Puzzled.

I saw One Day on Wednesday.
I don't know what I think.

I'm confused, yo.

D: 

I was in a restless sort of mood, having spent most of the day doing a whole lot of nothing. Unless of course, you'd describe watching about four episodes of Dexter, staring wistfully at ticket stubs and assorted bits of crap collected in South America then attempting to tidy up as "something". So, I wandered over to the local cinematorium, thinking that I'd catch The Change-Up (seeing as my default state is always Intellectual, guys). Little did I know that it was in fact a Wednesday, and my chosen body-switch buddy comedy wasn't to be released for another twenty four hours. Curses. So I saw One Day.

My knowledge of One Day was limited to wondering "is that the book I was going to buy at the airport but didn't?" (Yes it was, and I bought The Feast of the Goat instead), and the fact that it stars Jim Sturgess and he is incredibly attractive.

I was the only person in the cinema, so my shoes were removed and my crap spread over as many seats as I could manage. Certainly, it was a comfortable viewing experience. Was it a good film though? Dude, I don't know.

I don't know.

I enjoyed it. I got kind of teary at the end. I enjoyed the whole mid-90s vibe. I enjoyed Jim Sturgess. Anne Hathaway's accent was at times questionable, but that was okay ... I guess. One Day is about a couple of pals. Emma and Dexter. They nearly shag after graduation, then spend the 90s nearly getting together because they're obviously best friends and perfect for each other but the longer they don't realise it the more epic it will be when they get together. Epic it is, and epic are the consequences.

I got back home, had a cup of tea, and found myself continuing to think about the film. I wished I was in South America. I thought, "Gosh darn, I'd like me some good old fashioned lovin'." I wished my beloved-yet-interstate Mitch was on Skype so I could complain about my lack of good old fashioned lovin', and to discuss the day's Reddit goings-on. I wished we got to keep our graduation gowns post-graduation in order to experience the post-graduation partytimes depicted in the film's opening.

Then it dawned on me. The realisation raised its head in my head like some sort of Brachiosaurus in front of Sam Neill. Arms raised, yelling, like a Platoon-era Charlie Sheen. I'd been had. By Lone Scherfig and Jim Sturgessesseseses' pretty face and a glum mood.

Had I been more upbeat upon entering the cinema, I dare say I would have become very irritated at One Day. I would have become very irritated very quickly. I would have grown weary of the courtship that lasted decades. At the overwhelming weepiness of the entire affair. At one of the most irritating accents of recent memory, Anne Hathaway. Yeah, it was definitely a weepy. I (very often) hate weepies! They make me vomit in my mouth!

I guess the two leads elevated the film, stepped the happenings up a notch or two. They had good chemistry, I will give them that. And yes, as a lady who regards a lovable yet flaky ladykiller as perhaps her closest friend, I'd probably say I probably identify with a good ol' chunk of what our two heroes encounter. Still, I have to wonder what my reaction to One Day would have been if I hadn't been in an emotional place to make me think, "Aw. I miss Mitts". One that made me ponder a romantic escapade set in Cusco and filled with sighs. One that's a fair few steps above "wallowing" but still conducive to gazing longingly out windows. I sat there on my lonesome, my shit strewn all over the place and wished curses and plagues on whoever decided films should be released on Thursdays.

I don't categorically hate all cinematic courtships that span decades and that end in tragedy (spoiler?). I don't mind when a film attempts to incite an en masse reach for the kleenex, if it's done tastefully and classily. I like a good romantic cinema-cry as much as the next person. It's just that the more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether or not One Day was something I'd like at all in any viewing situation other than the one I'd just had. And look, I know what you're thinking.
"But Reb, surely you should just embrace whatever emotional reaction you have to a film! Emotional response achieved, film job done!" 
Yeah, I guess. But you know what? After all of that pondering, I really want to know what a regular-Reb reaction (alliteration and referring to myself in the third person!) would be.

So what did I think of One Day? I don't know. It might be annoying. It might be an over the top weepy. It might be great. I'll watch it again, and report back with my findings.

