A better tomorrow

I was going to write a post about the great weather that's forecast for the next couple of days, and how on days like today and tomorrow, life feels easier and it feels better and I feel happier. Then the title A Better Tomorrow popped into my head and I thought ooh, that's what I'll call it, in homage to the film of the same name that came out in the 90s and J and I watched as part of our exploration of cinema from Hong Kong. Then I started thinking about Hong Kong cinema and how great it was in the 90s and 2000s, and I wondered if it was still great. Thinking about this made me happy. Then I wondered where I would turn to find out about what's coming out of Hong Kong, somewhere I could trust, not just 'the internet'. I thought about Margaret and David and how much I relied on them to educate me on cinema and thinking about that made me happy too. What a great show that was. What a great community service. Sure, they never talked about Hong Kong cinema but they had producers they needed to keep happy. Then I thought about Terry Gross, and the great interviews she does with the filmmakers and actors involved in films she loves, and that her radio show has certainly helped fill the hole left by Margaret and David. I'm sure you can see where this is going, but I have to say people, it made me happy. Happy happy joy joy. That's where all trains of thought are chugging me to, and it's all because the goddamned weather is so goddamned nice! 

Friday Favourites: Dirty Dancing

One of the joys of Friday Favourites of yesteryear when K and I both used to blog daily was our mutual appreciation of the Friday favourite. Sometimes we be gushing over a shared favourite thing, like Prince songs or Damon Albarn. Other times we'd just be enjoying each other's love of a favourite thing. Like K and Babs or me and NPH. So it's a shame we don't get to hear from K today. 

When we were kids there was a girl that lived up the street from us, let's call her Choo Choo. She had the Dirty Dancing soundtrack on vinyl and we didn't have it on anything so we sometimes used to contrive reasons to borrow it from her without also having to invite her over. Eventually she moved out of the street, along with the Dirty Dancing record and although at the time the best thing about that seemed that we didn't have to hang out with her anymore in retrospect the best thing was that we didn't have to be such little bitches anymore. 

At the time I don't think I even liked the movie that much but I sure knew a great soundtrack when I heard one. And I definitely under appreciated Patrick Swayze but I'm glad to say one of the gifts of age is a broad appreciation of great things and that includes this movie and Patrick Swayze. First, I love choreographed dance. Any kind of dance really but I especially love group dancing as at the end of this film. Now I own this movie on DVD and I watch it every time it's on television. Most recently on Wednesday night. It's such a delight to find it on TV and I basically smiled the entire time I watched. 

Here are some of the great things  about this movie: dancing; Patrick Swayze; the upstairs-downstairs story; the way that Baby and Johnny know how to have a great time; music; all the great lines. 

Dirty Dancing you are a bona fide Friday Favourite!

Magic Mike (or the other Channing Tatum post we had to have) (PM)

I saw Magic Mike at the movies and apart from feeling uncomfortable about all the hollering that was going on in the audience (for reals) I found it to be a very enjoyable experience. For all the reasons J mentioned, and also because it's a pleasure to watch trash sometimes. Aesthetically pleasing trash. 

As for Point Break. I wish I had something positive to say about it, but I do not. I only watched about 20 minutes of it, not because I was on a long haul flight with an infant 20 minutes of focus is about all you can hope for, but because I couldn't take the stupidity of it. I would have pinched KB awake if he hadn't naturally stirred, just to stop watching it.

A quick summary of stupid things about it that I discerned from my 20 minutes of watching:

1. Jonny Utah is not just a regular guy who used to be a shit hot footballer but busted his knee and then became an FBI agent for his grown up job. No. His is a former 'ultra athlete' or some shit who's best friend dies in a motor cross accident which prompts Jonny Utah to join an accelerated FBI training program. UGH. 

2. The ex-presidents aren't just surfers, they are ULTRA ATHLETES or some shit and aren't just chasing the 100 year storm, they are trying to do all kinds of ULTRA shit all over the world. 

3. Jonny Utah's love interest has gone from this:

(Read: Cool)

To this: 

Read: not cool. 

Forget you, Point Break. 

