Right. Well then.

[trinityvixen]

Last night, I dreamed that I was at my parents' upstate house. We lighted on the topic of tattoos, and I told my family my real-life regret, which is that I love nothing so much, so life-changingly that I would ever want a tattoo of it. (For real, yo, I am really sad that this is the truth.) I also joked about how I never manage to like the same thing with the same passion a year later, to say nothing of the decades a tattoo would last, so no matter if I thought I loved something that much, I wouldn't get it because I know what I would have gotten years ago would embarrass me now.

My mother--in the dream--responded incredulously, by going, "What the F are you talking about? You have lots of tattoos! And you get them for the dumbest things."

Turns out, dream-me had a mess of tattoos--so many I can't believe they all fit in the one area they were: the back of my right upper arm. I went to the bathroom (in the dream) and held my arm up to see all the tattoos. I remember three of the tattoos. One was a short line about frames or trains--all I remember was the tiny, tiny font looking like old physics equations, and it started with a really funky script lower-case "f." The second tattoo was an exact copy of the one from Memento that says what John G's license plate number is--exact copy, font and all. (This is the best picture I could find of it.)

The last tattoo was a byline-and-all replica of The New York Times' review of the movie Appaloosa. I remember the picture of Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen very vividly (though I'm uncertai n whether this picture actually exists in real life at all). It looked like someone had printed out the Times Online's copy onto the back of my arm. The best part? Neither dream-me nor the real me have even seen that movie.

Dream-me commenced panicking about how could she have ever been so stupid and my mother was right and now I've got to spend money to get them removed, and how expensive will that be...!?! Dream-me, like real me, couldn't remember ever liking any of those things enough to want a tattoo. Not ever! Why would I get those tattoos!?!

I woke up still in a panic. Not cool, subconscious.

In other news, I saw two things this weekend: the pilot for White Collar and Drag Me to Hell. I enjoyed White Collar, though I'm simultaneously a tad bored by it, if that makes sense? It's very much one more of USA's formula works, with the bickering leads and the supporting characters along with a mystery to string you along for a season. I did like the episode, but I suspect a lot of that has to do with Matt Bomer's beautiful eyes. Well, that, and his incredible ability to be very vulnerable. He's less cocky than most of USA's other "characters," which is odd given the premise of his character. But there's a real defeat to him that is charming and heart-breaking at the same time. I don't know how well that works with his character being a master criminal and all. I'm definitely interested it watching more, but they're going to have to work very hard on improving or at least balancing the tone. But cheers to Matt Bomer's baby blues. I never noticed they were so disarmingly clear on Chuck, but that's probably because up until the end of season two, I kinda hated Bryce Larkin.

Curiously, a problem of tone was what kept me from liking Drag Me to Hell. I come down on the Army of Darkness side of horror-Raimi (as opposed to Evil Dead II), mostly because I think Raimi's strength is in humor. His attempts to be genuinely scary without being somewhat (or entirely) silly are just not that impressive to me. Drag Me to Hell wanted to be gross and funny at the same time, but the timing was off. Gross-outs went on too long, were far too staged to be anything but stomach-churning turn-offs. (Yes, there are stomach-churning turn-ons, and, yes, it is possible to tell the difference.) Usually, when something is dragged out, it becomes ridiculous. The problem with the gross-outs in Drag Me to Hell is that the set-ups were so ludicrous that they were, themselves, the joke, not the fifteen extra seconds of gratuitous fluids being projectile-vomited into the heroine's mouth. That's another problem: repetition of the exact same gross-out gag. I just didn't find the balance between the funny and the not-so to be as finely tuned as Raimi's earlier horror work. It probably doesn't help that the film opened with a child being taken to Hell--little hard to laugh at that--and that I'd seen Paranormal Activity before this which had a similar bent but was genuinely scary (which made the humor all the better, since no one laughs louder than someone who is freaked out).

Worse, Drag Me to Hell was utterly predictable. I don't hold that against horror movies, generally speaking--there are only so many ways the horror can go: the heroine (it is almost always a woman at the center) wins; the heroine loses; or the heroine thinks she's won but the ghost/monster/undead slasher comes back at the very end. Options are a luxury horror doesn't tend to have, you know? What I resent is how telegraphed those endings are. feiran had seen the movie before, and she spotted the ending a mile off compared to me, but I still felt like I knew far too soon how it would play out. I knew the exact twist, knew the exact steps it would take to get there. Everything that wasn't on that agenda felt like extraneous noise and Raimi trying to reclaim some former glory. It's one thing to go, "Oh, this is an ending C movie (heroine thinks she's won, but...)" and watch anyway. It's another to go, "I bet she does X which leads to a scene where Y happens, and then there's a fake happy ending for Z-length of time, and then it's a C ending." That's how I felt about Drag Me to Hell. Very disappointing, on the whole.

Comments

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

Personally, I found the whole movie funny because the heroine is another Ash, another bonehead who generally refuses to consider how the mess is her fault. Nobody else seems to laugh, but it was so funny to me when she's in the seance and the lamia's inhabiting the body of the woman next to her and she still tries to blame her manager.

