Groovy!

After years of speculation and fanboys begging for it, there's finally going to be an Evil Dead 4. All I've been able to find out online so far is that it is being made, Sam Raimi is directing and Bruce Campbell is starring. Of course, those two elements alone cover pretty much everything you need to know. Especially when you consider Raimi's got enough credibility know that he can whatever the hell he wants with the movie instead of having the studio mess around with things.

Honestly I had pretty much given up hope that another Evil Dead film would be made. Now, much with the excitement despite the fact it'll be quite a while yet before filming even starts.

The Fine Art of Cheese

I received an e-mail from Amazon.ca today letting me know that my MST3K Volumes 1 and 2 shipped today which brought something that has been kicking around in my head now for a couple weeks to the forefront. One of the more entertaining genres of entertainment is one that is not usually considered a genre of its own. That is the genre of the cheesy. Now a lot of times cheesy movies are lumped together into a wide variety of movies referred to a B movies. Most people do not see the distinction between a B movie and a cheesy movie. For a movie to be truly cheesy (and therefore optimize its entertainment value) certain criteria have to be met. What most people would classify as cheesy could fall into one of 3 categories.

For a movie to be truly cheesy there has to be a sense of earnestness about it. For example, look at Mortal Kombat: annihilation. The reason that the movie is hilarious is because it is not supposed to be. When Raiden flies across the room shouting, we are supposed to be impressed. When Scorpion yells, "Suckers!" to Lui Kang and Sub-Zero we are supposed to be angered by his actions. It is because a movie is dead-serious about incredibly contrived and stupid things the movie is funny.

As a counterpoint there are movies that are intentionally cheesy. The problem with intentional cheesiness is that it often goes out of its way to show the audience that it is supposed to be a joke. Intentionally cheesy things can be fun; just look at Batman with Adam West. But the reason that show/movie was so great is that the characters played it straight. While we may laugh, Batman and Robin were truly touched at the 'nobility of the almost human porpoise' when it sacrificed itself by swimming in front of a torpedo.

When a movie or show gets obsessed with letting us know that it is intentionally cheesy however, it just gets stupid. Scary Movie is a perfect example of this. The movie starts off somewhat funny but as the movie goes on the characters actions make little sense from an internal viewpoint; they are constantly doing things for no reason other than to amuse the audience. Having a character do something stupid and random for no reason other than the fact it is stupid and random gets old fast. The movie felt like it was worried we would think it was supposed to not be silly so it spend way too much energy on proverbially winking at the audience, thus ruining the comedy.

The last, and thankfully rarest, category is the awful. These are movies that are so bad that they are almost unwatchable. Like cheesy movies, they usually feel like something that was taken seriously. We generally do not see a lot of these as they have a hard time getting made in the first place and even a harder time getting any sort of actual release. A prime example of this would be Manos: The Hands of Fate. This movie was featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and even with lots of humorous jokes being made, this film was almost unbearable to watch. Movies in this category usually could have been cheese but for some reason or other, they are just SO bad that it stops being funny and starts being uncomfortable.

There are, naturally some grey areas, particularly with the first two categories. Some movies (like Jack Frost 2) are obviously played for laughs by the filmmakers and the characters but they still manage to work. And there are some movies that feel like they are trying to be serious but are so silly it is hard to imagine that anyone involved thought they were really making a serious movie (Ice Cream Man would be a prime example).

So remember kids, bad and cheesy are not necessarily the same thing.

Monkey Shines

I had a rather odd dream last night. Now, dreams in general are pretty odd and mine are usually really odd but this one was odd even when looked at relative to the others.

In my dream, I was dreaming that I was lying in bed, having just woke up. The dream went on for quite some time, with me mostly just lying in bed in my room.

Such a dream could quite easily be mistaken for non-dreaming except throughout the dream I was being harrassed by a very small, very evil monkey. At least that's the animal the creature most resembled.

The 'monkey' would sneak into my room and then approach the bed in some way. Then it would attack me. You'd think a very small monkey wouldn't be much of a threat (it was probably between 20-30 cm tall) but it was also quite strong. First I just put it out of my room, shut the door and went back to bed but it just kept hitting the door until the door flew open. Eventually I had to take stronger measures to try and stop it like slamming it into a wall repeatedly and throwing it outside but it just kept coming back.

