'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit'

I slightly relate to the protagonist, Jeanette, in Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson's first novel.

It follows the life of Jeanette (a novel that tells the story of a person from childhood to adulthood is called a bildungsroman ... did not know this), who is adopted by a couple in the English countryside in a evangelical Christian community.

At a young age, Jeanette is groomed to go abroad as a missionary by her devout mother and her father, who is largely absent working odd hours.

As a child, Jeanette is active in her religious community, even preaching in tent revivals. Around the time of her adolescence, she begins experimenting with certain relationships with other women. Initially, there's nothing explicit, but it's understood and Christians have the capacity for overreacting.

She eventually repents and returns to her preaching ways until she meets another young woman and begins an affair with her. This time she refuses to repent and leaves the church and his kicked out of her house. The story ends with her returning to her home. There she has found some kind of balance with her still-devout mother, who is a bit jaded after a series of controvesies hit the church community.

I relate because I too was raised in the evangelical church. Speaking on tongues. Loud music with many instruments, no matter how well they were played. People dancing and clapping. There were other manisfestations of the Holy Spirit. Like crying and laughing.

Looking back and talking with friends, we're a lot more skeptical of the entire thing. I personally feel it was all real or all possible. I just don't think it was possible for me or for most of the people I associated with. As much as it was a place for spiritual growth, it was also a time of growth ... physically. We were all teenagers and no matter how much the Lord works through us, we still like a lot of crap that Jesus probably wasn't into during his 33 years on Earth.

It was a tumultuous time. A lot of hypocrisy, anger and ego. I was once told that if I ever found the "perfect" church then I should tell everyone because it's what we're all looking for.

I don't regret that time in my life. I just wish I had my current mindset during that time. For years, I blurred the line between a belief in God and all these little things that mean nothing. Like acting a certain way, developing certain "gifts" (like speaking tongues) and all of the work. They say that faith is important, but works are foolhardy. If you go from being a visitor or someone "unsaved" to being a member of a congregation, there are certain expectations and if those aren't met, there is real hell to pay.

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is at least semi-autobiographical. Winterson herself was raised in such a community and left after she announced that she was a lesbian. She worked odd jobs and eventually went to college.

My experience was different, but it was my experience and I'm happy to know that I am not alone.

'Fellini Satyricon'

If you want your mind blown, check out Federico Fellini's interpretation of Petronius' Satyricon. Based on the ancient plays written during Nero's reign in Rome. As the tagline goes, "Rome. After Christ. Before Fellini."

The inclusion of "Fellini" in the promotion and whatnot was because another film of the same name was already done years earlier.

Labeling it "bizarre" would be the understatement of the millenia. It's a visual orgy, a mish-mash of characters, dialogue you can't understand, plotlines that don't make any sense, quick-changing sets and scenes.

On a different thread, Satyricon is the name of a death metal band from Norway. Extremely black. Extremely metal. Kind of the polar opposite of the film.

'The Heartbreak Kid'

Elaine May is pretty interesting. She's an improv comedian, who hooked up with Mike Nichols while a member of the renowned Chicago improv group, Second City.

Nichols would prove to be May's muse. This behind-closed-doors love-hate thing they've had going on has proved to be some kind of driving force for her career.

May directed The Heartbreak Kid. She's only directed four total films, including the awful Ishtar. The Heartbreak Kid is a Neil Simon play so it's the only film she directed, but didn't write.

May's career as a director is tenuous. If The Heartbreak Kid is her best, then you are on the outside looking in. However, she is a woman and there aren't many female directors and there are hardly any good female directors. So the fact that she's borderline bad, is good.

However, May's claim to fame -- in my book -- is her writing. She had a hand in Heaven Can Wait, Tootsie and Reds. She also co-wrote personal favorites The Bird Cage and Labyrinth, starring David Bowie as the baby-stealing Goblin King.

The Heartbreak Kid also seems significant because it's this celebrated, somewhat funny film about a guy who is a total asshole douchebag. Like a Woody Allen film starring Osama Bin Laden.