They could have hidden the ending better, but I was also pleased the movie delivered on the implied promise. As for the kid, I guess it's not "funny", but I'd say it comes with the territory. It seems strange to me that you sound like you found it sobering. Bad things happen to people in horror movies all the time, why should that kid be any different?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

But she's not another Ash. Ash is a hero, and he's not a bad person. He doesn't do things to the Deadites that they don't deserve. This girl murdered a kitty. It's not the same. The fact that she doesn't accept blame or even feel all that guilty--she recognizes how she is to blame, but even when she confesses to the boyfriend, she never appears actually to regret what she did (aside for the fact that it got her cursed--she only regrets that she suffers, not that she made the old lady suffer). It's not as endearing as Ash, nor as rousing. There's also the part where Ash triumphs that makes it easier to get behind him...

As for the kid, generally speaking, things done to kids are usually more horrifying for the fact that it's harder to imagine they deserve it than adults. Sure, kids are bastards, but they have nothing on adults, and adults do bad things with impunity and intent when kids are much more experimental in their bad behavior. It doesn't have to ruin the movie or anything, but it sets a certain tone. It's like how they went there with the kid in Aliens vs Predator: Requiem. It takes you aback in a way that is somewhat difficult to recover from.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's supposed to be endearing, nor do I think the audience is necessarily supposed to get behind her. I think the movie is a dark comedy about someone who does something kinda bad and only makes it worse. There was a thread on the CHUD message boards where someone suggested that being cursed by the lamia is only a test, and what you do in the following three days will determine whether you deserve to get dragged to hell or not. I don't totally buy into it, since the movie doesn't suggest it at all, but it's a funny theory.

The original end of Army of Darkness (which, admittedly, I don't prefer) had Ash waking up in a post-apocalyptic future because he's a bit of a moron. Even in the theatrical version, he doesn't learn his lesson, raising the Deadites in the present. And I don't really think Ash necessarily regrets forgetting the words either, although he does decide to stick around when it becomes clear to him that everyone hates his guts. Also, while the punishment is quite extreme for the crime, the original group of kids in The Evil Dead show up at a cabin that doesn't belong to them and mess around with this guy's tape recorder, which is what raises the Deadites in the first place.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Ash in the theatrical end encounters Deadites when he returns to the future, but I thought those were left over from the first raising. He wouldn't have raised them twice on purpose, I wouldn't think. Regardless, he's still portrayed as a hero since he calmly takes one out while everyone else panics.

As for Evil Dead, the point is that they were kids who did something stupid. Ash learned his lesson, became a (slightly) better person. The girl in Drag Me to Hell did not, which is why it's fine (and totally predictable) that she got taken in the end. It's just that that inevitability made the movie really boring. I do like the idea about worthiness that is suggested by that poster, though I think the terrified boy in the beginning gives lie to that. He and his parents tried to rectify what he'd done to the gypsy, but the gypsy would have none of it. I think that's the other problem of tone--nobody remarks on how out of proportion it is, vis a vis punishment fitting the crime, to damn someone to Hell for all eternity for petty things like minor theft (which was immediately rectified) or foreclosure. A comment on that would have made the movie a lot funnier. As it is? It just seemed...yeah, off.

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

nobody remarks on how out of proportion it is, vis a vis punishment fitting the crime, to damn someone to Hell for all eternity for petty things like minor theft (which was immediately rectified) or foreclosure.

...or say how she could have made a "killing" in the life insurance business.


All in all it's just a really bad movie. Not funny "haha" but funny "uh oh"!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's just not funny, period. Like, you want to laugh, but it's mostly out of being kinda disgusted. (Not in a good way.)

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much what funny "uh oh" is. The laugh you think you might be able to pull off, but only after a LONG shower!

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

I'd say the exchange with Ted Raimi ("Did you say the words right this time?" "Well, maybe I didn't say every tiny little syllable, no, but basically I said 'em, yeah! Basically...") is meant to indicate that not saying the words right is what causes the S-Mart Deadite.

As for the worthiness factor, the parents tried to give the item back, not the boy, and either way, I think the idea is that you would suffer for three days regardless, and at the end, you would be judged. Of all things, the option to give the item away seems like a pretty massive test; if you shamefully accept your fate, you've clearly felt remorse, but if you try to shirk it off onto someone else, no matter how deserving they are, you're passing the buck.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I could watch Matt Bomer stand around in black turtlenecks and fedoras all day. The banter is really just a bonus. Holy hell that guy looks good in a turtleneck.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Holy hell that guy looks good in a turtleneck.

Or anything. Or nothing. feiran and I were watching and the shirtless part happened, and I just said, "Thanks for that." She said, "Yeah."

Yeah.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I think I gasped out loud. It took me quite a bit to realize that the book he was reading was a plot point. I was distracted.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

He needs to do that more often. Find some amazing lady criminal to seduce or something. Or just take a lot of showers.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Oh, you know he's going to be a total slut on this show. In the preview he was getting frisky with at least two different chicks. To make his agentman nice and jealous, of course.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You're such a slasher. :P

I dunno how overtly slutty he's going to be, is the thing. This was the issue about tone I meant--he's very flirty, but he's also got some tragic love stuff going on, too. It's not been negotiated well, alas. Plus, there's also the fact that this is a USA formula show. Their leads barely get to first base more than once a season.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

You're right. I doubt we'll get anything hard core out of it. Just lots of banter. Though hopefully this pilot bodes well for future shirtlessness. If they know which way their bread is buttered, and I think they do.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think USA is smart enough not to challenge it's (I would guess) mostly female audience. The fact that they went there in the pilot? Yeah, I think this will be the sort of teasing-around-sex stuff of their other shows. Which is okay with me. I'm happy to use the internet if I need more than that :)