Look! A post!
I thought I'd post something since I haven't really had time all week. :) I've got to find me an ear, nose, and throat doctor pronto. The medicine the doctor gave me a couple weeks ago did diddlysquat - the day after I finished the antibiotics, my head filled up with congestion worse than before! I couldn't really miss a whole week of work, so I went in sick and had trouble talking on the phone for 8 hours; it was miserable. Monday, I left early because I was coughing during the calls real bad. The rest of the week, I stayed, and I had these awful coughing fits during calls. Luckily, we have a mute button on the phone so the customers didn't hear me. Everyone else did, though. People kept asking me if I was okay. I downed the OTC cold medicine all week and my head is finally clearing up to the point that I could work without a coughing fit every hour. Tuesday and Wednesday, I basically had to keep a cough drop in my mouth the entire day, or I'd go into a bad coughing fit, my throat was that scratchy. And no, it's not pleasant to have to suck on that many cough drops in a day, but at least I could work. I'm lucky that you can't seem to overdose on menthol. :D Anyway, as soon as I can find someone, I'm going to see if there's anything they can do to help with all this. Maybe they'll want to do an expensive test that will help me meet my deductible so my insurance will start helping with the costs again. :P
I've seen a couple good (and one bad) "found footage" movies lately. First, the bad: Paranormal Effect. Two American kids come to Japan to visit (one a Japanese-American girl, the other her unattractive white boyfriend) and stay in the girl's grandmother's house. The guy dares to traipse into a forbidden cave and upsets the Japanese mountain god or something. After this, almost nothing happens for a long time. There's maybe one good scene, the rest is dull and pointless. It's like they copy ideas from Paranormal Activity (the girl "sleepwalking" and such), but they make no sense in the context of this movie. Stupid ending that makes no sense. Next!
(It was really a shame it sucked so bad, because I think the concept could have yielded some cool stuff.)
Grave Encounters: LOVED this one. Almost made me scream a couple of times, which is hard to do. The concept is that these people who make one of those ghost-hunting shows choose a haunted asylum as their next place to investigate. The problem for them is that this location is really haunted, and it decides these people would make great new "patients." As the crew slowly realize, the asylum is not going to let them go. The ways in which this is revealed to them only ramp up the sense of dread and suspense. Such as, they try to go up on the roof so they can climb down the fire escape and get out of this place, but when they reach the top flight of stairs, it leads to a cement wall that should not be there, blocking their way. The ghosts of the asylum start attacking them and chasing them around the asylum, which is what provided the potential scream moments for me. I really enjoyed it.
The only thing about the movie that bothered me is one character drops the F bomb when he gets angry/upset to the point that it gets excessive, and I'm not normally bothered by cussing.
Atrocious: A found footage movie from Spain that's in Spanish with English subtitles (or you can listen to the inferior dub :P). The Quintanilla family heads to their secluded vacation home for some peace and relaxation, but the two teenagers, Cristian and July, decide to make it a little more exciting for themselves by taking their video cameras so they can investigate a local urban legend about a ghost who will help you get home if you are lost in the woods. What really makes the movie is they give you a fantastic setting for a horror film - in back of the house is a big hedge maze with some interesting features, like a gazebo-looking thing made of stone and a dried up well. (Eeeee! Makes me think of The Ring!) Just imagine the kids getting caught out there in that hedge maze AT NIGHT. What else makes the film is the two teenagers are played by some very good actors. I totally believed that they were in this situation and that they were rightfully terrified by what was happening to them.
The kids find out pretty quick that they are in danger at their vacation house; someone with a violent agenda leaves them a very scary message in the hedge maze within a couple days of them coming there. Knowing that this violent person (?) is out there, and then seeing the kids be drawn out into the hedge maze in the dark creates some great tension and suspense. You know they could be attacked at any moment. No matter how well they tried to learn the hedge maze the day before, they still get a bit lost, and it makes you fear for their safety. I loved every minute of it.
There were a couple of parts that I thought could have been used to even more scary potential, but overall it was a damn good entry into the found footage genre.
I don't care how played out this genre is supposed to be, I am determined to see every found footage movie I can get my hands on and pick out the really good ones. It's a concept I simply love.
I've seen a couple good (and one bad) "found footage" movies lately. First, the bad: Paranormal Effect. Two American kids come to Japan to visit (one a Japanese-American girl, the other her unattractive white boyfriend) and stay in the girl's grandmother's house. The guy dares to traipse into a forbidden cave and upsets the Japanese mountain god or something. After this, almost nothing happens for a long time. There's maybe one good scene, the rest is dull and pointless. It's like they copy ideas from Paranormal Activity (the girl "sleepwalking" and such), but they make no sense in the context of this movie. Stupid ending that makes no sense. Next!
(It was really a shame it sucked so bad, because I think the concept could have yielded some cool stuff.)
Grave Encounters: LOVED this one. Almost made me scream a couple of times, which is hard to do. The concept is that these people who make one of those ghost-hunting shows choose a haunted asylum as their next place to investigate. The problem for them is that this location is really haunted, and it decides these people would make great new "patients." As the crew slowly realize, the asylum is not going to let them go. The ways in which this is revealed to them only ramp up the sense of dread and suspense. Such as, they try to go up on the roof so they can climb down the fire escape and get out of this place, but when they reach the top flight of stairs, it leads to a cement wall that should not be there, blocking their way. The ghosts of the asylum start attacking them and chasing them around the asylum, which is what provided the potential scream moments for me. I really enjoyed it.
The only thing about the movie that bothered me is one character drops the F bomb when he gets angry/upset to the point that it gets excessive, and I'm not normally bothered by cussing.
Atrocious: A found footage movie from Spain that's in Spanish with English subtitles (or you can listen to the inferior dub :P). The Quintanilla family heads to their secluded vacation home for some peace and relaxation, but the two teenagers, Cristian and July, decide to make it a little more exciting for themselves by taking their video cameras so they can investigate a local urban legend about a ghost who will help you get home if you are lost in the woods. What really makes the movie is they give you a fantastic setting for a horror film - in back of the house is a big hedge maze with some interesting features, like a gazebo-looking thing made of stone and a dried up well. (Eeeee! Makes me think of The Ring!) Just imagine the kids getting caught out there in that hedge maze AT NIGHT. What else makes the film is the two teenagers are played by some very good actors. I totally believed that they were in this situation and that they were rightfully terrified by what was happening to them.
The kids find out pretty quick that they are in danger at their vacation house; someone with a violent agenda leaves them a very scary message in the hedge maze within a couple days of them coming there. Knowing that this violent person (?) is out there, and then seeing the kids be drawn out into the hedge maze in the dark creates some great tension and suspense. You know they could be attacked at any moment. No matter how well they tried to learn the hedge maze the day before, they still get a bit lost, and it makes you fear for their safety. I loved every minute of it.
There were a couple of parts that I thought could have been used to even more scary potential, but overall it was a damn good entry into the found footage genre.
I don't care how played out this genre is supposed to be, I am determined to see every found footage movie I can get my hands on and pick out the really good ones. It's a concept I simply love.