Monday Blah’s

3/4/20193/4/2019 Chas.Leave a comment

I woke up late this morning and that discombobulated the whole day. Ugh.

And it’s not like the weekend was super busy to make me exhausted so that I slept through the alarm. It was actually pretty lazy. I mostly just a lot of sat around and watched stuff.

Here are Some Things that Happened Over the Weekend:
– Saw Red at the theater.
– Drank some Lagunitas Brown Shugga’. It’s a damn fine beer.
– Started watching Penny Dreadful. So far, so good.
– Walked around the Lake.
– Took a nap!
– Watched Hell Fest. Mindless but fun.
– Watched The Strangers: Prey at Night. Annoyingly stupid at points.
– Did a very, very small amount of freelance work.
– Watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Amazing animation!
– Bought four hex bolts and Blueberry Cobbler Cheddar Cheese.
– Watched Crooked House. A fairly descent who-dunnit.

Thank goodness we had some sun on Saturday. Any break in the monotony of the dreary, rainy weather that has become the standard here is like a life line. We went from Dreary, Rainy Friday to Sunny Saturday to Cold, Gross, Rainy Sunday. Today was also cold and gross. Quadruple Ugh. I am over it!

Isn’t talking about the weather exciting?

Meanwhile … here is something pretty for you to purchase.

Waxworks Records has released CRUISING Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and Score. It’s a 3-LP colored vinyl edition of the complete soundtrack to William Friedkin’s controversial 1980 movie. The package is designed by Aesthetic Apparatus and looks amazing. Get it!

Word on the street is that Arrow Video is going to be releasing Cruising on Blu-ray sometime in the near future. I am pretty pumped about that! Check out the trailer …

Random Weekend Tidbits

2/25/20192/25/2019 Chas.Leave a comment

The big excitement over the weekend was the purchase of a new, funky sofa. The one that I have had for a little over five years has to go away. The cushions are covered in some sort of “bonded” material that is peeling off all over the place. It sucks because the sofa is still in good shape. The new sofa promises to be a bit more stylish than the current black on is.

Yep. It’s orange!

We also went and saw How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. I love this series and the new installment is the perfect ending to the trilogy. You seriously need to see all of them if you have not.

Oh, and … Hiccup, our hero, starts sporting a beard. To this I say, “YES!”

Intervention Needed!

2/20/20192/20/2019 Chas.Leave a comment

So, what do you do when you have a potentially large tax bill looming over you? You order a stupidly expensive limited edition Blu-ray set from Germany, of course! 😀

Psycho Legacy Collection Deluxe Edition
World Premiere: Alfred Hitchcock’s classic uncut on Blu-Ray Disc for the first time + Psycho II, III, IV + remake + Bates Motel TV movie + full-length documentaries The Making of Psycho, Psycho Legacy & 78/52 on 8 Blu-Ray Discs including over 15 hours of bonus features + Audio Commentaries and 4×3 Retro Versions + large size 120 page book The Psycho Files by Tobias Hohmann (in German) + Din A1 Poster “Norman Bates” + 4 DIN A2 Posters + 6 Art Cards + Replicas of Sam Loomis’ Letter (English/German) + 25 sheets of “Bates Motel” notepaper and a “Do Not Disturb” door hanger. The edition is limited to 3,636 units.

Someone seriously needs to perform a Limited Edition Blu-ray Intervention. I’m outta control!

Four Days of Randomness

2/12/20192/12/2019 Chas.Leave a comment

Random Things that have happened since Friday …

Re-watched The Private Eyes. It’s totally silly but totally filmed at Biltmore.

Speaking of …. I went to Biltmore and took in the new Vanderbilt House Party exhibit. It was really cool and the flower arrangements throughout the house were spectacular.

Finally watched Overlord. It’s B-Movie goodness and I enjoyed it!

Finally binged Bodyguard on Netflix and really dug it. The story didn’t go where I was expecting it to. Be sure to check it out.

And … Double Baconator Meal at Wendy’s! 😀

Oh Yeah!

12/18/2018 Chas.Leave a comment

Seriously stoked that there is a big fancy 4K edition Prince of Darkness (my favorite-est John Carpenter movie) coming from Studiocanal! How can you not love a movie starring Jameson Parker‘s most excellent moustache? This bad boy is already on pre-order.

This release is beautifully packaged with a stylish, newly commissioned illustration by Matt Ferguson on the cover. It contains a UHD of the feature as well as a Blu-ray feature disc, bonus disc and the original soundtrack on CD. It also contains 5 art cards, a newly illustrated theatrical poster and booklet containing original articles, photography from the set, production notes and an essay from celebrated film journalist Kim Newman.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Malevolent: Unearthing John Carpenter’s PRINCE OF DARKNESS: A brand new retrospective documentary produced by Ballyhoo Motion Pictures and featuring interviews with Cinematographer Gary Kibbe, actor Peter Jason, actor Alice Cooper, composer Alan Howarth, script supervisor Sandy King, visual effects supervisor Robert Grasmere, stunt coordinator Jeff Imada, Carpenter biographer John Muir, film historian C. Courtney Joyner, music historian Daniel Schweiger and Producer Larry Carpenters.
Intro by John Carpenter – an interview with director John Carpenter originally recorded for a French DVD release in 2003
Scene Analysis by John Carpenter – Director John Carpenter analyses key scenes from Prince of Darkness, in an interview from 2003
Audio commentary with John Carpenter and Peter Jason Sympathy for the Devil: Interview with John Carpenter – from 2013
Horror’s Halloween Hallowed Grounds with Sean Clark – a fun tour of the film’s locations hosted by Sean Clark
Trailer
Photo gallery incl. Behind the Scenes

*drools*

Grrrrrrrrrrrr!

