Gnumoon's Stuff

Buzz Lightyear Costume - Part I

When we were at Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween party, we were in line to meet Donald Duck, and behind us was a man dressed like Buzz Lightyear. I only noticed him in the melee of costumes because it was dark out, and the plastic wings had green lightsticks taped to them. Nice touch. But I had this flicker of a thought: Buzz is a good costume. A really good costume. And I couldn't shake it. I tried to shake it, but it wouldn't let go. I don't have TIME, I thought, to make this costume. A little alien? Sure, I can swing that. But a Buzz frigging Lightyear? He has WINGS, among other difficult-to-design parts. But still the idea lingered.

I love Buzz Lightyear, and that proably had a lot to do with it. He's funny and courageous and hilariously arrogant. Whereas Woody always struck me as a whiny fatalistic prima donna, Buzz is so honest and earnest in whatever he believes, and an eternal optimist. (The latter is the reason That One Scene You Know The One I Mean Is Someone Cutting Onions In Here Dammit in Toy Story 3 is so touching, when he knows it's over)

As an aside, I prefer the original Tim Allen voice, but Patrick Warburton's cartoon & game work gets a nod from me as well, because he's also Kronk and the Tick. Kronk may be my favorite 2D cartoon character of all time.

As an additional aside, the Mrs. Nesbit Scene in the original movie is on my personal list of "best scenes in a movie ever." "YEARS OF ACADEMY TRAINING, WASTED!"

So Buzz is an interstellar badass with a heart of gold. AND he has a really really awesome Space Ranger suit. The costumes online were really expensive, really terrible, and in a lot of cases, both. I didn't even start thinking about the Buzz costume until after I finished Jessie and the alien, my reasoning being that DJ wouldn't get to go to as many Halloween functions as M and I, so his costume could wait. And also I had no idea who to attack the construction problem. I've never made anything even vaguely space-suity, unless Rainbow Brite counts (it doesn't).

I sketched and I thought and I sketched. The weekend before Halloween I went to Woods of Terror in the 'boro with some friends and my brother. We consumed some adult beverages, and I ended the evening (ok, early morning) sketching madly on a paper towel at my in-laws' house, no doubt gesturing wildly, while explaining the pieces of Buzz to my brother The Artist. Said artist helpfully suggested that DJ just go as Sid Phillips because it was an easier costume, here less than a week from the holiday. I let him know that was a cop-out solution that he was welcome to blow out his ass, so we poured another glass of pinot and went back to the sketch, deconstructing. To the left is the drunken, wingless, from-memory sketch in question. It isn't impressive, but it at least gave me a starting point.

 Monday at lunchtime I started gathering parts. I went to the used sporting goods store and confused the hell out of the clerk by purchasing all manner of clearanced baseball gear. The main scores were a catchers' chestplate ($7) and some batting gloves ($4). Then on to the consignment store, where a shaft of light shone down from the very heavens and blindingly illuminated a pair of men's ski bibs, white ($4). I also picked up several random sets of kneepads, elbow pads and some shinguards ($6 for all).I also picked up a tai kwan do practice pad for some reason; although sized for a child it looked promising as part of a space suit ($2).

After work, M and I went to Lowe's for pipe insulation and some other odds and ends. She was very helpful, choosing paint colors and providing comic relief, as 3 year olds are wont to do. Total bill: $7.

I got home, shoveled some hastily-prepared dinner into my family, and set to work. I used all the terrible political pre-election ads we were recieving in the mail  as a dropcloth, and started painting. I already knew the foam wouldn't take normal acrylic paint, so I'd bought a quart of some sludge called "EXTERIOR SUPER ADHESION LAQUER," pausing only long enough between coats to paint mustaches and devil horns on the drop-cloth candidates (esp Soucek because he strikes me as a total douchebag).

The armbands for the laser and the Space Ranger insignia are repurposed beer coozies I found in the cabinet and dismantled mercilessly with my x-acto blade. GREEK WEEK '99? GONE! DIXIE LANDING RESORT? YOU DON'T EVEN EXIST ANYMORE! No foam item in the house was safe; several tub toys were sacrificed to bring us this costume.

