late night with the devil [2023]

i'm tempted to write my shortest movie review ever:

this fucking movie is rad!  GO SEE IT   NOW!

without spoilers too.  because, at least for me, i didn't read any reviews or listen, watch or read any online discussions of this flick because knowing little about the events that happen in this gem of my beloved genre of horror is to see cinema magic at the first intensity.

the rundown goes like this, the host of a struggling late night TV talk show, a la the tonight show starring johnny carson, jack delroy, played by a brilliant david dastmalchian attempts to make the impossible possible at the start of sweeps week.  delroy is going live on the air on halloween night 1977 to try to summon a minor demon that parked itself in the mind & body of a young girl, lilly, played the equally brilliant ingrid torelli, who is the sole survivor of a mass suicide by a satanic cult.  the show is called night owls with jack delroy & has always struggled to compete with johnny carson's legendary talk show. 

but for this live midnight broadcast delroy has invited a psychic, christou, played by fayssal bazzi, a skeptic, a la the great randi, carmichael 'the conquerer' haig, played by ian bliss, who, like the real-life skeptic james randi. keeps a check in the amount of one hundred thousand dollars in his pocket to pay to someone or some organization who can prove that the paranormal is in fact real.  shit goes off the rails real quick with christou's visions.  yet, carmichael is on set to prove how fake christou's act.  indeed, carmichael is a know-it-all blowhard who has repeatedly proven that pychics & other paranormal phenomenon, are as real as a french-speaking duck.

this flick is played as a found footage movie where we are treated to the live broadcast & behind the scenes dramas.  the interstitial cards put onscreen as the show breaks for commercials are pretty cool with 1970s halloween iconography.  these cards are clunky & slightly off which makes the whole affair seem like the viewer stumbled on a live TV broadcast in 1977 on a UHF station.  the attention to the smallest details of 1970s set design, including the in-house band, brought a tear to this old horror fan's eye.  the filmmakers, brothers  cameron & colin cairnes, have invigorated my beloved genre.  this movie is fun from the first frame that reviews the economic & political instabilities of the 1970s, along with the tragic history of jack delroy who lost his beloved wife to cancer a year before this live halloween broadcast.  the cairnes bros attention to even the smallest details of the 1970s, including the growing panic of a perceived satanism in society, is a pleasure to witness.

& so, delroy's beloved wife, madeleine, played by georgina haig, plays a significant part of this story.  & when lilly comes on set, with her caretaker doctor, june ross-mitchell, played by laura gordon, we are greeted with a strangeness afforded to lilly in her affect.  which is fitting for a teen who has a demon living inside her & who was raised by satanists with the intended mission of lilly's young life to become a blood sacrafice to the devil.  

weird huh?  it gets better as the show progresses.  delroy needs his show to be number one during sweeps week.  so, here comes the devil!  i'll leave this short review right there.  to say more might entice me to reveal critical portions of the narrative that really must be experienced by viewers by watching this movie with fresh eyes.  but do note that this movie is a blast & i've not stopped thinking about it since i've watched it.  yes, this pic is that good.  

see it now! 

my domestic bohemia

grace to be born & live as variously as possible

--frank o'ohara

wake up around 7 am

make a strong cup of coffee

greet anna who is already at her work station

feed water & do a little petting for noah & leo

make lunch if i'm to go to the office

or set up my work station to work from home

find something to listen to as i walk to the office

or as i WFH 

greet nick when he rises

walk as much as i can

& boy do my dogs get tired!

read on my phone when i can

glance at the news

think of movies

think of poems

stop work 

think of dinner

settle in with anna & leo & noah

make dinner 

pick up nick from work if he needs a ride

think of other things

stare into space for a bit

fire up the laptop

read for a bit

write

watch a series a movie or live music videos

make ready for bed

hope that i can do all of these

again tomorrow

if the same or a bit different

etc etc.

