Give My Regards To 2005. *Bring On The New Year*

How did a whole year pass so fast? Did I just sleep through 2005 or something because, seriously, I feel like this year consisted of about 3 and a half hours. Ah, well. I dedicate this post to 2005, which will be sadly missed.

My 2005 regrets:

• I never got up the guts to ask out the gorgeous sikh guy from uni and take a peek at his turban hair.
• I didn't start bellydancing earlier. I would have been really good by now.
• I was officially boyfriend-less ALL YEAR. That is just NOT HEALTHY.
• I didn't get to see Chester as much as I might have wanted.
• I waited until now to buy a salwar kameez. Finally buying one was the best decision I have ever made.
• I didn't go to a single bollywood club night. For shame Saathiya. For shame.
• I gave up guitar. I really must learn not to be such a quitter.
• I also quit writing poetry although technically this began earlier, Mr. Brayshaw just damn ruined writing poetry for me.
  

My New Years Resolution for 2006:

• I will just damn try harder in University rather than coasting by (but getting damn good marks in the process.)
• I will not get into pointless arguements with friends who have underlying racism, but rather just scowl at them and hit them with a rolled up newspaper.
• I will not blow all my money on indian DVD's and Salwar Kameez and end up too poor to go to Indonesia.
• I will comitt myself to a saving plan and (*gasp* shock horror) maybe get a job.
• I will buy nail polish remover so I can paint my nails minus the 3 week chipped aftermath.
• I must keep better contact with everyone even if that means calling them myself every once in a while *gasp* and not just leaving it up to Aminah.
• I must post less frequently on my own blog and more frequently on this one.
• I will clean up once in a while rather than living in the current style of closet explosion squalor.
• I will give guys more of a chance rather than dismissing them for little things like hair colour, height, opinion on america, sock choice (although if I see that damned nike symbol one more time so help me Jeeves...), clothing and age (I will now expand it to really anyone between the ages of 17 to 20). It is not a good thing to realise that you resemble a character out of Little Britain (minus the dating service and perchant for glass eyes of course).
• I must be more impulsive. Instead of considering getting my ears pierced or my hair dyed and cut for over 2 years I will now just go for it more often. (Hello...new boots!)
• I must stop finding a futurama quote for every occasion.

Meh. You know I am never going to keep to this stuff right? I am still going to be a futurama quoting, sporadic posting, picky, messy, poor, unemployed quitter with chipped nail polish and a fear of phones. That is just who I am. But still. Its the thought that counts, right? I know my faults. I think they are pretty good.

Well, until I unload the next lot of unkeepable promises,

Saathi*

At The Movies with Aminah, Family and Sleep Deprivation: That was a popcorn battle for the history books...

Even though I have been sick, working almost full-time and doing half-hearted Christmas shopping for the last fortnight (read: two weeks), I have been watching an absolutely stupid amount of movies (usually on DVD format). Stupid, because I have to get up at ridiculous hours of the morning in order to partake in a little self-inflicted physical abuse, otherwise known as exercise, and by the time I've done the usual night-time eating, acknowledging my family's existence and similar activities and have actually sat down to watch whatever DVD someone other than me (there's that bloody family existing again) has chosen to view it's generally quite late in the evening. So, I've been going to bed at 11:30-12:00 and getting up around 5:45, and wondering why on Earth I'm so fricking exhausted. Until I decide to stop deluding my self and start getting to bed earlier (ha!), I'm blaming the generally shit quality of the generally shit quality movies my blood-relation to my family forces me to endure for making me feel so tired of late. Which is highly illogical, because I am the Shit Quality Movie Queen... who else do you know who owns the Ed Wood DVD box-set (which incidentally does not contain 'Glen or Glenda', SACRILEGE!)?... but that's what a severe lack of sleep will do to you!

Usually, the bad movies I watch are those of the "so crap it HAS to be good" or "it's the sheer crappiness that provides the entertainment" calibre and usually I watch said films with friends who can appreciate this. Although, it does have to be said that the films aren't watched so much as play in the background as we talk over all the boring or superfluous bits. My family, with the occasional exception of Moleman, are not big fans of badly-good movies or at least just suck when it comes to choosing DVDs.

