Samurai Bip-Bop

I recently finished watching Samurai Champloo. It took me forever to watch it all, mostly because I didn't enjoy it all that much, but being a Shinichirō Watanabe show I simply had to give it an honest chance. Cowboy Bebop is easily my all-time favorite anime series. Everything about it just screams coolness, so I had pretty high hopes for Watanabe's next project. I guess I just like science fiction and jazz more than samurais and hip hop. Cowboy Bebop was fun and colorful and imaginative and it had lots of cool ideas and outrageous characters and cool music. Samurai Champloo is mostly about people wearing kimonos and fighting with swords. Sure, every few episodes you get something cool, but mostly I didn't find it all that interesting. You don't even get a threesome in the end! Sure, we all know that Mugen likes them a little more voluptuous than Fuu, but he could do a lot worse. I think the show is just too Japanese for its own good. I even took the time to read the rather lengthy translator's notes that came with the episodes, but those just left me even more bored and confused. I think that these days it's a lame idea to make something that only people from one specific country can appreciate. The best thing about the world today is that if you make something special enough, you can reach anybody on the planet, in a way that ignores the concept of physical distance completely. When you put so much time and effort into creating something that only a relatively small group of people can enjoy, it's like you're putting that great big wall up again around yourself, not giving your creation a fair chance to get out there and touch the rest of humanity. I dunno. Maybe it's just me. I just really like the idea of stories and characters that could take place anywhere. Like, my least favorite brand of humor is the atrocity known as "ethnic humor". Whether it be black, Jewish, Greek, Italian or Iranian, ethnic humor is NOT FUNNY. It's always the same thing! "My family is so crazy! It's nothing like regular (i.e. caucasian) families! My mother is so overbearing! Our women are so different from other women! Regular people all have big splintery sticks up their butts, but we're all warm and authentic and we always get our way in the end!" The same exact crap, over and over again. It's so easy to do that most stand-up comedians who can get away with it don't even bother to try anything else. I guess what I'm trying to say is that people all over the world who have the ability to create really cool stuff should do so in a way that I can fully enjoy, otherwise I may get a little cranky. And nobody likes a whiny Jew. Ha ha! Us Jews sure are whiny! Sigh.

Michelle Monaghan doesn't have anything to do with Samurai Champloo.

Yesterday I watched Eagle Eye. I don't have much to say about it, other than that Michelle Monaghan is absolutely adorable. I love it how HD makes certain pretty ladies look even prettier. That's some very lovely skin she's got wrapped around herself. It was pretty hard to feel even a little sorry for Shia LaBeouf's character for having to hang with someone who looks like her. Also, from certain angles she looks border line retarded, which I totally dig. You gotta love dumb chicks. If it wasn't for them, there would be a whole lot more sex-starved dudes out there, running around and punching stuff. And we really don't need any more of those.

A smile is cheaper than a bullet. It can also hurt a lot more

Yesterday I went to see District 9, directed by Neill Blomkamp and starring a bunch of South African actors with weird South African accents. I absolutely loved it! Before I went into the theater I had two problems with the film's basic premise. The first was that I don't really like documentaries, or fake ones for that matter (more on that after the cute Prawn picture). Getting your point across through a series docu-style mock interviews just seems like a lazy way to do so. It's like the creators admit that they don't really have an interesting story or compelling characters, so all they're going to show you is a bunch of random scenes representing a bunch of random ideas they came up with in the shower one morning. The second thing that bothered me was that I don't really like science fiction that relies too much on allegories to current issues. I know allegories are the backbone of modern sci-fi, but when you lay it on too thick (interplanetary racial segregation in South Africa? how subtle!) it tends to get way too preachy in a very obvious way. I also feel that this brand of sci-fi storytelling is sort of apologetic, like, "yes, we're making a movie with aliens and spaceships, but it's nothing like all those other cheesy aliens and spaceships movies, this one is actually about important stuff!" Science fiction is a time honored genre in and of itself, and should be dealt with with pride, not embarrassment.
Thankfully, District 9 gets over those two points rather quickly, and so did I, and very happily so. It starts off as a docu-style sort of thing, but within about half an hour, after it's done setting up all you need to know about the world that the story takes place in, it turns into a very cool, very smart and extremely enjoyable action/sci-fi movie, never losing that dirty sense of reality, which is really really neat. The directing is excellent, the special effects are scary-real (both CG and practical), and Sharlto Copley does a very good job playing Wikus Van De Merwe, the lead character who starts off as an annoyingly cheerful Flight of the Conchords' Murray-type dork, and ends up as something quite different. And I really like the "humans are evil" vibe throughout the whole movie. I've been saying that for years! I totally want to see District 9 again, and I totally will.

meow?

Now, documentaries are not movies. I hate it when people refer to them as 'films'. If a documentary is a film, then a 3 minute TV news story is a short film, and every evening news edition is a short film anthology. That's the sort of doublespeak I loathe wholeheartedly. When you shoot a movie, you're creating something. When you shoot a documentary, you're just documenting. Walking around and pointing your camera at stuff does not make you a filmmaker in any way. If it did, every other asshole out there with a camphone would be calling themselves a filmmaker. Which I guess is already the case. Hmm.

