Archive for the ‘oddities’ Category

Review: Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities

Posted: November 6, 2022 by John Ruberry in culture, media, oddities
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By John Ruberry

Late October arrived with what I thought would be a pleasant surprise, a new Netflix horror and suspense series, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities. Del Toro, known for the superb art direction in his films, is an Academy Award winner for directing The Shape of Water, that film contains a controversial scene which we’ll discuss shortly.

There are eight episodes, set either in the early 20th century or the latter part of the century. Oh, for balance, there’s one set around 1950. All but one of them are based on short stories, two of them by del Torro, and two by H.P. Lovecraft, a horror and fantasy writer, the bulk of his work was published in the 1920s and 1930s.

First the good. The acting is superb and not surprisingly, so is the art direction and cinematography. The bad–well, the stories aren’t very good, and in what is becoming common with Netflix, the episodes are too long, each one of Cabinet of Curiosities‘ segments could be trimmed by anywhere from ten to twenty minutes. The episodes run from 38 minutes to slightly more than an hour. And like many Netflix original series, funding doesn’t seem to be an issue. That was not the situation with the low-budget horror movies that I grew up with and enjoyed, such as Vincent Price’s American International Picture films. Netflix needs to focus on the basics of entertainment, not the frills.

Del Toro, just as Rod Serling did with The Twilight Zone, introduces each episode. The titular character of Alfred Hitchcock Presents performed the same duty, and there is a Game of Thrones-style cabinet animation device as the opening credits run. Del Toro doesn’t direct any of the episodes.

But Cabinet of Curiosities, rather than emulating The Twilight Zone, harkens back to Steven Spielberg’s mid-1980s NBC anthology series, Amazing Stories. It should have been called “Stories,” because that heavily hyped series was anything but “amazing.” The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents were rebooted around this time, both fell flat. As the saying goes, if Hollywood ever had an original idea, it would die of loneliness.

I’ll briefly sum up each Cabinet of Curiosities entry, in the order of their release. If you are running out of time with my post, or if you are running out of patience, I have this message. Just two of the eight episodes are worth viewing, “Pickman’s Model” and “The Murmuring.”

Lot 36: Nick Appleton (Tim Blake Nelson) is a bitter Vietnam veteran who is physically and emotionally damaged from that war. This entry is set just as the First Gulf War is breaking out. Appleton, who makes his living by buying abandoned storage units, is a racist who listens to conservative talk radio. The implied message of course is that everyone who listens to what liberals call “right-wing radio” is a bigot. But everyone I know who listens to conservative talkers do so because they are tired of government overreach and they don’t like high taxes, among other things. Appleton purchases a storage unit owned by a Nazi who recently died. Get it? American bigot, Nazi, white supremacy. I’m stupefied that the director of this bit didn’t dye Nelson’s hair bright orange here. “Lot 36” is based on a del Toro short story. I hated this segment.

Graveyard Rats: And this episode is based on what? Okay, the answer to that question is easy. Masson (David Hewlett) is a formerly well-to-do man who is now struggling along as a graverobber in a town known for the macabre, Salem, Massachusetts. There’s plenty of plot build-up here, as is the case with much of Cabinet of Curiosities, but little payoff.

The Autopsy: Minor spoiler alert: Just as with surgeries, autopsies are never solo projects. F. Murray Abraham, who never gives a bad performance, portrays a dying coroner, Dr. Carl Withers, who is investigating a mysterious accident at a Pennsylvania coal mine. Again, the set-up doesn’t match the ending of this episode. Watching the autopsies got me wondering. Why weren’t twenty minutes of this segment sliced off?

There is also an age-restricted YouTube video available here.

The Outside: Set in the late 1970s, as was “The Autopsy,” Stacey (Kate Micucci) is an unattractive and socially awkward bank teller surrounded by pretty but shallow female co-workers. Her hobby is taxidermy. Stacey’s life is altered as she becomes enamored with commercials touting a facial cream; the ads are subtle parodies of the faith healers who were often found on late night television at the time. Some of the facial cream comes to life. There is an erotic scene, an homage to Amphibian Man getting it on with a woman in The Shape of Water, in “The Outside.” I hated this episode too.

