So there's this new indie move out. It's called Ong-Bak. Yeah, it's Thai. Take some friends, have some drinks and go see this movie. It probably changed my life or something. If I had to explain what it was about, without giving it all away, I would have to say that it is about the journey of a young man, from a dirt-poor (literally) village, and his experiences trying to--no, no; it's an existentialist metaphor about a village boy trying to get a little head. Bottom line, this is the funniest movie I've seen in years. I can hardly remember a time when I laughed this hard. It's kind of a shame, they could have made so much money on merchandise if they had sold Budhha Bobble-heads. I would have bought one. Awesome fight scenes, taxi cab street madness, powerfully moving story (LOL), French punk-rap (wtf?) and head-rolling laughter. You could feel the power of the Karma Police at work here.

Friends
Drinks
Ong-Bak

The weekend isn't over.. GO!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/ong_bak.html/

I came across this today and I don't ever want to forget it:






There's a cat in my neighborhood that's the exact same way. The apartment manager put a notice up in the washroom and on the bulletin board telling people to leave the cat alone because it had obvious signs of being kicked. lol...

I just found out today that the Dilbert Comic Strip originated at the company I now work for. SBC was still Pacific Bell at the time, but the author, Scott Adams, apparently worked here some years ago and Dilbert, himself, was born in this very building. I'm even more amused by this because Steve and Hitesh were so fervently trying to pursue a life more like Wally's. We actually had a discussion once on who was most like Wally in the office. That's when the saying started going around, "What would Wally do?"



Hitesh: What would Wally do in this situation?
Steve: Wally would just ignore the situation until it eventually resolved itself.

According to Webster's, Scott Adams sat at cube 4S700R (4th Floor, South Wing, 700 Block, Cube R), which, to my surprise, is exactly 3 floors up from where my cube is right now. A bunch of us are going to do a walk-by this afternoon to see if there's a Dilbert shrine up there or something. I am going to lift up a standard and set an example for all of the Wally's in corporate Amercia.

Current Mood: amused

Two new movies this time around, I'm still in progress of watching the 3rd. First up we have...

Touching the Void

This is a relatively new, independent film, directed by Kevin Macdonald. It just came out on DVD last Tuesday. The movie a reinactment of the true events of a climb of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes which occurred in 1985. You meet the two climbers, Simon and Joe who are mountaineers and live for the trill of it. You need to know that this is a snow climb. The mountain is in the middle of nowhere, literally. There are no people around for miles. The path to get to the mountain is so severe that you can't take animals or vehicles to the base. They had a couple mules with them at first but they couldn't take them the entire way. The climb to the summit of the Siula Grande had never been done before, despite the efforts of several climbers. Simon and Joe, both in their prime, felt they were better than the others and made the trek up the mountain side. The movie takes you up the mountain with them as they make the climb. It got to the point where I actually started to feel cold just watching them. They make it to the summit of the mountain after a difficult climb but they have run out of gas which powers their heating device to melt snow into water, which is essential for climbing in general. In their case, they were able to eat snow for some hydration, but if you've ever tried it, you know that eating snow sucks, especially in the cold. You're freezing, so is the snow and it doesn't really melt in your mouth, so you really do end up eating it. And when you're thristy, snow does NOT cut it. As they made the trip down the mountain, they ran into one problem after another until they're both staring death in the face. I was telling Ira about the movie last night.

Shoten: They didn't run into severe problems until they started coming down the mountain.
Ira: Yeah, it's always coming down that's the hard part, isn't it?

Yeah, we would know. When we went climbing some years ago, I fell off on the way down and broke my leg. I don't want to reveal too much about it, for those of you who will actually see it, but there is something that happens in the movie that really pisses you off. One of the guys does something and it gets really bad, especially for Joe. One thing I learned when climbing with Ira is that you can't do it with just anyone. At least, I couldn't. I've done some climbing since my fall, but nothing too serious. Climbing is just fun to me, it's not my passion. I'm not trying to die in that mess. But when I fell, I knew that Ira would help me. I knew that no matter what happened, he wouldn't leave me and he wouldn't stop until we were both safely off the mountain. I knew this because I would have done the same for him. I don't care what I would have had to go through, I could not have left that mountain without him. I swear, if it meant dying myself, I would have died trying to save him if he needed it. I don't understand how anyone could go climbing with anyone that they don't have *this* kind of trust and love with. To do anything less is a huge mistake, in my opinion. It's possibly worse than going alone. Anyway, you might be able to imagine some things that they went through but you won't know the extent of it until you see this movie. It's so powerful and it makes you feel, so strongly, the peril of these two men. I've never seen anything like it.