Acquisitions.

Some things I acquired while in South America.

Clothing. All of which now are a few shades darker than what they once were. The days of sweat, the stench of a thousand cigarettes, and the sheer effort it took to find a laundromat have taken their toll (although that seems appropriate for my dirty hippy Peruvian trousers).

A bracelet from almost every city I went to.

I'm actually missing five, but that's most of them.

A Millennium Falcon.

For the specific use of taking mediocre photos with on the Bolivian salt flats.

The world's ugliest jumper. Which (I'll have you know) I wore for two months after buying it in order to give to Ev, my brother. It was acquired after a day of walking what must have been the length and breadth of La Paz with two boys from New York. The day was spent hunting for the famous Evo Morales Sweater. Don't fret if you haven't heard of it; neither had I. Not content with coming home bearing a llama jumper, with being yet another backpacker decked out in the backpacker uniform, Dani and Andrew were determined to buy and wear proudly the sweater that had made the Bolivian president an accidental fashion sensation.

After a day of learning that as the approval rating of a leader falls so too does the ubiquity of his chosen warmth providing upper body clothing item, we finally found an almost identical sweater. Thus, the boys had their sweaters, and I had a serious case of sweater envy. So instead of heading to the top of the city in order to take in the apparently breathtaking view, we continued to the next sweater shop so I could find the ugliest one on the market. Find I did.

Never let it be said that the ugliness of a sweater negates its warmth.

Anyway, I gave it to Ev after two months of my having worn it, of it not being washed once, and with a big rip in the sleeve. He loved it. "I'll wear it to uni and pretend I'm an architecture student!" was his immediate response. 

Sisterly duty, done.

The most exciting acquisition however, occurred with only four days left to spare in South America. I decided to get a tattoo.  

I'd been wanting one for a while. I'd been pondering what I'd get for a while. Then suddenly it just seemed right, completely natural to get it in South America. At the risk of sounding like a dud, I felt like I had to commemorate the time I'd had on the trip with something, something drastic. And that I had to get it done whilst I was still there. Jesse and I spent one particular afternoon talking at great length about tattoos, what we'd get done if we ever felt that compelled to do it. After that, the desire to Get It Done grew and grew, until it wasn't something I wanted, it was something I NEEDED to do before hopping back onto a plane. 

So after finding Amor Real Tattoos, meeting Amaro and talking about a design, I headed back the next day to Get It Done. I burst into Jesse's room, waking him. 

"Dude! What're you doing in forty five minutes?"

"Uhh. Nothing. Why?"

"Wanna come get my tattoo done with me?"

"Shityeah!"

We trouped over to Providencia, had a half-decent coffee (which is somewhat rare in South America) and went about Getting It Done. It was my first tattoo (fun fact for you), and while it's not particularly huge - it ain't a sleeve or nothin' - it's not tiny either. I wasn't sure how my pain threshold was going to hold up. So as the buzzing began behind me, I flailed my hand in Jesse's direction. 

"JESSE!" I hissed. 

"Huh?"

"COME HERE!" My hand was flapping at him like a epileptic fish.

"What, really?"

"YES."

I grasped Jesse's hand for dear life. I'd brought him along thinking that I'd die before pussying out in front of him, but now I wondered how much of a feat of willpower that would be. After all I'd heard varying reports on how much tattoos hurt. 

First contact was made ... and it barely hurt at all. In fact, I began to laugh. "Are you alright? Is something wrong?" Amaro asked. Maybe he thought I was crying. I stopped giggling and assured him that all was well. 

"Laughing it off like a boss!" said Jesse approvingly. 

Shortly afterwards our friend Felipe turned up, holding the fruits of a long day shopping (he'd had a "gay day" he told us, using up the money his parents had sent to fly him to Argentina to visit them). He snapped some photos, and promptly knocked over a painting in the studio. Amaro, far from pleased, told the boys off. Jesse knows next to no Spanish, but given how quickly he bailed (with Felipe in tow), it was clear he understood Amaro's tone.

