Grab A Tree And DANCE!

But first, Bollywood 101:

For those of you that don’t know, one of the biggest rivals to Hollywood cinema in terms of ticket earnings (Aside from video games) is the amazingly voluminous film industry in Bombay, affectionately known as Bollywood. With Kajillions of viewers there and a guerilla style budget and production methodology that crank out films almost faster than you can blink, Bollywood cinema is to India what stage plays were to Elizabethan England. That is, the fastest, most accessible and most popular form of entertainment available to “the masses” and probably the single most powerful pop culture icon of the entire country. Modern Indian life is Bollywood and vice versa, the two are practically inseperable now. Characterized by the almost horrifyingly emotional nature of the Indian people, who are probably THE most emotional people on the face of the Earth, every Bollywood film is an excess in melodrama that most people outside the country would find unbelievable if not for the fact that it probably actually tones down just how insanely emotional it can really get in this country. Come on, did you really expect a people who created a pantheon of demons, and multi-armed deities to be cool and composed?

Bollywood is typified by music, (And in fact, they are often musicals, keeping the flame alive long before Moulin Rouge did, with its high budget tip of the hat to Bollywood right at the end of the picture) and certain quirky conventions, not the least of which (And my most favoritest from a sheer entertainment value perspective) is that people always somehow end up dancing around trees. I think Bollywood has singlehandedly made the humble tree the most valuable part of set design. No tree, no love…

The reason I am giving all this background is so that the more Western-centric viewers without the exposure to Bollywood films (Since Singapore has a Hindi channel, I’ve been browsing them on and off for the last few years) will be a little more at ease during today’s rant which is about

Monsoon Wedding

A fairly UN-typical Bollywood film and winner of its fair share of awards, this film concentrates on the family dynamics as a traditional, Indian arranged wedding takes place. There is music, yes. But not the musical, dialogue seguing into a chorus line of dancers and running around the tree style that is normal. There are complications yes, but none of the arbitrary conflicts enforced by demands of the plot to sustain viewer suspense. There is drama, yes, but then this is an Indian film and an Indian film without hysterics is like any film without actors, music, opening/closing credits or film in the camera.

Working with a considerably higher budget than typical Bollywood fare, this film looks sharp, sounds sharp, and it’s obvious that it took more than two weeks to shoot. The rich colors and shot compositions of the director come alive thanks to the crispness of the film and this is probably what most Bollywood director’s pray for;a chance to let their vision really shine as opposed to being forced to work with budgets that wouldn’t even cover a typical actor’s salary for a Hollywood production. I dunno man, maybe it’s just that old saw of mine about Hollywood being decadent and no longer hungry again…

What really amazed me about this film was how squeamish it made me. The complexity of a family, with its loves and hates and resentments running simultaneously with compassion was all uncomfortably there. Watching the interplay of relatives left me with that same urge I have at real family gatherings to wander outside and smoke a cigarette until it’s all over so as to avoid the feuding, the hypocrisy, the emotional displays or just plain awkwardness of a bunch of people who don’t really know or like each other much, forced to come together and be all palsy-walsy for the sake of “The Kids And Their Day.”

If I didn’t personally know Indians how were prone to these kind of emotional hysterics I would have immediately written off this film as pure soap opera, but then if you do that, you’re basically saying that the entire sub-continent of India is “unrealistic” and fails to convince viewers thanks to their unsubtle performances.

This is a whacky and very true feeling film. Watch it at your peril. Especially if you have a complicated family. It’ll probably leave you feeling uncomfortable…

Attention All Shoppers

The reservation for The Shoeless Birthday Present List, item one (1) Big Bill novel, Pattern Recognition has been filled. Please direct further inquiries to the desk and alternative items and/or plans will be made available for your consideration. Thank you for shopping S-Mart. Have a great day…

I Know A Rocket Scientist

And he used to play Transformers on his Commodore 64.

