So is this really that bad? #6 - Hot to Trot

I'm busy thinking right now if I have written a post on a comedy film before and I'm not quite sure I have, or at least a pure comedy and not something that is more subversive. Probably not so let us get this out of the way quickly. Today we shall get to a movie I had heard of from that episode of 80's Dan (hopefully I can find a movie without hearing Brad Jones talk about it beforehand). That movie being the 1988 Michael Dinner (not Winner, sadly) directed, Bobcat Goldthwait starring Hot to Trot.

From the poster and its tagline "When I talk, you're gonna laugh yourself hoarse," you are either going to think this might be a stupid fun movie or you might just say "Well, fuck that shit!" and be on your merry way. Which would be a viable opinion to have considering that it is a talking animal movie which don't really have that good of a track record to begin with but this is also the 80's, when a lot of movies began to get really dumb for the mainstream audience. I could be a millennial jackass for saying that though, so I'll just say that this probably wasn't going to be a hit even when it came out. And that was the case, making around $6.5 million on a $9 million budget. But is this movie all that bad, really?

First, the leads: Bobcat as Fred Chaney, a simple minded man whose mother passes prior to the start of the movie and is left with half of a stock brokering company and Don the horse. One of the first things that can be a turnoff to anyone watching the movie is the voice that Bobcat is going for in this movie, almost as if he is in a perpetual state of constipation most of the time. The tone of his voice fluctuates in weird moments, even in single words lines like when his neighbor Leonard asks Fred about the horse and Fred says "No," which even that sounds really weird and off-putting. Or when Fred has to cover for Don when he brings his love interest Allison over. Sometimes, the voice can bring a bit of comedy to it that can hit the mark with an awkward thud like the big speech he makes towards the end. 

Now onto Don the horse, I guess who is the main attraction of the film. At first, the horse was voiced by Elliott Gould but was replaced by John Candy after a bad test screening, leading to a rewrite of the dialogue which Candy chose to ignore and improvised most of his lines. This might actually be one of the movie's biggest strengths since Candy was one of those personalities that could bring some sort of life to some dead on arrival material just by being himself; this adds a lot more to the film in the process of being a typical asshole of a talking animal. The character of Don is one where he does contribute a lot to the plot, as he is the one who give Fred a stock tip that makes the latter rich early on and is also the one who has to win the literal big race in the end. Along the way, he gets into some wacky shenanigans like the party animal scene where all these animals come in a destroy Fred's apartment. But why does the horse talk in the first place? He comes from a family of chosen horses (essentially gifts to the world according to the opening credits) and he himself is one of the last few remaining aside from his father (voiced by Burgess Meredith) and his brother whose dialogue all comes from Three Stooges shorts. Honestly, Don the horse probably makes this movie a lot better than it should be because of John Candy. Anyone else in the role might have not have added the same kind of charm.

Yes, that kind of charm.

Other characters include Fred's stepfather and primary antagonist Walter Sawyer, played by Dabney Coleman with this being my introduction to him as an actor (which I could technically say the same about Bobcat since the few things I saw with him in it, I forgot and only saw his directed film God Bless America, which was great by the way, so go watch that) and Coleman seems to be having a lot of fun here. The weird smile of his with the crooked teeth adds to the sliminess in a way as he tries to get a hold of Fred's shares of the company. There is "that chick from Dune" Virginia Madsen as the love interest Allison and she does a rather capable job, somehow her and Bobcat are able to form some sort of chemistry where you could buy that they would like each other in some form although maybe not romantically. Burgess Meredith is alright as Don's father who dies and is reincarnated as a horsefly, giving him a pep talk that does start off with one of my favorite moments when Don says "Is that you, Lord?" and the movie does take advantage of the casting somewhat by throwing in a Rocky reference. Not sure about the rest of the cast since they don't contribute much aside from Walter's assistant.