Pickman’s Model: Although this offering is extremely disturbing, “Pickman’s Model” worked for me. Will Thurber (Ben Barnes) is a wealthy art student at a Boston area college. All is well for him–until he sees the nightmarish paintings and sketches of Richard Pickman (Crispin Glover). A well-known lesson from the life of Vincent Van Gogh is that the boundaries between creativity and insanity are narrow. Oh, one little correction. Pickman tells Thurber that one of his ancestors was burned at the stake during the Salem Witch Trials. In fact, all of the executed accused witches in Salem were hanged, save one who refused to enter a plea. He was pressed to death.

Dreams in the Witch House: After his twin sister dies, a now-middle-aged Walter Gilman (Rupert Grint) is attempting to reconnect with her by way of spiritualists. There is a kissing scene with Gilman and a witch–she has been burnt to a crisp. Eww. There’s a lot of other weirdness here too. And while for the most part it is visually striking, “Dreams in the Witch House,” plot-wise, is vacant. As with “Pickman’s Model,” this segment is based on an H.P. Lovecraft story.

The Viewing: An eccentric wealthy man, Lionel Lassiter (Peter Weller), invites five seemingly unconnected celebrities to his mansion to view a mysterious object. To place them all on the same mental plane, they snort high-grade cocaine. And while there is a lot of action, it’s impossible to ascertain what it all adds up to. Nothing, is what I think. At nearly an hour in length, there is plenty of time for the scriptwriters to present their message. But they don’t. Perhaps the writers were on drugs when the produced the script. This piece was too boring for me to despise.

The Murmuring: Two married ornithologists, Nancy (Essie Davis) and Edgar Bradley (Andrew Lincoln), are devastated by a tragedy. They travel to a remote Canadian island to study the murmurations, that is, the cloud-like flocks of a wading bird species, the dunlin. But the crumbling old house they are staying in offers them plenty of distractions from their work. As a nature lover, I particularly enjoyed this entry–and I could easily see it fitting in as an episode of the original Twilight Zone. Not so with the other seven segments. “The Murmuring” is the other episode based on a del Toro short story.

Each entry is a stand-alone, you can watch one of them, two of them, or all of them. If you choose the last option–you’ve been warned.

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities is rated TV-MA for violence, disturbing themes, nudity, drug use, vivisection, and gore.

John Ruberry regularly blogs Marathon Pundit.

A Few Photos and Videos from the Tender Bar Shoot in my neighborhood earlier this month with Ben Affleck and George Clooney

Posted: April 24, 2021 by datechguy in culture, entertainment, local, oddities, special events, trade
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There are the people in my neighborhood

One of the interesting things about having part of a movie shot in your neighborhood is the number of people who turn up, both your neighbors who you end up talking to and people from around the area. While I went outside a couple of times my wife spent most of the day outside getting up very early and taking photos and videos with the camera I usually use for interviews (which have been few and far between due to work and COVID although I had a pair of Catholic ones this week, more on that tomorrow). She pretty much shot a bunch of one minute clips and a fair amount of photos till she came home tired around 2 and crashed. The biggest take away I got from them was that despite the better pay a lot of acting, at least in movies which aren’t on the same deadline as a weekly TV show, is that like any other job there is a fair amount of tedious repetition.

Because she took so many shots I’m only uploading a few plus three videos. Be aware that the date on the Camera was set wrong. While the shoot had been scheduled for the 7th it was actually done on the 8th.

There are plenty more but I think this gives the gist of what is going on with the police controlling the crowd and traffic and the guys in charge letting people know when to be quiet etc.

I figured the Diner would have done pretty well with these folks but alas for Ed because there were three different days when the shooting might have taken place his regulars stayed away those days and he only got a quick burst of business when they called lunch the day of the shooting which didn’t make up for it.

Anyways here are the three videos here is one with a shot of their car pulling out

My wife shot a lot of those, didn’t upload the others since they were pretty much the same. DaWife says they did it about five times. Each time they pull out, when Clooney calls cut Affleck backs up and they get ready to do it again.

Here is another shot of Clooney joking with the kid and Affleck before another shot. This would be just visible from my front yard.

And finally here is a 3rd shot of him directing the kid before another shot and then the shot itself. The antique cars were parked in the neighborhood for about a week before the shoot but then again I’m old enough that to me they don’t seem like antiques they’re just the cars I remember from the 70’s. In fact my 1st two cars were a 67 Barracuda and a 75 Buick LeSabre both convertables.

My chief interest in all of these is how the work is actually done as I’m not experienced in it. Granted it’s not work in the sense that my dad worked or that I or my sons or my wife do but it’s work and it takes them away from their homes for long periods of time. Granted it would have been cool to get Clooney to sign the season 1 of ER that I bought my wife 20+ years ago and my son had hoped to get a Batman comic signed by both as they each (Clooney meh, Affleck actually very good) played the role but there was none of that.

