Retro Video Store Find

With the cold weather creeping in, the other day I dug out my winter coat to dust it off and get it ready for winter. As I went through the pockets, I found a true artifact of a bygone era. I discovered a slightly tattered coupon for a "rent one, get one free" movie rental at Rogers Video, dated 2011. So ten years old! I think I had just folded this up and kept it in my pocket to use the blank back side to make notes (which I hadn't). 

I was a Rogers member back in the day and received email newsletters and coupons on a weekly basis. The coupons were printable, and that's what I had done in this case.

Anyway, I wonder how things would go down if I went into my local Rogers (now just cell phones and possibly home TV service), presented the coupon and asked where the rental movies were? And I wonder if some wacky collector would actually buy this coupon off me on Ebay...

New Additions to the Record Shelf

 A couple of records came in the mail this week, and I'm really pleased with both of them so far. First up, the debut album by that band out of Boston... Boston! Yes, that '76 rock classic that everyone knows inside and out. I've loved the album since I first heard it back in the late-ish 70's, I guess. Full disclosure... I knew and owned their second album before I ever got their first. That sophomore recording, Don't Look Back, happened to be the only Boston album in the record store at the time, and since it was prominently displayed, all colourful and beckoning... I grabbed that without a moment's pause. Terrific album, though it wasn't exactly packed to the rafters with hit songs like numero uno.

Back in the early 80's I bought myself the Boston debut on cassette tape and played that to death, which led to its upgrade to CD. I still have that trusty disc, which hasn't really seen much action in many years. I did, however, haul it out not long ago for a spin, and then it struck me that this recording deserved a place in my vinyl record collection. So after some internet searches through Ebay and Discogs (Amazon doesn't need any more of my money), I located a home-based seller asking a reasonable sum for his very nicely preserved copy. It's looks brand new to me, both the sleeve and vinyl in pristine condition, and it sounds fresh off the tree, too. Beautiful! Tom's guitars never sounded so expansive and powerful. One thing that stood out to me was how the volume of the vocals were just barely on par with the instruments in the mix. A touch lower in level and Brad's voice might have been lost amongst the drums, bass, keys, and guitar. But the sound is awesome. Such a timeless set of tunes, all rockin', yet loaded with melodies and harmonies that will never get old. So glad to finally have that on my record shelf... right beside Don't Look Back.

Secondly, I got something quite different. Again, very recently I felt ready to revisit some CDs I hadn't listened to in many years, and Neil Diamond was one of the artists I pulled off the shelf. I have a handful of his discs, a few studio albums (well, one is The Jazz Singer soundtrack) and a few nicely curated compilations. Back in the late 90's I think, and the early 2000's, I was really into vocalists, mostly older ones like Sinatra, Bennett, Matt Munroe, Julie London, and Engelbert Humperdinck. But I think I was even more into Diamond's near-rock style, showcasing catchy melodies and of course, his warm and expressive vocals. 

I remember seeing The Jazz Singer on vinyl at one or two record shows or flea markets in the past, but at the time, I wasn't in the mood for upgrading my Neil music. When I got to shopping online recently, a cool compilation of his early years jumped out at me... especially since it was available from the same Discogs seller who offered me that Boston record. I figured why not, this will at least get me listening to Neil again, both the hits I knew plus a few I didn't know. They are all originals, written by Diamond, and include biggies like Kentucky Woman, Cherry Cherry, Thank the Lord For the Night Time, I'm a Believer (which The Monkees made famous, too), and Shilo. I haven't spun this record yet, so I can't report on sound quality, but a visual check looks very good, as promised. I'll fire it up soon... can't wait!

Horror Movies So Far This October

Though my horror movie To Watch List was a bit unrefined as I started October, I haven't had much trouble finding something appropriate to watch whenever the opportunity arose. Between a decent handful of new additions to Netflix, plus a few on Youtube, and some more from my unwatched batch of DVDs and Blu-rays, I've fared just fine. Here are the scary (or at least atmospheric) flicks I've seen so far this month:

30 Days of Night - a very unique, cool and atmospheric vampire film set in Alaska during a full month without sunlight. Yes, that's bad news for the living human folk in little ol' Barrow. The vamps here are feral beasts!

Strange Invaders - an 80's shlock-fest, with weird rubber alien monsters and lots of bad acting. Watch at your own risk. You've been warned...

