Tuesday, December 22, 2009
I Love the 00s: Three from Tarantino
Next on my list of my favorite things about the 00s is Quentin Tarantino. When the decade began he was MIA, curiously quiet after the lukewarm response to Jackie Brown (1997). Once he got back into the movie-making business, business was good. Very good.
His first film back from hiatus was Kill Bill (2003, 2004), an epic kung-fu/revenge picture that was forcibly split into two films by the studio. The end results made me wonder how Volumes 1 and 2 were ever part of the same picture, because the two films felt so very different.
Vol. 1 was a raucous splatterfest of swordfighting and rage, while Vol. 2 was a more restrained look at the characters left standing from Vol. 1. The final showdown between The Bride and Bill is emotional, not physical, and when she takes her revenge there is real sadness in the air.
One of the unsung triumphs of the movie(s) is the soundtrack. Cobbled together from other films and even a few television series, the music in Kill Bill is different than the pop-heavy mixes of Quentin Tarantino's earlier movies. Even though I couldn't recognize most of it, the use of instrumental music accentuated the film's numerous homages. When you hear Ennio Morricone, whether you can place its exact origin or not, you're going to think of spaghetti westerns.
It was three years before we saw another Tarantino movie, but it was worth the wait. Death Proof was the second half of the double-feature Grindhouse (2007), two films shown back to back with intentionally cheesy trailers preceeding each picture. I noted on my blog at the time that it was one of the best moviegoing experiences I've ever had - and that still stands. While the first film, Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, was just as over the top as those trailers were, Death Proof opened quietly by focusing on four friends just hanging out. It's a slow burn, teasing the audience with glimpses of Stuntman Mike before eventually revealing that he's not just an over-the-hill stunt driver. The car chase at end of the film was one of the most exhilarating ones I've ever seen, right on par with classics like Bullitt and The French Connection. More so, perhaps, because those movies didn't have a woman strapped to the hood of the car during their chases.
Finally there's Inglorious Basterds (2009), a movie I've already written about several times since I saw it last month. I don't know if it's my favorite Tarantino film but it's certainly my favorite of the last ten years, as the opening conversation between the Colonel and that dairy farmer was so tense I almost couldn't stand it. That extended showdown of two men talking for I don't know how long was more tense than any clash in Kill Bill or crash in Death Proof.
I suppose it's selfish of me to wish that Quentin Tarantino could work faster. In the last ten years he made three films, while during that time we've had seven Coen Brothers movies, five Christopher Nolan movies and, ugh, five Michael Bay movies! Please, Quentin, don't rush things but don't leave us hanging for six years again. It's just cruel.
This represents Part 7 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
つづく...(Click here to read more)
His first film back from hiatus was Kill Bill (2003, 2004), an epic kung-fu/revenge picture that was forcibly split into two films by the studio. The end results made me wonder how Volumes 1 and 2 were ever part of the same picture, because the two films felt so very different.
Vol. 1 was a raucous splatterfest of swordfighting and rage, while Vol. 2 was a more restrained look at the characters left standing from Vol. 1. The final showdown between The Bride and Bill is emotional, not physical, and when she takes her revenge there is real sadness in the air.
One of the unsung triumphs of the movie(s) is the soundtrack. Cobbled together from other films and even a few television series, the music in Kill Bill is different than the pop-heavy mixes of Quentin Tarantino's earlier movies. Even though I couldn't recognize most of it, the use of instrumental music accentuated the film's numerous homages. When you hear Ennio Morricone, whether you can place its exact origin or not, you're going to think of spaghetti westerns.
It was three years before we saw another Tarantino movie, but it was worth the wait. Death Proof was the second half of the double-feature Grindhouse (2007), two films shown back to back with intentionally cheesy trailers preceeding each picture. I noted on my blog at the time that it was one of the best moviegoing experiences I've ever had - and that still stands. While the first film, Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror, was just as over the top as those trailers were, Death Proof opened quietly by focusing on four friends just hanging out. It's a slow burn, teasing the audience with glimpses of Stuntman Mike before eventually revealing that he's not just an over-the-hill stunt driver. The car chase at end of the film was one of the most exhilarating ones I've ever seen, right on par with classics like Bullitt and The French Connection. More so, perhaps, because those movies didn't have a woman strapped to the hood of the car during their chases.
Finally there's Inglorious Basterds (2009), a movie I've already written about several times since I saw it last month. I don't know if it's my favorite Tarantino film but it's certainly my favorite of the last ten years, as the opening conversation between the Colonel and that dairy farmer was so tense I almost couldn't stand it. That extended showdown of two men talking for I don't know how long was more tense than any clash in Kill Bill or crash in Death Proof.
