Need for Speed

Yesterday my mother went into panic mode because my sister hadn’t texted her in three days. You might argue that this was equivalent saying “oh my gosh I haven’t had a letter from XYZ in 3 months!” ten years ago. Only it wasn’t. It was three fucking days. You don’t need to go into a frenzy because someone hadn’t got in touch with you for three days. I gently reminded her that had something horrible happened to her daughter, or worst case scenario, she was dead; our aunts in Australia would have called to give us the news and therefore her anxiety attack was unfounded. To my surprise, this didn’t have the calming effect I anticipated.

Anyway, the whole thing got me thinking. Everything is sped up to the point where if, say, your browser doesn’t load a page in 2 seconds you swear at it for being the slowest thing in creation since turtles painted the great wall of china[i]. Despite the positive aspects of Everything Ever Known to Man Since Forever fitting snugly in your pocket, doesn’t this have the negative side effect of putting so much pressure on us, all the goddamned time? It’s like everyone in the world is breathing down our neck; watching, listening and waiting.

I remember once I forgot to take my phone to work. At first, it was nerve wracking; but after a while, the realization that no one could find me if I so much as stepped outside of the office hit me. And damn, that felt so liberating. So what if I missed a few calls and a few texts; if there was a real emergency there still were a dozen ways for anyone to get in touch with me. Imagine being back in a world where for little spaces of time, no one could reach you. A little pocket of alone-ness. Sure, you could always switch off our phone. But have you tried to? You can’t can you. The best you can do is put it on silent and then keep checking your phone twice as often just in case you missed the vibrating alert.

Technology is a wonderful scary beast. I couldn’t live without it.  I just wish we could slow things down once in a while.

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[i] They didn’t

Double Whammy

I'm watching the Golden Globes and Sylvester Stallone is called on (with Arnold Shwatzenegger) to present the award for best foreign film.  So of course I'm ridiculously excited and watching the whole thing with a grin planted on my face when one of the films nominated turns out to be called Kon Tiki. There are a few things that hit me between the eyes when it comes to my father, and the book The Kon Tiki Expedition is one of them. He loved that book. It seemed like a dull tedious tome and i didn't want to read it but if my father said 'here, do this' I did, because to me he was omniscient. I read it, and I loved it. I tried to get all my friends to read it but being the 13 year old girls they were (i mean they were, literally, 13 year old girls) they refused to. So Kon Tiki became another one of those extra special things I shared just with thaaththa. And I'm telling you; seeing that they made the movie, knowing how excited he would have been about it, and then, not being able to go home and tell him the news; that just blows.

Small man, big shoes

He’s by no means modest – and why should he be? He was Rocky. He was Rambo. He has achieved more than few of us even imagine possible. Yet, he is not burdened by ego. When you listen to him talk, the way he speaks about himself and his highs and lows, it’s usually with adorable self-deprecating humour. I recently came across an interview he did back in 1989 while in Australia promoting Rambo III; the host asks him whether this third installment would be the last of the Rambo movies. His reply was "I think so. Of course I would never trust anything I say, I've not been proven right quite a lot". And that's pretty much his approach in all his interviews; candid, tongue in cheek, and a lot of fun to listen to.

Physically, I mean body wise, the man is phenomenal. He achieved his peak in the 90s – no wonder he stripped down to nothing in practically every movie he did at the time! If you've got it, then by all means lay bare your perfectly sculptured butt to the world. No complaint from this quarter. The man is 66 now and still in astounding shape. Now that’s commitment to a cause.

Life didn't start out all sunshine and heavy bags for Stallone. A botched forceps delivery left him with one side of his face partially paralyzed which caused his "perennial snarl" as he calls it (“people ask me, why don’t you smile? and I say, I can’t! Maybe if I stand on my head! "). His not so lucid locution is also a result of this. You wouldn't expect someone with those setbacks to pursue a career in acting. Yet the scrawny kid with a lisp, who bore the same moniker as a cartoon cat, transformed himself through relentless hard work and the gumption to go on even with no reward in sight.

Even the mildest Rocky fan probably knows how he started out. The struggling actor with just 106 dollars in the bank, the one who sold his dog because he couldn't afford to feed him; one day went down to watch a boxing match between Chuck Wepner and Mohammed Ali and changed the world. Well, maybe not changed, but at least jolted it a little bit. In three and a half days, in a caffeine fueled writing binge, Stallone came up with a rough draft of what would eventually become the Rocky story we know and love. The story of how the studio wanted to buy the script from him and how he refused to sell out, insisting that be allowed to star in it, is now part of Hollywood legend. The studio finally relented, allowing the no-name actor to star, gave them a heavily restricted budget and a month to film. They made the movie in 28 days on a budget of less than a million dollars but somehow, during the making of Rocky, magic happened.

 A lot of it has to do with the story. There’s this bruiser who is down on his luck, pretty much resorted to reduce his love for boxing to more or less a hobby and working as muscle for a loan shark. You would expect this man to be a bullish, hot headed lump. But instead, he is a gentle giant. One of the reasons director John Avildson was said to have loved the script was because of the early scene where Rocky comes home after his fight with Spider Rico and then has a conversation with his pet turtles (the ever enduring Cuff and Link).  Then again this story is presented to us wrapped up around such an amazing cast. Talia Shire gives us Adrian, who goes from being painfully shy and withdrawn to become the core of Rocky’s world. Burgess Meredith as Micky; bitingly sarcastic, tell it like it is Mick; who grows to love Rocky like a son. Burt young plays Paulie to perfection; jealous, bitter, thinking the world owes him; yet Rocky sees the good in him and patiently puts up with his belligerence. And of course what would Rocky be without Carl Weathers, who seems to channel the great Ali himself in his portrayal of Apollo Creed.

