after a long, lovely holiday weekend with my family, the rain started today after very clear, bright and cool days. nevertheless, i love winter in california, the best six weeks of the year. i love cold, but hate freezing cold. can't stand snow, i've not seen it in years even tho the sierra nevada are only an hr's drive away. don't ski, and hate to gamble, so when we do go to tahoe, like a couple weeks ago, it is for the land, the scenery, rather than the action from the tables and slots.

watched several movies this weekend. can't seem to link at the moment, but one of my favorites was the post-modern horror outing feast. an aptly titled little film for the thanksgiving holiday.

just finished feast a couple of hrs ago, and it seems the filmmakers decided to go all out for broke. the story concerns various losers trapped in a dive-bar situated in the desert, which desert i've no idea but i'm guessing it is in nevada, where a family of god-knows-what, but they ain't human, try to eat those same losers.

self-conscious, funny and pretty heavy on the gore, the film features henry rollins as a motivational speaker and jason mewes from the clerks films. the plot is not new -- what is? -- but the quick pacing and lightening editing keeps the pulse racing. sure there were a few old horse gags, such as a person popping up behind another and scaring the shit out of each other, but it made me jump. i don't know what those people-eating creatures were, they looked goofy as hell, like the special fx crew knew their exploitation films and modeled their monsters on too many maneaters to name. but the director knew enough about horror films to never extrapolate anything about anything, whether they are zombies, ghosts, or desert-dwelling manimals: they just are.

feast was a rental. i'm gonna buy the dvd and add it to my collection. there ain't no higher praise.