A Christmas Eve Tradition - Sort of

I've known about a certain ritual for awhile now, but have never had the chance to experience it - Japanese Christmas Eve. In Japan, so I'm told, they don't really get the whole Christ the Saviour shtick so they generally give gifts to one another and that's that. But for dating couples, December 24th is a time for a romantic evening out. Rather than shop oneself daft in a mall, they use it as an excuse to get away and thanks to Japanese efficiency and groupthink, what could be a very elaborate, individual expression of love has degenerated into a bucket of chicken, a bottle of cheap plonk and a night in a cheesy love hotel.

Ali has been working on this for a little while and I'm glad to say that she puts a little more effort into the exercise than what I've heard others do. No KFC for me, instead homemade fried chicken drummets - marinated for 24 hours and dredged in Ali's secret blend of spices. But that's not all. As you can see from the photo, she prepared corn soup in the blue coffee cups (Japanese efficiency), sticky rice with lotus root in the caramel-coloured bowl, a salad where lettuce is just garnish on the plate with the blue rim, and fried tofu cakes blended with chicken in a mushroom consommé. I snatched the candle holders in a secret Santa deal at my new job. Not bad at all. Last but not least a strawberry shortcake made using the finest handmixer money can buy. The thing is older than me, maybe older than Sissy and it still works. Truthfully, the cake is a remake. The first one was a write-off because the recipe is in Celsius and my oven is Fahrenheit. Somebody forgot to convert... but as you can see here, the second version is pretty darn near perfect.

So is this becoming a food blog now? I love food, but no. Thanks to Ali, I'm at my highest weight ever, a whopping 160 lbs. and I don't want to get any bigger. This is still a movie blog, and to that end I watched Baak nin hiu gap starring Sammi Cheung and Louis Koo last night. The opening of this film was so ridiculous that I almost turned it off. The only reason I kept watching is because I like Koo, and though I don't think Cheung is a particularly strong actress, she knows how to make a scene funny - and just the right amount of funny. It turned out to be some hybrid of a romcom and a kung fu flick in which the student must have her heart broken in order to master the kung fu style. Student May, played by Cheung cures an ailing millionaire playboy named Tiger, played by Koo. May's teacher tells her to follow Tiger to Hong Kong and romance him.

The plot becomes a series of stunts in which Tiger tries to make May fall for him, just as he is about to dump her. The problem is, May isn't the jealous type and she continues to love Tiger for who he is. The whole storyline turns out to be nothing but a two hour advertisement for cosmetic firms and shoe companies as Tiger discovers that the secret to mastering this style of kung fu is not to have one's heart broken, but to have one eye open and one eye closed. Phooey!

I'd watch it again, but skip the parts about the kung fu school and stick to the relationship stuff between Tiger and May. It would cut about half the movie out, but it would still be one of the best performances I have seen for Sammi Cheung.

Meri kurisumasu!

A Little Change Up

I'll be taking a few days off of work, and it's hard to imagine why but I'm actually looking forward to it. I've been at the new place for two weeks now, and it's a pretty good place to work, except for my supervisor. I've had worse, believe me but this guy is constantly kvetching. about. everything.

It took some time to pinpoint his demeanor, but it's like this. Imagine Hugh Laurie as Dr. House, you know, the genius doctor who pisses on everyone around him because they're not as smart or as good as he is. Only my supervisor is no genius, and he doesn't walk with a cane. Then, add that to the fact that he looks like a roughed up version of Tin Tin - ginger hair and turtlenecks.

Everyone on the job deals with him because they have no choice and they realize that he's the kind of person who can't be any other way, so I guess they feel sorry for him in a way. He tries to be nice, but his conversation somehow always devolves into a declaration of how stupid our clients are, and how our co-workers don't know how to do their jobs. Always careful to never name names, he'll never make a mistake or at least never concede that he's made a mistake and that if something bad happens it must be your fault, logically. I like my other co-workers, and I put up with my supervisor because I was hired to muck out the place - not to deal with his drama. There's a lot of muck.

And all this made my time away from work so much more enjoyable. Trey, my wax guy had another recital last night and WOW! That's all I can really say. It's almost two years since I went to a recital, and I had almost forgotten how amazing his singing voice is. One lady a few rows down started to cry during Ave Maria. There's such a disconnect between Trey from the salon and Trey the opera singer. He started with some new stuff, a little Bizet and then after the intermission he came back with some old stuff by Giordani. Caro mio ben was the first song I'd ever heard him sing and it really freaked my mind. Last night too, it was difficult to make the connection between Salon Trey and Stage Trey. For a little treat he sang Silent Night - uh-MAZING! And then he ended with Con te partirò. It took me a minute to figure out where I'd heard the song before. At first I thought it was Celine Dion but since I don't listen to anything Celine I was puzzled. I remembered that I had heard Andrea Bocelli's version like a million times a few years ago. Everyone bought the CD, except me.

I stuck around afterward for a little bit to show some support. I mean, the guy waxes my junk so it was the least I could do. He was surrounded by a crowd so I didn't get a chance to congratulate him, and besides my stylist was there all alone. I gave her a ride home and then met Ali and a few of her friends and played my favourite game - chauffeur. Ali's got a full calendar for the next little while. She's made so many friends here, and it's going to take a while to say goodbye to them all. She's hoping to accomplish this all before the 27th, and then it's sayonara.

Freebie!

There were a whole lot of movies that I've seen since the last post, but this is the only one I'm gonna talk about right now - Curse of the Golden Flower. Because it hasn't been released yet and I want people to know about it before they go. Yes, some of you will be skiving off work just as I write this so it will probably be a pointless exercise but I'm gonna do it anyway.

This was meant to be a photo of what I manage to eat nowadays, but since I had a free pass to see the newest release by Zhang Yimou, I thought I'd throw it in there too. Zhang takes directorial credit as well as a writing credit for this, and despite being crammed against the wall on the right side third row, I liked it.

Sure, I had had passes to see a sneak preview of another Zhang film House of Flying Daggers, and it was pretty much the same - only different. There was a lot of the same imagery, a lot of close ups of Gong Li's face, a whole lot of flying fighting, but the story was a little different. I had a bit of a problem with the wardrobe, though. I'm no expert on Chinese history, but the dresses worn by the Empress and the female servants seemed to be a bit... let's say modern. This costuming ploy saved Bram Stoker's Dracula, so why wouldn't it help a film about the Empress of China? As my friend pointed out, there's really no reason to complain, but I prefer accuracy. If that's how it was back then, then so it was. Li stars alongside Chow Yun Fat as the Empress Phoenix and Emperor Ping of China, respectively. My friend and I were both a little puzzled by the whole premise but it goes a little something like this:

The Emperor has three sons by at least two separate women - probably just two but it's never really established where the third kid comes from. Ping is currently trying to poison his wife in an effort to drive her mad. See, his wife is having an affair with the eldest son, her stepson or whatever who in turn is getting it on the side from a servant girl who... more on her later. Anyway, Ping can't blame his son because he always was the favourite so I guess that's why he's trying to poison the wife - he blames her. Turns out the eldest son is a bit of a failure, and the hopes of the Empire truly rest on the shoulders of the second son played by Jay Chou. His mummy, the Empress discovers that she is being poisoned and shares this news with him. She says that during the Chong Yang Festival, she will force her husband to abdicate the throne so that her son can become Emperor. The son vows to protect his mother who, tells her stepson of the plot. The stepson decides that he can't go along with the plan and reveals all to his father.

At some point, the eldest prince tries to commit suicide. As the festival approaches, the servant girl who has been knowingly poisoning the Empress for weeks, chases her boyfriend to the Imperial palace to protect him or something. Her family has just been set upon by assassins sent by the Emperor because her father, the Emperor's doctor was married to a woman who happened to be a threat to the dynasty. Really, only the mother knows why. The servant girl arrives at the palace pursued by her mother, and both are captured and taken to the Emperor who is only trying to have a little peace and quiet with his wife and three sons. The servant girl's mother, known to the Empress blabs the Emperor's secret - that she is the mother of the eldest son, and thus the servant girl learns that she has been shtupping her half-brother for quite some time. She runs from the palace, screaming as her brain is exploding and is killed as she flees, and so is her mother.

The story moves back to the Emperor and his new family. The youngest prince stabs his eldest brother in the back and is pretty much wasted by the father after that. Somewhere in the film, the second son leaves the ceremony and goes outside to gather with the troops. He attacks the palace, but it's hopeless. He can't win. I guess he's the only one left of the ten thousand rebels who stormed the grounds because he is invited to eat with his parents. He is told by the father that he was meant to become the Crown Prince. The Emperor had changed his mind and had planned to make the announcement the very next day, but after this little act of treason the Emperor gave him an ultimatum. The choices were either be torn into fifths by horses, or continue to administer his mother's medicine which is poisoned, and which he knows is poisoned, but can't let his father know he knows it's poisoned because then the whole charade would be over and it would somehow implicate his mother who also knew the medicine was poisoned but couldn't accuse her husband directly of trying to poison her. So it's not really a choice at all. Either he dies or his mother dies. He kills himself, and that's pretty much the end. Which left my friend with a few questions like why the Emperor was trying to slowly drive his wife insane, and left me wondering what happened after that. This really wasn't the place to end the film I thought. What about the next morning? I would have liked to hear that conversation between Phoenix and Ping. Maybe there was no next morning for Ping, what with no heir and a really pissed off, ass-kicking wife. Just a few more minutes... That's all I'm asking.

The movie is all about hypocrisy and other stuff, but mostly hypocrisy. The Emperor proclaims that he has a model family and that it is his duty to inspire his subjects. All the while, he's trying to turn his wife mad, and his sons secretly hate one another while one is having an affair with the Empress, another is plotting to overthrow his father and another is just trying to get a little attention. Man Li stars as Chan Jiang, the servant girl. I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of her in the near future.

Coming Up for Air

After a few arduous weeks, I'm back same as always with a total of six films to discuss. That's the problem with updating so infrequently - I forget which movies I've been watching and then I have only a little to write about on each one. By the way, this is Enzo J at his baby shower. Such a busy little man, we had to reschedule the thingy. After 50 days, we had the party. This is a photo of Enzo with his great-great-aunt Imogen. He's getting a good look because I think she might be the oldest person Enzo has met.

