Month: January 2008

She walks in to the bar, and instantly my eye is drawn to her. The red overcoat certainly grabs attention, as many heads in the room flick momentarily towards the door. I let my gaze linger, drinking in her figure and her grace.

Ordering, she looks around the room while waiting for her drink, casually searching the room. Our eyes lock across the room, and I smile.

She smiles back, dips her eyes for a moment, but then looks back up, eyes connected once again. Damn, that’s a yes if there ever was one. I let my eyes wander up and down a little.

Redoubling my smile, I lift my drink in salute. The barman delivers hers just in time, and she raises hers too, still smiling. I gesture, fingers asking her to come hither, seeking to take this game of the eyes to the next step, the logical conclusion.

She laughs, silent at this distance, washed out by the music and the conversations closer to me. Shaking her head, she lifts her hand, wiggles the fingers and points, to the third on the left, where the shine of a ring is visible across the distance. She turns away, closing off the game. Tease.

I sigh, turning my attention back to my friends’ conversations. Such is life.

(links to trailers/more info where available/relevant)

• 21 (Heist!)
  
• Be Kind Rewind (Mos Def, Jack Black, and some good ol’ fun)
• Cloverfield (As if not)
• The Dark Knight (Let’s see if they can follow up Batman Begins)
  
• Get Smart (Steve Carrel as Maxwell Smart, Anne Hathaway as 99… could work, could work.)
• Harold & Kumar 2: Escape From Guantanamo (Hey, it was worth a laugh the first time)
• Speed Racer (Because… it’s different. I’m no fan of the cartoon, though)
  
• Trailer Trash (a movie… composed entirely of trailers! The mind boggles. What kind of trailer will this have?!)
• The Forbidden Kingdom (Jackie Chan and Jet Li! can’t go wrong, can it?)
• Jumper (I have a total crush on Rachel Bilson, and I don’t care if she’s only got a minor role)
• Semi Pro (Will Farrell takes on Basketball)
• Wanted (Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, James McAvoy, guns and assassins)
• The Bank Job (nominally; Jason Streatham Statham, heist movie set in London)
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (INDY!!!!!)
• Untitled James Bond 22 (How can you miss Bond?)
• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (dubious about lack of Rachel Weisz)

If there’s one sign of summer that I can’t go past, it’s the Boxing Day and New Year’s Test matches, when Australia trots out another round of punishment and humiliation, back to back, to some team chosen for the ritual sacrifice. I can just imagine all the other test playing nations gathering in a secret location to draw straws for who will go to Australia this year to get their ass handed to them on a platter.

Can you imagine these poor souls who have to travel to Australia – a long enough journey for practically anyone but Australians – to get here in the middle of our beautiful summer, and be forced to stand in a field, in the sun, for 6 hours and more, for 5 days on end. It’s at that time of the year most spend with our nearest and dearest, and get exactly no work done, but these men are out on a trip of embarrassment. These are world-class sportsmen, guys who have worked hard to get where they are, and the Aussies? Don’t give a damn.

I would say that it makes for a fine sporting spectacle, but seeing Australia win over and over again isn’t a fine spectacle; it’s a predictable and regular occurence in which one side dominates the other so comprehensively as to leave you dispirited at the very thought of even watching. It’s not like they’re even sporting about it – when they win, oh, how they let the opposition know. And if – if! – they should happen to be in the lesser position, they will be as sporting about it as an 8 year old (c.f. Andrew Symonds).

In the end though, I live in constant hope that someone will defeat the Aussies in their premier games, and make it an emphatic win. And it is after all the sound, the feel, the very definition of summer as far as I’m concerned =)