Party Like It's 1999 (by way of 1974 & 2001)

It's the end of the world as we know it, so let's talk.

The mighty Jake McLargeHuge has assembled a powerful trio to tackle the apocalypse on his latest episode of Podcast Without Honor and Humanity. Join Jake, Action Attraction's Metal Mikey, and yours truly as we roundtable with the fury of giant slugs, mass draughts, evil Internet demons, cannibalism, mutant babies, speedwalking children, and green fungus...a lot of green fungus.

That's right! We delve into the horror of dial-up to cover Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse...

And in more obscure territory, Tosio Masuda's 1974 epic oddity The Prophecies of Nostradamus.

This little-seen Japanese treasure is something truly special, and I'm not JUST saying that because it has giant slugs.

So head on down to Libsyn or iTunes or that new annoying podcast ap or wherever it is that you feed your inner ear with Jake's latest episode.

Also in the news: it's a new Paracinema!

Don't even think of not following this link to go get some. Otherwise, I just might throw some giant slugs at you, and NOBODY wants giant slugs thrown at them. 

They're really heavy. And smell weird. And in some cases, eat people's faces off.

So really, you should just pick up an issue already.

Mickey Rooney Sends Your Kids To Cambodia

Friends. Aren't they the best?

Especially when they come is such fantastical packages as Christine Makepeace, the cofounder and keeper of Paracinema Magazine. I know I've praised this publication before and will do so until I get dragged away to a resting home, but if you're new here, trust me when I say there is no cinema magazine out there quite as passionate, unique, and intelligent as this little shiner here. 

But I digress. The reason I adore Ms. Makepeace today has nothing to do with her body of work and everything to do with the fact that for my karaoke spectacular birthday extravaganza, she not only rapped, but also gave me the Blu Ray for what might be my new co-favorite February film of all time (if Devil Times Five is willing to share, and I worry it's not). 

Treasure Train or The Odyssey of the Pacific or The Emperor of Peru or The Craziest Kid's Film Ever is, to be frank, a feat of creativity, bravery, drugs, irresponsibility, imagination, insanity, and a whole lot of Mickey Rooney encouraging children to labor in abandoned mines and run away to Cambodia. Now while Rooney plays the innocently wacky old hermit in the film, his actions are actually fairly harmful to the well-being of the three rugrats he befriends. Hence, he's kind of---what's this!--a Vertically Challenged Villain.

I mean, not one who kidnaps women and blushes his cheeks a la The Manipulator, but still...

Quick Plot: Toby and Liz are a charming(?) pair of siblings living in Victorian Canada with their wealthy aunt and uncle who respectively spend the day playing with toy trains or drinking martinis. One day, they bring home Hoang, a Cambodian refugee orphan (you know...like on television?) who will be summering with them until his adoption. Hoang would rather be planning his marriage to his far away (probably dead) mother.

No, you didn't misread that. When asked who he would like to marry, the 9 or so year old Hoang answers, without missing a beat, "My mom." He justifies it easily enough: “She is really pretty. Her mouth is soft and so red you know.” In a flashback, we hear him telling her how he dreams of crawling back inside her tummy so she could “pretend I’m your pet dog or cat.” I know you'd like to think I'm joking but come on guys, I'm not that funny. The movie ends (spoiler, not really) which Hoang heading back to Cambodia (by train) to find her. And marry her. And make me all sorts of uncomfortable.

But wait, you don't even know if Hoang befriended his foster siblings! Well he does, mostly because while their adult guardians feast on delectable meat and expressive red wine, the kids are skirted off to a table filled with bowls of dry white rice. Because dry white rice is generally not an exciting lunch, the three proceed to have a violent but giggle-filled rice fight, charming their wealthy drunk overlords.

Now that they've bonded, Liz, Toby and Hoang embark on daily adventures into the woods. This gives Toby plenty of time to fantasize about all the famous jobs he will eventually have, from being a race car champion to world famous surgeon. In all these pretty amazing dream sequences, Toby completes amazing feats such as saving Miss Superwoman (lamer than she sounds) while riding a futuristic hot cycle, an adventure that should make him more famous than Bert & Ernie, Joan of Arc, Tarzan, Caesar, Mickey Mouse, and Popeye (the comparisons are really important to Toby). 