The morning of the shower, Ali started whipping up something in the kitchen. I should have said something, for she had the mistaken impression that this was a potluck affair. We ended up toting a pot of Japanese stew to the thingy and toting it home again. Ali had pretty much met everyone at the thingy before, but I had to re-introduce her again. She couldn't remember anyone's name because, "You all look the same". She could only remember the cowboy but not his name, but unfortunately he wasn't there so she was a little screwed. This would happen twice in the same day. Later, we drove past an IHOP which Ali had recently discovered was a pancake restaurant.

"I want pancakes. Turn here." So there we were, sitting in a pancake house with a pot of Japanese stew on the table. About half way through my hotcakes, I looked at the kitchen and recognized the chef(?) as a guy I went to highschool with. I told Ali to take a good look and remember his face because I was going to show her my yearbooks later. About an hour later we got back to the very cold flat and I brought out my senior yearbook. The dude wasn't in it. I checked my sophomore yearbook. No photo. He was in my freshman yearbook. I guess he switched schools or dropped out or something which might explain why he's flipping hotcakes. I showed Ali the photo which was a pretty good likeness except that he had put on weight, as we all tend to do after that much time, but she said that she couldn't remember the guy's face because we all look the same. Arghhhh! I kinda wanted to say something, but I knew I shouldn't.

I messed up big time a few weeks ago - I erased Ali's iPod. Yet another reason to hate Apple. I wanted to upload some of my own music onto her iPod. I plugged in the cable and iTunes started to update her iPod. I cancelled the update, or at least I thought I did and ended up not uploading the music I wanted. For some reason, even though I'd cancelled the update my entire iTunes library ended up on Ali's iPod, and all her own stuff was gone. Of course, I thought nothing was wrong until a few days later. I was woken up by Ali screaming in perfect English "You Stupid Fuck!" This all could have been avoided if Apple had provided the music I requested several times instead of my having to work with an external source.

I messed up big time again a few days ago, when the whole reason why I've been hiding went all Pete Tong. I really, really studied for my exam so I had a good feeling about it. That's it lad, your entire course hinges on six questions. If you miss any two, you flunk. Well, I neglected to wear my watch and ran out of time on the exam, unable to correct an error I discovered late in the game. I suspect this will become another rewrite, but it's all very demoralizing. Kinda like when your brother asks you if he can borrow your nice new Fluevogs because he wants to take them to summer camp but you say no because you know the shoes won't fit and these shoes weren't really meant for hiking. But he takes them anyway, trashes them and tries to hide them someplace but you find them. That kind of demoralizing. The upside is that I have managed to find a job, and they've even granted me a little gardening leave before I start. I'll make the best of it.

And so, in no particular order, the films up for consideration are The World's Fastest Indian, Sixth Sense, Eyes Wide Shut, Something's Gotta Give, San jaat si hing or Moving Targets, and Let's Make Love.

Ali came home from her last day in class and told me that her classmate suggested The World's Fastest Indian. At first I was intrigued because I personally felt it was a little too soon to film a biopic of Narain Karthikeyan, but then Ali muttered something about motorcycles. I checked it out and was pleased to find that it was all about land speed records. So while Ali was out having her farewell party with her classmates, I was watching this film. While I was getting info on this movie, I learnt that part of the set had been used by a motorcycle gang in Invercargill, New Zealand. A wee trigger took me back to the hellish stranding in Quincy, California. There I was with Sissy and inexplicably, a girl from New Zealand who had hooked up with my friend's nephew and fatefully decided to ride back with us while my friend and his nephew wandered around the Nevada desert taking what turned out to be some kick ass photos. Before this girl hooked up with my friend's nephew, she had been in a relationship with a guy back home in New Zealand who happened to be part of a motorcycle gang. She claimed to be a bit of a hellraiser, but I didn't buy it. She was waaay too much of a princess, and I didn't like her to begin with. I tried, really, to get along with her for Sissy's sake, but this girl just wouldn't cut anybody any slack. By the time we got rolling out of Quincy, this princess had lost it a few times. We got her back in time to make her connecting flight back to London. Maybe under different circumstances, we would have got along better. I also learnt that somewhere in the film a BSA is featured, probably in the beach race which was also a trigger but a nice one, of that very cold night in December 1992 when I met my ex-girlfriend's father. Let's call him Bob, because that was his name. And in a way, he does look like Sir Anthony Hopkins who stars as Burt Munro in the film which makes the film all that more interesting. There I was, the young, wide-eyed, long-haired "colonial" with Bobby in Birmingham, meeting my girlfriend's mum and dad for the first time:

Bob:'Ere. [Pointing vaguely in my direction] You like automobiles?
Me: Ummmm, yes sir.
Bob: I've got something to show you. Come with me--
Girlfriend: Nooo! Dad, don't...
Bob: It's alright. I'm just gonna take this one out to the shed.
Me: Just me, sir? Not Bobby and his girlfriend?
Bob: No, lad. Only you said you were interested.

He led me out to the yard and motioned back towards the garage. "That's a Moggy lowlight. It's mine." I remembered my girlfriend telling me that her father had an old Morris Minor. In the dark I could make out that it was a lighter colour, perhaps sky blue and that the engine had been ripped out of it. As we got closer to the garage, he told me to go inside and have a look. There was just enough room to inch along single file, and he was making sure that I couldn't turn around. "I've got something else to show you, keep moving toward the back."

It was at this point that I was suddenly reminded that I had known this man for approximately 5 minutes and had no idea how he felt about me dating his daughter. I turned back toward him and looked in his eyes. Cold stare - I froze. I was pretty sure that he was going to corner me in the shed and pull out a shotgun.

"Lift up that canvas and see what's under there... Go on. Don't be shy, I'm not going to shoot you." I lifted the canvas and there was a 1938 chocolate brown BSA before my eyes. At least that's what he claimed it was and I have no reason not to believe it. He said that it had only had one owner, an Italian expat who had gone to England to sell gelato. After much saving, he finally had enough money to buy a bike and sell his gelato that way. Of course, the next year it would all be over. In 1939, the gelato man had to pack up and leave the country. Bob bought the bike at auction or something and reassembled it from scratch. The thing had been boxed for years. Bob turned out to be a great guy. I really should have tried harder to stay in touch with him and his family.

The movie stars Sir Anthony Hopkins as a older New Zealander named Burt, who coincidentally had had a twin brother in his youth named Ernie. I laughed at that part, which was hard because you learn the brother's name right at the same time you learn that the brother had been crushed by a tree. This elderly, rather eccentric mechanic decides that he wants to use his 1920 Indian motorcycle to set a land speed record in Bonneville, Utah. The guy had basically spent 45 years, assuming he bought the bike new, tuning it up to go fast. He knew it was already the fastest bike in Australia and New Zealand, and the one thing he wanted to do before he died was make it the fastest bike in the world.

The story lags a wee bit, presumably because the diretor wanted to remain as close to the real events as possible, but it follows the old codger in his bid to raise enough money to get to Utah, it chronicles his heart problems, and his encounters with a friendly Central American used car salesman played by Paul Rodriguez who we all know should have been chosen to replace Johnny Carson. Okay, maybe I just know that. But can we honestly believe that there wasn't a better comedian than Jay Leno available to usurp Johnny? I have news for you - Jay isn't funny. Never was. But he likes cars and has some dandies in his garage, so he's alright by me. A car salesman, a native who helps him with his old man problems, and an old lady who runs a service station and nearly gets Burt killed in a cemetery. You see how this story meanders. It also gets a little preachy on the habit of smoking. I can only believe that the real Burt Munro was a staunch anti-smoker. He finally gets to Bonneville only to discover that he hasn't registered his vehicle and it doesn't pass technical inspection, partly because his tyres have no tread. He meets some other very helpful Americans and is voted the most popular driver at the meet. After some arm-twisting and rule-bending, the old guy gets on his bike and rips down the salt. He's added a lead brick to the front of his bike to reduce vibration. I imagine this is much like what Ferrari and Renault did to their Formula 1 cars for 2006. Of course, Renault was ordered to remove their device but Ferrari was allowed to keep theirs. Go figure. Burt quickly discovers that the lead brick doesn't work as expected and makes the run without it. He can control the aero by popping his head up a wee bit. The director makes a point of emphasizing goggle trouble, and as the bike accelerates close to 200 mph, the goggles fly off the helmet. All the while, Burt is slowly burning his leg on the exhaust because he doesn't have a fire suit and an asbestos wrap makes it impossible for him to fit into the bike shell. I was reminded of the time Sissy decided to catch a ride on a motorcycle while wearing shorts and burned her leg pretty badly. She walked it off like a trooper. So we have an old man with heart troubles sharing his heart pills with his motorcycle for a nitro boost careening blindly down a painted line in the desert cooking himself. The story is limited here in that it has to stay true to fact, so there's no second wind or anything, the guy keeps accelerating until he hits 200 and then wipes out. Technically, in order to set the land speed record according to USAC rules I think the car has to be able to get to the finish line, turn around and match or better the speed in a ten minute window. Whether I'm imagining that, or whether that rule wasn't in effect at the time is not explained. Burt Munro had set the land speed record for modified motorcycles smaller than 1000cc before he died. But he didn't die. He went back to New Zealand a local hero. Apparently, he went to Bonneville again for nine years following that record and his record still stands.

Eyes Wide Shut was the next film that Ali brought home from the library. As you may have heard, this film stars Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and kinda sorta Sydney Pollack. I remember there being a lot of controversy surrounding this film, but I guess it was more buzz than scandal. This would be the third Stanley Kubrick for me, but the only one I watched the whole way through. Watching Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in upper sixth history and Spartacus were the other two. What did I like about Eyes Wide Shut? Certainly not the acting. What I liked was the music. I was reminded of The Ninth Gate starring Johnny Depp I guess because of the aspect of suspense but also because of the scenes in the country. All in all, the film was a let down considering all the hype that surrounded it, but it was pretty good for what it was.

San jaat si hing starring Nicholas Tse, Edison Chen and Simon Yam was a film I'd seen before, but couldn't follow because of the bad reception. I tried to watch it again after getting rabbit ears, and got about halfway through before growing bored. I thought about The Departed and how this film would fit perfectly between the police academy period and the point where Leo DiCaprio applies to the Massachusetts State Police. I haven't looked into it, but I think this film was meant to parallel Infernal Affairs. I think there was a little too much comedy in this film for a drama, but about as much as I've come to expect from Cantonese dramas.