Magic Mike (or the other Channing Tatum post we had to have) (AM)

Saturday before last Pickle sent me a message asking what she should watch on TV that night. Our boyfriends were out of town together and I guess she thought that she and I would both be home watching TV that night. She was right. And she was right to ask me too, because I'd already looked up the TV guide to see what was on for Baby that night and then done a sweep of what was on for me. I answered her instantly: Magic Mike! That's what I'd be watching if it wasn't on at 9:45.  (As if I'm staying up that late to watch a movie.)

Turns out Pickle didn't even know what Magic Mike was. Even more surprising was I managed to stay up not just till 9:45, but even till midnight when the movie finished. Even when Newbie got out of be at 11:30 and wanted to be settled, I made him lie on the couch with me and watch the end of Magic Mike.

I was obviously pretty interested in watching Magic Mike. Partly because I'm always interested to explore my feelings for Channing Tatum but mainly because people liked that movie so I thought it may be just what I was after, not challenging and highly enjoyable. And I pretty much got exactly that. Steven Soderbergh directed it, after all and that guy obviously knows what he's doing. Despite Oceans Twelve and Thirteen. Magic Mike is shot really well, and very considerately. The days are full of  this warm saturated light and the nights are dark and seedy.

Apart from the well-craftedness, I just fucking love watching people dance, even if there is a weird uncomfortable sexual flavour too it. And Channing Tatum can really dance. And even the choreographed team stripper dances with weird unattractive strippers doing a bunch of pelvic thrusts were great to watch. If there's one thing I love more than watching a person dance it's watching a bunch of people dancing in unison. This isn't really a post about Channing Tatum, but while we are (barely) on the topic of him, I may as well tell you that since I first explored my feelings for him in late 2014 after seeing 22 Jump Street I've had more exposure to him, in the form of 21 Jump Street and Magic Mike, and while I'm not saying he is a hunk, I can now confirm that I think he is a reasonably charismatic actor who I am happy enough to watch in crappy movies.

Let me make no mistake about this movie, it followed a highly predictable story arc and was not in the least bit challenging, but the quite weird thing about Magic Mike though is that I actually thought about it for a few days afterwards. I don't know if it's because I haven't watched a whole movie in a really long time or if it was CT's dance moves but it kept coming back to me and then I realised maybe it was to do with the ending. Now, if you haven't seen it I should warn you I'm literally going to tell you what happened in the end. Channing Tatum gets the girl. But only once he gives up stripping to pursue his dream of making extremely ugly furniture. Now sure, Hollywood has a whole history of making men settle down for the right woman, but not like this. Usually the man makes a little compromise, but usually he's also made some uptight woman loosen up a little and then they can meet in the middle. It's the loose women of Hollywood cinema that have to die or give up there scandalous ways/partying lifestyle/murderous intentions/aversion to children so they can live happily ever after. Maybe that's what kept me thinking about Magic Mike, this turning on the head the domesticising of the man.

Who knows? I guess I just found the whole experience quite heartening. Imagine a world with Hollywood movies that were at once mindlessly entertaining but weren't completely shit and did an interesting thing or two. That's what Magic Mike hinted at. Oh joy.

And then K told me she watched the Point Break remake and her retelling of it killed every hope I had for Hollywood.

Shameful confessions (PM)

It's a tough one, isn't it? Spending all this time reading baby names, I guess that is a pretty  judgemental way to spend your time. But at the same time if people are going to give their kids those idiotic names, how can we not judge?!

But don't worry too much, when I saw that picture of Bodhi and Keanu* this morning I thought of The River's Edge which was on TV last night and which I watched some of. That movie is about a teenager that kills his girlfriend, comes to school and tells all his friends and for the most part they just seem to feel it's a bit shit but whaddya gonna do about it? Except for Crispin Glover who seems to think it's fine. And Keanu Reeves and Ione Skye who think it's totally shit.



I mean, they were all friends with the murdered girl and they're all, like, whatevs. It seemed pretty implausible to me and I wondered how such a film could be made, even in the 80s when filmmakers wanted us to believe you could tie some strings to a dead guy for a weekend and convince his friends he was still alive. But apparently I'm missing the point and it was about familial dysfunction and, probably, an America being torn apart by the loose morals of the 80s. Or maybe communism. Who knows. It was great watching baby Keanu though.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that until you've killed your girlfriend or let you buddy get away with such a crime, you're probably doing ok.

*Recently I was at the pool and heard a mother call out to her kid Keanu, you can bet I judged the shit out of it!!!

