The IT Spot: Rereading, part 12

So, we've reached another one of Mike Hanlon's asides: the Black Spot.

Not even close....though it does involve horrible death.

The fire at the Black Spot nightclub was omitted from the mini-series, so there's no real way to avoid spoilers. The short version is the Legion for White Decency (AKA, northern KKK) set fire to a black nightclub in Derry in the thirties, killing 60 people. Mike Hanlon's dad Will helped build the club with his fellow Black airforce members, most of whom died in the fire. It's another terrible chapter in Derry's history.

SPOILERS

And of course, if it's something terrible in Derry, IT is involved.

The slightly elongated version is this: Will Hanlon, Mike's dad, dies from cancer a few years after his son's encounter with IT. But before he does, he relates a story (actually several) from his Air Force days in the late 20's and early 30's with Derry's E company (AKA, the black unit). After being banned from the town's 'blind pigs' (think a shitty speakeasy) they are given a shed and transform it into a club so great that white townsfolks come in. A club called the Black Spot.

That's when the Legion for White Decency shows up to scare them by burning the place to the ground. Will speculates that the chants of "Come out N*****" were half warnings, as even in death he can't fathom that each person who came meant to kill as many people as they did.

Will is almost trampled when is life is saved by a young Dick Hallorann. Dick would go on to be the black guy from The Shining. And yes, he uses his shine to find a way out while most of the other people there are trapped inside, burning to death.

The fire at the Black Spot was more than just an act of terrorism by Derry's white elite. It was also the ending of a cycle for IT. IT is not a constant threat in Derry (at least, not actively). Roughly every 27 to 28 years IT comes out to cause havoc and eat kids, each time ending in a horrific tragedy. The explosion on Easter that killed a bunch of kids was the ending to the previous cycle. The fire at the Black Spot is the last cycle before the one in the late fifties is kicked off by Georgie's death.

More tellingly, just before Will drifts into a medicated sleep, he reveals he saw a member of the Legion picked off by a gigantic bird that hovered, with balloons tied to It's wings. This sets Mike apart again, as his father is the only parent to have seen IT (that we know of). Also, the instinctive fear of this bird being passed to his son. There are a lot of reasons the Turtle chose Mike to stay.

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I'm excited to see how the movie will pull this off, as hinted at in the trailer:

Join us next time, as Stuttering Bill returns to Derry and takes a cab around town.

Where's Harvey Birdman when we need him

So, a man is suing his date for the price of a movie ticket, after she texted during the film. She also left when he asked her to stop, and stranded him.

On the one hand, it is only $17, but on the other hand...

I get it.

I've talked before about how rudeness in a theater is inexcusable (though I'll be damned if I can find the links). I've had several memorable experiences where talking, texting, screaming, or somebody touching me disrupted things. When I go to the movies with my friends (you know who you are) I sit near the end of the group, since I don't want to be associated with anyone chatting/I don't want to be chatted at.

At least about this.

It's two-fold: I don't want to miss anything, and I don't want someone else to get ticked off with the noise we're making.

Now, some rude scenarios don't apply to me. I won't be the one screaming unnecessarily in a theater. I won't be pulling my phone out to text. I won't be dragging under-mature kids to things they can't handle.

There is a time for riffing a movie: if you're alone in the theater (it happens), at a Rifftrax show, or at your home. That's it. Otherwise, shut up, shut your devices down, and let others enjoy the movie.

The woman admitted to texting, "only 2-3 times" by the way.

I hope her date wins the suit.

The IT Spot: rereading part 11

This is another double whammy chapter: We see adult Bev reflecting on her encounter with it, her budding sexuality, her father issues, which , weirdly, gives us a lead-in for Stan. Stan, as you will remember, is dead as an adult, and cannot provide context for his childhood memories. King makes it seem like a natural transition, and it works wonderfully.

Bev's encounter is basically identical to the mini series, with the blood and voices from the drain, followed by a slap from her father.

SPOILERS

Afterwards we see a lot more of Bev's home life, including interactions with her beat-happy father, and her tired, but concerned mother. Her mother asks if her father ever touches Bev, much to Bev's confusion.

Despite being a girl of the same age when I read IT the first time, I don't recall any special connection or feelings when it came to Bev's parts. Maybe it's because my father wasn't a hitter, or I didn't care about boys or my body changing.

