Wednesday, July 28, 2021

TWELVE TONES OF FREEDOM: CHUNGKING CENTIMETER










Billy Corgan: the new boxset i'm calling Video Games Are Right. coming out July 7 2027. cos 7 is a lucky number all around the globe, right?
LeVar Burton: i just got a call from Gavin, he says that for your triple album all the electricity that was used caused a permanent blackout in California.
Billy: those blackout commercials are way over the top anyway. i mean it's just a haircut. shave your head. need your grandmother's recipe? call Iha. i'm trying to bring the double album back, man! nobody does double albums anymore.
LeVar: because of you my daughter hates me.

LeVar Burton: oh no. you ain't playing me like that, Jeopardy is more important than the Olympics. no weird time changes and Peacock streaming confusion. i'm doing this for me not anyone else, not for ratings, not for money, not for a heavy world. i'm doing this for one reason and one reason alone: Reading Rainbow reboot. and my Presidential library. my dramatic cadence is better than Shatner's.
Geordi La Forge: every night i worship at the altar of Phoenix.

Martin Yan: this week we swing by the country i love the most, Hong Kong, the way it USED to be, when it was a hub for both Chinese and Americans, blending cultures, merging myths. i still get my seaweed sheets here. it's where i learned to speak English, the only way Canada would let me in. it's not that speaking English is cool it's that speaking Chinese English is cool. i may speak better English than Hugh Grant but i'm not as cool as him.

Cotard: what could have been. it's sad, this week's film highlights what Hong Kong could have been now if it had continued on its '90s path. admit it, you love Chinese food.
Codrus: it's tasty i ain't gonna front. this place is the new front in the war. i'm only interested in a drink.
Cotard: drink?
Codrus: and specific food. my workers refuse to work till they get them.
Cotard: you honor unions?
Codrus: unions, churches, same thing. i need to acquire these items in the dense sardine-packed buildings streets and alleyways of this neon wonderland. 
Philip K Dick: it's more of a Blade Runner utopia. Chinese anime.
Codrus: without the stuff, no continuation of the construction of the cement alleyway uh driveway. is this where parkour was dreamt of? this place needs a park.

Enigma: we're REALLY bad live.

Ruth Bernhard: here for the well-wishes once the Algorithm gets fixed. i did the first cozy nudes. there is no greater thrill a life can go through than to live to be 100 in San Francisco, dying a Titan.

Hidalgo: i'm Judge Judy in real life.

Cynthia Nixon: this mayor tiered-system is too confusing, just vote me in mayor and i promise all tv-show titles will have a Dot Dot Dot ellipsis so you can rename them. and i PROMISE to get Kim Cattrall back!

Dirg: wait the Army uses solar panels?
Laertus: yes. and their favorite game is basketball.

Madame Pons to Mardith: if you have to be a model consider Nintendo Direct.
Mardith: Nintendo's not in Tijuana, si? no Teibols over there?

Doryce: when i did the spaghetti tonight it smelled like a river.

Gladyce: dear you're putting your chocolate wrappers in the trash instead of in the recycling again.
Doryce: that wasn't me that was Dirg.

Crispin Glover: i'm sorry for everything i've ever done. notice the scene in River's Edge when i'm trapping Ione Skye's jeans-leg with the cage of my arm as the group hangs out at school? Layne really wanted Clarissa as HIS girlfriend, you missed that didn't you? didn't catch it.

Beth to Rio: i don't get it, if we fight off-set that only makes the onset sex more succulent.
Rio: no it brings in onset schizophrenia. i missed my chance at the Olympics once, never again, Red.

permanent FOMO: it's no vacation

Cannondale: why Rescue Rangers never invited Rudolph on set

Ed K: the name of the band is Live. not Lice. i know, it's been awhile.

Charise Isis: i encounter Wonder Woman everyday.

Tonga: we've run out of oil.

Big Time Rush: you didn't know we were Olympic athletes did ya?

Gladyce: oh i think back to the back of that English muffin. rough and seedy like his chin!
Doryce: an English studmuffin is hard to open.

Senku: so this is as close as you're gonna get to new One Piece episodes.
Super Mario: i never grew bigger, i was just tripping balls the whole time. that explains the live-action tv show.

Lord Third: think of me as Hokage Biden.

Tuca: i've been begging the producers to write me a storyline where i fuck Toucan Sam.

Tara Davis: i'm gonna be Gay Doctor Who's Companion. the bathroom doors around here are nice and bouncy.

Cerezo: next time, a Road House roundhouse.

In N Out Burger: at first glance it looks like we're Republican cos nobody's wearing a mask. but we're actually Democrat, look closely: no not our cute sailor hats, the red skirts both men and women wear, see that in the back? a GIANT safety pin.

Christine Brennan: i'm the sports world's agony aunt.

Billy Corgan: everytime i listen to another hidden-track Pumpkins song i forgot i wrote, it just brings me closer to death.

JaVale McGee's mom: just for that i'm living forever.

Darlene Love: i couldn't sleep with Elvis, i was saving myself for Mike Brady.

- we DJs have a different relationship to songs than you do.

My Hero Academia: not our fault, 731 is a Los Angeles phone number.

Madame Pons to Mardith: we are stand-up sisters.

Lolo Jones: i'm the Madonna of the Olympics.

Boc: when you hose down the hose you gotta do that last little section of hose right by the nozzle by hand.

Doryce: it's one thing that the entire Treehouse smells to high hell of fast food, but Mardith's entire CAR smells of fast food. from the outside!

Miller: our beer will mellow out all those going higher.........together. Miller Heavy, proud sponsor of the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Mardith: no i'm not getting The Settlement Cook Book
Dirg: even if it's on CD?
Mother Goose: there's some good cream-of-wheat etchings in there i borrowed for my First Edition.

Takahashi: is there anything sexier than a female skateboarder?

Takahashi: when is see that Ronald McDonald behind bars in jail, i know i'm at the Brooklyn McDonalds, i know i'm home.

Dirg: the vaccine will be the one time in my entire life i will be forced to do something i don't want to do.

Gladyce: why do you reach in and take a morsel from the potstew i'm cooking?
Doryce: cos that's what every sitcom does.
Takahashi: the original grab a bite.

Nancy Silverton: know why bread is gold-colored? gold-medal dust in the flour. should Mario Batali play Bernie Madoff in the movie? don't ask me that! my skin started peeling a month ago.

Piers Morgan: my mere presence in the stands caused England to miss those penalty kicks.

Tohar: i'm Goliath in real life.

Robin Williams: okay so here's the pitch for Howard The Duck 2: i play Howard. keep my voice but feel free to dub in another actor's body for the body with deepfake. and Howard kicks the crap out of a Walmart customer dressed in a Spider-Man suit in the UK in the end.
Lea Thompson: okay...cool...that's cool......you're always cool i'm glad you're here.........but i was thinking more like i play Howard's mom, a kind of Back To The Future come-full-circle thing.

Phoenix: i want to be Ben Affleck.........without the back tat.

Sasha Grey at the La Brea Tar Pits: i'm giving you guys a private tour! you're learning about bones from me!
Encino Man: not boner, got it.........i hate Pauly Shore.

Elah: where's the midnight yoga?
Gladyce: oh dear you just missed it. my Doryce caused the cops to be called in when she blocked the streets and made midnight loud noises that woke up the monks. sometimes i'd like to distance but we're related by stone.
Doryce: and bone. it's called movement medicine, not able to be approved by the CDC.

Elvis: when i sing about being shook, it's old-fogey.

Gladyce: i don't care if the Mocha Mix is past the sell-by date you NEVER give up on Mocha Mix.

Arielle Raycene spies a couple fucking under a Miami blanket during bingo in the toppest high-rise level of a building opposite across the main Hong Kong thoroughfare.
Ari: the floor is all beach sand. but none of it got inside her vagina, there's a lot of luscious licking going on down there. get it. get it.
Adam Peaty: i've finally seen a ray! Hong Kong is always overcast.
Ari: what you reckon, i could treat your cock a number of ways, i got four boulders and a pair of duck lips i could use. any one, any two, any four, all five, they all rub it pretty good.
Adam: duck, that's the one animal i don't have tatted to my arm.
Ari: love your tats.
Adam: i can transform into any animal when i hit the water.
Ari: very Edward Packard.
Adam: no politics. just a lion. a tiger. a shark. a turtle. a swan, white not black. a thoroughbred horse. and two rainbow mice. but the greatest animal i turn into is...
Ari: ...
Adam: ...peat moss. obviously. gentrifying coverage you can't escape even after 5 years. where to now?
Ari: the one irrigated park in Hong Kong...

Medvedev: the new Monopoly has me on the boxcover. me wearing a top hat and green teeth. Medvedev Monopoly.

Lior Allay: you'll find me in an alley. with a snake down my back. a snake tat. my perfume is the smells of the city. the danks of the district, the whiff of the hustle bustle.

Jordan: i played minor-league baseball to protect my mental health.

Kurt Cobain: i'm still alive to produce the world's lithium.

Eye Luggage: what were we talking about again?
Seth Green: the Hong Kong graffiti'd Post No Bills tunnels in Chungking Express are perfect for rollerblading.

