Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

 I decided to move my Letterboxd comments and review here: Top 5 scenes: 1) Rollergirl makes sure that guy from school remembered her, after Jack got some licks in 2) Little Bill is confronted by cameraman, Longjohn, about equipment needed; this after Bill just once again found his wife screwing some random guy in the middle of the yard near Jack's pool party. Little Bill kind of had more important matters on his mind than how the shoot would be photographed 3) Poor Buck just wants to be a cowboy, sits morose dressed as Rick James, and removes the wig, while actress, Melora, sees him alone and strikes up a talk about sunsets 4) Rollergirl wants Amber to be mommy...the two sort of bonding over snorts of nose candy 5) Rollergirl is just called on to be dramatic chapter breaks for PTA and I loved that director choice; she's the constant, rolling through every timeline. I think in terms of that chapter break I enjoy is when PTA has Rollergirl with her trusty camera taking a snap of

 Just one last gripe since the marathon has returned to the first season out of the fifth season, the show at the end did both Gina and Trudy really dirty. While the 3rd and 4th seasons started to give these characters more to do, the fifth season just kicked them to the curb. That sucks. By the end, they were visiting Crockett and Castillo in the hospital at their beds while recovering from gunshot wounds or reacting to story action that rarely involves them. They got the shaft as Larry Zito (Diehl) did, until he was just killed off. The fifth season had episodes that just continued to emphasize Crockett and Tubbs could never have a relationship and got sick of their jobs. It was dreary, dark, and dour. The fun died out. The colors were muted. It was a drag.

 I will say that while I am just not as much a fan of the last two seasons of Miami Vice, going through the marathon currently showcasing the series on Universal Action on Roku Channel, I did appreciate seeing wisened Crockett and Tubbs discussing losing those they love and you just feel their wearying emotional states as the job has cost them so much, including love and life.

 Following the close of the fourth season and beginning fifth season, Miami Vice committed to a story arc involving Sonny Crockett suffering amnesia and "becoming" a drug lord lieutenant and "ideas mind" willing to kill for the latest kingpin until he could seize and empire for himself, shooting his way through a lot of crime family people before his memory as a narcotics cop returned, mostly thanks to Tubbs. I hated this arc because I found no plausible reason he could ever be a police officer again, and, if anything, would go to prison. He kills a lot of people in cold blood, even shooting Tubbs! Crime families fall, Crockett, in the personality of Burnett even shoots a cop with a gun on him. I just refuse to believe Crockett, even if not in his right mind, could just snap back to his old self and return eventually to vice duty.

 There was a moment in Soderbergh's sex, lies & videotape (1989) when Graham (Spader) is listening/watching Cynthia's (Giacomo) "confessionals", so shaken by their "discussion" that he has to turn away. The seduction or allure of this process for Graham loses its luster and he cannot just get off to Cynthia's personal sexual history, especially when discussing Ann and husband, John's (McDowell and Gallagher) lack of intimacy in the bedroom. Even the adultery comes up and before you know it all three, Cynthia, Ann, and John know about Graham's extracurricular activities. It is that turnaway of Graham from the screen that speaks volumes. How a side pleasure that helps to deal with his emotional impotence (due to the neverseen Elizabeth) leaves Graham's world turned upside down is just one of the film's many fascinating open wounds laid bare by this film.

I had to commit to rearranging DVDs and blus that were bought for the family. And, of course, some of my own sort of get mixed in. I happened upon by accident, really, a triple feature set that I had picked up years ago that has Quiet Ones , Jessabelle , and The Devils Hand . Initially I believe I got this for Jessabelle , and I had seen Quiet Ones in the theater. 

 Today when I got home from an Easter get-together with my mom and just a busy morning overall, my daughter watched Critters 2 (1988) and Night of the Lepus (1972) with me. The moos were quieted as the Crites and giant Rabbits went on the feeding frenzy rampage. Mick Garris, with his Stephen King adaptations, may end up being more known for his Easter horror Critter sequel if that truly remains in the zeitgeist while western television director, Claxton, probably hoped when alive most forgot about the cute bunnies scurrying about miniature towns meant to portray devastated locations in the Midwest.