I find Stan's reflection on his now-admitted encounter with IT. It's a little like the miniseries, as Stan is bird-watching when IT comes after him. Not as a mummy (that was cribbed from Book Ben) but as several dead boys drowned in a giant town water cistern near the birdwatching site. Stan manages to escape by reciting the names of the birds: his own version of the Lord's Prayer. Stan is Jewish, but not very interested or  knowledgeable about it.

Stan's fatal flaw comes into play here: he finds the dead boys offensive to his sense of order and reason, so much so that it has shaken him to his core. It's a Lovecraft-scale issue, and at 11, Stan can't understand or articulate it. King sums it up as the cracks in reality may lead to another universe: "In this universe there might grow roses which sing." My fellow dark-tower readers will recognize that as a thing that does exist, whether Stan wants it to or not.

It's child-Stan's first real stance on the issue of reality verses IT, and what will eventually lead to his death. Fittingly, the section ends going back to Bev, who tries to measure the drains, pushing back against IT's influence. Bev is a fighter. Stan is not.

SAFE

I'm over 400 pages in, and we've got another 600 or so to go. Hooray!

I know about Popular

I'm going to try and good news bad news this for you, bad damn, things are weird.

First, the best news: Will and Grace is coming back!

I wish the show was on Netflix: I've missed a lot of the episodes over the years, and I'd love to binge to get ready for this.

On the other end of the scale, somebody wants a How I Met Your Mother revival.

I hate so much how season nine/the show ended I won't even go back and watch the other episodes. I do not want to see any more of these characters, unless it's Ted and Robin getting divorced and her getting back with Barney, and everyone telling Ted what a horrible person he is.

ABC is putting on a live action musical TV special for The Little Mermaid. This play didn't do well on broadway, but it did bring us Tituss Burgess as Sebastian and give us a top-notch 2nd Ursula song. I'm neutral on this, as I haven't seen the show or listen to the album.

Not seen here, but damn, that man can sing!

I feel similarly about the Roseanne revival.  I'll watch anything with John Goodman, but SPOILERS isn't Dan dead? Like, he died, and the last season where they won the lottery was a fantasy. I guess they'll retcon that.

Back on the upswing, The Disaster Artist has a release date. Or at least a release time frame, since it'll be out for 'awards season'. For anyone not in the know, The Disaster Artist is based on a book of the same name by Greg Sestero. It's about when Sestero lived with Tommy Wiseau and filmed The Room.

Here's a small rundown of that film, in case you're under a rock.

It is as crazy as it sounds. And I am super excited.

What I'm not excited about is the Wicked movie still being a thing, and new songs being added to it. Wicked is slated to come out in December 2019, nobody has been cast yet, and it's being written by the writers of the musical.

Wicked is my favorite musical, but I'm not sure it'll translate to the screen. When Elphaba rises into the air onstage that is a thing to behold. When magic happens, you wonder how they did that. In a movie it'll just be CGI. I'd rather they just filed a performance and released that, CATS or Joseph style.

So, we end on a downer for this pop culture roundup. Man. Enjoy something funny while I cheer myself up with Baywatching.

The IT Spot: Rereading, part 10

Delving into Ritchie's childhood segment is, like Ritchie himself, a bit different from the others.

He, like Mike, has a stable two parent household. Unlike Mike, Ritchie's folks aren't aware on any conscious level of the inherent evil of Derry, but they don't suffer as characters for it (what little time we see Ritchie spend with them).

SPOILERS

Ritchie and Bill go back to Bill's house to look at the possessed picture of Georgie together. They witness a snap of an old-tyme Derry street come to life, replete with old-tyme versions of themselves getting lured by Pennywise. Bill reaches into the picture and cuts himself badly before Ritchie saves him from having his fingers chopped off.

This is foreshadowing for later in the book when Bill nearly loses to IT during the ritual of the CHUD, and Ritchie comes in to save him. It's also telling that they share the first simultaneous experience with IT: until now everyone has seen IT when they were alone. They also come to the conclusion together that IT is not a clown, but a monster.

Ritchie then goes to the movies and the Barrens with Ben and Bev, showing more of his normalcy. The next notable thing is when Bill joins them with a kid that Ritchie instinctively knows is not 'part of them'. Ritchie can feel the Ka-Tet forming.

