Snow Fall in Saitama

Close your eyes....... Wait, actually keep them open. Otherwise you won't be able to read along! Pretend your eyes are closed. What do you think of first? I think of presents.

You know how as a kid, someone telling you to close your eyes and keep them closed is just the best (or worst) form of cruelty? It's nearly impossible to do simply because you know there is going to be something amazing in a few seconds and you fear your body might explooooddee with anticipation! Well, keep pretending your eyes are closed, and at the end of this sentence... open them:

Cool huh? You're in another world now, a snowy wonderland! My friend Shiho took this picture from her balcony in Japan! She lives in the Saitama region, about 1 hour bullet train ride inland from Tokyo City. We have been e-mailing eachother since her return home and often talk about our weather woes. For example, I tell her about the Cairns cyclone, Brisbane flooding, Perth fires, Victoria Flooding etc etc and she unfailingly types "chooo sammuuiiiii" Meaning it is SOOOOO COOOLLLDDDD!!!! I didn't quite realise HOW cold until she sent me this picture! She doesn't have her driver's licence yet so naturally she has to ride a bike or walk to school each day. In that. Poor Shiho :(

I felt inspired to write this because I think I am getting sick *dun dun DUNNNN* Josh has being doing placement at another Primary School and picked something up, which may have spread to me, nooo! I have felt very poopy these last few days and feel like I am on another level than usual. Kate at work asked me how I felt yesterday morning and I eventually managed to blurt out my half-hatched thoughts of how I actually feel. I told her "You know when you're sick... and you're like surprised?..... By life?" she just laughed and asked me to elaborate. It was so hard, I should have just said "Meh." I think I meant.. I felt as though I were in a dream state and possibly still half-asleep therefore surprised to feel that way and still be living your daily life. Maybe. I'm still a big congested in the ole' brain box up there! When I try to talk it comes out sounding like that scene from the movie "Tomorrow When the War Began" when they find Chris and he is baked and starts philosophising. Picture a guy who did character research for a stoner by watching an overacter play the role of a stoner. You know what I mean. You should watch it, it's painful!

Also, speaking of Japan and Subarashii... I watched AKIRA the other night - a classic Anime movie. I thought I knew what was going on for most of it, but then I got really confused really quickly. I watched it with my housemate Maki and we were just laughing and giving audience commentary by the end. It was visually amazing, and the first few songs blew my mind, but yes... no idea. I should look up an explanation for the reasons any of it was happening. Oh yeah, i forgot to explain my segway! "Subarashii" means Marvelous or Wonderful, and in the movie one character kept saying it and I got really excited! It was subarashii, much unlike my segways today. ACHOO!

Food heaven continued

Guys, if I was a gambler.. I'd be on some hell of a winning streak right now! I have had win after win after win in terms of meals lately. Ok, so the last post showed you my dinner on Friday yeah? Mega win. Now I'm gonna show you a bit more of my food exploration on Saturday. So Josh and I slept in until midday, as you do, and then went out around 2 o'clock for some breakfast... lunch... dunch... i guess you'd call it. We went to the Green Refectory cafe on Sydney Rd, Brunswick - more affectionately known as illy. I'm sure I've explained this before - it's the coffee cup brand or something but the illy advertisement sign is bigger than the cafe's sign. Anyway I didn't feel like eggs, so I got some lunch stuff. I thought everything would be small portions so of course I ordered way too much, but it's cheap so it didn't matter! I got a lamb, coriander and pine nut parcel and a trio of salads. Beetroot, lentil and coriander, and rice with cranberries. It was all A+ standard :) 

Then later we hit up the supermarkets to buy some provisions for a light dinner - basic pizzas. I picked up fruit 4 of 5 - RAMBUTAN! Looks a little weather beaten - but I think it adds to the character...

Then we discovered how much fun you can have with the shell...

Quite a bit actually. The taste was very similar to Lychee I thought, and so was the texture and shell etc. Perhaps I should have researched some fruits before buying willy nilly. Looks like i ate two fruits from the same family or something. Man their parents are gonna be pissed at me. Awkward. 

Oh yeah, I have been meaning to post this for a few days now! Here are the paintings I made for Maki and Mel's birthdays! Mel got Marilyn and Maki got Morrisey. Haha, all M's....

I think they are pretty good. For an amateur of course :P Back to food heaven, I also had a big home-made Japanese feast last night with Miso soup, bento boxes with Japanese curry, yakitori, grilled tofu, salad, tuna etc etc. MMMMM! Then I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's with everyone, and I really liked it! A bit long, and sooo different to the book - i think I like the message behind the book better - the movie totally defeated what Capote was trying to say by changing the end. Funny. Poor Capote.