I really couldn't say anything to dissuade Ali, so when she brought home The Sixth Sense starring her favourite Haley Joel Osment and Bruce Willis, I wasn't too surprised. This film is famously about a kid who sees dead people. The kid is a bit of an oddball because of the things he sees, and he ends up having sessions with Bruce Willis' character, who figures he can help the kid and atone for making a mistake with a previous client played by an almost unrecognizable Donnie Wahlberg. They work together to find a way to make all the dead people go away happily, and at the end Willis discovers that he too is dead but is happy to go away. I didn't think too much of this film. I thought it could have shown more of Osment's character helping dead people get where they need to go, but it didn't. What I did like about this film was the exteriors of the homes, and the spiral staircase inside one of the homes. I remember Bobby and me trying to get our mum and aunts to put a spiral staircase into the beach house, but they nixed the idea saying that it would be too difficult to get the furniture up. Am I a fan of M. Night Shyamalan? Not yet.

Something's Gotta Give starring Jack Nicholson, Amanda Peet, Diane Keaton and Keanu Reeves was a good one. I probably only say that because I'm starting to appreciate Nicholson's work more and more. I don't think I can say the story is very original, but it was well done by Nicholson and Keaton. I'm planning on seeing The Holiday with Jack Black and Jude Law soon. Nancy Meyers writes and directs both films.

The last thing I wanted to do when I got home after my exam was go to bed. I wanted to rewrite, but Ali told me to stop worrying about and relax. "You're a failure, and there's nothing you can do about the exam now, Stupid. Just forget about it, you are so A", referring to my blood type. Apparently, Asian cultures can tell as much about a person from their blood type as Western cultures (read pot-smoking hippies) can tell from one's astrological sign. Personally, I think it's all a load of hooey. Instead of torturing myself over the exam, I turned on the television and got the George Cukor gem Let's Make Love on the Canadian channel. I would have flipped channels, but I instantly recognized a young Yves Montand. As for the film, I'd seen it before and it was getting late so I didn't watch too much, but anything with Montand in it is worth watching in my books. I should also mention if you didn't already know, another great French actor died a few weeks ago, Philippe Noiret of Les ripoux and Tango died of cancer. I was tempted to write something when it happened, but then I realized that I really wasn't very knowledgeable about his work. No, I haven't seen Cinema Paradiso or Il Postino and I probably won't, but this guy was a mainstay in French cinema and was one of my favourite French actors.

Tying Up Loose Ends

The requisite photo has nothing to do with the post. It's Enzo's latest picture. He and Sissy were travelling back home and the roads were really bad, so they decided to pop by and wait for things to pass. This uncle job ain't easy. As you can see, it's about time I learned how to use that damn camera. It's constantly on night mode so every photo takes like 5 seconds to snap and I can't keep the camera still for that long so everything is blurry. What a time to take a break from the blogging thing! School work was really starting to suffer so I needed to get that taken care of. I'm not looking forward to the exam, and as I predicted I flunked the auditing course for the second time. Guess what I'm taking next term? Uh-huh.

One of the good things about being jobless is that it gives one time to look for more jobs and get school work done, but it also makes time for searching for new channels to watch. Thanks to the rabbit ears I bought for Ali, my television now receives 6 channels on raw feed. One of them is French, so it may or may not count. I'm so close to getting the other multicultural channel and doubling my Bollywood quota, but close only counts in horse shoes or whatever. Stupid Cho brothers. I have also had time to look closely at the housework. And if I wasn't sure before, I'm sure now -- I'm whipped. I noticed the other day that one of the rosebuds on my faux Persian rug wasn't dusky rose-coloured like the others. I looked closer, and noticed that it wasn't red or part of the red array at all. It was brown, and wasn't shaped like the other rosebuds. I don't know what came over me, and I suppose from a third person point of view it looked as repugnant as that time I observed a certain gunnery sergeant come for lunch and proceed to nonchalantly sort through Sissy's panty drawer and start sniffing, but I smelled it. Sweet smell, like caramel. Someone was gonna get it. No one, not even Sissy gets away with damaging my faux Persian. When Ali got home, I showed her the crime scene and told her that it smelled like caramel. Defiantly, she announced that it must have at one time been a Rollo. Rollos are Ali's fave, and I looked the other way when chocolate shavings had somehow been melted into my cream coloured settee where they will remain forever, but this was a different story. Someone had mashed a caramel choc into my faux Persian rug and then tried to hide it by putting the corner of the settee over top of it. I have done nothing so far, not even go 2LDK on Ali. Like I said - I'm whipped.

On the subject of 2LDK, Ali brought home another freebie and I was able to watch this film. So the question is now - If the public library can get a hold of a working copy, why can't the foreign film specialists who charge me $6.00 to watch defective copies? I also happened to see Princess Mononoke, Running Scared, The Departed and a few Cantonese movies since I last updated.

If I didn't say it before (I can't be arsed to check), Ali kept touting this film as a comedy, a violent comedy. She refuses to watch the films of Takashi Miike but she will watch other violent movies so long as the word comedy is tacked on to the description. For the record, Ali describes every Japanese television host as a comedian. I think she may have a different concept of what a comedian is. Even if I allow for the broad classical Greek definition of a comedy, I still can't see how 2LDK is a comedy.

It stars two Japanese actresses and takes place entirely within a flat. Eiko Koike plays Nozomi and Maho Nonami plays Lana. Both girls secretly hate each other and are contracted to the same talent agency, vying for the same part. Lana figures she'll get the part because she's got experience and Nozomi is hoping that this will be her first role since moving to Tokyo from the country. The two girls play psychological games with one another until Nozomi figures that Lana has been jerking her around about a shared love interest. Nozomi starts smashing flower pots into the baby grand, and then it escalates. I guess its all fun and games if your roommate eats your food and uses your Chanel skin lotion without your permission, but as soon as they start compromising the damage deposit, it's on! I know its not healthy, but I think its worth mentioning that Lana looks exactly like my ex, if my ex had long wavy hair and a bad dye job, which she didn't, thank goodness but certain close ups of Lana resembled Chie so much so that the triggers had me jumping out of the Rollo-stained settee and cursing the casting director. Director Yukihiko Tsutsumi had the idea to use certain household items as weapons in the film, including things like a toilet tank cover, a toaster, a mini chainsaw (Some people might have those in their homes I suppose), tatami mats, and gold coins. In the end, the girls end up trashing the apartment and stabbing each other in the neck. Both bleed out as a message is left on the answering machine that the producers of the film they auditioned for had rewritten the role so that both starlets could play lead. Now I know what the little guy at the video store meant when he said the ending was bittersweet. He said it was a black comedy. Meh. I suppose it could be. I did laugh a little bit at the subtitles. Some words tell you a lot more by the way you say them than by saying them alone. Japanese has a few good ones. If you're into watching 2 young not ugly women beat the crap out of each other for no really good reason, then you should see it. Or if you're the type of person who has a lot of pent up rage possibly directed at an older sister who, um I don't know, used to forcibly make you play "Guess What's in My Nose", then this movie is for you. I'm not going to go as far as recommending this film for an actual good reason, but the next time you're at the video store and can't quite decide which film would be the representative choice in the "violent comedy" rack, then choose this.

Running Scared was a movie I saw in a trailer last winter, but forgot about it until the video store put it on their top list of customer recommendations. Often as Ali points out, the only reason to watch a Paul Walker film is to watch Paul Walker, but in this case there is more, much more. This film has almost everything. If you need another reason to think ice hockey pointless, its there. Kitchen sex, not just in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada or those weird Scandinavian no-dialogue ones you used to watch at your dad's when everyone else was asleep anymore. Not getting enough of the whole John-Wayne-was-a-fag argument? Here it is! Really people, is there really any argument? It was his business only, so who are we to argue? Perhaps you're upset that there aren't quite as many movies that make New Jersey look bad as there used to be. Do not despair! This film makes a fair attempt. I should defend the third state of the Union which I call home and say that New Jersey isn't as bad as it used to be. Patterson's pretty much the same, but one city does not a state make. Unless its the Vatican.

Running scared stars Vera Farmiga as Teresa Gazelle, wife of Paul Walker's character. The director liked her a lot. This was the first time, but as it turns out not the last time I saw Farmiga. The director, Wayne Kramer is out there. It was hard to listen to everything he was saying because I was distracted by his weak South African accent, but in this script he saw parallels to Through the Looking-Glass. Ummm, okay. Oh, and this movie has Chazz Palminteri in it too. Can't go wrong there.

