The Tory Party

Saw

Okay. I saw the horror/thriller movie Saw this past weekend. I dug it. I saw it with a friend. He dug it too. There was another friend there. Can’t really tell if she liked it.

But everybody else I’ve talked to who saw Saw hated it. I don’t get it. It was a solid little thriller and I bought what it was selling and it satisfied me.

Look at this. Just look!

I have more to say about it, but it’s critically important that you don’t keep reading if you haven’t seen Saw. If you saw it and didn’t like it, I`d like to know specifically why. I`m getting a lot of “I just didn’t like it,” which is unsatisfactory. If you saw it and liked it, I`d love to hear that I`m not insane.

But please be careful in your posts not to give anything away — Saw’s ability to keep me guessing was one of its greatest strengths.

But one more time — if you haven’t seen it, don’t. read. this. Go see the movie and then come back. Okay?

I`m serious.

Okay. Here we go. Highlight to read.

Here’s the truth: this movie BLEW MY MIND. It was the best thriller I’ve seen in years, and the most satisfying experience I’ve had in a theater since Big Fish. If the last two minutes of the movie hadn’t been there, I still would have liked it plenty. But the last two minutes WERE there, and I nearly died of perfect glee.

Let me get out of the way the things about this movie that weren’t perfect:

• 1. The nu-metal video sped-up film effects, like 1) when the chick from Becker is escaping from her chair and 2) when Danny Glover is having his car chase with Zeb (Zep?). My moviegoing partner said it reminded him of a “f*cking Slipknot video.” But I feel like it was a red herring — like, ooh, nu-metal, this movie is going to be conventional and have Angelina Jolie in it. But no.
• 2. Cary Elwes` acting at the very beginning and the very end. At the beginning he’s kind of stiff, but he’s a surgeon chained to a pipe and how the hell would you act in that situation? It could be interpreted as fake-brave. And at the end it’s just a little much, like Jack Dawson freezing to death + 20%, but again it didn’t bother me, and I felt a real connection between his character and Adam and all was well and it sealed the deal on the movie. I really felt like whenever Cary Elwes was doing B acting it was on purpose, like the nu-metal stuff — to set you up not to expect too much from the movie. So the end could kick your ass.
• 3. There were some script supervision problems. Like when Cary Elwes first opens the locked little box, there is one cigarette in it. One. Then another one shows up. And then a third. That was just silly.
• 4. Danny Glover and his partner go where they suspect the killer is living/working. They don’t get a warrant. Fine. They don’t go with backup. Erm. Okay. They park right outside the place, apparently without staking it out. Boo. Once it’s obvious this *is* the killer’s hideout, they don’t call for backup. Boo-oo-oo. Roger Ebert complained that when the killer shows up he’s wearing a robe that conceals his identity, but that sort of makes sense since he, uh, prolly saw the car outside and stuff. And he prolly knew he could escape and stuff, so he didn’t care if he was caught.
• 5. They don’t really explain how the killer is singlehandedly kidnapping all these healthy adults. And maybe hiding out in someone’s apartment isn’t the most efficient way to do that. But that doesn’t bother me, because the dude is big and scary and has a brain tumor so pfft.

I will kill him… with a vicious toasting!

That makes it sound like this movie was bad and I`m in deep denial. Oh no. Let’s talk about the stuff that kicked ass.

• 1. The fractured timeline made the suspense even better. For example, Cary Elwes says something like, “I keep thinking of the last thing I said to my daughter,” and then it cuts to the daughter in her bedroom. And it’s just her for a while. So you start wondering, damn, is this really the flashback to the last thing he said to her, or is this the current time and she’s fixing to get kidnapped? And then she stares into the dark in the corner of her room, and it is dark as hell (excellent use of dark in this movie, too, by the way. Black ass dark dark.)
• 2. The one surviving victim was grateful for being victimized. Messed up. And genius. And expertly acted. Chick from Becker totally hanged ten in every one of her scenes. I can see her wearing that big device on her head and staring at the TV with big wet scared eyes and all I could think was how I really really wouldn’t want to be in that situation. Effective as hell. And she doesn’t get it off until the last minute and it’s very upsetting. And she kills the shit out of that dude. Damn.
• 3. When Zeb/Zep is messing with the tied-up mom and daughter, and the mom is furious screaming at him through the gag but there’s nothing she can do — that made me tense as hell. (My moviegoing partner mentions that if Zeb/Zep is not the real killer, then why is he so sadistic with these two? I could be making this up, but I think in the scene that introduces Zeb/Zep, in the last shot of him, where the Chinese medical student is making eyes at Cary Elwes, he cuts her a look like he’s got an issue with women. So that’s what I`m thinking. Also maybe the stethoscope issue is part of how he’s a wannabe doctor. I dunno.)

  Okay — and when Zep/Zeb comes in and the mom has untied herself but is acting like she hasn’t, that was some ultimate suspense for me. I started making noises. And then she’s got the gun on Zeb and I was groaning and growling and why doesn’t she SHOOT why won’t she SHOOT??! This movie had me in the palm of its hand and that can’t be bad.

