Thursday, May 28, 2009

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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I watched this last night and knew immediately that this would be today's Way Not To Die. And I also knew immediately that I'd found my long-looked-for entry in Arbogast On Film's "The One You Might Have Saved" ongoing blogathon, wherein we bloggers choose somebody who gets killed in a movie that we'd have taken the opportunity to rescue if given the chance because they touched us in some way and we didn't like to see them go.

See, Jean-Pierre Marielle's private dick Gianni Arrosiois is a gloriously stereotypical queen of the finest retro-Argento fashion - mincing, unable to keep his hands off of any man in his reach - but the devil bless him for it.


I've always had a soft spot for Argento's queens - they show up often and are always raging stereotypes, but his straight characters are always so fucked up sexually that the queens always seem to come off as happy and well-adjusted, at least comparatively speaking, and for the time that's a pretty big deal.

And for some reason something about Marielle's performance struck me as especially charming, so when he's offed so strangely, and his final words - "I was right... I did it this time." - are a bittersweet (emphasis on the bitter since he just got poisoned junk injected into his nipple) acknowledgment of his long delayed success as a crime-solver (he's figured out who the killer was just before being killed, something he hadn't done in all of his previous cases)... well I felt bad for the dude. So RIP Gianni! I hope you're swishing your way through the afterlife happy to know you went out with one under your belt. So to speak.

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Previous Ways Not To Die: Your Pick Of The Deadly Six -- Thing Hungry -- Don't Fuck With The Serial Killer's Daughter -- DO Forget To Add The Fabric Softener -- Any Of The Ways Depicted In This Masterpiece Of Lost Cinema -- Rode Down In The Friscalating Dusklight -- Good Morning, Sunshine! -- Mornin' Cuppa Drano -- The Cylon-Engineered Apocalypse -- Tender-Eye-zed -- Martian Atmospheric Asphyxiation -- Maimed By A Mystical Person-Cat -- The Sheets Are Not To Be Trusted -- Handicapable Face-Hacked -- I Did It For You, Faramir -- Summertime In The Park... Of A Pedophile's Mind -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 3 -- Strung Up With Festive Holiday Bulbs By Santa Claus Himself -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 2 -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 1 -- Decapitated Plucked Broiled & Sliced -- Head On A Stick! -- A Trip To The Ol' Wood-Chipper -- Pointed By The T-1000 -- Sucking Face With Freddy Krueger -- A Pen-Full Of Home-Brewed Speed to The Eye -- Motivational Speech, Interrupted -- A Freak Ephemera Storm -- When Ya Gotta Go... Ya Gotta Go -- Hoisted By Your Own Hand Grenade -- Having The Years Suction-Cupped Away -- Criss-Cross -- Turned Into A Person-Cocoon By The Touch Of A Little Girl's Mirror Doppleganger -- Satisfying Society's "Pop Princess" Blood-Lust -- Done In By The Doggie Door -- Tuned Out -- Taking the 107th Step -- Rescuing Gretchen -- Incinerated By Lousy Dialogue -- Starred & Striped Forever -- Vivisection Via Vaginally-Minded Barbed-Wire -- Chompers (Down There) -- Run Down By M. Night Shyamalan -- Everything Up To And Including The Kitchen Toaster -- Sacrificed To Kali -- Via The Gargantuan Venom Of The Black Mamba Snake -- Turned Into An Evil Robot -- The Out-Of-Nowhere Careening Vehicle Splat -- "Oh My God... It's Dip!!!" -- Critter Balled -- Stuff'd -- A Hot-Air Balloon Ride... Straight To Hell!!! -- Puppy Betrayal -- High-Heeled By A Girlfriend Impersonator -- Flip-Top Beheaded -- Because I'm Too Goddamned Beautiful To Live -- By Choosing... Poorly... -- Fried Alive Due To Baby Ingenuity -- A Good Old-Fashioned Tentacle Smothering -- Eepa! Eepa! -- Gremlins Ate My Stairlift -- An Icicle Thru The Eye -- Face Carved Off By Ghost Doctor After Lesbian Tryst With Zombie Women -- Electrocuted By Fallen Power-Lines -- A Mouthful Of Flare -- Taken By The TV Lady -- Bitten By A Zombie -- Eaten By Your Mattress -- Stuffed To Splitting -- Face Stuck In Liquid Nitrogen -- Crushed By Crumbling Church Debris -- Bitten By The Jaws Of Life -- A Machete To The Crotch -- Showering With A Chain-Saw -- In A Room Filled With Razor Wire -- Pod People'd With Your Dog -- Force-Fed Art -- Skinned By A Witch -- Beaten With An Oar -- Curbed -- Cape Malfunction -- In The Corner -- Cooked In A Tanning Bed -- Diced -- Punched Through The Head -- Bugs Sucking On Your Head
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3 comments:

Ross said...

Wow, are those stills from the new Mya release? I may have to pick that up - the quality is far superior to the one I have!

Yeah, I love Argento for his gay characters. Even if they're a bit stereotypical, it was a big deal back then to have any gay characters at all, let alone sympathetic ones.

Jason Adams said...

It's the copy I got from Netflix, Ross; it just came out a few weeks back I believe so yeah, it must be the one you speak of. It was in beautiful, pristine condition.

Ross said...

I have one from Germany that's acceptable, but not great. I didn't want to double dip, but I may have to!