 

Surprisingly, my folks had nothing disapproving to say. Probably because I was still on the other side of the world. I think by then they'd resigned themselves that nothing they could do would really play a factor in changing my mind. I returned home victorious, about three hours later (tell you what, just sitting there gets pretty old pretty fast) to high fives and noises of approval from the guys. Victory beers were consumed. I was warned by a fellow Australian that it's bad to drink immediately after getting a tat but Jesse, ever the good influence, told me to shut up and drink. 

Anyway, it's a map of South America with a few lines from my favourite Bob Dylan song, "Isis" inside. I've had (again, at the risk of sounding like an almighty dud) a bit of a special relationship with that particular song for a long time now, and it seemed only appropriate to include it. The verse in question in its entirety is:

I married Isis on the fifth day of May

But I could not hold onto her very long

So I cut off my hair and rode straight away

For the wild unknown country 

Where I could not go wrong. 

But you know, that's a little long. So I chose the last two lines. 

It's a fairly bad photo I know, but you get the idea and I'm not about to
fix it. Disclaimer: I'm not that pixellated in RL. 

I'm comfortable with having that image on my person for the rest of my life. South America and all that came with it is an experience I won't soon be forgetting, and that song has followed me around like a stench for the past few years. Like I said, it seemed natural to get it. Hell, I'm glad this was my first tattoo experience. It sure beats getting wasted in Thailand and having 'KNOB' tattooed on the inside of your bottom lip like this guy I met in Bolivia (true story, I saw it). 

Cowboys and Aliens

I've been excited about Cowboys and Aliens for a long while now. I saw the trailer for the first time almost immediately after it was released, and the many and varied elements of my nerdy personality all seemed to rejoice together.

My brain when.

Jon Favreau directing Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford as cowboys fending their land and people against aliens? What's that you say IMDB, it also stars Paul Dano, Keith Carradine and my beloved ever-dancing Sam Rockwell? Oh, pants happy joy and fuck me gently with a chainsaw, THAT is something I want to see.

Anyway, I happened to be in Santiago when the film was released. Obviously, I was determined to see it, as was my fellow-Melbournian Santiago partner-in-crime, Jesse. Unfortunately, my determination and love of Westerns was no match for the student protests that were happening all over Santiago that week. The area directly surrounding our hostel was almost entirely shut down, even the supermarket hesitant to open their doors to residents. O'Higgins, the main road near us, was completely deserted, with the popo milling around bearing riot shields, waiting for things to occur. I'm referring to my second-last day in Santiago in what I'm describing. By that stage we were fairly accustomed to the stench of tear gas, if that's any indication of the frequency of demonstrations.

Why I didn't see Cowboys and Aliens. 

But I digress. I'm in Australia now (sadly enough), and yesterday was father's day. As such I was quick to say yes when my dad and brother asked if I wanted to come see none other than Cowboys and Aliens with them. Well, shit yeah guys. Shit YEAH. 

Was it worth all the anticipation, the excitement though? Ehh...sorta. 

A little. 

A bit. 

...

Look, the fact is that Cowboys and Aliens could have been amazing. It should have been amazing. It should have been the best kind of popcorn blockbuster fun. It's cowboys fighting aliens, for poo's sake. With that cast, and with Jon Favreau at the helm, of course you couldn't be blamed for expecting big things. Things started promisingly enough too. Daniel Craig wakes up in the desert, alone and with a big metal thing on his wrist. He promptly sets about Getting It Done in the default state of Badass he occupies for the film's entirety. Kick ass, acquire boots, vest, horse and hat. He rides to the next town, that of Absolution. There, we meet the Doc-cum-barkeep (Sam Rockwell), the Sheriff (Keith Carradine), the town's preacher, and the spoilt, obnoxious son (Paul Dano) of Colonel Dollarhyde, the mean sunvabitch whose cattle keeps Absolution afloat. At least twice I hissed "Shiiieeeeeet!" to my dad and brother, signs of my wholehearted approval of Daniel Craig's various acts of badassery in the first ten minutes or so of the film. Like I said, promising enough of a start. 

