Mobile post sent by lilystrange using Utterli.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Great Modern Comedy Performers
Mobile post sent by lilystrange using Utterli.
Posted by Lily Strange at 2/01/2009 06:34:00 PM 0 comments
Friday, January 9, 2009
Carrie: The Remake
I just learned that the 2002 film was supposed to be a pilot for a series wherein Carrie was a counselor helping young people who had telekinesis. The series never went further than the pilot. It explains why Carrie survives at the end. The moment in the 1976 film when Sue dreams of visiting Carrie's grave and Carrie's hand reaches out and grabs Sue's ankle was one that made me jump out of my seat when I first saw the movie in 1978. It was the late night Halloween horror movie and I sneaked up and watched with the sound turned way down so my parents wouldn't catch me. When that hand reached up, they almost caught me. I damn near had a coronary and had to slap my hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming. When the TV was turned off everything was pitch black. I was looking over my shoulder every few seconds for the blood-stained Carrie to come out of the shadows.
To be honest, it has been years since I read Carrie and I don't have time to re-read it right now. Several people have noted that except for Carrie surviving, the remake was more true to the book than the '76 movie, and for the time being, I'll take their word for it.
I was always able to relate to Carrie. No, my mother wasn't a religious zealot. My parents were very religious (Catholic) but my mother sat me down and told me what to expect as far as my period was concerned (except she didn't tell me about the fucking cramps from hell) so I didn't have an anxiety attack when it came. Fortunately I didn't get my first one at school. It was a weekend and I was at home. And I very quickly learned about the cramps from hell.
What I was able to relate to was the maltreatment by the fucking assholes that Carrie went to school with. Partway through high school I had become a hard case with a "fuck with me and you'll get a boot to the kneecap" attitude. But in junior high I was still a sweet kid that couldn't understand why people were so mean to me. I was awkward as hell. I grew to all but an inch of my full height by the time I was twelve. I was clumsy because of my suddenly long legs--never quite got over the clumsy part--heh! I realize now that my bipolar disorder onset with puberty. I made my first suicide attempt at 14, swallowing a bottle of aspirin. I started cutting myself in secret.
Not only were my hormones out of control, so was the oil that seemed to cover every square inch of my body. I had tremendously oily skin. I washed my hair every day, but it still looked oily. I didn't have the worst case of acne, but I was very self-conscious about what I did have. And to add insult to injury, I had to wear that horrible, horrible Martian headgear to correct for my severe buck teeth. If ever I wanted to crawl under a rock and stay there, junior high was the time. And to make matters worse, there were assholes to the left and assholes to the right.
A fine example of what I endured at the hands of these fuckers comes in these two anecdotes.
I had a hell of a time with the people in math class picking on me. They'd say things like "are you playing with yourself?" and "I bet you'd play with your tits if you had any." The teacher did nothing. To this day that blows me away. If I'd ever heard such remarks from one student to another, as a teacher, I would have hauled the offenders to the principal's office toot sweet, recommending suspension. One day the other students started acting nice and telling me that one of the boys, "Grant," wanted to take me out. I refused to believe them until this had gone on for about a week, them telling me that "Grant" really liked me but was just shy. Finally I said "all right," and "Grant" proceeded to say that he'd rather die than go out with an ugly thing like me. After that I never trusted it again when a guy said he wanted to go out with me. Turns out that there were some that were actually interested but I always rebuffed them with smart ass remarks. I wish impotence, anal fissures, and being caught in a dungeon with a dominatrix on "Grant" and his chums. That was a really shitty thing to do. The only one I give a pass to is "Tim," who after a couple of years started acting more mature and actually behaved like a decent guy, saying "hey, howya doing?" when he'd see me and not dogging me when others did. We never became great friends or anything, but there was peace between us.
The other incident had to do with a few horrible, bitchy girls. One of them I'll call "Buffy" and the other I'll call "Gwen." I actually came to understand later that "Gwen's" problem was jealousy of a sort. "Gwen" was an easy girl, one might say. She must have lost her virginity at around age 12. That's a problem. But at the time I didn't realize it. All I knew was that I was going to be friends with "Gwen" anyway, and we were friends for a while. Until the day that "Gwen" asked me if I was a virgin. Like most 14 year olds (at least I think most of us still were) I said I was. "Gwen" then asked if I was "some kind of a prude." I said no, I just hadn't met the right boy yet. She sneered at my idea of "meeting the right boy" and from there on out proceeded to make my life miserable. She teamed up with "Buffy," who was by far the bigger bitch. "Buffy" made my life hell in a variety of ways, but the most humiliating one was writing a note that was ostensibly from the art teacher's assistant and sticking it in my locker. It said all kinds of disgusting, explicitly sexual things. I was horrified and hysterical. I knew that "Mr. Powell" had not written the note and I was pretty sure I knew who had. I went to the principal's office and ratted out "Buffy" and her cohorts. "Buffy" was suspended for a week and had several special privileges that had been granted her as an "outstanding student" removed. But when she returned my life became an even greater hell and remained so until well into my first year in high school. By the time the second year rolled around I had a reputation as a lot of different things. Hard ass. Satan worshipper. (Came from wearing metal band t-shirts, and I rolled with it. I was actually still a devout Catholic at the time--just a devout Catholic that loved heavy metal. I didn't dabble in the dark arts until I was 16--but that's a story for another time.) Slut. (Of course--I was still a virgin, actually, unless you count untoward acts by pervy relatives at a very young age. But I'd had the 'slut' reputation since junior high when the unholy bitches in my life covered me in proverbial pig's blood by spreading the rumor that I had eight abortions by the time I was fourteen. I didn't even know what a blow job was, for cryin' in a bucket! I thought it was blowing in someone's ear!)
