Four Christmases #1 For 2nd Week in a Row

You know how I know we're all fucked? A movie like Four Christmases makes $70.8 million dollars in two weeks.



Top 5 Movies Everyone Has Seen That I Haven't, and Never Will:

5) Good Will Hunting (1997)- I don't know why, but I've never watched this movie despite everyone telling me how great it is. I've viewed a couple of scenes, but as soon as Robin Williams shows up I immediately have the urge to switch the channel. That's no one's fault but Mr. Williams himself. I've also had a hard time sitting through anything Gus Van "Pretentious Douchebag" Sant has made since the agonizing experience that was sitting through all 97 minutes of Last Days in a movie theater. By the end of that movie I wanted to blow my head off. Anyway, my girlfriend bought this on DVD a few months ago and it's still in its shrink wrap.

4) M*A*S*H (1970) - Ever since I was a small child, the theme to the M*A*S*H TV show has made me want to kill people. I don't know what it is...but I hear the very beginning of that song and I'm instantly filled with rage, anger, frustration and extreme physical pain. So the very idea of sitting through an entire movie of this shit is so repugnant to me that I would rather eat a bag of severed kitten heads. Nothing will get me to watch this movie, NOTHING.

3) Sex & the City - The Movie (2008) - Sorry, no.

2) Gone with the Wind (1939) - I've honestly never met a single person who loves this movie enough to tell me to watch it. And believe me, a lot of my friends watch a shit-load of movies. I was once in an elevator with a woman about 6 years ago who said that she had watched Gone With The Wind on DVD over the weekend and exclaimed "I looooooved it! Oh my god I looooove that movie so much." But I rarely value the opinion of some woman who probably sits on the couch with a box of tissues, wrapped in a blanket for 48 hours straight. Regardless, with its gross adjusted for inflation, this movie is easily the most popular film of all time...and I swear to you I will never actually watch it.

1) Titanic (1997) - Yes, I'm probably the only person in the universe who has never seen this movie. And you know what? I guarantee you I'm a better person because of it. It's not that I have anything against the people in the movie, or the people who made this movie. Leonardo DiCaprio is a fine actor, and Kate Winslet has been in some really interesting films. James Cameron has directed T2 and True Lies. Sure, James Cameron is a total ass, but his shortcomings are completely redeemed when you watch those movies. Anyway, I already know pretty much everything that happens in this movie from hearing people talk about it for the last 11 years. So I've saved 3 1/2 hours of my life while all of you haven't. And trust me, those 3 1/2 hours were well spent playing video games.

Suspected Serial Killer Robert Zarinsky Has Died!!!

Suspected serial killer Robert Zarinsky, who became the first person in New Jersey to be convicted of murder without any body as evidence in 1975, died in prison at the age of 68 on Friday, November 28th.

So here you have it, my list of top 5 Slasher Films of All Time:

5) Friday the 13th (1980) - Does it really get any better than a bunch of young camp counselors out in the woods, while a stalker offs them one-by-one on a stormy night? I think not. I can watch this movie any time someone is up for it and it never gets old. The acting is awful, the script sucks, the lighting is terrible, but shit if it isn't the most entertaining thing to watch in the dark with a bunch of people. I remember renting the movie when I was 10 or 11 and kept asking my dad when they were going to show Jason. He kept telling me, "wait...it's good." Uhhh....yeah dad, it is fucking good. Showing this movie to anyone who hasn't seen it before is a real treat, as watching them shit their pants at the end never ceases to be hilarious.

4) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - My girlfriend still refuses to watch this movie, despite her need to watch Forensic Files every night, you know, where they show all the disturbing shit real serial killers do. That I will never understand. What I will understand is why so many people love this movie. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is so creepy that it's impossible to watch without feeling uneasy. Supposedly based on actual events (in reality inspired by serial killer Ed Gein), a group of five young adults head to a small town in Texas to check on their grandfather's grave after a series of grave robbings in the area. When they visit their grandfather's old abandoned house, they encounter a family of toothless rednecks, including the one and only Leatherface. The group is hunted down one at a time before subjecting the sole survivor to a family dinner, psychopath-style. The dinner sequence is by far the most disturbing scene, as they revive ol' granpa with a taste of the girl's blood, and repeatedly attempt to smash her head with a mallot (apparently it's really hard to do this when you're a decaying old man). By the end of this movie you feel like you just watched a documentary, and almost makes you think that maybe you have. The sequels and remakes have all been terrible because they missed the vibe of the original, which proves that less is more.

3) Psycho (1960) - Also inspired by the acts of Ed Gein, Psycho has been called the first slasher movie. Well, it is and it isn't. Norman Bates dresses up like his very deceased mother and kills guests at his seedy hotel. There's no real gore in this movie, apart from the shower scene (which in all honesty is really scary the first time you watch it), but he does kill at least two people on screen. I first watched this movie when I was 8 or 9, at the insistence of my dad who is a huge Hitchcock fan. Perhaps this movie is what turned me on to the horror genre. There isn't much to say about this movie that hasn't already been said, so I will say this: Anthony Perkins' delivery of "Shut up! Shut up!" still makes me laugh.

2) Friday the 13th: Part IV - The Final Chapter (1984) - Have you ever actually watched this movie? No? Well, you should. Better than the original in my opinion, the third sequel in the neverending franchise is the definitive Jason movie. Having received the iconic hockey mask in the nearly unwatchable Part 3(D!), our favorite serial killer is at it again, except this time a young Corey Feldman and his family are at prey. Did I mention that it stars Crispin Glover and he does a really weird dance during a party scene? That scene alone is reason enough for you to go to Amazon and order the most expensive copy of this movie (select overnight shipping for an additional $16.99 so you can watch this ASAP!!!). Adorable Tommy Jarvis (Feldman) chops Jason to peices at the end, effectively killing the character for good, but that didn't really matter because they pretended like this never happened in Part V. Never quite understood that, but seriously, watch this movie, you won't regret it. Plus you do get a good 5 minutes of an unmasked Jason!

...actually it really isn't all that impressive.

1) Halloween (1978) - Psycho may have been the first slasher movie, but Halloween invented the formula for all slasher movies that followed. I first watched this movie with two friends when we were 13. They both dismissed it as trash, but I didn't, I saw it as something much much more. What's so intriguing to me is Donald Pleasance's dedication to his character, so much so that I've come to believe that Pleasance actually was Dr. Sam Loomis and that's why he continued to enthusiastically portray the character in Parts II, IV, V and VI until he died. Don't get me wrong, his performance in the original is great, but hearing him say the same thing over and over in the sequels is damn near depressing (and hilarious). This movie has Michael Meyers stalking a couple of babysitters and their respective boyfriends in his hometown after escaping a mental institution. You know what's really weird? You don't find out about Jamie Lee Curtis' character being Michael Meyer's sister until the 2nd movie. It really makes you question whether John Carpenter originally intended this, or if it was an afterthought. Nonetheless, I always find it amusing when stories from inferior sequels become canon.

Notable slasher films that you should also definitely watch: Slumber Party Massacre, Sorority House Massacre II, Sleepaway Camp II and Silent Night, Deadly Night.

Biological attack by 2013?!?!?

That's right people, according to an article published today by AP, we're going to be attacked...biologically attacked, within the next 5 years. Perhaps we'll all become zombies.

Without further ado, here is a list of my top 5 favorite zombie movies of all time:

1) Night of the Living Dead (1968) - The quintissential zombie flick. I first saw this when I was about 8 or 9 and it scared the bejesus out of me. It's one of those movies that you always heard the name of but never actually watched because your parents wouldn't let you (i.e. A Clockwork Orange, Texas Chainsaw Massacre). I think my dad caved in and rented this one for us though, because afterall, it is a bonafide classic. When I watched it later in my teens, I couldn't believe how gory it actually was, and how well it still holds up. They show naked zombies eating the flesh right off of human bones! And the little girl in the cellar comes back to life and kills her mom with a gardening tool. Remember that? Pay close attention to the ambient noise during most of the picture. It's just crickets. The music is eery as shit, but for the most part all you hear is crickets. Fascinating.