Case in point: My father has the uncanny ability to innocently (?) pick up movies that he thinks "look interesting", which turn out to be 'mainly concerned with sex' or as Moleman and I put it, "sex-romps". If anyone has seen 'Doorway to Hell'-or whatever that crappy movie was called- they will perhaps understand ("who's been writing dirty passages in my term paper?"...God that guy has an enormous head). Last night we were watching 'Charlotte Gray', which my dad chose simply because it has Cate Blanchett in it, and he seems to think that anything she appears in has some sort of artistic credibility. Up until 'Charlotte Gray', he may have been right... but I doubt it. That movie was absolutely AWFUL:

1. Most of the movie is set in France but, with the exception of Madame and Monsieur, no one speaks a word of French. More French is spoken in England than it is in France.
2. Let alone speak French, no one has a French accent. Most of the "French" people sound more British than the actors who played the English.
3. Michael Gambon, the man who murdered Professor Dumbledore's accent in the Goblet of Fire (also a badly bad movie) -- "Hairy Pawdar", plays an old French man who just inexplicably happens to have an American accent. How Michael Gambon, who was born in Ireland, managed to pick up an American accent on his way to English and French is completely beyond me...
4. Cate Blanchett's accent wanders from Scottish to English to American and all over the rest of the world.
5. Despite the fact that the French all speak in perfect unaccented English, Charlotte Gray goes to a lot of trouble to teach her spiffing blonde pilot boyfriend how to request a train ticket in French.
6. The evil Nazi Germans speak only in shouted German (the language of the Devil), just to demonstrate how very evil they are, compared to the English speaking French.
7. In order to solve the problem of getting around the UnResolved Sexual Tension between Charlotte Gray and Communist French-guy even though she's still in love with Mr. spiffing blonde "jolly good show old chap" blonde pilot, Charlotte and the Communist are forced to kiss each other in several situations as a life saving measure (ok, we're safe, now unbotton my blouse)... and here we were thinking that they just wanted to sleep together... shame.
8. It's another movie set in World War II. I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOO fucking sick of World War II movies. They are the PITS (if you said that about a World War I movie it'd be funny... because of the trenches... *boduboomching*). If there is one thing the world DOESN'T need at the moment, it's another poorly written "All Germans Are Blonde and Evil, The French Are Horny and Spineless Drunks, the Russian are Communists So They All Feast On the Flesh of Defenceless New-Born Babies and Cripples, So it's Up to the Brave British and American Heroes to Save the World From Nazism, Look Big Explosions!!!" movie... or any other film involving Tom Hanks. (why on Earth do Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia or any other European country besides those above easily stereotyped countries never factor into movies about the World Wars?)

On Tuesday I was out and about in town with the beautiful Saathiya, and half because we had nothing better to do and half because I'm a glutton for punishment, we went to see the new Harry Potter movie (or as Michael Gambon would say, "Hairy Pawdar"... oops, I used that one before, didn't I?). It was amazing we lasted through it. It was that bad... No one could act, and midway through I started having a panic attack brought on by my realisation of just how thin Harry Potter's lips are. THEY ARE SO THIN. ARGH. THIN. SO THIN. They virtually become invisible when he smiles... It's creepy. SOOOOO THIN. *has minor panic attack*...*recovers*...*starts new paragraph*...

*begins writing* I can't really go on about how crap Harry Potter was, because I'll be here all week and I don't particularly want to miss Christmas... with the amount of DVDs I've bought people for Christmas presents, we might just be able to watch some GOOD(ly bad) films over the Christmas break. Looking forward to it.

12 DVDs Aminah Wants for Christmas...one for each day of Christmas (and a True Love if you have one spare...):

1. Partridge in a Pear Tree: The Mighty Boosh. Because I'm too wimpy to order it over the internet... wahhhhhh
2. Two Turtle Doves: Glen or Glenda (because the Ed Wood box set doesn't have it)
3. Three French Hens (hopefully with more convincing accents than Michael Gambon): A Chineses Odyssey; I taped it off SBS, now I need the DVD.
4. Four Calling Birds: Arrested Development Series One
5. Five Golden Rings: Coupling, Series One--skip Two, already have it--Three, etc.
6. Six Geese a-Laying: Anything with Doris Day in it (besides Calamity Jane), they're just too bad to pass up. Preferably with Rock Hudson as well.
7. Seven Swans a-Swimming: The Birds, partly because it's a good movie... mostly because I've been brainwashed by the song...
8. Eight Maids a-Milking: Hair, because I like the songs. It has nothing to do with anything else at all... NOTHING
9. Nine Ladies Dancing: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, believe it or not I don't have the movie... sad, tragically sad.
10. Ten Lords a-Leaping: Anatomie. Delicatessan. Any of the foreign movies from my "DVD cupboard" post...
11. Eleven Pipers Piping: Any of the English Language films from the same post.
12. Twelve Drummers Drumming: Bunty Aur Babli. I NEED that movie. Aap Mujhse Aache Lagne Lage. Any Bollywood movie I don't already own... and yes, Mr. Indian Video Store Proprietor, I HAVE seen Kabhie Khushi Khabhie Gham!
13. Thirteen Weary Last Minute Shoppers: All those movies I have forgotten I love, and all those I love that I can't remember the names of...