Just suppose

OK, suppose, just suppose, that there's this actor you really really like. I mean, really like. And suppose you like him so much, that you want to see more movies or TV shows that he's been in. The problem is, you have no idea how to find that kind of stuff. See, you don't even know his name, or anything about him for that matter. You just know what he looks like, and that he's awesome, and that you'd like to see more of him. Suppose you've only seen him once or twice, under such conditions that there's nothing that be used to reveal any more details about him, and that it happened years ago. But oh no, you haven't forgotten about him, not even a little, not even a decade later. Every once in a while you still reflect on those memories of him from long ago, and smile to yourself. One day I shall see him again, you tell yourself, holding onto a couple of old photos of him you've managed to keep around all this time, photos that are completely untraceable. Years go by, and still there's no sign of him. Suppose you very nearly lose all hope, until one day, while flipping through the channels on your TV, you come across a scene in a movie or a TV show in which this lost actor is playing alongside another actor, one that you also know and like, and this being late 2009, you use your moderately efficient googling skills and finally find out what his name is, how old he is, and pretty much anything else you've been dying to find out since like forever! Now you can watch pretty much anything he's ever been on, enjoying his entertaining style of acting, his fascinating facial expressions and pleasant speaking voice as long as you shall live! And you don't even mind that weird little mole on his butt! It's not like you get to see much of it anyway, it's only visible when he's bending over or lifting his legs up so you could see his full anus and VJ, and there's so much more of him to like than just that, way more! Oh, happy days are finally here again!

Now, suppose all that happened to you, sort of, with just a few minor changes. Wouldn't that be so friggin' cool you could just explode???

This flesh puppet sure feels snug around my arm

Yesterday I went to see Gamer, starring Gerard Butler and Michael C. Hall and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. I really liked it! It's kinda dumb and the story isn't very original and the action scenes suffer from that annoying Shaky Cam effect, but it's loads and loads and loads of good, sleazy fun. Gamer is about a game in which players control real people in real combat situations, but that's not really important, because who cares about a story in a fun action flick? The action scenes are pretty fun, even though most of the time you can't really tell what's going on. What I really liked about it was the portrayal of the future in which the plot takes place. It looks so pretty and scary and evil! You get giant advertisements on everything, including the pyramids, you get the most annoying teenagers the universe has ever seen, and a Second Life-type game where the morbidly obese and morbidly geeky get to live through a bunch of pretty people dressed in funny costumes, who pretty much just walk around and party all the time and whore their own bodies out for a paycheck. It was also really nice to finally get a sci-fi (sort of) action movie with an R rating, which means real graphic violence and sexuality and plenty of boobs to go around. PG-13 movies are an abomination. It's like, here's a movie that's clearly meant for adults (otherwise it would've been rated PG), but we'll tone down the violence and sexuality and language so we can maximize our potential audience and be able to advertise more. Well, not with Gamer, thank gawd. This is the sort of movie that makes you feel dirty all over, like you've just made out with a middle-aged $5 blowjob crack whore, which I totally dig. It's also got the creepiest musical number I've ever seen in an action movie! Gerard Butler does an OK job as the main character, mostly just repeating his 300 bits, only with big guns. Michael C. Hall is as cool as ever as the adorable villain, the insane billionaire who came up with the mind control tech. He's just awesome in Dexter, and he's totally banging his TV-sister in real life, so yay Michael! Alison Lohman is a little older than I am, but she still looks and sounds like a teenager. Good for her. Too bad she has such a non-role here, with most of her personality showing through her dreadlocks. I've always sort of hated Kyra Sedgwick, so I guess it makes sense that she's playing a talk show hostess. Talk show hostesses are a repulsive bunch. I've heard rumors that Ellen DeGeneres used to be sort of funny, before she turned into the horror that she is today. I find it pretty hard to believe.

Alison Lohman. The stinkier the hair, the tougher the broad

Setting other similarities aside, both Surrogates and Gamer feature scenes in which incredibly fat slobs are remote controlling attractive young ladies in order to live out their fantasies. In Surrogates it's a robot chick, in Gamer it's somebody's mom. Having a fat guy pose online as a hot chick is like the biggest internet cliché ever. On the other hand, I guess it's a cliché for a reason. Everybody knows that eating too much makes you wish you had a vagina, because fat women can be plump and voluptuous, while fat dudes are just plain disgusting. Stupid lucky gender.

Benny in search of the devil's touch

That's the last one!

Grumpy - away!

