90-minute Walmart - "Near Dark": The Teenage Vampire Standard

Is it weird to say that director Kathryn Bigelow is an innovator? She deserves the title being the first woman to with the Best Director Academy Award, but she was not the first nominee, and she is best known for her genre flicks "Near Dark" and "Point Break".

These genre films are what make her an innovator. Nothing brilliant has come from the extreme sport FBI genre (Sorry Vin Diesel), but when it comes to the vampire love story genre, "Near Dark" showed Hollywood how it should be done.

Caleb is your typical Oklahoman teenager who should be thinking about signing up for agriculture classes at the local junior college. He drives his truck, raises horses, and enjoys "exciting" trips into town to act like the "King of the Hill" gang. Everything changes on one of these trips where he tries to win over the mysterious new girl in town, Mae. The only thing she lets Caleb in on is her obsession with the night.

Attached to this obsession are instincts she cannot resist which results in her taking a nip out of Caleb's neck. This leave Caleb trapped in a world that is controlled by the will of vampire Jessie Hooker. Unwilling to join these killers, he must either find a way to survive and stay with Mae or find a way to get back to his family and return to the normal.

With his family trying to track him down, hopefully Caleb will come to terms with his fate before his father and sister meet his new crew.

 Anybody know where I could stream Near Dark? - Reddit

Check out the rest of review at "Ninety For Chill: A More Acceptable Runtimes

DevonDrawsHorror - Etsy

"Innocent Blood" Screwball Vampires (Pre Taika and Jermaine)

For those who thought "An American Werewolf in London" was too dark, John Landis's return to the horror genre was a screwball homage to the cheesy horror films of the 50's to early 70's. If "Innocent Blood" does not entice the horror fans, this film ventured into the mafia and softcore porn genres. Can the "Blues Brothers" and "Animal House" attitudes glue these two concepts together, or was this just a prelude to "Blues Brothers 2000".

Marie is a starved vampire in Pittsburgh. All she can appreciate in her life is love and the hunt, but with love being impossible to obtain, only the blood keeps her carrying on with her immortal existence. Her morals make it difficult to find ideal prey, but after a little research, she decides to take a bite out of organized crime.

Her plan on wiping out the mafia does hit a snag when she was unable to finish her latest dish, boss Sallie "The Shark" Macelli. Without being able to mutilate the body, she ends up turning Macelli into the undead, and he is ready to use this new set of teeth to create the strongest family in Pennsylvania.

Not having the resources to track down the Don, she must drag undercover cop Joe Genero a long to finish the job. Joe knows what Marie is, so his biggest problem maybe learning how to trust his new partner and coming to terms with her animal instincts.

"Innocent Blood" is appropriately titled since the love story is about the lost and/or acquisition of innocence. It is a cute story of acceptance and the difficulty our leads have with it. The latter element provides us with very likable characters. Landis's execution of this relationship works well enough that it could be the focus of its own film. Only
"The Insatiable" does this as well.

There in lies the problem with the film. It could have just been a cute/sexy vampire flick with screwball elements, but it also is a screwball mob film. Performances like Robert Loggia as "The Shark" and Don Rickles as his attorney make the mix worthwhile, but too much for this film to handle. This results in a rushed third act and less interactions between our leads.

Landis may have too much action taking place at certain points in the story, but otherwise he shot the tale rather well. It does seem that he needed a larger budget to make this film work as well as it should have. Suppose that is what you get for directing Michael Jackson's controversial video for "Black or White".

"Innocent Blood" is a cute, digestible vampire love story with great performances and clever concepts. Unfortunately, these ideas prove to be too much for one movie. It has something for everyone, but it feel likes like you are being rushed to finish a great dinner to catch a show. If anything, Landis's film does deliver on its message of, "Always finish your food."

