movies

I saw Borat a few weeks ago with my cousin, and I've been idling on a response to it cause I wanted to give myself a chance to really think about the movie before I threw out a harsh critique on it. I've been talking to friends about the movie, many of whom have varying opinions on the movie, from hysterical to flat out racist. And some of my even progressive friends who I've mentioned disliking the movie have criticised me as being "too sensitive," so I wasn't sure if I really was being too sensitive, or if the movie was straight up offensive.

So here's what my beef is with the movie. Taking the arguments about the specific content of the movie aside, it seemed to me that Borat's character is a total caricature of how the majority in this country views immigrants. He was portrayed as a "funny looking guy", from a "backwards country" that no one's ever heard of, with "weird" habits—although highly exaggerated, "weird" nonetheless. Those are all the things that any immigrant to this country has faced throughout their lives, be they Italians in New York in the late 1800s, or my parents over the past 30 years. Theatres have been packed with suburban kids blatantly laughing at the other, the outsider, stuff people like me and my family have been dealing with most of our lives. Some have tried to make the arguments that the joke is really on the movie-watcher who's buying into the humor and laughing at it, cause they're being made a joke of by laughing at such blatant racism. Sorry, but that's a total cop-out. People don't need a movie to show them what ugly racism in this country looks like, just watch the news, or walk down your local street with open eyes and ears. Damn, just watch television for about 10 minutes.

It's on that basis that I thought the movie was offensive, and all the racist, homophobic remarks that white people make in the movie just adds to that. But Borat's character, how he's portrayed, and who he's being portrayed to is fundamentally racist.

I saw Superman Returns last night, and guess what? It was actually pretty damn good. Superman was played pretty decently, Kevin Spacey played a disturbed, but happily-evil Lex Luther pretty well. And there was even a bad-ass Indian dude playing one of Lex Luther's henchmen. He had the whole 'smart in science thing' going, cause he was fabricating weapon parts, navigating helicopters, and cutting fine crystals, but he also helped beat up superman when he was down. Purely diabolical, and totally not stereotypical. Nice. There was a hospital scene with a bunch of desi's playing doctors though. Huh.

Anyway, it was a very nostalgic movie. I didn't go in holding high expectations that the movie had to meet a certain standard, or coincide with the original story to a specific degree. I just went to be reminded of how me and a whole other generation of my peers identified with Superman: the good guy that actually wins. There were of course references to old superman icons and taglines, like "it's a bird, it's a plane..." and even a press photo referencing the cover of Superman's first comic, Action Comics #1:

It was fun. I was also remembering at the end of Kill Bill two, when David Carradine was describing why he liked Superman so much:

"An essential characteristic of the superhero mythology is, there's the superhero, and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When he wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic that Superman stands alone. Superman did not become Superman, Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red 'S', that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears, the glasses, the business suit, that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He's weak, he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race."

Its on.

Check this article chronicling characters of color played by white people. Many of the films from the 50s and 60s are black characters played by white people in blackface. But some of the other movies it points out are films I've never really thought about. The most recent being Nacho Libre—Jack Black, a white male playing a mexican wrestler. When I started seeing posters for that movie, I thought it was cool that Jack Black plays characters that aren't built, buff, clean cut, and tan, but are still popularly considered cool. It never crossed my mind that he wasn't Latino, but was playing a Mexican wrestler. But now that you mention it... a few other films that jump out at me on the list are Scarface and Carlito's Way, where Al Pacino, an Italian actor, plays a Cuban and a Puerto Rican character. And West Side Story where a woman of Russian decent plays Maria.

I'm going to see Superman Returns tonight (on Imax in 3D!!!), where a white man plays an alien from the Planet Krypton. Lol.

I just saw Brokeback Mountain for the second time yesterday. And much to my surprise, it’s still just as sad, and killed me emotionally just as much as it did the first time I saw it, if not moreso. It's a GREAT movie, but SOOOO SAAAAAD. I can’t even say anything about it. The characters are so real, and the way they’re intimate with each other remind me so much of my own relationship, and imagining myself going through what they’ve gone through kills me that much more. Them being two men becomes transparent in these intimate moments, it's only when they have to “explain themselves” to the rest of the world that their sexuality becomes an issue, which is even MORE messed up. Big heavy sigh, saaaad, saaad movie...

