Cinematic Happiness

Here is my newly (well, a month or 2 ago) updated list of favorite movies. This has not been put on my website yet. I have also updated a few other lists, which I'll probably post here before they end up on the website. Here are the top 50 movies, which is too much, but I figured, maybe you're really bored and have no life. Otherwise, the top 15 or so may be of slight interest, but after that, it probably doesn't matter. Enjoy, or something. :)

1 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
3 Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
4 Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
5 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
6 Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
7 The Matrix
8 Star Wars: A New Hope
9 Gladiator
10 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
11 Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
12 Signs
13 Braveheart
14 King Kong (2005)
15 Minority Report
16 Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
17 X-Men
18 The Matrix: Reloaded
19 Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
20 Serenity
21 Shrek
22 Fight Club
23 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
24 I, Robot
25 The Shawshank Redemption
26 Saving Private Ryan
27 X-Men: The Last Stand
28 Troy
29 Batman Begins
30 Monty Python & The Holy Grail
31 The Princess Bride
32 The Passion of the Christ
33 Terminator II: Judgment Day
34 Se7en
35 Raiders of the Lost Ark
36 Terminator III: Rise of the Machines
37 Toy Story II
38 X2: X-Men United
39 Spider-Man 2
40 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
41 Kill Bill Vol. 1
42 Terminator
43 Toy Story
44 Schindler’s List
45 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
46 The Sixth Sense
47 The Village
48 Office Space
49 The Mummy
50 The Patriot

Lady in the Water

On Sunday, my wife, my wife's cousin and I went to see The Lady in the Water, the latest film by my favorite director, M. Night Shyamalan. I enjoyed it, giving it a score of 7/10 (same score as Megan's cousin; Megan gave it an 8).

I enjoy Shyamalan's other films more (at least, those I have seen). Those other films are The Sixth Sense, Signs, and The Village. I am, sadly, yet to see Unbreakable, but I plan to soon, as my wife owns it.

The Great Day

I wrote this short story sometime in 2005. Its not too long (about 1300 words: 2 pages in Word, single-spaced).

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The Great Day

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“Have a great day at school, sweetie. We love you.”

His mom’s voice rang in his ears as Jamie walked to the bus stop on the first day of school. She would never understand that great days at school don’t happen. They’re something that comes along one day a year: the last day of school. This was true in first through fourth grades. Jamie knew fifth grade would be no different.

“Hey, dweeb!” Brett’s bullying voice cramped up Jamie’s stomach as he went to the back of the line at the bus stop. Jamie stood there quietly, staring at the backpack of the child in front of him.

“I said Hey, Dweeb!”

He continued to ignore the bully. He closed his eyes and started daydreaming about being back home, playing with what he felt was the only living thing in the world that understood him: the cat.

“Aren’t you coming, dweeb?”

Jamie opened his eyes and saw the school bus. Everyone else had gotten on board. Brett’s fat face was glaring at him through an open window. Jamie slowly walked onto the bus amid laughter and pointing. Holding back tears, he walked down the aisle, looking for an open seat, but none were available. Brett’s leg shot into the aisle, tripping Jamie and causing his small frame to tumble to the floor, tossing his thickly framed eyeglasses in the air.

“Hey look, four-eyes is two-eyes again!”

On all fours, Jamie crawled forward with his arms stretched into his blurred area of vision, searching for his glasses. He found them, underneath Brett’s large shoes, split in two pieces. He picked them up, crawled to the back of the bus, and sat on the floor with his back against the emergency exit.

He made it to the school office by holding up half of his glasses to his face, drawing mocking glances and laughter.

“Here, we’ll get that fixed for you,” the secretary in the office said. She pulled out a roll of packing tape and reattached the two halves, placing the repaired spectacles on Jamie’s face. The thick wad of tape pressed against his nose.

“Brett stepped on them on the bus. He’s always making fun of me.”

“Oh, well, never pay that mind, deary. Bullies do things like that to make themselves feel better.”

To make themselves feel better, eh? Jamie needed to feel better. As he walked down the hallway, he spotted Mickey putting books in his locker. Mickey was a smaller boy than Jamie, with thicker glasses. Jamie bumped into him, knocking him into the wall of lockers.

“Hey punk, you’re a loser, you know that?”

Mickey stared at him.

“Yeah, that’s right. Umm, and you’re a freak. Yeah, a big freak. Ugly freak.”

A tear started to roll down Mickey’s cheek. Jamie walked to his next class with a big smile on his face.

The bell rang, and the last class of the day was over. Maybe there are great days, he thought to himself. He was still feeling good from making fun of little Mickey. Jamie ran to the school bus and was one of the first onboard, picking a seat in the middle. He stared out the window watching cars drive away, smiling and humming a happy song to himself.

“Whatcha humming, dweeb?”