While that was drying I dragged out the sewing machine and mulled over the the cowl. (What color is Lightyear's hair? Judging by his eyebrows I'll guess dark brown. My hsband is a ginger and not inclined to let me dye his brows. Oh well.) I'd bought some purple fleece and cut it in the general shape of a three-piece hood. While DJ sat on the couch trying to get his daily West Wing fix, I made him try it on, adjusting and sewing and velcroing and pinning and hemming as he attempted in vain to hear the words of his president, Jed Bartlett. I was eventually satisfied with it enough to leave him alone and go back to my painting. (Note: I can't sew. This minor detail has never stopped me from finishing a project.)

At some point during that first night of construction it because painfully clear that the costume, with its Omaha Steaks cooler-based jetpack, was going to be very underwhelming without wings. I fired up the computer and started google image searching to check their construction. I'd yoinked some fome core boards from work out of the scrap bin, and started eyeing them with a new respect.  Flimsy, but possibly workable. I glued 2 lengths together back to back (for strength) and started cutting them in a general approximation of Buzz wings. By the end of the night I had a rough approximation of the jetpack and wings, but definitely not worthy of a Space Ranger yet. Zurg would just laugh his evil laugh at this point in the process.

I would have been worried about the costume's progress were it not for the star of that first evening of construction, the gloves. Oh the glorious gloves. Who knew that if you put paint on the existing stretchy parts of batting gloves they look just like Lightyear's hands? I suspect someone at Pixar knows this, because they looked almost perfect with very little effort on my part. I bet they were originally modeled after batting gloves. Or at least at 3am I was pretty sure of it.

Part II coming up in a jiff. I just have to take a break for some darjeeling.

 

 

 

Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl costume

So this is a little bit out of order. I actually made my Jessie costume first, thinking it would be the easiest of the three I was attempting. So the alien was the second one in the series.Jessie is a great character, but I admit when I made this I'd only seen Toy Story 2 once, years ago. But since the only other female characters in the movies were Andy's mom (yawn) and Bo Peep (yaaaawn), there wasn't much choice.

 Here's Jessie. She's a rootin' tootin' yodeling cowgirl, and a part of Woody's Roundup gang. Her costume is alse deceptively intricate, if you're going to be serious about doing it correctly. I gathered the parts before attempting any of the costume, visiting our local Goodwill for the shirt, Michael's for the felt and rickrack, and Wal-Mart for the wig parts.

I made the wig first, by cutting the bill of a red ballcap ($2 on clearance at Wally World) and hot-gluing lengths of red yarn to it. I seriously underestimated the time this would take (and Jessie has an enormous head, so the amount of red yarn needed to get the proportions correct was almost the whole skein). Instead of the hour or so I thought it would take, I spent 4 times that gluing the yarn and my fingers to the cap. I blew through half a season of Torchwood (nice anagram) on Netflix while I made it. Oh Jack, you're such a dreamy freakshow.

Here's how the wig looked, and I looked in it, at 3am. Note undereye circles, lack of makeup, and shifty-eyed distrust of all alien life. The wig is suprisingly comfortable, and with the addition of a festive yellow ribbon, looks much like Jessie's beautiful yarn full of hair. (That's a Buzz Lightyear quote, btw, not me just switching words around) I look like fresh hell in this picture. The addition of concealer, freckles and superhigh arched red brows really helped the presentation for actual Halloween festivities.

The shirt was the next evening's activity. I looked at a still from the movie and cut yellow felt to match the shape, then hotglued it onto my $3 Goodwill button-down. Then I added red sparkly rickrack and ribbon in the correct pattern. The cuffs were a little more difficult and required actual sewing in addition to the generous dollops of hot glue. And my favorite part of the whole outfit was the fringe on the cuffs. I know it was just felt cut into fringe and sewed on, but for some reason it was just the right touch to made it feel authentic. The buttons were wooden round things I picked up somewhere (a junk drawer or box, I can't remember), and glued safety pins on. Fancy fancy.

The belt buckle I got at the Goodwill for .50. It was attached to a wonderful molded plastic belt that only reached about halfway around me, so I ripped it off an stuck it onto a belt of my own. I tried to make the original belt work, because it was very intricately carved with horses and buttes railways and such, but it just wouldn't work. I'm still mourning that one, actually. It was perfect, only it was also teeny.

