You know what I mean?

You know when you are watching a movie and the movie is trying it's hardest to foreshadow something that it's painfully obvious?

The ones where you suddenly care for a character because everything in the movie is telling you that this character will die at the end of it so you better be prepared.

The ones that make this character the most important character in the movie even though he or she may not be all that important.

The ones where you sit through it chewing your thumb because you care about this character and you absolutely will walk out of the theater if you hurt one tiny hair on his or her head.

And then in the end it was all a ruse and some other character dies instead and you feel absolutely nothing for that character.

I kinda hate those movies.

Accidental cosplay

Today I realized something as I was walking to my car from Walmart...

This was my outfit today.

All I need is a raccoon mask and a giant bag with a dollar sign and I'd be the burglar from The Sims.

Oops...

Hello...? Is anyone here...?

Hmm... it seems like this thing still exists.

Well, then... I might as well put it to some use.

I am beginning a journey. A journey that I would like you all to accompany me on.
My journey will officially start tomorrow, but I felt as though I should get the place all tidied up.

But what, you may ask, will I be doing.
Well... I'll be doing a number of things. There may be the occasional movie review post still, but I will also be using this blog as a way to keep myself on track with my goals. I have found that I need some place to log my activities, my weight loss struggles, and really anything else on my mind. So I will use this page as that.

Now that I'm this far into this dribble I should mention that I had a tooth pulled today, so if any of this doesn't make sense it's because my head to whooshy right now.

Anyway, tomorrow will be the beginning of a brand new adventure. I'm glad to share that adventure with all of you.

[insert creative tagline here]
Harper

I've moved!

Come follow me at tumblr. It's so cool and I can post pics, videos, music, quotes, and lots of other things.

http://enigmaharper.tumblr.com

That is all.

Eclipse...

... or why I really, really, really dislike the Twilight books/movies.

I started writing this on June 29, 2010. I mention this because that marked the eve of Eclipse, the latest in a long line of fake vampires and glorified unhealthy relationships. If you are a habitual reader you will know that I am employed at a movie theatre – spelled ‘re’ cause we’re fancy – and as an employee I get to, on occasion, sit in on a midnight showing. I watch for unruly guests, misframes, and any sound issues.

I did that last night…

For Eclipse…

I curse the day these books were written… and the day they were optioned to be movies.

Now some of you may be saying, “Erin, that is quite harsh. Surely, as a movie critic, you don’t mean that.” And I would agree. It is harsh, but having read the so-called books, and seen the movies, I stand by my statement.

Mainly for the following reasons…
1) It makes girls idolize an unhealthy relationship.
2) It bastardizes the mythology of the vampire.
3) It creates an unhealthy level of obsession.
4) I hate cleaning upholstery.

Now I will be elaborating on these points for a bit before reviewing the movie. For those of you who would like to skip my rant, I’ll leave a large gap to indicate when to continue. For the rest, I continue.

A brief word on unhealthy relationships. If you feel as if your partner is controlling your life, you are in an unhealthy relationship. If you think that you have to stay with your partner because he or she might do something drastic if you leave, you are in an unhealthy relationship. If you find that have lost all contact with family and friends because of your partner, you are in an unhealthy relationship. Now I know it may feel like you are the only two people that matter in the world, but if he doesn’t want you to spend time with your family, it’s not healthy. Sorry. This is a bit of a personal matter for me. I know firsthand what an unhealthy relationship is and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. So having a popular series of novels idolize this awful situation hits me hard. Edward is controlling. He may not show it explicitly, but he controls every aspect of their “relationship.” He controls how far they go, he controls what friends she had, and she has no say in anything. Of course it’s not just Edward. Take a look at Bella. Edward can never leave her because she’ll kill herself. That is class A psychosis. She has issues that several prescriptions and a few hours of therapy should be able to help. But living with this kind of fear would really hamper their relationship. And then when they are together they don’t care about anyone else. Your family is your rock. You at least can use them for guidance. Bella keeps her relationship secret from her father because “he wouldn’t approve.” Did she ever stop to see why he wouldn’t approve? Sometimes Father really does know best… or Mother… and definitely Sister.

So their relationship is completely unhealthy and yet people want to be them. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

It is strange to create a creature that has no weakness. Vampires, real vampires, have plenty of weaknesses. They burn in the sun, and with they touch silver, or crosses. They are repelled by garlic. And the only way to kill them is a wooden stake through the heart or to completely severe the head. Twilight vampires are not vampires. They have no weakness save ripping them to shreds and lighting them on fire. But that would kill anything. The allure of vampires is that they are dangerous, but there is a downfall – you don’t have a soul. As far as I can tell, Twilight vampires have no downside. You are faster, stronger, prettier, and you can’t die. It loses all effect when you are perfect.

Obsession is not just a stench by Calvin Klein. I know all about obsession and I am probably not the right person to rant about this, but the kind of people that… I just don’t know what to say about this. We sold out of three theaters for the midnight, and I’m sure that we could’ve sold another two if we had the capability. The crowd was rabid, and dirty, but mostly rabid. As soon as the doors were open the swarmed the place. I was in charge of the smallest of the three, but that doesn’t mean they were the nicest. I even had to get authoritative and tell the people to squeeze together to make room. I’ve never had to do that before. We had someone bring in a life-size cardboard cutout and wanted to be seated next to it so she could “watch the movie with Edward.” I mean what is missing from your life that you need to fill it with such drivel? I just don’t understand.

