Chocolates on the pillows of hell.

Tonight's viewing pleasure--1408. Based on a Stephen King story, 1408 follows one nasty hour in the life of writer Mike Enslin (crap, hope I got the last name correct). Mike wrote one meaningful novel then his daughter died and he lost faith in everything but himself. Now, he goes to allegedly haunted locales to see what he can see. What he does or doesn't experience gives him the stuff of his recent collection of books. He receives a strange postcard from a hotel in NYC advising him to not stay in room 1408.

Wonder what he's going to do.

John Cusack, easily one of the most under appreciated actors of my generation, completely and convincingly carries the movie on his shoulders. Once he gets settled in the hotel room, he is, for the most part, the only person we see for the bulk of the film. We follow along as he tries to logically explain away what is going on before him. What could fall into melodrama or just plain silliness with a lessor actor becomes melancholy and funny in his hands. He reacts the way most of us would react. Sometimes he's pissed, sometimes he's trying to shrug it off with a snarky comment, sometimes he just gets desperate.

The key to his character is not only his daughter's death, but also his relationship with his father. We only get a bit of insight into this second relationship, but I thought it was one of the more disturbing moments. Through his daughter's passing, Mike has given up on God and his wife. He doesn't believe in ghosts because he's never seen them. He doesn't believe in God, because no good God would have taken his child away from him.

Most of the scares are either the old fashioned bump in the night variety or are more insidiously creepy (like the use of a Carpenter's tune that suddenly blares from a clock radio at any given moment). Unlike alot of today's horror, 1408 stays away from the gore-ography or torture porn. It's more about watching someone losing their grip than it is about watching someone losing their limb.

There are a couple of mis-steps. I thought the "ghost" effect didn't really jive with the rest of the movie. I also thought the movie wrapped up a little too neatly. The "twist" moment didn't quite flow, but I got the point they were making so it was okay.

Cusack completely rocked. There is a scene late in the film that almost had me in tears. I love this man. I recommend this movie on the strength of John's performance and as a nice respite from the sometimes storyless gore that gads about quite often these days.

Not much else to report this week. Had a great dinner with Jackie on Monday evening. Work has been busy thanks to Jinn being in Vegas (still haven't heard from her yet). I'm thinking of checking out Die Hard 4 tomorrow. Please don't let me down, please don't let me down, please don't let me down...

Oh, quick work related thingie. There was an update posted today about an unnamed store where the music manager and two head cashiers were caught doing bad, bad things. Bad things to the tune of almost $3000 if I remember correctly. Made me wonder what actually happened to the hobbit. Guess I may never know.

I haven't decided what the new quote is going to be, but here's the source for the current "buttocks" quote. It's a line from Waiting For Guffman. I'm surprised Laura didn't get this one.