Justin Robinson's Blog, page 25

Please review CITY OF DEVILS on Amazon!

If you reviewed CITY OF DEVILS on Goodreads, do me a HUGE favor and copy and paste your review onto Amazon. It really helps me out as you're essentially recommending the book to everyone.

Thank you!

http://www.amazon.com/City-of-Devils-...

The Wicked Lawn: A Gnoir Tale

I suppose it was inevitable that my love of noir would combine with my wife's collection of garden gnomes. Yeah. I wrote a noir short story about garden gnomes. What of it? http://bibliognome1.blogspot.com/2013...

Craig? Is That You, Craig?

So, you know, this season.

In my descent into the the universe of terrible cinema, certain films stand above all others as bastions of surreal awfulness. Every possible thing that could possibly make a movie bad is mashed into one another, forming a turducken of incompetence. And then, some movies find a place above that. And then, there is After Last Season.

Tagline: None

More Accurate Tagline: *stunned silence*

Guilty Party: Over my long and storied history with yakmala films, I have developed but one critical theory of note, and that is the Insane Foreign Businessman Auteur Theory. I can’t prove Mark Region, the writer, director, producer, and cinematographer of After Last Season is an insane foreign businessman, because he is mysterious even by the lofty standards of Tommy Wiseau. I also can’t prove Mark Region isn’t a raccoon that somehow obtained video equipment and accidentally filmed isolated moments at a head trauma ward.

Mark Region. Maybe.

Synopsis: Trying to write a synopsis of After Last Season is like trying to get a police sketch of Cthulhu: best case scenario is everyone’s face melts.

Matthew Andrews (Jason Kulas, looking like a little like Jay Karnes after a pre-frontal lobotomy) and Sarah Austin (a shellshocked Peggy McClellan) are two college students in their mid-to-late thirties, interning at the Prorolis Corporation. This company is located in an abandoned building and consists mostly of empty rooms scattered with last few remnants of office supplies not grabbed when the world economy collapsed, connected by dingy hallways decorated with swatches of wrapping paper, arrows pointing to nothing, and the occasional enigmatic letter taped to the wall. It’s the kind of place you go to if your hobbies are becoming the secret ingredient in hobo chili.

At the same time, a serial killer is on the loose around the school and has already claimed several victims including Craig Marlen, who we learn later is either the son or the brother of the local Parkinson’s specialist, who owns the only MRI machine made entirely of paper.

Here he is, talking to it.

Matt and Sarah agree to meet for a “psychology test” in a room which I believe Matt chose as a subtle hint to Sarah that this little date is going to end in a shallow grave. Matt has somehow come into the possession of microchips, that when affixed to their temples, will let him see her thoughts rendered in the finest CGI 1974 has to offer. Calling this virtual reality would be like giving your kid herpes and calling it a bike. Sarah thinks this is a swell idea, and the movie gets downright Kubrickian, if Stanley Kubrick suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome.

Eventually, after dicking around with geometric shapes and upsetting birds, their vision gets hijacked by that of what looks like two tin woodsmen trying to tickle each other with some kind of knockoff dildo from a Chinese factory that has stopped giving a fuck. Eventually Matt and Sarah are interrupted by what seems to be an invisible killer, who ineffectually stalks them around this little room while both Sarah and Matt stare dazedly into space. Not because they’re still in their virtual reality just because they both perpetually look like they just walked in on their parents having sex with the Philly Phanatic.

Rule 34, motherfuckers.

And then the movie decides that we, the audience can fuck ourselves. Matt wakes up, and the whole chip interlude, which was easily a third to a half of the film, was a dream.

Matt and Sarah attempt to leave, but then the audience’s rage at such a cheap narrative device appears in the form of the actual serial killer, stabbing someone in the hall. Yay! Kill them, serial killer! Sadly, the serial killer suffers from the same slow gas leak that is impairing everyone else in the movie, because when he comes into the room where Matt and Sarah are, he can’t see them, despite them standing right out in the open and hiding behind nothing more than their own dazed expressions. A folding chair flies at the killer and hits him right in the knockout button, which is located on this guy’s wrists, I guess.

