(no subject)
Another long post...not because of any great happenings or events of staggering importance, but just cause I want to babble on for a while...beware.
Last Friday I saw 1408 with
eostra. Overall, I can say that I definately enjoyed it. It was mostly a psychological, creepy horror movie, rather than action/gore based. Ever since then (well, more just the night after, but sporadically as well) I have been thinking about what makes for me a good horror movie. In my opinion, every horror film has a consistant period in which the movie is at its best. This period consists of the time between A and B. A is the point when small, creepy things start to happen to the protagonist(s). You, the viewer, know that this is due to the malevolent force/being. However, the characters do not know this, and play these creepy events off as non-supernatural. Of course, as the intensity and frequency of these events increase, you can see the characters becoming unbalanced. B is the time when the characters basically give in to the notion that this is supernatural and accept the fact that they are in a horror movie (not really, but I think it sums up how they act). Usually after point B, horror movies usually turn into basically action movies with elements of horror. They start running around frightened, tripping over things, getting killed, and fighting back against whatever. I find that I enjoy movies that prolong the time between A and B, while ramping up the creepy effects in a convincing and frightening way. After point B, horror movies can still be good, but they are not usually as good. For example, take the movie Poltergeist. I'm not sure if you have seen it, but whatever. In Poltergeist, the time between A and B is fairly long, and has some of the best/creepy effects I have ever seen. In fact, it is the one and only movie that has actually made me shout aloud and jump out of my chair in fright/shock (if you have seen it, it was the scene with the chairs on the table). Then of course point B arrives and they end up burning down the house ( I think, its been a long time). Because of the A->B quality, I loved Poltergeist. The Ring (either original Japanese, or the American version, though I think the American is slightly better) is a film that consists almost entirely of time between A and B, and thus is awesome. Getting back to the topic at hand, 1408 was another movie that did this very well, at least for the first half. The rest was fairly good, and had some extremely good parts, but just wasn't as good. Samuel L. Jackson turned what would have normally been a bit part into a memorable role. John Cusack was quite good as the main character as well. I recommend seeing it.
Monday my mom came down to Hamilton (mostly for my grandmother), and she took me out to some Niagara wineries for lunch and some tastings. Not something I'd normally really do, but it was pretty enjoyable. The lunch was very good, although far too expensive (enough so that if I had to pay, I would not go, or at least not eat). I enjoyed tasting different wines. I can't really judge, though I can usually tell in general what quality of wine it is.
Played a couple of games of tennis with damon this week. We've started playing in the evening/night, which usually works well. Its cooler, and no sun in the eyes. This morning I had the easiest hour of pay I'm ever likely to get. I had to come in to set up a TV/DVD in a random meeting room...oooh, so difficult. Took me less than 15 minutes, and only that long cause I had to extract the TV from storage (which is referred to as Archives...cause its in the same room that the McMaster Student Union keeps all their books/records, though in separate locked cages).
I finally watched all of Naruto up to its current episodes. 239 episodes or so, in the last couple of months. Whew. In general I really like the series. The action is usually decently paced, and while the characters are predictable, I don't mind. The recent episodes have kind of slowed down though. It's finally back into non-filler, which is good because now characters can die again, but it seems like the makes of the anime are dragging the episodes out to make the non-filler last longer. Ah well, can't complain. (As an interesting side note, the last episode of the first series before it became Naruto: Shippuden, episode 220, has a reference to the Blue Meanies from the Beatles Yellow Submarine movie, which strikes me as very odd, but in this case awesome. For reference, see this clip between about 6:50 and 7:00 Naruto 220.
Last night I saw Live Free or Die Hard with damon and ciara. I thought it was quite a good movie, though I don't think my compatriots were quite as thrilled. The action was ridiculous and often borderline silly, but thats part of the Die Hard lineage, and action movie style anyway. The plot was somewhat weak (to be expected). Although the motivations behind the "threat to be neutralized" were not great, I thought the "threat to be neutralized" itself was very well done and convincing (not in its possibility, but in its conveyance of danger). I'm keeping this section vague cause I don't want to spoil anything. The movie was also quite funny. Bruce Willis' sidekick was the guy who plays the Mac in those Apple ads, which was kind of weird, and yet fit well. He and Bruce Willis both had some classic lines, delivered with appropriate style. Another thing I found enjoyable/refreshing about the movie was that the bad guys had some action heroes of their own, who actually fought very well, sometimes to the point of silliness again. One of the bad guy henchmen was a parkour type guy (and looking on IMDB, may have been in District B-13 (at least, one of the actors is, and I assume the French parkour guy is the one). The competence of the bad guys in general was quite high for an action movie, which I found cool.
For a bit of levity, I recommend visting this site: The Emo Haiku Generator. After I had read about three out loud, I started laughing nearly uncontrollably after I got one that started with the line my black heart, so black . I don't remember the rest, but I don't need to.
I had planned to talk about more than this, but I don't quite remember what about right now, so maybe later.
Edit: Oh right, I remember at least one thing more. I know that when typing, especially in msn conversations, I tend to use a lot of ellipses (...), and I was just wondering if anyone thinks my use of them is excessive. I just find that they tend to convey a break in thoughts better in a way thats somewhere between/outside of what a comma, period, or new paragraph is meant to entail, especially when replicating conversation as msn is supposed to do. Just wondering what peoples thoughts on that are (this more goes out to whoever I talk to on msn mostly, cause thats where they are prevalent, though the first sentance of this post shows that I use them elsewhere as well.
