How I was Screwed by a Raisin

I've always been a pretty big Claymation fan. Gumby and Pokey, the Noid, Wallace and Gromit. But back in 1988 it was all about the California Raisins. I loved those soulful little hunks of clay so much. I had all the figures, the calendar, the Christmas album. When I saw an advertisement in the back of a TV Guide for a chance to win a trip to California-just for coming up with a name for one of the raisins, I was totally on board. I spent the next few days struggling to come up with a name suitable for one of these tiny purple heroes of mine. Inspiration finally struck in the form of a delicious pun. Raisin Charles! It was genius! I filled out the needed paper work and popped it in the mail. Months later I was watching television. Either Entertainment Tonight, PM Magazine or some such show. They did a story on how Ray Charles was doing an ad with the California Raisins. Surely this meant I had won! You had to send an additional letter requesting a list of the winners of the contest, which as far as I was concerned was merely perfunctory. It was sealed up. I spoke and Hollywood had listened. My bags were packed. Hollywood here I come! The letter announcing the grand prize winner and runners up finally arrived. Some jerk, from some other state, with some lame-ass non-clever pun name had won. Raisin Charles didn't even get a runner up T-shirt prize. I was pissed. What kind of heartless S.O.B. steals a 13 year old kid's idea and fails to reward him with a trip to California? Needless to say, I have not eaten a raisin since. I pick them out of salads, lick the chocolate off of Raisinets and throw away their traitorous insides. I even skip grapes, knowing what they are so close to becoming. I refused to go see the Taylor Hackford bio-pic of Ray Charles, the pain still being too much to take. It has also made me distrustful of all claymation. I have always done my best to avoid the Noid, but Gumby? My therapist suggests playing with Play-doh for 1 to 2 hours a day. It's a slow recovery, but I'm making it. Each day is a challenge. One day I will be a whole person again.

Videos from the VHS Vault: Sci-Fi Edition

Fantagraphics has a new book out called Portable Grindhouse: The Lost Art of the VHS Box. It a pretty nice collection of box covers of various VHS releases. Most of them are exploitation movies, a few are weird educational videos. And Network is included, which is pretty far removed from what I consider to be "Grindhouse." Anyhoo, it inspired me to dig into my VHS collection. Here are a few scans of some of the Sci-Fi gems.

Restaurant Review: Dale's Donut Factory

On a recent vacation to the wifey's home town, we decided to dine out at the local donut shoppe. Located in the beautiful lakeside town of St. Joseph, Dale's Donut Factory offers an excellent dining experience for those looking for a break from the plasticized corporate donut chain. They start by serving their coffee not in a plastic or styrofoam cup, but the way the good Lord wanted it-in a ceramic mug. And a plain white mug, not a flashy mug with their logo emblazoned all over it. The wait staff was incredibly friendly and eager to help out an out-of-towner like myself. I ordered a single blueberry donut and a coffee. The donut was wonderful. Little blueberry flecks made for an excellent fruity flavor explosion. The coffee was a delight as well. Although we are well into iced coffee season, the rainy weather outside made for some fine hot coffee drinking. My one complaint was a minor one. A large television is mounted in the corner of the restaurant. I love watching FOX news as much as any other American, but as my mother always says "if you want to kill a party- turn on the T.V." I suppose one could simply take a seat facing away from the offending screen, but if a party of three or more were to dine there some would be forced to face the television. The volume was not on and like I said, it was a minor complaint. All in all Dale's Donut Factory is an excellent place for grabbing a quick bite by yourself or hosting a corporate dinner. A+++

Address:3687 S. Lakeshore Drive, St. Joseph, MI
Price Range: $$
Cuisine: South Michigan Donut

What a Crappy Wyatt Earp!