A very little something (AM)

Yesterday while driving to the Queen Vic market I wrote all of today's post in my head. I felt pretty productive but the problem with writing posts in one's head is that until we have computer chips implanted in our heads all that writing is going to stay up there. It's such a conundrum because on the one hand I don't want AI in my brain and on the other hand, well shiiiiiit, it would make so many things so much easier. Like paying bills and writing emails and definitely writing blog posts. Because by the time I sat down to write my post last night at 11:30 I'd been looking after my children all day and editing some woefully written articles all night all while recovering from a cold. I don't want to make excuses, but you know where I wrote the words "computer chips" 6 lines above here? I had to type that three times because it kept coming out "computer ships". Which doesn't even make any sense because I love chips heaps more than ships.

So rather than rewrite the post from my brain I did what I always do when I want to share something cool with the Soft Crab community without putting in too much effort. I went to Facebook to see if anyone had shared anything good. I hardly ever look at Facebook. Sometimes I log on and then after looking at nothing I log straight off. I hate it. But the internet gods were smiling on me last night because someone had posted a link to this.

It's not so amazing or anything, and maybe I was just really tired last night, but I love the movie Princess Bride and it was just real nice thinking about it and thinking about the whole gang back together again. And just when I was feeling all tired and happy I read the first comment under the photo, which said "The pic of Andre in the bottom corner... Feels :("

Hahaha "Feels"!

I hope Andre and Peter Falk are totally RIPing.

Big scream (PM)

On Wednesday I finished up work for the year and I guess I pretty much just went into holiday zone in a pretty major way because I spent all of Thursday as if I was on holidays. Went out for breakfast, wagged Baby's swimming lesson, cleaned the house, visited my neighbour, went out for dinner. So extreme was my holiday mode that it took until Friday AM to remember it had just been Thursday and I should have written a blog post. It's not that I forgot MSC, it's just that I have no idea what day it is. All Wednesday I kept thinking I had to write a blog post which I think is the main reason I forgot on Thursday. Anyway, I guess I'm trying to say sorry I'm so tardy. 

I love the movies too but being cash and time poor I hardly ever go. I mean it's really rare. I've never been to a crybaby session, mainly because they're always on at 11am or something and that's a little keen for me and a baby. I took Baby to some regular daytime screenings when I knew the audience would be meagre and that was pretty fucking great. 

And while it's not often true that you can say "only a hunk could improve this" it's pretty often that you could say "a hunk could improve this". What a difference a word makes! 

Big scream (AM)

It has been 20 weeks since KB was born and though I have tried many times during those 20 weeks, yesterday I was  finally successful in taking him to the movies.

I goddamn love the goddamn movies. I probably like movies as much as the next person,  but I love The Movies, as in going to the movies, so goddamn much. I've really missed it, and wish I had done a shit load more of it before KB came along. But no regrets. I also like lying around,  and I'm pretty sure that whenever I thought about going to the movies and didn't go, it was because I wanted to lie around. So do not weep for me, readers. 

I've been really jonesing for the movies though, so I did a bunch of research and figured out when and where I could go with KB. It seems like over here, your big multiplexes aren't so good with the babes in arms screenings. But the local cinema around the corner from where we're staying has what they call Big  Scream sessions,  allowing me to combine my love of going to the movies with my love of puns. Woot! 

We went to see Grandma, which stars Lily Tomlin as an ageing lesbian academic helping her granddaughter get an abortion. Perfect for baby's first trip to the cinema. Really, I didn't  give a shit what was on. I was so happy to be there. I was grinning like an idiot the whole time.  I'm pretty sure I giggled a few times, such was my excitement. The cinema was peppered with ladies just like me, and one fella. Some babies were super new and flat out cried the while time but we didn't care! We were at the movies!

The film was quite enjoyable, but next time I am going to make sure there's a hunk in whatever it is I'm seeing. Only a hunk could make the experience better.

And how many experiences can you say that about??!! 

This post was going to be about how much I like Brendan Fraser (PM)

I'm not surprised to read what K learned about Brendan Fraser yesterday. I've been suspecting for a long time that Brendan Fraser isn't what we thought he was. Even after my teenage hormones settled down I still managed to enjoyed him in The Mummy, but I can admit he's pretty hit and miss. For sometime I've been wonerding if that's just because he's gotten puffy and somewhat unattractive but I suspect* it's more than that. I've watched Journey to the Centre of the Earth a couple of times with Baby and I find the Frase pretty meh. It supports something that I've been coming to terms with for a long time and that is that many of the people I deemed hunks in my youth were really only given that mantle as a result of hormones and magazines telling me what to think. Now I'm a grown up I can choose my hunks for myself!

