Bangkok Minnie

Humidity acting upon a fragile mind.

[bangkokminnie]

New location and new tumblr. Will keep this one for movies, but mexico-co thoughts/experiences will be over there.

[bangkokminnie]

PICK'N'MIX

A QUARTET

SKYFALL --

A game of word association.

'Country?'

'England'

TWILIGHT: BREAKING DAWN PART 2 --

Take the love triangle out in the first five minutes and this film has nothing to offer me. Were we supposed to be paying attention to all that vampire-y stuff? I thought we were just enjoying a fantastically intense teen-girl dreamworld fully-realised on the big screen and conveniently irritating a whole bunch of people who deserve to be irritated. But I guess not. Did enjoy the CGI baby head on the real baby body though. Look forward to Twi-fans growing out of the threatening 'FOREVER' announced in the oppressive married-with-maybe-vampire-child ending.

THE MASTER --

Perhaps it's best to watch this after Kubrick-ing yourself up for a few days. Then you'll be ready not to give a crap about anything that's going on. No, wait, 2001 was basically offering the unconventional Twilight-style love triangle of the 60s. Nothing here is that fun. Wanted to love Phoenix and his grimacing. Wanted to feel intrigued by Hoffmann and their oh-so-mysterious relationship. Yearned for the kind of ambiguity you want to consider afterwards and the imagery you'd like to gaze at again. Nope. This movie is all trouser and no action.

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK --

Is David O Russell the antithesis of PT Anderson? Does the 'O' stand for 'optimistic' and the 'PT' 'pretty tiring' yes it does. This was delightful. Tad messy. Kinda using mental illness for quirk factor then dropping it once conveniente. But mostly just charming and also witty and romantic. Russell has a way of depicting people attaching themselves to one another that in ANY OTHER CONTEXT would seem like a dreadful idea. Here it seems happily inevitable. Unlike 'The Master', still thinking about it. Mostly - what does J-Lawr's white-mom-leggings dancing outfit signify? Why no purty dress for her? Is terrible fashion a side-effect of bereavement? BIG QUESTIONS FRIEND.

[bangkokminnie]

be more specific

Playboy: From what you've said, it seems that we'll have to learn something of what makes you tick as a man in order to understand what motivates you as an entertainer. Would it be all right with you if we attempt to do just that -- by exploring a few of the fundamental beliefs which move and shape your life?

Sinatra: Look, pal, is this going to be an ocean cruise or a quick sail around the harbor? Like you, I think, I feel, I wonder. I know some things, I believe in a thousand things, and I'm curious about a million more. Be more specific.

Me: I feel you Mr. Sinatra.

[bangkokminnie]

RISE

Why is 'The Dark Knight Rises' not as good as 'The Dark Knight'?

Because Dark Knight is an epic genre movie, equal parts drama and action. The set pieces were shocking and unexpected (the Joker bait and switch gets me every time). The action felt real - in it's effects and uncomfortably realistic nature - a lorry flipping, a hospital detonating. It had an incredibly charismatic villain played by a tragically deceased movie star. The event it became just couldn't happen twice.

Why doesn't Bane dominate the film in the same way the Joker did?

The Joker described himself as the 'unstoppable force' meeting the 'immoveable object' of Batman. They were meant for each other - Batman had inspired a new breed of crazy criminal that wanted to push him to his limits. Bane operates with or without the Batman - as does the movie for rather a long stretch - and with a more 'logical' agenda. When they meet, Bane breaks him, but only so Batman (and Bruce Wayne) can be rebuilt new and improved. So he's more of a plot device than the loony outlier the Joker was.

How come the Catwoman character actually works in this universe?

They play it straight and it works. These film's lack of irony may irritate some but that they just plonk a stiletto wearing, acrobatic jewel thief in Gotham like it's no biggie was exactly the way to go. And thank goodness, because Anne Hathaway's relatively cheery character brightens up the film whenever she's on.

