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.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Peach Sunset
It seems that Nathan and I have made an impact on Looch's business. Her sales have tripled over the same period last year, and considering that Americans aren't spending as much as they used to, at least that's what the experts tell me, that's quite something for Looch. Maybe it's the weather.
Looch came to the shack bearing gifts yesterday. I didn't see what she gave Nate but she tossed a bunch of Hello Kitty tchotchkes at me, smiling with "Because I know your girlfriend is Chinese or whatevah".
"Ummm, wow. We should have lunch sometime. We'll have Greek...", I said hoping that I could return the slight but then I remembered that she might not be so highbrow.
"Sure! And bring your girlfriend. I've seen her in a bikini, she could sell t-shirts like hotcakes!"
Whatever that means. Ali probably could make a whole lot of sales, but the fact is she doesn't have to work. And the fact remains that instead of getting Hello Kitty thingies, I'd rather be paid. Looch has new rims on her H2 and I know they weren't cheap, but Nate and I haven't been paid since I started. It turns out that 600 clams a week was a best case scenario and that it's not really tax free. Looch told me to wait until August 15, payday is once a month. I guess being paid once in close to five weeks is kinda like once a month so I'll just be quiet for now.
I'm a little worried about money right now because on Monday afternoon I ended up in the emergency ward in the most pain I've ever been in. The ward staff just poo-pooed it as a silly little kidney stone, but I won't know for sure for the next week or so. Of course, if I have to have an operation I'm screwed because I don't have health insurance. Sissy told me that kidney stones run in the family. Who knew? Not I. Anyway, the difference was like night and day. The nurses gave me 2 IVs, a little morphine, and all the while Ali stayed by my side even though the triage nurse yelled at her for shit she didn't even do.
You're such a bitch, seriously. Your job is to ask questions and take information to assess patient risk. Your job is also to give information when patients ask for it. She just asked 1 question, bitch and she only asked it because I couldn't walk over to your bullet-proof kiosk and ask you myself, and you had to go off on her. The only time you have to get off your ass is when you have to take temperatures and blood pressure, oh and when you want a coffee break or meal break or you have to pee or something. How hard is that? It might be worth considering that you're not meant for this hospital, known to be one of the toughest in New York City, if you can't handle easy questions about wait times. Bitch.
The next day I was feeling fine but didn't go to work because I reckoned I had an appointment with the x-ray department. I was wrong. They couldn't get me in until the next day after that. They told me I needed a CT scan because the analysis found traces of blood and high protein which were indicators of kidney stones. I attempted to explain the presence of protein to the nurse, what with my being a healthy, young male but one sideways glance from Ali and I shut up. I was a little skeptical about the blood, but after finally having a CT scan, I went to the washroom and noticed the colour was a little pinkish - a shade described as Peach Sunset.
I went back to work on Wednesday and noticed a few things that Looch needs to work on. Sure people love the product, but they want it NOW and don't care that we don't have a storefront. They're fine with the warehouse concept, but they, especially the Paris Hiltony-types don't like to wait 5 business days for a bicycle courier to go uptown. I've taken a little sounding, and it seems that our target market is willing to wait 2 days - 3 max - for a local delivery. Out-of-towners (Jersey and other places) are willing to wait up to 5 days. This is totally doable, so I've got to sit down with Looch - maybe at that Greek lunch - and work out the details.
Last weekend was my niece's birthday. She's actually my second cousin, but explaining the complex family relationship to a 5 year old is a little pointless so we just go with the uncle-niece thing. She's happy with that. There's 2 reasons I go to Vermont, the other is Ben and Jerry's ice cream. The thing I worry about most when going to Vermont is ticks. You always hear about deer ticks and lyme disease and stuff, but that is just something I don't need. I told Ali about the shika but before I got to the part about ticks she had a big smile on her face I suppose because she thought she was going on a trip to see Bambi. It's true, we like deer, Ali maybe a little more than most people, but it usually involves roast potatoes or a stew of some sort. We loaded up the Wrangler with gifts and drove up to Vermont for a backyard pool party. Eeeee! My skin was crawling. The last time I had a run in with ticks was right before I got stuck in Quincy, technically in Nevada but I associate everything horrible about that trip with a little California town. Sissy - what a trooper - she checked me out to make sure there weren't more. I assured Ali that although swimsuits were requested, the pool itself was just a kiddie pool. It never occurred to me that my niece had acquired a new, much larger pool. We arrived earlier than expected, but we were welcomed all the same. The first words out of Ali's mouth after seeing the gargantuan pool were "You are a liar!" Oh, it's a good thing we actually brought swimsuits afterall. It was a beautiful day and would have been a great party, except that I kept looking for ticks every ten minutes. Everybody thought Ali was being cute when she sat in a kiddie rocking chair, but she was more matter-of-fact about it. "It's comfortable!" More hilarity ensued as it became obvious that the very petite Ali could very possibly wear the outfits that my niece got for her birthday. Honestly, the outfit looked a little big for my niece, but it made people laugh. So yeah, the party was pretty much over after all the presents were opened and the cake was served. We stayed at my cousin's place - after I completely checked the bed for ticks - and went back to New York in the morning. Everything was really fun until that afternoon. Then, the pain.
