Netflixin: Ninja Cheerleaders

First sign of quality: the production company logo is basically just a rip off of the Fantastic Four logo. Good artists borrow...

We start at a military base. Some ninjas be lurkin. Their goal is a sword in a military museum. Ninja close up: Holy Shit, he's wearing mascara! And he's a she! It's a girl, is what I'm trying to say. They hack the security system, do the old sword switcharoo and disappear into the night. True ninja professionals: in and out without alerting anyone.

Very next scene: they beat the shit out of some soldiers for no reason. Not sure if the crazy motion blur is to imply speed and skill or is just a byproduct of having to speed up the footage of the slow, unskilled actors/stunt team. The world may never know.

Dissolve to Hiroshi Martial Arts School.

HOLY SHIT IT'S GEORGE TAKEI! He is commending the girls on retrieving the sword. Nice touch: the camera pans past each girl, and the actor's names pan along as well.

George Takei as Hiroshi.

Getting the sword back was their final test and now they are ninja. He gives them their swords.

Title: Ninja Cheerleaders. (font and animation: cheesy)

The girls are being interviewed about the assault on the guards and the theft of the sword.

"I don't even speak Japanese."

Now we cut to them at Los Lomas Malas Junior College ("The Jewel of the County") and we get proper character introductions. Accompanied by the song I Know What Boys Like.

First up is April, age 18. Her sign is Aries and she's a brunette. Her favourite band is The Killers. I didn't think this film was so recent. Favourite Book: The Art of War by Sun Tzu. My final year film also name dropped that book. Me and April were meant to be. Favourite Move: Throat/groin combination. Me too! And she looks good in a bikini.

Next up is Monica, who's also 18. But blonde and a Scorpio. Her favourite band is The Strokes. She likes to dance to them in her underwear in her bedroom. I just like to type 'in her'.

Sorry. That was crass.

Her favourite book is Lullaby by Chuck Palaniuk. I have not read that one. I may never read another book now that I have Netflix. Her favourite move is the spinning side kick. Second favourite move: jumping up and down.

Last up is Courtney, she's a Leo and a very mature 19. She's also blonde (WHAT? WHERE THE HELL IS THE REDHEAD?!? LAME!!!) Her favourite band is the L.A. Philharmonic and her favourite book is Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip Thorn. Her favourite move is the open palmed nose punch. Which she demonstrated on some dude's chin.

Courtney, it seems, is trying to get into Brown. And her teacher (who is brown) is trying to get into her pants. This film, man, you have to pay attention. Some dude just tried to put the moves on Courtney, he even used "You want tickets to the gun show?" She shoots him down by pointing out that his erection is pointing out of his fly.

Back to the girls being interviewed. The offscreen interviewer asks them about Red. Red is in the hospital, all beat up. He is also their cheerleading coach. He hit on April. Invited her on a trip to Mexico. Wow these girls have legs. They also have a red bug convertible.

Tits! I looked up from typing and there were tits. Takei is instructing. Some other Asian dude is standing at the back of the class. Takei gives him the eye and then they talk. In Japanese. About the sword. The other dude has a tattoo. I mention this for no reason, I'm sure it won't come up again.

April is sparring against some black dreadlocked dude. They spar with words and fists. April wins.

I think the tits are this movie's version of star wipes. Star wipes are awesome, but I think I prefer tits.

Car chase! The cops chase some dude past a strip club. We stop following the car chase and go into the strip club. I like how this film thinks. Inside the strip club, two men argue about who was more of a military genius; Napoleon or Alexander. The three girls are there as well. The girls drop some historical knowledge on the Napoleon fan's ass. It seems that George Takei owns the strip club. And the girls work at it. They strip as Takei has a business meeting. April gives Takei's business associate a little dance and strips his gun off of him.

Tomorrow night is the All City Strip Off with a fifty-grand prize for first place. The girls are 'dancing' for their scholarship money, and this prize would put them over the top moneywise. Some drunken sailors harass them in the parking lot. They (the sailors) get their asses kicked. April is not afraid to use her nails. April and Courtney are doing all the fighting, Monica is chatting up the one sailor who thought intimidating girls in a parking lot was a bad idea. It was a bad idea, learns the man who April forces to say "I have tiny balls."

The sound mix is a little off. Too much hair rock and not enough dialogue volume.

Back to the interview room. Offscreen voice reads off a list of injuries. "That wasn't me," says Monica, "I just watched."

Monica's mom doesn't approve of their stripping, but she can't argue with her daughter getting accepted into Brown. The girls study and reflect on how far women have come since their mothers' time. They can study science and evolution whereas their mothers studied home ec. Then there is some implied lesbian undertones and tit-wipe to the next day.

They write some finals and decide to spend their lunch break working out. Oh no! The door to Hiroshi's dojo is ajar! The place has been torn apart. They decide to go to the club. They find Manny, the bouncer, shot and bleeding on the floor. They call an ambulance and then Manny tells them to leave. The safe, with all their money, was taken. The girls fret about what to do and decide to visit Jimmy the Snitch. Jimmy was the man who had a meeting with Takei at the club the night previous. April crushes his balls. "I think I made it pop. Neat." the scrotal assault is doing nothing, so they use a garden hose to give him an enema. Then a Vulcan neck pinch to put him in the trunk. Again, they argue about whether or not to write the rest of their finals or find Hiroshi.

They figure Hiroshi would want them to write their finals. I figure the tits in the tit-wipes do not belong to any of these girls.

The finals are now done, the girls are talking about how they did and what they will do next when they are confronted by Detective Harris. As soon as they learn that he is a cop, they turn on their dumb cute act. I kinda like their dumb cute act.

I have no idea what they just said, the sound mix in this is horrible.

April has a chip on her shoulder. She also is good at Googling. She finds out some important plot stuff/backstory. She finds out who the main bad guy is. So do we. We see him electrocuting Hiroshi. We also see Detective Harris bust the girls for obstruction of justice. But they just pick the locks and walk away.

Cut back to the interview room where it is revealed that it has been Detective Harris grilling them all along! OMG!!! Harris has his arm in a sling. I wonder why.

The girls stop by Roland's to pick up their music for tonight's Strip Off. I wonder if we'll see him again.

Back to the interview room where more violence is referenced. Violence we ain't seen yet. Violence we are about to see...

April beats up a bald man because he yelled at some girl scouts. The music that plays during this scene is about as close to Battle Without Honour or Humanity (you know: That song from Kill Bill) as the production company's logo is to the Fantastic Four's. April doesn't beat him up that much though. I wonder if maybe the foreshadowed violence is still yet to occur...

Courtney is picking up their cheerleading outfits from her house. Her drunken step-father, who looks remarkably similar to Sean Penn, gets into a fight with her. Verbal fight only.

The three girls talk a bit. There is some inter-group tension. I haven't minded the acting so far, but this is getting kinda bad. They can do breezy, but the drama is a bit beyond their reach. Within their reach is a bunch of ninja weaponry, and the deed to the club. Which they realize is what the bad guy is after. I think. The sound mix got sucky right around here.

