Fay Grim

Earlier this year, I saw a promotion for a film which I found interesting. It was going to be on HDNet for just a couple days. For some odd reason, I didn't set my DVR to record it, nor did I try to watch it. Then I had another opportunity to watch it when the film made it to a small theatre known for its cachet of independent films.

But alas, I did not watch it. Instead, I went shopping at the Bath & Body Works and the gourmet grocery store with my friend in the same shopping plaza as said theatre. Thankfully, I subscribe to NetFlix! So I added it to the queue and forgot about it.

Well, the film finally came, and I was more than ecstatic to watch it, especially after running 12 miles earlier in the morning. I made some sushi inari and broccoli as a side dish for dinner to accompany the film. I'm not sure if you have heard of Parker Posey, but she starred in this film I'm talking about called Fay Grim.

At first I was a bit irritated during the first 10 minutes of the movie through the opening credits because it was all crooked! It was a good 10 degrees tilted to the left or right at any given scene, and it really bothered me. Then after half an hour, I realized that the director was not going to give that up. I was cursing at my television, because it is just as annoying as having a blot on the television screen which you can't clean off!

Cheap production, oft-eccentric acting and annoying cinematography style none withstanding, I was immediately hooked to the film. The screenplay was well done, and the plot was smart and deep. Too bad the express filming, or so it seems, made it capture the quality you'd associate with made-for-television films. But the plot was so good that I was glued to my couch!

When the film concluded, I was satisfied. Actually, more than satisfied. I was impressed, despite the film crew not owning any leveling hand tools. And as usual, I decided to go to the DVD's special features. Lo and behold, there was a chapter dedicated to Hal Hartley's film with extended interviews. So I thought I could get a closer look at the film from the actors' perspectives.

A few minutes into this fascinating revelation, I suddenly realized that this is a follow-up to Hal Hartley's 1997 film, Henry Fool! Apparently, all the key characters in Fay Grim were carried over from this older acclaimed film, and I didn't know that.

Ack! Dammit! I instantly stopped the mini feature, and got online right away. After logging into NetFlix, I searched for Henry Fool and added to my queue which already is 35 movies deep. Naturally, I just bumped Henry Fool up to the top of the list so that it will be the next film I watch.

But I'm still peeved about this, because it is like watching the second Star Wars movie before watching the first one! Grr... But at least now I know. Oh well...

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Have you seen the new Harry Potter film? I have. It was pretty decent, except for the fact that I had no idea about who all were, except for the obvious three stars. Having not read any of the books, I have throughout the entire anthology of the Harry Potter misjudged who the antagonist was, until it was revealed way later.

At one point, and I don't remember which year, I honestly thought that Professor Severus Snape was a bad guy. After all, he looks pretty menacing, especially when he is a tough teacher who was not kind and constantly suspiciously looking. And I've always thought Draco Malfoy was an important antagonist, causing bewilderment on my part as to why he was still a Hogswart student. Now I understand he is just a pain in the ass at school.

All this time, I never really realized that Lord Voldemort is the big, bad evil guy in the whole thing. And I just learned exactly what the hell a Dementor is! I think... And all this time, I had no idea that Patronus is some kind of an all-powerful magic, or charm. I thought it was the Hogwart's version of the Patron vodka. But can someone please explain what the hell are Muggles and Death Eaters? My friend Sabine talks about Harry Potter as if I should already know what these or who they are.

Oh, and one final thought. Was it just me, or did anybody else notice lots of similarities of cinematography or dialogue or situation between this and many other popular movies? Not sure what I'm talking about? Let me elaborate:

ONE: Doesn't the opening scene with the dark clouds coming over remind you of that Psycho Tom's movie, War of the Worlds?

TWO: When Harry Potter was rescued by Advance Guards from Privet Drive, they all got onto their magical brooms and started flying. Didn't that scene look reminiscent of the opening sequence of the original Walt Disney's Peter Pan?

