When You Least Expect It

 

Everyone has someone they would rather not see.

And why does it always seem that when you aren’t thinking about them and totally don’t want to see them they walk back into your life?

really?

That happened to me the other day. I ran into my ex-boyfriend.

So I was headed to the movie theater to see the original Ghostbusters (1984) as it was being rereleased in theaters.

I was so excited that I even wore my ghostbusters costume.

Taking fandom to the EXTREME!

But then things went wrong. My theater app wasn’t working right so I had to print out my confirmation, but then of course the printer wouldn’t work.

Then I ended up getting stuck behind the theater security guy twice!

I then got stuck behind an old man complaining about the computer ticket window.

Just one thing after another

I finally reached the line and who should be in front of me? Michael.

Out of all the times in the past two years for me to run into him at the theater dressed in a Ghostbuster costume.

Sometimes I think my life could be a sitcom.

Now the last time I saw him was like two years ago and I was over him and the fact he cheated on me.

But because I don’t care doesn’t mean I want to see him. It’s like when you pass an area where a skunk has been, there is a bad stink that permeates the air and takes forever to get away from.

I had to wait behind him in line, but thankfully he was with his best friend. If he had been with the girl he cheated on me with (and later married) I don’t know if I could stop old hurts/my temper flaring up. I may have moved on, but in every path there are bumps in the road.

Anyways, I didn’t want to ruin the night, or taint it any further, so I just tried to ignore him.

Although I have to admit for a moment I felt pretty silly that after all this time I was dressed up in a costume.

But then that moment passed as I remembered how awesome I looked and how I totally rocked my costume.

And of course I saw that he noticed me and his reaction made me really upset. You see after he dumped me I went to talk to him and see if we could work it out. He acted cold and angry.

And angry after when I ran into him at the play.

what?

And angry at the theater when he saw me.

I’m like, excuse me?

What on earth do you have to be angry about? I’m the one that was cheated on! I’m the one that was dumped. I was the best girlfriend and you were the one who messed it up. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE ANGRY! I’M THE ONLY ONE ALLOWED TO BE!

It made me angry with him all over again.

What a horrible-

It really made me want to go up to him and just teach him a lesson.

But then after that moment of anger subsided, I remembered that if we hadn’t broken up I might have gone on longer dating a guy who didn’t appreciate me.

And I’m much happier as I am now then I ever was with him.

For more on my ex, go to You Put the Ex in Extinct

For more on Ghostbusters, go to Back to the ’80s

For more Oscar Wilde, go to Over and Over Again

For more stories from my everyday life, go to My Favorite Martian

 

That Girl is Poison

So if you have been following me for a while, you are quite aware of the fact that I am a huge Batman fan. For any superhero fan you have got to have a favorite villain. And mine is Poison Ivy.

I’ve always loved how she is this super stong feminist, girl-power; yet at the same time isn’t above using seduction and feminine wiles to get what she wants. Plus, I don’t know, she always seemed so cool. So back in April my friends and I were discussing Halloween costume ideas and that’s when I decided I was going to be Poison Ivy.

Go here to see who you are.

But then I ran into a few problems with the putting of the costume together. You see her original outfit is like a green sweetheart leotard, tights, and boots. Not a lot there and October is cold. I wasn’t going to do a leotard and tights. That’s crazy!

So I decided to reimagine her outfit. Instead of the tights and leotard I decided a corset top, shrug with a high villaness collar, green leggings, and my yellow 5 inch platform shoes.

But things didn’t quite turn out as I planned.

The corset and shrug looked awesome, it was the leggings that ran into some issues. You see I have a large butt.

And I do like it, but it can cause some problems. One of which being that leggings don’t always cover its ampleness like they should.

So then we had to change plans. I was going to go with a skirt and tights, although it wasn’t what I really wanted. I wanted pants because if I was an evil villian that is what I would wear. I would want to be able to kick somebody. Luckily my sister heard of my dilemma and told me she could make me some pants.

Everything was going according to plan. The only thing left to do was my hair. And we know how that usually goes.

But it went better than I thought it would. You see I had thought about using a wig, but they are so itchy I decided to dye it instead (temporarily). I went to the beauty store and was warned my hair was too dark of a color the red wouldn’t show. I told the workers I understood that, but I didn’t want bright Ariel hair, I was hoping for a more auburn-y color.

So I ask my sister to help me as she has died her hair multiple times. She went to work and the results were…well let me start that by saying my hair is unusual.

