Doom Plague Movies

I recently got pretty sick. Sick enough that I was incapable of doing anything at all except laying on my couch in complete delirious misery. I wasn’t even able to sleep, it was so bad. This gave me a lot of hours to fill. A lot of hours. Needless to say, perhaps, I cleared out a good number of things from my instant queue, and even hit a few things that were just randomly picked hoping they’d lull me into oblivion.

In total, I hit 20 movies in about 60 hours.

So I thought I’d do a bit of a brief writeup on each, and use a very easy scoring system. + if I liked it, - if I didn’t, \ if I don’t really go either way or maybe go both ways.

Here we go:

-American Loser: I really feel like they used Sean William Scott and Gretchen Mol as magnets for this movie knowing that people would flock to it, and then didn’t bother, you know, writing anything. This was such a boring movie. The idea that a guy is an alcoholic with learning disabilities and is trying to form a relationship with a chick that is just as fucked up as him has potential. It was not met. Or even glanced at.

+Assassination of a High School President: This was a lot better than I expected it to be. There were really interesting layers and the story was pretty intriguing. Bruce Willis’ character was simply amazing, his aversion to gum was well played out (something that I thought was going to be really stupid). It had a kind of noir-ish feel to it, but doesn’t quite dive into the pool. This isn’t a bad thing, even though it sounds like it should be.

+Let Go: Another movie I really thought was going to be blah, but turned out better than hoped. The description that Netflix gives it doesn’t really do it justice, not that I’m surprised by that happening anymore. Everybody they cast did a brilliant job at their parts, though I have to say my favorite was Kevin Hart. I love that guy. I really felt for him through the whole movie. He just kept trying and failing, and it so wasn’t even his fault.

+Safety Not Guaranteed: Granted, this movie has some kind of strange moments in it, and those moments wouldn’t have worked in any other setting, but they did in this one somehow. They only really left one thing untouched that nags at me, and that’s the like “I have only done this once before”. It’s never questioned, never brought up to the guy. Everything else is taken care of. Why not that? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME!? I WAS SICK!

+Heavenly Creatures: I’ve known this story for some time. I have a couple of true crime books that talk about it or give the short version. When I found out that a movie had been made, of course I had to see it. I had never previously encountered the journal entries, and the addition of those just made the whole story more … more. It adds a level that you just don’t get when you’re reading the basic facts.

\The Snowtown Murders: So. So, I really liked the information this movie put forth. The facts of what went on. Depicting all the characters really well. It just wasn’t a very exciting movie. At times it was incredibly graphic (a scene where one brother rapes another goes on a lot longer than you’d think), and there was enough to keep my attention, but I think that I would have much rather read about all of it. As detailed as it was, there were some spots that didn’t really touch on things too deeply, and that was weird. I didn’t hate it, but I won’t watch it again.

-Jerk Theory: Fucking suuuuuucked. There was no redeeming moment in this movie at all. Not one. Nothing. The acting was bad, the story was stupid, it was boring, it had obnoxious songs in it. Bad. All bad. No good.

+He Was A Quiet Man: Not really something that I expected to see Christian Slater in. I mean, obviously he is, but the role, the character he plays, isn’t really Slater norm. I think it really shows his diversity as an actor, his amazingness, really. This movie was really touching. There were a lot of unexpected things, too, which I liked. I kind of wonder why I didn’t hear more about this movie, but I kind of don’t. You don’t really know what to expect going in, and there’s no real way to describe it to anybody else that doesn’t make it sound trite or unlike the movie you just watched.

+The Killing Jar: It could be that I just really really love Danny Trejo, Michael Madsen, and Harold Perrineau, but I had a lot of fun with this one. A lot. The plot synopsis makes it sound really boring, but I was not bored for one second.

\Capote: I like things that Capote has written, I just wasn’t really interested in the movie. I can’t exactly say why, either. Maybe just because I was sick and it’s not really a great sick movie? I don’t know. I also didn’t hate it. And Phillip Seymore Hoffman’s portrayal of Capote was glorious. Beautiful. He was stunning in that role. That’s what kept me watching the whole time, honestly.

-HottieBoombaLottie: Just. Shut up. This was a movie I hoped would destroy my brain and let me sleep. Unfortunately, I stayed awake for the whole thing. There were tiny funny moments, and that’s all it’s got going for it. So bad. So very, very bad. I might have actually gotten sicker due to this movie.

+Repeaters: What happens when you Groundhog Day a trio of recovering drug addict kids? Chaos! Wonderful, wonderful chaos. It’s not the most intelligent movie on the planet, and there are some plot holes that never get cleared up (really kind of minor plot, thankfully). Still, it was fun.

\Hick: The actors played their parts well, the concept was interesting, but when it was all said and done, I just wasn’t into the story. It wasn’t bad, it was just blah. Not the best. Also, Netflix should learn how to properly describe things, because this movie is nothing like how it’s written up.

+Nightwatch: There are two movies of this name. One of them is Russian and the other has Ewan McGregor and Josh Brolin. It is very important to make sure that you do not watch one thinking you are watching the other. They are very very different movies with very different plots and you will get VERY confused. That said, this Nightwatch was FANTASTIC. Man, I loved it. I was on the edge of my seat. As much as I could be, since I was laying down curled in a ball. WATCH THIS MOVIE. Goddamn.

\Howl: I am not a fan of the poem, Howl. This movie, however, was pretty well done, and the animation was amazing. Jon Hamm and James Franco nailed their parts. And the story of the trial is pretty interesting, too. They cut out the more boring bits, of course, making it seem less tedious than I’m sure it was. It was entertaining enough to keep a sick girl happy.

-Arthur: I hate Russell Brand. I do. There’s only one thing he’s in that I can think of that I enjoy, and that’s Despicable Me. I’m not sure why they picked him to redo something Dudley Moore did so well, but it was a poor, poor choice. He just didn’t pull it off.

\Project X: I watched this largely because I saw a preview for it with a friend of mine and the dog in the jumping castle was really amusing. I’m ambivalent toward the movie in general, as it had some fun parts, but the concept is not really… anything I’m into. If that many people were anywhere near my house, people would be getting shot. By me.

-Nine Dead: I don’t think I’ve been so disappointed in a movie in a really long time. This one should have been great. Nothing about it was, though. It was flat, it didn’t have suspense, it didn’t have interesting characters, the actors failed at getting anything across (except for the mob guy, he was pretty believable), and I will never – not ever in my life – believe Melissa Joan Hart in a role like that.

+Employee of the Month: This movie really starts out shitty. I gave up on it a couple of times just because the flow was off and the story wasn’t catching me. But I hit a certain point and all of it turned around. From then on, it was good times for everybody. Okay, just for me, since I watched it alone. Blood, laughter, things that were completely unexpected. It’s like the recipe for awesome.

+Killer Elite: Yep. Yes. All the time yes. All the yesses in the whole world. I cannot yes enough. I did go into this thinking that it was all action, which it’s not, but I wasn’t upset at the absence. There were actiony parts that were enough to fill my desires. The rest of it… wow. Wow. And the line “Strawberry or fuck you”? I knew I was in love as soon as it was uttered.

Lego Indiana Jones

It makes me sad to say that I now don’t believe that every game in this Lego franchise is a good one (this is discounting Lego Rock Band). I have played Lego Batman and Lego Star Wars and enjoyed both to incredible amounts. Since I loved them, and I love Indiana Jones, I thought that it would be a good fit.

I didn’t hate the game, let’s make that clear. But I wasn’t really having much fun with it, either. It was kind of a chore to get through, and I found myself rushing levels just so I could be done with the game and move on to something else. This is not how it should be while playing a game. Games should elicit excitement and desire to spend time with them.