Offscreen throwing star kill! The girls interrupt a dinner meeting of bad guys. The main bad guy, whose name I forget otherwise I would not keep typing 'main bad guy', is not impressed and demands the deed to the club. After the girls leave, a shadowy lady appears. She is confident she will be able to deal with the girls.

Victor Lazarro! That's the main bad guy's name. And Kinji is the name of the mystery lady.

The girls cheer at a basketball game. The tit-wipes also usually involve some ninja and/or cheerleading bits as well. Just so we're clear.

I wonder if it will ever be explained how Hiroshi, the ninja sensei, managed to get himself captured. The girls arranged to have the deed exchange occur at the school during the game. Crossbow hidden in locker! The girls torture a mook to find out where Hiroshi is being held, Kinji gets the drop on the girls, Detective Harris gets the drop on Kinji but Kinji shoots Harris with a crossbow because she is just so damn fast. But the girls are faster! They disappear while Kinji is shooting Harris. They then go to the Strip Off. Wow, this song sucks. Randal should be fired! The girls never get naked. Not sure if I have mentioned that. They are 'dancers'.

Uh oh, Courtney's drunk step-father just stumbled in! He gets kicked in the face as his step-daughter is swinging around on a pole. Tit-wipe! With an extra shot of Hiroshi walking thrown in for no reason! He's still tied up, hanging with Lazarro.

Lot's of sneaky ninja neck-cracking. I wonder if it is actually the same girls in the ninja suits? The girls are getting shot at! It's okay, though, because they are ninja! And so is George Takei! He was playing possum this whole time! Spoilers.

"Ninjas don't use guns!"
"Ah, but I'm old and I forget sometimes."

Kenji appears! They start to fight, but the fight is interrupted by April's cell phone. It's the Strip Off promoter. They won! YAY! The girls fight, as Takei watches and laughs. The weird sped-up look has returned, but not much can help out this swordplay.

Wait! I was wrong! Takei just picked up a sword! Shit just got real! Real full of bad editing and obvious stunt doubles and bad special effects. Fight ends when Hiroshi laughs and touches Kinji's face.

Happy Ending! Credits with out-takes! Set up for sequel! Credits intercut with stripping and ninjas!

Well. That film was much better put together than I was expecting. It looked good. The action could have been better but I have seen a lot worse. The acting was fine. The dialogue was not horrible. Lots of stuff happened. The sound mix was pretty shitty, but that would be my biggest complaint about this film. This odd little film about three strong young women that also introduced the use of tit-wipes. The trade off of this flick being better than I expected is that it is not nearly so bad it's good. It's so good it's average.

Since this is Netflix, and Netflix has a built in ranking system, I can tell you what I told Netflix I thought about Ninja Cheerleader. I gave it three stars. I liked it.

Netfilixin

I kinda sucked on that Scott Pilgrim review. I'll be taking a mulligan on that one some time later.

It might be a bit of a wait, though.

Why?

Because Netflix. That's why.

Netflix is like a video store in your home. And what was the best part of video stores? It wasn't the latest and greatest. I'd already seen those. It was the old and the worst. Movies whose covers or descriptions made me have to rent them. Video stores are how I discovered Evil Dead 2. And how I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kirk Douglas in a western.

I will, one day, fill in the gaps of classic cinema viewing thanks to Netflix, but until then I'll be watching films like Thankskilling.

One day, I will try to review that film. But it throws a lot at you, in fairly rapid succession. None of it good.

As I was watching this, I wanted to be jotting down notes, doing a real time review.

Which is what I'm going to do right now, for a little film called Ninja Cheerleaders.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

I love this movie. I love, love, love this movie. Favourite film of the year. Maybe of the decade. I love this film because this is a film full of love. Love of the source material, obviously. The amount of content from the books they managed to cram into a movie this zippy is amazing. And the stuff they changed I prefer, for the most part. I may get into that later.

Let's get back to the love. This movie loves movies, loves video games, loves music, loves comic books, and loves love. It understands that love, especially this kind of love - young love is irrational. Foolish even. Inexplicable. So why try to explain it? Knives loves Scott loves Ramona. And Ramona? Who knows? She's always been mysterious. That's part of her allure.

But now I've digressed. I started trying to defend this movie from it's detractors. The ones who complain that "What does Ramona see in Scott?" "Why are they in love?"

Why is anyone in love? Fuck it. And everyone comes across as more likeable in this film than they do in the comics. Not to slag on the books. I like them. A lot. But I just fucking love this movie.

It is just amazing the amount of love poured into this movie. The enthusiasm. The amount of care. How long must it have taken just to find the perfect sound effects, music cues and such? I love the sounds in this film.

Before the film even started, during the Universal logo (in all its 8 bit glory) I turned to my wife and said, "I think I love this film."

I could not have been more right.

I sound like a broken record. Its annoying. I apologize.

I just love this fucking film.

House

Not the crappy American horror movie from the 80's or the medical drama with Hugh Laurie, but the bugshit crazy Japanese movie from the 70's.

I don't know if words can convey what watching this movie is like.

It seems like whoever wrote this film, directed this film and edited this film had never been involve with film before. This is a film of wild exuberance. An everything and the kitchen sink approach. The film shifts so rapidly between tones that it may give you whiplash. I can see how people may hate this film.

So what is it all about? A girl and her friends (stereotypes all, with names like Gorgeous, Melody, Professor and such) invite themselves to the girls aunt's house for a summer vacation. The girl, Gorgeous, has not seen the aunt in years and may have only met her the once. The girls go the house and things go crazy.

How crazy? Deadly futon attacks. A dude turns into a pile of bananas. Flying heads biting bottoms. Pointless nudity. Bizarre editing and sub-amateurish special effects. Pointless green screening. Freeze frames and dissolves for no reason. Music that makes no sense mixed poorly with the dialogue.

So crazy. Impossible to describe. There is no real through line to follow, the people involved just seemed to shoot whatever came to mind and then threw it all together.

It sounds like it should be a disaster, but it is so unlike anything else that it is definitely worth a watch. I might even buy it on Blu Ray, especially if there is any sort of commentary track.

Raderday

One Saturday, not so long ago, we watched a couple of 'classic' 80's movies. Rad and Thrasher.

Rad is about BMX biking whilst Thrasher is about skateboarding.

Rad is better at conveying what BMX biking is was all about at the time. The opening and closing credits have dudes pulling all kinds of tricks off on their bikes. The hoppy, near stationary, climbing all over the bike in ways a bike was not meant to be climbed all over kind of tricks. There's off road races, track races, ramp tricks. And there is bike dancing. Just about anything being done with a bike in the 80's is in this film somewhere.

Also in this film? Adrian, and Uncle Jesse's hot wife from Full House. And My Favourite Martian. Truly a cast well studded with stars. And there were probably some famous bikers in there too.


The bikers were good at their biking. This is a couple decades old and some of these tricks are still impressive.