Merry Christmas, or Happy Festive Season if you don't proscribe to that Jesus, our lord and saviour thing...Also, Happy Boxing Day (26th December) for all those Aussies and Brits who get the day off due to some obscure servant-master tradition and Proclomation Day (27th Dec) to all the South Australians who get the day off because of the founding of this fine state... then wishing all those people who use the Christian Calendar good luck in 2006 and a Happy New Year on January 1st (and to those who don't, the same just change the dates. Well, you can come along to the party just for fun if you want...)

Ayo, Ammie.

P.S. Someone just stumbled accross this blog searching for "aminah has a big bum" on MSN. Tee hee hee. Actually, why am I laughing, I should be offended...?

Men Love It When You Really Glob It On...(*Maybe She's Right About The Lipstick*)

Well, it has been sometime since either Aminah or I posted here. Possibly a whole week. Which, considering the fact that we are on holidays is pretty pitiful. More so for me because I do not have full time work to keep me busy. The problem is that in the holidays it seems as though you get a whole lot of time but you aren't really doing anything interesting or encountering things that make you run to your blogger dashboard page and hit "create new post". I have been going out a lot, but the tedious details of my social life don't really make for entertaining writing (or reading - supposing someone actually reads this shit).

Nonetheless, I have frickin nothing to write about so you can either just click that handy "back" button (errr...my sponsers are telling me I shouldn't have said that...so, DO NOT CLICK THAT BUTTON) or read on as I tell you what is new in my life:

• I went to a party last night. It had a pirates and ninjas theme. What the hell do pirates and ninjas have to do with each other anyway? But anyway, I went in a more samurai direction with some glorious Hakama pants (they look like a big pleated skirt; read about them and see a picture here) and a kimono type top. I looked fantastic(ally stupid) of course. Barely anyone else even tried. Although I have to give snaps to Aminah for her fantastic geisha style "ninja bitch" outfit.
  
• A six foot 5 guy was desperately attempting to get into my pants (and shoes also it seems). So here is an important lesson for all our male readers: don't try and flirt with a girl by telling her she has really nice shoes...several times. She will begin to doubt your heterosexuality and offer to let you try them on.
• I cleaned my room in anticipation for the onslaught of relatives and my parents friends who piled on for a free christmas lunch. In the mess I found: the double sided tape I had been looking for for about three weeks, thirteen 174/177/179 bus timetables and three 719 (the anagram lovers 179) bus timetables, as well as a 161 timetable, three carcasses of long passed spiders (crushed beneath all the clothes no doubt), four poems from my non-rhyming white middle class girl angst stage and a family of moles.
• Finally put up the christmas tree (yes, for everyone's knowledge... a REAL tree) ...basically meaning a frenzied decorating as other people call out from the couch "You missed a spot" or "You need more tinsel and less twinkle lights" and my favourite "Maybe we should take it all down and start again with a gold theme?" ARGH!
• My bellydance harem party is tomorrow. TOMORROW. I still haven't figured out what I am going to do for my improvisation. Fuck.
• I have discovered the fantasticness of chocolate lip balm. Smells yummy. Tastes like shit.
• I watched the first episode of "American Dad". Very weird. Although I love the alien. How cute is he? ("every seven hours...like clockwork")
  

That about sums it up.

Until the next purpose-less stream of unintelligable consiousness

Saathiya*

Summer vs. Saathi: Not Quite the Ultimate Grudge Match

So Aminah loves (and hates) her summer. Well, I tried to think about it and I really couldn't come up with many reasons for liking summer. But I did my best and here they are:

1. Ice - Ice clinking in drinks making the glass frosty. Sitting on the couch rubbing ice on yourself when it gets really hot (I don't have air conditioning so I have to improvise). Ah.
2. Uni Holidays happen to fall in this period. Although holidays would be so much better in Spring or Autumn I will take what I can get.
3. Being able to leave the window open at night without freezing to death.

Alright. I tried I really did. Ah well. Here is my list of what I hate about summer:

1. Crappy Adelaide weather. Saathiya, weathergirl for Aminah's new news program, will now give the average weather report for an adelaidian summer: hot, 35- 40, bone dry. So keep your machete on hand for when you go crazy from heat exhaustion and start wanting to chase John Howard around with it until he or you die of over-heating.
   
