IT -- Movie Review

Extremely good movie, high on creepiness even if it was low on scares. I'm normally not a fan of movies with child actors, but these guys did not disappoint. One of the better young casts, equal, but not better, than Rob Reiner's Stand by Me, based on King's novella, The Body. Good movie, quite a feat if, like me, you're a big fan of the book, so you know what happens. Faithful adaptation of the book with good new, creepy scenes.

American Horror Story: Freak Show

My new blog for American Horror Story: Freak Show is up and running.  The review of Episode One, "Monsters Among Us," is there now.

The address is above, and here: http://stevestvahsfreakshow.blogspot.com/2014/10/episode-1-monsters-among-us.html

Let me know what you think!  Thanks!

Part of the first entry--


Well, here we are!  A new season of AHS, this time called Freak Show.  I'm really looking forward to this season, especially after the truly terrible AHS--Coven, and Episode One did not disappoint.  A few thoughts, then, on the episode:

--Nice theme, Monsters Among Us.  Who does that refer to?  The folks under the tents?  The bored housewives of the 50s Elsa Mars referred to?  Just the clown?  The people who use the unlucky for entertainment?  All of these?

--Funny how the monsters never see themselves that way.  But they do think others are monsters.  So perhaps a better question I could have asked was: Who does the "us" refer to?  A good Twilight Zone-esque short story can be written about this.  Hmmm...

--Kill Count: Twins: 1.  Lobster Boy: 1.  Clown: 3? 4?

--Homages this episode:

1.  Tod Browning's (the director of 1931's Dracula) landmark early movie Freaks.  Of course.  The whole episode, if not the whole season, is an homage to this.  If you haven't seen it, do so.  Very memorable.  Unbelievable that Hollywood and the censors would allow this to be made in the '30s.

2.  Orson Welles and Touch of Evil.  The cop who came to the tents, sliced by Lobster Boy.  Made to look exactly like Welles in that movie.  Talked and moved the same way, too.  To a T.

3.  Maybe inadvertent, but I saw a lot of Edward Scissorhands in this episode.  Mostly in the dissatisfied female suburbanites and the bubbled camera shots.  And in Lobster Boy.

4.  Sunset Boulevard.  Jessica Lange's character is the same, and looks the same, as Norma Desmond.  A washed-up performer in need of the eternal audience.

5.  Jason Robards' Something Wicked This Way Comes, from Ray Bradbury's good book.  Evil in the guise of a traveling circus.

6.  The clown's smile is right from The Man Who Laughs.  Read this Wikipedia article to see how it also gave creation to The Joker's smile.  Even had a graphic novel about the Joker with that title.  The article is linked below.  The movie's on YouTube.  Give it a look.

--A real shame that it's Jessica Lange's last AHS.  She was easily the best thing about the second and third seasons, and this episode.

--Besides the clown, of course.  That is truly one scary, messed-up looking clown.  Incidentally, this clown reminds me more of the hypnosis-with-the-golden-coin clown from a Scooby-Doo episode than anything about The Joker.  And I see a lot of Conrad Veidt's The Man Who Laughs in the smile.  See the pic above and tell me if you agree.  And look at this Wikipedia article about the movie.  I'm tellin' ya.

What did you think of the episode?  Did you like it?  Did I miss any homages?

[For more, please go to the blog via this link.]

Book Review: Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indridason

Photo: Cover, from the book's Wikipedia page

Another of the Nordic Noir (this one takes place in Iceland) to become very popular in the last ten years or so, following in the wake of authors like Jo Nesbo, Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and many more.  Not reaping the rewards of this new trend, by the way, are the translators of such novels.  They deserve just as much credit, if not more, than the actual authors.  Or do people think that Stieg Larsson wrote in English?  The style of the English, which has gained such notoriety from these Nordic Noirists, is more the translator than the author.  I'm just sayin'.  The translator for this one is Bernard Scudder.

