I'm helping host a Halloween-themed trivia night here in town, and in order to show video clips without having to go through the time-consuming process of downloading and editing, I'm using Youtube. I figured I might as well host the clips on this site for now, rather than making a whole new one for this once-in-a-lifetime event. If you stumble upon this, you can now realize that I'm a sick and twisted individual... as if you hadn't already known.
Seriously... I just finished watching the recently-distributed work print of the "Halloween" remake, and man, what a piece of shit. You want reasons?
1) The completely arbitrary score, which goes from Carpenter's iconic original to some industrial Fear Factory crap with no sense of rhyme or reason. Along with this, the soundtrack is a constant anachronism, reminding you that-- just like in "The Devil's Rejects"-- Zombie believes any scene with "Freebird" playing in the background qualifies as art. The characters reflect this, too; for a movie set in the present day (or so I've gathered), it surprised me that you could insert any cast member into "Dazed and Confused" and they wouldn't seem out of place.
2) Mike Meyers as Frankenstein... bad idea. First, they hire some 7'3" WWF reject to play the character, making me think for a second that I was watching the sequel to the Kane-starring vehicle "See No Evil". Then, they decide to make the killer all emo; the last scene, where of course we're meant to have sympathy for the poor guy as Malcolm McDowell (as Dr. Loomis) delivers the most hackneyed "I know there's still a human in there" speech ever, is laughable.
3) The Slipknot masks... fuck that. I know I'm out of America right now, but as a nation, aren't we past that at this stage? (Don't answer that. I might never come back if you do.)
4) The fact that Zombie spends the first 1/3 of the movie focusing on Michael Meyer's back-story... if you've seen any movie ever, you'll know the score: widowed mother living in poverty with an alcoholic boyfriend, bullies pushing him around in school, slutty older sister, and so on. By doing this, he needs to break the rest of the movie down into Cliffs Notes form. Not that the original is some sort of epic, but there's a lot of tension that builds throughout; here, any actual scene of "horror" is disposed of in a quick 10 second slash. Where I'd say that the original was--when I saw it as a child--one of the most intense films I had seen, this one had no build-up whatsoever.
5) Malcolm McDowell... worst performance ever. The corpse of Donald Pleasance would have done better.
6) Danielle Harris naked... I was hoping for better, and what's a 30 year-old doing playing a high schooler anyways?
7) Besides Meyers, none of the other characters in the film are fleshed out at all (and really, I always thought the strength of Michael Meyers in the first film was his characterless-ness-- the constant references to "The Bogeyman", the blank stare of the mask, the fact that his character doesn't speak a word through the whole running time). One thing even people who hate "Halloween" would have to acknowledge is that Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Stroud is one of the most empathetic scream queens ever, and here, it's just another converted WB performer or something.
It could go on for longer, but I'll stop there.
I got back from Japan a few days ago. I managed to see Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Himeji, and Tokyo, and somehow I'm going to have to finish reporting on my China trip from several months ago before I get to talking about it. I'm not promising anything.
My heart jumped out of my skin. I'm not quite 100% satisfied, but damn.
(I won't say anything else, in case one of the five people who read this thing watch the show but haven't seen the last episode for some reason... if that's the case, put a finger in both your ears until you can get a hold of it.)
Before I go into the (roughly) verbatim journal translation, I should maybe set some context. I went to China during my school's vacation for 15 days in February. I took the trek alone, armed only with a backpack, my Nintendo DS, and a thoroughly-skimmed Lonely Planet. I moved mountains, I dried up rivers.
Day Two (advance apologies for being banal):
"I woke up originally at 8:00, but fell back asleep until I was called about my safety deposit box. (I guess I was more tired than I originally thought). I managed to get out of the hotel by 9:30, and hopped in a cab towards the Summer Palace. Traffic is terrible here (then again, it's the holiday season), and people drive bearing no mind towards lanes. Taxis rarely have working seatbelts so the whole thing can be unnerving. We eventually got there-- maybe 45 minutes for what seemed like 10 of actual movement.
The Summer Palace was by no means underwhelming, but it was disappointing that I came in Winter because most of the waterways were dry and there wasn't a flower in sight; I'd imagine being here in the Summer or Spring would be mind-blowing. I hit most of the major sites within, and continually kept running into the same Canadian family. I took a billion photos (several which are posted here), hiked all day, and listened to a combination of Nick Drake and Howard Stern on my iPod. Had a massive stack of pork dumplings (three times what you'd get at an American Chinese place (or Korean mandu place) for only 27 RMB) and some tea (probably just a novelty and nothing to marvel over, but the tea was actually just a seed dropped into my cup, which then sprouted into a 'peach flower'.)