The Fog has that timeless 80's charm that makes this the horror classic that it is

The Fog - 2005 remake of the John Carpenter 80's classic... by Carpenter himself. Other than the obvious modernization, it follows the original fairly closely. Not bad, not great.

The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death - a pleasant surprise, this kind of lives up to the first one (the remake starring Harry Potter), though is still far from the excellence of the 80's original - one of the best ghost stories put to film.

The Fog - director Carpenter's 1980 ghostly gem still holds up today, with an all-star cast and it checks all the boxes on the horror movie Must Have List. Just do it.

Werewolves Within - an odd horror-comedy that didn't quite work for me. It's okay, starting off pretty well but veers off track and kinda loses me by the end. Not enough good werewolf stuff to fully satisfy.

The Wretched - sort of a spin on the Rear Window mystery classic, though this gets a bit more horrific. Serious suspense and some crazy creature effects help this along nicely.

Bay of Blood - finally! I finally saw this highly-regarded Italian film but... I wasn't impressed. Though I love a couple of director Bava's 60's horror classics, this early 70's proto-slasher just doesn't do it for me. It's more of a thriller with some violence and gore. It's okay, but it just didn't engage me, and gawd, what a crappy ending!

The Block Island Sound - a shoe-string budget didn't hamper this highly atmospheric tale of supernatural goings-on at an island fishing village. Keep an open mind and don't expect a bloody monster mash, and you just might love this. I sure did!

And...

This isn't a movie, but it's worth mentioning Midnight Mass, a limited series on Netflix which I'm sort of half-heartedly jumping in and out of between movies. There are things I really like about it, but the pacing is uneven, or maybe just slow as hell most of the time. Not a bad thing normally, but when I become impatient for something that seems relevant to the story, I consider giving up. However, there are truly creepy horror moments. Hang in there...

Books I've Read So Far in 2021

 It's been a fairly busy year for reading here. Though I had a spell where I didn't read anything for weeks (couldn't read, actually, due to eye surgery), when I got back to it, I really knuckled under to make up for lost time on my stack of books, both physical  and e-books.

Back in 2016, I started a book log, at first just noting the titles and authors of everything I read. Then I gradually developed a little system of flagging my favourites with tiny symbols beside the entries. The past two years, I've even been rating the books out of 5. The reason I even began this log was that I had set a goal of reading thirty books that year, and naturally, jotting down titles helped me to track my progress. That first year, I exceeded my goal by one book. I felt good about that, but found it a bit tougher to meet that same target the following year. I can't recall why that was, but I'd guess those were probably longer books or just plain heavier reading.

Then the following year, I was able to meet that magic number of thirty, beating it by one book yet again. But 2018 brought much lower output, due to both bigger books of slower reading and some false starts - books that I lost interest in and simply didn't finish... so I couldn't tick them off as completed in my log. The same thing happened in 2020, and I just had to accept the fact that a goal of twenty books was much more achievable than thirty. Gotta factor in my other interests, like a great deal of movie watching and review writing, record collecting and listening among them.

I think I should exceed twenty books read by the end of this calendar year, based on where I am now (completed sixteen). I'm currently getting into a creepy horror-mystery called Drood, by Dan Simmons. It's perfect for the Halloween season, and I'm enjoying it a lot.

This year, I took a bit of a deep dive into the fictional crime and legal thrillers of Toronto author Robert Rotenberg, snapping up all of his books and rapidly devouring them. With this kind of stuff, nobody's re-inventing the wheel, but it's the nuances of characters and attention to detail on the police and legal procedural side that makes these books stand out. Rotenberg is a more than capable writer, imbuing his characters with very relatable human flaws and strengths, and building a setting that allows the reader to be absorbed into his realistic world of law enforcement and detection. I'm a fan.

Here are the books I've read so far this year:

A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles - by far the best I've read in a long time. Rated 5/5

Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles - just about as excellent as the Gentleman novel above.  5/5

The Guilty Plea, Robert Rotenberg - second in his Ari Greene series. Canadian crime fiction!

Child of God, Cormack McCarthy -  good; not quite as engaging as McCarthy's Border Trilogy

Movie Freak, Owen Glieberman - non-fiction, a movie critic's life story, funny and revealing

Strangle Hold, Robert Rotenberg - third in the very likable Greene police detective series

Limelight: Rush in the 80's, Martin Popoff - book 2 in this expansive band biography trilogy

Life Itself, Roger Ebert - another movie critic's memoirs... the most famous of all, right? Great!

