Tenth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #5 Carnival of Souls

Here's a cult classic from 1962.  Carnival of Souls never did much in the theaters but regular showings as a midnight movie on television gave it the audience it deserved.

We start with a chicks vs. dudes drag race!  The girls' car crashes through the side of a bridge into a muddy river.  One dazed survivor, Mary, pulls herself to shore.  A few days later, Mary continues on her way west to her new job as a church organist in Salt Lake City.  En route, she starts to hallucinate, seeing pale, scary faces staring at her.  After confirming her job and finding a room in a boarding house, she even goes to see a doctor after one such hallucination.  She's convinced it's residual trauma from the car crash.

Mary settles into her new life with her sweet landlady and pushy, cheeseball neighbor who literally won't take no for an answer when he asks her out.  Mary goes along with him only so far because she's a tough cookie: she doesn't want a boyfriend or any friends, really; she likes her job at the church but isn't religious; she stands up to her doctor when he tries to boss her around.  Things are eerie, however, and she finds herself drawn to the abandoned Saltair resort on the shores of the Great Salt Lake.

She drives herself out there and wanders around, finding more of the scary, dead-looking people.  Back in town, she slowly starts to go mad, unable to get the place out of her head.  She gets fired from her church job for playing "profane music" - which makes all the dead dance.  Mary can't escape it, however.

Carnival of Souls is slow, seemingly l  o  n  g  at only 78 minutes.  It is a gorgeously shot film and the scene at the Saltair - shot at the actual Saltair - is really creepy when the dead are dancing.  This movie has become a classic and has influenced many subsequent films, including George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.  What stuck with me, aside from how beautiful some of the shots were, was the intrenched sexism of the time: how all the men manhandled Mary and how skeezily pushy her desperate-for-a-date neighbor was.

Mini movie review: John Carter

Mr. Mouse rolled his eyes when I said I'd watched Disney's much-maligned, money pit of a movie, John Carter: "I heard that movie was TERRIBLE."  It wasn't fantastic but I don't think it entirely deserved the thrashing it got, especially when viewed as an homage to all the space operas that have gone before.  Pluswhich, I feel like I was obligated to watch it as a Utah resident: much of the Mars scenes were shot in the crazy rock and desert terrain of southern Utah.  The river scenes, shot on location on Lake Powell, were particularly spectacular.  In no particular order, here are some random observations:

• The movie is way too long at nearly two hours.  It starts off slowly (read: I may have nearly nodded off) but picks up once John Carter gets to Mars.
• I always approve of a shirtless Taylor Kitsch.
• Lynn Collins more than holds her own as an ass-kicking Martian princess and her costumes should be held up there alongside Leia's gold bikini.
• The CGI is pretty well done, especially the Tharks and that ADORABLE dog/lizard (Woola?).
• The plotting gets muddled and the dialogue is at times incomprehensible, particularly since Kitsch tends to mumble.  With a movie like this, though, I'm not sure plot and dialogue are all that important.
• I'm trying to decide if I should read the source material.
• I think the Powers that Be did this movie a big disservice by removing the "of Mars" from the title.  John Carter of Mars gives the uninitiated a clue that "hey! this is a science fiction flick!"  Just John Carter could be about anything.

Big Love mousings: S1E9 and 10

To pick up where we left off:


E9:  The wives go round and round, trying to decide whom to name as guardians of their own children in the event they and Bill both die.  Turns out neither Barb nor Margene want Nikki to be guardian for their kids and Nikki wants her boys to be raised back on the compound. Barbara is also getting excited about her nomination for Utah’s Mother of the Year, but Nikki thinks she is being prideful – awesomely, when Nikki complains to Bill, he points out that what she really has a problem with is the fact that she’s Second Wife under Barb. Roman's child bride-to-be Rhonda comes to stay with the Henricksons while trying for a drama contest; Sara introduces her soon-to-be-step-grandmother to straight-laced LDS Heather, who is both fascinated and repelled, and wants to rescue Rhonda from the compound. During all this domestic turmoil, Bill has been asked to join a local business leaders group – he wants to do it, but ultimately turns it down because he’s worried about outing himself as a polygamist.

E10: Margene catches pregnant. Bill buys Old Whatsisname’s shares of stock and takes his seat on Roman’s board, then helps him and his elderly wives run away to Arizona. While Bill and Joey crash the board meeting, Albee pays Wanda an intimidation visit – and when he threatens her baby, she poisons him with antifreeze. Turns out she’s done this before: she’s the one who poisoned Bill and Joey’s dad with arsenic. After failing out of the drama competition (and awesomely bedazzling her jean jacket) Rhonda gets dragged back to the compound where, pouting, she tells Roman about Barb being up for Utah’s Mother of the Year.  So during the awards ceremony (which Nikki and Margene can’t attend because Barb was not allotted enough tickets), Roman calls in an anonymous tip that Barb is a polygamist. She is escorted out of the Governor’s Mansion in front of everyone, while Bill and their three kids scuttle away ashamedly. When they get home and are joined by Nikki (who is nearly hysterical, screaming that they’ll be taken away from each other until Bill tells her, “They don’t do that anymore”) and Margene who rally around their stricken sister-wife. The Henricksons’ lives are crumbling around them – who knows what the social repercussions will be? Not me, anyway: I’m not picking up S2 anytime soon.

Titles Nine - #10 -- Utah edition

It's another fascinating installment of the FMS series, "Titles Nine," whereby I go to my many bookshelves and pick out nine volumes to share with you, my faithful reader[s].  In our explorations of Utah since we've moved out here (and the two vacation trips), we've relied on a number of sources of information: word of mouth, newspaper articles and, mostly, guidebooks. Here's what our Utah-centric library looks like right now:

• The Historical Guide to Utah Ghost Towns by Stephen L. Carr
• Insider's Guide to Salt Lake City (4th edition, but a treasure trove of information regardless)
• Frommer's Utah (a going-away present from a dear coworker)
• Moon Handbooks - Utah (found in a used bookstore and not that helpful because it's old)
• 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles - Salt Lake City by Greg Witt (we've done so many of these that we're wishing there was a volume 2, 60 More Hikes Within 60 Miles)
• Hiking the Wasatch by John Veranth (not quite as detailed as 60 Hikes)
• Roadside History of Utah by Cynthia Larsen Bennett
• Best Easy Day Hikes: Canyonlands and Arches by Bill Schneider (2nd ed., a Falcon Guide booklet
• and two Pocket Naturalist pamphlets, Utah Trees and Wildflowers; and Utah Birds

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Night of the Running Dead

If you'll be in SLC this weekend, there's a fundraising 5K over at This is the Place Heritage Park (2601 E. Sunnyside Ave.) on Saturday, Oct. 9th, at 2 p.m.  All runners have to register as either an "infected" (a/k/a zombies) or a "survivor" ... and if you're a Survivor, you get a one minute head start on the Zombies.  No physical contact or actual eating of brains is allowed.  Costumes are allowed and, in fact, encouraged for the 1 mi. "Creep and Crawl."  There will be a family party before the 5 K run, featuring music, makeup artists and prizes, and the Park itself is all decked out for Hallowe'en with haunted cemetaries, old buildings and "surprises."  

The fundraising beneficiary is the Huntsman Cancer Center - a very worthwhile organization - so if you're in the mood to run for your lives (or tasty brains), shamble on over to the Night of the Running Dead. 

Deep-fried chocolate-covered bacon on a stick: FAIL

Mr. Mouse and I went to the Utah State Fair recently, and while I'm not going to repeat the blog post about the fair that I did over there at my other blog, I will say that I was SORELY DISAPPOINTED with the deep-fried chocolate-covered bacon on a stick.  Which, as you all well know, is in theory the Friend Mouse Holy Grail of bacon-centric foods. 

Imagine, if you will, as I did: crisp bacon, dunked in chocolate, battered and deep-fried to golden goodness.  Or even crisp bacon, battered and deep-fried to golden goodness and then drizzled in chocolate.  It could have been SO fabulous, glistening alongside the deep-fried Twinkies, deep-fried Snickers bars, deep-fried Oreos and deep-fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

 But no.  Sadly, this is what I got for my $4.50:  a strip of bacon, threaded onto a wooden skewer and deep-fried, then plopped in a cardboard basket and spritzed with thin chocolate sauce.  That was it.  Fer chrissakes, I could do that myself at home.  Should have gone with the deep-fried Snickers - and next time I will.

Don't believe the hype

Press Pause

There will be a slight break in the True Blood recap action as I decided to not live-blog it this time.  I think I miss a lot of what goes on when I'm typing as I watch for the first time.  Not like there's anything deep or profound happening on True Blood, but the episodes are more enjoyable if I can watch them the first time and just watch them.  That being said, I've watched the next three episodes and am letting them percolate a bit.  While E5 is kind of slow and talky and not much happens, the good news is that the pace absolutely picks back up for E6 and E7 with lots of sex, things moving forward and may I just gloat right now for having pretty much called it on WTF Maryann is.  I friggin' knew that Classics degree was going to come in handy.  Stay tuned.

