In 2002 Neil Marshall burst onto the horror movie scene with Dog Soldiers, a film that is owes its existence to Aliens, Tremors, and a ton of other horror movies. I love that the film references those other movies while also building on its own mythology, in turn becoming a pretty good-maybe even great-werewolf movie. The werewolf sub-genre of horror films has seen many great entries over the last couple of decades, and the original classic The Wolfman cannot be forgotten, either. Dog Soldiers is a brutal, nasty and entertaining werewolf movie, full of humor and gore, anchored by memorable characters-particularly Spoon-and being rather twisty and surprising right until the end. The siege elements work particularly well, bringing together some of the film’s unlikely bedfellows and resulting in some of the movie’s best moments. And of course one cannot forget how the film opens in typical cool and violent werewolf fashion. Never go camping in the woods on a full moon people.
Taking place in the Scottish woodlands, Dog Soldiers is about a group of military men who end up battling an unknown enemy that turns out to be very supernatural. At first operating in disbelief, the men come to realize that they are up against a force that cannot be killed by ordinary bullets. Creatures that are furry, angry, and very hungry. For human blood and flesh, with a nasty bite that results in the surviving victim turning into the monsters themselves. From that point on Dog Soldiers is relentless, never letting up and etching its place in horror movie history as being one of the best direct to video movies ever made. Beware the full moon, and if you closely you can hear the growling and the howls of a beast of the night, hunting your every move. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
After some thought, I’ve decided to cover my all time favorite albums. Starting with my current all time favorite: Pink Floyd’s legendary The Dark Side of the Moon, released in 1973. It quickly became one of the albums of the decade, and feature’s the bands notable psychedelic rock and roll infused sound. Furthermore this is a concept album featured mostly around death and fear of dying, the end of one’s life and the passing of time. In addition to metal illness, a theme that popped up in many of the band’s works. Plus that famous album cover, which has a picture of prism recombining the spectrum of light with the colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple being featured.
Pink Floyd’s classic opens with “Speak To Me,” a track that begins with the sounds of madness and possibly torture followed by a really depressing sound, as the song deals with failing to escape and becoming something more as time quickly and rapidly proceeds and death follows on the wind. “Breathe,” which has a reprise at the end of “Time,” notes religion and aging together, and is showcased after “Time” because the track fits more with “Time” than it does with “Speak to Me,” even though on my copy it lists the two tracks as “Speak To Me/Breathe” anyways. “On The Run” is the next track, and it does not have any vocals or lyrics, existing instead as a weird piece that according to the band deals with fear of travel. Its my least favorite part of the album, and yet there’s something about it that keeps me listening to it each time I go through the album. I can’t quit explain my feelings on “On The Run,” although I’ve grown to appreciate the song more.
After “On The Run” the album dives into one of its biggest hits: “Time,” which opens with sounds of clocks and has the eerie famous lyrics “No one told you when to run/You missed the starting gun.” Too bad this song has been overplayed a lot on classic radio over the years, because that fact almost clouds its greatness. “The Great Gig In The Sky” is an excellent follow up, a mediation upon death and dying, with Clare Torry’s magnificent pipes on display. Its a rather fatalistic song, and I love the working in of the following quote, as spoken: “And I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do, I don’t mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There’s no reason for it – you’ve got to go sometime.”— Gerry O’Driscoll, Abbey Road Studios janitorial “browncoat,” which is followed by the response of “I never said I was frightened of dying,”— Patricia ‘Puddie’ Watts, wife of road manager Peter Watts. Oddly enough “The Great Gig In The Sky” then is followed by “Money,” which is more about materialistic greed and attempts at gaining as much wealth as possible. Rather different from death and dying, although maybe the desire for meaningless “stuff” that one could gain with money fits in well with the album’s conveying of letting time slip by and not achieving one’s full potential.
The following track after “Money” is the classic anti-war track “Us And Them,” which sports a fantastic saxophone performance by Dick Parry-one of my favorite uses of horn in any song, be it classic or modern. Naturally death by war is discussed, and I love the following lyrics: “Listen son, said the man with the gun/ There’s room for you inside,” which makes me wonder about the soldiers who fight wars waged by nations. There is something depressing about how men are sacrificed for silly things such as land ownership, natural resources, and or such foolish ideals as national pride. I’ve always felt the song covered World War I for some reason, although the band never said that or implied it was about any particular war to my knowledge. The 8th track, “Any Colour You Like” is another instrumental song, one that I’m a big fan of due to its synthesizer driven sound-I’ve featured it and many other songs off the album on CD mixes due to their high levels of repeatability and because some of them are actually good driving music, funny enough.
The last two tracks on the album are always played together on the radio for an obvious reason: they go well together. “Brain Damage” fits its title particularly well, existing as a nightmarish descent into insanity and madness while also featuring a lyric referencing the album’s title. “Eclipse” is fittingly epic while also being quite strange, and acting as a sort of coda to “Brain Damage.” Thus closing out the album with faint echoes and a rather quiet fadeout-going out with silence instead of a bang, something that I’ve always liked about Dark Side of the Moon. The album was one of the band’s biggest successes, and its my favorite album partly because it was the first one I ever bought.
Incidentally though it’s also my all time favorite due to being so engaging, causing the listener to try and sort out the album’s meanings and what the band was trying to say, although granted Pink Floyd’s members have commented on many of the song’s themes since its release. Oh and I remember the entire track listing by heart, although that’s rather easy since there are only ten songs. While I don’t think this is the band’s best effort, its certainly a monumental achievement, one that still remains popular to this day.
