8.5/10 – Grilled Seal of Approval

 

I think it’s about time I just came out and said it; Wong Kar-Wai is my favorite director.

There aren’t many directors who can consistently make awesome movies. Tarantino comes to mind, and perhaps his track record is even better because he has had absolutely no major (or even minor for that matter) missteps, while Kar-Wai has the harsh glare of the American 2007 drama-romance My Blueberry Nights in his portfolio.

Blueberry Nights was Kar-Wai’s first (and last?) English speaking film and was a critical and commercial failure. As a matter of full disclosure I will say that I have never actually seen the film. As an additional matter of full disclosure I’ll say that I hope to never see it and have my opinion of Kar-Wai negatively affected.

But anyway, Days of Being Wild. That’s what we’re here to talk about, isn’t it? That’s what you all signed up for? That’s why you found your way to my gloomy auditorium in the basement of this decrepit high school? Isn’t it?

And who told you anyway? I never did. Certainly not! This was not supposed to be a public affair, and, frankly, I’m quite perturbed. I expected to come down here and discuss the finer points of a film most Americans have never heard of by a director most Americans have never heard of in the comfortable silence that occurs without an audience.

But now!

You’ve changed everything, haven’t you? You think this is all a game, don’t you? You think I just leave my house at a quarter past two, head south for about 20 or 25 minutes depending on my average speed, turn left at Old Waterson’s General Store, spend about two more minutes going up Parkson Hill and then another two down the opposite side, make a quick left once I pass the firehouse, turn into the high school parking lot, pull all the way around back taking the long way so’s I don’t pass by the superintendent’s house, wedge my car between two great big hulking buses, get out, head to the door, test the door knob to see if it works, well – fuck – it don’t work (damn, it usually works…), grab a nearby brick, put a *small* hole in the glass, reach my hand inside, open the door, head down the hallway past Miss Susie’s art classroom (Ohh she was a cutie back in the day!) and walk, well, maybe 500 feet ’til I reach the door for the basement, it’s on the left hand side and I swing it open and head on down, grab my lighter outta my pocket and light a cigarette and take a couple drags, (I don’t smoke, but a lit cigarette works mighty fine for seeing in the dark.) head to the back (I done this a hundred times already), walk through the open auditorium doors, down the aisle and up on stage, take a chair from the corner and put it right in the middle, and open my mouth, but I sure as hell weren’t expecting you little shits to be here, now was I?

There’s just something comforting about creeping into a shitty high school 20 years after you graduated and giving a great big long speech about an obscure foreign film to nobody except the rats and the lice upon your head and the Vampire that lives in a coffin under the woodshop.
I dunno, maybe that’s just me, though. We all got our passions, am-I-rite?

Anyyyyywaaaay,

Look at the poster up above. We got three Cheung’s, two Lau’s, and a Leung. Is this the most similarly named film of all time?

Damn… I-I… really don’t know… I-I mean… I’m sorry.

Oh, you’re sorry are you?

Ye-Yeah… I’m sorry… I just don’t know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re sorry! You’re sorry! No, you’re a little whiny bitch! That’s what you are.

B-But I don’t-I can’t know this… How can I know… how can I know if it is… without researching every single film from the past 120 years?

You just got your answer, boy.

B-But-

YOU KNOW WHAT TO GOD DAMN DO. NOW DO IT.

*cries*

God damn. Kids these days… no respect.

*cries*