I watch movies.

A quick rundown of cinematic gems viewed recently, between "Six Feet Under" binges:

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory": Not too shabby. It's pretty Burtony, so I can't really complain about much except for the ending. Charlie's grandstanding pro-family speech was a little forced, and although it's in the book, I don't like that they showed you all the other kids leaving the factory. That's something the old movie did right - by leaving out the "they're okay" segment, you get the impression Wonka's lying or otherwise doesn't give a fuck what happens to the brats. That's funnier to me. The Elfman/Bartek Oompa Loompa numbers are pretty cool, except for the Violet Beauregard one which for some reason I found annoying. Depp seemed really over the top to me at first, but he's very good at conveying the character. Great casting, everything's beautiful, but ultimately it's a lightweight scrap to tide us over until "The Corpse Bride."

"Howl's Moving Castle" (aka Hauru No Ugoku Shiro): Hayao Miyazaki's work is nothing like most of the anime that gets popular in America, and that's a big plus considering how many slo-mo battle dramas and naughty tentacle sagas are out there. Like all of his movies (that I've seen, anyway), this is meticulously gorgeous, intelligent and morally complex. I found myself feeling greater patience and compassion for the elderly immediately after viewing it. "Howl" is not as impressive as "Princess Mononoke" or "Spirited Away," but it's an entirely worthy family film - meaning it doesn't talk down to kids or up to adults, instead just telling a story that all ages can enjoy without reservation.

"The Devil's Rejects": As a singer, Rob Zombie's a hell of a director. I liked this and the sorta-prequel "House of 1,000 Corpses" not because they're great horror flicks, but because Rob seems to like the same sort of things I do and tries to throw as many of them as possible into his movies. It's a trait he shares with Tarantino, but Quentin obviously does a lot more with the base material. Like "Corpses," this one's very inspired by "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," but it's closer to that classic's dry, bleak aesthetic than Zombie's psycho-delic debut was. The story more closely resembles "Chainsaw 2." He also takes a lot of, um, inspiration from grimy, sadistic '70s flicks like "The House at the Edge of the Park" and "Last House on Dead End Street." And talk about an all-star cult cast: Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, William Forsythe, Ken Foree, Geoffrey Lewis, Danny Trejo, Brian Posehn, Tom Towles, Michael Berryman, Mary Woronov and goddamned P.J. Soles! (Yes, Local H, that's what happened to her.)

"Karate Kids USA" (aka "The Little Dragons"): Now that I see the alternate title, I think I saw this as a kid, possibly on cable. It's a cheap kung fu movie for American children from the early '80s, a magical time in cinema when you could show people smoking a joint and a little kid saying "shit" twice but still snag the picture a PG rating. This was the same era that brought us the swearing dog in '"C.H.O.M.P.S." and Charles Martin Smith's genitals in "Never Cry Wolf." The "karate" on display is a joke, but "Karate Kids USA" does feature a hootenanny at a weird campground, creepy child romance and the directorial chops of one Curtis Hanson, he of "8 Mile" and "L.A. Confidential" fame. I wouldn't suggest this to anyone over the age of 9, but with all the "language" and "danger" on display here few parents would agree with me. Right there's a good reason why I should never spawn.

"Ninja: The Protector": This one came at the end of the day, after the previous two and several drinks, and my brain had turned to mush. Perfect mindset for the saga of an old white guy with a mustache who turns into a camouflage-patterned ninja at appropriate times and gets in a lot of sword fights. I was unfamiliar with Richard Harrison before checking the IMDB, but the the old white guy was apparently in a lot of Italian flicks during the "golden years," meaning many spaghetti westerns and sword n' sandal flicks. His turn here as Gordon Anderson was apparently so well-loved that he made at least ten other pictures as the character. I mean, why wouldn't he? Like I said, I was pretty zipped by the end of this thing, so I don't remember much of it. I will never forget the ending, where Gordon beats the big bad guy in a fight, the bad guy concedes, Gordon says "I am the Ninja Champion!" and just walks away. Doesn't kill him or anything. Just "The End." Woot!