An important note to anyone who is making a costume such as this. Please please please TRY ON your shirt before you buy it and modify it. I didn't do this, and the shirt ended up being 1. Too thin and 2. Too snug. This is not a good combination. I don't want to talk about it further except to say I had to not breathe or eat during Halloween, which really sucked. Sucked in, that is. 

Next was the cow fur chaps. I got unexpectedly lucky here, and I took it as a sign that I should indeed make the rest of the costumes. Years ago I got into this thing where I'd paint chairs like barnyard animals and give them to people. I had a pig, some cows, etc... I called it the "E-I-E-I-O Collection." The cows even had pink paper mache udders. Yeah, I know. Anyhoo, at some point I bought this fabulous fake fur fabric and covered the seats of the chair in the stuff, and apparently made some throw pillows to match. One of the pillows was sitting in the "bag to go to the Goodwill" and caught my eye just as I was wondering how to paint the chaps. I took out my trusty seam ripper and took it apart, then cut it lengthwise, pinned them to some jeans and Bam! instant chaps. I also got lucky on the boots: really awesome Fryes a friend let me borrow.

 The hat. The hat. The damned hat. Jessie's hat is not a normal cowboy hat, it's something called a Mexican Cowboy hat, which is flatter on top. Also, as I may have mentioned, this chick has a gigantic noggin, so a normal hat wouldn't fit anyway. I finally gave up on the hat. And then ... jackpot, I found one under a display at the party store in Greensboro. At $12, it was much more expensive than any other piece of the costume, but I considered it worth the extra cash. Unfortunately, it was black. No problem, I thought, that's what spray paint is for. Except the black felt was like a black hole for paintm sucking and sucking the color in. I ended up using 4 large bottles of acrylic on the damn thing before it was passable, adding an extra $2.47 to the price tag with each bottle. But hey howdy hey, the final product looked good.

 
 For comparison, buying the Jessie costume online(without shipping and with no wig), is about $68. My Jessie was about $30. (Around $9 without the hat).

(And it made this little girl at the Halloween festival so happy, which made it all worth it.)

Up next: biting off more than I can chew, and beyond!

In which I discuss the Space-Time Continuum

 I'm back, and I'm not going to bore you with the inconsequential details of my existence; see the Twitter feed to the right if such things interest you (poor, poor you if so). No, no, I have to talk about something much deeper. You guessed it: time travel. 

It seems like every book, show, movie I've come across lately has involved time travel. I don't generally find this to be a compelling subject; usually it is lazily used as a plot device and seems stale. And yet, here it is, time travel time travel timetravel, like I've come back from 2014 and given myself all this material on the subject to make myself think in circles about why it's suddenly of interest. If that is the case, I'm a real dick in the future and should get a better hobby. Leaving clues for yourself has been done, dude (See: Bill & ted's Excellent Adventure and also the Bad Wolf storyline in Doctor Who). 

Writers all seem to have a different take on the subject: how it would be accomplished, what it would feel like, how much you could change or potentially screw up by even doing it in the first place. ("Oh I wish I wish I hadn't killed that fish" - Homer Simpson in the time travel Halloween episode of the Simpsons (based on a Bradbury story, I think.)

So here is a not-at-all complete list of "Things I Have Encountered Involving Time Travel (that may or may not be of my own doing or may or may not be a total coincidence but probably are a coincidence unless they aren't, in which case I want a hoverboard, dammit)."

 Title: Outlander (books)

Time Traveling Protagonist: Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser

Antagonist: Her husband's great great great .... great uncle, and everyone who wants to kill her as a witch

Setting: Scotland

Mode of Transport: standing stones (funny, she doesn't look Druish)

Time travel is: Excrucuating and disorienting, kills many

Amount of time traveled: 200 years

Ultimate reason for travel: Hot kilted lovin' from Jamie Fraser 

The Future is: not really something you can change. Except for the potato famine thing.

"Oh come on" moments: Meets the loch ness monster, invents penicillin, kills a buffalo with a surgical saw, pick one.  

Best Quote: ""No wonder he was so good with horses, I thought blearily, feeling his fingers rubbing gently behind my ears, listening to the soothing, incomprehensible speech. If I were a horse, I’d let him ride me anywhere."

 Title: Back to the Future (first movie)

Time Traveling Protagonist: Marty McFly (and Einstein the dog)

Antagonist: Bif Tannen

Setting: Hill Valley, California

Mode of Transport: A tricked-out Delorean

Time Travel is: made possible by the never-explained but always fluxxing flux capacitor. Whoa Doc, that's heavy.

