Two NAU events that speak to the ongoing affects of free trade in poor and indigenous communities in Mexico.

Free Trade and Community Resistance
Wed., Oct. 24, 7 p.m., Free
Cline Library Auditorium at NAU

The Mexico Solidarity Network presents Cecilia Santiago Vera, a social psychologist and adherent to the Zapatista initiated Other Campaign from Chiapas, Mexico.

Vera’s presentation, in Spanish with English translation, will cover the following:

• Free trade and threats to indigenous communities, especially women
• Human rights abuses in Mexico
• The Zapatista-initiated Other Campaign
• How indigenous communities are working to resist free trade practices
• The leadership of women in fair trade cooperatives ~ traditional weavings and handicrafts from the cooperatives will be available for sale

MAQUILAPOLIS
[ city of factories ]
Mon., Oct. 22, 7 p.m., Free
Cline Library Auditorium at NAU

The film Maquilapolis portrays the struggles of women at work in a maquiladora electronics factory, at home in an extremely poor community, and as they work to improve their lives and communities in the first Mexico-U.S. free trade zone. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles.

Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween is terrifying, bloody as hell, and has a kick ass soundtrack that is very well placed throughout the film. The original Halloween scared the shit out of me when I was a kid, so I was a little skeptical going in. In the new version, we get a pretty elaborate back story of Michael’s childhood, which I thought was well done. It doesn’t take the creep factor away either because you can’t really explain a psychopath as a character. Yet his psychopathology has a richer context….if anything, it would be pretty messed up to have Sheriff Wydell as your step-dad.

Perhaps best of all, much of the cast consists of characters from his other films; even Captain Spaulding makes an appearance, unfortunately not in makeup though.

“Turquoise Rose” that will be showing at the Cline Theatre on Campus.

Friday Aug. 31st @ 7:30
Saturday Sept. 1st @ 12:00, 2:00, 4:00, 6:00 & 8:00 pm.

I thought Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon” was fantastic. Horror fans will appreciate the humor.

Good riddance.

Speaking of dancing on graves, I’ve been renting the After Dark Horror Fest’s ‘8 Films to Die For’ series.

There is one called Gravedancers that I watched last week. It is certainly one of the better ones. Apparently if you dance on a grave, that spirit comes back and tries to kill you. The one I’d recommend, however, is Darkride. It’s really bloody, which is a plus for horror fans, but it also has Patrick Renna in it….the fat red head kid from Sandlot. He’s all grown up and he’s evil.

I haven’t seen them all yet, including Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror, which promises to be one of the best urban horror flicks to date. I’ll be the judge of that.
I watched Reincarnation last night and, though it was made by the dude who did The Grudge series, I thought it was pretty lame.

The horror flick I’m really looking forward to is Rob Zombie’s remake of Halloween. Yes, you read this correctly…and it will hit theaters at the end of August….this year! Here is the trailer.

Where was I going with all this? Oh yeah. As tempting as it might be, don’t dance on Jerry Falwell’s grave, or he’ll come back and kill you.

More about the film, here.