After a bit of thinking, I realized why I wasn’t liking it. It wasn’t because of the story or the design of the levels. It was the actual mechanics of the game. They were so broken in places that it made things frustrating.

There’s this one achievement where you have to use your whip to kiss each of the three female leads in the game. This sounds like it should be easy. All you have to do is line yourself up with her, with her facing you, and let your awesome skills take over. Except… it doesn’t work quite like that. It’s no simple task to get them to face you, and when you do, even if it looks like you are, that’s no guarantee that the two of you are lined up just right. And it has to be just right. Any deviation means that it just won’t work. Which leads to frustration and whip flailing and chasing some poor Lego broad around a room.

This isn’t the way that it should be.

In the end, I didn’t even have the desire to go back and try to get more achievements, even the ones that would be fairly easy to do. That’s pretty bad.

Wall-E (game)

It makes me really sad to say that this game is complete crap. Absolute shit.

While it is fun to speed around pretending to be a cute little boxy robot, or fly at breakneck speeds as a sleek and powerful one, that’s about where the enjoyment ends. You can make them say things and stuff with the directional pad, but it doesn’t always work. If you let them sit on screen untouched for a little bit, they’ll do cute stuff, but it gets repetitive after a bit and uninteresting.

As much as I love this movie, I was really excited to get this game and play it. I even have Wall-E and Eve robots sitting on my shelf. They interact with one another. I can turn them on and just listen to them say stuff to one another and get a good deal more enjoyment out of my time than I had playing a game that revolves around them.

This is not the first kids game that I have played that has been completely horrible, either. Which makes me wonder if maybe kids are attracted to adult games because the people who make adult games know that we’re discerning gamers and we’ll bitch if something is broken. It’s like the makers of these childrens’ games don’t give a shit. They’re just trying to get a product out there that will be bought, and what happens after that is meaningless to them.

So the problems this game has? Let me list them for you.

– Graphics: For the most part, the graphics are pretty okay. Not the most high tech out there, but you certainly get the feeling that you’re Wall-E. The cut scene graphics are actually worse than the in-game graphics, though. And there are parts of the game where you can tell that the people working on it just sort of gave up.

– Levels: A few of the levels are frustratingly complex. Not in a way that encourages the player to keep trying. But in a way that makes me wonder if any child has ever even finished this game. They aren’t intuitive. They aren’t easy. You have to have one or the other. If you’re going to have a stupidly hard level, it has to be something that can be figured out. The end must be something clearly visible. Or you can do it the other way. You can have no guide at all, no path set, and have the level be the easiest thing on the planet. But you cannot make a level nigh impossible and not have some kind of hint that points the player in the right direction.

And there is no tutorial. No level to level guide that makes it clear what the hell you’re supposed to be doing. It’s all trial and error. Not once was I told that Eve couldn’t ever touch any object. Know how I found out? Dying.

The levels have these arbitrary end points. There’s no warning. You don’t get a chance to say “oh, I’m not quite done exploring yet, so I’ll just not go over there”. There’s nothing that tells you the end is near. You might just accidentally roll toward something that looks like a collectable, and then you’re done. You’re on to the next thing.

– Mechanics: The in game mechanics are just a huge bucket of failure. Something that shouldn’t work at all does, the things that you’re told should work don’t. Why throw three garbage blocks to get to your next point when two will open the gate just fine? Doesn’t matter that there are three lights on the giant metal bucket thing. That gate will open anyway.

There were also several occasions when the mechanics just stopped working entirely. Things that I needed to progress to the next part. I actually had to turn the game off and reload in order to get things functioning again so I could progress. More than once. If this had been an adult game, there would be outrage far and wide all over the internet. You know what I found? I found user ratings at 6.0 across the board, which makes me think that somebody isn’t being very honest.

– Buttons: This goes in with the no tutorial, sort of. You’re sort of told sometimes what buttons will do, but you’re never told at any time that these buttons might change. When they pair you up with Eve, instead of adding a button for the things that you guys can do together, or for Eve’s abilities, they just change the general button configuration. There’s no warning for this. It’s another one of those things that you figure out by dying. What should make Wall-E do things makes Eve do things and vice versa.

You’ll just be rolling along thinking, I’ll just jump over that red spot on the floo….or shoot things with Eve accidentally and die.

-Other: Checkpoints are a joke. Where there should be progress checkpoints after a particularly grueling puzzle, there isn’t one. So if you get past something you feel proud of finally figuring out after being frustrated for a half an hour, and then die, you get to do that again! Fun! Then! if you’ve done nothing complicated at all, you’ll roll right past a checkpoint! Awesome!

Mini-games required: Usually mini-games are things that you can choose to do or not do, as time or want dictates. In this game, however, there are levels you cannot pass until you finish the mini-games. Finish, and pass, I might add. And no, they aren’t easy.

There was one, in the first section where you play as Eve, where you had to hit these acceleration points, they would speed you on to the next one, and you had to get all of them within a very short amount of time. Something that was challenging and interesting. The first five times I tried to beat it. You see, at one point in the map, the barrier that forces (forces, you don’t just stop and can’t go further, the game flips Eve around in a grand show, and you can’t stop the movement) you back is right over the line of natural movement for this challenge. It’s at the second to last acceleration point. Eventually, I figured out that if I took a completely awkward route, I could bypass this enough to get through the game.

Did I mention that Eve can’t touch anything at all? Or she gets hurt? Nothing. Can’t touch the ground, the buildings, the random level items. The edges of things. All of it hurts her.

Did I mention that there are hidden collectables that require the movement of some in-level items by using Eve’s body?

Puzzle on that.

An Open Letter To Netflix

Dearest Netflix,

What the fuck.

No, seriously. What the fuck is going on with you? Why is it that you don’t seem to fucking function anymore? Not even in the “I hate the way you tried to ‘streamline’ your shit” kind of way, either. But in the “I don’t think your employees are actually doing their jobs” kind of way.

I guess it started a while ago, maybe even before you decided to start charging more for shit. Splitting up the DVD and Instant services was just an asshole move. But things were rocky before then, weren’t they?

You started suggesting things that you thought I might like that were NOTHING like the movies and shows I had just watched or were in my history. Okay, I can see that I suppose. Maybe there’s something in this romance movie I might like even though 70% of what I watch is drama or horror, and 20% of it is comedy. Maybe somebody dies, I don’t know.

From there it went to what you were comparing with what. In your “More Like ___” sections, I started to find more and more things that were NOT alike at all. Not in any way. That got paired up with the fact that you started grouping things wrong. Care Bears in science fiction? That’s not how that works.

Then it was like a trainwreck happening, one that’s still happening. One that I just don’t even try to understand anymore.

– You say there are new episodes in a series when there aren’t any.

– You list things on the New Releases tab when they’ve been out for four or five years. If you just got it, and are just now able to let us see it on Instant, it should go under Just Added.

– There is no longer any way to search by actor if you’re not online doing it. It just tells you that shit doesn’t even exist. I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure that Marilyn Monroe did a couple of movies and that you’ve got them all stashed somewhere. The fact that I have to search each one by title instead of being able to bring them up by her name? What the hell?

– Your copy is wrong. More often than I would like, I find myself watching something because of the description I read. And hating it. Or, on the flip side, not watching it because it sounds like something I would loathe, and then finding out later that I would have loved it.

– Your employees aren’t paying attention to what they’re doing. Did you know that for a really long time after you added Life to Instant that you had Charlie Crews’ name completely wrong? Hm? You did. Shouldn’t have happened.

