on Hannibal (the series)

Hannibal is a television program made by Bryan "Pushing Daisies" Fuller.  I like Bryan Fuller.  He always seems sweet.  I like to imagine us as kindred spirits since we both wear big glasses and have trouble maintaining our figures.  He wrote for Star Trek - I was an dayplayer on Star Trek.  I once saw him at a Friday the 13th screening at the Vista and he was actually friends with Adrienne King.  They sat together and everything! Classy.

Bryan Fuller has a high-end antique/interiors shop here in Los Angeles.  Accordingly, even though I normally abhor procedural dramas, Hannibal (the series, not the 2001 film) is a sensory feast. The interiors are so lush and the camera work is so intricate I that I forget I'm watching a procedural.  I fall into a deep reverie every time Hannibal drinks from a perfectly lit and polished wine glass.  My mind wanders and I find myself wondering how I can retreat all the surfaces in my apartment in shades of matte grey and blood red.   That's really all I ask of any program.  Unlike the other noted homosexual show-runner, Ryan "friend of Julia Roberts" Murphy, Mr Fuller's programs are whimsical and consummately plotted.  Hannibal is no exception.

I had bronchitis last week so I watched the entire first series of Hannibal (British people call seasons "series").  I've never had more lucid fever dreams.  Maybe it was the codeine, maybe I'm just getting old, but I found this series genuinely frightening.  Exorcist 3 frightening.

Mads Mikkelson plays Hannibal Lecter.  He has great hair and creates an imposing silhouette.  I can't understand a word he's saying most of the time.  This is not necessarily a criticism.

Gillian Anderson play's Dr Lecter's therapist.  She's got secrets - notably, her dermatologist.  She's never looked better.

Hugh Dancy.  He left Claire Danes all alone with their baby to run around Canada filming this show that takes every opportunity to fetishize his flawless bone structure and perfect skin.  Thank God!  I wonder what he eats.  In every picture of Hugh and Claire, she's always clutching onto him and he's always looking off in the distance at something else.  I bet he's a good drunk.

Watching Hannibal, reminded me just how "queer" the whole Thomas Harris franchise is.  It's like Anne Rice without the vampires.  Focusing Hannibal's mania on a pouty, delicate Brit only accentuates the homoeroticism.  Good job, NBC - you finally made a gay show.

As this is a Bryan Fuller series, all our friends show up for cameos.  Ellen Greene.  Raul Esparaza.  Vada Sultenfuss.  I can't wait to see Kristin Chenoweth show up as Clarice Starling's concerned, musically inclined sister in season four!

movie night!

This month is crazy. Every year it seems like the festivities around Halloween start earlier and earlier and become more and more elaborate.  We've a week to go, I'm already burnt out!  There's nothing I want more than to call in sick, close the blinds and have myself an old fashioned Halloween Movie Marathon.

I don't know about you, but even the concept of having to rifle through my DVD collection is too much lately.  Who has the energy for such things in this new Millennium?  Thanks to WiFi,  there's a whole slew of instant-streaming, "Super-HD" movies at our fingertips and we don't even have to get up off the floor.

Menu:

No party, however intimate, is complete without a good spread.  I like a lot of dips, so I'm going to start with this recipe, which is basically just refried beans covered in cheese and microwaved in a Halloween themed cereal bowl.  That's probably enough cooking for today.  Should we get hungry later, we can always dip into one of our candy pails  (Note: if you're a grown-ass man, you should always have pails full of candy all over the house for guests or the occasional late night indulgence).

The Entertainment:

Let's start nice and easy.  Every now and then I kind of like to do things nice and easy.

Troll 2

Pumpkinhead

Pumpkinhead is what netflix was made for - discovery.  I never saw this movie until last week.  There's a spooky, evil witch in it and a little redneck boy who looks and behaves like Jonathan Lipnicki.  How can you resist it?

Hellbent

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark

At this point, we should probably order a couple thin-crust pizzas and coke zeros from Dominos.  Before you roll your eyes, you should know that I have NO tolerance for gays who don't eat.  Food is delicious.  Yes, I would like to add that order of chocolate filled grease cake, thank you very much!

While enjoying your pizza feast, take an opportunity to check in with yourself - or you can nap, it's up to you.  There are no rules to Halloween Movie Marathon Day.  Also, don't be afraid of a signature cocktail.  Try mixing a teaspoon of vanilla bean sugar with a cap of ginger syrup - swish it around and then top of your glass with champagne.  Let's call it Witches Brew!

