Alternate Reading 2: The dark tower series and Mr. King.

Gotta Love Phil Hale.

Ok, HUUUGE king fan here. The dark tower series is one I've been putting off of for a while and I haven't finished the entire series yet, but so far pretty damn good. The awesome thing about this series, I have to say is not only the content of the books, but the continuation in comic form, and the heavy input of illustrator art (including Phil hale) for the covers.

Roland Deschain, the main character, and the gunslinger as we know is traveling towards the 'dark tower' which I've read as a physical place and a metaphorical concept in the story. One of the awesome aspects of this story is that it's genre is wide, from Horror (obviously for king) to scifi, and fantasy which I think covers most of the topics in this class.

The first book in this series came out in 1982 and the 8th book which recently came out in '09. I've only cracked the cover of the first novel, "The gunslinger" which introduces the main character without giving to much information about his past or his motives for his movement towards the dark tower. After reading the hobbit, and some articles about this novel online, the connections between this and tolken's work. specifically with the 'High language' that some of the characters speak in the book. It's a lot like the lord of the rings series in a sense that there is this epic journey, but with the span of harry potter, with twice the amount of time spent on each novel.

I can't wait to finish the series (in like 4 years with the pace I'm at) but it will be an interesting 4 years at least.

the future....

in 10 years, I will be 30 and then I will probably FINALLY be doing what I want to do in terms of my career. I have probably spent the past 10 years doing shitty work that I don't want to do and kept saying to myself "it'll all pay off one day" and thats the day it hopefully pay off.

in 50 years, I'd be 70. I would hopefully at this point be teaching art, or have been teaching art for some time and am on the verge of retirement. If I ever have kids I would also want to be a huge part in their lives.

in 100 years, I'd be 120, and if I'm not dead, I hopefully would be plugged into some kind of cyborg because my body would be just complete mush at this point. I don't know what I'd be doing. I don't want to be bored with making art at that point, I still want to be drawing and painting.

Let the right one in/Let me in

Cover of the Graphic Novel for the movie.

This was a pretty dark movie, but pretty amazing none the less. I had heard of the american adaptation before knowing that it was a Swedish film but I hadn't seen it yet (which is good because I got to see it's original adaptation). In general, the movie was incredibly ominous with everything that happened to the point where I was only wondering about who wasn't going to die. That made it interesting to follow because me as the viewer didn't know what was going to happen exactly, but the foreshadowing was pretty insightful.

Ok now back to a previous post about vampires, I can clearly say that this movie is

EXACTLY WHAT TO EXPECT FROM A GOOD VAMPIRE FILM

Seriously, this movie (and book actually) held up very well to what vampires are in legend which is basically everything that twilight isn't.

we had:

• Bursting into flames in sunlight
• Feeding on human blood/victims
• not being able to just walk into a person's house without being invited in (which I think is often overlooked) without bleeding or even dying.
• running water
• coffins

This movie had a touch of the 30 days of night feel to it because of the wintery scene, which was pretty interesting to see how vampires act in the cold climate. I think that the Swedish aspect was interesting to me in a foreign sense, because it took the vampire legend to someplace outside hollywood and the US.

Ender's game

Awesome imaged by Sam Weber

Ok, Awesome character name, Awesome concept, Awesome book. Ender is one of those names that really just rolls off the tongue and in all honesty, make this book easier to read because of it.

Ender, the boy who is at top raking at battle school, yet still being ostracized from everyone else is relatable and interesting to read about. His character development is slow at first but then explodes after he goes to the academy. In all honesty, This book was cheesy, but still enjoyable which was kind of like snowcrash. the titles to things are pretty generic and to the point, which was kind of dumbing the concept behind everything down to like 5th grade level (like the "dragon army, Battle school,wargame etc..."

But the other characters in ender's game make up for this. Peters philosophy about making the world a better place, and using it as a guise to rule the world or mass destruction is something I think is seen often in history, and was well played into this futuristic novel. Valentine's nature as well, being the control to Ender by Peter was well played. Also, the Concept of the "Final Exam" which I thought related a lot to world war 2 was pretty good plot twist for the book. sort of like the pilots who dropped the bombs on hiroshima that were unaware of it's destructive power, or the "final solution" in nazi germany.

again, not a big sci-fi fan, but this book took that genre out of the ordinary. I don't like the mostly esoteric machinery in sci-fi but this was still pretty easy to understand.

Snoooooow Crash and cyber punk

Really bad fanart was the best I could do for images...

Snow crash. Talk about a weird setup, and generic Character names. But cheesiness aside, this was a pretty good book. Hiro's character was rather indulging and fun to pay attention to. His job as a pizza delivery man for the mafia (which still doesn't make sense to me but I though was a pretty good play off of the greasy italian men who own pizza joints.) which was short lived was exciting in the beginning of the novel to take the reader into. His encounter with YT and their inevitable partnership was also a good set up with the car crash and life or death scenario. I had never heard of cyber punk before I had heard of this movie, but I have heard of Steam punk (which to me is most enjoyable through the visual media.)

