The House Next Door

You don't need post every day, Matt--especially when what you do post is so strong. Quality trumps quantity. Take it from someone who posts too much, to his detriment.

I'm compulsive. What can I say?

Isn't Scarlett Johanssen in DePalma's version of The Black Dahlia? She's a busy little bee, working with two big 70's directors in a row. Hopefully, she won't scream her dialogue like a junkie banshee in dire need of a fix, like she did in Match Point. I learned about the Black Dahlia from Kenneth Anger's incredibly sick Hollywood Babylon books.

Regarding Ellroy--and writers in general: It's interesting what drives us to write. There are certain traumatic events and curiosities of my own that always come out in my fiction. It is also easy to find the characters that remind me of myself: just look for the person my words always mistreat.

Writing is a form of schizophrenia, a slow descent into eventual insanity. You hear these voices in your head, and they tell you their stories. Some of them are original, while others are tainted by the writer's experiences.

I always thought musicians feel the pain of their music, and writers ultimately lose it listening to all those damn voices. It explains why rockers overdose on dope and writers shoot themselves.

Boy, this is tres morbid, but reading all that stuff about Ellroy and unsolved murders gave me the boo boo geebies.

Zollerites like me have no problem with a post a day.

"Zollerites?" I love it, Michael! I'm a Zollerite too!

The final death in PROFONDO DEATH, after Hemmings' troubled hero has faced the truth about the picture he has seen in the beginning but not realized.

"Zollerite"? Hadn't thought of us as a cult, but I am pleased if unsurprised to note other followers. I've been a convert for nearly a decade now (curiously enough, it was the pre-premiere review of John Frankenheimer's ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU that sucked me in. He seemed almost apologetic for liking it, but everything he said made me think "I bet I'd really have a blast at this one," and sure enough I did. I might have given it a chance anyway, being a Frankenheimer cultist as well, though minus the privilege of actually having known him. Even two pictures he fundamentally disowned, PROPHECY and THE CHALLENGE, boast sequences that no simple hack could have phoned in.)

Funny you should mention MOREAU. You remember that review correctly -- I enthusiastically copped to enjoying it, mainly for its hysterical black comedy tone, like Douglas Sirk plus James Whale -- but made not bones about what a mess it was. The final line was something like, "I enjoyed every minute of it, but I wouldn't recommend it to another living soul." The review came out in NYPress on a Tuesday, and three days later the film opens, and there's a one-page ad topped by a single blurb, from me. It reads, "I enjoyed every minute of it!"

Ha ha! That's great! At least they didn't misquote you! You did say that, and I remember that ad! I said "I ain't NEVER reading that guy!" Yet, here I am, a loyal Zollerite!

Have you ever been misquoted on an ad?

I would kill to have a quote of mine over an ad. The closest I came was another internet movie reviewer who quoted my review of The Cat In The Hat. What he quoted isn't printable on a family-friendly blog, but it would have been stunning atop a one page ad!

For God's sake, man, what was the quote?

Imagine the poster for The Cat In The Hat saying:

"The worst pussy I've ever had."
-Odie Henderson

It's feasible! David Lynch put negative review quotes on posters for Lost Highway!