And frankly in an age of cancel culture where people are looking to bring down folks for saying or doing the wrong thing the last thing you really want to do is mix with a bunch of strangers with cameras any one of whom might hold a grudge and be looking to get their 15 min of fame by giving you grief. That realization precludes Jimmy Stewart’s old advice to Raquel Welch about fans and autographs these days and must be a pain in the neck, particularly if someone happens to be affable by nature who previously enjoyed meeting the fans.

At least the pay is good.

As I said there are a lot more pictures and a lot more video but they seem too repetitive to upload to youtube and given how close to the vest things have been around here I can’t justify the extra bandwidth charges to put them all up. Feel free to hit DaTipJar to offset those costs.

The Trump cadaver synod

Posted: January 24, 2021 by John Ruberry in catholic, elections, News/opinion, oddities, politics
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By John Ruberry

Okay, I admit, the headline is provocative, and absolutely click-baity. But stay with me here. In two weeks the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump will begin. Presidents of course can be impeached by the House and removed from office for committing “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

There’s just one obvious problem here. On Wednesday Joe Biden was sworn in as Trump’s successor.

Last year on his Cabinet of Curiousities podcast Aaron Mahnke spoke of a “particularly dark and corrupt moment in the church’s past,” the Catholic church that is. That moment was the trial of Pope Formosus in 897.

The Holy Father was accused of a grab bag of crimes, including perjury, seeking to be the bishop of more than one jurisdiction, and coveting the papacy. Because he was unable to speak in his defense, a deacon was appointed for that task. Formosus was found guilty, he had three middle fingers cut off–the fingers used for blessings–and buried in an obscure cemetery not befitting the Bishop of Rome. His body was quickly exhumed and then dumped in the Tiber River.

If the prior paragraph doesn’t make complete sense it’s because Formosus, after a five-year papacy, died in 896. His successor was pope for just two weeks, the next pope was Stephen VI, an enemy of Formosus. He called for what historians label the cadaver synod. Stephen ordered the first exhumation of Formosus. His corpse was then dressed in papal robes, propped on a chair, and the conviction process began as there was certainly no doubt of the verdict, despite an earthquake during the trial that might have elicited a few doubts among Vatican officials.

Just as the guilty verdict of Formosus was set twelve centuries ago, so was the House of Representatives’ vote to impeach Trump a second time, just one week before the end of his term. Trump’s chances for an acquittal in the Senate are much better. In essence, the second impeachment process against Trump is his cadaver synod. It’s about making a political statement and playing to the base.

The justifications for the second impeachment from Democrats vary, but the primary goal seems to be preventing the former president from seeking another term in 2024. Another reason for impeaching and removing Trump from office, now moot, was that he possessed the nuclear strike codes. After the first Trump impeachment, House speaker Nancy Pelosi, knowing that the odds of the Senate voting to convict Trump were remote, called the lower chamber’s vote “an impeachment that will last forever.” Presumably this will be a second impeachment that will last forever. Oh, and it’s a splendid way for Pelosi and the Democrats to tar the Republican brand.

A third run for the White House, in my opinion, is unlikely for Trump. The former president will be 78 in 2024; yes, that is the same age as Biden, who is clearly an old 78. Three years is a long time for people in their 70s. And in the last 100 years no president who was defeated in a reelection attempt has tried to regain the White House. Only one, Gerald Ford, has seriously considered it. And Trump, again in my opinion, damaged his brand in the last weeks of his presidency by his slowness to condede defeat, his hostile phone call to the Georgia secretary of state asking him to change the election results there, and the riot at the Capitol–which by the way the president did not incite. And the riot, the destructive work of about 1,000 conspirary theorists and other screwballs, was not an insurrection. While Trump is a clearly a unique politician, political moods change. In 1980 Americans weren’t clamoring for Gerald Ford–they wanted Ronald Reagan.

The Trump cadaver synod is a two-minute hate for Democrat politicians and a way, perhaps for the final time, to fill their campaign funds in the name of Trump, and a hate that is being cheered on by the anti-Trump media, who will soon see a drop in readers and viewers now that their enemy is out of office.

In other words Impeachment Part Two is a waste of time.

As for Formosus, his body was recovered by a monk and buried–for the last time–in St Peter’s Basilica. His accuser, Stephen VI, was pope for little more than a year. After the cadaver synod Stephen was imprisoned and then strangled to death.