TWOpointB: Why do magical brooms make sounds akin to turbocharged, fossil fueled engines? You'd think magical brooms would be quiet like the stealth planes, instead of loud, crude engines that go vrrrooommm.

THREE: When Harry was roaming about in the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, he happened upon a little housekeeper. As soon as I saw that little hunched fella, I immediately thought of the little scary looking fella who always say, "My Precious" in the Lord of the Ring movies.

FOUR: Seriously... For those of us who are older, did Rubeus Hagrid's "big" half brother strike a similar resemblance to Alfred E Neuman from MAD? Honestly! Just take a look!

FIVE: Were you just like me, when during the climax (hee hee, I love the word climax) of the whole movie, did the whole mind thing between Potter and the Dark Lord remind you of Star Wars theme?

SEVENminusONE: I thought a franchise as popular and profitable as Harry Potter would not need to depend on product placements. But did anybody else notice in one scene in the mess hall or cafeteria a box of cereal called Cherri Owls, with colors that are strikingly similar to that of Honey Nut Cheerios?

Yeah, call me weird... I may not understand the big picture of the story and lack the skills to follow who is who, but I notice silly little shits like the things I've mentioned above. Sheesh...

Performance Anxiety Exacerbated

This past Thursday, I had the pleasure of finally not working too terribly late. And as an added bonus, I had the opportunity to go watch Spiderman 3 with a friend. On an IMAX screen at Navy Pier, no less! Talk about double bonus... Because the 19:00 show was sold out, we decided to watch the next showing at 21:45, which meant we had several hours to kill. Normally this would have been an ugh, but since I was with a friend whose company I actually enjoys, it wasn’t too terribly awful.

Since the both of us had not had any dinner yet, we decided to walk around the touristy Navy Pier to see what kind of culinary temptation it has to offer. The one I wanted to go turned out to be pricey, so we settled for the second choice, Bubba Gump, a restaurant inspired by and licensed from Forrest Gump. Let’s just put it this way... The food wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great either. For the price I paid, I definitely would never ever go back there again. Not only was it a tourist attraction, but it certainly was a teeny bobber magnet.

Even the thought of a high-pitched teenage girl’s annoying voice that mimics those of Valley Girl’s accent just utterly want me to gag right now.

Anyway, after dinner, we sat around and killed the time till a line began to form for the movie. Interestingly, I don’t understand the purpose of why people would form a line fifteen minutes before the show was to begin, especially when everyone had assigned seating. But like that psychological experiment done in some university years ago on peer pressure where the lone true unknowing subject was forced to conform to agree with the others’ response of five to the question of two plus two, I convinced her to wait in line as well.

The movie was decent. Nothing to brag home about. Kirsten Dunst looked marvelous as usual, but I thought I’m beginning to not like her as the damsel in distress character. Yet again. But then, it was a Spiderman movie after all. I did like her a lot in Elizabethtown though. And then Eric Forman as a villain... That was quite funny. The whole time I was secretly hoping that Donna would pop up somewhere in the movie and make some slapstick comment about his new black suit. Sigh... My fantasy never came to fruition. I guess I had to settle for the totally predictable ending with a kiss between Spidey and MJ. I would have much rather preferred that the movie ended with them in a fight, which would have been a great cliffhanger for Spiderman 4, seeing how Sony Pictures have confirmed at least three more Spiderman movies at least.

On a side note, is this corporate greed that I smell? I don’t really want the Spiderman franchise to go down the toilet just like the Batman franchise did from 1989 through 1997, which by the fourth installment had turned into a rotting piece of human excrement from the donkey.

End of side note. As I had been drinking a kind of pina colada beverage at dinner, I had to go to the restroom a lot. Even while waiting on the bench for over an hour before we could single file ourselves into the theatre, I went to the restroom twice. Although I was thirsty during the movie screening, I forced myself not to drink any water because I didn’t believe my bladder could withstand two hours and twenty minutes with the addition of liquids after I had broken the seal.

