This long weekend I did lots of things. I may have made two new friends, but that depends on if they call me ever or not. One is Jewish and the other works for a girly magazine (meaning titty mag, not Asinine Adolescent or whatever shit teen girls are reading these days.) I also saw two movies, both of which you have to see immediately I don't care what you're doing.
The first movie is Curse of the Golden Monkey. (P.S. Raise your hand if you hate imdb's total extreme makeover.) Golden Dragon is about the emporer and empress of China like 1,000 years ago. She's sleeping with his son, and he's slowly killing her with poison mushroom tea. I pretty much love stories about royalty of any sort and how they plan and plot and want to kill eachother but then have to go to a party and dance together. It's fascinating to me, and I was going to write this whole long insightful blog entry about all that, but I changed my mind.
Anyway, Curse of the Golden Crab Rangoon stars Chow Yun Fat (Yun-Fat Chow?) who barely does any kung fu at all. What fighting there is has that Crouching Tiger fakeness that you either love or hate. I like it.
Right, but the appeal of this movie beyond the crazy nobody's-a-nice-person cast is purely visual. It's SO full of vibrant colors, it makes me with I knew the first thing about what they all mean. It was like a gay pride parade got hit simultaneously with 15 paintball guns, the fairies from Sleeping Beauty, and the Care Bear Stare. You've just gotta see it.
Lastly, I want to bow down a bit to Li Gong, who played the Empress because she was fantastic. You may remember her from such films as Da hong deng long gao gao gua or the fabulous Du xia II zhi Shang Hai tan du sheng, but Curse of the Golden Chopsticks is truly her best performance since Xin tian long ba bu zhi tian shan tong lao. Also, she's gorgeous and wears the most fantastic dresses. This movie was a drag queen's wet dream. I knew lending the studio my collection of golden headdresses would be a worthy sacrifice.
The next movie I was was Bridge to Terabithia, which was good, though you have to ignore the fact that it uses a million stereotypes. Also, Josh Hutcherson=NOT CUTE. I don't care if I shouldn't be talking about the attractiveness of 15-year-olds, I'm saying it anyway. But whatever, he's an ok actor. Violet Beauregarde, on the other hand, is so pretty and absolutely lights up the screen. (You'll like her better if you don't look at her imdb pictures in that stupid pink dress. It takes kids a long time to learn how to smile for a camera in a way that doesn't make you want to slap them, and she's not there yet. So ignore the pictures and just believe me... she's fantastic.) Nonetheless, these things aren't important.
Anyway, I remember reading this book (by Katherine Paterson) in the 6th grade and crying a lot. I think the school was trying to weed out the student body that year because we read two depression-suicide-inducing books, the other being Where the Red Fern Grows. Anyway, the only thing I want to say about this movie is that even though some of the plot devices are a little contrived, it's one of the most important stories of our day. Eschewing discussion of actor-cuteness or talent or weird CGI monsters or directing, producing, whatever... I really believe everyone should experience this story. Whether you read the book or see the movie or listen to some little kid's book report, I dont care--just find a way. You'll either learn something or remember something, and I can guarantee you it will be worth holding on to.
Ok, I gotta wrap this up. It's time to go home and watch one of the other most important stories of our day, Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters.
There's a typo - first sentence of the paragraph about Bridge to Tamagotchi~ :P
ReplyDeleteChinese kung fu movie that are designed to export to America are always full of vivid colors that it burn your eyes permanently.
Anyhow, haven't seen it yet, unlike all American who got fooled by colorful costumes, I remain skeptical to all chinese kung fu movie. :p
Bridge to Tiramisu, on the other hand, I love it~ totally tapped into my imaginary world~ Please have a sequel where "that" person come back!!
I think I'm a little smarter than to be fooled by the pretty colors and shiny dresses, O Great Paragon of Taste. And you know I don't care about fighting. It was just a good movie.
ReplyDeleteAnd if the Terabithia story had a sequel and "that" person came back, it would ruin everything entirely. Some stories are better off standing alone.
Not like "comeback" comeback, just comeback in the imaginary world to teach him more life lessons in a camero screen time kinda way~ o I have a script in my head already, all I need is to dream about it at night and it will be just like going to the movies! :)
ReplyDeleteOh my god Where the Red Fern Grows killed me. I was in fourth grade when my class read it, and by the end everyone was crying. Why do teachers do that to us poor kids? I can attribute my depression back to 4th grade. Or my manic-depressed family on my mother's side...
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