Today I ate left over japanese bento, and tonight I'll be going out to Lygon Street for dinner and a movie with my boys (Josh, brothers and dad). Coooooooooooooooool! I think we're seeing True Grit :D wee-hoo!

wikka wikka

What up people? I have spent a bit of time today going back and reading some of my posts from months and years gone by. Quite interesting reading, I must say! The reason I did this is because my younger brother DK wants me to make a speech at his 21st in a few weeks (eep) and I was looking for material i may have written in here previously. All I found was that story about how he wanted to pretend to be homeless. Oh dear. But there was some good reading to be had. Perhaps you should try it, pick one of my tags on the right and take the trip!

Speaking of trips, I finished reading Trainspotting a few days ago and really liked it. It was dark and dirty and interesting. I liked the chapters that were written phonetically in Scottish, I found it easy enough to follow along. Josh thought I would struggle but I sure proved him wrong :) I think it comes from practice. See, when I was about 12 I remember writing a story for school based on some Irish settlers in Australia and I wrote their dialogue phonetically. Haha. I was years ahead of myself, a child prodigy if you will. Irvine Welsh and I are like kindred spirits or something. I've often wondered if I will ever write a book. I still don't know. Maybe. It would be a cool thing to do, but of course I've had no formal training and it would be more of a hobby than anything really. I'd just love to set up an old type-writer in my cottage in the woods (it's coming) and tap it out. I know that's sooo not practical but I need to have my imagination :) I read an interview with Irvine Welsh who explained that he never really meant to be a writer and had quite a mediocre life and dabbled in drugs quite a bit which kind of kept him in the one place. It sounds as though some of the content of Trainspotting comes directly from his own life! Crazy! Hmm... so what can I write about in my debut novel....? At the moment I think Psycho Family Drama is the main thing I could take from my life to entertain and shock people. Maybe I should keep a journal and look back on it in a few years when I'm not so involved. Watch out for it!

Oh yeah, I went to the Video Store (do we still call it that?) on Monday night to borrow Trainspotting. I've never seen it and wanted to compare it to the book - as you do. I had a bit of a look and couldn't find it, then the dude told me that all copies had been stolen! How fitting!! HA! So I'll watch it sometime soon, my friend Roo says he has it - how exciting!! I seem to be doing a bit of the Movie/Book thing at the moment. The book before Trainspotting was "The girl with the dragon tattoo" which I liked. I then noticed had been made into a movie but I don't think it will be good. Someone tell me otherwise please. And now I've just started reading Truman Capote's 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'. I really like it! It is surprisingly cool and a little bit crazy. I have never seen the movie and totally mis-judged the whole concept and the quality! So I am keen to see what happens to Miss Holly Golightly and I already have the DVD lined up to watch :D Truman Capote, your collected works are about to be eye-raped by me!

Hmm, I am keen to get home today. I have a few things I want to do... like hit the supermarket, go to my friend's house to borrow some Nigel Slater cookbooks, start working on a present for Shiho, clean out my wardrobe, watch an old movie from the set Jim gave me, AND wrap Maki and Mel's Birthday presents! They are getting back from Hawaii soon and I can't wait for them to open them! I can't say much more until then, but I am proud of my efforts and will put pixxx up soon. The reason I need to clean out my wardrobe is because firstly I found a great sale and bought a whole bunch of stuff for around $100 total. Out with the old, in with the new! I got a dress, a bag, 2 pairs of shorts, 3 singlet-ish tops, 2 skirts, 2 dress shirts, and 1 oversized cream rose brooch. All for $100AUD.. amazing hey? I also came home yesterday to find a bag of clothes from my mum in my front doorway. They are from a friend of a friend of someone! The bag was FULL of dresses. There were maybe 10 or so. I modelled them all last night and am keeping i think 4....! They all have a vintage look to them! So good. I don't know exactly where they came from but I am very grateful and can't wait to wear the first one on Friday night! I'm going out to Maha in the city, and having a fancy dinner, drinks and SHISHA! Finally crossing shisha off the list! WOO!

