An Evening With Werner

Fearing rain, I decided to forego the play last night and I highly suspect the thunderstorms that were called for never transpired. Oh well - next time. Instead I rented a couple flicks, ate lots of greasy food, and had lots of sex. I returned a couple movies to Bongo and yielded to temptation and got a couple more: Incident at Loch Ness and Jian gui (The Eye). I got home and started watching the former and was joined by The Dulcinea a short while later. Incident at Loch Ness was absolutely hilarious! I saw that it featured Werner Herzog and chose it on that basis alone. It is basically a comedic version of Burden of Dreams but, honestly, it took me a while to figure this out. I hadn't bothered to read the sleeve on the DVD case. But, when things got really corny, I knew it had to be fictional. Up until then, it was presented as a documentary and nothing too outrageous had happened to dispel the illusion. Oh my fuck, was it funny! It starts off with a party at Herzog's home where the producer and the crew meet. Then Jeff Goldblum shows up followed by Crispen Glover. Hmmm....The premise of the film is that a documentary film crew is following Herzog around as they're doing a profile of him. And Herzog's newest film is to be called The Enigma of Loch Ness. And so we get to see the production of that movie unfold and then collapse. You've got your stereotypical Hollywood producer who is trying to make a money-maker pitted against Herzog the artist. Plus there are the trials and tribulations of the crew. The producer brings in a hot model to be the "sonar operator" which involves her jumping into the loch in a very skimpy bikini. The producer and Herzog argue and fight. During one argument, Herzog says, "This is the most disorganized shoot I've ever been on" and the producer's riposte is, "Well, at least I'm not trying to move a ship over at mountain!" The producer pulls a gun on Herzog in one scene - a flare gun. An unloaded flare gun. Now, the scene is funny on its own but, if you know anything about Herzog's relationship with Klaus Kinski or have seen My Best Fiend, you will find it absolutely hysterical.

OK, I'm sure you folks don't find this funny. But see the movie. Although you don't really need to know anything about Herzog and his reputation or have to have seen any of his films, being familiar with him makes Incident at Loch Ness all the more funny.

After the movie finished, The Dulcinea and I grabbed some dinner over at Mad Towne Chicken on East Washington. I'd never been there before and was pleasantly surprised to find a fried chicken/gyros/sausage/hot dog joint so close to my house. We got some fried chicken, fries, and fried okra. It smelled wonderful and all the brown paper bags were stained. When we got back to my place, I eagerly unpacked the greasey goodies. To go with our meal, we had some tasty chipotle ale.



Along with dinner, we watched Jian gui (The Eye) and, lemme tell ya, it was spookier than fuck. It tells the story of an 18 year-old woman who gets a cornea transplant which gives her the ability to see the spirits of the dead. While I would try to make a comparison with The Sixth Sense, I've never seen it but I'm told the premise is similar. Anyway, it is a genuinely creepy movie which sent shivers down my spine. The Dulcinea was jumping up and clutching onto my arm and was petrified at various points during the flick. The elevator scene is one of the most chilling, creepy bits of cinema I've ever seen and I am not looking forward to taking one today. While there are several moments where you are jolted by the soundtrack and an accompanying image, the real strength of the film is its ability to just make you extremely uncomfortable and to make you think something bad will befall the woman.

Having finished watching DVDs, The Dulcinea and I set out to fornicate. It was difficult at first to have her on top of me with my hips thrusting away and to not think that some spectral image of a person was going to appear at any minute. It was just spooky.