Anyway, this one is very effective, and not much of a mystery, actually.  A skeletal hand is found (Killer opening sentence: He knew at once it was a human bone, when he took it from the baby who was sitting on the floor chewing it.) and the detectives in charge let an archaeologist unearth the whole skeleton, a long, painstaking process that allows the author to delve into the abusive past of the family who lived nearby the grave, as well as the self-destructive daughter of one of the detectives, and his own relationship problems.  The story unfolds in layers of shifting third-person omniscient narration, and the reader soon finds that the actual mystery is the identity of the skeleton--and of the one found with it later in the book.  There's a further subplot involving the broken relationship of the owner of the place that had once stood on the spot of the grave, and of his fiancee, who left him after she became pregnant with someone else's baby.  That's a running theme of the book: broken relationships, both between a man and a woman and between adults and their children.  In that sense, the book is especially Nordic--the noir comes not just from the writing style, but also from the insinuated hopelessness about relationships.  Nobody's got a good one here, but it ends with a brief but hopeful touch, though that depends on your point of view, I guess.  Less Nordic Noir than Henning Mankell's excessively cold and distant landscapes, and Stieg Larsson's detached characters and their often-xenophobic attitudes, but still noir nonetheless.  Think Raymond Chandler, but without the ditzy dames.

If you like this kind of stuff, as I do, you'll like this one.  I started and finished it in six hours, because I was unable to sleep.  So it's a quick read, and the shifting third-person omniscient narration never confuses.  I guessed the identity of the skeleton pretty quickly, and I think any astute reader would, too.  I get the feeling that the author (and translator) sort of knew this, but the reading enjoyment isn't because of the final answer, but because of the journey it takes to get there.  You let it unfold at its own pace, which is neither too slow nor too fast, and when it gets there, you're satisfied, even though you probably knew it the whole time.

Worthwhile as we enter the Noir winter in these parts.  I wonder if I can start a series of novels that will give rise to other writers doing the same sort of thing, and it'll all be called New England Noir?

New Blog, American Horror Story: Coven, Is Up

Photo: This season's main advertising poster, from AHS: Coven's Wikipedia page.

Please go to my new blog, http://stevestv--ahscoven.blogspot.com/, to read about this season's American Horror Story: Coven, episode by episode.  Thanks.

Blog News

Dear Readers,

In the next few days, I will try a massive (in terms of time, anyway) undertaking: two new blogs, maybe three.  So in addition to this site and my sports blog (where I babble mostly about baseball, baseball cards, and the sports world at large), please look at my American Horror Story: Coven blog, and my Walking Dead 4 blog, both via Blogger.  If they're not up when you check, please come back.  I'll put up the American Horror Story: Coven blog first, since the season's first episode has already aired.  Walking Dead 4's blog will go up tonight, or tomorrow--most likely tomorrow.

I may also start a blog, tentatively titled Steve's Sales, that will contain photos, descriptions and prices of things I want to sell.  This would be via Blogger as well.  So take a peek at that, when it's up, and let me know what strikes your fancy.  Just send me an email at the address on the top of any of my blogs, and I'll get back to you ASAP. 

As always, thanks for taking the time to peruse my meager scribblings.  I hope my readers, friends and followers like what is to come.

Sincerely,

Steven E. Belanger

Happy New Year

Photo: Sydney, Australia, celebrating New Year's Day in 2007, from "New Year's Day" page on Wikipedia.

Really simple blog entry this time: Happy New Year to all my readers, and to anyone who happens to stumble in.  Here's to better health, better happiness, better times.

And if you'd like to leave a wish for everyone, please do so below.  I'd be glad to hear from ya, as would everyone else who reads this.  Emails are cool, too.  Thanks again to all my readers and followers for sparing some time with me here.  As my time is very limited, I'm sure yours is, too.

2013's first real entry will be a review of Tarantino's Django Unchained, coming soon.  But until then, I thought I would start a comment thread, each comment but a few words long, of what we would like 2013 to bring to us.  After seeing mine, feel free to put your own.

And Happy New Year!!!