Matt and Sarah then get into a long conversation with Craig, the ghost who just saved them. I… I don’t know. It happened, okay? That’s what happens in the goddamn movie. I can’t control that. I can’t change it. The fucking ghost saved them from the blind narcoleptic serial killer. Let’s just move on.

Life-Changing Subtext: The film’s subtext can only be understood by the poor murdered people who haunt its every frame.

Defining Quote: Haley Marlen (either John’s wife or mom, there’s debate): “We have a room next to the living room.” This is the last line of the film. Process that for a second. And then contact a mental health professional, because you’re insane now.

Standout Performance: In a movie populated entirely by perpetually gobsmacked zombies, Jason Kulas stands alone. I have an urge to photoshop him into famous scenes from history. He can stare emotionlessly at the flag raising at Iwo Jima, at Tank Man in Tiananmen Square, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I want to see Kulas react to everything in stunned indifference, as though everything is at once mind-shattering and totally banal. Upon his face is the glorious paradox that can only be described as a Lovecraftian tax audit.

What’s Wrong: I made passing reference to the fact that this film is shot exclusively in abandoned buildings where one or more people have been murdered on film for the jaded pleasures of a cabal of ultra-rich patrons whose senses have been dulled by the never ending pursuit of decadence. The restless dead from these crimes have infected the film, which can be heard in the rumbling and whispering on the soundtrack. Oh, sure, you might point to an incompetent sound man picking things up, but no! I know the truth! This is the only film made entirely out of an Indian Burial Ground.

Flash of Competence: This movie periodically boasts shots of ceiling fans and off-center photocopies of pictures of brains taped to a wall. It pretends that the corner of the same building that’s only good for a homeless Black Mass is both an office park and an apartment building. It features a bunch of white pillars in the snow for no reason. It uses fucking CGI from 1974 in 2009! If Ben Stein ever went insane, the screenplay of this movie would be what he would scrawl on his victims.

There was not a single moment of competence.

Best Scenes: Oh, fuck you.

Transcendent Moment: This is a tricky one, since the film continually finds new ways to fail. Every last frame is perfectly terrible. Every narrative choice is wrong. Readers, I give you the perfect yakmala film. The rarest of all beasts. The heterosexual unicorn, if you will.

Yeah, I thought as much.

Yeah, I thought as much.

Watch After Last Season. If you have any interest in terrible cinema, this is the movie you have been waiting for. See how deep the rabbit hole goes. Understand.

And despair.

Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion, Yakmala! Tagged: After Last Season, divine incompetence, herpes, Mark Region, murdered hobos, snuff films, Yakmala!

Now Fear This: Dick

They love Dick.

I admit it. I partially wrote this just for the title. Dick is not a horror film, though a single line of dialogue unites it with the larger theme of the series. When nerdy heroine Arlene whispers, “Dick frightens me,” she’s not just whistling Dixie. See, she’s talking about the leader of the free world, President Richard Milhouse “Tricky Dick” Nixon.

Dick is set during the waning days of the Nixon white house (though the timeline will be hazy to anyone without a working knowledge of the Watergate scandal or an open wikipedia browser tab), stretching from the night of the break-in itself in 1972 to Nixon’s humiliating resignation two years later. Almost just important as when it was set, though, is when it was made: in 1999, when the invented scandals of the Clinton administration sparked a renewed interest in the actual wrongdoing of the Nixon white house (though, ironically, far from the worst thing Dick ever did). The true identity of Deep Throat, the inside tipster who fed information to Washington Post reporters (it’s important to note here that reporters used to actually seek out news and could get in trouble for publishing falsehoods) Woodward and Bernstein had not yet been revealed. While All the President’s Men posited him with the trustworthy and accurate middle-aged face of Hal Holbrook, Dick suggests that Deep Throat’s true identity might be much more ridiculous. What if Deep Throat, the man who brought down a powerful and corrupt white house, was actually two airheaded teenaged girls.

