Today's photo of the day is untitled, and is by Burçak Pekin. Burçak is from the city of Istanbul, where this particular shot was also taken; he also has a nice personal website, for those who would like to learn more.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

It's Monday, which means it's time for another episode of the CCLaP Podcast. Today: It's the March edition of CCLaP's monthly music special, in which I share my favorites of the free legal online music I've been finding over the last month, college-radio style. Today's episode features 15 bands and lasts just under an hour; and don't forget, if you download the enhanced MP4 version linked to below and listen on an iPod (or simply subscribe to CCLaP's iTunes channel), chapters and links and images will be at your disposal too!

Today's music came from original recommendations by: BIGSTEREO; Curb Crawlers; Daytrotter; Deckfight; Discobelle; Electrorash; Feel my Bicep; fluo kids; IndieFeed; KCRW; KEXP; Keytars & Violins; Minnesota Public Radio; modyfier; National Public Radio's Second Stage; No Pain In Pop; Pitchfork; Radio Free Chicago; What To Wear During An Orange Alert; and as always, suggestions from listeners like you (cclapcenter [at] gmail.com).

Musicians featured in today's episode:
Atki2 / Dub Boy
Danimals
Adam Svec
Louis and The Hunt
Savoir Adore
DJ Orion
Jeremy Messersmith
Owen Pallett
Wowlace
White Fence
RJD2 / Kenna
Kisses
The Living Sisters
You Say Party! We Say Die!
The Mother Hips

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Today's photo of the day is entitled "begegnungen" (German for "encounters"), and is by Manfred Huszar. Manfred is from Pamdorf, Austria, where this particular shot was also taken. He also maintains a nice personal website under the name "Zoomyboy," for those who would like to learn more.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

The Three Musketeers (1844)
By Alexandre Dumas
Book #37 in this essay series

The story in a nutshell:
A clever mix of fact and fiction (like so many "historical" novels of the Romantic Age), 1844's The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas pere (or "Senior") is actually set in 1600s France, back when a slightly ineffectual King Louis XIII was under quiet threat by his number-two man, the evil and conniving Cardinal Richelieu. Of course, Renaissance France was no stranger to court intrigue, which is why so many important government officials back then had their own private militias, loyal only to them, including the group of salty "musketeers" (who actually fought with swords most of the time) in charge of protecting just the king, as well as the opposing group of rough-riders who reported directly to the cardinal. Our story, then, follows the fate of one such aspiring musketeer, d'Artagnan of Gascony, as he heads to Paris for the first time armed with a letter of introduction and a fatal chip on his shoulder regarding whatever he perceives as even the slightest insult against his character; through a series of early comic misadventures, he ends up falling in with a group of three existing musketeers who are already friends, who for the purpose of "protecting their virtue" Dumas refers to by the code names Athos, Porthos and Aramis, three distinct personalities who are literally the definition of the audience-winking action hero (and I mean literally, nearly every winking action hero you've ever seen was inspired in one way or another by Dumas' originals).

The actual plotline, then, consists mostly of the adventures d'Artagnan has with these three, serving sometimes as an apprentice and sometimes as a peer, and even sometimes being the hero depending on the situation; and this is especially the case when it comes to the circumstances behind the book's main storyline, the affair the king's wife is having with England's Duke of Buckingham (whose country was actually enemies with France at the time), the way that Richelieu through his agents tries to take advantage of this info, and the ways that d'Artagnan and the musketeers foil these attempts. The events that make up this storyline are many and varied, consisting for the most part of several self-contained mini-arcs (an offshoot of its original serial publishing format); but needless to say that there is much derring-do, much romance as well, a plethora of comic relief among the four's personal servants, stolen diamonds, masked balls, crumbling medieval prisons, purloined letters, and the most beguiling villain in perhaps all of modern literature, the sexy femme fatale and stone-cold killer Milady de Winter. Add a potboiler finale, and you're all set for this book's two eventual sequels, which together tell the story of decades in the life of our hero d'Artagnan.