So would I give a recommendation to Hot to Trot? If you are a fan of some dumb comedies, then yes you should. Despite what I've said about it in a negative light, I still had a lot of fun with it. Probably will never be a classic but if you've got some time to kill and want a few laughs, you could do so much worse than this one.

Let's Talk About My Screenplay Idea....

I remember the days when I first tried to take writing seriously and I look back at some of that work with a level of fondness people usually don't when compared to their most recent work, noticing a lot of the things that they would change had they wrote it today. I get that feeling sometimes but most of the time, I can still see some of the youthful bursts of creativity that I had back then that I wish I would be able to maintain over the course of a novel length. One of these short works I had written, probably when I was 17 or 18, was a sort of attempt at erotic fiction about a female vampire and her concubine being in sort of a dominant/submissive relationship. I thought it was okay but I hadn't thought about it much until recently when I had been watching some revenge films. One of these I had mentioned on here before, Savage Streets, brought an idea to my head for where I can go with that small story I had written years ago: taking the idea and turning it into somewhat of a post apocalyptic revenge film which just happens to have a vampire as the lead.

The idea to make it as a screenplay was partially influenced by the idea I had for a horror anthology thing where I do 3-4 sections based around certain genres of horror, from slashers to ghost stories and found footage, trying to make some ridiculous idea into reality. For example, one idea was a taxi driver who kills people for messing up his cab. Another was partially influenced by the film Carnival of Souls, maybe too much so. I just thought that the idea I had for the female vampire revenge movie would be fun enough to make ridiculous while trying to give it somewhat a serious edge and I did start to come up with some sort of synopsis about the world the character inhabits, which was kind of meant to be a sort of new twist to the post apocalyptic setting. Since the cause of the apocalypse was a virus, humanity cornered a lot of the infected into the larger cities which they nuked to eradicate the virus from spreading further. Afterwards, most of that land surrounding the nuked areas became wastelands due to radiation spreading through the soil farther than expected. Due to this, quarantines were established to contain the radiation to keep it from spreading even more, with things such as glass dome covering the top area and metal walls in the ground. Some cities have survived though and those for quite a while struggle to adapt to the new surroundings. Some die off after 20 years or so but others survive longer while being cordoned off from the rest of the world which does lead to cities having their own social hierarchies, the city in this one being lead by a group of people who have revived fundamentalist Christian values onto its citizens while the leaders are partially the puppets for some of the bandits that live on the outskirts of the cities for their own purposes. This is often achieved using food and water as trading resources. This is what causes the city to target the main character Dawn early on in the story. 

But who is Dawn? I have somewhat of a backstory written, partially to get some of how vampires work in this universe, such as how the transformation period takes some time depending on the individuals, blood consumption, their ability to survive out in sunlight being minimal yet possible, while also being slightly more stronger than normal humans. Their organs work still since they are just mostly dead, with their body having regenerative abilities but they take time to heal. Back to Dawn, she wasn't called Dawn as a human but the name was a handle she took up after the apocalypse just to establish a new identity. Her transformation took place about 30 or so years before the virus began to spread, her master abandoning her only a few months after the transformation was done. This lead Dawn to learn how to behave as a vampire on her own which lead to mixed results. She did manage to survive alone for many years due to having a makeshift blood supply stolen from a blood bank. Due to the metabolism of vampires, she is able to survive for a long time on that supply alone, which she has kept preserved with a few generators she scavenged for early on during the end of the outbreak. After the supply is exhausted, she scavenges the cities nearby for survivors for blood, learning how to control her thirst by controlling the amount of blood. Fangs do exist with vampires in this universe yet they are not large. Often they are small enough to not be noticeable unless under close inspection. The enamel has a coating of anesthetic to make the bites unable to be felt after the initial insertion. She wanders the earth for a while but goes back to the cave where she hid for years, living off the blood of bandits who roam the wasteland area living out their own lifestyles.