Yesterday I watched Land of the Lost in 720p. I was going to start by saying that I watched it without any previous knowledge of the franchise, other than viewing the 1974 show's intro on YouTube once, which seemed incredibly dumb to me. However, while looking through YouTube today I came across the intro of the 1991 version, and then it hit me. Back in the early '90s, I was actually a pretty big fan of the show, a fact that I completely forgot until 24 hours after I watched the movie. Not only is the theme song ridiculously catchy (with lines like "We've opened the door / and found dinosaurs" and "'Cause some tyrannosaurus / could be hungry for-us") but the creature effects are just spectacular, even by today's standards, which I guess is the main reason why I liked it so much as a kid. The effects were created by the Chiodo brothers, who also created the creepy clowns in Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and the animatronics looked as good as only early '90s animatronics could look. Anyway, I really liked the new Land of the Lost movie. I didn't used to care much for Will Ferrell, until I realized that after three or four beers his movies become pretty enjoyable. This movie, however, did not require booze of any kind for me to like it. Any movie that's got dinosaurs and isn't a kids' movie is fine by me, especially one with such cool looking sci-fi/fantasy elements. It's also sort of funny, in an obvious SNL-ish sort of way. Now, what really sets this movie apart is its most special of special effects, meaning the pure and awesome loveliness that is Miss Anna Friel. I totally fell for her ever since I watched the first episode of Pushing Daisies, and my love for her grows deeper and deeper every day I find a new topless photo of her. She sure looks purdy with no shirt on. Land of the Lost was the first time I've ever seen her in high resolution video, and her delightfully freckled skin and overall adorableness absolutely mesmerized me, with her running around in a tank top and short shorts, getting her boobs felt up by humans and apes alike and getting sprayed all over with dino drool, which to me looked suspiciously similar to a gigantic load of man goo. Gawd bless whoever came up with the idea to cover Anna Friel with gooey slime. It's such a lovely image I could cry, maybe even out of my eyes. There's a movie called Niagara Motel that's been sitting in my hard drive for a few months now, but I keep putting off watching it, because it's got several scenes that feature her boobs, which could make watching the movie sort of, well, complicated. Seriously, someday, someone should make it illegal to be this hot. It's unnatural and ungodly and it makes regular people want things they could never ever have, not in a million years. Caroline Dhavernas is also in Niagara Motel, playing a hooker or something, but that's a whole other crush, and an equally powerful one.

Anna Friel, wearing clothes

Land of the Lost was never released in theaters here, which is a real shame. For some reason, they almost never release Will Ferrell movies here. Weird. I guess no one payed much attention to the fact that in one of the last scenes in the movie you can see the Israeli Moran Atias playing some kind of primitive chick and showing a generous amount of sideboob. Film distributors here are dumb. Sigh.

Benny in search of the main stream

I'm gonna suck your brain dry

Today I watched Scanners on DVD, directed by David Cronenberg. Yup, another Canadian sci-fi thriller! You gotta love those wacky Canadians. They look like Americans, they talk like Americans, they even live in North America, but they're not Americans! And some of them even choose to speak French! That's just insane. Anyway, in today's Canadian sci-fi thriller we get an underground group of Scanners, who are people with telepathic abilities, and a big security corporation that tries to weaponize them. Or maybe it's the other way around? Could be, could be. Scanners is a classic early Cronenberg, with lots of creepy Howard Shore music and weird gore and bad acting. Stephen Lack, who plays the leading character, is just awful. Boring and awful. Maybe his fish-like facial expressions and monotonous voice are supposed to convey the character's alienation from society, but I wouldn't bet on it. Thankfully, most of the other main characters are portrayed in much more interesting ways. Michael Ironside, playing the evil Scanner guy, is as awesome as ever. I totally believe he's a psychopath, and that he can make my head explode whenever he feels like it. He's even got both hands here! He's so friggin' cool and scary it's not even remotely funny. If I had a vagina I'd totally develop a big fat crush on him. Robert Silverman, a regular actor in Cronenberg's films, also known as Creepy Comb-Over Guy, is as creepy as usual, playing the weird artistic Scanner. Some of the sculptures in his exhibition are actually really really good! I've always loved it how they go inside the giant head to have a conversation. There should be way more horror art in museums, instead of that boring let's-put-a-big-lump-of-foam-rubber-on-the-floor-and-call-it-art crap. Surpassing even those two is the almighty Patrick McGoohan, of The Prisoner fame! He's totally dreamy, even with a white beard. If I had a vagina, Mr. McGoohan probably wouldn't want to have anything to do with me when I finally get to meet him in doggy heaven. He (almost) never acted in romantic scenes, and when asked by a director once to kiss an actress on camera, he replied: "Kissing? The only person Patrick McGoohan does that with is Mrs. McGoohan." That's what I always say about kissing! The only person Ben Coleslaw does that with is Mrs. Coleslaw. And by Mrs. Coleslaw, I obviously mean my cat. Cats are very kissable, because they don't judge you and they don't try to make you feel like crap on purpose.

Ouch.

I'm watching The Prisoner on DVD these days. I own the British 40th anniversary edition, that has been completely restored from original film elements and looks absolutely fantastic, and even comes with a paperback book about the production of the series. The Blu-ray version is coming out later this month, and if I had a decent home theater system I would have totally pre-ordered it. The Prisoner was an awesome show that only a brilliant nutjob like McGoohan could ever pull off. May his crazy soul rest in peace.

Benny in search of the not so long pig

Natali is a girl's name!