Perhaps it’s just that I have a supernaturally high amount of intelligent friends, but when I see stuff like what my old childhood (And still dear) friend Francis Poulin has accomplished, wanting to be a novelist doesn’t really seem like that big a deal. I can’t even understand what the hell his accomplishments are and reading is supposed to be one of my professional skills. The only sheer flow I ever see oscillate is on my girlfriend’s stockings when she walks around, but I don’t think that’s quite the same thing. I think I might have taken a barotropically unstable jet once to Bali, but that’s only because the air conditioning was busted and there was some turbulence…

Would you believe I used to make fun of this guy and make him cry?

Jeeeeeeesus…

While I was busy being neurotic and angst ridden, he was quietly going about becoming a fuckin’ math genius. Some people just know how to utilize their time better, I guess…

Oh Yeah…

Will someone please explain to me why I don’t review more movies professionally around here?

I Am So NOT Money…

Tonight’s borrowed DVD comes courtesy of Ultra-Urbanite Ching, and is, not surprisingly, a comedy film about urban life called Swingers.

It’s a conflicted and strangely arty (At moments anyway) look at single men in the 90′s and what it takes get any action going anymore. I liked it. Some really clever dialogue and rapid fire referentials to cinema both in the script and in the shot composition. It was this bizarre collusion of the Hollywood Lounge/Glory days when Sinatra was king and an injection of the Woody Allen Manhattan sensibility with a little bit of neurotic, navel contemplating Ally McBeal thrown in for good measure except that instead of it being a borderline anorexic in lip stick it was a tortured comedian who couldn’t get over his Ex.

It was like the movie was trying to cram in cool bits from nearly every movie/director that the film makers admired, like this was either a pet project of cool things they were looking for an excuse to replicate, or else a Pay-The-Rent project they weren’t particularly enthused about, and so didn’t feel a need to establish much originality and so gleefully, playfully ripped off anything they thought was neat and stuck it in here to save themselves the trouble of having to craft anything themselves. It tries, in the same way that Woody Allen films do, to make the city a character of the story itself, but it’s just one element of many that are infused into this film.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

There are moments (Like dissing Reservoir Dogs and Tarantino’s choice of shots, followed immediately by a shot of The Boys walking in slow motion to music) that are hilarious. Others are not quite so likeable, but still fun nonetheless, and others just felt a bit out of place. It’s a mixed bag of movie, but on the whole, still very watchable.

And the performances are what save the film. Vince Vaughn as Trent has the juicy role of being the well meaning but nevetheless Totally Obnoxious Asshole, who is a joy to watch as he sleazes from one scene to the next. You actually get off on watching just how big a jerk he can be because he pulls it off with so much, as Bugs Bunny would say, “Pana-chee.” It’s from him that a majority of the film’s best lines come from:

[Giving advice to Mike about how to carry himself around women]

Trent: I don’t want you to be the guy in the PG-13 movie everyone’s really hoping makes it happen. I want you to be like the guy in the rated R movie, you know, the guy you’re not sure whether or not you like yet. You’re not sure where he’s coming from. Okay? You’re a bad man. You’re a bad, bad man.

It’s a fun film. A horrible, voyeuristic look into a world that I want no part of, and that would tear me to pieces two seconds after I shook hands with the doorman and stepped into the club. The constant struggle, the need to be “Money,” to make sure it’s “On”… I admit it, it’s too tough a world for me and would kill me in the attempt to fit in. I wasn’t quite sure whether the weird infusion of Sinatra and jazz into modern L.A. really worked since it just kind of put me in this weird retro-view of Woody Allen’s New York–but flatter!–but most of the time it didn’t matter because the start of this show, the banter between the men, the ruthless functionality of their perceptions of women with the sole goal of making sure “It’s on,” was so horrifyingly fascinating and brilliantly delivered that you almost owe it to yourself if you’re a guy to watch and this and see how close you come to the mark, and if you’re a girl, to find out what’s really going with the chatter between men if you ever find yourself being eyed by a guy at a bar and he’s talking to his friends.