2) The Evil Dead (1981) - I don't know if this is technically considered to be a zombie movie; there are dead people that come back to life as evil ghouls, but then again there are also people who are just outright possesed by the evil force. Hmmm.....whatever the case may be, it's still one of my favorite movies of all time. My experience with these movies was backwards. I first saw Army of Darkness in the theater with my mom and brother. I was 10. It was my mom's birthday and she thought the movie looked funny. We loved it, but had no idea it was a sequel to anything, we just figured the intro was a made up story to explain how he ended up in the past. Anyway, a few months later when Army of Darkness made its way onto VHS, my whole family was at Blockbuster and my dad found Evil Dead 2 and rented that as well. The first Evil Dead was damn near impossible to find back then. Seriously, it was like this movie was a myth. It wasn't until my brother and I stayed with my cousin in Long Island two years later, that we went to the local video store and found a copy of the Evil Dead. I distinctly remember that they didn't even have a box for this movie, instead this video store took the box for Evil Dead 2, cut out the skull and the words "Evil Dead" and taped it onto the front of a black box. Well, my brother and I watched the movie that night and I've fucking loved it ever since.

3) Dawn of the Dead (2004) - Some people say that the original Dawn of the Dead is great, but I'll be completely honest, I could never get past the first 30 minutes or so. It starts out well as far as I could remember but then once they get to the mall I just want to watch something else. Anyway, I saw the remake in college and thought it was great. It was gory, but not CGI gory (except the little zombie baby, that sucked), and the zombies ran and shit. I thought the ending was a little weak, but overall this movie seriously kicks ass and confirms my belief that Sarah Polley is awesome in anything she's in. Watch it.

4) Zombie, a.k.a. Zombi 2 (1971) - The unofficial Italian sequel to Dawn of the Dead, as that movie was released in Italy as "Zombi". This movie is flat-out disturbing. This sparked my interest in the Italian horror genre. I love how the actors are clearly speaking English, but their English is so bad that they have to dub all their lines over in English. This seems to be the standard for all these Italian horror movies. I don't get why they didn't just speak in Italian and use subtitles, but either way I feel lke it kind of adds to the vibe. This movie has a bunch of people on an island being attacked by zombies left and right. There's some really cool imagery....the zombies move slow, but fuck, they are really scary. As I recall there's a really good scene where a girl is looking through a peephole and a zombie stabs her in the eyeball. The ending is incredible and will scare the shit out of you.

5) Dead Alive (1992) - Fuck if this isn't the greatest movie ever made, it really is up there. A Sumatran Rat-Monkey bites an old lady on the ankle in a New Zealand zoo, and the old lady's son, a total momma's boy, takes care of her as she becomes a horrible puss-projecting zombie. God bless Peter Jackson for being the greatest director of comedic horror. The man simply gets that horror movies shouldn't take themselves too seriously. I remember reading an interview with him and he said that he watched one of the more recent Hellraiser sequels and was dissapointed with how there was nothing comedic about the film. He said, "If I made a 'Hellraiser' film, I'd like Pinhead to be whacked against a wall and have all the pins flattened into his face". Yes!!! Anyway, this movie has so many zombies doing crazy ridiculous things that you can't stop laughing and covering your eyes at the same time. I put this movie on at a party once, with the sound off, and people couldn't stop watching it. The scene with the zombie baby at the playground is probably the best part of the whole movie.

Well, there you have it. My top 5 favorite zombie movies. Stay tuned for more top 5 lists on Postcard from Space Mountain.