Look to the Wastland! Pt 2

Predictably, I eventually simply couldn't get hold of Richard Stanley...his number's not currently in service (interesting), and "no further information is available." But I've filed the story, and I'm fairly happy with it. Hope the Rue Crew feel the same way.

Last night, Steve and I went to see The Grudge 2, which fell down massively on the mythology side of things...the subplot about Kayako supposedly having been the Japanese equivilant of a teenaged sin-eater went exactly nowhere (and doesn't it actually come from another movie entirely?). While there were some interesting potential answers to Aubrey's climactic question ("What do you WANT?"), we were prevented from getting any of them for certain-sure by the simple expedient of the franchise "needing" to continue. (The answer in Ju-On 2 at least made sense, that being: "I want to be alive again...oh, thanks, I think I'll hitch a ride on your fetus, though that does sort of leave my son in the lurch. Oops. Well, fuck him.")

That being said, I did enjoy the sequences set in Chicago, which had genuine oomph. The other stuff seemed oddly crude, especially coming from Shimizu-san. Ah, well.

Along similar lines, I ended up buying and reading the Japanese novel adaptation of Ju-On, which is...odd. Reductionist in some disappointing ways, open-ended and startlingly weird in others. Maybe it's a Japanese thing. And the trailer for Oxide and Danny Pang's The Messengers looks fun, if only because the juxtaposition of extreme Americana (the farm, the scarecrows, the corn) with very, VERY Asian ghosts is nicely offputting. We'll see.

Also: 300! In which the Spartans are all Scottish. And thsi makes a lot of emotional sense, at least for me.;)

Later

Second day of having a sick headache for much of the afternoon, so bad that even Mom said: "You're looking very...white." And that at least got her to stop bugging me about Cal's fucking S.I.N. # for five seconds, so it was almost worth it. I worked out, ate breakfast, did a rudimentary shop (forgot yoghurt, due to intense pain in my sinus cavities), came home and crashed for two hours, did chores. Cal's running around squealing, scribble-talking and doing the chicken-wing dance, which looks dsiquietingly like the Man From Another Place's "I am the ARM...and I sound like this" movement in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Tomorrow I have three Canadian Film History classes in a row, which should be "fun". (Oh, and pursuant to that, it's official--Bon Cop Bad Cop has beaten Porky's for the most money made by a Canadian film at the Canadian box office, on 80% French-Canadian business. Whoo!)

In other not-news, I'm reading Shirley Jackson again, and am beginning to think something inside me is broke; I find her admirable, but not scary. Not even creepy. Often just sort of social-commentary-black-comedy-of-manners-y, in that 1950s way. The idea of a whole career legacy being based on one story, good as that story is, seems a bit sad to me...but who am I to say, really? Some peopel don't even think what I do is horror.