thanks!

A review of "Dahmer", starring Jeremy Renner:


Who knew a movie about a serial killer could be so eff-ing boring!

To this day, one of my favorite things of all time has to be "Rocko's Modern Life". They simply don't make shows for kids anymore that are anything deeper than what you are actually looking at. This show used to joke about homosexuality, cults, addiction, politics, nudity, and literally the prospect of going to hell - and it was all created for the entertainment of children.

I went looking for this show on DVD, and ended up stumbling upon this website that had a list of all the episodes and short descriptions for each of them. As I was browsing some of them, I noticed that the general idea of each of these episodes is even more brilliant that I had even realized. Here are a couple of my favorite descriptions:


- "Heffer unknowingly trades his soul for an opportunity to be on a TV game show"
- "Filburt talks Rocko into going wig-snatching with him"
- "While helping Rocko make a video for his parents, Heffer and Filburt shoot footage of Rocko sleepwalking naked. When they give the footage to the Chameleon Brothers for editing, they edit together an Art-House video centering on Rocko's nudity"
- "Heffer wins a trip to Astro-Camp after participating in a talent show, but Heffer's dad won't let him go, since he thinks that burping his way to Astro-Camp is ridiculous"

Man, being a kid kind of blows now. Instead of all this cool shit, they just have... Gabba Gabba Goo or something or other.

At this point, I've been asked enough times "Why are you always taking pictures of yourself!" Either people find them on my camera or they see them as my default picture on facebook. They're usually insinuating that I'm lame because I do it, but I have my reasons. Which I will go into

right

now.

The digital camera age has been a gigantic help to me. To quote Cher from Clueless: "I don't trust mirrors". Sure I use them to get ready, but throughout my life there have been one too many times where I *think* I look one way, and then a picture will pop up of me and I'm like "COME ON!" My mascara will be up by my forehead - it's just a huge mess. So a few years ago I started realizing that pictures were the only way I was able to figure out these problems and that I needed to start taking pictures of myself after I get ready. Huge boost in morale. Seriously. Of course I have to take a couple from different angles, and I sit there making goofy faces while I'm trying to assess the situation. I end up deleting most of them DUHHH - but the ones I like? Yeah. Those definitely end up on facebook.

I'll also address why my default picture on facebook will almost always be a picture that I took myself. Plain and simple: I am NOT photogenic in a group setting. So duh, I'd love to use that picture of me in the bar holding up two drinks and winking - but I look like fucking Roseanne Barr in that picture. On a seriously rare occasion has someone been able to capture a decent picture of me in a casual setting. My question I have for you is simply this: Why would I use the picture where I look like garbage, but proves that I do things and have friends, when I can use the picture that's well, at least slightly better - and then you have to get to know me to see if I have any friends?

This stuff happens, I'm not devastated over it. But hopefully this has all shed some light. This is all done for mostly scientific reasons, I wish you would understand.

And now I will leave you with a montage of some of my famous "hey, how's my eyeliner!" pictures:


Being a girl blows.

Normally I hate writing movie reviews and, actually - ok I'm probably not going to put this in the "review" category. I had to write a zillion reviews in film school and my problem is that I'm not really able to properly articulate my feelings towards a film in a manner that is at all pleasant for the reader. So yeah, my reviews blow. Sorry, not my forte. This is more like a jambled mess of my thoughts as they enter my head. And right now they are directed at "Paranormal Activity". So, obviously, if you plan on seeing it don't continue to read - although I'm not entirely sure there's anything to spoil. Here we go!

I have a tendency to actually get scared during certain horror flicks. I'll cry during movies that I find really sad. I take movies super serious, which is why when I see a TERRIBLE movie it can actually make me mad. Now my boyfriend loves horror movies, it's sort of his thing - so when we started hearing all this jive about Paranormal Activity he kept trying to get me to go. For the reason that I tend to get scared, and I had been hearing it was "the scariest movie in years" - I was pretty reluctant. Yesterday he seemed adamant to go to the movies and we were between "The Men Who Stare at Goats" and PA. Goats actually appealed to me, but I knew he really wanted to see PA - sooo I decided to just go. Factoring into my decision was the fact that PA was raking in 85% on rottentomatoes.com - a compilation of every critic and review on the movie. Anything above 80% is usually a sure shot that the movie will at least be worth the experience. So I figured, it'll probably be an awesome movie despite me being freaked out by the subject matter.

The movie had a slow start. But for some reason the editing and the camera work was sort of enough for me to keep hanging on waiting for a pay off. I wish someone could have told me, that pay off would not ever come.

Lets talk about the characters for a second. I strongly believe that in a mockumentary type set-up, your characters have to be both interesting and witty or it can't work. Well shit, lets face it - characters should ALWAYS be interesting, or else what is the point. The guy, Micah, was sort of witty at times - he was somewhat attempting to keep the story going on the dialog front. But the girl, Katie, was just scared the entire time. Why do I care? I can't stand that in that set-up she wasn't ever really funny or cute. You need characters that you can actually invest your interest in as to what happens to them. I understood why Micah was the disbeliever, and why he wanted to challenge the demon - I understand that you need conflict, but it needs to make sense to the viewer. If all you have to do is NOT buy a oujia board, just don't buy a oujia board, eh?

Onto the story!!! It didn't exist. There was so much time building "suspense" that there was essentially no story telling and no answers given. There is this demon that has been haunting Katie since she was 8. The demon's presence gets more noticeable every night. Got it. They give little plot lines here and there that never end up adding up, which is unacceptable to me. What on earth was the point of mentioning that a demon (possibly the same demon) haunted a woman in the 60s? It didn't give any insight into the situation with Katie. The only hint of a plot I took away was that maybe the demon was in love with Katie or just wanted her for himself - which is why he'd scratched the picture of Micah's face and why he burned down Katie's family's house. But even that possibility wasn't made clear.

Nothing bugs me more than a cop out ending. I dabble in screenwriting and I'm a firm believer in NOT spelling things out for your audience, leaving them to their own devices, etc - but for that to work you have to leave enough clues and evidence for the viewer to be able to make those assumptions. I also think that you, as a writer with an ambiguous ending, have to have your own interpretation - what you actually know to be the ending, and if anyone else figures it out good for them, but if they interpret it another way - well that's cool too. PA had an ending that you could interpret in a couple of different ways. However, there was not a trace of any evidence that you could link to the ending in order for it to be the answer. If a script even existed, which I'm not completely sure one did, I get the feeling the writer went: "Dude, it would be so freaky if she just killed her boyfriend at the end! And then like, cut to black!"

The fire in her family's house was never explained, the picture Micah found of her in the crawlspace was, again, not touched on. I'm not saying you have to explain everything, but you have to give something or else why are you mentioning these things? If they don't all connect in some way you're basically throwing a bunch of random occurrences and tragedies together but that doesn't necessarily make it scary.

This movie had potential, and I'll give it credit for tapping into a fear of being terrorized in your own bed from something that you can't run or hide from. The thought of that is retarded scary. But with such a sloppy story and characters that aren't interesting enough to care about, the film ends up being a disgrace to such a fascinating idea and technique. Overhyped to the maxxxx

3/10

I'm also completely open to the possibility that I missed something HUGE somewhere along the way. I'm that confused by how everyone seemingly loves this movie, and I was so disappointed by it. Feel free to try and convince me otherwise, or if I somehow missed a gigantic plot point.