made tentative plans with a few friends but dropped them all for various reasons. since we're all here and that's a rare thing, my mom wanted all of us to go to the movies, then dinner at a restaurant of my brother's choice. my mom and her boyfriend went ahead to the theater to get in line and get tickets. then my brother announced he's sick and not going to the movies. i had to call my mom to tell her not to buy a ticket for him and luckily the line was so long she hadn't purchased tickets yet. in fact, she might not be able to get tickets to "memoirs of a geisha" at all (her choice for a film). well, maybe everything will go to shit today! we took off to the theater to find parking and on the way she called and said she got tickets.

"memoirs of a geisha" is a white man's fictional historical book about japanese in japan turned into a white man's fictional film starring an almost japanese-free cast. i didn't read the book and didn't expect much from the film given the above synopsis. i only know of a few people who have gone to see it and they loved it. it should be noted that they are not japanese from japan or of japanese-decent nor have they ever been to japan or possibly even studied japanese culture. with that out of the way, twiddle thumbs loved it. i thought it was gorgeous, but that's about it. my mom and her boyfriend were clueless throughout almost the entire picture as to what was going on and they are japanese from japan. it was fun to sit next to them and overhear their conversations in japanese.

mom: "does that kind of dance exist?"
boyfriend: "no."
me thinking: "i didn't think so."

basically, i feel that if you know anything about japanese culture, the inaccuracies get in the way of enjoying the film. i'm not so much ticked at chinese actresses playing japanese (i never liked kimonos until i saw li gong in one, meow!) but you must understand that any cultural portraying another culture will get things wrong or it will be off in some way that detracts from the work overall. if more japanese were in the lead characters, then maybe some of the inaccuracies would have been eliminated because the actors would object and point out how things are not right. the dance i mentioned above may exist, but i seriously doubt japanese twirl fans on their fingers because that just seems tacky and disrespectful. the white makeup on the back was oh so wrong (they extended the don't powder the neck hairline all the way down to what is clearly the back and not the neck). perhaps the facial makeup was also off but i'm not sure as to when japanese stopped doing certain "small" things and adopted a more western look. why the fuck does the main character have to literally have blue eyes ("you have water in your eyes")? and i swear to god that when the film first started, by looks and music, i thought it was taking place in china. plus, it must also be very embarrassing to have a major typo in a major motion picture (dance was spelled "wodori" instead of "odori" and if you know the characters, "wo" is an action word by itself and is never used to spell other words).

don't get me wrong, the film really is beautiful. the story is not. that's not what i'm saying. the cinematography, the look overall, gorgeous. the story, hmmph. i never cared for geishas. it was never exotic to me. i don't want to go listen to geishas sing and watch them dance. maybe one day i will but it just does not interest me in the least. however, the western view has always been prostitution and the film is all about how high a price people will pay for sleeping with popular geishas. i'm not gonna even go into if geishas ever did sell themselves. i just would like for once to not have prostitution come to mind when you say "geisha" in the western world.

by the way, i could totally tell when a scene was filmed at the huntington library and gardens though--that bridge is just too much of a landmark. later i looked up that much of it was filmed in california at various japanese gardens and even that japanese castle restaurant here in los angeles. there were times when i felt like certain scenes had to have been filmed in japan but i just don't know as i haven't been to all japanese gardens in california that they filmed at. and who really cares? i've been to kyoto and that's when i finally saw "japan" as how westerners think what japan is like.