Stallone did something amazing with the whole Rocky saga. No matter how much you criticize the sequels, you have to admit that to make Rocky evolve, to narrate a story over six movies, that's not something that's easy to do. Yet one feels that Rocky is Stallone's catharsis. Each movie is almost autobiographical, in that Stallone seems to find a voice through Rocky. It must be therapeutic to write something that allows you to deal with the turmoil of your own life and to find peace through your writing, to some extent. If you watch the movies back to back like I did, the experience is amazing. The final Rocky Balboa ties it all up lovingly and gives a fitting farewell to a beloved character. No matter how many times I watch the Rocky saga, that damn movie makes me cry like a girl, every single time.

Known the world over for his iconic roles in Rocky and Rambo most people are willing to dismiss him as being incapable of taking on a serious dramatic role. He proved them wrong in Copland, where he played the overweight, partially deaf Sheriff Freddy Heflin. Stallone actually piled on 40 pounds for the role, and I’m glad the director insisted that he did, because that weighed down look he has; that lumbering, cowed by the world attitude; comes forth brilliantly as a result.

Every now and then Stallone has also tried his hand at more comedic roles. The responses to these by both audiences and critics have not been kind. My feeling is that Stallone is an acquired taste. If you like the guy, you can like him in pretty much any role (though Rhinestone really really tests you). Because even though he’s not so spot on, you know he’s having a lark doing it and you sort of enjoy it with him.

He's always put so much effort into each role he takes on that you can't help but be impressed, even if the movie itself wasn't that great. His commitment to his characters is always unquestionable and to me, that just makes him a delight to watch. In Cliffhanger, where he plays Gabe Walker, part of a mountain rescue team, he really pushes himself to the edge - literally. More than ninety percent of his stunts, he did himself, and piled on about 20 pounds of muscle to prep for the role. In a later documentary about the making of the movie, editor Frank J Urioste points out that some of the shots where Stallone is scaling the rock face, he's doing it without a safety line. And this is a guy who admits that heights make him uncomfortable. Imagine taking on a character to the extent of forgetting your own limitations. During a later interview, when questioned about his fear of heights, he quips; “ever since my second marriage I've been terrified of heights” (referring to his famously disastrous two year marriage to Bridgette Neilson). Again during an interview on Centerstage he was asked why he does most of his own stunts (the direct reference was that in Driven he had actually hit over 200mph on the track) and his reply; “because I’m an idiot”.

The thing with Stallone is, he is somewhat of a perfectionist and to say he works hard at a role is an understatement. With Rocky he pretty much revolutionized way boxing movies and indeed sports movies were presented. The way the fight between Rocky and Creed was filmed; boxing matches in movies had never been presented like that before, with the audience able to see the whole fluidity of the two people in the ring instead of close shots like was the norm at the time. But the boxing coach they had hired didn't agree with Stallone's vision. When Stallone said to him; "I'd like to have Carl Weathers come out of the corner and throw four right hands right away” he refused saying that it wouldn’t happen that way in a real fight and ultimately quit.  The workaround Avildson came up with was to script the fight and that’s exactly what Stallone did. Jab by jab, move by move he scripted the entire 15 rounds and that’s how the amazing fight sequence between Rocky and Apollo Creed came into being. When filming Rocky Balboa at the age of 60, not only did Stallone undergo six weeks of rigorous training to come up with the astounding physique you see in the movie, he made the fight more realistic too. A hit is a hit and when Stallone goes down in the ring, he goes down for real. So inspired was Antonio Tarver (who plays reigning heavyweight champion Mason Dixon and Rocky’s opponent in the ring) that he says “One thing I’ve learned from the movie. I was going to give myself a three year window (and) hang up my gloves. But seeing Rocky Balboa, seeing Sylvester Stallone, who knows, I may be able to do this five, six, seven years to come.” 

When asked about his place in the movie industry Stallone says that he considers himself an "outsider". For certain, he is not beloved by critics, even if some of the movies panned by them did rather well at the box office. Stallone may never be considered a brilliant actor. The double nominations he got from the Academy for Rocky (best screenplay and best actor - only the third person to be nominated in both categories in the same year) will quite possibly be the first and last nod he gets from them. But when you consider him, you have to consider him as Stallone the person, not Stallone the actor. Stallone the person, is an amazingly intelligent, spontaneously funny man who is not slow to admit when he’s wrong nor to bask in it a little when he gets it right. He’s a guy who keeps going and doesn't seem to feel the need to slow down, let alone stop.  Indeed he seems to live by the adage in the unforgettable speech from Rocky Balboa when he said “it’s not about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit... How much you can take and keep moving forward…”

Rocky was not about wining; it was about having the heart to go the distance. And in life, that's pretty much what Stallone has done.  He may not have won each fight but he sure as hell is going the distance. At five-foot-ten he may seem smallish; but those shoes, man, it’s going to take a helluva lot to fill those shoes he leaves behind.    

