2002-04-22 - 9:55 a.m.
What does pantyhose have to do with the Sci-Fi Channel? Not much ...

*noise of disgust* I've already ruined yet another pair of pantyhose! I've taken to wearing them for a week or two after they snag and run, so long as it isn't horribly visible, to save on expenditures ... and a few days after I get the new pair, there it is! Another run! *sigh*

No, life isn't like a box of chocolates, on most days. Life is like getting up every day to run a marathon, draped in chains, on a variable-G surface. Sometimes gravity's almost nil, and I can barrel along at high speeds, and it's a lot of fun ... but all that additional mass builds up a lot of inertia, meaning good luck trying to stop or even change directions. Sometimes gravity's at some multiple of G, and the best I can do is hobble along on hands and knees. And sometimes it's almost perfect, and for a little while, I almost believe I'm normal.

Anyway. Enough philosophizing.

Sci-Fi channel was running a "first flicks" marathon yesterday with such gems as Hackers, Idle Hands, and The Cube. "Hackers" is cute, although highly unbelievable; it was a decent role for Angelina Jolie, and Jonny Lee Miller makes me smile, as always. However, "Idle Hands" was disgusting beyond words, and the bottle protruding from Seth Green's forehead was very distracting.

My hands-down vote for worst, however, has to go to "The Cube". Six strangers are trapped in an enormous building full of shifting 14'-14' rooms, some of which contain horrible traps, and none of which contain amenities. It was an interesting premise, and I really got into it after awhile, and even after escape-artist Rennes and doctor Holloway died I was A-OK with it. Math genius Leaven, office-worker Worth, and mentally-handicapped Kazan had figured out how to escape, and they had even ditched the psychopathic cop Quentin.

They got to the last room, and Kazan went out the last door, and then Worth paused. He was all, "I have nothing to live for on the outside." The poor man started out cynical and then got beat near to death by Quentin, but he kept going long enough to get Leaven and Kazan to the exit. So here I am, thinking that Leaven will tell him he has her, and all will be good, and she'll lead him to the door and the movie will end ...

NO! And this is the point where my interest in the movie dried up, and I stared at the screen in horror. Quentin appears behind Leaven, fatally stabbing her, and then attacks Worth. Worth, already bloody and bruised, now sports an abdominal hole; however, he proves to be tougher than he appears and holds Quentin half-in, half-out of the exit until the room shifts again, leaving an enormous smear on the inner wall of the building. Then Worth collapses on the floor next to Leaven, and dies. Kazan, the only one to escape, walks into the light. The End. AAUGH!

Perhaps there was some higher message to that ending, but damn! I hate it when movies make you like the central characters and get your hopes all up and then pull some cheap, last-minute bloodbath in the name of message! *shudder* Forgive me for wanting to be entertained by my entertainment ...