Your vote is precious. Don't just give it away to the first guy you like...

Keep on keepin on~

Watch-A-Thon flick 20.5: Ozu's GOOD MORNING

GOOD MORNING
Desperate Housewives and Little Rascals in Japan =)
Japanese trailer | Brattle listing | subtitled clip

Caught this 1959 film by Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu as part of the Brattle's "Elements Of Cinema" program on Saturday morning. It was a wonderful two-hour time out from my Druncle Sam madness. =)

The movie is a total joy to watch. We get to follow the apparently quiet lives of a handful of families in a small suburban neighborhood. The fun is in the simple details. The boys win each other's admiration by proving their prowess at farting on command. The mothers spend their free time gossiping molehills into mountains. The fathers work, or don't work, and stumble home (sometimes someone else's) after a few drinks. Into this clockwork world, a couple of tiny wrenches are thrown, and we are treated to the wonderful malfunctioning results.

One of the women has misplaced or misspent the community's housing dues, collected from all the families, prompting the biddiest (is that a word?) of them to wonder aloud about the timing of a neighbor's purchase of a new washing machine. Not an accusation, of course, just an observation... made repeatedly... to every other neighbor who will listen.

At the same time, a pushy traveling salesman hits the neighborhood house by house, shamelessly browbeating the stay-at-home mothers and wives into buying his mundane wares. Only a wry grandmother has the wisdom to send him on his way. The wisdom and the knife, that is.

Also, two young brothers (the younger is just irresistibly and seriously cute—see the trailer!), decide to go on a silent treatment strike. When they plead for their parents to get them a television set (like their hip young neighbors have), and only get argument and rejection in response, they end up charging their parents, and adults in general, with saying things that mean nothing. They waste energy on so many empty words that fill up the air and the time, like "How are you?" "Nice weather," and "Good morning!" In protest of adults' nonsense, they vow to keep silent, until their televisional demand is met. This little thing, of course, leads to all kinds of sweet fun. At school, they refuse to read their lessons, which gets them into trouble. In the neighborhood, they refuse to return greetings from the neighboring housewives, who of course think that their mother has poisoned the children's minds against them. Well, obviously! And their silence becomes a topic of perhaps the first real conversation that their tutor and their aunt have ever had.

The two boys have an English tutor that they see regularly. He and the boys' aunt appear to be crushing pretty hard on one another, but neither says or does anything about it. When she comes by to pick up the boys one evening, after they've begun their strike, they talk about the boys' stand against useless words and describe how the boys don't know yet why "we adults" need those words. As a social lubrication, to allow people to connect, to acknowledge what they think and feel without actually saying the words for them. I'm not quite putting it as well as they did in their dialogue, but it made perfect sense, in a what-you-imagine-about-Japanese-society-from-its-portrayal-in-movies way, as well as an upright and proper British way, too. Although, when you think about it a little bit more, you kind of realize it's a pretty universal phenomenon.

At the end of the film, the tutor and the aunt encounter each other at a train station. They greet one another and then stand side by side. Their conversation turns from greetings to the weather to the shapes of clouds, completely inane, and if they didn't so obviously have feelings for one another, pointless and boring. But because of their unspoken connection, their exchanges are so very expressive.

Visually, the film is like a crisp autumn day. Colors are bright in that mid-20th century like-the-world-just-invented-color film way. Wardrobes are a mixture of 60s modern and traditional. The "desperate housewives" are scandalized by the young "beatnik" couple, new to the neighborhood, who spend most of their time at home in their pajamas and enjoy dancing down the street while scattin' up their own jazz beat.

The life of the neighborhood is captured in some beautiful exterior shots down alleys and streets, creating these almost Scooby-Doo scenes of the denizens passing from left to right and back along different paths in planes of varying distance from the camera. Many of these shots appear multiple times, at first establishing the regular beat of daily life in the community, and then pointing up the ripples of change that travel through it later.