In the meantime, it's the Fourth of July weekend - why don't you all go outside and watch a parade, have a beer, take a walk.  Or, if that sort of thing is anathema to you, and you've noticed a marked dearth of restaurant reviews over here at FMS, you could check out my other, "I'm exploring Utah and loving it" blog: We Went West.  There's posts about beer, breakfast (including bacon, of course) and non-breakfast eating.  There's also other stuff but it's kind of outdoorsy and not so much with the pop culture.

Have a good weekend, don't forget to wear sunscreen and the next True Blood installment will be up soon!

this blog is so empty it echoes

Yikes.  Run a Lost repeat and there's a mighty big hole here on ol' FMS.  I'd like to say that things will pick up soon, but what with the dismal state of television right now, I just don't know.  I'm halfway through a British DVD to review and am reading a clever little book, so those are upcoming.  True Blood S2 will finally be out on DVD in May and I plan to recap those episodes - am looking forward to a little trashy, Southern vampire/werewolf action, frankly.  And later this summer, Mr. Mouse and I are going to dive into Big Love (ahem - the HBO series, you perverts).  Seems only fitting since we live out in Utah now.

What else is going on?  Since I'm a glutton for punishment, I'm still watching V and Flashforward ... and they're just sooooooooo bad.  So bad.  I can't even talk about it.  Slightly better is the first episode of ABC's Happy Town, which seems to be a cross between Twin Peaks and Harper's Island.  It seems to be trying a little too hard to be edgy and weird, and some of the acting is Not Very Good.  But hopefully Amy Acker will be given more to do, because I always like her, and Sam Neill is creepily charming/charmingly creepy as always.  I have slight hopes for this series but daren't get too attached.  Finally, Justified is still holding both Mr. Mouse's and my attention - amazingly - and while I don't think that these subsequent episodes have lived up to the promise of the pilot and the story-of-the-weeks get wrapped up pretty neatly, I find many of the characters interesting and fun to watch and the dialogue is usually strong.

So that's it for now.  Sorry it's been so slacktastic around here, and what with company coming for the long weekend, there most likely won't be any updates until Lost next week.  Y'all come back and visit us then, y'hear?

Excuses, excuses

I mean, srsly, it's been nothing but excuses on this blog for such a long time now: there's nothing good on television, I'm all discombobulated, I'm watching the U.S. Open and/or Gossip Girl S2 ... so pathetic.

Well, I've got another one to hand you now. I'm moving*. Across the country**. To the mountains***. Finally, after having the house on the market for just over a year, and 77+ showings, we are under contract (yay!) with the buyers' loan approved (yay!!) and the closing scheduled for the end of the month (yay!!!). The Mouse House is an absolute shambles, everything half-packed - so I can't even recap a Firefly for you since the DVDs are all stowed away somewhere in the 67 boxes that are currently packed - and thus most of my free time has been, and will be, spent trying to pack the other half. It's amazing what one (two) can accumulate in nine years.

What this means for you all is that I'll post as often as I can between now and the end of the month, plus I promise to get the first two Heroes episodes recapped for you, but the third one will probably be late. Of course, by the third episode that show will most likely be in full suck mode and none of you will care anyway. Please be patient with me and please keep checking back in. Things will resume normal SOP as soon as possible.

In the meantime, here's a list of what I think I will/won't miss when we leave Maine:

Things I Will Not Miss:

mosquitoes
black flies
March
“New England packed powder”
humidity
bad roads
heavy, wet snow
frizzy hair
mowing this enormous lawn
mud season
hurricane season

Things I Will Miss:

family
friends
lobster at $3.99/lb
curly hair
Reny’s
the ocean
my mug at the brewpub
watching the activity on Casco Bay from Bug Light
the Casco Bay Lines mailboat run (BYO beer)


* Mr. Mouse's job is transferring but I will soon be earnestly searching for work. So if any of you devoted readers are actually Salt Lake City area-based employers looking to hire an industrious, fairly articulate Mouse (who promises to scale back the sarcasm, at least at first), drop me a line at friend dot mouse at yahoo dot com.

** From Maine to Utah.

*** The Wasatch front, specifically.

Book review: Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m trying to sell my house. When that happens, Mr. Mouse and I are going to move to Utah, Salt Lake City specifically, and ski our little brains out. Whenever I tell people that we’re moving to SLC, they always go, “Oh. Ooh. Have you read Under the Banner of Heaven?” So I finally did. Holy moly.

On July 24, 1984, in American Fork, Utah, two brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, murdered their sister-in-law, Brenda, and her 15-month-old baby daughter. The Lafferty brothers did it because God told them to. Ron and Dan Lafferty are (or were, in Ron’s case, as he was subsequently executed by firing squad) Fundamentalist Mormons.

In Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer interweaves this true-crime 1984 murder story with the fascinating history of the Church of Latter Day Saints, showing the undercurrent of violence and bloodshed prevalent in the religion since the early days, a legacy that endures in the Mormon Fundamentalist sect and which the two Lafferty brothers wholeheartedly embraced.

Mormonism is impressive, seemingly a force of nature. A huge and globally important religion – over eleven million members, world-wide - it was begun by the charismatic Joseph Smith in upstate New York, in 1830. Smith was the ultimate salesman, by all accounts handsome, articulate and charming. When he announced that the angel Moroni had given him a set of golden plates written with a sacred text, and had provided him with “magic spectacles” with which to read the sacred text, amazingly, people believed him. And when Smith said that the angel had taken the golden plates and magic eyeglasses back, but he, Joseph Smith, would tell them what had been written there, people still believed him.

Part of the reason people believed Smith was because in the nascent Mormon faith, God would speak directly to anyone, – a freedom most religions of the time would not countenance. Neither was the God of the Mormons a punishing God: He wanted His people to be happy, healthy and productive. These tenets were attractive to folks and Smith drew converts like flies to honey.

Later, of course, Smith had a “revelation” that only specific Mormon prophets, like himself, would be speaking directly to God, thus cutting down on the hoi polloi’s input into how things should be run. Further “revelations” led Smith to incorporate “celestial” or “plural” marriage into Mormonism – that, or because Smith couldn’t keep it in his pants. When the Mormon Church, under serious pressure from the U.S. government, officially denounced polygamy in 1890, the schism between mainstream Mormons and the Fundamentalists began.

Krakauer has a knack for capturing and keeping his readers. Using his by-now familiar prose style - clear, descriptive, unflinching, touched with dry humor and with great compassion for his subject – he goes through the history of the LDS Church which will be largely unfamiliar to Gentiles (according to the LDS, all non-Mormons are referred to as “Gentiles,” even those of Jewish faith), and alternates the historical chapters with more modern chapters, including many candid interviews with both current and former Fundamentalist Mormons. As the book builds, Krakauer shows how the last 180 years have crafted the intensely faithful and violent FLDS: from the Mormons being brutally ostracized and driven across the country until they finally found refuge in the barrens of the Great Salt Lake, to the horrific murder of Gentile emigrants in the Meadow Mountains Massacre, to the seeming abundance of sexual abuse and pedophilia in plural marriage.

Any fundamentalist religious movement – Mormon, Muslim, evangelical Christian, Jewish – is frightening to mainstreamers. Fundamentalists read their sacred texts as literal and wish to return to their church’s earliest state. The Fundamentalist Mormons believe wholeheartedly in the Book of Mormon, no exceptions, and to Ron and Dan Lafferty - extremists even for fundamentalists – that included blood atonement, sanctioned by God, against people who didn’t follow the Work, specifically their pretty, young sister-in-law, who chafed against the plural marriages surrounding her, and their infant niece.

I have enjoyed Krakauer’s previous work and Under the Banner of Heaven didn’t let me down. As an avowed agnostic, this book was a true page-turner, fascinating, horrifying and amazing.

How the West Was Won(derful)

After a nearly two hour departure delay, and then an additional delay getting out of Chicago, we finally touched down in Salt Lake City around 12:30 a.m. on Saturday. We picked up our rental car – no wimpy Suzuki this time – Mustang, baby! – we checked into the posh (not) Airport Hotel Inn for a few hours of sleep. We got our free breakfast (bacon, eggs, hash browns and toast) and hit the road. The rainy, foggy, cold, 40-degree road. Unbelievable weather this day. The mountains, when we could glimpse them through the fog, were covered in snow. We had the heat and defrost on in the Mustang pretty much all day as we toured SLC and its various neighborhoods, reveling in the easily-navigable gridded streets.

Before we’d left on our trip, we’d seen an ad for the PBR’s next-to-last regular season event … in SLC! So we stopped by the E Center and managed to get tickets for that night’s final. (I love the PBR: the cowboys are wicked cute and also completely insane to do what they do for a living.) We also grabbed a hotel room right next to the arena in scenic West Valley City so we wouldn’t have far to go after the event. After a late lunch at the Red Rock Brewing Company (in downtown SLC) and an after lunch additional beer at Squatter’s (the Salt Lake Brewing Company, just around the corner from the Red Rock), we watched Aussie Brendon Clark out-ride the biggest names in the PBR (Justin McBride, Mike Lee, JW Hart, Guillermo Marchi, Adriano Moraes, et al.) on the rankest bulls. We stopped by The Puck, A Bar, for a post-PBR beverage (not PBR, thank you very much). TPAB is one of SLC’s private clubs for members only; folks like us can still drink there by buying a temporary (3-week/$4) membership. Utah’s alcohol laws are a little strange but not insurmountable.