Yeah, it doesn’t do what most people’s hair does. Even my hairdresser has remarked on this. When you want it to be wet, it dries instantly. When you want it dry, it is resistant to the hairdryer. When you want it parted on one side, it flips to the other. When you want it pushed back, it wants to go forward.

So she was trying to slick my hair back to put the dye in, but it kept going forward. Luckily, I had read online that when you dye your hair you should put vaseline along the hairline to protect the dye from staining your skin. It was a good thing I had read that, or else I would have come out looking weird.

When my sister was done putting the dye in. She showed me her gloves and it looked like we had just murdered someone, the way the dye had gotten everywhere. It was like a Dexter episode.

Ayways, after I sat the most time allowed, we washed my hair. Sadly it looked like all the dye was running out into the tub and that my hair was the same color.

Noooooooooo!!!!!!!

But I figured, oh well. If nothing happens, then at least I have a great story to blog.

Well, I was wrong. Not all  the die did wash out. It still looked red!

I really liked how it came out. You see my hair is a golden brown with blond and copper natural highlights. The whole mane ranges in lights and darks. The dye came out really cool, witth some areas being a really dark brown, auburn, red. While others were much, much brighter. I actually really like it and am considering dying it permenantly. I could totally pull it off as I have the two thinngs needed to be a sucessful redhead. 1) I have light eyes-green. 2) I do not tan at all, but remain white year round. The only issue I face is money!

So here’s the pic of my costume and hair. My sis and friend went as Catwoman and Harley Quinn, making us the three tantilizing women of Gotham.

Yep you should join the dark side.

For more on Batman, go to I’m Batman!

For more strong, independent women; go to How to Catch a  Man

For more quizzes, go to You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

For more on Star Wars, go to Part IX: Adventures in Movie Lines

Remember, Remember The 5th of November

So today is Guy Fawkes Day and you know what that means…

So this something I actually have to thank my ex-boyfriend for. He may have been a cheating scumbag that at times I really want to punch in the face (or kick in the junk)

But he did introduce me to some great music, V for Vendetta, and The Sandman Chronicles.

As it is the 5th of November, it is time to honor it and V. V is amazing. First of all he’s played by Hugo Weaving.

I know, what an amazing actor!!! He has some serious fighter skills!

This was my first date with my ex and all I could do was swoon over him. V, that is not my ex.

Besides being an epic fighter, he’s a man with a message and something to fight for.

Now do I agree with everything he does? No. He never should have cut Evey’s hair. A girl’s hair is more than hair, it is a part of their identity, a mark of their femininity. What he did was just wrong there.

See Hook agrees with me.

But you can’t help but be swayed by him. He is so eloquent!

In fact, I became so enthralled that I actually wrote a song about the film from V to Evey. I composed it as I was biking to school and was unable to write it down. Sadly, by the time I got to class I couldn’t remember much. This is about all I can recall:

“I cut off all your hair,

But I swear to you I care

Because I’ve got a vendetta to win your heart

(Win your heart) (Win your heart)”

Silly huh? But what’s a fangirl to do?

So today I have a proposition for you all. Now none of you under obligation:

So last year my friend Benita, who is also a huge V fan, and I were discussing the film. She suggested that we should tag walls with Vs on November 5th to honor him. I thought that was a great idea, but didn’t want to get in trouble for vandalism. I thought we should do it in chalk, as it washes off, but that’s when I came up with a better idea!

But I thought what could make this 5th of November really special would be if we would post this picture on our facebook walls.

And then on 5 of our friends’ walls asking them to do the same. If we all work together we can cover the world!!! Think about it!

And never forget:

For more on dystopian futures, go to In Their Proper Place

For more on hot masked men, go to I’m Batman!

For more on Hugo Weaving, go to Beast or Man

For more films based on books, go to What Have We Done to Each Other?

For more on Lylod Alexander, go to A Hidden Wonder

For more of my favorite quotes, go to There’s Nothing Out There. Nothing in the Mist

The Past of a Man: Under Capricorn (1949)

“The past of a man it is something.”

Now this is an Alfred Hitchcock film that is not as well known or talked about, for various reasons. A lot of people think the story is too melodramatic, and others don’t like it because certain elements resemble Rebecca and Gaslight. However, the reason why most people at the time hated it was it came out right after the news of Ingrid Bergman’s affair with Roberto Rossellini, the impeding divorce of her husband Dr. Petter Aron Lindström, and the birth of her twins by Rossellini. (To read more on that go here.) I on the other hand really liked this movie as I love:

1. Alfred Hitchcock
2. Ingrid Bergman
3. Joseph Cotten

Really now, how can you ever think this was horrible?