However I am pretty upset to learn that With Honours wasn't even watchable. I assume that any film you watch a million times as a kid will always be enjoyable based on nostalgia alone so it's pretty upsetting to learn this isn't true. I  mean I'm still processing that revelation about some of the perceived hunks of yesteryear.

God, these life lessons just keep on coming.

In fairness to Brendan Fraser I think that we should recognise that the allimony payments he doesn't want to pay are actually in addition to his child support payments, which, according to TMZ are not what he's complaining about. So come on guys, give Brendan Fraser a break!

*And by "suspect" I mean "like to think in order to not feel so shallow".

This post was going to be about how much I like Brendan Fraser (AM)

Yesterday afternoon, I lay down on the couch for a little rest while the gentlemen of the house went for a walk. I fully intended to watch an episode of Orange is the New Black which is a bit violent for my sensitive tastes these days, yet still lures me back to watch more. However, the internet was on the fritz so I was stuck watching real TV which, on Sunday afternoon, is always a gamble. Imagine my delight when a young Brendan Fraser popped up on my screen together with an always the same age Joe Pesci in the film With Honors. This was a film that J and I watched several times when we were teenagers because it starred a man we deemed to be a hunk (Joe Pesci) and a man we liked to make a lot of fun of (Brendan Fraser). Just jokes. Reverse that. We used to make a LOT of fun of Joe Pesci. I don't know why, given that he is excellent in Goodfellas. But for a while there, we would regularly play games of 'Would you rather' in which sex with Joe Pesci was one of the undesirable activities we had to choose between.
But back to Sunday afternoon.   How great! I thought. I love Brendan Fraser and this lame movie. I am going to watch it and then tomorrow I am going to post about how great Brendan Fraser is and how he should really work more. 
It was a great plan for about five minutes. It didn't take long for me to realise that Brendan Fraser actually isn't that great. He's kind of bad and in the film With Honors, he plays a smug douchebag. I always knew With Honors was a shit film, but I thought it would be enjoyable because of our history with it, and I really did think that Brendan Fraser was good. Boy oh boy (Harvard)* was I wrong! I started to think that maybe Brendan Fraser doesn't really get much work any more because he's not really very good. Maybe my feelings about Brendan Fraser are purely related to the powerful hormones active in my late teens. I thought perhaps I would watch School Ties again to be certain but after about 20 minutes of With Honors, I don't think I have it in me.
Plus, I googled Brendan Fraser and discovered this. Brother doesn't want to pay an admittedly very high amount of alimony to his ex-wife to support his kids because he has too many other expenses and his more than $200k monthly income can't cover it all.

Now think Brendan Fraser is a dick and will only watch School Ties for Matt Damon.

* This is a very specific With Honors based in-joke from our teenage years.

PS: this damn site won't let me post photos so I can't even show you that Brendan Fraser used to be a hunk! Sorry you guys.

What I have learned about having babies (The next day)

Yesterday, J posted about the things she has learned about having babies. Then I posted about how I am struggling to manage my time while on maternity leave.
Now I should really talk about what I have learned about having babies. But the truth is, everything I have learned about having babies has led me to form the view that I will never, ever, ever be prepared for having a baby. J said as much. Everyone says as much. So apart from following some useful tips I've received that relate to things like lighting, music and the timing of episiotomy, I'm basically just going to wing it.
Last night someone told me that giving birth is a real out of body experience, though not so out of body that you're removed from the pain. No sirree. It made me think about the time I went to see Batman, the original Batman, at the movies when I was about 8 or 9 and I had the beginnings of gastro but pretended I was fine because I really wanted to see Batman.

I was in a very strange place watching that film and it was certainly the closest I've had to an out of body experience. My memories of it are that it's pretty psychedelic, but I don't think that's right. I know enough to know that having a baby probably won't be like watching Batman. But mostly I'm just excited to find out.

