Saturday, January 3rd, 2004
Fight Test
Last night I watched Battle Royale, the infamous Japanese film about 42 grade 9 students being taken to a deserted island, assigned a variety of weapons and forced to hunt and kill each other until there’s only one left standing. Sound demented? I thought so too, but it wasn’t as much as I’d expected. I had expected something sort of campy or over the top, but it’s actually played fairly straight, which makes it that much more unsettling. Instead of crazy martial arts fight sequences between kids in school uniforms, you have terrified adolescents running for their lives and killing their friends in order to survive. Lord Of The Flies meets Predator with some Dawson’s Creek thrown in. There are a number of bits that you want to laugh out loud at, but you catch yourself because you’re not really sure if it’s meant to be funny. Part of me wishes Hollywood would remake this film if for no other reason than to see all the WB teeny-bopper tween stars hunt each other down. Just imagine – Hillary Duff gutting one of those dudes from The O.C before being gunned down by the Olsen Twins, who have a duel to the death at the very end of it all. Sounds like a winner to me. Sidenote: One of the girl students went on to play Go-Go Yubari in Kill Bill Vol 1 – hence the school uniform.
The Globe & Mail offers a surprisingly hip salute to the Canadian indie rock scene of 2003.
Toronto’s By Divine Right recently toured China. The Toronto Star reports on the surreal experience.
Tanya Donelly’s still-untitled new album is scheduled for an early Spring release.
The buzz seems to be that Joss Whedon (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) is taking over the scripting chores on New X-Men after Grant Morrison leaves in a few months. This could be good, as Whedon is a great writer, but awful, as Whedon is slower than molasses on a glacier. Worse, apparently, than Kevin Smith who managed to turn Daredevil from a monthly series into a maybe five-issues-a-year title if you’re lucky.
np – Tanya Donelly / Beautysleep
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1/3/04 9:51 pm
I used to have the biggest crush on Tanya Donnelly when I was in grad school in Boston. Ahh, the good ol’ days…
1/3/04 11:33 pm
I can’t thank you enough for that ryan adams thing, made my day. :)
1/4/04 1:15 pm
did you rent or buy battle royale?
i’ve been trying to find it for a few months now. rentadvd got a few copies because i asked for it; can’t wait till they open up again to rent it.
1/4/04 2:12 pm
I rented Battle Royale, the director’s cut no less. Of course, all the bonus features are in Japanese with no English subtitles, so they’re of limited value to me.