The Only Reason I Want a Time Machine
I just spent the last hour and a bit searching for my older blogs/sites online and promptly deleting them. It's about as close as I can come to erasing memories of my past. I tried reading some of the stuff I wrote back then and can't get over what an enormously pompous asshole I was. If I could travel back in time, I'd totally skip all the cool historical events, so I could go back to 2005 and punch myself in the face. Twice.
Inglourious Basterds
I went to watch Bruno on Monday because not much was showing in the theatres. Inglourious Basterds wasn't out yet and England is a bit behind in films so I wasn't able to watch District 9 either. The good thing about English cinemas is that they show some old films every now and then. I really wish I could find some movie theatres in Toronto that do this, because most of my favourite movies were made before I was able to see them on the big screen. At this particular location, they were showing Scarface, not something I'd care to see, but cool that they were doing this anyway.
The movie started, but, something was odd. The music seemed out of place and I'm pretty sure the Weinstein Company and A Band Apart are normally associated with....
OH MY GOD, THEY'RE SHOWING INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS!
There was a bit of an error in the loading of the film, and instead of Bruno I found myself watching the new Tarantino flick that doesn't even come out until the Friday! My cousin and I, being huge fans of Tarantino, were pretty excited to be watching the film, even though the aspect ratio was screwed up and the tops and bottom were cut off. I guess other people in the movie theatre weren't as eager because two of them immediately left to complain. Fair enough, you should get what you paid for. In the time it took for them to turn off the projector though, I managed to catch the first five minutes of the movie, and was so thoroughly impressed by the dialogue and the performances, that I concluded the rest of the movie was probably a masterpiece.
I was so right.
Everything you heard about Christoph Waltz' portrayal of Lt. Hans Landa is true: it is brilliant, and hella fuckin' entertaining. He plays such a terrifying villain, not because of his cruelty or his physical prowess, but because he's so smart it's intimidating. He's like a cat playing with his food: the guy is essentially fucked from the start, since he's on the plate, you're just watching to see what he does with it. He never gives anything away either, maintaining his composure, to the point where you're not sure whether he's telling the truth or just leading you into another one of his traps. It is pretty crazy to watch.
What else can I say other than I wholly endorse this film and that you should all watch it! And this isn't a half-assed "this movie didn't suck as much as I thought" or "while this movie didn't meet expectations, I am still saying it's OK" endorsement, but two big fuckin' thumbs up and a middle finger to all the haters kind of endorsement.
Oh yeah, and Sam Jackson narrates some segments of the film. Just picture Jules talking into a microphone because he's got nothing else to do since he retired from being a hitman.
Choice British Slang
Some words I picked up on that I would love to bring back are:
Knobhead (dickhead), muppet (dumbass), cow (derogatory word for woman), and, bell end (cock).
I'm sure this list will be expanded upon before I leave, but for now, this is what I have. I'm also well aware that some of this stuff only works in a British accent, but c'mon, haven't you always wanted to call someone a stupid cow?
Grand Theft Auto
Ok, so I needed to head into town to buy a suit today, but my cousin also had to do an aptitude test for his job as well. Since he didn't want to make two trips, he told me to come along, but that meant that I had to wait in the car about 30 minutes.
No big deal, I'll just bring a book.
I needed to get into my Raymond Chandler book The Long Goodbye, which, so far, has been pretty damn good. I love the way Noir films are narrated, so, reading this book is such a joy, although I do have a bit of difficulty picking up on some of the slang.
He parked up in the residential area and I pulled out the book and went right into my book. I'm probably going to buy the whole series when I get back to Canada, and watch some of the movies as well. Ten minutes in I decided to stretch, since I had been sitting for a while and accidentally set off the car alarm. I damn near shitted myself as I tried everything I could to get it to shut off, but obviously, you can't turn the alarm off from the inside (that would just make it too easy for criminals). I contemplated reading outside, but then, exiting a car after its alarm goes off looks a bit shady. So here I was, sitting in the passenger seat, leaning over the driver's seat, panicking and looking really, really suspicious, when the alarm stopped on its own. I breathed a sigh of relief and just went back to reading, except this time, I stayed as still as I possibly could, for fear of attracting more attention with the car alarm.
As I got absorbed into the plot, I knocked the door with my arm and set off the alarm again.
FUCK!
But this time, I just endured the noise and continued reading. I figured if I was just calm and started reading, I wouldn't look like a thief. I mean, what idiot thief would break into a car and start reading? About 10 minutes later, my cousin came back and asked me why I looked so stressed, then laughed his ass off when I told him about my story.