The movie opens with a man and a boy running from a diner. The boy is faint and has blood on his shirt. The two race off in a black cherry Mustang soft top, and then the film jumps back to 24 hours before. Mentally, I jump back 24 years to the bank holidays when Bob used to rip around Kent in our Mini Cooper muttering about Goodwood hill climbs and I used to shout for him to go faster. Bobby would be strapped in the back seat with eyes shut, fists clenched, white as a sheet. Or maybe I was Bobby and Bobby was me - my memory's not so hot before 8 years of age. I snapped back to 2006 when the scene changed to the kitchen sex - actually making dinner sex, but that's just details. The story revolves around a hot gun that's been used to kill a few crooked cops, and is handed off to Joey the wheel man to get rid of. Joey hides the gun in his basement where, almost immediately Joey's son and a Russian kid find it. The Russian kid Oleg nicks the gun and shoots his John-Wayne-Loving crack head abusive father. What happens next is the whole Quentin Tarantinoish odyssey where the kid scrams and Joey panics, trying to recover the gun and the bullets fired therefrom. Joey sneaks into the hospital to grab the bullet left inside the father, who is also being squeezed by the surviving crooked cop to reveal the location of the proceeds from a bad drug deal. Anzor, played by Karel Roden says he'll give up the dosh, as long as the cops don't shut down his crack operation. We should probably focus on Oleg now. The kid witnesses a pimp beating up a prostitute and pulls the gun on the guy but misfires. The pimp pulls out a knife but before he can do anything, the hooker slams him with her purse and the kid takes off. Joey talks the kid into a meeting and at the diner, the kid gets skittish and hides the gun in a toilet tank. The gun is recovered by an inquisitive custodian, and after being screamed at by his dad, the kid runs and hides in a van which happens to belong to a pair of pedophiles. I'd like to say that I don't think these characters added any value to the film, and certainly don't bear any similarities to Through the Looking-Glass. In fact, this particular storyline was very off-putting. Now, it's not just Joey looking for Oleg, but Teresa is looking as well. Oleg is pretty smart and manages to get away from the pedophiles long enough to make a call. Teresa shows up and after some smoke and mirrors she reckons that the pedophiles are liars and takes justice into her own hands. Two dead pedophiles and Oleg is on the run again. Meanwhile, Joey and his buddy are in the Czech Republic playing ice hockey with their jaws. Some other people there are Oleg, Oleg's father, and his backers as well as Joey's backers. The scene unwinds into a he said, he said situation where everybody tries to guess who is the biggest bluffer and who is telling the truth. Oleg blurts that Joey showed him the gun, so that he would take it home and kill his father thereby eliminating some of the drug dealing competition. Joey says that it was his buddy's idea, which makes his buddy's dad look bad. Now nobody trusts anybody, so everybody starts shooting everyone else. Joey and Oleg are the only two to walk out of there and through the magic of cinema, the Czech Republic all of a sudden becomes East Rutherford. So how does all of that relate to a dine and dash and a black cherry Mustang? Stupid Joey invites Oleg to some pancakes and ta da! Guess who's at the diner with a couple of his bitches? The pimp. He's managed to wrangle the gun off of a mechanic who won the gun in a poker game against the custodian. Ahhhh, full circle Tarantino style. The pimp goes after Oleg, but Joey jumps in. The gun goes off and the pimp gets cut good. Cut to the scene of the Mustang racing away. End of story - Or IS it? Turns out the blood predictably didn't belong to Oleg, but to Joey who turns out to be a cop and the two race home to Teresa so that Joey can keep a promise. Right before they get home, Oleg's mother blows herself up because she thinks Oleg is dead and she has no reason to go on. So Teresa is running around trying to shield Oleg from the carnage and Joey is bleeding to death. The real end of the story comes as Joey and Teresa fake his death and hold a funeral. After that, Teresa and Oleg move to the country with Teresa's own son only to be reunited with Joey. Schmaltz.

I had been looking forward to a couple of Cantonese movies. I confess, I confess, I confess. I will watch anything with Sammi Cheung in it, or at least make an honest attempt. I tried to watch My Left Eye Sees Ghosts, but I couldn't stand listening to Sammi scream every second line, so I turned it off. There was another movie a few weeks later that had a nice description on imdb, but I couldn't get good reception. I'm waiting for a good Pinky Cheung film to come on the telly, but I have had no luck so far. There was one last week I think, or if I'm lucky it'll be on tomorrow night.

Ali brought home Princess Mononoke last week, another film by Hayao Miyazaki, the guy who did Spirited Away. As before, the landscape animation was unbelievable and the underlying message was environmental. The story itself lagged and was definitely a bit longer than it should have been, but it was good for the kids. This one didn't make Ali cry, and she prefers Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds but the vocal talent was a regular who's who of Hollywood. Billy Crudup, Billy Bob Thornton, Gillian Anderson, Clare Danes. Not my cup of tea, but I can see why this film would have a large fan base.

Happy Birthday Martin Scorsese! Segue to The Departed. Ali has been itching to see this film for weeks, and had a couple of free passes so we went. I thought it was good, perhaps the best original American screenplay to come out of Hollywood this year. Until I found out that I had been bamboozled. A friend quietly pointed out that The Departed was a rip off of Infernal Affairs or Mou gaan dou. So much for that. This is just another example of the fact that big Hollywood studios ran out of ideas a long time ago. I will say though that this remake was very well done. Matt Damon plays a dirty cop who helps a local Irish mobster played by Jack Nicholson locate a rat in Nicholson's group. The rat is played by Leonardo DiCaprio and is overseen by Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg. Wahlberg quits when he objects to Damon's conduct. Damon's girlfriend is played by the ubiquitous Vera Farmiga, recently of Running Scared. She gets mixed up between Damon and her patient, DiCaprio. Sheen gets thrown from a rooftop, and DiCaprio becomes a rogue cop. A great big shoot out occurs between Nicholson's group and the cops, where Damon discovers that while he's been researching the leak in the gang, Nicholson's been ratting to the FBI all along. Damon gets pissed and shoots Nicholson five or six times in the torso. Alec Baldwin takes over Sheen's position and Damon is finally able to convince DiCaprio to break his cover. DiCaprio realizes that Damon is a crooked cop and meets Damon on the same rooftop where Sheen was killed. He calls two other officers whom he feels he can trust. Anthony Anderson takes one in the head and as DiCaprio takes a cuffed Damon down in the lift, he takes one in the forehead as the door opens and the second officer fires. Turns out this second officer was also working for Nicholson's outfit, and as Damon is freed, he takes a gun and kills the second officer. Now Damon is the only guy who knows the whole story. He goes on reconciling things with his girlfriend and one afternoon as he walks home from the market with bagels and milk. He opens the door to his flat and somebody walks out with shower caps on their shoes. Wahlberg was waiting. Somehow he knew that Damon was involved in the killings of his superior officer and his fellow officers, and shoots Damon in the head. Cue Rolling Stones and credits.

Apparently, the film Odishon by Takashi Miike is referenced in this film, but I can't see where except maybe in the flashback scene where Mr. French garottes his wife. Good soundtrack, though there has been some debate on the Andrew Collins Show as to where some of the songs actually aired in the film. It's too late now to actually hear the song or the actual conversation via the link, but have a listen. I'm sure you'll like it. For the record, Andrew didn't like the film. I don't tune in as much as I used to. They've moved his timeslot to weekends rather than weekday afternoons which were New Jersey mornings. Everyday at work while busily key-punching, I could listen to Andrew engage listeners in topical debate. Good stuff, good stuff.

That's about it for another few weeks. If I'm organized, I might be able to sneak another update in before Christmas, but that promises to be another busy time of year, what with Ali's mum coming for another visit. She put it to me this way - somebody is coming to escort Ali back to Japan, and I have a choice. Either her or Genya. That's not really a choice, but you can see why I'm happy the mum is coming. I'm preparing myself mentally for her arrival by practicing good conversation, forgetting naughty conversation, chewing plum-flavoured gum (Oishi!) and listening to Takashi Fujii albums. He's more than just a whacky blond-haired television host appearing in Lost in Translation but he's a singer too. Such talent! He's Ali's new favourite singer, and she's got all his dance routines down pat.

Lorenzo R. Benedetti Jr.

I'm a Nuncle! Enzo J. tipped the scales at 5 pounds 11 ounces and was born at 10:11 p.m on the 14th of October. I meant to post this stuff up Sunday night after Ali got a few snaps, but I remembered that I had promised some film-related content. Hang in there, lads! It's coming up next. I just want to say that I'm gonna be the crazy uncle - the one who babysits once in a while and brings gelato for dinner and teaches Poisson distributions by playing Punchbuggy! or more probably by watching sexy sportscars pass through a particular intersection while we wear berets (black for me, red for Enzo J.) and have a choc or two or maybe a latte (decaf for Enzo J). Homework is important afterall.

Ali and I drove out to the hospital Sunday afternoon and spent about an hour in there visiting Sissy. She didn't want to be in the hospital, but you can't always get what you want. I didn't want to hold the baby because I always feel like Lenny from Of Mice and Men feels around puppies. I was surprised at how quiet Enzo J. was, but Ali said frankly that Enzo was a polite baby. Then he pooped on her. That made me laugh a little. Enough baby.

Ali's past the whole Prison Break thing. She's not riveted to the telly every time the show is on now. I came out of the shower this morning and found her in the kitchen washing some tomatoes. "I love tomato!" I could tell by her exuberance that she really liked tomatoes, so as a joke I asked, "Why don't you marry one then?" I turned around to go back into the bath and put my contacts in but before I could make it through the door something whizzed past my shoulder and exploded onto the mirror in the bath. A tomato, evidently an overly ripe, perhaps slightly rotten one obviously meant for the back of my head just missed the strike zone. After I cleaned up the mess and put in my contacts, I went back to the kitchen to see Ali happily munching on a tomato with a little bit of salt. That might actually taste good, unlike carrots and salt, what Jimmy C., my best friend until second form used to eat. His mum would give him carrots as a snack but he wouldn't eat it unless she enrobed it in salt. She gave me one a couple of times, but I didn't like them. I can't say what became of Jimmy C. but illness related to a high-sodium diet wouldn't surprise me. I shouldn't complain about the tomato. To make it up, Ali prepared cold soba noodles and tempura for supper. Lotus tempura rocks!

Gay! Gay! Gay! These were my thoughts as I watched the opening credits of My Fair Lady starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. "This is so gay that... well, George Cukor could have directed it!" And so it was. The triggers were all the flowers in the opening credits and the strings. For some reason, this triggered Cukor in my brain. You know, the guy who directed like 95% of Gone With the Wind and then got his ass fired? Yeah, him. Of course, the trigger might also have been the link to Hepburn. I heard somewhere that he liked working with her, so when I saw her name on the DVD case, that kind of set up the trigger. A little treat for fans of Sherlock Holmes too. Apart from a few seconds in the opening scene in Covent Garden, the late Jeremy Brett stays out of the film for the first half, but still manages to get final billing - the second best place to have your name in the credits. Even though his singing is dubbed in the high notes, he gave a good performance.

I was very pleased with the casting of Colonel Pickering. Wilfrid Hyde-White bore a strong resemblance, both physically and attitudinally to my Auditing professor. I'll have to break his heart in a few weeks when I tell him that his awesome teaching skills failed to help me pass the exam both times. I'm sure of it. The upside is that I'll get to have another ten weeks of listening to him make auditing as fun as it can possibly be. I'd seen Hyde-Whyte before, he's the kind of English actor you recognize, but cannot place because Hollywood never got its head out of its ass long enough to give him a lead role. I checked his work, and the only thing I can remotely remember seeing is Battlestar Galactica, (the original, not the one with Grace Park) but my memory of it is so feeble, I can hardly remember whether it was a series or a television movie. I want to say that he was in The Avengers at some point, but its just not so. The whole portrayal was made even stronger by the fact that my professor denied any interest in Formula 1, desite being from Northants., the home of Silverstone and the British Grand Prix off and on since 1950. Instead, he told me he preferred Ascot which is featured in the film. Of course, watching the hats file through the scene, I half expected Sasori to come waltzing through the picture. That would have been nice, but impossible since the character Sasori wouldn't be created on screen until many years later.