What I have learned about having babies (AM)

As K approaches her due date we've been talking about having babies. Mainly about birth. Sometimes there is criticism in the world about how much focus there is on labour given it is only one day and motherhood is for life and blah blah blah. But to those critics I say eff the hell off. Labour is hard and horrible and I'm sure that preparing for it helps. But having said that it really is so full on you can't really get it until your in it. At least that is what I found. But when I had Baby I didn't really have anyone close to me that had already had babies. There was my mum of course, but that was nearly 30 years earlier. I didn't have any close friends that had babies so there was not a lot fresh information. Oh sure I read a bit and I spoke to health professionals but other than that there was not a lot for me.

Childbirth in movies seems so over the top but simultaneously somehow not extreme enough. You certainly can't learn anything from movies. You know, unlike all the real life stuff you can learn from them, like how you will probably end up with Ryan Gosling and also all the bitches you went to school with will lose and you will win and also you will be able to afford really nice clothes and a nice apartment even though you never seem to work. And having babies is the kind of thing that even when you see an accurate representation in a movie you don't know it's accurate until it is happening to you.

For example, the most accurate representation of the early days of motherhood is that scene in Raising Arizona when Nicholas Cage first steals the baby and Holly Hunter just starts sobbing and repeating "I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!"

That is basically exactly what having a baby is like. It was for me anyway. But that's not really helpful is it? Though perhaps if you're expecting that feeling you won't feel so confronted by it.

I was in a public hospital when I had Baby, so less than 48 hours after he was born I was sent home with my baby having been shown how to bath him and told to ensure that his penis was always pointing down and the frills of his nappy pulled out so as to avoid leakage. It seemed pretty crazy and irresponsible of the hospital that they would let me take a tiny human home with so little knowledge to keep us both alive and happy, but I guess they do it every day and must have a pretty reasonable success rate. We're all alive and pretty happy, so I guess the hospital know what they are doing.

If in doubt there is always Wikipedia's parenting page.

Sounds like my Sunday night (AM)

Last night I started writing about dogs. But it ended up really just being about the part of my soul I lost when Doggy died and I am pretty sure no one wants to start their week off reading about the death of a dog or the attendant heartache. I mean we have all week for the melancholy to grow, let's try and start  off positive.

The crazy thing is, I watched Ted last night and if that can't elicit a positive post, what hope is there.

I couldn't stop thinking about where the story goes in Ted 2 and how Amanda Seyfried is the female lead instead of Mila Kunis and how I hope that doesn't mean that the Marky Mark and Mila Kunis characters have broken up. I mean the whole point of Ted is their personal growth and eventual marriage. This in turn led me to question why I'm such a square and whether I'm too resistant to change. But that's what movies often ask of us, to invest everything into a relationship, you can't just trash that relationship for the sake of a sequel. Plus I quite like Mila Kunis and I can't say the same for Seyfried.

Apparently Mila Kunis was too busy being a mother to her baby, Wyatt, to be in Ted 2. Yep, she's at home with baby girl. Her baby girl called Wyatt. Oh, Wyatt isn't a girl's name you say? Moreover, it's fucking ugly. I know! Wyatt makes Apple look like a great name. Seriously, Hollywood. What are you doing to your children?!?! Anyway I wish I didn't know about baby Wyatt, it really is making me rethink my feelings for Kunis.

Ugh, this attempt at a positive start to the week didn't work at all. Off you go. I release you from this post.

Is nothing sacred!?!?! (AM)

Hurtin'

I don't look at Facebook very often. I'd like to say it's only once a week, but in reality it's probably every two days, it just feels comparatively infrequent and my view is probably distorted. I stopped looking because it was so pointless and there was always links to depressing news items about how effed the world is or some post about some dumb shit from a person I don't much care for. Yesterday I looked though, and lucky too because my aunt had sent me a video of a tiny Spider-man-child and I also had an invite to a party. Oh it is the party of a one-year-old, not the kind with booze, but it's still social. So, there I was thinking how lucky it was I'd checked Facebook, scrolling down to see what else I'd missed when I saw, to my horror, a link to the new Point Break trailer. WHAT!?!?! I know! Who even knew there was new Point Break?! Maybe everyone knows, I am certainly no barometer of popular culture, but seriously, WTF?!

When I Googled this fucking schmozzle I was greeted by this article title: Point Break remake gets first trailer as fans of the original wonder why this is happening. I couldn't have put it better myself.