Amount of time traveled: 30 years

Ultimate reason for travel: to make his own father not such a weenie

The Future is: completely malleable, right down to musical influence

"Oh come on" moments: Chuck Berry's cousin happens to get hurt and Marty has to play the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance

Best Quote: "If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit."

*How the hell did Marty and Doc Brown meet anyway? That is hardly a normal friendship.

TItle: Doctor Who (show, radio, books)

Time Traveling Protagonist: The Doctor (11 versions, 10 regenerations)

Antagonist: the adorably destructive daleks, and assorted cybermen, aliens, vampires, etc etc etc (hey, it's been on since the 60s)

Setting: All over, but generally ends up in London somehow

Mode of Transportation: The TARDIS, a 60s british police box (named before the currently accepted definition of "tard" was in use, stands for "Time and Relative Dimension in Space")

Time travel is: wheee!

Amount of Time traveled: all of it

Ultimate reason for travel: To save the world while having zany British adventures and spewing earnest yet hilarious dialogue. (everything I know from my childhood about England I learned from Doctor Who, Monty Python and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I will be really disappointed if I ever visit, I'm afraid)

The Future is: there for the changing. Where's a barely-legal chick I can take with me, even though I'm 900 or so? Oh there's one...

"Oh come on" moments: Look, DOC-TOR, stop looking so shocked when the damn daleks show up. The show has been on for over 30 years, those bumpy little bastards are coming to ineffectively attempt to EX-TER-MIN-ATE your ass at least twice a season. (*we were big fans of the 4th regeneration "longass scarf" doctor growing up - none of us can walk past a fan without talking into it like a dalek)

Best Quote: "The thing is, time travel is like visiting Paris. You can't just read the guidebook, you've got to throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers. Or is that just me?"

* I haven't watched Torchwood yet, it's in queue. 

 Title: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

Time Traveling Protagonist(s): Bill S. Preston, esq., and Ted "Theodore" Logan III

Antagonist: Mr. Ryan, the history professor

Setting: San Dimas, whose high school football team is, by all accounts, very good.

Mode of Transportation: A phone booth (probably a Doctor Who reference there)

Amount of Time Traveled: varied

Time Travel is: Whoa.

Ultimate reason for travel: To save the princesses from the royal ugly dudes, and pass history class.

The Future is: Excellent, thanks to Wyld Stallyns and Rufus (yay George Carlin)

"Oh Come on" moments: The very existence of this film.

Best Quote: "Strange things are afoot at the Circle K."

 Title: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (books, radio series, movie)

Time Traveling Protagonists: Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian, and Zaphod Beeblebrox 

Antagonist: Varied

Mode of Transportation: Nothing that makes a modicum of sense at all

Amount of Time Traveled: The end of the universe, for starters. Make reservations when you return from dinner!

Time Travel is: hilariously British, and seemingly not at all un-English.

Ultimate Reason for Travel: 42.

The Future is: 42.

"Oh come on" moments: 42. 

Best quote: "For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."

 Title: The Langoliers (short story, movie*)

Time Traveling Protagonists: Bunch of people on an airplane

Antagonist: The Langoliers

Setting: The Boston airport, a few hours ago

Mode of Transportation: big ol jet airliner through a timerip over the midwest US

Amount of Time Traveled: a few hours

Time Travel is: ghastly and the most horrifying thing imaginable, also stale. Best to just sleep through it if you can.

Ultimate Reason for Travel: to scare the shit out of the readers

The Future is: much better than this awful past

"Oh come on" moments: The blind psychic girl is the only one who can save us!

Best quote: "We know what happens to today when it becomes yesterday... It waits for them... the timekeepers of eternity!"

*This movie includes Dean Stockwell, best known for his work in:

 Title: Quantuum Leap (show)

Time Traveling Protagonist: Sam Beckett 

Antagonist: Varied weekly

Setting: varied weekly

Mode of Transportation: the Accelerator

Amount of Time Traveled: Varied weekly, but thankfully always to English-speaking places

Time Travel is: I just wanna go home! I do not want to go through labor OHMYGOD IT HURTS.

