Having finished my T.C. Boyle book about Mexican immigration (The Tortilla Curtain; a delight. Read it now before the Kevin Costner/Meg Ryan movie comes out next year and ruins everything), I have moved onto Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle; a slick piece of dystopian fantasy about the state of the world if the allies had lost WWII. In Dick’s narrative, America has been divided into a Nazi’s controlled East coast, a Japanese controlled California and a rocky mountain buffer-zone between the two. It’s grizzly and bizarre and totally not the sort of book to be reading in a Japanese high school staffroom. The cover features a blatant amalgamation of the Nazi and Japanese flags. I guess I should start hiding it in my desk when I teach my one class a day.
As the week had been somewhat void of wacky Japanese behaviour, I have resorted to my permanent plan B; films and alcohol. On Monday, I settled down with a cheap bottle of merlot and David Lynch’s Eraserhead. A pretentious and not particularly agreeable combination, especially as the feature wore on and the bottle became empty. My top five favourite scenes, through my wasted, semi-acidic haze were as follows:
1. The man with intense facial leprosy who sits by a cracked window pulling levers and snarling.
2. The woman with massive jowls who was dressed like Baby Jane doing a tap dance and squashing the worm things that kept falling on her.
3. The dinner scene when the main guy tries to cut up the roast chicken but it starts menstruating all over the table causing the mother and daughter to leave the room in a fit of emotion.
4. When the deformed worm-foetus-baby thing gets sick is covered with crusty sores.
5. The random two minute shot of a dog being suckled by about twenty puppies.
It should also be noted that the title is not a cryptic metaphor for the bleakness of society; they actually do make erasers out of someone's head.
Rather a delight all things considered, although David Lynch was clearly wasted the whole time he was making it.
I also watched Deathproof; Tarantinos’ half of the Grindhouse flicks and not nearly as good as Rodriguez’s Planet Terror. Basically the whole movie is Kurt Russell as a stuntman with a vendetta against sexy young girls whom he runs down on desert roads with his badass car. The first half is pretty good with an Russell getting a sexy lap dance (and Tarantino getting a boner) and Rose McGowan turning up in a blonde wig. Then in the second half, a heinous New Zealand brown stunt girl turns up and ruins EVERYTHING. Imagine having Shortland Street’s Alice Piper trade quips Pam Grier in Jackie Brown and you’ve got the idea. As she tried to engage in sassy, blaxploitation-themed dialogue with Rosario Dawson, saying things like ‘sweet bro’ and ‘yeah, sister’, I felt like slitting my wrists and decided that I have never hated my country more. Unfortunately, she is one of the ones that doesn’t get run over with Russell’s sweet wheels and ends up being the heroine of the movie. Where the fuck was Uma??!!
Let’s be honest; rather a letdown. McGowan is way sexier in Planet Terror, especially when she gets a machine gun stuck in her amputated leg stump and goes on a zombie killing spree using her sweet stripper moves. Plus, Planet Terror has Rico off Six Feet Under in it, who is still sexy even as a piece of tattooed up white trash. He and McGowan make out. Hot.
Finally, I put the Suntory whiskey bottle within arm's length and watched Let the Right one in; a Swedish vampire love story. All the rage these days with HBO’s True Blood and that awful Twilight thing. This movie was AMAZING; little blonde boy falls in crush with the weird girl next door who only leaves her apartment at night and who’s uncle slaughters homeless people to feed her nightly bloodlust. Stunningly shot and put together and man it really sucks to be a vampire. The best scene is when a newly bitten vampire woman gets attacked by a roomful of cats. Slash there at least three other scenes that are as good as that, especially the last scene in the swimming pool. Good grief. Anyone who has lost faith in films should watch this; it is about a billion times better than Oscar-wankfest dogshit like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire.
The teachers have started changing into their tracksuits which means club activities for them and home time for me. Can I think of a witty sentence to sum up? Nah. Your mum.
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