I suppose it's selfish of me to wish that Quentin Tarantino could work faster. In the last ten years he made three films, while during that time we've had seven Coen Brothers movies, five Christopher Nolan movies and, ugh, five Michael Bay movies! Please, Quentin, don't rush things but don't leave us hanging for six years again. It's just cruel.
This represents Part 7 in a series of 25 posts about my favorite as well as the most disappointing entertainment properties/trends of the last ten years. To Be Continued!
Labels: Grindhouse, I love the 00s, Inglorious Basterds, Kill Bill, movies, Quentin Tarantino
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thankful for the Basterds
Hey, it's Thanksgiving! Oh hey, I'm in Japan, so Thanksgiving doesn't mean dick! Indeed, this will be my first Thanksgiving in four years without any familial contact. Last year I was in New York on this holiday and the year before that my parents and sister were in town for my wedding. Frankly, even four years ago I was at Kansai Gaidai surrounded by similarly homesick Americans. I guess I can take some comfort in that I'm in the process of building my own family now, so someday in the future we can have our own Thanksgiving if we feel like it.
I keep thinking about Inglorious Basterds and how terrific it was. The more I revisit it in my mind, the more things I find to love about it. Conversely, I find the elements that bugged me about the movie becoming less significant. This is the opposite of how my thought process usually works. Typically, when I reflect on a film, video game or whatever, I latch onto the flaws and nitpick them while telling myself "I can only do this because the rest of it was so good." With Inglorious Basterds I'm actually downplaying elements that irritated me when I first watched it.
For example, I was not a fan of Eli Roth as Donny, "the Bear Jew." I hold no personal animosity towards the man (I liked Cabin Fever and found Hostel more interesting than people give it credit for) but his portrayal of the supposedly-intimidating bat-wielding Nazi killer did not work for me. There's an incredible set-up for the character where high-ranking Nazis (including Adolf Hitler!) discuss how horrible he is and how he might be a "golem" (boy do I regret not noting how they translated that word into Japanese), plus there's that long shot of the tunnel where you cannot see him but you hear the sound of his bat coming from the dark. But when he emerges, he's just a (somewhat) hairy guy in an undershirt. Not particularly bear-like, in my opinion.
However, as I think about the film again and again, I realize that the entire Basterds unit was a rather unassuming bunch of guys. They're not particularly bad-ass, they just kill Nazis in a purposely brutal fashion so that their enemies will spread rumors about their deeds. They're not The Dirty Dozen, they're just regular soldiers with a colorful modus operandi and Donny is perfect when viewed in that context. He's a loudmouth, a braggart; he carries a big stick but speaks loudly anyway. When he finds himself in a tight spot, such as sitting in a cinema full of Nazi brass, he looks genuinely terrified because he's in over his head.
(SPOILER ALERT)
...
...
In the end, their plan only succeeds due to the unexpected actions of others, namely Landa and Shosanna. Were it not for their "help," so to speak, Donny and the rest of the Basterds would have been killed, easily.
(end spoilers)
Even better than reconsidering what I didn't like about Inglorious Basterds is discovering new things that I did like. It occurred to me today that the movie made a direct appeal to me on a linguistic level. I have always had a strong sense of curiosity when it comes to foreign languages. The whole reason I live in Japan now is because of my interest in Japanese, and even though I'll probably never "master" it (if such a thing is even possible) I'm always on the lookout for tidbits of other languages.
One of the highlights of the JET Mid-Year Seminar is the free language class we get to remind us of what it's like to have a stranger speak to us using words we do not understand. After all, that's exactly what we do for a living. We never get too deep, as it's only one session, but I find it fascinating even if my retention level is pretty poor. Twice now I've gotten a taste of Cantonese from fellow JET Helen and the most I can remember is 1, 2, and 3.
Watching Inglorious Basterds reminded me of how exciting a multi-lingual environment can be. Nearly every character in the film speaks two languages with the glaring exception of the Basterds themselves. This is a group charged with infiltrating Nazi-occupied territory and the only members of the team who speak German were born in Europe. It reminds me of my trips abroad in high school when I met children my own age who spoke English wonderfully in addition to their native tongue while they were studying a third language in school. Meanwhile I was barely navigating basic conversations in French and my German was little more than a collection of nouns that sounded funny (e.g. eierstokke).