The Metaverse reminded me of the concept in .hack//sign and the concept of being stuck in or living in a virtual world. But in this case, in the cyberpunk realm, it's more of a living environment than a video game.

And then Snowcrash, the weird virus/drug that affects people in the cyber realm as well as in the real world. Pretty fantastic stuff.

The whole book was pretty fantastic, and it's vulgar use of language made it more enjoyable to read as it make the characters more relatable. I would definitely consider reading/watching more cyberpunk after reading snowcrash because I feel as though I want more separation from sci-fi than what has been presented (mostly because I'm not the biggest sci-fi fan).

J Horror Cont. Audition.

"deeper deeper deeper deeper"

To be completely honest, I had seen the ending of this movie before I had even known what the name of it was, and that we had to watch it for class. I found a random link on a website once and it just played the gruesome scene at the end. In that sense, Yeah, Mega spoiler.

"deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper."

The movie however was pretty good. It was rather dead up until Asami's appearance. Her character, and the creepy things that followed her was the turning point for me to be more interested. It was weird knowing the ending scene beforehand because it allowed me to make weird connections. especially to the footless man in the wheel chair.

The backtracking from place to place that Aoyama does in search for Asami is pretty suspenseful and even if I hadn't seen the ending I probably would of seen it as ominous. Gore is a theme I have seen reoccur in J Horror. However, I've noticed that it's only in one part of the movie and not played out throughout the film like in most american slasher films (saw, hostel etc...) I've also seen the japanese version of The Grudge or JU-ON which got all of it's gore out in the beginning. The Audition took care of it at the very end. The rest of most of the J Horror movies I've seen also follow this pattern, Ringu being the other one. What isn't gore in J horror seems to be suspenseful build up and foreshadowing.

and those needles in the eyes were pretty messed up.

The classic adventure. The hobbit and such adventures.

A classical adventure tale, and one that sets up the trilogy that soon followed, one of the best ever written.

The hobbit to me is the story of an unlikely hero. Tolken writes about this little dwarf like creature (though is not actually a dwarf) that despite his small stature, goes on his way to an unlikely adventure where one might not think he would survive.

He was pulled away from his home, 'The Shire' by Gandalf, which to me was an interesting way to start the story off. The unlikely hero who by nature is sort of lazy and prefers to spend his time at home and not do anything particularly dangerous is torn away from comfort to go on an adventure in the mountains.

It seemed that though all of the dangers that Bilbo, Gandalf and and the dwarves go on, Gandalf saves them from potential doom. Up until the point where Bilbo finds the ring.

To me, this whole concept of finding this ring is somewhat overshadowed by the heavy plot of the story. it's probably because I know of the coming sequels (and have seen the movies) that it felt to me that the part of the book with the ring is sort of undermined by the rest of the plot. The ring that gives invisibility isn't a big part of this story but it still feels as though there is more to it.

The thing about stories like this, the "epic Adventure" is that you (or at least I do) want the main character, the "adventurer" to return home, and return home a better or at least more experienced person. I feel like this happened to bilbo which is what makes the story satisfying for me at least.

That or the entire story is one little hobbits crazy salvia hallucination.

J horror: audition and Wild sheep chase.

J horror is something I liked before going into this genre. I had read the Ring (ringu) in novel and graphic novel form before this class, as well as seen the original japanese version of the grudge (Ju-on) and I have previously seen the Audition as well. All of which are personal favorites of mine.

A wild sheep chase was an interesting book to say the least. I was surprised that the book didn't contain a japanese girl drowned in a well or some other body of water (following the pattern of J horror) I though that the narrative was hard to follow. The randomness of the quest that the unnamed main character went on was still intriguing to say the least. I didn't really feel it was horror though, more mystery related as the man goes on the hunt for this starred sheep. I did feel that the overall tone that the plot had was eerie, but not something I would classify as horror. I thought that the main character diving deep into his own personal demons was something that could be psychologically scary but not similar to the horror seen in J horror films. I've seen a lot of japanese anime before and reading this with such previous experience, I couldn't help but picture the sheep man as a cheesy japanese animated cosplay character. that is immediately what I thought of when his character was introduced. I feel as though that the overlaying themes of japanese culture were well implied in the story. I also noticed that the book had english literary themes with japanese overtones and themes from shinto religion. I thought the book was overall weird yet exciting. it yielded a nice world of fantasy that was fun to explore at times.

IMO, the only good part of audition was the ending where the father is tortured. the rest was painful build up to a semi satisfying gore scene that I feel J horror is well known for.

Vampires

Ok, I like vampires. A lot. But here's the thing:
Twilight=fuck
Dracula, 30 Days of night, I am legend, Nosferatu= Awesome

I read Interview with a vampire (without seeing the movie first) and it was pretty amazing. There were times where I thought it was just flat out depressing, and I was anticipating more action. (also listening to the book on tape and having the old male reader voice of Claudia was disturbing).

