June 19, 2006

# 99



We had a blockbuster weekend: The shit, which has for the better part of two years somehow attached itself to our joint family name, was firstly sorted into piles of "keep" and "ditch", then shoved with painstaking precision into plastic bags, cardboard boxes and eventually into our spare room or the back of our car; without wishing to sound like a supreme cockhead, we managed to jetison at least 66 percent of what can only be called waste; we went food shopping; we had dinner with fellow alien friends; we waltzed over to the larger of the two lakes, sat ourselves down and watched a wafer-thin Japanese bloke on a jet ski carve the water into figure eights, jump over his freshly made wake into a ninety-degree drop, and then take off into the air to perform the coolest three-sixty aerials with help of a revved throttle.

There was a whole lot of sweat during each and every one of these fabulous events thanks to summer blowing in for what feels like good. Of course, like last year and the year before that, I was to learn this morning that this meant absolutely nada to the school department, as their daft rules on when the air conditioning is turned on is not based on how many of their staff members die from heat exhaustion or dehydration, but rather on what the date is. Official word of mouth tells me there's ANOTHER MONTH TO GO before the button is pressed and the sacred refrigerated wind blows over my sweat-beaded cranium, soaking arm pits and fire hydrant crotch. You figure that one out and get back to me.


Movies we saw:

Broken Flowers. Bill Murray and a series of talented actresses in a quirky road movie where Jim Jarmusch delves into relationships and their occasional and unexpectedly delayed hiccups.

Closer. Like a memorable play only fifty times better. Two Poms, Clive Owen and Jude Law, each fall in love with their own piece of American tail, ably played by Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman. Then two of them throw shit at a fan, it sticks, and everyone's covered for a while as insults fly, tears fall and life stands still. Time heals wounds, blah blah blah, the movie ends with a head or two held high and a head or two emotionally decapitated. A great script is bettered only by stunning visuals (not solely in reference to Natalie Portman and the scene she steals dressed in a pink wig and not much else) and phenomenal performances by the four lead actors.

Inside Man. Clive Owen again in a Spike Lee joint; also features Denzel Washington and a multitude of Hollywoodian names. It kinda plods along and features a third-rate '70s porn flick soundtrack where the same two trumpet-led tracks are repeated ad nauseam. That obvious urinal cake aside, this "joint" is saved by the smarts of the plot and the dialogue.



7 comments:

Ultra Toast Mosha God said...

I have similar Air-Con problems in my office.

The temperature is different depending on which part of the floor you stand on.

It's disconcerting at best.

Perhaps you should lead some kind of stealth mission into the basement and turn it on yourself, consequence be damned.

Between daisies said...

No shit, the dread simoom is here. Open the door, have a rest, lock the door, have a rest, go and sweat heavily on the toilet for a while. I mean really, what kind of a fuckwit puts the heated toilet seat on full when it is 32 in the shade. And when I say in the shade, i mean in the way that galadriel talked about the shadow. The toilet. Where is Gandalf? He has fallen into the toilet.

Chris Benjamin said...

natalie portman in a pink wig and little else is not stealing a scene, so much as having it handed to her. that said, this post handed me deja vu (what a freakin segway) because we ourselves just did the whole pack n move ting during a heatwave and illegal bus strike in fair toronto.

reverendtimothy said...

Closer is one of my favourite movies, partly because it strikes a little close to home.

A little too close to home at times, in fact.

Mob said...

The wife refused to watch Closer with me, because she find the whole infidelity thing terribly depressing (not buttons I installed, by the way), and I had to report to her that I doubt it would've been very depressing to her, because the characters don't seem to really care about each other, so why would we get involved as the audience. I liked the movie, but thought it felt a little coldly distant at times.

Although Nat in a pink wig made me feel warm and fuzzy.

Kaufman said...

Toast: If only it were that difficult. Unfortch, the A/C system is a simple point-and-shoot job with a remote control. I'm within a sniff of certainty that there are no batteries in the console and that a lock as big as my ego is shackled to the unit. Methinks the only way to pry the lock open is to use the same (ie one and only) key which recently made its cinematic debut in Da The Vinci Code. I'm gonna bring my own fan and douse myself in water; see how the fuckers like that.

UTR: You were drunk and / or stoned when you wrote that. Admit it! As a way of hoping to understand what the hell that was all about I got written off and re-read that comment; still not a clue, brother. Still. Not. A. Clue.

BB: You say segwey, I say segue, we all say tomato. I dare say / write that our move will be 90% less complicated than yours as we have less than two cubic metres of stuff to get from hyar to thar. Ha-harrr!

RT: It's been a while, my son. Say four Hail Marys and sixty-five Our Fathers. If you want to make it big in the biz, you'll build a room onto your existing room at your folks' house and arm it to the teeth with surveillance equipment. I expect updates; regular and detailed updates, and I'm not talking about verbal bullshit eighter, Rev: visuals with sound, capice?

Mob: I agree with your assessment regarding the refrigerated sentiments. But I'm a fan of dialogue, especially when there's a slab of thought behind it, so I could see it within my nature to afford the characters' "dickhead element" some leeway.

As a comparison, we watched The Break-up (Vincenzo Vaughn, Jenny Anniston in the lead roles) last night and I felt violated; stripped of any pseudo intellect I thought I had, probed in between the buttocks and told in no uncertain terms that if I didn't enjoy it then I wasn't going to feature in the official statistics supplied at the box office, which rates the piece of shit as one of the most popular and well attended in (no time frame available at the time of print). Mind you, we downloaded it off TorrentSpy, but you get the waft, yeah? Utter vomit.

Ultra Toast Mosha God said...

Do it.

Then you can also use the fan as some kind of offensive weapon.

Throw butter all over your intended victim(s) then switch the fan on and point it at your target(s).

Toss sugar into the windy fan blast and laugh maniacally as the sweet goodness covers your foes.

Bake them for 40 minutes.

Serve