Juno is pretty cool

"You're like the coolest person I've ever met," Ellen Page says to a knobbly knee'd Michael Cera at the climax of Juno. "And you don't even have to try, you know."
"I try really hard, actually."

Juno was Fox Searchlight's sleeper hit of 2007, grossing over $85 million in the US (after a modest budget of only $7.5 million). It comes out in the UK on February 8th and I was there at its VIP screening at the Soho Hotel in London last week.

Why am I dressed like a dork?

(If you're reading this through my RSS feed, you might not get the accompanying picture. In any case, it's probably a sensible question to ask - and on most occasions.)

My housemate Bill and I were there to help out a friend, whose event management company was putting on the screening. She needed a couple of geeks to dress up as characters from the film, greet guests and pose for pictures.

"You're like the geekiest guy I know," she said. "You don't even have to try." She was right. I couldn't claim, like Michael Cera's character in Juno, that the accolade was the result of any sort of effort. So, of course, I agreed to do it.

Not knowing much about the film however, I was somewhat unprepared for my costume: a sports vest and shorts, pull-up socks, a wrist and headband. Nevertheless, I left my shame with my trousers, in the cloak room, while Bill joked that stripping down to a pair shorts for £50 might be construed as the behaviour of a couple of "smack heads." We emerged from our dressing room all the same, regretfully sober and ready to face a room full of celebrities.

I joked with British soul singer, Beverley Knight, formed one point of a hip-hop love triangle with So Solid Crew's Lisa Mafia, even went for a post-screening drink with star of zombie film, 28 Weeks Later (and new best friend), Imogen Poots.

But the real star of the night - it's not difficult to say - was the movie itself. A sophomore effort from Thank You for Smoking director, Jason Reitman, Juno is a smart, funny and charming teen comedy, with real affection and wit. Go see it when it comes out here on February 8th (or catch it while you still can, if it's already showing in your country).

It's got an awesome soundtrack (that I reckon will do for The Mouldy Peaches what Garden State did for The Shins); it moves the plot along without being intrusive (take note, Sondre Lerche). And at one point, at the end of the movie, it sort of becomes the plot.

I won't ruin the ending for you. But when the film had finished, and we changed back into our own clothes, Bill joked that it felt good to be 'cool' again. As he did, I caught myself in the changing room mirror, one hand pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose, the other, buttoning the cardigan that snuggled under my second-hand blazer. I thought to myself that however hard I try, I'll never quite be cool. But that was okay.

In the film, Michael Cera's character got the girl. And there I was at the end of an awesome party, having met some pretty interesting people, £50 better off and about to go for a drink with a movie star? I suppose that is pretty cool.

Catch Juno in the UK on February 8th; find out more on the link below.

• Juno: Official Site - [Fox Searchlight]

 

Gone fishing.

I've been writing my little heart out for the past week or so, working on some stuff for the business, hence the somewhat slower than usual blogging.

In fact, I've temporarily relocated to a quiet spot in Ireland, in an effort to concentrate on my words, which, it turns out, was something of a deft move, since I can't understand most of those uttered by the locals anyway.

My business partner and I just had dinner in Kinsale and nodded politely through the specials menu, which we're pretty sure was mostly fish; she had lobster (something I vowed to never do again) and last night we saw a movie called The Squid and the Whale.

It's been like a fishing trip so far. I'm back on dry land next week - expect more stories then!

15 minutes

Since the Stephen King/Rob Reiner chillfest, Misery (1990), having a "number one fan" is an altogether terrifying prospect. (A number two or three is fine.)

In the film, a novelist, played by James Caan, is rescued from a car accident in a blizzard, by a particularly fat Kathy Bates. Wait, it gets scarier...

It turns out she's his "number one fan" and has no intention of letting him go. She also lops off his feet with a hammer (don't click this link if you're squimish!).