 I have to imagine I'm not the only one who found the Cretins just vandalizing, motorcycling through, spraypainting, and crashing the high school strangely cathartic, as if living vicariously through them; at some point, a good many of us just dreamt of releasing those kind of tensions, akin to a "rage cage". Tossing desks, books, and tables off the top of school building, even crushing the earth globe, and leaving rooms a disaster; the Cretins seem to really live their dream. I have to imagine the cast involved had a blast just laying waste to Tromaville High School. Speaking of Tromaville, I'm not sure bragging about being the mecca of nuclear waste is something to be proud of... --- I decided to just put this here on the blog. I read it and it might be wrongfully read as if I was pro destruction of property and school, but it was just seeing the free flowing anarchy that I figured students who just hate school would dream of just unleashing on the place. The film s

 This was the next to last episode of the second season and while it is a domestic story about capitalist greed where miners are subjected to terrible treatment in terms of pay, working and living conditions, and fraudulent activity, there includes an erupting volcano that adds a lot of danger and intrigue to String and Dom's efforts to help out the exploited workers and their families while contending with the scum lording power over them as they combat substantial difficulty. Juanita Mahone is the vocal force to be reckoned with Mills Watson wants to silence while Laraine Day ("Foreign Correspondent" and a great history of television) is the wife of the mining company's dead CEO; Mills, the police, and a reluctant accountant (William Cort; "Heathers"/"Elvira: Mistress of the Dark") will need to quell any resistance, not to easy when String and Dom arrive to stir up trouble for them. Of course, the end has Mills and his chopper pilots targeting th

 Well, Hank just drives down a road and has women throwing their phone numbers at him or meets him at a little dinner (though his ex, Karen), wanting to get high and fuck upstairs in one of Bill and Karen's rooms. That's just sort of how it works out for Hank. He can't seem to figure out what to write, sort of stuck in this hell in LA, a city he just hates. He moved out there, sure, but New York is his love, so any real acclimation to the city seems difficult at best. Adding to the complication of not being able to move on from Karen, Hank also tries to recover from the fact that he slept with an underage daughter of the man who wants to marry his real first true love, Bill. Even worse, perhaps, is that Bill owns a website looking to hire Hank; he learns this at the end of the dinner party night when confronted by 16 year old Mia, Bill's daughter, who clearly still wants to fuck him. So Hank has a lot on his mind, for sure. With all the conversation on "vaginal rej

 A good bit of the first season really leaned on The Firm missions for the Airwolf, plenty of global and government espionage and intrigue, politically charged and the stories were seemingly never too far away from sky battles with terrorism plots even woven in. Then the second season seemed to change a lot, veering away from String and Santini tackling serious missions, instead opting to stick them with stunt jobs to help fund their helicopter company. "Out of the Sky", to me, is the bottom of the barrel in terms of wasting the initial premise in favor of mediocre plots...a Country music star (Misty Rowe) kidnapped while a doppleganger is set up to be crushed by a prop spaceship loaded with explosives to go off so the audience is provided a light show...Rowe's agent (Mayf Nutter) decides to kill her off so the record sales increase substantially in order for him to pay off his debts! Stringfellow Hawke is smitten with the singer/songwriter and wants to make sure she is r

 So all the world's a...snowglobe? -- If that was my life and Anna Falchi kept popping up, it sure wouldn't be that bad at all. I just love how the police inspector keeps popping up, only to tell Francesco (Everett) he's not a suspect (when he should be), only for our cemetery caretaker/walking dead destroyer to react with frustration and even anger is just perfect as is how Falchi just keeps showing up over and over, multiple characters, in the same locality. And they all seem drawn sexually to Francesco and vice versa. I cracked up when the third Falchi tells Everette "the medicine doesn't seem to work". That hypo sure seemed full, though!  -- There is just cool shit right up my alley, like the makeout in the puddled ossuary where a kiss is shared between both participating parties passionately except with head coverings, Francesco burning papers when visited by Death convinced to "use his gun before the bodies are buried" who resembled The Ghost o

