brantford.

probably going to be here til after new years.
sister's birthday on the 14th, EEG on the 15th, X-Mas with the family, then New Years in Toronto.

i guess i'll see everyone in early january.

-leah.

DEAR HOWARD

why the fuck do we have ads all over P-X?...

-chewy.

Pretend They're Being Chased by Zombies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGOjU6InHSA

It just became five times better.

Stupid! - 11/12/09

Even though I didn't notice until after the fact, I lost my keys for the first time in my life tonight. I left them in my bike lock outside the college from 3:30pm 'til 10:00pm. Thankfully, neither my bike or keys were taken.

H8tin' On: The Fourth Kind

I heard them as we were standing there, having a cigarette. People filing out of the theater we had just left, saying things like "That was fucked up," and looking generally affected by the movie they just saw. They looked disturbed. They also looked like the kind of person that had to be dragged to a movie that even tried to sell itself as scary.

Me, on the other hand; I enjoy a scary movie. I love films that are genuinely terrifying. And I'm perfectly aware of the whole "different strokes for different folks" approach on what scares us (see: Paranormal Activity--which scared the shit out of me), but when it comes down to it, Alien Abduction is on my short list of genres that, if done right, can frighten me.

The Fourth Kind, the pseudo-"documentary" starring Milla Jovovich, who is quick to tell us that what we are about to see is a recap of true events occurring Alaska, is, for all intents and purposes, a dud. What few "scares" were in the movie were of the jump/loud noise/BWHAM!! variety. What actual "disturbing" imagery comes too little too late, and is often obscured. And what interest I had in the movie waned almost as soon as I felt my eyelids start to get heavy, only a third of the way into the movie.

What I will say, which can somewhat be taken as a positive, is that the filmmaker made a very...interesting decision with how to relay this story to us. As is mentioned in the trailer (which I would link to if this was a good flick), the movie is predominately a dramatization of events reported by Dr. Abigail Tyler, from Alaska, who was involved in a series of "abductions" at the turn of the century. "Real" footage and audio tapes from the events and the investigation are played during the movie, sometimes side-by-side with the reenactments, or sometimes on their own.

As I said, it was a very interesting way of going about it, and in some cases, worked to help sell what the film was trying to do. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough.

This movie is an incredibly slow burn that just fizzles out, and whenever it tries to reignite itself, the fire is smothered under more family drama, and Milla Jovovich stretching her acting chops to really try and get a certain point across. Not to mention that these moments also come much to late in the movie, the bulk of the first two thirds being family drama, and talk of an owl.

I've enjoyed slow burn movies before, but I've never seen one get so lost in the attempt to build tension. There was no tension in this movie. There was boredom. Then there was some flashy bits. Then there was more boredom. Then Will Patton showed up and overacted for a while. Boredom. Flashy bits. Patton. Rinse and repeat.

The movie essentially tells you what "happened" and then lets you make up your own mind about whether or not you believe the story, and they tell you do so--twice--at the end of the movie. But I couldn't care less about what "happened" there. If anything, I feel sorry for those people for having their story told in such a boring, uninteresting way.

H.

Halloween

One bright day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other,
drew their swords and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise
and ran to save the two dead boys.
If you don't believe this lie is true,
ask the blind man, he saw it, too.

Some Facts

Just keeping the content flowing. I swear all of these are 100% legit:

• King Charles VI of France, also known as Charles the Mad, suffered from the delusion he was made of glass. He even had protective iron bars sewn into his clothes to prevent him from shattering if he fell.
• On February 8, 2000, the meaning of life was auctioned on eBay. The winning bid was $3.26.
• 3% of all Antarctica's glaciers are made of penguin urine.
• The largest supply of alcohol in the universe is in deep space. Astronomers have spotted an alcohol cloud in the Milky Way that measures 288 billion miles across.
• The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is a cat.
• Since 1945, it’s thought that at least 50 nuclear weapons have been lost around the world, and were never recovered.

Borderlands Rage

The lady at the cash register says Rogers didn't get Borderlands in today. I have my doubts, since there were boxes and boxes of inventory behind the counter, plus the rack full of unshelved games behind another counter. I'll probably have it soon, just not soon enough after all the hype I bought into. This is why I usually refrain from get excited about new releases until I've played them.

EDIT: I called the other Rogers across town, and they only had to PS3 version. I'm worried about the new update scare, so I passed. I biked to Blockbuster, and got my very own account there, but Borderlands was all rented out. I figured since I created my own Blockbuster account, I may as well go check the Rogers on Finch again and create my own account there, too. Brian was working there at this point, and he confirmed my suspicions: They had it there all along, they just didn't have it in the system yet. Since he's such a bro, he set it up for me, and now I finally have it. I've done some of the earlier quests so far, and it's a pretty solid game. 'Intending to get into online co-op soon.

Ponda Baba Schleppo Deppo

My hamster is dead.

Fall Film Prospects

The summer is over, which means the bulk of the big blockbusters have come, exploded, and then left our theaters and, for the most part, our memories, nearly as quick as the quirky hero when he inevitably has his first intimate night with the amazingly hot, amazingly out of their league female lead (I'm looking at you, Shia).

Despite how much I enjoy having stupid, nonsensical fun at the movies, I, for one, am looking forward to a good chunk of the movies that are coming out in the fall months. So much so, that I'm going to run down the list of the movies coming out over the next few months that I'm excited to see, and review, on future episodes of Simulated Importance.

Check it out after the jump: