Life on Limerent Lane
Here is what I thought about that "Silent Hill" movie - it was certainly no "Brick".
In other news, it's high time I got off my ass and became a proper stalker. It's the only logical course, really. For the vast majority of my life, I've pretty much sat on the side, admiring some girl or other from afar. When I was a little(r) boy, I was a fat, pretentious dweeb with puffy hair and few friends, but had lots of books and action figures to keep me company. Not much has changed, although back then, I seriously had a crush on every girl who would talk to me. I'm sure my social skills have improved, but confidence remains fleeting to this day. Perhaps it's residual trauma from the first time I ever asked someone out, which resulted in the young lady laughing and curtly declining. Even when I can gather the courage to talk to a lady I find magnetic, it usually remains at crush level. It doesn't happen anywhere near as often as it used to, but now it's far more, um, enduring.
My experience with actual relationships has not been helpful, to say the least; even that mythical amazing girlfriend I had a long time ago refused to be more than "friends" for almost a year before I wore her down. Since then, after the longest line of miserable romantic fumblings I ever care to endure, being designated as such by the wrong person now hurts more than it really should. It is a sad fact that any woman I recently tried to date very quickly started giving me the runaround, only booting me once I became so agitated by her excuses that I made the mistake of questioning them. I do not believe I was irrationally concerned in any of those cases, and at least one of those excuses was legit, but it was nonetheless a uniform course of events. Some well-meaning friends have opined - in jest or not - that this too-perfect trend should have made me angry and vengeful, or at least more superficial. I got a steady job and this bachelor pad! Screw moping and pining, I should be out getting laid, yo! Why should I prefer to pour my energies into, for example, an one-sided marathon admiration for a single resolutely distant woman, one who as far as I knew would never consent to exploring a proper relationship with me unless all other options seemed lost?
Well. Not that I would ever put myself in such a masochistic position... but you have to admit that would be a much safer existence than to be additionally hung up on another lady who dumped me at an emotionally crippling juncture, would it not? Knowing myself, that really could happen. I am a sap and a recovering Catholic. The concept of redemption irrationally moves me, and I am admittedly "too hopeful" to boot, however unrequited my affections typically turn out. At the moment, if presented with such alternatives, I would surely choose not to find out how many sputtering torches one seriously out-of-shape desk jockey can carry.
So, what I need to do is take all that I have learned from my lifetime of serial crushes and become a bona fide stalker. But some things have to be decided, like who I am going to stalk. I don't want to stalk a guy, because I think guys are pretty boring. So, a lady, then. Friends keep telling me to stop falling for flaky, immature girls. I shall consider this sound advice and go for someone older. But here's the first hurdle. While my most intense crushes have indeed made me feel like a stalker in the past, I've always been too mindful not to upset the crushee to do more than, say, Google her. I don't want her to think I'm a creep, even if she makes me feel so desperate as to consider really creepy actions. Now, if I was a stalker, that would not be a concern - in fact, as far as I can tell, stalking is one case where it would be much better if the object of my unacknowledged attention didn't know I existed. It would just be easier to prowl and spy and steal personal items to display in a personal shrine, and it would be way too kinky for me if she knew I was stalking her and she got off on it.
Because of this, I could not stalk anyone I already know (whew - you're safe, ladies!), nor someone famous whose public persona I actually admired - to better avoid the whole "oh, what would she think?" issue. Honestly, same goes for any woman I might find attractive in the slightest, as I'd surely fuck up the stalking by doing the same thing. (In this endeavor, it's best to be honest about limitations.) The idea of hanging out at the supermarket or whatever to find some random unattractive older woman to stalk is just too fucking terrible to consider, even for me. It needs to be a stable woman of experience who I'm already familiar with, do not know personally and for who I will surely not develop any genuine feelings. Okay, then...
Now, there's one saucy redhead. If I was stalking the former Mrs. Garrett, I would study her routines and surreptitiously quiz her friends and family to attain the most accurate portrait of her daily schedule. Each night, I would hide out in her bushes, smoking cigarettes, listening to warped fado tapes on a malfunctioning Sports Walkman and muttering until I saw her driver's headlights. Then I would collect the butts in a bag for later disposal in another location. Charlotte recently turned 80, so the time it would take for her to walk from her car to her house would provide plenty of opportunity to covertly observe her craggy features, her stooped gait, her sensible footwear. When she shuts the door, I can move to a window and watch her remove her coat, massage her aching feet and set a pot of water on the stove for a nice cup of tea. Whether she was sleeping, chatting on the phone, taking a dump or entertaining glamorous guests like Ernest Borgnine and Estelle Getty, I would be there to drink in her routines and doings. I would have to adopt a less distinctive mode of dress so as not to stick out in a public setting, maybe invest in some khakis and denim shirts. Charlotte Rae would never see the reams of bad poetry she would inspire, the maudlin tears that would stain those pages, the sedative-infused treats I would slip her pets, the vials of crystal meth that would keep me awake outside her window all night or the albums full of photos I would snap as she went about her mundane business. I would have a mission, a purpose in life. Great care would be taken to ensure that nothing would stand between me and my unwavering desire to follow the onetime sitcom queen's every movement. It would be me and her, forever and ever, or until one of us was in the grave, or maybe until one of her handlers spotted me and got a restraining order issued.
