Monday, October 24, 2011

#14 Paranormal Activity 3

Wow ok, no picture today. I have looked for about 20 minutes for a picture to include on this post of something that was in the movie, to no avail. On to the post...

Well, first let me say I am proud to admit that I watched significantly more of this one than its predecessor!  We turned out to go to a local theater that I usually do not venture to because an old friend works there and I don't want to seem like I'm using her for free tickets or snacks or something as she usually refuses to let us pay. This time I let her, and it was awesome. This theater does not have the normal stadium seating, it has small couches and side tables. It was so comfortable! It was perfect for a scary movie so I could jump into my husband's lap and no one could really notice. On to the movie.

If you haven't seen it yet, do not base any of your expectations about it on the previews on t.v. There was next to nothing in the movie that was advertised, thus my difficulty finding a picture FROM the film. This one

is everywhere, although this never happened in the film. The Bloody Mary experiment happened yes, but not with both of these characters. It happened with the older girl and a babysitting guy. Something that seemed scary from the previews was when the mother threw water in the air only to land on an invisible visitor in the room, again did not happen. The previews show an aerial view of these girls in the bedroom, nope. They show the mom being pulled away from view flying through the air by some invisible force, nada.
Even though a lot of what I expected was not in the film. It was still good and scary. This trilogy is great for making you jump out of your seat. I like the second one better, but I think that is likely because I kept waiting for things I recognized to happen, and when it didn't I was disappointed on some level. Weird I know, but I don't know if I ever had this happen before. I went in knowing of a few things I expected to scare me that never happened. Strange.
I'm not going to go all into the plot, it seemed obvious to me. It's the sisters when they were kids how this started for them and how thier mom and her boyfriend died. Pretty basic, but in movies like these it's not really about the plot.

Before heading to the theater I read a blog on it that said the last 15 minutes will change your life. I do not agree. The last 15 minutes are exactly like the 15 minutes of the last two movies, it moved very fast, was kind of confusing and some people died.

Friday, October 21, 2011

#13 The Walking Dead Season 2 Ep. 1


The Walking Dead premiered this past Sunday, and it was great. There were a few small issues I had with the episode but overall I liked it. My excitement for this show to return is almost unfathomable. I couldn't sleep Saturday night, and could barely function Sunday during the day because I was so excited. I even made cookies, and wore my favorite underwear and pjs, yes I wore pj's at 9 at night I'm just that cool. Around our lovely city it was shown in bars, movie theaters and on campus as well. I thought best to watch it at home so I could take notes and no one would think it was strange. Well, no one except my husband but, I think he's pretty used to my strangeness by now and didn't mention it.
It started with our hero the sheriff (Rick) played by Andrew Lincoln, who by the way is English, which was a surprise to me when I found out as I think the accent is usually obvious when they hide it, not with Lincoln.          

