Saturday

I actually had a weekend last weekend, as I spent most of my Saturday at home. After my Saturday morning class, I was able to go grocery shopping, something I had not been able to do so far this year. At home I made beef tapa, the way I want it, the way my family used to do it when I was a kid. I'm not really into the sweet kind that all the tapsilog places sell (except the tapa at Rodic's, it's sweet but I love it). I want my beef tapa savoury and garlicky and with lots of calamansi in the marinade. So I ended up throwing down beef tapa sandwiches (with garlic ranch dressing) all weekend while watching a bunch of movies.

I finally got to watch Borat, and well, what more could I say that hasn't been said about the movie? I was almost in tears while watching that scene. Also, while watching the movie, my roommate's boyfriend came in, asked me what I was watching, and said, "Oh. I didn't like that movie." Which I couldn't understand. At all. I mean, how could anyone not love a movie that contains the line "I had the sexy time with my mother-in-law!" in a faux-Eastern European accent?

Next up was Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, the second installment in Will Ferrell and director Adam McKay's mediocre man trilogy. I absolutely adored Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, and I just love pretty much everything Ferrell has done (yeah, even A Night at the Roxbury), so liking Talladega was pretty much a given. My favorite little details about this movie? Ricky Bobby named his two sons Walker and Texas Ranger.

I was all comedied out after that, so I went with Match Point, Woody Allen's brilliant tale about society and infidelity. It's different from your "typical" Woody Allen film, in that there are no awkward, neurotic characters saying witty one-liners, and Allen stays behind the camera. But it's typical Allen in that it's full of flawed people whose imperfections drive the film.

The movie itself is hard to describe, but my best try is this: it's a modern-day Jane Austen that turns into Fyodor Dostoyevsky. But with a lucky twist.

Also, Scarlett Johansson has never been sexier, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers reminds me a lot of Beaver from Veronica Mars, and if you see the movie and the second season of the show, you'd know what I'm getting at.

The last movie I saw was the Little Miss Sunshine, which turned out to be my favorite movie in a long while, probably since Sideways. It's funny, sweet, heartbreaking, poignant, cruel, honest, sly and smart, sometimes all at the same time. But more than all that, the film, through each of its characters, evokes genuine empathy, something that is in short supply these days. I was still smiling this morning at the shower while thinking about some of the scenes from the movie.

My weekend was wonderful. How was yours?

Labels: movies, personal

- posted by jaemark @ 1/22/2007 06:53:00 PM