HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMA (For the record, this is being posted at 1 am on the SIXTH)

So, watched 1408 today. It was a good suspense film, I'd hardly say horror, but I'm pretty sure I've become immune to scary things. "Oh no, he killed your husband! I'd be peeing myself, but it wasn't a bunch of raptors, so why would I be scared?" Uhm. Well, the end of the first Jeepers Creepers always gives me the shivers, and Alien, and, of course, Jurassic Park. Anyways, some of the changes I was glad about, the very final scene I was kind of like, oh... that's a dumb way to end... but in the end of the story Mike doesn't really go insane, but he basically becomes a recluse and his life isn't really ruined, but he's almost been turned feeble-minded, which is understandable. The ending of the movie was happier. The movie also added a back story, which was kind of necessary. A short story, you can include as little as you like, and all Stephen King really lets you know is Mike is a horror story writing 'true' accounts of his stays in various haunted areas. The back story was nice. The movie wasn't as... I don't know if subtle is the way to describe the horror in the book, but whatever it was, it wasn't that. The movie was more intense, but the slow-paced, growing-on-you horror from the story would have just bored (that doesn't look right) people, or driven them mad themselves. So, it was a good rendition. I liked it. It would probably have been scarier in the theaters, but hey.
There's a part where Cusack has these lines, talking about how creepy hotels rooms are. "How many people were in that bed before you... how many were sick... how many were crazy..." and so on. It's almost a direct quote from Stephen King's own commentary on why he thinks hotels are kind of creepy, and I got excited.
They still drop things from the book, even if they aren't explicitly mentioned(sounds like an oxymoron?)--for example, the Hawaiian shirt. In the book it's Mike's 'lucky Hawaiian shirt'. And "Wolves ate my brother on the Connecticut turnpike" was one of the last things recorded on the tape that is even semi-understandable--in the story, of course. I giggled when I saw that. (Is that sick?) Then later that day we drove the CT turnpike and I was praying there wouldn't be a freak snowing break...
One thing I didn't like was Mike telling the fan he didn't believe in ghosts. But all his books are about ghost sightings? That didn't make any sense. And the fact that his book about haunted hotels had previously been published... (And the letter? 'Don't go into 1408' is basically saying COME HERE FREAKY THINGS WILL HAPPEN. He wouldn't have found it any other way... but I guess then there wouldn't have been a movie.)
On the DVD I rented, the trailer was included--the extended trailer--and it has scenes not in the movie. Two or three, actually... what...?
Also, I love John Cusack now. Is it just me, or does he look kind of like Alan Rickman in Dogma?
So I spent the movie waiting for a creepy little kid to say/write redrum somewhere. So sue me.


And Catch-22. I honestly don't have a lot to say. There were changes, but I wasn't particularly mindful of them, and certain events I understood a lot better after seeing the film. While some things are taken out (thank god the Chaplain's 'trial' was taken out; I'm sure I would've gone mad watching that) it didn't really hurt the plot at all. Quite frankly, I'm glad Orr was practically deleted. He annoyed me so much in the book. And Aarfy is like a creepy Mr Rogers, in my humble opinion. But yeah, changes or additions, the director knew what he was doing. If you liked the book, I'd be surprised if you hated the movie. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that Yossarian is played by the man who would later be the crack-addict grandpa from Little Miss Sunshine.

I was touring a campus today, and a lady working there admitted there was a bit of a housing problem--too many kids, not enough beds. She said something like "I don't understand why they took more than they could support" and I had this really weird urge to say "Yeah, they had that problem on the Titanic too." I didn't, but man.

Emily gave me a really cool copy of On the Road. Yayyyyy!