Today I watched Cypher, a Canadian sci-fi thriller directed by Vincenzo Natali (of Cube fame) and starring a bunch of cool Canadian actors and one Lucy Liu in a red wig. The movie tells the story of a dorky, boring guy who starts a new job as a corporate spy of sorts, mostly recording boring lectures at boring conferences. Only what the people who hired him really want is for him to get a job at the rival company and become a secret agent. Or do they? Maybe it's the second company who made the first company hire him in the first place, and they want him as a double agent? Could be. Or perhaps some other spy dude with no allegiance to anyone in particular is responsible for the whole brainwashing mess our hero got himself into? Who knows! And like that's not enough, you also get a weird chick who keeps ordering him around and asking him to trust her, like anyone can really trust someone they're attracted to. Well, the result is simply one of the most awesome movies I've seen lately. It's almost like a Philip K. Dick novel coming to life and looking very very pretty. There's not a lot of action in it, and some of the CG special effects look pretty fake, but that's hardly the point here. It's very smart, very sleek and never boring, and for a relatively low budget film that was never really screened in North American theaters it looks just terrific, with some really interesting designs and very cool color schemes (the first part of the movie looks almost completely desaturated, but when you do get some color it just pops out of your screen). Jeremy Northam does a very good job playing the main character, and I completely bought his performance the whole time. I don't find Lucy Liu particularly attractive, but she does look weird enough to play the role of the mysterious femme fatale with adequate success. David Hewlett (Cube, Natali's Nothing) is always fun to see, despite the small size of his role here. The few minutes he's on screen are some of the most creepy and tense moments in the whole film. I really like Vincenzo Natali. Cube was a brilliant little picture, but everybody knows that, and Nothing was a really fun little surreal fantasy comedy that was never fully appreciated, so I'm kinda kicking myself for waiting this long to watch Cypher. Splice, Natali's latest film, came out in North America last month, but I doubt it'll ever be shown here in cinemas. I really really really want to see it though. It's got the adorable Sarah Polley (yum!), Adrien Brody, and a horribly deformed genetically spliced mutant! It just doesn't get much cooler than that. Oh well. I guess that's what gawd invented 720p downloads for.

David Hewlett being crazy-cool

I've already ordered a copy of Cypher on DVD, along with Repo! The Genetic Opera. I love cool musicals. Too bad there are so few of them out there. I can count The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and now Repo. That's three. They should really make more musicals that aren't just for broads and poofs.

Benny in search of the magical crack

This is why I hate kids

Today I watched Joshua on DVD, a horror family drama starring Sam Rockwell and the lovely Vera Farmiga, who unfortunately looks here like a total mess. It tells the story of a creepy 9 year old boy named Joshua. When his mother gives birth to a baby girl, Joshua starts getting even creepier and scarier, as he decides to drive his family completely insane, and much worse. I really like this movie! It's really scary in a very real way, without resorting to too many traditional horror elements. Young Jacob Kogan is literally the creepiest kid ever. I totally believe that he's evil. Or rather, more so than most children who play musical instruments. Having a child like Joshua is truly the ultimate nightmare of any movie parent. Sam Rockewell does a decent job at playing the father, but it's Vera Farminga's (what an awesome name!) performance that really shines here. Her character's descent into madness, aided by young Joshua, is utterly convincing and very nearly terrifying. We do get a little boobage from her, but it's all breast pump-related, which is pretty gross. Turning a person into a dairy cow is just disgusting. The whole idea of pregnancy disgusts me. If I was a sexually active female, I'd get my tubes tied as soon as possible. Why would anyone want to do that to her own body is beyond me. It's not like the resulting product is such a big prize, as Joshua clearly demonstrates. Babies are noisy and smelly and they always want your attention, either to feed them or to get rid of their feces for them. It's a vicious cycle of putting stuff into them and removing their waste, without getting anything worthwhile in the process. And as if that's not enough to drive you crazy, after a couple of years the little brats start to learn how to talk, which leads to even more noise and more disobedience. And I don't even want to think about what it must be like to raise teenagers in your own home, slimy little demons that they are. Other than having someone to maybe look after you when you're old and senile, I can't think of even one good reason to have children. For me, one of the morals of Joshua is that people with mental disorders shouldn't have children. People with severe mental problems should be neutered or spayed immediately. If my children are meant to have the same problems that I had as a child, as a teenager or as an adult, I think they'd be much better off not having been born in the first place. Besides, I hate the way I look, so how could I ever love something that looks like me? Thank gawd that parenting has never been a real option for me. Can't make babies on your own, not really. Believe me, I've tried like a million times, with no results to speak of.

Vera Farmiga, not looking like a used tissue

Other than the foot cutting scene, the scariest part of the movie for me was when Joshua mutilates his own stuffed bear. Stuffed animal mutilation is not cool. Stuffed animals are people too, you know. I know plenty of human beings who have a head full of cotton wool, and you don't see anyone slashing at them with scissors in movies. If Joshua wasn't such a good film, I'd totally ban it for containing graphic scenes of stuffed animal abuse. But it is. So I won't.

