My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

So, I spent a grey and rainy Tuesday in a movie theater watching two horror movies, Autopsy and Slaughter. They’re part of a series of short films in this year’s After Dark Horrorfest. I went in not knowing anything about either film, I wanted to go in fresh…

Autopsy is the touching love story of a doctor desperately trying to save his wife from terminal cancer. So, the doctor sets up shop in an abandoned Louisiana hospital, hires a pair of ex-cons for orderlies and nurse Ratched’s mom, and takes to kidnapping people to harvest their fluids and vital organs. Perhaps, this isn’t the best possible idea, but the doctor so wants his beloved to see Italy again.

Autopsy is the sort of movie that’s so astonishingly bad it ends up being great. It’s just non-stop over-the-top violence and creepy atmosphere. It’s the kind of movie where a writer says to himself, “Oh my Christ, you know what would be awesome? It’d be awesome if a chick hacked of another chick’s arm and said, bleed out, bitch!” It doesn’t try to be anything but ridiculous.

Slaughter is the story of a young woman who moves to Atlanta to escape her abusive and obsessed ex-boyfriend. She befriends a local young lady and ends up rooming with said young lady at her family’s farm, a farm with a slaughterhouse. Local gal is rather promiscuous, a fact her creepy dad doesn’t like one bit. Her suitors always seem to vanish the next day.

Supposedly, Slaughter is “inspired by actual events,” and it really tries to tell a story. Unfortunately, the story it tries to tell is really boring and very predictable. By the time anything remotely interesting started to happen, I just wanted it to be over. I wanted it to fade to black with the simple closing text, “And they all died in a fire. The end.” Sadly, it didn’t, it just kept going.

Today, I’m going back to see Voices.

2009 hasn’t been around long, but it’s given us a beautifully poetic film line…

“Bleed out, bitch!” – Autopsy

So, I want to write something profound and beautiful, but I’m a little tired. I spent last night, mostly awake, in the e.r. My trache decided to go crazy for no apparent reason, as is its way sometimes. The doctor stabbed the Hell out of my arm trying to draw blood, but didn’t get a drop. It’s kind of unpleasant being a zombie.

I’m breathing fine now, but I’m tired. I want things I won’t get.

There are very few truly great vampire movies, but Let The Right One In makes the list of greats a little longer. A Swedish film, Let The Right One In, is subtitled and set during a frozen Swedish winter. It’s the story of Oskar, a constantly bullied and isolated twelve year-old boy, and Eli, a quiet and serious girl of “about twelve” who moves in next-door. Eli, of course, is not the typical girl next-door. She only comes out after dark, she’s completely unaffected by the bitter cold and while she’s twelve years old, it’s only in appearance. Eli has been twelve for as long as she can remember, she’s a vampire. The two form a relationship, a love of sorts, but it’s something other than beautiful.

To call Let The Right One In a love story between two lost and lonely souls is, to me, quite inaccurate. It’s a love story, but the story is harsh and dysfunctional, cold as winter. Oskar finds strength, companionship, and even comfort in Eli, but at a price, a price he’s far too young to fully understand.

Love isn’t always beautiful, sometimes it’s sad and broken. Sometimes we love what hurts us. That’s the essence of Let The Right One In.

So, aside from knowing that it was directed by Danny Boyle, and that he’s a genius, I had absolutely no idea what to expect from Slumdog Millionaire. I had no idea it was set in India, no idea that it involved the Hindi version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, I had no idea about anything. I’m glad I didn’t know anything about the film, or else I wouldn’t have been so spectacularly surprised. It’s such a beautifully compelling love story, and so much more. It’s definitely a must see.

I’m going to write something more full after I see it again. I wasn’t watching it in the right frame of mind to write a proper review. My mind was a little bit somewhere else, with someone else.

Follow my head, follow my heart, I’m not sure which is right. Maybe they’re both wrong, both deranged, both telling me the wrong way to go. My head and my heart, two lunatic mental patients, bickering a bunch of nothing. Or… maybe they’re both right in their own way. I really don’t know, and the more  I think about it, the less I seem to know.

While I think about it, I do nothing, or next to nothing. Perhaps I think too much.

Last night, my friend, Sarah, and I went to see the spectacular foreign vampire film, Let The Right One In. It’s playing at the very old, and very gorgeous Tampa Theatre. I’d been there plenty of times for concerts, but last night was my first movie. It was a rather beautiful movie, but I want to see it one more time before I really write about it. 

For Christmas, a friend, Jayleen, got me an Amazon gift certificate which I promptly used to buy Incesticde, the only Nirvana CD I didn’t own. I totally love it, particularly Stain, Big Long Now and Downer (Downer being originally found on their first album, Bleach). Obviously, I only like the happy music. Though, lately I’m really digging Tracy Shedd’s Cigarettes & Smoke Machines. It’s music that sounds sad, but her lyrics are actually pretty “up,” as “up” as I like to hear. Also, Cigarettes & Smoke Machines is just a fucking cool album name.

I’ve been to see Doubt four times now. Honestly, that movie is as relaxing as any drink for me. It’s so compelling and brilliantly acted that I just kind of lose myself in it. Also, I have decided that I want to become a nun.

Yesterday, my allergist said I’m “an inspiration,” which is interesting, as I’d only known him for fifteen minutes. I’m not really sure what I did in that amount of time to be inspirational, aside from breathing and moving my eyes. That label is always weird to me. I mean, I understand it, but I don’t think it’s right. I’m nothing spectacular. I do good things sometimes, I totally fuck up sometimes, just like almost anyone.

Dear Diary,

Today I was actually very sad. The nice lady with the puppy was hit by a BIG truck running across the street after her puppy. What does d-e-c-a-p-i-t-a-t-e-d mean? Daddy lost his job and said we can’t afford to feed my tabby kittens anymore, so he drowned them in the bathtub. The nice ice-cream man was going to give me another free ice-cream sammich, but I had to go in the truck to get it, then he touched me in a BAD place and I ran. I told mamma and she told a police-man who took the ice-cream man away. I didn’t get my sammich. An older boy at school was making fun me and I told him to stop because Jesus loves me. He said Jesus is burning in Hell because He let Himself get crucified and that’s suicide. I don’t understand what that means, but I cried and cried because I don’t want Jesus burning.

I’m very sad.

Dear Diary,

Today I was so happy. I got to pet an adorable puppy and I adopted a basket of six tabby kittens from the nice lady walking the cute little puppy. Then, the ice-cream man gave me a free ice-cream sammich just because I’m SO nice and Jesus loves nice people, he said. I believe him because mamma tells me Jesus loves me all the time.

Nothing makes me sad, nope. Not ever.

So, somewhere in December while I was busy being astonishingly depressed, I got my fourteenth tattoo.

I was feeling particularly lonely, down, very uneasy about pretty much everything, kind of just staying “okay” as best I could from one day to another. The worst part was that I didn’t see many reasons why “tomorrow” would be any better. That is a really horrible sensation. I felt exactly like this tattoo and the song from which it came…

It’s my third Nirvana related tattoo, it’s my least happy tattoo, but it’s honest.