Unfortunately, the warning lights began to flash early on. No less than five writers working on one film is never something that fills me with ease. The fruits (or lack thereof) of their combined efforts reared their ugly heads soon enough. The dialogue ranges from terrible to awful. None of those five writers were able to figure out how to script a conversation? How to make the HURRR Things Characters Say sound vaguely natural? Jon Favreau, you couldn't see the difference between these awkward, uncomfortable exchanges and what worked so well in Iron Man? To all of this, 'apparently not' is the answer. As we're introduced to Colonel Dollarhyde (Harrison Ford), I cringed. After the aliens attack for the first time, not even Sam Rockwell could make "WHAT IS THAT THING? IS MY WIFE IN THERE?" sound okay. 

As Cowboys and Aliens continues, Jake Lonergan (Craig) and Dollarhyde lead a band of Absolution's townfolk on a journey to reclaim their kin from the clutches of the aliens. Of note in the search party are the sheriff's grandson and Olivia Wilde as Ella, a mysterious woman who seems to know something about Lonergan's past. 

Cowboys and Aliens is full of opportunity for badassery, for riding through the Western countryside on horseback away from foes, towards battle. Daniel Craig exudes tortured hero cool, is exactly the kind of bad-guy turned good that carries a good Western. Helooks great in a vest and hat. Looks great without them too. Harrison Ford has some good moments, but for the most part seems to be in "old gruff tough guy" auto-pilot mode. The ingredients are there, but they're either underused, or not used at all. The problem is, I didn't really give a shit about any of the characters, or the goings on. Which is fucking unfortunate. I didn't really care about Dollarhyde finding his son, didn't care about the little kid grandson of the Sheriff, didn't care about the relationship between Lonergan and Ella. 

Getting it Done, but not quite enough.

Sure, there were some enjoyable action sequences. Yeah, of course there were. There were some good shoot outs. And hell, I'm not about to diss any scene where Daniel Craig is sans shirt. But I was let down. I was looking forward to seeing how a small Western town and its inhabitants would react to having these aliens, futuristic shiny space ships flying about, shooting up their lives. That would have been interesting. I wanted to know more about the Doc's story, a man who'd come to the town seeking a dream but had been let down. I wanted to know more about the Sheriff's family. I was hopeful when the local Indian crew turned up, but again was let down by how little the film delved into the tensions between Dollarhyde and the chief, as well as how that culture would have reacted to the presence of aliens. 

Maybe this is all a result of my love of Westerns. Maybe I wanted less alien and more cowboy. Maybe my expectations were too high. I was let down, sure, but I expect others will probably get a hell of a kick out of the goings-on. My dad loved it. It was a more than serviceable popcorn romp, but I wanted even more than that. Craig and Ford are almost perfectly cast, I just wish that they were rather more fleshed out. I wish the aliens were a little more interesting (They want gold? That's it?). Hell, I wish it had been more of a Western. But I guess the Western is a dying (if not already dead) genre, and maybe my thinking was a little more wishful. 

Apparently it's Father's Day...

Well, shit. I wasn't expecting College Humour to pack an emotional punch like that. Not even kidding. I find these greeting card days fairly annoying (which isn't to say I didn't hang out with my dad today), but this video's actually kind of great. So, happy father's day!

The Six Ways You'll See Your Dad.

Catch Up.

I've been in South America for the past three and a half months. I went to the movies five times during the journey. Even though one would sooner expect sight-seeing and crazy happenings than film nerdery from a South American adventure, for someone who heads to the ol' cinematorium at least once or twice a week, that number's alarmingly low on the quota.

What did I see? I saw X-Men: First Class in Arequipa, Peru (fun). Then I went to see Midnight in Paris on a Hangover Day in Salta, Argentina. It was perfect for a Hangover Day. Absolutely perfect. Some things never change, right? A night on the turps followed by a bit of Woody Allen, grease and a giant energy inducing beverage. Anyway, it was delightful. It got off to a slow start, and I was unsure at first as to whether Owen Wilson would rise to the occasion. The film quickly cut through my doubts however, as well as my awful mood, and my nausea. Honestly, I think it's Allen's most rewarding effort in a good long while. I left the cinema with a spring in my step, ready to take on the world. All I did was get on a bus to the next city and fall asleep, but that's besides the point.