I was also abducted by a girl selling paintings, trying to sell me on the idea that they were all done by students at a famed calligraphy school; I found later on in the Forbidden City that this is a popular scam at every site in Beijing, and thankfully I got out of there pretty quickly with no money spent. Was dragged around a little, too, on Shuzhou Street (a market surrounding a man-made lake), but again, I wasn't held up for long.
I left the Summer Palace in the late afternoon to hit Frank's Place, a rugby bar in the Changxou district; understand, by the way, that while there are a few staple Korean dishes that I enjoy, I dearly miss the variety of food that I can get in the West (in Pusan, you can count the number of non-franchise foreign restaurants on maybe two hands). I wandered aimlessly (a pattern that would change once I got out of Beijing), passing two men who were acting the part of falconer to some pigeons. Each man would throw a bird up in the air, pull out a blowgun filled with seed, and shoot the seed into the sky; the bird would seemingly catch the seed in mid-air and return to the man's palm. Pretty impressive... definitely more entertaining than the Ajumma crooners you find on the streets here periodically.
I also saw men sitting along the sidewalk getting their heads shaved, but when I went to take a photo, I was shooed away by a woman with a broom.
I found the street for Frank's Place, but went to a huge clothing market across the street first. In the parking lot, I was lured to a car where a man was selling pirated DVDs; the only thing that looked like it would be a quality purchase was "Eagle vs Python", but I only was willing to offer 3 RMB and he seemed offended, slapping me on top of the head with the plastic case.
The store was better, definitely a bargainer's dream. It also made me realize just how many foreigners are here, and they're from all over. You hear accents and languages of all kinds here, far different from Korean cities. I haggled well, but bought nothing (I was still gun-shy at this stage of the trip); one girl got pretty upset with me after I convinced her to sell me a 480 RMB "Northface" backpack for 140 RMB and then backed out of the deal. As I was leaving, she continually yelled, "Crazy!" and pointed in my direction. Awkward times.
Frank's Place had closed down, according to the host at The Den, a similar rugby-themed bar/restaurant. It was an okay replacement, I guess-- classier than O'Brien's (Pusan's ex-pat equivalent), with a larger and better food menu. I had some Bangers and Mash, as well as a few glasses of Tsingtao (pretty cheap here). As expected, a slew of foreigners were there; they're an awful lot more cosmopolitan than the ones in Seoul even."
(An aside: This has got to read like drying paint, I'd imagine. Just skip to photos and videos unless you're my mom.)
"From there, I wandered down the street and found a few places of note:
1) The Red Club - from the outside it looked like it might be a club dedicated to Kickball, but instead it turned out to be soccer. There was a bar with cheap drinks inside a tent, with two adjoining indoor soccer fields where locals played in leagues. A cool idea that probably would never work in Pusan due to lack of space.
2) Bar Bus - A double-long bus with several beer ads pasted alongside it. I went in to get a drink and was immediately in conversation with a Nigerian DJ; from the way he was talking, I knew he would ask me if I wanted drugs within the first five minutes. I went with the "You never know when you might get drug-tested in Korea" routine, and the moment Nelly came on the stereo, I knew it was time to go.
I realized at this point that my hotel (The Friendship Hotel) was pretty distant from most of what was happening in Beijing, and thankfully I had only booked two days, planning on spending the latter half of my time there in a hostel closer to the center of town. I headed home, took a bath, and went to bed early so I could check out with plenty of time to explore tomorrow."
Okay. Two days down, 13 to go. Things picked up once I got to a hostel, if I remember right.
Living in Korea, there's a roughly 12 hour delay between the normal airing of a television program and the time it's available on most Torrent sites. The Sopranos series finale will be aired this Sunday (in the States), and I'm becoming increasingly paranoid about having it spoiled for me... which leads me to my question.
Should I just put on a total embargo on all websites until I have a chance to watch the finale? Do you think checking my email via Yahoo is safe? Can I go to video game sites or sports sites? I assume I'd be crazy to check out Salon.com or Slate, right?
I've had fears of spoilers ever since my experience with "The Sixth Sense" (a long story involving the St. Louis Post Dispatch and bold-face), which I probably would have thought was crap even if I hadn't known what happened before-hand, but I've never been as concerned as I am now. The Sopranos, faults aside, is probably my favorite television series ever, and it'd be a shame to make a wrong click and see a screenshot of Tony sprawled out, dead on the floor, five minutes before I have to teach my next class.
Alright. I know that the only way I'll ever get all of this on here for my parents (and whoever else stumbles along) to see is if I type straight from the journal I kept. This means that it will most likely be unreadable and inane for all but those especially close to me. Part of me thinks making this a private blog would be the way to go because I'm always concerned that some dope from Pusan who doesn't know me will stumble upon it and go out of his/her way to snicker. Let's see what happens.