Betsy (Kirsten Dunst) and Arlene (Michelle Williams, in her first “Hey, she’s not just the annoying chick from Dawson’s Creek” role) don’t have much in the way of brains. Bob Haldeman (Kids in the Hall ace Dave Foley), one of Nixon’s henchmen, remarks that he’s “seen yams with more going on upstairs than those two.” Despite their lack of brains they had already at this point, totally accidentally thwarted the Watergate break-in, recovered a list of bribes for the Committee to Re-Elect the President (which they assumed, accurately, to be a list of creeps), and were about to become his Official White House Dog Walkers. In this position, they become a more focused and destructive version of Zelig, contributing in some way to the iconic moments and eventual downfall of the Nixon Administration.

“Matters of great concern should be treated lightly,” is a quote from Hagakure, a work from 18th Century Japan. It manages to describe the phenomenon of “stupid-smart” comedies very well, among which Dick stands proud and tall. This starts with the meticulous research that goes in to the silly throwaway gags that abound. A lot of the humor comes from knowing the deep cast of Nixon’s white house: Kissinger’s arrogance and frustration with those around him, Dean’s fragility, Haldeman’s teeth, and playing it for goofy laughs. In other cases, it’s offering explanations for the enduring mysteries of the time: the missing 18 1/2 minutes of the recordings, how Nixon really brokered his talks with Brezhnev, and even why the man was so goddamned paranoid. It’s taking a painful piece of American history, when the president was revealed to be nothing more than, in his words, a crook, and making light of it. The film also does not shy away from a very simple fact: the man’s name is Dick, and that’s funny. Ignoring it doesn’t do anyone any good.

Selling the humor becomes a challenge, especially in a movie like this: with teenaged leads dealing with an historical event, which might account for the film’s disappointing box office and the stalling of career of the the film’s co-writer and director Andrew Fleming. He used every bit of clout to assemble a murderer’s row of the best comic actors 1999 had to offer. He starts with character actor Dan Hedaya, who does a killer impression of Nixon’s Droopy-Dog-by-way-of-Yosemite-Sam cadence. Kids in the Hall alums show up with the aforementioned Foley, and Bruce McCulloch as Carl Bernstein, bringing the right elements of awkwardness and hair obsession to the role. SNL vets Jim Breuer, Ana Gasteyer, and Will Ferrell play White House council John Dean, Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Harris, and Bob Woodward respectively. Harry Shearer is appropriately creepy as Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy. Lastly, Saul Rubinek perfectly incarnates Kissinger. As good as the cast is in Oliver Stone’s otherwise disappointing Nixon, the cast of Dick is the true Nixon Administration. In my heart, I mean.

As the girls get drawn into the workings of the Nixon white house, they remain blissfully ignorant of history unfolding all around them. Arlene is far too focused on her intense crush on Dick to notice much of anything, and Betsy makes Arlene look like a rocket surgeon. As they encounter more and more wrongdoing, ironically it’s Nixon who becomes more suspicious of them. The most horrible thing they suspect him of is that he might not like his dog. Oh, and anti-Semitism.

A late-night crank calling session (to the radical, muckraking bastards Woodward and Bernstein that Betsy’s mother despises) turns serious as the girls begin to realize, however hazily, that they might have something to bring down Dick. The third act of the film does wilt somewhat under the pressures of drama, but only in comparison to the inspired weirdness of the early going. We know what happened, because it’s history, but what Dick gives us are the whys. And the whys, as it turns out, are because you should not kick dogs. Even if you’re the president.

Dick is part of one of my favorite double features ever. Watch it after All the President’s Men, and get two brilliant takes on the same period in history.