It's no wonder then that I had cold feet (or any feet at all) when I agreed to meet one of my fans last week. ('One of' suggests there are more; 'one and only' may be closer to the truth.) She'd read my blog, saw that I'd moved to London and wanted to meet up.

Why the hell not? I thought.

Well, there was one prettyyy big reason why not:

• Kathy Bates.

But anyway, I chose to look beyond the Bates and found instead a very charming, not at all psychotic, PhD student.

And it got me thinking, perhaps prematurely, about the notion of fame (and the fifteen minutes of it promised us by Andy Warhol). I realise that it hasn't yet touched me in the same way that it did, say, Princess Diana, but it has sort of tickled me on the nose.

The PhD student knew only a persona, pixelated and preserved on this blog; a "true story of a single, metrosexual, twentysomething, British Indian male."

And while one fan does not a fan club make, I imagine it's just a matter of time before I'm shaving my head and checking into rehab, dangling a baby over a balcony ledge, or dying in a high speed car chase in Paris.

That's a lot to cram into my fifteen minutes.

The Namesake is super, man

It's no secret that I saw Superman Returns six times last year (and that's not including DVD viewings). I own both Spider-man films, eagerly await the next, and have all but the Joel Schumacher Batman outings.

It's not that I particularly like men in tights, though some may suspect otherwise; or that I have a hero complex, any more than most men.

I suppose I identify with these stories that are, essentially, the stories of immigrants.

Sent from far away places, living with alter-egos, battling with the duality of identity - on the one hand plain and inconspicuous, on the other colourful and foreign - superheroes (powers aside) are your regular, run of the mill, second generation immigrants.

Meera Syal went as far as claiming that Superman himself was Indian in her comedy sketch show, Goodness Gracious Me. NHS glasses, kipper tie..? Where else, she asked, could a man run faster than a train?

It's another Mira (though spelt slightly differently - Mira Nair) that reminds us of this fact. And it's on a train that her new film, The Namesake, begins. It ends the same way and in-between fills its two and a bit hours with, what critic Mark Kermode calls, "issuetastic family drama."

This, from the film's synopsis:

When the the Ganguli family moves from Calcutta to New York, they embark upon a lifelong balancing act to meld into a new world without forgetting the old. Though parents Ashoke and Ashima long for the family and culture that enveloped them in India, they take great pride in the opportunities their sacrifices have afforded their children. Paradoxically, their son Gogol is torn between finding his own unique identity without losing his heritage. Even Gogol's name represents the family's journey into the unknown.

Though I might rather relate to the Super side of Superman, his alter-ego, and that of the unfortunately named Gogol Ganguli, strike a more notable resemblance.

In The Namesake, Gogol's experiences were very much like mine. I cringed watching him bring home a white girl to meet his parents, flinched as she put her hand on his during dinner and squirmed as she planted an awkward kiss on his father's cheek. We just don't do that, my mum says.

I wondered what it must have been like for her, being born in India, coming over to England as a child and raising children of her own - 'neither here nor there'.

I wondered how she must have felt when I, like Gogol, disappeared into the surrogate family of my girlfriend, my work and my country.

Like all second-generation immigrants, I suppose, Superman himself is torn between two cultures - taught to respect his Kryptonian heritage, whilst embracing his undeniable Americanism.

The actor who plays Gogol Ganguli (Kal Pen) was, incidentally, in Superman Returns. It was a non-speaking role... You notice these things when you watch a film several times!

The Namesake was brilliant. I urge you to see it at least once.

• The Namesake [Fox Searchlight]

"1 adult, 1 child, please."

There is something of an image problem with the new Kate Winslet's film, I realised last night, when the attractive, box-office clerk asked me what I'd like to watch.
"Little Children," I replied.

• Little Children (2006) [via IMDb]

Borat. And mixing with the wrong crowd.