Innocent Blood Blu-ray - blu-ray.com

Productivity in the Time of Lockdown: 20 Questions

 

Imagine We Still Had VHS (Instead of Depressed Trolls like @CfuFreedom) - Agent AIKa - Naked Missions

 *Blog post started on September 29, 2020.

Adulting can be pretty hard. Yes, I know. That is common knowledge. Everything is probably just a blur to me because I have worked everyday since the 21st and even fit in the time to put 180 miles on the car to visit my parents during this stretch.

Sunday cannot come soon enough. Fortunately, the need to use up my vacation days at the bank next month has given me a few sporadic days off. Which means I should not be too annoyed about any long stretch when the retailer puts me on both days of a weekend. Seeing those paychecks further drive the point home. Here is to hoping that I can get my finances under control so that I am ready to pursue the creative scene once Chicago opens back up.

How did Styx ever have too much time on their hands? Perhaps it is because of the lack of social media. Dealing with racist and sexist trolls can take up a lot of time. I could stop, but now I have some of these assholes following me, so it must mean that I am getting good at it. If picking on me is as important as mocking The Squad and Elizabeth Warren, my ego feels good.

That is the last laugh I suppose. If I can get the point where all these sociopathic conservatives with like those below who have no respect for women's rights become followers:

@kayleighmcenany
@robbystarbuck
@Klutzy84
@Alvaroidz

@TheGoldWaterUS

I will thoroughly enjoy ignoring them like all of my liberal heroes. It is all about making them realize their annoying comments have no value, but for whatever reason, my opinions do.

Another distraction to properly using my time is trying to decide what to watch if I do not have a Red Box or a Netflix DVD. We are still two blog posts away from diving back into 90-minute movies, so that disqualifies about half of my options. Most of my remaining unwatched movies really demand a very attentive eye (The Criterion Collection and Terry Gilliam works). This is excluding all the anime.

Because I was reviewing only the first 90 minutes of series, I feel it is best that I not open anything up new and revisit what I had not reviewed. In essence, an entire series is being represented by three episodes, thus I do not want to give the wrong impressions of products that I have yet to have an all encompassing opinion on. The Blu-ray series have all been taken care of in the past four weeks, so lets go through my DVD's, starting at the letter A.

Unfortunately, this leads me to "Agent AIKa" a series I remember for its obscene amount of fan service and objectification of women. The worst thing about that is that I purchased it "used" from an FYI. I do not feel cool just selling it back. If it was a once defective DVD sold at Big Lots or a truck stop, mine opinion about reselling a resell is different.

Those initial statements maybe harsh. I did not have my critical lenses on. Being caught off guard seeing an upskirt shot of every female character, my opinion of the story may have been tainted and I could have missed enduring details. This rewatch should give this series a fair shake. More importantly, it warrants this series being a purchase instead of a rental or a torrent.

Agent AIKa - Episodes 1 to 4 (Naked Missions)

Check out the rest of this critique at AnimeRuss.blogspot.com - For those curious about anime but hate the geeks

Agent Aika (1997) - IMDb

 

Does Being Goldberg Free Mean Too Much Prestige?: Disgruntled's Modern Poser Championship - Part 3

*Blog post started on September 23, 2020.

It has been a tough couple of days, but I think I am over all the obstacles. My fingers are crossed that I will get a day off next weekend at my retail gig, but I should not set my expectations too high.

Saturday featured a flat tire that barely survived the drive to my nine-hour shift at the retailer. I did not account on the time that would be lost. When I attempted to change the tire during my lunch, the screw securing the spare would not budge. So a nine-hour shift with no food turned into a 10 and a half hour ordeal. Here is to hoping roadside assistance will forgive me the $95 service call I had arranged, which I cancelled a half hour later after my manager's tire tech friend volunteered to save the day.

Needless to say, Sunday was a long day since the ex-girlfriend must visit Skimble before noon, I had to get the tire replaced, and time was needed to be reserved for the laundromat. Thankfully the NuEra Dispensary is next door to the laundry. But between that and the exhaustion, I failed to notice one of the SnapChat girls I have been flirting with waiting to be picked up at the laundromat.

