Monday, June 27, 2011

Ew... smell this.

So far I have only talked about documentaries that I liked watching. I'm sure you have taken my advice and viewed them (wink, wink). Documentaries are not all stuffy and boring. If I've taught you anything, it's that they can be entertaining, and give you a ton of conversation pieces for parties. However, there are still some films out there that have killed my buzz on one occasion or another. Today you will know about several documentaries that maybe you shouldn't watch, but I won't hate you for watching anyway... at least to see that I'm right.
In no real ranking order, but I numbered them anyway, here are the top four documentaries that I could not finish because they were so... terrible.

1. Eyes of the Mothman
This was surprisingly boring, since this film is about a man who looks like a moth, has a history of terrorizing a small town, and is the basis of one of the best horror movies. Heck! It's a true life monster movie! It was way too long at 2.5 hours. The first thirty minutes were spent discussing in detail a battle between settlers and Native Americans, told with the same three shots of an old white man playing the chief who supposedly cursed the Virginian town and summoned the Mothman. I love history, but this was so dry. If you still hold a flame in your heart from 2002, when you saw Mothman Prophesies, Eyes of the Mothman will blow on it until you're like, "stop it!" Then you should run away. That happened to me a half hour in.  

2. American Scary
 This could have been so fun and informative! American Scary is about the late night horror hosts of the 50s and 60s. (Think Elvira, the Cryptkeeper, Vincent Price). Apparently there were hundreds of these hosts; one for each local TV station across America. The film lacked what most documentaries have: an over-arching voice. Instead, it was all talking heads; one person after another expressing their opinions about favorite hosts and what was great about them. Heavy on the opinion, light on facts. I couldn't finish because I needed to take a break from hearing 50 different people smelling their own farts, and there was no end in sight. Look at the cast on imdb, I'm not exaggerating too much about the number. Imagine a merry-go-round of all these people recalling their fond memories of ghoulish hosts of yore. It's nice and all, but please someone make me feel like I'm learning and not just having a biased and one-sided conversation at a party with a lot of 45-year old cape enthusiasts.

3. America's Most Haunted Town
Other people don't like this either
 Cool concept, crazy boring. It's always hard to listen to interviews with people who are not public speakers. They can't all be camera-ready I suppose. People are people, and how appropriate to have real people in a documentary about a haunted small town. I don't remember what town it was, doesn't matter. The film had a rhythm of "um"s and "ah"s, that would drive you insane. More "um"s than interesting facts. I didn't even make it far enough to see that the movie get's even worse. Once it get's into the ghost stories, (you can see by the comments on the hulu page) the whole movie was pretty unconvincing anyway.

4. Tales of the Rat Fink
Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, car designer and creator of Rat Fink, is awesome, but once his cars started talking to the camera, I was out of there.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

The French Kiss @ Hana Sushi

Look at that. Don't you want to do nasty things to that maki?  This is The French Kiss at Hana Sushi in Cambridge, MA.


The French Kiss at Hana Sushi photo credit Matt Aromando
The contents: tempura shrimp, smoked salmon, tuna, crabstick, three colors of roe, cream cheese, avocado, cucumber and "special sauce."
It has the most variety of fish in one maki roll I have ever eaten. The tuna is the only raw fish besides the roe. The shrimp is fried, the salon smoked, and the crab stick... whatever they do to make crab stick they certainly did it. It's like a beautiful little feast of fish in your mouth. The roe in colors of black, red, and bight green, reminded me of bunches of grapes...fed to me by a lover...on a moon lit night...in the ocean. A bit much? What can I say it was a sexy roll of maki.
Despite the copious amount of fish and caviar, this culinary make-out session only costs you $10.50 for 5 pieces. Highly recommended, left satisfied.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Easy TV: Celebritiy Ghost Stories and I Survived...

Last week I was sick. I was not going to make a post during my bout of viral pinkeye. Instead I watched an inordinate amount of two television programs: Celebrity Ghost Stories and I Survived.... Both shows are made by the Bio network and are remarkably similar in structure. These shows take little effort to watch and follow, so it was like crack to me during my illness.
John Waters on Celebrity Ghost Stories

The format of Celebrity Ghost Stories is a one-sided interview with four B to D range celebrities (think dancing with the stars dancers, VH1 celebriality stars, and surprisingly, nearly the entire cast of the Sopranos). While the celebrity tells their tale of dealing with the paranormal, blurry quickly-cut footage of people who have their matching hair color, reenact the scene. They make scenes from the past or other countries look vaguely accurate, but one can tell it's probably all shot in willing crew-member's property, and the director uses as many diversions as possible. It appears that each reenactment only uses about three minutes of actual footage. The editor loves repeating shots to add emphasis, jiggling photographs of people dressed like ghosts. The best time-eating trick is to nearly explain the whole story over again after every single commercial break.
The show is not scary or creepy to any degree, but it is really entertaining.  Every couple of episodes you get a gem, like David Carradine, John Waters, Dave Foley, Tracy Nelson, or Daniel Stern. Stories like theirs keep you sloshing through the muck. The muck is tall tales about entire buildings disappearing, drops in temperature, and departed loved ones saying hello. The aforementioned gems have more layers, history, evidence, terror. Good. Clean. Fun.
Similarly, I Survived... is a one-sided interview with three ordinary people who have survived horrific events. In this scenario, there are no reenactments and only a few still photographs that I can assume are never from the actual scenes. A friend suggested I watch I Survived... as therapy to help with my sensitivity to blood.  I Survived... was not difficult for me to watch, but it did help me gain perspective on almost dying (and every episode has at least one person getting their throat slit). Since there are no reenactments, just the person talking, there is nothing to close your eyes over. You just cringe and take it.
On the other hand, the recounting of the events is told in such a mater-of-fact way, some of the bloodiest moments have the wind knocked out of them. Maybe it's just their way of coping, and remembering, or that they were in such shock they just didn't feel the pain. While a woman says here attacker's first move was to cut her in the arm, I'm thinking "That's it, that's the wost part". But he actually kidnaps and rapes her for 24 hours, and the fact that she was cut in the arm is never mentioned again. I guess my worst fears are not as crucial in the big picture. It is also depressing as hell. It's a good show to share a cathartic moment with yourself. I subjected myself to hours of these moments.
By what I've said it's obvious you don't actually need to watch the shows closely to get the gist. Listen to it like old time radio... but you'll find yourself needing the shitty ghost footage or a photograph of the bloody hairbrush having the Tim Burns kicked out of it.
It sounds like I hate these shows. Really, I just don't respect them too much. I have fun with them, but we both know we can never have what Breaking Bad and I have.
The truth is, I watched such a marathon of Celebrity Ghost Stories, Hulu asked me to take a break. I wish I had thought to take a screen shot of this pop-up window, but I was all like, never show me this again, no thanks.