Art of the Odd

…and I missed so much awesome stuff because of it.

My friend Oslowe pointed out today that the first of the month is when Netflix lists its new Watch Instantly films, so of course I wandered over to look.

“Ooh!” I said. And “Ooh” again. And then I realized something. Some of the films I was “oohing” over were films I’d tried to watch when I was a kid, and turned off because the effects were terrible. Stop-motion? Oh, ick. Giant matte paintings with thick black lines around the actors in front of them? Spare me. Guy in a rubber monster suit? Oh, God no. (Unless it was that one Italian horror flick where all you ever saw of the suit was a clawed, scaly hand, accompanied by a red flash and some heavy breathing. I was okay with that.)

In short, I missed out on a whole wonderful world of dreck, and another wonderful world of imaginative adventure, because I couldn’t get past the bad effects.

Flash forward a couple of decades or so, and I’m married to an Emmy-award winning visual effects technical supervisor, and I can’t wait to cozy up with Wes Craven’s Swamp Thing.

Go figure.

I’m sitting under my lemon tree, with a Pegu Club cocktail, listening to Lee Stranahan interview my husband for FX Mogul Radio. The only thing that would make this better would be if NovySan were actually here, instead of sitting in his office miles away.