2. Lack of hugs. You really don't feel like hugging people when you are all hot and sweaty and icky.
3. The really poor quality of air conditioning in my car (the "yellow submarine" or "lindz" named for Moleman who insisted I give it a real name that wasn't a highly accurate description of the car, damn him) that for some reason works like the air conditioning in my old high school: blowing out hot air in summer and cold air in winter. argh.
4. Inability to eat hot food (especially yummie stuff with lots of chili) during the day. Not that it stops me.
5. Sunburn. Getting sunburnt from standing in the sun fully clothed for a third of a second is enough to make anyone support a montgomery burns-esque blocking out the sun type plan. Damn European white-skinned genes. This is why I plan to only be impregnated by an indian / asian / latin american at any time during my life. I want to be able to pass on a legacy of tan-able skin.
   
6. The clothes. The little sluts in my degree at uni will take any excuse to dress up to the nines in minis and tops that resemble an old ragged bra, but summer is their favourite reason.
7. The fact that when you don't go away to another country during the holidays you are doubley punished: you have to endure crappy Adelaidian summer AND you don't get to go overseas and lie on a beach in Bali (yeah, I don't care about the bombs) or stuff snow down some cute german guy's jacket in rural Germany, or beg some old guy in a store in Pushkar to give you the pirated version of some indian CD that wont come out in India for another week or so.
   
8. The fact that for some reason the TV stations decide that the summer period is the designated low ratings period and take off all the good shows, replacing them with "Headland" and "Ghost Whisperer" and repeats of "Medium".
9. Boredom. Absolute boredom. Yet not having anything to blog about thus actually blogging less comparatively.
10. The mess that accompanies summer. The piles of clothes that I just can't be fucked putting away. The shoes all over the floor that I don't have the will to chuck into their basket. The christmas presents strewn about, unceremoniously dumped on the floor awaiting wrapping.
11. The way it is hard to sleep in because it gets cold-ish during the night but really hot at about 8 o'clock so you wake up sweaty and hot under just a sheet.
12. Way too much time to debate the answer to questions such as: Should I get my ears pierced? and Why can't I be bothered driving down to the supermarket to get nail polish remover? or Should I do two or six bellydance classes a week next semester? It turns out that six classes a week costs the same as three. What the?
13. Flies. I can't possibly explain to anyone who isn't here in summer, fighting the endless battle between human and fly.
    
14. Laziness. Its too hot to do anything anyway. The kind of laziness that prevent the proper conclusion of all my posts. Sorry about that.

So. What have we learnt? Summer in Adelaide = crap. Thus here is a short list of the top ten places I really want to go to instead of being here right now:

1. India (duh), Sri Lanka, Bangladesh
   
2. Europe: Germany, the UK, France, Spain, Italy, etc
   
3. Latin America: Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, etc
   
4. Indonesia
   
5. Malaysia
   
6. Korea (south)
   
7. China
   
8. Vietnam
   
9. Japan
   
10. Fiji and Thailand
    

I really need to get a job and just by the airplane tickets already. Crappy laziness holding me back. Ah, well.

Saath**

"Summertime": and the living is breezy. An analysis of Aminah's love-hate relationship with the seasons

I don't know what it is about Blogger that makes me so tempted to turn everything into a bad pun. It's very unhealthy...

In the good ol' Southern Hemisphere (the second best Hemisphere in the world) it's officially Summer (and has been for one whole day). Fuck. You wouldn't know it to look out your window. Right now, it's cold and raining and dark. Last night it was cold and raining and dark. Autumn has been warmer than the whole (2 days) of Summer! We've been having such WEIRD weather of late, I blame global warming and Donald Rumsfeld (as I do for almost everything; damn climate change, damn Rumsfeld). It's been hot and humid (and Adelaide is NEVER humid... it's drier than my washing hung out in February) one day and then cold and wintery the next. It makes getting dressed in the morning a particular problem, unless you were together enough to watch the weather report that Saathiya DIDN’T present the night before. It would almost be a relief for the relentlessly blistering heat of Adelaide summer to arrive just so there would be some continuity to the weather, although then it'd be blisteringly hot, which isn't much fun.

Actually I really do love summer, apart from all the things I hate about it. But I'm like that with everything and everyone, although I am very capable of blind hatred I have as yet been unable to see only the good in something/someone. But I think that particularly cynical outlook on things is extremely well adjusted, optimists are just kidding themselves. And, in followig with my negative outlook, here are the horrible things that I detest about summer:

Episode One, "Summer, you Bitch", in which Aminah bags Summer relentlessly:
Aminah blames Summer for:

1. The fact that I have to shave my legs with some regularity... Google, its so boring! Do guys shaving their faces get this bored or is it more fun because you get to look at yourselves in the mirror? Plus you can be creative with facial hair in a way that you can't with leg-hair...who has designer leg-stubble? I don't believe in pulling my hair out by the roots, or in slathering my legs with chemicals. deal with it. Shaving is so boring...if only it were as fun as those ads make you believe...tropical beaches, cute boyfriends, no razor-burn or ingrown hairs... that'd be so good. But instead you're stuck with razor nicks and bits that you missed and then you have to do it all again after a couple of days.
   