– Episodes for shows are actually skipped over during regular play. When I watched Supernatural, it skipped over half of a season when I was hitting “play next episode”. When I watched Ugly Betty, the first few episodes of the first season had the wrong information tied to them, and weren’t in order. A couple might have even been missing, but since I don’t know the series, I couldn’t say. But it was all very confusing.

– Recently Watched randomly just doesn’t show up at all. Doesn’t seem to be any reason for it. I’ll just turn on my 360, fire up Netflix, wait to see my Recently Watched so I can easily pick up where I left off, and … it’s not there. The whole goddamned field is just gone.

Now let’s add into the things I’ve spoken of before, shall we? I’ll just copy and paste it to make things easier for both of us.

“To make it worse, Netflix also changed their dashboard to coincide with the Xbox change. And the Netflix dashboard is so goddamned useless sometimes that I want to throw things. They show you movies you might like to see during the last bits of movie you’re watching (some movies have stuff going on during or after the credits, so I’m not particularly happy that they reduce the screen) but they don’t give you a description of the movie, you have to seek it out after to see what it’s about. There’s no way to rate a movie without playing it. There’s no longer any way to mark that you’re not even interested in the movie anymore, so stuff you really don’t want to keep seeing pop up will, unless you go to the site. For tv shows, you can’t go in and pick an episode unless, again, you start playing the series. So if you haven’t watched in a while and want to see if the “new episodes” they’ve added are really and truly new, you have to start playing, then go to the episodes list. This is completely stupid.”

That’s just something I tacked onto a rant about the 360 dashboard. I think it’s good here, too. Since it’s about you. And the things you’re slacking on. Or forgetting. Or just don’t care about anymore.

The money I shell out to you for this service might not mean much to you. But it means a lot to me. I’m on a really strict budget. Netflix is one of the things that is completely unnecessary to life that I allow myself. A fun little thing that I enjoy having quite a bit.

It might not matter to you that all this shit is broken, but it matters to me, because of this money I hand to you every month. I know it matters to other people as well. Maybe they don’t use Instant as much as I do. Maybe that 10 bucks isn’t a really big deal to them. But it still matters. You know why?

BECAUSE WE PAY YOU FOR THIS SERVICE.

It’s not something that you give us for free. It’s not an add on to DVDs like it used to be. It’s a stand alone service that shouldn’t be as fucked up as it is. It should work. It should be functional. It should be valid. It should be fun, and not frustrating.

I’m not going to threaten to not use your service, because that’s unrealistic at this point. But I am going to ask you to fix your shit, because I’m tired of it, and there’s a good number of people I know who are also tired of it. It should be seen as a courtesy to us, your paying customers.

To sum up?
Get your shit together, Netflix.

-Mila.

Fable: The Journey

The thought of this game coming out actually saddens me. It actually makes me feel upset.

Since the Fable series began, I have bought and loved every single game. I have purchased every tiny bit of downloadable content, including Pub Games and now Fable Heroes. I have had no complaints for any of them. I’ve played all of them many, many times through.

And now?

Now Lionhead has decided to make a Kinect only game. Fable: The Journey requires it to play at all. I do not have a Kinect. I likely won’t ever have a Kinect. I hate it. I hate that it’s such a piece of shit and yet Xbox refuses to improve it or throw it away. They just leave it as it is, and keep trying to push it on us.

Because of this, I will not be buying Fable: The Journey.

For the first time in the long run of the Fable franchise, I have absolutely no desire to own one of their products. I’m not quite sure what to do with myself, here. I want Lionhead to continue to make Fable games, but not if this is what they’re going to do. It’s a big risk making it Kinect required. I know a good deal of people who feel the way I do about the device. I know others who are curious about it but can’t afford it, and likely won’t be able to for a long time. So what’s this going to do for Lionhead? What purpose?

I’m okay with titles having Kinect whatnot built into them, it means I can still play with a regular controller. I’m okay with arcade games being Kinect only. It kind of sucks that I won’t get to play something like Gunstringer, cause it looks cute, but it’s not a game from a company that I have invested a lot of time and love into.

But this?

The Hunger Games (Book and movie)

I have a feeling I might not be sitting in the Popular Opinion Cool Kids Section after this one. Oh well.

The Hunger Games in general didn’t catch my attention like it did the rest of the world. I didn’t clamor to get the books, and I wasn’t rabid at the idea of a movie. There are several reasons for this. I don’t actively seek out YA books, though I know they can be well written and interesting. I have a lot of other books sitting on a table and waiting to be read, competing with the reorganization and fixing of my house, so I’m not actively seeking out any books that come in a series. Those books waiting to be read are also things that I’ve been looking forward to reading, and I want to get to them. I haven’t been reading like I normally do, and the thought of adding more books to that pile at the moment is a little daunting.

However.

My mother picked up the first book in the series and read it really quickly. She told me that she really enjoyed it. Since it’s a YA and I know that she’s not trying to trick me into reading smut, I decided to give it a chance. I thought it might be nice to have a quick, fun read.

Turns out, I did enjoy reading it. The story is deep, the characters are well thought out and I was interested in knowing more about them. And I read it in under 10 hours total.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to fashion a Katniss Everdeen costume and write fanfic now. I’ve written fanfic exactly twice in my life. Once was an Anita Blake fic, I decided that with how absurd the story was getting and how badly the writing was becoming, a werecow fit right into it all. The other was a Superman/Lex Luthor fic for a friend that complained there was nothing good out there to satisfy her wants. There’s one brewing in my head that has to do with Darth Vader, but we’ll forget I even bought that up.

But I did decide that I wanted to see the movie, and so did my mom. I have heard nothing but rave reviews for it, along with statements that it was perfectly made and they left nothing out.

This is where I’m going to get hit with the shit stick, I think.

This movie has had issues and controversy surrounding it because of morons with low to nonexistent reading comprehension outing themselves as racists. I’m not going to get into this. Personally, I think the casting was pretty well done. My issue is not casting.

It’s the entirety of the movie.

My mother and I left the movie feeling… unsure. But as we talked about it, we realized… it’s not good. We were really unhappy. And I was really confused. How could everybody say that this movie was perfectly made? That it was exactly what the book was, and they couldn’t have asked for anything more? How were legions of people delighted by what they had seen? I felt hugely, hugely, let down.

I’m going to spell out why. But I’m going to mention here that I’m not going to hold back on what I say, so there’s bound to be spoilers. I don’t really know more than one or two people that haven’t somehow become absorbed into this, so I’m not really worried. Since I don’t want to get yelled at for it, however, and don’t want spoiler issues to overshadow the rest of what I’m saying, here it is:

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD.

There. You were warned.

Now on to my issues.

1. Where the pin came from. I felt like this was a big deal because that pin came from somebody unexpected. It came from somebody that Katniss didn’t think gave two thoughts about her. It was a showing that she was supported in her future venture, not just for taking her sister’s place and being brave about it in the face of impending shit. Taking this moment away from the story… I just can’t fathom how they thought that it would be okay.

2. Haymitch and his drinking. They played this down. I’m unsure of why. Because kids would be seeing it? Didn’t kids read it? I also felt like him falling off the stage was something of small import. It meant that the whole of the country was watching District 12 already, but making fun of them. Taking this out means that they’re not turning the country’s view of their district around in any way. They don’t start out the underdog.

3. Peeta’s father was removed as well. We know in the book that his mother is a tyrant. This is generally ignored, but I think because I had just read the book and it was fresh in my mind that I translated it onto the screen. Removing his father was harshly evident. There was no balance. Taking out the moment that his father visits Katniss and gifts her with treats removes her decision that she can’t accept kindness from anyone, because of what she has to do. It removes the passionate moment where she throws out the bag, lessening the turmoil of her later decision to team up with Peeta and what it really means.

