Today’s post contains an awe-inspiring magic trick: Watch me turn a beautiful moviegoing experience into a swirling vortex of hopelessness. Plastic tarp recommended. 

So, as weighty and troublesome as recent posts have been, this one will most likely be no different. It may, however, be shorter as I’m really just trying to get the word out that, until this Thursday (March fifteenth), an exceptional movie is playing in New York City. Sure, it’s at the chronically desolate and ridiculously named Imaginasian theater, but it’s worth it, especially if you load up on Pocky while you’re there. (It should be noted that their claim to be “New York’s Premier Asian American Theater” is absolutely irrefutable, after narrowly beating out… um… my apartment.) As you know, this isn’t a film review site. It’s a thinly-veiled excuse for me (and anyone else I know if they find themselves as bored or in need of attention as I am) to be desperately self-aggrandizing. As such, you won’t find out here why I think Cha no Aji (The Taste of Tea) is such an amazing film. Instead, you’ll just have to check it out and then either thank me or demand that I get a CAT scan, pay you back your ten dollars plus subway fare and/or both. I probably won’t do it, but it’s worth a shot to demand it rudely. I’m a sucker for abuse.

It’s a long flick, during which countless things ran through my head. Among them were thoughts of vengeance from the grave and beyond, the power and creative potential of otaku despite harsh stigma, the mood-altering effects of impromptu song and dance and the reduction of the intimidation factor in yakuza thugs should doodie adorn their scalps. Also occupying my thoughts was the unusually gentle appeal of Tsuchiya Anna (pictured above), and a frantic and unsuccessful Where’s Waldo-esque search for ”Oscar nominee” Kikuchi Rinko, as her presence was touted by the promotional postcards in the lobby. (It turns out she has two roles, two lines and just about two seconds of total screen-time, so the postcard people require a punch in the face.) Despite the variety of all these threads, I found the dominant focus to be on the hope required to persist in achieving one’s goals, whether it’s an animator’s desire to return to work after having paused a career to dedicate her time to her family, a student’s attempt to win the attention of a fellow classmate or a little girl’s attempt to overcome self-generated pressure and scrutiny.

Now in the past, I had similarly specific goals for myself which varied in scale from completing my collection of Burger King Star Wars commemorative watches to maintaining a rewarding and joyful coexistence with my best friend in the whole world. (It’s okay to like Star Wars again now that Tina Fey says so, right?) Now, one of those goals was accomplished with little trouble and several orders of chicken fries, and the other, well, I managed to fuck up, but I’ll leave figuring out which was which to you. As a result of the failure, though, I’m having trouble coming up with new tasks to instill enough hope to keep me feeling as though I’m moving forward. For a while I was sure it involved what Beatrix Kiddo might call “bloody satisfaction” but I’ve since put that on hold, pending a perfect alibi. After that, I thought perhaps mastering both time travel and selective memory loss might be a good aspiration, but I realized that it would put me unwittingly within some sort of Groundhog Day-from-Hell scenario. Also, it kind of seemed like a lot of work even compared to my friend Maggie’s suggestion to pick a Japanese actress to obsess about, learn to become an internationally successful filmmaker, cast said actress in my own project, learn the art of seduction, seduce said actress and attempt to live together in a rewarding and joyful coexistence for the rest of whenever. Incidentally, I abandoned Maggie’s suggestion after being absolutely unable to decide between Kanno Miho and Nakama Yukie.

Not everyone needs a plan to be happy. In consulting another friend (who shall remain named Haruna), I found that it is possible to be happy by finding joy in each day and focusing on that joy, while putting aside debilitating frustrations and obstacles. Which is to say, one can look forward to the possibilities of each day on a moment-by-moment basis if one is: Generally optimistic, maintaining some level of faith in humanity, able to resist pettiness, unable to hold a grudge, impervious to mild irritation, willing to fall in love whole-heartedly and, in any other way possible, not me. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I live for the future, because then I’d be dead, but it’s nice to have a reason to wake up every day. When I was younger and struggling with the prospect of an identity under the influence of religion, I remember praying to some non-descript, faceless diety to let me continue living beyond impending air travel so that I wouldn’t have to miss out on Back to the Future Part III. From that experience, I’ve learned to be a little more cautious with my prayers despite my more recent suspicion that the gods are not only faceless, but earless, heartless and giving-a-shit-less as well, and I’ve realized that it may actually be a blessing to be stricken down before having to witness the new Transformers movie. Still, the fact remains that I get grouchy when I don’t have something to look forward to, and lately I’m feeling like I can’t even reach the bar anymore after setting it so high for so long, let alone lower it. So, one dollar-Frosties or not, until Wendy’s offers Battle Royale collars with authentic head-exploding action, film-related tie-in merchandise at fast food restaurants just isn’t doing it for me.

Other than the end of this post, what have you been looking forward to lately?

This entry was posted by eugene on Saturday, March 10th, 2007 at 5:33 am and is filed under japanese, movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.