I know it's unfair to compare a multi-cultural continent like Europe with an archipelago nation that has serious xenophobia issues, but ever since I saw Inglorious Basterds Japan's view of foreign languages suddenly feels more imprisoning than ever. My day job consists of trying to expose sheltered rural children to the idea that there is an entire world full of people out there who do not speak Japanese. More often than not, I am met with resistance against the very notion that someone could speak more than one language. Everything around here is black and white in that respects.
I am told time and time again how "difficult" English is, as if that explains their national hostility towards it. Twenty years ago I spent months studying Hebrew against my will for my Bar Mitzvah. It wasn't easy and I complained a lot but I still did it. Compared to that, asking these kids to learn a handful of vocabulary words or study the alphabet does not strike me as unreasonable, yet their teachers cannot wait to make excuses for their lack of cooperation.
When you get right down to it, it's hardly the children's fault that they struggle with English. The entirety of Japanese society goes out of its way to shelter itself from foreign language. Advertisements are more likely to include a Japanese "search term" than an actual URL, lest a customer have trouble remembering a few letter of the alphabet. When foreigners appear on television outside of the NHK nightly news, they are typically subtitled and dubbed into Japanese. As if that double translation isn't enough to mask their bizarre manner of speaking, their words will be carefully rewritten to mimic rigid Japanese gender-based speech patterns.
Even while watching Inglorious Basterds in the theater I was feeling the Japanese pressure via the relentless subtitles. Absolutely every line in the film is subtitled, even ones that did not carry English subtitles, even one-word replies and people's names. Even Hugo's knife, which had an engraved message that flashed across screen for half a second while he sharpened it (upside-down, if I'm not mistaken), was subtitled in Japanese. Not a single moment in the film is left up to the audience to bear in an unfamiliar language. Hell, even when the year is written at the bottom of the screen, there's a Japanese subtitle just to make it clear that this is a year as opposed to a random declaration of a four-digit number (which they can totally read, by the way).
I guess I'll never understand why they are so anxious about these things, why nothing can be left untranslated or unexplained. Believe me, I wince when I see how the United States handles foreign language and foreign concepts from time to time (what I wouldn't give to see subtitled films in movie theaters instead of waiting for DVD), but at least we trust our lowest-common-denominators to understand that "si" and "non" mean "yes" and "no." Relax, Japan! A few funny-sounding words won't kill you, capice?
つづく...(Click here to read more)
I keep thinking about Inglorious Basterds and how terrific it was. The more I revisit it in my mind, the more things I find to love about it. Conversely, I find the elements that bugged me about the movie becoming less significant. This is the opposite of how my thought process usually works. Typically, when I reflect on a film, video game or whatever, I latch onto the flaws and nitpick them while telling myself "I can only do this because the rest of it was so good." With Inglorious Basterds I'm actually downplaying elements that irritated me when I first watched it.
For example, I was not a fan of Eli Roth as Donny, "the Bear Jew." I hold no personal animosity towards the man (I liked Cabin Fever and found Hostel more interesting than people give it credit for) but his portrayal of the supposedly-intimidating bat-wielding Nazi killer did not work for me. There's an incredible set-up for the character where high-ranking Nazis (including Adolf Hitler!) discuss how horrible he is and how he might be a "golem" (boy do I regret not noting how they translated that word into Japanese), plus there's that long shot of the tunnel where you cannot see him but you hear the sound of his bat coming from the dark. But when he emerges, he's just a (somewhat) hairy guy in an undershirt. Not particularly bear-like, in my opinion.
However, as I think about the film again and again, I realize that the entire Basterds unit was a rather unassuming bunch of guys. They're not particularly bad-ass, they just kill Nazis in a purposely brutal fashion so that their enemies will spread rumors about their deeds. They're not The Dirty Dozen, they're just regular soldiers with a colorful modus operandi and Donny is perfect when viewed in that context. He's a loudmouth, a braggart; he carries a big stick but speaks loudly anyway. When he finds himself in a tight spot, such as sitting in a cinema full of Nazi brass, he looks genuinely terrified because he's in over his head.
(SPOILER ALERT)
...
...
In the end, their plan only succeeds due to the unexpected actions of others, namely Landa and Shosanna. Were it not for their "help," so to speak, Donny and the rest of the Basterds would have been killed, easily.
(end spoilers)
Even better than reconsidering what I didn't like about Inglorious Basterds is discovering new things that I did like. It occurred to me today that the movie made a direct appeal to me on a linguistic level. I have always had a strong sense of curiosity when it comes to foreign languages. The whole reason I live in Japan now is because of my interest in Japanese, and even though I'll probably never "master" it (if such a thing is even possible) I'm always on the lookout for tidbits of other languages.
