Foulard's Boring Movie Quiz

Question: Have Luis Guzmán and John Turturro ever appeared in a movie together?(drawing courtesy of this week's New Yorker)

Answer: I don't know, it's too boring to look up.

How to park on Howell Street at Summit Ave

There are a few simple rules you need to follow if you wish to park your car on Howell Street between Olive Way and Summit Avenue.

1. Make sure you're not very good at parallel parking. If you can get your car in the space in less than five minutes, you're doing something wrong.
2. The street is on a 30 degree incline, so you'll want to be driving a stick shift that you haven't really mastered. This will ensure that your car makes lots of violent, herky-jerky movements as you try to squeeze into that tight space.
3. Don't get your brakes fixed! The squealing, shrieking sound is music to the ears of the people who live in the apartments on both sides of the street.
4. Have a really old beater car that takes 10 minutes to warm up while you sit inside enjoying that first morning cigarette. Make sure to rev the engine intermittently, so that people will think you're finally about to leave. You can also have your stereo blaring the whole time if you want. Any black, billowing clouds of exhaust are a bonus, naturally.
5. If you leave your car parked, you should have an antiquated alarm system that will go off if a hummingbird hovers within ten feet of it.
6. As you're pulling out, do a prolonged 8-point turn so that you don't have to drive around the block to get turned in the right direction. Don't worry, no one minds how long it takes! You can drive up on the sidewalk if necessary.
   
7. When you leave, be sure to pull out and tear down the street as violently as possible, as if you just turned into Steve McQueen in Bullitt.
   

Keep in mind that this is a densely populated area, so you'll want to make sure that as many people as possible are aware of your presence. Happy parking!

Foulard's Obscure Movie Funnies

It's true!

"It's the end of the world!"

Summer making warm exit in Washington

The Associated Press

Low temperatures overnight dropped into the 30s in parts of Eastern Washington, but the National Weather Service says high temperatures will be above normal for a couple of days in the state.

Forecasters say a high pressure system moving over the Northwest will bring sunshine and unusually warm temperatures in the 80s for the last day of summer Monday and the first day of autumn Tuesday.

Forecasters say clouds will move into Western Washington by midweek, dropping the temperatures. Skies should remain clear for most of the week in Eastern Washington.

We're supposed to have a high of 86° tomorrow. Have I not suffered enough?

OSS 117

The second film with Jean DuJardin starting as Agente 117, Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, was released in April in France, and will be coming out shortly on DVD. The first film (OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions) was great, and exactly my kind of movie, so I have high hopes for the new one. I just have to hunt around for a copy with English subtitles, or wait a year or so for a US version to come out...

Halloweenies Nine-Fifteenies

Last night we watched the follow-up to House of Frankenstein, imaginatively titled House of Dracula. I actually liked it better than HoF.

In this one, both Dracula and Larry (Wolfman) Talbot end up at the castle lab of a non-mad doctor asking to be cured of their respective afflictions (though I'm not sure how sincere the Count is). We get a poignant lady hunchback nurse this time, and get spared repetition of the Wolfman rhyme. The best aspects are the going-mad of the benevolent doctor, thanks to an unwanted blood transfusion from Dracula, and the novel twist of having vampirism and werewolfism (is that a word?) having a biological, rather than supernatural basis--this about 10 years before Richard Matheson rewrote the rules in his novel I Am Legend (which itself has been filmed three times). Also, some good supporting performances by Lionel Atwill and Skelton Knaggs, creepy in the role of the riled-up villager.

Mr. Knaggs (from a different movie)

The weaknesses: the Frankenstein monster's superfluous role, John Carradine still not totally making it as Dracula, and a rushed ending.

TV Classics

Don't tell Beebo, but this is what she's getting for Xmas--all 2,347 episodes of this classic series, plus a talking Hawkeye action figure that says a variety of world-weary phrases.