'Head On'

An interesting chronicle of the Middle Eastern expatriate living in the west. But it's not always the United States and it's not always some country of friction like Iraq or Pakistan.

It's Turks living in Germany. The divide between cultures and between generations is wide. I think the generational divide between devout parents and kids that embrace the carnal nature of youth and modern society is deeper and vast than any other strait.

Sibel is a young, beautiful Turkish woman living in Hamburg under the iron thumb of her Muslim parents. She proposes a marriage of convenience with Cahit, an older, deadbeat drunk who has revoked all Turkishness from his life, divorcing himself from his homeland.

Sibel puts little value in their arrangement and lives a libertine partying every night and sleeping with countless men. Cahit finds that he's actually in love with Sibel, and winds up accidentally killing one of her former lovers in a bar.

He goes to prison and Sibel moves back to Turkey having been disowned by her family. There, her life spirals rapidly as she gets addicted to hard drugs and winds up getting raped passed out on a bar floor. She picks a fight with three guys and is stabbed and left for dead.

We then find Cahit out of prison and seeking Sibel. We learn she has her life together and raising a child. The pair have one last affair. Cahit leaves for his hometown hoping Sibel shows up at the bus station to join him. He goes home alone.

It's a really cool story and it's very well acted especially with Birol Ünel (Cahit) and Sibel Kekilli (Sibel) who absolutely kill their roles. I also think its worth note that Kekilli is a former porn actress. Which might explain her being so good in the sex scenes.

'The Host'

South Korea is very weird in how it ranks its films in terms of popularity.

In the United States (and everywhere else, I think), we rank films based on the amount of money it makes at the box office.

In South Korea, at least, they rank on them on how many times the film's been seen. Bong Joon-ho's film Memories of a Murder was seen more than five million times in South Korea. This success pumped up the anticipation for his follow-up, The Host.

The latter was seen 13 million times. Since there's little to no context on how successful it is, just know it was the highest grossing film in South Korea at the time (and still is, I think). It's like South Korea's Titanic.

The film was inspired by an actual event when a Korean doctor, working for the United States, poured an inordinate amount of formaldehyde into a drain and into Han River in Seoul.

In the film, it results in a giant, man-eating, child-stealing river monster. In real life, it resulted in pissed off Koreans.

Although the film is a crisply-made sci-fi film, it's wonderfully hilirious, at times heartbreaking and working at a nice pace. In the end, you feel kind of good. Like there's some redemption although Joon-ho was not scared to take everything out on his characters and spiritually sap them.

'Homework'

Daft Punk are the guys that make house and techno legit. It's like Robert Johnson turning the guitar into some honky tonk or backwoods instrument into something real and beautiful.

They are beyond the generic music that you'll find in clubs and put elements of melody and pop music into these beats and synths.

They also defy the element of image, always wearing those black jumpsuits and the helmets. They are not faces, facial hair, a hair cut or visage. They are like two robots creating these sounds so people can dance.

Homework, their seminal record, has sold like two million copies. Thankfully, Daft Punk has kept all the rights to their songs. They preach "control." I'd preach that's how you make a shitload of money. And keep control. Get Kanye West to sample some of your beats and sell a couple of songs to car commercials and you're set.

"We've got much more control than money. You can't get everything. We live in a society where money is what people want, so they can't get the control. We chose. Control is freedom. People say we're control freaks, but control is controlling your destiny without controlling other people. We're not trying to manipulate other people, just controlling what we do ourselves."

Smart!

'The Big Sleep'

This crime novel is known for its complexity and varying characters all playing different roles with different intentions, many of them secret.

It is often tough keeping up with these characters, who they are and what they want. And by the time you think the mystery is solved there comes Ray Chandler with another twist, another truth and another turn of the screw.

How complex is this novel? Chandler was shocked to learn after publication that the murder of the man in the car dumped in the bay was never explained.

It was not only the basis for the Bogart-Bacall film, but also for the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski.