‘The Mist’ Movie Review

I really enjoyed Stephen King’s novel Mist, but couldn’t possibly see how it could translate to film without coming off corny, with plain stupid special effects.

I eat my words.

The Mist does a great job of observing, not just imitating, the growing panic among members of a community trapped together when a strange mist encompasses them. Every time the door opens, somebody dies, so once a few Darwin awards are handed out they decide to stay put. Come nighttime, however, it becomes obvious that the …things on the outside can find their way in, and escape seems vital – but is it worth the risk? Two opposing camps form (the crazy lady and her religious converts versus the rational townsfolk: “Hey lady, I believe in God too – but I don’t believe he’s the bloodthirsty asshole you make him out to be”), and violence ensues.

There’s a lot of witty repartee amid the chaos. There’s some bitch-slapping and plenty nasty words exchanged (“The day I need a friend like you, I’ll just take a little squat and shit one out”). A bit o’ blood (a given). Sex (implied). Crazy creatures in the night that we actually get a good look at. A couple pretty ladies and a handsome leading man. Suspense. Conspiracy theory. Sacrifice. Guns. Punching. What more could you want?

The ending of the movie is spectacularly more depressing than that of the book. It’s a true mind-f***. You’ll be saying “damn, that sucks ass” for days.

It’s not a fast-paced film, so there’s not much more I can say – sans spoilers – other than, go for it. Keep a cuddly friend nearby, if necessary.

Vive le Paris

Paris: Day 2 of my dream vacation.

The previous night had been spent celebrating my eighteenth birthday—the legal drinking age in France. The unusual bonding experience bar-hopping with my mother had been entertaining on my behalf, but her alcohol intolerance kicked in something fierce come morning. We had agreed to breakfast with someone we had met at the bar, so she made the effort to overcome her sickness temporarily. Élan had lived in the area for three years, just down the street from the hotel at which we were staying, and he had promised to show us around. The three of us returned to the hotel room, but my mother, about to spend the next eight hours projectile vomiting, shoved me back out into hallway, and I heard the bathroom door slam.

Once out of sight of the hotel, Élan smirked. “I told your mother she could trust me with you… I lied.”

The next eight hours were absolute hell.

It seemed that ages had passed since we entered Hakim Optical.
“I don’t like this colour of contacts on me,” Élan had decided. “Wait here.” He spent the better part of the next two hours arguing with the manager. “This colour is very uncomfortable on my eyes! The other colour I had was fine,” he insisted. “I want new contacts, for free.”
“Sir, we can replace this colour for you if you would like.”
“No, I want a different colour. This colour is uncomfortable.”
The manager rolled his eyes at me. He was not falling for this scam, and the story was getting old. Personally, I could not believe that, on my second day in Paris, I had already wasted a few hours of sightseeing trying to swindle free contact lenses! To top it off, it turns out Élan did not speak a word of French. Who was this guy?

On the way out of the store, Élan had to take his medication. Every 25 minutes that day, we stopped in the street while he dug through his bag, took out a notebook, and jotted down some notes, as well as the time and which pills he was taking. After locating the pills and his water bottle, he would fussily restore and rearrange the contents of his bag. Hundreds of tourists must have pushed past us as he took his time, and I quickly grew impatient. I couldn’t help wondering what all this medication was for; was I safe with this man?

We stopped at a squatter’s museum so I could learn some local history and check out the art; Élan grabbed my behind on the way up the stairs, and I spun around sharply. He apologized, and then did it again.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Eighteen!” I snapped, disgusted. He was thirty-two years old, I had overheard him telling my mother at the bar, and I became vaguely aware I was in the presence of a pervert.
“Good. I like them young.”
Make that a pedophile.

I wanted to save the real sightseeing for when my mother was feeling up to it, I told Élan. I wondered if he could show me where people hung out during the day. He saw through my request, and asked if being alone with him made me uncomfortable. I was firm when I told him yes, and he grabbed my arm to stop me in the middle of the sidewalk.
“I thought you liked me. Last night at the bar you seemed to like me.”
“Élan… I was drunk and having a good time with my mom.”
“So you don’t like me now? I am so insecure, don’t do this to me. I want to spend the week with you and your mother! Don’t you want to be with me?” He was hurt, and I was disturbed.
“This is my special trip… with my MOM. You have been nice but I want to be with her, not with someone we just met in Paris.” He grabbed me again, and told me I was beautiful.
“I have seen prettier, of course,” he continued. “I sleep with models quite often… but there is something special about you.” I started to walk again, and refused to look at him.