Jamie’s smile turned downward. Brett’s large body shook the seat as he landed on it, cramping Jamie against the window. Two of Brett’s friends were there, one in the seat ahead of him, one behind. All were laughing at him.

“Was that a pretty song? A pretty song for a girly boy? Makes sense, since Jamie is a girly name!”

Brett grabbed the backpack from Jamie’s lap and tossed it to the seat across the aisle.

“Hey, give that back!” Jamie yelped in a high-pitched tone, his voice cracking.

“Awww…. poor Jamie wants his bag back! Well you’re gonna have to get through me, dweeb! Or should I say, dweebette!”

Jamie pushed against Brett, but the bully’s large frame wouldn’t budge. Brett’s arms pushed against Jamie, slamming his small body against the wall. The three of them laughed, as did some others sitting near him.

“Nice glasses there, dweebette. Did you use a whole roll of tape?”

The tears started rolling down Jamie’s reddened face.

“Awww… poor Jamie’s crying, like a girl! Ha Ha! Do you want your mommy, little girl? Would a Barbie make you happy? I bet you’d look so pretty in pink!”

Brett pulled a can of pink party string from his pocket, squirting Jamie in the face.

“Now you’re so pretty!”

The tears now poured down Jamie’s face, mixing with the party string. His fists clenched up, and he turned to the side and, with all his might, punched Brett in the shoulder.

“Is that all you got, little girl?”

Laughter seemed to be coming from every direction. Jamie curled up in a ball in his seat, drenching his shirt with tears.

Finally, his stop came. Jamie grabbed his backpack, which was now also covered in pink party string. He ran into the house, crying.

“Hi honey! What’s wrong?”

His mother’s voice seemed to join the others in mocking him.

“Nothing! I just want to be left alone!”

Jamie ran to his room and slammed the door. He sat on the edge of his bed, still crying. After several minutes, the tear ducts calmed, and Jamie stared at an empty space on his wall.

I can’t take it any longer, he thought to himself. For years I’ve let this all slide. People always telling me it’ll get better. That they don’t mean it when they make fun of me. That I should ignore it. Well I can’t anymore.

“I’m going, Mom,” Jamie said the next morning.

“Oh, okay dear. Have a great day,” she said.

“Uh-huh. Gotta go, bye.”

“Oh, okay hon--“

He slammed the door and ran to the bus stop. While the bus ride did not result in broken glasses, Jamie was once again laughed at and mocked. He arrived at school and went to his locker but didn’t open it. He stood there waiting.

Around the corner came Brett. It is time, he thought to himself. He deserves what he has coming to him.

Brett was still a good distance down the hallway when Jamie bunched his hands into fists. I’m going to stand up to him finally, he thought, and show him he can’t treat me like this anymore.

His held his clenched fists in front of him as Jamie tried to look tough enough to punch Brett in the stomach. His face morphed into that of a madman, waiting to strike his target and prove his manliness. He started hearing laughter around him as other children noticed the strange pose he had struck.

Brett was near, yet so far oblivious to Jamie’s stance. Soon Brett will be on the floor, his brain reeled, looking up at me. He won’t even know what hit him. I’ll prove my worth and maybe then he’ll leave me alone.

Jamie planned to charge forward and push Brett to the floor. However, the push came from behind, knocking Jamie to the floor instead. For a moment, he lay there on his stomach, not understanding how this had happened. Had he missed Brett passing by?

He flipped himself over and sat up. In front of him stood Mickey.

“You were the only one I thought understood me. But you’re no better than the rest.” With that, he ran down the hallway, crying.

Laughter erupted around him as Jamie sat there, staring at the floor. No better than the rest? He thought to himself. No better than Brett? Have I really become the exact thing I’ve grown to hate? Have I become the bully?

The Parachute

Here is one of the short stories I have written, if you're bored and have some time to kill (well, not that much time - it is 2332 words, about 5 pages). I wrote this one in 2005.

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I’ve never liked to fly. I’ve always felt like my vulnerabilities were exposed when I was so high in the air. My weaknesses are laid out plain as day, and there’s nothing I can do to cover them or strengthen them. Looking out the windows, I often see miles and miles of land below, and it makes me feel insignificant. The massive piece of land I see is only a microscopic fraction of what this Earth holds, and this Earth is an even smaller fraction of the universe. All of these things become increasingly obvious to me as I get closer to the stars. Because of this, I always sit in an aisle seat.

“This plane is going down,” the passenger sitting next to me blurts out.

“Huh?”

“This plane is going down.”

I didn’t respond. The guy was crazy. He was sitting there with a thick book on his lap and a steaming cup of coffee in his tray’s cup holder. He had a sly smile on his face, and he spoke slowly and confidently and appeared to know what I was going to say before I even started to speak.

“The end is coming soon,” he said.

I turned my head toward him and gave a weak yet annoyed smile.