Obviously I watched the trailer. It went for 2:55 mins. At 1:22 I had already felt: UGH; Hahahahahaha how stupid; NO ONE CALLS YOU BODHI YOU ARE NOT BODHI!

The next 1:33 I just sat staring wondering why the eff this is happening. The new Point Break looks like heaps more action and heaps more stupid and I don't understand why they couldn't just make that movie and give it a different title and different names to the Bodhi and Johnny Utah characters and we could all peacefully continue living our lives. Why, for the love of God, WHY?!

This is probably just like that time I got upset about the new Footlose which, of course, because it was shit I never really had to think about after I first heard about it because no one ever spoke of it again. It is likely that is what will happen here. Some comedian called Max Silvestri tweeted "I love the movie Point Break but I've always wondered, "Would this be better if the leads had no charisma?" I'll find out this Christmas!" HAHA!

It's as if movie executives like to embrace challenge so hard they cast uncharismatic actors in stupid films while trampling all over what people in their 30s hold dear to their heart. Look, I like a professional challenge as much as the next person, but these guys are messing with lives.

See! This is why I don't look at Facebook, too many reminders of all that is wrong with the world.

What a great day (AM)

Tonight, J and I are going to dinner and a movie and I am so excited you would think it was the night before my baby is due, which is going to be an extremely exciting night because J, Chickpea, Strawberry, Appleheart and I are going to see Blur that night (inshallah). Also, my baby will be due. 

But no, it's just a regular night out really, something J and I used to do all the freaking time, but something that we aint done in yonks. I'm excited because even though it isn't a big deal, it's one of my favourite things to do and I get to do it tonight. 

Woot!

I am also thinking about eating a bowl of pasta and having a choc top. For breakfast! Just jokes. For dinner. Maybe for lunch. 

What a great day!

Great films: The Departed (AM)

Sometimes I write a blog post and I feel pretty confident I know what K's position will be on whatever I'm writing about. Sometimes I predict things wrong and sometimes I just don't know. Today I want to talk about what a great movie The Departed is. I know that when K first saw that movie she was down on it, think mainly because it wasn't Infernal Affairs. But maybe she's changed her position. It's happened before. (Ask her what she thought of Tropic Thunder that first time she saw it. You won't believe what she tells you! (Spoiler - she didn't think it was funny.)) Now Infernal Affairs is a great movie, there's no denying that. And I wouldn't be true to the spirit of Miss Soft Crab if I didn't admit that not only do I think it's a great film but we Crabs have a lot of scwhingspect I mean respect for Andy Lau and Tony Leung. So sure I felt worried about what Hollywood may do to the film, but when I saw The Departed when it came out I thought it was pretty great. Not as an Infernal Affairs remake but just as a film, it was just a great film.

I hadn't seen The Departed since 2006 or so, until it was on television last week, and I gotta tell you guys, it is one effing great film. It has this great noir feel. Not in the hammed up way you usually see noir these days, with extreme shadows and high contrast, but in a much more subtle way. But the film also has this kind of Hong Kong cinema vibe too. In one shot Leonardo is trying to catch the cop, Matt Damon, that is in with the mob, chasing him down streets and he is doesn't know its Matt Damon but he sees this reflection in this wind chime mirror... Look, I can't really explain it very well but it just really felt very HK. I just really feel that Martin Scorsese is quite good at his job. He really could go far if he puts his mind to it.

It's also worth noting that The Departed has a pretty good cast. It's set in Boston and some of Boston's finest sons are in it. Marky Mark! Matt Damon. Alec Baldwin. Ok, according to Wikipedia, Alec Baldwin is actually from Massapequa, but Jack Donaghy is from Boston, and what's good enough for 30 Rock is good enough for me. But although the record clearly shows that I love Marky Mark a lot, I have to say it's really Leonard Dicaprio that stands out in this movie for me. He really is quite good at his job. He could really go far if he puts his mind to it. 

Look, I know that no one wants to read a review of a 10-year-old movie, but don't you want to think about great stuff. Maybe you think this movie is great, maybe you don't, but let me just sing the praises of remembering great films of the past. Now that Margaret and David aren't on TV anymore doing that classic movie thing they started doing I guess that is just another hole Miss Soft Crab can fill for you. You're welcome. 

