“Drag Me to Hell”

This is the scariest movie that self has ever not seen.

Not since “Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part II” has self ever not seen so much of a movie.

So, she’s at the seance scene. And the evil spirit — er, lamia — says she desires THE SOUL OF CHRISTINE BROWN!

And Alison Lohman — er, Christine Brown, shrieks: “No! It was my manager! He made me turn down your loan!”

Until this point, self had to stay hiding behind the kitchen counter, only occasionally popping her head out to shout at hubby in the living room: “So, what’s happening now?”

Hubby maintains he can’t understand why self borrowed such a movie. Self doesn’t know either, except that the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes weren’t bad. And, besides, she sort of likes horror movies (just, not the ones that involve flies, or sacrificial goats, or gypsy women with extremely long nails!)

Hubby told self, while she was in Washington just a few weeks ago, that the house was overwhelmed by a barrage of flies. “Oh,” self giggled on the phone, from the safe distance of 3000 miles, and the warm coziness of Dear Cuz’s kitchen in Vienna, VA, “How very Amityville horror!” She gave mock shivers in front of her cousin.

But now, EEEEK! There’s a fly in the living room! Thwack, thwack, thwack! Self sees screaming gypsy faces! Sacrificial goats! Cloven hooves!

Perhaps she shouldn’t have started this movie just before bedtime. Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.

“The Class”/ Spike TV’s “Scream Awards”

Self is at home trying  —  for the nth time  —  to finish watching “The Class” (This is ridiculous!  She’s had it over a month already!)  Not only is it dull, if self gets up from the couch to do something momentarily, she misses reams of sub-titles.  Now, she has no idea where she is in the story, who that surly kid is talking to the balding guy in a suit, who those two girls giggling together over a desk are, who the bald man in glasses is.  The only one whose identity self is sure of is the teacher  —  and in the scene she just finishes watching, he has the appalling lack of judgement to engage in an argument with his students outside the classroom.  They gather around him, gleefully accusing.  And he stands there, and takes it and takes it and takes it instead of walking away (Only when self reads the Netflix movie jacket, as she is putting the film away, does she learn that the man who portrays the teacher is actually Francois Begaudeau, who wrote the novel on which the movie is based)

A few nights ago, self persuaded hubby to watch with her a show called “Scream Awards 2009” on Spike TV.  My God, what a genius idea!  That show was a gold mine of great, shining moments in film!  Not to mention eye candy like Taylor Lautner!  Among the highlights:  A clip from “New Moon” (which only confirms self’s hunch that it will be all bare chests and testosterone, with none of the moodiness of “Twilight”)! Johnny Depp!  Keith Richards!  All the (hot) guys from “True Blood” and Anna Paquin!  Even Elijah Wood in low, hip-hugging jeans!  Megan Fox giving a speech in which she claimed to really really love the “Transformer” movies!  Jessica Alba covered from elbows to neck in metallic green dress!  George A. Romero!  Stan Lee!  Will Shatner saying he was available to be in the next “Star Trek” movie!  J. J. Abrams smiling at him from the audience!  Woody Harrelson getting a bow for “Breakout Movie of the Year” (“Zombieland,” of course!)  Many, many out-takes from “Night of the Living Dead,” “Drag Me to Hell,” “The Last House on the Left,” “Star Trek” (Why is that in the “horror” category???)!  A special tribute to “Battlestar Galactica” (Frackin’ grrrreat!)

Anyhoo, self did get to Barnes and Noble and she did look for those two first novels she listed in her previous post, and neither of them were in-store.  She did, however, discover a new detective series, translated from the Russian, featuring a very hot, svelte 19th century detective (at least, so she gathers from reading the book blurbs for The Death of Achilles).  And she also renewed acquaintance with Precious Ramotswe’s latest adventures.  And she figures she might as well start reading more mysteries, as she loved, absolutely loved the last mystery she read, Ruth Rendell’s 13 Steps Down.

OK, what’s happening now in “The Class”?  Oh, the male teacher is having a conversation with his students about “sniggering,” how it hurts his feelings when the students engage in it.  More blah blah blah ensues.  Which can only, self surmises, be of interest to non-teachers.  Who are not in a classroom everyday, and for whom therefore such conversations might be revelatory.

Stay tuned.

Man vs. Prawn: A First Response to “District 9”.

There are many many ways self could think of to describe this movie:

1. Intense political satire
2. Man vs. Prawn
3. Kafka meets “The Hurt Locker”
4. Kafka meets “The Blair Witch Project”
5. a modern re-telling of a Biblical parable (Job, of course), transmuted to Johannesburg

The writing was very clever. Kudos to director

Rating “The Mist”

That’s the Netflix movie she’s watching right now. Hubby, with almost uncanny sense of self-preservation, adamantly refused to stop watching “CSI: New York” last night, even though self swore, swore that “The Mist” was exactly the kind of movie he would like, as it contained lots of “chills and thrills.”

Anyhoo, after a morning’s hard work spent writing and watering the garden, self settled down on the sofa, whipped out the remote, and started the movie.

Her mood was at first extremely sanguine, especially after hearing the lines, “There’s something in the mist! It’s taken Johnny Lee!”

But, alas, shortly thereafter, two things began to happen:

• Marcia Gay Harden, playing local loony, began to take over the movie.
• David (Thomas Jane), hero of our story, seemed to be forgetting that his wife was out there in said mist. How very convenient that a lady even prettier than his wife (playing the local fifth grade schoolteacher) happened to be trapped in the food store with him.

Then, the girl who played Jack in “Chronicles of Riddick” got an insect bite and her throat swelled up to massive proportions, and she died.

Then, the short guy who played the consul in “The Painted Veil” got eaten by humongous insect (Too bad, as he claimed to be the “state target shooting champion of 1994”; how very convenient that, when he got eaten, he dropped his pistol, and it happened to land just within reach of David/ hero — well, right on top of his car hood, to be exact)

Then David managed to get four people out of the supermarket (where they’d been trapped for the last two days, valiantly staving off giant insects by stacking super-jumbo-size bags of dog food against the plate-glass windows) into his jeep, and they were able to drive an inordinately long time before running out of gas, and just after David did mercy killings of his passengers, he discovered (Ta-RA!) the U.S. Army.

And there is Enya music playing in the background while he screams, screams, SCREEAAAAMS!!!

Who, WHO is responsible for this calumny? Self waits for the closing credits and sees: Written for the screen by Frank Darabont. And then, a few beats later: Based on a Stephen King story.

And now it is self’s turn to scream: No, no, NOOOO!!!

As she has always harbored a fondness for Stephen King, having read Cujo and Misery and Pet Sematary and Christine and maybe a couple of others whose titles escape her at the moment.

Remember “The Mist”, dear blog readers. And stay away. Stay far, far AWAAAAYYYY !!!