-  Alien  

Bolaji Badejo, the Nigerian design student cast
as Ridley Scott’s alien.

And what does the Joker have to say about Iran?

But how did he get the job?

Oh, right. The Ayatollah Khomeini offered it to him…the Ayatollah Khomeini who speaks French.

It was a simpler time, kids. A simpler time.

Sad feelings.

Raw Meat (1973) – not really a movie about psychopaths at all, but it does feature a single male killer who stalks the subways so I figured, “Why the hell not?” But out of every movie on this list, Raw Meat is the one that you could show your mom. Donald Pleasence and Christopher Lee are two icons of British horror and here they are, together at last, in a film by the under-rated Gary Sherman (Dead and Buried, Vice Squad), so that alone should convince you that this is a quality flick. A couple of crazy college students in London wind up running afoul of a killer who lives in the subway system, but it’s the identity of the killer that makes this movie so great. The last survivor of a group of miners who were trapped when the tunnels caved in, the “monster” is a pathetic, barely human being whose only words are “Mind the gap” and who is crazed not with psychopathic rage but with grief after his last friend died. Not since Frankenstein has a movie monster elicited this much pity and terror. (watch it!)

Grimy.

Maniac (1980) – a sweatier, sleazier, rougher version of Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer, this is the kind of movie that makes you get in the shower afterwards and scrub, and scrub, and scrub. But don’t get me wrong, it’s a monstrous mini-masterpiece in its own right. Exploitation director William Lustig hits a career high in this flick about a pathetic schlub, played by the amazing Joe Spinell (who also wrote and produced), who lives in a squalid, horrible, sweatbox version of New York City. Scarred by terrible abuse, his only outlet is stalking and murdering random women. Hey, it happens. And then he has to go and fall in love, and things get just painful. Vietnam vet and special effects maestro, Tom Savini, turns in some jaw-dropping work, and this movie owes far more to real life psychopaths like the Son of Sam and the Zodiac killer than it does to other slasher pictures. You’ll need a cast-iron stomach to watch it, but if you think you can take it, then you should give it a try. In a world full of by-the-numbers stalk n’slash movies, Maniac stands alone. (watch it!)

Classic.

The Burning (1981) – as much as I hate what Miramax did to so many movies, as much as it kills me to say this, this early Weinstein-produced horror movie is a true classic, standing head-and-shoulders above the Friday the 13th movies which it rips off. Shot simultaneously with Friday the 13th Part 2, it’s another campers getting killed flick, but it’s got far better acting, a slicker script, a hearty helping of “spooky tales told around a campfire” atmosphere, and Jason Alexander (George from Seinfeld). Special effects maestro Tom Savini turned down a job on Friday the 13th Part 2 to work on The Burning, so the effects are ambitious, and both films were shot in Western New York and Connecticut, giving them a similar look. Just watch out for that raft scene. (watch it!)

Cheesy.

Visiting Hours (1982) – an 80′s made-in-Canada horror movie, this is a decent thriller elevated to “must-see” status by Michael Ironside’s over-the-top, kill-crazy performance as a cross-dressing serial killer out to murder a feminist reporter, and there’s also the added fun of William Shatner, who shows up for a few scenes playing her boss. Far more ridiculous, and entertaining, than you’d expect, it’s like a deep dish pizza with extra cheese. (watch it!)

Over-the-top.

Dr. Lamb (1992) – the movie that launched Simon Yam’s career, and simultaneously doomed him to play nothing but psychopaths for a long time to come. This Hong Kong gore fiesta is filmed in surprisingly tasteful Disturbo-Vision, with most of the horror coming from the fact that it’s based on a true story. Lam Go-wan was a night-shift taxi driver, sharing his two bedroom apartment with his entire extended family who somehow never noticed that Lam was bringing home women and butchering them in long, blood-drenched photo sessions in his bedroom. He was finally caught when a photo shop employee got a little worried about the film footage he was being asked to develop. A lumpy (and occasionally very weird) police procedural, it hits outrageous heights in the long, solo scenes of Simon Yam stalking and butchering his victims with his acting engine set to maximum overdrive. (watch it!)

Psychedelic.

Dust Devil (1992) – Richard Stanley was, briefly, one of those insane visionary directors who could have been the next Ken Russell or David Lynch. Instead, he flamed out on his remake of The Island of Dr. Moreau and faded away into a haze of reefer smoke and Miramax-mandated re-edits. But before he disappeared, he turned out two classic movies, Hardware, a homemade, hard sci fi film about a killer robot (with Iggy Pop in a cameo role – you can watch it here), and Dust Devil, a South African-set film about a serial killer who might also happen to be a demon. The killer crosses, and recrosses, paths with a woman on the run from her abusive husband and a cop whose family has fallen apart. Miramax slashed the film to shreds, and it died like a dog on release, but the version on Netflix is Stanley’s preferred edit and it’s compelling as hell. Uneven, with so-so acting, it’s the pure visionary energy that gives it an occult charge, with its three puny lead characters lost in a sea of sand, and one eye-blasting setpiece after another slipping past the lens. Imagine Brian De Palma on peyote and you’ve just about nailed it. Perfect? No. Unique? Absolutely. (watch it!)

Lowbrow funny.

Tucker & Dale Versus Evil (2010) – not a particularly good movie, but it’s a funny one, and the two lead performances have the kind of lived-in, laid-back charm that I could watch all night, or at least until the beer ran out. Tucker and Dale are two rednecks who’ve just bought a spooky cabin by the lake, and their dream is to clean it up and turn it into a fishing camp. But their sylvan idyll is interrupted by a bunch of crummy college kids (them again!) who are intent on skinny-dipping, smoking pot, and, ultimately, killing themselves. Well, one of them, anyways. The kids are terrified of the two toothless hillbillies and they think that Tucker and Dale are homicidal maniacs who are picking them off one by one. In their panic, they manage to pick themselves off, instead. Pace yourself, and this movie will last you exactly as long as a twelve-pack of Budweiser, which is exactly the right length. (watch it!)

Some books do the hard work for you. This is one of them. I picked up Joseph Green’s The Mind Behind the Eye because the back cover promised a war between two genetically-engineered super-intelligent men, one in the USA, and one in the USSR. But the book itself has nothing to do with Cold War politics and a whole lot to do with freaky giant sex.

The main character is Albert Aaron Golderson, known as Gold, a product of the American genetics program who has an extra 12 ounces of brain mass which makes him the second-smartest man in the world, after Petrovna, a Communist mutant with stunted limbs and a big ol’ brain.

Giant aliens are attacking Earth every few years, mostly with biological weapons that don’t work very well, but Gold and Petrovna are convinced that they’re testing and recalibrating and it won’t be long before they wipe out the planet. The book starts with the UN arresting Gold and forcing him to cooperate in an anti-alien plan with Petrovna at the UN Moonbase. But not before we get some of Gold’s studly backstory:

“Heard a great deal about you, Gold. None of it true, I hope?”

“Probably all of it,” Gold replied.

“That so? Even the bit about the 365 most beautiful women in the world who could be had for money, one each night for a year while you were stacking up a cool billion in stocks during the daytime?”

Of course that part is true. We also get a long history of every single one of Gold’s sexual encounters because, you know, science.

Gold and Petrovna’s big plan is to attack the aliens using the corpse of one of the space giants whom Petrovna has captured. The alien has a brain injury and is in a vegetative state, and so Petrovna has hollowed out his eyeball, stuck a manhole in its iris, and installed a control room in the giant’s brain from which someone sitting at the control panel can drive the big dude around like a robot. He needs Gold to run the controls because Gold is an award-winning classical pianist and he’s the only man who has the manual dexterity to operate the computer system. Why is Gold trained as a classical pianist? Because he taught himself to play the piano, and then used the money he made performing as a classical pianist to fund his forays into the stock market, where he made $1 billion and then used that money to have sex with the 365 most beautiful women in the world. Too complicated? That is why he’s the smartest man in the world and you’re not.

There’s a lot of talk about the practicalities of the giant driving system, including what happens to waste. The controllers are given a microwave, fridge, and bunks, but their toilet drops right into the giant’s bloodstream, where their waste is reabsorbed into its system. And where there’s a giant man, there’s also a giant weiner:

“Gold joined him, gazing outward at the huge penis, lying flaccidly on the sunken belly. The equally large scrotum, a heavily wrinkled bag holding two testicles, hung down between slightly parted thighs. There was no hair in the public area, and he realized he had seen none elsewhere on the body. Evidently the species was hairless.”

And that’s exactly the kind of awe I felt when I first saw the Grand Canyon.

Gold and Petrovna’s assistant, Marina, crawl into the giant eye, settle themselves into the control room, send out a fake distress signal, and get taken back to the alien home planet. There they find that the giant aliens are like space hippies, at one with their environment. Their number one building material is wood and they grow all their technology. Aw….so cute! Unfortunately, their planet is going to die when their sun explodes and they want to move to Earth which requires them to kill all of us. But, after making sweet giant love with his giant wife, Gold figures out how to save the alien planet. Apparently their sun is about to explode because another race of aliens achieve super-orgasm when they make a sun go nova but because Gold is the first person they’ve ever met who is smart enough to talk to them, they decide to go have their destructo-gasm somewhere else.  Along the way, Gold gets super-horny while riding passenger on the giant vegetable during a lovemaking session with his giant wife and he rapes Marina, Petrovna’s assistant who lives in the big eyeball with him. She doesn’t like it much, but then he manages to get her pregnant and she falls in love with him. Because that’s what happens.

