In a perfect world, DVDs shouldn't have to fight each other for a chance to get watched. I mean, they should all get along well on the shelves and just arrange themselves properly in alphabetical order. Or maybe chronological order according to the dates of release. Or by genres. Of course, then my section of muscle bound idiot movies starring Sly Stallone would dominate the top shelves and then the other DVDs wouldn't be happy. I mean, "
The Jane Austen Book Club", which I like quite a bit, would probably end up shelved at the bottom rack then. And that's not really a good thing.
Anyway, I really wanted to blog about my Deepavali weekend but the Malika Sherawat film "Hisss" already spoiled the Deepavali weekend so badly that I avoided everything Indian (
although I did put on Indian music on the radio). I also decided to go into a super geek mode this Deepavali and picked up some super geeky films like "
Scott Pilgrim vs the World", "
Hot Tub Time Machine" and "
Get Him To The Greek". As I was saying, I got home from teaching an English class and the DVDs started going at each other like the time Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior teamed up against Mr. Perfect and Ric Flair. It was Royal Rumble on the shelves. My wife then got into the mix and started screaming that she wanted to watch this new TVB series starring Bowie Lam and Bosco Wong. Think "
Fight Club" but with DVDs instead of stupid Brad Pitt.
Then I flipped some lamb chops and poured in some detergent. Then I got online and did some online shopping - yeaaaaaah my debit card works! Then I got a new pair of glasses and drank some tomato soup. Voila! The fight ended and Michael Cera came up on top. "
Scott Pilgrim" was a movie that demanded to be watched. I loved the video game sounds that accompanied the Universal title and the rest of the movie went downhill from there. I mean, I'm a video game freak but you should see my room-mate in college. Now, that bloke was a real arcade addict. I used to spend hours just watching him play "
Street Fighter II" at the arcades. The Scott Pilgrim film (
based on the Bryan Lee O'Malley comic that I never picked up although Brian Michael Bendis said that it was the best thing since Spidey joined the Avengers - ok Bendis never said that but he really very highly recommended that stuff) was like I was back in 1994 and stuck in a smoky arcade with my room-mate and forced to watch him play "
Street Fighter II" for the 1,738th time - minus the cancer-causing cigarette smokes, of course. After all, my mother wouldn't allow us to pollute the air in the house although my wife complains that I do precisely that everytime I enter the toilet and conveniently forget to close the door. No, the film wasn't bad. Oh, did I say it was bad? My precise words were that it went downhill from there (
"there" being the end of the Universal title with video game sounds instead of the usual orchestration). Actually I think I'll take back those words. It didn't go downhill. It just never went anywhere. I mean, it was a lot of fun to watch but it doesn't feel like something that you'd want to rewatch. I mean, imagine Michael Cera executing "
Street Fighter II" moves (
complete with sound effects and combo effects) on BOTH Superman (
I mean Brandon Routh - who's some super vegan type in this movie) and Captain America (
that's Chris Evans for you - who also played the Human Torch and he's got like dozens of stunt guys in this movie that looked like him). Then there's this really cute Chinese girl who looked 100% like this really nice lady in church. She's probably the only real reason to watch this film but Michael Cera was so stupid that he picked Mary Elizabeth Winstead over that Chinese babe.
After I was done with the Michael Cera love-fest of a movie, I saw that "Get Him To The Greek" had been pummelled to smithereens. Imagine that - Jonah Hill actually pummelled by Michael Cera. So I picked up "
Hot Tub Time Machine" instead and put it into the player. It started for 2 seconds and the stupid disc got jammed. No, it's not because the disc only cost 8 dollars. It's because John Cusack has a hernia. I'm serious. He doesn't look like the pretty boy from "
High Fidelity" any longer. He looks like an old has-been bloke with a hernia. Ok, he's not really THAT bad - I mean, have you seen the cast of "
The Breakfast Club" these days? *Phew!* They look more like "
The Leftovers-After-Dinner Club", if you get what I mean. Ok. John Cusack. You look at him now and you'll believe that he's someone who actually wants to jump into a hot tub and power it up with Chernobly to go back to 1986. Of course, looking like he did, I probably wouldn't want to jump in naked into a hot tub with him (
heck - I wouldn't jump in naked into a hot tub with ANY guy - go on, I'm a gay-hater, I know!). The film was fun while it lasted but after that you couldn't help feeling like you just watched a poor-man's "
Back To The Future". The predictable jokes about Michael Jackson being black, folks watching "
Red Dawn" and walkmans (
or is that "walkmen"?) got a bit stale after a while. So we got too much of John Cusack and his friends (especially Rob Corddry - who literally stole the show here) and too little of the 1980s magic. I mean, I'd love to go back to 1986 and pick up first editions of "
Watchmen", "
The Dark Knight Returns", "
Batman Year One", etc. but none of that is even worth a mention here. Why? The only thing that came close to something of the 1980s magic was a 2 second TV shot of "
Alf"!!! Where's
Punky Brewster or the
Smurfs or
Hulk Hogan's Rock-N-Wrestling or
Fraggle Rock or
Donkey Kong? Do the writers of the film even know the 1980s???
That was it for my Deepavali weekend. And yes, I reread "
The Dark Phoenix Saga" and took the kids out for fried chicken. Happy Deepavali, friends... :)
