Spooky Cartoons 3/4

My personal favorite, "Trick or Treat" from 1954

Spooky Cartoons 2/4

"The Skeleton Dance" from 1929.  The first Silly Symphony cartoon.

Halloween Playlist

Halloween is my favorite holiday, easy.  I love the costumes, the candy, the movies (Ed Wood, old-skool Tim Burton before he sold out and became dumb, Elvira, the Addams Family, the whole campy lot)  The halloween parties I threw in college are still talked about, and this year's party will mark a whole decade of my annual bash.  This year Ian and I are going as the Maitlands.  Not only is it an awesome couples costume, which I've been bugging him to do for years, but it fulfills my lifelong dream of being Geena Davis.



Not Pictured: Me Marrying Jeff Goldblum


I hate going to club Halloween parties and hearing them play whatever crap is on their ipod.  I can dance to "Bad Romance" any day of the year (not that I would).  We only get to hear "The Monster Mash" once time a year, and I want to hear it at least six times, followed by "Dead Man's Party" and then back to "the Monster Mash".

For those readers who are throwing their own parties, here's the official Record of the Month Club Halloween Playlist, compiled over ten successful party years. Spin these and your party is guarenteed to howl.

-"Bump in the Night" A-Teens (yes, it's from Scooby Doo 2--but it is consistantly the most requested song at my parties)
-"Dead Man's Party" Oingo Boingo
-"Monster Mash" Crypt Kicker Five
-"Hell" Squirrel Nut Zippers
-"Hayride to Hell" The Fontanelles (on the Hobgoblins soundtrack--hard to find, but if you're interested, shoot me an email and I can show you where to get a copy)
-"Monster Rap" Elvira
-"The Addams Tango" (because where else are you going to see Indiana Jones tangoing with The Joker?)
-"Zombie Stomp" Elvira
-"Weird Science" Oingo Boingo
-"Boogie Man" White Zombie
-"Haunted House" Ray Stevens (my dad's favorite)
-"Moondance" Michael Buble (more dancible than the original--for the couples)
-"The Time Warp" Rocky Horror Picture Show (even the people who don't dance will dance to this.  That being said, I hate the Rocky Horror Picture Show and always have.  Kevin Murphy agrees with me on this.)
-"Thriller" Michael Jackson (for years I had a "no Thriller" policy, but my friend Seema finally convinced me to include it, and it's stayed ever since.  Still not one of my favorites)
-"Remains of the Day" Danny Elfman (from The Corpse Bride.  Damn it, I love Danny Elfman)
-"Devil in My Car" B-52's
-"Feed My Frankenstein" Alice Cooper
-"Little Demon" Screamin' Jay Hawkins
-"The Ghost in You" Siouxsie and the Banshees (again, for the couples--there's something sincere and sweet about seeing couples in costume slow dance, and it gives everyone else a chance to get a drink and see if there are any fun-sized Snickers left)
-"Every Day is Halloween" Ministry (I like to play this at the end of a party--it's a nice reminder to come back next year)
-"Halloween" The Dead Kennedys
-"Living Dead Girl" White Zombie
-"Cemetary Polka" Tom Waits
-"Halloween" The Misfits (mosh pit!!!!)
-"Ghostbusters" Ray Parker Jr. (not Jack Black)



-"Bad Devil" Devon Townsend (This was played at the 2006 party only)
-"Pet Cemetary" The Ramones
-"Poor Skeleton Steps Out" XTC (not a dance song, but still fun)
-"The Ghosts that Haunt Me" Crash Test Dummies (very chill--good for when people are coming in)
-"Cretin Hop" the Ramones
-"Halloween" Siouxsie and the Banshees
-"Red Right Hand" Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
-"Whistlin' Past the Graveyard" Tom Waits
-"Don't Fear the Reaper" Blue Oyster Cult
-"Werewolves of London" Warren Zevon
-"Who's That Creepin'" Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
-"All My Friends are Zombies" The Pricillas
-"Party at the Leper Colony" Weird Al
-"When You're Evil" Voltaire
-"Black Magic Woman" Santana
-"Boris the Spider" The Who
-"Beetlejuice theme" Danny Elfman
-"Riding on the Wings of Steam (remix)" Chris Vrenna (from American McGee's Alice)
-"Gremlins theme" Jerry Goldsmith (I can't explain it, but every time this came, partygoers start hopping up and down.)
-"Phantom of the Opera" Nightwish
-"Bela Lugosi's Dead" Bauhaus
-"Nature Trail to Hell" Weird Al
-"The X-Files Theme"
-"Masqurade" Phantom of the Opera
-"This is Halloween" The Nightmare Before Christmas
-"Requiem" Mozart
-"I Put a Spell on You" Screamin' Jay Hawkins
-"Dead Man's Party" Hillbilly Hellcats
-"Mean Green Mother from Outer Space" Levi Stubbs (from Little Shop of Horrors)
-"Eye of the Zombie" John Fogerty
-"Zombie Zoo," Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
-"No One Lives Forever" Oingo Boingo
-"Surfin' Dead" The Cramps
 
(The following pair have to be ripped from the videos themselves--they're almost impossible to find otherwise, but well worth the effort)

-"Transylvania 6-500" The Creature with the Atomic Brain


-"Squeezit The Moocher" The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo
 (From Forbidden Zone)

October Feature: Spooky Cartoons

Part 1 of 4 in a new Boys on Film feature--spooky cartoons to celebrate Halloween  This week, "Lonesome Ghosts" (1937)

Where Have All The Grown-Up Movies Gone?