Eeny meeny miny mo (AM)

Last night I watched some of Trading Places, a film I have seen many many times but probably not for about 15 or 20 years. I also learned on the weekend, to my great surprise, that K has never seen that movie. I didn't even know that was possible given the frequency with which it used to be on TV, but it turns out the world really is an amazing place and anything is possible!

Because K has never seen it I wouldn't want to reveal any spoilers but let me just say that movies made in the 80s are not like movies made today. For example, they have a person dressed up in a gorilla suit that is meant to be a gorilla and then later a man gets put into the gorilla suit and the "real" gorilla makes love to it and the two gorillas get shipped off to Africa without anyone questioning whether the man in the suit is actually a gorilla.

I suppose this terrible costume is a joke but I can't imagine anyone trying such a thing nowadays.

Another thing you wouldn't hear in a doofusy comedy these days is an old white guy calling Eddie Murphy a word that starts with 'n' and rhymes with igger. I was quite shocked to hear it actually, but if you think about the 80s that word was considered bad I suppose, but it was still in use. It must have been, what were the words to Eeny meeny miny mo when you were growing up? Pretty mind bending that the more polite way to nominate who was 'it' was by saying "Ip dip dog shit you are not it."

Every time Baby starts 'Eeny meeny miny mo' I hold my breath for a second, waiting for what comes next even though he always says "catch a tiger by the toe." Of course he has never heard the version we used as kids. Back then, I may have known what that igger word meant when heard in isolation but "Eeny meeny" was just a bunch of nonsense words as far as I was concerned. Still, pretty fucked up, and even though I was just an innocent little kid trying to identify someone to be 'it' in chasey, just repeating some little song I heard from someone else, I feel like a total perpetrator. I think I have to go and have a shower now, wash the shame away.

Wow, Trading Places really took me on a trip down memory lane in a way I did not foresee at all!

It's a wonderful night for Oscar (PM)

Well, you've heard K's thoughts on a bunch of movies she hasn't seen, I'm pretty sure you don't need to hear mine. I will say I would really like to see Birdman and Boyhood. But I haven't seen either. I'm not much interested in most of the other nominated films because I expect they would largely bore me. I don't know if it is that movies have gotten shit or that the reality of life after 35.5 years has numbed me to their effect but I can barely remember the last time a film really blew my mind, let alone made me blow my wad. I have actually seen The Grand Budapest Hotel. It was pretty good, but nothing was blown as a result. It was no Royal Tenenbaums. Me, I guess I'd like Boyhood to win too, just last night I was thinking about how I can't wait for Baby to be old enough to enjoy School of Rock and thinking about how Richard Linklater has made some really good films. And I spent so many minutes in my youth thinking about how cool it would be for a movie to be made the way Boyhood was, the same people over a long time. But, obviously I haven't seen it so who am I to say what should win.

Sure, I'll watch the Oscars. You know I love NPH. And I love a hunk. And a pretty dress.

I guess Oscar night is about hopes and dreams. (Or so I can imagine some idiot saying.) I have hopes and dreams. Hope that the presenter list will be full of hunks. Dreams that some day a movie will make me feel something again. And that one day someone will  look as beautiful as Michelle Williams did that year in the yellow dress. You know, like K said.

It's a wonderful night for Oscar (AM)

Apparently the Oscars are on tonight. Who knew? There was a time when I used to heavily anticipate Oscar night. Not any more. I guess I'm just to old for that shit, as Danny Glover would say, though I've never actually seen Lethal Weapon. Back then,  I would most likely have seen all the movies and know who was likely to win based on previous awards ceremony results. Now, I barely even know what's nominated, and I'm sure I've seen very few of the films that are nominated. But heck, that shouldn't stop me from adding my $0.02, right?

Ok, let's go over the best picture nominees.
The Imitation Game. That's the one about the enigma code, right? I wanted to see that, mainly because I have never seen a film about the enigma code, nor read a book about it, nor have The Simpsons ever done an episode on it so I don't know the details of the story. Appleheart would roll his eyes whenever I mentioned it which kind of made me want to see it more, as a joke. But I didn't. So I don't know if it's good. So I guess it won't win?

Next, The Theory of Everything. That's the one about Stephen Hawking. I am sure it's an incredible story of triumph over adversity, and love,  but it looked kind of boring to me so I don't really want to see it and I don't really want it to win. Sorry.

