SUNDAY

Now that the holidays are ending, I wish I had made more efficient use of my time. Of all the movies I planned to watch, I've only gone through about half. I had also planned to finish my storyboard for my 4U film, but I'm only halfway through that too. However, I did manage to do a lot of physics/chemistry studying and maths tutor homework. I did manage to finish watching every episode of Dexter too. And I got my Maplestory mechanic to level 40. So I guess my holidays were alright.

Of all the movies I watched this holiday, I'm going to say my favourite was The Shining. Seriously, the scariest movie I've seen. It's about a guy who moves in with his wife and son to become caretaker of an alpine resort that will be closed for the winter. We know that the previous caretaker went crazy from isolation and butchered his family.

There is this feeling throughout the whole movie of unbelievable claustrophobia. Kubrick's movies always have these amazing sets. Look at the carpet on this picture. Out of context, its kind of silly for me to point out how threatening it looks, but in the movie there's a high-angle shot of the son playing trains on the carpet and its positively creepy.

Two scenes I particularly liked. One where the son is on his little tricycle and pedalling around the resort. The camera follows him very closely behind and its a very long take. The other is the 'redrum' scene, which I won't ruin but I found pretty scary. Also, if anyone reading this wants to watch this movie, watch out for a scene involving an old lady. It is on Empire's list of top 10 worst nude scenes.

The Departed was probably my second favourite of the movies I watched. I don't have much to say about it though except that it was really good. The ending gave me this feeling that all the events were meaningless, though I kind of liked that.

Most of the other movies I watched were pretty good too.