Looch came to the shack bearing gifts yesterday. I didn't see what she gave Nate but she tossed a bunch of Hello Kitty tchotchkes at me, smiling with "Because I know your girlfriend is Chinese or whatevah".
"Ummm, wow. We should have lunch sometime. We'll have Greek...", I said hoping that I could return the slight but then I remembered that she might not be so highbrow.
"Sure! And bring your girlfriend. I've seen her in a bikini, she could sell t-shirts like hotcakes!"
Whatever that means. Ali probably could make a whole lot of sales, but the fact is she doesn't have to work. And the fact remains that instead of getting Hello Kitty thingies, I'd rather be paid. Looch has new rims on her H2 and I know they weren't cheap, but Nate and I haven't been paid since I started. It turns out that 600 clams a week was a best case scenario and that it's not really tax free. Looch told me to wait until August 15, payday is once a month. I guess being paid once in close to five weeks is kinda like once a month so I'll just be quiet for now.
I'm a little worried about money right now because on Monday afternoon I ended up in the emergency ward in the most pain I've ever been in. The ward staff just poo-pooed it as a silly little kidney stone, but I won't know for sure for the next week or so. Of course, if I have to have an operation I'm screwed because I don't have health insurance. Sissy told me that kidney stones run in the family. Who knew? Not I. Anyway, the difference was like night and day. The nurses gave me 2 IVs, a little morphine, and all the while Ali stayed by my side even though the triage nurse yelled at her for shit she didn't even do.
You're such a bitch, seriously. Your job is to ask questions and take information to assess patient risk. Your job is also to give information when patients ask for it. She just asked 1 question, bitch and she only asked it because I couldn't walk over to your bullet-proof kiosk and ask you myself, and you had to go off on her. The only time you have to get off your ass is when you have to take temperatures and blood pressure, oh and when you want a coffee break or meal break or you have to pee or something. How hard is that? It might be worth considering that you're not meant for this hospital, known to be one of the toughest in New York City, if you can't handle easy questions about wait times. Bitch.
The next day I was feeling fine but didn't go to work because I reckoned I had an appointment with the x-ray department. I was wrong. They couldn't get me in until the next day after that. They told me I needed a CT scan because the analysis found traces of blood and high protein which were indicators of kidney stones. I attempted to explain the presence of protein to the nurse, what with my being a healthy, young male but one sideways glance from Ali and I shut up. I was a little skeptical about the blood, but after finally having a CT scan, I went to the washroom and noticed the colour was a little pinkish - a shade described as Peach Sunset.
I went back to work on Wednesday and noticed a few things that Looch needs to work on. Sure people love the product, but they want it NOW and don't care that we don't have a storefront. They're fine with the warehouse concept, but they, especially the Paris Hiltony-types don't like to wait 5 business days for a bicycle courier to go uptown. I've taken a little sounding, and it seems that our target market is willing to wait 2 days - 3 max - for a local delivery. Out-of-towners (Jersey and other places) are willing to wait up to 5 days. This is totally doable, so I've got to sit down with Looch - maybe at that Greek lunch - and work out the details.
