i can't take my mind off of you...

The past couple of days has been filled with late night movie watching, and some really great ones, I could perhaps say that one of the best collections of movies I’ve ever seen. It all started with ‘dirty pretty things’ and ‘lost in translation.’ Soon enough, I was browsing through the best movie database website, imDB, and looking through recommended films that are similar to my favorite ones, or looking and making a list of whatever I have not seen in the all time top 250 listed by users, and boy, how beneficial that turned out to be. I downloaded a bunch of them and started watching them.

One of them was ‘memento,’ a movie that was very interesting, coz one story moved from the end backward every now and then, and in between each segment, the same story was moving forward from the beginning. I thought it was a very clever way to break the story down, and I was very impressed.

I watched traffic purely because I’ve always seen the DVD in serene centre and never got to watch it. Some fine acting, but I thought the story was kinda left messy, as three independent stories didn’t come together in the end. But it was alright.

I watched those on Friday, and on that day, the school had this all night games event named ‘one night stand’ and we were to play dodgeball, starting at 2am in the morning. How weird. But the reason why we even considered playing was because one half of the section signed up without even informing us, and soon enough, we came up with the anti-team of whatever that remained in the other half. Our sole intent was to beat that other team, and after some talking to to the officials, we made that happen, we were to play that. Regardless of whether we won or not, we would leave the tournament. We played around 3:30-ish. Until then, we watched the other matches, and since the place where we played was an indoor soccer court, we kept banging on glasses like mad south American soccer fans, chanting ‘you suck’ and just cheering, shouting at anything that happened. We were having so much fun. We finally played, I was the second last to get out, primarily because I dodged all the balls, but never got the ball coz my team mates kept taking the ball when I wanted it. Not like I would have gotten anyone out anyway. But in the end, it was a sole battle between james in my team and hunter from the other team. Since both hit eachother at the same time, it was left as a sudden death match, which james narrowly lost. We created so much entertainment, there could not have been anything better. But the officials changed the rules after that to cut on time, so the rest ended up being real messy and just a crazed meelee.

So we went back to our dorms, adrenaline pumping through our body, all excited and laughing like lunatics. While on the way back, james and I kind of straightened certain things out, which I guess worked well for the both of us, as the next day would prove. We couldn’t get to sleep, so james and I decided to watch a movie that was good and one that neither of us watched. Since I was looking through the top 250 list, I thought we watched ‘american beauty.’

The movie was very interesting, how they portrayed each characters and a very simple storyline. But these didn’t compare to what was coming in the next day.

But if there’s anything to be learnt from the movie, then it was mena suvari’s character mentioning she’s afraid to be just normal. I kinda realized there was a grave reverse psychology in our lives. We are all born technically born different. But everyone seems to think we’re all the same. And as a result, some people do different things, in order to be different, like being really popular, doing something unusual, and such, but by doing that, we actually are conforming to some style, that can be categorized, which means that that very thing that we’re doing to be different is actually making us the same as anyone else. I don’t think I expressed this right, but instead of being different, we’re all homogenizing. Like some people drink and do drugs to be different, but in the end, so are other people, which renders their actions useless… and such. I’m not sure how I’m trying to convey my point, but I thought that was extremely ironic.

Since the new Natalie Portman movie ‘closer’ had opened on Friday, I got couple of people to watch. Dan was definitely one that wanted to watch it, since he appreciates Natalie as much as I do. We were all excited when we read the review on CNN, that it was going to be one of the 5 movies to catch this season as recommended by the film institute (the rest consisting of ‘Finding Neverland, which I’ll watch with Pamela next week, and the much anticipated ‘Aviator’, and Clint Eastwood’s ‘Million Dollar Baby’ and ‘Sideways.’) but there was this segment that mentioned a scene where Natalie Portman is in a strip joint wearing only a bra and a G-string. We wondered how that would be like, since she never does roles like that.

So James and I went to sleep around 6:30am, after watching ‘American Beauty’ and I woke up around 11-ish, reeling from lack of sleep, but fine nonetheless. Tom and Dan decided to come with us, James preferring to stay in bed to catch up on sleep. Pam, Leisha and Adina joined us for the movie, and wow, how that turned out to be.