The title “Under Capricorn” references the Tropic of Capricorn, which bisects Australia. As you can tell now that I’ve explained the title, the film is set in Sydney, Australia during the 19th century.

So before we get into the film, we need to touch on the background history. In the 18th-19th century, England tried to discover a better way to deal with the mass amount of criminal activity and overcrowding jail cells. One thing that England did was hanging. However, people began to get upset about that. Some of the crimes were not really all that bad, but yet people were being given the death penalty. In order to have a harsh punishment, less-crowded jails, and less death-transportation became the way to go. Originally convicts were sent America, but with our revolution in 1776, that option was no longer possible. In the 1780s they started sending people to New South Wales, but with the Napoleonic wars, more labor was needed and they stopped the transportation.

After the war, problems arose again and they turned their attention to Australia. Between 1788-1868, they estimate about 165,000 people were sent Australia from a sentence that was usually 3 years to life (average was 7-14 years). Most people who were sent over were guilty of poaching, arson, robbery, and murder.

They were usually sent to extremely remote areas to prevent escape and discourage any attempt at returning. While it was allowed for people to return after they served their sentence, most people wouldn’t. More often than not they would create a better life in Australia. Typically, criminals would change their names, get land, farm, and create a brand new life for themselves.

This ended in the 1860s, although it had started to drop off by the 1830s. Most of the areas that were for “convicts”, began to become real towns and attracted better emigrants. (Most of this info came from the Victorian Crime and Punishment website, if you would like to check it out)

Now back to the story.

So it is 1831 in Sydney, Australia. Sydney is still a frontier with most of the population being ex-convicts. The new Governor, Sir Richard arrives, bringing along his foppish, indolent, “rich boy” nephew, Charles Adare (Michael Wilding).

It’s one of those guys!

So Charles is hoping that he will make a fortune out here in Australia. While there he meets the gruff Samson Flusky. Samson is a convict that had been transported from Ireland out to Australia to serve his time, for murder.

But now he is a successful buisnessman. He owns a lot of land and makes a lot of dough. He is highly respected in the community.

Anyways, so Samson has now reached the legal limit of land he can purchase and needs to look to new ways in order to expand his business. He wants Charles to purchase the land and sell it to Samson, guaranteeing a good profit.

Charles is intrigued by the prospect and agree to the invitation of dining at Samson’s house. While there, he has a pleasant surprise. He knows Samson’s wife, Lady Henrietta (Ingrid Bergman).

She was friends with Charles’ sister but now has encountered a lot of problems. She is an alcoholic and shunned by society as she is seen to be crazy.

Sam decides to invite Charles to visit as much as he wants, hoping it will help bring his wife out of her current depression.

Now Charles has always had a crush on Henrietta and is confused at her crazed behavior and decline. He asks his uncle about what happened to her. Lady Henrietta was the daughter of one of the fine Irish gentry. To the surprise of everyone, she ran off with one of the handsome stable boys, Samson, to elope in England. Lady Henrietta’s brother went after them and was killed by Samson. Instead of the noose, Samson decided to go to Australia.

Lady Henrietta followed him to Australia and waited seven years for the term to end. After Samson served his years, he was different. He wanted to be rich and to buy everything, but that was never enough. Henrietta was extremely unhappy and began drinking.

Now unbeknownst to all, Samson’s housekeeper Milly has a crush on him.

She has been running the house and secretly feeding Lady Henrietta alcohol. She is hoping that Henrietta will kill herself, leaving Samson all to Milly.

Charles decides to help try and restore Henrietta’s confidence. At Sam’s urging, he moves into their home. But that’s not all he’s interested in. He has always found Henrietta to be attractive, and now she is vulnerable and needy. He begins to pursue her.

Charles’ work has been going great. In fact, Henrietta gains enough courage to try and take the power back from Milly and put her in her proper place as housekeeper, not wife. Milly turns things around and Henrietta runs up to her room and locks herself in. Charles goes in to talk to her and Milly sees them. She tries to use it to her advantage, telling Sam all kinds of lies about their behavior. This angers Sam, who kicks her right out of the house. (Sam you rock! I always had a soft spot for Sam. I don’t know if it was because he was played by Joseph Cotten or because he just seems like a great guy who has been mistreated.)