If you are anything of a climber, you have to see this movie. Even if you're not a climber, you'll be able to appreciate it and the movie will still move you. I highly recommend it.


Today I saw The Terminal.

There is something about this movie that stops it from being perfect - from being better than Cast Away. It's the fact that some sections of the film are really not believable. That bothers me so much because this film is otherwise flawless. There is definitely a line you can cross where the feel-good fluff becomes so blatantly unbelievable that you turn sour. Despite all of that, this movie is hilarious, it's munificently touching and it's absolutely inspiring. You begin with Viktor Nivorski, played by Tom Hanks, who is making his first trip to America. He encounters some problems as he tries to pass through US Customs. Because of a coup in his homeland, his country is temporarily declared as unrecognized by the United States. By law, he has to be assigned to stay in this country until the situation is resolved, but he has to be confined in his current location because he cannot enter open American ground. Seeing this movie made me really excited about the trip to LA in a couple weeks. I can hardly wait to go through the madness that is the airport. Nivorski becomes a resident of the terminal lobby and eventually finds shelter in a closed gate where he creates a make-shift home. He encounters loads of problems as you can imagine. Not to mention that he is consistently being monitored by the airport enforcement, consisiting of people who are trying to get him out of their hands. Nivorski relies on his wit to survive and meets a lot of interesting people along the way. And that's about as far as I should go. This movie was directed by Steven Spielberg, which I didn't know until I saw his name in the credits. At the very end, you see the credits are signed by the actual staff, it was pretty cool. While I did have some problems with this movie, it was excessively entertaining. It was pretty long. With the trailers and credits, I was in there for about 3 hours but I wasn't bored for a minute. It's a great family movie. There is hardly any cussing, no nudity or sex, and nothing I noticed that was questionable for children. So get that husband of yours to take you and Emilia to the movies, Gen!!! I'm going to see this movie again next weekend, with a different crowd. It's that good. It's definitely one of the best movies I've seen this year and the best movie I've seen this summer, above Shrek 2.

By the way, has anyone seen Shrek 2 and NOT liked it? I can't find anyone IRL that hasn't liked it. Even Ira and his construction-worker groupies loved it. Yeah. o.O; I think it's all about Puss in Boots. Just thinking about him makes me smile.

I'm currently working on Nora Inu (Stray Dog) and Mada da yo (Not Yet!) by Kurosawa. Nora Inu is pretty darn long. I ran out of snacks while watching it, so I inevitably got too tired to stay awake to finish it. Perhaps this morning I'll finish it off. We'll see.

-10

Current Music: Duvet - Boa, The Race of a Thousand Camels

Steve was talking about some cool places to check out in Emryville yesterday, so I went to check it out. Couple hundred bucks at BestBuy to get myself caught up in the wireless arena. And then I went to the Ikea...

Now I'm thinking, "What kind of dining room set defines me as a person?" The Haparanda sofa group with the orange slip covers by Erika Pekkari. The Johanneshov armchair in the Strinne green stripe pattern. The Rislampa/Har lamps from wire and environmentally-friendly unbleached paper. The hand-blown green glass dishes with the tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working, indigenous peoples of... wherever.

Yes, everything at Ikea is cheap. That is, of course, until you start buying everything. And then it's not so cheap.

-10

Current Music: Virtual Insanity

When I logged in to my SBC Yahoo email account today, I got a messaging indicating that I had an increased storage with the "new" Yahoo premium mail program.. thing.

SBC Yahoo has increased their email storage to 2GB.

Wow. o.O;;

Uhm. >.>a

Ok.. O.o

Last night we went to see The Chronicles of Riddi..zzzzz... I actually *tried* to go to sleep at one point. But I couldn't sleep because I wasn't tired. ...hahahahahahahaha!

Ira suggested that I see Pitch Black before we go see it. So, I did. It was okay. The special effects really didn't fit the movie though. It was like.. the space ships and the space scenery were pretty cool looking if you had found them on some site or something. The way they handled having 3 suns was pretty lame. I think Dersu Uzala must have had a higher budget. Hey, they had a *real* tiger on their set.

So yeah, The Chronicles of Riddick.. Go see it if you feel like you have to see it to believe everyone when they say how BAD it really is. But don't complain when you find out that everyone was right, afterall. Otherwise, just don't see it.. unless you're really tired and looking for new and creative ways of falling asleep.