It’s all a little backwards, it’s all very 1970′s, and it all has a lot of giant sex in it as Gold effortlessly drives the giant host body to bring his enormous wife to endless orgasms, which makes things difficult in mission control during intercourse:

“Marina’s voice on the helmet phone circuit was alarmed when she asked. “What’s happening, Gold? Blood pressure is abnormally high, there’s a general bodily strain, and several stimulants I didn’t release are in the blood stream.”

“We have an emergency,” Gold answered briefly. “Keep the activity rate high.”

“Giant Melissa Joan Hart dead ahead!
Keep the activity rate high.”

This is one of those books that you can’t imagine ever getting published today. The lead character is unsympathetic, the plot is meandering, there’s a lot of talk of pooping and humping, the second half is incredibly boring, and the only target market I can think of is giant fetishists. But that’s what makes it so wonderful. 1971 truly was a different planet.

If that’s not exciting enough for you, try MD!

The one-two punch of Psychoanalysis and MD comics! Can you resist it?

 “Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future,
for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future.”

And he’s right. Which is rare because Criswell is very, very famous for mostly being wrong. First, there was his touching prediction about homosexual cities:

“I predict that perversion will flood the land beginning in 1970. I predict a series of homosexual cities, small, compact, carefully planned areas, will soon be blatantly advertised and exist from coast to coast. These compact communities will be complete with stores, churches, bars and restaurants which will put the olden Greeks or Romans to shame with their organized orgies. You will be able to find them near Boston, Des Moines, Columbus, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, St. Louis, New Orleans, Dallas, and Miami. Much thought and planning will be expended in setting up these communities where perversion will parade shamelessly. And all this will be within the law because the perverted will claim they have been discriminated against. The Supreme Court will rule that whatever these consenting adult males, or females, wish to do, they can!”

Or his Aphrodisiacal Era, which would last from May 1, 1988 to March 30, 1989, during which time:

“I predict a wealthy San Francisco attorney will announce his marriage to his mother and a Hollywood producer will openly declare his daughter is going to bear his child, and a young man in Arkansas will ask to be legally wed to his pet cat.”

There was also the destruction of Denver on June 9, 1989:

“I predict that this catastrophe will take place during the tourist season and the fun-loving people in the amusement zone will suddenly find their day of pleasure turned into one of horror. A roller coaster will rise and sway, throwing cars and occupants to the ground below. A Ferris wheel will collapse and carry many children to untimely deaths. A penny arcade will become a dungeon of doom, a canopy of a merry-go-round will plunge down upon its most innocent riders. I predict only silence will reign where there was once laughter and gaiety.

Did I mention that this would be a destruction by…jelly?

The citizenry of this Colorado city will find themselves enveloped in a jelly-like substance that was once brick, concrete, steel and lumber. They will be unable to escape for it will be impossible to cut through or tear this substance. Although soft and pliable it will still retain the strength and weight formerly possessed. I predict in the outskirts the conditions will not be as serious but fleeing people will find themselves mired in roadways and hardly able to move.”

Criswell predicted a lot of things, but he’s hardly unique in being wrong about most of them. Most of the news that fills up today’s cable new cycle are predictions of future events that will affect us in the future, rather than coverage of past events that are affecting us in the present. No one wants to talk about the past, that’s mostly dismissed as history and is the province of academics and tell-all memoirs. News is important! It is about the future! It is about who Mitt Romney is going to pick for his Vice President, what’s going to happen to Greece, where the economy will be in November. The entrails of the present are pored over by our op-ed priests and soothsayers, and our cable news fortune tellers bring on the pundit prophets to chant and murmur their various faiths and creeds, hoping that somehow the future will, this time, bend itself to their faith.

Most impressive to me are the predictions of how new technology will destroy this way of life we hold so dear: ebooks will destroy publishing, peer-to-peer file sharing will destroy the film industry, Facebook will destroy our friendships. New technology has always been dismissed as doomed to fail or destroy, whether it’s the failure of railroad travel because everyone knows that you can’t breathe at speeds greater than 20 miles per hour, or it’s Charlie Chaplin dismissing cinema as a fad (here’s an entire timeline of these failed predictions).

Future Japan, where robots teach/hit kids.

But sometimes predictions of the future turn out to be right, like in 1999 AD a film about the year 1999 made in 1967. Here, the future is a greenish-mustard color, and shopping can be done on “line” with the use of computers. Father can even pay his taxes on “line.”