'is there poetry in the pixels?'

yes, she said, of course

she said, i write w/ my phone

like it were a 1000 notebooks

all in one place, she said

a new paradigm at hand

all in one place, she said 

the mind in thrall

& language never ceases 

creation

every day we find a reason to swoon

it was a private event, but the docent let us in to look at the lowriders that were located right at the entrance.  a charming old chap in his mid to late 70s.  i asked him if he's been a docent for a while here.  yes, he said.  what is or was your favorite vehicle in the collection?  well, i don't have just one, he said.  since the collection turns over often.  but i love the stories about the cars.  oh yes?  yes, the docent continued.  like the car owned by rita hayworth.  but my very favorite was the vehicle [i can't remember if he mentioned the make & the model] owned by ricky nelson.  so many middle-aged women would get a thrill when i told them about nelson & his car.  then i would pull aside the ropes of the display area & invite these gals to sit in the driver's seat.  the seat where ricky nelson once sat.  & boy!  these ladies would nearly faint!  oh the pleasures of desire!  the heat of longing!  of being a witness to beauty!  it was as if nelson's driver's seat was the launching pad to get these women into low earth orbit!

video haibun - 'avalon' by roxy music

dancing - dancing

              i will die

w/ a falcon & bouquet of flowers

rad [1986]

a couple of weeks ago b. texted me to ask if i wanted to go see rad, the 1986 BMX movie.  absolutely, i texted in return.  this flick is now a cult movie but i have to confess i've never seen it.  i was a BMX loving kid.  one of my most prized possessions when i was in my early teens was a bike made by the factory, Mongoose; the BMX manufacturer has indeed a prominent role in this movie.  i loved that bike.  it had blue Tuff Wheels.  my bike wasn't state of the art but the damn thing was fucking cool!  i even followed, for a while, pro BMX racers.  but by the time i hit my mid-teens i discovered punk rock & skateboards.  i forgot about BMX bikes & its culture.

this is an exploitation movie to capitalize on BMX culture.  but it was made a little late.  by 1986 BMX was in descent.  & it was changing.  free-style was the dominant mode of competition, a kind of balletic performance on BMX bikes, & racing was in descent.  nevertheless, stuntman turned filmmaker hal needham gave BMX culture, both freestyle & racing, the old college try.  the result is a mess.

needham made two of my favorite drive-in movies, both starring burt reynolds, smokey & the bandit [1977] & the cannonball run [1981].  both of these films are manic delights of screwball comedy & hi-octane car racing.   needham is at home with car & car racing culture.  but BMX bikes?  not so good.  needham can't frame a shot even if he was given a diagram.  rather than going wide & filming in real-time with the freestyle techniques in ample display the director goes into slo-mo & close-ups so that we can't see what the hell kind of tricks the BMX riders are doing.  

even more so, needham has forgotten how to tell a love story.  the principal, cru jones, played by bill allen, falls for the number one female freestyler/racer christian, played by lori laughlin [yes, aunt becky from full house who recently was convicted & served time in federal prison for fraud & bibery in a college admissions scandal].  cru is a local boy in a small town that has heart, ganas & raw talent.  christian recognizes all those qualities & her heart becomes his.  christian also becomes cru's mentor by challenging cru to learn the techniques she knows of a real professional competitive BMX rider.  

only problem is that the dude who own Mongoose Bicycles, who also invested in Helltrack, the race track constructed in crue's small town just for the purpose of a high profile race, wants his own man, champion bart taylor, played by olympic gymnast bart conner, to win.  oh the shit will fly.  ray walston plays businessman burton timmer who is a partner of the owner of Mongoose, duke best, played by jack weston.  but when burton learns of the double-dealing done by best, he goes against his own financial interests & supports the local underdog, cru.

talia shire plays cru's mother who would rather her son take the SATs that are scheduled on the same day as the race.  but when she sees her son has HEART well the script then writes itself don't it.  even the race was edited by a goof.  the tension is at the lowest register.  we know, because we've seen this story before, who will win the race.  oh yeah!  this was a frustrating watch.  the editing was slapdash.  the direction was negligent.  the 1980s synth score, including a popular tune at the time 'send me an angel' by real life, & another song by the massively talented mael bros., sparks, is wasted.  even so, watching this movie in a theater with ol' skool skaters & riders - the theater was nearly at full capacity - was a delight.  many in the audience knew this film so well they were reciting the dialogue as it played onscreen.  

