why i saw 300 (and other tales from spring break).

spring break for us teachers and students has now come and almost officially gone away and we now get sad as our friends with "regular" jobs continue to be jealous of our holidays off, but i'm sure also do not envy our dealings with the never-ending rudeness that will begin again at 8:30 a.m. monday morning. nevertheless, here is a quick pop culture rundown of my spring break and the various fantastic friends i visited.

friend: brigitte.
pop culture: 300, beverly hills 90210 season one.

qualler's wifey-to-be and i checked out 300 because 1) i'm curious about dumb movies that make a ridiculous amount of money in the middle of march. 2) i like comic books, and even though i hardly ever like comic book movies, i still try to see all of them, like it's a nasty habit that never fulfills me, unless it's x2 or batman begins. 3) THERE'S SOME WICKED AWESOME FIGHT SCENES AND I'M A DUDE ROAR!!!!!!!!!! so obviously, it sucked. also, "bevills," as i call it, is just as good as i remember it, if not better. minneapolis is NOTHING LIKE california, in case you didn't know. and cheating on history tests, having a crush on your teacher, leading your friends on, and having bad hair are reprehensible offenses (but never THAT reprehensible!).

friend: pat.
pop culture: the album leaf, rainer maria, various "on-demand" avril lavigne music videos and movie trailers.

after pat showed me his lame excuse for an "unbelievable guitar part" on the very lame new rainer maria record, we finally found agreement in the genius of the album leaf, debating on whether or not to get matching leaf tattoos that will get us into all album leaf shows for free. pat took the first step of ordering an album leaf pin that he can take to the tattoo parlor when he finally gets the courage to follow through with crazy-as-H pat plan #23523. the fantasy talk subsided and the fantasy watching began with the ENTIRE collection of avril videos on pat's fancy "on-demand" cable and followed with several movie trailers where i indicated that i was most likely to genuinely see the john cusack/stephen king thrill-a-thon 1408 and the cutesy cgi mockumentary surf's up, but would only go to next if i really needed something obvious to blog about (good excuse, polley, that should work like a piece of cake!).

friend: arun.
pop culture: books (i know, right?), modest mouse, the milwaukee metro 11A.M. news.

after picking up arun from the airport at an ungodly hour and watching him attempt to get into someone else's car that he thought was mine outside the midwest express terminal (and laughing voraciously at the frightened young woman being seemingly attacked by a young indian man), we found nothing to do on a thursday morning other than sit, discuss music, read books, and watch the 11:00 a.m. local news. we're party animals. i dunno if books can be "pop culture," and i don't really discuss my readings on this blog, but i finally got around to reading something by that david sedaris guy everyone's raving about, and it was pretty funny indeed, if nothing else. we then went on about how modest mouse defined our lives and while their selling out genuinely dismissed notions of selling out being inherently bad, their newest album and addition of johnny marr on guitar still disgusts and bores both of us, whereas their independent output does nothing but astound. oh and the good old team at wtmj4 in the 'kee said it was 95 in kenosha in their weather report. it was good for a hoot.

friend: molly (blogless, and therefore does not exist in this realm).
pop culture: take the lead, the cruise, hellboy, the eye, grindhouse.

lots of my friends have tivo. but i have never witnessed such efficient and brilliant use of the magical device as i have with my dear friend molly (sorry boys, but she is the master). from the antonio banderas inspirational claptrap that warmed my soul (with unintentional comedy) take the lead to the j-horror movie the eye that isn't too boring and not yet ruined by an american remake, molly's living room turned into an ultra-hip-with-a-dash-of-irony grandiose funtime center for chris. i was amazed when i ended up liking hellboy's pitch-perfect eye-candy-fest despite its overly cartoonish gloss and i was pleased when i could still enjoy and sympathize with the nonsensical yet brilliant ramblings of former almost-celebrity timothy "speed" levitch in the cruise, even though i took a little nap during the last part of it all.

we topped the 2-day madness with an excursion to see grindhouse (jerksica said "thank god" when i told her she wouldn't have to see it with me) with ziplocked popcorn, candy from a real-life candy store, and readiness to sit through three hours that could be awful, fantastic, or somewhere in between. i really wanted to be skeptical, since i have strong reservations about "enjoying" sin city and quentin tarantino after seeing one too many masturbatory tv appearances regarding the new film. i could not hold back, however, and just let go and completely fell in love with 95% of grindhouse. "planet terror" was just dumb fun that probably does more bad than good to society and 14-year-olds obsessed with violence, but was still amazingly hilarious and undeniably a riot. "death proof," on the other hand, was ACTUALLY a good movie. dumb on many of its surfaces, but QT ironically is starting to progress by actually doing something with his homage to forgotten genres/filmic histories. he's using his admittedly overdone style of dialogue overdrive to briskly contrast with the outrageousness of the climactic points of the film, and even attempts to comment on gender roles in exploitation movies (for real this time, not just tiptoeing like he did with kill bill). which is weird cuz i thought for sure this guy hated women. and maybe he does and is just effing with his audience, but it's nevertheless the most interestingly/uniquely structured and still outright entertaining film i've seen in the past few years. it's what eli roth tried to do with hostel but without the sick teenage boy fantasies that he stupidly manifested on camera in a lame attempt to "push the envelope." the ending to "death proof" is also the best ending to a movie and officially turned it into the best QT movie since pulp fiction, without a doubt.

other friends i got down with -- dave, mike, andy -- it was good to see you too!!!

This entry was posted by chris, on Saturday, April 07, 2007. You can leave your response.