Orrin Grey's Blog: Shovel Murders & Monologues, page 72

Repo Men

Yesterday I unexpectedly got a couple of free passes to a preview screening of Repo Men. Even before I went into the theatre I was already mentally preparing to start this review with some dismissive bon mot about how Repo Men was Repo: The Genetic Opera, now with 100% less opera (which is still true). Only then Repo Men had to go and spoil all that by being actually really amazingly great.

Seriously, it was great. It comes out in about a week, and I suggest you give it a shot.

Rumors of My Death Are More-or-Less Spot On

So, this last week I came down with some sort of mystery ailment. I don't really know what it is, and it doesn't really behave like a usual cold, but it wiped me out something fierce. Monday and Tuesday I came home from work and pretty much fell asleep. Wednesday and Thursday I didn't even get that far. So, basically, I have been unable to perform just about any activity that requires any portion of a functioning human brain, so if you were expecting something from me (like a review of The...

Best of Pseudopod 2009

My story "The Worm that Gnaws" made the ballot for the unofficial Best Pseudopod of 2009! You can view the poll here, though you have to sign up to the Pseudopod forums to vote. Fortunately, signing up for the forums is pretty painless. Not that I'm asking anybody to vote for me. Though if you'd like to...

It Can Be Told

I saw The Wolfman yesterday and liked it well enough, but it wasn't the movie that I'd hoped for. I should probably say more than that, and maybe I will eventually, but for now I've got something else to talk about.

I can finally announce that I got a gig writing a column on international horror cinema over at Innsmouth Free Press. I'll be doing two columns a month, and it's called "From Strange and Distant Shores" (with apologies to Caitlyn R. Kiernan).

I can announce this because the first in...

Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter

Last night I finally watched Captain Badass Kronos: Vampire Hunter. Like I said as soon as it was over, it was just one actually being awesome short of being awesome. Seriously, though, it was so awesome.

It's the kind of movie that is the very best when you're talking about it, but I don't know how much to talk about and how much to let people experience the first time for themselves. Seriously, if your taste in old, weird, or supernatural movies overlaps with mine, watch this thing. It's cra...

The Condition of a Monster

A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population or significance, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until--"My God," says a second man, "I must be dreaming, I thought I saw a unicorn." At which point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as...

Transporter 3

For silly fun action I really like the first two Transporter movies. Then again, they were both made under the guidance of Louis Letterier, who is, for my money, one of our best action directors. This one was made by Olivier Megaton, who is one of our best evil robots isn't.

I actually didn't make it all the way through Transporter 3. I was all set to start my review off with something like: "You don't have to be having a seizure to enjoy Transporter 3, but it helps," except that that would be...

"Nature vs Nurture" at IFP

Innsmouth Free Press has just posted their third fiction issue, which features my story "Nature vs Nurture." You can click on over there to read it and the other stories in this issue, put I personally recommend downloading the very attractive PDF edition for best effect.

The Gate

This morning, Jay and I watched The Gate, which I am now going to summarize here because it's way, way better in summary form than it was in actual execution. There will be spoilers.

A very young Stephen Dorff plays Glen, a kind of sissy kid who lets his friends push him around a lot but who will eventually grow up to be a really awesome vampire. There are a bunch of other people in the movie too, but most of them are annoying and none of them grew up to be awesome vampires, so who cares who t...

Sundown (& Friends)

On Saturday, Grace went out of town to visit family and Jay and I had a spontaneous movie marathon. In the morning we watched Escape from New York, and then we went to the local indie video store and got Sundown, the first and fourth Hellraisers, and the recent remake of The Amityville Horror with Ryan Reynolds. I'd seen most of these before, but not for a long time. Escape from New York still isn't one of my favorite John Carpenter flicks, I still enjoyed both Hellraisers, and this version i...