Some notes about the house of Henry Higgins: It reminds me quite strongly of the YHA hostel Bobby booked me in at Bath many, many years ago - the layout only. Don't expect to go there seeing a gramophone in every corner. To a lesser extent, it reminds me of the hostel Bobby and I stayed in at London on the same trip (East London, I believe (and not East London, South Africa, venue of the South African Grand Prix on multiple occasions) but London proper by which I mean Westminster). Also, I find myself appalled by the fact that this film somehow incorporates linguistics into its plot. I want to tell everyone, and by that I mean all three of you, that this type of linguistics has fallen from favour in the profession. This film deals with prescriptive linguistics not descriptive linguistics. Sorry, but I take that sort of thing a little too seriously, having dedicated two whole semesters to the study of language. Hopefully, Bobby takes it seriously too.

[Cue the film geek]: This is the part where I mention flaws in the film. At one point, Eliza comes home to bed and is singing. Between moving between the bath and the bedroom, she does not turn off the tap. For ecologically-minded people, this may have been enough reason to stop watching the film or to write a letter, but it did not bother me. I had lost interest in this film as soon as Higgins and Pickering made a bet out of Eliza's future. The taps reminded me of a friend who couldn't sleep unless he let the taps in the bath run. His wife told me that it reminded him of the surf in Barbados, where he lived as a young adult. I didn't buy it. How could water running from a tap equate the surf of Barbados? I took it as another cue for my friend's wife to drop hints that her husband had been independently wealthy in his earlier years, and was now only slightly less so. I hate people like that, don't you? George Cukor was awesome, but he wasn't that good that he couldn't conceal the gas piping laid in the fire. It's clearly meant to be a wood-burning fire, for Eliza is seen sifting through the ash for her ring and I'm quite sure that gas fire places didn't exist in the period that the film is meant to portray (pre-1930s). For further goofs, you may go here.

Why did I watch My Fair Lady? Ali brought it home. It's like she says - if you bought it at a dollar store, you didn't bargain hard enough. She was all ecstatic because she found a way to get DVD movies for free. From the library! It took me a few days to get through, but it was interesting. I wish that there was less singing and more dialogue so viewers could witness Doolittle's transition more closely. For example, that song that Harrison sings about why can't a woman be more like a man could go. If there is a gayer song in theatrical musicals, I haven't heard it. This movie was good though because it stole the fire away from the other movie I watched since Enzo J. was born.

And that movie was Sleepy Hollow starring Johnny Depp, and Christina Ricci among others. I thought it a bit funny that in the DVD features, the American actors kept referring to the tale as a classic American story, which it is, but that there were more English people in the cast than American. Michael Gambon, yes he of the Layer Cake, the very person who proclaims "Welcome to the layer cake, son" portrays Baltus van Tassel, one of the town elders. He's Irish actually, but the point is that he's making an American tale happen. Okay, so the English dudes included that guy from Pie in the Sky Richard Griffiths, Miranda Richardson though she plays an American character, Ian McDiarmid and Michael Gough (actually born in Malaysia but, you know). Oh yes, Christopher Walken plays the headless horseman. He's American.

I was all set to go on a rant about how certain Hollywood figures can get away with anything, but then I realized that the whole incident involving Jeffrey Jones happened AFTER Sleepy Hollow was made. Now, I'm not trying to say Jones did or didn't do anything, but I do tend to believe most things I read at thesmokinggun.com. To be honest, Jones portrays the role in Sleepy Hollow quite well, and I can't think of anyone better suited to play the hideously smarmy character of Reverend Steenwyck. Well done Jeffrey!

Oh, and the movie stars Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane as the investigator sent from New York City to investigate multiple mysterious deaths. Depp's performance was very well done. I'm starting to appreciate his acting more and more, but in a way he'll always be Officer Tom Hanson from 21 Jump Street to me - and I can't take him completely seriously all the time. Before I forget, the movie also featured another English guy as the magistrate or whatever. Christopher Lee is a guy who did actually play in the Avengers on a few occasions, and apparently made quite a name for himself otherwise as a vampire or mummy. I almost had to pause the DVD and explain to Ali about Lee's career - more so than I wanted to pause My Fair Lady and whip out all my Sherlock Holmes' tapes starring Jeremy Brett. But I did neither. If an actor is older than 21, Ali doesn't care. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen? She'll care. So there is a huge void between our interests in film, but we somehow reconcile that.

Tim Burton directs, someone I have to admit I've never paid much attention to. He's got the potential and the creativity to become my new favourite American director but I'll have to see more of his stuff before I can truly decide.

Forget Peach Sunset - Try Crimson Ume Cocktail

Last Saturday was kinda hectic for me. Because I'm such a mensch, I helped Orange Peel move house. I'm that sort of friend - the kind who never calls or hangs out with you but is always among the first to help you move. It's kind of a thing now. The following conversation has taken place at more than one cocktail party:

"Ooooh, yeah. (******* and) I (are) am moving house next week and I'm at a bit of a short end. No decent moving company can schedule (us) me in."

"I say...."

"Can you recommend anyone good?"

"Actually, I do. You should call Dax. He's got safety boots."

"Oh really? Does he do pianos? Mha ha ha."

"Ha ha ha! Can I freshen your drink?"

[Surveys the room] "Which one is Dax then?"

"Sorry! He's the one serving the drinks."

"Oh, I see. Ha. Ha ha ha."

"Ha ha ha."

So that's basically why I get called, because I own decent footwear. But anyway, that load-in and load-out went really well except for the fact that Orange Peel moved in to a walk up, and the landlord would not allow shoes on the carpet. That cut the crew in half, luckily my half had two fit guys to move the settees and I just had to carry heavy boxes or really awkward light stuff.

After scarfing down a beer and burger (payment for services rendered), I had to race home and get the stink off before collecting Ali at the airport. I got there early (big surprise) and waited, watching the gerberas slowly die. Not a Hollywood homecoming by any means. Ali was less interested in seeing me and more interested in making sure all her luggage arrived from Miami.

So we get back home, and my pee was the colour of the beverage in the photo above. Please note: That is not a glass of my actual pee. I do not drink urine. This is not that type of blog. My first thought was that I'd ruptured something during that oh-so-easy move, but it didn't quite make sense. I woke up Sunday and the same thing happened. I was getting a little worried. I had another cup of tea and everything went back to normal. Problem solved. Or so I thought.

Tuesday morning I started to get a familiar pain in my lower gut. It couldn't be kidney stones because a locum told me that I had passed it in August. I wasn't going back to the clinic because I'm not working now so I don't have medical coverage. Finally the pain was so bad that I decided the hit to my wallet was worth it and schlepped to the clinic. It turns out that what the stupid doctor told me was not exactly what he wrote in my file, and in fact he misinformed me of the results of an earlier CT scan. He told me that I was fine and that I must have passed the stone. Stupid fuck. That's what happens when you wait three weeks before discussing test results with someone else's patients. Of course they're going to be asymptomatic. At the very least, their symptoms would be indicative of something else either much better or much worse. Stupid fuck. If the patient looks okay, that doesn't necessarily mean that the problem has been resolved. I told Tuesday's doctor (if you're keeping count, that's three doctors because my regular doctor is away for an extended leave) that the second doctor lied to me, at which point she explained that he didn't exactly lie but perhaps put too much emphasis on the wrong part of the examination. She gave me a prescription for some pain killers and shooed me on my way.

The first one worked, but the second one didn't. I went to class that night, hoping to make up for what happened last week but ended up cutting that class halfway through as well because the pain was coming back strong. Thursday I was fine except for the occasional dull pain, and on Thursday I passed it. I expected it to hurt like hell, but I guess I had a smooth stone because I didn't even notice it.

Ali is all happy for once. When she came home she was a little miffed that she couldn't work on her blog on my computer. After somehow altering the registry to my operating system forever, and doing no good I finally found out how to change my system so that Ali could type in kanji. That got me a bowl of my favourite Japanese ramen. Right now she's prancing around the flat because tonight is the Japanese Grand Prix. She couldn't give a flying fuck about the other 16 races this year - the race at Suzuka is the only one that matters as far as she's concerned. It used to be the final race of the season and much fuss was made because it more often than not decided the championship, but for the last few years Brazil has been bumped down the calendar from first to last on the schedule so there's not so much fanfare at Suzuka.

Alright, that was another post without a movie but we really planned to go see one. Ali really wants to see The Departed, but had me confused because all she told me was that it had Matt Damon and "that old guy from As Good as It Gets. At first I thought she wanted to see The Guardian so I told her to wait a week. After figuring out what movie she actually wanted to watch, I was all geared to catch a matinée of The Guardian but the weather was so nice for October that I didn't want to waste it and Ali had more pressing issues. We schlepped all over midtown looking for index cards(!) and when she finally found some, they were too big. What? Index cards come in a generally uniform size, babe. Just how much are you planning to fit on these cards? Apparently, normal 3 x 5 American index cards are not "Japanese style" and are too clumsy for sensible tastes. There's some really good stuff out there and I promise that the next time I post something on here, it will have some relevance to an actual movie.

Three More Days

Right. I better start watching some movies again soon, or I'll have to change the name of this blog to Dax Writes an Awful Lot About His Unexciting Personal Life and Watches a Movie... Occasionally. To that end, I planned to rent Running Scared starring Paul Walker, a film I briefly noted in a previous post but it took so long to finally hit theatres and then was gone so quickly that I never got the chance. Well, guess what popped up on a list of "Customer Recommendations" at that charming little video shop I often visit? Yeah. A friend said "It's kinda like Pulp Fiction, Dude" At which point I had to choke down the bile and bits of pear, and titter (straight guys can titter), and reply "Don't you wanna sell me on this film?" In fairness, looking at it from an unbiased point of view, I'd have to say that Pulp Fiction was, for whatever it was, well done. I really didn't like it, like Ali doesn't like insects, the first time I saw it because I didn't understand it, and more accurately didn't want to believe that Hollywood would pay money to make this type of film. I still don't really understand it, but I accept that some people, like (big fat) Sissy, find this movie funny. Did I mention that I'm gonna be an uncle? I'm trying my best to find a good mohel, but in this city everyone knows a good mohel. That's why Sissy is fat, I'm not saying it to be mean, it's a fact. The whole bris thing has given me a great idea for a t-shirt, but Looch says that it's too niche. In her words, "Only the finocchios would buy that one. The set up costs would kill my profits."

