Kayla's LJay

So yesterday night I was seriously tired. Decided to cancel plans and stay at home with my parents and just veg out. So we were flipping through channels when we came across a movie called Left Behind Ah, if only I had wikipediad it first, I wouldn't have lost two very precious hours of my life.

It started off relatively interesting enough...randomly, people started disapearing, leaving their clothes behind, and the UN was striving to get world peace by rebuilding a shrine in Israel or some such thing. The acting was poor, and the dialogue was laughably bad, but hey, Saturday night, not much else on, right?

And then we delved into the religious.

Now, I'm Catholic. I'm a lax Catholic to be perfectly honest, but I do believe in God, and I do believe in Heaven. What I don't believe in is pounding my faith into other peoples heads. Nor do I believe in the adage that faith is all you need. I'm a huge believer that God helps those that help themselves.

So, we are watching this movie together (not quite getting that its actually a religious film yet) and my dad is all like "umm...this seems bizarely religious doesn't it?" I'm thinking we must have been a slow bunch...all the little side notes of "God is watching you" and the shots of the Churches obviously didn't clue us in. Randomly, 1/2 way through the movie, the protagonist is all like "aha! the reason people are disappearing is because God is calling them home to Heaven, for they are true believers and will be spared the coming of the Anti-Christ, and we have been left behind for we have forsaken God" .... ok... God obviously didn't want to beam them up with their clothes, but sure. We'll go with that.

So by now, 90minutes into the movie, its HORRIBLE. The plot sucks, the acting is shitty, but you know when you are all like "well...what happens? might as well finish the thing" The ending? Let me tell you, to spare you from ever watching this movie.
The protagonist discovers that the UN leader is the Anti-Christ and now has control over the world's food supply, and like the Bible says, there shall be 7 years of hell on Earth in which to survive, oh, you guessed it, faith is all you need
The end.

Then, as a parting shot, we were led in the Lord's Prayer, and bright spark that I am, was all like "Man...this movie was on the Christian Miracle Network. No wonder it sucked majorly. Maybe I should have checked this first?"


Words cannot explain how bad this movie was. Actually, maybe it can. It was so bad that The Simpsons have a parody on it.

'Nough said.

Well, I did go down last night to watch District 9. Holy Batman, was the theatre packed. We got there an hour early, and about 30 minutes to the movie, you couldn't even find one seat out of 350 seats.

Anyways. Overall impression? I personally didn't like it. Now, to be fair, I'm not a huge sci-fi fan to begin with, so that's likely a part of it. I won't give away any spoilers to the movie, but the first 45 minutes or so is created like a CNN interview in order to tell the backstory of how these aliens became isolated in South Africa. For me, the cinematography nauseated me; the camera was always moving, because a camera man was always following the main character in order to make the film seem like a documentary

The reviews say that the movie was brilliant and innovative. In a way, it was, because it was perhaps one of the more realistic portrayals of how we likely WOULD handle aliens if they came to Earth, what with all the corporations and bureaucracy getting involved, and it also touched on how we have treated those that are "different",in situations like Apartheid (the ship that overshadows South Africa isn't really a subtle hint!). But while a lot of people say that this is brilliant, I really found it absolutely no different than any other Apartheid survivor movie-except in District 9, its played by ugly aliens.
The aliens were all CGI, and brilliantly made. It was bloody and gory and had some great action scenes.

But the rub with this movie? You won't be entertained. At all. It's really a thinking movie, which isn't bad, just not for everyone. Coming out of the theatre, I heard people go "holy God, that was brilliant! best movie ever!" and others who were like "2 hours of my life. Wasted."

So I don't know. I would say go and see it and make up your own mind. You'll either love it, or hate it.

I hate when it gets cold. And here we DO get really cold, generally around -20C to -30C for a good 5-6 months of the year.
But I hate hot weather even more.
And we are around 31C (so something like 90-92F) right now, and it just shuts down my whole little mind. I cannot stand it. I get headaches and get really sluggish. Fortunately, parents (finally! finally!) decided to install air conditioning into the house last year, because I finally got them to listen to reasoning. I did a little test; brought a thermometer into my bedroom and let it sit. So while it was like 30C outside, it was 39C in my room, because of the fact that hot air rises, and my room is west facing, so i absolutely cooked, and would be sick with a migraine most days during summer. Now, with the blessed invention of air conditioning, I can at least sleep. The downside is that my house is so nice and cool, I don't want to drag my ass out of here whatsoever :P
But today, I got up early to ride the grey beast, got there at about 9:30am, and even then, it was freaking hot, so I opted to just take him around the racetrack for a little bit. Was alright; no real work accomplished, but at least I got on and let him stretch his legs.

