Andyland, USA

There are certain movies that defy description. Movies that are so strange, so bizarre, people would swear you were making them up, until you actually produced a copy of the film and showed it to them. There are movies in this world that were designed to be weird from the get go, but nothing is quite as weird as movie that wasn't designed that way. A movie that was made just as any other movie on the yearly slate for the studio. A movie that was made not as a strange B picture, but as a major A production, with a big name cast, a budget, and everything. Such a movie is MGM's 1971 picture Pretty Maids All in a Row . It is, without question, the weirdest movie I've ever seen. Pretty Maids All in a Row is such an odd movie, that I have a hard time trying to wrap my brain around it. It's very much a product of its time, and very much the kind of movie that NO ONE would dare try to make today. It's a film that I had never heard of, until a recent DVD release b...

At last the heat has given way and glorious Fall has arrived. I love Fall, I love this time of year in general. September through December is my favorite period out of any given point of the year. Outside of the act of changing the page on the calendar, I knew that Fall was coming by the sight of two things. The first being the sudden appearance on Facebook of status updates all about the arrival of “PSL”. Upon first glance, I wondered if “PSL” was a new type of disease that was going around. Perhaps that kind that requires that sad Sara McLaughlin song, and a request for money. It turns out it was about the early arrival of Pumpkin Spice Lattes, the popular seasonal drink at Starbucks. The other was the arrival of the season monster breakfast cereals at the grocery store. Much in the way others celebrated the return of Pumpkin Spice Lattes, I celebrated the return of Count Chocula and Boo Berry. Why? Because I am secretly twelve years old on the inside. Halloween is a big pa...

I've begun to notice that I'm getting a little klutzy as I get older. I don't think it's a sign of any mental deterioration on my part. It just seems that sometimes while eating lunch, my brain likes to signal my body to throw my fork cross the table without asking for my consent. I have no clue as to why this happens, but it does. It's getting to the point that when I go out on a date with someone, I find myself having to hand them a little card which reads: “Thank you for having dinner with me on this fine evening, should I impale you with a piece of cutlery, please realize that it's completely unintentional. Enjoy your meal.” We all drop things from time to time, so at first I didn't think much of it. It just seems that as of late, the number of little things I drop, or knock over, have been increasing. It starts out small. A spoon, a plastic cup, a tin of mints. But then it seems to increase to larger things. You're having a nice shower, a...

In a social setting the other afternoon, I was introduced to someone as a “film historian”. I was taken a little aback by it, not because I was offended by the term, but because no one has ever used that term in referring to my palpable love of movies. When being introduced in a social setting to people, not everyone feels a need to comment on my love of film. If they do, it's usually something like “Andy's a big movie lover” or the variation of “Andy's really passionate about movies”. Sometimes it's not quite as nicely put as that, “Andy's invested way too much time and money into a home video library that no one gives a damn about” or “Andy's spends a lot of time watching movies, because trying to have a conversation with a woman causes him to curl up into a ball, much like an armadillo.” Yet, they wonder why I never came back to any of their parties. If it even comes up at all in polite conversation, I'll happily refer to myself as a “...

The other day I received an invitation to my ten year high school reunion, and I have no desire to go. I didn't enjoy high school, though there were good times during that four year period, overall when I think back to that time I'm reminded of huge waves of awkwardness, depression, and anxiety that I see no reason to revisit or celebrate. People who knew me then are usually surprised to learn that I was unhappy during that four year period, that's because I became good at hiding my emotions (Also, driving to school in the mornings blasting “The Best of The Who” helped as well). Most people thought of me as a weirdo, and I was fine with that. I wasn't really anti-social, but I was rarely invited to anything. Football games didn't strike my fancy as an idea of a good time, so I usually spent of my Friday nights in watching Alfred Hitchcock movies and British comedies on BBC America. Looking back on it now, I'm OK with the fact that I was that way. I...