Ah, who am I kidding? That sounds like a lot of work. Maybe I'll just go bowling instead.
In other news, it's high time I got off my ass and became a proper stalker. It's the only logical course, really. For the vast majority of my life, I've pretty much sat on the side, admiring some girl or other from afar. When I was a little(r) boy, I was a fat, pretentious dweeb with puffy hair and few friends, but had lots of books and action figures to keep me company. Not much has changed, although back then, I seriously had a crush on every girl who would talk to me. I'm sure my social skills have improved, but confidence remains fleeting to this day. Perhaps it's residual trauma from the first time I ever asked someone out, which resulted in the young lady laughing and curtly declining. Even when I can gather the courage to talk to a lady I find magnetic, it usually remains at crush level. It doesn't happen anywhere near as often as it used to, but now it's far more, um, enduring.
My experience with actual relationships has not been helpful, to say the least; even that mythical amazing girlfriend I had a long time ago refused to be more than "friends" for almost a year before I wore her down. Since then, after the longest line of miserable romantic fumblings I ever care to endure, being designated as such by the wrong person now hurts more than it really should. It is a sad fact that any woman I recently tried to date very quickly started giving me the runaround, only booting me once I became so agitated by her excuses that I made the mistake of questioning them. I do not believe I was irrationally concerned in any of those cases, and at least one of those excuses was legit, but it was nonetheless a uniform course of events. Some well-meaning friends have opined - in jest or not - that this too-perfect trend should have made me angry and vengeful, or at least more superficial. I got a steady job and this bachelor pad! Screw moping and pining, I should be out getting laid, yo! Why should I prefer to pour my energies into, for example, an one-sided marathon admiration for a single resolutely distant woman, one who as far as I knew would never consent to exploring a proper relationship with me unless all other options seemed lost?
Well. Not that I would ever put myself in such a masochistic position... but you have to admit that would be a much safer existence than to be additionally hung up on another lady who dumped me at an emotionally crippling juncture, would it not? Knowing myself, that really could happen. I am a sap and a recovering Catholic. The concept of redemption irrationally moves me, and I am admittedly "too hopeful" to boot, however unrequited my affections typically turn out. At the moment, if presented with such alternatives, I would surely choose not to find out how many sputtering torches one seriously out-of-shape desk jockey can carry.
So, what I need to do is take all that I have learned from my lifetime of serial crushes and become a bona fide stalker. But some things have to be decided, like who I am going to stalk. I don't want to stalk a guy, because I think guys are pretty boring. So, a lady, then. Friends keep telling me to stop falling for flaky, immature girls. I shall consider this sound advice and go for someone older. But here's the first hurdle. While my most intense crushes have indeed made me feel like a stalker in the past, I've always been too mindful not to upset the crushee to do more than, say, Google her. I don't want her to think I'm a creep, even if she makes me feel so desperate as to consider really creepy actions. Now, if I was a stalker, that would not be a concern - in fact, as far as I can tell, stalking is one case where it would be much better if the object of my unacknowledged attention didn't know I existed. It would just be easier to prowl and spy and steal personal items to display in a personal shrine, and it would be way too kinky for me if she knew I was stalking her and she got off on it.
Because of this, I could not stalk anyone I already know (whew - you're safe, ladies!), nor someone famous whose public persona I actually admired - to better avoid the whole "oh, what would she think?" issue. Honestly, same goes for any woman I might find attractive in the slightest, as I'd surely fuck up the stalking by doing the same thing. (In this endeavor, it's best to be honest about limitations.) The idea of hanging out at the supermarket or whatever to find some random unattractive older woman to stalk is just too fucking terrible to consider, even for me. It needs to be a stable woman of experience who I'm already familiar with, do not know personally and for who I will surely not develop any genuine feelings. Okay, then...
I AM GOING TO STALK CHARLOTTE RAE.
