The Grudge

Back in 2004, I used to write movie reviews for the USM student newspaper, the "Student Printz". Because I occasionally feel lazy, and it seems a shame that all of five people ever read these, I've decided to repost them here, in the original versions that I emailed to my editor, Noel, all those years ago. 
Horror long ago became the bastard child of cinema: the desire to make truly frightening movies like the original “Night of the Living Dead” or “Psycho” is consistently traded off to put together movies that are designed to just jump out at you to scare you. Indeed, it seems that moviegoers are almost masochistic; these types of horror movies do surprisingly well in the box office and Hollywood does not hesitate to keep coming up with new ways of saying ‘Boo!’ “The Grudge”, the newest such entry into the fraternity of scary movies is certainly no exception. Without a doubt “The Grudge” will succeed in making most people jump, but it really just falls short of being truly frightening.

“The Grudge” follows the story of Karen Davis (Sarah Michelle Gellar), an American social worker living with her boyfriend in Tokyo. When one of her coworkers fails to show up for work, Karen is asked to cover her patient for a day. Karen arrives at the house only to find her patient all alone and the house in a complete state of disarray. She is hardly in the house for more than an hour before she hears strange noises coming from a taped up closet in the house. She opens the closet only to find a little boy, a book and a black cat. She’s manages just another few minutes before she runs into something far scarier than a spooky little boy: a ghost composed of enough hair to clog a manhole cover. Her brush with the ghost prompts Karen to unravel the mystery behind the strange occurrences in the house.

The story is told in a nonlinear style, not so much to give us new or necessary information or help advance the plot, but instead just to provide more opportunities for ghosts to kill people in different ways. Among the many victims in the movie are the couple who purchased the house, the patient’s daughter, and a police officer trying to find out how three of his partners died while investigating a murder in the house. The only story necessary to the plot is the one involving Peter (Bill Pullman), who is directly tied to the formation of the curse, and is the only one who doesn’t die from the “grudge”. The movie is a bit of an oddity: being based on a Japanese movie is pretty standard, but this is the first one to be directed by the same director from the original, Takashi Shimizu.

“The Grudge” has all the familiar horror conventions and enough of them to make the movie pretty scary: plenty of dark rooms, corners for ghosts to hide behind, and enough ghost fodder who are more than eager to go investigating strange noises. Japanese ghosts are nothing if convenient though: they call you on the phone to let you know they’re coming, they visit you at your workplace, and they even stash bodies in the attic for the police to find. Though the plot tends to drag in a few places, the scary and spooky events are paced well enough to at least keep you entertained.

“The Grudge” succeeds rather well as your typical October scare fest, but more than likely no one will remember it when they’re making their movie list next Halloween. Once you figure out how it’s pulling your strings, it loses its potency dramatically. If you’re in the mood for a good scare this October, “The Grudge” should meet your needs sufficiently, just don’t plan on being honestly frightened.

I Hate Improv Class

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(Author's note: I wrote this essay around February 2009.)

Since moving to San Diego, my once weekly fix of improv with my long form group has yet to fully satiate my improv hunger. I decided to sign up for classes at the local improv house. It's a short-form in the style of Comedy Sports kind of place, and even though I don't particularly want to do that kind of 'prov again, I was so hungry to do some improv, any improv, I was willing to go back to “class one” again. Additionally, I'm hoping that I can get a place performing at the theater regularly when it's all over with, and get some stage time and start building a group of improv friends to hang out with. (What can I say? I'm lonely.)

I signed up for classes no problem (though, to my surprise, almost the same price as a session of classes at the iO in Chicago, and only six weeks instead of eight), and as I was driving to the theater, I noted a distinct knot in my stomach. I was nervous. I was dreading going to class - I was honestly afraid of getting up on stage and making a damn fool out of myself. Now, I have never been afraid on stage. I have proudly stepped on to many stages and have been animals, people getting sexually molested, doing the sexual molestation, and inanimate objects (that are being used for sexual molestation). But this class, and as a matter of fact, every single class or workshop I have ever taken, I feel nervous right before the first one. I am constantly afraid that this class is the one where I will completely screw up, and no one will ever want to improvise with me ever again. And, I would argue that this nervous feeling has gotten worse the longer I've been doing improv.

While most people would say that after they've been doing it longer, they've gotten more comfortable because they're more experienced. For me though, I feel that the longer I've been doing improv, the less of an excuse for screwing up I have. When I took my first class at the iO in Chicago, I was bold as hell (probably too much, my teacher Andy had me rope it in a little bit) because at that point I could have screwed up, and just said: "Oh well, I've only done improv at college". Now though, if I screw up, people can only say: "I thought this guy did improv in Chicago!"

A failure on stage is almost always the result of no support, etc. But I can't fault new players for messing up. A flub now will definitely support the theory that I have no business doing this. As a result, I find myself working ten times as hard for everything, just to keep my head above water (it also doesn’t help that I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and I’ve only liked maybe 5% of all the improv I’ve ever done). I feel the need, the absolute life-ending need, to prove myself every time I’m around a new group, and especially a new teacher/coach. I hate improv class for the exact opposite reason that people take classes: wanting to prove that I’m good enough. I’m a student! Shouldn’t I feel comfortable enough to make mistakes in class?

Unfortunately, I now wear my Chicago improv tutelage like a weight around my neck.