Eye Luggage: Chungking Express and go.
Roger Ebert: i know this goes against you teenyboppers and your code of ethics, but this is a film which really must be seen two or three times. watched the operative word. to really get it, to savor it in all its juices. you won't understand it the first time around like an action flick, it takes multiple viewings. think of Hong Kong as a giant video-game level, Pac-man in all the colors, red, blue, especially pink. but don't get those damn youtubers involved. and i'm not taking any more calls from that short man who tried to replace me on the Saturday show when i died. he loves longer Chinese films.

Cotard: the electricity of Hong Kong is inspiring. the human lights not just the neon lights. i'm thinking of the song again. i'm getting bars in my head from the heights. i'm getting verses from the vendors.
Codrus: okay but electronica is played out by now.

Dirg: that's either the name of a Chinese-food joint or a Chinese underground taekwondo league.
Laertus: why not both? and all of them. all cultures combined. it's the name of the takeaway joint where all the action takes place all the leads meet. and also the name of the biggest thoroughfare in the city.
Eye: also, take the stairs down for midnight yoga.

Wong Kar-wai: never wanted fast cars. why? i wanted to make films that would be hailed as masterpieces only after my death. you see what i was trying to do here? the space is so important. space is all. the closeness in proximity between the man and the woman and how that determines if their chance at love will work. the centimeter thing. one centimeter off or on here or there determines EVERYTHING.
Dirg: yeah but did you copy that Centimeter anime?
Wong: don't bring Human Centipede into this.

Brigitte Lin: quick. do i actually take my sunglasses off in the film? do you actually get a glimpse of my beautiful face? nobody remembers. they just remember how kickass a heroine i was, how i inspired Lola from Run Lola Run.
Jennifer Connelly: also the settings, this film's setting inspired that setting, dark electric alleyways made to run through if you have the electrolytes.
Brigitte: you just remember how i made this film the first and only and best live-action Cowboy Bebop.
Quentin Tarantino: can i say something...
Brigitte: no you short dirtbag.

Jon Voight: i'm only here wearing my cowboy hat for Bezos.
Dustin Hoffman: my cowboy hat is dusty...

Takeshi Kaneshiro: hi.
Dirg: HOLY FUCK THIS MAN IS HANDSOME!!!!!!!!!!

Faye Wong: Faye, Cowboy Bebop, see? i'm not related to the director. look into my eyes and try not to be crushed by the kawaii. i know my face is perfect, a perfect porcelain doll, but look at my butt instead. i have a nice butt, right? a nice big juicy butt that wiggles in the air like a caterpillar.
Annabeth Gish: i'm just looking at your punk hair. not your pubic hair.

Tony Leung: i'm handsome, too. i got a handsome lung. but i'm kind of an asshole in this. all the action movies have deadened me from the inside.

Laertus: the '90s, when it was still possible to portray police positively.

Philip K Dick: Cop 663? Cop 223? Blade Runner, see?

Valerie Chow: somehow i got lost in the shuffle. i'm hotter than the two other babes. but China thought i was a porn star and expelled me from the country, forever ban.

Chan Kam-Chuen: i stole the show. after this performance i demanded a movie trilogy, sitcom, and stock in Hong Kong's future. instead i got shafted by China and became a boring barrister. lawyers get lunch not ladies.
Director Wong: the snack manager is who i wish i could be in real life.
Eye Luggage: i would watch any game show Chan hosted.

Thom Baker: i was the guy all the audiences in the midnight theatres cheered when i got assassinated by Brigitte Lin. cos this was NOT gonna be another tired film about an American expat. this was a celebration of Asian cinema through and through. i was just a Johnny Cage wannabe who picked the wrong song on the jukebox cos he had a dime not a quarter. who handled the Asian whores like his property, only gods are allowed to manhandle with three hands. yeah i wish i had a blue time machine and could go back and live my life over knowing what i know now.

Leung Sun: not related to Tony. we don't all look alike, but everyone who works at a greasy spoon IS named May.

Brigitte: i'm the first blonde Asian since Naruto. see? i'm a nice hitwoman. who doesn't like to be hit on.
Takeshi: but see you are the lucky lady, you came into the bar at just the right moment. see i don't actually live my life, life is a game, life is a script, i'm trying to ram down me and you as pieces of a play. let's see how this ends. the ending, the ending is the only thing that matters. but i did say one cogent thing.
Brigitte: which was?
Takeshi: every woman needs a boyfriend. to look out for them. to care for them. whether they admit it or not.
Brigitte: how old are you?
Takeshi: i'm above 15 that's all that matters.
Brigitte: you're young enough to be my son. that's hot for the man not for the woman. for the woman it's a burden. having to wipe your nose on the street, the streets are everywhere. 

