Drag Me To Hell….Please…

Originally, I intended on my next unseen blog here to  take on the proposed (by some) federal bailout of college loan money. The unfinished piece is sitting on my Jornada, where I wrote it earlier while swilling down cheap beer and smoking Smokin Joe’s, a $20.99 a carton brand of cigarettes.

I thought, hey, take a break. I just finished through a not-so-rough draft of a paper on the geographical aspects that has made New York City the city it is, and I nailed down a good portion for some unread blogging site. Make a pizza, sit back, watch one of them downloaded bootlegs I never get to watch…

Sam Rami will never again be a second-rated director. He has paid his dues and, well even his dues are pretty spectacular, if weighed against such factors as budget allowance, technical shortage, and actors that should have tried out for one more play back there in high school. He did what he had to do and he showed those who needed to be shown that he knows what needs to be known behind the camera.

I love the Webhead. Under the constraints of Hollywood and their bastardization of whatever literary icons they can sink their fangs into (yes, I called comic books literature), Rami did the best he could, better than that other guy – the one who got fat though he himself didn’t do too shabby a job either.

Despite Rami’s slouch in producing works, I will never not see one of his films. That’s what I thought, anyway…

I was hyped that Rami was tickling his fingers in the horror genre again. He’s making good money off the Web-Slinger, so it isn’t as though he is desperate for work but, still, he’s going at it. He wants to get back in it.

Unfortunately, it seems he tripped on his way onto the porch.

Yeah, fine, downloading bootleg copies of films is no way to show appreciation for actors and directors and all the rest who get paid so much more money than I will ever see to put together an hour and a half of film. It’s wrong. Totally wrong. I’m a bastard.

Maybe it was the guilt that let Drag Me to Hell set a week on my hard drive before I attempted watching the movie. Or maybe I am just more conscientious of my time these days…

I only got through the first twenty-seven minutes of the movie. Maybe I will watch the rest sometime but, tonight, when I was hoping for something more, I had to turn off the media player.

Wikipedia gives a good break-down of the plot, so go there if you want story analysis. Gypsy woman lays down a curse, regular folk deal. Not anything breathtakingly new. Hell, Stephen King’s Thinner went the same road, and it had pie.

And I love Justin Long. Excuse me for that, but he has a long history in film ahead of him, granting he stays away from more excursions like this. He has a nice guy yet sarcastic bastard bite on him, which will win out for roles that don’t involve sterioded pecs or unabashed stupidity. And, maybe, in the few minutes I seen of the film, I already guessed his spot was under-rated. Despite his talents, his moments on-screen were limited due to the role he was playing, that of the supportive boyfriend who is a doubter.

Alison Lohman is what did it for me, what forced me to move away from the computer screen. Alison is not a screen virgin – she has quite a number of respectable roles under her belt – but this movie makes her out as some airheaded twat at Crystal Lake. She plays no moment with any real conviction and is as vapid as most paper bags, right before you slap them and make them go bang. Yet she is the film’s focus, the one who is bringing home the suspense, the mental horror we are to receive.

Sorry, can’t buy into it. Hell, Robyn Tunney had more conviction in The Craft. And I know Rami’s heart is in the right place, but the movie doesn’t get past that shallow weakness of Lohman’s performance, bringing us nothing but another entry in the I Know What You Did Last Summer category of underacted and thrill-less horror movies of our generation.

And this is cause for alarm. None of the actors are particularily weak, if you look at their previous work. But here, the shallowness is drowning the audience. Why? (perhaps I oughtta watch the rest of the friggin’ movie to find out?) Is it the lack of focus on character development that is part of the driving force behind psychological horror? Is it the mis-matching of actors to roles that do not allow their talents reign? Is it that we, as a horror audience, are too jaded to have the patience to suspend our disbelief and watch actors underact?

