inland empire

i lived in the inland empire for four years. not the inland empire proper, which straddles the border of san bernardino and la counties, but a small oasis inside that concrete desert called claremont. but often we'd venture out. it has been called the porn capital of california, it has been called the crank capital of the united states.

and now david lynch is making a movie out of it. inland empire was shot completely on a run of the mill dv recorder over the space of several years. now i have never been able to finish a david lynch film, although i've really wanted too. and i was going to watch twin peaks in college but it never panned out. i did see the seasame street version where a bunch of muppet birds had two beaks...i figure it's not quite the same.

since i lived there, and the review looks interesting, i figured i might give it a shot.

extras season 2?

i'm not sure i can handle this second season of extras. the office was great. i guess in the middle of the run it got a little rough, but there was always dawn and tim buoying it up. and in the first season of extras, things were on an uphill climb. but now in the second season, i'm not sure if i can bear it. he seems to be at the top of his career as a wig and glasses wearing, catchphrase saying actor. it is brutal. it is exactly where he would be had he not done the office right.

i've decided that the big problem is i'm watching it alone. there is no one to share the collective groan with, so it becomes internalized and soul crushing. then again, i've only seen the first two episodes. and maybe i'm just a light weight. either way, it's gonna be tough for me to get through 4 more episodes.

but i love ricky gervais. and no, i'm not having a laugh.


ed. note: you can watch the current extras episode featuring daniel radcliffe on the bbc 2 website here.

heroic bloodshed

SPL or Kill Zone is brutal, brutal, brutal movie. a hong kong noir with plot holes you can walk through. for instance, the kingpin (sammo hung) is arrested for murder because they find a tape of him beating someone with a golf club, but since someone else shot him, they had to let him go. but i guess i needed to suspend disbelief.

the plot of the movie is this group of cops who will do anything to bring this brutal kingpin down. when their captain is diagnosed with a brain tumor, a new straight edge is brought in to take over. my favorite part is when the at-all-costs cops confront the new guy, after a quick little fight, and with some orchestral music, convince him that breaking the law is okay, in this instance.

everyone dies at the end, except the bad guy, and he's been emotionally destroyed. brutal.

that being said, the fight scenes are wicked. the fight between the straight edge cop and the knife wielding maniac in white is awesome, only second to sammo hung vs. straight edge guy. pretty intense, and pretty brutal.

shitty american things

i keep wanting these shitty american things. to drive on a freeway with giant oversized SUVs. to go to mcdonald's and eat with dangerously overweight people. to sit down for a nice meal at chili's and have non-sensical conversations in english. where is my cheese? where is my deep fried fat? where is my english? ahhhh...the cold beer of commercialism. everything here is mom and pop. nothing is the same from shop to shop. sure i can get pepsi or a cornetto (read european drumstick) at any corner shop, but i have to go to mcdonald's for a big mac, and that bothers my sensitive non-capitalist seeming tendencies. one day, i may have to venture in.

weird awakening

i woke up at 3 this morning because the power went out. i don't know why it woke me up, i just did. i could tell the power was off because my mosquito repeller was off. it's like the forcefield coming down on a spaceship. bad news. captain kirk's screaming, "where is our mosquito repellent scotty! i need mosquito repellent!" i checked the lamp, and it wasn't working either.

so i went to the bathroom thinking i could do it in the dark, but the sounds on the chinese western toilet are all wrong. there is not a big bowl filled with water. it's like a slide that goes down to a pipe. so you can't tell by the water noise if you're doing okay. so i had no idea what i was doing, and hosed the whole thing down completely. (i cleaned it this morning.

after the bathroom, i found that my watch was missing off my wrist. it has my alarm on it, so i needed it, or i wouldn't wake up in the morning. so i donned my headlamp (which i then realized i should have done sooner) and searched for about a half hour before i found it next to my bed. i finally got back to bed and to sleep.

i woke up this morning with my bedside lamp on. the power was back...but i was tired.

zoolander's based on a book.

i found out today that brett easton ellis, author of american psycho, sued ben stiller, mastermind behind zoolander after the movie came out. this was because a year before the movie, bee (as i like to call him) wrote a book called glamorama. in this book, a dimwitted male model becomes entangled in a fashion based terrorist organization. interesting ben. very interesting. they later settled out of court.

still, i love zoolander. and i like american psycho (the book) as well. so i'm very interested in seeing how glamorama is. it's been dipped in two layers of creamy potential. so buy it for me. it's on my wishlist.