Jeff Goldblum is an awesome dude. He knows dinosaurs, has blended his genes with a fly, and is equally comfortable with aliens, fighting them or otherwise. In a recent Apartments.com commercial, he is part of a group having a first encounter with arthropod aliens that have been described as giant ants, but I also see some resemblance in them to Star Trek’s Species 8472. In either case, they’re quite cool as well. The hard-headed military types in the group of humans seem all too willing to open fire, but Goldblum knows better. These aliens are just looking for a rental apartment, probably in a good location, and not too expensive…
And these aliens argue amongst themselves as to whether they want a one or two bedroom apartment; two would accomodate her mother when she comes to visit, so of course the guy is in favor of a single bedroom model. In either case, Jeff Goldblum is tuned to their wavelength, and sure to be able to fix them up. They’re just extraterrentrials. Some things seem to be universal, after all… đŚ
Here comes Peter Rottentail! It seems to be a recent trend in movies to reverse iconic benevolent or virtuous characters such as Santa, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, or Bambi to make them menacing and malevolent.– -Well, Easter is coming, and weâve got a bad egg for your basket in the form of a malevolent Jackalope terrorizing a Texas town!
A jackalopeis kind of a shape-shifting creature that is part human and part giant horned rabbit, and it appears that local legend holds that such ravaged the area a century and a half ago. Guess whoâs making a comeback, leading a demon bunny army, and just in time for the small townâs Easter-palooza!
The horror-comedy opens in late March, and you know about those mad March hares! Itâs up to Texas determination and a professional bunny slayer to split a few hares⌠đ
What?!- – Say it ain’t so! Progressive Insurance’s Jamie in cahoots with bank robbers, and ones wearing cat masks, to boot? Well, Jamie is the eternal innocent, and when he signed on to be a wheelman, he didn’t understand that title to mean an escape car driver. Rather, wheelman is an old family name for Jamie..itâs Irish!
So when three cat animal-headed robbers make a hasty exit from the bank, Jamie cheerfully asks them if they’ve gotten their banking done.Unfortunately for the robbers, Jamie’s in no hurry to burn rubber leaving, either.He pulls out slowly, almost immediately stopping at a stop sign where he times the stop by counting 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, etc.Jamie deals with their befuddlement by sharing that he has Progressive’s “Snapshot” feature, which rewards good, but not speedy drivers. These robbers are screwed…
And I guess that you could saythat these were cat burglars. I envy them their masks…
Dean Winters in his Allstate commercials effectively does a remarkable range of impersonations of objects, types of people, and to my interest, animals. In recent memory he has portrayed a raccoon, large breed puppy, bear, and my personal fave, a cat! Remarkably, he channels all of these creatures with little or no makeup, and often while wearing a suit. He doesnât require a costume or prosthetics, rendering his minimalist but spot-on impressions by posture, actions, and attitudeâŚ
âŚand so equally masterful is Wintersâ impression of a wild deer, emerging from a wooded area chewing on a leaf. He comes to a road, musing âWhat is thisthing?â as he freezes on that surface, because thatâs what deer do. Transfixed by the headlights of an approaching car, Winters as deer is thrown up onto the vehicle before landing on the pavement before it, leaving vehicular damage in his wakeâŚ
Winters is not a dead deer, however, continuing to address us scuffed up while lying on the road surface. Heck, Mayhem is nigh about indestructible. And if you had Allstate insurance, you might save some bucks, and be saved from MayhemâŚlike him! đ
Please allow me to introduce myself, Iâm the GrinchâŚof Mt. Crumpit!â – -(to the tune of, âSympathy for the Devil,â by The Rolling Stones)
Atthis time of year, my thoughts turn naturally to The Grinch. He was, after all, a furry, and like many of us, misunderstood and much-maligned. Max was a furry too, an anthropomorphic dog, loyal and obedient to his master, even if the Ego to the Grinchâs Id.Max I suspect actually liked Xmas, and probably would have affectionately licked any Whos that he came acrossâŚ