Now in stores: Nevermore's "This Godless Endeavor." Go buy it right now. Nevermore is the best metal band in America right now and this is one of the most satisfying records I've heard all year. I hope this promotional cycle will grant them the recognition they've long deserved. This is just the single: "Final Product".

Five men and a little malady

As a means of exaggeration, you may hear me say "I almost passed out!" from time to time. This is often in reference to something I find particularly astonishing, such as when Natalie Portman shaved her head (and suddenly became attractive), or my first contact with the new, longer trailer for "The Corpse Bride." But Sunday, helping Aaron and John move from Berwyn to Oak Park in ridiculous heat, I truly did almost pass out. Pouring sweat, sprouting goosebumps, heart pumping so fast it felt like it was going to explode... you'd think I was in love. No, I am just out of shape. Somehow Ray and Chris remained upright, but after my vision started to blur I was down for the count. I can't believe those guys kept going after they sent me home out of concern for my safety.

Yesterday night, Goad and I went to a talk by Greg Behrendt, the guy who co-wrote the bestselling Oprah favorite "He's Just Not That Into You." She was getting extra credit for a class; I hoped it might give me some insight on avoiding one-sided relationships without having to read the damned thing. As I suspected, the book seems mainly comprised of horse-sense aphorisms about knowing and respecting oneself, but the sense of empowerment in that room was incredible. I was shocked at how many women came forward and recounted incredibly personal sagas of inconsideration and neglect in front of all those strangers. Whenever the room seemed about to ponder the notion that this sort of thing can happen with the genders reversed, or between the same gender, or between platonic friends or family or in any interpersonal relationship, someone always came back with a "So, I was dating this jerk..." story. It was interesting, but I instantly wanted beer by the time it was over.

I did leave with a decent nugget, although it's something that you probably already understand. My observations and experience tell me the primary barrier in a "s/he's just not that into you" situation is not that people don't know what those signs are, but rather they don't want to admit when it's happening to them. The reasons for this can be numerous, but ultimately you can't convince someone that they're being trod upon if they won't consider the possibility. In fact, that goes for the person doing the treading, too, since they don't want to think of themselves as a bad lover/friend/brother or whatever. It's always there, though, in those small, subtle ways we unconsciously hurt each other every day. But jeez, who would want to read a book about that?

Last Friday: a review of the new Dropkick Murphys album. Tomorrow: a sampling of recent viewings. Today: the teaser site for "Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny" and Primordial's beautiful recent album opener "The Golden Spheres". Bless the Irish!

Cupid - 7, SoulReaper - 0

Yesterday night, I confirmed what I've feared for a little while now: the young lady I was "kind of dating" is simply no longer interested. She seemed a little distant the last time I saw her, and although I initially chalked that up to her having recently moved several hours away, when she blew me off the next day I knew I recognized that fading sense of concern. Although I was prepared and willing to do the long-distance thing, we'd actually never discussed it. After I began to suspect she was avoiding talking to me and read a rather ominous post on her blog, I could only hope it was residual paranoia from the last time I sensed I'd be booted. But is it ever?

Since the year turned, I have courted two Katies - both of them cute, little blonde Libras with tattoos in their nether regions that I will never see. Despite their respective levels of unrepentant self-centeredness (and corresponding disregard for my feelings), I recognize that they're both young and at heart well-intentioned people, so I can't really hate either of them. But in addition to imbuing me with a new phobia of falling for any female who fits the above description, they've managed to send me contrary messages about how to conduct myself during a nascent romance.

Before the former, I had not been in anything resembling a real relationship in exactly nine years, and during that legendary slump I'd always felt that honesty and open discussion would be important if I were ever to start up again. As a result, I wanted to talk about "things" way too often and she took me for a needy, unstable psycho. Furthermore, she managed to convince me of the same until I realized she was projecting past personal experiences into someone she didn't know very well, all the while telling me that's what I was doing. Although my meticulous efforts to explain things from all angles might have told her otherwise, she heard what her brain let her hear. My insight said that I had been too honest - I felt I'd done everything I could to be open with and considerate of her, but took it very personally when she fed me cagey, occasionally petulant indifference in response. When the dust cleared and I'd stopped wanting to crawl in a hole and die, I felt duped and exploited, but I had myself to blame as much as the young lady in question.