I was left speechless at the end, because it was so explicit, yet speaks so true of how we handle relationships. Most people would probably walk out of the theatre thinking it was fucked up or ‘perverted’ as tom described, I think it was a very accurate portrayal of how human handle relationships and sexuality in modern times. I should probably admit that none of us were qualified to truly appreciate the depth of the movie since we were all young and haven’t exactly gotten to that stage in our lifetime, but we could tell the seriousness and the honestly expressed in the movie.

I felt really weird after that, and I guess that kind of explained for the reason why I was feeling so out of place. The movie made me think about so many things, that I should be aware of as I grow older. Basically, to never take anyone for granted and all. Well, in the end, both Dan and I agreed that if you ever have Natalie Portman, you don’t fuck around. Simple as that.

The movie was probably the most provocative as well as R-rated movie I’ve ever seen, I guess. But I’m not really bothered about that. It made me feel real uneasy to watch parts of it, where couples were questioning eachother so furiously and explicitly. But clive owen was such a terrific actor in that movie. I don’t understand how the people behind this movie is going to push for Julia Roberts and jude law as the main actor/actress if ever nominated for awards (which it probably will be) and put clive owen and Natalie Portman as supporting actor/actress category as the ‘supporting’ characters totally overshadowed the more well known casts.

While getting dinner and walking around later on to look for tom and dan, I felt like Scarlet Johansson (I found out she’s only few months younger than I am) in ‘lost in translation’ I felt really out of place, like I described in my earlier entries. It felt like a slow motion walk, while things around me seemed to move faster and continuing, as if I wasn’t there at all. It was a weird moment. It kind of tied into the feeling I got after the movie, a sad realization of how life actually is.

It got worse after I came back. James and I decided to watch ‘road to perdition’ which we didn’t really enjoy for some reason. Slow, with not much substance to boot. We were really disappointed. And james suggested we watch ‘requiem for a dream.’ We got dan to come over and watch it, and boy, was that really intense too. It was all about drugs and what it does, but it was enough to make one stay off drugs for a lifetime. Education should not spend any money on posters and programs about anti drug whatever and just make students watch this, it’ll do a much better job of making people aware of what it can do and how it fucks people up than those informational flyers and workshops ever will.

So technically I had watched two very intense movies that day and I really felt awkward. We went to sleep at 4 am and woke up around 3pm, only to wake up feeling worse. Dan shared the same opinion. To complete this messed up feeling, I guess I might as well download ‘saw’ and make myself feel worse. I guess the two grave human errors from ‘closer’ and ‘requiem for a dream’ are ‘lust’ and ‘temptation.’ I wonder what saw will add. I feel like watching that in theatres, but I guess I can’t wait for it.

I have two new songs to add to my list. These were two songs that were played during ‘closer’ which deserves so much more attention. I looked around and found the song last night, and I cant believe I didn’t come across this beautifully crafted song before. I guess with it being featured in ‘closer’ Damien Rice will get more exposure. His song ‘The Blower’s Daughter’ is somewhat the main song for the movie and is featured prominently in the beginning and the end, and also couple of times in between, but it totally absorbs the intensity of the movie so well. And one of the lighter jazz songs by Suzanne Vega ‘Caramel’ is also very nice, I have to give credit to James for taking note of that one.

We both have been playing that on repeat, but its so nice, we just want to hear it again. Damien’s style reminds me a lot of Tracy Chapman’s simple folk guitar song, but its very different at the same time.

I should probably head back to studying for my finals, just thought I take a break, and write a summary of what’s been going on in the past few days. I feel terrible with these movies, but at the same time, im really glad that I saw them. I rather face reality than fictionalized content.

Just one more week, and im done.

Oh, there was another weird encounter on Friday night, or should I say Saturday morning. Its not the first time that happened, but the stare each of us gave…. I can’t find the words to describe… as if its like.. never mind. Sometimes time moves slow enough it feels like there’s something to it. I’m probably wrong.

God dammit, I might end up watching ‘saw’ tonight. Just to satisfy myself.

I can't stop playing this song... it's too beautiful...

'The Blower's Daughter' by Damien Rice

"And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?

I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
My mind...my mind...
'Til I find somebody new"