#and maybe that Martin mars has an accident and needs to stay over for a while to get fixed

[johnnymundano]

Sleepwalkers (1992)

Directed by Mick Garris

Screenplay by Stephen King

Music by Nicholas Pike

Country: United States

Running time: 91 minutes

CAST

Brian Krause as Charles Brady

Alice Krige as Mary Brady

Mädchen Amick as Tanya Robertson

Sparks the cat as Clovis

Lyman Ward as Donald Robertson

Cindy Pickett as Helen Robertson

Ron Perlman as Captain Soames

Jim Haynie as Sheriff Ira Stevens

Dan Martin as Deputy Andy Simpson

Lucy Boryer as Jeanette

Glenn Shadix as Mr. Fallows

Stephen King as Cemetery Caretaker

John Landis as Lab Technician

Joe Dante as Lab Assistant

Clive Barker as Forensic Tech

Tobe Hooper as Forensic Tech

Mark Hamill as Sheriff Jenkins

I have no beef with Stephen King, let’s get that out upfront. I’m not one of those “Yeah, but it’s not proper books is it?” chancers who churlishly resent his Medal for Distinguished Contribution (lifetime) to American Letters. Nope, not me. But Sleepwalkers is a real honker. It’s stoopid, hyuk-hyuk, pick your nose in church, comic book bullshit. And purposely so. Crap like this doesn’t happen by accident. And King is totally responsible for this. There’s no “Wah! Someone took my script and made a shitshow of it” excuse here. Sleepwalkers is often called (as it is onscreen) Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers; the guy’s all over this one. It’s even an original script (maybe, I hear, based on an unpublished story; I didn’t check but I’m pretty sure the only things remaining unpublished by Stephen King in 2019 are his notes to the milkman. And they are due out next year from Subterranean Press, in a limited edition that costs more than a week’s shopping for a small family.) The script is his and so is the director; King personally pushed for Mick Garris, and King got Mick Garris. Even the songs on the soundtrack are pure Stephen King too; old timey R’n’R like at the sock hop where Cindy Lou showed you her woo-woo, mixed with that special kind of shitty heavy rock liked by confused men who think having hair like a girl in a shampoo advert is a signifier of raw masculinity. Other than composing and playing the instrumental score on a home-made kazoo personally, could Sleepwalkers be any more Stephen King? No.

For some unhappy reason whenever he gets any substantial control over a movie King’s IQ plummets to room temperature and all his worst impulses leap to the fore like randy cats. (I submit to the jury Maximum Overdrive (Dir: Stephen King, 1986), m’lud; the prosecution rests.) I think (maybe) King, bless his cotton socks, is trying to recreate the cinema of his youth; stuff like The Blob (1958), Them! (1954), Invaders From Mars (1953) and I Married A Monster From Outer Space (1958). The pulp fun cinema of a dead age. Unfortunately for King, those people back then were trying to make the best movie they could; the pop culture magic which ensured their success and longevity  was purely unintentional and completely impervious to intelligent creation. King’s forays into movies seem to be trying to reverse engineer serendipity; a fools’ errand that results in foolish movies. Movies like Sleepwalkers.

The impulse to gravitate to camp seems ingrained in Cinematic King. Even when he just does one of his almost ubiquitous cameos, he often fails to resist the temptation to goof about like some brain damaged hayseed on a 1960s sit-com. If someone, Criterion maybe, went back and dubbed a pant-ripping fart over all Alfred Hitchcock’s onscreen cameos we’d be approaching the same ballpark of screen disruption as a Stephen King cameo. Of course he has a cameo in Sleepwalkers. A talking cameo at that as a “cemetery caretaker”, and King confounds expectations by playing it like some brain damaged hayseed on a 1960s sit-com. Even better, his unnecessary cameo bounces off unnecessary cameos by Tobe Hooper and Clive Barker; it’s like the business of the movie pauses for a couple of minutes purely so King can piss about with his mates. This is swiftly followed by cameos from John Landis and Joe Dante who, er, say some “lab” stuff I missed because Joe Dante’s hair is so…fascinating. I don’t mind cameos as long as they are unobtrusive but these might as well be announced by dancing girls and a marching band. At least all the characters aren’t called stuff like “Officer Hooper” or “Mayor Corman”; that shit gets old real quick.