One of the highlights of the JET Mid-Year Seminar is the free language class we get to remind us of what it's like to have a stranger speak to us using words we do not understand. After all, that's exactly what we do for a living. We never get too deep, as it's only one session, but I find it fascinating even if my retention level is pretty poor. Twice now I've gotten a taste of Cantonese from fellow JET Helen and the most I can remember is 1, 2, and 3.
Watching Inglorious Basterds reminded me of how exciting a multi-lingual environment can be. Nearly every character in the film speaks two languages with the glaring exception of the Basterds themselves. This is a group charged with infiltrating Nazi-occupied territory and the only members of the team who speak German were born in Europe. It reminds me of my trips abroad in high school when I met children my own age who spoke English wonderfully in addition to their native tongue while they were studying a third language in school. Meanwhile I was barely navigating basic conversations in French and my German was little more than a collection of nouns that sounded funny (e.g. eierstokke).
I know it's unfair to compare a multi-cultural continent like Europe with an archipelago nation that has serious xenophobia issues, but ever since I saw Inglorious Basterds Japan's view of foreign languages suddenly feels more imprisoning than ever. My day job consists of trying to expose sheltered rural children to the idea that there is an entire world full of people out there who do not speak Japanese. More often than not, I am met with resistance against the very notion that someone could speak more than one language. Everything around here is black and white in that respects.
I am told time and time again how "difficult" English is, as if that explains their national hostility towards it. Twenty years ago I spent months studying Hebrew against my will for my Bar Mitzvah. It wasn't easy and I complained a lot but I still did it. Compared to that, asking these kids to learn a handful of vocabulary words or study the alphabet does not strike me as unreasonable, yet their teachers cannot wait to make excuses for their lack of cooperation.
When you get right down to it, it's hardly the children's fault that they struggle with English. The entirety of Japanese society goes out of its way to shelter itself from foreign language. Advertisements are more likely to include a Japanese "search term" than an actual URL, lest a customer have trouble remembering a few letter of the alphabet. When foreigners appear on television outside of the NHK nightly news, they are typically subtitled and dubbed into Japanese. As if that double translation isn't enough to mask their bizarre manner of speaking, their words will be carefully rewritten to mimic rigid Japanese gender-based speech patterns.
Even while watching Inglorious Basterds in the theater I was feeling the Japanese pressure via the relentless subtitles. Absolutely every line in the film is subtitled, even ones that did not carry English subtitles, even one-word replies and people's names. Even Hugo's knife, which had an engraved message that flashed across screen for half a second while he sharpened it (upside-down, if I'm not mistaken), was subtitled in Japanese. Not a single moment in the film is left up to the audience to bear in an unfamiliar language. Hell, even when the year is written at the bottom of the screen, there's a Japanese subtitle just to make it clear that this is a year as opposed to a random declaration of a four-digit number (which they can totally read, by the way).
I guess I'll never understand why they are so anxious about these things, why nothing can be left untranslated or unexplained. Believe me, I wince when I see how the United States handles foreign language and foreign concepts from time to time (what I wouldn't give to see subtitled films in movie theaters instead of waiting for DVD), but at least we trust our lowest-common-denominators to understand that "si" and "non" mean "yes" and "no." Relax, Japan! A few funny-sounding words won't kill you, capice?
Labels: frustration, Inglorious Basterds, Japan, JET, movies, teaching, Thanksgiving
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Game On, You Basterds!
Yikes, sick again. I just had a cold around Halloween, how can I have another one so soon? It's not fair! I keep telling myself that as long as there's no fever, I don't have the flu and I've got no excuse to stay home from work. Am I nuts?
Bronchial issues aside, I had a terrific weekend. On Saturday we dropped Go off with Mako's parents (with their blessing!) so the two of us could just spend the day together. Mako was nervous that something would go wrong and that they would never agree to watch him again but I can't imagine why. If anything, Mako's mom is better at getting the baby to fall asleep than either of us!
The first errand of the day turned out to be buying my birthday present. I have been without a wristwatch for the better part of three years now, perhaps longer. I guess when my last watch disappeared/died/whatever, I figured there was no rush to replace it because I already carry around a device that keeps time: it's called a mobile phone. Why bother strapping a completely redundant device to my wrist for a singular purpose?
