Score

I also added a counter. Exciting. Darryl will love this shit.

Today I picked up my Thai Visa

Today we bought a mosquito net...

And I feel utterly depressed about it.

Boxing Helena

I’ve had a good couple of weeks. I read one of the dullest books in existence (definitely on par with the first ten chapters of Jane Eyre) and then I go ahead and watch one of the stupidest films ever made.

So the first clue that this film was going to be terrible was probably hidden somewhere in the fact that it has been discontinued in the UK since 1995 (having only been released in ’93). In fact, the only place you can now purchase this ridiculous film is on Ebay. From Korea.

I just thought it might be terrible in a good way.

Another clue would be that this film was recommended by one of the girls in my Dad’s office. I guess it really serves me right considering that their desert island top 3 choices are: ‘Bridget Jones’, ‘Atonement’ and...and actually I stopped listening after that killer choice. Their version of the synopsis?

“It’s about a guy who’s obsessed with a girl so he cuts all her limbs off so she can’t leave.”

It sounds suspiciously like ‘Audition’ but I figure an English take on the subject might be quite interesting. The official synopsis:

So the actual film...

Positives:

There were none. Not one. I kind of want you to watch it to try and find a positive, I really do. And the thing is I honestly wanted to like this movie, since my Dad and Jon both thought it was so super terrible, but there was nothing. Mediocre-at-best sets, shoddy camera work and a shitty script. They didn't cock up the dubbing, I suppose.

Negatives:

The male lead was very disappointing. Ugly, bad body / hair / teeth etc. He was no David Duchovny, no he was not.

Nobody could act. Not one person.

The accents. Oh my God. I don’t know who, if anyone, was genuinely British and who was actually American since all the accents were faker than Katie Price’s tits. I’m writing this as a separate point to ‘bad acting’ just to emphasise how incredibly weak both were.

Another thing that made me cringe every time it reared its totally unnecessary little head was the overly obvious imagery surrounding the title. This included: caged birds, a marble Venus statue with no arms and the man (by the end of the film I still didn’t care to remember his name) writing ‘Helena’ on a piece of paper and then drawing rectangles around it. Ooh, symbolic. Fucking hell, it was like one of those shitty poems they made you analyse at GCSE. Only worse.

I also couldn’t work out the genre of this film. It could have gone down the horror route and been a gore film to rival ‘The Devil’s Rejects’ or attempted to be slightly scarier and rip-off one of those late 80’s / early 90’s-style American thrillers; it even had the potential to be classified as a porno with a storyline if they’d tried really hard. But no. It just didn’t fit into any category other than pure, unadulterated shit because they couldn’t commit to one and do it well. Sometimes it bordered on comedy, but thinking about it – I wasted 103 minutes on that film and that just isn’t funny. I have QueryDefs to figure out and program before Tuesday.

I could have ignored all of this though. I could have forgiven all the crappiness and found something encouraging to say (in addition to the superb dubbing) about what I hope was Jennifer Chamber Lynch’s last attempt at directing a feature, had it not been for the abominable finale. The finale where Mr Ugly found out that it was all just a dream.

Sweet merciful fuck I haven’t wanted to write a letter of complaint so badly since a plus-size woman won America’s Next Top Model.

There really was little point to writing all this but I just had to let you know that this is the most catastrophic attempt at making a film of all time and is closely followed by ‘The X-Files 2’ and Bam Margera’s ‘Haggard’.

And in case you were wondering: The Bodyguard won the other day.

Lists

I have a few main thoughts right now:

1) I miss Hong Kong Monopoly and wish Jon was here to lose some more:

2) The following is a definite contender for the title of ‘the worst book I have ever read’. I don’t know what I was thinking when I effectively threw £7.99 down the shitter when I chose that piece of inane rubbish. Rephrase: I don’t know what the cheeky fuckers at Waterstones were thinking when they put it on a table of recommended books alongside ‘Vernon God Little’, ‘American Psycho’, ‘The Wasp Factory’, ‘The Outsiders’, ‘The Great Gatsby’, ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ and a whole load of other totally obvious, totally readable books.