Do guys really talk about this?

Yes.

Do they talk like this?

No. But I sure wish they did. If everyone spoke like movie dialogue (Something I try to do, but often fail at in spectacular fashion) conversation would be far snappier and more interesting for everyone involved.

As for me, I ain’t Money. I ain’t ever going to BE Money. Being money involves a lack of self-consciousness and predatory awareness that I couldn’t buy if I were the CEO of Microsoft and had carte blanche access to corporate accounts.

I like the convenience of cities, but I’ve never been a big fan of the ambience of them, and prefer to carve out my own little world somewhere in the cracks and be Money there. Except that there’s no such thing as a Money Geek, so I guess I’m really more like a High THAC0 Geek, and if you understand that reference, you’re nearly as hopeless as I am…

This Is Jack’s Cinematic Credibility Going Straight To Hell

Those of you who take films seriously at all are now about to never take me seriously again.

That is because I am about to stand up and defend the teen flick, and since you’re all a bunch’a intellectual types with taste, you are about declare that after this admission, I most assuredly am NOT.

What is setting off tonight’s rant was tonight’s borrowed film, this one coming from Eugene and having sat on the pile for months on end, a little movie called Empire Records. In and of itself, I didn’t actually think that Empire Records was that great. I’m wondering if that’s because I’m suffering from a terminal case of Unhipness, or if it’s because the movie was genuinely bad. This one was directed by Allan Moyle who I doubt many people would recognize, but who I am eternally grateful to for directing Pump Up The Volume, which is 3/4 of the reason why I even watched this in the first place.

And it is Pump Up The Volume and 80′s films by John Hughes before he started choosing progressively younger subjects (I’m still waiting for him to announce his next project starring a fetus…) that really got me to thinking about teen films in general.

I repeat, this is your last chance, anyone who knows anything about film stop reading now as this will just make you angry.

I’m arguing from the empathetic perspective. Speaking demographically, as it were. Let’s throw a few things right out the window right now: Forget discussions about technical merit, I already know these are not gorgeously composed art films with stunning mise en scene. From a philosophical standpoint, throw out the cosmic perspective. The Grand Scheme Of Things doesn’t enter into this, since most teens don’t give a flying fuck about that.

Here’s what you CAN keep in the house after all those argumentative ground rules have been thrown out and forced to get a job and their own place.

Imagine you are sixteen.

That’s it. Just imagine, or remember, if you still can, what it is to be 16 years old in North America. You are reasonably intelligent, you are frustrated, you are emotional, egocentric, you understand the world is FUBAR and yet are powerless to do anything about it, you are experiencing something like infancy all over again where everything is new, except now it’s not learning to walk or speak, it’s learning that there’s a world outside your neighborhood and that maybe toys aren’t the final answer to happiness. Maybe you are even starting to read something outside comic books and required reading at school and have discovered names like Timothy Leary, Jack Kerouac, Flaubert and Ayn Rand (God forbid…) but you are starting to realize it’s a big world out there, and YOU are NOT the center of it. There are doubts. Insecurities. Peer pressure is starting to take hold and your parents are no longer wise guardians but flawed human beings who you deem hopelessly out of touch with what’s going on in the world. You’ve bought your first music, are making those first trembling steps to actually trying define or discover who you are on your own, and it is a big confusing mess. And, most important of all, NO ONE UNDERSTANDS…

That’s the big key, that sense of alienation and that no one actually gets it.

Then, if it’s the 80′s, John Hughes comes along and starts throwing out stuff like The Breakfast Club. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty In Pink, Sixteen Candles, Some Kind Of Wonderful. Or maybe you just watched Christian Slater channelling Jack Nicholson in Heathers or Pump Up The Volume. Or the antics of the Welton boys in Dead Poets Society. Or Lloyd Dobbler in Say Anything.You suddenly don’t care about Orson Welles and deep focus if you’ve even heard of him and that, you don’t care about auteurist theory, shot composition or whether matte lines are visible around certain effects shots.

