So I was at Bamboo Club, the super-trendy Asian-cuisine experience. Not the nice-enough one at Pima and the 101, but the two-story beast at Tatum and the 101 up north. There's rave music blaring from the speakers, and barely enough light to see your way around in. I mean, I don't like bright light too much, but I had to huddle close to the candle on the table just to read the menu. Anyhow, with our appetizer, the waitress brings a little two-sided serving thingy with what is obviously soy sauce and a second condiment which I took to be, after a precursory visual inspection, sweet and sour sauce. I even opened the lid and took a sniff... nothing seemed out of place, although the serving spoon was about as big as one of those sample spoons you get at Cold Stone Creamery.
Pleased that we had gotten sweet and sour sauce to go with our coconut shrimp, I loaded four miniature spoonfuls upon my tasty crustacean. I popped it into my mouth in one shot, and then came to the cold realization that it wasn't sweet and sour sauce, but rather Thai chili paste.
In the brief moments that my tongue was numb before the shock wore off, I managed to swallow the shrimp whole and quietly say, "That's not sweet and sour sauce." That was the last complete sentence I put together for five minutes. After I drank my water and my soda, I tried anything and everything to stop the burning. I even ate a piece of the cucumber garnish from the shrimp plate. Our waitress happened by and I begged in poor sign language for some more water, and pointed at the tub of Thai chili paste. "Oh, yeah, that happens a lot," she said, trying to be reassuring. Naturally, being an Asian-food place, they didn't keep milk on hand, which would have been the obvious answer. So I sipped ice water for 10 or 15 minutes until my mouth finally returned to normal.
So, anyway... yeah... now I know. Although I still can't figure out why they'd bring by 2 cups' worth of Thai chili paste when you're really only going to need no more than a half-teaspoons' worth for ANYthing. Gehh.
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There, so now that wasn't so difficult to do. I dunno. I just have to be in the right frame of mind to bang out a blog entry. I had also told someone that I was going to do a list of movies I liked, which I'll get to in the next paragraph, since this paragraph isn't about that. What I WILL tell you in this paragraph is that I plan to -- gasp!-- partially revamp my main page. I know! I haven't honestly updated there in a year and a half, the pre-blog pseudoblogging at the top of the page notwithstanding, and even THAT hasn't seen any action since this blog really got off and running a year ago. Anyway, I'm going to leave the old page intact, save for going through and fixing those ugly X'es where the old GeoCities code is still in. AT the top, though, I'm going to use it as a picture-gallery companion to this blog. I want to put in all of my trophy pictures, a few of just myself my mom took to run out the film in her camera a few weeks ago (one of which turned out really neat, so I scanned it), and also finish that gallery of receipts from the CHS Jazz Band's Europe trip seven years ago. I'm actually looking forward to doing that; there's a certain zone I get in when I get down 'n dirty with HTML work. It's akin to the zone I get in when I'm painting pottery at As You Wish.
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Okay, so I went to see Van Helsing last week, and the person I went with thought it was "great!!!", but I was more nonchalant about its greatness.
"It was okay," says I. "Not as bad as some I've seen, but not fantastic."
"Oh, come on! You sound like my brother! 'It was okay, it was all right...' Did you like it, or didn't you?"
"Well, I'm just saying I wasn't blown away, is all. It was no Lord of the Rings, if you want me to compare it to something I really liked. I just tend to save my superlatives, so that when I say 'Wow!!', you'll know it's something special." We progressed into a discussion about what movies we've really enjoyed, and I said I'd compile a list of movies which I used my precious superlatives on, so, here it be.
At the top of the list: The Matrix, or, more properly, Matrix I. Just the first one. The trilogy, on a whole, would probably be somewhere on the list, as is the case with #2 on the list, but the original Matrix is my favorite movie of all time until further notice. Just everything that went on within the film, all the subplots, all the concepts which made my brain hurt just trying to wrap my mind around them... it was phenomenal. Let's not even get into how the camera techniques changed the way action films were done. See the rest of the list for more on the rest of the trilogy.
#2: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, or, more conveniently, LOTR III. This is the only film I've ever gone to see three times in the theater. Normally, to be honest, if I'm not super-excited to go see it, I'll wait for the DVD. (I didn't see the first two in the theater, for example, though I did watch them before #3.) While I was stupefied by the Matrix, I was transfixed by LOTR3. The first time I went to see it, I cried like a baby for at least the last 30 minutes. The second time, I still shed some tears, and the THIRD time I still had a sizeable lump in my throat -- even though by then I could practically recite the dialogue. I haven't been affected by a movie like that since Rudy.
Now, those first two, I don't figure I could do justice to how I feel about them by just going on and on about how good they are. It's that deep. The rest of these, I could probably convey it if I typed long enough, but I don't want to bore. So, I'll keep it brief. The following are not in any particular order, nor do I offer any guarantees that I remembered each and every movie I spent a superlative on.