Trainer has finally convinced me to stop worrying about his stiffness everytime. She basically said "be honest, he's not the most atheletic in build. He's big, extremely long, and quite tall. He's not the most flexible horse in the world, because he's just so freaking big. everywhere. He needs to stretch and loosen his muscles, one by one. and it takes him a bit of time." but then she reminds me that at least he always DOES loosen, otherwise we could have a problem. While he does start out stiff, within about 5-10 minutes of him trotting around, his back and neck muscles just really relax and he starts swinging. So I think I'll just accept that its him being him, and honestly-he does have a hellishly long back, and not stress over it too much.

My little Costa is being a superkid. Walk/trot/canter all confirmed now. Trainer is working on him really stretching down though, because he doesn't like to do that. Im not really riding him; I think I've been on him twice since I first got on him back in June. But after my vacation, I'll be starting to take a couple of lessons on him, which I'm looking forward to.


Went to see Orphan yesterday. I liked it. There were some mixed reviews on it online; some found it brilliant, some found that it just really fell apart (ironically, those same reviewers though thought Drag Me to Hell was brilliant. And that has got to be one of the worst horror movies I've ever seen!) I was kinda in the happy medium between the two. It was a unique story line; you never would really think of the twist yourself unless someone told you. And whoever played the girl was brilliant. The downside was that the ending was a little weak, and some things weren't explained as well as they should have been. But in general, a good horror/suspense film which played on the audience quite well.

Anyways, I'm off to go relax in front of a fan :P

So, work is extremely slow today. Boss told me to bring along a movie, because all i have to do is answer phones for 9hours. Anyways, went to the movie store and browsed the drama section. Saw a movie called "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" starring Alan Rickman and Dustin Hoffman. The back said that it was about a young man blessed with an extremely stong sense of smell that becomes obsessed with capturing the essense of a woman and it becomes a dark and deadly obsession. Sounds ok, right? Robert Ebert gave it 4 stars, the movie was based on the bestselling novel, so I thought, what the hell.

Let me tell you. I have never, EVER seen a more f*cked up movie in my life.
( Let me tell you about it, because I'll spare you from renting it. )
Like really, what can you possibly say about a movie like that? Not only was it a f*cked up story line, it was one of those seemingly sweeping cinemetography films where they try to rely on fiml shots to make the story instead of dialogue.
2.5 hours (yes, 2.5hours!) of my life that I'll never get back!

I'll keep it vague, since I know obviously not everyone gets to see these things on opening nights ;) So no plot spoilers (although if you don't know the plot, you must have been living under a rock these past 6 months!)

Twilight
Starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson
Rated 14A (although why, I couldn't tell you)

Pretty much, one could sum up the movie as the O.C with vampires. I'll be quite honest, I really did enjoy reading the books. They were fun, teenage angst ridden, with enough to keep me interested (and I read a LOT of books, ladies) The movie? Had I not read the books, I would have been completely, completely lost. The book explains things - how the vampires communicate with each other, ect. The movie only has the vampires stare at each other in awkward pauses. And honestly? There were a lot of awkward pauses in this movie. I think the problem came from the fact that in the book, there was awkwardness between the characters, but it was filled up with Bella's thoughts and Edwards emotions, and fillers with the other characters. In the movie though, there's just silence and staring. The characters of the other vampires are never developed. The characters of Bella's friends are never developed. In his favor, Pattinson does play Edward well-but that would likely be because all Edward ever does is brood. And Pattinson does brood well, I'll give him that. And I understand that they have to fit a 400+ page book into two hours, but it was very one dimensional. And here's a pisser, how can you have a vampire movie without fangs?! Frick, all they did was hiss at each other!
So vinal verdict? If you've read the books, its worth seeing, just because Edward and Dr. Carlisle (I thought my mother and aunt were going to have heart palpitations when he came on!) are yummy. But go in there knowing that you'll have to fill in some of that silence with your knowledge of the book. If you haven't read the book, well, good luck ;) Find a Twilight-savvy friend to drag along with you to explain why the vampires lock eyes with each other for minutes at a time to carry on a conversation that no one but them is privvy too.
I give it a 2 out of 5 horseshoes.