Formless protoplasm able to mock and reflect all forms and organs and processes--viscous agglutinations of bubbling cells--rubbery, fifteen-foot spheroids infinitely plastic and ductile--slaves of suggestion--builders of cities--more and more sullen, more and more intelligent, more and more amphibious, more and more imitative--Great God! ----H.P. Lovecraft, At The Mountains of Madness
Monday, March 7, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Mysterious Couplet
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| HP Lovecraft |
--The Necronomicon
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Your Decadent TV Show Theme Songs: Part I
The themes of cancelled shows, the themes that will not die...
Beloved theme songs from the shows of yesteryear, brought here to torment you with longing for the past.
Beloved theme songs from the shows of yesteryear, brought here to torment you with longing for the past.
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| Airwolf Theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCXbvRrz7Uo&feature=related |
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| Knight Rider Theme (Remix): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKwSi68UZbs&feature=related |
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| Clone High Theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBrWFso1CS8 |
Eminently Devourable
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| Brent Everett |
The last in an exclusive list of those the Shoggoth wishes to devour hungrily: Brent Everett.
Cultic Review
The following movies are almost meditative in character. You find yourself entranced, watching without reflecting or judging. Each of them individually has a unique haunting mood, though a certain sense of apprehension is common to all three. After they're over, you think about them for days.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/limits_of_control/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1135092/
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-limits-of-control
Elephant
One of the most beautiful and haunting films ever made. It is as spare and Zen as a classical Japanese painting. Concerning the lead-up to a school shooting in the vein of Columbine, and told through multiple points of view, several high school students are shown going about their day unaware of what is about to befall them. The two shooters’ days and the sanguine plan they make together is juxtaposed with the blissful ignorance of the rest. There is very little dialogue, which somehow heightens the tension – perhaps because the film thus feels more like a documentary.
No explanations as to motive are offered. The shooters appear to be as ordinary as the rest of the kids, until they systematically begin committing casual murders. This film is far more gripping than any thriller or horror film. That it is also so beautiful to watch makes it an even more disconcerting experience.
“Elephant” stars total unknowns, apparently directed with minimal instruction by Gus Van Sant. The actors seem like real kids, and the verisimilitude is startling.
--The Shoggoth
Reviews and information at:
The Limits of Control
Two-plus hours of gorgeous shots and minimalist acting. Filmed entirely in Spain, in one beautiful location after another, with actors moving through scenes at a languid pace, allowing you to drink in the atmosphere of each locale.
The film has both the strangeness and the internal logic of an intense dream. The protagonist is some kind of criminal, or an agent, but which precise sub-type is not revealed until the end. Interestingly, his elaborate precautions and the various meetings in preparation for his eventual goal are shown but the action is not: The protagonist’s penetration of the final, secure hideout is not shown. He simply appears there. This is surprising , but it heightens the protagonist’s mysterious competence, and is one explanation of the film's title. He is able to evade all surveillance, electronic, physical, cinematic: Thus, “The Limits of Control.”
Look for Tilda Swinton, Gael Garcia Bernal, John Hurt and the incomparable Mr. Bill Murray in a series of delightful but mysterious cameos.
Note that the Shoggoth enjoyed this movie far more than critics and general audiences both.
--The Shoggoth
Reviews and information at:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/limits_of_control/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1135092/
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-limits-of-control
Mysterious Skin
Mesmerizing performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an emotionally numb hustler who paradoxically savours memories of his abusive baseball coach, a man that was clearly both abuser and father figure to him. At the same time, another of the coach’s victims has blocked out his experiences, believing instead that he was abducted by aliens and experimented upon. The two stories intertwine until their protagonists eventually meet again as young adults.
The film is so accurate about the aftermath of child abuse that it is nearly a forensic psychology treatise, but it never loses its humanity: It is not graphic (mercifully, the camera cuts away at all appropriate times and the most hateful things take place off screen), but it is never merely clinical. The vulnerabilities of the two main characters, even the toughest of the pair, are always clear to see.
There's no question that “Mysterious Skin” is harrowing. Some scenes are extremely difficult to watch, but the film is thoroughly rewarding if you make it to the end.
Watch for Elisabeth Shue in an understated performance as an oblivious single mom.
--The Shoggoth
Reviews and information at:
Eminently Devourable
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| Ralph Woods |
The second in an exclusive list of those the Shoggoth wishes to devour hungrily: Ralph Woods.
We observe your decadent culture: Books
Thomas Pynchon
Execrable. Appropriate word, given the actual s**t eating Pynchon has a character perform. Reading this, you get the sense that Pynchon's a wannabe Marquis de Sade. Its also 'faux psychadelic': affected, like the Toronto art crowd. A poor imitation of actual classics of experimental fiction, like Naked Lunch. Very “Seventies” (even though it is set in WW II) – if you’re into that. Ahhhh, remember the Seventies? Bell bottoms, platform shoes, turtlenecks, medallions, huge sideburns, wide collars, exposed chest hair, shag carpets, disaster movies, the Bee Gees, disco, oil crises, stagflation, Richard Nixon and Thomas Pynchon. As HP Lovecraft said: As for affectation - I'm not fond of any kind, but hate literary affectation the worst, because it is more permanent and subversive in its essence.
Naked Lunch
William S. Burroughs
Burroughs was an outsider's outsider: gay, a drug addict AND a writer, and his book is pure genius written by an actual hag-ridden soul. Burroughs was no poseur: He was the Vincent Van Gogh of American letters. His cut-up technique –where he randomized passages with scissors and tape -- predates and even shames the lofty pronouncements of postmodernism. Not an easy read as the book is occassionally offensive, but it is defensibly offensive, as it is a stark measure of the time and place it was written, and as it is a protest against the mainstream: fully as much as Ginsberg's Howl. Despite its difficulty, Burroughs’ dark humour bleeds through and lightens the tone.
Foucault's Pendulum
Umberto Eco
A sustained joke, made at the expense of occultists and conspiracy theorists, and the reading public everywhere, but its just not all that funny. The book is good, its just that Eco attempts to disguise his talent with occult minutiae and repetition. We get it: You're smart! And too clever by half. Lots of less intelligent writers are better writers. His book is just difficult for the sake of being difficult, padded to suit the adamantly sustained snobbery of its writer and established fans and hangers-on, such as po-mo profs and the type of grad student who enjoys being heard speaking nonsense at parties. You will need to be well-versed in occultism to avoid getting lost (hardcore Neil Gaiman fans will do fine though).
H.P. Lovecraft
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| HP Lovecraft |
What am I afraid of? Is it not an avatar of Nyarlathotep, who in antique and shadowy Khem even took the form of man?
---The Haunter Of The Dark
Eminently Devourable
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| Pierre Fitch |
The first in an exclusive list of those the Shoggoth wishes to devour hungrily: Pierre Fitch.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
H.P. Lovecraft
I choked in nausea, and for a second scarcely saw the dwarfed, humped figure on the steps. The summons had been Edward's, but what was this foul, stunted parody?---The Thing On The Doorstep
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| HP Lovecraft |
I choked in nausea, and for a second scarcely saw the dwarfed, humped figure on the steps. The summons had been Edward's, but what was this foul, stunted parody?
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