Ringu!
Yeah so I've not been feeling well since I came back from my last weekend trip to Wisconsin. That's why I haven't been posting. I'm still sick but have so much to write about. I'll now probably forget something, it's been so long.
First and foremost, I saw both The Ring and Ringu in the last week. I have some advice for y'all: Don't go seein' Ringu after seeing The Ring. The second is a near-exact remake of the first, and is actually much better. It's more polished, creepier, and makes more sense. Maybe that's because it's in English and not Japanese. It's subtitled, sure, but there's more than a language barrier when it comes to understanding Japanese movies. I don't subscribe to postmodernism usually, but there's something to the idea that other cultures are difficult to understand, especially when they're this weird. In 60 years they've gone from Imperial kamikazees to films about deadly videotapes. I guess that's not so hard to understand.
Yes, these films are about a deadly video that kills you exactly one week after your watch it. The content of the video is much creepier* in The Ring than in Ringu, and there's much more on the tape for the heroine to learn about. Ringu is boring in parts, The Ring not so much. Plus, Naomi Watts is hot.
*For some reason this part of the movie -- the actual watching of the video -- creeped me way out. I should be used to the kind of stuff that was on there by now, with all my loving of David Lynch and all. But it still was really dread-inducing. That's what made the movie for me, actually. I kind of hate horror movies because most of them are lazy and just pale remakes of Halloween or Friday the 13th. Everyone knows what's going to happen, and that's just unacceptable. But occasionally one will come up with some new idea or creepy imagery that affects me. The Ring had both.
P.S. -- Ringu is only fun if you yell "Ringu!" at the screen every few minutes, at random. And pronounce it like "Ring-Goo" when you yell it, not "Ring-Oo". I'm telling you, it's great fun.
First and foremost, I saw both The Ring and Ringu in the last week. I have some advice for y'all: Don't go seein' Ringu after seeing The Ring. The second is a near-exact remake of the first, and is actually much better. It's more polished, creepier, and makes more sense. Maybe that's because it's in English and not Japanese. It's subtitled, sure, but there's more than a language barrier when it comes to understanding Japanese movies. I don't subscribe to postmodernism usually, but there's something to the idea that other cultures are difficult to understand, especially when they're this weird. In 60 years they've gone from Imperial kamikazees to films about deadly videotapes. I guess that's not so hard to understand.
Yes, these films are about a deadly video that kills you exactly one week after your watch it. The content of the video is much creepier* in The Ring than in Ringu, and there's much more on the tape for the heroine to learn about. Ringu is boring in parts, The Ring not so much. Plus, Naomi Watts is hot.
*For some reason this part of the movie -- the actual watching of the video -- creeped me way out. I should be used to the kind of stuff that was on there by now, with all my loving of David Lynch and all. But it still was really dread-inducing. That's what made the movie for me, actually. I kind of hate horror movies because most of them are lazy and just pale remakes of Halloween or Friday the 13th. Everyone knows what's going to happen, and that's just unacceptable. But occasionally one will come up with some new idea or creepy imagery that affects me. The Ring had both.
P.S. -- Ringu is only fun if you yell "Ringu!" at the screen every few minutes, at random. And pronounce it like "Ring-Goo" when you yell it, not "Ring-Oo". I'm telling you, it's great fun.
posted by Mike Pape @ 6:22 AM
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