From the Couch Hole: Before They Turn the Summer into Dust

Previously on FTCH, last week out in Stumptown, the Joker found that love is a stranger with Plucky Duck and his Mtn Dew VooDew. The beast must die at the hands of the monsters’ frightful friends. This week was a catch up week, and it was a dose of Third Summer here in Texas. As the football season has gone down the tubes, it’s nice to start basketball and hockey seasons. This week it’s time to wake up for the oddity from beyond the grave. The genesis of the Daleks takes place on Sugar Hill with a Shirley Temple. Remember, no one lays a finger on your FTCH.

Pop Culture Ephemera

• Oddity (2024) (Directed by Damian McCarthy): “I have no idea what you look like. You sound stupid.” – Darcy Timmins. Except for rare outliers like The Exorcist (1974), the horror-film genre isn’t defined by the mainstream films like Smile 2 (2024) or Blink Twice (2024). It is kept alive in the dark corners with films like Late Night with the Devil (2024) and Longlegs (2024). This film is another little gem of the genre. A woman is killed in her home in the Irish countryside while her husband is away. Years later, her blind twin shows up at the house bearing a wooden-man family heirloom. She’s a psychic there to solve her sister’s murder in the house now occupied by the husband and his new girlfriend. It’s a small cast and Carolyn Bracken does a wonderful job as twins, Dani and Darcy. There’s a sense of foreboding and terror from the first scene. It never leaves the house. It’s “part murder mystery, part haunted house, and part serial killer” vibes. It’s hard to talk about the last quarter of the film without spoiling some of the delicious reveals. This is what October is all about.

Buy Doctor Who: Tom Baker Complete First Season Blu-ray

• Doctor Who – “Genesis of the Daleks: Part 1” (1975) (S.12 E.11) (BBC): “You, Doctor, are a special case. You enjoy the freedom we allow you. In return, occasionally, not continually, we ask you to do something for us.” – Time Lord. Eleven episodes into the Tom Baker run and I get one of the most celebrated stories. As a bonus, it’s one that I’ve never watched completely. The Doctor, along with Sarah Jane and Harry, are sent to Skaro to prevent the creation of the Daleks. This is a great take on the “would you kill Hitler as a child?” scenario. We meet Davros (Michael Wisher), who is one of the most inventive creations in the 12 years of the show. He is the intellectual villain for the Doctor to replace the Master. The Dalek designs are purposely more Nazi-ish in this story. Just an episode in, this is already leaps ahead of other shows in this season. There seems to be good reason why this continually lands in the Top Five Doctor Who stories of all-time.

Buy Arcade Fire – Funeral CD

• Arcade Fire – “Wake Up” (2005) (from Funeral): “Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.” This is my favorite song off of my favorite Arcade Fire album. It might be the only Arcade Fire album that I’m familiar with, but let’s not get hung up on that. The song isn’t just about getting older. It’s about that moment when you realize that you are older. For singer, Win Butler, it is apparently about the death of his grandmother. The “hold up your mistakes” is one lyric that sticks with me. It’s about owning your childhood and not shrinking from it. It helps that the guitar just shreds throughout the song too.

• Sugar Hill (1974) (Directed by Paul Maslansky): “I’m not accusin’ you, Honk. I’m passin’ sentence.” – Diana “Sugar” Hill. Just after proposing to his girlfriend, Diana “Sugar” Hill (Marki Bey), nightclub-owner Langston (Larry D. Johnson) is killed by the Mafia. Now Sugar Hill is after her revenge on Morgan (Robert Quarry). This film is a fun crossroads between the soul cinema “women’s revenge on the White men” trope and the horror film “walking dead eat people who can’t believe there are really zombies” genre. The film breezes along at a comfortable pace. The revenge plot is underway in under 10 minutes. Sugar Hill meets with a Voodoo Queen, Mama Maitresse, and gives her soul for the power to control the walking dead for her revenge. These zombies didn’t walk out of a Romero film. These are of the Haitian variety that are soulless men who do the actions (typically killing bumbling white men) of their Master. With a few tweaks, this film could have become one of the classics of both genres. It suffers from weak supporting actors, protracted deaths, and punches pulled in every area except racist language. AIP was not known for over-the-top budgets, this film might have benefited from just a bit more in the budget.