His and Hers

I believe in gender inequality - to a certain degree at least. Now while such a statement is liable to get me stoned by staunch feminists I fear I must stand by it. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that women should be either suppressed or oppressed or any of that stuff. Each and every person should be treated fairly despite their sex. Equal pay and all that for sure. The vote, of course.  I just believe that men and women are different and that there's no point trying to prove them both mentally and physically equal. I'm walking on very thin ice here, so let me elaborate. When I say that men and women aren't equal I don't mean that one sex is better than the other; I mean that each sex is different and that we should celebrate those differences than try to meld one into the other and create some super non-being. In short, when women state that "we can do whatever a man can I do" I will quietly disagree. Because we can't. We're not physically or emotionally built for it. And neither can a man do anything a woman can for the exact same reasons. We each have a role to play and we can play it whilst giving the other sex the respect they deserve and without the need to prove that one is stronger than the other.

I can survive without a man around. I can drive my kid to school, pay the bills, handle the basic DIY jobs around the house, and whatever else is required all the while maintaining a full time job. But this is out of necessity. When my car breaks down; I hate having to source mechanics, run to the garage in-between tackling all the other chores, and then end up having the mechanic treat me like an imbecile. I'm sure that over the years I have agreed to replace parts that don't need replacing and allowed them to fix things that weren't broken. Hell, I went in to get the car serviced a couple of months ago and ended up with a bill for 25k because they insisted on replacing half the thums and bobs that go into the doo-hickey. So would I rather have a man around to take over things like that things I'm totally inept at? hells yes. That's just an example, and also, that's just me. But what I was trying to explain there is that while you'll have to battle me to the death to wrestle a screwdriver away from me, there are things that I'm hopeless at, that I know a man would better at, and I'm willing to admit it.

As always, I have gracelessly deviated from the subject matter. So let me meander some more. For me, it all comes down to dividing tasks depending on who would be better at it. If you were to go for a role reversal, women can certainly hunt while the men gathered. but who would be better at it? The men would soon get bored, eat whatever they had managed to gather so far and then skip off to the nearest watering hole for some fermented coconut water. Meanwhile the women would have laboured more but hunted less and come home tired and hungry to find Bantha snoring in front of a fast dying fire, no dinner, and the kids wrapped up in banana leaves.

Play to your strengths. You can be female and still have the balls to tackle anything but you don't have to go so far as to develop a need to scratch them in public. .

The movie that rendered me comatose for five minutes

I finally did it. I watched Sophie's Choice. Yes, I was hesitant; I’d been sucker punched before by movies so hyped up for years and years but once I'd sat down to watch them all I could think was "er, that's it?” (yes, I’m talking to you, Taxi Driver). So I started off with much trepidation. but dear unknown deity and all things holy what a mind blowing, gut wrenching, smile inducing, tear jerking, sublime creative genius it turned out to be. Oh, I’m not going to recap/review or even re-watch it. I’ll die if I had to watch it again. But talk about putting things in perspective. See somehow, I’d managed to survive decades on the internet without actually knowing what the ‘choice’ in Sophie’s Choice was. So when that moment came, well, pretty much what’s said in the title of the post happened. There. I’ve said my piece. Now you'll have to excuse me, I need to blow my nose, hug my child and pour myself a drink.

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Nerd Do Extremely Well

I'm on a Simon Pegg binge. Yes, I realise that may sound a bit weird coming so soon after my Simon Baker binge. As far as I know the only thing those two have in common is starring in Land of the Dead. Funnily enough, both times that I saw Land of the Dead I had no idea that Pegg had a cameo in it (he plays one of the photobooth zombies alongside co-conspirator and utter genius Edgar Wright). What actually happened was that I read Pegg's autobiography - Nerd Do Well - and that made me want to watch everything he had ever done (what I could get hold of anyway) all over again. So I started off by watching Spaced - and this time around it was even more delicious because I was in on the back story. Once that was done the next obvious step was to watch Shaun of the Dead but I felt that I should watch Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead first, so I went ahead and did that. Incidentally I had only seen the remake of  Night of the Living Dead  before and I found the original quite impressive (one needs to overlook the chops and snaps  give that it was made in '68).  Dawn of the Dead  was long and slow. I think it's safe to say that now that I have watched it I can proceed to never see it again. Anyway, that being over with I could finally treat myself to Shaun of the Dead. Ah, now that's a helluva movie. Zombieland took a good shot at it but in my opinion  Shaun of the Dead will forever be the best darn zombie parody ever made.

Going back to the book, seriously, if you like a good chucklesnort, then for fuck's sake, read it. Laughs aside, it's well worth reading just for his insights into movies. Half way through the book I actually took out pen and paper and started adding to my movie bucket list. I'm not going to review the book because
(a) I'd be shite at writing a book review
(b) how can one review an autobiography? (yes, i know i've done it before but i was bluffing wasn't i?)
and (c) just read it already, trust me you'll like it.

so yeah.

um.

gosh, look at the time.

<splotch splotch splotch>

Fear of happy people

The other day after reading Gorge Takei's blog post on the whole BSA situation  - about a lesbian scout leader being ousted - I mentioned it to a co-worker. I expected him to be as appalled as I was at the discrimination - instead his response was "of course, it makes sense, they must be worried". "Worried about what?" I asked “well it’s kids isn't it?” was his mind numbing reply. In that moment I fully grasped the actuall horrific meaning of the word homophobia. it’s not just a dislike of gay people is it? There are people who are actually frightened of homosexuals.Good gosh.