Apparently Selma is the third film nominated. That's the one about Martin Luther King. Look, Americans know how to make you feel a lot of feelings in the cinema, so I'm pretty sure I would feel a lot of feelings if I saw it. But I haven't seen it. And I probably won't. But I do want to know why it's called Selma.

Oh, American Sniper is nominated. That's the one with Bradley Cooper and the fake baby, that Clint Eastwood directed. Haven't seen it. Mainly because of Bradley Cooper, Clint Eastwood and a very low level of interest. It might win something I guess. People love Clint, and he's no spring chicken anymore.  But I don't think it will.

The Grand Budapest Hotel. Look, I've enjoyed many a Wes Anderson film in my day. But lately, I've grown tired of them. And so I never saw this one. Which I kind of regret now, because people said it was really good. I guess I'll get around to seeing it. But I'm not in a massive rush. It might win I guess. People were pretty impressed with it. I'm shrugging my shoulders and moving on.

Boyhood. Now that's a film I really did want to see, fully intended to see, and felt really bummed out when I missed out on seeing it. I like Patricia Arquette. I like the concept. I like watching Ethan Hawke on screen these days, and feeling a little grossed out by him and feeling slightly bemused by that reaction. This movie sounds like it could be a really good movie and even though I haven't seen it, I think I want it to win.

Whiplash. What the heck is Whiplash? Wait, I have to google it. Oh, actually, I have heard of it. It's that movie about the jazz drummer. But that's all I know about it. Has anyone seen it? Is it meant to be good?  Well, maybe it's good. Hopefully it is. But I don't want it to win because of Boyhood.







Finally, Birdman. I've actually seen this. And I really liked it! Edward Norton really should work more. And even though my feelings for Christian Bale are well documented, and I am of the very firm view that he is the best Batman, a part of me still thinks that only Michael Keaton is the only real Batman. But, I have to say, I still want Boyhood, a film I have never seen, to win.




I don't really know what that says about things, but there you have it.

In all honesty, I mostly want someone to wear a dress as beautiful and memorable as the yellow Michelle Williams dress. And I want to be excited about the movies and the oscars again. But mostly, it's about the dress.

Hot buns (AM)

I think about hot buns a lot. Cinnamon buns, chocolate buns, straight out of the oven, all warm and sticky and delicious. But I don't think about the other kind of hot buns that much. Not my own or other people's.

Re: hot buns of the human variety I usually think of two things from my youth when they come up. First, a test that I will, correctly or otherwise, attribute to Jane Fonda, that if you put a pencil under a buttock and it stays in place you do not have hot buns. I don't know where I read this or when exactly, but I was a child of an age where I did not really have to worry about hot buns but knew that in the near future I may, and as I have aged I have thought of this test often and whether or not it really defines hot buns. The other thing I think of, of course, is from Clueless, when Tai tells Cher, "And my buns, they don't feel nothing like steel." I think of this in relation to any workout and any mention of buns ever.

 

Luckily for me, I have a pretty "out of sight, out of mind" attitude to my body, so I don't spend time agonising over the state of my buttocks. Sure, I have a general feeling that I could be fitter, slimmer, more toned but the benefit of having so much hate for my hair is that it leaves me little time to focus on any other negative attributes I have, thus relieving me from the self-scrutiny and loathing some people suffer.

But I know people fixate on their perceived physical shortcomings and do all kinds of things to overcome them, like work out, get surgery, wear assless chaps. Wait what?

I don't really understand 'shape wear', so I guess you could say I am at a complete fucking loss as to why you have to have nude buttocks to give you a great ass. I understand that the work of this particular garment is to lift and emphasise your butt, but I don't really understand why some less intensely tight fabric couldn't be used in the place of those gaping butt holes. And sure, there's not anything exactly wrong with buttocks being nude, and yet it just seems like including some more fabric on these underwear may have been a way of making them more comfortable and also more like underwear. Is it meant to make this shape wear sexy? Because shape wear is definitely not sexy, and perhaps I am alone in thinking this, but lumps of flesh pouring through holes in ultra tight stretch fabrics isn't really sexy either. It's like Blur said, modern life is rubbish.


I'd like to thank my aunt for bringing these pants and their stupidity to my attention, and yet I'd also like to curse her for bringing these pants and their stupidity to my attention.