28 September 2005, mid-morning
“Your show was really good”
“Thanks,” MIA replied. She then turned to Parthi and said, “See, your friend is keeping it simple.” Parthi had just finished lecturing MIA on how she should manage her career.
What a night out. Through a series of random flukes, Parthi managed to make the MIA concert one of the most interesting nights out I’ve ever had.
26 September 2005, late evening
I watched Kontroll last night with Mezan and Carvill. The movie is about a bunch of hard-boiled ticket agents, working out of a non-descript subway system in a non-descript land. Kontroll was filmed in Budapest, and opens with an introduction from whomever is in charge of the subway system there explaining the movie is entirely fiction, and that people shouldn’t get upset by it—strange. The film is very stylish; I liked the way it was shot. There are some really cool sequences in the film. The story is pretty bare, and the film is quite slow. Watching the trailer, you would not expect this. I liked the movie, you may want to check it out. (Also, the film features a kick-ass soundtrack.)
23 September 2005, the wee hours
If you asked me what my favourite movie or song was I probably couldn’t tell you. There isn’t any one movie or song that I can single out as being my absolute favourite of all time. When it comes to books on the other hand I can. My favourite book, the story I think everyone should read, is Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, by J. D. Salinger.
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters takes place one hot afternoon in New York city. The story is all about a wedding, and in particular the absent groom who happens to be the narrator’s brother. It’s a simple story, much like all of Salinger’s others, but all the little details make it truly a joy to read. I was shocked to read it was received poorly when it came out in the 50s. It isn’t quite a love story, but it is very much about love. The ending is classic.
Salinger is most famous for writing Catcher in the Rye. I read that novel first during the early years of high school. In my last year, I ended up doing a ISU on Salinger (after picking and giving up on Charles Dickens). I ended up reading all his other stories published as novels: Nine Stories, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour, An Introduction, and Franny and Zooey. I’ve never felt more angry at someone I don’t know when I discovered that the four books I’ve mentioned are the sum total of the man’s published works. You can track down some of his other short stories printed in old magazines if you work hard enough—Tiffany found them in the Waterloo library for example. Nowadays you can also find them online, which is quite nice. Sometime in the late 60s Salinger stopped publishing. Sonuvabitch.
I reread Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters a few days back, which is why it is on my mind. I just finished reading Franny again, and am almost done with Zooey. If you are looking for some good books to read, I can’t recommend these stories enough.
22 September 2005, the wee hours
Perhaps I was too harsh on Podcasting. Whether it is a fad that will last or not remains to be seen. For the time being we can all enjoy listening to the brilliant Barak Obama, the man who should be president, speak on current events and politics. You can listen to Podcasts in iTunes, but I think Odeo is a much better application for finding and listening to Podcasts. (Check out the Odeo page for Barak Obama’s Podcast.) The Odeo widget is the best way to listen to Podcasts, in my humble opinion.
Comment [3] Current Events | Technology
20 September 2005, late at night
My brother Ahilan and I have differing opinions on what is the greatest Final Fantasy game of them all. I am of the opinion that Final Fantasy 6 (released as Final Fantasy 3 here in North America)is the best. I don’t think the others can touch it. That is all I’ll say on that. Ahilan is of the opinion that Final Fantasy 7 is the best, which is the game I want to discuss. And I suppose I’d like to talk about Advent Children.
Final Fantasy 7 raised the bar for everyone else that makes RPG games. I think when it was released no other game for the Playstation came close to the sort of graphics and game play the game had. I still remember how amazing the advertisements for the game were. Final Fantasy 7 was the reason my brothers and I bought a PlayStation. I can remember Tony driving us around to pick up the system and the game. Even though I don’t think Final Fantasy 7 is the best game SquareSoft put out, I do think it’s damn good. The story line was intense. When the game ends you are left wanting more. I suppose that is the sign of a good game.
The game ends with one of the characters, Red XVIII, running with what one assumes are his children. That’s the very last shot in the cut scene that concludes the game. Final Fantasy: Advent Children begins with this same shot. I have been waiting years and years for this film to come out. It has been a long time since I played Final Fantasy 7. When I speak about it now, you reading this will have to filter out all the nostalgia that colours what I am saying.
Advent Children takes place 2 years after the game ends. The film is entirely done using computer graphics. Advent Children is what the Final Fantasy movie should have been.