Every time, director Fernando Arrabal cuts to stock stadium footage of roaring crowds. The really fantastic thing about these roaring crowds--aside from the fact that it might be the same stock footage often used in The Muppet Babies--is that if you look closely, you'll notice a good 33.333 repeating decimal point % of the extras are either not cheering, looking elsewhere, or clumsily trying to climb out of bleachers to presumably take a bathroom break.

Wait! I know I said that was the fantastic part, but I forgot something! Frederico!

Frederico is Toby's pet duck. Toby walks Frederico (who is his pet duck) on a leash and incorporates him in all his fantasies, which means we get to see a duck on a sports car sidecar. It's sort of like Ziggy on the second season of The Wire, but with less union corruption.

As great as Frederico is, he's not really the star of Treasure Train. That above-the-credits honor goes to Mickey Rooney, that 5'1 bundle of positive energy who can never be accused of not going for it. Rooney plays the (depending on your edition) titular Emperor of Peru, a retired train conductor (I think) now paralyzed below the legs (although those thighs do move when dancing) and living alone in the backwoods near an abandoned (and titular, depending on your edition) locomotive. The Emperor is about as crazy as The Manipulator, but with less kidnapping. He teaches the kids how trains work, mugs for the camera, and resists the local authorities attempts to move him to an old age home. Instead, The Emperor and his new subjects (aka children) move deeper into the woods where they meet three wandering clowns. 

No, seriously.

The clowns don't do much for the story, although they do serve an important expository role of telling young Toby where to find coal for the train. Where does one find coal for a train? Why, an abandoned mine of course!

There are two things we need to address here:

1. The idea that screenwriters Arrabel and Roger Lemelin needed to find an economical solution to the kids finding the mine. So they decided to have another character tell them about it. But then found a storage chest filled with soiled clown clothes and figured, hey, why not have it be a trio of hobo clowns? So it is.

2. There's a line in the astoundingly awful Nutcracker: The Untold Story where a young girl confidently tells the animated doll that she cannot fly. To which the nutcracker replies "How can you know if you've never tried?" As my responsible boyfriend so often points out, THIS IS A TERRIBLE THING TO SAY IN A CHILDREN'S MOVIE. Because no children not related to the director actually saw The Nutcracker: The Untold Story, we never had to read about lawsuits involving young fans leaping out windows in the hopes of landing with the Sugar Plum Fairies. 

Now Treasure Train--which is certainly worthy of being watched by elementary schoolers--doesn't commit quite a verbal crime, but having Mickey Rooney encourage 7-10-year-olds to crawl into an ABANDONED MINE in order to carry up coal is, I imagine, not the kind of example one would set for young ones.

There’s also a conversation between The Emperor and young Liz that goes as such:

Liz: I don’t smoke. It gives you cancer.

Emperor: That’s not true!

Bad enough, right? But it gets worse. The Emperor then convinces the children that it’s not smoking, but washing with soap and water that causes cancer. 

Seriously.

But not to be too hard on Treasure Train, because it does make a valiant effort to detail the atrocities experienced by Cambodia in the early twentieth century. The fairly well-adjusted Hoang experiences the occasional flashback to his homeland, like when playing with the Tarot card for The Hanged Man, he recalls pirates jumping on his refugee ship, grabbing a fellow child by the feet, and dangling him in front of the other kids with the threat of “Give me your gold or I’ll kill him!” Better is my favorite understatement of all time, as Hoang asks his fiancee/mother about his father and she answers as such:

“He’s in a concentration camp. He’ll be fiiiiiiiiiiiine.”

There’s also the weird sexually charged speech The Emperor makes about trains. “You’ll get all of your smoke all over my instruments. And you’d put soot all over me.” Okay, in writing that out, I realize it doesn’t SOUND sexual, but when coupled with the come hither look in Mickey ROoney’s sparkling eyes...I’m just saying, I felt uncomfortable.

I cannot bother breaking this movie into high and low points, because from beginning to end, it is simply an assortment of weird and weirder (all of which I find wonderful but you know, that’s me). This is a movie that has Mickey Rooney lording over a court of little people and llamas. There’s almost nothing left to say after that.

About That Ending...

Spoilers, obviously, but WHAT JUST HAPPENED? So the kids get the train to run--and no, it's not a fantasy as I assumed it would be--and they RIDE AWAY. The Emperor decides to stay behind--we have no real idea why, but I suspect because he actually dies in the last shot. 

