A slice of life
Last night I was all set to sit down and write a post about something. It was around midnight and I didn't feel like sleeping yet. But the internet went out for no good reason and instead I did other things like delete a ton of old install files for past versions of VLC.
I'm mostly over my cold. I cough a little sometimes, and I still have to blow my nose every once in a while, but the worst has passed. I haven't had any Nyquil in a couple nights. Nyquil is my new love, by the way. Why I never thought to use it sooner, I have no idea.
This was another one of those movie heavy weekends for me. Yesterday I watched The Big Lebowski, Animal Farm, and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Today I watched Peeping Tom, Pink Flamingos, and The Host.
The Big Lebowski is pretty great. I'm definitely a fan of the Coen Bros, and I kept meeting people who loved it, so I was really hoping I'd love it, too. There really should be a warning to watch that movie while drinking white Russians.
I only watched Animal Farm to relive the time it was shown to me when I was a five year-old at Sunday school. It's a noisy movie, in that there are a lot of cacophonous animal sounds that made me want to mute the volume entirely. Also the Farmer is illustrated as the Creepist Creepo ever.
Dracula I watched because I had read an article talking about how all the special effects were done old school, totally avoiding the CGI of the time. About half way in though, I was no longer interested in the film artistically, or for any other reason, and just wanted it to be over.
The killer in Peeping Tom is also a total creepo, and he sounds like Peter Lorre, which is never a good thing. And for the first example of a slasher movie (so says Ghostface in Scream 4), there was no gore to speak of, and for the modern horror movie viewer, that's just disappointing.
The Host was pretty great. It wasn't just a monster movie, and it knew when to be funny. It was kind of weird sitting through few parts with American actors speaking English, since they all spoke so slowly. Also, I'm pretty sure that one of the minor characters in this movie was an even more minor character in the Silence of the Lambs. Let me go check that out. Why yes, I am absolutely correct. In the book The Silence of the Lambs, I'm thinking his character is the one that Clarice ends up dating at the end. However, in the movie they don't even give him the opportunity to be a romantic figure: he's dorky, he awkwardly hits on her, and he's got a janky eye. (I'm not sure who exactly to blame on "janky" entering my lexicon.) Anyway, his janky eye is how I knew who he was in the Host. What the hell he's doing all up in a Korean movie anyway?
Oh, Pink Flamingos. I will tell you what I wish had been told to me: Nothing good will come of you seeing this movie. I will admit that there are certain lines that are funny, but getting those few little chuckles in are not worth the pain involved in witnessing the terrible acting, the disturbing qualitites of the characters, and some pretty repugnant scenes. I watched the anniversary edition, so John Waters pops up at the end to show some deleted scenes. I think that watching that movie with John Waters 25 years later doing MST-style commentary would be a little better, but even then it wouldn't fully redeem the movie. Seriously, leave this shit to the hardcore film buffs, crazy film cultists, and filthy individuals.
You know, I also happened to watch Ordinary People this past week. Monique called it a depressing character study, and I was in the mood to feel bad at the time, so I put it on. I actually liked it a lot more than I thought I would. Donald Sutherland was pretty great. Makes me wonder how he popped out Keifer Sutherland (do yourself a favor and don't watch Dark City. It's not good even when you're incredibly high like I was). Timothy Hutton was adorable, though we all know this movie was going to be about how his brother was dead and he wasn't yadda yadda yadda, it was nice to see a high school character whose emotional issues weren't all in his head. Mary Tyler Moore's character can die in a fucking fire. And Judd Hirsch was the fucking man. That whole movie could have taken place in his office for all I care.
Anything else? I was supposed to hang out with Kelly today, but she never returned my text this morning, which doesn't bother me in the slightest. I went to lunch with Corey and, as I mentioned, have been watching movies and generally enjoying being indoors. I really don't have the energy to wring my hands about missed contacts more than a few times in a week, so I'll worry about broken engagements another day.
Also, I will say that I had a dream Saturday morning. This isn't going to be a long recounting of the thing, but I do want to preface with the fact that it's weird that I seem to be able to wake up in and out of dreams in what feels like a rapid fashion. I thought that a person would have to be pretty heavily asleep to manage any dreaming, but I guess that's not always the case? I hardly remember what happened anymore, but I was with some people, one of them was my mom, and one of the people mentioned something about getting high (I think), and I was all for it, but my mom was like "but you have school tomorrow!" and I laughed. Not in the dream, actually laughed out loud. So I was awake enough to find my own dream funny and then hear myself laugh about it? Weird.