I always like to put something on while dining/napping.  Black Sunday is, far and away, the best background movie ever, the stuff that Halloween dreams are made of.

You're thinking by now that there's one thing and that's that we never ever do anything nice and easy. So, we're gonna do the next few hours nice and rough.  This is the way we do Halloween Movie Marathon Night.

Hellraiser 2

I haven't really spoken of Clive Barker and I don't know why.  Clive was openly gay WAY before that was a thing.  In an era where queer was still equated to mincing about on a sitcom or as the onscreen best friend to Julia Roberts, Clive was pushing the boundaries of horror for the masses. Hellraiser was ahead.  Nothing made you a harder bitch at elementary school recess than pretending to have seen a Pinhead movie.  Even the poster for Hellraiser 2 terrified me as a kid.  As an adult, the movie's fun, even if it suffers from sequel-itis at every turn.  It's got a mute child in an insane asylum (surely a holdover from the Dream Warriors), a demonic mattress, a mad scientist, bountiful shoulder pads, jenga, lots of ADR - portions of the movie even take place in the astral plain.  Somebody call Julie Taymor, because I think a reboot may be in order!

Hausu

You can stream Hausu on Hulu, it's not on Netflix; but, honestly, you should already own the Criterion Blu Ray.  Catch up, everybody, we're heading to the home stretch!

Halloween 6: Curse of Michael Meyers

This is the one with Paul Rudd and the mom from Better Off Dead in it.  It doesn't make a lick of sense, but it comes from 1995 and I'm a sucker for plaid shirts and shoulder length hair.  Plus, its denouement takes place in one of the Jurassic Park testing facilities.  I'm easy.

The Turning Point

Whew!  We did it.  That was sure fun.  Thanks for stopping by.  We had some laughs and I think we learned a lot too.  Please take the leftover pumpkin pecan pie with you!  I need to apply my night cream and go to sleep.  Halloween Movie Marthon Day is exhausting.  We'll definitely do this again next year.  Xoxo Jeffrey

I'll drink to that.

Normally I take anything that Nikki Finke says with a grain of salt.  I can't get past the image of her eating a full box of Entenmann's powdered donuts alone with her cats with smug self-appreciation smeared across her mottled face - certain that she's done us all a service by talking shit about Renee Zellweger...

But today, I tip my hat to Nikki for letting me know that A Nightmare on Elm Street has been named one of the Independent Film&Television Alliance's 30 Most Significant Independent Films.

I approve.

(via Mike Fleming @DeadlineNewYork)

Tasha Yar is a terrible mother.

"He probably went out for a hamburger or a chicken dinner...you know how men are when they're alone."

Since the ancient Greeks wrote about Medea, it has been a well chronicled fact that actresses are monsters*. We all know Gwenyth Paltrow is a bloody nightmare, but did you know that even lesser known, D-list actresses can fall prey to the trappings of stardom? Take, for instance, Tasha Yar

Tasha Yar was on a hit television series in national syndication. She was paid handsomely to wear custom-made costumes and to work tête-à-tête with some of the greatest living actors of a generation. But this wasn't enough for Tasha Yar. In her fevered actress mind, she decided that she was better than the hit-series with banker’s hours in a set location that nearly made her a household name. 

So Tasha packed up her two kids and her doctor husband and moved to a country house, Pet Sematary (1989) adjacent.

Ever the narcissist, Tasha commissioned a documentary crew to follow her and her dippy husband around as they acclimated to life in rural Maine. Much like Paula Abdul and her reality show, Hey Paula!, Tasha had no idea that the finished product would be a vitriolic exposé of a woman gone mad.

Watching Pet Sematary, we learn that Tasha Yar once had a sister with spinal meningitis who she let starve to death. We see firsthand her complete lack of mothering skills, as she rarely ever looks at her children, let alone feed them their Eggos. 

Her family may be falling apart, but heaven forbid she wear the same outfit twice. Despite having worked her maid to death, Tasha's still too preoccupied with organizing her collection of skorts to stop her baby son from running into traffic... and you thought Cybill Shepherd was a nightmare!

The years of having to deal with Tasha's ego, coupled with the death of their only son, sends her husband into a tailspin. He can't take it anymore. He's having a nervous breakdown. He tries to seek counsel from former TV-star, Fred Gwynne - who just so happens to be their next door neighbor. 

