Is Life a Really a Battle?

All I knew going in was this: it's a game where Japanese school kids have to kill each other off one by one.

The movie is Battle Royale (2000) and it was somehow EXACTLY what I expected, and then somehow became a little bit more.

The setup is quick and painless: it's Japan of the seemingly near future and for a somewhat hazy reason the government has instituted the "BR Act" - every year a "Battle Royale" takes place where a randomly chosen group of school children (yes, children) are stranded on an island and have to kill each other until there's only one survivor left.

The Grade 9 class at the start of the movie comprises 42 children. This number quickly dwindles down, and down.

Some kill out of fear. Some kill out of anger. Some kill by accident. Some kill themselves. And a select few kill out of pure evil.

It's got all the grisly death scenes you expect from a survival horror movie like this, but this is NOT your normal horror movie.

Imagine all the little Junior High storylines you lived through - but all ending in death. The passionate crushes, the fighting between cliques, the loners with a bone to pick, and the seemingly unbreakable friendships - all ending in the most brutal and final of ways. We get to see tiny glimpses of these stories (especially the stories of young love) and of course, the bittersweet endings.

The movie begs a lot of interesting questions, with the main one being: what would YOU do if you were thrown into a situation like that?

Can intelligence get you out of a violent situation, or is violence the only way? Is life really a game, more dependent on random chance than skill or smarts? If your life is at stake, would friendship and love be meaningless?

Like I said - not your normal grisly horror movie. I recommend it.

Falling

I had the strangest dream last night.

I was watching someone jump out of an airplane. And for some reason it looked a lot like Hurley from Lost. He was a big guy, anyway. It was the usual "looking at him from above" angle, but the unusual part was that he clearly wasn't wearing a parachute.

So I felt like this was going to be a grisly one.

But then - another skydiver edges into the frame and gets behind Hurley, wrapping his arms around his chest. Must have a parachute on, I thought. But no - he wasn't wearing one either. 5 or 6 more skydivers enter the frame and they all form a chain behind the other 2. Once again, there's not one parachute among them. So now there's a chain of 8 skydivers in a sitting position falling quickly toward the ground.

As they approach the inevitable landscape below, the "camera angle" changes to one from the ground. The chain of skydivers is getting closer and closer to the ground. But as they close in, they start to decelerate. Once they're about a foot from the ground, they're almost floating in place. They land softly, all sitting together in a chain.

Part of me wants to analyze this - do our dreams give us insights into great truths that our conscious mind can only hint at? Was this dream trying to tell me that the only path to salvation is the human connections we form with those around us?

Quite possible. And even more possible is that every dream is just our brain "taking out the trash" of the day, filtering out thoughts, images, and impressions in a completely random fashion - strung together as little "stories" only because our conscious mind is still barely hanging on, trying to make sense out of the senseless?

There's no answer to that. It's one of the few mysteries left in our modern world, and it's not something that we should take for granted.

Amazon-nesia

am·a·zon·ne·sia
–noun
Complete or partial loss of memory relating directly to purchases from online retailer Amazon.

I love Amazon-nesia.

Saw a package today from Amazon addressed to me and couldn't for the life of me remember what the hell I ordered. I'm not sure if that's good / that's bad / I need help.

I enjoy it. It's like Christmas morning every time I open a package from Amazon. "Past Mark" (a very wise man who doesn't mind spending money) buys these lovely gifts for "Future Mark" (a forgetful man who reaps all the benefits). Thank you Past Mark.

So what was in the package today?

1. The Best of the Black President - Fela Kuti

Not enough people know the name Fela Kuti. I was first introduced to his music in France back in 2005 and it blew me away. It's an amazing (and hard to describe) mixture of Jazz, Funk, Rock, and African sounds with the 70's stamped all over it - and it is PURE fun to listen to. This guy is just as good as Bob Marley, and I do not say that lightly.

You have GOT to hear this.

2. Spaced - The Complete Series

I'm a massive fan of Simon Pegg's Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, so as soon as I heard that the series that made him famous was FINALLY out in a North America friendly DVD - I had to pick it up. I haven't read too much about it in my attempt to approach it as unspoiled as possible, but it seems like every review of Spaced includes the word "AWESOME". Probably a good sign. It's pegged (pun NOT quite intended) as the ultimate geeky British comedy, so I'm sure I will enjoy it immensely when I do watch it...

...RIGHT after I finish The Wire Season 4. God, that show is amazing. I'm sure Amazon-nesia will kick in again soon when Season 5 arrives at my doorstep. Future Mark will thank me.

Now THAT is How You Start a Song.

"Last night they used two bouncers,
and one of 'em is alright,
the other one's a scary 'n
his-way-or-no-way totalitarian..."

Go download "From The Ritz to the Rubble" by the Arctic Monkeys.
Seriously. Go do it now.

Now I must tear myself away from my gritty British music to go back to The Wire Season 4. I'm only on Episode 3 and I can't wipe the smile off my face, it's that good. More on that soon.

Gang Tats

I really don't know what to make of this:


Just when I start to think that I'm the geekiest man on Earth, a quick look around the Interwebs proves that I am wrong. SO VERY WRONG.

This gallery on Wired.com shows off some of the dorkiest ink ever slapped on human flesh, with nine tattoos in total ranging from "nice!" (the DNA strand) to "Oh lord no!" (the flaming ten-sided dice).

In the unlikely event that I ever get a tattoo it will probably be something equally geeky (maybe something from Neil Gaiman's Sandman?), so I really can't say a bloody thing.