Buy Sugar Hill DVD

• From Beyond the Grave (1974) (Directed by Kevin Connor): “All tastes catered to. Oh… and a big novelty surprise goes with every purchase. Do come in… any time. I’m always open.” – The Proprietor. Amicus Productions from England are known for a superb run of anthology films in the later ’60s and early ’70s, ending with this film. Their production quality is on par with their thematic rivals, Hammer Films. Peter Cushing is the Proprietor of an antique shop. When you buy something from Temptations Ltd., it will inevitably come with an unsuspected twist. It shares some elements with Stephen King’s underrated Needful Things (1991). The best of the four stories is “The Elemental” in which a gremlin-like creature is unseen and attached to Reginald Warren (Ian Charmichael). It has the fun of Reginald slowly coming to believe that the elemental is attached to him, and it’s got a hilarious parody of the exorcism from The Exorcist (1973). The first and fourth stories are too similar in that a mirror and a door respectively become ways for spooks to enter our realm. The stories could play easily out on Night Gallery (NBC) episodes. This is a fun holiday watch, but there are much better Amicus Productions.

Best of the Rest

• In 2012, on her Covered album, Macy Gray gave the Arcade Fire song “Wake Up” a much different interpretation. Her raspy voice and stripped-down instrumentals change the feeling but not the meaning of the song. It’s still a song about realizing that innocence has been lost. What the lack of that amazing guitar gives the listener is an almost Gospel feeling to the celebration of that emotion.

• Spike Jonze picked the perfect song for the trailer to his amazing Where the Wild Things Are (2009). The themes of the song and the themes of the story of the film mesh really well. Sometimes the songs on the trailer are just there to elicit a reaction or emotion. Here the song adds to depth to telling the viewer what to expect from the film.

• Entertainment Weekly (3/28/97): “Best Commercials of All-Time” #47 – Cheer Detergent: “Handkerchief”. This ad stuck in my head for a number of weeks when it ran. JoBe Cerny from Second City made quite a career in the ad business, he’s the current voice of the Pillsbury Doughboy. The tag on the video says 1993, but I would question that it hadn’t been around since possibly 1988 or 1989. Is it a “Best Commercial”? Maybe it’s better classified as an “effective commercial” since I bought this brand through most of the decade.

