Behind the Scenes of ‘Full. Meddle. Jacket.’

So now for something completely different. Consider this kind of like a director’s commentary of my previous blog post, if you will. The reason I’m writing it is because when I sit down to do any entry, it’s kind of all off-the-cuff reflexive reflective writing. Once it’s done and posted, I’ll read over it and go, “Oh, wait! I forgot about that!” I have no idea whether this will become a consistent sort of thing, but this entry just had my synapses firing off at all different points of the re-read phase.

With tutorials kicking off, I was surprised at the amount of tutorials I have with people that I already know. This isn’t an altogether bad thing, as it will make things this semester a lot more sociable. This could also have an impact on my focus in terms of study, but what the heck. If I can string together some sort of Community scenario (In which I’m Jeff Winger, of course) it could well make the following few months unbelievably awesome.

One event that was slightly more alarming was walking into one particular tute a few minutes late, the tutor asked who I was and upon hearing my response, asked me whether I lived on a certain avenue. I didn’t quite hear her at first, responding “No, I don’t think so.” But then it occurred to me that she pronounced the avenue I live in quite differently than I do. Alarm bells were screaming ‘STALKER’, but no, it turns out she lives two doors down from me. LITERALLY two doors down, not figuratively, as if to suggest that she lives on the same avenue albeit some distance away. I am uncertain whether this gives me carte blanche to show up on her doorstep at 3am with a question about the exam, or whether I should just use email instead.

Now comes a tricky part. A director’s commentary about a director. Oooh, just how art nouveau can I get?

On Takashi Miike and 13 Assassins – not all of you would be familiar with Miike’s work. Let me say this about him, he makes a shitload of films. Not all of them are great (after many you are left thinking, “Why?”) but he has a particular quality about his movies that not many other directors out there  have going for them. This particular quality? Capturing the nonsensical.

The Most Epic 8 Minute Ending to a Movie Ever

The above link is by no means an exaggeration. You’ll just have to watch it and see. I’m pretty sure I’ve linked to it on the Book of Face before. Miike also churned out four films in 2007, three of which I’ve seen. Also, no-one else could have gotten away with making this film…

..which I have also seen. And it wasn’t a complete waste of time, either! And lest I forget to mention Sukiyaki Western Django, probably one of the greatest homage pieces of cinema. The greatest part about it? An all-Japanese cast (except an almost unidentifiable Quentin Tarantino) forced to speak in broken English. Anyone familiar with why Spaghetti Westerns were called Spaghetti Westerns will now get why it’s called Sukiyaki Western.

When I mentioned Wristcutters: A Love Story, well, that was more attention than it deserved.

Regarding the friend I caught up with midweek, there were two other uni friends involved in the catch-up. One of whom I saw around end of exams for last semester, which was now five or six weeks ago (What the hell, Time? Seriously, slow down or something.) and the other one a few weeks before that. You know that you’re amongst friends when you can discuss at great length the concepts or practicality associated with vulgar insults, and the effectiveness of said insults once you take all these factors into consideration. Seriously, if you haven’t sat down with people and discussed the finer details in the art of insults, I recommend it.

Aimless wandering. Well, it’s not so much aimless as it is exploratory, I guess. But it’s not like I’m going hunting for treasure in areas which I definitely shouldn’t be, like dumpsters or wondering what’s really behind that brick which is leaking all manner of sludge. The only way I can elaborate further is – I walk around streets I’m unfamiliar with (or rarely visit) and walk to areas I haven’t encountered before or revisit linking streets that I’ve been on or near. It may sound like an epic waste of time to anyone reading this, but with my various random saunters I’ve rediscovered a bunch of places I’ve either been to previously, have heard about to no end yet never had a valid frame of reference and encountered places where I’ve decided, “I must go check that out someday.”

When I mentioned the two student media alumni, this gal and guy team were among the first to get me involved in writing and the whole shebangabang.  I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today without having known these two wonderful individuals.

Another thing I forgot to mention in its entirety (How very forgetful of me, indeed!) was the movie night that was hosted by two lovely friends of mine in which I was given the honour of choosing the films. Of my blu-ray collection, I chose The Good, The Bad, The Weird as the must-watch film, because A) it’s a Korean Western and B) it’s directed by Kim Jee-Woon. I could now literally write another entire entry about how much I love his films and why, but I’ll stop this part here.

The other films I chose for the night – The Fall, Children of Men and The Banquet. We didn’t get to watch all of them, however The Good, The Bad, The Weird was received well. The remainder of the night was spent discussing all manner of TV shows, movies, discovering what ‘clamjam’ is and also discussing why one of the host’s male friends was so against having any item shoved up his butt.

And if that’s not a perfect note to end a commentary on, I don’t know what is.