Last Friday I saw 1408 with
eostra. Overall, I can say that I definately enjoyed it. It was mostly a psychological, creepy horror movie, rather than action/gore based. Ever since then (well, more just the night after, but sporadically as well) I have been thinking about what makes for me a good horror movie. In my opinion, every horror film has a consistant period in which the movie is at its best. This period consists of the time between A and B. A is the point when small, creepy things start to happen to the protagonist(s). You, the viewer, know that this is due to the malevolent force/being. However, the characters do not know this, and play these creepy events off as non-supernatural. Of course, as the intensity and frequency of these events increase, you can see the characters becoming unbalanced. B is the time when the characters basically give in to the notion that this is supernatural and accept the fact that they are in a horror movie (not really, but I think it sums up how they act). Usually after point B, horror movies usually turn into basically action movies with elements of horror. They start running around frightened, tripping over things, getting killed, and fighting back against whatever. I find that I enjoy movies that prolong the time between A and B, while ramping up the creepy effects in a convincing and frightening way. After point B, horror movies can still be good, but they are not usually as good. For example, take the movie Poltergeist. I'm not sure if you have seen it, but whatever. In Poltergeist, the time between A and B is fairly long, and has some of the best/creepy effects I have ever seen. In fact, it is the one and only movie that has actually made me shout aloud and jump out of my chair in fright/shock (if you have seen it, it was the scene with the chairs on the table). Then of course point B arrives and they end up burning down the house ( I think, its been a long time). Because of the A->B quality, I loved Poltergeist. The Ring (either original Japanese, or the American version, though I think the American is slightly better) is a film that consists almost entirely of time between A and B, and thus is awesome. Getting back to the topic at hand, 1408 was another movie that did this very well, at least for the first half. The rest was fairly good, and had some extremely good parts, but just wasn't as good. Samuel L. Jackson turned what would have normally been a bit part into a memorable role. John Cusack was quite good as the main character as well. I recommend seeing it.
Monday my mom came down to Hamilton (mostly for my grandmother), and she took me out to some Niagara wineries for lunch and some tastings. Not something I'd normally really do, but it was pretty enjoyable. The lunch was very good, although far too expensive (enough so that if I had to pay, I would not go, or at least not eat). I enjoyed tasting different wines. I can't really judge, though I can usually tell in general what quality of wine it is.
Played a couple of games of tennis with damon this week. We've started playing in the evening/night, which usually works well. Its cooler, and no sun in the eyes. This morning I had the easiest hour of pay I'm ever likely to get. I had to come in to set up a TV/DVD in a random meeting room...oooh, so difficult. Took me less than 15 minutes, and only that long cause I had to extract the TV from storage (which is referred to as Archives...cause its in the same room that the McMaster Student Union keeps all their books/records, though in separate locked cages).
I finally watched all of Naruto up to its current episodes. 239 episodes or so, in the last couple of months. Whew. In general I really like the series. The action is usually decently paced, and while the characters are predictable, I don't mind. The recent episodes have kind of slowed down though. It's finally back into non-filler, which is good because now characters can die again, but it seems like the makes of the anime are dragging the episodes out to make the non-filler last longer. Ah well, can't complain. (As an interesting side note, the last episode of the first series before it became Naruto: Shippuden, episode 220, has a reference to the Blue Meanies from the Beatles Yellow Submarine movie, which strikes me as very odd, but in this case awesome. For reference, see this clip between about 6:50 and 7:00 Naruto 220.
Last night I saw Live Free or Die Hard with damon and ciara. I thought it was quite a good movie, though I don't think my compatriots were quite as thrilled. The action was ridiculous and often borderline silly, but thats part of the Die Hard lineage, and action movie style anyway. The plot was somewhat weak (to be expected). Although the motivations behind the "threat to be neutralized" were not great, I thought the "threat to be neutralized" itself was very well done and convincing (not in its possibility, but in its conveyance of danger). I'm keeping this section vague cause I don't want to spoil anything. The movie was also quite funny. Bruce Willis' sidekick was the guy who plays the Mac in those Apple ads, which was kind of weird, and yet fit well. He and Bruce Willis both had some classic lines, delivered with appropriate style. Another thing I found enjoyable/refreshing about the movie was that the bad guys had some action heroes of their own, who actually fought very well, sometimes to the point of silliness again. One of the bad guy henchmen was a parkour type guy (and looking on IMDB, may have been in District B-13 (at least, one of the actors is, and I assume the French parkour guy is the one). The competence of the bad guys in general was quite high for an action movie, which I found cool.
For a bit of levity, I recommend visting this site: The Emo Haiku Generator. After I had read about three out loud, I started laughing nearly uncontrollably after I got one that started with the line my black heart, so black . I don't remember the rest, but I don't need to.
I had planned to talk about more than this, but I don't quite remember what about right now, so maybe later.
Edit: Oh right, I remember at least one thing more. I know that when typing, especially in msn conversations, I tend to use a lot of ellipses (...), and I was just wondering if anyone thinks my use of them is excessive. I just find that they tend to convey a break in thoughts better in a way thats somewhere between/outside of what a comma, period, or new paragraph is meant to entail, especially when replicating conversation as msn is supposed to do. Just wondering what peoples thoughts on that are (this more goes out to whoever I talk to on msn mostly, cause thats where they are prevalent, though the first sentance of this post shows that I use them elsewhere as well.