Monthly Archives - October 2022

Vampire Rules V: Midnight’s War

Countess Elizabeth Bathory; the infamous Blood Countess.   Her story is that of a beautiful woman utterly obsessed with maintaining her beauty, no matter what crimes she committed in the process. Yes, she was even worse than Madonna. She tried just about every beauty aid available when her looks began to fade. Arsenic powders and tinctures laced liberally with gold and mercury were tried and of course, failed. One night, in her frustration, she struck a serving girl hard enough to draw blood. Having tried...

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Forgotten Cable of the Nineties – Urban Fantasy

BUMPED for Halloween 10/28/2022 When I was a little kid Looney Tunes weren’t all that old-fashioned, they were just a little behind the power curve.   Well, maybe some of the really early ones were starting to look out of date.  I remember asking my Mom if anvils had been all over the place when she was a kid. She didn’t like the question for reasons I didn’t understand then but certainly do now.  But she answered it honestly, “not really, most blacksmiths had already...

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Cavill Is Out as the Witcher

#TheDarkHeraldWasRight Earlier today I stated that the third season would be the last one for Henry Cavill on the Witcher. Cavill’s Highlander movie appears to be dead. He was supposed to be shooting it in April. But he came down with Covid. The film’s funding went bye-bye. Now that he is signed as Superman for the next ten years, he’s not going to have time for it.  I suspect that the next season of the Witcher is going to be the last.  Cavill’s constantly having to...

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Hammer Films Retrospective (Part II) Frankenstein Rises!

His nickname was “Props Pete” because of his preferred method of performance.  Most actors only interact with props if a director gives them specific instructions to do so.  But Props Pete was forever picking up this item or that one during a performance and used it casually with apparent long-accustomed familiarity.  It added depth to the role he was playing. He was trying to sell the audience on his character being an expert in whatever field the part was meant to be brilliant...

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Hammer Films Retrospective (part I) Gothic Beginnings 

I’m honestly not the biggest horror movie guy out there.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate them. Exactly. I just hate what it has turned into.  There is so little artistry to it these days.  So little concern with trying to provoke the “delightful shiver.”  These days it’s all built around scenes that spend as little time as possible building tension and then clobbering the audience with a jump scare, followed by gory body horror.  Modern body horror only works if you don’t actually look at...

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We Happy Few, We Band of Brothers

Happy Saint Crispin's Day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-yZNMWFqvM “He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,And rouse him at the name of Crispian.He that shall live this day, and see old age,Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,But he’ll remember with advantagesWhat feats he did that...

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Blogs and Ends: The Opposite of Love

FIRST Why don’t I have an opinion on the death of Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor Who?  I just don’t care. That’s it. That’s the deal. I don’t care. I don’t give a shit.  Tolkien, I care about.  I just wrote a multi-week 20,000+ word rant dedicated to my hatred of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.   But the end of the worst era in the 60-year history of Doctor Who happened last night and YouTube had to tell me about it.  I had promised myself I...

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The Dark Herald Recommends Black Adam

I trudged rather than walked into the theater to see this one.  I had, with childlike innocence taken the critics at their word.  Intellectually I know I can trust an angry cobra more than the opinion of the 21st-century film critic.  Thus, my determination to approach this film with an open mind but I could hardly ignore the track record of every Marvel movie since 2017, to say nothing of every DC film since The Dark Knight Rises. My low expectations weren’t unreasonable. So, I...

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First Impressions: Black Adam

Prepare yourself for a shock The critics are lying through their teeth. Black Adam is excellent. Although the reason why the critics are lying is the really important issue here. Everyone is assuming they are trying to punish David Zaslav for shutting down various Woke projects at Warner Brothers. But I strongly suspect that the real reason it's getting a bunch of bad reviews is that Black Adam is a nationalist movie. It's an accidental nationalist movie. I'm quite sure it was trying to...

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Walter Hamada Is Done

Today in completely expected news. Walter Hamada has been fired as the head of DC films. I was wondering why Zaslav hadn't axed him yet. Now I know. Black Adam is going to underperform. Either the shill media hasn't been paid enough to give good reviews or they are mad enough at David Zaslav to not care about reprucsussions... This time. Walter Hamada was clearly hired in a panic.   He was a producer at Warner’s subsidiary New Line Cinema for ten...

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