Which reminds me, I really should defrost and clean up that mess.
My October training journal...
I've been pretty diligent about training for this, but I hafta admit I'm a little concerned about the real thing. Practice and training can only prepare you for so much.
I can just imagine... I'm in movie number 14, at just about minute 100 of my second SERENITY screening of the day, when I find myself caught in the middle seat of a packed row in the mezzanine and my bladder anxiously informs me that ordering that second large diet coke to go with that medium bucket of popcorn (no butter, but salted in the middle and on top) was a bit overly ambitious... the kickass finale in Mr. Universe's complex is just getting started! What do I do? What. Do. I. Do?
Of course I KNOW - we ALL know - what my training TELLS me I do. Piss myself and keep watching. But when faced with the cold, harsh... actually, scratch that, it's more like... the warm, irritating reality of the situation...?
Oh, I can't think like that. I mustn't. I'm just psyching myself out. Deep breath. Deep breath. Deep breath. Okay. I'm allright. I'm allright.
Originally I was hoping to make THREE... EXTREMES the first movie in my 'thon, but the frickin frackin f/artsy Kendall Square cinema unloaded it this week, bleah. I checked their website last week and there was no "last week!" message next to the movie's blurb, carnsarnit. I just assumed that meant it would be around another week. I should've known better. It's great that THREE got some real distribution (Lions Gate, I think?) but what good is it if theaters only keep it on their screens for two weeks?
So, unless Joe talks me into catching a mainstream matinee at the Boston Common theater tomorrow, it looks like one of the Jacques Doillon films will be first. LA VENGEANCE D'UNE FEMME. A "chamber drama" that "explores the often-painful way in which people emotionally torture themselves and others as they search for personal fulfillment." Sounds like the French LAKE PLACID, no?
Over foods and drinks after volleyball tonight I recommended DROWNING MONA to Kristin, who was looking to break a run of crappy movie rental selections. She mentioned how much she digs OFFICE SPACE and PRINCESS BRIDE and the BBC series THE OFFICE and MONA came to mind first. Not exactly the most obvious leap, but that's what I came up with. I think MONA's a hugely underrated or unnoticed comedy w an amazing cast - William Fichtner, Casey Affleck, Danny Devito, Jamie Lee Curtis - having some fun w their straight and outrageous roles.
Hrmmm...Maybe I'll see about coming up w some alternate/additional suggestions in case MONA doesn't quite tickle her funny bone.
It's kinda too bad that I had volleyball tonight. Not that it wasn't fun, cuz Thursday 4's are consistently the best regular night of ball. It's just that the Brattle screened THE SEVEN SAMURAI tonight. I've seen it two or three times at the Brattle in the past, but tonight's was a fundraising screening, as well as the closing film of the samurai film series they were running. I saw every film I could in that series this week.
Sunday night was a double feature of YOJIMBO and SANJURO, which I'm pretty sure I've done twice in the past at the Brattle as well. For me, these movies tell the origin story of the drifter archetype, in the character of Toshiro Mifune's wandering samurai. This is a model for all the INCREDIBLE HULKs, FUGITIVEs, PRETENDERs, QUANTUM LEAPs, and even A-TEAMs that we get sucked into. Decent guy stumbles into an F'd up situation, uses his talents and know-how to set things right, all the while following a code of honor and behavior, and moves on. And, gawldang! but Akira Kurasawa with Toshiro Mifune can do some incredible storytelling. I do believe that these are the two movies that inspired the Eastwood spaghetti westerns, A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS and A FEW DOLLARS MORE, and they are chock full of perfect characters, familiar and entertaining personalities and types. When I came out of the theater after that double feature I decided I need those movies, and now that I think about it, probably the two western adaptations too. Good crack.
Monday night was THREE OUTLAW SAMURAI. The Brattle blurb has it in all caps that it's NOT ON VIDEO, so I'm damn glad I caught this one. The wandering samurai Shiba discovers a lady's decorated hairpin in a field next to a mill, prompting him to investigate the mill itself as a possible shelter for the evening. Inside, he discovers three peasant farmers holding their master's daughter hostage. They seek an audience with some higher lord to report the master's unfair taxing and treatment of the farmers. The samurai spends the night in their company and is moved by their plight. When daylight comes, he joins their cause. In the course of several encounters with mercenaries hired by the master, Tanba ends up recruiting two more samurai to help protect the farmers. One of these is a fellow wanderer, Sakura, who lived as a farmer before picking up the sword. The other is, Kikyo, the master's favorite swordsman, who finds he cannot continue to accept his comfortable life under the master's roof if it is paid for with the dishonorable treatment of the peasants and other samurai. When he fights side by side for the first time with Shiba, in a running melee against an army of the master's swords-for-hire, he turns to Shiba in a lull in the fighting, and shouts at him, "I like you!"
That's some good $hit right there, that is.
When it DOES make it to video, I will be picking that one up. Definitely.
Wow. Just thought of another movie to recommend to Kristin. TAMPOPO. It came to mind for the first time in years recently when someone asked about what rules there are for eating noodles. What a crazy set-up of a question for TAMPOPO, right? It must've been over late night eats at Shabu-zen, after seeing KISS KISS BANG BANG. There were many noodles to be consumed, and only spoons and chopsticks available to help. No one at the table had heard of the movie. That was a little bit sad to realize, but hey, maybe that's why I was there. To let them know about it. It's a noodle western, complete with cowboy hat topped good guy/master. It's part Monty Python, part genre-bender, applying the familiar cinematic structure and pacing of martial arts training and combat to the cooking and presentation of noodles. I know it sounds crazy, and it is, but it's so damn entertaining, funny, and visually, stunning. Also in one scene, outdoes 9 1/2 weeks for lusty and erotic applications of foodstuffs. Gotta add that one to my list as well.
Frack, 3.30am? This always happens on volleyball nights. Playing ball in the evening mucks w my metabolism. I'm already prone to night owl-ness, but this extends my late night restlessness. Nuts. Day one of the 'thon and I'm already shootin myself in the foot. And busting my bum - literally, and specifically, my left one - on the floor tonight isn't gonna help my form any either. Foo.
I can't muster the words to really discuss them now, but for the record, Wednesday night I caught the double feature of SAMURAI REBELLION, brilliant Mifune samurai dad-ness, and HARAKIRI, which felt to me a bit like an old school TALES FROM THE CRYPT for ronin.
Keep on keepin on~
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