I went to this year's H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, and enjoyed it greatly. Actually, I didn't see too many movies, but I like Portland, and many friends and acquaintances were there. I also sold a few books, mostly copies of The Damned Highway
Movies I did see include the Norwegian Dunderland, which was basically The Shining with a theater troupe. It wasn't bad, wasn't very good, but I've not seen a lot of Scandanavian movies, so it was interesting on that level. It certainly deserves more than the star and a half it got on IMDB.
Also, I saw Prince of Darkness for the first time in twenty years. God, was it awful. And I love They Live and Big Trouble in Little China from the same bit of John Carpenter's career. There are about seven seconds of compelling footage in the film—the video "dream" from the future—and it's repeated a half-dozen times. Other than that, the whole movie feels like an assemblage of stock footage from other movies. The most entertaining element of the film was Molly Tanzer sleeping through most it, and then when an on-screen wheeled cart squeaked starting awake and throwing up her hands, one of which was clutching a cup of water. Which landed on me. Oh, and the statement YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED BY THE GOD PLUTONIUM.
Other than that, most of the weekend was spent exploring Portland. Portland is like someone took a very nice neighborhood, picked it up, and dropped it back down hard. Or for Bay Area locals, Temescal. Vegan restaurants? Yes. Casual porches, indeed. Bars bars bars with ridiculous cocktails, naturally! I was very pleased to spend more time with Molly, Camille Alexa, and Andrew Fuller, and meeting Barry Graham and Joe Pulver for the first time. I bought a few doodads—one of Olivia's students is thinking about colleges and of course he has his heart set of Miskatonic!
There was a panel, which was fun. I moderated and did my Dick Cavett thing. It went fairly well. Then I read with Molly and Camille—as we all had stories in the Fungi anthology, we decided to make that the theme. Topics included mushroom submarines, cat merkins, and tenement ventilation shafts on the Lower East Side (that one was mine).
One lowlight was the nearby Banfield Value Inn, which featured toilet lids and blankets full of burnmarks from local meth users/patrons. The other nearby hotel was a few stops away on the streetcar; if not for the need to quickly walk back and forth with piles of books, that would have been by far the better choice.
I'll be back to Pland for WHC 2014 at least!
Movies I did see include the Norwegian Dunderland, which was basically The Shining with a theater troupe. It wasn't bad, wasn't very good, but I've not seen a lot of Scandanavian movies, so it was interesting on that level. It certainly deserves more than the star and a half it got on IMDB.
Also, I saw Prince of Darkness for the first time in twenty years. God, was it awful. And I love They Live and Big Trouble in Little China from the same bit of John Carpenter's career. There are about seven seconds of compelling footage in the film—the video "dream" from the future—and it's repeated a half-dozen times. Other than that, the whole movie feels like an assemblage of stock footage from other movies. The most entertaining element of the film was Molly Tanzer sleeping through most it, and then when an on-screen wheeled cart squeaked starting awake and throwing up her hands, one of which was clutching a cup of water. Which landed on me. Oh, and the statement YOU WILL NOT BE SAVED BY THE GOD PLUTONIUM.
Other than that, most of the weekend was spent exploring Portland. Portland is like someone took a very nice neighborhood, picked it up, and dropped it back down hard. Or for Bay Area locals, Temescal. Vegan restaurants? Yes. Casual porches, indeed. Bars bars bars with ridiculous cocktails, naturally! I was very pleased to spend more time with Molly, Camille Alexa, and Andrew Fuller, and meeting Barry Graham and Joe Pulver for the first time. I bought a few doodads—one of Olivia's students is thinking about colleges and of course he has his heart set of Miskatonic!
There was a panel, which was fun. I moderated and did my Dick Cavett thing. It went fairly well. Then I read with Molly and Camille—as we all had stories in the Fungi anthology, we decided to make that the theme. Topics included mushroom submarines, cat merkins, and tenement ventilation shafts on the Lower East Side (that one was mine).
One lowlight was the nearby Banfield Value Inn, which featured toilet lids and blankets full of burnmarks from local meth users/patrons. The other nearby hotel was a few stops away on the streetcar; if not for the need to quickly walk back and forth with piles of books, that would have been by far the better choice.
I'll be back to Pland for WHC 2014 at least!