And yet, somehow, so very right… it’s Molly Ringwald in that inescapable slave-Leia outfit:
Actually, I can imagine Molly playing Leia if the original trilogy had been made just a couple years later. But then I’ve got a weird imagination that way. I’ve always thought Humphrey Bogart would’ve rocked as Han Solo, too…
(Via.)
Overheard during my lunchtime walk: Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind” emanating from the open door of a tavern near my office. How depressing would it be to park yourself in a dark little hole that smells of sweat and mildew, drinking beer and listening to that existential dirge while a beautiful late-summer afternoon unwinds just a few steps away? Even I don’t have that much appetite for melancholy self-reflection…
So, I’m driving to the train station this morning, and at some point I glance off to my left and see… a black and white cow wearing light blue pajamas. Walking on its hind legs, no less.
For just an instant, I had the thought that the Monday-morning hangover really isn’t worth it anymore.
Then I realized I was simply passing Chick-fil-A, and there was some poor teenager sweating away his shift inside that cow’s plush innards. I really hope the whole week isn’t going to be like this…
Briefly noted, yesterday was my main man Rick Springfield’s 60th birthday. Sixty. That’s only a couple years younger than my parents. Good thing I didn’t put that together when I was a teenager; the cognitive dissonance of my guitar hero being in the same general age group as my folks would no doubt have triggered some kind of mental breakdown. Of course, the similar age is easier to ignore when you consider that my parents have never looked anything like this:
Yeah, I hope I look that good in another 20 years. Hell, I wish I looked that good now…
Let’s move on to something a little more lighthearted, shall we?
First, a lesson in film history: Back in the 1930s and ’40s, individual movie studios tended to specialize more in particular genres than they do now, and Universal had established itself as the “house of horror” with several monster — forgive the pun — hits that are still considered iconic, if not definitive films today, particularly the 1931 versions of Dracula and Frankenstein, and 1941’s The Wolf Man. Universal execs naturally sought to maximize their earnings on these beloved characters by churning out several sequels for each — proving that nothing ever changes all that much in Hollywood — and finally culminating in two “monster rally” crossover films that featured all three characters: House of Frankenstein in 1944 and House of Dracula in ’45. By the late ’40s, however, the monster craze was waning, and several “Abbott and Costello Meet…” films reduced the legendary monsters of movieland to mere punchlines. Which meant poor Larry Talbot — a.k.a. the Wolf Man — never got his own “House of” movie.
Until now.
It seems an independent filmmaker named Eben McGarr has created a retro-tastic new flick called House of the Wolf Man. It’s filmed in glorious black-and-white, shot in the period-appropriate “academy” aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (which we now call “full-screen” on the backs of our DVDs), and generally looks as if it’s a long-lost treasure that’s recently been discovered in Universal’s vaults. Here’s the trailer:
I don’t know about you, but I think that looks a lot cooler than the upcoming Wolf Man remake with Benecio Del Toro (and that actually looks pretty good to me, as remakes go). I haven’t heard anything about how or when this is going to be released, but I intend to be watching for it.
I found this via Michael May, who linked back to Undead Backbrain, where you can find more details about the film and a whole mess of photos. (Is it just me, or does this guy look a whole lot like Indy’s treacherous buddy Mac from Crystal Skull?)
There’s a Facebook page too, of course…
Stephen King’s monumental fantasy epic, The Dark Tower, takes place in a world very much like our own, a parallel Earth that shares many attributes with ours, except that this other world is dying at some fundamental, metaphysical level. Entropy is accelerating; time no longer flows at a steady rate; most machines have ceased to function. Societies are failing and human behavior is changing for the worse, becoming barbaric and even monstrous. Even geography has been altered, with distances between places increasing, or their locations actually shifting around. Some of the inhabitants of this alternate Earth — the ones who are still rational, anyway — speak wistfully of what things were like “before the world moved on.”
I think that’s a wonderful phrase, evocative of so many things: loss, alienation, resignation, the sense of big changes occurring in spite of an individual’s actions or feelings. Perhaps most of all, it speaks of the melancholy recognition that something important has slipped away from you while you weren’t paying attention. My friend Jack uses the phrase all the time; it was very much on my mind yesterday.