The Adaptation Complaints #4 - It's A Wonderfull Life

The Exorcist.... of course I'm bringing it up again but this time I have a slightly more legitimate reason since today I am bringing up one of the sequels. Is it the 1977 beautiful mess that is John Boorman's Exorcist II: The Heretic? Probably not right now but I might get to it at some point, if only I can bring up how much I wish Christopher Walken was Father Lamont. No, today I am bringing up the third movie in the series, 1990's Legion (aka Exorcist III but I'd prefer to call it Legion) based on the book of the same named written by William Peter Blatty in 1983, who also directed the movie (his second and last turn in the director's chair). I wouldn't necessarily call the book nor the movie a sequel since it doesn't really follow the main characters of the first film while also knocking out the second film in continuity (or it just ignores the events) so I guess it would be best to call the story itself a side-quel of sorts.

Since this doesn't involve any of the main characters of the previous story, then who is the main focus here? That would be minor character Lieutenant William Kinderman, investigating some mysterious murders that call back to the Gemini Killer, who had died fifteen years prior (twelve years in the novel). There are some familiar faces thrown in there yet the focus is always on Kinderman, his search for the truth, and his own philosophical musings on the world. The book is more of a philosophical horror film that is more of a slow burn that is more about the existence of evil in the world among other things and the movie does go into that aspect pretty faithfully, at least until the ending which does take the tone into an abrupt direction but I'll get to that when I do.

The easiest comparison I can make where the movie deviates with the book is with its main character but there is a pretty good reason why that may be. In the first Exorcist, the role of Kinderman was played by Lee J. Cobb, who passed away in 1976 which I think is a huge shame since it would have added to the whole character change a bit more but they got George C. Scott to play Bill in this movie so there is someone that is rather respectable in the role still. Maybe because of all of that, it is obvious to compare the way the two of them play the same character with Cobb being more of a relaxed yet concerned individual who was always a step ahead without giving it away (best example of this being the scene where he is talking to Chris in the house) while Scott is more of a pessimist who might be more so due to the return of the pattern of the Gemini Killer yet he still remains friends with Father Dyer after all of these years, spending the day with him at every anniversary of Karras' death since. The added pessimism is a change for the film since in the book, Kinderman is constantly going on philosophical tangents about the concept of evil; it is there in the movie but the main difference in the adaptation is his belief system which plays in his interactions with Tommy Sunlight. In the book, he is more of a believer while in the movie, he is all but stated to be an atheist.

The nonbeliever aspect does play into his interactions with Tommy in the hospital which play out differently yet similarly as well. The difference being the ending but let's get to the Gemini Killer, who is given a backstory in the book where his name is James Vennamun, the son of a evangelical preacher who abused him along with his brother for most of their life; more so with his brother, who was left mentally unstable and died due to a slight moment of ignorance by the hospital staff. The motive for the killings is the same, that being so James can shame his father, since his son is a serial killer. A major difference is the supposed death of the Gemini Killer, where it was assumed he had been in hiding in the book, where in the movie, he was clearly executed. Let's bring up perhaps the best reason to watch the movie though, and that is Brad Dourif playing the Gemini Killer, there really just for the audience since Kinderman only sees Karras when looking at him.

One thing that can happen with adaptations is adding a character or removing one for whichever reason, being that his involvement doesn't impact the story, time constraints, the list can go on. This movie does both where a character is removed while the added character is there mainly for the new ending. First the character who doesn't show up, that being Dr. Amfortas who works at the hospital along with Dr. Temple, whose role in the movie is severely reduced, which might have been due to the changes since during the scene he is being interviewed by Kinderman, some shots show his notepad with weird writing which alludes to him being involved with the Gemini Killer in some form. Back to Dr. Amfortas, his role in the book is small but it does play more into the connection with the force that brought James into the body of Karras (SPOILER), as his story revolves around him trying to communicate with his dead wife. Amfortas dies in an accident in the book which was probably caused by James in some form so that ends his story. Who did they get to replace him? Father Paul Morning, who does feel like a last minute addition into the story which makes sense due to the fact that he is the main force behind the new ending. Throughout the movie, they cut to him just sitting at a church pew with nothing else really going on which is kind of a shame really.