12/6/201812/6/2018 Chas.Leave a comment

Earlier this year during the run up to the release of Mission Impossible: Fallout (the best movie of the year, BTW), Paramount put all the previous Mission Impossible films out on 4K UHD discs. They designed the art for all those releases to match. Pretty awesome … right? Yes! Was it too much to hope they would keep that design style for the eventual disc release (only seven months later) of Fallout? Evidently so!

This angers the designer in me. Why spend the time designing a matching set to only throw said design template out the window when the new movie comes out? Plus … this messes with my OCD sooooooooo bad.

Material Goods

11/28/201811/28/2018 Chas.Leave a comment

Thanksgiving was fairly nice with lots of fellowship and waaaaaay too much food.

But, most importantly, material needs were met with Black Friday specials and the Criterion/B&N 50% Off Sale! He who dies with the most movies wins … right?

Black Friday Goodies …

Criterion/B&N 50% Off Sale Goodies …

In reality … I really do need to stop buying movies. It’s gotten TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL!

We went over to Gatlinburg on Sunday … and amidst moonshine drinking, old tyme photo-ing, and Mysterious Mansion-ing, I was able to get a fancy new pair of KEEN hiking shoes at the NOC’s Gatlingburg outpost. If I ever quit buying movies then I would just end up spending all my money on super cool hiking gear.

Squee!

11/19/201811/19/2018 Chas.Leave a comment

Stupid excited that my favorite movie from 2001 finally is out on Blu-ray.

MonsterFest Wrap-Up

10/23/2018 Chas.Leave a comment

MonsterFest 2018 is now in the history books.

As always, we had a great time visiting Dr. Phibes and Co. There was lots of beer, cocktails, and tasty food. Saturday, we went on a boat trip to Cumberland Island and got to see Dolphins. That was super cool. That afternoon, Dr. Phibes and I went and saw the new Halloween movie. We thought it was aces! Don’t listen to the haters.

We also watched and seriously loved The Curious World of Christine McConnell (which is now streaming on Netflix). It’s so wonderfully weird and quirky. We laughed quite a bit.

How can you not love Rose (reanimated roadkill with lots of sass … and a nipple fetish)?

The drives down and back were quite annoying. It seems like you can’t go anywhere now-a-days without road construction and dumbass drivers making the trip long and frustrating. We did end up detouring on the way down (because of a wreck) and got to see some tiny BFE crossroads towns in South Carolina’s Lowcountry. It was cool because a lot of those little towns still had beautiful 100 year-old homes. I want a big, rambling, 100 year-old home (preferably with ghosts)!

Anyhoo …

MonsterFest 2018 Movies:
Halloween (1978)
The Changeling
Murder Party
Wonder Women
Cat People
Planet of the Vampires
The Devil’s Rain
The Colour of Blood (Thriller, S01E05)
Halloween (2018)
Near Dark
Insidious
The Skull
The Curious World of Christine McConnell (Season 1)
The Horror of Party Beach
Asylum
The Psychopath
The Mummy (1959)

Upcoming!

10/16/201810/16/2018 Chas.Leave a comment

Super stoked that Criterion has announced a new blu-ray edition of one of my favoritest movies of all time …. Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious! Such an amazingly romantic and thrilling film. Plus, Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. What more do you need? It streets on January 19, 2019.

New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Audio commentaries from 1990 and 2001 featuring Alfred Hitchcock scholar Marian Keane and film historian Rudy Behlmer
New interview with Hitchcock biographer Donald Spoto
New program about the film’s visuals with cinematographer John Bailey
New scene analysis by film scholar David Bordwell
Once Upon a Time . . . “Notorious,” a 2009 documentary about the film featuring actor Isabella Rossellini; filmmakers Peter Bogdanovich, Claude Chabrol, and Stephen Frears; and others
New program about Hitchcock’s storyboarding and previsualization process by filmmaker Daniel Raim
1948 newsreel footage of actor Ingrid Bergman and Hitchcock
1948 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Notorious, starring Bergman and Joseph Cotten
Trailers and teasers
PLUS: An essay by critic Angelica Jade Bastién

High Hopes

10/10/201810/10/2018 Chas.Leave a comment

The trailer for the new movie version of Pet Sematary dropped today … and it looks pretty damn fine! Pet Sematary is probably the most disturbing book I have ever read. So, imagine my disappointment when the 1989 film version turned out to be campy and not at all scary or disturbing. Mary Lambert (director) and Stephen King (who adapted his own book for the screenplay) dropped the ball BIG TIME. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I HATE what they put on film. Here’s hoping that Kevin Kölsch / Dennis Widmyer (directors) and Jeff Buhler (screenplay) give Pet Sematary some much needed big screen justice. We have to wait until April 2019 to find out though. Bummer.

Meanwhile [Horror Edition]

8/31/20188/31/2018 Chas.Leave a comment

I am usually not one to be all excited for remakes (or reboots or re-imaginings or whatever the fuck you want to call them) … but I will say I am getting pretty pumped for the upcoming new take on Dario Argento‘s 1977 classic, Suspiria. Don’t let me down, Luca Guadagnino!