The Incredibly Hulky Thoughts...

WARNING - Nudity ahead. (for about 2 seconds depending on how fast you scroll)

I'm an avid movie goer, no, scratch that, I'm a movie whore. I got to every movie that opens in our theaters, regardless whether it premiered anywhere. I will watch anything that has a moving image. I will sit through that horrible film and throw popcorn at the couple necking in front of me and / or concentrate on picking out as much product placement as I can. I cannot believe that some people i know thought this is what product placement is...


Anyway, I will spot the continuity problems (because my first job in the film industry was a Continuity Girl before being demoted to a Production Manager. You can see my job description here.)

I will let you know before I go very far in this movie critique-wannabe, that I have a notorious reputation of falling asleep even before the black guy dies. And if you watch movies a lot, you will know that the black guy dies even before the opening credits finish. I only fall asleep while watching movies in the house, usually after making Lars / cat / teddy bear/ or whoever i am with to watch a movie they would rather not watch or has watched it countless times before me. Sometimes, I have seen the black guy die even before the establishing shots are over. On extreme cases, he dies on the montage and never makes it to the main movie. I'm not complaining. No, not at all. If they kept the black guy for a minute longer he might realize how silly the whole movie is and walk away anyway. Rumour has it that Will Smith arranged the filming of a secret ending of I Am Legend after he learnt that he was going to 'live happily ever after.' He had his boys film that last scene where he blows himself up, edited it and delivered it to the producers. They had no option than to change the ending of the movie as he refused to shoot their end version. Beat that!

Sometimes, when I stay awake long enough, I will notice things that the Director did not have in mind as one of the things to be noticed by the audience. Ever wondered why the bad guys will always miss hitting the Hero in a shoot-out but it will only take the Hero one shot to gun one down? Are these the best shooters the main bad guy could afford? Really? How comes the bad guys will always wait in line to attack the the hero and watch as he kills them one by one like a bunch of scared 3rd graders ? In real life, don't they all just come down on you? 400 pounds of muscle? EACH??

Real Life.



Movies


Yeah...

I finally went to watch the Incredible Hulk. I'm an Ed Norton fan, I think he never ages which never seizes to baffle me. Or maybe I'm just blind to the world of make-up, but doesn't that boy look younger with every role he plays?

I've always wondered, why is that when Banner becomes Hulk, his shirts gets ripped off into shreds threads yet his trousers are left decent enough? I know it's a comic that is watched by kids but even Superman has the decency to show us that he puts on the cape under his clothes. Spidey, on the other hand, does use his world-saving costume as his 'So you think you can dance' practise sessions.

For a while, our lovely hero went emo. Otherwise why would he change his costume to black? hear you disagreeing. I don't think it was a fashion statement.

At least, not this>>>


There are however, things that I wish would just go emo.


This where I'm leaning how to be Emo

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What should be winning Oscars

is this

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The Land of Opportunities

My boss thinks in her sleep. She says those are the best ones.

On Wednesday night, she thought. And her thoughts included me accompanying her to Los Angeles for a film locations expo. We are representing Kenya as a filming location, and meeting producers who might be interested in filming in Africa, and would like assurance that Africa does not always have to be described as writer Binyavanga Wainaina describes below:

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African's cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.

That being true in every essence -pick up any book about Africa- I'll pay you if you don't have some sort of description as Wainaina describes above.

Being Kenyan, getting a US visa is top of the list with the likes of meeting Koffi Annan or eradicating world poverty. The trip was planned for 8th April, a less than a week from the night my boss thought. So when she told me on Thursday morning that she would like me to accompany her, i thought: now she's gone and lost it! no Kenyan has ever gotten a visa that fast.

At first, I checked the embassy's website for interview dates. The only available dates were 24th April. Too late. To some extent, I was relieved. Like any student in Kenya, i had dreams of studying in USA. But after seeing (well, hearing) horror stories about the US embassy, I gave up. my dream turned into loathe. The stories were long queues that started at 4 am and rejection of visa applications even without glancing at them. The last part i did not believe, but the first - i had seen my neighbour leave at 3.30am to go to the US embassy, which does not open till 7am.

Somehow, we got me an interview for Friday (the next day!) at 7am. I turned up at 6.30, and there were about 20 people before me! Never have I seen Kenyans that punctual. If only they turned up that early for other events in their lives - especially appointments and work. Good times! After undergoing through security check, and spending almost 20 minutes removing ,y bangles that have been on my wrist for years, I got through. Backtrack - i was kinda annoyed there. Surely, if it took me twenty minutes to take off the bangles, isn't that proof enough that if I was going to use them at weapons, then I wasn't the brightest of terrorist? The first part was the checking of papers by Kenyan girls with a faker American accent than Hugh Laurie in House MD. (I still love him). Then we sat back and waited for the interview. We are all in the same room, and we are called one by one on to windows that look like bank tellers booths to have our fingerprints taken. The next is the hard step, the interview. Everybody is listening into your conversation and it is very embarrassing when the guy behind the desk tells you - almost smugly - Your visa has been denied, you will find the explanation why on this pink sheet. Have a nice day.