 The second episode of season 1 has Duchovny and his dog Stella exiting a diner where his PO Box is located, picking up a coffee before opening a folder to reveal another letter, this time from an ad exec, Diane (Laura Johnson) near an isolated industrial area of Los Angeles near train tracks. Diane discusses a period of time where she was working late in her office, noticing who she thought might be an investment banker or lawyer (Arnold Vosloo of "The Mummy"!!!). They lock eyes and this mysterious man sends her a fax, daring her to tell him her name. During the course of the episode, the nights they trade faxes, they dare each other to do some naughty things like remove clothing, all the while tempting a potential hookup. While Diane certainly plays her part, it is the mystery man across the street in an adjacent building who proposes they meet in person to fuck. Vosloo even fucks a woman on his desk in his office with the shades open, looking right at Johnson, hoping this

  Mark Weiler is a full body massage therapist working for Michelle Lay, secretly sexually involved with clients who seem to use the excuse of the establishment to weekly visit to fuck him. For a lot of guys, that seems like the perfect job. He, however, wants to open his own massage business, but the rich clients that might could potentially financially assist him are mostly married or only interested in having sex, not discussions about some other massage location to frequent for that orgasm lacking at home.  Kaylani Lei is a fellow massage therapist and part-time lover of Weiler. This guy is living almost his best life. I guess he's of that 1% or whatever the fuck YouTube video dudes label guys women flock to and have hard times forgetting when he discards them unceremoniously. He just wants to be a boss instead of Lay's underling...he makes her a lot of money, but how much is that his hands smoothing aches and pains as opposed to his mouth, tongue, and cock making the clien

I’ll just be honest: I’m not rushing to pop in “Freeway” very often or even think about it at all. I saw it back around 1997, then again maybe 2001, and was reminded of it when I passed the second one in the mid aughts some time. Much like “Kids” or “Gummo”, the film looks like it was dragged across gravel and baked a bit under the Arizona sun, perhaps pulled from the burning remains of a warehouse that held too many canisters and wasn’t properly air-conditioned. If I’m honest, I watched this basically because it was the first film in Joe Briggs’ Violent Valentine special on Shudder, the replay. Reese as “little red riding hood”, a near broken teenager from a horrible childhood (mother works the street corner, father looks suspiciously like a notorious serial killer, the stepdad a parolee crack smoking molester mostly coming off a hysterical high), happens to be left for the foster system yet again when her “parents” (if you call them that) are taken off by police back to the slammer.

 One of those softcore offerings shot on the very cheap, set in a very singular location, with only two rooms used for the sex scenes and only three in the cast alternating in duo fucks. It starts without Isis Love's Shannon, of the title, as a couple, Dino Bravo's Pete and Nadia Hilton's Kara, talk while in a funeral parlor. Eventually they cannot deny the lust and desire for each other. Eventually Shannon turns up, finding herself alone with both Pete and Kara, seemingly seducing them as much as they do her! It ends with the threesome together and Pete and Kara fucking themselves one final time.  Like most softcore, it really depends on if you find the cast attractive (you'd like to fuck them or be fucked by them) and how the characters in the film work out the sex scenes. I'd say the cast will be considered attractive enough but with such a limited cast, the film improbably pairs them over and over, seemingly during a night. That's a lot of fucking and no sho

So I did watch "King Nine Will Not Return", "The Man in the Bottle", "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" and "A Thing About Machines" during their live run Saturday, December 30, 2023. It was a rare deviation from watching the list of Syfy episodes as they were shown up until past Midnight after January 1st, 2024. I have fooled around with the idea of holding onto the Syfy episode list shown for the New Year's marathon and finishing it up this next weekend. It would be the first time I had recorded the entire Syfy episode marathon on the DVR (for YouTube TV) and watched a majority of it in order from start to finish if I decided to finish it this next weekend. I do admit that once the marathon is over it is like that excitement and nostalgic energy goes away. A little depression sets in actually. Since I was dealt with COVID during Christmas holidays, recovered and returned to myself, the Twilight Zone marathon was a big boost to my morale. S