Ahhh yes, it is time to begin pumpkin shopping and costume preparations. I thought I would share with you some Halloween highlights.





Nothing says Halloween quite like candy. From the David Sedaris story about eating chocolate until he was sick to the famous razor in the apple story debunked by Barry Glassner to that person in my office who already bought three bags of candy for trick or treat and then ate them all over a two day period, candy is one of the big features of this season.


But I'll be honest I wasn't even thinking about Halloween when I stopped in at Dylan's Candy Bar on Wednesday. Bakerina was having a bad day, and I thought to cheer her up I would stop and pick up a few vintage candy bars (Big Hunk, Look, and the Idaho Spud just to name a few). But when I walked in, I was overwhelmed. Not only does Peeps make Halloween Ghosties and Black Cat Peeps, but they also make chocolate filled pumpkin Peeps! Then there are the gummi brains and bats (an addition to the gummi snakes, killer sharks, and worms which are available all year long).


And then I saw it.


Fear Factor, yes the show Fear Factor, has spawned its own candy line. You can now have candy crunchy frog legs, cow heart or pig snout lollipops, or you can go hog whild and buy the gross out platter which comes with candy fish eyes, coagulated blood balls, and lots and lots of gummy worms. (What really grossed me out was the idea of gummy candy with bacon, cheddar cheese, or pepperini.) Trolli, which manufactures gummi tacos and burgers, didn't let the opportunity pass to make gummy eyes, fangs, and skeletons and package them all together in a "horror bag."

Well I couldn't pass all of this up especially with the New York City Horror Festival coming up on October 19th through the 23rd. I mean I have to have appropriate munchies for when I am watching the premier of Tobe Hooper's Mortuary or seeing the Rocky Horror Picture Show with audience response for the first time in twelve years! Five days of horror movies! If ever there was an event to inspire bunnikins to height of happiness, this would be it! One of my friends warned me about my attendance. "Listen Bunni," he said to me, "these events are usually filled with film geeks and horror movie dorks. They...uh...well they don't see too much hooterliciousness, if you follow me."


All this and easy slave pickins!


Not only am I of the mind that geeks and dorks make the best boyfriends, but the two anime cons I went to in 2001 certainly prepared me for the type of adoration I inspire at such events. I shall be the CorpseBride of the Horror Film Fest. Not to mention, that film geeks and horror movie dorks are not the most violent guys in the world. If anyone has to worry about safety issues, it's them.


While I'm there I am looking forward to the premier of Mainstream, a short film. The review I happened across claims the film is "a disturbing allegory on the regular working stiff who doesn’t think too much about his or her own existence." Which makes me think this film is a kind of like David Cronenberg talked to be for a while about what I encounter at my job and then made a short film about it.


In non-horrorfest film news, Wallace and Gromit's Curse of the Were-Rabbit is opening today, and I shall hopefully be seeing it this weekend as soon as I find a theater round these parts showing it. I mean if I didn't have so much respect for the film I would totally steal its tag line "Something wicked this way hops."



My favorite horror film from last year Saw will finally spawn a sequel Saw II (it has already gotten in trouble for its original ad campaign which had to be pulled because it was "too graphic.") Although writer actor Leigh Whannel, who worked on the original screenplay, helped co-write the script to the sequel, James "18 Days" Wan did not have any part of this film, which makes me sad and not just because he gives the best director commentary I've ever heard. Although not quite a horror film, Boondock Saints will also be releasing sequel. There isn't much information about the status of the film, but the two lovelies who starred in the first will return. MMmmmmmm hot Irish on Irish vigilante action. Gotta like it.


In other news, David Fincher (Se7en and Fight Club) is currently working on Zodiac based on the Zodiac killer; It stars a whole bunch of famous people including Chloe Sevigny, Ione Skye, Mark Ruffalo, Jake Gyllenhaal Robert Downey Jr (who is suddenly getting work again), and my personal fave Gary Oldman (nice to see him getting work outside of a fiften second cameo in a Harry Potter film).


Last night I finally caught a glimpse of the new Nightstalker series. The ever lucious Stuart Townsend (perhaps you may remember him as Lestat in the ill-fated Queen of the Damned also was Dorian Gray in the League of Extraordinary Men) plays Kolchak who in this remake of a series is a kind of fusion between the Fugitive and Fox Mulder. The original Kolchak was played by an actor who looked like, well, a leather pancake and wore a funny hat while investigating the wierdness afoot in Chicago. The new Kolchak is not only hot, fairly well dressed, and brooding, but is driven to investigate the wierdness after his wife dies in a strange incident. Although Kolchak claims she was murdered by an "I don't know what, but it wasn't human" beastie, most believe that he was responsible for her murder and his insane quest to clear his name is just part of the general insanity that led him to do crazy things like you know kill his wife. Unfortunately, there isn't enough evidence to convict him and so he is allowed to run around and investigate as he pleases. His distrustful partner, Perri, has the Scully role-the skeptic who is consistently shown up as being mistaker in her reasonable and scientifically provable beliefs. Last night's episode featuring a Manson like killer whose blindness allows him to develop his mental powers bears a ressemblance to the Pusher character from the X-files. It's not yet as good as the X-files, but well it's worth a drool over Stuart.




Ah yes, not quite as exciting as the last one, but worth a moment round the campfire.


Even though I was still sick this morning, when I got to the 6 train I wasn't in a bad mood.


Until,


the train pulled up and I got on. There was a teenage couple to my left not more than say seven inches away. The guy turned toward the girl and said "Wow, you must be happy for the first time ever you are not the shortest person." Now this in and of itself wouldn't have been quite so bad if he hadn't repeated it at least three times while I was standing there as if I was not just short, but also deaf and stupid. I happen to be neither. I am, however, conscience impaired and I quite possibly might have gone to work with my hands freshly christened in blood if they hadn't gotten off the train.