I was the sixth or so person to be interviewed, and by the time my name was called, no one had gotten a visa. I sat there thinking about all the shattered dreams, all the dashed hopes... and it hurt. I was not concerned whether I got the visa or not really. for me, either way was fine. It's not like I was dying to go anyway. It would be nice to e able to go, I though, but I'm not excited at all.

So my name got called and I walked to the booth. The guy glanced at my papers and asked me about my company and the kind of films we do. I explained the difference between a production company and a production service company and a bit about why it was cheaper to film in Kenya than in South Africa.

A minute later he said - Mercy, your visa has been approved, please come collect your passport on Monday at 2 pm. I looked at him and said - Why, thank you!

So now I'm off to LA when I had completely given up on ever going to USA, all because i hold a Kenyan passport. But as I walked out, I could not help but feel bad for the guy whose conversation i happened to be listening into. He talked for a good 15 minutes without a pause about the poverty state in his family and how he was the beacon of hope for them , hence his need to study in the US, and i think his near desperation is what killed his chances. A part of me wished he had gotten my visa instead of me.

Why is it that Americans, (and pretty much everybody else) can get their visas to Kenya at the point of entry while we have to wait months to be granted the interview, then teeth clenching moments as we await the verdict?

Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification

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A Knight's Tale

Wednesday morning, last day I’ll be seeing DVP in a while as he is leaving for his bird watching escapades in Lake Baringo and the surrounding areas. So, there I was, trying hard not to sulk, trying even harder to have a decent conversation with him as if I was okay with his leaving for a week, yet he is leaving for Denmark in two weeks. I make it a habit to watch at least 10 minutes of CNN every morning as I get ready for work. Jenny Harrison or the other weather lady (the Hispanic one) was talking about about the weather in the background and i mentally switched off. I was aware that the weather was over and something about this years Oscars and the nominees of the same. I became attentive around the time they mentioned Cate Blanchett(what with recently just watched Elizabeth - The Golden Age), then drifted off again. I was about to leave the room when i thought i heard the mention of the word dead and Heath Ledger in the same breath. I stopped dead, no pun intended, in my tracks. Slowly i walked back into the room, picked the remote control and sat down on the bed. Took me a while to register...Heath Ledger and the dead part. I just sat there and stared at the TV screen , showing clips of him, his daughter and his ex-fiance. Then Lars, who was still in bed and virtually blind without his contacts, asked, 'Heath Ledger is Dead??' It's like he had just picked the words as they had been running through my head and reconstructed them in a such a way that i understood them. Like completing a jigsaw puzzle by moving the last piece that i had been struggling with. Actually, those same words had been been colliding in my head in no particular order, completely refusing to make sense. Ain't it funny how your brain refuses to digest information that it knows is not acceptable. Like 'You're fired' or I'm not in love with you anymore' or ' We tried our best to revive him / her...' Funny i should say those words, since i heard them a day later, still in regards to Heath.

Let me start on how we met.

I'm a sucker for children's films, and medieval times films. I got introduced to the world of romance by a historical romance novel, the ones with Lords, Knights, serfs, wenches, Ladies, ladies-in-waiting and chamberpots. When all my friends we reading Mills n' Boons and Silhouettes, I was on to Amanda Quick, Connie Mason and Johanna Lindsey. I was getting Timeswept into lands of vikings and into the arms of outlaws. Now, i live the reverse of that. I'm in the arms of a viking and in the lands of Outlaws. Sometime in 2006, i got a copy of a film that changed the way i looked at Heath entirely - A Knight's Tale. It was awesome, splendid, out-of -this-world.

I fell in love with Sir William Thatcher/Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein of Gelderland instantly.

Thus begun my obsession , which was later fueled by Casanova, then The Order, The Brothers Grimm (which he appeared with my other love, Matt Damon- said in a sotto voce in as i imitate 'Team America' Mmmaaattt Dammmmmooonnnn ) and the the grand finale, Brokeback Mountain. He is or was up there in my list of hot men, with the likes of Patrick 'McDreamy' Dempsey....

.....Johnny Depp (ooh, I'm thinking of him in The Libertine) and Matthew Mcconaughey.

I have to admit, Heath rode at the top of that list more so because he is Aussie.

Now he is no more. as of 3.36pm, when the medical workers moved Heath to the floor from the bed, used a defibrillator and CPR, and pronounced dead. More here.

He was a sweet man, i never met him, but i have watched clips about him, can't quite remember if it was on E! or some other celebrity channel but no one said a bad word about him. It was all about how easy it was to work with him, and how eager he was to learn and deliver. Unlike most young actors who money and fame cloud their judgment, Heath (called by many Ledger) maintained his down -to - earth personality.

It is sad that all we have left to see of his fine work will be 'I'm Not There', while he is not really here. Rest in Peace, Heath, my Knight.

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