Archive for category Movies
March 19, 2005 – Mountain Climbing and Movies
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Movies, The Penpal on March 19, 2015
Today I had a day off due to a shift swap with another teacher. Since it was a Saturday, I got to spend some quality time with The Penpal. We went mountain climbing and watched a movie.
For those who have been reading a while and noticed that most of my leisure activities involve sitting, singing, drinking, or all of the above at the same time, you may think that mountain climbing is a bit out of character. You would be correct. The “mountain” we climbed has a peak about 400 meters above sea level, and has a hiking trail up the side.
Mt. Kanuki is famous for a large pagoda on the top. It is also famous as a home of wild boars. Fortunately we didn’t encounter any on our hike. I didn’t get a picture of the pagoda, but I did get a great picture of Mt. Fuji from the top of Mt. Kanuki.
Mt. Fuji as seen from Mt. Kanuki
We ate lunch at the top of Mt. Kanuki and spent some time enjoying the view and hanging out. After that, we started the walk back down to the bottom and returned to my apartment. We watched Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. It was my first time to see the movie, and it was fantastic. The movie is a story about a spoiled little girl who has her family taken away and her name stolen, and she has to fight to get them back. Highly recommended!
January 5, 2005 pt2 – Catwoman is simply awful
Posted by Barniferous in Movies on January 5, 2015
After some weather related delays in Winnipeg, I finally got to Minneapolis with 3 hours before my flight to Tokyo. I grabbed a few souvenirs for The Penpal and her family in the airport, then went to the gate to hang out before my flight.
As we got close to boarding time, Northwest announced that the flight to Tokyo was overbooked, and they were looking for volunteers to take the next day’s flight. They were offering $750 in flight credits and a free night in a hotel. I started considering spending the rest of the day at Mall of America and using $750 towards a future flight home. I then remembered that I was scheduled to work the day after I got back to Japan, and didn’t have the contact information to inform NOVA that I would miss my shift. Also, the flight credit was only good for a year, and I wasn’t sure when I would be coming home again. As much as I like free money, it wasn’t a good choice so I stayed quiet as they kept searching for volunteers.
The flight to Tokyo left on time, and I settled in for 12 hours in a tiny airplane seat. They showed 3 movies on the flight, Shark Tale (good), Little Black Book (which I slept through), and Catwoman.
I have seen some bad movies in my time. Terrible movies. However, I pride myself in surviving through to the end of every terrible movie I have started, with two exceptions: It’s Pat The Movie, and The Pest. If I had an option, I would have happily added Catwoman to the list. To say that Catwoman sucked would be unfair to other things that suck. It was simply shockingly dreadfully awful.
Everything about the movie was bad: the plot, the acting, the dialogue, the horrible tacked on romance, and the discount CGI scenes of Catwoman flying around the city. The action was particularly bad, with so many quick cuts and shaky camera scenes that it was impossible to tell who was doing what to whom. I actually started thinking that a nice 36,000 foot drop into the Pacific Ocean might be less painful that watching the movie.
At this point you might be wondering “why didn’t you just read a book or fall asleep or something other than watching Catwoman?”. When I started realizing just how awful the movie was, I had no choice but to see how much worse it was going to get. Also, every other movie I will ever watch after Catwoman will seem better by comparison. It allowed me to recalibrate my “good movie / bad movie” scale.
If you ever want to punish yourself for something you have done wrong with your life, I recommend watching Catwoman in a tiny, uncomfortable seat while breathing recirculated air with no chance of escape. It is a cleansing experience that will help you atone for your sins. You could also perform your own dental surgery – either one is good.
So awful.
January 2, 2005 – House of 1000 Corpses
Posted by Barniferous in Movies, Return to Canada on January 2, 2015
After several days of heavy snow, and no snow clearing in the apartment parking lot, my car was seriously stuck in the snow. I didn’t do anything during the day. In the evening I got picked up and went to my friend W+C’s for dinner. They love horror movies, so we ended up watching House of 1000 Corpses which was written and directed by Rob Zombie. It was an interesting combination of cheesy and extremely gory, but was overall entertaining.