What you DO care about is that here are people that are eerily like yourself or people you know. And they’re going through things you have, or have seen. More importantly, they’re feeling, saying and DOING things you’ve thought or wanted to say or do. They are real to you because they GET IT. They’ve been through it, or are going through it over the course of 90 minutes and THEY UNDERSTAND.

Suddenly it’s there. Sympathy. Understanding. A compact established between you and movie because it spoke to you in a way you related to, in a way that mattered, and maybe once it’s done, you’re not quite the same person again, if only because you know you’re not alone, and because someone just went through something familiar to you, only with music and drama and less complications so that the right thing was a much clearer thing to see and do.

For most teenagers, there’s no point or no interest in worrying about the state of the world. The wars, the starvation, the rampant diseases or political power plays that they aren’t even old enough to intervene in. They are still self absorbed, still trying to figure out who they are before they can worry about what the world is, and because of that, there’s no point in trying to make them feel guilty. Telling a teenager that people are starving in Africa or that wars are tearing the middle east apart in order to guilt them into forgetting their own problems will not work. It’s only when a teenager works through and SOLVES their problem that they are in a better position to understand the world, their role in it, and what they can do to make it a better place. Movies like the ones I mentioned above try to do this in some small way. By inspiring, informing, giving courage, or simple understanding that they are not alone in their confusion and they can get through it.

Pump Up The Volume was a cathartic film for me. One that I took the trouble to go out and get as a personal VHS copy way, WAY back when. Same with many of the above mentioned films, which are now slowly making their way to my DVD collection. I could relate big time to Christian Slater’s angst in Pump Up The Volume. Here was this shy, alienated kid, completely outcast by his school, too smart for his own good with a real mouth on him, and he responded in the way available to him. He started up a pirate radio station and he ranted. He used the airwaves to carry his words and feelings. I ended up using writing. But despite what most of the doubtless enraged film buffs who might still be reading this would say about its commercial aspect, it’s lack of aesthetic, its pandering to the ignorant unwashed masses and its fantasy play aspect of giving power to the powerless, it did something important. At least in my case, it gave me on more reason to carry on and want to be heard. It did not talk down to me. It did not make me feel stupid (Except of course when more scholarly critical types would pan it, that always made me feel rather dumb about liking it), and it spoke to me at my level because it indirectly (Like so many of those teen flicks) taught me a lesson I throw in everyone’s face now when they start feeling bad because they’re worried about a problem they have that they think is stupid or unimportant in the Grand Scheme Of Things.

Pain is pain.

Just because it’s not happening to millions of people, or because it doesn’t involve bloodshed, that doesn’t diminish the fact that it IS pain, it IS happening and it IS hurting you in some way. Pain in not something who’s value (Or lack of) can be measured statistically, and so all those guiltstricken first world teenagers who weren’t losing limbs in minefields or getting killed by opposing forces from across the bank finally had someone (In the form of these movies) step up to the plate and tell them “You don’t have to feel bad about having problems that don’t involve news bulletins and film at 11. Problems are problems, and we know you hurt because of them. Here. Watch this. Maybe it’ll help.”

Every film, not matter how bad, or how commercial has, at some stage in it, some potential for art. Maybe in the planning stage, then lost as it went to shoot. Maybe in one lovely shot that appears for a second, and then its mired in its own mediocrity once again for the next two hours. But every film, at some stage, can be art. That is, to provoke thought, to provoke feeling, to inspire, to move, to show us who we could be, or want to be, and encourage us to realize that.

And teen films get to a very vulnerable segment of the public at a very dangerous and exciting time, and they are one of the few artistic outlets that they have that don’t talk down to them, treat them with dignity and encourage them to do the Good Thing or Right Thing. More often than not, these filmic attempts usually fail. But for every failure, there’s always one or two that the film spoke to. And maybe did a little good for. And maybe even helped to encourage to better themselves and, ultimately the world.

