31 Days of Horror Movies: The Fog

Director John Carpenter has certainly left his mark in horror cinema. Halloween grabs all of the attention, but I'm rather partial to his follow-up...

The Fog

Made in 1980, and once again seeing a marriage of Carpenter with Jamie Lee Curtis, The Fog tells the story of, well, some fog rolling into a seaside town, on the 100th anniversary of when some mariners shipwrecked nearby. The film also stars the incomparable Adrienne Barbeau as the local radio disc jockey.

The Fog isn't particularly gory. It's a slow-paced build-up of terror. It's Halloween's less show-offy cousin. As time marches on, and I re-watch both Halloween and The Fog, it is clear that the latter is better-aged, and more gripping, than the former. They're both great, but if you haven't done so already, give this movie a look. Choose a night when it's foggy out.

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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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