As many others do, I consider myself pretty lucky to have a relationship with my dad that is good and healthy. He’s one of the people I look up to, and even though I’ve screwed up before in my life way too many times he’s still been there to help me out. So Father’s Day is a tad special to me, even though there have been Father’s Days when I haven’t had money for a present. Really he’s not big on gifts, and whatever you give him he’ll happily take at this point since he’s older and that’s how older people view gift receiving and giving. However I’m reflecting on that day even more since my grandpa is also not getting any younger, and I’m old enough to understand how much they mean to me. Even though I never plan on becoming a father or having kids, Father’s Day is important to all of us with dear old dads. And to those who sadly don’t have a father in their life for whatever reason.
Lately I’ve been thinking about the novelists that I’ve been a huge fan of over the years. Some of my favorites would include:
*Ray Bradbury. He gave us Fahrenheit 451, one of my all time favorite novels, and The Martian Chronicles, which is an amazing book. Among other famous books and short stories. I love that he wrote fantasy, sci-fi, and horror, and that he lived a long and rich life. I love that Bradbury was a huge proponent not just of people reading, but also of people thinking and using their minds.
*Arthur C. Clarke, a man who was much a visionary as he was a fantastic sci-fi writer. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a classic, and I liked the sequel to it as well. Plus one of his short story collections, of which I have read. Sadly I’m still waiting for mankind to journey to Saturn and Jupiter, reaching beyond the stars.
*Ernest Hemmingway, who gave us The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises, Farewell To Arms, and others. I love his tough, tense prose and how his characters bear external and internal scars. There is a rough poetry to his work, and he lived as much as he wrote.
*Michael Crichton, a man that married sci-fi with entertainment and was responsible for many blockbuster style books. Jurassic Park is one of my favorites, and I like The Lost World, Congo, and a couple others. He was taken from us too soon, and just when the 21st century was getting started.
*Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a man responsible for Sherlock Holmes but also The Lost World, a huge favorite novel of mine. I love how he gave us one of the all time greatest characters in Holmes who along with Watson solved crimes using his great intellect and keen sense of observation.
*Stephen King, who needs no introduction. The Dark Tower series is legendary, as is his horror tales. ‘Salem’s Lot and Carrie are classics, and The Stand is an epic and magnificent sprawling tale about the battle for mankind after the end of civilization. I’m glad that he is still alive and writing, as he survived being run over by a car sometime ago.
There are a couple others that don’t come to mind currently, but this list will do for now.
Now unless its a matter of life and death or important national security, I wonder why people are so afraid of being wrong. I’ve never had that problem-throughout school I’d raise my hand and say the answer knowing that the teacher might tell me otherwise. So many students were fearful of speaking up, knowing if they didn’t have the correct answer memorized they would be made fun of, or something. I don’t get that. Unless you are the perfect being (God, Allah, whatever) there is no way in hell you are going to be right all the time. Anyways being wrong sometimes is refreshing to me for several reasons.
First off its rather humbling. Arrogance should always be checked, and not mistaken for confidence. They are two different things. When you discover someone fact checking you it makes you think that perhaps you do not know all of the answers. This is called growing up. Sometimes that hurts, and you have to deal with it. That’s also called life. Life hurts and can be awful here and there.
Secondly when you do make a mistake you realize that mistake and think of ways to correct it. Well I hope you do-I learned from my mistakes too late. Really being wrong makes you realize that you were wrong, and that hopefully its not too late to find a way to be right so that you can fix what the problem is. If not, well you might be in serious trouble. Whoops.
Lastly, sports pundits, national security analysts, the president even….they are all wrong from time to time. And yet we jump all over them, not focusing on the periods when they are actually right about something and have a valid point. Being wrong has become seen as this disease, and maybe I’m wrong about the word wrong being seen by the entire world as poison. I’m honestly not sure if I’m right or wrong about that, however what’s best about opinions is that they can’t be right or wrong. Thank God for that.
Okay I get that in the 50s and 60s everyone smoked. Even in the 1970s and 1980s I can see why people still inhaled awful toxins just because they needed their cancer sticks. Maybe even into the 1990s it almost makes sense. Really though its the 21st century now. Why do people still smoke? Honestly. I don’t understand.
Especially now that we all know about the effects of cigarette smoking. We know that it gives people cancer, especially secondhand smoke, which has also killed people. You are basically killing yourself everyday by smoking, even though you damn well know that cigarettes give human beings cancer. Cancer kills people, and its bad enough to get it from nature and or other causes. So you are deciding to smoke is, pardon me, dumb.
Look I get it that your life sucks and its stressful. Hell I’ve even considered smoking at one point, and I’m glad that I haven’t because I would smoke at least 10 packs a day. Maybe even more. Still I’m not sure why people still smoke in this day and age. Especially since the smell is awful, and it ruins your teeth, and….oh wait no those annoying anti-smoking advertisements that I’m not a huge fan of, because they almost inspire me to smoke.
And I will be taking answers from those who do smoke. For the record I’m not calling you stupid, I’m just curious about why you continue to engage in a vice that could kill you. I suppose I’m not one to talk since I like to drink, but these days I’ve cut back. Plus I have friends who do still smoke, and yes I’ve tried to encourage them to quit.
I’m mostly posting this to celebrate finally reaching 1,000 views for this blog. That’s nice. Yet the fact that we often place so much importance on hitting a certain goal or moment in time is a little curious. We hold big celebrations for 50th birthdays or 50th anniversaries, noting that its such a long time and that its certainly viewed as passing a threshold into a new era. Or something like that…I know that people dread hitting 30, heh, so maybe there are milestones we are not particular fans of. Some milestones are quite tragic, such as recalling how many years its been since September 11 or Pearl Harbor happened. Regardless marking a certain period in time is something we’ll continue to do, one way or another. Especially when it comes to the Internet. I remember when on Rotten Tomatoes’ message boards cracking 10k or 20k was a big deal. Wait it still kind of is, I suppose….