Why on earth do people define gay people only by their sexuality? It’s just crazy. They're just normal, intelligent, free-thinking, human beings who live, love, and work like we all do and they happen to be gay. Why on earth should we be scared of that? what about those of us that happen to be straight? Do we need to now mention that in our resume? "Please employ me, I'm straight, therefore I will not bugger your sons. I may however sleep with your 16 year old daughter, but that's okay because it's heterosexual statutory rape and not the other thing." Sheesh.   

For some people, someone else being gay is the only characteristic they see. As in "Oh my god they're gay, I can’t let my kids be around them." That’s pedophiles you’re thinking of, and they come in all shapes sizes and sexual orientations. A person who is gay simply prefers to be with someone of their own sex; it’s a preference just the same as straight people want to be with people of the opposite sex. It all boils down to who you're attracted to. It's not something you learn from other people, or something that can be driven out just because some bible-wielding idiot with a moral compass stuck up his arse says so. 

On a somewhat unrelated note, the word 'gay' reminds me of Gummy Bears. Now isn't that a happy thought?  

Christine - A Review (from the non-existent archives)

Found an old book review I'd done for the LT back in the day. My writing style has been so, um, flowery back then.
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I’m wary of memoirs that involve frothy ramblings only of interest to the author. But the minute I started reading Christine I was hooked. When I first saw the book I was to review and realized it was written by Dr. R. L. Spittel’s daughter, I didn’t know quite what to expect.

Growing up I’d excitedly read and re-read his series of books on Hans, the Dutch boy adopted by our Veddhas. So in Christine, I was prepared to encounter a lot of Veddhas and jungle treks. This I did, in moderation, but what I hadn’t expected was to be moved by a poor-little-rich-girl story and to be enchanted by the way the tale unfolded.

Christine Spittel Wilson writes in a style all her own. Not for her long-winded narratives on the when and where. Instead, her story takes us through her life in softly cordoned-off episodes that deal more with moments than facts. She has a gift for language that allows her to convey emotions with economy but with such feeling.

Starting with her childhood in Ceylon her story runs round the world to settle at last once more in Sri Lanka, “my island”. Alistair, her beloved husband, her father, mother and daughter are of course the main characters her story is wound around. However, she hasn’t neglected others who made a subtle but forceful impact on her. One-eyed Amos, the flower seller; Aideen, the sentry with his gap-toothed smile - they make their graceful entrances and exits and leave the tale much richer by their presence.

The narrative is structured in such a way, just when you think the thread of some story has been abandoned it springs up on you unexpectedly and delightfully. Unlike most biographies, Christine doesn’t dwell on the author’s feelings and drive the reader to distraction. There is feeling, but it’s not wallowing in sentiment for the sheer pleasure of it. Instead it lightly skips across the pages and the beauty of the writing is that you still absorb it.

Christine, a memoir, isn’t a book that should be used just to pad up your library bookshelves. It’s a book that should be read and re-read and then passed on for others to enjoy. 

For the love of Worzel

You know what children are missing out on these days? Worzel Gummdige. How absolutely awesome was Worzel Gummidge? He was the real deal. Not some namby pamby “oh dear I don’t have a heart boo hoo” scarecrow, but a “I don’t have a heart and I don’t give a f*** motherf***er” sort of scarecrow. Worzel was the bad ass of scarecrows and he didn’t care who knew it. He was the Bill Sykes of the scarecrow world.

"yellow brick road? I p*ss on the yellow brick road"

Plus he could take his head off. Some people change their hair style depending on their mood. But not Worzel, he’d just change his whole head. He has a collection of heads! What could be more awesome than that?!

Okay so he wasn't all that mean. But he WAS rude and arrogant and selfish and deliciously wicked. He didn't give a sod for rules and you loved him for that yet you knew that he was being BAD so it was delicious fun to us kids watching. Yes, we lived vocariously through Worzel. 

Worzel DID have a heart, underneath all that scruff and grime and his heart belonged to Aunt Sally .

I wish I remembered more about the show. I do own one Worzel Gummidge book - Worzel Gummidge and the Treasure Ship - but that book comes much much later on in the series. Well at least I know what I'm going to be reading tonight, Oh aye. 

Away and Onward (or Look Who's Talking)

Do you talk to yourself? I do. And I don’t mean the odd question silently directed towards oneself when in doubt, I mean full on conversations where I’m actually two people. Okay, I see that I might have to elaborate a bit here. See, I don’t talk with myself; I talk with other people, BY MYSELF. So effectively, I’m carrying on both sides of the conversation. Sometimes, it’s in my head. Sometimes hand gestures and actual conversation is required. Yes, I know it’s weird, but I was for all intents and purposes an only child[1] so in order to stay sane, I had to resort to insane behavior.

I can’t remember how it started. It is said that when I was really really small I had an imaginary friend called “W” who lived on the roof. I don’t remember speaking with “W” or anything about him though (or whether it was a him or her or an IT). I only think I remember that I had an imaginary friend because my parents told me so. For all I know they could have been trying to cover up the fact that they possessed a strange child who'd mumble at nothing in corners. What I do remember was pretending to be a famous person. It didn't matter how or why, I was famous and people wanted to interview me. So I interviewed myself, all the time, all over the place. Most of these interviews took place in the bathroom though, the one place where I could chatter away unobserved. Then there were the cooking shows. I would be making a snack and the whole thing would turn into a cookery show where I would demonstrate the making of the perfect Spanish omelette using random ingredients found in the fridge, all the while talking to an imaginary audience.

