Halloween Recap
We had a hugely fun, spectacular Halloween party again this year, and our friends really brought it with their costumes! I wish I had gotten pictures of everyone, but once the box wine starts flowing I get a little less than reliable.
Here we have me as Elvira and Sarah as the Bee Girl from the Blind Melon “No Rain” music video.
Left to right we have The Crow, Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, me, my sister the fortune teller, and the super hot amazing badass pirate that I married.
Here we have Inmate #38258 and an awesome monster!
This one is super clever, which I always appreciate: Schrodinger’s Cat! He came with a very friendly zombie, and you know I love zombies!
Death’s Lesser known cousin Gerald stopped by for a while…
…but Death stayed kind of aloof.
She gets mean if you try to take her vodka away.
A pimp/rapper, Jan Brady, and a tiny raccoon stopped by also.
Beans and I had a great time, as always!
Halloween Costume Ideas #3
I’m assuming if you’re still looking for costume ideas, you probably have a party to go to tonight. At this point, you’re probably scrambling through your closet, desperately looking for something fun and unique. I have the solution: ZOMBIES!! But not just any zombies. What costume do you have laying around already?
Prom Queen – Zombie Prom Queen! The Prom Queen of 1984 has risen to relive her former glory!
Bride – Zombie Bride or Corpse Bride! (Or you can add a samurai sword and be The Bride from Kill Bill).
Gypsy – Zombie Gypsy! Dance erratically, and maybe carry a skull instead of a tamborine, or just carry a skull.
Think about how your character might have died, and you can add a whole ‘nother layer of humor. Think deaths like the movie Beetlejuice.
Punk – Zombie Punk! Were you crushed to death at a concert? Or did someone force you to listen to Justin Beiber, so you killed yourself?
Cheerleader – Zombie Cheerleader! Maybe you fell off the top of the pyramid and broke your neck. You could wear a neck brace all night to hold your head up.
Geisha – Zombie Geisha! (Works for Oni as well, or a samurai) If you can find a plastic samurai sword and make it look like you got stabbed through the stomach with it, you will have my un-dying respect.
You could also be a famous person who’s dead, or a character who dies in a movie.
You could be zombie Citizen Kane! Dress in a suit and carry a broken snow globe. If you want to take it really far, carry around a scorched wooden sled. Sometimes I am so funny I can’t stand it.
Also, again if you have a geisha costume laying around, you could be Lucy Liu’s character O-Ren Ishii. And if you can find a way to have the top of your head cut off, I want to steal it.
Zombie basics: At Halloween stores they sell “zombie makeup”. It reminds me of Elmer’s glue. You put it on your skin in layers, then it dries, and you peel chunks of it open to make faux skin flaps. The trick with this stuff is you have to let it dry thoroughly between the layers, and do many, many layers. Read the directions on the package, and plan your time accordingly. Don’t forget you’ll need lots of fake blood!
It’s a Zombie Wedding!
A friend of a friend decided she was going to buck convention and have a zombie cake topper for her wedding. She couldn’t find anything she liked online, so our mutual friend, Samantha, recommended me to her. I won’t bor you with the whole process of making it, because I’m posting tons of pictures so you lucky little minions can admire every detail.
Here’s the finished complete topper. You’ll notice that the bride’s bouquet is made of the groom’s intestines. That was Hubby’s idea.
Here you can see the bride’s eye is hanging out, as well as the flowered strap on her gown. I mimicked her actual wedding dress as closely as possible. I just added a little blood.
Here you can see the groom’s open body cavity and the edges of his torn flesh. This was so fun to make! You can also kind of see that the bride’s upper right arm is messed up. It’s actually torn open with bone showing.
This is more detail on the dress and the intestine bouquet.
At some point, the zombie bride obviously got injured, and now one of her leg bones is poking out, and her dress is torn and bloodied.
The groom has lost a big chunk of his right foot, and the bones are hanging out.
This is one of my favorite parts. The bride’s vertebrae are starting to poke through her skin. Her left shoulder blade is also sticking through the skin, and the groom has lost his left hand.
This project was a lot of fun to work on, even though it was a lot of work.
Congratulations to the happy couple, and may you be together long after death.
– That Clever Chick
Rules of a Bad Movie
I was privelidged enough last weekend to spend time with my dear friend Black, of Two Tokens, and his family. I have a lot in common with all of them, including their awesome 8 year old, Lil’ K (you can pick a new nickname if you don’t like that one).