Watched True Lies the other night with Ian and I got thinking about how there really don't seem to be date movies for grown-ups anymore.  You know, the kind mom and dad left you home with a babysitter or made you go to bed while they watched in the living room.  Some action for the men, some kissy stuff for the ladies, and enough humor to make it enjoyable for everyone.

When was the last time one of those came out?

Movies for people who pay their bills and have jobs and don't live with their parents fall into two catagories: Adult-alescent action movies (i.e. anything starring Jason Statham) and chick flicks.  Girls get dragged to watch some skank like Megan Fox or Olivia Wilde tongue a dude in some vague application of "love story" and guys have to see some emasuculated toad like Ryan Gosling play video games (but then be forced into giving them up for the woman he loves)  in some vague application of masculinity.  And let's not forget some laughs from the writers/producers/caterers of Insert Judd Apatow-Type Movie Here.  Girls poop in a high clas department store!  Steve Carell is encouraged to date-rape a drunk girl!  Oh for fun!

What happened to movies for grown-up couples?  Not 35 year old adolescents playing Xbox and farting on each other and miserable housewives fantasizing that Pierce Brosnan and Hugh Grant would fight over them while singing?  And when did we, as women, start embracing the concept that we could be gross too?  What would Arlene Dahl say?

Also, sexy scenes.  Where did those go?  The striptease in True Lies is far sexier than anything Hollywood could soft-focus today.  It's a little raw and a lot clumsy and kind of romantic, which keeps it being as exploitive as a lot of similar scenes feel.  It's not Showgirls.  Jamie Lee Curtis is awkward, and that's what makes it feel real . . . and real is sexy.

The Library Book Project

For those of you who weren't helping me haul boxes on Sunday (thanks Eeon, Mike and Tim!), I moved (again) to a little two-bedroom rental house on a private road with a yard that you could film an episode of Justified on.  And for those of you who haven't known me very long, I have a rich and sordid history of moving.  Since I was eighteen, I have packed and unpacked sixteen times, making this most recent move my seventeenth.  On average, I stay in a place for about nine months, the longest stay being three years on Chestnut Street . . . and in all likelyhood, we'll be packing up and moving out of this place in the spring, with the intentions of buying a house.

Each time I've moved, I've gotten rid of more stuff.  This time, I got rid of a ton of clothes and books.  All my lit mags were handed off to Mike, a hefty chunk of pulp novels went to Amber in exchange for bagfuls of awesome sweaters and dresses (and sweater-dresses, including a blue-green hooded one I've craved ever since I first saw her wear it at the Green Earth).  Records and DVDs went to both the Oneonta Teen Center (including the first entry in "Teenage Wasteland," Empire Records) and The Vault in exchange for a few bucks.  Clothes that weren't traded went to the consignment shop, and clothes that they wouldn't take went to Salvation Army.  Some books went to a used book store, others were given away . . . and those that I couldn't bear to part with were packed up and stored.

I've decided that, for the length of time that I'm here, I'm going to rely on the library and books handed off to me by friends.  I realized that I rarely read a book twice (with the exception of The Long Goodbye, which I read yearly) and that having a ton of books on hand did little but take up space.  I realized that simply having The Handmaiden's Tale on my bookshelf did not mean that I was ever going to read it.

Also, I recently discovered the pleasures of going to the library.  Unlike bookstores, which seem very very daunting to me, a library has a sense of quiet order to it.  There's the sense that, because you're reading on borrowed time, that the reading takes priority.  If I take out The Handmaiden's Tale, I'd better read it in 14 days or cough up a quarter for each day I delay.  The best part is that the library is free, and there's no clutter or anything to pack up at the end.  If I don't like a book, I can take it back, no questions asked.

This isn't to say I don't support the Green Toad, my local bookstore.  I love small bookstores much more than any big-box mega-store on the planet.  And this doesn't mean I'll be getting an e-reader anytime soon either.  I like the feel of a book in my hand, and I like to give books as gifts. 

But I consider this an opportunity and a challenge--if this was a stunt blog, I'd make careful notes about my library experience as a way of preserving libraries or other such silliness.  Heaven knows I'm not so great about keeping up with the blog and the last thing I need is another column to write.  If anything, this new undertaking is a way of clearing out the clutter of my life and of getting back out in the community.  Ordering a book for a penny on Amazon doesn't force me to interact with anyone (not even the mailman, because our mailbox is located at the absolute top of our driveway).  Having to go to the library will force me to engage with others. . . and I don't think that will be a bad thing.

Oh Well.

Congrats to Peter Dinklage on his Best Supporting Actor Emmy