I kept talking about it so let's get to it: the ending. First, the book version. Tommy Sunlight feels that his father has died, thus his reason for killing is gone so he decides to call Kinderman to his room and let the Lieutenant know everything about how he had been able to go through his recent killing spree along with the why of it all before forcing himself to have a heart attack and die. A rather anti-climatic ending yet I think it works really well, especially with the whole theme of the concept of evil that kept playing out in the narrative.As for the movie, because the studio made Blatty shoehorn in an exorcism scene, Father Morning shows up to the cell ready to perform an exorcism to remove the evil souls from Karras' body but it goes as well as you expect with James' "master" aiding and seemingly killing Father Morning, while Kinderman comes and the two of them manage to kill the evil entities. Despite the fact that it comes off as really abrupt, I actually don't mind the ending at all although I still wish the original ending still existed or at least isn't lost among the shuffle of the cutting room floor. I hope I haven't spoiled the book and film too much since I think you should give Legion and The Exorcist III a chance despite the cries against it. The movie is a rather faithful adaptation compared to most book to film adaptations and a really good horror film that doesn't rely on blood and gore that much, mainly mood and atmosphere. So, again, give both a shot.

EDIT: didn't realize this was my 50th post. So... cool. Hopefully it won't take me as long to get to 100

So... is this really that bad? #5 - Savage Streets

I think that anyone who has read my blog knows that one of my favorite movies is The Exorcist and that against all odds, one things that doesn't get enough credit is the cast in that movie. The leads included Ellen Burstyn who got her second of three Oscar nominations in four years (winning a year later for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore); the classic badass actor and frequent collaborator of Bergman, Max Von Sydow; Pulitzer Prize winner Jason Miller and a supporting role by Lee J. Cobb of 12 Angry Men and On The Waterfront fame among other things. And yet perhaps the most recognizable star of the movie is also the whose career most people don't know past the sequel would be Linda Blair. I mean I'm not sure most people know about her filmography post -1977 and part of that is the kind of movies that she ended up being in after that, from the roller disco movie Roller Boogie to women in prison movies like Chained Heat and Red Heat, as well to the movie of topic today, the 1984 vigilante flick Savage Streets.

To be noted though, I'm sure that if anyone follows the Razzies should recognize this movie as being one of a trifecta when Blair won the Worst Actress award, paired up with Night Patrol and Savage Island. This is also one of those movies where I only know three of the actors in the movie. Aside from Blair, there is John Vernon who despite barely being in the movie gets second billing, probably because he is the only other name actor, most remembered as being Dean Vernon from Animal House. And then there is scream queen Linnea Quigley, a year away from her most mainstream role in Return of the Living Dead. Other than that, I have no clue who any of these people are and judging by their acting abilities, they probably didn't have much of a career anyway. Also of note is that this is one of the few films in the resume of director Danny Steinmann, whose other films included the classic porn film High Rise and one of the more notorious sequels of the Friday the 13th franchise, A New Beginning.

But let's get to the movie itself, which is a weird one to say the least. Since it is the 80's, a trend that exists throughout movies like this is that all of the "teenagers" in the movie are played by people in their 20's, which might have to do with the large amount of nudity in the thing, from a shower scene in a high school gym to a zooming shot of Linda Blair's character Brenda laying in a bathtub and the gang rape scene that becomes the starting point for the revenge aspect. Structure wise, this movie moves a lot slower than you'd expect from an 80's vigilante film, reminding me almost of the pacing of Mad Max, where the whole getting revenge all takes place within the last act of the movie, the first two thirds more or less setting up the why it is happening.