The action sequences are insane. Being entirely animated lets the director and animators do some pretty amazing things. There is plenty of gravity defying stuff going on. The computer graphics are exquisite, though someone like Ju-lian would probably have to weigh in on if they are actually good or not.
The movie has a typical Final Fantasy plot. It’s all pretty fantastic and over the top. Basically, people are getting sick, and the sickness all relates back to events from Final Fantasy 7. The movie is probably watchable if you haven’t played Final Fantasy 7; it might be a little confusing at times, but since the movie’s plot is so light, I don’t think it detracts from the enjoyment of the film. If you have played the games I think you’ll probably enjoy the movie that much more.
I can’t believe I’ve written this much on a video game movie. I liked it though—a lot.
Comment [6] Movies | Video Games
“Oh, it’s lovely to see you!” Franny said as the cab moved off. “I’ve missed you.” The words were no sooner out than she realized that she didn’t mean them at all. Again with guilt, she took Lane’s hand and tightly, warmly laced fingers with him.
—J. D. Salinger from Franny.
15 September 2005, terribly early in the morning
I attended the world premiere of Sophie Fillières’ newest film, Gentille. This will be the last film I watch at the film festival. It was a fluke I ended up watching it; the movie I wanted to see had already sold out when I arrived at the cinema — lucky for me. Gentille was very good, probably the most enjoyable film I watched at the film festival this year. I would try to describe the film, but the film festival site does an excellent job:
Emmanuelle Devos plays Fontaine Leglou, a young anaesthetist whose interactions form the spine of the film. Fontaine lives with Michel (Bruno Todeschini), who is on the verge of proposing marriage, and their nervousness with each other underlines this decisive moment of their lives. Punctuating their quotidian existence is a series of chance meetings that are defined by the unexpected; people and situations come and go as if in a dream.
Emmanuelle Devos does an excellent job playing Fontaine. She is very charming. I was very impressed with the whole film.
12 September 2005, the wee hours
When I saw the Singhalese girl washing her breasts on camera, I knew The Forsaken Land wasn’t going to be a typical Sri Lankan film. The film is very similar in style to Battle in Heaven. Shots in the film are very long. There is basically no dialog in the movie. I think the script could fit on two sheets off paper. The movie is a bleak look at the lives of people living in rural Sri Lanka. The movie was billed as a commentary on the civil war in the in Sri Lanka, but the film is perhaps a bit too obtuse to provide any insight whatsoever into the situation on the ground. I thought the film was interesting to watch, but it is most definitely not for everyone. It was a very challenging film to sit through. I am curious to see what the director does next. This movie has earned him many accolades at the Cannes film festival.
12 September 2005, the wee hours
I attended the North American premiere of Tsui Hark’s latest film, Seven Swords earlier today. The film is an adaptation of a Chinese martial arts novel. In the movie, a group of seven swordsmen have to protect a town from bandits. (Sound familiar?) I found the film was a little bit disjoint at times. Sometimes the action and story move very quickly, and at other times things really drag out and move quite slow. That said, the fight sequences were incredible. The ending sword fights in the film are really impressive. If you like Tsui Hark’s other films, I don’t see why you wouldn’t enjoy this one as well.
11 September 2005, the wee hours
Battle in Heaven was a slow film, similar in pacing to Gus Van Sant’s Elephant. The movie focuses on an old fat man, Marcos, as he has a bit of a nervous breakdown after a botched kidnapping of a baby. I really enjoyed this film. It is quite explicit at times. The opening sequence and the ending sequence in particular are quite graphic (sexually). There is hardly any music in the film, most of the sound in the film is just ambient noise from the city the film is set in. Most shots are very long, with hardly any cuts. This is what reminded me of Elephant. The leading lady in the film is also insanely hot.
Information on Battle in Heaven (nsfw).
10 September 2005, terribly early in the morning
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes was the sort of crap art house film Mezan loves. I don’t really feel like talking about it. It was interesting, but not particularly fun to watch.
There were birches along the stream and it was not big, but narrow, clear and fast, with pools where it had cut under the roots of the birches. At the Hotel in Triberg the proprietor had a fine season. It was very pleasant and we were all great friends. The next year came the inflation and the money he had made the year before was not enough to buy supplies to open the hotel and he hanged himself. — Ernest Hemingway, from The Snows of Kilimanjaro
They shot the six cabinet ministers at half-past six in the morning against the wall of a hospital. There were pools of water in the courtyard. There were dead leaves on the paving of the courtyard. It rained hard. All the shutters of the hospital were nailed shut. One of the ministers was sick with typhoid. Two soldiers carried him downstairs and out into the rain. They tried to hold him up against the wall but he sat down in a puddle of water. The other five stood very quietly against the wall. Finally the officer told the soldiers it was no good trying to make him stand up. When they fired the first volley he was sitting down in the water with his head on his knees.