Filed under: Puffery Tagged: Deep Throat, Dick, Nixon, Now Fear This, Watergate

CITY OF DEVILS $20 tier has gotten ridiculously cool!

We're funded, and then some! Because we've done so well and unlocked so many escalator goals, the $20 tier had become an incredible deal for backers.

You get:
The novel itself (with free shipping!)
The ebook
A short story that ties in with the book
Bag o' swag
Physical pack of 8 trading cards

And if we make $2000, that will also include a mini anti-monster kit! All for $20. Isn't that crazy?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/c...

The Amazing Spader-Man

Spader likes to make uncomfortable eye contact with everyone.

We Hate Movies is the gold standard for bad movie podcasts. One of their best features is that they shy away from obvious features like Troll 2, The Room, and Birdemic, instead finding largely forgotten curios like the Lethal Weapon also-ran Number One with a Bullet, the Michael Caine movie in which he might be a wizard Shock to the System, and the terrifying Ricki Lake accidental-horror film Babycakes. They introduced me to this week’s entry, the 1985 hard-boiled gangland musical Tuff Turf, and when it appeared on Netflix instant, I could not help myself. I immediately regretted this decision.

Tagline: Meet Morgan Hiller. He’s a rebel about to become a hero.

More Accurate Tagline: Meet Morgan Hiller. He just wants his bike back.

Guilty Party: There’s a lot of blame to go around, but I’m going to put things on the shoulders of director Fritz Kiersch. Why? Motherfucker directed Gor. Tuff Turf predated Gor by two years, but both films have certain things in common, namely a disregard for narrative that makes you long for the inherent logic and character development of a fever dream.

Synopsis: On the mean streets of Reseda, a shadowy figure rides his badass ten speed to the strains of synth music that sounds like someone beating Depeche Mode to death with pool cues. Meanwhile, a gang — consisting of people we will later get to know as Nick, Other Guy, Mickey (Panchito Gomez, loyal readers remember him as the titular “Gaucho”), Shirtless Guy with a Metal Pipe, and girls Ronnie and Frankie — mug a businessman. In the middle of the mugging, the mysterious figure on the bike reveals himself to be James Spader (James Spader), and for no reason, interrupts the mugging by spraying them with beer, and rides off into the night. After this point, Shirtless Guy With a Metal Pipe vanishes, only to reappear in the climactic battle.

Spader’s character technically has a name — Morgan Hiller — but fuck that. He’s the Amazing Spader-Man.

The next morning, Spader lies awake in his bed, watching some beetles crawl over his poster of Einstein. He then pops up and shoots them with a dart gun. If you’re wondering why the director suddenly went off his meds, you are not alone.

The next morning, Spader heads to school. It’s one of those mid-‘80s hellhole schools, as shown by graffiti on the walls, plentiful non-white students, and the depressing lack of pastel sweaters tied jauntily about the neck. Nick and the gang (who, I believe, are called “Tuff,” based on some graffiti and the title of the film, though it’s never actually stated), spot Spader, recognize him as the man who sprayed them with beer, and decide to make his life hell. Spader makes a friend in the form of Robert Downey, Jr., who vanishes and reappears in the narrative like a ghost. Maybe he is a ghost? Duh-duh-duh DOWNEY GHOST!?!

Anyway, Spader visits the guidance counselor, who exposits all over the young man. Seems Spader used to go to a prep school and screwed it up. He’s a ne’er do well, a rogue, a rascal, a rapscallion! Someone should alert the local constabulary and the vicar! And now he’s at Lawson High, a place that would require fewer locker room rapes to qualify as merely nightmarish. (Also, that’s not a rape joke. That’s foreshadowing. Put a pin in that.)