The argument for it being a classic:
Well, for starters, it's the very textbook definition of "swashbuckling adventure;" or I guess I shouldn't say "for starters," because for a lot of people this is actually the most important thing about it, that it's written in a style now considered corny and is therefore hard to even find anymore, full of double-crosses and fortuitous chance encounters and all the other kinds of thrilling yet implausible details that mostly make up this genre. Plus, its fans say, it's a great example of early Romanticism at its best, making it historically important as well, starting with the fact that it's set in the 1600s in the first place; because lest we forget, the early Romantics tended to discount the entire Enlightenment period of the 1700s as artistically worthless, claiming that one had to go all the way back to the Baroque era or even the Renaissance to find stories truly worth telling, as most plainly manifested by the group of Romantic artists (and Dumas' peers) known as the Pre-Raphaelites. (And by the way, apart from his swashbucklers, Dumas was also heavily responsible for yet another cultural trend among early Romantics, the sudden reverence for charming criminals that was known for example in Britain as "Newgate stories," and which gave aging Enlightenment adherents apoplectic attacks when they first started becoming popular in the 1830s.) It's not just a great book on its own, argue its fans, but doubles as a powerful snapshot of what the early Victorian period was all about; combine these two things, they say, and you get the very definition of "literary classic."

The argument against:
Oh, and did I mention that it's 700 pages? And not only that, but 700 pages of "Ha ha!" and "Ho ho!" and "Pardeau!" In fact, this is a common complaint about Dumas in general, that he was a master at taking tight little stories and expanding them into ridiculous lengths, with supporting evidence that's hard to deny; after all, it's a fact that he got paid by the line when originally composing most of his serial tales, and it's also a fact that he eventually set up a "story factory" that cranked out hundreds of such penny-dreadful tales, penned by ghostwriters and with Dumas basically putting his seal of approval on them at the end. Although nearly no one denies that the storyline itself of The Three Musketeers is exciting, there are plenty who object to its rambling, endlessly digressive nature, claiming that this is a story better absorbed as a two-hour movie than through its original space-eating literary form.

My verdict:
I'm afraid that this is one of those days where my judgment comes down right on the line between yes and no; and that's always a shame, because no matter which option I end up choosing, I feel like I'm doing a disservice to the other legitimate argument out there. Because the plain fact is that The Three Musketeers is indeed an undeniably page-turning yarn, a surprisingly funny charmer that convinces you to root for its caddish heroes the same way we do for Han Solo or Indiana Jones; but it's also a fact that this is roughly 300 pages of interesting story padded out to a 700-page manuscript, with there being these sometimes dozen-page digressions throughout consisting of such empty dialogue as coos between lovers, brags between duelers and more. And so there's a part of me that's tempted to recommend just watching one of the many movie versions of this story and being done with it; but then, as its fans so passionately argue online, film adaptations generally do a poor job of capturing the laid-back wit that makes the book so charming in the first place, with it being not really the swordfights themselves that make this story so successful but the cavalier attitudes displayed by the swordfighters. This will appeal intensely to some, and simply rub others the wrong way; and that's why today I give The Three Musketeers a recommendation but only a reserved one, and also give you permission to not feel bad if you yourself don't particularly want to slog your way through it. Such decisions are never popular ones, but in this case at least it's particularly apt.

Is it a classic? Kind of

The next four books scheduled to be read:
Humboldt's Gift, by Saul Bellow
The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett
The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer
Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

Read even more about The Three Musketeers: Amazon | GoodReads | LibraryThing | Shelfari | Wikipedia

(And don't forget that the first 33 essays in this series are now available in book form!)

We just got done yesterday with CCLaP's latest TwitLit story, "Cat" by Gwendolyn Glover, and I hope that those who ended up getting to follow along in real time over at Twitter enjoyed it. (Don't forget to add "@cclapcenter" to your Tweet over there to leave us feedback; Gwen and I would both enjoy hearing what you thought.) As promised, for those who didn't want to bother with the Twitter version, here today is the entire 20-part story available as a free high-quality PDF file at the center's main TwitLit headquarters. You can always stop by that main page anytime in the future for it; but if you're reading this blog entry, you can also right-click directly on the links below to download the most appropriate version right this second:

US laserprinter version (8.5 x 11)

EU laserprinter version (A4)

Don't forget that the next TwitLit story, starting March 24th, is the brand-new "I Loved Gunther Gebel" by our old pal Ben Tanzer; and also don't forget that I'm on the active search for more good TwitLit stories as we speak, in that Ben's is the last one right now scheduled for publication! You can drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com for more, or to simply send a submission. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Today's photo of the day is entitled "Pigeons," and is by J. Knecht. J doesn't mention much about himself at his Flickr profile, but obviously this particular shot was taken in Chicago (that's the John Hancock building you see in the background, one of the most unique skyscrapers the city has). Do make sure to stop by J's main photostream for a lot more great images.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought to You by Pop Culture
By Nathan Rabin
Scribner