'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' and 'The Garden of the Finzi-Continis' WILL be better. Although, if you've read either and my book-choosing judgement (slash Waterstone's recommendations) is way off again please tell me sooner rather than later.

3) I need to shop more. This season's Agent Provocateur collection was actually good for the first time in about two years. Chanel brooches are cheap and need buying and a patent Louis Louis mini-organiser would be rad. I wouldn't mind a Chanel tote either (but not one of those hideous creations with the huge CC stitched onto the side) and the new Alexander McQueen office dresses are adorable. I will also die when I see someone wearing these in real life:

4) Janice Dickinson's Model Agency is awesome.

5) Getting a 'real job' in a bank when I get back is looking more and more hopeless. One programming in logistics is looking far more likely..

I cannot believe the mess the banks are in. I also cannot believe a certain someone bought a substantial amount of FTSE shares on Friday..

6) If someone wants to take me out for dinner and a film it would be much appreciated. I put all my films in storage and once again am faced with the difficult decision about which of the following to watch tonight while the woman in the flat upstairs walks around and slams doors until the early hours..

a) Planet Terror: one of my favourite films to be released in the last few years. Funny Games (US) was also pretty good, even if it did have Naomi Watts. No Country For Old Men also deserved every Oscar it got.

b) Creepshow: pure awesome. Especially the Father's Day episode, the short with the bloke from the Naked Gun films and the rip-off of Basketcase. Romero is a God.






c) The Office (US), which is easily on par with the UK version. I would be Dwight's Angela any old day of the week.






d) The Breakfast Club: I chose to keep it out of storage instead of Amelie and Life is Beautiful. In hindsight this was a relatively poor choice and one based on the amount of subtitles featured in the film (i.e. the breakfast club has..none).





e) The Bodyguard: shut up.









Please take pity on me and take me out for dinner and a film :)
Japanese is preferable, but at this point I'm willing to take anything.

Planet Terror: I need a dramatic change in my life.

I am worried; not majorly so, but slightly concerned. The past two weeks have seen my online bank balances dwindle severely, yet I’ve pretty much been a hermit. Vivienne Westwood, Supreme, Burberry, Dover Street Market, Bape, Chanel and Selfridges have all been visited (repeatedly), but have Mirella or Sobia? Not once. My priorities feel ever so slightly fucked. I bet they’ll say they don’t mind and not to worry, but it’s pretty lousy of me all the same.

And then there’s always the chance that they won’t say that at all.

So what have I done? I programmed like a madwoman. I watched a tonne of America’s Next Top Model, Project Runway and the American Office, I read a couple more Murakami books and I ate a tonne of Japanese food. I went to party in Southampton but for one reason or another it didn’t go like it should have. I accumulated a lot of things that have made my wardrobe grow like crazy. Aside from spending a load of time with Jon I haven’t really done a whole tonne of important stuff. We are still living in Ealing without actually owning a property (despite Jon and I sleeping on the floor I do not have a problem with this; my Mother does – we’re in a flight path).

I’m going away for sixth months and I am terrified. Jon and I went to Tokyo again this summer; I couldn’t find my way out of the tube station. Jon is offering pretty tempting odds that I come back dead. I’m guessing if it’s not the Japanese encephalitis that gets me, it’ll be getting shot crossing a no-go border or something equally stupid that someone with a normal amount of common sense wouldn’t ever consider. Regardless, I’m taking this as my self-made wakeup call, not that I need a wake-up call to realise that I miss my friends terribly after ‘only’ two weeks.

I type too much but somehow manage to say very little. The sand from my camera is getting brushed off and I’m going to start using that bad boy here instead.

Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica. We should go share a semi-expensive bottle of wine before I go. No fighting.

P.S: this month it would be nice to have –

A Burberry dress, Atwood pumps & Ron Ron Louboutins. A guide to Vista would also be useful. It’s a sad day when a computer science graduate has to ask how to print a Word document.