It looks like I won't be getting any sleep on Fridays. Last week, it was my brother's birthday party. Today, it's my dad's Christmas party. What keeps me isn't the bright lights or even the noise. It's the smoke that seeps into my windows. Forget the fact that I have a respiratory disease. I already told my parents about this "handicap" about my room not being airtight and the perils of having a party out in the garden but do they listen to me? I said it before and I'll say it now. Be grateful for your parents. They aren't killing you, literally.

Anyway, since I wanted to get out of the house and grab some fresh air, I went out three hours ago to watch a movie. And since there's always been something fatalistic about me, I caught the last full show of "The Ring". The Japanese one, mind you, not the poor excuse for a US adaptation. Did I mention I walked home since the movie ended past ten and the nearest gate to our house was closed so what should have been a ten-minute walk turned into a thirty-minute sprint? All under the cover of darkness.

So there I was in Robinsons Galleria, arriving sometime at 8:15 pm. The Ring was going to be shown at 9 pm. There was a sign at the ticket booth saying "all seats were taken". But since I know Philippine culture, I tried my luck in case it was just error on the movie staff's part. And apparently, I was right. They were still selling tickets.

Of course the ticket lady confirmed me purchasing the ticket saying that it was the Japanese version and not the American one. Even the guy behind me asked if it had subtitles.

Of course since I was early, headed off to Neutral Grounds to rave to Elvin about the Epic Level Handbook (told him about this template that maximized your hit dice and gave you 12 hit points for each HD the creature has). Which was foolish of me. I should have entered the theater to get good seating. I was stuck at the left-most part of the center seats. I guess it wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't so close to the screen, merely three seats away from the bottom. And I always did think that it was good advice to stay a certain distance from the screen when watching something with subtitles.

I did catch the trailers and an interesting movie was Robert DeNiro and Billy Crystal's sequel to Analyze This. At least the title's original: Analyze That. Probably fun but moving on to the movie I came to see.

I just realized how important sound and background music is to a suspense movie. Even Ring couldn't do without those elements. I also would have appreciated the movie better if the girl behind me wasn't asking her boyfriend annoying (yes, they weren't even intelligent) questions. I mean she couldn't even distinguish flashback and memories from actual perception.

It would also have been more suspensful if I didn't know the premise of the movie, which is actually told in the trailers of the US adaptation.

As for horror factor, well, I did manage to get home didn't I? I guess Elvin was right when he told me Ring would be better seen at home. With a VCR. (Also, I forgot if I read it somewhere or someone told me, but this person watched it on tape and when he ejected the VHS, he found out the tape was a copy.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm too busy choking on cigarette smoking than to be afraid of a cult horror movie.