I don’t know. You tell me. The movie did well enough on its first weekend out, but fell dramatically by its second weekend. Rami is onto a fourth Spiderman in 2010; was he just busting something out to fill up some time? The story was co-written by his brother; does that have anything to do with it hitting the screen without much gusto? Is there any reason to look forward to the possibility of an Evil Dead IV, as Rami says he’s hoping to do, if DMtH is any indication of what he might be bringing us?

What opinions are out there? What can you say to lead me to devling deeper into this film? Anything?

…and they say the hookers in Thailand will kill ya!

This is one of those Hollywood mysteries that is going to build and build until actual proof is handed out, but David Carradine – what so many others are writing about everywhere – has passed on, leaving behind a flurry of rumors and puzzlement.

Without going into the details that anyone can read about anywhere at this moment, or rehashing the career of one of this century’s (meaning the past fifty-some years, not just since 2000) finest actors, David Carradine was 72 years old and has been a Hollywood Icon since the Seventies. He was found in his hotel room in Bangkok, dead, with ropes around his neck and genitals. Some reports say his hands were also ties behind his back.

He was in Bangkok to film a new movie.

Rumors are already abound that it was suicide, that is was murder, that is was auto-erotic asphyxiation. At this time, details of an autopsy have not been released.

I heard about this this morning, waking up early and routinely checking my email to see if school’s received my tuition money so I could start planning on spending… My first thought was auto-erotic asphyxiation, just like that guy who used to sing for INXS, before he died… That’s a pretty quick judgment call (not that I was the only one jumping to that conclusion…), but it also made the most sense – on the information and evidence given out.

I find it hard to believe that this man, although 72 years old and having lived through times any of us would know nothing about (I’m not saying that he had it harder than anyone else, but certainly not one of us could ever know what his life was like, for him),  who was enjoying a revitalization of his movie career and popularity, who had a beautiful wife and an extended family – I don’t picture this man to have killed himself. Not intentionally.

And it isn’t my place to pass judgment on someone playing with auto-erotic asphyxiation. Hell, most days, my shoes come untied three or four times a day.  And experimenting with a new way to get off may sound like a good idea, especially when far from home, with a few too many beers in ya (the film crew he was with reported Mr. Carradine had been drinking all day… I miss those kind of days…), and the hookers of the city are reported to be dirtier than the Port-a-Potties on I-95. Yeah, it seems like a good idea to take things in one’s own hands, so to speak…

I’ve never tried this thing, having rope around my neck while I move to orgasm. Hell, I don’t like to even have my belly button poked. But it does catch interest, and it is an endeavor where timing is essential. I am not going to fault someone for finding ways to get off pleasurably.

Still…

The verdict is still out on this, even as the Thai police are wrapping it up as “accident by mis-adventure.” Of course, his friends and family are not going to be happy about releasing a statement saying he died while choking more than his chicken, but I think the pursuit of a murder investigation may only be something to avoid such a dismaying verdict.

Was his hands tied behind his back? There has been reports that the family was informed so, but were they tied behind his back by another person, or by himself (which would be weird, how would you… you know, with your hands tied?). But the police also report that there is no evidence that anyone else was in the room with Carradine and video surveillance does not show anyone suspicious going in or out of his room (the hotel, in general, or particularily his room?).

And what motive would there be for murder? All the way over in Bangkok? Yeah, a greedy hooker might think she might get a few extra hundred from him dead than alive, but other than that scenario, it seems a ways to go to murder someone for any other reason.

Of course, we are talking about Asian police here. I’m sorry, that doesn’t completely put my mind at ease.  While they are sure that the world’s eye is on them in this matter, I don’t put much stock in their CSI’ing their way through this. Considering what they have a history of doing to their own people, my faith just don’t rest too strongly in a police force where torture is still an accepted practice (wait…that don’t do on here??)

My opinion is that is a mishap with auto-erotic asphyxiation experimentation. And, no matter what stigma would seem presumed to such, that does not lessen the man or his talents or the legacy he leaves behind. I do hope there is closure on this, but I hope that any closure does not scar the memory of a great actor who never really received his full merit.