The Life and Times of a Midwestern Movie Addict

If I had to think of one piece of modern technology I couldn't live without, my mind tends to wander to my iPhone or my plasma TV first...mostly because they're newer and I use them a lot for my own enjoyment.  But when I think of something absolutely essential in my life, I really have to say that my car is the most useful and necessary thing I own.  I mean, think about it.  I live in America, which is set up as a very sprawling, un-centrally-located, pedestrian unfriendly country (you can't just walk or bike anywhere and everywhere like in Europe) which means I need to drive to most of my daily destinations.  I also have to drive to see any of my close friends...they're spread out all over...and I have to drive to reach places that are more exciting than where I live (like an amusement park...or a shopping mecca).  So my car and I are fairly inseparable when you really think of it, and yet I take it for granted very easily.  If it breaks or needs work, it comes as a s

We do love our films where nature tries to wipe us out, don't we.  We have disaster movies, like Earthquake and Volcano which don't really have an antagonist with a mind but rather just mother nature going about her normal everyday business...and going a little nuts.  Then there's the deliciously more exploitative 'when animals attack' movies that at their best ( The Birds, Jaws ) are genuinely frightening and at their worst ( The Swarm, Kingdom of the Spiders ) are at least a campy good time.  Then there are the ones that fall somewhere in the middle.  They fall just short of greatness but don't quite descend into all-out 'so bad its good' territory.  These are films like Piranha , Them!, and tonight's early-80s opus which hit the scene as a response to Jaws ...ok, I'll say it...a ripoff of Jaws (but that doesn't mean that its bad).  It features some of my favorite horror elements...animals and lesser humans disappearing first, a tough as

There are but two days left in the school year (one exam day and one teacher work day) and I couldn't be more excited.  It's warm outside, the days are longer, and there will be no more 5:45am wake up times until late August.  It doesn't get better than this, and in celebration I've decided to share one of my favorite scary films to watch in the summer...and ironically enough one that is being released in remake form this August.  I only hope the new version can capture the fun and thrills of this 1980s throwback to what, at that time, was a dead genre...the vampire movie.  Now I can already hear you groaning out there, saying "Oh god please...no more Twilight or True Blood!" but I'm not going there with this one.  This film, from way before vampires were so 'in' that we wanted them 'out' again, doesn't have sexy, sympathetic, and lovable vampires for us to relate to.  No, instead we have a sexy (I guess its just the nature of the beast