Movie and food club
Book clubs seem to be really popular, at least among women I know. Though I still suspect they're just excuses for women to get together and gossip, the concept is appealing. Scheduling regular events (music lessons, pub nights, annual themed parties) is a good thing in an age when everyone's so busy that time can evaporate. However, I just can't let other people dictate my reading choices.
As an alternative, though, I've decided to start a movie/gourmet club. Once a month, we'll gather and watch a movie while eating food that shares some common theme. Perhaps it's French film noir night and we'll watch Le Samourai while swallowing escargots, smoking cigarettes, and sitting around, mute and stern, like Alain Delon. Or watching Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express while eating canned tuna and chef salads, like the Tony Leung character. Foodie movies like Big Night and Eat, Drink, Man, Woman are perhaps too literal, but rules are unimportant. We can make it up as we go.
Hopefully they're movies that most of the people haven't heard of or seen yet. In this day and age, it's easy to get your hands on movies that used to be difficult to obtain. A video store like Scarecrow, an online site like Yes Asia or HKFlix, and even Amazon's sister companies in the UK and France and Japan make it easy to get your hands on international movies long before they're picked up for North American distribution. Bend it Like Beckham, Le Cercle Rouge, Double Vision, this Hayao Miyazaki Studio Ghibli Collection, 28 Days Later, Versus, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Six (Willow as crazy psycho dark queen witch) are just a few of the intriguing titles available right now on DVD to movie fans worldwide though they're not currently being issued on DVD by a North American video distributor. Want to find out what movies are coming out of Hollywood next? Check out these movies which have been stolen (read: picked up) by various Hollywood producers and studios for shameless repurposing and copying with big-name movie stars in the near future: Shall We Dance (to star Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez...yuck), Dark Water (after the box office success of The Ring, every Asian ghost story is going to be optioned, and this gem from the creator of The Ring was snatched up by Bill Mechanic's Pandemonium), The Eye (which itself copied quite a few American suspense flicks, such as...oh, go see it for yourself; Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner did, and they bought the remake rights), Infernal Affairs (picked up by Brad Grey and Brad Pitt...the original was solid but could use some editing, so perhaps a remake will pick up on that). In some cases it means you'll need a region-free DVD player, but no real movie fan should be without one anyway considering how cheap and plentiful they are.
I'm getting sidetracked. What do you need to do to join up? Have a healthy (unhealthy?) love for movies and movie history. You know who you are. Be willing to show up once a month. Be willing to cook something up (or buy it from a restaurant) about once a year. It's probably helpful though not required to live in Seattle, because otherwise you'll have to watch the movies by yourself or listen to them via speakerphone. I know some people like this and I'm going to recruit them now.
As an alternative, though, I've decided to start a movie/gourmet club. Once a month, we'll gather and watch a movie while eating food that shares some common theme. Perhaps it's French film noir night and we'll watch Le Samourai while swallowing escargots, smoking cigarettes, and sitting around, mute and stern, like Alain Delon. Or watching Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express while eating canned tuna and chef salads, like the Tony Leung character. Foodie movies like Big Night and Eat, Drink, Man, Woman are perhaps too literal, but rules are unimportant. We can make it up as we go.
Hopefully they're movies that most of the people haven't heard of or seen yet. In this day and age, it's easy to get your hands on movies that used to be difficult to obtain. A video store like Scarecrow, an online site like Yes Asia or HKFlix, and even Amazon's sister companies in the UK and France and Japan make it easy to get your hands on international movies long before they're picked up for North American distribution. Bend it Like Beckham, Le Cercle Rouge, Double Vision, this Hayao Miyazaki Studio Ghibli Collection, 28 Days Later, Versus, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Six (Willow as crazy psycho dark queen witch) are just a few of the intriguing titles available right now on DVD to movie fans worldwide though they're not currently being issued on DVD by a North American video distributor. Want to find out what movies are coming out of Hollywood next? Check out these movies which have been stolen (read: picked up) by various Hollywood producers and studios for shameless repurposing and copying with big-name movie stars in the near future: Shall We Dance (to star Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez...yuck), Dark Water (after the box office success of The Ring, every Asian ghost story is going to be optioned, and this gem from the creator of The Ring was snatched up by Bill Mechanic's Pandemonium), The Eye (which itself copied quite a few American suspense flicks, such as...oh, go see it for yourself; Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner did, and they bought the remake rights), Infernal Affairs (picked up by Brad Grey and Brad Pitt...the original was solid but could use some editing, so perhaps a remake will pick up on that). In some cases it means you'll need a region-free DVD player, but no real movie fan should be without one anyway considering how cheap and plentiful they are.
I'm getting sidetracked. What do you need to do to join up? Have a healthy (unhealthy?) love for movies and movie history. You know who you are. Be willing to show up once a month. Be willing to cook something up (or buy it from a restaurant) about once a year. It's probably helpful though not required to live in Seattle, because otherwise you'll have to watch the movies by yourself or listen to them via speakerphone. I know some people like this and I'm going to recruit them now.