I went to see Borat for the second time yesterday. But I don't imagine it'll become the multiple viewing experience Superman Returns was. In fact, the first time I went to see it I didn't see it at all. I made the mistake of going on an Orange Wednesday, when mobile phone customers get two-for-one cinema tickets, saw the enormous queue of Borat fans, turned around and walked home.

I was put off, not exactly by the size of the crowd, but by its components. And that sounds like a terribly snobby thing to say. But, to quote the Onion, stereotypes are a real time saver, and just a glance at the crowd revealed a group of people probably unable to separate the irony from the racism, misogyny and anti-semitism of Borat.

The genius of Sacha Baron Cohen's creation is that it makes its point by seemingly embracing these bigoted ideas, turning the mirror on its subjects and making us question the boundaries of humour. When I finally saw the film yesterday I found that my stereotyping was spot on, that the crowd, which I'd tried to avoid by going to the matinee, asked no questions of its humour, instead erupted into hysterical laughter without the slightest delay.

I was, and not for the first time in Shrewsbury, immersed in a crowd with whom I shared little in common. And it made me feel as uneasy as Borat's tasteless gags. If you don't see these as satire, I thought, you are essentially laughing at racism, misogyny and anti-semitism. Were these people, I thought, looking at the crowd, the ones accusing me of terrorism? Calling me "über-gay"?

Is it good satire? It is occasionally. I liked when he lambasted people who deserved to be lambasted (and not just because I like to use the word 'lambast'). The frat boys in the Winnebago were truly horrible racist, sexist bastards. The scene in which Borat fearlessly strides into a Texan rodeo ring and loudly praises his hosts' "War of Terror" to wild applause is brilliantly surreal. But picking on shopkeepers by smashing their cheap antiques or presenting Atlanta folk with a bag of his after-dinner poo is just bullying one step up from Jeremy Beadle.

Is Borat funny? Yes, it is, and fine TV. And perhaps that's how it could have been better enjoyed, on the small screen and with like minded people, with whom I could have been sure to share the joke. But yesterday, I think, I was sitting in the wrong crowd.

• Stereotypes Are A Real Timesaver, The Onion

A Not-So Superplan

If you know me/have read my blog/been in ear-shot of any number of recent conversations you'll know that I'm very excited about the UK release of Superman Returns this Friday.

So excited, in fact, that I rushed out - faster than a speeding bullet - and bought more tickets than people I know. Anxious, perhaps optimistically, that the Man of Steel's return to the Silver Screen would sell out, I spent more money than logic today when booking seats over the Internet - reserving two for the 12:30pm showing in Shrewsbury, another two for 1pm that same day in Telford, and two more for an 8pm showing later that evening.

That's six tickets, for three showings - two of which commence within a half hour of each other, are in two towns 10 miles apart and one frankly expensive and badly planned day.

Worse still, Pete's working, Emma's in London, Beth's in York (and is so sick of Superman and its oft-quoted trailer - "the world doesn't need a saviour...and neither do I" - she wouldn't come anyway); and the only girl who might put up with my hand holding, tear welling, nausea inducing excitement is gone, in a similar and badly planned break-up. If I'd have just hung on...

I don't know what's more depressing: that I don't know five other people to take to the cinema, that I can't work an online booking form, or that I'll be watching perhaps the most eagerly anticipated movie event of my adult life alone, in an ill fitting Superman costume, with an empty seat beside me to put my red polyester cape.

Super.

Superman Returns

Superman's return to our big screens this summer will have fanboys, like me, wetting their little red underpants in excitement and might, potentially, give some approval for my often unpopular taste.

People jeer at my Jacko obsession (not those cool kids outside the gates Neverland, oh no); they scoff at my Dawson's Creek DVD collection; throw their drinks at my shiny white shoes and yell, "Oi, you! Gay boy!" Who's gay now? (Well, Superman, according to gay magazine The Advocate.)

But for once, it seems, something I like (in tights, nonetheless) has the approval of critics and the drink lobbing public alike, as the first reviews for Superman Returns give the new movie a resounding thumbs up.