THAT’S why I think that teen flicks are a good thing and we need more of them. Maybe I’m not the target audience anymore, but I still remember what it’s like and when I see those moments when the cast and crew of the film are reaching out, trying to ease confusion and loneliness and provide–if not answers–encouragement and courage to go find them…

Well… okay, if all you film guys are still reading this, the comments link is below. Start your flames…

Why Woody Allen Is A Fucking Genius

One bit of brilliant, BRILLIANT dialogue right at the very end of Hollywood Ending:

“Thank God the French exist.”

It wasn’t the best Woody Allen film I’ve seen, but even his worst stuff is pretty darn good compared to the vast majority of writing for most movies. And that line alone made the entire film priceless…

I’m A Shut In And I Like It

I don’t like going out much.

This SARS thing is a kind of convenient that way, because it gives me a legitimate reason to stay at home most of the time, and since everyone else’s self-preservation instincts have kicked in, they don’t exactly bug me about going out to public places either.

Maybe it’s just a Singapore thing, (Or, more to the point, a tropical weather thing) but I notice here a greater tendency to want to go out–not even to do anything in particular, just go out and “hang” as them crazy kids say–and it baffles me (Then again, I am Canadian) as to why anyone would want to out into an environment that causes them to sweat uncomfortably after 5 seconds of exposure. I prefer the frigid wastes of the Canadian North that kill you in a matter of hours…

But here is my complete list of places I don’t like. I hate:

Bars

The first retreat of the wage slave at the end of hard day’s unsatisfying work before going back to a charmless life with no fire or passion. The bar is kind of like a permanent dinner party where you go to be with people if you don’t know how to be with people. There the other patrons have no choice but to be in your presence since it’s all about the drinking. And the sleazing. Can’t say I was ever fond of Money Guys using that as their sole means to entice the ladies, but then it’s still a dog eat dog world, and since physical strength is now a largely useless measurement of a man’s ability to survive in the world, money is the new water mark. Sigh…

Okay there are THREE bars that I look back on with great fondness, the now defunct Dewey’s in Hub Mall back at the University of Alberta, the now no longer recognizable (Or so I’ve been told) Squire’s Tavern on Whyte Avenue, and the now moved and no longer cool Bisous that moved from its charming Tras Street location to the more upscale and business-y Far East Square locale.

Dewey’s rocked ’cause it was… well, it was a COLLEGE bar, for God’s sake. Thousands of interesting poets, artists, musicians, dance students, philosphers, film critics, writers, playwrights, dancers and others hung out there, how could it NOT be cool?!? Sure it had a pretentious quotient beyond all reason compared to other bars, but it was always full of intelligent (If occasionally inflated and egotistical) conversation.

Squire’s holds a special place in my heart for feeding me every Friday night from 5 pm to 7 pm when they took pity on all of us poor, starving college students and put some free chow on offer so that we wouldn’t all have to resort to a) Mom’s cooking b) Our cooking (Usually just macaroni & cheese) or c) the 30 cent rice deal at Ho-Ho’s Chinese food outlet.

Bisous: Now this was a BAR bar. Not too crowded, moody lighting, a KICK ASS bartender (Gavin will always rock…) this not only looked like the kind of classic 40′s film noir bar you see in movies, with shadows and tables and jazz, but we could occasionally take over the sound system and play our own tunes. My theory is that the owners were just nice because they wanted to be able to say that I was a regular before I became a monstrously successful novelist. This was THE perfect place to go when dumped, depressed, or just maudlin ’cause it was so stereotypically cinematic, what you always imagined a bar SHOULD look like, that you couldn’t help but feel slightly movie-ish yourself, like Matt Dillon or Edward Norton would walk in any minute and you’d find out you were at the “flash forward” start of a movie where they start to tell their story before the movie proper begins…

Clubs

I don’t like clubs. PERIOD.

