"Rumble in the Bronx" (1995)

Things I can appreciate about this movie:

-It's officialy the first (and only, if it weren't for Snatch and Hot Fuzz, if you count them) action film I have ever loved. I mean, this film I actually remember and that is saying alot for me and action flicks. The two scenes that always stick out for me when I think of this film are when Keung is caught in an alley by a motorcycle gang and they bat 40oz liquor bottles at him. I remember thinking how ingenious it was that they wrapped shirts and rags around the wooden bats so that the bottle wouldn't smash where they were, but where their victim was, either on his person or the brick wall behind. I remember wondering, and still did this time, about how he could get cut just from the spray of broken glass (maybe four inches from his head, at the least). I guess it happens. The other scene I remember is when Keung is again cornered by the gang up on the top level of a parking garage (maybe 10 stories above ground) and one gang member (a real sneaky, ratty, whiney-voiced type) says, "I'll make you a deal. We'll let you go if you kiss my ass." He says more taunty stuff and then bares his cheeks. Keung appears to consider the deal, then rips a car's antenna off and whips the guys butt with it (once or more, I don't remember) and you see the welts pretty soon and even if we didn't, the pain of being whipped with a thin metal rod is imaginable. Stinkin TBS has cut out the actual whipping part. I'm kinda sad about that.

-The fact that the whole thing is dubbed in English when everyone is speaking English, with the exception of a handful. It's like a two-hour joke and I've been under the impression it was intentional these past 11 years.... I just did a bit of research.

-This is only fuelling my recent infatuation with New York state, specifically NYC and Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, Harlem and the Villiage some distant runners-up. I mean, the Bronx is pretty dirty and I doubt I'll go there unless many other conditions are present but I'm enjoying this movie more NOW, because of my appreciation for its setting.

-These ghetto mid-90s fashions kill me. Who wears a trench coat when they don't work in a trench or flash people in the park, or call themselves a private investigator? And who tucks their shirt into their jeans which are sitting about two inches above their waist? I don't even want to talk about it. It's so ghetto and the worst part is that I remember it when it happened. Ooh! This nasty man, who looks like Ben Affleck sometimes, is wearing what seems to be a light cotton hoodie, grey, with three-quarter sleeves, baseball shirt shoulder seams, black horizontal stripes... it billows around him and then disappears into his PLEATHER pants which are too roomy (and therefore bunching) in the crotchal area, with a belt, an inch too high....hots.

-Jackie Chan is lookin mighty young and fit. "Shanghai Knights" was on just before so I'm seeing an eight-year difference. I'm impressed by all his antics... here at 41.

8/10

"The Simpsons Movie" (2007)

Well, I don't remember the last time I was this excited to see a film. Not the second and the third installments of LOTR, not the same of Pirates of the Carribbean, not the new Jim Carrey movies (after 1997, Liar, Liar, thereabouts).. nothing. I was so very excited about thsi film from the first time I saw previews for it which I estimate to have been first aired late last year. They were just little teasy clips but man, ... I was in. What I keep telling people is that this film has been so long in the waiting (the Simpos are 15 years old, I think) that it's worth watching if only for that, if only for the fact that it's finally here. At the last minute I started having the fears that I may have set myself up for disappointment so I tried to lower the expectations. Fortunately for me, they were met and surpassed.... I'm impressed. The only qualm Imight have is that they tried too hard in some parts but other than that it's all good.

Good quote:
"Sir, I do believe you're mad with power."
"Of course I am! Have you ever tried being mad without power? It's boring and no one listens to you."

10/10

clips

"Acknowledge and move on. Despite our best efforts, bad stuff happens. Give your mistakes exactly as much attention as it takes to acknowledge and learn what needs to be learned, and then put it behind you. Don’t dwell — dwelling on the negative undermines our confidence and energy and can easily lead to worse mistakes down the line."

"Mark Twain said, 'I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.' We often create and endure more troubles than actually confront us, just through the act of envisioning and fretting over negative scenarios in our heads. It pays, of course, to be prepared, but there’s a point of diminishing returns a point where we are investing more of ourselves into fighting off the troubles that don’t afflict us than we would dealing with the troubles that actually come to pass. We spin these scenarios out of our fears and anxieties about our own shortcomings, not out of a clear-eyed assessment of the world around us. And we feed those fears and anxieties with the thousand little negativities we generate in the course of our daily lives. So try starving the little buggers out, and save the worry for when things really are going wrong."