Later in the day, I was on my way to Penn Station as I am spending my weekend with Mere Lapin. I patiently waited for the C. When it came, this couple cut in front of me. OK fine the guy was so focused on the girl he didn't fucking see me at all. I can live with that, but then they were ambling so slowly that the subway car doors almost closed on him twice. Meanwhile I'm behind him saying excuse me. If you don't care about making this train, ok, but you know the rest of us having a fucking schedule so if you could take your leisurely ass out of our collective way it would be really appreciated. So I, all four foot six of me, had to muscle my way into this car and not just through the door, but also through the paralytic/comatose fourteen year old boy who apaprently couldn't fathom the concept of moving to the side so that I could get through. So I'm holding onto this pole, and the car is filling up. Now unlike other subway riders, I can not "strap hang." I am far too small, but I need something to hold onto in order to balance. Usually other riders understand and use the "strap" bar and allow me to use the poles. Not today. Meanwhile there is this guy wearing a nice suit, but shuffling a deck of cards and staring straight ahead saying to no one that his father was a nazi and some other things I couldn't quite hear. Finally I am twisted like a double helix desperately trying to keep a hold on the pole so I don't fall on my ass when I feel this stare. I turn to look without thinking and Mr. Forgot My Meds with the Nazi Dad is looking right at me. This is exactly what I need- to get involved with who's who in psychotic episodes on my way to upstate NY. But he says in this gentle voice "Excuse me miss, but do you need a seat?" And he gets up and offers me his seat. This is what NYC has come to. Only a fucking insane person would offer his/her seat on the subway.


These are just two of a now overwhelming sea of reasons why I want to leave NY.
I know I am bit behind on this one, but I'm going to subject you to my thoughts on this topic anyway.


As I wrote in my previous post, I watched Closer this weekend as per Rabid's demands. I came out of the film disappointed, but unable to pinpoint why exactly as there were some lovely lines, but they didn't quite fly and only in a few moments did the scenes really seem to work.


The script is clearly an adaptation of a play. Take that opening "scene" between Alice (Natalie Portman) and Daniel (Jude Law). To make it more exciting for viewers, the conversation is set in a number of locations :an ER, a park, a bus. Somehow by having a changing background, however, the conversation becomes dull and seems static. Furthermore different mediums have different advantages. In adapting a play or a novel to screen effectively, one has to play to its unique talents. In the film adaptation of The Sweet Hereafter a number of changes had to be made, including a massive transition in the narrative format. In the book, the narrative of the event is seperated into four discreet monologues. Although the original conception of the film tried to imitate that format, Egoyan, the director, decided it wasn't effective and told the story in non-chronological overlapping narratives. Despite such a massive change, the film captures the feeling of the book. Here keeping too close to the form of the play is actually a disservice to the story. Simply changing the setting was not enough. I suspect that here the inclusion of scenes that were edited from the original because of the limitations of the stage would have been a distinct advantage.


But what really killed this film was the pace. Nichols was apparently going for a kind of Pinter-esque approach to the action with long "meaningful" silences. Some of these moments worked, but Closer is supposed to be about four people who tear themselves and others apart in the name of passion. The lack of nudity, although striking, is fine as nudity is not necessarily indicative of passion, but frenzy is. The manic pace of a film like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind depict the out of control acceleration that the characters in Closer are supposed to be experiencing. To have a few reflective moments is fine, but the long silences compounded by the nearly expressionless faces of Julia Roberts and Jude Law weighs down the pace to a crawl deadening whatever action, below the waist or otherwise, which might carry this film. And they certainly don't create the impression that the action centers around four characters in the grip of overwhelming impulses, but rather their decisions to cheat on each other are the studied results of hours upon hours of silent refection. In the few moments where the lines are quickly picked up and the silences are filled with action, like the confrontation between Alice and Daniel, the movie works because it does convey the irrational and impulsive nature of these characters. I only wish the film had been allowed to have more of these moments and less "Hey hey look we're being profound. See how much time we are taking looking thoughtful."


Speaking of stage to screen adaptations I recently found out the film version of Rent is going to be directed by Christopher Columbus. Who, may I ask, came up with the brilliant idea that a man who has made his career with sentimental family comedies (Mrs Doubtfire, Home Alone, Nine Months) should direct a film version of a musical about bohemian new yorkers? Does he seem like the right guy to direct a musical deals with such lighthearted issues as sexual identity, suicide, and AIDS? Well, I guess those Harry Potter films were a little dark.



OK people I can't write about it now, but I shall be in the very near fture putting up a post about my weekend-just to give you a taste it involves, and not in this order, the blogger party, ex boyfriends, dead other women, possible autobiography titles, covered in reddi whip, accused of being the Amazon's lipstick lesbian consort, more fun with t-shirt ideas, and discussing the ambivalent nature of salad with Ricardo who apparently has issues with traif.
So the other day I'm having lunch with a friend who orders salad.


"What I love about salad is that you can eat forever and never get full."


"That's what disturbs me about it. I like a distinctive beginning and end. I don't like the ambiveltn nature of salad."


Well, I have recovered a bit. I'm no longer so depressed I am drinking martinis out of the toilet. And thank you for all the support.


It's hard to explain the true nature of depression to people who haven't experienced it. They keep asking "But what happened?"and you have to say nothing happened, nothing, I just woke up and thought crickey everything is a vast hole of nothingness.


Of course the bad part of coming out of a depressive state is you suddenly see how you have been and how you have behaved and what you have written and you are totally embarassed. You think "lord no wonder people flee." It's enough to send you back into another depression. I think this time just a nap will do.