• 4. Example of plot point disguised as bad filmmaking — when Cary Elwes is calling for security in the nasty-looking parking garage, my moviegoing partner said “that’s a pretty sh*tty parking garage for a hospital.” (My moviegoing partner is more obscene than my heckling partner. No value judgment there — it’s just true.) But later you find out it’s not a hospital garage — it’s a seedy hotel garage. Genius.
• 5. The movie gave me two guys with opposing objectives and had me rooting for both of them. When you don’t know what you want to happen, you sure as hell don’t know what’s *going* to happen.
• 6. Saw gave Danny Glover enough of a subplot so that when he struggles with Zeb I really thought that was the end of Zeb. But no. That was harsh as hell.
• 7. Maybe you noticed this one — the ENDING. God. Damn. If Cary Elwes had just sawed off his foot, that would be enough. If Adam had just beat Zeb to death with the toilet tank lid, that would be enough. And then… owowowowo. I can’t even talk about it.

  Some of these losers who didn’t like the movie still said they really liked the ending. Here’s a thought though — how can you possibly like the end if you didn’t like the rest of the movie? How could you buy the twist? I poop on all these haters.

I think that’s all I’ve got. Whaddaya say? Did you buy what Saw was selling, or no?

The Piano

I just spent a class period listening to at least five different students say Holly Hunter’s character in The Piano deserved to get her finger chopped off/get raped/die because she was a “tease.”

Are we so post- post- post- feminist that we’re back to 1963? Jesus.

Even had a female student say this — and that Ada was cruel because she teased Sam Neill’s character by feelin` on him in his bedroom. Aaaargh. I don’t think “teasing” was the objective there. I think she was trying to see if she could get that magic she had with Baines with Sam Neill, but she couldn’t, but that’s just me. I guess if you see it through movie-of-the-week glasses, that’s sort of what you get out of it.

Anyway, now I realize that The Piano (in my top five favorite and all-time-hottest movies lists) is extremely polarizing. What were your reactions to it? Have you seen it? Did it affect you differently recently than when it first came out? I sure had a different reaction to it this time. Like, now it makes sense to me that she lives. The movie wouldn’t have had a point to me now if she`d died, but when I first saw it I was *furious* that she lived and thought it was a cop out. Oh-oh-oh I`m a flip-flopper — must be a Demmycrat.

What do you think?

Bacon S`Mores!

So I`m sitting here in the computer lab with my eyes full of tears because I just posted about “Man and Dog.” Lemme take a big break from this and talk about something that makes both men and dogs happy: bacon.

I worked up a snack that is my new favorite and illustrates why I`m a bad vegetarian. You take two window-pane pretzels and you stick a piece of crispy turkey bacon between `em. Then you dip it in sour cream. Then you eat it and try not to pass out from delight.

This joins my great snacking pantheon alongside the Granny Smith apple dip a friend who cooks better than me taught me how to make — cream cheese, brown sugar & just a little vanilla. Ah.

What else is good and freaky hella easy to make? I like to learn because I have lots of rowdy college kids to feed.

Random Thoughts n + 1

Owowo shenanigans. I`m sitting here in the loudest damn computer lab ever (oh NCSA high school students). Life here is cool so far though I miss my heckling partner and my laundry facilities and my running route with sidewalks e`er so bitterly.

I`m having midterms. What’s up with that? And Friday I`m having some people over to party recuperatively. I can’t believe I`m back to an era where partying can be considered recuperative. Also I can’t believe I`m using “party” as a verb.

There are many other new insane elements in my life but I fear I can’t share them. I can’t! But these I can:

• Saw Edward Scissorhands again on the big screen. Owowowo. What was baffling to me was how much more I related to Dianne Wiest this time. Since I am older now in a totally cliched and linear way. Also I dug more Anthony Michael Hall stalking around as the Prince of Intensity. Ever since I saw that USA ad with his character from Dead Zone talking to Monk I pee a little every time I see him. I am crushing.
• In class we watched an episode of the Wonder Years that our professor was camera operator on. This reminded me of many things. First that it is funny how tiny Fred Savage was at 12 or 13 considering I was 5`8″ and a C-cup when I was 11 (though the perm, coke-bottle glasses and perfectly round face sort of gave away the issue). Second was how damn hell ass much my dad hated Olivia D`Abo’s character on the show. Like, he would get mad when he saw her acting in anything else.

  I used to think she had done something politically that pissed him off, and maybe she did — that sort of thing is why I still haven’t seen Klute, Cat Ballou or The China Syndrome. Also why I had to watch the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the sneak. Also why Steel Magnolias wasn’t allowed in the house. Also why when my mom rented Singles my dad had to be assured that Bridget wasn’t directly related to “that woman I hate.” Heh heh heh. Hate is funny.

  Anyway. Now I see that the character of Karen Arnold was just really really really awful and the embodiment of everything that made him insane about rearing adolescent girls. And stuff.

• Buster Keaton is a bull god. And a hoss. And a stud. And other words like that. I got to watch One Week. Damn.
• I don’t think that Christina Milian song is about singing.
• Everybody here smokes. Not me. I drink Diet Mountain Dew. And I eat like one of the hogs from Hannibal.

Gotta wrap it up here. I got a, um, what’s that thing I have again? Oh yeah. Midterms.