Battles Without Motivation or Humility

I need to stop feeling guilty. I've been running again but nowhere near to the extent that I did before I got sick. I made an afternoon out of running by the lake shore and another day watching a new movie thus buoying me to continue writing. Otherwise, I've seriously thought about quitting this whole enterprise because I haven't reached my fitness goals...like at all. That and I've been remedying that by eating and drinking myself out of house and home.

This has lead to a negative feedback loop of guilt and unhealthy binging that does no one any favors. I suppose in addition to having an unhealthy relationship with people, electronics, pornography and furry creatures (none of that is interrelated by the way - just want to make that clear), I can now add food to that list.

Again...none are interrelated

Whatever -the world is cold, unforgiving and indifferent so might as well make myself a delicious pasta primavera and watch Marblympics. I just love food. I love food so much, when one of my friends needed help with an art installation I volunteered to cater. Well technically it was an art installation, mostly it was an excuse to give away free food. My friend Morning, the previously mentioned free-gan has been reclaiming anything useful from dumpster throughout the city. She then rented a space and is giving everyone who knows about it the opportunity to stop by and take whatever they wish so long as their okay with it being from the garbage. This is all to raise awareness of how Americans waste 40% of all food and for my part I cooked using only reclaimed food and made some bomb-a** hor d'ouerves.

All reclaimed foods!

I know, I was weirded out by all this too - at first. But you'd honestly be horrified by the amount of decent food that's thrown out by grocery stores on a daily basis. Not just expired stuff or stuff that's passed its sell by date but bruised fruits, slightly wilted veggies, carrots whose only crime is they look odd and stuff that has NOTHING wrong with it whatsoever! Seriously, if you're fine with cleaning your food before cooking, try dumpstering - it's a good way to be thrifty, gross and condescending to others - three of my favorite things!

Speaking of outwardly disgusting but intriguing things - for my slow run on the elliptical this past week, I watched Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973), a stunningly gritty Japanese yakuza film that was at once brutal and beautiful. The film is partially based on a series of magazine articles expansively detailing the rise of yakuza gangs in Hiroshima. It details the rise of an ex-soldier and street tough named Shozo, played with excess cool by Bunta Sugawara, who becomes the de facto leader of a profitable crime syndicate in the city.

The first five minutes of the film explodes onto the screen in a series of quick cuts, frenzied camera pans and frantic action. We're quickly introduced to a panicked sea of thugs and lowlifes who are given quick tile cards before disappearing into the horrors of post-WWII Hiroshima. It was a struggle to keep up with the first half of the movie but I kind of think that was the point. Director Kinji Fukasaku (Battle Royale, the better part of Tora! Tora! Tora!) shot the film in a cinema verite style that whirred across the screen like a hot printing press after a national tragedy.

We get a small reprieve from the action (though not the violence) when we get to know our protagonist intimately in prison. He swears fealty to another gang member Hiroshi (Tatsuo Umemiya), thus precipitating his descent into Japan's chaotic underworld. Fortunes change, alliances wither and break and it seems that the only constant in Hiroshima's teeming criminal class is a struggle for dominance to which Shozo is but a mere player.

I liked this movie even if I didn't wholly like this movie; contradictory I know. What I mean by this is everything I dislike about Battle Without Honor and Humanity has a reason for being there and services the plot and themes that Fukasaku and screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara establish. The violence was visceral and brutal and the characters unlikable but the editing, look and feel elevated and complimented with expert precision. Many have made favorable comparisons of Battles Without Honor and Humanity to The Godfather but it'd be more apt to compare it to Goodfellas or Casino.

This isn't a romanticized version of organized crime but a busy, abhorrent and vital examination of the enterprise. Instead of grandeur there's pettiness; instead of honor, backstabbing; in lieu of humanity there's only cold, sober pragmatism.

Still, this wasn't an easy watch for me due to the violence and busyness inherent in this kind of movie. Still as far as virtually unknown Japanese movies, Battles Without Honor and Humanity ranks among the best I've seen since Fires on the Plain. I highly recommend if you're into blood-soaked crime sagas and cautiously recommend to anyone else.

I do need more spaghetti westerns in my life...

Not sure what I'm going to watch this Wednesday just yet. Battles Without Honor and Humanity is technically part of a box set but I bought it at a used media store and didn't think to buy the rest (there's like four more of these things). I have a box set of cheap spaghetti westerns I have yet to finish. Also my hard drive has a couple of flicks a friend added on just because so maybe I'll finally get around to watching those.

In the meantime, I'm going to get myself back into running shape one way or another. New action plan: no more beer! Stick to a double shot of whiskey on the rocks - I gotta watch my figure! Also maybe since it's my birthday month I'll invest in a bike.

Kill me!