What I've come to realize during that time is that using a phone as your primary timepiece is a major pain in the ass. First of all, it's always going to be in a pocket somewhere, which means to check the time I have to pull it out. This can not be done in a subtle fashion and we all know there are a variety of social situations where noticeably looking at a clock is a faux pas. Standing in front of a room full of children is certainly one of those situations, and while they are not offended per se it is impossible to look without creating a major distraction.
So after a few months of contemplating a watch, my wife listened to my murmurings and decided it would make a good birthday present. She also wisely realized that picking a watch without my input would be foolish, so we chose one together in Yodobashi Camera. It's probably the most expensive watch I've ever owned, but that's not saying much because I have always favored low-end digital watches. In my mind, wristwatches are like sunglasses: they are entirely too fragile to bother spending a lot of money on. But not this watch! It's a G-Shock with a stainless steel band, black with bronze "highlights" if you will. It feels heavy and looks good.
After buying the watch we went upstairs to Yodobashi The Dining (I love that name for a floor of restaurants) and had a terrific Chinese buffet lunch. It cost too much money, I suppose, but it tasted great and it was a special occasion of sorts. Here's a brief glimpse of our food and my watch as seen on Twitpic:
The main event of the day, by far, was our trip to the movies to see Inglorious Basterds which only just opened in Japan. Given Tarantino's fame here and their absolute adoration for all things Brad Pitt, I'm really surprised it took so long to show up in theaters. Then again, compared to most of the movies I wanted to watch in 2009, it arrived relatively quickly. A three month wait to see Inglorious Basterds is nothing compared to, well, FOREVER for the various indie movies I've been reading about all year. If I'm lucky, District 9 might show up on DVD sometime next winter...and that's a big if.
This sounds like griping but there is a point: in a movie-starved year for me, Inglorious Basterds was the best movie I've seen in a long time. I was a little uneasy about the premise, if only because I feel like I've seen enough World War II movies to last me until World War III, but Quentin Tarantino somehow made a war movie without much of a war in it. Even though nearly all the characters are soldiers, there are no scenes of combat and only a few minutes of gunfire ("few" being relative to the film's substantial length). Nearly all of that action takes place in the finale which is all the more powerful given the scarcity of violence leading up to it.
This is not to say the movie isn't tense; I would argue it's his most riveting film to date. The opening scene felt like it was an hour long but I say that because I was going out of my mind waiting for the hammer to drop. It's ostensibly a conversation between a high-ranking German and a French dairy farmer, full of conversational pleasantries (i.e. "Would you mind if I smoked my pipe?") yet I was on the edge of my seat. I don't know how he does it, but QT's dialogue continues to impress me with each and every picture he makes.
There's also the little things, small moments and quick shots that have no apparent meaning to me but I delighted in each one: Brad Pitt's character has a giant scar on his neck that is never explained. Julie Dreyfus' ridiculously gaudy wardrobe, particularly that leopard-like hat. Landa forgetting about the cream for the strudel, then insisting on waiting for it to arrive, followed by close-ups of it being served. Zoller's increasingly ostentatious uniform. The SS officer drinking beer out of a glass boot. The dwarf painting Hitler's portrait. Hitler's fucking CAPE.
The only thing that really confused me about the movie was its title. Not the misspelling of "bastards" but the decision to name the film after such minor characters. The team is introduced early in the film but few of them have any lines and none of them are on screen for very long. I suppose a few of them are integral to the finale but without giving anything away, there's a larger story at work which they are completely independent of. They are largely forgettable as characters with the exception of Donny and perhaps Hugo.
The real star of the film, both from a character and acting point of view, is Colonel Landa (Christoph Waltz). He's mesmerizing and I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've ever used that word (I had no idea how to spell it). From his conversation with the dairy farmer to his strudel moment to his extended laughter in the theater lobby to his last moment on screen, I could not take my eyes off of him. Here's a guy who has never been in a Hollywood movie before, playing a goddamn Nazi, and yet he's so charming he's almost sympathetic. He owns every scene that he's in, easily outshining Brad Pitt for sure. I hope when the time comes he is lauded like no other actor has been lauded before.
So yeah, I love the movie. Loved it. I spent the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday just thinking about how much I loved it. I didn't have much else to do at the time, which helped.
On Monday I made a hell of a long trek down to southern Osaka (yes, past KIX) for a gaming party thrown by fellow JET Graham. With the baby around and my relative isolation from other JETs, I suppose it was also the closest thing I'd have to a birthday party this year, so I was pretty excited about it. I was among the first people to arrive although my unfashionable earliness was intentional. Since it was so far away I knew I'd be leaving pretty early, so I wanted to get in as much gaming/socializing as I could before making the trek back home.
