Today I paid $20 to watch an understength Man Utd lose to an underwhelming Chelsea. But still it was the first proper game of the season and I had to watch it... didn't I? The only really disappointing thing is that I paid the $20 to a cable operator instead of converting them into overpriced alcoholic beverages, as would be the norm if I were in the UK or Geneva. Hopefully this loss will force the odds on United winning the title to be a little longer, then I can make more money when the do win. (Still not addicted.)
The fun and exciting thing that I did yesterday afternoon was to go for a walk up High Street. And it was fun and exciting... well okay it wasn't, but it could very well have been and that would have shown you. I had the idea of having sushi for lunch at this restaurant (it just took me three attempts to spell restaurant, my first two attempts yielding yesterant and resteraunt... don't expect great things from this post) that my boss had mentioned the other day. As it turns out I didn't have sushi as the place looked a bit too fancy for me to wonder into on my lonesome.
Before I got to not have sushi I stopped in to the Brenen's coffee shop near campus. If I'm honest — and I am, on occasions — the main reason that I went in was because I thought there might be a chance the pretty girlie who recognizes me at the campus Brenen's might be working there. She wasn't instead the less pretty, to my mind at least, guy who works in the campus Brenen's was there... he also recognized me and knew what I wanted, double espresso in case you were wondering.
Instead of sushi I ended up having an overpriced sandwich in a tarty little bakery/patisserie place by the name of Mozart's. On the plus side they have a self playing piano and a wide range of cakes and tarts and that sort of thing. But the main reason I ate there was that they were two doors down from Denise's. Denise's is an ice cream parlour. They sell an ice cream that goes by the name of Mint Hot Chocolate. The hot in the title comes from the fact that they make it with cayenne pepper. In fact the girl selling me the ice cream, the owner's daughter I believe, felt the need to warn me about this before I bought a scoop... obviously I was all macho and waved off her concerns. It was very nice ice cream, not too hot... but then again I have been known to eat wasabi sandwiches so my opinion is probably questionable. Who'd of thunk it? Sticking cayenne pepper into ice cream, whatever next? I want to go back and have some more. I'll be good though.
Moving away from food and into films, there's a couple that I've seen recently: Man on Fire and Collateral. Both of which were okayish actionish films. And both of which had me wondering about the false moralism (if that's the correct word) present in films. I don't think it's giving too much away to say that lots of people get killed in both films. And through all this mayhem and violence I don't remember a single female getting killed. In fact there were occasions where women were explicitly not killed. I want more films where the filmmaker has the courage to randomly, arbitrarily kill women. I'm not talking necessarily about women that have done bad things, although that's good too, but just kill some of them. I'm fed up of this bullshit no women and children code. If they're in the way, bye bye.
So there we are add that to the list, in any film that I make we will have pretty girlies saying `cunt' and women — pretty and not — dying, possibly painfully. I fear I'm starting to sound like a deranged serial killer... honest governor, I'm not... no really, I'm not.
2 comments:
I haven't seen the films you mention so perhaps I should just shut up but I think in most films men are killed more than women simply because there are more male characters. When I see a casting notice for a film, for instance this XX Enemy of the State thing currently casting near where I live, there are three women and about a gazillion men who need stand-ins and photo doubles.
Sure there are cute girlies in action films but they are far outweighed by the number of men running around getting killed or not killed.
Are you a Tarintino fan? I'm struck by how Quentin loves to torture his women in his films. Look what he does to Uma in Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction. The camera practically has an orgasm as it lovingly lingers over every little bruise and bloody spot on the Bride. QT certainly has no constraints about killing anyone in Kill Bill, either volume.
In Pulp Fiction he puts Uma through the wringer again. The violent syringe in the chest, the way she looks like a battered spouse after, the blood, he glories in it.
I'm not saying QT doesn't torture his men characters because he does, witness the cop with the ear in Res. Dogs but he seems to have a particular love of showing every detail of a damaged woman.
But you are quite right. Women should not be spared just because of their genes. If you are going to randomly kill people then let's see a nice balance of people to kill and a fair distribution of the corpses. I'm not a serial killer either but I am a writer who doesn't like favouritism.
You certainly have a point that women are under-represented in films, particularly action films. I think you could make the argument that part of the reason there are so few women in these films, is that they don't want to go round killing them. Having said that, it's also true that there are a dearth of female characters in films that don't fall in to the cute girl, or mother, pigeon hole.
It's also true that certain writers and directors do like to buck the trend and wreak mayhem upon the "fairer sex". Tarantino is certainly one of those. Kill Bill is a veritable orgy of violence against Uma Thurman.
It would be nice if a few more filmmakers out there were courageous enough to indiscriminately kill or even indiscriminately cast. My hopes aren't particularly high.
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