4. All the personal relationships were really underdeveloped. I felt no connection between Katniss and anybody else. Not her mother, not her sister, not Gale. I didn’t feel for her in the moment that she stepped up to take her sister’s place, because by that time, I really felt like she was an expendable character. Nobody seemed to really give a shit about her, so neither did I. This was in stark contrast to the book, where I could almost feel my own heart breaking as her sister’s name is called. As Gale has to come up and physically remove the sister from the scene because of all the emotion. While this happens in the movie as well, it’s not even a fraction as dramatic as it should have been. It was kind of like a walk in the park.

5. The pressure of the Games is removed. Not one part of it feels harrowing or dangerous. It feels like paintball with friends on a nice Saturday afternoon in comparison to how the book describes it. This can be backed up by the fact that there have been a great number of people in the real world wishing that they could be a part of the Hunger Games. WHY WOULD ANYBODY WANT THAT?

6. It is very evident in the book how different life is in the Capitol, spoken of many times in detail. The weird hair, the outrageous plastic surgery. This being replaced with outlandish makeup and wigs tears apart everything that was trying to be illustrated. Anybody can put on a wig and makeup. These people made alterations to their very structures because they didn’t really have anything better to do with their lives. They dyed their goddamned skin different colors. These are instruments to show the absolute decadence of the Capitol. The lavish lives that they lead. The painful blandness of their lives that drives them to staunch their boredom in un-thought-of ways.

7. Rue. Oh my god, Rue. She wasn’t there for long, but she was a huge impact on Katniss and the general point of the story. But in the movie she’s mainly left out. We don’t see her helping Katniss. We don’t see the exchange of knowledge between them, or that Katniss takes care of this little girl. We don’t get their connection at all. For christ’s sake, she doesn’t even chew the leaves, just pastes them over Katniss’ burns whole. There’s nothing there to make us feel anything for her, or for Katniss when she dies. It’s just an empty, decorated platter. Something pretty to look at, with no substance.

Even the fact that Katniss leaves the spear in Rue so that nobody else will be able to have it is lost.

8. Small, but integral, I think, is the crown. One of the simplest things that happened in the whole story, yet they managed to neglect it entirely. Instead of one crown for one person, the crown splits into two, a part for Katness, a part for Peeta, to show that they share the win. Yet in the movie? One. One for Katniss. While she is the narrator of our tale, she is NOT the only hero. In fact, she’s not really much of a hero in the standard sense at all. She is selfish. Peeta is the hero. This is evident even in the book. So where is Peeta’s crown?

9. Why did they lessen Katniss’ wounds? How did that make anything better? To keep the actress pretty? She went through hell in the book, yet she comes out of the Games looking pretty clean and plump. As if the entire thing happened over a matter of hours instead of days. By the way she looks, she doesn’t need any of the help she gets from others. The teaming up with Rue is diminished here as well.

10. We miss out entirely on her reaction to Peeta’s declaration of love. They don’t have her sitting in the audience to hear it along with the rest of the world. We see her anger. And even that isn’t fully realized. She breaks his hands in the book. Breaks his HANDS.

11. Another diminished aspect that I felt was hugely important? The gifts. The sponsors as a whole, really. Everything that they were doing, from their costumes to how they were acting was to get sponsors, to get gifts, so that they could survive. Without this, what point is the beautiful flaming set of creations by Cinna? Without this, why should she bother even putting on an act with Peeta? We see very little of these gifts, or their meaning. Ripping away beautiful writing and some pretty good moments that could have been captured.

12. Muttations. Hi. This could have been awesome. But it was … sad. Pathetically thought out in the movie, or not thought out, as the case may be. There’s a point when they’re surrounded by these dogs, ravenous and angry, out for blood dog-human creations. Katniss sees in these creatures the features of her fellow tributes, showing just how disgusting these games really are. It doesn’t matter if they’re truly made with the bodies of the fallen, the point is that the creators of this “game” will stoop to any level. They’re using the deceased as game pieces after they’ve already been destroyed in horrible ways. Their death is no peace to them. They are made to terrify and confuse the living. Sure, they’re still plenty discouraging when they appear, but not nearly as moving.

To top it off, we don’t really get to see what the Capitol has done in the past to win against the rebels. The things that they created to best their enemies.

13. The Avox. The whole story of the redheaded girl and how Katniss knew her. The fact that their tongues are removed and they’re made to serve others. Where was it? Why do they keep insisting on refusing to make the Capitol as evil as they are?

14. They missed a huge story point in removing Katniss’ personal issues about Peeta and Gale. What she has to do VS what she wants, and what she’s not sure she wants VS what she might actually be feeling. Worrying about what Gale will think when she does what she has to do to survive.

15. Why remove her entire ordeal with trying to find water? Because they left out everything else that has to with the gifts? Water is important, yet they neglected to make me feel like she’d spent any time without it.

16. I really missed Katniss’ stylists. They are vapid, they are flighty, but they are also interesting. They show the stark contrast between Katniss’ world and the world of the Capitol, and yet they still obviously begin to care about her. We get to see them grow from people who only care about themselves into individuals who are rather like dotty aunts.

17. Cinna. So much more should have been explored with Cinna. His brief moments on screen didn’t even begin to touch the deep connection that he has with her. We don’t know why, in the books, Cinna doesn’t exactly subscribe to the things that the people around him do, but we can see that he doesn’t. He is subdued. He knows what needs to be done, but he isn’t a follower. He helps Katniss in more ways than just her clothing. But we miss it. All of it.

18. Her father? We learn the bare essentials of Katniss and her father, their relationship, what he did for her, what he meant to her, how he left their lives, the impact on her mother. Sure, we see some of this in really brief flashes. But we don’t really get to know it. If it weren’t for him, she wouldn’t be who she became. Yet it doesn’t seem to be important at all in the movie.

19. The pin. Again. We see it. We know that she takes it into the Games. We don’t know that she’s not really supposed to. We don’t get to see the impact of it anywhere. It’s just a pin. A pin given to her by the wrong person for the wrong reasons.

There are probably more reasons that I’m not coming up with right at this moment, but I think the gist of how I feel has come across in these points. All 19 of them.

Having read the second book now, all of these points are just further cemented for me. I read things that bring these points back into life, into the story. They aren’t things that are just in the first book. They grow and become other things. The changes made in the movie in some cases, completely erases some relationships and moments that happen in the second book. It strips them out entirely. There are some spots, from movie to second book, where I can see the bridges over the gaps they made, using logic, but it doesn’t mean that it will be good or satisfactory if another movie is made. (If. I say if, like it’s not going to happen)

I wish now that I hadn’t even gone to see the movie. It’s tainted my experience. It ripped me out of the moment. I did still enjoy the second book, and I’m looking forward to reading the third and finding out what happens. But the entire time I was reading the second, I was finding flaws in the movie and having to stop to think about everything they took away from us with their omissions and changes. This is not what reading should be. This is not what a movie experience should be.

I’m disappointed. And confused. How is this movie so well liked?

Phone – The Saga part two

A little while ago I posted about my phone and how much I didn’t want to let it go. Despite it’s many issues, I was finding workarounds so that I could keep it and live happily.

Well, the new Twitter client that I found won’t let me look at conversations, won’t let me click on links, and takes an exceedingly long time to get anything done. I tried for a while to just use the service web-based, but that was even more cumbersome. I thought I had found a miracle when I discovered the client I’m using now. It’s really actually cut down on my Twitter use because of it’s many problems.

New issues have arisen as well. I’m not getting all the texts that people say they’re sending. And I’m also apparently not sending out all the texts that I type up, either. It says I do. But then people feel hurt because I drop the conversation (or don’t answer them at all).

