Halloween sluts, HARD BOILED (9), and LORD OF THE FLIES (43)

A weekend recap:

I've always said that girls have it easy for Halloween costumes, the dumb/hot ones that is, because they could just pick anything, add the word "slutty" to it, and voila - Halloween costume. You know wear a low cut shirt and hold a tooth drill and you're a slutty dentist. Wear a low cut shirt and hold a bandaged raccoon and you're a slutty wildlife veterinarian. Wear a low cut shirt and welding mask and buy yourself an arc-welding torch and you're ... you get the picture. I've always felt at least a little bit bad about this because, well, I'm not one to deem women sluts and two, it doesn't cover all girls ... just a lot of them.

Well, after venturing to a party in Maple Valley (read: Washington's own armpit) in a "cabin" stapled together out of plywood, I will never retract this statement ever again. Every girl at this party was somehow flaunting that fact that she was born with a) a chest and b) child-bearing hips. There was slutty cops, slutty firemen, slutty stewardesses ... hell, I think a lot of them may have just been dressed as, well, sluts. Our group on the other hand consisted of a fully wet-suited Team Zissou member, a stegasaurus, a three-man blind choir, a Scandinavian mountaineer, an 80s aerobic instructor, and a 1950s couple. To say the least we stuck out a bit. My question is, when girls of this type get together to discuss their Halloween costume ideas, how does the conversation go? I imagine it something like this:

Girl 1: What are you going to be for Halloween?
Girl 2: I don't know I was thinking about dressing like a cowbody, but wearing only my bra, a pair of lacy boy shorts, and assless chaps ... oh yeah and a cowboy hat.
Girl 1: OMG, that is the best idea ever! I'm going to be a girl-pimp and wear only my bra, a lacy pair of boy shorts and a robe ... oh yeah and a felt cowboy hat.
Girl 2: OMG, that's what I was last year.
Girl 1: OMG!
Girl 2: OMG!

And then maybe a pillow fight breaks out or something. Nonetheless my respect is given to those girls who go above and beyond the call of sluttiness and put together an intelligent, creative costume. Sure you might not get to go home with the crew-cutted fellow dressed as a police officer, but you're still a winner in my book.

If you've had a chance to see the film I talked about on Friday, The Killer (8), then you've pretty much seen Hard Boiled (9), John Woo and Chow-yun Fat's follow-up. It's another Hong Kong action bonanza with exploding bird cages, unending streams of bullets and a main anti-hero named, sigh, Tequila. I always preferred Hard Boiled because it abandoned a bit of the namby-pampy, dove-flying symbolism that Woo loves so much, and just gave us two hours of shooting and explosions. There's a scene in a hospital that pits Chow-yun Fat, Tony Leung's cop and an entire squadron of mob hitmen against one another, and if you're not pumped full of adrenaline by it's conclusion, I implore you to get to the hospital and be checked out by a doctor, you're quite likely a robot. You like action? You'll like Hard Boiled.

I'm almost through with Peter Brook's Lord of the Flies (43) and let me tell you, kids are sort of creepy on their own. What, with their dirty faces and inability to fend for themselves, but give them pointed sticks, an unknowable lust for blood and paint them a variety of shades of colors, and I'm having nightmares. From what I gather, this will be a rare time when I actually watch the special features Criterion offers en masse, Brooks brought these kids to an island and pretty much let them run wild in a sort of avante-garde madness. And, if this is correct, you can really tell, these are some dirty-ass, wild and crazy children. I don't think Nanny 911 would have a chance of not getting her bespectacled head thrown on a spike.

Tuesday: Walkabout (10) & The Lord of the Flies (43) cont.