/fangirling

At the beginning of the concert, we were shown the trailer to his new movie, Kung Fu Dunk, which looks a lot like Shaolin Soccer except with a basketball. Anyway, if you’ve read the manga or watched the anime of Slam Dunk, it’s based on the series. I think.

The point of this post is that the trailer reminded me of a silly doodle I did years ago so I dug it out. Yes, my obsession with stick men started years ago.

Of course, I also wanted to gush about the awesome awesomeness of Jay Chou and the concert.

Edit: Gaah. I hate embedding YouTube videos on Wordpress. If the trailer doesn’t work, this is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mSd7LaeAfA

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1. La La La La La

It’s spooky time! It’s with quite a huge tinge of regret that I’ve to say I’ve never celebrated Halloween in all my 16 years on this sometimes-great-but-occasionally-full-of-stupid-idiots-but-I-kind-of-love-it-anyway earth. It’s also with another huge tinge of regret that I’ve to confess I’m no longer sweet 16. But whether I’m 16 or 60, I’ll always have room for candy, just without the trick-or-treating. I’m sure my teeth think otherwise, but they don’t get to vote.

Since I don’t celebrate Halloween, let’s talk about spooky movies instead. I love October because that’s when the spooky movie marathons start on TV. We get the marathons in August too when the Hungry Ghost Festival is in full swing. Spooky spooky spooky!

So what do you think are the ingredients for a good spooky movie? Note that I’m not talking about horror movies because my idea of a horror flick will be something like Titanic. So annoyingly long and horrifying. I mean, just sink the damn ship already so I can go and pee.

I don’t know if me being Asian has anything to do with it but I think Asian movies in the horror genre are the spookiest and most disturbing of the lot. Hollywood spooky movies just make me laugh most of the time. Not quite the intended effect, I would imagine. It’s probably quite a cliche but I really think Ringu is the spookiest movie I’ve ever seen. There’s something very disturbing about the look of the dead bodies, the photographs and of course Sadako. Goodness, that lurch of hers will forever be ingrained in my mind. And that jarring soundtrack! I’ve seen the American version and while I think it’s quite a notch above the usual Hollywood fare, it’s nowhere near the original.

So which spooky movie is your favourite?

I don’t have supremely high standards when it comes to movies but they at least have to be entertaining. Plus, I have a very short attention span. So for me to concentrate on one movie for almost 2 hours, the movie has to be hella interesting. Incidentally, I’ve never been able to pay attention for more than 10 minutes back when I was in school. This has led me to develop a really useful skill and that is the art of “looking like I’m paying close attention to what you’re saying when I’m really thinking about what Christian Bale looks like naked in my bed”. This skill has proven to be immensely useful during office meetings. Of course, it can get a tad tricky when your boss asks for your opinion on something and you realise you’ve no idea what the topic of discussion is. And off I go on a tangent again.

Before anyone thinks I should start switching cable providers, this movie was showing on a free-to-air channel. Can’t really complain there. I mean, they could really be showing something really awful, like Titanic. Now that’s one movie that makes me want to spork out my bleeding eyes and stick them on a wall (my ears too if you include the soundtrack).

Naturally, since the movie was so boring, all I could think about was how to make fun of it on my blog. That made me pay a bit more attention but not enough that I could come up with 10 things, so here are only 4 things that I’ve learnt from Hulk:

4 Things I Learnt from Hulk
1) The pre-requisite for being a superhero is to have an angsty, tragic past. At least one of your parents must be dead, or they could both be killed very dead by robbers (see Batman), or killed by other people (see Spiderman), or your home planet got blown up (see Superman) etc.. It’s a package deal. You want superpowers? Gotta have a sob-inducing-make-the-chicks-go-weak-in-the-knees history first.

2) There’s always some insanely hot chick (except McScreamy a.k.a. Mary Jane) out there who’s hot for you even when you’re a total freak, oh sorry, I meant superhero. That’s some mighty 4eva twu luv there.

3) When Bruce Banner transforms into the Hulk, he gets so big that his clothes explodes into nothingness. Well, except for his underpants. So what does that tell you?

4) Lastly, nobody ever looks good in radioactive green, not even when you’re the Hulk.

PS: Perhaps I should stop sneaking in Amazon links since all I ever do is trash the movies. Nobody’s gonna buy those!

This movie was about a dumb blond who fell in love with a curly brown haired pansy. Why she fell for this pansy will forever be a mystery to me. Orlando Bloom wasn’t even particularly hot. Well, perhaps he had something to offer that no other brave, manly man could, such as exceptional hair care tips. In any case, she made the ultimate dumb blond decision to run away with him. As we all know, war is the answer to life, the universe and everything so her idiotic husband decided to avenge this insult to his manly name by declaring war on the dumb Trojans.

Somewhere in the movie, there’s also Achilles, the other blondie (not to be confused with Dumb Blond above) hereafter known as Goldilocks, and his cousin Whatshisface a.k.a. Dumb Blond 2.

Paris proved to be the ultimate pansy by running away from a duel he started to his super hot and super manly brother Hector (whose only sin in the movie was to have a pansy for a brother). Helen, tell me again why you’re in love with Paris?

And then there’s more fighting and more see-who-is-manlier-by-peeing-further sort of thing.

Dumb Blond 2 proved he’s a real Dumb Ass by impersonating Goldilocks and getting killed very dead by Super Hot Hector. Then Super Hot Hector got himself killed very dead by Goldilocks. That was my cue to stop watching this stupid movie but as you already know, I’m a sadist so I continued watching.

All of Troy proved they’re all dumb asses by accepting some weird wooden horse that showed up on their door step which they believed to be a gift to the gods. People, if something weird shows up on your door step, the normal reaction here will be to call the police.