Lessons Learned

In a multiple child house, it’s grades in piano lessons that determine who gets what bedroom

Never treat a model train the same way you would a flute

Just to reiterate, smoking does not give you cancer and it’s okay to gather coal from a long abandoned mine

Rent/Bury/Buy

Now restored by Odyssey Moving Images, Treasure Train--and yes, I've had to constantly edit myself to not write Terror Train--is a must-see for those who dig weird and obscure children's films. It was clearly modeled along the lines of Pippie Longstocking, but watching it today makes it feel almost akin to the infamous Mexican film Santa Claus, where Santa keeps children slaves who watch the world’s population via a 1984-esque computer spy network and Satan tries to lure poor kids into petty theft. This one will instead lure them down dangerous mines and lung cancer wards, but it’s done with a smile and really, isn’t that the best way to go?

Rock Me! Shock Me! Paracineme!

Yo, Wuhstah! You know what goes down this weekend? 

Clearly all sorts of amazing things, if a still from A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge is involved. So dig out your Revolutionary War memorabilia and Red Sox gear for Massachusetts' annual horror convention, Rock 'N Shock!*

*Yes, I've been told that Worchester is actually not near Boston, but what else does Massachusetts have going on that I'm supposed to know about?


The point is, if you're anywhere near the DCU Center & Palladium this weekend, come on over to meet the likes of Robert Englund, Lance Henrikson, Roddy Piper, Gary Busey AND his son, and the aforepictured Mark Patton or really, ME!

Don't worry. I'm no longer blond. Or sporting a Jareth bulge.

I'll be heading up with my GleeKast cohostess Erica, The Podcast Podcast's Fozziebare, and Buried In a Book Crypt's Ashlee to roam the floors on Saturday and Sunday.  Outside the Cinema will be streaming all weekend with an open chat room, so if you can't make the trip, pop on there to see the festivities. It's sort of like watching Joan and Melissa Rivers on the red carpet, but with clown makeup and rubber masks.

Which is sort of like watching Joan and Melissa Rivers on the red carpet anyway.


If you're heading to Rock 'n Shock, be sure to say hullo or else once I find out you were THERE and didn't, I'll fear that I fell into a Silent Hill-esque alternate dimension that will forever keep me away from Sean Bean. No one wants that. 

Stop by the Outside the Cinema table or shoot me an email (deadlydollshouse at gmail.com). Now that I have an iPhone, I can know about the Interverse when not connected to my computer. Although I also just upgraded my settings and will probably not actually be able to work it so if nothing else, look out for the short brunette with the loud voice and Merrell Sneakers.

Greatest shoe design of all time.

But juggalo sighting and bootleg DVD shopping isn't all you have to look forward to this weekend. Over yonder at Paracinema, the makers of the greatest genre magazine of our time are feeling awfully generous. If you purchase any issue between today and Sunday (October 16th) you'll be entered to win a free (and awesome) t-shirt! THIS ONE!

I own one myself, and it's comfy AND kickin'. Plus I also own A LOT of Paracinema magazines and they're smart, funny, informative and fascinating. Head to their website and skim through back issues for one that catches your eye, or pick up the new one complete with writeups on Inside, Bela Lugosi, censorship, Turkish ripoffs and much much more. Travel back in time to The Women's Issue (#11), composed entirely of writing by females (including my own take on George Romero's misplaced feminism). Issue 8 is a Tommy Wiseau fan's own bouquet of roses, while Issue 10 has perhaps the writing I'm personally most proud of, my article on Victor Salva's Clownhouse. Browse your choices and pick your raffle ticket, or get an actual subscription to keep you clothed and smart for years to come!

Excitement! 

Express Yo'self By Dressing Yo'self

Amongst the many household chores that I find painful is the dreaded art of laundry. Hoarding quarters for months on end in order to pay. Lugging a basket of odorous garments into my apartment building’s basement, only to have to touch someone else’s mysteriously stained clothes loitering in the only finished machine and 40 minutes later, opening the washer to discover a sopping wet pile of fabric that will now take a baker’s dozen’s amount of drying cycles at 50 cents a pop just to emerge only slightly damp. We won’t even talk about this silly word called ‘folding,’ an act that should be reserved for poker and pitas.

Two months ago, I discovered something wonderful, a secret the lazy contingent like to call ‘drop-off service.’ For about a dollar a pound, I can forego quarter obsessing, hand-wringing, and that silly, impossible as climbing-a-rope-in-gym-class action called folding by just HANDING a pile of my OWN mysteriously stained clothing to someone else, who then calls upon the help of woodland elves to purge said garments of dirt and sweat and turn each piece into a sandwich-sized transformer that somehow fits anywhere I want it to. 

