After months of waiting and several failed attempts, I finally got to see 2046 on the big screen.

Sam and I had already seen it on video, but we convinced Shahab, Kurt and Tripp to join us at the NuArt.

Tripp fell asleep (like he did during Steamboy), and Kurt and Shahab weren't very enthused either.

I, however, love the film even more the second time around. I feel like now I've got a better understanding of how Tony Leung's character could've turned so cold and cynical since the events depicted in In the Mood for Love. However bitter he is though, the man is insane for jilting a woman as mind-boggling sexy as Zhang Ziyi 8|

Tripp had to meet Rachel after the movie, but Shahab, Kurt, Sam and I went to California Vegan, where we coincidentally ran into Navid (Negin's brother and Greg's new in-law) and his girlfriend, Sarah. They had just ordered so they joined us for dinner, which was excellent.

All in all, a cool night out with friends, which I don't get to do as much I'd like.

Hardwood
dir. Hubert Davis
2004

No, Hardwood is NOT a porno. Geez, get your mind out of the gutter...

Hubert Davis directed this touching Oscar-nominated documentary about his father, Mel Davis, who was a Harlem Globetrotter.

The film is personal journey for Davis as he explores fatherhood, racial identity, interracial marriage, infidelity, and of course basketball (see, "Hardwood" refers to a basketball court, not whatever filthy thing you were thinking about...)

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2005/hardwood/

Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex

攻殻機動隊 STAND ALONE COMPLEX 1st GIG

Yet another kick-ass anime series that I downloaded first, and then waited patiently to buy each (Special Edition) volume of the DVDs as they were slowly released every few months, rewatching the episodes over and over until the end.

This is how I've built up my anime DVD Collection over the years.

The Unpleasant World of Penn & Teller
1994

I love Penn and Teller and this Magic/Comedy show they did for BBC Channel 4 in the early 90's is pretty damn good, but it left me a bit wanting.

The guest spots with Stephen Fry, John Cleese, and Christopher Reeve (pre-accident) were hilarious.

Here's some info about the show:

THE UNPLEASANT WORLD OF PENN AND TELLER

Written and performed by Penn and Teller
Produced and Directed by Peter Orton
A Television X Production for Channel 4

Episode One | First aired: 7/1/94

- The Bean Trick
- The Real Man's Card Trick
- The Watch Trick (with Stephen Fry)
- Houdini Would Have Been Out By Now
- Are We Live?

Episode Two | First aired: 14/1/94

- National Magic Trick
- Chinese Water Torture Card Trick (with John Cleese)
- A Trick That YOU Can Do At Home (with Jon Snow)
- Let's Produce Some Animals

Episode Three | First aired: 21/1/94

- Real Man's Juggling
- The Sleepy Card Trick (with Dawn French)
- The Thumb Trick (with Dawn French)
- The Popcorn Trick (with Dawn French)
- Flirting With Fire
- Teller's Woodchipper Trick

Episode Four | First aired: 28/1/94

- The Eye-Popping Trick (With Fiona Fullerton)
- The Room 101 Card Trick
- The Spaghetti Bolognese Trick (With Fiona Fullerton)
- The Blister Free Food Scam
- The Animal Trap Trick

Episode Five | First aired: 4/2/94

- The Liquid Nitrogen Trick
- Dying On Stage (with Alexei Sayle)
- Looks Simple
- The World's Most Expensive Card Trick

Episode Six | First aired: 11/2/94

- The Lima Bean Catch
- The Domestication of (Balloon) Animals
- The Cups and Balls Trick
- A Trick YOU Can Do On A Date
- The Audio-Animatronic Teller Trick
- The Magic Circle (with Christopher Reeve)

Penn & Teller: Bullshit!
Season Three

Season Three was the BEST!!!

Oh wait, as P & T demonstrated in the season finale, the whole concept of "the Best" is BULLSHIT.

So I guess I'll just say that Season Three was at least as good as the previous seasons of this hilarious and informative exposé.