Élan wanted to stop by his apartment to get his camera. He invited me upstairs.
“My bed is very comfortable. I am an expert in…”
“I’ll wait outside.”

We found a comfortable salad bar in which to eat dinner. Élan had attempted to take me out somewhere ‘nicer’ but I insisted on staying casual. Instead of having a seat across from me, he sat next to me, and watched me eat. Self-conscious, I began to ramble, mostly to distract myself. I complained of a sore back; he immediately rose and began to massage my neck. He was pushing hard, but the knots in my back were deep and my pain threshold high.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked.
“No, it’s fine. I’m used to it. But you really don’t have to…”
“Wow, you can take a lot of pain. If we had sex I could be so rough with you.”
I stood up and excused myself to the washroom. I paid the bill on my way back to the table.

He walked me to a taxi stand, and when a car finally pulled up, he asked if he could call me tomorrow. I hesitated and he pulled a notepad out of his bag. I told him I didn’t know the number of the hotel; a blatant lie. The hotel card was safe in my pocket. Instead, he scribbled his number, and thrust it into my hand. It looked foreign to me—many more digits than in Canada. I wouldn’t even know how to dial this. Not that I was planning on it.

It was not until a full five minutes later – the entire time spent halfway inside the safe zone that was the taxi, teasingly close to freedom – that I escaped Élan’s rant about how he could see himself with me in the future, and would I please call him? Please? Shutting the door was the only thing I could think about, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the driver pulled away from the curb. I handed him the hotel card and asked if he could drop me off at that address. He scrutinized the card, and three blocks later, dropped me off on the sidewalk claiming he was not familiar with the location.

I stood alone on a Parisian sidewalk and cried.

Half an hour later, I was dropped off on the correct street by an older taxi driver toward whom I was extremely thankful. I tipped him well, and then smiled gratefully at the door man as he buzzed me in. I ran up the stairs to my room; I knocked; my mother opened the door; I threw my arms around her and began to sob.
“I missed you,” I whispered.

Élan called that night. I unplugged the phone, and told the concierge we would be taking no more calls for the evening.

I Thought I Wanted This

Any friend who has seen me through heartbreak has heard me wish I could have the painful memories erased (though I wasn’t a fan of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). So why is it just a little scary that this possibility may be on the horizon?

Scientists from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and the East ChinaNormal University in Shanghai selectively removed a shocking memory from a mouse’s brain, the team reports in the Oct. 23 Neuron.

Insight from such experiments may one day lead to therapies that can erase traumatic memories for people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or wipe clean drug-associated cues that lead addicts to relapse. (via Science News.)

Yes, I understand the positive applications of such knowledge…but there are SO many worse consequences and vulnerabilities than we can begin to imagine. I guess it’s worthwhile to ponder an option you don’t have just for the fun of it; the reality of brain tampering, however, is making me consider perhaps the more Darwinian approach of letting my less pleasant experiences teach me a thing or two.

UPDATE: I like this article on similar findings a lot better, and not only because of this quote:

Tsien, however, cautions against applying his team’s results to expunging thoughts of broken hearts or limbs. “All memories, even very painful emotional memories, have their purposes. We learn from those experiences to avoid making the same kind of mistake.”

With Regards to Damaged Goods

Tomorrow is my birthday. Tomorrow has to be good.

In honour of tomorrow, I am posting these pictures today. I refuse to let any sadness seep into tomorrow, so I am getting these out of the way.

So here’s to tomorrow, the first birthday I did not expect to see.

I'm sorry this is how you will remember your birthday, Mom. (image from PostSecret)

‘Mirrors’ Movie Review

Where to start, where to start? Okay, first impression of this movie came from shiteous reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, but since I enjoyed The Invasion, I gave it a chance. Also, the trailer (below) seduced me. Anyhow, I just saw it in theatres.

I think I have new worry wrinkles. (No significant spoilers ahead.)

Half of me agrees with the reviews; there were some parts I just had to laugh at, like when Kiefer Sutherland‘s wife sobbingly begs forgiveness for not believing that the mirrors were after him. HILARIOUS. Also, the ultimate “explanation” for the events leaves my scientific self utterly dissatisfied.

