TEN Presents /// DONALD PLEASENCE THEATER Episode 1: Wake In Fright (1971)

1. Movies from 68-75. No cell phones. No computers. Story not spectacle. No technology to bail you out.  In the 70s, my parents were struggling newlyweds. Vietnam and hippies and civil rights. Look at the America in Two Lane Blacktop. It's another freaking world. And in the 70s, Donald Pleasence was still acting. As it should be. Something is broken now that D-Plez is gone. 

2. D-Plez. Loomis. Blofeld. The name above the title on Halloween movies. His death in Fantastic Voyage. His Presidential flip out in Escape from New York. But here: raw, manic, pathetic. Stealing every scene. But real. He exists, and you know him.  

3. The setting. Small country towns in the Australian outback. So many little details, the sun so brutal, the dust and rocks and dried out brush. The people's faces so weather beaten and mad, their heads baking in the furnace. You are trapped in this movie.

4. Our main character. School teacher that hates teaching. Better than everyone he meets. Condescending smirk. Feels trapped by circumstance. Unlikable but relatable.  

5. A horror movie about identity. Are we who we say we are or who we are told to be? If given permission, would we be different? I could be a monster, inhuman and sick, if given the right context. Existential terror, the best kind.

6. No one wants to hurt our hero. He is his own monster. The antagonists are nothing but nice and genuine and generous.  

7. The townspeople are wild rednecks who live on this moon base with nothing to do but drink beer and hunt kangaroo. A frat party that has been going on for generations. No escape. 

8. Kangaroo hunting shown in vivid detail. Chasing down kangaroo in a beat up jalopy over the scorched earth. Surreal. No cute fat Looney Tune kangaroos here. Instead, starving, hairless, filthy, rat-creatures, slaughtered by drunk rednecks. The movie has a disclaimer, it is all real and shown to bring awareness of their imminent extinction. It works as activism, but you will avert your eyes.

9. Coin flipping. In small towns, the men are crammed into a basements gambling away their money on coin flips. In case you wondered.

10. Ted Kotcheff. The first shot shows that you can lower your guard and trust the filmmaker. Ted was paying attention when he put the movie together. Movies where free to tell stories in ‘71. They didn't have to sell combo meals or be Oscar bait.

SHOWSTOPPER: The opening theme song. It will infect you brains.

FINAL SCORE: 8/10

Me and the Girls

Greetings from the Overlook. RedRum!!

Vintage Geek

So here are some old Ben Cooper masks and some geeky blips from childhood.

What kid doesn't want the byproduct of a Swedish Satanist's opiate fueled nightmares for Christmas?

What kid doesn't want to dress up like it at Halloween?

Close Encounters T-Shirt

ET Shirt

ET Ben Cooper

Yes, I liked ET. 

Black Hole Lunch Box

Teaching Granddad how to play Atari 2600

6 Million Dollar Midget

Fight Evil

SD

Cookie Baby

Here is Abbie with one of the cookies I made and her big 40oz bottle of milk.

sd

Hell Mary doodle

Working on a new mini-comic. This one about a killer nun.

Speaking of killer chickens.... rent it now!

SD

Cameron Pics

These are untouched photos Steph found on her phone. Cam got a hold of it and started wandering around. I love it when this happens. I understand if this is only of interest to me.

chocolate light switch is my favorite
-SD

Ten Random Thoughts on Cosmopolis (2012)

1. Remember when Cronenberg made movies with squishy membranes and creepy twins? Or how about the Cronenberg who makes stuffy art films for film snobs. Remember that guy? Who do we get here? Squishy? Snob? Snob? Squishy?

2. Cosmopolis blew me away.

3. Ya know, I can sit and listen to an interesting monolog all day. I love them. Just watching Breaking Bad the other day, was so happy they gave character actor Jonathan Banks a nice big speech, where usually that guy is allowed to grunt "kill'm" and nothing more. This has AMAZING dialog spans in a style that I really dig. Not realist, but more like train of thought mixed with free association.

4. It would all be a train wreck if it wasn't so dang funny. Laugh out loud funny stuff. This is like a sci-fi comedy horror film. It is really out there. Scenes you just go huh? It is like theater, like really cool theater, so why not make a movie like that.

5. Samantha Morton in this movie just blows the whole thing up. Her character is fantastic.

6. Mr. Sad Eyed Vampire guy is in this, and he is really good. He's the guy who owns the world but has lost all connection to everything. He's a man adrift. I really dug him. No matter what awesome thing is happening, it's like he's a century old vampire again, having gone past happy and sad and hope and despair. He is just a sad view of what people are like now.

7.Cronenberg, like Coscarelli are still making movies like they give a damn. Cronenberg can get too stuffy for me. Spider and A Dangerous Affair, I couldn't finish, but this was a revelation to me. A new kind of thing.

8. So I was wondering where I had heard this POV before then saw in the credits that this was based on a Don Dellilo novel, and I ain't going to lie, I felt really smart for reading White Noise years back. I'm petty, so I ran into my closet and put on my tweed jacket with patches and started smoking a pipe.

9. Pastry Assassin Guy has just the greatest scene ever, watch the photographers around him, having the time of their lives. This movie is pretty loose and playful, stylish like a music video, and just super funny. It is like other Cronenberg movies, like Existenz, where you have a pretty good movie punctuated by amazing scenes.

10. Paul Giamatti is in this. That's what made me watch it. I had no interest in seeing a movie with Twilight boy riding around in a limo for the whole movie. But I heard that the carrot I'd get is a long scene with Giamatti playing a psycho. And he's great! He's got a towel on his head! What more do you need? You people are impossible.

OPENING CREDITS - Arty and cool. Snap your fingers daddy-o.

SHOW STOPPER - Besides Pastry Assassin Guy, the music here is really cool. It's Howard Shore collaborating with Metric. Go Canada!

If you want to see a flick just like Cosmopolis, but with a killer chicken... click here!

SD

2 Days!

Papa Paul and Abbie

Clown Versus Monkey Trailer

Da Trailer!

21 Days

How will you ever take care of a family? How will you take care of anyone?

23 Days!

CLOWN versus MONKEY Chunk#4 Coming

LIKE - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Clown-Versus-Monkey/151134372403

SEE - https://www.facebook.com/events/631816170170928/