All this sounds insane, but it worked for me. Most of the time I didn’t have anyone to talk to and even if there were people around, they didn’t think like me, and they wouldn’t understand me, so I figured things out by talking to some imaginary person (preferably a talk show host). I did this all through my life and I still do it now. Any important event, you can be sure I’d run through several possible scenarios beforehand. One minute I’d be thinking about something and the next I’d be talking about it with Ellen. Weirdly enough, it helps. Even if I don’t end up using these conversation snippets in real life situations, I’d be less intimidated because I’d run through the scenario beforehand.

I consider hands free devices the greatest invention ever because now I can jabber away in the car and people will just assume I’m on the phone instead of shaking their heads sadly at the crazy lady.

Seriously though, you have to try it, at least once. Imagine you're sitting in a comfy couch telling the girls from The View how it felt to win that Pulitzer (breakaway for a moment here to re-enact your acceptance speech when accepting the Pulitzer). Maybe next time I'll even talk about how it felt to be an extra on The Mentalist - and the trauma of dealing with the eventual restraining order.  

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[1] I do have a sister but she’s 9 years older than me so when I a kid she was practically a grown up. So she doesn't count*. 


* Not that she doesn't count, but she doesn't count in the context of this story. 

Something New - a substandard recap

The plot of Something New can be said to be formulaic. I mean, it does adhere to the general four-step plot outline that romantic comedies are made of:

Step 1 - boy meets girl under contrived circumstances. One of them immediately fancies the other whilst he/she doesn’t give a toss.

Step 2 - despite the initial issues they fall in love

Step 3 – along come the MISUNDERSTANDING which causes them to fight, and part ways.

Step 4 -  they realize they can’t be apart and they make a (usually public and embarrassing) declaration of love and get back together just in time for the credits to roll - over some festive scene.

Now if you think I’ve gone and spoilt the ending of this movie I say to you, come on, give me a break you silly person, you knew that was going to happen.

This movie however does give us something new – in that there’s a bit of a role reversal and the issues faced by the couple aren’t the usual frivolous "oh i didn't tell you my real name in the beginning so now i'm going to have to stick with Johnny Fannybanger and lie to you for half the movie" sort. 

Our female lead Kenya Mc Queen (Sanaa Lathan) is some sort of financial whiz working in the big leagues and on her way to a possible partnership at her firm. She displays her commitment to her career by always dressing for work, even on a Saturday, and acting like she has the proverbial rod up her arse. A co-worker, Leah, who’s going to get married soon and worried that Kenya is perpetually single, offers to set her up with a friend of hers -  Brian  - tall, hot, newly single and an architect. Kenya dismisses the idea because she doesn’t do blind dates. (Over the course of the movie we will be introduced to a whole lot of things that  Kenya “doesn’t do”).

After work, Kenya catches up with her girlfriends for dinner and drinks. It’s like an all black casting of sex and the city. Men and relationships are the topic of conversation and the girls wonder whether it’s time they steered away from the notion of the IBM (Ideal Black Man) and tried to live it up a little.

Perhaps emboldened by this conversation, we see that Kenya has changed her mind about a blind date with Brian the architect. She gets to the rendevouz point, only to discover to her mortification that Brian is tall, hot and WHITE. I think I should mention at this point that Brian is being played by Simon Baker and that lest my laptop explode from the combined Sanaa/Simon hotness I have decided to screencap the movie using muppets.

Kenya, possibly horrified at the thought of being seen with a white man on a date, makes an excuse and leaves.

Gaaaaah! Er, I mean, it was nice meeting you but now i have leavaaaaargh! 

Brian seems more amused at her reaction than annoyed. I, on the other hand, am wondering whether it would be a good idea to keep a bucket of water handy for the duration of the recap.

While at Leah’s engagement party (or something) Kenya expresses her admiration for the garden (she’s recently bought a house and the garden is a barren wasteland) to Leah’s mother. She immediately introduces her to the landscaper – who for some reason has been invited to the party - and turns out to be Brian. ("I thought you were an architect?" "Landscape architect.") Clearly overcome by guilt for her behavior at the coffee shop, Kenya tries to compensate by hiring Brian to tend her garden er... do up her backyard er... there's no way I can make that sound clean is there?  After a few scenes to establish Kenya’s uprightness and Brian’s insane hotness easy going attitude, Brian takes on the job and immediately moves in with his crew to start work.

I hope you don't mind, I brought my dog along. Oh you don't do dogs? That's okay, neither do I. 

At this point, the movie decides to give us a bit more insight to Leah’s family. Her brother Nelson turns up at her place, with his bimbo of the week tagging along and proceeds to let us know that he’s  boorish as well as shallow by referring to Brian as ‘the help’.  Having heard of her blind date, Nelson also asks Kenya whether she’s “sleeping with the enemy”; she quickly puts him straight saying it was just a date and that nothing happened. A little later we meet her parents; her father is a doctor and her mother a socialite. Clearly the family is held in high regard within the black community and they have strict notions about not muddying the waters, if you know what I mean. 

That Nelson, always with a chick on his arm

 Kenya and Brian, bond a little, albeit clumsily. He’s too easy going to be put off by her stiffness and in a frank discussion one night she admits after some probing that she wouldn't consider a relationship with a white guy, stating that it’s a “preference, not a prejudice”. Brian points out that it may be her preference to be prejudiced. Like I said before, the movie is not frivolous. Where necessary, it takes the bull by the horns.  (And for reasons I’d rather not disclose, I now regret using that metaphor.) We get scenes from Kenya’s workplace that show us that bigotry is somewhat rampant in the workplace as well, as far as certain clients are concerned. The movie also introduces us to the term Black Tax – the fact that you have to work harder to get things if you’re black.  But where relationships are concerned, the fact that it’s the blacks who are being racist in the movie is a reversal that is rather interesting.

