Dog Die Afternoon

Dear Reader,

So, you’re watching a movie and it’s about some psycho stalker killer person whose targeting this family – and they just happen to have a dog. Nine times out of ten, that dog is going to be killed, sometimes brutally and sometimes displayed as a warning to the actual target of the psycho stalker killer person. Poor dogs, they get cast in a movie and their character is pretty much guaranteed to die unless they get put in a nice family comedy movie. I’d go so far as to say that they give Sean Bean a run for his money in the ‘dying in every movie’ category.

I can’t stand watching dead/dying dogs on screen and I figured out why that was yesterday. I was watching P2, a movie where it’s actually the stalker with the dog and the stalkee is the one who has to kill the dog. Now, this dog was really going for her and if she hadn’t of killed it, it probably would’ve killed her. So, at least it’s sort of justified. I still wasn’t comfortable with it though.

The thing that got to me was the noise. Whether that dog is good or bad, every time one gets killed it makes the exact same noise. It’s not the same as people, where good and bad people react to getting murdered in different ways, every dog sounds exactly the same when they die. Maybe it’s because Hollywood has a stock sound for dying dogs, I don’t know. Either way, I can’t cope.

Nowadays, you’re lucky if the dog survives to the end. I almost wish dogs weren’t in movies at all, unless they are guaranteed to live to the end and have a happy ending. It’s almost becoming a cliche.

Thanks for reading

xxx

 

 

Token.

Dear Reader,

Have you ever watched a movie or TV show and thought that you probably wouldn’t notice if the female character wasn’t there? I do. All the time. Most obviously in male dominated stories, when suddenly a hot/aggressive/bitchy woman shows up to spoil all the fun.

I’ve recently been watching Supernatural and I’d love to punch whoever it was that decided to introduce the Bela character. She is the most awful and atrocious ‘character’ and had no place in a story where the appeal is the chemistry between the two brothers. It’s pure agony whenever she is on screen and the magic is lost as Sam and Dean seem to continually get screwed over by her. They always talk about wanting to kill her, then she needs their help, so they help her – then they need her help, but she just screws them over. It’s just appalling. I know she does eventually get killed and I’m really not surprised.

You also have the stories where it feels like they’ve added a female role just to make sure the gender has been represented. For example, you get the one female police officer in a station full of guys, or just the one badass fighter (see: Thor: The Dark World and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) in a whole group of guys. Naturally, she is part of a romance storyline. It’s pretty dire and pathetic.

Unfortunately, I can’t say I’m a massive fan of female dominated movies, or  I should probably just say Bridesmaids. God knows how that movie managed to be so successful. Not only a rip off of The Hangover, but it’s disgusting and vile humour is something I have very little time for. What was the big appeal of it? Apparently, how funny it was. However, it seems the ‘funny’ moments came from them behaving just like men. That’s pretty lazy writing.

This is all my own opinion, obviously, but I feel let down by the industry and their stupid female characters and ridiculous attempts at making women funny. Rebel Wilson needs more work, as she manages to make the jokes that women actually make and its hilarious, not crude jokes stolen from the ultimate men’s joke book. The movie world needs more women like her.

Thanks for reading

xxx

Did You Just Hear That?

Dear Reader,

I like to think I’m pretty good at pinpointing what makes some of the random noises I hear in my home, but there are some things that I just can’t. I live in the middle of two other flats, so you might think I could just be hearing the floorboards creaking from them walking around upstairs or moving furniture, chairs scraping etc… However, I also hear bangs and faint breaths that seem to come from just the next room.

This is the first place where I have not felt scared by something…odd. At both my childhood home and in student accommodation, at night I would hear footsteps walking around my room and a heavy presence in my room. I was actually so relieved when I got my first pet, a small hamster. I know it must sound very peculiar, but it was comforting to able to blame the strange noises I always heard on the hamster. I was able to convince myself that the hamster was the source of all of these noises, yet at the same time – a small hamster isn’t going to be walking around the room with footsteps that I can clearly hear.

Considering my fascination with ghosts, my imagination often got a little carried away. I am much better now, I mean, I’ve grown up. I like to think I’ve been able to think a little more rationally, but, every now and again something happens that just makes me think – What was that?

As I sit alone writing in complete silence, I will often hear strange noises and I’ll instantly turn to my dog who will be sat right at my side. Her little ears will be pricked up and she’ll be staring off into the distance. That is the freakiest thing ever. To witness your dog seeming to be responding to something that you heard but can’t even see is a very bizarre experience. You’re trying to follow their line of sight, but there is nothing there. My dog likes to use the bedroom mirror to watch us as we walk around the flat. It means you can look from the bedroom to the hallway and you can see the other doors. On some occasions she has stared into this mirror when I’m sat right there and there is no one else in the flat. What is she looking at? Creepy.

It is believed by some, that dogs do have an extra sense that seems to detect ‘spirits’ that we cannot see. Part of me would love to believe that it’s true, that they are able to detect ghosts, while some of us – the humans – who desperately try to seek out answers from the afterlife can’t see them at all. Yet, it’s our pets who see these people from the other side and perhaps accept them as ‘normal’, as part of their visible world.

That interests me a lot.

Thanks for reading

xxx