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January 06, 2004
I am a scientist
"Analysis and freaky sensitivity, we gotta live on science alone."
By happenstance the other day, I caught the first few scenes of the movie "Final Destination." For those of you don't know it, I believe it is a teen-horror flick starring it-boy of the day Devon Sawa (Casper, Now & Then, Something Else That Sucked) and some other randoms, who escape death in a freak accident. As one might expect in this situation, death then proceeds to stalk them, hunt them down, and kill them off one by one. Naturally.
At least I think that is what happens.
Anyway, none of this was particularly interesting to me. However, just before I turned it off, I caught sight of a familiar face. Then another. Then yet a third. By total chance, I had stumbled upon the pasture where old actors from the X-files had been sent to graze. It was a most bizarre phenomenon.
The one who reeled me in was Robert Wisden, who was perhaps my favorite villain on the show. I never knew the actors name, of course, I just knew him as "Pusher," because man, he was fucking scary. It was weird to see him as a generic, someone's-dad type of role.
Cut to about 5 seconds later. The main character's best friend was the actor who played a neurotic, brain-eating monster on an episode called "Sleepless". His name is Tony Todd, as it turns out. Huh. Who knew?
Then there were two more in rapid succession. The woman playing a high-school teacher in this flick had also played some forgettable ethereal nut-case in the really bad episode, "The Field Where I Died," Yet another teacher was an actor who appeared several times as a background member of a number of FBI inquiry committees and heavily-shadowed sinister crime syndicates. In this film, however, he had a goofy French accent, and it was rather bad.
So that was weird. I did end up turning off the movie shortly thereafter. There was a rather unpleasant plane-crash scene that I disliked, so I stopped watching. After an alarmingly turbulent flight from San Diego the other day, I am aware that my irrational fear of flying is growing steadily worse. Every time I fly I hate it more and more. I used to fly to New Zealand no problem, and now I get antsy on an hour-long flight up the coast. What gives? I don't know what to do about that. Take up power-walking?
And the superstition threshold goes way up on planes. I go way past the bounds of what I consider sane or acceptable when I fly now. Why? No good reason at all. I even noticed in this stupid movie that the flight number was 180. 180 to Paris, TWA flight 800 from Paris. Hmmmm. Coincidence? Maybe not. Maybe we should stay off of flights with the number 8 in them, and travel to Paris from England by train.....
I think the more people you know that die (any of us, as we get older) the more you freak out about dying yourself. Sadly, though, people we know are going to continue to die, and the number will inevitably rise as our age does. So, does that make us destined to get increasingly concerned by it? I'd like to make myself less concerned, but at this point I am only feigning my lack of concern, if even that. Hmph.
Posted by kati at January 6, 2004 02:39 PM
Comments
If you spend all your time remembering how you could possibly be dead tomoorrow, you may forget about all the friends you have who are still alive today. I learned that one recently.
Posted by: Alan at January 6, 2004 06:57 PM
i learned not so recently how much worse final destination 2 is compared to the first one. so if you were against this teen/x-files reject extravaganza, seriously don't watch the sequel.
plus, FINAL dest 2? hmph.
you wanna come watch about a boy?
Posted by: michele at January 6, 2004 07:06 PM
Yes please. That was a charming movie.
Oh wait. You weren't asking me, were you. *dejectedness*
Posted by: dianna at January 7, 2004 09:57 AM
Final Destination was Co-Written and Directed by James Wong, and Co-written by Glen Morgan. Those two guys either wrote, produced, or directed like 1/2 of the X-file episodes.
Incidentally I enjoyed by Final Destination, though I saw it at the Drive In which tends to add to the experience of movies of its ilk. It was neat the way the filmmakers set up several different ways each character could die and yet still surprise the audience with their death scenes.
Posted by: jmv at January 8, 2004 06:49 PM
especially the one with the bus. i love it when people get slammed by buses out of the blue. it was equally funny when they did it on felicity right around the same time. (note: i do not like felicity.) i can't remember who did it first though. chicken? egg?
i didn't mind the 1st one, i mostly just objected to the SECOND one. but my brother loves the second one, so it's really just a matter of taste.
Posted by: michele at January 9, 2004 12:01 AM
At our house, we learned the hard way not to let roommate BJ go to the video store alone. I returned from work one day just in time to catch a young lady being gruesomely decapitated by a broken elevator. Yum.
Posted by: kati at January 9, 2004 12:22 AM
He did it again the other day: Jeepers Creepers 2. Who even saw the first one?!
Posted by: robyn at January 10, 2004 10:46 AM
....i saw the first one.
(so shameful)
i think i've seen that elevator movie though. what was it called?
Posted by: michele at January 10, 2004 08:26 PM
Ok - That was a fucking HORRIBLE movie.
Jeepers Creepers was re-fucking-diculous.
-MP
PS- I H8 Jeepers Creepers
PPS- Check this out
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/elevator.asp
Posted by: Mike at January 12, 2004 04:18 PM