—Ernest Hemingway from In Our Time.
Marge: Can we get rid of this Ayatollah tee shirt? Kohmehni died years ago.
Homer: But Marge, it works on any Ayatollah. Ayatollah Nakhbadeh, Ayatollah Zahedi … Even as we speak, Ayatollah Razmara and his cadre of fanatics are consolidating their power!
7 September 2005, lunch time
When I first started my site, my plan was to never to write like this site was my journal, and to avoid any touchy subjects like politics and religion. Well, at least I more or less stuck to the journal part.
I stopped reading BoingBoing because their site is so littered with ads I just don’t feel like reading it anymore. I’m not missing much — usually if something good turns up on BoingBoing it will show up on every other website I read soon enough. The problem is that I miss the crap that shows up on BoingBoing too. Thankfully, there are other easily irritated brown men out there reading BoingBoing for me.
Dinu noticed this suspect headline on BoingBoing: Katrina: whew, here comes India to save us, at last! And American’s wonder why they are seen as arrogant assholes all around the globe? To be fair, Xeni Jardin, the author of the post, could be linking to the Bruce Sterling post precisely to point out the arrogance of it. Or like Sterling, she could be a jerk.
Now, the bigger question, which Dinu asks, is whether this is racist. I’m not sure at what point arrogance becomes racism. And I’m not sure if the BoingBoing link has crossed that line. If these are the sentiments of Xeni Jardin, then personally, I am glad she posted them.
I’m not a big fan of political correctness. If someone doesn’t like me because I’m brown — or a Paki if you will — that is their prerogative. Political correctness isn’t going to fix anything, it simply hides a serious problem. I don’t want any racist to feel obliged to hide their racism out of common courtesy.
Sometimes you will hear people — politicians — saying we need a more tolerant society. I hate that idea too — bear with me. As a minority, I don’t want to be tolerated. People tolerate headaches and long lines at the supermarket. I would like to be treated with the same respect I treat other people. If someone can’t do that because they are racist, then I’d prefer they wallow in their own ignorance then pretend to be nice to me. I suppose tolerance is a first step to a better society, but it is only a step. The end goal should never simply be a tolerant society. We should expect more from ourselves and the place we call home.
Comment [23] Current Events | Politics
5 September 2005, early afternoon
I watched Layer Cake yesterday afternoon with Mezan and Dave. Layer Cake is somewhat similar to Snatch and Lock, Stock, and 2 Smoking Barrels, but is much more serious than those two Guy Ritchie films. Where as they are both a little bit over-the-top in their style and substance, Layer Cake aims to be a pretty serious look at the life of a British gangster. (Well, the sort of fictional exciting gangster they make movies about anyway.) The plot is pretty good, and the characters in the film are all pretty interesting; Colm Meaney plays another hard as nails cunt. The film also has a kick-ass soundtrack.
4 September 2005, early afternoon
I watched The Jacket last night with Mezan and Dave. In the film, a probably insane character played by Adrian Brody travels from the present to the future when undergoing a controversial psychiatric treatment. The film examines how what he learns in the future effects what he does in the past, and vice-versa. It’s a strange little film. I had expected more I suppose, but it was pretty cool. The visual style was pretty interesting—lots of close up shots of peoples eyes and mouths. You get to see a naked Keira Knightley—word.
3 September 2005, lunch time
The man produced Common’s very excellent album Be. He has actually produced plenty of excellent albums and songs. Kanye’s own album, College Dropout is excellent. That isn’t why I love Kanye West. No, I love Kanye West because Kanye West went on national television and said: George Bush doesn’t care about black people. Poor Mike Meyers, he looks so damn confused. [via Turbanhead]
Comment [22] Current Events
1 September 2005, terribly early in the morning
I just finished watching The Constant Gardener with my cousin. Holy fucking shit that was a good movie. I have rewritten this post a few times, but I think that about sums it up. You need to watch this film. What a follow-up to City of God. Fernando Meirelles is a genius.
