MADHOUSE PARTY

Opening today at AMC Arizona Center:

Stonehearst Asylum—In this period melodrama, an ambitious young fellow (Jim Sturgess) arrives at the spooky, fog-shrouded title institution, late in 1899, asking to learn the ropes of the new field of psychology. The headshrinker in charge (Ben Kingsley) seems a decent, civilized sort, but soon the new guy realizes that this haven for wealthy crazies harbors a shocking secret.

It won’t be that much of a secret to those who have read Poe’s “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether,” on which this absorbing, slyly old-school Gothic is based. But the twists are unraveled skillfully by director Brad Anderson and screenwriter Joe Gangemi, and the cast is hard to beat: Along with Kingsley, there’s Kate Beckinsale and Brendan Gleeson and David Thewlis—scary as the asylum’s enforcer—and even the great Michael Caine.

Stonehearst Asylum hits the tropes of the madhouse scare picture, but the subtlety of the script and of these actors brings this conventional material some troubling moral ambiguity and shifts in sympathy. It’s a small gem—a horror movie with heart.

MINION SOUP

Happy Fourth everybody!

As usual, I suggest a ceremonial viewing of the Star Trek episode “The Omega Glory,” which offers what should be an elementary cautionary moral against fetishizing objects of patriotic regard like the Constitution or the flag, but which all too many in our country need to be reminded of.

Speaking of nerdishness, the other evening The Wife, The Kid and I were cruising down 19th Avenue, when suddenly I began singing the theme song from the sitcom The Big Bang Theory: “Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state…”

“What made you think of that?” The Wife asked.

I gave her a glance.

“Do you have a guess?” I asked, but by then I knew she had traced my thoughts. We were passing a bar called La Pachanga, which had made me think of Sheldon’s catchphrase “Bazenga!” which had made me think of the show.

In other words, The Wife is capable of “ratiocination” on the level of Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin.

RIP to the great and influential Richard Matheson, passed on at 87, and to Jim “Black Belt Jones” Kelly, passed on at 67.

With Despicable Me 2 in theatres…

Monster-of-the-Week: …let’s give the honor to this specimen of the voracious purple “evil minions” from the film, seen here in the new policy trailer for AMC Theaters…

COOKIE MONSIEUR

Friday I had lunch with Vince Larue, the splendid young illustrator who created the cover art for my zombie novel…

Vince was in town for the scheduled opening, that evening, of a show at Willo North Gallery in which his work was to be featured, but which was—for reasons unrelated to him—ignominiously cancelled after he had already made the trip from France to attend the opening (happily, the show is to open in March instead, at a venue TBA).

Anyway, for lunch we went to Beijing Garden, the newish, excellent Chinese place at COFCO Center. I had the eggplant in brown sauce—sublime—and Vince had the spicy tofu, which I sampled and which was also delicious, though a bit spicier than I prefer. When we finished, we were brought our fortune cookies.

Now, at a friend’s recommendation last year I read a charming book, which I highly recommend, called The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, by a New York Times reporter named Jennifer 8 Lee (yes, her middle name is “8”). It’s about the considerable significance of Chinese food in general, and the fortune cookie in particular, in American culture.

Apparently the fortune cookie is not so familiar in Normandy. I cracked mine open, read my fortune (“Have a vision. Be demanding.”) and was crunching up the halves when I heard Vince giggling from across the table. I looked up.

“I ate the message,” he said sheepishly, spitting out a tiny wad of pulverized paper.

So his fortune remains a mystery. But if I had to take a guess, it would be that a bright future is betokened for this guy.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday, everybody. To the very tiny degree that I care, I guess I‘m rooting for Baltimore, as I’ve had a lot of fun in that city, and I love that they named their football team in honor of Poe, who died there.