A Night with Nicholson. J. Nicholson.

Last night we watched The Shining. It was OK, I guess, but not terribly frightening, apart from how scary Jack Nicholson is in general. There were a couple of things that bothered me about it, though.

The first is unavoidable, and that is the overwhelming Kubrickness of the film. By this I am referring to the long, tracking shots and other stylistic elements that are so prevelent in this and Stanley Kubrick's other films. I mean, that's his thing, whatever, awesome, but it still isn't my cuppa. I guess that means that Kubrick isn't my favourite director, even though I liked a Clockwork Orange and Doctor Strangelove alright. 2001 still bored the heck outta me, though. Mhm.

The other bothersome thing about The Shining was the shit job they did on the music. When played at the right time, it was quite well scored and effective, but for most of the movie they had hardcore thriller [as in genre, not MJ] type music goin' when it was not exceptionally appropriate. Right up in the beginning, for example. Maybe they were trying to build the atmosphere, but it felt like they were hanging out a sign that read "This movie is gonna terrify you" when all they were showing where heliocopter shots of trees and road. WhoooOOOOooo, scary.

There was one thing that I found kind of distracting that wasn't the movie's direct fault. 30 Seconds to Mars has a music video for their song "The Kill" which is based pretty heavily on The Shining. OK, it is basically a remake of it in 2 and a half minutes with the bad standing in for Nicholson and fam. I guess I'm a bit of a thickie for not knowing this before, but heck, I hadn't seen the movie before and it's not like I follow 30 Seconds to Mars all that closely. I began noticing the similarites between the two fairly early on, and then felt like a complete tool for thinking then [and at various other points] "Dang, this is like that Jared Leto video..." Meh, whatever.

Anyway...I wasn't too freaked out when we finished, and the episode of Dawson's Creek [my favourite scary-movie antidote] we watched afterwords served to clear up any residual fright that may have stuck around. Miriam still wanted to sleep with her mom, though, so I was like, whatever, and went along with it. Insomnia struck again, however, for the third night in a row. Apparently, falling asleep in school is not enough to convince my body that sleepin' at night is a good thing. This insomnia was not propted by my uncomfortableness with the existance of Jack Nicholson [as that is a battle I am always fighting so it doesn't really bother me anymore], but more an unfocues inability to sleep. It didn't help that I was burnin' up, even when I changed from my fleece pjs to a tank top and my summer bottoms.

Sometime after 1am I decided a change of venues was in order if I was going to ever gonna knock out. My bed, obvs the first choice, was not an option, as it is a pop-up trundle and therefore takes more setting up than is possible alone and in the dark. Miry's bed was covered with clothes and stuffies and cushions, so basically I had to go with the couch, even though the living room was theoretically the scariest room to sleep in, what with the hangin' dryin' clothes, the glowing lights on the electronics, plus the fact that that is where we watched the film. But since I was either fearless or just really tired, because I grabbed a blanket, plopped down, and was out within minutes.

This morning when my mom woke me up she told me that she got up at about 1:30 to use the bathroom and wondered where I was until she found me on the couch. I was a bit worried that would happen, but what was I gonna do? It was either move or not sleep all night. And I couldn't think of any viable ideas for lettin' them know I was goin'...I've found that wakin' people up in the middle of the night makes them grouchy, and they don't remember what you told them, anyways. And it was dark, so leavin' a note ["Dear Mom, I'm on the couch"?] wouldn't work so well. She was suprised that I wasn't scared to sleep alone, and also kinda worried that I was all "Nurr hull no I don't wanna sleep with these crazies" but I think I was able to convince her that wasn't the case.

I have now slept on the couch at all 3 of my hostfamilies houses! Though at Dani's it was actually in my room, so if I got up before anyone came to get me they never knew. Buahahahaha.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy [X a billion],
Nico