Henrietta is doing much better, and improving more and more each day. In fact she is doing so well, that when she receives an invitation to the Governor’s Ball, she is eager to go. They all get ready, but Sam decides to not go after all. He had purchased a ruby necklace for her, but after overhearing how Henrietta and Charles don’t consider ruby to be the right accessory, he decides not to give it to her. You see Sam has enjoyed having Charles there as he has helped his wife, but at the same time it has been upsetting. With the two together, it makes him realize just how different he and Henrietta are. He thought it could be different in Australia, but sees that moving to a new place hasn’t really changed societal rules.  Sam thinks the rest of the ball will be the same, and that he’ll be too out of his element or that he’ll embarrass himself. He decides to stay home.

Sad and lonely

At the ball, Henrietta stuns everyone as they all adore her. And more importantly, Henrietta has a great time.

Back at the house, Milly has returned.

Milly asks for forgiveness and her job back but also starts talking smack about Henrietta. She tells Samson exaggerated stories of what has been going on between Henrietta and Charles. The two had shared only one kiss, and everything had been instigated by Charles. Milly, on the other hand, insists that Henrietta is the one that has been carrying on and that it has gone much, much further. To further push the issue and him, she tells him that Henrietta is of a different class than her and Samson, and those people do things non-aristocrats could never get away with.

I mean seriously this girl is a major jerk.

You just need to understand that he loves his wife and back the heck away from him. You- you-

At first Samson shrugs it off. Charles is younger than Henrietta and more concerned about clothing than anything else. But that evil woman Milly keeps pushing him, and when she mentions the differation in classes, that’s where he snaps.

Sam goes to the ball, makes a scene, and humiliates Henrietta in front of everyone

She returns home, weeping and half-crazed.

Sad and lonely

Charles runs after her and tries to help her. He tells her to leave Sam, but Henrietta can’t. She tells Charles that she deeply loves her husband and is bound to him. You see, Sam didn’t shoot her brother, she did.

Yep, that’s right. Sam has never killed anyone. Henrietta fell in love with Sam as he was kind and handsome. Can you blame her? He’s one attractive man.

The two wanted to marry, but it was impossible as Samson was a much lower class than Henrietta. So the ran off to England, but her brother followed them. Her brother tried to kill Samson, but missed and the two struggled. Henrietta took the gun and shot her brother so he wouldn’t kill Samson. Samson took the blame as he didn’t want her to suffer in  jail.

Unfortunately, that didm’t actually help. Henrietta couldn’t stay at home, and couldn’t leave Samson by himself so she followed him to Australia. Not only has she been dealing with the guilt of killing her brother, but the guilt of allowing Samson to rot in prison for her deeds. To further this, when Samson came out of prison he was a changed person. This lead to even greater guilt and drove Henrietta to the bottle. No wonder she’s been going crazy.

Now even though Henrietta admits this to him, Charles doesn’t really believe her. He thinks it is just her way of trying to protect the man she loves.

When Samson sees Charles in his house with Henrietta, he becomes incensed  for the betrayal and kicks Charles out.

Charles steals Sam’s horse and takes off. While riding, the horse breaks its leg, causing Charles to have s a really bad fall. He reluctantly returns to the house and relays the news. Samson goes for his gun to “shoot the horse”, but Charles believes he is going to kill him, as he has “killed” before. The two struggle over the gun and during the conflict, Charles is shot.

With Samson’s past, he is immediately thrown into prison, to either rot for good or be hanged. Henrietta tries to save him and tells the Attorney General the truth. That Samson has never killed anyone, she did it. This presents a serious problem for Samson. The only way he can get out of his predicament is if he corroborates Henrietta’s story, but then she will be sent back to Ireland to stand trial and imprisonment. If he says his wife is lying, then he will be killed. The Governor is really pushing a conviction as he wants someone to be punished for trying to harm his nephew. The AG gives Samson twenty-four hours to decide.

A no win situation

Back at the house the evil Milly sees the perfect oppurtunity to get Sam. She tries to poison Henrietta and plants a shrunken head on her bed to further scare her. Fortunately, she is discovered and ousted.

Good-bye

Meanwhile Charles has recovered from his wound and vouches for Samson, telling everyone that it was an accident.