Now, can you imagine being visibly different as a child, then banished to lonely exile on the foreboding heights of Mt. Crumpit? As Kermit the Frog memorably lamented, âItâs not easy being green!â
Is there not, I say, a little bit of the pre-redemptive Grinch in all of us? Who of us has not had dark thoughts after being exposed to Xmas carols and commercials since Halloween? I mean, how many times can you suffer hearing âI Want A Hippopotamus for Xmasâ before you utterly lose it?! đ
And letâs face it, The Whos were annoying in their relentless cheerfulness. They represented the overkill aspects of Xmas, and holding us all up to an impossible celebratory standard. Clearly, they needed taken down a few pegs, an infusion of GrinchinessâŚ
Even pre-redemptively, The Grinch had some remarkable qualities. He was a survivor, a strong if solitary spirit who was a master strategist and a genius inventor with many skills, kind of the Wile E. Coyote of Xmas characters. His Road Runner was the Xmas overkill that is everywhere at this time of year. I submit to you that The Grinch was a cultural warrior, a tragic hero who only wanted peace and sanity, and perhaps a little Who HashâŚ
So respect and honor The Grinch, who meant well but whose reach exceeded his grasp. I shall celebrate The Mean One in my heart always, and save him a generous slice of roast beastâŚđŚ
Drama Queens (and Kings, letâs be honest) are just about everywhere on the internet. You can barely enter a forum without encountering at least one, and they are easy to âtrigger.â So it is appropriate that Dramamine has unveiled a spokes-animal that is an actual drama-llama, trying to get Rachel nervous about an upcoming flightâŚ
âŚwalking with her, the drama llama reminds the air traveler that she got nauseous during a previous flight, that the flight may get bumpy, and that she has a middle seat. But when Rachel whips out her box of Dramamine, the llama audibly gasps, stands back as the jet door closes, and tells the passenger that he or she is gonna wait right there!
Although the llamaâs voice sounds male, if female would the drama llama be a momma? And at night time, would she be a drama llama in pajamas? Inquiring minds wanna knowâŚ
So if you see a drama llama, donât feed it unless with DramamineâŚand donât confuse a drama lama with an emo alpaca, either⌠đŚ
This commercial for Mountain Dew blew me away…totally! It’s definitely furry-friendly. Three persons figure in it. A guy is working on his computer in a large office. He stares at his complexion on his monitor, and he is reptilian. A young womanin a diner happens to stare out the window, and sees her reflection as an exotic bird. A third guy is throwing out garbage in an alley, looks up, and sees his image as feline. This furry trio has gotta do the town, and they do!
We see these guys individually and collectively, the reptile viewing his reflection in an elevator glass and the big cat viewing his paw appendages. They go places, too, like a pool hall, making a fine entrance and getting admiring glances. The reptilian is shown performing in some kind of trendy club, playing to a receptive audience. Two of them are shown in an off-road vehicle.There’s no stopping these guys as they make the world their own in their idealized furry forms…
So enjoy…I think that someone out there in commercial-land finally understands the furry experience, and the inner self!And I’d drink a boatload of Mountain Dew if it would transform me… đŚ
Unto you, good readers, I show my inner self. Halloween’s here, a time that I relish more than Xmas. Let us rejoice and be glad in it with a few things that may help you get into the spirit of the season, one that is all too brief but precious in its brevity…
From Michael Jackson’s Halloween Special of several years ago (2017) we bring you Jim Parsons (best known as Sheldon Cooper) voicing Hay Man, and channeling the dance moves of Michael Jackson, complete with a back-up cast of animals that include foxes!What could be more appropriate than some foxes bustin’ some serious moves, because we’re feral, ‘ya see…because we’re bad…because we’re dangerous!
