No Gweilos Hour tonight, unfortunately. We are being pre-empted by the live Bamboo launch at Megamall. Which I don’t mind; it’s perfectly understandable, although I wish that when it happened it meant we get 2 hours next week. :)

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Apparently the Sin City being shown here has a lot of cuts; basically all the nude shots have been removed, including sex scenes. But the cuts are jarring; beyond scenes being removed, lines are mangled and the pace is ruined several times. Some friends are decrying the MTRCB but I suspect this to be the work of the distributor, in order to get the rating down to an R13 from an R18.

They should’ve had a clue with the name SIN CITY, don’t you think?

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I’ve been watching and enjoying this year’s French Open. I haven’t been following tennis in years but this tournament’s been on Sports Plus almost every time I turn to that channel (it’s after ETC) so I ended up watching and realized there’s almost no one I recognize, beyond Mary Pierce. And Sharapova, who I know by reputation. Even Kuerten’s out on an injury. But the matches have been mostly incredible, and definitely unpredictable. In the beginning it was funny, because it seemed like a tournament between Russia and Spain. There were so many players from both countries it was almost ridiculous. But now things are getting interesting towards the finals, with Davenport and Sharapova, the world’s no. 1 & 2 seeds, respectively, being defeated in the quarterfinals by people ranked way lower than them. So now it’s anyone’s game, and that can be exhilarating. The other thing is that the French Open has the rudest fans, in my opinion, of any sporting event anywhere. They scream and shout bloody murder, they’ll heckle you while the point is being fought! Which is a big no-no in other tournaments, who will stop the match until the crowd calms down. But just the other day, in this match between Nadal (Neva’s crush) and Grosjean, the crowd wouldn’t shut up for a good 15 minutes, and I was just watching and laughing. It was live so they couldn’t do anything about it, and even Frenchman Grosjean was looking embarrassed, and Spaniard Nadal’s displeasure was evident on his face, but he knew if he did anything, he’d get heckled and booed. There’s also been the occasional amusement, like when Henin-Hardenne and Petrova had a match and emerged wearing the exact same outfit (both are sponsored by Adidas). Tres embarrassing!

Wimbledon’s right after Roland Garros in the Grand Slam calendar, so I think I’ll be tuning in for that.

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Two more additions to Great Albums of 2005: Pedicab’s Tugish Takish and Sleater-Kinney’s The Woods.

For some reason I can’t get my Tugish Takish to work in the car’s player. It’s frustrating as hell. Mich mentioned that some of her friends can’t play the VCD that comes with it. Inksurge’s design is appropriate. The cover reminded me a bit of Supergrass’s Life On Other Planets. The sleeve was a nice touch, and a nice design, but somewhere along the way (probably the manufacturing end) someone didn’t account for how tight it would be, and it was a goddamn bitch taking it off. I didn’t want to tear it, and now, well, it looks like I’ll never put it back on because I don’t want to go through that headache again. I think Quark tore his. It’s a Weezer-short album (30 mins.), which I wasn’t expecting, but beggars can’t be choosers.

A pet peeve of mine with buying local CDs, and locally manufactured CDs, is that the quality control is so low. Pedicab, for example: when I opened it up, the inlay card had lots of creases and folds along the spine. It looks like a second-hand package. And the aforementioned problems with playing the discs. Quark & Lia gave me a great Christmas gift last year, the Pearl Jam greatest hits package, but unfortunately the same thing: creased/folded inlay card, which I had already come to expect by that point, but the kicker was that there was a piece of rubber adhesive on the second disc, which I tried to remove carefully but to no avail, and so the last two tracks skip like crazy. I mean, it’s this shit that makes pirated goods more attractive. Because at this point, that’s really what you’re paying for, isn’t it? The quality. You’re paying full price and for what? A disc that looks like someone previously owned it (and wasn’t very careful with it, either)? That shit ain’t right.

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David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, which is an adaptation of a graphic novel by John Wagner & Vince Locke.

2046 is only coming out in the US in August, but the trailer’s nice. Kinda thriller-ish, with some very nice cuts.

A new Charlie & the Chocolate Factory trailer, with more footage (only now do I realize, for example, that Charlie is played by Peter from Finding Neverland, so he and Johnny Depp must be good friends by now). Exciting.

Guy Ritchie’s latest, Revolver, which sounds and looks like his previous films, Swept Away aside.

Via Minay, Crying While Eating. Not a movie, but amusing just the same.

Matt Madden’s finished his Exercises in Style, and it’s now got a website. I used to follow them when they were on Indy, but it’s nice to see it all done now, and I await the forthcoming book. It’s a very interesting project, particularly for those who are interested in storytelling in general (taken as it is from Raymond Queneau), and comics in particular.