I'm not sure why Ritchie has such a strong connection to the Turtle. It may be familial: his mother watches the boy have tea before going to the house on Neibolt street to try and find/possibly kill Eddie's leper, and she thinks that she doesn't understand them, and is both afraid of and for them.

It may be due to Ritchie's unique strategy of dealing with IT. When he and Bill arrive at Neibolt street, they get into the house, and are attacked by IT in the guise of The Teenage Werewolf (the horror movie he'd seen with Bev and Ben). Bill shoots it, doing little damage, while Ritchie throws sneezing powered in IT's face. This hurts IT enough for them to escape.

Ritchie recognizes that his gambit somehow hurt IT worse than Bill's: the ritual of the CHUD has to do with riddles, which are tied into humor. Just like how later Ritchie saves Bill, here he does the same. Again, it's a duel encounter with IT, where Bill and Ritchie go through it together. These two share a powerful connection with each other inside the Ka-Tet, and to the Turtle: Bill due to his innate goodness and leadership, Ritchie because of his humor and devotion to Bill.

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Wow, that got heavy. But no worries: next we get more spousal/child abuse with Bev!

Donation

If you don't have a spare 30 minutes to watch that video, the crux of it is the company DaVita, one of the largest government-contracted kidney dialysis companies, is scamming the government out of money, and providing substandard treatment to patients.

The charges (and settled cases) include firing workers who tried to unionize, rushing treatments to squeeze in more patients, throwing away vials of half-used drugs to bill for more vials, and not informing patients of transplant options, thus keeping them on dialysis longer, aka killing them.

Most of you know I'm signed up to be an organ donor. If you do, you also know my father was on dialysis, and was a kidney transplant patient before I was born. I literally wouldn't be here if not for organ donation and dialysis.

 So I'm a little upset.

The negligence is so bad, one person involved in DaVita's 'Kidney Education' program said this:

John Oliver went on to talk about how these issues run rampant within the for-profit dialysis sector, and how settlements are still coming forward. What it comes down to, is that we need to combat the kidney shortage.

You can be like me and sign up to donate when you've died (try tweeting #WhenIDiePleaseTakeMyKidneys) , or even signing up to be a living donor here.

I'm not above begging on this issue. Please, save a life. You'll be dead anyway, you don't need your organs. It's a small box on your driver's license renewal, or here for Michiganders.

I literally wouldn't exist without organ donation. If you care about me at all, if you know me as a person or just as these words typed across this screen, sign up. Save a life. Save future lives.

I'll just leave this here.

The IT Spot: Rereading part 9

Eddie's childhood self has arrived!

This is another section that is significantly different from it's mini-series counterpart. You may remember Pennywise accosting Eddie in the showers.

The scene, while wonderfully showing off Tim Curry has zero resemblance to the book. The only similarity is the 'won't do any good to run' bit. That is cribbed from IT's book counterpart. However there...

SPOILER

 ...IT chases Eddie in the form of leprous a hobo offering  blowjobs.

When Eddie can't find someone (IE Bill or Ritchie) to play with, he often ends up by the train yards. One day he sees a hobo with syphilis, and a rotting nose. Eddie, a budding germaphobe thanks to his overprotective mother, thinks the man is a leper. Said leper/hobo offers to blow Eddie, first for a quarter, then for a dime, then for free, eventually chasing the boy down the street.

That brings us to Eddie's encounter with the house on Neibolt street. You'll remember me freaking out about that house during my last few trailer reviews, as it plays a big part in what the kids do to defeat IT.

It's also why I think this is Eddie.

Some time after the hobo incident, Eddie is drawn under the house, very unwillingly. This speaks back to when Mike was unwillingly drawn to the place he saw the bird: IT exudes some sort of lure. Using fear, or fun masking the stench (much like with Georgie) IT draws children. And when Eddie crawls under the porch, spotting debris from former hobos, he also sees IT peering from the cellar.

Here IT is a half-rotted corpse hobo that causes plant life to die. He introduces himself to Eddie as Bob Gray (you may recall this is also how he introduced himself to Georgie in addition to the Pennywise moniker), and stated he'll blow Eddie as well. Eddie manages to get away, but is of course terrified.

We find this out as Eddie is hanging with Ben, Bill, Stan, and Ritchie. Bill relates the story of the bleeding pictures, which brings out Eddie and Ben's tales. Stan freaks out, insisting he's seen nothing (as usual, Stan has the hardest time believing, and spends more time in denial), and Ritchie seems genuinely baffled by the stories (seems being the key word).