Graham's setup was really impressive. There was a big screen TV with a PS3 and all variants of plastic instruments hooked up in the main room of the party, which obviously spent most of the afternoon engaging in one kind of music game or another. However there was also a Wii and an Xbox in additional rooms, plus a computer with all sorts of emulators and two gamepads. Truly, there was something for everyone.
The first game I played was one I was kind of excited about, New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Graham and I played through the entire first world together, taking advantage of the game's simultaneous co-op mode. It's funny how easy it was to accept a two-player Mario game even though it's a completely new experience in the twenty-five year history of the franchise. Sure, we got in each other's way a few times and maybe he grabbed a mushroom that totally should have been mine, but for the most part we were working together in delightful ways. Your characters have a lot of interactivity potential, from bouncing on one another to outright picking up another player and throwing him.
My biggest complaint was, sadly, my predominant one with Wii games: controls. The Wiimote does not feel comfortable when held sideways. It might resemble a classic controller in that position but it certainly doesn't feel like one. Also, the inclusion of motion controls (shaking, twisting, etc) is downright obnoxious. I understand the fun of pretending to swing a baseball bat or a golf club, Nintendo, but don't force me to jerk my hands around just to spin jump. Considering how often the simplicity of Wii controls is touted, this strikes me as a grievous miscalculation. Still, if I can convince Mako to try it I will absolutely buy this game for our home.
Next up was an "oldie" (from five months ago) that I had been very curious about, Prototype. You might remember it hit shelves around the same time as inFAMOUS did with a very similar premise: ordinary dude gets extraordinary powers in an open-world city environment. While inFAMOUS had a demo (which I absolutely detested) Prototype did not and I didn't really hear enough glowing praise to make me take a chance on it. I was also in the middle of BioShock at the time and, let's face it, that's a hard game to put down.
I'm happy to report that Prototype is a lot of fun. It opens in medias res with your character Alex rampaging in Times Square. There are soldiers, tanks, helicopters and mutant things all around you and none of them are friendly. There are also hundreds of civilians, taxi cabs and other elements that are neutral towards you but you are free to dispatch them if you feel like it. Indeed, a well-aimed automobile is the easiest way to take down a gunship.
The carnage abruptly ends and you return to the start of the story with Alex waking up in a morgue. While many of the outrageous powers you just used are no longer available, Alex is still perfectly capable of leaping tall obstacles and running up the sides of buildings. The game gives you a few quick objectives (elude the military, find Alex's sister) but it quickly opens up and lets you do whatever the hell you want. I spent a good half-hour or so running around (and up) Manhattan fooling around with Alex's super powers. There is a Grand Theft Auto-esque warning system where you can attract the authorities' attention by acting suspiciously, but it's refreshingly lax. It wasn't until I started smashing police cars together that anyone seemed to take notice and even then a few minutes of not acting like a monster was enough to make everyone calm down. Compare that to GTA IV where I swear a single bump of a patrol car can force you into a high-speed chase.
I suppose the big moment of the day was when I caved to peer pressure and picked up a fake guitar to play Beatles Rock Band. I am absolutely terrible at rhythm games and would have been much more comfortable grabbing a microphone instead, but my throat was pretty raw from coughing all day so I was in no condition to sing. At the very least, I can handle the bass on the Easy setting as there's only three buttons to worry about. I had fun despite my gross incompetence, especially as the game allows for up to six players (three on instruments, three on vocals) and we had more than enough willing participants for that.
The overall party experience was most pleasant. I am, as always, a poor mingler but I had a few nice conversations about games while indulging in junk food and many glasses of Coca-Cola. I honestly came home feeling like a kid because that about summarizes most of the parties I attended in my youth. The only thing missing was the pizza and the chance of a sleepover.
So to sum it all up, I ate delicious Chinese food and saw the best movie of 2009 on Saturday, lounged around the apartment on Sunday, then gorged myself on games and snacks on Monday. Pretty great weekend if I say so myself. And hey, I just realized that I'm flying home in a month!
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Bronchial issues aside, I had a terrific weekend. On Saturday we dropped Go off with Mako's parents (with their blessing!) so the two of us could just spend the day together. Mako was nervous that something would go wrong and that they would never agree to watch him again but I can't imagine why. If anything, Mako's mom is better at getting the baby to fall asleep than either of us!
