spoonfork

just a quick update - no i'm not on blogging hai-ya-toes - i just don't have significant craps to make cupcakes. but here's some updates for my adoring fans from all over:

• eargasm: Bombay the Hard Way: Guns, Cars, and Sitars and Bombay the Hard Way 2: Electric Vindaloo. those two are collections of the finest 70's tamil/hindi movie soundtracks. the former was mixed by dan the automator with help in the drum section by dj shadow, two of the hippest djs of our time.


• movies to watch: a scanner darkly, augustin, king of kung-fu, death of a president


• seen: art school confidential


• worth mentioning: the longest nite, quite possibly hong kong's best export, ever. ever ever. it's totally gripping, especially the 80's sounding pseudo-electronica (sounds like the synthed bass lines to sweet dreams by eurythmics). unarguably tony leung's finest performance, ever. ever ever.


• must get: pan's labyrinth, nine lives and three times.


• justin timberlake - no i don't have the whole album, but is it just me or is justin timberlake one of the most 'emerging' pop artists of our time? i mean, the two songs that constantly play on radio, my love and sexy back feature the coolest synths and grooves ever, evah


• muse: i want free ticket, yo

and finally: ganges a go-go, inspector jay's big break, and my guru.

right, i'm gonna go find dil se. now, can someone recommend a good A.R. Rahman CD?

and i finally finished reading my first book the year: Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men. it's a children story book, yo, with fairies and witches and headless horsemen and tiny blue drunk men and dreams and other stuff you find in Fairyland, Fairyland, yo.

listening to: ganges a go-go

bullet points on the departed, and why martin scorsese should and shouldn't make movies with plots.

• matt damon, leo the crap, marky mark, jack nicholson aka vincent price, alec baldwin and vera farmiga were all excellent. however their characters especially that of leo the crap and matt damon lacked the emotional intensity and moral ambiguity that were so prevalent in the original infernal affairs.


• the drug bust scenes and the one where leo the crap almost discovered the rat weren't that gripping and suspenseful either.


• the love thingy was good. so good that it made Kelly Chen looked like a cheap perhiasan, or like an after-thought ("oh we've forgotten to put a sui chah boh in the film, let throw kelly in there").


• the first hour was original, while the next one and half were just botched imitation of the original.


• the scenes with the chinese gangsters were simply awful, and showed martin's lack of sensitivity to international audience. first, the cantonese was bad. mandarin should have been spoken instead, and not to mention that the gangsters were from mainland china. second, the cantonese scripts were bad. i no speaking cantonese, but i can tell a bad cantonese when i hear one. marty dude, your movies are not just for americans.


• jack nicholson was great, but too much over the top. marky mark was good. his character should have been given more screen time, and more cusses


• there's one too many shot in the head

now, if this movie is more about the characters (which the original had successfully blended together, especially for andy lau's character), then it would be a great martin scorsese movie. martin has been about characters (taxi, raging bull, goodfellas...) and not plot and this movie clearly shows how bad he is making movies with plots.

listening to: the rolling stones - not fade away

recent movies:

• l'appartment - reminds me of one of those shakepearean tragedies where things never worked out for the characters. the old buildings in paris look terrific in this movie though, and i think roman duris suits the main character better than vincent cassel


• casino royale - the best bond movie if memory serves me well. a little bit more violence will make it better, imho.


• adam & steve - terribly funny, and funnier if you're into gay romance and stuff like that.


• borat - there's will ferrell and gang kind of funny, there's adam sandler and gang kind of funny, there's the monty python kind of funny, and now, there's sascha baron cohen kind of funny. love the part where he sings the kazakhstan national athem to the tune of the US's national anthem.


• clerks II - you'll love it if you're a fan, and you'll go "hmmm... so what?" if you're not. or maybe you'll go "yeah..." without really knowing what you're agreeing with.

listening to: death in vegas - so you say you lost your baby?

i managed to squeeze my quarterly dose of horror, gore, blood bath, and severed body parts in two weeks:

• dawn of the dead (2004). quite simply, a whole lot of fun! one observation: in times of great despair, everyone is a damn good shooter. all the gun shots land smack in the middle of the forehead, not a millimeter off.


• 28 days later (2002). this films is as much about zombies and man becoming a beast in order to survival. cillian murphy was freaky in this one, and in any other movie as well.


• the descent (2005). now this is a freaking scary movie. what it's about: 6 girls went into a cave and met smeagols and his clans. and from then on, an epic battle between human (err, women) against the smeagolians ensued. don't. ever. miss. this. movie.


• house of wax (2005). despite its weak plot - well, most horror flicks have weak plots anyways - and paris hilton's terribly bad acting, i for one, like the violence that is potrayed here. i particularly fancy the knives that the sinclairs used, especially the carvings on the handle. my fancy for knives and swords is of course due to heritage. we ibans have our own intricately carved tribal swords, which as obvious as it may sound, used to chop the heads of our enemies.


• scary movie 4 (2006). scarier than pride and prejudice, funnier than titanic, more dramatic than schindler's list, with characters cuter than the walt disney's bambi. this, i tell you, is a must watch movie of the year.


• shaun of the dead (2004). this movie is, well, great: ninja tune (shaun's living room wall have posters of artists from the Ninja Tune record label), the interlude in Winchester where Queen was playing from the jukebox, and then there was the scene where Ed and Shaun were singing to Grandmaster Flash' White Lines. that is really old skool!

over and out. sparse updates, as usual. and: Grandmaster Flash - White Lines.

listening to: tone loc - funky cold medina

so i watched v for vendetta starring the ever-petite and significantly undernourished natalie portman, and that monosyllabic agent smith dude who realized that he hasn't talked that much as agent smith, and he decided it's best to deride the viewer (me) by spouting blowhards non-stop for 130 minutes. example:

"VoilÃ