Sunday dawned clear (yay!) and cold (frost on the Mustang). We consulted the handy Insider’s Guide to Salt Lake City and found a most excellent place for breakfast, Ruth’s Diner in Emigration Canyon: huevos rancheros, great coffee and gigantic homemade biscuits. Fantastic! After gorging ourselves, we made a beeline for the Bonneville Salt Flats, an amazing otherworldly place, and while there, we discovered that the Mustang can easily do 110+ mph (don’t tell Budget). We stopped along the shore of the Great Salt Lake on the way back to check out the State Marina and the Saltair, the remains of a lakeside resort. We then headed east, up a canyon, to Huntsville, home of the most excellent Shooting Star Saloon (complete with a stuffed St. Bernard head) and snowy Snowbasin ski resort - both locations adorned with Sugarloaf stickers! We got a motel room in Ogden and had dinner at Rooster’s Brew Co. & Eatery on Historic 25th Street.

After continuing our breakfast streak at the No Frills Diner (I had sausage gravy and biscuits – mmmmmm), we went to Antelope Island, the state park in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. Antelope Island is 26,000 acres, well-mountained and full of bison, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and coyotes. (The coyotes look quite well-fed: there are also many wild rabbits, apparently.) We spent several hours on the Island, including a fair amount of time at the Garr Ranch, the oldest ranch in the state and probably the one with the most gorgeous view of the Wasatch Mountains, glistening white across the Lake. Our next stop was Park City, as glitzy and over the top as Snowbasin was mellow. We toured the Olympic Center where the freestyle aerials, bobsled/luge and ski jumping events took place in the ’02 Winter Games, then we car-toured the three area ski resorts: the Canyons, Deer Valley and Park City Resort. These places are huge and decadent, piled high with glamorous condos. The trails look pretty dang impressive too. We strolled up and down historic Main Street in Park City, stopping to admire the Town Lift – from sidewalk to slope, no waiting! – and then stopping for a beer at the outstanding No Name Saloon. Dinner was at the Wasatch Brewpub. Pumpkin ale is in season!

Tuesday morning was warm and sunny, so we headed to Provo (meh) where we found the best bacon (and also some eggs) at the very local Nate’s Diner. It was rather apparent that we were not locals; at least the food was warm if the other patrons’ glances were not. With full bellies, we delved into the Uinta National Forest, taking a 35-mile scenic drive alongside the impressive and snowy Mt. Nebo, complete with views of a recent forest fire, a mini-Bryce Canyon, plenty of road cows and Lake Utah. After a little misdirection, we found the road into Little Cottonwood Canyon and our route to Alta and Snowbird. Mr. Mouse was thrilled to learn that Alta had gotten 20 inches of snow on the day we arrived in Utah; we could see that folks had been hiking up and skiing down, tracks crisscrossing the trails. I really liked the laid-back vibe at Alta and Snowbird (as well as at Snowbasin). These places really seem like people come here to SKI, not shop or party or be part of the scene like the Park City resorts. Later, since this was our last night in SLC, we splurged a little and stayed at the old-fashioned and fairly luxurious Little America Hotel in downtown. And, since there was no reason to break our streak of brewpubs, we walked back to Squatter’s, this time to eat (jambalaya for Mr. Mouse and fish tacos with chile verde for me) as well as to enjoy their brews.

We discovered our final Utah diner in the Cheap Eats section of a city magazine – The Other Place, where I had amazing scrambled eggs with feta cheese, tomatoes and onions – then finally walked all through Temple Square, admiring the Temple, the Tabernacle, the Beehive House and the statue honoring the Utah state bird, the seagull. Yeah, you heard me: the seagull. I come from Maine, where gulls are sneaky, mean, disgusting garbage-eaters. In Utah, however, they are revered for having devoured a plague of crickets that was about to decimate the Mormons’ crops. There’s a golden statue in Temple Square and everything. I have no words.

After exploring the Square, we were out of time. We brought the Mustang back to the rental place; we waited while our plane was delayed some hours out of SLC, and then more hours out of Chicago; we got home and fell into bed around 2:30 a.m. And that was our not-too wild, wild Western trip. Utah is very cool. I can’t wait to go back – there’s a lot more to see.