Yes, Iâm an unabashed Halloween freak! I adore it, and resist all pressures to “outgrow” the holiday. One does not âoutgrowâ HalloweenâŚit grows on you, and within you.- -Xmas spirit?- -I nurture the spirit of Halloween! I think that my enjoyment of horror gives me my dosage of Halloween year-round. Itâs like a nutritional requirement for me, reallyâŚ
We animal-spirits are a natural for Halloween, too. We can all draw inspiration from cats. Mine are daily trying to become more human, while Iâm trying to become more like them. Perhaps we could meet in the middleâŚ
Yes, Halloween has some dark elements, but itâs also a celebration, a kind of restorative reaching within yourself to validate and liberate what might be there. We need to kick back a bit against the bonds of civilization. This can be a cathartic experience, which ties in nicely with the furry fandom, which is communal but also intensely individual. We are never more free than when we embrace our inner animalâŚ
So enjoy your Halloween, and carry a bit of it in your heart all-year round. I know that I do⌠đŚ
Itâs daunting to deal with the Netflix series Stranger Things in a single post because of the scope and complexity of it. For those unfamiliar with it, suffice it to say that the series is a science fiction/horror delight, and it doesnât get much sweeter than this!
Stranger Things might be compared to the works of Stephen King blended through The X-Files and run through Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though the comparison is inadequate. If watching the series, begin with Season 1 Episode 1, or it will seem incomprehensible. You may think youâre watching a kidâs series at first as the protagonists are all pre-teens initially, but hang inâŚ
The Duffer brothers who created the series set it in the sleepy Indiana town of Hawkins in the 1980âs, where the government has been conducting secret unethical experiments on children with psychic powers, kinda like human lab rats. One of them, named Eleven as her subject number, has awesome psychic powers, and is at the heart of the showâŚpsychokinesis and remote viewing are among her talents. Raised in a lab, Eleven initially shows a lack of language training, conventional education, and even human contact, but is a fast study...
And it gets stranger still, turning out that thereâs kind of a portal to another dimension in the area called the Upside Down, through which monsters pass, and abduct people when it suits them. Some of the monsters closely parallel those of Dungeons and Dragons, such as the Demogorgon or Demo-dogâŚ
There are other monsters jumping between dimensions, too, like the Mind-Flayer, which can possess people and assume a variety of forms. Those possessed can be referred to as the Flayed⌠đ
At the top of the food chain is Vecna, which sounds like an insurance company but who is actually another lab experiment gone terribly awry, and turned to the dark side. Once human, Vecna resembles someone who has been flayed and burned, and also possesses powerful psychokinetic powers, which leads to epic good-versus-evil battles with Eleven.
Soon to enter its fifth season, Stranger Things brings together science fiction, horror, and a little leavening humor in a rare combination, and is likely to hook you into its winning formula...
Werewolves on a train? – –Well, why notâŚit worked for snakes on a plane, and monsters and other nasties can be even more horrifying if their victims are somehow in a confined space with less chance to run or escapeâŚ
So take a British night train out of London, have it break down in a deep, dark forest infested by werewolves, and youâre set for some claustrophobic gory fun. Being British, however, this will be a proper train, complete with a tea cart girl dispensing tea and chicken sandwiches. There is a guard on duty, working a second shift but well-attired in a dress jacket, asking passengers for ticketsâŚ
Things start to go awry when the train hits a deer which clogs under the wheels, necessitating a stop where the investigating engineer becomes victim #1. Werewolves gradually approach and then infiltrate the train, which passengers progressively barricade. As the barricades are breached, the characters of passengers are revealed, and hand-to-hand combat becomes necessary with the werewolves, which to me rather resemble Yeti with upgraded dentitionâŚthese are humanoid werewolves, with not nearly enough hair and snout. I like a werewolf with a good muzzle, so I fault the creature designâŚ
As the Nazis discovered, you can only push Brits so far, and in one memorable scene, a well-attired book-reading gentleman goes absolutely medieval on a werewolfâs head with a fire axe! Howl is recommended for moments of black humor such as this, and you can catch this 2015 film on Netflix or UtubeâŚ
FOXSYLVANIA 
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