To paraphrase Eddie Izzard, just don't go in that room
Meant to blog, meant to blog, meant to blog, haven't. But now I'm here, semi-occupied by keeping track of NZ doing rather surprisingly well so far against South Africa in the first test, thanks very much - what meaningless piffle should I fill the internet with?
Well, for one thing, in order of recentness (recentality?) we went to 1408 tonight. OK, in its predictable Stephen King-y sort of way. Thankfully John Cusack generally serves to make anything he's in that much more watchable. But there was some weirdness going on with the script.
FEMALE WALK-ON: Why, it's John Cusack's character! I loved your brilliantly-written but under-appreciated first novel.
JOHN CUSACK: Thank you.
FEMALE WALK-ON: I just have to ask...I mean, I know in the book it's so horrible and so on, but with the father... I thought the relationship between them was just so well realised...were they based on real people?
JOHN CUSACK: (SIGNIFICANT LOOK) Um...no.
later...
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: Why am even in this movie, really? Anyone could do this particularly minor role.
JOHN CUSACK: It looks better on the poster. Besides, your acting really has that "portent of doom" feel to it.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: True enough. Anyway John's character, I really loved your brilliantly-written but under-appreciated first novel. I felt the father was a bit of an arsehole, though.
JOHN CUSACK: (SIGNIFICANT LOOK) Yeah, he was.
later...
The HAUNTED ROOM, very early into its HAUNTING: Hahahahahaaaa, look at me mess you up psychologically, John Cusack's character! Where before there was a hotel room bathroom, now there is...a different bathroom! Containing...YOUR DAD! In a WHEELCHAIR!
BEN: Ahhh, here we go.
JOHN CUSACK: (SIGNIFICANT LOOK) Dad!
JOHN CUSACK'S CHARACTER'S DAD: You are what I once was, and I am what you will become!
JOHN CUSACK: Deep! Er, anything else?
JOHN CUSACK'S CHARACTER'S DAD: Nope.
JOHN CUSACK: Oh! Uh, what happens now then?
JOHN CUSACK'S CHARACTER'S DAD: Well, I for one am going to vanish from the rest of the film. Literally. I am a ghostly apparition / manifestation of your subconscious, after all.
JOHN CUSACK: Oh! Well, er, I expect you'll be popping in later at some point to make some more of that really heavy-handed setup?
JOHN CUSACK'S CHARACTER'S DAD: No. Actually our much-hinted-at troubled relationship isn't going to come up again in any way from this point. As a haunting we're actually going to spend the next hour or so of the movie working on some other issues of yours that weren't really mentioned at all in the opening scenes.
JOHN CUSACK: Right then, OK, well that's, uh, yeah, that's....odd.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: Hey John, check it out, I'm in the HAUNTED MINI-BAR! No really, I am. Man, I gotta get a new agent.
BEN, ABOUT FORTY-FIVE MINUTES AFTER THE MOVIE HAD ENDED: ...Heeeeeeeyyyyy!
Still, points for the Wilhelm Scream.
I also really meant to blog about going to Auckland a few weeks back, but failed to do so in a timely fashion. I can probably sum it up in the following concise manner: good. Although, Auckland, you know what's not good? Charging $8.50 for a bottle of Heineken. Even if the bar in question does look like a set from CSI, one of those places with chambers or alcoves fronted with diaphonous materials for people to get murdered in, or at least stand in front of to act as scenery while Grissom asks them about people.
GRISSOM: Was this man in here last night?
CSI BARSTAFF MEMBER OF THE WEEK: Yeah, he was. He ordered a couple of beers and I said "That'll be 17 dollars" and then he hit the manager with a pickaxe.
GRISSOM: He could be our man.
CSI BARSTAFF MEMBER OF THE WEEK: Quite possibly, although you don't want to jump to any conclusions. There's always a piece of crucial new evidence uncovered about three quarters of the way through the hour, and historically of course am myself the killer in around 33 percent of cases. I'll be in this diaphonous-material-fronted chamber if you have any more questions.
GRISSOM: Jolly good. I'll be at the lab, thanking God I'm not David Caruso.
