Note to self. Do not watch movies where protagonist is horribly murdered by his own friends right before you go to bed. I didn’t think that Throne of Blood would bother me too much as it almost seems like a dry run for Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Ran, but it actually is much more disturbing. They always say the unknown is more frightening as can be witnessed in horror movies; when you see the monster, it takes away some of the fear it inflicts upon you. Case in point; Jeepers Creepers was actually kind of disturbing until the monster turned out to be the Undertaker from WWE with wings…not exactly giving me nightmares. In Throne of Blood, this poor sap played by Mifune is seemingly led about by fate, and fate is not a very nice person. To die alone, hated by all with the world seemingly against you has to be one of the worst things that can happen to a person.

Today was a pretty uneventful day; although I did learn something new. Never, EVER go to a health club/gym at 5:30 in the evening. Apparently, everybody and their mother decides this is a perfect time to go. I’m not kidding; I actually saw a young lady and her mother working out on the machines…I didn’t know that spandex stretched that much. There’s another thing I learned today. Seriously, spandex should only be sold to those who won’t disgust the population when wearing it; you should have to get a permit or something. Same deal with speedos. If I see another fat, German waddling around with his branch and dingle-berries strapped to the bottom of his heaving stomach, I’m going to go on a rampage. Why the Europeans insist on wearing these tasteless bathing suits is beyond me…it may even explain the nude beaches. I think it might not be nearly as disturbing seeing them naked instead of dressed like a Chippendale’s dancer. I have actually been working out consistently for almost a year now; I’m sort of proud of myself. I’ve managed to slim my way down from being fat to not-so-fat and without much of a change in diets. Take that Jenny Craig! It turns out, if you move around a lot, you lose weight…there should be some studies on this; the world needs to know.

I’ll be traveling up to San Francisco this weekend for a party that my friend has been hyping up for at least a year now. It’s going to be on Castro Street which is actually a homosexual hangout. I’m not sure which disturbs me more; the fact that my friend is experienced in this area or the fact that I’m going up to see it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. He says it’s a huge party with half a million people turning up last year and raging in the streets ‘till the break of day…beats sitting in my underwear at home scaring the trick-or-treaters by actually answering the door. If you haven’t been living in a cave with Osama the past week or so, you may have heard that we in California have been having huge fires all over the state. There has already been 1,600 homes lost and 20 fatalities as I’m writing this with the possibility of more. It’s a sad, tragic state of events with many people’s lives being ruined and billions of dollars in damage. What’s worse was the fact that I was more concerned with the freeway not being closed so I could actually drive up to San Fran. Does this make me a bad person? I have to admit, I find it hard to empathize with people I don’t know; when you live in a big city, even if you know hundreds of people (not likely), you still don’t know a fraction of all the people that make their homes here. I know Stalin once said one death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic. I can understand that sentiment. If one of my friends or a friend of theirs happened to lose their house or was killed, I would “feel their pain” as it were, and it would hit much closer to home. To hear that 1,600 houses have gone up; I think, wow, that sucks, but how can I empathize with something I can barely comprehend? I guess it’s overload. Same when you hear about millions of deaths in Africa; nobody really can understand something like that.

Well, I watched Kill Bill tonight to see what all the hype was about. I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not because it was a good movie; quite to the contrary. In fact, it was a very stupid movie with terrible dialogue and even worse actors. Somehow, the fact that it seems this is exactly what they were going for seems to work. It’s sort of a guilty pleasure; like watching Saved by the Bell or Beverly Hills 90210. You know they’re completely idiotic without any artistic or technical merit, but you can’t help but smile and laugh all the way through. The violence quota was just a bit out of control. I don’t think I’ve seen that many severed limbs in one movie…actually, I’m sure I haven’t. They may have been shooting for a Guiness World record or something. Uma Thurman played the perfect part of Uma Thurman; a terrible actor who doesn’t seem to realize she’s being laughed at. It doesn’t help that every time I see her I think of The Avengers or Batman and Robin, two of the worst movies ever put to film. This part happens to work for her though, because it’s meant to be cheesy; much like her film presence. Lucy Liu manages to not piss me off in her role as well. It may be because I had to sit through Charlie’s Angels on a plane flight home…even without sound it was shitty. It’s also nice to see Sonny Chiba acting again; his Street Fighter movies are greatness. He always seemed like a classy guy, even while pummeling his opponents. This movie even included that nutcase from Battle Royal who knifes that poor guy’s privates, Chiaki Kuriyama. Apparently, Tarantino was a fan of that scene as he had her do it all over again with much more disturbing visuals in this movie. Her fight scene with Uma was probably my favorite scene; there’s something very surreal about watching Poison Ivy fighting to the death with a little Japanese school girl. Surreal is probably the best way to describe this movie…unless Japanese airlines actually let you take samurai swords as a carry on. I’ll definitely want to watch the sequel, if only to see what cool eye patches Darryl Hannah will be wearing. She seemed to have quite the collection in this movie; she even had a red cross eye patch to go with her nurse’s outfit…now that’s class!