It’s use as an actual phone has been cut down as well. It’s dropping calls, it’s not getting full signal – even in my house, where I have an AirWave. What’s an AirWave? It’s a thing that makes it so that you essentially have a cell tower inside of your home. Yet, somehow, there are times when I have NO BARS. How is this possible? Fucked if I know.

And now Snaptu, who I thought was just dropping the Twitter client part of their service, has just shut down completely. This was the only way that I had of checking weather, or reading news, or doing a good number of things that I did. I don’t know if they realize it, but by shutting themselves down, they’ve cut off big things for a lot of users. Fine, they want to just focus on Facebook, I guess Facebook is giving them enough money to do this. Does that mean it’s not the biggest dick move they could have pulled? No. In fact, I don’t know if they realize just how fucked up it was to do this. It was bad enough that I couldn’t get to Twitter anymore, but to take away everything else I used? Why? They claim they want to make Facebook accessible to all phones, but what about the rest of it? My phone really cannot even open most news sites. It certainly can’t do anything web-based easily.

Anyway. Because of all these things, plus the fact that the new battery didn’t help very much, I’ve bent and gotten a new phone. It should be here any time. Wait wait wait.

I’m anxious, but in an excited kind of way. I’m looking forward to playing with the new phone and getting to know it. But I’m also sad that I have to retire the one I’ve got. The time has come, though, and even I cannot ignore it anymore.

Wit’ch Storm

Sigh.

Alright.

I don’t remember the first one being this grammatically bad. There was a reiteration of my hate toward apostrophes being placed into words that didn’t need them, which seemed to me to be more rampant in this book than in the other one. But it could just be that the story in this book wasn’t as engaging or entertaining as it was in the first one. There was nothing there to take my attention away.

Actually, there was a lot to hate about this book that has nothing to do with characters or story. Like the fact that it seems as if this man has never been introduced to a thesaurus. Not once. In his whole life. I’m willing to bet, in fact, that he wouldn’t know what a synonym was if I beat him over the head with it until he was unconscious.

Every goddamned paragraph was so tragically repetitive. Once he found a word he liked to describe what was going on, he never strayed from it. This is how elementary school kids write. This is not how grown men with a book series write.

Where I was interested in what happened to everyone in Wit’ch Fire and was anxious to get the next novel to keep on with the story, in Wit’ch Storm the story was flat. The characters somehow lost all of their life. The new characters that were brought in did nothing to enrich the tale, the new information heralded no excitement. The battles felt more like hissy fits.

I am lost as to how this took such a nose dive. It’s as if the first book is sitting on a nice plateau and this one just fell right over the edge of the cliff. Maybe the first book nudged it.

I have no idea if I can bring myself to read any of the following books in this series. I haven’t a single nagging urge to find out where things go next. I don’t even care that I’m potentially quitting in the middle of all of it, not even my OCD can be bullied into giving a shit. It’s just as willing as I am to give up now and call it good. It’s a sad day when not even my OCD can prod me into finishing something.

Knight And Day

I truly never thought that I would find myself sitting down to purposefully watch a Tom Cruise movie ever again. Ever. After he went crazypants and then started touting the joys of Freaky Religion and then went even crazier, I more than kind of gave up on him as a person.

But I saw a trailer for this on something else that I’d gotten from Netflix, and I thought that it looked really funny. Imagine that. It attracted my attention, and I decided to put it on my queue.

Now, it wasn’t the worst movie that I’ve ever seen. In fact, it was pretty good where the action was concerned. The story wasn’t half bad at that. But I didn’t really go into this thing for the action. I went into it for the comedy. And in that, it fails. Every single funny part of this movie is actually in the trailer. So if you’re looking for a really good laugh, just watch that, because that’s all there is. You’ll be just as disappointed as I was if you try to watch the entire movie expecting that level of humor through the whole thing.

I also have to make a comment on Cameron Diaz and the level of poorness that leaked out of her all over everything. She’s not my favorite to begin with, actually, to be honest, I usually try to avoid anything that she’s in, because I don’t think she’s a good actor, and she pulls everything down with her. She’s a perpetually sinking ship and her vortex is too strong for anything to escape. This movie was no different. Her attempts to be funny fell horribly short, her tries at smart didn’t fair any better. I certainly didn’t believe her when she was talking about her love of car restoration. I don’t know what the appeal is here for her. I really don’t.

The one other nitpick I have is with the title. The fact that through the entire movie he goes by a different name, and you don’t even get introduced to it until the very end, really bothers me. It really really felt forced when it happened, too. As if they liked this title so much that they just had to use it, but then totally forgot to throw in any on-screen reference until the script was almost done. It might have even be that the script was done and they realized what had happened, and then tacked on the last scene in some rediculous pickup filming day. Better that it had been left out completely and the title changed.

But as I said, as an action movie, it’s okay. Not something that I’m ever going to own, or watch again for that matter, but I know at least one person who has seen it who enjoyed it. They, however, went into it expecting action and not comedy. Had I done the same, perhaps I would feel differently. Right now I just feel gypped and bitter.

Gnomeo And Juliet

I am crazy in love with Romeo and Juliet. The first time I read it, I was in fourth grade, and it started me on a path to Shakespeare and I never looked back. Okay, I’ve looked back a few times, if you mean it in the sense that I’ve reread everything he’s written about a half a million times.

The idea of making a version of the story for kids, involving garden gnomes, seemed pretty fun to me. I thought it was a cute idea, and that I would really enjoy watching.

Now that I’ve seen it? I don’t think there should be a children’s version of Romeo and Juliet. I also don’t think it should be done with garden gnomes. And I’m pretty fucking pissed off that Mercutio was completely missing from the entire thing. How do you fucking leave out Mercutio? He’s such a pivotal character to the entire story that dropping him hurts everything. Everything.

I’m not happy with the way Tybalt was portrayed, either. I know, I know. For kids. Garden gnomes. I get it. But he comes off as a brute and a bully, with none of the slyness or wit or intelligence that he actually has. Tybalt and Mercutio are two of my very favorite characters in this piece, and I am very irritated at the absence of one and abuse of the other.

Really, so many characters (and important scenes) were missing from this movie that I almost couldn’t sit through it. Luckily for this movie, I was feeling monumentally lazy and couldn’t force myself to move the tiny little bit it would have taken to just shut it off.

I believe that if one is going to make a movie out of a great piece of literature and try to structure it for a younger crowd, one should not completely butcher said work and destroy all the meaning behind it. I would like to point out that I did manage to read this in the fourth grade and grasp everything that was going on pretty goddamned well. I think that treating children like they’re idiots is just breeding a generation of the borderline retarded. What happened to challenging young minds? Building them? Making them grow? What happened to giving kids something to read and then helping them to understand it instead of dumbing everything down so that we don’t have to explain it? This really pisses me off. I’m sure you couldn’t tell (sarcasm, it’s fun).

I hated this movie. HATED IT. There is a burning loathing happening in my heart right now, and all of it is radiating outward in the direction of the writer of this movie. I’m a little disappointed in James McAvoy, too, for willingly going along for the ride. I think I’d rather just imagine that somebody was holding a loaded .45 to his head the entire time, or keeping his cat hostage until he completed recording.

This movie offends me right down to the depths of my soul.

Breaking Bad

I had heard from a good number of people that this was a really good show. So, since Netflix decided to have the first three seasons on streaming, I decided to give it a go.

What I discovered disappointed me some. Okay, more than some. I really wanted to like this, and I even watched all three seasons to give it a really fair shot at hooking me. It just failed to.

The elements are there. Good actors. An interesting plot idea. But from there, it falls off. The writing itself isn’t bad, either, not totally. It’s just drab. I feel as if the writers sat around their table and came up with really great episode ideas and then just fell asleep. They let it fall to the wayside, and did nothing to try to recover it. Then followed this model for each episode.

