Celluloid Sunday!

Ha! Bet you figured I'd forgotten all about my commitment to developing a regular feature within the confines of this blog! The jokes on you 'cause it's Sunday again folks and we're gonna look at some celluloid goodness!

Honestly, I want to encourage you not to watch the preview for this film as I think it gives too much of what the movie is away; and in some cases (like this one) the viewer is better served going into the story without preconceived notions of where the film will take them. So don't click the link unless you absolutely have to or you just won't see the film.



Frozen River is an austere tale of hardship and it's filmed that way. In fact the print is so grainy at times one can be forgiven for thinking they are watching a vhs copy filmed off an old aerial feed. It's that bad in spots. . . but if I'm being honest. . . it was probably largely intentional. It lends a grittier almost more real sense of bleakness to the lives of the characters. It gives credence to their struggle with poverty, legality, and ultimately morality.

Melissa Leo turns in a very believable performance as Ray; a wife, mother, and employee, on the brink of losing it all despite her best efforts. The lines between right, wrong, and survival become blurred as we walk with her and Lila through dark and challenging issues of morality. At times the film does feel a bit contrived and disconnected from emotion.  The fact that the film received two Oscar nominations, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly For The Screen, being one of them comes as no surprise. Writer/ Director Courtney Hunt is far from seasoned but there are seeds of enormous promise being sown in this film.

On a purely personal note I enjoyed the regional thrill of Ray and her boys excited by the prospect of going to the "Chopper". While I wouldn't say I myself was ever truly "excited" to go to the Chopper it was a nice reminder of Ontario; and though it is filmed and set in upstate New York, along the border on Mohawk territory. . .it's an area that so closely resembles my home in every way it's practically indistinguishable from Tyendinaga.

I tried to find you a nice video on youtube of Tyendinaga territory, so you could have a visual frame of reference but every link that came up (with the exception of a few squalid 2 minute drive through videos of Deseronto ) had something to do with protests, road blocks, or Shawn Brant. So instead I give you this picture of Smokin' Joe's Drive-Thru Smoke Shop. I think it's an apt choice in accordance with Frozen River's subject matter. Enjoy :)

Shhhhh . . .it's a secret!

I know she won't see this post, so now that it's ready and being shipped in the morning, I'll let you all have a sneak preview of Lexi's crafted gift this year. I like to try to make her special hand crafted items for her birthday in particular. She truly appreciates having unique one of a kind items with a dark sense of humour. So this year I decided to try my hand at a OOAK custom doll; and since Walmart had these pretty awesome "candy dishes" they were selling, it was a no-brainer as to what the doll should become. This post is going to be epically picture fat! Forewarned!

 What do we have here?

Dead Demon Baby Doll !!!

Yep, I took an innocent, cheery, plastic baby doll and turned him into the scourge of the earth. Most of these photo's had to be taken without flash to avoid the glare of the flash off of his pasty, dead pallor; so I hope you can still get a good look at the little beastie!

Awwww, so cute. . . bye bye!

Full body repaint to achieve pallor and texture of flaking, decaying skin.

Still kinda cute though. . . . 

And what self respecting demon leaves the house without horns?

More textures, shading, and decomposition spots.

A little blood :)

Not too much now. . .

Just right. . . .blood from the ears and eyes. . .

Ooooh. . .dead demon baby bum!

A dead ducky, and monster robe to complete the ensemble.

There you have it. . .and he's off to Ontario to live with the rest of Lexi's collection of oddities and horror memorabilia! I hope she loves him, I think he turned out pretty good; even if I am slightly biased.  LOL 

I really haven't been blogging lately. . .no random good posts, no stupid silly posts, and no Celluloid Sunday. You may be asking yourself exactly "why is that?" Well I'll tell you why. . . .my computer has been behaving like a dirty, dirty @#!&%. I have been suffering a nightmare myriad of BSODs! All with random causes, and none with any cause that can be directly tied back to one problem and thusly be solved! SERIOUSLY! So very frustrating! I have even had to wipe my drive and reinstall my O/S to no avail. The problem must be hardware you say; except that the man-thing has thrown every conceivable test at it and it comes away clean. Total freakin' anarchy reigns supreme within this beast. I kid you not. . it has blue screened whilst doing nothing. That's right, nothing. I have walked away to watch tv leaving no programs running and come back to find it has crashed.

Shhhh let's not tell the computer. . .but whatever the man-thing did last before heading to bed for the night is holding up! 3hours without my friend the BSOD and counting. . . . .running a little slow, kinda choppy at times but NOT turning blue. LOL 


I had to blog you up a link to this though; Hallowe'en preparations have begun in earnest and Kelloggs did not want to be left out this year. Thusly they have released some special limited edition Pop-Tarts for their happy consumers to . . well . . .consume. Check it out over on one of my all time favourite blogs to read ever x-entertainment. One can only hope that they will be made available to those of us north of the border.






Speaking of Hallowe'en and not blogging recently. . . look what I found over at Michaels the other day.

OHH YEAH!

Yep, that's a close up lit shot of my glowing, flashing skull string of Hallowe'en lights . . which plays. . wait for it. . . .John Carpenter's Hallowe'en Theme! Yeah, they're not Michael masks, but I think I can live with it coz it's still pretty cool. 

Things I Don't Understand . . .AT . . .ALL

• Yankee Doodle: Did he name his horse 'Macaroni' or was he totally nuts and mayhaps thought a feather was indeed pasta? It's never entirely been clear to me.
• Braille on drive through ATM's: No, seriously; braille. . .on. . .drive through. . .  atm's? Pretty sure those blind folks don't do so much driving, let alone multi-tasking while behind the wheel. Although that would explain a lot of things I've seen on the roads. If I were less lazy I would have taken a right nice picture for you but I said "IF".
• Superman* / Clark Kent: Alter ego my ass! C'mon, not even Lois catches on?

*Read through a hundred or so of these gems.. totally worth it!