Surely enough, not even a sip of water in me, by the time the movie concluded, I was making a mad dash for the restroom. I was lucky, as there were five free urinals next to the lone guy using the sixth one. Having had the golden urinal rules committed to memory, I went for the third urinal. (Actually, in this scenario, the correct choices could be either the first or third. Don’t ask me who came up with this shit, but the point is that you want to pick the urinal where the next guy won’t have to stand immediately next to you.) But as I headed towards the urinal I had already claimed in my mind, the guy at the sixth urinal ripped a huge one. Loudly. And stinkily, I must add.

Oh. My. God. I tried my best not to laugh, as it was kind of funny. But I didn’t want this big guy to confront and punch me, as I wasn’t keen on letting anybody touch me after their hands had held the little package down there. So as I stood at my urinal, I stared blankly ahead at the tiles, and bit my lips not only to prevent from laughing, but to relax myself so I can actually pee. After a few seconds, the crowd from the theatre began to pile into the restroom. And just as I was mentally calm and ready to open the floodgates, a guy took the remaining free urinal to my right.

No big deal, right? Except this guy bumped into my right foot when he took position, which totally ruined my relaxation process, thus bringing back my performance anxiety. And as if that wasn’t enough, he had the audacity to actually turn his head and tell me he was sorry! I mean, saying sorry was perfectly okay, but according to the man laws pertaining to urinal etiquettes: One shall not turn and face another person when both are standing next to each other at the urinals. One can only communicate with each other when both are facing forward. Damn! Now my pee would never come out, despite the fact that my bladder was about to explode! Effer!

Didn’t he realize the faux pas he had just made? The etiquette has the same effect to which if a guy agrees to his girlfriend’s request to have a threesome with another man, both guys can never look each other, especially when one is about to ejaculate. Or that neither guy can touch the other, for otherwise it would just kill at least one erection. What a dumb ass!!!

Confessions of a Confused and Bored Flight Passenger

I finally boarded a plane and left Los Angeles yesterday, much to my relief. Sort of. I mean, I'm not one to celebrate after staying at a place with great weather for the past three weeks, only to return to the still chilly Chicago that is having an identity crisis with Spring.

I had brought my four DVD movies from NetFlix with me to Los Angeles when I flew out there the Sunday before last, and I tried to milk them out to keep me entertained after work each day. But I simply had to return them on Saturday, because for one, I had already watched all of them by Friday evening, and another, I wanted to have some fresh movies waiting for me when I returned home.

Let me preface the whole confession thing with a pseudo confession before getting to the root of the main confession. On Friday night, I watched Bandidas, starring Penélope Cruz and Salma Hayek. I'll admit, these two Latina chicas were smokin' in the film! Va-va-vroom! Hubba hubba hubba! I don't know if this is racist of me to say, but I really had a hard time keeping the two characters apart! At first I thought I could use the visual cues that the girl with the curliest hair and red costume was always Hayek, and the other was to be Cruz. But I keep on forgetting who is who! I had to pause the movie no less than ten times just so I could figure out who was the poor farmer girl, and who was the rich orphaned girl. It was extremely frustrating, considering that they looked alike and sounded so alike with that accent they had!

Anyway, back to the point.

Because I had already returned the four movies I brought with me, I was dying with boredom on the flight home yesterday. Sure, I had the novel Love Walked In in my case, but somehow, I just couldn't get into the story. It may have something to do with the fact that it was a girly novel. So I kept it stashed away in my bag.

I then decided to write a new blog on the plane, so I took out my laptop from the overhead compartment. With Microsoft Word up and running, I began to type out my first line. Sensing that the big guy next to me was kind of nosey, I decided not to write. Instead, I somehow found another movie I had downloaded onto my laptop a long time ago. I thought, "What the hell," because, it sure beat doing nothing on a plane instead, right?