In other news, I've experienced another Kurosawa film: Dersu Uzala.

This movie is THE SHIT.

First of all, it's a Russian movie. It was filmed in Russia and the entire story is in Russian. It's almost not really a Kurosawa film, but really, who are we kidding? Kurosawa wrote the screenplay for this movie. IMDB is saying Kurosawa directed it but I think I saw someone else in there. I did notice the telephoto lens effects in the movie, so he probably was involved in the direction, at the very least. He has written just screenplays before, though.

In any case, the results are in and the all-knowing (moronic) Kurosawa reviewers are wrong. (And if I hear that man pronounce Kaede, "kay-ite-ee-day-ee" again, I'm going to smash something.) I was reading some articles on Kurosawa by these people that claim to have seen all of his films. This one in particular, who's pronounciation is so bad, it makes you wonder if he's been watching the films with Mute on, stated that after Aka Hige, Kurosawa doesn't protray any more heroes in his stories. The clear distinction being that all films after Aka Hige are in color, which made it an interesting concept! Anyway, Kurosawa's heroes are never quite your average hero but they're not anti-heroes either. A hero in a Kurosawa film is a man like Aka Hige. He is very wise, insightful, compassionate and does what he can to help people. My point being, this man went out of his way to say that after Aka Hige, there would be no more heroes in any Kurosawa film. I would also claim that Wantanabe Kanji is also a Kurosawa hero, although he starts out as an anti-hero and becomes a real hero by the end of the story. [Mitsuo.. Mitsuo.. *slap!!*] After having seen Ran and, some years earlier, Rhapsody in August, I had pretty much accepted the claim and was coming to terms with there being no more heroes in a Kurosawa film. Now I'm wondering if this guy had ever seen Dersu Uzala, because Dersu himself is unquestionably a Kurosawa Hero.

The story is simple enough. It begins with a Russian man, we later come to know as Vladimir Arseniev or "Capitan" inquiring about a grave. "It's a friend, you see. A friend," he tells this man at the site. We then take a look into Vladimir's past as he recalls a time when his project work was to survey this certain area of Russia and do a topographical study. He had a small crew with him as he marched over the mountains and hills. One night, while the group is camping for the night, a small man emerges from the darkness and joins the group by the fire. He is Dersu Uzala, a hunter in these parts of the forest. He lives in the wilderness, making his way from place to place. He endearingly refers to Vladimir as "capitan" and never speaks his real name. Vladimir asks if Dersu will guide the group since he is familiar with the area. Dersu replies, "Me think necessary." Dersu speaks Russian well enough to communicate with everyone easily but his words are a not educated. They soon discover that not only is Dersu familiar with the area but he is vastly insightful on life in the forest; his senses are keen and his actions purposeful. Dersu is Asian, so his appearance throws off the Russian crew. Apparently, Chinese in the area turned out to be pretty commonplace, as you progress through the story.

Dersu and Vladimir develop a very strong bond during the trip. When the two get seperated from the group, Dersu's wit and experience save Vladimir's life. When the survey is complete, Vladimir and his men head back to the city. He asks Dersu to come to stay with him but he declines, saying that his home is in the forest. A few years later, Vladimir is sent out to survey more of the land and he passes through some of the area he covered with Dersu before. The entire time they are in the forest, he is hoping to see Dersu again. Eventually, one of the men reports to him that a smallish Asian man was asking who the captain of the crew was. Vladimir realizes that this has to be Dersu and runs off to find him. He eventually catches up with him and they spend hours talking and catching up on the past few years. Dersu is exactly the same as Vladimir remembers him. Dersu joins up with the new crew as they explore the depths of the wilderness, experiencing dangerous and adventurous times. Vladimir at one point states that it was during this season that he experienced some of his most fond memories of Dersu. There is a scene where they're just taking pictures of everyone and it's funny to see how Dersu reacts to everyone and how quickly everyone takes to him.

