6 Movies in 2 Days

I have two rooms in the flat that I share with my roommate, Sarah. One is my bedroom, and the other is my art-music-media room, which I recently cleaned and rearranged. Since it houses my overwhelmingly large VHS collection, I created a cozy little video-watching area that's getting a lot of use. I've seen five movies since yesterday afternoon - while doing other productive things. I swear.

1. Half Baked
• It always makes me giggle.
2. Se7en
• Brilliant story, brilliant acting. "What's in the box?!"
3. Milk
• It was my first time seeing this one, and I loved it; a funny, inspirational true story that had me emotionally invested to the extreme. It even made me cry a little, which is tough for a movie to do. I highly recommend this to anyone who's interested in political activism, gay rights, contemporary history, and/or emotional biopics.
  
4. Office Space
• I watched this one twice in a row. Seriously. 
5. Friday the 13th
• Slasher classic.

...and I'm currently watching a 6th: The Squeeze, on VHS. It was still in it's original shrink wrap, which was pretty exciting to tear open. The cover sold me, with its classically corny 80s style and a tagline promising a "comedy thriller," starring Michael Keaton, no less. Unfortunately, I'm 10 minutes into watching it and can already tell it's not going to be as fantastically bad as I expected; it's going to be "mediocre bad," which is the worst.

Oh, the horror!

Over the last week, the temperature in my part of Illinois has dropped from 90° to 60°... basically, Illinois warp sped from summer to fall, seemingly overnight. Every year, as the weather starts to get chilly, I get a hankerin' for some good ol' fashioned horror movies. I began the cinematic descent into blood, demonic possessions, deep psychoses, and deranged villains last night, by re-watching The Shining for the umpteenth time. I'm not a big Kubrick fan, but I adore The Shining. I saw it for the first time when I was 13 or 14, and at 28, it still manages to give me the chills.

Here's the beautiful and terrifying original trailer:

And, just for fun, a romantic-comedy re-cut someone did with scenes from The Shining. Hilarious!

The next movies I plan on re-watching are Rosemary's Baby and The Omen, two more of my favorite horror classics. Did you know that The Omen includes one of Hollywood's first, and, arguably, BEST, decapitation scenes? I have long been toying with the idea of making a VHS "Decap Comp" of all my favorite movie decapitation scenes, and this one from the original Omen would definitely open up the tape:

I have a list of some of my other favorites, and if there are any that you'd recommend, please leave them in a comment below. I'd also like to know what your favorite horror movies are, so I can add some more must-sees to my watch list. Some of mine, in addition to the few already mentioned, include: Dead Snow, Cabin Fever, 28 Days Later (I love you, Danny Boyle!), House of 1000 Corpses, The Good Son, Jaws, The Exorcist, Carrie, and Teeth (don't trust the shitty trailer - trust me). And the next horror release I'm really looking forward to is Hobo with a Shotgun (see the teaser trailer at the bottom of this entry). I found the link to this through a blog I just discovered this morning - Greatest Movie Deaths of All Time. Total Google score!

Happy horror-ing, guys and gals. I finally have a working internet connection again so I should be blogging more frequently. Subscribe. Stay in touch.

Go take a cold shower.

There's no better way to begin a one-degree Illinois day than by having the hot water run out halfway through your shower. Washing my hair in ice cold water is not irritating in the least (note sarcasm).

Game night at Jaime's went well last night. Jaime, her roommate Sarah, and I managed to make it through a few rounds of Scattergories and the adult version of Loaded Questions before shifting our attention to some VHS tapes that Jaime recently acquired. We began the crappy VHS-a-thon with a promotional tape for a company called My Twinn that, based on the clips in said video, makes custom dolls for the spoiled children of exceptionally wealthy soccer moms and equestrian enthusiasts. A bit later in the evening, we watched a children's documentary about animals and their babies, which turned out to be more terrifying than informative. Have you ever seen a baby pelican eat from its mother's mouth-sack? Well, I have, and it was horrifying.

Today's plan includes having coffee with Alexandra, then heading to a punk festival in Elgin. I am stoked about both of these activities, despite my current state of laziness. I am laying down while typing this. My social calendar has been insanely full in the last two weeks, and I think my energy is just about depleted. Tomorrow will be a day of rest and cleaning around the house.

In other news, I am happy to say that my New Year's resolution to write everyday is holding strong. Two days in and I'm feeling very confident. I'm glad to be blogging again, and hoping that at least a few people are excited to see me back at it. I journal for myself whenever I have some traumatic event happening in my personal life, but I've really missed posting my daily drivel for all to see. I love language, and it motivates me to know that people are reading what I write, no matter how insignificant.

Until next time, Sausage and Clams.