The framing and movement of characters thru these shots are so striking. I really had a sense of the entire neighborhood being a mechanical or wind-up animatronic model.

The music is a wonderful voice and character of its own. Almost cartoony in its influence on the experience.

Apparently, this is one of Ozu's, if not his only, foray into comedy. That makes me a bit sad, as it is so frickin enjoyable! Still, I look forward to hunting down more of his films and seeing what kind of magic he coaxes out of drama and melodrama.

Keep on keepin on~

Dr. Uncle Sam's Evil League Of Evil audition...

Meet Druncle Sam! (ELE audition) from cabin boy.

For context (not that the above should surprise any of you as "how I spent my Saturday just cuz"), if you haven't already, watch the Evil Goodness that is DR. HORRIBLE'S SING-A-LONG BLOG, then check out the League's site for details on their talent search for evil.

I managed to cobble togther this application video in the eleventh hour. Literally. I am a frickin mess right now. Been working on this for way too long and not all that smartly. Sleep-deprived, caffeinated, dirty, and bleeding-gummed. Good times. I'm a bit concerned that Sam may not be considered purely evil enough, more like... chaotic neutral, y'know? I want to believe, tho, that the Thoroughbred of Sin will recognize the value of his powers and ambition, and also understand that while Druncle Sam may talk about doing good for "the people," his methods are very effectively and efficiently doing them evil.

Keep in mind one of Druncle's favorite battle cries: "This is for your own good!"

=)

Thanks to my squared sister, Nerdcamp Jessie, Paris Jen, and brother-in-law for their encouragement and help, and Jean C for the righteous and serendipitous introduction of "druncle" to my vocabulary.

Click here to experience Druncle's story in song.

Frack. I wish I'd jumped on this sooner and with more time and resources. If you visit Vimeo, check out the videos tagged "Evil League Of Evil." There are some talented and dedicated evil-doers out there. =)

* Just found the "ELE Applications" album at Vimeo. Looks like Druncle Sam made the application deadline. The ELE notice said that October 11 was the last day to submit, but there was no mention of an cut-off time, a la midnight, and which time zone. So, I freaked a bit to get stuff in as close to midnight as possible. Blerg.

* October 13, 2008. Whoops. Just saw the description of that Vimeo album and it looks like a personal collection, not an official League collection. So no telling if the videos did or didn't make a midnight deadline. Nuts.

* October 14, 2008. Paranoid about having two submissions for the one drunken villain, I decisively decided to withdraw and privatize the Druncle Sam ELE application ballad, but re-posted it, tagged as an application video, as a sort of collateral piece, to be buffeted as the market forces see fit.

Keep on keepin on~

"Take on me" literal video

"Where the hell am I? What kind of hallway is this?!"

Thanks to Paris Jen for the pipe wrench fight. =)

Keep on takin' on~

Watch-A-Thon flicks 19 & 19.5: RIOT ON SUNSENT STRIP & ALLAH MADE ME FUNNY

RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP
Archie, Jughead, Betty, and Veronica freak out!
trailer | Brattle listing | Alamo Drafthouse

This mixed up ripped-from-the-headlines tale of misunderstood youth is an amazing trip. In his intro to the flick, Lars explains that the creative talents involved in making this picture were grounded in older-school, prim and proper filmmaking. More HAPPY DAYS fare than WELCOME BACK, KOTTER... or at least, that's how I took it. These "square" talents decided to tackle the crazy lives and far out happenings of the youth of the 60s, producing a surreal mix of cartoony beatniks and lettermen looking to make the strip scene.

Regardless of how mixed up the kids are in any era, their oppressors are always the same, aren't they?—the adults. Apparently, in particular, the aging majority of the Sunset Strip chamber of commerce. They've got it in for the shiftless kids who have nothing better to do with their Friday and Saturday nights than jam up the streets and sidewalks in front of their antique shops and... umm... I don't know what else, actually.