The lesson of the day: Evil monkey = persistent

Help Wanted

Many a year ago, a group of friends and I got ourselves a website and sub-domain. We really should have each had our own websites but we were in high school and didn't want to spend that much. Enter the sideshow. (our url was sideshow.simplenet.com). Each of us basically just did our own thing on the site with a sideshow.simplenet.com. This was in the days where webspace was really cheap so for something like $10 a month we had unlimited bandwidth, the url and unlimited space. (For my part I created Emulatory Goodness, which was mostly just a collection of a few hundred roms. This was before file-sharing programs so it was a pretty damn good sized resource for roms (esp SNES roms). I had always wanted to do more with it but I was much lazier back in my high school days (believe it or not).

Then I created a personal site back in 2000/2001. It was a horrible looking site but it had some nice stuff on it. It was mainly a collection of quotes (think Quote of the Day without the guess who said it), rants about stuff and recollections of various dreams I had. It's still accessible by going to www.geocities.com/burnsie_104 but I basically stopped updating it back in June of 2001.

Next of the notable online presence type things that I created (I'm glossing over some aborted attempts at sites along the way) was this blog. I started it way back on March 16, 2003 and while 2004 was the only year with daily updates, it is still going along well.

I have, however, always wanted to do more with my site creation and at this point in my life I have much desire to create. I'm already writing lots of fiction but I want to do other things as well. I've been kind of kicking around ideas for a site for a few months now but it wasn't until last week that a cohesive idea really gelled in my head.

There are lots of websites out there devoted to TV shows out there. When it comes to popular shows there's a deluge of sites of varying degrees of quality. There are other shows, however, which are much less known. These shows do not get online coverage outside of IMDB and the like. I want to help change that.

My idea is basically to have a website focusing on the more obscure (yet well worth watching) shows out there. The idea is to give fans of obscure shows a chance to learn more about said show as well as be exposed to other obscure shows they might enjoy.

As I plan to cover multiple shows, there would not be anything TOO elaborate for each individual show; the majority of the coverage would come through a series of episode reviews.

Now, as you probably guessed from the title of this post, I am looking for help. If nobody is interested I am willing to carry the weight on my own until the site is established and then try and bring readers on board but I would rather start with a larger base of writers.

There's not really any limit to the genre of show that could be covered by the as yet unnamed site but I do hav a few criteria.
A) The show has to be relatively obscure. There are plenty of sites out there covering Star Trek, Buffy and Simpsons.
B) Preferably the show should be one that is still available on TV in Canada, the US or elsewhere. If people find out about a show through the site, it'd be good if they could actually watch it. However, if there is a show you want to do that is available only through DVDs or the internet, it could still be covered. I'd just rather focus on stuff that's more readily available.
C) Preferably the show should still be producing new episodes, just because it gives the section a more long-term use. This one is the most expendable criteria however as many good obscure shows do not last more then a season for the simple reason that they are obscure.

As an example of what does and does not fit the criteria of the site, here's a list of the shows I watch regularly (or semi-regularly): Daily Show, Simpsons, Futurama, Delta State, Enterprise, Battlestar Galatica, 24 and Alienated.

Of that list only Delta State and Alienated would qualify as obscure (Battlestar Galactica could be argued for, if only due to the fact it's a relatively new show not available on network television).

Currently I've already written a couple of reviews for Alienated and once the site is up I plan to do about one episode a week. I haven't started Delta State yet but that's because I think Teletoon is going to loop it fairly soon and I'd like to begin at the beginning.

Pretty much anyone reading this blog is a friend of mine. I know each and everyone of you watches some obscure stuff in one form or another and you all have the ability to write so this is pretty much an open call. I'm also looking for some help with the site itself. I can make a decent site layout (don't let the slapped together Burnsie_104 site fool you) but I have no graphical ability so any icons/banner/etc is beyond my capability.

If you are interested in getting involved with the site, just drop my an e-mail at quiltedporcupine@gmail.com or message me on the ICQ.