“The end is coming soon,” he repeated.

“Are you trying to cause trouble?”

“The trouble has already been caused, my friend. I am only here to save those who understand.”

“Understand what?”

“That you are causing the plane to crash.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are causing the pla—“

“That’s enough for me,” I said, as I stood up and made my way to an empty seat near the back of the plane.

“I had to move, the guy next to me was driving me crazy,” I explained to the woman in the seat to my left. She smiled and went back to reading her magazine. Unfortunately, my new seat was a window seat. I glanced out the window. Far below was a column of smoke hovering above a burning house. I shuddered and pulled down the window shade. I closed my eyes and breathed in, calming my roused heart.

My nose took in the scent of coffee. I turned to my left, and there was the man who had talked to me earlier.

“This plane is going down,” he said once more.

“How…?”

“This plane is go—“

“I got that. What’s your problem?” I snapped, getting irritated.

“I have no problem. I am neither causing the plane to crash nor will I be on it when it does.”

“What, are you special or something?”

“I have taken the necessary steps to avoid being on this plane when it does crash.”

“Oh yeah?” I said sarcastically.

“Yes,” he replied. “Do you want to know what they are?”

“Do you really think I believe you?”

“Do you?”

“Of course not.”

I turned my head back to the closed window. I wanted to punch this guy. I was at least going to tell him off.

“You know what?” I said, turning back to him. However, he was no longer there. The woman was back, and she was now peering at me like I was some kind of idiot. I sighed.

“Never mind.” I pushed my fists together, cracking all ten knuckles in one swift stroke.

It was nearly an hour into the flight when the skies started to darken. I turned on the overhead light and reached forward for a magazine. I pulled out a copy of Entertainment Weekly. I turned to the first page, and I nearly fell off my seat. There, on the inside cover, was the same strange man I had talked to earlier. His picture took up the whole left page, and he seemed to be glaring at me with the same sly smile I had seen before. On the right page, printed on a black background were large fiery red letters, spelling out “This plane is going down.”

I quickly flipped to the next page. On the left page was the same picture of the same guy, and on the right side were the same type of letters, but this time it spelled out “The end is coming soon.”

I continued to flip through the pages of the magazine. Each left page had the same picture, and each right page had a similar message, including “You are causing the plane to crash.” I screamed.

“Stewardess! Stewardess! STEWARDESS!”

I heard feet running and a woman’s voice saying “What is it, sir?”

“Look at this!”

I showed her the inside of the magazine. She blinked and scratched her head. I glanced at the magazine. There was an advertisement for a coffee company.

“But… but…”

People were staring at me. I felt my face turning red.

“Ummm… coffee. Please.”

“Sir, we don’t serve coffee.”

“What?”

“Company policy.”

“I see.”

“Would you like something else?”

“Just a cola, then.”

I sat back down, and leafed through the magazine. Sure enough, the pages appeared to be the inside of a regular magazine.

“Here you are, sir,” the stewardess said as she handed me a can of cola and a glass of ice.

I smelled the aroma of coffee.

“This plane is going down.” The man had reappeared next to me.

“Back off. I don’t know who you are or what you are or what you want. Go bother someone else.”

“I have already talked to other people and—“

“Shut up and leave me alone.”

“You want to be alone?”

“Yes.”

“That is exactly what I try to prevent.”

“Uh-huh.”

The man snapped his fingers, and in his hand appeared a very small plastic airplane. He leaned over and dropped it in my cola.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

He snapped his fingers again, and a small flame appeared at the bottom of the glass. It spread like the carbonated liquid was its fuel, engulfing the entire glass, and the small plastic plane, in a matter of seconds. I screamed.

“Oh, that’s alright,” the woman who was once again sitting next to me said. She reached up and hit the stewardess button. “Things like this happen all the time on airplanes.” I looked down, and the cola had been spilled all over my lap, with no remains of the flame in sight.

The stewardess arrived and rolled her eyes when she looked at me. She brought me some paper towels, and I dried myself off as much as I could.

I excused myself to go to the restroom. I stood in front of the mirror for a few minutes, talking to myself.

“Get yourself together, man. You’ve been hallucinating or something. This flight will be over soon and you’ll get to sleep in your own bed again, and all this will be over.”

I stepped out of the restroom and noticed the woman who had been sitting next to me. She had moved a few seats back and to the other side. I sighed. Can’t blame her, I thought to myself. I walked back to my seat. My side of the row had emptied.

I sat down in the aisle seat of the empty row. I closed my eyes, and in a matter of minutes, was asleep.

I looked out the window expecting to see nothing. What I actually saw was war. There were soldiers running around, tanks, and other such types of weaponry. Military planes and helicopters were flying in every direction, some crashing to the ground. A fierce firefight was happening right below us. Bullets could be heard ricocheting off the sides of the aircraft.