And I quote:
"First day was a mess... got to the Friendship Hotel at around 3:00, marveled at its size and got a plane ticket to Shanghai for Monday. Headed to find Quanjude Peking Duck restaurant near Tiananmen Square because I was starving-- plane food sucked. Wandered after meeting a Dutch couple on the subway who commented on my Lonely Planet book; already, I've run into them and a group of Germans, leading me to believe that Beijing is far more international than any city in SoKo.
Walked up and down the streets but couldn't quite get my bearings; a grizzled man with a cart bike urged me to get in after showing directions and like an idiot I complied. It maybe took five minutes to bike there, and the whole way merchants and other riders looked on jealously and heckled. When we arrived at the restaurant, he pulled out a board that said "Standard Fare - 10, Double Fare - 100, Luxury Fare - 250." Of course, he tried to get 250 RMB (roughly $30) off me, and while I scoffed and tried to give him considerably less, he pushed me and yelled things in Mandarin. I ended up escaping paying the 'bargain price' of 50 RMB after a younger Chinese woman stepped in and yelled at him for trying to rip the tourist off.
Very impressed with Quannude; just a gorgeous restaurant that feels like you're eating in someplace five times more expensive than what it is. Peking duck was outrageously good. Server slices it at the table side, and you wrap the meat in a wafer-thin pancake, topping it with scallions and plum sauce. A full serving was less than $15.
I walked around Tianenmen for a while, but it was really dead. I'm surprised how quiet it is here. Korea is far more chaotic in terms of pedestrians. I got bored and headed home on the subway (which shakes uncontrollably-- it feels like a hydraulic ride at a county fair).
When I got home, I wandered the streets looking for anything to do, but found nothing. In the hotel complex, there's a TGI Friday's that has been blasting Avril Lavigne songs repeatedly, and a bar called George's that looks entirely unpopulated. I called it a night and went back to my place to get room service (unlike Korea, there isn't a convenience store to be found in my part of town). I ordered an apple juice and a Sprite (they wouldn't let me order two apple juices for some reason). "Constantine" was on. It seemed pretty shitty, and I passed out with a Sprite in hand."
Uneventful doesn't begin to describe my first day in China, but things got considerably better from here. I apologize for tense inconsistencies and whatever else. Again, I'll never put this stuff up here unless I type it out this way.
(Some missing information from Day One):
"I didn't mention walking through the droves of souvenir salesmen near Tiannemen. What a mess. I was being abducted from all angles by guys selling wares; several times, guys would place hats on my head or watches in my hand, followed by demands that I pay for them, then followed by curses as I handed the merchandise back and walked away silent. One day in and I hate shopping in China, despite hearing from several people here that it's a consumer's paradise. The vendors here are far more aggressive than Koreans, even getting physical at times.
Also, I stumbled into a Chinese video arcade, which was mostly unremarkable. I was impressed that they had cigarette packs in the crane machine (even though nothing beats the set of jumper cables I found in one here in Pusan), two units of Operation Wolf 3 (!?), and a Namco trackball game called Armadillo Racking. People seemed really into Street Fighter 2 and SNK fighters still."
(Also, I realize that my whining in these initial diaries makes me seem like (1) a stupid tourist and (2) an entirely uninteresting person. I'm not denying either one.)
I doubt many of you remember this, but towards my final year in Columbia, I tossed around the idea in my mind of making a documentary about the annual International Classic Game Tournament held at a New Hampshire video arcade called Funspot. I had read up on it quite a bit, and was particularly fascinated by the array of participants that took part each year; from Israeli physicists to Canadian concrete testers, the people who were going out of their way to master these digital dinosaurs seemed to be the polar opposite of the classic gamer stereotype (i.e. 40 year-old man with ass permanently attached to the couch in his Mom's basement, remnants of a Cheeto stuck in his teeth). This article from the Boston Phoenix officially sold me on the idea that the drama of this event would make for a great movie.
Well, I never pursued it like I wanted to, even though I remember Ryan Woodsmall and I briefly discussing taking a vacation to attend this event and some Buffalo Wing Eating Competition close-by, and now someone else has gone and done it.
It's a tad different, I know, and definitely a better idea than a straight telling of the competition. From what I've gathered, this is apparently going to be one of the documentaries of the year, receiving great write-ups all over. The director even has been signed on to do a remake, a la "Dogtown and Z-Boys"/"Lords of Dogtown".
I don't doubt that this guy did a much better job with the idea than I ever would have (personally, as someone who loves video games, I think it looks REALLY good), but I can't help but kick myself a little. When I get home from Korea though, I fully plan on fulfilling my dream of mastering this:
Mark Shelley, does my high score at CBGB's still stand?
