End of Silence

I checked out The Descent on Tuesday night with a few friends. I’d heard a lot of good stuff about it both from the media and people whose opinions I trust. I was a huge horror movie fan in the 80’s and saw most of what came out, both good and bad. Over the last 10 years, there have been two or three horror movies that have gotten as much good word of mouth. One was Blair Witch Project, which, when I ultimately saw it on video, was extremely disappointing. It was a classic example of expectations being pumped so high that there was no hope that I would ever like it. The second was High Tension, which is much more satisfying.

The Descent managed to mostly live up to its hype, but not without viewing the extra minute that was cut for the American theatrical release. Apparently, domestic test audiences reacted poorly to the original ending, so they cut it. Thanks, dumbasses. As others have pointed out, the loss of that minute guts one of the subplots and removes some of the depth of the movie. Maybe I’m getting old, but the fast cut style seen in many recent movies and used during some of the more intense sequences in this film really annoyed me.

I’m not sure what to make of the fact that the two better horror films of the last ten years were made in Europe (The Descent is British and High Tension is French).

[tags]thedescent, horror, hightension, hautetension, blairwitchproject, edited[/tags]

I saw a blurb on Defamer several months ago that Michael Eisner is hosting a talk show on CNBC (Channel 50 or 360 on Time Warner Austin, depending if you’re analog or digital), an interesting choice for a channel that’s essentially a glorified stock ticker. Anyway, the episode that airs tonight has Eisner laying the smackdown on Pat Robertson. Suicidegirls has the details. It’ll be worth checking out as a lead-in for the Mavs to prove that they pwn the Heat.

Go Mavs!

[tags]cnbc, michaeleisner, patrobertson, suicidegirls[/tags]

Am I the only one who hasn’t read Da Vinci Code yet and doesn’t intend to see the movie either? Father James Martin sure is sick of answering questions about it.

[tags]npr, davincicode, commentary, stupidity[/tags]

I attended an interview with Henry Rollins during SXSW which was mainly to promote his new show on IFC, which starts tomorrow tonight. In that interview, Rollins was asked about the status of his music career. He essentially responded that he still likes music, but it doesn’t like him, ie that he’d love to keep playing, but not enough people show up anymore to make it feasible for him to continue. Well, a Rollins blog entry this week indicates that “he’s puttin’ the band back together, man” and it’s not that crappy deal he had going for the last several years. It’s the Chris Haskett, Sim Cain, Melvin Gibbs version. August tour dates are being thrown around. I’m wondering if there’ll be an album or if it’s a one shot deal. Will I be disappointed? Probably. MTV picked this up as well.
BTW, here’s Rollins’ blog entry from the day he was in Austin which I missed when I wrote my recap. He mentions Waterloo Records, but not Maudie’s.

And speaking of Rollins, Wired pointed me to a rare video of The Monks performing in Germany. I was introduced to The Monks in the early 90’s when Rollins’s short-lived reissue label, Infinite Zero, put out Black Monk Time.