As anyone who has ever cleaned out a litter box can tell you, another kind of shit that gets old quick is cat shit. There are a lot of cats in Sleepwalkers, the hero even turns out to be a cat, Clovis by name. In fact Sparks the cat, as Clovis, gives the third best performance in the movie, behind Mädchen Amick  and Alice Krige. Mädchen Amick is undeniably great here. She’s totally pleasant and nicer than nice without making you want to choke on your own fist. There’s an exuberant scene of her dancing to a song Stephen King obviously likes, in the lobby of a cinema, which is a very lovely scene and she continues to be a refreshing presence throughout the movie. Alice Krige is also good value, striking a nice balance between vile and vulnerable; she acts like her no doubt soon-to-be-fired agent told her she’s in a serious movie. Everyone else seems to have received a script with “Camp It The Fuck Up, Daddio! Love, Steve-o” scrawled across it, probably in crayon. Were that the case, then everyone performs superlatively. The usually fine actor and generally welcome screen presence Ron Perlman, particularly, thunders through every scene he’s in like subtlety is a crime.

Maybe in the world of Sleepwalkers subtlety is a crime. Because the world of Sleepwalkers is a funny world, one where werecat son and werecat mom Charles and Mary Brady (Brian Krause and Alice Krige) wander about feeding off the psychic energy of virgins, enthusiastically incesting and driving fast muscle cars. For some reason they also feel it necessary for Charles to attend school which, you might  think, would create a lot of complications for a nomadic couple who need to keep off the authorities’ radar. If you did think that, you would have put more thought into this set up than Stephen King. These werecat people can make themselves invisible; okay. They can also make their car invisible; um. And they can make their car change into another car; er, no; sometimes it will turn back into the old car if they don’t concentrate; so, wait, the car is real but also an illusion? But how can they drive an illusion? So it must be a real car, but…oh God, make it stop. And mom werecat has to stay at home while son werecat goes out and gets the virgin energy to feed to her. If the mom werecat can only be fed by her offspring, how did she survive long enough to have offspring? Or is it just that mom werecats are all agoraphobic? Also, the werecat people look like humans unless they are reflected in a mirror (but only when the script remembers) and they, uh, still leave mirrors up in their house so visitors can narrowly miss seeing their true nature. Oh, yeah, obviously, normal cats are the werecats’ natural enemy and in the world of Sleepwalkers police officers can have their cat in the car with them, which is lucky because the proximity of a normal cat also causes the werecat to reveal its true nature.  Unfortunately, once revealed, their true nature of a werecat is remarkably similar to someone with jaundice who has lost an enormous amount of weight very rapidly, all topped by a big bald cat head. In summary: ancient Egyptians liked cats, cats are magic but werecats are nasty and really bad and not very good at keeping their existence a secret, but they do their homework and drive cars Stephen King would doubtless describe as “bitchin’”.

I should probably say that Mick Garris’ direction is fine, and sometimes very good indeed and I did enjoy his use of ‘80s horror movie lighting techniques. But I really want to point out that Mick Garris has written some very good horror fiction himself; well worth seeking out. As is Sleepwalkers; but you need to know what you are getting: entertaining nonsense, a kind of retro-crap honestly proffered in the spirit of drive-in goofballery. Essentially though, you can never shake off the feeling that Sleepwalkers exists purely because Stephen King came up with the scene where someone is killed by a corn on the cob and then built a ramshackle movie around that. Unfortunately it’s not a very good movie. But it is entertaining. M-O-O-N, that spells entertaining. Laws, yes!

[drdiandralp]

Does NASCAR Need Practices?

The COVID crisis has forced us to think outside the box. Three months ago, we wouldn't have considered midweek races, racing without fans or racing without qualifying or practice. Now, those things are not only possibilities, they're necessary. Last Sunday at Darlington -- the first race back from the COVID-induced break -- was widely hailed as a success. Although the second race was marred by rain, both races went fine, even without qualifying or any practice. Which raises the question: If the Darlington experiment was so successful, do we really need practices?