Ubiquitous teenage health film narrator voice introduces us to four high school kids looking for a little weekend distraction. Three are regulars at Pandora's Box, a club on the strip. The fourth, Andrea, aka Andie, is a new addition, and hesitant to indulge in the excitement of the strip. At the Box, she's into the music, but says no to a spiked drink. When a fight breaks out, they hightail it out to avoid getting rounded up by the cops. They get nabbed anyway, tho, for being out past 10pm curfew. Down at the station house, we discover that Amy's reluctant to call her dad to pick her up. Why? Well, turns out that her dad is a police lieutenant, and as watch commander, has jurisdiction over the treatment of kids on the strip. He's got a good head and heart for it, playing the reasonable middleman and ref between the geezer businessmen and the kids hanging out on their sidewalks.

Oh, Pandora's Box features three pretty kickass young bands of the era. The Shandells, The Enemies, and the Chocolate Watchband. The Brattle invited the lead singer of the Watchband, David Aguilar, to join us for this screening, and before the show, Ned introduced Lars, who introduced David...
That's Aguilar in the center, flanked by Ned on the left and Lars Nilsen on the right. David did a pretty inspiring job of relating the music scene as it was back then, for him and his band, and ultimately brought the experiences of being in this perfect creative scenario with the Watchband, being asked to perform in this Hollywood film, and soon, after leaving music to move on and move forward... bringing all that together to point up the fact that yeah, it was a high point in his life, but a high point in his life at age 19, and that he's had many more high points, pinnacles, he called them, throughout his life. This movie IS a part of his good old days, but they're not the only good days he's had. It was a pretty decent and inspiring message to deliver, altho it crossed my mind that it might have been particularly for the benefit of friends and family in the audience.

It totally brought to mind my favorite (and honestly, only remembered) quote from M. BUTTERFLY... "There's no surer sign of failure in life than happiness in high school." =)

Oh, hey! Here's David Aguilar circa 1967, rockin on...
Wild, no? =) Anyhow, back to my run-on rambling story retelling...

Andie's resentful that her own father seems to want to take care of all these kids who should mean nothing to him, but has apparently disowned her, leaving her in the harrowing custody of her alcoholic mother. When her despair over her screwed up home life threatens to overwhelm her, for an escape, she agrees to hit the strip again with her new friends.

This visit to Pandora's Box goes a bit differently. There's the threat of another fight, but the kids manage to police themselves, and prevent a little tussle into turning into a full-on brawl. This time, tho, Andie and her friends hook up with a Hollywood punk and his entourage who invite them to her first freak-out. What, you might ask, is a freak-out? Turns out it's a home invasion that leads to an LSD-fueled rave. When Hollywood punk slips good girl Andie an acid mickey, it sends her on an wild artsy-strippery interpretive dance trip. Hollywood takes advantage of her state to, well, take advantage. And once he's done, four of his friends follow.

When the neighbors call the police on the freak-out party, Lieutenant Dad, as unofficial liaison to LA's youth, decides to answer the call himself with a few unis. Most of the partying kids scarper off, but the police detain Andie's girlfriend, who's still flying high, and discover Andie, coming down from her devastating and tortured trip. Dad briefly questions Andie and finds her to be full of bile where he's concerned, and hate for herself and her imposed loneliness. She pretty much blames him for her misery and apparently her multiple date rape.

Thanks to Andie's girlfriend's chattiness, the police quickly round up three of her attackers and bring them to the hospital for the victim to identify. Lt. Dad arrives at the hospital in time to overhear the punks griping and moaning about how ridiculous their being arrested is. "She's no better than any of the other girls..." That kind of he-man bullstuff, y'know? Well, pops can't take it anymore and levelheaded Watch Commander (rightly) loses his shit and beats down these snivelling date rapist Reggies. When his colleagues pull him off and talk him down, he finds that a reporter on the police beat has followed him and claims to be duty-bound to report everything, regardless of the circumstances. Lt. Dad is shocked by his own behavior, fearful of what he might have done if he'd had his gun (and I don't know why he didn't have it, actually). When Hollywood attempts to defend himself and his friends, with some crap along the lines of, "Hey, she wanted it," the police explain to him that it really doesn't matter, Andie's not old enough to consent. "Ever heard of jail bait?"