A missile smashed into the tail of the airplane. We started spinning, and all I could hear was screaming. We landed with a jolt, but I knew I was doomed. The plan was on fire, and the flames were spreading quickly. I had no chance to escape.

From somewhere above the plane, a liquid fell upon us and began extinguishing the fire. It was not ordinary water, but I knew the aroma. It was coffee.

I jumped out of my sleep with a gasp.

“This plane is going down.”

I stared at him for several seconds, breathing heavily.

“I know what you saw.”

“What I saw where?”

“In your sleep.”

“You know what I dream?”

“I do. This plane will suffer a similar fate.”

“How would you know all this?”

“Worry not about how I know, only what I know. And I know this plane—“

“—this plane is going down, I know.”

“Do you know? Do you know that is what I was going to say or do you know that is what is going to happen?”

“I … I don’t know.”

“So I see.”

He leaned in close to me, and started to whisper.

“The pilot is dead.”’

“What?”

“The pilot is dead.”

“What?” I repeated, this time louder.

“Speak softly. Do not create an uproar, especially because you would be the target.”

I stared at him.

“Before he died, he locked the door to the cabin. No one else was in there. Now no one can get through the door. The plane is descending, and mountains are ahead. We have thirty-eight minutes.”

“We’ve got to do something.”

“We can do nothing to stop the descent. We do not have the tools to get through the door.”

“I don’t understand how this all happened.”

“Remember I told you that you are causing the plane to crash?”

I nodded.

“That is still true.”

“But how?

“Because you cheated on your wife.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Last night, you met a woman at a bar. You took her to your hotel room and you slept with her. You decided that since you were on a business trip, no one would be hurt by what you did.”

“How…?”

“Remember, it is the what I know, not the how I know.”

“You’re right. I did do that. But how could that have anything to do with this?”

“You contracted a disease last night from your one-night lover. This rare skin disease spread throughout your body overnight. It is incredibly contagious and can be spread by contact. Including— “

“—shaking his hand.”

“Exactly.”

“But why is he dead?”

“Many different things may have been at work.”

“So I did do it… through my mistake, I caused the plane to go down.”

“Exactly.”

I started to cry. “How could I have been so selfish? So stupid! Why must I be the way I am? Why must the mistake of one condemn the rest?”

“There is still hope.”

“How?”

He cupped his hands together, and slowly a parachute appeared between them. “Wear this.”

He picked up the large thick book, and opened it to a page in the middle. He appeared to write something down, then closed the book and looked at me. Smiling, he said, “You will be saved. Just never forget about the parachute. Never take it off. For if you do, that may be the moment the plane crashes.”

“What will happen to the others?”

“Everyone on this plane was given the same choice you were. Not all of them chose the same.” With that, he disappeared.

I quickly strapped the parachute on, and sat back in my seat. A feeling of safety fell over me. I no longer had worries.

“What are you doing?” A woman from behind me blurted. “Why are you wearing a parachute? What an idiot!” She started laughing, as did the other passengers in her row. I sighed. I glanced to the side, and noticed a woman in her early twenties sitting in the seat across from me. She had her legs bent up in front of her with her arms around them. On her back was a parachute. I slowly made my way over to her.

She had a tear rolling down her face. She looked at me, and smiled.

“I did it. I stole the pilot’s wallet. Pick-pocketed him in the airport not two hours before the flight. Kept the money and tossed everything else. I guess there was medicine in there. Turns out he had some major skin allergy that he needed that medicine for. Normally he’s okay without it for a couple days. Something else really bad must have happened too.”

“It wasn’t only you though,” a thick voice from behind us said. The large bearded man stood and turned to the side, revealing the parachute strapped to his back.

“It was all of us,” the elderly woman beside him said. “We all played a part in it. Some of us are being saved because we accepted what we had done, and we believed we could be saved.”

I started to cry, and so did the other three.

I heard a voice in my head say “It is time.” The expressions on the faces of the three others showed they also had heard it. We all stood up, as did several other parachute-bearing passengers, and instinctively formed a line to the exit row with me at the front. Suddenly the exit row door ripped itself off the hinges, flinging itself down to the rocky ground below.

A woman sitting in the exit row yelled out, “What’s going on?”

“We believed.”

“Believed what?”

“That we were causing the plane to crash.”

Her eyes and mouth widened, and she stepped backwards and fell into her chair.

“The crazy man was right?!”

I nodded. “It is time,” I said, and I jumped out of the plane. After pulling the ripcord and releasing the parachute, I looked up to see several other parachutes gliding through the air. Higher above, the woman peered her head out of the exit row door, looking towards the front of the plane. She screamed.

I looked up when I heard the explosion. The plane smashed into the side of the mountain, emitting a ball of fire high into the sky. Two miles away, I landed safely on the ground, with the parachute falling behind me.