Hopefully this old horror movie I watch tonight won't be actually scary, cos I keep watching horrors when I'm alone at night and freak myself out. In a way I like that irrational fear from scary movies, like how you become convinced someone is in your house. But on the other hand, I really don't. I've been at home alone most of the last week or so because my housemate Maki is in Hawaii and the other guy, Hayden, is staying at his girlfriend's a lot. So I stupidly watched Martyrs, and Funny Games recently for the rush. Well last night it caught up with me. I went to bed around midnight in the empty house and had my window open for the cool breeze coming through. I kept hearing noises outside my window and MUST have started dreaming something freaky. Anyway around 12.45 i hear the front screen door slam shut, but not the main door or anything else, so in my half-wake I convinced myself that someone opened the screen door and tested the wooden door, and when they couldn't get in, they let the screen door slam before walking off. I somehow fell alseep again, then was woken up by something clattering to the floor in the kitchen. Now I was really convinced. I could see light coming under my door and I was frozen sitting upright in bed with my heart pounding and my ears straining to hear. Phone in hand I stood at my bedroom door listening. I heard 2 voices and I thought I could hear a new zealand accent. Haha. I almost called the police but first i thought i should call hayden just in case it was him and if it wasnt, just to let him know i was about do die. I dialled and waited... then i heard his phone ringing. Relieved, I walked out into the house and had a weird conversation with him and Julia where we were all apologising to one another. Them for waking me up so late and scaring me, me for acting so crazily, and possibly Julia for being 95% naked holding something up to her front. Haha. I went to bed pretty quickly after that and fell into a deep sleep. So deep that i woke up late for work again. Ha!    

Anyway, I must be off now, hope we shall meet again soon! :)

In the Lygon Street Zone!

Do Y'all know Lygon Street? I'm sure if you're from around here then you would for sure. It's the Italian restaurant mecca of Melbourne. Very famous etc etc. The problem for me is the abundance of "Ferrari restaurants".. you know the dark 70's style decor with faded Ferrari posters on the wall? Yes, those. Well I had a few Ferrari experiences around here so I'm always looking for nice new places to go! Josh and I have come here quite a bit as it's near my work and his uni, and we occasionally go the the NOVA cinema on Mondays when tickets are $8! The place directly across from Nova is called "Tiamo" and i love it! But going there 3 times in a row was starting to feel a tad.... thoughtless. So we tried a place closer to the city end which was OK, and then on Monday night Josh and I tried "D.O.C" onthe corner of Faraday and Drummond.

Let me just say: I really liked it! From what I can gather from the Italian menu, it is a concept restaurant which is kind of like a mozzarella bar with multiple cheeses on offer. They had some antipasto on offer, and a selection of pizzas with what I can only imagine are carefully designed with the nicest ingredients in stock. No Don salami here. On the back of the menu they have descriptions of types of cheeses and salamis on offer...

So we drank some Italian Beers while we perused the menu and stared around at the passers by...

And then got our pizzas very quickly and they had that "minimal" vibe to them which i like, especially when everything on it was top quality and tasty! If we go there again (I'm sure we will) I'll get the pizza which had cremy broccoli something on it :)

I demolished mine!! And I even had a bite of Josh's too! Make no mistake people, I have a healthy appetite! A fact which many old people like to tell me, and a fact which I suppose I should embrace. It's just a shame that this deliciously relaxing dinner was spoiled by the movie we saw afterwards. Josh gave me the option of two movies.. one set in Tokyo and one set in Finland. So can you guess which one I chose? Yah, Tokyo.

We saw "Enter the void" - a French film in English about an American guy living in Tokyo who dies during a drug deal and comes back as a ghost to revisit past experiences and watch over his redneck fucking dickhead stripper sister who is incestuous and fucked up from growing up in foster homes. It comes with an Epilepsy warning... maybe I should have heeded the warning. But no, I chose the movie and we sat through almost 2 hours of it while a few people left, and then we called it quits after the abortion scene. As did the man sitting next to us. Maybe I'm not "cool" enough to appreciate the message behind it, but whatever. It was boring and repetitive, and each time i saw a light or lamp in a scene i was fearful because the ghost camera hovering around the room goes into the light and you are assaulted by a white screen of strobe for 20 seconds, then the ghost backs out and flies around some more and watches his sister fucking her gross sleazy boss. I dunno, i dont want to recommend it, but i think it would be interesting to see what point you get sick of it and walk out. i couldnt imagine sitting there for another half an hour or whatever was left of the movie... and i felt gross and depressed for the whole night and all of yesterday from it. I'm kinda past the assaulted feeling now and just dislike it. I liked the opening credits and the scenes near the very beginning where they were walking around Tokyo... i felt very nostalgic. And there was one scene during a flashback where his sister is taken away from him which was genuinely sad, and not a punch in the face like other shit going on it the movie. hmm.... thats about it. But it was so indulgent and wanky.

That is the second movie I have walked out on. The first was that Johnny Knoxville movie "The Ringer" where he pretends to be special needs in order to win gold at the special olympics. The audience were such bogans and were laughing AT the downs syndrome actors instead of along with the movie. It was horrific.

Anyway "Enter the Void"... to see or not to see?? YOU BE THE JUDGE. Some people have never walked out on a movie, it's a good feeling.

little shop of horrors: ORIGIN

Yo yo yo yo yoy oyo yo yoyyooooo!!! So, you all remember Josh's friend Jim, yes? He let me borrow his Dutch cookbook, and NOW has let me borrow his "Creepy Things" DVD set! BEHOLD... 20 great scary movies!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

check out some of these promising movie titles...

Did you happen to see the name "Kim Cattrall" next to 1977's 'Good Against Evil'?? Well it's there if you want to look again! T'aint goin' nowhere. Samanth off Sex in the City... the early years. Also, I'm excited to see some of the Vincent Price ones!! I kicked things off last night by watching 1960's Little Shop of Horrors "starring" Jack Nicholson. I do have the ultimate soft spot for Jacky boy, he is an absolute legend. Also, I have the Rick Moranis re-make on DVD too, so I thought I'd start off on a familiar note. It was pretty pretty pretty cool! So, it's 50 years old yeah!! How awesome is that!? It was Black and White, and unlike the stage show and movie re-make, it is NOT a musical! It was a horror... and I think it's meant to be a comedy too. Maybe a black comedy. 

There was one scene that made me laugh. It was some dialogue between two detectives on the case. It's in that abrupt wise guy dialogue. Check it (courtesy of IMDB):

Det. Sgt .Joe Fink: How's the wife, Frank?
Det. Frank Stoolie: Not bad, Joe.
Det. Sgt .Joe Fink: Glad to hear it. The kids?
Det. Frank Stoolie: Lost one yesterday.
Det. Sgt .Joe Fink: Lost one, huh? How'd that happen?
Det. Frank Stoolie: Playing with matches
Det. Sgt .Joe Fink: Well, those're the breaks
Det. Frank Stoolie: I guess so.

Haha, so dry. The scenes that were slapstick weren't really my style...contrary to the fact that I actually LOVE physical comedy. There was a show on TV at mum's last night which was a top 20 countdown of injuries. Soooo goood! Anyway. I thought Jack Nicholson must have played a major role, like... SEYMOUR or something, which is what this movie poster would suggest...

But actually, this is Seymour:

Jonathan Haze. He was really good! Jack Nicholson was good too, but he actually played a small character called "Wilbur Force". If you've seen the re-make you'll remember Bill Murray as the masochistic dental patient getting off on the pain? Well Jack was the original masochistic dental patient :)

 I remember Bill did a good job, in the scene he knows his way around the dental surgery and puts on his own bib, stuffs his own mouth with cotton and all that stuff ready for crazy sadistic Steve Martin to bring on the pain. In the original, Seymour poses as the dentist and Nicholson convinces his to pull some teeth and leaves with half his teeth gone. Pretty 1960 funny :) If my maths is correct, Jack Nicholson is about 23 years old in that picture. Craaaazy!!  

So what should I watch next? Any ideas? I like the sound of "The Brain the wouldn't die", or maybe "The Dead Eyes of London". Weeeeeeeee

another massive post

Good morrow lads and ladies! Can't believe i am here today. I slept in until 8:10am when i usually get up at 6:45 to get to work by 8:30am. It was crazy. By the time i got to the station there were no carparks within a 5km radius pretty much (slight exaggeration). I had to park down some residential street but there weren't many other cars and no parking restrictions that i could see, so hopefully i don't get a ticket. eep.

By the time i got to work and realised that even our measly pedastle fans had been taken away, leaving us with NOTHING, my makeup had already melted off my face and i was wishing i had called in sick. Oh well, i went on a scavenger hunt and found 1 fan for the 4 of use to share. ridiculous.

So last night I went home and was thinking of all the amazing things I could whip up for dinner, when i came across Josh and Maki chilling outside with beers. They had watched the superbowl and had been drinking beers most of the day it seemed, so they weren't hungry or interested in food. And i didn't want to go to heaps of effort just for myself. So I took the opportunity of Hayden's absence to go and get charcoal chicken with chips and gravy for dinner. When we got there Maki and Josh had changed their minds and wanted chips too, so we ended up getting a whole chicken and a jumbo chips and gravy and coleslaw for the 3 of us haha. We also got a slab of what we thought was a Vegan beer (Carlsberg) so that Hayden could drink with us, but he said he didn't think it was vegan. So we sat out the back until about 9pm eating our extremely non-vegan feast and playing with Chester.