Or check out these predictions of the year 2000, made in 1880 by David Croly in his book Glimpses of the Future. They’re actually so right that they’re downright annoying:

“The accumulation of wealth in a few hands, which is steadily going on, will unquestionably lead to a grave agitation which may have vital consequences on the future of the country. I am quite sure that the American of the twentieth century will not consent to live under a merely selfish plutocracy.”

Future home of the American plutocracy.

He also predicted the growth of lawyerism as a major religion:

“Exclusive lawyer rule will yet create violent disturbance. Our whole machinery of justice is out of gear, for it is becoming more costly and inefficient. … The legal machinery grows yearly more inefficient and wasteful of time and money. Vigilance committees will exist in every part of the country if this state of things continues.”

Come to think of it, I prefer the predictions that were cute and wrong.

Or this one for a romance comic:

But he also did cover illustrations for paperbacks, and in every single one of them his male protagonist looks like exactly the same guy. Because Steranko could only draw men who looked like himself. So let’s take a trip through time with Steranko covers:

Jim Steranko used to be a barbarian!

Jim Steranko fought lions.

Then Jim Steranko went to the Old West.

Where he lounged around sassily at bars.

WW I happened and Jim Steranko had to fight.

Then came WW II and even more fighting.

And finally, when Jim Steranko got really old, he went into space.

“Do not allow a sorceress to live.” (Exodus 22:18)
Any expenses incurred in the pursuit and destruction of a sorceress is entirely deductible. Sorcerers, on the other hand, cannot be claimed.

“So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go.” (Judges 19:25)
Concubines depreciate at a high rate. You need to figure them as being subject to activity level depreciation, as they have zero salvage value.

“Meanwhile, the LORD instructed one of the group of prophets to say to another man, ‘Strike me!’  But the man refused to strike the prophet.  Then the prophet told him, ‘Because you have not obeyed the voice of the LORD, a lion will kill you as soon as you leave me.’  And sure enough, when he had gone, a lion attacked and killed him.”
(1 Kings 20:35-36)
Short-term investments are a wiser way to manage your money since you will probably be killed by a lion before any long-term investment opportunities mature.

“Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, ‘Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!’ So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.” - 2 Kings 2:23-24
Or maybe by a bear. Either way, mauling must be factored into any money management strategy.

“No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 23:1)
However, they are entitled to a significant deduction for medical expenses.

“And Saul said, Thus shall ye say to David, The king desireth not any dowry, but an hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king’s enemies. But Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines. And when his servants told David these words, it pleased David well to be the king’s son in law: and the days were not expired. Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king’s son in law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife.” (1 Samuel 18:25-27)
The foreskin market is extremely volatile, despite their excellent value (100 foreskins = one wife). Invest in foreskins only if you have the time to be a “hands on” money manager.

“If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.” (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)
If you use a kitchen knife to cut off her hand, however, then you are able to claim it as a legitimate business use of a home item which, again, entitles you to a significant deduction.

“The LORD said to me: Go buy yourself a linen loincloth; wear it on your loins, but do not put it in water. I bought the loincloth, as the LORD commanded, and put it on. A second time the word of the LORD came to me thus: Take the loincloth which you bought and are wearing, and go now to the Parath; there hide it in a cleft of the rock. Obedient to the LORD’S command, I went to the Parath and buried the loincloth. After a long interval, he said to me: Go now to the Parath and fetch the loincloth which I told you to hide there. Again I went to the Parath, sought out and took the loincloth from the place where I had hid it. But it was rotted, and good for nothing!” (Jeremiah 13: 1-9)
This has nothing to do with accounting, but I think it’s worth noting just how weird the Lord is about loincloths.

Why don’t YOU give Bible-based accounting a try next year!

Directed by and starring Shim Hyung-Rae (director of D-Wars, another terrible movie). Shim, at 52 years old, plays Harvey Keitel’s son, and here he resurrects his silent movie comedy character from the 80′s, the retarded manchild, Young-Gu. Harvey Keitel plays a mafia boss who is the biological father of Young-Gu. Jason Mewes (of Jay and Silent Bob fame) plays a mob who screams and swallows his lines. HOUSE OF THE DEVIL’s Jocelin Donahue plays the standard-issue sexy lady who loves orphans and has a romance with Young-Gu. It’s shot in Southern California, standing in for New York’s Little Italy. It might be the worst movie ever made.

100 minutes long, but it feels like 100 years. In Hell they show it on a loop to the war criminals. Watch it, if you dare, but I guarantee you won’t make it past the half-hour mark. Seriously, I’m not kidding around. I’ve seen hundreds of movies, and rarely have I hated one so much that I wanted to kill it, its makers, its backers, and everyone who has ever seen it. I don’t anticipate much resistance. If you’ve seen THE LAST GODFATHER, death will come as a sweet, sweet release.