I gave it a second serious thought, before I hit the Play button. The movie? Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. As the prelude rolled and the opening credits scrolled by, I began having second thoughts. After all, any movie that had bright, girly pink fonts with girly icons used for the opening credits is definitely bad. I debated in my mind whether or not I should continue with the movie, especially after a few minutes into the prelude, Jennifer Love Hewitt's character busted out dancing and prancing like a girly girl in her bra and panties while getting dressed.

I became extremely embarrassed, and felt like all eyes were on my screen, with giant thought balloons hovering above my fellow passengers' heads with: "What the hell is this guy doing watching a teeny bopper movie?" I weighed in the gains and consequences. If I stopped the movie now, then people might thought I was too weak of a man to be willing to watch an uber chick flick. Furthermore, if I was to cease and decease on the full length feature, I would have to find ways to fill the void that is the four hours flying across the country. And I wasn't about to start a conversation with the big dude sitting next to me reading some Christian-y novel that was bigger and heavier than the King James Version of the Bible. All I knew was that he was deeply engrossed in some novel about some silly rapture. In fact, I kind of secretly hoped that the rapture would occur during the flight, just so that he could disappear (hopefully) and leave me with ample room for my arms in my tiny space. Of course, unlike the book my neighbor was reading, I also hoped that my pilots were all heathens so they wouldn't disappear into thin air while I was still on the plane.

So I continued watching the movie. My jaw dropped quite a few times, because the entire screenplay was worse than lines written by a fifth grader, and the plot was entirely gaggy pukey! And I felt extremely self-conscious whenever shots of Hewitt's cleavage or ass were strategically placed throughout the movie. The entire movie seemed to revolve around Hewitt's assets while being half naked, acting all Valley girl-ish. And the plot? Give me a break! How can a girl who was always about being with the right crowd, shallow as a dried up pond, and conceited like a total bitch, ended up making the hot dude who was way too good for her fall in love with her? No wonder so many dumb bitches in real life love this movie. They actually think this crap happens in real life!

By the end of the movie, I felt like I lost a few IQ points, was about to have some cramps, and hurl into the air sickness bag in front of me. I could not believe I watched the entire movie, from start to finish! I had perhaps six chances when I told myself, "This is utter bullshit, I'm turning this crap off," yet I managed to withhold myself from pressing Stop. Now that I have watched that crappy chick flick, I felt like my manhood has decreased slightly.

So there you have it: Confessions of a confused and bored flight passenger on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. And I still have the shivers! I should have spent the entire flight studying the emergency procedures of a Boeing 737-700 plane instead, while laughing at the diagrams that always showed the passengers with ten inches of extra leg room, and everybody being super calm while a plane was illustrated falling out of the sky in a thick, black smoke.

Am I Suicidal?

Seriously! What the hell?

I woke up early today, braved the cold and ran 5K with friends at Momentum. It was all in the name of free pancakes. Because I was up at 07:30 and a 5K took a little over half an hour, I got home early. But I was still groggy in a way, never mind the four glasses of mimosas I had along with the six pancakes I wolfed down. So instead of doing house chores or anything important when I returned home, I sat my ass down in front of my television and tuned into Showtime.

Hey look! A movie is starting! Perfect timing! I made myself comfortable and slipped further into the throw blanket on the couch to get cozy. The opening title sequence was kind of odd. I should have switched channels then, but because I have not seen this really old movie, I watched on. Besides, the music was kind of catchy, in a reminiscent kind of a way.

The introduction of this movie scratch-your-nails-on-the-blackboard painful. Not only was the annoying late 80's / early 90's music along with crazy, puffy hair driving me nuts, the awful screenplay and the super cheesiness of the movie just drove me suicidal. And this was only 15 minutes into the movie!

Yet...

Like a horrible porn movie starring two extremely unattractive people having sex, it was a train wreck I could not turn away from. God almighty!

Since I grew up in Indonesia, I really have an excuse for not having seen or heard of this movie. But who remembers Mannequin On the Move from 1991? If you have never seen this, I highly recommend watching this awful movie if you feel like you need to kill yourself with a spoon by poking at your pinky toe.