Watching Carrie always brings back memories of those awful years. The best years of your life, my ass. I couldn't wait to get out of that Peyton Place that was my school experience.
Those years do, however, affect a person long after they've gone away from the site of the brutality.
I once read in Readers' Digest where a woman who was seventy-some years old was recalling how she was not a very popular child. One Valentine's day all the other students exchanged bunches of Valentines with each other. She had not received a single one. At the end of the day when she got home, she opened her lunch pail and found a card. She was thrilled until she opened it, and found one of those cruel anti-valentines that were popular in the early part of the twentieth century. She said that the memory of that card still brought tears to her eyes, and here she was in the twilight of her life. This story appeared more than twenty years ago. This lady is probably gone to her reward by now. But tears come to my eyes for her.
Our actions affect people more than we know. That's the lesson of Carrie, and a lesson we could all do well to learn.
Posted by Cie Cheesemeister at 1/09/2009 04:31:00 PM 3 comments
Labels: Carrie, life lessons, Stephen King
Friday, December 5, 2008
My New Social Network
Are you the open-minded sort? Have you ever been described as left of center? Are you possibly creative, potentially psychic, or maybe just psycho? Then come join my new fellowship! I created it especially for freaks like you and me.
Visit New Strange World
Posted by Lily Strange at 12/05/2008 02:13:00 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Reclusive AND Hermity
|
Posted by Lily Strange at 11/05/2008 03:43:00 AM 1 comments
Labels: fun memes
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
1986 called, they want their hair back
|
Posted by Lily Strange at 10/29/2008 01:27:00 AM 1 comments
Labels: fun memes
Friday, October 3, 2008
So Old It Feels New
Old time horror radio shows are back from the grave on horror.fm
Posted by Lily Strange at 10/03/2008 10:26:00 PM 1 comments
Labels: Alien and Aliens, classic horror, classic sci-fi, horror.fm, old time horror radio, Pet Semetary, Star Wars, Stephen King, The Stand
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Poison Ivy II: Lily
Break out the calamine lotion! This film will make you itch--to watch something that doesn't suck.
I can assure you that my pen name was NOT inspired by this stinker of a film. It was actually inspired by the fact that my co-author called me Lily when he first met me, and the Strange part is obvious. As to the film, the church should canonize it because it actually proves that miracles do happen. The fact that Alyssa Milano was ever given a legitimate acting job again after appearing in this travesty is all the proof you could ever need.
The premise of this film is based around art geek Lily finding the diary of Ivy from the first Poison Ivy film and deciding that she wants to become like her, because acting like a psychotic slut is the way to get great things in life, such as STD's. One of her instructors takes an interest in her above and beyond the call of teaching her how to paint like Bob Ross. This leads to a lot of gratuitous sex and an apparent tragedy. This seeming tragedy, however, is actually proof that there is indeed a benevolent god.
When the professor's young daughter walks in on Pops trying to get into Lily's pants while Moms is getting plastered right in the next room, she cannot bear the thought that her father is in fact a lecherous self-absorbed ass rather than simply a pompous self-absorbed ass. The unhappy child wanders out into the night and is struck by a car. In a moment of horror we see her teddy bear lying on the asphalt. But instead of being sad, we should all take a moment and rejoice for this sweet and innocent youngster being released from this ghastly excuse for a movie.
God's newest angel's nutball of a father does not see the glory in his daughter's release from Celluloid Hell, and instead chooses to blame Lily for the untimely demise of his child, because after all, it isn't as if he was behaving like a conscience-impaired skank too. But because God does not want conscience-impaired skanks dirtying up his Heaven, Lily is allowed to escape the clutches of Senor Psychopath, and tries to patch things up with her boyfriend. Not surprisingly, said boyfriend has had enough of both Lily and this movie and rides off into the sunset on his motorcycle, hopefully to better things, such as working at the local 7-11 or cleaning toilets.
(Fortunately, it would seem that being in this stinker did not entirely destroy actor Jonathan Schaech's career. Here is a list of credits for him at Wikipedia.)
To make a bad thing worse, if that's possible, add garish makekup and a hideous soundtrack. This is truly a cringeworthy film, yet, horrifyingly, not the worst I've ever seen.
I need to come up with a rating system. Stars have been done. Tomatoes have been done. But I don't think that undead zombie turkeys have been done. This film rates two and a half out of five possible undead zombie turkeys. If you ever saw Return of the Living Dead, you will recall that zombie half-animals are really disturbing. It was the soundtrack of this movie and the cheesy death scene of the child obviously beloved by a benevolent god that added the half turkey to the rating. I do hope that the film-makers would be proud!
Posted by Lily Strange at 8/06/2008 01:10:00 PM 1 comments
Labels: bad movies, bad thrillers, Poison Ivy II: Lily, Poison Ivy series