Variety magazine's critic said it was "grandly conceived, sensitively drawn [and] never self-consciously hip".

"It is sincere, with an artistic elegance and a genuine emotional investment in the material," he wrote.

The Hollywood Reporter, meanwhile, saluted "a heartfelt Superman movie that plays to a broad audience".

Routh, it continued, plays the comic book character "with honesty [and] winning fortitude".

And Newsweek's David Ansen wrote: "From the start of this gorgeously crafted epic, you can feel that Singer has real love and respect for the most foursquare comics superhero of them all.

"Newcomer Routh may or may not be a real actor, but he effortlessly lays claim to the iconic role."

His comments were echoed by Harry Knowles on the Ain't It Cool News website, who described Superman Returns as "the film I was hoping and dreaming for".

"Just as Batman Begins relaunched an ailing Batman, it sends Superman into the stratosphere," he wrote.

• BBC News
• Ain't It Cool News
• Superman Returns

Soccer and High Heels

Hot on the high-heels of Felicity Huffman’s critically acclaimed Transamerica, She’s the Man is a gender bending comedy of errors, recycled from parts of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Robin Williams’ Mrs Doubtfire. In it Amanda Byrnes plays a girl who pretends to be a boy in order to play soccer.

“Everybody has a secret...” reads the almost necessarily long tagline on the movie’s poster. “Duke wants Olivia who likes Sebastian who is really Viola whose brother is dating Monique so she hates Olivia who’s with Duke to make Sebastian jealous who is really Viola who’s crushing on Duke who thinks she's a guy...”

You might be wondering how I read to the end of the poster and still saw this movie. Surely a film with this many interlocking romantic triangles is one for a hot date? Not in my world. In my world this is the kind of film that I am cajoled into seeing by my slightly weird, thirteen year old, male (I should mention) cousin.

I thought, at the least, there might be some eye candy in the form of the female lead. This is usually where I find my solace in being cajoled to watch a sub-standard romantic comedy. I didn’t find it in this film. Amanda Byrnes, though perfectly lovable, looks about 12 years old. And, when disguised as her older brother, a 13 year old boy. This does not appeal to me. And so, with what remained of my appetite, I took what solace I could find in the mouth candy of my popcorn.

But, with exuberance as boundless as his baldness, the greatest consolation, by far, was an excellent turn by David Cross as the school principal. Essentially reviving his role as Tobias Fünke in Arrested Development, Cross’s headmaster is an even less convincing ‘man’ than Byrnes’ – awkward in his skin, weirdly effeminate and occasionally alluding to a penchant for cross-dressing. “Have you ever tried running in high heels?” he asks. “It’s not that easy...it’s not that easy.”

And have you ever tried sitting through a romantic comedy pitched at an age group, an IQ even, dare I say, a gender not your own? It is, I imagine, like running in high heels. It’s not that easy. It’s not that easy.

Jerry Maguire 2

Hello. Of all American romantic comedies, Jerry Maguire is probably the least likely to spawn a sequel. That is, of course, unless Tom Cruise and Renée Zellweger were to reprise their roles for a decidedly downbeat divorce drama. (Can you imagine? Jerry Maguire 2: “Show me the child support!”)

Still, I delivered a memo with such veracity last night that it left me feeling, and not for the first time, like our chisel-jawed hero. Short of taking the gold fish with me (I do hope you’ve seen the film), I outlined my idea to revolutionise business to a somewhat panic-stricken company director.

“Oh God. What is that?” She asked, pointing at page three of the memo.
“That...that is a sketch of my brain.”
“Right.”
“It delineates how much of it I use for each task…”
“Was there a need for the blood?”
“I thought it would add...effect.” Then, standing suddenly, I shouted, “who’s with me?!”
“San, there’s no-one else in the room.”

