Vincent Price: American Icon

    Growing up, one of my very favorite people to see on the TV was Vincent Price.  Be it an old Poe-themed horror movie on The Great Money Movie or hosting Mystery on PBS, he was a familiar old storyteller who gleefully delighted my childhood hunger for the gently subversive, sinister, and macabre.  As I watched more and more movies, exploring his body of work and read about the him, I found a man of great talent, charm, and class.  His movies, his cook books, his art collection; he was a Renaissance man and yes, and American icon.

    There is now a petition to put Price’s face on a US postage stamp.  A piece of history, an indelible piece of America.  So, go over * here * and sign the petition to get his image on a stamp.  It’s just a little thing, just a token hat nod to someone who gave me and so many others so much joy.

-Matt

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/honor-great-american-horror-movie-star-vincent-price-stamp/f9sxZ4ZX

A Fistful of Fictional Presidents! (Matt’s Picks)

    With ultra-dull White House Down in theaters this weekend, we’re looking at some of our favorite fictional presidents.  Sadly, Jamie Foxx’s uncomfortable collection of ethnic stereotypes, President “DJ Jazzy” Sawyer will not be making the cut.

5.  President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho may not be the sharpest bulb in the sea, but he knows what the people like, and he knows how to give it to ‘em.  He is the worst case scenario and he rules the Idiocracy.

4.  Gaius Baltar is the most interesting and conflicted character on Battlestar Galactica, so it’s no shock his rise to power is rather strange and magical.  When he becomes president, it almost feels like destiny.  A really awful, horrible destiny.

3.  The President, as played by Henry Fonda in Fail Safe makes some of the hardest choices a man might be called upon to make.  But if the fate of the world were in his hand, I would feel…well, not safe, but in good hands.

2.  Donald Pleasence is the President in Escape from New York, and he’s having a bad day.  He goes from awkward and abused to total Rambo nuts and back again at the flip of a switch, and even the Duke of New York, who may indeed be A number 1, is no match.

1.  David Palmer may be about the most hardcore president I’ve ever seen.  He makes the tough calls, does the right things, and puts foes in their place.  He may be married to a demon, but even she can’t hold him back.  At a time when I was feeling particularly low about American politics, the first two seasons of 24 re-kindled a bit of the presidential awe I had as a young lad.

-Matt