Brigitte Lin: i was never gonna hurt the girl i just needed the vending-machine key on her roller skate. to stock up the McDonalds Happy Meal toys again. oh come on!!! why does it always have to be DRUGS?!!! why can't it be seaweed salt ONCE?!!!

Qiwu: i have the coolest name. it sounds like a minimart. i wait for the expiration date to be as close as possible.
Apu: yeah that's really weird, man. that's only something a criminal psycho would do. what i'm saying is this is not cute.
Qiwu: what's worse, i eat pineapple till i throw up? or i talk to a dishrag?
Apu: you're still on the island, Qiwu! no matter how much you clean you'll never get out your Macbeth spot. like Kakashi. the weirdest thing about all of this is why Garfield never had a speaking part on The Simpsons. 

Takeshi: Bottoms Up Club?
Brigitte: not a gay club. wish it were, i needed to have some fun after my murder. 
Dirg: you were quite the gentleman with this woman passed out on your hotel-room bed.
Takeshi: there was a really good episode of Three Stooges on that distracted me.

snack manager: girls don't like to wait. makes them nervous. girls aren't snacks. 
Takeshi: that's the eternal question tho: 

how long do you wait?

all my exes are married and busy at the movie theater. watching this film. i eat many chef salads cos i got kicked out of Totsuki Academy. then i skateboard all over town. i wish i had a skateboard for these escalators. i jog so i don't cry, my saltwater comes out when my skin cries. problem is, now all the rain here is acid from all the crying. i blame China clouds.

Brigitte: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BEAUTIFUL
Takeshi: if only my life ended right here. like a script.
Eye Luggage: this made me cry. a moment is a thousand years...

Dirg: yeah so second story, this is breaking and entering.
Director Wong: i wanted to do a third story but it would have been too long. and not reviewed by Ebert. it was already epic.
Ebert: i got an overlong dong.

Dirg: oh come on!!! JUST FUCK ALREADY!!! what's with all this running around?

Tony: if i hadn't listened to you i would have given her the chili fries as always and she wouldn't have broken up with me! thanks for nothing, scumbag!
snack manager: i'm just here for the comic relief.
Dirg: that's every boy's dream: you run a toy car on a piece of wood and then when you grow up you run a toy airplane on a naked woman's back.

Director Wong: did you catch that detail? he said that song was his favorite but it was only after SHE planted HER CD in his apartment. but it was HIS favorite song since he was a boy. and notice how Faye isn't an airplane stewardess UNTIL she finds out that his ex-girlfriend was a stewardess?

Eye: so she hides in plain sight and pretends she's his wife even though they never talk. she cleans the house and floods the plumbing like any good Talking Heads fan. she cooks chocolate things for him. she sleeps in his bed alone. she's his wife but they're never in the same room together, that sounds like a good marriage!

Dirg: i hate loud music.
Laertus: no you hate California.
Dirg: that song is supposed to be played in the background when you're stoned not when it's loud.

Dolores O'Riordan: why did we agree to this? the song isn't sung by me it's sung by Faye Valentine. i laugh whenever i see tubs being scrubbed in movies.

Faye: here, i scribbled the boarding pass on this napkin making it invaluable.
Tony: cos i'm going where you're going, sweetheart?
Faye: no cos one day it will be the Starbucks napkin that produces Harry Potter.

Director Wong: stuff doesn't replace intimacy. 
Doryce: tho a good can-opener can do a number on my pussy.
cat familiars: not us.
Director Wong: we are either all strangers or all lovers. fake it till you make it, till you get that special affect in your mind. if you want love, space must be dangerous. i wish i had connected the characters more: had the cops be brothers, and the two women be sisters. g'night, folks.

Janet Maslin: what was i thinking? an overdeveloped sense of fun IS WHERE FILM LIVES!!!!!

Eye Luggage: so do still have your birthday message saved?
Takeshi: no i lost my pager in the rain, the script had to continue being written. i cook and clean but i'm still not married. not even my mom knows i keep a LOW profile. i have a cat named Garfield. sometimes i think only Garfield can love me...

Takahashi: um.........so it's McDonalds, right? that was the food you were looking for. i'm an expert in both fields this week.
Codrus: i don't get it. shouldn't only McDonalds fries be yellow cos of the yellow arches?
Takahashi: you're an idiot god. and the drink, i'm thinking it's Coca-Cola.
Codrus: why are Coke cans red? shouldn't they be brown? Coke isn't red, not even Cherry Coke...










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