31 August 2005, lunch time
Dave and I watched the Brothers Grimm last night, Terry Gilliam’s latest film. I enjoyed the film, it’s fairly funny, and like most of Gilliam’s other films, very quirky. The movie is set in the early 1800’s and follows the brothers Grimm, two con men, as they are forced to save a town from an evil witch. The movie seems to be getting mediocre reviews, but I suspect critics are trying to take the film too seriously. It is an entertaining enough comedy. Also, Monica Bellucci plays the witch, and is looking super-crazy-hot as always.
30 August 2005, the wee hours
My Hotmail account has been deactivated. However, I still have a fair number of people who try to email me there. I think this is because it is the account I use to log in to MSN Messenger with. The problem with a deactivated account seems to be is that emails sent to the account silently disappear. One would expect the messages to bounce, but no such luck. Anyway, the point of this post was to simply ask that you don’t email me at my Hotmail email address. I have a perfectly good email address here at funkaoshi.
Comment [2] Technology | Life
29 August 2005, lunch time
I watched Bowfinger Friday night, in between having some pints at Future Bakery and heading out for Roshanak’s birthday party. The film is excellent. Steve Martin plays a small time director and producer Bobby Bowfinger, who is trying to get a film made. Eddie Murphy plays two characters in the film a Tom Cruise like action movie star called Kit Ramsey, and a dorky look-a-like Jiffernson; Eddie Murphy is hilarious playing both characters. In the film, Kit Ramsey refuses to be in Bowfinger’s movie, so Bowfinger attempts to make his film by following Kit Ramsey around and filming him covertly, while using Jiffernson for any close-up shots. I don’t know if my description of the plot does it justice. The film makes fun of the whole movie industry, in particular the sort of desperation it breeds in people. Another great part of the film is the Mindhead cult that Kit Ramsey belongs to, an obvious jab at the Church of Scientology.
29 August 2005, lunch time
“Dear Mr. Kozol,” wrote the eight-year-old, “we do not have the things you have. You have Clean things. We do not have. You have a clean bathroom. We do not have that. You have Parks and we do not have Parks. You have all the thing and we do not have all the thing. Can you help us?”
Jonothan Kozol writes about the absolutely appalling conditions of inner city schools in a great article in the September issue of Harper’s. It sounds like the education of inner-city black and Hispanic children in the United States is in a sorry state. Kozol describes schools run almost like factories or prisons in grim detail. According to Kozol, US Schools are quite quickly becoming functionally segregated. Kozol lists the demographics of a slew of public schools in the states, named after prominent civil rights activists, whose classrooms are upwards of 97% black and Hispanic — in some cases despite being in neighbourhoods that are predominantly white. It has been over 50 years since Brown vs. Board of Education. It is sad to read about the state of things today.
Update: I was reminded of this article again when reading an article by Steve Sailer.
Comment [1] Current Events | Politics
29 August 2005, the wee hours
Tyler was in town for the weekend. I spent a good chunk of Saturday with him. After wandering around downtown trying to track down shoes with Sean the two of us headed off to Matt’s place for what would turn out to be dinner — we had planned to sit around and do nothing. No sooner had we started the trek to Matt’s place when it began to drizzle. We walked in the rain for a few minutes, taking a detour through a small side road which ran through a very swanky neighbourhood behind Bloor.
The first house on this street had a small pole out front, and leaning on this pole was an umbrella. I asked Tyler, “Hey, do you want to steal the umbrella?”
We took a few more steps forward and then I think it registered in Tyler’s head what I had said. He walked back, picked up the umbrella, and we were on our way, shielded from the rain — somewhat anyway. The umbrella was small, but quite fancy. It was broken, so we decided the owner must be some rich Yorkville resident who decided they’d just buy a new umbrella rather than use this old broken one. I think we decided this story was the best because it is the sort of scenario that lets you feel OK with stealing somebody’s umbrella.
It could not have been more than a few minutes after we found the umbrella that it started raining quite hard. If we didn’t find that umbrella we would have been soaked.
Don’t you see, Vince, that shit don’t matter. You’re judging this thing the wrong way. It’s not about what. It could be God stopped the bullets, he changed Coke into Pepsi, he found my fuckin’ car keys. You don’t judge shit like this based on merit. Whether or not what we experienced was an according-to-Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is I felt God’s touch, God got involved. — Jules, Pulp Fiction
You don’t slap a man. Ok. I mean, even when slapping was fashionable, ya know, they did it in Paris, some guy would come up: “I challenge you to a duel.” They would have a gunfight after that—somebody had to go!
—Charlie Murphy on The Chappelle Show