So the movie is good, when people are on their bikes. Off the bikes, the movie ain't so great.

Luckily, people spend a lot of time on bikes. They even dance on their bikes. The bike dance is just awesome.

There is nothing awesome in Thrashin' (not Trasher, I've been referring to it by the wrong name forever. Oops)

It ain't bad, it is a good example of an 80's sports movie, but there is nothing all that remarkable about it. Now let me make some remarks about it.

Josh Brolin has always looked older. Always. And he may have been allergic to shirts back then. At the very least, he was allergic to buttons. The female lead in this came of poorly in direct competition with Rad's Full House lady. No real impressive skating in this film. Not a lot of board tricks. Barely any grinds. The only half pipe in this film gets burned down before it ever gets used. Mainly it's just Josh and his gang goofing off on their boards around L.A. Then the Chilli Peppers show up.

And there's some skateboard jousting and downhill racing. None of it shot with any real energy.

What is it about the 80's, man? The 70's gave birth to some of the greatest films ever. Timeless classics. FIlm making as an art form made a couple giant leaps. And then the 80's showed up and forgot all that. The nicest thing I can say about the style and craft of these two films is that they are charmingly inept.

The Expendables

I think that this film may have made more sense if I was mainlining Human Growth Hormone. Or this flick is HGH for the eyes. Or both.

I had fun watching this film. But I knew that I would. Yeah, this is that kind of film. If you think you're going to like it, you probably will. If you know you're going to hate it, you ain't wrong. This is a film that rips the heart out of some nameless mook and then proudly wears it on its sleeve. You've seen the list of names. You know whether you are going to like this film.

The question is whether you will like it as much as me. Notice the word like, not love. That's deliberate. There was thought put into that word choice. Not sure how much thought went into the script for this film, other than thinking up awesome ways to kill dudes. It's basically like Stallone's last Rambo but with more dudes. The Expendables plays like the latest instalment of a franchise that has been going strong since the 80's. The characters are less than sketches, they are drunken doodles. The subplots add up to less than nothing, they are there to pad out the running time.

These are not complaints, I liked these characters, which is to say I liked these actors. I liked the non action beats the script forced them through. Charisma Carpenter is in this film solely to be another strong Whedon woman who needs rescuing. She needs to be beat up so Statham can beat the dude who beat her. And that is the least senseless of the violence in this film.

The Expendables get involved in this film's plot because a pretty girl asked them Sly to. You can tell that Stallone likes this girl because he raises he eyebrows. That's a joke. You see, because dude's face has been pulled so tight that the most developed muscles on his whole body must be his eyelids. He's looked better. They all have. Which is kind of the point. If a film like this can have a point.

Wait. No. The point of this film is the violence, the gore and the explosions. And they are all present and accounted for. Plenty of shooty shooty stabby stabby kicky punchy slammy 'splodey. At least a few points where the audience I was with all turned to each other to ask 'Did that just happen?'

It did.

There is a lot of violence against the human body in this film, all filmed for maximum impact. There's a little bit of the too tight, too shakey, too edited to tell what the hell is going on, this mainly happens during the Jet Li fight scenes. Stallone is good at capturing gun and knife violence but his kung fu filming skills are weak. Which is too bad because I think his fight scene with Dolph Lundgren was pretty cool. I think it was, but I can't be sure. That Dolph, he's a big boy.

These are all big boys (even Eric Roberts who looks like a cross between Vince McMahon and Cuella DeVIlle), and they all hurt things and get hurt. Sometimes in cool ways, sometimes in cliched ways, but you knew all that just by watching the trailer.

Cop Out

Is not a good movie. It is a bad movie. The worst of Kevin Smith's career. It looks better than a lot of his earlier stuff, he's become a better visualist, but that doesn't mean much when everything else is so substandard. The story is a non-starter. I can't quite recall what all happened, actually. There were buddy cops, a wedding, a rare baseball card, and it all flowed together not at all. It's like someone once saw a buddy cop movie and thought it was neat so they tried their hand at writing one. It didn't turn out so good.

And maybe the original script was good. This film makes it impossible to tell. Maybe Smith was trying to test himself, stretch himself, expand his horizons because it seems like half the dialogue in this film is improvised. I don't know if Tracy Morgan is capable of remembering lines. Or he is so good at seeming spontaneous that he's got me fooled. And maybe a lot of his improv was funny, but I couldn't understand most of it. I like Tracy Morgan. He's great in 30 Rock and I've enjoyed some of his other roles but I don't know if he's cut out to be a leading man.

Especially if the other lead is as lackadaisical as Bruce Willis. You'd think he would have hit this role out of the park as both WIllis and the part he plays in this film are mainly just interested in getting paid. His near catatonic performance cancels out Morgan's spittle fuelled anarchy.

This film just... it's just bad.

The action isn't horrible, but there is nothing memorable about it. I surprised myself by laughing maybe twice, but I felt dirty afterwards. The only thing of note about this film, other than how bad it is, is the soundtrack. It sounds like an 80's buddy cop movie, all cheesy synths and such. I enjoyed it, but it didn't seem to fit the film at all.

Which is the main problem of this film, there are a lot of great things about this film in theory. Tracy Morgan's whirligig of crazy off the cuff comedy. Bruce WIllis' gun and quip slinging chops. The crazy synth soundtrack. Kevin Smith's love of words and characters and how characters use words. These are all good things, these are all things I like. And they are all in this movie, but none of them seem to be in the same movie. This film is like oil and water and vinegar and baking soda. A big messy explosive misfire.

Shoot Em Up

Finally saw this flick.

When it was good it was great, but it was pretty bad in the in betweens. The action is the highlight, of course, but the one liners are horrible. I know that is the point, but...

I know that a lot of one liners in action movies are stupid, but movies with nothing but shitty one liners are usually the shitty action movies. Each action classic has at least one or two line that hit. Shoot Em Up has no memorable dialogue.

Weird that I nit pick the writing, but that's kinda what I do. Let's continue with the negatives: this film doesn't look all that nice. Kinda blah. Don't remember any of the music either.

I do remember a lot of the action beats. Which is the most important part. I remember shooting with the carrot. I remember the baby on the playground, the hideout shootout, the gun warehouse shootout. There is some crazy inventive stuff in here. Enjoyable crazy nuttiness. And the bad guy is a real scumbag. And I like the protagonist's hatred of jerks and douchebags.

So while I wasn't blown away by Shoot Em Up, but I'm glad I finally saw it.

Man! The text on this MacBook screen is tiny!

Inception

Inception, though I've only seen it the once may be my favourite film of...

Quite some time, let's say.

I cannot stop thinking about it. Snatches of scenes continually float through my brain. And a lot of people, most of whom are better thinkers and writers than I have clicked a fair amount of keys discussing all sort of Inception minutiae. So I won't do that.