Ultimate Reason for Travel: To get home, funding

The Future is: not explored, think of it as Groundhog Day for setting the past right

"Oh Come on" moments: all of it. Not only time travel, but bodily possession as well? 

Best quote: "Leaping about in time, I've found that there are some things in life that I can't change, and there are some things that I can. To save a life, to change a heart, to make the right choice. I guess that's what life's about."

Title: The Terminator (1st movie)

Time Traveling (hottie) Protagonist: Kyle Reese (see photo)

Antagonist: The T-100 Terminator

Mode of Transportation: Some pervert-a-tron that requires nakedness for time travel

Setting: LA and thereabouts

Amount of Time Traveled: 35 years

Time Travel is: necessary, naked, irreversible

Ultimate Reason for Travel (Kyle Reese version): Scare the hell out of, romance, and impregnate Sarah Connor in order to save the humans. Then die tragically. (Terminator version) Kill Sarah Connor.

The Future is: pretty farking bleak, and not much can change that, despite the attempts of the first three movies. 

"Oh come on" moments: Very few. A well-thought out first installment.

Best quote: "John Connor gave me a picture of you once. I didn't know why at the time. It was very old - torn, faded. You were young like you are now. You seemed just a little sad. I used to always wonder what you were thinking at that moment. I memorized every line, every curve. I came across time for you Sarah. I love you; I always have." 

 Title: Donnie Darko (movie)

Time Traveling Protagonist: Donnie Darko

Antagonist: Jet turbine

Mode of Transportation: We aren't supposed to talk about this (but it's a time tunnel thingy)

Setting: America

Amount of Time traveled: Not much, just enough

Time travel is: a sacrifice

Ultimate Reason for travel: to save those you love

The Future is: interrupted by a jet turbine through the abdomen

"Oh come on" moments: I didn't even understand without the director's cut that this was a movie about time travel. So there were a lot the first time I saw it. 

Best quote: "Sometimes, I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!" 

 Title: Hot Tub Time Machine (movie)

This movie was bad and I don't want to discuss it. I wish I could hijack the TARDIS and make myself go see something different the night we went to see it. Its existence does make me think Crispin Glover only wants to be in movies about time travel.

Ultimate Time Traveler award:

 Q (from Star Trek)

Q does whatever the hell he wants. He don't need no TARDIS/Delorean/Time Warp generator, he just snaps his fingers and OFF HE GOES to SCREW with Picard and the silly humans some more! 

Except, you know, that one time when he had to be human, and he got scared to sleep because he thought he was dying, and then he ordered 10 chocolate sundays because Troi said that's she eats one when she's down in the dumps? *pushes glasses back up on nose* Yeah, that was a good episode.

*When Star Trek writers are stumped, they can always pull out the "Deus Ex Q," and make it all better by the time the credits roll. 

Awaiting review:

Timeline, Timequake, Star Trek, Primer

There is also a great TMNT game where the turtles travel through time, but I'm not going to talk about that. I don't want you guys to think I'm a geek. 

Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

When I heard there was to be a live-action Where the Wild Things Are movie, I was kind of pissed off. Fine, Hollywood. Between this and the Transformers movie and the "hipping up" of Strawberry Shortcake, go ahead and exploit my childhood some more. But then ... I saw the trailer. And I teared up. Seriously. I almost cried (and I don't even really like the Arcade Fire, but that song is perfect).

Here it is if you haven't seen it yet.



I grabbed one of the production stills, and made a quick photoshop with my little Wild Thing, too:
And yes, she does have a wolf suit. And yes, she often makes mischief of one kind and another.

You remind me of the babe - a goblin babe

Since I found out I was pregnant, I’ve been on the lookout for a red and white striped outfit like the one Toby wears in Labyrinth. I’ve googled it, I’ve searched online and in stores, I’ve asked, but to no avail. Toby’s cute little costume was not to be found.

Then yesterday I was perusing the local Osh-Kosh store, and lo and behold, what did I see? I red and white striped outfit, right there on the sale rack. Fools! I though. Just because something looks like Christmas colors doesn’t mean it can only be for Christmas! So I bought it (a steal at $3.99) and brought it home.

When I got it out of he bag I was dismayed to find that, embroidered across the rump in dark green 2-inch letters, it said “LITTLE ELF”. So that was the Christmas part. Gotcha. But I was not deterred- I am a semi-professional un-embroiderer. When you support a program with wonky colors that are not readily available in baby clothing, sometimes you have to improvise. I’ll buy a bright gold onesie with a fire truck embroidered on it, use a seam ripper to remove the truck, and then sew an ASU logo patch in its place. Easy, cheap, whoo-hoo.

So I got out my trusty seam ripper and set to work. I have to give it to the Osh-kosh people: those damn letters were REALLY on there. That is some quality work I had to destroy. And it took forever. Like over an hour. By about halfway through I had to switch to my eyebrow tweezers to get the tiny threads out. (Really good tweezers, too. Expensive ones. My eyebrows are my one beauty, like Jo’s hair in Little Women. I take care of them.)

By the time it was all said and done I was exhausted. I marched back to the laundry room and chucked the stripey garment into the wash with a growl. I slammed down the machine lid (after adding no-perfume-no-dye-all-natural-organic-baby-safe-enviro-safe detergent, of course), and let out a victorious whoop – “Who’s embroidered now, you stupid farker?!” I yelled at the laundry. In all, it was a truly pathetic way to spend part of one’s Friday night.

All because of my unnatural love for Labyrinth. Behold:

ps- Googling for this photo "labyrinth toby" brought me the first link in a long time that has made me laugh out loud.

A V-Day movie suggestion

(This is the best piece of V-Day WTH? clipart I could find to go with this post. Enjoy.)

I promised the other day I’d provide a write-up on my favorite romantic movie. So here it is…I’m not going to reveal it immediately, because some narrow-minded folks may have this fine piece of cinema in the wrong genre and wouldn’t give it a chance as a love story unless it’s presented a certain way (with the distracting elements stripped out). But from the time I first saw it, at age 11 or so, the love story was undeniable.

The basic plot involves a carefree and naïve young woman who is unaware she is in imminent danger. She is saved from almost certain death by a handsome, rugged stranger who says he has come to rescue her from this almost certain death.  She doesn’t believe him, even after he explains the gravity of her situation, and she gives him up to the police. Shortly thereafter she realizes her mistake and has to be rescued by the stranger again (to avoid almost certain death).

They flee to the countryside, where he tells her stories of his life- his struggles to survive in a harsh world, how he came from afar to find her, and how he can never go home again- that he sacrificed his life to be with her. Later on, she asks if there was ever another woman in his life, and he replies no. Then he admits that she is the only woman he has ever loved and that he volunteered to protect her, even facing almost certain death, for the chance to be near her, if only for a short time.

She is overwhelmed by his naked honesty, and 80’s-style big-haired roadside motel Lovemaking ensues.

A short time later certain death returns and he dies protecting the woman he loves. She is forced to go on without him, with only the memory of those two 48 hours to keep her warm for the rest of her days.

But their love endures: she bears his child, a child born with the promise of being a great leader, a man who will one day lead the people of the world to freedom. 
All because of the greatest love story ever filmed.

This is Sparta! (OK, chattanooga. Whatever)

Here it is...the excellent trailer for the new Frank Miller film 300. I've been excited about it since I heard it was being made. Hopefully it will be as good as it seems. (Note the sweet NIN song in the trailer as well)

We're in Chattanooga this weekend for fooball, so I'm going to make the most of my morning off and hit Barnes & Noble. I know that's exciting for everyone.

Hope all is well out there- y'all have a great weekend.

Random & quotable

Entertainment Weakly (see what I did there?) has just released a list of “Top 10” cult movies. The film experts here agree with two of their choices (Bladerunner and Spinal Tap), and have decided to compile their own list. The only criteria for inclusion on the list are 1.When you mention the film in a roomful of people, at least one person will say, “Oh, wow, I’d forgotten about that one!” And #2, just to up the difficulty for me (what, you didn’t know that “film experts here” are all me? It’s my site.)  is that the movie cannot have appeared on my List of Halloween Movies. So here we go…
(Monty Python has been left off the list because they rule all cult movies, and to include them is unfair to other films. Mr. Creosote said so.)

1. Heathers – Wynona Ryder and Christian Slater at Westerburg High, murdering the A-group in a classic that would NEVER be made these days. 
Veronica: “My teen angst bullshit has a body count.”
2. Explorers – Three misfit boys (including a young bespeckled River Phoenix) build a spaceship out of a Tilt-a-Whirl (The Thunder Road) and go visit aliens.
Heinlein the mouse: “I would like…cheese. Go to hell.”
3. UHF – Weird Al inherits a TV station in one of the funniest movies ever made. Michael Richards will always be Stanley Spadowski to me, not Cosmo Kramer. Also the movie that made me love the standup of one Emo Phillips.
Spatula City jingle: “Spatula City, we sell spatulas… and that’s all!”
4. Stand by Me – The lone Stephen King entry. Four boys set out across the countryside to find Ray Brower’s dead body. This movie taught me the fine art of creative cursing.
Voiceover: “Finding new and preferably disgusting ways to degrade a friend's mother was always held in high regard.”
5. Blazing Saddles – Some will argue that “Young Frankenstein” is the finer Mel Brooks film, but Blazing Saddles wins for me based tollbooth in the desert scene and the line: “Someone's gotta go back for a shit-load of dimes!”  Also, the “They said you was hung!” part. Rent it, you’ll laugh. Or be appalled. Or both simultaneously. It takes a special film to do that to a person.
6. Pee Wee’s Big Adventure – Tim Burton’s first film (besides the wonderful “Frankenweenie.”). This was one of my favorites as a kid and I’ve just recently rediscovered  it and realized how bizarre it is.
Large Marge: “On this very night, ten years ago, along this very stretch of road in a dense fog just like this. I saw the worst accident I ever seen. There was this sound, like a garbage truck dropped off the Empire State Building... And when they pulled the driver's body from the twisted, burning wreck. It looked like this..."
7. Raising Arizona/The Big Lebowski - Coen Bros twofer
8. Princess Bride/Labyrinth - Gnumoon’s childhood twofer
9. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me – The Twin Peaks saga wrapped up in a single film. Bob = freaky, is really the bottom line here. 
Log Lady: “When this kind of fire starts, it is very hard to put out. The tender boughs of innocence burn first, and the wind rises, and then all goodness is in jeopardy.”
10. Ties between: Gift, A Clockwork Orange, Little Shop of Horrors, Donnie Darko, Cry-Baby, Dead Again.

Anyone have any to add?

Currently Listening to: Bullet with Butterfly Wings, by Smashing Pumpkins (Is this considered old skool now?)
Greatest Product Reviews Ever: The Supersoaker Oozinator Amazon keeps cleaning out the review queue, but the posts just keep oozing in.

The "Spinal Tap" review of "Silent Hill."

Here are my two-word reviews for “Silent Hill”:
Mindnumbingly mediocre.
Artisic, tedious.
Yawn, stretch.
Not scary.
Shit Sandwich.

This movie suck-diddly-ucked, Flanders.
The only tension or interest for the audience was found in wondering when the hot girl-on-girl action with the no-nonsense butch cop was going to happen. (I found myself humming that old RHCP song Sir Psycho Sexy every time she was onscreen.)

And it was boring, the final nail in any horror film’s coffin. Although the sets were cool and the camera angles mimicked the video game reasonably well, the film just plods along, not really even bothering to throw in the occasional cheap “jump” scare to keep the audience awake. 

Not even having a few drinks before this movie made it entertaining, except in a “let’s laugh at that unintentionally amusing dialogue” way. And that’s saying a lot, because I love bad horror movies. And I also love having some drinks and then watching bad horror movies. Sadly, this one made me wish I’d drunk so much that I vomited on myself in the theater and had to leave to clean it up and was then too embarrassed to return, thus sparing myself two hours of unabating celluloid shittiness.

***
Well, it’s another full evening on the mountain, so I’d best get to it. First it’s baseball, then the end-of-the-year BBQ and afterparty, then it’s on to the saloon to watch Possum Jenkins rock the night away.
Hope you guys all have a great S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y…NIGHT! S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y…NIGHT! 

Currently listening to: No Way Back, by Foo Fighters. Head FFer Dave Grohl and his wife had a baby the other day, but sadly did not name her Cindy Lou Foo.

Ugh.

Well shit. Nevermind- that was a horrible movie.
Anything that makes Evil Dead 2 look like it has the plot of the decade deserves a special place in cinema history. That place is out back in the dumpster, underneath the surplus blueberry pie projectile vomit from the "Lardass Hogan" scene in Stand By Me.