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 The main difference between the book and the miniseries here is that in the book IT is legitimately trying to get Eddie. In the series IT seems more interesting in warning Eddie and his friends off: almost as though IT can sense the Ka-Tet forming, and is reluctant to touch any of the members, for fear of the power they already hold. There's more evidence of this later (which I'll go into), but it's really weird.

The concept of the Ka-Tet/group power is barely even referenced elsewhere in the miniseries. Why create this dynamic for IT (aside from not wanting to show a rotting leper offering a kid a blowjob)? IT isn't afraid of the kids. Not yet.

Join me next time Ritchie is brought in on the horror.

Pop-Culture roundup

Time to discuss pop news!

There's an upcoming documentary title Looking for Leia about being a female Star Wars fan. As a woman who is a fan (but not a fanatic), I will say it's harder to find other female fans than male fans. Not to mention the lack of women IN the films themselves.

As Family Guy so helpfully pointed out.

I didn't see Star Wars until the 'updated' ones came out (yeah, yeah), but I saw them in a theater, and they BLEW MY MIND. I still have my VHS trilogy version, and one day I'll transfer them to DVD. I'm really interesting in seeing this film, especially with the context of the new movies, and having a female lead.

In other news, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 is slaying the box office. If you haven't seen it, go see it.

Try saying no to that face.

I'll avoid spoilers, but if you've seen it click this link for some really funny memes involving Yondu and another Disney property.

I really liked the movie, and most of the characters had a reasonable arc that worked really well. I'm excited to see the crew unite with other Marvel properties in Infinity War. I'll try not to get my hopes up, but...

Speaking of future films, there's a rumor circulating that Will Smith will play the Genie in the upcoming Aladdin movie helmed by Guy Ritchie.

Not sure how I feel about this, at all. Smith is a great actor, and an okay singer, but nobody can follow Williams. Though James Monroe Inglehart did a fine job making Genie his own on Broadway.

 There's also a rumor that Sir Patrick Stewart may play Jafar, which I'd be in favor of. That man can play anything.

To close, here's an unofficial animatic from audio announcing the upcoming Invader Zim movie. Enjoy!

The IT Spot: Rereading, part 8

In the wake of Eddie Cochran's death, we meet Mike Hanlon's child self. You may remember his character's entrance into the club in the miniseries ending with a huge rock fight. He was also the black kid.

Mike has one of the more stable family units, in that his dad isn't blind to the evils of Derry (and tells my favorite aside later in the book). The series doesn't delve into his home life, were he works a farm down the road from the Bowers family (who hate him, of course). Mike encounters Eddie's bloody tracks, which is how we're led into his POV of his home life, and farming. It's a much-needed break from the relenting horror...

SPOILERS

For a few pages. Then we're introduced to The Tramp Chair.

It's a short segment, and nothing like the horror of Mike's forthcoming encounter with IT, but worth mentioning. Mike's dad takes him on historical tours occasionally, and once stopped by the police office so Mike could see the tramp chair. It's also a lesson on human cruelty, and how Mike's dad dislikes the local police force (and righftully so).

The chair, unlike traditional (and real) tramp chairs isn't a cage, but is is covered in knobs that dig into the back, leaving the offender a screaming wreck after 24 hours. It's striking in that it's a wholly human cruelty, and a real one, made worse by IT's influence over the town.

Speaking of IT, Mike is stalked by IT in the form of a massive bird. He manages to escape by blinding IT in one eye (and being helped by an outside force to do so, either the ghosts of the kids haunting the ironwork, or more likely the Turtle or Ka). The sequence is short, but well done, and sticks beautifully in the mind after it's done. Mike just goes back to normal after events that would have driven an adult insane.

The bird is compared to Rodan several times, another tell-tale sign of the monsters of film influencing the kids. More on that later, though.

SAFE

I'm enjoying my re-introduction to the Losers club members. For such a large book, I remember quite a lot, but I by no means have the thing memorized. It's nice to sit back and see how human and real each child is, and how they're not just generic 'chosen ones' or downtrodden sad sacks. Each has their own struggle, and it's related wonderfully.

Happy Monday

Here's some fun stuff culled from my time on Reddit. Have a good Monday.