I'll just mention a couple things. One: the main complaint against the film is that it is a little cold, the emotional thrust of the film is a little muted. To this a have a few responses. The first is that I don't agree with them. It worked for me just fine. The scenes with the wife near the end got to me. I wasn't bawling, but I was moved. Also: this is a frikkin Nolan film! He ain't known for his melodramatic weep-fests. He has a style. And Inception fits his oeuvre perfectly. Finally...

Let's look at Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, Arthur. Within the dreams, he's all business. In the waking world he is also all business. Other characters mock him for his humourlessness. But when you see him asleep, working in the dream, he has a beatific, untroubled smile on his face. He's having fun, but only we (the audience) know this. The people, their job is to invade other people's dreams, they try to blend in so as to not alert the mind's defences. Bringing your own emotions into other people's dreams ain't the best idea.

Also: the ending.

I don't think the point is wether he's dreaming or not. The point is he doesn't care.

Maybe I shouldn't try to go day by day

We didn't even really try to watch a movie on Tuesday. We lazy.

Instead, the wife and I stayed home and watched I Love You Man. Decent enough movie, but no one mentioned how cringey a lot of the humour is. Not vulgar or gross, just a dude being uncool. Not the biggest fan of the cringey humour. But Paul Rudd is much better in such a film than, say, Ben Stiller.

Monday Again

The Monday after a cabin weekend is usually spent getting back to 100%. But thanks to the water and gatorade, I felt no ill effects, even on Sunday.

So Monday was spent doing nothing.

Friday is When the Weekend Starts

We spent a fair bit of Friday morning cleaning up and packing. Still. Everything seemed to take longer than it should.

I got up at 6:30, fer goodnessakes! Went to a bootcamp, trying for a bit of preventative medicine. An hour of sweating more than balance out an entire weekend of eating and drinking to excess, right? So I got up early and got my motor running, and still we didn't get out of the city till after 2. I thought for sure that someone would be out there already, waiting for me. Luckily, that was not the case.

We unloaded the car and waited for others to show. After about an hour, Trev Kim and Nate showed up. They brought the rain with them. The rain didn't stick around too long, it just kept the heat of the day away.

Others arrived and soon the cabin was filled with the sound of laughter and booze.

Shut up, booze does so have a sound.

I think there may have been over 30 people out at some point. They didn't all stay overnight, thank goodness.

What were the highlights? Hard to say...

The food, as ever, was delicious. Cabin air makes food taste better. This is a fact. Science would back me up on this, but it is too busy eating delicious food.

I think I may have mentioned that instead of buying many steaks we instead bought one big slab of meat that we cut ourselves. It seemed less solid, more squishy. Less easy to juggle. But it cooked up just fine. Better than fine. SUPA FOINE! reddish pink all the way through. Best steak I've had all year. And potatoes to go along with it.

Breakfast each day was greasy and good. Jury is still out on the ham steaks, some liked 'em, others thought they were over-rated. I liked 'em.

Speaking of breakfasts, morning this year were not as bad as last year. No puke at all this year. Big change from last year. Big change. Really cut down on the clean up time. Gatorade and a massive jug of water are permanently added to the roster.

Back to food - stir fry also rocked. That griddle is god send.

Some people, not I, ping ponged.

Actually spent a decent amount of time on the baech this year. The lack of puking and hangovers this year probably helped. The not stupid heat was also nice. And I got to go for a swim. I would like to go for a couple more of those before the summer is done.

What else...?

Oh yeah, THIS!!!!!

Most fun anyone has ever had because of Family Circus. There is some truly filthy stuff in there. Provided you provide the filth. Which I always do.

The time just flew and before I knew it I was in an near empty cabin with too much food and booze left over and a whole lotta empties.

Thursday

Once upon a time there was a plan that involved us being out at the cabin starting on Thursday. That plan did not bear fruit.

Right. Forgot to mention something about Wednesday, the day before this day not the acclaimed film. We stayed up finessing my lovely lady's resume and cover letter. She did most of the finessing, I was mainly there for moral support.

It was a late night/early morning.

Apparently I didn't look too great on Thursday. Pale, faded, worn out. Best thing to go when you feel like that?

Costco!

We went to Costco and wandered around Costco preparing for the cabin weekend. We spent close to 300 bucks on foodstuffs. Way more fruit and veggies than one would expect for a drunken weekend. And a lot of meat, too. An 80 dollar hunk o' rib steak.

Just as we were leaving, it started to spit. It was raining by the time we got home. It was pouring by the time we finished unloading the groceries. Thank goodness for garages.

The raining turned to hailing. So Trev helped me finish DeathSpank.

I beat DeathSpank. The ending is... not so much.

The rest of the day was spent packing and cleaning and watching more HIMYM.

Wednesday

I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but I once made a film called wednesday.

On Wednesday, we went out to the cabin for some eatering. There was meat. And potatoes. And corn. Maybe some salad. Visited with my aunt who I haven't seen in forever. She looks great. It's good to see how good she's doing.

It's good that she's good and I'm glad that she's good.

Good.

Tuesday

I don't mean this Tuesday, as in tomorrow, but last Tuesday as in last Tuesday.

Last Tuesday the plan was to go see Despicable Me. That plan did not come to fruition. As is often the case, when we plan on going out to see an animated film, we end up drinking instead. We drank.

Also, we planned for the cabin weekend.

I think that was about it.

Monday Again

I can't remember a damn thing that happened on Monday.

Sunday Happened A Few Days Ago

Maybe not quite a few, but slightly more than a couple. Is there a word for that?

Sunday was full of food and drink and visiting.

It seems I have been in training all this month for the upcoming cabin shenanigans.

We went out to the cabin around ten on Sunday morning to have a delicious breakfast with mom and Jerry. Everything seems to taste better out there. Plus everything Jerry cooks seems to taste awesome to begin with. So everything that morning tasted more awesome. And all I had to do in return was move about some barbecues and dishwashers. And Guillaume was there to help out with the moving and the eating. He's a cool cat, that one.

And after the eating and the moving there was the chatting and the planning. Will be out at the cabin again on Wednesday to visit with an aunt I haven't seen in yonks. Looking forward to that.

To work of some off the food (and to take a break from Dragon Quest IX) I walked to the top of the hill to give my dad a call.

The reception at the cabin is not the greatest. Better than at Lafleche, which is to say that there is some. Some, but not usually enough.

I was calling dad because he lives just down the way from the cabin and because it was his wife, Diane's birthday on Saturday. I was calling to apologize for not calling a day earlier.

Dad invited us out for dinner at this place.

So we went to his place for dinner. I apologized to Diane in person. Which was unnecessary. Her birthday is not on the 17th, but the 18th!

I always thought it was the 17th. Like, that date is stuck in there as her birthday. I'm probably going to get it wrong again next year, so entrenched is that misplaced belief.

They cooked up some delicious food and kept pouring delicious plonk and their friends Butch and Diane showed up and we all had a fine time.

Mayhap too fine, as Carla and I had to rush home to beat the Craven traffic, which we barely did. At that special time of night when all the bugs are out and magnetized to windshields.