And so the meeting continued. She pointed at indecipherable sketches; I explained my intentions; all the while, skating the underside of thin-ice, aware that at any point – and I almost expected it at the page headed, “Don't Chase Money” – she might present me with a box of my belongings (which is always the way people are fired in movies. Have you noticed?).

Instead, she went very quiet, gathering her thoughts, I guess, and the memo that lay strewn across the table. And in the silence, I pictured a box somewhere, filling with executive toys, issues of NME, an assortment of biscuits, and whatever else I have on my office desk (overdue work probably).

It’s unlikely that I will be fired. But, if I did have to go, it would be nice to have a fish or a Renée Zellweger to take with me. And you, of course. Though I had you at ‘hello,’ right?

Postcard from 27D

I'm sitting in seat 27D, probably the worst seat on the plane, in the middle of the middle isle where neither arm wrest is yours. (You don't realise how much you need them until they take them away.) Writing this is therefore uncomfortable, not least because I suspect the guy to my left is reading this over my shoulder.

I know that I am already in the company of Americans. Obesity is suddenly more common, some have already applauded the pilot and there is a young man in the adjacent isle with a slightly overgrown moustache that's not unlike a ferret. I imagine his name is Dwayne.

The guy sitting to my right is a professor of computer animation who has worked on Ren & Stimpy and The Simpsons and lived for a time in Hollywood. Of course, he could be completely lying - I'll never see him again. He has nevertheless spent considerable time (we're talking hours) proving that he really is that intelligent. And cultured.

"I only watch Art House or foreign language films," he says. And then (honestly) browses the in-flight magazine and says, with some excitement, "ooh, Spanglish is on."

Films Dogs Might Enjoy

And that, readers, is the topic of a BBC Radio Shropshire discussion. I urge you all to tune in, if not tonight, whenever you're in the area. In fact, it's worth moving to the area - the late night DJ is really that good. Still not good enough however, to keep my friend, Pete, in town. He's moving back to Uni tomorrow, but not without a few fond memories of a fairly fun summer. Tonight will surely rank up there with some of the least rank evenings of the past few months, as plans for a farewell few in Shrewsbury were shelved in favour of drinks at Telford's newest and I suspect only Italian American bar, Frankie and Benny's.

We arrived feeling a little underdressed but nevertheless utterly surprised at Telford's alarmingly large, pinstriped Italian American community. To our further surprise was the way in which bar staff served glasses on napkins and lit our cigarettes for us. (So impressed was I that I gestured a tip on the counter, which was ultimately retracted and spent on booze. There's a tip for you.)

Nothing could prepare us however - not even the Italian for Beginners tape playing in the bathroom - for the surprisingly moving speech by one half of the Frankie and Benny brand. With the words of leadership and wisdom usually reserved for the Presidents, football coaches and Morgan Freemen of American movies, Frankie or Benny (it was hard to tell which, or if indeed it was either), spoke to the small crowd of kitchen staff, waiters, bar men, managers and us, waiting patiently for our mention in the long list of thank yous.

It never came. The applause signaled the end of the speech (though I half expected an orchestral crescendo) and, drying a glass (I suspect, only for effect), the bar man leaned in. "We actually don't open until Monday," he said. "This is an invitation only event."

Then, with a courtesy not bestowed the Italian American stereotype of cinema, we were politely asked to leave. "You guys just sort of snuck in," he said. It was the easiest break in yet, and a rather painless break out. No violence, no guns, no hitmen: hardly Reservoir Dogs. Now there's a film a dog might enjoy...I'm calling Radio Shropshire. Goodnight.

Whatever happened to Corey Haim?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22corey+haim%22 If you were wondering...

Pains, Trains and Polyphonic Ringtones

The 8:32 is cancelled. But I'm on time. And with forty minutes to spare (or despair) I retreat to the station's humble waiting room, in which a girl, whom by probability I assume is a hairdresser (I've met three in a week) smokes beneath a no smoking sign and a teenage boy fulfils a stereotype: trucker cap, low rider jeans, skateboard. He's listening to what sounds like The Clash. "It is," he responds, when I ask to confirm.