Last weekend was my niece's birthday. She's actually my second cousin, but explaining the complex family relationship to a 5 year old is a little pointless so we just go with the uncle-niece thing. She's happy with that. There's 2 reasons I go to Vermont, the other is Ben and Jerry's ice cream. The thing I worry about most when going to Vermont is ticks. You always hear about deer ticks and lyme disease and stuff, but that is just something I don't need. I told Ali about the shika but before I got to the part about ticks she had a big smile on her face I suppose because she thought she was going on a trip to see Bambi. It's true, we like deer, Ali maybe a little more than most people, but it usually involves roast potatoes or a stew of some sort. We loaded up the Wrangler with gifts and drove up to Vermont for a backyard pool party. Eeeee! My skin was crawling. The last time I had a run in with ticks was right before I got stuck in Quincy, technically in Nevada but I associate everything horrible about that trip with a little California town. Sissy - what a trooper - she checked me out to make sure there weren't more. I assured Ali that although swimsuits were requested, the pool itself was just a kiddie pool. It never occurred to me that my niece had acquired a new, much larger pool. We arrived earlier than expected, but we were welcomed all the same. The first words out of Ali's mouth after seeing the gargantuan pool were "You are a liar!" Oh, it's a good thing we actually brought swimsuits afterall. It was a beautiful day and would have been a great party, except that I kept looking for ticks every ten minutes. Everybody thought Ali was being cute when she sat in a kiddie rocking chair, but she was more matter-of-fact about it. "It's comfortable!" More hilarity ensued as it became obvious that the very petite Ali could very possibly wear the outfits that my niece got for her birthday. Honestly, the outfit looked a little big for my niece, but it made people laugh. So yeah, the party was pretty much over after all the presents were opened and the cake was served. We stayed at my cousin's place - after I completely checked the bed for ticks - and went back to New York in the morning. Everything was really fun until that afternoon. Then, the pain.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Just Movies This Time
Okay, I said I would talk about Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion and The Bourne Supremacy, but it's been so long that it might not make a difference. Here it goes: I really liked Female Prisoner - even though I was misinformed about it's origins - in a movie geek kind of way. The movie was directed by Shunya Ito and starred a stunningly beautiful Meiko Kaji as the title character. I was informed that this movie was made in the 1960s so I was a little shocked by the amount of not so tasteless, albeit gratuitous nudity. It turns out that the film was made in 1972, and is a tale of revenge with a little softcore porn thrown in. It follows the travails of a young woman who was set up by her cop boyfriend to take the fall on a drug deal. She attempts a few times to escape from prison and develops the reputation of a strong-willed outsider. She eventually escapes the prison after the inmates stage a riot. After killing a series of people who wronged her, including a prison guard and a yakuza boss, she finds her cop boyfriend at Tokyo police headquarters, and as a fugitive, conveniently manages to slip into an elevator with no one else in it except her ex-boyfriend. She's one good assassin, at least one has to believe so, if she can do all that without being detected. She goes to the rooftop with her ex, and cuts him good.
The reasons I liked this film are varied - the first being of course, the absolutely beautiful Meiko Kaji. The second being the first flashback scene in which Kaji's character Nami gives herself to the boyfriend. It was done on a stage with moving scenery and was refreshingly creative. Unfortunately, that creativity did not carry through the entire film. The third reason is the hair and makeup, at times ridiculous and at others, very well done for the period. The wardrobe deserves a special mention. I hate the fact that one cannot get a suit in the style and quality equal to the wardrobe of the boyfriend. Also, the coat, boots and hat worn by Nami during the final sequence were awesome. I can't say they were original, but many films have copied the combination since. I liked the hat so much, Ali went out and bought one. I also liked this film because of the low-budget stunts and makeup used in the violent scenes. Apparently, this film has ties to Quentin Tarantino in a really roundabout way. It has been said that the idea for Kill Bill was based on this film. I can't say yes or no since I haven't seen Kill Bill, but the twist is that a song sung by Kaji in the second of the Scorpion movies is used in the films by Tarantino. Strangely in that movie, although Kaji portrays the main character, she plays a different Scorpion, one named Matsu.The tangential stuff really gets me. I was also interested to learn that Shunya Ito directed the first three movies, but was not asked back to direct the fourth. This led to, or so it has been claimed, Kaji's departure from the production company. This is one of those films you might rent because you might never see it otherwise, or because you might want to see an example of early 1970s not-so-mainstream Japanese cinema but as for parts 2 through 4, I have to weigh the cost of renting against the benefit of watching more vacant plot, laughably-violent, nudity-salted prison movies. It's difficult to decide.