   
2. Sunburn. It's particularly painful and annoying, and just generally make me cranky. Because I am pathetically white, I burn easily (and can't dance). Put me out in the sun for 15 minutes and I'll turn lobster red...and then peel. And I don't even have the consolation of a tan afterwards, because I don't even tan! I just go bright red, peel and return to more pathetic icing sugar whiteness. Which makes me even more cranky... Eugh, and getting sunburnt on top of your head along your part-line, how much does that hurt?
   
   
3. Sand in everything at the beach. And I mean EVERYTHING. It stuck anywhere and everywhere. It clogs up sunscreen, roughens up your towel, gets in your food, your clothes, your shoes, your fingernails, your hair, your bathing suit (it just sounds classier than swimmers, cossie or togs), other unmentionable places. And it's almost impossible to wash it all out. Plus, you get absolutely covered in it because it clings to wet skin, then even after you wash it off at those little beach showers it somehow comes back to haunt you again.
   
   
4. FEBRUARY HEAT!!! Argh, 45+ degrees Celsius is NOT a healthy temperature. When the temperature does start getting into the mid forties I start hallucinating and going slightly wonky, and it generally ends in a killing spree. That sort of heat really does addle your brain, and tire you out, although it prevents you from actually doing anything because it's so hot and dry, except for the fact that you're drowning in your own sweat, you feel like you're going to crack from baking too hot. Remember pottery class?
   
   
5. Australia Day. Australians are about the least patriotic people ever, or at least, I am. Sure, I love public holidays as much as the next Aussie, but Australia Day is just a waste of fireworks. Maybe if this country did something more than just exist and release taxic fumes and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or Australians did more than just vote conservative, take copious amounts of ecstasy and smuggle drugs overseas it might be worth celebrating. Plus, the whole concept of Australia day is extremely politically incorrect. Celebrating the day that the First Fleet landed (I assume that that's what we're commemorating... remember I'm not patriotic...) is insenstitive to Aboriginal Australians, Invasion Day anyone?, and basically ignores (I think) the fact that Australia is now much more than a British colony run by the Brits. Now, we're run by America. So chuck in Australia day and create a week-long festival in October, when I'm really aching for a public holiday, there are just too many public holidays crammed into the Dec-Jan stretch.
   
   
6. Family celebrations. I spend most of the year avoiding spending time with my family, so why go and ruin everything by having BBQs and picnics just because the weather is nice? I hate going around to my Catholic families overly-decorated house and listening to them all talk about Baby-Jesus and how their adorable son /daughter /nephew /neice /grandchild did something adorable, like learn the true meaning of Christmas or something sickening like that.
   
   
7. Swim-suits. Which manage to reveal and emphasise my myriad of flaws that I've carefully and craftily been hiding behind multiple layers in winter. Lycra is not a nice fabric.
   
   
8. Flies and Mosquitoes. Is it just me or have there been more of these annoying bastards recently? Again, DAMN global warming, BLOODY Rumsfeld. As an Australian, it just becomes second nature to swat away flies and slap at mosquitoes, but they still piss you off. Flies buzz around and seem to be drawn to whatever I'm eating, my face and my ears (what is with that?). I can't stand flies (especially blow flies) because they just keep coming back even after you swat them away. That high whine of a mosquito right past your ear just as you're trying to get to sleep, and the horrible itchy bites. I hate that I get bitten so often by mosquitoes and some people never seem to get bitten at all. Last week I counted 9 mozzie bites on one foot in one night, and it's not even peak mozzie season.
   
   
9. Summer TV. Self explanatory. Too many American comedies featuring ugly, fat, stupid men and their beautiful, thin, intelligent wives who stay at home and look after the kids while the guy goes out and hangs with his friends and makes fun of his wife. Can you hear me laughing?
   

Episode Two, "I'll take you back, if...", Wherein Aminah admits that Summer isn't all bad, although it is a little annoying whore-bitch:
Some of the things Aminah is willing to find in Summer's favour:

1. Swimming at the beach. Which I absolutely love. Just soaking in the water and not doing anything much. yummy. Nothing beats immersing yourself in cold water on a hot day. I love carefully wading out into frigid water, getting goosebumps, trying to stay as dry as possible and then just, what the hell?, diving in. It's exilirating. Floating around and letting the tide take you where it will. Finding yourself ages away from where you started and feeling mildly panicked when you can't see your towel. Actually I just love the beach.
   