One day, in effort to loosen her up, Brian drags Kenya off on a hike. Inevitably, it rains, they get wet, huddle under a tree, make out and I die a little inside. The ride home is strained, Kenya clearly regrets her momentary weakness and she tries to regain her aloofness and shoo Brian off. Predictably he comes back and sigh, pardon me while I take a moment here to weep silently for a few minutes.

The next morning, it's all mushiness and bran crackers till Brian comments on her hair – she wears a weave  - and she gets pissed off  and tells him it was all a mistake and fires him. Kenya then meets up with her girlfriends and confesses her lascivious liaisons with the landscaper. Though initially shocked, they're glad the Kenya is finally getting some.  And they tell her to let herself have some fun. "you don't have to marry the guy", they say "For once in your life get some good old fashioned sex" 

Girrrrrl, you needs to let it flow. 

So she gets her weave taken out and  goes back home just in time to intercept Brian and to tell him not to go.

oh hai, i got my hair done. we can has sex? kthx

Despite their differences, Brian and Kenya seem happy together. It’s only when they go out – and they only seem to hang out with her friends – that he is out of his element, often being the only white guy in the room. Her friends are wary of him and though he tries to blend in, it never quite fits. But when they’re alone, the chemistry is obvious.  Being with him allows her to loosen up a little and she literally and metaphorically lets some colour into her life. 
Meanwhile, the garden having been completed, Kenya throws a party. This is the first time that her family is meeting Brian in the role of boyfriend and her mother deals with it by not acknowledging it. Nelson, it turns out has scouted out  a suitor for Kenya and brings him along to the party and introduces her to the very suave Mark Harper (Blair Underwood). Kenya’s mother is soon to nudge her in his direction, pointing out his obvious suitability – he’s certainly IBM material.

by the power of my pin striped suit, i will woo you fair maiden

Soon enough, Kenya and Brian give in to the strain of the relationship, fight and break up. Immediately afterwards Kenya starts dating Mark and when Brian comes around wanting to patch things up she says no, she’s seeing someone. And yes, he's black. 

but i loves you Kenya! i yearn for you to the ends of my amazing blonde curls! 

(The woman is mentally ill, methinks. How could anyone resist someone so hunkalicious as Brian? If I showed him the door, it would only be as something to lean against. )

Anyway, a whole lot of nothing later the movie decides to move into step 4 and Kenya realizes that Brian is THE ONE and ditches a predictably snooty event to run off in search for him. Here, the movie would have us believe that f she doesn't declare her love for him that very same day that all hope is lost. Well, I suppose in a way it is, because when else is she going to be able to flaunt the relationship in the faces of the pinnacles of black society all in one go? She’d have to wait another year to gather all those people together under one roof. So I guess it's today or never and all the running around and wringing of hands was necessary.

Anyway, all’s well that ends well and we end with the Kenya-Brian wedding where we finally get a small glimpse of his side of the family, well, his father anyway. The credits aren’t rolling yet, but you’ll have to excuse me now, I think my hair is on fire.

Sex and Death 101 - a hellishly long recap

I've been putting this one off for a while. Probably because I liked this movie and it's harder to recap something you actually liked. As a vehicle for Simon Baker to diversify, well, I'm not sure that it works. But then again it looks like he's having such a lark doing this, you feel like saying hey, let him have this one.  

As the movie opens, we’re shown a room that looks like a typical holywood representation of a post-mortem spiritual retreat. Three men in grey suits gather round a strange door-like device set in the wall that has just spewed out a number of flash cards. 

pick a card, any card, no not that one, the other one

One card in particular seems to interest them (I'm still thinking they're auditors of souls or something but no, they turn out to be extremely corporeal beings later on). "Who the hell is Roderick Blank?" says a Patton Oswalt shaped agent. "That would be me" says Simon Baker, whilst penciling in Narrator under Work Experience in his CV. We immediately cut to Patrick Jayne Roderick Blank prancing (there's a lot of prancing in this movie) along a street that looks suspiciously like a movie set. We follow him as he walks along, beaming at everyone, and then out of nowhere we're struck down by a huge wave of exposition that takes us completely unawares.

#Fact - Richard has a secretary called Trixie who is a lesbian.

#Fact - Richard is soon to be married.

#Fact - there's a femme (non)fatale by the name of Death Nell quietly terrorizing  the city (she doesn't kills her victims, merely puts them in a coma by injecting them with coma serum) (no really, that's a thing). 

#Fact – His fiancée is one Fiona Wormwood who he seems to be settling for because she's clearly not a nice person.

#Fact - he's a big shot at a fast food chain called Swallows (oh yes, it goes there, just you wait for that juxtaposition).

So while all this is going on Richard is on the phone with Trixie who's going through his emails. He's about to sign off when she starts reading the last one. It's a list of names and she at first assumes it's a list of invitees to the wedding but then it turns out it's a bunch of girls’ names. As she starts reading it out to Roderick, each name turns out to be a girl he's boinked in the past and listed in chronological order. And it turns out the list doesn't end with Ms Wormwood-soon-to-be-Blank, in fact she's just number 29. The list passes her and ends at a giddying and possibly STD inducing 101. Naturally Roderick is intrigued at the thought of possibly passing up 72 lays for the sake of nuptial bliss. On the other hand,  the list is probably a hoax put together by his friends but before he can process anything further than the next two names after Fiona's, he's ‘kidnapped’ and dragged off to his bachelor party. 

look at some of these names, who the heck is called owlglasses?