The guys told me that one of the pumpkins is getting really big so i went to go see it. It looks like it will be a Butternut and it is already the size of my hand!! Granted I have pretty small hands, not as small as a barbie or something, but fairly small.

We were discussing music for a while, and I realised the reason I can't listen bands like the Dillinger Escape Plan and Converge is because my ears are not sophisticated enough, and it is the music of the future. I believe i used the term "space music". This sounds like high conversation but I assure you it was just 2 beer cheer. Seriously, Maki broke it down for me and this is my feeble paraphrasing of what he said. They use notes that traditionally don't go together in sequence and are inventing new sounds, and they are so fragmented and fast and play in such a non-traditional pattern that my brain just can't process it. I realise that they are extremely talented but it just sounds like noise to me because i have never heard this kind of thing before and my senses are freaking out and it makes me feel uncomfortable to hear. It's not that i dislike it, i just cannot deal with it. Crazy. whoa back on track

Oh yes, of course! Then we were feeding lucky little Chester some chicken because he was staring at us for about an hour straight, just waiting patiently.

Hahhaa, i love that pic of him! What a cool guy. Maki went in to get us some beers and we heard this CRACK from inside, then saw him walking head down past the back door looking for a broom. We went in to see that he had dropped a beer in the laundry and it had gone everywhere. I had a mental face-palm, and maybe i acually did a face-palm too. Heh. So i gave him our brand new mop (it was only $10) to use and he went to slide the thingo down in order to squeeze the sponge clean and somehow snapped the mop too. It was pretty hilarious. Then once we had cleaned up all the slithers of glass and all the stench of beer, josh picked up his NFL ball and then lost control of it and it bounced over to a drinking glass left on the floor next to the couch... and smashed the fuck out of it. So then we cleaned up more glass. It was more funny than anything.

Seriously though, Maki is shaping up to be one of the most clumsy people I have ever known. He won't mind me saying this cos we discussed it at length and he knows all about it. But since moving in 2 weeks ago he has spilt 3 of his own beers all over the floor, just by not remembering they are by his side, and tipping them over with his foot or something. He also kicked the NFL ball the other night and it went off course and hit Josh's side mirror SMASHING IT and it fell to the ground. Then the two things last night - and i don't want to know how many other things have happened when i'm not around. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Maki that broke Hayden's side mirror somehow haha. No longer will i blame accidents on Chester - Maki is the new scapegoat. He said that he's having a pretty good run and hasn't broken any fixtures or furniture...yet. I didn't like the indication of threat and impending face-palming. I want to finish my blackboard project so i can keep a Black Books-esque tally of things broken (like their kill tally). haha

anyway this was the floor just after the beer smashing incident. We remarked how it reminded us of "paranormal activity" and that creepy powder scene!

Ok so I did actually kind of stick to my plan which involved watching Brokeback Mountain for the first time. I didn't watch it in bed as planned, as I was surprised to hear that Maki and Josh wanted to watch it with me. As much as i still want to watch a dvd in bed i thought it might be a little awkward with the 3 of us, so we watched it in the loungeroom. and. Oh. My. God. What a brilliant movie. I was moved to tears, it was just so heartbreakingly sad the whole time. The guys loved it too. look at this:

ah makes me want to cry again. fuck man. FUCK. Anyway i'm not going to be able to stop thinking about this movie...ever. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are two of my top 5 hottest people ever list. And while it was interesting to see 2 males kissing (as you never really see that in mainstream media) i wasn't turned on by it which i was curious to see if i would be. but i was MOVED. They are both so brilliant and amazing and i can't even believe how amazing the movie was. Fuck society man, fuck it right in the eye. So unfair. Anyway about 10 minutes into the film i was wishing i didn't have ANY prior knowledge of what the movie was about so I wouldnt keep looking for clues and giggling inwardly at all the hints that something was going to happen. There was a part where heath ledgers character was naked in the background and jake's character was sort of looking out the corner of his eye. THAT is the scene where i would have realised what was going on. oh man. is it lame of me to say RIP to heath ledger? Well I think he is an amazing talent, and i am so dissappointed that he is not alive anymore. it is such a horrible shame.