& as always, even in this, our wild age, of streaming movies & shows going to the theater is really fucking fun.  b. is a blast to hang with.  we've been going to the drive-ins for over 30 years.  this is the second retro screening i've been to with my oldest & dearest friend.  & i loved it.  afterwards we explored the dead mall attached to the theater.  also, attached to this mall is a discount grocery store, Winco.  we walked thru that store too.  Winco is huge.  the building for the store used to be a major department store.  a couple of them really.  the nearly empty mall, & Winco [open till midnight, a rarity post-pandemic], provided shelter for many unhoused persons.  signs of late-stage capitalism?  i'll leave that debate for another time.

the shade

i was at the refuse transfer station standing at the booth to pay the fee to dump a few things into the municipal facility where i was making light jokes with the attendant who asked me what part of the city i am from & what i was unloading into the city dump

i couldn't see the attendant as he was inside & i was outside in the glare of the sun darkened glass separated us & we spoke thru an intercom 

but it was at the moment i handed the attendant my credit card to pay the fee that i looked up to my left & in the mirror used to monitor incoming vehicles i saw an old man standing in my place wearing my clothes holding my credit card saying my jokes to the attendant

could that old man be me?  

have i sailed full force into decrepitude just like him?

is that me bent like a q just like him?

no way because an old man wouldn't blast 'jealous again' by black flag

would he?

bewildered by the shade i saw in the reflection i grew horrified by that old man but as i looked on with an expression of disgust he looked up at me 

smirked & then fucking winked!

happy st. patrick's day!

another day, another celebration.  & on this holiday my name changes to richard o'lopez, of the o'lopezes from the west of ireland!  it's been pretty chill here at casa de bronson/o'lopez.  we've been enjoying the hell out of the early spring weather.  which meant anna & i getting our hands dirty by working in our garden.  got shit done!  & boy my aging body do ache!  at any rate, today we all have a touch of the blarney!  & however you spent today i hope you did it having a blast!

slainte!

happy pi day!

yes, i can calculate pi up to two decimal places!  i also like geeky things & even tho i am not a math guy i enjoy the elegance & beauty of mathematics even if i can't do math, much like i love hearing good singers even tho i can't carry a tune myself!  so enjoy the silliness of today's date, 3/14, as it relates to pi.  

as for me i am going to have a big wedge of pumpkin pi with a lot of cool whip [don't judge!].  also, as you can see from the poem below 3/14 is also albert einstein's birthday.  the poem is by richard silberg, long-time associate editor of the berkely based literary review poetry flash from his selected poems the horses [red hen press; 2012].  

a task

in an ordinary suburban house in san jose

i watched my mother daydream 

as she sat in the kitchen before a cup of coffee

& her lit cigarette at rest in the ashtray

then it was time for a nap

i laid down in my bed at midday 

& i made myself really still

i didn't move at all

& i could see the blue early spring california sky 

outside my window in all its perfect proportions

& i set for myself

a task to daydream myself 

to another part of the world

somewhere other than here

but i was stuck in one place

& without the privilege of travel 

i could see the few clouds shift 

in the light wind & i swear

it was at this moment 

i could feel the speed of the earth

as it took my bed in another ordinary

journey around the sun

trash movie trailer

in a world where nothing is what it seems there lives a monster under your bed no the monster is in your closet no the monster knocks on your door no the monster is outside looking at you thru your kitchen window no the monster is your father no the monster is telling your right hand to pick up that steak knife & get stabby with it no the monster just stole your car no the monster called in sick to your job no the monster wants another drink from the bar no the monster maxed out your credit cards no the monster likes to shave off all its fur no the monster prefers to wear your leather jacket no the monster starts to tell you a story no the monster rides off into the sunset no the monster spells out your doom no the monster calls you friend no the monster is the monster of another monster always looking for you always waiting for you

a rainbow connection