At the party he’s clearly phoning it in because c’mon, he's still obsessing about the trail of tail he might be missing out on should he get hitched. His friend Zack advises him to stop looking for a way out of the marriage and just make it through the party, get married and live subarbanly ever after.  Towards the end of the party Roderick dragged off to be locked into a room for the traditional 'grand finale' with the stripper.  Neither of them actually plan on following through on tradition but somehow something leads to one thing  and he ends up having accidental sex with her. "Accidental sex?" you ask, "What, she slipped and fell on his dick?". "Yes" I reply, "that's exactly what happened". 

what, you though i was kidding? that's literally what happens

During this up and down process he finds out that her real name is Carlotta Valdez (a.k.a. number 30 on the list) and boom! he realizes the list may be on the money after all.

The movie now takes a break to show us Death Nell luring her next victim - a guy who runs a newspaper stand and likes to dabble in a little bit of voyeurism on the side. Our Nell seems to take her pickings from the not so gentlemanly sort. She’s played by Wynona Ryder and I wonder whether you could also summon her by saying “Death Nell” three times.

you'd have though a peeping tom would pick a less conspicuous costume

The day following his sexual enlightenment, Roderick is trying to break it off with Fiona. She obviously doesn't take it well and he relents and patches things up. But at this very moment, he notices an advertisement in the paper - one stating that a certain centerfold by the name of Cynthia Rose is having an autograph signing session later on in the day. (Is this an actual thing, where centerfolds sign pinups?) And would you believe it, Cynthia Rose is number 31 on the list. After sending off a pacified Fiona to her bachelorette spa party, he goes off to the magazine signing thing and manages to rescue Cynthia from a stampeding nerd-herd. They proceed to hang out for the rest of the day (no sexy times yet) and after learning that he's about to get married Cynthia asks him to do her a favour and she seals the deal by saying "don't worry, it'll end in sex".

yeah, that's a deal maker alright

Roderick obviously agrees to this deal and against the advice of Trixie, who seems to play the buddy role to Roderick in the movie, goes off to execute said favour - which turns out be dinner and a sleepover at her father's mansion while playing the part of 'presentable man' in front of daddy. Here, the movie decides to borrow a page from the sickly inappropriate school of drama and accomplishes a predictable and painful situation involving people sneaking around in the night trying to have sex while a leprous grandmother sleeps in an adjoining room. You know what happens; I’m not even going to go there. I don't like what you did there movie, you made me sad, and I refuse to talk about it. Suffice to say that our centerfold was named after her (suddenly deceased) grandmother. I also lament the fact that Simon Baker is not convincing as a Stiffleresque figure and the physical comedy just doesn't work. Look, let's just forget this whole scene and move on.

Roderick comes home to find Fiona in the process of leaving him in the hope that he will stop her. (Yes, really.) He however doesn't and she leaves. Cue the agents in grey descending in on him, rendering him unconscious and whisking him away to the white room. They introduce themselves as Alpha, Beta and Patton Oswalt (well, okay, Fred) and they then proceed to tell him about an oracular computer and how it sent out random email to lots of people. In pretty much everyone’s case, it just sent out a date - the date of their death - but in Roderick's case it decided to send him a different sort of list; a list of all the women he has and ever would have sex with. They try to convince him to keep mum about the whole thing, tell him that breaking it off with Fiona was the way to go and tell him to go forth and fornicate.  BUT, they say, forget about the list – burn it, bury it – but do not let it dictate the terms of copulation.

Roderick of course ignores all the advice except the serial sex part and goes out to bed his way down the list. I can almost forgive the #31 debacle for it allowed a brief grin inducing scene with regard to #32 where he scrutinizes her passport pre-penetration to verify her identity.  The movie is perplexing because one minute it acts somewhat intelligently and the next second it goes for obvious gut wrenching pleas for laughter like this:

i did warn you that this would happen

One night while at a club having drinks with his office mates a celebrity lesbian couple disturbingly named Bambi and Thumper walk in. 

with names like that i'd have expected more fur and less wings

Trixie of course is highly excited and primps up to go get their autograph but the woddland wenches have eyes only for Roderick for sure enough they're next on the list. Incidentally, would a gay couple's ideal threesome be with a straight person from the opposite sex? But then again three people from the same sex  and sexual inclination would seem a bit excessive. Anyway, i digress.  Things go interestingly at first, as you would expect, but then it gets a bit freaky - I can’t possibly describe everything that happens so here’s a blurry picture, now leave me alone, there are internal conflicts I need to deal with right about now.

