When I was in junior high a friend and I decided that we wanted to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I had never seen a real horror movie before, but I figured I was in the 6th grade and was man enough to handle it. I was wrong.
A few years earlier I had seen parts of a horror movie called The Hand about a severed hand that scurried around killing people and I was immediately scarred for life. To this day I’m still terrified of severed hands. So I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
I have since seen it several times and horror is now one of my favorite genres. I recently visited two of the movie’s most recognizable locations.
First, we have the gas station from TCM. It is now called Bilbo’s Texas Landmark and appears to be abandoned. The place was completely locked up so I couldn’t get inside, but looking in the windows I could tell that the place definitely didn’t look like it was doing any business. We found it a few miles down Highway 304 in Bastrop, Texas.
Here’s another “then and now” shot.
Here we have the famous TCM Family House where most of the gory madness took place. It was originally located in Quick Hill in Austin, Texas but in the late 90’s it was purchased by the Antlers Inn in Kingsland, Texas and moved there where it was turned into the Kingsland Old Town Grill. Currently, it is closed and is due to reopen as Junction House Restaurant in February 08.
This note was posted on the front door about the restaurant’s forthcoming opening. There were employment applications in a little box next to the door.
– About On Location: A lot of movies are filmed here in the central Texas area, so I hunt down some of these places and post pictures of them.
You read that right. Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors is coming right here to Austin, Tx for three nights of blood splattering horror movie fun.
From January 18 – 20 Fangoria will be hosting films, celebrity meet and greets, and general horror related nastiness from the Renaissance Austin Hotel. Guests include celebrities Tom Savini, Kane Hodder, and Austin’s very own Robert Rodriguez and Harry Knowles (who is terrifying in his own right) and many others!
In a move that has rocked the movie industry to its very core, Wal-Mart has stopped offering movie downloads on its website. Actually, the news didn’t rock anything, because only 12 people nationwide even knew Wal-Mart offered movies for download in the first place, and I’m one of them.
The decision came after Hewlett Packard announced that it would no longer be producing the software Wal-Mart used to operate its video on demand service. Wal-Mart immediately told HP to “suck it” and downloaded a full rip torrent of the program complete with keygen and 25 jpegs of upskirt porn. Unfortunately, the torrent was in a compressed RAR format and Wal-Mart is only running the free version of WinZIP, so the company scrapped the plan.
While you can no longer download movies from Wal-Mart’s website, you can still purchase DVDs online and have them shipped to you. This is sooooo 2004, but the only other option is to…go to a Wal-Mart store!
Going to a Wal-Mart store is a sometimes dangerous endeavor, due in most part to its high density of morbidly obese and/or inbred clientèle. Don’t get me wrong, I shop at Wal-Mart on a regular basis, but every time I’m in there I feel like I’m the only normal human being that’s been in that store for days. Do you get that feeling? It’s like visiting a circus sideshow after eating a trash bag full of shrooms.
My brother, who excels at being awesome, got me a Master Replicas lightsaber for Christmas. The one that lights up like a real lightsaber and makes all the cool sounds. I got him a $20 remote control helicopter from Wal-Mart made out of Styrofoam that spins out of control and crashes if you look at it funny. Sorry dude.
An added bonus about this lightsaber is that it scares the hell out of my dog. I guess it reminds her of lightening, which she is also terrified of. Or maybe she’s shell shocked from the Clone Wars, although I don’t think she was involved with that whole mess. Here I am showing it off:
Steve Martin is, undoubtedly, one of the funniest and most influential comedians of the past 25 years, even if his latest movies have been just about as entertaining as a prolonged bout of constipation. Once, one of the weirdest, oddest and edgiest comedians out there, he’s now relegated his talents to cliche-ridden family movies and arthouse musings like Shopgirl or his much, much earlier book Cruel Shoes – one of my favorite books. Nothing wrong with the arthouse musings – Steve is a renaissance man – but it ain’t comedy. As for the Cheaper by the Dozen type of stuff…not too wild and crazy about that, myself. Here’s a list of what I think are the 9 best Steve Martin movies of all time…
The Jerk (1979)
How can you not love this movie?! Anyone who doesn’t like this movie should be punched in the neck. This is the loving tale of a lovable idiot trying to make it in the world…that’s my life story! Except that I wasn’t raised by a poor Southern Black family. I’m buying a thermos for this movie and possibly even this The Jerk t-shirt.
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)
Here we have a classic spoof of the 40’s era film noir crime drama Steve Martin style. As funny as this movie is, it is actually exceptionally well shot and holds up well against the classic movies it pokes fun at.
The Man With Two Brains (1983)
This really, really is one of my all time favorite movies. Not only is it responsible for one of the most beautifully stupid poems in literary history:
Pointy birds
Pointy, pointy
Anoint my head
Anointy, nointy
It’s also given me my life’s philosophy in this line uttered by Dr. Hfuhruhurr:
I envision a day when the brains of brilliant men can be kept alive in the bodies of dumb people.
Ha, frickin’ Ha! Three Amigos (1986)
Steve Martin. Chevy Chase. Martin Short. The concentrated comedy energy here is enough to destroy several small planets. This movie is so goddamn obscure it’s amazing it’s even in my list. But, holy crap, is it funny. The singing bush scene, alone, is worth spending your child’s college fund on.
The Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
While Steve didn’t have a large role in this flick as the sadistic 50’s era dentist, he stole the show for the time he was on screen. Little did we know he would later show up as a dentist in the drama Novocain which, just like the drug, put many people to sleep.
Roxanne (1987)
This is a modern day retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac, a story long forgotten by most, and not usually taught in modern day literature classes…where they now teach Sponge Bob Square Pants to 20 year olds because they graduated from public schools with barely enough intelligence to floss their tooth.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
While you might mark this John Hughes flick as the beginning of Steve’s downward spiral into family comedy drollery, TP&A is still hilarious. The chemistry cultivated between Steve Martin and the late John Candy is priceless…both hilarious and heartbreaking.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
Steve Martin and Michael Cain cultivated a surprising comedic chemistry in this movie as two money hungry hustlers. The scene wherein Martin pretends to be a war vet paralyzed from the waist down while Michale Cain whips him in the shins will be expounded upon for generations! In fact, I have to embed a video of it right here for you kids:
Parenthood (1989)
If Planes, Trains, and Automobiles was the beginning of Steve’s decent into lame-ass family comedy, then this was his okay to deploy the landing gear. BUT, it is hilarious. Parenthood is a quirky little comedy that is everything Cheaper by the Dozen is not.
I’m a big Will Smith fan. Sure, I’ll concede that in most roles he pretty much just plays himself, but his film choices lately have been a little more adventurous in terms of acting. Case in point, the upcoming superhero flick Hancock where he plays much more of a jackass than we’re used to.
If you’ve never read Lonesome Dove, or seen the 1989 television miniseries starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones then you have missed out on not only some of the best westerns ever written, but some of the best American literature ever written, period. There are several books in the series – all made into miniseries of varying degrees of greatness – and the last book, “Comanche Moon” is coming to CBS as a 6 hour television event over three nights. It stars Val Kilmer, Steve Zahn and other great actors.
I’m not a huge computer animated movie fan. In fact, I think they’ve pretty much gone downhill since Toy Story. Most animated movies are nothing more than shoddy slapstick cliches and forced, overused pop culture missives like “Oh! Now, THAT’s gotta hurt!” and “You go, animated character!” The only decent, recent computer animated flick is Ratatouille. But there’s something about this trailer for Wall*E that seems to convey a bit of genuine creativity and giddy wonder.