December 29, 2004 – An awkward meeting and an awkward movie
Posted by Barniferous in Movies, Return to Canada, The Ex on December 29, 2014
During the afternoon I met up with Brother X, one of my pledge brothers from when I joined the fraternity. Brother X was usually a pretty good guy, but had some bad habits that got him kicked out of the fraternity. We had been keeping in touch, so it was good to see him again. After catching up for a bit, we went to see Meet the Fockers at the cheap theater. MTF is a sequel to the hilarious “Meet the Parents”. It was disappointing.
In the evening I met up with The Ex. When I had originally decided to move to Japan, we were having a lot of problems in our relationship. We had been together for about 5 years, but weren’t sure where the relationship was going. I wanted to have an adventure before I got locked into a career, and after studying Japanese in University, I decided a year overseas to teach English would fit the bill.
It would be hard to describe the current status of our relationship. Ironically the word “complicated” is the simplest way to describe things. When I decided to go on an overseas adventure, I asked The Ex to come with me but she had no interest in living in Japan for a year. I asked if she was interested in coming to visit, but she wasn’t completely sold on the idea and was also planning a major trip to visit her cousins in Portugal. Before I left Canada, we had agreed to go our separate ways and to reassess the situation when I moved home.
For the first part of my time away, we had exchanged some phone calls to keep in touch. We switched to emails to try and get some distance. The emails were generally friendly, but it was a strange situation that we were both having trouble navigating. My decision to stay longer in Japan was also a bit of a stress point.
Before I left Japan, The Ex and I made plans to meet for coffee at Perkins while I was in Canada. We met in the entrance way and then moved to a table. It was strange to talk to the woman I had been in a relationship with for 5 years but hadn’t actually seen in a year. Things started reasonably well; we hit the safe topics – catching up on how our mutual friends were doing, and exchanging some of our current adventures.
The topic then changed to relationship stuff. She told me that she had been dating a coworker for several months now, and made a point of telling me that he was really tall. I told her that I was dating The Penpal (which understandably got a negative reaction), and that my parents had already met The Penpal’s parents. One of my biggest complaints about my relationship with The Ex was that in the 5 years we were together, our parents had never met each other.
I’m not really sure what either one of us was expecting out of this meeting. It was an extremely awkward situation and one of my least favourite trips to Perkins, but I think we both walked away with a bit more closure than we had before.
Perkins was close to Cinema City 8, the discount movie theater. Instead of being left by myself to over-analyze the uncomfortable conversation I just had with The Ex, I met up with my sister and we went to see Napoleon Dynamite. The movie was a collection of loosely related events in the lives of some very strange people in Idaho. It was weird and funny and very quotable. Napoleon Dynamite was a good ending to a day with some uncomfortable moments.
December 17, 2004 – Harry Potter 3 (again)
Posted by Barniferous in Movies, Teaching English, The Penpal on December 17, 2014
Today at work I had a class full of 4 year olds. Getting a full sentence in English out of one 4 year old is hard, never mind 6 kids. Oh well, there are only 16 lessons left before I return to Canada for Christmas!
After work I went to see Harry Potter 3 with The Penpal. I had already watched the movie during the summer when my parents were in Japan. We saw the movie at Joyland, a combination bowling alley / game center / movie theater located in the Nakamise shopping area of Numazu near the south side of the station. The theater was nice, but couldn’t compare to some of the giant, modern movie theaters in Tokyo and Yokohama.
The movie was still good the second time, and it was nice to get some time with The Penpal before I went home.
November 26, 2004 – America F**K Yeah!
Posted by Barniferous in Movies on November 26, 2014
After work, I watched a downloaded version of “Team America: World Police” with my roommates. Team America is a new movie from the South Park guys filled with over the top satire about America’s role in the world. It was also done completely with puppets, including the sex scenes. Think nude Ken bumping into nude Barbie.