Monday was just a wash because I had to try and look good for my practitioner appointment on Tuesday. It was not an overly attentive ordeal, which left me without showing her notes asking about self pleasure affects blood sugar. Some new pills were assigned to me and I was given a flu shot. Then I decided to drive to Morton to fix my sister's Fire TV Stick and any other electronic malfunctions my family faced. As this is being typed, the aches from the shot and drive are finally wearing off.

I would like to blame my worn out state of TNT and the debut of "AEW Late Night Dynamite". Of course the NBA programming did not end when it should have. With the 22nd being "National Voter Registration Day", it is nice to know the NBA is doing its damnedest to get Trump out, but the post game could have been 10 minutes shorter. My DVR will only record the scheduled time slot. When I caught on to the show running late, the knowledge that I had to watch it live sank in. That is not a great way to end the day that started an extra two hours earlier than normal.

Especially when there was not a major draw for the show. Matt Sydal versus Shawn Spears was a good main event, but with none of The Elite or a title holder, I just do not think it is the time filler TNT was looking for. It almost makes me wish we had more tertiary titles to make the show seem significant. That is why there were European and Television titles right?

The NWA still needs to get back on its feet, so a blog about unnecessary championships seems like a fools errand at this time. Tertiary titles lack an impact at this time, unlike the poser championships that claim to be the end all be all.

The Disgruntled's Modern Poser Championship (2015 to 2020)

The 34th Modern Poser Champion:

Evolve Champion Timothy Thatcher (10/4/2015 to 2/25/2017)

This is a tough spot to figure out in the lineage. The TNA Championship was vacated in October 2015. With the Universal Championship established in August 2016, I though bigger names were going to be left out if we let Timothy Thatcher carry the title despite it was established as the DGUSA placeholder. In the end, only one name gets left out if we use the Evolve Championship in the lineage since Fin Balor only held the newest belt for a day.

The 35th Modern Poser Champion:

WWE Universal Champion Kevin Owens (2/25/17 to 3/5/17)

Owens won this title after it was declared vacant, but was able to hold on to this championship for six months. Bobbly Lashley had only just won the Impact Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship a month prior. The biggest problem for Impact at the time, a side from dealing with Jeff Jarret's GFW, was the Hardys had taken attention away from the title when the Broken Universe was established. If you do not care about a championship, where is its importance.

Check out the rest of this blog and the indie/correct view on wrestling at The "Disgruntled's Real Championship Wrestling"

Imagine We Still Had VHS - Hellsing (TV Series) - Volume 1

*Highlighted portions of the blog post were written on September 18, 2020. The rest of the blog was composed on September 2, 2020

It feels like a pretty prolific week in terms of blogging. My release schedule is filled up to October 1. I think trying to finish the "Chris Memoirs" journal may be hurting my intros to the blogs, but that only looks bad if your scrolling through the past blogs.

This may mean I should just use my hosting space to actually develop a web page to avoid maineventofthedead.com opening a bunch of browser tabs, but I do not know if Windows XP era Adobe design software will work on Windows 10. I was lucky that they stuck around through Windows 7. Squarespace is not an option since I already have hosting space.

How to promote entertainment blogs efficiently. First world problems are all I have had the past couple of days. And they are:

• @repstevensmith
• @eaglemom2015
• @wdunlap
• @cardellamatt
• @stubishop_lpd
  

I guess you could lump in the vocal member of classes 1996 to 1999 from Morton High School with these conservative trolls on Twitter. The cunts from Morton are probably to insecure to become one of the sociopathic Twitter twats. They realize that you got to work to earn those fake friends. It is so much easier for them to just type in your high school some barely graduated from (in the case of the wrestling teammate who was proud of his racism which god will forgive because he is opposed to abortion) or those that need to be friendly enough with to sell cars to (in the case of the racist homophobe with an inferiority complex who blames the victims when it comes police brutality).

