The Haunted Palace
This is a Roger Corman movie that supposedly is part of his Poe cycle of the adaptation but in reality it is a film version of The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward. A single line from a poem by Poe is used to justify the pretense adaptation but as a Lovecraft film it actually works pretty well. It’s always nice to see Vincent Price in one of these moody atmospheric films. I’m glad I sent away for the Blu-ray from the U.K.
The NRA
Last week the Attorneys General for the State of New York and the District of Columbia files suits to dissolve the National Rifle Association. The NRA operates as a non-profit organization dedicated education and training of the general public on matters related to firearm use and ownership with a supposedly side interest in lobbying and political work. The suits however are not related to lobbying and political activism but rather focus on corruption and the senior leadership using the non-profit as their own personal profit centers and in that respect the suits are not dissimilar to the ones used to dissolve the Trump Foundation that had also engaged in serious financial corruption.
There are those who advance the idea that this is an election year political ploy by the various Attorneys General to harm the GOP in the upcoming election but I have serious doubts about that hypothesis. This action is likely to energize the GOP base and provoke them to turn out in greater numbers and with less than 90 days until the election it is highly doubtful that these suits can sideline the NRA before the voting. Legal gears do not turn that quickly. I think it is clear that the New York AG was hostile to the NRA but it is also clear that the NRA suffered from deep systemic corruption.
Horrible Imaginings Film Festival
Next month is the 11th annual Horrible Imaginings Film Festival and the first year that the festival will be entirely virtual. The pandemic has been terrible with the economic damage and the loss of life that is nowhere near ending and in these dark fearful times it is good to find what little joy and light there is and one of those things is the festival dedicated to horror films short and long from around the world. I have taken days off around that weekend and while I will desperately miss the in-person event at the Freda Cinema I will thoroughly enjoy the films.
