Shocktober Day 3: Häxan

Häxan (1922)

Hey, I get to write about something good for Shocktober this year! Yeah!

The first thing you need to know about Häxan is that there are apparently dozens of different cuts of this movie. I watched the 106 minute version Criterion made available on Hulu, which is I guess different from the 87 minute version you can buy from Criterion (NSFW: for some reason the screenshot Criterion used is a picture of a butt) or the 1968, William S. Burroughs-narrated version you can watch on YouTube. This is probably the case with any movie that has survived nearly 100 years, but I wanted to be absolutely clear that there’s a chance that those of you who’ve seen this may have seen more or less than I did, or the same stuff in a different context.
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Shocktober Day 2: The Phantom Carriage

The Phantom Carriage (1921)

Hey there, Shocktoberphiles! Yes, I have once again agreed to help John out this Shocktober by reviewing a few classic horror movies, though last year established quite clearly that I am not the most horror-minded film fan, as the two films I got the most excited about reviewing were Eraserhead and Young Frankenstein. And it appears that I’ll probably end up taking that same route this year, as this first film I’m reviewing isn’t really quite a horror movie, though I can see why John chose it as part of this year’s Shocktober itinerary, since it has some supernaturally ghoulish elements to it. However, calling this a horror movie feels a bit like calling The Seventh Seal a horror movie (more on that later). But you know what? I don’t really care, since it’s doubtful that I would’ve gotten around to seeing this movie any time soon if it wasn’t for Shocktober, and The Phantom Carriage is a pretty amazing achievement in silent European cinema no matter how you slice it. Continue reading →

Shocktober Day 1: The Golem: How He Came into the World

The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920)

This ain’t your grandson’s Frankenstein. We’re going old school monster movie for this entry. According to Wikipedia scholars, The Golem may have been cinema’s first movie monster. Unless you consider the Danny DeVito-shaped subject of Thomas Edison’s 1910 film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I don’t because Edison’s Frankenstein is 16 minutes long. It’s not even as long as an episode of According to Jim, and the monster on According to Jim is way scarier.

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Welcome to Shocktober: Foreign Frights

Welcome to your doom! Or en español, “Bienvenido a tu destine!” Yes, Shocktober is back, and if you haven’t already guessed, this year’s theme is foreign language films. Because what’s scarier than having to read? But in all seriousness, this a theme I’ve wanted to do for a while. There’s so much bizarre stuff out there in the rest of the world. Whether it be Scandinavian vampires or creepy Japanese school girls, there’s almost too much good stuff. Still trying to get a sponsorship deal from AMPM BTW.

If you’re not familiar with Shocktober, or this blog, or computers or the internet, let me explain. Every year in October, Mildly Pleased spends the entire month reviewing horror movies. 31 days. 31 movies. This year, we’ll be going through some of the best, worst, and weirdest foreign language horror films. The list will be in chronological order and I will also be joined by fellow Mildly Pleasers Sean and Colin. So let’s kick today off with a good scream! Because a scream is the same in every language.

T3 94: Top 10 Most Annoying Movie Franchises

As we established last week, right now we’re in film’s age of the franchise. Depending on who you ask that could have started as far back as the late seventies or as recently as the advent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the serialization of cinema. Previously, we focused on the positive aspects of that – the franchises that grew and delivered sequels better than their originals or became as a whole greater than any one movie. Now we turn our gaze to the shadows. The dark side of franchise filmmaking is seriously disturbing, so come with us now, as we enter the month of October, on this terrifying ride.

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The People’s Albums: #22 Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits

FYI, this will probably be a pretty half-assed installment of The People’s Albums because 1) I just wanted to get this one out of the way before the all-out post-a-thon that will hopefully be this year’s Shocktober commences, and 2) this album seems pretty uninteresting/inessential considering it’s filled with a bunch of songs we’ve all heard a million times, while also 3) it feels even more uninteresting/inessential when taking into account that most of Simon & Garfunkel’s proper albums are worth listening to instead of some greatest hits comp. In fact, the most interesting thing about this album is probably it’s cover photo, which apparently was taken during Simon & Garfunkel’s short-lived proto-Gallagher & college mime professor phase.

Album: Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits
Artist: Simon & Garfunkel
Release Date: June 14, 1972
Copies Sold In The U.S.: 14 million

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See You in the Mosh’sh Pit

Haven’t done one of these in a long time and maybe I’ll never get a chance again, so here we go: Here’s everything I know about the songs in Rock Band 4, which is out in a couple weeks.

The most important, amazing thing that Harmonix has done is respect our commitment to the earlier games. You may have heard that DLC songs and on-disc tracks from the first three games will mostly all come over to the corresponding new consoles (so Xbox 360 goes to Xbox One and PS3 to PS4) and that most old instruments will be made to work on the modern machines too. Even better, songs from the pre-Rock Band 3 era will be remastered to allow vocal harmonies. All of that is amazing and almost certainly makes the game worth picking up just to preserve the value of everything else people like me already bought.

But there are a bunch of new songs in this game too. Check out the complete Rock Band 4 soundtrack after the jump.
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