Our conversation, if you can call it that, is interrupted by the polyphonic ringing of his phone, which plays the theme from Indiana Jones, somewhat ironically. I see this guy five mornings a week and have concluded that unlike the Harrison Ford machine of machismo he is largely a man of inaction. He sleeps on the train and I’ve yet to see him use his skateboard. Still, the thought of him leaping aboard, whip and skateboard in hand, clutching at his trucker cap before the train door closes, passes the time and elicits a silent chuckle. You might call it a smile. It too is interrupted by a polyphonic ringtone. This time mine and a text message from my boss, Em. "Meeting at 10. Will you make it?"
"I think so," is my response. "Unfortunately."

Watch Out: Horror-By-Numbers

The only thing missing was a dead phone line. Otherwise Gothika, the new Halle Berry film, was horror-by-numbers, and although it made for an unsettling drive home just now I doubt that it will leave any long term damage, like say the more inventive, The Exorcist and The Shining, which just by mention has me looking over my shoulder.

It relied almost exclusively on formulaic technique: darkness and lightning; a soundtrack of amplified sound effects and stabbing strings; and a script that actually included the line, "But that's impossible. She died four years ago..." Watching Gothika was like being on one of those fairground ghost trains, with horrors leaping at the sides of the carriage, crawling slowly along the dark track and towards the man in the black cloak and Scream mask that fondles your hair. Like the fairground attraction that unfolds from a truck, Gothika had a sort of short-lived shock value to it and a shoddy construction that adds a second layer of fear.

Its construction is what is always most frightening about horror films, and that is how we, the audience, is cast. Our participation in Gothika was so apparent to deserve billing beside co-stars Penelope Cruz and Robert Downy, Jr. Because when the camera was stalking the heroine around the women’s prison, in her car, through her house, it was clear that we were not, like Berry, the victim, we were the perpetrator; we were not to sympathise, we were to kill. And it is always that perverse pursuit of the female body in horror films, so explicit in Gothika, that scares me.

But that is not to say that it is a bad film. The plot might make no sense, the script may be preposterous (“I’m not deluded, Pete – I'm possessed!”), and it won’t leave you pensive or a changed person, but like the ghost train Gothika is involving, scary and absorbing for precisely its running time. It is a by-the-numbers horror film. And a very good one, at that. But there is no accounting for taste.

Back to the Future

Good evening blogees. I'm coming to you live from the year 1994, thanks to the marvelous technology of...coming home for Easter Break. Somehow every homecoming is like time travel. Whether I'm returning from a semester at University, a year abroad in California or a trip to the petrol station down the street, I can always rely on everything here remaining exactly the same - not a scrunchy unscrunched, a Bush in office, or an episode of Friends yet begun. Unfortunately, it also means that I'm back to the World Wide Wait of dial-up Internet, and so I'm writing this offline, not downloading an episode of Friends (because it doesn't exist yet), and not peppering this entry with Google search results.

(For better or) worse still, unlike my blog studio at University, where I've no TV, Channel 4 is playing here in the background and I'll admit that The 100 Greatest Films show is very distracting, and unexpectedly comforting. At #18 is The Matrix, a scene from which just flashed on the screen, its title superimposed and, in brackets the date of its release, 1999. If by coming home I have gone back in time, I'm at the most only five years back.

So I'm going to see which film makes #1. While I'm gone post a comment and let me know what would hit your top spot.

Watch Out: A Real Super Man

"If misery finds company, this man has a full house." Those are the (approximate) words of NBC chat show host David Letterman, whose one-time regular guest Harvey Pekar is the focus of the splendid biopic American Splendor, which found its way from Cleveland, OH., to the Cannes Film Festival, to, in no ascending order of glamour, our campus cinema, whence I have just returned, moved, puzzled and very impressed.