Wax, Dustin. "Don't be Eeyore." lifehack.org. 25 July 2007 (http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/dont-be-eeyore.html).

"The Holiday" (2006) [24/07/07]

This film had things in it that not only caught me off guard but they thoroughly confused me. Even now, I'm sure I didn't catch all of what was thrown at me.
I like that the film wasn't complicated by having too many actors (though that can also be a huge downfall for a film when it means the director and leading actor are simply arrogant and careless). I like that the two main stories that ran concurrently were not identical. Of course the "they get together in the end" factor was obvious from the previews I saw last year but other than that, there were details which made the whole thing seem less cheap, surprizingly more plausible and more entertaining. I like how Iris, the woman who ended up in L.A., was able to grow a great friendship with a brilliant writer, an elderly man who threw a Chaunnakah party in her house, and that seemed almost to be the most focal aspect for her story; the falling-in-love part happened as a sideswipe, boy-next-door kind of thing.
The character Graham, played by Jude Law, he was strangely complicated and delightful and didn't make excuses or offer explanations for why he was the way he was. He was a very atypical Hollywood film character. I like that.
Jack Black's character, Miles, made me laugh out lout many times in a few scenes because he was singing bits of soundtracks while at the video store. His face is crazy and the way he sings is so exaggerated... yet so accurate. Love it.
Also, Dustin Hoffman made a little cameo when Jack Black picked up The Graduate but I felt weird that I was the only one in the room who got the reference.

There were three or four moments when Amanda was by herself reflecting on her life and a movie trailer voice-over would describe what she was thinking/feeling/going through at that time in a rather insensitive way. It took me a while to discover that it was purely her imagination and not some Stranger-than-Fiction-esque comical narrator but I love that ambiguity.

The film was not bad... I would probably never watch it again except for more acadmic/research(-ish) reasons OR just to see the scene with Jack Black.

7/10 (on its own)
8/10 (for Jack Black)

Post #317

Shooter (2007)

Mark Wahlberg is a good actor, even if he does seem to be typecast. I mean, why not continue doing what you do well? I accept.
I am reminded of Will Ferrell's comment at the Oscars last year that he wasn't gonna mess with him (Wahlberg) because he's "actually kinda bad-ass." He smack-talked so many other actors before and after but not Wahlberg. I think it's funny.

This film really did surprize me. I watched it because my brother had rented four DVDs and this was the one that made the most sense to me to watch at 2.48am (Black Snake Moan, The Last Mimzy, The Good Shepherd). I thought, with that actor and that title and the little I remembered from trailers, that it would be highly action-packed and highly predictable, some kind of testosterone festival. I was quite, quite pleasantly surprized. I mean, it was interesting, the gunnery/sniping was impressive (I was also happy to see the actor who played Tweener on "Prison Break" in that film) and Mark Wahlberg is a very attractive man, I'm not going to lie about that, so I settled in for a presentation that would sit in the 55th to 65th percentile of goodness. Then there was a moment in which the whole direction and quality of the film took a distinct turn for the better and I remember that my jaw dropped and I moved to the edge of my seat to soak in all of that initial intensity. Man, I love when films suck me in like that.

It was good; it kinda reminded me of Apocalypto in the way that it featured someone who was unusually perseverant and hardy while also brilliant and inventive, being a severely out-numbered ONE person on the side of what's right, impossibly out-witting and defeating the conspiring, overwhelming everyone else. (In that way it's typical, the man vs. world concept.)

9/10

Transformers (2007)

I wanted only to write about this one because I loved seeing two excellent films one day after the other. I loved also that both of them had actors from "Prison Break" in them.
I love that I didn't have many expectations for this film or much hype because I hadn't spoken with many people about this film, nor do I remember the cartoons much at ALL. I thought it would be wicked cool, because of the animation and the concept but I did NOT expect to fall so madly in love with it. I mean, the actors were great, and they preserved that spirit of make-believe and super-heroism...the humor was top-notch, top-notch. I'm excited that this dude is meant to be part of a trilogy. I look forward.

10/10

"a lot like love" (2005)

I could say much of the same thing about this film as I did about the last one.

I mean, the thing I noticed most was that there was no background music when there didn't need to be. There were also some awkward moments that seemed to last longer than usual (for Hollywood) but because of that were that much more real. I mean it's too familiar to bump into people you don't want to see and to fumble through 90 of the worst, most forced seconds of your life...