I gotta admit, that was a simple, but impressive detail to me. Totally and righteously sealed the jerks' fates. That, I like.

When an evening news report includes Lt. Dad's assault of the punks, the sunset strip irregulars rise up in protest, hitting the street to picket and march. When any other policeman would probably think self-preservation and stay behind his desk, Pops makes himself very visible on the strip, keeping an eye out for any troublemakers on either side of the protesting. He intercedes to hold back an overenthusiastic riot cop, winning himself some thanks from a leader of the "longhairs."

When he returns to the station after clearing the strip, he finds his daughter waiting for him. She'd seen his patrolling of the strip on the news and realized that she'd had him all wrong, explaining to him that she's feeling well enough now and ready to go home, home with Lt. Dad (screw the burdensome alcoholic gypsy mom).

Ubiquitous health film narrator returns to explain... The strip has been cleared of the willful youth, but where will they go next? That is the question. In the near future, half the people in the world will be under the age of twenty five, and all those young people will need a place to go... Where will it be? where will it be?

The end.

Y'know, this might be worthy of a decent remake. Maybe it could be scaled down to a smaller city and then moved into the present? FOOTLOOSE meets WALKING TALL? The freak-out could be a home invasion and mini-rave. Sensual-good-girl-gone-bad-gone-good-again Andie could be played by Scarlet Johanssen I think. And okay, here's the real reason I'd want to see this remade. Ray Aldo, who plays Lt. Dad, could be updated and replaced by THE SHIELD's Michael Chiklis! Man, I really would love to see him clobber those Joe College Nazi Fratboys who attacked his daughter. I mean, he'd rip off one of their arms and beat them all into bloddy pulps with it, y'know? Maybe just throw one out the window and into a spiney sculpture in the hospital courtyard.

Yeah, I have a pretty lame fantasy life, I know.

Anyhow, after the RIOTous experience, I finally got up the nerve to say "Thanks!" to Professor Lars Nilsen, who helped bring "Return To The Grindhouse" to the Brattle screen. I also bestowed upon him a WristStrong band, passing it several links up on the fame food chain.

If you're not familiar with Stephen Colbert's wrist and wrist violence awareness initiative, here are a couple of Colbert Report clips to fill you in...

In response to his becoming a victim of wrist violence in July 2007, Stephen Colbert launches his WristWatch campaign and the WristStrong bracelet...

"Awareness is like a virus, and celebrities are like Typhoid Marys..."

Stephen Colbert explains his "fame food chain" promotion strategy for raising wrist awareness...

ALLAH MADE ME FUNNY
"I can say that because I AM one!"
trailer | website

I raced over to the Kendall Square Cinema to catch the last Boston screening of this flick and enjoyed the last three quarters of it. It's mostly footage of the three comedians' stand up routines, which was very funny, but not as solid as I'd imagined. The off-stage documentary segments are not nearly as insightful or interesting as I'd hoped. Depth-wise, it felt like an HBO special, and frankly, given the concept of their show and this film, I feel like I was promised more than that.

Still, there were more than a couple of great laughs. The one that I'm thinking about now and still makes me chuckle...

You were caught doing 40 miles per hour in a 35 mile per hour zone...

What? That's ridiculous, and this is racist! I am out of here!

*gunshots* Oh my god...

Umm... that probably doesn't read as funny as it sounds as part of his routine. =)

Also, it made for an interesting delayed complement to Bill Maher's RELIGULOUS on Monday night. Sort of an answer to Maher's impatience and bullheadedness with many of his Muslim interviewees. I wonder how he and these comedians would get along and humorously scat off of one another. My sister mentioned to me that RELIGULOUS, either in an excerpt, or by Maher himself in the movie, refers to ALLAH MADE ME FUNNY. Me, in my, frankly, impaired state, I can't recall that from either of my two screenings of RELIGULOUS.