The gang steals Spader’s bike and wrecks it, which was a huge danger in Reseda during the mid-‘80s. While Spader is upset at the gang, he desperately wants to smell the aggressively crimped hair of Frankie (Kim Richards), Nick’s girlfriend. Things get worse when Spader shows up at a party, dances with Frankie, and later Mickey. The gang, upset about this turn, assaults Spader and steals the car he stole. They’re promptly pulled over and arrested for car theft, although for some reason are almost immediately set free. They must have Lindsay Lohan’s lawyer.

At this point, Spader’s older brother Brian enters the narrative, mostly to show what Spader was supposed to become. Namely, a successful businessman or lawyer or something. Spader chafed under those expectations. He just wants to live! Turns out that dad used to be rich and successful, but somehow Spader fucked it all up and now dad drives a cab. Also, dad is played by Matt Clark, who you might remember as Andrea’s dad in “Did You Hear What Happened to Andrea?”

Through a turn of events, RDJ winds up in possession of Mickey’s car, which he and Spader use to trick Ronnie and Frankie into hanging out. They head over to Beverly Hills, where Spader fast talks them into lunch at a country club. He then says to his friends, “You know what to do,” which instantly provokes a wacky montage of each of them dealing with society types. Spader puts a cap on this with an impromptu piano performance of the worst song ever. And it’s the whole goddamn song. Try to imagine the sound a kitten would make as you run it through a meatgrinder. Now add some terrible emo poetry on top. Now put a screwdriver through your ear because no one should have to live in a world where this song exists.

Suddenly, it’s night time. Frankie and Spader are still together, but RDJ and Ronnie have vanished. Since there hasn’t been a terrible song in almost a minute, they go to an ‘80s club. There’s a long, long, song and dance scene. I got up and went to the bathroom and it was still happening when I came out. If I ever need to find a bomb, I’m going to show this scene to every terrorist I find. I will have confessions. Anyway, Frankie and Spader kiss.

Now, because we just did the wacky scene and the romantic scene, we have to get to the rape scenes. Nick shows up in Frankie’s room, and though she specifically says no to sex, he goes ahead with it. Then, the next day in the locker room, Spader gets jumped by Nick, Mickey, and Other Guy. While it makes sense for Spader to be half-dressed, the other guys could really be wearing shirts. Anyway, they beat him, but it’s really shot like a prison rape scene. So yeah. That took a turn.

Dad gives Spader a pep talk, which inspires him to ask Frankie to dinner at his house. Right after she reluctantly agrees, Nick and her father show up in her room with champagne. Seems Nick asked her dad for Frankie’s hand in marriage. Man, I hope he negotiated a good bride price! Also, Nick is wearing a vest with no shirt, so maybe Frankie’s name has him confused about her gender. Spader learns about the engagement, and so the dinner is a little awkward and ends with Frankie storming out, where she is almost immediately picked up by Nick and his gang.

Nick finds Spader’s dad and assaults him in front of Frankie, but then something fucking amazing happens. Spader’s dad just goes nuts on these guys. He’s in his late 40s or so and can’t be more than 5‘6”. These are young street toughs who were able to overpower and symbolically rape Spader, and yet,Spader’s dad starts kicking their asses like he thinks if he punches them hard enough they turn into extra lives. Nick, sporting a hilarious look of abject terror on his face, shoots the dad and flees. I half expected the bulletholes to seal up with liquid metal, but no such luck.

Spader’s dad survives his injuries, because the gang foolishly forgot to pack kryptonite bullets. Frankie apologizes and she and Spader go home and have some soft-focus sex. It’s nice and consensual.

The next day she breaks the news to her dad that the engagement is off, which apparently she did while Nick was standing right there. (It’s in her dad’s convenience store, which Angelenos will recognize as located in Highland Park, but still, she didn’t notice her emotionally unstable fiancee lurking by the chips?) Nick goes ape shit, and beats and kidnaps Frankie. Then he calls Spader to tell him to meet him at a warehouse.