Some people just want you to be realistic. I had shared a meme that touted how Barack Obama had given us affordable healthcare, constant improvement in the job market, and saved us from the great recession. A person responded with the rise in immigrant detentions, drone strikes, and inequality growth that happened during his presidency. My response was to tell them why that happened and how he brilliantly responded (DACA, troop reduction, and healthcare costing him chances to fix the problem that the rich are). In addition, since Trump had made all of points worse, why do you want us not to think of better times?

I can ignore high school sucking hard. I had wrestling and was team captain on top of that. Bruce Springsteen wrote about the attitude in "Glory Days".

Wrestling and an anime collection allowed me to survive my hometown. Then adulthood almost immediately cut the latter out of my life. I have spoken of this before. Once Toonami, Adult Swim, and IFC took over anime distribution, every kind of release came out in season box sets. College classes and jobs did not allow me to watch the content as it aired stateside, so I could not sample the content before making a decision to buy. It felt like the cost of getting away from Morton, Illinois was half of my sanity.

Fortunately, my little brother was borrowing DVD's from friends, so I occasionally got lucky and caught an intriguing enough series. Thus, "Hellsing", my introduction to Gonzo studio and their standard too harsh for run after "Cowboy Bebop" products.

Hellsing - Episodes 1-3

Check out the rest of this critique at AnimeRuss.blogspot.com - For those curious about anime but hate the geeks

enriquevisions - Pinterest

enriquevisions - Pinterest

First World Problems (like @luvebug232) and "The Big Ugly"

*Blog post started on September 18, 2020.

It feels like a pretty prolific week in terms of blogging. My release schedule is filled up to October 1. I think trying to finish the "Chris Memoirs" journal may be hurting my intros to the blogs, but that only looks bad if your scrolling through the past blogs.

This may mean I should just use my hosting space to actually develop a web page to avoid maineventofthedead.com opening a bunch of browser tabs, but I do not know if Windows XP era Adobe design software will work on Windows 10. I was lucky that they stuck around through Windows 7. Squarespace is not an option since I already have hosting space.

How to promote entertainment blogs efficiently. First world problems are all I have had the past couple of days. And they are:

• @wheelchairbrad
• @kennyguido
• @muralstar
• @gboxxer
• @mallen2010
• @Kyle62The
• @sheenkirk
• @Tyler84703038
• @jo33291557
• @marcalbert1973
• @WoodyBrum
• @ZenonCHerrera
• @PedactorR
• @Sabian187
• @HeilmanJoseph
• @DanielT17488652
• @KaraPalmer94
• @Gail_C_G
• @politiwars
• @THE_DAILY_BLEAT

This makes me wish that the compose mode in Blogger would allow for tables to be set up. I would like to throw another 40 names into the space above. Yes, HTML is really the only code I know, but that is a lot of formatting.

I guess you could lump in the vocal member of classes 1996 to 1999 from Morton High School with these conservative trolls on Twitter. The cunts from Morton are probably to insecure to become one of the sociopathic Twitter twats. They realize that you got to work to earn those fake friends. It is so much easier for them to just type in your high school some barely graduated from (in the case of the wrestling teammate who was proud of his racism which god will forgive because he is opposed to abortion) or those that need to be friendly enough with to sell cars to (in the case of the racist homophobe with an inferiority complex who blames the victims when it comes police brutality).

I might be the problem for sitting on two Twitter handles (@russthebus and @catbusruss) a long side this blog's (@maineventzombie). You get a lot of people showing how judgmental they are towards bartenders, how paranoid of religious inspired law (that is not Evangelical in nature), and who want immigrants to stay out of politics and stick to fucking their brothers. How much hate am I suppose to leave unanswered?