First, for any who may be wondering, the Odd Fellows Hall building I referenced in the previous entry successfully crossed Market Street yesterday, creating a really odd sight for anyone who happened to walk past the intersection of Market and Main. (Basically, Market dead-ended in a three-story brick wall for a good part of the day). The building still needs to be shoved sideways onto its new foundation — which I guess gives the forces of entropy one last chance to try and implode the old thing into a dusty heap of shattered masonry — but at this point I think the worst threat of it crumbling is past. Now all I have to do is get over the cognitive dissonance caused by having a big old building standing on the wrong side of the street!
Secondly, if you didn’t see it, there was a very nice tribute to John Hughes in the New York Times a few days ago, written by the actress Molly Ringwald. She, of course, starred in three of Hughes’ best-loved movies, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink. She reminisces about working with Hughes and the impact he had on her life and career, and also reveals some interesting personal details, such as the fact that Hughes held grudges, and both she and co-star Anthony Michael Hall felt like they ended up on the receiving end of them. It’s a very heartfelt piece of writing from a woman who was in many ways a proxy for we children of the ’80s; here she plays that role one last time to tell us what our friend and big brother John was really like.
Oh, and this is probably really dumb, but it makes me happy to think that she and Hall are still friends enough that they called one another after John died, and also that… well, I’ll let you see for yourself how Molly’s article ends…
First, a little background for those who may not follow Salt Lake architectural and development news: A short distance from my office, there’s a 100-year-old building called Odd Fellows Hall, which stands right in the path of a planned extension to the federal court building. Rather than demolish Odd Fellows, somebody made the decision to move it to an empty lot right across the street from its original location. (For the record, another building on the same block, the Shubrick, wasn’t so lucky; it’s coming down now, several months after its primary tenant, a well-established and very popular nightclub called Port o’ Call, was forced out of business. Personally, I’d rather that the Shubrick and the Port had survived, or even better, that the new court complex simply be constructed around both of the older structures… but nobody ever listens to me.)
The engineering necessary to move a three-story brick building has been nothing short of astounding. Basically, the building was cut away from its foundation and jacked up so rollers could be slipped underneath it. Then the building was pushed into a nearby clear space and rotated 180 degrees; its former basement was filled in, and Odd Fellows was brought back to stand temporarily in its original lot. And there it’s been sitting for months, waiting to be moved across the street onto a new foundation.
Today, a brief article in the Salt Lake Tribune notes that it may finally make that last journey as soon as tomorrow. Which is very interesting in and of itself, but what really caught my eye was the article’s description of what’s been holding Odd Fellows Hall up all this time:
The Odd Fellows Hall was to be moved across Market Street in downtown Salt Lake City earlier this summer to make way for a new federal courthouse but a financial dispute between a contractor and subcontractor has stalled the relocation. The building is perched on doilies while the two sides negotiate.
Yes, friends, that massive pile of centenarian brick and mortar is being supported by nothing more than doilies. Because a little bit of lace makes everything nicer, I suppose…
Via Boing Boing, a delightful and unlikely vacation photo:
To see the full-size image and read the tale of how this couple ended up as impromptu nature photographers, go here.
Silly as it is, this story really made my afternoon…
[Update: Well, I suppose this will surprise no one, but the “Crasher Squirrel” has already become an Internet meme. As usual, I’m 20 minutes behind the curve…]
And just for the heck of it, here are a couple more images I find amusing, both ganked from Samurai Frog.
The first is Rumer Willis, daughter of Bruce and Demi Moore, as she appears in Sorority Row, yet another remake of a movie from my early adolescence (admittedly not a very good movie, but I’m just getting sick of all the remakes on general principle):
I’m not any kind of fan of Rumer’s — as far as I know, I haven’t seen her in anything — but this pic struck my fancy because, well, the apple hasn’t fallen very far from the tree, has it? Click to enlarge, for the full effect, and tell me if you don’t see what I mean.
And now here’s one that’s kind of dumb but made me smile anyhow:
And with that, I guess I’m going to go find something to do outside for awhile… have a good one, everybody…