Friday night, I saw Alien vs. Predator with my cous. Before I explain exactly why I thought this movie sucked ass, let me set it up for you a bit. We get there an hour before the movie’s about to start, so we sat in on The Village a bit. That looked really good. Manoj (that’s the ‘M’ in ‘M. Night Shamalan.’ Where does the ‘Night’ come from? He gave that name to himself cause it ‘sounded cool.’ I degress.) Anyway, Manoj has a pretty cool way of filming suspense. There was a lot of action going on barely on the corner of the screen, letting your mind wonder what exactly what was going on. He does that shit well, and for the 20 minutes that I actually saw, I’m kind of excited to see the whole thing. But we didn’t want to ruin it, so we walked out. Then we sat in on Hero. That looked AWESOME. I was ready to sit in and just watch the rest of that, but my cousin promised his little sister he’d see that with her next weekend, so again, we walked out of a pretty good movie. Then, sigh we watched Alien vs. Predator. I didn’t have very high expectations of the movie to begin with, cause I hadn’t heard very good thing about it, and part of me wanted to let the good movies rest in history as good movies (minus the already-made lame sequels). But man, it was boring, the story was predictable, the dialogue was sooo WEAK. The characters looked like they were being reminded their lines as they were going through the scenes.

If you haven’t seen the movie and you actually give a shit about not ruining it for yourself, don’t read on.

So the premise of how Aliens and Predators actually know each other—as it was stated in a corny flashback sequence in the movie—was that there was this temple in Antactica that was basically a breeding ground for Aliens. Once every 100 years, Predators would send their amateur warriors to the temple to test their might. One or two predators would sit at the top of the temple while HORDES of aliens would climb to the top, and the Predators would kill off all of them like they were 7 year olds plowing through pixie sticks. So one or two predators were able to kill off an army of aliens without blinking, yet Arnold Schwartzenagger was able to kill one predator (with his cunning skill) by himself in the first movie? That kinda made the first predator look like a big wuss. Then one of the Predators in AVP created a bond with the main chick in the movie and took her under his wing. That was lame, he shouldn’t have given a shit about her, he’s a Predator. Early on a face grabber grabbed a predator’s face when he had his mask off (that was already screaming ‘sequel a la underworld’). Then at the end of the movie (again, stop reading if you actually give a shit about seeing this movie) that Predator died. So after the Predators defeated the mother Alien and they’re heading back onto their ship, they put the dead Predator on a hammock and put him in the bay of the ship as they take off, and they all walked away. Zoom in on the Predator’s chest and all of a sudden ‘whoa!’ an Alien that looks like a Predator pops out of his chest (sequel sequel sequel). Okay. All throughout the movie, the Predators were scanning the chests of people, and if they didn’t see aliens breeding in them, they’d let them pass and wouldn’t give a shit. Wouldn’t they have noticed an alien breeding in their comrades chest BEFORE they let him back on their ship? BEFORE they considered their mission complete? Also, this dude was dead for a while. Doesn’t the host need to be alive in order for the Alien to still breed? Can an Alien still be born after the host has died? My first thought is ‘no.’ But I might be wrong.

So yea, I’ll admit, I’m being a big movie dork and looking into the flick a little deeper than I should, and I should just sit back and enjoy it for what its worth. But the action and gore wasn’t even good enough to allow me to do that. The movie was a bore, and I sat in the theater the whole time wondering how the other kids in the theater were buying this shit. Worthless.

What I’m listening to right now:

Shahid Parves, Raag Yaman. This is the cat I’m going to be studying under for a week in September. So I went up to a Devon a week-week and a half ago and found this Japanese import in a pile of Shahid Parves CDs my uncle-buddy at Bombay Video had. And it's awesome. The way he plays with dynamics in his melodies sounds really smooth. He gets loud and really soft, and lets a single note ring out as he’s bending it like crazy, lets it sit with total silence for a moment, and they break back into it. His quality and intonation and speed has slowly been blowing me away the more I’ve been listening to this CD. I’m a fan.