They are too loud and filled with too many entirely not nice people, and since I’m antisocial by nature, speech is an important communication tool for me, and I have all the social grace of a drunken panda not to mention the fact that I dance like a girl at her prom night… these all conspire to render me largely useless, mute, bitter, and, if possible, cringing in a corner booth with my shoes off, in fetal position, downing one drink after another between cigarettes so as to anesthetize myself further from the sensory overload. Yes, I know that some people are here to dance and just have fun, but the others are more of the sleaze bag types that are out for their One Night Stand, and I don’t like being in such a predatory atmosphere. To those of you who say, “Then just don’t go!” I say, “I don’t!” But then I also ask you to tell my friends from refraining to try to get me to said locations because it’s good for me.

Clubs and I DON’T MIX. I’m too busy being an insecure, neurotic artsey/writer type to be comfortable in such a setting.

Parties

Too many strangers, too many pheromones, too many lame attempts at clever conversation. ‘Nuff said.

Shopping Malls

Shopping Malls would be wonderful places if they didn’t have all those God damn shoppers around. For anyone who is sufficiently bored, or works in a mall as security, I highly reccomend taking a wander through after closing hours. Maybe light up a cigarette in the atrium. In the middle of that vast expanse of exhausted capitalism, it’s really something. Conversely, try wandering around Marina Square at night when only the arcade and movie theater are open. Malls are just better without people.

Any Street

TOO. MANY. PEOPLE…

And now, the democratic response:

Places I Like

The Singapore Art Museum

NO PEOPLE! JUST PICTURES!

I thank the stars that Singapore has little or no interest in its arts, because that means I can wander through the art museum largely unmolested by those annoying things known as Other Human Beings. Normally Singapore’s misguided attempts at trying to force culture down its population’s throats seem pathetic or laughable to me, but in this case, I don’t mind it at all, since it created a perfectly good building with pretty pictures that no one seems to want to go to. Highly reccomended for other anti-social people like me!

Art Supply Shops

Maybe it’s just the old art student in me, but I still like browsing through an art supply store. And not that sucky chain called “Art Friend” or the one in Takashimaya that is obviously designed to cater to bored housewives with no actual technical or visual knowledge. The one I’m thinking of is sandwiched between PARCO Bugis and Bras Basah, Straits Commercial and not only do the nice owners know EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN’ ITEM IN THEIR INVENTORY, the understand art too, and can make very good reccomendations on products and techniques to apply them. KICK. ASS. STORE.

Any Street At 3 AM

NO PEOPLE! WHEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Dinner Parties

A small group of friends, usually less than 10, some good food, not enough chatter volume to drown out the music, and generally good conversation. I’m SO THERE…

Used Book Stores

There’s a delightful messiness at work, a kind of loving chaos in the way all these old books are stuffed into every space imaginable. What’s really cool though is if you come across a book that meant something to somebody once. Maybe it was a gift, or a favorite copy of a book that somehow got lost on a trip and ended up here. You’ll find dedications written on the inside cover, or underlined passages, or even photos stuck as makeshift bookmarks. There’s personal history at work there and I think that’s neat.

Comic Book Stores

The Last True Geek Refuge. This is the one and only public space that I feel utterly comfortable in regardless of population. It gives me great pleasure to watch little dramas like the arty girl dragging her “normal” boyfriend in and watching him squirm in discomfort at the heated debate going at the Magic: The Gathering table. Here is my science fiction, my fantasy, my horror, my super-heroes, my dungeons and dragons… all the stuff that made me want to be a writer in the first place. No matter where I go in the world, a comic book store is home.

Video Game Stores

And this… is PARADISE.

People are irrelevant because I no longer notice them once I get in. All I can feel is the abundant love offered by these little platters of silicon paradise that have silicon as a component for operation, instead of having gotten in there as the result of an operation.

I’m a geek. Sue me…

Bonus Karma Points

Last night we rescued ANOTHER cat.

The girlfriend went out to dinner and a movie with her Ex, mistakenly thinking that this Friday was the X-Men 2 Crit-tanza. That’s my contribution to the Enlgish language for the day:

Critanza: (krit-tan-za)

1) A lame attempt to invent a new word for the sake of claiming one does what Shakespeare did in a pathetic bid for literary relevance.

2) A gathering of enthusiastic and/or pretentious film buffs/fans/wannabe directors to gleefully complain about the movie they just watched.

So anyway… The crit-tanza was not this Friday, but the next Friday, and so she had arranged for a diversion so as not to sit at home alone, only to find out that that’s what I ended up doing, and what she’ll end up doing next week. Further addendum to this already confused plot is that in the end, she decided her lack of enthusiasm for comic-to-movie projects might be overlooked this time if it meant she didn’t have to play with our cat for six hours, so she’s goin’! Whoo!

SO. ANYWAY… When she came home last night and I was hip deep in bashing a million buzillion giant robots in Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner, she ran across Plea For Attention Cat, yet another in a seemingly endless string of cats around the neighborhood with a distinct and very disturbed personality disorder. This cat normally hangs around our building and we had to rescue it (Or so we thought) once when we saw him meowing pitifully from the ledge of the second floor. 45 minutes of walking from window to window of the main hall eventually got to one window where it clambered out of its own accord and thanked us for our trouble by getting all affectionate. Then it went and did it again next week, so we gave up and decided if it wanted to con people into taking pity on it, then it would have to con someone else. We paid our dues.

Last night however, she found it sitting on the “Welcome” matt of our next door neighbors, staring up at her, with blood on its mouth and a raspy meow that sounded like something formerly attached was now rattling around inside like a baby’s toy. After some debate, we decided that maybe it was time to get it some medical attention. A quick call to the Mount Pleasant Animal Hospital (Open 24 hours!) revealed that we could bring that cat in for a meager 100$ consultation fee, and have an additional 30-50 tacked on for some kind of sedation to ease its pain. Feeling charitable, but not filthy stinkin’ rich, this was NOT an option. Instead we went for the somewhat less glamarous Call The Pound option (IE, SPCA) who actually showed up at 4 in the morning to pick up this mangy and seriously injured cat that we had somehow managed to stuff into Zero’s cat carrier box. Zero himself was curious as hell, and only hid for 5 minutes. After that, his rubber-necking instincts took over and I guess he decided that anything meowing in that much pain couldn’t present a threat, so we spent a good portion of the evening trying to keep him from checking out the other cat for fear that maybe he had feline SARS or something and the last thing I wanted was for an act of good will to end up killing my own cat.

Anyway, the cat is now gone. The guy who picked him up gave his legally required statement to the effect that there was no guarantee of adoption, and that he would be euthanized at the SPCA’s discretion if it came to that. Considering how banged up that cat was, he’d probably welcome it.

Oh well…

Awwwww…

Today’s borrowed film was a Korean romantic comedy called My Sassy Girl.

The short version is that it is sweet enough to kill a diabetic.

The long version:

It was a fun film. I don’t know if I’d ever list it on my all time favorites, but there was a sweetness and lightness to it that made it very watchable. I really enjoyed it in a shameful, eat-too-much-chocolate sort of way. There were a few moments that threatened to spill over into nausea inducing sweetness, but those moments were few and far between, and my only major complaint about the movie was how it manage to avoid so many Hollywood romantic-comedy elements throughout the film, only to fumble right at the very end, when it was most important to keep up their philosophy. Oh well…

I wish I could understand Korean so I could go through the extras disc. One of the things I’m really curious about is whether this movie is shot on film or digital video. I’ve seen what you can do if you toggle frame rates and go through a particular kind of image treatment in editing with video. If you do it right, it makes for a very passable 16mm style image. And this movie does look like it was shot on 16mm. However, during some of their “fast-forward” moments where the image is sped, up it suddenly looks very much like video once the frame rate’s been increased. That could either just be an artifact of film digitally converted to the AVID editing systems when they cut the film, or it could genuinely be that they did a good job of shooting on video that was only betrayed by the frame rate at faster speeds. I wouldn’t be surprised; a lot of film makers here are turning to digital as a way to save costs on shoots, and for the most part it works.