Does Darlington Prove We Don't Need Practices.

You hear me tsk-ing, right? Because you know how I feel about making arguments based on one race, or even two. But the reason we can't make the argument based on Darlington is even strong: These were far from typical Darlington races. That's not to say they weren't successful. We were ready for racing and even non-NASCAR fans decided to give it a try. The problem is that both races were run under extraordinary circumstances, and the circumstances were different. The first race back came after drivers and crew had long layoff periods (plus no practice or qualifying). The first race back came after drivers and crew had long layoff periods (plus no practice or qualifying). Teams were working in shifts that didn't allow for their normal routinesThe second race was delayed, then rain-shortened, which always adds a little extra sense of urgency and puts more emphasis on strategy. The Data You can look at yesterday's post for the data, but here's how these races differed from an 'average' Darlington race. 'Average' is being in the middle two quartiles of races from 2000-2020 Higher percentages of cars finished on the lead lap: 60% vs. about 42%Sunday's race had a smaller-than-average number of drivers who led the race, which Wednesday's race set a record for most number of drivers leading.Green flag passes per lap were on the low side Sunday and much lower than usual on Wednesday.Wednesday's race set a record for percentage of race run under caution: 26%. The average is 14% Sunday's race was 19.5% cautions.There was only one green-flag pass for the lead that wasn't during a restart on Sunday vs. 5 on Wednesday -- and Wednesday's race was shorter.If you thought there might be more accidents and spins Sunday because it was the first time back in the car in awhile, you'd be wrong.There were 5 accidents and 2 spins on SundayVersus 7 accidents and 1 spin on Wednesday, despite being more than 100 miles shorter. That's a record for accidents per mile at Darlington.

Neither race makes a strong case for -- or against-- eliminating practices. But there are other reasons. We'll look at the pro side first.

Reasons to Eliminate Practices

The two biggest reasons for eliminating practices are to save money, and because they don't add anything to the racing. Money Cost-cutting was a priority in NASCAR before COVID. They've introduced 'enhanced schedule' weekends and limited the number of people each team can bring to the track. They've also instituted limits on wind tunnel testing and on-track testing tests, and trimmed Speedweeks. Saving Money on the Road Dave Caldwell estimated that it takes 2000-2500 people to put on a NASCAR race without fans. If we take the middle of that range (2250 people) and assume an average hotel room rate of is $100 (which a low estimate, but some people share rooms), staying one less night would save almost a quarter of a million dollars. If you could do that for half the races (18), that's $4M dollars saved. A side benefit of fewer nights on the road is that you're saving wear and tear on your people. Constant traveling is exhausting. Saving Money in the Shop Eliminating practice eliminates practice crashes. Without practice, there's no need for a backup car. That save the owners money on cars and personnel. Racing Quality If practices don't improve the racing, why have them? Technology Does Everything Practice Does I've written a lot about the technology that has become commonplace in NASCAR. Tools help engineers devise optimal setups for different tracks, crew chiefs determine pit strategy and drivers prepare for tracks they've never run before.

High-quality simulators give drivers a near-reality experience. Programs can be tailored to each track and each driver's style. Data from previous races helps drivers understand what works for them. And what doesn't.Computer modeling tools range from computational fluid dynamics for aero to suspension simulations that tell you how the racecar will handle in any corner.Hardware simulators, such as seven-post rigs, engine dynos and wind tunnels give real, hands-on measurements that can validate the computer simulations.Artificial Intelligence strategy programs are starting to become common because they can take the entire history of the track and every can on it and give you probabilities of how far you'll get ahead if you take two tires vs. four. History. Teams get so much data from their own notes, plus access to everyone's data from the track. They are accumulating terrabytes of data and computer specialists to analyze it. NASCAR could have one-day practices when a track repaves or re-configures, but otherwise, teams have plenty of tools to use to set-up the car. And they could be given the chance to make changes after qualifying. Eliminate Practices? Yes. So there you have it: Eliminating practices would save everyone money, would save stress on people, and, because we have so much good technology, the racing will be just as good.

