Games for Days

Are you more failblog.org or fmylife.com?

Fight the Power

Oh, I also watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs recently and it was awesome! I especially loved Mr.T's voiceover, and Neil Patrick Harris was hilarious as a squeeking monkey. The character of the dad is also great and provides for many moving moments.

After Hours

Books: Read Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, it was great. Horrors of war, once more. I loved the description of Brod's character, and a lot of other things, including the meaning of the book's title.

Movies: Saw The Fountainhead, Gary Cooper is weirdly handsome as Howard Roark; Patricia Neal is not how I pictured Dominique Francon, but she is also weirdly beautiful; I enjoyed Raymond Massey's portrayal of Gail Wynand the most; one of the greatest things about this movie is that it is old and black-and-white, so, not much there; I don't think the movie makes much sense to anyone who hasn't read the book, oh but how I love the book, I reread it recently and all along I was going ohmygodIlovethisbook.

Saw The English Patient, so horrible, I don't understand how it got so many Oscar nominations, both of the characters of the love story are utterly unlikable.

Saw Ne le dis à personne, a terrific French thriller directed by Guillaume Canet, I guess the boy's got brains too.

Saw Up in the Air, it had some good moments; Vera Farmiga's character is really hot; a good reflection on unemployment; it is scary how somebody can get to the point where George Clooney's character has, i.e. with no connection to anybody whatsoever.

Saw Inglourious Basterds, it was okay, but I wasn't blown away by it or anything.

Music: Have bought The XX album from iTunes recently, not exactly breaking news in the indie world here, but I like them a lot.

Places: Went back to Laloux, one of my favorite restaurants, before it changed chefs; perhaps I mentioned this restaurant before; the servings are usually very small, and it is always frustrating because the dishes are both always expensive and delicious; this time, perhaps because they are changing chefs, the servings were a bit more generous; I had a delicious plate of lamb with a tajine of carrots.

Went to a fancy Vietnamese restaurant, it was excellent, had imperial rolls, a Tom Yum soup, chicken sautéed with vegetables, and a very original dessert: chocomaki, a dessert resembling sushi with sweetened rice replacing the rice, fruit replacing the raw fish, and chocolate sauce replacing the soya sauce, all along with some coconut ice cream.

Real life: Arrived to L.A., it was weird, I kept thinking about all the broken dreams that must go down there; went to Santa Monica, a nice little shopping neighborhood; went to Venice Beach, didn't stay very long; drove down Rodeo Drive, a fancy shopping street; visited the Vietnamese mall in Santa Ana; went to a Vietnamese vegeterian restaurant, it was weird.

Drove from L.A. to San Francisco, the road was really nice, desert-like; San Francisco is pretty beautiful; went to a fancy restaurant called La Folie, had snails, Hawaiian butterfish and a Valhrona and passionfruit bomb; went to Napa Valley and Sonoma, i.e. wine country, it was really beautiful; walked around Fisherman's Wharf; went to a contemporary Vietnamese restaurant, it was so delicious; went to Berkeley; went to Chinatown to eat some dim sum; went to City Lights Bookstore; went to Haight-Ashbury; went to Union Square; saw some Chagalls and Picassos; ate at a great Thai place; went to Stanford.

Come As You Are

I read two other Nick Hornby books recently. The first one is About a Boy. I liked the movie better than the book. (And, as you know, I preferred the written version of High Fidelity to its filmed one.) The end of the book is pretty different from the end of the movie. I liked the bit where Marcus, one of the main protagonists, says that it doesn't really matter who are the people who back you up, as long as they're there.

The other one is The Polysyllabic Spree. It's a collection of essays which Hornby wrote for a magazine. The essays are about the books he reads and buys. He buys a shitload of books, and he makes me want to buy a lot, too. I love to read his views on reading. Reading fills me with despair too, sometimes.

I'm done with Nick Hornby for now. He makes me want to read Dickens... We'll see how that goes.

On an entirely other subject, I also saw The Ugly Truth recently. It was so bad. Katherine Heigl plays an uptight bitch, and Gerard Butler is very disappointing.

Analyse

Movies, movies, movies! And why not add in a theme: the movies I have seen these past few days are all about playing games. Playing games with people, with love, with magic.

