Okay, maybe poor Mika went a little overboard, all with paper shredding and playing with a lighter. But aren't we all just a little cazy over Paris. She spends three weeks in jail and we're outraged, just outraged, about her whining, her celebrity, her outrageous actions, her hard-to-believe repentence.
Who cares? We care because Paris entertains us, allows us to laugh at somebody else, to feel a bit superior. We snark and wonder how she could be so famous for essentially being dumb, blonde and rich. We snark and we're outraged at such a circumstance.
The truth is, however, that we made her who she is. We decided that we had to pay attention. So, really, are we outraged at her or at ourselves for playing a part in creating the Paris we so adore and abhor at the same time.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Mika Brzezinski of MNSBC rips Paris report
Saturday, June 23, 2007
1408
I remember the first time I was truly scared. It was after watching The Exorcist II: The Heretic. Seeing all those locusts swirling around Linda Blair, while this eerie music played in the background, freaked me out. And though it may sound nonsensical, I somehow equated that music with the theme from Flashdance, the one that goes "She's a maniac, maniac..."
Years later, I've come to realize what everyone else knew: The Exorcist II: The Heretic was awful and stupid and could only make sense if you were drunk, really drunk.
It takes much to scare me or freak me out. See, I get a thrill out of watching gorefests and get a kick out of a nice horror flick.
But not too many movies these days leave you with the creepy chill in your bones after you walk out of the theater.
Then there's 1408, a crisply-told tale of sheer terror. Based on a Stephen King short story, the movie tells the story of Mike Enslin, a debunker of ghost tales who recently lost his daughter. He gets a post card about 1408, a room at The Dublin, a hotel in New York. He goes to check it out, despite the protests of the general manager, played ably by Samuel L. Jackson.
Enslin, played by John Cusack, is a morose, sarcastic fellow, not given to easy scares. But then the alarm clock starts ticking off 60 minutes, and his hand gets slammed by the window, and he starts seeing ghostly figures jump out of the window.
Pretty soon, his skepticism dissipates and is replaced by screams and crying and just plain panic.
Mikael Hafstrom, who directed the sleazy and forgettable Derailed, keeps the scares coming, all the while mixing in the backstory of Enslin's masked grief.
That's not difficult, considering Stephen King wrote the story. King has never neglected his characters, making them authentically human. You actually care whether they live or die.
The scares weren't get-under-the-seat kind of scares. They were the kind that sink in deep long after the movie is over.
I might just have to make sure that the next hotel I stay in doesn't have a 1408. You never know.
Years later, I've come to realize what everyone else knew: The Exorcist II: The Heretic was awful and stupid and could only make sense if you were drunk, really drunk.
It takes much to scare me or freak me out. See, I get a thrill out of watching gorefests and get a kick out of a nice horror flick.
But not too many movies these days leave you with the creepy chill in your bones after you walk out of the theater.
Then there's 1408, a crisply-told tale of sheer terror. Based on a Stephen King short story, the movie tells the story of Mike Enslin, a debunker of ghost tales who recently lost his daughter. He gets a post card about 1408, a room at The Dublin, a hotel in New York. He goes to check it out, despite the protests of the general manager, played ably by Samuel L. Jackson.
Enslin, played by John Cusack, is a morose, sarcastic fellow, not given to easy scares. But then the alarm clock starts ticking off 60 minutes, and his hand gets slammed by the window, and he starts seeing ghostly figures jump out of the window.
Pretty soon, his skepticism dissipates and is replaced by screams and crying and just plain panic.
Mikael Hafstrom, who directed the sleazy and forgettable Derailed, keeps the scares coming, all the while mixing in the backstory of Enslin's masked grief.
That's not difficult, considering Stephen King wrote the story. King has never neglected his characters, making them authentically human. You actually care whether they live or die.
The scares weren't get-under-the-seat kind of scares. They were the kind that sink in deep long after the movie is over.
I might just have to make sure that the next hotel I stay in doesn't have a 1408. You never know.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Killing Me Softly
Heather Graham. Joseph Fiennes. How could you go wrong?
Really wrong, as I found out when I watched Killing Me Softly. It is a shame but sometimes good actors find themselves in horrid movies.
In this one, Graham plays a young American working as a website designer in London. She has a good life with a boyfriend who adores her. But apparently he doesn't adore her enough, for after one look at Adam, a celebrity mountain climber played by Fiennes, she's at his pad having wild, furious and freakish sex with the guy. And she can't get enough, spending her lunch break with Adam.
At times, you think this is trying for the depth of Unfaithful, a much-better movie starring Diane Lane as a woman who has a torrid affair with a stranger. Really, this is just an excuse to see Graham naked a bunch of times.
Then the movie starts becoming a male version of Fatal Attraction, with Fiennes as the obsessed lover.
Luckily, no rabbits are cooked.
They might as well have been, as silly as this movie becomes. And of course, there's a maddeningly nutjob of a twist at the end involving family secrets.
By this time, even with two good actors, you just throw up your hands. What a waste of talent.
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