Bad Santa - George St Cinemas 10 November 2004

Belvedere Jehosophat - Saturday, 13 November 2004 - Print Version

As always, when all good things are said and done, they must inevitably come to an end. After all, the movie was over and so was our reason for being together.
And so it came to be that four young men, satiated for the time being at least, found themselves lost on the streets of a city known only to fashion conscious 16-year old girls, purveyors of religions wacky and weird, and, of course, the ubiquitous poverty stricken.

Division came early and a quarter of the group was lost to the call of the wild, a rumbly tumbly being as valid a reason as any.
The other three hastened on and, admittedly, made fair headway before realising and deciding that an impromptu kaffeeklatsch was in order.
The gauntlet of the victims of social inequality - the beggars, the thieves, the drunken reprobates; all potential friends, of course - that had previously been beat has to be tackled again, the coffee shop lying in the opposite direction. These things always prove difficult.
On the way through we pick up the one picked off by hunger.
"Can you even take that in there?" Or is this just valid cross-promotion? Who cares? The people serving coffee don't seem to object to slaughtered chicken wrapped in tortilla bread being eaten where it has no right being eaten.

Coffee of various sizes are ordered and consumed.

I can only speak for myself here: My head hurts; too much coffee. Too much, man, it was better than this. The usual mishmash of words becomes normal for a second, for just a second, before quickly giving way to staccato syllables and nonsense vowels. Words move faster than thoughts which move faster than words which move faster than...: The Windmills of Your Mind, indeed!

The conversation revolves around Pakistani gloves, our lacklustre plans for "another semi-bummer weekend," The Wax, life maybe.

The movie was pretty good. Better than expected.

Each went home their separate way, one bemused, one content, one horrified and one feeling like he's spent his whole life trudging through snow, and we let the night crash like the phoenix into the pyre hoping that when it's reborn again it won't be a waste of our fucking time.

"...which spat out religion not because it wanted to shock but because it realised that "priest" was just another word for "cop"."

Belvedere Jehosophat