Now, the only drawback to this bite of heaven, aside from the whole ‘goodness, my wallet can’t actually afford this luxury for long but I don’t ever see myself stopping’ thing is the fact that at some point in time, you will still run out of clothing.

What I’m getting at in a roundabout way some folks might call blathering is that there are ways to prolong the inevitable day, a way that is stylish, sexy, vintage, bopping, and most importantly, for one fine cause. Take a look:

Nice right? Who amongst us doesn’t love some scary baseball mimes, Coney Island showdowns and Dexter Morgan's dad trying to rape women in Central Park while emerging as nothing more than a scamp? What better way to share that Warriors passion than with a spanking new t-shirt loaded with hepcat style and priced at just TWELVE FRICKIN’ DOLLARS! 

I dare you to price check that against any faux vintage cottonwear from Urban Outfitters.

$24. Really?

But it gets better folks, it gets incredibly good: this $12 you will be spending goes somewhere very special, somewhere so special that I keep a special button on my righthand side here at the Doll’s House to always remind you of its wonders. 

Paracinema isn’t just your average movie magazine. This made-in-Queens publication produces issues loaded with passionate, smart, and innovative writing about the kind of special films you won’t find getting glossy pull-out posters in Fangoria or cover shots on Entertainment Weekly. Comb through some back issues and you’ll find everything from essays on ‘70s pornography, Brian De Palma retrospectives, interviews with rarely highlighted but genre great talent like Brian Trenchard-Smith and Dean Eyebrows Cameron. You can even get some of my typing skills ruminating on such complicated favorites as Battle Royale II, Who Can Kill a Child, and Clownhouse. 

At just $7 an issue, you’re already paying far less for Paracinema than you would for most of its peer magazines. If you don’t yet subscribe, I urge all to start. If you already do or don’t but love The Warriors, shell out your $12 for a kickass t-shirt that’s guaranteed to impress the opposite or same sex. 

Human or non

And hey, $12? Think of what else you could spend that on and convince me it’s a superior expense. This is all I’ve got:

-12 pounds of laundry at drop-off service

-Almost an entire ticket to a 3-D film, but not quite

-A five minute cab ride at rush hour

-One imported beer at Yankee Stadium (though just by being INSIDE Yankee Stadium makes you rather unworthy of good style, in my and therefore the world’s opinion)

So head on over to Paracinema.Net and donate something to your closet while helping one of the best genre film magazines grow to bigger, badder (in a cool, not negative way) and even more spectacular heights. 

Dig it? 

June Is Busting Out All Over Your Ovaries (but not quite that--well, um...)

New stuff!

1. A new month means a new issue of Rogue Cinema, so hop on your hoverboard and skate over here for, among other things, my review of the romantic drama Lovers In a Dangerous Time and an interview with Skew director Seve Schelenz. Stick around for tons of more content, with reviews of new indie releases and discussions with more film folks, including Hobo With a Shotgun director Jason Eisner.

B. Skip that venti frappaccino today and give your $7 to a far more noble cause: Paracinema! Yes, this is an ACTUAL PRINT MAGAZINE filled with original content on all the films you love or love but don't know about yet. Issue #12 features some typically great stuff, including an article on Kiyoshi Kurosawa bu VCinema's Josh Samford, some nostalgia on Explorers from Baby Eater Matt House, an interview with genre luminary (and Leprechaun 3 director!) Brian Trenchard-Smith, and original artwork you won't want to dog-ear. Go GIT it!

III. Need some sweet lady voices in your life? Prefer to hear those sirens ramble on about paint huffing, incest, and unusual genital designs? Then head to iTunes or podomatic for the newest episode of Girls On Film Radio. Myself and a few lovelier ladies tackle Alexander Payne's first film, Citizen Ruth (drink every time we say 'abortion'!) and a Japanese Criterion classic from 1963 called The Insect Woman. Shockingly enough, we somehow avoided bra talk this week, although I like to think that's made up for with adorable dog snoring.

Four. Those of you with a weakness for showtunes, pop music, or sweater vests probably already listen to GleeKast, the podcast myself and knitting pro extraordinaire Erica host on everybody's favorite/most hated Fox musical. Even so, allow me to remind you that our last 'official' episode is now available for download. We're taking a mini-hiatus to breathe and dedazzle, but we'll be back this summer with more bonus content on all things ridiculousness. 