Saturday

If I keep going at this rate I'll be blogging about tomorrow next week and next week next month and next month next year.

That sounds about right.

Not much happened on Saturday. Played some DeathSpank (totally worth the 15 bucks) and Dragon Quest 9 (totally worth the 3 bucks I spent on it).

Neither the name of, nor the engraving on my iPod were my idea. I just know awesome people.

Also watched a lot of How I Met Your Mother. Enjoyable show. Nothing earth-shaking or genre-breaking, but filled with likeable folk interacting in often enjoyable ways. The earlier seasons had a greater hit to miss ratio tho.

On the way home on Awesome Friday we were treated to some great lightning. One in particular was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was like lightning erupted from the middle of the cloud. Bolts shot out in all directions, covering a large expanse of sky. It was pretty cool.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

I think I like having a day's distance between my life and this blog. Lets things stew in the brain juice.

Not that any great bursts of insight occurred to me about Friday.

Friday was a good day. My ipod touch arrived in the mail. I shall call it iPodcalypse Now and on its shiny backside is inscribed "Byte my shiny metal apps." It is a good pod and I love it.

Haven't actually touched other than to get it grubby with my fingerprints, I'm not gonna do anything major with it till it is safely ensconced inside some sort of... thing.

I downloaded Deathspank on my PS3 and continued playing Dragon Quest 9 on my DS. So I'm getting my RPG itch scratched quite nicely.

Saw Inception.

Inception is the best film I have seen this year, which is damning it with faint praise, so let me try to give my praise some smelling salts or some such.

Inception is impressive on every level. Looks great, sounds great, great performances, great writing.

Great great great.

After I see it a few more times I may write more about it, but I don't want to go into any sort of detail just yet. As watching how it all unfolds is a great part of its charm.

This film would be compelling even if all the action were absent, but the action elevates it.

The film works on as many levels as there are levels.

After the film we all went to Montana's. Which I keep forgetting is my favourite of the chain restaurants. The beef ribs put it over the top. I had some beef ribs. And half a chicken. And cornbread and veggies and twice smashed taters. And a couple desserts.

Plus Carla let slip that it was basically my birthday, so they made me put on a big stupid hat and sang at me. Not even that could put a dent in this day.

It was a good day.

Sorry About That, Thursday

I missed a day of blogging.

There was a bit of a car trip and then a movie and then some eating and then some sleeping.

The car trip was from Lafleche. Our bellies still full from a fantastic brunch and my muscles still sore from a fair amount of digging and large appliance moving.

Just in case my satedness subsided, I packed myself a delicious roast beef and bacon sandwich on homemade bread. Just before Moose Jaw (and just after I had passed an ancient woman slowing traffic to a crawl on the non divided highway) I decided I would like a bite of my sandwich.

Carla is scent sensitive and asked if I could wait till we got home before I masticated. Her query came too late as the zip-locked was now neither. The delicious scent of my delicious sandwich filled the car. Being a thoughtful husband I rolled down the window to let in some fresh air. There weren't no fresh air anywhere. The succulent sandwich smell was sucked out and replaced with the overpowering stench of cow shit.

Cow shit lingers.

It lingers.

Like a ling.

Exit Through The Gift Shop is not the easiest film to describe. But I will give it a try. There is this frenchman with an English sounding name that is spelled all weird because he is French who lives in L.A. He sells old clothes for way too much money to people with way too much money. He also videotapes everything. Everything. Not that he is all that great a videographer but he can't be beat, prolifically speaking.

By chance this strange man has a cousin who is an up and comer on the street art scene, and by virtue of the fact that he tapes everything the strange frenchman documents his cousin's exploits. Which leads to him documenting the exploits of many other prominent street artists.

Meanwhile, there is this street artist by the name of Banksy who is making a name for himself. He is talented, daring and anonymous. His path gets tangled with the strange frenchman's. They hang out. They help each other out.

The frenchman, at some point during all of this said that he was going to make a film about all of this. Everyone thought this was a great idea. Until the strange frenchman actually made the film.

I've been to a lot of student video festivals, the frenchman's film wouldn't have made the cut at most of 'em.

Banksy sees this film and decides this new street art movement deserves a better filmic representation and decides to make a film using all the frenchman's footage (he couldn't do any worse). To keep the strange frenchman distracted, Banksy encourages him to make his own art, put on an art show.

So the strange frenchman does, adopting the nom de plum Mr. Brain Wash.

Mr. Brain Wash rents out a space, buys screen priniting equipment, hires artists to make his art. He leverages himself out the brown hole to do all this. And a lot of his art looks like it came out of said hole. Soul-less Warholian aping drivel. Of course the public eats it up.

The film that Banksy made is this story. It's a film by man A about man B who tried to make a film about man A and failed and then fluked into artistic success.

Exit Through The Gift Shop is an interesting film. It shows a lot of the work that goes into making street art. It's funny. It's painful. It raises a lot of interesting questions about the nature of art and artists. I highly recommend it.

I do not recommend Orange, the first izakaya style establishment in Regina. If you want authentic izakaya food in Regina, let me know and I'll cook you up something good. The takoyaki was all wrong, the okonomiyaki was worse, the gyoza was a fucking insult.

Of course we all said it was fine when asked by the server if everything was good. Our server had no idea how to pronounce any of our dishes. Bad dining experience.

Orange is short for Orange You Glad You're Not Eating at Orange.

Holy crap! It's not even Friday any more. I wanted to write about Inception, but I think I'll sleep on it first.

Wednesday

I wrote and directed a movie called Wednesday once.

Today was my birthday. I spent it digging trenches.

My hands and feet and everything aches.

My reward was an awesome dinner. I ate so much. Delicious deliciousness. Roast beef and new potatoes and corn and I am so damn full. Plus two deserts.

I think of things to write about during the day and then I sit at the computer and wonder where those thoughts went.

Stupid thoughts.

Howdy Tuesday

I cannot think of the last book I read. I've started a few, but i just kinda forgot to finish them.

Digging trenches through dirt that has been used as a driveway for over half a century is not the most pleasant of things. And then it storms and fills in all our hard work. Well, maybe not all. I haven't checked, I'm kinda scared to.

I am trying to think of more stuff to write about. And failing.

But at least I wrote.

Hello Monday!

This is the week wherein I turn 35.

Crud.

So this is me writing. Because I really should do that more.

It is a sad sad thing that the highest grossing movie of the year was Alice in Wonderland. That was a horrendous movie, a misfire on every level. And I didn't even see it in 3D, which would have added an extra dimension of suck.

Whenever a word contains a doubled letter, I rarely double the right letter, I usually double the letters on one side or the other. I wonder if there is some sort of scientific name for that?

Back to what I was talking about before, I'm glad that Toy Story 3 is now the highest grossing movie of the year. I haven't seen it yet but there is no way it could be worse than Alice in Wonderland. Good year for Disney it would seem.

Whenever I go into an electronics store, I always point all the youtubes towards my Japan videos. That's just how I role.

