12-year-old me thinks this post is cool
The heatwave has passed, which is a relief. Unfortunately my brain is still fried. I have a lot of things I want to do to this website, but not much energy to do them.
Anyway, here's all the nonsense I'm into right now.
Woohoo for John Woo
I got to watch Hard Boiled in the cinema recently. It was still awesome.
The first time I saw Hard Boiled, I was about 12. My mum went out of town for the weekend, and my dad decided that my brother and I needed educating.
Hard Boiled is a completely ridiculous film. Chow Yun-Fat plays a maverick cop named "Tequila" who likes jamming on his clarinet and is also an absolute lunatic, while Tony Leung plays an undercover cop who is a bit more chill and soulful with it but also personally kills dozens of people. It has an on-screen body count of 307, and 44 of those are in the opening 10 minutes. Also the main theme totally rips.
Naturally, 12-year-old me thought all this was cool as hell. Aside from a mindblowing watch of The Matrix a few years earlier (also courtesy of my dad), I'd never seen anything quite like Hard Boiled before. My mum usually showed me old musicals and Hitchcock movies, and I liked those, but it turns out I also really liked seeing shit blow up. So it was fun to revisit this formative experience on the big screen.
I think it's safe to say that the cops in this movie are godawful at their jobs, as basically every action they take wildly escalates the situation and gets a bunch of people needlessly killed. But nobody watches Hard Boiled for an analysis of what, if anything, constitutes good policework. We watch it to see a stuntman slide in on a motorbike while shooting a bunch of other stuntmen with a gun, crash into a bunch of barrels and do a cool spinning dismount, and then continue shooting even more stuntmen with a gun. And then maybe jump that motorbike over a car, in slow-mo, while on fire.
Like I said: cool as hell.
Pew pew update
I did some more archery for the first time in a while and was incredibly sore the next day. To encourage myself to do more of it, I signed up for my first tournament.
I've been assured that it's all about ~competing against yourself~ and it doesn't really matter how you do compared to other people. But also I am going to get absolutely pasted.
I also finally got around to making an archery page so at least I have somewhere to track my progress now.
I am still watching Dragon Ball Z Kai
Unfortunately this is still the main thing I'm doing with my evenings so if you don't want to hear me yap about shonen anime then TOO BAD!!!!
We're now almost halfway through the Frieza arc and I'm having a great time. This time the gang are in space and it turns out space is full of weird alien freaks, most of whom I love.
My main complaint is that Piccolo content has been severely limited (for obvious plot reasons), but thankfully the Ginyu Force showed up to fill that hole in my heart. Their impending arrival gets hyped up for like a dozen episodes and everyone is terrified because they're meant to be the absolute baddest dudes in the galaxy.
And then they finally show up and immediately perform an elaborate 90-second intro where they all strike goofy poses to a ridiculously rockin' theme song. Also it turns out all their names are dairy puns. Needless to say I was thrilled. I love the Ginyu Force.
I can think of no better pose to introduce the captain of the meanest mercenary squadron Planet Namek has ever seen. 🎵🎸 Ginyu Force rules, Ginyu Force rules 🎸🎵
The football cometh
The World Cup is starting soon. I'm aware there are innumerable reasons to boycott this one (fuck FIFA, fuck Trump, etc etc) but instead I will be watching it anyway and feeling kind of bad about it.
Most of the time, I don't follow the football too closely. When it comes to club football, I'm a neutral. But when an international tournament rolls around, something breaks in my brain and I become...... an England supporter.
I know, I know. It's kind of embarrassing. But I still remember all the words to the dreadful Ant & Dec song "We're On The Ball", and I will fuck up my sleep schedule to watch all their matches, and if they win those matches then I will spam all my groupchats with "it's coming home" only semi-ironically. I can't help it.
Anyway, consider this your warning that this blog may devolve into FootballPosting. It's...