There are a good number of movies I have seen more than once. There are also a good number of movies I have seen upwards of ten times or more. I'm always happy to find something new in a movie I have seen several times- a subtle joke, a reference to something I didn't know about during previous viewings. For example National Lampoon's Vacation is a much loved picture I have re-watched countless times through the years. From when my dad first rented it back when it was new to video in the 80's to the constant TV screenings, it is a movie I have seen in whole or in sections a good deal. I even read the John Hughes short story Vacation '58 on which the movie is based. So imagine my surprise when on the gajillionth viewing of this Harold Ramis classic that I noticed something I'd never caught before. It comes about 6 minutes into the film, before the Griswalds leave Illinois for Wally World. Clark (Chevy Chase) and Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) are in the kitchen doing the dishes after supper. They discuss the trip, Ellen expresses an interest in perhaps flying instead of driving. It is a quiet domestic scene. Very normal. Not terribly funny. Until you notice what is happening with the dishes. Ellen is scraping the food off of the plates and handing them to Clark, who dries them and puts them back in the cupboard. The first time I noticed it, I had to rewind and watch again. It is now one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

The same thing happened with a little picture by this obscure filmmaker named George Lucas. He made one of my favorite childhood movies, Return of the Jedi. In one of the scenes towards the end, when Han Solo and Leia are attempting to shut down the deflector shields on Endor, Leia gets shot in the arm. And dang if Han doesn't cop a feel. He first grabs her shoulder, in a comforting manner, then drops it on to a royal booby. I was shocked when I first saw this. Not because it was out of character, but because somehow in this film I'd seen so many times it had slipped by me. And because George hadn't gone back and digitally altered it, perhaps make Han brush some weird Endorian critter of Leia's battle blouse. He let Han be a bit of the sleazy guy he always was.

Now I wonder what other things I've missed. Will I have to watch Ernest Goes to Camp a few more times to pick up all it's subtleties? Because I am totally willing to.



Post Script: While researching this, I came across this photo. Seems there is some serious hanky panky going on in the Star Wars universe. If the Millenium Falcon's a rocking, don't come a knocking-am I right fellas?

2009- The Year Wasted in the Dark.

The dreaded year 2009 A.D. has finally come to an end and with it comes the banal year end lists of cinema treasures . There were certainly better years, there were also worse years. There were laughs and tears, farts and Transformers. And a little woman named Precious taught us all how to love again.


Without further ado, here is my list of the good times I had in a movie theater this year.

1.Sin Nombre- A fun train journey through the insane gangs of Mexico gave me more ideas for facial tattoos than any other movie this year.
2. Moon/ District 9/ Star Trek/ Avatar- It was a banner year for sci-fi flicks. From the relatively low budget joys of Moon and District 9 to the not so low budget pageantry of Star Trek and Avatar.
3. House of the Devil/ Trick 'r Treat- Horror movies on the other hand weren't so great. Remakes and sequels (and sequels to remakes) continued to ooze on to the big screen while genuine great movies like these two gems were left to find homes on DVD and Video on Demand after very limited theatrical screenings.
4. Fantastic Mr. Fox/ Coraline- Two sweet movies with two totally different approaches to stop motion animation. Coraline was a highly polished 3-D extravaganza while Mr Fox let it's raggedy hand made roots show through.
5. Treevenge- With out a doubt the absolute best Canadian made killer Christmas tree short film ever made.
6. Worlds Greatest Dad- Bobcat Goldthwait's movie Shakes the Clown was widely considered to be the Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies. Surely this must be the Gone with the Wind of auto-erotic asphyxiation movies?
7. Inglourious Basterds- Hitler totally got his ass handed to him! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
8. Antichrist- The Chaos Reigns section of this movie was easily the most joyous moment I had at the movies this year (and the second example of talking foxes on this list. I smell a potential double feature!)
9. G-Force- If this had only had a hard R rating it would be my favorite movie of the decade. Instead they went the easy way and made it for kids. Hey Hollywood, some guinea pig love scenes and ultra violence would be appreciated in the sequel.
10. Hurt Locker- Kathryn Bigelow finally makes a movie to rival her classic Point Break (RIP, Mr Swayze.)


Honorable Mentions: Up, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, I Think We're Alone Now, Big Fan, Zombieland, Observe and Report, Morris County, Public Enemies, Drag Me to Hell