While I was there, we spread out on the couch to watch movies. Through the magic of netflix, we picked some random movies, one of which was awesome, the other of which was terrible. This got us discussing how you can tell if a movie is bad from the outset. The rules (so far) are these:
1) If the movie has super long credits, it’s probably bad. According to Mrs.Black (again, you can choose a different nickname), if it’s a good movie, they want to get you right into it, rather than have you sit around watching credits.
2) If there’s gratuitous nudity early in the movie, it’s probably terrible. My reasoning is that the creators are hoping viewers will say, “Ooh, boobs!! Let’s stick it out to see if there are more boobs later!”
Both movies we watched this weekend followed these simple rules.
First up: Dance of the Dead. Zombies at prom??? Yes, please!! Awesome premise, and fortunately, awesome movie! It did break a couple rules of zombie movies, but the mistakes were forgivable. So, how it followed the rules:
1) Super short credits. I don’t even know if the actors names were listed.
2) The only nudity in the movie is about halfway through, and it’s just a male zombie’s bum. That means this movie has substance, rather than gimmicks.
The plot is great. The town is near a nuclear power plant, which doesn’t bode well for anyone. Of course, since it’s a zombie movie, the dead start to rise, but it happens to be on the night of the school prom. This whole movie is filled with humor, great acting, characters, and plot reveals. I loved it. On the Clever Chick scale it gets a “I’ll recommend it to tons of my friends, and watch it repeatedly”. It’s not on the level of Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland, but it is damn close.
Next victim: The Funhouse. This movie came out in 1981, and just from the tagline “Pay to get in; Pray to get out!” I was severely tempted to watch it. Let’s get right to how it violated the rules of good movies, and just human decency.
1) I swear, 10% of this movie is credits. When you start seeing “Best Boy – Kyle Furthham” and “Dolly Grip – Toby Westhover”, you know it’s going to be bad.
2) Boobs in the first 2-4 minutes. And it was creepy. The actress is about to get into the shower, so you think to yourself, “I bet they’re going to show her nude”, but she looks like a twelve year old. I’m not kidding. We all thought the same thing. I think it’s because she had her hair down, and a big, fluffy, pink robe on, and a fairly youthful face, but it was disturbing.
Any time movies start using nudity as a crutch, you know it’s going to be missing in the plot arena, and this movie was no exception. At one point, we realized there were only 24 minutes left in the movie, and anything interesting had yet to happen.
There were several plot points that were never resolved, or referred back to. For example, they make a point of having the main actress stop and stare at several carnival barkers, who are all played by the same actor, but then nothing happens with that. They basically took a bunch of random occurrences set in a carnival and called it a movie. On the Clever Chick Scale this gets a “It’s so bad, you can’t even laugh at it. Save yourself 2 hours and avoid, avoid, avoid”.
I love movies, and I love cheesy, hokey, attempting-to-be-scary movies, but this one is inexcusable in its awfulness.
It’s Rapture-rific!
Even though the Rapture obviously did not occur this weekend, (was there ever any doubt?) I thought I’d do a rapture post. It’s a movie AND book review, in one! Ooh-la-la!
First things first: how to out-live zombies. Max Brooks is (un)dead serious about his subject matter, and 100% practical. This book is written as a completely serious guide to survive zombie hordes. He even has historical accounts of when zombies rose in the past, what causes them, and how to survive beyond the complete extinction of humanity. It was very practical and useful. I am presently building a 10-foot-high cinderblock wall around my home, as per his instructions (not literally). On the Clever Chick Scale this earns a “I will keep it on my shelf, possibly loan it out, but probably not re-read it”.
The Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price, is based on the novel “I am Legend”. After having seen this one, and the Will Smith version, I really want to read that book. For an older movie (it’s from 1964), the plot moves at a decent pace, and the acting is good. There’s a twist at the end that I thought was genius, and of course it’s Vincent Price, so creepy-awesomeness just exudes from it. On the Clever Chick Scale this gets a “I probably won’t rewatch it, but I would recommend it to friends”. Plus, it’s on instant on Netflix, which is always a bonus.
Well, I hope everyone had fun at the “apocalypse”, and didn’t do any long-term credit damage, or anything. Save that for December 2012.
My Birthday
As I am writing this, it is my birthday. I’m publishing it a few days from now, so none of you bastards can STEAL MY IDENTITY!!!! Haha, jk, it’s because there are already posts lined up, and I’m too lazy to reorder everything. The reason I’m typing right now instead of out eating fancy food, and getting foot rubs from Hubby, is that he is fantastically sick. For those of you who follow me on twitter, you know that my main goal is to avoid catching whatever it is he has, and secondarily to not be responsible for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. Somehow, I know that the zombie apocalypse will be eventually caused by something stupid I do, and I’d like to prevent it as long as possible. You’re welcome, America.