I am done.

Oh wait, not quite. Thanks much to Amy H. for her kind on-the-spot Watch-A-Thon donation in response to my clunky solicitation. I want to hit people up live for support, but really, I'm just awful in person. I've been thinking of printing up my email and leaving it in places for random people, Brattle patrons, to pick up. Although, would anyone want to pick up a piece of paper with that much frickin ink on it?

Foo. Maybe I'll try that at the halfway mark.

Keep on keepin on~

Watch-A-Thon flicks 16 to 18: TRUCK TURNER, PSYCHO FROM TEXAS, & SNAKES

It's pretty late and I'm pretty beat. A cumulative beat, from a week of pretty relentless moviegoing. I'm expecting to lose a lot of "free" time in the second half of the month, so I'm attempting to heavily frontload my Watch-A-Thon progress. Between that and the allure of the "Return To The Grindhouse" programming at the Brattle, well, I haven't gotten a ton of sleep of late.

So, I'm gonna try and knock off some poor excuses of synopses with random commentary for each of the three gems I caught tonight. Beware that I will not be guarding against spoilers in these write-ups, but frankly, if you're into seeing any of these flicks, story will likely not be the most compelling reason. =)

TRUCK TURNER
"Anyone ask you what happened, you tell 'em you got hit by a truck... Mac Truck Turner!"
trailer | Brattle listing
Isaac Hayes plays the unbeatable bounty hunter Truck Turner. He and his partner Jerry are assigned to bring in LAs premier pimp, Gator. When he proves more than a little uncooperative, taking shots at both of them, Turner has to put him down, creating a power vacuum that every other big pimp in town wants to fill. Nichelle "Lt. Uhura" Nichols, gives an amazing performance as Dorinda, Mama to Gator's stable of bitches. In a ploy to preserve her control and her piece of the action, she challenges the rival pimps to kill Turner, offering them the whole of Gator's stable and herself as madame. The most ambitious of the parade of pimps is Harvard Blue, cold-bloodedly played by Yaphet Kotto. He aims to work everything so that he's the last pimp standing, and over Turner's bullet-riddled corpse. Of course, Turner isn't gonna go quietly. He fends and kills off multiple assassins, and ultimately faces down Blue himself, in a reckless cat-and-mouse gunfight in a hospital!

The dialogue is brilliant. Here are a few probably inaccurate recollections...

Turner busts in on one of the pimps (who sports a diamond studded eye patch) in his mansion home...
Turner: A pimp and all these whores, but I'M the one who's getting fucked!

Turner is hours late to pick up his girlfriend, just released from 30 days in jail for thieving...
Annie: You could've at least brought me flowers!
Turner: I've got some beer...~

When Dorinda offers her stable reward to the council of pimps...
Pimp: Dorinda, you're trying to piss standing up... A lot of people are gonna get wet...

A couple of story turns and action set-ups are slyly ingenious. One happens when Gator's on the run from Truck and Jerry. He ducks into a bar and throws $50 at everyone there to shut down the two punks who are chasing him. The brawl is messy, but ends with Turner and partner walking out and their would-be attackers standing at the bar with their pants around their ankles. Another takes place in a department store, after Turner learns that there's a price on his head, which puts his kleptomaniac girlfriend in mortal danger. In order to keep her safe, he sets her to take a fall as a shoplifter in the store. Cruel to be kind. That's Truck Turner!

The soundtrack, by Isaac Hayes, kicks some funky ass. I will hafta track down some Isaac Hayes soundtrack action.

