shellymc

wow...

apparently "Xanadu" isnt the cheesiest musical of all time,
i now hand that title over to "The Apple"

finally saw this wacky film over the weekend after hearing for many years, that its so bad yet so entertaining.
Was i disappointed?
not in the least..

the only problem was that i slightly wished i was high on something when i was watching it.
This masterpiece came out in 1980 and supposedly tanked right away, but over the years has developed a cult following, and after viewing it, i can certainly see why...

Bad music, godawful costumes and choreography and a sountrack that somehow tries to merge disco and early newwave ...
plus its got Katherine Mary Stewart (or is it Stuart?) from "Night of the comet"
lip synching in all her glory with big hair and loads of eyeliner.

I'm recommending this one if anyone is daring enough to sit through a musical that is so bad its kind of good




i hope that worked... its been so long since i posted a video, im not quite sure i remember how to do it

i have a lot of catching up to do on here soon, my apologies that this move seemed to suck the life and joy right out of me and made me antisocial (in real life and on the internet)
but i'm in the new apartment now, and every weekend in our free time, we are making progress with the unpacking and decluttering.
we dont have the room for all of our stuff anymore, so we are planning a big yard sale sometime in the next couple months.
On the bright side, the new apartment may not have an attic but its actually much nicer and has higher ceilings.
Anyone want to come over soon?

When i was in my early twenties, i read a truecrime book that fucked with my head a bit..
it was called "The Basement: a meditation on human sacrifice" and it was about a sixteen year old girl named Sylvia Likens that was tortured and beaten by a woman named Gertrude Banizsewski ( i think i spelled it wrong)
anyway, good ol Gertie (as i liked to call her) took Sylvia and her younger sister Jenny in for the summer while their parents were traveling around with the carnival.. had her parents taken a good look around Gerties house before leaving their kids their with the Banizsewski clan (Gert had like five or seven kids of her own) they would have realized that not only did they not have a stove in the home (just a hotplate), they only had about four spoons in the household (the kids ate in shifts)
Long story short, Gert had a lot of issues besides being dirt fucking poor and single with a lot of kids in the house... she also had an addiction with booze, cigarettes and cough syrup (helped with her asthma)
after a few misunderstandings, Gertrude decided to take out all her pent up frustration out on Sylvia, and in the months to come finally kept her in the basement, and when she was too tired to dole out beatings, she encouraged not only her own children to torture Sylvia, but invited the neighborhood kids to help out.
The torture and beatings got worse over the months to come, Sylvia was treated like a human ashtray and punching bag on a daily basis, but by the time she finally tried to escape... she was to tired and exhausted (food had become a rare privilege for her) and they caught her at the front door and beat her until she was unconscious.
When she finally died and her body was discovered, etched into her stomach (with a hot needle) were the words "I am a prostitute and proud of it"
She had over a hundred burn marks on her body as well as open sores.
Gertrude to the dismay of many, didnt get the death sentence, she never even served life..
i believe she was released (to the protests of many, including Sylvia's sister Jenny) sometime in the late eighties and died five years later of lung cancer.
The teenagers that were put on trial barely served anytime, and some of the kids were not punished due to how young they were (some were as young as ten or twelve)
The only person who received the death sentence?
That was Sylvia...
So you are probably wondering why i am telling you this depressing story?
Strangely enough, i found out that a movie has been made about this ...
it was shown at sundance to mixed reviews, and its called "An american crime" starring Ellen Page as Sylvia and Catherine Keener as "Gertrude".
also another film is making the circuit loosely based on this crime and the book called "Jack ketchums "The Girl next door"
I guess this story haunted quite a lot of folks back in the sixties...
left a lot of unanswered questions
The critics so far are not praising the film (some are baffled as to why anyone would want to bring this story to the big screen)
but it hasnt gotten any really bad reviews either,
the one redeeming factor, is that supposedly the film is not overly exploitive, and that the worst Syliva endured down in the basement, is not really shown, just merely implied.

I'm not sure if i'm up for seeing it when its released, but my morbid curiousity may just get the better of me..
so here is the trailer (if it works)


got to get ready for work...
i hope you are all doing well and thanks for not kicking me off your friends list even though i have been barely active

xxoo
Shelly