31 Days of Horror Movies: Psycho II

With today's film, we've got two days in a row of childhood favorites. Yesterday was Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, and today we have....

Psycho II

Filmed in 1982, and released in 1983, some 23 years after the Hitchcock original, Psycho II sees the release of Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) from the mental hospital he has resided in, receiving treatment for the murders he committed while dressed as his dead mother. Hot on his trail is Lila Loomis (Vera Miles), the sister of Marion Crane, one of the women slain by Bates during the original movie. Helping Norman adjust to life on the outside is Dr. Raymond (Robert Loggia).

Norman gets a job at a diner, and decides that it would be a good idea to live back at his old stomping grounds -- the Bates Motel, and house up on the hill. The ineffectual Dr. Raymond doesn't put up too great of a fuss about this questionable move. Soon, Norman begins receiving threatening letters and phone calls from someone claiming to be his dead mother. It's around this juncture that he thinks it a good idea to let a co-worker from the diner, Mary Samuels (Meg Tilly) stay a few nights at his house.

The plot of Psycho II is (if you couldn't already tell) rather preposterous. But I love every minute of it. Richard Franklin's direction is great, and the haunting score by Jerry Goldsmith works in wonderful in unison with it. The acting is pretty good, for a slasher flick. There is, of course, more blood and gore than in the original Psycho film, but that is to be expected. I watched it dozens of times as a kid, and can recite scenes line-by-line. One of the best!

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Yesterday's Restaurants

The local newspaper has a feature from one of Champaign-Urbana's most legendary restaurateur's, John Katsinas, on what his favorite area restaurants were that have now since closed (or will soon be closing). It's a nice little read, and has made me stop and think about the restaurants that have come and gone that have left an indelible (and edible) impression on me throughout the years. Here we go....

Watching The Hours

A Twitter friend named Paula has asked for folks to submit ideas for a blog-a-thon about what we think will be the classic films of the future. In other words, what relatively recent movies (namely, from the 21st century), do we think will be considered classics in the decades to come, possibly airing on such venerable stations as Turner Classic Movies ? While a number of films come to mind for such a category, one in particular stood out from the rest, and thus is my entry for Paula's blog-a-thon.

She's Madonna

Today we're going to talk about something very important. We're going to talk about Madonna. "Madge," as she's affectionately known around the gay scene, has been making music for over thirty years. I grew up with her songs, many of them pop classics. In recent years, it can be arguably said that her popularity has waned a bit. During the past decade, Madonna has put out seventeen singles. Of those, three have charted in the US Top 40. Ten Failed to chart at all on the Billboard Hot 100. We now have at least one possibility offered as to why Madge's chart power is waning: Ageism. At least, that's what Diplo (just, Diplo), a producer of some of the tracks off her latest album, thinks . I know it's difficult to be objective about something you've worked on -- whether you were the producer or the artist -- but, as a listener/fan, I have to say that Madonna's most recent work has simply not been that good. Still, we'll hear what

Left to my own devices

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