I resent it, just a little bit that Ali can take a week and a half off from her job, while I have to sit in a warehouse stuffing boxes. I often wonder why employers encourage their employees to come up with new business ideas. It might not be completely accurate, but I kinda get the impression that Looch is using my business acumen against me.

This week has been kinda tough. Classes started again and I missed my usual lecture because I was too busy working on a paper. I ended up attending Wednesday's lecture. Never again! The lecturer is the same dude, but the facilities are totally different. On Wednesday, he ends up hand writing everything and standing in front of the overhead half the time so you can't read what he wrote. And then there was the overly chatty guy who decided to sit right next to me and chit chat the whole first half - and various other people who thought the lecture was just another version of dinner theatre. People, I know the lectures are technically not mandatory and your money makes the course happen, but at least have the decency not to slurp your sodas while the rest of us are trying to learn and ignore the smell of onions on your double cheeseburger at the same time. A coffee and a nosh - fine, but one must draw the line. Dax, you can't change the world - you can only change yourself. Sure, so I'm gonna forget Wednesday's lecture - the lecture I walked out of at the break.

On the way home, my stomach was wanting a little attention so the closest place between campus and my flat was a place I used to hang out at after work. Everything was cool - a few familiar faces all remembering me, no angry Filipinos repeatedly threatening to kill me, so it was okay. I had my usual, House Burger - no onion, not toasted with a pint of lager and a shot of Jagermeister. I sent the burger back because the bun was in fact toasted. When the bartender returned it, I examined it for spittle and then determined that perhaps the first bun had not been toasted, instead it may have been a very thick type of quality bread.

And then, my old boss walked in - not the old guy whom I tore a strip off when I quit, but his boss, the boss of bosses. The really straight-laced type who always looks at you like he's got a terrifying secret that you mustn't find out, and also an oddly placed moustache that makes it all that much easier to imagine that perhaps his terrifying secret is that he's into leather and that he prefers bottom. Well, the moustache is gone now, but he always sits away from everyone else with his soup (who the hell goes to a sports bar to have soup?) which makes me think he's trying to hide his secret even more. I don't think he recognized me at first, but as I left I looked back and he was looking up from his evening paper and I waved. He peered down through his reading glasses and gave me a perfectly English smile - the smile that says that one is not necessarily happy to see someone or that one isn't quite sure why a really fit guy listening to the Arctic Monkeys on the iPod is waving to him from halfway across the bar, but nevertheless must smile to be polite.

That's when I remembered why I stopped going to that bar - I have a way of overhearing other conversations and it's not like I'm trying, really I'm not - but it occurred to me that the guy sitting to my immediate left was trying to steal the guy sitting to his left away from my former employer which would have been really, really stupid considering that my former employer was sitting at the back of the bar and could surveil the situation quite easily. The thing that made it difficult was that the guy to the left of the guy to my left was unknown to me. It's quite possible that he started at the firm sometime after I left, but the other difficulty was that I couldn't really tell who was trying to steal whom. I determined that the guy to my left was the actor in that situation and that the guy to the far left was the agent. Wait - that's confusing unless you've studied syntax. The guy to my immediate left was doing the stealing - he had a southern accent and kept talking about Texas like that was where he was recruiting from, and besides he wasn't my former employer's usual, overly-priced-for-what-you-get, extremely hands-off recruiter. And the guy on the far end looked like the young, go-getter type that my former employer would normally employ, but who really had to put himself first in every situation and would jump at a better chance if he felt it would get him further ahead. Eventually, I decided that my sense of agency did not extend to my former employer and that I owed him no such duty and left.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I wanted to get Running Scared, but I ended up going to the lecture instead and then leaving half way through. I'm pretty sure that because of my actions this evening, I'm going to be hooped when it comes time to write the next paper but its been weird without Ali around. Three more days...

... And Then She Was Gone

Yeah, this Prison Break thing is starting to get out of hand. Ali woke me up Saturday morning holding a broken light bulb over my left eye. That was about the right time, I reckoned, to let her know that that stuff doesn't happen in my house. Big mistake, but that's all I'm gonna say about that. She put the lightbulb in the trash and told me I had no sense of humour. Somehow, I was in the doghouse when really all I wanted to do was save my eye ball.

The doghouse - a familiar milieu for me. Sunday morning Ali blared into my ear a nice Japanese jingle Ii kata aru zo... Misuta Do-onatsu. I didn't even ask, I just pulled on my jeans and stuff and shlepped around the block looking for a Dunkin Donuts. I came back with two fritters and a coffee (for me, stupidly) and crawled back into bed.

This whole roommate thing has its advantages, its disadvantages, but better still, its humourous moments. I am lucky enough to have a dishwasher in my flat, but Ali insists upon washing the dishes by hand - where she learned that I'll never know - and then using the dishwasher effectively as a drying rack. Sissy used to think I was weird because I would rinse, or soak the tough grime before loading the washer, but this takes the cake. Ali actually washes the dishes before putting them in the washer, but she doesn't turn the washer on. I giggle.

Another fun time was teaching Ali how to use the clothes washer - I have one of those in my flat too with a dryer even. I left for work one morning and asked Ali to do the washing and when I came home I noticed that there was nothing to be washed. Instinctively, I went to the dryer and looked for things to fold. There was nothing. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Did you do the washing?

Ali: Yeah.

Me: Where is it?

Ali: It's out.

Me: Out?

Ali: Yeah!

Me: Out where?

Ali: At the cleaners. I called the service.

Me: Oh. You know, you can do the washing here (gesturing to the washer and drying stack).

Ali: Oh, I thought that was a coat closet... You do laundry?

Me: Yes, famously. Come here - I'll show you how to operate the machines.

Well, I nearly had a heart attack a few days later when I saw her doing a load of "whites" and then she slipped off her pyjama bottoms - her bright red pyjama bottoms - and tossed them in the wash. "Awwww SNAP! What are you DOING?", I asked incredulously. "What's your fucking problem? Maid always washed our pyjamas with the whites". I steadied myself and then took a deep breath, remembering an e-mail that Sissy had sent me a few days earlier:

Washing Clothes Recipe

Never thought of a "washer" in this light before... what a blessing!
'Washing Clothes Recipe' -- imagine having a recipe for this!!!

Years ago an Alabama grandmother gave the new bride the following recipe:

This is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrapbook - with spelling errors and all.

WASHING CLOTHES

Build fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water. Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert. Shave one hole cake of lie soap in boilin water.

Sort things, make 3 piles
1 pile white,
1 pile colored,
1 pile work britches and rags.

To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with boiling water.

Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard, and boil, then rub colored don't boil just wrench and starch.

Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then wrench, and starch.

Hang old rags on fence.

Spread tea towels on grass.

Pore wrench water in flower bed. Scrub porch with hot soapy water. Turn tubs upside down.

Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs. Brew cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings.

================================================
Paste this over your washer and dryer. Next time when you think things are bleak, read it again, kiss that washing machine and dryer, and give thanks. First thing each morning you should run and hug your washer and dryer, also your toilet---those two-holers used to get mighty cold!

For you non-southerners -wrench means rinse. ;)


For the record, I know what wrench water is - not because I'm from the South, which I'm not - but because I spent more than a few Saturdays as a kid at Gran's house (helping) do(ing) the washing in a similar fashion.

After the whole doughnut incident, I decided that I needed to watch a sporting event. I bought a couple tickets to a Jets game. We lost, but Ali enjoyed it - I think. I spent half of the first quarter in the beer queue and spent a bargain $7.50 for a regular size serving. Eeee! When I got back to the seats Ali was checking out the free Jets shirt she got from a vendor. I smiled because it wasn't red - fucking red. Ali said she would have enjoyed it more if she knew the rules, but I couldn't give a damn about the rules. I care about the objective, and the objective couldn't be simpler.

So I haven't seen any movies lately, though I was tempted to rent Layer Cake again but instead spent last Friday evening trying to collect Ali's vitamin supplements in Newark. She hummed Lalo Schifrin's Mission Impossible the whole time. Delighted. That's another thing I love about Ali - she has a real talent for music. She studied the bassoon, but she doesn't call it that. Apparently, in Japanese they use the italian fagotto, but I can't use that word. It's not practical. Imagine me trying to introduce Ali to some friends in a café:

Abe: So, this shiksa - What does she do?

Me: Not much, I guess. A little hostessing, and she's learning English at school.

Moshe: Well, what did she do before?

Me: Finance, I think. I'm not too sure.

Wayne the Goy: Any hobbies?

Me: Uhhh, she used to play the faggoto. I mean --

[cup flies across the café just missing my precious eye]

Michael, the Easily Offended Homosexual with a Knee-jerk Response: WHAT? What did you just call me?

Me: Whoa whoa whoa, dude. I was merely using the Italian for the tenor woodwind, a bassoon. Surely, you're familiar...

Michael: You just, you just shut it. I'm proud of who I am, and I don't need to hear your negativity.

Me: Dude.

[end imaginary conversation]

I wanted to rent the movie because one of my recent converts saw it and had a few questions that I couldn't answer. I needed to watch it again. I will not rest until the entire world sees Layer Cake.

Not seeing any movies, but having a lot of fun planning parties. Get this, two of Ali's friends are taking some ridiculous speed holiday and they have a 2 day stopover which happens to coincide with one's birthday. One of these new roommate things is that you have to be ready to open your home to strangers, partiers and other revelers at any time. I'm getting used to it quite quickly because well, I don't really have a choice. Until now, the only party I've ever hosted was a lukewarm birthday party for Bobby and myself a few years ago. Never again... maybe. Okay, so the party sucked, but the food and alcohol - oy!

