Happy Halloween!!!

Dragging out the comedy and tragedy punkins for All Hallows Eve!

 

Nosferatu (1922)

A few weeks ago we watched the silent horror classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror in my film class and now I'm obsessed. Just in time for Halloween!

Max Schreck as Count Orlok

Directed by F.W. Murnau, this film was a German version of Dracula...except for the part where Prana Film, which produced Nosferatu, neglected to secure the rights to Bram Stoker's novel. They were sued by Stoker's widow and court ordered to destroy all copies of their film, but fortunately enough prints survived so that we still have the film today. I don't blame Stoker's estate for suing over an unauthorized adaptation, but thank God copies of Nosferatu survived so it could be historically recognized as the first great horror film.

Nosferatu is anchored by Max Schreck's freakishly controlled performance and makeup that rendered him unrecognizable. In fact, Schreck was so compelling and terrifying that an urban legend sprang up claiming the actor was a real-life vampire hired for authenticity. He was not, but this concept inspired the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, with Willem Dafoe earning an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Schreck/Orlok. 

 

Some of Roger Ebert's comments on Nosferatu:

 

Here is the story of Dracula before it was buried alive in cliches, jokes, TV skits, cartoons and more than 30 other films...

 

Is Murnau's Nosferatu scary in the modern sense? Not for me...

 

But Nosferatu remains effective: It doesn't scare us, but it haunts us. 

 

Nosferatu has a 97% positive critics review score and an 87% audience approval score on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

From the film:

Nosferatu

Does this word not sound like the Deathbird calling 

for you at midnight? Beware of it, otherwise you will fade away

and images of your life will be shattered, nightmares will

quickly rise in your heart and feed upon your blood.

RIP Fernando Valenzuela

There was a time when I was a huge Dodgers fan. I'd been raised a Dodgers fan by my father and grandmother. I haven't really cared about baseball for years (decades) and I don't give a rat's ass about the Dodgers making it into the World Series this week. But there was a time, many Dodgers lineups ago, when I bled Dodger blue and that included the Fernandomania era.

So God damn, this one hurts: Fernando Valenzuela dies at 63.

What I remember about Fernandomania was that as I was stuck commuting in traffic on L.A. freeways after yet another day at yet another crappy office job, the bright spot in my day was listening to the Dodgers games on the radio on the way home. The commute was made bearable when Vin Scully would announce, "It's time for Dodger baseball!" And I remember that Fernando would pitch himself into ridiculous holes and then proceed to pitch his way right out of them, while I sweated his flirting with disaster in my car in traffic. It's an old memory, but one I've never forgotten and will never forget.

Credit

Recently I'd seen something online about Valenzuela being ill, but couldn't find any news about it, so I figured he'd be okay. The announcement of his passing popped up on Facebook tonight and I wasn't expecting that at all. Just horrible news for Angelenos, Dodgers fans or not. Valenzuela was a huge part of life in L.A. in the 1980's and now another part of that awesome decade is gone.

His presence on the Dodgers along with his amazing accomplishments on the mound were huge for the Mexican-American community in Los Angeles, but as someone who is about as lily white as they come, I can assure you it wasn't just that community that loved him. He was universally loved by Los Angeles and will be universally mourned and missed. 

RIP #34 and condolences to your family and friends from a fan from a long time ago.

84 Candles

If my Dad was alive, he'd be celebrating his 84th birthday today. 

 

 

Happy Heavenly Birthday Dad!

35 years ago today, the world lost one of its greatest athletes ever

Today is the 35th anniversary of the death of Triple Crown winner Secretariat.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I don't think I've ever seen a horse more perfectly put together as Secretariat. One book written about him was titled The Horse God Built, and that's about as accurate a description of Big Red that exists.

 

Just look at him:

 

 

 

 

Baby Red

 

RIP Big Red Machine.

 

Pics snicked from various places on the internets.

 

Old school rescue story

I went to North Carolina several times in the 2010's (Writers' Police Academy in the Piedmont Triad area and Bouchercon Raleigh). It's a beautiful place with wonderful, down-to-earth people. When I was there California was still in a drought and I was blown away by how green everything was in NC. Trees everywhere. I just fell in love with the place.

 

Guilford Technical Community College, Jamestown NC. Former home of Writers' Police Academy.

 

So seeing the horrifying images of the destruction of Western NC and the decimated small mountain communities in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene has been heartbreaking. It's Katrina-esque. I remember seeing pictures of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and wondering how you even begin to recover from that. NOLA did it and hopefully North Carolina can too, but I'm hearing a lot of unpleasant stories online about the lack of government response to Western NC so far.

But it's like the story told by Fred Rogers - when he was a child and there was a catastrophic event, his mother would tell him to look for and focus on "the helpers". There would always be people stepping up to help. And it's still true. A number of non-governmental organizations immediately stepped up to help out.

In addition to the always dependable Cajun Navy (you can help them out here) a unique group is helping bring supplies to remote areas that have been cut off due to the destruction of the few roads leading in and out of their communities: Mountain Mule Packer Ranch is delivering relief the old-fashioned way.

I've seen a lot of stories of people trying to reach victims cut off from assistance due to the storm, but this one just blew me away. Pack mules. In 2024. Political leaders are nowhere to be seen, but these guys show up with their mules and get the job done. This part of the article especially got to me:

Sarah Haynie had fled her home in Swannanoa to reach her parents in Black Mountain. She was outside with her family, surrounded by downed limbs and debris, when a member of the Cajun Navy 2016 approached. “They walked up through the trees that had fallen over our driveway and asked if we needed food or water. And then they saw my two boys,” Haynie says. The volunteers returned with a chainsaw to start clearing the downed trees, and stuffed bears for each child.

 

“My boys lost all of their toys in the flood, we lost everything,” Haynie says. “The only thing they have are the clothes that they left in.” The volunteers handed Haynie $40 in cash, bottled water, and bags of food. “He told me he noticed our spot up on Ruth Street because his grandmother’s name was Ruth. As he was leaving, he had tears in his eyes and said, ‘This one’s for grandma.’”

 

Forget politicians. They don't care about the common man. But our fellow common men...they're the ones who show up when needed, and they don't do it for votes or photo ops. As appalled as I am about some of the things I'm hearing about lack of official action, I am heartened by the non-official action.

 

Happy Anniversary to the deadliest author in history

Murder, She Wrote was a hit television series that ran for 12 seasons and because of its longevity, this became kind of a running joke, that if you were anywhere and mystery writer/amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher showed up, you needed to get the hell out of there because someone was going to die. This became known as "Cabot Cove Syndrome", named after the quaint Maine seaside community where Jessica resided. As described on Wikipedia:

Murder occurred with such regularity in her vicinity that the term "Cabot Cove syndrome" was coined to describe the constant appearance of dead bodies in remote locations. Indeed, if Cabot Cove existed in real life, it would top the FBI's national crime statistics in numerous categories, with some analysis suggesting that the homicide rate in Cabot Cove exceeds even that of the real-life murder capital of the world.^[13]

Image via that80sand90spage on IG.