It’s really not a good thing when you fall asleep in the middle of an episode, in the midst of what is supposed to be really heavy or important moments, wake up at the end and not only are able to figure out what’s gone on, but also don’t give a shit about starting where you dropped off. When you can move on to the next thing and not care what the characters did or said in particular, it’s a very bad sign.

I hate to say it, but I have to. I found myself bored. Through all three seasons. There is not one episode that I can think of that made me sit up and take notice. There is not one moment where I felt whatever emotion was supposed to be elicited from me. Not one character that I connected to.

I’m kind of really surprised, now that I’ve seen it, that so many people that I know have enjoyed it. Not saying anything against them. But what am I missing out on? What key thing passed by me without my notice? What part of my brain did not light up in response to what I was seeing?

I know that everybody has their own tastes, and we can’t expect to all like the same thing. That would be stupid. But when so many people have given something praise and I feel like I missed the boat, I have to ask myself these questions. Is it me? or is it them?

Prince of Persia (Movie)

I waited a very, very long time to see this movie. I knew how I would feel about it pretty much right away. I love the Prince of Persia franchise. From the very first one that I used to play in elementary school on the school computers, right up until the Two Thrones. I am wildly, madly in love with these games. I remember being pretty excited when I heard that they were going to make a movie, trepedacious, but excited as well. I hoped beyond a hope that this would be the video game movie to break the bad streak of video game movies.

Then I saw the star.

Now, please, for the love of god, do not get me wrong here. I also very much adore Jake Gyllenhaal. I have seen pretty much everything that he has done in his career, and I have found very little to complain about. I think he’s an amazing actor, and has a great range. So it’s nothing at all personal to Jake.

It’s just that… well.

He’s not the Prince.

My excitement didn’t just waver, it sort of completely and utterly deflated and left me with absolutely no wanting to see this movie. That’s a pretty big drop, really. I see now that I should have expected it, given Jake’s appeal and stardom, who was producing the movie, and the fact that there are only a handful of video game movies out there worth their salt (and no, I cannot name them off the top of my head currently, so don’t ask. [but I can say none of them are by Uwe Boll.])

I waited for it to come up on Netflix Streaming until I would watch it. And I wasn’t even really waiting for it. I was just browsing one day, bored, and realized that it was there. I thought “hey, I have a few hours to kill and no desire to think about anything or put much effort into life, why not”.

While I will say that it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, it was bad. It disappointed me that they had to fuck with the story, they had to give everyone names. There wasn’t enough of the Prince jumping around like a supermonkey. It all sort of fell flat. Especially the ending. Flat. Predictable. Boring. About what I had come to anticipate.

I am glad that I watched it. It’s behind me now. I’ve seen it. I have an informed opinion. I wish Netflix had an added star for “meh”. Between “didn’t like it” and “liked it”. I didn’t turn it off. I didn’t loathe it to the core of it’s being. It was disappointing. I won’t ever watch it again, but I sat through it once. There’s no way to reflect that feeling on the Netflix rating system, and there really should be. I have felt that way about more than one movie.

I know it was exciting for Jake to have a role like this, who wouldn’t say yes to being the Prince? But maybe, just maybe, he should have taken a moment and really just thought it out. Asked himself if he was really right for the part, or if he was a fanboy getting his ultimate dream.

My vote? The latter.

Beautiful Katamari

When I first got this game, I really adored the concept. I loved the story that set up what you had to do. Everything about it suited me just fine. I was excited to play it, and popped it into my machine as soon as I got it home.

I enjoyed it for about 20 minutes. A couple of levels.

After that, it was just tedium for me. I stopped being intrigued by all the things that I could roll up into a ball with me. Then, on top of it, the music started to make me feel like I wanted to put a hole in my head. There were all these little annoyances that I might have been able to handle individually, but all together, were just too much.

I put the game down for three years. I didn’t touch it, and I didn’t look at it. I didn’t even think about it. I’m not against giving something another shot after I’ve had some time away from it to cool down and maybe get out of whatever mind set I might have been in at the time. Look at it freshly, you know? Under different mental circumstances.

So while I was going through all of my partially played games, I noticed that it was still there, and decided to add it to the end of that pile. I figured by the time I got through all the other games, I would be ready for it again. I could give it that second change. Let it show me that I had been wrong, or just in a bad place for it the last go around.

It’s time finally arrived. I popped it into my Xbox and sat down to play.

I discovered that I felt the exact same way.

I went ahead and did a couple more levels, just to be extra sure. But nothing changed for me. I wanted to like this game, I wanted to like it so very much. But I just didn’t. I couldn’t even get halfway through it. There was no way to force myself. I ended up giving it to a friend who I knew would appreciate it more than I would, and she did. She played through it pretty quickly, actually. I’m glad that somebody got joy and enjoyment out of it, because I couldn’t.

There haven’t been any sort of large number of games that I have started and were unable to finish because of my dislike. In fact, the only two I can really think of are this one and Watchmen: The End is Nigh. Oh, and don’t get me wrong. My apathy toward Katamari is nothing close to my loathing of Watchmen: The End Is Nigh. I am of a general indifference toward Beautiful Katamari. I hated Watchmen deep into the core of me. There was nothing redeeming about that game, and I think if anybody handed it to me, I’d light it on fire.

It does actually make me a little bit sad that I couldn’t get into Katamari. I know that a lot of people had fun with it. It makes me wonder why I couldn’t manage to have fun with it.

Oh well. We can’t win them all, can we?

But considering my point of view compared to all the others out there, I can’t honestly say that anybody should or should not pick this one up. I feel as if I’m in the minority here, thus making me an unreliable source.

Cowboys & Aliens (graphic novel)

Wow.

I … I really don’t know how to say this, guys. I’m really… I’m really sorry.

I know we all really liked the movie version of Cowboys & Aliens, Daniel Craig did a really fantastic job running around in chaps and hurting people a lot. Really, everyone did a rousing performance in that movie. We enjoyed the way they made the aliens look. We like that the shitty kid got hurt a lot. In general, we just really liked the film.

And in really liking something, we tend to want more of it. So we go around looking for things that can prolong our experiences. Things to make us happy. Things that will bring back that joy we felt while watching shit blow up on the big screen.

Which might lead some of us to the graphic novel. And those of us who find it might become very excited. We might order it on Amazon and wait anxiously for it to be delivered. Once we get it, we might sit for a while, just looking at the cover (a new cover, by the way, not the old one, this one is mighty pretty). We might, then, crack it open to the front page, ready to nestle into our favorite reading spot and relive our glee.

Then we might find ourselves very, very disappointed.

It’s kind of like when you see somebody do something really stupid, but they don’t end up hurting themselves. Or watching a car blow through a red light right in front of a cop, but the cop doesn’t do anything about it. It’s that kind of let down. Enormous. Soul crushing (Okay, that might be going a little too far, maybe).

Pretty much the entire thing is different from the flick, and I can really see why they’d choose to change everything right down to the character’s names, because really, other than the concept, the whole thing sucks. From the start, right to that very last page, you’re going to find yourself wondering what the fuck you just read. Then you’re going to wonder why the fuck you just read it. Believe me, you won’t find a good answer for that. All the reasons previously stated, all that wonderment brought about by the movie, and that need for more of it, it’s going to be gone. Right down the tubes.

Luckily, the movie is so completely different from this bound colorful wad of paper that you won’t even be able to bridge your disappointment of the one to the other. It’s like you’ve seen a Muppet movie and decided to read a how-to guide about frogs to further your fun. There really are only very vague similarities, and those you can ignore or wipe from your mind completely. Don’t fret too much over it. It can be forgotten. I’ve nearly already done so, and it’s only been a couple of days.