In said next city (Cordoba), I managed to find the municipal cinema club and took myself to a screening of Orlando. It proved to be the perfect film to watch at that exact moment. Tilda Swinton, in all her glory, winking at the camera and being incredibly interesting to watch. I high-fived myself on the cold walk home.

Oh, Swinton.

Next was Harry Potter 7.2 in Buenos Aires, complete with a cinema full of squealing Argentine children. Santiago was meant to be Captain America and Cowboys and Aliens, but thanks to student protests and a mis-reading of session times, the only thing we saw was Horrible Bosses. Which I'd describe as perfectly adequate. I laughed. There were a few inspired moments. I quite like Charlie Day. Meh.

So that's the extent of my moviefilm consumption over the past few months. Unless you count watching half of Swordfish, most of Jurassic Park, some of The Social Network and all of Hostel.

So last night I was cruising around Apple Trailers. My oh my, have I missed out on a lot. A hell of a lot. Don't I feel behind with the times. Behind, running after the times frantically, yelling at them to slow down as I'm rather unfit (months of Argentinian steaks and a lot of beer will do that, apparently). All these releases about to occur that I had no idea were even being pondered. So many trailers. So many things to watch. The mind boggles (and that's not even counting four months worth of Epic Meal Time). You know what though? "Severely underwhelming" seems to be the reaction of my thoughts after much of this particular bout of trailer watching.

Seriously, a remake of Footloose? Seriously? A non-Bacon Angry Dance? Seriously?

Imagine in your ears the sound of my vomming, then of me choking on my own vom, because I don't want to live in a world with this film in it.

Similarly terrible looking are Trespass (Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman are rich, then get robbed), The Odd Life of Timothy Green, The Vow (THIS SUMMER Channing Tatum must teach his wife how to LOVE AGAIN), Redtails, The Woman in Black (Daniel Radcliffe gets haunted, hasn't discovered any new facial expressions to use), Hunger Games and that Glee 3D piece of shit.

I'll tell you what I do want to see. 50/50, Little Rock, Shut Up Little Man, Eye of the Storm and The Inbetweeners.

Anyway, let the catch-up begin. Jane Eyre this afternoon, Win Win on the weekend. The Change Up looks stupid but goddamn, I'll be watching it. Who wants to come with me? It opens next week.

For Your Consideration

Ryan Gosling - or, "the guy from that movie" apparently - breaking up a fight.

Note, if you would, Mr Gosling's truly ridiculous gun show on display. Personally, I'm partial to the scrawny boys of the world, but holy jeezum crow.... I wonder what they're called? Maybe "Thunder" and "Lightning" (there's always a storm!).

Vuelvo.

I've returned, I'm back, lo and behold here I am on Australian soil once more.

Melbourne, you look the exactly like how you did when I left. Same to you, Wantirna.

The sun's streaming through my window as I listen to a record and my family sits in the backyard, elated to have me back amongst them. This should be a beautiful image. It is. The overwhelming feeling I have however, is that I might at any moment wake up from some strange dream and I'll find I was merely napping on the couch in front of the TV at the Moai Viajero. The pisco I bought at Santiago airport leaked a little, so now my bag smells like countless nights and mornings spent at the Moai, the crazy house that became my home.

Maps, ticket stubs and photos are strewn on the ground and I can scarcely believe it was only yesterday that I was still in South America. It's bizarre. Bizarro, bro. I have no clue as to how I should be feeling. How on earth does one try to explain and do justice to all of the crazy shit, the amazing adventures, the incredible people met? The landscapes and cities and culture, compared to the mundane, everyday familiarity of what I just returned to?

I promise I'll try not to become That Person who seems to begin every sentence with "When I was in Argentina..." or "This guy I met in Bolivia...", but I tell you what ... it'll be tough going I think.