The movie was hilarious and incredibly offensive. I think we will all be singing the theme song “America F**K YEAH!” around the apartment for a while.
(2014 Note) For the record – I don’t know how a downloaded copy of this movie got onto one of my roommate’s computer. I am going to assume that it was paid for legally. Downloading movies for free is bad, and you should never ever ever do it. Never. Not even once. Nope, don’t do it.26
November 8, 2004 – Earthquakes and Zombies
Posted by Barniferous in Friends and coworkers, Life in Japan, Movies, Shizuoka, The Penpal on November 8, 2014
Today I got to spend some time with The Penpal. It looks like Monday might be our regular hangout day. I have the day off, and she stops by after work. We did some Japanese language practice and I learned some words to describe the taste of food.
After The Penpal left, I watched the new Dawn of the Dead with Palmer. I had some concerns about “fast” zombies and the fact that remakes are usually not as good as the original, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was also obviously filmed in Canada. In the background of one of the mall scenes was a KFC restaurant sporting the sign “PFK” which is the French name.
During the movie we felt two earthquakes. Palmer said that our building is modern and well designed. If we can feel a mild earthquake inside, it must be stronger outside. Not sure if that was reassuring at all.
September 19, 2004 – The destruction of Toronto
Posted by Barniferous in Life in Japan, Movies on September 19, 2014
After work, I went to see Resident Evil: Apocalypse in Shinyurigaoka with Lux. Apocalypse is the second movie based on the Resident Evil games. The movie was predictably awful, until we noticed that the movie was obviously filmed in Toronto. The movie’s climax is a huge fight scene in front of Toronto’s unique city hall building.
Lux is from Kitchener / Waterloo which is close to Toronto, but not part of the GTA. Telling her she is from Toronto is a great way to annoy her. Toronto is Canada’s largest city, and is the city that all other Canadians love to hate. Winnipeggers still laugh about the time that the crazy mayor called in the army when Toronto got a lot of snow.
Watching parts of Toronto explode on the big screen was worth the price of admission.
(2014 Update) Leafs suck!
August 23, 2004 – Nausicaa and American Pie
Posted by Barniferous in Movies, The Penpal on August 23, 2014
The Penpal took the day off and came to visit me in Azusa took the day off to come and hang out with me at Hello House. We decided to have a cultural exchange with movies.
The first movie we watched was Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (風の谷のナウシカ), which is a cool Miyazaki movie. Even though Nausicaa was made before Studio Ghibli was officially founded, it is often considered a Studio Ghibli film. Nausicaa and Castle in the Sky were some of The Penpal’s favourite movies growing up. I was surprised by the strong environmental message, considering the movie was released in 1984.
My movie selection was American Pie, which I still think is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. I recently picked up a Japanese DVD version on sale. The movie had Japanese subtitles, but really didn’t need them for the physical humour. A guy getting caught having sex with a pie is funny in any language.
It was pretty cool that two people who grew up in different cultures in different parts of the world could enjoy the same movies. Movies can be a great way to share culture, and are a great excuse to spend time with someone.
July 26, 2004 – Early shift
Posted by Barniferous in Hello House, Movies, Teaching English on August 14, 2014
I am still paying back shift swaps, but today’s was an early shift for Mohammad. Early shifts rule! You can actually do things with your evenings. I am not a morning person, so I typically sleep too late on my days with late shifts.
I used my evening to finally watch Schindler’s List because I had just finished reading the book. The movie was very powerful, but I still think the book affected me more. Regardless of the format, it’s an important story for everyone about an extraordinary act of mercy in a world of cruelty.
I have been reading a lot lately. I can usually read about 62 pages a day on the train – 31 on the way to work and 31 on the way home. Hello House has a big bookshelf in the common room full of books for the use of the residents. I am sure that when I leave Hello House someday, I will be adding some books to the collection as well.
Drinking in Japan 
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