I'm mostly over my cold. I cough a little sometimes, and I still have to blow my nose every once in a while, but the worst has passed. I haven't had any Nyquil in a couple nights. Nyquil is my new love, by the way. Why I never thought to use it sooner, I have no idea.
This was another one of those movie heavy weekends for me. Yesterday I watched The Big Lebowski, Animal Farm, and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Today I watched Peeping Tom, Pink Flamingos, and The Host.
The Big Lebowski is pretty great. I'm definitely a fan of the Coen Bros, and I kept meeting people who loved it, so I was really hoping I'd love it, too. There really should be a warning to watch that movie while drinking white Russians.
I only watched Animal Farm to relive the time it was shown to me when I was a five year-old at Sunday school. It's a noisy movie, in that there are a lot of cacophonous animal sounds that made me want to mute the volume entirely. Also the Farmer is illustrated as the Creepist Creepo ever.
Dracula I watched because I had read an article talking about how all the special effects were done old school, totally avoiding the CGI of the time. About half way in though, I was no longer interested in the film artistically, or for any other reason, and just wanted it to be over.
The killer in Peeping Tom is also a total creepo, and he sounds like Peter Lorre, which is never a good thing. And for the first example of a slasher movie (so says Ghostface in Scream 4), there was no gore to speak of, and for the modern horror movie viewer, that's just disappointing.
The Host was pretty great. It wasn't just a monster movie, and it knew when to be funny. It was kind of weird sitting through few parts with American actors speaking English, since they all spoke so slowly. Also, I'm pretty sure that one of the minor characters in this movie was an even more minor character in the Silence of the Lambs. Let me go check that out. Why yes, I am absolutely correct. In the book The Silence of the Lambs, I'm thinking his character is the one that Clarice ends up dating at the end. However, in the movie they don't even give him the opportunity to be a romantic figure: he's dorky, he awkwardly hits on her, and he's got a janky eye. (I'm not sure who exactly to blame on "janky" entering my lexicon.) Anyway, his janky eye is how I knew who he was in the Host. What the hell he's doing all up in a Korean movie anyway?
Oh, Pink Flamingos. I will tell you what I wish had been told to me: Nothing good will come of you seeing this movie. I will admit that there are certain lines that are funny, but getting those few little chuckles in are not worth the pain involved in witnessing the terrible acting, the disturbing qualitites of the characters, and some pretty repugnant scenes. I watched the anniversary edition, so John Waters pops up at the end to show some deleted scenes. I think that watching that movie with John Waters 25 years later doing MST-style commentary would be a little better, but even then it wouldn't fully redeem the movie. Seriously, leave this shit to the hardcore film buffs, crazy film cultists, and filthy individuals.
You know, I also happened to watch Ordinary People this past week. Monique called it a depressing character study, and I was in the mood to feel bad at the time, so I put it on. I actually liked it a lot more than I thought I would. Donald Sutherland was pretty great. Makes me wonder how he popped out Keifer Sutherland (do yourself a favor and don't watch Dark City. It's not good even when you're incredibly high like I was). Timothy Hutton was adorable, though we all know this movie was going to be about how his brother was dead and he wasn't yadda yadda yadda, it was nice to see a high school character whose emotional issues weren't all in his head. Mary Tyler Moore's character can die in a fucking fire. And Judd Hirsch was the fucking man. That whole movie could have taken place in his office for all I care.
Anything else? I was supposed to hang out with Kelly today, but she never returned my text this morning, which doesn't bother me in the slightest. I went to lunch with Corey and, as I mentioned, have been watching movies and generally enjoying being indoors. I really don't have the energy to wring my hands about missed contacts more than a few times in a week, so I'll worry about broken engagements another day.
Also, I will say that I had a dream Saturday morning. This isn't going to be a long recounting of the thing, but I do want to preface with the fact that it's weird that I seem to be able to wake up in and out of dreams in what feels like a rapid fashion. I thought that a person would have to be pretty heavily asleep to manage any dreaming, but I guess that's not always the case? I hardly remember what happened anymore, but I was with some people, one of them was my mom, and one of the people mentioned something about getting high (I think), and I was all for it, but my mom was like "but you have school tomorrow!" and I laughed. Not in the dream, actually laughed out loud. So I was awake enough to find my own dream funny and then hear myself laugh about it? Weird.