“Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls, It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, except for Lola.”
-Lola, The Kinks

Due to my sloth-like nature, I failed to get anything done this weekend as Eve and I draped ourselves on the couch to watch Arrested Development, Lost, House, Breakfast on Pluto, and Grey’s Anatomy instead of crossing legitimate things off of our “to do” list. Instead, I did get 2 important thins done: we bought our tickets to the Fuji Rock Festival (which was obviously the most important thing on the list anyway, because who really needs a bike, a bank account, or a cell phone) and I had my first Japanese cinema experience.

We saw the Da Vinci Code and I will proceed to tell you everything that is wrong with it and why it was so terrible in an easy to follow list format, but first, the theatre itself must be discussed.

After Eve read the movie time wrong, we ended up running across town to make it to the theatre in 25 minutes. Or more precisely, I yelled at Eve to move it and finish her phone conversation as she’s heading out the door because if I miss the trailers, I’m not going. Yes, I am that stubborn and anal. I still haven’t forgiven Nayeli for making me miss the Miami Vice trailer when she was late for King Kong…this mere trailer would have made up for the boredom that was the feature anyway. But I digress…

“Well, we drank champagne and danced all night,under electric candlelight”

We did make it and luckily found a friend Yoshi (like the Nintendo game!) in the front of the line who was able to purchase all of our tickets for us. Eve, Donna and I headed off to the theatre with our tickets, found 3 seats together and sat. it was then Donna exclaimed, “Wait? Don’t we have assigned seats in Japanese movie theatres?” Sure enough, a glance at our tickets revealed that we did, in fact, have assigned seats- in the front row. We ran down to the front, sat down, and Donna and I both proclaimed it to be bullshit and that we refused to sit there, so up we got again and stood at the back of the theatre with Eve in tow.

So after some “You can’t be serious, I’m not sitting for 165 minutes up front,” we started scoping out empty seats in the almost packed theatre. Eve got panicked and went down to her assigned seat in the front, leaving Donna and I at the back. Like all great missions, you’re bound to lose one along the way. Eve was our casualty of the cinema. Donna spied 2 seats together near the back and we sat in them like we owned hem, each time cringing when the theatre door opened to reveal some late Japanese ooking for their seat. We didn’t relax for the first 30 minutes of the film because we thought we were going to get kicked out of our seats. Luckil, Donna picked the only 2 un-assigned seats int eh theatre so we were safe…but alas, we were not saved from Tom Hanks’ and Ron Howard’s mediocrity. And now, I present to you a list of what was wrong with the Da Vinci Code without ruining it for you (sorry Dan, I HATED it):

1. Tom Hanks. I’m sure if I saw this with an English-speaking audience, people would have laughed at the lines coming out of Tom Hanks’ mouth. Donna and I did. One word: Cheesy. And this man has 2 Oscars! It was like he was in a high school play reading cue cards.

2. Ron Howard. Ron Howard does what Ron Howard does: makes Ron Howard movies. If you don’t understand what that means, then shame on you. Also, Clint Howard was no where to be seen.

3. Flashbacks. Let’s see a re-enactment of Ancient Rome! How about the Crusades! Now one of witch hunts! Now do merry olde England! How about another one about the Knights Templar? Now let’s do the personal flashbacks of the two main, poorly acted characters! And don’t forget, we will do it all in washed-out sepia tones! Yay!

4. The illustrations and explanations. Instead of a character using his/her words to explain their throught process in the unscrambling of codes and/or explanation of the works of Da Vinci the special effects department decided to actually highlight random letters and manipulate images so people could physically see what the character is explaining in perfect English.

5. Blue/Green screens (See: Over use of, poorly).

Okay, so it wasn’t all bad. The good was Sir Ian McKellen, who as a flamboyantly gay man can never be over the top, the art (in Art History the Italian Renaissance was my specialty, so I was happy to drool over the Louvre and Da Vinci’s works since they just remined me of the times I have been to the Louvre to drool over them in person), the cinematography and art direction, and lastly, it is a good story. It is a good story because the book is excellent. It would still be a good story if the entire film was re-enacted by cats and wolf puppets (my childhood fear, for those in the know). The film just doesn’t do it justice.

So now I am off of my film high-horse, so I shall end with another list:

Top 5 Bands I Am Excited to See at Fuji Rock (in order of preference):

Franz Ferdinand
Scissor Sisters
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
The Strokes
The Raconteurs

And because 5 is never enough:

KT Tunstall
JET
Martha Wainwright
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
The Hives

“I fell to the floor. I got down on my knees.I looked at her, and she at me.Well that's the way that I want it to stay.”