Harvey Pekar is, I'm pretty sure, a blue collar writer for underground comic books now in his sixties whose life and work is drawn up on the big screen by documentarists Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, who ramble some no-man's-land between fact and fiction in a film that leaves us neither here nor there. (In fact, I Googled Pekar's name when I got in tonight just to be sure that this man exists.)

Pekar's autobiographical comic itself, on which the film of the same name is based, makes no clear distinction between fact and fiction, and the filmmakers transfer this ambiguity to celluloid remarkably well, layering fictional recreation, newly shot documentary footage and animation, to produce a kaleidoscopic portrait of the artist as a troubled man. Harvey is played for the most part by the excellent Paul Giamatti with uncanny resemblance to Pekar, who to complicate things or help explain them, narrates the film and appears in present day documentary scenes commenting on unfolding events and even casting choices.

There is so much to say about this film - about the wit and compassion of its many layers, and the hall-of-mirrors effect they create; so much that this film has to say - about the disaffected and the disenfranchised in American society - that I couldn't possibly convey them all in the far inferior comic book of my blog. I would urge you to see it if you get the chance. It is the most refreshing film I have seen in a while - more so than Lost In Translation, dare I say, and in the words of Harvey Pekar, a real comic book superhero, doing daily battle against the villainous reality of the working class, of the bastards at NBC, of cancer - "it's the real thing."

Watch Out: Translating a Lost Generation

Every once in a while my connection to the Internet, and thus the world outside of this campus, is lost, and I am too in a way; and a little frightened at how dependent I have become on the technology. Not knowing what to do, I took a walk just now and thought to myself how sad it is that both my work and my leisure times rely so heavily on the web. I needed it tonight to research a presentation I am preparing, from which I would probably procrastinate and play guitar, having downloaded the chords from www.ultimate-guitar.com. So here I am – typing this in Word, not listening to Internet radio, or instant messaging ‘buddies’ but feeling positively 1995. No Internet access? Now there’s a blast from the past.

It is indeed a sign o’ the times that ’95, that version of Windows, O.J. Simpson and the Ebola virus seem eons away, although admittedly all still (and sadly) exist on older PCs, in obscurity and in the Congo. Cast your minds back a further four years if you can and you might remember a book called Generation X by Douglas Coupland, the subject of the aforementioned presentation. It concerns itself with three twentysomethings suspicious of the consumer society consuming society who, having quit their careers, hide away in the California desert and tell stories. These Xers, born roughly between 1965 – 1975, are characterized by an amorphous sense of irony and the material reality of being the first generation fiscally worse off than its predecessor. They are also, a Newsweek review of the book suggests, “a bunch of whiners”.

My analysis of the book led me back to Ernest Hemingway, writer of the ‘Lost Generation’ and an inevitable reference point for Coupland and his Xers, also blessed with spiritual alienation, self-exile, and cultural criticism. It is by sheer coincidence that my last act of web mastery was to illegally download a crisp copy of Oscar darling Lost In Translation, in which Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson play two lost souls rattling around a Tokyo hotel much like Hemingway’s puppets in Paris. The strangers in a bar, who might have sex at anytime, fall into conversation about their marriages, their unhappiness and the meaning of it all.

Murray and Johansson reminded me of the Lost and X Generations, whether in Paris or Palm Springs, or Coppola’s Japan, unified by their ultimate emptiness, and skating the ice border of being “a bunch of whiners.” In Lost In Translation however, our couple might not solve their problems, or those of their generations, but feel a little better all the same. Although I didn't think the film was great, perhaps a little too self-important, it was sweet in that sense. And Tokyo’s high-rise, high-speed, tech world, I guess, is not so far removed from ours…Oh, looks as if the Internet is back on. Phew! I can instant message my friend in Japan now. ‘Til next time.