at least be grateful that i spared you the flimsy boxers

 Meanwhile Death Nell has picked another victim and whaddaya know, booked a room adjoining the room being violated by Roderick and the non-Disney-endorsed duo. Her victim however falls to his death before she can render him comatose and Roderick’s and Nell’s paths almost cross when he crawls onto her balcony during his escape from the loco lesbians. This last escapade convinces Roderick that the list is a bad idea and with Trixie’s moral support he buries it in his back yard. But he implores her to let him have just one more name and she compromises by telling him that it’s a “Dr. M-i-r…”

look, you try taking screencaps when people wont stop moving

Roderick, making an effort to move on, is once again sidetracked when he strikes up a friendship with an ex-veterinarian who seems to be lusted after by the entire local pet owning male population. Her name happens to be Dr. Miranda, obviously she must be the "Dr. M" from the list. But he takes it slow, they become quite pally and he settles down to enjoy the (what he thinks is a) romance without rushing the sex. Unfortunately Dr. M doesn’t seem to be so into either a romance or any bandying of privates (insert joke about  a  veterinarian who doesn't want to bone). Frustrated at being repeatedly friend zoned, he finally gives in and digs up the list to affirm that she is indeed next and finds that the next name up is actually M-i-r-abella. Since he really cares about this Miranda chick he tries to beat the list. He even goes back to the agency for help, but Alpha tells him firmly to stop being a ninny and that it’s never going to happen. It also gives Patton Oswalt a chance to use the words “intercourse buffet” and “blowjob on a stick”. While this discourse is going on, the agents suddenly get alerted to the fact that Death Nell has taken down a whole fraternity in Fresno. Apparently when a serial killer (or non-killer) hits the double digits they call in the Men in Grey. 

Later on, in a series of events too blahworthy to set down, Miranda dies in a freak accident.  Roderick is distraught and for a brief moment it looks like he is going to defile a corpse just to break the predictions of the list but thankfully he gets distracted by something shiny (no, i'm not kidding - look, I can't make this shit up) and walks out to immediately find comfort in the arms of Dr. Mirabella Stone, who works as a plot contrivance  at the same hospital. 

and she's not even a pathologist from what i can tell, so why is she lurking outside the morgue? 

After the brief and boring Miranda interlude, Roderick throws caution - and his pants-  to the wind and ventures forth on a salacious spree. I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say that the movie stays true to all possible clichés and allows the list to include among other things a midget, a homeless person and a man. Meanwhile, the authorities find out Death Nell’s real name (she’d left her driver’s license behind at the scene of a crime) and her face and name are plastered all over the TV screens. Roderick, on seeing the news, realizes to his horror that she’s the last name on his list – he’s going to die at the hands of Death Nell! (yes, the fact that her victims don’t die is ignored from hereon.) He runs off to the agency to be told that they’re planning a coup and as soon as the oracular computer computes Death Nell’s exact location - which it’s bound to do in a few weeks – they’ll close in on her and he will be safe. So the same people who earlier told him that there was no defying the list are now trying to help him do so. Tsk Tsk, movie, for shame.

So all Roderick has to do is hold off from having sex with the 20 women who stand between him and Death Nell. The movie makes this out to be a Herculean task. If you ask me, having sex with 20 different women within the space of 2 weeks would be the difficult thing, not the other way around. But looks like Roderick needs to distract himself lest he slip and mistakenly has sex with someone so he takes up a few hobbies, cycling being one. It’s during one of these cycling trips that he meets with a pothole related accident, is rescued by a bus containing a virginal bible group who then proceed to take turns forcing themselves on a supine Roderick for some voluntary deflowering. The bus contained 19 girls, not 20, so for a minute Roderick is jubilant - till he remembered the lady bus driver who also decided to cut herself in on the deal. So in one fell swoop the number of obstacles between him and Death Nell went from 20 to zero. (The movie doesn’t explain how on earth one man is able to have sex 20 times in quick succession. The movie takes poetic license to a whole new level in order to move the plot along.)

 it's not like they were catholic schoolgirls. just a uniform  wearing bible group, so that's okay then

Okay, we’re almost done here. The supercomputer finally pinpoints a location and the agents go in and take position, awaiting Nell’s arrival. Roderick is told to stay put, but he’s tired of all this having his life path decided for him business and he sets out to meet his maker (or in this case Nell) head on. Unable to get into her hotel, he walks into a nearby diner only to run into Nell, temporarily off the clock. They strike up a conversation, and he volunteers to be his next victim. They get along quite well and he professes an admiration for her poetry (she writes little couplets at each crime scene). Asked why she does what she does, she tells him her story.  Apparently she was in an abusive relationship, married to this sadist who made her play dress-up and then well, you know the rest. Then one day, she’s set free; he slips on a pencil and erm, dies (there’s a whole lot of death by slipping in this movie) and she goes off on a pilgrimage to rid the world of perverts, one prick at a time.

After they each share their story, they realize that they’re both tired of being where they are and who they are.  So, somewhat predictably at this point, they make a coma pact. The nicely orchestrated final scene shows them popping the pills in each other’s mouth and settling under the sheets below a spray painted “The End”.

Of course that’s not the final scene, the final scene is when we are shown that they seem to have woken up, (and pretty quickly too since they haven’t aged a bit) got married, had a kid and are in the midst of living happily ever after. Interspersed with these scenes of domestic tranquility is a  clip of the coma victims waking up, one by one. So the world’s population of sex offenders is once more replete. In closing (well, almost) we are also shown two capsules on their nightstand implying that they didn't take the coma-inducing-pills after all BUT the movie clearly shows them taking something in the earlier scene (see above). So did they take them and spit them out again? Goddamnit movie, why must you contradict yourself so?

sigh. here's another picture. now lets pretend i wrapped this up

One last thing. Remember I said I liked this movie? Well, contrary to the tone of this recap, I actually did. It wasn't an amazing movie, but it did try to steer away from the formulaic plot. Of course it didn't do a very good job of it, but still i'd like to give it points for trying. Also, there was this to be happy about:

yup. there's always this to fall back on.