PSYCHO FROM TEXAS
FARGO & NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN wrapped in hicks and country fried.
Brattle listing
John King III plays Wheeler, the titular lead, a professional killer who's hired by the town's good ol' boy, Steve, to kidnap and ransom William Philips, a rich old retiree. Steve teams Wheeler up with a local sidekick named Slick, and the two of them manage to spirit away Mr. Philips without too much trouble.

"Yesterday Was A Long Time Ago..." That's the first line of every verse of a sad and wistful theme song that plays during every one of Wheeler's flashbacks to his childhood trauma of spying on his whoring mom getting it on with some traveling salesman John. And he doesn't, like, briefly peek. He is like, standing in the open doorway, mouth agape, then twisting, then aghast, watching, and long enough that he's seeing his mom and the guy change positions! Of course, for his improper behavior, he is punished, beat down by his moms, and and hard. No slaps, or backhand, cuz we're talking knocked down to the ground, opening him up to repeated kicks to the stomach. Yesterday was a long time ago, but unfortunately for everyone Wheeler meets, it's neurotically fresh in his memory.

Yeah, so, Wheeler's got some problems with women. Seems like every one he meets reminds him of his mother, and apparently, all he wants to do when he meets his mother is strip her, abuse her, and usually, kill her. Yeah, he's got issues. But then, he's NOT the well-adjusted fellow from Texas, is he?

The plot really is kinda FARGO, with a live action Hank Hill playing the ransom victim, and the trappings really are kinda NO COUNTRY, y'know, if Chigurrh was played by Larry, of Larry, Daryl, and Daryl from NEWHART instead of Javier Bardem. And you sorta distribute Bardem's haircut over Wheeler and Steve's heads. It's amazingly nuts.

When Wheeler leaves Slick in charge of their prisoner, Mr. Philips manages to slip away while Slick catches some drunken Zs. Unfortunately for Mr. P, Slick snaps out of it in time to spot him running and then give chase across some Texas mudflat and marshland. And when I say chase, I mean, like, a ridiculous, 40-some minute chase. On foot. Mr. P, aged retiree, bobbing and weaving thru the woods and slogging thru sucking mud, with Slick mostly just twenty, maybe thirty, paces behind him. And when he closes on his quarry, crying, "I gotchore ass now!" he's downed by some natural obstacle, or Mr. Philips manages to pull a fast one, like whacking him with a branch, and regain his lead. This extended chase scenario is nonsensically intercut with the random drama unfolding back in town, with the local police piecing it all together and bringing Steve in for questioning at just about the end of the chase, which finds Mr. P giving a statement down at the precinct and Slick most likely feeding the fishes.

When Steve spots his ransom victim waiting for him at the police station, he panics. Getting his hands on a policeman's firearm, he runs for it, leading us on another tiring, but at least less distant chase. This time a police officer stalking Steve in an ice factory. There are minutes spent on each of them cautiously traversing the same ten feet of factory floor. Long story short, the chase ends badly for fancy lad Steve.

Wheeler, meanwhile, has been cooling his heels in a deserted roadside bar, tormenting the girl bartender by having her "dance" to jukebox tunes, and then re-enact his mother's trauma-inducing behavior with an unconscious customer. This goes on about ten minutes too long before Wheeler departs. The local sheriff happens upon him on the side of the road. Wheeler has pulled over to replace a tire, the very tire that this sheriff warned him to replace earlier. Oh, did I mention that Wheeler assaulted the daughter of this sheriff while delivering ransom instructions? No? Whoops.

Well, the sheriff seizes the opportunity to introduce Wheeler to, as one Brattle patron put it, "due process in the state of Texas." Wheeler's end is delivered by three shotgun blasts and comes free with flashbacks from childhood trauma to the last 24 hours of violent crime.