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of The Onion's arts and culture publication, The AV Club (or at least I used to be, until mean-spirited "Hater" posts seemingly took over the majority of daily content there); and in particular I'm a slobbering devotee of their smart and funny head entertainment writer, Nathan Rabin, whose remarkable "My Year of Flops" essay series was the direct inspiration for my own "CCLaP 100" series on literary classics. So I was overjoyed to learn that Rabin had recently written a full-length book away from his AV Club duties -- a memoir, in fact, that purports to tell the story of why he finds pop culture so interesting to begin with, and how his love for cheesy movies and gangsta rap led him to the high-profile career he now has. But whoa, then I actually read it, and realized the fascinating truth about Rabin, that he comes from a background so dysfunctional as to make Augusten Burroughs look like one of the Von Trapp kids; and that when he glibly mentions that "pop culture saved my life," he means that as a literal statement of fact, with it frankly being a minor miracle that he's actually a functioning member of society at all, instead of some junkie living in a dumpster behind a Taco Bell, much less the respected journalist and cultural essayist that he is.

And in fact for the vast majority of its 350 pages, The Big Rewind is one unending, cringe-inducing nightmare, the tale of a spindly little Jewish nerd who's had the deck stacked against him nearly from birth -- the child of two '70s radicals who both eventually burned out but in vastly different ways, by puberty Rabin had already been institutionalized against his will, sent to and rejected by a foster family in the tony North Shore of the Chicago suburbs, and eventually consigned to a sort of halfway house for kids with behavioral problems in the dangerous Rogers Park neighborhood. And yes, as you can expect, Rabin uses these situations to relate a whole series of nightmarish anecdotes, a litany of horrors sure to be appreciated by any fan of Running With Scissors; but unlike Burroughs, Rabin uses these opportunities to deliver a lot of laugh-out-loud humor as well (typical line -- "I cannot stress this enough: do not take powerful hallucinogens before going to a Holocaust memorial"), and unbelievably enough mostly tries to stay light-hearted and optimistic when relaying all these past traumas. (Or, well, that's not the only difference between Burroughs and Rabin; unlike the former, for example, Rabin is actually a decent writer, and also doesn't feel the compulsion to just make up stupid sh-t whenever the narrative gets a little slow.)

Eventually, of course, Rabin ends up at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where in typical fashion he falls in with a houseful of smelly hippies and hot undergraduate girlfriends who practice a lopsided form of polyamory (i.e. she gets to attend swinger conventions and be a "sacred prostitute," while he stays at home and smokes a lot of dope); and I say "of course" because Madison is where The Onion was originally founded, which for many years existed as not much more than a xeroxed zine handed out at record stores, and that didn't become the international cultural touchstone it now is until the rise of the Dot Com era in the 1990s. And I have to guiltily admit, there's something truly joyful about seeing someone with a dream job plainly confess that he considers it a dream job too; and I also have to admit, it's legitimately heartwarming to see Rabin confess near the end of the book that The Onion pretty much saved his life, and was what finally let him turn into the responsible, prolific adult he now is.

Now, let's also admit that the book has its problems, ones that were mostly minor for me but that will bother others a lot more; just for starters, his actual writing style can get awfully immature at a lot of points, and it's obvious as well that he still has some issues to work out regarding his sexual orientation, given the uncomfortable frequency in which he obsesses over people who mistake him for gay, a semi-homophobic aspect of this book that I found a real turn-off. (And dear Lord, if you're the kind of person who chafes at the sight of random quotes from old Simpsons episodes, you need to avoid this book like the freaking plague.) All in all, though, I found The Big Rewind to be a very pleasant surprise, given that Rabin could've so easily just put together a compilation of his best AV Club material instead, and made a ton more money without any of the dirty laundry. It's a gutsy book, a riveting one at points, and it comes recommended to anyone who enjoys a brisk, witty read.

Out of 10: 8.6

Read even more about The Big Rewind: Amazon | GoodReads | LibraryThing | Shelfari | Wikipedia

Today's movie: Julia, 2008 (Amazon | IMDB | Netflix | Wikipedia)

Why I added it to my queue: Because I heard Leonard Maltin of all people extolling its virtues the other week on public radio; and he did such a convincing job that I indeed decided to stick it in my Netflix queue.

