What the New 'Amityville Horror' Can Teach Us about Americans... as well as a drive down I-10 W

Today, as I was driving home from Tallahassee, I thought to myself about people and life. The more I get to know people, the more I think about them, the more I believe that we really do all fall into those stereotypes which we dread so vehemently. Take American society for example: we have the attention span of a hyperactive kitten.
I saw 'The Amityville Horror' (Horrible) the other night, and though I anticipated its quality (in my defense, I was dragged to see it) and I already understood that it was going to be a pumped up version of the original with younger, better-looking actors, loud surprises, pointlessy gory moments, and a glitzy, roller coaster pace: it none-the-less got me thinking. I'm positive that this was an inadvertent effect on the movie's part, seeing as I doubt the creators were aiming for thought provocation when they shot scenes of whorishly-dressed babysitters sticking their fingers inside of dead little girls' bullet wounds.
It got me thinking about our need to constantly remake and modernize these days, especially, it seems, in film. We just can't seem to leave anything alone! The original 'Amityville Horror' was one of my favorites as a kid, as it was to many others... scary and suspenseful and gritty... it's a classic; but that's not good enough. "Too slow, too quiet, too little special effects, and too little ACTION!" cried the people... and the film world decided that they would take a good movie and inject it with film steroids: i.e. special effects, actors with abs, and lots and LOTS of blood. Though, I can't blame the filmmakers... they're just doing what we Americans do so well: take something that's already been done, give it a prettier package, and re-sell it to the public to make quadruple the amount that was made the first time around. I have heard approximately six people comment on how this was "an AWESOME movie... SO scary!" Personally - I giggled more than I shuddered. Unoriginal and shallow; the whole movie felt like modern-horror film routine. There's no such thing as real, honest suspense anymore... just being startled. All we do now in movies is have masked apparitions jump out from behind the couch and yell out "BOO!" Situations that aim for shock factor, but are only effective for milliseconds. This isn't real horror; these are cheap thrills. The Horror genre has become the prositute of the film world... giving the illusion of momentary pleasure, but leaving no deeper, long-term effects that measure up to anything... well, worth measuring.
The moral of this story is that you should NOT waste your money seeing 'Amityville Horror' though, I'm sure most of you could have figured that one out on your own... like I did, before I was forced to see it. I admit that my opinion IS a little biased, being that I am a fan of the original, and indeed originals in general... "if it ain't broke - don't fix it", I always say. I just wish we could learn how to leave things untouched, and not feel the constant desire to remake movies with the use of explosions and speed.

So, as I was saying before I got distracted by something else... The American attention span: my original topic. Driving home from Tallahassee I was reminded of warnings I had recieved from those who had made this drive many a time... warnings of boredom and hideous nothingness for the length of the drive. More than one friend has spouted his dislike for the two hour venture down I-10 West to me, and so as I first embarked on my journey I anticipated the most vapid hours of my life lay ahead in wait. I was surprised, though by how beautiful I thought the whole drive was. Fields and meadows and forests... wildflowers and lakes... nature at its best :) So this is nothingness? This is a void? Trees and rolling hills and pretty farmland? To we Americans, especially us youthful folk, this is nothing. Nature is nothing. I suppose it would be much more interesting if we tore it all down and built a couple of mini-malls or Wal-Marts or churches... much more interesting. I'd rather look at a parking lot than a babbling brook any day.
While I'm angrily rambling, let me mention the other thing that was irking me today about life. I was having a conversation with someone the other day about walking quickly. He said, in what I took as a jesting manner, that he hated "the journey" and it was the destination which was important. I find myself walking speedily whenever it is that I walk, and definitely speeding to the extreme everywhere that I drive... so I started wondering if that was a sign that I agreed with his statement, and that I too unconsciously hated "the journey". I thought about this too during my Tallahassee drive, since I had two hours to just sit inside of my head. I looked down at my speedometer which read around 90 miles an hour, and contemplated the fact that we're all of us always in such a hurry to get everywhere. As Ellen Degeneres once pointed out, we're all trying to save time as though we can tuck it away somewhere in a pile to be used at a later date. Time can't be saved - we all know that, it just seems like we forget it sometimes. We spend all of our time saving time, and running around everywhere missing everything that means something... like the trees and the meadows and the lakes on I-10: the world that surrounds us. Then, when we do have time, we spend it tirelessly attempting to fill it with something. We take trips to different places with the intentions that our life won't pass us by without having something meaningful in it. So we go places... vacations and road trips and weekend getaways, but we spend all of our time simply trying to save more time... and worrying about the fact that Monday is right around the corner and that the place you're at now will soon be not but a fond memory. So even when we go places, we're not really there... we're somewhere far away in our heads... worried about things that won't matter in the end, and worried about the time that we've lost and saved. So what does it all matter anyway? These weak attempts at stuffing our lives with something more exciting and meaningful don't work because we don't know how to live in the moment... as cheesy as that sounds. We're always in another time... "I remember when..." or "I can't wait to..." Then we think that we can find the one person that puts us where we belong: in the moment... Or we think that we can find the one place that makes us feel that the current moment is the one worth living in... so we spend all of our time trying to find these things... Not that I'm the master on this subject; the only reason I'm mentioning all of this is because I can't stop feeling that way. The only moments I appreciate and really live in are the ones that I know will be lost... like talking with someone who I know I can't stay long with. At least I have moments like that at all. Though they do pass by too quickly, it's better they be shortlived than non-existant.

Wow - this is some SERIOUS rambling... I apologize to whomever took the time to read this blog... Look at how much of it you've wasted!