Fool's Views (3/16 – 3/22)

Feeling a little lost in the woods? Join the club.

Greetings, my friends,

Well, not a lot to say that hasn’t already been said. It’s a bit of a zoo out there, so this might be a good time to step into the Wayback machine and revisit the cinematic climate of Dr. AC’s office three weeks ago, just as the COVID-19 crisis starting hitting Chicago. We got the word to shelter-in-place, and we took Gov. Pritzker (who’s been doing a damn fine job, I gotta say, along with Mayor Lightfoot) at his word and stayed home as best we could. I ventured out at one point to donate blood/platelets when I heard that there was an understandable shortage due to a drop in donors, and we went to the grocery store a couple times, but that was about it.

As I’m sure many of you experienced for yourselves, there was a sense of stunned shock and disbelief and “what are we supposed to do?” in the air, so I immediately dove into my coping device of choice: watching as many movies as possible. (In case you hadn’t noticed, this is a one-week report as opposed to a bi-monthly!) As luck would have it, I had a pile of Bronson all ready to go, and Shout! Factory TV and my new four-pack of Coen Brothers movies took care of the rest quite nicely. And you’re not mistaken, there wasn’t much in the way of horror Views – the real world seemed scary enough.

I didn’t ONLY watch movies during the first week of the crisis. But I’m not gonna lie, I watched a mess of them. Try not to judge too harshly.

As always, feel free to leave your two cents worth – we’ll make sure you get some change back.

Enjoy!

Fool's Views Haikus (8/9 – 8/29)

Felicidades, amigos,

To be honest, I was surprised when I tallied up the totals for this three week period. In spite of occupational obligations both in office and on the road, I was still able to bang out 14 flicks, as well as a hefty number of TZ eps (dee-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee-dee). Once again, the Kryptic Army assignment (slashers this month) provided a much needed boot to the pants, topped off with a little Share the Scare action with the man himself. Hats also go off to Chicago’s third annual summer Terror in the Aisles, even though I only was able to sit in for one of the flicks this year. Some decent civilian viewings this time around, as well as dipping into the wild well of old-time horror radio whilst flying around the country. Work is still a drag, but life could be worse, and I’d rather light a candle than curse the darkness.

Seems there’s been a bit of confusion, what with the haiku format, as to my personal sentiments towards the films in question. Some folks have suggested that I do a “star rating” or some sort of quantitative ranking (such-and-such out of 10), and while I’ve never been a big fan of those, it may be a short-term solution for the time being since my writing time has become so limited lately. That said, films are complex beasts, and while I will give the ranking thing a whirl in the interest of clarification and sparking discussion, it’s not really my style and I look forward to having a little more blather time so that we can avoid the reductive shackles. Sound like a deal?

Said rankings will be as follows: The first out-of-10 number will represent the film’s “quality” level in my estimation, the second my overall enjoyment level. We’ll see if that works and bear with me as I try to navigate the minefields. And with that…

On with the Views! As always feel free to throw in your two cents worth – we’ll make sure you get some change back.

Enjoy!