QUICK BITES
THAT AWKWARD MOMENT WHEN YOU REALIZE HEATH LEDGER'S JOKER WAS THE HERO
This is the kind of conversation that my friends and I have had for years over brew, coffee, and online.

We've talked about it so much and for so long that none of us thought to write an article about it.

Now here we are, seven years after the fact, and Jef Rouner spells it out like we've been saying for years. Except he commits it to the public and leaves me standing here like a doof thinking, "Wait a minute. Nobody already said this? Really?"

Publish or Perish, mofos.

Read his article at HoustonPress.

AND

Why Do We Keep Returning To Castle Wolfenstein?
Castle Wolfenstein 3D? It was a blast I tells ya! A blast!

Then Id came out with DOOM and CW 3D was the past.

The past I tells ya!

Then there were further and various multitudinous iterations of DOOM.

Then there was QUAKE, which was not so much fun. Actually as a stand-alone game it kinda blew without the online team play. It just wasn't like the games that put Id on the map.

Then Castle Wolfenstein 3D returned in a beautiful update called Wolfenstein and it was... okay.

Look, I really don't get behind what Daniel Hindes is waxing nostalgic over, but I recognize that everyone has their thing.

So hell, maybe Daniel's thing is your thing too!

Read his trip down memory lane at GameSpot.

PLUS

Buried In Baltimore: The Mysterious Murder Of A Nun Who Knew Too Much
If this HuffPo post is true, then welcome to an unhealthy dose of real-world horror sure to inspire future Horror fiction.

Read the article at Huffington Post.

ALSO

5 Historical Manias That Gripped Societies, Then Disappeared
More inspiration for fiction from real life history.

Why?

Because we're weird, people!

We're mental!

Read the article at MentalFloss.

Okay, I got that right out of the way, didn't I? Yet people say that kind of thing all of the time.

"This is a piece of Crap!"
"That is a piece of Crap!"
"What the hell happened to you? You look like Crap!"

So for the sake of definition I'll describe THE CRAFT as "IT Crap".

You can liken THE CRAFT to the 1990 Stephen King TV miniseries IT, as Crap.

IT Crap is a good way to describe a terrible movie like THE CRAFT, where only one outstanding actor (in this case Fairuza Balk), so fully and completely owned the character that you cannot imagine anyone else in it.

Like the wonderful Tim Curry's legendary Pennywise in IT, Fairuza Balk's character of Nancy Downs was not the main character. Yet like Pennywise, every classic cool line in the movie was Nancy's and no one else in the movie could keep up with Fairuza. Her Nancy Downs was fun, unpredictable, fragile, and threatening. Nancy became our LOTR Gollum. We hoped for the best while expecting the worst for her. Everything else about the movie (well the music was good, actually) was a tedious, predictable waste of time wherever and whenever Fairuza Balk wasn't part of it.

"WE ARE THE WEIRDOS, MISTER!"

I've seen a few other Fairuza Balk movies but none of them gave her the space THE CRAFT did. If THE CRAFT can have a writer that makes all of the characters as solid as Nancy Downs, and actors that can fully inhabit their roles as powerfully as Balk did, then the Sony remake could kick ass!

Read Cult Horror Movie 'The Craft' to Get Remake by Sony (Exclusive) at THR.

MAD ABOUT MAD MAX WOMEN
I'm not going to link to an unbelievably stupid blog by an obscure Canadian blogger that is currently making the rounds and offending the career offended. The blog is presumably written by a male (not a man, there's a difference) who is negatively whining and wringing his dainty mitts over the strong woman character of Imperator Furiosa that actor Charlize Theron plays in George Miller's MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. He's caling for a boycott of the movie because a few of the women characters are "too strong". I read it and that's enough.

COME GET SOME!

To me it came across as more like some opportunistic provocateur fabricated controversy intended as Cash-in /Click-bait, instead of a genuine person with a real issue.

That's not to say I didn't feel a bit put off with George Miller choosing, of all people, a weak-kneed sap like Eve Ensler to provide a "strong woman"'s perspective in her role of "advisor".

Dafuq?

Continued at Feo Amante/ Mad About Mad Max Women.