Again, some of you who know me will call that last statement hypocritical. And I probably am. I get obsessed about small things – don’t get me started on The A-Team – but I just don’t understand the allure of Twilight. I really wish someone would explain it to me.

My fourth point is more of a theater joke. After the last movie, I made the comment that I was going to need to re-upholster the seats because of… let’s call it happy fluid. I could not believe how many squeals a heard every time Jacob was on screen. This movie was no different, and this time he was even more shirtless. If that was even possibly.

(OT: Even more shirtless? That makes me think of Robbie Williams’ “Rock DJ” video. You couldn’t get more shirtless than that video.)

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Back to the review.

While in box someone asked me what I thought of Eclipse. Even though I hadn’t seen it yet, I told him I thought it was 2 hours too long. I stand by that review.

Eclipse runs 2 hours and 15 minutes of which 2 hours are spent DOING NOTHING!!!!

We end the last movie with Bella choosing Edward over Jacob.

This movie is entirely Bella choosing Edward over Jacob.

I have NEVER seen someone take SOOOO long making a decision before.

The other 15 minutes are okay. There are one of two good lines, some good back story for a couple useless characters, and two fight scenes that if you blink you’ll miss.

This was an unnecessary movie. You could’ve taken the end of the last one, the promising 15 minutes of this one, and the “good” parts of the upcoming Breaking Dawn part 1 and made a decent movie. Of course that would’ve taken away my chance of calling the last movie Breaking Dawn 2: Electric Boogaloo, but I would’ve been okay with that. Listen Summit; don’t waste my time making crappy movies. Oh wait, they are all crappy movies.

I’d give this movie am “Oh please,” but I don’t rate the movies I watch. You’re gonna have to make up your own mind whether or not you are going to see this movie. But I’ll tell you one thing; you will not see me in the theater with you if you do go to this movie. Once was more than enough.

Fiser, OUT!

Random post about nothing...

Or so...

I have noticed that my posts have been few and far between. I haven't thought to review anything of late. This is going to change.

Now I prefer to review something before anyone else, so you can take my opinions and use them to formulate your own. Because everyone is entitled to my opinion.

But I've been thinking about reviewing older movies that I have seen in awhile, i.e. Starship Troopers. Because I feel that time does something to movies.

I mean, have you watched Starship Troopers recently? Chances are the answer is no. I watched it about a week and a half ago because I saw it on the front page of Hulu and I had recently had a crazy dream that was very Troopers-like and I wanted to really compare the to. It was kinda uncanny, but I won't get too much into that.

The point is... I actually liked the campiness of this movie. When it was brand new, you watched it for pure cinematic value, which it has little. Now you watch it to see why people actually enjoyed this movie. You don't feel as jaded as you do when watching a new movie because you already know how well it did. Any controversy is so far in the past that no one cares anymore. It was very refreshing.

So look for that in a couple weeks... I gotta watch it one more time to make sure I get everything.

Other than that there really isn't any movies that I feel need my snark in review. I mean, I will probably work the Eclipse midnight, so I'll rip that to shreds, but other than that I've got nothing. So look for reviews of movies that you may have forgotten about to float across my blog. I'm hoping to have a ton of fun with this.

Fiser, OUT!
[drops mic]

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

I don’t pretend to be a non-biased critic. I’m very biased. I often tell people that I watch movies strictly for people in them. After I get that piece over with, then I judge the movie by itself.

Nightmare is no different. I watched this movie (and actually paid $10 to see the midnight showing) purely because of Kyle Gallner. He is quite possibly the best underrated actor out there. He is just really good at his job. Of course, he often plays the same character, but that’s beside the point. Anyways, I’m in love with this man. Blame it on a combination of CSI:NY and the commentary from Haunting in Connecticut. But enough about my love for this man.

The movie itself was… okay. It was very predictable, especially after half of the cast was gone within the first 30 minutes. Oops, sorry. SPOILER ALERT….. people die in a Freddy Krueger movie. That’s kinda like saying Oceans is gonna have water.

Some of it felt like a film school project. Some of it was poorly lit… I mean when it wasn’t supposed to be poorly lit. And a lot of the acting was awful, namely the lead. I had no remorse for this new Nancy. She just kinda alienated me, and she’s the protagonist. I get that she’s a loner and being a loner means you feel for her, but I didn’t feel for her at all. Except that she was in love with Quentin (Kyle). That I totally understand.

I know everyone wants to know how Jackie Earle Haley did as Krueger. He was good. Not as good as Englund, but then again no one can be as good as Englund. Englund IS Freddy. There’s no way around it. But for a secondary choice, Haley did a really good job. He was very creepy and the burn makeup was definitely disgusting.

Some of the one-liners were awful, like Doomsday Arcade (look it up) awful. There is no excuse for a poorly written pun in a horror movie. Wait until the sequel to add in the puns. I realize that this technically is a sequel, but it also is a reimagining and that means some people are being introduced to the series for the first time. Cut the puns to a minimum the first time around.

I was happy that they included the original music. I have an album of scary movie themes, and that is one of my favorites. Right after Exorcist and right before Halloween, which is tied with Poltergeist. So including it really made my night.

So to review, it was okay. It was highly predictable. I’m a shallow person.

Fiser, OUT!
[drops mic]