Who the heck calls it “Fro Yo”?

I overheard this term for the first time the other day. Is it really too much effort to say “frozen yogurt”? I refuse to abbreviate it, just as I refuse to say “dude”, “fer sher”, and (obviously) “hella.” I’ll stick with my wicked pissah speech.

There’s also a frightening amount of Valley Girls in my honours class. You shouldn’t be allowed into an advanced class if you lack the articulatory skills required to avoid saying “like” every three words. (It’s even worse if you say “like” every three words while speaking French. Yes, I’ve heard it.)

Linguistic ranting aside, I should mention the Jean-Pierre Jeunet visit on Friday. I snapped a couple of really crappy pictures…here’s one:

(That’s him sitting on the back of the chair)

As you can see, the room was packed. I got there about 15 minutes before the event was supposed to start, and all of the regular seats had already been taken. Fortunately, there were a couple extra chairs on the side of the room and I was lucky enough to grab one. People who came later had to stand or sit in the aisle. We obviously needed a bigger room.

The screening of Delicatessen, Jeunet’s first major film, was first. Much to my annoyance, many people were still trying to get into the room after the movie had started (well past the starting time of the event). And few of them realised that there really wasn’t any room left — they just came in and tried to squeeze in somewhere between two bodies, distracting everyone else.

But the movie was really funny (in a dark way — it *is* a dark comedy). It’s always great to watch comedies with a full audience, because you laugh more! I don’t want to spoil anything for those of you who might be Jeunet fans but haven’t seen this film, but I will say that I really enjoyed it. Having seen all of Jeunet’s major films, I’d probably rank them like so (not including Alien: Resurrection):

1. Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulin (Amelie)
2. Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement)
3. Delicatessen
4. La cité des enfants perdus (The City of Lost Children)

It’s not a simple ranking, though. They’re all brilliant films…and I like A Very Long Engagement almost as much as I like Amelie. His first two films don’t quite match the same level of greatness, but they’re still incredibly unique, groundbreaking, and visually stunning, loaded with charm and humour. The main difference is that the first two films are rather dark, which in the case of Delicatessen makes the movie devilishly funny, while in The City of Lost Children it can actually be a bit suffocating. However, even though that film is very surrealistic and incredibly strange — often disturbingly so — it is still remarkable and brilliant on a number of levels. And the visuals are…well, stunning. I should probably watch it again, since the first time through I was a bit tired, which made it harder to follow.

Jeunet said that the two films that blew him away when he was younger were Once Upon a Time in the West and A Clockwork Orange. The most recent film to have the same effect on him was City of God. He said he’s a fan of Baz Luhrman, as well as Scorsese, David Lynch, and a ton of other American directors whom he didn’t have the time to name. Conversely, he said that he wasn’t a fan of most contemporary French directors (he seemed to make fun of Luc Besson once or twice, although it seemed kind-hearted. He did say he couldn’t understand how Besson can write scripts so much faster than him). But Jeunet said that he’s a big fan of the older French directors, and really enjoys films from the 40s, as well as Italian directors like Fellini.

Anyway, it was great to see one of my favourite contemporary directors. Unfortunately, due to the size of the mob, I wasn’t able to speak with him personally or get a picture with him. Hélas.

In other news, I’ve decided that I’ll make the hazardous journey to Hollywood in order to see Borat. However, I’ll wait until next weekend. This week is going to be non-stop work through Thursday. Ugh. At least I have something to look forward to at the end of it.

Simpsons and Family Guy return tonight. Hourrah!