Dangerous Liaisons (1988): An adaptation of a French classic directed by Stephen Frears, who also did High Fidelity and The Queen. The novel was written in 1782, so I assume the movie takes place around that time, and boy did they have fun with sex in that time... more than one would perhaps expect them to. Basically, the main protagonists are thoroughly bored with their lives, and so they play around with other people in very intricate ways. The cast includes Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Uma Thurman and the very comical Keanu Reeves... though perhaps this effect was not intentional. His voice has probably deepened with the years, is what must have happened.

Jeux d'enfants (2003): A French film by Yann Samuell... What a weird movie. A boy and a girl have been daring each other to do numerous things all throughout their lives. The game is pure fun at first, but as they grow older, the consequences pile up. They play with each other, they love each other, and they hurt each other. Some of the events that occur in the movie are very twisted indeed, and the ending is surprising to say the least. At some points in the movie, it becomes difficult to tell what is reality and what isn't. It stars Guillaume Canet, who is rather easy on the eyes, and Marion Cotillard. I do not especially like this actress, but her beauty is made evident throughout the film. I usually love French movies, but I have to admit I am not sure what to think of this film, what with its vision of absolute love. Also, the characters, in their younger selves as well as in their older ones, talk especially fast, and with that French accent...

There is a passage in which the male character describes what his life is like now that he is 35 years old. It is not easy to separate the French language from this description, so I will leave the original description here, but I will attempt a translation:

"Je vous présente ma vie vers 35 ans. J’avais tout. Une femme, deux enfants, trois potes, 4 crédits, 5 semaines de vacances, 6 ans dans la même boîte, 7 fois mon poids en matériel hi-fi, 8 coïts conjugaux par trimestre, 9 fois le tour de la terre en emballages plastiques, couvercles de polystyrène et autres packaging alimentaires non biodégradables, et 10 ans sans voir mon père. Le bonheur. La panoplie du parfait tyran dont j’avais rêvé toute mon enfance."

"I present to you my life towards 35 years old. I had everything. One wife, two kids, three friends, four credit cards, five vacation weeks, six years at the same office, seven times my weight in electronic devices, eight marital fucks per trimester, nine times the Earth's orbit in plastic wrappings, styrofoam lids and other non recyclable materials, and ten years without seeing my father. Perfect happiness. The perfect despot panoply I had dreamed of my whole childhood."

The Prestige (2006): Illusionists are a weakness of mine. In that effect, a movie about illusionists is irresistible to me. Add in a dream cast and I'm done. The cast comprises Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Piper Perabo (in a small role, but she is lovely as always), David Bowie, Andy Serkis (who provides an enjoyable performance, even without being computer-modified), Michael Caine, and Rebecca Hall (her performance in Vicky Christina Barcelona seems to be often overlooked, but it was the most memorable thing about this Woody Allen flick). There is also Scarlett Johansson, but I don't like her that much. The Prestige is the story of the rivalry between two illusionists and how they keep sabotaging each other. I was disappointed at one point of the movie when real magic is introduced, but the final and immensely satisfying twist soon reminded me that I was watching a Christopher Nolan film. And, at the end, when the greatest magician is revealed... there are no more arguments left.

Christopher Nolan also made two of my favorite films, Memento and The Dark Knight. I can't wait to see his next movie, Inception, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Ken Watanabe. It was also supposed to star James Franco, but I guess that didn't happen.

Baby, I Love Your Way

I hadn't enjoyed the movie High Fidelity as much as I thought I would. The book, however, is great. I cannot decide whether this is a guy book or whether this is a girly book written by a guy. Apparently, guys worry about a lot of things too. The book is often very funny: the "I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs yet" passage is hilarious. There is a sad moment when the main protagonist is about to finally reacquaint himself physically with his ex, and all he can think about is whether they have protection or not, because she has been with another man. I also like this passage very much: "People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence is taking over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands - literally thousands - of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss."

You Keep Me Hangin' On

The other night, my family and I went to one of Montreal's best "bring your own wine" restaurants. It is called La Colombe and the waiters were very efficient, but perhaps that was only because they wanted to have a second service. As an appetizer, I had a salmon mousse, which sounds really weird but it was actually pretty good. My entree was lamb, and it was great except for the sauce, which was a bit too dark. We finished off with a nice chocolatey dessert, along with cream. I would give it 7/10.