The thing that I liked most about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was that it didn't over explain things. A lot of stuff happened and the film just assumed you could keep up. I liked that.

I liked that because I have seen a couple otherwise enjoyable flicks this summer that insulted me with their...

The A-Team could have been about 10 minutes shorter because it spends about that much of its running time repeating itself. It flashes back to stuff that was onscreen not 15 minutes ago. Just in case you weren't paying attention. Hey A Team: I wasn't paying all that much attention and I still found all that repetition pointless and stupid.

I never thought that my biggest beef with the A Team movie would be that it talked down to me.

Most laptop keyboards are not all that great for typing. That seems almost criminal, when you think about it.

Knight and Day was not as insulting as A Team, but I don't need the characters onscreen to read aloud and remark upon every bit of text that appears onscreen.

That Dragon Tattoo movie sure did have a lot of rape, boy howdy.

Kidz Flix

Bad kid's movies are bad. Maybe more than other movies because they are sullying new eyes. Just because the eyes are new does not mean they are stupid, don't make a lazy stupid movie because it seems like you can get away with it.

Not that I've seen a lot of bad children's (spellchecker does not like children's, but has no problem with children, I really don't understand how spellcheckers work sometimes) films of late.

I've seen two really good children's films. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs was surprisingly good. Like, really good. Would have no problem watching it again good. Having my expectations lowered by all the Dreamworks and Sony "pop culture nut shot extravaganzas", I was not at all expecting Meatballs. I don't remember any nut nshots from the film. Or any pop culture appropriation/parody. Not to say that there weren't any knowing nods to other films, sly homages and such. There were, and they fit, they were appropriate. They were not Family Guy/ The Movie movies style "Look! We are referencing this thing! You know this thing! You like this thing! You like us!"

Sorry, got off on a bit of a rantgent there. It happens.

So no lazy humour. The humour arises from the story, from the situations, from the characters. And from the animation. This is a nice looking film. Very simple character designs, but very distinctive. I guess you could say that about the design of the whole movie. Simple, but distinctive.

Huh.

I guess I don't have to say any more than that.

But I will: more animated movies need Bruce Campbell and Neil Patrick Harris.

And I'm sure I will mention Meatballs more, just in comparison to Ponyo.

They are very different experiences. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is full of this manic energy and humour. Ponyo is reserved. Ghibli excels at the quiet wonder. But they also nail the big action beats when needed. Simply put, they make films like no other company out there.

The problem with that is that I don't have the vocabulary to discuss their films. Their films are good. Their films are very good. Their stories come from a very different culture, they seem alien yet inviting. They unfold at a different pace, a welcome change of pace.

MOVIES!!

Nothing but awesome movies this week.

Red Cliff is epic Woo. The drama is as over the top as the action. Which is as it should be. Lots of shots of dudes staring off into the distance. Lots of mulling, contemplating, introspection. But also lots of grand gestures. Lots of musical instrument playing. Lots of knowing smiles. Everything is so big. So big. Even the little moments.

But then there is even more goodness. The females in this movie are actually important. They contribute to the plot. They have character. They're not just pretty and helpless. And the planning! The counter planning! Epic battles as chess!

I loved this film. I had a smile on my face for basically the whole run time. Which wasn't as much of a problem as I had feared. I saw the American version, the two and a half hour version, not the four hour two part version. But the cuts weren't obvious, the film still flowed fine. It wasn't all just action chopped together willy nilly. But I look forward to watching the super long version just for more Woo-y goodness.

Woo!

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is insane. It starts out kinda kooky, then veers into its own special version of a typical police procedural, then it goes shitballs retarded. Just gloriously unhinged. Which is helped enormously by Nic Cage's performance. After this movie, you'll wonder if he was actually partaking of all the drugs he takes onscreen. Cuz I don't think Herzog would have a problem with that.

The day after we (friend and wife and me and wife) saw this film, my friend texted me "I think I love that film." I had to agree. We texted back and forth about all sorts of awesomeness. And we decided that Nic Cage is best when he is paired with a filmmaker as insane as he is. This film is a match made in heaven.

But it's not a film for everyone. My wife almost walked out of the film. Whereas as I was giddy by the end of the film. And man, that ending. Man!

The ending may well be the worst part of Black Dynamite, but it had built up such good will with me that I didn't really care. And it has an awesome beginning. I was ready for a sequel about 15 minutes in.

This film is, of course, a spoof of the blackspoitation films of the 70's. The main problem with this film is that it veers between the sublime spoof of Wright/Pegg (Hot Fuzz/Shaun of the Dead) and the dated parody of Zucker Abrams Zucker (Airplane et all). The film was awesome enough that it didn't need to have boom mics visible in shots.

Black Dynamite, the character is awesome and he is well supported by the rest of the cast. And the music is just perfect. I want the soundtrack. I wants it!

I highly recommend all three.

More Movies I Seen

Let's talk horror. I like horror. A lot. There is a lot of crazy stuff to be found. The lack of respect the genre receives frees the participants. Let's put the camera inside a torso and hack it open because fuck it, we ain't ever gettin no Oscar. Not that all films are so crazy inventive. Most aren't.

Within the last week I took in four films that can be viewed as horror films. They all have horrific elements at least.

The only one that I would out and out recommend is Black Sheep. Of all the different horror sub-genres, the horror comedy is my fave. Cuz bodily fluids are both humorous and horrific. Humourorific? I like the Kiwi accent, I love the New Zealand countryside, and I adore the creature effects by Weta. It's not all greatness. The leads are a bit bland, as is the villain. But people get gored by sheep. It's a simple joke, an obvious one. But I find that I like simple stuff that works.

Law Abiding Citizen doesn't work. Hardly at all. I mean it looks nice enough, the acting isn't laughable, this isn't amateur hour. Except it is. This story is laughable. But it isn't. Maybe you're sensing the problem here. Dude's family gets killed. Right in front of his face. That would suck. His lawyer goes for the easy conviction: one dude flips on his partner, he gets a couple years and his partner gets life. Why? Cuz the cops messed up the investigation? How? Fuck off, we've got people to kill.

The now non-husband/non-father goes crazy. A very deliberate kind of crazy. Which is helped by the fact that the non-husband used to figure out how to kill people for a living. He figures out how to kill everyone involved and then does. The end.

Yeah. There are all sorts of interesting ideas and arguments that could have been raised here, but aren't. Gerard Butler gets a rant or two about how he wants to bring the legal system down, but that's it. The film is not concerned with ideas, it's concerned with blowing things up. There is more though put into the Saw films. Which is basically what this film wants to be. But slightly more respectable. Notice I did not say better or any other qualitative word.

Daybreakers is somewhere between the above two. Some stuff works. But more doesn't. The Spierig brothers need better editors. The story idea is neat. Vampires have taken over the world. Humans are cattle basically. A cross between cattle and money. Blood banks takes on a very different meaning in this world. But the human population is dwindling. The blood supply is dwindling. And if vampires don't drink blood they go feral. So Ethan Hawke is trying to find a blood substitute.