Reasons to Keep Practices

Now let's take a look at the arguments on the other side. Money It's hard to argue with saving teams money, especially now, but let's look at the impacts of those savings. Teams may have to let go some employees, but the impact outside NASCAR is significant. Fewer Opportunities for Interaction Less time at the track means fewer opportunities for sponsors to hold events. Television time is an important component of why businesses sponsor NASCAR, but it's not the only one There would also be less time for fans to meet drivers. NASCAR prides itself on its accessibility, but there are a finite number of things you can do in a finite amount of time. Impact on Tracks

Less time at the track decreases the amount of money tracks can make from food and beverage sales, and camping rentals. It's less money for the people who work at the tracks. A number of tracks have invested money in areas that give fans access to the garage without getting in the way of the work. There won't be too much to watch if there are no practices.. Souvenir haulers will have fewer hours for sales. Impact on Local Economy Decreasing the amount of time at the track also takes money from the local economy. That might make cities and municipalities less welcoming. Less need for hotel rooms might decrease the prices, but might also drive hoteliers near some of the more remote tracks to shutter their doors. Racing Quality I can't argue with the appeal of showing up and 'racing what you brung'. It's old school in the best way. But there are some other considerations Team Sports Need Practice Say you arrive to play doubles tennis in an important tournament and, instead of your regular partner, you're suddenly playing with someone you've only played with a few times before. That's Chad Johnston and Matt Kenseth. Or any new crew chief/driver combination, including rookies. Crew chiefs manage drivers the same way drivers manage tires. There's a big difference between talking strategy over lunch and the pressure of a race. Some drivers really do become different people when they put on their helmets. Crew chiefs become different people when they're up on the pit box, too. No practice means no time for drivers and crew chiefs to develop a relationship. It favors established teams and puts new ones at a disadvantage. You wouldn't send a group of guys who'd never worked together out to pit a car. Why would you take the same kind of risk with the rest of the team? Cars Need Shake Outs Before Racing Martin Truex, Jr. ran only 41 laps of the 2018 Indianapolis race before his left-front brake rotor exploded. Remember the Speedweeks when the vendor-supplied coating on engine parts failed and Hendrick Motorsports had to replace all their engines before the 500? Practice laps gives a team a chance to make sure there are no big problems. In addition to it being a safety issue, imagine the frustration for fans. You aren't going to be happy if you wait all year to see your favorite driver and he or she crashes out on lap 1 because someone forgot to tighten something. Even without race-ending parts failures, do you want to see races where winning is determined by how well you set up the car before you leave? If you're one of those people who wants races in the hands of the drivers, the best race is one where each driver has the car he or he wants. Computers Don't Race: People Do Every race engineer or crew chief has a story about setting up the car to be maximally fast according to the computer and it isn't. Maybe the driver doesn't feel confident enough in the car to push it. Maybe the driver just hates loose racecars. Every driver has different preferences -- some which change on a week-to-week basis. A large part of practice is adjusting the car, not only to the track, but to the driver. Larger Teams are Less Impacted by Eliminating Practice Smaller teams can't afford custom-developed suspension simulations and computational fluid dynamics. They also have less access to manufacturer resources than the larger teams. The more racing depends on technology, the further behind smaller, newer teams will fall. That's not a recipe for attracting new teams or manufacturers. Innovation Teams find new ideas from computer simulations and wind tunnels and such. But they rarely can afford to take a chance testing a new idea in a race. There's too much at stake. Computer output is only as good as the person who wrote the program and the data input. Sometimes (gasp!) even computers are wrong.

So The Answer Is...

The Darlington races, enjoyable as they were, don't prove that practices are unnecessary. But they weren't disasters, either, so they didn't prove that practices are necessary. The answer is (as in boringly common) probably a compromise. There's probably a schedule in which there is one practice, and then qualifying. Although the SiriusXM morning show guys this morning were talking about whether qualifying is necessary... TO BE CONTINUED... Read the full article