Anyways, Rick is talking into his walkie talkie to the character (whose name I've forgotten) who helped him recover and helped establish the plot by explaining the setting and giving us a timeline. Also, who is very likely dead by this point. Rick, talking over the radio waves recaps last season to his friend setting the stage for what turns out to be only a few days from when they left us last season. They have escaped what was the CDC headquarters, in smoke and are leaving Atlanta. Some of the group loads into the RV, Rick and his family, Carol (McBride) and her daughter Sophia load into a small car, and Daryl drives quite possibly the most stupid mode of transportation possible in the reality they have created for me.
 Thus issue #1: Let us establish this character. Daryl, played by Norman Reedus, is our hunter and tracker. His redneck ways have proven highly useful as he understands weapons, hunting and foraging. He has chosen a bow and arrow as his weapon instead of a gun as the use of guns only draws more zombies. The zombies in this reality seem to have highly sensitive senses, any loud sound or the smell of the living will draw them. Knowing this, why would Daryl choose to drive a chopper?
These bikes are loud by design. It makes since in a busy society who has attention issues while driving like we do, to make the very small and dangerous thing on the road very loud so we in large vehicles are aware of its presence. Although, if the worry is that the things that like to eat me are attracted by noise, one might reconsider announcing one's presence.
Moving on... our group stumbles upon traffic, for a lack of a better word. Basically, it's a graveyard of abandoned cars where the drivers were likely attacked and killed. As soon as they stop the RV overheats. While a few try to repair it the others scavenge the cars for supplies. Moments into what would be a normal afternoon a herd of zombies find their way into the same area. One could argue they were following the sound of a chopper traveling down the highway....
Everyone hides underneath and around the cars and besides one issue with Andrea and her inability to reassemble her gun after a cleaning by Shane, which forced her to stab a zombie with a screw driver, things went ok. Until we see our lone black character T-I won't go into my issues with his name-Dog.
Issue #2: He makes a sudden movement to hide from a zombie and somehow manages to inflict a mortal wound upon himself, by seemingly severing a cordial artery. Blood gushes out of his arms and he stumbles all over the place trying to get help. Daryl sees him and T-dog passes out. To save him from the zombies closing in, Daryl covers himself and T-whatever with a dead body, to cover their lively smells. When he removes the body we see my issue. No blood. There should have been a pool of it from his arm unless, the time span was somewhat weird and he had bleed to death by this point thereby leaving none to pool. All of this is ignored and once the herd clears they bandage him up and he's fine.
Once the herd seems to clear, Carol's daughter jumps the gun and comes out of her hiding spot, attracting the two remaining zombies in the area. She runs in the woods and they chase her, Rick of course runs to help. He puts her into a hiding spot so he can deal with the zombies he says, "I can't deal with them at once... they don't get winded I do... I need to split them up..."
Issue #3: He runs off leaving Sophia hidden only to find a large rock to hit both of the zombies in the head. He didn't split them up at all. Not a huge issue I just felt like he made a huge deal about that, only to not go through with it.
Sophia for some reason gives Rick a 1 Mississippi count and runs off. Only to get lost, eaten or attacked, we don't know what happened to her yet. Rick returns to find her gone. They group searches for her for the remainder of the day and the following day. Yadda yadda yadda. Everyone else heads back after the end of day two except Rick, Shane and Rick's son Carl.
Issue #4: If we have already lost one child why not let the only other child in the group roam around the woods with two people instead of the large group that could protect him?
Proving my point, they encounter a deer which they all seem to marvel at instead of shooting a dragging back to the group for food, who knows maybe they enjoy only eating squirrels and rabbits instead of a deer they could survive off of for at least a couple of days. Anyways someone else takes advantage of this giant FOOD in front of them and shoots it, shooting Carl by accident as well, ending the episode.

Overall it was really great and fun. If you're not watching this series you should. It's great and the makeup is amazing. Don't worry if you don't have AMC if you live anywhere near civilization it will be available to you at several venues.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The Return of the Blogger

I owe all of you an apology! I have been away for way too long, due to a ton of things, mostly procrastination. With that said we have some catching up to do!

Since we last met I have watched next to a hundred movies, started following a few new (to me) podcasts, and purged my life of a lot of things that have made my life shitty.

Let us start with the new absence of shit in my life. I would like to announce that I have been off of Facebook and twitter for five and a half weeks. I know I know, I give Facebook a harder time than it deserves, as a few of you have pointed out. I think my current mental status with it out of my life, proves that fb is a lot more than I originally gave it credit for. Now that I am fbless, I find more time in the day. I find that if I see someone on the street I take more time to talk to them, because I don't already know what's going on with them as I did when I was fbactive. I am now lacking an insecurity that I find I had when I was on fb, I often wondered who was reading my status updates, who's looking at my pictures, does anyone care about me or what I'm doing? What I now find, and am ok with, is yes a few people did notice my absence and now call me to see how I'm doing. Which is WAY more pleasurable then when my status is "liked." What do you mean by that like anyway? Some people seem to like everything, one minute they "like" someones pregnancy status and then quickly move on to "liking" a video of a dog pooping on a baby.


I have now re-discovered what having a relationship with other people is. No, telling me to tell your niece (on fb) "happy birthday" is not the same a giving them a hug in real life. No, dropping a line on my wall is not the same as dropping by my house to say "hi." "Poking" me is not the same as making eye contact across a room, and inviting me to your "event" is not the same a calling and talking about it. Sending me a "message" is not as personal as a letter, and "chatting" is not as personal as sitting in a dimly lit bar chatting over beers. It is sad how much fb has replaced our real lives, and I for one will no longer be a part of it. This decision has severed bonds between me and others but, if they were worth it or interested I'm not phantom, I can be reached in other ways, one would be surprised to consider all of the ways people can be reached. Most know where I dwell, work, shop, eat, study, and learn. Believe it or not I have two phone numbers where I may be reached, and approximately 6 email accounts, just to name a few venues for this girl.

I will admit my only remaining link to the social network, G+. I don't post but Will Weaton does and he makes me smile. If you haven't checked him out, you should he is worth while. He is all over the interwebs these days so he's pretty hard to miss.



Well this rant is a lot longer than I had originally planned, so my other recent adventures will wait until a future date. Enjoy.