Saturday, October 17, 2009

This isn't really a review of Paranormal Activity


Just saw Paranormal Activity, the low budget scary answer to the high dollar half-comedic Drag Me To Hell. (In that both are about haunted young women; otherwise there aren't many pertinent comparisons.)

I liked the film, but I'm not in the mood to write a review, and if I was to do a review, I think I might prefer to do it in comics form, but don't hold me to that.
Anyway, what I'd like to write here is an open letter to the assbrains who joined me in the theater this evening. I'd say, "You know who you are," but I'm sure you don't know who you are, or really much of anything, owing to the aforementioned unfortunate condition of having an ass where a brain should be.
A few fun tips:
1) Cell phones can be turned off. Or even just on vibrate. Really. You might have figured this out if you weren't busy downloading Honky Tonk Badonk a Donk or whatever that hideous sound your phone made for like three damn minutes. It's a bit difficult, so let me walk you through it: There is a volume button on the side of your phone. Hit it a few times. Try using your thumb or finger, instead of flinging it at the wall along with your own feces, which I assume to be your general practice with anything that is not fast food or Mountain Dew.
2) If you think the movie is boring, leave. I did not ask you what you think. Because I know you did not think. You just sat there sniffing your own brain farts, deep meaningful considerations like: "Titties? Aw, no titties." "Gore? Aw, no gore." "LAAAAME!"
3) I know it's impossible not to text for an hour in a half. How will you know what your high school friend's aunt's cousin's Facebook friend from Norway is doing right this second?!!! (Bjorn is sleeping with wool socks on, incidentally.) But could you at least shine the motherfucker away from my face? Is there an app for Just Sit Still For Five Goddamn Minutes and Watch the Movie You Just Paid Seven Bucks to See? Is there an app for that? HUH?!!! NO?!!!! Perhaps I should invent one. The GPS senses that you're in a movie theater and flashes a "GET THE FUCK OFF YOUR FUCKING PHONE!" message every time you try to tweet that you had a popcorn kernel stuck in your tooth but it's okay now, you've got it out. And also, if that app could deliver a mild-to-moderate electrical shock of some sort, mores the better. Free one on me designers.
4)Yep, the movie starts slow. See, once upon a time, in the land of the not completely ADD brain dead, there was this thing called pacing. It's like, instead of the bits without action just being when John Cusack moves from a limo to an airplane in his bid to outrun the building splodey apocalypse, there was this thing called story. This thing called suspense. I know, I know, suspense is still around, keeping you on the edge of your seat while you wait to see if the guy in Saw IX will gnaw off his own foot or whatever, but sometimes suspense is achieved without some sort of ticking time bomb being cut to every third second. Sometimes, pacing is developed through pesky character interactions. Madness, I know, but I don't think this movie had the budget to create a non-stop roller coaster of things blowing up and topless women being stabbed or whatever it was you were waiting for. Hopefully Paranormal Activity 2: Bikini Bloodbath Boogaloo will correct these terrible oversights, and make you feel more comfortable by avoiding moments of silence in which to hear the echoing emptiness in the cavernous hole housing the three remaining synapses that allow you to finger bang a 3G network and make trenchant remarks like, "She ain't sleeping now!" helpfully translating the mysterious image of a woman sitting up in bed frightened saying she can't sleep projected on a ten foot tall screen. Gosh, couldn't have figured that out. Thanks ever so much.

In closing assbrains, I know this blog post is too long for you to actually have read, but I'd just like to put these two messages of hope out there, on the internet, for posterity:
1. Shut the hell up.
2. Stop going to movies if you can't scale the dizzying heights of shutting the hell up.

Thank you and good night.

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