I Can't Believe I've Never Seen It Till Now!: House (1977)

An updated-in-2020 version of the following blog post can be found in If You Haven't Seen It, It's New to You: The Movies and TV Shows Some of Us Regretted Not Catching Until Later. The 2020 book was written and self-published by yours truly. Get the paperback edition of If You Haven't Seen It, It's New to You now!

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This is the 13th of 15 all-new blog posts that are being posted on a monthly basis until this blog's final post in December 2017. I know I said "monthly basis" all through 2017, and instead, there ended up being two posts this October and three back in August, but I guess I discovered that in August and now October, I found plenty of shit I wanted to write about before I call it quits. "I Can't Believe I've Never Seen It Till Now!" is a series of posts in which I reveal that I never watched a certain popular or really old movie until very recently, and that's largely because I'm Filipino, we're always late to the party and that's how we do.

Director Nobuhiko Obayashi's 1977 Japanese box-office hit House is the kind of film that, had it been made in 2017, would have ended up being the subject of various audience reaction videos by YouTubers who want to show how confused and bewildered the audience members look while trying to process the extremely weird shit they're watching. Not to be confused with the 1985 American horror comedy of the same name and the long-running Hugh Laurie vehicle of the same name, Obayashi's J-horror oddity was largely unknown in America until 2010, when Janus Films introduced the Toho Studios flick in theaters to American film geeks and the Criterion Collection released it on Blu-ray. Both a Phil Chung blog post for YOMYOMF (his post is basically "I don't know what the fuck I saw, but I loved it!") and a Trailers from Hell commentary track for the film's 1977 trailer made me want to see House.



House is definitely the most unconventional haunted-house movie I've ever seen. I was expecting a Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky-type bloodbath with a bit of a Battle Royale-style attitude about not giving a fuck about brutally killing off so many innocent-looking Japanese teens.

What I got instead was something stranger than Riki-Oh. I believe I have a clip of myself reacting to every scene in House:

I'm still here

I caught a couple of people mentioning AFOS on a Reddit forum. The one-year-old forum's subject was Ennio Morricone's frequently covered and sampled Good, the Bad and the Ugly score cue "The Ecstasy of Gold," which can be heard during "AFOS Prime" every day and was faithfully re-created by Simpsons composer Alf Clausen during his score for the show's "Super Franchise Me" episode from a few weeks ago.

"I wonder if it still broadcasts," said a commenter about AFOS on the forum a year ago.

"His blog is still going strong; he has some real treasures in there every once in a while (there was one on the Batman animated series from the 90s that was awesome)," replied another commenter.

Yes, AFOS is still here. And this AFOS blog that barely anybody reads is still around, even though I've found it difficult in the last couple of years to find AFOS-related topics to write about (and I've found my attentions drifting elsewhere), which is why I added "'Brokedown Merry-Go-Round' Show of the Week," so that this blog has something new every week and doesn't look like it's been abandoned like so many other blogs I used to regularly read. I wanted to write about new TV in the weekly feature that evolved into "'Brokedown Merry-Go-Round' Show of the Week," but I didn't want to do recaps because they're boring (to both write and read) and pointless as fuck, and I didn't want to write about any of the same five or six shows everybody writes about, so I opted to focus on adult animation. Then I chose to adhere to a two-posts-a-week schedule for the AFOS blog. One post would be the weekly one about grown-up animation on TV, while the other post would be about something related to music, soundtracks, film, live-action TV or AFOS station content, so that people don't think this blog is only about animation.

I also made a rule for myself that I've adhered to since 2012: never post on this blog anything that's less than 140 characters and can easily be posted on Twitter. I hate it when people on their Blogspot sites--or on any other blog, even ones I've contributed posts to--write a post that's either less than 140 characters or consists solely of one photo or one YouTube video. Put that shit on Twitter, goddammit, not on Blogspot. That's what Twitter is for! Blogspot works best as a platform for long-form material (while Tumblr does not because trying to code your own post on Tumblr is like opening an umbrella up your ass; shout to the late Robin Williams). Blogspot isn't Twitter, Mr. Middle-Aged Geezer who can't get his platforms straight and thinks an Instagram is who you send to sing to somebody on their birthday.

AFOS: "Bad Things Come in Threes (Alright, Maybe Not Always)" playlist

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the release of one of my favorite films, Do the Right Thing, so I'm busy putting together something Do the Right Thing-related for the blog. In the meantime, airing tomorrow at 10am and 3pm on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel is the Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series episode "Bad Things Come in Threes (Alright, Maybe Not Always)" (WEB88) from June 18-24, 2007. Every track during WEB88 comes from a threequel like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or Ocean's Thirteen.