Aside from contemplating publicanicide, the trip had plenty to recommend it. I drank some invading Martians on stage, watched a volcano and climbed up a number of tequilas, or something like that (it all gets a little hazy after the tequilas). Actually, considering the number of tequilas consumed in one setting, haziness was relatively avoided. I even had the mental accuity required to send a desperate cry for help to Australia, urging TBALC artillery to come down on my position, but it seemed my men just couldn't bring themselves to barrage their beloved figurehead, because more tequilas later I strode out into Mission Bay, jumped into a bush and hit my head on a tree (the tree had enough sneaky weasel cunning to be lying unseen in wait for me in said bushes, uprooted) and simultaneously picked up some splinters in my finger, one or two of which I think may still be in there. So the point of this story is if anyone is after a souvenir of my trip, I can probably get you one. ("Oh, we laughed it off at the time, but of course no-one was amused when he suddenly died of blood poisoning"). Anyway, Auckland grew on me a lot in this most recent visit, but is still TOO BIG. Also the motorway is exactly like two Ginsu knives clashing with it's distortion of TIME and SPACE and is WEIRD.
Another of Andrew's movie binges was survived. Black Devil From Hell, which Andrew unleashed upon his innocent viewers with Machiavellian glee, would certainly have been the worst movie I have ever seen, except I refuse to class it as a movie. I don't think this was really a conscious decision mind you - more an automatic decision of my brain to protect itself from any potential "this can't be a movie, because if it was a movie, that means that movies can be this bad, then you can't...I mean you like movies, but if this is one..then ARRGGHH, GINSU KNIFE CLASH IMPLODE" situation. It's just another level of the body's natural defence - the blood/brain/blackdevildollfromhell barrier. I don't think anything in round 2 (BDDFH included) really topped The Manipulator from round one for me on the "Oh God, my BRAIN!!!" scale, though - that now, well, man, that was a thing. Ohhhh, Mickey Rooney.
Hmmm, the options at this point seem to be continue to waffle about whatever springs to the old lobes, or go to bed. Bed it is , I think. See you all at our house on Saturday night, providing you're sufficiently cool, of course.
This post brought to you by random factor, like a tractor.
Well, for one thing, in order of recentness (recentality?) we went to 1408 tonight. OK, in its predictable Stephen King-y sort of way. Thankfully John Cusack generally serves to make anything he's in that much more watchable. But there was some weirdness going on with the script.
FEMALE WALK-ON: Why, it's John Cusack's character! I loved your brilliantly-written but under-appreciated first novel.
JOHN CUSACK: Thank you.
FEMALE WALK-ON: I just have to ask...I mean, I know in the book it's so horrible and so on, but with the father... I thought the relationship between them was just so well realised...were they based on real people?
JOHN CUSACK: (SIGNIFICANT LOOK) Um...no.
later...
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: Why am even in this movie, really? Anyone could do this particularly minor role.
JOHN CUSACK: It looks better on the poster. Besides, your acting really has that "portent of doom" feel to it.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: True enough. Anyway John's character, I really loved your brilliantly-written but under-appreciated first novel. I felt the father was a bit of an arsehole, though.
JOHN CUSACK: (SIGNIFICANT LOOK) Yeah, he was.
later...
The HAUNTED ROOM, very early into its HAUNTING: Hahahahahaaaa, look at me mess you up psychologically, John Cusack's character! Where before there was a hotel room bathroom, now there is...a different bathroom! Containing...YOUR DAD! In a WHEELCHAIR!
BEN: Ahhh, here we go.
JOHN CUSACK: (SIGNIFICANT LOOK) Dad!
JOHN CUSACK'S CHARACTER'S DAD: You are what I once was, and I am what you will become!
JOHN CUSACK: Deep! Er, anything else?
JOHN CUSACK'S CHARACTER'S DAD: Nope.
JOHN CUSACK: Oh! Uh, what happens now then?
JOHN CUSACK'S CHARACTER'S DAD: Well, I for one am going to vanish from the rest of the film. Literally. I am a ghostly apparition / manifestation of your subconscious, after all.