The movie begins with Brenda and her friends, along with her deaf mute sister Heather (played by Quigley) walking through town while being harassed by a gang called the Scars. They retaliate by trashing their car, which leads the gang to start taking their revenge on the girls by first gang raping Heather and then killing one of the friends, Francine, by throwing her off of a bridge. This leads Brenda to go kill the gang members on her own. All throughout the movie, you could tell that Blair was having fun with the role of playing a rebellious teenager but when it gets to the final minutes, she really embraces the whole vigilante aspect of her character making it all the more enjoyable when she kills off the Scars. Linnea Quigley does a really good job here as well, playing a character that has no dialogue making the rape scene all the more unsettling. That moment does have a jarring structure tone wise since while that is going on, Brenda is fighting with another girl in the locker room/showers and that is played off more campy, the easiest comparison I could make to this being similar moments from Last House on the Left but I think it works better here since the camp in that movie does get to be a bit much.

Overall, I'd say that if you're a fan of sleazy 80's films, you might like this movie. It probably isn't for everyone though. I myself like it although something did feel off about it. The first two thirds did set up this kind of rival gang battle between the girls and the Scars that the movie didn't capitalize on by having Brenda take on the gang by herself. And while I do enjoy seeing Linda Blair acting all badass, I think it would have worked better if the girls all got together for their revenge. From an interview with Steinmann, he wanted to have the group thing be there but lost out to one of the producers so that does provide an explanation. Still, the movie is an alright watch for what it is and it does make me want to actually see more of the post Exorcist II career of Blair.

So... is this really that bad? #4 - 8 Million Ways to Die

How did this movie come to my attention? As usual, I get introduced to movies like this from my source of entertainment and reviews for new movies, thecinemasnob.com and the Midnight Screenings show. The episode specifically that this movie was brought up was during their review for A Walk Among the Tombstones, which was based on a book written by Lawrence Block, part of a series following the character of Matthew Scudder, played in that movie by Liam Neeson. In it, Brad mentioned that Scudder had appeared in a movie before, that one being the topic for today, 8 Million Ways to Die. The credits of note for this movie seem almost surreal, from the director (Hal Ashby, of Harold and Maude, Coming Home, and Being There fame. This also was the last film he directed), one of the screenwriters (Oliver Stone, post- Scarface but pre Platoon and Salvador), having Jeff Bridges in the role of Scudder and Andy Garcia as the main villain. It's a strange collection of individuals coming together for this movie, and strangely enough this movie did not do well at all. Only making around $1.3 million at the box office against an $18 million dollar budget, there was also the dismal critical status, being a movie that has the dreaded 0% on Rotten Tomatoes (with a 33% audience rating and a 5.6 on IMDB, so it has that going for it). The 0% was what made me want to do this since it does exemplify the whole "Is the movie THAT bad?" aesthetic that this series tries to strive for.

To start this off, it really does feel like an 80's movie through and through, through the styles of clothing and the way the film feels. I can't really explain it but it does fit the 80's cop film mold and most of the time, it doesn't take me out of the movie but rather makes my brain take myself back to that period of time, the one that does this best though would be To Live and Die in LA, which I will save for another time. The movie begins with Scudder, at this point in time an LA cop who is also an alcoholic, being a part of a drug bust gone wrong where he kills a suspect in front of the man's family, the guilt causing him to sink more into his alcoholism, leading to the destruction of his career and his relationship with his wife and daughter. This does differ from the original backstory regarding the breaking point of him trying to become sober, which was similar to the way it was portrayed in A Walk Among the Tombstones, but it does get him to start going to Alcoholics Anonymous while taking up work as a private investigator. It is during one of these meeting where the plot begins to take form, when he is handed a note to go to a private club. The woman, named Sunny, tries to convince him to help her escape her life, under the guise of no longer wanting to deal in prostitution. Of course in movies like this, something goes wrong and there is more to the situation than meets the eye.

