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Saturday, November 08, 2003

"That's how I beat them, I learned to love the rope."
- Rolling Thunder

"Always use the right tool for the job."
- Rolling Vengence

"From the mountain springs to you."
- Rolling Rock label (it also has that inexplicable "33" on it)


been catching up on some things that i always meant to watch, read or listen to. first off, a friend of mine has been going on and on about the book "I Am Legend" since Jr. High so i thought i'd give it a day in court. actually it's much better than i would have thought considering the man who wrote it, Richard Matheson, was a master of the twist format for "The Twilight Zone" TV series, and although they were very entertaining, the strict formula probably would make for the most predictable fiction. this book is good though. it claims to be a vampire novel but in reality it owes it's inspiration to zombie movies. the experiments and biological explanation he offers for the vampires are straight out of the zombie genre. and the book's depiction of the last man on earth too. you know, one of the film versions was called just that. the other, "The Omega Man," is dated as hell but still fun to watch. this "last man standing" thing is what makes survival horror such a great subject. or at least a great day-dream. so yeah, this book was decent, maybe not good enough for my friend to still be talking about after all these years but i'll admit that the scenes with the "last dog on earth" were oddly touching.

also finally watched "Rolling Thunder," that B-movie that Tarantino brings up in every interview. he named some company after that flick didn't he? for the longest time, i never saw it because i thought i already had. turns out i was thinking of "Rolling Vengence!" a similar tale with one big difference:

"Rolling Vengence" has a hero who avenges the death of his family with a giant flame-belching monster truck with a drill on the front. "Rolling Thunder" he did it with a hook for a hand. way back when ole Q-tip would name-drop that flick at every turn, i'd think, "why does Tarantino keeps babbling about that monster truck movie? i mean, it was a good midnighter but does it did it have that much of an impact on his young mind?" guess i was off, and now i can see how the movie he was talking about would be very effective at a drive-in double feature opening-act slot. which is where a young Quentin saw it for the first time. turns out "Rolling Thunder" really is a great flick. it's got everything a B-movie should. goes places the A-movies won't go. basically it's a poor-man's "Taxi Driver" and clearly a warm-up for that movie since it's the same writer. also it uses the same theme song that Blatty used for "The Ninth Configuration." that threw me for a bit of a loop when it came on. i wonder who had it first?

what else? oh yeah, finally finished watching "Enter The Dragon." too bad he died. him and his son. they had skills.

p.s. notice the extremely short fiction excerpt. i'm putting it up in tiny bite-sized chunks to attempt to conjure up some readers. the last story was long as hell and i tried to keep a reader's attention by illustrating it with some links to make it easier to swallow. didn't work. this one is going up page by page as i type it.

::: david - 7:10 PM [+] :::
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