Okay, so the plot has its weak points, but hell-ooo, a reflection that continues to stare evilly once you’ve turned your back? Creepy as shit. It only gets worse when you realize they’re all murderous assholes. I had to hug my legs to avoid grabbing the person next to me, and I’m serious about the worry lines – my eyebrows and forehead were scrunched up and I’m feeling a little stressed out.

For once, I didn’t call the ending – and it was super neat. Holy mind fuck. I won’t say why, if only because its impact, I suspect, is powerful only in the context of the movie. Anyhow, when the credits began to roll and the lights turned on, no one in the audience moved, or even seemed to be breathing, for a good thirty seconds. And I’m pretty sure they all had the same final thought as me:

I’m going home to break some mirrors now.

Zombie nightmare

So this nightmare had a lot more to it than cannibal zombies; I vaguely recall a party gone wrong, a storm, torture by guardian/adoptive parent, a car accident (in which arresting cop was killed and arrested guardian escaped), and other realistic horrors having been involved in the dream. However, by the time I got to writing it down, I’d mostly forgotten the earlier events, and so below you will find the latter, shorter section of my dream: the day after the horrors.

A storm cloud I drove by on a road trip

Bobby?

Yet there he was, shoving spoonfuls of my cereal from the morning before into his mouth, seemingly not resting to breathe, definitely not resting where we had left him for dead that horrible night but inside the house, seated casually on the basement stool.

“Was wondering when you’d be back,” he muttered, disinterested. There was no threat in his voice, or inkling of unusual circumstances, but rather an air of boredom. It was Bobby, alright. “I’m starving,” he continued.

Jo and I exchanged suspicious glances, but she masked it expertly, just an instantaneous expression of doubt followed with the suggestion that she cook him a real breakfast. I followed them upstairs to the kitchen, trying all the while to shrug off the visions of the night before and convince myself that somehow, Bobby was himself again and the events prior to his death, even his death itself, had been some strange nightmare. Logic had betrayed me last night, so why should I struggle to embrace rational thought now? Besides, I found myself suddenly so tired…

As Joanna busied herself rooting through cupboards, pulling out various items, I sat at the picnic table with Bobby, on the same side, but as far as the bench would allow. I eyed him with caution, but he continued to eat hungrily, paying no special attention to our presence.  The weight of fear began to lift from the room, and Jo must have felt it too because she managed a joke: “These damn sparkles are everywhere!” As if to prove it, she held up the pan she had just lifted from the floor. Silver sparkles that clung to all they touched.

“Yeah – Nadia broke the jar,” Bobby answered, without hesitation. He never looked up from his spoon. And the horror that I had slowly repressed up until this point flooded back to the surface. A realization…

“How did you know that? I mean…you – “

“You tried to get rid of me. Hit me with the jar, knocked me over the balcony. Why would I forget that?” There was no anger, no emotion to his voice, and I think this was the most threatening thought that occurred to me. It was simply a statement of fact. I slid further away on the bench, one leg cleared from beneath the table, and Joanna set the pan down on the counter. Anticipation could not properly describe it; we were poised to escape.

“You’re not going to…?”

“—I’ll give you a head start.”

‘The Invasion’ Movie Review

I’m not usually creeped out by horror movies, and I am absolutely confident in saying that I enjoy them more than the average person. Since I was a kid, my mother and I have bonded over both scary movies and “scary” movies aka. the ones so corny you get more of a laugh than anything. That last group has, to us, been the majority. I know all the formulas down pat, and I’d say I’m a pretty disappointing movie companion for predicting the plot out loud and, for the most part, being right.

Tonight, my mom and I watched The Invasion (2007; click here for the description or scroll down for the trailer) with Nicole Kidman, based on the novel “The Body Snatchers” by Jack Finney, which was later adapted into a screenplay for the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers (The Invasion, however, takes a new twist on this plot, for those who might consider it too similar for viewing). This movie did not earn any stars and received terrible reviews from such trusted moviegoer websites as RottenTomatoes.com. If I had read the reviews before getting into the plot, I likely would have changed the channel.

So glad I didn’t.

If you can take an hour and a half of paranoia and nerves, preferably if you don’t have to walk two small dogs through a dark park at midnight afterwards, I suggest you give it a fair shot.