New song! It sounds very much like all my other songs! But I like it anyway!
(later...) Well, MediaShare is being weird, so this link isn't working at the moment. I'll try to fix it from home tonight.
(even later still...) ARRRRGH! Still not working. Gosh darn it all. Let's try something else, then - CLICK THIS RIGHT NOW!!!!
(even later later still...) OK, that one seems to work. Boy, that was fun.
Fucking Takeshi Miike. After watching Audition - which, by the way, is still one of the best horror movies I've ever seen - I went on a bit of a bender with Miike. For those unfamiliar, Takeshi Miike is a Japanese film-maker who makes utterly bizarre feature films, often at the rate of four or five a year. He has absolutely no concept of quality assurance - any given Miike film might be brilliant, god-awful, or more likely some combination of both. Sort of like a Japanese genre version of Jean-Luc Goddard in that respect. The frustrating thing is that the bits that are brilliant - like the last ten minutes of Dead Or Alive, or the claymation sequences from Happiness Of The Katakuris, or the entirety of Audition - are jaw-droppingly amazing, but you often have to wade through long sections of tedium to get to them.
So after my Miike bender, I swore I would never watch another one. And then I read that the Toronto Film Festival was showing this:
The movie is called Sukiyaki Western Django, and from what I gather it's basically a remake of the classic spaghetti Western Django (which if you haven't seen go out and rent right this second) except it's clearly set in Japan and all the actors speak phonetic English. Oh, and apparently Quentin Tarantino is in it.
Look, I am not a strong man. My word is essentially meaningless, because how exactly could I NOT see a movie with this premise? The thing is, I know it's going to suck but I'm going to watch it anyway. Well, at least I watch these things so that you, faithful Sloth readers, don't have to.
Survive Style 5+
What's it about?
5 interlocking stories of varying degrees of surreality with various intersecting characters. Sort of like watching Quentin Tarantino direct Magnolia, except Japanese and therefore infinitely cooler.
Any chicks in the movie?
Many, but the best one is the one who keeps coming back from the dead with different superpowers, like rocket-guided arms or the ability to breathe fire. Seriously.
Awesomeness factor?
Incalculatable. This masterpiece of Japanese pop overload was made in 2004 by Gen Sekiguchi, who I guess made commercials or music videos or something before he got hit with some sort of crazy-movie stick. Bits of it remind me of Charlie Kaufman - there's a series of scenes that are parodies of Japanese commercials, I think, that approach Bunuel levels of pure surrealism. The movie wildly careens between five interwoven plotlines that intersect characters, sort of like Altman's Short Cuts filtered through an absolutely audacious extreme-pop sensibility. The cast is even crazier - Vinnie Jones as a hitman with intense anger management issues, Sonny Chiba as an ad executive, and the guy who played Ichi The Killer as - well, I don't want to spoil it. Surprisingly low on the gore, but dripping with style.
Mitigated by?
Here's how great this movie is: the credit sequence alone is worth the price of a rental. Trust me.
Short version: not bad.
Long version: Not quite as heavy on the irritating Fox-isms as Hell's Kitchen. They still do that thing where they show you the Reader's Digest Condensed Version of the show you're about to watch in the first five minutes, and the music cues were pretty awful. Also, and I know Red will be upset by this, no shirtless Ramsey. Clearly, America is not ready for that much machismo.
But otherwise it was pretty close to the UK version. They went to Long Island to an Italian restaurant (What? Italians on Long Island? Get out!) - a family place run by a sadly typical dysfunctional group. The main problem was with the brother, Peter, who was the "manager" but clearly had never worked a day in his fucking life. Also seemed to enjoy steroids, which is a charming combination.
Anyway, Kev says thumbs up.
Hey, kids:
Just a quick reminder that the US version of Kitchen Nightmares - the one where Gordon Ramsey goes around to the shittiest restaurants imaginable and yells at people until they're fixed - starts tonight, 9pm in my time zone. I'll post a review after I watch it later.
How do you know you're a rock god? When Fender makes a signature guitar for you. I want to eat this guitar like it was candy. (Don't tell Strummy.)
But seriously, it is really awesome to see Mascis get some recognition for his blazing guitar skills. I recently bought the latest Dinosaur Jr. album (the one where he reunites with Murph and Lou Barlow - the seminal line-up, if you will) and the man can still play like crazy. It hard to remember now what a revelation those early Dinosaur records were; in the punk scene, guitar solos were considered anathema because they stood for all that was wrong about rock 'n' roll. But then Mascis comes along and totally recontextualized the art of soloing - noisy yet melodic, always careening off into totally unexpected directions.
Plus, it's purple. It's the exact color of Speed Buggy. Ain't nothing more punk rock than that.
Hey, kids: Your ol' buddy Sloth had yet another snarky letter printed in The Record, our local (mostly crappy) paper. This time it was in response to John Tory, leader of the Progressive Conservatives, saying that he thought creationism should be taught in school because evolution is, ahem, "just a theory". (He's since backpedaled on that one, by the way.)
Here's my letter, printed word for word in The Record today:
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With regards to the front page story about the Tories being "OK with creationism" from Thursday's edition of The Record, I would like to make a humble suggestion to the provincial Tory party: Perhaps when it comes time for you to elect a new leader of the Progressive Conservatives, you might want to look for one who understands what the scientific use of the word "theory" means.
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Hey, kids. Long time, no blog. You're looking well. Looks like you got yourself some colour. Anyway, I would apologize for not blogging for the past month except it's my blog and I'll do what I want, so there. Eat with a fork, invisible reader!
I've been meaning to blog more, but I had some time off and I got caught up on some movies, and then I had a crazy work month of much overtime and hair pulling and then I had some MORE time off but then Bioshock came out and sucked me into it's gaping maw of gaming goodness for like FIVE DAYS and then I bought a new bike (that's my bike in the picture - well, not MY bike, but a picture of the same model. It looks WAY better in the sunlight, because the red looks like a nice tall pint of red ale) so I spent some time riding and playing my guitar and watching more movies and... yeah.
Fear not, though, as the new fall TV season starts I'll no doubt be ranting about Lost or Battlestar Galactica or whatnot soon enough. (Not ANTM though. I think I'll be taking a break from that one for a season.)
In the meantime, here's some more music from Strummy and me. (New download site I'm trying out, by the way. To download the mp3, click on the link and then click on the box that says "Click here to download".) This one's called "Jamcey" because I was going for a simple three-chord Jesus & Mary Chain thing, but it quickly got out of hand as they usually do.