   
2. X-Mas, New Year and my Birthday. I love Christmas, not because I'm Christian (I'm not) and want to celebrate the messiah's birthday (I don't), because I like throwing away all those extra shopping catalogues you get as junk mail (it's such a waste), or because I'm a capitalist-consumer whore (maybe just a bit of that one), but because I love buying presents for people and feeling excited about if they're going to like it or not, and if they don't like it, whether they'll give it to me because I want it. I love trying to guess what other people have bought me, the anticipation is generally better than any of the loot I score. X-mas allows me to revert to childhood and no one will comment on any of it AND I can eat myself to the point of explosion and again, no one will say anything. New Years is self explanatory... booze and counting down from 10 when you're drunk, always good for a laugh. I like receiving presents. So I like my birthday. I like reading my cards and seeing how people have struggled to write something other than just "Happy Birthday Aminah" and only partly succeeded. Somehow my Dad always manages to make a great personalised card up, and I really admire how he can do this every year without repeating himself. I'm one of those "Happy Birthday Aminah" people.
   
   
3. Remembering that I do have legs (and quite fine ones too, might I say) under my thick jeans. It's always nice to be reminded of body parts that you forgot about over winter. And I do like my legs, they're quite handy, although I will forever obsess about the size of my thighs and Saathiya will probably forever (or until she gets sick of me and bashes me over the head with a hammer) roll her eyes at me and console me when I'm feeling my most self-concious. Many thanks, babe... I promise to return the favour.
   
   
4. Thongs. Have their good and bad points, but overall I am a big fan of thongs (flip flops if you will).
   
   
5. A foolproof excuse for laziness. How can anyone argue that you're not doing enough around the house when the temperature is over 35? Just lying on the couch and staring at something, whether it be a book, the tv, a fly, the wall, is one of the most satisfying things I can do. That's really sad, isn't it?
   
   
6. Moonlight Cinema in the Botanic Gardens. Which is bloody-well expensive, but just being able to watch a movie sitting on the lawns in the Botanic Gardens is such a treat it's worth it, even if it is a bit crowded. Any open-air cinema would have such problems. But watching films under the stars in the Botanic Gardens (I can't stress that it's in the Botanic Gardens enough) transforms any film, and if you get bored you can just wander off. The Gardens are transformed at night as well.
   
   
7. Picnics and Lunches in the park. In the shade under huge trees (like the Moreton Bay Figs outside the Botanic park, or the big gums along the Linear Park), with friends, or family members I like, eating and talking and playing around.
   
   
8. Summer Nights. Has nothing to do with John Travolta. With the burning heat of the day gone and a subtle warmth lingering nights in (early) summer are magical. Stars are brighter, crickets are chirping (we don't get cicadas in Adelaide). The nights are longer too, and stay light almost right up until around 8pm. Allows you to fit more into everyday.
   
   
9. Summer TV. A new season of Family Guy (in prime time too!) and repeats of Futurama, someone over at those tv stations has been reading my hate mail! SBS usually airs the same two fall-back Bollywood movies I've seen ten thousand times late at night in summer, but I'll stay up and watch them anyway.
   

Summer really is a mixed bag of lollies. Sometimes you get chocolate caramels, sometimes you get black jelly-beans, only you can't throw the black jelly-beans away.

Ayo, Ammie xx


Ok, now there are three other seasons to get through...

The P.K. Dubey Fan Club: not so much a video store as a DVD cupboard...

Just before I get down to business with the hotly anticipated Aminah's Must See Motion Pictures (ok, Saathi...you were right. It just sounds better) I have to commend Saathiya's attempt to fulfill the absolutely impossible task I put before her. A stunning effort, I must say. And where did you pull Princess Caraboo from? That movie was great... I had totally forgotten about it. So, now down to busy-ness (following in the format pioneered by Saathiya):

Foreign Films (under the title I originally knew it as...):