Later in their trip, they encounter a tiger, which had been following them for some time. Dersu eventually takes a shot at it, trying to scare it away, and hits it. As the tiger runs off, Vladimir reassures him that he didn't hit it because it ran away but Dersu says, "No, when hurt, tiger always run until die." After that incident, Dersu was no longer the same. He became irritable and captious. Vladimir begins to notice that Dersu's sight is getting weak. He eventually discovers this himself and says that it is happening because he killed the tiger. As their survey draws to a close, Dersu begins to panic because his ability to live in the wilderness will be diminished without his sight. Vladimir invites Dersu into his home again and says that he will take care of him. This time, Dersu respectfully accepts and becomes a guest in his home for some time. Dersu grows fond of Vladimir's son, Vova and tells him all about life in the forest and the things he has seen. Vova has a strong admiration for Dersu and a fascination. Over time, Dersu discovers that he can't deal with the rules of city life and describes living in a home as living in a box. He asks if he can return to the hills to live out the remainder of his days. Vladimir doesn't want him to go, especially with his diminished sight, but ultimately realizes that a man like Dersu could never be happy in a city. He gives Dersu his own riffle, the latest model of it's kind and tells him that it's easy to fire, even with poor sight. Dersu accepts this greatfully and returns to the hills.

Some time later, Vladimir recieves a note asking him to come into the forest to identify the body of a man, people were told he knew. When he comes, he finds Dersu's body under covers as men are digging a grave for him. The inspector is collecting information on the situation. Vladimir said that there should have been a new model riffle with him when he died. The inspector thinks on this for a moment, after telling Vladimir that nothing was found with the body. He then says, "Ah, now it becomes clear. The attacker must have wanted the gun and killed the man to get it." Vladimir lingers in silence at Dersu's grave and recalls the time they spent together, there in the forest.

It's so sad, the ending!! Poor Dersu! Do we live in a fucked up world or what??? I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It really was a delight to watch. I am definitely recommending this film and give it 4 stars!

-10

Happiness
  Is just a word to me
And it might have meant a thing or two
  If I'd known the difference

Emptiness
  A lonely parody
And my life, another smokin' gun
  A sign of my indifference

Always keepin' safe inside
Where no one ever had a chance
To penetrate a break in

Let me tell you some have tried
But I would slam the door so tight
That they could never get in

Kept my cool under lock and key
And I never shed a tear
Another sign of my condidtion

Fear of love or bitter vanity
That kept me on the run
The main events at my confession

I kept a chain upon my door
That would shake the shame of Cain
Into a blind submission

The burning ghost without a name
Was calling all the same
But I just wouldn't listen

The longer I'd stall
Ө^1:1
The harder I'd fall
I was crawlin' into the fire

The more that I saw
Ө^2:1
The lower I'd crawl
I kept fallin' into the fire


Ө^3:1

Suddenly
  It occurred to me
The reason for the run and hide
  Had totaled my existnce

Everything left on the other side
Could never be much worse that this
But could I go the distance?

I faced the door and all my shame
Tearin' off each piece of chain
Until they all were broken

But no matter how I tried
The other side was locked so tight
The door, it wouldn't open

Gave it all that I got
  And started to knock
Shouted for someone
  To open the lock
Just gotta get through the door

And the more that I knocked
Ө^4:1
The harder I'd knock
Just gotta break through the door




Ө^5,6:2,1

Break down the door

Gotta Knock a Little Harder Mai Yamane - The Seat Belts Future Blues

Current Music: Gotta Knock A Little Harder - Mai Yamane

ギラッとした君の目に
ドキッとした昼下がり
シャキッとした俺の体
まるで試されてるように

ツンとした君と空気に
ゾクッとした恋心は
ザラッとした砂を噛み
されるがまま夜になる

そろそろ自慢のくちびるで
ワインを飲ませてくれないか
満月の夜に結ばれた





たまに見せる淋しげな目が



君のしぐさに振り回されて
夢中の愛は俺の中で踊る

サラッとした髪をとき
ツヤッとした肌をよせ
言葉遊びをするように
君は俺をもて遊ぶ

駆け引きは強い君の中
過ちは弱い俺の中
好きなだけ楽しめばいいさ

Ө^1:1

Ө^2:1

たまに見せる優しい笑顔が

Ө^3:1

君のしぐさで俺を殺して
その一瞬が何より幸せさ

闇の中踊る 抱きしめて踊る
何度でも踊る




Ө^4:3

吉井和哉　編曲 THE YELLOW MONKEY 作詞/作曲

Current Music: 作詞/作曲：吉井和哉　編曲：THE YELLOW MONKEY

I'm strange
  and you're strange
Don't want
  you to change
No way





Hope you know you inspire me
You're a flower and I'm a bee
  I need you

All this you do for free
Give me hope and I can see
  You're so true

Ө^1:1



Ө^2:1

You're strange
  and I'm strange
Don't want
  You to change
No way

Ө^3:1

Ө^1:1

Don't you worry 'bout me babe
'Cuz I'm right here for you to say

You're So True Joseph Arthur Album Single

Current Music: You're So True - Joseph Arthur