All in a day's work

Friday's a good day for most. A day to thank God for it, finish work and according to an eighties band, be in love. If, in the words of Robert Smith, The Cure, "...Monday's blue / Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too", my Friday wasn't much better and if you've read my last entry, rendered in greyscale, you'll know I wasn't in high spirits.

Yesterday then I set about cheering myself up, as much to salvage my soul as my personality, and to give you something interesting to read. This involved some good ol' retail therapy. In my shopping basket was:

• Nothing says 'comfort food' like Farley's Rusks biscuits. It actually says 'baby food' on the box.
• In the absence of male friends I bought Swingers on DVD to fill that void, bonded with its stars and decided that there is a Heather Graham out there for me. I just have to keep looking and maybe socialise more at the Dresden Lounge in L.A.
• Have you ever bought clothes to boost your self esteem? I can say that nothing does the job better than a spandex Superman costume, complete with cape, outerpants, and a 30% discount from a closing down fancy dress shop!

Imagine this: a skinny 21 year old guy, watching a movie, eating baby food, dressed as superhero. To help you out there, as an apology for the last 'blah, blah' blog entry and in case you need cheering up, because this really has the cumulative effect of all three items in my shopping basket, here is a photo of me, the Man of Steel Compressed Aluminium, sporting my new day wear. Is it a bird? Is it a plane...? (Maybe it is a bird...) No, it's...Supersan!

The Passion of the Blog

Having just walked back through a snow crested campus to my dorm room and through the kind of atmopshere conjured by AJ's inspirational journal, the blog that got me into this game in the first place (see entry Stockard Channing and other funny things), I feel somewhat commited to write this before I slip into my jim-jams, knock back a glass of milk and drift into my usual dreams of jeannie with the light brown hair.

I was out with Beth, Mike and his girlfriend Caroline for a bargain dinner that is becoming a Thursday night fixture, it being 'curry night' and priced at a very reasonable £3.99 (including pint). It was the pleasant sort of evening filled with meandaring conversation, lots of laughter and at one point tears from yours truly. (You have to understand I have very watery eyes. I just have to tilt my head and a tear will roll, which sometimes works in my favour, say in an essay review meeting or when I don't get exactly what I want.)

When I could compose myself and stop blubbering long enough to articulate an opinion we discussed the talk of Tinsel Town, Mel Gibson's third and probably last Hollywood film, The Passion of the Christ. If you've heard of Jesus you've probably heard of this film, it's extreme violence and the charges of anti-semitism against it and Mad Max star Gibson, who, it is fair to say, has undertaken an enormously risky project that could be his last in the close-knit world of Hollywood and with the prominent and mostly Jewish figures that make the deals.

It's a film that I've been oddly obsessed with for months now. I can't quite figure it out...I'm a Hindu, albeit a fervent Christmas celebrator, not a particularly big Mel Gibson or Jesus fan for that matter, but somehow the hype surrounding The Christ has gripped me, more so even than the pre-release Spiderman and Hulk buzz. Jesus, I suppose, is a far greater superhero and, outside of the critical press, personal reviews of Gibson's Passion tell of a sort of a spiritual awakening - a desire to be a better person - from the very act of seeing a Jim Caviezel Jesus crucified "for all our sins."

Although I squirm even at the operation scenes of E.R., I feel compelled to watch the final brutal hours of Jesus's life, perhaps by watching to be a part of the hype, to participate in an event shared by so many, to experience that enlightenment. The Passion of the Christ has a lot of people talking. From accounts I have read it has a lot of people thinking too, affirming their convictions. This film might be the last two hours of Mel Gibson's career but it might be Christianity's most powerful recruitment tool since that other controversial text, the Bible.

Now would be a good time to purge my sins and formally apologise for my comments concerning Mary Magdalene. Monica Belluci may be hot in The Passion but the things I said, I realise, were a bit rude. And any gossip, of the secular sort, surrounding Mary's friendship with the Christ is just hearsay. So...sorry Beth.