Now, when the latter asked me out, I was still smarting but determined not to turn cynical again. Nonetheless, I felt it best not to immediately weigh things down with confessions and admissions, and she was more than happy to fill the conversation gaps with myriad details of shopping trips and her impending job. As a result, we had fun, but it was sort of superficial; I quietly hoped that it would progress, but by the end it was not feeling very fulfilling. In retrospect, perhaps she only ever wanted a fling, something I would never have agreed to had I been aware of it. But she never said so, and so as to not rock the proverbial boat, I never asked. Ultimately, for never speaking up, I think I asked for the brief, businesslike, emotion-free way she informed me she was done with me yesterday.

My task is now to synthesize these conflicting lessons while retaining as much respect as possible for all involved parties, or at the very least, to get very drunk. So this one goes out to Ginger: at least I saw it coming this time, and at least she didn't use the f-word.

Thank you, Doctor Monkey

Holy shit, I saw the craziest movie the other day. Jack bought this amazing cheapo DVD pack of 50 "martial arts" flicks. We watched one from which the package promised roller-skating ninjas, a monkey with superpowers and superstar Carter Wong (of such personal favorites as "Succubare" and "Shaolin Kung Fu Mystagogue"). The version we saw was unmemorably entitled "Kung Fu Arts." I prefer its alternate name, "Raging Tiger vs. Monkey King," or at least "Kung Fu: Monkey, Horse, Tiger." However, none of those adequately describe the lunacy of this thing. I'll need to cannabalize content from Shaolin Chamber to demonstrate.

The credits refer to "Sida the French Monkey Star," and even if that distinction is pure ballyhoo, this chimp can act. He shows up at the house of the Emperor, who declared that anyone who can heal his dying daughter can marry the sick girl. The Emperor's aide comes in and tells him a doctor is outside, but he's not a regular doctor... he's a monkey. Eyebrows contorting, the Emperor bellows, "A MONKEY?!?" which is followed by an odd sting of threatening music. Sure enough, the monkey's potion cures the girl and she has to marry him. Here I lost concentration, thinking about how this set-up could become an interesting meditation on the traditional social position of women in China, a freakshow flipside of "Raise the Red Lantern" without the nice cinematography. (It did not.)

The Princess and the monkey go off to an island and live together, and after a vaguely tender scene between them we see that she's pregnant. Naturally, I was hoping she'd been knocked up by Doctor Monkey and that her swollen loins would soon burst forth an ungodly monkey-man, but sadly the dad turns out to be the young malcontent played by Wong, who's been in hiding for most of the movie. The kid, who runs around in a Tarzan-style leopard pelt seemingly fashioned from a jacket discarded by some cheap Vegas floozy, calls him Uncle Monkey (the whole relationship is demonstrated in this amazing soundclip). When Wong shows up, he runs into the monkey and reveals that the little critter was actually his emissary, right before Doctor/Uncle Monkey is tragically crushed by a python. This is depicted with the monkey thrashing, the snake wrapped loosely around him, and a sudden freeze frame. Again with the threatening soundtrack sting.

A bunch of dull, sub-"Attack of the Clones" castle intrigue ensues, and the movie really lags as the Wong/Princess family is menaced by the new, evil, leopard-print-loving usurper Emperor and his lackeys. Eventually the kid, who learned special simian communication from his Uncle, leads all the monkeys in the forest to attack the palace. There's a fantastic scene with a couple in bed where the lady tells the man to stop touching her, but after she wakes him up she realizes it's not him. The bed is crawling with monkeys! In sheer horror, the guy bellows, "A MONKEY?!?" and they tear ass out of the room as if this was a killer rat movie or something. After the good guys win, the kid realizes he gave the monkeys a bunch of wine, so he runs outside and chastises them against the perils of alcohol. The end. Wow.