Bonus points if you catch/agree with my Troll reference.

Marchness!

Raise the ceilings folks! We’ve survived the onslaught of evil children, deadly dolls, German dwarfs, lustful dummies, petite clowns, itty bitty cowboys, puppet people, manitous, angry fetuses, homicidal incarnations of aborted fetuses, and babies possessed by the angry spirit of cabaret dancing little men. The First (Probably) Annual Month of the Vertically Challenged Villains hath ended, so stretch your legs stand tall.

But don’t brag about it. Some of us still need to buy capri pants in order to not have to hem, thank you.

Anyhoosers, March will get swinging soon with a potpouri of upcoming reviews but before that, I’ve got a pile of announcements in need of being shared. Among them:

-Paracinema, my favorite magazine of all time (no conflict of interest was contained in that statement) has a new issue out, and my friends, it is something truly special. Issue 11 is composed entirely of genre film articles written by those rare and mysterious beasts known as Women. 

You might have noticed I never really addressed the fact that February was Women in Horror Month. Part of it was my preoccupation with a more endangered minority (the shorties) but the other is that I don’t have any overwhelming amount to say about it. The idea is great, but when I think about all the incredible bloggesses I get the pleasure to read, I don’t necessarily see a need to single them out as a rarity. I like to believe we’re in an age where having estrogen doesn’t negate or validate your genre film parking ticket, and I think Paracinema’s Women’s Issue is further proof that smart, literate, and cinematically minded females are in no danger of disappearing. 

Head over to Paracinema's pretty new website to get your copy, and expect true happiness (and fine, maybe your period) to follow. Read such luminaries as The Horror Digest’s Andre Dumas, The Blood Sprayer’s queen Kristy Jett, Buried In a Book Crypt’s Ashlee, and yeah, Me as we pontifiicate on a variety of filmic magic. On my part, you get the chance to finally hear how I feel about George Romero’s evolutionary feminism. I’ll leave it there and expect you to complete the rest.

-Elsewhere in the Interworld, it’s Marcharaimi over at a blog that most definitely does not suck, and not just ‘cause it’s called Things That Don’t Suck. The extremely talented Bryce is dedicating the tail end of March into April to the gooey mind behind Evil Dead with a blogathon of epic Deadite proportions. I urge and implore you all to give it a gander. Raimi fans can’t lose, and readers who dig smart commentary on books and film can find few better resources than TTDS.

-Another field trip! March is a new month at Rogue Cinema, and as always, a new batch of indie film goodness is baking in the oven known as That Website. As always, it’s a great way to learn about some under the radar fare. Head on over and see what you find, paying, I would hope, special attention to my interview with the smart and promising Steve Gibson, director of the new clever ghost story-meets-Ghost Hunters chiller The Feed.

-As always, there are GleeKasts and Girls On Film Radio Podcasts floating around the Internet for your ears to experience. Hear the impassioned GoF Oscars show, where we beg the gods in vain for a Winter’s Bone victory (apparently we should have been asking for The Best Film of The Year to get ANY MENTIONS WHATSOVER in the many montage-y bits compiled on select nominated films). There was also a divisive episode on Calvaire that led to intense girlfights. Pillows were abused. And John Hawkes was sainted.

-Also, March marks a certain extravaganza known as HorrorHound Weekend and by golly, let the extravagance begin! If you're planning on being anywhere near Indianapolis in the last weekend of the month, be sure to stop by for the festivities, and I don't mean a photo op with Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys star Corey Feldman. Sure, you can spend some time pondering how small your hand looks inside of Ken Foree's mitty handshake, but I'm more excited to have the chance to see some of my favorite bloggers, podcasters, and general Internet entities. Fun will be had, so drop a line here if you're planning on going. Just don't expect me to hold your place in the line for Boondock Saints' autographs.

-Finally, now comes the time where I address that small but vital portion of the Doll’s House readers who have suffered in silence for two years: the knitters. My dear friend and GleeKast cohostess Erica has joined the esteemed Order of the Bloggers with her own site, Knit’s a Small World. Now I don’t know a cross-stitch from a lower level Disney movie set in Hawaii, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to share Erica’s adventures in yarn with those who do. The site’s here and will be added to the blogroll. Knit’s official.

On that note, it seems fitting to toast one of my usually least favorite months with a bowl of Lucky Charms soaked in Guiness. That’s how we non-Irish do it, and trust me: we do it well.