Charles is put on a ship back to Ireland, and Samson and Henrietta are now happy. Henrietta has been freed from the poisonous Milly and finally from the guilt of what she did to her brother and Samson. Samson is better as he finally knows that Henrietta truly loves him and that he didn’t destroy her life.

All in all, this film really teaches you one thing:

Yep, sometimes you just need to move on.

To start Horrorfest III from the beginning, go to Even a Man Pure of Heart

For to the previous post, go to Werewolves Roam Among Us.

For more on Alfred Hitchcock, go to Horrorfest III: The Revenge

For more on Joseph Cotten, go to You Think You Know Something, Don’t You?

For more on Ingrid Bergman, go to I’ll Always Be There When You Need Me

For more on the Victorian Period, go to Redone Done Right

You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Potato: Aliens in the Attic (2009)

You’re gonna need a bigger potato.

First I want to say happy 50th! This is my 50th post! I never thought I would make so many in such a few months 😀

So I know this isn’t really a Halloweeny film; but it has aliens in it so it counts. I was up early this morning and was flipping channels and this came on. I remember when this first came out in theaters, I never saw it as I thought it was going to be extremely dumb and full of childish slapstick comedy. It was full of that, and it was pretty dumb at times; but it ended up being better than I thought it would be. I actually only came in at the end of the film, so it took a while for me to get a sense of what was going on.

So these aliens invade, and only the kids are aware of this; as always the adults are stupidly blind to anything going on.

When I came into the story, the aliens had attached these mind control devices to one of the kids, Bethany’s, boyfriend Ricky. There was also one attached to the Grandma, but the kids were controlling it. The twin boys were incredibly adorable and remind me of my nephew who is obsessed with video games.

The fight between the two, was purely structured to garnish cheap laughs from children as they watch an elderly lady kick butt.

The only thing that makes this scene even funny is the lovely Doris Roberts. I love her so much!

Bethany comes in at the end and sees her boyfriend kicked through the basement. The other kids tell her that aliens have invaded which she finds hard to believe. She goes to talk to her loser boyfriend, which we find out is a liar and cheating on her. He breaks up with her and takes off.

The adults discover the worn-torn, destroyed room and immediately yell at the oldest kid in the room, Tom (Bethany is in the basement). All the kids get sent up to their rooms as they are being punished for destroying everything.

Bethany reconvenes with them upstairs trying to do something. Tom has given up, as he feels they can do nothing to save Earth. Bethany tries to get everyone to go fight, but they won’t follow anyone but Tom.

Tom I thought was very attractive. Super sexy as he was played by Carter Jenkins. Anyways, Tom is now encouraged and they go down to the basement to defeat the aliens.

When they get there they discover their cousin Jake, played by Austin Butler. (Where has he gone? I haven’t seen him in anything recently.) He was kidnapped by the Zarkonian aliens and knows they are trying to create some kind of machine. The kids had become friends with one of the aliens, Spark, and he is the techno one that they are forcing to build the machine.

They are about to give up again, when Jake comes up with a mentos/cola bomb. They shoot them at the aliens which knock them all out except for the commander. Tom takes him out with his potato gun, which accidentally knocks him into the machine they were forcing Sparks to create.

Everyone cheers at this, but then Sparks tells them that it is not good, it makes the commander big!

They have to try and battle him while the other kids handle the small aliens. Jake is able to distract the commander while Tom calibrates the mathematic equation to shoot the commander with a mind controlling device. While he is doing this, one of the other aliens increases his size and the commander and him have an epic fight.

While they duke it out Sparks reverses the machine, making anything that goes through it little. Tom sends them both through the machine, with the “ugly” alien going off with his girlfriend, while the commander is seemingly zapped into nothingness.

They have stopped the aliens, but there is still an invasion coming. One the adults stupidly think are a meteor shower.

Sparks calls the aliens and tells them to retreat. After a tearful goodbye, he goes home to be with his family. All the kids enjoy the rest of their vacation, having finally bonded and become a perfect unit.

Cheesy, yes. The very, very, end was hilarious though. 😀

Hope you enjoyed that lighthearted post. More posts to come. 10 days until Halloween!

To start Horrorfest from the beginning, go to I Don’t Belong In the World

For the previous post, go to Quite a Horror Story

For more on aliens, go to When Potatoes Go Bad

For more on channel surfing, go to Secrets Are Great, Unless You Get Caught

For more on video games, go to Push All the Buttons!