Nyotaimori

(kabui 8, with christine and maggie)

the thing about this movie is that it was homophobic, racist, and mean. just plain mean. sure, it’s in the title and you should expect it, but those girls were just awful, and when the main character, the one you’re supposed to be rooting for theoretically, becomes a horrible person you’re kind of left with nothing to appease you in the film. it was detrimental to the plot. and speaking of the plot, where was it? lame excuse for a plot really.

then there was the bus thing from felicity and final destination. clincher. stupid. maybe not for people who didn’t see it used in felicity or FD, and maybe it’s a ploy used in other visual media before those, but either way it equaled lame.

and then the trite moralistic ending coming during the mathelites competition was completely ignorable. her voice over about problems and answers and the moment, balanced against the guy dressed up as a girl on the other team (presumably for funding reasons) was just a pathetic attempt to win us back over with her conversion. but words in one ear and out the other, no attention was being paid by me at that point to anything she said.

and why, but oh why, did the boy take her in the end? heh. i really quite like lindsay lohan, (as i’ve said before), but i didn’t particularly like her in this.

(international film festival, san francisco, kabuki 8, 4/27/04, 5:45 pm, with jason and laura)

camels! yurts! mongolia!

also sheep and cats and deer and goats. this movie was fucking sweet like a menagerie.

the camels have pierced noses. ouch. but that’s nothing compared to birthing a baby camel. shown in all its more horrifying detail. see, for a while i thought it was a breach birth, but i think in the end either the baby was just too big, or the mother was just lazy. i think it was her first birth. anyway, the baby wouldn’t come out. eventually the yurt dwellers are trying to pull it out and they get it out mostly and wipe the goo off its nose and mouth so it can breathe. and the mother is just kind of laying there with this baby half-in and half-out of her vagina. finally the baby starts trying to get out the rest of the way, right? so its kicking the mom’s uterus with its back feet trying to propel itself forward. blood and birthing fluids everywhere! kicking the uterus! i’m never giving birth!

there’s not much talking in this movie. mostly they just go about their camel, sheep, goat tending duties. there’s 3 little kids. CUTE. they tie the little girl to a pole in the yurt so she can’t go getting into trouble. and then they gave her a pot and spoon to bang on. thus cementing my theory that all little kids, whether in mongolia or the US can be pacified with a spoon and bowl. it’s the banging noise. and the way it vibrates. fuck, i love me some spoon hitting bowl music.

um. anyway the point of this movie is that it’s a fake documentary. the family in it act out what a normal month or so for them would be like. so the movie is made with the cooperation of the family and the film-makers (first timers from sweden or somewhere) film stuff. the plot is that this camel gives birth to a white camel (which is a good omen) but then refuses to suckle it. so the family tries all these different ways to make the mother feed her baby and keep failing. and they think the baby will die (also its anus drips nasty looking liquids. yes. i watched it.) so finally they send the two boys to town via camel-riding to bring back the violin player. the violin player can make beautiful music and there is this little mini-ritual to impress the cosmos upon the camel mother to give it a sense of civic duty. or at least of motherhood. and then she cries.

and they all live happily ever after. especially the yurt residents who get a tv and huge satellite reception thing. presumably for having hosted these film-makers. so see, even in the middle of the mongolian desert you can be connected by tv to the rest of the world. you might have violinists and weeping camels, but we can indoctrinate you with crap programming to be just as unoriginal as the rest of us.

(International Film Festival, San Francisco, Kabuki 8, 4/26/04, 6:15pm, with Kristen)

the premise of this movie was already so wonderful, that i was won over before even having seen it. it’s a documentary about stunt women, in particular the ones who did stunts for wonder woman and xena warrior princess. obviously i invited kristen to this. she loves wonder woman. i love xena wp. it was like a match made in heaven. and then we met zoe.

zoe bell is the pretty, young thing who did all the stunts for xena. oh man. kristen and i fell for her completely. and then she was there at the end walking on her hands and being all slightly tipsy and kiwi at us. sigh.

ok. but this movie was edited superbly with the going back and forth between zoe on set with zena and jeannie epper (stuntwoman for wonder woman who is now older and trying to find work and/or become a stunt coordinator). the dichotomy between young and old and the abilities of each was set off nicely. and then, of course, the two were brought together as zena completed it’s last season (zoe in a flaming dress going thru a wall) and zoe decides to come to the states to try to find work. so jeannie and zoe become friends and jeannie helps zoe to get a job (ready!? drum roll!) as uma thurman’s double in kill bill!

at the end of the movie there was a question and answer period with the director (amanda micheli), zoe, and jeannie. during the final filming of kill bill, zoe broke her arm and so she didn’t get to kill bill, which still rankled quite a bit with her as she talked about all the work for that movie and then she didn’t even get to kill him. it was adorable. also she said, “i wasn’t even capable of wiping my ass, let alone walking on my hands.” this after she showed us that she could walk on her hands again. she’d only managed that for the first time that week. she was a dirty mouthed, muscled, tanned, blonde new zealand girl. and i loved her.

as an introduction to what the lives of female stunt doubles are like, this movie was awesome. so if you’re interested in xena, some behind the scenes footage of the fighting in kill bill 1, or swearing, i recommend this movie.

i took a lot of notes during this movie. but i don’t really have much to say about it. i didn’t like it as much as the first one. it was more expositional and, hence, boring. it dragged in places with the slow blah blah blah. nothing could really compare with the fight scene in japan with the crazy 88’s and lucy liu.

the scene in the coffin, for example, went on wayyyyy to long. at first it was all creepy what with the being buried alive. but then it was just breathing in the dark. the chinese kung fu master…well it was certainly central to the plot, but it was completely absent from the first one and its induction in this one seemed like a slightly non-exact puzzle piece turned on its side and glued in. with paste. the kind that dissolves in water. all right now i’m just being picky and overzealous.

it was good. parts of it were good. i think that really i just need to see it again. it’s a movie which needs to be appreciated not loved at first sight like the first one.