Sunday Morning Tuneage Flashback

• On the Sunday Morning Tuneage from 5/10/2009, it was a Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers in my life. It was still a weekend of baseball, dance, and working since it was buyback and graduation the upcoming week. My #55 Favorite Film of All-Time was Blue Velvet (1986). They Lynchian ideal of there being a dark underbelly to a normal small town starts here before coming to full effect in Twin Peaks. I would put a couple of David Lynch films in my Top 100 but this might be a little highly ranked. The Amazing Race (CBS) finale was upcoming and I declared it the best reality show of the day. Fringe (Fox) was ending Season One and I was claiming it to be X-Files (Fox) quality. The Office (NBC) was ending the season with Holly returning to Michael. The list for the week was an odd choice, but it was related to that finale.
  • BEST ANDY BERNARD (The Office) QUOTES OF ALL-TIME (SO FAR) (2009)
    • 10.  “I come from a line of WASPs so long, it leads back to Moses! (S.4 E.4)
    • 9.  “I’m always thinking one step ahead like . . . a carpenter, who makes stairs.” (S.3 E.8)
    • 8.  “Andy Bernard does not lose contests, he wins them . . . or he quits them because they are unfair.” (S.5 E.2)
    • 7.  “Just listen, I forgot to tell you the plan for this Saturday.  You, me, bar, beers, buzzed.  Wings, shots, drunk, waitresses, hot.  Football, Cornell-Hofstra, slaughter!” (S.3 E.13)
    • 6.  “The Finer Things Club is the most exclusive club in this office.  Naturally, it’s where I need to be.  The Party Planning Committee is my back-up and Kevin’s band is my safety.” (S.4 E.6)
    • 5.  “They say you should never mix business with pleasure.  Really?  Well then explain to me how a Putt-Putt Golf company operates.” (S.4 E.3)
    • 4.  “Every compliment has to be back handed.  Oh, I like your dress, but I’d like it more if you had prettier hair.” (S.5 E.17)
    • 3.  Creed:  “It’s pronounced ‘Colonel’.  It’s the highest rank in the military.”  Andy: “It’s pronounced ‘Cornell’.  It’s the highest rank in the Ivy League.” (S.5 E.5)
    • 2.  “Nog-a-sake.  One part eggnog, three parts sake.  Some places won’t make it for you though because eggnog is seasonal.” (S.3 E.10)
    • 1. (singing) “Give me a break . . . gimme a break . . . break me off a piece of that (stops singing).  I am totally blanking.  What is that thing?”  (followed by . . . “Break me off a piece of that . . . apple sauce.  Piece of that Chrysler car . . . football cream.”) (S.4 E.9)
  • BEST ANDY BERNARD (The Office) QUOTES OF ALL-TIME (2024)
    • 10. “Sorry I annoyed you with my friendship.” (S.3 E.13)
    • 9. “The new guy sucks. Calls me ‘the nard man.’ I’m the Nard Dog, okay? Nard man is my father.” (S.7 E.1)
    • 8. “Truck to refrigerator to dumpster, 360 spin onto the pallets, backflip gainer into the trash can.” (S.6 E.1)
    • 7. “Apology not accepted. Because it wasn’t even necessary in the first place.” (S.3 E.19)
    • 6. “I get super flexible when I’m nervous.” (S.7 E.14)
    • 5. “I need you to go into my file and put down that I was fired for theft and/or groping wieners.” (S.9 E.21)
    • 4. “What if I took a dump on your new car?” (S.9 E.21)
    • 3. “When I got the nickname ‘Bonerchamp,’ that’s when I became me.” (S.9 E.5)
    • 2. (singing) “Give me a break . . . gimme a break . . . break me off a piece of that (stops singing).  I am totally blanking.  What is that thing?”  (followed by . . . “Break me off a piece of that . . . apple sauce.  Piece of that Chrysler car . . . football cream.”) (S.4 E.9)
    • 1. “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.” (S.9 E.23)
  • Andy arrived as Jim transferred to the Scranton branch. His seven-season arc was incredibly fun as he ends up being the de facto feature character by the end. When I made this list initially, there were still more off-the-wall, self-effacing quotes yet to come. I don’t know that he had the best quotes of the series, but back in 2009, he was obviously a favorite of mine. A selection of Dwight quotes might play better out of context of the episodes they are from. I’ll defend that my #1 Andy quote from the last episode of the series might be one of the best finale quotes of the 21st century.

1974 in Review

• October – Ghost Rider #8 (Marvel): Cover artist Eli Katz. Written by Tony Isabella. Art by Jim Mooney. “For this time you face . . . Satan Himself!” I couldn’t keep track how many times Johnny Blaze was fighting and/or partnering with Satan or Son of Satan. This was never a book I loved to read, but I always thought the covers were amazing.
• October 27 – The two-year experiment with keeping the United States on Daylight Savings was abandoned after just ten months. It started on January 6, 1974. The Congress abolished the act after numerous complaints and on October 27th, the clocks were turned back an hour.
• October 30 – Originally scheduled for September 24th, the Ali vs. Foreman World Heavyweight Championship was delayed a month when Foreman got a cut over his eye while sparring. Ali started as a 4-1 underdog in what has been called the Sporting Event of the 20th Century. Catch any documentary on the subject.

What the Hell Did I Put in My Mouth?

“With my lighnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’ to be
When the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.” – Arcade Fire

Stay hard.

Shawn