• The Cup - because it is SO cute. Buddhist monks and soccer, somehow the combination is just magical. I absolutely adore that Orygen kid, he is just the most beautifully real character. It is so entertaining and gives you a warm feeling of contentment after you watch it.
• Kikujiro - I just love how Kikujiro looks after Masao; gambling and beating people up. Kikujiro must be one of the worst person in the world to trust with a child. The bit with the two bikers (Fatso and Baldy) in it is great.
• 8 Femme - It has it all: sex(ual references), murder, drama, suspense, intrigue, singing, beautiful French women, nice clothes, subtitles. As much as I love Bollywood (for all the songs and colourful saris) they haven't quite worked out how to do suspense.
• Triplets of Belleville - Very weird, but very very good. This movie has next to no dialogue, but the animation is great. It's the kind of film anyone can enjoy. Great music too.
• Delicatessan - Indescribeably good. In a post-apocolyptic France, a landlord serves his deceased tenants up as food to his living tenants. Absolutely hilarious. Great slapstick. I loved the underground vegetarian movement. Has Dominque Pinon from Amelie in it, who is absolutely fantastic in everything I've seen him in as the love interest for the landlord's daughter. They make such an oddly cute couple.
• Anatomie - German thriller. Just a great movie made even better by Benno Furmann and Franka Potente. The sequel isn't quite as good (because it doesn't have Benno Furmann and only a brief cameo by Franka Potente), but still worth a look.
• Les Visiteurs - Medieval Knight (Jean Reno) is transported to modern-day France. Chaos ensues. I refuse to even consider spoiling this movie's memory by watching the American remake.
• Tais Toi - I realise that this is a bit French heavy, but they really do make fucking fantastic movies. Jean Reno and Gerard Depardieu are two crooks on the lam. Ruby (Reno) is a brutal killer and Quentin (Depardieu) is a loyal but slow-witted car thief. Funny stuff.
• The Closet - Political correctness gets slapped on the bum. Facing the sack, Francios pretends to be gay... and in doing so rights all of his problems. Damn, if only real life were so simple.
• Shaolin Soccer - Which wasn't even spoiled by the fact that it was dubbed into English and not subtitled. One of the funniest films I have seen...ever...I was laughing so hard through this movie I was crying. Soccer kung-fu style. It has to be seen to be believed. The teams are great; Team Moustache, Team Evil, etc. The part where Mighty Steel Leg and Iron Head form a band to inspire people to take up Kung Fu, and are pelted with beer bottles had me in stitches. Go see it now.
• Monsieur Ibrahim - The friendship between an old Muslim man and a young Jewish boy whose father is a bit of a dead beat. Heart-warming. Omar Sharif is fan-fucking-tastic as the title character!
• Battle Royale - Chuck some high school kids on an island and get them to finish each other off, the last one alive is the winner. Absolutely brutal. We all need some blood and gore in our lives every now and then. I haven't worked up the courage to see the sequel yet.
• Nos Enfants Cheris - Because it manages to contain infidelity, arsehole spouses and child abondoment and it still manages to remain one of the most romantic movies I've seen in a long time. I really wish I had Romane Bohringer's hair. She is so unconventionally beautiful.
• Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge - What can I say? It's a crowd pleaser. On of the very first Bollywood movies I ever saw after Lagaan, I have become unhealthily obsessed with this movie, and own it on DVD, and VHS and stay up all night to watch it on SBS when they show it on TV. I have to include basically every Bollywood film I have ever seen in the foreign film section, but DDLJ gets special mention because I am THAT in love with it. It appeals to the hopeless romantic in me. I can't praise it enough.

English Language:

• Harvey - An invisible giant rabbit and James Stewart. I don't know how they pulled of this combination, but it does work.
• Donny Darko - following in the giant rabbit theme, this movie has a creepier big bunny. Plus, Jake Gyllenhaal is a hottie.
• Limbo - I just like the fact that it builds up to nothing and you get to choose how you'd like the film to end (oops, damn... I spoiled the ending)
• I Heart Huckabees - Exestentialism and Nihilism go head to head. Entertaining stuff. Doesn't make much sense, but then neither does life.
• Plan Nine From Outer Space - So bad it hurts. But you have to just push on through that pain-barrier. You can have so much fun spotting all the continuity errors and laughing at the deadpan outlandishness.
• Napoleon Dynamite - Strange. But very entertaining and extremely funny. I almost killed myself during Napoleon's dance spectacular. Jon Heder is a geek-god and Aaron Ruell is hilarious.
• The 39 Steps - Early Hitchcock. A suspected murderer (innocent, of course) and the woman who turns him into the police are handcuffed together, I spent the entire time silently willing them to fall in love, and somehow they must have been swayed by my unspoken pleas because that's exactly what happened.
• Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid - One of the funny Steve Martin movies. Old black and white crime movie footage is spliced into the movie. It ends up slightly farcical (as all Steve Martin movies do) but absolutley hilarious (as only a select few do). It has aged well and you can watch it more than once without wanting to kill yourself, as is true of ver few of his movies.
• Hercules Returns - A funny Australian comedy (I know. I want to know how they did it too!!! but it IS from 1995). Another one using old footage. The grand opening of a cinema complex premieres an Italian language Hercules film without subtitles!!! To save face the cinema owner and his friends dub the movie into English...
• Hotel Rwanda - Hard-hitting. I cried so much watching this. Sure, it may gloss over some things, but all in all it's one of the most honest "based on true events" movies I've seen.
• Harold and Maude - Classic. I want to be able to pull young men when I'm 70.