JOHN CUSACK: Oh! Well, er, I expect you'll be popping in later at some point to make some more of that really heavy-handed setup?
JOHN CUSACK'S CHARACTER'S DAD: No. Actually our much-hinted-at troubled relationship isn't going to come up again in any way from this point. As a haunting we're actually going to spend the next hour or so of the movie working on some other issues of yours that weren't really mentioned at all in the opening scenes.
JOHN CUSACK: Right then, OK, well that's, uh, yeah, that's....odd.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: Hey John, check it out, I'm in the HAUNTED MINI-BAR! No really, I am. Man, I gotta get a new agent.
BEN, ABOUT FORTY-FIVE MINUTES AFTER THE MOVIE HAD ENDED: ...Heeeeeeeyyyyy!
Still, points for the Wilhelm Scream.
I also really meant to blog about going to Auckland a few weeks back, but failed to do so in a timely fashion. I can probably sum it up in the following concise manner: good. Although, Auckland, you know what's not good? Charging $8.50 for a bottle of Heineken. Even if the bar in question does look like a set from CSI, one of those places with chambers or alcoves fronted with diaphonous materials for people to get murdered in, or at least stand in front of to act as scenery while Grissom asks them about people.
GRISSOM: Was this man in here last night?
CSI BARSTAFF MEMBER OF THE WEEK: Yeah, he was. He ordered a couple of beers and I said "That'll be 17 dollars" and then he hit the manager with a pickaxe.
GRISSOM: He could be our man.
CSI BARSTAFF MEMBER OF THE WEEK: Quite possibly, although you don't want to jump to any conclusions. There's always a piece of crucial new evidence uncovered about three quarters of the way through the hour, and historically of course am myself the killer in around 33 percent of cases. I'll be in this diaphonous-material-fronted chamber if you have any more questions.
GRISSOM: Jolly good. I'll be at the lab, thanking God I'm not David Caruso.
Aside from contemplating publicanicide, the trip had plenty to recommend it. I drank some invading Martians on stage, watched a volcano and climbed up a number of tequilas, or something like that (it all gets a little hazy after the tequilas). Actually, considering the number of tequilas consumed in one setting, haziness was relatively avoided. I even had the mental accuity required to send a desperate cry for help to Australia, urging TBALC artillery to come down on my position, but it seemed my men just couldn't bring themselves to barrage their beloved figurehead, because more tequilas later I strode out into Mission Bay, jumped into a bush and hit my head on a tree (the tree had enough sneaky weasel cunning to be lying unseen in wait for me in said bushes, uprooted) and simultaneously picked up some splinters in my finger, one or two of which I think may still be in there. So the point of this story is if anyone is after a souvenir of my trip, I can probably get you one. ("Oh, we laughed it off at the time, but of course no-one was amused when he suddenly died of blood poisoning"). Anyway, Auckland grew on me a lot in this most recent visit, but is still TOO BIG. Also the motorway is exactly like two Ginsu knives clashing with it's distortion of TIME and SPACE and is WEIRD.
Another of Andrew's movie binges was survived. Black Devil From Hell, which Andrew unleashed upon his innocent viewers with Machiavellian glee, would certainly have been the worst movie I have ever seen, except I refuse to class it as a movie. I don't think this was really a conscious decision mind you - more an automatic decision of my brain to protect itself from any potential "this can't be a movie, because if it was a movie, that means that movies can be this bad, then you can't...I mean you like movies, but if this is one..then ARRGGHH, GINSU KNIFE CLASH IMPLODE" situation. It's just another level of the body's natural defence - the blood/brain/blackdevildollfromhell barrier. I don't think anything in round 2 (BDDFH included) really topped The Manipulator from round one for me on the "Oh God, my BRAIN!!!" scale, though - that now, well, man, that was a thing. Ohhhh, Mickey Rooney.
Hmmm, the options at this point seem to be continue to waffle about whatever springs to the old lobes, or go to bed. Bed it is , I think. See you all at our house on Saturday night, providing you're sufficiently cool, of course.
This post brought to you by random factor, like a tractor.