But the story was more romantic than adventurous and action packed, which to me I would have liked to witness more of a balance. I did think that the actions Lestat took with louise was a good push after the mellow drama of the book. Their midnight slayings were a nice pace to their passive conversations.

However, I was incredibly disappointed about the mood that the lack of vampire population in their world brought. The entire time the book felt empty, and they felt empty and alone. there was this huge sense of loneliness during Louis and Lestat's time in the US.

Even when Claudia and Louise went to Europe to find the "old world" vampires, there still was this sense of loneliness and separation from the world. In general it is depressing and I want the characters to assimilate into the human world some how. I felt that from the second Louis became a vampire. I don't know why but once he denounced his humanity by becoming a vampire, I wanted him to return to the world of people as this sort of higher being.

I feel as though at the point of the interview (post events, pre-story) that Louis has become almost comfortable with his vampirism (which to me was a metaphor for homosexuality) or at any rate is going through the motions.

Still a good book, but it's definitely depressing at times. and there isn't much of a rebound after the depressing either.

I will say that I'm confused with the fact that lestat, claudia and louis were able to cross the ocean. it hinted that they could do this without being in their coffins, which doesn't hold to the vampire lore.

Speaking of vampire lore, I still really enjoy the myth of the vampire, regardless of all the stories that try to destroy them.

Night of the living dead/zombies

This movie was amazing.

I wasn't sure what to expect from a zombie movie that looked like it came from the early 40's (and to my astonishment was actually made in the late 60's) but it did not disappoint. The movie was an independent film on low budget which is probably why it looked so old fashioned "I love Lucy" style of black and white. However the cinematography was brilliantly made with wonderful camera angels and creepy shots of random objects, it just appeared horrifying. Especially the ending scene where it just showed photographs of everything that had happened which looked like a coroner's report with bad photography. Something similar to the remake of the texas chainsaw massacre intro with the eerie sound of the Polaroid camera noise for creepy effect.

Anyway, one of the things about this movie that threw me off was that the main protagonist was african american. I didn't know that this movie was shot in the 60's and I thought it was shot earlier than that so I kept thinking that it was strange that the cast of the movie's main character, and longest surviving character was african american. But as we talked about in class the other day it turns out that when casting, the actor was just the best one for the part and nothing racial from the time period took play into the selection.

This movie really set up all of the major points for zombie movies to come. It sort of laid down the laws/rules of how zombie work. The infectious bite, people becoming zombies, the slow walking zombies and the fear of fire which came into play in the movie. HEADSHOTS. makes perfect sense.

Also Ramero's whole situation with the copyright of the movie is pretty horrifying and hysterical at the same time. That man would at this point in life be filthy filthy filthy rich (so much zombie) if he managed to copyright his movie correctly. But sadly for him that is not the case and anyone can title their movie "night of the living dead" due to such a flaw (and people have)

Frankenstein

Before reading the book Frankenstein, I have been exposed to much of the pop culture that was influenced by mary kelly's novel. This includes the movie adaptation in black and white. because of that, my notion of what to expect in the book was swayed to the portrayal of the common era. For example, I had no idea that the monster of Frankenstein could talk, or was even capable of talking in such an intelligent manner. I was expecting a mute juggernaut who grunted and moaned and he stomped about with his arms locked in position. I also expected there to be an Igor character in the book but he was absent as well.

I have to admit that I actually like this adaptation of the book much better than what hollywood portrays the classical novel as. It has more of a sense of adventure as well. Especially in the beginning with Walton's letters about how he's in the arctic and discovers Dr. Frankenstein in the barren tundra. I had no idea that was part of the book and I was very confused the first time I read this because my expectations were to be reading of the Doctor rather than reading the book in an epistolary form with characters I'm unfamiliar with.

I was aware however, that the monster created is not called Frankenstein but is the creation of the Doctor himself, who is named Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein to be exact.

This also explains the Wonderful illustrations by Bernie Wrightson as they depict the literary version of the story and not what is seen in pop culture.

This includes the hanging of Justine with beautiful compositions and mastery handling of pen and ink.

I also managed to find the book on tape, which made reading it much easier and more enjoyable because the melodrama portrayed in the book is exaggerated and spoken with such energy that it makes the novel come to life even more. Especially when victor first encounters the monster and he describes his hatred to him for murdering his brother.

and again, the illustrations are just amazing. very fitting for Shelly's novel.

Elements of Horror

What are the elements of horror that you see in horror movies?

Cob Webs

Rats

Castles/old buildings

Candlesticks

Moving bookshelves

Old Dusty things

Darkness

Creepy slow chiming music

Old Pipe Organ music

Blood, gore, slashing

Bad sex scenes

Phantoms and Ghosts

Body parts in jars

Ye olde England

Graveyards

Kills

Slow walking people

Sudden Jumping out

Flashing Lights

Coffins

Human Denial

Murderers

Monsters and aliens

Electricity

Skeletons

Skulls