He doesn't find a blood substitute. But thanks to Willem Dafoe and others in the human resistance, he discovers a cure. But does a world full of vampires want a cure?

Neat stuff in there. Mainly only given lip service, but it's not as damning in this film as Law Abiding Citizen because this one is about vampires and not the broken legal system. And there's some nice vampire-y stuff. The feral vamps are kinda scare-y. The blood bank boss is suitably slime-y. There's an daytime action/chase scene that makes good use of bullet holes and sunlight.

But then the Spierig brothers try adding in more stuff. Tensions between brothers, tension between fathers and daughters. Most of that stuff doesn't work. Nor does the music. It is way too over the top and loud. The jump scares are dumb. Basically screeching bats jump out from time to time. It's never scare-y, it's just always loud and annoying. The bat scares seem shoe horned in.

And the ending. Or endings. A bunch of stuff happens. In rapid, stupidly rapid succession. And then our leads drive off into the sunrise. For no reason other than the directors thought that it would look cool.

Which is the main problem of the flick. They did stuff because they thought it would be cool but it isn't always cool. A lot of it just ends up lame. But an enjoyable kind of lame.

Enjoyably lame is much preferable to just plain dull, which is what The Wolfman is. They were aiming for dread I suppose but they missed. It's just slow and boring. With lots of blood and dismemberment. It reminds me of reading American Psycho. The juxtaposition of banal detail and graphic violence was supposed to be shocking but it just made the violence as boring as the deadly dull in depth detail.

And the wolfman as a character, let's be honest, looks kind of stupid.

Three Movies I Saw

Man, I gots to get better at writing down my thoughts about films quicker. I saw Avatar on Monday and Synecdoche New York on... Saturday(?) and Ninja Assassin on Thursday.

Let's start with Ninja Assassin first. It is a very bloody movie. Which is kind of a good thing, I guess. But most of the gore looks super fake. It was all added in later by computers. That's like cheating or something. The story is not at all complex but is more complicated than it needed to be. The acting was. Yup.

Some of the shots were quite nice, there was some neat-o ninja action; ninjas emerging from shadows (overused in this movie but still cool), ninjas flitting in and out of view, a fuck tonne of throwing stars, a somewhat confusingly shot fight on a busy speedway. But there was also some blandly staged action.

It was a very hit or miss film. More misses than hits, but the hits were super bloody.

I have no idea what to say about Synecdoche New York. Mainly because I have no idea what it was about. No, that's not true, I just wanted to write it. The film is about a lot of things. A lot of important things.

All of Charlie Kaufman's films have been about important things. They have all been very interesting explorations of ideas. This film is as well, but disappears up its own ass. Which is kind of the point. It is about (but not just about) the importance and triviality of creative endeavors.

There are some great bits of dialogue, some cringe inducing exchanges, some wonderful bits of angst and anguish and despair and a few bits of hope sprinkled in as well. Just for flavour.

There was a lot going on.

There was also a lot going on in Avatar. Visually, of course. The story is simple and simply told. And some people are saying this is a bad thing. These people should watch the Star Wars prequels and the movies based on toys of the last few years. Simple stories simply told are so much better than needlessly complex stories poorly told or stupid stories incompetently told.

Cameron is what Lucas has been falsely accused of: a spinner of myths. There are heroes and there are villains. Daring deeds are done. It has worked as a story since words worked as words. Not everything need to be innovative, especially when the visuals are.

Cameron the writer knew what Cameron the director wanted to do and the story plays to that. The emphasis is less on the hero's journey than on where this journey takes place. This film is about Pandora. And good god is Pandora worth all the attention. There is a specificity here that is startling. The thought given to the world, its inhabitants and the interrelationship between the two boggles my mind.

And the Na'avi. Perfect. One day, maybe, we will get computer generated people that are indistinguishable from real ones (ignoring why we would ever want such a thing). But we ain't there yet. But humanoid blue cat alien thingees? The time is now. The elongated limbs, the over sized eyes, the expressiveness of the ears and tails, this all adds up to make the aliens seem real. Everything has to be slightly overdone to seem natural. You could take stills from just about any scene involving the Na'avi and they would all look ridiculous, but in motion they are pitch perfect.

I really liked this film. I liked it more than I thought I would, and I knew that I was going to like it. Cameron, for all of his technical prowess, has never forgotten how to structure a film. Something Lucas and Spielberg seem to have forgotten.

I could go on, but let's just bring it on home.

Ninja Assassin is as forgettable as it is bloody.

Synecdoche New York is a film to think on.

Avatar is a film to drink in.

More Bleeps and Bloops

God damnit, I truncated my last post fairly severely. I didn't mention any of the music introduced to me via Rock Band.

Which is pretty impressive when you stop to think about it. Rock Band is a game where you play along with music you know and love. New stuff? You're too busy worrying about hitting all the notes to notice the song that the notes make. Maybe it's just me. But there are definitely songs that stood out even during the first play through.

Hell, let's go back to Guitar Hero 2.



It's weird seeing it in a different video game context.

Even Rats is the song that made me a Rock Band fan. Harmonix just threw in music they liked. As a bonus. To share with their fans music that they themselves were fans of. They seem to be music fans first video game developers a close second. Which is why Rock Band, in my humble opinion is the better band rhythm game.

And Rock Band is how I found out about



That was the only song I loved off of that album, unfortunately.

And Rock Band 2 introduced me to a bunch of songs I had never heard before but now love but if I had to pick only one (and according to the rules in my head that I just made up, I do) it would have to be



Still weirds me out that it's a dude singing that song. But these songs are why I am really hoping Harmonix puts out a new game. They've been great with releasing downloadable songs every damn week, but who is gonna take a chance on something they've never heard of? It needs to be Trojan horsed in with all sorts of other music people know and love. And that can only be done on a disc.



I just love that unfaithful line.

And I love CBC radio 3. It has introduced me to so many amazing songs and artists (I still haven't found a good non-Canada centric indie podcast though). But the artist that I can't get enough of at the moment is



I love that whole album (and I like that youtube video, those look exactly like pictures I would take). So, so much. And that came out in 2007. I'm two years out of hip. But I don't think I'll think of Welcome to the Night Sky as unhip. Lovely voices, lyrics that feel good in the mouth, that whole quiet loud quiet thing. This album was made for me to love it. And I do.

Beeps and Boops

What is it about music? Why do we like it, man? Why does it compel us? How can some person singing about something that has nothing to do with the listener affect the mood of the listener? It is crazy magic. It is emotional alchemy.

And I am a soft touch. So, so soft. My heart is on my sleeve. Plus it is oversized. I've got a lot of heart, is what I'm saying, and it is a very sensitive heart. Music, the right music, punches me right in my big soft heart.

Everything and everyone is putting of best of the year and best of the decade lists. I have not listened to enough music to make such a list, but there is a list I can make. Music of the last decade that punches my heart and. In a good way.