I raced home after work to get some nosh started because Ali was too busy showing her friends the sights. When they arrived home, they were too full to enjoy my lobster/crab canapés and weren't too interested in the sake. Ali didn't tell me that her friends don't drink. Oh well, at least they had room later on for the cake. Chocolate mousse over caramelized bananas with crème brulée filling on a financier crust. We bought it, but it was still good. We had a great time afterall, but seeing these two chicks leave only brought home the fact that Ali was leaving two days after. Right now she's having a nice little holiday in Miami, probably enjoying her favourite drink, a tequila dacquiri - sounds disgusting I know, but it's actually quite good - and grooving to those latin rhythms. Eeeee! The next time I see her will be in Newark. Hopefully that won't be a mission impossible.

By the way -- Layer Cake!

Date sugoi jori jori nandemo

I've done it! I've learned a pivotal word in Japanese, and have finally unlocked the cause~effect relationship. Before, I could only say simple little phrases which even a kid in kindergarten would consider pedestrian, but now I've hooked the word for because, at least one of the words for because because there are probably more than one. Sure, I could have just asked how to say because but I prefer a more organic learning process. Baby steps, people. Just like a first language, only I took some pretty big baby steps with English. Instead of receiving a blank stare from Ali after telling her 'My foot hurts', the next time it happens I will be able to say without fail 'My foot hurts because the taxi has just mashed it into the street' all in one instead of two separate sentences. Baby steps.

I learned the word date, or at least what it meant Monday morning. I was sleeping late, enjoying my long weekend when I felt Ali tugging at my facial hair. Not like a few bits at the same time - she would single out one follicle and tug hard on it. She might as well have been shoving needles in my face. I asked her why she was doing that, and she said Date sugoi jori jori nandemo which meant something along the lines of 'because (your beard) is getting really stubbly'. The jori jori part is meant to be an onomatopoeic referring to the sound the beard makes when stroked. Ali has got a million phrases like that, that's just one of the cool things about her. To hammer the point home, she began polishing her nails against my chin like an Emory board and then used another one of those cool phrases to show how they sparkled kira kira kira.

Another really cool thing about her is this - I arrived home after a tasking day of stocking orders and calling couriers - only to confront a very pleasant aroma wafting through the flat. Ali's gone, but she has left a large plate of chijimi (Korean okonomiaki) and some onigiri on the counter. People say that threesomes are every man's fantasy, but not this everyman. A nice supper waiting for me is my fantasy. Threesomes are overrated - take it from me. This food thing is making it really difficult to diet, but when Ali cooks it means something important.

I've been kept on for another month at Looch's. She reckons the weather is really good and sales have never been better so she can make more profit by staying open until October. Well, me and my big mouth have gotten me in trouble as usual. Looch, Ali and I went for lunch, not Greek afterall, but whatever. As I thought, Looch loved my idea about adjusting the product delivery cycle, and appointed me in charge of making it happen. In my mind, that meant making a few calls to couriers to get information and hiring someone to set up proper documentation at the warehouse. But what Looch heard was that I was applying for a job at the warehouse to get things in order. She tried to make that steak sizzle by telling me that it would help with the inventory audit and all that. I guess I could have told Looch to fuck off, but my sense of agency caught me again and I accepted the change.

Also at the lunch meeting, Ali accepted an offer to begin selling tees. I figured she would say no, but money is money and let's be frank, it's not like we're really working. I was a little pissed though when Looch offered Ali a cool $100 more per week than she offered me for the same position. I laughed to myself because I knew that Ali would never sell as many tees as I did because she didn't like tanning and would avoid the beach like she avoids Walmart. She started hanging out at the public library and made more orders in one week than I made in three, mostly from guys. I never had that idea, and I'm not sure it would work for a dude, but it worked for her.

A small victory for me I guess, I've cut the delivery cycle down to 1 day for some areas, and 2 days for others. It's going to cost Looch up to 50 cents more per order, and I've had to contract with a company that specializes in overnighting but I'm all about the streamlining, and the increased revenue from repeat orders will generate a net increase in profits.

Saturday Eggs

The medium is McDonald's ketchup on omelette, more specifically omu raisu or rice omelette. For those who don't read Japanese, it reads baka which can be translated many ways, but the sentiment here was "asshole".

Barely 24 hours into the new living situation, and we'd already had a fight - well more of a misunderstanding. In the wise words of Trey, my wax guy, the key to a successful relationship is communication. Sounds easy enough, right? I came home Friday night, moments after being given choice advice from Trey, with my knuckles looking like this, only with a lot more blood leaving a nice little trail through the lobby and into the lift.


No sweat - Danny, a bottle blond 50-something and his partner Piet, a 6-foot 5 Dutch dude of similar age offered to clean up the blood. They were in the lift, and noticed the blood in the first place. I was trying to hide it from Ali, but not after the fuss Danny made. As you can see, I'm a Southpaw. Looks fine now, but the camera doesn't show the internal bruising.

I'm not exactly sure why, maybe it was because of something I said when I was trying to fix a plaster, but Ali started sobbing. I knew her rules - no fighting in front of her, no raising my voice, etc. which is why I tried to hide the blood in the first place - but she had never seen me throw the punch and I spoke calmly the entire time after we left the lift, so as far as I was concerned, she really had nothing to worry about. Well, I spent the rest of the night apologizing and trying to get her to say SOMETHING. The next morning, I was reminded of the other, very new rule. Only normal violence, idiot! Whatever that means. I guess what she was trying to say was that I can only fight if someone hits me first or if I'm trying to remove her from imminent danger, or if we happen to be at a WTO protest and somebody lobs in some CS gas because they think it might make things more fun. Effectively, she was telling (by not telling me, but otherwise communicating to) me that no violence would be tolerated because the chances of our being in the proximity of any civil unrest are negligible.

I guess we're back to normal now because she woke me up with a bit of pressure on my left hand and a very loud, clearly enunciated "Nutella! I want Nutella for breakfast, Snowflake - no crusts!"

Crank - 70% Pure

It's been a busy couple of weeks, fraught with late night panic-driven phone calls from Tokyo, and threatening e-mails from some guy named Genya, but more on that in a bit.

I won free movie passes to Jason Statham's new film called Crank. A few months back, some friends from the ad agency came back from lunch all giddy because Statham came into the restaurant where they had eaten. He was filming in my city and I reckoned Crank was the one he was doing here, but imdb says that Crank was filmed entirely in L.A. Anyway, I wanted the passes because of the local connection, but I had to fork them over to Ali because I had to study for a brutal final exam the next day. It was rough, and I'll probably have to retake the course - at least it's not statistics. I see that Statham is reprising his role of Handsome Rob in a sequel to the remake of The Italian Job, called The Brazilian Job. That might sound like a film about a really fun salon, but it's more likely about a bank heist.

So Ali and her friend Mariko went to the cinema and got to enjoy a film I'll probably never see. Her review is as follows:

Me: So, how was it?
Ali: I nearly barfed, man...
Me: It was that bad, huh?
Ali: No, I just felt sick the whole time, and Mariko was ill too.
Me: Did you sit in the front row again?
Ali: No.
Me: Okay, gimme the qualitative analysis.
Ali: Uhhh, it was so-so. It had a fair bit of action, and the car chases you'd like.
Me: Any romance?
Ali: More comedy.
Me: Like 2LDK?
Ali: Different.
Me: Out of 5 stars?
Ali: Three point half.

So that's it - Statham gets 70% for Crank, which is what I could only hope for on my final. Who knows? Let the nail biting begin. All that studying and it might end up being for nothing.

One of Ali's classmates told her about this "really cute actor" named Wentworth Miller. Ever since, Miss "I don't like violence" Ali has been itching to watch Prison Break. I took a break from studying and hooked up the aerial so she could watch the premiere of Season 2. Of course, I've been watching since Episode 1, but I could tell she wasn't enjoying it. She said that she needed to get the background of the story, so last Saturday I got her Season 1 on DVD. All of a sudden, the telly is more interesting than I. For the past week, she's been calling me Snowflake or Fish and even splashed a bucket of cold water in my face as I slept Tuesday morning. That stopped as soon as she realized that the bed doesn't dry right away. Now, she just wakes me up by yelling "You're late Snowflake!" in my ear.

And so that brings me to Genya. For a while now, Ali has been looking for a place to live, and it would seem obvious that she should move in with me, but we both like a lot of space. I wasn't sure she'd go for it, but it's official. Ali has moved in as of last night. In the last couple days of August, Ali had to deal with annoying calls from her mother -- annoying in the sense that the calls came at about 3:00 a.m. All of a sudden, I was a thing from erstwhile planet Pluto with tentacles growing out of its back or something and no longer the guy who only weeks before had Ali's mother laughing her ass off and wiping away the tears because me so funny. It's quite an accomplishment to use the only two words one knows of a foreign language and mispronounce them at the very exact time that the two completely different words could be their most hilarious -- by accident. But I did it, and I'll probably never do it again. Now, her mum was freaking about all the things that could happen when a decent Japanese girl moves in with a hakujin. Ali got the calls, and I got the e-mails. The title line of the first one was 'We are friends of Ayako' I nearly deleted them until I remembered that I did in fact know someone named Ayako. Ayako is Ali's real name, so I opened the e-mail which came from someone calling himself Genya. I asked Ali about this guy, and it turns out this guy is real. She seemed concerned that Genya should e-mail me personally. She said it was serious for him to do that because he's really supposed to work for Ali's dad as like a driver/caddy/bodyguard/general bad ass and that if he e-mailed me, it's because her dad told him to. The mails weren't too specific, but I do recall that Genya offered to break my arms in such a way that "If they are reset, it will be very painful that you can hope that the doctors to slice them down". I asked Ali to clarify the message, but I basically already understood it to mean that my arms would be broken so that they will never heal properly and the pain would be so great that I would regret that the surgeon just didn't amputate my limbs. Ali got on the phone and called her mum and said that this was going too far. There were more, better written e-mails after that, but they were relatively pleasant.


I may be late to the party on this one, and there's no big Youtube critique about it, but as a tribute to Fuckstress, a former blogger whose writing I really enjoyed reading, and to Fireangel who, if I'm right, started the whole thing in the first place - Here's a snap of me enjoying a very large Hoegaarden (billed at 22 ounces, but more like 20 ounces with 2 ounces of foam in a fuck-off size glass). There would have been more photos, but Ali doesn't want people to see her drinking, and really who needs more than one photo to get the idea? As you can see, I've been hanging out at the beach trying to get a great tan, but nobody told my melanocytes and I've ended up getting a gentle burn.