I watched The Bourne Supremacy because I'd seen the Bourne Identity, not the one with Richard Chamberlain, a few years ago and that's the only reason. The film opened with promise, but quickly sank into a festival of driving stunts with predictable intrigue (is it intrigue if it's predictable?). I'm not a huge fan of Matt Damon, but after seeing the Bourne Identity perhaps I was expecting more in the second film. I see on imdb that there will be a third film in 2007. In spite of myself, I look forward to it. The film had some really good filming locations in the Western Europe segments, but the Eastern Europe locations were a little clichés, and if you're really wondering whether you should watch this one - you're probably not, but just in case - I'd suggest that you leave this one on the shelf and maybe rent one of the Michael Caine (post) Cold War spy movies in which he portrays the unfortunately-named character Harry Palmer. These films include The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin, Billion Dollar Brain and the final two episodes Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in Saint Petersburg. Why they bothered with the last two, I may never know.
I've seen quite a few movies since these two, including Gumball 3000: 6 Days in May, Naniwa yuukyôden, Family Guy Presents: Stewie Griffin - The Untold Story, Boca a boca, 2LDK or at least I tried, and a bunch of others I can't remember at this time. Of this list, only Gumball and Boca a boca are worth watching. Ali and I tried to watch 2LDK, which she characterized as a comedy but would often say that it had a lot of violence in it, but the copy we rented was not up to par so we returned it and got Stewie Griffin instead. I wish I hadn't. I'm not Seth MacFarlane's biggest fan, but Stewie was the reason I started watching his stuff. The movie itself is mostly unoriginal material edited together in Family Guy style to explain the existence of Stewie Griffin. Since I'd already seen an estimated 60% of this movie from the Fox cartoon aired weekly, I felt it was a waste of time to see this film.
Gumball is a movie for car fans who like the documentary style film. I use the word documentary lightly, it's not a documentary in the sense that a documentary should be hard-hitting and thought-provoking. It's put together well for the material they had to work with I presume, and it kinda makes me want to rally again but since Sissy is as big as a house and due in just a few months, I don't really have the option for a co-driver.
Naniwa or Osaka Tough Guys is not what I think most people would expect from Takashi Miike, but he explains why quite well in the interview feature. Many of Miike's films use a combination of extreme violence and juvenile comedy as a balance because these films are taken from comic books that Miike read in his youth. I'd have to say that the comedy in this film heavily outweighs the violence. For that reason, and never having been a fan of comic books myself, the film is not ratable. Miike explained that he wanted to remain as faithful to the original Dorkman comic as possible, and I have to assume he did. For that, I applaud his talent. I mention it here, only because he was a supporting actor in Tampopo, but Rikiya Yasuoka plays a supporting role as a yakuza enforcer.
I caught Boca a boca reeeeally late one night on the Cantonese channel and decided to watch it because it was a Spanish film, starred Javier Bardem - whom I thought was somebody completely different but had apparently seen years earlier in the raunchy romance Jamón jamón - was a Spanish film, and because I didn't have a job to go to the next day. It's about a struggling actor in Madrid who is reduced to working at a sex line to make money. He gets wrapped up in a fake affair, a pretense for a murder. Typical, light humour accompanies a series of events which dismantle the façade, and the murder plot is foiled. The actor lands a film in Hollywood, and schmaltzy to the end, the actor flies to Hollywood with his agent, his new girlfriend, and his new best friend: his homosexual, plastic surgeon, fake lover who was the target of the original murder. The only painful parts of this film were watching a French actress choke through her lines as though an unspecified regional American accent was the most distasteful thing to enunciate on the face of the earth, and a Scottish actor doing a really bad impression of an American director who sounded like he learned his so-called perfect Spanish in Sicily. The usual gags and the talent of Kity Manver make the rest of this film easy and fun to watch.
The reasons I liked this film are varied - the first being of course, the absolutely beautiful Meiko Kaji. The second being the first flashback scene in which Kaji's character Nami gives herself to the boyfriend. It was done on a stage with moving scenery and was refreshingly creative. Unfortunately, that creativity did not carry through the entire film. The third reason is the hair and makeup, at times ridiculous and at others, very well done for the period. The wardrobe deserves a special mention. I hate the fact that one cannot get a suit in the style and quality equal to the wardrobe of the boyfriend. Also, the coat, boots and hat worn by Nami during the final sequence were awesome. I can't say they were original, but many films have copied the combination since. I liked the hat so much, Ali went out and bought one. I also liked this film because of the low-budget stunts and makeup used in the violent scenes. Apparently, this film has ties to Quentin Tarantino in a really roundabout way. It has been said that the idea for Kill Bill was based on this film. I can't say yes or no since I haven't seen Kill Bill, but the twist is that a song sung by Kaji in the second of the Scorpion movies is used in the films by Tarantino. Strangely in that movie, although Kaji portrays the main character, she plays a different Scorpion, one named Matsu.The tangential stuff really gets me. I was also interested to learn that Shunya Ito directed the first three movies, but was not asked back to direct the fourth. This led to, or so it has been claimed, Kaji's departure from the production company. This is one of those films you might rent because you might never see it otherwise, or because you might want to see an example of early 1970s not-so-mainstream Japanese cinema but as for parts 2 through 4, I have to weigh the cost of renting against the benefit of watching more vacant plot, laughably-violent, nudity-salted prison movies. It's difficult to decide.