Overall, I should say that the acting in this movie is rather solid, at least from the perspective of the male leads. Bridges does a good job in the role of a recovering alcoholic, especially the scene early on when he relapses and wakes up in a drunk ward, all the while carrying himself well as a PI trying to piece together the mystery of what is really going on. Garcia is a pretty fun 80's villain with the name Angel Moldonado, There are some times where he appears to be having a lot of fun in the role and hamming it up quite nicely. There is also the small appearance of one Tommy "Tiny" Lister, who I'll probably remember forever for his role as Zeus in No Holds Barred and he's alright. But then we get to the actresses, who I wouldn't say are completely bad but they are one of the low points of the film. First being Sunny, played by Alexandra Paul; the only other movie I can remember her being in was Christine so I can't really judge her acting abilities from this, neither can I for Rosanna Arquette, who plays another lady of the night also serving as Matt's love interested Sarah. I just didn't find them that interesting aside from a few pieces of dialogue from Sunny, mainly one piece of dialogue from when she tries seducing Scudder in his apartment.

Structure and editing wise, sometimes the movie feels like a mess. That does have a reason though since because Ashby as a director was known for being a terror during the post-production process he was fired on the last day of shooting, so he didn't get to see through his vision for the film. Instead, it was left in the hands of editors Robert Lawrence and Stuart Pappe, the latter I can't figure out what else he's done but the former was Oscar nominated for Spartacus (this was at the tail end of his career though). In a situation like that though, it can be easy to assume that things do get lost in translation and the movie suffers from it, a prime example being the transition from Sunny's murder to Scudder waking up in the drunk ward being confusing and I didn't get that was what happened the first time I saw it. I'm not sure I should talk about this movie more though since I'd rather have people gauge the experience on their own but I guess I could leave off on this: if you're curious about the movie for any reason, give it a shot. I wouldn't consider it to be a good movie for the most part but it is better than the 0% RT rating it's given. I hope that 80's Jeff Bridges is enough to convince you to give this a try.

Post: I've decided that I'm not going to plan the posts for this one ahead of time since I do prefer this to be a spur of the moment kind of thing. I have an idea for the next one though if I decide to write it today, that being the 1984 Linda Blair vigilante film Savage Streets, which could be fun to talk about.

Is This Really That Bad? #3 - Prometheus

I know, I know. I said that I would be doing Lulu for my next post in this series but I was only able to get through about a third of the album before I kind of got disinterested for the time being. Not in the sense of not liking in since I didn't get enough of it to really say how I thought about it. More of just I didn't feel like writing about it. That would explain why I have not really gotten any work done lately aside from trying to write more from a more fictional aspect with my own ideas. That too has gone by a little slow as I feel like I'm dragging the story I'm writing to a slow pace that might be considered a complete stop of any momentum. That's what the editing process is for, though. But onto the topic at hand, the last week or so, I have kind of gotten a little more trigger happy with purchasing stuff than I should be, since I got my hands on a bunch of blu-rays, one being a set of films by the Coen Brothers, another being season one of True Detective, and the last (and also the cheapest purchase by comparison) being the topic for today, Ridley Scott's 2012 film Prometheus. I had not seen the film partially due to the amount of criticism it had gotten from critics and the public alike, praising some of it while really being angered by some other parts. It still got me interested due to the fact that it was a Ridley Scott film and that it was science fiction, since he does make a lot of movies (12 since 2000) and most of them do span different genres yet sci-fi has not been that prevalent with him since Blade Runner came out 30 years prior to this film. I'm not really that much of a fanboy of Scott's since A. I haven't seen a whole lot of his work aside from some of the more obvious one and B. some I've seen I don't really like all that much. To be honest, looking back at his filmography, I think I've only seen five of his films all the way through, two of which I wasn't really a fan of (GI Jane and Gladiator), one I thought was okay but it really did benefit from a director's cut (Kingdom of Heaven, which I might bring up later on) and the obvious ones I should like that I do that don't really need to mention.