Stray Bullets, Robert Rotenberg - solid crime thriller in the continuing Greene adventures

Fall of Hyperion, Dan Simmons - sequel to modern sci-fi classic Hyperion; nearly as good

Heart of the City, Robert Rotenberg - an even better entry in the Greene cop-law series

The Rose Code, Kate Quinn - loosely based on real WWII code breakers, great fun

The Innocent, David Baldacci - solid thriller from this best-selling author

The Hit, David Baldacci - follow-up to The Innocent, not quite as effective but still good

Downfall, Robert Rotenberg - the formula works, so the author sticks to safe ground. Good.

Testimony, Scott Turow - well-written characters and unique story hooked me from start to finish

Drood, Dan Simmons - fictional horror-mystery tale of Charles Dickens (in progress)

Driven: Rush in the 90's and In The End, Martin Popoff - final instalment in the trilogy biography of Canadian rock music legends Rush (in progress)

Horror Movie Viewing This Halloween

It is once again that special time of year when the spooky and macabre come to the fore for movie fans... and even regular shmoes who still celebrate the Halloween season in one way or another. For me, the days of dress-up and parties are long past, but every single year I have my own traditions. To begin with, I watch a LOT of horror movies throughout October. I also plan for and hold my own little Halloween Eve movie screening. Armed with snacks and beverages, I hunker down for a scary-ish film or two.

This October, I will do the usual and absorb as many horror movies as possible, leading up to a special selection on the final night of the month. Though I have hundreds and hundreds (a bit over a thousand, I'd reckon) of videos on home media at my disposal, I do get stumped sometimes. It can be overwhelming staring at all my shelves full of DVDs and Blu-rays. What will I watch tonight? I mean, I don't own any (or very many, I should say) bad movies, so it's not as though I don't like the stuff I own. It's more like, I've seen pretty much all of these videos dozens of times, maybe more. Depending on the movie, I might need a few years or more to come back around to a burning need to re-view it. But if it's one of my absolute favourites, I might be game to watch it every year. And something relatively new that I might have only seen once or twice could easily merit a re-watch.

In late September I got a start on a movie viewing list for the month of Halloween. I have done this list thing for several years, and it does help me sort through my options. It's a brainstorming method, in a way. I just jot down ideas as they come to me, whether it's film titles, or sub-genres, or directors, actors, or eras. From there I can work from general ideas down to specifics. Are my choices in my collection, or on streaming services like Netflix, Youtube, or on Roku channels? I have often even bought a movie or two for the occasion. I very nearly did not do that this year, but last weekend, after deciding I should revisit The Fog (1980) by director John Carpenter (I last saw that back in the 80's, I think), I simply couldn't find it on any of the streaming services. And so I hunted down a very inexpensive DVD copy on Ebay (cheaper than a streaming rental). It's on the way.

My list so far isn't very big, nor is it even close to carved-in-stone. I'm working on it, and trying to get fresh ideas. Not long ago, I hauled out a case of loose (in plastic sleeves instead of clamshell cases) DVDs and Blu-rays a friend gave me a year or two ago, and discovered a handful of flicks that I either have never seen or hadn't seen in a long, long time. One of those is Strange Invaders from 1983. I'll give that a go soon.

Also in that bunch are The Blob (1958), one or two of Hammer Studios' Mummy series, something called Flesh and Blood, again by Hammer, The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, and Scanners.

And on my shelves, there are a few Blu-rays a friend gave me a while back. These are upgrades from the old DVDs I previously owned, but I feel like I could check them out again in newly remastered form. These are Island of Lost Souls, Island of Terror, The Man Who Fell to Earth (technically sci-fi, but I can accept that in the overall fantastical film category), Midnight Special, and the 80's vampire classic Salem's Lot.

I might also re-watch Predators and a couple of the Alien vs Predator movies, which I found for low, low prices a few years ago. Yes, they are shlocky, but the cool creatures are worth the discomfort of terrible acting and flawed stories. Or are they?

Then there are some recommendations I've noted from online movie reviewers, like Candy Corn, The Innkeepers, Killer Crocodile, Great White, and a couple of 70's made-for-TV thrillers I think are on Youtube, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and Don't Go To Sleep. I might have even seen those last two back when I was a kid. No recollection, though.

And after slaving over Google and Roku, I realized there was no free streaming of the Alaska-set vampire tale, 30 Days of Night.... so the next best thing was a sale-priced rental on the Cineplex Store. Good enough. I may pop that on this evening, in fact.

Happy Horror-tober!