Dareaoke Update

So, as one may have expected, the Daraoke experiment isn't working out quite as planned. Really, it might have just been that Tekkonkinkreet (I'm not even bothering to check to see if I spelled that correctly) turned me off the idea of watching bad movies for fun. Or maybe it's just that the following weeks' picks (Samurai Reincarnation and Walking Tall: The Final Chapter) just didn't sound the least bit fun in the first place. Now, if I had been recommended She-Devil with Meryl Streep and Roseanne, you know I would have watched that shit in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, shitty crime films, shitty samurai films (unless they fall into the exploitation category) and shitty anime just don't float this boy's boat. However, Mike and I have been continuing the weekly recommendations of films we should have already seen in the first place. I got the pleasure of viewing Carlito's Way (yeah, what kind of De Palma fan could I be without that one?), Casablanca and John Woo's The Killer (which is way better than Broken Arrow if you didn't already know). Mike was disappointed to see that all of my Woo experience was shitty beyond belief (Mission: Impossible 2 is one of the worst films I've ever seen... Broken Arrow isn't far behind). This week I have Spike Lee's Bamboozled.

And, on a side note, what the fuck is wrong with Tilda Swinton? I had forgotten that the Chronicles of Narnia was the beginning of a series and thought she might have wised up by the time the second one was ready to come out... but no! She's back as the Ice Queen or whatever, which is perfect visually for her... but completely against just about everything else she stands for as a woman and as an actor. I'm sure she's got plenty up her sleeve to continue to make me drool otherwise, but Narnia? Jeez. Don't worry, Tilda, I'll still be the only person rooting for you at this year's Oscars. Fuck Cate Blanchett.

Dare-aoke #2

Tekkonkinkreet - dir. Michael Arias - 2006 - Japan

Yuck. Where to begin? I neglected to mention in my first post that there are other individuals who aren't Mike involved in this project. The notion of watching shitty movies is addictive, what can I say? Before even receiving my second film, I issued a blanket rule for my viewing, one which unfortunately did not apply to this week. I said, "absolutely no fucking animation. No anime, no Disney, no fucking Garfield." I had suspected that the person choosing for me this week was going to give me the ol' knee-in-the-crotch, and boy was I right. Tekkonkinkreet? What the fuck? I don't even know how to pronounce that, nor do I even know what to say about it. Though I gave Mike a real doozy of awfulness (Prey for Rock and Roll with Gina Gershon, Drea de Matteo and Lori Petty!), I'd imagine that his viewing probably went down easier than mine. I can't tell you a single thing about Tekkonkinkreet except that I hated it. Actually, I just hate anime, and there isn't anyone or any film that's going to change that in my mind. I hate children and I hate the way the Japanese think children talk. I hate the way the Japanese animate, and above all, I'm not a fucking wiener with a pot belly and back hair that would be the normal audience for such a film. I know I'm being closed-minded, but anime to me is the sort of thing I don't even dignify with a justification of my hatred, as controversial as that seems. Perhaps I don't even know why I hate it, but let's just say the gods were not looking in my favor when I got my second entry of dare-aoke.

Dare-aoke: Part 1

Good Luck Chuck - dir. Mark Helfrich - 2007 - USA

Good Luck Chuck is the first in a series of blog posts that I will be making throughout the year, in which I'm dared to watch something that I would never choose to watch on my own. My homegirl Mike over at Hetero-erotica was the man responsible for this horrendous viewing party, where I, at least, got my basement cleaned while enduring Dane Cook's feeble attempt at deriving laughs from stupid viewers. I'm looking at its IMDb page right now and if you want an example of how good Good Luck Chuck is, the first two plot keywords listed are "hit in groin" and "non-statutory female-on-male rape." Ya dig? You probably won't here. The laugh-count hit a whopping zero, and when you multiply that by the numbers of breasts seen in the film.... you still get zero. I wish I had more to say here other than, "surprise! this blows!" but if you've ever seen Dane Cook or Jessica Alba before, you'd spot the redundancy in that statement a mile away. I think what astounds me most is how I can't even picture anyone deriving the least bit of enjoyment out of this, but - really - don't help me out with that. Up next week: Boondock Saints (yeah, yuck).