Good opening credits songs make good movies

The most dangerous thing about New Year’s

gdy2shoez — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:15:54 +0000

The easiest way to deal with the self imposed pressures of the new year is not to think of our lives as annual packets of time. 2011, as it was with most of my life, was unremarkable in that, like any other year, there were good and bad moments and no single year stands out in memory unless it was spent entirely in jail or in a state of blissful joblessness. I don’t want to think of a simple passing of time as a reason for renewal, or a fresh checklist of what should be done, only because waiting for the year to end is an excuse for procrastination. Why wait to do what you always wanted to do only in the next year? Why not now? Why make useless resolutions like ‘being a better person’ or being ‘happier’ when such lofty goals are mostly beyond our control and only serve to kickstart the year in empathic fashion only to be given up along the way?

But here’s what happened. I found out I was capable of reproduction. I gave a ridiculous talk to an audience who doesn’t give a shit about me. I was in AngKor Wat, Taipei and Kyoto. I rode my bike for the first time in years. I started talking to my brother on Facebook. I quit Words with Friends. I read at least 30 books. I got interested in politics. I kept healthy. I voted for a President. I got rejected in a job application. Friends you were once close to just stopped ‘talking’ altogether because they’ve entered a phase far more worthy of their time than your company. Which is all fine if they didn’t pale in comparison to the things that didn’t change, which are the reasons why New Year resolutions exist in the first place. The most frustrating thing about changing an attitude or behaviour is not being able to figure out why you’re so stuck on a particular person or situation. We seek explanations, and when there are none, we make things up, and deceive ourselves in the process. When that overconfident predictability fails us and things don’t turn out the way we imagined them to do, we suffer the disappointment. And frankly, we deserve it, though being selfish creatures we always think in terms of fairness, sacrifice and why we’re worth it. Fuck it.

Still, in some ways, I hope the Mayans were right about their ancient calendar. I guess the most dangerous thing about New Years Day is not the hangover or being stuffed up your gut, or that everywhere is fucking crowded or closed and all you can do being left watching Kungfu Panda 2 alone and giggling to yourself to scenes like ‘Disk of Destruction’ and realising that Jean Claude Van Damme has more passion acting as a crocodile than you ever will accumulate in 30 fucking years. No. The most dangerous thing about New Year is, as Morgan Freeman would tell you in the Shawshank Redemption, HOPE.

Hope, however, is harmless if you apply it on a vague, global scale. Like you hope the world would rid itself of bird flu epidemics, or you hope someone is happy with child, or hoping for fucking world peace and all dictators would go to hell and gangbang each other. It only becomes troublesome when it’s a hope of self-interest. A hope that would, well, make you feel good about yourself. Like getting a promotion. A new job. That someone still misses you. The problem is, we are all hopeless suckers for such hope, because without the instinct to make certain predictions about what others might do (which is what hope essentially is), life wouldn’t be worth living. It would be a miserable cesspool of daily struggle after struggle. Or that’s what people tell us either directly or indirectly, to keep out chins up, to be passionate about life, to make each day count. Hope, like being total bastards, makes us human. And that makes us feel special, and that feeling of exclusivity and individuality is what drives us to wake up every morning, put on a fake dress and smile and do shit we don’t like to do but have to. It that’s feeling of being special that makes us blog, tweet or post inane pictures on Facebook because we assume people give a damn. Mark Twain was a champion for illusions. We are all born storytellers, and the script we like to like to tell for ourselves are always filled with happy outcomes and happy endings, even if it’s all wishful thinking.

Dawn has broken

gdy2shoez — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 14:56:47 +0000

What, no Muse? But corny sex aftermath splinters and horror elements aside (Pregnant Bella Swan’s emaciated back contorting and B grade horror ending), the Breaking Dawn soundtrack is surprisingly good. Sortof makes up for the cataleptic cringing I suffered when Edward said ‘Last night was the best night of my existence’after inseminating his wife with demon seed. Gross.

Mr Blue Sky

gdy2shoez — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:12:47 +0000

ELO’s Mr Blue Sky is the get-up-and-go song that I should be playing every morning. It would make you smile even when brushing your teeth. Pilates is the kind of exercise to keep yourself active while being lazy. Watching TV, waiting for the comp to boot up, lying down and staring at the ceiling.

All along I’ve just been waiting to hear an echo in the darkness, when the only source of light, the most immediate, obvious solution to the problem, is a flame that would burn me and anyone else close to me if I ever decide to use it.

The Scorpion King

gdy2shoez — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:09:36 +0000

Only Ryan Gosling can wear a scorpion jacket and brood in silence without a hint of irony. And nobody even knows his name in the movie. Car action and shocking violence aside, the best scenes involve the quiet longing between Gosling and Carey Mulligan’s Irene, over a gorgeous Giorgo Moroder-esque soundtrack. Irene uncertain over her husband’s return;Gosling distracting himself tinkering with some watchamacallit car gagdet. The ending was subdued, a little unsatisfying, but for most parts, Drive, from Gosling’s stunt mask to the nude cabaret as a backdrop for a brutal hammer attack, is unforgettable, unmissable.