Be Careful of Whom You Invite for Dinner

Yes, that's right. Be careful about whom you invite to dinner. And for those of you who have the patience to read the entire entry, I have a cocktail recipe you can serve your next dinner guests. You could, I suppose, just scroll down to the recipe but that's the easy way, isn't it? Please also mind that the special recipe is for adults only. Dax Watches Movies in no way condones the delinquency of minors (though I am thankful to those adults who contributed to my delinquency as a minor), and any minors reading this entry would kindly stop reading at the point indicated and do some chores or something. I don't know why it is, perhaps I'm really trying to avoid studying which is weird because I really want to pass this exam once and for all, but I watched two movies on Saturday.

Ali and I watched the first one because I really want to encourage her to watch more English language films without having to read subtitles, and because we didn't really have anything on that day. It was gorgeous on Saturday, so my first thought was to sit in a dark vault for 2 hours watching what I expected to be predictable comedy. We had to do it before 17:00 so that we could take advantage of the matinée price. To my surprise, Ali was up for it.

I would like to be clear about this up front - I am not a NASCAR fan, but I will refrain from making jokes about NASCAR and its fans, because I know some very genuine kind-hearted people who are fans of NASCAR. I am, however a fan of Sacha Baron Cohen whom, I first believed a complete fool, but thanks to youtube.com I have grown to appreciate his craft. Will Ferrell, meh. A talented man surely, but he always relies on comedic crutches - at least in (not m)any film(s) I've seen him in.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby was the vehicle, and a supporting role by John C. Reilly, famously of Boogie Nights helped bring home the underlying message of the film - friends and family are important. Various other underlying messages such as 'same-sex marriage may not be so popular but its here to stay', or 'it really is possible to brand every frame of a film', or 'maybe Highlander wasn't such a great movie' are repeated throughout this movie. Let's face it, people either love or hate Will Ferrell. If you hate him, take the time to consider his upcoming movie alongside Dustin Hoffman and Queen Latifah called Stranger than Fiction. The trailer makes it look like a semi-dramatic role, and maybe worth the dosh.

Ferrell plays a race driver who gains instant success in NASCAR because he's spent his entire childhood and youth living, eating and breathing the stuff. Reilly plays his best friend who earns a spot as Ricky Bobby's co-driver, always the bridesmaid. Ricky Bobby becomes the Michael Schumacher of NASCAR and wins, at any cost, pretty much every race until his boss' son hires a former F1 driver to win for the team with less carnage. Cohen plays a gay Frenchman with a ridiculous accent who, upon meeting Bobby, breaks his arm because he won't say he likes crèpes. Driving with a broken arm in the next race, Bobby causes a large accident and basically ruins any credibility he has left. His Felipe Massa, excuse me, his co-driver becomes bitter because Bobby never gifted him a win and with Bobby gone, becomes the star driver. Three drivers now work for this team, Bobby has been replaced by a new driver and takes to delivering pizza after losing his wife and home to his best friend. Bobby goes through a transformation to win back the respect of his deadbeat father played by Gary Cole and a sweet black and gold Chevelle. He reassembles his team and enters the Daytona 500. Due to his reckless driving, Bobby manages to decimate the field on the final lap, and ends up in a roll down the finish straight with the Perrier car of Cohen's character Jean Girard. The commentator calls it the worst accident he's ever seen, which makes him a liar because in real life he would surely remember Ricky Rudd's accident from about 20 years ago. That was the worst NASCAR accident I'd seen up to that point and one of the few I still remember. Ricky got his car up in the air at 90 degrees, nose down, and the car did two or three pirouettes before putting a massive divot into the infield. In any event, the cinematic collision was nothing like the wrecks these guys wind up in nowadays. Maybe it's got something to do with 33 big cars and even bigger egos all trying to be #1. Bobby and Girard climb out of their wrecks and begin sprinting toward the finish line. I leaned over to Ali and said, "This doesn't count" as explained by the on screen announcer about 45 seconds later. The win goes to Cal Naughton, Jr., Bobby's erstwhile teammate and former best friend. Finally defeated and free to be himself, Girard slinks off into the sunset and Bobby and Naughton talk things over. Bobby explains that he cannot be best friends with Naughton anymore, but they are still civil to one another. Bobby and his two kids, his girlfriend, his mum and his deadbeat dad all pile into the black and gold Chevelle and drive off to Applebee's for a fine dinner. Bonus points to the creative department for managing to wedge a song by Monster Magnet into a NASCAR film.

The second film we watched was recommended by a guy at the video shop. One that I'd seen on the shelf, but never bothered to watch because it was an award winner at some festival somewhere and because I wasn't interested in Takashi Miike at the time. Truthfully, Ali watched only the first half before falling asleep. The Miike stuff really doesn't really start until the second half anyway, so I don't blame her. All the guy at the shop could tell me about Bizita Q or Visitor Q was, "It's really fucked up dude" and that might be the best, most succinct way to describe this movie. The movie is a little like Pulp Fiction in that it doesn't have a central story line. Instead, it takes various chapters of a family's daily life and combines them. After watching the first few scenes, which would have been enough for most people to walk out of the theatre, I was trying to imagine the pitch that got this movie sold, and then I was trying to imagine what kind of fucked up producer would spend the money to make the film. Perhaps I was being too judgmental at that point. I dropped Ali at home and for some unknown reason decided to watch the rest of the film. It just got more messed up from there.

The film is about a television reporter and his messed up family, and a strange visitor who sees an opportunity to change the family, in his way, for the better. The first scene opens and there is no secret - the audience is told that it's a father and daughter. The daughter is a prostitute and gets the father to pay her for sex. The second scene sees the visitor pick up a rock and crack the skull of the father, now sitting in a train station. The third scene sees the son beating his mother with a switch. The mother goes off and shoots heroin as the father and the visitor come home for dinner.

The son is bullied at school and the father decides to turn it into a series. He pitches it to his ex-girlfriend whom he wants to report on the issue. He's a loose cannon and has already lost too much credibility in the industry and she tries to walk away from the whole idea. The father attacks her and ends up killing her in a bout of sex-filled rage - all on film. Most directors would leave it there, and the story would follow some sort of murder suspect as he flees/goes on trial, but not Miike. Instead, Miike takes the story a little further. The reporter and the visitor who doesn't really exist - I'm sure there's some really long word in German for this type of imaginary personification, but part of the reason I flunked out of third year med school was because I never took psychology - take the body home and attempt to cut it up. Still on film, the father explains to the camera that when he sees his son being beaten, he wants to have sex (or something like that), and starts to fuck the corpse of his ex-girlfriend in the greenhouse. Okay, now Miike is doing his thing - totally unbelievable stuff set in a totally possible situation. So the father is determined to make this one last and ends up getting his junk stuck inside the corpse which seems to have begun to rigor. If that isn't fucked up enough for you, here is the most fucked up part of the film, for me at least. The husband asks the wife to help him get his dick out of the corpse. After trying in vain, the wife, who has a new lease on life due to some breast feeding deal that I don't even want to try and understand, gets the idea to shoot her husband with heroin. Tada! He relaxes and his body separates from the corpse. The husband and wife take the girlfriend back to the greenhouse and commence cutting. This must have made them hungry because they decide that this is the time to eat dinner. As a trio of bullies beset the house with fireworks on film, the father grows a pair and goes apeshit on the three kids. A swift spanner to the head dispatches the first, and a portable hacksaw meets the second between the eyes. The audience is treated to the father playing Lumberjack on the kid's skull. The third kid is standing amid the action, but by the time he finally tries to run, the wife has cut him off at the gate and throws a knife at him.

So now the family has four corpses to contend with, and they couldn't be more tightly knit. The son has decided to stop hitting his mum and make a decent go at studying and thanks the visitor for destroying his family. The wife seems to finally be getting respect from the husband and the husband has finally become the father he's always wanted to be. But what about the daughter? We haven't seen her since the opening scene. Well, the visitor is next seen strolling down the sidewalk and gets propositioned by the daughter. She offers him a discount because he's good looking or something, at which point she gets nailed in the head by a big rock. Injured, the daughter returns home only to find her mum naked in the greenhouse under a blue tarp breastfeeding the husband. Apparently, the daughter misses bonding because she goes out to the garden to join them. Pan out - roll credits - cue Real Time. My new favourite Japanese band, five years too late.

I watched the film a second time to see if the shock was any less but it wasn't. I knew what was coming up, but it didn't really change the way I felt about the characters and the film in general - except for one point. When the father is playing Lumberjack I now found it humourous I guess because it was so ridiculous.

Okay, now that the minors reading this blog have read several cuss words and various descriptions of illegal sex acts, violence and drugs, I would ask them to stop reading now. Go! Shoo!

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Dax' Amazing Drinky-poo Recipe

Okay, I admit it. I stole this recipe from a Japanese fusion restaurant and it breaks pretty much every rule I have about cocktails. But love makes one do strange things. I promised Ali that I would learn to make this drink, and attempts 4, 5 and 6 were all pretty close. I stopped measuring empirically after #5, but you can play around with it as you like:

The Umetini

What? The you-me-tini? No, Silly. Just read along.

Rule #1: Cocktails must contain gin. Broken.

Rule #2: Cocktails must contain a maximum of three ingredients. Not including garnish which cannot be more than one ingredient. Broken.

Rule #3: Blah-blah-fuckin-tinis must contain vermouth, either sweet or dry. Broken.

Rule #4: No cranberry - None. Broken.

Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 oz. ume (plum) wine
1 oz. vodka
1/8 oz. mandarin vodka
Splash of lime cordial (NOT lime juice, Silly!)
Stir.
Top with cranberry juice to maintain the deep ruddy colour of ume wine.
Garnish with small pickled ume.

Serve in a chilled cocktail glass if you wanna be like Ali, OR if you wanna be like me - on the rocks in a highball.

There you go - 5 ingredients not including garnish, no gin, no vermouth and topped with cranberry. Play around with it. Make sure that the lime is no more than a splash.