More Manic Movie Mutterings

Mr. Morlock is notoriously behind the curve when it comes to movie watching; rarely will he tell you anything you don't already know. But here's an incoherent bit about a fine film that has aged quite gracefully and should be given a seat of honor at the head of the dinner table, but is more often than not (in the words of a friend) banished to the basement barco-lounger to doze and drool until dessert is served. Cuz it's sometimes accused as the progenitor of modern, much-maligned torture porn. Wrongly. And even if rightly, meh. What's wrong with a little hackety stabbity?

But first, a quick shout-out to my local franchise of "Half-Priced Books." Normally, one should ignore franchises for the sake of mom-and-pop stores, but in this case ain't no giant corporate entity skimming money from nobody. Ain't no money in reselling dead media. And by dead media, I mean books. LP records. VHS and DVD movies.

I understand kids nowadays download their entertainment and have it imprinted directly into their cerebral cortex. One click and they can speak proprietarily and dismissively about work they have never actually owned, touched, or seen.

Whatever. I like "Half-Priced Books" because I can stagger in there some evening after work and come away with three movies and two albums for fifteen dollars. That's right, baby. Vinyl. And magnetic tape. It's cheap, but it's still art.

So what movie is it that' got Mr. Morlock all hot and long-windedly bothered?

Se7en.


All right, before y'all purists tune out, I know Se7en, (or 7, as to which I will now refer to it, because I'm lazy) is NOT a horror film. Whatever that is. What exactly is a horror film, Mr and Ms Smartypants? Lay out your theory and let us all take a turn at mocking it and THEN TELL ME what is or IS NOT A HORROR FILM. Why am I shouting?

It's a film noir piece. I'll give you that. It's built to make Morgan Freeman look like the archtypical, Raymond Chandler, Micky Spillane, avatar of flawed, reluctant morality, facing down the dirty dirty cosmos against unassailable odds.

Well let me tell you. Mr. Morlock is of a certain age and actually grew up with Morgan Freeman as the voice of Easy Reader on "The Electric Company", so he didn't need "Shawshank Redemption" (BTW, kudos to Tom Hanks for looking shame-faced for taking MF's Oscar for what, "Forrest Gump"? Remind me to post a riff based on the "going full retard" thing in "Tropic Thunder", possibly the funniest movie of the millenium) to convince him that Morgan Freeman is a freaking super hero.

Good heavens. Sorry, "hells". What was I talking about? Oh right. 7. Great movie.

You say a horror movie needs groovy latex critters and gratuitous boo scares? How bout the scene when they discover "Sloth." Gothic themes of good, evil, sin and redemption? Check. You want a scary monster? Kevin Spacey is purty damn scary, because what with the recent wave of increased recognition of how pervasive are Asperger's and autism-spectrum symptoms, I can easily picture a hundred shaven-headed nutbags out there with just a half-stripped screw holding them hinged.

Yours truly excepted, of course.

So what have we learned, my dear readers who've actually followed me to the bottom of this rant? Blow the dust out of your slot. Did that sound dirty? I meant out of your VHS machine, of course. Or pick one up at a garage sale. So it goes bad after running a dozen movies through it? So you're out ten, fifteen bucks.
But for a buck a movie and a visit with the past? Worth it.