Black Christmas

Happy Holidays everyone!

To get into the holiday spirit, my s.o. and I saw "Black Christmas" before I flew home to see my family. It's so rare to discover a piece of cinema that's like hidden treasure, but that's exactly what "Black Christmas" was like for us.


Not only is it a completely overlooked horror classic from the early 70's, but a memorable Canadian movie no less, featuring a young Margot Kidder and Andrea Martin! They, along with Olivia Hussey (yes, Juliet), play sorority sisters preyed upon by an obscene caller that becomes more and more menacing... The premise sounds schlocky, but "Black Christmas" far surpassed what I expected in a generic 70's slasher flick.

Ironically, the director, Bob Clark, also directed the nostalgic 80's holiday classic, "A Christmas Story".

There's even an excellent website devoted to this one movie: http://www.itsmebilly.com/

If you haven't seen this yet, I don't recommend listening to the sound bites prior to viewing for obvious reasons. But if you're really curious, and want to make your own skin crawl, download the "1st phonecall" to get a taste of what you're getting into.

"Black Christmas" has just recently been re-released on new 35mm print, which is what we saw. So the DVD version should be coming out soon... Go find out who Billy is!

Answers - meezly's movie meme II

1. From Dusk Till Dawn - Roberto Rodriguez
2. Edward Scissorhands - Tim Burton
3. Phantom of the Paradise - Brian de Palma
4. Dawn of the Dead - George Romero
5. Cronos - Guillermo del Toro
6. Near Dark - Kathryn Bigelow
7. Evil Dead II - Sam Raimi
8. The Crow - Alex Proyas
9. Out of the Past - Jacques Tourneur
10. 28 Days Later - Danny Boyle
11. Office Space - Mike Judge
12. Dark City - Alex Proyas
13. Assault on Precinct 13 - John Carpenter
14. Donnie Darko - Richard Kelly
15. Truck Turner - Jonathan Kaplan
16. Wild Zero - Tetsuro Takeuchi

Meezly's Movie Meme II

(more fun and less obscure!)

Guess the movie where the still came from...

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Who's ready for another movie meme?

I just found the most excellent site for movie stills (mostly cult/horror). It's all written up in cyrillic but who cares when it's chock full of images from rare and cool films? Thankfully at least, everything's categorized by their English titles. I'm keeping the location top secret for now because I want to use some for meezly's movie meme... the sequel!

Being Meezly

It’s been a while, huh? Some of you really do check meezlyblog every so often to see if I’ve posted something…. Anything! Well, this blog ain’t called meezly for nothin’.

Come to think of it, I don’t think I’m psychologically ready to post blogs on a regular basis (unlike my bro: 500-words a day). And with the limited spare time that I have, I’d rather be doing something else other than blogging about my inane existence.

For instance, I’ve been inspired to read again by Olman and his friends. These crazed book nerds have been diligently aiming to read 50 books this year (see: olman's 50 books, mt benson report, buzby's life) and posting a brief review of each book. So far, Mt B is taking the lead at #42, but Olman’s quickly catching up (he just finished his 40th merely a few moments ago). In fact, he’s read 7 books in two weeks!

By jove, you ask, what’s his trick? Perhaps a recently acquired library card at the new $100-million dollar Bibliotheque Nationale, a strategy of choosing not overly dense, engaging books, and a new–found motivation to read 10 more books (only six reading weeks left!).

Frankly, I don’t think I’ll be attaining such dizzying heights of literacy since I’ve read a measly seven books in 2005:

- A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole)
- The Bug (Ellen Ullman)
- From Hell (Alan Moore)
- A Child’s Book of True Crime (Chloe Hooper)
- Ghost Story (Peter Straub)
- Freaky Deaky (Elmore Leonare)
- We So Seldom Look On Love (Barbara Gowdy)

Currently, #8 is The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter. Carter was an old standby from my teenage years and I’ve wanted to read this early novel of hers for years (hard to find in libraries and used bookstores). Luckily, I chanced upon a copy at a Park Slope bookshop when Olman and I visited his sister for Canuck Thanksgiving, along with a Penguin paperback of Darwin’s Origin of Species and Rachel Carson’s The Edge of the Sea.

Will these be #9 and 10? Will I make the top 10 for 2005? Stay tuned!

movie meme answers

Wow. Due to the unexpected popularity of meezly's movie meme and the overwhelming demand from the innumerable participants for answers... the results are finally posted below. Thanks for taking part in meezly's movie meme!

1. Farenheit 451 (Francois Truffaut)
2. Contempt (JL Godard)
3. Legend (Ridley Scott)
4. The Day After Tomorrow (Roland Emmerich)
5. An American Werewolf in London (John Landis)
6. Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman)
7. Brazil (Terry Gilliam)
8. Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders)
9. Infra-Man (Shaw Bros.)
10. Billy Liar (John Schlesinger)
11. The Knack... and How to Get It (Richard Lester)
12. Peeping Tom (Michael Powell)
13. Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky)
14. Spirited Away (Hiyao Miyazaki)
15. Suspiria (Dario Argento)
16. Planet of the Vampires (Mario Bava)

movie meme

Pick 16 movies and post one still from each movie.
Have your friends guess which movie each screen still is from.
Here we go!

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the difficulty in conveying irony

Well, my brother and my boyfriend read my first post and thought that I was actually planning to write a novel. I’m not. So much for attempting to write an ironic blog. If I can’t even convey a bit of irony, what’s the point in even thinking of writing a 500-page novel?
Anyway, I barely have enough discipline or motivation to write more than a 250-word daily blog entry.

FYI…

The first post is actually a quote from the 1963 movie “Billy Liar”, a violently depressing film about a struggling writer who eventually kills himself and his whole family during an extremely gory denouement.

morning reverie

Today's a day of big decisions - going to start writing me novel - 2000 words every day, going to start getting up in the morning. Yes... today's a day of big decisions.