Now, there's one saucy redhead. If I was stalking the former Mrs. Garrett, I would study her routines and surreptitiously quiz her friends and family to attain the most accurate portrait of her daily schedule. Each night, I would hide out in her bushes, smoking cigarettes, listening to warped fado tapes on a malfunctioning Sports Walkman and muttering until I saw her driver's headlights. Then I would collect the butts in a bag for later disposal in another location. Charlotte recently turned 80, so the time it would take for her to walk from her car to her house would provide plenty of opportunity to covertly observe her craggy features, her stooped gait, her sensible footwear. When she shuts the door, I can move to a window and watch her remove her coat, massage her aching feet and set a pot of water on the stove for a nice cup of tea. Whether she was sleeping, chatting on the phone, taking a dump or entertaining glamorous guests like Ernest Borgnine and Estelle Getty, I would be there to drink in her routines and doings. I would have to adopt a less distinctive mode of dress so as not to stick out in a public setting, maybe invest in some khakis and denim shirts. Charlotte Rae would never see the reams of bad poetry she would inspire, the maudlin tears that would stain those pages, the sedative-infused treats I would slip her pets, the vials of crystal meth that would keep me awake outside her window all night or the albums full of photos I would snap as she went about her mundane business. I would have a mission, a purpose in life. Great care would be taken to ensure that nothing would stand between me and my unwavering desire to follow the onetime sitcom queen's every movement. It would be me and her, forever and ever, or until one of us was in the grave, or maybe until one of her handlers spotted me and got a restraining order issued.
Ah, who am I kidding? That sounds like a lot of work. Maybe I'll just go bowling instead.
posted by SoulReaper at 7:48 PM
4 Comments:
"Silent Hill": almost as bad as Hell itself
*½
The fires burning beneath the deserted town of Silent Hill, West Virginia never go out. Sadly, the movie in which they’re featured isn't so hot.
"Silent Hill" is the latest in a line of horror-themed video game series to make it to the big screen. If it's better than "Resident Evil" or "Alone In the Dark," it's only because the filmmakers resisted the temptation to turn a creepy, immersive survival horror game into a loud, trashy action film. However, the alternative they chose involves a lot of inaction.
Radha Mitchell stars as Rose, whose adopted daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) is prone to sleepwalking, during which she screams about a place called Silent Hill. The internet tells her about a fire that devastated the coal mining town thirty years ago, but Rose hopes she can find the solution to Sharon's troubles by taking the little girl there against the wishes of her husband, Chris (Sean Bean).
During the journey, she attracts the concern of Cybil (Laurie Holden), a butch cop who admirably fills out her tight leather uniform. Cybil chases Rose into Silent Hill, where underground flames perpetually rain ash on the deserted streets. After a car accident, Sharon vanishes, and Rose sets off to find the kid with Cybil tailing, then joining her.
They meet the haunted Dahlia (Deborah Kara Unger), whose daughter is also missing, as well as the prim Christabella, played by the dependably icy Alice Krige. While battling off hordes of bugs and other nightmarish beasties, Rose discovers the town is in the grip of a supernatural revenge plot that involves religious whackos, witch-hunts and a heaping helping of mommy issues.
"Silent Hill" is often very visually impressive. Every so often, a siren blares and a "darkness" falls on the town. This leads to striking effects sequences where the walls and fixtures of the physical world literally melt away, replaced by a hellish realm populated with shrieking monster babies, faceless mannequin-nurses and a hulking pyramid-headed guy wielding a huge knife. The film's creatures and environments are steeped in maternal instincts and Christian fervor gone horribly wrong, and its climactic bloodbath is nice.
But beyond the cool visuals, there's not a lot here for horror fans. They're used to endless scenes of characters skulking around, calling out other characters' names, but rarely in a film that's already bloated past the two-hour point. Tack this onto a plot which cherry-picks familiar elements from "The Ring" and "Hellraiser," and restlessness soon sets in.
Fans of the games might enjoy seeing some of the scenarios fleshed out, but should be warned that the movie pretty much tosses out the plot they know. Characters and even parts of the soundtrack are lifted from "SH" games and mashed with completely new ideas, resulting in a shaky adaptation which smells like boardroom interference.
"Silent Hill" most resembles disappointments like "The Cell" and "Event Horizon." It piles on the gruesome eye candy hoping you won't notice it lacks the depth to provide true psychological chills. As such, it's no scarier a video game adaptation than the "Super Mario Bros." movie.
May I recommend a couple song choices for stalking? Perhaps a re-write of "If I Had a Hammer." Instead, "If I Were a Stalker": "If I were a stalker, I'd stalk her in the evening. I'd stalk her in the morning..." Or, for that matter, "If I Were a Rich Man": "If I were a stalker...all day long I'm hiding in the bush, if I were a stalker man!" There's always Queensryche's version of "Gonna Get Close to You," if you don't want to go to the effort of making your own stalking song.
Charlotte Rae might like the attention.
What would Tootie say, man? What would Tootie SAY?
"I'm Gonna Get Close To You" is totally the best stalking song. It was in my head for the duration of writing that post. Also Soilwork's "Like the Average Stalker," but I don't imagine you know that one.
Tootie ain't saying shit. She's busy stalking Queen Latifah.
Post a Comment
<< Home