blair Witch scenario. I was a kid back when The Exorcist was new, and I remember how that movie scarred (I mean "scarred", too, not "scared", lol) viewers for the next two decades! I don't know how the film is viewed, say, by folks my daughter's age, but when we old folks say a movie is "this generation's The Exorcist," they're not speaking lightly.

And that's what I'm doing this Saturday, lol!

And I'm a little bit concerned, too, lol. See, I've been reading a lot of books about "negative entities" (for the reals, actual entities that have affected actual home owners) recently, and it has creeped me out enough that I've sort of been avoiding genuinely scary movies so far this Halloween season, lol. I've been sticking with the cheesy old horror flicks, or genuinely scary horror movies that I've seen so many times I'm sort of imune to them.

And now I'm going to see this generation's The Exorcist with my Texas Spirits teammates, lol.

I'm a bit afraid I will scream like a little girl and never, ever live it down! ;P

If these cats see me soil myself at a movie they will probably just never let me hear the end of it.

Now, in my defense, I don't seem to be creeped-out during real investigations so far. For some reason I seem to get into this Investigator Zone that makes me curious, rather than spooked. I'm proud to say that I have (so far, anyway) run toward loud and unexplained noises rather than away from them.

None-the-less...

Unless we find ourselves on an investigation during which several members of the team get truly scared and I don't within the next week or three, these cats will hound me! ;P (It'll be the ladies who are the most ruthless, too! You mark my words.)

Still, I anticipate this Saturday will be amazingly fun, and if I'm going to watch this movie, I can't think of a more fun bunch to watch it with!

I'm rockin' the Grampers, though...

Just to be safe.