Benny in search of the incredible sucking machine

Floater chicks are totally hot

Today I watched Battle for Terra (aka Terra), an animated indie sci-fi film directed by French Canadian Aristomenis Tsirbas, and I actually really liked it! It was screened here in Israel in 3D, but only in Hebrew, so I didn't bother to go see it back then. Today I watched it in 720p and wished that film distributors here weren't so dumb. See, most of the characters in this movie may look like they came out of a TV cartoon for kids, but that was more of a budget thing. The truth is, Battle for Terra is not a kids' movie in any way, and I find it hard to understand how could any small child enjoy it for real. The film tells the story of a peaceful alien planet that faces a hostile invasion by what is left of humanity, after the destruction of all the inhabitable planets in the solar system. It's quite an odd mix of old and new ideas, of things we've seen a gazillion times before and more than a few that we have not. While the main confrontation is way too simplistic, having cute, peaceful and artistic aliens on the one hand and a bunch of mean ol' humans on the other, led by an evil military dude who looks suspiciously similar to George W., the film does bring up some interesting points about how brutal survival can be, demonstrated by the sort of scene you'd be hard pressed to find in any of the big studio animated movies of the last decade. Unlike the pop culture reference hysteria that is every lame Shrek clone out there, there's very little humor to Battle for Terra, which only works in its advantage. There's a real sense of danger, a sense of desperation, and people (both human and alien) do get killed. One character even commits suicide in a final heroic feat. Disregarding character design and character animation, the film is simply beautiful to behold. The alien planet, the natives' city, the flora and the fauna, are all beautifully designed, and the big battle scenes are just as awesome. Originally, the film was supposed to be shot in live-action with photo-real CGI, but the small budget and large scale of the story made that impossible. Too bad. It would've been very interesting to see what could have been done if more money had been put into it. I suppose that the character design sort of grew on me as the film progressed, but that still doesn't mean it's very good. The film sports a celebrity voice cast of a sort, led by the delicious Evan Rachel Wood. The voice work is OK, but there's nothing too spectacular about it, as expected from actors who aren't professional voice artists. Despite its basic flaws, I very much enjoyed Battle for Terra, and I look forward to seeing much more indie animation in the future that would go much, much further than the usual crap we get in theaters these days.


In other news: I walked by a dentist clinic today and got a strong whiff of that icky dentist clinic smell, which kinda ruined my mood. I hate dentists. If I would ever want someone's fist inside my body, I would look for a nice clean hooker and pay her to do it, not some creepy old geezer with latex gloves and a surgical mask.

Benny in search of the sweetest infection

HD stinks. Sometimes.

Since my ADSL connection was upgraded to 2.5Gb/s, I've been downloading more and more content in HD. Most of it looks pretty awesome, but there's one area that seems to suffer from this evolution in home video technology. When Blu-ray and HD-DVD (may its soul rest in peace) were introduced a couple of years ago, there was an outrage in the pornography industry. At the time it seemed pretty silly to me, but now that I've had several experiences with high definition pornography I'm sorry to say that the fear was completely justified. Disregarding realistic amateur content (among other sick stuff I have absolutely no interest in), the porn industry is all about selling fantasy to the homely masses. It's all about highly attractive people, engaging in highly attractive sexual acts. And HD ruins it all. See, the one thing we don't want to know is that porn actresses are real people. Because real people are made of flesh and skin and bones. They have skin imperfections. Pimples. Rashes. Scars. Infected wounds. Moles. Indentations from leaning on the wrong thing. Unsightly hair, as well as stubble in awkward places. Acne scars. Evidence of piercing gone wrong. Stretch marks. Teeth that aren't all that perfect. Under-eye bags. The list goes on and on. In standard definition video you can't really see most of these problems, and in high resolution still photos they can all be easily fixed, but HD always gives you the truth, the kind you can't even cover with makeup. And what's the point of watching someone having sex on your screen if they're just as human, just as flawed as you are? The image below is a full resolution partial capture from a 720p source. One can only imagine what it must look like in full HD, which is twice as detailed. I think I'm going to lay off HD porn for the time being. I'd like my favourite porn chicks to remain the goddesses that they are, at least in my mind. Virtually no one is as dear to me as they are, and I'd like to keep it that way. Why is that, you ask? Stay tuned after this extremely sexy image to read an example of why I've given up on living, breathing human females a long time ago.

