Top 5 Favorite Witch Movies

Movies about witches and witchcraft are perennially popular, but that’s mostly because they are the same story, often played for laughs, as these women with magical powers help the men in their lives either thwart evil or perpetrate it, by degrees. It’s peculiar to me how many witchcraft movies are some iteration of that basic premise. Lots of things happen in schools, by the way. I’m sure there’s a message in there, somewhere.

When movies about witchcraft are scary, they are pretty terrifying. The alternative is something usually between Bewitched and the Witches of Eastwick. Fun movies, by the way, and certainly, witches usually come down on the Most Fun Classic Monster side of the aisle. However, I like my witches mysterious and weird and scary and Not Right. These are my top 5 favorite Witch movies in that specific vein.

Top 5 Favorite Vincent Price Movies

Vincent Leonard Price Jr. (1911-1993) was an American actor who made over a hundred feature films in a variety of genres, including historical drama, mystery, film noir, and even comedy, but he is best known for his roles in horror films. A graduate of Yale with a degree in art history, he later studied abroad in London, where he kindled his love of theater and later performed onstage opposed Helen Hayes in Victoria Regina. This led to a five-play contract with Orson Welles Mercury Theatre. Eventually he was put on contract at Universal as a character actor, playing romantic leads and scoundrels in equal measure. But he never abandoned the stage, returning to it every chance he got.

In fact, it was during his performance in the 1941 play Angel Street (the American version of Gaslight) playing the cruel Jack Manningham, pushing his wife Helen into madness, that he found his true calling playing villains. Speaking about that role, Price told one interviewer “…I came out for my curtain call and the audience just hissed. I knew I'd found my niche.” He secured a few more villain roles and turns in minor horror movies. Later, in the early 1950s, Price would become wildly successful in the genre, leading to some of his most memorable roles and performances for the next twenty-odd years.

Cancer: A Setback

The girls, chillaxing, taken a few years ago.

There is that old expression, "God doesn't give us more than we can deal with." I saw the following on a T-Shirt, years ago, and I've never forgotten it. "Lord, I know you don't give me more than I can handle. I just wish you didn't have so much confidence in my abilities."

We hit a snag. Cathy didn't get chemo yesterday, because her white blood cell count was too low. Not a biggie, but while Cathy was at the clinic, she complained about her leg being swollen. They sent her to get an ultrasound, and the results were immediate and serious: she has a blood clot in her artery.

She's probably had it for some time, but it could very well have developed from the Skittles-like array of drugs and chemicals she has been swallowing for months, now. There is a drug she can take that will thin the clot down and dissolve it safely. That's good. The drug works over a three to six month period. See if you can guess where this is going.

Cathy's surgery has been postponed until her clot is gone. They can't risk that clot breaking free while they are operating on her. It would kill her. So, until such time as we can be sure the clot won't be a problem during surgery, she's going to take even more medicine and keep taking weekly chemo treatments.

We are disheartened, frustrated, and confused. That's putting it mildly. More than anything I'm frustrated for Cathy, because I know this treatment is working, but it's doing a number on her. We may not be able to go out of town for our anniversary. She's got to stay mobile on the leg while she's taking the meds. A six hour car ride isn't what she needs right now.

More on this later. I'm tired and irritated. I hate this. I just hate it.

Top 5 Favorite Long Form TV Series

This is a new category, brought on by the fact that we are certainly in the midst of a Television Renaissance as the medium has grown and expanded to now include shows that are longer than a mini-series but still have an ending, however nebulous it may be. These “Netflix” shows are really just the next phase of what cable networks like HBO and Showtime have been doing for twenty years now. The difference is that, instead of willingly placing oneself apart from the rest of the content providers (“It’s not TV…it’s HBO”) now everyone is on a level playing field thanks to a more egalitarian distribution system. This competition has been the best thing for show creators, the networks, and the fans, as amazing shows with oddball premises that wouldn’t have found a voice in 1998 are now among the most eagerly anticipated events of 2018. And a lot of these shows are horror and fantasy and science fiction and sometimes a mix of all that and more.

Cancer: Gearing Up for Phase 2

This is an old picture of Cathy's Wall of Strength. It's got
a lot more on it now. And she's still got more cards to add. 

On Tuesday Cathy will have her last chemo treatment before surgery. To say that we are both thrilled about that would be an understatement of gross proportions. Lots of you have been asking how it's been going, and I've been just a little bit too busy to update like I'd want to, and I'm sorry about that.

As Cathy's needs have intensified in the midst of her treatments, my own mental health took a dip and it took me a couple of weeks to recognize it. I'm making corrections and adjustments now, and as a result, I feel better and more alert, so here you go.

