Friday, June 10, 2005

No Gweilos Hour tonight either. Either we’re canceled or something’s in the works, so I don’t know and won’t say until I know more.

Did you know that over 100 Japanese citizens commit suicide per day? And yet, despite that statistic, they are second in the category of country suicide rate, following Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka?

Tres cool: How to Make Your Own Totally Sweet Mario Question Blocks and Put Them Up Around Town Because It's Really Awesome. I like these little artbomb ideas, like Space Invader.

So there’s another dig at Pinoys in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and it reminded me of something I completely forgot to write about in my discussion of The Life Aquatic. Ordinarily whenever there’s a negative reference to Filipinos in the movies or TV I don’t care. I know the truth that these generalizations don’t apply to everyone and are actually misrepresentative so I don’t lose any sleep over it. But in The Life Aquatic (and here there’s a bit of a spoiler) their paths cross with Pinoy pirates when they go through unprotected waters. And for the first time in a long time, I felt bad. Because this was Wes Anderson, you know? I love the guy. The pirates had bolos and a 3-legged dog. But if you actually watch the scene closely, only one guy speaks Tagalog well, everyone else has this thick accent like they just learned it. Anyway, after seeing the film I was online digging up stuff about The Life Aquatic and found on its IMDB Trivia page this relieving bit of information: in the script the pirates are Indonesian, but they couldn’t find enough Indonesians in Italy where they shot the film. And what is there always a lot of no matter where you are? So Pinoys it is.

Still, the scene did produce this gem: Bud Cort (all grown up from Harold & Maude!) translating “major shitstorm” as “matinding bagyo ng tae,” which had me guffaw.

Yes, guffaw. When it is that sudden and unexpected, and that loud and that ridiculous-sounding, that laugh is a guffaw.

(Mr. & Mrs. Smith is better than I expected, but the ending sucks)

(And speaking of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, there's a little scandal brewing over the Teen Choice Awards nominating the film when IT HADN'T COME OUT YET, striking further blows for its credibility)

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It's not The Onion, but...

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