- Matrix, M. Reloaded, & M. Revolutions: aka: Matrix I, II, & III, or just the Matrix trilogy: As aforementioned, Matrix I is my #1 to date. Reloaded is probably somewhere between 10 and 15, partially on the strength that it was such an anticipated sequel that they could have tried to convince me that the Matrix was actually run by a super-race of Spanish-speaking poodles from Chile, and I might've bought it. It was better than most, but it started to unravel just a hair towards the end, when he met the Architect (whom I kept expecting to tell Neo exactly what blend of secret herbs & spices went into his Original Recipe). Then, when Revolutions stumbled into theatres six months later, everything kinda fell apart. We were introduced to all these new characters, most of whom were killed just after introductions. "Hi, I'm Niobe." "Hi, I'm Dave. *slice!* Gakk! Agh, machines!" Now, a disclaimer: I understood the ending. Since Neo was plugged into the Source, when Smith replicated himself into Neo, Smith thereby returned himself to the Source, and the Source terminated him and removed all of his replicates from the Matrix. Since Neo helped the Source eliminate this dire threat to its existence, the Source promised Neo they'd stop trying to eradicate Zion. So, there it is. I get it; I just don't necessarily like it. Don't ask what I'd suggest, since I don't know. It just doesn't sit too well with me.
- Lord of the Rings: etc., etc., and etc.: aka: LOTR I, II, and III, for the sake of time and space conservation: Now, this film followed a trajectory inverse to that of Matrices I, II, and III, in that it started kinda weak and obviously finished tremendously well. "Fellowship of the Ring" was good, yeah, but on its own, probably not even in my top 20. But it was good enough to warrant my rental of "Two Towers", which was considerably better, but still probably between, oh, 12 and 17 or so. And then... "Return of the King" came, and it was good. Good enough to bring the trilogy as a whole onto my Tops list. If the three films were all one 9-hour movie (that's about as long as it'd be, right?), you'd walk out of the theater thinking... well, first, "I can't feel my ass!", but secondly, "That was a great movie." I think they kinda had to sacrifice some continuity in #1 and a little of #2 to get us fully introduced to all the factions and characters who would make #3 such a stunning success. Good piece of work.
- Rudy: Football and father-son issues. How could this NOT tug on any guy's heartstrings? I've always said this is one movie which a guy will never be ashamed to admit he cried at. (Another of which, according to my dad, is Old Yeller, which I've never seen, though I know what happens, and I'm inclined to agree.)
- Blazing Saddles: My favorite comedy ever. You've probably heard of it, at least, if you haven't seen it: A Mel Brooks film, so you have to bring an open sense of humor. But if you weren't offended by it, you were probably laughing all the way through. I'd have to say it's got the most wordplay and puns per minute of any movie I've seen.
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail: You know, that might be "and the QUEST FOR the Holy Grail", but I can't remember specifically. You just have to put aside your concerns of anything making sense and enjoy. I'll spare you a cavalcade of quotes.
- Brassed Off!: I don't tend to go for movies that don't involve some strong aspect of comedy, fantasy, or sci-fi, but this is one of a handful of exceptions. (Another of which is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I highly recommend, unless you got up and walked out of Being John Malkovich like my dad did, in which case I'll tell you "don't bother.") Anyhow, Brassed Off centers around a coal mine in England and their brass band, and follows several of the members through their personal lives as they face the impending closure of their mine. I've seen it several times and I'm still fairly moved by it each time. It's got probably my favorite movie line to date in it, as well: Girl: "You want to come up for some coffee?" Guy: "I don't drink coffee." Girl: "I haven't got any."
I mentioned that my dad left Being John Malkovich. He didn't, really: I'd rented it and he was at my apartment in Tucson, and he watched half an hour and decided it was "stupid" and went to bed. I thought it was all right, honestly. He and my mom DID get up and walk out of The 5th Element at the theater, though, several years ago, and on his advice I never bothered to watch it until last year, when I happened to catch it on Cinemax and wound up thinking it was a good movie. Again, not superlative-worthy, but I certainly wouldn't've walked out of the theater on it. To be frank, I probably wouldn't walk out on ANY movie, since, hey, I've already paid, so why bother? I mean, I was pretty tired of The Punisher by the time it blissfully ended, but I stuck it out. My dad, though... different story. And like I alluded to, he WOULD get up and walk out of Endless Sunshine. It's that kind of a movie. There's been one movie that I rented and didn't finish watching: Stuck On You. Geesh, I figured that was going to be a can't-miss laugh riot, and about 2/3 of the way through, I gave up hope and shut it off. And this was while I was at my dad's place in West Virginia, so it's not like I had a whole lot else to do with my evening, either. (True to form, he'd gone to bed 20 minutes into the movie, citing its "lack of humor." He's, ah, hard to impress.)
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So, anyhow... that's a month's worth of blogging jam-packed into one post. *shrug* What can I say? I just have to get into the right frame of mind.
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