As for voters, a much more civil revenge will be to return the GOP to majorities in both houses of Congress.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Keith Ellison and My Plan of Action for Riots Part 2

Posted: June 6, 2020 by datechguy in News/opinion, oddities
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When I woke up on Thursday (when I wrote this post at first) I thought of my friend Hanna who had escaped from Iraq and now lives in Worcester MA.

I interviewed her for my interviews with immigrants series a while back and thought how familiar the violent scenes that she thought she had escaped must be and how she is reacting.

But it also hit me that she must also have experience in prep for these matters so as long as she and her family kept her head they were likely do better than Americans not experienced with this kind of thing and while there is tragically a lot of experience in my family defending one’s home and business from people trying to harm or kill us, most of it happened before I was born so I had to come up with a plan which I wrote it this post below. I thought of mothballing it but now it’s Saturday and I’ve read this:

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is reportedly taking further steps in the murder case of George Floyd. Ellison is expected to up the charge against Officer Derek Chauvin to murder in the second degree. Chauvin was filmed kneeling on Floyd’s neck as he audibly said that he could not breathe, which ultimately led to his death on the scene; he was originally arrested on a charge of third-degree murder and manslaughter last week.

and realized this is a recipe for disaster. He is upping the charges to a level that requires intent to kill rather that reckless action the chances are excellent that a good lawyer can win this case meaning the chances are even better for a 2nd round of rioting (if that was the goal of his move is a post for another day) given that possibility I think it’s worth publishing my plan of action post for others future reference after all. Here it is. (note that 1, 2, 4-7 & 11 are good for any natural disaster)

  1. Have a bag packed with two days of clothing and some toiletries. If you are forced to flee you have more to wear than the clothes on your back. If the worst doesn’t happen go on an overnight with family sometime in the month so you can use the clothes and get them washed.
  2. Get a credit card count that you never plan to use and keep that card in that bag (if anyone charges you know it’s fraud) and if you have to flee and need cash or credit you have your full line to use.
  3. Make sure anything that can be used as a weapon against you is put away. No gas or oil for the mower or combustibles in view of a passing “protest” no cobblestones or other items to be thrown through your windows in easy reach of the yard.
  4. Have an escape route planned. If you are not planning to defend your property or even if you are and reach the point where such a defense is untenable know how you are leaving and by what route. If you get any news that said route is about to or has the potential to be cut off leave at once.
  5. Arrange at least two “bolt holes” in advance to hold up with family and / or friends. If at all possible choose definable locations & people who you know are well armed.
  6. Plan for contingencies. Will you lose power, will you lose internet? Will a lot of people be fleeing in one directly.
  7. Make sure you have key data on a SD card and at least one device “laptop, phone, etc ready to go. Make sure you have spare cables and chargers packed.
  8. Remember that if you are planning to defend your property make sure your loved ones are safe and gone. If they are nearby you will be distracted worrying about their safety which will get you hurt or killed.
  9. Know the lay of the land. What route are potential attackers coming from? Are there choke points where they can be stopped before reaching your home (bridges etc) that are more defensible?
  10. Base any defense on the weapons you have at hand. If the only weapons you have are for close quarters don’t get in a situation where you can be overwhelmed. If they are ranged then keep your distance and your advantage.
  11. Adjust to developing situations. It’s axiomatic that no plan survives contact with an enemy. Keep an eye on what is happening and adjust your strategy accordingly. Being signed on to some kind of police band is useful here.
  12. REMEMBER THE GOAL IS THE SAFETY OF YOUR HOME AND YOURSELF! You are not there to “punish” anyone you are there to keep yours safe. Be ready to defend an attack but don’t invite one or taunt those going by if they choose to go by even if they are taunting you. Choose the hill you’re going to die carefully because you may end up doing so and one rock through one window isn’t it.
  13. If there is no chance to save your home, BUG OUT. This isn’t the Alamo and you’re not Jim Bowie. If you can’t save your property get to safety.
  14. FINALLY. Lethal force is the absolute last resort to be used when every other option is gone but once you decide to use it USE IT. If you’re at the point where it is do or die DO! But be damn sure before you do that you are ready for the consequences of that choice physical and legal.

Postscript: Know yourself! If you are not capable either physically or temperamentally or mentally to defend your property or family calmly and rationally or make life or death decisions in a crisis follow steps one to seven, ignore the rest and get the hell out.

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