"Il Buono Il Brutto Il Cattivo (titoli)"

1. Hans Zimmer, "Hoist the Colours," Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Walt Disney
2. Ennio Morricone, "Il Buono Il Brutto Il Cattivo (titoli)," Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo, GDM
3. David Holmes, "Not Their Fight," Ocean's Thirteen, Warner Sunset/Warner Bros.
4. David Holmes, "11, 12 & 13," Ocean's Thirteen, Warner Sunset/Warner Bros.
5. Michael Giacchino, "Mission: Impossible Theme," Mission: Impossible III, Varèse Sarabande
6. The Four Tops, "Are You Man Enough?" (from Shaft in Africa), The Best of Shaft, Hip-O
7. Survivor, "Eye of the Tiger" (from Rocky III), Ultimate Survivor, Volcano Heritage
8. Jerry Fielding, "Prologue/Main Title," The Enforcer, Aleph
9. John Williams, "The Pit of Carkoon/Sail Barge Assault," Return of the Jedi, RCA Victor
10. Howard Shore, "The White Tree," The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Reprise/WMG Soundtracks
11. David Holmes, "Snake Eyes," Ocean's Thirteen, Warner Sunset/Warner Bros.
12. John Williams, "Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra," Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Warner Bros.
13. Danny Elfman, "March of the Dead," Army of Darkness, Varèse Sarabande
14. Ennio Morricone, "Il Triello," Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo, GDM
15. Alan Silvestri, "End Titles" (from Back to the Future Part III), Varèse Sarabande: A 25th Anniversary Celebration, Varèse Sarabande

Repeats of A Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series air Wednesdays at 10am and 3pm.

"The Best of Jimmy J. Aquino on Twitter," Part 2

My compilation of tweets from my Twitter page that have been replied to (or retweeted) the most continues.

Previously on A Fistful of Soundtracks: The Blog: Part 1.

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I've posted my five favorite closing lines from movies on @LivingSocial. I'll post them in my next several tweets.
4:26 AM Apr 21st from web

Favorite closing lines from movies: 5. "God damn you all to hell!" (Planet of the Apes)
4:28 AM Apr 21st from web

Favorite closing lines from movies: 4. "Why don't we just wait here for a little while... see what happens..." (The Thing)
4:30 AM Apr 21st from web

Favorite closing lines from movies: 3. "Maybe it was Utah." (Raising Arizona)
4:32 AM Apr 21st from web

Fave ending lines: 2. "You bastard!" "Yes, sir. In my case, an accident of birth. But you, sir, you're a self-made man." (The Professionals)
4:35 AM Apr 21st from web

Favorite closing lines from movies: 1. "Hey everybody, we're all gonna get laid!" (Caddyshack)
4:37 AM Apr 21st from web

Favorite closing lines I didn't post on my @LivingSocial list: "Shut up and deal." (The Apartment)
4:40 AM Apr 21st from web

Other fave ending lines: "Alright, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." (Sunset Blvd.) Another great last line from a Billy Wilder film.
4:42 AM Apr 21st from web

Other favorite closing lines: "...a warning: that all glory is fleeting." (Patton)
4:44 AM Apr 21st from web

Other favorite last lines: "Hey Blond! You know what you are? Just a dirty son of a..." (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly)
4:46 AM Apr 21st from web

Other favorite closing lines: "I think I'll have a drink." (The Untouchables)
4:48 AM Apr 21st from web

Other favorite closing lines: "I never said, 'Thank you.'" "And you'll never have to." (Batman Begins)
4:50 AM Apr 21st from web

Other favorite closing lines: "I was cured alright." (A Clockwork Orange)
4:52 AM Apr 21st from web

Other favorite closing lines: "This life came so close to never happening." (25th Hour)
4:54 AM Apr 21st from web

Last favorite closing line before I go to bed (yeah, I sleep so late): "I'm here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative." (Iron Man)
>4:57 AM Apr 21st from web

I know nothing about Twilight. I don't know the characters' names, like the lead guy, whom I assume is Hemo the Emo Vampire.
4:28 PM Apr 22nd from web

From Nov.: A FISTFUL OF SOUNDTRACKS: THE BLOG: Film version of '70s cartoon show #StarTrek doesn't look promising: http://tinyurl.com/63eon5
11:55 AM Apr 24th from web

To be continued.