a man and his moofies

saw another couple of moofies on the weekend. here goes.

1. Shopgirl ("ergh, chick flick" *click* "Gasp! FOOTBALL LEGENDS!")
Firstly, I was surprised to find this one in the comedy section. Any unwitting patron of Videobusters Croydon who hires it in the hope of seeing a wacky Steve Martin laughfest will be disappointed. It's definitely more of a quirky drama. Sure, Jason Schwatzmann provides some moments of humour, but he's not in it as much as Claire and Steve (Danes and Martin, duh). Huge props to Schwartamann for Rushmore, btw. Another reason to hire this film.

OK, well, the disclaimer goes that my beloved is a huge Steve Martin fan (EARLY Steve Martin obviously, things headed south after !Three Amigos!), and as a result, I've read his short stories, and the novella on which this film is based. They're very good - he is a very clever, funny man, despite those awful, awful movies he's been making over the past ten years (Father of the Bride?....families, jesus). Knowing that he had also written the screenplay for the movie, I was curious to see it, because it is by no means a conventional story. It's kinda fucked up really.

I liked the character of Mirabelle (Danes) in the book, but in the film, not so much. However, I liked Jeremy (Schwartzmann) in the film, but not so much in the book. And I don't like Ray (Martin) in either..hehe - Ray Martin. Steve Martin looks WEIRD these days, like he is slowly expanding or something. Face looks all puffy. Utterly unconvincing as a love interest for the 20-something Mirabelle, even though she's meant to be all depressed and lost.

Actually, now that I think about it, this is a really sad movie. There's no way it should be in the comedy section by any stretch of the imagination. Basically it goes that the lovely, kinda messed up and very lonely Mirabelle goes out first with slacker-loser Jeremy, then with rich sugar-daddy Martin, both relationships are fucked up for one reason or another. Then Bruce Willis rescues her from certain machete death at the hands of a savage African tribe. Oh sorry, that was Tears of the Shopgirl.
She ends up back with Jeremy, who, despite being stupid and geeky, is a better choice as he is sincere. That sounds really crap, but it really is a good book.

I was impressed by how closely the film followed the novella, given its unconventional nature. In the past when my favourite books have been made into movies - ew (see LA Confidential, Rules of Attraction, etc). Even when writers convert their own books into films, it rarely works, though Pet Sematery is cool.

I got confused - where was I? Oh yeh. Yeh, look, I don't know. It was OK, but it will be all but forgotten in a week or so.


2. The Last Horror Movie
Okies, well, I hired this one without reading the blurb, mainly coz it was rated R and I needed something to temper Shopgirl with. Even now, as I recall this movie, my head is slowly, involuntarily, shaking "no".

You know those movies that try to be good? Pulp Fiction is one, but that actually has something going for it. This movie just tries SO hard to be original, the whole thing smacks of effort. If you're a film-maker, you shouldn't need to try so hard, originality should just come naturally. Sadly, this is rarely the case.

The gimmick of this one (stolen from the brilliant Danish mockumentary Man Bites God, best video cover ever), is that it starts as a standard horror movie for the first five minutes, then jumps to static and bang - we see a man talking to camera. He tells us how he's taped over the horror movie with his own "intelligent" horror movie. He goes around with a cameraman, killing people and talking shit about the nature of murder, violence, horror movies. His monologues are supposed to raise serious questions about human nature, but unfortunately, such a feat requires an intelligent script-writer.

And so it goes, he kills all these people and tries to confront all our little pre-conceptions blah blah blah, but no-one is hip to what he's trying to say, man. At the end, it turns out that there is only one copy of this film, and he waits at the video-store for someone to hire it. When they do, he follows them home, waits for them to finish watching it, then breaks in, tries to have a frickin' dialogue with them about all the importart issues that were raised in the film, and kills them. This is meant to frighten us, because, gosh, we just hired it!

I wasn't worried that he was going to kill me, though. For starters, the whole thing was set in England - I doubt this movie made enough money for him to afford a flight over. And also - it would have been worth being killed for the chance to let him know what I thought of his pissant movie.

perfect situation

In today's news comes an interesting lil story (which I can't be bothered linking to, deal).

I have to warn you, it's sad. Sad but true.

Seems a certain Sydney dopefiend mother found her baby floppy and unresponsive, eyes rolled back in his head, blue lips, tongue hanging out. Like any good mother would, she immediately dialed 000. She then put her friend on the phone, who relayed to her CPR instructions from the emergency operator.

Not interesting so far - another tragic tale from junkie-town.

Unfortunately, halfway through the mother decided it was time for a smoke. She stopped CPR and went outside to fag it on up. Turns out smoking really is bad for your kids. Coz the kid died.

So why the title "perfect situation"? Because this would have to be the absolute purest form of junkie-mum behaviour. Not even the most jaded satirist could come up with this shit by him/herself.

Similarly, there was that story a week or so ago about this woman who tried to pay for her wedding dress with her SON. In fact, it wasn't her wedding dress, it was a DEPOSIT for her wedding dress. With her SON. She's in jail too. But that's different - it was in the US. They got a whole different set of (much much lower) standards there.

As you were.

seems extremely unlikely

your sister

pssst

sorry, no updatey, they got me workin'.

although, now House is finished, maybe there'll be time tonight?

tears of the bruce willis fan

Bruce Willis has only just gotten a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame TODAY? WTF?

Die Hard came out, what, 19 years ago?

It was bad enough when he was totally overlooked for an Oscar for his amazing performance in Tears Of The Sun. The best thing about that movie is that it didn't contain any reference to any tears or any suns. I was fully expecting that when all hope appeared to be lost, one of the villagers would tell Bruce a folk tale that involved "tears of the sun". which would inspire Bruce to kill all the baddies. The folk tale would begin "In my village, there is a tale...". It never happened. Tears of the B-movie Appreciating Public might have been a better title.

Tears of the Sun: Cons.
The movie is actually quite sickening. Check out the timeline of events:
1. In reality, almost a million Rwandans are hacked to death with machetes. The rest of the world, forewarned by the UN observers in that country, do exactly fuck-all to stop it.
2. Some years later, Tears of the Sun is released. Its about a group of US soldiers who rescue african villagers from getting hacked to death with machetes. The whole "based on a true story" thing is conspicuously absent from promotional material. Maybe they should have gone with "based on what the US army was morally obliged to do, but didn't coz there's no goddamn oil in Rwanda". Ooh, political.

Tears of the Sun: Pros.
It has Bruce Willis in it. And you know what? If he had reprised the John McClane character for this role, I'd like it even more. And I'd like it even more still if the only explanation offered for why McClane was now serving with the marines in Africa was "for some reason, McClane is now a marine in Africa". I mean, let's face it - who gives a crap about exposition anyway? It's always clumsy and stupid. Replace it all with car chases I reckon.

Oh yeh, and it would have been even better if McClane had jumped off a waterfall, holding an African orphan in his arms, and as they fell, the orphan yelled "McClaaaa-aaa--aaane!", like Sam Jackson in Die Hard 3. That would have been awesome.

Bored? Who, me?

when ADHD goes too far

sad to see Robin balding at such a young age

ebola

hitler

another monday