The reality: Holy crap! Billed as a sentimental tearjerker about an out-of-control alcoholic, this is most definitely NOT the film one gets when actually renting it, but rather one of the darkest and grimmest noir tales I've ever seen or read in any medium, a remorseless look at a character who is clearly supposed to be a despicable villain (played with her usual intensity by 'Queen Of The Baddies' Tilda Swinton), and examining the combination of sociopathy, naked greed and rampant substance abuse that causes her to do the unspeakably evil things she does. That's really the most brilliant part of this film, in fact, and what makes it so memorable, is that writer/director Erick Zonca has not even the slightest interest in garnering the audience's sympathy for his main character, such a slap in the face to the conventional wisdom of Hollywood films; it is instead a character study of evil, pure unadulterated evil, which turns out to be a surprisingly unsettling thing to base a two-hour experience around.

Like all great noirs, the story is a fairly simple one -- Julia is a trainwreck wino and unappealing sex addict, being forced to attend AA meetings by her now-clean buddy, at which point she meets a mentally disturbed Mexican woman who claims that her industrialist ex-husband has stolen her tween son, and that there'd be a huge reward for her if she helped her steal him back; but unlike everyone else in the recovery group, Julia actually believes the woman and makes plans to help her with her caper, which then gets even more complicated when she decides during a binge session that she could get even more money by re-kidnapping the kid from the mom after he's been reverse-stolen, in that the Mexican woman can't go to the police since she's guilty of kidnapping herself. As you can expect (and as is typical in noirs), the entire thing turns out to be a disaster; but the surprising thing is that everything I've mentioned occurs within the first half-hour, with this wildly digressive script going off in all kinds of other unexpected directions by the time it's over, including a jaunt to Mexico itself and a rapidly growing pile of bodies. Like I said, though, mostly this inventive story exists simply to paint us an unforgettable portrait of evil, this pathologically lying monster who will literally do anything to weasel her way out of responsibility; merely the number of ways she manages to be reprehensible in a two-hour period is enough to boggle the mind, much less that you're riveted to your seat the entire time as well (although make no mistake -- unlike almost every other movie on the subject, there is never a point where you're lulled into having a grudging sympathy for her, instead just becoming more and more disgusted the longer the movie goes on). It's a gusty decision, within a medium and industry that highly frowns on such a thing, and it's easy to see why this film makes such a profound impression on nearly everyone who sees it. It comes highly, highly recommended today. Thank you, Leonard Maltin!

Strangest piece of trivia: This movie was inspired by the John Cassavetes film Gloria.

Worth your time? Oh my, yes

I'm happy to announce that the newest story in the CCLaP series TwitLit, Gwendolyn Glover's "Cat," will be starting over at Twitter a little later this morning. Here's Gwen's bio, for those who'd like to know a little more about her:

Gwendolyn Glover is the author of the Young Adult novel, Cast the First Stone (Lulu, 2008). She is an avid blogger and recently finished a month-long exploration of the body through essay, poetry, fiction, and discussion. She plans on traveling the world, gathering stories, and tutoring English as a foreign language. To follow her adventures, visit gwendolynglover.com.

Gwen's story, "Cat," is an interesting experiment I think you'll enjoy, and what has turned out to be the most straightforwardly narrative tale so far of the entire "TwitLit" series. To read the live version as it's being serially published over the next two days, simply "follow" CCLaP's account at your own over at Twitter (twitter.com/cclapcenter); the twenty chapters comprising "Cat" will be published on a roughly hourly basis over the next two days, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Chicago time or 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. GMT. (And don't worry about missing a few updates -- TwitLit stories are designed specifically so that one can skip a few chapters and still not be lost.) For those who don't want to bother with Twitter, don't forget that a downloadable high-quality PDF poster version of the entire story will be available here starting this Friday, over at the website's main TwitLit page (cclapcenter.com/twitlit). And don't forget, both Gwen and I would love to hear your feedback about this experiment; you can do so as a comment to this blog post, over at the CCLaP Facebook group, or directly at Twitter by adding "@cclapcenter" to your tweet. I hope you like it!

