This time of year, as I sit back in my
faded lawn chair on my back porch and watch the endless rain of a
Pacific Northwest winter. I like to partake in a fine, newly legal,
jazz cigarette and reflect on the year gone by. What follows is a
random list of the stuff I found interesting this year. No
particular rules, just my rundown of what piqued my interest.
This being the Grog I figured I should
start things off in the Horror world. Truth be told I didn't watch
near as much new horror as I should have this year. A lot of it just
hasn't grabbed me, that and I never have the time. There were a few
goodies in there, like the beautifully bad Nazis at the center of the
Earth , Abraham Lincoln Vs. Nazis, and my son's favorite 2 Headed
Shark Attack. I really liked Beyond the Black Rainbow a lot, also.
It was a nice mix of pretentious and weird that I dig. Plus, the
score was fantastic. I did re watch a lot of 80's horror, with some
fancy new releases of some great old stuff. Scream Factory in
particular knocked it out of the park this year and looks to be doing
the same next year. Plus I finally got the C.H.U.D. II and Ghoulies
3 DVD set and you can't go wrong with that. Which is a big part of
the reason Father's Day was close to being my favorite horror movie
of the year. It was nice to see a Troma movie done right, good
inappropriate humor and fun gore. Another highlight for me was a
last minute watch that I had been looking forward to for a long time.
John Dies at the End definitely lived up to my expectations. I read
the book earlier this year and loved it, but I wasn't sure how well
it would translate to film. Luckily we had Coscarelli behind the
camera and he made it work. Part of what doesn't interest me about
newer horror is the lack of new ideas, but Cabin in the Woods brings
something new to the table while going back to basics at the same
time. Not a lot of movies can pull that off, with the humor and
decent gore(minus some questionable CG) of this one.
That's why I'd put this at the top of
my list this year.
It was also a great year for kids
horror at the movies this year. I haven't seen Hotel Transylvania
yet, but Frankenweenie was really fun, especially compared to what
Tim Burton shits out lately. Paranorman was easily one of my top
movies this year. It's as close to a real kids horror movie as
you're bound to get. The grindhouse style opening and the Halloween
reference were fantastic, plus I can never get enough of stop motion
animation.
Outside the world of horror was full of
big blockbuster movies. Most of which more or less lived up to
expectations, which is rare. It actually made it a little hard to
narrow this one down. Obviously Avengers owned the summer, and with
good reason, but some of the other guys made some decent movies.
Ghost Rider and Amazing Spiderman both made for better than expected
movies. Any time I can take my daughter to a movie for her birthday
and watch Nic Cage act like a lunatic and slam some dude back to hell
with his fiery hell chain is a win in my book. Hell, Dark Knight
Rises even managed not to suck. It really comes down to two movies
for me though, Prometheus and The Hobbit. Prometheus was amazing and
very under rated in my opinion, the design of the movie is beautiful,
but The Hobbit was just too damn good. I had an unreal amount of
anticipation for this movie. I've loved the Hobbit since I was
pretty damn young and this is the exact movie I wanted to see. Fun
and epic at the same time, good humor, and amazing effects, it all
comes together just right.
There were also some great smaller
releases this year. Action movies in particular got some goodies.
The Raid was fantastic and Lockout ended up being a really fun Die
Hard/Escape from New York mash up in space. Dredd ended up being way
better than I was expecting and out Raided The Raid in my book.
There were ever a couple good laughs to be had. God Bless America
was hilarious and The FP is easily one of my favorite movies of the
year, or hell the last ten years for that matter. Looper was the
real stand out for me though. I loves me some sci fi and holy shit
did this movie bring the sci fi hard. Great acting, great story, and
a cool understated “futuristic” design.
This year was a
really light year for me as far as new music goes. Maybe I'm just
turning into a grumpy old man that only likes music from “back in
my day”, but there just wasn't much new music that really grabbed
me this year. We got some really solid new albums from Testament and
Kreator that are both worth a listen and 3 Inches of Blood decided to
surprise me and make an album that I can actually stand listening to
and even enjoy quite a bit. The two metal albums that spent the most
time playing on my computer were The Sword's Apocryphon and
Municipal Waste's The Fatal Feast. I'm not sure exactly what it is
about The Sword that I dig because it's not my usual helping of
Thrash metal and fantasy power metal I tend to listen to, but there's
something about the mix of that old school Sabbath feel and more
modern sounds that works for me. It couldn't compete with the
straight up fun of a new Municipal Waste album though. They keep it
true to old school thrash with a little hardcore peppered in there,
and these days that's a rare find. Throw in a big heap of
sci-fi/horror themes and you can't lose.
Over the last couple of years I have
really started to get more and more into soundtracks and instrumental
stuff. Even a little electronic music here and there, I know that's
like blasphemy coming from a metal heads mouth, but I like listening
to robot music, so tough shit. A great one I stumbled on this year
was DROKK: Music Inspired by Mega City One. It's a score to a
fictional Judge Dredd movie, that started out as the score for the
new Dredd movie, by Geoff Darrow(from Portishead) and Ben Salisbury.
If you dig the old synth heavy scores of the 80's then you'll love
this. I just wish they would have kept this as the score for the new
Dredd movie so it could have kicked that much more ass. My favorite
album this year though has to be How to Destroy Angels EP An Omen. I
love basically anything Trent Reznor does and this is no exception.
Great ambient music, that I always have playing in the background
while I'm working on my customs. It's a great mix of electronic
sounds and almost acoustic instrumental work that sounds great with
the low key vocals.
Lets finish this up with my favorite
toys this year. Luckily for my wallet it was a pretty light year for
toys. That's part of the reason I'm not doing my usual best of list
for toys. There just wasn't enough to justify a list, especially
when it came to horror figures. Neca continued their Nightmare on
Elm Street line and it's still top notch. They also had a some solid
video game figures. The real stand out from Neca this year is the
Prometheus line. The Engineer in flight suit is easily the best
figure I picked up this year. I've always loved the design of the
Space Jockey and to have a highly detailed, surprisingly articulated
figure is a dream come true for me. We also got some unexpectedly
nice figures for The Hobbit. They're from a company I had never
heard of, but they are some of the nicest smaller figures to come out
from someone other than Hasbro in a long time. The likeness are spot
on, as are the sculpts. The basic paint jobs are the only thing
keeping them from being really stellar. We got some fun figures from
Adventure Time and Regular show, but some iffy quality holds them
back. The real highlight of the year for me was the Monster Hunter
line of Legos. I was lucky enough to pick up the Vampire castle and
the Ghost Train for X-mas and I love them. Nothing makes you feel
better than sitting around in front of your kids selfishly building
your Lego sets while they just watch. It makes you feel like a real
man.
Well I'd better wrap this up before I
keep rambling all night. Mixed with all this good there was plenty
of shit out there. A bunch of garbage Hollywood horror movies and
half assed action figures. And don't even get me started on the
state of popular “music”. I broke down and bought my wife the
new Ke$ha album and holy shit does it suck. I'll never understand
what anyone sees in this hood rat skank, looking at you Tromeric.
All in all it was a pretty good year
in the VonKlingele household. A few down notes, but that's to be
expected. I'm looking forward to a new year and hopefully I can get
off my lazy ass and accomplish some big projects this year. It looks
like there's some great stuff headed our way next year, so I'd better
get ready.
- Jacob VonKlingele