I watched The Bourne Supremacy because I'd seen the Bourne Identity, not the one with Richard Chamberlain, a few years ago and that's the only reason. The film opened with promise, but quickly sank into a festival of driving stunts with predictable intrigue (is it intrigue if it's predictable?). I'm not a huge fan of Matt Damon, but after seeing the Bourne Identity perhaps I was expecting more in the second film. I see on imdb that there will be a third film in 2007. In spite of myself, I look forward to it. The film had some really good filming locations in the Western Europe segments, but the Eastern Europe locations were a little clichés, and if you're really wondering whether you should watch this one - you're probably not, but just in case - I'd suggest that you leave this one on the shelf and maybe rent one of the Michael Caine (post) Cold War spy movies in which he portrays the unfortunately-named character Harry Palmer. These films include The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin, Billion Dollar Brain and the final two episodes Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in Saint Petersburg. Why they bothered with the last two, I may never know.
I've seen quite a few movies since these two, including Gumball 3000: 6 Days in May, Naniwa yuukyôden, Family Guy Presents: Stewie Griffin - The Untold Story, Boca a boca, 2LDK or at least I tried, and a bunch of others I can't remember at this time. Of this list, only Gumball and Boca a boca are worth watching. Ali and I tried to watch 2LDK, which she characterized as a comedy but would often say that it had a lot of violence in it, but the copy we rented was not up to par so we returned it and got Stewie Griffin instead. I wish I hadn't. I'm not Seth MacFarlane's biggest fan, but Stewie was the reason I started watching his stuff. The movie itself is mostly unoriginal material edited together in Family Guy style to explain the existence of Stewie Griffin. Since I'd already seen an estimated 60% of this movie from the Fox cartoon aired weekly, I felt it was a waste of time to see this film.
Gumball is a movie for car fans who like the documentary style film. I use the word documentary lightly, it's not a documentary in the sense that a documentary should be hard-hitting and thought-provoking. It's put together well for the material they had to work with I presume, and it kinda makes me want to rally again but since Sissy is as big as a house and due in just a few months, I don't really have the option for a co-driver.
Naniwa or Osaka Tough Guys is not what I think most people would expect from Takashi Miike, but he explains why quite well in the interview feature. Many of Miike's films use a combination of extreme violence and juvenile comedy as a balance because these films are taken from comic books that Miike read in his youth. I'd have to say that the comedy in this film heavily outweighs the violence. For that reason, and never having been a fan of comic books myself, the film is not ratable. Miike explained that he wanted to remain as faithful to the original Dorkman comic as possible, and I have to assume he did. For that, I applaud his talent. I mention it here, only because he was a supporting actor in Tampopo, but Rikiya Yasuoka plays a supporting role as a yakuza enforcer.
I caught Boca a boca reeeeally late one night on the Cantonese channel and decided to watch it because it was a Spanish film, starred Javier Bardem - whom I thought was somebody completely different but had apparently seen years earlier in the raunchy romance Jamón jamón - was a Spanish film, and because I didn't have a job to go to the next day. It's about a struggling actor in Madrid who is reduced to working at a sex line to make money. He gets wrapped up in a fake affair, a pretense for a murder. Typical, light humour accompanies a series of events which dismantle the façade, and the murder plot is foiled. The actor lands a film in Hollywood, and schmaltzy to the end, the actor flies to Hollywood with his agent, his new girlfriend, and his new best friend: his homosexual, plastic surgeon, fake lover who was the target of the original murder. The only painful parts of this film were watching a French actress choke through her lines as though an unspecified regional American accent was the most distasteful thing to enunciate on the face of the earth, and a Scottish actor doing a really bad impression of an American director who sounded like he learned his so-called perfect Spanish in Sicily. The usual gags and the talent of Kity Manver make the rest of this film easy and fun to watch.
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