Today's photo of the day is entitled "X-Press," and is by Koen Colpaert. Koen is from the city of Ghent in Belgium; as the title suggests, this particular image is of an abandoned X-Press machine, spied in a crumbling warehouse in that country. Koen actually maintains an entire website for his photographs documenting abandoned spaces; it's really fascinating, and I encourage you to stop by if you have a chance.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran
By Hooman Majd
Doubleday

Like millions of other Americans, I am in the active process these days of increasing my knowledge base regarding the Middle East and Southeast Asia, from its former level of "zero" to a new level of "more than zero." But this of course immediately presents a problem to armchair scholars -- namely, with a subject so vast, where do you even start when you know literally nothing? For example, it's definitely important to understand the complex feudal empires that ruled these areas during what's known in the West as the Middle Ages, although such study doesn't even begin to explain the region in the here and now; but by concentrating solely on contemporary issues, one misses entirely the strong cultural background that led to these attitudes in the first place. Do you filter all your information through the all-important subject of religion in this section of the world? If so, then how do you begin to understand the actions of West-friendly reformers? But then without a solid grounding of religious education, how do you even begin to understand something like the Taliban, and why they seemingly have a surprising amount of support from people who aren't particularly violent or reactionary themselves?

So thank God, then, for books like the recent and fantastic The Ayatollah Begs to Differ by Hooman Majd, because it's actually several things at once -- not just a primer on historical issues regarding the old Persian Empire, but a field guide to the modern Iran it became, an on-the-ground report about daily life inside a working theocracy, even a funny Bill-Bryson-style travelogue about a clueless Westerner smoking opium with random strangers, participating in a self-flagellation festival, and going skiing at a bling-bling-filled Muslim mountain resort. And in fact Majd is in a uniquely great position to be telling a story like this; after all, he was born into an Iranian family of high political influence (both during the last years of the Shah and the first years of the Islamic Republic that came after), but then eventually moved to New York and became a senior executive within the entertainment industry (and a contributing writer to Andy Warhol's Interview magazine, back when it was still good), making him simultaneously an insider and outsider to modern Iranian culture, about as perfect a position to be in to relate to fellow Americans exactly what daily life is like over there these days.

And indeed, over the course of several trips he makes there during the waning years of the Bush administration, Majd presents us with a nation profoundly more complex than most Americans even have a clue concerning, a place where the historical and modern clash in sometimes amusing, sometimes tragic ways -- a society that in theory is an open democracy, with public elections and a strong emphasis on basic human rights, yet ruled at the top by a circle of religious experts whose judgments are not allowed to be questioned, a country that creates elaborate public dress codes but are then ignored by half the population with no repercussions (well, except around elections, when conservative candidates will initiate morality crackdowns to look good in the eyes of voters, almost exactly what you see during American elections as well). And in fact that's probably Majd's most surprising conclusion of all, that current Iran is not actually too terribly different than Bush's America in the early 2000s, a "free" society but full of draconian rules but that most citizens then promptly ignore, leading back to that free society it's supposed to be, but with the whole thing manifested in this overly complicated, seemingly contradictory way.

And Majd tells us this story in a great way too, by gaining access to events and people that he can only pull off by being from a politically connected family -- over the course of this easily readable 250-page manuscript, we get to sit in on interviews with high-ranking government officials, attend booze-and-pot-filled parties full of urban liberal hipsters, witness a series of ultra-conservative religious rituals in the country's rural wastelands (think the Islamic version of a Pentecostal tent revival in the Deep South, full of writhing true believers speaking in tongues), and of course eavesdrop on a whole series of private home-based salons and dinner parties, centered around middle-class family gardens and friendly afternoon opium sessions (the Iranian equivalent of cigars and cocktails among businessmen), which is where the vast majority of the nation's collective decisions are very quietly made. And this of course is the biggest contradiction of all concerning modern Iran, as Majd so deftly shows us through conversation and example, the simultaneous superiority and inferiority complexes that most Iranians suffer from (caused respectively from the clash between their ancient Persian past and more recent colonial days), resulting in a society where among other things one is perfectly free to publicly criticize the government, just as long as you don't do it too loudly or attract too much attention (and wow, talk about the Bush years in a nutshell).

It's a fascinating book full of all kinds of surprising and paradigm-shifting conclusions, and I have to admit that I've had my entire worldview concerning Iran profoundly change just from this book alone. It's the perfect kind of informational title for most Americans, funny and entertaining even as it teaches much-needed basic lessons about Islam and Persia, and it comes today highly recommended to nearly every person on the planet, Iranians themselves included.