Fred had been through the Hollywood mill with his series, The Munsters, and Tasha's husband thought he could help put things in perspective. No such luck. There are no happy endings when you're married to an actress - just botox and personal trainers and life coaches and half-empty spray bottles of  I Can't Believe It's Not Butter all over the bathroom.

Pet Sematary is groundbreaking in that its principal performers are completely unconcerned with acting or line delivery or putting any energy whatsoever into the proceedings. Nonetheless, there are valuable lessons to be learned:

1. Do not quit a series in its first season because you'll just wind up begging them to have you back and wind up acting as producer on a series of fair to middling documentaries.
2. Do not bury your dead children in spoiled ground.
3. Do not marry an actress unless you want a world of heartache in the years ahead.

*(The exception to this rule being Miss Sandra Bullock who is a lovely person and can do no wrong.)

...when suddenly, last summer...

"I'm used to her folderol."

Gwenyth Paltrow has never been a real girl’s girl, but it was especially hard to be around Gwyneth Paltrow in the late 1990s. She was battling an eating disorder that left her hair patchy and her skin perpetually grey, but far be it she should listen to a nutritionist.  Gwenyth’s gonna do what Gwenyth’s gonna do. Did you even know that her godfather is Steven Speilberg? 

 As far as finding love, she'd be the first to tell you that nothing ever seemed to work in her favor.  Men and women were thrown by her vocal fry and abrasive sense of entitlement. Gwyneth was an affront to everything glamorous, everything that being a movie star once represented. It should come as no surprise that Jessica Lange wanted her dead.

Some of you may not know that Jessica Lange has a full grown son named Jonathan Schaech.  It's true. Jonathan had been dating Gwyneth for some time when he decided to bring her to Jessica's expansive horse ranch down south for Christmas.  What a mistake that was!  Shocking to no onw, Ginny was nothing but rude - never once complimenting Jessica on her delicate lace curtains or her stable of show horses.  

Gwyneth cannot function without being the center of attention.  She even insisted that her boyfriend escort her back to Manhattan and leave his poor lonely mother so she could go to a party with Debbi Mazar (where she proceeded to throw up on the other guests).  Heartless.

This was around the time Gwyneth was going through her Wall Street phase.  She made Jonathan buy an overpriced,  abandoned, "artist’s loft" apartment. She was wearing lots of oversized white t-shirts and playing with different wigs.  Once the phase had passed, she abandoned her expensive loft - leaving Jonathan with the rent, and took over Jessica's mortgage with intent to flip the gothic southern mansion that had been in the Lange family for generations for a quick profit.  

What kind of girl gets between a man and his mother?  What kind of girl can spend a summer with Jessica Lange and not ask her about filming Tootsie?!  Money really can’t buy you class.

The documentary (we can tell it's a documentary because the camera is never in focus) Hush explores boundaries.  How long can a woman be pushed around by a petulant Hollywood brat hell bent on destroying her empire and her relationship with her only living heir before she finally has to fight back?

It's not like Jessica didn't give Ginny a fair shot.  Gwyneth never did anything nice for anyone in her time down south.  She never kissed Jonathan, implying that having sex was her doing him a big favor.  She never paid for dinner or offer to clean the stables. Complain, complain, complain.  That's all Gwyneth ever did, until Jessica could take no more. You can't pull these tricks on Miss Jessica Lange.  She invented the tricks!  

We all know Jessica has a flair for the theatrical and, soon enough, she starts leaving cheesecakes in Gwyneth's bathroom.  Nothing is funnier than leaving baked goods out for an anorexic starlet! But, despite her callow appearance, our Ginny’s no fool; seeing that she’s losing ground to an elder, she pretends to be pregnant to garner sympathy, concocting stories of Jessica hiring armored thugs to take her out!  

Jessica isn't about to let Gwyneth win another round, and that's when the fun really starts.  May the best woman win (I'll give you a hint: one had to leave the country and stopped working for 12years)!

We had an earthquake last night.  I felt just like Regan MacNeil, only there was no one to jump on top of me to make the bed stop shaking.  Then, this morning I popped over to my mailbox to discover the most miraculous thing inside: a copy of Hush (1998).  If you've wished for a mash up of Monster In Law and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, look no further.  Dreams really can come true!