Babel

A few days ago I borrowed the movie Babel from some friends. This was a bootleg copy, and apparently whoever designed the cover for the bootleg version was either pulling up reviews at random off the internet, or really didn't like Babel. Here's what some of the critical reviews on the cover were: "A dissappointment for two performances that should have stood out. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett stand out, but only too briefly. Four story lines that interlink only slightly, with one not needed at all" - Steven Chupnick. And, "The world spanning story has intriguing elements...But, the overall study falls short of the individual stories" - Robin Clifford.

Hmmm. It was also funny that the cover listed it as PG-13 for "some sex-related material" when in reality it was rated R for "violence, some graphic nudity, sexual content, language and some drug use."

Anyway, after watching the movie last night, it seems that Chupnick missed the whole point of the movie if he's complaining that Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett didn't stand out enough. This was not a movie about Americans, or Mexicans, or Japanese, or Moroccans, for any of them to "stand out". It was about how different lives--mostly of strangers--affect each other, how people are connected. Something like that.

So, after 3 days my face is still swollen from wisdom tooth removal. This has never happened to me before.

Absurd story from my life: Last night I went with my family to eat a Christmas dinner at one of the nicest hotels/resorts in Chiang Rai. Many of my friends were there with their families as well. It was an outside dinner, and there was a band playing on a stage at one end of the lawn. Anyway, when I was finished eating, two of my friends came up to me and said they were going to play a few songs up on the stage, and asked if I wanted to play bass with them up there. So we went to this stage, and the musicians let us use their instruments, and we played a few Christmas songs. It was pretty sweet.