Steam cleaning Babel into Weng Weng

Stayed at home and moved furniture from living room so we could get it steam-cleaned.

Wife rings steam-clean guy, who says that he's just looking at the map. Says our street is not on the map. "Wait, i will just look at the internet". He arrives at 12, instead of 11 as originally scheduled.

(Later, i will find out that his map is from year 2000. Goddamn, wouldn't it make business sense to get a new street directory every year, just so you can bloody find your customers' houses without any problem?)

Cleaning, cleaning... it all looks good anyway.

Oh, he doesn't have change! What a surprise. Oh great.

Well at least he didn't go and try to rip us off like the previous steam-clean guy, who charged $30 extra! When my wife told him she already got a quote from his wife of $55, the guy goes, "Well that's my wife, not me." WTF? Amazingly, my wife booked him to come back to our place to clean the rest of the carpeted area. I got her to cancel that, of course. Talk about adding insult to injury.

But for a bargain hunter like me, paying $140 instead of $135...waah, it's the principle of it! So he's late AND gets a $5 tip? Nice.

We were planning to watch Babel at 6pm at Westfield Burwood, but now my wife decides NO I DON'T WANT TO WATCH IT, NOT THIS WEEKEND, NOT NEXT WEEK, NOT IN THE CITY. Under my new policy of not cancelling things I really want to see/ go to just because she friggin' changes her mind, otherwise i'll just be resenting her later.. I still go and catch the train in time and get there with a few mins to spare. They had other trailers anyway.

Babel was screening at Senstadium cinema.. biiig and nice. And there, your seats are booked, though seating is never really a problem when the 6pm session had only 3 people in the cinema. And we're all Asian.

I really want to cry at a movie. I want to be touched. To feel something so deeply. To get my buttons pushed, be emotionally manipulated, be a bigtime teary-eyed sucka. But no, not this movie. Throughout the film, you could sense there was this grand, profound statement about the connectedness of us all. Or maybe there isn't, and Innaritu just wanted to use that overlapping, sequential events thang used in Pulp Fiction, Amorres Perros.. oh, wait, Amorres Perros was his film! Anyway. Maybe it was all an artful, deeply felt, emotional way of saying "Shit happens. To everyone. At the same time."

The Mexican nanny played by Adriana Barraza was quite moving. As was Rinko Kikuchi as the rebellious, deaf-mute Japanese daughter. Who was also pretty hot, and amazingly still a virgin. WTF?

Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett lent starpower, and quite possibly were major factors in this film getting made, but they didn't really have much to do. The drama was with the Moroccan characters, which I guess is a bit of a novelty for a big budget film like this.

I can just hear the studio execs before this was greenlit:

"Seriously? More than half the film is subtitled? But it doesn't have Zhang Ziyi or any kung fu? And it's not produced by Mel Gibson? And no steamy sex like Y Tu Mama Tambien? Or creepy monsters like Pan's Labyrinth? You mean, they really have to read the subtitles to know what's going on?"

"But the Japanese chick flashes her pussy. And takes it all off. Full frontal. She's emotionally fragile, you see."

"Bada-bing! Carry on then."

But at least it wasn't as down as Pan's Labyrinth. That was a good film, but I'd have to agree with my friend who called it depressing. The killing of hope is never a good thing.

Off to see Weng Weng films tomorrow! I never saw a single one when I was growing up back in the 80s, but now that I've heard theyr'e actually cult classics, hey, lemme have some o' that. That's my heritage. Hahahahaa... Been trying to ring my brother, who actually enjoyed these films in our childhood, but he never answers his phone, for some reason. He'll be kicking himself now, when I tell him what I saw! Maybe.

At the Chauvel in Paddington, 9pm, they're showing the films For Your Height Only, followed by The Impossible Kid. And I won a double-pass from Drum Media, so my name's at the door. So if it sucks really bad, it didn't cost me a thing! Except dinner. (This is actually the very first freebie/ prize of any sort I've won in Australia)