The skeleton of the story (the metanarrative?) was somewhat predictable, in that you could guess with little doubt that the two main characters would "end up together". But the way it placed out, the way it was spaced out, the way people were different and had querks. The way some things didn't turn out rosy... the way some characters disappeared, and how things didn't turn out as planned... I liked it. It was interesting. And strangely, I'm not jealous.

I really liked how the film's first setting was like the mid-90s and I remember that time. FINALLY, I get to look back at something nostalgiacally.... I've never had that. I guess I've never been old enough but also, no one's ever really wanted to set their film in that time. I understand why the writer(s) needed to, for this film; it's algebra. But wow... I feel so weird being able to look back on a time that was, and say, "I remember that! I remember that..." and feel that sense of loss but that sense of appreciation that I have something to miss and I had something to experience.

You know what it is? It's like finally a romantic comedy I can respect. Finally, finally. Why doesn't anyone see things the way I do?

7.8/10

"28 Days" (2000)

This film surprized the heck out of me. Between my assumptions that this would be a romantic-comedy (because I've seen S Bullock in so many) and the uber misleading DVD jacket, I didn't expect to see a film that was deep or unpredictable, memorable, innovative, REAL or even one that I would like. But it was all of that and I did like it. I appreciate Ms Bullocks acting there. In fact, I appreciate the work of all the actors involved, but more specifically her and Steve Buscemi beacuse I've seen them in other roles that make these performances stand apart more.

I liked how there were moments of very raw dialogue. I like how there wasn't always music in the background. (I liked the rehab facility! I thought it was good and not cliche - but the cliche I'd be talking about would be my understanding from films... which could all be either perfectly accurate or perfectly bogus so what do I know?) I liked how certain moments were set up to be very classical Hollywood but they didn't always follow through as such. I liked how people could be won over because they're people. (Just like real people!) I liked how, as an audience, we didn't have to feel stupid. I'm not decided yet on whether we were intruding. I love how.... I love how I don't even know what just happened. I mean the story made its way to me as if someone I knew was telling it. Not all great, not all funny where it should have been, not always interesting, not necessarily sensible, not ending when you'd expect or want... .just a real story about something important in someone else's life.

Do people know this film? Is it like a big deal.... a big hit for Sandra Bullock's career...Oscar-nominated...innovative/trail-blazing in Hollywood - because it resists Hollywood? What's it like? Did it slip silently into the night two weeks after arriving in theatres? I actually think I don't want to know. It's like a little secret between me and the director and/or writer. Speaking of which, I would LOVE to talk to the author. Oh, I haven't felt this way since high school Writer's Craft or even some of my university English courses.... Canadian Poetry (ENGL*3660). That was a good one.

Something ungraspable that I liked:
One side of the binary is Sandra Bullock, an accomplished actor from Arlington, VA and on the other side is Gwen Cummings, a newspaper columist from New York. Somehow this person in 28 Days wasn't all actor and wasn't all character and that kind of hybrid drives me crazy. I think it's great to settle in the void between a binary. It's like... being something other than purple or not-purple... it's great.

8.2/10

another first:

Today, it was lighter outside when I went to sleep than it was when I woke up. (COOL!)
I went to bed around 6.30 or 6.45 when the sun was doin its delicious, orange n' yellow, cool breeze thing and I got up at around 13.30 when the clouds were like, "Hey! Check out ma droplets!" And... yea. I love it. Love it, love it, love it.
And I love this cool weather! Yesterday I said that if I could move to a climate that was generally colder, year-round, I'd probably do it, assuming of course that I had a good reason to leave Canada. That reason would either have to take me to the altar or be Jesus. Done.

glad-handing the high rollers

From Spongebob Squarepants Episode, "Squeaky Boots":

Mr Krabs: "It's not the boots, it's the bootee. I- I mean it's the person wearin the boots."


On defragmenting your computer...

"I don't really know what that means.. but I think it's a program that moves a bunch of rectangles around to make you feel better. It's like therapy for robots."

a few firsts

(1) Last night while trying to "sleep" a drop of sweat actually fell from my face. That never happens.* That's crazy. And, I need a fan in my bedroom.

(2) On Saturday, I had a good hair day all day, as in from 9.30am to around 1am the next day --ridiculous and possibly non-duplicable.

(3) Recently, I [understood] complex piano playing from an outsider's perspective and it shocked me. It amazed and impressed me and it boggled my mind - which shocked me. I was imagining some song or some chord progression or something - it may have been a four-part hymn and I thought, "How could I possibly move all four fingers independently??" It's ridiculous. It almost scared me to think my hands could do something that my brain didn't understand. It's the most peculiar thing. Sometimes I'm just sitting there, in front of the keyboard and I don't know what's going on but it comes out my fingers and I like the way it sounds. Go figure.

