“Okay, I want to do a movie where I run for President, and I do some political-type ranting, and me and Bernie Mac play brothers but all we kinda do is beat one another up. It’s funny shit, when we slap one another around.”

“You’ll do the crazy ranting thing?”

“Shit yeah.”

“And you can do this all cheap?”

“Real cheap. I’ll write it. I’ll produce it. I’ll even direct.”

“Sign here, Mr. Rock.”

§

I liked the joke about the Superwhores. But overall…ennh. Poorly written, poorly edited, scotch-taped together. Wait for another HBO special.

We went to see Bend It Like Beckham last Friday night (in case you’ve been waiting with bated breath since my Friday posting to hear what we went to see). We disagreed on the title—Darin didn’t like it, I think it’s pretty good, because it’s offbeat and intriguing for Americans—but we agreed on everything else. BILB is a good movie: enjoyable, nice characters, likeable main character overcoming strong odds to achieve her goals. The entire thing’s predictable, of course, but you don’t care.

Jess, the main character, is an Indian-British girl who loves playing soccer. Jess’s parents, orthodox Sikhs, want her to be a proper Indian girl, learn to make the proper Indian dinners for her future husband, and stop all this soccer nonsense. Jess meets Juliette, who gets her to play on her club team, which is managed by Joe. (It only strikes me right now that all these characters have names that begin with “J,” which is usually a no-no. Anyhow.) Jess plays soccer on the sly, without her parents’ permission. WHAT WILL HAPPEN? Oh yes, and Jess and Joe are attracted to one another, but Jess knows Juliette has a crush on Joe. WHAT WILL HAPPEN?

Don’t worry too much, ‘kay? It’s fun stuff, from scenes from Jess’s home life to the interactions with Juliette and Joe. One too many “Oops! Accidentally caught at something!” plot twists, but whatever: just enjoy it.

One aspect I really enjoyed was the final shot, which tells you so much about how things have turned out. So many movies hit you over the head explaining things: I was happy that the filmmakers trusted us with a visual.

One annoying aspect: the plethora of unfunny gay/lesbian jokes. I mean, you know, enough’s enough already. Shouldn’t the Brits be ahead of us on that score?

Okay, another annoying aspect: at no point is Jess ever shown “bending it like Beckham,” so if you’re not up on European soccer (or Spice Girls), you don’t really have a clue what the hell it means. The filmmakers could have thrown us a bone on that one.

Anyhow: two thumbs up.

Date night, date night…date night, date night…

About 10 years ago, Darin went to Japan on a business trip. At the end of that trip, he flew to Detroit to go to MacHack, and he had a stopover in San Francisco International. We were still in the cute phase of our relationship, because I went to the airport and met him in the passenger lounge, where I found him exhausted and not at all looking forward to the next four hour flight, and I gave him a bag of Gummi Savers, which was then his favorite candy snack.

Man. That is saccharine-level cute.

Anyhow, one of the things he brought back from Japan were the complete works of Hayao Miyazaki on laserdisc, which weren’t yet available here in the US: Laputa, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Totoro. We watched them all, in Japanese, and I really enjoyed all of them.

Since then, Miyazaki’s been imported by Disney. There was a big splash a couple of years ago with Princess Mononoke, a film I didn’t particularly enjoy. And now there’s Spirited Away.

Chihiro, a young girl, is moving with her parents away from everything she’s ever known to a new house and a new school, and she is not looking forward to it. On the way to their new house her father takes a “shortcut” and they end up at a strange abandoned theme park. Turns out to be a spirit playground, and when Chihiro’s parents get transmogrified by strange magic, Chihiro has to stay at the bathhouse of the spirits to rescue them.

I liked Spirited Away a whole lot. There’s lots of great visuals (well, it is a Miyazaki movie), and there are some fun-to-watch setpieces. Plot is not Miyazaki’s strong point—for example, early on Chihiro is given a test and is told, “Do this and don’t let the boilerman scare you away or trick you into leaving,” but the actual scene isn’t that much of a confrontation—but I found Spirited Away to be more coherent and accessible than Princess Mononoke.

There are some very gross (as in, “Ewwww”) scenes, and I think the movie is probably too filled with tension for the younger set. Darin and I both agreed that Sophia would be ready to see this movie when she was, say, 15. She would enjoy the premise of this movie—all about kids and grownups!—but there are lots of scenes that are intense in a way that definitely a 3-year-old can’t handle. (Only recently has she been able to handle the scene where Pooh’s tushy gets stuck in Rabbit’s front door.)

The story doesn’t build in a way I’d like, and there are some revelations that seem to come out of left field (like I said, not Miyazaki’s strong point), but there’s some fun stuff in there for adults.