After some sleuthing, I have deduced that distributor Treeline Films lifted the misleading package description directly from the IMDB's user comments, specifically the one by Marc. If you go to Marc's other IMDB comments and look at "Ninja Apocalypse," you'll see he's got some weird inside joke going on and he's not actually describing these movies. So either Treeline is run by a bunch of lazy fucks - although the relative quality of their transfers would connote otherwise - or Marc works for Treeline and thinks this is all hilarious. If only he'd actually watched it.

For your weekend pleasure, here's a link to a new Gogol Bordello song: "Sally". It plays in Quicktime, and it's another fun chunk of cultural-wall-smashing Gypsy punk. And check out this story I wrote on Chicago's Intonation Music Festival: a rare fit of non-metal reporting. (The unidentified band whose photo originally ran with the story is The Decemberists.)

Satisfaction is a dearth of attire

I went to four shows in June: Dr. Killbot, The Coral, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum (see last post) and Murder By Death. None of those bands play metal, and while I like them all, I'll admit the live experience just doesn't seem as satisfying. That all changes this month, which naturally culminates with Ozzfest on the 30th.

Jack and I spent Friday trying to avoid the sun while enjoying the Sounds of the Underground tour, the first of this summer's two Ozzfest competitors. Since my review was totally butchered in print today, I posted the full text in a comment, along with a review of Lamb of God's new "Killadelphia" DVD. To make room for a nice picture of GWAR, somebody took out every bit of text about Opeth, although I didn't even write half of what I wanted to say. Bonus: watch the video for Lamb of God's big hit "Laid To Rest" (they play a censored version of the song on The Zone, or so I'm told).

Best of all, Slough Feg, a San Francisco outfit I've wanted to see for years, play Tuesday at Double Door. Formerly The Lord Weird Slough Feg, they're lead by of Mike Scalzi of the amazing Hammers of Misfortune. It's only seven bones, so anyone reading who's free, nearby and open-minded about really idiosyncratic, Celtic-tinged old school metal should make a point to be there. Check out "Gene-ocide" from their last album, "Traveler," which is based on an obscure '70s sci-fi role playing game about space pirates and a race of mutant dog-men. Tuesday night's bill includes local bands Bible of the Devil (pretty decent), Cianide (yawn...) and Imperial Battle Snake (awesome name). How could you not be intrigued?

The movements were beautiful

Settle in. Start this amazing live version of Neutral Milk Hotel's "Oh Comely" now. As you may know, brevity is not my specialty.

Three weeks ago, my car was driving as if cookie batter was stuck in the engine. I had to have the fuel injector replaced, along with an oxygen filter and some other kinda whooziswhatsis. On the way home, the engine flipped out. It was revving like crazy, idling very hard and accelerating uphill by itself. Like a big boy, I had to borrow my mother's car to get down to the Bottom Lounge that night, where I planned to meet a few people (none actually showed). That same night, while I was guzzling Red Stripes and trying to enjoy Sleepytime Gorilla Museum by my lonesome, Mom used my car to get to my Grandma's place. In the process, the engine apparently calmed down and fixed itself.

The moral of this story? Mothers can, at times, be magical.

Then a week later, as mentioned in a previous post, I was rear-ended at low speed, preventing myself, Jack and Goad from getting to the Eels show. The muffler was all fouled up, but the car drove normally and only sounded ugly. It behaved for a few days, until I was on my way to visit Ginger one night. An ambulance in an intersection forced me to accelerate quickly, and the engine popped back into Maximum Overdrive mode. Ginger graciously chauffered me for the evening in her former car, Herbert, and when we returned to my car, it was calm again.

The moral of this story? Women can, at times, be magical.

After all this, the collision repair shop had the car for days, and I got it back during the recent holiday weekend. Guess what? After driving it for a while, I noticed that the (unbent, not replaced) muffler is noisy, and it drove as if cookie batter was stuck in the engine. I took the car back to Larry the repair guy this morning, when it was miraculously driving better and quieter, and Larry looked at me like I'm crazy. Told me to keep driving it and let him know if it keeps up. So I'm sort of back to square one.