Da Ali G Show
Season Two

Sacha Baron Cohen has gotten a lot of heat from critics and advocacy groups who claim his characters are racist, misogynist, anti-semitic, and homophobic. But I firmly disagree with these critics. Cohen is trying to expose these evils, rather than exploiting them for cheap laughs.

His gangsta hiphop persona, Ali G, has been called a racist portrayal of black street culture because the character is mind-numbingly stupid, and therefore allegedly depicting urban blacks as ignorant. But this interpretation of Ali G is wholly of base. First off, Ali G is indeed an idiot, but he is NOT black... he's merely so stupid that he honestly thinks he's black, or at least he thinks that he can pass his pasty white suburban ass as black. The character is NOT making fun of urban blacks, but rather it's parodying those non-blacks and non-urbanites who appropriate it.

The Kazakhstani character Borat is overly racist, misogynist, and anti-semitic so he has drawn complaints from the Jewish Anti-Defamation League and from the Kazakhstani government. But Cohen himself is Jewish and his targets aren't blacks, women or Jews, but rather, the people who are secretly or unconsciously prejudiced themselves. The perfect example of this is the segment where Borat sings an anti-semitic song in a bar in Tucson, AZ. At first the audience is visably surprised by such blatant anti-semitism, but as the song progresses, the mob-mentality takes over and the entire crowd is chanting along as Borat sings "throw the Jew down the well!" We stopped in Tucson on our roadtrip to Austin just days before watching this episode and I wouldn't at all be surprised if that entire crowd was Christian-Conservative.

Cohen's least-frequent character, Brüno, further illustrates that butt of his parody are the people who hold prejudices rather than anyone of any race, creed, gender or sexual preference. When he's not exposing fashionistas as superficial egotists, Brüno flaunts his flamboyance in front of homophobes. Though Cohen portrays Brüno as having all the stereotypically telltale gay mannerisms, he's making fun of homophobes instead of homosexuals. The comedy lies not in the way he prances around, but in how the homophobes overcompensate for their own insecurities with macho displays of raging testosterone.

[watched with James Suhr and Greg Kuhlmann at Greg and Negin's new duplex apartment in Austin, Texas]

--------------------

Other ALI G posts:
Da Ali G Show - Season One
Ali G Indahouse

Terminator 2: Judgment Day
dir. James Cameron
1991

[watched with James Suhr and Greg Kuhlmann at Greg and Negin's new duplex apartment in Austin, Texas]

Ikiru
dir. Akira Kurosawa
1952

Both a scathing indictment of bureaucracy and an inspirational parable about living life to its fullest, Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru is bursting with unforgettable images of aesthetic beauty and emotional impact:

• the opening X-ray of Watanabe's cancer-infested stomach
• Watanabe emerging from a dark alley after puking his guts out during an all-night bender
• a small group of grateful village women interrupting bureacratic masturbatory back-patting to mourn Watanabe at his wake
• Watanabe silhouetted in black as he reflects upon the sunset only to remember the urgency of his mission to park a village park
• Watanabe swinging peacefully in the newly-completed snow-covered park as he sings "Life is Short" moments before his death

:`(:`(:`(

Review:
Roger Ebert

Bright Future
dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
2003

Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation to Akira) has made a name for himself as a director of horror/suspense/thrillers, but he departed from his previous work to create Bright Future, an enigmatic exploration of slacker youths.

Most reviews that I've read (see links below) have been quite unfavorable, but there is something about this film that really resonates with me. Maybe it's because I myself am a huge slacker searching for that "pet" project to spark my motivation, or maybe it's cuz I'm a huge a Tadanobu Asano fan.

Reviews:
Midnight Eye
Onion A.V.

Lewis Black: Black on Broadway
2004

Lewis Black's HBO special, Black on Broadway, featuring a bunch of the funniest routines from his 2003 album Rules of Enragement.

I laughed so hard I almost shot Soy Milk out of my nose during his rant about milk:

There's no such thing as soy milk. It's soy juice.

(yes, I was honestly drinking "soy juice" at the exact moment he said this)

If you're lactose intolerant you can't drink milk. So what's in the fucking carton? Get it out of there, get it away from my milk. It is talking to my milk and making it feel bad about itself.