The Gimcrack Miscellany

I was expecting one of two things, either a supernatural demon/spirit filled journey into the depths of hades, or a slasher film. 1408 was neither (although closer to the former than the latter). Think The Shining meets Identity.

The Good

John Cusack one-mans most of the movie (based on a short story by Stephen King) and does a great job at it. He plays a cynical author who wishes he would find something supernatural at one of the hotels he visits so he can write about it and sell copies of his books. It’s a great story that will definitely make your hair stand up the next time you visit a hotel, be it the luxurious Dolphin Hotel in downtown New York or your typical Comfort Inn along the interstate. The visual effects are top notch, but it’s what we aren’t actually shown that gets into our minds and frightens us. This is a psychological thriller, and the best part about it is the potential for discussion after the movie is over.

The Bad

While there are good things to be said about a movie that confuses you and causes post-film discussion, sometimes it can be bad if there’s too much convolution. 1408 borders on too much. I wish Cusack’s character would’ve been cynical for longer, instead of giving up so soon into the film. Once the main character loses grasp of the situation and we start to see the evil face to face, it somehow becomes less scary. The scariest part of scary movies is always the first half, and I think they could’ve stretched the first half into the first three-quarters if they tried a little harder.

The Beratings

Acting - no beratings
Plot - 1 berating
Inconsistencies - 1 berating
Unbelievable Events - 1 berating
Schematics - no beratings

Recommended Investment = See it at the Five Buck Club

0/10 Stand in line for the very first showing
1/10 See it the first weekend
2/10 See it at full price
3/10 See it at the Five-Buck-Club
4/10 See it at the dollar-fifty
5/10 See it OnDemand
6/10 Rent it from Blockbuster
7/10 Watch it on TV
8/10 Watch it purely for spousal points
9/10 Never watch it
10/10 Buy it and publicly destroy it

Note: The comments contain spoilers

Jonathan Wey is writing again. That’s all you need to know.

Not since Dragons Buried on High have we been privileged with such an uninhibited glimpse into such a unique mind. He is a MUCH better writer than I (I’m talking LITS here) and you can tell that he meticulously prepares each and every post. I was blown away with his From Ancient Greece to John Williams: Music Has Always Been the Same post, and I’m looking forward to his post on theTop 74 Film Scores of All Time.

His blog is entitled By the Narrow Gate and here’s some insight as to why:

Finding a title is difficult. I thought about several for a while, and finally stuck with this one. It is of course taken from the quote in the New Testament (Matthew, Chapter 7). I like to think of it as a bit of a double entendre–”Enter by the narrow gate…”; but it also conjures the image of one who is standing “by the narrow gate”, perhaps waiting to enter in. I like this image very much. For me it calls to mind our passage as human persons from this transient world into the eternal Kingdom–our goal and aim as Christians. Life is a journey into the Kingdom. As C.S. Lewis calls it, it is a journey that goes “further up and further in.”

See what I mean? He used the word ‘entendre’.

Two reasons I like this blog: 1) it starts with a ‘B’ so I was able to do that overkill ‘b’ alliteration in the title of this blog post and 2) it’s a Wordpress blog. Nothing against Blogger, it’s just nice to finally see someone else out there on Wordpress like me. Who wants to be able to do push-button simple-as-pie blog posts when you can waste tons of time going through all the admin panel tabs just to figure out how to change your title?

Don’t you hate it when that list of 10 movies you’ve been dying to see suddenly escapes your memory as soon as you enter Blockbuster? I’ve decided to start rating the movies I’ve seen, not because I think anyone actually cares what my opinion is, but because I find myself frequently forgetting what they were and if they were good.

I’m going to use a new rating system developed solely by me and my love/hate relationship with Hollywood. It’s called the Berating system, and it’s based on a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being the most berated movie I’ve ever seen and 0 being a film that I’m not able to berate for the life of me. A movie is great if I can’t berate it:

be·rate [bi-reyt] – verb, to scold; rebuke: He berated them in public.

Yes, I realize my system utilizes an 11-point grading scale since it starts at 0 instead of 1, but that just means it’s 1 better than yours. And yes, I realize my system is based out of negativity, but like I said I love Hollywood for giving us movies but sometimes I hate them for it as well, especially if the movie is as dumb as Tomb Raider or A Knight’s Tale.

Basically, movies get 1 berating for violating each category of really dumb things (2 if the category is really violated in an extremely sick, stupid, dumb way). The five main categories in order of importance are:

• Bad acting
• Bad plot/story
• Inconsistencies in the story
• Unbelievable events
• Bad schematics (directing, editing, cinematography, sound, etc.)

So, if a movie morbidly violates all 5 categories it will get a 10/10 Berating, whereas if a movie violates none of the categories it will get a 0/10 Berating. Note that if one side character who’s barely in the movie is a bad actor, I’m not going to Berate the movie 1 point. Also note that by “unbelievable events” I’m not talking about the animals being able to talk (like in Homeward Bound or Bug’s Life) or wizards being able to fly (like in Harry Potter) as long as that’s what the movie is selling. I’m referring instead to events that go against the grain of what’s possible even in an imaginary world, such as if Superman were to catch Lois Lane right before she hits the ground and save her life (we all know that both hitting a person’s body, especially the “man of steel”, and hitting pavement at 200 MPH will kill you either way.)

Ok, that’s enough explanation since I said myself that no one really cares about my opinion. On with the Beratings!

A man and woman were just stoned to death in Iran, according to this FoxNews.com article, and it wasn’t carried out by a few outraged villagers wielding pitchforks as I had previously envisioned it. Iran’s government confirmed that they were responsible for stoning the man as punishment for adultery. I’m dumbfounded that something like this can still happen in our world. So is the high commissioner of the U.N. as this apparently breaks an international treaty that Iran signed.

Death sentences are carried out in Iran after they are upheld by the Supreme Court. Under Iran’s Islamic law, adultery is punishable by stoning.

Jamshidi didn’t elaborate on how the stoning was carried out, but under Islamic rulings, a male convict is usually buried up to his waist while a female criminal is buried up to her neck with her hands also buried.

Those carrying out the verdict start throwing stones and rocks at the convict until he or she dies.

Not only does Islam command the killing of infidels, but apparently it approves of barbarically stoning fellow Muslims for adultery. Do you know how many people would be killed in America if we punished adulterers with the death penalty?

Her name is Mika Brzezinski and I am now a tremendous fan of hers. She even got her own hour-long news show because of her outburst. This is almost enough to make me start watching MSNBC… almost.