Anyway, in spite of being indoors (and downstairs, to avoid contagion), I have had a pretty awesome birthday. I had a Halloween party for my birthday party this year, so I basically just celebrated early. I got to do several of my favorite things: 1)Hang out with my friends 2)Dress in a costume 3)Drink heavily 4)Eat a cake made by Brandy, the stewrat. (pics to follow).
Yesterday, my gift from Hubby came in the mail. It is FIVE books of a series I have been wanting! Now he’s sick so once I’m done writing things for you people to read, I can go read. The girls at work also took me out to lunch to get some Pho (you KNOW I love me some pho), AND made me chocolate cupcakes with raspberry frosting!!! PLUS I had about 80 million “Happy Birthday” notes on my facebook! All in all, a great birthday since it is on a week day.
I’ve been told that this year will be the last good one, in life? in eternity? I don’t know they weren’t clear, but I can see that. Soon people will be all “ohh, you’re almost thirty! WHERE ARE YOUR BABIES? YOU MUST HAVE BABIES NOW!!” I’m not looking forward to that.
Now, here are the pictures that will show you why I had such a fantastic birthday on Halloween weekend, and why I was too busy to post a bunch of Halloween crafts:
Yes, that is me on the right, dressed as the Baroness from G.I. Joe (the cartoon, not that vomit of a movie that just came out), and Hubby is dressed as Adam Ant, the singer.
Here we have Goose from Top Gun, and Risky Business (aka Brandy who makes the world’s best cakes).
Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Yes, little Flapjack had a costume! Captain Flappy von Flapjack!
The most awesome Rainbow Bright ever! Her wand even lit up!
And here are all my naughty nerds! You can see Brandy went all out as Risky Business, then we have a Punk, the Baroness, Rainbow Bright, someone who just came from her grandparent’s house, Dolly Parton, and a Cholita!
This is my fantastic cake that Brandy made! It’s a 1up mushroom from Mario Brothers!
And then Mario and his controller showed up!
Mario and Bowser have some, uh, tension they need to work out.
They make such a cute couple!
Beetlejuice, with pet sand worm, and Grumpy the Carebear seemed to be having a great time together.
Beans is a zombie prom queen. She even made her own banner, which says “Prom Queen 1984″. The writing looks spectacular, and I totally stole it for another year. If you haven’t guessed by now, the theme was 1980′s.
Sarah did a fantastic job making her blue fairy costume. There is still glitter in my kitchen though.
Here we have a golfer (who took some heat for her “costume”), and Punky Brewster. Punky even had buttons all from the 80′s on her jacket!
Marty McFly here even made her own hoverboard! I wish I’d gotten a better picture of it, but it looked dead on! These two, Samantha and Jon, just got married, and I was honored to attend. Congratulations you two!
We did a lot of decorating as well, but this post is REALLY long, even by my wordy standards, so that will probably show up in another post. I hope all of you enjoy Halloween, and are as inspired by my creative friends as I am.
It’s HALLOWEEN!!
In honor of Halloween, I decided to post my top 5 favorite zombie movies. I would love to post my costume, and stuff like that, but I don’t want to reveal it before the big moment. Zombie movies are some of my favorites, and if you haven’t seen any of the ones I’m about list, never admit it to anyone. You should be pretty embarrassed.
Zombieland – This movie is hysterical, and I don’t think it got nearly enough notice when it came out. Bill Murray cameos, and it is one of the funniest scenes of any movie in the past couple of years.
Planet Terror – This movie came out as a double feature with Death Proof, by Austin’s precious Quentin Tarantino. Planet Terror is ridiculous, over-the-top, and epic.
Dawn of the Dead – George A. Romero is the god father of zombie movies. I prefer the 2004 version that he wrote, rather than directed. This one is serious, how-the-hell-will-we-survive-this zombie mayhem. Corn syrup explosions abound!
28 Days Later – I love this one because the characters are really practical, and to encourages people to plan ahead for a zombie apocalypse. I think that’s an important lesson to learn.
Shaun of the Dead – This is not only, my very favorite zombie movie, this is one of my favorite movies ever. It is hilarious, clever, and makes me laugh every time I see it.
If watching all those movies made you paranoid, you can always check out the zombie survival guide. It will definitely cheer you up, if nothing else.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!