The first errand of the day turned out to be buying my birthday present. I have been without a wristwatch for the better part of three years now, perhaps longer. I guess when my last watch disappeared/died/whatever, I figured there was no rush to replace it because I already carry around a device that keeps time: it's called a mobile phone. Why bother strapping a completely redundant device to my wrist for a singular purpose?
What I've come to realize during that time is that using a phone as your primary timepiece is a major pain in the ass. First of all, it's always going to be in a pocket somewhere, which means to check the time I have to pull it out. This can not be done in a subtle fashion and we all know there are a variety of social situations where noticeably looking at a clock is a faux pas. Standing in front of a room full of children is certainly one of those situations, and while they are not offended per se it is impossible to look without creating a major distraction.
So after a few months of contemplating a watch, my wife listened to my murmurings and decided it would make a good birthday present. She also wisely realized that picking a watch without my input would be foolish, so we chose one together in Yodobashi Camera. It's probably the most expensive watch I've ever owned, but that's not saying much because I have always favored low-end digital watches. In my mind, wristwatches are like sunglasses: they are entirely too fragile to bother spending a lot of money on. But not this watch! It's a G-Shock with a stainless steel band, black with bronze "highlights" if you will. It feels heavy and looks good.
After buying the watch we went upstairs to Yodobashi The Dining (I love that name for a floor of restaurants) and had a terrific Chinese buffet lunch. It cost too much money, I suppose, but it tasted great and it was a special occasion of sorts. Here's a brief glimpse of our food and my watch as seen on Twitpic:
The main event of the day, by far, was our trip to the movies to see Inglorious Basterds which only just opened in Japan. Given Tarantino's fame here and their absolute adoration for all things Brad Pitt, I'm really surprised it took so long to show up in theaters. Then again, compared to most of the movies I wanted to watch in 2009, it arrived relatively quickly. A three month wait to see Inglorious Basterds is nothing compared to, well, FOREVER for the various indie movies I've been reading about all year. If I'm lucky, District 9 might show up on DVD sometime next winter...and that's a big if.
This sounds like griping but there is a point: in a movie-starved year for me, Inglorious Basterds was the best movie I've seen in a long time. I was a little uneasy about the premise, if only because I feel like I've seen enough World War II movies to last me until World War III, but Quentin Tarantino somehow made a war movie without much of a war in it. Even though nearly all the characters are soldiers, there are no scenes of combat and only a few minutes of gunfire ("few" being relative to the film's substantial length). Nearly all of that action takes place in the finale which is all the more powerful given the scarcity of violence leading up to it.
This is not to say the movie isn't tense; I would argue it's his most riveting film to date. The opening scene felt like it was an hour long but I say that because I was going out of my mind waiting for the hammer to drop. It's ostensibly a conversation between a high-ranking German and a French dairy farmer, full of conversational pleasantries (i.e. "Would you mind if I smoked my pipe?") yet I was on the edge of my seat. I don't know how he does it, but QT's dialogue continues to impress me with each and every picture he makes.
There's also the little things, small moments and quick shots that have no apparent meaning to me but I delighted in each one: Brad Pitt's character has a giant scar on his neck that is never explained. Julie Dreyfus' ridiculously gaudy wardrobe, particularly that leopard-like hat. Landa forgetting about the cream for the strudel, then insisting on waiting for it to arrive, followed by close-ups of it being served. Zoller's increasingly ostentatious uniform. The SS officer drinking beer out of a glass boot. The dwarf painting Hitler's portrait. Hitler's fucking CAPE.
The only thing that really confused me about the movie was its title. Not the misspelling of "bastards" but the decision to name the film after such minor characters. The team is introduced early in the film but few of them have any lines and none of them are on screen for very long. I suppose a few of them are integral to the finale but without giving anything away, there's a larger story at work which they are completely independent of. They are largely forgettable as characters with the exception of Donny and perhaps Hugo.
The real star of the film, both from a character and acting point of view, is Colonel Landa (Christoph Waltz). He's mesmerizing and I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've ever used that word (I had no idea how to spell it). From his conversation with the dairy farmer to his strudel moment to his extended laughter in the theater lobby to his last moment on screen, I could not take my eyes off of him. Here's a guy who has never been in a Hollywood movie before, playing a goddamn Nazi, and yet he's so charming he's almost sympathetic. He owns every scene that he's in, easily outshining Brad Pitt for sure. I hope when the time comes he is lauded like no other actor has been lauded before.
So yeah, I love the movie. Loved it. I spent the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday just thinking about how much I loved it. I didn't have much else to do at the time, which helped.