Out of 10: 9.8

Read even more about The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: Official site | Amazon | GoodReads | LibraryThing | Shelfari | Wikipedia

Today's photo of the day is entitled "Restos," and is by Ibán Ramón. Ibán is a full-time photographer and graphic designer based out of Valencia, Spain, which I believe is where this particular shot was also taken. He has a nice personal website as well, for those who would like to learn more.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

I recently heard from a new small publisher here in Chicago called Criminal Class Press, who were kind enough to send along as well the latest issue of their book-length literary journal, Criminal Class Review; and I've ended up really enjoying it this week as I've slowly made my way through it at random moments, so wanted to make sure to put up a mention of them here too, so that you all could check them out as well. Inspired by such edgy '80s writers as Irvine Welsh and Jim Thompson, CCP is a collection of dark-lit fans who are attempting to create a haven of sorts for the next generation of such authors, providing not only the paper journal but also producing a series of live events, and of course with a website that keeps growing each day. This latest issue, their fourth, is in fact completely dedicated to contemporary noir tales, and I think all you genre fans out there will get a big kick out of it.

Just this weekend CCP had two big shows here in Chicago, one at Quimby's Bookstore and the other at indie-rock haunt The Empty Bottle, that latter event featuring the author of one of my all-time favorite books from the 1990s, Jim Goad of The Redneck Manifesto and of course the infamously offensive zine Answer Me! And then on March 13th, the CCP crowd will be sponsoring a live show in San Francisco as well, specifically at Evergold Gallery near the Powell Street BART station; among other performers will be two friends of mine, Michelle Tea and Bucky Sinister, so I can guarantee that a fun time will be had by all. I encourage you to make it out if you're in the Bay area yourself, or to at least pick up the latest issue of their high-quality trade-paperback journal.

Today's photo of the day is entitled "Summer time," and is by David Croft. David is from the Welsh city of Betws-y-Coed, which I assume is where this particular shot was taken as well. Do make sure to visit his main photostream for a lot more great images.

Don't forget that I actually maintain a whole page of favorite photographs over at Flickr, for those who would like to see more. To express an interest in having your own work featured, just drop me a line at cclapcenter [at] gmail.com.

Today's movie: The Watcher in the Woods, 1980 (Amazon | IMDB | Netflix | Wikipedia)

Why I added it to my queue: Because back when I was eleven years old and this movie first came out, the commercials for it would scare the beejeezus out of me whenever they'd unexpectedly pop up at night; and believe it or not, in all this time I've never actually seen the movie in question, although I still vividly remember the nightmares its commercials caused. I thought it was high time to change that situation.

The reality: So for those who don't know, the Disney Corporation didn't exactly respond well to the countercultural era, first ignoring for a long time that it was even happening, then in the '70s starting to oh so tepidly add more subversive elements to their usual kiddie fare (see Escape to Witch Mountain, Candleshoe and Freaky Friday, for example), leading to a decision at the end of the Carter administration that was highly controversial at the time, to finally produce their first truly dark PG films in the company's history. The first and third of these films, 1979's The Black Hole and 1982's Tron, are the ones that get the most attention these days; but sandwiched between them was this forgotten gem, starring Lynn-Holly Johnson at her feathered-hair teenage best, as the oldest daughter of an American family of intellectuals, who have decided to rent a rural English cottage for a summer in order for the parents to get some work done without interruptions. But unfortunately for them, said cottage is owned by a batsh-t crazy Bette Davis, cacklingly good here in one of her late roles, who years ago lost her daughter to what seems like a malevolent supernatural creature who lives on the edge of the estate's woods, and who is under the impression that she will get her daughter back if she can find a similar teenaged girl to take her place.

And I gotta say, I'm actually kind of glad that it took me this long to finally see it, because this movie is creeeeeepy; between all the shattered windows and mirrors, the recurring image of a blindfolded girl in the middle of the woods, and the arcane pagan rituals held in abandoned churches that turn out to be part of the complex story of Davis' daughter disappearing, this barely resembles something that Disney would usually have its name associated with, and it's easy to see why just a few short years later, the company would start up a brand-new imprint (Touchstone Pictures) specifically to put out darker titles like these in the future. An anomaly for Disney, one that will scare the pants off you if you're not ready for it, and it comes highly recommended if you've never seen it before.

Strangest piece of trivia: The musician father seen here is played by David McCallum, who some will most know as secret agent Illya Kuryakin in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and others know as forensic scientist "Duckie" Mallard on N.C.I.S.

Worth your time? Yes

P.S. And here, the nightmare-inducing television commercial in question. Oh, internet, is there anything you can't do?