Gotta say, this flick is chock full of dedicated talent. Sure, Wheeler takes himself way too seriously, and his monologues stretch on, beginning as odd, pushes on thru funny, and runs into just plain unpleasant and uncomfortable territory. Still, for most of his screen time, he's damn entertaining to watch. And Slick! He kinda rules. I'm not sure he knew there were cameras on him. He was like Wilfred Brimley in HARD TARGET, y'know? Just happened to be there and basically played himself. And himself happened to be a squirrelly third-rate hick for hire with a lot of enthusiasm for whatever job you put to him.

SNAKES (aka FANGS)
Don't you dare come between Snakey Bender and his snakes... or his Sousa marches!
Brattle listing
That's Lars Nilsen, of Austin's notorious Alamo Drafthouse theater, introducing SNAKES. He helped program the "Return To The Grindhouse" series I've been hitting for the past week. He gets the credit and the blame. =)

Allright I'm fading now, so I'm gonna rattle off some stuff that might be more for my remembrance than anything resembling a review or summary.

Crotchety old dude, Jim Snakey Bender, is this John Philip Sousa march-loving guy who's squatting on his friend's ranchland, raising hundreds of snakes. Every Wednesday he comes into town to meet up with the local grade school kids, who trap small animals for him to feed to his snakes. The local minister, Brother Joy—played by some dude I recognized from an 80s sitcom postman role, ALICE, I think—frowns on this, telling Snakey that he is somehow corrupting the children into murdering God's creations. Snakey argues back that his snakes are also created by God. Joy hits him with some remark about how serpents are of the devil.

Jerk.

Wednesdays are special cuz it's the one day a week that Snakey spends with his one friend, Burt, the guy who owns the ranch. Together they hang out at Burt's place and listen to Sousa marches on his suped up hi-fi system. They LOVE Sousa together.

Wednesday are also special cuz after marching w Burt, Snakey, along with his pet, Lucifer, pay local teacher Cynthia a visit. Cynthia has a thing for snakes, y'see.

Over the course of the story, one-by-one, everyone he knows in town ends up crossing Snakey. Brother Joy preaches against his snakey ways. Miss Cynthia, blackmailed by the brother and sister proprieters of the town market (the sissy half of the siblings is someone I *know* I've seen play the female warden in something or other. SWITCHBLADE SISTERS, maybe?), persuades her students to stop feeding his snakes, and she herself puts an end to his and Lucifer's naughty nocturnal visitations. Even Burt turns on him. Disowning his Sousa enthusiasm when his new young wife moves in.

And, one by one, Snakey makes each of them pay, in almost exactly the same way. That is, he draws them out to the ranch, manufactures a scenario which results in their death by snake, and then disposes of their bodies, along with their cars, at the top of a precarious cliff somewhere on the ranch property. And he is consistent. I mean, at the end of it all, when you look at the base of that cliff, you see a stack of crushed cars, a collection of his victims. And at the end of it all, we find that the police have arrived at explanations for each victim's disappearance that suggest noting suspicious at all. Who'd've thunk that old man Snakey would turn out to be a perfect murderous mastermind?

Good for old Snakey!

Random, I remember from the credits that Burt's young wife is played by a woman named Janet Wood, who shares the name with Jack Tripper's roommate on THREE'S COMPANY.

Gotta give it up for a notable performance here. The guy what played Snakey is like the Ian McKellan of southern fried cinema. A frickin master, who actually manages to sell his mania for marches, and his... whatever-it-is that he feels when watching Miss Cynthia engage in her snakey congress.

There were two great Brokeback moments tonight, scenes where if you just dropped in the love theme from MOUNTAIN, you'd change the tone and expectations completely. In PSYCHO, when Wheeler first meets Slick, Slick sorta scoots in beside him at a corner both in a bar. They get to talkin, and during their friendly convo, Slick slides in closer. In SNAKES, there are a couple exchanges between Snakey and Burt, his march-loving partner. But in particular, there's the one where Burt drives out to the ranch to explain to him how they can't be together in that way any more. He's married now, and a young wife needs a lot of attention. Their special Wednesday nights are a thing of the past.

Sad, that. Even without the music.

Keep on keepin on~