How long was that thing anyway?

God so long. But what would you cut? Michael Caine? He gave the film it's heart, and the brilliantly batty ending wouldn't have worked without him. Christian Bale finally started portraying Bruce Wayne as a human being and not as a scowly-suit wearing-sex (less) machine which also helped. The prison sequence? The idea of a secret prison in a giant hole in a desert is so deliciously mental you have to get on board. Really none of this film should have worked and the fact that most of it did is a miracle.

Hats off to Christopher Nolan for not repeating the mistakes of Inception (by giving us earned emotion and keeping the plot simplish). But mostly hats off for being bonkers in a big way.

[cityoftownsville]

[bangkokminnie]

Bubbles - she is enjoying the laughter...

[bangkokminnie]

INSIDE

'I wanna be inside.'

There's a moment towards the end of 'Magic Mike' that is so sad and so ridiculous, so perfectly performed by Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey, so earned by all that's gone before, that an already intense film gets taut like a spandex g-string over a chap's artificially-enlarged goods.

Yes, according to this film penis enlargers work. Science please look away now.

Tatum is Mike, trying to be more than he currently is. He keeps the plastic on his car stereo so that when he comes to sell it it'll look as though it's never been touched. Everything is for sale even when you own it. Tatum is so good in this film it's unreal - sure, it's autobiographical, but he sells the silliness and the seriousness and you buy it all up. Mike has been selling himself but trying to remain untouched. But what are you if not the money you make and how you came to make it?

The film is getting great write-ups because it's secretly about economics, but it makes the case for stripping as a kinda freaky performance art. It's a great show. If you can live with being in the show that might be enough - Mike's little protege is happy to be in the show - but when you want to be you, whatever that means, you're out and you might just be screwed.

'Magic Mike' has generous helpings of everything you could want. Also, makes a good case for men being hopeless at 19 and a better prospect at 30. If you're lucky.

[frankocean]

[bangkokminnie]

I was never alone, as much as I felt like it.

[bangkokminnie]

RENEWAL

'Prometheus' is what you'd get if you squashed 'Alien' and 'Aliens' into a cryogenic pod and made them fight it out for 'tone' and 'significance.'

ALIEN: I'm the critically respected horror classic that people like because I'm all existential and stark and shit. My heroine is a lone warrior in a-

ALIENS: MINE TOO! Except I give her a gun and make her a mom and turn her into a total bad-ass. I stole your intensity and cynicism and added cannon fodder and a family unit. I basically rule all action movies ever.

ALIEN: I know, I saw all that crashing/burning/squishing stuff in the 'prequel'. That's your doing.

ALIEN: Only the best part. The fastest impregnation to (self-administered) abortion in history - yo the 'body horror' is all mine.

ALIENS: Yeah that was cool. Shame about the waffle.

ALIEN: I know, right?! Why was Ryan Atwood's brother strutting around like a frat boy? Why was Charlize Theron even there? At least you had the good grace to kill off half your characters asap.

ALIENS: Fassbender was weird - why do space robots always have to be a bit gay? And why did this film have sex scenes?

ALIEN: Nu-uh! Oh you mean the ones with humans? Or that moment between Idris Elba and Theron that - like almost everything else - didn't go anywhere? But the closing one...

ALIENS: What are you talking about?

ALIEN: The most erotic moment of the whole movie! The bit at the end with the giant alien penetrating and mounting the 'man' thing. All breathing and heaving...hot stuff.

ALIENS: Oh you are so weird.

ALIEN: That's what keeps them coming back!

[bangkokminnie]

I guess I just must be a daredevil I don't feel anything until I smash it up I'm caught on the cold, caught on the hot Not so with the warmer lot And all I want is a confidant To help me laugh it off

Which Fiona Apple lyric is the most 'you and your life'?

[moviesimpsons]

[bangkokminnie]

Spiritual succour.