An incredibly hot chick's left ass cheek

There's this farmers' market by the beach here that I like to go to, but I haven't been there in over three months. Yesterday we went and bought a bunch of stuff, like persimmons and figs and purple carrots and a pitaya. The two things I like most about the market is the beer stand and the hummus stand. The beer comes from a little local brewery and is very good and makes me sort of happy, at least for a short while, and the hummus comes from a little organic restaurant, and it's literally the best hummus I have ever had inside my mouth. So I'm at the hummus stand, asking for a "large" container of hummus from the adorable little chickiepoo who sells it. I've seen her there maybe two or three times before, but those were all over three months ago. I remember that the last time I was there she had offered me a taste of the hummus on a little piece of pitta, but I declined the offer (because her job entails handling money, which is filthy, which means her fingers are usually pretty dirty too), which I immediately regretted, because how often do I get to eat something touched by such a pretty, cool-looking young woman? So yesterday she's getting some hummus into the container (I couldn't help noticing how she placed her finger inside the container before filling it, which was both thrilling and disgusting) when suddenly she asks me a question. The question was, do I reheat the hummus at home (they serve it warm, fresh from the pot). My first response was, no, I'm eating it right here, by the water. As I felt that this statement made me sound both fat and lonely, I immediately corrected myself and said that "*we're* eating it here". This was obviously a total lie, and I'm pretty sure it made me seem even sadder. Then I asked, why, is there a problem with reheating it at home? To which she replied, no, there isn't, I've just noticed how you've been buying here hummus regularly and wondered what you do with it, because a lot of people think you can't reheat it at home. Then I took a couple of plastic forks (when all I really needed was one) and left. This very brief encounter has charged me up for quite a long time. I know that having the appearance of a connection with you customer is the basis of good salesmanship and that it didn't mean anything, but I couldn't get over the fact that I had had something that was sort of like a conversation with an attractive young female, who has actually noticed and remembered me, which for me is a pretty incredible scenario. I wish I could have said something cool like "hey baby, could you please tell me your name, so that later when I'm thinking about you while I'm masturbating in my single bed I'll know what to mumble happily?" On the other hand, I'm pretty grateful that I can't actually say stuff like that out loud to another person. So given my basic lack of social skills when it comes to people of the female persuasion, anyone can clearly see that getting an actual girlfriend, the kind you can take out to a movie and touch and fight with, is just not something I'm capable of. Anyway. Here's to you, cute hummus girl. In my stupid little world, you definitely get this week's "Gawd I Wanted to Bang Her" award.

Yum!

Benny in search of the perfect view

Fun with lung cancer

Yesterday I finished watching the second season of Breaking Bad, created by Vince Gilligan and starring the brilliant Bryan Cranston. I absolutely love Breaking Bad! It's all about a lowly high school chemistry teacher who gets lung cancer and so in an effort to raise money for his treatments as well as for the future of his family he turns to manufacturing drugs, crystal meth to be specific, assisted by an old stoner student of his. The first season ended after only seven episodes, with a really mean cliff hanger that left me itchy all over. This time we got a full 13 episode season, which tied most of the loose ends from the previous season and then went on to even awesomer heights. It's brutally honest and very dark, in a real-life suburban kind of way. I can't even begin to describe Bryan Cranston's work on the show. I've always liked him in that Malcolm show (have you heard about how the kid from that show was recently arrested for slicing off a hooker's left ass cheek with a chainsaw while he was high on Benadryl?), but that was nothing compared to the level of craft he displays on Breaking Bad. He *is* Walter White. I don't think I'll ever be able to accept him in any other role. It truly is the role of a lifetime. I wish Mr. White could've been my high school chemistry teacher, instead of that fat anal retentive asshole who forbade the use of correction fluid in our notebooks and gave us insanely long multiple choice tests. Hell, I'd have probably hated chemistry class anyway. A chemistry lab is a pretty scary place when you have an acute fear of sinks. Aaron Paul is pretty good as Jesse the stoner, who gets an especially hard time this season, being the show's main punching bag. I guess that's what you get for having a fried egg for a brain. Dean Norris is pretty entertaining as Walter's DEA brother-in-law, a very familiar character actor whom I can't really recall seeing anywhere specific. This season Jesse got a new apartment that came equipped with an adorable little landlady, played by the lovely Krysten Ritter. Cute, isn't she? Too bad she won't be reprising her role in the third season. Choking to death on your own vomit with a needle in your arm can do that to a character.

Krysten Ritter, not pretending to be a corpse

I can't really take anything that doesn't have a complaint hotline number on the label, so recreational drugs that are currently illegal are pretty much out of the question. For now, beer works just fine for me. As long as there's enough of it, I'm good. Sort of.

Benny in search of his daily obsession

I too am not much fun when I'm hungry

Today I watched The Incredible Hulk on DVD, and I liked it just as much as I did when it came out in theaters. Not the most cerebral film ever, but an extremely enjoyable 110 minute ride. It starts in Brazil, homeland of the world-famous bright yellow drink (now with 60% more blood!), made exclusively by the two biggest stereotypes of Brazil: scary assholes who call white people 'gringos', and crazy-hot chicks with big round butts. I don't usually like drinking human blood. You can get diseases from it and stuff. Once the army tracks down the narrator guy from Fight Club we finally get to see the new Hulk design, and it is a sight to be seen! I kinda liked the first Hulk movie, the one directed by the guy with the funny eyes who usually makes movies about gay cowboys eating pudding. Sure, it has its faults, but come on, how can you not like a movie about a giant green guy who goes ape shit every time someone looks at him funny? And there were giant mutant dogs, and that drunk who played the Hulk's dad, and that purdy Labyrinth chick, so there's actually a lot to like about it. The Hulk itself, however, was a bit of a letdown, and it has nothing to do with technology. It's the design that was just not good enough, because it made the hulk look like a whiny little pussy instead of a comic book hero. Thankfully, the new 2008 design fixed all that. The new Hulk is pure awesomeness. His skin tone is more realistic, his hair is cooler, his body is veinier, his face is meaner, and everything about him screams pure GRRRRRRR! Really great stuff. Ed Norton does an OK job playing the scrawny pink version of the hulk, but it's obvious that his heart isn't really into it. Liv Tyler is very pretty, but I'd hate to think what would happen to her the day she stops being so. William Hurt and Tim Roth are both awesome, as usual (be sure to check out Mr. Hurt in a serial killer movie called Mr. Brooks. Sure, it's a Kevin Costner movie, but it's actually really really good!). And the Abomination design is just incredible, with bones sticking out under his skin in every direction. Very creepy stuff. Scaaaaary. I haven't noticed Lou Ferrigno the first time I saw the movie, which means I'm really dumb. I remember watching the TV show back in the '80s, but I don't remember much about it other than the fact that every once in a while some big green dude would run around smashing stuff.