The Story

Kyun-Woo is a well meaning guy who is a bit of a bumbler, essentially clueless and prone to confusion as well as getting kicked around. One night he saves a drunken girl from nearly falling off the subway platform and into the train and after watching her throw up on people on the train, reluctantly takes care of her for the night. Later he finds out that she’s a sadistic, furious, she-devil of a woman who is basically also a decent soul, but wounded and pyschotic in a playful, scary sort of way. They become friends and then the pain begins…

The Soapbox

Watching this movie has pretty much nailed down for me something that’s been brewing in the back of my mind for the last few years since I got exposed to more Asian cinema. Particularly in the area of romance films. I think the biggest difference between the Asian notion of a romantic film and the Western (More to the point, the Hollywood) notion is that of restraint and subtlety. The typical Hollywood romance is passionate and sometimes even hysterical in its emotional excesses. There are tears, screaming, broken furniture, the obligatory song by Hot Female Singer Of The Month, and some kind of life affirming, quasi or full blown Happy Ending that tells us Love Conquers All. The Asian approach seems to be:

1) Love is beautiful, but it is not always a happy or cheerful thing.

2) Subtlety is King

3) There is more drama and genuine romance in a painfully restrained look, or an aborted attempt at physical contact than there is in a sex scene.

That’s probably just the Asian cultural mindset at work, but as Asians generally seem to view emotional displays as unsightly and unpleasant, their love stories tend to be much more tightly controlled, hinting at raging passions within rather than outright showing them. Somehow this implication of passion tends to be more dramatic for me than the lung bursting, bellowing hysterics of Hollywood romances where you have to have tears shed at the 45 minute mark, and again at the 90 minute mark.

Or maybe it’s just a matter of age. Hollywood has been at this for decades now. And they’ve morphed into very cagey, very greedy business entities that, like any good Multinational Corporation, looks at annual earnings rather than artistic achievement or human value. As a result, you hardly get the dialogue heavy, witty exchanges of, say, Hepburn, Grant and Stewart from 1940′s The Philadelphia Story anymore. Romantic films have been thoroughly researched, focus-grouped, and statistically collated, the end result being that the People have deicided the perfect romantic film is… Maid In Manhattan.

Urgh.

On the other side of the Pacific, you have films like this, and my really BIG favorite in Asian romantic cinema, Japan’s Love Letter, which again follows the Asian formula of unspoken feelings, bristling passion kept in check and… somehow… a sweetness and sentiment that actually feels genuine rather than stuck in because, “Girls like that stuff.” You get the idea the director likes that stuff too, that maybe he or she was trying not to cry as this piece of him/herself, a secret wish, or an old memory, played out once more and was captured on film.

Maybe it’s because it’s new. This kind of quality in both film and technology is relatively new to the Asian filmmakers and so there’s an enthusiasm and an energy here I rarely find in Hollywood efforts anymore. You almost feel like everyday that these people went to work, they were grinning from ear to ear thinking, “Holy shit. We’re making a real movie!” rather than sitting down at Spagos to wearily discuss percentages and contracts for performers before going to meet the marketing people to discuss the ad campaign. They still believe in what they’re doing, I think. Or maybe I’m just projecting.

I guess it all falls back on cliches. Hollywood doesn’t have its heart in it anymore. Asian romantic films, in their restrained and subtle way, still very much do. And the one thing I really admire is that when the emotional excess finally does happen, when the tears come out, you (Or at least, I) feel like there’s a catharsis going on too. That unconsciously you’ve been holding your feelings back and finally they get to gush out along with the characters. In that sense, the emotional payoff is much larger and more intense.

This is not to say that I’m turning my back on Western cinema. I still think The English Patient and Moulin Rouge are some of the all time best love movies ever made. But I am finding a novelty and appreciation for this more low-key stuff that I don’t often see anymore.

And for now, I like it.

I really, REALLY like it…