Ok, i have gotten a bit morose now.. let me cheer things up by telling you about this new "joke" that is circulating in the house. It involves me... wanting to fellate any red-head i see. Or at least that's how Maki sees it. Sure i had a crush on Ron Weasley, and my favourite Partridge family cast member is little Danny Partridge who happens to have red hair, and my cat is a ginger cat. But that doesn't mean anything! And for the record I am stating here and now that I am not, and have never been, attracted to Danny Bonaduce - who i googled and there are so many pics of him without a shirt looking like a fucking idiot that I am now calling him Danny Bonadouche. I do not have a ginger fetish, even though Josh has a few stray AUBURN hairs in his beard sometimes, it is all just coincedental. Maki is now suggesting that I have a crush on Cameron Ling - the Captain of Geelong Football Club (Aussie Rules Football) . This is laughable... google it and see what i mean. Sorry Cameron, I'm sure you are awesome but I am totally not attracted to you. I used the word "monster" which i am not proud of... sorry again.

Ok wow, i have waffled on for ages. I have to get myself organised for my friend's wedding this Saturday :D It is going to be a cry-fest. can't wait

movie review- wristcutters: a love story

My friend Simon gave me this movie to watch, promising it was going to be rad. In turn I promised him that I would write an in depth subarashii review instead of offhandedly saying “Oh yeah… I watched that movie you gave me… wristcutters. It was cool, thanks!” So here it is Simo, in all its rambling, incoherent, tangential glory. My first subarashii film review!

Now, it has been quite some time since I attempted to review a film. I distinctly remember the last time was for school, and I reviewed “The Mummy Returns”. I will be the first to admit that it was a pile of maggot filled shit. I consider myself a competent writer and got good marks in everything else, but I suppose movie reviews weren’t really my forte *shrug*. I didn’t so much ‘review’ it as I gave a blow-by-blow account of every single minute. It was like reading the Wikipedia review of Silent Hill, which I actually had to read in order to understand what the fuck HAPPENED!! I watched the whole thing and at the end I went ‘uh, what!?” it is so bad. Anyway.

Wrist Cutters. I knew absolutely nothing about this film and had never heard of it, plus it was a burnt disc so I didn’t even have a cover to give away clues or show who was in the cast. All I knew was that I was going to see some slashed wrists. I’m sure that if you haven’t seen this and you know the title I won’t be ruining much to say that within 2 minutes I did see some prime wrist cutting action. I have to say there is A LOT of blood in that sink. I knew what he was going to do but I still gasped at the sheer amount of blood. I thought that maybe it was filled with water and then the blood added to the volume. I’m not sure. I have never seen a person bleed to death so I suppose I am a little uneducated in that field. I brought this up with Josh last night and he said “Obviously he filled it with hot water and dipped his hands in to help the blood flow quicker…” as if I should have known this fact from birth. When I asked how he could have immediately realized this, he said that he thinks about a lot of things and that if he ever wanted to commit suicide he would do it properly, that’s for sure. Concerning and weird as this was, I brushed it off and went back to my thoughts about the film.

The main character is named Zia, and is played by Patrick Fugit (aka the boy from Almost Famous) and he has some facial hair in this one, just in case you are interested. His relationship with his pretty and IMO slut-face girlfriend ‘Desiree’ comes to an end, and this is the reason he kills himself in the first scene. The next thing you know, he wakes up in the afterlife for suicides. I was a little confused thinking that perhaps he survived and went back to living a crap life dealing with his actions, but actually nope – it’s suicidal purgatory for him baby. This new dark world freaked me out at first because I thought there was going to be a shoddy “dark silent hill” vibe, but luckily it was not so. phewwww

So, in this new world, Zia finds himself unable to be happy, smile, or love, and each day is a mundane dull routine. He meets a few people who help him to understand things a little better, and we get to see how they died – aweeesooomme! The strangest one is a Russian guy named Eugene who becomes his companion, but I won’t give too much away. One day Zia runs into an old friend who informs him that Desiree killed herself too, about a month after he “offed”. The main part of the film sees Zia and Eugene driving around the desolate plains in order to find Desiree so the 2 can be together in death when they couldn’t in life. They meet some new people along the way, and the plot thickens into a bit of a moral dilemma for Zia – what would a love story be without a moral dilemma!? There are many other strange characters; there is even some Will Arnett (GOB) action in there too for good measure.

This movie was dark and lovely, and even made me cry a little – the last 10 seconds are beautiful! Thank you Simon for lending me this movie. I look forward to the next one :)