So I kept this weekend on the low. Friday I went out with a friend to grab a bite to eat at PF Chang’s, this Asian restaurant in the burbs. She was planning this big night out Saturday night to Signature Room and Sound Bar, and man, that whole scene’s so played out. I CONSIDERED going to Sound Bar a few weeks ago, and just to make sure I called them before I left my house:

Dude: Thanks for calling Sound Bar.
Me: Hey man, what’s the cover tonight?
Dude: Do you have a Sound Bar card?
(In my head: Do I give a shit about your place enough to have a card? No...)
Me: Nope.
Dude: Well, it’ll be a $20 cover, but with the card it would be a reduced cover of $10.
Me: Cool. And do you have a dress code?
(In my head: Of course you do, black pants, shiny shirt, dress shoes, and slicked back hair, so I can look like every other mutt in your damn club.)
Dude: Well, what are you planning on wearing?
Me: Well, I wasn’t gonna come dressed like a schlob or anything, you know a nice pair of those fancy bowlin-lookin shoes, a nice pair of a little baggy pants, and a nice fitted t-shirt.
Dude: (Evil, demonic, laughter) Ha, ha, ha... no. We don’t accept gym shoes or baggy pants in our club. Just wear dress shoes, a nice pair of slacks and a dress shirt, and you’ll be fine.
(In my head: And I’ll be fine? Are you telling me what to wear and how I should dress? Oh my, let me jump at the chance to pay 20 bucks to come to your shitty-ass club, pay way to much for your water-downed liquor, listen to your shitty-ass music, AND deal with all the mutts your club brings in...)
Me: Alright man, thanks.

So after I heard she was planning this big night with a ton of people going there? My first instinct was, ‘no, that’s quite alright.’ But I didn’t want to hold my taste in late-night entertainment against her... Cause shit, I know not everyone like’s my scene. So I took her out to eat so I could at least chill with her for a little bit and not totally blow her off. In a way, it was probably better. We got to sit down and have an actual conversation, which from the sounds of the night she had Saturday, probably wouldn’t have happened otherwise... Lol. Good times, good times.

Sunday I chilled with Maninder, his wife and a few of his buddies. That was cool. We got together for “brunch.” You know your friends are totally married when you get together for “brunch.” Lol. I chilled a bit with his buddy Ajit, who I’ve met before and I’ve been trying to hook up with whenever I go see my guruji in Ann Arbor, but he’s always out of town the weekend I try to go up. So I finally saw him Saturday. I brought my sitar over so he checked out my axe and we shot the shit a little about classical Indian music. So that was cool. A little more motivation to keep me on the ball. I’ve got so much to learn, and so much training I have to do to my hands and ear to be where I need to be. It's a long road and this part sucks, but the view from the top of the mountain will be awesome. I know, I’ve seen pictures....

So I saw Italian Job Sunday. SHITTY-ASS MOVIE. If I wanted to see a 90 minute commercial for the BMW Mini, I would have... I don’t know what else I would have done, I need to think about that one. But my point is, the story of the movie was totally lame, the character’s were dry and totally not believable, and the action wasn’t even good enough to let me numb my mind and just watch. The only saving grace was a few of Seth Green’s moments. He’s funny. He needs to get a new agent so he stops acting in shitty-ass movies.

I can’t wait to see Spiderman 2. Even if the story sucks (which it WON’T), the action’ll be badass enough for me to let them get away with it...

So my week of not spending cash has been both successful and unsuccessful. Monday I saw Chronicles of Riddick and Dodgeball with my cousin, and he paid cause I was BROOOKE. Dodgeball was pretty damn funny, and Riddick was pretty cool. Nothing mindblowing though. Tuesday taught the bhangra class at the old town school, Wednesday I ran two miles with some buddies after work then went to my breakdancing class, and last night I worked late. So I haven’t been takin it out hardcore much this week. But on the unsuccessful side, my brakes on my car needed work and that’s running me 3c’s. Worthless.

I can’t wait to be in the city, dudes. One more month. It was supposed to be end of June, but it got pushed out til the end of July. With doing stuff in the city after 5p, I waste so much time waiting for shit when I could be eating, practicing my sitar, or SLEEPING, it just drains all the time out of my day. It currently takes me an hour to get from my desk to my front door in the burbs. As soon as I move, it’ll take me 20 minutes. DAMN, I can’t wait.

What i’m listening to right now:

Dilated Peoples, Neighborhood Watch. I just picked up the album last weekend. The more I listen to it, the more I appreciate it. I’m a little disappointed though. This is their third album. They’re first album was tight, and they second album still freakin rocks. Good beats, good rhymes. But there’s not too much of a difference from this latest album and their last. The beats are still tight, lyrically it could be better. But I wish I saw them try more shit, and change things up on me like they did from their first to their second. Either way, it still a good listen.

James Brown, 20 All-time Greatest Hits. I remember I used to put this CD on at home, plug in my bass, and rock out with every track. Lol, so I’ve been reminiscing as of late. Regardless, this album ROCKS.

Am I lame cause I like Slipknot’s new song?