The moral of this story? I've wondered about my Saturn's gender for a long time, but I now believe that it has to be female, and a pretty damned good one. Yes, it's occasionally capricious and temperamental, but I'm not going for negative stereotypes here. It's just that I've suddenly found myself caring about its well-being and am going to great lengths to see that its desires are appeased, to be attentive and to apply concern and support when needed. In turn, I appreciate that it offers me a space in which I can truly be myself, a conduit for adventure, comfort and solace, a reliable and sturdy ally. On the inside, it's deceptively vast. On the outside, it's not rough on the eyes but not too gaudy. If you're around it in the right light, it can, at times, be magical.

Yet there's nothing I can do to keep some careless stranger from swooping in and smacking it in the rear. Nor can I help that if he manages to collide with it just right, that car is gone and I'm stuck walking home again, lugging an empty wallet with guts clenched in regret, frustration and disappointment. Still, knowing this, I also know that such accidents don't always happen. We've already been through a lot together and I'm a loyal driver. I will do everything I can to make sure it's - I mean, she's - okay. Now, I should at least come up with a name for her.

(To avoid potential scandal, I must emphatically state that this strained woman/car analogy contains no veiled references to any particular woman, especially any Libran with whom I have recently consorted.)

Inrearendence Day

On this, Our Nation's holiest of holy days, I'm considering the nature of "terror". Believe it or not, there was a time the word didn't automatically connote organized cells of angry, disaffected, violent religious extremists. It wasn't always posited as the polar opposite of freedom. To me, freedom encompasses your license to seek out terror as a means of mundane happiness. In varying degrees, terror can be experienced in venturing to unfamiliar locations, in the cathartic danger of boarding a thrill ride, in the vicarious menace of a scary movie.

In all of these cases, we confront fears real or imagined. We can prove that we are stronger than those fears and subsequently feed from that strength, becoming less constrained by external influences and liberated from timorous inaction. As death metal teaches us, acknowledging that chaos is natural and necessary, that forces beyond our own control can cause irreparable damage, that we can die at any time is a way to confront our neuroses in a practical manner. Conquering your personal terrors will lead to peace of mind. Now that's freedom, my friends.

Today, enjoy a prime example of American terror (Leviathan: "Cut With the Night, Into My Heart"), and celebrate your freedom to scare the bejeezus out of yourself. Have a safe and fun holiday.

The house that time forgot

Last night, I was in the stuffiest house ever. According to Ginger, it belonged to her grandfather's stepmother and hasn't actually been lived in for about 40 years. None of the windows would open and the stale air was mighty oppressive. It's a cool little old-school city house, but I can't believe she survived several hours in there. A trouper, that one. Great thanks to all ye hearties who ventured out to the Hala and gave her proper tribute.

Yeah, everyone knows that the mass media's priorities are screwed. But enough with that greasy Tom Cruise and that fucked-up Supreme Court. Why isn't CNN bombarding us with more information about the zombie dogs? It seems Herbert West was on to something after all. You'd think his alma mater would be raising a stink.

My buddy Jack keeps buying those multi-DVD packs of cheap-ass horror movies put out by Brentwood Entertainment. I saw two of them today, neither of which passed the 90 minute mark, and unfortunately they both sucked. The second one, a witch-themed "Pumpkinhead" knockoff called "Dead & Rotting", was a slight step up from "The Bonesetter", a Canadian job which concerns a boring Satanist who dresses like Zé do Caixão with store-bought Halloween make-up. The former features Troma regulars Trent Haaga and Debi Rochon, while the latter has a cameo by Troma founder Lloyd Kaufman and a remarkably attractive, remarkably awful lead actress named Sherry Thurig, who, as the internet informs potential stalkers like myself, also holds a degree in biochemistry from Ontario's Algonquin College. Sherry is the kind of classy woman who can make one of these things slightly more bearable, but even her clumsiest line delivery couldn't really help here. I suppose ultimately "D&R" was better because it didn't inspire a sequel like "Bonesetter" did.

Requisite media links: A new Arch Enemy song ("Nemesis") and the trailer for Peter Jackson's King Kong remake (thank you, Kyle). Both are very nice.