Movies:
1) Gran Torino
Gran Torino is Clint Eastwood’s latest flick, about an old war veteran living in a neighbourhood being slowly taken over by Koreans, resisting all advice to move to a home from his two sons. Eastwood features in almost every frame in the movie, in his role as a surly, no-nonsense, racist Walt Kowalski. The movie deals with Kowalski’s relationships, with his Hmong neighbours, with his sons and grandchildren, with a young preacher who tries to get him to confess. And there is of course, Kowalski’s Ford Torino. Kowalski’s sons are the average successful middle-class lot with well-paying jobs, Japanese cars and bratty kids and it is well established throughout the movie that Kowalski has nothing but scorn for the torpor, the languid posturing with which his sons and their families seem to be getting ahead with their lives. He is openly racist, cursing at his Hmong neighbours calling them gooks, chinks, spoonheads, etc. But when the local gang starts threatening the family next door, Kowalski doesn’t hesitate to point a rifle at them and rasp at them Dirty Harry style to get off his lawn, making him something of a local hero in the predominantly Hmong neighbourhood. He develops a grudging affection for the intelligent, fast-talking Sue and the diligent, introspective Thao next door, seeing in them the spark of something he would’ve liked to see in his own grandchildren; an affection that forces him to stand up to the gang menace in his neighbourhood with a finale that closely resembled the one in Unforgiven where a younger Eastwood takes out a bar full of cowboys Terminator-style.
Eastwood is amazing in the movie, and so are the Korean kids, Bee Vang and Ahney Her. It’s a decent watch, so don’t miss it.
2) Borat
I finally got the chance to see the Borat movie and yea, it’s a barrel of gags, it is. Nothing more to say really.
Books:
Sourcery
I have this thing about picking up at least one Discworld novel every time I hit a bookstore. Sourcery, I bought on my trip to Crossword last month, it being my only book purchase for all of November and December. My reading has been stalled for quite some time now. Any way, Sourcery brings back Rincewind and his Luggage and introduces us into the finer points of magic in the Discworld universe, how/where ideas are born, flying carpets, and the Apocralypse. It also features a barbarian with ambitions to be a hairdresser, a grocer with ambitions to be a barbarian, a sultan with a poet’s vision and a Vogon’s ability for versifying, a talking hat which could trounce the sorting hat in any battle of wits, spells, words or even style for that matter, a Librarian (well, THE Librarian actually) and Death with his three stooges.
So yea, it’s all good fun.
2) On seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning
On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning
OK, I just read it today but it still qualifies as this week if I follow my computer system clock (it considers a week as Monday to Sunday). An exquisite short story by Haruki Murakami. It’s the usual droll, quirky stuff Murakami does in his novels. I never read a short story of his before this one and it looks like I’ve been missing out.
Also the first time I came across Scribd which seems to have a whole collection of Murakami short stories. Splendid!