I suppose I’ll keep the thing around, because the cover is really very pretty, and I spent money on the thing, so I feel bad doing anything else aside from letting it have some shelf space. But I feel like I really need to spare you from the same fate.

Do not buy it. Do not even read it. If a friend has it and offers to loan it to you, they’re likely trying to pawn it off on you, don’t fall for it. Say ‘Thank you, my good friend, for your thoughts of me on this subject matter, but I must respectfully decline on the basis that you are a liar’. And then maybe quickly leave before your friend tries to sneak it into your car or backpack.

It does make me sad that I have to write words like this about something that should have been good. But I cannot bring myself to lie when things are bad. It’s unfair to the rest of the world. I suffer so that you do not have to. Don’t let my suffering be in vain.

The Fourth Kind

I really thought that I was going to enjoy this movie. I really did. This was one that I really wanted to see in the theater, and I was disappointed when it didn’t happen. I was excited for it to move to first place on my Netflix list, and excited when it came in the mail. I excitedly opened it up and excitedly put it into my DVD player.

And now? Now that I’ve seen it how do I feel?
Well, I’m glad that I didn’t waste my money seeing it in the theater. I’m kind of sad that I invested any time into it, and wondering how it happened that I was so excited and I am left so… not. So quickly.

It’s not that the story wasn’t intriguing, because it was. I love a good alien true story. Fire In The Sky. I also love fake aliens. Such as those found on X-Files. It’s not even like the acting was bad, because it wasn’t. It was really good, honestly. In fact, this really had all the elements of being a very good movie. But it just wasn’t.

How does that happen? you might ask. How can all the elements, all the ingredients, be right, and yet it’s all so bad once put together?

They used real footage and real audio of things that happened in Nome, Alaska. I believe that what they were going for was to validate the dramatized scenes, making everything creepier because you’re seeing what actually happened. I can see the thought process behind it, and I could even see myself having the same idea if I’d been behind the making of this movie. It didn’t quite work out the way that they’d hoped. At least not for me. Instead, it worked against the film, hugely. Monumentally.

Firstly, putting in the footage and the other stuff felt like an interruption. It broke me away from the story and took me out of the moment. This resulted in me not caring about the characters or what was happening to them. I was so roughly jolted out of the movie that I didn’t have a chance to connect to any of it. I also found myself having to rewind and watch scenes again, not because they were incredible or interesting, but because I felt like I’d missed something. This is a bad thing to have happen in a movie, you don’t want your viewers to think that they blinked during an important part, or might have dozed off. And it happened more than once.

The second thing is; instead of validating the movie with reality, I found myself doubting the reality. Those scenes in which they cut away from Milla Jovovich and her costars and go to the real footage feel fake. They feel like they were made for the movie, and they feel forced. The woman, the doctor, comes off as a drugged up loser. I find no passion behind her words and no conviction. She tells her story but it doesn’t convince me. I felt as if all of it couldn’t be trusted. That the “actual footage” was just more actors. Putting these scenes in, using the real audio, made it so it was those scenes, not the dramatized ones, became fake in my mind.

I feel like they should have either just made a documentary using the real footage – there was more than enough of it – or, they should have dramatized the whole thing and put the real items in with the bonus features. There, people could see the real accounts of what happened in the movie, and in this removed situation would probably be more liked to be seen for what it is. Evidence. Proof. People would be awed by what they are seeing. I felt no awe, no wonder, no anything seeing these clips in the film.

I just don’t think combining them works. I am not finding myself intrigued by the happenings of this movie, thus dulling any want to investigate it further. In fact, I have a rather empty and disappointed feeling. The movie was lackluster.

Boring, even.

Which kind of makes me sad. This could have, and should have, been brilliant. The facts are enough on their own to be really fucking creepy. Dramatizing all of it would have taken away absolutely nothing from that. I think it would have made everything come together better, actually.

I can’t even recommend watching this. There’s nothing to be gained from it.

Let Me In

I should learn that when I have an instinct about a movie when it’s first talked about, I should trust that instinct and not bend to the ways of the movie industry just because they show me some interesting promos.

I …

I knew going in that I would be upset about Eli. So many things were changed about her that are small, but not really small. They’re important to the character, and they just need to be there.

So my mood going in was curious and angry. It’s not really the best mix. It can lead to some unsettling thoughts while things are going on. But I really wanted to give it a chance, so I sat and watched. All I can say is that I’m really fucking glad a friend got me in to see it for free. If I’d paid for this movie, I’d be a lot more pissed off than I am now.

They kind of just smooshed things together. The girl we were with said she felt like everything dragged on. But to me, it all felt rushed. Like they were trying to just get everything in and didn’t give a shit how it turned out. And they didn’t even GET everything in. So much was just plain left out. There are entire characters that just…they’re gone. They aren’t there. Integral characters. IMPORTANT characters. Entire goddamned points of plot that are out the fucking window.

Let me tell you this, too, I hate – H.A.T.E. who they chose to be Eli. Excuse me, Abby. She did not fit. There’s no universe that she could have been the correct choice in. Then you have the fact that they changed her name from Eli to Abby. Right, okay, so you want to Americanize the names for the retarded Americans. Fine. But at least acknolwedge the importance of her name being Eli.

And how about the fact that she’s NOT REALLY A GIRL AT ALL? Where did that go? That’s kind of important, you stupid fuck director. You know, I liked Cloverfield, but now I’m just so pissed off at you that I want to kick you square in the nuts if I ever meet you. You said you LOVED the original movie. You said you LOVED the book. If that’s true, how could you do this? You ruined it all!

I fully believe that this movie was made just to throw in the extra creepy shots of Abby that were not needed. It’s too bad you couldn’t take a hint from the original makers and learn that less is more in this case. That it’s not about the fact she’s a goddamned fucking vampire, but the personal relationships she builds and what happens to the people around her.

You fuck.

I kept thinking that they were trying to squeeze all this shit in as fast as possible because they were going to add something toward the end that hadn’t been int he original. But no. Nope. They were just… uncaring about the story. Clearly did not give a shit about the timeline. Did not give a damn about the people, which the book and the movie revolve around. Pissed all over Eli and her story. PISSED ON IT.

There were scenes that were remade right from the original movie. Line for line. Movement for movement. Yet you couldn’t be assed to give the characters a little more depth?

You even managed to fuck up the relationship between the bully and his older brother. HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? It didn’t need to be that the bully was picked on, because he’s not. His older brother encourages him. They’re friends. They’re both bad seeds. You didn’t need to change that. Why would you change that?

Eli is not a pathetic mewling little priss. She doesn’t require people to like her. Yes, she does like Oskar, but she’s also using him to her own ends. She’s manipulative. She’s over 200 years old, for fuck sake, she’s not going to be sheeplike and make me want to puke all over myself like Abby did. You just ripped Eli apart and used the steamy entrails to create Abby, that’s what you did. All the good stuff is gone, and all that’s left is the shit stained refuse. And Oskar… Owen. Whatever. I felt nothing for him. I felt no triumph when he finally stood up to his bullies. I felt no elation when he finally chose A… wait. You left that out entirely, didn’t you? That gut wrenching choice he makes between Eli and the rest of his life – the way it used to be? You just… threw that right out. Because relationships aren’t important… noooo. Only gore is important.

And you couldn’t even do that right. I refuse to believe you even read the book. Damn it. It describes very clearly what Eli looks like, what she CAN look like, and you followed none of that. None of it! Just made up your own shit and skipped on your merry way down the road to fucking up every tiny detail of this story.

God.

I’m so angry right now.

DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE. Even if you haven’t seen the original, even if you haven’t read the book. This movie is not worth your time, or your money. Stay away. Stay far, far away.

S, Darko

This movie is just as bad as I thought it was going to be when I first found out about it.

At least I got to watch Ed Westwick prance around dressed as a greaser. Sadly, this is the only redeeming part.

To clear up misunderstandings I had previously: Frank is not the same Frank. Yet for some reason, the image of Donnie’s Frank in his Halloween costume, the freaky rabbit, is Sam’s “Dream face”. This brings me right back to the idea that Frank was Donnie’s catalyst and shouldn’t make an appearance in this film at all. I still stand by that.

The guy actually named Frank in this movie is a mechanic and has nothing to do with anything.

Not that any part of this movie made any actual sense. It sort of felt like the writer and/or director of S. Darko didn’t actually understand Donnie Darko, and just took imagery that seemed cool and shoved it into this movie. The entire concept is off.

I hated it. I hated it the whole time. Don’t watch this movie. Run from it. Run screaming. If somebody says you should watch it, punch them in the face and then run. Or set their copy on fire. Either one is fine with me.

Cell – King (and kind of Lisey’s Story)

I just don’t know what to say. I don’t. I’m not quite as angry about this book as I was when I read Lisey’s Story. But I’m still pissed off. This was… it was so bad. It was like King just wanted to, or had to, write something to put out and didn’t have any real solid ideas.

I mean, granted, this book has a lot more going for it than Lisey’s Story did, but really that’s not saying much. Since that book was a COMPLETE WASTE OF MY TIME.

I really enjoyed the characters in this book. I won’t lie. I did like them. I did like the general idea of the book, as well. The end of the world brought about by cell phones. It’s a pretty solid idea. The problem is, the idea behind the idea wasn’t fleshed out. At all. It almost seemed as if King was avoiding anything to do with the background because he didn’t know himself what was going on. There was so much missing. And so much other stuff thrown in randomly that wasn’t followed up on.

But again, Lisey’s Story was lacking even that much. Lisey’s Story is apparently what happens when King has to take a giant shit and uses a notebook to do it on. It’s not the first book I’ve ever been angry at, but it was the first of his, and I had hoped it would be the last. It wasn’t.

Though, maybe I can use the fact that Cell and Lisey’s Story were written back to back as some sort of an excuse for King. Because I really dislike hating anything he’s written, especially now when I’ve made my way through so many other books and I adore them. It’s not easy to hate something a writer you love has written. It’s quite difficult, actually. You want to love everything. You want everything to be good. It’s just heartbreaking when everything’s not good and you end up loathing a piece. Or two, in my case.

Despite loving the characters in Cell, the main character, Clay, leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. The things he does at the very end don’t fit his personality at all. They don’t fit what he’s evolved into during the course of the book. He just goes off on this wild tangent. Several things are wrong with the ending, several, but mostly it’s what Clay does and what he doesn’t do. And who he decides to leave behind. I’m sorry, but Clay is not that big of a fucking idiot, and I don’t honestly believe in my heart that he would have done what he did. I don’t give a shit if it’s written that way, it’s not him.

The book is pretty bad from the get go, however. Which is something I noticed because despite how hard I tried to keep myself involved, parts of the book itself were pushing me back into reality. Not in any thoughtful way, either. In a very abrupt and unfriendly way. It was really hard to keep reading this book, but I have to always finish. I’ve never started a book that I didn’t finish. I just can’t do it. I have to know the end, even if I hate the rest of what’s gone on, the characters, the story – whatever.

Which is PRECISELY why I sat through reading all of goddamned Lisey’s Story when I hated her, and her stupid thought process and her stupid weak and pathetic unwillingness to live her motherfucking life. Despite the fact that I detested where the story went and how long it took to get there, I read the whole thing. Even though I felt that it was some of the worst writing I’d encountered from such a lauded author, I finished the stupid book.

After I was done reading it, I sold Lisey’s Story to a used book store for significantly under a quarter. I believe that Cell will follow the same path. I, the queen of keeping books for future re-reading, want this book the hell out of my house. I never want to see it’s idiot cover again.

An American Haunting

Oh, how I tried to like you, movie. I tried so very hard. You had so many elements that I find enjoying. So very many of them. It started, but didn’t end, with Donald Sutherland. I know, not everything he’s been in is the best thing on the planet, but he’s done better at choosing his roles as he gets older. Knowing more what will have public appeal and what will just fail. So I had hopes for him, I did. You were also a movie about haunting, from everything that was written or said about you – EVER. I do like hauntings, movie. I like them quite a bit. It’s really not difficult to please me in this realm, movie. Even if I don’t think I’ll watch a movie again, I can usually derive something from some part of it and come away feeling as if I’ve not wasted two hours of my life.

But you, movie. You did not pass muster. You did not even attempt to meet up with Muster on the battlefield of cinema. I’m pretty sure, actually, that you couldn’t even see Muster from where you were standing – back there in the woods, over an embankment, hiding behind that tree.

What you turned out to be, movie, was a colossal waste of my time. I came away feeling cheated and sad. Used and put away wet. I feel like you didn’t even try to be a real movie after the first twenty minutes. If we’ve learned anything from Pinocchio, it’s that we must try when we want to be real, we must put effort into life, or it’s meaningless.

You, movie, are meaningless.

I was so disappointed as I watched you and you just kept getting worse. I didn’t think it was possible, but it kept happening. I should have known when my gut said “My, those slaps are awfully silly.” But I didn’t. I tried to reason that away with the excuse they tried to give in the script. I should have listened to my gut, really, I should have.

But that hope, it lingered. It lingered until the very end when I just had to finally give in and recommend that they take you out and shoot you, to put you out of your misery. Because you are a lame horse, movie, and you’ll do nobody any good. You’ll probably just suck on the fence and hurt yourself by trying to run when all of your legs are broken.

I do have a tip for you, movie. Hopefully if you ever get reincarnated, you can hold onto this – if you are putting entire scenes that are use IN THE MOVIE with your “alternate scenes” just to have more padding and content, you are failing. If most of your “alternate scenes” are just the same exact scene from a different camera angle, you are failing. And, should I watch your “alternate scenes” and not actually be able to tell the difference between what I just watched and what is supposed to be new, you have failed completely.

I have to give you an F, movie. In all subjects. Believe me, it makes me sad. But remember, I tried – oh so hard – to like you. I was rooting for you from the start. I was behind you, cheering you on, and you let me down.

I hope I never see you again, movie. Because I feel that if I do, I may have to find some matches.

The Stepfather

Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap.

Seriously. I don’t know what they were even trying to do here. It could have been such an interesting movie, and it’s not. It’s a flop. It’s worse than a flop, it’s so lifeless that it can’t even flop.

You have this guy who gains entry to families with no father, then when something goes wrong, kills them. Seems pretty basic and straight forward. But you’d think that a guy who has done this as many times as they’re hinting at in the course of the movie would be better at it.

But he’s absolute shit. He can’t keep things straight. He’s got people suspecting him right away. Alright, I can buy that. But if he has all these people who suspect him, yet his bride to be doesn’t, does that mean she’s a complete idiot? I mean, it would be one thing if he weren’t forgetting things like his own supposed daughter’s name, but something that big, even if brought up by a possibly spiteful older son, would certainly be something worth checking into. And the whole thing with him not wanting to give his ID to people. In this day and age, that’s so commonplace that a refusal definitely sticks out.

This movie was an hour and forty minutes long, and it seriously took me over two hours to get through it, cause I had to pause to do something else and wake my brain back up.

There is no redeeming feature of this movie. There was no point where something really neat happened, or I thought that it might get better. It didn’t get worse, thank god, but it was definitely flat lined through the entirety.