Towards the end, Paris channelled Legolas proved his pansiness once more by showing that he could only kill a man (Goldilocks) by shooting at him from at least a hundred feet away. Also, note to Goldilocks, when someone’s shooting arrows at you, it’s generally not a very good idea to walk towards him without so much as a bullet proof vest. This has been known to be detrimental to one’s health.

So I guess the moral of this story is if you want to make it big in ancient Greek times, be a hair stylist?

So anyhow, one of the movies showing on local TV was Reign of Fire with CHRISTIAN BALE! and uhm… other actor type of people. There were lots of sweaty and grimy people in this movie. Man, don’t they make movies with clean people anymore? But, sweaty and grimy CHRISTIAN BALE! Mmmmmmmm… oh where was I? Oh yeah, I highly recommend this movie. It was a cinematic masterpiece, the Picasso of motion pictures, a film ahead of its time, a movie that will change your life etc… you get the idea, yeah? So should you watch this movie? Oh yes, and here are 10 reasons why you should:

1) CHRISTIAN BALE!
2) CHRISTIAN BALE!
3) CHRISTIAN BALE!
4) CHRISTIAN BALE!
5) CHRISTIAN BALE!
6) CHRISTIAN BALE!
7) Gerard MADNESS? THIS IS SPARTA!!!! Butler
8) CHRISTIAN BALE!
9) CHRISTIAN BALE!
10) CHRISTIAN BALE!

If you’re looking for other exciting movie stuff, I believe at some point in the movie, there were some monster thingies flying around for a bit, breathing fire on things and stuff. Wasn’t really paying much attention because, you know, CHRISTIAN BALE!

Also, absolutely no idea what the movie’s about. Sorry, can’t help much there. But you should definitely watch it because… CHRISTIAN BALE! Yeah.

Cute Neighbour: Hey, do you like bloody and gory movies?
Me: Is this a trick question?
Cute Neighbour: Nah, I’ve the Apocalypto DVD. Thought you might be interested in watching it.

OMG OMG he wants to watch a bloody and gory movie with me! Even though I usually watch the autopsy scenes in CSI between my fingers, I’m sure I can stomach this! OMG OMG!

*Takes deep breath*

Me: Yeah sure. Catch it at your place?
Cute Neighbour: Oh no, I can lend you the DVD and you can watch it any time you want to.
Me: Oh.

That was embarrassing.

Anyway, I took the DVD and since it was supposedly a bloody and gory movie, full preparation was in order.

Check List
1) Pillow (for covering my eyes if I see so much as a drop of blood)? Check.
2) Remote control within immediate reach (for switching to Cartoon Network if gore proves to be too much for me to handle)? Check.
3) Haagen Dazs chocolate chocolate chip ice cream with Hershey’s chocolate syrup (do I even need a reason for this?)? Check.
4) Wine (this is for plan B, if all else fails, get myself drunk)? Check.

I obviously survived the movie to tell the tale. So what was it about? Just a bunch of men with dirt on their faces shouting at each other. Lots of blood and gore and someone gets nailed to the cross. Oops, sorry, wrong movie. Well, this one had a bunch of men with dirt on their faces shouting at each other. Lots of blood and gore and nobody gets nailed to the cross. Oh yeah, naked butts, lots of naked butts. So anyhow, this is what I learnt from the movie:

1) The Mayan people started the first Blue Man Group.
2) There’s the equivalent of “he’s fucked” in the Mayan language. Hee hee. Yes, I’m really a 12 year-old boy in disguise.
3) You know that scene with the decapitated heads rolling towards the nets held by those dancing men? You’re looking at the birth of soccer. Grisly beginning, eh?
4) The bee hive was the world’s first hand grenade.
5) If you look like the swamp thing, even the bees will find you too ugly to attack.
6) Remember earlier when I mentioned that the remote control should be within easy reach? Extremely useful for pausing the movie at strategic scenes to end arguments about who has the most delectable naked butt.
7) If our friend there hadn’t felt compelled to beat on his chest and NEHNEENEHNEEBOOBOO at the bad guys across the waterfall, the movie would have ended at least 30 minutes earlier.

After reading this “review”, you think anyone in his right mind will pay me to review movies?

Cast
Miho Nakayama
Etsushi Toyokawa
Bunjaku Han
Katsuyuki Shinohara
Miki Sakai
Takashi Kashiwabara
Mariko Kaga

Synopsis
Hiroko Watanabe’s fiance, Itsuki Fujii, died in a mountaineering accident two years ago, yet she has been unable to forget him. She came across his high school year book and found his old address by chance, and wrote a letter, knowing that she would never receive a reply. However, to her surprise, she received a reply. It turned out that when Itsuki was in high school, there was a girl in his class with the exact same name, and it was her address that Hiroko has written to. She decided to pay a visit to this girl.

When Hiroko arrived, she did not meet Itsuki as planned due to certain reasons. However, she did see how Itsuki looked like, which, to her shock, bore a strong resemblance to herself. In fact, they looked exactly alike. She began to be suspicious about (male) Itsuki’s reasons for falling in love with her…

Even though they did not meet, they continued to correspond to each other through letters, with Itsuki telling Hiroko about her past encounters with her fiance in high school.

This strange relationship between the two women, with the dead Itsuki as their mutual link, led to some startling discoveries. As such, Itsuki finally discovered the real reason as to why the male Itsuki used to write his (her) name on blank library cards when they were in high school…

One thing I was wondering about was why did the lawyer (Tim Roth) lie to Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly) about his family?

All in all, great cast (Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker etc.) and some clever camera tricks, but plot leaves much to be desired.