Spader suddenly remembers RDJ exists and goes to his house for help. And in this one, short shot, when Spader talks to RDJ’s brother, they establish that RDJ has a big dog. Seriously. That’s the only time.

Spader breaks into the warehouse alone. First he must deal with Shirtless Guy With a Metal Pipe, who the film has also just remembered exists. Spader uses his dart gun (remember that?) to disarm the guy and pistol whip him into unconsciousness. Then there’s a battle royale which goes badly until RDJ shows up with some dogs, which he sics on Mickey and Other Guy. Spader then defeats Nick in hand to hand combat, and thus now owns Frankie. They celebrate with another song and dance.

Life-Changing Subtext: Women are not objects to be owned. They’re thinking, feeling creatures to be owned.

Defining Quote: Ronnie: “Of course size matters. This is the ‘80s!”

Standout Performance: That honor goes to Panchito Gomez for his use of the highly offensive Spanish insult “maricon.” He really rips into it like he’s fighting shameful urges inside himself.

What’s Wrong: In most Yakmala reviews, my notes invariably feature one line (always in all caps): WHAT IS HAPPENING!?! In Tuff Turf, I knew what was happening, but I never knew why.

Flash of Competence: During Nick’s hunt for Spader’s dad, he listens to the Jim Carroll Band’s “People Who Died.” That’s a good song.

Best Scenes: I don’t know that they’re really “best” scenes, but the music scenes are something else. In the first one (featuring Jim Carroll), Robert Downey, Jr. appears to be wearing a bowtie and no shirt. It’s actually sunglasses worn like a bowtie, but the damage has already been done.

In the country club, the house band is doing a cover of “Twist and Shout” which might be the most ‘80s thing ever, at least until Ronald Reagan fights ninjas for the possession of sixty tons of Peruvian white. Seriously, everyone had a “Twist and Shout” cover in the ‘80s, including me, and I was in elementary school.

Transcendent Moment: Alert readers will notice that the dart gun in the beginning is only used to disarm Shirtless Guy With a Metal Pipe. This means that something only established to take out one guy, only had to be there because the opening established that one guy. Don’t you get it? It’s Chekhov’s Gun as a solution to Chekhov’s Gun! It’s a recursive loop of establishment! Looking into it, and I can feel it looking back at me! THE UNBLINKING EYE OF NARRATIVE! I UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING! I FEEL EVERYTHING! I AM BECOME DEATH THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS!!!

Maybe I should sit the next couple plays out.

Tuff Turf is far more fun to discuss than it was to watch. But hey, it’s on Netflix Instant. So, uh, there you go.

Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: beer, James Spader, Jim Carroll, Kim Richards, locker room, Robert Downey Jr., Tuff Turf, why god why haven't you punished me enough, Yakmala!

CITY OF DEVILS escalator goals!

All of the potential stretch goals have been posted on the kickstarter! You get to hear about all the cool stuff we have in store.

And what the heck is a plush Escuerzo...?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/c...

CITY OF DEVILS stretch goals!

Well, we burned through the first stretch goal, which means everyone (that's EVERYONE) who kicks in will get a copy of a short story set in the same world. Trust me. This is a good thing.

We have a brand new stretch goal! If we make it to $750, everyone is getting digital trading cards of 8 of the main monsters in the book! They're being drawn by this guy: www.artofernando.com

Doesn't that sound awesome? So kick in and get your hands on all of this cool stuff.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/c...

CITY OF DEVILS is funded!

...but that doesn't mean my publisher and I are done giving you cool stuff. We have stretch goals, and lots of them! Check out the first one here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/c...

CITY OF DEVILS Kickstarter is live!

Hey there, creatures! The kickstarter for my new novel CITY OF DEVILS is up and ready for contributions. What's CITY OF DEVILS? Great question, voice in my head! It's a mashup of noir and creature features. If you've ever read a Raymond Chandler novel and thought to yourself, "this could really use a crawling eye," then CITY OF DEVILS is what you've been waiting for!