[suicideblonde]

Madonna

[bangkokminnie]

Outfit couldn't be more 2012. Or 198_.

[bangkokminnie]

DEMOISELLE

'Damsels in Distress' is dreamy.

Dreamy in it's brilliant-ness and dreamy in it's deliciousness. Greta Gerwig's lovely big brown eyes - preppy style fiesta - Adam Brody being cool again. Just a few examples of the dreamy-factor.

I've never watched a Walt Whitman movie before and I've only seen Gerwig in 'House of the Devil' so I'm incredibly unqualified to comment on either but let me jump to a conclusion and declare they're both geniuses period.

'Young women civilise idiotic male peers' is the line being taken but the film is really about young people (or just people in general) battling between their attempts to remake the world and their need to establish their own identities. They're the best kind of characters - self-awareness battles with self-absorbedness and they're articulate enough to verbalise the conflict. This idiosyncratic self-interpretation is a palatte cleanser - it exposes the spoken words of other movies as the cliches they almost always are.

Smart kids are just as lost as the doofuses so they tell lies, if only to try and make everything run a little more smoothly.

Gerwig is perfect as Violet - you'd be surprised how moving it can be watching someone find hope in soap. In the latter stages of the movie Violet and her nemesis/perfect foil Lily debate the lack of humanity in 'cool' people vs. the tiresomeness of wilfully 'unique' ones. Lily claims the world needs plenty of 'normal people', not lots of irritating outliers. This may be a joke more than a thesis but underlines the very normal nature of these character's problems beneath the whimsy.

In summation, this film is like a particularly characterful Fiona Apple song in cinematic format. So it's a must see.

[bangkokminnie]

I-SELF

Managed to go to Brixton and revisit Bali the other night - Mie Goreng for dinner and the new Bob Marley documentary for afters. Marley is the soundtrack to most beaches in SE Asia, though Gili Trewangan (tiny party island off Bali coast) appreciated eminem so much that they chose three of his weakest songs and didn't stop playing them the whole time I was there. And I had 'The Weeknd' on repeat on my ipod.

That was an emotionally alienating weekend.

The movie has one of those satisfyingly straightforwardly faults that's almost too obvious to point out - it's about 30 minutes too long - but for a reggae novice it had a lot of new tunes to offer. As is often the case with these biodocs I couldn't tell you much more about Marley now than I could before (apart from his Rasta usage of 'i-self' instead of 'myself' which is brilliant and I'm stealing it). It's the Citizen Kane Paradox - you spend your life surrounded by people (in this case, very interesting and charismatic ones), who may have very strong opinions about you, who may get very close, but they can only ever know so much of you. The point of 'Rosebud' isn't that it's a ... (whatever it is - hate classic-movie spoilers), it's that Kane's cherishing the memory of it reveals his tenderness beneath all the guff. And nobody ever knew.

Marley's mates can report to us how he felt about this and that but it's only when, in the best parts of the film, we see him performing - whirling and twitching, charged by the music - that a connection is made.

Honestly, I don't know how Doctor Who finds the time to get into all those adventures. My Tardis would just deliver me to classic gigs.

[bangkokminnie]

Enjoying many 'long-reads' in the office and this is particularly great - the excruciating guilt/joy travel tightrope is the same in SE Asia. And this definitively puts Cuba on my list.

[bangkokminnie]

A week in Burma isn't enough but it's still pretty thrilling. Yangon is a fascinating and non-scary capital; Bagan is simply beautiful and incredible fun. Cycled around in 35 degree heat visiting empty temples, meeting fantastically friendly Burmese people and singing N-Sync. Moments of quiet at the top of these temples, seeing that beautiful vista with only the breeze for company - finally had my 'spiritual' moment in Asia.

[bangkokminnie]

ERRANDS

"True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self; but the point is not only to get out - you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand." H E N R Y  J A M E S

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_James

[bangkokminnie]

I won't lie gin and tonics have me feeling righteous.

D R A K E.