A can of peas, anyone?

Two things I've learned from The Incredible Hulk: first, anything you put in your mouth, you better be ready to poop it out the other end. And if you're planning on gaining weight, it pays to invest in stretchy pants. And yes, turning your rage into muscle mass still counts as gaining weight. Next time someone comments about my weight I'll just say that I'm not fat, I just have the radiation-induced ability to convert boredom into body mass. That should work nicely.

Benny in search of his bitter mistress

Hungarian Meat is murder

Today I watched Taxidermia, a Hungarian film directed by György Pálfi, based on short stories by Lajos Parti Nagy. Here are the three basic rules of making foreign (non-English) films: first, you need to have a bunch of really long sequences where absolutely nothing in happening, especially not people talking. Then, you need to have several really long monologues that are supposed to be meaningful and thought provoking and have absolutely nothing to do with the plot. Finally, you're going to need quite a bit of inappropriate nudity, which means unattractive people with no clothes on, unattractive people engaged in any kind of sexual activity, and most importantly, lots and lots and lots of penises. Gotta have those penises in your foreign film. Otherwise you may as well shoot in in English. Some people say that it's because Americans are more conservative than, say, Europeans, but that's bullcrap. While European movies really love showing dudes' schlongs, almost all the naked women in them sport big hairy bushes, which completely cover their actual genitals. It's like male genitalia is OK, but female genitalia clearly isn't. So European filmmakers aren't really all that liberal, they just really like boy-peepees. Now, Taxidermia may start off like any other foreign film, the way I just described here, but it totally isn't. It tells three different stories: in the first, some creepy dude is being a total pervert and a pig is being murdered and gutted. Would it be a spoiler to say that these two things are connected? Probably. The second story is about a big fat competitive eater who used to have a tail. His girlfriend/wife is also a pretty big bitch. The third and final story, which is easily the best of the three, is about a friendly neighborhood taxidermist who takes care of his freakishly obese father and his margarine-fed gigantic cats. This is definitely not the best movie for vegetarians. You get lots of dead animals, lots of dead animal parts, some dead animal parts getting eaten by really fat dudes, and a couple of scenes where you're supposed to see human body parts getting sliced and stuff but you can tell that they were clearly extracted from poor little murdered animals. It starts off kinda slow (though I totally dig stories about masturbatory voyeurism), but it keeps getting better and better, until it comes to its delightfully creepy conclusion. Totally worth reading subtitles for an hour and a half.

Ben's flashforward, circa 2045

I also watched the first episode of Flashforward today. It was pretty good! Maybe a little too sappy for its own good, but hopefully it'll get better with time. And Seth Macfarlane has a small role in it! He's so awesome. The other week I saw him in an old Gilmore Girls episode, and it was pretty hilarious. Um. Actually, I take that back. Gilmore Girls is for broads and poofs. Yeah.

Benny in search of the eighth art

Because I loathe bananas!

Today I watched Escape from the Planet of the Apes on DVD, a movie that has always been a big favorite of mine. It's the closest that the POTA series ever got to sci-fi comedy (at least in the first half) and the stylistic diversion from the rest of the movies shines very prettily. Instead of a couple of humans stranded on a planet full of talking apes, this time we only get three chimps (one of which gets killed by a gorilla early in the film) stranded on a planet full of talking humans. Talking humans, imagine that! Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowall do a spectacular job at playing Zira and Cornelius, especially Hunter, whose grace and skill at performing behind an ape mask bring the part to unimaginable levels. Victor from TYATR is pretty creepy as the evil government science guy who wants to get rid of the apes and their cute little baby chimp. To be honest, I don't know if I would've acted any differently in his position. If I came across a couple of talking apes who came here from overseas to take jobs away from honest working homosepians and have their hairy little kids run around in my back yard and later on maybe take over the planet or something, I would probably want to turn them into chimpburgers too. That is, if I actually gave a crap about the future of humanity. Which I totally don't. Humans stink big sweaty balls. If you can read this, that means you too. And Ricardo Montalban (aka Khaaaaaaaaaaan) plays a circus dude! I just read that he died earlier this year at the age of 88. He was so cool. IMDB says that his last role in the industry was that of a talking cow on Family Guy who makes a Holocaust joke (Da-cow) and then helps Peter expose a fast food company for being a big bunch of assholes. Jerry Goldsmith, who composed the soundtrack for the original Planet of the Apes (and for countless other sci-fi movies), did the music here too, and I just adore it. It totally made me feel like I'm in the not too distant future that is 1973. Zira and Cornelius' makeup is as great as in the previous films, but the one thing that bothered me was the 'primitive' apes costumes (a guy in a gorilla suit near the beginning of the movie and a guy in a chimp suit near the end). Those were just pathetic. I guess it couldn't be helped, as it's a known fact that each Apes sequel had a lower budget than its predecessor.