Ok, I'm done. If you got to the end of that you should be commended. Perhaps you can understand why it took so long in coming now?

Ayolah, is it just me, or do you feel a movie (oops, sorry...motion picture) night coming on? Ammie xx.

Browsing Saathiya's Video Store...

Well, here it is. Officially commissioned by Aminah to appear here on the "Joint" as I have decided to refer to this blog, although she hasn't and will never pay me for it:

Saathiya's Must See Moving Pictures (I would have said "movies" but moving pictures just seemed to have the right number of syllables in it. Meh):

The Foreign Film Section (deserves special mention, me thinks):

• Well, Saathiya, obviously. I don't just name myself after any old movie title.
• Baran. It is a very beautiful, absolutely fantastic movie from Iran. Depressing? Maybe just a little but fantastic nonetheless. And Iranian love story...how can you go wrong? Even if it is true that no woman speaks throughout the entire film and the guy is kinda weird looking (sorta cute though.)
  
• Amelie (well, duh) I realise I have said this a thousand times but this is THE movie. Not only in foreign circles but it is just all around the most wonderful, beautiful movie. I always get tingles right at the end when they finally get together...when she runs out the door almost crashes into him...ahhhh....
• A Chinese Odyssey (Tian Xia Wu Shuang) Ah, need I say more? Well...seeing as no one seems to have seen it I guess the answer is yes. This movie is a weird parody type of those kung fu movies, but don't get me wrong, it does take itself seriously at times, but is genuinely funny at others. Finally a movie that makes me laugh not because it is so poorly made, or the jokes are so not funny it is funny. If you haven't seen it you MUST go see it. I don't care what you have to do - download it, buy it on eBay, write a series of aggressive letters to the head of your local TV stations demanding they show it (it can help to include some random threats and possibly a mysterious white powder) just GO GET IT NOW!!

• Monsoon Wedding is one of the greatest Indian movies of all time. Not bollywood per se, but great. Plus, that gorgeous bridgroom guy (Parvin Dabas) was adorable (he has the ideal nose, I reckon).
• Bunty Aur Babli. Actually, I robably would have said this movie was crappola if it weren't staring a very dreamy gorgeous Abhishek Bachchan (pictured - maybe I made the picture a little big but really, even a picture that size just doesn't do this guy justice), who, if you ask me, turns any movie to gold.
• The Princess and the Warrior - But mostly just because Benno Fürmann is a god. He can almost make the scene where she is trapped under a truck and he has to cut a hole in her throat and suck the blood out sexy. Almost.
  

Non-Foreign Films (and yeah, this category is more specifically "films in English" and thus will likely be predominated by American films because Australia pretty much sucks these days as far as the film and TV industry goes):

• The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Pretty In Pink. Yeah, can't go past your Molly Ringwald Eighties classic. There is something about them that is just so NOT timeless that somehow makes them timeless. They are just so eighties: the clothes, the attitudes, the music...what's not to love?
• Strictly Ballroom. I can't do Ballroom dancing but I still loved this movie nonetheless. I loved the honesty and the fantasy. I loved the costumes, the music and the dancing. If this movie actually managed to make me fall in love with Antonio Vargas (pictured) and Paul Mercurio it has to be pretty powerful.
  

• The Wedding Singer. Ummm...I realise I should be hacked to death for even listing a Adam Sandler movie but this one was so great, what with all the eighties stuff and the Indians thought it was good enough to remake into "Kahin Pyaar Na Ho Jaaye" a really terrible remake that makes you wonder if they actually even watched the original past the first ten minutes or so and then just snatched and translated whole scenes.
  
• Princess Caraboo just because I loved this so much when I was a kid that I was inspired to make up my own language that made me sound as though I was talking in tongues.
• Drop Dead Fred. Who can go past "I am a loner, a crazy wide eyed loner on a doomed mission to Venus to battle with the 3 headed mega beast but on the way I caught cornflakes disease" as one of the greatest lines ever? Also, the last time I saw this movie I was about 7. It seemed pretty great then.

Actually, sorry Ams, this list just doesn't even scratch the surface of my deep close relationship with the movie world. You have given me a task as hopeless as telling an ant to push down a brick wall with it's little stubbly arms tied behind its back. Not fair! Ah, well. You get the idea.

Love*

Saathiya.