(4) On Wednesday, the fourth of July, I shared the Gospezillio with my 15-year-old brother (a few times, off-and-on during the day with unconventional wording and a whole heap of nervousness on my part).

(5) Also last night (it's been weird) I dreamed that I was telling someone about the dream I had just had. As in, I had an epic (I-wish-I-could-marry-you-but-you're-40-years-older-than-me-and-live-in-Los-Angeles kind of thing) dream, half woke up from it, wiped the infamous sweat drop away, turned my head to the other side and started another dream, or continued with the spin-off of the last one, depending on how you look at it. And in that second dream I was telling someone about the "dream" I had just had. I don't really understand it because, without having OFFICIALLY woken up, I don't see how I knew the first one was not real (it was one of those tricky kind that can keep you guessin'). Got to love when a brain confuses itself. I guess that makes dreams officially out of our control. Weird, weird, weird.

*Editor's note: That's a lie... last summer I played basketball every day after work and the sweat was basically flying off my face. So dirty but I miss it dearly.

Two Thousand and Seven

I have seen two ASPCA and one WPCA (?) commercials in the last two days and one thing hit me the first time returned a little worse with the third time. There are trained professionals - actors, representatives, owners, volunteers, field workers, doctors, whoever - appearing on the commercial which asks us to donate $18 per month (for the American...) and $20 per month for the Word Association so that the thousands of animals who are "abused, neglected and beaten" can be resuced, fed, housed, nursed to health, etc. etc.. (Thousands.) The stirring images do bring up that classic discussion over the guilt-trip and the "It's not my problem" fun but I'm not really into that. I can't think of appropriate words to describe what the images are but what I can say is that the commercial made me think that this organization, and others like it are nothing more than us fighting against ourselves. And the poor suckers caught in the middle either get to be "domestic" animals or cornered children or the rainforest and exotic friends with lucrative tusks or pelts or furs etc etc. Even something like a hippie protest against the corporate giant is still people against people. How are we so different? I don't get.

this is getting framed

I finished my first crossword puzzle all by myself and I'm happy. It's one of the items on my list of things to do before I die along with learning to play bridge, writing a poem that rhymes in both French and English when directly translated and other stuff I can't remember right now. No other people, no books, nothing but the paper the pencil and my brainium. I can't believe it. It wasn't Toronto Star or like, real-people quality crosswording but I'm satisfied for now. I'll work my way up.

Bermudes in June

The shock I met when I realized that the thermometer didn't read below zero... What kind of a place IS this?

I thoroughly enjoyed this moment, sitting on a deck, poolside, at the top of a craggy hill that led to a private beach, the sun setting and my friends & I chilling on most of our last nights in Bermuda. I kept looking up and couldn't get over how I could see palm trees waving in the wind, 20 feet away.

the clean-slate approach

alternate title: the self-centred Ontarian

"Let this bless'd assurance control:
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate
And has shed His own blood for my soul."

something different

14h30, Monday the 25th Leave the Friesen's house, Smith Parish, Bermuda
15h45 Leave Bermuda aeroport for Boston, MA
16h55 Arrive in Boston Logan aeroport
19h00 Scheduled time of departure for Boston to Buffalo, NY flight
(20h36 Scheduled landing time
21h00 Scheduled Greyhound Canada service to Toronto from Buffalo bus terminal
00h00 Scheduled Arrival in Toronto Bay Street Bus Terminal
00h30 Estimated time of reaching mother's house)
20h40 Actual time of departure from Boston
22h10 Arrive in Buffalo Niagara International Airport
23h40 Take Route #24 Genesse from BNIA to bus terminal
03h15, Tuesday the 26th Greyhound Canada service to Toronto through Niagara Falls from Buffalo bus terminal
03h32 Approach Canada-USA border
03h50 Immigrate successfully back to our home and native land
05h55 Arrival in Bay Street bus terminal
06h30 Arrive at mother's house in Bloor West Villiage
07h00 Recieve call re: trip to Wonderland
09h30 Estimated time of pick-up
11h30 Actual time of pick up
12h30 Arrive at Paramount Canada's Wonderland
21h15 Leave Paramount Canada's Wonderland
22h45 Arrive home
01h08, Wednesday 27th June Finish blog entry