On Monday I made a hell of a long trek down to southern Osaka (yes, past KIX) for a gaming party thrown by fellow JET Graham. With the baby around and my relative isolation from other JETs, I suppose it was also the closest thing I'd have to a birthday party this year, so I was pretty excited about it. I was among the first people to arrive although my unfashionable earliness was intentional. Since it was so far away I knew I'd be leaving pretty early, so I wanted to get in as much gaming/socializing as I could before making the trek back home.
Graham's setup was really impressive. There was a big screen TV with a PS3 and all variants of plastic instruments hooked up in the main room of the party, which obviously spent most of the afternoon engaging in one kind of music game or another. However there was also a Wii and an Xbox in additional rooms, plus a computer with all sorts of emulators and two gamepads. Truly, there was something for everyone.
The first game I played was one I was kind of excited about, New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Graham and I played through the entire first world together, taking advantage of the game's simultaneous co-op mode. It's funny how easy it was to accept a two-player Mario game even though it's a completely new experience in the twenty-five year history of the franchise. Sure, we got in each other's way a few times and maybe he grabbed a mushroom that totally should have been mine, but for the most part we were working together in delightful ways. Your characters have a lot of interactivity potential, from bouncing on one another to outright picking up another player and throwing him.
My biggest complaint was, sadly, my predominant one with Wii games: controls. The Wiimote does not feel comfortable when held sideways. It might resemble a classic controller in that position but it certainly doesn't feel like one. Also, the inclusion of motion controls (shaking, twisting, etc) is downright obnoxious. I understand the fun of pretending to swing a baseball bat or a golf club, Nintendo, but don't force me to jerk my hands around just to spin jump. Considering how often the simplicity of Wii controls is touted, this strikes me as a grievous miscalculation. Still, if I can convince Mako to try it I will absolutely buy this game for our home.
Next up was an "oldie" (from five months ago) that I had been very curious about, Prototype. You might remember it hit shelves around the same time as inFAMOUS did with a very similar premise: ordinary dude gets extraordinary powers in an open-world city environment. While inFAMOUS had a demo (which I absolutely detested) Prototype did not and I didn't really hear enough glowing praise to make me take a chance on it. I was also in the middle of BioShock at the time and, let's face it, that's a hard game to put down.
I'm happy to report that Prototype is a lot of fun. It opens in medias res with your character Alex rampaging in Times Square. There are soldiers, tanks, helicopters and mutant things all around you and none of them are friendly. There are also hundreds of civilians, taxi cabs and other elements that are neutral towards you but you are free to dispatch them if you feel like it. Indeed, a well-aimed automobile is the easiest way to take down a gunship.
The carnage abruptly ends and you return to the start of the story with Alex waking up in a morgue. While many of the outrageous powers you just used are no longer available, Alex is still perfectly capable of leaping tall obstacles and running up the sides of buildings. The game gives you a few quick objectives (elude the military, find Alex's sister) but it quickly opens up and lets you do whatever the hell you want. I spent a good half-hour or so running around (and up) Manhattan fooling around with Alex's super powers. There is a Grand Theft Auto-esque warning system where you can attract the authorities' attention by acting suspiciously, but it's refreshingly lax. It wasn't until I started smashing police cars together that anyone seemed to take notice and even then a few minutes of not acting like a monster was enough to make everyone calm down. Compare that to GTA IV where I swear a single bump of a patrol car can force you into a high-speed chase.
I suppose the big moment of the day was when I caved to peer pressure and picked up a fake guitar to play Beatles Rock Band. I am absolutely terrible at rhythm games and would have been much more comfortable grabbing a microphone instead, but my throat was pretty raw from coughing all day so I was in no condition to sing. At the very least, I can handle the bass on the Easy setting as there's only three buttons to worry about. I had fun despite my gross incompetence, especially as the game allows for up to six players (three on instruments, three on vocals) and we had more than enough willing participants for that.
The overall party experience was most pleasant. I am, as always, a poor mingler but I had a few nice conversations about games while indulging in junk food and many glasses of Coca-Cola. I honestly came home feeling like a kid because that about summarizes most of the parties I attended in my youth. The only thing missing was the pizza and the chance of a sleepover.
So to sum it all up, I ate delicious Chinese food and saw the best movie of 2009 on Saturday, lounged around the apartment on Sunday, then gorged myself on games and snacks on Monday. Pretty great weekend if I say so myself. And hey, I just realized that I'm flying home in a month!
Labels: Beatles Rock Band, but I love gatherings, Inglorious Basterds, movies, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Osaka, poor health, Prototype, PS3, video games, Wii, Xbox
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