And some people just want you to be realistic. I had shared a meme that touted how Barack Obama had given us affordable healthcare, constant improvement in the job market, and saved us from the great recession. A person responded with the rise in immigrant detentions, drone strikes, and inequality growth that happened during his presidency. My response was to tell them why that happened and how he brilliantly responded (DACA, troop reduction, and healthcare costing him chances to fix the problem that the rich are). In addition, since Trump had made all of points worse, why do you want us not to think of better times?

I can ignore high school sucking hard. I had wrestling and was team captain on top of that. "Glory Days".

The argument ended with, "I do not deny your points, but it was not all butterflies and rainbows." I did not respond since the argument had just been regurgitated. We need to teach people how to debate in high school. At least then, when someone decides to try and defend Nazis in a diverse crowd, they will receive the appropriate response.

And that might be why the right is afraid of minorities successfully moving into suburbia. If white kids are only arguing in front of fellow white kids, they cannot feel bad about accepting their racism as part of life that the rest of the country needs to deal with.

My summation for this nation, you got your white burbs, so quit bitching about common core.

We're Number 5: The Disgruntled's Real Secondary Champion 

 

 

Imagine We Still Had VHS - Persona 4: The Animation (Volume 1)

Dean (@Northerner83) - Pinterest

*Blog post started on September 17th with a September 16, 2020 flashback.

Does work set you free? I am in the midst of a 12-day stint between both my banking and retail jobs, and I will say that there is not much on my mind because of it. The only stress is not being liquid right now and that HostGator decided to collect on the MainEventOfTheDead.com domain. The Sonic hot dog lunch yesterday and the Garcia's Pizza in a Pan Monday meal tasted far too good. Of course that taking up my remaining checking accounts' funds would come at a greater price.

With the apparent lack of interest in exploring my zombie pro-wrestling script, "Main Event of the Dead", (If this comedic B-Movie idea sounds interesting, request a treatment of the script by emailing russthebus07@gmail.com. I would also be happy to take advice on how to get this project out of development hell.), you think the wise thing would be to just let the renewal pass. But, the domain hosts my memorial to the best person I ever knew, Stacia Marie Hardin, which is still near the top of the Google search, so I cannot afford to lose that. If anything, I am more angry at myself for not tweeting out the link to pass on my numerous Twitter accounts on the 16th anniversary of her death to further promote her legacy.

I have already worked out how I will replenish my checking account to take care of my website expense. It just sucks saying goodbye to an NES Zapper that had some nostalgic value. When are we going to get "Duck Hunt" on the Nintendo Switch? That would be a better buy than "Super Mario 35".

On the topic of video games, a series that I have gotten into in the last decade was "Persona". It is the otaku in me, but I also think I like the turn-based RPGs over the action-based modern style. You can have my curiosity with a classic manga style. My attention will be earned with "Pokemon" battle rules.

Do I put a Monsieur Candie meme into this blog to drive the point home with that Tarantino tribute?

After about two hours of watching static characters tell the story before actual gameplay, finding out "Persona 4: The Animation" existed seemed like a time-saving purchase. Especially when I bought the entire series on clearance before the closing of the last Suncoast: The Motion Picture Store in Illinois.

It kind of feels nice that the exit is not on I-57. The time saved not being detoured in Joliet to visit flash shops is nice on me and my wallet.

Of course anime and video game adaptations are like movie and video game adaptations. Trying to appeal to a wider audience or create an actual narrative can ruin the adaptation for the fans and the audience. With "Persona 4" art seemingly captured exactly, surely this will be the exception to the rule.

All the Tropes - Persona 4: The Animation

Persona 4: The Animation (Episodes 1 through 3)

Check out the rest of this critique at AnimeRuss.blogspot.com - For those curious about anime but hate the geeks

Imagining We Still Had VHS - "RIN: Daughters of the Mnemosyne - Volume 1"

SAMURAI CHAMPLOO RED MOON - Displate