I don't mean that they make me sob. That they make me sad. That they make me feel bad. No. But they make me feel. My brain becomes aware of my eyes and my breathing and my heart rate, because they've all been affected by this music I'm listening to. Music, man, crazy.

Right. The List.

My Emotional Hits of the Naughts:

I'm going to start with the song that inspired this whole thing. I heard this on the R3-30, and then re-listened to it a good half dozen time before I could continue the countdown And this is from an album from 2008, how the hell did I miss this.?



It's a lovely little song, but the part where it's just the dude and his guitar that really gets me. That's the part that made me notice the song and then listen to it a zilion times. And the zillion times made me notice all the other bits of loveliness in there. Lots going on in that song. I want to go into detail, but I don't want to sound like a wanker.

And I could wank all over any of theses songs.

But taking inspiration from the dude and a guitar let us listen to...



How does that work? Just a dude and some kinda noise maker singing gibberish (she brings me seeds from olive trees?) and it dampens my eyes. The crowd singing along really helps, I reckon.

Speaking of singing along: one of, if not my favourite concert going experiences was seeing Arcade Fire (this was pre Neon Bible, just to give a time frame). And screaming along with the rest of the crowd to all the songs. So primal. A lot of their music gets me, but the one that works the best on me is



Just imagine yelling along with that. Good for the soul. Maybe I should have used Wake Up instead. The acoustic version, the one from the Where the Wild Things Are trailer? Hell, that trailer makes my vision blur every damn time.

But back to just a dude and a guitar.

I looked and I looked but I could not find a linkable version of Greg Macpherson's The Company Store. But I highly recommend you listen to it. It's about something that happened a long time ago to people you don't know, but it is such an angry song you just want to punch someone by the end of it. Again, anger at something long since gone provoked by nothing more than a voice and a guitar.

And you don't even need to understand the voice.



That is just hooky as shit. Just strings and skins. The vocals are just something for the audience to scream as their bodys jump up and down.

Good God did I do a lot of jumping up and down for this band.



I doubt I will ever see any band live more than I saw K 106. They played every Tuesday at a club about 20 minutes away from my job. My friend Ben would travel substantially further to see them. They are so awesome live. I cannot divorce their music from their shows, their music takes me back to being in their club and that makes my brain so happy. And maybe a little sad.

Another great Japan gig experience was seeing Matsuzaki Nao



That is not the song I was looking for, but that is just an awesome video. The song that sold me on her was Ki No Uta (roughly translated: tree song). The first time I saw her perform it, she was with a band and it was all drums and bass, with her voice just as strong and loud. The second time I saw her she performed the song solo and it was beautiful in a completely different way.

I wonder if I would think less of this Japanese stuff if I had a better understanding of the language.



I can't understand half of what they sing in this song either, and it still gets me. The best version of this song that I've heard (and I went through a phase where I listened to them all).



The best/worst thing about Hawksley Workman is that he so damn prolific.



Why the hell did they get rid of the word shit? Dude is Australian. More than half of Aussie kids' first word is shit.

I'm sure there are tonnes more but my brain has been a little fuzzy for a while now (you may have noticed) so I'll just finish off with something nice and happy. And Canadian.

Transitionless.

So it has been a few days since I bitched about how I wanted to write more, but that is okay. Cuz I've been mad busy. Didn't manage to get the whole house cleaned, but I put a pretty good dent in it. And I've been cooking! And the stuff I cooked ended up tasting good! Tomato pasta sauce from scratch! Bread! Shepherd's Pie! Yum!

And I've been, slowly but surely, converting my Japan vids. There have been all kinds of issues there. Some days just don't want to convert. It's odd.

Also odd is how do I handle this transition. How do I go from random housekeeping crap to actual writing about actual things. I have stuff I want to write about, but should I tack it on to this or just start a new entry.

New entry it is.

A Little Bit Louder and a Little Bit Worse

Stop putting shit off.

That was my New Year's resolution.

Got off to a decent start, too. Cleaned our room all to hell, moved everything, dusted, vacuumed, threw out shit that just seems to build up. Blogged. About movies. The post prior to this.

But then I started putting shit off. I have a mental and physical block. As soon as I start making any sort of change in my life, I sabotage myself. I am aware of this and this awareness does nothing except making me even more pissed off at my lack of progress.

I've been meaning to write this for a couple couple (which is to say almost a few) days, but kept putting it off. And this is nothing, this is pointless, this is just typing to keep typing. Still, I put it off.

Enough of that. I read, I play video games, I watch movies, I want to write more. So I am going to write more.

But... Here is a quick peak into my brain. It never shuts up. I replay conversations in my head; rewording things, obsessing over mistakes and things I could have phrased better. I imagine future conversations. Between me and people I know, between me and people I don't know. Between two people I don't know or two people I do. Or more than two. Just conversations constantly going on in my grey mush.

In addition to all that, I blog. In my head. I work over things, constantly editing. And when I finally have it phrased just so, someone somewhere in my head takes a break from their conversation to complement me. And then the phrase phrased just so disappears. Poof. So real word blogging is frustrating because it never matches that now forgotten bon motte of the brain. I've brain reblogged this post for a couple couple days(which is to say nearly a few) now and this is nothing like what I had imagined. And there was some good stuff in those brain blogs, let me tell you, the people in my head told me so.

I'll never be able to type fast enough to keep up with the babble in my brain.

But god fucking damnit, this it the stupid year in which I try.

But I reckon I will stop this post now. This is the post wherein I bitch, you see, the next one has an actual topic. I guess I could have mentioned that this was a bitchy post up front, but you're smart (and so ATTRACTIVE!) so I'm sure you figure it out (and man you smell nice).

Happy Happy and Merry Merry

Rang in the New Year in the preferred fashion. In a warm basement with good friend, food and drink. And crappy movies.

Well... one crappy movie, one comfort movie and one...

Crank 2 is a hard movie to describe/explain. But an easy one for me to enjoy. Just whacked out craziness all over the god damn place. Full of unlikeable people doing unlikeable things to each other for near inexplicable reasons. Maybe the easiest way to explain the movie is to spoil it. Consider that your spoiler warning.

The movie ends with our hero on fire and flipping off the audience. And it is awesome. And awful. This movie inspires awe.

BeerFest is the comfort movie that we ended off the evening with. I imagine our gracious host put it on as background sound and fury, just something to stare at as sleep took us over. An easygoing, familiar comedy. I didn't fall asleep. Because I kept noticing things that were different from the version of the movie I had watched years ago. Jokes and subplots that were missing. Nothing major, but still I noticed their absence.

I noticed the many, many differences between the Twilight book and the movie. The movie is a lot less subtle and nuanced. Which is saying something if you've ever encountered the book. Just full of odd acting and poor directorial choices and laughable action. Enjoyable in an ironic way.

Also enjoyable: drinking beer out of shot glasses. Not doing retarded amounts of beer shots. That is lame. Just drinking beer out of very small glasses. It reminded me of Japan. And the beer you were drinking never really had a chance to warm up.