Kim Hunter says the hairy look is back this season

And here's what I've learned today: if a chick drinks lots of booze while she's pregnant, her baby is going to be real smart (for its species) and start talking at a very early age. That is very good to know.

Benny in search of the friend in the mirror

Mooooo

The new season of Fringe started a couple of weeks ago, but I've just finished watching the first one this week. It's taken me forever to watch it all. When I started watching it the first season wasn't even over in the states, but then in June I went for a visit abroad, which sort of broke my viewing rhythm, and then in July abroad came to visit me here (pun intended), and that made it even worse. Still, Fringe is a pretty awesome show. I'm a total sucker for J.J. Abrams stuff (Lost is coming back early 2010! I can't wait!). Filler episodes aside, I love almost everything about the show, starting with the location titles, which give it a very distinct look. Anna Torv, playing special agent Olivia Dunham, may be Australian as well as blonde, and I wouldn't say she's the best actress in the world, but she gives out such a naturally hot vibe that it's not even funny. She's extremely attractive, and in a very interesting, not obvious way, looking like the type of chick you may even enjoy having a conversation with, which is pretty damn rare these days. And it sure doesn't hurt that the top buttons of her blouse are always undone! That always makes me wonder what her skin smells like. And I totally dig her fake American accent. I don't ever want to hear her speak in her normal accent, as that would totally ruin the illusion for me. I've read somewhere that she was ranked pretty high in a "hottest geeks" list in some magazine or something. If Anna Torv is a geek, then I'm a hot Maxim chick. I sure got the boobs for it. John Noble is also Australian, but he gives such an incredible performance as Dr. Walter Bishop that it's easily forgotten. It's a fantastic character and I absolutely buy it. I want Dr. Bishop to be my new best friend! Blair Brown, who plays Nina Sharp, used to be so hot when she was younger, and is still a very handsome woman in her 60s. She's got some pretty awesome nude scenes in Altered States (1980), if you're into that sort of thing. Even Pacey does an OK job as the good doctor's son, and isn't too annoying. And William Bell is actually Leonard Nimoy! I used to have such a gigantic man-crush on Spock. Vulcans are totally hot, even the ones who are mixed with some filthy human blood. The show has a very cool look to it, and the special effects are mostly really good, with the practical effects looking better than the CGI work, as is usually the case.

Anna Torv, not grilling crustaceans

Being a J.J Abrams-produced show means that you get a lot of weird stuff and a lot of questions without too many answers, and that's kind of the way I like it. The way I see it, as awesome as the first season has been, on a larger scale it's merely a year-long exposition piece to the rest of the show. I'm starting to watch season 2 tonight! Yay!

Benny in search of the other team

You may have your faults, but at least you've got pants on

Today I finished watching the second season of True Blood. I love True Blood. It's delicious, nourishing and no one has to die to make it. The show is really good too. You just can't not like a show with that much sex, blood and Anna Paquin nudity. Six Feet Under, Alan Ball's last TV show, was just OK. I guess I sort of enjoyed parts of it, and I do own a couple of seasons on DVD, but mostly it was just a really depressing relationship drama, the kind I usually find rather pointless. Before True Blood aired Mr. Ball has claimed that he has never watched an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which means that he's either a liar or a man of very poor taste, and that wasn't a very good sign. As it turned out, True Blood is actually an extremely fun show, with the kind of bloody, sleazy, pleasurable style that couldn't be further from that of SFU. I really like movies and TV shows that take place in an alternate reality to out own, and the world of True Blood is a very cool one, with vampires and all sorts of supernatural beings roaming the streets, consuming synthetic plasma substitutes and not hiding in the shadows. At least not all the time. And the fact that the lovely Anna Paquin seems to be flaunting her unnaturally perky boobs whenever possible doesn't hurt the show one bit. The romantic scenes are pretty much lost on me, but most of it is very good stuff. While the first season revolved around a cool little whodunit, season 2 is where all the really crazy shit really starts to happen, with Suki dealing with the kidnapping of some übervamp by an anti-vampire church and an evil goddess turning Bon Temps into a nuthouse for the hornily insane. It's quite possible that most of the season's budget went into black contact lenses. It was pretty hilarious to see that pretty little chick who used to let Marilyn Manson stick it to her on a semi-weekly basis playing a lusty vampire queen, a role I'm guessing wasn't too much of a stretch for her. The last episode ended with a cliffhanger, just like the first season did, but at this point I don't really mind it anymore. I think Season 3 should be worth the wait.

To hide her grey streak, Rogue decided to dye her hair blonde

Now that I've finished watching the first two season of True Blood, it's time to start reading the Southern Vampire book series on which the show is based. I've already ordered the first two books from a UK-based store like a month ago, but haven't received them yet. Limey bastards.