Nightcall (opening credits)

A Real Human

Thanks to Golden Bloggen for posting the tracks.

Most sexy loners who drive fast cars can do pretty well for themselves, but for the rest of us who don’t look good in scorpion jackets, Drive tells it like it is; The few people you happen to care about, end up being the ones who also hurt you the most.

Revenge sex

gdy2shoez — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:49:23 +0000

Seems like there are two ways of getting a woman unexpectedly pregnant

1. A fuck like there’s no tomorrow (a one night stand or after a really really long separation)

2. Revenge sex. Because you fucking deserve it.

No. 2 is a strange phenomenon, and revenge sex is the opposite of a man showering his wife with good loving when he’s having an affair. In revenge sex he fucks not out of guilt but of spite. It is a fuck that benefits no one and is done only to make the man feel good about himself, not so much at the expense of his regular partner, but his intention is to spite a lover who has failed to give him the usual attention, or when his lover has found another lover. A man ‘jilted’ by his lover, screwing his wife thinking ‘see! i can have sex even without you’ is almost always bound to get her pregnant. Likewise a man who is attracted to another woman, upon finding that she’s with another man, will thrash it out in bed with his current girlfriend or wife. It’s like throwing a temper in a fit of jealousy, an expression of manhood in a subconscious bid to outdo ‘the other man’, and if you’re lucky/unlucky, by some divine poetic justice, your cheating heart will get exactly what it does NOT desire.

Kooks in the Hall of the Mountain King

gdy2shoez — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 03:58:24 +0000

I don’t know why Hanna’s opening and closing title cards remind me of Insidious and Drag Me to Hell. Joe Wright of Atonement fame seems to have a knack of long tracking shots, and the subway stalk-and-fight scene ending with Eric Bana tossing a knife at a mobster was brilliant. Cate Blanchett was over-caricatured, and plenty of unnecessary scenes involving Spanish boys and flamenco.

The Chemical Bros was responsible for the thumping soundtrack, but what caught my attention was this David Bowie ditty sung by the hippie family protecting Hanna in their trailer.

There was also an ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’, a 2 minute piece which you can use for anything involving work being done that requires a dramatic finish, last employed in the ending credits of ‘Johnny English Reborn’ (cooking scene) and also in the Social Network. I shall use it in the office then.

Bad Teacher Hangover

gdy2shoez — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 03:06:13 +0000

Caught 3 movies on the plane and one half of a tedious Tree of Life.

Here’s a stomper by Wolfmother off the Hangover 2 soundtrack. Sounds like Led Zeppelin at some parts.

And the closing credits by Jenny Lewis.

The opener for Bad Teacher

Fireworks in Taipei

gdy2shoez — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 00:04:17 +0000

The city comes alive only at night, a heady neon buzz that isnt as overwhelming as tokyo or hongkong. The trains are clean and efficient and the people are visibly proud of wat they do, without the tiresome grumpiness back home. Food alleys have the distinctive asian flavour and though you cant generally say the folks are frenly theres none whom you seriously want to punch in the face. I would say taipei rivals, even betters tokyo for the relative ease at overcoming the language barrier, for its pleasant mix of feeling right at home yet in a strange land at the same time.

On Taiwans National day I witnessed a throng of people in the middle of a junction gazing at fireworks and it immediately shows you the difference in national sentiment between the taiwanese n sgreans. But what intrigues me more than anything else is how taiwanese rice resembles japanese rice but cheaper. I got a complete meal for a staggering 4 sing dollars, which back home u cant even pay for chicken chop.

Shitty Moons

gdy2shoez — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 06:52:39 +0000

Found the Fuck these Shitty Moons deleted scene from ‘Your Highness’ clip online here.

James Franco is quite a funny dude.

A weekend without newspaper

gdy2shoez — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 03:42:55 +0000

I cancelled my print subscription for the ST and it felt like I lost a longtime friend. Next to a pet, the daily newspaper keeps you connected to the world, and now, with the ghost of the familiar smell of ink reduced to pixels in a computer, I’m slightly lonelier. Perhaps it’s not the text of the paper that matters, since I read less than 25% of it, but the personal touch of someone delivering something to you routinely, even if you never see the delivery guy. It’s the morning greeting which I’ve taken for granted.

Every departure makes the world a lonelier place, another piece of a heart jigsaw to fill, a puzzle that will remain unsolved till the end. I’ve abandoned Facebook and broke a familiar ritual, and with that severance of assurance and anticipation, the past just keeps hurrying back to haunt me.