The change in the weather has helped, too. Autumn in October? In TEXAS? Pinch me, I'm dreaming. We haven't had actual Fall weather in the Fall for years. I'm so excited.

In Defense of Bad Movies Part 2: FLAAAASSSHH!

Check out the muscles
on Blonde Conan!

In Part 1 of  In Defense of Bad Movies, I outlined the disconnect between film critics and the general public. If you want to read it, you can certainly do that. Now that I have made this particular bed, I’m going to lie in it by taking a pipe wrench to the skull of a film most beloved and personal to the Geek Nation. Let’s all watch some people’s heads explode. Fun!

Since I mentioned Flash Gordon (1980) in Part 1 as an example of a bad movie, I thought it would be worthwhile to explain why I think this is so. Before you start typing your hate mail, there's some objective criteria below that you ought to look at. I put pictures in the post, so you wouldn't have to just take my word for it. If you make it all the way to the end and still feel triggered, just follow this link over to my Facebook page and let fly with your invective. I'm bracing myself for impact. Okay, enough of that; let's go tip some sacred cows!

In Defense of Bad Movies Part 1: Somewhere Between High Art and Cult Classic

I’m writing a lot about old movies at the moment on both of my current blogs. Finn’s Top 5 is happening over at the Finn’s Wake blog, and my biased look back at the fantasy films of the 1980s that informed our Dungeons and Dragons games is happening over at Confessions of a Reformed RPGer. I like writing about film; I have been a professional reviewer and critic for many years now, and I’ve been named one of the top movie reviewers in Texas by the Associated Press Managing Editors several times. You may also know that I am co-owner of a movie theater in North Texas that plays first-run movies on two screens, which is kind of like a unicorn in today’s market.

Top 5 Favorite Stephen King Movies

It really says a lot about a person when they are their own genre of storytelling. Think about that: Stephen King is one of those very rare—as in, maybe four or five authors, tops—who have such consistent draw that they are household names. Not just any household, either, but every household. Try this: next time you’re at your grandparents’ house and they are regaling you with the saga of the latest bunion on their foot, wait for them to finish and then say, “Jeez, Grams, that was more horrifying than a Stephen King story,” and see if they don’t immediately know what you mean by that.

King’s prodigious output also accounts for a list of movies nearly as long, and while the quality of the aforementioned movies and books varies greatly, both subjectively and objectively, there are a number of great Stephen King movies that have been accidentally made out of their literary counterparts. Granted, there are also some god-awful ones, too, but we’re not here to talk about Maximum Overdrive…or Firestarter…or The Tommyknockers…or…you get the idea. For the purposes of this list, we’ll focus on the ones that cleaved most closely to the books and were also scary or horrific in some way. That’s why you won’t see Stand By Me or The Shawshank Redemption on this list, as great as they are.

Top 5 Favorite Kaiju Movies

Kaiju is one of those terms that has been around for years, used primarily for fans of Japanese pop culture to sound smarter than the rest of us when they wanted to talk about big honking monsters. Unfortunately, thanks to three decades’ worth of importing their TV to jaded American audiences, “kaiju” has entered the pop culture lexicon. It’s a word of Japanese origin, that, loosely translated, means “big honking monsters.” Way to move the discussion forward, folks.

Specifically, the term as it applies to movies is considered a genre, though what monsters are considered kaiju are hotly debated. For the purposes of our discussion, I’m going to break it down like this: King Kong (1933) is not a kaiju movie. King Kong vs Godzilla (1962) is. Simple, right? Also, I’m going to give it my best effort to pick the scariest kaiju movies I can, knowing full well that these movies aren’t anything like what’s on the other Top 5 lists. However, I am a Monster Kid, so neener-neener, we’re doing this anyway.

Cancer: Surgery is Nigh

Cathy at chemotherapy, doing her best
to distract herself from the process. 

We were summoned to the Metroplex last week for a consult with the surgeon that is going to operate on Cathy's ladybusiness. He confirmed the initial results that the cancer was responding to the chemotherapy and everything was going according to plan. However, due to his crazy schedule, he wouldn't be able to get to Cathy's surgery until the end of the month at the earliest. So he ordered one more round of chemotherapy and we penciled in a date for surgery on November 2nd.

Independently of that, I've also got a tentative schedule for my surgical procedures, and that is December 3rd. There will undoubtedly be some overlap for our recovery, and Oh Brother, won't THAT be fun. All kidding aside, it's actually a relief for both of us to know that these things are going to happen. They are on schedule and real to us now, instead of some nebulous "down the road" kind of thing.