June 29, 2008
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Weekend Shows
This past week has been busy; a major thing did happen, but
I'm going to update about that later this week (before the 4th of
July). I'd like to make a little entertainment-related update this time
around.Outsourced
First, Thursday before last (19th), one of my friends, J, came
into town and we went to go see my favorite comedian, Russell Peters,
at the DC Improv.
His big thing is Indian/Subcontinent/Asian jokes, but me trying to
repeat anything just butchers his stuff. So check out his
YouTube-popularized tour, Outsourced:
The thing I liked was that his routine was like 30-40% ad lib,
like playing off the audience, and most of the rest was new material.
Lots of Arab jokes this time, too--funny ones, since he's like the only
non-Arab who can pull off jokes like that and still have them being
funny. He's also the only one I've heard nail down the difference
between an Indian and Pakistani accent. I didn't even realize the
difference accent-wise 'til then.
Besides J, another one of my friends, G, was in town as well.
G's someone else I first met online and, since he's moving back to this
end of the country (details omitted, sorry), and J was in town, we
decided to meet up in Georgetown. ...not much to say on that. I mean,
we had lunch and went over to my favorite teahouse (
afterwards--where, coincidentally, my former Chinese teacher was
working that day.More Movies...
And, earlier today, I got to see another movie I was really
excited about. So, I thought I'd add on an extra to the Summer Movie
Reviews update from last week:Mongol
Overall: incredibly engaging movie, and it's not all
violence (see it if you can)Check the trailer first:
Folks who know me know that I have a huge interest in anything
tied to the history of older civilizations. So, Mongol seemed like my
kind of movie. It's on the early life of Temujin (who we now know as
Genghis Khan), focusing on the struggles between rival clans and going
up until his uniting all Mongol tribes. It is meant to be theatrical,
but they tried to keep it as close to history as they could.My favorite aspect of Mongol was that it's not all violence
and not all fighting. There's definitely blood in there, but there's
far more focus on Temujin's life, his wife Borte, and others close to
him. The few fights there are pretty intense and well-done.Speaking of which, most of the cast was Mongolian, although a
few of the main characters were Chinese, and Temujin was played by
Tadanobu
Asano. Most of the dialogue was also in Mongolian, with some
parts in Chinese. (The director is Sergei Bordov, so the film is
probably classified as Russian, though it was filmed in Mongolia and
Kazakhstan.)
Anyway, my final recommendation is to watch it where you can.
Since it's a foreign film, it probably won't be in regular theaters--in
DC, it's showing over at
Street Cinema. But it's worth watching.So, that's all for now. I'm going to make a huge "new stuff"
update this Wednesday or Thursday. I hope. 'Til then. KF
Comments (2)
Mongol is definitely on my list of must sees--of course, I wanted desperately to see Iron Man, but I haven't yet.
So since when have you been back in DC?!?
Hey, I watched some of Russell Peters. He was pretty funny.