So what could you call Prometheus as a film, since it tries really hard to distance itself from the other sci-fi film Scott is known for, Alien, yet there is a lot it takes from that film. It it obvious that both of those films take place within the same universe but does that give Prometheus the footing to call itself a prequel to Alien or is that not the case? There are some aspects that do call back to Alien, such as the whole design of the interior of the ship such as the room where all of the stasis chambers are and the like along with the creatures that roam the planet they stay on, which have that relation to the xenomorphs and their whole reproductive system representing those themes of rape and phallic symbols coming back. There is also the android who might have some ulterior motives hidden behind that facade. The bigger difference between the two that I could call right away is the scope that is trying to be achieved. With Alien, there is a huge sense of claustrophobia with all of the tight spaces and darkness within not only the Nostromo but also the derelict ship that they investigate, bringing the feeling of dread out more prominently. With Prometheus, it is more open, larger, brighter even with the scale of everything trying to mesh with the concepts and ideas that the movie itself is trying to convey. It's easy to say that Scott can make a beautiful looking movie and this one is no exception. I can give all the praise in the world for Michael Fassbender's performance as the android David since everyone else does and for good reason. The other characters do suffer a lot from the lack of development due to Scott's usual desire of having the pacing being the most important thing even if it leads to things not making any sense like the scene with Millburn and Fifield being the way it is. There is some things as well left in questioning that maybe a sequel would answer but maybe they left too many loose threads hanging.

This could really benefit from having a different cut. Not necessarily adding things that could been seen as superfluous but I think that there could be more scenes of character development with the crew along with not making the movie more like Alien. As is, I still like the movie but I really do see it as a missed opportunity as well, something that can be expected from Scott as of late. I'm sorry this turned out to be shorter than I expected but I really got distracted even though that isn't really a good excuse. But it might bring some good though since I think I'll start working on something that I hope people will like and I hope can turn out as well as I think it will be. That will be discussing the ending of True Detective, mainly what happened with Rust since that has been a really polarizing topic that a lot of people think ruined the show. I'll start off by saying I think the ending was really great but I'll try to talk about why on a future post.

New Years Update: Happy 2015 to all

So for any of you that have stuck through this long period of nothing written by me at all, I shall say thank you and an even bigger thank you to any of you that consider yourselves fans of my work. I know there are some there and even if there aren't, I'll at least try to write more quality work  in the near future. But onto the update, I am really sorry I never finished that nightmare fuel week for the Depths of Pretension series but that will come soon, hopefully by the end of the month and I'll try to make that a bimonthly series from now on. I have thought of what to do with my other series of articles as well so I thought I might enlighten you guys as well as to what will happen with those in the near future as well as a new addition as well. For my William Friedkin retrospective series, The Friedkin Connection, I have one that I'm working on for To Live and Die in LA at the moment which should be followed by The Hunted but that might go into a small hiatus soon since there are the pre- French Connection films that I am unsure how to get access to but I'll at least get to Jade and The French Connection before then. Next is another series I have been neglecting for longer than Depths of Pretension and that is the Adaptation Complaints, the one where I talk about adapting other media to film. And I have a plan for that as well for the next two posts at least, those being on Dune and The Crow, both of which I love the films and the source material they came from. I plan on buying a book copy of Dune soon since I haven't read it since high school though. The Crow though does bring me to the new series idea I have though, and that is talking about movie soundtracks. More specifically, movie soundtracks that are filled with songs rather than a score although not always. The first one I will do for that one I plan on being the soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever and maybe I'll get to The Crow's soundtrack as well even though I'm covering the movie in another post but I already talked about The Exorcist more than once and plan on talking about it again at some point, especially since I know at some point Legion/Exorcist III will be a topic for A. C. I don't have a name for the music soundtrack one yet but hopefully it'll be a good one. The last real series I have, Is This Really That Bad?, is one that'll be tough to talk about since it's hard to pick things that people don't like that I can defend without some sort of bias. I'll get to Lulu though for sure but after that it might be a question mark. I do have a plan though for some sort of fun with my fans, if they're interested. I started covering new releases as well and I thought it would be fun if people would be interested in me seeing specific films if they are available, good or bad. That probably won't happen though. Hopefully, this will lead to a more productive year for this blog and random topics will happen as well since I like doing those. So hope you all have a good year and maybe I'll get some work done.