October Round-Up - 2009

I spent most of October worrying about my cat, and spending a lot of money at the vet, so I didn't do much else. As a result, this round-up is rather brief.

(Tori is doing quite well now, by the way, but it was very scary there for a while, with an insane amount of peeing everywhere, because she had a UTI, and then a really scary seizure, which I'm still not sure the cause of. Most likely culprit was probably some of the medications she was being given. But now she seems back to her old (and I do mean old) self, albeit with one fang a little shorter than the other. NO idea how that happened!)

Movies Seen: Thirteen, with one in a theater. That one in a theater was "Paranormal Activity," and I'll admit to being totally duped into seeing it, based on the hype, and the fact that "The Blair Witch Project" is still one of the scariest movies I've ever seen, and this movie, of course, shares a lot with that one. Alas, it was not scary. Yes, I jumped a few times, but it did not succeed in building up any sort of dread, and was actually kind of boring since the set-up--the couple goes to sleep, the camera rolls, and something spooky happens--is repeated over and over again. I really, really wanted to like it, but it failed.

Which leads to the best movie I saw last month, another horror movie, and a much more effective one: "House of the Devil," which I saw via Amazon Video on Demand. Now, it's not a movie for people who want a lot of action in their horror, as it is, essentially, all build-up. It's set in the early '80s, and is made to look like a movie that might have been made back then, but not just so the director can make fun of the era; he's paying tribute to the horror films of the '70s and '80s, but not in any satirical way. I won't discuss the plot, except to say it's your basic babysitter in a scary place set-up, and Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov are residents of that scary place. I think it's still available on Comcast OnDemand, and Amazon, and is coming out on DVD in February.

(And let me just add, it was really awesome to be reading some reviews of the movie on the Friday night before Halloween, thinking to myself, "Oooo. I wanna see that!" and then being able to watch it right then and there. These are magic times we live in.)

As for the worst movie, that would be "Year One." I don't know why I keep renting comedies that I know are going to suck. I need to stop that.

Books Read: None! Well, I didn't finish one, but I did spend most of the month reading one that was actually very short, which is sad. But I'll have to talk about it in the next round-up.

Fancy Dinners Out: None!

Live Shows Seen: None!

Shoes Bought: OMG, none!